How important is your email address?

Small businesses look to the industry leaders for examples of how to best represent themselves as they strive to grow. Companies spend thousands of dollars making sure their logo, company colors, message and image are consistently and professionally represented. Their successful examples can usually be followed by other business as a template of professionalism.

One area that seems to be overlooked is the importance of your email address being consistent with your business. New businesses starting out are signing up for free email accounts, (ie:Gmail,Yahoo, etc.) as their business email, instead of using an email address with their company website name. Many people will add a second “business” email to an existing personal AOL account. Free email addresses say: I’m new, I’m small and I’m cheap; which is usually not the image a small business wants to project. 

Websites mirror the image of the company, many times with the company name as the website and/or domain name. To maintain a consistent professional image of your business your email address should be the same as your website address. Christine@mycompanyname.com, has a more professional image than mycompanyname@gmail.com

This shows not only a level of professionalism, but also assures your customer that you really are with the company. With growth of email scams, this one little area may make a huge difference to the very prospect you are attempting to reach.

Most website packages come with a minimum of at least one email address, which your webmaster could have forwarded to your free or aol address if you only want one area to check emails. This way it can still be convenient for you, yet show the most professional image for your company, large or small.

We placed a poll on a previous blog and the results seem to say the same thing:

How important is it to your professional image to have a business email address (yourname@yourbusinessname.com) instead of a free email address.

Essential 48%
Very Important 25%
Not Important 7%
No Difference 11%
Don’t know 9%

More concerns about Facebook security with address and phone number sharing

Despite congressional criticism, Facebook is planning to resume the aborted rollout of a feature that allowed the optional sharing of addresses and mobile phone numbers.


You can read their letter to congress here.


After their initial announcement, Facebook temporarily delayed the update, however it now appears that they will go forward with their original plans.


Are you aware how this effects your privacy? especially  on specific Facebook apps? Are you concerned or does it even matter?


Comment here or click the Facebook link below to comment on Facebook.


Happy, safe networking.

Facebook HTTPS:// How secure are you?

After Facebook announced its HTTPS browsing security, many people went about their day posting comments, playing games and using other applications, all the time thinking that all their activity and comments were hidden from anyone except the chosen few. Not true.


Facebook comments are still visible in many search results, as are “likes, and “places” and many Facebook app activities.


Facebook uses HTTPS whenever your password is sent to them, and according to Facebook’s announcement: “Starting today [January 26, 2011] we'll provide you with the ability to experience Facebook entirely over HTTPS. You should consider enabling this option if you frequently use Facebook from public Internet access points found at coffee shops, airports, libraries or schools.”


The word “entirely” can be confusing to many folks. The HTTPS is not turned on by default therefore you must manually activate it from your “Account Settings” page on Facebook.


The “entirely” confusion relates also to Facebook Apps which are not included in the HTTPS (in my experience so far). If you visit a non secure app in Facebook, and want to return to HTTPS, you should re-check your account settings to see if it unchecked itself.


While on Facebook, look at your URL address; if you see http: instead of https: then you don't have a secure session and you can potentially be hacked if you are using a public computer or a wi fi connection in a public place.

https:// ( HyperText Transfer Protocol with Secure Sockets Layer.) The data transferred is encrypted so that it cannot be read by anyone except the recipient. Https:// is used by website that are collecting sensitive customer data such as banks, financial groups and most online stores, and, you may have noticed a small “lock” icon appear in your address bar on these websites.

Go to Account|Account Settings|Account Security. FB defaults to the non-secure setting.
Click Change. 
Check the first box for HTTPS and the second box if you want to be notified whenever someone from a mobile device or new computer accesses your account. (This also means you at a new computer or your phone, etc)
and then click Save. 

Remember,:
...If you visit a non secure app in Facebook, and want to return to HTTPS, you should re-check your account settings to see if it unchecked itself.

... and most important: what you post on Facebook, whether your page or a friends is public, and in many way can be returned in search results or other tools.



