Question by Suz: How can I incorporate social media into my small business marketing effort?
What are some ways to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to spread the word about my business?

Best answer:

Answer by Luis
Social Media can be a great way to generate traffic to your business. But just like email became flooded with spam, social media sites can develop the same problems.

Social media sites are not about pitching your wares. Its about connecting with groups of people who have similar interests, are looking for useful information,being a fly on the wall, and keeping up on the latest events.

That being said The less you “Sell” and the more you inform the more money you will make. You haven’t detailed what your business is, but what ever it is I would become ( or find someone who is) an expert in the field of what you do, to create valuable content (articles, videos, how-to’s, top 12 mistakes, exposes, behind the scenes etc) that are big attractors for your market.

For example if you sell Shoes, be not just an “expert” about shoes but also be an expert on feet, and joints, nerves, pressure points, back pain etc. and create content about those topics and how they relate to shoes.

“How to relieve the 7 pressure points on your feet that cause those nagging migraines you have everyday.”
“Trying to get rid of those last 5lbs? You might be wearing the wrong shoes. Take this quick test to find out now”

Explain to people that you are always finding new and interesting shoes and that you update twitter a lot and that’s the place to get the latest on what you are up to.

Ethically bribing people with your content in exchange for them following you on twitter is an option, but making sure you actually provide them with interesting, funny, quirky, actionable knowledge and experiences is what social media is all about.

The content you make, create a buying criteria and if the people viewing your content agree with your buying criteria they will also accept who you are and what you are selling.

Also make sure you invest maybe 20 min a day finding interesting stuff in your field but not specifically about you that your followers and friends would be interested in. figure for every 8 or 9 posts about other interesting things you find, you then post one about something you are doing.

Hope that helps you out.

Add your own answer in the comments!
Effective small business social media marketing strategies

Social media marketing has proved its worth for all kinds of businesses around the world. Social media marketing is done with the help of social networks like Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. The social media marketing is one discipline of marketing which is gaining popularity amongst media marketers around the world with every passing day. The various advantages of social media marketing strategies have made them even more popular amongst the small businesses.

The very first advantage of a social media marketing strategy which attracts small businesses towards it is its budget-friendly nature. Social media marketing strategies are cost-effective and suit the budgets of all kinds of businesses. Social media marketing campaign is cheap to prepare and very cost-effective to execute. Some of the social media marketing tools are available even free of cost, and the others are available for a price much less than any of the traditional media mark©”? Autols. This ad?/a> of so%CQ?fww.r3Fng.ia marketing strategies has made them extremely? N?idt amongst the small businesses with li?oughvertising budget across the globe.

The second advantage that makes social media marketing a crucial ingredient for advertising campaign is its extensive reach. The social media marketing is capable of targeting a wide base of target audience in one go. It means

Great information on marketing with social media

Question by Robert: What is the best way to tack results with social media marketing?
How does a business owner track their results? Are there tools or software that can show true return on investment numbers to meashure their social media? Example: Google Analytics is one great tool to identify online traffic by impeding a code within your website or blog. What other tools are on the market?

Best answer:

Answer by Steve
I use Google Analytics as a baseline approach. It gives you a lot of information. The other one I like is Quantcast.com. It gives me all sorts of weird information, such as 9% of my visitors are African American. How they arrive at that number I have no idea.

A better answer to your question is here though:
http://mashable.com/2009/04/19/social-media-analytics/

The basic answer is to Optimize your existing analytics software using plugins or built in tools.

Give your answer to this question below!
The Future of Internet Marketing and Social Media

Social media sites have revolutionized the way online businesses market themselves and their products or services. Tapping into a community which often is predisposed to your particular brand, product or service has led to increased visibility and sales. The viral nature of some social media sites, like YouTube has also increased brand awareness. As we move forward, the tools and techniques we utilize for our social media campaigns will continue to change. The future of internet marketing and social media is bright.

