Five Tools and Technologies to Help Manage Social Business Risks

Featured article by Graham Rand, Independent Technology Author

Social media has become a powerful business channel for companies of all types and sizes. However, with great benefits come great responsibilities. These platforms will help you obtain brand awareness and authority, but once you use them, you will be inevitably prone to risks. So, together with a concise and persuasive social media campaign, you will also find the following five tools and technologies useful to manage your business risks.

1. Hootsuite

Once you become a social business, there’s no program out there that can protect you from reputational risk. Back days when someone had bad intentions against a brand, their false accusation would trigger next to zero effect. However, today things are different when using social media channels.

A simple tag or hashtag in a hateful comment will easily link back to your profile. At that moment, the followers of the post’s author can simply click on the tag and find your company.  What is worse is that the users from this circle will believe more the original post than the facts that back up the image of your brand. Social media can give them a voice of authority and influence others in believing their slanderous ideas.

Before letting these false accusations of wrongdoing damage the trust your clients have in your products or service, it is best to act proactively and control the side effects the moment you hear about them. The Hootsuite platform will help you manage the content you create for social media and also track the mentions users write about your brand.

Once you create a tab in the interface, you will see every Tweet, Facebook post, or YouTube search that has something to do with the title you chose for the new stream. You can now receive live notifications and react to them in seconds.

2. ProofPoint

Social platforms are not free of security risks either. Any wrong move can cost you loss of intellectual property and sensitive data such as HR & payroll information. This means that not only the company is t risk, but also the security of your employees.

With ProofPoint, you can install a protective layer over your social media accounts to keep any kind of hackers at bay. This software uses a patented technology called ProfileLock which monitors your profile settings for any unauthorized changes. If this happens, you will immediately receive an alert to notify you of the situation. The software can even lock down the accounts to prevent any abuse or activity generated by hackers.

3. Enable Two-Factor Authentication

Personal security is a notion that always draws the attention of popular social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And they all have recently created the option to activate a two-factor authentication.

Since the famous case when the fast food chain Burger King got their Twitter profile hijacked, almost all social websites implemented this security measure. As in most cases of digital threats, the password is the most appealing asset for cyber criminals.

However, with a two-factor authentication, businesses can double the efficiency of their security system. Simply go on each of your social accounts to activate this protection by changing the settings. From this point on, every time you will log in, you will have to enter a one-time code which the platforms will send to your phone. This will be the only way to gain access to your social profiles.

4. Actiance

Another business risk is created by the existence of industry variations that are different from one geographical area to another. For example, in the US alone, there are more than 10,000 rules that regard the electronic communication.

However, there’s a tool that can help you meet the compliance clause. Actiance ensures that your social activity respects federal, state, and local regulations. The software will control, monitor, and manage your new social communication channels as well as your email. Through their complex system, they will eliminate the risk of crucial phrases or expressions such as profanity or account numbers to ever be published outside your organization.

5. Trello

Any business can be prone to errors when there’s a tiny misunderstanding between the marketing team members or when an employee loses focus for one second.

To prevent inevitable mistakes that are always happening at any workplace, Trello will help you set up an intuitive editorial calendar. This software lets you be agiler and notice any irregularity in due time. The schedule along with every post that will be created for social media can be checked simultaneously by several team members due to its synchronization feature in real time. With a successful editorial calendar, you can make sure that every message that leaves the building is in tune with the brand values and that it respects your business’ reputation.

So, these are the five tools and technologies that will help you manage all social business risks. The automation these programs will set throughout the company will save you time, energy, and stress.

Image source: 1