The top 4 security risks facing your business on social media today

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With ad revenues generated from social media expected to exceed $35 billion in 2017, and the number of active users to over 2 billion, there has never been greater incentive to hackers, scammers and other rather unsavoury folk to look for ways exploit your business on social media. A fact backed up by ScamWatch stating that the number of scams reported on social media reached 155 034 in 2016.

In this article I will take a look at the top 4 security risks your business faces on social media today and why it is imperative that you address them sooner rather than later.

1. Scams

Very imaginative people are tasking themselves with thinking of different ways to try and scam your business and its employees, as a result there are always new and creative scams hitting social media. Usually all of these scams have the same ultimate objective, to get you to hand over private information from which they can profit.

The main social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are generally very secure; the issue is that we humans are not so resilient. For this reason most of the scams on social media use something called social engineering. TechTarget define social engineering as: "an attack vector that relies heavily on human interaction and often involves tricking people into breaking normal security procedures". This deception is only made easier by the large amounts of personal information that is available on social media, it is a lot easier to trust someone if they know significant amounts of information about you or your business.

Although the major platforms are getting better at detecting and removing malicious content, scams still slip through the net. For example, during 2016 a scam hit Facebook in which new profiles were created that were exact copies of real user’s accounts. Once created, the scammers would set about inviting the cloned user’s real friends to the fake account, after building their friend list they would post malicious posts or even message their 'friends' asking for money or other information.

2. Malicious apps and software

Malicious software in particular has been in the news lately, due to the latest version of the WannaCry ransom ware causing chaos by infecting NHS computers and servers.

In addition to desktop software, malicious mobile apps have become common place. In fact, Google regularly removes malicious Android apps from their Google Play store, with over 130 being removed in March this year alone.

The latest game or photo app you downloaded could be doing more than just occupying you on the train or making your photo’s look fancy, it could also be helping itself to your personal information. I don’t mean to scare you into deleting all of the apps on your phone, however a bit more diligence when choosing which apps to download would be a good idea, in particular when downloading apps that connect with your social media accounts.

For the everyday user this does not pose too much of an issue, however if you have your business’s social media accounts linked to your mobile, it could potentially cause you serious problems. You would not want just anyone being able to post from and change the settings of your business's social media pages.

3. Not having a social media policy

If your first thought when reading the title of this section was “what an earth is a social media policy”, pay close attention to what I have to say, by not having a social media policy in place you could be inviting disaster. A social media policy is: “A code of conduct that provides guidelines for employees who post content online either as part of their job description or personal brand” (SproutSocial). Your social media policy should cover a range of topics, including;

• The goals and objectives of your business on social media
• Who can use the company’s social media accounts
• What can be said (and what cannot) on social media
• Employee use of personal social media at the office
• Smartphone app use
• Customer engagement guidelines, for example how to handle criticism (Click here to see Aaron’s recent blog on this topic).

Not having a clear social media policy leaves room for interpretation in what should be posted on your businesses social media pages, as well as making it difficult to inform employees of the best practises when it comes to social media security. A social media policy is not something to create then leave in a draw for a rainy day, if created correctly it should form the basis for training new employees on the company’s social media.

The best approach to take is to have your business’s social media co-ordinated by one person whom is also responsible for keeping the social media policy up-to-date. This means hiring or designating a social media manager, who has oversight of all of the businesses activities on social media and can prevent potentially damaging content being posted.

4. Untrained employees and human error

Following on from not having a social media policy in place, untrained employees or employees that are simply not paying attention can be very damaging to your business. As I mentioned earlier, the biggest vulnerability to any system is, and has always been the human one.

US Airways discovered this in 2014 when an employee posted an X-rated image to the company’s Twitter feed. The company managed to escape the scandal relatively unscathed however had to fend off tough media coverage for weeks after the incident. This is a perfect example of where human error can easily put a business in a very difficult situation.

Adequate training of the employees that handle your business’s social media can reduce the chance of these types of events taking place. However due to human nature this will never be completely removed as long as we are using people to run our social media accounts.

