Erik Qualman's Blog, page 594

Stay Safe: 4 Social Media Security Tips for the Summer

Now that summer has officially begun, many start firing up their social media profiles: whether it’s Facebook status updates about travel plans, Instagram pictures of family vacations or Pinterest pins of exotic locations, most of us seek to update old and attract new friends through our summer social media activity.

However, this uptick in posting and sharing through various profiles can also harbor serious dangers. If you post too much private information, you’re running the risk of exposing yourself to criminals. Yet, this doesn’t mean you have to go entirely “off-the-grid” during your summer vacation. You can still share your outdoor activities and sightseeing trips with your friends and followers if you consider certain security measures.

1.    Review your privacy settings

Even though most users unfortunately don’t bother with them, essentially all social media platforms offer the option to customize your privacy settings. This is especially important as social media sites and apps can change their default privacy settings anytime. For instance, Facebook changed their default privacy settings to “public” a while ago, making your posts visible to random strangers on the Internet. Make sure to make your posts “private” or restrict them only to your closest group of friends. Remember that your Twitter and Instagram profiles are public by default as well, unless you change the setting to “private”. Consider making your profiles private while you’re on vacation, so you’ll always know who can see your posts.

2.    Edit Your Friends List

It’s recommendable to review and edit your friends list from time to time. You might be surprised how many people you’re friends with on Facebook that you’ve actually never met. Some random people might just have befriended you because they found you interesting or thought they knew you, but others might actually have a hidden agenda. Instant Checkmate points out that these strangers could be spammers who simply post advertisements in your news feed or scammers who want to retrieve your personal information for fishy purposes. Comb through your friends list and delete anybody who you don’t know or feel suspicious about. Furthermore, it’s also helpful to group your friends; Facebook, for instance, allows you to create a “close friends” or “work” group, so you can share posts – like your vacation pictures – with certain people only.

3.    Don’t Post Private Information Online

While this technically applies anytime, you should under no circumstances share private information like your primary email, phone number or address on your social media profiles while you’re on vacation. Your home is more vulnerable to potential burglars while you’re away if they get a hold of this sensitive information. Moreover, don’t tweet or post specific travel dates and itineraries. The more criminals now about your precise whereabouts, the easier it is for them to take advantage of that information. You might also want to consider refraining from posting information about your hotel, such as pictures of you room and your belongings, so as not to lead burglars into your hotel room.

4.    Be Careful About Revealing Your Location

Almost all social media profiles now offer the option for you to “check into” locations like restaurants, bars, hotels, landmarks, etc., which lets you to share your whereabouts with your friends and followers. Yet, it also allows others to find you through the location you checked into. This feature is enabled through “geotagging” which means that geographical identification metadata (normally latitude and longitude coordinates) is added to your posts. Your posts are automatically geotagged through your device’s built-in GPS when your location services are turned on in your privacy settings. For example, if they’re enabled for your Instagram app, your location will be automatically revealed when you share a picture, even if you DON’T check into a specific place. Thus, you should consider disabling your location services entirely during your vacation.

If you keep the aforementioned security tips in mind, you should be able to enjoy your vacation and even share your experiences through social media with your friends and followers. If you’re vigilant about your social media activity, you should be able to experience a carefree summer!

[image error]

How has the Internet and Social Media Changed the Music Industry?

The internet has transformed the world and the music industry as we know it. Before everybody was hooked up to the World Wide Web, the music scene was a very different place. Twenty years ago, consumers relied more heavily on CDs, The Charts and the radio. It was a time when mix tapes were rife and people brought CDs or cassettes to parties.

Advancements in technology meant that hard copies of music were no longer a necessity- the introduction of the digital mp3 pushed out the requirement to own CDs. Similar to mix tapes, listeners would borrow a friend’s CD, copy the music to their computer and have an electronic copy of the CD.

The Internet shook things up further, as connection speeds increased, file sharing became more common. Consumers illegally used programmes like Napster and Limewire to pirate music, waiting for many hours to download a single track. Pirated music became a widespread problem for record labels as there was no way to police the music duplication.

