Relay Station Blog

Twitter Suspended Me!

| April 12, 2012 | 2 comments

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I have always been a law-abiding Tweep.

So, seeing a pink banner from Twitter police splashed across the top of my profile last week was a real shock. Seeing all of my followers and those I follow reduced to zero rattled my core. I rely on Twitter, as do our clients. After all, social media and digital marketing is what we’re all about at Relay Station.

It all started, I thought, when I Tweeted this:

 

 

 

Eight, Count ‘Em, Eight

Eight different accounts— it’s too generous to call them people— sent me the exact, same tweet. The only difference was their name, bio (if there was one), and avatar. In each case, the “person” was an attractive female or male.  They were phishing; hoping I would click on their link, download malware, and turn my computer into a criminal bot or worse. I blocked a couple; reported the others as spam.

The next morning, on April 5, I Tweeted the message above. Later that morning, I Tweeted once again about something else. That afternoon, I sat down to write a post for my blog, checked Twitter, and saw that I had been slapped with a pink banner. I was immobilized. Suspended. I could hardly eat lunch.

Speechless

Twitter offered a link to a government-like form where I was given the chance to state my case. I marshaled my facts. No attorney. Just represented myself.  Would I even hear back?

Minutes stretched into days. Would I have to create a new Twitter account? Use Google+? Change careers? What had happened to me? I felt like a twit.

Revenge?

Unable to sleep, I thought of a story my daughter’s Italian boyfriend had told me. Not Italian-American. Italian- Italy. The boyfriend’s cousin and her husband had been the victim of an armed, home-invasion and robbery. The police captured the robber. But their lawyer advised the victims to not pick him out of a line-up. The sentence would be brief. The robber was the type who might come back for revenge.

I got up and walked around the block, mulling over various paranoid scenarios: after multiple phishing attempts, then warning my followers about it, did the bad guys come after me? Report me as spam?

Oh Happy Day

Saturday arrived and I thought I’d check my suspended account and—a sigh of relief–I was back. With all of my followers and all of those I followed! The pink banner was gone. No explanation. But I was restored.

On April 9, I received an email from @Twitterzendesk.com.

“Twitter has automated systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk. Unfortunately, it looks like your account got caught up in one of these spam groups by mistake. I’ve restored your account; sorry for the inconvenience.”

The email was from an actual person, whose name I don’t want to reveal. After all, I don’t want her, uh, whoops. I mean, I don’t want that person to get mad, seek revenge, and deTwitter me forever. 

 

Need help with your program?

SCOTT PETERSON, co-founder of Relay Station Social Media LLC, has over a decade of experience in market, securities, and regulatory communications. His firm provides strategic communications consulting, integrated Internet marketing, compliance training, and more to a wide range of organizations.

To find out how you can receive a free Amplification Guide to learn advanced social media techniques, click here now.

If you like this blog post, drop us a line on Twitter and Like our Facebook page. SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG BY EMAIL OR RSS FEED

The “Online Privacy Bill of Rights” Head Fake & 4 Ways to Protect Yourself

| March 1, 2012 | Be first to comment

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Guest Blog Post Written by Marc Stelzer

Internet privacy issues are so scary and the remedies so annoying that they naturally lead to procrastination. Kind of like preparing  for a family Thanksgiving dinner… during a hurricane.

You may be heartened by developments like the White House’s Blueprint for a “Privacy Bill of Rights” to Protect Consumers Online  or even the European-styled online privacy protections influencing the debate over the trading of “anonymous profile data.”

Are you being tracked onlineEven amidst these positive developments, when PR flacks start hawking fluff pieces about how “Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL have all expressed support for this initiative that aims to give individuals greater online privacy protection” you know its time to toss your cookies and keep a close eye on your google wallet. Especially in the same month that Google and others have finally been exposed taking advantage of the not-so-secret browser privacy circumvention hacks used throughout the industry in order to supposedly “use known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled” to track these users, especially on their iPhones. Cookies aren’t just for kids anymore.  And the voluntary no track button has long been available and won’t be so much as a speed bump to the data profiling hordes.

