Social Networking, Social Media....are you ready?

I work with your business to promote YOU in the social media world...see how important it is for YOU to promote yourself and your company using social networking..and yes, that includes FaceBook!~ Click the title to watch You Tube's Social Media Revolution!

Sharon

LaMothe Services, LLC

http://lamotheservices.com/

727-458-8333

Twittering Your Small Business

I am sure you know by now I am pretty big into the whole social networking deal...and I love using twitter....I sign up clients for this FREE service and then we all twitter away. I hate hearing about who is driving to the store or whose kid is getting potty trained but for those who are using twitter as a business tool....sharing links and tips and sometimes an uplifting quote, its great! Check out this article below and then start twittering away! (I have over 500 followers! Feel free to join us at http://twitter.com/SharonLaMothe)

Sharon LaMothe
http://lamotheservices.com/

Twittering Your Small Business
By SCOTT CARMICHAEL, GADLING.COM

Word on the street is that "Twitter" is the latest rage, but chances are you have either ignored it, or simply didn't have the time to look into what it has to offer.

Thankfully, Twitter is extremely easy to explain -- they call themselves a "microblogging service". Micro blogging allows members to talk about anything they want, in bite size portions of 140 characters or less. That is essentially the entire service. What makes Twitter so popular is not what it does, but how many people it does it with. There are millions of people on Twitter, some very active, and some that signed up but never quite understood the concept. Like many blogs, the majority of people on Twitter use the service to relay information about their life. They'll post what they had for dinner, or what time they got up in the morning.

Hidden away in all those blog entries, could be the information you need to gain a customer, or prevent losing one. Here is a good example -- if one of your customers makes a purchase off your web site, but the product arrives damaged, they might take their complaint to Twitter before they even consider calling you.

Keep in mind that a disgruntled customer is often capable of creating a PR nightmare for you. A very simple way to be proactive about these things is to keep an eye out for keywords related to your business. The Twitter search feature allows you to search for anything in the millions of "Tweets" posted every day.

Get your own Twitter account, and if someone pops up with a complaint about your company and tries to spread the word to the rest of the Twitter world, step in and offer to help them out any way possible.

Remember, many Twitter users have their entire social network following their posts and badmouthing you or your products will often spread like wildfire.

Of course, Twitter can also be used to reach potential customers. You can do this by setting up your own Twitter page. I wouldn't recommend sitting at your desk all day describing what you see out your window, but a post a day about your deals, upcoming promotions or even as a place to hand out discount codes for your products will generate some goodwill and show your customers that you are at least aware of the latest social networking trends.

Just don't trick yourself into thinking that Twitter will magically increase your sales overnight. Getting your company on Twitter starts with registering an account -- do it now, and make sure you register all variations to your company name. Remember, Twitter is like domain names; if you don't register the name, someone else might, and the last thing you want is someone posting "Acme Widget Inc. sucks" using your company name.

Once you have your account setup, the hard part begins -- what to say?

I'd suggest beginning with some basic stuff. Post about a new product, post about trade shows you plan to attend. Think of Twitter as the message board at your local grocery store -- a place to share the good news about your company. Posting your messages to Twitter can be done through their web site, but also through one of the many "Twitter clients", available for most mobile phones and computers.

Once you've gotten a hang of posting, it's time to start doing some marketing. Make sure your Twitter profile page contains all the right information and be sure to use your company and product names in your "Tweets", that way the search engines will pick them up, making it easier for people to find you.

If your company specializes in "Widgets", start talking about them, provide general tips and tricks for people to use the product, and before you know it, you'll be seen as a specialist in your field (provided you are not posting utter rubbish).

There are of course also a couple of things not to do on Twitter -- most importantly, remember that anything nasty or rude you say can and will be used against you. If you badmouth a competitor, or a customer, make sure you are ready for the repercussions. Social networks are notoriously unforgiving, and if you screw up badly, it'll be all over the "blogosphere" before you know it.

Even if the entire experiment only yields one new customer, it is one customer you did not have before you started Twittering, and at the end of the day the whole thing will not have cost you anything other than your time.

By staying up to date with the latest social networking trends, you'll be ready for the next new service to popup, and before you know it, you'll be a pro at reaching new markets.

How I'm going to use social networking to steal your identity!

I liked this article so much that I wanted to share it with you. Although I am a huge fan of social networking there are people out there that will take advantage of you and Ron really shows you how it could be done and it can really make you think! I look forward to your comments...

Sharon
LaMothe Services, LLC
http://lamotheservices.com/

How I'm going to use social networking to steal your identity!

