Who is “ExMediaMan” and Why Are So Many Following Him on Twitter?

So who is “ExMediaMan” and why are so many suddenly following him on Twitter?

He’s been called “a must follow” for salacious Tweets like this about the online sites he’s supposedly worked for.

And then there are pithy little tweets like this as well:

Oh, who could resist!

The anonymous Twitter user is becoming a phenomenon. He’s posted some razor sharp insights that (if true) expose the worst of new media sites. He claims to have worked for many of them including: Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Gawker, Daily Mail Online and The Atlantic.

With more than 11K followers already after tweeting for only five days, the reception has been pretty amazing.

There hasn’t been this much excitement and speculation since 2007 and the so-called “Fake Steve Jobs” phenomenon. Forbes Senior Editor Daniel Lyons was eventually identified as the author of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.

But not until he had posted to the satirical blog for almost a year. All the while, readers remained glued to the site, many trying to guess the author’s identity.

In fact, Lyons himself confessed he was stunned how long it had taken for someone to unmask him.

ExMediaMan claims to be speaking as an insider at many of the largest and best known new media sites today. He is dishing out what he claims is a ‘fly on the wall’ perspective of what goes on in their editorial and business offices.

Of course, as The Daily Dot points out, we still don’t know whether the mysterious ExMediaMan is who he says he is. In fact, we don’t know who he is at all.

But for now, he is certainly driving social engagement and drawing plenty of followers.

Next, people will be trying to guess ExMediaMan’s identity just like they did with the “Fake Steve Jobs.” But in the meantime, his followers will likely continue to increase. And all will watch his Twitter account with anticipation for the next zinger.

Image: Twitter

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How to Drive Sales From Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter

Social media may have been thought of as a fad even up to 2-3 years ago, but it is apparent now that networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can be major sales drivers for small businesses.

By targeting your messaging to your specific niche or local area, social media can be a great way to reach your market in a new way. Helping capture more exposure goes beyond local listings and your website, and social media is worth the effort of maintenance and, in some cases, even paid campaigns.

How to Drive Sales Through Social Media

Facebook

Facebook became the fastest growing social network in its ten year history and is still now the most used social network, with the majority of the population that spends time online having an account.

There are over 1 billion users worldwide and over 180 million users in the United States aloneâ€" almost 60% of the population, according to iStrategyLabs. Facebook has become a mainstay cultural and social way to communicate in our society, and there are many features Facebook offers that can help small businesses reach the large percentage of the population that uses this social platform.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook offers a variety of different advertising options for businesses:

The page post engagement allows advertisers to boost posts they’ve already written on their Facebook page to increase engagement. The rest of the options are relatively self-explanatory, and advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on the ad or completes the engagement action (such as liking the advertiser’s page when choosing the Page Likes option).

When building an ad, advertisers can choose the headline, ad text, and images. The Facebook page header and profile photo are already automatically pulled in, but new images can also be uploaded. Once the ad layout is chosen, the audience targeting section allows advertisers to choose the location, age, gender, language interests, and categories of the users they want to target.

This is perfect for small businesses, as they can target either a specific area if they are a local business, or specific interests and categories if their product is farther-reaching. The more specifically the audience is outlined, the more personalized the ad will be for that specific type of user, which will help increase click through rate and a higher conversion rate.

Facebook Giveaways

Giveaways can be a good way to get qualified leads from Facebook. Use a giveaway widget like Rafflecopter. It can be embedded into a tab on your Facebook page, and offer options for users on how to enter the contest for a relative prize (if you don’t want to give away any of your own products or services, technology like Kindles and iPads are always popular giveaway items as well).

Rafflecopter offers options like “Like us on Facebook” or “Join Our Mailing List” in order to enter. While this isn’t bringing in guaranteed sales, it can increase brand awareness and get consumers to connect with your business online. This kind of top-of-mind strategy can help generate more sales down the road, especially when promoted on other online mediums, like Twitter, Pinterest, your website or through email.

When it comes to many online giveaway services like Rafflecopter, once the contest is over, you can see the email addresses of everyone who enters. These leads may be more qualified than a cold calling list, as they have already engaged with your product. If you do plan to contact these leads, be sure to make it known above the contest form that they are consenting when they enter.

