I read with interest last week in the SA Advertiser that the SAJC where embroiled in controversy relating to sourcing members via FaceBook. Sourcing the membership through FaceBook is a great social media strategy and one many sporting clubs could and should explore.

The problem with the SAJC delivery of the membership was its reportedly only gave out a free membership after a questionable voting slip was signed in favour of a particular candidate at a pending Board election. Right social media and membership idea but wrong deliverable.

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Social Media sites provide great branding opportunity for online businesses. Sites such as YouTube, Myspace, FaceBook, Flikr and Twitter are some of the most popular; and are used by a global and national audience.

All internet businesses should incorporate Social Media as part of their overall internet marketing strategy.  However, resourcing these activities can be time consuming for the company and the agency. If Social Media is to be used for the purpose of increasing organic (or non paid) search engine traffic one must carefully consider the limitations of the company’s resources to ensure that maximum ROI is achieved.
You can burn hours of time in YouTube and even if the Movie gets 1,000,000s of visits, it doesn’t necessarily increase your organic traffic. Likewise, 1,000s of Fans in Facebook is great awareness but may not increase your Organic Traffic.
Using Social Media to increase Organic Rankings
Two effective ways to increase rankings is to:

Extend your website content – depending on your audience’s needs this can include but is not limited to:

1. User Reviews
2. Testimonials
3. Blog posts - These can be informative, funny, controversial or anything that the organisation can produce that will appeal to the online community

Be a good Social Media Citizen

1. You need to be active in the community you want to excel in
2. Develop trust, make friends and influence the community

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Facebook has been under spam and chain letter attacks recently.
It had to happen!  I had become so accustomed to using facebook as a spam free zone that it didn’t occur to me that anyone would want to spam it. How naïve, as an internet marketer I should have known better.

First up - I owe an apology to an old friend that I recently reconnected with through Facebook.
Secondly –  I have posted Instruction on how to stop the spammers.

The Apology

As I religiously went to update my status one morning I saw a message on my wall.

“FIND OUT WHO YOUR LOVE IS!! VISIT: XXXXXX .COM (remove spaces) HURRY BEFORE IT’STOLATE!”

blah, blah, blah, another  love match nonsense  scam!

It was 7 am and I probably should have been doing something other than logging into facebook but I had only had 3 espresso’s and my firey Sicilian blood took control of my keyboard and politely abused this poor girl for sending me the message.

This is what I wrote:

“ It’s great to reconnect on facebook with you - Please stop sending me nonsense links - I am 41 years old, co founder of 2 Internet companies and CEO of 1. I am a father of 2 and have a demanding wife. My life is very busy. I just don’t have the time to follow your childish and silly links. As an Internet marketer - here is a lesson that will serve you well. Keep your messages relevant to your audience. Otherwise I hope you are well - take care “

She responded with:

“ Great to hear from you, just so you know I don’t send these bullshit messages, for some reason Face Book does this on it’s own, so please don’t blame me for it!!!I have better things to do in my life then send you stupid messages at 6.13 and 7.05am, we all get these stupid messages all the time so just ignor them like we all do….. there not from me. I’m offended that you would even think I would send such messages. Frank I’m to busy with my life for this crap! I’m 31 and I work and I’m a full time mum to a 28 month old girl. I don’t have time to sit down let alone follow these stupid childish links ok. So Frank take it easy, here is a lesson that will serve you welll……. ask the person weather they said or did something before you accuse them”

I clearly upset her so here it is.

I am sss- ssss,s- sor .  Ok I am not sorry because good has come of this for my old friend.

I asked one of our techs to look into the matter and it appears that it is yet another virus or worm.  The same kind that attacks Internet banking.  So if your Facebook profile is under attack the last thing you should do is ignore it.

If you are a victim of such a spam attack here is what you should do

This is basically a virus or worm that is attacking your computer and it needs to be fixed ASAP.

If you have Antivirus software installed on your computer run an update

If you don’t have Antuvirus software installed, use one of the free online virus scanners

http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
http://security.symantec.com/

or alternatively download a free virus scanner

http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

Scan the computer with the antivirus & remove any malicious software found.

Log into Facebook account  and change your Facebook password.

As worms, viruses & etc rely on Operating System aswell and sometimes exploit OS vulnerabilites…It is also recommended that the user downloads the  latest updates for their operating systems

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/updates/bulletins/200809.mspx

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