Why you need to secure your social media assets

Fired head chef, Jim Knight, created social media mayhem this week for his former employer, The Plough, a pub in Oxfordshire (UK).  Jim used The Plough’s twitter account to post as the company, and let followers and the rest of the world know about his thoughts on the events surrounding his change in employment status.

Jim had reportedly set up The Plough’s twitter account and used his access (which hadn’t been disabled prior to his being let go) to tweet several times, each gaining more retweets and exposure as his story spread.

Simple steps to securing your social assets:

If you or you business has a social media account that is administrated or accessible by others, there are a few key learnings to take from The Plough’s experience:

 

[accordion][accordion_content title=”Always know where your keys are”]1. Maintain a list of each of your social media accounts.  It doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated, just make sure it includes:

• the names of everyone who has been granted access
•the dates they were enabled and disabled [/accordion_content] [accordion_content title=”Batten down the hatches”] 2. If a storm is coming, you batten down.  So, if you’re going to fire someone AND they have the keys to your social media accounts AND you think it might not go over well… disable their access before you break the news. [/accordion_content] [accordion_content title=”Lock the door behind them”] 3. Even if staff are leaving on good terms, if they are no longer working for you they shouldn’t have any access to your social assets.  Have a plan in place to ensure that all social media admin rights are assigned to someone else within the organisation and user rights disabled prior to the last day of employment.  [/accordion_content] [/accordion]

Specialist Social Media Management can reduce your risk

We do Social Media Management – we love it and we’re committed to getting the most out of social for our clients.  A managed solution may not be for everyone, but it might be something for you to consider.  Apart from the benefits of having a team of specialists managing your presence, content, image and social strategies, it also protects you from Jims of the world.

Your internal staff can come and go without you or your business needing to worry about reassigning rights or user access, and in the event of negative feedback or engagement from clients, our specialist team can help you respond appropriately.

If you’d like to talk to us about a managed social media solution for your company, contact us today!

To read more about Jim and The Plough’s story, click here.
Image source credit:  Mashable