Twitter Saved Us From a Scam: Dutch Bank ING DIRECT’s Social Media Strategy

While social media can certainly be risky if you don’t take proper precautions, it can also be your number one ally in times of crises.

One such company is ING DIRECT. The banking brand recently averted a potential PR crisis by harnessing the full potential of social media. How?

On the afternoon of April 2, 2013, the company’s social media team received a Tweet from a Twitter user alerting them that somebody was sending out text messages in a phishing scam targeting ING customers.

“ING Bank member alert!” the fake text shouted urgently, guiding recipients to call a provided phone number to “remove restrictions” placed on their credit cards—by disclosing highly confidential banking and personal information.

ING’s social media team and other departments worked together quickly. Internally, the news travelled through the company at lightening speed.

The first public service announcement to warn clients was sent out from ING DIRECT’s social service Twitter account a few minutes after the initial alert, and within the hour a similar mass tweet was sent to all of its major social media channels.

“If we didn’t have social media, we would not have been able to respond with the speed that we did or alert as broad of an audience as quickly as we did,” explains Jaime Stein, ING DIRECT’s Senior Manager, Social Media.

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY
From this crisis Jaime was able to come out with two key takeaways for any business effectively using social media to deal with a crisis situation:

1. Monitor your social media diligently—a single Tweet can mean everything in crisis management. In this case, ING DIRECT was only able to act as quickly as they did because they were paying attention to what people were saying to them on their social media channels.

“We always have somebody actively monitoring conversations, not only directly to us but other conversations in the ecosystem,” says Jaime. “One major advantage we had in this recent crisis situation was this.”

How can you best monitor all of your social media channels at once so you and your team don’t miss a beat? Set up social media streams using HootSuite.

For companies, the key to this is also organization-wide accessibility to key data—so consider setting up a social media Command Center.

Command Centers help organizations manage crisis situations by enabling them to:

• Monitor brand mentions, sentiment and influencers from one place.
• Coordinate social team response across departments.
• Capture and archive conversations for offline responses.

2. Make sure there is a strong social media team in your organization. Educate them to to communicate quickly (both internally and publicly) in crisis situations. It’s all about speed during potential PR disasters.

Luckily, social media allows you and your team to move faster than ever before to respond to clients and associates.

“With the phishing scam, we had the ability to put out an important announcement to all of our Twitter accounts without sending emails, or phoning each other across the organization to say ‘By the way this is happening,’” explains Jaime.

“This is because we have such an engaged team of people across the country in social media. That really helped. We currently have 40 to 50 people plugged into HootSuite and they’re constantly engaged and active on social media.”

Educate your organization’s social media team and prepare them for emergencies. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

That’s what the social media team at ING DIRECT believes. According to Jaime, as risky as social media can be in businesses, it can be just as beneficial: “How you handle bad situations will be what matters most,” he asserts. And this principle trickles from the top down at ING DIRECT.

“From 5 years ago to today, there’s a clear acknowledgement among leaders that this is something that’s really important and that they need to invest time and money in,” the company’s CEO Peter Aceto told us recently.

Twitter and the American Revolution

Twitter is a global information network made powerful by what the American sociologist Mark Granovetter from Stanford University first theorised as "The Strength of Weak Ties."

Granovetter's paper was later popularised by the international bestselling book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by the esteemed Malcolm Gladwell.

In his book, Gladwell teaches us how Paul Revere and this "weak-tie" phenomenon contributed to the success of The American Revolution.

Paul Revere had a broad network, a fast communication system (a horse), and a catchy phrase far less than one hundred and forty characters: "The British are coming!"

In "Small Change," Mr. Gladwell admits that social media activism is "a wonderful thing" empowering citizens with "marvelous efficiency."

The American Revolution and Civil Rights Movement were not tweeted, but to suggest that emerging tools like Twitter have no part to play in the future of meaningful change is absurd.

Little things can make a big difference and social networks are the carriers of change.

"Viva la revolución."
"Small Change" dismisses leaderless, self-organising systems as viable agents of change. A flock of birds flying around an object in flight has no leader yet this beautiful, seemingly choreographed movement is the very embodiment of change.

