No Wonder There Are More Than One Million Victims Of Cyber Crime Daily

The worry about crime used to be if you had had your wallet stolen; or did you just leave it in a 'safe place' and have forgotten where that 'safe place' was?

You put your valuables in a safe with the local bank, or if you could afford it and wanted to take the risk, within the home.  In many ways this approach has changed over time and in others it has not.

We are still very trusting when it comes to matters financial but if the recent report from Norton is to be believed, perhaps we shouldn't be so blasé.  They surveyed more than 13,000 online adults aged between 18 and 64, from 24 countries.

The results showed that Baby Boomers were less susceptible to cyber-crime than the later Millennials and the highest number of cyber-crime victims were to be found in Russia (85%), China (77%) and South Africa (73%).

Cyber crime victims were more likely to be male (64%) than female(58%) which is probably a reflection of testosterone-fuelled impulses!

Source: 2013 Norton Report

With an estimated $US113 billion of cyber crime taking place over a year, the situation is likely to get worse with an increasing move away from desktops to mobile devices.  The survey revealed that almost half of respondents leave security concerns behind when they hit the street. They don't use basic precautions such as password protection, security software of any kind, or backup their important files.

Here's another sobering revelation; 57% aren't even aware that security solutions for mobile devices even exist!

No wonder then that there are more than one million victims of cyber crime daily. With the lines blurring between home personal life and work there are increased security concerns for business as well. One in five respondents admitted sharing work information with friends and family.  

36% reported that their company had no policy in place when it came to the use of mobile device for work and 27% of all adults admitted they had lost their mobile phones or had them stolen.  So considering these results, how secure is your business data?

Other points of interest to those concerned with online security include:

• 41% of online adults surveyed have been victims of hacking, malware, scams, viruses, fraud and theft in the past year
• Half (50%) have been victims of either cyber crime and/or 'negative situations' over the same period.  This includes being bullied or stalked online, or receiving nude images from perfect strangers.

When it comes to social media people appear to be just as lax, if not more so. 39% didn't bother to log out after a social media session and a quarter actually share their social media log-in details and passwords with others. Somewhat surprisingly then considering the slack attitude portrayed, only 12% of the sample admitted that someone else had hacked into their social media account and pretended to be them.

We've grown very attached to our mobile devices but have largely forgotten the Internet security risks and the security protocols that we rigorously applied to our desk top systems.  

Given all of the above, perhaps it is now time to think far more seriously about how we can personally fight cyber crime by being more diligent; especially if we are wedded to our smartphone or tablet.

Related articles

• Cyber crimes costs UK businesses average of £3m per year

Getting Your Smart Phone Fix

It comes as no surprise to learn that smartphone addiction is a very real thing, albeit a pleasant one for most in the 18-24 year old demographic.

According a new survey conducted by IDC in conjunction with Facebook, our interaction with each other through our smart phones starts almost as soon as our eyes open in the morning. Within the first 15 minutes of waking up 4 out of 5 smartphone owners are checking their phones.

The focus of the study was to understand how smartphone owners use their phones over the course of a day and the week, with an emphasis on social and communication applications and services.

Smartphones have become woven into the fabric of everyday life.  In the USA where the study of 7,400 people was conducted, half of the country's total population use a smartphone and this figure is projected to rise to 67.8% of the population by 2017.  That's 222.4 million interconnected people.

A sense of being 'connected' was the primary motivation and sentiment experienced by respondents. Talking on the phone (43%), texting/messaging (49%) and direct messaging via Facebook(40%) were the services that drove the highest levels of connectedness across the largest number of people.

Friday to Sunday had the highest levels of engagement and the ease of being able to slip a smartphone into one's pocket was also a major factor.

The average daily time spent communicating on smartphone was 132 minutes and only 16% of that time was actually spent on phone calls. 84% spent their time texting, sending and receiving email and engaging through social media.

Facebook who co-sponsored the survey will no doubt be heartened to learn that 70% of respondents use Facebook on their phone and of this group, 61% use it each day.

82% read their Facebook news feed while 49% responded or posted comments on friends’ updates.  Interestingly, playing games on Facebook was not a dominant activity with only 16% showing this preference, while 7% used Facebook to find apps that interest them.

The survey found that Facebook dominates the total time spent on social and communications activities (on a smartphone),  making up 1 out of every 4 minutes.

One final word on Smartphone addiction; 63% of smartphone owners keep their phone with them for all but an hour of their waking day. And of course, many also use their phone as their alarm clock the next morning!

The full report can be viewed here.

Related articles

• 5 Steps for Kicking Your Smartphone Addiction (at Work) | CareerBliss
• Australia becoming smartphone addicted: report

In A Buying Mood - Pinterest Vs Facebook

If you are selling something and planning to use social media to do so, does Facebook or Pinterest offer the best chance of delivering what you want?

New research from Bizrate Insights has found that 69% of consumers who have visited Pinterest discovered something they then purchased or wanted to purchase.  This compares to only 40% for Facebook.

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Even more compelling was the finding that 70% of consumers use Pinterest to get inspired about things to buy and 67% use this social media platform to keep track of things they like.

You may use Facebook more to maintain friendships, but Pinterest is clearly out in front when it comes to selling. Both are sites which online consumers use to connect with people who have similar styles and interests. Pinterest though is more often used as a destination for shopping inspiration, tracking, and product discovery.

