After reading the comments from our Small Business Marketing Workshop last week, I promised to do some blog entries on social networking, particularly Facebook, for people who are just getting started.  So here are the fundamentals:

1) Why use social networks like Facebook?     
    Social networks provide a space for people to contact and stay in touch with other people. Used socially, that means you can find and stay in touch with your high school classmates, your family and friends, members of your organization, or people with whom you share a common interest. Many social networks let you post text, links, pictures, videos, and documents to share with your fellow networkers, which Facebook calls 'friends'.
    If the social network idea had never expanded farther than that it would still be a great communication tool, but it did expand into . In addition to a standard account, Facebook allows you to create a page specifically for a business, band, celebrity... whatever you want to promote. This way, you can keep your new Business Page separate from your personal account.
    
2) So what makes Facebook so great?
    It is estimated that there are somewhere around 200 million websites available on the Internet. According to Alexa.com the most popular website in the world is Google (no surprise there...) and the second most popular website in the entire world is Facebook. 
Like many social networks, it's free to use. They do have paid advertisements if you're interested, but the service is free. The only thing you must have is an email address.

3) Alright, how do I 'get on Facebook'?  
    By going to http://www.facebook.com and signing up. The main page will look like this: 



Fill in the necessary information (First Name, Last Name, Your Email, New Password, Male/Female and your birthday) and click the Sign Up button.
    The next screen will probably be a 'Captcha' screen, which is to prove you are human (as opposed to a program trying to gain access) It will look something lke the picture below. In order to prove you're a real person, simply type the words you see in the picture with a space between them and click the button.


Next there are some wizards designed to help you get started, You can walk through these now, or deal with this stuff later by editing your profile. Once you've finished, take a look around the site and familiarize yourself with the default pages which come with your account. They are:

The Home Page
 

...and the Profile Page



Take a look through them. I'll cover details on each in my next entry.
Until then, enjoy!

Problem:
      In today's economy keeping a small business afloat is more challenging than ever. When your days are spent creating your product or providing services to your clients, it's hard to focus on building your business. 

Solution:
     Marketing 201 for Small Business Success in 2010 . If you wear all the hats in your business and have to do everything alon or with volunteer help at your small business, here's a marketing workshop made just for you - presented at a local small business established in 1996.

What you get:

• A start on a marketing plan outline specific to your business
• A plan for a professional identity package
• 10 marketing steps you can take that won't cost you a dime
• In depth knowledge of search engine optimization including key words, links, and submission
• An understanding of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites to grow your business
• An overview of pay-per-click and other search marketing campaigns
• 5 common marketing mistakes to avoid
• Detailed steps to make your website more powerful
• Answers to your questions about the internet and marketing
• Small session size for one-on-one interaction with your workshop presenters 

Where:    First Farm Inn - 2510 Stevens Road, Petersburg, KY 40180
When:     Sunday, January 31, 2010 from 2 to 5 p.m.

More Details:  First Farm Inn or Cincinnati Website Solutions

Website promoters, take note:

As a webmaster for multiple clients, I also often play the role of blog administrator. One of my responsibilities is to approve comments made about the blog entries. It's not difficult, but one thing I have noticed is this:

Some people use a blog comment to post a link back to their website.And that is perfectly acceptable IF the comment is legitimate. In fact, if you or one of your minions is not currently reading and posting comments to blogs, then you're missing a great opportunity to get your links out into the ether - and we all know that search engines love finding links to your site.

The trick is that many times (over half the time, in my experience) the comment is not legitimate AND it contains a link to someone's website. Using a complex mathmatical equation which I just made up, I have identified a new species of internet communications:

                                                        SPAM + COMMENTS = SPAMMENTS

 Up until recently these spamments were easy to spot because they contained gibberish or at best, really bad english. They might look something like this:

    slkje w okijoweko wkm b owokiw  dswwexxosi w

or 

    I have okay for you. Now girls going crazy for your manly... (well, you get the idea...)

Those were easy to spot and delete. Their message to the blog owner is quite clear; "If you don't administrate your blog comments (and many people don't) then you will never notice that this is gibberish, so I'm going to take advantage of your stupidity to promote myself."

 But over the years spamments have proven to be highly resourceful at adapting to their environment. In fact, lately I've discovered a new subspecies of spamment - the TEPID SPAMMENT. 

