Christian Fictoor weblog

WARNING: The Dorifel Virus which hit hard in 2012 now surfaced again … in Facebook chats! This blog post will show you how you can recognize the new Dorifel Virus threat, what can go wrong if you accidentally have installed the virus/spyware and how to remove Dorifel virus from your computer in some easy steps.

Dorifel Virus has hit Facebook chat – how to recognize the threat

If you receive a Facebook Chat message (or any other form of direct communication via Facebook) please be aware. If you see this (or similar messsage to ‘Your photos? LOL’ with a link):

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK IN THIS FACEBOOK CHAT MESSAGE!!!

If you accidentally have already clicked the link then a new site(tab) opens and you have probably seen the following screen (you might receive a message from quality anti-spyware or anti-virus program -if you have installed any- to block the installation of the DORIFEL virus, please follow the instructions provided by your anti-spyware / anti-virus software to make shure you are safe):

What happens when you have accidentally installed Dorifel

The DORIFEL Virus encrypts your office documents and installs other malicious software which tries to ‘tap in’ to your bank-accounts and creditcard data. Please take immediate action!

How to remove the DORIFEL virus from your computer

To remove the Dorifel virus please follow the following steps:

• First recognize hijacked office documents:

  

• Install and follow instructions on this page: http://www.surfright.nl/nl/support/dorifel-decrypter
• Download and install this anti-spyware package called ‘HITMAN PRO’: http://www.surfright.nl/en/downloads This software can detect and remove Dorifel virus and is free for a 30 day trial period.

Please warn your friends and re-share this post. Let’s make the Digital Realm a safer place together!

Very interesting Social Media stats (Infographic)

UPDATE (December 5th 2012): Microsoft opened up the network to all! It’s no longer in beta. The also (quite drastically) changed the layout! Functions in my screencast still valid though. Wil update it as soon as I find the time!

My first screencast ever on my blog !

There’s a new social network in town called SOCL (pronounce ‘Social’). It was originally in closed beta network but Microsoft now launched it well … quietly.
I’ve been experimenting a little with this new network and decided to make a short video introduction about it (in stead of typing 8 pages of text )

A short video introduction of the Microsoft social network ” SOCL ” by Christian Fictoor :

The ‘commercial’ by Microsoft:

HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE:
http://www.so.cl/#/Christian-Fictoor

Christian Fictoor

partner in Fictoor Wagelaar crossmedia marketing communication
BLOG: http://www.christianfictoor.com

WARNING : fraudulent FACEBOOK friend request e-mails circulating

The last couple of days I’ve received a number of friend requests which looked like they came from Facebook BUT THEY WERE NOT!

Actually the link “Confirm Friend request” links to another (harmfull) website and NOT Facebook. So protect yourself against potential damage and please only accept friends by logging in directly to your Facebook account via your browser. Your friends can wait a bit longer …

BELOW IS A SCREENSHOT OF THE FRAUDULENT EMAIL (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Please reshare this post so that we keep computers and privacy data safe!

Christian Fictoor
T: @chrisfictoor / @fictoorwagelaar

CLAIM YOUR GOOGLE+ BUSINESS PAGE TODAY!
To complicated? To little time? Let us help! We’ll set up your business page for only € 150,- ! For info please send me an e-mail and I’ll get back to you ASAP.

GOOGLE has announced their next step into the social media realm by launching the long anticipated Google+ (Google plus) pages today.
Google+ pages will be available to companies and other organizations. The first pages have been launched today by some larger companies/organizations like Toyota, H&M, Burberry and … The Muppets (link: link to Muppets Google+ page).

So what are the pages all about? This is how Google+ explains it (video):

If you are lucky …. yes Google wouldn’t be Google if they are launching this thing in tranches (deciding which company / organizations deserve a page first) you can claim your own page via de following URL : plus.google.com/pages/create

And now the reason why I told frequent readers of my blog earlier that Google+ MIGHT (!) be a Facebook killer. Today they also announced (in the same post mind you …) that they will make the adding of Google+ pages to your circles extremely easy. In the search box (using Google search) you will just have to type +toyota and you will be sent to the TOYOTA Google+ page and you can add the brand directly to your circles. This might just be the next big marketing-peoples-wannahave. Letting people connect with a brand by just typing “+BRANDNAME” is very interesting (and still people are thinking that corporate websites have eternal life … wake up!).
Difficult to imagine how this all works and looks? Google thought of that! Here’s the video:

Want to know more or do you want to check out some Google+ pages already available? Check Google’s blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-pages-connect-with-all-things.html

Of course I’ll let you know when my company Fictoor Wagelaar will have created it’s own page but … I am in the waiting-queue

UPDATE november 8th: Created my first two pages!
Google+ business page Fictoor Wagelaar
Google+ business page IBIO afslanken

Christian Fictoor
B: http://www.christianfictoor.com
T: @chrisfictoor
G+: my Google+ account

Need a Google+ / Googleplus invite? Please e-mail me your gmail-adres and I’ll send an invite!

