Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian has recently released a paper titled “Reference Check: Is Your Boss Watching? The New World of Social Media: Privacy and Your Facebook Profile”. The paper provides guidance and practical advice to end users on how to protect their online privacy.

The paper acknowledges that web and social media tools are increasingly being used by hiring managers to perform background checks on potential employees – an effort to make sure that the right person is hired.

The paper reminds users that content posted online may stay there for a long time or even forever and such content may potentially affect employment prospects. The paper provides very refreshing and practical guidance on steps users can take to minimize such risks.

• Think hard before you post
• Be aware of publicly available information about you on search engines, discussion forums, social networking websites etc
• Review and optimize your privacy settings on online social networks
• Educate yourself about your rights – a prospective employer should not be requesting access to your password protected social media websites

In Summary, users should only post content to the web after considering someday, somebody could be making a decision about your personality and character solely based on the content available on the web.

Description:

Episode 245 pulls back the cloak on the new social media tools with Matthew Vernhout, Director, Delivery & ISP Relations, TC Media. (formerly Transcontinental Interactive). As the inside guy at a major media company, Matt sees the good, bad, and ugly of the latest entries into the social media toolbox. Are you ready for the barrage? Hold on, as this is only the beginning – and only on the BusinessCast.

Listen here: 245 – ‘The New Social Media Tools’ with Gold ‘n Brown

Visit BusinessCast.ca for the amazing archives of all past shows.

Talk back to the hosts:

Earlier this year we were told to expect enforcement in October of 2012, but due to some unforeseen delays in the regulation process the Minister of Industry, Christian Paradis, has indicated we will see enforcement pushed into 2013.

Source: Financial Post – Canada’s anti-spam law won’t take effect until 2013

What’s next with CASL?

Industry Canada is still expected to provide Draft regulations that will be open for a short (30 day?) comment period. The comments received during this time will help address the final and missing pieces of the legislation as well as announce the enforcement date.

I’m not expecting these will cover anything more than the previous draft from Industry Canada had published in July of 2011 (covered here: Industry Canada Regulations for CASL), and I would not be surprised if they only touched on a portion of these older regulations where some additional clarification may be needed.

Industry Canada has just announced the launch of a quick email security quiz for individuals and Businesses on the FightSpam.gc.ca website.

There are two series of questions that you can review covering security when using public Wi-Fi hotspots, and the need for Anti-virus and Firewall solutions. If you are already familiar with these topics these quizzes will server as a quick and simple reminder, but if you have a non-technical person in your life (i.e. Parents or Grandparents) that are in need of a technology education this would be a great resource to share with them.

While you are on the FightSpam site take a few minutes to review the section on “Protect Your Business or Organization Online or While Mobile” for some great tips on staying safe.

Did you get all the questions right?

Still no news on CASL though – I’ve been told the target dates have slipped from April to May/June for the next round of Regulations… If the previous time lines are going to remain the same this will likely push enforcement into early 2013.

I’m starting to see a number of good Facebook programs being built by companies, but many of these focus on a new App or a new Open Graph plugin for sharing content from the advertisers or publishers own site, and less on getting your fans to promote an organization directly. Today I saw a program from the Surfrider Foundation to supply new Facebook Timeline Cover Photos images for their fans that were unique and tailored to the fans personality. I admit these are not new – having images going back as early as January – but I just noticed these today as they uploaded a new round of photos. Offering customized cover photos for Guys/Girls and Groms (young surfers), even some environmental awareness photos in time for Earth day.

Creating these types of Cover Photos are popular for brands to make to promote their own page, but these stood out to me because the main purpose is to get fans to update their Cover Photos with your logo and a message that resonates with the individual (See above for my new profile).

It`s good to see innovation like this from the Not-for-Profit sector as it`s an easy and affordable way to increase reach and awareness of your cause.

Have any other examples of programs operating like this? What are you doing to take advantage of your fans and influencers on Facebook?

More Examples:

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Here are some of the reasons you may see messages in your Gmail account placed in the junk folder:

1. “It’s similar to messages that were detected by our spam filters”
This happens because the email content matches known spam fingerprints likely caused by spam traps, poor list hygiene, user complaints and sender reputation.
Standard advise marketers to would be work on sending relevant content and follow good email practices that include; targeting vs blasting, bounce management and list hygiene, and sending consent based messages.

