No one likes a faker

Slowly but surely, community banks are jumping into the social media revolution. And the reasons why, just keep piling up.

It’s a great idea for banks to at least join the prominent platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter. Not only does this provide an official presence, but you’re reserving your bank’s name. Reserving your name prevents pranksters from impersonating your organization through fake profiles.

The Bank of America knows all about the trouble a fake profile can cause. Soon after Google Plus introduced its company brand pages, some prankster created a fake Bank of America profile.
Their headline? “We took your bailout money and your mortgage rates are going up.” The profile was complete with the Bank of America logo, link to their official website, and the address and phone number of its New York Headquarters.

The prankster, live for about a week, accumulated over 1,200 followers. “Big company party in foreclosed house #2340087 tonight,” read a post making fun of homeowners who couldn’t pay their mortgages. Another one said, “You will sit down and shut up, or we will foreclose on you,” to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

Although the profile was eventually taken down, the damage had been done.The takeaway idea is even if you may not have the ability to manage numerous social media profiles at the moment, still create that official presence. It reserves your name for you – not for a prankster trying to be funny. 

sources: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/bank-of-america-google-plus_n_1096140.html

Written by Codi Mast
Optimum Companies