Perhaps the biggest change for social media marketing will be incorporating social media directly onto business websites. Allowing members to post videos, comments, pictures and more will become more commonplace. Other popular social media tools such as sharing will continue to become a large factor when developing websites and media campaigns. We are likely to see ‘memberships’ on business websites. Much like popular social media sites such as FaceBook and Twitter, businesses may be making the leap towards fully incorporating social media directly on their sites.

Businesses will continue to utilize the popular social media sites as a part of their advertising campaigns. In fact, they are likely to begin to designate more time, effort and even funds towards developing strong social media campaigns. For example, many

You have to read this on: social media public relations and I can recommend the info about:social media public relations

Question by Anne M: am a Public Relations student who wants to know the PR related fields of study. What can I do for my degree?
I current take Public Relations Management. Other than Media studies is there any other available course in PR?
I love events, customer care and Corporate Social Responsibility.
Please give me any courses I can take in Public Relations and in relation or almost close to this. Thank you

Best answer:

Answer by fitness
journalism, media studies, law and ethics, communication and scholarship, I am a PR student ! thre are many modules out there CHEERS

What do you think? Answer below!
Public Relations Tips To Create Tremendous Business And Corporate Success

By definition, Public relations help build awareness of companies, products, services, technologies, people and issues among key audiences and influencers, and as budgets shrink for advertising and marketing, Public Relations is the answer to making sure you help build awareness of companies, products, services, technologies, people and issues among key audiences and influencers. Along with your marketing, advertising, internet and social networking, Public Relations can give you an advantage in reaching critical markets.

A good public relations strategy includes lots of elements including buying ads on websites, getting exposure on the internet, joining social media sites and more. And keep in mind that publicity, promotion and public relations is the foundation to success and landing the media attention you need.

Knowing you agree, a better understanding of Public Relations and awareness of how to use it is needed to gain an increase in market share and as a tool to make sure you are seen as a leader in your field and in your segment of your market. If you decide to shun Public Relations you are leaving behind an opportunity that will be critical to your succeed.

Don’t forge to use public relations because it will help you be successful.

Public Relations help companies create an identity in their industry, and to the media, who can

Great information on marketing with social media

Question: Can Social Media Marketing replace Search Engine Marketing as a viable way for companies to market online?
I “Stumbled Upon” www.FtheBigThree.com which does a good job of showing the opportunities that could be available for marketers in the “Social Media” category. Not completely sold yet on it but kinda warming up to it. I guess I’ll have to start learning SMM to go along with my SEM and SEO. So, many abbreviations….so little time.

Best answer:

NO — they can work hand in hand, but social media marketing cannot replace search engine marketing

Search engine’s usage is far way more than social media use. Plus traffic from search engines are more sustainable and longer term, while social media traffic is more sporadic.

If you get a top placement for a keyword in Google, for example, you can expect that to continuously give you traffic until someone else topples you from the top spot — and that is not always easy to do unless you made a huge mistake or the search engines changed their algorithm.

You can get a huge burst of traffic from social media sites such as Digg — only if your link is in the homepage. Once your link is pushed to the archives, traffic dries up.

Social media sites depend on the FRESHNESS of the information, while search engine sites depend on the RELEVANCE of the site to the search query and that gives an edge to older pages

For a savvy marketer, he/she needs to utilize and maximize both venues to get the most traffic. The two should work hand in hand, and not one over the other.

What do you think? Answer below!
The Future of Internet Marketing and Social Media

Social media sites have revolutionized the way online businesses market themselves and their products or services. Tapping into a community which often is predisposed to your particular brand, product or service has led to increased visibility and sales. The viral nature of some social media sites, like YouTube has also increased brand awareness. As we move forward, the tools and techniques we utilize for our social media campaigns will continue to change. The future of internet marketing and social media is bright.

