5 Tips For Keeping Your Social Media Secure

We all know the benefits that a strong social media presence can bring, but how much thought have you given to what can go wrong?

Giving employees and agencies the power to broadcast public messages on your organisation’s behalf has risks that must be carefully managed. And there are many stories of awkward incidents that could have been prevented, from former employees using the company's Twitter to get into arguments, to staff live tweeting a mass redundancy announcement.

Here are five crucial things your company should be doing.

1. Carefully manage staff access to your social media profiles

Assign strict admin rights to control who can post on your social media profiles, based on their role, responsibilities and training. Only your appointed social media ‘owner’ team should have ultimate admin rights, such as the ability to add and remove contributors or to change the name your organisation uses on each profile.

2. Password protection

Set strong passwords: the more active and successful your organisation is on social media, the more likely that someone will try to hack into your profile. Change them regularly and ensure staff do not write them down anywhere that they might be seen, such as around their desk. You could also consider using a password manager.

3. Remove old access rights immediately

If a member of your team no longer requires access rights, for example if they are leaving your organisation, are changing role or have breached your social media policy, remove their access immediately.

4. Avoid single points of failure

Whilst you must limit access and admin rights, ensure critical information and access is available to at least two employees in case one is absent or not contactable.

5. Keep social media policy up to date

Regularly update your social media policy to ensure it is clear, correct and relevant to your evolving strategies, campaigns, use of different networks and customer base.

These tips are taken from the Social Media Guide, produced by the DMA Social Media Council. It’s a best practice handbook giving you indispensible information on everything from setting strategy to measuring success. DMA members can download it free of charge from the website.