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Why Hackers Love Viral Social Media Trends

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You’ve seen the social media trends that circulate regularly: Share a picture from your senior year of high school, or a picture of your first car. Answer these ten questions about your childhood. Share a funny pet picture.

These may seem like innocent challenges, but they can actually leave you more vulnerable to cyber attacks such as spear phishing scams and password attacks. In fact, the FBI has even cautioned against participating in online challenges that share personal information.

Whether you realize it or not, some viral social media challenges can disclose some personal information that hackers can use against you. You’re making cyber criminals happier and their lives easier when you hand them information they can exploit you with.

Take any pet-related challenge, for example. Your first, current, or favorite pet is a security question often used by banks, and those who participate in the challenge may be revealing the answer to those questions in either a picture or a caption.

Types of Personal Information That Can Be Vulnerable

There are a number of types of personal information that can leave you vulnerable to attacks. Anything that gives away answers to common security questions is dangerous. Security questions commonly used by banks and other institutions include the following:

• What is your mother’s (or grandmother’s) maiden name?
• What is the name of your first pet?
• What high school (or college) did you attend?
• What is the name of the town you grew up in? (variations include the street you grew up on or the town where you were born)
• What was the first company you worked for?

This kind of information can be used to break into bank accounts or other accounts by getting hackers past security questions. From there, they can access your account and even reset your passwords.

In addition to directly accessing your accounts, hackers could use the specific information from your social media accounts to phish you by including personalized information in emails that makes them more believable, leading you to trust malicious emails and fall prey to spear phishing attacks, as one IT company in Tyler explains.

Some of the social media challenges that have been trending recently, that will give away some personal information, include the following:

• Sharing who your current best friend is or a childhood best friend
• Pictures of your first pet (many people also include the pet’s name in a caption)
• Images of your favorite concert or your first concert
• Favorite restaurants
• First school photographs or senior year photographs (even if you don’t mention the name of your school, memorabilia in senior photos can give it away)
• Sharing memories of your favorite teacher 
• Images of your first car

Keeping Your Information Safe

This information doesn’t mean you have to stop connecting with people through sharing on social media. But it does mean you should be cautious about what information you share publicly.

The easiest way to protect your personal information is to keep your settings private so that only your friends can view your posts. However, with the many business and publicity uses for social media, many prefer to keep their settings open to gain followers.

If you use a public social media page, it is recommended that you still keep personal information, including the kind that can be disclosed in these challenges, limited to a private personal page.

Another important step toward enhancing your online security is to use multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA requires multiple authenticators before logging you in to an account. That’s the essence of what security challenge questions are trying to do in the first place, but MFA should consist of factors different from information that you can know and answer.

Secure MFA should require you to identify yourself through something you have (like your phone, by sending a PIN to you through a text message) or something you are (verifying your identity through a fingerprint or face scan) in addition to something you know (like the typical password or security questions). This will thwart hackers from accessing your accounts even if they discover your password and other login information.

The post Why Hackers Love Viral Social Media Trends appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

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August 31, 2020 at 11:06AM

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Best Purchase Order Software

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A good purchase order software makes sure your business gets the inventory it needs from suppliers easily and quickly.

It streamlines the procurement process, allowing you to rest easy your business will get the products you need at a later date.

There are many different purchase order software out there, though. Which one should your business go with?

Luckily, we’ve taken a look at dozens of purchase order software and reviewed them for quality, efficiency, and reliability. Below are our reviews breaking down the top five purchase order software we looked at.

But before we jump into the list, it’s important to understand what exactly a purchase order software is.

What is Purchase Order Software?

To understand the software, we must first understand what purchase orders are.

A purchase order (PO) is a document that buyers send to suppliers. The document is a request for products and/or services to be delivered and furnished by the supplier.

Here’s a good example of one below:

There are a few good reasons why businesses issue purchase orders.

For one, they’re legally binding. That means that once a buyer issues a PO to the supplier, and they receive their products and/or services, they must pay the supplier.

This allows the buyer to purchase items on credit then, which is very helpful for them.

