Monitor Your Brand

In the Introduction chapter to the book, Brands and Branding, Rita Clifton (editor) recounts a story involving investor Warren Buffett as he tells a group of German investors that brand is the most important factor in deciding where to invest.  According to Ms. Clifton, “even in hard times, brand is the key to protection and growth.”

If it is true that brand is of paramount importance – and I believe, like Mr. Buffett, that it is, then organizations need to do everything within their power to protect the brand they have created.  Brands in the general sense include logos, slogans, colors, sounds, shapes and other physical or visual characteristics.  However, when dealing with social media, brands are mostly identified through their brand name – though the other aspects, as will be described below, may play a role as well.

Regardless of an organization’s decision to become active in social media, some firms – particularly those with strong brands - will be subjected to some form of social media risk.  The most common risk comes from internal sources – employees.  Whether or not an organization implements a social media strategy and related policy, there still exists the risk that might be created by employees through their personal social media activities.  Other risks originate externally.  In both cases, the fact that the organization does not maintain a social media strategy is irrelevant.  The social media risks still exist and as such, the need for a social media policy that addresses these risks is required.

An example of an externally-generated social media crisis occurred to the brand of the hit television show Mad Men.  Tiphereth Gloria tells in a Digital Tip blog posting (Brand Hijacking, Brand Advocacy and Social Media Identities) the story of how fans of the show hijacked the Mad Men brand through the creation of Twitter accounts in the names of the Mad Men characters.  The Twitter accounts generated a tremendous following.  The problem was that fans of the show assumed that the Twitter accounts in the names of the show’s fictional characters where created and maintained by someone associated with the production of the show.  The fact was that this part of the Mad Men brand was being controlled by a third party unassociated with the show.   While in this case the brand was hijacked by friendly fans seeking to expand the fictional characters into reality, the fans could have been criminals or others seeking to take advantage of or damage the brand.

Another example of social media activities that can harm the brand is plain old-fashioned disgruntled customers.  If you Google “Microsoft sucks” you’ll get tons of responses.  If you Google “Apple sucks” you’ll get the same.  If you Google “Google sucks,” ditto.  And on and on.  As such, it is clear that no matter what a company does to keep its customers happy, sucks happens!

A third example is the internally-generated social media crisis in which two employees of a North Carolina Domino’s store recorded a video and posted it on YouTube.  The video turned viral and was viewed over one million times before it was taken down.  The result was a hit to Domino’s national brand as well as the brand of the North Carolina store. 

These examples illustrate how social media risks can manifest without the knowledge or involvement of the organization and regardless of an organization’s social media strategy.  Whether or not Domino’s or the producers of Mad Men had implemented a social media strategy, these outcomes would have still resulted due to the fact that they were driven by independent forces – rogue employees and frenzied fans.  In the case of Domino’s, the video came to the attention of management rather quickly as the video went viral.  According to reports, the Mad Men crisis appears to have been a different situation in the sense that those involved with the show did not become immediately aware of the brand hijacking.

In each case, the best way to identify, deter and defeat rogue employees, dangerous brand hijacking attempts or disgruntled customers is to monitor what is being said on social media.  While monitoring is a “detection” technique – as opposed to a prevention technique – it can be quite effective at identifying issues before they turn into crises.

According to Taariq Lewis and the Terametric Blog, there are over 145 social media brand monitoring and brand reporting tools on the market (“2 Reasons Why 145+ Social Media Brand Monitoring and Brand Reporting Tools Are Still Not Enough”).  Some of these tools are free and quite effective, others are not.  Based upon the complexity of each brand and the organization’s social media strategy, it is entirely possible to monitor the brand with free tools such as Google Alerts (google.com/alerts), Twitter Feeds (search.twitter.com) and SocialMention (socialmention.com).  In other cases, however, a more robust solution may be preferred. 