Finally, Facebook has a lot of terms and conditions, so it is important to follow these in order to stay in accordance with the policies.

Regular Facebook Updates and Engagement

Besides paying for advertising and giveaway items, regular Facebook updates and engagement on your company’s page can also help drive sales. By posting a healthy mixture of relative information, photos, and trivia that your target audience would find interesting and promoting your own products, many businesses have found that Facebook can be a good driver of leads to their own website.

In addition, many users see a regularly updated Facebook page as a sign of a reputable business (especially when it is a local storefront business that has the correct location, hours, and services listed) and are more likely to visit or make a purchase.

Facebook can also be used as a customer service tool, as many users take to the social platform (and others) to ask questions and get help with products. Answering these questions and comments can help increase page engagement and brand trust.

To learn more about how businesses of all sizes have used Facebook, here’s a great list of case studies.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another social network that was built for businesses and professionals to promote their products and services. With over 277 million users around the world and 93 million of them in the United States, LinkedIn is a great way to reach potential customers through multiple sections on the site, including groups, personal profile networks, and company pages.

LinkedIn Groups

The majority of LinkedIn users have joined at least one group (with many in more than one), so groups are a great way to look for potential leads, build brand awareness, and participate in local or industry discussions that could directly influence your business and its sales.

Look for groups to join in the Groups Directory, and also take advantage of the “Groups You May Be Interested In” option that is based on your past group history and personal profile. Join groups that have an active discussion section and consider joining LinkedIn groups that are company-sponsored, especially if they are a target client or cater to similar audiences.

Participate in the group in a regular basis by answering questions and offering your own products and services when it is directly applicable. Being too salesy can turn people off of what you have to say, so make messages genuine and offer your own business only when it would really help.

LinkedIn Personal Profile Optimization

Personalized messaging on groups is also part of maintaining a personal profile, which can help you and your employees find new leads on a regular basis. By updating regularly and sending out connection requests to new people you’ve met in your network, you and your employees’ profiles will be more visible to potential and current customers, which can help keep your business top-of-mind and make it easy for them to contact you.

Be sure all profile information is filled out, including website, email, and phone numbers. By offering multiple methods of contact or finding out more information, potential customers are more likely to connect with you.

Finding LinkedIn Leads

Waiting for customers to find your small business via personal profiles can be fruitful, but so is actively reaching out to potential customers in a helpful, not disingenuous, way. If you’ve met a potential client through a networking event, at your office, or otherwise, it can strengthen the relationship to then add them on LinkedIn with a personal note that reminds them how you two met or know one another.

While it’s not advisable to add people you don’t know, building up a good network of people you do can help you find connections in common that can make for a useful introduction.

Twitter

While LinkedIn is all about connecting with people that you do know, Twitter is mainly about connecting with people that you don’t. Due to its fast-paced nature, Twitter is a great way to reach customers in a quick way that can create instant results. Twitter currently has about 232 million users that are active on at least a monthly basis.

While this social platform can be useful for local businesses (especially when it comes to using coupons or exclusive specials), Twitter is great for small businesses who want to connect with people around the United States and the world.

By sharing relevant industry content (such as links to interesting news and blog articles or infographics), tidbits of information (like statistics and quotes), and self-promotion, Twitter can help a business establish credibility, share their own content and information, and connect with their existing and potential user base, either in a customer service or regular engagement role.

Twitter Ad Campaigns

Like Facebook, Twitter also has its own ad campaign that allows advertisers to showcase sponsored tweets or to gain more followers. Once they run a campaign, advertisers are able to see impression, spend and click data in their ad dashboard:

Promoted tweets can be new tweets you haven’t sent before or ones you have. For small businesses, it can be useful to promote tweets that give exclusive coupons (which is discussed in more detail later) or insight on new products and services.

Additionally, gaining more followers can help increase your online presence and get your message out to more users. This can help drive more traffic to your website, which can increase conversions.

Twitter Hashtags to Drive Engagement

Organic tweets with hashtags can help drive your content to the additional followers gained from a paid follower campaign. Tweets with hashtags get two times more engagement than those who don’t, according to a syndicated Buffer article on the Huffington Post. This is because many people search by hashtags (since it makes a word clickable), thus opening up the possibility that more people are going to see your tweet than just your followers.

