Help! Someone hacked my Twitter account!

March 1, 2010 By

Here’s a timely question from the mailbag:

People on Twitter are reporting getting DMs from me with links that I didn’t send. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes, being on Twitter in the first place feels like a stretch — and now I feel like I need to wear some kind of sign saying Beware – I spread evil phishing crap. Help!

First of all: Big hugs for the worry and the shame. I’m so sorry the evil phishing crap slimed you. You don’t deserve that at all, and it’s completely not your fault. Not! Fair!

Next, here’s a 3-step plan to give you in-the-hard reassurance and info.

Three things to do immediately if you even slightly suspect that your Twitter account has been hacked

  1. Change your Twitter password (on the Twitter site itself, by really truly logging into your account). This will solve the vast majority of problems.
  2. Follow Twitter’s instructions to revoke connections to third-party services that may have obtained access to your password.
  3. Follow @spam and @safety, which are official Twitter accounts for phishing updates and info.

You can change your password again if you have any doubts at all about the timing or legitimacy of where you made the password change. There’s no downside to changing your password multiple times.

If you really want to (and it’s OK if not — if this is too much like wearing a scarlet letter) you can tweet a regular public tweet that says in a friendly way “hey everyone, please ignore any DMs that appear to be from me but contain a strange link. The phish-monster got me and I’ve fixed it now.”

And you can respond individually, if you want to and it feels right, to people who say they got such a message from you.

But don’t feel like you have to do that.

How did someone get into my Twitter account?

What happened to you is fairly common. I’m trying for reassurance-mode here, not meaning to diminish the reality or the pain of realizing someone is using your account for nefarious purposes.

It happens when someone or some outside service gets ahold of your Twitter password. Not through Twitter itself, but through some third-party service that asks you for it for what seems like a legitimate reason. There are certainly legitimate reasons to give your Twitter password to another service — for instance, if you use a Twitter client like Tweetdeck, or you have linked your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The evil hackers usually pose as a legitimate service or invent some reason you need to give out your Twitter password.

So if you change your password with Twitter and then don’t enter it anywhere else, their access to your account is cut off.

I get these DMs-with-weird-links from friends sometimes (I got one this morning, actually. Not from you!). And I usually DM them back to warn them that they should change their password — trying again for supportiveness and helpfulness and reassurance, which can be hard to get across in 140 characters!

But I never blame them or think they’re evil. I blame the evil phishers for being mean to my nice friends. And I think most experienced Twitter users feel the same way. We know it’s not your fault, and we know you’re not an evil phisher.

Filed Under: From the Mailbag, General How-To's Tagged With: , , ,

Congratulations, you are already a social media maven!

June 2, 2009 By

I’ve been thinking a lot about social media recently. It’s a huge buzzword, and I’ve gotten a lot of questions from My Right People about what it means, how to do it, and what to expect.

The kicker was a guy I met at an actual physical networking thing last week asked me “Have you been able to monetize Twitter?”

(Monetize being the buzzword I most deeply detest, with the possible exception of… well, no, there’s no buzzword I detest quite so much. Don’t get me wrong — he was quite a nice guy; he just asked a question that happened to push a couple of my buttons.)

People are clearly anxious about this whole Social Media beast. It must be complicated, right? It must require you to learn new, confusing tasks, or change your monetization strategy (blech), or at the very least do a whole lot of research, right? And since everyone else is already doing it (or has hired a Social Media Consultant to tell them how to do it or do it for them), you’re way behind, which means that in the ultra-fast Internet-enabled world, you’re already last week’s cat food, right?

(“Last week’s cat food.” I just made that up right now. I am so funny sometimes that even I can’t stand myself. But I digress.)

No, no, no!

Social media requires no such anxiety, nor does it mandate increasing (or shifting) your budget or rewriting your business plan. No!

Here’s the point of this post: You are already engaging in social media.

This is a Heart-Centered Tech Tip because I really want this message to be comforting, possibly even anxiety-reducing. And to do that, I don’t want to tell you you’re all wrong about social media (that wouldn’t feel comforting at all, I’m guessing) or that you need to learn something new (hello, anxiety!).

I just want to take your hand for a minute and help you meet yourself where you are, and only then gently suggest that you take another baby step forward.

With me so far?

OK, good. Because if you are, you are either a) reading this post on my blog, b) reading this post as an email message, or c) reading this post in your RSS reader.

And all three of those activities totally count as social media. (In fact, my opinion is that the majority of the internet counts as social media, and that’s why I’m so insistent that you’re already hip-deep in it.)

All right, so you’re already “doing” social media. Um, what next?

Well, what’s next is definitely not “monetization.” It’s connection. And when you take a baby step to reach out to other internet users, you build and deepen that connection. And from that web of connections will come new ideas, new friends, new challenges to your limiting beliefs, new jokes (having fun is important, dammit!), and maybe possibly even new ways to make a living.

