Will Verified Accounts Save Facebook From Clone Profiles?

 

A recent spate of cloned profiles on Facebook has raised security issues with many users, this coming off the back of a number of different complaints against Facebook and other companies being used by the NSA to collect information. 

 

Both ordinary individuals and popular personalities have claimed in recent months that information on their Facebook profiles was being duplicated to another account, which was then used to produce false information in their likeness. 

 

 

Facebook’s response to this has been to introduce a profile verification system that will allow certain users to provide Facebook officials with the relevant information to allow them to indicate on their pages that they are, in fact, the real deal. 

 

This is not a new idea, as social media rivals Twitter have used it for a number of years to verify the accounts of prominent celebrities and individuals in a number of fields. 

 

Facebook’s use of this system doesn't seem to be much different from Twitter’s, except for the fact that, for the moment, any attempt to have a profile verified must go through the Facebook help center.

 

It still remains to be seen which criteria will be used in-order to qualify as one of those lucky few who will have their accounts verified. However, it is almost certain that the only accounts to be verified belong to or are affiliated with prominent people or groups. 

 

The verification system will however not help ease the pressure felt ordinary people and perhaps less influential celebrities or public figures that don’t make the cut.

 

While the verification system may help users and fans identify the official account of their favourite singer or television personality, these are not the only kinds of accounts that are causing issues, either on Facebook or on Twitter. 

 

This is no doubt a step in the right direction by the social media giant!

 

Maybe the future holds a system that will allow every user to willingly submit relevant information in order to verify that their accounts are legitimate, or one that will allow friends and family members to differentiate between identical accounts by more than just the optional URL identifier that Facebook currently uses.

ATKA SA | What Does Windows 8 Mean For The PC

 

In recent years, Microsoft has come under fire for some of its questionable choices when it comes to Operating Systems.  

 

After its release in 2006, Windows Vista, the Windows OS that was unlucky enough to follow the massive success of Windows XP, was plagued with bugs, and quickly became the least liked OS of its time. Three years later, Windows 7 saw significant improvement, both to User Interface and performance. 

 

A mere two years after that, in the midst of the smartphone and tablet revolution, Windows 8 defined it’s self as a touch interface based OS.

 

 

 

While this move towards integration between mobile and desktop computing could provide a useful shifting point towards a fully touch computing market, the popularity of smartphones and tablet PCs has not been enough to completely crush out the need for desktop computers, and with them, the need for peripherals and peripheral friendly Operating Systems.

 

Windows 8 has made it much more difficult for the casual, and even professional user to make sense of the interface and functionality while using a keyboard and mouse, and the trashing of the traditional Start button (which has been a staple of the Windows OS since the step-up from DOS) in favour of the ‘Metro’ style interface has angered many users, and dampened Microsoft’s hopes of making Windows 8 their most successful product. 

 

In recent years, smartphone and tablet sales have outperformed desktop computer sales and shipments worldwide, making the shift even more apparent.

 

While Windows 8.1 (code-named ‘Blue’), which is ultimately a service pack for Windows 8, brings back the Start button (although not to the extent that it once existed), the anger shown over the dramatic shift indicated that the need for a single OS for touch and peripheral-based computing is not quite there yet.

 

Surely, Windows 8 does show that Microsoft, more so than their main competitors such as Apple, are beginning to shift slowly towards a more unified system and the next few years will show how much. 

 

Whether or not the popularity of peripheral-less computing takes off in time for Microsoft to make this generation of OS’s a success is yet to be seen, but the writing is already on the wall.

 

 ....It may be time to get used to the idea of change...

ATKA SA | Why Facebook Home Doesn't work

 

Since Facebook’s arrival as a public corporation, there have been various rumours of innovative products and hardware in the works, from the social media giant, that may help push their stock prices up.  

 

Earlier this year, we were introduced not only to an application called ‘Facebook Home’, but also a smartphone by HTC, the ‘HTC First’ that came with a built in Facebook Home application.

 

The Facebook Home concept, only available on compatible Android based devices, integrates the user’s Facebook profile into the OS of the device itself, cutting out the need for a standalone Facebook application.

 

Photo and news feeds run in the background like a moving wallpaper while all messages, whether Facebook-based or not, are handled like the Facebook style inbox and notifications come through via the Facebook method for all applications.

 

However, since the application was introduced earlier this year, it has garnered over 200 000 1-star reviews, with the majority of the comments stating that the use of Facebook Home had started slowing down their devices, confusing their user interfaces and needlessly running down the battery life, while the standalone Facebook application performs all the tasks that Home does, and is much more pleasant to use.