Forget it. As if any government is actually willing or capable of securing your rights from highly motivated, technically advanced, well incentivized, vertically integrated data mining operations away from your keyboard. And the players (large and small) will gladly continue to pay lip service to the issues surrounding “internet privacy” so long as the consuming public has to perform the digital equivalent of a brake liner test on a moving automobile every time they log on to their computer to truly secure their privacy. If you think this is overblown rhetoric, read up on what actual privacy hawks  are formally petitioning the FTC about.

Fortunately for us all, the resources needed to solve sleep loss over the issues and take back the control levers of personal web privacy are readily available and not as difficult to implement as your inner procrastinator would have led you to believe.

1. Remove your Google History ASAP…even if the magic March 1st date is passed!! Bonus: support the EFF while you are visiting.

2. Then look at tools that limit Facebook privacy intrusions  and understand what is actually going on…and why you should care. Try this for a more advanced treatment for icing Facebook, Google+, and Twitter tracking. 

3. Next thing to look at is cleaning up and opting out of data tracking as well as reviewing this great list on busting your filter bubble. Bonus: Item 10 gives you way to tell Congress that you ACTUALLY DO CARE about online privacy and don’t intend to be treated like a piece of digital meat.

4. *Finally – and maybe most importantly -  install some simple, yet powerful, browser tools that will actually help you stop the tracking  and overcome the feeling of powerlessness that the entire topic evokes. The most serious minded may wish to utilize the TOR Project’s powerful anonymizing tools.

These types of tools have come a very long way, are super helpful and won’t slow down your browsing speed as in the past. Better yet, they enable an install-and-forget-about-it solution to privacy protection by automating the vigilance required to keep your browsing information out of the hands of aggregators and data miners. Now if they could just come up with a plan to keep my family from arguing through the turkey dinner.

 For further reading on this topic, take a look at this thought provoking article on the history of privacy .

 

To find out how you can receive a free Amplification Guide to learn advanced social media techniques, click here now.

If you like this blog post, drop me a line on Twitter and Like our Facebook page. SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG BY EMAIL EMAIL OR RSS FEED.

 

 

 

 

Data Loss Prevention: A Key Element of Your Social Media Program

| February 16, 2012 | Be first to comment

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Social networks are surveillance platforms for bad guys. If you’re not careful, you can be tricked and attacked by criminal syndicates trying to siphon funds from your company’s treasury, state sponsored organizations that want to hijack your company’s intellectual property, or maybe anonymous teens bent on making a political statement. 

The sad fact is that if you touch the web, you’re vulnerable. That’s why a critical part of any social media program must be security awareness.

Your IT department should be mounting an aggressive defense. The security effort might be the responsibility of a staff of dedicated professionals or a single, expert consultant. Data classification, perimeter protection, secure browsers, and prevention of data leakage are some of the elements of a solid IT security program.

The Weakest Link

But the single, biggest point of vulnerability is you. According to security experts, criminals now generally avoid a frontal assault on a company, selecting instead carefully chosen targets that they go after away from the office.

If you are active on the web, information about you is available in many places: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, an Internet search, or other websites. Once you are the target, criminals will attempt to get you to click on a link that is sent through email or, increasingly, in an invitation or post on Twitter or Facebook.

Unfortunately, it’s not hard to get people to click on a criminal link. It requires constant vigilance not to do it. If you’re tired, distracted, or perhaps had a drink or two, your defenses may be down and you click when you shouldn’t have.

Then What Happens?

Once you’ve clicked a criminal link on Twitter, Facebook, or another social media site, malicious code can be downloaded into your computer. In the worst type of cases, this will allow the attackers to snatch all sorts of valuable data about your company that may reside on your laptop or other Internet device. Insertion of a variety of harvesting and penetration tools can allow the capture of your company username and password, giving them the keys to sensitive and confidential data.

What to Do

The first step toward protection is to create an internal and external social media policy that includes sections on data loss prevention. It’s important to know how social media can be used at work. But it is equally important, when thinking through questions of how company employees may use social media at home, to include steps that must be followed to avoid inadvertent loss of company data, as well as what to do when a mistake is made.

There should also be a data loss prevention module in your social media training program. Education and training are critical to the overall effort to fight back.  The variables are changing constantly, so your training should be updated regularly.