Hashtag keywords in your tweet and don’t use more than two in one tweetâ€"people who did that saw a 17% drop in engagement.

To see the type of activity that is happening on a particular hashtag, search for it at Search.Twitter.com. This can also be a good way to participate in conversations with users that you aren’t following yet. By reaching out to participate in conversation, they will be more likely to check out your profile, leading to more followers and traffic to your website (which is linked in your Twitter bio).

Twitter Custom Coupons and Promotions

Coupons and promotions can be a great way to drive sales and conversions on any type of social media, not just Twitter. Create a sense of urgency by making the coupon or promo code only good for a limited amount of time. Tracking is easy when you use an exclusive coupon or code for each type of social network as well.

When customers know that your Twitter account (or other social media profile) regularly shares exclusive deals, they will be much more likely to engage with it, following the account and telling their friends.

Conclusion

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are all viable options for small businesses to generate leads and sales online. Businesses that have social media profiles are much more likely to be found than those who don’t have any at all, and maintaining an active presence on these networks further increases your odds of greater sales and conversions.

By experimenting with a mixture of organic content, giveaways, coupons and advertising campaigns, you can find the best strategy that works for your small business.

Social Media Photo via Shutterstock

Why immersive training works

March 17, 2014

If you don't want your security training to be as compelling as an airplane safety presentation, vary the content and make an emotional connection says Scott Greaux.

Phishing is a very effective low-cost attack vector that bypasses most traditional detection methods and it has been widely identified as one of the biggest security threats organisations face today. Cybercriminals target a specific organisation and often a specific person, and develop sophisticated phishing emails in a bid to trick employees into opening malicious attachments. This causes great concern for organisations because not only can phishing can have disastrous consequences on a company, the emails are so cleverly crafted that they are extremely difficult to spot, even to the most well trained eye.

As a result of the rise in targeted phishing scams, organisations must train their staff on how to spot these malicious emails. However, because of the ever-changing nature of phishing, training cannot be carried out through simple paper-handouts or within employee handbooks.

The security awareness training needs to be an experience that staff will actually remember and retain. Immersing a human in an experience triggers the brain in a way that traditional training doesn't - by drawing an emotional response. In complex vertebrates (contrary to what some in security might say, your users do fit into this category), the amygdala is the area of the brain associated with both memories and emotions. An emotional experience sticks in our memory, making training techniques that elicit emotions more powerful. This is why posters and conventional computer based training fall short.

One method of immersive training to help employees spot phishing attacks would be to send staff mock phishing emails. The staff members that correctly identify the phishing email will be commended and the staff that do not will receive training to help them identify future attacks.

Repeating immersive training exercises capitalises on a neurological process called long-term potentiation, which is how the human brain forms memories and retains them. Memories form from similar synapses between neurons, and repetition of those synaptic processes cause us to learn and retain information. Conducting annual training will not lead to retention - even if the training itself is compelling - because it won't be frequent enough to stick in employees' minds. Whenever we are learning something new, whether it's to play a sport, instrument, speak a new language, etc. repetition is crucial. It's the same with teaching email users safe email behaviour, repeatedly conducting security awareness exercises will allow them to make safe email use a habit.

Ultimately, immersing your employees in an experience will improve their behaviour. With that said, here are ways to make your immersive security awareness engaging:

Start simple: For the average user, security concepts are difficult to grasp, so start simple! Sending a beginner down a black diamond trail is a good way to turn them off of skiing forever (or worse, get them injured). It's the same with security. Don't trip up your users by starting them off with complicated concepts - get them on the beginner slope.

Be Specific: Hollow platitudes will undoubtedly get your users to tune out. Avoid vague messages like “keep company resources safe”, instead give users specific, actionable information that will help them change behaviour.

Mix it up: How many of you pay attention to the airline safety demonstration prior to take-off? That demonstration never changes so ultimately people lose interest. Don't make the same mistake with security awareness. Vary both the content and delivery method of your security awareness to continually engage recipients.

