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Welcome to the socialized strategy. It is Friday, and you know what that means. We are diving into a topic, and we have kind of a fun one for today. So we're gonna talk about spam, bot, and troll accounts. I think it's important because I do think we have a lot of people suffering from the the fallout with a bunch of things.
Helen:And I just wanna make sure everybody knows what's what and how to be safe out there. Because I think we presume that everybody knows this, but I think a lot of times people that are new to social media don't even realize. And when I see some people who have been following me for years, and then they get a DM from me and it's from an imposter account. And they're engaging when they're having a conversation. They're thinking that they're talking to me.
Helen:That's one type of a spam account, an impersonation account. But there are different things that we need to address in this realm. So I'm gonna do it all in this newsletter. Before I get started, I just wanna say, first off, still kind of reeling from my vacation. And, even though I'm back and I'm so hardcore into work, I have 2 production shoots I'm working on right now, and I'm in the midst of it.
Helen:And I'm sometimes I'm like, gosh, I haven't looked at my phone all day. I haven't looked at my social media all day. And that doesn't normally happen. Usually, I wake up and I do a quick scroll in the morning to catch up. And then midday, I'll do a check-in, see what's happening.
Helen:Maybe I'll even take some time as a break to scroll and see and answer some comments. And then in the evening, I spend some time. Well, I have been so swamped and doing production things when I say and I'll give you some examples because I think people don't even know what that means sometimes. But I'll give you some of the examples of the things that are filling my day. And I realized, my god, the whole day went by.
Helen:I never even picked up my phone and looked at TikTok. The whole time, I didn't look at Instagram. I haven't seen Instagram in days, and people are leaving me My goodness. So, what I will tell you about it it though is it is a little bit of a nice thing for me when I'm forced to step away in that way. It really does me a bit of a favor because it's it gives me a, like, a a clean slate to look back.
Helen:And then when I start getting diving back in or I'm scrolling again, maybe I'm looking for trends for the newsletter. Maybe I'm trying to see what tutorial I need to be teaching next. It's kind of fun because I haven't been scrolling day after day. So anyway, I urge you to find something to do to take a break because it really does make a big difference in how you view your social media. I've always been so committed to it and consistent with it and even when but even when I'm consistent because I do have the other production work that I'm doing, there is always a break that happens for me.
Helen:And I have to pay attention fully when I'm on a shoot day. I don't, you know, barely take out my phone unless I'm using my phone to shoot. We'll talk about that. What's fun is that I'm working on some projects and some of the things that I I have to do for the production I'll share with you now is and I don't have to do these things. These are things that help me in my job.
Helen:But when I'm directing social media content for a brand, let's say, or commercial content for a brand, now that I'm a content creator, it has almost changed how I approach my prepping for those jobs. So if you're in the production industry and you know about how it works when we're preparing for a shoot and the director, me, sees the storyboards and I know what we're gonna be filming, a lot of times the next step would be to break it down into a shot list or create a shooting board where you I block out this is gonna be a wide shot. I'm gonna cover this also in a close-up, and I list out the list of shots so that we're on the shoot day. We know we can have a checklist. We're gonna go through it.
Helen:We have in the wide shot. We have the close-up. We got the product shot. We go back here. We got the side angle.
Helen:So I have a list. Well, now, this is so funny. As a content creator, I have made the leap into instead of doing this on paper, I literally take my cell phone and myself and I make the shots. I recreate them in rough form. It's a little easier when there's not multiple talent involved.
Helen:So this shoot that I'm working on right now in 2 weeks is one person. It's one dentist in the scene for the most part. One there's a couple of scenes with a child and so I have a stuffed animal I used. But I take myself. I have a dental coat.
Helen:I got one for $15 on Amazon. I put on my dental coat and I do the role of the dentist and I create the piece of content with myself so that I can show the cameraman, show the crew, show the production people that I'm working with. This is how I envision it. This is how it will come together. And this way, when we make the shot list, we actually know how it's going to be edited.
