The Absolute Worst Thing a Business Can Do on Social Media

If you were to ask me the number one mistake business owners make when trying to do their own social media, I might be tempted to say overselling their product or service. Social media is a networking tool, not a megaphone! Beyond that, there is one thing that is even worse: buying likes/followers. Here are my top four reasons why buying followers is a bad idea, and what business owners should do instead.

1. When you buy followers, they are usually FAKE. When I go through the thousands of followers a new client has purchased before hiring me, they're often extremely obvious bots. That, or they're accounts like my client's: they've given a paid like/follow service access to their account, and therefore their account has liked/followed thousands of similar accounts. They may also be "click farmers" - real people who are paid to like/follow a client's accounts. For more on click-farming, check out this excellent video by Veritasium.
2. Fake followers drive down post reach. Fake followers usually have absolutely no relevance to your business. Their only benefit is to drive up your overall follower counts. With social networks across the board implementing news feed algorithms, having thousands of fake followers who aren't engaging with your content often means that your post reach dwindles away to nothing.
3. Fake followers max out follow caps. If you purchase thousands of likes or follows from a spam service, chances are your account will follow thousands of accounts to get there, and you will quickly reach your follow limit on Twitter and Instagram. That will prevent you from following other accounts that are actually relevant to your business.
4. Buying fake followers can open you up to hackers and credit card fraud. As explained here, people who are willing to take your money to hook you up with fake followers may also be willing to sell your info to others. Stay safe! This aspect of the trade is especially troubling to me when I see my client's accounts followed real teens and even tweens who only posted a few times on Instagram and had clearly used the same follower purchasing company to drive up their numbers.

Instead of buying fans and followers from a shady service who tags you in a post or direct messages you, here's what to do instead:

• Generate organic social media growth by following and engaging with legitimate accounts.
• Create extremely targeted ads through native ad platforms to attract legitimate fans/followers. Yes, you may still get a few fake followers this way, but the more specific you are (think demographics, regions, interest keywords, languages spoken, etc) the more likely you are to find real people.
• Instead of paying someone with questionable ethics to get a few hundred or a few thousand fake followers, hire a real social media manager to create both organic and paid social media growth.

How to Deal with Spam and Malware on Facebook

Looking back on it, that link your friend supposedly "liked" on Facebook probably did look pretty bogus. But you couldn't help it - you just had to see the video of the fatal April fools joke or the top 10 public proposals gone wrong. Or you got a message from a friend saying "OMG I can't believe this video of you" and just had to see what she was talking about. And now there's an automatic post on your page and in your friends' news feeds and an app buried in your account broadcasting your info to who knows where. Or worse yet, your account has been hacked and your friends are filling your wall with complaints that you're spamming them. So now what?

Here's what to do if you accidentally click on a spam or malware Facebook link:

• If you see a popup asking for access to your account, it's not too late! Click "Don't Allow" and get the heck out of there.
• If you do indeed go all the way, navigate your way out of whatever application page the link has redirected you to, go to your wall and delete the post that will inevitably appear there. It will look exactly like the link you clicked on in your news feed. You can also report it as spam at that point as well.
• On the bottom right corner of your Privacy Settings landing page, click "Edit your settings" under Apps and Websites

 

• Click "Edit Settings" on the next page to see the full list of Apps you have installed 
• Click the X on the right side to remove any suspicious apps that you don't recognize (while you're at it, this is a good time to do some app spring cleaning - apps can automatically access and distribute your information at any time, so get rid of it if you're not using it!)
• OR - click "Edit Settings" next to individual apps to change the way they are able to interact with you

(Don't believe that apps actually do access your info? Check out the "Last data access" line and click "See details" to see what info the app accessed and when. You'll be shocked.) 

• If you realize your account has been compromised, Facebook can help. Click here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=420 to fight back.
• If you think your account has been hacked, but you are still able to log in, change your password as soon as possible.

I know at this point you might be thinking, "but what if I've been a good little boy/girl and I haven't been infected by Facebook spam or malware?" Here's how to avoid it and what to do if you see it:

• Spam links are fairly easy to spot based on the URL and the teaser-style preview - if you really want to see Miley's latest scandalous photos, run a search in your favorite engine instead.
• Check out the text of the URL - spam pages usually have very short, generic URLs designed to look innocuous.
• If you click the link and are asked for permission for an app to access your account for you to be able to see it, it's malware. Click "Don't Allow" and get out of there.
• If you see a link in your news feed or on a friends' page that you know is spam or malware, report it! (If you have a good relationship with your friend, you can also politely mention to him or her that the link is spam and explain how to remove it and avoid such junk in the future.)

I hope this post has helped you learn a little bit more about spam and malware on Facebook, what to do when you interact with it and how to recognize and avoid it.We don't all have to be the spam police, but a cleaner news feed and a safe account makes everyone happy.