Cattery and Kennel Owners

As a business owner, we understand one of the biggest problems we face daily is criminals stealing our content so that they can scam unsuspecting people out of money.   Here are a few tips that my friend Efren Buzzo, an accomplished Media Creator has prepared for us that could help us to be more aware of how we can protect our brands, identity, media content, ideas, and most importantly our customers.  I want to thank Efren for taking the time out of his busy schedule to prepare this for us, and I look forward to (hopefully) additional blogs that we can share that will help breeders of all kinds to identify scammers, and protect our clients.   Although it's unfortunate that it is impossible to completely eliminate content theft, here are strategies that may help to decrease it.  By working together as a breeding community, we can make Social Media a safe arena for finding that purrfect pet, again.

​

If you are interested in contacting Efren directly to see how he can help you protect your website or social media content, click here.

 

Protecting Your Own Content on Social Media

From Efren:
The best way to protect your intellectual property from being appropriated on social media is to not put it up there in the first place. Although you own the content you place on one of these social media sites, you have granted a license to the media site to use the content and for others to view it.

​

To protect content, include a copyright statement on the file for photos. And be aware that your property might get appropriated by someone (not associated with the social media site). You must be vigilant to keep track of possible violations and be quick to file complaints. If you are not vigilant, you may not be able to support your claims in a lawsuit.

​

From Kimberly:​

I know what you're thinking....... Don't post pictures on social media??? But how in the world am I supposed to share the kittens to attract potential customers??  Hear us out,  we have suggestions of how to post your pictures from your website, then to social media, which will prevent content theft.  Efren will explain how posting your content from your website will not only alert you to the fact that someone has attempted to download your content from social media, but it will tell you who it was.  From there the sleuthing begins, and we as a breeding community can start to expose the theivers and get them banned from social media, and be able to alert others of the would-be scammer.  

​

​

If you see your content around, ask the other person to remove it or give credits to you or you can ALWAYS REPORT!

​

Lastly, do not post/share too many new photos on social media INSTEAD educate your audience about your business, Maine Coons, snakes, dogs, etc.  Legit people will always contact you directly if they want to buy from you. Posting a short video with a message to check out your webpage will draw interested individuals to the website, and from there they can take in all your photos.  This accomplishes two things, now you have a "captive audience" and the opportunity to earn trust be "showing your brand".  If you read my blog "How to Protect yourself from Pet Scammers", one of the things I talk about is how breeders usually stick to a theme.   This is your brand.  When someone peruses your site, they will become familiar with your brand, and that consistency builds confidence in your legitimacy.

​

But Kimbery and Efren, what if I don't have a Website?

You can still protect your pictures on social media by WATERMARKING.  It goes by many names, but essentially you are putting your "brand" on all of your photos, so that if someone were to download your photos, in order to remove the watermark they would have to edit the photo.  The idea is to put the watermark somewhere on the photo where if someone were to try to edit it out, it would be next to impossible.  This may take some practice, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a couple of different options for watermarks.  If you are tech savy, you may be able to create on of these yourself. If you are not, Efren will talk about easy platforms to use to create a watermark, and how easy it is to add it to all of your photos.