WOULD SOCIAL MEDIA IMPERSONATION RUIN YOUR DAY?
What's your plan for when this happens to you?
Someone is pretending to be senior editor Tom Breihan of Stereogum on Instagram and ripping off bands.
“A month or two ago, I heard about an Instagram account that was posting and contacting bands in my name. This account was hitting artists up for $100, promising some kind of coverage on (Stereogum).”
When social media platforms make it easy to impersonate anyone (the fake account has 2,800+ followers), then drag their feet in fixing the situation, whose side are they really on?
Thankfully Tom Breihan has a little site called, ummm… Stereogum to let people know about this scam, but even with the clout of being a senior editor of a site founded in 2002, the scam account is still active:
“I’ve reported this fake account to Instagram several times, and nothing has come of it. My colleagues have reported it, too. I don’t know how common this kind of scammer is on Instagram, but it’s apparently very difficult to get through to anyone at the company to put a stop to their activities. I’m applying for a verified account, too, which feels ridiculous when I don’t actually post on the platform.”
This happened to Rolling Stone and Billboard writers earlier this year. The Avenged Sevenfold social media accounts were hacked, too, pushing out fake festival cancellations.
Thankfully Tom at Stereogum can post on their site about the scam.
Same with Rolling Stone. A7x sent out a note to their email list.
It’s 2023, people - make sure you have an official channel where you can communicate directly with your audience.
Have an email list and a website, and turn on all security options for the service you use (Mailchimp, Squarespace, etc)
Turn on domain name auto-renew so you don’t lose your website
Use all the security functions on your social media, too
Don’t reuse passwords - get your team on 1Password
Seriously - if someone were impersonating you or your business, what would you do?
What if you get hacked, like when Elder lost access to their Facebook account with 78,000 followers?
Maybe you won’t get impersonated, or hacked, but what if you get BANNED, or plain old locked out of your accounts?
And if you won’t listen to me, listen to Vince from Metal Blade:
“Creators, musicians, etc. need to use multiple platforms - patreon, twitch, youtube, etc. Any individual platform, for any reason, can ban you for a reason you may never even know.
Have a dedicated website. Have an e-mail list.”
Have a space on the internet for your project. Have an email list. It’s the only direct communication you’ll with your fans when (not if) your social media accounts go down.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Here’s some things I wrote in recent years about this subject:
“Access to 78,000 Facebook followers gone, and now (Elder is) left trying to get word out to their Instagram audience of 42,500 fans about the situation.
Even if they reach 10% of their fans on IG, that’s just 4,250 people.”
From ‘LOCKED OUT OF SOCIALS? NOW WHAT?’
“Being able to tell one social media audience that another social media channel has been hijacked is good and all, but these are still rented spaces, and you’re reaching a fraction of your audience, so most of your fans will still be in dark.”
From ‘SAFEGUARD YOUR SOCIALS’
“Any of us can be locked out of our social media accounts at any point, seemingly for whatever reason.
Own the direct connection to your audience, or else white knuckle the chaos of the daily social media shit show and hope you never lose access to your accounts.
Instead of freely giving Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk all your “exclusive” content (which they monetize, then turn around and charge you to reach your followers), publish the bulk of your work on your own website.
From ‘SOCIAL MEDIA CAN'T BE YOUR LONE WAY TO REACH YOUR FANS’
I’m Seth Werkheiser and I’d hate to see you lose a day of momentum by losing access to your audience because of a social media platform being dumb.
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Send questions here: seth@closemondays.com
Yes have to jump on these scams right away. I have stories of my own as a pioneer in my niche. SM platforms should be more active in preventing these outright fraudsters and scammers.