I’ve rarely been one to merely go along with the crowd. I’ve always been one to prefer staying on the fringe and going to the beat of my own drummer. When I was in high school, I was part of a very close-knit group of ten or so people who really didn’t fit into any other group. We weren’t “jocks” (although the captain of the cross country team hung out with us), we weren’t “brainiacs” (although several of us were honor students). We weren’t “burn-outs,” “punks,” “freaks” nor “straights.” We called ourselves “The Group That Doesn’t Fit Into Other Groups.” Ron’s dad called us the “Motley Crew” even before the band with the similar name became popular. According to Seth Godin, we were weird.

We didn’t mind that we didn’t quite fit in to the main groups. We were all quite content being ourselves and doing what we thought was right. Though this sometimes brought us into conflict with the “normal” kids, we didn’t really bother trying to fit in because we didn’t find it important.

In We Are All Weird, Godin lays out the case that in our current society, we can and should celebrate our differences. He contends that for everyone to be “normal” we all need to bend to some form of structural “middle.” While this is certainly advantageous to mass marketers and those who like things to scale into large numbers, it really doesn’t fit with who and what most of us are.

We Are All Weird focuses on four words and how life in these times is redefining what they mean to us:

• Mass – easy to reach and what some people look to be to conform and survive
• Normal – what we call people in the “middle.” What is “normal” can change from one people group to another
• Weird – people who aren’t normal, whether by nature or by choice
• Rich – someone who can afford to make choices. This doesn’t necessarily mean “wealthy” in a property sense, rather it means that someone has the flexibility and courage to choose how to live.

I didn’t come by my present career position in the “normal” way; I’m a “hybrid” or a “zig-zagger.” After a career in the Army, I started doing web marketing by starting a web site. I learned by doing it, making success and mistakes along the way and learning from them. I sought out those smarter than me, those who had more experience and learned from them. Eventually, I got to the point where people started seeking me out for knowledge.

Have you ever felt like you didn’t fit in? Have you ever felt “weird?” You’re not alone. Celebrate your different-ness. Be who you were made to be. Don’t conform for conformity’s sake. To me, this is what diversity is really all about. Live and let live. Without people having different ideas, thought processes and perspectives we become stagnant. We need fresh ideas and new approaches to solving old problems. This is where being weird can really help.

The Internet has revolutionized how we communicate. It shrinks time and distance so that someone who is weird in one place can find community by connecting with like-minded people anywhere on Earth. Some find that very idea too weird to even comprehend. It’s OK, because I think that’s weird – but perfectly valid.

At my last high school reunion, my friend Roxanne came up to me and asked, “You were always such a nonconformist in school. How did you manage to last as long as you did in the Army? That’s like like the most conformist place I can think of.” My answer: “It’s because I was in the part of the Army where nonconformists fit in.” As strange as that may sound, it’s true.

Seth Godin (c) Bodoni Design

The big lesson for marketers? Don’t always look to go for “mass” in your message. Find out how your product or service can help those smaller groups. Figure out how you can help those smaller groups solve problems. Not only will you be able to work with them, they will help evangelize your product to their tribes.

If anything I wrote here resonates with you, I think you will enjoy We Are All Weird. While the book does encapsulate a lot of ideas Seth has presented on his blog and in other books, it’s put together in such a way that it provokes deep thought. It certainly got me thinking. Like his other books, this one is put together in an easy-to-read format with ideas set in nice, bite-sized chunks.

We Are All Weird by Seth Godin.

Disclaimers: I received a pre-release gallery version of the book provided to me at no charge. This is, still, my honest opinion of the work. All title links are Amazon Affiliate links.

Over the past several months I’ve been working with a team of talented folks in my area to start a Social Media Breakfast (SMB) group here in Central Texas.

I had been thinking about this for a while because of the great experience I’ve had with the Waco SMB group. I love the Waco group, but it’s very hard for me to get up there on a regular basis on week days. There’s another group which meets in Killeen, which is a little closer, but still hard get to on workday mornings.

What finally got me moving on this was the conversation I had with my mechanic about the web site and pay-per-click campaign he was offered by a marketing company. Because he wasn’t educated in web marketing stuff, he wasn’t quite sure if he should purchase that package. As you can read in my account of that chat, I didn’t think it would have done him much good. I figured, if he was having this trouble, I’m sure there are more small business operators in the area which might need some help with information and education about web marketing, and social media in particular.

