Social media is arguably one of the most disruptive technologies of the digital age, and its influence is only set to grow. However, while it is key for businesses to have some sort of social media presence, most businesses fail to integrate social media into broader data management strategies.
When businesses fail to integrate social media into broader data management strategies, they miss out on opportunities to take advantage of data across channels, derive additional value from social data, and mitigate risk.
Businesses with access to a well-maintained social media archive can do long-term data assessments and comparison studies. Let’s look at five reasons why your company should archive social media data:
Complying with industry standards
The use of social media for official purposes is frequently subject to record-keeping regulations. Depending on how strictly regulated your sector is, the severity of these restrictions will vary.
As the usage of social media and digitization grows, more businesses will be forced to prioritize data archiving in order to comply with increasingly complex regulations and legislation.
In most cases, social media archiving regulations and standards are more stringent than businesses believe. If you want complete control over your social media data, archive it. Many companies have begun to view it as a precautionary measure in preparation for future litigation and social media rules.
Improved information governance
The desire for businesses to look omnipresent across all social media channels is already established, yet social media never sleeps. As a result, even if a corporation takes a more conservative approach to publishing and online participation, data can quickly gather and become difficult to handle.
Social media archiving can help businesses re-establish a feeling of order and provide much easier access to the material in question for evaluation and better business operations.
You can have far more efficient and effective data governance with fast access to recorded social media activity. This is especially critical in regulated industries, where your stakeholders may require immediate access to specific information.
You can get correct information, reduce legal risks, and handle data more efficiently with an automated social media archiving solution. Data is saved in real-time and in its original context, preserving context and visual presentation completely.
Ready for litigation
You never know when litigation will come knocking on your door when it comes to social media. By archiving social media data, you can be ready for any eDiscovery demands or ESI examinations without having to pay expensive outside expert help.
With the number of cases centered on social media or relying on social media content as evidence steadily increasing, it’s never been more necessary to be proactive in protecting against the inability to create the data you may find yourself relying on.
Social media archives guarantee that archived social media data is kept in a format that satisfies the stringent requirements for admissibility as evidence in a court of law, such as metadata and timestamping.
Protecting against claims of false advertising
In the eyes of regulators, social media impact on society is important, and it serves as an advertising platform. This implies that the content you upload will be held to the same high standards as any other promotional content created for the purpose of promoting your company and will be subject to the same compliance obligations. The more strictly regulated your industry is, the more diverse these conditions are likely to be.
You can offer authorities an irrefutable, timestamped record of your social media production by retaining your social media records. What is the significance of this?
False advertising claims are on the rise, and the transitory nature of social media can make proving your innocence challenging. You’ll also be able to counter any negative comments and nasty charges thrown at your company backed up by doctored screenshots if you have access to an accurate historical record of all your data.
With social media archiving tools, you can allow regulators to assess the context of the material uploaded by having an archived record saved in real-time.
Data loss prevention and monitoring
In today’s corporate world, social media ate-guide-omonitoring is mandatory. However, manually monitoring every single post across all social media sites is not realistic. However, as the number of employees who may have access to your accounts grows, the potential of inappropriate use and data loss grows.
Strong security measures when it comes to employee communication and posting are required for a business-specific social media presence. Archiving tools can help you recognize the risk of data loss on your social media sites by automated monitoring, automatically raising the alert whenever sensitive information is posted publicly — and archiving that evidence for use during an inquiry.
Keyword monitoring can safeguard your company from both inappropriate use and data loss. You can be alerted to misconduct or use that violates your internal policies automatically, and you can act quickly to remove the offending information and handle the matter with the persons involved.
Over to you
While social media may be relatively new on the scene, its value as a potential source of critical business information is only set to grow. The savviest organizations are already taking steps to protect their customers, employees, and brands from the pitfalls of this new reality by taking control of social media archiving.
Social media archiving can help your business comply with industry standards, improve data governance, prepare for litigation, protect against claims of false advertising, and detect data loss.
Damian Alderson is a business consultant and a freelance blogger from New York. He writes about the latest tech solutions and marketing insights. Follow him on Twitter for more articles.