The Hidden Threat to Your Law Firm’s Social Media Presence
Picture this: You’ve spent years building your law firm’s online presence. You have a 5-star rating, hundreds or thousands of likes and followers, and you’re getting the leads and engagement that other attorneys dream of…only to lose it in seconds because of a disgruntled ex-employee or unscrupulous agency that has sole access to your firm’s social media accounts.
Years of hard work growing a positive social media presence could not only be gone, but ruined, in a matter of moments.
Could your law firm handle a catastrophe like that?
Talk about a nightmarish situation to be in…unless you’re secretly an eccentric scientist that has a DeLorean with a flux capacitor to send you back in time to fix the account ownership issue before it starts. If you’re without a 1980s time traveling vehicle, then this likely isn’t an option for you.
Privacy Risks Your Law Firm Can’t Afford to Ignore
Potential clients message law firms online every single day, giving out personal, contact, and case information without a second thought, because they think that the communication is safe and guarded because they sent it in a DM.
And why wouldn’t they? They’re chatting with their most trusted legal professional, their lifeline, so of course it’s going to be safe…right? It’s not like their lawyer would ever allow a risk like that. Or would they?
Not-So-Fun Fact:
82% of all data breaches involve human error, like misuse of credentials, according to the 2023 Verizon Data Breach Report. Cybersecurity threats, such as unauthorized use, are an ever-growing problem and social media account ownership and access is no exception to this.
Let me paint you a scary, but all too real, scenario: You fire the only employee with access or ownership of your social media profiles or business manager, and they’re out for revenge. Or maybe you fired your social media vendor because you weren’t happy with their work. All of a sudden, your firm’s profile and cover photos contain explicit images.
Your carefully constructed bio and contact information? Replaced with a link to an adult website and a 900-number that charges callers three dollars per minute. Your posts go from fun, informative, and helpful to lies and slander about how awful you are, how you treat all your clients horribly and steal all their settlement money, or worse. Even though you know not a single word of that is true, you have no chance at disputing that if you don’t have account ownership. Period. Word gets around quickly online, and you know the old saying – if it’s online it must be true.
In this digital age where everyone is online and connected all the time, it would be so easy to take a screenshot of a wrongdoing, and we both know the lawsuits that you’d be hit with would be astronomical. To quote the Tiger King, “I’m never going to financially recover from this.”
How Many Strangers Still Have Access to Your Social Media?
I’m telling you this not to scare you, but to urge you to take action. The amount of past employees and uncooperative digital marketing agencies I’ve had to contact and convince to hand over the reins to our clients’ social media accounts would probably boggle your mind. No joke.
I can hear you asking yourself, “But what if my ex-employee or ex-vendor refuses to reply or hand over ownership of my social media? Have I lost all chances of ever gaining access?”
Honestly, there is no clear answer to that question. I’ve had several uphill battles with past vendors, ex-employees, and Meta because of that very reason. It’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree in the middle of a July heat wave in 97% humidity. The amount of documentation you need to not only prove you own your firm, but that you are who you say you are and why ownership of the social media account should be yours is astounding. I don’t think you even need that much documentation to get a passport or even buy a house!
Guess what? Social media platforms, prior vendors or marketing agencies or former employees don’t always reply or say yes to the request of granting you ownership of your firm’s page. In fact, it’s more common for their support reps to drag their feet and deny the request to transfer ownership, and for a variety of reasons.
To say it’s frustrating and disheartening is an understatement, for both the client and for your marketing agency. We want nothing more than to be able to successfully resolve the issue and have your firm’s social media accounts owned and controlled by the rightful owner – YOU.
Take Control: How to Make Sure You Own Your Social Media Accounts
So what can you do right now that will set you on the right path to ensuring you own your firm’s social media? I’m glad you asked. Let’s get down to brass tacks. For full ownership of your social media accounts, you’ll want:
- A strong, hard to guess password – this one is pretty self explanatory. Use a trusted password generator tool that uses a combination of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols to create a password.
- A password manager for login credentials – to increase security on shared logins and keep you from having to write down the password on a sticky note or creating an easy-to-hack document with all the login credentials.
- Two-factor authentication (2FA) for every person who has any kind of role on your account – to prevent any unauthorized access.
- A regular recurring auditing of who has a role on the account and what permissions they have – to ensure that an ex-employee or former vendor no longer has access to your account.
- An offboarding process for removal of admins whenever vendors are changed.
- To have more than just yourself in an admin role (like a partner in the firm or a trusted family member) – just in case something happens to your personal account and it gets banned or deactivated, you’ll still have a way to regain access.
- A Super Admin role on your company’s LinkedIn business page.
- To create a business manager for your Meta accounts – this allows for greater security and more control for your Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Consultwebs Can Help You Ensure Your Social Media Business Pages Are Secure
I hear the question you’re not asking, too. And the answer is no, you definitely should NOT hesitate to contact Consultwebs, even if you have little to no access to your firm’s social media accounts.
Our team offers everything from creating new social profiles for the firm to helping you regain access to accounts that only previous vendors or an ex-employee had. We can even walk you and your staff (on a Zoom call or screen share) through the process of granting you an owner and/or admin role on the page.
We want you to have ownership of your accounts just as much as you do. We’ve seen such preventable account losses that didn’t need to happen and share in the frustration you feel when a social media platform or ex-vendor/employee isn’t cooperative with your requests.
Let’s be real for a minute: your time is best spent practicing law and taking care of your clients, not worrying about your organic and paid social media, your website, SEO, or Google paid ads.
Let us handle the details so you can experience the successes and growth that Consultwebs has to offer you! What are you waiting for?