Perhaps the biggest change for social media marketing will be incorporating social media directly onto business websites. Allowing members to post videos, comments, pictures and more will become more commonplace. Other popular social media tools such as sharing will continue to become a large factor when developing websites and media campaigns. We are likely to see ‘memberships’ on business websites. Much like popular social media sites such as FaceBook and Twitter, businesses may be making the leap towards fully incorporating social media directly on their sites.

Businesses will continue to utilize the popular social media sites as a part of their advertising campaigns. In fact, they are likely to begin to designate more time, effort and even funds towards developing strong social media campaigns. For example, many businesses have

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One of the best ways to generate high quality email leads is to take advantage of the today’s popular social media sites which only continue to grow. Today we’ll focus on Facebook, which boasts more than 300 million active members that is most-likely harboring a significant share of YOUR market just waiting to be reached. But why bother?

Well, the thing that separates Facebook profiles from a regular old website is the level of personality that is automatically injected (and expected to be) in your profile. The personal “nature” of a Facebook page breeds a lot more trust than a website or even a blog, and it’s easy to see why. Would you be more likely to trust someone who is real, has a personality, is helpful, and whom you can communicate with directly? Or would you rather trust a cold website that seems rather flat in comparison?

By contrast, Facebook is a clear winner.

So why not use it to generate email leads? After all, the effectiveness of an email list depends greatly on the level of trust you have built up with it. From whatever perspective you look at it from, it just makes sense.

Here’s how you can get started with using Facebook as a highly effective email lead generation tool:

Offer Subscriptions Directly From Your Page

In order to use Facebook as an email lead generation tool, it’s obvious that you need to let your visitors know that you HAVE an email subscription to offer in the first place. If people don’t know about it, how can they even begin to be interested?

You can place your subscription offer wherever you want, but because of all the “commotion” that goes on in most Facebook profiles, the one place you can ensure that most people will see your subscription offer is your sidebar. I recommend displaying your offer at least twice on your page, but make sure you’re not being overly pushy or you might be viewed as just another tricky Facebook spammer.

Offer Something.. For FREE

Now that you’ve got your subscription offer on your profile, it’s time to give people an incentive to subscribe. In today’s online world, the words “subscription”, “free updates”, or even “free newsletter” don’t really cause people to come rushing to your door to see what you have to offer. So to maximize the amount of subscribers your Facebook page pulls, offer something for free.

A free giveaway or trial offer (though “trials” are starting to become less and less effective) is a perfect way to entice people into becoming your newest subscribers. After all, who doesn’t want something for free? Especially someone who was interested enough to visit your page.

If it is viable for your niche/market, I recommend using a free PDF report offering valuable, free information as your giveaway incentive. Not only are these convenient, but if you outline a powerful benefit with your subscription offer, it becomes a perfect push to drive people to subscribe. Not only that, it’s a form of value that you can deliver over and over again to as many people as you want at no extra cost. Many feel overwhelmed at the idea of putting a report or “eBook” together, but it’s not that difficult. The report doesn’t have to be long like the books you see at stores, it simply has to be useful.

Can you offer some useful information to your market in just a few pages? If so, then it’s good enough for a free report. I recommend OpenOffice.org for a free word processing solution with a good PDF export feature.

Use FBML to Capture Leads Directly

Now you’ve got your subscription offer on your page with a good incentive (freebie) to entice visitors to become your newest leads; however, when they click over to your website or “squeeze page”, you still have a chance to lose them. They might get turned off by a small detail on your website and click away, never to return. Or, they might get distracted and leave before they had a chance to opt-in. There are countless variables that may or may not be out of your control, but the fact of the matter is, when people click from your Facebook page to your opt-in page, you’re losing some valuable leads.

Why not combine everything to turn as many of your Facebook visitors as possible into email leads? You can offer a subscription, an incentive, AND your opt-in form all on your Facebook page in an attractive, compact, and unobtrusive manner that produces results by using a unique Facebook concept called FBML (the Facebook Markup Language).

