Social media platforms are big business.

They allow brands to gather vast amounts of personal information and content, and use it to market their wares.

But in doing so, brands must ensure they comply with privacy and spam laws.

What can I do? 

By all means, do engage with your followers on social media. Encourage them to share photos (if relevant to your brand and the platform you’re using) and experiences. 

But you can’t take their stuff and run away with it. You don’t own or have the right to use your followers’ data or content, and you can’t automatically market to them offline. This is a common misconception.

Platform terms of use give platform operators the right to reuse content submitted by users. But that right doesn’t extend to Page owners.

For example, Facebook’s Pages Terms state that ‘… you are responsible for securing all necessary permissions to reuse [their] content and information’.

So if you want to use your followers’ data and content, you will need to obtain permission directly from your followers.

How do I make this clear to my followers?

Make sure your privacy policy covers your social media platforms, and that the purposes for which you want to use the personal information you collect are clearly expressed.

If your annual turnover is greater than $3 million, you must have a published privacy policy.

Even if your turnover is less than this, having a privacy policy is sound business practice, and will make it clear to consumers how their data will be used in whatever way they interact with you.

Brands invest significant resources in their social media pages. It makes good business sense to ensure that effort is backed by solid privacy practices.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Kelly is the founder of KHQ Approved, a fixed fee commercial contract review service. Peace of mind from an experienced team for a reasonable price.