Recently there has been an onslaught of Twitter Phishing scams that has been causing problems for users of the popular social network. Phishing is basically when an evil doer tries to obtain usernames, passwords, or other secret information from a social network user. In the case of with Twitter, the phisher sends a private message to users that requires them to act on a link – asking them to enter information related to their Twitter username and password into a landing page purportedly to get some information about the link. The link is often a vanity link or “Is this photo of you?” or perhaps, “Is this blog post about you?”. They appear to be from trusted friends in the network and many of us – yes, I too, have scammed in a phishing incident – click through, offer up our user name and password to a Twitter-appearing site, and wait for the link. When nothing happens, we come to the conclusion it must be a bad link, or it might have been a wrong user name and password, or many other variations. In the meantime, you have just turned over your password and user name to the Phishing scammer and that person now has access to prey upon your network.
If you have been subject to this type of scam, it is important that you immediately change your password and log out of your system. This will not instantly put a stop to the scammer as they probably have back end access to your account, but it will prevent them from being able to log in again in the future. I try to make it my practice to log in and change my passwords on my system every week. In some cases when there is a large amount of phishing going on, I will change my password daily.
The best practice when using a social network, is to never give your information of a user and password unless you know for certain that the URL you have logged into is the trusted URL. If a landing page asks for your Twitter user name and password, leave the site immediately and run, don’t walk, to change your password. New applications are coming out everyday and many of them ask for you to use your Twitter or Facebook logins to join their networks. If you have to manually type those into the system, it usually means that it is not accessing the secure already-logged-into systems of Twitter or Facebook. Again, leave immediately and change your password.
If something smells fishy, or in this case “phishy”, be careful. You can’t be sure what might happen if your user name and your password end up in the wrong hands.
I challenge anyone to say that title three times and not end up sounding like Elmer Fudd or my 4 year old son. We all have to take a moment to clean out that closet or sweep out the garage after winter; spring cleaning season is right around the corner. Cleaning out your Twitter account and organizing some of your followers into lists is a must to keep on top of that social network and to be able to follow the social stream it produces.
arted with the “where am I” idea and earning badges. They’ve now added “prizes” like free pizzas and t-shirts for 
Of course, it all gets a little crazy if our weighty pals at 
It’s All About The Metrics… But What Are Metrics?
Metrics in the sense of social media usually have to do with page views of a blog, Twitter followers, re-tweets of your tweets, or Facebook fans, or many other measuring sticks to see if your efforts are effective. This is an important first step when implementing any strategy for social media. We have talked before about social media strategy and what that means. Metrics are an essential element to see if your strategy is working. How do you measure success? For many non-profits, success is measured in money raised, and that is the ultimate goal, but social media measurement serves more as an indication of milestones reached on the way to that end goal. Do you know how many people you have to ask for a donation before a dollar is given? If you don’t know the answer to that one, ask. This is known in business circles as cost per acquisition or CPA. Social media can help you increase the number of people asked for a donation which will, in turn, raise the level of donations or your company’s CPA. The metrics help you to see if what you are doing works.
I like to take each social media tool and apply to it a metric or a list of metrics. For a blog, I like to determine the number of page views, the number of unique visitors, the RSS subscribers, comments, and social shares and put that together in its own package. Then you add in specifics like positive, negative, and indifferent blog posts about your company, positive and negative comments, and the same for tweets or Facebook shares and make a list of those. You get the idea.
There are services that allow you to track your metrics. I like companies like Radian6 and Filtrbox among others, and will be getting a demo of a new company soon. Knowledge in the sense of metrics in social media equals power. You need to empower your social media strategy with metrics.
Posted in Getting Started, Other Stuff, Tips & Tools, social media | 2 Comments »