Google has tried and failed to strengthen its position as a major player in the realm of social media. Google Wave and Google Buzz were (sometimes clumsily) launched and failed to raise applause from social media users.

Now Google has launched the bèta version of Google+ and it looks that they have finally ‘got it right’

Can Google+ ‘win’ the battle against Facebook and Twitter (and other social media channels)? In the last few years they (Twitter and Facebook) have already gained an enormous user-base and have established a solid market-share and Google+ has yet to prove itself to the social media community.
So at this time it’s to early to answer the question if Google+ will win the battle against the current ‘social media giants’ but the signs are certainly there.
Basically Google took all the best elements of currently existing platforms and combined them into their new social media en-devour Google+.
But they did more. Especially the way to group contacts is extremely smart. You can put your contacts in ‘ circles ‘ grouping them by, for example “family”, “business contacts” and “friends”.

But there’s (much) more why I think that Google+ is an interesting new platform:

• you can add photos, QR codes, links and much more interesting rich-media information to your ‘about’ page
• you get unlimited storage on Picasa (Google’s photo and video sharing platform – should Flickr be worried?)
• search results (SEO) could be hugely impacted in the future by using Google+
• Google+ is seamlessly integrated with their mobile platform Android (Iphone/Ipad apps in the future?)
• the free live video-chat feature (possible with multiple users) makes Google+ stand out from Facebook and is a very interesting option
• the stream of posts from you and your Google+ friends looks a bit like a combination between Facebook and Twitter (best of both worlds)
• option to show posts per circle
• if you have location enabled on your mobile device Google+ can create circles ‘nearby’ (interesting feature for location based marketing)
• ‘sparks’ option; a (currently) small selection of topics showing you posts about the interest-field you’ve selected
• potential for growth is enormous because Google can easily expand their system with for example social bookmarks, a ‘quora-like’ Q&A feature and of course their own services like Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Music etc.
• the search engine let’s you find people easily and adding new friends to your circles is as easy as counting from 1 to 3

through implementation of Google’s “Google Wallet” payment system it could well become an interesting e-merce and/or crowd-funding platform

So there we have it. A long list of interesting Google+ features that should trigger other social media platform to better follow their new competitor very closely.

BUT Google+ is still in bèta… Only people invited by current Google+ users can join (if you need an invite please contact me). And even then you might be in for a wait because Google opens and closes the ‘doors’ to their new platform as they please.
Of course the staggering numbers of users that platforms like Facebook and Twitter have will not be reached by Google+ as long as the platform is still in bèta but in my opinion they just might have just finally struck ‘social media gold’ with this new platform.

As a social media marketeer I’ll keep experimenting with this new platform to try out the unique features of Google+ and see how they could be suitable for our clients. I think it is an interesting addition to the already (very) wide range of social media channels.
Keep in mind that social media channels come and go (sometimes very fast) but I think Google+ is here to stay.

If you are already on Google+ please connect with me (http://plus.google.com/104089034994416821424) or search for ” Christian Fictoor ” via the Google+ search option.
Hope to welcome you in one of my circles !

UPDATES BELOW :

UPDATES july 18th : Google+ reaches approx 20 million users. 33% of the Google+ users is female. You can now invite people to Google Plus more easily via the “Invite people to join Google+” link (bottom right of the home (after you logged in).

How to transfer your Facebook friends to Google+ all at once :

UPDATE july 11th: Google+ big succes, claims “Millions” of users already (audio interview with Eric Schmidt (Google), please turn up volume, audio quality is not that high …) :

Full article at : http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/09/eric-schmidt-on-gauging-googles-success

UPDATE july 11th : Infographic (thanks to : http://www.technobombs.com)

UPDATE july 8th : Google+ announced that it will launch company pages (somewhat like Facebook fanpages) in about two weeks, in the meantime G+ asks companies not to join Google+ under their company name.

UPDATE july 6th : I’ve added a video tour by Lifehacker.com below :

UPDATE juli 5th: Ford Europ runs first brand competition on Google+ (read the full article by @gordonmacmillan here).

Christian Fictoor
Fictoor Wagelaar crossmedia marketing communication
Christian Fictoor weblog
Twitter: @chrisfictoor | @fictoorwagelaar

Google+ statistics :

Social Media ?! En wat nu ?

Iedereen heeft het ‘magische’ woord al voorbij horen komen ‘Social media’.
Maar wat betekent Social media precies en, wellicht belangrijker, is het voor uw organisatie een belangrijke ontwikkeling (en moet u daar dus wat mee doen?).

