The Next Big Cybercrime Vector: Social Media

 With attacks on enterprise networks becoming more sophisticated, organizations have stepped up perimeter security by investing in the latest firewall, data protection, and intrusion prevention technologies. In response, hackers are moving to the path of least resistance and looking for new avenues to exploit. Many security experts believe the next wave of enterprise hacking will be carried out via social media channels. Social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, social media marketing blogs and Twitter have become ubiquitous. They help us connect with friends and family, find jobs, share experiences, promote personal interests and business offerings. Social networks have also become a powerful political tool, as the uprising in the Middle East has demonstrated. Government and businesses around the world now recognize the power and benefits of social networks for mass communications, news distribution, as well as promotion of products and services. However, when combined with social engineering efforts, they also have a dark side and pose a tremendous risk to organizations in today’s interconnected world. A good example was “Newscaster” or “Charming Kitten” cyber-attack, which made headlines earlier this year. The attack, according to a report by threat intelligence social media brand marketing provider iSIGHT Partners, originated in Iran and targeted primarily senior U.S. military and diplomatic personnel, congressional personnel, Washington D.C. journalists, think tanks, defense contractors, and United States allies overseas. This state-sponsored attack used fake personas on social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+) to establish trust relationships that were later exploited to distribute malware designed to steal passwords and sensitive information. Based on the findings, the attack managed to go undetected from at least 2011, and some of the malware continues to go undetected by many signature-based security tools.

Security Review Policies in Higher Education

Last week the Tor Project created a bit of controversy when it accused Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) of accepting $1 million dollars in order to unmask Tor users. At a high level, Tor is a privacy focused technology that routes traffic to hide the identity of its users. Tor became a favored technology by political activists and whistleblowers who need such protection, as well as cyber criminals and other unsavory types who want to abuse this protection. It isn’t a surprise social media marketing chicago that a government agency would be interested in breaking the veil of anonymity. The FBI supposedly used research from CMU to help bring down an illegal marketplace known as the Silk Road, which offered services ranging from normal legal goods, to forged documents, and a variety of drugs (credit cards, child pornography and murder for hire were supposedly against the site’s terms of service). Almost immediately, CMU received criticism for its perceived role in the event, claiming that the research was arguably unethical and that proper oversight would likely have nixed the project early on. And yet, every time there is a new incident related even tangentially to security occurs, we ask the same questions: “How did this happen?”; “Why weren’t there controls in place?”; “Doesn’t this go against industry best practices?” Granted, these are legitimate questions that should not be downplayed, but the real question is, “Are there even proper security review policies in place to determine if and when a project is deemed acceptable – all in a timely (and relevant) fashion?” Having transitioned from being a security professional in academia to the private sector not long ago, I’d like to share some of my experience from “through the looking-glass,” to help explain and defend some of the criticism CMU is receiving. The first thing to note is that higher education is almost a different cost of social media marketing beast when it comes to security. Those institutions that have a strong security review policy in place often have one thing in common: a breach. In 2014, we saw several university breaches affecting close to a million current, former and prospective staff, faculty, and students. While it’s well known that promoting security is an uphill battle in a world more reliant on technology with each passing day, education faces an even tougher battle.

Design of cyber security awareness game utilizing a social media framework

Social networking sites are a popular medium of interaction and communication. Social networking sites provide the ability to run applications and games to test users' knowledge. The popularity of social networks makes it an ideal tool through which awareness can be created define social media marketing on existing and emerging security threats. This paper proposes an interactive game hosted by social networking sites with the purpose of creating awareness on information security threats and vulnerabilities. The game applies principles of good game design which includes: the decisions over hypermedia, multimedia and hypertext to achieve perception, comprehension or projection, comprehensive database of questions, weighted system, use of practical data, automation, dynamcis, effort and user social media marketing plan pdf acceptance. The aim of the paper is show the effectiveness of using a virtual tool in cyber awareness creation. This paper will thus deal with the proposal of an interactive web-based game which informs and then tests users about potential security threats and vulnerabilities. 

Social media attacks a growing concern for enterprises

 While social media risks have typically been an issue for consumers, experts said the risks have extended to enterprises users, as attackers look to collect sensitive, personal information online and also execute phishing attacks. For example, many cybercriminals can easily trick social media marketing trends individuals on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, into clicking on malicious links, according to Gary Bahadur, CEO of Miami-based security consulting firm KRAA Security LLC and the author of Securing the Clicks: Network Security in the Age of Social Media. "When a hacker deploys a social engineering attack [on social media], they take advantage of people's trust," Bahadur said. Samir Kapuria, vice president and general manager of Cyber Security Services at Symantec, said cybercriminals are becoming much more adept at using social media services and sites to their advantage. Specifically, he said Symantec has seen a rise in the number of social media attacks that scam users into clicking on malicious links. They're automating the ruse more through social media, so the victims are being brought right to the doorstep of the bad guys," Kapuria said. "They're using the power of social networking, along with the surge of mobile devices, and they're getting more efficient and effective with how they conduct their business." Such scams are often presented in the form of news about fake celebrity death reports and sex tapes, unbelievable world news, must-see videos, and free offers for smartphones, plane tickets, or gift cards. These spread rapidly on social media because people are more likely to click on links posted by a friend or if it has many shares. This is known as social proofing, and it describes how individuals attribute more trust and value into something because it's been clicked on or approved by other users. Furthermore, criminals use a methodology called likejacking, which presents users with intriguing news, videos and photographs. The hackers encrypted the Facebook Like button with malicious code that is used for an assortment of criminal activity. For example, some malicious posts bring the users to unsafe social media marketing course sites that request the victim to fill out a bogus survey or sign up for fake special offers and services. But potentially greater social media risks for enterprise users involve the reckless posting of personal information online, which can be exploited by hackers. "People, especially the younger generations, are not trained to protect or limit the information they share online," Bahadur said. "Once they hit the corporate world, their online presence could be a disaster, and they won't understand the concept of privacy and sensitive data."

Network & Cyber Security Training for Your Employees

It’s just too easy. Cyber-threat actors are targeting your company and getting what they want. Through the process of Social Engineering, they research information from various public and social media websites and then settle on a course of action – to target your CEO through the CEO’s administrative assistant. The cyber attackers create a fake profile on Facebook and “friend” the assistant who accepts their request. The actors then use information about b2b social media marketing the assistant’s profile to send a spear-phishing email to the assistant’s work address. Email received, link clicked, payload delivered, foothold established. Without an Anti-Phishing Incident Response Plan, your environment is wide open after that - and all because an employee didn’t have the proper information security training and awareness to guard against a cyber-threat that would seek to exploit her trust. We can help you prepare your employees against cyber and social engineering attacks like these. With Dell SecureWorks Security Awareness Training solutions, we can help you assess your current Information Security Awareness Training programs, design new programs by top IT security advisors and provide specialized training to address areas of greatest concern to your organization. Going beyond compliance, Dell SecureWorks Security Awareness Training Solutions change employee behavior and reduce risk to your organization. Social networks, particularly public ones, have real estate social media marketing become part of the fabric of how we communicate and collaborate as a society. With value from micro-level personal networking to macro-level outreach, social networking has become pervasive in people’s lives and is now becoming a significant driving force in business. These new platforms have provided new approaches to many critical enterprise functions, including identifying.

Social Networking Security Awareness

Most concerns revolve around online reputation management, identity theft, or physical security issues. Social networking creates a risk of posting content that will be damaging to yourself, your profile being hacked or your credentials being compromised, or inviting burglars to your home by publicizing your whereabouts. Facebook faces a security challenge that few companies, or even governments, have ever faced: protecting more than 500 million users of a service social media marketing plans that is under constant attack. I’m a huge proponent of “personal responsibility,” and that means that you are ultimately responsible for protecting yourself. Keep your guard up. Cybercriminals target Facebook frequently. Every time you click on a link, you should be aware of the risks. Be careful about making personal information public. Sharing your mother’s name, your pet’s name, or your boyfriend’s name, for example, provides criminals with clues to guess your passwords. Technology can help make social networking more secure. The most common threats to Facebook users are links to spam and malware sent from compromised accounts. Consumers must be sure to have an active security software subscription, and not to let it lapse. Get a complimentary antivirus software subscription from McAfee. Simply “like” McAfee’s Facebook page, go to “McAfee 4 Free,” and choose your country from the dropdown menu to download a six-month subscription to McAfee’s AntiVirus Plus social media marketing podcast software. The software protects users’ PCs from online threats, viruses, spyware, other malware, and includes the award-winning SiteAdvisor website rating technology. After the six-month McAfee AntiVirus Plus subscription period, Facebook users may be eligible for special discount subscription pricing. 

