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A huge increase in spam on Facebook and X - any tips on how to reduce?

reid.zura
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Okay, I hope I don’t sound crazy and this is a good place, but, over the past few weeks, I have noticed a lot of extra spam coming into the social media channels for my company. It’s mostly in two forms. 

  1. On Facebook: I either get something in Messenger or a wall post from an account posing to be some sort of Meta authority figure claiming the page will be permanently deleted for violating some sort of guidelines and I can request a review by clicking their sketchy link (Obviously I know it is a scam) Here is an example: 

 

 

  1. On X: I get MULTIPLE tags for these spamming crypto bots somehow. They don’t seem to end and come in a lot. They’re also tagged with a bunch of other random accounts, so I’m simply not sure how my company’s account is picked. Here is what those look like:

 

Now obviously, social media has and always will have scammers and spam. I have a decent radar and digital literacy to know where not to click and what to ignore, but it seems like these have gotten worse -- sometimes getting 10+ in a day. It’s just becoming distracting from my smart inbox. Reporting as spam doesn’t seem to do much. 

Is anyone else experiencing this? Have you done anything that’s helped? Or, does anyone have insight as to how these bots pick accounts and how I can get mine off of them? I have very little knowledge of the spam bots lol thanks!

Best answer by michaelajo20

@reid.zura Ugh, this seems to be happening to so many of us!

For Facebook: I learned a lifechanging tip yesterday from someone in the #HigherEdSocial community on Facebook. I’ll try to reiterate here, but I just asked the OP if I can share the video they created. They did a great step-by-step tutorial on this.

So, there’s a way to automate your Meta inbox and create a rule to exclude certain keywords coming in:

  1. Go to inbox
  2. Click on “Automations” - it’s the second button from the left at the top of the interface (screenshot below)

  3. Click “Create Automation” in the upper right corner

  4. Click “Start from scratch” to create a new automation

  5. Name your rule

  6. Under “When this happens,” select “New message received” to start automation

  7. Click “Add condition” and select “Keywords” 

  8. Input some of the main keywords in your recurring messages

  9. Under “Take this action,” select “Mark as” and “Move to spam”

  10. Save changes

Hope this helps! It has already saved me time this morning. (Thanks OP, if you’re reading this!!)

 

For X: Our team sunset our X account back in August, but I still monitor for brand conversations and see these spam posts pop up from time to time. I tend to ignore or report, but it is annoying. Maybe X has a way to automate as well? I’m not sure, but hopefully someone here can help. 

 

Best of luck! 

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- Reid :)
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21 replies

samantha.hart
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Our clients receive this exact type of spam on a daily basis. So far, the only actions we have taken is ignoring for Facebook and reporting as spam for Twitter via Sprout.

Laura Porcincula
1 person likes this
  • Laura Porcincula
    Laura Porcincula
michaelajo20
  • michaelajo20
  • Level 3
  • 7 replies
  • Answer
  • January 17, 2024

@reid.zura Ugh, this seems to be happening to so many of us!

For Facebook: I learned a lifechanging tip yesterday from someone in the #HigherEdSocial community on Facebook. I’ll try to reiterate here, but I just asked the OP if I can share the video they created. They did a great step-by-step tutorial on this.

So, there’s a way to automate your Meta inbox and create a rule to exclude certain keywords coming in:

  1. Go to inbox
  2. Click on “Automations” - it’s the second button from the left at the top of the interface (screenshot below)

  3. Click “Create Automation” in the upper right corner

  4. Click “Start from scratch” to create a new automation

  5. Name your rule

  6. Under “When this happens,” select “New message received” to start automation

  7. Click “Add condition” and select “Keywords” 

  8. Input some of the main keywords in your recurring messages

  9. Under “Take this action,” select “Mark as” and “Move to spam”

  10. Save changes

Hope this helps! It has already saved me time this morning. (Thanks OP, if you’re reading this!!)

 

For X: Our team sunset our X account back in August, but I still monitor for brand conversations and see these spam posts pop up from time to time. I tend to ignore or report, but it is annoying. Maybe X has a way to automate as well? I’m not sure, but hopefully someone here can help. 

 

Best of luck! 

Laura Porcincula
J
reid.zura
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    cteetsel
kylie.trimble
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I’m having the same issue, I’m so glad that someone posted this! 

Laura Porcincula
michaelajo20
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  • Laura Porcincula
    Laura Porcincula
  • michaelajo20
    michaelajo20
M

Thank you @michaelajo20 ! That is so helpful! 

Laura Porcincula
michaelajo20
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  • Laura Porcincula
    Laura Porcincula
  • michaelajo20
    michaelajo20
michaelajo20

@michelle.reddick Of course! I couldn’t believe I had been living this long without Meta inbox automations, haha!

