Why Bitcoin May Not Be For Small Businesses

Bitcoin, virtual currency, has awesome potential. It’s used by people to buy and sell all over the world. It’s great, however, it’s fraught with problems. One of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges Mt. Gox, shut down, and U.S. regulators are still figuring out how to deal with Bitcoin.

I could go on but my advice for small business owners is not to jump on every wagon that comes by, filled with new technology that’s not matured and that hasn’t been proven by the market - especially if you have a lot to lose. Brent Leary spoke about this on an episode of The 3TechGuys Show.

Some of you might want to test accepting Bitcoin. That’s fine - if you are testing it with a small amount of money that you can afford to lose.

We have seen, and we will continue to see, the coming and going of lots of new, upgraded and different technology. This is good (thank you iPhone, Netflix, search engines and Shark Tank). My caution to you is to not base your business on new technology. When things don’t work out - then you’re business is in jeopardy.

Always start small and test:

• If you hear lots of customers talking about using the new technology - listen up.
• Watch what your competitors are, and are not, doing.
• See what main stream media has to say: Small Business Trends, OPEN Forum, Big Ideas Blog, Inc.com, Entrepreneur.com, Wall Street Journal, NY Times, Atlanta Tribune and other publishers.
• Test the new technology with friends and long time, loyal customers - let them know it’s a test.

Focus on loving your customers, creating a great website, investing in social media and building your business.

Let other people test new technology - but keep your eyes open.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Bitcoin Photo via Shutterstock

What Do the New AdWords Changes Mean for Small Businesses?

Paid search can be a minefield for small businesses, and any time Google announces a big change to the AdWords platform, people tend to freak out - including experienced search marketers who really should know better. Heaven forbid Google disrupts the status quo by introducing new product features!

However, unlike last year’s announcement of Enhanced Campaigns (which some small business owners are still trying to get their heads around), today’s news of new AdWords changes should serve as a glimpse into what Google has planned for the future - and not just in terms of paid search, either.

There’s an App for That

One of the biggest parts of today’s AdWords announcement was the introduction of new tools for businesses to promote their apps.

According to Jerry Dischler, Google’s VP of Product Management, there had been more than 50 billion downloads of more than 1 million apps from the Google Play Store across 190 countries as of May last year. However, around 60% of these apps weren’t installed, and roughly 80% were only used once before being deleted. This poses serious challenges for small to mid-sized businesses that want to get into apps.

Google hopes to make this easier for advertisers by introducing new tools for businesses to advertise their apps to prospective users based on the apps they already have installed on their phones, as well as their download behavior.

What This Means for Small Businesses

Simply put, if you don’t already have an app, you could be at a disadvantage. With the amount of time users spend browsing the mobile Web on the decline, but the number of hours spent using apps actually increasing, the ways in which users interact with businesses online are changing - and Google knows this.

Online, Offline, Bottom Line

Remember when you could quantify and account for every stage of the conversion process? Yeah, those days are long gone.

Today, very few prospective customers begin and end their online journey, from discovery to conversion, on a single device. This can be a major headache for smaller businesses, especially considering how complex Google’s existing reporting tools can be.

That’s why Google’s second big reveal today may come as a relief to small businesses trying to figure out what their prospective customers are doing offline.

Google’s Estimated Total Conversions will see a number of major improvements to make tracking users’ offline behavior - and how this impacts in-store sales, for example - a lot easier.

What This Means for Small Businesses

Consumers are becoming increasingly difficult to track. How do you account for a sale that may have begun with an online search or paid ad, but resulted in an in-store sale?

The planned improvements to Estimated Total Conversions is what Google says will make this kind of conversion tracking easier for businesses of all sizes. Precisely how they’re going to accomplish this is still under wraps, but the potential is definitely there.

Big Ideas, Large Scale

Google’s third major announcement today won’t be as interesting to most small businesses, simply because the tools and functionality Jerry Dischler announced just won’t be applicable to most small companies. However, it’s worth mentioning them for no other reason than it shows just how sophisticated Google’s AdWords platform has become in recent years.