The advent of social networking also brought a whole new element to the music industry, with MySpace providing a platform for users to follow musicians and discover new bands. YouTube has meant that consumers no longer have to rely on MTV or purchase a band’s video or DVD to watch their music videos. Streaming services like Spotify and Pandora give listeners access to any music from anywhere with an internet connection.

So technology and the internet have changed the way we source and listen to music but it has also changed the way music is produced. Where twenty years ago, aspiring artists would rely on corporate bigwigs to listen to their demo disc, the internet has put some power back in their artist’s hands.

Thanks to the internet, musicians and singers now have more control over their own fates. They are able to produce their own track, upload it to the internet and promote it accordingly. This not only helps listeners discover them but also producers, helping them to get signed and make it big time.

Viral videos and social media also have a huge influence on the music industry, with the song behind Psy’s Gangnam Style topping charts in many countries, where in the past music charts solely depended on the song not the video.

Producing music has also become more accessible and more affordable with some artists recording work in their home, or hiring out a recording studio for a day. Luke Henderson of Fluke Productions, a recording studio in London recognises that compared with twenty years ago, it is much easier for artists to kick start their career. As soon as a track is uploaded to the internet it can be accessed by people across the world if they know where to look.

With internet connectivity continuing to improve and the penetration of smartphones only set to increase, technology and the internet are predicted to maintain a firm hold on how music is consumed, shared and produced. These advancements are welcomed by most as it gives the both the listener and artist both more choice and power.

[image error]

7 Tricks for Successful Social Media Branding

An essential part of branding a business is developing and maintaining an online presence. Your business probably already has several social media pages up and running. But are they leveraged to brand your business the way you want them to?

 

Of course, your business’s social media page needs to be handled differently from your personal accounts. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to ease yourself into the process of becoming a professional poster. Below are seven of the best tricks to turn your business’s social media page(s) into valuable parts of your branding campaign.

 

1. Find Your Followers

Photo by Geralt

If you’re a marketing professional, you probably know who your brand’s target audience is. Your social media campaign is just another way to make genuine connections with this niche, so make sure that whatever you post speaks to your audience. You need to establish your presence on the sites that your target is most likely to use. If your audience skews older, don’t expect them to follow you via Instagram or Snapchat. Instead, learn which sites they sign up for and find them there. If you’re not sure where to begin, investigate a well-established brand in your field to see how they reach their audience.

 

2. Learn to Keep it Consistent

It’s imperative that your social media presence is consistent; this point applies to several aspects of your branding campaign. Your social media page should match all of your other marketing materials. Make sure that your page features the same logo and color scheme, as well as the same voice, in all of your copy — more on voice later.

 

Consistency also applies to your posting schedule. You don’t want to overload your followers’ feeds with constant posts, but you don’t want to be completely silent, either. Create and follow a posting schedule so that you stay on top of — and track the frequency of — your social media activity.

 

Pro Tip: Don’t be afraid to include a spontaneous post every once and a while. If something groundbreaking happened in your industry, feel free to share or post about it. This tactic further proves to your audience that you value interaction and connections.

 

3. Get Your Audience Involved

Once you have your social media schedule in place, figure out what sort of posts will engage your audience. There’s no formula for this, so you’ll have to find out what will work best for your audience. If you’re part of a larger business or corporation, it might be nice to post photos that highlight a specific staff member working hard or photos of your team doing community service projects. These can humanize what might seem like a business-only business from the outside. You can also introduce thought-provoking articles and discussion-starting questions to get your followers engaged.

 

4. Be Sure to Talk Back

It’s every social media marketer’s dream to have an engaged and talkative audience. Once this dream comes true, though, many marketers fail to keep the communication going. If one of your followers turns to social media to ask you a question, it’s your responsibility to acknowledge their contribution and thank them for it. Social media is becoming one of the best places for businesses to take care of customer service issues, so sometimes a “thank you” isn’t enough. If you use this new avenue of communication to really talk to your followers, they’ll look at your brand with even more respect than they did before. Who doesn’t want that for their business?