Since brand monitoring solutions are constantly evolving, it is always a good idea to search the Internet for information on “brand monitoring” and “social media.”  This will provide access to the latest and greatest brand monitoring tools – both free and premium-based.  Based on the large number of effective and affordable brand monitoring tools, there is no excuse for not monitoring an organization’s brand.  Use of these tools provides organizations with an early warning system that will assist organizations in preventing small issues from escalating to brand-damaging events.

Different forms of Banking Loans

Now a days, the banking loans has taken a huge place in your world and there are many people who apply for banking loans for different reason. There are different types of banking loans are available in the bank depending on what purpose you need the money for. In this case, Banks charge interest on the loan for some reason. These reasons are the Over time, due to inflation the value of money decreases and when people fail to pay back the money they borrow then also bank charge on interest.

Home Equity Loans are approximately same to mortgages and borrow against the equity that you have in your home. You can take this loans in two form, either fixed loans where you can borrow a set amount of money and then repaid after a particular length of time, or lines of credit where the bank allows the borrower to use credit as it is needed like credit limit of credit card. This type of loans is beneficial because the interest can be deducted from your taxes on the first $50,000.

There is no doubt that Mortgages are one of the most common loans made by banks. In Mortgages, loans that are used to purchase a home and use the home as collateral. In this case, borrower's house can seize the home if the borrower defaults on loan. There are two types of Mortgages. Fixed rate mortgages and adjustable rate mortgages. When interest rate of the loan have the same for the term of the loan then its called fixed rate mortgages and when interested rate of the loan fluctuate with market conditions then its called adjustable rate mortgages.

Unsecured loans are less common than all other types of loans. In unsecured loans there is no collateral to protect the bank in case the borrower defaults. If you want to apply for such a loan then you should have higher qualification and higher income.

Auto loans is also a type of loan where banks finance for your new car. Dealer can also finance for your car but oftentimes banks can offer better terms for auto loans than dealers. There is one thing that car loans will have higher interest rates than mortgages.

Student loans is also a type of loan but government subsidized and government backed loans almost offer better interest and terms of repayment. So, when banks look at student loan applicants then they find that borrower with little or no credit history as well as no collateral to protect their investment.

Social Media Policies Are Not An Option

According to Wikipedia, a policy is “typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s). The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol. Whereas a policy will contain the 'what' and the 'why', procedures or protocols contain the 'what', the 'how', the 'where', and the 'when'. Policies are generally adopted by the Board of or senior governance body within an organization where as procedures or protocols would be developed and adopted by senior executive officers.”


Organizations, regardless of their involvement in social media activities, should implement a social media policy to protect against the internal and external risks posed by social media.  Regardless of the strong case for social media policies, there are a lot of opinions against their use in the workplace. Try Google-ing “social media policy” and you will get around 32,900,000 opinions! If you read what is being said you will find good arguments on both sides. But the bottom line is this: any organization interested in protecting its brand and reputation must ensure that it has in place some form of social media policy to protect against the many risks that are posed by social media. Social media risks originate both internally and externally and exist regardless of an organization’s decision to participate in social media activities.

Critics of social media policies say “you can’t control what is uncontrollable!” Agreed. And that’s exactly why a social media policy is necessary. Contrary to critics’ beliefs, a social media policy is not intended to “control” anything. Its purpose is to give employees guidance, keep them from making severe errors in judgment and allow the organization to identify potential issues before they elevate to the status of a crisis. No policy, regardless how well written, can “control” the risks. The best a policy can do is mitigate the risks. Policies work for organizations that understand that risk happens.

In a perfect world organizations hire individuals that are smart, capable and masters of common sense. Unfortunately we don’t live in that world. In our world, smart, capable and generally common sensical employees make dumb decisions from time-to-time. Further, for many companies, the youngest employees, while smart and capable, many times lack the experience and maturity needed to make all the right decisions all the time. And unfortunately it is these employees that are likely the most experienced and active users of social media. In these situations, formal written social media policies provide employees with the guidance to navigate difficult or unknown situations.

