eChatter

Social Media Employee Training Guide

Do what today others won’t, so tomorrow, you can do what others can’t.
― Brian Rogers Loop

This adage applies to many things in life, but is especially true when it comes to social media. Once something is posted in social media, its hard to unsee what you have seen.

By now many businesses have realized that proactively listening to brand mentions online is a smart thing to do at a relatively low cost. Social Media Management firms can handle this for you, making sure you don’t miss a beat on the web. The one area that is a little harder to track is your employees. It may be time to educate your employees on the importance of projecting a positive presence in social media not only for their own career, but for the reputation of the company they work for.

One recent example is of an employee of Little Cesars posting in social media about a customer. On May 30, 2018, an employee posted not only a vulgar message about the customer, he posted her picture on Instagram. The customer got home and her 16 year-old daughter told her she was on Instagram! The customer then called her local news channel and the rest is history!

So, where do you begin? The first place to begin is with your social media marketing department. Check out what they are seeing in their social media listening. Are they capturing any employee posts about work? Most likely this is hard to find by simply monitoring the brand name. Most times an employee will not mention the brand name in the post. In the case of Little Caesars, the employee used “lil caesars”, which should be added to keyword searches in their monitoring software.

We suggest incorporating social media policies into your training program. Use stories like the one above ( there are several of these on the internet you can find as well) as a way to showcase what not to do. Stories stick in the human brain much more and make a much bigger impact on a new employee.

Asking employees not to post anything with regard to their job is not out of line and can be incorporated into a confidentiality agreement too. Setting up guidelines upfront on what is acceptable will save you a lot of problems down the line.

The Importance of Media Monitoring for Businesses

As more individuals use social media and post online reviews, online reputation management
is necessary to the success of a business.

Corporate America has embraced media monitoring. With the growing popularity of social media, third-party reviews websites, blogs, and other digital platforms, maintaining a solid online reputation is necessary for businesses. Media monitoring provides public feedback on the company, its brand, products, and customers and can help head off any public relations crisis. This could potentially save a company’s reputation online and in the public eye.

Clutch, a third-party reviews website for B2B agencies, surveyed 224 digital marketers above the age of 18 and located in the United States. Survey respondents must be employed by a company of more than 100 employees, responsible for day-to-day digital marketing activities, and allocate time and financial resources to online reputation management.

So what can we learn from this survey?

1. Digital Marketers Recognize Online Reputation Management as Necessary to Their Business

54% of digital marketers consider ORM “very necessary” to their company’s success. But according to Ryan Goff, chief marketing officer and social media marketing director at MGH, Inc., an integrated marketing communications agency in Maryland, 100% of companies should dedicate their attention to ORM,. “I was shocked to see that only 54% of executives thought that online reputation management was a necessary function of their business,” said Goff. “As someone who’s played in this space for 11 years, I see it as beyond very necessary. I see it as absolutely critical.”

Online reputation management is critical for businesses to maintain a positive brand identity in the eyes of consumers. As more digital marketers understand the value of ORM in growing their business, they choose to devote more time and energy toward monitoring their brand online.

2. Businesses Monitor Their Online Reputation Frequently

More than 40% of digital marketers monitor their companies’ brand daily, while 21% monitor their online reputation every hour. Because online content circulates rapidly, how people perceive brands can change within seconds. For this reason, businesses always should track what’s being said about them online.

A single negative media mention can damage how people perceive their company. Simon Wadsworth, managing partner at Igniyte, an online reputation management agency in the UK, points to negative media content as a reason why brands lose potential customers. “When people search for brands online, they tend to search for stamps of credibility,” said Wadsworth. “If they find anything negative, that could end up being a significant amount of leads that the business won’t get from people who are put off from using the service.”

By frequently monitoring media mentions, companies can avoid the potential loss of a significant amount of new business leads.

3. Businesses Consider Social Media Most Important Platform for Online Reputation Management

Although there is a plethora of outlets that businesses must be aware of when monitoring their brand online, 46% view social media as the most important platform for monitoring online reputation. Social media gives individuals free-reign to post about their experiences and opinions and this freedom limits the control companies have over their brand reputation.

“You can do everything in your power to boost your reputation on standard search engines like Google or Yahoo by building domain names and creating content. Social media, however, is uncontrollable,” said Juda Engelmayer, president and partner of HeraldPR, a full-service public relations and communications agency in New York. “People can tweet whatever they want, or they can go to Yelp or Facebook to post about a bad experience. This can have a huge effect on search engines.”

However, the rise of social media also presents some benefits for businesses. Social media gives companies the opportunity to converse firsthand with customers, according to Shannon Wilkinson, CEO at Reputation Communications, a reputation management agency in New York. “Social media enables companies to participate in conversations about their products, services, and industries. It also enables them to monitor those conversations to ensure they can be a part of them,” Wilkinson said.

With social media, businesses are able to react and respond quickly to consumers’ inquiries or comments, enabling them to take part in a conversation that might not be available on a blog or reviews website.

Businesses Must Devote Resources to Online Reputation Management

To mitigate the threat of damaging their brand reputation, businesses must devote resources to ORM as a part of their digital marketing strategy.

In-house resources are a preferred option for monitoring online reputation because employees are familiar with their company and can devote time to spreading a positive online brand image at a lower cost to the business.
Online reviews sites also are an important resource to collect positive feedback from users who have experienced their product or services. Half of the businesses surveyed (50%) rely on third-party, online reviews sites to monitor their brand reputation.
Social listening tools, many of which are free, are another way for businesses to monitor their online brand reputation. Tools such as Google Alerts, Reputology, and Yextcan be set up easily and at no cost to businesses that simply are looking for a tool that will notify them when their brand is featured negatively online.
Businesses derive the most value from allocating resources to ORM when they work with a professional agency, according to Andy Beal, the “Original Online Reputation Expert” at Reputation Refinery, a boutique online reputation management firm in North Carolina. “It comes down to expertise. External agencies are experts in knowing where to look, helping you understand who your influencers are, which channels to focus on, what keywords to monitor, and what types of sentiment to look for,” Beal said.