 

5. Stick to Your Voice

The voice you use on your social media site should emulate all of the other copy that your company shares with its clientele. The social media voice that you use may be a touch more conversational, since you’ll most likely be chatting back and forth with followers who will comment on and respond to your posts. It shouldn’t be jarringly different, though. Your most loyal customers will notice the discord and lose interest in what your out-of-tone social media voice has to say.

 

6. Share Valuable Tidbits

As mentioned in #4, you’ll want to post what sparks a conversation and keeps your followers engaged. Sometimes, though, they’ll simply want one-sided information sharing, and, if you do it right, they’ll trust you as a solid source of knowledge. Take, for example, the plumbing and drain pros at Mr. Rooter. The company’s website has plenty of information regarding their services. At the very top of the site, you’ll notice that these guys even have a blog. Written from the perspective of the logo character’s wife, the Mrs. Rooter Blog is compiled of several entries with tips to help customers keep their plumbing systems running smoothly. This type of information is not only helpful, but it makes clients feel like they can trust Mr. Rooter: would a sketchy plumber provide pipe-maintenance tips, or hope clients would just call him for every problem?

 

7. Track Your Progress

As soon as you start a social media campaign, you’ll also want to analyze your success. Google Analytics, among other sites, will tell you how many viewers your site is reaching, and which social media links brought them there. This information can help you gauge how well your campaign is doing, as well as areas that need improvement.

 

It’s good to have goals for your campaign from the start. If you track your progress, you’ll have a much easier time tweaking your plan along the way. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that no marketing campaign is going to be perfect from the beginning. A well-maintained social media campaign is open to corrections along the way. Stay involved with your customers and your social media campaign will help bring you and your company the success you’ve envisioned.

[image error]

School Yourself on Social Media

Deciding where your child is going to go to college can be an overwhelming undertaking, but you know he or she is going somewhere.

How do you start making that decision? How do you get the best information? And really, what are some of the top reasons for going to college?

Let’s take a look ….

Gathering information

Social media has reached into almost every aspect of our lives.

We can find pretty much anything out via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn … Maybe your kids are savvy in this department, but when it comes to compiling college information, you should be, too. Click on most college websites and one of the first things you’ll see is links to their social media feeds. If you’re interested, sign up.

For instance, go to Georgia Tech’s website – you’ll see no less than nine social media platform links. Choose what you want, and then delve deeper. You can sign up for prospective teacher blogs, particular major/school feeds or freshman application links. The same goes for other schools and universities.

Look at Texas A&M’s page. You can find feeds to their social media sites on their home page, or click around to virtual tours, sign up for a mobile app or follow Greek life on Twitter or Facebook. The more information you can gather, the more one of these places will feel like home for your family and your teen.

You’ll also notice some colleges reaching out to you.

Once your child has taken some college tests, like the ACT and SAT, you may start receiving information not only in your mailbox, but also in your inbox.

Colleges are reaching out through high schools as well, and if you’ve taken an interest in them, they may return the favor and keep in touch through social media.

Social media is a great way to get a feel for the college life at a particular school.

Remember, though, if you or your student is following them, be careful on your own posts. Keep them clean and positive. You never know who may follow you in return.

The importance of a college degree

So why is it important to take the step to college anyway?

As the following article shows, here are 4 benefits of getting your bachelor’s degree:

1. More businesses and employers will take you seriously if you have a college degree.

2. You gain expertise in the field you are interested in and have more to offer.

3. You can earn a higher salary than those without a college degree, even in the same field.

4. It gives you time to explore your interests and fine tune what you want to do in your career.

College is exciting.

The time leading up to it is exciting (and anxious and nerve wrecking and emotional), but do your research for you and your student, find out what you want to know and the decision will come to you.

Use all the tools available to you, from websites to counselors to admissions offices, students and social media. Best of luck!

Photo credit: Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

[image error]

How Has Technology and Gaming Affected Gen Y and the Millennials?

From birth, the last two generations have been completely immersed in and surrounded by technology, from television and playing Snake on a Nokia 3210 to World of Warcraft and iPhones there is no escape from electrical devices in the modern world.

