Social Networks |

Posts Tagged ‘social networks’

Facebook Privacy Issues?

May 8th, 2010

I just received an email from a friend who deleted their Facebook account because they were unhappy with the way Facebook may use their personal information.

I completely disagree with this course of action – especially in business.

Instead, simply ASSUME that any information you put online (and not just on Facebook, but ANYWHERE) will find it’s way into hands you never intended.

Use common sense.

If you wouldn’t want your mother, your boss, a prospective employer, a client or your spouse to see it, don’t post it. (ie. embarrassing pictures, vulgar language, personal relationship information, etc.)

If you wouldn’t hand the information over to a stranger, don’t post it. (ie. phone number, address, social insurance number, banking info, passwords, etc.)

The annoying apps and invitations can easily be “hidden” from your feed.

If you are using Facebook primarily for personal use, then restrict access to those who are in your personal circle. Don’t accept friend requests unless you actually know the person.

If you are using Facebook for business, then simply be diligent about pruning your friend requests, “liking” pages and use the network to enhance your communications with people. Keep only public information on Facebook, never private.

ASSUME your information will be made public and act accordingly.

I am often confounded by people who become outraged when they learn the internet isn’t “secure”. And generally the reaction to this outrage is extreme – like deleting a valuable resource like your Facebook account. Cutting off your nose to spite your face isn’t usually the most prudent solution… instead, simply opt for caution in all of your online dealings.

What do YOU think?

Tags: business, Experts, Facebook, internet marketers, Internet Marketing, Lisa Preston, List Building, marketers, privacy, security, Social Marketing, social networks |

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7 Facebook Apps That Let You Work While You Play

May 1st, 2010

Think Facebook is just for goofing around? With these 7 applications, you can accomplish loads of business-related things – without ever logging out of your favourite social site!

Okay… so the average Facebook user is doing nothing productive with their day. More than likely burning hours on end harvesting farms or agonizing over the finer points of a “25 Things You Didn’t Know About Me” note. (guilty!)

But it turns out (HOLY COW!!) that this uber-popular social networking site is good for more than just fooling around!!! In fact, many Facebook applications can be so surprisingly productive and useful that you might not ever have to leave your beloved site during your whole day!

Dare I suggest you might be able to get real, honest-to-God work done using Facebook? SuperPoke your boss and make sure he knows! Here are some of my favourite Facebook apps for the truly obsessive entrepreneur.

Zoho Online Office

Zoho Online Office is about as close as you can get to doing actual, honest-to-God work using Facebook.

Zoho has ported a hefty chunk of its popular Web-based Zoho Online Office application suite to work within the Facebook site.

When you sign up, your Facebook account can be linked with an existing Zoho log-in (or you can set one up on the fly), and you’ll find all your saved and shared documents available for browsing–and for sharing with other Facebook+Zoho users. Unlike the other apps on this list, editing documents ultimately opens a new window on the Zoho site, rather than being hosted within the Facebook app directly; but rest assured, you can hustle back to your safe zone once your work is done.

Meetups

What’s going on out there in the real world? So-called “M eetups” are becoming an increasingly popular way for like-minded citizens to get together and expound on their love for beer, board games, Obama, or just about anything else.

Mind you, attending a M eetup does require leaving your house, so if that’s too much trouble, you can get a lot of enjoyment out of just browsing the application to see exactly how far out some of these M eetups can get. Turns out people will meet in real life to talk about anything.

Simplaris Blogcast

Simplaris Blogcast pulls in the most recent headlines from your blog for you, automatically.

What a pain it is to spend all that time writing a blog post…and then have to manually add it as a link in your feed using Facebook‘s “Post Link” feature. Make it simple–or rather, automated–by using Simplaris Blogcast.

With this app, you simply paste in the URL for your blog’s XML or RSS feed, and just like an RSS reader, Simplaris Blogcast pulls in the most recent headlines and a digest (you decide how long) once a day (or immediately, depending on what blogging software you use). And for the truly lazy, it doesn’t even have to be your own blog: Simplaris Blogcast works with any feed you give it; but, alas, you can only bring in one feed at a time.

Picnik

Picnik puts a full-featured photo editor at your disposal so you can turn a lifeless shot into something far more interesting.

Everyone dumps their photo library into Facebook, but then what happens? Basically nothing. Picnik puts a full-featured photo editor at your disposal so you can turn a lifeless shot into something far more interesting.

