Measure Your Brand Effectiveness, Online

Your brand is a precious business commodity that can take years -- if not decades -- to build up into the powerhouse it is today. So it's baffling to watch so many big brands do little to protect, nurture and promote their brands on social networks. Many brands either don't consider Flickr a social network -- or they don't see the pitfalls in letting others co-op their brands in this super popular image sharing service. With 25 million visitors per month, Flickr is a content powerhouse brands should not ignore.

One wonders how the CEO's of each of the brands featured below would feel knowing that search engines were steering Internet users to pages featuring their prestigious brands in such unusual, and sometimes inappropriate, ways.

Let's take a look at 10 brands that have been hijacked on Flickr.

1. Cisco - http://www.flickr.com/photos/cisco

2. Nokia - http://www.flickr.com/photos/nokia

3. Calvin Klein - http://www.flickr.com/photos/calvinklein

4. McDonalds - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcdonalds

5. UPS - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ups

6. Avon - http://www.flickr.com/photos/avon

7. Apple - http://www.flickr.com/photos/apple

8. Mercedes - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercedes

9. Best Buy - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bestbuy

10. Pepsi - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pepsi

These are just a few of the hundreds, if not thousands, of examples we found on Flickr of companies who've had their brand names used by others in ways they may not approve of. No evil intent was uncovered, but odd brand-image associations were found. Why are so many Flickr users able to choose a user name of so many big brand names? Perhaps brand marketing managers and creative agencies representing large companies could be dong a better job at protecting their brand assets.

Yes, Heardable is the master of its own brand on Flickr. See for yourself!