In 2022, Twitter (now X) informed advertisers that their ads on the social network had been running on profiles that solicited child sex abuse materials.

After the notification, Dyson, Mazda, Forbes, and PBS Kids, among other brands, suspended their marketing campaigns and removed their ads from the platform. And although Twitter took measures to ban offending profiles, damage to the affected brands' reputations had already been done.

Brands take chances when advertising on social media platforms and influencer channels that feature a wealth of user-generated content (UGC).

Without proper policies and controls, companies risk destroying their carefully crafted reputations. With appropriate procedures and robust brand safety and suitability (BSS) guidelines, however, brands can safeguard their reputation and bottom line.

The Importance of BSS in Digital Marketing

A brand's reputation can be drastically affected by where its ads are shown, whether on a specific social media platform, such as Facebook or TikTok, or a video streaming platform, such as YouTube or Netflix.

Association with harmful or sensitive content may create a negative perception of the brand. And that is where BSS makes a difference:

• Brand safety refers to protecting a brand's reputation and keeping it from appearing in unsafe environments. For instance, if a company posts ads on platforms that feature inappropriate (such as racist, sexist, or otherwise insensitive) content, it could damage its reputation. In addition to not wanting their ads to run alongside content that promotes illegal activities or spreads misinformation, most brands don't want to monetize harmful content through ad revenue.
• Brand suitability refers to assessing the risk level of sensitive content and making informed choices to balance the brand's reach, goals, and values; to target customer segments; and to maximize brand positioning. It also refers to prioritizing content that matches all or some of those factors, and it differs for each brand.

B2B businesses need transparency and controls to safeguard brand reputation across platforms. One way to ensure brand safety is to vet potential advertising platforms and influencers to determine whether their typical content aligns with a brand's values and goals.

It is imperative for companies to build strategies to evaluate content risk levels and policies to inform their marketing teams on where to run their ads while tracking the effectiveness of their policies.

Influencer Marketing and UGC

Influencer marketing is gaining popularity in the B2B marketplace, and fully 94% of B2B marketers cite it as a successful strategy.

This type of marketing can come with a high rate of return, but without proper controls it can place a company's reputation in danger. Therefore, it's essential for B2B enterprises to communicate BSS policies and contractual guidelines clearly with influencer marketing partners.

In addition, it's important to vet influencers and thoroughly analyze their past content and audience interactions. Companies can also enact an approval process before any content goes live.

Considering that 86% of consumers say they are more likely to trust a brand that features content from real-life customers over influencers, UGC, including images, videos, and social media posts, is gaining traction in the B2B space.

Yet, moderating UGC is challenging because of the scale and diversity of the creative output.

The complexity of scanning and analyzing materials for BSS across various platforms, such as X, TikTok, and YouTube Live, has grown exponentially. Live UGC requires substantial time and resources to evaluate the content in real-time.

Another piece of the puzzle is misinformation. Using AI, fraudsters can create political deepfakes and other disinformation, which can be especially tricky to detect at scale. Some tools, such as TrueMedia.org, use AI to identify political deepfakes.

Solutions: BSS Framework, Strategy, and Tools

Strategic practices and consistent policies help companies ensure brand safety and suitability.

Until recently, the industry has been using the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) framework to define and address risk levels (low, medium, high) across standard content categories for brand safety (such as hate speech, violence, explicit sexual content, and misinformation) and suitability (profanity, drug use, spam).

Maintaining those standards has been considered essential to stopping harmful content from being monetized through advertising. Such frameworks allow companies to fine-tune their BSS choices consistently, depending on their audiences and platforms.

In August 2024, X CEO Elon Musk sued GARM, alleging that its policies purposely dissuaded advertisers from spending their ad dollars on the social media platform, thereby violating antitrust laws. Thereafter, GARM shut down operations, citing limited resources. Accordingly, there is still a need for a consistent framework to assess content risk across the industry.

One example of a brand with robust tools with which I have first-hand experience is Amazon, which owns the streaming platform Twitch Interactive, my employer. Our content controls and tools allow advertisers to select or exclude content that aligns with their values and objectives.

AI tools can scan content at scale and classify it in real-time, which helps brands mitigate risk.

For example, speech and image recognition technologies, such as that of Speechmatics, can grade risk levels based on location, language, metadata, and other sensitive content categories. Marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms such as HubSpot and Mailchimp offer automated marketing tools and suitability controls that can be modified based on brand policies.

Companies can invest in training employees on these tools and on internal BSS policies to ensure all stakeholders are well-versed in the brand's voice and values.

To overcome limited resources, smaller brands can work with premium publishers that provide integrated BSS tools and controls on their platforms. Brands can also form partnerships with companies like Zefr to build prevention and reporting of ad exposures on unintended content. Fact-checking websites, such as PolitiFact, are also helpful in detecting misinformation.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Metrics

Developing a successful brand protection strategy requires determining which metrics and KPIs work for the company.

Those KPIs may include inventory distribution by risk level, inventory coverage rate (percentage of inventory monitored), false positives and negatives, brand safety error rate, and percent of impressions shown on excluded content.

It is essential to prioritize indicators based on the brand's goals; then, identify and act on the cases that present the highest risk to the brand's consumers, reputation, and revenue.

AI tools offer controls that can label content based on risk. False positives or false negatives are possible, which means that some content will need to be evaluated by human eyes to determine whether the content is safe or objectionable in some way.

Emphasizing Customer Safety

A comprehensive BSS strategy is essential for brand growth and longevity. The future of BSS promises new AI solutions, but it's critical for brands to remember why they got into this business in the first place: their customers.

By focusing on customer safety, including protecting them from the unethical use of their data and other scams, brands can foster loyalty and garner a better return on investment (ROI).

When brands prioritize their customers' needs, they are rewarded in the long term.

More Resources on Brand Safety and Reputation

Eight Steps to Ensure Brand Safety With Influencer Marketing

Seven Pillars of B2B Brand Reputation Management

Brand Reputation Management: Your Seven-Point Game Plan

Online Reputation Management 101: What You Need to Know [Infographic]