Laura Porcincula
1 person likes this
  • Laura Porcincula
    Laura Porcincula
florencia.gatell

Hi! Here Flor from Argentina. We experienced in private messages (in Facebook) a lot of people making random questions about the brand, but when we answer, most of them say that they never sent the message. They ask questions like, can you tell me more about the business? Anyone experienced this?

Thank you!

Florencia Soledad Gatell
mary
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  • mary
  • Level 2
  • 34 replies
  • January 19, 2024

The other place on Facebook I’ve started seeing these spam messages are bots leaving Recommendations/Reviews - which of course aren’t as easily removed as a tag or regular post. 

Mary
R
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    rebecca.ctf
mary
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  • mary
  • Level 2
  • 34 replies
  • January 19, 2024

 @Laura Porcincula is there a way to do a similar automation in Smart Inbox? To filter incoming messages to be marked as complete and labeled as spam? 

 

michaelajo20 wrote:

@reid.zura Ugh, this seems to be happening to so many of us!

For Facebook: I learned a lifechanging tip yesterday from someone in the #HigherEdSocial community on Facebook. I’ll try to reiterate here, but I just asked the OP if I can share the video they created. They did a great step-by-step tutorial on this.

So, there’s a way to automate your Meta inbox and create a rule to exclude certain keywords coming in:

  1. Go to inbox
  2. Click on “Automations” - it’s the second button from the left at the top of the interface (screenshot below)

  3. Click “Create Automation” in the upper right corner

  4. Click “Start from scratch” to create a new automation

  5. Name your rule

  6. Under “When this happens,” select “New message received” to start automation

  7. Click “Add condition” and select “Keywords” 

  8. Input some of the main keywords in your recurring messages

  9. Under “Take this action,” select “Mark as” and “Move to spam”

  10. Save changes

Hope this helps! It has already saved me time this morning. (Thanks OP, if you’re reading this!!)

 

For X: Our team sunset our X account back in August, but I still monitor for brand conversations and see these spam posts pop up from time to time. I tend to ignore or report, but it is annoying. Maybe X has a way to automate as well? I’m not sure, but hopefully someone here can help. 

 

Best of luck! 

 


 

 

Mary
lisa.roughley

We’re having the same issue with the spam messages appearing on reviews/recommendations and we’ve also seen a huge decline in reviews, in general, for our clients. Has anybody else? 

Roughley Speaking Communications
Laura Porcincula
Community Manager
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Great question @mary, advanced plan users can set up rules to hide the message on the native platforms. I shared the steps for those rules in this Sprout customer only thread if you need some more info.

https://community.sproutsocial.com/sprout-platform-questions-best-practices-78/can-you-block-words-from-the-smart-inbox-1356

 

Laura Porcincula (she/her)
S
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  • stacyk
  • Level 2
  • 44 replies
  • January 19, 2024

I knew this couldn’t just be happening to the accounts I manage! So glad to see that others are just as frustrated. (Not glad that we’re frustrated, just glad that I’m not alone.)

In one of the newsletters I got this morning, I found this solution. I promise that’s a link to a real blog and not a spam link 😂 Crossing my fingers it helps this weekend! 

lisa.roughley
michaelajo20
mdlew
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    mdlew
lisa.roughley

Thanks so much @stacyk! We’ll try this for Messenger spam, although we’ve found that has fallen off. We have an eve bigger problem with these types of messages being placed as a review on our clients pages. Do you have this problem as well, and if so, any fixes?

 

With gratitude, Lisa R

Roughley Speaking Communications
S
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  • stacyk
  • Level 2
  • 44 replies
  • February 2, 2024

Hi @lisa.roughley - we also have now had these spam comments coming in as reviews! I have not found a fix for it but if I do I’ll post here. Please share with me if you find it first!

Cheers,

Stacy

lisa.roughley

For a number of our clients, we have turned off reviews for now. I’m guessing FB is working on this issue because we’ve noticed a huge drop in reviews overall and in, investigating, found that review access via mobile is cumbersome. That’s, at least what we’re guessing has created the big drop in real reviews.

Roughley Speaking Communications
kylie.trimble
Forum|alt.badge.img
michaelajo20 wrote:

@reid.zura Ugh, this seems to be happening to so many of us!

For Facebook: I learned a lifechanging tip yesterday from someone in the #HigherEdSocial community on Facebook. I’ll try to reiterate here, but I just asked the OP if I can share the video they created. They did a great step-by-step tutorial on this.