They also help provide a record for exchanges between buyers and suppliers. These can be referred back to in case of any disputes—legal or otherwise.

Purchase orders can also be used by lenders and other financial institutions to provide loans and other types of financial assistance to the buyers.

A purchase order software is merely software that furnishes and sends purchase orders digitally as well as physically. This gives your business the opportunity to send POs over the Internet or, if you want, to print out the PO and send it via mail.

The 5 Best Purchase Order Software

• Coupa Procurement – Most flexible purchase order software
• Quickbooks – Best purchase order software for Quickbooks users
• Procurify – Best purchase order software for customization
• Xero – Best price for purchase order software
• ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus – Best purchase order software for IT teams

Below are our reviews and recommendations for the five best purchase order software out there. Each one has its own unique benefits and drawbacks.

The one you ultimately choose might differ from another company. That’s okay. The important thing is you choose one that’s good for your process and needs.

#1. Coupa Procurement – Most flexible purchase order software

Coupa Procurement is one of the most popular purchase order softwares on the market.

They offer a flexible, easy-to-use purchasing system that doesn’t sacrifice quality for affordability.

It’s simple: The interface walks you through the procurement process with its dead simple search bar. They even alert you to products being sold at discounted prices. This allows you to save even more money and stretch the value of your dollar.

It brings the simplicity of an ecommerce store you use daily like Amazon and brings it to the world of procurement.

For services, their statement of work forms are incredibly straightforward. Even your greenest employee can fill them out with ease.

Couple that with their email and mobile approvals process, and you can bet your workflow will be more streamlined when it comes to procurement.

Pricing is obscured on their website. However, Coupa offers a free live demo of their product including a live Q&A so you can have direct access to a representative. They’ll be able to provide you with more information regarding pricing. You could also contact their sales team through a form on their website.

#2. Quickbooks – Best for purchase order software for Quickbook invoice users

Quickbooks offers invoicing and payment solutions. However, they also have a great purchase order software as well.

As such, it’s a solid choice for any current Quickbook users.

Using their intuitive, user-friendly interface, Quickbooks allows you to easily create high-quality purchase orders. They even furnish unique purchase order numbers.

Each form can be customized to your business’s brand including logo, colors, and information.

Once the order is complete, Quickbook automates the process for you. They’ll turn your purchase order into a bill you can then send to customers complete with items, prices, and quantity of the orders.

And since it’s already integrated with their invoicing solutions, you’ll be able to receive payment from customers as soon as they receive the bill and make a payment.

It’s the automation that really makes Quickbooks shine, and why I recommend it so highly. Nothing beats being able to set it and forget it.

Pricing and plans start at $12.50 / month for the Essentials plan. The features included with each are as follows:

While the Essentials plan should be more than enough for smaller businesses, I highly recommend going with the Plus plan. That comes with more users and permissions, as well as inventory management and a very handy tool to help you handle 1099 contractors. Great for growing businesses.

#3. Procurify – Best purchase order software for customization

Procurify offers a great procurement solution.

Their focus is primarily on tracking and managing your team’s spending. They do so through a very user-friendly dashboard and mobile interface.

Speaking of which, they easily have the most pleasant user experience of any purchase order software on this list. Billed as the “purchasing software your team actually wants to use,” their dashboards are simple, straightforward, while still offering all the features you’d want to see in a good purchase order software such as budget tracking, customized approvals, and metrics reporting.

Their approval flows are highly customizable. You and your team will be able to design an approval process that’s perfect for your business. You can also set customized notifications on desktop and mobile for an even more streamlined experience.

Of course, when it comes to purchase orders themselves, they have a great process for that too. Your entire team is able to see the status of each procurement order. This allows for more communication and breaks down potential roadblocks along the way.

And with their mobile app, you’ll be able to make purchase orders no matter where you are. Employees can even receive notifications for any updates or changes in orders. Perfect for remote and distributed teams.

Unfortunately, their prices are obscured on the website. However, your team can request a free demo from Procurify to try it out. A sales team rep will be able to give you a quote based on what your company needs.

