How to Use Twitter for Marketing

By: Darren Olander

Twitter is a relatively new web 2.0 site that is starting to gain a lot of popularity. That means that a lot of people have heard of it but it is also quite common to run into people who haven’t heard of it.. yet. Twitter.com is this social site that encourages users to post often about what they are currently doing.

A lot of people are using it to improve their marketing reach, by being an active twitterer they gain followers who are interested in what they got going on. This means people being exposed to their updates on a regular basis. For example, if you have hundreds of followers in Twitter and you decide to post an affiliate link, that means that hundreds of people have instantly been exposed to your offer. In this article I will discuss ways to maximize Twitter for your marketing, and also a big mistake to be aware of.

In order to have a fan base per say of followers in Twitter you must be able to keep their interest in you and what you are doing now. “What are you doing?” is the whole foundation of what Twitter is about in the first place. Make sure to post daily if not several times throughout the day updates about what you are doing. The magical thing behind this is that many of your contacts will be able to feel like they know you so much better, will trust you more, and feel much more comfortable about working with you. On the other hand, when you follow others you can learn about them and their possible needs.

The big mistake to watch out for is only posting affiliate links or offers on your Twitter page. This looks like Spam and many people will see you as just abusing Twitter for your own personal gain. Think of it this way, if you would not want to invite your friends or family to keep up with you via Twitter then you are going about it all wrong. As with anything you send out or provide, ninety percent should be content and ten percent (at most) advertising. So this concept is quite simple… constantly post throughout the day what you are doing.. it is usually very simple and only takes a few seconds to post! Secondly, if you write articles or provide content online, provide a link for those in your Twitter posts. You may post many things within one day, but the last thing you post for the day is usually the most important because it will be there the longest. This means that your last post for the day should very well contain a link that you want your followers to see before your start Twittering again the next day!

Another part of Twitter is contributing. As with any social site it should be a give and take relationship. Notice that give comes first… the more you give the more people will want to work with you and the more attention you will receive. Make sure to read and follow other users in Twitter. If you read something interesting or helpful then make sure to reply and say so, or even put a link for it on your Twitter so that you are directing others to more quality content. This can also be as simple as connecting with other users, if they know you are reading their Twitter page they will be much more likely to check out what you have going on too.

To get started in Twitter you should first invite contacts who aren’t using Twitter and also find contacts who are already using Twitter so that you can start following them and also start getting people to follow you. Twitter has a nice invite and find feature that makes this incredibly easy. To grow your reach even more you can start following people who follow or are followed by the people who follow you.. or that you follow. You might need to read that sentence again.. but basically you can find other users to connect with that are already connected to other users.

Now for a big tip. If you really want to maximize the potential with Twitter, you should make sure to take advantage of any plug-ins or sites that support Twitter. Here are three, but I’m sure there will be many more in the future if not already. Squidoo allows you to input your Twitter account info into your Squidoo account and then it can automatically post updates to your Twitter account when you create or update Squidoo lenses. Facebook has an application called Twitter, it automatically updates your Facebook status when you make a Twitter post. The other tool is a free WordPress plug-in called TweetMyBlog that allows you to create a two-way connection from your blogs to Twitter. TweetMyBlog allows you to use a widget on your Wordpress blogs that will display your current Twitter feed.. that way all visitors to your blog can look at the widget and see a running feed of your latest Twitter posts. If they click on that they will be brought to your Twitter page. In addition, when you make a new post to your blog, TweetMyBlog will automatically make a post to your Twitter page with a link to your latest blog post. Imagine the extra exposure you can receive by using these tools that help people see more of what you are doing.

Lastly, have fun! Twitter is a social site… so interact and enjoy!

About the Author

Darren Olander is dedicated to teaching others how to create a success online through internet network marketing strategies. He is a site owner, article writer, coach & marketing consultant enjoying the benefits of working full time from home. Learn more about him at http://www.darrenolander.com

(ArticlesBase SC #491205)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – How to Use Twitter for Marketing

Please help out with the Haitian relief effort by donating today. Here’s what I’ve been able to pull together from all the relief sites:

SMS Donations:

• Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
• Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
• Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
• Text YELE to 501501 to donation $5 to Yele
• Text RELIEF to 30644 to get automatically connected to Catholic Relief Services and donate money with your credit card
• Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way
• Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
• Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International

Phone Call Donations:

• 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-435-7669 – English Speaking)
• 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish Speaking)

Internet Donations:

• American Red Cross (online form direct Haitian Relief Link)

American Red Cross List of Ways to Donate:

• American Red Cross (all methods to donate – including several electronic methods)

Google Analytics Tutorial: Getting The Best Out Of Your Web Site

Author: Katia Lorenzen

Businesses are all about decisions, and informed decisions are the thin line of difference between success and confusion. This concept goes for the Internet and websites too, and any tool that provides you with information about your website is a Godsend. Analytics engine is one such simple to use and free tool that gives you web statistics. Here is a short tutorial that will help you harness the true potential of Google.

