As the users of various social media sites grows, so too does the number of people who will try to take advantage of those users. This morning has been filled with all kinds of SPAM so we wanted to take a second to pass on some quick tips and tricks for identifying those pesky spammers and help you avoid falling prey for those who’d just love love love your password.
Let’s start with Facebook.
If you get an email that looks like THIS (minus the pink arrows of course) it is a spammy scam and you should not click on any links in the email… I have received three of these emails this week.
Let’s talk about how you identify these email hoaxes:
Who is the email from? If it’s not coming from the actual site that is requesting action from you then it is probably spam. But beware. Email addresses are super easy to spoof. Our example email looks like it’s from Facebook but when we check out the rest of our criteria for IDing spam, it’s clearly not.
Who is the email to? If it’s not “to” the email address that is tied to the account that is requesting action then ignore it. The example email was sent to a group address at Schipul but my Facebook account is tied to my gmail address so I know this is fake.
Who is the email addressed to? Social Media sites are created to be your buddy, so when they reach out to you via email they will almost ALWAYS use your real name (Dear Maggie McDonald) or your username (Dear MagsMac), if they don’t use a familiar name when they, then they do not know your account.SPAM!
Are they asking you to click a link in the email? If an email has failed all of the prior tests then most assuredly DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS in the email. Go directly to the site and check their to see if they need any info from you. If they really need something, you can bet they’ll tell you right when you log in and not just in some random email.
Even if the email looks like it’s from the site, beware! See point #1. Emails are easy to spoof. The example email includes the correct address for Facebook headquarters but that doesn’t mean it’s really from Facebook.
For a GREAT example of a company that takes internet security very seriously, check out ebays guidelines for IDing a legitimate ebay email.
So in summary, be careful what you click. If in doubt don’t click anything and head on over to the site requesting action for more information!!
Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines shared some really great stories of online outreach through Social Media and community building.
Several years back SWA A&E gave Southwest their own show – Airline – about their employees and culture . Airline (‘we all have our baggage’) was great, but nerve wracking – they had no control over the content and had to trust their employees to do the right thing. Aired on Monday nights and on Tuesdays job applications skyrocketed – AND revenue rose on 9% on Tuesdays too! After show went off air, they wanted to keep the momentum going and looked to the Blogosphere.
There are 30 employee Bloggers with only 3 rules to guide them: 1. Write what you’re passionate about 2. Write when you feel like it 3. Be passionate
The focus of the blog has shifted from culture oriented to very news-focused. In 2008 launched a new Social Media-focused blog site — great user generated Flickr feed, podcasts, photo galleries, blog posts and lots of personalization and sharing options. A great investment – visits up 25%, page view up 40% and visits last way longer.
Southwest Air believe in going where their customers are – not just on the Blog but in ALL places possible that they can connect with customers. There are dedicated team members that spend time on just a single network to understand the rhythms and nuances of these channels. There are TONS of aviation travel Blogs and forums (ie: Cranky Flier, Sky Talk, Today in the Sky, etc.).
Bloggers are credible and intelligent people – they are treated as friends, customers and traditional media all at once.
Some great case studies
Open Season on Assigned Seating Their CEO wrote a Blog post on ‘Open Season on Assigned Seating’ and received 700 comments – most defending the policy. These comments influenced executives and sparked internal debate — it was a virtual focus group that helped greatly change the internal debate. Immediate and passionate feedback at no cost – Blogs were now
A Story with Legs A customer was asked to alter her attire after receiving customer complaints on some things that were showing — appeared in San Diego Tribune and the customer then appeared on the Today Show. It blew up! With the Blog post, they received a flood of negative comments that were all posted (which added credibility). The conversation kept going and going and Southwest was too slow to respond and missed opportunities
Too Pretty to Fly
Two girls were acting out on a Southwest flight, customers were livid and the attendants called the police upon landing and refused them boarding for threatening behavior. The girls claimed it was because they were ‘too pretty fly’ and mainstream media covered only their version of the story.
Southwest took these steps:
Online spokespeople were sent out to the Blogosphere – leaving comments on BLogs on the topic stating their stance and opinions. The response to these candid comments were tremendously great. Now these ‘micro interactions’ have helped to build strong supporters in the online world.
Had a spokesperson from Southwest sit down without a script to record a response and post on YouTube – currently has 250,000 views (not groundbreaking – but great!)
There are many ‘white knuckle’ moments, especially when a company puts themselves out in the Blogosphere. But Paula finds that those moments – as terrifying as they were – have been the most rewarding by far. Beware of timing to launch Social Media tools – NEVER do it during a time of crisis. Build your community base first and get credibility beforehand.
SWA gets crazy innovative with as many mediums as possible – their YouTube channel is well trafficked, but has no real strategy. They are just trying things out, having a good time and watching what people like and don’t like. They focus the majority of their energy on the positive by engaging and building relationships with customers, but they also monitor negative conversations and engage when appropriate.
