6 Social Media Trends for 2014 that You Need to Understand

Lets take a look at the social media trends that you need to master under 2014.

1. It’s all about images…

Image-centric networks saw huge success 2013, paving the way for smaller networks to rise and be a force to reckon with (e.g. Instagram & Snapchat).  Larger networks adapted this trend as we saw Facebook, Google and Twitter improve their service and focus more on images.

Image-based content will rule 2014, so it’s time to you to master images, get to know what kind of images engage your followers, and take a closer look at image-centric networks.

2. and videos!

We know that Facebook will introduce sponsored videos this year. We also know that Vine and Instagram videos will get even more attention, and we will probably see the rise of more social networks with better video features. Short videos are coming as the new snapshot, so you need to get your behind behind a camera and learn how to create engaging content. For 2014, creating compelling short videos will be as important as writing in 140 characters.

3. Time to pay up!

As the bigger social networks constantly are tuning their newsfeed algorithms and focusing more on profit, it will be harder for the little guys to reach their audience on social media. It’s time to face a harsh reality: social media is not free anymore, and you need to beef up your social media budget and spend some dollars in order to reach your audience.

4. Finally – TV gets social

I have been waiting for this for years, but I think that 2014 will be the year that TV really gets social. With Facebook introducing more features to their hashtags, Twitter launching TV conversation targeting, and more TV shows including real time tweets in their shows, it’s safe to say that companies will try to use popular TV shows and movies in order to reach a wider audience.

What you need to do: stay updated on viral hashtags, be a part of the discussions about your company, monitor relevant hashtags, and – if all goes well – maybe even hijack a trend or two.

5. Cross-device targeting

We already know that users behave differently depending on the device that they are using (e.g Mobile, Tablet or Desktop). And as we are seeing more usage from mobile and tablet users (one-third of digital media time is now taking place on a smartphone or tablet) you need to make sure that all of your campaigns are cross-device friendly.  The days when you built an Facebook App that only worked for Desktop users are over.

Once you make sure that all your content and all of your campaigns are cross-device friendly (if you havent hard of Responsive design, you need to check it out), it’s time to figure out how your users behave whether they are on a mobile, on a tablet or on a desktop computer.  This will give you insight as to how your product can be better cross-consumed.

6. The blog is the heart of your social media marketing

With all this talk about social networks, we still need to remember that you can create awesome content in your own backyard.  As social shares are becoming a strong SEO inflencer, you need to make sure that your webpage gets shared on the social networks.

The best way to do this is to create a blog where you give your audience an exclusive view in to your company, spread engaging images of your products and clients, and teach your readers about your industry and future trends. Take a closer look at magazines that are great at generating viral content (e.g. Buzzfeed, Viralnova & Upworthy) and take a page from their playbook.

I think that 2014 will be an very exciting year, with awesome campaigns and new features and networks that will inspire you and give you the tools you need to take you and your company to the next level. At Meltwater we will make sure that we track and examine all new trends and continue to give you valuable insights regarding social media and online media monitoring news.

And please, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.  We’ll continue to pay attention to the digital marketing landscape so that we can write about the latest trends on our social media blog and PR blog.

Any social media trends that you would like to add to the blogpost? Feel free to leave a comment!

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Social Media in an Hour a Day (or Less!)

Social media can be a full-time job – for an entire team of people – but most companies don’t have the resources for that. so, today, I’m here to offer some tips to get the most out of your social presence in as little as one hour per day. Here we go!

Block off 30 minutes on your calendar each morning and afternoon

I’m serious. Go to your Outlook or Google calendar right now and create a recurring meeting to spend 30 minutes on social media every weekday morning, and 30 minutes each weekday afternoon. I would suggest you schedule the morning social session as early as possible so that you can listen and respond to chatter that’s happened since your last log in. The afternoon session should be later in the day, so you spread our your log ins, but you may want to schedule this directly after lunch to make sure you don’t forget to do it (we’re creatures of habit).

Check your brand mentions

Spend 5-10 minutes to check your mentions in your morning and afternoon sessions, either through a tool, in the native apps, or through email notifications. This is your opportunity to engage with people who are already engaged with your brand. Answer questions, ask questions, thank people for retweeting and sharing your content, and retweet and share their content. This make take 10 minutes in the morning, when you have more to review, and 5 minute in the afternoon, for a total of 15 minutes per day.

Schedule some posts

Spend 20 minutes per day finding great content to post, and scheduling it to go out throughout the day. Follow the 80-20 rule, and post your own content 20% of the time and other people’s content 80% of the time. You may choose to do this all at once – either in the morning to account for the entire day or in the afternoon to cover the following day – or you may prefer to schedule some posts during each of your social media sessions. To curate great content quickly, I would recommend subscribing to your favorite industry blogs an publications via email or social media so there is always quality content at your fingertips.

Make new friends

I was a girl scout, so I hear this and immediately sing, “Make new friends, but keep the oooold, one is silver and the other gold” – and this rings true in the social sphere, as well as IRL (in real life). You should spend 10 minutes each day engaging on social media, which will help you bump up your brand mentions. I use Meltwater Buzz to uncover industry conversations that are taking place and inserting Meltwater into the conversation, offering helpful tips and advice, sharing my personal experience, and offering product information when appropriate. There are many other ways to engage, though, including joining Twitter Chats, reading through social media newsfeeds or lists, live social posting from webinars, etc – so find the way that’s best for you to engage and make it a part of your daily routine. Also make sure to follow/circle/like the people and brands you engage with.

Analyze everything

Spend the next 15 minutes of each day analyzing your social media efforts. You should be experimenting with what time you post, what kinds of content you post, and what gets you the most engagement – so make sure you take the time to understand what’s working, and what isn’t. Make sure that you’re getting a return on your time investment: if you spend equal amounts of time on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus, but don’t see results from Twitter and Google Plus, focus more of your time on the networks where it really matters.
There you have it: social media in an hour a day. If you find that you have less time, make sure you don’t skimp on checking your brand mentions and engaging. Posting content is secondary, you can always analyze your social presence next week – it’s much more important to keep the social in social media!

