Social media marketing is probably something that you’re engaged in, whether your business is large or small. But all too often people hand over set up and management of these valuable business assets to people who aren’t as qualified as they should be and/or they don’t protect their social media accounts. As a result, businesses can find their accounts compromised, stolen, and/or completely swiped by a rogue employee. If those things aren’t a major pain in the you-know-what, I don’t know what is. Here are some things you can think about, and put into place so that you can hopefully avoid a nightmare down the line — here’s what you can do to protect yourself.
Be Smart About Social Media Accounts
Many times companies let just anyone set up their social media accounts, which later opens them up to trouble. Make sure you control who creates accounts, the names in which they are created, and retain a document that contains all relevant information in a central location, under your control. Don’t let an agency or a consultant be in charge of your social media accounts without knowing the particulars of what they’ve done. Don’t let employees go rogue and create accounts under their names. Be smart about whose name accounts are created under and who has ultimate ownership, control of and access to those accounts. A little thinking up front can prevent many headaches later down the line. Also, if it’s possible to have a “verified” account, do that.
Protect Your Brand Online – and on Social
There are a ton of social media outposts and even though you might only be using a few right now, it’s important to “own” your name across multiple platforms. This is good for reputation management in general and it protects you from others using your name in a channel you haven’t yet discovered. You can use a tool like Namecheckr, which will help you not only see what iteration of your brand name is available across multiple platforms, it’ll help you reserve it in one fell swoop. We’ve long been fans of this handy tool and you should definitely check it out.