This brave new subspecies actually looks like a legitimate comment (with a link, of course) except that upon closer inspection one may notice that the comment is so generic that it might apply to anything - which is, I'm sure, the whole purpose of the tepid spamment - you can use it just about anywhere and it doesn't directly offend. Unfortunately for the blog owner, it also doesn't really say anything useful.  Here's an example:

                                            Nice article. You provide a great service. www.cincinnatiwebs.com

Some of my clients have suggested that these comments are legit, but I recognize the TEPID SPAMMENT when I see it. IMHO (in my humble opinion) the tepid spamment is also sending a message to the blog owner, which says; "Okay, so you administer your blog comments, but maybe you're either stupid enough or desperate enough to get comments on your blog that you'll let this one slide, in which case, I get to promote my site without actually reading or caring about your blog entry."

The idea is simple:  Get a list of blogs to abuse, create a tepid spamment generic enough to use on all of them, and spend an hour or two placing your link all over the internet. It's not a bad idea, really and I bet it works much better than the original spamments do. But it still makes me angry. These people are taking advantage of bloggers to promote their own site(s). And some blog owners don't even mind being taken advantage of... they'd prefer to see more comments on their site - even the tepid spamment.

So, What's a self-respecting blog administrator to do? Well, I have found a solution which satisfies my clients and appeals to my sense of truth, justice and the american way (Kids, don't try this at home - I'm a professional and I use all the proper safety equipment.)  I remove the link and then post the comment. Yes, it takes longer for me to do that, but my client is happy with more comments on his blog and I feel I'm doing my job to protect my blogs from spamments.

Mind you, if you send a tepid spamment to MY blog - I'll remove the link and use it as an example.  So, in the immortal words of Pat Benatar (okay, so I'm dating myself...),
 
                                                "Hit me with your best shot... Fire Away."

This story is true. If you don't believe me, do a little research on Joshua Bell.

In a Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. 

After 3 minutes:
a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule. 

4 minutes later: The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, and continued to walk. 

6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. 

10 minutes: A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly. 

45 minutes: The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.. 

1 hour: He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed.. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days earlier, Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100. This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. 

The questions raised: 

    *In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? 
    *Do we stop to appreciate it? 
    *Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made; how many other things are we missing?

Here is one of the best lines I have read recently:

Life is not about waiting for the rain to stop, rather it is about learning how to dance in the rain.


Let's Dance...

    You spent a lot of time and energy creating your website. The text you created for each page is valuable and useful information, But the question you need to ask yourself is this: Once a person get to your website, are they reading your content? Or are they ignoring most of what you wrote?

    Statistics suggest that most people do not read all the text on a web page. Rather they tend to Scan down the page for something that catches their eye. For instance - as you looked at this entry, what did your eye notice first?  Statistics suggest that, whether intentional or not, you first noticed the larger bold colored text 'most people do not read...'

    The text does not have to be larger or bold to catch the eye, but it does need to stand out from the rest of the text..


                                                                       (... perhaps like this.)


    But catching a person's eye is only the first half of your job. The second half is to give them something short and sweet and to the point because drawing their attention to something is pointless unless it also arouses their interest. In fact it might even be considered irritating if you draw their eye to something and they decide that it is not interesting, or worse, that you're rambling on and on... Do you see how this long, drawn out example of large bolded colored text is not nearly as effective as the original short example above? 

    So draw their attention to a section of your page with a short concise heading. If the heading arouses their interest, then they are more likely to read the paragraph or two of regular you have written about that topic.

    Search engines also love short, relevant headers. They should be placed inside Header tags (if you don't program your own site, ask your webmaster about Header tags) for greatest effect.  So let's say you have a section on left handed Widgets. Perhaps it would look something like this:

Left Handed Widgets Cost Less

    It has long been know that left-handed widgets are rarer than their right-handed counterparts, but what may not be so widely know is that you can  save an average of 15% when buying left-handed widgets... Here at "Widgets R Us" you can find all your widget needs, assuming, of course, that you actually need widgets, which you may not... In fact you probably aren't even reading this far into the paragraph, particularly if you clicked the link to go buy a left-handed widget, so I'll just blather on endlessly... blather blather blather... but hopefully your eye was attracted to 1) the header and 2) the bolded colored text. In fact, what I really wanted was for you to click on the link and go buy some of my left-handed widgets...

    Get the idea?  What we really want is for people to be drawn to the topic "Left Handed Widgets Cost Less".  Not everybody will care about left handed widgets, But those that do care are more likely to read the paragraph. 

