Finding a fake on Facebook

There are all kinds of posts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media that seem too good to be true. 

Sadly some of them are just that … too good to be true. But how can you tell which are true before you reshare that content on your social networks? 

Tools to detect an Internet fake:

Google: In a Google Search window put the title of the internet post or image or video or the key subject of the piece. If the only results that come back are for that one piece of content, chances are it is fake or at the very least not credible, because if it were credible it would be found in a lot of (credible) places on the web.

Google link checking: Google makes it easy to see who else is linking to something on the web. To do this, type the word “link” into a Google Search window, follow it with a colon and the URL of the page you want to check. Doing this kind of search will show you if any credible sites are linking to the suspect page. To read more: See who links to your site, and how. 

Snopes is a well-known site that either validates or debunks urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards and other stories of unknown or questionable origin. Search for some keywords from a questionable site to see if Snopes has investigated.

Hoax-Slayer is an Australia-based debunker of all manner of hoaxes that includes sections on Facebook hoaxes and internet scams.

Common sense: Finally, and this may seem obvious, checking a few basic things will likely reveal hints about the legitimacy of a piece of web content.

• Is it hosted on a reliable website? For example, a major news outlet, a university website or a ".gov" domain.
• Does it quote known, reliable sources?
• Check for misspellings – a lot of them probably means an non-credible site.
• Is the site overwhelmed with advertisements? That might be a sign that the site is all about attracting the unwary just to show them ads.
• Is the website selling something? Be especially skeptical of information about something on a website that is trying to sell you that something or an item related to it.
• If a website asks you to login using your social media credentials, make sure you check the domain first and verify that it is legitimate.

A final word: When you want to believe something is true, that’s the time when you have to recognize that you’re susceptible to being tricked. It’s also the time to put on the skeptic’s hat and really check something out.

And just for fun, here are a few of the more memorable hoaxes perpetrated on Facebook in the past year:

• You can charge your iPhone by placing it in and running a microwave.
• A large number of members of Congress have criminal records.
• There has been a confirmed case of an Ebola victim rising from the dead in Africa
• Liking the image of a sick child equates to one prayer for that child while sharing equates to 100 prayers.
• Publishing a "Privacy Notice" on Facebook will stop anyone from using your images or posts on FB for anything else.

Do you know of other ways to check for scams? Please share in the Comments area.

A New Online You, Part 2: Platform by Platform

Check each social network

And now the cleanup begins! Once you've found mentions of yourself all over the web and cleaned up the stuff you control the next step is to take care of undesirable material across search engines and social platforms. 

This is the second of a three-part series on how you can assess and improve your online self. (For Part 1, see A New Year: A New Online You)

Today: Cleaning up your reputation platform by platform

Google offers a variety of pages that help you clean up content on the web:
   • Steps for removing content on someone else's site from Google Search results
   • Report or remove content from Google’s services
   • How to keep personal information out of Google Search results
   • Request removal of an image
   • Request removal of a cached page
   • To report concerns over YouTube content

Facebook:
   • Check your Timeline for material that should be deleted.
   • Check your Photos folder and untag yourself from any images that you no longer wish to be associated with.

And for "Friends" who insist on posting stuff you find objectionable or feel may reflect poorly on you:
   • Step 1: Sign in to your Facebook account.
   • Step 2: Scroll through the news feed in the center of your home page to find the offensive item that you want to delete.
   • Step 3: Hover your mouse pointer over the top right-hand corner of the post to reveal the down-arrow button. Click the down-arrow button.
   • Step 4: Select “Hide Story” from the context menu to delete the offensive post.
   • Step 5: Select “Unsubscribe From [Username]” in the context menu to delete the offensive post and remove all other posts from the user who posted the item.  