The people joining me in this endeavor have a broad range of experience in social. The one thing we have in common is that we want to share knowledge and ideas as well as learn from others in our community who are using or looking to use social to help attract and interact with customers.

If you’re in the area, please join us for our first meeting, which will be on Friday, June 6th at 7am at The Historic Cotton Exchange, 116 S. 1st Street in Temple, TX. It’s free and open to the public (though we wouldn’t mind if you’d RSVP by getting a free ticket on Eventbrite).

For more information:

• SMB Temple/Belton Web Site
• Facebook Page
• Follow us on Twitter

This past weekend a coworker passed away. For a year I have been following her valiant struggle against cancer through the group her close friends set up on Facebook. They chronicled her story. They started with some of her treatments, her participation in the Pink Heals Tour, through the ups and downs she went through, all the way through the funeral today. Another youthful life snatched away by the evil that is cancer.

Right now I have two aunts fighting breast and lung cancer, a cousin fighting lung cancer, my dad fought prostate cancer, numerous friends are fighting or have fought off cancers of various kinds. I’ve lost a grandmother, an uncle and a more than a few friends to this scourge.

Enough!
That’s why I’m raising funds during the month now known as Movember, to help the Movember Foundation fund organizations such as the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Lance Armstrongs LIVESTRONG so they can continue their work in helping educate and research in the fight against cancer.

Please go to my Movember Mo Space page and donate a buck or two or five or a hundred. It goes to a good cause in helping fight against cancer.

If you’re in Michigan, please also consider dropping by and donating a buck or two to my friend Scott’s Southwest Michigan Movember team. This is his first year joining in and I’d like to see his team do well, too.

Check back throughout Movember and I’ll post pics of my mustachioed self.

This post is cross-posted on my other blog the Musings of Řehoř

I introduced readers of The Crossing to SocialSmack back in May. When I wrote that piece, I could see that SocialSmack had some great potential. The gang down in Austin have been hard at work over the past few months, and some of that potential is starting to come out. I’m apparently not the only one who sees value in SocialSmack. There has been a lot of buzz since CEO Matt Curtin’s launch presentation at the recent Fall DEMO event:

• SocialSmack Gives You Props for Talking Smack About Brands – Mashable
• DEMO: SocialSmack helps consumers learn and talk smack about brands – DEMObeat
• SocialSmack Unveils Apps for Consumer Feedback – Technorati
• SocialSmack Turns Brand Reputation Into A Game – Daily Axioms

New Features
SocialSmack has added a feature which allows companies to claim their brands and add some content to help visitors learn more about the brand and where they can be found in other social spaces. Here’s an example: Kona Grill. Dave and Matt let me in on what their ideas are behind these brand pages (quoting from an email sent to me):

We’re going to be releasing additional features that allow much more direct Brand/Consumer interaction. This will allow you to engage the Consumers on the site and help you directly promote your Brand and respond to Props and Drops. In addition, we’ll be providing you with valuable insight into the people engaging in your Brand.

Here’s a small snippet of what we have planned:

• Brand user account that distinguishes you from the Consumers
• Brand specific badges and avatars to engage the Consumers
• External widgets that you can add to your site encouraging Consumers to talk Smack
• Ability for Brands to follow Consumers and other Brands and create groups for filtering
• Weekly and on-demand Smack Analysis reports
• Brand specific leaderboards
• Brand and Consumer inboxes for private feedback and communication
• Brand led Consumer focus groups

I can see where SocialSmack is going to be a great platform for dialog between brands and consumers. It’ll be interesting to see what form these developments take.

Screaming Mobile
I mentioned in my previous post about SocialSmack that the site “screams ‘mobile.’” Matt let me know the iPhone app is available now in the AppStore and the Android app should be out this week. Unfortunately, I have a Windows Mobile phone, so I’ll have to wait until an app for that platform is released. I was informed that apps for other mobile platforms are in development, which is great news. (OK, Matt, I’m waiting … .) Here are some screen shots of the iPhone and Android apps:

SocialSmack on the iPhone

SocialSmack on the Android

Matt mentioned that the team would appreciate any feedback they get on their mobile apps.

I’m rather impressed with the effort they’ve put forth and the progress they’re making. It’s only been a few months and they are making some great strides towards creating a vibrant and useful community. I look forward to seeing how things progress over the next few months. I’ll be checking in from time to time and will report back later.

In the meantime: have you tried SocialSmack? If you have, what do you think about it? Do you have any suggestions for features? Please feel free to let us (and them) know in the comments.

