For most companies, brand reputation and recognition is a priority. And if you read global risk research, you know that "cyber risks" and "damage to brand reputation" continue to rank in the top risk concerns of global CEOs. (You can take a closer look at research by Deloitte, PwC and AON.) And when you are talking about brand reputation and cyber risks, you are talking about your branded digital footprint! 

Additionally, a significant portion of a CMO’s budget is allocated across digital channels and social relationships. So ensuring that these channels are secure, effective and monitored is critical. This is why digital governance programs are becoming a key function in major corporations.

We are excited to announce that the Brandle Presence Manager has added native support for the global social networks VK and Weibo.

This is great news for our global brand companies who need to discover, monitor and manage the digital presence of brands that are sold around the world!

There are many digital threat avenues for bad-actors to infiltrate a corporation and social media has become a favorite. Even though there are technology solutions (such as Brandle) that help corporations with these risks, it still takes constant oversight, monitoring, and forward thinking. One area that is often overlooked is employee social media training specifically around the topic of risk to the corporation. This falls into the category of corporate social media security and risk management.

Creating a strong training program to educate employees on the risks and pathways that hackers and phishers use is critical. Delivering the requirements employees must follow to assist with corporate social media security should be mandatory. There are six key requirements that should be part of your social media security training program.

One of the most important things that organizations must understand about their social media governance plan is that it is not a static, unchanging document. Social media governance is a dynamic process that must be constantly monitored and optimized to ensure that it is steering the organization in the right direction. And the "right direction" is away from risks to corporate brand reputation and threats to data security.

To be truly proficient at social media governance, you need to know how to work your plan!

When social media arrived on the business landscape the notion of governance and risk management was essentially non-existent. Social media has evolved from a basic customer touchpoint, into a critical business channel for communication, branding, support and sales. With this shift in importance, the risks to an enterprise have escalated. In fact, corporate CEOs consider damage to brand reputation due to the risks inherent in social media as their number one risk concern.

The corporate risks associated with “being social” range in severity from minor events (such as losing one customer due to poor communication on Facebook) to major events (such as counterfeit sites phishing your customers or an account hack that delivers harmful information). Just ask Dove or any of these other brands that have recently found themselves at the center of a firestorm! Even the networks themselves are at serious risk as in the recent Instagram hack. Due to heightened security and risk issues, social media governance has transitioned from an ad-hoc administrative task, to a critical discipline that is firmly part of the corporate risk management strategy.

As discussed by Brandle’s founder CEO Chip Roberson in a recent Forbes article, social media governance is a coordinated set of procedures, protocols, policies, workflows and tools. An organization should know what to rely on in order to ensure that valuable digital assets (social media accounts and websites) are secured, risks are mitigated, and compliance is maintained. 

However, in order to activate a robust social media governance plan, a critical question that large brand companies and multi-site organizations must address is whether to centralize this function, or to allocate authority and responsibility to various local entities (e.g. international offices, regional centers, retail stores, franchisees, etc).

Now that social media is a widely accepted marketing channel to connect with consumers, executives have progressively elevated their concerns about the risks and the potential damage this technology can present to their companies. In fact, AON’s Global Risk Management Survey 2017 lists risk to brand reputation via social media as their number one risk concern.

It is no longer satisfactory to assume that the web is impossible to control — with the right tools and team, it is not only possible to control a corporate brand presence and social media ecosystem, it is necessary. But in order to make all of this risk management happen, a solid social media governance program needs to be created, adopted across the enterprise, and implemented. Like all risk management programs, there needs to be buy-in from the top and there needs to be a corporate-wide commitment to the ongoing discipline that successful social media governance requires.

Social media governance has become a new focus for the social enterprise. This governance practice is all about managing risks to the corporation (that might arise from social media) and maintaining brand standards and reputation across the social networks. Building the right social media governance team is critical to being successful.

Governance over social media is a difficult task. It is generally very detailed work that is ever-changing due to the ever-changing nature of the social networks and the fluidity of engagement. Strong governance needs to be applied cross-company, and spearheading training and process with multiple department heads can be challenging. To be successful at this governance practice, we recommend a two-tiered team approach : the core social media governance team and the extended team.

This post helps you define the team roles and gives you a start on determining your process for cross-company governance communication.

 I recently read an article in The Drum by Seb Joseph. The article focuses on how Coca-Cola, a mature social company, has created their new North American Social Centre to have central social media marketing of their brands. Seb describes the Social Centre as: 

"... a real-time newsroom to manage social media marketing for all the Coca-Cola trademarked brands (think Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite). Staffed by 55 people, including marketers from Coca-Cola North America alongside executives from agencies Possible, Havas and Publicis-owned Moxie, they are focused on listening and analytics, content strategy, creation and publishing, community management, marketing science, legal and media buying."

This is really fantastic, especially since Coca-Cola has lead the way in strong storytelling on social, but there is a huge missing discipline in the Coca-Cola Social Centre.

We are pleased to announce the release of our new e-book — The Social Media Governance Plan. A Guide to Implement a Global Risk Management Process for Your Social Enterprise.

This e-book was written by Janet Church of Brandle, and highlights the steps that are essential for corporate-wide acceptance of a social media governance plan and process. 

For over four years, the Brandle Team has been focused on how we can make social media governance and web presence management as easy as possible for companies with a larger portfolio of brands and social media ecosystems. When you spend that much time thinking about (and working with customers on) governance, risk management, and the global structure of an enterprise, you learn a lot! And now we are sharing the knowledge.

Here is what you will learn in this e-book: