How to Protect Your Online Rep From Spammers & Scammers

I had the privilege of collaborating with friend and colleague, Karen S. Elliott. Karen and I are on a mission to to spread the word about how to protect your online reputation from pesky scammers and spammers. 

About Karen S. Elliot

Karen was raised by a mother who wanted to be an English teacher and who worked for Merriam-Webster as a proofreader and an aunt who could complete the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in a day. Their favorite expression was, Look it up! Karen reads punctuation and grammar manuals for fun. Her favorite book is the dictionary.

Karen is an editor and proofreader, blogger, writer, and grandmother. You can find her at her website, The Word Shark and her blog. Connect with Karen on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.

Part I - by Karen S. Elliott & Therese Pope

From Karen –

I had an old “friend” contact me via FB. I remembered as soon as I saw her name why I stopped being friends with her. I did not want to connect with her and told her so. She came back with an abusive email (ah, the memories) about what a lousy friend I had been, about all the favors she’d done for me in the past, etc. Made me wonder, “If I was such a lousy friend, why did she want to renew contact?” I blocked her. Problem solved.

My experience –

I had a client who had a stalker on Facebook that escalated into a harassing situation. The stalker sent my client’s editor a crazed message about him, and claimed he was a fraud, etc. She went on a rampage and proceeded to stalk him on other article sites and left nasty comments. Stalker-lady then left disparaging comments and attacked me and my company on an article site. The client and I took action immediately and contacted the site’s editor. I received a personal phone call from the editor, and they assured me they would not tolerate stalkers who attack their writers. Stalker-lady was banned as a result of the action we took.

How to Protect Your Computer

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." – Benjamin Franklin. Wise words and he didn’t have social networking.

We should all have spyware, web protection, virus protection, etc. installed on our computers. If you don’t have virus software installed, check out the following anti-virus software: McAfee, Avast, AVG, etc.  

Email

At this point, all email programs have automatic spam filters. You can also set additional parameters for blocking odd emails. Mark incoming mail “spam” if it looks suspect or block specific email addresses. Best bet – don’t open any email if you do not recognize the address. And for goodness sake, don’t open attachments from anyone you don’t know!

Your social networking

Facebook  

It’s best to set up parameters when you first start your page, however most of us just started a Facebook page and floundered through. From Karen: “My son was going to Iraq and he wanted me to join Facebook, so I did. I didn’t investigate anything, I just started a page.”

My experience: I originally joined Facebook because I have siblings in the military and they were stationed all over the country and world, and it is easier to keep in touch via Facebook updates.

As we all know, Facebook changes applications without consulting any of us billions of users, so check your security periodically.

Maintain a modicum of privacy on your Facebook profile. Allow little to show except basic information until you are friends with someone. Don’t “accept friend request” without knowing who that person is, how or why they are approaching you, or what their intent is.   

How to create privacy settings for new Timeline:

Go to Privacy Settings > How Tags Work and change the settings for "Maximum Timeline Visibility" from "Public" to "Friends."

If you're super-intense, you can change those settings to "Custom" and choose "Only Me" -- then you'll be the only one who can see the posts.

Limit your past posts -- which may have been made public at the time -- to Friends only. To do this, go to "Limit the Audience for Past Posts" and click "Manage Past Post Visibility," then "Limit Old Posts." This will change all past posts to Friends-only, even if you initially made them public.

Facebook Timeline Privacy Tips - http://www.pcworld.com/article/249019/facebook_timeline_privacy_tips_lock_down_your_profile.html

From the Facebook Security pages: “Once you block someone, that person can no longer be your friend on Facebook or interact with you (except within apps and games you both use and groups you are both a member of).”

Reporting abuse or policy violations - https://www.facebook.com/help?page=798

Twitter

Watch for comments @your-name-here. You can set Twitter parameters so that everything with @your-name-here is delivered to your email (if email is the first thing you check, this might be helpful).

If you realize a tweeter has a problem with you or the comments escalate, consider “Report a Violation” under Help Center Guidelines and Best Practices, Safety Center, Reporting Violations. Then block, unfollow, protect.

How to block users on Twitter - https://support.twitter.com/articles/117063

WordPress Blog  

Handling and reporting abuse - http://en.wordpress.com/abuse

Set safety parameters on your Dashboard, along the left side list of options, go down to Settings, Discussion, and it will take you to page that says Discussion Settings. Set parameters as you see fit.

Dashboard drop-down menu under the Blog Tab – Manage Comments – you’ll see Unapprove | Reply | Quick Edit | Edit | History | Spam | Trash. Pick whatever response is necessary to manage individual comments made on your blog.

You can also delete troll comments. Go to Dashboard, Comments. When the comments list pops up, click the little box to the left of the commenter’s icon. Under Bulk Actions - Unapprove, Mark as Spam, or Move to Trash; then Apply.

 Blogger (Blogspot)

After logging into your Blogger account, go to the Settings | Posts and comments tab. Under the Comments settings, choose accordingly. If you want to moderate comments that people leave on your blog: under “Comment Moderation?” click on “Always”. You will receive an “Awaiting Moderation” message. You will then need to review and manually approve comments. If you receive spam comments, you can report them as “spam” and pesky spammers will be blocked from leaving comments on your blog.

