Yahoo Acquires, Plans to Close Vizify: What You Need to Know

If you are a user of Vizify, the personal website builder that creates visual-based biographies and snapshots of your social life, take note. You have just a few weeks - until April 7 - to archive your bio. That will buy you just a few extra months of time before the site is shut down and all personal data will be gone for good.

That’s because Yahoo has acquired Vizify and, as part of the deal, will be shuttering the Vizify service.

What are the important points that all users - free and paid - need to know?

First, it is important to bear in mind that you have the option to archive your bio as a kind of “snapshot” at your Vizify URL. It will remain in place from now until September 4, when the site will be shut down. Once your bio is archived, it will be just like a photograph. No edits can be made, and it will no longer update.

You have to decide on whether or not to opt in to the archive option by April 7. If you choose not to archive your Vizify bio by then, your bio will be deactivated shortly after that.

One feature which is not on the table is downloading your bio. Vizify has made it clear that this will not be possible.

Vizify’s FAQ page has assured paid users that they will be refunded in full. This will include every single cent you ever paid to Vizify, not just the current month. The page also reveals that the archiving function has not even been finalized yet. When it is, it will not archive the 2012 Year On Twitter feature. The joint project, created with Twitter, allowed Vizify members to log in to an archive of all their 2012 tweets, assembled in a kind of collage.

Other companies are trying to fill the gap left by Vizify’s departure. One of them - BrandYourself - is tweeting to encourage people to sign up with them. Another possible option is About.me.

So what does Yahoo intend to do with Vizify now that they own it? Will the employees go to work at Yahoo? Why did Yahoo acquire Vizify? Does Yahoo intend to start their own similar service? Or was this just an acqui-hire strategy intended to bring some new technical talent to Yahoo?

A Yahoo spokesperson told Small Business Trends via email:

“Yahoo has acquired Vizify, a company that turns your social media data into interactive infographics, videos, and more. We have found in Vizify a company that shares our passion for visualization technology and the user experience. The team of five has joined Yahoo’s media product organization in San Francisco.”

Image: Vizify

iPad Users, Your Microsoft Office Version Is Almost Here

There have been rumors for quite some time about a version of Microsoft Office specifically created for the iPad. And now The Verge is reporting that Microsoft Office for iPad could be released this month. Ars Technica and others suggest the new version could be unveiled at a Microsoft event next week.

This is good news for small business owners, who may like to use an iPad as their portable office, but would also like to be able to open, create and edit Microsoft Office files.

Until now, iPad owners wishing to have Office capability, needed to rely on third-party apps, all with varying degrees of success. The best third-party app of all is one from Google, of all people. It is called QuickOffice and when it came out, Google offered 10GB of free Google Drive space to anyone who downloaded it.

Of course, you can already use Office on your iPad, through the Office 365 subscription service. And Office is already up and running on the iPhone. So is the iPad version likely to be a Windows 8-like touchscreen affair? The Verge thinks not, saying it will probably emulate the iPhone version, run on Office 365, and include Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Outlook users will be disappointed this app has not been initially included.

Any Office for iPad version will, of course, be competing with Apple’s own word processing apps - Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. These are free with all new iOS devices. Google also offers free Office document creation, uploading, and editing on Drive. Oh, and let’s not forget Office Online itself.

Despite all this competition giving it away free, will Microsoft be able to charge for Office 365 subscriptions? It will depend upon whether having Office on your iPad is worth the added cost.

iPad Photo via Shutterstock, Logo: Wikipedia

Mixed reaction from information security industry on 2014 Budget

March 20, 2014

The UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne introduced the 2014 Budget yesterday, but those in the infosec industry believe that it didn't do enough to close the cyber security skills gap.

Yesterday's Budget from the Chancellor of the Exchequer may have been welcome news to older savers and anyone planning for their pension, but some segments of the IT security industry expressed disappointment that the UK government has not truly raised the bar when it comes to encouraging or training people to enter the IT security profession. 

The CBI - the former Confederation of British Industry - was positive and welcomed news of a boost to apprenticeships, noting that apprenticeships are a crucial tool in fighting skills shortages and youth unemployment. 

"This additional support is very welcome - especially for smaller firms wanting to do more. We still need to better demonstrate the benefits of apprenticeships to young people, however," it said in its analysis. 