Use the Facebook Static FBML application in conjunction with the opt-in form code that your autoresponder service provides to place a subscribe form directly below your free incentive. That way, they don’t have to leave your Facebook page and be re-convinced to subscribe. You simply make your free offer compelling enough, and you’ll get a new email lead… simple as that!

Network Effectively

Here’s where the real work comes in. As with any other social media website, you can’t just go out and SPAM the Facebook member-base in hopes of pulling a vast amount of email leads. You have to network effectively to get people interested in YOU. Then, and ONLY then, is when THEY decide if they’re interested in what YOU have to offer.

In fact, when placing comments on other people’s walls and participating in relevant groups, simply be helpful to others and make friends. Networking isn’t where you promote yourself or let people know what you have to offer, it’s about being a real person that is helpful to your online community. Once you do that, you’ll get more and more followers and as a result, more and more email leads. Always remember that your page is the only thing that does any kind of subtle advertising (mainly for your free incentive and subscribe form), not you.

So to re-cap on everything, place your email offer directly on your Facebook page with an enticing FREE offer and a subscribe form. From there, simply become an active, helpful member of the community and you’ll quickly realize just how effective Facebook can be to building your brand and producing a vast amount of high quality email leads.

I highly recommend you give Facebook a shot and see if it improves your email lead capturing efforts. Besides the portion of your market that fits into 300 million active Facebook members, what do you have to lose?

You probably already know what kind of positive effect that networking can have on building your brand, your website traffic, and a creating loyal following that genuinely likes and trusts you. In the online world, whenever the word ‘networking’ is mentioned, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn immediately come to mind. And for good reason: the online social networking scene is only getting bigger.

But there’s a more “classic” form of networking that, if combined with your existing online networking efforts might just have the potential to work even better. It’s face-to-face networking at local events. That’s right; with REAL people. When it comes to meeting someone in person and communicating in the physical realm, there isn’t much that can come close in terms of networking. Let’s face it, it’s much easier to trust a real person over someone hiding behind a computer screen, no matter how many photos and videos you’ve seen of them.

Pre-Event Actions

First and foremost, you need to find a local event that pertains to you. Many of the social networks you’re already using have built-in features for finding events (such as Facebook), but it may be worth your while to try some services dedicated to finding these events, such as:

• Eventbrite
• Meetup
• NetParty
• Twtvite
• When
• Yelp
• Eventful

Or simply do a Google search for ‘your industry + local events search’, but the above list should be more than enough to find an upcoming event near you.

From there, I highly recommend finding others who are going to be attending the events and start connecting with them on your other social media profiles right away. For example, say you see that Joe Smith is attending a local event in your area, one you ALSO plan on attending. You see he has his Facebook profile shown, so you go in and get in touch with him through Facebook. This way, when you get to the event, you already have some connections that you’ll immediately strengthen upon physical “meet up”.

At the Event…

Once your event comes up, make sure your name tag has your most prominent social networking screen names shown, that way people can connect the person with the alias easier. Also make sure you have a few mechanisms for collecting contact information, because you’ll undoubtedly be gathering a lot. I recommend having at least one electronic method, such as a nifty iPhone app and a physical business card holder to help you keep up with all the cards you’ll be collecting. It also doesn’t hurt to have a good old fashioned notepad and pen handy, just in case.

When you’re ready to begin networking, I recommend starting with those who you have already networked with online (see Pre-Event Actions) and then go from there. Make sure to be yourself, be friendly, have some fun! Don’t forget to represent yourself in a professional manner that will reflect positively upon your business. Your goal is to meet as many people as you can, and connect with them on a level that isn’t possible to do over the internet.

Here’s a quick tip: If your Facebook profile/website uses the strategy of giving away a freebie to generate email leads, be sure to include that on your business card somewhere! The back is a great place for this, as it doesn’t interfere with your contact details and is unobtrusive.

