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Privacy Changes Coming to Facebook

facebook stock photoAre you one of the 1 in 4 Americans who have deleted the Facebook app from your phone? Are privacy concerns the reason you pulled the trigger? If so, the social media platform is taking steps to try and win you back.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to make the most popular social media site in the world more appealing to users who are concerned about the cavalier attitude the company has had when it comes to sharing users data and personal information. Recently, Facebook has been at the center of multiple scandals involving user privacy and breaches.

Zuckerberg’s goal is to give users more ways to communicate privately, encrypting sensitive data in a way that can’t be read by Facebook. In a post, Zuckerberg acknowledged that “people increasingly also want to connect privately in the digital equivalent of the living room”. Details are sparse, however, when it comes to laying out what changes the company actually plans to make.

“I understand that many people don’t think Facebook can or would even want to build this kind of privacy-focused platform,” wrote Zuckerberg, “But we’ve repeatedly shown that we can evolve to build the services that people really want, including in private messaging and stories.”

Despite the proclamation, most users remain skeptical of the platform’s intentions. “This does nothing to address the ad targeting and information collection about individuals,” Jen King, director of consumer privacy at Sanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, was quoted as saying. “It’s great for your relationship with other people. It doesn’t do anything for your relationship with Facebook itself.”

Some advertisers are even dropping the platform all together, citing the company’s “despicable business model”. Mozilla, Basecamp, LegalAdvice.com, and Approyo are among the companies that have stopped advertising on Facebook. Despite the withdrawal of advertisers, Facebook’s earnings continue to increase and have not been impacted.

This isn’t the first time that Facebook has made a promise that they haven’t been able to keep, and only time will tell if this go around is any different. Until Zuckerberg and company announce more concrete steps, the public can only speculate on what this will do for user privacy going forward.

 

SPARKS! Welcomes Caitlin Gott

Caitlin GottSPARKS! is happy to announce that Caitlin Gott has joined us as our new Client Relations Manager. Caitlin has a strong background in marketing communications and her duties will include client management, business development, and account management.

Welcome aboard!

Social Seniors

old man on laptop

Think social media is exclusively for millennials? Think again.

More seniors than ever are using platforms like Facebook for a variety of reasons, and that number is only going to rise in the coming years. Love it or hate it, social media has never been more essential to daily life. Want to keep in touch with your kids, grandkids, and old friends? Stay up to date on world events and relevant cultural touchstones? Without social media, that can be tough to do. But how are today’s social media savvy seniors using these tools, and how are advertisers taking advantage of their online presence?

Talk to someone in their teens or early 20s and they’ll say that while they probably still have a Facebook account, Instagram and Snapchat are their preferred apps. Facebook is a place they go to keep in touch with family, like the many baby boomers who are gravitating towards the site.  In fact, a recent Gallup poll found that 52 percent of people ages 50 to 64 and 32 percent of those 65 or older use Facebook.

What does the 60+ generation use sites like Facebook for other than commenting on family photos? Sharing inaccurate news, of course! Older Americans are more likely to share “fake news” online regardless of education, sex, race, income, and even party affiliation. So, while people who grew up on the internet have honed their ability to verify what is and isn’t a credible source, the baby boomer generation still struggles with discerning fact from fiction online.

Aside from using Facebook to proliferate the rising trend of false news, most older people are using it for the same reasons that we all do. They want to keep up to date with friends, family, and loved ones throughout the year.

 Old and young users aren’t just using social media for different reasons, they also have separate concerns. According to AARP, seniors are much more anxious about protecting their privacy online, with 52 percent of Facebook users over the age of 50 concerned about how their data is getting used. Just 39 percent of 18-to-49-year-olds share the same worry.

With baby boomers now making up such a large portion of the Facebook and social media community, it makes sense that advertisers are trying to find ways to appeal to them and grab their attention on those platforms. According to Bloom, a Senior Living Marketing Solutions company, Boomers on social media sites are 58 percent more likely to visit a company website, 57 percent more likely to continue searching for that company’s service on a search engine, and 42 percent more likely to visit a retailer or store.