    And within the first sentence or so, give them another eye-catching bit of text. In this case it's a link which would take the reader to go buy a left handed widget. So they don't have to read the entire paragraph if they don't want to (and many won't want to.)  AND WE DON'T CARE... what we really want is for them to go buy a left handed widget.   

    Okay, don't get upset with me. The rest of the text should be valuable and relevant.  But you should also understand that the people who read down that far are less likely to buy your left handed widget. And, after all, what is the primary purpose of  your website? To inform or to sell?

    Have a safe and happy new year. 
 

...All you need do is send an email about this promotion to 8 people and you will receive an Ericsson T18 laptop. However, if you send an email to 20 or more people, you will receive and Ericsson R320 laptop...
 
                               OH, COME ON!  (you can't possible believe that...)   

    I am amazed at the stupidity with which some malcontents are trying to disrupt internet and email services. Even more, I am dismayed when I receive proof that people actually overlook the stupidity and respond to such feeble attempts, thus propegating the lie AND encouraging these morons to come up with even more banal, asinine fodder.

    Oh, I'm sorry... Was I ranting?  Yes, I suppose I was...
    
    And, why, pray tell, should I rant? Today it's because of an email hoax I received from a colleague - or, to clarify, this was an email begin forwarded by a colleague to  exactly 20 people (might as well go for the gold...). The email title was simply "FW: Ericsson Laptop" and so I opened it and began reading it.. The message added by my colleague (who shall remain nameless because I hope she's already thoroughly humiliated and I do not wish to embarass her further) simply read "Do you know 20 people to send this to?"

The attached email  message  was preceded by the email headers of 3 previous recipients who had each forwarded it to 20 people also. So already I know that this one missive was already sent to at least 80 people, of which I was unfortunately one.

Now, to the actual email hoax that started this folly:

Strike One: The first line should have been a dead giveaway to anyone with half a brain (yes, I'm still ranting, sorry.) Presumeably a preamble included by whoever originated the email, it read "Snopes.com shows it as a legitimate offer." There was no link to Snopes.com, just the statement.
    ... HELLO?... Does that set off any alarms? Oh, but wait, it gets better...     
    The next line read; "I DID check with Snopes - it IS legit... They're trying to match a recent deal by Nokia!"

    So the email starts off by suggesting that Snopes.com (a site which verifies or exposes urban legends as hoaxes, frauds, scams, ... and occasionallly as legitimate) NOT ONCE, but TWICE, and yet without a link to snopes.com with which to verify this offer's legitimacy. (Know why? Because if you actually went to snopes.com and read their report on this claim you'd see that it's COMPLETELY FALSE.)   

Strike Two: The next giveaway was that the original message (text and all) was a graphic file - a picture. Now, friends and neighbors, there are a few legitimate reasons one might place text into a graphich file - particularly if you wish to use an unusual font which the recipient may not have on their PC.  But another good reason to place text in a picture is to get past the spam filters which you know are looking for the very text you're trying to transmit.  The filters can't see the text in a picture, so the email is more likely to bypass the spam filters.

Strike Three: And finally, the fantasy that any company will compensate you (with a new laptop in this case, but sometimes it's a promise of money) when you forward their email to your peers.  (the poor company can't afford a decent marketing campaign, but they apparently can afford to give away new laptops...) And not just to you, but to EVERYBODY who likewise forwards the email to their peers. Of course there is no mention of a limited time or 'while supplies last'. 

<climbs up on soapbox> (yeah, I wanna rant some more...) Now, what kind of pathetic loser actually creates such a flimsy and ridiculous hoax and sends it out into the ether hoping to create chaos? My first guess is someone who wishes to think of him (or her) self as a b@d@ss like the people who write malicious software, viruses, trojans and such. They hope to create mayhem and destruction with their evil schemes.  Unfortunately they aren't smart enough actually write malicious code, nor are they ambitious enough to learn how.  So the only option they have (other than getting a real life) is to fabricate a lie and hope to lure you into viciously forwarding their email to your peers, where it will viciously annoy anyone with a brain. These people are not to be feared... they are to be pitied.  (poor little pathetic losers...) 