Of course, no matter what is done, you can’t prevent employees from acting unwisely at home. But you will have dramatically raised the barrier that keeps criminals out. 

 

Need help with your program? Contact us. We can help. 

SCOTT PETERSON, co-founder of Relay Station Social Media LLC, has over a decade of experience in market, securities, and regulatory communications. His firm provides integrated Internet marketing, compliance training, and more to a wide range of organizations.

To find out how you can receive a free Amplification Guide to learn advanced social media techniques, click here now.

If you like this blog post, drop us a line on Twitter and Like our Facebook page. SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG BY EMAIL OR RSS FEED.

ISOC-DC’s SOPA Obituary Roundtable Breakfast

| January 27, 2012 | Be first to comment

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Yesterday the Washington DC Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-DC) hosted a breakfast round table discussion on SOPA/PIPA and reasonable alternatives to deal with Internet piracy.

The discussion was led by noted Internet scholar and author, Rebecca MacKinnon; The MPAA’s Chief Technology Policy Officer, Paul Brigner; as well as ISOC-DC’s own Michael Nelson of Georgetown University and CSC’s Leading Edge Forum.

Rebecca MacKinnon speaks the truth to copyright

@rmack spoke brilliantly about the problems with the copyright approach that led to SOPA as well as the intrinsic challenges to find solutions to Internet problems like piracy and the tradeoffs necessary in a multi-stakeholder environment.

Paul Brigner, who was not in fact burned at the stake by waves of Net Freedom activists, discussed not only  the legitimate need to protect intellectual property and copyrighted content (read movies), but also of the film industry’s need to incorporate technology into it’s policy considerations. A very lively, informed, and productive discussion ensued.

 

Simple Tools for a Powerful Password Strategy

| December 15, 2011 | Be first to comment

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A university professor told me he has an easy way to remember his online passwords.  He uses the same one everywhere. I admit I was a little surprised. He’s got a PhD and runs an institute. If you use more than one password—and I hope you do—are they written on scraps of paper that you stick in a book? Or do you rely upon Google to protect you and hope no one steals your laptop.

This is serious stuff. InfoSecIsland recently posted a great piece titled the Top Ten Password Cracking Methods. How many are you susceptible to? 

There are a number of companies that offer software to protect you, including KeyPass, StickyPassword, and Kaspersky. But the two leaders in the password space are Roboform and LastPass. Both require only one master password, encrypt passwords, provide secure password generators, and fill in forms. 

Roboform is free as a download that allows users to save information for up to 10 accounts. Bet you have more than that, though, don’t you? Beyond ten, the cost is $29.95. Passwords are stored on an encrypted file on your hard drive. You’ll need to install on all of your machines or use a proprietary sync product. An enterprise version is available with a volume discount. 

LastPass is a better solution for me. There’s a free version that allows unlimited accounts that I’ve been using for a year now. I’m very happy with it. It’s compatible with all mainstream browsers. LastPass saves your passwords into an encrypted file on their servers so it can be accessed from anywhere online. No need to install it on all of your machines.  A mobile version with advanced features costs $12 per year.  There’s an enterprise version, as well. 

You need to memorize one master password to access your LastPass vault where all of your other login data and passwords are stored.
There are several different levels of available security.  But it’s really about opening and closing the vault. 

Here’s how easy it is to use:

  • Generate a free, secure password using LastPass’s password generator tool or create a long, complex password yourself. Here are some guidelines from Microsoft.
  • Change the password in one of your online accounts to this new password, then access the account.
  • LastPass will ask you if you want to save the new login and password into your vault. Click yes.
  • The next time you need to enter a password into this account, first click on the black LastPass icon on your toolbar.  Then enter your LastPass Master Password.
  • The account password will automatically populate. Click and open your account.
  • Close your LastPass vault.

Along with a good password strategy, you also need good anti-malware and anti-spyware programs.  Microsoft Security Essentials and Spybot Search & Destroy are two of the best. 

Password protection may become a thing of the past if technology that enables iris recognition is adopted for the consumer market. But don’t wait. You could be sorry if you do.

SCOTT PETERSON is co-founder of Relay Station Social Media LLC. We provide integrated Internet marketing, compliance solutions, training, and more to a wide range of organizations.

