Accountability and Security of Your Business' Social Network Posts

Social Networks can be a true value conscious way to get word about your Business, Event or Service to the world as they have very little overhead and reach a potentially large base of clients.  But how does a business go about making sure that their Social Network presentation truly represents the Company and stays in the Company Mandate while at the same time keeping things secure? Today we offer up some tips to help securely manage your Social Networking paths.

1. Manage your team:
This sounds like it should be simple enough, but can quickly spiral out of control. It is wise, if you are a small business, to either assign one person to manage the Social Networking, or failing that limit it to a team of no more than six people, with a dedicated change of command (IE having a Manager of Social Networking, Assistant Manager of Social Networking etc.)  After setting up your team, decide if all Social Networking is to be done from one community terminal or if any member of the team can access from their respective workstations, this will become understandable as to why as we move along to further point.

It is always wise to have team members actually sign their posts when possible , example of this would be at the end of the post just have the team member type something like [John] or --Smith, This brings accountability to the posts as if Customers have any problem with a posting you can review specifically who posted it.

2. Security Features:
No Company ever wants to be at risk of having to release the memo "We Were Hacked" or "That is not an authorized post on our Facebook/Twitter/Google Plus feed"  and one of the best ways to go about this is to actually use features these services already have available to you

Facebook:
If you go to the options menu (cog shaped icon) on facebook, you can bring up account settings. from there click on the word security and you should be met with a screen like this one

Facebook Security Screen

This screen actually is your best friend in trying to keep people out of your account, notice the second entry "Login Notifications" , This is a HIGHLY IMPORTANT feature to pay attention to as this will tell you when, where and what browser is being used to log in to Facebook.  What this means is that if you have a team of 6, 4 are in the office and 2 are out of town on business, then you should be able to tell fairly quickly if it is indeed your team logging into Facebook and when as a Email and/or text message is sent back to the email account that you set up Facebook with

Twitter:
The first thing I would suggest with Twitter, is pick one team member to manage your twitter feed.  This is due to the 140 Character nature of Twitter's service not always allowing space to sign a post.

The next thing to do is to dive into your settings menu, where details like being able through features like "Protect my Tweets", "Tweet Location" and "Login Verification" via SMS can secure your content by giving you control over who sees your tweets, knowing where they were sent from and in the case of Login Verification require a security code to be entered form a text message in order to access the account.

Moving down to the "Email Notifications" section will allow for a better management of your account, as you can get email messages on a large array of information, from when Tweets are marked as Favourites to when you get a reply or are mention in a tweet

Google Plus:
In Google Plus, to access things you need to click the arrow besides your profile picture at the top of the page, select account and then click on Security.  Here is it wise to set up Recovery options, Notifications (such as an second email address and a mobile number to accept alerts where you can get validation sent in the event of account issues).  2-Step Verification allows you to set up logins so that in order to log in from a device you need to actually enter your email address, password AND then a code sent to your mobile device.  This works best if you have a page being managed by one person only.

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3: Strong Passwords
For years it has been stressed just how important the Strength of a login Password is.  We are told to very things up, no less then 8 characters, 12 to 16 being even better, Include small caps, large caps and numbers, do not use common words and NEVER use dates or names of your family for the password.  And all of that is still true and valid, but one thing Companies may end up forgetting about is what if someone on your Social Network leaves the team (more potentially a problem if they are terminated for wrongful acts).

The best practice in this case, is to make sure that every time someone leaves the team, be it through transfer to a different department, retirement, termination or quitting, change the password!  By doing this, your Company's Social Network passwords are only known by the people currently managing your Company's profiles, and you have a small base of people to look into should something be compromised .

This of course only scratches the surface of Social Network Security practices, but if you start by employing the tips above, you are on the right path to securing your Social Network Presence.