Both Gen Y (those born in the late eighties and early nineties) and Millenials (born in the noughties) are described as digital natives. This means that the internet is seen as a ‘natural’ space for them and it is fully integrated in their lives. In their spare time, digital natives use new media like social networking and instant messaging to help them to maintain an ongoing stream of multiple conversations that mix different media formats, for them, the internet is linked with a strong sense of community.

In fact, recent studies have found that three quarters of young people believe that they cannot live without the internet and nearly half of young people claim that they feel happiest when they are online.

Younger generation’s lives are so heavily involved with gaming and the online world that it has become integrated with the way they live their lives and offline decisions. Young people like to decorate their rooms with game themed wall stickers, chat with their friends while they play games or watch television, and in some cases go to extremes and have game themed weddings. The internet and gaming feature so prominently in Gen Y’s and Millenal’s lives that they are rarely separated from a screen. Be it their smartphone, the computer or the television they are likely dividing their attention across two screens – research shows that 96% of 16-24 year olds use another media device while they are using the internet.

The penetration of technology is also high for the younger ages,  a Childwise report found that 8.6million (73%) of children in the UK own a laptop, PC or tablet and that they spend on average 2.5 hours watching TV and 1.5 hour on the internet each day.

So while both the internet and new technologies have huge social and educational benefits for generations both young and old. The dependence that Millenials and Gen Y have on the online world is quite troublesome. A study by Marketing Week found that even young people themselves believe it has gone too far, with 93% of respondents with the belief that people spend too much time looking at their phones and not enough time talking to each other. While two decades ago, experts were concerned that young people were spending too much time in front of the television, it is now both the internet and the television. With users browsing the internet while they game and watch television there’s even less incentive to become more active.

Spending hours in front of a screen and online not only has a negative impact on a person’s waistline, but it is also harmful for our social, mental and physical development – particularly in younger people. Reports have shown that thanks to new technologies, increasing volumes of younger children are beginning to lack the motor skills required to play with building blocks and complete traditional pen and paper exams. They are able to swipe their finger across a screen but have limited dexterity in their fingers due to lack of practice.

‘Digital dementia’ is also a new phenomenon, where younger people suffer from poor memory, deterioration in cognitive abilities and short attention span. With the answer always a click away, young people have no reason to retain facts and cannot even remember simple personal details like their own phone number. While heavy technology use will develop the left side of peoples’ brains, it leaves the right underdeveloped and unexercised. Children are the most at risk as their brains have not yet developed fully, meaning that heavy use of technology could actually severely impair on their development.

So, while technology is fantastic and has completely transformed the way society works and operates in the last twenty years, it is important to not forget to take a step back and do things the old fashioned way. Visit a friend instead of Face Timing, play a board game instead of Call Of Duty and hand your kid a colouring book instead of your iPad.

 

[image error]

Best Practices for Integrating Social and Email

Email marketing providers are starting to catch on to the idea that integrating social media in anyway possible will make their platform seem more appealing to customers. There are two ways social media is generally being integrated. First is an automatic way to publish new email campaigns to your Facebook and Twitter profiles. Second is allowing email recipients to share the web version of the email with their own social networks with social sharing features. Here I would like to explore both of these ideas in terms of how this would work into an online marketing strategy.

Traditionally an online content strategy that encompasses both email and social would clearly want to separate the content between the two. Most marketers feel that email should have its own content so as to ensure that we give an incentive for the audience to opt-in to an email list. If each email campaign is automatically shared to social media profiles the consumer has no incentive to subscribe to the email list.

As most of us know social media is a more fluid medium where depending on the follow of connections your target user has and how often they login to the platform your content is unlikely to reach everyone. On Facebook this is further complicated by EdgeRank as publishers have to maintain consistent high engagement to ensure content appears in the news feed of our audience. Contrast that with email where, baring some delivery factors to get past SPAM filters, our content lands in an inbox of our user where they will have the opportunity to read it if they chose. Because of these differences we tend to favor a variety, of high volume, interactive, bite-size content on social where on email we tend to focus on deeper, higher value, and more relevant content that is exclusive to our highest value subscriber. This comes from the deeper commitment to deliver the absolute best quality content to users who trust us with their email inbox.