Step 1 # 1: Making an Account

Analytics software system is a free tool provided by Google. Making an account is convenient and simple. All you need to make a Analytics engine account is a Gmail e-mail id. Once your Gmail e-mail id is set up, you can go to the Analytics engine website and sign up your website for Google Analytics.

Step # 2: Installing the Tracking Code

Once you have signed into Analytics engine, you will be redirected to a page which has links to the analytics reports of your website. If you have not installed the tracking code on your websites, click on the Add Website Profile link.

If this is your first time on Analytics engine, and you have not installed the tracking code on your website or any of its pages, choose the “Add a profile for a new domain” option. Once that is done, scroll down and type in the URL of the home page that you wish to install the tracker to.

Select the time zone you are in and click Continue. Once this is done, the Analytics engine will automatically detect whether the tracking code has been installed on the website or page that you provided them with. Choose any of the code given below (best way is to press Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C) and paste the copied code into the website and webpage that you would want Analytics engine to analyze.

Make sure that you install the code anywhere before the End Body (/body) tag. Click Continue. The pa

ge will now show the webpage, website or websites that you have installed the tracker code to. Click on the View Reports link to go to the The System Dashboard.

Step 3 # 3: The Dashboard

The Dashboard is your Google homepage. Through this page, you can access almost any information you would require about your website, or even any page within the website. Once you have signed into the The System website, you will be redirected to the list of website profiles, that is, the analytics reports of any and all websites that you have installed the Google Analytics tracker code.

Once you are on the Dashboard, you can view the following analytics about your website:

Site Usage: The site usage column gives you the relevant information about the traffic for your website. The Visits column tells you the number of visits and unique visits in a given time frame. You can also know about the number of page views per visit at the Dashboard.

You can also find out the Bounce rate of your website or webpage. Bounce rate is the number of visitors to your websites who browsed away from your website directly from the landing page or the home page. Analytics engine also tells you the exact amount of time one particular user has spent on your website. It can also calculate the percentage of new and unique visits on your website.

Traffic Sources Section: The Traffic Sources Section tells you more about the traffic of your website, and explains it further. You can get information about all the traffic sources for your website. You can also divide your traffic from direct traffic, Search Engine traffic and Referring sites. Google Analytics can also give you traffic related information regarding your AdSense account if you have one.

About the Author:

Katia Lorenzen discovered Google Analytics while doing research for a new article. More information about this indispensable tool and a Google Analytics tutorial can be found here: http://www.Analytics411.com.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Google Analytics Tutorial: Getting The Best Out Of Your Web Site

Securing your company boundaries: The Changing Nature of Email and Web-based Threats

Author: MFrizzi

Securing your company boundaries: The changing nature of email and web-based threats

Growing pressure on the enterprise gateway means email viruses and worms are giving way to subtler forms of malicious spam, and a rise in web-based malware.

The changing email threat

Malware-infected email has decreased as cybercriminals have found more efficient ways to get the information they want. Instead of sending the malware itself as an attachment which has to be constantly rewritten to avoid detection they spam out emails with links to websites from which viruses and other malware are inadvertently downloaded by unsuspecting visitors. For example, a spammed email in November 2006 offered free explicit images and videos, in an attempt to trick users into downloading a malicious Trojan horse.

“Up to 30 percent of companies with 500 or more staff have been infected as a result of internet surfing, while only 20-25 percent of the same companies experienced viruses and worm from emails.”
IDC.

The growing web threat

There is a low level of threat awareness among surfers, and web security within corporate networks is often overlooked. Users are inadvertently downloading spyware and unwanted applications. At the same time, employees’ uncontrolled browsing is having a significant impact on productivity and network bandwidth, and the security of confidential data.

Our expert solutions

We have a range of solutions to help you meet the challenge of protecting your organization from infection and legal risk, while also meeting end user demands for performance and accessibility. Scanning billions of web pages a day, proactively discovering thousands of new malicious URLs a week, and performing round-the-clock threat analysis, SophosLabs™ delivers focused security and performance, and rapid, proactive protection against known and unknown threats.

