WARNING: Facebook Virus Spreading via Fake Image Link in Messages

Over the past week, a virus has been spreading across Facebook. It comes in the form of a link that appears to be a picture hosted on Facebook and at first glance, it looks pretty similar to a legitimate Facebook Picture link. The link appears to lead to a .jpg, but actually loads a .exe that can exploit weaknesses on your system. If you see any suspicious links, make sure they are from facebook.com as the virus has been spreading with a domain like “album.facebook-photo .info” and other domains that are supposed to trick the user into thinking they are from Facebook.

A real Facebook Image link would look like this: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=67815&op=1&o=global&view=global&subj=202282699383&id=100000683065632

How To Easily Fix The Wordpress Redirect Loop Error Without Admin Access

If you’ve been using Wordpress, you’ve probably encountered the dreaded Wordpress Redirect Loop Error at some point in time. There are a few different reasons why this can happen, but you should first check out your .htaccess file inside the root of your server. If you’ve created a redirect inside your .htaccess file to redirect the non-www domain (ex: justincener.com) to the www version (www.justincener.com), you may be causing the redirect loop error.

Follow these easy steps and you’ll get your Wordpress Blog and Admin Access Back:

1. 1) Backup your .htaccess file on your hard drive
2. 2) Delete the .htaccess file from the root of your server
4. 3) Go to your blog’s admin panel and log-in
5. 4) On the left sidebar, go to Settings –> General and changes your Wordpress Address and Blog Address to include www (so it should be http://www.domainname.com instead of http://domainname.com).
6. 5) Save Settings
7. 6)Take your .htaccess backup and reupload it to the root of your server

Thats it, you should be up and running again!

Forget About Conflicting Reports and Studies, Social Media Marketing Is Here To Stay

Lately, there have been numerous reports and studies about the state of social media. On one end, you have studies that claim that social media is highly useable and widely accepted in the corporate, retail, and entertainment industries. On the other end of the spectrum, you get reports stating that social media is a fad and offers little to no advantage in advancing business.

Read one article and see that over 99% of online retailers have or will have a Facebook Page for their business. Turn the page and read another claiming top executives do not believe social media marketing can generate business leads. Click another link and see a study stating social media has little to no effect on brand perception. Follow a link ReTweeted by a connection on Twitter and find that social media offers deep brand engagement resulting in better financial performance.

Despite these conflicting reports, I’m here to offer an easy to understand summary of why social media marketing is here to stay.

Social Media Marketing has a high adoption rate in many industries because of its inherent ease of entry. With the popularity of social media in the news, it’s easy to find competing brands or industries utilizing social media. A brand manager, executive, or athlete can start self marketing via Facebook and Twitter within minutes. Social Media Marketing is a low cost and low resource marketing medium – qualities any brand, regardless of industry, should find enticing. The barrier to enter this realm is low and therefore adoption is quick, easy, and painless.

With low costs and minimal resources invested, brands can “play around” with Social Media Marketing – and often do. While there are thousands of brands and personalities marketing on the social media platforms, the wide majority of marketers are simply experimenting. This creates a type of class structure – companies who truly “get” social media make up the upper class while companies struggling to grasp the benefits of this form of marketing create the lower and middle classes. A prime example of this can be found in the airline industry. JetBlue and Southwest Airlines are among the upper class of , leaving other airlines, even big names like AA, Continental, and Delta, struggling to catch up.

Brands will undoubtedly want to get into the upper class and will therefore use more resources to become social media experts. This sort of competition is great for the overall industry of social media marketing. As brands spend more to strengthen their social marketing campaigns, an entire industry devoted to this new form of marketing is created. Social Media Marketers and Social Media Consultants will help these “lower and middle class” (in terms of social media only) transform their social media efforts and become members of the prestigious social media upper class. Of course, this will require resources (money) and will therefore make brands more invested in their social media efforts – further strengthening social media for the long run.

With custom crafted social marketing plans running, brands will start to see the full potential of social media marketing. All it takes is a steady increase in fans or followers to generate excitement amongst decision makers. After a month of steady fan increases, I showed a client their fan count numbers – instant social media believer. Seeing this hard evidence that their social media efforts were at least resulting in more eyes viewing their brand showed the potential of the campaign we had designed together. There are tons of little things to track – fan count, interactions, comments, links, pingbacks, RTs – all of which increase momentum for the overall marketing campaign. These small wins increase the decision makers’ sentiment about social media marketing, further securing social media for the long run.

