It seems that day to day, more and more people are using twitter and other social media websites to promote their brand and gain leverage in the marketplace.
With greater volume, comes greater risks.
Everyday, more and more people are falling victims of phishing and are having their accounts hijacked.
Unless proper action is taken immediately to keep your social media accounts out of the hands of these identity kidnappers, your name brand can and most likely will be hurt in the process.
A company's name brand consists of various pieces, just like a puzzle.
These small pieces come together to build a whole image, the image that your market sees.
Market perception is very important in a sea of competition.
You have to work hard from the very start with a well defined marketing strategy that usually begins and end with branding.
Every step you take for your company will have your branding strategy at top priority.
This is why it is so important to understand who your market is, in order to know what message you want to put out, and what image you want to begin building for your company.
After the hours and days, and weeks, and years of hard work that has come to include a good company name, logo, print collateral, commercials, videos, websites, P.
R, etc; you want to protect it all from mis-management with a good security protocol, built from a solid online marketing strategy.
The following are a few ideas to consider.
Social Media is a very strong tool for creating an image for your company.
Once an online marketing campaign such as a twitter account is created, it should not be left as an after thought in your busy work day.
Stay active by keeping your pages current with up to date information that your market wants, or can find useful.
Routinely maintaining your account will allow you to easily spot any suspicious activity that may be taking place, which may be a sign that your password has been stolen.
Put someone important in charge who you trust.
A social media campaign is an appendage to your company, and like a limb, it needs to be controlled by the same brain that controls the entire body.
Have this person report either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly to your management team with progress, leads, and visible trends in the market that can help upper management stay current and on top of the market.
A social media campaign should not be something that is headed by your office intern.
Rather, it should be headed by someone in your team with a good understanding of your company brand and has a vision for your company in the future.
By keeping a long term vision in mind, you will be able to make sure your message will be leading you to the goal.
A higher ranked employee will also have a higher sense of responsibility and will most likely do a better job.
Ideally, it's a good idea to have a full time marketing professional taking care of your social media.
A good choice can also be to have a team work on your social media, but this will require oversight to make sure that not one individual is stepping outside of your carefully crafted marketing campaign.
Oversight of a Social Media Marketing Campaign will require the supervisor to routinely check each team member's works, edit articles and blogs accordingly, to change passwords frequently, and a method of being alerted when something is fishy.
This can be done with inter-office editing, where the members of your marketing team must approve each others' works in a checks and balances system.
A team also means more eyes that will be on the look out for potential fraud, but it also means that there are more people that can fall victim of fraud.
Make sure your team knows the signs to look for.
The first sign that your accounts have been hijacked is seeing posts or comments on your account that you do not remember posting.
You may also find that people in your network may tell you that there is funny business going on.
You may log on to find that you have been steadily losing friends or followers or you may not even be able to log on at all.
If your network begins losing trust in you, your brand will have sustained damage, and people will begin to talk and spread negative messages about you.
Scam artists are getting savy, and have been using many methods of getting your account.
The most recent that I have encountered are twitter posts that entice you to click on a link, but the page will direct you to a fake login page that looks like the default log in page for your account and tells you that you need to log in again.
This should be a red flag.
You can believe that I deleted that person from my list.
If you fall victim to this attack, change your password immediately to avoid being labeled as a spammer.
Being Labeled as a Spammer can be detrimental to your image and can place you on several black list that are hard to be removed from.
A good tool that I also recommend is to sign up for a Google alert that will send you an email when it spots your company name being mentioned somewhere online.
It's a good way of derailing attempts to discredit your brand by critics and a good way to keep your message targeted.
By responding quickly to a critic's remarks with sincerity, and taking responsibility when something potentially embarrassing is exposed, you will be seen as a transparent company with sincere regard for what your market is experiencing.
By putting out the spark, you can prevent a fire.
We hope you have enjoyed these suggestions for resisting attacks on your company brand.
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