"What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube" - Social Media Security, Privacy, and Policies

If you’re reading this blog right now, it likely means that you also engage in activities on social media sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+ and many more.  With the many security breaches that have occurred over the past few years, most recently at Target, consumers need to be careful of the information they are sharing while engaging on social media sites.  

Social media security centers around personal account settings, amount of information shared, secure connection, and passwords that keep your account secure and information safe. Social media policies are the guidelines set by individual social networking sites as well as by employers, universities, and the government for expectations of conduct and behavior.  The policy allows each site to reserve the right to edit information and terminate users who violate the policy.

Below are a few key ingredients that effective social media policies should have according to Bahadur, Inasi, and de Carvalho (2012).

• Managing internal and external hosted applications, including monitoring and reporting tools and techniques and testing and auditing

• Enterprise-wide coordination

• Codes of conduct and acceptable use

• Roles and responsibilities for the Community Manager

• Education and training

• Policy management, reporting, and monitoring

Social Media Security and Privacy Checklist:

• Passwords: Never use the same password for multiple social media sites. Keep your passwords complex by using a mixture of letters and numbers.
• Location: Never post specific status updates that tell people where you are or that you will be away from home for an extended period of time.  This could expose you to burglary, identity theft, and other security concerns.  This also goes for location based applications that use GPS to post your location. 
• Policy: Read both your employer’s social media policy as well as each site’s policy for the social media sites you are utilizing.  Social media site policies can change at any time so be sure to check back often and adjust privacy settings as appropriate. 
• Be respectful: Do not post anything “defamatory, obscene, abusive, racist, bullying, or offensive” (Department of Defense, n.d.). Basically, do not post anything that you would not want to be made public. Erik Qualman put this perfectly in that “what happens in Vegas stays on YouTube” (Qualman, 2013, pg. 36). 
• Opinions: Keep in mind that your opinions on social media do not reflect official viewpoints of your employer and thus, should not be stated as such. 
• Images: Do not use any copyrighted images or company logos. “Employees do not have the right to use company logos and protected marks for commercial purposes” (Halpern, 2012). 
• Profile: Do not include detailed contact information, mailing address, email address, phone number, or specific interests as these could be used to steal your identity. When choosing a profile picture, do not choose a close-up of your face as emerging facial recognition software makes it easy for identity theft (Department of Defense, n.d.).  Lastly, restrict profile access to only your friends. 
• Friends: Be selective with whom you accept as friends on social networking sites.  Reject names you do not recognize as they could be fake accounts used to obtain personal information from you. 
• Information: Never give out unsolicited personal information. 
• Applications:  Be selective in which applications you choose to engage with and do not allow them to access your location information. 
• Update virus software and be careful when clicking on links as they can lead to viruses.

Social media security at the Department of Defense may be the most important security there is, as misuse could jeopardize the security of our country.  Though many of us do not work for the government, we still need to be just as vigilant with our own social media activities as it could expose our employer, families, or ourselves to harmful crime. The Department of Defense Social Networking training module (found here) really opened my eyes to the serious threats that can come from social media misuse when not careful.  

Social media security is a serious topic but let's lighten up the mood a bit with this humorous yet informative cartoon.

Heed these warnings carefully and proceed with caution as you engage on social media!

References:

Bahadur, G., Inasi, J., & de Carvalho, A. (2012). Excerpted from Securing the Clicks: Network Security in the Age of Social Media. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved February 24, 2014 from http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/social-media-security/. 

Department of Defense. (n.d.). Social Networking V1.0. United States of America Department of Defense. Retrieved February 24, 2014 from http://iase.disa.mil/eta/sns_v1/sn/launchPage.htm. 

Halpern, S. & Gardner, C.H. (2012). When is Your Company’s Social Media Policy an Unfair Labor Practice? Recent NLRB Decisions Offer Long-Awaited Guidance for Employers. The National Law Review. Retrieved February 24, 2014 from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/when-your-company-s-social-media-policy-unfair-labor-practice-recent-nlrb-decisions-. 

Qualman, E. (2013). Socialnomics. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Timing is Everything: Optimal Times to Post on Social Media

In my job in email marketing, I am always getting asked by clients when the best time is to send an email for optimal opens and responses.  Our response back to them is always test, test, test.  I cannot tell you the best time to send an email for your brand without having some data to back it up.  Some questions to consider include:

• Are the majority of your users viewing on a mobile device?
• Is both your email and website optimized for mobile?
• Is the call to action easier to complete on a desktop or mobile device?
• What are the demographics of your audience?
• What are the trends in past behavior?

