SAN FRANCISCO, CA — (Marketwired) — 08/14/13 — , an innovator in social media brand protection and compliance, today announced a new dashboard and reports that allow companies to track what applications are used on their social media accounts and measure their risk from ungoverned social apps, as well as expanded coverage to manage what applications can publish across brand-owned Google+ accounts.
Nexgate-s new application risk dashboard and reports surface what applications are being used across a company-s social accounts. This includes automatic flagging of particularly risky accounts that have too many apps or where mobile apps and direct web access are used more than an “approved” social marketing suite. This information can be used in conjunction with Nexgate-s patent-pending ability to detect and enforce application usage policies across categories and thousands of in Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+. By leveraging Nexgate-s new application controls and risk reporting, social media and security officers can identify risky social accounts, enforce application usage policies for a wide range of social apps, including marketing suites, mobile publishing tools, Enterprise 2.0 apps that can publish to public social accounts, photo sharing and social apps, and make their social media marketing more safe, overall.
Today, there are well over 9 million apps available for Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. In fact, in a recent survey of over 500 companies including the top 30 companies on Facebook, it was revealed that no brand-run account uses just one application to publish content, run campaigns, or interact with audiences. The average enterprise had seven different publishing tools, and one had over 70.
Many of today-s social organizations invest in social marketing management platforms; however, there-s a common misconception that by using such tools all of a company-s social media marketing will be done using this application alone. To the contrary, employees often use other, ungoverned applications, thus bypassing the social controls and infrastructure established to maintain security and compliance, and exposing the organization to account hacks, hijacks, and other security and compliance risks.
Recent examples include KitchenAid, in which a mobile publishing app was used to post inappropriate content to the wrong account, and the Associated Press hack where direct publishing via the web was used to bypass the approved publishing application. Additionally, there are also serious governance and compliance implications from ungoverned social applications. For example, if an organization uses a marketing suite to enforce FINRA compliance, any publishing outside that application may result in a policy violation and fine.
“The application layer for company-run social media accounts is largely ungoverned,” said Sujata Ramnarayan Ph.D, , Principal at SMStrat, and former Gartner Analyst. “This is a gaping hole in risk management of company social accounts, and one that should be addressed by dedicated security technology. Nobody uses their website-s content management system (CMS) to protect their web page and, similarly, they shouldn-t expect their social marketing suite to protect their social media accounts. Companies need to proactively protect their social media program with specific policies and security controls in place to enforce application usage policies.”
“Despite an effort to standardize on a few trusted publishing tools like HootSuite, we suspected we were using many other apps where we couldn-t apply workflow, measurement, or even trust,” said Eric Ludwig, VP and GM US Consumer, Rosetta Stone. “We had no idea that we were using over a dozen different apps including mobile publishing tools. This new reporting capability was enlightening, and it is helping us improve efficiency and get more from our investment in apps like HootSuite. As a publicly traded company with a big bet in social media it also allows us to enforce applications policies that ensure safety, compliance, and trust on our social accounts.”
“Treating each company run social account like a unique operating environment is the only way to really handle proper management, compliance, and risk mitigation,” said Devin Redmond, Nexgate Co-founder and CEO. “Our unique ability to provide insight, actual risk measurement, and controls for the application layer of a company-s social account operating environments, including for Google+, aids in social media usage. Adding visibility, safety, and compliance to social media accounts on the actual account itself allows each company to create a trusted forum that they can more confidently embrace.”
For more information and descriptions of the application risk reports and application policy capabilities, visit the Nexgate site .
Nexgate provides cloud-based brand protection and compliance for enterprise social media accounts. Its patent-pending technology seamlessly integrates with the leading social media platforms and applications to find and audit brand affiliated accounts, control connected applications, detect and remediate compliance risks, archive communications, and detect fraud and account hacking.
Nexgate is based in San Francisco, California, and is used by some of the world-s largest financial services, pharmaceutical, Internet security, manufacturing, media, and retail organizations to discover, audit and protect their social infrastructure.
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