#4. Xero – Best price for purchase order software

Xero is an award-winning accounting software. They also offer a great purchase order solution that shouldn’t be slept on.

Using your inventory items, Xero helps you complete purchase orders quickly and efficiently. Like many of the other offerings on this list, they also allow you to customize your purchase order to reflect your company’s brand.

Like Quickbooks, they also help you convert your purchase orders into invoices or bills. The difference, of course, is that they do it through Xero’s accounting software rather than Quickbooks.

As such, Xero is a great choice if you were using Xero already. Plus, the price point at $9.00 / month is very lucrative.

They also offer a free-trial option. This allows you to dip your toes in the water before making the decision to jump in. The free trial lasts 30 days, which should be more than enough time for you and your team to get a sense of whether or not you’d like to go with it.

There are a few downsides though. For one, the learning curve for Xero is a little steeper than the other ones. A few reviews online from customers say that the interface can be difficult to use. Also, they sometimes throw unexpected upcharges on you if you’re not careful.

#5. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus – Best for purchase order software for IT teams

ManageEngine is an IT management solution division of Zoho.

It’s no surprise then that they offer a great purchase order software as well.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus optimizes and automates your IT purchases. In a single dashboard, you’ll be able to utilize their massive product and vendor catalog to make orders and furnish billing for each one.

Of course, making purchase orders isn’t the only thing you can do with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus. It’s also a fully-fleshed out IT help desk software that helps you with things such as:

• Reporting/analytics
• IT app management
• ITSM workflows
• Asset inventory reports
• Help desk reports
• Self-service portals
• Project management
• Service catalogs

…and more.

ManageEngine also offers two different types of solutions too. You can sign up for the service to be provided on the cloud, or you can download it for on-premise.

They do offer a demo for teams to test out and dip their toes in the water before jumping in. And you can also get a quote that’s “tailor fit” to your business’s needs and goals.

Methodology for Choosing Purchase Order Software

When choosing a purchase order software, there are a lot of different criteria you might want to consider.

In our reviews above, we took a look at three different factors we found were most important in a good PO software.

Automation

Automated features such as invoicing and billing, as well as notifications to all relevant stakeholders are crucial to a good purchase order software.

It’s the set-it-and-forget-it method of ordering inventory from vendors. You don’t have to worry about the minutes of the process. You’ll be able to easily facilitate the relationship between vendor and buyer with ease.

You’ll also be able to place a purchase order, and the software will automatically send the purchase requisition to the right stakeholder for approval. When it’s approved, it automatically goes to the vendor.

No more following up with people to see if it was sent. That’s the beauty of automation.

Comprehensive catalogs

To satisfy the needs of your team and employees, you’ll want a purchase order software that gives you access to the products you need.

(Also water is wet)

To that end, you’ll want a PO software with a comprehensive catalog of popular products. It’ll give your team a quick and easy way to get anything from office supplies to tech products. These catalogs can be furnished from suppliers, or they can be managed by a procurement team on-site.

Either way, you want to get access to the items that you need.

Budgeting

A good purchase order software shouldn’t break the bank. Not only does that mean its price point should be right, but the software itself should also help you and your business stay within your budget.

This can be done in a number of ways. The most common way is probably through a budgeting tool that’s customized to your business’s goals and needs.

You should be able to set the dollar amount for your budget, and the tool should be able to work with multiple different budget types as well. After all, your business doesn’t just have one budget for everything. It’s like subdivided by projects, teams, and divisions in your company.

Your purchase order software should facilitate that.

Conclusion

Here’s the list of our recommendations again.

• Coupa Procurement – Most flexible purchase order software
• Quickbooks – Best purchase order software for Quickbooks users
• Procurify – Best purchase order software for customization
• Xero – Best price for purchase order software
• ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus – Best purchase order software for IT teams

If you’re looking for the best one, we highly recommend Coupa Procurement. However, it ultimately depends on the needs of your business.

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August 31, 2020 at 11:04AM

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Is Your Social Media Activity Leaving You Open to Cyber Attacks?

