Earlier today (25 January) we suffered a security breach on our website. We are still investigating the cause and until we have identified the loophole we have defaulted to the standard WordPress Twenty-Ten theme.
We’ll be back to normal as soon as possible.
Have you claimed your Google Places listing yet? This free service is recommended for all businesses but critical for any business with a local market or a traditional shopfront where people come to buy your product or service.
When you claim your Google Places listing you will be asked to verify your ownserhip of the business. This is a simple, automated process. Once you’ve been verified you can add to your listing: opening hours, payment methods, detailed description and a range of other items. You will also be able to upload photos and videos and starting recently, you can request a 360-degree panaroma of the interior of your business. This service is provided by Google at no cost to you and it is being rolled out in major cities in Australia, New Zealand, USA and other countries.
After you have claimed you business listing in Google Places, request your 360-degree panorama for your business. According to the FAQs on the Google site the service is available for “restaurants, hotels, retail shops, gyms, salons, repair shops and a variety of other storefront businesses”, so if you think you’ll benefit from this service, apply now and bring your local search listing to life.
I recently wrote about QR codes and I have seen the little collections of dots pop up more and more recently. What I’ve noticed is that many business owners are missing out on some important points about using QR codes.
Here’s my list of five essentials when using a QR code in marketing for your business.
So there you have it. Use this checklist when you’re using QR codes and you’ll get much more bang for you buck.
*Any marketing or advertising Guru who tells you your marketing or advertising is working by “building your brand” is feeding you horsesh*t, most likely in an attempt to sell you more advertising space or to cover up their own ineptitude: marketing is only working if you shift some product!
Some people like it, others don’t, but at least now you have a choice.
What am I talking about? The YouTube icon that appears on the control bar at the bottom of the video when you embed it in your website.
This is also a link to the YouTube site, so it’s potentially an exit link from your site and removing it may encourage visitors to stay around a little longer.
YouTube recently announced an update to the player which will allow you to remove the branding. All you have to do is paste “?modestbranding=1″ at the end of the URL for your video and the icon disappears from the control bar.
I’ve pasted two versions of the same video below to show you the control bar with and without the YouTube icon.
The YouTube name will appear in the upper right hand corner of a paused video when you hover over it, and this links to YouTube, but it’s not nearly as obvious.
And did you know I really love cats?
For full details of all the codes for the YouTube player visit this link.
We’ve all seen them, perhaps you even have one.
It’s a business card given to you at a networking meeting or by someone who has done some work for you in your business. The card has a nice glossy coating, with name, rank, serial number of the owner, a photo, so you remember who gave it to you and a website address: www. mybusinessname.com, or something like that.
But when you look below the phone number you see the email address:
mybusinessname@hotmail.com, or worse
husbandandwife@myisp.com, or even
fishingfanatic@gmail.com.
When I see a business card with a free email address on it, my first thought is “New in business, may not be around for long”.
Is that fair? Probably not.
Is it even true? Mostly it isn’t.
But if I’m thinking it, how many other people think the same thing? And if people are thinking this while you are pitching your product or service, what’s it doing to hurt your business?
The thing is, some of the most unlikely businesses are still doing this sort of thing. I dealt with one today – my accountant.
My accountant is great, he offers top notch service, he knows more about tax than I ever want to and he’s even funny – for an accountant. He has a website with heaps of good information on it, he sends monthly email newsletters to me and all his other clients and he has been in business for at least 15 years.
But when I called today to check his email I was told to send my annual accounts to a Hotmail address!
I’ll do it, because I’ve been working with the same firm for years and I absolutely trust them, but I have to wonder how much business this is costing him.
So, why do businesses continue to do this?
If you’ve got the domain name, why are you promoting someone else’s business with your email address?
Sometimes it’s ignorance – people just don’t think of it as important.
In other cases it’s fear – of the technical challenge of setting up an email.
But in many cases it’s hosting companies offering second rate service.
If you are paying for hosting of a website, and your hosting company won’t setup email accounts for you, or give you an easy way of doing it yourself, change hosting companies. It’s as simple as that, you don’t need to put up with second rate service.
If you need to change hosting providers, we use and recommend Hostgator.
They have an easy sign up system, great customer service, terrific pricing and they will even move your website across to their servers as part of the service. The basic plan comes with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited email addresses for less than $5 per month.
