The use of social media for local shows has grown over the past few years – particularly during covid with shows coming up with alternative ways to keep their community engaged. Unfortunately, this also means that there is a rise in fake pages with no actual affiliation with the show. Here are some things to keep an eye out for.
- Shows with incorrect Classification or type – eg Above: “Home Décor”
- Eg above a cloned Nowra Show page: Easily identified 0 Like and 0 Followers, very Limited photos. Main photo is taken from the Nowra Page and attached to a website designed to look like the Nowra Show (Link looks similar but closer inspection shows other words and extensions not associated) a “Prize Campaign Scam”
Things to be Aware of:
- Events Hosted by YOUR SHOW NAME 2023
- Eg Below: Fake Page, Page has hosted 0 Events prior to this number of people attending/interested very low
- Fake page has one follower.
- Is your show hosting livestreaming? Many sites claiming to be the “Official Livestream Site”
If your committee is going to livestream events eg – The Fireworks or a champions class, use the Go Live Function on your page, limit your posts in the lead up about livestreaming.
Pages & Groups will often poach details from your official pages to seem legitimate but they will generally be posted by people with no association of the committee
Steps to Reduce Targeted Spoofing:
- Be Vigilant – do regular sweeps of Facebook: Search YOUR SHOW NAME, this will generally give you broad results
- These pages will often target the give aways that shows run, be creative with how you post. Resist the urge to use words like “FREE”, make a video or photo that has the links in the artwork.
- Flag these pages/groups/events as spam – Look for the three dots and click the REPORT Button
- Ensure that your committee is briefed around page/post/event creation – you get better analytics from One Event or Page for the whole show, limit pages or events for individual sections/events/parts of the show.
- Spam pages can sometimes be difficult to remove.
- Do a post on your page notifying the public to the fake page/scam.
- Notify your audience/patrons eg below:
