branding 6

The Freelance Studio Denver, Co User Experience Agency
One day in 2013, users noticed something awfully fishy about the @BurgerKing Twitter account: The BK logo had mysteriously been swapped out for the McDonald’s logo, and the name of the account had been changed to ‘McDonalds’. In addition, a tweet went out stating that the company had been sold to McDonalds because, “the whopper flopped”. If this sounds suspicious, that’s because it is. BK’s Twitter account had been compromised, and the hackers were having some fun at Burger King’s expense. This went on for an hour, until BK finally managed to get the account suspended. While this is perhaps an extreme example, it does remind us that we shouldn’t take the security of our social media accounts for granted. 8 strategies on how to make your social media accounts secure: 1. Use a password manager One of the simplest ways for hackers to gain access to your accounts is to get ahold of your social media login info and passwords. Once they have this info, the sky’s the limit in terms of the harm they can cause. Experts recommend choosing a long and complex password. The problem is, this will not only prevent hackers from figuring it out, it will also likely prevent YOU from remembering it! Using a password manager like 1Password can help. It will automatically create long, hack-proof passwords for everything you can imagine (social media accounts included), and all you have to do is remember ONE main password. Plug in that password, and 1Password will automatically log you in to your social media accounts. Virtually impossible for hackers to figure out, and virtually impossible for you to forget! 2. Avoid suspicious links Another way hackers gain access to your private account info is through getting you to click on a link. By clicking on the link, malware is downloaded to your computer, giving hackers access to all your valuable info. If you have ANY doubt that a link is legit, avoid it! Some red flags to look out for include: Shortened URLs Posts that don’t sound like your friend/colleague (e.g., “Click the link below for access to this FREE amazing video now!”) Emails from friends that aren’t personally addressed to you, OR that aren’t signed with their name 3. Protect your device when out and about I highly recommend having password protection on all your internet-enabled devices. This is particularly important if you share your devices with others, or regularly take your devices outside the home or office (coffee shops, meetings, planes/trains, etc.). Accidentally leaving your device behind is bad enough; but having it stolen and giving the thief unrestricted access to your personal info, including your social media accounts? That’s a recipe for disaster! Something else you may not be aware of is that determined hackers can actually access your device from afar if you’re using public WIFI. To add an extra layer of protection, install a free browser extension like HTTPS Everywhere to switch most websites from HTTP (unsecured) to HTTPS (secured). 4. Cover your tracks when using public computers Do you ever use a public computer to post to social media? Maybe it’s the public library computer, an internet café or even a friend’s device? If so, there are some things you should keep in mind: Always remember to log out of your social media accounts once you’re done using them Delete your browsing history NEVER click ‘Save password or login info’ if asked Consider using the ‘Browse privately’ option to access your social media accounts 5. Use Hootsuite to give access to employees without giving away login info Having a dedicated social media team can be great, but it can also mean more chances at having your social media accounts hacked. All it takes is one employee leaving their password out, and your entire account can be compromised. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite can help you avoid this. Each individual user will have their own login info, but they will NOT have access to your main company password. Bonus: By assigning various levels of permission to your staff, you can reduce the impact if someone does gain access to one of your employee’s accounts. 6. Use a 2-step verification system For certain social media platforms like Twitter, you can establish a 2-step verification system when logging into your social media account. This means that when you log in to your account you first have to type in the right password and then enter the verification code that is sent to your cell phone before you can even be logged in! Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google are just some of the sites that have this 2-step verification system. 7. Setup a passcode for your phone I mentioned earlier that accidentally leaving your phone behind can be bad, but imagine if you didn’t have a passcode set up on your phone! All the thief would need to do is swipe and have instant access to your information and social accounts. One way to avoid this is to take advantage of the passcode setting available on most phones, which is normally a set of numbers or a particular swipe pattern. Some phones even have a fingerprint lock that adds a whole new layer of security. 8. Turn off location services in your apps What could be worse than getting your social accounts hacked? Someone being able to see where you are through the location services enabled on your apps. Certain apps recommend having the location services enabled, but many don’t require it in order to work properly. You can go into your Settings and change which apps have access to your location and if it’s not absolutely necessary then I would suggest disabling the location so you can rest a little easier. These 8 tips are simple to implement, but can save you from a number of compromising situations. I’d recommend taking the time now to make sure your social media accounts are secure, rather than having to clean up the mess left by a hacker! How do you make your social media accounts secure? Share below! Email Marketing Step up your email marketing game with our weekly newsletter. Your email here. SUBSCRIBE 3 Key Strategies To Quickly Build An Email List By Blogging How do you effectively use blogging to grow your email list? Columnist Daniel Faggella lays out some critical tips and strategies. Daniel Faggella on October 5, 2015 at 10:13 am email-atsign-ss-1920 Successful email marketing campaigns are incredibly effective in reaching out to prospects and providing customers valuable content that can ensure a lasting relationship with them. In fact, email actually has one of the highest ROIs when compared with other styles of online marketing. This holds true especially when email is used congruently with social media. As a blogger with real business goals, you’re going to want to accumulate as extensive an email list as possible. In addition to using your email subscribers to help boost SEO (I’ve written previously about this virtuous cycle of email and SEO), you should also explicitly develop your blogging regimen to drive inbound leads and email subscribers. Here are three key strategies you can employ to successfully build an email list by blogging. Strategy #1: Advertising Your Email Opt-in Forms Too many websites forgo a larger intake of email signups in favor of likes and follows. They prioritize social media over email, prominently displaying “Follow us on Facebook!” at the top of every page. Unfortunately, what these bloggers don’t realize is that they’re partly handing control of their marketing over to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook’s complex algorithm decides when your followers see your content. Twitter is a constantly updating a stream of media, and it’s possible that your Twitter followers will entirely miss your marketing as they check their feed. In contrast, bloggers have complete control over their email list. They get to choose when emails are sent out to prospects, therefore deciding when prospects are exposed to content. This is why it’s vital for your website visitors to be able to access your email opt-in forms easily. When designing your website, place email opt-in forms in as many places as possible: in the banner, at the top of your articles, at the bottom of your articles, in the sidebar. Another feature you may choose to use is the popover page. Although popovers and lightbox pages sometimes get a bad reputation, I recommend trying them out for your site. They can drastically increase your email intake. Generally, you’ll want to make the lightbox email opt-in form appear after a visitor has spent between 15 and 45 seconds on the page. If visitors are spending that amount of time reading your content, you can assume they may be interested in providing their email address to receive more of that content. However, set the lightbox so that it appears only once per viewing session, as you do not want to spam your visitors and deter them from engaging your content further. Strategy #2: Making It Worthwhile For Prospects Prospects aren’t going to provide their email addresses if they don’t receive anything in return. Usually, prospects will be satisfied if they receive quality content. Your blog posts will give prospects an idea of what they will be signing up for when they fill out the opt-in form, and so it’s imperative that your posts are both interesting and informative. Mediocre posts will make it difficult for readers to justify returning to the site, let alone provide their email addresses. Another example of offering prospects value comes in the form of contests. Visitors to your website will often feel more compelled to provide their email when there is a tangible reward for doing so. Additionally, many people enjoy the competitive and chance-based aspect of contests, and you can use this to your advantage. Create a contest that has prospects engage in your content in some way, so that your demographic is likely to be interested. The prize should be related to your content, as well. But most importantly, make sure that to qualify for the contest, prospects need to provide their email addresses. To obtain even more emails, you can even tell prospects that every person they sign up counts as an additional ticket in the raffle. Knowing this, prospects may provide the emails of mildly interested friends or family members who did not visit your website directly. Lastly, you can use your own email list as proof that there is value in filling out the opt-in form. Display the number of people signed up for your emails in your banner. Visitors will be more likely to sign up if they see many others have, as well. You can also write up the benefits of opting in and use quotes from satisfied subscribers to signal that your content is valuable. For marketers having a hard time with developing opt-in ideas, Digital Marketer has a useful article about “lead magnet ideas” that’s worth a read. Ensuring that your opt-in incentive is strong and directly appealing to the desires of your prospect is paramount to everything else I’m writing about here today. Strategy #3: Creating Valuable Content One of the best ways to offer value to prospects is by offering them access to a high-quality white paper upon opting in. A white paper is a long-form email that promotes your content, describing why obtaining it is the best option for readers. For example, white papers can be used to provide readers who may be dealing with a frustrating aspect of business a new way to go about it. After reading the white paper, prospects will be more likely to seek your content when they have other business problems. Creating an informative white paper can be done by first taking a look at your analytics. Which of your pages has the most views? The content of this page can be the groundwork for the content of your white paper. When uploading your white paper to an email marketing software provider, you can choose to send it as one long email or in incremental parts. The benefit of the singular email would be that prospects who choose to subscribe to your emails for the white paper get immediate access to content they’re eager to read. On the other hand, incremental emails will build trust with your prospects because a steady flow of content is being delivered as promised. Creating a newsletter can also be an effective way of delivering high-quality content to email subscribers. While it’s true that many businesses dedicate entire teams of people to their newsletter, it’s possible to create one without that kind of large investment. The key is to provide valuable information to readers. Don’t merely promote products or services. You can write subject lines offering giveaways or tips to increase revenue, enticing your subscribers to open the email and even click the links that may be in them. It’s also important to include personal stories that touch on a wide range of topics relating to your content. Varied topics will attract a larger audience. By implementing these strategies, you’ll see your email list dramatically increase in length. Make sure you pay attention to your analytics, such as email click-to-open rates, spam complaint rates and unsubscribe frequency. Figure out your analytics before employing these strategies, and then compare them to your analytics afterward. Play around with subject lines, article content and Web design to see which configurations increase your email intake most. Running these tests will help you establish a consistent method of collecting emails while also varying your prospects’ experience with your brand. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.The Freelance Studio Denver, Co User Experience Agency
One day in 2013, users noticed something awfully fishy about the @BurgerKing Twitter account: The BK logo had mysteriously been swapped out for the McDonald’s logo, and the name of the account had been changed to ‘McDonalds’. In addition, a tweet went out stating that the company had been sold to McDonalds because, “the whopper flopped”. If this sounds suspicious, that’s because it is. BK’s Twitter account had been compromised, and the hackers were having some fun at Burger King’s expense. This went on for an hour, until BK finally managed to get the account suspended. While this is perhaps an extreme example, it does remind us that we shouldn’t take the security of our social media accounts for granted. 8 strategies on how to make your social media accounts secure: 1. Use a password manager One of the simplest ways for hackers to gain access to your accounts is to get ahold of your social media login info and passwords. Once they have this info, the sky’s the limit in terms of the harm they can cause. Experts recommend choosing a long and complex password. The problem is, this will not only prevent hackers from figuring it out, it will also likely prevent YOU from remembering it! Using a password manager like 1Password can help. It will automatically create long, hack-proof passwords for everything you can imagine (social media accounts included), and all you have to do is remember ONE main password. Plug in that password, and 1Password will automatically log you in to your social media accounts. Virtually impossible for hackers to figure out, and virtually impossible for you to forget! 2. Avoid suspicious links Another way hackers gain access to your private account info is through getting you to click on a link. By clicking on the link, malware is downloaded to your computer, giving hackers access to all your valuable info. If you have ANY doubt that a link is legit, avoid it! Some red flags to look out for include: Shortened URLs Posts that don’t sound like your friend/colleague (e.g., “Click the link below for access to this FREE amazing video now!”) Emails from friends that aren’t personally addressed to you, OR that aren’t signed with their name 3. Protect your device when out and about I highly recommend having password protection on all your internet-enabled devices. This is particularly important if you share your devices with others, or regularly take your devices outside the home or office (coffee shops, meetings, planes/trains, etc.). Accidentally leaving your device behind is bad enough; but having it stolen and giving the thief unrestricted access to your personal info, including your social media accounts? That’s a recipe for disaster! Something else you may not be aware of is that determined hackers can actually access your device from afar if you’re using public WIFI. To add an extra layer of protection, install a free browser extension like HTTPS Everywhere to switch most websites from HTTP (unsecured) to HTTPS (secured). 4. Cover your tracks when using public computers Do you ever use a public computer to post to social media? Maybe it’s the public library computer, an internet café or even a friend’s device? If so, there are some things you should keep in mind: Always remember to log out of your social media accounts once you’re done using them Delete your browsing history NEVER click ‘Save password or login info’ if asked Consider using the ‘Browse privately’ option to access your social media accounts 5. Use Hootsuite to give access to employees without giving away login info Having a dedicated social media team can be great, but it can also mean more chances at having your social media accounts hacked. All it takes is one employee leaving their password out, and your entire account can be compromised. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite can help you avoid this. Each individual user will have their own login info, but they will NOT have access to your main company password. Bonus: By assigning various levels of permission to your staff, you can reduce the impact if someone does gain access to one of your employee’s accounts. 6. Use a 2-step verification system For certain social media platforms like Twitter, you can establish a 2-step verification system when logging into your social media account. This means that when you log in to your account you first have to type in the right password and then enter the verification code that is sent to your cell phone before you can even be logged in! Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google are just some of the sites that have this 2-step verification system. 7. Setup a passcode for your phone I mentioned earlier that accidentally leaving your phone behind can be bad, but imagine if you didn’t have a passcode set up on your phone! All the thief would need to do is swipe and have instant access to your information and social accounts. One way to avoid this is to take advantage of the passcode setting available on most phones, which is normally a set of numbers or a particular swipe pattern. Some phones even have a fingerprint lock that adds a whole new layer of security. 8. Turn off location services in your apps What could be worse than getting your social accounts hacked? Someone being able to see where you are through the location services enabled on your apps. Certain apps recommend having the location services enabled, but many don’t require it in order to work properly. You can go into your Settings and change which apps have access to your location and if it’s not absolutely necessary then I would suggest disabling the location so you can rest a little easier. These 8 tips are simple to implement, but can save you from a number of compromising situations. I’d recommend taking the time now to make sure your social media accounts are secure, rather than having to clean up the mess left by a hacker! How do you make your social media accounts secure? Share below! Email Marketing Step up your email marketing game with our weekly newsletter. Your email here. SUBSCRIBE 3 Key Strategies To Quickly Build An Email List By Blogging How do you effectively use blogging to grow your email list? Columnist Daniel Faggella lays out some critical tips and strategies. Daniel Faggella on October 5, 2015 at 10:13 am email-atsign-ss-1920 Successful email marketing campaigns are incredibly effective in reaching out to prospects and providing customers valuable content that can ensure a lasting relationship with them. In fact, email actually has one of the highest ROIs when compared with other styles of online marketing. This holds true especially when email is used congruently with social media. As a blogger with real business goals, you’re going to want to accumulate as extensive an email list as possible. In addition to using your email subscribers to help boost SEO (I’ve written previously about this virtuous cycle of email and SEO), you should also explicitly develop your blogging regimen to drive inbound leads and email subscribers. Here are three key strategies you can employ to successfully build an email list by blogging. Strategy #1: Advertising Your Email Opt-in Forms Too many websites forgo a larger intake of email signups in favor of likes and follows. They prioritize social media over email, prominently displaying “Follow us on Facebook!” at the top of every page. Unfortunately, what these bloggers don’t realize is that they’re partly handing control of their marketing over to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook’s complex algorithm decides when your followers see your content. Twitter is a constantly updating a stream of media, and it’s possible that your Twitter followers will entirely miss your marketing as they check their feed. In contrast, bloggers have complete control over their email list. They get to choose when emails are sent out to prospects, therefore deciding when prospects are exposed to content. This is why it’s vital for your website visitors to be able to access your email opt-in forms easily. When designing your website, place email opt-in forms in as many places as possible: in the banner, at the top of your articles, at the bottom of your articles, in the sidebar. Another feature you may choose to use is the popover page. Although popovers and lightbox pages sometimes get a bad reputation, I recommend trying them out for your site. They can drastically increase your email intake. Generally, you’ll want to make the lightbox email opt-in form appear after a visitor has spent between 15 and 45 seconds on the page. If visitors are spending that amount of time reading your content, you can assume they may be interested in providing their email address to receive more of that content. However, set the lightbox so that it appears only once per viewing session, as you do not want to spam your visitors and deter them from engaging your content further. Strategy #2: Making It Worthwhile For Prospects Prospects aren’t going to provide their email addresses if they don’t receive anything in return. Usually, prospects will be satisfied if they receive quality content. Your blog posts will give prospects an idea of what they will be signing up for when they fill out the opt-in form, and so it’s imperative that your posts are both interesting and informative. Mediocre posts will make it difficult for readers to justify returning to the site, let alone provide their email addresses. Another example of offering prospects value comes in the form of contests. Visitors to your website will often feel more compelled to provide their email when there is a tangible reward for doing so. Additionally, many people enjoy the competitive and chance-based aspect of contests, and you can use this to your advantage. Create a contest that has prospects engage in your content in some way, so that your demographic is likely to be interested. The prize should be related to your content, as well. But most importantly, make sure that to qualify for the contest, prospects need to provide their email addresses. To obtain even more emails, you can even tell prospects that every person they sign up counts