How to Protect Your Brand From Scammers On Social Media

The establishment of various brands makes it necessary for them to be present on social media to expand their customers and brand loyalty, which is why marketing and retail conferences of 2022 emphasized how it’s more crucial than ever to do so with security.

Social media security risks are increasing yearly. According to a survey, in 2016, the number of scams on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn increased by 150 percent.

Your brand can be engaged on social media with the appropriate tactics without suffering from occurrences that harm your reputation. Because of this, 81 percent of CEOs highly emphasize online brand protection.

Per the discussion of marketing experts at the Marketing 2.0 Conference, the following are a few social media scams that have gained a presence in the market:

Phishing Scams:

Organizational social media attacks rose 103% in 2021, and phishing traffic grew 28% yearly.

Phishing scams are to blame for stealing personal data, which gravely harms the brand’s reputation. Scams involving phishing differ by platform and region. Scammers target the most powerful platforms to take advantage of worldwide user populations. They frequently use the advertising tools provided by media to target particular user demographics and users who “follow” brand pages.

Phishing pages have a very high potential for gaining subscribers. Analysts discovered a phishing page that gained almost 20,000 followers in only two days during a monitoring operation on behalf of a well-known brand.

Phishing pages typically link to malware-infected websites and ask users to share the page on their feeds to recruit more victims. 

Users Impersonate Brands

Sometimes, consumers are misdirected to websites selling illegal or fake items through impersonation accounts, which takes money away from brands.

Additionally, they steal followers away from the approved accounts, making it more difficult for marketing and social teams to measure performance when a primary success indicator is social media following.

To attract the audience of an authentic brand, impersonation accounts frequently take over hot hashtags and brand hashtags. Scammers can easily and for no money exploit popular trends, acquire a large audience, and project an air of legitimacy.

Financial Scams on Social Media

37% of social media fraud in the US in 2021 came from investment scams.

Online pension scams on social media platforms have also increased significantly over the past few years. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK has warned that scammers are skilled at using Google, Facebook, and other online platforms to spread false pension frauds.

Scammers have begun devising complex schemes, such as bogus investment comparison websites replicas of genuine websites, as more and more customers use the internet to buy financial services.

Falsified Medicines

Due to the pandemic, there has been an increase in scammers offering consumers fake medications through websites, e-commerce platforms, and social media profiles.

Impersonation accounts have targeted uninformed and vulnerable customers on social media to offer fake medications and promote unverified claims about COVID-19 remedies as fear and misinformation about the pandemic are rampant.

The shape that the scam takes frequently varies to reflect the evolution of peoples’ medical worries. For instance, in early 2022, phony testing sites gathered personal and medical data and marketed bogus “at-home” examinations online.

Preventive Techniques To Avoid Social Media Scammers From Attacking Your Brand

Don’t let people use your brand as their own. Cybercriminals constantly search for openings to exploit a brand’s loose social media policies. Due to sluggish adoption of social media by many businesses, the platform is vulnerable to hijacking. To accomplish this, scammers create a false page bearing the brand’s name to persuade potential customers of its legitimacy. Additionally, they provide freebies and client service. Even if they rarely use these sites, Global marketing events in 2022 highlighted that businesses should establish and maintain an official social media presence on the most popular social media platforms. If dishonest imposters have taken over their brand, customers must be informed immediately.

• Businesses should frequently inform customers that announcements about new goods and services will only be made on their official websites and no other platforms.

• A brand’s social media presence consists of several accounts that the business has developed. Let’s say the individuals who created these accounts did not communicate their plans with the designated regulatory team within the organization. The exploitation of data cannot be stopped in that situation. To protect themselves from scammers, businesses must keep an eye on all social media-related operations they use.

• Companies frequently believe that the only information available about their brand is what they post on social media. This is often false since a lack of monitoring allows scammers to produce phony content that could mislead customers and harm the company’s reputation. These accounts that impersonate the authentic brand must be located and dealt with as soon as possible to lessen the harm done to the brand. Keeping track of a brand’s social media presence is essential to spotting malicious social media accounts when they inevitably appear.

• The key to resolving company issues in social media is identifying bogus websites. Typically, businesses limit this work to their security departments, omitting the vulnerable groups of customers and industry associations. The best method to spot and address dangers to the brand’s reputation is to obtain reports from these groups. Security teams can compile and assess the tips they receive and contact the appropriate authorities to make the necessary corrections.

• Another essential thing to focus on is that customers should be able to report brand scam incidents to the organization quickly. The issue is that since most companies don’t have a centralized way to report scams, they are missing out on important information that may shield them from being the subject of character assassination.

This process gap causes time delays and an increased risk of business damage. These delays can be minimized by creating a response strategy that details the documents that should be gathered and the people who need to be contacted at the firm and the social networking site. The procedure can be streamlined using a standardized scam information reporting method.

Even if the brand fraud information is accurate, it might not be apparent to the customers who need it, causing more delays. Presenting the information clearly, and straightforwardly will help customers become more informed.

Final Thoughts

There is no proper method to stop fraud; people will always try to pass themselves off like you, and there will always be a select few people who fall for these tricks. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put in much effort to fend off these criminals. Apply the suggestions listed above by experts at Marketing 2.0 Conference, and always do your best to give your clients a safe and secure setting to transact business.

In the same way, don’t be scared to contact security service providers if you can’t keep security up on your own. You can carry on conducting business while keeping your clients and brand safe from illicit activity in this way.