If you run a business, you need a digital presence. Your clients are online, and they will be looking for you online – if they don’t find you, they will find your competitors.

When we talk about your digital presence, this includes your website, your Facebook page, your Instagram profile, LinkedIn business page, Pinterest, Tic Toc, You Tube, Twitter…….

You invest time and effort on your digital marketing for it to be effective and professional. Coming up with ideas about what to share, writing those posts, taking, sourcing, or designing images, posting the stories online, managing comments, checking the analytics, honing your work.

But who owns your online profiles?

Who owns your website? Who owns your website’s name? Your domain? If you needed to access your website, would you know how to? What if the company who is responsible for your website folded? Where would that leave you and your online presence?

Who is responsible for your social media? Are you the only person to have access, or do you trust someone else to manage it? If they changed the details, will that leave you unable to get into any of it? What if your accounts were hacked? What if Facebook decided you had somehow broken the rules and suspended your account?

You need to ensure that you are in full control of your website – if you set up a site through some of the cheaper, managed platforms, you may not actually own your website domain, or name. And if you have your emails through this provider as well, you could lose your rights to all.

You will never ‘own’ your Facebook page; that is the priviledge of Mr Zuckerberg and his company. The same goes for all other social media profiles – you do not ‘own’ them, you just have the right to use them with your business name whilst the controlling company decides this is OK.

This is why we always recommend that you have a website that you have full rights over, as well as the accompanying domain name and emails. If any of the social platforms closed, or deemed you to have contravened their guidelines, or if you were hacked, you would still be in control of your online presence.

It’s time to take control of your digital brand as far as you possibly can and stay in command of your online reputation.