7 Tips on How to Avoid Social Media Security Risks

Social media security risks… Network scams skyrocketed 200 percent on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn in 2019. And the number looks set to continue to rise as cybercriminals view social media as a productive target.

In this post, we'll provide tips on how to protect your organization.

1. Create a social media policy

Before people can avoid making mistakes on social media, they need to know what to watch out for. One of the most effective ways to do this is to create a social media policy.

Social media policies can help keep your brand safe while encouraging your employees to participate. Although policies vary from organization to organization, they will typically include best practices, safety guidelines, as well as protection, and training and enforcement procedures.

Policies are especially helpful for organizations that have more than one social media account to stay coordinated.

The University of Cambridge is an example of such an organizations. Because more than 260 social media accounts are named after the university, Cambridge created a social media policy that helps protect your reputation online.

By viewing the policy as a “living document,” the university uses Hootsuite's monitoring and statistics features to keep employees informed of best practices related to its various social networks.

Be sure to include clear guidelines on how to do the following:

• Create a strong password
• Successfully monitor and engage with brand mentions
• Avoid spam, phishing attacks, and human error
• Avoid malware and related malicious software (spyware, ransomware, etc.)
• How to proceed in case of malware attacks
• Interact on social media after a corporate crisis
• Share branded content and approved content
• Check out our comprehensive guide for more tips for writing social media policies.

2. Provide social media training to your employees

Then put your policy into action with in-person social media training. This will allow your employees to ask questions about aspects of the policy that they don't understand. This will also expose any loopholes in your policy that could pose potential security threats.

Organizations like the famous Wiley publishing house, for example, periodically provide internal social media training in order to keep your social efforts optimized and safe.

During the training, emphasize the dos and don'ts of your company when it comes to sharing, how to use secure social media tools, and show the appearance of phishing links or malicious accounts.

If your brand is concerned about large-scale malware attacks, hacking, or bad publicity, include communication crisis training in your policy and training that highlights what to do in the event of a hack or HR disaster. PP. in social networks.

3. Limit access to social networks

You want to make sure that only the right people have publishing rights to your social media channels. This applies regardless of the number of people contributing to message writing and content creation.

Read-only settings, like those offered by Hootsuite, can help reduce the risk of human error caused by employees who don't have the proper training in channels and tools.

Using Hootsuite, you can easily set up permission levels and an approval system that follows the natural hierarchy of your organization. Staff members may be granted limited permission to compose messages, which will need to be added to the approval queue for senior management to approve before they are posted.

Additionally, limited permissions allow you to restrict specific accounts and functions to employees.

4. Assign a manager

Too many cooks ruin the broth or so the saying goes more or less. The same happens in social networks, a key person must be in charge of all the activities of your brand in social networks.

Having a key person to act as the eyes and ears for your social media presence can go a long way toward reducing risks. This person should monitor the presence of your brand, monitor related conversations, be responsible for the security of your social networks, and manage access to publish.

5. Invest in safe technology

With the rise of social media hacking, brands must take innovative surveillance measures to keep their accounts (and their reputations) safe. One of the most effective ways to do this is to invest in secure technology.

Protect your passwords

Not too long ago, shared social media accounts involved shared passwords, which meant more opportunities for cybercriminals to gain access to your information. Today, a large number of password management tools are available to keep your passwords safe.

Lastpass is an excellent example of a site that can generate and store complex passwords on your behalf. Two-factor authentication tools like One Login add an additional layer of security where users are asked to use two devices (mobile device and a computer) in a series of commands to access an account.

A social platform that controls everyone

Secure social media management platforms, like Hootsuite, are another great way to keep your content safe. By using a single platform to manage all your networks, you can safely maintain control of who is posting and accessing your accounts.

Threat analysis

Arm yourself with security software like Protegent360's total security that automatically scans and alerts you for any brand counterfeiting, hoaxes, fraud, malicious programs, viruses, and other cyber risks.

6. Monitor your social media channels

If an error occurs on social media, you want to make sure you find out immediately. But to know what is being talked about, you must do more than just monitor each of your networks; you will also need to know what to look for.

Monitoring tools like Hootsuite can help you stay on top of what's being said about you, across all your networks, from a single dashboard.

To get a more comprehensive understanding of what's being said about your brand on social media, try an app like Brandwatch, which allows you to monitor and analyze social media mentions from more than 70 million sources.

7. Conduct an audit periodically

As you would with any other business function, be sure to conduct regular audits of your social media metrics to ensure your efforts are up-to-date and potential security breaches have not been breached. At least once every quarter, check:

• Network privacy settings: Networks routinely update their security settings, which can have a possible impact on your account.
• Publishing and access privileges: Analyze who has access and publishing rights on your social media management platform and sites and update as needed.
• New Security Threats: Perform an analysis of the reputation of news companies and security sources for an update on the latest social media threats in circulation.
• Social media represents a world of opportunities for your business to grow and connect with customers. Protect yourself against threats and move forward knowing that you did everything in your power to protect your business.