This article was provided by Sophos and is published here with their full permission. Sophos provides full data protection services including: security software, encryption software, antivirus, and malware protection.

Keywords: anti-virus, malware, firewall, spam, spyware, internet security, data protection, network access control, virus protection, compliance, encryption, network security, spyware removal, anti-spyware, hippa, aes, nac, computer security, hitech, data loss

About the Author:

This article was provided by Sophos and is reproduced here with their full permission. Sophos provides full data protection services including: security software, encryption software, antivirus, and malware.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Securing your company boundaries: The changing nature of email and web-based threats

Installing and Configuring the Secure Shell Server

Author: Christopher Pace

The Secure Shell (SSH) Server is a secure replacement for telnet and rlogin, etc. SSH uses encryption from the point the client connects to a server, to the time the connection is terminated. SSH uses encryption to hide passwords, usernames, and other sensitive information that is normally sent “in the clear” in servers such as telnet and rlogin. SSH as of this writing supports the following encryption algorithms: 3DES, Twofish, Blowfish, Arcfour, CAST128, AES (Rijndael), and DES. SSH now comes with a variety of distributions, so downloading the server and the client should be a pinch. If, however, your distribution lacks a SSH server package, you may download it from the SSH website. SSH is one of the more easier to install packages, so installation should be a breeze. Install the package from your distribution using the appropriate package manager (for example use rpm -i packagename for Redhat-based systems, and dpkg -i packagename for Debian-based systems).

Once installed, SSH should work properly. To test it, you may login to your server by issuing the following command:

ssh -l username 127.0.0.1

Replace “username” with your desired user name. If all is working correctly, you will be prompted for a password, and then connected. If this does not work, if you installed SSH from source, and don’t have an /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d file for the SSH daemon, you can build one from scratch following the guidelines for Pro-FTPD. The SSH config file (normally located in /etc/ssh or /etc/ssh2) is sshd_config or sshd2_config. An example configuration file looks like the following:

# sshd2_config
# SSH 2.0 Server Configuration File

*:
Port 22
ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
Ciphers AnyStd
# Ciphers AnyCipher
# Ciphers AnyStdCipher
# Ciphers 3des
IdentityFile identification
AuthorizationFile authorization
HostKeyFile hostkey
PublicHostKeyFile hostkey.pub
RandomSeedFile random_seed
ForwardAgent yes
ForwardX11 yes
PasswordGuesses 1
MaxConnections 50
PermitRootLogin no
# AllowedAuthentications publickey,password,hostbased
AllowedAuthentications publickey,password
# RequiredAuthentications publickey,password
ForcePTTYAllocation no
VerboseMode no
PrintMotd yes
CheckMail yes
UserConfigDirectory “%D/.ssh2″
SyslogFacility AUTH
# SyslogFacility LOCAL7
Ssh1Compatibility yes
Sshd1Path /usr/sbin/sshd1
# AllowHosts localhost, foobar.com, friendly.org
# DenyHosts evil.org, aol.com
# AllowSHosts trusted.host.org
# DenySHosts not.quite.trusted.org
# NoDelay yes
KeepAlive yes
RequireReverseMapping yes
/ UserKnownHosts yes
# subsystem definitions
subsystem-sftp sftp-server

Most of these settings you shouldn’t have to change from the default. One notable exception is the port that SSH will use. You can change this to any port within the 65535 limit. Also, you might want to change PasswordGuesses from its default (3) to 1. The reason for this is that it deters cracking attempts (the cracker has to make a new connection for each failed password). MaxConnections is a very important setting if this server is going to have any other services on it. MaxConnections helps keep your connections down, so that SSH requests and processes don’t take up 90% of the server’s resources. However, there is a downside to it- someone can login to your server the amount of times allowed in MaxConnections, then just leave the sessions logged in, which will prevent other users from logging in. PermitRootLogin is also an important setting, *ALWAYS* set this to no (the default is yes). If you need to login as root, simply create a user with a GID of 0 and UID of 0. This is known as a suid root account. Leaving root with the ability to login leaves a small chance that someone may crack root. SSH1 compatibility is crucial, many people have not yet upgraded (or are aware of the upgrade) to SSH2. AllowHosts and DenyHosts really shouldn’t be used as a security measure in my opinion. Instead, ipchains or a similar kernel-level firewall should be used instead. However, you may elect to use them, but be warned that when using a application level security measure, exploits in the application can allow denied (or blocked) hosts from connecting anyways. One great thing about SSH is that it comes with the sftp server, which allows encrypting of FTP sessions. Also, no FTP daemons are needed on the server, just the SSH daemon. However, the client must have a SSH package, in order to take advantage of the sftp server.

