What can you do when disgruntled insiders take over your community radio station’s social media?
This week, non-commercial radio station KPFK saw its social media taken over by an individual signing posts Adam Rice, who was upset about staffing decisions and the parent organization’s board of directors. While the Los Angeles-based outlet is among the more prominent, it is by no means the first community radio station to have conflicts spill onto Facebook and Twitter. Some organizations have outright had accounts hijacked for a period or stolen completely by rogue elements.
What kind of recourse does your community radio station have in the event someone who gets let go or who is upset about a programming or staffing decision decides to swipe a station’s social media accounts? There are a few courses of action.
Prevention is the best remedy. Stations need to think about how passwords and accounts are handled, who has access and how permission is given and taken away. In addition, there are big-picture organizational culture discussions that must come up. Examples of this may include, how is access cut off when a decision comes that could impact a person with social media management responsibility; how does a station use integrations such as Facebook automatically posting to Twitter or vice versa; and rapid response and language for such.
Once things have happened, it’s a challenge to get your station’s social media back, but there are methods to do it, and contingencies you should consider while it’s being held hostage.
Social media is important business for community radio, and needs to be handled strategically.
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