2. “Many people marked similar messages as phishing scams, so this might contain unsafe content”
Hopefully most marketers won’t see their messages being marked with this warning. But if you do, make sure you are correctly authenticating with SPF & DKIM and check your links against popular URL blacklists. Also It would be a great idea to review your email coding practices and evaluate your email creative to understand why consumers would mark your messages as phishing or scams.

3. “We’ve found that lots of messages from abc@xyz.com are spam”
This clearly indicates a bad reputation for the senders domain. Moving to a new domain won’t help in the long-term as it will cause confusion with subscribers and could lead to higher bulking rates and additional delivery issues. The sender should focus on sending relevant content to opt in users.

4. “It contains content that’s typically used in spam messages”
This would mostly happen because of bad coding or due to excessive use of certain spammy content (keywords/phrases, IPs, or URLs). This can also happen when spammy content is sent in list rental scenarios. It’ll help senders to keep a tab on what kind of content and subject matter they’re sending on behalf of a third-party or partner.

Many of these new tools provided by the Gmail team will allow for a self-diagnostics review of your email and the behaviors of your content when dealing with Gmail recipients. These types of notices could also easily be used to understand similar delivery behaviors at other major ISPs and Webmail providers.

Link to the announcement on the Official Gmail blog.

We sell through distribution and we have five contacts we interact with from Company A, that we currently do business with, that we email with updates on the safety products they purchase from us. Can we email all the contacts that we have in our database from that company, does the implied consent allow us to email any contact within the company we are doing business with (regardless on the business area they are covering)? ex: We do business with Company A on safety products, can we contact them with information on our office supply products?

Please let me know what your opinion is on this scenario.

Thanks for you time,
Name Withheld

A:

I’d recommend if you are planning on using implied consent to communicate with your past purchasers that your ads be as targeted towards the persons responsibilities as you can make them.

This really becomes a “managing data and business logic” problem because these people may not have any influence into the other products you are sending them so these messages would become background noise in their inbox that could cause them to unsubscribe from ALL updates. Irrelevant and frequency of messaging are two of the leading reasons that consumers unsubscribe from further communications from a company, try to find the right balance to prevent over mailing and list burn out.

For example: if recipient A and B are in charge of office Safety – they get a tailored messages for your safety products, and if recipients C and D are in charge of office supplies they would get tailored messages towards their responsibility as well, and if recipient E is the manager of the purchasing groups maybe they receive both message streams or an amalgamated message covering both product lines.

If you have the ability to ask people for a preference, and explicit consent, I’d ask and add them to the appropriate Safety or Supplies lists, or if you can’t ask build a profile based on their last couple of purchases and tailor the content appropriately. In both cases this doesn’t mean you could never send them other offers – but make them secondary offers and not the primary purpose for each message.

Lastly I’d also recommend putting yourself in the recipients shoes and say would this be relevant to me if I received it as a Safety coordinator, or an office manager. Targeted sends will typically see better results (higher ROI) with a reduced cost for sending.

As an aside, I get lots of off topic pitches from vendors and they actually lead me to not recommend them (as an internal influencer) if I ever get asked because of the off topic nature of their messages. Beware of your messages perception to the recipients and the levels of respect you give to their inboxes.

* This answer is in no way legal advice – I’m just providing my interpretation and best practice recommendations *

Marketing automation could just as easily be called Relationship Automation – because that’s what all good marketing does…it establishes and builds a relationship with your prospects and customers.

These days, as advertising messages clobber us on the head at every corner (it’s estimated we see over 3,000 ad messages per day), and where brands do their best to imprint their names on our skin, the value of personalized marketing has never been greater.

While it used to require a big budget to personalize your marketing, online technologies now make it within reach of businesses of every shape and size. Regardless of whether you have a marketing job, work in the media, want to be a consultant, or run a small business, developing your relationship building strategy is time well spent.