as an additional ticket in the raffle. Knowing this, prospects may provide the emails of mildly interested friends or family members who did not visit your website directly. Lastly, you can use your own email list as proof that there is value in filling out the opt-in form. Display the number of people signed up for your emails in your banner. Visitors will be more likely to sign up if they see many others have, as well. You can also write up the benefits of opting in and use quotes from satisfied subscribers to signal that your content is valuable. For marketers having a hard time with developing opt-in ideas, Digital Marketer has a useful article about “lead magnet ideas” that’s worth a read. Ensuring that your opt-in incentive is strong and directly appealing to the desires of your prospect is paramount to everything else I’m writing about here today. Strategy #3: Creating Valuable Content One of the best ways to offer value to prospects is by offering them access to a high-quality white paper upon opting in. A white paper is a long-form email that promotes your content, describing why obtaining it is the best option for readers. For example, white papers can be used to provide readers who may be dealing with a frustrating aspect of business a new way to go about it. After reading the white paper, prospects will be more likely to seek your content when they have other business problems. Creating an informative white paper can be done by first taking a look at your analytics. Which of your pages has the most views? The content of this page can be the groundwork for the content of your white paper. When uploading your white paper to an email marketing software provider, you can choose to send it as one long email or in incremental parts. The benefit of the singular email would be that prospects who choose to subscribe to your emails for the white paper get immediate access to content they’re eager to read. On the other hand, incremental emails will build trust with your prospects because a steady flow of content is being delivered as promised. Creating a newsletter can also be an effective way of delivering high-quality content to email subscribers. While it’s true that many businesses dedicate entire teams of people to their newsletter, it’s possible to create one without that kind of large investment. The key is to provide valuable information to readers. Don’t merely promote products or services. You can write subject lines offering giveaways or tips to increase revenue, enticing your subscribers to open the email and even click the links that may be in them. It’s also important to include personal stories that touch on a wide range of topics relating to your content. Varied topics will attract a larger audience. By implementing these strategies, you’ll see your email list dramatically increase in length. Make sure you pay attention to your analytics, such as email click-to-open rates, spam complaint rates and unsubscribe frequency. Figure out your analytics before employing these strategies, and then compare them to your analytics afterward. Play around with subject lines, article content and Web design to see which configurations increase your email intake most. Running these tests will help you establish a consistent method of collecting emails while also varying your prospects’ experience with your brand. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.The Freelance Studio Denver, Co User Experience Agency
One day in 2013, users noticed something awfully fishy about the @BurgerKing Twitter account: The BK logo had mysteriously been swapped out for the McDonald’s logo, and the name of the account had been changed to ‘McDonalds’. In addition, a tweet went out stating that the company had been sold to McDonalds because, “the whopper flopped”. If this sounds suspicious, that’s because it is. BK’s Twitter account had been compromised, and the hackers were having some fun at Burger King’s expense. This went on for an hour, until BK finally managed to get the account suspended. While this is perhaps an extreme example, it does remind us that we shouldn’t take the security of our social media accounts for granted. 8 strategies on how to make your social media accounts secure: 1. Use a password manager One of the simplest ways for hackers to gain access to your accounts is to get ahold of your social media login info and passwords. Once they have this info, the sky’s the limit in terms of the harm they can cause. Experts recommend choosing a long and complex password. The problem is, this will not only prevent hackers from figuring it out, it will also likely prevent YOU from remembering it! Using a password manager like 1Password can help. It will automatically create long, hack-proof passwords for everything you can imagine (social media accounts included), and all you have to do is remember ONE main password. Plug in that password, and 1Password will automatically log you in to your social media accounts. Virtually impossible for hackers to figure out, and virtually impossible for you to forget! 2. Avoid suspicious links Another way hackers gain access to your private account info is through getting you to click on a link. By clicking on the link, malware is downloaded to your computer, giving hackers access to all your valuable info. If you have ANY doubt that a link is legit, avoid it! Some red flags to look out for include: Shortened URLs Posts that don’t sound like your friend/colleague (e.g., “Click the link below for access to this FREE amazing video now!”) Emails from friends that aren’t personally addressed to you, OR that aren’t signed with their name 3. Protect your device when out and about I highly recommend having password protection on all your internet-enabled devices. This is particularly important if you share your devices with others, or regularly take your devices outside the home or office (coffee shops, meetings, planes/trains, etc.). Accidentally leaving your device behind is bad enough; but having it stolen and giving the thief unrestricted access to your personal info, including your social media accounts? That’s a recipe for disaster! Something else you may not be aware of is that determined hackers can actually access your device from afar if you’re using public WIFI. To add an extra layer of protection, install a free browser extension like HTTPS Everywhere to switch most websites from HTTP (unsecured) to HTTPS (secured). 4. Cover your tracks when using public computers Do you ever use a public computer to post to social media? Maybe it’s the public library computer, an internet café or even a friend’s device? If so, there are some things you should keep in mind: Always remember to log out of your social media accounts once you’re done using them Delete your browsing history NEVER click ‘Save password or login info’ if asked Consider using the ‘Browse privately’ option to access your social media accounts 5. Use Hootsuite to give access to employees without giving away login info Having a dedicated social media team can be great, but it can also mean more chances at having your social media accounts hacked. All it takes is one employee leaving their password out, and your entire account can be compromised. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite can help you avoid this. Each individual user will have their own login info, but they will NOT have access to your main company password. Bonus: By assigning various levels of permission to your staff, you can reduce the impact if someone does gain access to one of your employee’s accounts. 6. Use a 2-step verification system For certain social media platforms like Twitter, you can establish a 2-step verification system when logging into your social media account. This means that when you log in to your account you first have to type in the right password and then enter the verification code that is sent to your cell phone before you can even be logged in! Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google are just some of the sites that have this 2-step verification system. 7. Setup a passcode for your phone I mentioned earlier that accidentally leaving your phone behind can be bad, but imagine if you didn’t have a passcode set up on your phone! All the thief would need to do is swipe and have instant access to your information and social accounts. One way to avoid this is to take advantage of the passcode setting available on most phones, which is normally a set of numbers or a particular swipe pattern. Some phones even have a fingerprint lock that adds a whole new layer of security. 8. Turn off location services in your apps What could be worse than getting your social accounts hacked? Someone being able to see where you are through the location services enabled on your apps. Certain apps recommend having the location services enabled, but many don’t require it in order to work properly. You can go into your Settings and change which apps have access to your location and if it’s not absolutely necessary then I would suggest disabling the location so you can rest a little easier. These 8 tips are simple to implement, but can save you from a number of compromising situations. I’d recommend taking the time now to make sure your social media accounts are secure, rather than having to clean up the mess left by a hacker! How do you make your social media accounts secure? Share below! Email Marketing Step up your email marketing game with our weekly newsletter. Your email here. SUBSCRIBE 3 Key Strategies To Quickly Build An Email List By Blogging How do you effectively use blogging to grow your email list? Columnist Daniel Faggella lays out some critical tips and strategies. Daniel Faggella on October 5, 2015 at 10:13 am email-atsign-ss-1920 Successful email marketing campaigns are incredibly effective in reaching out to prospects and providing customers valuable content that can ensure a lasting relationship with them. In fact, email actually has one of the highest ROIs when compared with other styles of online marketing. This holds true especially when email is used congruently with social media. As a blogger with real business goals, you’re going to want to accumulate as extensive an email list as possible. In addition to using your email subscribers to help boost SEO (I’ve written previously about this virtuous cycle of email and SEO), you should also explicitly develop your blogging regimen to drive inbound leads and email subscribers. Here are three key strategies you can employ to successfully build an email list by blogging. Strategy #1: Advertising Your Email Opt-in Forms Too many websites forgo a larger intake of email signups in favor of likes and follows. They prioritize social media over email, prominently displaying “Follow us on Facebook!” at the top of every page. Unfortunately, what these bloggers don’t realize is that they’re partly handing control of their marketing over to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook’s complex algorithm decides when your followers see your content. Twitter is a constantly updating a stream of media, and it’s possible that your Twitter followers will entirely miss your marketing as they check their feed. In contrast, bloggers have complete control over their email list. They get to choose when emails are sent out to prospects, therefore deciding when prospects are exposed to content. This is why it’s vital for your website visitors to be able to access your email opt-in forms easily. When designing your website, place email opt-in forms in as many places as possible: in the banner, at the top of your articles, at the bottom of your articles, in the sidebar. Another feature you may choose to use is the popover page. Although popovers and lightbox pages sometimes get a bad reputation, I recommend trying them out for your site. They can drastically increase your email intake. Generally, you’ll