
In a 48-hour period, I received a series of Friend requests on Facebook, all from people I didn't know or with whom I hadn't done business. The requests were out of sync with my marketing, and statistically were unlikely. This blog looks at ways to protect yourself from requests to connect from fake accounts.
My first thought was that in the run-up to the U.S. elections, this was probably part of parties and candidates building up fake account portfolios to be able to bolster support for positions by using these bots as a kind of greek chorus. These are the accounts that shout the talking points and jump on naysayers. If you have enough of them, their point of view becomes overwhelming.
But these are not the only source of fake accounts. Fake and malicious connections on social media are used to put together pieces of data needed for ID theft and other scams.

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- Written by: Norman Smit
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I live and work in the state of North Carolina, which this year saw it's Republican-dominated legislature call a special session and enact what has become known as the Bathroom Bill. It was initiated and signed into law in a single day. It is a misguided piece of legislation that strips a number of well-established workplace rights from citizens, along with the clauses pertaining to transgender people and bathrooms. From a marketing communications and positioning perspective, it has been an unmitigated disaster for the state, and it has garnered a lot of ironic humor skewering the people and issues the bill supposedly addresses in the form of memes.
Despite the protestations of Governor McCrory to the contrary, the negative fallout was quick and brutal, and the ongoing impact is continuing. Estimates have put the loss of revenue at $5 billion annually from industry and business pullouts, boycotts, and withdrawal of Title IX federal dollars. Other estimates put the cost to the state at 20% of its annual budget. This goes hand in hand with changing the perceptions of the state from moderate to a conservative backwater. This directly negatively impacts its ability to tap into the progressive, forward-looking and innovative thinking required by entrepreneurs and and modern companies seeking employees with competitive skills-sets in a disruptive, 21st Century economy.
While comments sections generate more heat than light, especially in a year in which Donald Trump has made racism and intolerance mainstream again, the growth of a plethora of memes ridiculing the legislation and regressive policies deserves some consideration from a marketing communications and positioning perspective.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
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Two-factor authentication is a method of enhancing the security of web logins to your site. It separates a website login with another form of identification that a user has such as an email address or better, a mobile phone, which will presumably be in the user's possession. If you have a website that uses it for customer-facing applications, make sure that your process is capable of managing authentication at peak times.
An example of poor management of this process is Nationwide Insurance, with whom I have personal experience. In the course of the past few months, Nationwide Insurance has twice had failures with its authentication. This type of failure drives frustration levels up among customers because it is time wasting and that is unnecessary. Moreover, it occurs at a time when people are parting with cash. While they are waiting - in my instance more than half an hour for two failed login attempts plus a phone call - customers are tempted to search for a competitor who wants their business. Requiring a phone call is standard, because it enables the provider to validate the account.
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I discovered on Twitter today that Integrated Media Strategies' account has been impersonated. Our account name is @coherentmedia. The impersonator is @zobugelexuci. I have reported the fake account to Twitter both in my personal capacity - because the tweets on that account are mine - and in a professional capacity, because that account is contravening my copyright through the use of my logo and tagline.
It brings up a few points - the first is to do a regular review of your accounts. At least annually is a good idea. We do so more regularly, but many small businesses don't build the time in, period. The second is to check if you are receiving unusual email. The internet can turn up strange activity, but by this I mean if you are getting out of the ordinary requests to connect on social media, follow up and check to see the source, or why. Often it will be innocent, but if not, it's worth catching it before it can do real damage.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
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Abbreviations and acronyms make our lives easier by packing a series of concepts or processes into a suitcase that is then easier to manage - but only if you know the term. If you don't, you're being handed the equivalent of a communications dead weight. Since much of the work we do is helping organizations and small businesses with communications change management and implementing communications programs internally, we watch our language. Usually the concepts are easy to grasp once you understand the terminology, and at that point the abbreviations or acronym become a useful shortcut. Included in the table below are also some social media acronyms suggested by readers of this blog that have been prompted by Twitter's 140-character limit to pack more into that compressed method of messaging. Click on the Read More for a table of acronyms and abbreviations and their explanation.
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Many organizations which Coherent Marketing has helped know they need a plan to get set up their social media, but aren't sure where to start, or even why, other than everybody else seems to be doing it. Social media for B2B makes good business sense, particularly when allied with content marketing. Content marketing is a marketing approach that uses the online content for marketing and social media provides a powerful mechanism for distribution and discovery that extends the visibility of your website. It can also be highly cost-effective.
But many companies and organizations, both large and small, don’t know where to start when trying to build a social media presence. Assisting organizations set up and successfully manage the content workflows for effective social media use is something Coherent Marketing does. Here are some pointers.
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