All the usual tools are here–a red-eye zapper, color tweaker, exposure adjuster, edge sharpener, and of course resize, crop, and rotate capabilities–then add stickers and speech bubbles if you want to get playful. It’s all designed to let you tweak pics without ever leaving your Facebook profile. A premium version ($25/year) adds extra goodies. “Photo editing awesomeness”–as the app’s tagline goes–just about sums it up.

Calendar

Keeping your schedule together is a critical part of the life any entrepreneur, and the bluntly named Calendar is the best one available for Facebook. Just click the self-explanatory calendar boxes for the upcoming days, and type in what you have to do. The system defaults to “all day” events, but click again and you can set start and end times and invite other people to group meetings (though you’ll need a 30boxes.com account to do the latter).

Super handy, and a digested version can be dropped onto your profile page.

My del.icio.us

What to do about all the bookmarks you’ve archived on del.icio.us? Bring ‘em into Facebook in a box of their own. There are several del.icio.us-oriented apps available, but the one we’ve found that works best is My del.icio.us, which lets you import up to 25 of your most recent del.icio.us bookmarks, complete with notes and/or tags.

You can also limit it to show only the links with a tag you specify. The box automatically updates every half hour to 45 minutes, pulling your latest picks in for all to see.

YouTube+

YouTube+ shrinks down not just YouTube, but Revver and Metacafe too, bringing you just about all of the features of these sites right inside Facebook‘s environment.

Search for clips, watch and rate videos. You can do it all without having to leave your FB session. Whenever you mark a video as one of your favorites, a link to it is automatically added to your profile feed.

Now, naturally these are only a few of the business-related apps that can help you enhance your business online… I myself use several that integrate with other social networks, blogs and websites. But these are a small selection that can get you started in becoming more productive while on your favourite social network.

Do YOU have a favourite Facebook app that should be included? Let me know by commenting below!

Tags: business, calendar, del.icio.us, Facebook, internet marketers, Internet Marketing, Lisa Preston, meetup, Picnik, Simplaris Blogcast, social, Social Marketing, Social Media, social network, social networking, social networks, youtube, zoho |

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FREE Online Backup Until Jan. 31st

January 5th, 2010

Your social media and blog sites contain pictures, videos, and data that are important to you. Don’t risk losing any of it! Sign up for Backupify before January 31st, 2010 and get unlimited storage – something future free members will NOT get! If any of the things below ever happen to you, an online backup will make it easy to restore lost, deleted, or corrupted pictures, videos, and data.

Back up your life in case…

Your Facebook account gets hacked, or they lose your data.
Your Photobucket password is compromised.
Your Twitter account is hacked.
Gmail has a mass email deletion.
Gmail goes down.
You lose 4,400 Flickr photos that you don’t have backed up elsewhere.
Your Flickr account is permanently deleted.
Your Youtube account is deleted.
Your Google Docs are edited by the wrong person.

You have data stored all over the web. Be Safe. Back It Up.

>>Click Here To Backupify!<<

Tags: business, marketing, security, Social Marketing, social networks, software, Twitter, Web Development & Design |

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Pet Peeve: Why I Am Ripping My Hair Out

April 10th, 2009

I can’t be the ONLY marketer who runs into this situation.

I run about 30 extremely active websites. I have another 50 or so that run with minimal supervision… and another bunch in development at any given moment.

Now this issue doesn’t crop up too often, but it happens enough that I took great pains to avoid the problem, yet here it is again.

EMAIL IS NOT A RELIABLE FORM OF COMMUNICATION!

I just got a message from someone letting me know that THEY had received a HELP DESK TICKET because the person didn’t get a reply from an email they had sent to me – and this person (for whatever reason) decided to complain to the person who referred my services.

I HAVE A SUPPORT DESK!

If I don’t receive an email, there can be many reasons for it…

Perhaps your email was deleted as SPAM by some vigilant filter.

Maybe it got lost in the hundreds of garbage emails I get every single day and it was simply overlooked.

Perhaps I am not at my main computer for a few days due to travel, and have not yet seen it.

Or a simple misspelling of an email address sent it off to Siberia.

Whatever.

Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. are NOT a good way to reach me either. I do not monitor these for important business communications – I use them for social networking and entertainment, and do not have time to spend more than a few hours a week tending to these accounts.