want to make the lightbox email opt-in form appear after a visitor has spent between 15 and 45 seconds on the page. If visitors are spending that amount of time reading your content, you can assume they may be interested in providing their email address to receive more of that content. However, set the lightbox so that it appears only once per viewing session, as you do not want to spam your visitors and deter them from engaging your content further. Strategy #2: Making It Worthwhile For Prospects Prospects aren’t going to provide their email addresses if they don’t receive anything in return. Usually, prospects will be satisfied if they receive quality content. Your blog posts will give prospects an idea of what they will be signing up for when they fill out the opt-in form, and so it’s imperative that your posts are both interesting and informative. Mediocre posts will make it difficult for readers to justify returning to the site, let alone provide their email addresses. Another example of offering prospects value comes in the form of contests. Visitors to your website will often feel more compelled to provide their email when there is a tangible reward for doing so. Additionally, many people enjoy the competitive and chance-based aspect of contests, and you can use this to your advantage. Create a contest that has prospects engage in your content in some way, so that your demographic is likely to be interested. The prize should be related to your content, as well. But most importantly, make sure that to qualify for the contest, prospects need to provide their email addresses. To obtain even more emails, you can even tell prospects that every person they sign up counts as an additional ticket in the raffle. Knowing this, prospects may provide the emails of mildly interested friends or family members who did not visit your website directly. Lastly, you can use your own email list as proof that there is value in filling out the opt-in form. Display the number of people signed up for your emails in your banner. Visitors will be more likely to sign up if they see many others have, as well. You can also write up the benefits of opting in and use quotes from satisfied subscribers to signal that your content is valuable. For marketers having a hard time with developing opt-in ideas, Digital Marketer has a useful article about “lead magnet ideas” that’s worth a read. Ensuring that your opt-in incentive is strong and directly appealing to the desires of your prospect is paramount to everything else I’m writing about here today. Strategy #3: Creating Valuable Content One of the best ways to offer value to prospects is by offering them access to a high-quality white paper upon opting in. A white paper is a long-form email that promotes your content, describing why obtaining it is the best option for readers. For example, white papers can be used to provide readers who may be dealing with a frustrating aspect of business a new way to go about it. After reading the white paper, prospects will be more likely to seek your content when they have other business problems. Creating an informative white paper can be done by first taking a look at your analytics. Which of your pages has the most views? The content of this page can be the groundwork for the content of your white paper. When uploading your white paper to an email marketing software provider, you can choose to send it as one long email or in incremental parts. The benefit of the singular email would be that prospects who choose to subscribe to your emails for the white paper get immediate access to content they’re eager to read. On the other hand, incremental emails will build trust with your prospects because a steady flow of content is being delivered as promised. Creating a newsletter can also be an effective way of delivering high-quality content to email subscribers. While it’s true that many businesses dedicate entire teams of people to their newsletter, it’s possible to create one without that kind of large investment. The key is to provide valuable information to readers. Don’t merely promote products or services. You can write subject lines offering giveaways or tips to increase revenue, enticing your subscribers to open the email and even click the links that may be in them. It’s also important to include personal stories that touch on a wide range of topics relating to your content. Varied topics will attract a larger audience. By implementing these strategies, you’ll see your email list dramatically increase in length. Make sure you pay attention to your analytics, such as email click-to-open rates, spam complaint rates and unsubscribe frequency. Figure out your analytics before employing these strategies, and then compare them to your analytics afterward. Play around with subject lines, article content and Web design to see which configurations increase your email intake most. Running these tests will help you establish a consistent method of collecting emails while also varying your prospects’ experience with your brand. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.The Freelance Studio Denver, Co User Experience Agency
One day in 2013, users noticed something awfully fishy about the @BurgerKing Twitter account: The BK logo had mysteriously been swapped out for the McDonald’s logo, and the name of the account had been changed to ‘McDonalds’. In addition, a tweet went out stating that the company had been sold to McDonalds because, “the whopper flopped”. If this sounds suspicious, that’s because it is. BK’s Twitter account had been compromised, and the hackers were having some fun at Burger King’s expense. This went on for an hour, until BK finally managed to get the account suspended. While this is perhaps an extreme example, it does remind us that we shouldn’t take the security of our social media accounts for granted. 8 strategies on how to make your social media accounts secure: 1. Use a password manager One of the simplest ways for hackers to gain access to your accounts is to get ahold of your social media login info and passwords. Once they have this info, the sky’s the limit in terms of the harm they can cause. Experts recommend choosing a long and complex password. The problem is, this will not only prevent hackers from figuring it out, it will also likely prevent YOU from remembering it! Using a password manager like 1Password can help. It will automatically create long, hack-proof passwords for everything you can imagine (social media accounts included), and all you have to do is remember ONE main password. Plug in that password, and 1Password will automatically log you in to your social media accounts. Virtually impossible for hackers to figure out, and virtually impossible for you to forget! 2. Avoid suspicious links Another way hackers gain access to your private account info is through getting you to click on a link. By clicking on the link, malware is downloaded to your computer, giving hackers access to all your valuable info. If you have ANY doubt that a link is legit, avoid it! Some red flags to look out for include: Shortened URLs Posts that don’t sound like your friend/colleague (e.g., “Click the link below for access to this FREE amazing video now!”) Emails from friends that aren’t personally addressed to you, OR that aren’t signed with their name 3. Protect your device when out and about I highly recommend having password protection on all your internet-enabled devices. This is particularly important if you share your devices with others, or regularly take your devices outside the home or office (coffee shops, meetings, planes/trains, etc.). Accidentally leaving your device behind is bad enough; but having it stolen and giving the thief unrestricted access to your personal info, including your social media accounts? That’s a recipe for disaster! Something else you may not be aware of is that determined hackers can actually access your device from afar if you’re using public WIFI. To add an extra layer of protection, install a free browser extension like HTTPS Everywhere to switch most websites from HTTP (unsecured) to HTTPS (secured). 4. Cover your tracks when using public computers Do you ever use a public computer to post to social media? Maybe it’s the public library computer, an internet café or even a friend’s device? If so, there are some things you should keep in mind: Always remember to log out of your social media accounts once you’re done using them Delete your browsing history NEVER click ‘Save password or login info’ if asked Consider using the ‘Browse privately’ option to access your social media accounts 5. Use Hootsuite to give access to employees without giving away login info Having a dedicated social media team can be great, but it can also mean more chances at having your social media accounts hacked. All it takes is one employee leaving their password out, and your entire account can be compromised. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite can help you avoid this. Each individual user will have their own login info, but they will NOT have access to your main company password. Bonus: By assigning various levels of permission to your staff, you can reduce the impact if someone does gain access to one of your employee’s accounts. 6. Use a 2-step verification system For certain social media platforms like Twitter, you can establish a 2-step verification system when logging into your social media account. This means that when you log in to your account you first have to type in the right password and then enter the verification code that is sent to your cell phone before you can even be logged in! Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google are just some of the sites that have this 2-step verification system. 7. Setup a passcode for your phone I mentioned earlier that accidentally leaving your phone behind can be bad, but imagine if you didn’t have a passcode set up on your phone! All the thief would need to do is swipe and have instant access to your information and social accounts. One way to avoid this is to take advantage of the passcode setting available on most phones, which is normally a set of numbers or a particular swipe pattern. Some phones even have a fingerprint lock that adds a whole new layer of security. 