Avoid Credit Card Thefts – Skimmers On Prowl

The most prominent places where you can lose the credit card information to these skimmers is when you want to give your credit card to pay your bill like hotel or food bills. The modus-operandi is, when you flash your debit or credit for your purchases, and if the shop keeper wants to steal the credit card or debit card info, he/she will just swipe your card on a small electronic device called skimmer. This device will copy all the information that is available in the magnetic strip of your card. And it is easy for the thief to make a duplicate card. Using this duplicate card now the thief is ready to make offline and online purchases – in case the thief notes the CVV no. as well.

The prominent places which have been categorized as notorious for such skimming are mostly the south-west countries like Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Hong Kong to name a few. You will be lured by attractive tour packages, amazing deals for the shopping festivals and go for a shopping spree without knowing how much risk you have it here to flash your credit card. Other places where this can happen are gas stations, restaurants, pubs where the cards are flashed and taken away from you to swipe for the transaction.

It is impossible to stop such kinds of thefts but, it is always better to take our own precautions. Few tips which can be followed to save you from such theft –

1. Memorize the CVV no. and erase it from the back side of the card. You can erase the CVV no. or blacken it out with a permanent marker. This way you can be spared by online thefts.
2. Activate mobile alert or email alerts for the transactions made from your card if it exceeds certain threshold amount.
3. If at all you have flashed the card in the above named countries and you doubt that you card has been copied, then immediately block the card and request for a new card.

Do let me know if there are any more tips or precautions need to be taken care for. It would be helpful to everyone.

Source: Deccan Chronicle

Forrester Predicts Huge Growth for Social Media Marketing

Forrester in its Marketing Forum revealed that online marketing spend will continue to grow with more focus on social media marketing and mobile marketing.

The main reason for the regular increase in online marketing spends is that it provides clear metrics and the marketer can spend as per the ROI. But, in social media marketing it is bit difficult to get the metrics measured and it should be learnt that social media marketing is more for branding and awareness and less for sales and conversions.

Some more predictions for social media for the year 2009 from few of the thought leaders are below –

"Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology - it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful." - David Armano

"You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way." - Rohit Bhargava

"Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation." - Pete Blackshaw

"Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn't come the way people thought it would." - Chris Brogan

"The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media." - Todd Defren

"There's a lot of fixing that needs to be done." - Jason Falls

"Dwindling budgets suddenly make low-cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball." - Ann Handley

"We're going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate 'commitment'." - Joseph Jaffe

"The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis." - Charlene Li

"These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them." - Scott Monty

"The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies." - Jeremiah Owyang

"Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return." - Andy Sernovitz

"Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter." - Greg Verdino

Let us see how far the predictions will be true and let me know if you defer with anybody…Here is the full paper through Scribd – Social Media 2009

SMBs To Increase Online Presence

To cash on more with the tight budgets and limited resources they have, many SMBs are planning to increase their presence online to increase the business in the prevaling tough economic times. According to a poll of US marketers by Bredin Business Information, the primary challenge of SMBs is to fund new projects, growing business with limited resources and increasing awareness.Moreover, 2009 is the year in which SMBs would like to have more online activities thus making them more focused to target the niche audience. I say, not only SMBs, even large and enterprise business will try to concentrate more on online activities as this provides them with niche target audience, define success metrics and accurate ROI which are very important criterias for a successful marketing campaigns during these tough times.

Source: eMarketer.com and Bredin Business Information.

Couples Tie The Wedding Knot On The Web

According to the news article in The Asian Age, one of the Reliance World store was used for formalizing a Nikaah (wedding) through video conferencing. The bride and the groom where in two different geographies – Canada and India and the rituals were carried over through the video conference.

Modern digital technology has come as rescue for not only corporate companies who are using it to cut costs and save time, but to common consumers as well. They are using it to communicate with their family members and relatives rather than spending time and money on travelling.

Reliance has 12% growth in video conferencing in FY 08-09 and expects much more this fiscal year. Cisco reports 31% increase in usage of web collaborative solutions, especially video conferencing in March 2009 compared to March 2008.