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With the number and reach of social media platforms increasing every day, it has become normal to post and share many aspects of our lives with friends and followers. However, it is no news that social media platforms aren’t exactly the most secure place to share personal information.

Even seemingly harmless trends and challenges that go viral can be exposing personal data that, if found by the wrong people, can be used for spear phishing or password cyber attacks.

And COVID-19 has brought a drastic spike in cyber attacks, proving that now more than ever, it’s important to be cautious. Knowing that so many workers are moving their offices home, “Hackers are building their marketing list of people that they want to attack, and so they’re using these opportunities to gather all your contacts,” said Cory Carson, CEO of one Del City IT Company.

What Are You Really Giving Away on Social Media?

Most social media challenges don’t come right out and ask you for your mother’s maiden name. But hidden in a list of questions about your childhood may be information on which street you grew up on, your first elementary school, and the town where you were born–all common security challenge questions used by banks and other organizations.

Even photo challenges can lead to revealing specific personal information. You may unthinkingly include the name of your first or current pet in the caption of a pet challenge photo, or a pet’s name might be readable from its collar in the image. Challenges that reminisce on your senior year of high school may give away your school name or mascot, which are also common security questions.

Outside of challenges, if your social media settings are not set to private, anyone on the internet may be able to view places you’ve lived, the profiles of your friends and family, which may give away more information about you, your date of birth, and more.

Cyber Criminals Know How to Use This Information to Their Advantage

If the information you have shared ends up in the hands of cyber criminals, they may be able to use your security questions to reset passwords and block you from your accounts.

Even if they don’t gain information directly relating to security questions, they can use your personal information to spear phish you. This usually comes in the form of an email mimicking a person or organization you trust. So if hackers can learn about where you live, your job, and the organizations and friends you interact with, that can give them ammo to create a phishing attack you’re more likely to fall prey to.

How to Protect Yourself from Social Media-Fueled Cyber Attacks

The first step everyone should take to protect themselves from social media-fueled cyber attacks is to keep accounts set to private. This will limit the access hackers will likely have to your information and allow you to still safely share some things about your life with your friends and family.

If you prefer to keep your profile public to interact with customers or followers, you should never share specific personal information. Even if your account is set to private, the FBI has cautioned against participating in the type of challenges that expose specific personal information. 

Another simple strategy for protecting your business and yourself from phishing attacks is using two-factor authentication. With two-factor or multi-factor authentication, even if a hacker gains access to your login credentials, they won’t be able to access your accounts without another factor that only you possess, such as access to an app installed on your phone or a fingerprint scan.

Next time you go to share, consider who could be watching and how much you want your followers to know about you.

The post Is Your Social Media Activity Leaving You Open to Cyber Attacks? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

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August 31, 2020 at 10:52AM

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4 Essential Tips for Successfully Marketing Your Airbnb

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If you’re attempting to grow your Airbnb’s popularity, consider how increased marketing efforts could help you increase your business. Discover methods for showing more potential renters your property in the best light.

Here are 4 tips for successfully marketing your Airbnb:

• Advertise Your Rental

If you are struggling to fill up your scheduled bookings on Airbnb, consider expanding your advertising efforts. By utilizing other booking sites for short-term or holiday rentals, you can get more exposure for your business, which will increase your profits. 

Research sites that provide similar services to Airbnb. Confirm that your rental property aligns with their guidelines and expectations. Post your property on their site to increase the amount of potential renters who come in contact with your listing. 

Posting your property on multiple sites can help drastically improve the amount of travelers booking with you; however, keeping up with multiple schedules can become difficult. If you plan to extend your advertising efforts, create a schedule that will combine and sync your bookings between the different sites. This will help you keep track of your guests and eliminate scheduling mishaps. 

• Utilize Social Media 

In today’s digital age, social media has become an essential marketing tool for any small business. If you want to grow awareness of your Airbnb property and increase your overall profits, utilize social media to spread your message. 