Gary Turner, managing director of Xero, the specialist SMB tech provider, said that the increase in Research and Development (R&D) tax relief is good for any SMEs engaged in technology innovation - including technology start-ups. From April 1, he said that the rate of R&D payable tax credit for loss-making small SMEs will be increased from 11 to 14.5 per cent - a measure designed to incentivise small companies and start-ups to invest in R&D. 

"In particular, the policy targets companies for whom risks and market failures are most pronounced, a measure which is consistent with the government's wider objective to support small innovative companies with high growth potential," he said, adding that, whilst it is encouraging news that the economy is growing well, there is still a clear opportunity to cement the UK's leadership in technology innovation in Europe. 

This opportunity, he said, is increased when you consider the Chancellor's statement that the UK economy is growing faster than that of Germany, Japan and the US. 

Against this backdrop, he added, the government's policy goes some way to support that ambition. 

Amanda Finch, general manager of the IISP - the Institute of Information Security Professionals - was also positive, saying that it is good to see the government investment in the Alan Turing Institute, adding that she hopes that the investment in MScs and apprenticeships address the skills shortage within information security industry.

"I would have liked to have seen more focus on retraining in the workplace and channelling transferable skills into IT security," she said. 

No great change in strategy

James Lyne, EMEA director of the SANS Institute and an instructor with the security training agency, was less upbeat. He told SCMagazineUK.com that the budget does not reflect any great change in the government's strategy regarding cyber-security. 

"The challenge continues to be a lack of security talent on our industry. Even with the current training investments, we won't see any major changes in IT skill sets much before the end of the decade," said Lyne, who is also director of technology strategy at Sophos.

Having said that, he added, the Government is now investing in security training, and it is reassuring to see the government improving apprenticeship arrangements for business in the budget.

The problem remains, however, that many school leavers are very keen to progress in the field of IT security, but they lack the opportunities to further their experience in the area. 

"The problem is that the path for the individual to progress is still not that clear, even if some opportunities exist," he explained. 

Andrea Simmons, chief risk officer & global head of security policy governance with HP's Enterprise Security Services, was unimpressed with the improvements in apprenticeship arrangements outlined in the budget. 

"There is no need for more training, that's for sure," she said, adding that what training there is hampered by a lack of investment - from individuals not appreciating that they control their own future and destiny and that lifelong learning is a part of the journey.

"And from organisations due to ongoing constriction in budgets," she explained. 

Simmons went on to say that, despite these issues, there is still a plethora of available training in the IT industry - as has been the case for many years. 

"Let's face it, the ISC(2) is in its 25th year now. There is an extensive `common body of knowledge' and there are a number of skills frameworks - the IISPs being the most useful and most used in security circles in the UK and beyond, so there is no bad news story here," she said, adding that there is also the CREST programme and the available training routes. 

"At the end of the day, businesses are facing a difficult decision when it comes to educating from within given the likelihood of then losing that trained individual to competitors," she added. 

Internet of Things security warning issued by two reports

March 20, 2014

"The Internet of Things makes it easier for someone to attack someone that you know," says Sarb Sembhi, analyst and director of consulting at Incoming Thought.

The Internet of Things (IoT) poses multiple challenges to data centre security, as well as the structure of the technology landscape, according to two recently published reports. 

Gartner's analysis says that the IoT will soon start to overload data centres and open up the enterprise to greater security risks, as we move steadily towards 26 billion interconnected devices by the end of the decade. 

The research firm's concerns are echoed by a report just published by Intercede, the business consultancy, which says that the IoT is inherently insecure and will continue to be until we can establish the identity of every machine or device that connects with our networks. 

According to Gartner's report - entitled `The Impact of the Internet of Things on Data Centers' - the IoT will interconnect remote assets and provide a data stream between the asset and centralised management systems. 

Those assets, says the firm, can then be integrated into new and existing organizational processes to provide information on status, location, functionality, and so on. 

Gartner claims that, against this backdrop, the increasing digitisation and automation of the multitudes of devices deployed across different areas of modern urban environments are set to create new security challenges to many industries. 

Over at fellow business research consultancy Intercede, meanwhile, it claims that IoT is already with us today and it requires a shift in the way that organisations think about security. 

Intercede says that, whilst protecting sensitive data will continue to be of the utmost importance, the rise in connected devices raises a new security concern - namely how to trust the identity of these devices. 