Allereerst maar eens de definitie (bron: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media):
“Social media is de, ook in het Nederlandse taalgebied gangbare, Engelse benaming voor online platformen waar de gebruikers, met geen of weinig tussenkomst van een professionele redactie, de inhoud verzorgen. Onder de noemer Social media worden onder andere weblogs, fora, sociale netwerken als Hyves, Facebook en LinkedIn en diensten als Twitter geschaard.

Via deze media delen mensen verhalen, kennis en ervaringen. Dit doen zij door zelf berichten te publiceren of door gebruik te maken van ingebouwde reactiemogelijkheden. Denk hierbij aan weblogs, waar lezers reacties kunnen achterlaten via een reactieformulier of middels trackbacks.”

De definitie laat weinig aan de fantasie over, de effectieve inzet van Social media echter vraagt meer denkwerk (en creativiteit).

Vragen die meteen naar voren komen en door de organisatie beantwoord moeten worden om te komen tot een Social media strategie voor uw bedrijf :
- Wat verwacht als resultaat van de inzet van Social media?
Is dit meer omzet, meer bekendheid, meer bezoekers op je site(s) etc. ?
- Is je doelgroep al (voldoende) aanwezig op Social media kanalen?
Onderschat deze vraag niet. Een klein voorbeeld: ook de oudere doelgroepen zijn tegenwoordig meer en meer vertegenwoordigd op het internet.
- Heb je zelf de kennis & ervaring om deze kanalen goed te bedienen of moet je hiervoor (externe) expertise inhuren?
Ook hier in onderschatting een grote valkuil, Social media inzetten is effectief – maar alleen als het goed en consequent gebeurt – dit kost dus (heel) veel tijd!
- Doe je het niet ‘omdat alle anderen het ook doen’ zonder echt te weten wat het voor je bedrijf KAN betekenen ?
Zo ja, niet aan beginnen. Zorg dat je eerst goed op de hoogte bent van de mogelijkheden en opportunities voor je bedrijf. Huur indien nodig iemand in die voor uw
organisatie kijkt of er werkelijk meerwaarde is te behalen door de inzet van Social media.

Voeg al deze zaken samen in een kort strategie document (als was het een businessplan). Definieer hierin een aantal heldere targets zoals bijvoorbeeld “Binnen 1 jaar moet ik 300 twitter kwalitatief goede Twitter followers hebben”. Wees hierin niet te optimistisch, stel realistische doelen. Zorg ervoor dat u zich ook houdt aan uw eigen ‘roadmap’ en zorg ervoor dat sleutelfiguren binnen uw organisatie deze ‘roadmap’ ook kennen.

Nu uw strategie vastligt zijn de volgende zaken belangrijk in de uitvoering van uw Social media activiteiten :

Vanuit de strategie zijn daarna een andere dingen belangrijk in uitvoering:
- Zorg dat alle artikelen / posts / reacties die u plaatst in lijn zijn met uw bedrijfs-identiteit / cultuur.
- Zorg dat u de posts aanpast aan de ‘taal’ van het Social media kanaal dat u bedient. Facebook (iets vrijer, personlijk) is bijvoorbeeld niet hetzelfde als LinkedIN (meer zakelijk) en dat is weer niet hetzelfde als YouTUBE.
- Zorg ervoor dat u de omvang van het aantal kanalen voor uw organisatie ‘behapbaar’ houdt. U kunt beter een paar kanalen GOED bedienen dan een heleboel kanalen half.
- Bijhouden is essentieel, consequent en inhoudelijk kwalitatief en eerlijk.
- Realiseer u dat Social media niet een ‘one-way street’ is. Meng u in discussies, volg ook anderen dit brengt u uiteindelijk het meeste resultaat.
- Implementeer links naar uw Social media kanalen op uw bedrijfssite en/of in andere communicatie (bijvoorbeeld footer van e-mail).
- Meet het effect, houdt bij wat er over u wordt geschreven door anderen(!) en spiegel dit aan de doelstellingen in uw strategie; haalt u ook werkelijk leads / business / netwerk uit uw Social media efforts etc.
- Heeft u wel voldoende tijd om alles (kwalitatief) bij te houden? Zo niet, dan kunt u wellicht beter niet beginnen of een professional inhuren om voor uw deze Social media activiteiten op te pakken.

Als laatste wat belangrijke links naar Social media kanalen:
http://www.twitter.com
http://www.linkedin.com
http://www.facebook.com
http://www.youtube.com
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.nujij.nl

Een eigen blog kan Spider Spider Digital Media voor u produceren, inclusief hosting, vanaf slechts € 32,50 excl. BTW per maand.

Christian Fictoor