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If you’re of a certain age, you may have felt a little “left out” of the Facebook revolution at the beginning.  But no more.  Increasingly, Facebook is not just for young folks anymore, it’s just simply everybody.  It’s like the White Pages used to be.  It’s reached the point where it’s notable to NOT find someone on Facebook, than for them to be ON Facebook, which is sort of the equivalent of someone paying the phone company a dollar for an unlisted number in the phonebook.

Increasingly Social Media platforms are becoming the places to be found, and to help your campaign, venture, business get noticed.  Again, it’s more that “it’s expected” that your business, no matter how big or small, would have some sort of social presence.

One of the findings of the study is how much LESS people are using email, as part of their “online” experience.  Increasingly, communication is being done through Social Media platforms.

“Social media account for 22.5 percent of the time that Americans spend online, according to the report, compared with 9.8 percent for online games and 7.6 percent for e-mail.”

Not every business venture has the same audience, so people will have to tailor campaigns according to how to reach the widest audience.  Newspapers still have a very wide reach (a mention in a major newspaper still can create quite an uptick on your web stats, although the Huffington Post certainly is stiff competition), and billboards on freeways are still very effective advertising.  But it will probably “pay” to pay attention to the social media sphere, as it grows, so that your company can be responsive to the people using social media.

One indication of how Social Media is changing the communication landscape, editor Alan Geere of the Northcliffe Media South East Group in the UK, has asked applicants to apply only by Tweet. He is apparently tired of sifting through “creatively written” cover letters that try to overstate accomplishments. A Tweet will do!

The trend was very interesting when you look for Expression Engine, which typically is our CMS of choice. In the top million sites, Expression Engine ranks tenth. In the top 100,000 sites, EE is fifth, and in the top 10,000, EE is fourth. We often get asked by our larger clients and prospects about the size of the Expression Engine user base because what they mostly hear about is WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. What these stats show is that even though EE may not have spread as prolifically as the open source alternatives, it has a strong presence in well-trafficked sites.

However, it’s a bit of a wake-up call for every Twitter user, and Social Media convert, that again, with great power, comes great responsibility.

We have seen today just how powerful Social Media can be.

While it has been said that “there is no such thing as bad publicity”, one probably wants to err on the side of “good publicity” with one’s brand.  While many may not have known who Anthony Weiner was before his inadvertent “personal Tweet” went public, he probably did not want his name forever paired with this incident.

Which is why it’s good to learn as much as you can about these new technologies before delving in.  It’s good to know how much they can accomplish for your brand, and also where any pitfalls may lie.

If your head is spinning just thinking about it, Jub Jub can help answer basic questions about how Social Media can benefit your business, and also help you set up and manage Social Media campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Direct Email marketing. 

Just call or email us and we can discuss strategy and what pricing level would be good for your business. 

For a closer look at our exact services, you can download this price sheet, which gives a general overview.  (Pricing subject to change depending on client’s exact needs.)  We basically offer 3 levels of pricing at a monthly recurring cost for managing social media campaigns, in addition to an initial set up fee.

In the past, Facebook has usually encouraged “sharing”, so even if you had put some privacy controls on your basic information, so that your Facebook profile wouldn’t come up in a Google Search, or display all your personal information to somebody you hadn’t “friended”, all of your “friends” could see your posts and personal information.

Some people were initially a little uneasy with this sharing structure, not sure that they’d want to share “everything” with “everybody” they happened to be friends with.  There were especially uproars from various camps, during Facebook’s initial growth period, as it expanded from only allowing college students at one university (you know which one by now), to “other universities”, that

One of the new areas we are working on, and hope you find useful is the Knowledge Base, which we are populating with answers to “Frequently Asked Questions” about Email setup for various clients.

One of the things we are asked most is “What is my password?”

In light of that, we thought it would be good to post some information about Password Management here, and in our Support Portal.

One of the headaches of the digital age is setting up passwords for each account we have online.  These add up, and it is sometimes onerous to have to a) create them, and b) remember them.

However, as we become increasingly reliant on our digital packets of information, it is even more important to have safe and secure passwords.  Whether by cracking passwords, or even more easily “listening in” on wifi networks, hackers are increasingly gaining access to people’s email and online accounts to mine personal information, sometimes just to spam other people, sometimes to garner financial data.