Dr Chris Edwards, the company's CTO, said that because of this, enterprises and other organisations must shake themselves out of the mind-set that that online security is simply about protecting data. 

With the rise of the IoT, he argues, the IoT must also ensure that they can protect and verify the identity of every device that connects to their environments. 

"We are living in an increasingly fragile society. We depend on the Internet for many more things than we did a few years ago. The problem is that, whilst you can build a corporate enterprise fortress, the Internet itself has spiralled into real life with webcams, remote security systems and a potential for damage for when things go wrong. 

It may be early days with the IoT, he says, but it is the stage when we must get things right of we are not to face major problems further down the IT trail. 

"I was at the Mobile World Congress recently and saw that most of the cars on show were truly internet interconnected. These cars now make use of home and company WiFi systems, as well as on-board cellular connections. The cellular side may be secure, but the WiFi isn't," he explained. 

Sarb Sembhi, of Incoming Thought, said that IoT increases the risk surface of people as well as companies. 

"It increases risk for you and your company. It also increases the risk to you and your family. You are also making it easier for someone to attack someone that you know," he said that an example of this is the rise of smart buildings, which interconnect the various systems inside the office and make decisions based on the data. 

Then we have the example of interconnected cars, which will have data on everything, right down to the owner's insurance credentials. "We also need to address the security of the automated breaking system on two cars - what happens when the interconnect is compromised?" he said. 

The end result of this, says Sembhi, who is also a leading figure at ISACA, the not-for-profit IT security association, is that there is a clear need for a layered approach to security when it comes to the IoT.

11 Ways to Successfully Promote Your New Book

Writing a book is hard work. But after the ink has dried, your real work is just beginning. After all, you want people to appreciate and learn from all your research.

That’s why we asked a panel of 11 entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question.

“What is one effective tool or strategy I can use to promote my new business book?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Speak for Free

“Offering to speak to groups, companies, entrepreneurs and organizations for free is a huge way to promote your new book. During your message, you can share that you have the book available for purchase and create sales and revenue while speaking.” ~ Matt Shoup, MattShoup.com

2. Make an Online Course

“I created an online course version of my book and watched sales of both explode. These days, readers want to learn though multiple channels (e.g., video, live chat, reading and more). Take each chapter, and turn it into a five-minute summary video. Post it on your website, and offer it as a package with your book. Not only will your sales increase, but also your readers will love it.” ~ Vanessa Van Edwards, Science of People

3. Blog

“Reach out to influential bloggers in your space, and offer to provide them with high-quality content in return for a link or mention of your new book.” ~ Josh Weiss, Bluegala

4. Get Interviewed

“Getting in front of your ideal audience is key, and getting interviewed in targeted places, such as your prospective customers’ favorite podcasts, is the way to go. All it takes is a carefully crafted email, a nice intro from someone or just a great book website to show you know your stuff!” ~ Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media Inc.

5. Leverage Reviews Early

“If you send out early copies of the books for review, be sure to collect the responses well before your launch. Then on the day of the release, send copies of the review to each person, and ask them to post it directly on Amazon to encourage additional sales. Their reviews can be used in emails, on your book page and to secure speaking gigs. “ ~ Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems

6. Utilize LinkedIn

“LinkedIn has a user base that’s all about new business knowledge. Utilize the many different areas on LinkedIn to promote your book. Edit your profile, and add the book to your professional headline, your experience, your summary and maybe even your job. Space it out over time so that LinkedIn treats each update as something to feature on its home page. Then, make status updates of your own.” ~ Brett Farmiloe, Internet Advertising Company

7. Create an Email Signature

“Think of how many emails you send every day. It’s likely a lot, isn’t it? It’s easy to create your own custom email signature to include your book’s listing. This tends to be very effective because the people receiving your message generally read it all the way through, and they also tend to be a little nosy when it comes to the sender. “ ~ Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net

8. Send Out a Press Release

“When you publish your new book, one way to set yourself apart from the thousands of other books published each year is to write and publish an official press release. By doing this, you will get your story and the book’s premise in front of numerous reporters and journalists who may be interested in your topic. This broad reach can lead to great success.” ~ Bobby Grajewski, Edison Nation Medical

9. Release a Sample Chapter

“Giving away a sample chapter is a great way to help potential readers preview the book. It’s even better if you can reward those who do purchase with a bonus chapter that didn’t make the final cut. “ ~ Jenny Blake, Jenny Blake

