Awareness Key to Managing Social Media Risks

​“I’m not here to tell you you have to like social media,” Paul Anderson, director of risk management publications, ECRI Institute, told attendees of the National Aging Services Risk Management annual conference on October 17, 2013, in Chicago. “But your residents, families, and staff are using social media, and if you don’t know what they’re doing, you’re at risk even if you don’t like it.” Anderson emphasized the importance of having a social media plan, including making a single person or department responsible for social media content and deciding ahead of time which tools would be used and how. He highlighted two key areas of risk that arise from organizations’ social media use: privacy and reputation.