Prevention is the key.

1) First thing to do is to create different, secure, hard to hack, passwords for each online and/ or email account that you have.

There are various ways to generate safe, secure passwords.  There are services on the internet, such as Safe Passwd, that takes the pain out of generating random characters.

It’s always best to use random characters that are difficult to remember.  It will be equally hard for hackers to crack the password.

These stats provide some perspective on how a good password can help defeat the hackers:

2) Second is to save these passwords in some sort of secured database.  The bonus is that some of these Password Databases include Password generators, so you can easily create and store.

A good password safe for the Mac is “Wallet” from Acrylic software. it now integrates with various browsers to automatically enter secure passwords. There’s also an iPhone App so that you can sync your passwords to your iPhone.  Very useful when you’re away from your regular computer, and need to remember that hard to remember password.  Download it here for $20.  Very little to pay for some good prevention.

A good password safe for Windows machines is “Password Safe” which is available for free download.

3) Third is to practice safe computing when using your passwords.

More and more people are finding that their email and online account passwords are being stolen.  This happens even if their passwords are very difficult to crack.  This is because more and more hackers are able to intercept the transfer of these passwords as they are being sent over insecure wi-fi signals.  The passwords, no matter how “difficult to crack” they are, are vulnerable if being sent via an insecure wifi network to some other computer.  This can happen if you are sitting in an airport,and using an insecure (non https) connection to connect to your Gmail account, or your Yahoo account, or any other website that requires a password.  If the password is not “encrypted” using HTTPS, then it could be easily picked up by anybody with sophisticated software who’s “listening in” on the wi-fi traffic.

A recent article in the New York Times talks about “FireSheep”, a piece of software released by Eric Butler to help publicize how easy it is for someone to “sniff out” your password as it travels unencrypted over Wifi.

If you’d like to know more about how encryption works, there’s information at the EFF website.

One of the ways to combat this is to log in to Gmail or Yahoo or other sites that allow you to use HTTPS to log in.  It’s simply a matter of typing in the URL:

httpS://mail.google.com

instead of

http://mail.google.com

You can also use a number of programs, that makes your browser automatically use HTTPS when sending a password over the internet.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) encourages users to download their “HTTPS Everywhere” application for free. 

Probably the most significant improvment, is that similar to how Facebook works on an individual level, you can comment on other “Page Friends’s” pages, and photographs.  You can write on other “Page Friends’” activity.

You do this by simply logging in “as your business”.  This allows you to interact on Facebook “in the name” of your Business.  So any comments you leave will be shown as a comment from “Your Business”.  This will significantly increase the ability of businesses to raise awareness of their activity on Facebook, taking it from “passive updates” to “interactive”.

All you have to do is simply choose to “Use Facebook as Page” from under the ACCOUNT menu:

Helping you to be more “interactive” on behalf of your “Business Page”, the Business Page Wall now streams activity from your other “Business Page” Friends’ pages.  Previously the Wall simply reflected updates that you had made for your Business.  Now the Wall is much more similar to that of a “regular” individual’s Wall, with personal and other friends’ updates. 

Another way to highlight and interact with your “Business Page” friends, is to highlight those businesses in the left hand side column of your page.  You can place your most valued customers or clients here, and they can reciprocate on their pages.

Similar to how individual pages work, Business Pages now have “Photos Across the Top”.  This is great way to highlight portfolio of work done, or photographs of events your company has been involved in.

Another similarity to the individual pages, is the improved “Navigation” on the left hand side.  It will seem very familiar to any heavy user of Facebook Individual pages.  You can simply switch back and forth from the “Wall” or “Info” in the same fashion that you would do with any Individual Facebook Page.

One of the nice Navigational improvements, is that your Facebok Insights Statistics are now available on the Left Hand side navigation.  Now you can start interacting on a higher level, and check your stats to see how the new changes are helping you to grow your following on Facebook:

And when you’re all done “interacting” as your business, you can switch back to your personal Facebook Account by going to the BUSINESS PAGE PROFILE view, and then a link appears on the side, allowing you to “Switch Back” to your Personal Account:

You can also check out the Help Section on Facebook to answer any other questions about the new Upgraded Pages section: Facebook Help section on Upgraded Pages