Keep it going: Why is it so easy to forget what you learned in a boring class? After the final exam, you don't need the information, so there's no need to retain it. We do know that security is a constant and changing threat; therefore, security awareness needs to be continuously reinforced. By continuously training users at different times throughout the year, safe security behaviour becomes a habit, and not something forgotten as soon as training is over.

Be Positive: It might be tempting to expose the users who are security risks, but in our experience the negative backlash this generates will quickly undermine your security awareness programme. Keep things positive by measuring the results of your programme and recognising people and departments who have done well. Educate and support those that need additional help.

Contributed by Scott Greaux,  VP at PhishMe

Crimea battle continues: Ukrainian hackers DDoS NATO websites

March 17, 2014

A group of pro-Russian, Ukrainian activists have claimed responsibility for carrying out DDoS attacks on various NATO websites.

A wave of cyber attacks hit NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) websites, and the alliance's Estonia-based cyber defence “centre of excellence”, on Saturday forcing them offline for a “few hours” and even into the early hours on Sunday.

The www.nato.int homepage was inaccessible on Sunday morning but resumed normal operation on Monday, while the website of Tallinn-based NATO Co-operative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence returned online shortly after the attack was first discovered.

The group responsible for the attack couldn't be verified immediately afterwards, until an organisation calling itself “cyber berkut” took responsibility. Cyber berkut is a reference to the disbanded riot squads used by the government of ousted pro-Russian Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovich. In a statement published on Sunday, the group says that it attacked NATO because of perceived interference in their country.

“We, Cyber Berkut, will not allow the presence of NATO occupiers on the territory of our homeland,” the group said.

NATO press spokesperson Oana Lungescu revealed that the attack was ongoing on Sunday morning and added that hackers were carrying out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on a number of different websites.

“DDoS attack on some NATO sites ongoing but most services restored. Integrity of NATO data & systems not affected. We continue working on it,” tweeted Oana Lungescu at the time.

The attacks followed shortly after NATO claimed that the Crimea referendum was "illegal". The vote apparently shows that over 96 percent of those who voted want to become part of Russia.

NATO was hacked in July 2011, when hackers obtained 1GB of computer data from the alliance's servers, while last November Anonymous Ukraine launched a DDoS attack against NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). Hackers kept the website offline for almost two hours in response to NATO hacking a number of Ukrainian government websites.

In response to this news over the weekend, Eerke Boiten, director, Cyber Security Research Centre, University of Kent, told SCMagazineUK.com that the DDoS attack was “innocuous” and the equivalent of “taking a poster down”, something Robert David Graham, CEO of Errata Security, added by pointing us to this graphic.

“They've shown the manpower and willpower but they haven't yet shown the intelligence,” he said of the Ukranian group, adding that this latest attack was likely more of a “digital protest” - something which he said was commonplace in 2007 and 2008 when there was political unrest in Estonia and Georgia. “Taking a web server down - it's a form of publicity and I wouldn't expect [hackers] to get much further.” 

But Boiten added that this was a different thing entirely to government-sponsored cyber warfare, which he said often manifests itself when other events are going on.

“The best way for cyber warfare is to strike when something else is going on. What you'd expect from a government-sponsored attack is where you can't see the attack but it causes massive damage.”

12 Low Cost Ways to Improve Your Business

Startups are usually strapped for cash. But that shouldn’t stop you from building your dream as effectively as possible. So how can you do both and find ways to improve your business without breaking the bank?

To find out, we asked 12 entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question.

“I have limited resources but plan to grow a lot this year. What is one low-cost way I can significantly improve my operations?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Help Your Customers

“Focus on helping people, and the business will follow. If you are providing added value to your customers and helping them out, it will inevitably provide cash to finance your growth.” ~ Dan Price, Gravity Payments

2. Use Zapier

“I look at operations in four parts: Strategy, people, tools and processes. Chances are, your company can improve in at least one of these areas. Zapier has saved me a ton of money and made us more efficient by automating certain tasks in my company. It is like the glue that connects all of the different business tools that I use to create one effective system. Save time. Save money. Use Zapier.” ~ Lawrence Watkins, Great Black Speakers