8. Turn off location services in your apps What could be worse than getting your social accounts hacked? Someone being able to see where you are through the location services enabled on your apps. Certain apps recommend having the location services enabled, but many don’t require it in order to work properly. You can go into your Settings and change which apps have access to your location and if it’s not absolutely necessary then I would suggest disabling the location so you can rest a little easier. These 8 tips are simple to implement, but can save you from a number of compromising situations. I’d recommend taking the time now to make sure your social media accounts are secure, rather than having to clean up the mess left by a hacker! How do you make your social media accounts secure? Share below! Email Marketing Step up your email marketing game with our weekly newsletter. Your email here. SUBSCRIBE 3 Key Strategies To Quickly Build An Email List By Blogging How do you effectively use blogging to grow your email list? Columnist Daniel Faggella lays out some critical tips and strategies. Daniel Faggella on October 5, 2015 at 10:13 am email-atsign-ss-1920 Successful email marketing campaigns are incredibly effective in reaching out to prospects and providing customers valuable content that can ensure a lasting relationship with them. In fact, email actually has one of the highest ROIs when compared with other styles of online marketing. This holds true especially when email is used congruently with social media. As a blogger with real business goals, you’re going to want to accumulate as extensive an email list as possible. In addition to using your email subscribers to help boost SEO (I’ve written previously about this virtuous cycle of email and SEO), you should also explicitly develop your blogging regimen to drive inbound leads and email subscribers. Here are three key strategies you can employ to successfully build an email list by blogging. Strategy #1: Advertising Your Email Opt-in Forms Too many websites forgo a larger intake of email signups in favor of likes and follows. They prioritize social media over email, prominently displaying “Follow us on Facebook!” at the top of every page. Unfortunately, what these bloggers don’t realize is that they’re partly handing control of their marketing over to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook’s complex algorithm decides when your followers see your content. Twitter is a constantly updating a stream of media, and it’s possible that your Twitter followers will entirely miss your marketing as they check their feed. In contrast, bloggers have complete control over their email list. They get to choose when emails are sent out to prospects, therefore deciding when prospects are exposed to content. This is why it’s vital for your website visitors to be able to access your email opt-in forms easily. When designing your website, place email opt-in forms in as many places as possible: in the banner, at the top of your articles, at the bottom of your articles, in the sidebar. Another feature you may choose to use is the popover page. Although popovers and lightbox pages sometimes get a bad reputation, I recommend trying them out for your site. They can drastically increase your email intake. Generally, you’ll want to make the lightbox email opt-in form appear after a visitor has spent between 15 and 45 seconds on the page. If visitors are spending that amount of time reading your content, you can assume they may be interested in providing their email address to receive more of that content. However, set the lightbox so that it appears only once per viewing session, as you do not want to spam your visitors and deter them from engaging your content further. Strategy #2: Making It Worthwhile For Prospects Prospects aren’t going to provide their email addresses if they don’t receive anything in return. Usually, prospects will be satisfied if they receive quality content. Your blog posts will give prospects an idea of what they will be signing up for when they fill out the opt-in form, and so it’s imperative that your posts are both interesting and informative. Mediocre posts will make it difficult for readers to justify returning to the site, let alone provide their email addresses. Another example of offering prospects value comes in the form of contests. Visitors to your website will often feel more compelled to provide their email when there is a tangible reward for doing so. Additionally, many people enjoy the competitive and chance-based aspect of contests, and you can use this to your advantage. Create a contest that has prospects engage in your content in some way, so that your demographic is likely to be interested. The prize should be related to your content, as well. But most importantly, make sure that to qualify for the contest, prospects need to provide their email addresses. To obtain even more emails, you can even tell prospects that every person they sign up counts as an additional ticket in the raffle. Knowing this, prospects may provide the emails of mildly interested friends or family members who did not visit your website directly. Lastly, you can use your own email list as proof that there is value in filling out the opt-in form. Display the number of people signed up for your emails in your banner. Visitors will be more likely to sign up if they see many others have, as well. You can also write up the benefits of opting in and use quotes from satisfied subscribers to signal that your content is valuable. For marketers having a hard time with developing opt-in ideas, Digital Marketer has a useful article about “lead magnet ideas” that’s worth a read. Ensuring that your opt-in incentive is strong and directly appealing to the desires of your prospect is paramount to everything else I’m writing about here today. Strategy #3: Creating Valuable Content One of the best ways to offer value to prospects is by offering them access to a high-quality white paper upon opting in. A white paper is a long-form email that promotes your content, describing why obtaining it is the best option for readers. For example, white papers can be used to provide readers who may be dealing with a frustrating aspect of business a new way to go about it. After reading the white paper, prospects will be more likely to seek your content when they have other business problems. Creating an informative white paper can be done by first taking a look at your analytics. Which of your pages has the most views? The content of this page can be the groundwork for the content of your white paper. When uploading your white paper to an email marketing software provider, you can choose to send it as one long email or in incremental parts. The benefit of the singular email would be that prospects who choose to subscribe to your emails for the white paper get immediate access to content they’re eager to read. On the other hand, incremental emails will build trust with your prospects because a steady flow of content is being delivered as promised. Creating a newsletter can also be an effective way of delivering high-quality content to email subscribers. While it’s true that many businesses dedicate entire teams of people to their newsletter, it’s possible to create one without that kind of large investment. The key is to provide valuable information to readers. Don’t merely promote products or services. You can write subject lines offering giveaways or tips to increase revenue, enticing your subscribers to open the email and even click the links that may be in them. It’s also important to include personal stories that touch on a wide range of topics relating to your content. Varied topics will attract a larger audience. By implementing these strategies, you’ll see your email list dramatically increase in length. Make sure you pay attention to your analytics, such as email click-to-open rates, spam complaint rates and unsubscribe frequency. Figure out your analytics before employing these strategies, and then compare them to your analytics afterward. Play around with subject lines, article content and Web design to see which configurations increase your email intake most. Running these tests will help you establish a consistent method of collecting emails while also varying your prospects’ experience with your brand. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.The Freelance Studio Denver, Co User Experience Agency
One day in 2013, users noticed something awfully fishy about the @BurgerKing Twitter account: The BK logo had mysteriously been swapped out for the McDonald’s logo, and the name of the account had been changed to ‘McDonalds’. In addition, a tweet went out stating that the company had been sold to McDonalds because, “the whopper flopped”. If this sounds suspicious, that’s because it is. BK’s Twitter account had been compromised, and the hackers were having some fun at Burger King’s expense. This went on for an hour, until BK finally managed to get the account suspended. While this is perhaps an extreme example, it does remind us that we shouldn’t take the security of our social media accounts for granted. 8 strategies on how to make your social media accounts secure: 1. Use a password manager One of the simplest ways for hackers to gain access to your accounts is to get ahold of your social media login info and passwords. Once they have this info, the sky’s the limit in terms of the harm they can cause. Experts recommend choosing a long and complex password. The problem is, this will not only prevent hackers from figuring it out, it will also likely prevent YOU from remembering it! Using a password manager like 1Password can help. It will automatically create long, hack-proof passwords for everything you can imagine (social media accounts included), and all you have to do is remember ONE main password. Plug in that password, and 1Password will automatically log you in to your social media accounts. Virtually impossible for hackers to figure out, and virtually impossible for you to forget! 2. Avoid suspicious links Another way hackers gain access to your private account info is through getting you to click on a link. By clicking on the link, malware is downloaded to your computer, giving hackers access to all your valuable info. If you have ANY doubt that a link is legit, avoid it! Some red flags to look out for include: Shortened URLs Posts that don’t sound like your friend/colleague (e.g., “Click the link below for access to this FREE amazing video now!”) Emails from friends that aren’t personally addressed to you, OR that aren’t signed with their name 3. Protect your device when out and about I highly recommend having password protection on all your internet-enabled devices. This is particularly important if you share your devices with others, or regularly take your devices outside the home or office (coffee shops, meetings, planes/trains, etc.). Accidentally leaving your device behind is bad enough; but having it stolen and giving the thief unrestricted access to your personal info, including your social media accounts? That’s a recipe for disaster! Something else you may not be aware of is that determined hackers can actually access your device from afar if you’re using public WIFI. To add an extra layer of protection, install a free browser extension like HTTPS Everywhere to switch most websites from HTTP (unsecured) to HTTPS (secured). 4. Cover your tracks when using public computers Do you ever use a public computer to post to social media? Maybe it’s the public library computer, an internet café or even a friend’s device? If so, there are some things you should keep in mind: Always remember to log out of your social media accounts once you’re done using them Delete your browsing history NEVER click ‘Save password or login info’ if asked Consider using the ‘Browse privately’ option to access your social media accounts 5. Use Hootsuite to give access to employees without giving away login info Having a dedicated social media team can be great, but it can also mean more chances at having your social media accounts hacked. All it takes is one employee leaving their password out, and your entire account can be compromised. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite can help you avoid this. Each individual user will have their own login info, but they will NOT have access to your main company password. Bonus: By assigning various levels of permission to your staff, you can reduce the impact if someone does gain access to one of your employee’s accounts. 6. Use a 2-step verification system For certain social media platforms like Twitter, you can establish a 2-step verification system when logging into your social media account. This means that when you log in to your account you first have to type in the right password and then enter the verification code that is sent to your cell phone before you can even be logged in! Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google are just some of the sites that have this 2-step verification system. 7. Setup a passcode for your phone I mentioned earlier that accidentally leaving your phone behind can be bad, but imagine if you didn’t have a passcode set up on your phone! All the thief would need to do is swipe and have instant access to your information and social accounts. One way to avoid this is to take advantage of the passcode setting available on most phones, which is normally a set of numbers or a particular swipe pattern. Some phones even have a fingerprint lock that adds a whole new layer of security. 