A hack into the social media account of Men’s Second Chance Living—a nonprofit sober living environment for men—became a lemons-to-lemonade marketing opportunity in August.
Earlier this month, an unauthorized user accessed the personal Facebook profile of the organization’s executive director, Sonya Wilander. The hacker changed her password and removed any other admins for the account, effectively blocking out anyone from using the platform again.
Wilander said it was a reminder to shore up the strength of other online accounts and potentially grow MSCL’s following online.
“It was really an underused page, with only 100 or so ‘like’ or ‘follows’,” said Eric Valentine, the creative director for Independent Creativity, which specializes in branding and online marketing and communications for entrepreneurs, startups, mom and pops, and nonprofit organizations.
Valentine put together what he termed a ‘mini-campaign’ wherein messaging was created to promote an entirely new Facebook page.
“This happens a lot. Facebook has no appropriate system in place to recover hacked accounts,” said Valentine. “It’s a fatal flaw, but when your page wasn’t being leveraged anyway, it’s best to start fresh rather than wait for Facebook to return your call because it ain’t going to happen.”
MSCL asks the community to visit the new page and click the like button. The page can be found at facebook.com/MensSecondChanceLiving.
