Risks associated with corporate social media communication - time for internal auditing to step-up

Abstract

Various case studies highlight the negative effect corporate social media communication risks have on organisations. In this study, the risk associated with corporate social media communication in organisations is investigated. The extent of internal auditing’s involvement to assist management in evaluating and mitigating the risks that such communication poses is also explored. The study revealed that organisations’ brand and reputation is the most important risk. A significant number (33%) of respondents indicated that risk of social media communication were not included in their organization’s internal audit universe. The majority indicated that internal auditing did not evaluate or was not trained to evaluate the effectiveness of corporate social media communication controls. The results of this study revealed that there are opportunities for internal auditing to focus its efforts on becoming involved in evaluating risks relating to corporate social media communication.