3. Open a Line of Credit

“Banks are lending! Establish a relationship with your bank and open a line of credit. It can do wonders for your purchasing power, and the rates being offered now are some of the lowest they’ve ever been. “ ~ Evrim Oralkan, Travertine Mart

4. Automate Marketing

“For a cheaper but still very effective solution, take a look at Infusionsoft. We have many clients who use it to automate following up with customers. “ ~ Adam Root, Hiplogiq

5. Take It to the Cloud

“By moving everything you can to cloud-based systems (CRM, project management, accounting, etc.), you can easily scale up as you need more. Use contractors to optimize specific processes rather than hiring new employees.” ~ Mary Ellen Slayter, Reputation Capital

6. Build Strategic Partnerships

“A company is only as small as it projects itself to be. By developing strategic relationships and outsourcing non-core competences to industry partners, small companies can maximize efficiency and create value. Play off your partners’ expertise and offer services that are unique. Clients don’t need to know you are running your operations from a coffee shop as long as you deliver the goods.” ~ Elliot Fabri, EcoCraft Homes

7. Look to Sales

“In order to grow with limited resources, particularly financial resources, you’ll want to look to sales. New and larger sales will provide for live operational experiences, which help you scale business processes.” ~ Andrew Fayad, eLearning Mind

8. Leverage 1099 Subcontractors

“Leveraging 1099 subcontractors gives you the ability to scale quickly while reducing your fixed operating costs. They’ll cost you more in the short-term, but you can adjust resourcing levels very quickly to adapt to increasing customer demands.” ~ Chris Cancialosi, GothamCulture

9. Have Customers Pay Early

“Growing a business with limited resources is the battle almost all startups must endure. As we are going through the same issue, we have focused our efforts on getting our customers to pay early, often up front. It puts money in the bank and fuels the company for more growth. “ ~ Alex Chamberlain, EZFingerPrints

10. Automate Tasks

“When your team is small, it’s critical that every repeatable task is being optimized. Something as simple as a checklist helps your employees think through operations, so they can quickly and confidently make decisions without going to their bosses for assistance. Inexpensive project management software, like Basecamp, can also help automate many of your team’s tasks and eliminate repetition.” ~ Brittany Hodak, ZinePak

11. Invest in Customer Service

“If you can’t deal with customer service and sales inquiries personally as they come up, using support software, like Zendesk, is the next best and cheapest thing you can do. Good customer service is really a mindset, and it doesn’t cost much. “ ~ Jim Belosic, Pancakes Laboratories/ShortStack

12. Focus on Now

“The fastest way to waste your two most precious resources (time and money) is to build and plan your operations around what you might need once you grow a lot. Focus on what pains you have right now, whether it is a critical hire or a missing feature that customers are demanding. Save money and optimize for today’s problems. Don’t worry about what problems the future might bring.” ~ Anthony Nicalo, Dónde

Magic Photo via Shutterstock

Square Tests New Advance Loans, Following PayPal, American Express

If a small business owner is unable to get a loan or some quick cash for whatever reason, another option is to turn to merchant cash advances. And Square, creator of the plastic credit card reader and online marketplace, is now entering this market.

Square is testing a program called Square Capital. So far only a few select merchants have been invited to participate. Invitation seems to be based on the amount of transactions each merchant is currently processing through Square.

The move follows similar programs offered by other providers including PayPal Working Capital and American Express Merchant Financing.

One merchant invited to participate in Square’s testing phase, Extreme John, shared the full details of the program in a recent blog post.

At present, the pilot program seems to have three tiers, with merchants paying 4 percent, 7 percent or 10 percent out of each future sale. Payments would continue to be deducted until the initial advance and a one-time cost is paid back.

For example, currently the program offers:

• a $3,200 advance with a one-time cost of $384 at 4 percent,
• a $5,600 advance with a one-time cost of $672 at 7 percent, and
• an $8,100 advance with a one-time cost of $972 at 10 percent.

In its email to perspective participants, Square stresses the advances are not loans and have no interest. The company says the added one time cost does not increase, no matter how long it might take to pay the advance down.

However, Re/code has called the program controversial. The sites says Square Capital is a “financial product” that operates outside the usual regulatory limits of conventional loans. Still, the program does not seem that different from similar merchant advances offered by PayPal and American Express.