To find out how you can receive a free Amplification Guide to learn advanced social media techniques, click here now.

If you like this blog post, drop us a line on Twitter and Facebook. SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG BY EMAIL OR RSS FEED.

What You Need to Know About Social & Search

| November 17, 2011 | Be first to comment

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Is the relationship between social and search a clash of the Titans pitting Facebook against Google? In some ways yes, but in other more important and pragmatic ways social media data is becoming an increasingly important component of search results.

Links have been a key factor in Google’s algorithm for some time. Authenticity versus spam are key to high link authority, and social media links are generally considered highly authentic and provide opportunities to create a lot of other very high quality links. So much so that Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search and the definitive public authority on the subject says that SEO’s need to think about social media marketing.

Social Media SearchSocial media links can also provide considerable opportunities for inbound link building. In general, link building  is hard:

Looking at sites individually, formulating your approach, sending personalized emails, picking up the phone to speak to the webmasters – it’s a lot of hard slog.

But social media provides a great “link bait” environment because compelling content posted on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc., has the chance of being shared, tweeting, +1’d and such to extended networks with vast reach. Not only does this help your rankings, but it provides the opportunity for many people within those extended networks to link to your content.

But wait, there’s more! Now we’re talking about Social Search in which social is more deeply embedded into the DNA of search. Although social content has shown up prominently in Google SERP’s (Search Engine Ranking Pages) for sometime,  now we are seeing a dramatic increase in the extent to which recommendations (Facebook “Likes”, G+ +1’s) actually appear in Social Search results. Basically, if you’re signed into Google, you get “Google Social Search Results”. (If you want to see un-social search results, log out….)

Google Social Search helps you discover relevant content from your social connections, a set of your online friends and contacts. Content from your friends and acquaintances is sometimes more relevant and meaningful to you than content from any random person. For example, an online movie review is useful, but a movie review from your best friend can be even better.

In fact did you know that you can see what Google knows about your social graph?

This adds a whole new meaning to the importance to G= and +1. This is also one of the reasons that so many social media Guru types have been early G+ adopters, http://www.biznology.com/2011/11/google-plus-was-born-prematurely-and-you-should-take-advantage/that:

[F]or anyone that really cares about being part of search, anyone who cares even a little bit about Google’s search hegemony, there’s another benefit to participating in Google+: search priority, search timeliness, and search relevance. There’s a good chance that the best way to show up first on Google search is to invest your brand and your time force-feeding all your content and trends to Google products such as Plus and YouTube.

Gee, ya think? 


The take away from all of this is to optimize the heck out of your social media presence. pay particular attention to your Google + profile, and create Google + Pages for your businesses and brands.

Here is a list 0f suggested posts and articles for further reading:

Blog SMO Guide: How to Apply Social Media Optimization to Your Blog in 33 Steps

 Recent Google+ Posts & “Add To Circles” Buttons Are Coming To Google’s Search Results

10 Tips and Tricks for Better Google+ Brand Pages

Maximize your SEO benefit on Google+ in 8 simple steps 

http://mashable.com/2011/11/09/google-plus-brand-pages-tips/

http://www.biznology.com/2011/11/maximize-your-seo-benefit-on-google-in-8-simple-steps/

What are your thoughts on the convergence of social and search? What reading do you recommend on the subject? 

DAVID VYORST is co-founder of Relay Station Social Media LLC. We provide integrated Internet marketing, compliance solutions, training, and more to a wide range of organizations.

To find out how you can receive a free Amplification Guide to learn advanced social media techniques, click here now.

If you like this blog post, drop me a line on Twitter and Like our Facebook page. SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG BY EMAIL EMAIL OR RSS FEED.

Nielsen Social Media Report Offers Insight into Users

| September 13, 2011 | Be first to comment

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I’ve written a lot about how your company can engage with people online in a way that’s compliant with the rules. But let’s look at the other side of the coin. Who uses social media and where do they hang out online?

Yesterday, Nielsen—the global measurement giant—released “State of the Media: The Social Media Report” for the third quarter of 2011. The statistics are based on research conducted last May.