 

Facebook Home is now standing at number 338 in the Google Play store, and is a prime example of why it is not always a good idea for companies to diversify their product. 

 

The Facebook application is popular with Smartphone users because it gives them the choice to ignore Facebook for as long as they want to, but Facebook Home seems to be the Operating System that simply won’t let you forget that it’s there. 

 

The idea hasn't taken off, and even with updates, bug fixes and feature additions, many Facebook users are uncomfortable with allowing Facebook to dominate that much of their communication experience.

ATKA SA | SEO 101

 

SEO can seem like a major challenge to a new marketer. But do not despair – we are here to help! 

 

 

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the process of optimizing your website so that it can get good organic rankings and appear on the first page of Google.

 

The big thing to remember with SEO is that it’s all about keywords. Everything can be found on the internet using a keyword, whether it be images; websites; videos; items you’re shopping for or places you want to go – literally everything! 

 

Keyword research is the process of discovering which keywords will work best for the product or service you’re selling. It is probably the most important step in setting your SEO-stage.

 

The SEO process can be divided into two groups – on-site SEO and off-site SEO.

 

On-site SEO:

 

1. Content

The search engines crawl your pages to see how well your content is written, if it is accurate and relevant to your keywords. Make sure the content on your website contains your keywords, but it’s important to still write your content for humans, so don’t stuff your page with keywords.

 

2. HTML

Search engines use Meta titles, Meta descriptions, tags and headers to scan through your content. These tags must contain your specific and relevant keywords, so that the search engine can understand what your landing pages are about.

 

3. Site Architecture

Your website should be structured in such a manner that the spider crawling it can do so easily. Make sure your layout is simple and that your URLs are not too long or complicated and that they contain keywords relevant to the specific landing page. Also ensure that your pages load fast enough as you will be penalized for pages that load too slowly. You can do this by not adding too many images or text in the background.

 

Off-site SEO:

 

1. Link Building

Link building refers to the amount of websites that link back to yours. It’s like votes that proclaim the relevance of the content you are posting. The important thing here is qualitative links – a website like Amazon linking back to your site is more valuable than a link from a small business directory.

 

2. Social Media

If search engines could get married, they’d marry social media platforms. More often than not, websites ranking in the top three positions of Google’s first page are present on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Manage these pages and post at least once a day to gain a social following that can be directed to your website.

 

3. Trust and authority

The older your domain is, the more authoritative it is seen by search engines, because the longer you stick around, the better the chances of your business being successful. The number of times your website is shared and the amount of back-links to your website are, is also considered as important by the spiders.

 

 

Now that you know enough about SEO to get started, test these tips and watch how your ranking improves and your website is visited more and more!

5 Mobile Marketing Tips

 

 

The Inbound Marketing Summit, which took place in New York, in April, offered terrific presentations from a variety of industry thought leaders.

 

Amongst a number of interesting topics, the most impressive presentation was the one titled “best practices for building a mobile-focused inbound marketing strategy.”

This touched mainly on the importance of considering the customer’s point of view, when building your mobile marketing strategy.

 

 

Here are five tips to consider when building your mobile marketing strategy:

 

 

1. Focus first on mobile, then desktop

 

Consumers in the US currently spend twice as much time with desktop media as they do with mobile. So why then focus on mobile first? Because the amount of time that consumers spend on their mobile devices is growing at 14 times the rate of the desktop. 

 

Marketers should focus their efforts on marketing on mobile platforms ahead of traditional desktops.

 

2. Customers want to do little and get a lot

 

Make it easy for your customers to access your mobile content – the fewer links they have to follow to get to specific content, the better. Make it easy to download content onto mobile devices.

 

3. Remember: Immediate and Intimate

 

Location-based marketing and delivering engaging content to current events are just two of the examples of how to leverage immediacy. 

 

Customers are more often than not with their mobile devices throughout the day and even view it as an extension of themselves, so marketers should seize on the intimacy aspect of mobile and provide customers with personalized and relevant content.

 

4. Call to action

 

Including a call to action in your content has become a rule in marketing. Make sure your call to action is easy to follow through on, so that customers do not struggle to get hold of your products or services.

 

5. Cross-channel market!

 

Make use of other marketing tools like QR codes, SMS’s and niche product applications to make it easier for your customers to access product information or customer service. 

 

Remember to include share links to all your social media platforms so that your customers can share their purchases with their friends, which will in turn drive exponential traffic.

 

 

Mobile marketing is one of the most popular marketing avenues at the moment and if you follow these tips and do it right, you will see why!