Social media is a crucial part of business, providing the means for organizations to connect with their audiences. From the latest fashion trends to how data engineers comprehend the data stack, social media is now a vital part of how we do business.
Securing your business social media accounts is a must to keep your campaigns running and ensure that you keep your reputation and accounts safe. Here are seven of the best ways to secure your business social media accounts and how you can prevent any hacks from ever happening to you.
Educate Your Employees Of The Latest Threats
Educating your employees is one of the best ways to secure your business social media accounts. By training your employees with the latest security practices and helping them understand the best social media practices, you can ensure that they keep you and your business accounts safe.
As a business owner, one of your responsibilities is to ensure your employees are safe. This includes educating them on the dangers of opening suspicious emails or visiting unsafe websites.
Employees should be trained to consider this when using business social media accounts. Through training, you can inform them of standard hacking techniques, such as phishing attacks, so they know how to avoid them.
Utilize A Password Manager
Using a password manager is one of the best ways to secure your business social media accounts. Password managers are digital vaults where you can save all your password information. Instead of needing to come up with unique passwords that are long, complex, and strong, you can use one password across all your social media accounts.
That's not to say you should just use the password for all your accounts. A good password manager will encrypt the information, meaning that even if someone hacked your account, they wouldn't be able to get your password.
Securing with a password manager allows you to improve the complexity of your passwords. You also don’t have to remember all your passwords, so you don’t need to write them down.
Limit Access To Business Social Media Accounts
Limiting access to business social media accounts is a great way to keep them safer. As a business owner, you likely have people within your business who want access to some of your social media accounts. They probably work in different areas or have separate responsibilities, but you'd like them to be able to share some posts.
Limiting access to your business social media accounts is essential. This means that only people who need access to social media accounts will have access to them. Of course, some businesses are larger than others, which might mean different access levels.
For example, the marketing manager might have access to posting messages on social media accounts but not have access to making changes to the profile. Meanwhile, the social media manager may have full access to all social media accounts to make changes and posts.
Use Multi-Factor Authentication
Using multi-factor authentication is one of the best ways to secure your business social media accounts. Multi-factor authentication requires you to use at least two authentication factors, such as a password and a code sent to your phone, to prevent unauthorized entry.
With social media, this is usually a code that is sent to your phone. This means even if someone can steal your password, they won't be able to log in without you. Multi-factor authentication is excellent for business social media accounts because it's easy to set up and further secures your accounts.
Almost every social media provider now offers multi-factor authentication; you only need to activate it. You can use several ways to generate codes, from sending the code via text or through authenticator apps like Google Authenticator.
Update Your Security Settings Regularly
Updating your security settings regularly is one of the best ways to secure your business social media accounts. Each social media platform offers different privacy settings. These settings allow you to make your social media posts private so that only people you want can see them.
These privacy settings are customizable, meaning you can make them more or less secure. Some settings, for example, let you hide your posts from everyone except your followers. Other settings let you control who can see your posts, such as only allowing certain people to see them.
You must review the privacy settings on your business social media accounts and change them accordingly. You should also check them periodically to ensure they're up to date with your latest security needs.
Protect Your Business From Phishing Attacks
Protecting your business from phishing attacks is one of the best ways to secure your business social media accounts. Phishing attacks are one of the most dangerous and occur most prominently on social media.
Phishing attacks involve tricking people into giving away their personal information. This can include passwords, credit card numbers, usernames, and social security numbers. A phishing attack involves sending a phishing email, usually pretending to be a website or a social media platform.
These emails are crafted to appear like they're from a legitimate source. You click that link, which takes you to the website. On that website, you are asked to put in your username and password, ostensibly to change your password.
The problem is that you aren't logging into Facebook when you log in. The website you just clicked has logged this information. You've just given yourself to a phishing attack.
Your best defense is to avoid clicking links sent in emails. Don't click any links if you receive an email from an unknown source. Instead, type the website's URL in directly.
Stay Vigilant
Staying vigilant is one of the best ways to secure your business social media accounts. This means checking your accounts regularly to ensure you're still secure. In the case of social media, this means occasionally checking to see if you notice anything suspicious.
You can set up Google alerts to notify you if the name, email address, or phone number associated with your business social media accounts appears on the web.
Hopefully, you'll never experience a hack on your business social media accounts. By being vigilant, you can set them up and be sure you're safe.
The Bottom Line
Securing your business social media accounts is one of the best ways to prevent hacks and to keep your messages safe. These tips will help improve your security, protecting your social media accounts and keeping your messages secure from attacks.
Social media is an essential aspect of a business. It can help you connect with your audience, promote new products, and build your business. Take time today to evaluate your security and ensure your social media is safe.
Author: Bash Sarmiento