10 Facebook Tips for Business Professionals

Facebook is “a social utility that connects you with the people around you.” What does that mean? It’s a place for friends to hang out online.

Are you a business professional looking to capitalize on friends hanging out online?

Sounds dirty doesn’t it.

As businesses we have to keep in mind the nature of the communities we are joining. Facebook is about personal networks. Facebook became a phenomenon because it’s simple, it’s fun, it has photos, it has spam-free email, and because there’s very little advertising. If you want to be active in Facebook, go beyond advertising. Create value-add applications, like the TripAdvisor map. Create fun games or quizzes or tools that help users socialize.

And by all means follow the 10 Facebook Tips for Professionals posted by Bill Sweetman on OneDegree.ca.

1. Use your real and full name in your profile
2. Make sure your profile includes a photo of you
3. Include detailed business information in your profile
4. Do not invite strangers to be your Facebook friends
5. Do not send messages to strangers

Visit OneDegree.ca for the next 5 tips and full details on why the first 5 are so important.

Tips on Beating Writer’s Block

or What to Write When You Are Wiped

I must say that July has been a hectic month. I have been in 4 different cities. A new place each week.

My favourite was Portus 2008 in Dallas where I spoke about the phenomenon of podcasting and participatory culture within the Harry Potter fandom.

(Do you know about Wizard Rock? Rock music based on books ... that is another post. But if you want to divert your attention, you can see my guest post on TechVibes where I give a quick summary of my presentation.)

After a month of travel, with all the best intentions of posting a great Underwire Newsletter ... I am stumped. So here are 3 things that I do when I need to pull a blog post out
of a hat or generate a press release out of thin air.

1. I scan the daily news headlines
Is there anything going on in the world that is vaguely related to my clients’ products or services? If yes, I can usually get enough inspiration to write a blog post or press release.

2. I go through my clippings folder
Ok, I do not have a physical folder, it is an electronic folder. But throughout the day, as I find interesting newsletters or blog posts, I make a note of them for writer’s block moments.

3. I look at my site traffic and the most popular sections
This can provide interesting points for casual conversation (like the fact that our post on graphical user interface prototyping tools continues to draw strong traffic). And it means that I can recycle some content. Check out our nerdy list of Graphical User Interface prototyping tools. See how fun that was.

Bonus Tip. I research silly quotes.
As Terry Pratchett says: Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.

5 Online Tools for Business

Are you using these 5 online tools to expand your sales and marketing opportunities?

1. Email newsletters

Like direct mail, this is one way of delivering a marketing message to a prospective customer. The greater your ability to tailor and personalize these messages, in combination with gaining permission (rather than spamming), the greater your positive response rate will be.

2. Webinars

Online demos or training sessions can be an effective way to explain an offering, present a topic or generate interest.

3. Video

Increase awareness of your product or service offering by creating short videos that fans, media and other interested parties can feature on their websites and blogs. Create your own video channel and feature clips on your website and popular video sharing sites such as YouTube.

4. Blogs

As communication vehicles, blogs allow you to have a public conversation with prospective customers, current customers and fans.
A blog allows visitors to comment and provide insight on your products and services instantly, and it provides an opportunity to create buzz about your stuff or company.

5. Expertise materials

White papers and case studies are popular marketing tools and serve as ways to present materials as educational rather than as blatant sales or marketing messages.
They can be used to establish your company’s credibility among media and customers.

Have another online tool that’s good for business? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Track Your Videos with TubeMogul

YouTube Insight provides basic information on which of your videos is most viewed, demographic and geographic information. You can view Insight from your Account Settings.

What it doesn’t provide is data on how many people are embedding your video and where they are embedding it.

TubeMogul is a free service that provides “a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites, and powerful analytics on who, what, and how videos are being viewed.”

I can’t tell from the website whether they can track embeds but there are a number of cool features:

* Upload to 12 sites at once
* Create charts easily that track video performance
* Aggregate your online video analytics from online video sites including Google Video, MetaCafe, MySpace, AOL, Yahoo!, Revver, YouTube ...
* Export your data to Excel

See what Tubemogul.com is all about.