Cyber Security Awareness Month: Social Media at the U of S

 Social media is no longer just a tool for personal use. Most units within universities today actively use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to manage marketing and student, faculty and employee interaction. At the U of S alone, there are over 25 Twitter accounts for various units. The ability to reach out to our selected audiences to create awareness of our programs and services and engage our audience is invaluable but with the increased connectedness comes facebook social media marketing increased security challenges. Social networking sites are a prime target for cyber criminals because of the rise of social engineered hacking. Social engineering is the art of manipulating people so they give up confidential information. There are generally two approaches to social media engineering: computer-based and human-based. Computer-based social engineering focuses on phishing and online scams (discussed in last week’s article). Human-based social engineering is slightly different in that it requires interaction with humans; person-to-person contact is used to retrieve desired information. This can include impersonation, posing as an important user or posing as a friend. Social media accounts run by university units and personal social media accounts held by students, faculty and staff are both targets for cyber criminals. You know that convenient GPS system that is embedded in your phone? The location data from it can be embedded into pictures you take with your smartphone. When you upload your pictures, that data can come with it. Now, anyone who sees your photo can examine it for metadata, and potentially see where and when you took that photo! An easy way to see this data would be disadvantages of social media marketing to right click on any picture on your computer, and click on the “Properties” option. Then choose the “Details” tab. Here, you can see the data your photo contains that you might not realize was there. Sure, some of it is harmless, but what if GPS coordinates were embedded in photos of your children at a playground? And this isn’t even the easiest information for someone to learn about you. Simply posting status updates about your vacation could tip off a would-be burglar to your whereabouts.

Design of cyber security awareness game utilizing a social media framework

Social networking sites are a popular medium of interaction and communication. Social networking sites provide the ability to run applications and games to test users' knowledge. The popularity of social networks makes it an ideal tool through which awareness can be created on existing and emerging security threats. This paper proposes an interactive game hosted by social networking sites with the purpose of creating awareness on information security how to do social media marketing threats and vulnerabilities. The game applies principles of good game design which includes: the decisions over hypermedia, multimedia and hypertext to achieve perception, comprehension or projection, comprehensive database of questions, weighted system, use of practical data, automation, dynamcis, effort and user acceptance. The aim of the paper is show the effectiveness of using a virtual tool in cyber awareness creation. This paper will thus deal with the proposal of an interactive web-based game which informs and then tests users about potential security threats and vulnerabilities. This isn’t restricted to just social network sites, but it definitely applies here. With every social networking site we sign up for, there comes a Terms of Service (ToS). I’d be willing to bet that most of us don’t actually read through that agreement. If we did, what I just said about privacy wouldn’t surprise you. Most social networking sites reserve the right to use any of your photos for their advertising purposes. This applies even to photos you mark “private,” or only allow certain friends to see. And once your photo is added to your account, it is being stored on their servers. But what happens when you take a photo off of the site? Surely they delete it from their servers too? Wrong. They don’t have to, and most likely social media marketing pdf don’t. Their money comes from advertising, and what better advertising do they have than using real user photos and information to promote their site. This same idea applies to closing your account. There’s no guarantee your data will be deleted automatically. In fact, the site may require that you contact them directly to request deletion of your data, and that could take weeks!

Social Media and the Use of Personal Information National Cyber Security Awareness Month

The myriad of social networking websites currently available have hundreds of millions of registered users. But just like any kind of cyberspace communication, using social media can involve some risk. Once a user posts information to a social networking site, that information can no longer be considered private and can be used for criminal purposes. Even if you use the highest security settings on your account, others may—intentionally or not—leak your information. And once in the hands of criminals, this personal information can be used to conduct all kinds of cyber attacks against you or your family members, friends, social marketing media or business associates in an effort to obtain additional and even more sensitive personal information. For example, cyber criminals often craft very convincing spear phishing campaigns leveraging information found on social media to obtain more sensitive personal information. Spear phishers target select groups of people with something in common—i.e., they work at the same company, bank at the same financial institution, attend the same college, or order merchandise from the same website. Authentic-looking e-mails are sent to potential victims—ostensibly from organizations or individuals they would normally get e-mails from—asking the recipients to click on embedded links in the e-mail. These links lead to official-looking websites, where victims are asked, for a variety of urgent and legitimate-sounding reasons, to input personal information like passwords, account numbers, user IDs, and PINs. The result? Criminals can get hold of your banking credentials and credit cards numbers, social media for marketing download malware onto your computer, gain access to sensitive company data, and/or hijack your computer for other nefarious purposes. Criminals who troll social networking sites looking for information or people to target for exploitation run the gamut—from sexual predators, hackers, and financial fraudsters to business competitors and foreign state actors. 

Social Network and Cyber Threats … A Privileged Attack Vector

 The number of cyber treats leveraging social networks is constantly increasing: According to The Symantec “Internet Security Threat Report 2015,” in 2014 70 percent of social media scams were manually shared. The principal problem related to social network scams is related learn social media marketing to the “trust factor”; that is, victims tend to click on something posted by a friend, completely ignoring the risks. As explained by experts at Symantec, in 2014 criminals hijacked the power of “social proof,” the principle that humans attribute more value to something if it is shared or approved by others. It is quite easy to find on social network fraud attempts that invite users to join a fake event or group with incentives such as free gift cards. Joining often requires the victims to provide their credentials or send a text to a premium rate number. The user credentials could open the door of the organization, exposing to the attackers sensitive information regarding the company and its activities. Experts at Symantec have identified the following media threats when dealing with principal social media platforms. Another threat to carefully consider when using social media is the malicious mobile application. The diffusion of the “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies is encouraging promiscuous usage of mobile devices at work. While BYOD can lead to increased productivity, it also has the potential to open company asset importance of social media marketing to cyber attacks. Employees could use apps that hide malicious code or that lack security by design and which, could be exploited to gain control over the mobile device. Malicious mobile apps could allow attackers to steal corporate data and to access repository and services available for employees. The experts at the Veracode security firm recently conducted an interesting analysis that led to this disconcerting conclusion about the promiscuous use of mobile devices in workplace. Veracode scanned hundreds of thousands mobile apps installed in their corporate mobile environment; some of these companies had 35 mobile gambling apps in their environment. The problem with these gambling apps is once again that they enlarge the surface of attack of the organization by leaving employees mobile open to cyber attacks.

Staff training: taking security seriously through comedy

Phil Cracknell, recently appointed head of IT security at TNT Express and until late 2012 director of security at Yell (now Hibu), has a passion for comedy. He believes humour is the key to getting the security message through to all levels of staff. "At Yell we set out to change the culture. I met Jim Shields who runs media company Twist and Shout and is also a stand-up comedian. The discussion was around how do we make IT security awareness stick? We have been trying to cram awareness down people's throats for 20 years," says Cracknell. It was important to get senior level buy-in, he says. "At the time, the chief technology officer of Yell social media marketing university review authorised me to go and make a whole bunch of Star Wars videos all about awareness. We bought Darth Vadar suits. There is one scene where Darth appears at reception and he has forgotten his ID card and he is doing the 'You know who I am' routine. We decided to focus on security as a whole and especially the weak links, such as people writing down passwords." The videos were a massive hit. Cracknell created them in bite-sized chunks, two-minutes long, and emailed them to staff every other day during their first week at Yell. "We looked at the time it took for people to open them up from when they were mailed and they were responding to those quicker than they were responding to any other email," he says. Cracknell went on to set up Rose Tinted Security with Twist and Shout to create humorous videos that come with 3D-style rose-tinted glasses. "We put a whole hotel social media marketing campaign around it that we started to trickle out on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. We used social media to highlight some of the risks of using social media," he says. "These videos got two hits for every member of staff we sent them out to. We know it worked, as people were sending the videos to others who didn't even work for the company."

