Social Media Security on a Limited Budget

So what can a small business do on a limited budget? The answer is the same as what they do to market their products: access free resources! Free or inexpensive resources are available that can help the small company monitor the impact of their social media campaigns, whether they engender positive mentions or negative attacks against the brand name or perhaps even instigate hacker attacks. Recall from Chapter 3 the example of the hacktivist group “Anonymous,” which was incited to attack and disrupt business for MasterCard based on the credit card company’s refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks. If a campaign results in negative mentions, or an ex-employee makes derogatory comments about you or your business, using a free tool such as Google Alerts, you will quickly be notified so you can respond accordingly without having to hire an expensive PR firm to clean up the mess. In a recent lawsuit, Harrisburg restaurant Cafe Fresco owner Nick Laus is suing an ex-employee for defamation.² He claims the ex-employee falsely stated in a Facebook conversation that he uses illegal drugs. With the right alerts in place, any public mentions can be quickly tracked. If the SMB follows a strict process, the business can, with a very minimal budget, have a robust response capability almost as good as a large company.

² Matt Miller, Harrisburg Restaurant Owner Sues Ex-employee for Defamation over Comments on Facebook, The Patriot-News (February 14, 2011), http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/02/harrisburg_restaurant_owner_su.html.

Google Alerts

Based on your choice of query or topic, Google Alerts allows you to create alerts and monitor the Web for the latest relevant Google results (Web, news, etc.). These alerts track blog posts, news articles, videos, forums, and real-time discussions. Keyword-based alerts can be set to once a day, once a week, or as-it-happens. Google Alerts notifies the user via e-mail as results happen. Common examples of Google Alerts queries include a person’s name, a particular topic, and even a specific company, all based on selected search terms. In Figure 14-1, we set an alert for the phrase “social media security” and the results are shown. A company would typically tailor this alert to the company name, competitors’ names, and key phrases about its products, staff, and industry.

Figure 14-1 Google Alerts set for the phrase “social media security”

Google Trends

Google Trends allows you to compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched for on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories and in which geographic regions people have searched for those topics most. The information provided by Goggle Trends is updated daily, and hot searches are updated hourly. One recent example of an attack on a brand is the hacking and theft of customer data in the Sony online PlayStation network. In April 2011, hackers stole customer data and credit card information after breaking into the Sony online PlayStation network. With the right tools in place, Sony could track what people are saying about the hacking incident, track the attacks on the brand name, and understand the damage that the company has to be repaired (see Figure 14-2).

Figure 14-2 Trends for “Sony PlayStation” over the past 30 days

Google Blog Search

Google Blog searches help users explore the blogging universe more effectively. You might have customers who will write great things about your company and products in their personal blogs but then there are those who will attack you or even post confidential information from anonymous sources from your company. Every company, large or small, should conduct daily searches. You can use both Google Alert and Google Blog searches to find this data. You select the time frame for the posts and set up alerts.

Create search terms relevant to your company. In Figure 14-3, we did a Google Blog search on “KRAA Security,” Gary’s company. The interesting result is highlighted. Gary is definitely not speaking at the Mumbai security conference as stated in this post. So is someone using the KRAA Security name? This false post needs to be investigated by KRAA Security.

Figure 14-3 Google Blog search results for KRAA Security

Google Insights for Search

Google Insights for Search analyzes a portion of search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames, and properties. For a company like JAG, it gives you the ability to find out what your customers are searching for to better understand your audience. Since JAG is in consumer electronics, a search term such as “Sony PlayStation” may provide some insight as to consumer interest, as shown in Figure 14-4. These results were over the last 30 days. Doing market research for free is a very powerful option for those on a limited budget. JAG can see what might impact its selling Sony products or might see an increase in returned PlayStation purchases over the last 30 days.

Figure 14-4 Google Insights for Search results for “Sony PlayStation”