Marketing your Airbnb through social media platforms includes:

• Posting regularly, specifically photos that showcase your rental or unique locations in your area
• Using relevant hashtags
• Linking to your Airbnb listing in your bio and relevant content
• Following people interested in traveling or Airbnbs
• Interacting with others by liking, commenting, direct messaging, or sharing content

By marketing your Airbnb through platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, you can use your created network of followers and friends to gain interest and guests. Be active on social media to increase awareness of your business and create a good first impression with potential renters. 

• Improve Your Rankings 

When a potential renter opens Airbnb and searches a specific location, where does your listing rank on the page? Are you even on the first page? Boosting your rankings on the Airbnb site is essential to booking more guests. 

Ensure that your listing information and booking calendar is constantly updated. Include high-quality photos of your property to increase interest. Respond in a timely manner to all inquiries to ensure you leave a good impression. Offer competitive rates that will encourage renters to book with you over others. 

By paying attention to these finer details on the Airbnb site and promoting your listing on social media, you will be able to earn positive reviews that will boost your rankings. Hosting through Airbnb means you must become an expert at hospitality. Guests will recognize your skills and book with you, which will help your Airbnb gain popularity. 

• Provide a Quality Stay 

A basic method for marketing your Airbnb property is to provide a quality stay for your guests. If your renters enjoy your home and what you provide, they will leave positive reviews that will attract other guests to your listing. 

Don’t get swept up in the task of marketing that you forget the best way to boost your Airbnb business is by serving and delighting your guests.

Provide Amenities

Make sure your home is fully stocked with the essentials, such as fresh towels, soap, and toilet paper. Consider going above and beyond by offering a coffee and tea station, snacks, games, and movies. Guests appreciate amenities, so include what you believe will assist your guests in having the best stay. 

Decorate Your Space

A stylish home will encourage renters to book with you. Choose a popular and minimalist style you believe will compliment your home. Don’t go overboard with decorations, but rather subtly create a comfortable place where your guests will feel at home. 

Keep it Clean

Clean your home regularly between guests to ensure everything is properly sanitized. Consider hiring a cleaning service for your airbnb to guarantee your home will meet your guest’s high standards. 

Turning your home into an Airbnb is an excellent way to make additional income; however, if you want to succeed, you must market your property. By following these essential tips, you can guarantee your Airbnb will gain awareness and you’ll earn a profit.

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August 31, 2020 at 09:07AM

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How to Get Started With Marketing Analytics: A 5-Step Framework

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Want to better understand if your marketing is working? Need to do more with marketing analytics? In this article, you’ll discover a five-step framework for marketing analysis. You’ll also learn how to plan and build systems that deliver key insights so you can effectively forecast and optimize your marketing efforts. #1: Set Up a Framework […]

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August 31, 2020 at 05:06AM

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Twitter flags Republican leader’s video as ‘manipulated’ for altering disabled activist’s words

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Twitter flagged an inflammatory video by House Republican Whip Steve Scalise on Sunday for altering footage of a conversation between progressive activist Ady Barkan and Joe Biden. The video is now labeled as “manipulated media” in a tweet from Scalise, though remains online.

The inflammatory video pulls in out-of-context quotes from a number of Democrats and activists, but appears to have crossed a line by altering Barkan’s words from a portion of the conversation about policing reform. Barkan, who has ALS, speaks with an assistive eye-tracking device.

“These are not my words. I have lost my ability to speak, but not my agency or my thoughts,” Barkan tweeted in response, adding “…You owe the entire disability community an apology.”

In the video excerpt, taken from a longer conversation about policing and social services, Barkan appears to say “Do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding for police?” In reality, Barkan interrupted Biden during the conversation to ask “Do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?”

In the video, Barkan’s altered sentence is followed by a dramatic black background stamped with the words “No police. Mob rule. Total chaos. Coming to a town near you?” Those ominous warnings are followed by a logo for Scalise’s reelection campaign.

The addition of the two words, falsely rendered in Barkan’s voice, don’t significantly change the meaning of his question, but the edit still crossed a line. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that the tweet violated the company’s policy for “synthetic and manipulated media,” though did not specify which part of the video broke the rules.

The synthetic and manipulated media policy states that Twitter “may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.” In the policy, Twitter explains specifically that “new video frames, overdubbed audio” and other edits count as deceptive and significant manipulation.