I’m still looking for a way to track where your video is embedded, i.e., what other sites it appears on. If you have a tool or know how to do this, let me know. 

Presentation: BookExpo, Another Country: Creative Borders, Globalism and the Age of Collaboration

On June 13, 2008, BookExpo Canada ran a conference called “Another Country: Creative Borders, Globalism and the Age of Collaboration”. This day-long conference was devoted to discussing ideas from other places, including using the internet as a place or a method to get beyond place.

In Monique Trottier’s presentation “Websites: Investment or Expense?” attendees learned
* Advanced strategies and tactics to make your web investment pay off.
* Ways to evaluate website performance, build long-lasting relationships with your online audience, and have fun.

~~~ Monique’s Presentation Notes ~~~

Getting People to Talk About Your Stuff

Flickr.com: Sea Turtle

• You have to have something worth talking about.
• You have to use tools that allow people to easily pass on information. i.e., embed code, unique urls
• You have to plan so you can measure, measure so you can improve.
• You have to understand that online word of mouth is amplified and persistent. Embrace this channel of communication.

Why Embrace the Web?
Because things have changed:

1. The media landscape has changed.
It’s more fragmented. There are more tv channels, more radio channels, more emails, newsletters, webpages ... It’s harder to get attention.

Plus with all the media fragmentation you also have a decline in book coverage.

• Newspapers have folded the book section into other sections
• More papers draw reviews from Associated Press
• CanWest is sharing book reviews amongst its paper
• Fine Print was just canceled on Thursday.
• Book TV downgraded its coverage and let go of producers
• CBC Talking Books announced it will be canceled in the fall

2. The customer has changed.
They are more fragmented. They have more gadgets, more product choices, more news & entertainment options ... It’s harder to get their attention.

In particular because customers are busy creating content:

• blogging
• posting photos
• posting reviews
• talking to our friends with email, instant messaging, twittering

Flickr.com: swandiamondrose

This is a group of sewing bloggers who’ve posted their sewing-themed tattoos. This is passion. This is a content, communication, collaboration, creation, community.

If people are passionate about your stuff, they will talk about it. Your fans are your biggest advocates.

And, as customers:

• We are having conversations about what we like and don’t like.
• We are doing the publicity.
• We are creating the advertising.
• We are the sales force, the marketing team, the publicist.

Customers are a powerful group because they are now the handsellers of our stuff.

The clearly defined roles of publisher, bookseller, customer are now blurbed. The internet and the online tools available make it possible for customers to become the handsellers, to become the content producers, the marketers, this is the reality of the world we live in today.

Despite These Changes, Our Goals Remain the Same

1. Support an existing customer base
2. Reward good behaviour (i.e., to show appreciation for others who promote our stuff)
3. Generate repeat sales
4. Interact with customers
5. Increase brand awareness among key constituents
6. Increase our sales and marketing opportunities

What Can We Do?

1. We can turn our websites from expenses into investments.
2. We can treat our website like a top sales and marketing person.
3. We can demand and measure performance if we put the tools in place to do so.
4. We can acknowledge that the media landscape has changed and that our customers are using the internet to connect to each other, to find recommendations, to research, to discover, to share, and that if we want to get more attention, we need to understand how these tools work.
5. We can invest people, time and money into tools that help us accomplish the above goals.

1. Email newsletters

Flickr.com: alykat

Like direct mail, this is one way of delivering a marketing message to a prospective customer. The greater your ability to tailor and personalize these messages, in combination with gaining permission (rather than spamming), the greater your positive response rate will be.

2. Webinars

SeoRoi.com on Meatball Sundaes

For non-fiction (in particular, business and self-help), online demos or training sessions can be an effective way to explain an offering, present a topic or generate interest.

See the example of Seth Godin’s webinar for The Meatball Sundae and how MyVenturePad used book giveaways.

3. Video

Lab with Leo episode 132 — Monique Trottier explains her top 5 email marketing tips.

Increase awareness of titles by creating short videos that fans, media and booksellers can feature on their websites and blogs. Create your own video channel and feature clips on your website and popular video sharing sites such as YouTube.

4. Blogs

As communication vehicles, blogs allow you to have a public conversation with prospective customers, current customers and fans. A blog allows visitors to comment and provide insight on your titles instantly, and it provides an opportunity to create buzz about your titles or company.