There have been many studies conducted on the best times to post on social media and some conclusive trends found, though many recommend tailoring to your brand by testing as well.

Timing is all about knowing your audience and targeting them when they are most likely to be using the app.  For instance, Pinterest use is high on Saturday mornings perhaps due to people looking for fun DIY (do-it-yourself) projects to do that weekend.  Although many companies block social media sites, they are generally visited before starting work in the morning or perhaps as an afternoon break after lunch, thus the best times to post would be early morning or afternoon.  The key to blog posting is to post regularly and on the same day each week and then to link to your blog through your social media sites during the optimal times listed below (Bennett, 2013).

Here are a few highlights that can be seen in the infographic below.

Twitter:

• Best: Weekends, 1-3pm 
• Worst: 8pm – 8am

Pinterest:

• Best: Saturday morning, 2-4pm, 8-11pm 
• Worst: 5-7pm, 1-7am

Facebook:

• Best: Weekdays 6-8am, 2-5pm 
• Worst: All Weekends, 10pm-4am

Blogs:

• Best: Monday, Friday, and Saturday at 11am 
• Worst: 11pm-8am

(Source: Fannit.com)

 References:

Bennett, Shea. (2013). The Best Times To Post on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest. MediaBistro. Retrieved February 12, 2014 from http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-best-times-post_b49546.

"Tell the truth. Tell it all. Tell it now."

The three quotes below from well-known and respected executives at FedEx, Cendant, and Dell show in concise terms, how important strategic communication is to the success of a company.  I don’t know about you but I would not argue with a “shoot, move, communicate” strategy and thus, am in full agreement with the findings of Argenti, Howell, and Beck (2005) on the characterization of communication as part of an organization’s overall strategy.  Without communication, both internally and externally, employees would not know how to do their job, customers would not know which products are available, and investors would not know about news within the business.  Without a strategic approach to these communications, the messages necessary to disseminate would not be clear and actionable.

• “Shoot, move, communicate.” – T. Michael Glenn, CEO, FedEx (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005, pg. 84).
•  “Tell the truth. Tell it all. Tell it now.” – Henry Silverman, CEO, Cendant (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005, pg. 86). 
•  “Dell Direct.” – Michael Dell, founder, Dell (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005, pg. 85).

Kevin Rollins, CEO at Dell, states, “The job of a senior manager is to determine which elements of the overall strategy you want to communicate to each constituency” (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005, pg. 86). He goes on to state, “We break messages into pieces and try to give the right piece to the right audience” (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005, pg. 86). The communication channel and message must be tailored to each individual constituency, however the overall communications strategy much be cohesive in order to be successful.  This is where social media comes into play as a channel through which to communicate to all or groups of constituencies depending on content and strategy.  Each “piece” as Rollins describes it, is part of the overall IMC strategy which encompasses advertising, marketing, strategy, communications, public relations, and investor relations.  All of those “pieces” must work together to enhance the overall corporate strategy as any outliers could damage relationships and ultimately sales and company success. T. Michael Glenn, president and CEO of FedEx Services sums it up perfectly in that, “Communication is at the center of everything. You can’t execute strategy if you can’t communicate about it” (Argenti, Howell, & Beck, 2005 pg. 84).

               In reference to social media, the hard part is knowing which social media channels to use for which communication strategies and constituencies.  The infographic below, The CMO’s Guide to: The Social Landscape, is a helpful resource for a CMO or CCO to determine which social media outlet(s) to use for each communication objective. 

Click here for a digital PDF of The Social Media Landscape.

As you come across the need for strategic communications in your own work, keep in mind the five lessons in strategic communication according to the findings of Argenti, Howell, and Beck (2005, pg. 88-89).  They stress integrated communications, and management experience and involvement in order to be successful in your communications strategy.

1. Senior managers must be involved. 
2. Communications must be integrated. 
3. Structural integration is not the only choice.
4. Communications must have a long-term orientation. 
5.  Top communicators must have broad general management skills. (Argenti, Howell & Beck, 2005, pg. 88-89). 

References:

Argenti, P.A. Howell, R.A. & Beck, K.A. (2005). The Strategic Communication Imperative. MIT Sloan Management Review. Retrieved February 3, 2014 from https://www.dartmouth.edu/~opa/communicators/fall08/reading/Sloan_MIT_Strat_Comm_Imp.pdf.

CMO.com. (2010). The CMO's Guide to: The Social Media Landscape. CMO.com. Retrieved February 3, 2014 from http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/files/CMO-SOCIAL%20LANDSCAPE-R5.pdf.