There are many risks that companies have to be aware of when protecting their brand on social media. From hacking and impersonation to mistakes in communications and even botched hashtags, senior leaders are responsible for proactively identifying these risks to mitigate any threats to their brand reputation.
During SocialMedia.org’s panel discussion on brand reputation and activating social media crisis playbooks, senior social media leaders at the world’s largest companies gave insights into how they’re taking actions to get ahead of risks on social media.
Here are some critical steps that Mary Beth Levin, Social Strategy and Analytics Manager at United States Postal Service, Andrew Nestor, Senior Manager of Digital Strategy and Brand Engagement at Walmart, and Reinaldo Parreiras, Global Head of Community at Intel, said they take to protect their brands.
Who is involved in assessing risks on social media?
Social media leaders must ensure that communications are appropriate enterprise-wide when monitoring and mitigating risks. When addressing the threats to your brand on social media, it’s also critical to involve all necessary stakeholders in the correct steps to assessing risks.
We partner closely with the press office. If they’re seeing things in the news, we’re likely going to see it on social media.
Andrew Nestor, Senior Manager of Digital Strategy and Brand Engagement at Walmart
But threats can vary for different business units, as Andrew Nestor explained. Assessing the risks and deciding who should be involved depends on the type of risk your company faces.
For Walmart, Andrew noted how they analyze if it’s a potential danger at a club, in a store, or on social media, which helps decide who should be involved.
“We partner closely with the press office. If they’re seeing things in the news, we’re likely going to see it on social media,” he said. “That’s where I would say 60 to 70% of this stuff is happening in partnership with them.”
Along with their press office, Andrew explained how they partner with their marketing team to do proactive searching and social listening to stay aware of any threats.
“They’re flagging things as well for us that we may be seeing — a lot of stuff that pops up on social, say about a bomb threat or something in a store, it doesn’t get a lot of engagement. So it’s not getting flagged via alerts. But they have a lot more eyes and ears on things, and we all work together for this stuff,” he said.
It’s also important to collaborate with a communications team under a Center of Excellence model, which Mary Beth Levin stated requires various partnerships with many areas of focus at a large organization.
Every day, I go through the top 100 relevant posts to the mail and triage them off to the appropriate person as necessary, whether it’s legal, HR, or the inspection service.
Mary Beth Levin, Social Strategy and Analytics Manager at United States Postal Service
“We work with operations, marketing, HR, legal, and the inspection service,” Mary Beth said. “Every day, I go through the top 100 relevant posts to the mail and triage them off to the appropriate person as necessary, whether it’s legal, HR, or the inspection service.”
She talked about a notable team that she described as an unsung hero for risk assessment — the social customer response team.
“People will tend to give us the first bite of the apple asking for assistance, and then if they don’t get the assistance that they need, they’ll escalate it,” she said. “We actually have folks from HR who are embedded on our team to address those issues.”
Which tools and best practices help proactively mitigate threats to your brand?
Social listening tools are vital in helping social media leaders assess how customers view their brands and identify any potential risks. With the help of these tools, it’s essential to implement best practices enterprise-wide when risks arise so you can mitigate any threats your team faces.
Reinaldo Parreiras talked about some tools that Intel leverages to get ahead of threats and keep track of social media trends.
“Right now, we’re using Talkwalker, but also Sprinklr. And then NewsWhip is definitely helpful when something is trending, and we’re trying to identify before that grows and gets bigger,” he said.
He also explained how global teams must be able to localize best practices in assessing risks, which can be challenging with employees in various locations. Reinaldo noted how having a playbook ready for global teams can help provide guidelines and recommendations for any threats.
Right now, we’re using Talkwalker, but also Sprinklr. And then NewsWhip is definitely helpful when something is trending, and we’re trying to identify before that grows and gets bigger.
Reinaldo Parreiras, Global Head of Community at Intel
One example he shared was from when the COVID-19 pandemic started; Reinaldo and his team provided a playbook for how they would address risks. He explained, “It does help, on top of having the right infrastructure in place and processes and people monitoring all the conversation.”
The Walmart team also faces many global challenges, with roughly 4,500 locations in the U.S. alone. Andrew Nestor talked about the tools and practices they use to address localized threats.
“We’re using Sprout Social for publishing heavily,” Andrew said. “They’re getting a lot of good functionality out of competitive reports. And then NewsWhip is also a really great tool in our arsenal to see how things are trending in terms of news, and how they’re being shared on social media.”
Mary Beth noted how their use of dashboards helps track trends in relative numbers, which allows her team to analyze the data on what people say about the organization.
“Something on the website that goes up 150%, that tells us something is going on,” she said but added how it’s not practical to only rely on dashboards.
“Something on the website that goes up 150%, that tells us something is going on.
Mary Beth Levin, Social Strategy and Analytics Manager at United States Postal Service
“We have things that are automatically sent to us on a regular basis. For example, we have an alert setup,” Mary Beth said. “If there’s an increase in volume coming into a social customer response, we get an alert every day. We send a social customer response, and those posts that are tagging them that have the most interaction. We also set up real-time alerts for particular constituencies.”
With the help of an automated process and dashboard, the United States Postal Service team can quickly identify trends or risks to their brand. Mary Beth also explained how they look at the top hashtags, SEO findings, and top links shared daily, creating a consistent process in their tracking through dashboards.
Learn more about how social media leaders are proactively identifying risks to their brands
The insights from these senior social media leaders were during SocialMedia.org’s panel discussion on brand reputation and activating your social media crisis playbook.
SocialMedia.org members Mary Beth Levin, Andrew Nestor, and Reinaldo Parreiras discussed more on social listening best practices to inform your strategy, escalating and coordinating a response on social media, and updating and auditing your social media crisis playbook.
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