So, how do you target seniors online in a way that entices them? Women in this age group are 26 percent more likely to share content online than men of the same age, so gearing your advertisements towards them is one place to start. Boomers also want to share content that’s meaningful and worthwhile with like-minded boomers, so focus more on substance rather than the snappy and clever slang that might appeal to younger users. Like most people, they also prefer messages and graphics that elicit a positive emotional response.

According to Adweek, older users are much more likely to be influenced by online advertising than their younger counterparts. Although they make up just a small percentage of Instagram’s user base, those who are on the app between the ages of 65 and 74 are most likely to search for the advertised product after seeing a promoted post. Common sense suggests that this holds true against all the social media platforms, Facebook included.

As social media becomes a more imperative part of the human experience with each passing year, the number of seniors who not only use the platforms but are comfortable and competent navigating them will only increase. Like with every demographic, it will be up to advertisers to stay afloat among ever-changing trends and user behavior to create content that grabs their attention.

For more information about Facebook advertising or social media marketing, please contact SPARKS! Marketing Communications at 866-500-8088 or visit www.onsparks.com

 

 

 

Google+ to Begin Deleting Accounts and Pages on April 2

google plus shutdown

It’s been anticipated for months, but now Google has announced an official date for the shutdown of Google+.

On April 2, users of the consumer version of the platform will lose access to their accounts and pages. Starting February 4, users will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities, or events.

Users who wish to save their content will have to download it before that date arrives. Applications like Takeout and Google+ Exporter will come in handy for those who wish to go that route. Downloaders will be given additional data starting in early March 2019.

The complete shutdown timeline includes the Google+ feature for website comments being removed from all sites by March 7, with Google+ comments disappearing from view on April 2. Google+ sign-in buttons will stop working in the next few weeks, but many will be replaced by a Google sign-in button.

The news of a shutdown date comes in the aftermath of a report from The Wall Street Journal that detailed the company’s decision to stay silent despite data from 500,000 Google+ users getting exposed over a three year period.  Then, Google made it public that a bug had exposed the personal information of more than 52 million Google+ users. This sped up the platform’s demise, moving the shutdown date up from August 2019 to April 2019.

When Google+ initially announced a tentative April shutdown last December, they recognized “challenges involved in maintaining a successful product” and “the platform’s low usage” as the primary reasons behind its dismantling.

This doesn’t signal the complete disappearance of Google+ from the technological space, however. It’s only the consumer version of the platform that’s being put to rest, not the business version. “While we bring consumer Google+ to a close, we are continuing our investment in Google+ for the enterprise,” wrote David Conway, a product manager at Google. “This means that for those of you who use Google+ as part of G Suite, your accounts will remain active.

The death of Google+ has been imminent for a while, but that doesn’t make it any less inconvenient for frequent users who relied heavily on the platform. Unfortunately, the only avenue that exists for them now is to download their data and take it someplace else.

 

WordPress Will Usher in the Era of “Happy Publishing” in 2019

It’s been many years since WordPress was simply a site used for blogging, and in 2019 the software language of the company will finally reflect that reality.

With the introduction of WordPress 5.1, the word “publishing” will replace any mention of blogging throughout the platform. The language will be updated in wp-config-sample.php this year. So long, “happy blogging”. Hello, “happy publishing”!

Once upon a time, blogging was the central function of all WordPress sites, but the software’s capabilities have expanded dramatically, and the platform is more dynamic than ever. “WordPress is no longer a simple blogging platform,” wrote Gutenberg and WordPress core contributor Gary Pendergast. “It’s now a comprehensive publishing solution.”

WordPress is a popular and heavily relied upon open-source content management system due in part to its versatility and ability to serve multiple functions. Although it can still be used for something as simple as publishing blog content, it also allows users to perform functions like set up an affiliate shop, create real estate listings, and fundraise. Even better, these functions are accessible to people regardless of whether or not they know how to code because of the software’s user-friendly setup.