Your Follow Up: The Most Important Step

When the event is over, you’ll undoubtedly have seen/met quite a few people and have more business cards and contact details than you want to keep up with. From here you’ll begin following up with all the people you networked with in person. This is the most important step because all of the contacts you made have also met more people than they can keep up with on their own. How well you follow-up with them will determine if you get lost in the “sea of faces”, or if you stick out and become a memorable contact.

The first step you should take is to send them a friendly email reminding them that you just attended the event, and of course, remind them who you are. If they aren’t too busy, most-likely you’ll get a response fairly quickly.

Next, go to their social networking profiles to see which ones they are most active on and start connecting with them there. Don’t be annoying, but send them a friendly message every now and then until you get a response. Sometimes persistence pays off because the more times they see your name, the more likely they’ll be to respond.

Stay In Touch!

What usually happens is you get a handful of people who actually decide to contact you first or respond right away to your follow up, but not everyone will be this way. Your goal is to successfully follow-up with as many of your contacts as possible, and here’s the kicker: stay in touch. You have the advantage of having met these people in person, so that places a much heavier psychological “weight” in their minds. The people you network with at local events have the potential to not only be some of your most loyal followers, but might even become your biggest source of NEW followers… but only IF you keep in touch with them.

But don’t take my word for it! Go out for yourself, socialize and network with others in your local area to see just what kind of positive impact it has on your business… You won’t be sorry

5 Ways to Ensure Your Social Media Efforts Don’t BombAfter signing up for all the popular social media sites, you set up your profile, make everything look just how you want it, and display all the right information. Days, weeks, and months go by, and that flood of traffic never shows up… what went wrong?? Is social media a spoof?

The answer to that question is no; however, it’ll be just as good as a “spoof” if all you do is sign up, set up your profile, pop-in every once in a while, and simply expect your web presence to be known. Social media can be an incredibly powerful force to drive traffic, clients, and customers to your business… but it takes work. The good news is, the “work” can often be enjoyable if you tackle it with the right mindset.

Below are five steps that, if followed on a regular basis and with a positive attitude, can shoot the results you get from your social media efforts through the roof.

1. Dedicate Some Time to Your Social Media Campaign

Social media is effective, but it really can’t be automated. You need to find a way to incorporate it into your schedule on a regular (preferably daily) basis. Once you grow a loyal following that’s large enough, you might be able to put a little less effort on your social media activities, but you’ll never be able to do nothing and get the results you want from it.

2. Don’t Forget About YOUR Audience

Whether it’s friends, connections, or followers (all depending on which social media channel you’re using), you need to focus a certain amount of your energy on those who have taken the first step and followed/friended you. Don’t just focus on getting more, more, and more all the time. Make a concerted effort to also focus on those who have already given you a chance.

If you never make an effort to communicate or be there for your real friends, how long will they remain your friend? Not very long I’m guessing. The same applies in social media. Remember, you’re dealing with real people. Don’t throw away your efforts by constantly trying to build upwards; take some time to build inwards every now and then.

3. Don’t Treat Them Like You Paid For Them

When you pay for advertising, depending on how much you’re spending and the market you’re targeting, you can have reasonable expectations as to what kind of results you’re going to get. However, social media is a different ball-park. You didn’t pay for those who followed you… they made that decision themselves, and they can withdraw it even easier.

If you can blast a paid ad to a market and get results from it, don’t expect your social media audience to respond the same way. People aren’t just numbers, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll get better results from your social media efforts. Treat your audience like you earned them… because you did.

4. Listen to Your Followers

Being active on social media doesn’t mean that you need to be the one always sending, posting, submitting, etc. in hopes that a certain percentage of your following responds to what you’re outputting. You also need to listen and be open to what others are outputting. Be genuinely interested in what others in your niche are saying and presenting.

If you can make your audience feel important, you’ll be easier to trust… which makes YOU more important. The best way to do that is to simply be receptive to what your audience is putting “out there” and respond to it accordingly.

