5 tips to use Facebook for your small business

Facebook is one platform where a wider range of audience can be targeted, while economizing on the resources.


Since research shows that people contribute more than half of their waking hours on Facebook, businesses can very well use the opportunity to drive greater engagement with their audience.

Facebook is one platform where a wider range of audience can be targeted, while economizing on the resources.

A handful of tips could help Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) expand their reach and target their audience better through Facebook.

SMBs can put a little attention to their Facebook pages and keep updating them from time to time to gain better user interest.

Often companies are lethargic when it comes to posting on the social media page. Any new development, be it big or small, must go on the page with highlights about the best offerings.

Another way of engaging the audience is to create photo and video page posts, as users are more likely to hit the 'like', 'comment', 'follow' or 'share' button if the content is interesting.

Crucial to SMBs is to try a Facebook Offer that make it easy for companies to distribute their promotions to an audience beyond the fan base and it is also convenient for people to redeem offers.

Lastly, great brand building can be achieved by boosted posts, which can help SMBs reach wider audiences with greater accuracy and targeted approach.

Businesses can simply enter whatever amount they can set aside for the promotion, and Facebook will tell instantly how many people the post will reach.

How to make your passwords more secure

An Australian man is suing Twitter for defamation after he was wrongly named as the author of a hate blog, a report said Friday.

If the Heartbleed security threat teaches us anything, it's that passwords don't offer total protection.

Browsers are supposed to keep passwords and other sensitive data safe, but a technical flaw in a widely used padlock security technology allows hackers to grab the information anyway. Even without this latest discovery, there have been countless disclosures of hackers breaking in to grab usernames and passwords, plus credit card numbers and more.

That's why many security experts recommend a second layer of authentication: typically in the form of a numeric code sent as a text message. If you're logging in to a website from your laptop, for example, you enter your password first. Then you type in the code you receive via text to verify that it's really you and not a hacker.

I've been using what's known as two-factor authentication or two-step verification on most of my accounts for more than a year, after seeing too many mysterious attempts to reset my Facebook password by someone who isn't me. The main exception was Gmail, but I enabled that recently after the discovery of Heartbleed. I was afraid the second authentication would be a pain to use, but things are going more smoothly than I expected after the initial setup.

The idea behind these double-layer passwords is to make it harder to use a password that's compromised or guessed. You're asked for a second piece of information that only you are supposed to know.

To balance security and convenience, you can typically bypass this check the next time you use the same Web browser or device. It won't help if someone steals your laptop, but it'll prevent others from using your password on their machines. If you're logging in at a library or other public computer, remember to reject the option to bypass that check next time.

The second piece of authentication could be your fingerprint or retina scan, though such biometric IDs are rarely used for consumer services. Financial services typically ask for a security question, such as the name of your childhood pet, the first time you use a particular Web browser or device. That's better than nothing, though answers can sometimes be guessed or looked up. Some banks offer verification codes by text messaging, too.

I like that approach and use it for a variety of email and social networking services. To me, email accounts are the most sensitive because email can be used to reset passwords elsewhere. That includes my banks and shopping sites.

The two-step requirement is fairly simple to turn on. With Google, for instance, it's under the Security tab in your account settings. On Facebook, look for Login Approvals under Security in the settings. With Apple IDs, visit appleid.apple.com rather than the account settings on iTunes.

After you enable it, you'll typically have to sign in to your account again on various Web browsers and devices. After entering your username and password, a code will get set to your phone. You'll have to enter that to finish signing in. This has occasionally meant getting off my couch to grab my phone from the charger, but that's a small price for security.

What if you're somewhere without cellular access and can't receive texts?

Most services have backup mechanisms. Google, Facebook and Microsoft have apps that will let you receive verification codes even when you're offline. Google and Facebook also let you generate 10 backup codes that you can download or print to keep in your wallet. Each can be used only once.

You can also turn off the two-step requirement temporarily if you'll be traveling without cellular access, though I don't recommend it. The reason I turned it on last year was because I was leaving the country and wouldn't be able to deal with further mysterious reset attempts.