Let’s say your paid search efforts encompass hundreds of campaigns, with thousands of ads - think Amazon, eBay, etc. Now let’s say you wanted to adjust several broad parameters of these campaigns at once, without having to go in and micromanage each individual campaign or ad group.

This is what Google promised in its announcement.

Soon, advertisers will be able to perform “bulk” actions across even the most massive campaigns, including location targeting and ad rotation. Automated bidding will also be a feature introduced as part of this rollout, as well as the introduction of some pretty cool drag-and-drop reporting tools - think Excel for AdWords without those pesky formulas that always manage to go wrong.

This is what Google describes as its “Enterprise-Class” tools.

What This Means for Small Businesses

Interestingly, despite their name, these enterprise-class tools will actually be available to all AdWords advertisers, suggesting that Google is trying to get smaller businesses to spend more - all in the name of making things easier, of course.

These tools will probably make their biggest customers very happy, but that goes without saying.

More in: Google

DSTRUX Lets You Get Back That Document You Shared In Error

It’s happened to the best of us. You hit the “send” key on a document, image, or video, and then have that sinking feeling you shouldn’t have. Don’t worry. A new service called DSTRUX claims to give you complete control over who sees your files. That’s even to the point of making those files self-destruct, if necessary â€" even if they were shared by email!

DSTRUX allows you to track your files in real-time to see their location and status. When a recipient opens the file, they will be unable to forward, alter, copy, download, or print it. So any confidential business documents are safe from being passed on. (Unless someone were to take a paper and pen and copy the information down the old fashioned way, that is.)

When uploading a file to the DSTRUX servers, you can set a time limit on how long people can see the file before it disappears for good. You can specify who can see it, and who can’t.

Links to these files can even be placed in Facebook updates or in emails. One thing to note, however, is that the service currently doesn’t support Microsoft text files.

So how can you stop files from being copied, forwarded, altered, downloaded or printed? What strange black magic is at work here?

In actual fact, no magic is involved at all. The file is not actually on the recipient’s machine. Instead it is streamed via DSTRUX.

When the file is opened, it will be blurred, and only those with the permission from the file or document’s creator will be able to view it. Those with permission can click down on their space bar to see the document. Let go of the space bar and it becomes blurred again. It may all sound very cloak and dagger, but if you have information that can sink your business, it pays to be smart and have some security.

In an interview with Small Business Trends, Nathan Hecht, CEO and Founder of DSTRUX explained:

“Everyday small businesses put themselves at risk when they share information online. DSTRUX will give them the ability to stay in complete control of these communications. No longer will small business owners have to worry about their intellectual property being compromised. They now have the ability to designate exactly who sees their documents, and track in real-time the location and status of them. This level of control is unprecedented in the digital age.”

For the next three months, DSTRUX is free for all users. So you can test drive the service and kick the tires without cost. The company says it expects to offer only one plan at a yet to be determined price. But the price is expected to be based on the number of files sent using the service each month. The more space you need on DSTRUX servers, the more you will be charged.

The service is also available outside the U.S. Hecht says that he is seeing numerous users popping up in the UK, Germany, Israel, and India.

As for the future, the company has plans to enhance the service. For example, you can now place links to information on the DSTRUX server in an email. So far, you can control who can click through and see the material or how long it will be available. But DSTRUX says it will eventually be possible to control the email itself, or an instant message or other online communication.

25 Tricks For Effective Instagram Marketing

With Facebook declining in popularity among younger users, more and more businesses are turning to Instagram to reach younger demographics.

If you plan to adopt a similar strategy, you’ll want to take a look at the following Instagram marketing tips and tricks for getting the most out of your presence on the site.

Fill Out Your “Bio” Section

Before you pass “Go” and collect $200, be sure to fill out the “Bio” section of your Instagram profile.  Doing so will ensure that people who want to connect with you elsewhere are able to make these connections.

