Blogs I Commented On Regarding Email Newsletters

I read many blogs this week and commented on some. Here is a list of some I commented on:

• Xumei Zhang
• Eduardo Martinez
• Anne Engardio
• Matthew Caruana

Email Newsletters For Business

Email marketing is a powerful tool to use to promote one’s business. It is often used to send out a newsletter promoting products, people or ideas related to the topics the company is associated with. The content in email newsletters is seen as being editorial rather than as a commercial message with a sales offer of some sort.

Newsletters allow for special treatment of topics that can be covered from different angles than what a blog does. The particular issue of a newsletter can have coverage of several different topics, or a single overreaching idea, backed up with expert opinions and case studies or practical applications.

For my business I would publish topical newsletters once a month. I would cover such things as networking technologies, IT hardware, IT security layer approaches, forensics and incident investigations and the many other related issues that people in my industry would be interested in. These topics are standard industry discussion points and will retain their validity over time.

Categories of Posts for My Business

My business, IT Security Ideas, is primarily tasked to dessiminate information. That information can be about any number of things in the realm of information technology. This includes everything from small data cards such as the Rasberry Pi and USB sticks used for forensics, such I built just this past week, all the way up to firewalls, drones (unmanned vehicles) and satellites that we use to protect our country.  These all fall under the category of  hardware or appliances.

Other things addressed will be how to fight malware (the modern virus threat), social engineering (think Kevin Mitnick), the twenty controls of the OWASP (Open Web Applications Security Project), the ten core areas of the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional), and any of a myriad of other basic knowledge base concerns in which IT security engineers immerse themselves.

All of the above are important because IT security professionals must show continued professional education and they can do this by reading and responding to books, podcasts, video and other media given that there is proof that what they say they learned something from actually exists, for example a screen shot or the actual media or the saved podcast or other.

This means that I can write about anything in my blog that picques my interest since my primary interests are about security in information technology.


In regards to a previous post I made regarding how personal one should be on their blog, there are a few other people's blogs that I have commented on regarding their ideas about "getting personal on a business blog". These peoples ideas deserve a shout out and include:
(1) Charles Lisherness   CharlieCSIT155
(2) Matthew Caruana   Krimson
(3) Melanie Haynie   Melanie's Social Media Journey

Adding One's Personality Into A Blog Post

I just finished four days on a jury trial. Evidently I have a personality that lawyers like because this is the third time I have been selected.  Would the traits that make me a desirable juror translate well into the realm of the blogosphere? When does it make sense to add one’s personality into a blog post and when does it not make sense to do so?

 

I think extreme ideas that fall on opposite ends of the spectrum from the median, should be relegated only to blogs set up specifically for like-minded followers of those ideas. I don’t think that extremist ideas necessarily have a place on a blog set up to promote a for-profit business.

 

As far as the interjecting of one’s personality into blogs, I think it is important to do so otherwise the blog will become dry after a while and people will cease to follow newly added entries. I would propose though that restraint should be exercised in businesses, like mine, that focus on the scientific and technological. In blogs about everyday topics like food or clothing or places it is entirely appropriate to interject ones opinions and personality into the writing of each post.  Balance and variety will create readership.

Finding Entities to Follow on Twitter

Twitter has an advanced search tool that can be used to find and follow people and businesses that meet specific criteria that can be defined and refined to meet one’s information needs. These can benefit a person’s business by creating an avenue for cross promotion of ideas or collaboration.

The advanced search tool is a bit difficult to locate in the twitter interface and one has to drill around to find it. The best way to get there is if someone provides you a link or if you Google it to get a link.

My online business is about information technology ideas and their dissemination. I used “IT Security”, “ethical hacker” and a few other terms to search on in order to get a list of people and businesses to follow. A few examples that I chose to follow are: @ChrisJohnRiley, @Joey_Hernandez, @ethicalhack3r, @teamcymru, @whitehatsec. I am following a total of 23 entities right now.

Effective Use Of Visual Media

It is difficult to get a highly technical concept across to an audience without using visual media. Also, general advertising and marketing are most easily done through visual media to promote the services and strengths of a company. YouTube is famous for building enthusiasm and for sharing landmark ideas that businesses want to put out there for others to know about.

 

Three companies, similar to mine, that use visual social media venues are RedSpin, eLearnSecurity and Dell SecureWorks.  Each of them have multiple YouTube videos posted marketing their business and security practice.

 

All three companies have at least one video advertising their services. First, RedSpin has a clean cut image that looks like it was done for television. Then, eLearnSecurity looks good also and includes a call to action for people to sign up. Finally, SecureWorks has a mix of different styles of video that are all entertaining.  All three companies seem to have created effective marketing and technical followings by using the social media venue of YouTube.

The Visual Opportunity On Social Networks

My business is information and process based. There could be huge amounts of detailed information. The top four social networks of a visual nature are YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest.

YouTube and Tumblr would be where I would spend the most time, energy and effort because those two media venues would allow me to do tech updates, “chalk talks” and deep dive demonstrations.