In the case of PayPal, merchants averaging $100,000 in annual sales can receive an advance of up to $8,000 choosing a repayment plan of 10, 12, 15, 20 or 30 percent.

Selecting a higher percentage of repayment per sale will get you a lower one-time cost for the advance. So for example, a 10 percent repayment plan would include a $947 one-time fee. However, a 30 percent repayment plan would include only a $281 fee.

PayPal does call its service a “loan” in some of its online information. But one participant we’ve heard from says there is no penalty for longer repayment based on slow sales. PayPal would only change terms or demand immediate payment if the company observed a deliberate attempt to avoid repayment, this participant says. This might include no longer accepting PayPal payments or deliberately directing customers away from the PayPal option.

American Express offers monthly or annual lump sum disbursements in its program. Amounts available and regular fixed repayment fees are based on historical credit and debit receivables, the company’s website says.

Image: Square

Get Reads and Leads with an Online Press Release

At one time, a news release was mailed or faxed to select newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations, where journalists read it over to determine if it inspired a story. The internet has changed all that. Now one of the most effective ways to get your news in front of the masses is with an online press release.

Brought to you by PRWeb, a leading online news and press release distribution service used by 40,000+ organizations. From Fortune 500 companies to small business, companies are using PRWeb to increase their online visibility, improve search engine rankings, drive traffic to their site and increase sales. To get a free expert guide on writing press releases + 25% off your first release, go to PRWeb.

Get Reads and Leads with an Online Press Release

Technology has drastically changed the way we receive information and our ability to share information with so many more media outlets than in the past. The internet has expanded “media” to include blogs, online webzines, and online video news sources. An article posted on a site like Huffington Post could get more reads than one on the front page of a local newspaper, especially if the article is shared extensively over social media. Realizing this, marketers are now eager to find ways to reach these influencers directly.

Online Press Releases

Today’s press releases are very similar to their paper predecessors. Sure, marketers are no longer required to consult some statewide news media directory to determine the name of the news director at the local ABC affiliate. But even though they’re delivered electronically, online press releases must still have the journalistic integrity that news professionals expect.

One mistake marketers often make when crafting an online press release is concentrating all of their efforts on keyword placement. While the right set of keywords can help with search engine optimization, most experts now recommend putting content first. First and foremost, marketers must consider the person on the receiving end of that news release, who is just as eager to find good subject matter as the PR crafter is to provide it.

Timing is Everything

The flexibility of online press release distribution means marketers have opportunities not found in the pre-internet days. By trying out new headlines and angles, marketing professionals can repurpose a press release as a blog post, website news item, and a social media post. But it’s important to space the posts out to maximize the news item’s reach.

Reporting Capabilities

Another way online press releases far outweigh the paper news releases of the past is that their success can often be measured. Analytics will show not only how many reads a news item received, but what search terms brought visitors to the site to read it. Marketers can combine those analytics with reporting on the news items they placed on their own website to tweak future campaigns for increased success.

Online press releases are no longer read by mere journalists. Today’s press release distribution sites can place releases directly on sites where they can be found through searches. This not only increases the chance that they will be picked up by journalists researching the latest survey or new product release, but it also cuts out the middleman, helping news reach consumers more quickly.

By creating an informative, interesting news piece that will reach out to customers, marketers can provide content to online publications, while also speaking directly to their intended audience. With an increasing number of online searchers now clicking the “News” link on Google searches, having your content display prominently among other news items on the same issue, you’ll likely find a new audience you might not have otherwise found.

Don’t Bet on IRS Budget Cuts Lowering Small Business Audit Rates

After several years of increases, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) small businesses audit rate declined in 2013, data released recently by the tax authority reveal.

The audit rate for business tax returns - a category which includes small and large corporations, as well as partnership and Subchapter S returns - fell from 0.71 percent in 2012 to 0.61 percent in 2013. The drop brings the overall business audit rate back in line with its 2005-to-2011 average of 0.61 percent.

Before you get too excited about this drop, however, take a look at the rate in historical context. The current business audit rate of 0.61 percent is considerably higher than the 0.36 percent rate that prevailed in 2004.