Helen:I mean, it's crazy. Right? I am crazy and they all think I'm crazy because I don't think any other director no. For a fact, I know no other director does this. But what I have to laugh about is it brings me back to my roots.
Helen:The beginning of my production career when I was sent in the back to learn how to edit as a secretary. I didn't even know what I was doing, and I was sent in the back to learn how to edit a 30 second commercial into a 15 second version. So I became very aware of what the shots are and I learned editing before I learned shooting. And I think that because of that, all of that history has come into play on why I'm really, really good at social media now. Why when I'm directing now, I have the final vision, and I'm going in reverse.
Helen:And I think a lot of directors don't necessarily they may have it in their mind, but they don't have it so clearly organized and laid out the way that I think about it. It's crazy. I just had to share that with you because I love it. And I think the creative people that I'm working with, they're just they're watching these things. And one of them said, too bad you weren't a dentist.
Helen:We could just use you. I was cracking up on that one. Anyway, I digress. So let's get into the topic for today. I just thought I'd share some production things with you as I'm getting closer to launching the socialized studio where we're gonna be talking all things.
Helen:And I'm not talking about production. I am gonna share production tips and such. But when I'm in that studio setting now, what I'm gonna be doing is organizing it, like, for in a production standpoint for you so that you're understanding how to make content as if you have a professional background. So I'm gonna I'm I'm really, really excited about it. I'm so ready for this.
Helen:That that's why I keep talking about it. We think we're gonna launch at the end of October, October 29th, where I think we're gonna be ready and that's our day. We'll see if that changes, but I'm I'm leaning towards it. Okay. Let's get into the topic for today, which is how to deal with spam accounts, bot accounts, and trolls on social media.
Helen:And with all the good and the good things on social media, these are some of the bummer things. These are some of the negative things, but they are reality. And so to keep yourself safe and keep yourself from getting, you know, getting yourself into a trouble because of it or succumb to something because of it, we're gonna talk about what they all are and how to keep yourself alert and safe. Let's go. First off, what do these things mean?
Helen:Spam, bot, troll. We're gonna break it down for the newbies. Spam accounts are like fake impersonation accounts, sometimes often of celebrities. I get Keanu Reeves following me on the daily. And I get so every single time Keanu Reeves this, Keanu all different versions of his username come up.
Helen:And then he this person, this bot this account, the spam account tries to message me and say, oh, I'm I know you're a big fan and I I love your page blah blah blah. Okay. We know Keanu Reeves is not writing to me. Let's get real. So spam account is a fake account of someone, whether it's a celebrity or a large creator.
Helen:Sometimes not even that big of a creator depending on the type of page you have. If a person thinks they can hop on, impersonate you and get money from people, whether you're a real estate agent, maybe you're selling courses or something like that. And these people various they are so smart the spam accounts. It's a killer and they will reach out and they will and a lot of people fall prey to it. Somebody texted me on Instagram, sent messaged me and sent me a text, a whole chat screenshot of a chat they had with this person that they thought was me.
Helen:I was like, how do you not see that that's not me? Just the way it was written. Whatever. It's just tough. People don't know.
Helen:They don't pay attention. So spam accounts, bot accounts, those are that's short for robot and those are accounts that are usually used for engagement farming and scamming. In other words, they if you're, if you're a person who decides to buy followers, those are bot accounts that are used to make it look like you have a lot of followers. So there are companies that create these accounts. They use computers, AI, etcetera, to create accounts and make it look like they're real.
Helen:So that when you purchase followers, you're purchasing, oh, we're gonna spend x money and we're gonna get 10,000 followers. It's gonna make our account look great. They're not even real accounts. And so they are fake accounts that are called bot accounts that were created by this company who is selling it to you. So please don't fall prey to that and do not buy do not buy them.