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9 Ways to Improve Social Media Shares of your Content

Content marketing combines the creation of valuable content with social media marketing and search engine optimization . It helps companies drive new leads, establish industry credibility, and stay top of mind with existing and potential clients.
Social media plays a large role in content marketing as one of the key distribution vehicles for content. In addition to advertising and email marketing, social media shares of content via sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and other platforms allows good content to spread: the modern version of word-of-mouth marketing.
With that said, the spread of content via social media doesn’t have to be left to chance. There are specific things that companies and organizations can do to either encourage (or inadvertently discourage) the social sharing of content.
Here are nine ways to increase shares of your great content in social media. If your content is not getting shared, use this as a checklist to see where your efforts may be falling down.

1) Choose Topics People Care About

Not all topics are created equal, so you need to develop a sense for what your topics your audience really cares about. Some ways to do that include looking at search keyword volumes (e.g. via Google Adwords or various keyword tools), asking sales what customers always ask about, or seeing what consistently gets shared and commented on on your blog, competitor’s blogs and in social media in general (see this deep dive about business blog topics).

2) Rewrite That Headline!

I hate to say it but 99% of business blog post headlines are accurate but extremely dull. “Why Your Company Should Use Encrypted Storage Solutions” may describe what’s in the post clearly, but is not that compelling. Here are a couple of twists on the same content, with new headlines to increase interest, curiosity and share-ability: “5 Reasons Hackers Love Current Data Storage Solutions” or “Traditional Data Storage + Your Corporate Secrets = Serious Risk”. You may be able to come up with better, but the point is to intrigue the audience who sees this headline in social media or on your blog.

3) Make Posts More “Skimmable”

Many industry influencers stay top of mind with their social media followers by curating valuable, unique or interesting content. In fact, they often won’t read whole posts before they share. If your post is not designed in a way that makes it easy to quickly grasp the key points, they won’t bother to skim it or share it. In addition, many of your regular readers don’t have time to dig into large blocks of text. Think bold headers and key points (2-3 sentences) for each versus dense paragraphs.

4) Don’t Skimp on Pictures or Graphics

In addition to skimmable posts, pictures are a very important element for increasing social shares. Sites like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest usually feature the main picture from your post. The visual elements are critical to getting attention for your post in social media, to communicating the key message, and often can make or break the social sharing of a post. Don’t spend time on a great post and take 2 seconds to pick a very boring and generic picture or graphic. Worse yet is to completely skip pictures. Take the extra time and find a unique style of graphics or pictures that works for your company and your social sharing will grow (and yes, you can use stock photography but don’t always go for the obvious).

5) Improve Ease of Sharing

Supermarkets make it easy to buy impulse purchases like candy and magazines by positioning them strategically at the check-out line. If you want people to share your posts, you need to position social share buttons right where any reader (or skimmer) will find them. I typically like to put them at the top or on the side (scrolling with the content) so they’re hard to miss.

6) Prime the Pump

This refers to the fact that many companies will create content, have share buttons visible (with counts of shares), and the posts will have a measly 0 or 1 shares. Are you telling me that you can’t muster more than 1 share across your whole company for that content? Having only a couple of shares per post communicates a lack of interest from both the company and readers. Having at least a few shares per post shows that there’s some interest and makes other people more likely to share it themselves. Encourage the authors and others in the company to prime the sharing pump.

7) Build Your Social Foundation

In order to maximize sharing of your content, it helps if you have a large set of followers on one or more social platforms that make sense for your brand. Each real (not paid for) connection, follower or fan can have 10′s, 100′s, 1000′s, 100,000′s (you get the point) of followers themselves. With great content optimized for sharing, you can potentially reap 100′s of shares of your content from your own social base and their connections.

8) Don’t Be Selfish!

Don’t expect people to be jumping over each other to share your content if you’ve never lifted a finger (or clicked your trackpad) to comment on, like or share other people’s content. By building up some online goodwill, you’ll increase interaction with your content, including shares. Don’t forget to help others spread their great content well before you ask people to share your content!

9) Connect with Current Events or Memes

Connecting topics that your readers care about with current events is a great way to create a relevant and interesting post. People love to share a new angle on a current topic or a creative addition to recent Meme. See some examples here: Big Data and the Superbowl, Justin Bieber and South by Southwest (SXSW) (coming up again soon). To connect with current topics in your content, you have to move fast or plan ahead!

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5 Ways Your Business Blog Can Attract (or Repel) Readers

In Japan, the symbolic Maneki Neko (“beckoning cat”) is believed to attract good fortune and success for businesses.
Providing great content via your company’s blog is an important way to attract online visitors to your company’s website, which is one key to business success in today’s world. Having valuable content is also an important way to entice visitors to stay longer on your site, to learn more about your company, to educate (and entertain) them, to establish your company as an authority on industry topics, and to encourage readers to share your content .
Having worked with companies of all sizes across a variety of industries, I’ve found one key issue that often impedes a successful content marketing strategy.
What is it? It’s that content produced by companies is often focused on what the company wants to communicate out and not what the prospects want (or need) to learn about.

Companies can’t generate genuine reader interest and produce good (or great) content until they fundamentally change their perspective from internally-focused to customer-focused.

In addition, companies need to align with the target market’s preferences in terms of types of content and how it’s delivered.
Not sure if your content is Customer-focused enough? Here’s a quick checklist to get you started:

1) Does Your Content Address Your Prospect’s Pain Points?

No, introducing version 3.0 of your product and all of its features doesn’t count. Do you directly address your prospect’s pain points with an article like one of the following?
- How to Write a Living Will That Works (without breaking the bank)
- 5 Ways Doctors Can Market on Social Media (and tools to use)
- Step-by-step Instructions for Ceating an Explainer Video for Your Software Product
- 4 Resources For Finding the Right Retirement Home for Mom/Dad

2) Is Your Content More Interesting to Employees Than Readers?

If employees will be more interested in the content than 99% of your website visitors, then you’re probably too internally-focused.
Example of content that will not compel shares or interest from readers: Posts about your company BBQ, your company’s move to a new building, a customer case study with just summary information of the project, or the introduction of a new employee.
Example of content focused on you that may be interesting: How wine is made (with pictures or video), thought leadership from your CEO or VP of Marketing that presents a unique point of view about trends in the industry, or your products being used in a unique way (e.g. Lowes doing Vine videos of tools exploding like fireworks for the 4th of July (via the Content Marketing Institute)).