Here are 5 reasons and tips to start your own marketing automation system:

Response Time

While sending an email to a prospect or customer doesn’t replace picking up the phone and giving them a call; a 2010 study in the insurance industry showed that leads are 20 times more likely to convert when contacted right away. Marketing automation allows you to set up automatic emails, fax blasts and other messages or actions you can take to get in touch with prospects not days, hours, or even minutes later, but right away.

Increase Lifetime Value

If you lined up 100 prospective customers only a small group of them would be ready to buy what you offer this very moment. By creating your marketing automation system you can send emails and other communications to those prospects automatically on an ongoing basis. While a prospect may not be ready to buy from you now, by keeping in touch with them you increase your chances of making the sale – even if it takes a few months or years.

Highly Personalized Messages

We all receive mail these days that includes our first names in the letter or email. With the right marketing automation system you can go way beyond the first name. By using special words, called “merge tags”, you can personalize a message to a customer by including the name of the product they purchased, the part of town they live in, the date they bought from you and so much more. Plus, when you use merge tags you only need to create one message, regardless of how many customers are on your list. For
more details on merge tags see this great case study by Mailchimp.

Keep Your Staff Focused

Would you rather have your staff and salespeople reply to every email your company receives or would you prefer to have a system in place that automatically responds to inquiries based on the questions and topic of each? Your system can increase the efficiency of your customer support while providing a personal touch by doing things like: responding to general questions from prospects with answers to FAQs, directing people to an area of your website for more information, offering them a free report, or providing contact details for the person they should get in touch with to name a few.

Finding the Right Technology for Your Business

There are all kinds of solutions in the marketplace when it comes to marketing automation. From simple auto-responder services to more advanced rule based automation features. When deciding which provider is right for your business be sure to assess not only what your needs are at this moment, but what they might look like in 6 months to a year. You want a system lean enough that you’re not over spending for what you actually use, and at the same time one that has enough features and capacity that allows you to grow into it.

About the author:
Michael Zipursky is a business consultant and co-founder of FreshGigs.ca, Canada’s leading job site for reaching pre-screened professionals looking for marketing jobs in Canada. He is the author of 4 books on consulting, including the Consulting Success System. His work has been featured in FOX Business, HR Executive, Financial Times and other media.

Here is a quick Summary:

• Information to be included in an email message has been clarified to include these key identifiers: CEM’s need to be the name by which the person sending the message conducts business, for third party messages you should use the name by which the third party carries on business, and include a statement indicating which person is sending the message and which person on whose behalf the message is being sent.
• Contact and mailing address has also been clarified to be; the mailing address of the sender and either a telephone number providing access to an agent or voice messaging system, an email address or a web address of the person sending the message or the person on whose behalf the message is sent.
• When it is not possible to include unsubscription information in the CEM you may include that information on a page on the World Wide Web that is readily accessible by the person to whom the message is sent at no cost to them by means of a link that is clearly and prominently set out in the message. This is a big deal for Mobile* messaging and Social Media messages as these platforms and character limitations do not always allow for all of the previously required information… I can’t ever see this being an issue for an email message though.
  * Mobile Keywords STOP will remain a requirement
• All unsubscribe mechanisms referred to in paragraph 6(2)(c) of the Act must be set out clearly and prominently and must be able to be readily performed.
• A request for consent has been clarified to include oral or written consent and must be sought separately for each channel (SMS, Email, etc…) of the Act and must include the key identifiers listed above (point 1) along with a a statement indicating that the person whose consent is sought can withdraw their consent at any time.
• Computer program’s that perform one or more of the functions listed in subsection 10 (5) of the Act [causing a computer system to operate contrary to reasonable expectations] must have a separate consent sought from any other information provided in a request for consent and the person seeking consent must obtain an acknowledgement in writing from the person from whom consent is being sought that they understand and agree that the program performs the specified functions.

What’s Next with CASL?

We are still waiting on the regulations from Industry Canada that will hopefully clarify a number of the outstanding issues and questions that they received during last years comment period. We are expecting to hear from them in the next couple of weeks (Maybe early April) when a new 30 day comment period is scheduled. After these comments are reviewed final regulations will be presented and an enforcement date will be set.

The big question is still outstanding – When is CASL coming into force?

Latest word on this will be at or near the end of Q3 2012 (around October), but the regulations from Industry Canada will clarify this.

Download the CRTC’s Regulations here.