Social media is now a standard sales tool for businesses, pressing businesses to implement effective and viable social selling strategies. However, alongside selling, organizations need to be aware of security – especially the security of the social media and mobile chat applications they want to enable. While selling via social media platforms is now normal, such practice can expose organizations to compliance and security risks.
These organizations need to find the right balance between three forces:
Highly-regulated industries can face significant financial penalties for social media misuse. In fact, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) collected $4.7B worth of fines in 2020. Enforcement cases from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) have also increased across the board. New guidelines have also made data privacy and data residency requirements more complex, not just in the US but across the globe.
It’s important that companies have an exact grasp of what they can and can’t do when building a social selling strategy. Here are some strategies to get you started.
Social selling techniques are a relatively new approach to regulated industry sales.
Social selling is the process of researching, connecting, and interacting with customers and prospects on social media networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) By commenting on, liking, and sharing prospects’ and customers’ posts, salespeople create and cultivate relationships with buyers. In doing so, sellers improve their credibility by taking an interest in what their customers/prospects are interested in.
Social selling is similar to lead nurturing; sales and marketing teams need to put in the time and effort to establish these relationships.
A social selling strategy is highly beneficial to organizations who want to improve sales efforts. According to LinkedIn:
A strong, thriving social media presence enables life sciences, financial services, and other highly-regulated industries to establish safe and steady returns. Research reveals 70% of Americans trust people they know more than general populations/brands. For financial services in particular, 48% of retail investors trusted their financial advisors because of the technology they use.
A social selling plan can drive a 32 % increase in leads in the pipeline – but it’s not without its business risks.
When organizations fail to address the risks involved with a social selling strategy, they can lead to serious financial disputes and non-compliance issues. Cases in point:
58 % of companies now view compliance as a barrier to entering new markets. But for highly-regulated industries, they are required by law to keep archives of all their communications, which includes their social media posts and messages.
Relying on the platform itself isn’t an option, however, since the data-integrity and archiving standards of social media platforms don’t often meet the standards demanded by these industries.
Pharma, life sciences, and other highly-regulated industries are not only worried about meeting compliance requirements. Ultimately, like other businesses, these enterprises are plagued by security concerns and issues due to the expanded risk surface that social media brings.
These are the most common threat vectors facing sales and marketing teams, as well as end users, in a social selling program:
Account takeovers (ATO) are identity theft attacks where a threat actor gains access to a user’s social media account. After takeover, threat actors can (1) attack externally by launching phishing scams against the account’s connections, or (2) perform a more silent takeover to gain back-end access into an organization or (3) deface the account to damage the account holder’s brand and reputation.
Spear phishing is a targeted, low-volume, highly personalized, social engineering attack. Unlike the bulk phishing emails that most phishers do, spear phishers use private information gleaned from social media to go for specific targets based on what they know about their prospective victims.
Threat actors can target employees and establish trust via information gleaned from social media including, interests, location, affiliations, etc. Once the victim lets their guard down, hackers can convince targets to wire money, give away confidential information, or download a malicious file, which leads to data theft and loss.
Law Insider defines malicious content as, “any viruses, malware, ransomware, trojan horses, computer codes or any software or hardware designed to disrupt or destroy any [ICT] operations partially or as a whole.”
Social media users have a higher risk of being exposed to such content because social media platforms don't often provide ways for users or companies to identify malicious content or profiles that advertise and share them. Knowing threat actors find it easiest to get their victim’s information on social media, the potential for the spread of malicious content increases greatly.
These concerns make social selling techniques a challenge for highly-regulated companies. The more ingrained social media becomes with core business processes, the further the attack surface expands.
87 % of organizations see risk management as reactive and costly rather than proactive. This is the wrong viewpoint. Risk management is essential. For companies wanting to reap the benefits of a social selling plan without adding risk, here are some tips:
The challenges of social selling underline the need for a solution that ensures compliance across a company’s tech stack, including their social media apps and accounts. The solution must be able to scale to meet the volume and velocity of social media messages. Machine Learning is a must here. Social media is a rapid medium. If an organization wants to gain the business benefits while reducing compliance and security overhead costs, the solution must be able to keep up. Natural Language Understanding is key to delivery consistent compliance and security policy application. Some companies have begun to apply this technology, with great success.
Social selling has opened many doors for many companies to boost their marketing and sales. Any organization can access these benefits, so long as they ensure a safe and compliant social selling strategy. SafeGuard Cyber’s robust compliance platform can help. See SafeGuard Cyber in action here.
If you are interested in learning more about the SafeGuard Cyber solution, you can take a quick 5-minute tour.