- Want to know how to legally share content on social media?
I worked for a company years ago,
they got sued for $5,000
because they used a photo of a hamburger
that they didn't own.
This was not a special celebrity hamburger,
just a regular old hamburger.
I don't want you to fall into that situation,
so I'll run down what you can and can't do, right now.
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My name is Jerry Potter
and by the end of this video,
you're gonna know how to legally share
and how to illegally share content on social media.
Of course, that's so that you can do it legally,
not illegally.
I wanted to make this video
because a lot of people have been saying things to me lately
like, "Well as long as you give them credit,
"it's okay to share their content,"
and that is not true.
You can get sued for that, so don't do that.
Now that being said, I am not a lawyer,
feel free to seek your own counsel
but once I run through what I show you today,
I think you will agree
that most of this is just common sense
and should keep you out of trouble, no problem.
First the basics.
If you upload a photo, video, audio clip,
anything that you don't own the rights to,
to one of your social media channels,
you are breaking the law.
If you download anything or save anything from anywhere else
and then upload it to your channel, you are stealing.
Doesn't matter if you give them credit
or link back to the original source,
that is always illegal.
All right, let's get into some specifics
starting here with Facebook.
So anytime you use the built-in share function
you are totally fine
'cause you're taking something
that's already there on Facebook, or any of the platforms,
and you're sharing it to your profile,
your group, in a message, whatever it might be,
but you're still retaining the original person's content.
But if I were to go
and take a screenshot of this picture
and then upload it to my profile
because I wanted to use a picture of Taylor Swift
and with some comment, then I'm stealing,
I don't own this picture.
Again, even if I give them credit
or if I link back to the original source.
By the way, I'm using this celebrity article
and photo as an example,
'cause that's what people get in trouble for a lot,
it's not always just hamburgers.
So let's say I wanted to share this link here.
Links are a little different.
Now I could just use the share function
and it would share the link to my profile
or to my group, wherever I wanted,
but let's say I opened this link,
and then I went up here, and I copied it
and I pasted it into a post,
it's gonna go ahead and pull up that same preview,
the picture or the headline, this is fine.
Because, again, the content still
is all on E! online's website, I'm not taking anything here.
Then I can add my own caption here
and say whatever I wanna say, totally fine.
But, again, if I go to this site,
and I went, and I tried to save this image to my computer
and then upload it back to some profile of mine,
then I'm definitely stealing.
So the key takeaway here,
if the content is on someone else's page, website, whatever,
and you're just sharing a link or using the share button
rather than uploading it to your Facebook page or profile,
you're fine.
Same thing applies for LinkedIn,
as long as I'm using the share button down here,
totally fine.
If you use Twitter, you know that on Twitter,
sharing is called Retweeting,
and so you can go through
and you can click the Retweet button
and Retweet somebody, totally fine.
Retweet, add a comment, you're fine.
If you go and have you're own post
and you paste to LinkedIn, that's totally fine
'cause you're linking somewhere else.
But if I come down here,
and I decide to save this picture to my computer
and then upload it to my post, again, breaking the law.
But you see how this all works?
Now I wanna take a look at Instagram
because this is where most people
are accidentally breaking the law.
Just like the other platforms,
if you upload someone else's photo or video,
that's illegal,
but if you use the share function, that's fine.
So in the feed, it's this little paper airplane,
I can tap that and then I can add a post,
if the provider lets me, to my story,
or I can DM it to somebody, direct message it to somebody.
If somebody tags you in their Instagram story,
you can then share that to your own story,
but I can't take a screen shot
of someone else's Instagram story,
save it to my camera roll, like a quote or something,
and then share it to my story.
At that point, I'm stealing.
The biggest place people get stuck though, on Instagram,
is using repost apps.
Even though there's an app that does it,
and gives them credit and tags them in the post,
you are still stealing their content
and breaking the law.
The good news is, if you do wanna share
someone else's content,
all you have to do, is ask them for permission.
You can go through
and you can ask somebody down in the comments,
if you wanna do it there,
or go to their profile and send them a DM.
If you wanna be thorough,
take a screen shot of them giving you permission
and then save it somewhere,
just so you're covered, if it ever comes up.
All right, last thing.
You've probably seen companies say, "Use our hashtag
"and we might feature you on our feed."
Even if someone uses your brand's hashtag,
you still have to get permission to use that content.
Again, all it requires
is a quick comment to ask them permission
or send them a direct message.
They say yes, and you're all set.
I hope that clears some things up for you
and remember, if you take somebody else's content
and they come after you,
they're probably not gonna just ask you to take it down,
they will sue you,
so just don't steal content.
If coming up with content is a struggle,
I would love to offer you
my 24 proven content ideas for small businesses.
It's a free download, grab the link
in the description of this video.
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