Social Networking Security..or Lack of When Promoting your Brand

Hello everyone!

               If you are one of the 1.11 Billion Facebook users or you have a professional profile on LinkedIn or you Tweet, Digg, Stumble or blog then you’ll know that social networking is an important communication medium and can be a vital business and personal tool.

               If you’re not, you don’t have to take my word for it. check this link and you will be amazed to see some Facebook statistics which will give you an idea about how much these social media sites are effective today.

                                                         

               Let's talk about social network security when promoting your brand. Those of you who are not familiar with the term 'brand', you can click here for a reference. Social media is on the rise day by day. Websites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google+, etc. are attracting more and more consumers every minute. We all use these sites to connect to our friends, family and loved ones to stay connected with them and share photos, videos, information and personal messages. As the popularity grows, so does the risks of using them. 

              Social media sites like Facebook collects your personal information and based on your interests and likes on various pages, it will promote 'sponsored stories' on your page. They also use your name without your permission on those stories and there was a lawsuit filed against them in court last year. 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/facebook-users-in-sponsored-stories-can-get-15-each-court-rules/

                                                              

              Before we talk about all the risks, Let's see some benefits for the businesses. If Facebook were a country, it would have more inhabitants than the USA. No wonder it’s an attractive target for company PR and marketing. It provides a direct network between consumers and sellers for feedback and ideas. a vibrant social network around your company can make it attractive to new recruits and it can help recent hires settle in more quickly. Similarly, it helps HR with recruitment. For many users and companies, LinkedIn is a kind of CV exchange and services such as BranchOut are bringing online recruitment to Facebook too.

             But there are risks and challenges too which many of us aren't aware of! Online criminals are quick to exploit any popular activity to make money. Social networking is 

especially attractive because it exploits trust between friends and it is inherently viral by nature. Social networking is easy and fun, with a variety of apps that enable you to interact 
with friends and play games. So users are very open to seeing new things on social networking that they need to click on and install in order to participate in some kind of activity. For malware writers, it’s a goldmine. Malware distributors are constantly looking for new ways to distribute malware, with their new weapon of choice being malicious apps.                              


             Another risk on social media sites for businesses is 'revealing secrets'. You will be surprised to know how some people just post everything they want on these media sites which causes them their jobs or effects their business. Here is a link to few examples of such posts and poor people who suffered their mistake! Some other reasons businesses suffer because of social media are reputation risk, spam, cyberslacking and social engineering.
           Now if we talk about how the businesses should deal with it, then there are few ways to do it or we can say take these precautions. Businesses have to take a strong, proactive approach to social media, including monitoring, protecting and deciding how social media information flows through the organisation. This is not a problem that will diminish or go away if you ignore it. Companies can create a separate network for social media usage in their firms. Due to frequent changes in privacy policies of these social media websites, businesses should keep their AUP (Acceptable Usage Policy) updated. Monitor the social network usage, ensure that home and mobile users are included, do corporate social networking and last but not the least...educate the users!