For those who subscribe to the studies that social media holds no value or is simply a fad, I invite you to bookmark this post. Come back in a year, two years, five years – read this again and see if this is still a relevant discussion or a blast from the past.

5 Ways Sports Media Can Successfully Utilize Social Media

Sports Media, a group that includes everything from ESPN and Sports Illustrated to Sports Blogs to Joe Sports Fan on Bleacher Report, are beginning to realize the power of social media. Here are 5 ways anyone in the world of sports media can and should utilize social media.

1. Push Stories
One of the most common uses of social media, regardless of industry, is to push information to a wide population. Those in the sports media world are effectively using Facebook and Twitter to spread their articles, opinions, and insights. It doesn’t matter if you’re ESPN or Joe Sports Fan, Social Media is a great platform to disseminate your work.

2. Find Out What People Want To Hear
This is especially useful for the low resource sports bloggers out there. Check out what people are talking about on Twitter. The Trending Topics is a great place to start. See what comes up often in your mini-feed on Facebook. Find out what people are interested in and write a piece on it. Then, refer to #1.

3. Get News From The Source
You don’t need a press pass or a connect to get you inside the locker room to get news directly from the source. With the popularity of Twitter amongst professional athletes, sometimes a great source of information can be found directly on the subject’s social media pages. This isn’t just for the small time bloggers either – the largest sports media outlets like ESPN, SI, Yahoo Sports, Pro Football Talk, and more are all sourcing Twitter in their stories.

4. Collaborate
The big (think ESPN) and the small (think bloggers) are all on an equal playing field in the social media realm. An interesting piece on a small blog can gain the momentum of RTs (Twitter), Likes (Facebook), and Comments (Blogs) and become a viral sensation. This could get the subject piece noticed by an ESPN or SI and just might become the next featured piece on SportsCenter later that week. With notable personalities like ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen and Sports Illustrated’s Peter King consistently replying to their follower’s tweets, this effect may become much more common.

5. Build A Following
Don’t ignore the social aspect of social media. Yes, Twitter and Facebook are great platforms for pushing your content, but they are even better for building relationships. Create a strong following and you won’t have to push your content as much – your fans/followers will do it for you. @MortReport is doing a great job of this and has built a strong social graph with tons of two-way interaction.

4 Ways to Monetize Your Social Media Presence

Monetizing Social Media. It’s one of the most common questions asked by clients thinking of starting a social marketing campaign. There is no doubt that there is intrinsic value in a successful social media initiative, but sometimes the results may seem intangible. We know that social media can result in increased customer/fan loyalty and interest, but what about the bottom line – revenue generation. Here are 5 ways to monetize your social media presence.

1) Extending Sponsorships
For many brands, athletes, and celebrities, social media reach can extend into the tens of thousands. As previously discussed, your fan or follower base is a great representation of your target market. Those who become fans choose to “opt-in” to your updates and have taken the time to show their interest in your brand. To your preexisting sponsors, who find value in your customer/fan base, social media becomes another valuable marketing medium. Increase your digital inventory by offering ads or other creative advertising opportunities and present this to your sponsors. Use this to sweeten a deal for a sponsor on the fence or generate new revenue opportunities from sponsors with a smaller budget.

2) Featured Events
Facebook Fan Pages have the built in ability to host events using Facebook’s built in Events system. As you may know, when you send out an invite from a fan page, all fans will receive an invitiation and the event will show up on the user’s Events Calendar on Facebook. Imagine a local car dealership having a special clearance event. Utilize your strong fan base by virtually sponsoring the event. Think “Dwight Howard invites you to the Ford Summer Clearance at Smith Ford.” The value, for sponsors, is the use of the brand’s (or athlete/celebrity) name to invite the already interested fan base to their event.

3) Sponsored Tweets (and/or Updates)
This is the classic celebrity product endorsement translated to the social media realm. With a strong and loyal following, sponsored tweets or updates about a product can have a high conversion rate. All it takes is a handful of tweets direct from the brand, athlete, or celebrity to create an association between subject and promoted product. Add a direct link to the product and create a highly effective, traceable promotion.

4) Title Sponsorships
Think Tiger Woods on Facebook presented by Gillette. With over 300+ Million active users, a Facebook Fan Page or Twitter Page can generate page views, interactions, and clickthroughs that can rival, and often surpass, personal websites. Take full advantage of these numbers as you would if it was a website and offer a title sponsorship to your Facebook Fan Page. A perfect example of this is the Detroit Pistons Twitter Page, presented by National City.