Learn How to Take Better Pictures on Your Phone

You don’t need a fancy DSLR camera to succeed on Instagram. Chances are the smartphone in your pocket has all the power you need. PopPhoto and CIO have great tips to offer on how to use your smartphone’s camera to the best of its abilities.

Share Drop-Dead Gorgeous Images

As a general rule, the pictures that perform best on Instagram are stunningly beautiful scenery shots.  While not every photo you share will be this caliber, try to make it a priority to share gorgeous images once a week.

Get to Know Instagram’s Filters

Instagram offers more than a dozen automatic image filters, but they’re not all created equal.  Overall, my go-to favorites for general image editing include hefe, inkwell and rise.

Experiment with Other Image Editing Apps

If Instagram’s filters aren’t doing for you, there are plenty of other image editing apps out there to give your pictures the love they need.  In particular, check out Lumie, PicMonkey, Pixlr and Color Splash.

Think About Story Arcs

The pictures you share on Instagram don’t need to be one-off photos that aren’t associated with each other.  Think in terms of story arcs and share series of pictures that show actions being taken, items that are associated with one another or progressions through time.

Try a Collage of Pictures

Similarly, collages of pictures combined into a single image allow you to share more content with each upload.  Use the image editing apps referenced above or one of a number of other programs designed to help you mash up pictures in this way.

Add Text to Your Pictures

Memes tend to get a lot of traction on Instagram, so take advantage of this type of viral-style image by creating your own graphic and text combinations.  Use the Meme Generator website to research current meme trends, as well as make your own to share.

Experiment With Video Clips

Last year Instagram introduced the ability to share video clips alongside the platform’s static photos.  To give it a try, use the movie camera icon within Instagram to record up to 15 seconds of footage and then apply a video-specific filter to improve its look.

Tell Your Brand Story Without Selling

Brand marketing on Instagram can be tricky, as younger demographic users tend to be sensitive to over-promotion.  Avoid irritating these users by identifying ways to share key components of your brand’s image without resorting to outright sales tactics.

Give a “Behind the Scenes” Look

The Ellen Show is one of the most popular accounts on Instagram, but the images her team shares aren’t the kinds of polished production photos you’d expect.  Instead, her candid “behind the scenes” shots help to personalize her brand and connect on a more personal basis with followers.

Showcase a Lifestyle

One way to tell your brand’s story without directly selling is to share lifestyle shots that reinforce your brand’s persona.  Sharing surfing photos, for example, gives off a casual, laid back vibe, while sharing pictures of races creates a more motivated, driven identity.

Show New Uses for Your Products

If you want to be more direct when marketing on Instagram, use your uploads to show off innovative new ways to use your products.  Followers tend to be quite forgiving of brand marketing efforts when they receive something of value in exchange for their attention.

Preview New Products

Similarly, one way to gain attention on this social platform is to preview new products on the site before they’re released to the general public or announced elsewhere.  Obviously, this strategy isn’t right for every brand, as those targeting older users could lose some media attention by announcing here.  But if Instagram’s user base represents the right fit for your company, there’s almost no better way to make a splash.

Introduce New Employees

Whenever you hire a new employee, take a photo of him or her and post it to Instagram.  Doing so helps your followers to build personal relationships with your team, while also filling your feed with content that isn’t directly self-promotional.

Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are incredibly important on Instagram.  Before releasing any image, search around for similar content to see which hashtags are likely to lead to the most awareness and engagement.

Share your Instagram Pics on Other Social Networks

Don’t limit your Instagram pictures to Instagram.  Post your Instagram links to Facebook, Twitter and any other social media service your company uses in order to grow your user base and provide followers on other networks with valuable content.

Use Followgram to Manage Your Instagram Presence

Pro users of the popular Followgram service can use the program to enhance the site’s navigation capabilities, as well as manage photos in albums.  The less time you spend on account management, the more time you can invest into delivering great quality images.

