Mediaboss Marketing

SAN FRANCISCO, June 22, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sift, the leader in Digital Trust & Safety, today released its Q2 2022 Digital Trust & Safety Index, which revealed that 43% of consumers have encountered scams encouraging them to join fake cryptocurrency exchanges. Moreover, almost one in four people (22%) who encountered these scams reported that they lost money to them. The report examines the rise and impact of fraudulent content across sectors based on Sifts global network of over 34,000 sites and apps, as well as consumer perception of content fraud based on a survey of 1,100 U.S. consumers.

The cryptocurrency industry has been a prime target for exploitation despite its recent volatility, with cybercriminals reportedly raking in $1 billion in cryptocurrency from January 2021 to March 2022. As a result of widespread abusecombined with the markets one-third drop in valuation in 2022consumer skepticism is in danger of further hampering the industrys growth.

Sift has observed a new level of sophistication among cybercriminals who are using multiple communication platforms and counterfeit cryptocurrency exchanges to swindle consumerssometimes out of millions of dollars. In early 2022, Sifts Trust and Safety Architects discovered a proliferation of Pig Butchering scams, where fraudsters on online dating apps trick victims into investing in fake cryptocurrency exchanges so they can pocket the funds. This method highlights an evolution of content abuse where cybercriminals use their own custom-built platforms to target the cryptocurrency industry.

Fraudsters Take Advantage of Content Creation

From fake Ukrainian fundraising and COVID-19 relief schemes, to pig butchering and cryptocurrency fraud, cybercriminals are clearly doubling down on content scams. Scams are occurring at unprecedented volumes, with Sift finding that 73% of consumers see misleading content or false information daily or weekly.

As for the types of content abuse businesses face, scams make up over half (55%) of the content blocked across Sifts network, followed by spam/unsolicited commercial messages (30%), and toxic language (14%). Likewise, consumers feel surrounded by scams, as 62% agree that they encounter scams more frequently than any other type of fraudulent content.

To carry out attacks, cybercriminals have chosen social sites and online communities as their platforms of choice. According to Sifts findings, 65% of consumers said social networking sites are most riddled with misleading content, followed by classifieds (30%), messaging apps (30%), marketplaces (28%), and dating sites (22%).

Content abuse is often the spark that sets off a wildfire of financial fraud that targets consumers and businesses, said Jane Lee, Trust and Safety Architect at Sift. Moreover, when users are inundated by spam and scams on a given platformwhether it be on a dating app, social network, or e-commerce marketplacethey will simply stop using that service and go to a competitor that offers a safer, trusted experience.

Sifts Q2 2022 Digital Trust and Safety Index can be found here. Likewise, readers can visit Sifts Fraud Intelligence Center for the latest updates on the Fraud Economy.

About SiftSift is the leader in Digital Trust & Safety, empowering digital disruptors to Fortune 500 companies to unlock new revenue without risk. Sift dynamically prevents fraud and abuse through industry-leading technology and expertise, an unrivaled global data network of 70 billion events per month, and a commitment to long-term customer partnerships. Global brands such as Doordash, Twitter, and Blockchain.com rely on Sift to gain a competitive advantage in their markets. Visit us at sift.com, and follow us on LinkedIn.

Media Contact:Victor WhiteSenior Director of Corporate Communications, Siftpress@sift.com

Graphics accompanying this announcementare available athttps://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9db5f914-f8cf-45ff-828b-9ce6dfcaf024

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Report: Consumers Besieged byand Falling Prey toCrypto Scams - GlobeNewswire

Netbanking has become the preferred mode of banking for most people nowadays. It is fast, hassle-free, and allows for banking transactions to be completed with a few clicks of the mouse.

But that has also exposed its vulnerability to fraud and hacking, which could compromise with your sensitive financial information.

Incidentally, it is often our Internet browsing pattern that has the potential to expose us to Internet scams and frauds, and thus end up compromising our Netbanking, financial transactions, and sensitive financial data to hackers.

So, here are a few tips on how to avoid falling prey to Internet scams and fraud on the Net and keep your banking details safe from hackers.

1] Keep strong, complicated passwords for your social media, email, and banking accounts-Never use your name, date of birth, user name, email address, or any other personal information as your password, as these will be easily available in the public domain. Have a longer password. Your password should have at least six characters. Also, never use the same password across all of your accounts. Your other accounts will be exposed if someone cracks the password to one of them.

2] Never give out personal or financial information over the phone to an unknown individual-You can get a call promising you a prize in exchange for providing your personal information. Never divulge your personal or financial information over the phone either. Do remember that bank officials or other financial authorities will never call you to ask for such a delicate piece of information.

