Social Networking and Security or Lack of When Promoting Your Brand

In the 21^st century, social networking sites have become very popular. They also became very important part of our daily lives. We utilize many social networking sites to stay connected, convey our regards, wish each other for their birthdays, and to associate ourselves with certain groups. But, why social networking sites are very important tool for businesses? Many companies see this new innovation as a great way to expand their businesses. For instance, companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Star Bucks, Target, and many others use their Facebook pages to inform their audience about their new innovations, current sales, and offer discounts. These companies use social networking sites as a tool to get immediate feedback from their customers, and improve their products based on their customers’ feedback. Social networking sites have helped many businesses to expand their businesses via connecting to their customers directly. 

This image of Windows's Facebook Page illustrates their current sales, and links to directly shop from their Facebook page.  Source

Things to consider when promoting a company's Brand  Source

Important things to consider when promoting a company’s Brand: 

Since social networking is important for expanding businesses, there are few vital things to take into consideration when promoting brands on social networking sites. First, business owners should target specific audience. They should choose their audience based on age groups, demographics and locations. For example, if someone is selling video games, their best audience would be kids and adults, but not senior citizens. To get better understanding of the importance of audience profile, this will be a very useful source. Second, it is important for business owners to know what consumers are talking about their brand because their vital feedback can help in improving products. Consumers’ feedback determines fate of product because consumers are more likely to market products to their friends and relatives by spreading the words. So, it is essential to figure out what consumers are talking about owners brand on the web. This source will enable individual to find out what consumers are talking about them. Another important thing to consider is to active participation of consumers in conversations. Simply actively updating the company’s Facebook page and encouraging consumers to comment on recent statuses can achieve this task.  

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Security of Social Networking sites: 

It is crucial to manage security of owner’s social networking sites because some hackers would be able to hack into owner’s account and get access to all-important documents, users’ data, and private information of business. This would damage owner’s reputation, it would break consumer’s trust in owner’s business, and owners and users both will have to jeopardize their personal information. Since many companies are using direct buy options from their Facebook page, many consumers will have to risk their bank account information in case if someone is able to get access to the owner’s social networking sites. But what can business owners do to protect themselves from web threats? There are many careful steps that business owners’ can take to save themselves from becoming victim of hackers. First, owners should strengthen their administrative account. One simple way of doing this is by assigning at least two administrators (admin) for a business page. Additionally, admins should regularly review admins’ activity, and delete things that seem to be threat. For instance, some users might put their advertisements which have a risk of containing malware. They should use one-time password feature to receive temporary password every time to strengthen their business account. More information on one-time password can be found here. Another important feature to utilize on social networking sites is, deleting unnecessary comments. In Facebook, owner has an option of keeping posted comments on their page or deleting them, if comments seem to damage the owners’ reputation. This feature is important to use because there will be certain occasions where someone will try to spam business page or write inappropriate comments.