Helen:And then the third category is trolls. This is more of a real people type of thing and sometimes it's it could be done by a bot account, But it's when comments are left in bulk or mean comments are left one at a time, people who just wanna spread negativity. And so those people that's a kind of a I won't even call that a like a necessarily a bot account. Those in a lot of cases are real people who are just filled with negative energy and their day is spent leaving negative comments on people's pages and that's really, really frustrating. Alright.
Helen:So let's now talk about the best way to identify them and how to protect yourself from them. So first thing, if you get a weird follow request or you get a DM and it's from someone that it looks like that's a person you follow and I'm gonna use myself as an example. I come into your DM's, some other ships reaching out and I'm like, oh, have you wanted to make money? Usually it's involved with, they want to hook you in to sell you something. And if you know your creator that you're following, you have to say, is this creator really going to try and sell me something?
Helen:Look at me. I'm giving free tutorials on the, on the daily. Why would I be trying to now sidebar someone and sell them some kind of a package? It's suspicious. It's sus.
Helen:Okay. Don't engage. The first thing you want to do is when you see a comment like that and you think, oh, I'm so excited. It's from someone I follow and they're a big creator and I I'm like, oh, they're reaching out to me. The first thing you're gonna do is tap and look closely at the spelling of the username.
Helen:So if you say you're following the mothership, oh my gosh, she's she's messaging me, read the username. It's usually at the mothership with 2 r's or 2 p's or there's usually something spelled wrong or a dot edit or a dash somewhere. They make it look very much the same. They add your it's the same creator's photo, the same creator's bio. They copy the whole entire account.
Helen:They even have videos up there and it looks like it's me, but it's not. So really, really look. And so what you'll wanna do is look at type in the username of the actual creator and then look at their main account and see what is their how is their main account spelled and notice the difference. Please, I beg of you. Do not fall prey to this.
Helen:This is one of the biggest things that is frustrating and it's one of the biggest things that people fall for. And then what happens next a lot of times is they send you a link. Oh, just go here to click to download it. Click and they own your account because that just gave them permission to log in to your account. They completely do this and that is how people have lost their Instagram accounts.
Helen:People have lost their TikTok accounts. Clicking on a link. Never. Can I say it again? Never click on a link that you receive in a direct message.
Helen:Please, I beg of you, do your research first. Don't click on a link. That's so important. Jonathan did it on Facebook. He thought his friend was sending him a video to watch.
Helen:Click. Done. Someone owns his account now and we can't get it back. It's so easy and it's so quick and it happens so fast. And then you just soon as you do it, you go, oh, I didn't mean to do that.
Helen:Too late. So hesitate. I one time even did it on something. I can't remember what the particulars were, but I remember I was like, oh my God, I was so busy in the middle of 10 things. I almost clicked on that link.
Helen:Cause sometimes you're just doing multitasking and you're doing too many things at once. Slow down. Don't click on anything on social media. I can't say that enough. I feel like a mom.
Helen:I'm a mom right now, but I have to say it. So that's the first one. Now reporting those can be challenging because we'll speak about reporting in general, but especially in impersonation accounts. If they're like in other words, I can't report Keanu Reeves fake accounts because I would say it's impersonating Keanu Reeves and the only person who can report that is Keanu Reeves himself. I love how Keanu got into the convo.
Helen:Anyway, you can report an account if it's and you can report it for other things. You can report it for, like, nudity or, you know, reporting for there's other things you can report it for. I don't think they do anything about it. If they go and they look and they're like, oh, it's not actually that, they they're not gonna do anything about it. So don't really waste your time trying to report a celebrity's account.
Helen:It's time it's not time worth spending. Just be mindful not to engage with it. That's how you keep yourself protected. Reporting is just not gonna help you there. Bot accounts, robot accounts, well, how do you deal with those?
Helen:Okay. There's 2 parts to this. 1 is you might have followers that you go, what? They don't have a profile picture or they've left a ton of comments about, like, making, doing crypto, something like that, like a bunch of comments. Immediately tap on the username and identify it, block.