If you are wondering what your employee training should cover, these topics are a good place to start; the dangers of using social media for anything confidential, clicking on strange links, accepting friend requests from people you don’t know, leaving accounts unmonitored and using apps that are not created and distributed by trusted companies. Employees also need to know how to use each site’s security and privacy features so they can lock down or remove any information they don't want to be publicly available.

In closing

This blog post is by no means a comprehensive list of all of the security risks facing your business on social media. However, it is a good insight into the risks that you should address as a priority. Although in this article I have tried to focus the social media specific threats to your business’s security, it goes without saying that it is also important to ensure that you address general security risks, such as using poor passwords for your accounts.

If a lot of the points I have covered have been new to you, start by getting a social media policy in place that address all of the above and you will be in a much better position.

I would love to know your thoughts on this article as well as what you think the other major security risks from social media are, let me know in the comments!

George Rudge - Social 365

The Dos and Don'ts of Handling Criticism on Social Media

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Social media can be fantastic for any business.

You can finally tell people who you are as a business, engage with your audience, establish trust and (what we all ultimately want) generate leads and sales.

Engaging with your audience is a great way build a reputation online.

However, what do you do if something doesn’t go quite to plan?

Let’s say you get a negative comment or review, how are you going to manage your reputation and solve the dispute?

You can do this in a few different ways, but beware, only one way is the correct way. 

1. Ignore everything 

This might sound a bit silly if you’re a business owner or social media manager. Why would you ignore people who have an issue with your product/service?

But, this does happen. (I know, I was just as surprised as you!)

Often, there is the idea of “If I just leave it, maybe it’ll go away”.

One of the big issues with receiving complaints on social media is that once they are there, they won’t go away. (unless you make them, which I will talk about in a second).

You need to handle them. If someone called your customer service number or sent you an email you wouldn’t just ignore it, and you can’t ignore it online either.

Why do some social media managers just ignore complaints?

I have no idea. Honestly. It baffles me.

But it does happen, and now you’re reading this, I hope it won’t be you!

2. Delete them

Now this is even more surprising.

Imagine you work in a big office. A client writes a letter of complaint and hands it to reception, and as the clients stands in front of them, the receptionist screws up the letter and throws it straight in the bin.

It wouldn’t happen! (At least, I hope it wouldn’t…)

But for some reason, people are more than happy to delete comments on social media.

This is one of the worst things you can do, I’ll tell you now.

Minus the fact that it doesn’t actually solve the situation, the customer is more likely than not to be even more angry after seeing their feedback removed!

What is the next likely step for that customer? They tell their friends list or followers about it. 

You don’t want to lose potential business just to save face.

3. Get aggressive

Image courtesy of ChromeSpot

One of the most common mistakes some business owners or social media managers make is being personally insulted when receiving a complaint.

Most of the time, if we take something negative to heart, we respond from our emotional side rather than our logical.

This can often lead to getting aggressive or defensive.

Once again, if you do this, the problem is likely to just spiral out of control.

Don’t forget: the customer is always right.

Another thing to remember, is that your followers will likely see the interaction. You need to think about the knock-on effect of being aggressive to a complaint.

4. Offer a weak apology

Time for another scene setting activity.

Imagine you’re a very annoyed and dissatisfied customer. You write a complaint. The company says, “Thanks for your response, we will take your feedback on board” and that’s it.

Would you be happy?

You wouldn’t to feel that way, so why would you want your clients feeling like it?

Let’s not forget, the issue still isn’t actually resolved.

This leads me on to the final response you can give, and what I think is the only real way to resolve negative feedback on social media.

5. Offer a sincere apology and resolve the issue

Your first response when receiving criticism should be “How can we make this right?”

How can you do this?

Offer then a genuine apology.

Something as simple as showing that you care about your customers and want to make sure their issue is resolved can turn an angry, frustrated customer into your biggest fan.

Seriously.

Imagine if you were handing a face-to-face complaint. You would handle it professionally, genuinely, and offer a solution.

The same goes for social media.

With online reviews, everything is public. Their initial comment. Your response. Their response. Everything.