8. Turn off location services in your apps What could be worse than getting your social accounts hacked? Someone being able to see where you are through the location services enabled on your apps. Certain apps recommend having the location services enabled, but many don’t require it in order to work properly. You can go into your Settings and change which apps have access to your location and if it’s not absolutely necessary then I would suggest disabling the location so you can rest a little easier. These 8 tips are simple to implement, but can save you from a number of compromising situations. I’d recommend taking the time now to make sure your social media accounts are secure, rather than having to clean up the mess left by a hacker! How do you make your social media accounts secure? Share below! Email Marketing Step up your email marketing game with our weekly newsletter. Your email here. SUBSCRIBE 3 Key Strategies To Quickly Build An Email List By Blogging How do you effectively use blogging to grow your email list? Columnist Daniel Faggella lays out some critical tips and strategies. Daniel Faggella on October 5, 2015 at 10:13 am email-atsign-ss-1920 Successful email marketing campaigns are incredibly effective in reaching out to prospects and providing customers valuable content that can ensure a lasting relationship with them. In fact, email actually has one of the highest ROIs when compared with other styles of online marketing. This holds true especially when email is used congruently with social media. As a blogger with real business goals, you’re going to want to accumulate as extensive an email list as possible. In addition to using your email subscribers to help boost SEO (I’ve written previously about this virtuous cycle of email and SEO), you should also explicitly develop your blogging regimen to drive inbound leads and email subscribers. Here are three key strategies you can employ to successfully build an email list by blogging. Strategy #1: Advertising Your Email Opt-in Forms Too many websites forgo a larger intake of email signups in favor of likes and follows. They prioritize social media over email, prominently displaying “Follow us on Facebook!” at the top of every page. Unfortunately, what these bloggers don’t realize is that they’re partly handing control of their marketing over to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook’s complex algorithm decides when your followers see your content. Twitter is a constantly updating a stream of media, and it’s possible that your Twitter followers will entirely miss your marketing as they check their feed. In contrast, bloggers have complete control over their email list. They get to choose when emails are sent out to prospects, therefore deciding when prospects are exposed to content. This is why it’s vital for your website visitors to be able to access your email opt-in forms easily. When designing your website, place email opt-in forms in as many places as possible: in the banner, at the top of your articles, at the bottom of your articles, in the sidebar. Another feature you may choose to use is the popover page. Although popovers and lightbox pages sometimes get a bad reputation, I recommend trying them out for your site. They can drastically increase your email intake. Generally, you’ll want to make the lightbox email opt-in form appear after a visitor has spent between 15 and 45 seconds on the page. If visitors are spending that amount of time reading your content, you can assume they may be interested in providing their email address to receive more of that content. However, set the lightbox so that it appears only once per viewing session, as you do not want to spam your visitors and deter them from engaging your content further. Strategy #2: Making It Worthwhile For Prospects Prospects aren’t going to provide their email addresses if they don’t receive anything in return. Usually, prospects will be satisfied if they receive quality content. Your blog posts will give prospects an idea of what they will be signing up for when they fill out the opt-in form, and so it’s imperative that your posts are both interesting and informative. Mediocre posts will make it difficult for readers to justify returning to the site, let alone provide their email addresses. Another example of offering prospects value comes in the form of contests. Visitors to your website will often feel more compelled to provide their email when there is a tangible reward for doing so. Additionally, many people enjoy the competitive and chance-based aspect of contests, and you can use this to your advantage. Create a contest that has prospects engage in your content in some way, so that your demographic is likely to be interested. The prize should be related to your content, as well. But most importantly, make sure that to qualify for the contest, prospects need to provide their email addresses. To obtain even more emails, you can even tell prospects that every person they sign up counts as an additional ticket in the raffle. Knowing this, prospects may provide the emails of mildly interested friends or family members who did not visit your website directly. Lastly, you can use your own email list as proof that there is value in filling out the opt-in form. Display the number of people signed up for your emails in your banner. Visitors will be more likely to sign up if they see many others have, as well. You can also write up the benefits of opting in and use quotes from satisfied subscribers to signal that your content is valuable. For marketers having a hard time with developing opt-in ideas, Digital Marketer has a useful article about “lead magnet ideas” that’s worth a read. Ensuring that your opt-in incentive is strong and directly appealing to the desires of your prospect is paramount to everything else I’m writing about here today. Strategy #3: Creating Valuable Content One of the best ways to offer value to prospects is by offering them access to a high-quality white paper upon opting in. A white paper is a long-form email that promotes your content, describing why obtaining it is the best option for readers. For example, white papers can be used to provide readers who may be dealing with a frustrating aspect of business a new way to go about it. After reading the white paper, prospects will be more likely to seek your content when they have other business problems. Creating an informative white paper can be done by first taking a look at your analytics. Which of your pages has the most views? The content of this page can be the groundwork for the content of your white paper. When uploading your white paper to an email marketing software provider, you can choose to send it as one long email or in incremental parts. The benefit of the singular email would be that prospects who choose to subscribe to your emails for the white paper get immediate access to content they’re eager to read. On the other hand, incremental emails will build trust with your prospects because a steady flow of content is being delivered as promised. Creating a newsletter can also be an effective way of delivering high-quality content to email subscribers. While it’s true that many businesses dedicate entire teams of people to their newsletter, it’s possible to create one without that kind of large investment. The key is to provide valuable information to readers. Don’t merely promote products or services. You can write subject lines offering giveaways or tips to increase revenue, enticing your subscribers to open the email and even click the links that may be in them. It’s also important to include personal stories that touch on a wide range of topics relating to your content. Varied topics will attract a larger audience. By implementing these strategies, you’ll see your email list dramatically increase in length. Make sure you pay attention to your analytics, such as email click-to-open rates, spam complaint rates and unsubscribe frequency. Figure out your analytics before employing these strategies, and then compare them to your analytics afterward. Play around with subject lines, article content and Web design to see which configurations increase your email intake most. Running these tests will help you establish a consistent method of collecting emails while also varying your prospects’ experience with your brand. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.The Freelance Studio Denver, Co User Experience Agency
One day in 2013, users noticed something awfully fishy about the @BurgerKing Twitter account: The BK logo had mysteriously been swapped out for the McDonald’s logo, and the name of the account had been changed to ‘McDonalds’. In addition, a tweet went out stating that the company had been sold to McDonalds because, “the whopper flopped”. If this sounds suspicious, that’s because it is. BK’s Twitter account had been compromised, and the hackers were having some fun at Burger King’s expense. This went on for an hour, until BK finally managed to get the account suspended. While this is perhaps an extreme example, it does remind us that we shouldn’t take the security of our social media accounts for granted. 8 strategies on how to make your social media accounts secure: 1. Use a password manager One of the simplest ways for hackers to gain access to your accounts is to get ahold of your social media login info and passwords. Once they have this info, the sky’s the limit in terms of the harm they can cause. Experts recommend choosing a long and complex password. The problem is, this will not only prevent hackers from figuring it out, it will also likely prevent YOU from remembering it! Using a password manager like 1Password can help. It will automatically create long, hack-proof passwords for everything you can imagine (social media accounts included), and all you have to do is remember ONE main password. Plug in that password, and 1Password will automatically log you in to your social media accounts. Virtually impossible for hackers to figure out, and virtually impossible for you to forget! 2. Avoid suspicious links Another way hackers gain access to your private account info is through getting you to click on a link. By clicking on the link, malware is downloaded to your computer, giving hackers access to all your valuable info. If you have ANY doubt that a link is legit, avoid it! Some red flags to look out for include: Shortened URLs Posts that don’t sound like your friend/colleague (e.g., “Click the link below for access to this FREE amazing video now!”) Emails from friends that aren’t personally addressed to you, OR that aren’t signed with their name 3. Protect your device when out and about I highly recommend having password protection on all your internet-enabled devices. This is particularly important if you share your devices with others, or regularly take your devices outside the home or office (coffee shops, meetings, planes/trains, etc.). Accidentally leaving your device behind is bad enough; but having it stolen and giving the thief unrestricted access to your personal info, including your social media accounts? That’s a recipe for disaster! Something else you may not be aware of is that determined hackers can actually access your device from afar if you’re using public WIFI. To add an extra layer of protection, install a free browser extension like HTTPS Everywhere to switch most websites from HTTP (unsecured) to HTTPS (secured). 