3] Dont click on random links in emails or SMS-Scammers could trick you into divulging your personal information through email or text messages. They could attempt to obtain your identity details, account information, or passwords, and having access to such information, could hack into your bank, email, and other accounts.

4] Instal reputable antivirus software on your phone and computer-Always use licensed antivirus software to safeguard your computer from viruses. This is due to the possibility that pirated anti-virus software wont adequately defend your computer from the latest threats.

5] Beware of any unusual spike in pop-ups on your phone or computer-It could be a sign of malware. Websites generate pop-ups to provide visitors with more information or directions. However, some of them can be undesirable or even dangerous. Hackers could use adware or malware programs to instal pop-ups, thereby reducing your computers performance. You must shut down your browser to get rid of such pop-ups.

6] Avoid scanning QR codes that claim to transmit money-When you scan a QR code, a page will open that will usually ask you to log in or enter your personal information. Sensitive information, such as your online banking information, could be included in the requested data. Frequently, phishing QR codes take users to websites that impersonate well-known and reliable websites. Like ordinary phishers, QR code phishers frequently pretend to be representatives of significant businesses like banks and other financial organisations.

7] Share minimal personal details on social media-Understand your privacy settings. While posting anything on a social networking platform, always verify the default privacy settings. Many social media networks have default privacy settings that are often liberal and may allow sharing of information with a sizable online community. Before publishing any content on a social networking platform, adjust the settings, if necessary.

8] Report to the bank and the cyber cell of police if victimised-Victims of cyber fraud can call on the helpline number 155260, which is manned and operated by the state police concerned. The police operator takes down the callers basic biographical information and the specifics of the fraud before entering the details as a ticket on the Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System. Depending on whether they are the banks of the victim or the banks or wallets where the stolen money has gone, the ticket is escalated to the concerned banks, wallets, merchants, and so on.

To read the story in full, click here.

Original post:
Tips To Avoid Falling Prey To Internet Scams And Frauds - Outlook India

Our guest author says that a good advocacy program complements and powers up a brands content marketing plans.

First things first, this is a how to develop a brand advocacy strategy article. Not a why you should be thinking about a brand advocacy article.

So, I will keep it very short on the why.

Brand advocacy gives your content and your own (read: employees, partners, customers) people a powerful method to not just contribute to your marketing efforts, but also help them develop their own personal branding.

This is a fast growing and evolving method in your organic social media marketing stack. Think of it as a system of generating first-hand mark-ups from real people involved in your business and having a stake in it. A good brand advocacy program complements and powers up your content marketing plans.

Enough said about the why.

Lets move to the how, and the building blocks that you could use:

Brand advocacy is about people, and what they do with your messages and content. Employees are often the most powerful advocates for brands. Be it B2B or B2C. But defining and getting clarity on which employees are key to your program, is the core building block.

Just because you have 5,000 employees, does not mean all of them will be your key users. Identify which segment of your employees are relevant and how. Here are some questions to help you think and craft your user persona:

Who are already active on social media and generating engagement on their own? The social media channel you evaluate, will obviously be determined by your business.

Who amongst your employees, have a networking purpose? For example, if you are a B2B tech company, your team may be connected with its peers across social channels. This could be a good segment for employer branding and social hiring.

Are your sales, marketing and their leadership teams on social media platforms (from a business point of view)? If not, this could be your captive user base to train to use social media for business from their own accounts. Help them build their personal brands and they will give back visibility to your brand and business.

Is your leadership team and their first levels on social media already? Well, this is kind of a good place to start your brand advocacy program.

Focus on building relationships.

Business and brands are about relationships. And, that is not built by just transactional bonds. People think rationally, but bond emotionally. Therefore, creating engaged and personalised experiences with your key stakeholders through meaningful content, campaigns, interactions and dialogues, is the first solid building block to success.

Use research to find out what they are interested in, and then leverage your interactions to align your outcomes. It is what makes the program work.

Here are a few other concrete steps you can take to build relationships:

Gamification triggers desired behaviour in this case, advocacy. A tiered game framework that rewards quality as well as quantity of action on social networks. It serves as a tool to encourage users to participate and stay engaged.

Its a good practice to think of this as a points-based programme and then set up your system. Also, contests are among the best ways to gamify social advocacy. Execute different kinds for promotions and offers, specific content, best suggestion, etc. Mix contest posts with regular ones to build anticipation and ensure continued engagement.

Brand advocacy is an intricate and complicated program, given not just its nature, but also the number of stakeholders, players and viewers involved in it. To implement a successful program, therefore, you need two main components great content and a centralised platform that you can leverage to effortlessly manage input, planning, implementation and analysis at scale.