 

YouTube videos can be simple or complicated and there is lots of information about how to make different types of video demonstrations. People can play the videos over and over again to learn what they want.

 

Tumblr is a way to micro-blog. It allows for expression through text, photos, audio and video. It is very flexible and allows for operations in many different business venues.

 

Pinterest and Instagram are picture based media. Instagram works best with mobile devices and can be used to render professional looking images with tools they have built-in. Pinterest seems to me to be very powerful but complicated to use.

Scheduling Advanced Posts On Facebook

I have been experimenting with scheduling posts in Facebook so that I can write them ahead of time and then have them show up at a later, predetermined, date and time. Basically this is done by going to the status bar and choosing the type of post I want and then initiating it in the dialog box. Once that is done I can choose the little clock icon and it walks you through selecting the date and time for the post to appear.

The first three depicted here are scheduled an hour apart. I wanted to make sure that over the course of the morning I would have time to monitor that the process worked.

The first entry is a listing of top malnet entry points that was scheduled on Friday, March 8^th to show up on the 9^th at 10:10am.  The second entry is a listing of talent areas that are needed in information technology at the management level. Again this was scheduled on the 8^th to be run on the 9^th at 11:10am and finally the third was a comment about the new law prohibiting the act of jailbreaking a cell phone. It was created on the 8^th and scheduled to be run on the 9^th at 12:10pm. 

These three posts all cover different areas of information technology and should be of interest to the target audience of the site. Malnets are a hot topic of discussion because of the damage they can do to a network and their destructive capabilities on an individual system. Everyone in IT has to constantly be updating their skills and “sharpening the saw” so to speak so the skills posting will always have relevance. Finally, the last post is really a personal rant that I think most people will agree with and will add an opportunity for comments and debate on the page.

The next two posts I scheduled, have to do with satellites and I am adding them to add a variety for people.

They are scheduled to run on Sunday the 10th of March 2013.

Using Facebook To Form Strategic Alliances

I have “liked” twenty-three Facebook pages for my business site. Seven are technical in nature and complement my site on Facebook.

They are:

1.       Tech Junkies

2.       123InkJets

3.       Redspin, Inc.

4.       Secure Ninja

5.       Sword and Shield Security

6.       Dell Secure Works

7.       Security On Demand

 

Those were chosen because I would like to make strategic alliances with those businesses. I believe that can be done in the following ways: I can make a live connection with the other page administrators and cross-promote each other; I can host a webinar with the other companies that have a similar audiences; I can participate on other pages where their audience is already having conversations on topics I cover.

The other sites I chose to like are those of budding social media pundits that have businesses I am interested in.

Facebook Page Post Insights

Facebook has what are known as “page post insights.” It is a group of statistics that provide information to a page administrator about what is happening with the usage of that page. The following terms are used in the “Page Post Metrics” page on Facebook’s help center. (There are others besides these four.)

 

Reach is the number of people who have seen your post. Figures are for the first 28 days after a post's publication and include people viewing your post on both desktop and mobile. Your post counts as having reached someone when it is loaded and shown in News Feed.

 

Engaged Users is the number of people who have clicked anywhere on your post.

People Talking About This is the number of people who have created a story from your Page post. Stories include:

·         Sharing, liking or commenting on your post

      ·         Answering a question
      ·         Responding to an event
      ·         Claiming an offer

Virality is the number of people who have created a story from your post as a percentage of the number of people who have seen it.

 

A business can use Facebook Insights to gauge the success of their Facebook marketing campaign, and make adjustments to better meet the interests of the demographic profile of site visitors. Insights provide critical information about customers but the information is dynamic; one must track the insight statistics continually and monitor for changes.

The Market for Penetration Testers

The company I plan on working with is for IT Penetration Testers. The potential customers are medium and large companies that have expendable funds to do security testing but not enough funds to have their own in-house security testing and assessment staff. The organization that hires Penetration testers will be in many different market silos including Aerospace, manufacturing, and any others that have intellectual property that they want to protect.  The attitudes and beliefs of the company executives are such that they are technologically aware but at the same time they are knowledgeable in the fact that keeping up with changes in vulnerabilities, malware and advanced persistent threats is imperative to maintaining the defenses of the company and to keep it viable.

A huge market for penetration testers lies with companies vying for PCI (payment card industry) compliance. It is important to note though that merely wanting to check off a box on a spreadsheet could be a costly mistake and a bad use of the technology. It is much better for people to be forward thinking and focused on hardening their internal and external boundaries.

Two Sites I Like For Their Design Appeal

I really lke the CNN and Amazon web sites for their design appeal. They are easy to use, visually appealing and friendly to use.

·         http://www.CNN.com presentation of news articles can be found in a friendly, clean, useful, easy to read and use interface.

·         I especially appreciate that they indicate when each article was last updated,

·         For some articles, can be found to also contain dynamic, tab-like elements for the exploring of more related information about the current topic without having to navigate elsewhere

·         A lot of information is listed via links from the home page without having a cluttered feeling. The navigation pane for this is on the left.

