As social media pages become a more and more vital part of many organizations’ marketing mix, they’re also becoming a more attractive target to hackers. There are many reasons hackers are going after Facebook pages; the more sophomoric may be in it for the laughs, while others may be attempting to make a political point, or, given the impending arrival of Buy button functionality, be in it for some sort of financial gain.

[Tweet “It is completely on you to be vigilant about your Facebook page’s security.”]

There’s no way to sugar coat this: as the business owner, it is completely on you to be vigilant about your Facebook page’s security. You cannot depend on Facebook to protect your interests. Recovering a hijacked Facebook page is extremely difficult, and can take several days. In the interim, a party who clearly does not have your company’s best interests at heart can post anything they’d like to your page, including offensive content.

An ounce of prevention is worth several pounds of cure in this situation. Securing your Facebook page takes only minutes; maintaining awareness of what’s happening on your page should be part of every team’s regular operating routine. To that end, follow these steps:

• Make sure your Facebook account has 2-step verification on the account tied to a cell phone. This will cut down on being hacked, without causing the legitimate account owner any inconvenience.
• Make sure your Facebook account is tied to an email that is monitored every day, even on the weekends. An email distribution list is great for social media so multiple team members receive the email and it is not an individual mailbox.
• Install Facebook Pages App on your smart phone and turn on push notifications to see messages and stay up to date on notifications.

In the days and weeks to come, we’ll be sharing further tips to keep your presence on other social media sites secure. This is information that’s vital to everyone. There is no company that is too small or obscure to be of interest to hackers, so keep watching this space for the security tips you need to know.