As expected, social media’s popularity continues to grow. You can see it all around you. But how big is it compared to all the time Americans spend online—from checking the weather to ordering flowers for mom? According to Nielsen, networks and blogs “rule Americans’ Internet time, accounting for 23% of time spent online,” compared to 7.6% for email and 2.6% for current events and global news.

Although its use is no longer limited to the young, you can see the wave building because the younger you are, the more it is used. Consider this:

  • Americans aged 35-49 were 4% more likely than average to visit social networks and blogs
  •  The 18-34-year-old age group was 8% more likely.

Other interesting insights:

  • Asian/Pacific Islanders frequented social networks and blogs more than any other race/ethnicity and were 9% more likely than African Americans , who used them the least
  • If you hold a bachelor’s degree or greater, you are 7% more likely to visit social networks and blogs than if you only have a high school diploma
  • 7% more women visit social networks and blogs than men
  • Facebook reaches 70% of active U.S. Internet users and has 3 times the audience of the #2 site, Google’s Blogger
  • 62% of Facebook page views are by female visitors
  • 53% of active social networkers follow a brand.

It’s been said that the social media revolution in communications has created a divide between those of us who use it and those companies who still do not. If you run one of those companies, you are missing in action. 

 

Need help getting your program off the ground? Contact us. We can help.

SCOTT PETERSON is co-founder of Relay Station Social Media LLC. We provide integrated Internet marketing, compliance solutions, training, and more to a wide range of organizations.

To find out how you can receive a free Amplification Guide to learn advanced social media techniques, click here now.

If you like this blog post, drop us a line on Twitter and Facebook. SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG BY EMAIL OR RSS FEED.

The 4 Things You Need to Know About Facebook’s Recent Changes

| September 7, 2011 | 1 comment

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After Facebook’s recent announcement of major changes to its sharing and privacy functions, bloggers spent last week extolling the competitive virtues of these changes as meeting the challenges presented Google+ Circles. Most came to the conclusion that you can now easily control who can read what and what you read from whom on Facebook as you can so easily on G+.

It’s not that simple. Here are the 4 most important things you need to know about the Facebook changes.

1)     Facebook has added many useful features that definitely give users more control;

2)     The Facebook changes are meant to answer competitive challenges raised by Google+ and G+ Circles;

3)     The changes most relevant to G+ competition, the enhanced ability to use lists, are not as elegant and seamless as G+ Circles’ drag and drop functionality; and

4)     This does not by any means mean that G+ will surpass Facebook in users any time soon.

Let’s take a look at each of these:

1) New Features

A lot has been written about the new features and privacy settings among which include the ability to pre-approve being tagged in anyone’s photo and the ability to see what your profile looks like from another friend’s facebook point of view. These are covered well by Robert Scoble with help from the Facebook Blog.

The new features include:

  • Content Tag Review

As mentioned above, users now have the ability to pre-approve photo tags before anyone sees them. Tagging power users in photos was a common exposure trick. Let’s say I want to draw a lot of attention to a promotional image I’ve posted, I can tag my top 50 Facebook friends and thousands and thousands of people will see the image in their newsfeeds. Not so much any more….

  • View Profile As
    Ever wonder what you look like to others on Facebook? Wonder no more: 

Sorry, Jane!

  • Posting
    The added features of tagging “Who are you with?” and “Where are you?” in status updates.

2) A response to challenges lay down by Google+

While allowing users greater control over their privacy setting and sharing abilities may have been in the works for some time, the enhanced sharing and newsfeed controls are a direct response to G+’s Circles. Facebook users now have improved abilities to: a) select who sees your posts, and b) view newsfeeds from lists.

3) These enhanced news feed capabilities are not nearly as effective as Google+ Circles.

Google Circles allows users to almost effortlessly create, drag and drop friends into, and interact with Circles. G+ users can then easily view the stream of a single Circle or a combination of Circles and post to selected Circles. Not quite so with Facebook lists. While creating and viewing newsfeeds from lists is easy enough and users can select or exclude specific friends to post to, users cannot yet post content to a specific list or set of lists.  They claim this functionality will be added with in two weeks:

This dropdown menu will be expanding over time to include smaller groups of people you may want to share with, like co-workers, Friend Lists you’ve created, and Groups you’re a member of. These will make it easy to quickly select exactly the audience you want for any post.

