How to Handle Brand Impersonation on Social Media

A YouMail Protective Services survey revealed brand impersonation scams have targeted 78% of respondents. So what happens when your social media handle falls victim to this con? 

• Social media impersonation can tarnish the brand image you so carefully built with counterfeit products and fake claims.
• Multiple fake accounts with your brand name create confusion among customers.
• Customers may share their complaints with fake accounts, leading to unresolved issues.
• Impersonation on social media can also lead to compliance issues for your brand.

To avoid the hassle, you must take proactive measures early on. Here are some to help you handle brand impersonation on social media. 

How to Handle Brand Impersonation on Social Media

1. Use Consistent Branding

Branding is your biggest weapon in tackling brand impersonation on social media. Using your logos, color schemes, fonts, and imagery consistently across all social media handles boosts brand recognition. A distinct style of voice also makes your brand stand out. 

Consistent branding helps social media algorithms identify and remove fake accounts. An on-brand presence also builds a loyal following likely to report impersonating profiles. 

Start by creating a detailed brand guide that covers:

• Logos
• Voice and tone 
• Language and grammar
• Typography
• Color palette
• Guidelines for engaging with social media audience
• Hashtags
• Posting frequency 
• PR crisis plan 

For example, the Starbucks style guide details logos, fonts, color schemes, illustration styles, and brand voice. 

Besides its green-white color scheme, it uses vibrant colors based on seasonal trends.

Starbucks adheres to its style guide on social media. For example, their Instagram profile picture, bio, and content portfolio prove their dedication to consistent branding. 

Once the style guide is ready, list all your brand’s social media handles, not just those you use extensively. This list should also include your Reddit and Snapchat handles. Use ‘linkin.bio’ to list your social handles in your bio so the audience can find your real accounts easily.

See your brand as a real person and decide how you want the audience to perceive it. Are you sleek and luxurious? Or is your brand’s personality more fun and humorous? Implement that style in your content and engagement approach on social media. 

For example, Wendy’s maintains a witty and sarcastic tone in all social media interactions. It’s so distinct that any impersonator will have difficulty copying their style.

2. Monitor Social Media Regularly

Creating social media accounts takes a couple of minutes — and you may already have multiple impersonators. But how do you find these fake profiles in crowded social networks? With social media listening. 

It lets you monitor brand mentions, product mentions, relevant conversations, and related keywords. Tracking conversations can also help you find audience feedback mentioning fake promotions or accounts. This way, you can quickly detect suspicious impersonating activities and report those accounts.

Invest in a social media monitoring tool offering real-time tracking. Set up alerts for mentions of your brand name, product names, keywords, and common misspellings. This helps identify accounts using your brand or product names illegitimately.

Brand impersonation often leads to negative customer experiences that they may discuss online. So, tap into sentiment analysis to identify the negative mentions of your brand in social media conversations. Do they mention any product pages or profiles you aren’t aware of? 

Identify sudden increase in mentions. Analyze these profiles to see if they are genuine customers or fake accounts trying to impersonate your brand. Some usual traits of impersonating handles are low follower count and multiple bot accounts in the follower list. 

3. Verify Your Accounts

Verifying your social media profiles provides added security from the adverse effects of impersonation. It also lets the audience instantly recognize your profiles from potential fake accounts. 

Strive for a verification badge to validate your account’s authenticity. The tiny blue tick shows that your profile has undergone the platform’s vigorous authentication, improving your digital credibility. It acts as a trust signal for your customers, differentiating your profiles from impersonators.

That’s why every top brand of sports has it on their profile, from Nike to Apple.

It separates their profiles from potential scammers trying to sell counterfeit products and protects their brand reputation. 

Do you only have a couple of thousand followers? Links to legitimate websites, regular posting, consistent content creation, organic engagement, and following can get you the coveted badge. The verification badge process is also fairly easy. 

Collaborate with influencers to enhance credibility further. They are trustworthy and impactful figures on social media, and collaborating with them lets you ride on that authenticity. 

For example, influencer partnerships are a big part of Daniel Welligton’s social media presence. They regularly partner with popular models and influencers like Elsa Hosk, enhancing brand differentiation and credibility. 