In a perfect world, every organization provides world class products, services and gives each customer the attention they demand to keep them happy. In the real world, no matter how hard organizations try, mistakes are made, customers are disgruntled and dissatisfaction is voiced. Historically such dissent was limited to irate phone calls and letters and possibly the loss of business of the unhappy customer. Today with the use of social media, customers have the ability to reach and influence current and potential customers on a scale that can invoke real pain and suffering.

Businesses are not only in the business of making or servicing widgets. Businesses are also in the business of making and servicing the organization’s brand. The stronger the brand, the greater the revenues. Organizations can enhance their brand and competitive advantage and potentially generate greater revenues and profits with a well crafted social media strategy. However, before unleashing a social media strategy, organizations should craft a social media policy that provides the necessary guidance to ensure that social media risks are properly mitigated. The social media policy is the key to ensuring that social media risks area kept under control and to acceptable levels.

Lack of attention to social media risks can have the opposite effect. Companies that take a laissez faire approach to social media risks stand a greater likelihood of experiencing major embarrassments, reputational harm and the need for a major incident response. As such, it is in every company’s best interest to establish guidelines for social media usage through the implementation of a social media policy.

Social media poorly managed has the potential to adversely affect the organization, its brand, reputation and revenues. The upside to participating in social media is an enhanced brand and increased revenues and profitability. While social media does pose risks, if well managed, social media provides benefits that far outweigh the costs. The key to managing the risks is a well-crafted formal written social media policy and training program that is understood and adhered to by employees. A social media policy will not eliminate all of the risk but it goes a long way in allowing everyone to sleep at night. Ultimately, whether an organization undertakes a social media strategy will depend on its appetite for risk. Since many social media risks exist regardless of an organization’s decision to participate in social media, it is in the best interest of organizations to implement some form of social media policy.

Thoughts?

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Settlement of your Tax debt

There are many people who have involved in tax debt and tax debt is a major problem. Those people who have involved in tax debt they always look for a solution about this major problem. If you are also among those individuals who are looking for tax debt help then you need to find the solution about the problem of tax debt. There are many solutions for those people who are looking for tax debt help. Settlement of your tax debt can also give the relief from your tax debt.

In this article there are something about the Tax debt settlement. If you want to settle your tax debt then you need to look into all your options for settling your tax debt and also you have to make the right step. The good thing of the tax debt settlement is you need to pay less than what you owe. The best way to settle your IRS tax debt is with an offer in compromise. If you are agreeing to settle your debt for less than what you actually owe, this is called an offer in compromise. It does not mean that the IRS will listen because IRS know that they will get less amount with an offer in compromise. If you want to convince them then you have to prove that you are financial situation is worst and unable to pay in full. The IRS will agree when they will see that the amount which is an offer in a settlement is more than what they could collect from you.

If you want to get the help of a Tax professional, enroll agent and CPA to settle your tax debt, then also you can do. The professional will help you a lot about your IRS Tax debt settlement as they have license as well as education for the same. They can study about your case and give the correct decision about for the applying an offer in compromise.

If you want to settle your IRS tax debt then you should get all the information about the forms and procedure. There are many of companies in the market who provides such kind of tax debt settlement services as well as you can search in the Internet for the more information regarding Tax debt settlement.

When mWallet becomes a minimum requirement to play

I think it is pretty clear that mobile money has become a way of live for Kenyans. It is inconceivable to think of a world without mPesa and Zap in Kenya. The impact on the economy and the financial services landscape has been well researched and documented.

It may not be well-known, but the Kenyan telecommunication authority have licensed four operators to offer mobile telecommunications services in the country: Safaricom (with almost 80% marketshare and 40% Vodafone shareholding), Airtel (previously Zain) (with 13% marketshare and 80% Airtel shareholding), Orange (with 4% marketshare) and Yu Essar (with around 3%).

What I have found interesting is the activities of the other three operators. For (relatively) small operators, these companies are spending a lot of effort to launch new features and compete with their mobile wallets. Orange recently launched Orangemoney and Yu are trying their best to induce mPesa agents to switch to Yucash. Airtel's Zap has been waging a war on mPesa for longer than a year using features and price as weapons. It is interesting to observe the energy of the smaller players in this market.