The final day of PubCon South 2010 went very well. All the sessions I attended were very good, and I learned a lot from them – unless I’d already figured something out on my own and then what I figured out was confirmed. The lunch was very good today. Also, during both session days, the WiFi coverage was excellent. I noted there were access points hanging from the ceiling in all the rooms – this probably had something to do with it. Kudos for the great connections.

Today’s Keynote was by Rob Snell of Gun Dog Supply. Rob gave a short history of his company, which he now runs with his brother Steve. He gave the following tips to help others be successful at running an on line store:

• Communicate 3 things:
  • Expertise – establish authority. Show, don’t just tell.
  • Offer Products to Solve Problems – Offer solutions to your customers.
  • Why You Should Buy From Us
• Use blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook – any and all social media sites to show you are an expert in what you sell.
• Create buyers guides. These offer detailed, expert information to help customer solve their problems.
• Show you use the products you sell.
• Interview other experts and share that information.
• Transcribe dialog from video to text on web pages for better SEO.
• Turn customers’ questions into FAQs to get more content.
• Be price competitive AND give excellent customer service.

For another summary, check out Janet Driscoll Miller’s work on searchmarketingsage.

PPC – Über Advanced: Christine Churchill, Wister Walcott, David Szetela and Brian Massey

• Christine started off the session with a presentation entitled “PPC – Analytics Strategy”
  • If you’re doing Google AdWords, use Google Analytics (GA) with it in order to get additional reporting capabilities. Even if you prefer another analytics tool, the additional information you get from GA makes it worth the effort to use it.
  • Use the Keyword Positioning Report in GA to fine tune ad position preference decisions (this works in CPC mode only).
  • Check out GA Advanced Segments to allow for better tracking of details which can help you design better landing pages.
  • GA Custom Reports can help with advanced analytics, too.
  • You can combing Advanced Segments with Custom Reports to get some extremely detailed data.
• Brian gave some great tips on making landing pages which will better convert from click thought to sale or lead.
  • Testimonials from customers work in almost any industry.
  • Use “Risk Reversal” – excellent guarantees and wording like “We respect your privacy” go a long way in establishing trust with customers.
  • Retarget ads through AdWords. Google “follows” customers who click your ad to other sites through cookies and shows your ad to them over and over again. This can lead to addition clicks and action.
  • Measure everything. Everything is a test.
• David gave his “Top 10″ list of Cool New Things in PPC Advertising
  • Dayparting With Bing Data – Bing shows day segment data in its default reports. GA does this but AdWords doesn’t, so you have to do a little extra work to get the same information from Google.
  • Ads at the top of Gmail.
  • New AdWords User Types – manage access to different parts of a campaign.
  • New Conversion Optimzer Features – more control over CPA.
  • View-Through Conversions – VTC are conversions which occur after a banner was viewed by not clicked. Clix estimates 50% accuracy in this data.
  • Focused History Change – easier reporting by campaign
  • New AdWords Keyword Tool – good for search and content campaigns. Greatly improved over previous versions.
  • New AdWords Placement Tool – Better control over ad placement.
  • AdWords Sitelinks Ads – Allow for up to 4 additional links per ad. This gives opportunity for more keywords and deeper linking. This is great for more conversions.
  • New AdWords Graphs – better tools so you don’t need to bounce between GA and AdWords as much. There are even more features if you use the Chrome browser.
• Wister’s portion of the session was entitled “Structured Search Tips and Techniques”
  • Structured Search is used by those who change products or lines often or real estate pros.
  • Tail-heavy businesses should use this approach.
  • The web site should have a landing page for each SKU or item. Break down campaigns for different items.
  • Be specific, compliant, reinforcing and adaptable.
  • Make sure you offer trademarked items for sale if you use their words in ads. Google will block your ads if you don’t.
• Janet Driscoll Miller also did a great summary of this session.