Social Media Monetization can be tricky, but with the right creative thinking, unique and appealing sponsorship opportunities can be created to entice new advertisers and keep existing deals alive. Have you seen any other creative monetization options? I’d love to hear about them – please post a comment!

5 (More) Players You Must-Follow On Twitter This NFL Season

Mashable had a great post earlier this week by @PUBLISIDE that highlighted 20 NFL Players that are “Must-Follows.” The list had some mainstays like @OGOchoCinco and @Jones_Drew32, but also featured some lesser known Gridiron Tweeps who should also be followed. Great list PUBLISIDE, but here are 5 more players that everyone Must-Follow on Twitter this NFL Season:

Chris Johnson, Tennessee Titans, @ChrisJohnson28
A lot of fans will remember Chad Ochocinco for using uStream, but Chris Johnson was one of the first NFL stars to get on uStream and video-chat live with fans. Johnson, the NFL’s leading rusher, now has close to 28,000 followers on Twitter, and that number will definitely grow as the second year back out of East Carolina continues to dominate NFL defenses with his tremendous speed and vision. If you want to watch an exciting player, check out Chris Johnson burn defenses week after week. Johnson is also a leader in the social media realm with his interesting tweets, twitpics, and uStream videos – a must-follow!

Shaun Phillips, San Diego Chargers, @ShaunPhillips95
Shaun Phillips averaged 8 sacks a year over the past two seasons, but a more impressive statistic may be his huge following on Twitter. With close to 45,000 followers, ShaunPhillips95 is one of the most popular NFL players in social media. Shaun regularly tweets about his (Taurus) horoscope and often responds directly to his fans (must have been reading this).

Mike Sims-Walker, Jacksonville Jaguars, @MikeSimsWalker
The self proclaimed “best kept secret in Jacksonville” is starting to reveal himself to the rest of the league. Sims-Walker recently added the “Sims” prefix to his last name to honor his late father, Michael Sims, similar to what teammate Maurice Jones-Drew did before his rookie season. Sims-Walker has become David Garrard’s #1 target in Jacksonville and has caught 19 balls with 3 Touchdowns over the past three games this season. On Twitter, the breakout WR often tweets about his life off the field and even reveals some of the Jags’ defensive strategies against Titans RB Chris Johnson.

Mark Sanchez, New York Jets, @mark_sanchez
Mark Sanchez, Rookie Quarterback for the New York Jets, is pretty transparent when it comes to updating on Twitter. With over 60,000 followers, there are a lot of people listening to what the rookie has to say. I’ve already commented on Sanchez using Twitter to extend his sponsorship with Toyota, but Sanchez’s recent tweet is his best to date.

Ray Rice, Baltimore Ravens, @RayRice27
2nd Year Back Ray Rice has contributed to the Ravens strong offensive performance so far this season. The 3-1 Ravens seem to be dominating as much on offense as defense, a change that has surprised most of the NFL. You can tell Rice’s passion for football by following him on Twitter – he’s continuously watching film but takes time to relax to watch more football.

9 Ways Professional Teams Can Successfully Utilize Social Media

Last week, I looked at 8 Ways a Professional Athlete Can Successfully Utilize Social Media. Today, I’ll be examining how their employers, professional teams, can leverage social media. These ideas can help professional teams successfully utilize Social Media, but each team must first define it’s own goals and then develop a plan off of those goals.

1. Build Fan Community
In 2009, all professional sports teams have already embraced fan involvement via the internet. Most teams have dedicated a portion of their website to community and fan building. While this strategy should not be ignored, creating an official team home on the leading social networks simply makes sense. With the huge active populations of Facebook and Twitter, professional teams can easily build a strong fan base and create a community for fans to interact both with each other and with the team.

2. Breaking News
Twitter is the ultimate medium for breaking news, case and point. With so many different news sources, some covering 24/7, news in the sports world travels fast. The Real-Time Environment of Social Media allows the perfect opportunity to break news first, directly from the source. Earlier this year, the Patriots beat both the NFL and News Sources to the break when they announced a draft day trade with Baltimore..

3. Exclusive Content
I’ve said it before, but I cannot stress this enough – fans go crazy for anything that makes them feel closer to their favorite teams and athletes. Give them a reason to come back again and again…and again. Release exclusive content via Social Media – maybe its behind the scenes video from practice or some rare, never-before-seen pictures of the team’s facilities. The more “exclusive” a Facebook Fan or Twitter Follower feels, the more interested and loyal they become.

