How is your business mitigating and monitoring compliance risks across social media? 

This article will unpack what social media compliance software is, why it matters, and how it helps organizations not only prevent breaches but also streamline content approvals to ensure they get to market faster.

What is Social Media Compliance?

Social media compliance refers to adhering to the complex web of regulations, laws, and internal guidelines governing how an organization uses social media channels. While the definition seems simple - follow the rules - it’s much harder in practice. The "rules" marketers must follow are a multifaceted mix that often includes:

• Industry-Specific Mandates: Regulations like HIPAA in healthcare or FINRA/SEC requirements in finance.

• Geographic Laws: Data privacy acts such as GDPR (EU) and CCPA (US), or advertising standards set by the FTC (US) and ASA (UK).

• Platform Guidelines: The terms of service and community standards set by networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

• Internal Policies: Your organization's own rules regarding brand voice, authorized content, and employee conduct online.

Ultimately, social media compliance is the mandatory process of protecting your brand from the legal, financial, and reputational risks associated with publishing content, running ads, and engaging with customers online.

The Rise of Compliance Risk in Social Media Marketing

The scale of social media risk is increasing. Not only are there more channels, but the sheer volume of content - particularly the recent explosion of AI-generated content - has made manual compliance checks nearly impossible.

A single non-compliant social media post - whether a forgotten disclaimer on an ad, an unapproved partner's claim, or a lapse in data privacy - can trigger massive fines, costly lawsuits, and irreversible reputational damage.

A Deep Dive into Key Social Media Compliance Risks

For marketing teams, particularly those operating in regulated industries (like finance, healthcare, and insurance), understanding the core regulations is the first line of defense. Here is a non-exhaustive list of key compliance areas and examples to keep in mind when building social media content:

Advertising Regulations

This area involves ensuring promotional claims are truthful, balanced, and include necessary disclosures for endorsements and sponsorships.

Examples: In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sets guidelines on endorsements and testimonials. In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) enforces rules on ad truthfulness. For Finance (US), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) require posts to be "fair, balanced, and complete."

Data Privacy & Protection

This governs how personal data is collected, stored, and used in marketing and advertising. Examples: Regulations include the Global/EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and in the US, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Industry-Specific Confidentiality

This focuses on protecting sensitive information about customers, clients, or patients. Examples: In Healthcare (US), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule protects patient health information. In Finance, regulations prohibit the sharing of material non-public information.

Record-keeping & Archiving

This involves requiring the capture and retention of social media communications for a specified period to support regulatory audits. Examples: In Finance (US), FINRA and SEC require firms to archive social media communications (posts, ads, and engagement) for audit purposes.

Intellectual Property (IP)

This is about preventing the unauthorized use of copyrighted images, music, or other media in social content. Examples: Using a copyrighted meme, image, or music clip without a proper license can result in costly legal action.

Tips for Remaining Compliant on Social Media

1. Understand Your Regulatory Landscape

Compliance starts with knowledge. You must be fully aware of the specific laws and regulations that govern your industry (finance, healthcare, etc.) and your operating geographies (US, EU, AU, etc.). This knowledge shouldn't be static; regulations change frequently. Seek continuous knowledge and updates by maintaining open communication with your in-house counsel and tracking regulatory news.

Companies like LexisNexis provide good resources on regulatory updates.

2. Build Clear, Accessible Compliance Guardrails and Policies

Establish clear, easy-to-digest social media compliance policies that outline content restrictions, required disclaimers, and approval workflows.

Ensure these policies and guidelines are uniform and easily accessible across all teams, subsidiaries, and geographic locations to eliminate confusion and ensure brand consistency.

3. Archive Everything and Formalize Audit Trails

In a regulated environment, documentation is non-negotiable. Every piece of content published - including the post, the context, and user engagement - must be retained and easily retrievable for regulatory audits.

Archive everything and ensure your approval workflows are formally tracked and time-stamped. This comprehensive audit trail proves due diligence and can be the difference between a minor inquiry and a major fine.

4. Leverage a Central Content Repository

Don't rely on marketers to manually copy and paste required disclaimers or correct legal jargon. Reduce the chance of human error by giving them pre-vetted, approved resources.

Equip your teams with a central content repository that houses pre-approved assets, legal disclaimers, required disclosures, and approved product language. Many solutions on the market today provide this feature, such as: UpSlide, Bynder or even simply SharePoint.