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August 30, 2020 at 05:11PM

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Marleen Mour and the Journey She Had to Undergo To Start Writing Her Three Books on Self-Love and Infidelity

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Infidelity

Marleen Mour (34), was born in Egypt and fled her way to freedom to become a beacon for other men and women in their search for self-love, truthful expression, and living a healthy life on their terms. 

Mour has many achievements in the health and fitness industry, which include being a gold and silver medalist on a national and worldwide level, a member of the International Gold Key Honor Society, and an author of three books devoted to self-love and the expression of deep inner truths and desires. 

As much as her family fought to keep her from boarding her flight, Mour fought with equal fervour and at 19 years old she boarded the gates to freedom and flew to Australia. She left behind a life fraught with repression and rules from her family’s culture in Egypt, a life that she felt did not suit her or her desires; she started again. After many hardships, including battling cancer and experiencing deep loneliness, she has built a legacy to be proud of. 

How did Mour proceed to use her freedom in Australia? 

Mour is the founder of Marleen Mour Coaching, which is a health and fitness brand (owned by her company FittHeroes) that specialises in helping women transform their bodies from the inside out. Being a mother herself and having lost 42kgs, Marleen Mour Coaching is a reflection of Mour’s passion to live a life on her terms and celebrate the freedom that everyone deserves. 

Mour aims to educate others about self-love and self-care and through her Emotional Coaching methods, Mour is determined to create a culture where others can speak about the unspoken and not just follow the rules set out by society, ‘I believe that Self-Love and Self-Care are a foundation for creating true equality, compassion and non-judgement in this world’. 

What did Mour focus on in her books?

Mour is the author of three books, which are testaments to the unspoken and seemingly taboo topics in society, they encourage each man and woman to be brave to express themselves openly. Her book titles explore the world of cheating and infidelity, but also sets the tone for self-love and how to best support ourselves through any situation that compromises our relationships. Below are descriptions of her three books, namely ‘Cheating: How to Do It Right – A Guide For Women’, ‘The Allure of Infidelity: Understanding Why Most of Us Cheat and What We Seek from Our Affairs’, and lastly ‘The Power of Self-Love for Permanent Weight Loss’. 

Cheating: How to Do It Right – A Guide For Women

In Cheating: How to Do It Right – A Guide For Women, Mour provides support for women who feel ‘stuck’ in their relationships, but are not yet ready to leave their partners. It does not aim to condone cheating, but to shine a light on the fact that it is a normal inclination for partners to seek intimacy elsewhere when they feelonely and unseen in their own relationship. 

Mour seeks to address that infidelity has been a ‘widely shunned topic’ and a ‘misunderstood act of desperation’; she provides guidance to take control of one’s life again, to evaluate what is ‘outside the box’ before making any concrete decisions, and to act in one’s own interest without the crippling fear of judgment from others. 

The Allure of Infidelity: Understanding Why Most of Us Cheat and What We Seek from Our Affairs

Mour explores the different sides of infidelity in her next book, The Allure of Infidelity: Understanding Why Most of Us Cheat and What We Seek from Our Affairs. She looks at the different roles that couples seem to play when there is the possibility of infidelity, namely victim and perpetrator. She aims to help others find a way to express their feelings in their relationship with one another and to become aware of the signs before anything happens. 

The Power of Self-Love for Permanent Weight Loss

In The Power of Self-Love for Permanent Weight Loss, Mour shares her proven weight loss methods from her Fitt Heroes Weight Loss programs. In this publication she writes about the psychology of weight loss and aims to provide guidance on how to lose weight and live a better life. She shares her passion about self-love through coaching others to find a balance between their ‘body, emotions, and eating’ and ultimately how to love oneself. 

Summary

When Marleen Mour is not writing or doing public speaking events to help others live and lead better lives, on their own terms, she continues to strive to live her life on her terms. She is currently working on developing her 8 week program for people who have cheated with the intention of helping them better understand their choices, and themselves. She also leads her Marleen Mour Coaching program with customized workout and eating plans.     

