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.

Credit:sostadiumstatus.blogspot.com

Everyone knows just how useful Social media has proven to be in the business field. Then is the reason why practically everyone has an online profile somewhere-to connect with family and friends. It seems social networking is continuing to find more and more ways to be of use to people.Here is yet another triumph for social media.

The Washington Post reports that the FBI decided on its new strategy of blasting photos of Bulger and Catherine Elizabeth Greig on television screens and the social networking site Twitter on Tuesday. In a few short hours, the agency’s Los Angeles office received a call from someone living in the apartment complex where Bulger and Greig were living.

Whitey Bulger has been on the FBI’s “MOST WANTED” list from 1995- an astonishing 16 years! His crimes include 19 Killings in the Boston area and Drug-trafficking as well.

According to the report, the main reason for his not being able to be captured all these years is his ‘connections’ with some FBI agents. He was an informant of one of the ‘top’ agents and got protection in return.

This is probably where Social media will prove to shine. Using these networks to post photos of ‘wanted’ people, will allow justice to be served. No agency has control over these social sites. No government personal can try and ‘hide’ information on these sites and nobody can stop the news from spreading there.

Though many find the freedom of speech on these sites in a way ‘wrong’ considering the harm that may be done with verbal harassment on a global scale, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies surely will be glad to have Social  networks around.  Things that people may be hesitant to do with other mediums can be done online without worrying about privacy.

Social networking also makes reporting crimes very easy. A simple tweet or message sent to the authorities is not only easy to do but may be all they need to locate some criminal. Social media is the ‘Hottest’ and maybe even the most valuable ‘agent’ in town.

Read more here.

Credit:thepulsemagazine

“If it worked for them, It should work for me“. Is that your idea when it comes to using Social Media in marketing your business?

The truth is, this is absolutely FALSE.

There are so many factors that may affect the efficacy of social networking on your company. One of the obvious things to consider is the kind of business you have. True, you can advertise for anything on these sites but if your target audience isn’t likely to even have profiles on these accounts, it would really be useless trying to get your business in these networks.

How about if you know your kind of business should be easily marketed on these sites but you still fail. According to a survey conducted by emarketer.com, there are heavier reasons  behind your business’ failure in these sites.

The effectiveness of using social networking to market your business will depend on your location. Some countries don’t really have a high percentage of Social media users. This may be because of a reserved culture or simply because the popular social sites aren’t popular there. Here is what the survey revealed. (see chart below)

47% of businesses successfully used social networks for customer acquisition in 2011, a 7 percentage point increase over 2010. The US followed closely behind the average, at 43%.

You really shouldn’t expect much success if your country isn’t one of those ‘on top’ of the social media users. Like the chat shows though, generally speaking, businesses are increasing their use of social media in inceasing their revenue worldwide.

How are businesses that are not using social network for their marketing doing though? The chart below shows the facts

Read the original post  here.

The founders of today’s common social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn had absolutely no idea of the impact these social networking sites would have. What started out as a simple way for college students to keep in touch has become a worldwide network connecting not only individuals but businesses and organizations. This unexpected popularity has brought about a very important issue: SECURITY.

The ‘safety’ that users felt on these sites is slowly becoming questionable. These sites have become the places hackers and other ‘cyber criminals’ find their prey. The bottom line is everyone-moderators of these sites included must pay more attention to their online security.   You think your social networking site has done all they can to ‘ensure your safety?’

Security researcher Rishi Narang recently discovered a security flaw with LinkedIn’s use of cookies and, as a result, the site reduced the persistence of cookies it uses to identify users. Patches and updates from the social networks themselves occur on a daily basis in an effort to combat crucial security flaws. As of the writing of this article, in 2011, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have undergone updates 528 times, with over 50 updates occurring on Facebook alone.

The fact is no matter how hard owners of these sites may be trying, it will be hard to keep up to pace with hackers.  Apart from that is the problem of confidential information finding its way to wrong hands. An example of this is of  Scott McClellan, the chief technologist and interim vice president of engineering for HP’s new cloud services business. Scott ‘carelessly’ posted the company’s plans on his LinkedIn page which wasn’t supposed to go public yet.  Though the comment was later removed, the damage had clearly been done.

How can a ‘safer’ social networking site be created then? No doubt, these sites are doing all they can to try and update their settings. As users though, there is much that can be done to try and minimize the chances of becoming a victim of these cyber attacks.

Being careful before clicking on something our friends’ have posted will be a big step. We may be trusting by nature but clicking on unknown links may open the way for hackers to access our information.

Another factor has to do with confidentiality. Though you do have the right to rant and rave on your page, avoid mentioning things that you don’t have the ‘right’ to share. This is especially true when it comes to company policies or updates. Keep your personal social networking sites PERSONAL.

Keep yourself well-informed as to updates these sites have made security-wise.  You may have to update your profiles’ security settings to keep yourself protected.

For more information, read the source article.