Five years ago when social media began to find its way into corporate marketing plans, countless social media publishing tools emerged. As companies within highly regulated industries also began to adopt social media for business, publishing tools had to scramble to find a solution for the compliance piece of the puzzle. As a quick fix, they created a way to check a post for risky keywords through the publishing tool itself but as corporate social media evolved, the need for complete compliance, regardless of the source of the post, became a necessity. In addition, regulatory bodies began to release guidelines for social media use and keyword identification was no longer a sufficient solution for enterprise social media compliance needs. The main focus of a social media publishing tool is and has always been marketing. Compliance was always an afterthought and now companies are starting to realize the difference between a social media publishing tool and a social media compliance tool. Here are three primary reasons why traditional social media publishing tools are being replaced or supplemented by new age social media compliance tools:
- Low Adoption: Traditional social media publishing tools require users to sign into a third party platform in order to post to their social media networks. Change in any organization is difficult. Attempting to implement an enterprise-wide tool that requires employees to change their daily behavior is not only a big ask, but an unnecessary one when it comes to ensuring social media compliance. A new age social media compliance tool allows companies to monitor social media accounts without the user ever having to login to a third party platform. Allowing users to post to social media as they normally would requires no behavior change which in turn, completely eliminates the risk of adoption issues.
- High Risk: When users are posting directly from a publishing tool, all posts can be captured within that platform, however what happens when the user decides to post directly from their Facebook account rather than from the tool? This creates non-transparent risk and is the exact reason why companies should not rely on a publishing tool to solve their compliance needs. A new age social media compliance solution offers API-based monitoring which allows all posts on all social networks to be monitored and archived regardless of where the post originates from. A new age solution operates transparently, much like an anti-virus software, which allows social media accounts to be checked for compliance even when users post directly from a social network.
- High cost: In the new age of social media compliance, enterprise-wide compliance is attainable without the enterprise software price tag. A new age compliance solution allows a company to monitor and archive all accounts across all social media networks for an annual price that is significantly lower than purchasing an enterprise software license for each user.
Low adoption, high risk, and high cost are three of the main reasons companies are choosing to supplement or replace a traditional social media publishing tool with a social media compliance solution. A tool is only as effective as the people who utilize it, so don’t waste your company’s budget on enterprise software licenses that will go unused. The new age of social media compliance is here, complete with a cost-effective price tag and zero adoption issues.
For more information on new age compliance solutions, take a look at how we work within Financial Services and Life Sciences to provide complete compliance.