While your brand is no longer (solely) owned by you, your social media passwords and profiles should be.

In a recent question on the Chamber of Commerce Professionals Group on Facebook, it was asked:

Another question and something to be watchful for.

“Frank, the person that set up our Twitter account is gone, and the password she left doesn’t work. I tried to do the password reset, but the confirm goes to a gmail account, and no one, not even the person who set up the account, seems to be getting the reset notice.”

Advice? Ideas?

This is a very unfortunate occurrence and one that happens quite frequently, especially for some of us who have been on social media for a while.

Usually it happened like this, someone tells a staffer to secure social media profiles for the chamber and the staffer uses his or her personal accounts to sign up. No one was being malicious, just doing it the way they’ve always done it, as themselves.

But…that means all passwords, notifications, and communications are sent to an account you can’t access.

Not a huge problem until that person leaves your chamber. Add in today’s security concerns over passwords and what seems like a convenient thing at the time becomes a huge problem.

Social Media Should Be Social

 

While you may have one person in charge of your social media efforts, I’m in favor of multiple staff members contributing. From blogs to picture posts, allowing multiple people to contribute gives a better feel for your chamber and makes you less dependent on one staffer as being the personality behind your social media.

When setting up a social media profile (or if you already have one set up, change the email associated with it accordingly), choose a chamber email that multiple people have access to such as marketing@chamberx or info@chamberx. Have a common password you use for chamber platforms (not “password” or 1234), something known to your staffers involved, but not obvious.

When you change a password, either change them all or use some sort of password vault software that keeps track of them without risk. Make sure multiple people know how to access the “vault.” When someone who had knowledge of these passwords leaves your chamber, change them.

For social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, which allow multiple posters or managers, assign several employees to the profile, even if only one person is doing the posting. If that person leaves (a big concern is sudden departures), your account is not held hostage.

Social media is meant to be shared. Even if you select one person who’s in charge, giving others the ability to post or help with content will leave you less exposed to risk associated with one administrator.

Guest post by Christina Green

“Eggs in a Basket” Image via Flickr by James Lee