A survey of 500 companies found a 70 percent jump in spam and malware attacks via social networking sites in 2009, according to a new report from security firm Sophos.

Facebook topped the list as the perceived riskiest of the major social-networking sites, followed by MySpace, Twitter, and finally LinkedIn.

The Sophos survey included asking companies about the security risks of the top four social-networking sites.

(Credit: Sophos)

The Sophos report (PDF) said that more than 50 percent of the companies surveyed were spammed through a social-networking site last year and that 36 percent were hit by malware from such a site.

The danger to businesses from social-networking malware is especially high. Most of the companies surveyed expressed concern that the actions of their employees on a site like Facebook could put sensitive corporate data at risk.

It's not just the users at fault, though. Sophos laid some blame in the hands of the social-networking sites themselvesl. Many Web 2.0 sites have focused more on bumping up market share than on protecting customers, according to Sophos. And although companies like Facebook have started putting more effort into combating cyberthreats, they're also contending with a huge and growing population of users.

"The truth is that the security team at Facebook works hard to counter threats on their site--it's just that policing 350 million users can't be an easy job for anyone," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said Monday in a statement. "But there is no doubt that simple changes could make Facebook users safer. For instance, when Facebook rolled out its new recommended privacy settings late last year, it was a backwards step, encouraging many users to share their information with everybody on the Internet."

Although LinkedIn was seen as the safest of the top four social networks, it's not without its share of risk. The more "inside" information that a cybercrook can gather about a company, the more vulnerable that company becomes. And LinkedIn can be a prime source for revealing details about a business.

"Sites like LinkedIn provide hackers with what is effectively a corporate directory, listing your staff's names and positions," Cluley said. "This makes it child's play to reverse-engineer the e-mail addresses of potential victims."

Businesses have been hesitant to block social-networking sites as they've become valuable tools for keeping in touch with customers and colleagues.

Almost half of all the companies surveyed now allow employees open access to Facebook, compared with just 13 percent a year ago. The trick, Sophos said, is not to ban social networking sites but to secure and monitor them to minimize their risks.

Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET.

Published on January 5, 2010 

There's no question that online video is fast becoming a favorite of Internet users around the world. In fact, online video views have surpassed core search queries, and YouTube has become a top search engine.

But this shift in consumption has left marketers searching for the best ways to incorporate online video in their campaigns. The hit-or-miss nature of viral video, the brand quality considerations of user-generated content, and the general disdain for television commercials online have left marketers wondering, "How do I make video work for me?"

Video advertising is known for its powerful branding ability, but it can also be a great direct-response vehicle that drives measurable actions that result in sales when used properly on the Web. And with new production methods, quality online video can be produced for as little as $1,000 to $5,000 per piece, making video a marketing tool that can be used in multiples across Web campaigns while driving high return on investment.

In this article I highlight 10 ways that marketers can drive consumer action with online video.

1. Tell a compelling story

With users in control and limitless options available to them at the click of their mouse, your video must be compelling. Once users click play, you have 5-10 seconds to engage them and keep them watching.

Use a compelling narrative to captivate them for the duration of the video. The narrative storytelling format presents the information in a compelling and useful manner and ensures that the viewer remains engaged and absorbs the key messages in the video.

2. Be authentic

Online users are skeptical of the high-pressure sales pitch. And with so many choices online, they're looking for reasons to eliminate you from consideration in their search for the product or service that meets their needs. The fastest way to turn off online viewers is to bombard them with inauthentic sales pitches and weak emotional brand appeals.

Online viewers are looking for content that accurately and honestly provides information about a product or service to aid them in their decision-making process. A successful video will demonstrate value and relevance in an authentic manner that doesn't alienate the viewer with an over-the-top sales pitch.

3. Provide useful information

When users are in decision-making mode online, the last thing they want is an irrelevant branding commercial that mimics a traditional television advertising spot. At that point, they want to get beyond the sales pitch to features and benefits to determine whether your product or service will meet their needs.

If you fail to meet that deeper information need, you will lose the viewers' interest and the opportunity to turn them into customers. Your video should demonstrate products, features, and expertise in a manner that compels viewers to learn more by taking an action such as clicking a link for more information, filling out an inquiry form, or picking up the phone to talk to one of your representatives.

4. Use a call to action

Without a strong call to action, your viewers won't know what you want them to do once they've watched your video. Your video should create a clear action path, and the surrounding Web content should make executing that action easy.

Decide what action you want your viewers to take before shooting the video. Do you want them to fill out an inquiry form, forward the video to a friend, mention a coupon code, or click a link to learn more about a particular product or service? Whatever the action, make it clear in the video and easy to find, and execute on the surrounding Web page.

5. Don't over-produce

With the small player size of online video, user bandwidth considerations, and the audience's demand for authenticity, over-producing a video is simply throwing away good money. Professional production is important for maintaining brand standards, but fancy graphics, expensive effects, and other high-end production efforts will be mostly lost online. Worse, some of these effects may muddle the video, making the content and information difficult to comprehend, which can lead the viewer to abandon the video.

Maximize your ROI by finding the right balance between production value and delivering a clear, meaningful message considering the current limitations of online video.

6. Don't oversell

The user is firmly in control of the online video viewing experience. Users decide whether your message and content is worth watching or whether they'll click away to more relevant information. Respect that dynamic by using your video to inform, educate, and build preference rather than going for the hard sell.

You're not recreating late-night infomercials with Web video, you're looking to assist and aid in the decision-making process by providing authentic, relevant information and a clear call to action.