Paula says to avoid the ‘faux personal’, make it ACTUALLY personal – be friendly and fun. Tomorrow is too late – work on your problems immediately. Don’t focus on the numbers alone, a lot of Social Media projects are slow growth. Keep an eye on trends and move from there. Live and breathe Social Media – you have to be gutsy or find someone internally that can be. Social Media is not a burden, rather it’s a gift.
Last month Schipul welcomed three new interns to the fold. Each has a varying background, and all are excited to be gaining new skills and experience. We have Angie – the marketing gal. And Brian – the Wild Turkey lover. And also Vanessa – the Aussie. Please read on to discover more about them and how they are slowly being indoctrinated into the Schipulite world.
Over lunch, I went to this month’s AAF Houston luncheon with speaker Tom Martin of Zehnder on the topic “The 411 on Social Media.”
I have to admit, as I was settling into my chair someone glanced at my name tag and said “You work for Schipul? Don’t you already know all of this stuff?” To which I replied, “I’m hoping to get something new out of this!” … Frankly, it’s difficult to make overview presentations on social media both big picture enough to not lose anyone who isn’t knee deep in it everyday and still relevant to those of us who are. Tom did a fantastic job pulling off that seemingly impossible task!
Tom mentioned a few specific trends going on in the world of Social Media – and I think they’re all really relevant. I’ll distill them down a little here – and the full presentation can be found on Slideshare.net/tommartin.
Trends in Social Media:
1. People are getting off the bench
You’ve heard us talk about Groundswell – one of my favorite books on Social Media. Tom goes as far to say that if you read one book on social media, read Groundswell. Groundswell advocates breaking audiences down not by their demographics – but by their social technographics – how they act online.
The smallest group on the technographics ladder is called “Creators” – those creating most of the content online. Your standard Pareto principle is in place here – 20% of users create 80% of the content. This varies by what type of content we’re talking about (Twitter is more like 5% creating 90% of the content), but the amazing thing is that for the most part – these people are doing it for free.
At the bottom of the ladder are the “inactives” – the most prevalent example of this is the recent statistic that over half of Twitter users quit posting completely after 30 days. Forrester does research each year and in 2007 40% of people online fell into this category. The same study done this year shows that number down to 18%.
>> More and more people are participating each year. And by people, I mean your customers and clients.
2. Facebook is winning, MySpace is losing
I’ll let you debate this one amongst yourself, but I think we can all agree that Facebook is working hard, staying relevant, and making money doing it. With recent releases like Facebook 3.0 for iPhone and Facebook Lite, Facebook is still making innovation a priority. And according to Tom, that’s why they’re still on top (and MySpace’s lack of such innovation is why they are backsliding).
Another big win for Facebook is that it is the first to cross virtually every generation. In fact, 90% of people 65+ who are online use Facebook as their preferred social network.
A big note to marketers on Facebook – across all generations, people cite the reason they use Facebook is to keep in touch with friends. Keep this in mind as you build your presence on Facebook. Be wary of only sharing content about yourself or sending too many messages to your fans.
>> If you’re not helping people connect to their friends, you’re in danger of being clutter.
3. People are discerning – it’s more than tuning you out
Unlike traditional media that is in your face all the time (even if you tune it out, you will still inevitably pass that billboard on I-10 or catch parts of that commercial as you fast forward through it), in social media people can completely opt out. On Twitter, people can unfollow (or block) anyone they choose. On Facebook, people can unfan your page – but most likely if they don’t like the content you’re posting (frequency or subject), they will hide your updates.
This means that the number of fans doesn’t necessarily indicate activity around your brand. In Facebook Insights, pay closer attention to peaks and valleys in the actual activity going on, not the total number of fans over time.
>> Tom’s advice: “Concern yourself with active profile data, not total profile data.”
There is a lot of content out there. If you watched every single video on YouTube, it would take over 400 yrs (412 years as of March 2008)!
>> How do you get noticed? The key is relevant content and respecting your audience.
4. Listen first
This is the essential first step. Tom equated each social media platform as its own country with “its own cultural norms and rules.” Listening is the best way to figure these nuances out for yourself. My typical recommendation to clients is to dive into Facebook, Twitter, etc. by starting a personal account first to get aquainted with the technology before going full force and representing a brand.
Another piece of listening is conversation monitoring. What are people saying about you and where are they talking? This up front research helps you craft your social media strategy, and helps you communicate more effectively in the places (and using the language) that relates to your customers.
The “What’s next?” question is one of my favorites. Tom showed off some cool stuff his company is doing with Augmented Reality. He demoed a Best Buy circular that uses augmented reality to show the 3D specs of a laptop – and a fantastic phone application called layar augmented reality that essentially brings Google maps to life by overlaying points of interest and other information over your view.
