Protecting Your Brand in Social Networking

Yves Darbouze knows about the risks associated with online social networking. Not only does his New York-based interactive agency pLot Multimedia use social media extensively, but it also develops digital content and online strategies for clients like Toyota, Sean John and Warner Brothers.

Along the way, Darbouze has learned a thing or two about the online social world. “It’s an anonymously seedy underworld that we call the Information Superhighway,” says Darbouze, creative director for pLot, which owns 12 social networks where six million users interact daily.

To make sure the postings, blogs, and feedback that his 22-man agency displays online stay on the “right side” of the online underworld, Darbouze developed what he calls a “moderation plan.” The system is straightforward, and also used by many of its clients: a user posts a comment and five to 10 moderators (often interns, but sometimes full-time employees dedicated to the task) review the content to make sure it’s not offensive, racy, or otherwise problematic.

The moderators see the posts right then and there, as soon as they go live,” says Darbouze. “The system acts as a buffer between us and the social networking application.”

The moderation plan finds employees constantly monitoring online social networking postings, and perhaps more importantly, the feedback and comments elicited by those postings. “Once you add that ‘comment’ button you’re soliciting craziness, and you have to protect your company from that,” Darbouze says.

The company’s risk management strategy, for example, encompasses regular searches for keywords, key thoughts and even graphics that might offend someone or isolate potential or current customers.

“If someone picks up on a racy

graphic, it’s called to our attention very quickly so that we can mitigate the problem,” says Darbouze. Of particular interest, says Darbouze, are the comments posted by competitors. “We have rival Web developers who use ‘buzz agents,’ and other ways of knocking each other down,” he says.

But where Darbouze has taken the steps necessary to ward off many of the risks associated with social media, many other firms choose to ignore the issue until it’s too late.  “Some companies have no policies whatsoever to govern their employees’ use of the Internet,” says Eddie Schwartz, chief security officer at Herndon, Virginia-based network monitoring software developer NetWitness. “They let employees freely use Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, with no regard to what they’re posting online.”

Turning a blind eye to the problem won’t make it go away,

even during these early days of social networking. Consider Facebook, for example, which asks for a treasure trove of personal data from new users, including high school and college information, mother’s maiden name and “everything else that unlocks the keys to our lives,” says Schwartz. “It’s all out there, being shared with random people who really aren’t your ‘friends.’”

And while Schwartz doesn’t condone a big brother approach to social media risk management, he says companies simply must monitor what employees are doing online in forums like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. “Educate them on what could happen if they put ‘too much’ out there for everyone to see,” advises Schwartz. “Have a policy in place, stating that the Internet is for company use, and that social networking sites can be used only for the sharing of appropriate information.”

Finally, Schwartz says companies can turn to IT, managed services, and security providers that have developed Internet monitoring systems. “There are systems that will scour the Internet regularly for issues associated with your firm,” says Schwartz, “and that will reduce the liability associated with, say, drunken pool party photos that employees are posting on YouTube.”

Tips for Managing Social Media Risk:

–Assign an employee to constantly monitor the firm’s social networking activities.

–If the photo, video or comment could offend someone, don’t upload it.

–Come up with a plan for warding off the risks associated with social media…and stick with it.

Understand that once an employee posts on a social networking site — and a search engine like Google picks it up — you may never be able to “delete” it.