4. Cover your tracks when using public computers Do you ever use a public computer to post to social media? Maybe it’s the public library computer, an internet café or even a friend’s device? If so, there are some things you should keep in mind: Always remember to log out of your social media accounts once you’re done using them Delete your browsing history NEVER click ‘Save password or login info’ if asked Consider using the ‘Browse privately’ option to access your social media accounts 5. Use Hootsuite to give access to employees without giving away login info Having a dedicated social media team can be great, but it can also mean more chances at having your social media accounts hacked. All it takes is one employee leaving their password out, and your entire account can be compromised. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite can help you avoid this. Each individual user will have their own login info, but they will NOT have access to your main company password. Bonus: By assigning various levels of permission to your staff, you can reduce the impact if someone does gain access to one of your employee’s accounts. 6. Use a 2-step verification system For certain social media platforms like Twitter, you can establish a 2-step verification system when logging into your social media account. This means that when you log in to your account you first have to type in the right password and then enter the verification code that is sent to your cell phone before you can even be logged in! Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google are just some of the sites that have this 2-step verification system. 7. Setup a passcode for your phone I mentioned earlier that accidentally leaving your phone behind can be bad, but imagine if you didn’t have a passcode set up on your phone! All the thief would need to do is swipe and have instant access to your information and social accounts. One way to avoid this is to take advantage of the passcode setting available on most phones, which is normally a set of numbers or a particular swipe pattern. Some phones even have a fingerprint lock that adds a whole new layer of security. 8. Turn off location services in your apps What could be worse than getting your social accounts hacked? Someone being able to see where you are through the location services enabled on your apps. Certain apps recommend having the location services enabled, but many don’t require it in order to work properly. You can go into your Settings and change which apps have access to your location and if it’s not absolutely necessary then I would suggest disabling the location so you can rest a little easier. These 8 tips are simple to implement, but can save you from a number of compromising situations. I’d recommend taking the time now to make sure your social media accounts are secure, rather than having to clean up the mess left by a hacker! How do you make your social media accounts secure? Share below! Email Marketing Step up your email marketing game with our weekly newsletter. Your email here. SUBSCRIBE 3 Key Strategies To Quickly Build An Email List By Blogging How do you effectively use blogging to grow your email list? Columnist Daniel Faggella lays out some critical tips and strategies. Daniel Faggella on October 5, 2015 at 10:13 am email-atsign-ss-1920 Successful email marketing campaigns are incredibly effective in reaching out to prospects and providing customers valuable content that can ensure a lasting relationship with them. In fact, email actually has one of the highest ROIs when compared with other styles of online marketing. This holds true especially when email is used congruently with social media. As a blogger with real business goals, you’re going to want to accumulate as extensive an email list as possible. In addition to using your email subscribers to help boost SEO (I’ve written previously about this virtuous cycle of email and SEO), you should also explicitly develop your blogging regimen to drive inbound leads and email subscribers. Here are three key strategies you can employ to successfully build an email list by blogging. Strategy #1: Advertising Your Email Opt-in Forms Too many websites forgo a larger intake of email signups in favor of likes and follows. They prioritize social media over email, prominently displaying “Follow us on Facebook!” at the top of every page. Unfortunately, what these bloggers don’t realize is that they’re partly handing control of their marketing over to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook’s complex algorithm decides when your followers see your content. Twitter is a constantly updating a stream of media, and it’s possible that your Twitter followers will entirely miss your marketing as they check their feed. In contrast, bloggers have complete control over their email list. They get to choose when emails are sent out to prospects, therefore deciding when prospects are exposed to content. This is why it’s vital for your website visitors to be able to access your email opt-in forms easily. When designing your website, place email opt-in forms in as many places as possible: in the banner, at the top of your articles, at the bottom of your articles, in the sidebar. Another feature you may choose to use is the popover page. Although popovers and lightbox pages sometimes get a bad reputation, I recommend trying them out for your site. They can drastically increase your email intake. Generally, you’ll want to make the lightbox email opt-in form appear after a visitor has spent between 15 and 45 seconds on the page. If visitors are spending that amount of time reading your content, you can assume they may be interested in providing their email address to receive more of that content. However, set the lightbox so that it appears only once per viewing session, as you do not want to spam your visitors and deter them from engaging your content further. Strategy #2: Making It Worthwhile For Prospects Prospects aren’t going to provide their email addresses if they don’t receive anything in return. Usually, prospects will be satisfied if they receive quality content. Your blog posts will give prospects an idea of what they will be signing up for when they fill out the opt-in form, and so it’s imperative that your posts are both interesting and informative. Mediocre posts will make it difficult for readers to justify returning to the site, let alone provide their email addresses. Another example of offering prospects value comes in the form of contests. Visitors to your website will often feel more compelled to provide their email when there is a tangible reward for doing so. Additionally, many people enjoy the competitive and chance-based aspect of contests, and you can use this to your advantage. Create a contest that has prospects engage in your content in some way, so that your demographic is likely to be interested. The prize should be related to your content, as well. But most importantly, make sure that to qualify for the contest, prospects need to provide their email addresses. To obtain even more emails, you can even tell prospects that every person they sign up counts as an additional ticket in the raffle. Knowing this, prospects may provide the emails of mildly interested friends or family members who did not visit your website directly. Lastly, you can use your own email list as proof that there is value in filling out the opt-in form. Display the number of people signed up for your emails in your banner. Visitors will be more likely to sign up if they see many others have, as well. You can also write up the benefits of opting in and use quotes from satisfied subscribers to signal that your content is valuable. For marketers having a hard time with developing opt-in ideas, Digital Marketer has a useful article about “lead magnet ideas” that’s worth a read. Ensuring that your opt-in incentive is strong and directly appealing to the desires of your prospect is paramount to everything else I’m writing about here today. Strategy #3: Creating Valuable Content One of the best ways to offer value to prospects is by offering them access to a high-quality white paper upon opting in. A white paper is a long-form email that promotes your content, describing why obtaining it is the best option for readers. For example, white papers can be used to provide readers who may be dealing with a frustrating aspect of business a new way to go about it. After reading the white paper, prospects will be more likely to seek your content when they have other business problems. Creating an informative white paper can be done by first taking a look at your analytics. Which of your pages has the most views? The content of this page can be the groundwork for the content of your white paper. When uploading your white paper to an email marketing software provider, you can choose to send it as one long email or in incremental parts. The benefit of the singular email would be that prospects who choose to subscribe to your emails for the white paper get immediate access to content they’re eager to read. On the other hand, incremental emails will build trust with your prospects because a steady flow of content is being delivered as promised. Creating a newsletter can also be an effective way of delivering high-quality content to email subscribers. While it’s true that many businesses dedicate entire teams of people to their newsletter, it’s possible to create one without that kind of large investment. The key is to provide valuable information to readers. Don’t merely promote products or services. You can write subject lines offering giveaways or tips to increase revenue, enticing your subscribers to open the email and even click the links that may be in them. It’s also important to include personal stories that touch on a wide range of topics relating to your content. Varied topics will attract a larger audience. By implementing these strategies, you’ll see your email list dramatically increase in length. Make sure you pay attention to your analytics, such as email click-to-open rates, spam complaint rates and unsubscribe frequency. Figure out your analytics before employing these strategies, and then compare them to your analytics afterward. Play around with subject lines, article content and Web design to see which configurations increase your email intake most. Running these tests will help you establish a consistent method of collecting emails while also varying your prospects’ experience with your brand. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.The Freelance Studio Denver, Co User Experience Agency
