Who doesn’t love free stuff? So, who wouldn’t enter a competition or two? For that exact reason, social media competitions are a proven way to grow your following, increase your reach and skyrocket engagement on your posts, however, there are a few risks. Over the past six months, there’s been a worrying increase in people hijacking some great competitions on social media. 

One of the most common hijack techniques is to create a fake account using your business branding and details, then going through to comment on your posts to “announce a winner” and asking for your followers’ bank details. The main issue is these people are acting as you, with your business name on their profile, it’s easy for entrants to get confused or worse still, send them their personal information and being de-frauded. Obviously, this is a horrible way for your potential new customers to interact with your brand, 

They might even try sending friend requests and messages to accounts who have entered your competition asking for the same information, pretending to be you! So it’s essential to be aware of these risks and plan how to deal with an attempted hijack. 

What can you do to stop it?

The number one rule… Stay vigilant – keep a keen eye on the comments. If you see anything you know to be a scam account, or people asking the wrong questions, just delete it. That’s the best way to stop your followers from seeing their comments, so be on it! Highlight at the outset and in other posts that you won’t ask for this type of information.

If it does happen, put a clear message out there to say that it’s not you and ask them to report the profile or page to Facebook. Reporting is the ultimate way to stop the spamming of your competition.

So, to protect your competition and its entrants, keep an eye out, be observant and ask people to report as soon as you know there is an issue.

Don’t let these risks put you off running a competition for your followers, the pros far out way the cons, so find a good prize and get it out there! Just be aware and protect your followers!