Tom’s complete Houston AAF Presentation is on Slideshare and embedded below. It’s a good one – I really enjoyed it and loved hearing his perspective on where things are now and where they are going. Thanks for the great presentation, Tom!
>> Quick shameless plug – Schipul is sponsoring October’s AAF Houston luncheon with speaker Shel Israel (coauthor of Naked Conversations and author of the new book Twitterville). We hope you’ll join us there!
Well folks, it’s that time of year again. The time when technology experts, social media gurus and a whole slew of other web personalities congregate to the same online place. I’m talking of course about the SXSW 2010 Panel Picker. There are a few changes this year that make voting a bit more Interactive.
First, the voting is for more than just the Interactive (web) Conference. Voters can now select panels for the Film and Music Conferences. The many different panels are displayed in a table interface similar to Google Reader list view, with keyboard shortcuts for quick browsing. J and K will move you down and up, and a Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down vote can be cast with a 1 or 0 (very binary, we know). Voting closes September 4th, so be sure to get your picks in by then.
Speaking of picks, it may at first seem overwhelming when you discover there are 2215 panels to choose from. There is a search option to filter, but if you still need some inspiration you can always count on your social networks. A quick search on Twitter for SXSW Panel will give you an almost endless list of bit.ly links. You can also check out Facebook to see which panels you friends are voting for, or to let them know which ones you have picked. As the conference continues to grow, keep an in out for more discussion and promotion for these panels in the next few weeks.
The formula for choosing the final panels that will appear at the SXSW Conference next Spring is a mix of the voters (you and me), the staff, and an advisory board. While it isn’t a pure democracy, the voters do have a say, which is a welcome change from other large conferences. This type of outreach to the attendees and larger tech community is one of the reasons that SXSW has been so successful.
You now know where to vote, how to vote, why to vote, and places you can find out for whom to vote. If you need more recommended picks, we have a page dedicated to the Schipul SXSW 2010 Panel Picks. It is filled panels staffed by some of the Schipulites and some of the community members that we think are awesome. Along with voting, you can support your favorite panels by talking about them around the internet.
Let’s make SXSW 2010 the best it can be by using the web to promote the top panels that we want! See you in the comments…
We searched high and low for the perfect group of people to follow up Deirdre Breakenridge’s keynote and who we think will bring the best combo of knowledge to share with our SchipulCon attendees. Expect to hear real life case studies and have your brain filled with info on everything from Social Media tips and tricks to some general business best practices.
When it comes to marketing your brand, we’ve got you covered.
So without further adieu, allow us to introduce 5 more of our SchipulCon09 Speakers: KPRC’s Jennifer Reyna, Web Designer Matthew Inman, NetSquared’s Joe Solomon, Web Marketing Strategist Michelle Greer and Emerging Media Manger for Southwest Airlines Paula Berg.
Our Fearless Leader and Eagle Scout Ed Schipul was invited to participate in a hurricane and disaster preparedness Webinar with (client) Firestorm and the distinguished Lt. General Honore. Here are some of the points discussed during the ‘Plan. Predict. Perform’ discussion:
Families trump business – you must have a plan in place to make sure all of your employees are covered at home. More than 95% of polled employees do not have a plan for their families, or just focus on a single risk and do not take into account more than one potential disaster or occurrence.
Almost 2/3 of companies that have gone through a disaster have lost business. 40% of those businesses never re-open and 25% fail within 2 years after a disaster.
Regular points of failure seen in businesses:
Failure to control supply chains
Failure to train employees to work from home
Failure to identify and monitor all threats and risks
Failure to conduct exercises and plan
Failure to develop crisis communications plan
Jim Satterfield of Firestorm told an eye opening anecdote from a previous employer on 9/11. After a company meeting deciding the next course of action, the HR director sent out a company-wide email saying: ‘If you want to live, leave’ instead of ‘If you want to leave, leave’.
Morale of the story, you MUST have a disaster plan in place before the crisis happens and have the messaging ready to go BEFORE it happens, to avoid missteps and panic-induced mistakes that could cause chaos or massive confusion internally and externally.
Some homework for the listeners: think about your critical suppliers, employees and their functions during a time of crisis. Conduct ‘what if’ exercises, what will you do if this or that occurs – actually perform real world drills to get your brain used to going through the motions. How will you monitor breaking events and keep up with events as they happen? How do you communicate in the heat of it with employees, vendors and clients?
Things never return to ‘normal’, rather they return to a ‘new normal’. Your company must make it back there (the ‘new normal’) and through the difficult times.
Predict – Plan – Perform
Lessons from Katrina – See first, understand first, act first. People still haven’t incorporated disaster response into their business plans. A little bit of planning and a well executed response strategy by leadership will make a huge difference.
Spend $1 on preparedness and save $9 on response.
