Conference season is in full swing and, with extremely busy schedules; it can be hard to carve out the time necessary to create conference presentations. With less time, comes the temptation to skip citing sources, but doing so may present more risks than you realize.
When delivering a presentation, you’re representing not only your company’s brand, but your personal brand as well. When you are invited to deliver a presentation, it’s because you have a reputation for being an expert; a resource that others respect and rely upon.
When you cite your sources, you present yourself as knowledgeable – you obviously do your research and keep up with trends – that’s the impression people walk away with. People want to follow you because of your trusted expertise. You get invited back to speak again.
Here’s what happens when you plagiarize – even accidentally:
Your audience is a networked audience. Thanks to social media, content is shared fast and travels far. People also connect fast. So even if you accidentally plagiarize, it’s going to be noticed. Your blunder then has the potential to be shared – fast. Your trusted reputation gets tarnished and so does the reputation of your company. An opportunity that you hoped would spark new conversations and bring new business, backfires - and has the potential to do so in a big way. It can damage your company brand image, you may lose your job because it damages the trust your employer has in your abilities to represent the company brand, you damage your own personal brand which can make it hard to find a new job – and that’s not even factoring in the legal ramifications.
This may sound like an over exaggeration, however, any time you put yourself in front of a group of people, you are opening yourself up to social media wildfire. Whether the wildfire spreads in a positive way or a negative way, is entirely up to you. As our illustration below demonstrates, you go into a conference with a powerful brand – it’s why you were invited. The impression you leave on your audience puts the fate of both your company and personal brand in those individuals once the conference concludes. Presenting in an authentic way ensures a positive brand impact and business growth while being inauthentic, even accidentally, can prove negative to your brand and business.
So, in a nutshell:
- Make the time to take your time,
- Cite your sources - give credit where credit is due,
- Add links to where you found those infographics and illustrations, and
Ensure you walk away the respected expert that you were when you walked into the conference to deliver your presentation.
And, if you’re a company that is seeing your content misused in this way (as can happen among competitors); there are ways to help prevent it. Commonly, illustrations and infographics are the heavy hitters for being reused without credit back to the author or organization. In this instance, you can deter misuse by adding your logo, copyright details, date, website, and email address within the infographic or illustration (usually towards the bottom so your main point still comes across without much distraction).
For content you are especially concerned about, a watermark behind the illustration may be helpful. Because content spreads fast, this helps those in your business circle identify your work which, in turn, helps audiences to more easily identify when it is misused. Just remember, a company misusing your content, is damaging their own integrity. When you do what you do well enough that someone wants to claim it as their own, it’ll eventually come to light, so continue being authentic! You’re on the path to success!
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Crystal Davies is a strategic marketing consultant specializing in branding and brand identity, marketing strategy, and business solutions. Her passion is seeing how pieces of the marketing strategy puzzle come together to turn her clients dreams of business success into reality.
crystal@daviesdesigns.net
