How to Avoid Twitter Fake Users

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How do we spot fake accounts on Twitter and stay away from spam? This is a question I receive from my Twitter-loving clients, many of whom don’t have a tech background. Here is some social media advice about how you can look at new Twitter followers, before following them back, and how to avoid the spammers.

Dear "Beverly_Inscoe", I can't read Vogue. Sorry...

Dear “Beverly_Inscoe”, I can’t read Vogue. Sorry…

Look at the name. Twitter fake “users” always have “interesting” names and spelling, in an attempt to make them look “real”. Two of the last ones I reported as spam (pictures attached) were named “Beverly_Inscoe” and “Cecily_Eckmann”. Notice how they use the underscore. Average users won’t add an underscore but their names (or business name). Those particular accounts were probably created in a spam-campaign and, at a closer look, they also sent out the exactly same tweets. Smelling fishy, yet?

Look at the picture. If it looks like a magazine-cut picture, too pretty to be true, or dark and blurred, or an actor head-shot, those are signs that it may be a fake account using a stolen picture. This is the “job” of those websites selling you thousands of followers for $9.99.

Look at the description. Something looks funny there. Either there are far too many hashtags used, or it looks too good to be true. Why should an editor at Vogue follow me? Just use your common sense.

Avoid the ones who promise you followers. “Cecily” says “you can to get more awesome 10000 twitter followers” – yes, this does not sound like proper English. Accounts that promise to sell you fans are fake, and you should report them as spam. There is no such thing as buying Twitter followers. “Buying” fans or followers is a lie and can affect your overall social media marketing. You buy fake accounts from somebody who was smart enough to think about opening thousands of fake accounts. Fans and followers are real connections, people you interact with and learn from.

Dear "Cecily", I feel fine without your 10000 - and learn some English!

Dear “Cecily”, I feel fine without your 10000 – and learn some English!

Look at the numbers. Any serious Twitter user (minus the Queen of England) shows a balance between the number of accounts following her/him, and the number of accounts s/he follows. Those numbers are usually close. Following back is a common practice on Twitter, unless you are really not interested in the content the person posts. Now, the person may have more or less tweets than the following/followers, and that’s ok. It’s not ok if the person has fewer than 100 tweets but thousands of followers. Who gets thousands of followers with just a few sentences?

Look at the tweets. Anything that looks strange and not like a sentence an average person would write is probably fake. Random tweets, random topics, things that won’t seem in agreement with the description of the account (like the person seems to be a 40-year old writer but yells like a Justin Bieber fan). Use your common sense and you’ll spot the fakes right away.

Free tools you can use if an account seems suspicious. I always run suspicious accounts through Status People – Fake Followers Check or through Fake Followers at Social Bakers. If you want to go a bit deeper and see who their followers are, you can also use the Analyzer at Follower Wonk.

Anything you’d like to add to this?

© Simona R. Stefanescu – Simona Media, 2013. All materials published on www.simonamedia.com cannot be reproduced, stored or used without prior written permission of the owner, and cannot be used for profit. 

 

Shy Social Media Butterfly, Networking is Your Cure!

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You started a business, got a website, opened social media outlets and did everything by the book. What to do next? Cross your arms and wait to be discovered? No way! You are the first ambassador for your business, so get out of your comfort cocoon and start networking. Below are a few simple things you can do right away on three of the main social media platforms.

Facebook: Connect with other pages in your field and get to know their managers. A great way to do this is to follow the Facebook Friday parties (some happen during the week). Add the link to your page to those parties, follow the other links attached to these Facebook posts, like the pages of interest from your personal profile and send a message to the manager to introduce yourself and your page. You will discover a world of smart and friendly social media managers, and through them, will tap into a wealth of information. The rule is to connect with a meaning, participate, ask questions on their Facebook posts – and they will do the same from you. Building meaningful relationships is one of the best things you can do on Facebook.

Twitter: Like pages in your field. Make sure those connections are with pages who tweet regularly, and they have the good habit of following back. To verify this, before following them read a few of their tweets and look at the numbers under the profile. A Twitter account which is maintained properly and follows the rules will show a balance between the numbers of tweets, the number of accounts that follow the page, and the ones that are followed back. While reading their tweets, see if you find value in them – good articles to read, or if the person/business really interacts through Twitter. There are also Twitter accounts that are not worth the time: some only post quotes, are not updated in months, don’t have any original tweets, or do not follow back. Those do not care to connect, but

This is how you do things: you find friends alike and you explore together!