    The people who should be feared are those like my colleague who can read such obvious tripe and still manage to forward it to their peers either without thinking about the foolishness of their actions, or without caring about the foolishness of their actions, ... OR (Heaven forbid) actually believing the tripe and making plans for their soon to arrive new laptop. These are our peers... our colleagues and THEY SHOULD KNOW BETTER! But they forwarded the tripe anyway. 
    Why should we fear them? Because if they're thoughtless/careless/foolish enough to fall for this hoax, which is obvious and easy to identify as pure poppycock, then they are probably thoughless/careless/foolish enough to fall for the real threats. And worse... they are passing them on to people like us. (BAD colleague! BAD!)

Especially now, with the holiday season upon us, there are potentially dangerous websites, emails and social networking entries to look out for. Please, please, please... don't be a bad colleague.  There's usually a reason an offer sounds too good to be true...

Be safe!
and
Happy Holidays!

I just updated my website.  Have you? Or, more to the point; When is the last time you made an update to your website? Yeah, I know... your website is great just the way it looks now. You've got all the information on it that you want. And, darn it, you've got too much other stuff going on right now and you just don't want to have to think about it.

Yeah, me too...
.
.
.
.
.
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BUT... (does this font make my 'but' look big?) your website really does need to be updated regularly. There are several reasons, but the two most important are these:  1) So people who came to your website last week have a reason to come to it again. and 2) Because search engines tend to rate web pages higher that have regularly updated content. That's one of the reasons blogs are good for search engine rankings - because they get updated regularly. And so should one or two (or more) pages of your website.

So how can we appease the search engine gods without rewriting the perfect text that already exists on our website? One thing you can do is to have a section of the page dedicated to updated content.  If you take a look at CW's home page, you'll see in the right column a couple of entries entitled "Latest Blog Entry" and "New Article Published".  I usually write a new blog entry once or twice a week, so this quick blurb about my latest blog entry can be updated that often, too.  I don't write articles quite so often as blog entries, but the concept is the same.

Another example in the case of CW's home page is in the lower left column. I have a Featured Client Website section with a picture and link to on of our web clients. This gets updated each month. I also tell my clients when their site is being featured and that can bring in more traffic to my site as they tell their friends and clients.

Next, the wording can change to promote a season, an upcoming holiday, event, etc.  You don't need to change the content of the page (all the important info can stay there, but word it a bit differently around the holidays. Reword it again around the Superbowl, Valentines' Day, Saint Patty's Day, etc. While changing pictures on the website doesn't do much for search engine spiders, it will be directly noticeable to your readers.

So what can you update on your home page without redesigning the whole thing every time? Here's a brief list of things to consider:

• Blog entries
• Social Media entries
• Announcements of upcoming events, sales, promotions, etc.
• Featured links to websites of your peers, colleagues, associates, partners, or websites that you particularly like.
• Seasonal, holiday or event jargon

Are there others? I'm sure there are. Please feel free to comment and leave your own suggestions.  

And have a great holiday season!

                  I don't use an antivirus program because they're too expensive

No, that's not a statement of fact from yours truly, it's the engraving on a headstone where a dead computer is buried.  

                                                                    AND it's not a true statement... 

There are free versions of antivirus software packages out there (and some free trials) that are well worth looking into.

This one was recommended by a small business group I belong to. They have a free version and a subscription version. http://free.avg.com/us-en/download?prd=afe

PC Tools has a free version of SpywareDoctor
http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor-antivirus/

AVG has both a free and paid version
http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage

Norton has a 30 day free trial version http://shop.symantecstore.com/store/symnahho/en_US/ContentTheme/ThemeID.1313000/pbPage.Trialware_en_US/pgm.6037100/Currency.USD?resid=FyQ7DwoBAiMAAEbCGWoAAAAK&rests=1258301252419

    The biggest online shopping season is quickly approaching and it begins with Cyber Monday (the Monday following Thanksgiving) when online stores typically record their largest sales volume for the year. Unfortunately that means that cyber-criminals will also be out in force hoping to find a few unsuspecting victims. I recently received an email from my anti-virus company with some tips for staying safe when you shop online this holiday season. 

