People use social media to stay in touch and interact with friends, family and various communities, while businesses use social applications to market and promote their products and track customer concerns. Social media liability can refer to insurance claims or even lawsuits for any online harassment, which can also result in a loss of social media privileges on sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Even a company blog can create a social media liability exposure, so, increasing awareness of social media liability exposures may help to minimize or avoid these attacks.
Established businesses are using social media to stay connected with current customers or prospect new ones. Additionally, new online businesses are popping up every day and are almost exclusively built around online marketing and social media. So, as businesses and individuals increase their use of online marketing and social media, it becomes ever more important to increase the awareness of social media liability.
Social Media and Advertising Damage
An advertising injury is an offense committed by a business in its spoken or written content, typically in an advertising campaign. General liability insurance guards against advertising injury lawsuits, along with lawsuits over third-party injuries and property damage. This policy can help pay for legal expenses when you're sued over social media mistakes – infractions which can include:
- Libel: A written statement that damages someone's professional reputation; for example, an inaccurate comment about a competitor's services could result in a lawsuit.
- Slander: A spoken statement that damages someone’s professional reputation.
- Copyright or trademark violation: This occurs when copyrighted works are used without the creator's permission; for example, using a copyrighted photo from the web to promote a business without first seeking permission.
- Privacy invasion: Interference in someone’s personal affairs without cause; posting a picture of a client on a business's Facebook page without their consent, for example.
Avoiding Social Media Troubles
Insuring against general liability can help a company survive a lawsuit, but that's only half the battle. A comprehensive plan is needed if an online business wants to succeed in avoiding any advertising injuries. Some tips to avoid social media negligence include:
- Create a social media policy: Make guidelines for what is and isn’t acceptable to post; ensure that employees read and understand the policy.
- Check the facts: Verify every source on each topic or statement the company is posting about. Is it accurate? Is it true?
- Update schedule: Avoid overwhelming the audience by creating a schedule for managing social media.
- Listen and engage: Share with followers by delivering interesting content that starts conversations; social media is built on such meaningful interactions.
- Strengthen security: Create strong passwords, update them frequently and share them with authorized employees; this will help prevent hackers from hijacking social media accounts.
How to Enhance Telecom Customer Experience through Social Media
Lately, leading online content players have attempted to redefine the customer experience (CX) by introducing customers to a more intimate, differentiated experience. They’ve achieved this primarily through an increased level of service simplicity, agility of operations and user personalization. In response to increasing market saturation and intense competition over the past decade, telcos have chosen to focus on the customer experience within their corporate strategies. While some players, such as Orange and Vodafone, are leading the CX race among telcos, they still have a long way in fully meeting customer expectations, let alone aspiring to redefine them.
To this end, telecom operators have unprecedented access offered by social media platforms, to create the next level of customer engagement and impact through unique opportunities that come from this wide reach. Such capabilities include personalization options, rich advertising solutions, innovative business platforms and powerful measurement and insights. Social media platforms are often considered “frenemies” because they can prove to be critical trusted partners for telcos as business models.
Additionally, social media platforms can develop dedicated API platforms and analytics engines geared toward telecom-specific needs. On the telco organizations’ part, deploying these models requires an update across all key aspects of the organization’s structures, processes, systems, resources and cultures, many of which are already underway thanks to their wider digitalization programs. Simply put, the more you know, the better prepared you’ll be to avoid costly and inconvenient losses due to an errant Facebook post or blog comment.