Public Relations in a Social Media World: Sean Jackson, Steve Plunkett, Giovanni Gallucci, Lisa Buyer

• Giovanni kicked off this excellent session using the launch of Viewzi as a case study
  • “What if we promoted brands only with social media?”
  • Need to concentrate on SEO first:
    • Click thrus by humans
    • Keywords and phrases by humans
    • Backlinks for search engines
    • Anchor text for search engines
  • Prior to and during the launch of Viewzi
    • Define what the product or service is
    • Get some buzz going. Use Cision.com to communicate with journalists after finding them on Twitter and LinkedIn, etc. Build relationships with them early and pitch later. This takes time, you can’t do this in a month.
    • After building relationships you can work with people and not have it be a cold call.
    • Of course, use blogs, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
• Next came Sean with his presentation “Public Relations And …”
  • PR Success for any medium involves:
    • Clarify – Just because everyone says you should be there, should you?
      • Look at the limitations of a given platform.
      • Check to see if your audience is on the platform and make sure you can engage and sustain.
    • Monitor – Use RSS to look at conversations. Look for your Brand, names, market terms, competition and misspellings.
    • Engage – It takes an investment of time, effort and money. It is a process oriented thing. Define rules, procedures and responsibilities. Read “Authority Rules” by Brian Clark (authorityrules.com). You must make yourself an authority in whatever you are talking about. Use Google Alerts to monitor news and rewrite (while making sure you give proper attribution to the original source) instead of retweeting. (See keynote notes). Consider using www.twaitter.com to schedule tweets so content is fresh.
      • Be useful to the reader
      • Provide a sense of urgency
      • Convey that the main benefit is unique
      • Do the above in an ultra-specific way
        Make sure to say “Thank You” to people who use your press releases, retweeters, and others who pass on your message.
      • Advocate yourself sparingly, but with authority
• Lisa was next:
  • PR, Social Media and SEO are really in the same business
  • Publicize, Socialize and Optimize (in that order)
    • Publicize using press releases, video, blogs and newsrooms. Distribute them via RSS and pitch engine.
    • Socialize as a part of the PR strategy. Be frequent and consistent.
    • Optimize all. Remember to use key words in press releases and social media stuff.
      • Lee Odden said “if It can be searched it can be optimized”
      • Consider a branded YouTube channel and host optimized video to match press releases.
    • Track and analyze. Looks for the best results. Mix thinks up and test everything.
• Last up for this session was Steve
  • Sometimes in order to work PR better you need to:
    • Do media training
    • Develop Messages (keywords)
    • Give press and analyst tours
    • Cultivate relations with analysts and members of the media
    • Support trade shows (booth and material production)
    • Develop and practive crisis communications
    • Do speaking engagements
  • Sometimes PR means blogging, or digital newsletters or a Ning group.

Proactive Reputation Management: Tony Wright

• People contribute to social media to connect, to feel part of a community.
• 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust those from people whom they don’t know. (Econsultancy, July 2009)
• The average consumer mentions brands over 90 times per week with friends, family and coworkers (John Moore, WOMMA, 2010)
• There were nearly 116 million US CG content consumers in 2008 along with 82.5 content creators. (eMarketer, 2008)
• Understand the landscape – what’s out there:
  • Blogs
  • SERPS (very important, little automation available)
  • Reviews (very important with Google Local aggregation)
  • Message Boards
  • Hate Websites
  • Twitter
  • Location-based Sites (Foursquare, Gowalla)
  • Social Bookmarking Sites
• Monitoring tools have not kept up with CGC. You have to use different tools to monitor different things. Reviews and SERPs are manual monitoring only. Google Alerts and RSS feeds of searches help quite a bit.
• “Doing PR during a crisis is like eating healthy during a heart attack” – Unknown
• Most companies don’t do reputation management until a crisis hits. If a crisis hits a blank slate, the crisis wins. Companies with unmanaged reputations will lost infinitely more than those who manage theirs constantly.
• Manage your Brand’s reputation proactively:
  • Social Media Policies (don’t just focus on productivity issues, encourage employees to say nice things on SM).
  • Employee Education – everyone from the CEO to the newest person needs to understand how they can influence online reputation for good or bad. Reward employees who are mentioned in good reviews.
  • Proactive Review Strategies – Deal with negative reviews offline where possible (leave a note asking the complainer to call you). Realize there will be some bad reviews. Encourage regular customers to post some good reviews.
  • Influencer ID and outreach – Use tools like Klout to see who’s talking and who’s listening to them. This is an ongoing process. Create relationships with influencers and provide them with value. Collective Intellect is a great tool, but a little pricy. Don’t spam influencers, ask permission to talk to them. Meet them offline where possible.
  • Be part of “the Conversation” – Encourage employees to be subject matter experts in relevant online places. Offer extra value on your entire web presence. Offer customer service in public forums.
  • Crisis Planning – You need to have a crisis plan: who will do what, when, and where? How will you quantify success in your plan? It’s not a bad idea to have outside consultants check your plan and even be part of the plan to be outside eyes. Brainstorm worst case scenarios. This can be the basis of all your other crisis planning.
• You must monitor your brand AT ALL TIMES.
• Be prepared.
• Be honest and accountable. This is the best policy in the long run.
• The phone is the most underused tool in reputation management. It’s amazing what can be accomplished just by talking to someone nicely on the phone.