It would seem to me, and I think most marketers agree that it makes the most sense to segregate the social content from the email content and NOT publish each email campaign to our social media profiles. That said I don’t see as much harm in allowing or even encouraging recipients to share the email campaign with their own online networks if they feel inclined. Does that sound like a double standard?

What are your thoughts?

[image error]

15 Facts About Vine Every Brand Should Know

This article was originally published by Erik Qualman on LinkedIn.

 

By 2017 2/3 of all mobile content will be video. While I’m not certain Vine will still be popular in 2017, short-form videos are here to stay. That’s why it’s important for Brands to understand Vine so they can take advantage of it today and plan new short-form video in the coming years.

 

 

A branded Vine is 4x more likely to be seen than a branded video
Twitter bought Vine in 2012 and re-launched in January, 2013 as a free iOS app. Vine lets users share six-second looping videos in an Instagram like feed. Those Vines can be re-vined by other users, commented on, or liked
Every second, five Vines are tweeted.
Some of the top performing brands on Vine are: Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Donuts, GE, McDonald’s, Oreo, Lowes, Airbnb, XBox
Note it is vine.co, not vine.com. Amazon owns vine.com and asked $500,000 for the rights. The .co is for the country of Colombia.
The name Vine is short for Vignette. This is defined as “a short impressionistic scene”.
If you turn the Vine logo upside, you will notice a 6, which is the number of seconds a video can be on Vine.
In April 2013, Vine was the most downloaded app from the Apple App Store in the United States. In August 2013 they reached the 40 million user mark.
Weekends are the best time to share Vine videos – which is very interesting and unusual as brands often have difficulty reaching people on the weekends.
Vine traffic is highest between 10am – 11am.
Use Hashtags to increase effectiveness. For example, #GotMilk #DunkinDonuts. 5 Most Popular are: #loop, #selfie, #remake, #cute and #magic.
Top five industry leaders on Vine: fashion, sports, automotive, technology, and print.
The five most popular countries using Vine: United States (38.2 percent), Mexico (8.1 percent), United Kingdom (5.7 percent), Turkey (4.6 percent) and Japan (3.2 percent).
In 2013, active teen users grew 639 percent
In June Vine introduced Loop Counts which allows users to see how often their Vine is being played real-time

You might also enjoy reading 9 Facts About Snapchat Every Brand Should Know

Sources:

+ Majority of above pulled from this great post by Albert Costill at SEJ

+ Great Vine Video Infographic

+ Find out more in my book What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube

[image error]

Smile, Get More Social

Are you “friends” with any dentists? Do you follow any dental-oriented social media pages, such as Twitter or Instagram?

A little more than two-thirds of dental practices reported having a Facebook page, according to a survey conducted in 2012. With more than one billion people on Facebook alone, this is just one of many valuable tools to market your practice.

Dentists can – and should – use social media to promote not only their business, but also the importance of healthy teeth, getting regular check-ups and having proper dental health insurance.

Benefits of dentists using social media

Social media includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Instagram, YouTube and all other websites that promote “sharing” of content. Dental practices should have a website and be actively involved in social media.

The benefits of using social media include:

Gain more patients – With billions of people using social media, this is one of the most effective ways of generating more business. “Friend” similar businesses in your area, Tweet about specials geared towards new patients, offer free services and more. The more of a social media following you can get (by word of mouth and by simply being active on social media), the more new patients you’ll gain.
It’s free – Perhaps the biggest benefit of using social media in your marketing plan is that it’s free. Nowadays, people use the internet for everything. If your dental practice has a good, easy-to-navigate website and receives multiple positive reviews from previous patients, you’ll be more likely to continue generating new business. If you love social media and are willing to learn the ins and outs, you won’t pay a penny. If, on the other hand, you’d rather focus your talents elsewhere, considering hiring a social media specialist to maintain all social media accounts.
Build relationships – Most businesses – including dentistry – are in the business of people just as much as they are in the business of whatever product or service they are selling. Social media allows dental practices to form real, genuine relationships with current and prospective patients. By allowing people to Tweet questions on your practice or general dental care and by you responding in a timely manner, you will generate both word-of-mouth referrals and positive reviews.