So let’s take a baby step. You’re here with me on the blog (if you’re reading this via email or RSS, head over to the actual blog post), so why not leave a comment? It’s pretty easy. I promise not to laugh at you. I’ll even give you a topic: What internet buzzword irritates you the most? You can even pick “monetize” if you want, but I’d love to hear some others.

Your comment doesn’t have to be lengthy, profound, or backed up with statistics. Just a baby step. I’ll even respond. And that’s what completes the social circle — I’ve posted something, you’ve responded, and I’m engaging in dialogue with you. Even if it’s a short dialogue, we’ve connected. Bingo! Social media!

If you want to take a slightly bigger step (and you have an account on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere similar), do leave a comment, and then tweet (or post on your Wall or whatever) something like this:

I’m reading and commenting on @wendycholbi’s post on annoying Internet buzzwords. What’s YOUR favorite? http://bit.ly/2Qid61

In fact, you can just copy and paste the exact text above into Twitter, your Facebook status, or pretty much anywhere else (yes, that weird-looking web address will actually work — because Twitter limits tweets to 140 characters, special services have been invented to provide short URLs).

See what you just did? You joined the conversation, and then you told your Twitter followers what you were doing — and in so doing, invited them to join in with you. I’ll respond to and acknowledge any of you who tweet about this post, by the way, just as I’ll respond to those who comment on this post. I love being part of the conversation!

The amazing part? By joining (or starting) even one conversation, you are “doing” more social media than most people. In an Ittybiz post by Johnny B. Truant that’s ostensibly about the psychology of marketing, I found this gem:

“…the online content that you actually see (tweets, blog posts and comments, forum posts, whatever) is produced by a very small percentage of the people actually online. Most people lurk, the whole thing working like a theater with only a handful of actors onstage.”

Truth be told, I’m mostly a lurker myself. I read far more than I comment, and whole days will go by without a tweet or Facebook update from me. I’m figuring out for myself how much time I want to spend actively engaging vs. exploring and reading. And so can you.

So join me, won’t you, on the journey to social media mavenhood? It can only happen one comment, one tweet, one conversation at a time.

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: , , ,

Giving Thanks

November 27, 2008 By

It’s Thanksgiving morning, a gray, drizzly day here in often-sunny-but-not-today Southern California. I woke up at 5:30am (day 7 of a 30-day habit-building exercise), and the house is blissfully quiet. I’m sitting in my office in a pool of warm lamplight, my feet curled up underneath me in their ridiculous pom-pom slipper socks. Later this morning we’ll descend on my brother’s house with my children, a chocolate cake, a tray of bacon-wrapped scallops, and several bottles of wine. Much hilarity will no doubt ensue.

All these things inspire gratitude (even the rain, which reduces the danger of fire, and the waking up early, which gives me that time-and-space buffer before beginning the day).

But I want to specifically talk about my business and my work, by casting my mind back to Thanksgiving 2007. One year ago, I was just beginning to consider co-teaching a build-your-own-website class to coaches. I was calling myself a Web Architect and looking for more website clients, and I initially thought that teaching a class would be an interesting thing to try, although I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be much good at it.

December was full of planning and writing and dreaming. And the first class began at the end of January 2008. It was called Six Weeks to Your Webpage, and I taught three fabulous coaches and coaches-in-training to be friends with Blogger. And I had a great time. Teaching! Coaching! Listening as my workshop participants took those first tentative steps into web publishing! Empowering! Congratulating! I was hooked.

So right away I jumped into planning a next class, to begin in March. Except nobody signed up. This felt pretty terrible, to be honest. But I already had proof that the concept worked, and I had happy clients who cheered me on, and I just kept improving and coming up with new ideas.

I discovered that I loved the teleclass teaching format (sometimes with video using GoToMeeting so I could do a live demonstration). I discovered that I’m good at it. I went nuts in June and July, offering a new free teleclass every week, and loving every minute.

Experienced teleclass leaders told me they still always felt a twinge of nervousness before a class, and I wondered if I was abnormal or crazy for my complete lack of fear. I mean, I’ve been an off-the-charts introvert for my entire life. I avoid crowds, big parties, and will never call customer service when a visit to a website will do. I never go shopping on Black Friday. I’d much rather stay home with a good book (or a good blog). Yet here I was, showing up weekly and acting like a web expert (a kind, patient, gentle, supportive web expert!) to complete strangers who were calling in from around the world. Man, life is strange sometimes.

Today, I’m still talking, planning, and dreaming. My newest container for all of this is the revamped website, the “hub” of all my online ideas and services. One thing I can say with complete certainty is that these ideas and services (and the website itself) will change. I’ve realized that my business, my business partnerships, and the work I do is constantly evolving.

A year ago I didn’t know what Twitter was, and today I’m a Twitter fanatic. A year ago I’d never taught a teleclass, and today I have an archive of 30+ hours of my live teaching. A year ago I thought I was alone in the business world, and today I have a supportive mastermind group, 148 Twitter followers (are you people crazy?), and a web of connections throughout the blogosphere that is constantly growing. I have you, my dear reader. And I am deeply grateful for each of you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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