Earlier this week our Support Staff came and pulled me out of a meeting. A client had an important Google Analytics question...
There are not a lot of Google Analytics emergencies, so I took the call.
As it turns out, this was a Google question, but not about analytics. The call was from a YMCA who received an email from Google informing them that "someone" was attempting to gain control of their Google My Business page and asked them if they wanted to grant access to the individual.
"What should we do?"
I am going with "Just Say No!"
(The following image is merely an example and is not related to the YMCA described in this story.)
Based on the information supplied by Google, they were able to determine that the individual attempting to access their account worked at a competing swim club down the street. "Why would they want to access our page?"
The next day they found out why. Apparently (and allegedly) a former employee of the YMCA was able to remember the password for the YMCA Google account. So they went in and changed the phone number and address to match the "swim club" up the street.
Nothing like a little free advertising. Fortunately, the Y was able to convince Google that they were the rightful owner and the account information was reversed.
And then they immediately changed their account password.
Does your YMCA or business ever have staff turnover? When was the last time you updated your Social Media passwords? If you don't immediately know the answer or the answer isn't tied to a date in 2017, stop what you are doing and change them NOW. The first line of defense with your contact information is your password.
Did you know that Thrive offers a Visibilty Audit that protects you from having erronious information from being uploaded to review sites, GPS systems, social media and search engines? Call us at 419-776-7000 or follow the link below to learn more. But first update your passwords.
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