How To Start and Grow a User Generated Content Community: Paul Edmondson

• Five things to help you start and grow:
  • Partner
    • For accountability
    • Combine strengths, help cover individual weak areas
    • For the long haul
  • Money
    • It takes time to build a community
    • Rarely do you find latent demand for a user-generated content service
    • You can’t make it if you’re undercapitalized
    • Venture capital is not for everybody, but it can work well.
  • Product
    • If you build a good rewarding service people will use it.
    • Segment your users
    • Cater to the highest value
    • Watch closely how people use it … you might have to make some tough decisions.
  • Marketing
    • Establish value metrics per post and per member
    • Test channels
    • Maximize the channels that produce
  • Everyday
    • Take care of your business
    • Treat the community well
    • Enforce the rules
    • Show up every day
    • Improve

Advanced PPC For Management: Kate Morris

• Every account and company are different – what’s presented here are merely guidelines.
• Key to Success in PPC
  • Poetry License
  • Strong OCD – Organization skills, Customer knowledge, Data analysis
• Setup Must Haves
  • Tracking! Analytics, Internal PPC platform tracking
  • Backup credit card (Just in case something happens with the primary card)
  • Mobile or not? If your site doesn’t work on mobile you need to turn off mobile in AdWords
  • Weekly reports emailed as CSV for easy import into Excel.
• Pull Levers with Care
  • Devices and networks
  • Geography and language
  • Local settings
  • Product settings
  • Bidding changes
  • Day Parting – figure out what times your ads work better and concentrate on those times. Increase bids on peak times.
  • Content Network – doesn’t work for everyone. Use with discretion. Isolate this to specific campaigns.
• Account Organization
  • Specific to a business and what they do
  • Possibly location-specific
  • Make sure landing pages are keyword rich and match the keywords in the ads. This helps increase quality score which lowers cost. Look for “Edwards editor” as a tool to help work out quality score.
• Keywords
  • Think like your customer. What will they use as a search phrase? It’s not always what you think they will look for.
  • Think customer intent
• Haiku Marketing
  • Know the rules
  • Use numbers – people love metrics. Put a price in the ad
  • Get attention – do competitive research, not to copy buy to stand out apart from them
  • CTR does not equal conversions
  • Look at the keywords
  • Destination URL
• Tip: Dynamic Keyword Insertion
• Product Listings
  • Be in Google Base. It gets a picture in your ad.
  • Link to Google Local Business Account when appropriate
  • Be honest and don’t try to game the system.
• Mobile Pay Per Call
  • Only for users of smart phones
  • Pay per call instead of pay per click
  • Great for local businesses.
  • Not shown on desktop ads
• Site Links
  • Still in Beta
  • Up to four links
  • Can add up to 10 links to an account, Google chooses 4 to show.
  • Worth giving a try if you’re in the Beta.
• Note: I had a chance to chat with Kate via Twitter a couple months ago on a subject, nothing to do with web marketing. Not only is she a very sharp web marketer, she’s also a very nice person.

The last session of the day was entitled “Rogue SEO and Social Media.” The moderator asked us not to blog about it, but I did get some great tips on video I don’t thing anyone would object to me sharing:

• A video is 50 times more likely than a text page on the same topic to appear on Google’s page 1 SERP. – Forrester
• SEO for video on sharing sites is very basic
• Valuable and interesting content will win with video. Doesn’t necessarily need to be viral to win.
• Don’t just make one video, make many. It’s fairly cheap using a $200 camera and iMovie.
• Videos with social media tools get 20% more traffic. Make the videos easy to share.
• Don’t just make ads. People don’t like ads. Make useful, added-value content.
• With YouTube doing automatic captioning, they will be able to rate videos based on key words spoken in the video.

I’m a big advocate of using video to share a brand’s story. I think these little tidbits are great “convincers” that jumping on the video bandwagon is cheap and well worth the effort.

One last thing I learned today: if you click inside the edit box in WordPress and hit <Alt><Shift><g> the edit box expands to the full browser window with the edit buttons at the top of the page. This is very convenient when doing long posts like this one. I’m using Google Chrome, so I’ll have to check to see if it works in other browsers.

