There’s always a slight element of risk when advertising your brand online. Will your ads be approved? Will your messaging resonate as well as you hope? Will a rival business try and pinch your ideas?
With that in mind, what is meant by risk management in social media advertising and is it worth your while? Read on and let’s take a closer look…
What is ‘risk management’ in social media advertising?
‘Risk management’ in social media refers to a series of processes that ensures your business maintains complete control over your social communications with your customer. The ultimate goal is to make sure that you always communicate on brand, that you never have to worry about unauthorised representation, and that everything shared is up to regulation.
Who has access to your socials?
The first step in risk management is determining who has access to your socials. Do you have a marketing department that takes care of everything? A few individuals who craft and publish posts? Do you have a social media marketing agency on the books?
Whatever the case, you need to keep the circle as small as possible. Only those who need access to your socials should have it. Furthermore, your login details (such as Facebook or YouTube) should be periodically reset for security reasons.
Who is allowed to publish content?
Additionally, you need to think about who is allowed to publish content on your socials. Ideally, this should be a tight circle and you should have a strict social media content development calendar. That way, you and the other relevant parties will always be able to know what is due to be posted that day and why.
Who is responsible for responding to direct messages?
Ideally you should have a specific person or department responsible for responding to direct messages. You can set up an automatic reply to buy yourself some time, however, you should definitely have a dedicated communications expert to respond to all social media messages and direct them accordingly.
If too many people have access to your DM’s, it could be that more than one person responds to the same message – with the potential of miscommunicating, responding incorrectly, and making your brand look unorganised.
Who handles the comments and reviews?
Similarly, (usually the same person/s or is responsible for your direct messages) someone should be in charge of handling comments and responding to reviews (positive or otherwise). They should always be on brand and follow a similar style of communication.
If too many people are responding to comments and reviews without a system in place, it will get messy, the brand-voice will likely seem inconsistent and your audience will notice.
Keep it tight.
Do you have a strict set of rules for customer engagement?
And of course, do you currently have any rules set out for the way in which you engage with customers online? If not, you should really put a list of rules in place for your team to follow closely. This can not only help you stay on brand, but also ensure that nobody ever says anything that might jeopardise your brand reputation.
Final thoughts
Ultimately, risk management in social media advertising is all about running a tight ship; keeping your social accounts secure, your communications on brand, and any posts that you publish above board.
If you haven’t got a risk management plan in place already, we strongly recommend that you look into it at your earliest convenience.