Business law is one of the best things you need to know about if you’re an entrepreneur. There are many reasons why knowing business law is important - business law can help you with managing your finances, complying with regulations, protecting your company from cyber scams, and checking everyday contracts. However, if you work in digital marketing or are considering doing digital marketing for your start up business, the law affects social media marketing, SEO, and digital advertising. In the UK, there are many laws and regulations which can affect your digital marketing strategy.
There are many laws surrounding digital advertising and marketing which could change your strategy and how you expand your business’ digital profile. Some of these laws include:
Not only do these laws affect how your business may need to conduct its business operations online, it can also affect digital marketing agencies, freelancers and in-house digital marketers. It’s imperative that you are aware of the law, so you can make good choices and market your business in the right avenues.
Each of these laws will affect how your business markets itself online - just like they affect traditional advertisements. For example, if you’re running an alcoholic drinks company, under British law you can only claim that the drinks are ‘low-alcohol’ if it contains between 0.5% and 1.2% alcohol. These regulations have been restricting how companies can advertise their products for a very long time, but recent developments in the law alter how digital marketers can reach consumers. All advertising and marketing must be socially responsible, truthful, honest and legal - here are how each law affects digital marketing.
Copyright law is very important when it comes to regulating how digital marketers can make their strategies. Content creation is a very key part of digital marketing, whether this means writing for SEO purposes or the creation of digital ads. It’s important that you create legislation to ensure that the copyright of this material falls to the right channels, and that no copyrighted material is used within these documents without authorisation. If you don’t do this, you could end up in a tricky situation as you may have to determine ownership of digital marketing content in court.
The trading disclosures regulations came into effect in 2008, and set out trading disclosures that must be made by a company operating in the UK - for example, the places and manner in which it must disclose its registered name and other operational information and details. The law states that the company name must be clearly displayed on all forms of official correspondence - including digitally. A company’s website and any electronic communications, such as email, should also have this clear information visible. If you’re an email marketing company or work in technical SEO, you need to make sure to keep this in mind if you’re working on a business website or digital communications.
The electronic communications act was enforced in 2000, and aimed to validate user authentication in the UK, and confirms the legal status of electronic signatures. This is important to keep in mind if you’re a digital marketer as it may affect how customers may purchase something from a website, which is crucial for tracking data and statistics.
The data protection act is one of the most crucial pieces of legislation that affects how companies conduct digital marketing and business. This act means that companies need to be careful and follow legal guidelines when it comes to storing customer data, to protect the privacy and protection of all personal data, such as addresses and bank details.
Leading wealth recovery attorneys have found that many digital marketers don’t know the law when it comes to protecting customer data, which has led to cyber scammers stealing money and financial data from many businesses. Following the standards of the data protection act is crucial if you want to adequately protect your business and its customers.
If you’re a social media marketer, you need to be very cognisant of these laws in order to conduct your data analysis properly and protect your customers. You must comply with all 8 principles of the data protection act in order to do your job properly and protect the people you are marketing to.
Knowing the law about digital and social media marketing is crucial if you want to protect your business as well as market your company to the best of your ability. If you’re struggling with getting your head around digital marketing law, make sure to consult a lawyer today.