I set up my Support Desk because it is FAR more reliable than email. Submitting a ticket, you can’t misspell my email address, or get lost in a SPAM filter or junk folder. If I am away from my main computer for a few days, I check my Support Desk regularly to make sure anyone who needs me gets an answer right away.

Here’s my lesson for today:

If you have an important question, concern or request that you need an answer for immediately, USE MY SUPPORT DESK.

Tags: customer support, email, Lisa Preston, marketers, marketing, social networks, support, visitors |

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A New Era For The Original Social Networks: Forums

July 21st, 2008

I can recall back in the internet “olden days” when discussion groups were the only way to communicate with a group of people. The old bulletin boards were populated by the true die-hard computer geeks, when internet marketing was still just a baby.

I wish I knew then what I know now!

The real advent of group communications came along for mainstream internet use with forums… the original social networks. These wonderful tools for communicating with the masses exploded into every niche, allowing people from all over the globe to connect, converse and share.

There are several forums in the Internet Marketing niche that have stood the test of time: the Warrior Forum, the Anthony Blake Forum, and a handful of others are the few who were vibrant, active forums before the year 2000. These forums are the cornerstones on which many marketers build their internet empires!

In the fall of 2007, I brainstormed with a group of spectacularly brilliant marketers – one of which was the legendary Tony Blake. In a dazzling session filled with hypothetical ideas, wishes and enthusiasm, an idea formed in Tony’s mind… and that idea was to take his old-fashioned forum of 15 years and redefine what an Internet Marketing Forum should be in the 21st century!

Through months of research, planning and development, a new era in Internet Marketing Forums was born… there were many sleepless nights and excitement continued to build as “launch day” approached!

On March 12th, 2008, the brand-new Anthony Blake Online – Entrepreneurial Success Forum made it’s debut to the delight and amazement of it’s long-time, online community.

The ABlakeForum has leaped into the 21st century with features like user-embedded video, audio and images; a dedicated social network, exclusive “Members Only” content, frequent contests and prizes, social bookmarking and submissions, the ability to use affiliate links in signature files, increasingly lively discussions without worry of being deleted, zero tolerance SPAM security enhancements, expert-moderated forums in several internet marketing related categories, and so much more!

And the best is yet to come!! I know of several new features being primed for release this month alone… and all of it geared to helping you profit from your internet business!

How do I know all of this?

I’m one of three Admins on the forum – Tony Blake himself, of course, who keeps a close watch over everything; then there’s me, and my focus is on Development/Design; and Terry Crim the Technical Administrator, who’s expertise keeps the forum running smoothly, efficiently and securely.

If you haven’t yet registered at the ABlakeForum, now is definitely the time! There are so many features coming your way, several of which will be in “Members Only” areas that I’d hate to see anyone left out! Oh, and did I tell you – membership is FREE? That’s right…

Over the past 6 months, there’s been a decided decrease in forum participation across the internet. With quicker, easier ways to communicate like social networks, and those with instant gratification and feedback, such as Twitter, many of the mainstream forums have been discouraged by the lack of visitors.

I’ve watched some of the more popular forums struggle with implementing new ideas, yet there is still a general discontent with the way things are… holding onto what worked in the past is often a recipe for failure in the future if there is no room for growth and change.

But not at the ABlakeForum!

We’re happy to report a steady increase in visitors and traffic – far greater than we could have hoped for or expected only months after the re-launch! Our membership is growing daily, and we’re attracting some of the most brilliant marketing minds around to share and educate.

I hope to see you there! We’d love to hear your feedback, and we’re excited to roll out the newest features of this 21st century marketing forum over the summer. Don’t miss out! Sign up FREE today!

Tags: affiliate, Anthony Blake, Anthony Blake Forum, Anthony Blake Online, audio, business, community, deleted, Entrepreneurial Success Forum, features, free, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Forum, Members Only, prizes, security, social bookmarking, social networks, Terry Crim, Tony Blake, traffic, Twitter, video, visitors, Warrior Forum |

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Free Submissions to Directories & Social Networks

July 20th, 2008

Here’s a list of some of the best free directories and social networks. All have a page rank of 5 to 9, and all have free submission! If you find this useful, Stumble, Digg, Twitter (or whatever your preference is!) this post!

PR9