3) Does Your Educational Content Just Tease?

When helping your readers in a specific area, do you provide enough information to move forward? You don’t have to teach everything (or cannibalize your products or services), but readers want to get enough detail to be able to do at least one new thing. In addition, telling people what to do, but not telling them the tools needed or where to get them can be just as frustrating. Ask yourself, is your article teasing or is there enough to move forward in one area?

4) Does It Require Advanced Industry Knowledge?

If your audience includes newbies or people just learning about your industry, extremely advanced topics or industry lingo may severely limit your audience. If your target audience is very advanced users, then these posts on advanced topics focused on industry insiders may be just what you need. Understand the audience that you’re trying to address and make sure your content matches their level of understanding.

5) Is Your Content Easy To Digest? (Think Like a Magazine Editor)

If your content contains big blocks of dry text without any headers, bullets, pictures, graphics or video, then it’s about as interesting as the old school textbooks that were designed to pass information without any muss, fuss or frills. People like content that includes pictures, graphs, charts, graphics, video, bullet points, lists, and bite-sized content mixed with occasionally longer pieces. Think of magazines like Inc., Wired, Popular Mechanics or People Magazine and how they deliver content. Think of your blog as the part of your website that’s more like a magazine than a textbook, press release or product brochure. If you don’t, you’re probably turning off potential readers.

So, Is Your Content Customer-Focused?

Is your content internally-focused or is it focused on what your prospects and customers find valuable? Are you delivering it in a way that appeals to your audience? Is your content waving them goodbye or beckoning them?
Let me know in the comments and feel free to share your favorite ways that companies either attract or repel readers.

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Is the Nexus of PR and Social Media Found in Content Strategy?

Content Strategy, PR & Social Media: the Holy Trinity of Brand Marketing

Your content strategy is, at its core, a messaging platform.  That platform should ideally dictate both your social media and PR programs: after all, the main difference between social media and PR at this point is simply one of channel.  Whereas PR looks for earned media in traditional media outlets – newspapers, magazines, television – social media looks for earned media on social media outlets, which is to say the personal Facebook page or Twitter stream of an individual.
The line between PR and social media has been getting incredibly blurry over the past 8 years, and that line continues to blur as we marketers look at brand advocates and online influencer strategy and try to determine where the line is between PR and social media.  The advent of content marketing has arisen in parallel with content curation tools being the trend for the everyman, and that trend is our signal as marketers: our content strategy needs to identify influencers and spur engagement, regardless of channel.  Your Mom is being trained by vanity and conversion metrics that are the same metrics we social media marketers have been using for years to measure our social media ROI.  This means that we are in a new age of influencer marketing, and it’s one that rolls up pretty neatly under a solid content strategy.
My PR colleague Marc Cowlin and I have long been talking about the convergence of social media and PR as marketing disciplines; at a foundational level, both disciplines have the same basic program structure.  That groovy little infographic that fronts the post sums that up.
What makes PR more powerful than social media is, quite simply, reach: media outlets like the New York Times have a lot of eyeballs for us.  But what makes social media more powerful than PR is the share: by spurring engagement on a social channel, there is an infinite number of people that can be reached by your content.  In a perfect PR program, the actual article that was written is then shared on a social channel, leading to increasing return; and in a perfect social media program, a reporter decides to share or write an article about your campaign.

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Social Media & Public Relations: Which is Which?

PR has always been a social channel.  The holy grail of “earned media,” which means the mention of your brand in a traditional media source like a newspaper or magazine, was considered to be so meaningful partially because the “impression” metric that media outlets like the New York Times gives you wasn’t just about the number of eyeballs: those eyeballs belong to a person with a mouth, and viral word of mouth is what makes any earned media exponentially powerful.
By the same token, social media is the most public relationship of all: rather than a middleman (i.e. a reporter) espousing the value of your brand to the public, your social media manager is a real-time brand bullhorn talking directly to the public.
PR pros have been talking about the issues and disruption that social media raises for PR since its inception; the move from the traditional PR monologue message to the social media dialogue marketing model was the first sticking point for traditional PR folks, who were accustomed to controlling their message.  Then, we started seeing articles about finding online influencers, brand advocates and the new citizen journalists, which blurred the lines even more.
It’s no surprise, then, that – as social media sites and marketing as a discipline matures, and we debate whether or not the social media manager is dead - we’re seeing PR using social media tactics and channels, and seeing social media marketing managers getting a better handle on staying on-message.  Both disciplines are, at their core, content marketing disciplines: we’re putting content out there into the world to be consumed, and whether it’s on earned or owned media, the power of content marketing is engendering a share that gives your brand more positive impressions among your target social community.
What will the next 5 years hold for Social Media and Public Relations?  Well, my best guess is that we’ll see either dotted lines or a collapse under larger headings like “Brand” or “Content Marketing,” as the marketplace matures and people understand that a channel is a channel, and it’s the larger marketing and business goals that should be the focus.

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Social Media Impact on Public Relations and News | INFOGRAPHIC

We all know social media has had a massive impact on PR and News, but until now I hadn’t seen this impact packaged in a way that truly captures the scale. Social media impact  has been widely reported on, discussed and analyzed over the years. Often these studies focus on how social media impacts kids/students, government, the entertainment industry, business and everything in between. As PR pros each and every one of us should be keenly aware of social media impact on news as it has a direct impact on PR.
A recent infographic, Impact of Social Media on News, published by ING, helps put social media impact into context every PR pro will appreciate. To complete this infographic, ING initiated an international study to analyze social media impact on PR professionals and journalists. The study looks to identify how social media has influenced news and news distribution.

Key Social Media Impact Findings:

• Reliability:
  • Despite low level of reliability, 50% of journalists identify social media as “main source of information” Tweet This!
• Fact Checking
  • 52% of PR pros find that journalists are less likely to contact them to fact check since the emergence of social media Tweet This!
• Rules of Journalism
  • 60% of journalists report that they feel less bound by traditional rules of journalism when using social media Tweet This!
  • 59% of journalists say they feel free to share their personal opinions on social media Tweet This!
• Importance to a journalist’s daily life:
  • 70% of journalists report that social media is important to their daily performance Tweet This!
  • 68% of journalists say they can not operate without social media Tweet This!