5. Consider Live Compliance Monitoring

The greatest risk often comes after content has been approved and published. An approved post can become non-compliant if it's altered, if external partners share it with added, non-compliant claims, or if a law changes. You need an online compliance monitoring strategy to keep eyes on live content.

Software helps. Solutions, like Haast, automate continuous monitoring across all channels, instantly flagging non-compliant live content for immediate removal or correction, turning a manual nightmare into a seamless safety check.

"As an ex-lawyer, I can tell you that compliance liability rarely stops at your internal marketing team. For large, regulated brands, your biggest blind spot is often your third-party network - agents, affiliates, or re-sellers. If they're promoting your product, regulators will hold you accountable for their non-compliant claims. Monitoring your partners is not optional; it’s a critical part of brand defense." - Bec Ching, Haast Head of Customer

What is Social Media Compliance Software?

Social media compliance software are solutions designed to automate the process of reviewing, approving, and monitoring social media and online advertising content to meet both internal compliance policies and external regulatory requirements.

It moves compliance from a slow, manual bottleneck into a high-speed, automated workflow.

Core Features and Use Cases

This type of software addresses the two main pain points in social media compliance: the pre-live approval bottleneck and the post-live monitoring gap.

Before Content Goes Live: Pre-Approval Efficiency

What Approvals Look Like Without Software:

Traditional review processes are a drain on legal resources. A legal or compliance team member has to review every line of copy, every image, and every disclosure, often wasting time on basic errors that could be flagged by a machine. This delays launch deadlines, creating friction between marketing and legal teams.

What Approvals Look Like With Software:

Some AI compliance software will scan social media content against a pre-set library of rules, regulations, and approved/prohibited terms specific to your industry (e.g., healthcare disclaimers, financial jargon). It automatically flags high-risk items like claims, testimonials, or missing disclosures, so your marketing team can fix these issues before anything goes live. 

Plus, it manages the entire approval chain, automatically routing flagged content to the appropriate reviewer (legal, compliance, or management) and ensuring necessary sign-offs are secured before content is published.

2. After Content Goes Live: Continuous Monitoring and Archiving

What Monitoring Looks Like Without Software:

Once a post is live, most organizations stop monitoring it. An ad that was compliant a year ago may no longer be if a regulation or a corporate policy has changed, or if a partner has edited their post. Furthermore, posts and engagement often need to be archived for long-term recordkeeping.

What Monitoring Looks Like With Software:

If you invest in the right tool, it will scan all published content (including social media, ads, as well as third-party partner posts related to your brand) for non-compliant claims or policy violations. This is critical for brand compliance monitoring to quickly spot unapproved partner posts or misleading claims.

Further reading: Read this article to discover the best marketing compliance software in the market.

Key Benefits of Using Social Media Compliance Software

Implementing a robust AI compliance solution provides immediate, measurable benefits for both risk reduction and operational efficiency.

1. Faster Risk Identification

By automating compliance risk identification - from missing disclosures in ads to policy violations in copy - the software prevents breaches before they go live. It creates a necessary safety net, especially in the high-stakes environment of financial and healthcare advertising.

2. Pre-Live Efficiency and Speed

The automated review enables a streamlined, rapid approval process, allowing marketing teams to hit launch deadlines, and legal teams to get back to the work they actually want to be doing.

"The goal of social media compliance software isn't just to stop bad posts; it's to free up your experts. When a machine handles 80% of the repetitive, low-risk checks, your legal team can focus their expertise where it truly matters: on complex, high-stakes content, rather than manually checking every disclaimer." - Chloe Stevens, Marketing Lead at Haast

3. Comprehensive Audit Trail

Every piece of content, edit, comment, and final sign-off is automatically recorded and timestamped. This audit trail is essential for demonstrating due diligence to auditors and regulators during an investigation.

4. Cross-Team Visibility

The solution provides a central dashboard for marketing, legal, and compliance, offering a single source of truth for all content. This eliminates version control issues, clarifies who approved what, and fosters better collaboration.

Introducing Haast: Automating Social Content Review and Monitoring

Haast is the leading social media compliance software built to automate the most time-consuming and high-risk parts of the content lifecycle. By combining AI-powered content review with continuous monitoring across all major channels, Haast ensures your brand remains compliant - from the initial draft of a social ad to years after it has been published. We take the manual burden of compliance off your legal and compliance teams, enabling your marketing team to launch faster, safer, and with confidence.

Explore how Haast helps marketing teams stay compliant without slowing down campaigns: book a demo