Dunn's Den of Knowledge.

Great news. You woke up this morning and a video produced about your brand has over 760,000 views in a 24 hour period. Twitter is a buzz about your brand, your video is being translated in every language imaginable and your brand has truly gone global. You now know what it means when a video goes viral. Congratulations are in order, right?

Wrong!!! See, the problem is this.  All of the hype about your brand is negative. Yes, you read it right, negative. Neither you nor your ad agency produced the buzz. Instead, a couple of employees with a little bit of time and a $150.00 camera made the video about your brand, posted it on You Tube and the world watched.

Think it can not happen to you and your brand? Do you still think social media is a fad or something your kids do for hours on end? This is exactly what Domino’s thought until it happened to them.

Last week, Donino’s Pizza faced a truly trying time when a video was posted on You Tube showing two employees defacing its food. In a 24 hour period, the video went viral and social media sites were a buzz. With 760,000 views on You Tube, it is enough to make any marketing executive shutter.

Another case in point is Aston Martin.  Someone on Twitter decided to set up an account using their name and started tweeting (sending out messages) as Aston Martin.  To make a long story short, the tweets were not all good.  Aston Martin found out their brand was hijacked and contacted Twitter to have the account shut down.  How many tweets did Aston Martin (the hijacked brand) send out?  Enough that people took notice and objected to the comments.

Bottom line:  Social Media has arrived.  Will it have the same look and feel next month, next year or ten years from now? No, it will not.  Social Media will continue to evolve as we will.  These are exciting times to be in the advertising and marketing world as the industry is being turned on its heel.  Change is inevitable; how you handle it is up to you.

What is your plan to protect your brand?  Do you have a process in place for what to do when your brand comes under fire?  Your brand will come under fire.  Will you be prepared when it does?

Take action today and put together a list of the major social media sites and actively monitor these sites.  Google has some great tools that will help you to do this.  Find out who you need to contact at each of these sites and what the process is to have your hijacked brand removed from the site.  How can you leverage the same sites to help you in your campaign?

It is up to you to protect your brand!