And, most staggering of all facts, 56% of journalist report that they feel traditional media has become less important than social media. For more information, and to enjoy a fantastic infographic, see below.

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5 Things You May Not Know About Marketing on Facebook

Marketing on Facebook is a pretty hot topic these days, and since we’ve launched all 7 books in our Facebook for Business series, I figured that today would be a fine day to cover some random Facebook marketing tidbits that I learned while writing these.  Here we go…

1. Facebook Zero Affects the Ever-Declining Organic Reach

Facebook isn’t giving away real estate for free anymore: that earned media is earned, folks.  We wrote a few months back about Facebook’s organic reach throttle possibly being a good thing for brands, in that it will force us marketers to deliver more high-quality content.  What Facebook Zero means is this: if 0% of your followers engage with your Post within the first hour, your Reach will be nil.  Facebook will surface your content to a small subset of “super followers,” and they’ll be the ones to determine whether or not your content is worth showing to other people.

 2. You Know What Your Followers Like – Really

Facebook Graph Search is extremely powerful and allows you to run hyper-targeted searches to see what’s what.  One quick trick is to us Graph Search in interesting ways to find out more about your community.  You can look at what other Pages your followers Like (“Pages liked by users who like Your Page”), what interests your followers have (“Favorite interests of users who like Your Page” ), where our followers been checking in (“Places visited by users who like Your Page and That live in Your City”), and so on.  This can help you with targeted ad spends and content marketing campaigns.  (For more on this, check out this quick book on Facebook Marketing Strategies with Graph Search.)

3. Forget the Likes: It’s All About Newsfeed

After a user has liked your page (or chosen to follow it), the user will most likely never visit your Page again.  According to multiple studies, 90 – 95% of fans never return to a Page after they have liked it.  This means that the biggest (and perhaps only) opportunity you have to influence and engage with your followers is via their Newsfeed – and the only way to get into their Newsfeed is with posts that spur actual engagement.  (For more on how to spur engagement, check out this book on content marketing on Facebook.)

4. Facebook Contests Are More Powerful than They Used to Be

Facebook changed their Promotion guidelines last year, making it a whole lot easier for companies to post promotions and contests on their Facebook Page.  With those changes, and the Facebook Zero considerations, contests are a great way to improve your Reach on Facebook.  (Hey, did we mention that we make a Facebook contest tool?)
Here’s what changed, and why it helps us: we as businesses are now allowed to collect entries by having users comment or like a post and – more importantly – we can finally use Likes as a voting mechanism.
You could, for example, post something like:
“Win a free dinner for two! Like this post and let us know in the comments below why you should win. The comment with the most Likes wins!  Let your friends know and share this post.”
You can’t force users to share your posts as an entry mechanism any more than you can force a purchase to enter a contest, but the “Like” is powerful on its own: the more users who like and comment on your post, the more users you’ll reach via their activity feeds.

5. Negative Feedback Might Mean You Did Something Right

We should all experiment with our Facebook posts to find out what type of content works best for your Page and followers, but remember that sort of experimentation may give us some negative feedback.   To dig into your negative feedback, go to Engagement to see the total number of users who were annoyed enough to click.  Then, click on each post to see what kind of negative feedback that post has received.

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Top 10 Social Media Blogs: The 2014 Winners!

#1: Jon Loomer

Jon Loomer consistently delivers long-form articles, videos and detailed educational content that share an impressive depth of Facebook marketing knowledge.

Jon Loomer’s blog is enthusiastic, helpful, detailed and well-illustrated.

#2: RazorSocial

RazorSocial explores social media tools and technology with well-illustrated, detailed posts written by Ian Cleary.

RazorSocial’s useful content is delivered with no-nonsense, practical, actionable, step-by-step instructions.

#3: Socialmouths

Socialmouths, authored by Francisco Rosales, gives readers down-to-earth social media advice that can be applied to practical and tactical uses.

Socialmouths publishes how-to articles with examples and case studies.

#4: Post Planner

Post Planner provides a witty yet intelligent and actionable collection of easily consumable Facebook marketing posts.

Post Planner’s well-formatted and easy-to-read posts include useful examples and images.

#5: Dustn.tv

Dustn.tv‘s Dustin W. Stout shows readers how to become better social media storytellers.

Dustn.tv shares excellent case studies and how-to articles.

#6: Danny Brown

Danny Brown publishes timely, informative and in-depth marketing advice and SlideShare decks.

Danny Brown’s easy-to-read blog posts are smart and thoroughly cited with third-party links.

#7: Boom Social

On Boom Social, Kim Garst provides conversational posts, advice and case studies on social media marketing.

The content on Boom Social is easy to read and speaks directly to the reader.

#8: Jenn’s Trends

Jenn’s Trends is where Jenn Herman uses simple, concise language to deliver personal perspectives on social media trends.

Jenn’s Trends has an engaging style that is easy to digest.

#9: Top Dog Social Media

Top Dog Social Media, the blogging home of Melonie Dodaro, focuses on what’s happening in social media.

Top Dog Social Media publishes tips in Q&A format and a mix of personal and professional posts.

#10: Simply Measured

Simply Measured focuses on trends and measurement in the social media space.

The content on Simply Measured benefits any social media marketer.

Congratulations to the winners! Be sure to check out these amazing social media blogs.

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Automatically Publish Blogger Posts To Facebook,Twitter And Other Social Sites

Social media plays an important role in improving any blog's SEO.That's why you may watch social media gadgets almost on every blog/website.If you have enough number of subscribers on social sites then just automatically publish your posts on social sites and get the traffic.Today I am giving a tutorial about automatically posting on facebook,twitter and some other social sites with using dlvr.it service which is free of cost.I am also using this service to publish my blogger posts facebook and twitter.The reason behind to choose dlvr.it is it is very easy to use and install.You can on-off auto publishing anytime and very easily.Lets see how to use it.

Automatically Publish Blogger Posts On Social Sites

• First go to dlvr.it
• Signup with giving your email address and choosing password.

