Is Facebook Losing Face with Business?

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of Flickr

Facebook recently decided that businesses were publishing too many non-relevant posts to the Newsfeed timeline. Facebook believes that its platform is all about personal relationships and not business posts! Its latest alteration to its algorithm greatly filters all business generated posts. Does this mean that your marketing isn't being seen! What does this mean to you as a business owner? Does it mean you stop using Facebook and switch to a different platform? Does it mean you now have to pay to get seen on Facebook? In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will delve into these questions and much more as we decipher what Facebook's latest news feed algorithm change means to business.

A Comparative Look at Google’s Top Applications and its Competitors

Episode 2 of 3 – Can Google be all things to All People?

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of Flickr

There is no doubt that Google dominates the Internet today. However, the Internet is rapidly evolving into multiple arenas that include organic and paid search, cloud storage, and computing, video and photo storage and streaming, social media, browser, and OS connectivity and office productivity suites. These subsets of the Internet are becoming productivity and marketing arenas on their own. Google’s competitors are eager to knock Google off the top of its dominant position on the World Wide Web. The companies that control the sub arenas will directly affect our lives in many ways. Soon everyone will have to choose a camp to maximize the benefits of what the web should offer. In episode 2 of this 3-part series, we will explore Google's top offerings along with its top competitors including; Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and others. So, get ready for a comparative look at Google’s apps and its top contenders and their Internet applications as they slug it out to gain supremacy.

Cyberstalking for Fun & Profit

Is There a Cyberstalker in Your Future?

Courtesy of Flickr

By Carl Weiss

Does the title of this week's article creep you out?  Good, because more and more intimate personal information is available online about each and every one of us than is "healthy."  Worse still, it's  all too easy to become a victim of cyberstalking.  That's because most of us disseminate far too much personal information on social nets, in chat rooms, and via photo and video sharing services.  It's also far too easy to get the vast majority of us to volunteer even more intimate details regarding our religious and political affiliations, income, sexual orientation, and health-related issues. Worst of all, there are companies and cybercriminals that profit from this glut of easily obtained information. The result? We're all putting our personal and financial futures at risk.  In this article we'll show you how easy it is to glean reams of information about nearly anyone — and most importantly — what you need to do to keep yourself from getting caught with your pants down.  And if that doesn't give you the e-heebie jebbies, I don't know what will.

Hector's the Connector’s Predicts Social Media changes for This Year and Beyond

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of blog.buzzoole.com

Social media has seen radical changes over the last three years. Their level of acceptance and use has Social networks now have the eyes and ears of billions of subscribers. The impact of organic search ranking is indisputable today. Also, its effect on product acceptance, adoption and loyalty has become so important that large companies are spending vast amounts of advertising money to create and measure its influence on their product sales and profitability. Cyber criminals are also taking advantage of this mass migration to social networks. My last two prediction articles have come in with a 95% accuracy rating and this year I am going out on a limb with a few of my prognostications. So read on and find out what I foresee the New Year will ring in for Social Networking in the year to come (including Facebook, Google+ LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Pintrest and Blogger).
exploded. Many of the top social networks are now monetized and have become publicly held companies.

The Ever-Changing Faces of Facebook

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of Pixabay

More than a billion subscribers use Facebook. It is the most widely used social network in the world. Facebook tells us that they are working hard to improve the user experience. They also say that they are working to provide a business friendly advertising medium. Facebooks' founder makes new promises every year about upgrades and added features. In fact, they add new features so often that it makes me wonder why they feel they need this constant tweaking. They are currently twice as big as their nearest competitor.

Trick or Tweet? The Vulnerabilities Inherent to Twitter and All Social Networks

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of Pixabay

You may have read that LinkedIn was hacked last year. Twitter was recently hacked, and then it happened  to Facebook as well. Whose turn is it next?  In this article, we will look at the inherent vulnerabilities of all social networks, as well as what can happen should your account get compromised.  We will also discuss how vulnerable your data is on social sites and what you need to do to keep from being hacked, when it's your turn to answer the question, “Trick or 'Tweet?'"

Hector The Connector's Social Media Marketing Predictions for Next Year and Beyond

Listen to internet radio with workingthewebtowin on Blog Talk Radio

By Hector Cisneros

It’s almost 2013 and what a wild year, it’s been. We had people predicting the end of the world. A wild and woolly presidential election and Social Media has ushered in so many changes that you have to step back just to try to get the big picture. Speaking of big, last year I predicted growth and lots of it. I made several predictions about specific big-time players and I was right 100% of the time. This year things are wilder than ever. If you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube or Pinterest, you are going to want to read this blog. So let’s get started with the connectors Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2013.

Social Media and Keeping Up with the Joneses (The Competition!)