That’s not all that WordPress has in store for 2019, though. WordPress core contributor Matt Mullenweg laid out the platform’s priorities for the new year. Allowing users to opt-in to automatic plugin and theme updates, upgrading the widgets-editing areas, creating a block for navigation menus, and making it possible for themes to visually register content areas are all upgrades that WordPress expects to make within the next 12 months.

By changing the website’s language, WordPress is simply making clear what was already true a long time ago. There’s no shortage of functions that the platform can be used for, and its capabilities expand so far beyond simply blogging. Without WordPress, 32% of the web would cease to exist, and as its uses continue to grow and expand, so does the vernacular we use to talk about them.

SPARKS! Featured on MPT’s “Your Money and Business”

SPARKS! Featured on "Your Money and Business"Maryland Public Television Visits SPARKS!

We’re honored to have Yolanda Vasquez and the team at MPT’s “Your Money and Business” help us share the SPARKS! story in the December 20th episode. After a tour around the office, she spoke with Greg Pierce to learn more about how we help our clients reach their clients.

CLICK HERE to view the entire episode online at MPT, and look for the SPARKS! segment at 7 minutes into the show.

Thanks again Yolanda, Darryl (cameraman extraordinaire) and MPT!Yolanda Vasquez and MPT Visit SPARKS!

Email Safety Tips for Your Business

Email Security

Simply changing your passwords every six months or using unique passwords for each login isn’t enough. You need to go the extra mile to ensure email safety and that your data is protected.

Any business owner will tell you that one of their primary concerns is email security, but not all of them are doing everything they can to ensure that their company’s most sensitive information doesn’t get stolen or exposed. Here are five tips to follow so that you and your employees can do just that.

1) Protect yourself from Spammers and other “bad guys”

It’s never been easier for spammers to wreak havoc on your business. Make sure that you’re not opening emails from addresses looking to steal your information and use it for disruptive purposes. Some tell-tale signs of spam mail include duplicate emails to different email addresses, indentation of the first letter of the sender’s name, or no sender name at all. Make sure that your junk email settings are configured to catch fishy emails and block any addresses that you know have sent you spam in the past.

2)  Educate your employees

It’s up to your employees to follow best practices and do their part to keep their email free from harm. Provide them with the tools they need to understand what qualifies as unsafe when they’re checking their mail, and implement company rules so everyone knows what’s expected. Some companies are even testing employees by sending them spam and phishing emails to see if they know how to deal with them.

3)  Keep vulnerable information to a minimum

More than ever before, we live our lives online. There’s no way to prevent the existence of sensitive information on the internet, but it’s important to avoid sending that information to anyone over email if at all possible. Once you press send on a message, you lose the ability to control what’s done with it. Responding to a phishing email with important information could lead to that information being sold online or used by the phisher.

4)  Disregard emails from companies and people you don’t know

That email from the guy you’ve never heard of who misspelled two words in the subject line? Delete it. The attachment that you weren’t expecting from the company that doesn’t sound real? Don’t open it. When in doubt, play it safe and stick to opening emails and attachments that you know have business with your company.

5)  Implement an email retention policy

Emails employees receive that don’t directly impact company business should be deleted. In fact, some companies are introducing a practice in which emails are automatically archived or permanently deleted after 60-90 days.

Plan Ahead

No matter how many steps you take to ensure that your email doesn’t get taken advantage of, things happen that you can’t prepare for. Human error is to be expected, so make sure that you have a plan in place to deal with the situation as best you can. Spam filters, anti-virus software, remembering to log out, and setting up two-factor authentication can also help keep you free from harm. Don’t wait around for your company’s information to be compromised, act now.

The Cost of SEO

The Cost of SEO
… or what it takes to bring in a bigger catch.

The Cost of SEO SPARKS! Baltimore MarylandBy now we’ve all come to learn that in terms of your business’s website, it’s not simply a matter of ”If you build it, they will come.” It’s kind of like fishing. Just because your bait is in the water, it doesn’t mean you’re going to catch anything. And all this is how you’ve come to learn that SEO is so important. You know it’s essential. You want to do it. But you haven’t pulled the trigger because you’re left with one nagging question, “What is it going to cost me?” Well, that depends on a couple of factors.