Rudimentary communication among individuals in real time allows many to move together as one--suddenly uniting everyone in a common goal. Lowering the barrier to activism doesn't weaken humanity, it brings us together and it makes us stronger.

Jason Goldman, outlines the Future Revenue Plan for Twitter

Jason Goldman , vice president of products at Twitter, however, says Twitter's first plan for generating revenue, its spread as a political tool throughout the world as well as other advances are all simply pieces of a long-thought-out plan of management.

There have been some surprises along the way, but that's just part of Twitter's journey, added Goldman, who joined the social networking firm in 2007.

In an interview this week, Goldman talked about the plan announced last month for generating advertising revenue, what businesses want from the microblogging site, who he follows on Twitter and what he thinks about tweeting on Apple's new iPad tablet.

What's your 'promoted tweets' plan announced last month?
The first phase is to get a better understanding of how well promoted tweets perform and how well users react to them. Once this is done, we will roll out promoted tweets to be shown on Twitter clients. Beyond that, we're going to continue to refine and include promoted tweets outside of just search. Have relevant tweets in your user timelines.

What are other revenue generating parts of the new business plan?
Promoted tweets is the big thing we're focused on. Another is the commercial accounts product. It's more speculative. It's about services we can provide for businesses to make their use of Twitter more affective. It's a feedback mechanism to let them see what users think of them. We may charge for that service. We may not. We're going to see stuff on that later this year.

Any other advertising plans in the works?
No. We continue to learn and be open to other ideas but they have to pass the test. We're making a bet with promoted tweets. We're not working on other advertising plans. I'm not saying we won't someday, but we're not working that right now.

Is business use of Twitter increasing?
We haven't categorized users as businesses or not ... but it's a minority. We have started working with businesses to build more services for them. They're looking for ways to understand the effectiveness of what they're doing on Twitter.

So much of the activity happens outside of Twitter.com, so they need to know what happens through a longer lens at the whole ecosystem. How many people were engaged in the tweet I wrote on desktop clients compared to the tweet I did on a mobile phone?

Read more of this article on Computerworld website

Twitter and Facebook attacked by the DoS Bots: Who was affected?

The recent outages to Twitter and Facebook were allegedly directed at a Georgian 'dissident', in an attempt to censor what he was broadcasting.

The wider questions concern Twitter and the silent majority who are using the service, the ones who were hardest hit by the outage.

I hesitate to say users or people because the short answer is; that the most frequent users of Twitter are the News Streams and Info Bots. Followed rapidly by the Marketeers!

Sysmos Twitter Analysis

A couple of months ago, social media analytics firm Sysomos closely conducted an analysis of the people on Twitter and how the service was being used. What it found, among other things, was that five percent (5%) of Twitter’s 11.5 million accounts post about 75% of all the tweets. That's an outstanding result and it led the firm to dig deeper into that magical five percent (5%).

The Pareto Principle

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This is clearly not the case with Twitter.

Analysis Results Released
This week, the company released the results of the deeper study and highlighted a few important findings about that elite five percent:

• 32 percent of all tweets made by that active group were generated by machine bots that posted more than 150 tweets per day.
• The number of machine-generated tweets is probably greater because many of the bots post fewer than 150 times a day.
• Based on the two reports, it appears that nearly one-quarter (24 percent) of all tweets overall are generated by those active bots.

Twitter Spammer Bots

However, these bots are essential Twitter spammers. These are the automated tweets that comes from valid sources, e.g. news services. Most Technical websites and Blogs will encourgae you to foolow their sites via an automated Twitter feed.

Sysmos CEO

In a blog post, Sysomos co-founder and CEO Nick Koudas said:

"It’s a fascinating exercise to really focus on the most enthusiastic Twitter users, and what they are doing. Our findings, particularly the percentage of tweets contributed by bots, is definitely eye-opening and we hope they shed light on how Twitter is used today and by whom.

We think this is one of the first reports to focus on the most active members of the Twitter community to provide interesting insight and perspective. We will continue our updates with additional analysis of the micro-blogging service."