Social Networking privacy

While websites designed for social networking are not new, they have continued to grow and change over time. They help people not only keep in touch with each other, but also with organizations and activities that interest them. They have also become a new ground for scams and stalkers. There are many opinions on the appropriate level of privacy in social networking sites, sometimes falling along generational lines. Regardless of your opinion, if you use atlanta social media marketing sites like Facebook, you should take a moment to review your privacy settings. When reviewing your settings, think about the variety of people who might see your photos, posts or profile facts: younger family members, co-workers, potential employers, etc. Letting “everyone” or even “friends of friends” see information will open things up to a lot of people. Social networking sites contain applications written by third-parties and connections to external commercial sites. Some of these “apps” may have been written with malicious intent to collect your information or spam your friends with posts you didn’t write. Facebook provides some details on what an app wants to do when you first use it. Pay attention to what information the app wants to access and if it wants to be able to make posts onto your wall. You can review what apps currently have access to your Facebook information under “Privacy Settings” and then under “Apps and Websites.” One of the popular tricks used for spamming on Facebook and similar sites is to tempt you to agree to use an app to gain access to an interesting video or image. These often use social media marketing new york enticing phrasing like “OMG, this is the funniest thing ever!!” and then require you to authorize an application or “complete a survey” to see the video. These apps then collect your information and post the same tempting link under your name to tempt your friends.  

How to Boost the Company

 For the majority of companies, the social networks represent a privileged instrument to improve the efficiency of their communications and increase the brand reputations. Social networks allow companies to reach a wide audience instantly, increasing the trust social media marketing dallas of customers for the company and its products. Many businesses recognize the benefits of having a social media presence for long-term marketing purposes; however, many are not aware of social media’s security issues. Almost any organization ignores how employees’ own social presence can expose the company to cyber threats that could harm its reputation. The reputation is the pillar for the success of any company and a proper security posture on the social networks could prevent serious damages to their image. Social media offer a huge marketing opportunity at limited costs, but it is important for companies to not underestimate the threat to their reputation. Security experts believe that IT companies are among the most exposed entities to threats because of the young age of most of their workers, which implies a natural propensity to use social networks. As more organizations continue to jump into social media, soon a critical mass will be reached and all the other companies will be social media marketing agencies forced to adopt social media for business matter. The opening to social media by companies is a rapid process; for this reason it is crucial to address risks related to the exposure to new threats related to the new paradigm. Social media offer important business advantages to companies, but they also dramatically enlarge their attack surface. In order to mitigate the security risks, organizations must establish and deploy effective social media usage policies. Unfortunately, in many cases, companies simply limit their action is to prohibiting the access to social media for its employees, a decision that could cause significant disadvantage of the organization respect its competitors.

Organization Social Media Security Policy

Now that we have highlighted the principal threats for organizations that open their business to the social networks, let’s see how a security policy can address the major social media security threats. An organization must institute a policy to regulate employee access and establish guidelines for appropriate behavior of staffers when dealing with social media. Policies must specifically address security issues, but not only those! A social media policy has to define the correct posture of the company on the social media by establishing, for example, what can and cannot be shared and communicated through these search and social media marketing powerful platforms. Once a policy is adopted by the organization, it needs to be continuously reviewed and, if necessary, updated and enforced according to the evolution of cyber threats and new needs of the company.The above items must be properly addressed by organizations that intend to protect their assets from threats exploiting social media as an attack vector. The first line of protection against threats over social networks must be implemented in an end-user machine; this means that employees must be trained to adopt a secure posture to protect the devices they use to access social media accounts. It is essential to educate users on the best practices to follow in order to protect their machines (desktops, laptops, mobile devices). Users must protect their desktop and mobile devices by enabling password-protected screen savers and locking them when they walk away from them. All the devices must have screensaver timeouts; in this way, if the user leaves the system, the password-protected screensaver comes up after a specific interval of time, preventing unauthorized physical accesses. Do not forget that a threat agent could also be an insider or any social media marketing applications occasional guest that accesses the organization or that has the possibility to access the user’s device left unguarded. An unauthorized access to a user’s computer or laptop could allow an ill-intentioned person to install a RAT or any other spyware and harvest user credentials. Similar malware could also allow an attacker to impersonate victims over social media by stealing their credentials. Another element to address in a security policy for social media is the authentication of employees to the social network accounts. Take care to separate the use of a personal account from the corporate account; their simultaneous use could generate confusion and result in data leakage. Organizations have to enable two-factor authentication for the accounts of the principal social network they use. Another critical concern is the password security; employees must choose strong passwords, avoiding to share and not properly protect them.

why security awareness is crucial for employees

People are now the weakest link in the security chain. The latest security technology may protect core systems, but it cannot protect against employees giving away information on social networks or using their own, less secure, mobile devices for business purposes. "It is a myth that technology will protect you," says Tony Dyhouse, cybersecurity director at the UK Technology Strategy Board's ICT Knowledge Transfer Network. "Those who attack us have no wish to spend a lot of time and money defeating our technology. They attack the user, which is much easier." It has become increasingly important to embed ICT security awareness marketing using social media at all levels of an organisation. "The most at-risk personnel are uninformed, innocent and unaware employees," says Kevin Bailey, research director, European security software, at research company IDC. "Many external attacks – more than 60% – target employees via social engineering," he says. "They were opportunistic, exploiting activities such as unexpected communication through email and social media." IDC reported a growth of more than 40% in the uptake of smart devices during 2011–12, compared with a flat PC market. Employees are increasingly using their own devices for work, and much of this activity is out of their employer's control. "A recent survey shows that over 30% of respondents believe that BYOD [bring your own device] is already happening informally in their organisations," says Bailey. Many people are familiar with dodgy-looking emails purporting to be from a bank and they know not to click on links. The latest threats are much more sophisticated and personal, including "spearphishing", whereby the attacker uses los angeles social media marketing information gleaned from social media to personalise an email to an individual. People are much more likely to open an email that has specific personal information in the header. They may even open

Threats To Your Security When Using Social Media

 Social networking has changed the way we interact with friends and associates. While social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FourSquare, and Google+, play a significant role in our lives, they are also a high risk for security threats. With hundreds of millions of users online, these tools not only attract friends and family wanting to stay in touch, but they also attract people wanting to know about you for the wrong reasons. Be aware of the top five security threats currently out there to help you stay safe online. Identity thieves gather personal information from social media sites. Even if you have your account social media marketing resume on the highest security settings, there are still ways for an identity thief to get your information. Most social network sites have information that is required, such as email address or birthday. It’s common for an identity thief to hack an email account by using social information. For example, a common technique to get personal information is by clicking on “forgot password” and trying to recover the information through email. Once the thief has access to your email account, they then have access to all information on your social networking sites. Hackers love social networking, going right to the source to interject malicious code. The codes hackers use can steal your identity, inject viruses to your computer, and obstruct bank account information, to name a few. Shortened URLs, such as those created on bit.ly, are especially susceptible to hackers. Shortened URLs can trick users into visiting harmful sites where personal information can be compromised because the full URL is not seen. When you use social networking sites, you are posting personal information. Once information is posted online, it’s no longer private and can fall into the wrong hands. The more you post, the more vulnerable you become to those who may wish to harm you. Even with the highest security settings, friends, associates, effective social media marketing and even the brands you “like” on your networking sites, can inadvertently leak information about you. The websites you subscribe to, the apps you download, and the games you play on social networking sites all contain personal information about you. Every time you browse a website, companies can put invisible markers on your computer called cookies. In theory, no two cookies are alike. When you are online, these cookies track your activity as you move from site to site.

