Allegations that hackers hijacked the Fox News Twitter feed Monday and used it to tweet incorrectly that President Obama had been assassinated have showed the dark side of social media.

Imagine that?Hackers take control of the Fox News Twitter- a site everyone is sure to believe in and tweets this really bad news. What does this say about social media in general then? It definitely has its dark side.

No matter how useful it may be for your business or for keeping in touch with friends, the fact remains that you really are in danger online. Not only do these ‘criminals’ hack into sites but they post subtle messages and hide them in links to alleged funny videos.  But how do they do it?

Jeff Misenti, vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital, said in a statement: “The network was not in control of the account once it was hacked, and Twitter was unreachable until late morning eastern time yesterday. The tweets were taken down as soon as Twitter gave back control of the account to the network.”

This shows the ‘sad’ truth-Twitter, Facebook and all other social networking sites really can’t stop these hackers. For users, everything you put out there has the potential to be hacked into. Lesson: BEWARE.

As for the social networking sites, well lets say people shouldn’t believe everything they see there. I mean look at Twitter, if hackers were able to hack into Fox News, whose to say they aren’t the ones behind whatever news you hear there!

Conclusion-it’s a risk entering these networks but you just have to make sure it’s a risk worth taking.

Read the entire article here.

For sure the name Zynga sounds familiar and you’ve definitely seen it somewhere. The company is known for it’s interactive games like farmville and has since become a very successful company whose value has been said to be as high as $15-$20B according to a source.

The company plans to raise from $1.5 billion and $2 billion in its first IPO opening. But let’s take a few steps back-what’s an IPO anyway?

Initial Public Offering is when a company issues common stock shares to the pulic for the first time. It’s common to new and small companies who want to expand and gain more revenue. What will a company get out of an IPO? In a word MONEY.

Unlike the way shares are  normally sold and bought in the exchange, the money will go directly to the company. This is what makes it very appealing to a ‘new’ company like Zynga. As to how it will fare? Well, it’s undeniable that it does have the potential of becoming a huge success especially with the way social networking sites in a way ‘depend’ on it.

According to the Reuters report, “A few months ago, Zynga’s annual revenue was estimated to be about $1 billion, according to Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia who has said that the number could be higher now. This estimate would be higher than LinkedIn’s annual revenue.”

Zynga is based in San Francisco, California. As of this month, the company’s games were played by more than 270 million monthly active users on Facebook.

Credit:divessi-indo.com

Let’s face it-KEEPING customers loyal to you is much harder than FINDING them. You may simply have been the people they came in contact with when they needed your services but it doesn’t really mean that they will close their doors on using your competitors as well. How can you get your customers to be loyal to you and only you?

Social media can be a huge help in this area. You can use your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and all to make sure that  your customers stick to you.  Here’s why this will work.

1. If you have a brand on these sites and connect with your customers, they will likely share this with friends. In short, simply showing some appreciation and getting them to be connected will be all you need to get even more customers! It’ll be as good as ‘using’ them to market for you.
2. People will more likely choose their word over yours. Being a company, you will only sound like you are after more customers but from somebody who has tried your services, they are more likely to believe.

There you have it. With social media around, keeping your customers loyal to you doesn’t have to be  difficult. Simply create a page, get connected to keep them interested and even get them to share you with friends.

Read more here.

Have you ever wondered just what makes people ‘like’ or ‘share’ stuff? It’s definitely not random so just why do people decide to ‘like’ one thing and not the other? The answer is really interesting.

In a nutshell, this is what was discovered in a recent research done on the matter:

If something results in higher physiological “arousal” because of action or emotional stimulus, then you’re much more likely to share it—it’s actually built into our nervous system, working unconsciously.

This takes social media marketing to a totally different level! The way you word whatever you are trying to sell or promote matters to the nth degree. So how exactly can you get people ‘aroused’ so that they ‘like’ or ‘tweet’ what you share?

You have to get them EMOTIONALLY involved somehow. It may be by making them laugh, getting them angry(in a good way), or some other ‘positive’ emotion. Do this and they’ll ‘retweet’ and ‘share’ automatically even without really liking your product.

The thing to avoid here is those ‘negative’ emotions. You get them sad, depressed or neutral and you won’t have such good results.  It really does make sense when you think about it:

What sites, links or pictures are you likely to tell your friends about? Yes, those that made you laugh out loud, or were somehow ‘contraversial’ in nature.

You don’t ‘feel’ anything, you don’t share it-it’s as simple as that. So start thinking how to get people engaged on an emotional level now!

Read more here.