By Hector Cisneros

Massive Change (Photo credit: Steve Rhodes)

The marketing world we live in today is a far cry from the one our parents grew up in during the 50’s and 60’s. TV, News Paper, Yellow Pages and Radio have hardly changed their format since their inception. In contrast, the internet is a rapidly evolving medium. If you look at all the marketing segments of the Internet, Social media is the most volatile.
In fact, more rapid changes are coming to LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. The last 12 months showed massive changes. The past four months have seen a slew of new features, many updated or upgraded elements and there does not seem to be an end in sight! How will these social media changes affect your businesses' social standing? Will it mean additional changes in how you manage your social media? Are you going to have to join other networks? Read this week's blog post and listen in to our weekly radio show and learn why you need to keep up with the Joneses, (your competition) to win with social media.

Why You Should Be Gaga for Google+

By Carl Weiss

English: Google plus one (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It has been called everything from an online ghost town to one of the best social networks ever invented for small businesses.  But there is one thing that neither pundits nor detractors can deny.  That is, Google+ is the only social network in the world directly operated by the world’s most popular search engine.

The Ghost Says Boo!

By Carl Weiss

How to Connect Your Youtube and Google Plus! (Photo credit: brianDhawkins)

Less than a month after media pundits declared that Google+ was nothing more than a virtual ghost town, Google fired back claiming it has more than 100 million active users.  While this number still pales in comparison with Facebook's reported 955 million user base, this is still nothing to sneeze about.  In fact, for a number of small business owners G+ is the go to site when it comes to doing business online.  Let me count the ways.

In the first place, G+ was not created in a vacuum.  It was designed by looking at the other social nets and taking the best and leaving the rest.  It was also built from the ground up to be able to integrate such things as photos, video and other multimedia components into your posts with ease.  No more cutting and pasting links.  Some of the other features that I find useful:

Hector the Connectors Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2012 & Beyond

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of www.hotpotatosocialmedia.com

2011 is gone, and 2012 has rolled in without missing a beat. The social media industry is growing in leaps and bounds. I often hear business people say social networking is like the Wild, Wild West! So answer this question for me.  Would it be valuable if you knew the future social media trends for 2012? How wonderful would it be to know what trends are in store for the coming year? Could you adequately prepare for this rapidly changing industry? In this article, I provide my 2012 predictions for the evolving trends in the social-networking industry. It's always gratifying when my predictions come true. My predictions are not based on any kind of special powers. They are based on my industry research, what I read and what I see happening every day in my work. My accuracy rate in the social media industry has been about 97%.  However, even when I’m wrong it's only because my timeline ended up being longer than I thought it was going to be. I have a knack for spotting social media trends. And this article lists four powerful trends unfolding right now. You can profit from what I say or ignore me, the choice is yours. Either way these trends will unfold as the year progresses.  So read on and heed my advice. Prepare your social media marketing campaigns to take advantage these trends for 2012 and beyond.

What's the Best Social Media Site for a Small Business?

Courtesy of www.lostintechnology.com

by Hector Cisneros

A common question I get is: "What's the best social media site for me to be on?"  Alternatively, they will ask: "What social media site will bring me the most internet business?"  My answer to these questions may surprise you, but here it is:  There is no such thing as "what is the best" social media site for a small business. A small business should create a presence on as many platforms as they have time for.

Six Clear Reasons Why You Should be Using Social Media to Build Your Credibility

By Hector Cisneros

An ad agency client asked me the other day to provide them the primary reason why their clients should use Social Media as part of their advertising mix. Specifically they were talking about Facebook, Twitter and Angieslist. The answer to this question is often confusing and misstated. This article provides six concise reasons why Social Media is so important today.  Reading this article will make it easy for the reader to see why Social Media has risen so quickly in advertising circles and it will help them prosper from using it.  Here are a few reasons why they should use Social Media as part of their marketing mix. 

The Tao of SEO

by Carl Weiss

Courtesy of flickr.com

When it comes to search engine optimization, most people think of it as some kind of religious cult where members speak in tongues, intoning such mantras as “SERPS,” “Meta Data,” “Linkbait,” and “AJAX,” as though they were trying somehow to transmute lead into gold.  Worst of all, there is so much conflicting data out there regarding the ever changing world of SEO that keeping current is almost a full time job in itself.  Add to this the fact that no sooner do you get a bead on what the search engines want, when they up and change their algorithm (as Google recently did with their Penguin Update), making the analogy to sorcery even more poignant as your listing disappears like a puff of smoke.  So, if you don’t want to have to start the process from scratch every time the search engines decide to do a little spring cleaning, this is what you need to know:

What Does the Public’s Uncontrollable App-etite Mean to You?

By Carl Weiss

“There’s an app for that.” How many times have we all heard that phrase during the past couple of years? Allow me to put it into better perspective for you. During the last week of 2011, 1.2 billion apps were downloaded, with 242 million apps being downloaded on Christmas day alone. While that number may seem staggering, it is even more so when one considers that less than 11 billion apps were downloaded in all of 2010. Add to that the fact that it is predicted that the number of mobile apps offered by companies will increase by a factor of 10 in 2012, and it is clear that the public’s App-etite is clearly uncontrollable.