Audit rates are much higher for small corporations than for businesses organized as partnerships and S-corps. As the audit rates by year for different types of small businesses (the image above) shows, audit rates for small corporations have been consistently higher than those for partnerships and S-corps since the mid-2000s.

Audit rates for all three categories of small businesses declined in 2013, but remained higher than they were in 2004. For S-corps, the fraction of businesses audited declined from 0.48 percent in 2012 to 0.42 percent in 2013, slightly higher than the average from 2005 to 2011, but double the 0.19 percent rate in 2004.

For partnerships, the audit rate fell from 0.47 percent in 2012 to 0.42 percent in 2013. That’s slightly higher than the 0.38 percent rate from 2005 to 2011, but up considerably from the 0.26 percent rate in 2004.

For small corporations (those with assets of less than $10 million) audit rates dropped from 1.12 percent in 2012 to 0.95 percent in 2013. That’s close to the 0.90 percent average rate that prevailed between 2005 and 2011, but is much higher than the 0.32 percent present in 2004.

Some have argued that belt tightening at the IRS is behind the reduction in audit rates. Since 2010, the tax authority’s budget has been steadily reduced, as Congress has sought to get the federal deficit under control. In response to declining resources, the agency has reduced its enforcement workforce from 22,710 employees in 2010 to 19,531 in 2013.

These observers are betting that the fraction of small businesses audited will continue to decline this year because Congress lowered the IRS’s funding by 5 percent as part of its 2014 budget deal.

However, I’m not so sure that budget cuts are behind the recent decline in small business audit rates. Between 2010 and 2012, the IRS cut its tax enforcement workforce by 8.9 percent, but the audit rate on small corporations, S-corps and partnerships all increased, with the overall business audit rate rising from 0.58 to 0.71 percent.

Budget cuts don’t require the agency to lay off employees involved in enforcement. The tax authority could maintain the size of its tax enforcement workforce and cut its budget elsewhere. Or the IRS could reduce individual or big business audit rates to maintain the level at which it examines small businesses.

Given the tax agency’s belief that small business owners are responsible for a sizeable portion of the tax gap - the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid - the IRS seems unlikely to cut the small business audit rate considerably this year. Reducing the number of small business examinations would likely lower tax collections more than would a corresponding reduction in the number of individual audits.

Image Source: Created from IRS Enforcement and Service Data

Sitting Too Long? Here’s a 4 Minute Workout You Can Do At Your Desk

A lot of small business owners spend their workdays seated. It’s the reality of the modern work environment.

That means hours a day, week after week, behind a desk, in some cubicle or even in your home office hunched over a computer.

Well, those hours in your office chair - no matter how comfortable it may be - are taking a toll on your body. If you log a lot of hours without much physical activity otherwise, your body is probably already suffering.

Crossfit South Brooklyn instructor Christian Fox has discovered a 4-minute workout you can do right at your desk. The goal of this workout is to boost your heart rate and stretch some important muscles.

To start, you’ll need a little space. You’ll get a good cardio workout by following 20 seconds of abdominal squats with 10 seconds of rest. After that, do 20 seconds of push-ups followed by another 10 seconds of rest.

To get in a full four minutes, repeat the steps three more times.

Fox says seated workers often suffer from a similar malady. He told Business Insider:

“A lot of people who sit all day long tend to be pretty tight in the hips.”

There are several stretches you can do right at your desk to help loosen those hips. It also serves as a good cool-down period following the cardio workout you just endured.

To get a good rotation stretch of the hip, sit tall in your office chair with your back straight. Raise one ankle to the opposite knee and press down on the other knee. Fox says to hold this stretch for a minute or two, then switch sides.

For stretching the muscles in the front of the hip, put one knee down on the ground in front of your chair. Then extend your calf  back and up until your foot is on the seat of your chair.

Your other foot should be planted on the ground with your knee bent at a 90-degree angle for balance.

Keeping your back straight and tall throughout. This should stretch the front hip muscles. Hold this for a minute or two before switching sides and repeating.

This workout is perfect for any busy person who can’t find time to schedule for any other workout. Fox explains:

“The benefit of it is that it’s short and intense. So you get a lot done in a short amount of time.”

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