One day in 2013, users noticed something awfully fishy about the @BurgerKing Twitter account: The BK logo had mysteriously been swapped out for the McDonald’s logo, and the name of the account had been changed to ‘McDonalds’. In addition, a tweet went out stating that the company had been sold to McDonalds because, “the whopper flopped”. If this sounds suspicious, that’s because it is. BK’s Twitter account had been compromised, and the hackers were having some fun at Burger King’s expense. This went on for an hour, until BK finally managed to get the account suspended. While this is perhaps an extreme example, it does remind us that we shouldn’t take the security of our social media accounts for granted. 8 strategies on how to make your social media accounts secure: 1. Use a password manager One of the simplest ways for hackers to gain access to your accounts is to get ahold of your social media login info and passwords. Once they have this info, the sky’s the limit in terms of the harm they can cause. Experts recommend choosing a long and complex password. The problem is, this will not only prevent hackers from figuring it out, it will also likely prevent YOU from remembering it! Using a password manager like 1Password can help. It will automatically create long, hack-proof passwords for everything you can imagine (social media accounts included), and all you have to do is remember ONE main password. Plug in that password, and 1Password will automatically log you in to your social media accounts. Virtually impossible for hackers to figure out, and virtually impossible for you to forget! 2. Avoid suspicious links Another way hackers gain access to your private account info is through getting you to click on a link. By clicking on the link, malware is downloaded to your computer, giving hackers access to all your valuable info. If you have ANY doubt that a link is legit, avoid it! Some red flags to look out for include: Shortened URLs Posts that don’t sound like your friend/colleague (e.g., “Click the link below for access to this FREE amazing video now!”) Emails from friends that aren’t personally addressed to you, OR that aren’t signed with their name 3. Protect your device when out and about I highly recommend having password protection on all your internet-enabled devices. This is particularly important if you share your devices with others, or regularly take your devices outside the home or office (coffee shops, meetings, planes/trains, etc.). Accidentally leaving your device behind is bad enough; but having it stolen and giving the thief unrestricted access to your personal info, including your social media accounts? That’s a recipe for disaster! Something else you may not be aware of is that determined hackers can actually access your device from afar if you’re using public WIFI. To add an extra layer of protection, install a free browser extension like HTTPS Everywhere to switch most websites from HTTP (unsecured) to HTTPS (secured). 4. Cover your tracks when using public computers Do you ever use a public computer to post to social media? Maybe it’s the public library computer, an internet café or even a friend’s device? If so, there are some things you should keep in mind: Always remember to log out of your social media accounts once you’re done using them Delete your browsing history NEVER click ‘Save password or login info’ if asked Consider using the ‘Browse privately’ option to access your social media accounts 5. Use Hootsuite to give access to employees without giving away login info Having a dedicated social media team can be great, but it can also mean more chances at having your social media accounts hacked. All it takes is one employee leaving their password out, and your entire account can be compromised. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite can help you avoid this. Each individual user will have their own login info, but they will NOT have access to your main company password. Bonus: By assigning various levels of permission to your staff, you can reduce the impact if someone does gain access to one of your employee’s accounts. 6. Use a 2-step verification system For certain social media platforms like Twitter, you can establish a 2-step verification system when logging into your social media account. This means that when you log in to your account you first have to type in the right password and then enter the verification code that is sent to your cell phone before you can even be logged in! Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google are just some of the sites that have this 2-step verification system. 7. Setup a passcode for your phone I mentioned earlier that accidentally leaving your phone behind can be bad, but imagine if you didn’t have a passcode set up on your phone! All the thief would need to do is swipe and have instant access to your information and social accounts. One way to avoid this is to take advantage of the passcode setting available on most phones, which is normally a set of numbers or a particular swipe pattern. Some phones even have a fingerprint lock that adds a whole new layer of security. 8. Turn off location services in your apps What could be worse than getting your social accounts hacked? Someone being able to see where you are through the location services enabled on your apps. Certain apps recommend having the location services enabled, but many don’t require it in order to work properly. You can go into your Settings and change which apps have access to your location and if it’s not absolutely necessary then I would suggest disabling the location so you can rest a little easier. These 8 tips are simple to implement, but can save you from a number of compromising situations. I’d recommend taking the time now to make sure your social media accounts are secure, rather than having to clean up the mess left by a hacker! How do you make your social media accounts secure? Share below! Email Marketing Step up your email marketing game with our weekly newsletter. Your email here. SUBSCRIBE 3 Key Strategies To Quickly Build An Email List By Blogging How do you effectively use blogging to grow your email list? Columnist Daniel Faggella lays out some critical tips and strategies. Daniel Faggella on October 5, 2015 at 10:13 am email-atsign-ss-1920 Successful email marketing campaigns are incredibly effective in reaching out to prospects and providing customers valuable content that can ensure a lasting relationship with them. In fact, email actually has one of the highest ROIs when compared with other styles of online marketing. This holds true especially when email is used congruently with social media. As a blogger with real business goals, you’re going to want to accumulate as extensive an email list as possible. In addition to using your email subscribers to help boost SEO (I’ve written previously about this virtuous cycle of email and SEO), you should also explicitly develop your blogging regimen to drive inbound leads and email subscribers. Here are three key strategies you can employ to successfully build an email list by blogging. Strategy #1: Advertising Your Email Opt-in Forms Too many websites forgo a larger intake of email signups in favor of likes and follows. They prioritize social media over email, prominently displaying “Follow us on Facebook!” at the top of every page. Unfortunately, what these bloggers don’t realize is that they’re partly handing control of their marketing over to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook’s complex algorithm decides when your followers see your content. Twitter is a constantly updating a stream of media, and it’s possible that your Twitter followers will entirely miss your marketing as they check their feed. In contrast, bloggers have complete control over their email list. They get to choose when emails are sent out to prospects, therefore deciding when prospects are exposed to content. This is why it’s vital for your website visitors to be able to access your email opt-in forms easily. When designing your website, place email opt-in forms in as many places as possible: in the banner, at the top of your articles, at the bottom of your articles, in the sidebar. Another feature you may choose to use is the popover page. Although popovers and lightbox pages sometimes get a bad reputation, I recommend trying them out for your site. They can drastically increase your email intake. Generally, you’ll want to make the lightbox email opt-in form appear after a visitor has spent between 15 and 45 seconds on the page. If visitors are spending that amount of time reading your content, you can assume they may be interested in providing their email address to receive more of that content. However, set the lightbox so that it appears only once per viewing session, as you do not want to spam your visitors and deter them from engaging your content further. Strategy #2: Making It Worthwhile For Prospects Prospects aren’t going to provide their email addresses if they don’t receive anything in return. Usually, prospects will be satisfied if they receive quality content. Your blog posts will give prospects an idea of what they will be signing up for when they fill out the opt-in form, and so it’s imperative that your posts are both interesting and informative. Mediocre posts will make it difficult for readers to justify returning to the site, let alone provide their email addresses. Another example of offering prospects value comes in the form of contests. Visitors to your website will often feel more compelled to provide their email when there is a tangible reward for doing so. Additionally, many people enjoy the competitive and chance-based aspect of contests, and you can use this to your advantage. Create a contest that has prospects engage in your content in some way, so that your demographic is likely to be interested. The prize should be related to your content, as well. But most importantly, make sure that to qualify for the contest, prospects need to provide their email addresses. To obtain even more emails, you can even tell prospects that every person they sign up counts as an additional ticket in the raffle. Knowing this, prospects may provide the emails of mildly interested friends or family members who did not visit your website directly. Lastly, you can use your own email list as proof that there is value in filling out the opt-in form. Display the number of people signed up for your emails in your banner. Visitors will be more likely to sign up if they see many others have, as well. You can also write up the benefits of opting in and use quotes from satisfied subscribers to signal that your content is valuable. For marketers having a hard time with developing opt-in ideas, Digital Marketer has a useful article about “lead magnet ideas” that’s worth a read. Ensuring that your opt-in incentive is strong and directly appealing to the desires of your prospect is paramount to everything else I’m writing about here today. Strategy #3: Creating Valuable Content One of the best ways to offer value to prospects is by offering them access to a high-quality white paper upon opting in. A white paper is a long-form email that promotes your content, describing why obtaining it is the best option for readers. For example, white papers can be used to provide readers who may be dealing with a frustrating aspect of business a new way to go about it. After reading the white paper, prospects will be more likely to seek your content when they have other business problems. Creating an informative white paper can be done by first taking a look at your analytics. Which of your pages has the most views? The content of this page can be the groundwork for the content of your white paper. When uploading your white paper to an email marketing software provider, you can choose to send it as one long email or in incremental parts. The benefit of the singular email would be that prospects who choose to subscribe to your emails for the white paper get immediate access to content they’re eager to read. On the other hand, incremental emails will build trust with your prospects because a steady flow of content is being delivered as promised. Creating a newsletter can also be an effective way of delivering high-quality content to email subscribers. While it’s true that many businesses dedicate entire teams of people to their newsletter, it’s possible to create one without that kind of large investment. The key is to provide valuable information to readers. Don’t merely promote products or services. You can write subject lines offering giveaways or tips to increase revenue, enticing your subscribers to open the email and even click the links that may be in them. It’s also important to include personal stories that touch on a wide range of topics relating to your content. Varied topics will attract a larger audience. By implementing these strategies, you’ll see your email list dramatically increase in length. Make sure you pay attention to your analytics, such as email click-to-open rates, spam complaint rates and unsubscribe frequency. Figure out your analytics before employing these strategies, and then compare them to your analytics afterward. Play around with subject lines, article content and Web design to see which configurations increase your email intake most. Running these tests will help you establish a consistent method of collecting emails while also varying your prospects’ experience with your brand. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.