Helen:You tap the arrow across the bottom, then arrow at the top of the username page. So you're on their profile. Tap the arrow at the top and then type block at the bottom. Tap block at the bottom. Get rid of it.
Helen:Block to death. Like you cannot over block. That's my point right now. I have every time something oh, this is fishy block. I can't even be bothered.
Helen:And you might think, oh, I don't wanna remove followers. I it's like I'm trying to gain followers and it's setting me back. Believe me, this is gonna send you further back if you keep these bot accounts in your in your feed. Because if you keep them, they're not engaging with your they're they're not engaging positively with your content, so they're not helping you anyway. So block, get rid of them.
Helen:Do it immediately when someone's spamming and in your thing trying to sell you something, tap the arrow block. Done. You can't block fast enough in my book. That's what I say. The last thing is trolls.
Helen:And we're gonna just talk about trolls because it really depends. Now, I I will say I'm not so quick to to to block the trolls unless it's really, really insulting. Then I'm like, oh my god. Get out of here. Click block.
Helen:But a lot of times a troll comment, like somebody saying something negative about you, your followers are gonna come after them and then start commenting and commenting and comment. And that is engagement. So you have to be a little, I don't know, though. That's where I say hesitate for a second unless it's really, really insulting to you and it's hurtful, then block immediately. You don't need that energy.
Helen:Get rid of it. But as you get to be a bigger creator and I now get a little amused by trolls. So I went from being like, how dare they? And getting insulted and think I wanna clap back as I say, or, you know, do a reply to comment and say something back or even write a snarky response. Now I let it sit.
Helen:First of all, if it sits, they don't even think you read it. The minute you respond, you obviously have read it and they got to you. So they win. Don't do that. Just what you're gonna do is let it sit if you want to and see if it creates engagement or if it's bugging the crap out of you, block.
Helen:Block. The end. Don't hesitate. Block. We don't need negativity in our life or in our social media.
Helen:It's the best way to keep yourself positive is to not engage with that type of negativity. And if you your person that wants that kind of controversy, oh, I like it. I'm gonna make a funny snapback video and I'm gonna insult them. Okay. Go ahead.
Helen:But you're just it's like a cycle of negativity that starts swirling around you. And I know a lot of accounts get more views because of that. And so if that's what you're looking to do, you know, go ahead. I just don't come from that place. So I can't I can't I want to say condone that behavior, but I can encourage it.
Helen:Let me say that. I can't encourage it. If you like it and you're a person who likes controversy and you wanna and a lot of people love controversy and they love when it's like, oh my God, I can go at this and we can have a real conversation now. Go to town. That could be fun.
Helen:But I'm just telling you that it's not for me. It is not for me. I am like, can't we all get along? Let's be happy. So it really depends on the type of person you are.
Helen:So my big thing was put your mental health as a priority. Keep your social media positive unless you enjoy controversy. Maybe you were meant to be a lawyer and you wanna kinda do arguments and you wanna test out your argumentative skills on your social media. Go to town with it and have fun. But just don't let it get to you to the point that it's wrecking your good time.
Helen:Okay. Hopefully, that's helpful. This is my last tip before I get into some questions. If you are starting to grow quickly on social media, it's a really good idea to do a little search on your username and see if there are accounts that are popping up with your so you can get to them ahead of time. If you do a search, I'm gonna tell you a little secret.
Helen:Jonathan, my son, he does all the search every day. He goes he types in a search bar the mothership and looks to see if there's anybody impersonating me. What's helpful about having someone else do it is that if this account is copying me, but has blocked me, I won't be able to see it. So he can see it from his account and he'll sometimes send me a screenshot. Oh mom, there's more.
