Whether you want to admit it or not...and whether you want to see it all or not...there are known and unknown components across the social media landscape that every company has to deal with.
Most organizations actually shy away from wanting to know unfortunately. The reason? Well, its sort of like going to the doctor. If you start probing and digging, you will find something eventually. Content on social media, and within other digital channels seems to stick around for a long time.
One challenge for companies is they don't really know where to start, and often, they don't really know what they are looking for. The first thing that comes to mind in trying to understand what their presence is on social media is content. Are there posts out there from five years ago I should take down perhaps?
The second challenge that digs a little deeper, is that most companies probably don't have a handle on how they can actually start to discover not just potentially harmful or malicious content, or even discover potentially harassing content in the messaging component of most social and digital platforms.
A third challenge is that organizations who begin to take this on typically don't have the tools to discover the assets they need to, in order to gain a full-spectrum view into their presence on within the social and digital ecosystem.
Typically when a discovery initiative is set forth, there is a trigger - a data breach, a lawsuit requiring an audit or even a corporate social account that is defaced. Often its too late to quickly repair damage in some of these scenarios.
The large majority of companies have corporate social media accounts that they own and operate. Big brands rely on social media to engage with customers, to demonstrate goodwill and to grow their presence in new markets.
However, most companies have a variety of other accounts that they may not know about. What does this mean? Well, these unknown accounts can include impersonation accounts, brand smashing accounts, or employees using social media on behalf of the company without the company’s knowledge. This is where companies have difficulty comprehending how copycat accounts represent risk...how fraudulent postings impact brand...and how malware-laced URL's end up embedded in seemingly innocent or corporate images.
A Defined and Documented Process is Necessary: DISCOVERY
Our DAST (Discover, Analyze, Secure, Test) process is purpose-built to secure your digital footprint. Our technology is applied to quickly and easily expose everything that could represent risk, damage or a breach of governance for any organization of any size. and to ultimately eliminate all areas of risk discovered.
The first step is Discover - - there are three essential components every company should take into consideration in order to identify, discover, and control their digital and social media landscape:
- Identify Known Accounts. With the digital and social media universe being so large, many companies do not know which accounts are owned and operated by the company itself and which are not. The first step is to identify all accounts that are owned and operated by the company in addition to any employees (users) on social media that are authorized to conduct business on behalf of the company.
- Discover Unknown Accounts. Once all known company and employee accounts are identified, the next step is to discover all of the other social media accounts and digital channels that may exist. This includes both unknown employee accounts in addition to all social media pages using a company or brand name, but are not associated with the company. Depending on the size of the company, this can be a time-consuming and an almost impossible exercise if done manually. This is why it’s recommended that companies use an automated tool to discover their social and digital landscape. In our experience for each 1 account you know there are 3 you do not! Automated tools are able to identify suspicious social media assets and digital channel participation and how they are representing a brand, employee, or executive instantaneously, saving hundreds of hours of manpower.
- Take Action on Unauthorized Accounts. Now that suspicious accounts have been identified, the final step is to take action on all the unauthorized accounts that were found through the discovery process. This includes requesting to monitor employee accounts, requesting page takedowns from the social networks, and being aware of what is being said on brand smashing accounts. An automated tool will also be able to assist companies with the account takedown and/or monitoring process by streamlining the tasks involved in remediating these suspicious assets.
You Can Fix What You Find
Its important for every company to identify, discover, and take action their digital and social media landscape to ensure their brand is being properly represented. With the pace of digital, this process needs to take place on a continuous basis because new accounts and new employees are constantly being added to social networks and new digital channels.
By continuously conducting this discovery process, companies will be able to control their universe and ensure there are no security or compliance threats taking place on channels that are not being seen by the company.
Contact Us or Learn more about automating the digital landscape discovery process here.