5. Don’t Give Up

Almost everyone faces a point where they feel like they are in an upward battle to get any kind of return on their social media efforts. Your connections seem to be stagnant, and growth seems menial if not negative at times. Just keep at it and you’ll pull through! Normally during these stagnant times, if you take a moment to review your efforts you can usually identify what the problem is.

Perhaps you haven’t been dedicating as much time to it as you should. Or maybe you need to take some time to focus a little more inwards, or something else you’ve yet to identify. There’s always room for optimization, and sometimes that’s all it takes to get you over the hill.

The bottom line is, if you want results from your social media campaigns, you need to earn it by continuing to be active without expecting anything. Once you figure out your personal strategy, learn to incorporate it into some kind of schedule and follow the five things I described on a regular basis, you’ll quickly realize why there’s such a craze around social media: it works, as long as you do.

So you’ve heard about the social media craze and are ready to focus some of your business resources on a new social media campaign before deciding to make the full-move online huh? Well, you may want to think twice if you plan on making social media the primary vehicle to bring your business online.

But why? Isn’t social media “the thing” nowadays? Well, in many ways, YES, but there still are some things you need to be aware of…

With social media sites such as Ning suddenly switching to a paid service, Utterz going out of business, and Facebook constantly having privacy issues, you can easily begin to see that social media should by no means be the backbone in which your online campaign is supported.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t take advantage of social media, because you should, but you need something besides social media channels if you want to successfully bring your business online.

Having One Central Location on the Web

There are dozens of social media channels you can use to promote your business online, and the number is growing, so which one do you focus on? The answer: whichever you want, as long as you point them all to one central location: your website.

As dreadful as that may sound, especially since a growing number of businesses are using social media as an excuse to NOT have a website, the first place you need to be is YOUR online home. Not Facebook’s, not Twitter’s… but yours, no exceptions. You need a home before you start renting office space. And that’s essentially what your website vs. your social media channels are. Your website is your business’ online home, and social media channels are merely rented space (albeit free rental space).

So the bottom line is, create a website before going the social media route, because that’s what people are going to be looking for once you make a positive impression/connection with them on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or any other social media website.

What to Include on Your Website

If your social media efforts are there to create connections, build trust, and show your potential client base WHO you are and what your business is about, then your website needs to provide straight-forward information on what your business can do for them.

As a bare minimum, your website needs to include the following items:

• Professional design to give your visitors a good impression.
• Friendly, informative introduction on your homepage.
• Description of your services, and the BENEFITS of your services.
• Contact information; as much as you can provide.

Of course, depending on the nature of your business, you may need more or less than that, but the above list should give you some general guidelines to follow.

Maximizing Your Social Media Efforts

First and foremost, explore the different social media options you have out there (the options are vast; Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn, the list goes on) and choose ONE. You need to get the hang of using social media to benefit your business before you expand into multiple channels.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a business homepage that has icons for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a plethora of other services only to visit them and see that they aren’t even mildly active on a single one!

Don’t spread yourself too thin by signing up for every social media channel you can find. That’s not going to do you any good. What WILL benefit you is if you get the hang of ONE, build up your presence, your network, connections, and establish a good following of people who know and trust you. Then and ONLY then should you consider expanding to other social media channels.

This may seem counterintuitive, especially when you see everyone else putting themselves on every known social media site, but I guarantee your results will be much better than theirs. It’s MUCH better to have one strong machine working for you than to have a handful of smaller ones doing absolutely nothing but sitting there.

The days where you can merely sign up and be discovered on social media sites are long gone; you must be regularly active or your social media efforts will be wasted.

Funnel Into Your Website

Once you’ve found a social media channel you want to pursue, you need to set your profile up to funnel your interested prospects to your website. Your social profile should not be the end of their journey; your goal is to drive as many people as you can to your website FROM your profile pages.