If you can show that, yes you do get the odd complaint, but you handle them with professionalism and sincerity, the chances are your business is not going to be negatively impacted.

Use one of the other 4 solutions I set out above, and you may see a big hit to your profits.

Even angry customers can become an asset.

Mistakes happen. No one is perfect, even large corporations. We all make mistakes and we all get criticism from time to time.

It's how we handle criticism which separates the successful businesses from the "would-be's."

With internet access at the touch of our fingertips, it is even more important to monitor your brand reputation.

How you handle criticism is ultimately your choice, but you can show how amazing your business is by how you deal with negativity comments.

Aaron Savage - Social 365

5 Essential Social Media Goals For Your Business And How To Achieve Them

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What are you trying to achieve on social media?

What gets measured, gets managed and your businesses social media presence is no exception to this rule. This is where your social media goals come in, they add direction to your social media activities and provide motivation on the days when your posts are just not resonating with your audience.

Your businesses social media goals will be derived from your greater business objectives and will form the basis for all of your actions on social media, from what you are posting to how you are responding to customer comments. These goals will also allow you to set targets against which you can measure your businesses performance and highlight areas for improvement.

In this article I will give you some examples of some great social media goals as well as show you how you can measure your progress towards achieving them. So without further ado, here are 5 goals you can tailor to your business:

1. Increase sales

Or replace sales with sign ups, revenue or any other final stage sales funnel term. This is without question the most common social media goal people come to us with, and ultimately this is often the final objective.

Used in isolation this goal can fail to encompass many of the factors that will ultimately determine your success on social media. However do not be deterred, this can be a fantastic objective when used in conjunction with other goals or if your business has a particularly short sales funnel.

A great example of this goal in action is the use of Facebook ads directly looking to sell a product or service, from our experience this can be a fantastic strategy to use if your business sells low value, simple products that are fairly self explanatory.

Tracking sales

To track your progress towards this goal it is simply a case of measuring the amount of sales/revenue coming from your social media channels in general as well as your social media campaigns.

In order to measure the number of sales coming through to your website from social media you need look no further than Google Analytic's goal conversion feature. If you are using Facebook Ads to directly sell, you can also set up the Facebook Pixel on your website and assign a monetary value to each conversation. Once you have this in place you will need to review the data frequently to ensure you are moving towards your goal and amend your sales funnel if necessary.

2. Generate leads

If you have a longer sales funnel and/or a more expensive product, your overriding social media goal is more likely to be to generate new leads opposed to immediately targeting sales. The massive audience social media gives you access to can be a gold mine for new leads, especially when combined with the specific targeting options that most platforms offer through their advertising services. 

Leads can come in various forms, however usually they involve a potential customer showing interest in you business, product or service by providing you with their personal information such as their email address, name and area of business.
 

Tracking lead generation

There are several metrics you can use to track the number of leads coming from your social media platforms. Some of our favourite are; measuring the clicks on posts that are specifically aimed at lead generation, tracking the number of downloads of gated content, measuring participation in social media contests and of course keeping tabs on the amount of personal information that is being collected.

In addition, it is also important to analyse the quality of the leads you are getting from social media. This can be done by measuring the conversion rate of leads you receive and comparing this to your other lead sources. All of these metrics can be measured through Google Analytics. Once again you will need to set up conversation goals to track these metrics, once you have done this you will be able to see your conversation statistics in the Conversations tab.

3. Increase website traffic

In the same vein as generating new leads, another social media goal you may chose to pursue is to drive more traffic to your website. Increasing the traffic to your website or blog can be a great way to show your social media audience exactly what your business is all about and hopefully convert them into customers. A secondary benefit of pursuing this goal is improvement to your websites search engine ranking, more people visiting your site will convey to Google that you are an authority on your particular area of business.

Tracking website traffic

Traffic to your website can be measured using several different metrics. Obviously measuring overall traffic volume is a good idea, in addition, you will want to measure the proportion of traffic coming from social media and compare this to your other sources. Another important metric to consider is the bounce rate of the traffic from social media, this will give you a good indicator of the quality of the leads coming from your social platforms.