Helen:And I laugh and then I go and look for it and I can't see it. But then I log into my our socialize account and I can see it from there. So a lot of times these fake accounts that are creating created copying your your own account are hidden from you. So it's helpful to check from someone else's phone. So when you have when you're with a friend, have them like, oh, can I just can you just look up and see if anybody's copying me?
Helen:If as you start to grow and I'm talking like I think it started for me around 70,000 followers when it really started to hit. So, you know, don't be stressed about it. But if you have an account where somebody could really benefit from from impersonating you, if you're successful in sales on something, whatever, and they think they can make they can trick people. So that's worth doing a little search on your username and seeing. And if you can't find it, PS, if you can't find it, you can't find someone else's phone to do it.
Helen:Go on the tiktok.com on your laptop or webs or on a browser. Because if you look at tiktok.com on a browser, even people that have have you blocked wait. Even people that have you blocked, you can see. So that's a little hot take. Okay.
Helen:Hopefully, I can keep you can keep yourself safe out there and not get get let trolls, bots, and spam, and all of that take you down. It's a reality. If you can keep ahead of it, when you start to see them and unfollow them or remove them as a follower, when bot accounts, even if you don't wanna block them, just remove them as a follower. You can unfollow, you can remove followers, whatever. You don't have to block if you don't want to.
Helen:You can just take them out as a follower. Alright. So I'm giving you, like, all the all the thoughts. So there's a couple of questions, a little off topic that I'm gonna tackle at the end of this episode. And one of them is from a Canadian creator who has a big following.
Helen:Hello, nugget. You know who you are. I'm sorry. I didn't get to this question sooner. Her question is how can she get paid for her content as a Canadian?
Helen:This is a huge problem with TikTok in other countries. They don't offer the creator fund or the what is it called now? I forgot the creator, whatever it is where you get paid for views. I'm blanking out. They can't participate in that.
Helen:And they don't have the TikTok shop in Canada. I don't think in Australia or whatever. Some countries don't have it, so they can't monetize. So a couple of things I will say about this. The amount of money that you get from views on TikTok is very it's very little in the big scheme of things unless you're having multiple.
Helen:And I mean multiple viral videos with millions of views. If you are a smaller creator, even if you're my size creator and you're not, and you have videos, oh, this must be great. This must pay great. You have a 100,000 views. That's like $7 or something.
Helen:It's not a lot of money. So you're number 1, I will say nugget, you're not missing out on a lot when it comes to the fund type income. Shop is another story because if there are successful shop people that have viral multiple like, for me, I sold a bunch of tripods. I made, like I think in the end, I got, like, $600 from those tripods that that I promote. You know, one one shop video and it took off.
Helen:But I'm not making a lot of shop videos, so I'm not and if I was, if I were or was I don't know the proper grammar there. If I were making a lot of shopper shop videos, I don't think that they would all go viral, and I don't think I'd be selling products every single time. So I guess the first thing I wanna say is you're not missing out on a lot when it comes to the money made on the platform itself. It is money. I'm not gonna lie, but it's I look at it like, wow.
Helen:I don't know if I could put all my eggs in that basket, quit my day job. Forget it. I wouldn't be able to pay my bills. So it's more like, yes, it's kinda like, oh, it's fun money and people there are people doing well when they hit it with a k with some viral videos. But in general, it's not a consistent thing.
Helen:You are better off as a Canadian creator is to figure out a way that you can use your audience to monetize in another way. So there are Canadian creators that are, they have products that they sell or whatever businesses they do, or they're experts in a field and they are as experts. Even some of the ones that are content gurus, they sell courses or programs that you can join monthly, that you can learn other ways to monetize by offering something to your audience that is not necessarily dollars from TikTok, but they are it's something that you are sharing with your audience and you are able to make money with. I hope that's helpful. I think that I think, you know, what what I'm what I'm saying when I explain it.
