LinkedIn and Branding: Why Is LinkedIn So Special?

Why is LinkedIn so special when there are many social networking websites out there including Facebook and Twitter? Well, LinkedIn specifically provides you a platform where you can build relationships in the field you are in, search for a job as well as offer one. In this post, I am going to talk about some of the benefits of using LinkedIn. First of all, you are able to set up a completely professional profile. Your profile enables you to describe what you do, what accomplishment you have reached or awards or honors you have achieved in detail, and LinkedIn helps you categorize those and show a clear and smooth outline to your colleagues, recruiters and customers. Another benefit of using LinkedIn is because of its unique features. An example is the new professional portfolio feature enables you to display your professional work easily. You now have ability to showcase your blog posts, videos, portfolios on your profile. All in all, it is better to display your work rather than just talk about it. Another example is the "Who's Viewed Your Updates" feature. It is a visual snapshot of what you have shared over the past two weeks, who read or viewed it, and whether it was well-received. This new feature definitely helps you sharpen your LinkedIn posting because you learn what works and you can use similar strategy in the future. This feature also helps you make connections with professionals who find value in your posts. To sum up, LinkedIn is a great business social media and provides you a great platform and tools to best promote you. Remember that you will get out of LinkedIn what you put in. 

QR Codes: Great Tool to Promote Your Business

According to the New York Times, more than half of all Americans are using smartphones; whether it's for a business or service, contacting your customers can occur online as well as calling them directly. What can be even better? Using these black symbols you must have seen on billboards can greatly promote your business through this “smartphone century." In case you are still those old school people, let me briefly explain what those black symbols are and what they contain. They are called QR codes, which stand for Quick Response codes. They are computer generated images which create a shortcut for customers to connect to our online resources. QR codes are lightening because all customers have to do is scan the code with their smartphones, and instantly they are connected via their mobile browser directly to the online location without typing a long and tedious URL. Now, I know you just can't wait to have one for your business. So before you start, I have two suggestions to help you optimize your QR codes. First of all, once you generate your QR code, please don't stay with the original picture. Why? Because the original content is boring and meaningless. You will want the content of your QR code to tell your customers something about your business and its offerings. Try something unique such as placing your business logo or a highlighted product as the content of your code. Take a look at these QR codes generated by Disneyland,

don't these codes take you back to all the pleasant Disney memories you have with those cute and funny cartoon characters? Another suggestion is have a brief description about what your goal for the QR code is and how you want the customer to respond. You can simply have a couple sentences next to your QR code to describe the purpose of the code. Example: "Like Us on Facebook." To sum it up, creating a great QR code is an amazing marketing tool to promote your business, and surely you don't want to miss out on it!

Social Networking and Security. . .or Lack of When Promoting Your Brand.

Facebook continues to be the world's most popular social media sites. Besides it is the best place where friends share and communicate online, Facebook has become a venue for businesses to promote their brands, communicate with clients and look for potential customers.

In this post we will be looking at how to use Facebook as a marketing tool and some security issues related to it.

One common way to use Facebook as a marketing tool is a Facebook page. Businesses on their pages can post information such as contact information and background of their companies. In addition, businesses can also promote and update their products and services through sharing images and videos. Another way is to use Facebook ads. Businesses have many options to customize and market their ads in Facebook. There are targeting options to specific what kinds of customers businesses target their ads to based on different location, age, interest, education level and more. Also, for app developers, when people click on the ad on the mobile device, they will be directed to the App Store or Google Play to install the app.

Although using Facebook helps promote your brand, some security issues should be taken into consideration. A number of Facebook security flaws have recently been shared. According to slashgear.com, the latest flaw was image related. This security flaw allowed any user to delete any image from other users’ Facebook page. Previous security flaws include user accounted being hacked and one of the victims was Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook. According to cnn.com, a Palestinian researcher posted a message on Mark’s page saying “First, sorry for breaking your privacy and post(ing) to your wall. I (have) no other choice to make after all the reports I sent to (the) Facebook team.” Khalil Shreateh, the security researcher said he found a hole in Facebook’s systems that let him post to any user’s page including users not on his friends list. Although it is almost impossible to have no bug for such large social media which has users more than 1.15 billion, as users, there are still some actions we can take to eliminate the security attack. One way of being secure while using Facebook is to use a one-time password. According to nakedsecurity.sophos.com, if you would like to use Facebook from a public location, you can use a one-time password to access your Facebook account. This password is sent to you by text message and will expire after 20 minutes. Another way is to block apps installed on Facebook. By doing this, you can prevent them from accessing your personal information. Last but not least, make sure you log out when you are done using Facebook, otherwise, people can do crazy things on your Facebook account which might result ruining your business or personal reputation.

As long as you take care of the security of your account well, Facebook is one of the best online tools to promote your brand.

Work cited:

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

http://www.slashgear.com/facebook-security-flaw-allowed-any-user-to-delete-any-image-02295703/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/19/tech/social-media/zuckerberg-facebook-hack