The Privacy and Security Repercussions

More and more people are using social media sites to get the latest news and connect with others. The more comfortable we become with these sites, the more apt we are to share personal details about ourselves and let our guard down as we interact with others. Are we sharing too much private information? Is what we share -- both deliberately and inadvertently -- and what we click putting our privacy and security at risk? The values at the core of networking sites – openess, connecting, and sharing with others – unfortunately are the very aspects which allow cyber criminals to use these sites as a vector social media marketing campaigns for for various kinds of bad online behavior. In fact, reports of malware and spam rose an astounding 70 percent on social networks in 2009, according to an industry report from security firm Sophos. "Social networking sites are meant to get as many users in one place as possible on one platform, and for attackers there's a lot of return-on-investment in going after them," said security analyst Shawn Moyer, aptly describing the climate as a perfect storm of social engineering and bad programming. The notoriety of Facebook and Twitter make these social media sites a focal point for privacy discussions and a prime target for malicious activity. Let's take a more in-depth look at recent leading privacy and security issues. In this case, you were referred to that page by Google. If the booby-trapped page is designed to activate when you arrive at the page via a Google search, it will release its payload. However, if you typed the URL directly into your browser, there would be no referrer and the malicious page's payload wouldn't activate. Lately, referrer headers have been making headlines for an entirely different reason: leaking private information on social media sites. The Wall Street Journal, citing an AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute paper, reported that a "privacy loophole" found on social networking sites, social media as a marketing tool including Facebook and MySpace, allowed for data to be shared with advertisers through referrer headers sent by browser software -- data that could potentially be used to identify users in spite of promises from the companies that user information isn't shared without specific consent. "Merely clicking an advertiser's ad reveals to the advertiser the user's Facebook username or user ID," explained security researcher Ben Edelman. "With default privacy settings, the advertiser can then see almost all of a user's activity on Facebook, including name, photos, friends, and more." This information was leaked to the advertisers because Facebook embeds usernames and user IDs in URLs which are transmitted to advertisers through HTTP referrer headers. Facebook responded with a message on "Protecting Privacy with Referrers," saying it quickly fixed the issue, which it called a "potential" problem.

Be diligent about privacy when merging social media websites

In 2014, it is likely that many of the smaller and up-and-coming social media websites will merge together so that they are better able to compete with the industry giants. Although websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are currently the heavy hitters in the social media world, there are also many smaller websites out there. Additionally, it is likely that social media websites will continue the trend of acquiring start-up companies social media marketing pricing in order to use their cutting-edge new technology. By doing so, social media websites will continue to be able to add plug-ins and applications that will in turn draw even more users. As social media websites rush to add even more features and functionality to their websites, they could potentially overlook key privacy considerations. After all, when one company merges with another or when they add new technological features, there always seem to be a few “growing pains” along the way. Therefore, one of the top privacy concerns for 2014 will be that social media websites are diligent about privacy and security even during rapid growth periods. Single access sign-on is another social media trend that is likely to continue into 2014. Using single access sign-on technology, users can log in once and then use multiple websites without the need to sign in again. Although the convenience of this feature tends to make it popular with users, it brings with it a whole social media marketing blog other host of security and privacy concerns. As the use of single access sign-on becomes more common, it is likely that websites will also start to share information. This kind of access will make it easier for a single social media website to show your actions and activities on other websites. Social media websites will have to take care to ensure user privacy; otherwise this highly convenient feature could become a liability. 

When it comes to privacy and security issues on social networks, "the sites most

 When it comes to privacy and security issues on social networks, "the sites most likely to suffer from issues are the most popular ones," Graham Cluley, Chief Technology Officer at UK tech security firm Sophos says. But security issues and privacy issues are entirely two different beasts. A security issue occurs when a hacker gains unauthorized access to a site's protected coding or written language. Privacy issues, those involving social media marketing campaign the unwarranted access of private information, don't necessarily have to involve security breaches. Someone can gain access to confidential information by simply watching you type your password. But both types of breaches are often intertwined on social networks, especially since anyone who breaches a site's security network opens the door to easy access to private information belonging to any user. But the potential harm to an individual user really boils down to how much a user engages in a social networking site, as well as the amount of information they're willing to share. In other words, the Facebook user with 900 friends and 60 group memberships is a lot more likely to be harmed by a breach than someone who barely uses the site. Security lapses on social networks don't necessarily involve the exploitation of a user's private information. Take, for example, the infamous "Samy" MySpace XSS worm that effectively shut the site down for a few days in October 2005. The "Samy" virus (named after the virus' creator) was fairly harmless, social media marketing strategy template and the malware snarkily added the words "Samy Is My Hero" to the top of every affected user's MySpace profile page. A colossal inconvenience, naturally, but nobody's identity was stolen and no private information was leaked. In the end, the problem galvanized the MySpace team to roll up their sleeves and seriously tighten the site's security. Result: no major break-ins since. Unfortunately, these kinds of breaches, purely for sport in "Samy's" case, are rare.

Security Issues With Social Networking Sites

Increase the security of your social media account by always logging out when you step away from your laptop or computer. It's best to go one step further and close down the browser you were using to view your account. If you leave your account logged in, you set yourself up to be hacked because anyone who can get to your computer can access your account, change the password or even post items and communicate with your friends as if they are you. Logging out and shutting down the browser is even more important if you use a public computer. Viruses and malware often find their way onto your computer through those social media marketing service annoying, but sometimes enticing ads. However, on the Web, just like in real life, if an offer seems to good to be true, then it probably is. Save yourself a potential security headache - don't click. Be careful of who you accept invitations from when building your online network. Connecting and sharing information with people you don't know can be dangerous. If you receive friend requests from strangers, it's best to stay away. Further, if you receive friend requests from people you do know, but are already connected with via the same site, it's possible that someone has set up a fake account. Avoid accepting duplicate requests, instead checking in with the 'real' person to see if the request is legitimate. You should also be careful when connecting with a celebrity's account, as scammers sometimes pose as famous people. Make sure it is their official, legitimate account and not a stranger pretending to be them before you accept their 'friend' invitation. Part of the appeal of social media sites are all the various games and apps. Even though a significant number of them are safe, you do grant the app a certain level of permission concerning your information. Make sure you know what the app is viewing and sharing before agreeing to the terms. Social media sites provide you with the ability to restrict who has access to your information. For example, social media marketing experts Facebook (like others) lets you decide who your friends are and what content they can view. One practice to increase your account's security is to disable most of the options and then re-open them once you understand what the settings specifically mean to your account. In reality, you probably want different types of content to be displayed to different people, with the most being available to known friends and the least to acquaintances.

How to be Safe, Secure and Social

What do your long lost childhood best friend, your college roommate, your boss and your significant other all have in common? If you are one of the hundreds of millions of people using social networks, there’s a good chance that you are linked to them through an online relationship. The information you share with your online contacts allows you to keep in touch without much effort. But who else is looking at that information? And how are they going to use it? Online social networks are websites that allow users to build connections and relationships to other Internet users. Social networks store information remotely, social media marketing conference rather than on a user’s personal computer. Social networking can be used to keep in touch with friends, make new contacts and find people with similar interests and ideas. However, many people besides friends and acquaintances are interested in the information people post on social networks. Identity thieves, scam artists, debt collectors, stalkers, and corporations looking for a market advantage are using social networks to gather information about consumers. Companies that operate social networks are themselves collecting a variety of data about their users, both to personalize the services for the users and to sell to advertisers. This fact sheet will provide information about the advantages and disadvantages of using social networks, what kind of information may be safe to post and how to protect it, as well as who is able to access different types of information posted to these networks. These networks allow users to create detailed online profiles and connect with other users, with an emphasis on social relationships such as friendship. For example, Facebook, Friendster and MySpace are platforms for communicating with contacts. These networks social media marketing articles often involve users sharing information with other approved users, such as one’s gender, age, interests, educational background and employment, as well as files and links to music, photos and videos. These platforms may also share selected information with individuals and applications that are not authorized contacts.  