• Now go to your inbox and confirm your email address first
• You will redirect to another page here you have to provide your feeds address in below format

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FEEDBURNER USERNAME HERE

• Click on twitter icon and you will redirect to twitter
• Give your twitter's profile's username and password and hit "Authorize App" button.Now your posts will automatically publish on twitter.

• Now click on facebook icon.

• You will redirect to facebook page.Log in to your facebook account from which you are managing your fanpage and select your fanpage.
• Customize your services as you wish and save your changes.

That's all about auto posting on social networking.If you know more services then share it using contact form below..

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Nigerian Email Scam Getting an Update

The notorious Nigerian email scam (known by law enforcement as advance-fee fraud or a “419 scam”) has had a long history. Its origins date back at least 200 years, when would-be victims received letters promising riches of gold and diamonds of from “a late marchioness.” In the years since, the scammers have embraced technology like fax machines and computers to cast a wider net and target virtually everyone who uses the Internet.
According to new report from the security experts at Palo Alto Networks, Nigerian scammers aren’t done innovating yet. Their latest wide net scheme, “Silver Spaniel,” is targeting businesses in the U.S. and abroad with keyloggers designed to evade standard anti-virus software. Scammers are looking to steal sensitive data and, ultimately, money.
Silver Spaniel malware is being delivered in a very traditional manner – through suspicious email attachments – so your best defense is a healthy dose of common sense. Don’t open files sent from addresses you don’t recognize, and use extreme caution with unsolicited files received from a trusted contact.

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How to Make and Receive Free Phone Calls on Your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

A few months ago, Techlicious let you in on a neat little trick with Google Gmail that allows you to make unlimited free phone calls via the Internet. Now, Google has expanded that service to iPhones and iPads through its Google Hangouts app. You read that right – you can now make free data-based (VoIP) phone calls on any Apple iOS device.
Making a call with the newly updated Google Hangouts app couldn’t be easier. Just open the app, sign in to it with your existing Google account ID and then tap the telephone icon in the top right hand corner of the screen. A phone keypad will then display so you can complete your call. And yes, you can use Hangouts to make calls to actual phones – the person you’re calling doesn’t need to be running a Google app or even own a cellphone.
If you’ve got a free Google Voice phone number, the app gets even better – not only can you make calls from the number using the app, but you can receive calls using it as well. Here’s the best part: You don’t even need to mess with your phone or app’s settings. Calls made to your Google Voice number will appear as Hangout notifications, which you have a choice to accept or ignore. (To sign up for a new Google Voice number, visit google.com/voice and follow the prompts.)
Because Google Hangout calls are placed via a data connection, they make a great way to keep making phone calls even when you’re up against your monthly minutes allowance. It’s also a good way to make call to and receive calls from people you don’t want having your “real” cell number, like a blind first date. And of course, any old iPod touch or iPad you have laying around the house can instantly become a second WiFi-powered cellphone.
The updated free Google Hangouts app is currently available for iOS devices via the Apple App Store. There’s no cost to make calls in the U.S. or Canada via the Google Hangouts app; international rates may vary. For more on the service, visit google.com/hangouts.

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The 6 Biggest Facebook Scams

Facebook now has a billion users, with more than half of those people signing on every month. Unfortunately, crooks and scammers are also part of the social network’s population—they figure at least a certain percentage of users will fall for their shenanigans.
According to Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at the security firm Sophos, the number of Facebook scams in play seems to be holding steady. And while Facebook is trying to tackle the problem, the scammers don't give up easily when they can profit off unsuspecting people.
How do you spot a Facebook scam? Be wary of unlikely promises, Wisniewski says.
“No one is giving away an iPad to every person who fills out a survey and you aren't likely the specially chosen winner of the Nokia, Microsoft or Coca-Cola lottery, because there isn't one,” he says. “The best practice is to avoid clicking links on Facebook at all. It is generally safe to click links from trusted pages of companies, bands and groups you like, but avoid clicking links from your friends' walls and chat messages.”
Here are popular Facebook scams you should watch out for.

Change Your Facebook Profile Color

This “color changer v1.3” is actually a survey scam application, and you definitely don’t want to give it access to your Facebook account. It promises to let you change your Facebook profile color to something other than blue. If you click on the link, it asks you to “like” the app before it even does anything for you, and if you click on “continue” you’ll land at an app permission page. If you authorize the app to access your Facebook account it will send spam messages to all your friends. Not only that, if you actually click to install the app, it won’t give it to you until you fill out a survey.

Free Gift Card or Voucher

If somebody on Facebook tells you Costco, McDonald's, Starbucks or any other company is giving away vouchers or gift cards if only you invite your friends to the offer or click on a link—don’t believe it. If you do, you’ll end up spamming all your contacts with bogus messages about the fake offer, be asked to participate in surveys or prodded to complete “reward offers” in which you may be asked for personal information. If you supply your name, address, phone number or other things to these dishonest marketers, they can sell your data to others as well as harass you via non-Facebook media.

Support a Wounded Soldier

Sophos recently reported that a popular post making its way through Facebook that purports to support wounded soldiers is, in fact, a hoax. The text of the post is a variation of the following:
When filling out your Christmas cards this year, take ONE CARD and SEND it to this address: A Recovering American Soldier, c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20307-5001. If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these soldiers could get to bring up their spirits! Feel free to repost. This is a wonderful thing to do !!
While idea seems like a good one, any cards sent in this manner will never reach an American soldier. According to hoax-busting site Snopes.com, the U.S. Mail will not deliver any letters or packages addressed to "Any soldier" or "Any wounded soldier" at Walter Reed, especially since Walter Reed closed its doors in 2011.
If you really want to send holiday mail to an unnamed service member, use the legitimate address found here.

Enticing Videos or Photos

This one can come through a Facebook post or email message. Either way, if someone invites you to check out a photo or video of something you just won’t believe—know that there’s most likely something nefarious waiting for you on the other side the link.
For instance, people who click on a link titled “Look what this girl wore at the beach in front of thousands of people!” will actually end up at what looks like a video feed, but if you click on it you’ll get a message saying you need to update your YouTube player. People who choose to install it actually are downloading malware to their computers. At the same time, hidden code will cause a Facebook “like” to appear on your Timeline, which will only encourage your friends who see it to also click on the bad video or photo lure.
A variation on this scam sends what looks like a Facebook notification to your email account, telling you that one of your friends tagged you in a new photo. If you’re curious and click on the attached ZIP file you will effectively unleash malware that will give hackers the keys to your Windows computer.