It also seems that brand building is better on Pinterest than on Facebook.  Bizrate reports that:

"A greater percent (55%) of Pinterest users have engaged with retailers and brands via Pinterest, compared to the percent of Facebook users that engage retailers or brands on Facebook (48%).  But how customers engage differs for each of the two platforms.  Pinterest users are more likely to be “Creators”: adding and sharing retailer/brand related content, while Facebook users are more likely to be “Participators”: interacting with promotional activities developed by retailers and brands."

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The reach of Facebook still blitzes Pinterest but awareness of the latter is trending upwards rapidly.  36% of online consumers had heard of Pinterest in March but by August this figure had risen to 46%.

The reports data from September 2012 showed that 63% of online consumers had a Facebook account and only 15% had a Pinterest account.  Facebook is not sitting twiddling its thumbs when it comes to luring purchasers. They are testing a new feature, "collections", that lets users create wish lists of products by clicking on "want" or "collect" buttons.

PCWorld believes that the want button, if adopted permanently, could drive a lot of traffic to brands on Facebook and encourage impulse purchases.  They could be correct in this assumption and if it does it will have some serious implications for Pinterest.

But Pinterest is on the right growth projectory with a recent ComScore study putting it in the top 50 most-visited Web sites in the US for the first time, with 25 million unique visitors in the month. Ranked at 50th it still has  along way to catch Facebook which is ranked 4th in the same survey.

Related articles

• Pinterest drives more than window shopping
• Pinterest stats: does it really drive more sales than Facebook?

Why Your Brand Needs Facebook

Your Facebook site is the place that users like to interact with your brand, possibly even more so than your corporate web site.

Even though this survey from Lab42 has a small sample of 1,000 compared to the estimated 900 million Facebook users, its finding reinforce the need for a robust and well maintained Facebook page.

87% Like brands on Facebook and only 13% said they did not.  More importantly 82% felt that Facebook was great place to interact with brands and 35% of these folk felt that brands listened more to them on Facebook than elsewhere online.

Incentives remain the biggest motivation for people to follow brands on Facebook. Promotions, discounts and giveaways were the biggest motivation for 55% of respondents.  Printing off a coupon was the top way that people interact with a brand page on Facebook and 77% felt they had saved money by Liking a brand on Facebook.

Too many posts though will turn off your Followers and make them Unlike the brand page.

However the news is not all good as some products have an uphill battle to get Likes.  Adult novelty items, diet and weight loss products all are causes for embarrassment and the reason people are reticent about being associated with a brand that produces these.  Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Health and Wellness products rank third on the 'Like Embarrassment' scale.

On Pinterest

Gauri Sharma, the CEO of Lab42 says of the survey: "We feel these insights alone will spur brands to re-evaluate and question the effectiveness of marketing tactics directed at their Facebook consumers, as the findings directly challenge the notion that more likes equals more customer loyalty. For example, 46 percent have liked a brand that they have no intention of buying from, and of those, 52 percent liked a brand just to get a free item. Forty-six percent said they like brands even if they can’t afford the brand’s products.

While there’s no definitive answer of how every single brand should interact with their Facebook consumers to maximize the use of time, money and resources, we feel strongly that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface in truly understanding why consumers like specific brands and if their display of ‘loyalty’ on Facebook translates to a higher lifetime value."

'Like' Chocolate? So Does Facebook

If your Facebook content strategy is to pepper your text with words such as 'Like' then you may have to think again.
According to a recent report from Sotrender, “like”, and similar call-to-action words such as “look” and “click” no longer encourage engagement as they once did.

After analysing 111 UK Facebook pages that contained 2800 different posts, across four different industries they came to the realisation that while pictures and graphics work best, there were some some words that draw a better response than others.

Among those ranked highly by Sotrender are chocolate, cream, daily, most, shop, winter, wardrobe, and today.

Other key findings include:

• Using catchy words in posts doesn't seem to increase engagement as Facebook users become 'immune' to constantly repeated phrases
• For food brands words that express emotions draw a higher response rate
• While providing links in Twitter posts works well this survey found that doing the same in Facebook drops fans’ engagement to below average

Source: Sotrender

• A picture is worth a thousand (or so) words when it comes to engaging with people on Facebook. Asking questions in posts works but an image or graphic is far more effective as the chart below shows.

Source: Sotrender

The recently introduced Timeline in Facebook has also had two beneficial effects:

• Posts now have have a longer shelf-life
• Engagement has increased for individual posts 

"80% of all comments are made in circa 8 hours and 30 minutes (2 hours more than before Timeline)" - Sotrender.

But don't fall into the trap of posting too often. Less is more, and too many posts over a short time period could well result in a loss of interest and, by extension, fans.

Related articles

• Facebook Users Like Food Pages

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• Study shows Facebook Timeline extends post lifetime, increases engagement by 13%

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Your Window on the World

A recent FT Bowen Craggs survey ranked the top ten corporate web sies in 2011 for web effectiveness.

The company site remains its brand showcase and as the rankings reveal several of the top places were taken by European corporations.

The aim of producing this index is three-fold:

• To help organisations know where to look for ideas
• To pick out trends in online communications
• To allow the companies in the Index and other Bowen Craggs subscribers to see how they are performing against their peers

The benchmarking methodology employed considers two groupings: overall and specific. Specific metrics concentrate on how well the site serves different groups. Within the overall metrics, Construction covers navigation and coherence, Message looks at the visual and content messages the site transmits, while Contact covers both ease of making contact and use of FAQs.

Siemens Web site