Diarmuid
A while ago a long standing client emailed me and asked me to register an Australian domain name identical to the .com name used by one of his competitors. The name was a combination of the suburb the businesses were in and the type of service they both provided, so there wasn’t any trademark or copyright issue.
But, when I checked the status of the domain, I learned the registration had recently expired and the name had not yet been released. I explained to my client that this was a measure put in place by AuDA to protect those businesses who hadn’t kept their contact details up to date and allowed a domain name registration to expire. After the 30 day grace period, if the previous registrant hasn’t renewed, the name will be released at a random time in the following seven days and is available for registration on a ‘first come, first served’ basis.
We weren’t sure if the other business had ever registered the domain name. The Whois listing at Ausregistry didn’t make any reference to that business and the domain name didn’t feature in any of their advertising.
Nevertheless, it seemed likely that the competing business was the previous registrant and the owners were probably taking the necessary steps to re-register the domain name. So, I went about my usual business without giving the matter too much thought, but not before I flagged the message for a follow up in a month’s time…
A month later, when the reminder popped up on my screen, I took a minute to check the availability of the domain name - it had been released. A short email to my client confirmed his continued interest in the domain name and 5 minutes later the registration was complete.
I soon learned that the other business HAD asked their hosting provider to renew the domain name. But, because the name had been registered with another reseller the domain password wasn’t available. The original reseller was no longer in business and emails to the contact address were not being answered.
I learned this from the business charged with renewing the domain name on behalf of my client’s competitor, who happens to supply hosting and other services to my client and his competitor. It looked messy for a while, but eventually the dust settled and everyone got on with things, all the wiser for the experience.
So what is the moral of the story:
Business Owners – If you pay someone; an ISP, Web Developer, Hosting Provider, your brother-in-law who knows more about computers than you do, anyone at all, to register a domain name on your behalf, make sure YOU are listed as the primary or secondary contact for the domain name. This means you remain in control of what can be a very important part of your business.
Web Professionals – If someone pays you to register a domain name, make sure your client is the primary contact and you are the technical contact. This keeps you in the loop but allows your clients to continue running their businesses even if you have moved on to bigger and better things by the time renewal rolls around.
Has anyone received a message, claiming to be from Skype, offering upgrades to include voice recording and other features. I have received three of these messages in the past couple of days, which is a sure sign it is a scam, but if you are in any doubt here are some obvious clues.
From Address – the email is from skyp@egroupbusiness.com. You have to ask yourself why Skype support would be emailing from an unrelated domain, rather than from Skype.com. And if you visit egroupbusiness.com you are presented with a privacy policy and a few other pages relating to terms and conditions and CAN-SPAM Act Compliance. Nothing about what the business does or its relationship with Skype.
Salutation – no username. Most companies will include your username or real name in the greeting line to show they know who you are, although American Express insists on sending messages to “Cardmember”.
Links – all links point to skype-upgrade-2010.com. Why would skype use another unrelated domain rather than Skype.com?
Grammar – although Skype is based in a non-English speaking country, the English in this message smacks of bad translation. My corrections are in parentheses.
“This is to notify (you) that new VoIP…”
“Much cheaper than Calling Card(s)…”
“If you have any question(s), please…”
So unless you want to give away your personal details or download some new and interesting spyware, don’t click on the link in the email. Delete it immediately, and while you’re at it, delete any messages asking you to upgrade your Adobe Acrobat Reader (another scam I’ve received recently).
I’ve copied the full text of the message below.
Dear valued Skype users,
This is to notify that new VoIP and Conversation Recording addons have been released for Skype.
http://www.skype-upgrade-2010.com
Following are major new features:
- Talk more for free via Voice Over IP (VoIP)
- Lower cost when connecting to landlines (much cheaper than Calling Card)
- Record your conversation (better than telephone quality)
- Instant messaging & file-sharing, video calls
- Now available on PSP!
To check your current version and upgrade, go to Skype Support Center at
http://www.skype-upgrade-2010.com
Skype has changed the way we think of telecommunications.
If you have any question, please contact us at : support@skype-upgrade-2010.com.
Thank you and enjoy.
Alex Vandesa
Skype Support Center
Has anyone seen the the black and white boxes appearing on billboards, consumer goods and business shopfronts recently and thought “What is that?”