Give Ink361 a Try to Engage With Other Users

Another great Instagram tool to check out is Ink361.  Use the system to discover new followers, connect with other people and analyze the social impact your photo-sharing activities have had.

Check Out Statigr.am for Instagram Statistics

One last Instagram tool to add to your arsenal is Statigr.am.  Once set up, you’ll be able to view account stats on everything from the number of likes each of your photos has received to the growth of your follower base.

Focus on Community - Not Influencers

Instagram tends to be a democratic space - there aren’t many individual influencers who shape the community.  So instead of trying to find and target these power users, focus your marketing efforts on reaching out to and connecting with members of your community.

Host an Instagram Contest

Instagram contests can be as involved or as hands-off as possible.  No matter what prize you decide to offer or how you’ll track and judge entries, site users tend to get excited about these promotions (and the brands that run them).

Post at Peak Times

As you post on Instagram, pay attention to the times during the day when your images receive the most likes and comments.  Use the trends you’ve identified to be sure you’re posting at peak times when you’ll be most likely to reach members of your audience.

Keep an Eye on Your “Feed Speed”

Don’t inundate your users with images.  See how frequently other brands in your industry are posting and mimic their feed speed, paying attention to the impact on your account’s metrics as you vary this rate.

Respond to All Comments you Receive

Recognize users that take the time to comment on your images by responding to their messages.  Clicking on users’ names first will add them to your response, tagging them and making it more likely that they’ll see you’ve taken the time to comment back.

Clearly, there’s more to marketing on Instagram than these 25 tricks alone.  If you’ve got any additional Instagram marketing tips for business, share them below in the comments.

Instagram Photo via Shutterstock

More in: Instagram

WhatsApp flaw leaves users open to spying

April 22, 2014

Global messaging service WhatsApp, now part of Facebook, has owned up to a security flaw which leaves it open to man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks.

The vulnerability was discovered recently by the US University of New Haven's Cyber Forensics Research & Education Group (UNHcFREG).

Researchers found that when WhatsApp users share their location data, it is left unencrypted and can be intercepted through a rogue access point or a man-in-the-middle attack. A video on how it's done using the NetworkMiner network sniffing tool running on Windows is available here.

Commenting on the problem in an April 19 blog post, Sophos senior security advisor Paul Ducklin said that this kind of flaw could be of interest to intelligence services.

He said: “We've written before about one group of ‘attackers' who happily make hay while mobile apps shine forth their data, namely the intelligence services. And we've written about how hard it is to judge whether special-purpose mobile apps - such as those for banking - should be considered safe to use at all. WhatsApp, sadly, yet again joins the list of mobile apps that simply didn't get it right.”

The UNHcFREG researchers advise users: “Do not share your location on WhatsApp until this issue is fixed.”

As for business security professionals, Ducklin believes the flaw should not present a problem. However, he told SCMagazineUK.com via email: “It's disconcerting to find that an app that makes big claims about privacy would give away information where you might reasonably expect it not to. One wonders why WhatsApp didn't just use public key cryptography over a secure connection - TLS, often known as HTTPS.”

WhatsApp is a popular mobile phone app that enables users to send text messages for free. The company was acquired by Facebook for around £11.3 billion ($19 billion) in February, and last month CEO Jan Koum blogged that “respect for its users' privacy is coded into our DNA”.

However, the location flaw is the latest in a series of privacy problems faced by the company.

Koum's blog was in response to accusations by two US privacy groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, that the Facebook takeover should be invalidated because WhatsApp's privacy policy was incompatible with that of the social networking giant.

Last month, SC UK also reported a flaw that enabled WhatsApp users' “private” messages to be intercepted through downloaded Android apps.

Ducklin at Sophos has also highlighted previous “security blunders” WhatsApp made in its attempts to use symmetric encryption and to knit its own session-based cryptography.

