With over a billion users on Facebook, it’s no wonder that more and more businesses are using social media to promote their brand names and engage with customers about their products and services. It is a way for a company to generate goodwill at a lower cost and to target particular groups.
As businesses generate their goodwill in their social media accounts, when it comes to selling their business, can the social media account be sold as part of the business assets with the domain name and other intellectual property? This can be especially important to both a potential buyer of the business and the seller if the business’ revenue stream is heavily dependent on followers and fans on social media platforms. For example, the seller would like to sell the account for his work in developing a strong social media presence, while the buyer wants to ensure that he buys the social media account to gain access to the social media pages and subscribers and subscribers of the relevant account. .
This may seem like a simple question, although the answer differs depending on the type of social media account the company has. For the purposes of this article, I considered the four major social media platforms: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and YouTube. The summary of whether or not a social media account holder can transfer their account to another third party for each of these social media platforms is shown below.
- You must obtain Facebook’s prior written permission if you wish to transfer your account;
- You must not share your password or allow anyone else to access your account;
- You must not transfer any of your rights or obligations under the Facebook Statement to anyone without Facebook’s permission.
- All right, title and interest in and to the Twitter Services, including the Twitter Accounts, are and will remain the property of Twitter;
- Twitter also has a restriction and ban on creating multiple accounts. If someone creates multiple accounts, Twitter may permanently suspend all accounts.
- You are responsible for safeguarding the password you use to access the Service.
- A LinkedIn group account may only be transferred with the written approval of LinkedIn, in its sole discretion.
Youtube
- All rights granted to you by YouTube, including the license to use the Services, may not be transferred or assigned by you and you must keep your account password secure.
- You must obtain YouTube’s prior written permission to sell access to the Service.
In summary, each of these social media platforms grants a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to the account holder to use the services of these social media platforms. Some, as noted above, allow the account holder to transfer accounts with the prior written permission of the relevant social media provider. However, the process for this is not contained in the relevant terms and conditions.
Are there possible alternatives?
If the seller’s social media account is large and they are unable to sell their social media account through an asset sale, are there any alternatives?
The difficulties raised above in transferring social media accounts can be avoided through a stock sale rather than a business sale. In a stock sale, the shares of the company are sold to new shareholders and the company remains the same. From a social media perspective, in these circumstances, the social media account stays with the business and as long as the account holder remains the same, there seems to be no problem for the account holder to continue using the social media accounts.
From Twitter’s perspective, in 2010, CNN demonstrated a possible way to circumvent the transfer of the Twitter account. In this case, CNN gained access to James Cox’s Twitter account by hiring him as a consultant for the company. Twitter did not suspend James’ account and allowed the Twitter account to remain open, suggesting that there is a way around the restrictions imposed by Twitter – i.e. by offering the current account holder a consulting position within the company so that the company can have access to this account. This arrangement will rely heavily on the consultant and the company maintaining a positive relationship and that the arrangement will be properly documented.
Another alternative can be to require the seller to deactivate their social media accounts so that the buyer can create a new account under the same business name and start new pages with new followers and subscribers. However, this is a last resort, as the problem is that all subscribers and fans would be lost and the buyer would have to start from scratch. It would defeat the purpose of the buyer to access social media accounts if there is value and goodwill in the original accounts through existing social media pages and subscribers and subscribers.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide on the subject. If you want to sell or buy a social media account, you should seek expert advice regarding your particular situation.