• Think Before You Click: Search Engines are a great way to comparison shop and check prices. But treat every result with caution -- especially the ones promising a link to an unbelievable deal.
• Verify the URL: When you click a link to a particular site, verify that the website it takes you to really is the one you intended. For instance the site might LOOK like amazon.com but does the URL have "Amazon.com" as the main domain? Here's a clue: if the URL looks something like this: "...www.someothersitename.com/123/joesstuff/amazon.com..."  then it isn't really Amazon.com.  You probably don't want to give them your credit card information.
• Remember the old adage: If it seems too good to be true - it probably is.
• Shop stores you trust: When it actually comes time to make a purchase, your best bet is to go to the store of your choice, find the item within the store website (www.storename.com) and purchase it there.
• Install Security Software: Your computer should have antispyware and antivirus software installed. Make sure they are up-to-date. If you want to go a step farther, you can install a firewall.   
• Use a Credit Card, Not a Debit Card: If you are a victim of fraud or cybercrime, most credit card agreements limit your liability for the charges.
• Monitor Your Credit: Especially around the holidays it is important to monitor your credit status on a regular basis to quickly spot anything unusual.
• Ask About a "Single Use" Credit Card: Many credit card companies are now able to issue single-use credit card numbers for online purchases -- so you can avoid using your real credit card number online.

     There is no reason to avoid shopping on line. AND if you 'Think Before You Click' you can enjoy the convenience and ease of Cyber-shopping while keeping your money and private information safe and secure.

    See you at the Cyber mall...

I have been teaching people how to avoid spam and malware in their emails for several years now. If you've followed my blog for very long, you know there are some key things to look for when identifying unethical links. The primary one is Links that point to a URL other than the one expected. 

    You probably know by now that the text shown on a link does not have to be the URL of the link (for instance  www.cincinnatiwebs.com should obviously point to the website Cincinnati Webs. The TEXT matches the URL destination. But Visit My Website also points to Cincinnati Webs. So how can you tell without actually clicking?  Many web-based programs have a feature that somehow displays the URL when you hover over a link. Many web browsers and email programs have a Status Bar. Look under the TOOLS menu or the VIEW menu for it. The Status Bar is typically located at the bottom of the browser/program window.  With the Status Bar turned on, you can hover your mouse over a link and see the URL the link points to.  Try it now. Hover your mouse over the links above & verify that they point to the Cincinnati Webs site.

    So an unethical link may point somewhere completely different that what you expect. For example, my wife received an email earlier this year that said it was from Bank Of America. It looked official and said that someone else had tried to log into our account so we should SIGN IN and verify that our account was okay...  (did you hover over the link?) The link in the email wasn't so blatant as my example here, but I would have expected a legitimate link to point to a website something like "bankamerica.com..." Instead this one pointed to something like http://carlosramirez.com.br/campus2/BankOfAmerica.com. So, even though BankOfAmerica was in there somewhere, the main URL this link was pointing to was CarlosRamirez.com.br - NOT someplace I want to go to enter my banking login information.

    Now, for some disappointing news... Hovering over the link is the easiest way, but not a guaranteed way to see the true URL. It is possible to use Javascript to display whatever you want in the status bar when hovering over a link. Although many email programs can be set NOT to run Javascript automatically. 

But without getting a degree in rocket science, what can the average person do to avoid these unethical links?  There are a couple of common sense tests everyone can use:

1. Try the hover test. If the link points to a different URL, the hover test will show it most of the time.
2. If the message doesn't make sense be suspicious. (I don't have a bank account at Bank Of America, so how can my account be compromised?)
3. If the message has a lot of misspellings or really poor grammar in it, then it may be from someone who's primary language is different than your own. Yes, my friends might misspell a word here or there, so keep that in mind, but the more misspellings I see, the more suspicious I become.
4. If the message uses fear to get you to click, don't do it. (Your computer may be infected... click here for a free scan.) 
5. Especially with social networking, be reluctant to click a link sent to you - even if it's sent by a friend. UNLESS you're expecting it.. (My friend went with me to Disney World and then posted pictures of it on Facebook, so his link saying "Disney World Pics"  is probably okay. But an unrelated link  from someone saying 'OMG! You have GOTTA SEE THIS!" is one to avoid.)
6. Emails from an official website (bank, store, credit card company, etc.)
   1. If they don't know your name - then it's probably a scam. Most legitimate businesses will address you by name, NOT by 'Dear Client', or 'Dear Customer'.
   2. If they tell you to click this link to log in - then it's probably a scam. Legitimate companies will tell you to go to the website and log in. But a link that says "Log In Here" is suspect.
7. Keep your anti-virus software up to date. If you don't have anti-virus software, you should.
8. If you're not sure about a link - DON'T CLICK ON IT.