It seems that a time will come in most emerging markets when having a mobile money solution will be a minimum requirement to play as is the case in Kenya.

iPhone, Google and NFC

It would be irresponsible for a mobile banking blog not to have an opinion on iPhone, Google and NFC. It is impossible to ignore the amount of excitement in the formal and social media about the instance when Eric Schmidt tapped his Nexus S on a proximity reader recently (Read here). With this small action, Schmidt signalled an intend from Google than just cannot be ignored.

I did write about the rumours related to Apple's venture into the the NFC space some weeks ago (Read here). I did highlight some of the challenges related to solving a few process and liability problems related to the secure element and personalisation then, so will not dwell on it again. Suffice to just re-emphasise that this whole mobile payment thing is much more complex and difficult to do than other digital stuff - far more difficult.

It is far more interesting to speculate on the strategic intend and approach of Apple and Google with this drive. (I enjoyed a post on technology and financial services with reference to this question a lot. (Read here)). The fundamental question is how these two giants intend integrating into the existing payment eco-system, how they intend changing it and what is in it for them. The complexity of payments is that it is tightly integrated and dependant on many other players. (Just think of the importance of banks (deposit-taking and settlement), regulators (compliance and risk-mitigation), card associations (inter-operability) and retailers (acquiring of payments), to name but a few. It is inconceivable to deploy a payment system without considering the role of these players (and many others).

Many questions remain unanswered: Do Google and Apple intend integrating into this eco-system? Working with the banks or card associations? Who will be their biggest friends and who should be scared of them? By delivering phones with NFC chips in them, what do they think will be the impact of it? Will this enable more people to transact and in when? Where will they make money? and who will loose revenue, because Apple and Google will steal it?

No matter how I dissect these questions, I only get to one conclusion: It is all about iTunes and Google accounts. The plan is that the phones will ultimately become an extension of the on-line experience. This is why Jim Balsillie (CEO of RIM) comment is so interesting: "We'd be fools not to have NFC in the near term ". (Read here).

Solution for Tax debt relief

There are many people who have involved in tax debt and there is no doubt that tax debt is a major burden. Those who have involved in tax debt always look for the tax debt relief help but many people not aware of how easy it is to find the correct tax debt solution. If anyone is in major debt with the IRS do not understand where to start looking for IRS debt relief. If really want to get tax debt relief then you need to give the time about this matter and find out the best resources possible. In this article here are some points by which you can get the help regarding your tax debt that how you will start and what you need to do to settle your debt.

The first point is always same that you need to determine how much debt you have and calculate the amount of debt that needs to be paid off. You should understand about your actual financial situation and about your future financial situation. All these information will be needed by the IRS. If you will provide the information then the correct tax debt settlement amount and payment plan can be determined.

You can consult with an IRS attorney as its a good source of tax debt relief and maximum people consult with an IRS attorney. There are many people who actually do not know all the information about the tax debt and tax debt settlement but an IRS attorney is one of the expert for this, as they have license and proper education for the same. You can contact with an IRS attorney online and also get the online consultations. An IRS attorney can give you proper direction as well they can save your money in the settlement of your tax debt.

There are many companies who employ experts and can give you the proper direction for you tax debt settlement. They are also can calculate you debt and can make the right payment plan for your tax debt settlement. Always keep in your mind that there are many scam sites and companies so before enter with any of the tax debt settlement company you should have all the information like back ground cases and other information too. Always choose those sites and companies which have got the Better Business Bureau stamp.

The most important point is that never try to run from the IRS or avoid your tax debt. You have the solutions by which you can solve your tax debt problem and if you have extra money in your hands then you can easily pay off your tax debt quickly.

The illusive hyper-growth position

Why is it that some mobile money deployments grow spectacularly and others just chug along without any dramatic growth? In only twelve months, some deployments grow to a penetration of 15% of their total target market, while others barely grow to more than a few percentage points.