5. Expertise materials

White papers and case studies are popular marketing tools and serve as ways to present materials as educational rather than as blatant sales or marketing messages. They can be used to establish your company or author’s credibility among media and customers.

6. Search optimization

Flickr.com: squirmelia

A properly optimized website will show up in search results for search phrases relevant to your company and titles. Prospective customers must be able to find you when they are searching for your authors, titles or subject areas. Anywhere from 60%-80% of your site traffic should come from search engines. Check your stats.

7. Website optimization

Having a site that is user friendly and easy to navigate is an important part of any online experience.

8. Pay-per-click advertising

In addition to optimizing your site for search, you can pay to appear on the results page for targeted phrases that you specify. If you are new to search advertising, pay-per-click (PPC), there are many professional services available to help, as well as detailed documentation on getting started with Google, Yahoo and MSN.

eMarketing101.ca by Alexandre Brabant is a fantastic source of information on search optimization and PPC tips and tricks.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
Another Country: Creative Borders, Globalism and the Age of Collaboration
Presented by: Humber College and the Book and Periodical Council, Friday, June 13, 2008

This day-long conference was devoted to discussing ideas from other places, including using the internet as a place or a method to get beyond place. Another Country: Creative Borders, Globalism and the Age of Collaboration explored the differences in publishing models from country to country, the role of technology in uniting reading communities around the world, and how globalism has affected and continues to affect the content and form of books and literature. Speakers addressed the growing importance of our boundaryless cultural world and how many writers’ work defies literary boundaries. With new technologies, we have entered the age of collaboration. Is there now a blur between author and audience?

BOXCAR MARKETING is a strategy, marketing and communications firm with expertise in online marketing, web design and business strategy. We help clients move their ideas from concept to completion by developing plans to connect with their target audiences and key stakeholders.

MONIQUE TROTTIER (partner) is an internet marketing strategist, writer/editor and account manager whose projects focus on digital content, web and mixed media. Her portfolio includes web design, online promotions & publicity, electronic press releases, email newsletters, blogging, podcasting, search marketing & PPC campaigns, training and consultation. Monique spearheaded the online promotions for publisher Raincoast Books, including the online marketing for the Harry Potter books, as well as the development of the first Canadian-publisher podcast and blog. She has worked with several Canadian publishers and trade associations. Her book blog is SoMisguided.com.

Presentation: Centre for Chief Marketing Executives, Kelowna BC

I was in Kelowna, BC, May 22 and 23 for the Meeting of the Centre for Chief Marketing Executives.

My fellow presenters included:

• Mitch Joel, President, Twist Image
• Bryan Segal, Vice-President, Sales, comScore Inc.
• Jeanne Houweling, Vice-President, Advertising Services, NebuAd

We talked about the growing influence of social networking websites and the implications for Canadian Marketers.

In addition to participating in roundtable discussions, I presented on “Internet and Social Media: Strategies and Tactics”. For the most part, I showed the web sites in a browser window, hence no slides to share with you. But below are my key points.

Introduction
Boxcar Marketing: how can we help your business?

We’re called Boxcar Marketing because we think about online marketing tools as boxcars in a train: you can link together any combination of online marketing tools. When used together in combinations that are appropriate for your campaign, your business, your customer base, they create momentum for your other marketing activities.

One company’s online marketing strategy might include:
Search marketing + Blogging + Email marketing

Someone else might use:
Search marketing + Facebook + Twitter + Flickr

Any combination is possible. My challenge to marketers is to go beyond your current set of online marketing tools.

Most businesses are using:
Email marketing + Websites

Some are using
Search marketing + Email marketing + Websites + Blogs + Facebook + YouTube

But what about these top social media tools:

1. del.icio.us
2. Flickr.com
3. LinkedIn.com
4. Ning.com
5. StumbleUpon.com
6. Twitter.com
7. Upcoming.org
8. Virtual worlds: SecondLife
9. Wikis: pbwiki

~~~ Monique Trottier on Social Media Marketing 101 ~~~

A) Introduction to Social Media Marketing
What is it? Why is it important to you, your business and your customers? What can you do?

