Beware the Substantial Risks of Social Media

While marketers widely tout the benefits of social media, few warn of its substantial dangers – and there are many. Marketing and PR departments don’t need to be terrified, but they definitely need to be cautious.

Social media risks come from many directions. You, other employees or agency consultants can make mistakes: typos, misspellings, sophomoric humor, culturally insensitive remarks, sexually inappropriate innuendo or factually incorrect comments. Someone can take a screen shot of an ill-advised comment and publicize it across the Internet before you delete it. Worse, deleting may seem like a cover up.

Employees can intentionally make malicious statements, release confidential information or argue with customers. Disgruntled ex-employees, clients, competitors can attack you or your company, sometimes hiding behind face profiles. Trolls, crusaders with pet issues or anyone with a grievance can blow small mistakes out of proportion. They can misread or twist innocent words into something perverse, and create fake profiles just to criticize your company. Mistakes or deliberate attacks can start rumors that are difficult to permanently squelch.

Some Critical Dangers

Reputation hitmen, who are hired professionals, can badly damage a company’s reputation and social presence. “The problem is they won’t be amateurish about it, and are harder to spot,” writes Roger Rogerson at Search Engine Watch.

Hackers fall into a different category, he says. Some use social media as an attack vector. They harvest information from profiles and other publicly accessible sources. They then impersonate other staff members, or stake various identity claims in an effort to obtain access credentials or other sensitive information.

Offended customers telling stories about bad customer experiences with faulty products or flawed services can damage the company’s or brand’s reputation and affect purchase intentions of prospective customers.

The media can amplify mistakes or online assaults when they learn about them and report them. “If you think having a bunch of people kicking you on Twitter is bad, wait until some reporter gets a whiff of things!” Rogerson says.

How to Counter Social Media Risks

Experts advise these precautions to mitigate social media risks.

Password  Protection. Protect company social media accounts with complex passwords and restrict password access to trusted employees.

Create social media policy. Social media policies provide employees guidance on how to identify themselves as an employee when promoting content, how to respond to customers, and what subjects to avoid.

Training. Thoroughly train employees who focus on social media marketing about what content is acceptable and forbidden, and how to respond to comments. Consider a mentor program.

Second set of eyes. Earlier in my career, I produced audiovisual programs for pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Product managers ordered the programs, but the script and final edit were reviewed by multiple departments including medical, legal and regulatory in a rigorous vetting process. The additional review often resulted in multiple changes to assure there were no errors and to minimize the possibility of challenges by medical practitioners, competitors or regulators. In similar fashion, assigning a seasoned second set of eyes to review all social media posts before actually posting will minimize risks.

Monitor your brand constantly on social media. Continually monitor your corporate and brand names for news and social media comments. Social media listening enables rapid response to any mistakes, criticisms or other dangers. Also monitor competitors and keywords describing your industry niche to better understand market sentiment. A subscription media monitoring and measurement service is the most effective and cost-efficient method to monitor social media and news.

Answer negative comments quickly. Initiating friendly conversations, as opposed to confronting critics, and solving customer problems helps stop negative comments from spreading. Responding quickly is crucial.

Review current policies. The first step is review of social media to understand how the company is using it, its current policies and procedures, and which stakeholders are currently involved, Phil Mennie, global social media risk and governance leader at PwC, told Fortune.

Marketing is usually the corporate hub for social media. However, other departments, such as public relations, sales, IT and legal, now have important roles. “It’s important that these departments have representation at social media working groups and have clear reporting lines to the overall body which owns social media,” advises Mennie.

Bottom Line: Many organizations may not be prepared for or even aware of the substantial risks that social media poses. Understanding the risks and implementing recommended safeguards can help protect your company and still realize the significant marketing and PR benefits of social media.