Once youve implemented the program, you need to track your numbers to check effectiveness and ROI. Ideally, you want a 360-degree view of the content youve put out across networks using the platform.

Measure and benchmark engagement as well as advocacy KPIs, and track likes, shares and reach metrics. Auto-generated traffic graphs are great for immediate analysis of live campaigns.

In a nutshell, define, design and manage your brand advocacy through a programme strategy, and it will work wonders for your organic social media initiatives.

(Ajit Narayan is CMO, Socxo, an advocacy platform for brands)

Read more here:
Heres how a brand can develop an advocacy program - afaqs!

ByteDance Ltd.'s TikTok app is displayed in the App Store on a smartphone in an arranged photograph taken in Arlington, Virginia.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

TikTok is fully aware that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is retooling the Facebook and Instagram apps to be more like its own popular short video service. But TikTok has no interest in mimicking Facebook.

"Facebook is a social platform," Blake Chandlee, TikTok's president of global business solutions, told CNBC in an interview on Thursday. "They've built all their algorithms based on the social graph. That is their core competency. Ours is not."

Chandlee, who spent 12 years at Facebook before joining TikTok in 2019, said his former employer will likely run into trouble if it tries to copy TikTok, and will end up offering an inferior experience to users and brands.

Facebook launched Instagram Reels in 2020 as its first real foray into the short-form video market. Last year, it brought the service over to its core Facebook app.

"We are an entertainment platform," Chandlee said. "The difference is significant. It's a massive difference."

Facebook app chief Tom Alison told The Verge this week he sees TikTok increasingly stealing share from the world's largest social network. Facebook plans to modify its primary feed to look more like TikTok by recommending more content regardless of whether it's shared by friends.

"I think the thing we probably didn't fully embrace or see is how social this format could be," Alison told The Verge.

Facebook's recent performance backs that up. Meta's stock price is down 52% this year, underperforming the Nasdaq, which has dropped 32%. In April, the company said revenue in the second quarter could drop from a year earlier for the first time ever.

Earlier in the year, Zuckerberg acknowledged the increased competitive pressure from TikTok and said, "This is why our focus on Reels is so important over the long term."

TikTok is owned by China's ByteDance, which is privately held.

Chandlee said history is not on Zuckerberg's side, and compares its current problem to the challenge that Google faced when it was trying to take on Facebook at its own game.

"You remember when Google was creating Google+," Chandlee said. At Facebook, "We had war rooms at the time. It was a big deal. Everyone was worried about it," he said.

But no matter how much money Google poured into its social-networking efforts, it couldn't compete with Facebook, which had become the default place for people to connect with friends and share photos and updates.

"It became clear Google's value was search and Facebook was really good at social," Chandlee said.

"I see the same thing now," he added. "We're really good at what we do. We bring out these cultural trends and this unique experience people have on TikTok. They're just not going to have that on Facebook unless Facebook entirely walks away from its social values, which I just don't think it will do."

Facebook didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chandlee added that he has deep respect for Zuckerberg and views both Facebook and Google as strong competition. However, he noted that TikTok has an array of competitors across the world, including businesses in e-commerce and live streaming.

Chandlee said he hasn't seen a slowdown in ad spending on TikTok, despite what's being reported by companies such as Snap, which told investors that ad revenue is being hurt by inflation and the threat of recession. Snap's stock has lost almost three-quarters of its value this year.

"I've heard there's going to be a slowdown in the ad market, anywhere from 2% to 6%, but we have not seen it," Chandlee said. "We're not seeing the headwinds that some others are seeing."

WATCH: Snap has a TikTok problem, says Lead Edge Capital's Mitchell Green

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TikTok exec: We're not a social network like Facebook, we're an entertainment platform - CNBC

BeReal, LiveIn, Locket what do these new consumer social apps have in common besides a highly ranked position on the App Stores Top Charts? They engage their users through a combination of push notifications and homescreen widgets, instead of forcing people to spend a long time browsing their app, scrolling feeds or watching creator content.

The popularity of this homescreen-based form of social networking is, in part, tied to Apples move to launch a widgets platform for the iPhone with the release of iOS 14 in 2020. In doing so, it invited a new ecosystem of apps to emerge.

Initially, this began with apps that allowed users to better personalize their homescreens with widgets and custom app icons that matched their backgrounds, sending apps like Widgetsmith, Brass, Color Widgets and others to the top of the App Store. But over time, developers realized that widgets didnt just have to be homescreen decorations they could, in effect, be an active extension of their own platforms. Their widgets could serve as a tool to engage users in the most personal space on a mobile device: the prime real estate that is the phones homescreen.