Other tips:
   • If you select the Unsubscribe option, Facebook will stop displaying updates or posts from the user in your news feed.
   • You can also report Facebook members who post inappropriate or offensive material. Click on the user’s name in any of his posts in your news feed. Scroll to the bottom of the left-hand menu under the user’s profile picture. Click the blue Report/Block link. Click the radio button beside Block or Unfriend to completely block the user or just remove him from your friends list. Click the button that best describes why you want to report the user; Click Continue to submit the report to Facebook.
   • Report a Facebook Page for offensive content by clicking the "Report this Page" link at the bottom left-hand corner of the Page.

Linkedin: To hide entire sections of your profile:
   • Step 1: Place your cursor over the menu displaying your name at the top of the page and then click "Settings."
   • Step 2: Click "Edit Your Public Profile" under the "Helpful Links" category near the bottom of the page. Options for hiding your profile's content then appear under "Profile Content" on the bottom right side of the page.
   • Step 3: Click "Make My Public Profile Visible to No One" to hide all profile information from appearing.
   • Step 4: Click "Make My Public Profile Visible to Everyone" to show your profile and selected information to the public.
   • Step 5: Clear the box beside any categories listed below this option to hide different sections of your profile, including your headline, current and past positions, certifications, education, websites, groups, interests and skills. However, you can't hide your name, industry, location and number of recommendations.
   • Step 6: Click "Go Back to Settings" to apply the changes.

To Edit or Delete content inside sections of your profile:
• Go to "Profile" on the top left-hand side.
• Click on "Edit Profile" and then click on the section you would like to edit.
• It gives you the option to edit current information, and add and remove content from the section you choose.

Twitter:
   • To report violations such as harassment, impersonation or name squatting, or breach of privacy

Desperate measures:
   • Tweeteraser allows for specific word searches or by-date searches to find tweets you’d like to delete
   • Twitwipe will erase all of your tweets (or at least as many as it can get to)
   • How to deactivate your account

Pinterest:
   • Report objectionable content, spam, a user or a comment

Instagram:
   • Step1: Go to Instagram, click on "Support"
   • Step 2: Click on "Privacy & Safety Center"
   • Step 3: Select the appropriate category

Of course as much as possible you should not ever post anything online that you might regret later. But if you or others have, these links should help.

So what other platforms should you check out and clean up?

Previous post: A New Year: A New Online You

A New Year: A New Online You

Look at all your online presences

The New Year is a great time to assess how you appear to the online world.

Are there unflattering comments about you on a blog post? Are you tagged in inappropriate images on Facebook? Are there things attached to your name online that give the wrong impression?

You exist online in so many places you’ve likely lost track of how the world sees you. So use the excitement of New Years to do an inventory of your online presences and your overall online image. Then get busy with your online makeover.

This is the first of a three-part series on how you can assess and improve your online self.

Today: Where you are now online and the basic clean up

Step 1: Search for yourself online: Things to remember …
   • Use quote marks around your name and the most-common variations of your name
   • In Google, make sure that the Personal/Global results button (upper right on the Google search window) is toggled to Global so you’re seeing the results that the rest of the world sees
   • Go through at least the first five pages of results – the first 10 to 12 would be better
   • Also look at other services such as 123People
   • Check all results that are unfamiliar/surprising and make a note of the results you’d like to change or delete

Step 2: Clean up the obvious:
For pages and accounts you control:
   • Make sure all of the "About" and "Bio" sections of all online accounts are accurate and devoid of typos
   • Edit and improve your Google profile, which is a public bio that comes up as one of the top search results for your name
   • Delete posts from your blog that don’t show you in the best light

For pages and accounts you don’t control:
   • (From Google) Contact the owner of the web page or the webmaster and work with them to get the problematic content updated or removed
   • (From Google) Work with the appropriate legal authorities to get the content removed from the web

Step 3: Overwhelming the negative: One do-it-yourself approach to getting rid of negative web content is to bury it with positive content. For example, by starting a blog and posting to it regularly.Other ideas:
   • Comment on other, highly rated, blogs
   • Ensure that content you control (your blog, for example) is correctly tagged and the text is search engine optimized
   • Seek endorsements and recommendations on Linkedin (and only display the most positive)
   • Help others on social networks in your area of professional expertise
   • Accept opportunities to be quoted in the media (and therefore on their websites)

These are just a few of the things you can do to improve your online reputation.