4. Live Game Updating
Tweeting a mid game score will never ruin broadcast contracts for professional sports leagues. With that said, it is valuable to fans to see live game updating via Facebook or Twitter. The Miami Heat do a great job of this via Twitter. Not only do they post quarterly scores, the Heat also post individual statistics and player observations multiple times throughout the game.

5. Ticket Sales
Sports Teams have felt the recession and it can be seen in ticket sales. Even some NFL Games have been blacked out this year due to a reduction in box office numbers. A team’s social media fan base is a great marketing asset. Social Media is completely opt-in – that is, fans choose to become a fan if they have an affinity with the subject. Basically, a social media fan base is a community of engaged consumers who have a predetermined interest in the brand, team, or athlete…known to marketers are the target market! Pitch ticket sales and promotions (like the Falcons do) via Social Media and know that your message is being sent out to those who are already most likely to buy your product.

6. Extend Sponsorship
The Patriots have over 26,000 followers, the Bulls have close to 21,000 followers, the Yankees have 940,000 fans. These are numbers that can become sponsorship assets for teams. Extend Sponsorships by offering a piece of your social media world. Teams can increase their digital inventory by offering sponsored tweets/Facebook updates or by selling the title sponsor for a Twitter Page, like the Detroit Pistons have done. The Pistons’ Official Twitter Page is presented by National City, one of their largest sponsors.

7. Extension of Team’s Website
Teams should push their content across the web through a variety of mediums. Social Media is one of the best and quickest ways to disseminate information. The Jacksonville Jaguars are a good example of a professional team publishing their website content and articles across their Social Media platforms.

8. Events
Promote Team Sponsored Events via Facebook’s Events Function. This function, which is included on every Facebook Fan Page, allows teams to mass-invite their entire fan base via Facebook. The event will then be featured on each fan’s individual event calendar on Facebook. Combine this with #6 for Sponsored Events!

9. Contests
A list about Social Media wouldn’t be complete without mentioning contests. The Jacksonville Jaguars make the list again as they do a great job in live, real-time Jags Trivia Contests that often generate hundreds of responses in minutes. The questions are tough enough to ensure a true fan will win the prize.

How the MLB Division Winners Reacted on Social Media

As I write this post, there is still one division winner to be decided, but here is a look at how the other MLB Divisional Winners reacted to clinching via social media. With all of the buzz about social media in sports, the sport-specific rules set out by the NFL and NBA, and the strong push by the NHL to be active socially, what I’ve found inside the MLB’s Social Media realm is a bit surprising.

New York Yankees, http://www.facebook.com/Yankees
The Yankees announced they won the AL East Championship on their official Facebook Page. They accompanied that message with a picture of and a link to the official AL East Champs Locker Room Hat. The link led to the Yankees store on MLB.com.

Two minutes later, they posted a picture and link for the Division Champs Hat.

Combined, both updates had over 15,500 likes and 1600 comments. More importantly for the Yankees Team Store, we can assume they generated a high amount of clickthroughs and a nice conversion rate for the Division Championship merchandise

As I went on, I quickly realized that each of these pages had the exact same look, exact same updating style, exact same update sources, and the exact same response to the division championship. The Dodgers, the Cardinals, the Angels…all the same.

All of the pages announced the team won their division’s championship and followed with a call to action to purchase the official Divison Championship gear from the team’s store on MLB.com. It seems that one entity, problem controlled by the MLB, is managing some teams Facebook Pages. It seems odd that they wouldn’t allow for some creativity and individuality between teams.

In terms of fan count, no surprises – the Yankees are the overwhelming leader with over 930,000 fans.

Study Shows 99% of Online Retailers Will Be on Facebook – Then What?

eMarketer just released a study that found 99% of online retailers plan to have a Facebook Fan Page within the next year. 99%! Out of every 100 online stores, only one of them will not be on Facebook. Pretty amazing stuff. The study goes on to report that 91% of e-stores will be sending out status updates on Twitter by 2011.

Mashable first covered the study and added that many online retailers are hoping to utilize social media as a way to control branding. Clearly one of the biggest advantages for online retailers, social media offers the unique opportunity to proactively support customers and craft an overall brand environment. Proactive Customer Service, further building a positive sentiment about a brand, can also be accomplished on Facebook.