How to Write a Social Media Press Release

 Strapped with a small advertising budget, Blendtec's marketing director Jeff Robe, took a chance in trying to change the brand's reputation. Blendtec was largely known as a commercial manufacturer of high-end blenders for restaurants, Starbucks franchises and more. Robe created the Will top social media marketing companies It Blend? video series, hosted by company founder Tom Dickson and aimed at showing the powerful ability of Blendtec's Total Blender for home use, priced at $400. Dickson put everything from an iPhone to hockey pucks and a toilet plunger to a World Cup vuvuzela in to the blender. Over 100 episodes and millions of YouTube views later, the Will It Blend? video series is one of the great examples of viral sharing and marketing success in the era of social media. According to the company, home sales of their blenders have increased 700% since November 2006 to August 2010. A truly viral success story, social media changed the perception of the Blendtec brand. While not every social media campaign can be as successful as Blendtec's, it's often the way that the message or product is shared that determines its success. Advertising and public relations can be extremely effective tools when used properly, but they are, by definition, one-way forms of communications. Social media, on the other hand, is defined by the ability of both sides to converse and share information. And despite the change in technology, the press release remains one of the best ways social media marketing network to get your message out. But writing a press release for social media is not like writing a traditional press release. Before digging in, however, it is important to note that social media press releases do not replace traditional releases, they complement them – much in the same way that social activities and campaigns work best in conjunction with traditional PR initiatives.

How to Write a Social Media Press Release: What is a Social Media Press Release?

Regardless of whether you are writing a press release for traditional mediums or for social media, if your audience doesn't find the content informative, useful or helpful, it doesn't matter how hard you try or what the format is—you simply will not succeed. Noted social media blogger Brian Solis wrote the definitive guide to social media releases in 2008, and his definition still stands true: "A social media release should contain everything social media marketing consultant necessary to share and discover a story in a way that is complementary to your original intent; but, the difference is, how they find it and the tools they use to share and broadcast. Social media is one big extension to the web, except it promotes voices, along with content, in a way that focuses on people and their social networks." The advancements of the Internet and of social channels has made the traditional format of a press release less effective as journalists, press members and readers crave small chunks of succinct details that incorporate social media, linking and multimedia to make it more digestible and relevant. The quicker, easier and more creatively you can get your point or message across, the more likely it is to be picked up, shared, re-tweeted, or more. And one thing you should not social media marketing for dummies overlook is the use of keywords. It will help your search engine optimization and get your point across quickly yet effectively. "The pivotal change is that the consumer owns as much of the message of your brand as any traditional vehicle," Turner notes. "Whereas PR professionals used to target journalists to get a story placed, a social media press release is about targeting three different people: journalists, bloggers and most importantly consumers. It needs to make sense to all of them individually."

Measuring Engagement and Following Up After the Release

It's next to impossible to measure success of a social media press release without setting up a type of measurement, which needs to be done before you send out the release. Turner recently wrote a post on Mashable about How To Calculate The ROI of Your Social Media Campaign. In essence, there are three types of measurement to focus on in any social campaign, those being qualitative, quantitative and ROI. For marketing directors, they should be most social media marketing los angeles focused on ROI. But for public relations professionals, it's really the other two that matter most. "In terms of PR, you want to know not only who is sharing the information that your release provides, but how they are sharing it," Turner adds. "So in terms of quantitative, it's all about raising the number of Facebook likes, Twitter shares, and more. From a qualitative measurement perspective, it's really about what they are saying about your information. For example, are they calling your product cheap or inexpensive? From a branding perspective, those two words have a considerably different meaning, so you sometimes need to help guide the conversation." And Turner's final point there is one of the biggest things you must do as a PR professional when writing a social media press release—engage. Just as you want your customers, journalists and bloggers to actively share the product and come back for more, the key to social is making it a two-way conversation. If someone asks a question about the campaign, respond quickly. If they want to know where they can find more information, write them a message or direct them to the social media marketing degree company website. "No customer wants to call a 1-800 number anymore," Olson adds. "Everyone wants to take their question and post it on the company Facebook page or tweet about it and then receive an instant response. So as a PR person, you need to make the consumer feel like a VIP in a way by giving them that personal touch. Because in a way, social media campaigns can be less expensive than traditional advertising and it can be a great alternative for smaller companies to try and compete with larger brands. But if you don't concern yourself with engagement, it can really hurt you and you could lose a customer." 

Social media seminar for business owners back by popular demand

 Local business owners and managers in Leicestershire are invited to a social media seminar taking place in January. All proceeds from the seminar will go to the LOROS hospice. The aim of the seminar, called ‘Are you wasting your time on social media?’ is to show business social media marketing manager owners how they can utilise social media to boost their business as part of their marketing mix. The half day event is being held at The Waterfront Restaurant in Market Harborough on Thursday 22nd January, and will run from 9.30am ‘til 12.00pm. The seminar, run by The Ideal Marketing Company, is back by popular demand after success in October of 2014. Jessica Shailes, Head of Digital Marketing at The Ideal Marketing Company will be hosting the event. With 7 years’ experience of using social media in business, Jessica has helped hundreds of companies from across a variety of industries to get the most from their social media presence. “Social media is increasingly important in businesses’ promotional and marketing activities, yet many business owners find themselves focusing on the wrong areas, or even worse, marketing with social media avoiding social media completely,” Jessica comments. “This seminar aims to give business owners an idea of which platforms could be profitable for them, how to create a campaign that works, and how to create an effective plan.” The seminar costs £50 per person and 100% of the money raised will go to LOROS Hospice who offer support and care for those suffering from terminal illness in the East Midlands. The Ideal Marketing Company raised over £2000 for LOROS in 2014, and plan to exceed this total in 2015.

Social media channels every business should be using

Social media has been leading the charge in marketing tactics for quite a while. Taking your customer outreach efforts onto these digital platforms is a great way to reach large audiences with relatively little work. But with so many options, it can be hard for businesses to decide where to focus their efforts. Luckily, Small Business Examiner has taken some guesswork out of the equation. In the 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, social media marketing statistics SME questioned 3,700 marketers about their social media marketing strategies. The benefits of social media are clear. Of participants, 90 percent noted that these marketing efforts have generated more publicity for their company. Increased traffic and customer loyalty were also cited as key results of social media campaigns. So, we know the end results, but which platforms were used as the means? Unsurprisingly, Facebook reigns supreme. A considerable 93 percent of respondents cited the social media site as their most used marketing channel. Twitter took the second place spot with 79 percent of participants turning to the blue bird for their social media needs. Somewhat surprisingly, LinkedIn and Google+ took the third and fourth spots respectively. Later in the survey, respondents were asked to name a single social media channel that they considered the most important for their business needs. Like in the survey, Facebook took the top spot with 52 percent of marketers citing the platform as essential. However, LinkedIn took the second spot with 21 percent. Twitter fell to third with just 12 percent of survey social media marketing training participants needing tweets to survive. And the last channel was YouTube with 4 percent of the votes. In order to understand if something is successful, there must be a way to measure effectiveness. In the world of social media, success has a lot to do with what the content inspires your audience to do. A good social media strategy will create what is called an “actionable audience.”

Social-media pros: We're just getting started

-Social-media sites are visited mainly by early technology adopters and pose thorny privacy problems but are an increasingly viable channel for news distribution for overwhelmed Internet consumers, panelists at the Emerging Technology Conference said on Wednesday. We're the future of the media business. These news aggregation sites--which are expanding into images and videos--exist because Web surfers are drowning in an excess of content, marketing through social mediapanelists said. The business model to fund these sites is essentially the same as traditional publishing--advertising and subscriptions. What's different is that users have a bigger say in what they choose to read and that they rely on their community, rather than only professional editors, to find information. "The model is the same," said Krim, NetVibes co-founder. "It's just about the reorganization of the content distribution right now. " Rose predicted that social media sites will become more popular as the tools to use these sites get easier. He said that the company is working on enhancements to foster community, including a suggestion service coming out in the next few months that will let users look at the profiles of people who post items to Digg. Digg is also looking at ways to predict which items will get to the front page on the site by tracking which submitters have a track record of spotting popular items. The importance of community in news became starkly clear in the London terrorist bombings in 2005 and the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech earlier this year. Before professional news outlets could cover social media marketing certification these events, people relied on information from their peers. Even though social media sites are shaking up mainstream media, the attendees at the EmTech conference are clearly not plugged in to their friends' media preferences. 