This is how you do things: you find friends alike and you explore together!

only to increase their numbers, or they are spam accounts. Also, participate in Twitter chats – they are valuable to connect with people in your field and learn new things.

LinkedIn: List your business as your employer, on your profile, and list all the things you usually do at work, using keywords related to your industry. Add new connections, people in your field, and add your new friends you made through your Facebook page, as well. You don’t need to know their email address – you can add them as friends. You will be surprised how many of them are happy to connect and will answer to your invitations. Request to join LinkedIn groups in your field, and participate to weekly discussions. Not only you will learn a lot, but you will see other people have similar professional questions.

True story: Last winter, I got sick and my body decided to take a short leave of absence from the usual running between clients. While bed-ridden, I turned to my neglected social networks; they had not enough love, exactly like in the cliché of the cobbler’s children. I showered my neglected Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, G+, Klout score and website with the love I usually give to my client’s social media. While running between clients, I did not think that prospects were looking at my numbers everywhere – and what a poor image I showed them… In two months all my networks exploded. The shy butterfly I was made so many great new friends online, learned a ton, got writing engagements, new clients and can show numbers, spur and growth. And so can you!

 

© Simona R. Stefanescu – Simona Media, 2013. All materials published on www.simonamedia.com cannot be reproduced, stored or used without prior written permission of the owner, and cannot be used for profit. 

Sexy Strategist for Hire on LinkedIn?!

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LinkedIn is the “go to online location” where one establishes a professional presence and hopes to connect with clients, employers, coworkers, and professional people in the same field. Evidently, it implies keeping a professional demeanor and attitude. Showing lace and underwear on LinkedIn, or any PUBLIC online or offline location, is not appropriate. Unless your work involves charming clients or producers, I believe including “sexy” on your professional profile should not be mentioned, not even as a joke.

Can you guess what's wrong with this LinkedIn description?

Can you guess what’s wrong with this LinkedIn description?

A few days ago, while networking in my LinkedIn groups, I stumbled upon the attractive lady in the snapshot attached. She has a great picture, she seems very young, confident and she wore a professional outfit. All seemed well, until I actually read her work title: “Sexy Digital Content Strategist”. Just like that, in one line, she “brought sexy back” and she told the world she’s “sexy and she knows it”. The further I read her long background and summary, the more I became shocked. She also inserted many clichés and slang that should not be part of a resume, as: “oh”, “sassy”, “hustlers” “go-getters”, “play phony”, xyz “is the name of the game”. (No, this was not a video post, where slang may be fun, but her actual written description.) – Please note I am commenting only on word-choices. – At his point, any career counselor would probably agree those words should not be part of LinkedIn, but rather part of a personal profile on MySpace.

Let me state this: I do not want to take away one’s zest for life; I think we all applaud good attitude, self-confidence, beauty, assertiveness and good business manners. I believe young people can change the world and the best ideas come when one is at the age when moving mountains with one finger seems as easy as chewing gum.

The lesson is this: LinkedIn is a place used by professionals. Self-employed individuals’, CEOs’ or corporate leaders’ digital footprints across websites should be impeccable. In the business of today, even retail employers will look you up on the Internet, before considering you for a job. Be really careful what you put up, and definitely don’t splash sexy descriptions about you on every website. You want your clients and potential employers to hire you for your work, skills, ethics and experience.

Use a Professional for your Social Media Hits!

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You broke your leg. Are you using ancient potions to fix it? You have a leaking pipe in your garage. Do you call your best friend? No. Obviously, you call the plumber. You have a small business and it’s slow. Well… let’s see… maybe your kid with a smart phone can market it to his/her teenage friends on Facebook. Errrr – WRONG!

Hire a Professional for your social media.  A lot of business owners seem to think that posting and uploading pictures on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites is a job for their high-school or college kid. Not really. Because I’ve met so many business owners who thought they could be taught in two hours how to write, promote, and handle the social media accounts for their business, I’ve started writing “USE A PROFESSIONAL” in all social media initial evaluations, plans, re-evaluations. This has become my main advice when people ask me “what to do”. Use a professional! If you want your word out in “sociosphere” and your business moving, hire someone who lives, breathes and eats the social media landscape.

A social media professional can define the target of your business and help you reach it.

A social media professional can define the target of your business and help you reach it.

