As social media outlets turn into the world’s largest shopping mall with 4.5 billion users, digital hackers looking to capture a slice of the $5 trillion market are wary, trapping consumers at the slightest mistake. In order not to be scammed while shopping, there are measures that brands should take as well as the obligations of the consumer. While Digital Exchange’s social media marketing team indicated that the brands’ awareness campaigns helped drive revenue; Emrah Pamuk, CEO of Digital Exchange, said: “It is necessary to spend tens of millions of dollars on marketing to restore the brand’s reputation with fraudulent customers.”

Social media, which we met in 2004, reached 71 million users in Turkey and more than 4.5 billion users worldwide, reaching the position of the largest, most effective and liveliest channel in the internet world. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, VK, Pinterest, Snapchat, WhatsApp and countless social media applications, some of which vary from country to country, are increasing their presence and market value by the day; It creates an economy of more than $5 trillion by selling the products and services of all brands to consumers through significant discount campaigns, live sales and profit partnerships. This large ecosystem that has formed is also the main target of malicious parties. Changing and renewing themselves in parallel with evolving technology, digital hackers perpetrate virtual fraud on social media channels, wreaking havoc on the budgets, reputations and customer potential brands spend promoting their products and services. While brands have a duty to shop safely on social media, the social media marketing experts at Digital Exchange, which has successfully implemented their work in this area around the world, have made a series of suggestions.

Cyber ​​history research needs to be done

The Digital Exchange social media marketing team recalls that brands invest tens of billions of dollars in digital marketing: “In addition to the money spent on social media campaigns, labor and time have great proportions, both material and moral. That this is wasted by digital Hackers and scammers cause damage that in many ways is difficult to repair, which is why brands must consider and act accordingly when marketing on social media, as well as sales, brand awareness and competitive analysis, ensuring that the customer’s buying experience is worth their money. From this point of view, the role of brands parallel to the content and execution of social media campaigns;

-social media cyber history

– Which buying trend do customers replenish healthier

“It’s because the campaigns are more sensitive to the message and impact they have against fraud,” he said.

Work needs to be done to raise consumer awareness

The Digital Exchange social media marketing team underlined that brands need to consider their wallets and their trust in the brand/social media because of the social media fraud experienced today, as well as calculating X budget and X revenue, and said :

“Some campaigns are created to promote the brand, others to increase sales, and others to provide psychological superiority in the digital marketing race against competitors. Today, the common goal of all brands is to get a bigger share of the trillions of dollars worth of social media shopping pie. But what should not be forgotten is the fact that the danger is just as great as the benefit in social media. For this reason, brands should consider investing in increasing awareness, warning and experience of social media fraud, in addition to their focus on influencers, pages and sharing, while making their marketing investments. Companies that conduct marketing activities that raise consumer awareness about a topic like fraud are always at the forefront of both shopping and reputation in the eyes of consumers, benefiting the business in many ways.”

Follow these steps for safe shopping

Emrah Pamuk, CEO of Digital Exchange, recalled that digital hackers can now exactly copy a social media channel while directing digital marketing traffic for shopping to their own fake site, and talked about a series of measures related to this fraud. Pamuk explained that the safety of the shopping site must be questioned by consumers, saying: “You have watched a marketing video on social media. Everything is useful to get the product you like. You have also entered your credit card information, but the product has not been delivered, another product has arrived or you have come across a fake product. Anyway, you have been scammed. It will be the first consumer behavior to blame the brand and social media institution for this, but nowadays digital hackers can copy sites exactly what you think is the original site may in reality be the site of fraudsters To avoid this;

– Shop from the social media you trust

– assessing the quality of brands’ security questions for shopping as a consumer

-read experiences/comments from consumers who have previously shopped on this site

– check the security of your internet connection

– Consider the options for paying by seeing the product at the door instead of shopping with a credit card.

It costs millions to restore reputation

Emrah Pamuk, who stated that it is important for the brands to focus on their campaigns to raise consumer awareness, said: “The number of e-commerce sites in Turkey is more than 31 thousand, while there are more than 71 million users of while the number of state incentives and subsidies for exports is increasing here.At this point, brands should organize educational, useful and informational campaigns for consumer generations, including the over-65s, whose computer literacy experience is based on the short period after the epidemic, where fraud is common depending on the trade share they receive, and they should see this area as part of their marketing budget.If a hacker gets their hands on an email, getting it back starts at at least $500, but the fee for stealing a consumer’s time, money and patience while shopping on social media costs businesses millions of dollars ars of reputation-building marketing work. This can be prevented with lower budgets and more effective projects, and we have been working more intensively on this point recently.”

Source: (BYZHA) – Beyaz News Agency