When Locket first launched in December 2021, this idea was more of a novelty.

Developer and former Apple WWDC student scholarship winner Matt Moss thought it would be clever to use a widget to send photos to his girlfriend as they embarked on a long-distance relationship. But soon, his friends were clamoring for access to the app he had built as a simple side project.

Since then, Locket has expanded from iOS to Android and has now seen a total of 20 million installs to date, according to estimates from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. But its popularity has declined a bit as competitors emerged. While Locket was No. 9 in the Social Networking category, as of the time of writing, it was only No. 42 Overall on the U.S. App Store. That rank is largely due to the fact that there are so many other apps now playing in this space and gaining momentum.

For instance, another app called BeReal had originally arrived in December 2019 before iPhones widgets became broadly available. This social app encourages users to capture a photo within two minutes of receiving a push notification using BeReals camera which takes both a front-facing photo and selfie at the same time. The idea is to give users a way to see what their friends are up to in real time. Before this year, BeReal had seen steady, but not groundbreaking, growth, achieving 1.9 million worldwide installs, per Sensor Tower data. The app is backed by $30 million in funding, led by a16z, Accel and New Wave.

Then, in February 2022, BeReal tapped into the idea to leverage the homescreen to capture friends reactions to users posts, with the launch of a feature called WidgetMojis. This addition allowed BeReal to display friends photos in a live-updating widget on the homescreen as they reacted to users BeReal posts, or what BeReal calls RealMojis. By April, the app intelligence firm Apptopia had reported that BeReal had grown its monthly active users 315% year-to-date and that 65% of its lifetime downloads had occurred this year. That figure has since grown to around 86%, Sensor Tower says, as the app now has a total of 13.9 million lifetime installs.

Over the course of 2022, BeReals popularity has skyrocketed. This year alone BeReal has gained some 12 million installs, the data further indicates. And, as of the time of writing, BeReal was the No. 10 Overall app on the U.S. App Store, beating out traditional social networking and communication apps like Messenger, Snapchat, Telegram, Discord, Twitter and Pinterest. It was also the No. 3 app in the Social Networking category.

For younger users, BeReal also become part of their cultural lexicon and everyday app rotation. On TikTok, the hashtag #bereal has more than 390 million views, while variations on the name bring in thousands or millions more.

But BeReal is now only one of many competing in this space. Another vying for a part of this emerging market is the newer addition, LiveIn, which launched in January 2022 after pivoting from a Clubhouse-like app, Livehouse. This homescreen social networking app comes with its own twist. Instead of just sending selfie photos to friends phones, users can send videos and drawings, as well. Another new feature lets users duet photos and videos taking a cue from the similarly named mashup feature found on TikTok.

The company said in a press release it reached 4 million monthly active users in the first two months after launch. At the time, the hashtags #liveinapp and #livepic had generated more than 40 million TikTok views. Today, #liveinapp has 279.5 million TikTok views and #livepic has 37.6 million.

In addition to the casual photo sharing and updated widgets, these new social apps include a photo archive so users can look back at their memories. This serves not only as a way to incentivize users to launch the apps outside of designated photo-taking times, but also as a way to lock in users and keep them from abandoning the platform.

This sort of photo archive isnt a new concept its inspired by Facebook and Snapchats Memories features, but is designed to achieve the same results with a younger crowd.

In fact, these new social apps have taken many of the core concepts more recently popularized by Snapchat access to real-life friends, private photo sharing, spontaneous and casual photo taking and memories and have built their own differentiated platforms that tap into the smartphones notification system and direct homescreen access via widgets.

These three apps are only a handful of a growing number of apps building for social via the phones homescreen widgets.

Other top downloaded apps include Noteit Widget, which has gained 18.8 million lifetime installs per Sensor Tower data; Loveit: Live Pic & Note Widget (1.4 million installs); Widgetshare (3.1 million installs); Peek (704K installs); WidgetPal (374K installs), SnapWidget (185K installs); Rocket Widget (127K installs); Comet: Live Friends Widget (112K installs); and others.

There are even clones capitalizing on the names of popular brands like the not-so-subtly named app called LivePic, Locket Photo Widgets which has managed to pull in 79,000 installs some of which likely came by way of misdirected App Store searches.

Another one of the many things these apps have in common is that they promote sharing real-life photos that dont involve heavy editing, filters or AR effects features Snapchat and Instagram had become known for. This speaks to a broader shift thats helping fuel this trend: the end of the Instagram aesthetic and the increased desire for authenticity on social media.

