Did you know that more than half of social network users are putting themselves at risk of cybercrime by revealing too much personal data?
A recent survey conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center* illustrates how risky behavior on social networks can have serious consequences:
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52% of adult users post information that makes them susceptible to cyber attacks
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40% include their full birth date
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26% post sensitive information about their children, including photos and names
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Many users post their full address as well as updates about when they’re not home
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9% of users have experienced some type of online abuse, such as identity theft or a malware infection, within the last year
Don’t let poor security practices affect you or your friends!
Remember that the internet is a public resource. Avoid putting anything online that you don't want the public to see or that you may want to retract.
Canadians are increasing their online social media activities dramatically - according to a 2009 Ipsos Reid report, the number who had a profile on an online social network increased from 39% to 56% over the previous 18 months. That's a whopping 17% increase. And of those online Canadians who have a social network profile, 85% have one on Facebook (which, incidentally, has over 300 million registered users worldwide).
So, social media is great for consumer marketing, but has nothing to do with B2B (business-to-business), right? Wrong! Social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and SlideShare drive a large portion of the B2B interactions on the web. What's more, because potential customers are more likely to select third-party reviews or blog postings to get recommendations about products or services, search engines rank these sites high.
Here are some ways business owners are using social media for marketing:
To build their brand and online community (eg. through creating a Facebook Group to demonstrate knowledge of a topic and engage like-minded individuals)
To launch or promote products or services (eg. through creating a page on Facebook, or a video on YouTube)
To promote themselves as experts in their fields and build relationships (eg. through hosting and participating in blogs, answering questions on LinkedIn and using Twitter)
To share and exchange business information (eg. through using SlideShare or YouTube to share presentations)
To find potential partners, investors or distributors or to gain business intelligence about prospects (eg. through connecting on LinkedIn)
So how do small companies get in on the action?
It's important to understand what social media is before you can exploit it to your advantage. It's all about collaborative technologies where people are not merely passive recipients of marketing messages but, rather, participants in the process. Contrast this with traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and TV which are static, typically expensive in which to advertise and usually controlled by big companies. Social media changes everything by allowing users to create their own content, share content and generate conversations about what they like and don't like. Using social media successfully requires a comfort level with a lack of control.
One of the first things you can do to really understand the social media space and get started is to listen in. Search the various sites for keywords and phrases that pertain to your field. You will not only find conversations about what your customers like, dislike and are seeking, but you will see that respected experts tend to emerge. Once you feel comfortable, participate. Reply to a blog, post your opinion, create and share valuable content... and hopefully, cultivate the respect and interest of the influencers in your industry by engaging them in conversations. Choose the right option
As you explore the various sites, think about which medium would work best for you. Pay special attention to what media your target audience participates in, and consider how much time you can devote to guarantee success vs the amount of time a particular medium would take. Also think about your social networking goals:
If you want to manage your professional identity and brand, conduct research by asking questions of experts, share helpful articles you've written and cultivate a network of quality contacts you can trust, then LinkedIn may be for you.
If you have a complicated product that is better seen than described, then posting a video on YouTube is a good option.
If you want to make announcements about events or new products or services to as wide a range of potential customers as possible, then try Facebook or Twitter.
Content is key
All of the media are cost-effective and not too technically difficult to use. No matter which one you choose, or how many different methods, for that matter, it's the content of what you offer that is key. Sharing high-value content will do more for you in the world of social media than anything else.
To rise above all the information out there and get noticed, your offering must be helpful (you're not trying to close a sale, you're trying to engage); visually appealing (no need for dancing bears, we're referring to avoiding dense, unbroken blocks of long text); easily available (if you're offering a white paper or podcast, for example, through social media, remember that, increasingly, people are put off by having to provide data such as email and phone numbers in order to download these); and well-promoted (for example, by alerting your Facebook Group and 'fans' as well as your LinkedIn community and by devoting a blog to the topic).
If the content is worthy, then once it's out there, it will generate a life of its own. Ideally, if enough people share it, search engines will start to pick it up, links to your web site will be developed, quality prospects will start to pay attention, and you will become the go-to company in your industry. All of this can turn into an effective marketing avenue for your business.
Finally, ensure that your website and web services don't crash under all the increased traffic that you'll receive from these new social media activities. The Technology Coach partners with companys that offers a wide-range of Server Colocation, Dedicated Server and Web Hosting solutions that will keep your website up and running so that you can focus on these new marketing strategies and your business at-large.
Did you know thatFacebook automatically lets anybody see every video, picture, and status update you’ve ever posted?
Whether you’re using Facebook for business or personal reasons, the good news is that new privacy settings enable you to change exactly who sees what within Facebook. And those changes impact every prior post you’ve ever made.
New Facebook Privacy Updates
Public outcry over Facebook’s complicated privacy settings hit a peak in the spring of 2010. See this AP video below:
Facebook finally responded. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, describes the menu for their groundbreaking new privacy settings as the “Master Switch.” He promises, “we haven’t removed anything in this update, we’ve just added a simple master switch to control all of your content at once.”
Master Switch: Control most of your settings quickly.
