ANYTHING can be hacked. And it is “hackers” that would like you to believe it is not possible. I have friends that work in national security and the tech industry. The Nat’l security people talk about how the general public is completely in denial to the fact of how incredibly easy it is to hack EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. They also talk about how the USA gov does not want to start a panic on this topic and therefore do not come out about it either but in reality the USA gov is seriously concerned about the security of computers and cell phones but consider CHINA to be the biggest threat to these on a Nat’l level. APPLE would also like everyone to believe their products are secure and can not be hacked. Therefore if you walk into an APPLE store they will ALWAYS say that APPLE products can not be hacked a blatant lie although it is true that APPLE products do not get hacked as often because there are not as many businesses using APPLE products – but that is changing and therefore so will the threat of hacking to these products.

The tech industry individuals are the worst. Think of it as “revenge of the nerds” – but this may be changing too as more stable ethical individuals enter the Tech industry and not just those who have a chip on their shoulders and now believe they can  “rule the world”.

But right now the Tech Industry “black market” is alive and well and much money is made on the black market at your expense. I heard one tech lead at a company I worked at state: ” I design the product for the company I work for and get a salary of $150K to do so, then I go home and “hack” that same product and sell the hacked version on the black market and make another $150K – I call that job security”

If you know anything, which most of the general public does not and sadly does not want to (what I dont know cant hurt me mentality) then you know that there are groups like Anonymous that openly admit that they can hack ANYTHING. (Anonymous claiming they are doing it in response to world corruption)

Your BEST bet to protect your tech devices, is to hide your Wifi completely so it can not even be found when others are searching for a wifi connection (many products can automatically alert you to the Wifi connections available to you – I have my iPhone set up to do so) and to get a GREAT understanding of how to use your MAC number (which has nothing to do with “Macintosh” it is an identifying number on your computer and cell phone) and enter these numbers into your “hidden” Wifi and and block all others.

It sounds complicated but really isnt, and is rarely told to people to do by computer techs – hmmm – wonder why…go google it to learn more…and how to do this yourself.

Karen Ellis, SocialSweetSpot

QUESTION:
What is your strategy for creating engaging content online?

ANSWER:
1. Throughly interview client,
2. Engage with others in client’s industry on several platforms,
3. RESEARCH target niche through interactions,
4. Define very specific target niche that is or can be filled by client AND is not connected to the brand recognition for others in the industry,
5. Create niche specific creative content strongly connecting your client’s brand to the target niche market,
6. Repeatedly fill client’s platforms with engaging and entertaining content specific to, and about defined niche target market,
7. HASHTAG and CAPITALIZE NICHE TARGET term (for instance #MOBILE) and use in almost EVERY POST

– Karen Ellis, Social Sweet Spot

The question is not if, but when and how, you should start planning the mobile strategy for your business. Keep in mind that consumers want the same site experience on their smartphones as they would get with a desktop. They don’t want to just see a brochure version of the desktop site-they want a relevant, personalized, coherent brand experience. A positive experience builds customer trust, which builds better relationships.

So what route should you take? Start by asking yourself a few questions:
• What are your business objectives? Specifically, how do you do business with your customers? (For example, do you use email notifications for a good part of your business? If so, be aware that if emails are not optimized for mobile–the images are too wide, etc.–it’s going to result in a big bounce rate.)
• What are the costs and benefits for your business?
• What do you want your consumers to do when they come into contact with your business from a mobile device, and what must you provide to get them to take that action?

What is the best route for your company in regard to mobile?

Let’s plan a strategy for you – Call Social Sweet Spot now…

Karen Ellis, Social Media Strategist

YG Entertainment, the label behind Gangnam, had a plan long before the video went live.

They knew they wanted to break into new markets and started building a platform they would be able to push content out on, gaining 2.5 million YouTube subscribers and 1.6 billion views of musicians’ videos pre-Gangnam.

Having these subscribers is key and meant they could get a high number of views in a short space of time helping them quickly gain shares and get featured in YouTube’s daily chart.

Having an audience is a good start but you need them all to share it and watch it, again and again.

They cast the video featuring popular celebrities from South Korea to get the media’s attention then gaining impact of various celebrity supportive tweets which then got coverage in Time Magazine and Mashable.

If You’re a band that wants recognition, you got to use social media!