·         Content is regularly updated

·         There are no moving items vying for my attention

·         I don’t feel that there is much to improve for this site

·         http://www.amazon.com has a clean front page with the logo on the left top and an ad on the top right.  Prominently in the center is a search bar.

·         Below the usual ad in the center of the page is a reminder for me of things I’d looked previously and recommendations of similar items I may be interested in

·          I don’t feel that there is much to improve for this site

Impact of design, aesthetics and branding on 4 sites

How does design, aesthetics and branding impact your reaction to websites?

 
Design, aesthetics and branding combine to tell the story that a website is attempting to convey about the product or service it represents. If they are cohesive the person visiting the site will experience a good reaction to the site and to the ideas that are being shared.

Two websites with at least three potential problems for visitors.

1. http://www.toyota.com/

Potential problems for visitors:

a.    The advertising bar at the bottom of the page is a distraction. It should be removed.

b.    The video play back boxes loaded “black”. They should be put on separate pages and linked to via icons.

c.    The “flippy” pages at the top slid by too fast and were a distraction. They should be reduced in number and slowed way down.

 

2.    http://www.gforceracecars.com/

Potential problems for visitors:

a.    The red background is jarring it should be changed to a more inviting color so people wouldn’t feel that they’re being accosted looking at the page.

b.    The flashing advertisement is assaulting to the senses. They should place it as a static link.

c.    The page scrolls down forever and should be broken up.

 

Two websites and what they have done right.

1. http://www.ford.com/

What they have done right

a. Prominent navigation bars and links at top of page.

b. Large pictures but page loads fast.

c. Simple layout. Navigation to deeper areas of site is easy to find.

 

2.    http://www.swagelok.com/

What they have done right

a. The blue pastel background works well as does the product pictures framed in white. The layout is appealing.

b. The pace of the banner changing is not so fast as to be jarring.

c. The company summary and links in the middle of the page make getting information easy.

5 Businesses That Are "Listening" to Their Customers

Social Media venues give businesses a way to market to consumers and get feedback fom those who are using or are going to potentially use what is being sold.  Here is a very short list of a few companies with links to major social media sites.  The links to social media on these sites may be at the top, bottom or middle of their landing page.

 

 

01. MARVEL http://marvel.com/

      Social Media Usage:

• Facebook
• Google+
• YouTube
• Twitter
• GetGlue
• Forums

02. NISSAN   http://www.nissanusa.com/

      Social Media Usage:

• Facebook
• Google+
• Twitter
• YouTube

03. Jack In The Box   http://www.jackinthebox.com/

Social Media Usage:

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

04. MONSTER ENERGY   http://www.monsterenergy.com/

Social Media Usage:

Facebook

Google+

Twitter

YouTube

Pinterest

Instagram

05. 5 HOUR ENERGY   http://www.5hourenergy.com/index.asp

Social Media Usage:   

Facebook

Google+

Twitter

YouTube

Blog

Leveraging Consumer Created Content

On occasion, I have experienced difficulty communicating with a business. One stinging example that occurred this past year was when I had a problem communicating with a company with which I did business. It was a tech company that sold a particular kind of firewall that I had purchased for my company’s co-location facility.  I had paid several thousand dollars for support and then had problems getting the configuration to work properly. I called the company and was put on-hold for over forty minutes. While I was waiting, I went to the company’s web site to see if I could submit a ticket on-line. There was no functionality to do that. They did not have obvious links to their knowledge base nor a customer’s discussion board.  Social media would have helped me to find out if other people had experienced similar issues and how to resolve the problems I was tackling. Personally, I am especially appreciative of those sites with live chat feeds in addition to customer discussion boards and searchable technical articles.

Social Media - Business and Personal Use

Social media fits into  both the business and personal fabric of our society in modern times. It provides a  way for families and old friends to reunite and maintain contact with each other. It provides for new, fresh and constant marketing streams. Here are a few of the many streams available.

• Facebook has tools for both business and personal use.
• Twitter gets a lot of press. I set up an account but I don't really get it.
• LinkedIn is a great source for networking, keeping up to date with people and professional enrichment.

Sites I know nothing about but have only heard of:

• Pinterest is a content sharing service that allows members to "pin" images, videos and other objects to their pinboard.
• Instagram is another picture sharing site.
• Google+ is for sharing games, photos and other information

Hello World! (a.k.a. "My First Blogger Template")

Coming from a long standing tradition of old-school computer programming, I feel like I should start this off with the words, "Hello World!" having never posted a blog before. For starters, let me explain that I chose this template because of it's simplicity. Baby steps to get the ball rolling instead of diving into the deepend head first. I may change the template as time goes on and I learn more about myself, blogging and what image I want to portray. I may just decide to keep following along this same path. Although I chose the "simple" template, I apologize for the pastel blue, if I can figure it out that will be one thing to change.