We already saw hints of this emerging with the launches of other newcomer social photo apps like Dispo or Poparazzi, both of which focused on uncurated photostreams the latter, where photos were snapped and posted by the users friends, not users themselves. There were also the apps that aimed at photographers abandoned by Instagram like Glass, or Herd Social, which had positioned themselves as being anti-Instagram apps.

This group of photo apps promoted their defiance of Big Tech with its manufactured algorithms, the overabundance of features and the hyper-competitiveness that now sees mainstream social networks chasing TikTok with short videos, not to mention their collective drive to incorporate all sorts of other activity like e-commerce, creator subscriptions, virtual tipping, NFTs and more. When its not trying to be an online mall, Instagram is trying to clone TikTok, for example. Snapchat is hosting creator content and now wants users to shop using AR.

Meanwhile, younger users the key demographic that uses social apps seemed to have actually just wanted simpler apps that focused on what they think social networking should be about: their friends.

Its funny that its come to this. The social graph was once the holy grail of consumer social platforms to know who someone was connected to in real life was perceived as valuable data. For one thing, it meant you could lock users into a walled garden they wouldnt want to leave because their friends were all there, too. And making this social graph inaccessible to competitors meant every new network had to start from scratch. But these days, mainstream social networks are more heavily focused on connecting users with creators after all, thats where the money is. Users can subscribe to, shop from and virtually tip content creators. Monetizing true friendships is much more difficult.

But Big Techs greed left a gap in the market where they began to underserve those in search of real-world connections. This impact isnt just visible within the homescreen social app trend.

Its also helped drive users to the almost too numerous to count friend-finding and friend discovery apps, like Yubo, LMK, Wink, Hoop, Wizz, Vibe, Fam, Itsme, Lobby, Hippo, LiveMe, Swiping and others many of which had built on top of Snapchats APIs until the company tightened its developer policy over child safety concerns.

The trend is similarly impacting dating, leading to Matchs biggest-ever acquisition of Hyperconnect for $1.73 billion, which had been building social discovery apps that werent designed specifically for romantic connections. And Bumble today is beefing up its BFF feature as younger people are shifting their interest to friend-finding apps.

But this shift in social isnt without concerns. Though mainstream social apps are now being held accountable regarding their user protections, newer social apps are flying under the radar. Parents havent heard of these new apps and dont know to monitor or restrict them as a result. The same goes for lawmakers and regulators, too, who have their eyes affixed solely on tech giants. And as reports have shown, the apps privacy protections and policies, in some cases, are fairly weak. This is particularly concerning given that many are marketed toward and used by tweens and younger teens, who may inadvertently post to global, public feeds instead of to friends, post inappropriate content or become the victims of cyberbullying.

But the apps freewheeling nature isnt the only reason why homescreen social networking is having a moment. Beyond those mentioned above, there are many other factors at play here including the apps clever use of TikTok to drive downloads, influencer marketing and college ambassador programs to spread the word about new apps more organically. Theres also the continuous background noise related to social networkings ill effects that Gen Z is aware of, even if only mariginally. Data scandals, high-profile leaks and whistleblowing, Congressional hearings, regulatory inquiries and the resulting media coverage have helped fuel consumer demand for apps that werent created by todays dominant players.

The markets readiness for this type of networking is demonstrated by how well these homescreen social apps are currently doing. Theyre dominating the Social Networking charts and are staking their position in the Overall Top Charts. While, longer-term, they could end up being another flash in the pan the way location-based social networking apps were in the 2010s, theres a sense that some Gen Z users no longer consider these apps experimental.

And while TikTok is certainly a viable threat in terms of capturing the valuable and profitable connection between users and creators, users social graphs are still up for grabs. In fact, many among Gen Z dont want to share their real-world relationships with TikTok, theyve said in videos posted to the platform. They appreciate that TikTok is a network thats about creativity and individualized interests, not their real-world connections.

TikTok has realized this too, and understands the risk it poses for its own business. It even got so pushy about acquiring users address books that it destroyed its own Discover page in favor of a Friends page in hopes of capturing that data.

If the trend continues, it could impact other mainstream social networks, which have largely ignored this new avenue to gain users and havent adopted the live pics from friends widget format, either.

With the social graph filtering to smaller, simpler homescreen social networking apps, there also now comes the potential to build a different kind of social network that could be monetized in new ways beyond ads. These apps could roll out premium features, a subscription service, direct payment and more. But that future is still in question, as it remains to be seen whether homescreen social networking apps have long-term staying power among the historically fickle younger crowd who have adopted them.

Continued here:
The next big social platform is the smartphones homescreen - TechCrunch