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To stay abreast of trends and technology advancements, Sumner Davenport continues to participate regularly in developer forums and expands her knowledge through training courses sponsored by large internet marketing companies, developer forums and the internet search giants, as well as industry related events in her clients' areas of practice. By consistently monitoring trends, events and news, Sumner is better able to assist them in selecting the best venues for marketing their firms.
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A Little Humor

Hello, thank you for calling Computer Repair.


Caller : Hello, our printer is not working.


Customer Service: What is wrong with it?


Caller : Mouse is jammed.


Customer Service: Mouse is jammed? Printers don't have a mouse!


Caller: Mmmmm??.. Oh really?... I will send a picture.


Scroll down:
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No opt-out from your address & phone number being given to Facebook apps

Your friend just suggested that you join them in a new game or accept a hug, a card, a link to your photos and activity or some other Facebook app. It may look like harmless fun, but is it worth it? 


Last Friday, Facebook rolled out new permissions that give applications access to individuals’ addresses and phone numbers.  In a Facebook developer blog post, they announced that it is adding it to the company's "User Graph object," or the permissions required to install an app.

Surprisingly many people still give out their home addresses and phone numbers on their profiles.  This makes sense for businesses who want their location known, but for individuals who are constantly finding their privacy invaded, placing your home address on any social network can be too much exposure.


When you agree to an app, a window pops up where you must click to allow it access to your profile, so you can use the app. Now these apps get more personal info about you than ever before.


Come apps require access to your friends information, through your profile and others access your data whether you re online or not.

It is important to review the terms and privacy policy of the app before clicking approve. Check to see if this app will openly share your information with their affiliates or 3rd party suppliers.  


Facebook can be a platform to boost your business connections, or a place where you chat with your friends. In either case you should select the apps you agree to with case and make sure your privacy settings are current. 


If your spam has increased in your inbox, you may want to check your apps and your privacy settings.


Happy networking...

Facebook crowned as the top-visited site in 2010

 According to a report from Internet analytics company Experian Hitwise, Facebook accounted for 8.93% of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010. Google.com ranked second with 7.19% of visits, followed by Yahoo! Mail with 3.52%, Yahoo! with 3.30%, and Google-owned YouTube with 2.65%.

The Experian analysis found that the most frequently searched term this year was "facebook."

"Facebook" was the top-searched term overall for the second straight year, followed by "Facebook login" and "YouTube," says Experian.

What does this mean to your 2011 marketing plan?   In today’s competitive market, marketers who maximize the free and customizable Facebook platform may find staying connected with their customers and gaining referrals surpasses their paid marketing channels.

To stay abreast of trends and technology advancements, Sumner stays current with the news and continues to participate regularly in developer forums and expands her knowledge through training courses sponsored by large internet marketing companies, developer forums and the internet search giant, Google, as well as industry related events in her clients' areas of practice. No time or expertise to do it yourself? Contact Sumner.

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Google to Investigate Cloaking

According to sources, Google will address the issue of cloaking in the first quarter of next year.


Cloaking, which is against Google’s guidelines is defined by Google  as follows:
"Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index." (read more)

In short this is a practice that offers different search results to users and search engines.
Cloaking goes against Google’s webmaster guidelines and could even lead to the removal of a site from the search engine’s index. This is a precaution to sites that use cloaking.

This past month, Google has been investing more time on refining its algorithm against negative search engine optimization techniques. Google's Matt Cutts, in charge of much of the search giant's antispam efforts, over the past week Google plans to take a closer look at the practice of "cloaking," or presenting one look to a Googlebot crawling one's site while presenting another look to users. This can include "serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users," according to Webmaster Central help pages but Cutts implied that Google was looking beyond page content in its renewed emphasis on cloaking by suggesting that Webmasters "avoid different headers/redirects to Googlebot instead of users."

To stay abreast of trends and technology advancements, Sumner strives to stay current with the news and continues to participate regularly in developer forums and expands her knowledge through training courses sponsored by large internet marketing companies, developer forums and the internet search giant, Google, as well as industry related events in her clients' areas of practice.

No time or expertise to do it yourself? Contact Sumner.

Follow Sumner on Twitter 
Follow Sumner on Facebook 
Follow Sumner on Linked In