All in all I thin PubCon was a huge success. Congratulations and thanks to Brett Tabke and all the folks at Webmaster World for putting it together.

I had to bow out of a great seminar hosted by Southwest Media Group in Dallas last month because of some business obligations. Thankfully, they were nice enough to send me a bag of SWAG, in which was included a copy of “The Chaos Scenario” by Bob Garfield.

The subtitle of the book reads, “Amid the Ruins of Mass Media, The Choice for Business is Stark: Listen or Perish.” Garfield goes on to explain what this means through the 300+ pages of his book. You can get a good gist of the book by watching Bob’s video from his web site The Chaos Scenario:

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Sometimes irreverent, very often funny, always interesting, this is an excellent read for anyone who wishes to be involved in marketing (especially web and social media marketing), advertising, or public relations. While you may not agree with all of Garfield’s opinions, you will still gain some valuable insight as to where things are are now and where they are going as you learn his theory of “listenomics.” There are some excellent case studies included to give you a sense of what he is teaching from Lego in Denmark to Beer in Australia. He also includes a detailed history of the “Comcast Must Die” campaign he waged in an effort to secure better customer service from the cable giant.

I put this in the same category with “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” “Groundswell,” and “Trust Agents” as required reading for anyone marketing on the web.

I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by a local television station’s news department about the recent spate of worms going around on Twitter. You can view the piece on YouTube. I wish there had been more time to cover the subject in more detail, but when there are only 2 minutes available in which to condense down and show 20 minutes worth of interview, some things are bound to be left out.

Because we talked about phishing scams in general as well as security on Twitter and Facebook, I thought I’d go over some details which I wish there had been more time to cover in the piece.

There Is Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself
Caution in your web dealings is always good practice and a little paranoia can be a good thing. But, I don’t think there is a need to be fearful of using Twitter and Facebook. These, and other social media web sites, can be very valuable and enriching tools to help you keep in touch with friends and family members and even meet new people you may never had an opportunity to meet otherwise.

Circles Of Trust
I use different social media sites in different ways and each site has its own trust level. For instance, on Facebook I only “friend” people I know or who are close friends of people I trust. I haven’t necessarily met everyone IRL (in real life), but I have some kind of ongoing relationship with them. My Facebook privacy is set to show my updates to only friends. This way, I can be a bit more free about how much personal information I post there.

On Twitter I will follow just about anyone and allow just about anyone to follow me from my mom to selected celebrities. I closely follow those whom I think will point me towards interesting and enlightening things to read, who will tweet things I find humorous, and whom I find otherwise interesting. I am very careful not to tweet too much personal information because I know Twitter is not nearly as private as Facebook.

I have also been playing with Foursquare lately. Because this service can offer clues as to when I’m home or not and where I am, I do not have each “checkin” ported to Twitter, but I do to Facebook. Again, I have more trust in those whom I friend on Facebook as opposed to the very public Twitter. In my short time on Foursquare I have been very choosy who I will allow to follow my status.

The Latest Twitter Worm
Problems on Twitter and Facebook tend to be more along the lines of phishing scams rather than a virus or malware infestation. In the case which prompted the interview for the TV spot, one would see a message in their Twitter Direct Message list, purportedly from someone they follow. Included in the message is a link which when clicked led to a very convincing, but bogus, login page inviting the visitor to provide their Twitter user name and password.

When the bogus login page was used, the user’s name and password was captured by the web site and used by a program to log into the unsuspecting person’s Twitter account and start sending messages to try to trick others into clicking the link and giving their Twitter user names and passwords to the phishers.  It’s amazingly simple, but clever. And it works – even against those who are rather social media savvy.

Protecting Yourself
I mentioned in the interview that you should be cautious about login pages which come from emails, tweets or Facebook wall postings. If you are asked to log in, check the URL in the address bar very closely. For instance, the login for Twitter is at www.twitter.com/login. So, if you see something like http://twitter.anyotherdomain.com you can know immediately this is a phishing site.

To better protect yourself, take the time to go to the login pages for your email, Twitter, Facebook, your bank, etc. Pay attention to the URL in the address bar as well as how the page looks.The URL in the address bar is much more difficult to fake than the look of the login page. Being familiar with the addresses will also help you avoid other phishing attacks which are more sophisticated and more difficult to detect.