4) This doesn’t mean G+ will overtake The Social Network in users anytime soon.

This summer the blogosphere was ripe with posts reporting the rapid rise and enusing leveling off of G+ users. Before the post-peak posts, the thinking conveyed was that Google +’s ease of use, Google’s omnipresence in email and search, combined with Facebook fatigue would catapult G+ past Zuck and Co.

Not so fast Facebook Killers. It’s not just that Facebook is addressing the competition. G+ was the flavor-of-the-month in July. Although it’s strengths are quite formidable, it’s really easy to use and you can get to it with one click from Gmail, Facebook will remain the dominant social network for the foreseeable future simply because so many people are in the habit of doing so many things on it. The Google+ summer rush was largely early adapters and social media enthusiasts. Moving the online public writ large is another story, even for Google.

Case in point, buried underneath the sharing update announcements, Facebook “cut their Places product (which was a response to Foursquare that they only launched late last year) and they cut their daily deals product (which was a response to Groupon and launched just four months ago).” The thinking on these at one time had been that Facebook would be able to leverage their 700 million users and crush Foursquare and Groupon. But this didn’t happen because people like using Foursquare  for location networking and Groupon for deals. Google should take note of this.

Facebook v. Google+

Facebook v. Google+

 

 

Twitter Attack?! 3 Ways to Protect Against Criminals Who Target Your Account

| August 25, 2011 | 2 comments

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When a stranger knocks at your door, you’re wary. If a salesman tries to sell you something you don’t want, you’re skeptical. So do your antennae melt in the Twittersphere?

You may have noticed a surge of Twitter phishing lately. Sometimes it arrives as a direct message from a friend. Other times, you may have a new account and find yourself inundated with solicitations from sexy women or strange companies or other weirdness.

I’ve set up new client accounts recently and was amazed at the volume of this stuff coming in. For the unsuspecting among you, here are three ways to protect yourself and your company:

1) Beautiful but Deadly

If you’ve authorized it on your Notifications page (find it by clicking “Edit your profile”), you may receive an email that someone new, let’s call her “Ms. X,” is following you. Or when you visit your list of followers, you see her then. Click on her profile to learn more. First, there may be a seductive photo of an attractive young woman. This is where those of you who think about sex every five seconds need to exercise control. Don’t instantly follow her! Notice who this person is following: hundreds if not thousands of people. How many followers: only a small proportion. But here’s a real clue: Ms. X has never tweeted. Or there may be a few tweets, but when you scan the timeline, they seem out-of-context or simply not real.

Next, scroll down to the instruction from Twitter:

“If you believe Ms. X is engaging in abusive behavior on Twitter, you may report Ms. X for spam.

Click on “report Ms. X” and she’s gone – including from the list of your followers.

2) Is That Really You, Bob?

Let’s say you receive a direct message or classic Tweet from Bob, who you stayed with in Los Angeles. Bob’s a good friend. You trust him implicitly. But the message claims he’s making lots of money at home and you can, too. Or asking you to check out an article; he made $625! Or something similarly strange. Doesn’t sound like Bob.

Don’t click on the website link to learn more! Send Bob a DM or email, ask him if he DMed you about making money at home. He probably won’t know what you’re talking about. If he does, he’ll be embarrassed. Too bad for Bob. He was foolish. His Twitter account has been compromised and, most likely, everyone that he follows has gotten the same DM as you.

In response, you can stop receiving notifications from Twitter by clicking on “unsubscribe immediately” (see text at the bottom of the notification). You can always follow Bob again later—after he resets his password. I prefer to examine notifications at the time.  

In your followers list, if you find a suspicious profile and want to get rid of it : visit the Spam account’s profile, click the person icon (this brings up a drop-down Actions menu), then click on “Report @username for spam.”

3)  Don’t Be A BOT

You’ll run across these types of dangers when you use Twitter as a search engine or in trending topics. The bottom line is DO NOT follow these cretins or click on the attached link to learn more.   

