May 21st, 2010 by Susie

It is quite easy to get carried away with your social media marketing as is it becoming one of the most popular ways in which a company can distribute information and offers quickly. It has also become an extremely effective brand building tool. As with all things in the world of business, the bigger you are, the harder you fall – whilst awareness within social networking sites is great, the more people who are linked to your profile, the higher the risks.

One of the first rules of thumb is to be prepared. Nobody can steal what they cannot see, so within the profile pages of your account only include information that relates to your company which is absolutely necessary. That way, if things do get into the wrong hands then they will not get have stumbled across any potentially damaging information. This rule also applies to those who are tweeting or posting comments either on behalf of, or as a representative, of your company. Ensure all employees involved in social marketing are aware of any taboo subjects or any company policies which should not be divulged.

So the next question is how are people going to find out personal information? Well, hackers around the world devote their lives to trying to hack into people’s profiles so they can steal information, or gain control. The most common method of hacking in is via the password. Always ensure you have a strong password and by this it usually means a combination of letters and numbers, as well as lower and upper case text. Try not to have the same password for a company Facebook profile as you would for your personal emails or online banking, as having the same word means if somebody does discover it, your entire online world is at their mercy. It is also a good idea to change passwords regularly, particularly if you have several staff members posting on the company’s behalf.

The other supposed risk surrounding social networking sites and social media in terms of security is spam. A lot of viruses and harmful bugs are sent automatically to your profile inbox and often appear to be from friends. Once you click on the link then your profile is infected. Worse still, your infected profile will then send the virus on to everyone in your contacts, so the virus is spread like wild fire.

There is little that can be done to stop corrupt situations occurring within social networking sites but you can ensure that you keep on top of it via your online reputation management. A lot of this is concerned with research, browsing and generally checking your profile pages and anything linked to it. You can hire a company to look at this if you are not comfortable doing it, however if you are tackling this on your own then make sure you are careful before clicking on any links. As the saying goes, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

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