I refer to this high growth situation as the illusive hyper-growth position. In observing what drives these deployments, I am of the opinion it is a combination of three things:

• Getting pricing wrong will kill take-up. It is important to get the fees right - not too low and not too high. Too high prices will chase prospective clients away - often for-ever. Too low prices may lead to transaction volumes that cannot be supported by the platform installed.
• Ensuring that the distribution network are built in line with the roll-out of the product is essential.It is of no use that agents are appointed, but not properly trained. The distribution network must be carefully selected and appropriately equipped.
• The mechanism and content of promotion is very important. The media used and the message will dictate if this is a success or not. It is no of no use to offer a service and then not to tell anybody of it.
  

Most important, it is critical that these three be developed in a coordinated way. It is for instance catastrophic to run a promotional campaign without having prepared the distribution network just in time. Triggering the market with a reduction in fees will not go anywhere if it is not reinforced by a supportive promotional campaign, etc.

A Tax attorney is helpful to solve your tax debt

There are different type of situation of debt and if you are involve in any kind of debt then it is very difficult to come out from that debt. Tax debt is one of the situation among all the debt and if anyone have involved in a tax debt then it becomes very major pain for those who have involved. In this article you will get some basic idea about how can you get help to solve your tax debt.

If you want to solve your tax debt then you should contact an IRS tax debt attorney because this is one of the best tools you could ever employ for yourself. You should hire a good and right professional to represent your tax debt case. If you will do the same then you can save your money and solve your tax debt.

It is not easy to understand all the tax code. If you want to understand all the tax code then it won't be easy. The tax code is very challenging for the average person to look over and read. In this situation a tax attorney will be perfect person to look over your case. There is no doubt that a tax attorney have the correct knowledge within the tax code and the IRS to solve the problem. If you want to ensure that you are associate with a professional tax attorney with the knowledge then you should check background cases and ask them different types of question which should be relevant to tax debt problem. In this way you will get more information about the tax debt settlement process.

A tax attorney will be the best person for IRS tax debt settlement and they can help simply because they are the tax attorneys so they have proper education and the license. If you want to find a tax attorney then its very easy as you can connect with them on-line on Internet. In this way they can easily able to look over your case as well as provide you insight and many information that you need. If you hire an attorney for your IRS debt case then you will have someone to represent you. In this way you don't need to take calls from the IRS for payments. Your attorney will take care on your case and will be able to speak to all IRS officials in order to settle the case.

If you start to settle tax debt then you will save a lot of money. Your tax attorney help to save your money. These attorneys are trained how to handle to the IRS and how to settle the debt with them. There are many people who try to settle these cases on their own and will spend very long time to settle with IRS. If you want to get correct solution on your tax debt then a tax attorney is best option.

Always keep in your mind that you need to hire a right attorney and in this article it has already mentioned. You can get lot of free information from Internet and once you hire a right tax attorney then your tax debt problem will get end.

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The saga of the NFC-enabled SIM

Turkey has often taken the lead in the deployment of advanced mobile banking applications. The deployment of digital signatures (and the application in banking) is by far more advanced than anything in the rest of the world. Garanti Bank recently announced (in conjunction with Avea (a new Turkish mobile operator)) that they have launched a NFC-enabled SIM. (Read here) This is in my view, one of the most important announcements in the mobile banking industry this year. The possibilities created by this advance is huge and should be evaluated further.

The biggest challenge faced in rolling out mobile enabled NFC (waving the phone in front of a reader) solutions is that very few phones actually ship with a proximity radio. This is an essential part of the NFC eco-system. Without this little piece of hardware, it is impossible to develop NFC solutions. (No advances in software can compensate for the lack of this piece of hardware). Placing the proximity radio on the SIM card has been considered as a possibility many times, but was always discarded because of one big challenge: the radio's antennae. The SIM card is too small to also carry a big enough antennae and furthermore, the SIM card is often hidden inside the phone, sometimes behind the battery. Even if the antennae were to reside on the SIM, it would be very ineffective and different from one phone to another.