Once again Google Analytics is your friend here, simply go to: Acquisition - All Traffic - Channels and you will find all of the above metrics and more.

4. Improve brand awareness

Unless you are the likes of Coca Cola or Apple, it is probably safe to say that improving your brand awareness is fairly high up on your to do list. Social media is the perfect place to get your business in front of new potential customers, Facebook alone has over 1.86 billion monthly active users, that is almost 25% of the worlds population! Setting this goal is a great way to help you stay accountable and will add direction to your overall social media strategy.

Tracking brand awareness

Tracking this goal is a little less obvious than the others that I have mentioned thus far, however fear not it can still easily be done. The key metrics that you should use for tracking this goal are follower/like count, post reach and the number shares, mentions and re-tweets you are getting. Combining all of these metrics will give you a great overview of how many people are seeing as well as interacting with your businesses content.

If this is a goal you wish to set for you own business, measuring these metrics is easy, most platforms have these statistics easily available through there native analytics tools and come at no additional cost, simply Google the platform followed by "analytics".

5. Increase brand engagement

If you want your content to be seen by as many of your social media followers as possible, you will need to prioritise increasing the engagement your content receives. Several of the biggest social media platforms use algorithms to place high engagement content at the top of users news feeds. The key to increasing your brand engagement is to make sure you are publishing content that encourages your target audience to like, comment and share. In addition, a great way to directly increase engagement on your posts is to simply reply to any comments/tweets your pages receives and encourage further interaction.

Tracking engagement

The key to tracking engagement is to measure the amount of likes, shares, comments, mentions and replies you are receiving. The easiest way to do this is once again using the native analytics provided by most of the major social media platforms. Another great tool you can use to track this goal is social listening. Sprout Social defines social listening as: "the process of tracking conversations around specific phrases, words or brands, and then leveraging them to discover opportunities or create content for those audiences". There are some great free tools out there for helping you do this, a good place to start is Social Mention.

In Summary

There are many different goals that your business can pursue on social media, the ones your chose will ultimately be decided by your businesses objectives. The key to reaching your social media goals is establishing a reliable way of tracking your progress and reviewing this frequently. When outlining your social media goals the for month, quarter or year, decide which metric/s most reliably track the underlying fundamentals to your goal/s and set up a process for tracking this metric. If you do this for all of your social media goals you will be one step closer to achieving them and reaping all of the benefits that social media has to offer.

What goals have you established for your businesses social media? Let us know in the comments.

George Rudge - Social 365

A "How To" Guide for Social Media Customer Care (Infographic)

The power of social media is well known to the modern marketer now days. 

For the first time in history, we are all connected at the touch of a button. No matter where you are in the world, people can stay connected and communicate with each other. 

If people want to reach out to a family member, a friend or even a complete stranger, social media is the place they go. This is also the case when customers are looking to purchase a product or service. Whats the go to place? You guessed it, social media. 

The first stop for most customers in 2017 when looking for reviews: social media. 

Queries. Complaints. Feedback. Whatever it is your customers want to find out or communicate to your business, you can bet that it will happen on social media. 

Your reputation is on the line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. One customer's negative comments, if handled incorrectly, can have a rippled effect impact millions of potential customers decisions.

How you and your business handle the situation, and interact with potential and existing customers, will impact how others view your business. Can you ensure you won't compromise your brand?

The quality of your customer service can make or break your business. Now, more than ever, it is important to manage your online reputation and show off your excellent customer service to everyone. And there is no better way to do it than on social media.

Social media can be an extremely rewarding area of your business, you just need to know what to do (and what not to do) online. 

These hints and tips from Headway Capital’s infographic will give you a great place to start for your customer service on social media:

Aaron Savage - Social 365

Your key to understanding promoted posts on Facebook and 4 great ideas for your next campaign

You may have seen Facebook offering your business page the opportunity to promote, boost or sponsor posts. Confused? Don't worry, in this article I will tell you exactly what promoted posts are, how they can help your business and how you can create adverts that will help you attract new fans, increase engagement and ultimately your conversions.