What is a Social Media Professional? Your child wakes up in the morning and checks the phone for emails or messages from friends. A social media professional wakes up and checks Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and a few other websites, before going to the bathroom. She / he has a 4-year degree or extended experience (5+ years) in Marketing, Communication, Public Relations, Journalism. The Pro can write a social media plan, knows how to spell, can write great content, knows all grammar difficulties, and knows correct plural words in proper English. The Pro can determine your audience, post for you at the best hours, use the best combination of words and can vary the length of your posts. She/he can extract from you what is unique, new, and special about your business and knows how to apply those to serve your customers. She/he can use analytics to track your performance, can adapt the plan to unexpected issues, can solve communication crisis and soothe unhappy customers, and can build and manage your digital “footprint” all over the web. A social media professional has the most updated tools and can get answers to most of your technical social media questions. These few ideas are just an example about how complex things get.

What a Social Media Pro is NOT: We’re not web designers and do not draw your logos and websites. We are not computer or network specialists and do not fix your computers. We are not computer programmers and do not write code for your website. Those are skills achieved through four-year college degrees or many years working in design, programming, coding or repairing computers. Also, Social Media Marketing is not a “new thing” anymore. It’s time to learn that if it’s done well, it can bring your business better results than advertising in a newspaper, it costs less than that, and gives you more exposure than a printed ad.

True story: Two years ago I was approached by a local business woman who wanted my help to promote a non-profit annual event. She wasted about three hours of my time asking various questions about social media, wanted an estimate, asked for a non-profit discount. Later, she said the half-price is “too expensive”, “she has a daughter who wasn’t working and knows Facebook.” She actually only wanted to know how much she could pay her daughter for a few posts but “neglected” to tell me from the start of our discussion what was her goal. I watch their Facebook Page, every year. The event is a marvelous, magical month-long celebration. Two years later, their Facebook page has under 100 fans – for a town with 27,000 inhabitants where let’s say 5,000 have Facebook accounts. Their pictures seem taken with a phone, all dark, some blurry. I won’t comment on the scant posts and the poor language. I’ll just say this: 27,000 locals need to see this event, and the magic behind it. If properly promoted, it would draw in so many more people, with great beneficial financial impact on local businesses.

For God’s sake, don’t be cheap and pay your relatives to market your business! USE A SOCIAL MEDIA PROFESSIONAL! It will pay off when you do.

 

© Simona R. Stefanescu – Simona Media, 2013. All materials published on www.simonamedia.com cannot be reproduced, stored or used without prior written permission of the owner, and cannot be used for profit. 

Picture Me as a Social Media Zebra…

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How does your picture define your personal brand on social media? If you are a small business, that little square on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, G+ or Pinterest should contain your face, to give your brand warmth and easy recognition. Do you use that space properly? Do you use the same picture across platforms? Or are you still struggling to find the best picture to use on your business pages on social media? Here are a few ideas that may help.

Your picture is your signature. From an early age, we try to fit in the world and make sense of it and the pictures represent our quest for identity. Your social media picture and presence are part of your identity, as well.  The picture is a major component of your digital signature and brand. Sometimes, the images people chose to use as profile might make others wonder what is going on with those brands. Unless your business is a zoo, tiger or zebra shots are more appropriate for the cover or banner than for the square place where your picture, as a business owner, needs to be. Further, unless you are a corporation, showing a logo instead of a profile picture does not do much for your brand. Logos can be used also on the cover or banner.

What does not work: Browsing through LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, I could see some intriguing shots. So, let’s see what goes under “don’t do that, unless it’s a prank business”:

  • Ultra-professional blue collar picture. Great. Stiff. Makes one look like a robot. Unless your job is on Wall Street or in Washington DC, don’t even bother. Even politicians have learned they need to throw their ties off, in order to seem accessible to more people.
  • Lusty, bare-shoulder gals or shirtless guys. Unless you’re a movie star or sell “escorts” through Facebook (yes, right, like *that* is likely to happen), don’t even bother.
  • Cropped from a group portrait, or showing the arm of your last boyfriend/girlfriend around your shoulders. If you have a decent IQ, don’t even dare use that on your Match.com.
  • Wedding picture. OK if it was within 2-3 years; not ok if you’re using the one from 5-20 years ago. (Is anybody married for more than 5 years, anymore, anyway?)
  • Picture from when you were twenty years younger.
  • Fashion-picture from the era of puffy-shoulders and other fashion crimes.
  • Picture of your child/dog/horse.