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August 30, 2020 at 10:25AM

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Quality Is Key: How To Improve Your Brand’s Social Media Streams

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Today’s businesses are built on social media. Social media sites keep us connected, let companies communicate with their audience in a friendlier, less formal manner, and make sure brands are always up to date on the latest trends. As important as business social media is, though, it isn’t always as effective as it could be. Too often, because of forces like social media manipulation by bad actors, businesses find themselves working with low-quality social media data. And when the data stream is overrun with fake accounts, bots, and other accounts that interfere with quality, businesses can’t access the data they need.

If your business is going to get the most from its social media tools, the most important thing you can do is invest in higher quality data. That, in turn, will help you deliver more meaningful content – creating a communications loop in which everyone wins.

Clean Up The Mess

Poor quality data is the result of several different issues. There’s social media manipulation, as noted above, and there’s also the problem of poorly maintained in-house data systems. In one report, only about half of all businesses said that their CRM/ERP data was clean. This prevents them from fully leveraging that data in their marketing efforts, but it’s also easily remedied when businesses invest in better software or in the manual labor to clean up errors and duplications. So much about these programs is supposedly automated, that they don’t undergo a lot of maintenance, and it’s time to remedy that situation.

Learn New Approaches

Cleaning up existing data goes a long way towards improving a company’s social media performance, but it’s not the only thing that can help. By taking e-learning courses on new social media management approaches, businesses can also pull higher quality data from current social media accounts. Businesses now have access to a wide range of social media-focused courses that can help them learn cutting edge social media strategies, as well as high level data and web analytics in order to understand and communicate the impact of each campaign.

Spotlight On Results

Poor returns on your social media efforts are a clear indicator that something isn’t right with your strategy and that you need to go back to the original data set and see if there’s a problem. Unfortunately, if you’ve never had an effective social media strategy, you may not know just how much better things could be. Some simple ways that you can tell your social media strategy isn’t working is if you’re seeing a reasonable amount of traffic on your accounts but it’s not leading to conversions; you’re simply not drawing in much traffic; or you’re not earning on PPC ads. Any one of these indicates a problem, but they can all also be remedied.

Based on the ways your social media marketing efforts are falling short, you’ll want to take several different steps including and beyond cleaning up your data sets because you need both quantitative and qualitative market research. Combining all of these data points can help your company get a better sense of what content is working, which groups are responding, and where you need to focus your attention. We know that content is king, but that content needs to be rooted in a deep understanding of your audience and of how different social platforms work.

As with any project, the quality of the data and the preparatory work you put in determines the results that come out on the other side, and despite its casual appearance, social media isn’t any different. You can’t construct content on the fly or based on a vague sense of what will draw clicks. Instead, your company needs to study up and get back to the drawing board with plenty of data and lead time to develop hard hitting campaigns.

The post Quality Is Key: How To Improve Your Brand’s Social Media Streams appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

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August 30, 2020 at 09:35AM

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How to Generate Better Quality Leads in Real Estate

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Are you paying someone to post on social media every day to advertise vacancies or generate clients for property management services? If you’re working hard on social media and you’re not getting the results you want, this article will help you get better results.

If you’re running a social media marketing campaign, your leads need to be directed to your website at some point. Since you can’t put a web form directly on social media, directing leads to your website is essential. However, you can’t just toss up a form and call it a day.

Design your lead capture web forms intentionally

If you’re like most property investors, you have a form on your website that captures contact information from potential leads. Whether you’re an individual or you run a property management company, capturing leads is critical to filling vacancies. However, your lead capture form serves a dual purpose to both qualify and disqualify leads.

Designing a lead capture form for property management

If you’re a property management company looking for clients, your lead capture form doesn’t need to be fancy with a ton of questions. However, you do need to know where their properties are located.

You can get this information in a couple of different ways. The simplest way is to create a basic web form that asks for the property address. You can see this in action on Green Residential’s website. Green Residential serves property investors in the greater Houston area, so it makes sense to ask leads to provide their property address up front.