Note Bene

Also worth noting is that;

• 88 percent of this active group, posts at least once a day. Of that group,
  
• about one-third joined this year, compared to the
  
• 72 percent of all Twitter users are new this year.
  

Keywords
Lastly, the most popular keywords within the bios for those active users included: Internet marketing, music lover, Web designer, video games, and husband/father.

US Marines Ban Facebook and Twitter: Use of Social Network Sites

The U.S. Marine Corps made it official this week: Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are banned from military networks.

This new administrative directive doesn't change very much but clarifies the use of social networks from a security perspective.

Marines have never been allowed to access non-official sites like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter from military networks because it is classed as improper use of government property.

In this new or revised directive, the Marines have simply put an official stamp on the ban. At the same time, they are also laying out the process to be followed by any Marine who wants to officially access such a site, as part of his or her job.

A Haven and Conduit for Adversaries
"These Internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries," the directive noted.

Increased Threat
"The very nature of social networking sites, creates a larger threat, attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage."

Improper use of US equipment
The ban, however, is only for people using Marines' equipment and networks while they are working. Marines may still Twitter or post to Facebook on their own time and on their own computers but they should do so with a raised level of awareness.

The military isn't against using sites like Facebook and Twitter, said 1st Lt. Craig Thomas, a Pentagon-based spokesman for the Marine Corps.

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter
The U.S. Central Command has a Facebook page, a channel on YouTube and a Twitter account to get out information regarding operations news. The Army is using MySpace to recruit new soldiers and the U.S. Forces Afghanistan page on Facebook has more than 24,000 fans.
A Balanced Approach
"The Marine Corps has got to find a balance between security and letting Marines capitalise on the technology," Thomas said in a recent interview. "We don't want information leaks. We want to keep Marines focused on their mission at work and we also wanted to save critical bandwidth. We're trying to find the fine line."
Measured Progress
Thomas noted that 30 years ago, soldiers were warned about revealing too much information in letters home. Then 10 years ago, they were warned about how they used e-mail. Today, the focus is on social networks.

Tight Lips
"You can't have someone posting, 'Hey, we're leaving on this date and at this time,'" he added. "Believe me, the enemy is checking out what you guys are reporting and what service men and women are saying online.

The Marine Corps instills tight operational security. They need to be cognizant of what they're saying, whether verbally or what they're saying on social networking sites."

Facebook and Twitter both Hit by Targetted Denial of Service (DoS) Attack

On an otherwise normal and happy Thursday morning, Facebook and Twitter both became the most recent high profile sites to be the target of a denial of service attack (DoS).

A Georgian blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and Google's Blogger and YouTube was targeted in a denial of service attack that led to the site-wide outage at Twitter and problems at the other sites on Thursday, according to a Facebook executive.

The blogger, who uses the account name "Cyxymu", the name of a town in the Republic of Georgia, had accounts on all of the different sites that were attacked at the same time, Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook said.

Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and the usual online services provided to customers.

Twitter. 'We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.'

Facebook: "We have restored full access for most people," the company reported. "We’ll keep monitoring the situation to make sure you have the reliable experience you expect from us.

Twitter for Business users

Here are some tips on how to use Twitter effectively for business. Plus a few precautions.

1. Don't automate it
If you've got a blog that's connected to your business, you can use a service such as TwitterFeed to directly channel your new blog posts into Twitter posts. It sounds impressive but don't do it. Your business's primary Twitter feed ought to be hand-fed. If you publish a flood of impersonal links, your Twitter account will just seem like a faceless promotion machine and that's not a good way to engage people on Twitter.

Link to the very best stuff on your blog, as well as relevant information that you see elsewhere on the web, and also post items that don't contain links at all. (Don't forget to use a URL-shortening service such as tinyurl, is.gd, or xrl.us for your links.)

2. Be conversational
Your business's Twitter account should talk like a person, even if it's a collective "person" representing your company or brand. Think of your Twitter account as a character in an Internet play, it's a walking, talking personification of your company. If you feel like it: Use the first-person ("They're putting my stuff on sale again!"), invent a personality or just use the royal "we" and "our", "Our editors have the latest on so-and-so" but be chatty.