While the market for video conferencing is still small in India with manufacturers generating product and services sales of around $35 million in 2008, industry players agree that the demand for such solutions in the future can only go one way — upwards.

So, can we expect virtual honeymoons now?

Google, Yahoo Set Up Websites For Elections

Google and Yahoo have launched special sites dedicated to coverage of the coming Lok Sabha elections starting April 16. Google estimates that 25 million of the 45 million internet users have attained the voting age and will actively look for election information and status online. Not only Google and Yahoo, the internet has emerged as a good media for people to discuss and debate about the coming elections which include social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut.

A tool on the site, called "Your Manifesto," also allows users to select issues of importance that let politicians know what interests them. "This feature will be of tremendous value for political parties, because it provides an insight into what is going on in the voters' minds," Krishna (VP for Emerging Markets, Yahoo India) said.

I guess the main intention of Google and Yahoo to come up with the sites for elections is only to build brand in the Indian community and to cash-on the advertising revenues. BJP is already put lot of investment in Adwords. Not only this, other political parties have also come up with their own websites. Few of them which I was able to gather are (not sure how many are official)-
http://www.aicc.org.in/, congress.org, manmohansingh.org, rajeev.in, lkadvani.in, bjp.org, prajarajyamparty.co.cc, narendramodi.in, telugudesam.org, soniagandhi.org

After Google It Is Yahoo To Layoff

With economy in slumps, layoffs have unfortunately become too common in the corporate world. In March Google planned layoff 200 employees. Now, it is Yahoo’s turn. Yahoo is in preparations for another round of layoff and will axe several thousands of its employees.

Source: Business Week

6 Tips To Be Successful In Social Media Marketing

Social media is being vastly used to promote products and services. Moreover, many corporates are using such community sites to keep better customer relationship and cross-sell the products or services to the existing customers in addition to find new ones.

Here are 6 simple tips one really needs to understand to be successful in social media.

1. Change the attitude: One has to approach social media with a different attitude. An attitude which is different from the attitude you have towards other online marketing activities. In social media you have come to share knowledge, issues and solve other members’ problems. You are not here to thrust your products or services. Follow the AIDA principle – Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.
2. Target the right audience: Use the available limited resources and budgets to target the right and niche audience instead of blindly going into social media. Take out some time and think yourself as customer and identify the areas or groups the prospect engages in and talks about the products or services which you sell. Thus, you will know where your target audience is active in the social media sphere and you can start from there. You save lot of time and effort in doing this moreover, you can easily connect with them.
3. Set-up your own success metrics: Set-up your own success metrics for social media marketing as well as you have for organic search, PPC campaigns or email campaigns. Without these metrics you will not be sure if you are heading in the right direction or not. Define the metrics like – no. of comments for my post, no. of views for my videos, no. of stars your post or video has got as a rating from readers, how many have DIGGed your articles and so on. Depending on the numbers you get for these success elements, you can check on your progress in social media marketing.
4. Let people know who you are: Social media is all about building relationships and sharing knowledge. So, let people know who you are. Relationships are only built on trust. Provide your name and contact information and the relationship you have with your company. Your prospects will feel comfortable with communicating with you and, if there is an unsatisfied customer, then that person can vent anger much more easily on you. This gives you a signal to solve the issue immediately before it spreads.
5. What needs to be taken care for: Marketers should note that there is a very thin line between you and your prospects in the social media. One cannot just spam any community. Marketers need to build relationships and share knowledge. You need to take care that you are not ignored and your prospects need not consider you as spam. Be patient and slow and get them involved in conversations and build relationship with them.
6. Quality of content: Last but not the least, success in social media is based on the quality and the creativity of your content you post on these networking sites. Content is King here as well.

Social media is an effective, economical and successful marketing tool. But, time consuming one. And requires more focused effort. Patience and commitment is very important too, to be successful I this media.

Yahoo and Microsoft Are Talking Again

Yes, Yahoo and Microsoft are talking again reports All Things Digital. It is not about M&A but, about possible partnership opportunities in search and advertising.