A promoted post, also known as sponsored or boosted posts, are Facebook posts that benefit from amplified reach and targeting options in exchange for a fee. Promoting a posts allows more people to see your content, importantly those outside of your current network. Facebook gives you the option to promote almost any content, including plain text, photos, videos, links and offers from your business Facebook page. All of this means that your post will appear higher in people news feeds as well as appearing in the news feeds of people who do not currently follow your business.

So why should you be using Facebook promotions? Well as mentioned they give your business the ability to create super targeted advertising campaigns and reach out to new customers. You may think that this high quality advertising will break the bank, however you will be pleasantly surprised to know that Facebook promotion campaigns can be run for as little as £1 per day.

Now you know what promoted posts are and how they can help your business, here are 4 great ideas for your upcoming adverts that will help your business stand out and generate more engagement on your posts.

1. Use visuals

Facebook posts with visual content generate 2.3 times more engagement than those without. Therefore it is important that you are using visual content in your Facebook promotions and absolutely imperative if your business sells physical products. 

If you incorporate an image into your advert, make sure you use a high quality image! There is no excuse for not using high quality images when we have smart phones that take HD photographs. On the other hand, if you opt for a video based advert be sure to spend the extra money on high quality production and editing services. Using a poor quality image or video will not only hinder the results your get from your advert, but it will also negatively effect how people view your brand.

As far as what image/s or video to use, if you sell a physical product it is a good idea to use an image or video that displays your product in use so you can show the benefits that it provides to the customer. If you are stuck for ideas, take a look at what your competitors are posting and having success with, this will give you an idea of what content will get a good reaction from your own target audience.

2. Encourage reactions

Another tool in your advert arsenal is the six reaction emojis that users can use to show how they feel about your content. This feature has been very popular since it's introduction last year and is still driving high levels of engagement. A good use for this feature is to create an advert with various images that correspond to specific reactions and encourage users to choose the emoji that is linked to their favorite image. This is a great option for helping you find out more about your audience and can be used as part of your wider campaign strategy to help you decide what products/services to focus your future marketing efforts on.

3. Encourage tagging

Another great way to generate high levels of engagement and interest is to ask people to tag their friends in the comments of your promoted post. To be successful you must create an image, video or post which your audience thinks is good, funny or relevant enough to tag their friends.

Some of the best examples of this strategy we have seen at Socail 365 is the use of a humorous meme or video combined with the request to "tag someone who this reminds you of". Another option is to use a picture of your product or service combined with a caption similar to: "tag a friend who would love our (product name)". This strategy can be applied to almost anything and is only limited by your imagination, so get creative.

4. Promote an offer

Another great option is to promote an offer your business is currently running. This can be a fantastic way to get new customers through the door quickly. With a well timed and well designed advert you could soon have more orders than you can cope with. We often find that the best time to promote an offer is in the run-up to a specific day for example, Christmas, bank holidays, mother's day ect. If you have a time of year in which your products/services are particularly popular, this is the perfect time to run this sort of promotion as your customers are already looking to make a purchase.

If you opt for this type of promotion, remember: you need to leave enough time for the offer to reach people before it expires, in addition, make sure that you have the ability to meet the increase in demand that will hopefully result. There is little point generating orders you cannot for-fill.

Things to bare in mind

The work does not stop once your promotion is up and running. It is important to stay up to date with the progress of your advert. A good indicator of how your promotion is being received is to keep an eye on the comments for any positive or negative remarks, this also allows you to answer and questions your customers ask. Once your promotion has been running for a few hours take a look at the analytics, you should be aiming for an engagement rate of 1% or higher. Finally, be sure to keep a record of your campaigns performance stats so that you can measure performance against future promotions, this will allow you to see what advert features produce the best results with your audience.

So now you have a few more ideas of what your next promoted post could be. The key to using Facebook's advertising service is to find what resonates best with your audience, don't be afraid to try new ideas and experiment until you find the combination that your customers love.

George Rudge - Social 365