Occasionally, you'll run into an app that won't accept the text code. Apple's Mail app on iPhones, iPads and Mac computers is one. Microsoft's Outlook software is another. If that happens, you'll have to go to your service's settings to generate a temporary password for that particular app. It's a pain, but I've rarely needed to do this.

There are several other challenges to making this work smoothly. For example, if you have a shared Twitter account, such as for your company or organization, two-step verification isn't very practical unless you also share your phone. There's a 12-character, hard-to-guess backup code you can use instead. But it's no security if you jot it down next to your main password.

The biggest problem, though, is losing your phone. Some services will let you provide a backup number, including a friend's cellphone or a landline phone. With Google, the code can be sent as a voice message instead of a text. Others offer a complex recovery code, which you'll have to jot down and keep in a safe place.

I know two-layer security is inconvenient. The first password is difficult enough to deal with. But think of the inconvenience involved should someone break into your account and shut you out. Consider the use of verification texts to be insurance.

Facebook to clean up News Feed

Facebook has announced that it is cleaning up its News Feed to weed out spammy posts, so that users of the social networking website don't miss important and relevant stories and to penalize spammers.

Elaborating on the move, Facebook posted on its blog that it's introducing a series of improvements to News Feed to reduce stories that users frequently flag as spam. "Many of these stories are published by Pages that deliberately try and game News Feed to get more distribution than they normally would," said Facebook employees Erich Owens and Chris Turitzin.

Facebook will essentially take steps to counter three kinds of news feed spam - Like-baiting, frequently circulated content and spammy links.

Facebook says "Like-baiting" is when posts explicitly ask readers to like, comment or share the post, to get additional distribution beyond what the post would normally receive. " The improvement we are making today better detects these stories and helps ensure that they are not shown more prominently in News Feed than more relevant stories from friends and other Page," said the Facebook executives.

The update will not impact Pages that are genuinely trying to encourage discussion among their fans, Facebook clarified.

Facebook is also improving News Feed so that it doesn't focus on pages that reshare content as most users do not find such content relevant.

Stories that misguide users into clicking on links to pages that contain only ads or a combination of frequently circulated content and ads, will also be restricted. For instance some stories may claim to link to a photo album but instead take the viewer to a website with just ads, the social networking giant iterated.

"By measuring how frequently people on Facebook who visit a link choose to like the original post or share that post with their friends, we've been able to better detect spammy links," it added. According to Facebook, the update improves News Feed to reduce cases of spammy links, and in early testing it has witnessed a 5% increase in people on Facebook clicking on links that take them off of Facebook.

Facebook Messenger comes to Windows Phone

Windows Phone users would finally be able to have a dedicated Facebook Messenger app on their device as promised by Microsoft.

WASHINGTON: Windows Phone users would finally be able to have a dedicated Facebook Messenger app on their device as promised by Microsoft.

The smartphone does have a built-in Facebook messaging feature, but a dedicated app provides other features like group chat, stickers, and picture messaging.

According to The Verge, Windows Phone is the last to receive the app, which had been made available to iOS and Android platforms long ago.

The dedicated app also allows for location sharing and easy managing of contacts on the service.

The report said that the dedicated Facebook Messenger arrives just ahead of a key Windows Phone 8.1 update planned for early April release.

Facebook at 10: All Mobile Systems Go

Facebook came perilously close to missing the mobile boat a few years ago, but it saw the light -- aided, no doubt, by the glare coming from investors -- and embarked on a strong mobile strategy. Now the company appears poised to live long and prosper, as long as it can avoid making any big mistakes. The bigger they are, the harder they fall and all that.

This week in 2004, Harvard undergrads became the first group to use Facebook -- the social network launched at the college. Fast-forward a decade, and the company is a technology mammoth, with 1.23 billion users and profit of US$1.5 billion for 2013.

