Tag Archives: social media

Tips for Creating a Social Business

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There’s no doubt about it: marketing has gone social.  Customers are more apt than ever to start tweeting about their service.  So what are you going to do about it?

Commit

It’s likely you’ve either thought about or have already set up a Facebook account for your business.  However, many business owners fall into the trap of neglecting their social media accounts.  These accounts should be treated like another touchpoint for your business, like adding another customer service number that the whole world can see.

Keeping on top of updates like when you’re having a sale and responding to customer comments is essential.  Though it may add another hour to your day going through your social media outlets, it will create another layer to your marketing dynamic.

Contemplate

If you haven’t created a Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook account for your business yet, you should probably take a deep breath and think about it.  Although it takes a few minutes to set up, you must be willing to commit.  A poorly maintained social media outlet is like having an unkempt front entrance.

Lacking in time and resources to commit to a  social media campaign is a sure sign you quit while your ahead.

Comprehend

Should you chose to accept this task, you should invest in media monitoring apps.  For example, Radian6 is a paid services that gives you reports on your various social media outlets.  That way you can track and see what garners attention and what doesn’t.

Social Media is still in it’s infancy.  It seems like the Wild West where every business, large and small, are on the frontier.

As always, you can learn more about keeping all your IT needs in check here.

 

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Keeping Up Appearances: Managing Your Online Reputation

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It’s often an adage that you should always be on your best behavior when in public because you don’t know who is watching.  Sitting behind a computer, it’s easy to forget that your business’ online persona is out for the public to view…forever.

However, all the ways to protect your online reputation revolve around the principles of neutrality and politeness.

On social media, never get in any type of argument.  It’s always better to extend an olive branch rather than trying to put a snarky customer in their place.  Better to appear that you are a company that cares about customer concerns than an eloquent debater.

Off that point, although your business is local your online presence is more far reaching.  Expressing views that are not vital to business’ image is risky.  Perhaps expressing your values attracts customers, but it may alienate some.  It’s something to consider if you ever expanding your business into another area.  Anything put online, stays there.

And unlike Vegas, what’s on social media is very public.

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The Generational Job Search Gap: Social Media

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A new survey published by Millennial Branding shows interesting treads amongst baby boomers (48-67), Gen X (30-47), and Gen Y (18-29) in their attitudes when using social media in their job hunts. Perhaps the first point to come out when looking through the data is that old generations are using social media the most, mainly Linkedin.

Between Gen X and Gen Y, the main dividing line seems to be what they are looking for in a job.  Gen Y is looking for flexibility in companies, while Gen X wants job security and benefits.  To that end, Gen Y job seekers tend to use Google and Facebook over other generations.  Gen Y also leads the other generations in having personal websites used to garner employer hits.

When the job search fails, 37% of Gen Y and 35% of Gen X are returning to school.  A third plan to start their own businesses if they can’t find a job.

Now that all this data has been compiled, what does it mean to you?  If you are planning on hiring, what you highlight about your business on the web will attract different demographics.  Over 75% of all respondents say they use online job boards.  Also, the majority judge a company by looking at your website.  Keeping it clean and updated front-end will put your best foot forward and attract the best candidates. To learn more about augmenting your IT staff click here.

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BBC Investigates Facebook Ads

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For many companies, Facebook fans are a much sought-after commodity. After all, plenty of people spend hours glued to the social media site, and having your business’s messages show up there makes you a part of their virtual community.

But an investigation by the BBC may make marketers think twice before buying Facebook ads asking people to “like” their pages. Graham Cluley of the security firm Sophos told the BBC that spammers and malware distributors create fake Facebook profiles capable of automatically hitting the little thumbs-up button on thousands of pages. By making all those connections, they build bigger communities of people to reach out to with their spam and scams, but they may also give businesses a false impression of how well their Facebook ads are working.

Facebook has revealed that 5 to 6 percent of its users, may be fake. That’s not a huge percentage, but it adds up to about 54 million profiles, and they may be disproportionately the ones that end up “liking” business pages.

To test how big the problem is, the BBC created a page for a fake business called VirtualBagel and bought ads designed to attract fans. In just a day, the investigation found VirtualBagel got 1,600 likes, “despite the fact that the page offered no products and no interesting content.” And, although the ads were aimed at the U.S., the U.K. and parts of the Middle East and Asia, almost all the likes came from profiles in India, Egypt, Indonesia and the Philippines, and many of them appeared to be fake.

Facebook told the BBC that it doesn’t see a “wave of likes” coming from false users, but Cluley suggested the social media giant has reason to downplay the problem. After all, its biggest revenue source is ads.

So, what can you do to make sure your business page is getting real Facebook friends? Of course, posting interesting, useful content is a major part of any good social media strategy. It’s also a good idea to keep track of the statistics that Facebook provides, and to use other tools like Google Analytics to see if Facebook fans are becoming customers.

Beyond that, different kinds of companies will have different strategies that fit them best, so an IT consulting firm can help you figure out your own best practices.

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LinkedIn Password Breach

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Six and a half million users of the ubiquitous business networking site LinkedIn have apparently had their passwords stolen.

Online security experts say site members should change their passwords right away.

As of this morning, PC World reported, only a minority of the passwords appeared to have actually been exposed. A file containing the 6.5 million security codes showed up on a Russian online forum, but the codes were “hashed”—meaning they’d been encrypted. However, according to PC World, the algorithm used allows hackers to decipher simple passwords fairly easily because it does not include “salting,” or the addition of random characters.

The uploaded file did not include usernames, but experts say that doesn’t mean that whoever stole the passwords does not have those as well.

LinkedIn has said it’s looking into the reports. At 11:18 this morning, the company tweeted “Our team continues to investigate, but at this time, we’re still unable to confirm that any security breach has occurred. Stay tuned here.” However, many users are reporting that they’ve been able to find their own hashed passwords in the leaked file.

LinkedIn has a total of 150 million users worldwide, so ZDNet writer Zack Whittaker points out the breach appears so far to affect a small portion of the user base. However, Whittaker also notes that the breach could be a major blow to the site’s reputation.

The incident comes on the heels of a report that a LinkedIn calendar app on iOS operating systems sends information back to the company without explicit permission. LinkedIn responded that this is done only if users opt in and that the information sent is kept secure.

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