Some online retailers fear that their social media presences, instead of their websites, will become the more popular home of the brand. Why would an online retailer want people to visit their Facebook Fan Page instead of their online store where money can be made? From my post yesterday (8 Ways a Professional Athlete Can Utilize Social Media), I noted that pushing your fans to your website (or in this case, e-commerse store) is a great way of generating new traffic.

For example, an online retailer selling t-shirts just launched a brand new t-shirt design. They feature it on the homepage of their website and also make a new update on Facebook showing off the latest design. With the Facebook Update, the t-shirt retailer adds a link to the product page for the new t-shirt. That link is now hitting the mini-feeds of the store’s entire Facebook Fan Base. While a store’s Facebook Fans may not visit the store each day, they are sure to visit Facebook at least once a day – ensuring that they’ll see the store’s new product and have the option of clicking the link back to the store.

Moreover, online retailers can just as easily push products via Facebook by offering exclusive “Facebook-Only” deals. This technique, often implemented with an exclusive coupon code, is fully trackable and can measure specific ROI.

I fully expect eMarketer’s poll to come true within the next year. I can’t imagine a brand that wouldn’t benefit from this type of social media implementation. Whether you’re selling t-shirts, computer products, or energy drinks, a Facebook Fan Page is a great marketing tool to have at your disposal.

8 Ways a Professional Athlete Can Successfully Utilize Social Media

Professional Athletes use of Social Media, most notably Facebook and Twitter, has legitimized social media, social networking, and social marketing in the sports industry. Here are 8 great ways a professional athlete can successfully utilize social media:

1. Become Active
Go out to where your fans already are (300+ Million on Facebook, 100+ Million on Twitter) and become active. Create a Facebook Fan Page and a Twitter Account. Start posting and don’t stop – any content is good content.

2. Share Non-Sports Related Info

Fans love to get close to their favorite athletes. Whether its wearing their jersey, decorating their house with memorabilia, or tattooing their favorite player’s face on their arm, fans love feeling like they are connected to the athlete. Tweet about family, hobbies, favorite foods, etc – all of this “off the field stuff” will generate as much interest with your fans as sport related updates. This goes a long way in creating a loyal fan base.

3. Interact with fans one-on-one
Did I mention that fans love getting close to their favorite athletes? Fans rarely get the chance to interact with their favorite athletes one-on-one. Social Media presents the unique opportunity to interact with fans in their environment. A simple response to a fan question or comment can go a long way in building an athlete’s reputation as a fan favorite.

4. Monetize
With a large community of highly interested and loyal fans, athletes can effectively monetize their social media efforts. Mark Sanchez did a great job of this when he extended his Toyota endorsement deal onto his Twitter Page. With over 57,000 followers, a call to action to click over to the Toyota microsite is a great way to add value to a sponsorship deal. Generate revenue by sponsoring events, selling ad space, giving sponsored endorsed updates or tweets, or selling a title sponsorship of the entire social network page (think Mark Sanchez on Twitter presented by Toyota).

5. Run A Contest
The always popular Twitter Contest. Contests are a great way to generate fan interest and create a viral buzz about an athlete’s social media efforts. Some athletes have done some extremely creative contests, like Lamar Odom’s Photo Scavenger Hunt for 20 tickets to his Lakers Suite.

6. Voice Message
Social Media provides athletes a platform to voice their message. NFL stars Terrell Owens, Chad Ochocino, and Chris Johnson have done a great job in utilizing Social Media to deliver their own messages directly to their fan bases. For athletes that love to platform their thoughts and views, social media is the perfect arena.

7. Push Fans to Personal Website
If you want increase visitors and views to your website, social media is a must. Links spread at light speed on Facebook and Twitter. By getting in the habit of including a link back to their official website, athletes can increase traffic to their official site which brings us to #8…

8. Promote Items to Sell or Other Revenue Streams
With the increase in traffic and ability to directly promote the personal website, Social Media provides a great opportunity to promote items in an athlete’s personal store or other revenue generating items. Chad Ochocino makes the list again for using Twitter to promote his custom OchoCinco T-Shirts. Cener Social Media did something similar for Aaron Peirsol’s Race For The Oceans. The official website, AaronPeirsol.com featured information on booking Aaron for promotional appearances like clinics, autograph sessions, and speaking engagements. A link to his site accompanied updated and was pushed to fans to increase traffic and spread the word of Aaron’s availability.

“8 Ways…” brought to you by my favorite #8 of all time – Mark Brunell.