About Us:

We have been mining social media since 2007 for our clients. By utilizing best in class software programs, we offer a service called eChatter.

eChatter works with you to obtain your objectives in a fast, accurate and reliable facet. By keeping our strengthened principals, yet evolving with this industry, we lead in social media monitoring. Since 2007, we have been dedicated to providing our customers with the most authentic data.

We offer:

· Deep Web Scans

· Jury Vetting

· Jury Monitoring

· Quick Scan

www.e-chatter.net

(866) 703-8238

Gangs on Social Media

When posting to any social media platform, it might help to think of all of it as potentially public. Remember that anyone can take a screenshot or copy and pass on your post without your knowledge.

Is there anything you can’t find online? Apparently not.

In recent years, social media has faced scrutiny for live streaming of violent crimes, the tolerance of cyberbullying, and distribution of terrorist propaganda and recruitment. Now research suggests that gang members are also employing social media. Gang affiliates, typically adolescents and young adults, are now using their online presence to promote their gang identity and gain notoriety, in a phenomenon called “cyberbanging”.

Based on a keyword search of over 50 street gang names, the three main social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace) were monitored for street gang presence. Results show that criminal gangs are not proactively using the Internet to convert anyone into being gang members. Instead, social networking sites are creating a new venue for people who share or are sensitive to the values underlying street gang lifestyle to come together. These sites essentially create a new meeting space for gang members to interact with a wider number of people who would probably never have been exposed to their lifestyles and exploits through physical interactions.

Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2013.740232

Dr Simon Harding, a senior lecturer in criminology at Middlesex University, said: “We started noticing gangs using social media four years ago and since then [the numbers using it] have doubled every year … it’s hard to quantify that because there are no statistics or research, but every street gang I am familiar with now has an online presence,” he said.

Harding noted that a lot of gangs had websites and fan followings online. He expressed concern about young people being inadvertently drawn into violent activities after making contact with gangs over social media. Harding said gangs used social media differently depending on their aims but popular platforms included YouTube and Snapchat.

A survey of 137 adolescent gang members found that 74% reported using the internet to show or gain respect for their gang. For older, more established gangs, the Internet does not appear to be a tool that they use to further the interests of their group by recruiting members or promoting activities. Instead they use it to demonstrate and solidify gang status by watching videos of gang fights or posting taunts against competing gangs.

So what can we do?

One solution to the problem is education, according to Harding. He believes schools need to be made more aware of what is going on, so young people can be educated about gang websites. This is important to make sure they are not groomed for recruitment.

Criminology lecturer and youth worker, Craig Pinkney, said: “In terms of policy makers it’s about linking with the
police and having an understanding, not just blaming young people. We can’t just say they are becoming more violent on social media, ignoring the situations they face now – high unemployment, lack of opportunities and poor education. Youth violence and the number of people are becoming more extreme. If we just focus on gangs we miss out on a whole section of young people that are increasingly becoming more violent.”

“The government should consider funding programs that educate youth workers in social media because the scope has changed,” Pinkney told the Guardian. “If there is a fight outside school now, for example, the chances are that social media has been involved and we help professionals understand that,” he said.

Earlier this week, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, blamed social media for playing a part in youth violence. She told the Times that social media sites “rev people up” and trivial disputes could escalate into violence “within minutes” when rivals set out to goad each other on the internet. He shows clips of young people taunting each other through music videos and in social media posts and offers advice to youth workers about how they can protect young people from this.

“We are also currently developing a new serious violence strategy for early 2018 that is likely to set out further action for tackling gang-related violence”, Dick commented.

Operation Domain is an ongoing Metropolitan police project aimed at collating all the gang-related content from social media and working with Google to remove relevant videos and materials from YouTube.

About Us:

We have been mining social media since 2007 for our clients. By utilizing best in class software programs, we offer a service called eChatter.

We offer:

· Deep Web Scans

· Jury Vetting

· Jury Monitoring

· Quick Scan

www.e-chatter.net

(866) 703-8238

Corporate Use of Open Source Intelligence

Corporate responsibility and risk management for any corporation goes well beyond what happens within the walls of everyday business. A very overlooked practice for companies of all sizes is digital research on their unique business and industry. With the rise of user generated content and social media, reputation management takes on an entirely new level in 2018. In comes OSINT, or, Open Source Intelligence (the collection and analysis of publicly available data in an intelligence context).

Frank Figliuzzi, Chief Operating Officer of ETS Risk Management, Inc., which consults with global clients on intelligence analysis, insider threat, and investigations puts it this way:

“Increasingly, security leaders systematically incorporate OSINT analysis from proven experts not only to get results, but because it is has become the new professional standard in the industry.”

Of course with the EU Privacy law in effect, hiring an expert in this area is key to be sure your firm is in compliance. With the digital universe doubling in size every two years, the time is now to be sure your business has a plan in place. Archiving and preserving your own online data may be beneficial down the road as well. Lawsuits pop up all the time, and having this data collection secured may help your case. In fact, many corporate attorneys are now insisting on this type of data capture for their clients.

Pew Research updated the stats on the U.S. consumption of social media sites online or on their cellphone.

Do what today others won’t, so tomorrow, you can do what others can’t. ― Brian Rogers Loop

“Increasingly, security leaders systematically incorporate OSINT analysis from proven experts not only to get results, but because it is has become the new professional standard in the industry.”

Do what today others won’t, so tomorrow, you can do what others can’t.
― Brian Rogers Loop