SSH is an extremely valuable service. It allows encryption of what were traditionally non-traditional services (such as telnet and FTP). This section has only briefly touched on the subject of the SSH server. For more information, read the FAQs and HOW-TOs available at ssh.org, or feel free to visit my website below.

About the Author:

Christopher J. Pace is a freelance Linux consultant who has worked with Linux since 2001. He provides remote Linux consulting services for Linux servers.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Installing and Configuring the Secure Shell Server

Thanksgiving – Its History and Celebrations

Author: Arindam Bose

Introduction to Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day is a day set aside to give thanks, traditionally to God, when the harvest season comes to an end. It is celebrated in different ways and at different times in different parts of the world. While Thanksgiving is a holiday in the United States and celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, it is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada. . It is, however, not a major event in the United Kingdom where it is also known as the Harvest festival. On this day, family and friends assemble for a feast to celebrate their good fortune, relax and relish each other’s company. Turkey is the main item in the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. The day also marks the unofficial beginning of the winter holiday season.

History

Thanksgiving is one of the oldest festivals celebrated throughout history. We have learnt of ancient tribes making offerings and preparing feasts to thank their gods and seek their favor. In ancient times, the Greeks, the Romans and the Jews too had similar festivals to appease their gods and goddesses of harvest. It is believed that in the United States, Thanksgiving was originally a harvest festival held by the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in 1621. During the first Thanksgiving, the pilgrims held a three-day feast in celebration of their bountiful harvest following their arrival in North America.

Although George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, president Thomas Jefferson later dismissed the idea of having a national holiday of Thanksgiving. However, in 1863, president Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. Finally, in November 1941, Thanksgiving was specifically sanctioned by a joint resolution of Congress as the fourth Thursday of November.

Thanksgiving meal

Things have changed a lot since the first Pilgrim harvest feast of 1621. Items in the first Thanksgiving meal were believed to be wheat, corn, barley, peas, wild fowl (ducks, geese, swans or wild turkey), fish (bass and cod) and five deer brought by the Native Americans. This tradition continues even today in the form of the Thanksgiving dinner, in which people eat turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn in some form or other and different vegetables and side dishes. The dessert is usually pumpkin pie or pecan pie.

Thanksgiving in different parts of the world

Although the dates of celebration are different, Thanksgiving in Canada is much the same as it is in the United States. In the United Kingdom, Harvest festival is celebrated in late September or October and special services of Thanksgiving are organized at local churches to honor the day. Jewish people throughout the world celebrate Sukkot, a festival of thanksgiving that lasts nine days. The Chinese observe thanksgiving as The Festival of the Autumn Moon, or Zhong Qui held on the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. In the state of Kerala in India, the harvest festival is called the Onam. In Lithuania, the thanksgiving tradition involves the creation of a boba (meaning old woman) from the last sheaf of grain at harvest time. It is believed that keeping the boba until spring keeps the spirit of the crop alive until replanting begins the next year.

About the Author:

This article is written by Arindam Bose for www.ecard4all.com. Webmasters are free to include this article on their site provided they keep the content and the resource box intact.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Thanksgiving – Its History and Celebrations

Free way to store data online

Author: WhiteGoodCat

You need to store video, photo collections online ?

You have not money for paid services?

You want to upload/download files with ease and with a high speed?

To store and share data online use MyTaskHelper. It is free online service which would help you to create a database for website or blog. To build a database in a web page in few ease steps use this free web application. With My Task Helper web users can make a web form and embed it into own website. All added records you can also view in a record form (this form can be integrated to personal web page too).

For online storage create the simple online database. It is ease and absolutely free. See steps below:

1. register (it’s ease and free);
2. start new project;
3. create new form;
4. add fields into the form;
5. start data uploading;

Depending on the type of data will be entered you can select such filed type: text (single line, multiple lines), file (to upload files of any type and any size), image (photos collection), video (movies collection).

Registered users have such features:

• Unlimited uploads;
• Unlimited downloads;
• Unlimited storage;
• No speed limits;

MyTaskHelper is ease and free way to store data online. Collect you media files (movies, photos etc). You can create your media files database and open access to other people you need. Work with database together using team feature. More about it you can read in MyTaskHelper blog posts.

My Task Helper system is very useful for online business. Having created the online form, integrate it into your web page and store entered data online. It may be information about subjects of sale or customers data. Using MyTaskHelper online forms it is very ease to make online order.