It is not clear how this problem has been solved, but it seems to have been solved. This innovation (if replicable on other networks), would allow any phone to be NFC ready by just swapping the SIM card. Other pilots have utilised the memory slots available in phones and have used proximity radios installed on microSD cards. I am of the opinion that these pilots are now doomed as it is a much more plausible solution to place the radio on a SIM card.

Why is mobile banking different to online banking?

Four years ago, I wrote a blog arguing why mobile banking is not at all like Internet banking (Read here). Most (if not all) of the arguments are still very much applicable today. The biggest being that through mobile banking it is now possible to reach a large percentage of the world's population that do not have access to banking infrastructure. This in itself is a major revolution.

However, with the massive advances in mobile phone technology and the convergence of smart phones with tablet PC's and desktops, is it still possible to distinguish between mobile banking and online banking? How is it possible to distinguish between an Internet banking session originating from an iPhone browser, a iPad's browser or a MAC? The answer is that it is not possible. It is therefor possible to perform online (read browser-based) banking from a phone. Also, it is quite conceivable that a mobile banking app (written for the iPhone) can now be run on a iPad. Is this mobile banking or tablet banking?

What is needed, possibly, is to redefine online and mobile banking in different terms and utilise new terms to distinguish between the two. I would propose still using online banking, but rather refer to mobile banking as transactional (or message-based) banking. Mobile banking (designed correctly) have utilised the phone characteristics of being able to work with messages better and also support real time push capabilities. This functionality is of course now also available on PC's and can/should be utilised by banks for this form-factor too. Transactional banking would typically focus on payment transactions (bill payments, ad hoc person to person payments, cheque-related payments etc.) whereas, online banking offer much more sophisticated reporting and information representation capabilities.

The most important difference in my mind is recognising the difference in requirements in back office systems. Online banking and Transactional banking have very different scaling challenges and the design for the one (concurrent sessions), would be very different to the other (queue management). Also the security paradigm and risk management and mitigation are also very different.

It is clear that the boundaries between online and transactional banking are busy blurring, but by making this distinction, it is possible to design better banking applications.

Businesses would welcome mobile banking

What a surprise! Fundtech in conjucntion with Aite recently found conclusively that Executives would use and embrace mobile banking if it were to be provided by commercial banks. Why did we think differently and why was it necessary to research this. (Read more about this report here)?

The notion that mobile banking is not secure and safe as is the case with Internet banking exists. How is it possible to deliver a secure service on such a small piece of equipment and what will happen if an executive's Blackberry is stolen in a pub? I am sure that this is the only concern that executives could have for not using mobile banking in their business. The fact is that it is much easier to ensure a secure (and a much better auditable) system on a personal device. The industry has failed in some ways not projecting this fact.

The implications of using mobile payments in a retail environment

Most of the spectacular successes of mobile money initiatives were built on person to person (P2P) payments. This is a transaction were money is "pushed" from one wallet to another in an instant. The recipient of the money is informed immediately that he/she received a payment. Of course, nothing stops one utilising this kind of transaction in a retail environment. One may as well just send money to a shopkeeper's mobile phone to complete a payment.

So what is the relevance of the recent mPesa announcement that mPesa can now also be used in supermarkets? (Read here). Well, it is because using mobile payments in supermarkets (or formal retail environments) are much more complex and difficult. Much more have to be catered for that does not just exist in P2P payments. Below is a sample of some of the things that one has to consider:

• The system will have to cater for multiple roles in relationship to a retail account. For instance, one would not want the receiver of funds (the till operator) to also have the ability to pay from this account. Some roles will have more functions while others may have to restricted.
• In order to support the way that a retailer works (and when fully integrated with the store automation), one may want the system to support a "pull" payment, rather than a "push" payment as is the case with P2P. This is much more complex to implement.
• The system will have to cater for other types of transactions, like for instance: refund or reversal transactions.
• The owner of the supermarket typically requires more comprehensive management information and the data stored and displayed will have to be developed in such a way that the information available caters for the need of the retailer. For instance, data may have to carry information related to the types of goods purchased.
• Furthermore, if the system is really advanced and architected well, it would already position the automation for future functionality like NFC for instance.