So, there’s a way to automate your Meta inbox and create a rule to exclude certain keywords coming in:

  1. Go to inbox
  2. Click on “Automations” - it’s the second button from the left at the top of the interface (screenshot below)

  3. Click “Create Automation” in the upper right corner

  4. Click “Start from scratch” to create a new automation

  5. Name your rule

  6. Under “When this happens,” select “New message received” to start automation

  7. Click “Add condition” and select “Keywords” 

  8. Input some of the main keywords in your recurring messages

  9. Under “Take this action,” select “Mark as” and “Move to spam”

  10. Save changes

Hope this helps! It has already saved me time this morning. (Thanks OP, if you’re reading this!!)

 

For X: Our team sunset our X account back in August, but I still monitor for brand conversations and see these spam posts pop up from time to time. I tend to ignore or report, but it is annoying. Maybe X has a way to automate as well? I’m not sure, but hopefully someone here can help. 

 

Best of luck! 

I haven’t checked yet so maybe this is an option, can you also automate hiding the spam that are wall posts and comments? 

lisa.roughley
1 person likes this
  • lisa.roughley
    lisa.roughley
lisa.roughley

Thanks so much!

Roughley Speaking Communications
A
michaelajo20 wrote:

@reid.zura Ugh, this seems to be happening to so many of us!

For Facebook: I learned a lifechanging tip yesterday from someone in the #HigherEdSocial community on Facebook. I’ll try to reiterate here, but I just asked the OP if I can share the video they created. They did a great step-by-step tutorial on this.

So, there’s a way to automate your Meta inbox and create a rule to exclude certain keywords coming in:

  1. Go to inbox
  2. Click on “Automations” - it’s the second button from the left at the top of the interface (screenshot below)

  3. Click “Create Automation” in the upper right corner

  4. Click “Start from scratch” to create a new automation

  5. Name your rule

  6. Under “When this happens,” select “New message received” to start automation

  7. Click “Add condition” and select “Keywords” 

  8. Input some of the main keywords in your recurring messages

  9. Under “Take this action,” select “Mark as” and “Move to spam”

  10. Save changes

Hope this helps! It has already saved me time this morning. (Thanks OP, if you’re reading this!!)

 

For X: Our team sunset our X account back in August, but I still monitor for brand conversations and see these spam posts pop up from time to time. I tend to ignore or report, but it is annoying. Maybe X has a way to automate as well? I’m not sure, but hopefully someone here can help. 

 

Best of luck! 

Is the “Create Automation” feature for Meta still available? When I go there, it says “… or start from scratch”, but there is literally no option available to do that? Have I not had enough coffee, or am I missing something?

 

 

G
1 person likes this
  • G
    Glosuke
J

I set the above up automation, but the message still appears in Sprout (is there another step to stop the messages showing in Sprout)?

Laura Porcincula
Community Manager
Forum|alt.badge.img+13

 Hey @jessica.mcdonald, this thread shares how you can set up automated rules to hide certain keywords in your inbox if you’re on the advanced plan. Let me know if you have any questions about it, I’d be happy to help!

https://community.sproutsocial.com/sprout-platform-questions-best-practices-78/can-you-block-words-from-the-smart-inbox-1356

 

Laura Porcincula (she/her)
J

Thank you 

G
  • Glosuke
  • Level 1
  • 1 reply
  • July 26, 2024
adam.flowers wrote:
michaelajo20 wrote:

@reid.zura Ugh, this seems to be happening to so many of us!

For Facebook: I learned a lifechanging tip yesterday from someone in the #HigherEdSocial community on Facebook. I’ll try to reiterate here, but I just asked the OP if I can share the video they created. They did a great step-by-step tutorial on this.

So, there’s a way to automate your Meta inbox and create a rule to exclude certain keywords coming in:

  1. Go to inbox
  2. Click on “Automations” - it’s the second button from the left at the top of the interface (screenshot below)

  3. Click “Create Automation” in the upper right corner

  4. Click “Start from scratch” to create a new automation

  5. Name your rule

  6. Under “When this happens,” select “New message received” to start automation

  7. Click “Add condition” and select “Keywords” 

  8. Input some of the main keywords in your recurring messages

  9. Under “Take this action,” select “Mark as” and “Move to spam”

  10. Save changes

Hope this helps! It has already saved me time this morning. (Thanks OP, if you’re reading this!!)

 

For X: Our team sunset our X account back in August, but I still monitor for brand conversations and see these spam posts pop up from time to time. I tend to ignore or report, but it is annoying. Maybe X has a way to automate as well? I’m not sure, but hopefully someone here can help. 

 

Best of luck! 

Is the “Create Automation” feature for Meta still available? When I go there, it says “… or start from scratch”, but there is literally no option available to do that? Have I not had enough coffee, or am I missing something?

 

 

Automation rules appear limited to just 1) instant reply, 2) away message, and 3) identify unanswered messages templates. Although there is a reference, there is no actual “Start from scratch” option. Likely got depreciated?
 

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