Compromised Credit Cards

"Your card has been compromised" is a very scary line to hear from your bank. I was recently called by my bank to notify me that my credit card account had been compromised along with several others that had used their card recently with an online merchant. I always take all the necessary precautions when shopping online at any website. However, you can never really know how secure the particular site is at any given moment, hence, I was "chosen" by the credit card hackers as a fraud victim.

On the more positive note, there are safer measures we can take in reducing the risk of our accounts being compromised. If your card has ever been compromised, you can probably imagine the frustration and hassle it causes, right?

Is Facebook Really Secure?

Facebook keeps "improving" its security features and making it "easier" for us Facebook users to keep our information private, but how much of it is actually making our accounts secure?

Bill Pringle provides us with some helpful techniques on preventing our accounts from becoming victims to security fraud. Most of them seem like common sense, such as "don't put sensitive information in your profile" and "use a strong password". However, these basic techniques will not rid us of the risks arising constantly by using a Facebook account.

A recent post about Facebook's new issues with privacy settings puts me a bit uneasy. Due to Facebook's size and audience, it has become an even bigger target for bugs and hackers. Luckily, I'm not the only one concerned about these security issues!

If You're Going to Use Social Media, Use It Right!

In a recent posting by Anthony Miyazaki, he posed the question "Is online social media crucial?" I would think that first we need to define what the word "crucial" represents to the company. Is it crucial to the immediate success of the company? Or is it crucial to the company's long-term growth and sustainability?

I believe that if a company is going to embark on a journey within social media, it should eat, sleep, and breathe these 21 rules of engagement that Brian Solis so brilliantly listed. It is crucial that a company not take social media lightly as social media is the future of businesses. If a company chooses to go the route of using social media to promote its business and its brand, it should do so properly and to the best of its ability.

There are also several frameworks by which a company can choose to integrate social media into its marketing strategy. As Jordan Julien posted, "It's important to know what model you plan on following, and map out the way to achieve your goals." As with any successful marketing campaign, whether it involves the use of social media or not, it is important to do just that!

Personally Branding Yourself Online

In a post titled "Personal Branding and Social Media Optimization in Action", Paul Sutton mentions that "personal branding on the web is important". However, does that mean that everyone must be branding themselves online at all times? IMO, not really...but what I did get from Paul's post was that if you're already promoting yourself and your blog online, you should be doing it correctly.

Keisha posted some really good tips on how to promote your blog online using SEO that could really get your blog up the ranks on search engines. She emphasizes that the key to writing a post on your blog that will get a lot of traffic is to 1) write your post first, 2) worry about SEO after.

Going back to my intial thought about whether we should all be branding ourselves online, I stick to my position in which we should only be promoting ourselves online in ways we already know how. Once we have mastered the art of Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, etc., then we are ready to take on new challenges. In the meantime, do ONE thing well (not several badly)! Remember: QUALITY over quantity.

Just [insert brand name here] it!

Just Google it! Just FedEx it! Just...well, you get the point!

You know a company has done it big when a brand name resonates globally in a person's everyday life. Branding is extremely important in any marketing strategy. It is how your customers know and perceive your product. It is not just a name, but it is what your company represents to any particular customer.

I am always fascinated by the fact that some brands have been so successful in penetrating people's vocabularies, such as Google. I am not trying to be biased towards Google (because it is truly my favorite search engine), but when you tell someone to search for something online, what phrase typically comes to mind? Is it "Just Yahoo! it"? Is it "Just Bing it"? [I have to give it to Bing, though, they're really trying to make it catch on, but unfortunately, I Google things.] "Just Google it!" sounds right.

If a company can clearly identify the image they want to portray, they can be successful. On the contrary, if the company itself does not know the message/image they are trying to deliver to its customers, how can they expect their customers to know? They will most likely be all over the place trying to reach its target audience in an unsuccessful manner.

But what is in a brand name that makes it successful? Is it that they have a good marketing strategy, simply making their brand name a nice complement? Did they luck out with a good name? (I don't necessarily think luck was it for Google...) Google knows what it stands for and its customers do, too!