If you have a team of people available to look through form submissions, a basic form is sufficient. However, if you don’t have time to sort through submissions to verify the address is in your service area, you can hire a programmer to add a dynamic address locator to your form.

With this addition, leads can type in the exact address, which is then matched to a database of known addresses and automatically filled in. On the back-end, when a lead is outside of your service area, you can have the system automatically send an email letting them know you don’t serve their area.

Designing a lead capture form for landlords

If you’re using a website to market and fill vacancies, you need a good web form. While a web form will capture leads, it can also be a powerful tool to filter out low-quality leads. To use your web form as a filter for unqualified or low-quality leads, you need to ask questions that will automatically segment your leads according to their answers.

For example, if you only consider tenants with no evictions and make no exceptions, add a question to your form stating “have you ever been evicted?” Require leads to answer yes or no and automatically filter out leads that answer “yes.”

Another question you could ask is credit score. Say you only consider tenants with a credit score of 650 at minimum. Create a question with a drop-down menu where each option is a range of credit scores. For example, the question could be “what is your current credit score?” The drop-down selections could be:

1. 800-850
2. 740-799
3. 650-739
4. 580-649
5. Under 580

Have your web developer program the above selections to automatically segment leads according to their answer. Distinguish people with a high credit score as a “hot lead” and simply ignore any leads that select a credit score below 650.

Disqualify leads using form questions

How many hours have you spent chasing leads who were interested, but not committed to buying or renting a home? It’s frustrating and you don’t need to waste your time. Ask questions on your web form that will tell you how ready a person is to buy, sell, or rent (depending on your business).

Set up your own parameters for determining who is ready. Have your website developer program pre-selected answers to segment your leads appropriately. For leads who aren’t ready to buy, sell, or rent, but are otherwise qualified, add them to a special email marketing sequence that sends out nurturing emails. They may not be ready now, but with an automated drip-campaign, you can persuade them over time.

Track your progress and don’t give up

Capturing high-quality leads isn’t as easy as it seems. Track your progress and make changes when something isn’t working. Over time, you’ll end up with a well-oiled lead capturing machine.

The post How to Generate Better Quality Leads in Real Estate appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

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August 30, 2020 at 02:28AM

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The Hype Magazine Masterfully Uses Social Media To Grow Globally

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During the past few years, there have been a lot of changes when it comes to the entertainment industry. In the past, those looking to get involved in this area would have to start locally, hire an agent, and then wait for the opportunities to come their way. Now, this is changing. In today’s era, social media is a powerful tool that everyone can use to get their information out to their fans in short order. One magazine that has put this to use is called The Hype Magazine. Led by Jameelah Wilkerson, who goes by the name of Just Jay, this magazine is quickly making an impact on the industry.

The Hype Magazine started small. It was a local publication that was designed to communicate information about things that were happening in the world of entertainment in the local area. Just Jay worked hard to put together stories that she felt like her readers would care about. The Hype Magazine grew gradually until it started to leave the local area and have more of a national impact. This came about because Just Jay is an expert at using social media to grow the footprint of The Hype Magazine.

Without a doubt, the biggest location in which The Hype Magazine was popular was the digital world. This is how The Hype Magazine was able to compete with some of the largest publications out there. Using tools such as Twitter and Instagram, Just Jay was able to put the magazine in front of as many people as possible, helping her to grow her brand. As a result, The Hype Magazine grew as well. Today, it is a brand that is instantly recognizable.

Before long, the magazine found itself on the shelves of retail stores. It was positioned next to some of the biggest magazines to ever grace the planet such as People and Time. It simply reflects the powerful footprint that the magazine has today. Without tools such as social media, this would not have been possible. This is just another way that social media is changing the world. The entertainment industry has quickly embraced social media and has seen its potential. The only question is how social media and The Hype Magazine are going to impact the industry going forward.

Given the tremendous amount of skill that Just Jay has already demonstrated, it is clear that the magazine has a bright future. She will be able to take the magazine in whatever direction she chooses. Numerous stars have seen their careers jumpstarted by the magazine. It will be exciting to see what the future has in store for Just Jay.

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August 29, 2020 at 12:28PM