10. Lower the Purchase Barrier

“The best technique I’ve seen for promoting business books is to release it for a very small amount as an Amazon eBook. Releasing the book for free usually gets you a lot of downloads, but very few people actually consume the book. If you want people to consume your content, even charging a dollar will seriously boost consumption while lowering the barrier to purchase to almost nothing.” ~ Liam Martin, Staff.com

11. Create an Easily Converted Landing Page

“Describe the benefits of your book, the highlights, blurbs/recommendations, sample content or examples and a description of the book. You can structure it with a picture of the book on the left side of this Web page and the description and information to the right and below. Then, include a highly converting “buy the book” button in an action color. You can also collect emails.” ~ Lane Sutton, Social Media from a Teen

Book Photo via Shutterstock

25 Ways To Get Unstuck and Get Your Business Growing Again - New Book from Barry Moltz

There are lots of things we small business owners do to keep ourselves “stuck” and limit the potential growth of our business.

Here’s a few things we do:

• We keep calling people who don’t respond to us
• We hate our customers
• We don’t hire employees who are smarter than us
• We take dangerous risks instead of calculated actions

These are just four of the 25 things we do to damage our businesses and prevent us from growing.

Barry Moltz, my friend, speaker, author and amazing business strategist has a new book out, “How To Get Unstuck“, Barry’s book is filled with 25 ways to get your business growing again.

What I like about it is that it lists the 25 things we’re doing WRONG and then lays out (very simply) what we can do to change things.

Grab Barry’s book today. Don’t pity yourself for not getting unstuck sooner - but look at the huge opportunities ahead of you and MOVE FORWARD!

Check out my video review of the book here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gswDyZVqtg or below

60 percent of FTSE companies mention cyber security risks in annual reports

March 20, 2014

"Data breaches have become a fact of life for most companies," says John Yeo, Trustwave SpiderLabs EMEA director.

Research published today shows that the message on cyber-security amongst FTSE 100 companies in the UK is at last getting through, with 60 percent of major corporates including cyber risks in their annual report - up on the 49 percent reported this time last year. 

SCMagazineUK.com caught up with John Yeo, director of Trustwave SpiderLabs EMEA for his observations on the research from Trustwave's SpiderLabs ethical hacking team.

Yeo said that the methodology behind the annual analysis involves scanning each company's annual/periodic reports in order to discover if the business is actively seeking to reduce its cyber-security risks.

"What we discovered is very encouraging, as it shows that companies now understand the cyber risks they are running with their IT systems. It's now quite difficult for most companies to underestimate the data breach risks for their organisation," he said. 

Yeo added that this year's analysis showed that 75 percent of companies in the retail and consumer sale space now `call out' cyber security in their annual report - up from 42 percent last year. 

This shows, he says, how sensitive that retailers have become to the risks of losing their customer's data - and the consequences of a breach on their reputation. 

They key takeout from the research, he told SCMagazineUK.com, is that the costs of a data breach - and its consequences - are now relatively easy to quantify, even it remains difficult to assess the Return On Investment (ROI) that the business generates from its IT security budget. 

"It's also clear that FTSE 100 management are having to become more accountable to their shareholders. Data breaches have become a fact of life for most companies, but it's also quite clear that the management must be focused on tackling the issue," he said. 

"It's also positive to hear that senior management is becoming more responsive to security issues," he added. 

The SpiderLabs research reveals that industries are now showing an increase in cyber security awareness at a board level, with the exception of the utilities industry, which remained unchanged. 

Delving into the research reveals that the energy, healthcare and consumer goods industries showed the most dramatic increases. 

For example, in the latest analysis, 86 percent of companies in the oil and gas industry noted cyber security as a concern in their annual report - up from 57 percent a year earlier. And on the healthcare front, the figures doubled from 25 percent a year ago to 50 percent this time around. 

According to SpiderLabs, all industries showed an increase in cyber security awareness at a board level, with the exception of the utilities industry, which remained unchanged. 

What is interesting, says the ethical hacking team's analysis, is that the companies who never mentioned cyber security before have really stressed the point in their annual reports that successful cyber-attack instances will seriously affect how they are able to carry out their usual day-to-day business operations. 

"A number of these annual reports have even discussed cyber security risks in their open letter to shareholders, outlining what they have done, or plan to do, in order to manage these risks," says the analysis.

