Someone you follow on Twitter--maybe even someone you trust--sends you a DM (direct message) that encourages you to click on a link. Some of the come-ons I've seen include:

• Is this you? [bogus link]
• I just found out my iq from [bogus link]
• I made $426.23 online today with [bogus link]
• I make money online with google. i learned how here [bogus link]
• I've got pictures of @therichbrooks naked. Check them out here: [bogus link]

It's amazing how many people fall for that last one.

The reason why spammers are sending these phishing attempts via DM is so that the account owner is less likely to see them until too many of them have gone out through their account.

If someone on Twitter DMs you with something that seems phishy, don't click on it. Instead, DM that person back and ask if they meant to send that last DM. I often just send a message:

I think ur acct may have been hacked; u should change ur pw.

Because that's how I roll.

Only you can prevent phishing scams!

Rich Brooks
Something's Phishy

Which makes the upcoming Social Media Breakfast here in Maine all the more timely. I'll be presenting, along with Monica Wright of Vont and Calvin Gilbert of Goodwill of Northern New England on the topic of Setting Goals and Measuring Social Media Results.

I'll be leading off, talking about how to integrate social media tactics into an overall strategy that helps you achieve your business goals. Monica will talk about how to measure your results from social media, and Calvin will be providing real world data from his experience using social media for Goodwill NNE.

Tickets are only $6.11, seats are limited, and breakfast is included. So what are you waiting for?

Date: Friday, 11/20/2009
Place: MPX, 2275 Congress St., Portland, ME (map & directions)
Time: 7:30am - 10:00am

Rich Brooks
Social Media Strategist

SlideShare is like YouTube for PowerPoint presentations, or in my case, Keynote presentations. And like YouTube, you can easily embed your presentations in other places once they're uploaded.

You can view SEO & Social Media at SlideShare or embedded below. You can follow me at SlideShare under my therichbrooks handle.

Rich Brooks
Share and Share Alike

How to Build a Business Blog That Generates Incoming Leads is a crystallization of a number of thoughts, a session at BlogWorld by Chris Baggott, a review of my analytics, and a recent post called Questioning 6 Blogging "Truths."

The new article revamps some of the points in 6 Truths, mixes in some new ideas, and tries to deliver some actionable items that any small business or non-profit can use to drive more traffic to their blog and convert those visitors into qualified leads.

If you've been considering starting a blog, or have been wondering how to improve the performance of your own blog, be sure to check out How to Build a Business Blog That Generates Incoming Leads.

Rich Brooks
Small Business Blogger

I really enjoyed your presentation yesterday at the Great Bay conference and I walked away with a lot of useful tips and info. 

I'd be interested in your opinion re: a company Twitter account. We have one that is managed by only one person in the agency: all Tweets come from her. 

1. Is there a way to give others access to the same Twitter account so that others can also Tweet 
2. Do you think this is a good idea?

Thanks!

--Wondering in Wakefield

Dear Wondering,

Thanks! That's great to hear.

Yes, it's easy to give multiple people access to one Twitter account. I do this with our Social Media FTW account, which gets contributions from me, @jakks and @ccmaine.

We all just know the login and password; I've also added @socialmediaftw as an account on TweetDeck and Tweetie, 3rd party apps for my desktop and iPhone respectively. That way I can send out tweets from my main account and @socialmediaftw as needed.

The 2nd part of your question is more complex. Having multiple people tweet from a single account can be a good idea, unless the person who's been tweeting for you feels like she's losing some of her independence, but that's more of an HR situation rather than a marketing one.

It might also be helpful for multiple people in your organization to have their own Twitter accounts. These could be "corporate" accounts, like rachel_yourco, sue_yourco, etc., or they could be their own accounts, where they tweet about your company as part of their ongoing twittering, similar to what I do w/@therichbrooks.

Hope this helps!

Disagree? Argue or debate with Rich Brooks on Twitter.