What works: Portraits of you, smiling, relaxed, and looking straight at the camera. Show as much face as possible, rather than a bust picture. People have a better chance to identify you with the brand / business. Don’t worry about wrinkles, they won’t be seen anyway; the picture is small. Don’t bring kids into your profile picture. Hold a pet if your business is pet-related, it adds warmth.

True story: Mid-90s and I was working at a regional newspaper in Romania. I was also in my early 20s. Identity-crisis used to hide in the form of funny haircuts, extreme hair colors and wrong make-up. When the newspaper added a TV station and we became part of the crew, we started getting more tips about makeup, style, clothes. This picture is from that

At a party with my boss at my first newspaper. I always remember that team and how much fun we had.

At a party with my boss at my first newspaper. I always remember that team and how much fun we had.

in-between era. Marius was my direct boss and first mentor, who taught me every detail about newspaper investigating and set me on the path for a wonderful journalistic career. Every time when I look at the picture I smile, remembering how the camera guys used to ask me if I brushed my hair. Of course, as the wild child I was, I would not brush my hair and I would add make-up five minutes before we’d go live. While this picture is very dear to me, it is also a good example of what not to use as my profile for my social media business – wrong hair, old shot and it still makes me think – was I at a party where I drank a bit? :)

© Simona R. Stefanescu – Simona Media, 2013. All materials published on www.simonamedia.com cannot be reproduced, stored or used without prior written permission of the owner, and cannot be used for profit. 

Don’t Call Me Names!

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Imagine that someone just took away your first name. How would you feel? Naked? Out of balance? Annoyed? Your first name is sacred. There are few other things that define you as much as your given name. You may also be defined by profession, social status, or certain private orientations. But if someone takes away your name, misspells it, gives you their interpretation of your name, or never remembers it – will you feel upset? Will that person have any chance to be in favor?

Get the names right! You learn it in college, or in any professional training in Customer Service, Direct Sales, Business Etiquette, Interpersonal Communication – they all underline the importance of getting the name right. For centuries, names have been the first step of defining a person. Names are so intimately connected with each of us, they are vital to the personality we have developed since childhood. People look at us, and first want to shake hands while telling us their name, hoping to bond. They are surprised when we remember it and spell it right. When somebody knows us by name, we feel more responsible to that person. The bond has been created. This is why getting names right and spelling them correctly are crucial.

Call people’s name often! While working in social media, marketing or having any sort of written communication with other people, make sure you properly address every new connection. Use their first name when you send a message or when you answer. Make sure you spell it right. Put glasses on if needed – or if you hire someone to manage your profiles, find someone who can read AND spell. Even if you use a pre-written message only copying the introduction, type the name correctly and double-check it. When you answer comments on your blog, start with the name of the person you are replying to. Besides getting a good reputation for being accurate, you also show RESPECT to the individual. Someone took the time to read your tweet/post/blog and wrote something back to YOU. It was more than a single-click “like” and the person thought about what you wrote. It would be nice to call their name while you are saying thanks. You would like this done to you, don’t you?

Worst offenders… Well, I’ve been called many names but mine, since I moved to the US, almost ten years ago. My first name is Simona. The worst I’ve been “named” – ever was “Sahara”. This was by a classmate, a woman in her 50s, a refugee from Africa, who was still struggling to process American English – she spoke colonial English all her life. My only thought was, “boy, she must have been missing her continent a lot“. (I hope I don’t have to explain you that Sahara is a desert in North Africa, as large as the Unites States.) I have been referred to in many other ways – Simon, Simone, Limona, and – worst offender – “Samona/Samonah“. I speak my name loudly and clearly for every barista and service provider, yet in all years of living in the US, I have only had it spelled properly ONCE, by one girl at Starbucks. And just last week I got “Simonia” and “Somona” on LinkedIn. Annoyed much? Yes, very much so!

What are the worst offenders in your case? Any examples that made you imaginary climb the walls?

 

© Simona R. Stefanescu – Simona Media, 2013. All materials published on www.simonamedia.com cannot be reproduced, stored or used without prior written permission of the owner, and cannot be used for profit. 

Keep it Simple!