If you do, you may be transported to a cleverly designed, reputable- appearing site that tells how single mothers are making a fortune working from home or some other nonsense—while malware or Trojans are downloaded into your computer. This criminal software could enslave your computer in a BOT network, read and transmit your passwords as you type or generally create all kinds of havoc.

So change your Twitter password, make sure you’ve installed the latest security patches, and run an updated anti-malware/anti-virus program—even if you haven’t been obviously tricked.

Twitter has been working since last year to filter out these dangers. Check out Help for more information. But until the protections are stronger, protect yourself with a few simple techniques and common sense. 

SCOTT PETERSON is co-founder of Relay Station Social Media LLC. We provide integrated Internet marketing, compliance solutions, training, and more to a wide range of organizations.

To find out how you can receive a free Amplification Guide to learn advanced social media techniques, click here now.

If you like this blog post, drop us a line on Twitter and Facebook. SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG BY EMAIL OR RSS FEED.

Use Facebook’s NetworkedBlogs to Syndicate Content

| August 23, 2011 | Be first to comment

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If you write a blog, one syndication tool that should definitely be in your toolbox is NetworkedBlogs. The NetworkedBlogs app is the leading blog syndication and networking blog app on Facebook. It provides bloggers with access to Facebook’s community of bloggers and is a very powerful tool to syndicate a blog’s content to personal Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, and any Facebook page that a listed blog author administers. With just a a few easy steps and a little bit of creative outreach to a few Facebook power users in your network, NetworkedBlogs can syndicate your content to a remarkably wide number of Facebook users and create viral opportunities.

You could go viral

The exponential potential of syndication

While the app is commonly viewed as a Facebook social network tool used to connect with other bloggers on Facebook through the app’s interface, networking directly on NetworkedBlogs may not be the most efficient way to allocate valuable social networking time for a few reasons. First, it’s questionable how much people actually get blog content from the NetworkedBlogs page. Second, people don’t trust third party apps–when you invite someone to follow your blog from the NetWorkedBlogs page, the invitation comes from a not from you but from a third party app, and many people will ignore the invitation or even block the app.

Create Viral Opportunities

The real value is in using NetworkedBlogs to syndicate your content as widely to as many newsfeeds as possible. This is where you can dramatically increase your reach while also creating viral opportunities.

To get started, add your blog to NetworkedBlogs:

  1. Select Add a blog;
  2. Paste code into your blog;
  3. Verify your blog on NetworkedBlogs; and
  4. Add as many authors as practical; authors can syndicate your blog posts!

Extending Your Reach

Once a blog is added to NetworkedBogs, its content can be syndicated to: a) The Facebook profiles of listed

authors, b) Facebook Pages that any authors administer, and c) Twitter targets. Authors can even be listed anonymously so that only the page/blog owner can see that they are authors (“secret authors” can set up in the blog author “Anonimity”/“Hide Author” settings), i.e. if someone in your network doesn’t want to be publicly listed, they can still syndicate your blog’s content by being listed as a hidden or anonymous author.

Here’s the awesome part. Blog owners can add many authors to a given blog, and if they agree, blog posts will be syndicated to the listed author’s news feeds and can also be syndicated to any Facebook Pages that they administer.

So with a modest amount of research, make a list of your Facebook friends with wide reach (a lot of Friends) who will agree to be listed as an author, as well as like minded blogs and Facebook pages.

Then reach out to those people. A good social networking idea is to offer administrators of like minded Facebook Pages content syndication exchanges. Your blog content will appear on their Page, in exchange for posting theirs on yours.

The Potential Exponential Increase in Reach

So let’s say you get seven friends to agree to be listed as authors on your Networkedblogs blog and they have an average of 700 friends each. Not only will the reach of your blog post increase by nearly 4900 (depending on people’s newsfeed settings), if even a few of your friends’ friends like or share your blog post it will reach thousands of more people, and this is where you create real viral opportunities.

So if you keep on writing quality useful blog posts, and put them out there as widely as possible, over time this is one way you will increase your blog’s traffic and your social reach.

David Vyorst is co-founder of Relay Station Social Media LLC. We provide integrated Internet marketing, compliance solutions, training, and more to a wide range of organizations.

To find out how you can receive a free Amplification Guide to learn advanced social media techniques, click here now.

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