Influencers: How to Protect Your Instagram Account From Hackers #263

Your social media platforms = your storefront! If you’re a creator or influencer, your Instagram isn’t just for posting pretty pictures. It’s your business, your livelihood, your INCOME STREAM. Which means… you need to protect it like you would a physical shop, right? In this episode, I’m walking you through simple, easy-to-implement strategies to keep your Instagram safe from hackers, scams, and sneaky security breaches — so your content (and income) stays in your hands. I'm talking about: 
➜ How to create strong, unique passwords (and test their strength)
➜ The non-negotiable security setting every creator should turn on ASAP
➜ Tools to manage your passwords without losing your mind
➜ How to spot and remove shady third-party apps linked to your account
➜ Extra tips for travel creators & public Wi-Fi users
Let’s keep your platform safe (and "horror" stories free) so you can focus on creating what you love!

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This episode can also been seen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/w50gDDXfOvU

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Influencer Confidential by Sidewalker Daily. My name is
Nina Zeta and I will be your host. I love
working with brands and influencers on all things business strategy.
Are you ready to learn what it takes to work
in this influencer industry and see behind the current, Well,
let's jump in as an influencer or a creator. Your

(00:25):
platforms are literally like your retail storefronts, and when you
think about, you know, we owned a pizza shop or
fashion store, chances are we would probably have some sort
of alarm or security system to protect us. I cannot
tell you the amount of times I have heard creators
in my community, creators that I coach one on one,
who have had horror stories of their accounts getting hacked,

(00:48):
you know, having to figure out ways to negotiate with
the hacker to get it back. And I mean, think
about it. If this is your livelihood, if social media
is how you make money, and you get hacked, you're
in for it because it's like literally they have you hostage,
and it's a very scary situation and it's on the rise.
And you guys know, I'm not a fear monger, Like
that's not my style of teaching, I'm always like everything's

(01:09):
gonna be fine. But even this morning, while it wasn't
a direct hack, someone in our community had an issue
with her account. She had to appeal to Meta. And
when you think about like Instagram, for example, there's not
like a one eight hundred number that we can just
call and get customer support. Support is really difficult. I
have a creator in my community right now who has
all these people making fake accounts of her. They're not

(01:31):
hacking her per se, but they're duplicating her account, and
even if she's verified on Meta, she can't get support
and help. It's been a wild ride. So I set
to myself, I need to make a video for the
influencers and creators in my community to make sure that
protecting your accounts is part of your business plan. I
know it's not a sexy topic, but I want to

(01:51):
make sure you guys do prevent yourselves from getting your
accounts hacked. And what we're going to go over today
are small strategies that many of you may already have
in place, but may not, and if you don't, you're
going to want to put those in place. This is
going to be particularly surrounding Instagram. If you guys like
this sort of topic and want me to dive in
on other pages, I'm happy to do so as well.
But the examples I'm going to be sharing are very

(02:12):
Instagram centric. One thing to note, recovery of your account
is not always guaranteed. I remember we had this story
with this creator and they're like, there's this account that
will help you recover, and it felt like a black
market transaction. And like I said, finding and accessing meta
could be quite difficult as well. So let's go ahead
and jump in and start with the easiest things that

(02:33):
you guys can implement. Let me ask you a question.
Are you changing your password regularly? Probably? Not. Some of
us have had the same passwords since ten plus years.
Think about like the keys to your store, right, if
you were to have had duplicates made right as an influencer,
if this is your livelihood, if this is where you
make your money, you were going to want to set

(02:55):
up systems to change your passwords frequently. Now I'm not saying,
but this could be something that you do quarterly or
a few times a year. I know it seems weird
to even suggest that, but again, if we are trying
to make sure our accounts are as protected as possible.
This is something you're going to want to incorporate into
your strategy. It goes without saying when it comes to

(03:16):
Instagram specific do not use the same password that you're
using on all your other pages, and please, please please
make sure that it is strong and unique. Okay, Again,
this is your livelihood and your business. So I want
you guys to all reflect and take a second. Is
my password uppercase letters, maybe has certain punctuation, Is it

(03:37):
unique or is it something that's easily guessable? Is it
different from the other accounts that I have. You don't
want your email account and your Instagram passwords to be
the same. I mean, think about it. They hack your email,
now they have access to your Instagram. So that's something
that a lot of us may be doing without even
recognizing it, right, So make sure you have different passwords
per platform, strong and unique. So I actually want to

(04:01):
show you guys, there's this website security dot org. How
secure is my password? Can go ahead and type in
your password and it will tell you how long it
would take for a computer to hack it. So I'm
going to go in and actually put mine. Y'all can't
see it, and it would say it would take a
computer about fifteen billion years to crack your password. I