Ron Shulkin
Chicago Social Networking Examiner


I think about all my trusted advisors in real life: my attorney, my doctor and others. There are questions that if posed by my insurance agent, I’d react by getting up from the table, letting him know it’s none of his business. But in the spirit of connecting socially, I easily answer these same questions in a Facebook quiz. It’s a cathartic release, a confession. Sometimes it makes up for the close mouthed, private way I act in real life. I know it seems great to “share” with others. And social network communities are the perfect place to dive in. Somehow sitting alone at the computer gives us license to answer some very intimate questions.


So the first thing I’ll do to steal your identity is find out everything I can about you. I can take a quiz, as apparently 34 million others did and with almost 200,000 fans, for “How Well Do You Know Me”? I’ll find out your birth date, where you were born, the names of your parents, your spouse, and your children. And I’ll find out their birthdates. I’ll find out your hobbies and your interests. I’ll see who all your friends are.


I’ll read “25 things you didn’t know about me”. I’ll know what sports you like, what your middle name is. I’ll know what your favorite stores are. I’ll figure out where you live by seeing where you shop. Your grammar school and your high school will be listed. It won’t be long until I find out the name of your first pet. Oh look, you used to have a space between your two front teeth!


I’ll read what Greek god you are, what Sex In The City character you think you are and who is your celebrity twin. Then I’ll figure out your childhood nickname, in what city you met your significant other, the name of your favorite childhood friend, the street you lived on in third grade. It won’t be long before I know your oldest sibling’s birthday month and year, the middle name of your youngest child, your oldest sibling's middle name, the school you attended for sixth grade, and your childhood phone number including area code. You’ll have listed your oldest cousin's first and last name, the name of your first stuffed animal and the city or town where your mother and father met.


Your MySpace or Facebook Info page will tell me your email address and your employer. The “Who Are You Related To” will tell me all your relatives. It’s great to know what cities you’ve visited, so when I start using your credit cards I won’t set off any suspicious behavior.


Somehow or another, one of the eight thousand eight hundred and eighty four Facebook quizzes that everyone’s taken will provide me with the answers I’m looking for.


Because your bank, your credit card, your school, your payroll company and your employer might ask these security questions, I’ll read your blog so I can find out the first name of the boy or girl that you first kissed, the last name of your third grade teacher, where your nearest sibling lives and your youngest brother’s birthday. After reading your blog, even if I don’t have a direct answer to any of the security questions, I’ll know enough about you to start making really good guesses.


On LinkedIn you’ve listed the name of your elementary / primary school and the city or town where your first job was. I can see your college history and even all the people who connect with you doing business.


Even without all this data I could probably figure out what your passwords are. Most people use the same password for every web site. Here’s the top ten according to PC Magazine:
1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. link182
10. (your first name)


Didn’t have to do any research for those. And the default password usually included from your vendor will also let me try: sun123, Cisco, Alcatel, Kyocera, McAfee and IBM. A surprising number of people never change the password from the default after installation. If it’s a six character requirement I can guess, and likely be correct with shadow or summer. Eight characters? Then desklamp or portable. I’m guessing people start looking around when they have to come up with a password quickly. If the password requires a number, it is almost always “1”.


But unless you’re using a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols in a random order, I can either try a top ten favorite from above or dig into your (not very) private life and figure out your password. Or if I can’t figure out your password, I can answer the security questions that let me reset your password to one I like. Then you can’t get in, but I can.
My first step will be to break into your email. Most of us have had our email addresses for a very long time, so it is likely the password we used was a product of that time period. I signed up for my Yahoo email when it came out, probably a decade ago. I wanted to grab my name before other computer savvy “shulkin”s did. These were eras with less security concerns about password strength.


I’ll do this hacking into your email account late at night, so when the notifications of password changes come in, I can delete them before you wake up and check your email. Hopefully you’ll have a folder in your email system called “passwords”. That will make the rest of this identity theft easier. And if there’s anything good in your inbox, I’ll read them and mark them “unread” before I go.


Once in your email system, I’ll crack your credit cards and bank. I’ll answer the security questions to change the password, “in case I forgot it”. Then they’ll send that notification to the email address and I’ll delete those too. I’ll know what web sites you subscribe to, so I’ll go on eBay, Hoovers and all your other resources. This will let me know more about you, as well.


My next pass will be to get into your cell phone account. You manage it on line, so I can get that password with security questions. I can look up all the phone numbers you get calls from and to whom you call. These friends of yours might be my next targets. Maybe your girlfriend is using a combination of your first name and your birthday as her password. Worth a try. It will still be hours before either you or she wakes up.


So if you wake up one morning and all your credit cards are cancelled or you’ve bought some airplane tickets or a nice HDTV (and had it drop shipped to an address one door down from yours where I’ll be waiting wisely informed as to when with the results of the record tracking on shipping); if your cell phone has ordered a bunch of custom ring tones or if your bank has had most of its funds transferred to my favorite charity, you’ll know that you answered one too many questions on that Facebook quiz.


Some things are meant to stay private. When you get on Facebook, stick to reminiscing about high school.