Why Internal Newsletter Campaigns Should Be Secure, Too
Remember that iPhone 4 that was forgotten in a bar by an Apple employee before its official release date? This is the type of mistake you want to avoid at all costs.
Of course, this is a rather extreme staff error, but you’d be surprised to find out how sloppy people are with their everyday internal communications and sensitive company information.
It is not uncommon for companies to forget about security measures when it comes to their internal communications. Who wants to read our internal newsletters you might ask; who cares about our weekly overviews, why does anyone care what I discuss with my colleagues? You’d be taken aback. There are many people that do want to know all of these things. So, really, how do you safeguard yourself well?
Plan for Internal Newsletters in SharePoint
1. Why You Should be Sending Newsletters to Your Employees
2. How to Write an Internal Newsletter Your Employees Will Want to Read
3. 10 Topic Ideas to Help You Jumpstart your Internal Newsletter Campaign
4. Why Your Internal Newsletter Communications Should Be About Security, Too
5. How You Can Use Insights Into Your Internal Newsletter Campaign to Boost Results
6. How to Turn Your SharePoint into the Ultimate Engagement Platform
7. How Information Architecture Will Help You Automate Content Delivery
8. Responsive Email Templates, Why Do We Use Them?
9. Newsletter Metrics, Link Clicks and Opens, How They Work
Here I’ll outline the most secure practices for internal communications. I’ll explain when you should be choosing a cloud service, and when you should opt for an on premise solution. Above all, these safety tips should encourage you to look again at the existing security for your internal communications.
Cloud vs. Local
When everything is in the cloud it is literally and figuratively out of your hands. It should not come as a surprise that problems with cloud services do arise. And they make for the juiciest press stories. Still, cloud services have been getting increasingly safe. But then, even the most secure cloud services have one distinct disadvantage: they are not managed by you.
It is here that we find a common misconception about the definition of cloud security. Whatever might be said about it – even if the security for fending off cyber criminals is usually as good as advertised – the fact is that providers of cloud services themselves will have access to your information. This includes cloud newsletter solutions such as MailChimp, Newsweaver, and GetResponse. This does not mean they will use the information, but isn’t it enough to know that they can?
Because some things you really do not want to give out of hands. Just think of the sharing of images of a new prototype, sketches for your upcoming fall fashion line, a new service you are going to offer. For sensitive information like this an on premise, internal newsletter solution is a much more secure option.
Stay in Control
When you already have your Exchange and SharePoint services in-house, and most companies do, why then would you opt for a third party service to handle your internal newsletter communications?
Instead, you could build your own on premise solution. And if that sounds like too much effort, you could go for a ready-made on premise internal newsletter solution already available on the market.
These on premise solutions are easy to implement in your existing IT environment. They will even save you time. Aside from security and time management, another advantage is that these in-house solutions cost substantially less than third party cloud services. Simply because you are not using their servers but your own.
Conclusion
Forgetting about security in internal communications can have results that will damage your reputation for a long time to come. SharePoint offers many ways of securing your internal newsletter communications, right where you are.
Do you recognize any of these security issues from your own experience? Has this post convinced you to look over the security of your internal newsletter communications again?
Coming up next in our Best Practices for Internal Newsletters series:
How You Can Use Insights Into Your Internal Newsletter Campaign to Boost Results.
