Employees and Your Business Facebook Page: What You Need to Know to Keep Your Company Safe

I hear from small business owners all the time that they are "just going to have their employee set up a business Facebook page" for them and let them handle it.  My immediate thought is YIKES!  Many owners think, "oh my employees are young and savvy when it comes to social media, who better to run my page."  While I am for collaboration and different members of the team contributing to the company's social media presence, you really have to be careful on how much access you give your employees to your business Facebook page or any other social media account for that matter and here's why:1.  If your employee is the only admin on your page, they can high-jack it!We never want to think about things getting to a point with one of our employees where they are high-jacking our social media accounts but the fact is it happens!  I have had a number of my social media colleagues tell me about situations where the company they are working for had an employee create their business Facebook page and they were the only admin on the page.  The relationship between the company and the employee changed and the employee left...taking access to the business's Facebook page with them.  If you are going to have your employees work on your social media accounts, make sure you also have full admin control over the accounts so that if you sense things starting to go south, you can remove that individual's access before any problems occur.2.  They may not be upholding your brand standards as you would expect them to.What you say on your Facebook business page and social media in general as well as how you respond to people's comments on your pages will become part of your brand messaging.  While you would hope your employees understand your brand and the message you want to send, giving them complete control over your Facebook business page is putting a lot of power in their hands.  If you are going to let your employee manage your business Facebook page be sure you are checking in on it regularly and ensuring they are speaking to your fans the way you'd want them to!3.  Social media is now a customer service platform and as the owner you NEED to know about customer service issues.   Like it or not, customers are turning to social media more than ever before to voice their customer service concerns.  If you have an employee running your business Facebook page, you've got to be sure they are not only responding to customer service inquiries in a timely manner but also resolving the issues according to your company's standards.  While you don't need to deal with every customer service issue yourself (if you've deemed that to be someone else's responsibility) you should at least be aware of what type of customer service issues are coming up and how they are being handled.  Bad customer service can really harm a small business.Encouraging your employees to participate in your social media efforts can make for great content.  It can also take some of the responsibility off you as the owner in having to manage your business's Facebook page or other accounts.  While I am all for members of your team being a part of your social efforts, make sure you are still monitoring your accounts and be sure that you retain complete access to everything in the event that you and one of your social media helpers parts ways!If you have questions about how to effectively have your team help you with social media, contact me at jennifer@smalltalkmarketing.com.  We can set up a time to talk about a social media strategy that you and your team can work on together!