See Who’s Viewing Your Profile

This one claims to be able to tell you who is looking at your Facebook information, or as the scammers put it, “spying at your profile.” If you click on the link, you first have to “like” the app, which, again, only encourages your friends to click on the same bad link. From there, you’ll be asked to give the app permission to access your Facebook account. If you do so, not only will everyone on your friend list get a spam message from you, you’ll also be prompted to take various surveys—all without ever receiving information about who’s been spying on you.
Here’s what Facebook itself says about this popular scam:
Facebook does not provide a functionality that enables you to track who is viewing your timeline, or parts of your timeline, such as your photos. Third party applications also cannot provide this functionality. Applications that claim to give you this ability will be removed from Facebook for violating policy. You can report applications that provide untrustworthy experiences.

Copyright and Privacy Rights Protection Hoax

Recently there’s been a meme floating around Facebook that tells users that posting a particular legal notice to their Facebook wall allows them to retain the copyright of any content they post on the site as well as protect their rights to privacy. About this hoax Facebook says:
"There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users' information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been."

What to do if You Get Suckered

If, for some reason, you fall for one if these scams, make sure to remove any references to it from your profile and delete any bad app that has attached itself to your Facebook account. Do that by going to the small arrow on the top right of your screen, then Account Settings>>>Apps. Also, check whether you may have unknowingly "Liked" bogus sites or pages by going to your Timeline and clicking your "Likes" icon at the top of the page. Any Likes you don't recognize? Unlike them.
For more information about the various ways you can get scammed on Facebook, visit the social network’s scam page.

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My Boss in the Business :Blossom Nnodim

Blossom Nnodim is an award winning social media strategist, Speaker, blogger, entrepreneur and an advocate for social good, working towards inspiring, connecting and empowering individuals, brands and businesses in Nigeria.
Blossom is a graduate of Science Technology at the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri, with bias in Biology/ Microbiology. She also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Studies at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology. Passionate about social media, Blossom Nnodim strongly believes that social media used for social good is key to achieving development. She is a niche blogger with particular interest in Social Media, Social Good and Technology. Her passion for social good inspired her to create the very popular AdoptATweep™ a registered trademark that provides opportunities for people to connect to social media and use the platform for commercial and social good. She has recently co-founded Digital Media Development Initiative, an NGO focusing on leveraging digital and new media tools for sustainable development.
She has worked with Public and Private Organizations in various campaign using her impressive Social Media Influence. Her clients include One Campaign, Gates Foundation, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mashable, Population Council, Save the Children Nigeria, United Nations, UNICEF amongst others.
As a strong advocate for Social Media for Social Good, she was named alongside other great individuals as one of the top ten Nigerian celebrities to follow on Twitter. In 2014, Blossom got a surprise listing in a high powered global listing of Social Media personalities. This is a list of the top 100 most influential black people on digital/social media.
Read more here  www.linkedin.com/in/blcompere

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How to Identify Relevant Hashtags for Your Business

Identifying the right hashtags is critical when it comes to social monitoring and engagement. This allows us to find the conversations where our target audience hangs out.By adding value to the conversation, we can start to build up a relationship that could possibly leads to a business transaction (or at the very least awareness).
I have developed this three-step method using a few favorite Twitter tools – Twitonomy, Hashtagify.me, and RiteTag.

1. Identify the Hashtags of Influencers

Assuming I am brand new to the niche, I may not have any idea what the hashtags might look like. However, I might know who are the key players within that niche (aka influencers).
Let’s take my account for example. After entering my Twitter handle intoTwitonomy, I get an analysis of the hashtags I’m using. Repeat this with other accounts to get a bigger starter list of hashtags.

2. Use Starter List of Hashtags to Identify Related Hashtags

Next, I head over to Hashtagify.me. After entering the hashtags I got from my starter list, I can locate related hashtags.
It’s important to note that the size of the circle shows how popular the hashtags are, while the distance between inquired and related hashtags shows the extent of correlation.
At this stage, do not be too concerned about these two factors. As long as it the hashtag is logically related to your niche, include it in your latest hashtag list.

3. Gauge the Relevance of Your Hashtags

Finally, I visit Rite Tag created by Saul Fleischman. Under “Associated Hashtags”, I enter the hashtags that I had collected earlier.
The result will show the related hashtags, along with color coding. The different colors represent the tweet density. Blue means ‘Poor’, Green means ‘Good’, and Red means ‘Overused’.
Using the screenshot below: #Linkedin is an appropriate hashtag to use as it would give my tweets good exposure. On the other hand, #SocialMedia is overused as the tweet density is too high. This would result in my tweets getting lost in a tsunami of other #SocialMedia tweets.

Another great feature about RiteTag is that it compares the hashtag to other hashtags, the tweets that the hashtags are used and the influencers who use that particular hashtag – very handy!

Now, What Do I Do With a List of Hashtags?

You might be thinking “It’s nice to have a list of relevant hashtags, but what do I do next?”
Create some streams on Hootsuite that include hashtags. Remember that each stream can include a maximum of three keywords.
By monitoring the stream, I can start to see who are the frequent users of that particular hashtag and start to build a connection. This could be through favoriting their tweets, retweeting them, or even having a chat about the niche topic. These can also help establish a meaningful follower-ship.

I hope these Twitter tools allow you to identify and build engaging relationships within your online community. It is critical to select appropriate keywords as some Twitter accounts may spam a particular hashtag with irrelevant content.
Do you have other methods of locating Twitter hashtags that matter? Let me know in the comments!