7. Measure and test

Affordable online video means that marketers can test messages, formats, and the call to action to see which mix resonates best with their audience. Try testing different offers, highlighting different product benefits and features, and using your video at different points in the decision-making process to determine the optimal use of your video in creating your desired consumer action. Provide a unique coupon code or URL, or other identifier, to let you track the impact of video on your online marketing initiatives.

8. Make it shareable

YouTube taught us all that video is a portable medium on the Web that starts conversations and spreads among friends and their social networks. Make sure your video facilitates tha natural phenomenon. Provide links and functionality to make it easy for people to email your video to friends, embed on Web pages and blogs, and post to their various social networking profiles.

By making your video portable, you increase its reach while gaining a tacit recommendation of your product or service with each person who forwards your video.

9. Place it at key decision points

According to a recent eMarketer report, video can often be the final push customers need to complete a purchase online. Video has also been shown to improve customer satisfaction and reduce product returns and abandoned shopping carts. No wonder, then, that e-commerce sites have increased their use of video.

By placing video at key decision points in your purchase funnel, you can create greater confidence and retain customers who might otherwise abandon their purchase.

10. Make it search-engine friendly

The advent of Google's Universal Search has made video an important part of the results returned in a user's search query. Companies can now gain visibility in the search engines quickly by providing video content that is search-engine friendly.

Do so by properly naming your video files, using proper keywords and titles, and surrounding them with keyword-rich Web content. Other best practices include keeping your videos in one video directory on your Web site, providing an MRSS (Media RSS) feed for all of your published videos, and publishing your videos to third-party sites such as YouTube.

Video is a Powerful Online Marketing Tool

By combining the above 10 best practices, marketers can drive consumer action using online video.

Keeping production costs inline with the realities of the online channel will ensure that the return on investment remains high, while creating a compelling story to help drive conversions and reduce abandonment in the purchase cycle.

As bandwidth continues to improve and more of the online audience makes video an important part of their online experience, successful marketers will understand how to incorporate video marketing in their online campaigns to drive favorable consumer action.

Google sidewiki allows those with the up to date Google toolbar to comment on any wiebsite that they visit. this will be in the form of a wiki. What are the implications of this new tool from Google? How will it affect online marketing if at all? In response posts, such as Google SideWiki: What Are the Implications for PR? the opinion that it will quickly become a spammers paradise has been expressed more than once. Many feel it is a great tool that advertisers need to embrace. Time will tell won't it.

The wise marketer, business owner, or PR rep will certainly install the Google toolbar with the Sidewiki and monitor the writing on their sites wiki. After what is the price the price of ignoring it?

Read the entire post My REAL Secret tp Growing Traffic to a Blog.

Read the entire article from FreelanceFolder.com.

In the blog post, Three Types of Video for Online Business, Daniel Sevitt, goes into detail about the three types of videos that he feels that businesses should be using for their marketing.

Feather pages do a number of things to speed up the video-playing process, from defaulting to the standard quality version (instead of high quality or high definition), to removing various on-page features such as being able to control the size and coloring of an embed. The idea is to get the video playing as soon as possible with fewer on-page distractions.

Other efficiencies include limiting the number of loaded comments to just 10, which users are now unable to vote on or respond to. Video replies, real-time sharing, and auto-suggest from YouTube's search bar have also been cut. However, related videos remain--albeit at a more limited 5 videos compared to YouTube's usual offering of 21.

Users who want to try out the new interface can do so by opting in to it on YouTube's TestTube page, which houses experimental, or otherwise not-so-ready-for-primetime features. These include YouTube's visual warp browser, its live streams product, and comment search tool. Once it's enabled, it can quickly be disabled from any video page with a little green box that sits on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

It's worth noting the feature does not yet appear to work on all videos just yet. We had the best luck on popular videos, including those from YouTube's featured section. Also, if you're a YouTube power user who regularly makes use of things such as video replies and user comments, it's worth staying on the standard version of the service.

YouTube's new feather mode ditches many of YouTube's advanced features in favor of a faster-loading page.

(Credit: CNET)

Josh Lowensohn writes for Webware.com, CNET's blog about Web applications and services. E-mail Josh, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Josh.

Read the entire article at Jay Rodriguez's site

The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has followed up on its 2007 and 2008 studies of social media usage by the Inc. 500. Adoption and awareness continue to trend upward, with 91% of firms using at least one social media tool in 2009 and three-quarters describing themselves as “very familiar” with social networking.

Social networking and blogging have seen the most growth in adoption, while other technologies have flattened or even declined in use, including wikis and online video. Twitter usage, of course, has caught on quickly—more than one-half of businesses reported tweeting in 2009. This was the first year respondents were polled about Twitter.

One impressive change over time was in the percentage of Inc. 500 companies that did not use any form of social media. It dropped precipitously from 43% in 2007 to just 9% in 2009.

The Center for Marketing Research also noted that the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the US, is outpacing the larger, more traditional companies in the Fortune 500 in many social media activities.

Is the rush to adoption bringing marketing success? Respondents overwhelmingly believed it was. The companies polled were mostly measuring hits, comments, leads or sales as primary indicators.

Companies were also monitoring mentions of their brands in the social media space, at 68% this year. That figure was climbing steadily, up from 60% in 2008 and 50% in 2007.

Questions answered by the post include:

What is a TwitterChat?

What is a Hashtag?

How does one participate in a TwitterChat?

What types of TwitterChats are there?

Where and when do TwitterChats occur?

Visit Melindas post to get all the answers to these questions and more at her post What is TwitterChat?

From jayrodchicago.com:

http://www.jayrodchicago.com/blog/2009/11/30/five-ways-your-business-can-use-social-media-this-holiday-se.html

http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/ten-commandments-of-social-media.html