- Bum, bum, bum, bum. (thrilling music)
Scams are here. Bum, bum, bum, bum.
Social commerce scams are here.
- Today, we're talking about social commerce scams.
Now, they've been around for a while,
but within the last year,
they've seen a historic kind of boom.
- [Newscaster] A new study by cybersecurity company,
Check Point, found an alarming
80% increase this year over last,
in malicious phishing campaigns, aimed at online shoppers.
- [Tory] One in four reports to the FTC
about shopping scams begin on social media,
with 94% of those scams
taking place on Facebook and Instagram.
For those who may not know,
anything having to do with the online shopping
through social interaction is what we like to call,
social commerce.
Not to be confused with its father, electronic commerce.
That's where you just buy something online.
Think, Amazon, Walmart, Staples.
Social commerce is the ability to purchase a product
from within the social media platform itself.
Think, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat.
Social commerce is an industry
that wrapped in $34 billion in 2020.
It's so powerful that when Nike and Snapchat partnered up
to promote and sell the Air Jordan 3 Tinker
after an NBA All-Star game,
they sold out in just 23 minutes.
Leave it to Michael Jordan to even sell shoes perfectly.
23 minutes? That's fine.
Mike, you good in everything,
but are you better than Tory?
Give me the ball.
Hey.
- [Voice Effect] Brick.
But with great gains, come great losses.
In the first six months of 2020,
there was a reported loss of $117 million to these scams.
See, within the last year,
because so many of us were stuck at home,
a slew of new ways to purchase online arose,
but so did a problem.
This flood of new people going online to shop,
included both experienced and extremely new shoppers.
The problem was because social media is such fertile ground
for being able to portray whatever/whomever you want,
it's become a bit of a dreamland for scammers
to assume new identities
and run scams by posting fake stores, ads,
and products online.
The scammers even delete comments on their ads and posts,
so that negative responses don't ever show up
and alert people to the very convincing sham going on.
That's so (chuckles) dirty. That's so mean. (chuckles)
And when I say convincing,
there are a lot of new sketchy possibilities.
Meet, Heather Harper.
Heather is a huge collector of sea glass,
loves it, can't get enough.
One day, she's scrolling through a Facebook feed
and comes across an ad for an amazing,
custom sea glass Christmas tree.
Oh yeah,
that's a good looking custom sea glass Christmas tree.
She was reassured by the fact
that she saw the ad pop up a few times,
a friend of hers has shared it
and it had photos of the creator actually holding the piece.
She felt good about it, so she ordered three,
but there was only one problem,
the artist in the picture holding the tree,
while it was the actual artist,
the person in the picture
wasn't involved with this ad at all.
Someone had gone into the artist's SC account,
stole the pictures
and re-posted it as an ad on Facebook.
So instead of getting this,
she received this. (voice effect gasping)
So the question is, if you're a consumer,
how do you keep yourself safe from these scams?
And if you're in marketing,
creating ads in the same space as the bad guys,
how do you keep up trust?
It's funny you should ask
because I happen to have this.
This is the lifespan of a social commerce scam.
There are steps you both can take along this journey
that'll either keep you clear from being scammed
or allow you to continue to build trust for your audience.
Customers. You're the first line of defense here.
As the consumer, these three key moments
are gonna apply to you directly.
You can stop scams before they even start
by simply finding out who posted it.
Always look into whether an advertiser appears legitimate.
Is it a limited company?
Is there an actual page or a website?
If you click the website, does it have an official https
and have a lock icon next to it?
Is it amazon.com or amazon.co?
If you see something really convincing
that you're just not sure about, check out scamadviser.com,
go to the website, put in the link
and it'll tell you immediately if it's a scam or not.
Marketers.
These are the key parts that you can show up
in your own process
to build that trust back from an audience
that may have recently gotten duped.
Test and ensure clear and transparent ways
for consumers on social media platforms
to report scams involving your brand or your content.
By educating and informing consumers
to spot scams and advertisements,
you'll build that trust.
Don't hide the fact that these scams exist.
Constantly update your audience on the biggest ones
making the rounds in your industry
and what to look out for.
Wait, what's wrong?
Oh, I told you how to build trust with your consumers,
but I didn't tell you how to protect yourself from fake ads.
Is that it? I got you.
A sad truth is that scams are here
and they aren't going anywhere,
but you can utilize some tools to measure fraud.
Our best approach to digital advertising fraud
is to not rely on a single channel
as your main driver of traffic to your website or product.
Have a diversified approach
to building your digital commerce channels.
This will help minimize the damage if a paid campaign
isn't successful or is worse, fake.
As always, that's the info. Do with it what you will.
If you like what you heard or you wanna hear more,
subscribe and hit that bell to hear more.
Adios, people. Until next time.
Think, Facebook, Instagram chatbot, chatpack, snappack.
Let's try the newest app, chatpat.
It's the newest thing, man. Chatpat.
(chukles) Okay.