Facebook privacy is becoming an oxymoron

Posted on by September 5, 2022

Privacy Matters

Facebook seems unable to stem the user privacy spill. Matters seemed to grow more serious this week when the WSJ reported that apps (including Farmville) were accessing user data even if the users had requested the strictest privacy settings. Three of the top ten apps were transmitting data on the user’s friends to outside companies. The blog Ars Technica provided a rundown of the latest problems and what they mean. Facebook also had to temporarily disable LOLapps last week, after the apps were found to be sending internal Facebook user IDs to third parties.

Facebook’s privacy situation has reached the point where several blogs are wondering if the current Facebook business model is even compatible with current user privacy expectations. The blog 10 Golden Rules wrote that Facebook privacy is becoming an oxymoron and Mark Evans suggested that Facebook should just give up on privacy altogether; anything that goes onto Facebook should be regarded as fully public. A Google engineer has developed a Chrome plug-in that blocks all 3rd party access to Facebook data but another Google development demonstrated how the privacy line was still being drawn – Google had to discontinue the practice of using StreetView cars to collect Wi-Fi network data.

( This posting was originally done by http://www.whosbloggingwhat.com/ on October 21, 2010.

 

A business page worth emulating on Facebook

Posted on by October 22, 2010

I can across a business page on Facebook today that is quite nice. Not only aesthetically, but also from a business standpoint.

I get quite a few emails from artist, songwriters and other internet business owners on who to use Facebook to promote their businesses.

The list is too long, but there is a short list of some of many tools on the internet in which to promote you business.

  1. Facebook Events
  2. Facebook pages
  3. Online event calendars
  4. Press release services such as ExpertClick.com
  5. ArtistData.com

What stood out to me about this page, is that they included their menu. A fantastic idea and a great way in which to promote your restaurant. Chef’s, foodie and others, this is a shining example on how to get it done….brava!

If you are looking for more ways to promote your product or services, look no more.

You can purchase a copy of a webinar that was earlier this week featuring Joan Stewart, 50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live or Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds

50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live & Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds

Posted on by October 12, 2010

If you’re doing publicity for an upcoming live or virtual event, from teleseminars and book-signings to concerts and black-tie charity fund-raisers, and you’re relying on the same old media outlets and websites to promote them, you’re leaving money on the table.

My friend, publicity expert Joan Stewart, aka The Publicity Hound, has identified more than 50 websites you could be using in your publicity campaign. Some are major high-traffic sites that accept calendar listings, free press releases and articles.

Others are smaller niche sites you probably don’t know about. But they can help you really target your market like a laser beam.

Joan will explain them all Oct. 19 when she hosts the webinar “50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live & Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds.”

Whether you’re promoting teleseminars, book signings, classes, boot camps, concerts, charity balls, fund- raisers or tourist events, you’ll come away with a long list of websites, and lots of other tips, to really build the buzz.

Register here

Blogging for Business

Posted on by September 21, 2010

When to know when blogging is paying off  for your business…that is the $64,000 question.

I recently had a chat with a client with  who stated she wanted to pull the plug on her blogs.

My first thought was WAIT! ARE YOU CRAZY?

No, in fact, she isn’t. She is quite sane. The problem is that, like most of us that are self-employed, it is a matter of time. Or, lack thereof.

We did have a phone conversation and we decided not to pull the plug and start re-posting to her blogs. The problem a lot of us have about blogging is that we feel it has to be a 1000 word article, at least.

My client and mentor, Joan Stewart recently conducted a teleseminar with Patsi Krakoff titled “Blogging for Business is Easier Than You Think”, Time-saving Tips for Smart Business Blogging.

This product is especially perfect for:

  • Anyone who hasn’t started blogging yet and doesn’t know how to start
  • Bloggers who want to learn how to save time and build in efficiencies
  • Bloggers who are having trouble pulling traffic to their blogs
  • Anyone who blogs and has trouble finding enough content…you’ll never be lacking for it after this!

So, if you’re thinking you don’t have time to blog or can’t find content. Look around you, it’s everywhere!

SocialEye: New dashboard allows businesses to measure social media ROI

Posted on by September 14, 2010

Social media has become a needed aspect of most marketing plans. However, tracking the Return on Investment, including the time invested, has not been easy. That is until now. On August 25, 2010 SocialEye was launched. Overdrive Interactive has produced a comprehensive social media measurement dashboard. With outlets for marketing, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Buzzup and WordPress, it stands to reasons that a tool to capture the results and analyze them would be needed.