ICT Blogging, Talking About Technology

Most people on this world use computer with Microsoft Operating System. There's a feature in Microsoft OS to fasten the desktop. Here's some of the tens of thousands features of Microsoft OS. But what in the event you forgot to fasten down your system if you opt for lunch or for a fast coffee break out of your work. Now you have got some sort of feeling on your mind that some outsiders to your office whom you don’t know used or tried to login into your computer while you're out. How do you get notified when such an attempt is made to intrude into your computer? 

Daily, people from world wide are doing exertions to secure the pc system. During this run, thousands of new websites with amazing features have been developing. Among those websites, a brand new website named MouseLock.co  came up with simple technique to identify the intruder attempting to intrude into your computer. This site will send you an email alert in conjunction with an imae (picture shall be sent provided that there's a camera within the computer system) of the intruder once someone tries to apply your computer.

So that you are wondering how mouselock.co works, right?

First you sign-in along with your Google Account (they’ll send the alert in your Gmail address) after which select a secret pin no (1-10) at the screen. Next, put your mouse cursor in a chosen area at the Mouse Lock website and leave the machine.

Now when someone moves the mouse, they'll even have to go into the unique pin that you have entered before leaving the machine. In the event that they fail to do this within the first few seconds, Mouse Lock will send you an email and, if the pc has a webcam, it's going to use that to take  a picture of the intruder.

Mouse! Lock won’t prevent the intrusion but will a minimum of notify you the minute it happens. And the wonderful thing about this site is that no installation is needed because it is a web application.

This website has used  JQuery mouseLeaveEvent which will detect the movements of the mouse while the webcam photographs are captured using the getUserMedia() API. These event handlers are currently supported only in Chrome and Firefox. The alerts, possibly on account of a bug, are triggered even if any of the keys are pressed and that makes it rather less useful since there’s no strategy to lock the pc after putting in the monitor.

The post Get an email notification when someone tries to log into your computer appeared first on ICT Blogging, Talking About Technology .

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How Small Businesses Can Leverage Linkedin

LinkedIn isn’t just for large corporations with thousands of employees. Small businesses can leverage LinkedIn and also use LinkedIn’s features to find employees, reach new customers, and gain exposure.

Fox News Business reports that a recent LinkedIn survey showed 80% of small business owners (with “small businesses” categorized as those with 200 or less employees) are utilizing social networks to find new customers and grow their revenue.

While LinkedIn does offer paid services (like job postings and premium profile levels), there are ways that only cost time and effort up front, such as keeping an updated company page, employee profiles, and groups. These features can help make LinkedIn one of the most important social networks for your small business.

How to Leverage LinkedIn for Business

Individual Employee Profiles and Engagement

Personal profiles make up the backbone of LinkedIn, with over 277 million users throughout the world. Over 93 million (roughly 34%) of these users are in the United States, which is the highest concentration of users per country, according the LinkedIn’s press page.

While your small business’ employees only make up a miniscule amount of these users, they still have a great impact on your company’s presence on the site. It is to small business owners’ advantage to encourage employees to have an active profile on LinkedIn. This is because many features of personal profiles can have a big impact to how much visibility your company can get on the social network.

Recommendations

Recommendations on personal profiles are perfect for potential customers to get a better overall view of the employee, and therefore, the company itself. When an employee has a well-rounded profile with generally positive (but not disingenuous) recommendations, it can increase trust. There are over 1 billion recommendations on LinkedIn.

Along with potential customers or clients, recommendations can also help potential employees get to know their potential co-workers and learn more about what gets noticed at your company.

Regular Updating and Activity on LinkedIn

Regular status updating (which can be scheduled using a service like Buffer or HootSuite) with applicable and interesting industry links and company news on profiles can help get exposure for your business to your employees’ individual networks.

In the below example of a newsfeed, this life coach shares an applicable article by a colleague that would be interesting to her clients. In the second item, she liked someone else’s update, which also shows up as activity on her connection’s newsfeed:

Employees should also spend five to ten minutes each day checking out what others are sharing and commenting on updates as needed. This type of activity can increase their visibility and make them maintain an active presence on the site.

Utilize Their Network

Employees should also be encouraged to cultivate their network, adding contacts on a regular basis. It is universally accepted as a bad practice to add people that you haven’t met before without including a personalized note that goes farther than, “I’d like to add you to my personal network on LinkedIn.” LinkedIn also helps this process by offering suggestions based on the user’s existing network and their email contact list (which can be imported).