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While writing a Facebook post, a blog or an article, there is one rule I find effective: KEEP IT SIMPLE! One main idea, a story and very little diverting will easily sink in the minds of your readers and will get you more attention than the “105 Things To Do” list. And here is why:

Too much information! We live in an information-bombardment era. If your Facebook feed is filled only with friends, you usually read through them, like a few and filter the drama out. If, like me, you have 500+ business pages you follow and read, while working, your brain gets numb with info and filters out over 80% of the articles that may be useful at some point. You may bookmark four “10 tools” articles and forget them – or erase them later, too tired to go through them again. Multi-tasking is a myth and an embellishment people list on their resumes. We can properly concentrate and give 100% to one task at a time.

Write for everyone! Very few write for a tech or highly specialized niche. We, the others, address a wide audience with various levels of education. And your first target is to be read – it’s human to want attention and recognition. Your second target should be to help someone out with your knowledge. When you give someone a tool or valuable information and you triggered an “a-ha!” moment in their brains, you generate an emotion more valuable than the confusion some create for the purpose of selling. Your reader will remember and will come back for more. You become the source of easily digested knowledge and people will appreciate that. I, for one, always go back to a well-written blog or website where I can learn something without hurting my brain.

So, how to keep it simple: You have a great idea for a post. Simplify it to an outline of what you want to say – so simple that you could explain it to a six year old. Eliminate meanderings and the subjective side of it. Read it out loud. If it’s simple, go ahead and post it. If you write a blog, there are extra steps: Put all the “I” factor in a short paragraph-story, related to the blog. Stories help remembering content. Let it sleep a bit, then come back and edit it. Print it out and read it out loud – seeing it on the paper is different than seeing it on the computer. If it seems simple and it flows, your work is done.

And here is the story related to this blog: When I was a child in Eastern Europe, we had little. My mother used to drag us through the city to run errands, and sometimes as a reward she would take us to a patisserie for our little ritual – a little rich miniature cake. We could only pick one and had to eat what we picked. Well, two years ago when I went back to show the country to my fiancé, I dragged him to the best patisserie I found. I saw in the window counter all my childhood petite cakes and order did I do – four of them at once, chocolate and cream all over! Good but heavy. My fiancé is a man who can eat. However, we were barely able to share three of them and left on the edge of it all coming back up! Lesson learned.

Eat one cake at a time! Write one idea at a time!

© Simona R. Stefanescu – Simona Media, 2013. All materials published on www.simonamedia.com cannot be reproduced, stored or used without prior written permission of the owner, and cannot be used for profit. 

Writing Before Being Kissed

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How do you title someone who’s been in the Communication business for 25 years? I don’t know either. People want labels, names and sometimes a person simply IS the business. Breathing, living, and being the field they work. I am a Communicator since I was too young to be kissed, no joke.

Simona in school

At six, when I started school, I knew already what I wanted to be: one of those people who wrote the newspapers, because that’s how my great grandma’ taught me to read – on the obituaries.

I knew I wanted to be a journalist when I was six-year-old, while living in Transylvania / Romania, and reading the newspapers with my grandparents. I started publishing in a serious periodical at 14 years old, while still in high-school. I got my first full-time journalist job when I was 19. I was probably making more money than my dad while thinking “what an amazing field to be in!” It did not feel like work, it was pure adrenaline, day after day. After ten years of newspaper, TV reporting, radio news and public relations, I thought I got “old” and journalism is a field for young people. In fact, things were changing. Online media started to kick in – and even now newspapers struggle to accept they do not own the information and the era of the citizen-communicator had arrived. So, in order to advance in my life and career, I switched time zones, countries, and continents, moved to the US and got a degree in Mass Communication and PR. I fell madly in love with Social Media. Now, I use all my previous experience in Communication to enhance traditional Marketing for small and bigger business, adding a Social Media component and polishing once rusty marketing plans.

Why should you come and read my blog? Because I plan to write about social media as a communication business and hope to demystify some of the misunderstood parts one may think about “social networking”. There are many blogs giving you the latest scoops and “ten things you need to know about your xyz account” but they do not explain the mechanisms behind it. I want my blogs to be simple and easy to understand and I’d like to show that everyone can approach social media without fear. Simplicity is the goal for my website, for my business and the main principle I bring into my clients’ lives. And staying simple is a great outlook one can have in life, as well.

 © Simona R. Stefanescu – Simona Media, 2013. All materials published on www.simonamedia.com cannot be reproduced, stored or used without prior written permission of the owner, and cannot be used for profit.