7 risks of not prioritizing social media governance

Anyone who manages their company’s social media for a living operates every day in fear of being the one at the helm when the company Twitter account is hacked. But most of them don’t really do much to mitigate that fear. This is a critical error of epic proportions.

Let’s state the obvious: Social media governance is not the sexy side of social. It is about as exciting to most social media managers as getting a tooth pulled. But focusing on it is the number one way to avoid your company being in the headlines because criminals hacked your account and something terrible was posted. View it as job security if you have to.

At its core, social media governance equates to one thing: eliminating risk. And there are a lot of risks. You tackle these by putting proper processes and procedures in place and managing your social media accounts in a centralized manner.

If you still need convincing that focusing on governance is worth your time and energy, or if you need help making the argument for the resources you need to do governance well, let me help. Here are the top seven risks of not focusing on social media governance for your operation:

1. Risk to your brand

Obviously, if hackers gain access to your social media accounts, they’re not there to be nice. Ask yourself how much damage would be done if criminals gained access to your social media accounts and Tweeted something nasty, changed your account to look like your primary competitor’s account or converted it over to make it look like it supports terrorist groups (note: all are real examples). How much would your credibility be damaged? And what about your brand?

The EQ you need to run social media is really high. But even brands with money don’t apply themselves when hiring people to run their accounts. Moreover, there’s a tendency to be cheap, when SM is a high risk platform.

— Zamandlovu Ndlovu💉😷 (@Ms_ZamaNdlovu) September 6, 2020