Because LinkedIn is known as a business referral social network of sorts, employees should be willing to vouch, or at least have some thoughts on, each person in their network. This network can be a great way to get potential leads, as an active profile will remind connections who a person works for, and can keep your small business top-of-mind.

Another great aspect of most employee’s networks is that they usually know the most people in their geographical area (if they aren’t a recent transplant from somewhere else). For local businesses, this can be an additional benefit, as connections are seeing updates about your company that services the area they live in.

Showcase Work

Another newer aspect of personal LinkedIn profiles that are great for connections and potential customers or employees to see are the publications, professional gallery, and projects section of a profile. These are areas where an individual can add links to video, documents, presentations, and project outlines to their profile. 

In addition to showcasing projects and links to past work, there’s also a section called Publications, where a user can add journal articles, blog posts, and other examples of content they’ve written online.

Each publication includes the title (which links to the actual piece of content), where it was written, the date of publication, and a short summary of what the work is about. This section should be updated regularly and gives employees a chance to showcase industry content they’ve written. This can help your small business by showcasing employee expertise and to drive links to your website (if the publications listed are hosted there). It’s important to only include the best works.

Promoting Employee Profiles

If your small business has bio pages for employees, it may be useful to include a link to their LinkedIn profile. This can help clients and perspective leads connect with them on the platform, especially if they are a 2nd or 3rd connections of your employees (meaning they have some connections in common).

Allowing employees time to maintain their LinkedIn network and profile can only help to increase your company’s online presence.

LinkedIn Company Pages

Another great aspect of LinkedIn that specifically gives more information about your small business are the company pages. There were over 3 million LinkedIn company pages as of June 2013, according to LinkedIn’s blog. These work similarly to Facebook’s company pages, in that individual profiles are added as admins of a page.

Company pages offer a lot of features, including status updates (again, like Facebook), a showcase of products and services, and page analytics to see how your updates and information are performing on the page.

Share Your Own Content and News

These updates can be scheduled like profile updates through social media scheduling platforms and can include industry news and information that your industry colleagues and target audience will find interesting, as well as news about your own company, such as press releases, new store openings, or new hires.

Mixing up the ratios of sharing industry news and company updates can help users see that your small business wants to be a resource for the industry without being too pushy about their products. Many users get on LinkedIn with their business in mind, but if something comes off as too advertorial, they are likely to shy away from staying engaged with the company. Instead, they will feel more comfortable liking interesting articles and commenting when they have something to say.

Growing engagement like comments has a lot to do with the content you are linking to, but also what you have to say about it. Posts that include editorial thoughts about the update or are asking the reader’s opinion about the link often get more engagement than no comment at all.

LinkedIn also allows companies the opportunity to promote certain updates they post. These are called Sponsored Updates.

These updates allow companies to have content show up on LinkedIn users’ home feeds without being directly connected to them. If your small business has a professional service, like accounting or leadership consulting, sponsoring posts may be worthwhile.

However, almost any business can find luck with getting more exposure via sponsored LinkedIn updates. Red Bull is one advertiser who is experimenting with sponsored content. They sponsored this recent update:

Promotion cost varies on location, your target audience, and the length of the campaign.

Showcase Products, Services, and Events

The Products tab of a company page allows you to add a list of products or services your business offers, as well as events or apps that are in development. This section is similar to the employee project showcase, but just at a company level.

When setting up the product or service entries, you can also link to employees that are on LinkedIn that can be contacted directly by the reader. The product or service entry also includes areas for adding applicable categories, images, a description, key features, videos, and URLs for more information. Because of these available fields, this tab could be a great way for companies of any size to get leads.

Page Analytics

The analytics tab, which can only be seen by added page admins for your company, allows you to get a good overview of how your posted content (status updates) are performing. Metrics include impressions, clicks, interactions, followers acquired, and percentage of engagement.

Viewing analytics for page updates on a regular basis can help you craft a better optimized LinkedIn strategy. For example, if infographics get a lot more clicks than articles that aren’t as visually-based, try to post one infographic a week and see if that grows your page followers and engagement.

Maintaining your company page is an easy way to get more engagement on LinkedIn. By posting regular updates and updating the products tab, your page can be a great way for potential customers to learn more about you.

