Category: Feature Articles

As technology has evolved over time, it has become increasingly easy for people to sell products online – including the unauthorized selling of a company’s goods.

Anyone who has worked in legal or compliance for a direct selling company understands the incredible challenges presented online.  As networkers increasingly use the Internet to promote their businesses, companies are at more risk every day from uncontrolled or unmonitored claims by the field, often to disastrous effect.

Online reputation can have a massive impact on your bottom line yet maintaining clean search results is particularly challenging for direct sales companies.

Many companies today struggle with their products being sold without permission on websites such eBay and Amazon. Direct selling companies are particularly vulnerable from former distributors who post their products for sale, or larger aggregators who deliberately buy up product and offer them at a discount to prices the selling field can offer.

MLM.com recently featured an original article from Scott Allen that provided great insight into strengthening online relationships.

Recently, Facebook announced it would be adding new “reaction buttons” to its commenting features. Though some jumped to the conclusion that this would be equivalent to a ‘dislike’ button, there was room left for interpretation about what exactly the buttons would do.

Every time a direct seller has an issue with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), critics of the industry are quick to jump on it, hailing it as a step in the right direction towards shutting down multi-level marketing completely. They’ll say that it is finally being outed as an unsustainable business practice — that they’re all just pyramid schemes in disguise.

Mark Zuckerberg just announced in a public Q&A that Facebook is working on adding a new button to its commenting features. Though some have jumped to the conclusion that this will be equivalent to a “dislike” button, Zuckerberg left room for interpretation about what exactly the buttons will do.

The Reputation Institute recently published a report identifying the key trends driving reputation management for the next few years. While primarily focused on organizations whose brands are household names, the report does provide useful insight for direct sellers concerned about reputation (which they all should be).

Our social and online reputation teams have noticed a recent rise in what we affectionately refer to here as "Insta-Spam." That is, spam bots leaving fake comments from fake profiles, or hashtag hijackers posting dozens if not hundreds of often inappropriate photos, directly tagged to client brand names.