This type of advertising and promoting is growing in popularity, but it does come with drawbacks.
Businesses have been working hard to get the very most out of social media marketing in the hopes of being able to connect with customers and prospective clients without having to spend a large part of their overall advertising budget.
However, while this channel has opened up a world of opportunities, it is also coming with risks.
Among the risks that are now being associated with the use of social media marketing are data breaches and identity theft. For this reason, it is very important that businesses of all sizes pay attention to the way in which they are using the various networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and others, and recognize what they could be inadvertently sharing if the wrong person were to make his or her way in.
Many of the largest social media marketing sites have already experienced events involving data breaches.
Among the online and mobile security risks that are being associated with the use of social media for advertising and promoting purposes is the dreaded data breach. However, intellectual property theft is also becoming problematic and many companies overlook this particular threat. It is a good idea for businesses who are using this channel within their marketing strategy to identify the types of risks that they face so that proper preparations can be made.
In a recent story published by Merchants Information Solutions vice president, Mark Pribish, there were five risks that were underscored as being the most important to businesses using social media. These could be deliberate or entirely unintentional and included: making misleading or false claims, infringing on copyrights or trademarks, using intellectual property without permission, posting confidential information or trade secrets, or sharing customer or employee information in a way that could provide a cyber criminal the data they need for a data breach.
While most would agree that the threat of online and mobile security events is not enough to justify stopping the use of social media marketing, the consensus is that proper preparations can make all the difference in keeping data secure and avoiding legal struggles.
