Facebook Changing its Tune & Google wants to See How Fast Your Site Loads
Just when you thought the lightspeed co-ordinates entered into your navi-computer where perfect, keeping you from bouncing to close to a super nova, along come two major changes requiring a course adjustment .
Facebook is changing the way its Fan Pages are used. Before, anyone could create a Fan Page for a business and many clients or customers of a company did just that (see the Coca-Cola story). Well, now Facebook has introduced Community Pages where those typical raving fans will now have to go. Fan Pages will now be the sole domain of the business, personality or band that owns the brand.
Another major change is that users will no long be asked to “Become a Fan”. The new terminology will be “like”. Facebook has recently sent an email to ad agencies instructing them to tell their clients to use new language such as “Find us on Facebook” or “Like us on Facebook” instead of the traditional “Become a Fan”.
Please take note and make sure all your Facebook advertising is converted over to the new terminology.
On another very interesting note, Google has now added site response speed to its search results algorithms. If you think your site (especially interactive or ecommerce sites) may be slow, give us a call to evaluate it, so you do not drop in results you may have worked very hard to achieve!
May the Force be with you as you adjust course!
New Forrester Research predicts online s
New Forrester Research predicts online sales to grow 10%/yr for the next 5 yrs. Get your share with the most SEO friendly eCom GoXsellit.com
8 Things To Do Before Launching Your Social Media Blitz
Social Media is Great, but did you do These 8 Things First?
Facebook, Twitter, Linked In… the list goes on and on. Social media dominates the Internet landscape these days and you most definitely need to be playing in this sandbox to grow your business. But before you begin to ramp up an effective social media campaign, make sure you have built the proper foundation first.
Click on the following link to download our complimentary white paper entitled: “Sure Everyone is Doing It, But Did You Do These 8 Things Before Launching Your Social Media Blitz?” http://goxsellit.com/wp2/. If you don’t feel like downloading the white paper, no problem…we’re going to cover each point here in the blog over the next few weeks.
A quick tip for you: make sure your online store or website includes word of mouth tools that make it easy for your site visitors to use their social media accounts to spread the word about your business. Let’s begin our first Pre-Social Media lessons. Remember, you will be taking your first steps into a larger universe young Luke…
Here’s the first thing to do:
Make sure your current web site is engaging and fresh, after all, this is most likely the end point to your social media campaigns! The last thing you want is tons of friends, fans or followers that end up going to a site that is:
- hard to read
- difficult to navigate
- looks very outdated
- doesn’t let them “DO” something
Once you have completed this process, you can move on to social media. Really I’m not kidding here. Why am I making you finish all this? Social media is what, in the old days, we called word of mouth. Only, in the old days, the only way to do this was to tell someone your name and maybe give them your phone number. Today, people may still give out your name, but more likely, they give out your web site address. Either way, their first destination is usually what we call an “eProperty”.
An “eProperty”, can be your web site, your blog, your Facebook fan page or a whole host of other web based destinations. So, you must make sure that your web site is engaging and fresh. After all, it will most likely be the first impression people get of you and/or your business.
The most important concept to keep in mind is that content, more importantly RELEVANT or ENGAGING CONTENT, is what drives social media. So, you really need some content to put into these tools. If you are going to share and connect with people, it’s good to be able to actually provide them with information of value to them.
May the Force Be With You, Always.
Congrats to Brokaw for landing the Fazol
Congrats to Brokaw for landing the Fazoli account! Good luck and go Cleveland! http://ow.ly/1weIM
8 Tips to Protect Yourself from Credit Card Fraud
I’m pretty excited about my first blog entry. While I might be a Jedi Master of eCommerce, I’m just a Padawan Learner when it comes to blogging! I hope you all find the information, tips, and stories that follow to be mildly interesting at the least, but my hope is that it becomes a resource of Actionable Intelligence.
Credit card fraud is a real danger out there and you must have procedures in place to help protect yourself from it. While there is no magic solution to this, there are many things you can do to avoid having this happen to you.
Here are some of our tips:
1) Rely on your wits. Nothing combats basic fraud better than your gut. If something looks like a fish and smells like a fish, it probably is a fish. So keep a look out for the following:
- Unusually large orders
- Orders that originate in “high risk” foreign countries (Malaysia, Turkey, Russia & Nigeria are some examples)
- Orders where the Bill To and Ship To addresses are different
2) If your eCommerce software tracks abandoned carts and unprocessed orders, see if an order was tried several times before becoming a successful order. This could indicate someone who is trying various cards until they get one that works!
3) Nothing beats the phone. Make it a customer service policy to call and thank each customer (particularly if they are a first time customer). Sometimes the name on the order and the person on the other end of your phone call are complete strangers!
4) If your gateway allows for the enabling of fraud controls, try using them. Typically you want to not only make sure you have an address match (AVS), but a CVV2 match as well. That at least helps ensure that the card is present and physically in the hands of the potential customer. Keep in mind, it still could be stolen.
5) Use online tools like the White Pages to verify the phone number, name and address of the person on the order. Sometimes you will find that the phone number and the address do not match! This can happen if someone has the card information and knows where the person lives. They then use their own phone number, hoping you will call them and they can verbally verify the order, even though it’s not their card! This is a great, simple tool to help prevent you from shipping product you may end up with a charge back on.
6) Don’t ship to P.O. Boxes.
7) Consider a policy of not accepting orders from free or web-based email addresses. Emails should be tracked back to a true ISP. To check, just add www in front of the second part of the email address and see what comes up. If it looks like a real business that provides Internet access, the email can be tracked back to a real person.
8) Educate Yourself. Here are some great links to organizations that help prevent fraud as well as agencies that prosecute it.
- FTC – http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/business.shtm
- Internet Crime Complaint Center – http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
