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Following recent concerns of companies over mounting pressure to monitor their social media pages comes another reason to keep a watchful eye on those accounts.
In January this year, a hoaxer, purporting to be an employee from Just Jeans, infiltrated the company's Facebook page.
Over a period of 12 hours, Facebook users who posted comments on Just Jeans' official page received responses from an account registered as 'Just Jeans' and which displayed the store's logo as its profile picture.
These responses included directing users to an online 'voucher' that showed an offensive picture of footballer, Ben Cousins. Another user was told that the staff member mentioned in her post had "filed a complaint" against her, despite her having left a positive message about customer service.
A short while later, Just Jeans took action by deleting the comments from its page. The company also issued an apology, but not before the damage to its brand had been done.
It has been suggested that the page had been inactive since December 2012 – clearly, the hoax would now force Just Jeans into constantly monitoring its page.
Given the huge increase in use of social media by the general public, it has never been more important to keep a watchful eye on all associated company social media pages – even if you don't post regularly.
If your company has ever been in doubt about allocating a person or team to monitor its pages, now is the time to act. Pages should be monitored constantly with any offending material removed immediately.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