The company has said it will fix the location bug in the next release across its different mobile phone platforms, telling the UNHcFREG team when they reported the bug: "We have already implemented this solution in the latest beta versions of our app. We will be rolling this fix out to the general public with the next release on each platform.”

Security specialist Dan Drummond, a technical consultant with Apadmi, told SCMagazineUK.com that the problem “shows just how much care app developers need to take in what services apps use, and how they use them. Fortunately this time, this leakage of personal information only happens if a user actively shares their location, and users can stop using this feature until the problem is fixed.

“App users are becoming increasingly aware of privacy and security issues surrounding their personal data, and app developers are going to need to prove they can be trusted with users' sensitive data.”

We contacted WhatsApp to ask when the fix would be released, but had not received a reply by time of writing.

Data breach discovery takes \'weeks or months\'

April 22, 2014

A new report confirms what's long been feared - businesses take too long to recognise and react to a data breach.

In its 2014 Data Breach Investigations Report - the seventh it has carried out since 2004, Verizon claims that no organisation is immune from a data breach, and details that 92 percent of security incidents are down to nine basic patterns.

Worse still, just three threat patterns cover 72 percent of security incidents across any industry. Approximately 75 percent of financial sector incidents come from web applications attacks, DDoS attacks and card skimming, while most attacks in the retail industry are tied to DDoS (33 percent) and POS intrusions (31 percent). DDoS attacks were so prevalent in 2013 that Verizon has dedicated the attack method its own study section for the first time.

Other highlights from the report include the finding that there were 1,367 data breaches in 95 countries over the last year, and that cyber espionage activity grew four-fold.

For all this, however, the standout point - as touched on by a number of Verizon analysts - was that data breach discovery often takes ‘weeks or months', allowing hackers to compromise the system and search for valuable data to exfiltrate.

“Organisations need to realize no one is immune from a data breach,” said Wade Baker, principal author of the Data Breach Investigations Report series, in a statement.

“Compounding this issue is the fact that it is taking longer to identify compromises within an organisation - often weeks or months, while penetrating an organisation can take minutes or hours.” Baker went onto urge companies to adopt big data analytics to “curve and combat” cyber-crime. 

Speaking to SCMagazineUK.com before the results were announced, Dave Ostertag, global investigations manager at Verizon Investigative Response, said that detection has not improved, despite the fact that attack methods largely remain the same.

“Generally we continue to see the use of the same old things, like web app and SQL injection attacks. It's the same old tools, but what we continue to see is that the time from compromise to discovery is longer than what we want it to be,” said Ostertag, noting that this comes despite companies ‘paying millions' on logging tools and SIEM solutions.

“…We're still not good enough at discovery ourselves,” he added, before continuing that law enforcement agencies are increasingly breaking the bad news to the companies.

Brian Foster, CTO of Damballa - which helps companies detect and defend against data breaches - agrees.

“What I've found, more often than not, is that companies have been told that they've been breached by a third party. Most people aren't aware for months after the breach starts,” he said when speaking to SCMagazineUK.com.

Ostertag says that smart companies are collaborating with industry peers - even competitors - and are looking at ways they can get “actionable intelligence faster”. But he adds that IT teams must also keep on top of the incoming threats, and believes that this starts by knowing what ‘business as normal' looks like.

“Know your business. You need to understand what normal business operations are, what IPs you connect with, what ports you connect with, as well as geography, time, the average file size,” said the Verizon executive, adding that this can help eliminate the white noise and make the dataset much smaller, and thus easier to manage.

Companies ‘too focused' on prevention

Foster of Damballa also says that companies need to properly vet the third-parties they're working with, and spend less money - and time - concentrating on preventing data breaches.

As well as recent examples like the South Korean banking data breach and Target hack (where hackers gained access to the company's POS terminals after reportedly gaining access to a refrigeration contractor in Pittsburgh that connected to the retailer's systems to do electronic billing), Foster cites one example where a major retailer's photo kiosks - owned by an outside company - was infected with information-stealing malware.