Why is Social Media Marketing important?

Because the media landscape has changed. Because customers have changed.

Mass marketing is harder to do effectively because of the fragmentation of attention. Media is fragmented. There are more radio stations, more tv stations, more magazine titles, more books, millions of websites.

There is a proliferation of products, meaning customers have more things to choose from. We have more devices: video games, computers, dvd players, televisions, satellite radios, TiVo, cellphones and PDAs.

With those devices we email, instant message, Google, blog, create videos, podcast. We also Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Ning and Digg.

As businesses, we have to care about these things because interruptive marketing is harder and harder to do.

Customers are not listening. They are busy creating content. They are producers.

They are busy recommending and talking about their experiences with products and services. They are reviewers. They are marketers.

Customers are more demanding and have greater expectations about how businesses should interact with them.

It is harder to get customers to come to your site because they are busy doing other things online. We have to go to them.

No online community has ever sat around saying, you know what we need? More marketers.

We have to get better at connecting to our customers online. At joining the conversation. At being more collaborative. At being an active part of a community. At speaking with our human voice, not our marketing & PR voice.

B) A Few Social Media Marketing Tools At A Glance
What is it? What are successful business uses?

Brightkite: http://brightkite.com/

• Location-based social networking. See where your friends are and what they’re up to, in real time. Meet people around you.
• Good for guerrilla marketing, ARGs (artificial reality games), treasure hunts, location-based marketing.

Digg: http://digg.com/

• A place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Content moves to the top based on user voting.
• Add Digg this Article to your site.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/
• A social utility that connects you with the people around you.
• Online book clubs. HarperCollins Canada has 855 members who actively discuss new books.

Note on Facebook:
As businesses we have to keep in mind the nature of the communities we are joining. Facebook is about personal networks. It became the phenomenon that it is because it’s simple, it’s fun, it has photos, it has spam-free email, there’s very little advertising. If you want to be active in Facebook, go beyond advertising. Create value-add appllications, like the TripAdvisor map. Create fun games or quizzes or tools that help users socialize.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/

• An online photo management and sharing application.
• Example: Nikon Stunning Gallery. Nikon contacted 16 bloggers who would use the new Nikon D80 and post photos to Flickr using the tag “nikonstunninggallery”. Other Flickr users were invited to also tag photos this way in order to be entered into a contest to win a free camera. This type of contest works because the product (a camera) is directly tied to the activities of the community (taking photos).

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/

• An online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.
• Connect to me on LinkedIn. See my network of connections. Do we know anyone in common? Do you have a question that you’d like me to pose to my network? Looking for an expert in something? Maybe I can link you up to someone in my network.

Ning: http://www.ning.com/

• Create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds.
• See if members of your industry have already started social networks on Ning. Then join.
• Example: HotelNetwork.Ning.com is a forum for hotel owners, operators, and industry folks. “A wide range of topics are covered from a macro level such as the state of the industry to the property level with development opportunities, best practices, etc.”

PRWeb: http://www.prweb.com/

• Online news and press release distribution service used by more than 40,000 organizations of all sizes to increase the visibility of their news, improve their search engine rankings and drive traffic to their Web site. Watch the CommonCraft video on how PRWeb works.
• Example: See how 3M uses PRWeb.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/
• A service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Note about Twitter: I love Twitter because it is real-time conversation, it’s easy, it’s mobile (I can send and receive Tweets from my computer and my phone), it’s business and personal. I think Twitter is the tool to watch. The integration, simplicity and mobility of this tool is key to its success.

Examples: Social bookmarketing site Ma.gnolia.com uses Twitter as a customer service and help desk. Instead of emailing the company when service is down or bugs are detected, you can follow the Twitter feed to see if they are aware of the problem and what the fix status is.

Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com

• A community for discovering and sharing events.
• Add your event. Check for networking events in your area or social media sessions or marketing events such as Case Camp.

YouTube: http://youtube.com/

• Easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email.
• Example: Nick Haley, student at University of Leeds, loved his new iPod Touch so much that he created a commercial for it. Apple saw it. Was impressed. Flew him out to New York to re-create the ad, which now plays on television. Watch Nick Haley’s original Apple iPod Touch ad.

Conclusion
Where are we going? What should we take away from this presentation?

1. We understand that the media landscape has changed.


• Newspaper readership is down.
• Direct mail success is down.
• TV viewership is down.
2. We understand that 80% of offline purchases are a direct result of online window shopping (JC Williams Group).
3. We know that the use of social networks, blogs, websites continues to hold steady or rise.
4. We are going to see more social media tools.
5. There will be greater integration of devices.
6. There will be more conversations online, definitely between customers (and hopefully between customers and companies).
7. There will be more collaboration online.
8. The changes in the media landscape will continue to fragment the market.
9. Smaller, more personal campaigns will have greater success and impact than larger, mass media campaigns.
10. Community, conversation and collaboration will continue to win over controlled, closed networks.
11. As businesses we need to remember to be human. Humans are tool users. Find the social media tools that are right for your campaigns.

About the Centre for Chief Marketing Executives
CCME is an exclusive network for Canada’s chief marketing executives that addresses marketing’s role at the corporate strategy level.

About Speaker Monique Trottier
Monique Trottier is President of Boxcar Marketing, a marketing and communications firm with expertise in online marketing, web design and search marketing. Monique is experienced at bridging social interactions on the web with offline conversation. She’s adept at helping companies understand and respond to how their products or services are represented online. Talk to Monique about in-house consultations, public speaking and presentations.

4 tips to detect phishing attempts

Late last week I received an email from Google AdWords at an email address that looked like . Except the email wasn’t from Google AdWords and the originating email address wasn’t really .

It was a phishing attempt. Phishing?

In computing, phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. eBay, PayPal and online banks are common targets. Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging,[1] and often directs users to enter details at a website, although phone contact has also been used.

Most phishing attempts are pretty easy to spot. Misspellings, fake email addresses and domain names in Russia or some other country extension usually give them away if you know what to look for. But this scam was above average in its execution.

Here’s what the email looked like.

And here’s the landing page the link in the email brought up.

Here’s the actual login page for Google AdWords.

I was following along half absentmindedly up to this point. Then I took a closer look at the URL.

adwrods.google.select.wapisbank.cn/select/Login/index.html

The actual domain name is wapisbank.cn, in China. I smelled a rat.

At the same time I was impressed. This was phishing done far better than I had seen before, and for Google AdWords, not common targets like banks, Paypal or eBay.

So how can you spot an attempt at phishing that shows up in your inbox?

1. Are you expecting an email from the sending organization? If you don’t deal with a bank, they won’t send you email. If you don’t have a Paypal account, they also won’t send you email.
2. Don’t trust email. The sender email address can be masked or ‘spoofed’ very easily. Email is inherently an unsecure communication. Email messages travel over the open Internet just as they are. A detection program called a ‘sniffer’ can watch the traffic going past and respond to specific words or cues (like passwords or credit card numbers). Don’t email sensitive information. Don’t expect large organizations to email sensitive information.
3. Watch URLs. The URLs are the address of the web page you’re visiting. Phishing attempts almost always use URLs that mimic the URLs of the organization they’re impersonating, but they can never be that organzation. Here’s a short example of the distinctions between URLs, domain names and registered domains.
   
   • URL: http://www.example.net/index.html
   • Domain name: http://www.example.net
   • Registered domain name: example.net
4. Contact the organization sending you the email directly, not through a link in the email. Go straight to their website. Call them. Ask through a channel you’ve used before if you need to do anything to manage your account. Also, be ready to send the phishing email to the organization being impersonated.

Now that you’ve been warned, here’s the phishing webpage in case you need to see it in action.