Schipul Blog

Ed recently spoke to the American Advertising Federation of Houston (HAF) and the Houston Interactive Marketing Association on a panel discussing Digital/Interactive Marketing - What you need to know now!

Take a peek at the presentation above (available for download and embedding on Slideshare too) for ideas on how to play the recession, what IS and IS NOT working for advertisers right now and the importance of personal branding.

In Schipul-land, we’re focusing on building/growing our current relationships (boy, does Social Media ever help with that!), keeping our eyes on our recurring revenue and focusing hardcore on knowledge sharing both in and out of the company.

How is your organization weathering the current economy?

“71 percent of all journalists get stories from bloggers,” said Dallas Lawrence at the Central Michigan PRSA Social Media event on November 14th.

Hold the presses! If your voice is worthy of making headlines, why isn’t Schipul helping you make your voice heard?

Good news! Schipul is offering blogging services to our clients. Join us in kicking-off this new service by attending our blogging seminar today.

So, what took us so long to offer blogging services to our clients? It’s not like we aren’t avid about blogging; in fact, many of our employees voice their personal passions via blog posts. For example, MagsMac ‘N’ Cheese is a blog which translates the techie lexicon into easy to understand terms for the emerging tech geek.

We have guided community organizations in creating fun and factual blogs, like the Houston Zoo’s Frog Blog.

Schipul has also helped organizations such as the Houston Arts Alliance take advantage of the blogging mouthpiece to amplify their voice around the Houston area.

Whether the blog is for your organization, your company, or your own personal musings, Schipul is here to serve you with a customizable line of blog offerings.

You’ve probably seen at least one, an email telling you that a $XX,XXX payment is about to go in to your bank or Paypal account — but ONLY!! if you confirm your address.  And your name.  And your dog’s name.  And your Social Security number.  And your dog’s Social Security  number.

Sure, they might look fairly convincing (same big company logos, similar email design template, same boring corporate text), but your gut is telling you ‘really?  I’m getting $10,546.72 from nowhere and my DOG has a Social Security number???’.  Listen to your gut.  It’s probably a phishing scam.

Telltale signs of a phishing scam:

• Sense of urgency (respond today or we close your account!!!!)
• Scare tactics (your dog’s account security has been compromised - doomsday!)
• They want you to click a link or fill out a form to verify information
• Misspellings and poor grammar
• Call you ‘valued customer’ instead of your actual name
• Email sent from a weird email address
• When you hover (DON’T CLICK!) over links in an email, the URLs are a little ‘off’

If you see an email that appears to be a phishing attempt, the best thing you can do is NOT do what they tell you (no link clicking, no replying, no form filling out).   Delete the suspicious email or forward it to:  reportphishing@antiphishing.org.

If the email has a hint of legitimacy, don’t report it yet - rather, call the organization it is supposedly from (using a phone number listed on their Web site, not in the email) to verify that THEY are the ones trying to reach you.  Also, be sure that you regularly check your online accounts and credit reports regularly, so that you can catch anything less than desirable just in case.

Remember, phishing scams aren’t just over email either - other places to be cautious:

• Social networking sites
• Your instant message chat program
• Cell phone text messages
• Fake sites that look like sites your trust, but are not (check those URLs!!)

A little common sense goes a long way, as with everything.  If you see something pop up in your email that looks too good to be true (how many times can you win the lottery you never played - really?), it just might be.  Stay secure and don’t let the bad guys go phishing for your information!

Today a few of us Schipulites attended the Houston AMA Luncheon to hear Rohit Bhargava speak. Rohit is the SVP of the Ogilvy PR group and founding member of the international agency’s pioneering Digital Influence group. The topic for today’s talk was “Why Personality Matters” and Rohit is considered expert on helping companies discover their personalities.

He wrote Personality Not Included, “a new marketing book for entrepreneurs, marketers and all businesses about the importance of personality and a guide on how to use it.” His talk today seemed like a pretty good overview of what I imagine one can expect from the book.

He passed on a lot of great information today but the takeaway I really want to focus on are the five myths businesses harbor when it comes to using Social Media to maximize on their personalities.

Five Big Myths:

Myth # 1: “If we admit we’re marketing, they’ll stop listening!”

Fact: People listen to what they are interested in so BE RELEVANT! Don’t attempt to force feed your audience with boring marketing gobbledygook. Engage them and they will listen. Social Media is a great avenue for companies to share things things that are relevant to their consumers.

Myth # 2: “You should just give up control.”

Fact: What! Why? Social Media allows your company to get the truth about your company out there so why would you remain passively unengaged with your audience? Applications like twitter allow you to monitor what your clients/prospective clients are saying and interact easily and immediately. The example Rohit used was the cable company, Comcast, using Twitter as to help its consumers solve cable issues faster.