Tracking connections, buzz, site traffic, leads and revenue generated by social media marketing efforts, can now be accomplished from one dashboard. The SocialEye measures the ROI in the same way that a business owner may measure other aspects of the business. During the pilot phase, customers admittedly saw a measurable value when using the dashboard.

What exactly can business owners track and analyze with SocialEye?

1. Social media connections such as Facebook likes and fans, Twitter followers and blog feed subscribers
2. Page views and plays from social profiles and video channels
3. Engagement levels, including comments that show what social actions spark consumer reactions and interaction
4. Media equivalent values showing the worth of social assets, impressions, visits and connections
5. Site visits and actual traffic to a company’s website resulting directly from social media
6. Site conversions and transactions — actual leads and revenue from social media marketing

Visit SocialEye.com to view a video about this new program.

Thanks to Sherrie Giddens of the St. Louis Working Moms Examiner for giving us a heads up on this new valuable tool and
to Overdrive Interactive for developing this new comprehensive tool.

How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Business

Posted on by August 25, 2010

We recently had the honor of participating in the new tips booklet produced by Paulette Ensign of Tips Products International.

This was an esteemed group of social media experts and how they were able to use social media to their advantage. Here are just a few of the tips they shared from “Tips from a Collection of Experts”.


Susan Chodakiewitz of Booksicals. 

  • Invite visitors to participate in some aspect of your product. It can be to help name a character in your book or the location for the setting of the book.

Dr. Debra Condren author of Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word

  • Take the pressure off. Hire a Virtual Assistant with social media expertise.

JoAnn R. Corley–Speaker, Author, Coach

  • Use a company Facebook page to indirectly advertise. Have the page show pictures, videos, and audios of customers talking about and/or using your products or services.

Jan Wallen-Selling Your Expertise LLC

  • Differentiate yourself. Write your profile like a story. Tell people why you and your company are the best ones to hire so they contact you.

These are just a few excepts from the booklet. To download your free copy, you can go to https://www.serenityva.com/tipsbooklet.htm

Women’s Business Alliance 2 1/2 Day Power Sabbatical with Debra Condren

Posted on by August 11, 2010

The Women’s Business Alliance Power Sabbatical is your opportunity to take – For Yourself! – 2 ½ days + 2 nights to:

—Rejuvenate mentally and physically. Unplug, get away from it all in a serene gorgeous setting. Be catered to and taken care of (what a concept for us women!), including dining on gourmet healthy food prepared by Marconi’s amazing chef. Take advantage of gorgeous natural surroundings by starting your morning and ending your day with a solo or group power walk or hike. Breathe the fresh air. Enjoy the stars at night and the peace and quiet (no ambient light or noise pollution here!) Even use your free time to take a swim in Tomales Bay (wet suit optional!), visit the quaint town of Marshall, kayak, or horseback ride on the beach.

Recharge your ambition. Launch – or re-launch – your dream in a powerful way. Recharge your business and your goals. Or finally give yourself the space, resources and support to give the business you’ve been struggling with the power to lift off. Get clarity on your ambitious goals. Figure out what’s working and what’s not. Redefine your targets. Get unstuck. Fire up your ambition. Keep yourself on target to do meaningful, challenging work that pays you what you’re worth. Stop settling. Stop selling yourself short. Get your ambition mojo back – you know what I mean: that feeling that you can’t wait to bounce out of bed each morning (no matter how tired you might be) because work feels like play. Keep your commitment to yourself to make the contribution you were born to make – and surround yourself with supportive peers to help you achieve the goals you have stars in your eyes for.

This is an opportunity to restore your sanity and recharge your business by retreating to a stunning, peaceful conference center in an historic park setting and interacting with innovators like yourself. I’ll be leading the charge and together we will make sure that You — and Your most precious ambitious goals — are the agenda. And of course, a huge part of recharging your business and dreams is making sure that you, yourself, get plenty of downtime – space and time and the serenity to unplug and think and be taken care of.

Break isolation. Stamp out your fear and resistance by interacting with ambitious, creative innovators – women just like yourself who struggle with the same fears and doubts as you, even as they are fighting the big fight to hold on to their big dreams. Get your brain cells firing and reignite your passion for what you do or want to do though 2 ½ days of custom-tailored small-group coaching and brainstorming with me plus 20 other women peers. The ideas will be flying around the room. And You and Your goals are the agenda.