Next up: How to work with Google and the biggest social networks to clean up negative or other inappropriate content; to be followed by a guide to professional services that help clean up your online image.

What other steps would you recommend to clean up an online image?

Social Marketing: Utility leads to success, says Google’s Avinash Kaushik

What are the most important social media marketing skills that graduating college students need to understand?

 Avinash Kaushik

I’m asking three questions of some leaders in the field of social marketing and this is what I learned.This is No. 16 in the series (see the links below for other posts in the series).

Today: Avinash Kaushik, who is the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google, the co-founder of Market Motive Inc., author of the blog, Occam's Razor, and author of two best-selling books: Web Analytics: An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0. He can be found on Twitter as @avinash:

The secret to future social marketing success will be a new skill, which Kaushik describes as: "The ability to execute utility marketing – in the purest sense of the word (and to avoid the opposite: shouting and pimping)."

In a blog post, he says utility marketing is "delivering such incredible value that you simply become part of your audience's life!"

He goes on to say that mobile apps are the channel to both deliver great content and collect data (with the consumer’s permission).

He asks: "Is there anything compelling and of value that you deliver, selflessly, to your current and potential audiences?"

Utility marketing is the solution, he says, and is pretty cheap.

"A decent mobile app costs infinitely less than producing a single TV commercial and — done right — delivers a hyper-relevant audience with whom you can build a relationship unlike what is possible via any other channel on the planet," Kaushik says.

"And you'll never have to remember to interrupt them, because you'll be part of their life already!"

How important is social marketing?

It is important at this moment in time, Kaushik says, but "will become crucial over the next couple of years."

And what skills are the most important in social marketing?

Successful practitioners will have "a combination of business savvy, authenticity and restraint."

So, what do you think? How important will social marketing be in the future and what MUST graduating students know?

Previous posts:
10 Experts Weigh In On Social Marketing
Social Marketing: 'The lighter fluid on the marketing bonfire,' says author Ric Dragon
Social Marketing: Don’t be timid, says Ford’s Scott Monty
Social Marketing: Understand how marketing fits in, says Amber Naslund of SideraWorks
Social Marketing: 'Talk to people as human beings,' says Gini Dietrich, marketer and author
Social Marketing: Its 'part of a nutritious breakfast,' says Christopher Penn of WhatCounts
Social Marketing: Make music to an audience’s ears, says Mahei Foliaki (@Iconic88)

Google vs. Human: People should always win

My recent loss of access to all things Google thanks to some hackers has me thinking about what it is Google is and is not.

Some background: In mid-February my Gmail account was hacked (earlier post: I’m in Google Hell: A Cautionary Tale) and it took multiple attempts and 20 days for me to get the account back - minus all my contacts and much of my old mail.

During that time I had no access to Google+, Blogger, Google Docs etc. etc. It got me thinking about Google as a customer-centered company.

The company’s informal corporate slogan "Don't be evil" is so-often-quoted that it leaves the impression that all that Google does is for the good (and by default the good of its users).

However, my recent experience in Google customer hell would tell a different story. That this company has not direct human interface with its customers says two things to me:

1. Google prefers not to deal personally with the very people who make its business success possible

2. Google is run by people who are possibly uncomfortable dealing with people in any way other than electronic means (email, for example).

So, given that, here are some things that happened to me contrasted as what Google did and what a reasonable Human would do:

Google: When I went looking for information after my account was hacked, sent me to the Account Recovery Page. This page invited me to enter my email address to be taken to another page where I could answer a series of questions including some most of us would struggle with (The exact date you opened your Gmail account? The exact date you opened another Google-related account?)
Human: Send people to a page where they can have a live chat with someone who can likely resolve their issue on the spot.