Myth # 4: “Our brand is the hero!”

Fact: Sometimes it is okay to share the spotlight or even totally promote someone else. People don’t like companies that are constantly talking about themselves. Highlight others, pay it forward, and don’t just talk at your consumers.

Myth # 5: “Transparency is the Future!”

Fact: Transparency is great. If you practice transparency and actually have good practices, it builds trust. But even more important than transparency is AUTHENTICITY. You can be transparent all day long, but if you’re not being real, no one will be listening to what you have to say.

“Blogging is the answer!”

Fact: So your company has a blog. Great! Just because you have a blog, it does not mean that things are going to be all cake and pie for your company. A blog does not magically solve all of your communications. So don’t slap a blog like a Band-Aid over your issues and ignore them because they will not go away!

So there it it, the 5 Social Media Myths businesses believe as explained by Rohit Bhargava! I’ll be purchasing Personality Not Included and I’ll let you know what I think.

To read more check out our Search Engine Marketing Blog on Social Media Myths.

The Schipul gang is fortunate enough to work with all shapes and sizes of awesome clients.  Today we are very sad to hear about the loss of one of our favorite clients - Mac the baby elephant at the Houston Zoo.

From an exciting record-breaking birth weight (384 pounds!) to fun 1st and 2nd birthday parties, Mac has long held a place in our hearts.  We send our love and condolences to the Houston Zoo family and all those that loved the little guy.

Be sure to view some of the photos that Mac’s keepers have put together on Flickr.

It’s always amazing to be part of online conversation — the Internet has become an indispensable tool for creating virtual discussion forums.

Recently a local news channel has  started an investigation on the public funding of Houston arts projects.  The Houston Arts Alliance (a Schipul Social Media client) is an integral part of dispensing funding for Houston artists and arts organizations.

Being the curious minds that we are, we want to use technology to see what YOU think about this.  We  love this tool called “Poll Anywhere” and we’ve set up an impromptu poll to see what you think. Do you agree or disagree that the Houston Community should help the Houston Arts through public tax grants? Click here to vote!!

So far the results look like…
Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere

A great TED Talk video by Kevin Kelly looking at the next 5000 days of the Web.

Facebook and its users are having a rough day. A serious Facebook virus is attacking the network’s users.

For the laymen:

If you receive a Facebook message (or a Facebook message alert in your email) with a questionable subject line, DO NOT CLICK THE LINK IN THE BODY!

All of the information in this post was garnered from an awesome article from news.com.au by Narelle Towie.

Questionable subject titles vary from “Maan,yyou’re great!” to “your ass looks not bad in this video”, “Some0ne thinks your special and has a *Hot_Crush* on you. Find out who it could be*” or a youtube link that says ‘”i can see yooooooooo”. These links disguise a trojan worm and should not be clicked.

This trojan comes just months after Facebook said it was working to protect its user from phishing scams.

For the tech geeks, here is a more detailed explanation of the virus from Towie’s article:

FACEBOOK users are under attack from a virus sweeping through the online social network.

The virus is technically a trojan worm that disguises itself as an email from facebookmail.com.

People are enticed to click on a misspelled video or picture link that directs to a malicious web site.

The worm spreads its tentacles by emailing everyone on the victim’s friend list.

According to anti-virus software company Symantec, the trojan works by executing a worm called W32.Koobface.A that searches for cookies on the user’s machine.

If the worm finds the appropriate Facebook cookie, it modifies the users account settings and profile - adding links to malicious sites to trick others into installing the invader.

Facebook discussion boards talk about the trojan directing users to a page which looks like YouTube.

The phony page asks the user to install a video player upgrade.

Installing the fake upgrade allows the worm to work its magic and access files on the victim’s machine while destroying their Facebook account.

Facebook has begun combating the virus by deactivating link when it can.

Facebook has not released an official comment regarding the attack.

**Thank you Flickr user pshab for the awesome Facebook photo.

Is your company just jumping into the Facebook and Social Media world? Schipul can help!
Check out our Social Media page and be sure to attend our upcoming Blogging seminar!

Brian LeBlanc (beefcake)

This post is about our good friend Brian LeBlanc.  He’s an awesome developer that came to us in hopes of learning more about web development/marketing.

I’m not going to highlight all the niceties of Brian LeBlanc, this post is merely to tell him and the rest of the world that we appreciate his time here and are more than proud of his direction and future endeavors.

To learn more about the great LeBlanc, give him a visit.
http://www.brian-leblanc.com/

Former Schipulite Julie Worsham has an art opening this weekend at Art Square Studios. The details are:

This Saturday, November 8 from 12:00 noon to 5:00 PM

Art Square Studios
2711 Main Street
Houston, TX 77002 (map)