First step – set up band/musician accounts on social networks –
Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.

Next are sites that are especially useful for the music community:
Purevolume
Bandcamp
YouTube and/or Vimeo
Last.fm
Soundcloud
Amazon (To sell your products)
Kickstarter
IndieGoGo
Crowdfunding

Set up accounts on as many sites as possible so –
No one can steal your band name on them
You can use them if you want to
Your Google search results/SEO will grow.

Post often.
No one reads every single update a fan page he or she subscribes to posts.

If you post often, chances are one of your status updates or tweets will make its way onto the top of someone’s news or Twitter feed.

Post relevant material that shows personality –
don’t make all your tweets marketing ploys.
Let your fans know what you’ve been doing personally
Check your tweets for grammar and spelling mistakes.

Unlike band websites, social media is all about the fans.

Via social media, share a huge range of content with fans,
view content they share with you,
run contests,
broadcast shows or other events,
give links to presale tickets –
the possibilities are almost endless.

If you use social media correctly, it will help to get people engaged in your music.

Twitter is AWESOME
Great music hashtags are –

#musicmoday | #mm

#nowplaying | #np
#musicbiz
#recordslabels.

Specialty hashtags for different kinds of music – if you’re a DIY band or independent record label, you might use something like

#stayindependent

HOT NEW ADDITION for EVENTS: Event Social Media

I would love to work together with you! And offer your clients something more…

What I do for all and any type event is very unique and cutting edge but is being used VERY successfully for many events already around the world.

You have probably seen/heard of twitterwalls? I am a Twitter Jockey (lol, people love the name and I snagged it from MTV which only used it for one year and as far as I know no one else is using it now but it really describes well what I do In other words I do the social media event marketing for small to large events – in other words, I create innovative pre, during, and after marketing for these events.

The most unique and BENEFICIAL aspect being the “during” part which is when I have a Twitterwall set up for the event and work the event as the Twitter Jockey.

The interactivity of twitterwalls is incredibly effective at these events but since there are MANY twitterwall companies to choose from and many different technical aspects that go into making sure they are running properly, I pick and set them up for events AND research and create the most EFFECTIVE HASHTAG for the event.

WORKING as the hired TWITTER JOCKEY at the event, I tweet, do interviews, uplift quickie immediate photos and videos [posting to whatever and all platforms (Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) the client wants] during the ENTIRE event.

What this does is control the posts that go out for an event, create tweets and posts that COMPANIES WANT others to retweet BECAUSE I do it more quickly than everyone else at the event, they are VERY likely to pick from the CONTROLLED tweets I send out and just retweet them rather than write their own. This has an incredible effect for the company or person the event is for.

[Here is a stat from the 2013 Economic Forum "The hashtag created for our event generated around 170K mentions (on Twitter) which resulted in almost 2 BILLION potential Twitter impressions]

Not sure how much you know about online marketing yourself, BUT THOSE ARE INCREDIBLE STATS for a company. This means that the tweets from the ONE event were able to REACH 2 BILLION people AROUND THE WORLD within a week of the event. There is literally no other marketing that is currently capable of this kind of exposure.

I know very few people who have done the research and have the knowledge I have to offer this type of online marketing. Event Social Media is one of the most effective and valuable forms of social media marketing I know of.

I have even used my Event Social Media Marketing for Bat Mitzvahs – it was Interactive, UNIQUE and super FUN. The kids all loved it! As well as the adults….They all ended up calling me Tweety Bird ☺

I would really LOVE to team up with someone who has great connections in San Diego within the corporate event world AND the more personal side of events like weddings and bat / bar mitzvahs etc.

If that is you, PLEASE give me a call

One of the groups most interested in “privacy” are the affluent crowd and actually in China, one of the fastest growing platforms is one which works somewhat like Facebook. It is expensive to buy into and only allows a certain populous to join – which are Chinese whom make over a certain income (something equivalent to $200K and up – I can’t remember exactly) This clique-centric target group love to PAY high end $ to be a part of this platform, not only for the privacy aspect, of which they are very concerned, but also because it says that they are part of an elite group that can only be in this expensive “Country Club” platform-like Facebook – giving the kind of exclusivity that these affluent groups feel they “deserve”… similar to the rush of buying a Lamborghini / Prada – because they have a certain income which allows them to do so.