CONSIDERATIONS

1. Is this a one-time project or part of an ongoing marketing effort?
Say you own a tanning salon in McHenry, Maryland or the only Greek restaurant in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Chances are, some rudimentary changes to your website, along with making sure your Google Maps and Yelp profiles are set up correctly, will do the trick. But, if you’re going a larger company, faced with lots of competition and going for a regional or national audience … well that’s a much bigger fish to fry.

2. What should I expect?

Let’s say you sell used cars in the greater-Baltimore market. You can bet the manufacturers, large dealerships and online car buying and review sites have an established presence at the top of the search pages. Achieving top results could take a larger investment of time and money. On the other hand, selling a unique product in a small market – say Hunt Valley – is more achievable from more targeted search options with less competition.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Realize these examples are not set in stone, but if your business fits within the parameters described, this should give you a general sense of what you can expect to pay.

SEO Retainers – Cost per month

$250 to $500 per month
Small and geographically limited businesses —
This approach is best for sites with a just a few product or service offering in markets with limited national competition (meaning, big digital spenders).

$700 to $1500 per month
Your market is limited geographically, but you’re targeting a larger audience —
$500 per month will work in a town of 5,000, but, in a town of 50,000, you’re going to need to spend more. If your business is extremely focused without much competition, $1,500 may cover a decent regional effort.

$2000 to $6000
Your target market is regional, national or international –
If you’re offering a niche product or service, costs can be less. If you’re in an arena with more players, expect to pay more.

$10,000 + per month
A national or international effort designed to reach the masses –
If you want an ever-evolving plan with a constant development of new content, it will cost you. But it will generate the traffic you crave.

SEO Project Fees

$600 to $2000
Basic SEO Audit & On-Page Optimization
Prices will vary based on the number of pages of your website and the amount of content. Services can include keyword and meta-tag optimization, updated sitemaps and submissions to major search engines. This is a short-term approach and results can vary depending upon your web traffic, local and industry competition, geography and other factors.

$3000 ++
Comprehensive SEO Optimization
First off, realize that this takes time. This involves on-going SEO monitoring of search phrases and competitors, and addressing poor performing keywords with optimization and content development.

CONCLUSION
In choosing a partner to help enhance your website’s SEO performance, once you’ve clearly identified your needs, you’ll be able to make a more informed choice. As with all cases when bringing someone in to assist with your business, you want to make certain you trust them and are comfortable working with them. Once you’ve established the right relationship, you’ll be on your way to bringing in a bigger catch.

AV Equipment Rental Now Available

AV Equipment Rentals

Make Your Presentations Pop with AV Equipment Rental from SPARKS!

SPARKS! is excited to offer Baltimore area organizations the ‘ability to improve visibility’ through our new AV Equipment Rental service. Made available in conjunction with our Odyssey Audio Media division, we can now provide LCD projectors, screens, portable sound systems and accessories suitable for business presentations, meetings and small-to-medium corporate events.

Existing SPARKS! clients are eligible for a 10% discount, too!  For more information, visit our AV Rental page.

The Importance of Strong and Unique Passwords.

Protect your online security!Passwords Are Your First Defense In Internet Security

In today’s world we all have dozens of usernames and passwords for countless online accounts. From email and social media to online shopping and banking, it seems like every website we get on wants us to “log-in.” So what do we do? We have the same password for everything of course! Or we make the password something extremely obvious so that we remember it. But when we make the password obvious for ourselves, we are also making it obvious for hackers. Here are some useful tips for creating a strong password to keep your accounts secure. [Read more…]

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Happy #internationalwomensday! SPARKS! is proud to have a team and client-base that includes many strong, smart women who are changing their industries and communities one day at a time! ... See MoreSee Less

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Losing your iPhone could mean more than losing access to your cat video tweets. Your data & your money are at risk too. Evil-doers are targeting iPhone users - read how to better secure your devices.

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iPhone users targeted in phone AND data theft campaign

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When is an iPhone theft not just an iPhone theft? When the user's Apple ID and more, goes with it.
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Happy Birthday, Greg!!

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