Keep in mind, too, your bank is most likely not going to email you if there is a problem with your account and ask you for your user name and password. Neither is Western Union, eBay, PayPal, the FBI, the IRS nor any other government agency. If you get a message from your bank, or anyone else, with a link supposedly leading to a login page, don’t click on the link but instead type the address into your address bar – or (even better) click on the link in your web browser’s favorites list or booksmarks which you created earlier. That way, you can avoid the phishing site and know you are going to a legitimate site.

If you do receive an odd message which looks like it’s from someone you know, don’t be afraid to email the person and ask about it. It could be they actually did send the message. Go with your gut feeling: if it looks strange and out of place it probably is. It doesn’t hurt to ask. If the message didn’t come from them, they might appreciate knowing their account had been been compromised.

Be cautious of third party applications developed for services like Twitter and Facebook. There have been instances where people have set up malicious applications disguised to look like  a game or a useful tool to help you get more out of the site. Check out third party applications before you provide your user names and passwords to them.

User Names And Passwords
I did a piece last year about passwords which you can check out here: “Four Steps To Better Passwords.” In it, I advise people not to use the same password on every web site. This is especially important if you use the same user name on every site. Think about it in light of this situation: if you used the same user name and password for Twitter as your other services it would be very easy for someone to completely take over your online life. Think about having your email, social media, PayPal and/or eBay accounts taken over by someone else. It’s worth repeating: Use a different password on each web site which requires a password. You can use the pattern method I describe in the post linked to above or come up with your own system.

I even go so far as to have a different user name for my online banking account. I love the convenience of online banking, but I feel that convenience needs to be balanced against some healthy caution when it comes to keeping things secure.

Social Media Tip for Those With Teens
A friend of mine who has a teenage daughter vets those her daughter friends on Facebook very carefully. Before her daughter is allowed to friend someone on Facebook, she is required to explain how she knows the person and confirm the person is really who they say they are. I believe with teens this is a very prudent way to help prevent perverts from taking advantage of kids.

What Do You Think?
Do you have any hints to share about security on social media sites? Please tell us about it in the comments.

Image courtesy of KWTX

A few weeks ago I was discussing with some colleagues how a social media program fits into the larger scheme of web marketing. I wanted to draw out a diagram, but the office where we were meeting didn’t have a white board and I didn’t have time in the course of the conversation to do a PowerPoint. Looking back, I supposed I could have sketched something out on a piece of paper. As the saying goes, “Hindsight is 20/20.”

Here is the diagram I was thinking about in my head at the time:

The way I envision this, everything flows downhill for the most part. You might also think of this as a funnel. The only difference here is sometimes links go up as well as down.

Let’s say you’re working on a web marketing strategy for a company which sells, installs and services hot tubs. The company already has a web site which offers brochures via mail to those who request them. This is the main source of leads for the sales force for this company, so the ultimate goal of the web site is to get potential customers to order a brochure. The web site has lots of information about hot tubs with pictures, specifications, financing options, care and use tips and, of course, an order form to request a brochure.

The sales staff, in-house designers, installers and service personnel post information to the blog, which of course has links back to relevant sections of the web site. The blog contains images and videos made by the various departments in the company which are posted on “Media Sharing Sites” and embedded or linked to from the blog. The “channels” on those media sharing sites are linked to from the main web site, as well.

As blog articles, images and videos are added in their various places, they are “tweeted” and posted on Facebook, MySpace, etc. with links back to the content. Staff members are encouraged to join Facebook, Twitter, etc. and keep and eye open for people who may be looking for information about hot tubs to see if there are any conversations to join. Those people in the company’s service area might be encouraged to check out the web site (and, hopefully, order a brochure). A light touch is all that’s needed. There’s no “selling” in these spaces, just information and the occasional “Please check out our web site if you want specific information.”

Each staff member is assigned a forum or other web site which is aimed at those who are interested in hot tubs. They are encouraged to check in, read the posts and participate. Answering questions is highly encouraged in these forums. Again, there’s no “selling” going on. It’s all about giving out good information and pointing others to the web site if appropriate. It’s expected that once people are known to be knowledgeable about hot tubs, those who are interested in purchasing a hot tub in the company’s service area would be more likely to visit their web site rather than someone else’s because they would be dealing with people they kind of know already.

Some of you may be thinking this is somewhat simplistic. It is; but, it well serves the purpose of giving a broad overview of how a managed web marketing plan might work. There are many different ways in which this might be done depending on what business a company is in and many other circumstances. Each business must look at the online landscape and figure out its own detailed strategy.