(04:21):
love that. So I'm gonna put something simple like Hello
mom five seconds, I love pizza fifty eight minutes. Let's
try another one a I don't know photo lover one
oh one. Okay, so this says one hundred years. So

(04:41):
maybe having some numbers and some capitalizations. Anyways, y'all could
go in here and play around with this. But this
is a great way to test your password and see
where you lie and how strong it is. Now, another
thing that every single influencer should be doing is turning
on two factor authentication. This is key, it is critical,
it is easy to do, and it's an extra layer

(05:02):
of protection. So think of it this way. The password
is like a house key, and two factor is like
having an alarm within your home. So basically, if someone
does steal your password, they can't get in without that
second code, and that's what really adds that level of security. Now,
I'm just going to show you really quickly, if you
go in to your Instagram account, let me go ahead

(05:23):
and do that with you, guys, so that we can
do it together. If you go ahead and go into
your Instagram account and you go under settings, I think
the easiest way to do it is just search to
oops to factor authentication, and once you go in here
you can choose an account and you can set it
up directly. Again, this needs to be done. If you

(05:45):
do not have this done, you are just basically a
sitting duck for potential hackers. So influencers, please do this now.
When you have these two factor authentication set up, you
don't want to share those codes, right, You don't want
to share those codes on WHAT or Instagram or DM
if anyone asks you for it. That's like the alarm code.
So that is something that you should not be sharing

(06:06):
because even let's just say, what if your assistant's phone
gets hacked or someone else is texting you on your
team asking you for this code, you know, really really
double check before you give them the alarm code to
your home. Now. I briefly mentioned this, but you do
want to make sure your email is secure because oftentimes
when people do hack, they start with the email. There

(06:27):
is a lot of data out there that shows that
email goes first. So there are ways to also set
up two factor authentication on your emails, and like we
discussed having different password for email and Instagram. Now, one
thing I don't know if I mentioned, but I think
it could be helpful for you guys because I have
it here in my notes is the website last Pass.
If you need a password manager, like you're brain, it's

(06:51):
a lot for you to handle and manage all these passwords,
especially as a creator. Again, this is a business, so
you're going to want different passwords for your TikTok, your Instagram,
your YouTube, all of that maybe a lot for your
brain to manage. So using websites like last Pass, and
there's other ones that are basically password managers, and it's
going to help you stay really clean and organized with

(07:11):
all of this management. Okay, So something else I want
to show you guys, and I'm just pulling it up
on my screen right now. Okay, you have to do
this on desktop. Okay. Now, another way to prevent any
hackers from coming in and keeping your account clean, go
to your settings on desktop and click apps and websites
you want to remove any shady apps or websites that

(07:32):
you have linked to your account. Sidewalker, we only have
our link tree, so right now you can see it's
really nice and clean. And then here are the expired
ones and the removed ones. But you may have people
or accounts or third parties linked on here that you
don't even remember from ages ago. So homework for after
this video is go in here and double check. Literally,

(07:54):
all you have to do is go on your desktop
version on your Instagram and click apps and websites and
it's going to take you and you can remove any
third party sites that are linked to your account. Another
tool that you should absolutely be using within Instagram directly
if you go to your settings, I just top typed
in the word login because I want login alerts. But
if you go to settings and Activity and just put

(08:16):
in the word login, you'll get login alerts directly. So
log in alerts manage how you'd like to be notified
about unrecognized logins from Facebook and Instagram. So you know,
I have it here, we have email in app notification, email, whatever.
So these are things that you need to set up,
these login alerts so that if someone does log in,

(08:37):
you know right away and you can have that alert
set up. Now, for my travel creators, this one may
hurt a little, but I have heard this from a
variety of different people saying don't log into public wi fi.
I know it hurts so much because we're like traveling
and we need the public Wi fi. And that's why
so many creators do travel with the VPN and having
VPN connections so that that way they are secure. That's

(08:59):
something obviously that's very specific for creators who are traveling
and creating content while traveling. But again, as a business owner,
you may be on your Instagram and you're going to
travel and there's local Wi Fi. I mean, it's a risk,
and it's a risk we all do all the time, right,
But that is why really considering VPN tools to protect
when you are logging into public sites and public wifis

(09:19):
is very helpful. Again, this is not for normal people,
Like normal people on Instagram don't have to worry. You
guys do because this is how you make your money.
So that's why we have to add those extra layers
up protection. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did,
make sure to rate, review, and subscribe to our show
and visit Sidewalkerdaily dot com for more resources on all

(09:41):
things influencer marketing and social media. Until next time,