Golden Practices Blog

Will Phishing Repel Brands From Twitter?

Will business use of Twitter perish? 

Various rounds of phishing schemes have pelted Twitter users over the last couple years. 

Usually this means someone you know had their account hacked and you receive a DM (Direct Message) that attempts to compel you to click on a link in the DM. Individual users find this an annoyance, to be sure. 

But corporate brands whose branded accounts are hacked to send out phishing messages are more than annoyed, they are horrified. This week, several CPA and law firms unintentionally DM'd their followers with with these messages.

This week has seen some ususually heavy activity with two schemes running rampant: "This you?????" messages and a more sexually explicit message (both are links to Mashable explaining the hacks). New hacks occur every week.

Unlike blogs where authors can manage comment spam, these Twitter invaders send out literally ANYthing under YOUR name. It's unnerving. And it can happen to anyone at anytime. Be a savvy Twitter user!

Prevention

• Savvy Twitters users don't click on links in DMs (unless it is EXTREMELY obvious it is a personal and legit message from someone they know - personal context of the message is the clue)
• Savvy Twitter users don't SEND links in DMs - not even auto-replies to new followers because savvy users know that people shouldn't click on links from ANY automated messages
• Savvy Twitter users will never enter their Twitter login credentials when asked for them through a cheesy DM

Here's a nice, short blog post corrected link on How to Prevent Your Twitter Account From Being Hacked

Will Firms Continue to Use Twitter?

This week, one or two firms quickly sent out apology messages. 

Makes me wonder if firms—who, up to this point, are mostly just playing around with Twitter to see how it might be useful to them—will elect to pass on the forum in such a Wild West environment. 

Are attacks like this concerning your firm and limiting your interest in Twitter?

A Little Valentine's Day Accounting Humor & Playing on Second Life

My first foray into Second Life was to collaborate on the first ever accounting video filmed entirely in SL. 

It was a blast visiting CPA Island to work with the fun and talented blogging and virtual training folks from Maryland Society of CPAs (producers and hosts), Steven Zelin and Edith Orenstein (singers/musicians) and a handful of top accounting industry bloggers (cast and crew). The full list, in no particular order, includes:

• Dee Day, MACPA conference manager
• Mike Tobias, MACPA network administrator
• Bill Sheridan & Tom Hood, CPA Success (MACPA) 
• Dave Albrecht, Concordia College, The Summa 
• Colleen Cunningham, Resources Global Finance and Accounting Blog 
• Edith Orenstein, FEI Financial Reporting Blog 
• Gail Perry, managing editor, AccountingWEB 
• Tom Selling, The Accounting Onion 
• Darla Sycamore, IFRS News and Views 
• Mark Jankowski, Shapiro Negotiations Institute
• Steven Zelin, "The Singing CPA"

Mine was a bit part (I'm kinda shy, actually--I'm the blond on the right) but it was very cool being a part of this production, and learning how to get around SL. 

I am an absolute convert appreciating the platform's ability to effectively engage a virtual audience in meetings and webinars! Kudos to Maryland Society for building what they've built!

This accounting-related song parody "If I Were An Auditor" was written by Edith Orenstein to the tune of Bobby Darin's romantic 1966 hit "If I Were a Carpenter." She and Steven Zelin, better known as The Singing CPA, did the vocals for the video. Steven, whom I've featured on this blog before, has recorded four CDs of accounting parodies and children's music.

The result is a four-minute video that debuted today on the Financial Executives International Blog. Read Edith's comprehensive post for more info...

Why the silliness? 

Edith enjoyed the opportunity to pursue her passion for music, collaborate with other accounting bloggers, and promote FEI's blog at the same time, "...to perhaps cross-expose our [blog] audiences to each other and bring in some new viewers to learn about what our blogs and organizations have to offer." 

Per AccountingWEB:

The video was produced by the MACPA's Second Life team, chief among them network administrator Mike Tobias, conference manager Dee Day (who portrayed the bride in the video, opposite Shapiro Negotiations Institute's Mark Jankowski in the role of the groom) and CEO Tom Hood. 

"It was just another example of the power of social media and virtual worlds to build and strengthen real relationships," Hood told AccountingWeb. "... It was chance to do something really fun amid all of the angst over the economy -- a bright spot, if you will." 

Watch the video here. 

Read the lyrics. 

View photos from the virtual recording session.

"What's the ROI of Social Media?" Is the Wrong Question

MODIFIED 4pm:

Asking "What's the ROI of social media?" is akin to asking "What's the ROI of a telephone?" or "What's the ROI of a computer?" or "What's the ROI of e-mail?"

First, these are all tools. They all have the potential to be significant time-suckers. And they each can make us enormously effective. Depending on our purpose and actions with the tools.

Second, to truly gauge ROI--on a broad basis--you would have to consider ALL the cost to acquire, set up and maintain each of these over time. You would also have to consider ALL the value attained through the use of the tool over time. 

To do this properly and completely would be an enormous job, would require some use of metrics, and some use of judgment or anecdotal evidence. 

Most importantly, this exercise probably isn't necessary or worthwhile in order to determine whether the tool adds more benefit than resources it consumes. At least it hasn't been deemed worthwhile for us to undertake such a task to decide phones, computers, and email are worthwhile, right? Why would social media merit any different treatment?

A more realistic and useful approach is to project desired ROI use-by-use or, in marketing terms, initiative-by-initiative.

When marketing with the telephone, you can measure the "ROI" (return on investment) of a smile and dial campaign, or you can measure the number of times your phone rings in response to a particular ad campaign. And you usually aspire to tie dollars to either.

These are INITIATIVE SPECIFIC examples. An initiative will always have a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

The ROI question should be tied to an initiative, not a tool. Tie it to how you are using the tool.

Purpose

Social media are a (fluid) set of tools—applications—that facilitate Internet-based relationship development (the “social” part of social media). Social media applications can be extremely effective tools--but having the tool is not enough, it's what you intend to do with the tool that matters. 

Just "being out there" in social media (without specific objectives) is not actually an initiative--it's an experiment. As such, it cannot be measured or quantified meaningfully. 

In general, simple metrics like number of followers, fans, or friends, are mostly irrelevant without defined purpose and specific goals.

Strategy

To determine any sort of meaningful "ROI," strategy must exist behind what you do and why. Your desired ROI is then based on each aspect of the strategy, or on a combination of aspects. Again, never on just the tool.

Social media is most effective when its use is merely a component of strategies that include some online relationship development. With an Internet-initiated or -enhanced relationship, what you seek to accomplish can range from recruiting to prospect conversion to brand awareness to customer service.

Which initiatives you undertake should depend entirely on what (or whom) you're marketing and, much more importantly, who the buyers are. Where are they? And what do those buyers want or need to know in order to decide to buy from you. 

Measures might be interactions, conversions, salvaged relationships, or sales. Or many other such goals.

To determine your ROI, decide whether any particular social media tool coincides with your other marketing, recruiting, and client service initiatives. Then decide if the investments necessary to set-up and maintain your social media presence, as necessary to achieve success with the tools(s) for THAT initiative, is worthwhile relative to the potential (projected) results. Measure against your projection.

Bottom Line

When people ask, "What's the ROI of social media?" educate them to understand that ROI is more appropriately and meaningfully measured on an initiative-by-initiative basis. If they are already using social media but there are no "initiatives" identified to measure, that's an issue all its own. 

My purpose in writing this is to shatter the notion that ROI can fairly or reasonably be assessed on a tool without a clear plan for its use.