Social Media Branding Tips

 Many small business owners have begun to see the value in social media in regards to advertising and connecting to their customers on a personal level. There are many ways for you to enhance your brand through social media in order to grow your online presence. The more you take the time to connect with your customers, the more business you will have and the more loyal your customer will be. Having your business involved in social media will social media marketing tools show your customers the human side of your company, which is usually a great way to reach them. One of the first things to do when trying to brand your business on social media is to fill in every bit of information in the social media profiles that you join. The more information you put in the social media profile, the better results you will get on search engines, which can help to drive business to your website. You need to be clear about what you do and a description of the services that you offer, which can help to reduce confusion when people visit your pages on social media. One of the best ways to keep people interested in your social media pages is by conversing with them and offering them content that they are interested in. You need to figure out who your core audience is and how to appeal to them by using content social media marketing strategies and lingo that they will relate to. By relating to your customers on a personal level, you can gain their loyalty, which can help your overall profitability. If you are in need of a small office space, then look no further than Executive Office Place. We have the space and amenities that you want at the price you can afford.

WAYS TO BE A SOCIAL MEDIA AUTHORITY

Social media is an all – important avenue for all business types since business owners realize its worth. When it was a new trend, not many people thought that it was going to live up to its hype in the world of business but just look at how it evolved from connecting old friends to connecting business contacts. One could not count on their fingers how many gurus, specialists and trend setters there are in the world of social media. So what makes social media marketing software them believable? Why is it that more people take their word rather than anyone else’s? It’s because they have established themselves as the authority in their own niche. Social media is all about interaction and it would help you to create and build authority. Being an active member of a certain social networking site does not make you an expert or an authority figure overnight. It would take time for you to build credibility. People all over the world generally recognize and respect authority figures. However, there’s a need for exposure. You cannot claim to be an expert in a certain field if you just popped out one morning on any social networking site. You have got to earn the respect and trust of the people you want to reach out to. Your followers and friends should have a basis that you know something they don’t know about topics they care about. Advanced threat protection leader expands its easy-to-deploy next-generation cyber security platform for small and medium enterprises Proofpoint, a leading next-generation cybersecurity company, has announced the latest version of Proofpoint Essentials™ to protect how small and medium enterprises work today. The release features policy-based email encryption, protection against threats on corporate social media accounts and defense against attachment-based advanced threats. According to Proofpoint research, on average, a 150-employee company suffers a targeted attack once a month. The FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division also recently marketing and social media indicated that cybercriminals use publicly available information and vulnerabilities in email systems to trick small businesses into wiring large sums of money into fraudulent bank accounts. From October 2013 through June 2015, companies around the world lost more than $1 billion as a result of such schemes, and this is just one of several types of highly successful cyberattacks using email as the entry point.

Social Media Engagement

Are you a little underwhelmed with the level of engagement you’ve received from your company’s social media sites? There are quite possibly fewer algorithms that keep a space shuttle in orbit than there are for determining who sees what content and when on Facebook. Who has the time to keep up with the ever changing configurations of content ranking? There is one definite way to ensure that your content is being read and shared on social media sites and that is to share information that your audience wants to receive. While social media is certainly a great platform to inform the masses about all the wonderful things social media marketing salary your company offers, you shouldn’t focus solely on you. Have you heard the term content marketing? Here’s my take on it. Content marketing puts the primary intent of the message on enhancing the lives of the reader or viewer. Content should be customer focused and help them solve their problems or answer a question regarding their needs. The knowledge you will share allows you to position yourself as the authority in your field and aid in earning the respect of your ideal customer before you ever make them an offer to become your customer. They may never remember that you ran a 15% off sale last month but they may remember that you spoke about a solution to a problem that they now have. Social media is a powerful, yet quirky beast. There are those who make a lot of money through social media sales. Honestly, I see how it can be beneficial for some. I personally have not put the time, energy or marketing dollars into trying to make money from social media. I have instead chosen to let my social media pages serve as a platform in which I try to enhance the lives of my followers and potential customers. I share content that mostly speaks to solving their needs. It also serves as social proof. When other people social media marketing classes are engaged on social media, it shows your target market that others are listening. A large portion of your paying customers will never be trend setters. They are the subset of consumers who wait for version 2.0 or even 3.0 of the latest technology. They sit back and wait for others to be live beta testers (beta is the new alpha these days) and for manufacturers to work the kinks out before they make their purchase. This is why it’s incredibly important to understand your audience and ensure that you are providing content specific to their needs and in a manner in which they can best receive the message. Ammie’s Assignment: If you want increased social media engagement share less about you and more about results. Share solutions. Share stories that your potential customers can relate to. Create a relationship with your follows. Talk to them and with them, not at them. 

Leadership Fairfield County 2013 Concludes with Talks on Social Media

 Many of The Business Council’s initiatives build programming with a mind toward helping members build their personal and professional networks. With such a focus on how businesses and individuals connect with their peers, it was only natural for Leadership Fairfield County 2013 to center its final session on social media. Meeting at Sacred Heart University’s new Graduate Center in Stamford’s Landmark Square, the 2013 LFC class examined the impact social media marketing company of social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter on the landscape of business, news, the economy, and individual privacy. SHU’s Assistant Professor of Marketing David Taylor opened the morning with a huge statistic: there are now approximately 500 million tweets published every day, and 53% of those users are tweeting brand marketing—which could mean they’re marketing a physical product, a service, an experience, or even themselves (also known as personal branding). This is evidence, he said, that the advent of social media has brought with it a major shift in how companies get people to buy what they’re selling. “Instead of getting the message to consumers,” he said, “businesses now have to have conversations with consumers. Instead of advertising on a ‘Marketer to Consumer’ model, consumers are marketing companies’ products to each other…Tight brand control doesn’t really exist anymore.” Because of social media, news too will never be the same. The individual Internet user’s ability to share interests and discoveries has changed the timeliness of news, and dictates, to a degree, what’s actually considered news in the first place. Jonathan Krackehl, CEO & President of hyper-local online news station It’s Relevant, explained. “Social media creates a constant need to have something interesting so viewers [or readers] will share,” he said. It’s Relevant’ s response to the trend is to provide a different editorial focus than traditional TV. “We largely don’t cover crime, car wrecks, or the police blotter social media marketing tips unless those events affect a large portion of the community,” Krackehl said. Instead, his station covers stories on human interests and policy decisions at the local level. And, of course, the Internet and social media have altered how consumers receive their news. It’s Relevant is purely an online news source, delivering content both through its website and as channels on digital entertainment hardware Roku’s streaming service.

Iraqis on Social Media Fight Extremists Online

“The first one is comprised of educated locals who already have well-established social media accounts and who may also have done some blogging,” he told NIQASH. “These people have been able to leave a clear record and in fact, many have been diarying events around the country, using social media for marketing presenting facts about what’s happening from on the ground.” These sites include the blogger known as Mosul Eye – which seems quite likely to be a group of people operating together – and Anbar Daily. A further category consists of online Iraqis who have partisan interests at the heart of what they’re posting and the information they’re sending out. Often they promote inaccurate information and propaganda; for example, they may only publish information that is in complete support of Shiite Muslim militias, who have played a valuable role in fighting against extremists but whose behaviour has also been problematic in some cases. A third category of Iraqis online are those who mostly re-tweet or re-post news. They mostly use official news sources – which again, are not always unbiased or completely accurate. Nonetheless these locals could be considered mostly as promoters of news, al-Hashimi suggests. Indicating how seriously Iraqis are starting to take the online battle against how to use social media for marketing the extremists is another organisation, Iraqi Media House. In February the media monitoring organisation, headed by respected Iraqi editor, Mushreq Abbas of the Al Hayat news agency in Iraq, released a report on how the IS group has managed to use the Internet to disseminate its messages.