The best way to do this is to make sure your main description encourages people to visit your website. You can even add a subscribe form to your profile’s sidebar (depending on what service you use) along with an incentive to generate email leads (which in-turn will drive even more people to your website).

Then, you just need to focus on being a genuine, helpful member of the community and naturally people who visit your profile and want to know more about what you have to offer will end up on your website. However, if you do NOT have a website, there are lots of other distractions that will keep people away from your business… even if they were interested in finding out more.

Social Moods and Mindsets

When people are browsing around Facebook (for example), they aren’t in the mood to pick up the phone and call about your service, because they aren’t on Facebook to FIND your business.

However, you CAN peak their interest by properly networking with them and funneling them to your website. And as a side benefit, your website also has the opportunity to be linked to from other websites, and even getting picked up by search engines which will result in even more traffic and potential clients for your business.

The bottom line is, if you want to take your business online, make your website it’s first stop above any social media channel and you won’t have to worry about what social network is going out of business next.

The twentieth century U.S. criminal Willie Sutton was said to rob banks because “that’s where the money is.” The same motivation in our digital age makes merchants the new target for financial fraud.   Occasionally lax security by some merchants enables criminals to easily steal and use personal consumer financial information from payment card transactions and processing systems. 

It’s a serious problem – most recently compiled statistics show more than 234 million records with sensitive information has been breached since January 2005, according to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.org.   As a merchant, you are at the center of payment card transactions.  So it is imperative that you use standard security procedures and technologies to thwart theft of cardholder data.  Merchant-based vulnerabilities may appear almost anywhere in the card-processing ecosystem, including point-of-sale devices, personal computers or servers, wireless hotspots or Web shopping applications, in paper-based storage systems and unsecured transmission of cardholder data to service providers.  Vulnerabilities may even extend to systems operated by service providers and acquirers, which are the financial institutions that initiate and maintain the relationships with merchants that accept payment cards.  Compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) helps to alleviate these vulnerabilities and protect cardholder data.(1)

Do not fall into the mistake that only the big boys are the ones who are breached.  Sure we hear and see the news about Heartland, TJMax, Office Max, Dave & Busters Restaurants , Hannaford Brothers Supermarket Chain, 7-Eleven and others.  However, they account for only 20% of the breaches.  Since 2005, more than 80% of the instances of unauthorized access to card data have involved small merchants, according to Visa USA Inc.  These small businesses account for 85% of the seven million locations nationwide that accept credit cards. 

Already in April of this year there has been a security breach in a small eatery in Minnesota, The Mad Capper Saloon & Eatery.  Last year in September a MacDonald’s in Miami, Florida uncovered a skimming operation that was ongoing for close to 8 months.  This resulted in over $50,000 worth of fines, fees and audit costs.  Then there is the multimillion dollar suit being filed by 7 locally owned restaurants in Mississippi and Louisiana against a Louisiana-based distributor for a point of sale system for violating data protocols, which directly contributed to security breaches at these restaurants.

Are you at a loss or unsure about the complexities of the PCI Compliance requirements and how best to easily fulfill these requirements?  Have you attempted to figure all of this out and just want to throw up your hands about it?  Do you want to have peace of mind that you are as secure as possible, while not having to place a lot of time and effort into doing so?  We have established a strategic business alliance with Effective Payment Management to provide our clients with the necessary expertise and options for being PCI Compliant.  If you are interested in exploring your options, so you can easily have the security in place to protect you and the cardholders who pay via credit card for your products or services, then complete the FORM below and forward your contact information. 

Pump Up Your Website has established a strategic Business Alliance with Effective Payment Management to aid businesses to take full advantage of PCI Compliance, while not becoming encumbered by the complexities.  Once you completed the FORM below and provide your contact information, Bill Hearon from Effective Payment Management will follow up with you within 24 hours and work with you to facilitate your having all in place in an as easy and painless manner as possible.

(1)   PCI Quick Reference Guide, pcisecuritystandards.org.