The Dark Side of Social Media

Courtesy of Flickr

By Hector Cisneros

Social media has been a Godsend to most people. It has allowed millions of people from around the world to connect and share ideas. It has made it possible for people to reconnect with family and lost friends from the past. It has made it possible to find missing loved ones and allowed humankind to share the blessings and calamities of our world. But like all powerful tools, Social Media is a double-edged sword. It has a dark side that is often ignored by the general public. This Dark side of Social Media is riddled with all manners of scams, bigotry, hatred, piracy, pornography, bullying, cyber traps, ID thieves and much worse. In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will explore the dark underbelly of social media to expose its dangers and to give our readers a leg up on how to avoid the Dark side of Social Media.

How to Avoid Being Caught in an SEO Phishing Net

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of marchmediachicago.com

Have you ever received a solicitation claiming to be able to help you fix your SEO issues?  They will use acronyms like SEO, SERP, ALT Tags, or catch phrases like “Content Marketing”, “White Hat”, analyze, keywords; or they talk about fixing your Penguin, Hummingbird, Pigeon or other Google algorithm issues. How do you know if this solicitation is legit?

What’s a company to do in the face of all this cyber-babble?  How can anyone distinguish legitimate solicitations from honest companies versus unscrupulous ones that are just phishing to get their hooks in you?  This article is devoted to helping anyone learn some of the telltale signs that an email or cold call is legit, or if it’s looking to take you by hook, line and sinker.  We’ll actually dissect a phishing email to provide a real world example.  First, let's start by understanding the true nature of the World Wide Web.