Hello — I’m writing this as someone who spends my days translating platform changes, creator behavior and rising community norms into practical next steps for brands. Emerging platforms like BeReal and Discord are attractive: authentic connections, high engagement and cultural cachet. But they also pose novel brand-safety challenges. Below I walk through a hands-on audit process I use with clients to assess, quantify and mitigate brand-safety risks across these environments.
Why brand safety on BeReal and Discord feels different
BeReal and Discord aren’t traditional feed-driven social networks. BeReal is built on spontaneity and ephemeral sharing; Discord is organized around communities and real-time conversations. That changes both the risk surface and the remediation options. On Instagram, you can moderate comments, remove posts or block users; on Discord, conversations live in private or invite-only servers where moderation is decentralized. On BeReal, the momentary, raw aesthetic means content can be unfiltered and context is minimal.
So the first step in any audit is to understand the platform’s mechanics rather than apply a checklist designed for Twitter or Facebook.
Step 1 — Define what “brand safety” means for your brand
Before you run any scans or analyze servers, I ask teams: what content, tone or association would cause real harm? Is it hate speech, illegal activity, piracy, adult content, extremist views, misinformation, or just “bad vibes” that clash with our positioning? Different brands have different red lines.
I create a short risk matrix that lists the categories that matter, why they matter, and the impact level (reputation, legal, commercial). That matrix becomes the decision framework for everything else.
Step 2 — Map where your brand appears and how
Be exhaustive. List all ways your brand might surface on each platform:
- Official channels (verified accounts, brand Ambassadors)
- Paid partnerships and influencer activations
- Unofficial communities and fan servers
- Branded content created by users (memes, edits, screenshots)
- Contextual appearances (mentions in threads, screenshots shared on BeReal)
For Discord, map servers where your brand is discussed — public and private. For BeReal, audit accounts that have used your brand handle, logos, or related hashtags in the last 90 days. This is work you can partially automate but often requires manual discovery and community listening.
Step 3 — Gather signals: qualitative and quantitative
I combine automated scans with human review.
- Automated scans: Use keyword monitoring tools, brand-mention crawlers, and Discord bots to flag mentions. Tools like Brandwatch or Meltwater can help with public posts; for Discord you may need a paid bot with consent from server owners.
- Manual review: Sample posts and server channels, especially high-traffic or highly engaged posts. On BeReal, examine the context: who shared, caption, location, and adjacent content.
- Contextual metadata: Look at timestamps, membership patterns, cross-platform links (is someone posting a Discord convo to BeReal or vice versa?), which can indicate amplification risks.
Step 4 — Score risk and prioritize
Once I have examples and signal volume, I score each risk vector on three axes: severity (how bad is the content), reach (how many people will see it), and ease of remediation (how difficult to remove or respond to). I use a simple 1–5 scale and multiply to get a prioritization score.
| Risk | Severity (1–5) | Reach (1–5) | Remediation Difficulty (1–5) | Priority Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unauthorized use of logo in extremist imagery | 5 | 2 | 4 | 40 |
| Creator using brand in adult content | 4 | 3 | 3 | 36 |
| Misinformation mention in a private server | 3 | 2 | 5 | 30 |
This allows me to say: address cases scoring above X immediately and schedule monitoring or outreach for mid-tier issues.
Step 5 — Practical remediation playbooks per platform
Remediation looks different per platform. I make playbooks with exact steps and sample messaging.
BeReal playbook
- Scan daily for recent mentions and screenshots. Because posts are ephemeral in spirit (users capture and share screenshots), set alerts for image mentions and screenshots of your site or product.
- If a risky post uses your logo or trademark in a harmful context, file a trademark or copyright complaint via BeReal’s support channels. Expect slower response times than major platforms; escalate with brand verification details.
- Where possible, engage authentically. A quick, human reply acknowledging the issue (if public) can reduce amplification and show your values align with community norms.
Discord playbook
- Identify key servers (public index, partner servers, fan servers). Use bots to monitor public channels but always respect server rules and privacy.
- If the server is hosted by partners or ambassadors, reach out to the server moderators with a clear DM: describe the issue, provide timestamps/screenshots, and request specific actions (remove message, ban user).
- For private servers where moderation is absent and the risk is severe, collect evidence and use Discord’s trust & safety reporting form. Provide direct links, timestamps and context. For higher-severity cases (illegal activity), involve legal counsel before requesting takedown.
- Consider embedding a brand ambassador or community manager in high-value servers to proactively moderate and influence culture.
Step 6 — Preventive controls: policies, partnerships and creative guidance
Audits are great for triage. Preventive work reduces future incidents.
- Influencer contracts: Add explicit brand-safety clauses that cover emerging platforms, require pre-approval for platform-native activations (like Discord livestreams or BeReal takeovers), and specify remediation timelines.
- Brand guides for creators: Short dos-and-don’ts for BeReal authenticity vs. brand tone, and Discord community rules to be posted in partner servers.
- Partnerships: Build relationships with platform trust & safety teams where possible. For smaller platforms, community managers are often the quickest route to resolution.
- Monitoring tech: Invest in tools that can ingest images and transcripts across platforms. Visual-search tools help catch logo misuse on image-first apps like BeReal.
Step 7 — Test the plan regularly
I run quarterly tabletop exercises: simulate a worst-case event (e.g., a leaked internal document shared in Discord and screenshotted to BeReal). Walk through detection, escalation, legal involvement, comms templates and takedown paths. That rehearsal surfaces holes — like missing contact info for a partner server moderator — before a real crisis hits.
Examples I’ve seen and what they taught me
One brand I advise found a fan server on Discord that was repurposing the brand name for a gambling bot. The immediate risk was brand confusion; the longer-term risk was association with money games. We prioritized outreach to the server mod, issued a DMCA-style takedown for branded assets, and then published a short “official community” launch on Discord to reclaim the narrative.
On BeReal, a fashion label experienced unwelcome edits of product photos that paired the clothes with controversial slogans. Because the format favors quick, real-time reactions, we set up a daily morning check, added creator guidelines for brand-sponsored BeReal posts, and required approvals for any brand mentions in professional activations.
What success looks like
For me, a successful audit isn’t zero incidents (that’s unrealistic). It’s a documented risk register, clear remediation steps and faster resolution times. KPIs I track include time-to-detection, time-to-action, number of escalations resolved without legal intervention, and trends in recurring issues.
If you want, I can share a template for the risk matrix and the remediation playbook I use with clients — that way you can run a quick in-house audit and prioritize the most urgent gaps.