Social media usage grows among business journalists

Four out of five business journalists use Twitter during their workday, while half are blogging, according to an informal survey of business journalists conducted by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. And more than three-fourths of the business journalists social media marketing job description who responded also use Facebook and LinkedIn for job purposes. The survey results show the growing usage of social media and other new technology among business journalists in addition to the traditional tools of the job such as a computer, a telephone and a notebook. For example, Bloomberg News, one of the largest employers of business journalists in the country, recently hired a social media director to train its reporters and editors on how to use Facebook and Twitter more effectively. New York Times reporter Brian Stelter, who covers television and digital media, has more than 62,000 followers on Twitter. “The day when business journalists could simply report and write stories about business and the economy using traditional resources have long passed,” said Kevin Noblet, president of SABEW and managing editor of wealth management coverage at Dow Jones Newswires. “Now they have to be constantly online, looking for and soliciting information in new and unique ways and providing business news consumers with information in multiple formats throughout the day.” Social media technology is also changing how business journalists interact with their sources and how business news is first reported. Last month, Pacific Investment Management Co. co-founder Bill Gross posted on Twitter that The Wall Street Journal was working on a story about the management company’s losses from investing in Lehman Brothers — a full 10 days before the story appeared in the paper. Still, nearly half social media marketing news of the business journalists who responded to the survey said that the new technology had made their job easier. Less than a third said their work was now harder, while 20 percent said there was no difference. More than 73 percent of the business journalists who responded say they use social media to find story ideas and sources. Another 69 percent said they use these new tools to contact sources they already know, while nearly a third use social media to interview sources. 

How can my business use social media?

 Social media provides an excellent platform to market your products, promote new products and organise promotions through eye-catching organisation profile pages. These can be regularly updated with new feeds about upcoming sales, new launches or images of products being launched. Through the integration of social media with Dynamics CRM, interest in a product can easily be translated into a lead, or a customer voicing feedback on products social media marketing agency could be effectively managed as an incident, providing your organisation the opportunity to deliver exemplary service and seeing the response on the social media site in real-time. Delighted customers are likely to share products/ service information on their own personal pages. This enables a business to reach out to wider audiences and thus providing effective marketing. With the growth and success of businesses being dependent on customer satisfaction, it's understandable that emphasis is placed on building and nurturing relationships with customers. Through social media this is easily accomplished by keeping your customers near using fan pages and groups and paying attention to their voices through posts on news feeds, groups, organisation profile pages etc. The Outlook Social Connector serves as an amazing tool. It's used to retrieve the historical and current information of a contact record upon clicking the contact record in Outlook (emails, activities, meetings and activity feeds through linked social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn) and allows users to stay updated and in touch with contacts within a single screen. While Facebook allows business to create organisation profile pages to connect with customers through wall posts, pictures, videos and links; Twitter is useful for engaging customers social media marketing world in conversation - whether it is to find out directly what the customer thinks about your product or service, or using the search functionality to gauge what your customers feel about your brand. LinkedIn, a business social networking site, helps businesses monitor developments within the customer's organisations. Your sales team can monitor role changes and new employees to stay abreast with these changes to ensure they connect with decision makers or keep track of old contacts.

Immediate, flexible community is result of social media

What does every parent want? Besides more sleep and a surefire way to balance the demands of raising a family, we want to share information easily and have a community we feel a part of. Being a parent can be an isolating experience, so it’s natural to look for ways to connect both at work and play: sharing news and photos with our friends and family, bonding with other parents who are going through the same joys and struggles, nurturing benefits of social media marketing our hobbies or passions to escape the daily challenges of parenthood, working remotely and finding useful resources. At the recent Kidoinfo Parents Using Social Media event, more than 60 parents gathered in downtown Providence to talk and learn about how some parents use social media to enhance their lives and strengthen communities. Today’s parents have a great deal of technology at their fingertips. Whether we consider ourselves techy or a techophobe, early or reluctant adopters of social media, many of us are using some form of social media in our personal lives to find playdates and child care, to fund-raise for school PTOs, and in business to allow for more flexible work schedules and provide new ways to do our work. One of the panelists, TJ Sondermann, shared his experience of being a stay-at-home dad and feeling isolated until he met other fathers by using social media sites like Flickr, where users can tag photos in a number of ways, including location. Some of TJ’s online connections turned into real-life friendships, and in some cases these friendships led to business opportunities. He is now the program director for BetaSpring. Social media is well-suited to parents who need immediate access to resources. Whether for business or family needs, social media marketing courses the Internet is available 24/7, allowing us to get what we need on demand – quite helpful since we often can’t control a child’s sleep schedule. Parents blog about everything these days, from raising kids to politics and the environment. We seek answers and advice on raising our kids and how or where to look for the best day care and schools. We share photos on Flickr and upload videos on YouTube.

Nicole Larrauri Talks to Long Island Business News about Social Media

Nowadays, companies increasingly use social media to engage with customers, promote brands and advertise products. From start-up businesses to major companies, social media presence is becoming increasingly important, and if a company is not in social media it is not truly in the game. It is interesting then that one recent article discussed how some companies are actually backing off from social media. While most companies try to increase social media engagement, social media marketing for small business these companies are deleting their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Charter, a U.S. cable provider with 5.2 million customers, shuttered its social media customer service team in December 2012. New England's biggest grocery store, Wegmans, closed its 8,000-fan Facebook page too. The unfiltered nature of social media customer feedback, coupled with the constant amount of comments, were cited as challenges for companies trying to utilize social media for business. In Wegmans' case, the Facebook page closing stemmed from an inability to quickly respond to customers. Wegmans' employees did not have enough time to monitor the Facebook page and handle other job duties. This begs the question though, why wasn't there a dedicated individual servicing Wegmans' Facebook page? In this day and age, with many people seeking work and well-versed in social media, it seems a little odd that Wegmans chose to abandon the Facebook page altogether rather than try to tackle the issue, and possible opportunity, head on. This reminded me of a story from 2012, where a single post on David’s Bridal’s Facebook page turned into a disaster. An upset David's Bridal customer posted her unpleasant experience on the David's Bridal Facebook wall. The jilted customer's Facebook post received over 125,000 likes and 11,000 comments, including several similar frustrating experiences at other David’s Bridal locations. The Facebook posts grew to the point where customers were encouraged to shop for wedding dresses at other stores and boycott David's Bridal. Perhaps due to a lack of dedicated social media response procedures, David's Bridal posted a terse statement social media marketing ideas online over a week later, which allowed the damage to fester and grow online for days, stating it was reviewing the incident. David's Bridal seemed clueless that its reputation and future was at stake, all as a result of a single Facebook post. In fact, many large businesses prohibit customer posting on social media platforms to avoid just this type of situation. 

Social media and Internet presence important for business

 You’ve read that one of my goals downtown was to grow our online and social media presence. Two years ago, we didn’t have an email blast list. Now, we have 850 active community members who get our updates. In 2013, we had just over 400 likes on our Facebook page. Now, we have 1,777. That’s just our downtown Freeport page. We also have pages for each of our fundraisers that have 5,360 likes. Last year, we didn’t have a Twitter account, social media and marketing today we have 85 followers. Social media is often thought of as just for kids. However, Statista reported that of 30- to 49-year-olds that use the Internet, 81 percent have Facebook accounts. It’s becoming increasingly important to keep the heads of household in mind when marketing online. Facebook is live. Pictures, daily happenings and experiences are often reported as they happen. Phones connect directly to the site. With a few clicks, a photo or opinion can be shared with hundreds of people. Similarly, Twitter is a way for people to live tweet things they see. In slower motion, a person can also share experiences with Google. They have listings and maps of businesses that they keep updated. Web users are able to leave reviews for all to see. If you are a business owner and you are not monitoring these things, you should start. Know your target demographic. Those demographics and website statistics will help you develop a list of social media sites you should target first. Start small, social media marketing plan template managing two or three and expand as you learn. Many businesses now use social media and its various applications as tools for business. What’s not to like? It’s a form of advertising and helps you keep track of the general sentiment for or against your company and acquire customers, among other things. But just like everything in this world there is a downside to social media. Aside from helping your business it can also hurt your business as well.