He adds that working with third parties can raise questions on who's at risk, and who's responsible legally. And yet he says that most companies have their approach all wrong.

“Too many [businesses] are focused on prevention, but prevention is never going to be 100 percent,” he said.

“Organisations invest most of their IT budget in prevention, but need to start prioritising detection and response.”

Other interesting statistics from the report are as follows:

• There were 63,437 security incidents in the last year
• 75 percent of attacks in the hospitality industry come via POS systems
• Two out of three breaches exploit weak or stolen passwords
• Insider attacks are on the up: 85 percent of insider and privilege-abuse attacks used the corporate LAN, and 22 percent took advantage of physical access
• China still leads as far as cyber espionage activity is concerned, although Eastern Europe now accounts for more than 20 percent.

Small Business Loan Approval Drops to 18.8 Percent at Big Banks

Small businesses have a better bet seeking loans with small banks than with big ones. Small business loan approval drops to 18.8 percent at big banks in March. (Those are banks with assets of $10 billion or more.) The new figure represents a drop from 19.1 percent in February.

The drop in lending at bigger banks is not part of an overall slowdown in lending either. A year-over-year comparison shows lending increased by 20 percent at big banks over the last year overall. The figures come from the Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index.

The index is based on a monthly analysis of 1000 loan applications on Biz2Credit.com.

In a prepared release issued with the monthly index report, Biz2Credit CEO Rohit Arora explains:

“Big banks rely on tax data to process non-SBA loans. Since tax season is always a busy time of the year for CPAs who are preparing tax returns, they have less time to pull together statements for business owners seeking loans. This slows the loan application process. Big banks typically process more conventional loans from larger firms than SBA Loans, which are more popular with companies that need less than $350,000.”

At the same time, small business loans at small banks are on the upswing. Loan approvals for small businesses at small banks rose from 51.4 percent to 51.6 percent over the same period.

Rohit gave one possible reason for the increased lending at these smaller institutions. That would be the increased popularity of the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Loan Program and SBA Express with these lenders. The SBA offers to guarantee up to 85 percent of these loans with no guarantee fees, which Rohit says has made them very popular.

However, another reason could be the increased flow of higher quality borrowers who are less interested in alternative lenders like merchant advance services as the economy improves. Rohit says these borrowers are increasingly shopping around for better lending rates and terms with small banks and institutional lenders like credit funds and insurance companies.

Learn more about what it takes to qualify for a small business loan by visiting the Biz2Credit tool on Small Business Trends.

Image: Biz2Credit

Improve Your Networking Skills in the Next Wix Small Business Breakfast!

Here it is - your personal invitation to our next Wix Small Business Breakfast. If you’ve attended a Small Business Breakfast in the past, we’d like to welcome you back! And if you’ve never attended, we’d like to give you a little information - and let you know that we have a seat waiting for YOU.

Wix Small Business Breakfasts are FREE informational sessions, perfect for small business owners. They take place at the Wix Lounge on the 8th floor of 235 West 23rd St in New York City. We grab some coffee and a light breakfast, then sit down for an informational session, interview, and question & answer period.

Our next Small Business Breakfast is happening on Wednesday, May 14th, from 7:45 to 9:00 am.

The session is titled “Networking Hacks: Online & Offline Tricks for Small Biz Owners.” It will be filled with tips and techniques to help you master the art of networking, build brand awareness, and gain loyal customers.

The event will be hosted by our own Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology and Infusionsoft, and co-hosted by Annie Malarkey, Community Outreach Manager for Wix.

Our Expert for the session will be Emily Miethner. Emily is the founder and president of FindSpark, a meet-up community for college students and grads. She will speak about the importance of building relationships, with tips on how you can successfully network both online and off.

You can register for FREE on our Eventbrite page here. It’s sure to be an informative session, crucial for any small business owner. We hope to see you there!

