Safeguard your Business from Social Media Risks

Social media offers SMEs many opportunities.  Whether it is to provide customer support, strengthen relationships or build brand awareness, social media can be a valuable communications tool.  Concurrently, social media also potentially exposes business to a number of risks.  If not managed properly, impacts on the business may arise.

Whether it is reputational risks, legal risks or operational risk each poses its own issues.  There are plenty of examples which illustrate negative social media publicity.  And organisations are now becoming more aware of some of the legal issues that can arise as seen in the following decision from the Federal Court of Australia.

So what can business do?

Firstly, it needs to be proactive to stay on top of the many issues that arise from social media.  And secondly, business needs to be practical and realistic.

Part of the solution involves implementing a Social Media Policy which is administered together with employee training and education.  A policy must be tailored to each individual business to cater for diverse values and beliefs as well as different industries.

The positives of having a Social Media Policy is that it also provides the opportunity to deliver guidelines to engage in social media which in turn can be used to empower team members to responsibly use social media.

Some businesses make the mistake of believing because they do not use social media for their business marketing, a Social Media Policy does not apply to them.  Nothing can be further from the truth.

Employers cannot bury their head in the sand as employees still interact with social media outside of work.  Social media is not separate from what we do; it is part of the connected world we live in.  Although, social media is complex, the risks are genuine, however, they can be managed effectively.

As social media becomes a more required part of business, navigating these risks is fundamental to safeguarding business. That is why a Social Media Policy is one part of an effective model of governance that business can implement.

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Tags: HR • SMEs • social media in the workplace • Social Media Policy • Social Media Risks