Examine influencers’ profiles to verify if their following is organic. Analyze consistency in engagement patterns and posting frequency. Above all, ensure their image online is relevant to your niche.

4. Report Impersonators and Educate Your Audience

Social media profiles have effective vetting processes for banning impersonating accounts. So, whenever you find a fake account, report them immediately. Don’t underestimate fraud profiles because they have a small following or low reach. They can still steal customers and compromise your brand reputation. 

Educate your team on how to spot fake profiles and create clear, step-by-step guidelines on how to report fake profiles on different social media platforms. Keep them updated on the platform’s policy changes regarding fake profiles and impersonation. Keep track of your report’s progress and escalate if necessary. 

Inform your audience about your official handles and any fake accounts you have spotted. Educate them on how these scams harm your business and customers. Post resources to identify fake profiles and urge them to report and notify you about impersonators they come across.  Add links to your social media profiles to your email signature to direct email recipients to the correct profile and enhance your branding efforts. 

5. Engage With Your Audience

Another way to minimize social media impersonation risk is to build personal and meaningful audience relationships. That requires regular engagement and adhering to your distinct brand voice. 

Host contests and giveaways with your campaign-specific and branded hashtags. Add contest details to your website to help the audience verify its authenticity. Host regular live sessions and Q&A sessions. Embed Instagram on a website to showcase your latest posts and increase engagement. Collect and share UGC across profiles as social proof. 

Maintain an active social media presence by engaging with comments and tweets. Start conversations and participate in trending ones to connect with the target audience. Ensure the replies are on-brand. 

Duolingo’s social media presence is an ideal example of creating a strong brand identity through on-brand audience engagement. In addition to posting funny content, the brand replies to followers with its signature odd humor.

Duolingo shares relevant tweets with its on-brand sarcastic captions like the above tweet, maintains a fictional rivalry with Google Translate, and frequently gushes about Dua Lipa. With strategic personification, regular engagement, and distinct storytelling, Duolingo has built a connection with the audience that’s hard to replicate. 

Starting a print-on-demand business is an easy way to create merch with your unique identity. You can promote these to engage your audience along with your regular content.

6. Create a Crisis Management Plan

Even with all the precautions, you may have an impersonation crisis. To handle these, a crisis management plan must outline every stakeholder’s role in mitigating it. 

Analyze social media impersonation cases faced by other brands. Identify potential and most frequent patterns of these scammers, such as spreading fake brand information, selling knockoffs, setting up fraud donation campaigns, etc. 

Then, develop hypothetical scenarios about how these risks might manifest. Document the steps your team must take for each case. 

Put together a crisis management team with PR experts and members from marketing, sales, and legal teams. Decide who will coordinate the crisis management plan and divide responsibilities. Create a structured protocol for employees to report suspected social media impersonation to the crisis management team. Include specific steps for documenting and escalating reports.

Develop templates for public statements and internal communications to address impersonation incidents. Ensure messaging is clear and consistent and reassures stakeholders. Utilizing a learning content management system can streamline training for your crisis management team, ensuring everyone is prepared to handle impersonation issues effectively. 

Strengthen your crisis management plan with templates for public statements to address impersonation incidents. This will help you respond swiftly and nip the risk in the bud. 

7. Legal Action

Legal action should be your last resort. If you don’t have an in-house legal team, find firms with a proven track record for dealing with brand impersonation. Explore all available options and involve the crisis management team and other stakeholders in the decision. 

You should also protect your designs with patents. Trademarking your brand’s name, logo, and other branding elements will strengthen your legal position and simplify the process.

For example, when Popflex CEO Cassey Ho started getting comments from people accusing her of stealing designs, she found that a few brands were impersonating her style on social media and e-commerce websites. So, she promptly protected her products with patents and updated her followers on Instagram. 

To Wrap It Up

Although a few fake profiles may seem insignificant initially, they can seriously damage your reputation and cause you to lose valuable customers. So, take appropriate measures today to prevent any potential escalation. 

Prioritize developing a style guide with clear rules and regulations. Set up brand mention and keyword alerts on social listening tools to quickly identify unusual activities and report fake accounts. Partner with influencers and share UGCs to showcase your credibility. Engage with the audience through replies, live sessions, and contests. 

Finally, a crisis management plan must be created, and legal counsel should be sought if the situation escalates.