Your Business and Social Media

I just read this great article on PCWorld that outlines mistakes you need to avoid regarding your business and social media and I felt the need to bring attention to it because I've seen many, many local examples of just doing social media wrong.  I really want you to read the original article, but if you're as lazy as I am you're probably staying here for my summary...which I was planning to give you anyway.

1.  Hand the keys to someone who isn't ready to drive.

While the article goes in about giving the job to an outsource or a low level staffer I think they left someone out: Media Relations.  I have to agree, letting someone who doesn't know how much their words can impact a business run social media is a huge mistake.  Outsources aren't on the ground and when they do post it's boilerplate.  Low level staffers...well they just don't care.  Media relations should be able to effectively handle this just.  Problem is social media isn't particularly part of the media relations course load (I really hope it is these days though).  I find that in most organizations media relations don't know how to use it, aren't empowered to use it, or never heard of it.

2.  Fire the person in charge of social media

This is right up there with replacing any IT specialist.  Make sure if you're going to fire them that you take away their "keys".  I put that in quotes because physically locking out your displaced IT guy doesn't mean he can't access your network.  Most IT specialists have too much respect for the craft to use your (now unguarded) infrastructure against you, but for many the temptation is too great.

3.  Confuse a reply with a direct message on Twitter

With email, it's easy.  You press reply and you can send a message to someone who sent a message to you.  Twitter doesn't work like that.  When you hit reply EVERYONE can see your reply.  If you want to reply to someone directly on Twitter you have to use direct messaging. A reply on Twitter is essentially the same as reply all in email...but with a much bigger audience.

4.  Commit rank insensitivity

This one is simple but it's easy to see how people would not see how wrong this is.  Don't use a hashtag to exploit any trending topic rooted in human suffering.  It's bad for business and makes you look like a jerk.

5.  Fail to understand corporate confidentiality

Simply put, be mindful of what you share.  Trade secrets, meeting information, etc. can land you in hot water.

6.  Ask for potentially hostile users to chime in

Once you let people post to your feed, that's it.  You will occasionally get negative feedback.  The only way I see around this is to maintain total control is not to allow anyone but you to post.

7.  Get political

Chick Fil A.  Nuff said.

8.  Fail to understand the mechanics of social media

This harkens back to #4.

9.  Neglect social media security

Guard your password.

Really though, read the article.  Good stuff.

The Latest Innovation in BS

If it's one thing all my Facebook friends know about me is that I'm an unofficial Mythbuster.  I'm not as extreme as Adam and Jamie are, I just like keeping people in the know regarding the mountains upon mountains of BS floating around the Internet.  This is a service I provide solely to my friends and for anyone else lucky enough to be linked to my blog.  How do I do it?  Simple really.  I pretty don't trust anything I hear right off the bat and I do research.

But yeah, you're probably wondering why I've started yet another blog entry related to busting myths.  It's because I've notice a new innovation recently.  Some of these bogus stories have been bounce around the Internet for like 10 years now so it's not surprising that the people who purvey this crap have switched things up a bit.

Here's the latest trend in BS: Combining two or more untruths.  I think this was done with the intention of throwing off fact checkers.  See there used to be just one source per untruth but if you combine 2 or more you have to isolate and look up each individual part.  Here's an example I saw today (and I really hate to use it because it involves the ever hot button topic of politics):

FINALLY SOMEONE ASKED HIM THE QUESTION!
ON "ABC-TV" DURING THE "NETWORK SPECIAL ON HEALTH CARE".... OBAMA WAS ASKED:
"MR. PRESIDENT WILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY GIVE UP YOUR CURRENT HEALTH CARE PROGRAM
AND JOIN THE NEW 'UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAM' THAT THE REST OF US WILL BE ON ????"
THERE WAS A STONEY SILENCE AS <>OBAMA IGNORED THE QUESTION AND CHOSE NOT TO ANSWER IT !!!
IN ADDITION, A NUMBER OF SENATORS WERE ASKED THE SAME QUESTION AND THEIR RESPONSE WAS."WE WILL THINK ABOUT IT."
AND THEY DID. IT WAS ANNOUNCED TODAY ON THE NEWS THAT THE "KENNEDY HEALTH CARE BILL" WAS WRITTEN INTO THE NEW HEALTH CARE REFORM INITIATIVE ENSURING THAT THAT CONGRESS WILL BE 100% EXEMPT !
SO, THIS GREAT NEW HEALTH CARE PLAN THAT IS GOOD FOR YOU AND I... IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR OBAMA, HIS FAMILY OR CONGRESS...??
WE (THE AMERICAN PUBLIC) NEED TO STOP THIS PROPOSED DEBACLE ASAP !!!! THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG !!!!!
PERSONALLY, I CAN ONLY ACCEPT A UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL THAT EXTENDS TO EVERYONE... NOT JUST US LOWLY CITIZENS.... WHILE THE WASHINGTON "ELITE" KEEP RIGHT ON WITH THEIR GOLD-PLATED HEALTH CARE COVERAGES.
If you don't pass this around, may you enjoy his Plan!

WHAT???
The Republic has a CONSTITUTION???

Amendment 28

Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States .

Imagine what we could do if everybody passed this around.
Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States .

Imagine what we could do if everybody passed this around.

 I imagine we could fool a lot of people which is exactly what this is intended for.  Now part one of this ends at "If you don't pass this around, may you enjoy his Plan!".  It turns out that that part is Mostly False. I can only assume it's "mostly" because Barack Obama did indeed appear on an ABC special...but the name and what transpired are wildly distorted.

Part 2  involves the 28th Amendment.and it's a shorter version of what I've seen running around.  There is no 28th Amendment.  The US Constitution is currently at 27.  Congress did not try to exempt themselves from the Health Care Law and yes, they have to follow it too.

So I say this again as warning: Check everything your receive and check everything people share with you.  I'm trying to get everyone in the habit of being their own mythbuster.

Pretty Sneaky, Malwarebytes

I don't think a month goes by when at some point I don't extoll the virtues of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.  With all the crazy programs running around telling you you have nonexistent infections it's a necessity.  Sure some of the big guns in the Antivirus field are bundling in anti-malware into their programs but Malwarebytes is still the best (in my humble opinion that is; there's still that flap about them flagging important Windows files as malicious a month ago...but I forgive them).

Well today I learned they have a new offering that makes fighting malware a little bit easier.  It's called Chameleon.

More like a Blue Shrimp...

Chameleon does something that the malware busting community has needed for some time: A way to install Malwarebytes on computers that have already been infected and are blocking the regular Malwarebytes installation.  See the one critical flaw of Malwarebytes is that most users don't look to it until they've already been infected.  And most of these malware creators know how effective Malwarebytes is and taking their stuff to the cleaners so they make sure you can't install ANYTHING once you've been infected.  Norton used to have a similar problem back in the day when viruses targeted outdated Norton installations as soon as it infected a system.

With Chameleon you can load your computer in Safe Mode With Networking and, using a conspicuously named svchost.exe file, install Malwarebytes with the latest database update using a MSDOS command shell.  This little peach has earned a place in my USB drive archives.