Google: After six business days (not the 3-5 promised) I was asked via email for additional information to prove who I was.
Human: Use a Google search to see what comes up on the person contacting Google. If their Google account is high in the results (as mine was) and that account points straight to my Gmail email address that should be proof enough that I’m who I say I am. But wait, if the Google search turns up dozens of results and all point to me that should also be enough proof.

Google: Has human beings who answer the general customer service number – (650) 623-4000 whose main role seems to be to drive people back to filling out online forms.
Human: Have empowered human beings answering the phone who can actually resolve customer problems.

Being human would seem to be in Google’s best interest since it is humans that use the company’s services, provide the raw material for the business model and will decide today, tomorrow or sometime in the future if they want to be a part of Google’s online ecosystem.

I’m not sure what it means for a corporation to be “human,” but I have a sense it includes putting people and their issues first and living up to the slogan “Don't be evil.”

Related post
I’m in Google Hell: A Cautionary Tale

I’m in Google Hell: A Cautionary Tale

Originally posted Feb. 29, 2012 on Social Media Today because I did not have access to my Blogger account because by Gmail account had been hacked and the password changed.

UPDATE: My Gmail account was returned to me after four attempts by me to do all that Google asked and 20 days of waiting. A follow up blog post will be here soon.

Now to the original post …

You’re breaking my heart Google.

You don’t write.

You don’t call.

Honestly it’s starting to feel like we may have parted ways for good. And truthfully this makes me sad.

At one time I was one of your biggest fans. In media interviews, in classroom lectures and at conferences I would joke that one day the Earth might be called Planet Google.

But, now two weeks have passed since my Gmail account was hacked. I know the exact time too. I was accessing my Gmail from my smartphone at 11:11 a.m. EST on Feb. 15 when I suddenly could not send a reply to an email.

Since that time I’ve done everything you’ve asked: I’ve filled out the Account Recovery form and patiently waited the 3-5 days you said it would take. But it took six days for you to get back to me and that was only a request for more information. I obliged in less than 30 minutes.

Again you told me it might be 3-5 business days. And yet …. A week later here I sit: without my email and without any indication that you even care.

And lest you think I’m some kind of passive-aggressive type who is just meekly sitting around waiting … I did try calling your general customer service number – (650) 623-4000 (press "0" to speak to a live human being who will helpfully tell you there is nothing they can do and be sure to fill out the online Account Recovery form).

So, on the eve of your (Google’s) rollout of its new privacy policy, here in a nutshell is why most of us should reconsider using so many of your (Google services) … or as I call it …

Five Degrees of Google Hell

1. Google’s online customer service is not helpful and it is exceedingly frustrating to navigate. If there were any justice in the world Google’s founders would be sentenced to spend a day trying to figure out how to recover their Gmail accounts.

2. Once your Gmail account is hacked you’ve essentially lost access to all the other connected Google services. Goodbye Google+. So long Google Docs. No Blogger access for you. Etc. etc.

3. Once the hackers have your address they start sending out pleas for money with some bizarre story about you being trapped overseas and in need of money. This sparks a huge round (in my case hundreds) of messages on social media and via the phone to make sure I’m aware my account has been hacked. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the concern, but for two days I was buried while responding to people.

4. Then there are other uses you have inadvertently tied your email to. For example: Want to do your taxes but can’t remember the password for the online service? Oh well can’t request a reminder because, you guessed it, that email will go to the account you cannot access.

5. If you also have a secondary business where the email is forwarded to your Gmail (for convenience) you’re also sunk. Those emails are merrily going to an unavailable account. Why not reset the forwarding? Well you can’t if you don’t have access to both accounts that are tied to, you guessed it, Google.

Basically Google, you have your hooks in too much of my life – something I realized too late.

I once trusted you and believed in you.

Now … On the day before Google rolls out a big shake up in its privacy policies this might be a good time to rethink your dependence on Google and learn from my mistake and avoid Google Hell!