In just a few minutes, you can protect all the content you’ve ever posted, within the Facebook application at least. There’s no perfect way to protect every bit of information online except not to post it at all, but in addition to the Master Switch controls, this post reveals Facebook’s deepest privacy settings (called granular settings) so you can easily navigate this jungle and take control of your content.
Facebook Privacy Video Tutorial
Watch this video to take control of your Facebook privacy. Then follow the four steps below for added control.
Want more protection for your sensitive information?
Here are four more ways you can drill deep into your Facebook privacy settings:
#1: Disable Instant Personalizations
When you “like” or “share” a post anywhere online, Facebook puts it on your wall for you and your friends to see. It also automatically sends this information to outside sites such as Yelp and Pandora, among others. If you’d prefer to remain more private, do this:
Go to “Account.”
Choose “Privacy Settings.”
Choose “Applications and Websites.”
Choose “Instant Personalization.”
Click “Edit Settings.”
Uncheck “Allow select partners…”
#2: Take a Fresh Look at Your Photos and Videos
I recently interviewed a woman who lost a job because her Facebook profile picture showed a tattoo. Another woman, a school teacher in Georgia, recently lost her job because her profile picture showed her holding a glass of wine. Both people thought their privacy settings were enough protection, but Facebook still indexes pictures so that outside sites can search for them.
What’s the solution? Be more selective about your profile picture. And while you’re at it, go through all photos and videos of you and untag those that you don’t want to share. You can’t control which photos or videos your friends post, but you can remove your tag from them! Here’s how:
Go to your profile picture. Just under it, you’ll see “View Photos of Me.” Click there and look at each photo. If you want to remove a tag, click “Remove Tag” by your name under the picture.
Photo tagging can turn a private photo into a public one!
Repeat this process for videos—the link “View Videos of Me” is just under your profile picture also.
#3: Create Privacy Lists!
Facebook friend lists are one of the most powerful features they offer for communicating privately and with flexibility. Once you’ve created them, you can easily specify different privacy settings for each list. Only want family to see your child’s birthday party pictures? No problem! You can designate only your “Family” list for that photo album and nobody else will be able to see it unless someone copies and pastes the code at the bottom. This is an example:
These links are now at the bottom of all photos. Control who sees them with friend lists to minimize the chance of unwanted sharing.
Here’s how to create friend lists:
Go to “Account” in the upper right-hand corner of your profile.
Select “Edit Friends.” This will bring up an interactive menu with profile pics of your friends.
Click on “Create New List” and get started! Many people create lists for family, friends, business, news, sports, and food, for example.
Creating friend lists gives you much better control.
Creating friend lists for yourself will also give you the advantage of privacy in Facebook’s newly customized Chat feature.
Unless these settings are customized or turned completely off, anybody can interrupt you while you’re logged on and initiate a chat. Rather than ignore it or respond, I suggest going into the options and designating lists to block and lists of who can see when you’re logged on and available to chat.
It’s good to note here that Facebook never saves chat transcripts. Once a chat has concluded and the window is closed, any record of the chat is deleted. So if you want to have a record of your communications with someone on Facebook, I suggest writing messages instead.
Here’s how to customize your chat privacy settings:
Navigate to the bottom right corner of your profile and click on “Chat.”
Select “Options” within the chat window that opens up.
Designate whether you prefer to be “online” or “offline.”
Select “Friend Lists.” Once there, you can select which lists you prefer to chat with and which you’d prefer to block.
Nice Trick: You can easily change these for when you’re at work and when you’re at home.
#4: Review the Pages You’ve Liked
Facebook is paying an increasing amount of attention to Fan and Community pages and is exploring ways to use this information for potential advertisers. They’ve started indexing this information with your profile for the first time, so now is a good time to review and possibly discard page affiliations that relate to sensitive or controversial subjects.
Here’s how you to customize your “liked” pages:
From your profile, click on your “Info” tab.
Scroll down to the bottom of the “Pages” section, just above your “Contact Information.”
Click on “Show Other Pages,” and a list of pages will show up.
If applicable, click on “Show More Pages” to get a complete list.
(This next part is time-consuming, so I suggest you scan for the most important pages to unlike before you proceed, instead of going down the list of outdated pages.)
Click on a page you no longer want to identify with.
Once there, scroll to the bottom left corner and “unlike.”
You’re done! Please note that you can only “like” up to 500 pages, so this is just good housekeeping if you plan to use Facebook for any length of time.
Protect your branding by reviewing your liked pages.
Congratulations if you’ve just worked through this tutorial!
You now have profile settings to be proud of and can share this information with others! If you only have time for a few mouse clicks, please do yourself a favor and set your Master Switch settings to “Recommended” and you’ll be much more protected than ever before, thanks to Facebook’s new retroactive feature for privacy settings. Please share this handy guide with your friends! What better use is there for a Facebook “like” button anyway?
Now you have a clearer understanding of how to navigate Facebook’s new privacy settings. The Master Switch is a quick and convenient way to address lots of issues at one time; however, you can protect yourself and your professional branding better by also going into the deeper settings shown here. So what do YOU think about Facebook’s new privacy settings? Do you think this new Master Switch adequately addresses Facebook’s privacy issues? Are you happy with your experience and just wish everyone would quit talking about it? Are you excited about using the more hidden settings? Please share your experiences and thoughts in the comments box below!