What you’re seeing is a quick reference code or QR code. The QR code is just like a barcode, it contains data that can be read with the correct scanner. These barcodes can be used to link to websites, provide contact information or list the features of a product or service.
If you want to read the QR codes, the first thing you need is a phone with a camera. The phone must be able to support QR scanning. Many Android phones have a scanner included as standard. The iPhone does not come with a scanner but there are several free versions available from the App Store. I use QR Reader for iPhone and it works fine for me, but I would be interested to hear of other users’ experiences.
If you are a business owner wanting to use QR codes, there are a number of free QR code generators online. Telstra has one, but typing QR code generator into Google will provide you with a list.
The QR code in this article is my basic contact details. I have a copy on my phone so I can share my details easily with anyone who has a scanner phone.
Many businesses in the US are using QR codes to take people directly to their websites and advertisers use QR codes to provide additional information about the product or promotion on offer.
What have you seen QR codes being used for?
Facebook launced the Facebook Deals platform at its Facebook Mobile Event on 3 November 2010. The new feature allows businesses to offer deals to fans and visitors through pages and Facebook Places. To setup the deal the business goes through a simple interface on the business page.
Deals are broken down into four categories:
Individual: the person simply redeems the voucher (on the phone) for a free or discounted product or service. For instance call in between 4-5 pm and receive a free muffin with your coffee.
Loyalty: like the ubiquituous coffee card, this one offers the deal after a certain number of purchases or check-ins. Tenth coffee free or similar.
Friends: Facebook is all about socialising, so this was a no-brainer. This may be a deal where you check in with four friends and you all receive the deal. Great for restaurants and hospitality businesses.
Charity: Facebook is offering businesses the chance to generate a following while giving some money to a worthwhile cause. The North Face is launching a promotion where each check in at a US store will trigger a $1 donation to the National Parks Society – up to $150,000.
The deals platform is available to a select number of partners now and will be rolled out to all Facebook Pages over time. In Australia and anywhere else outside the USA, we will have to wait, no dates have been set for its launch here. Facebook Places was available in Australia within six weeks of its launch in the USA, and a similar time-frame is likely. This could see some businesses offering Facebook deals before Christmas.
Facebook Places has been expanded to allow location applications such as Gowalla, Loopt and Yelp to read, write and search the locations data on Facebook (until now it was write only). This allows these applications to list your Facebook friends who have checked in nearby, and to make suggestions of other relevant locations near where you have checked in.
Single Sign On For Mobile is now live. No more fiddling around with touch screens and tiny keyboards inputting your password, if you remember it, click on the sign on with Facebook icon, allow the site to access your profile information and you are connect. The expanded Facebook Places, combined with Single Sign On for Mobile, deepens the social aspect of these applications and is sure to see a big uptake in their use.
Facebook Places combined with Facebook Deals will allow businesses to more actively target promotions to fans who are at or near the business, offering huge potential to local businesses who are yet to realise the advantage of a strong social media presence.
Facebook Places is now available for Android and a new Android SDK has been released with an iPhone version coming in a few days. The iPhone app has been updated to include deals.
At the Facebook Mobile Event, Mark Zuckerberg let slip that Facebook Places is now the most popular locations service on the planet. He wouldn’t give statistics or figures but he confirmed it at question time. With the integration of Single Sign On for Mobile and Facebook Deals, Facebook places looks like becoming the dominant player in the locations services space.
Facebook has announced its new Places feature, allowing Facebook users to check-in to locations using the GPS capabilities of their smartphones. This is similar to the service offered by Foursquare and Gowalla, but is so far only available in the USA. Facebook says it will roll it out to all users as soon as possible.
The social aspect of these location services, and they all work in a similar way, is straightforward.
From a business owner’s point of view, these location services can be an excellent marketing tool. If your business requires people to come to you, offering a special offer for users of one or all of these services can be an effective way of building loyalty. This can also set you apart from your competitors, especially if your product or service has a social angle: pubs, clubs and cafes.
You can also collect testimonials and reviews (although this can backfire if the review is less than flattering) and you can set up your business profile to link to your business’s website.
Although these services are relatively new, and certainly not mainstream yet, the growth in this sector has been phenomenal over the past 12 months and looks set to continue, especially with Facebook entering the market. So if you are looking for an online edge for your offline business, it’s certainly worth checking out the check in services.