According to Blogger (run by Google):

“Here are some examples of content we will not remove unless provided with a court order:

• Personal attacks or alleged defamation
• Parody or satire of individuals
• Distasteful imagery or language
• Political or social commentary”

 For more helpful tips on how to report abuse, check out Blogger’s Support Section.

Stay tuned – tomorrow Karen and I will post Part II which includes LinkedIn and Google+. We will also share loads of websites with information on what to do and who to contact if you think you are being targeted or stalked.

When Your Reputation Is On The Line: Are You Prepared for Negative Attacks?

One of my clients recently came to me with a sticky situation that involved negative personal attacks against him from someone he knows. I hate to see ANYONE go through online attacks, but since it happened to one of my clients I felt even more compelled to write about online reputation management again -- one of my favorite topics. In my PR 101 days in college, it was hammered into our brains to always have a contingency plan no matter what. 

How PREPARED are you for negative attacks online? Do you have a plan? 

You can't control what people say about you, but you can stay on top of your online reputation. Unfortunately, there are negative people out there who like to stir the pot. Even if the negative comments they post are false, you need to be alert and prepared.

A word of caution: DO NOT engage in online 'debates' or fire back with personal attacks in retaliation against that person. You just open yourself up for further retaliation and you come across as unprofessional. Also, you never know people's mental status online and it's easy to track down personal information about you and your company. Play it safe. 

As I mentioned in previous posts, if the negative comments cross the line and you aren't sure how to handle the comments, please seek legal counsel. A lawyer can help you further clarify your situation and give you proper legal advice. Refer to the definition of libel below: 

"Libel is defined as the defamation of a person, business, group, product, government, or nation that is made in written or printed words or pictures. In order to be libel, the claim must be in writing, it must be false and the person making it must state or imply that it is factual. In other words, libel means printing or implying something negative as if it were true, when it is not. The publication where the libel occurs is assumed to be read by persons other than the person defamed." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do You Have a Social Media Crisis Plan?

Online reputation management is one of my favorite social media marketing topics. Companies need to take proactive steps just in case a social media attack happens. However, most people wait until the last minute and take the 'knee jerk' approach to their online reputation. They also don't have a full grasp on what their followers, customers and clients really say about their brand.

Don't wait until the last minute to throw together a plan. If you don't have a social media crisis plan in place, here are 3 easy steps you can implement today to protect your online reputation:

1. Don't delegate your social media campaign to an inexperienced intern or employee - Many companies make the mistake of handing over the social media reigns to a younger 'Gen X' intern or employee. If you are a one-person team, take charge of your social media or hire a social media consultant to manage your campaign. If you work for a larger company, delegate social media campaigns to your marketing or communciations manager. Implement strategies to build solid relationships with followers and implement a social media editorial calendar. It's important to stay on top of your campaign and be consistent with posts and updates. 

2. Practice social media 'fire drills' - Sit down and create a step-by-step social media crisis plan. For example, what if your company was attacked by a disgruntled customer and blasted your blog, Facebook, Twitter, website, etc. with nasty comments about your company? Don't live in fear, but remember to forge key relationships with customers and industry leaders. It helps your reputation if you have followers on your side who can publicly defend your brand. 

3. Beware of Facebook page 'hijacking' - There's a nasty trick that's running rampant on Facebook pages. Competitors are sneaking onto company Facebook pages and overrunning them with negative comments. This is commonly seen with social cause campaigns - the equivalent to a virtual sit-in/protest. Check your Facebook page on a regular basis, get rid of spam comments (spam runs rampant on Facebook pages as well) and respond to attacks in a professional, courteous manner. If a customer becomes over the top and makes threatening comments against you or your employees, make sure you have your lawyer's number handy. Don't hesitate to seek legal counsel if you aren't sure how to handle defamatory comments.  

How to Lose Your Online Credibility With Just One Word

I subscribe to my share of social media and marketing newsletters and follow other social media consultants. This morning I started to read a social media-related blog, but I stopped reading after just one word. What made me stop? It was the word ''funnest'. I know that some bloggers and writers use slang as a tongue-in-cheek approach, but I'm fairly certain this writer thought 'funnest' was proper English. At that point, I stopped reading the article and clicked off the site. She lost me at just one word. 

Because of the improper word choice she used (technically, funnest is not a grammatically correct word in the English language), I was immediately turned off because it didn't make her sound credible. Maybe the word 'funnest' doesn't bother other people, and I'm just one of many in her audience but she still lost me as a reader - with just that word alone.

Even though she may be the most credible social media resource in the world, I wouldn't know because I stopped reading. It's important as bloggers and social media users to be conscious of the language you use. Funnest might be acceptable on a parenting or children's blog, but it doesn't fit on a professional social media blog.

And inappropriate word choices go beyond just funnest. I dug around and researched marketing 'turn off' words. Advertising has its share of 'no-no' words that they don't recommend using. According to BusinessWeek, avoid these five cliche words in ads:

1. Quality

2. Value

3. Service

4. Caring  

5. Integrity

If you want to stay away from spam words, check out this list of 200 spam words to avoid. 

Be careful when choosing your words, and remember that your readers and social media followers actually READ what you write. It only takes one word to hurt your online credibility.