Where:
The perfect venue is the gorgeous setting at the Marconi Conference Center overlooking Tomales Bay in beautiful West Marin County, San Francisco Bay Area. Marconi Conference Center is approximately a 90-minute drive from San Francisco International Airport, Oakland International Airport.

When:
September 16-18, 2010

So register now as there is not a greater feeling in the world than coming together with supportive, talented, thirsty-for-knowledge, open-minded, fired-up, ambitious women, such as Debra Condren, author of Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word,  to link arms and help each other make our ambitious dreams a reality.

How to Use Twitter Lists to Generate Business

Posted on by August 4, 2010

If you’re active on Twitter, you’ve probably seen at least one reference on your own profile page to Twitter lists.

They’re a powerful way to categorize Twitter users according to their area of expertise, or the topics of their tweets and then, once the list is created, let anyone see it. They save valuable time because when you create a list, every tweet from every person on that list feeds into that particular list. You don’t have to drink from a firehose on Twitter to be able to find the tweets from people who have a particular expertise.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that that’s the only way to use Twitter lists. They’re powerful tools that can help you do valuable research, track down experts in a particular niche, find people in your target market, spy on your competitors, find journalists who cover your industry, and so much more.

They’re also an excellent way to determine how other people perceive your expertise and your brand. Here’s what I mean.

Go to your Twitter Home or Profile page and look under your photo on the upper right side. You’ll see the number of people you’re following, the number of people who are following you, and the number of lists you’re on. Click on “Listed.”

Instantly, you can look down the list and see which Twitter users have put you on one of their lists, and you can see the names of their lists. For example, I’m on a number of Twitter lists. When I click on “Listed,” a window opens and I can see that many of the lists include the words “virtual assistant”, “VAs” and “social media.”

If you aren’t on many lists, or you haven’t created your own lists yet, that’s OK. Joan Stewart, aka, The Publicity Hound is hosting a webinar  at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Aug. 26, called “How to Use Twitter Lists & Directories to Generate Publicity and Build Your Brand.” If the time is inconvenient for you, sign up anyway because she is recording it. You’ll get a link where you can watch the streaming video, or download the video.

Subject Lines That Scream “Open!”

Posted on by July 28, 2010

Here’s some really bad advice that the so-called PR experts dispense: Your email pitches to journalists and bloggers should be as short as possible. No more than three or four words.

Why is it bad advice? Because it forces people to make their subject lines sound cute rather than informative.

Publicist Michelle Tennant, a master at booking her clients on top-tier TV and radio shows, often uses as many words as necessary in her subject lines so they scream, “Open me!”

And wow, do journalists ever open them!

During this webinar on “How to Tie Your Pitch to Breaking News and Make the Media Interview YOU,” Michelle dissected three email pitches that scored publicity in major media outlets. All three had the critical elements of an email pitch and made the journalist’s job incredibly easy. You can adopt them for your own use.

News is breaking all around you–and that’s the very best time to pitch. Joan recorded the webinar and you can watch it at your computer, or download it along with the MP3 file, the handouts and Michelle’s sample pitches. Read more about what she taught at http://budurl.com/pitchingthemedia

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Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a Press Release.”

When is the best time to pitch the media?

Posted on by July 17, 2010

News is breaking all around you.

When you’re the local angle to a national story, or you can comment on the hot topic of the day, TV producers, daily and weekly newspaper reporters, and bloggers will practically be begging to talk to you.

But too many people who want publicity don’t bother picking up the phone or emailing. They think the media are too busy. Or they don’t know what to say.

What a mistake! This is the very best time to pitch.

What if somebody gave you step-by-step directions on exactly how to piggyback your story idea onto breaking news? Publicist Michelle Tennant, who got one of her clients booked on “Dr. Phil” the very day the client signed the PR contract, will explain the exact details of what she does when she pitches a client during a breaking news event. She’ll even show you the word-for-word email pitches she sent to the media–pitches that resulted in major publicity for her clients.

Michelle will be the special guest during a webinar hosted by Joan Stewart, aka The Publicity Hound, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 21. Michelle will teach you how to use very simple email subject lines, include three important elements in every pitch, and the exact number of times to follow up.

She’ll also tell you about a free media resource website she uses, thus saving her thousands of dollars on media directories.