Business owners have absolute responsibility for their business, their employees and their Community. Few businesses you can think about that would not be eligible for this responsibility — look at your business and think how can we help this Community in the event of disaster and decide what you can do.
SchipulCon09 is all about telling your story online. We’ll be talking everything from this magical “Social Media” thing that everyone from Oprah and everyone else is talking about to managing online conversation with your audiences using your Tendenci, WordPress or Drupal powered websites.
Since there is so much to share, we needed someone super passionate and super smart to kick off SchipulCon09 and get that knowledge ball rolling.
At SchipulCon Deirdre will be dishing on the convergence of marketing and Public Relations and how they mesh with our online world. She’ll also talk about how to facilitate conversations in this crazy new “Social Media” landscape using applications like as Facebook, Twitter and blogging. It’s out with the old and in with the new and Deirdre will be our guide.
What a great way to get SchipulCon09 started!!
For more information on and writing by Deirdre, check out her PR 2.0 Strategies Blog and watch this video!
For great savings on SchipulCon09 you should definitely register now. We’ve got an early-bird special running this month. From now until July31, you’ll be able to sign up for SchipulCon09 for only $49!! Starting August 1, prices will go up to $99 so why wait?
If you are confused by today’s title then you are no doubt just as confused by some of the tweets you may be reading. Two weeks ago a British furniture store was ousted by the Twitter community for abusing the hashtag feature in twitter. They were caught using including terms from the top trends in their tweets when they had nothing to do with the subject. The furniture store has since apologized (and blamed an intern), but the damage has already been done. They may not repeat this act, but unfortunately many folks on twitter will.
New forms of Twitter spam pop up daily, and while it is fairly easy to filter out Viagra-hocking followers and ladies of the night, filtering out Twitter’s search feature is more difficult. Now that search is readily available in the sidebar on twitter.com, many users seem to think it fit to include one or many of the trending topics in with their tweets about chilling with their homies. These users are likely suffering from a bit of ignorance with regard to twitter etiquette because they see everyone else doing it. If you happen to be one of these people, you are now in the know thattacking on twitter trends to you tweets is not OK, so quit doing it. Even worse are twitter users who’s tweets consist of listing the current trending topics. Oh how much I would pay for a Ban button to block these buffoons from blasting more bad tweets.
The bigger problems with twitter trend spam are the formulaic spammers. For instance, the $2,612 scam is one of the most annoying. The tweets start with a trending topic and even the word ‘trend?’. Then, they are followed by a ridiculous fake new stories like bombs going off in NYC or Egypt, new virus outbreaks killing 3000, or anyone actually buying twitter (none of which are even remotely true). Then the tweet is followed by text along the lines of “earned $2,612 thanks to this to this” with a tiny.cc link to more web spam. This is disgusting and pretty evil at its core and will hopefully be shutdown soon by the twittergods.
As a twitter user and someone who works in the search business, I tend to use twitter search quite a bit. Many of the spammy aspects of twitter can be frustrating, and they force you do make some changes to get the results you are looking for. Here are a few changes I have made.
Narrowing the search – on Mondays, #musicmonday is almost always on the top trends. I like to use it to find bands similar to ones I already like, so I search “#musicmonday wilco” to discover related bands.
Getting creative – instead of being lazy and clicking the link to the trending topic in the sidebar, I can search for something more specific, like “Roddick 3rd set” instead of “Wimbledon“.
Look for Re-tweets – Another trick I use is to add RT or via to my searches. This lets me crowdsource the task of finding the things that real people want to point out. When I find a good nugget of info, I like to re-tweet it as well to spread the news.
There is one more action I have learned that has really taught me to use twitter as the service as it was intended: to connect with people. For instance, yesterday the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum (#pdf09) was a very popular subject on twitter, and was trending quite high for most of the day. By clicking on the link to the trend in the sidebar, I was brought to a sea of tweets with great content right next to dirty, dirty spammers. Relying on search alone would have been very difficult in my quest for useful information on a popular subject, so I decided to follow some new people. I added Clay Shirky (@cshirky) and Alex Steed (@alexsteed) to my followers and then I was able to track PDF09 from the comfort of my own home (twitter.com/home that is). And after the Forum, I am free to un-follow them if their other tweets are not something I am interested in.
The bottom line is that searching twitter for very popular subjects is a bit broken. The good news, though, is it forces you to be creative and follow new people to gain the valuable information you are seeking. Thanks to this you may discover a new favorite twitter-friend. So, the next time you are searching twitter for trending tweets, look for the good stuff, Re-tweet it, and never tack on trends to a tweet that isn’t about them.
Finally, I must add that using hashtags properly is a great asset to twitter, so please DO use them whenever you are joining the conversation. And for those of you that like to tag ridiculousthings, that’s perfectly fine too.
SchipulCon09