HMRC plan to share taxpayers\' data attacked

April 22, 2014

A proposal by HMRC to release millions of taxpayers' personal data to private firms has whipped up a storm on data privacy.

The idea was described as ‘borderline insane' by senior Tory MP David Davis, according to The Guardian which reported the plan on Good Friday.

The scheme, part of draft legislation being drawn up by The Treasury, would allow HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) to release or even sell “anonymised” personal data to third parties including companies, researchers and public bodies where there is a public benefit.

However, this has caused something of a privacy storm, and especially on the possibility that anonymised data could be “re-identified”. These concerns come some two months after the UK government decided to delay its £50 million care.data scheme, which aims to share electronic patient records from every GP in England, after confidential data was published online and sold to third-parties.

Data privacy expert Stewart Room, a partner at law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse, believes HMRC has failed to deal with the technical concerns over “anonymised” data and is also suffering from a lack of public trust post-Snowden.

He told SCMagazineUK.com: “There's quite a bit of moral panic now around data sharing from government to other parts of the economy, so the Government ought to be thinking a little bit harder about these initiatives and how they're made public, who's consulted with and what the concerns are.

“As a matter of law, the anonymisation of personal data about taxpayers removes data protection concerns around sharing. But there is a different issue here, which is the reality of anonymisation - it's not good enough for a data controller to assert we have anonymised because technical users will know anonymisation is not always successful.

“What the Government will be asserting is ‘trust me'. Well, in light of Snowden and all that sort of stuff, you can't really assert ‘trust me' any more. People want a bit more assurance or a bit more evidence that this stuff is really anonymised.”

His views about lack of trust in the Government and the security of anonymised data were echoed by privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch.

Its deputy director, Emma Carr, told SCMagazineUK.com via email: "The ongoing claims about anonymous data overlook the serious risks to privacy of individual level data being vulnerable to re-identification. Given the huge uproar about similar plans for medical records, you would have hoped HMRC would have learned that trying to sneak plans like this under the radar is not the way to build trust or develop good policy.

"Given those who abuse personal information cannot be sent to jail, this is yet another instance where Government should be putting proper protections in place before any more data is shared, rather than just hoping nothing goes wrong.”

A spokesman for HMRC pointed out that the “potential to share HMRC data for public benefit” was first consulted on last summer and appeared in the Chancellor's last Autumn Statement.

He also downplayed the sensitivity of the data at stake, telling SCMagazineUK.com via email that examples include “employment information for people who've been in certain government programmes being used to assess whether the programmes have helped to get them into work” and “information on housing characteristics which could be used to explore how they link to excess winter mortality rates”.

He added: “Any draft legislation would be subject to further consultation and then parliamentary scrutiny.”

An HMRC statement insisted: "No final decisions have been taken, but HMRC remains committed to safeguarding taxpayer confidentiality. HMRC would only share data where this would generate clear public benefits, and where there are robust safeguards in place.

"Last year's consultation made it very clear that there would be a rigorous accreditation process for anyone wanting access to the data and that any access would take place in a secure environment.”

On the subject of selling the data, HMRC said:  “HMRC will be consulting further and will ask for views on whether to charge to cover the costs of processing and providing anonymised data. This would not be charging for the data itself, purely covering the costs of providing it."

How “Scary” Sells With Fear Based Marketing

Can you scare customers into buying your product? Fear can actually sell as much as sex or desire since it will trigger people to take action.

According to Lea Dunn of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, when people feel alone and afraid, they form an emotional attachment to the brands around them. She states that in this heightened state, consumers are more likely to remember those products and think of them favorably.

Dunn says this happens because fear induces a need for human connections and if there are no people present, products fill the gap. She believes this emotional attachment happens because people think the product actually “shared” that experience with them.

In works in many sales situations. Behavioral psychologist Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall said that:

“If you can find out what people’s worst nightmare is, camp out inside their nightmare…[they’ll] do anything…to get out of that situation.”

