Frauds, Scams, and Fakes… What Can We Do?
Once we put ourselves out there into the world via content marketing or promoting our brands, we hopefully still start to build an audience. But with that comes some risks! There’s a lot of potential danger out there if you don’t take care when you’re interacting with random followers, hiring vendors, or downloading software without vetting it first.
Here are some steps you can take to identify the red flags and prevent the worst from happening to yourself or your organization.
First, what do we mean by fraud or deception?
For a user, watch out for the following (and this is just a small sample!):
Getting suspicious DMs, emails, or social media replies trying to lure you into a phishing scam
Approving random friend requests and accepting DMs that are trying to engage you for a “relationship”
Entering to win scam prizes or fake competitions by submitting your personal information
Taking quizzes or playing games that get you to share private information that could help someone answer your private security questions (this happens a lot on Facebook!)
Donating to fake charity campaigns
For an organization, stay alert for:
Receiving spam comments or DMs on your organization page
Misinformation being spread about you or what you work on
Individuals falsely representing your organization or pretending they are your employees (this happens a lot on LinkedIn!)
Being pushed to buy services selling fake followers and engagement, or fake companies posing as legitimate vendors
Imposter influencer or brand accounts trying to partner with you
Individuals posing as your organization to try and solicit donations from others
What can you do?
First, deal with what you can control internally. Go through your accounts (yes, every single one!) and check who has your passwords and who is listed as having admin access to everything. Generally, you should try to use organizational accounts to manage any accounts as much as possible, and, for platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook where you need a personal profile, have at least two people with full admin privileges and ensure they are current employees at least every quarter.
Next, keep track of all of the software and apps you might be signed up for to use to manage your accounts. Anything like SproutSocial or Buffer counts, as well as design services like Canva. You should also check what third-party services and integrations are connected to your accounts.
Map out all of this information in a spreadsheet that you can manage for the long-term, and note every person who has access to these accounts to make sure it’s only your current team. As consultants, we find that too often our clients forget to remove us from accounts when our project is over, or don’t bother to update their passwords even years after we’ve worked together. It doesn’t take much for that oversight to turn into a big mistake, especially if we’ve been successful in doing our job of building your audience!
You should also get to know the red flags to avoid when looking for vendors or software to help with your digital work. There are lots of different services out there that claim to do different things, like analyzing your data to turn it into reports, or generating posts through AI. Lots of them proclaim to be free, and all you have to do is connect your accounts and allow them to access all of your data. See how that could be a problem? Use a service like Capterra or the community at TechSoup to vet businesses before you engage, and ask peers and colleagues for recommendations and reviews.
If you’re being inundated by spam or see accounts impersonating you, report it immediately. Every social platform has tools for this, and it’s in their best interest to stop this from happening.
Finally, make media monitoring and social listening a priority for your organization, so you can recognize and stop fraud and accounts impersonating you before it goes too far. Let your followers know if there is a scam campaign going on, and make sure you put the right information on your website and your accounts to help your audience know they’re engaging with the right organization.
And don’t be afraid of databases like Guidestar or Charity Navigator; claim your profiles there and lean into their good work of making sure nonprofits are legit and are managing their finances responsibly.