If you decided to integrate the form use Widget Builder. This service would help you to customize online form. Change form size, background color, font size, text color etc. Add logo into a form (you can also change logo size). For entered data checking Validation functionality is available.

Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

About the Author:

IT Manager

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Free way to store data online

Viral Marketing – Generating Online Revenue

Author: Larry Mccullough

The growing importance of the internet as a channel of distribution as well as an inherent part of the brand equity of a commercial enterprise has led to some new factors of importance. One such is Viral Marketing.

What is viral marketing?

Viral marketing essentially uses the mechanism of ‘word of mouth’. Here the marketing message is passed along by people. The message self propagates as people send emails to others. It replicates and spreads easily.

Today individuals as well as companies specialize in the field of generating online revenue by employing viral marketing, much in the same manner as any other commodity. The forces driving the plan for launching a viral marketing campaign and the strategies adopted by individuals and companies in this market are similar to those of traditional markets.

The trendsetter in viral marketing was the classic case of Hotmail.com. They offered people free email addresses and services and simply added a text at the bottom of every email message: “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com”. So as each member sends a message to another non-member the message to subscribe to Hotmail gets propagated instantaneously without any effort from Hotmail. Hotmail got millions of subscribers within months of launching it using viral marketing effectively.

What makes viral marketing work?

The keyword is ‘free’. Free email, free products to test, free services, free uploading of photographs, free buttons, free smileys – we see that in our mail and we tend to try it out. So keep it free and keep it spreading – the mantra for viral marketing.

Keep your viral marketing message short and succinct. Use the internet platform to your best use to propagate the message.

Use common motivations to influence people. What would people like? Free image uploading or free daily updates on their desktops? Imagine that you have a blog and you want to put a hit counter on the webpage. You pick up the HTML code for the counter from a website and put in on your blog. Now incidentally you will also propagate the website for the counter by having an instruction as ‘Click here to get XYZ counter.’

You can use affiliate programs and advertise your product or website in other forums and blogs and websites.

Here’s a simple example how you can apply all the above four points in order to make viral marketing of your product generate traffic and eventually revenue from your website. For example, you write an article on a topic that people wants to know more about. Then grant the readers the permission to replicate the article in their blogs or websites as it is and give you the copyright to it. Make sure that you insist your copyright statement is published along with the article. Within a short period of time, your name and article will be appearing in so many websites that you will soon start the benefit reaping the benefit of viral marketing. No extra effort, no financial investment, no lobbying – your name spread through simple ‘word of mouth’.

About the Author:
Larry McCullough has been marketing and writing on the internet for over 10 years. Owner of various websites. Main site Blog

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Viral Marketing – Generating Online Revenue

10 High-Impact Viral Marketing Strategies

Author: Tonny Tjiong

Viral Marketing is allowing people to giveaway and use your free product or service in order to multiply your marketing quickly over the internet. The idea behind viral marketing is that you include your ad with the freebie people giveaway or use.

Below are ten high impact viral marketing strategies:

1. Allow people to reprint your articles on their web site, in their e-zine, newsletter, magazine or ebooks. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article.
2. Allow people to use any of your freebies as free bonuses for products or services they sell. Include your ad on all your freebies.
3. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own web site. Some people don’t have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board.
4. Allow people to sign up for a free web site on your server. Since you are giving away the space, require them to include your banner ad at the top of the site.
5. Allow people to add their link to your free web site directory. Just require that they return a link back to your web site, advertising your directory.
6. Allow people to provide your free online service to their web site, visitors, or e-zine subscribers. They could be free e-mail, e-mail consulting, search engine submissions, etc.
7. Allow people to give away your free software. Just include your business advertisement inside the software program.
8. Allow people to give away your free web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site.
9. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free ebook if, in exchange, they give away the ebook to their web visitors or e-zine subscribers.
10. Allow people to give away your free ebook to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the internet.

About the Author:

Need more ideas to seek profit online and make money on the internet?

Visit ===> http://www.seekprofitonline.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – 10 High-Impact Viral Marketing Strategies

As a Debian Linux user, administrator, and integrator, I found it absolutely necessary to research, try, and implement the best solution necessary to harden or secure my Linux server. Although I have often used multiple web sites in the past, I have found the following writeup to be one of the best single compilations of how to harden a Debian system in my internet travels. If you need to install a secure version of Linux you need to do two important things:

1. Install Debian Linux
2. Review the wonderful document below