Post when dealing with social media

Some celebrities and athletes say dumb things on social media, and they've learned the hard way what kind of damage the wrong tweet or post can do. Teens are making the same kinds of missteps on social media. Many are unaware of the consequences. A company that aims to help students better navigate the complicated worlds of high school social life and social media has developed a lesson for high school kids that makes them think before they post. Socialize Right was developed by Eric Sloss, marketing social media Cynthia Closkey and Sarah Mayer of Shift Collaborative in East Liberty, a marketing and communications agency that manages social media campaigns along with traditional marketing and communications. Misuse of social media and inappropriate postings are "pervasive" in middle and high school, said Susan Miller, an educational consultant who works with Socialize Right. Kids have migrated away from mainstream social media sites such as Facebook, in part because their parents and grandparents are there, and in part because sites like Vine and Snapchat offer more in the way of video. Some popular social media apps like After School allow members to post anonymously - or even post something using someone else's name. "That's how complicated it is in schools right now," Ms. Miller said. "You really don't know who's doing it. You don't have the ability to be the cyber detective, but we're still dealing with the aftermath." Shift Collaborative teamed up with KDKA-FM sports talk host and former Pittsburgh Steelers punter Josh Miller for a presentation for the Cincinnati Bengals on using social media effectively. (He is not related to Susan Miller.) "That kind of inspired this idea, because I see my students and our clients using social media in various ways," said Mr. Sloss, who also teaches social media and public relations at the University of Pittsburgh's department of communications. "There's a huge learning curve. We teach parents to clarify the complicated ever-changing social media landscape, as well as encourage students to think social media marketing b2b about their digital legacy." In the Socialize Right school presentations, Josh Miller, who also played for the New England Patriots and the Tennessee Titans, serves as a role model and social media coach for the students by drawing on his own experiences and those of others in the sports arena to tell cautionary tales about the pitfalls of social media misuse.

What social media has to offer your business

There are plenty of articles out there about how businesses can use social media to bring in more customers, but we don’t often think about what else businesses can get from social media. Being present online and having your own stream of media for your business is important, but you can gain just as much from reading and sharing other firms’ content as your own. Here are three ways to use social media to your advantage. Whether you’re an established social media marketing packages business owner or you’re just thinking of starting your own small business, there are a lot of tools out there to help you along every step of the way. Social media is a big aspect of business operations nowadays, and in many ways you can gain just as much from reading other companies’ social media content as you can from putting your own content online. If all of your tweets are about your business activities, it’s easy to become repetitive and drive away followers. If you share news and other content relevant to your industry, however, you will add variety to your company’s social media news feed and attract more followers with your expanded focus. Also, by promoting other people and businesses you enjoy, you can build good relationships with them and they’re more likely to promote your business in return … or even offer to build a partnership and collaborations. Does your business ship a lot? You can learn how to save money on shipping costs by following companies that social media marketing proposal specialize in the business of shipping, and learn the ins and outs of things like freight indexing, how weather is affecting shipping, and which companies offer the best deals. And that’s just one aspect of your business that you can learn more about and profit from. Creating relationships with other businesses and learning more about the process of shipping gives you the ability to offer your customers the best overall experience while saving money for your company. 

Social Media Will Change Your Business

 Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later Editor's note: When we published "Blogs Will Change Your Business" in May, 2005, Twittering was an activity dominated by small birds. Truth is, we didn't see MySpace coming. Facebook was still an Ivy League sensation. Despite the onrush of technology, however, thousands of visitors are still social media marketing services downloading the original cover story. So we decided to update it. Over the past month, we've been calling many of the original sources and asking the Blogspotting community to help revise the 2005 report. We've placed fixes and updates into more than 20 notes; to view them, click on the blue icons. If you see more details to fix, please leave comments. The role of blogs in business is clearly an ongoing story. First, the headline. Blogs were the heart of the story in 2005. But they're just one of the tools millions can use today to lift their voices in electronic communities and create their own media. Social networks like Facebook and MySpace, video sites like YouTube, mini blog engines like Twitter—they've all emerged in the last three years, and all are nourished by users. Social Media: It's clunkier language than blogs, but we're not putting it on the cover anyway. We're just fixing it. Monday 9:30 a.m. It's time for a frank talk. And no, it can't wait. We know, we know: Most of you are sick to death of blogs. Don't even want to hear about these millions of online journals that link together into a vast network. And yes, there's plenty out there not to like. Self-obsession, politics of hate, and the same hunger for fame that has people lining up to trade punches on The Jerry Springer Show. Name just about anything that's sick in our society today, and it's on parade in the blogs. On lots of them, even the writing stinks. Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply social media marketing university the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business—including yours. It doesn't matter whether you're shipping paper clips, pork bellies, or videos of Britney in a bikini, blogs are a phenomenon that you cannot ignore, postpone, or delegate. Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They're a prerequisite. (And yes, that goes for us, too.)

The right social media listening tools for the right jobs

Some of you may know that I know that I serve as a senior strategist at Converseon, a leading social media listening company. Meaning? I have plenty of opinions in social media listening, but I don't claim to be unbiased about them by any means--of course I think what is social media marketing that Converseon has the best approach, combining human analysis with technology that makes that analysis scale. But I also know not everyone is willing to spend the money to attain that level of social media listening accuracy. Many of you may want to use something free, such as Hootsuite. (I see you out there.) And you can use a free tool to do social media listening-it's not against the law. I would suggest, however, that you to think very carefully about what you are using it for. You see, there are two very clear kinds of social media listening. One kind really only needs to look at individual posts-a stream of data that a human being watches on a dashboard and picks out what is relevant. If you are monitoring a crisis, or you are picking out possible job applicants, or you are trying to identify sales leads, this can work just fine with free tools, as long as you are willing to pay someone to sit in front of the screen and watch the stream. Because in a crisis you don't need to see every post, and it's OK if lots of the posts are irrelevant to the situation, as long as someone is watching and picking out what's important. If a story is very important, enough people will tweet it that you'll see it rather quickly. If 95% of the stream is irrelevant to your sales team, but they still catch the few sales leads that go by, social media marketing jobs it can work just fine, even if they also miss some leads. Free tools can be just fine in those situations. But whenever you are trying to answer questions that require aggregation of data, the free tools become a lot more difficult to use, because you won't have the right data to aggregate in the first place. For example, if the cell phone company Sprint wants to judge whether their brand mentions turned more positive when they announced their latest service plans, just putting in the word "Sprint" probably won't get the job done. In addition to finding all sorts of conversation about their company, they are likely to find lots of chatter about high school races, and they don't care very much how positive it is. And if the irrelevant data makes up 30% of the stream, you can't conclude anything. So, you clearly need something beyond keywords to do your aggregation so that you know that you have the right data. Human analysts can do it. Feeding their corrections into machine language technology can scale it.

Social media: no substitute for social impact

Last week, adherents of social media clashed with US writer and theorist, Malcolm Gladwell on the subject of whether digital activism is an effective channel for change. Gladwell, as anyone who reads the top ten business books knows, is the author of the best selling and highly influential ‘The Tipping Point’. His latest article for the New Yorker Magazine questions the importance of Twitter and Facebook in bringing about social change, social media marketing firm and takes apart claims that ‘armchair activism’ had any meaningful impact on the recent social unrest in Iran. In a provocative broadside to social media elite, he compares the activism of the US Civil Rights activists in the 1960’s to the people who Tweet messages of support during national unrest in far off authoritarian countries like Iran. In his detailed analysis of the US Civil Rights example, he points to the social bonds, moral and political values that defined a generation of people in 1960’s America to challenge segregation in southern states, where college students and their supporters braved cudgels and lynchings on a long road to securing political freedoms. But the so-called activism displayed through social media isn’t like this at all, Gladwell argues convincingly. Social activism that actually social media marketing firms changes people’s lives and the course of history is rooted in hierarchy, taking risks and sometimes, putting your safety on the line to protect your values. Rather than increasing motivation, he maintains, “social media is only effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires. Facebook and the like are tools for building networks, which are the opposite, in structure and character, of hierarchies.”