Facebook is by most accounts a gargantuan success, and it is putting the pieces in place for its next decade and beyond. Those pieces point to a mobile future.

Facebook was somewhat late to the game with mobile. Before its 2012 acquisition of Instagram, it had neglected the rise of smartphones in favor of the PC. Now, however, Facebook has switched focus to mobile and already is starting to see the benefits.


All About Advertising

Many investors were concerned Facebook was losing out on advertising revenue as users shifted to mobile. Yet the company revealed in last week's fourth-quarter earnings report that mobile advertising accounted for 53 percent of the $2.34 billion total advertising revenue, up from 23 percent in the year-ago period. Perhaps not coincidentally, Instagram started displaying ads for the first time last quarter.

The focus on mobile is set to intensify further with this week's launch of Paper, a new mobile app for viewing user-generated and curated content.

The application is the first to be released by the company's Creative Labs division. The unit allows small teams at the company to create standalone mobile apps outside of the core Facebook experience.

"Last week's financial results are an indication that Facebook has been closer to understanding the mobile ads business and has attracted the attention of corporate clients in trying out its mobile ad solutions," said Markos Zachariadis, assistant professor of information systems at Warwick Business School.

"Both the acquisition of Instagram and the development of Paper show that Facebook is making a move from its traditional Web-based page towards mobile solutions that will meet the demands of both its user-base and organizations that are looking to reach out to consumers in a more dynamic way," he told the E-Commerce Times.


'Good Direction'

"Predictions for the near future suggest that in 2017 nearly 4 billion people will access the Internet through their smartphone," Zachariadis added. "To put this into perspective, you need to compare with the current figure of Internet users -- less than 3 billion from both mobile and desktop devices."

Facebook is headed "in a good direction," he concluded.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, hinted at some future plans in an interview with Bloomberg last week. His three-year plan puts mobile at the forefront -- he declared at an all-hands meeting in early 2012 that Facebook would be a mobile-first company from then on.

Facebook may become a little more lax with its requirement for users to use their real names, Zuckerberg suggested. That rule that has seen many would-be users in countries with oppressive regimes turn to pseudonym-friendly Twitter to get involved in the global conversation. Future Facebook apps may not require users to log in with Facebook credentials.


Solving New Problems

Within the next five years, Facebook aims to become more intuitive and help users solve problems they may not even have considered. When users turn to their Facebook friends for advice on finding a great local dentist or restaurant, for instance, Facebook should be doing better at using its trove of data to answer those questions, Zuckerberg told Bloomberg.

Over the next decade, Facebook will work to expand Internet access to the billions of people who do not yet have it, he said. Facebook has teamed up with technology companies like Samsung and Qualcomm on Internet.org, a project that aims to help users in developing countries get access to Web services, including Facebook, through cheaper phones.

Facebook still faces many challenges in the years ahead.


Security, Cultural Concerns

"Challenges in security and privacy are two major concerns [of] global social networks, including interorganizational networks," said Warwick Business School's Zachariadis.

"Also, compliance with local and international laws and regulations is a matter that often emerges as part of the globalization agenda. If Facebook's target -- as Mark Zuckerberg suggests -- is to socially connect the whole world, these are issues that need to be addresses regardless ... of the strategy the company will choose to move forward."

Elsewhere, Facebook might have to work harder to maintain user interest.


'Household Name'

"They're going to have to continue to do things that are engaging people and getting people to share and drive traffic in that regard," said Gordon Owens, digital marketing professional at GO Digital WSI.

"It's a household name now, so no one thinks about it. They need to keep doing things that make people go back and say, 'This new thing Facebook's doing is really cool and I've gotta go check it out,'" he told the E-Commerce Times.

"With a massive audience like that, they're just one or two wrong moves away from losing a ton of people," Owens suggested. "If you have some massive security breach or people find out that Facebook has been feeding all their data to the NSA -- all of a sudden everyone stops using it. I think you sort of run that risk. Other than that, they would have to do something utterly, drastically wrong to not be able to continue to drive revenue into the future."