Social media is a great way to introduce ideas or products to the world. With most individuals now online and using social media regularly, it seems like everyone is making videos, or sharing information continually, trying to amass a large following and become an influencer. Once someone is an influencer on social media they can sell products and services to their followers fairly quickly and easily. Becoming an influencer, however, can take a lot of work, as posting needs to be done routinely, and the influencer must have a special type of appeal to a niche audience. Just slapping up some video or posts about everything and anything, with no real thought behind it will not make someone an influencer. There must be relevance to a specific audience for this to occur.
With that said, there are pitfalls to being a social media influencer. Although influencers gather followers that love them, they also experience a lot of hate and jealousy from individuals they do not even know. They also become prime targets for scammers, who use their pictures and hack their accounts to mislead their supporters and extort money or gift cards from their followers. Social media influencers can have their accounts reported for spamming and/or scamming even though they are not the ones that are engaging in any type of horrific activity. There are ways that savvy influencers can avoid account hacking or the use of their name or information by spammers and scammers. There are no perfect methods by any means but they can help. Social media influencers are generally the of individuals on the dark web. The dark web is a layer underneath the top layer of the Internet that many individuals are unaware of.
To cut back on infiltration and use of their personal information many social media influencers do the following:
- Set up a separate VPN for their accounts. There is a Virtual Private Network solution available with added two-step verification that allows the transmission of data privately, without depending upon the platforms and networks that the social media entities provide.
- Influencers also set up a separate email account that does not trace back to their real email accounts. Instead, the emails are rerouted privately to their true accounts. They also use this type of approach with text messages and other forms of contact, such as phone numbers. You will rarely see a popular influencer use their own email or phone for any contacts with followers.
- Influencers never post personal pictures or information on their families. Even during videos if their families are onsite with them during the making of the video, the family members are in the background and never shown in the video. Influencers also seldom use their exact names and can have several pen names, if they influence via written posting, or if on video, they can use a partial name or a moniker. There are exceptions to this rule but generally many influencers follow this routine.
- Influencers very seldom approve friend requests from those they do not know. They will have a like button and a special link via the VPN where followers can sign up for information and notifications. They do not generally answer people personally or accept friend requests.
- Influencers avoid public Wi-Fi for the most part.
- Any documents, especially with the written influencers are watermarked and copyrighted to the business.
- Most establish a business name and use that name instead of their personal name. They can also use a logo instead of their own picture when on social media.
- Most of all, influencers are privacy cops and check their own accounts religiously for any suspicious emails or attempts by others to break into the accounts. The hosting services and web design companies they use usually provide alerts when a hacking attempt is made.
- They never click any links sent to them via text or email. Never. No matter how real the entity may seem, they avoid all clicking of links. They also avoid phone calls from others that are not employees or family members.
Of course, it is not possible to avoid all attempts at hacking or misuse of their name when someone is an influencer. But part and parcel of their attempts to avoid as much as possible do include checking for Internet listings that are not theirs religiously. Many use OneRep to do a search on their name and assist in scrubbing off unwanted listings online that are found. OneRep searches can bring up thousands of listings on influencers that are not genuinely listed as the database includes hundreds of thousands of listings of individuals. Assistance in scrubbing information from questionable sites is available and influencers need these services.
Social media safety is important to everyone. However, being a social media influencer, or even a social media manager increases the risk of identity theft and fraudulent activities by others. Due diligence must be used by everyone but especially by social media influencers and media managers as although many individuals adore them, there is a great deal of jealousy and hate that can also be directed at them. Scammers and spammers also target influencers as an email or text using the name of an influencer have a much greater chance of being open and read, Links are also more likely to be clicked. Scammers capitalize on the popularity of social media influencers and even on social media managers in their quest to initiate identity theft and fraud.
Privacy protection and vigilance are a primary concern for social media influencers and the above suggestions will help. Not all fraud can be prevented but staying on top of the issue does ensure less fraud will occur. Influencers value not only their own privacy but that of their followers and take many steps to prevent the misuse of their names and identities. Becoming an influencer is hard work and most influencers guard their information for this very reason.
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
Speak Your Mind