Helen:It's just the way, for example, for myself, I am well known here for understanding social media. So now I'm getting booked on production jobs where, I was only shooting commercials before. Now I'm shooting social media. So I've used this to leverage my day job. And so if you have something that you're doing in your life that can be leveraged for more expertise in a topic, If you are I'm gonna use another lady for an example, Betsy.
Helen:She's a zoom specialist. As she Listen, if I was struggling or I needed like zoom lessons for the platform zoom, I would contact her and I would be like, can you give me Can I pay for an hour of your time to learn the ins and outs of zoom? And I just happen to know that because she talks about being a zoom expert on her videos and I'm like this lady knows zoom, Jesus Mary. I'm gonna call her when I need help. So you can leverage your expertise in whatever area it is and and help people.
Helen:And that might be a way to monetize. I hopefully that helps you. Now get the next question and last question for today is the best way to post links on content. The way I this is so dependent on your platform. And this is why I always say I love Instagram for this one factor that you can link on your story.
Helen:I have not found, at least on my TikTok, I'm not able to link to a story. It's not an option. So I don't know. Some people say I can't I can they can put links on their videos. There's a place where you can add links, but it's for TikTok events and TikTok things.
Helen:You can't link outside things. Like, I can't put a link to my website on any of my content. So let me just talk about if you're trying to sell something, the person who submitted this question, the quickest way because they they asked there was an elaborate question. Should I use Linktree? Should I use like, what are the what are the things I should use to link?
Helen:Let me see what the her questions were. Should I use an LTK, a Linktree, a stand store? The options are a little confusing. They are confusing because each one of them and her name is Karen. Hi, Karen.
Helen:Each one of them is used for a different purpose. So, like, a fashion person might really say LTK is the way to go. That's where you wanna that's what you wanna link to. That's where you wanna send people. That could be good.
Helen:That wouldn't be something for me. For me, I would rather link in my Instagram story a direct link to something I'm asking for people to sign up for, or I'm gonna make sure my website hellosocialize.com has all my things there, so I can say it. People will remember it. Hellosocialize.com. If I put it on screen, hellosocialize.com.
Helen:It's easy to remember and it gets people directly to a place. Linktree is fine, but it's again, you have to get people to tap the link in your bio, scroll through and look for the link, and then tap another link. And I've always been told, like, the path of least resistance for your viewer consumer customer is one click gets you there. The fastest with no barriers is what you want to think about. So what is the quickest thing for your person who's listening to get them to the final purchase or result?
Helen:And you have to kind of if you kind of focus on that and you forget about everything else, it'll tell you what the answer is. And so it's a different answer for each person. So I don't have the exact answer. I'm the answer is the quickest thing for the viewer. If it's a that's why this TikTok shop is so successful.
Helen:Person's watching click the shop, purchase the thing. That's why they don't let you put other links on TikToks because they wanted to push the shop because they make money. But on Instagram, you can link on the story directly to your thing, which is bingo. Beautiful. So I do think that if you're selling items, I do think if you're not using the TikTok shop, if you're selling items, then maybe maybe Instagram is better for that because it does allow you to link directly.
Helen:And that's why the TikTok shop has been so successful because it's like click, boom, done. Alright. Hopefully this was helpful. This was fun. It was nice to just chit chat about work and life and things.
Helen:I hope you're enjoying your social media experience. And if you have questions that you can't seem to find the submit question button in the newsletter, but that's where I've gotten these questions. I read them every week. So if you have want to submit a question, a quick way to do it is through the newsletter. You can also reply if you're watching this on YouTube.
Helen:You can put it in the comments. That's always a good place. And those are the best two places to get your questions submitted so that they can be considered for being answered. And sometimes we base a whole newsletter on the topic if it's a good one. This one about the spam and the bots came because somebody asked a very elaborate question for a while ago about how to recognize spam and bots and how to, you know, should I delete them and ask that question?
Helen:So this turned into a whole newsletter. So if you have a good question, there could be a whole feature about it. Alright? Thank you so much for listening. Have a really great weekend, and I'll see you next week.