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5 Ways to Connect with Your Audience Emotionally to Drive More Engagement

As a marketing professional in today’s über-competitive online space, you understand the importance and value of engaging your audience.You’re part of the 91% of B2B marketers establishing and building a community using both content and social media marketing. It can be difficult. You’re interacting with your audience constantly: fostering new relationships, nurturing existing ones, and listening/responding to feedback. You’re building trust and rapport and your social reach is growing.
These things are great for building awareness. You’re putting yourself out there and joining in the conversation. You may not think people are interested in your business and what you have to say, but guess what, they are. You just have say it the right way. Here’s why:

Our emotions are the primary driver of our on- and offline actions. (tweet this)

Love a brand, piece of content, or product? Then you’ll probably be compelled to yodel it from a social media mountain! Read a great Yelp restaurant review from a friend? You’re more likely to eat at that place.
However, if we look on the flip side of that emotional coin, an awful experience with a company can be destructive to their reputation as information spreads so quickly.
If you want to generate more positive engagement, you must connect with your audience on an emotional level using valuable content that solves their problems. Use these 5 tips to guide your strategy:

1. Speak to your target customer directly.

You’ve probably heard about developing and maintain a voice for your brand. This voice is what you’ll use in your content and social media communications. These channels are personal for your readers. Don’t speak to the masses.
Appeal to many, but speak to one – your buyer persona.
I’m sure you have wonderful customers that you interact with often. They provide valuable feedback regarding your company’s products and services. Think about them as you’re writing your next blog article. Talk to them like you’re sitting across the dinner table from one another.
One-on-one communication is much more intimate and engaging than a mega-horn.

2. Create unique, valuable insights that can only come from you, not your competitors.

People love exclusivity. Give your audience something they can’t find anywhere else and they’ll automatically gravitate towards you and spread the word. This is especially true if you’re giving these insights away for free.
That’s what Jay’s Youtility concept is all about.
Instead of blending in with your competitors by slightly repurposing the same old topics that you all have written about recently, come up with your own topics that offer your unique take on situations. Show your audience that you’ve got something valuable to offer and you’ll see your audience come back again and again.

3. Use humor, compassion, and empathy.

Never underestimate the power of emotions. If someone can make you smile or shed a tear, you know there’s a pretty strong emotional bond there. These emotions are great to tap into because as humans, we love to relate.
Just ask Bassem Yousseff how powerful laughter can be.
Next time you write an article and have an opportunity to make an inside joke that only your audience will understand, go for it! Or if you’ve recently experienced an issue that your audience can relate to, tell them about it and explain how you resolved it. You can also ask your readers for tips on how they solved the same issue.
Another idea is to highlight any volunteer work your organization has done for any non-profits in your community. It’s always great to see companies dedicated to the betterment of their respective locales. Your audience needs to see that your company is built with real people - that it has a face and a personality that people can relate to and engage with.

4. Pick a side and make your case.

Going back to #2, your audience is looking to you as the expert when it comes to your content. In order to be considered an expert, not only must you provide valuable insights, but you must also take a firm stance.
Back up your points with hard evidence. Maintain your credibility by accurately citing your sources and imagery. Be objective and professional.
Think about political candidates running for office. It’s usually not a good idea when they’re not 100% for, or against a particular policy. They appear indecisive, weak, and untrustworthy. That’s why you need to stay clear-cut. No one likes a flip-flopper.

5. Ask the right questions to make them think.

The easiest way to connect emotionally and drive more engagement amongst your audience is to question them. Ask them about their experiences with your company, your products, or your service.
Is there a hot topic that you know your audience wants to hear your opinion on? Give it to them with your solid stance and then ask them if they agree and why/why not. Encourage healthy debate.
These questions and answers will also help you determine some awesome new topics to add to your content calendar. I can’t tell you how many times I read comments and the author replies, “Ooo that’s good, I’m going to use that!” or, “Your question is great and deserves a full blog post to answer it!” Questions and answers will keep your topics relevant, your content fresh, and your audience engaged.
Do you have any other unique tips or tricks that you’ve used in the past to connect with your audience emotionally? I’d love to hear about them and if they were effective or not. Thanks for your comments!

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How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Marketing

The Big Social Media Integration Picture

Social media and conversation marketing transform brands like no other communication methodology previously, because it changes the fundamental nature of the brand/customer relationship.
But, social media and conversation marketing are inefficient vehicles. It’s difficult to achieve economies of scale when you’re developing relationships with customers on an individualized or small group basis.
Thus, social media is not a solo act. It’s best as part of a jazz combo.
Instead of thinking of social media as a freestanding tactic, first consider how you can add social media components to your existing marketing initiatives.

3 Step Social Media Adoption Plan

1. Devise an appropriate, tactically-agnostic social media strategy
2. Audit your current marketing, and add social media ingredients
3. Where necessary, add new social media programs

5 Ways to Achieve Cross-Media Synergy with Social Media

1. Social Media + Search Marketing
Core tenets of inbound marketing. Create content about your brand, and distribute it as widely as possible. Get more bait in the water. Optimize EVERY piece of content for search.
2. Social Media + Email
Good email and good social media are much more similar than different. Add social sharing to your emails. Promote your email program in social media, and vice versa. Use your social initiatives to try out new content approaches, adding the most successful content to your email program.
3. Social Media + Virtual Events
Your audience isn’t the number of people in the room, it’s the number of people in the world. Take your presentation, add it to Slideshare. Promote it on the social Web. Most of my live presentation are to ~40 people. Most of my presentations have been seen thousands of times subsequently.
How can you redefine virtual events by adding social media components? See Radian6 Twebinars that combine Webinars and live Twitter streams. See #blogchat and similar live Twitter chats. See my own Twitter 20 series of live social media interviews on Twitter.
4. Social Media + Live Events
Extend your event before and after it happens, using social media. Think Tweet-ups and other ways that social media can come to life in three dimensions.
5. Social Media + Market Research
Perhaps the most untapped advantage of social media participation. Ask your customers and fans what they think. You can create all-new products via consumer input. You can execute very simple crowd sourcing programs using CrowdCampaign and similar tools.
Social media works best when it’s part of something bigger. Are you ready for some synergy?

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Mastering the Many Roles of a Social Media Professional

The Social Pros Podcast in May brought in a new batch of expertise, featuring guests from Plus Your Business, the Google+ experts; SAP, a German multinational software company; Canva, the Australian, “amazingly simple” graphic design app; global retail giant Walmart; and the world’s largest credit union Navy Federal.
This month’s social pros touched on topics across the entire scope of social media marketing. From Pinterest to Google+, from content to community, they’re covering all the bases to innovate in the field while keeping their teams running without a hitch. Social media marketers have to wear many hats at once. Read on to see how these pros wear their hats and navigate smoothly when switching between them.

