Social Networking and Promoting your Brand
Social media is just about everywhere out there now. An average of 172 million people visit Facebook alone each day. There's also an average of 40 million people that visit twitter, 22 million that go on LinkedIn, and over 860,000 hours of videos uploaded across the web each day. Not to mention all the millions of us that blog daily too. It has changed the way we interact as humans. The biggest thing that it has changed is the way we find the products we buy.
Companies everywhere are catching on the the fact that they can reach customers far faster, and better in most ways through taking advantage of social media. They make Facebook pages, have LinkedIn accounts to find employees, make a twitter account to post about the new releases they have. And its working. Putting your brand out there on social media in front of the eyes of millions is a fantastic strategy to help promote your brand. However, it is also a great way to ruin your reputation if you do it improperly.
What risks could there be in doing something simple as making a Facebook page for my company?
It's a great question that we should all make sure we answer before just barging in and making one. The biggest things to worry about would be leaking of confidential information. Whether by accident through an employees post, on purpose by a spiteful employee, or through an outsider hacking into the account and fishing for it. This could be easily solved though by either hiring someone specific, or delegating it to one specific person to manage the page. We also have to make sure that the page stays relevant and professional. For example if someone makes a personal attack on the Facebook page, to either remove the post quickly to prevent negative impact, or addressing it in a professional manor. the biggest thing that could drag the company image down would be a long drawn out personal feud in the comments on your page.
Its not just Facebook either, companies use all sorts of social media out there. Be sure that you are using them properly for what they are like. For example if I liked a company page on facebook, I don't want to come home at the end of the day seeing five new notices about whats going on with them through out the day; however, if it was their twitter account that might be appropriate to be getting those tweets through the day updating the customers.
There are plenty more things that one should think through before jumping on the waves of social media, but don't be afraid of them. As long as you arm yourself and are prepared for the risks then you will do great, and the company will do even greater.
Here is a great reference for people that want to read more in depth before starting.
http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Protecting_and_strengthening_your_brand_Social_media_governance_and_strategy/$FILE/Insights_on_IT_risk_Social_media.pdf
Very informative post, Jonathon. I particularly enjoyed your assessment on how a company's image can be tarnished by outside sources. You never know who has a vendetta, or if a bad interaction can permanently stain your companies record online. It's not always negative though, the internet provides an awesome resource for networking and expanding a company's brand, which you also addressed.
ReplyDeleteIt's a double edged sword that not everyone has come to understand completely. There are websites popping up explaining how we ought to pay to manage our digital image, but we should posses the tools and know how to do so ourselves. It's beginning to sound like businesses are asking for protection money!
Good post, I enjoyed it.
- Kris
It is rare in any company to have all employees having access to the company facebook or linkedin or even twitter page for a leakage of information. That would be a violation of audit internal control standards. Another reason is because usually the page is monitored and also that you do risk tarning your own reputation, which is never a great thing to do because you never know if your next employer will do a detailed facebook check on you or not. Also you can forget about your referral if you do decide to do the extreme.
ReplyDeleteOverall great post.
-XiangChao Qin