Chris Brogan and Julien Smith are two who have risen to the top of the social media sphere. Chris, in particular, is quite often on my radar. I just finished their book “Trust Agents” (Amazon Affiliate Link) which is subtitled “Using the web to build influence, improve reputation and earn trust.”

I had the chance to hear Chris speak at last year’s PubCon South in Austin, and was impressed with this ideas on how businesses can move in the social media sphere. I’ve been following his blog and tweets for over a year now, so when he and Julien released their book I put it on my “must read” list.

I wasn’t disappointed. May of the ideas presented in this book are also covered in Brogan’s other writings. What’s nice about having them in book format is that everything is arranged by topics in an easily-digested format along with a lot of material from Smith (who, by the way, is going on my “follow” list).

I approached reading this book from the perspective that people don’t want to be “sold to” any more. People are tired of traditional marketing and PR methods which attempt to tell them how to think, what to buy and how much to spend. I firmly believe the tide is quickly turning against this concept in communications. People have been talking about brands and products for years and The Net allows those communications to flow more freely than ever.

If “companies” and “brands” are to succeed they need to adapt to the online culture. What Brogan and Smith do in “Trust Agents” is lay out a road map on how to understand and join the communities where The Conversation is already going on. They don’t give a set of step-by-step instructions showing how to succeed on Twitter or Facebook, but rather they explain the concepts needed to succeed in social media settings in general. These concepts can be applied to just about any on line community or communications tool. There are a number of examples of real life people who are already employing these concepts, and succeeding, to give you an idea of how powerful these tools can be.

The principles put forth can also be used by people looking to further their individual goals. Are you looking for a job? Then look to be a trust agent. Are you looking to create better relations between departments at work? Then look to be a trust agent. Are you looking to be a catalyst for change for the better? Then be a trust agent.

If you are looking to succeed in getting your message out online then “Trust Agents” is a must read. If you are still skeptical about web marketing, and social media marketing in particular, then you owe it to yourself to read the words of Brogan and Smith to see what you might be missing. Either way, taking time to read this volume is time well spent.

Within the social media talk you often hear the advice to give value to “The Community.”
This refers to adding value to the online social community(ies) one belongs to. While this is very important, I want us to reflect on giving back to “Our Communities,” namely the communities where we live. Our “In Real Life” or “IRL” communities.

There is a universal law which is summed up in the phrase “what goes around, comes around.”
Some refer to this law as “Karma” and others may call it “sowing and reaping.” Basically, the more good you spread around, the more good comes back to you. Conversely, the more bad you spread around, the more bad comes back to you. No matter what you name it, this law applies to our jobs and, I believe more importantly, life outside it.

Philosophers, scholars, theologians, and many other scholarly types have tried to explain how this law works. I don’t think anyone has a real explanation. Perhaps this is one of those instances in which there is no reason, that’s just the way it is.

My encouragement to you is to get outside your online world, get into the real world, make a difference to those around you and make this law work for you. Do more than just donate a few bucks to charities. I don’t mean for you to stop giving money, because that is important. But, I think you should look around and find something which needs to be done in your community and offer your time and talent to help get it done.

If you think you have little to offer, consider these if you lack the skills to do the primary work of an organization:

• Can you offer support, other than monetary? Perhaps you can do paperwork, cater (cook) lunch or go out and purchase materials.
• Can you do some pro-bono work along your regular business lines?
• Is there training available so you can get the skills the organization needs?
• Can you teach a class about something you do know about?
• Do you have connections which will help the group get professional assistance they might need?
• Don’t be afraid to “get your hands dirty” and get into some unskilled labor, too.

Regardless of the organization or cause you support, you have something to offer. Many times, just the desire to help is all that is required.

The Holiday Season is the time of year when many people open up their wallets to charities. My hope is you will consider stepping out and doing something in person, too.

By doing so you can benefit greatly, without necessarily benefiting your bottom line:

• You can meet some fantastic people you otherwise may not have met. Some of these can turn into very good business contacts, too.
• You can learn some new skills and knowledge. Anything you learn will profit you in one way or another.
• Along with that, you can do something out of your normal routine. This refreshes the mind and helps keep you sharp for when you are in the office. As the British say, “A change is as good as a rest.”
• You can be part of something bigger than just you.
• You can get that “warm fuzzy” feeling which comes only from helping someone else who can’t pay you back.

So, get out there and look around. Someone needs you, and not just because you’re a computer nerd or a marketing maven (or whatever it is you do for a living).

photo credit: woodleywonderworks