Plus Your Business Founder, Martin Shervington

Martin Shervington, Plus Your Business
@martinsherv

Google+ is not going anywhere. Martin made that clear when he appeared on the Social Pros Podcast. People occasionally like to announce that “Google+ has failed,” but even after its leadership changed last month, Martin assured us that nothing would change.
“Google+ is Google,” he says. And it’s misunderstood.
The main purpose of Google+ is not to be a direct competitor to Facebook; rather, it’s to add a social layer to the rest of Google’s products.
And those people who love to proclaim to Google+ is dead don’t really know what they’re talking about. “When you look at the authors, most of them haven’t posted for the last two years, let alone built up a network and really understand what’s going on. ”

Tweetable Moments

Make it about the community members.
martinshervTweet This

Martin’s advice for social pros is that social isn’t about you; it’s about the community. If you’re always posting about yourself, or for yourself, you won’t make it very far.
But if you create good content with your community first in your mind, you will be successful. “You find that people are around supporting you and sharing new content, engaging with it, amplifying it, embedding it on their websites, doing all of that stuff because they love what you do.”
Click the play button to listen here:

Read on for the full highlights: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/the-truth-about-google-for-business-and-content-marketing

SAP Digital Strategist, Nick Robinson

Nick Robinson, SAP
@socialrobinson

Over at SAP, social media has become more than a job description. Now it’s a skill set that everyone is expected to have a handle on.
But instead of spreading their social presence as much as possible, Nick’s team is trimming it back, eliminating overly specific email and Twitter accounts in an effort to centralize their efforts.
By concentrating on fewer Twitter handles (down from over 200), they can more carefully and frequently engage with their audience without anyone wondering where to find them.
Nick is also the co-author of StumbleUpon for Dummies. He sees StumbleUpon as “one of the most cost-efficient content syndication channels out there.” The targeting is “amazing.” You can target, within a single category like “adrenaline junkie,” between 10 and 20 specific data points so your content is only going to exactly the people you want to see it. In Nick’s opinion, nothing beats StumbleUpon for paid discovery.

Tweetable Moments

Numbers tell the story about whether the art is working.
socialrobinsonTweet This

Not surprisingly since he is a software guy, Nick’s one piece of advice for social pros is to know the numbers. Analytics tools are improving all the time, so there is no excuse for ignoring the data behind all of the social media implementation your brand does.
Strategizing and execution are only half of the picture; the other half is analyzing that strategy and then tweaking it based on the analytics. “If you look at any executive, they know their numbers intimately.” You spend all that time and money thinking of the strategy in the first place, so making sure it works the way you expected it would is essential.
Click the play button to listen here:

Read on for the full highlights: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-being-specific-about-social-strategy-can-increase-social-influence

Canva Head of Social Strategy, Peg Fitzpatrick

Peg Fitzpatrick, Canva
@pegfitzpatrick

Canva is a wonderful new graphic design tool that’s free to use and will be useful to virtually any digital marketer. In minutes, you can create a polished, professional image to use in blog posts, Facebook posts, etc.
When Peg joined us on the podcast, she had only been working at Canva for about a month but had already taken their Pinterest follower count from about 1,600 to over 10,000 in that time.
Peg loves that working involves so much social. Even when she’s not writing a blog post or working on her book, she is always writing because she’s constantly telling Canva’s story.

Tweetable Moments

Take advice that people give, and put it through your own common sense filter.
pegfitzpatrickTweet This

Pinterest has been Peg’s favorite platform since its launch, and she’s thrilled at the recent developments that have made discovering content on Pinterest easier than ever. “It’s getting stronger for marketers. More and more brands are getting bigger on Pinterest and planning whole campaigns.” Peg gives some great tips on how to optimize your Pinterest boards and pins; it’s not just about hitting “Pin It”!
Click the play button to listen here:

Read the full show highlights here: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/why-canva-is-taking-over-visual-social-media

Walmart Senior Director of Digital Communications, Chad Mitchell

Chad Mitchell, Walmart
@cmmitchell4

Chad’s team has their work cut out for them. Walmart is the world’s largest public corporation and operates in 27 countries under 55 different names.
The digital communications team is relatively small – just 3 people – but brings together the work of many other divisions of the company, including Public Relations and Marketing.
Since Walmart receives a huge number of mentions per day, one of the interesting things Chad measures is velocity rather than volume. Is a news item or a post still generating a lot of discussion after 20 minutes? After 2 hours? This is one of the many ways he differentiates news from noise in his daily interaction with customers, fans, and critics.

Tweetable Moments

It really comes down to awareness and sentiment, and can we change hearts?
cmmitchell4Tweet This

Chad encourages social pros to keep reading and learning. He sets aside a portion of his day to keep up to date with social media news and trends (he is a big Convince & Convert fan!) and to stay up to date with general internet buzz. It’s a fast-moving field, and he needs to stay on top of any developments.
He had so much to say that we had to cut out the Holy Social! and Social Media Stat of the Week segments on this show, so make sure to listen for all of his insights.
Click the play button to listen here:

Read the full show highlights here: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/social-media-lessons-from-americas-biggest-company

Navy Federal Social Media Manager, Michael Toner

Michael hasn’t been working for Navy Federal for long, but already he knows that the credit union is all about its members. Membership is open to any American military serviceman when s/he is serving active duty and can be maintained thereafter.
In one way, this makes Michael’s job easier; his social media conversations are with members rather than customers, and they are already invested in the success of the union. He translates the conversations they’re already having offline and in branches into an on-going online interaction. Customer service and education both happen in the social sphere.

Tweetable Moments

Being self-aware, knowing who you are translates perfectly to social media.
miketonerTweet This

His plan for the future is to get individual Navy Federal employees active in social. This will make his team’s efforts more local, and it gives them a force of built-in brand ambassadors that stretches across the country.
Michael’s main advice is that social pros need to be able to state their own vision. Being a leader is integral to success in social media because it gives you the ability to be transparent. If you are comfortable with your own voice and vision, you will be able to communicate that to others, and in turn they will want to jump on-board. Michael strives to be open and honest in his online communications, whether as Navy Federal or on his personal pages. That honesty is essential for fostering positive relationships online.

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