News broadcasts have peddled fear based marketing for years. An insider rallying cry of the media has always been, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Famous brands use fear all the time to sell their products. For example:

• L’Oreal’s tag line of “Because I’m Worth It” confronts self-loathing among women.
• FedEx’s “Absolutely, Positively Overnight” addresses the fear of missing a deadline.
• Nike’s “Just Do It” takes aim at missing out because the consumer is afraid.

Fortunately, you don’t need to rob prospects to sell them a home security system.  But you can scare them into buying.

FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

When I was at IBM in the 1980′s, they told us, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” This concept helped because I had to sell against competitors whose products seemed technologically similar to ours but always much cheaper.

I frequently used a fear based marketing technique that was called “FUD” (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) to direct the decision maker to buy IBM. In my sales calls, I recounted all the things that could go wrong if they chose a competitor. Fortunately, the decision maker many times chose IBM, despite the fact that we were more expensive, because we were perceived as the low-risk alternative.

Deadlines

Consumers are afraid of missing a deadline. This could be an expiration date of an offer, a holiday calendar deadline or other imposed cutoff date. Dates will push consumers to take action.

Note the surge of people signing up for insurance to comply with the Affordable Care Act on March 31.

VIP

Consumers want to be a part of “a club” that not everyone gets into. Put up a gate and watch how many people want to get in. This is exactly what many buyers’ clubs like Costco do with their small membership fees. The fear based marketing message is that the consumer will miss out on some incredible deals if they are not a member.

Fear based marketing does not have to be all gloomy. Articulate the negative to what prospects are currently doing and provide a solution to alleviate that fear.

This article, provided by Nextiva, is republished through a content distribution agreement. The original can be found here.

Captivated Fear Photo via Shutterstock

Can’t Afford Microsoft? Meet Apache OpenOffice

For businesses on a shoestring budget, having to fork out cash for Microsoft Office is an additional expense that many could do without. Fortunately, there are some inexpensive alternatives to Microsoft office out there - and one just celebrated a major accomplishment.

Once there was a project called OpenOffice.org. But the owner of that project, Oracle, donated the OpenOffice source code to Apache in 2011. From that project, Apache OpenOffice was born. A couple of days ago, Apache announced OpenOffice had been downloaded an impressive 100 million times in the past two years.

In an official post on The Apache Foundation Software Blog, Andrea Pescetti, Vice President of Apache OpenOffice explained:

“I’m extremely pleased to see us reach this major milestone in less than two years. This is a testament to our community volunteers: The hundreds of talented individuals who make Apache OpenOffice what it is, who write the code, test for bugs, translate the user interface, write documentation, answer user questions and manage our servers. We remain committed to offering the successful combination of reliability and innovation that so many users appreciate.”

Being open-source has allowed other versions of the software to be created. One of these is LibreOffice. A lot of people, including Linux users, prefer it over Apache OpenOffice. But you can’t argue with Apache OpenOffice’s 100 million downloads. So this version is clearly the leader among open sourced options.

There are quite a few benefits in the open software’s favor. First is the price. Apache OpenOffice is free compared with the price for the latest version of Microsoft Office.

Second, you can open and edit all Microsoft Office documents with OpenOffice. There are no compatibility problems. In fact, the only problem you might encounter is a missing font from Microsoft. It’s one for which OpenOffice will provide a simple replacement. But apart from that, documents open and are edited smoothly.

Third, Apache OpenOffice has taken a page from Firefox’s and Chrome’s playbooks. It provides a huge gallery of extensions to choose from.

There are also document templates. This greatly extends the basic functionality of the software. It gives it features that turn it into a productivity powerhouse. From foreign language dictionaries to PDF converters to eBook converters, the extension gallery will probably have what you are looking for.

So when you are looking for your next online office suite of software or even your first as a startup on a tight budget, remember. There are cheaper alternatives to Microsoft Office and lower cost or even free does not necessarily imply lower quality, if you know what to look for.