Other Crucial Small Business Opportunity Sections

While LinkedIn continues to grow and offer users more information than ever (with original education content based on users’ interests), there are two other main areas of this social network that small businesses should pay attention to: Jobs and groups. Both of these areas allow owners to find employees, continue to brand themselves as an industry resource, and to raise awareness about company activities and services.

Job Openings

The Jobs section of LinkedIn is arguably the most-used portion of the site. It has hundreds of jobs in almost industry. In addition to being shown on the LinkedIn Jobs portal, job openings can also be shown on your company page, which can then be promoted via your employees’ profiles and networks.

Unfortunately, this is the only area of the site that owners will have to pay for to use. The pay scale is sliding, depending on the area where the profile is that is setting up the ad. The more populated the area, the higher the rate.

For reference, a job post in Kansas City, MO (a metropolitan area of 2.34 million) costs $195 for 30 days. This rate includes free profile matches (tells you qualified candidates based on their interest and profile) and 5 inMails, which are messages sent via LinkedIn to users that you aren’t connected to directly.

However, posting a job on LinkedIn can bring highly qualified candidates that may not see the job otherwise. Additionally, employees can promote the opening through their own networks, which could lead to a more qualified or trustworthy candidate.

Group Participation

Another area of LinkedIn to promote your job openings (whether they are hosting on LinkedIn or not), as well as share company and industry news are Groups.

According to LinkedIn, the average user joins seven groups. Groups are discussion areas where users can post discussion content and questions, promote events, or connect with others surrounding the group topics.

In addition to joining groups covering industry topics, your small business employees should also join regional or local groups, if that is your organization’s main target. For instance, a sales associate could find a lot of networking opportunities with local businesspeople if they searched for groups that have titles such as, “[City Name] Entrepreneurs” or “[Regional Name] Small Businesses.”

Having an active presence on groups is something owners and employees should strive to make part of their daily or weekly routine. By answering questions, offering their own products and services (in a non-pushy way), and connecting with others can help increase the credibility of your business, especially in your target industry market or area.

Many active LinkedIn groups also have in-person networking events, which can be a great way for small business owners and employees to get to know other professionals in their community.

Whether it is personal profiles, company pages, jobs, or groups, LinkedIn has a plethora of opportunities for small businesses to leverage their online presence.

LinkedIn is growing at a rate of two new members per second, and this professional network can be a huge traffic driver to businesses. By maintaining active employee profiles and a company page, businesses could find themselves receiving regular leads and exposure from LinkedIn, which is beneficial to everyone involved.

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Crowdfunders: PayPal Will No Longer Freeze Your Funds

If you’re new to crowdfunding you may not be aware of a danger all too common in the process.

Online payment giant PayPal has been known to freeze the accounts for some crowdfunding projects. A freeze on your money could have disastrous results for your business or new project.

That’s what happened to Lab Zero CEO Peter Batholow last year. He tried to access some of the $700,000 his crowdfunding project had raised. With his account frozen though, he was unable to even get the money to pay his employees on time, Venture Beat reports.

PayPal’s Chief Risk Officer, Tomer Barel, explained his company’s previous policy this week in a blog post:

“In crowdfunding, the process involves speculatively supporting a new concept that may, despite the best of intentions, not make it to market. If it is not made clear that there is no guarantee of product delivery, this can cause regulatory and risk issues (and upset customers) when the final goal isn’t reached.”

The problem, it seems, has to do with PayPal’s concerns over chargebacks. That’s when customers reverse a payment through PayPal alleging they did not get the product or service they paid for, Venture Beat reports.

But Barel says that as PayPal continues to partner with crowdfunding sites and consumers become more familiar with the risk of backing a project, a change is needed. PayPal’s website now clearly states that it supports donation and reward-based crowdfunding projects.

Now, if you’re running a crowdfunding campaign and expect to access your money through PayPal, the company will contact you early in the process. It will ensure that you’re familiar with the expectations and guidelines PayPal has for crowdfunders. It will also offer a “flexible, safer, and more secure payment option.”

Barel writes:

“Together with the crowdfunding sites, we identify if campaigns are strictly fundraising or preselling merchandise. We enable their campaigns without interrupting payments under the condition that the campaign owner is explicit and transparent to their contributors that there is no guarantee of delivery regarding the rewards being offered upon contribution.”

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