Some companies prefer to disclose members of their team when they're tweeting from the company account. This is also a valid approach. Par example, the clever group-tweeting service CoTweet (currently in beta) can automatically append your initials to the tweets you make while representing your company. (Macworld is testing out this service to see if it makes it easier for a group of our editors to jointly operate our various Twitter accounts.)

3. Follow people who are relevant

• Follow everyone on your staff who uses Twitter from your Twitter account.
  
• Follow colleagues in related companies and in your industry.
  
• Follow relevant brands and journalists and pundits in your market, even those who compete with you.

It's professional and polite to follow people and by following people you are creating an ecosystem. People will see who you are following and consider those as suggestions for users they should follow as well.

4. Make sure your people are on Twitter, and refer to them Remember that individuals tweet different things than companies. It's acceptable for your company's employees to talk about making waffles or going out for drinks, as well as what they're working on. Not everyone will embrace Twitter, but many of them will. Even the most personal stuff that leaks on to Twitter can help make stronger personal connections with colleagues and audience members alike.

Having said this, you need to be aware who your employees are and make them aware that everything they write on Twitter (unless they're using a "protected account" that limits access) is public. If there's someone who works for your company whose Tweets are a bit risque, you should consider whether or not you want to refer to them from your company's account. An alternative is to ask employees to create two Twitter accounts, one for work matters and one for their sordid personal lives and keep them separate.

Once your people are on Twitter, they'll be able to mention what they're working on and reference the brand via Twitterspeak. Par example: "Just wrote a cool story for @macworld about the iPod shuffle." That will drive followers to your company's Twitter account.

Likewise, your brand's account can drive followers to your people. For example: "Our very own @vacuumdood thinks the new Dyson sucks awesome: tinyurl.com/example"

5. Answer your mentions
People will refer to your company's account as if it were a person. You should reply to tweets that mention you, when relevant. This will give your account more personality and will make those people feel engaged directly with the brand. For example, a person might ask you a question directly: "@macworld Hi. Do you know when Apple will enable SMS message forwarding on the iPhone? Thanks." "@janevans35 Apple's not saying, but we hope it's with the next major software release!"

6. Search for your name
Beyond mentions, which are specific references to your Twitter account, there are probably people using Twitter to talk about your business. Use Twitter's powerful search features to find those references, either from the Twitter Web site, a Mac-based Twitter client program such TweetDeck or Tweetie that supports saved searches, or even via your RSS reader by subscribing to the RSS feed linked to from every Twitter search results page. There are a lot of companies offering great customer service and support on Twitter by watching what people say about them. When I groused on Twitter about my bad luck finding a JetBlue flight from Oakland to Boston, within a half an hour I had received a reply from the JetBlue Twitter account with an explanation.

7. Consider creating sub-accounts for sections of your business or customer base
If you're part of a big enough company, consider creating smaller, more targeted accounts. Starting a new section of your site devoted only to fans of the double bass? It might be worth starting a new @joesmusicbass account, then Tweeting about it from your company's main account: "Bass lovers rejoice! Welcome our new friend, @joesmusicbass to the party!"

8. Use Twitter to ask your customers questions...and get good answers
Twitter is a great way to get answers to questions. Trying to figure out what your customers want to see or are interested in? Use Twitter to ask them. Sure, it's not a scientific survey, but it can give you an immediate snapshot of the zeitgeist. This can be both instructive and productive.

9. Be a good Twitter citizen Can you persuade your Twitter followers to promote you to their followers? Sure, but be mindful: He who has the most followers doesn't necessarily win. If you get people to promote you to their friends to win a prize, you may end up creating a harmful backlash.

Recently, a software-deals site offered a free program to anyone who would tweet about its bundle to his or her friends. The people who tweeted were rewarded, but many of their friends felt like they were receiving spam. Even though the people who tweeted were complicit in the act, it was the company that induced the tweeting that received the bulk of the criticism. The etiquette of Twitter is still evolving, be aware and be wary.

Conclusion
Even if you're not the type of person who uses Facebook or Twitter yourself, there's no denying that these new forms of connection and communication are powerful and becoming increasingly important. That's why your business should be on Twitter now.