The report says that these talks have been going on from several weeks between Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo and Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft. Time can only confirm as to what is cooking up.
The reports also says that the talks between both these companies are preliminary and also wide-ranging, focused on what kinds of commercial relationship Yahoo and Microsoft will have.

Don’t you think these discussions have been taking place for more than a year?

How Google's Rankings Algorithm Has Changed Over Time

Rand in his blog has clearly represented the algorithm changes of Google over the past few years in a graph. This clearly shows the trends that happened over the years. It is a great way to communicate the changes with this small graph which says all. As it is said – pictures tell a thousand words.

According to Rand, Domain Trust/Authority is playing lot of role in SERPs. My question here is how does Google measure the website’s domain authority? I guess an authority domain is generally one with large number of pages, is popular with more visitors, has lots of inbound links, its content is frequently updated and re-indexed. This means to achieve domain authority, you need to do the other SEO techniques mentioned in the graph as well. All other techniques lead to domain authority.

And I guess no one exactly knows how or at what stage a domain or website acquires authority. If an article is published in such authority website, it will generally start ranking for its keywords relatively very fast compared to something similar published in a non-authority domain. So it boils down to what matters is where the content or link is published rather than what it is.

Facebook reaches 200Million Users Mark

According to Facebook blog, the 200 millionth user has registered on Facebook recently. This is not a surprise at all, as this social networking site very popular and will reach the 300M mark in short time. Cheers and congratulations Facebook.


To celebrate this, Facebook shows a world map of its user density, fun facts about the number 200 million and, in an era of community outreach, highlights a few ways they are making a difference around the world in this video.

Top 10 Automated Email Programs to Increase Online Sales

It is really tough to follow your customers, prospects or subscribers regularly. The best way is to have an auto-generated email programs which will trigger at the appropriate time. Here is the list of top 10 automated emails which can be triggered to increase the online sales.

1. Welcome Email: Whenever there is a subscription or first purchase, welcome the guest with an email introducing about the various products and services you offer. A special discount offer or top 10 HOT products can boost their interest and help in increasing the sales.
2. Cart Abandoning: An auto-email sent to visitors once they have abandoned the shopping cart will act as a friendly reminder. A email can be triggered after 2-3 days and the visitor can come back and complete the shopping thus, avoiding the prospect from searching all over again and avoid them from hitting the competitors websites.
3. Transaction Success Email: Let your customers know that the online payment made by them was successful. The intention of the email is to refer them some related products or services or submit a product review.
4. Referral Request: Let your satisfied customers refer more customers to you. Request them to refer their friends to your website. Word-of-mouth is the most economical and the best way to promote your business.
5. Reminder Campaigns: Do remind your customers if they have not made a purchase in a set considerable time period. Such customers can be offered special discounts or offers to avoid them from going to competitors.
6. After-sales Email: Thank your customers when they complete the purchase. You can have a satisfaction survey or a poll to know their shopping experience. Accordingly, you can act on the changes or feedback suggested. (#3, 4 and 6 can be considered as one program).
7. Browsing Behavior Email: Understand the browsing behavior of the customers using a good analytics program and trigger the email with suggestions and offers. Thus, you not only make their purchase easy, but will also make a sale.
8. Special Occasion Email: Who does not liked to receive greetings on their birthday or anniversary. Have a email program which will trigger greetings email to them on their birthdays or anniversaries. You can have such campaigns on special festivals as well to promote the business.
9. Stock Notifications: Have an email reminder field in the product pages where you have out-of-stock messages. If the visitor wants to know when the product is back in stock can submit the email address. An email can be triggered to make the prospect know that the product stock.
10. Renewal Reminder Email: If the sale is something consumed regularly like a printer cartridge or a subscription one then you can have an automated email to remind them to purchase or renew the same. Such timely reminders not only signifies as a good customer service but can help you in generating online sales.

These email programs can help in generating good online sales. I also invite your suggestions regarding such programs which have helped you in generating more online sales.