VN Secure

By admin

January 29, 2024

One of the downsides of social media is the way it acts as an archive for every stupid or offensive thought a person may have shared online. Most people aren't actually stupid or offensive, but we all have our moments. And if we choose to have those moments on social media, they become a part of the permanent public record.

But there's also an upside to this dynamic. For brands who want to work with influencers, the permanence of the internet means they can find the unseemly things influencers may have said or done in the past and avoid tainting their brand by working with them—and yet it happens. Because, while it's not that hard to uncover the dumb or offensive things an influencer might have said on social media in the past, it’s nearly impossible to search the histories of hundreds or even thousands of influencers as you're trying to scale up a campaign to reach millions of people. And that's when the stakes are highest.

A handful of platforms that we’ve reviewed over the years include something like a “brand safety” score. The names differ from platform to platform, but they all generally work the same way. You'll see some metric that gives you a quick yes-or-no determination as to whether hiring a given influencer might be harmful to your brand. These are good features to have on an influencer marketing platform, but they often don't go far enough. And for some companies, they go too far—one brand’s trash is another brand's treasure. These tools lack nuance and configurability, and that one-size-fits-all approach almost makes them more hassle than they're worth, but it's better than nothing.

Until now.

Viral Nation, the influencer marketing agency that's been at the forefront of the industry since their founding, developed VN Secure—a new platform that addresses all this. Though primarily known as an agency, this is not Viral Nation's first foray into building its own software. The in-house system they developed to manage their own influencer talent pool and campaigns, Influsoft, is now one of the most highly-rated platforms on our site.  When we reviewed it after its initial launch we noted that Viral Nation’s “thing” seemed to be including “features that you’ve seen elsewhere and taking them further.” Well, in the case of VN Secure, they went even further, taking a familiar feature and making a standalone solution out of it.

At first blush, you might wonder why VN Secure isn't just included with Influsoft. Well, it was, once: VN Secure began its life as a plugin for it. When a customer of theirs suggested there were a lot more use cases for such a tool than just influencers, VN Secure’s journey to become its own platform began. You don't have to think very long or hard to see other, off-label uses for this. Police departments and military organizations could use this technology to supplement background checks, empowering them to make better decisions about new recruits. It would also be helpful in identifying people who would be a risk to sell a gun to. It'll be interesting to see the ways in which using the “social media background check” will evolve. 

But, for now, VM secure is available for use by brands to manage their reputations online, by better knowing who their influencers are.