Drill Home Fun When Using Social Media

When using social media, make sure you don’t focus solely on advertising your business. Instead, make it fun.

Post short surveys (such as favorite brand of toothpaste or how often you floss), share interesting tips (such as how to get a whiter smile or how to take care of your gums), discuss the best dental insurance plans and more.

Again, the goal of social media is to engage customers and build up a following.

You won’t be able to do this just by advertising your business and promoting deals. You have to do it all and make people want to visit your dental practice.

Social media helps you build your brand and your image.

Remember, it’s the gateway to your future successes.

Though you can survive without having company social media pages, you’re much more likely to be successful and prosperous with the help of the number one online marketing tool.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of arztsamui / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

[image error]

Has Everyone Gone YouTube Mad?

On a casual online browsing session, I’m sure it would be almost impossible to avoid the constant presence of that black and red icon lurking in almost every corner. Whether you’re on Facebook, on your favourite band’s page, or even on your local city council’s website, that big red ‘play’ button has become rather inevitable.

You would have had to have been living under a rock for the past decade to have not heard of this multibillion viewed video hosting site. An astounding proportion of people have jumped on the band wagon though.

More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month.

Those billion viewers watch over 6 billion hours of video every month, and while all of this is occurring, 100s of hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. So what is this craze all about? What is video doing that ordinary motionless words aren’t?

At the end of the day, it’s all about communication.

It all revolves around getting a message across to as many people as possible in a short time period whilst being as cost effective as possible. It doesn’t matter what this message is, or how serious it is either, virtually everyone is using YouTube as a method of advertising, marketing and entertainment. Small and large businesses are using it as tools at their disposal, and so are ‘celebrities’ on various levels on the fame spectrum in attempt to increase their fan base. And why shouldn’t they? Up and coming actors and smaller businesses would have to be stark raving mad not to use YouTube in some respect in the weird and wonderful digital age we now live in. To put it into context, according to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults aged 18-34 than any cable network.

Keeping all of this in mind, it’s not surprising to hear that video is having a much greater impact than words. Video blogging is overtaking blogging quite significantly. So what seems to be the attraction to video over text communication?

Low Cost

The means to produce video blogs and relatively decent ones for that matter is becoming rather inexpensive as the years go by. DSLRs are becoming cheaper and cheaper, which means you can create almost professional looking videos from your very own bedroom. Businesses as well as individuals are choosing to employ video production companies or make their own because it costs much less than it did five years ago.

Short and Bite Size Information

The average person reads around 300 words per minute. According to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research, a 1 minute video is worth 1.8million words. This is the equivalent of 3,600 typical web pages. Theoretically speaking, it would take the average reader 1000 hours to read the same content they could in a one minute video. Some may say that video watching equals laziness, but in a world where time is money, it’s just seems to be common sense to watch a video rather than read a long tedious article that may not even permeate the brain on first reading.

Importance of Personal Branding

Videos are the perfect medium in a digital age where online ‘branding’, (no matter how awful it sounds) is so vital in the current competitive job market. You can sell yourself to an audience in less than 2 minutes, in a way that is easy on the eye. Add some soothing music and you’re on to a winner. What is so great is that young and dynamic video production companies which specialise in helping you to create the best video for your company are popping up all over the UK. These companies are dedicated to online video marketing campaigns. A single video production company can serve a range of small and large companies which means more video content is being produced than ever. For instance, video production company, Lambda Films are one of the many businesses who are dedicated in producing these online marketing campaigns through audio-visuals.

Shows Personality

On a similar train of thought, it is just wiser to convey a company’s work morals in a video rather than on paper. It resonates more with most people to add visual to a message, and it remains in their mind for longer. Similarly, for online bloggers, it would take a reader several articles or blogs for them to build an idea of the writer’s character or ideas. In a video blog, a viewer is essentially watching a blogger perform, and this can be quite authoritative. This notion is especially useful for actors or online personalities who are attempting to get a foot in the door because they can essentially build an online portfolio through a YouTube channel.

This article was written by Chloe Hashemi. Chloe is a recent English Literature graduate from the University of East Anglia. She enjoys writing about film and social media.

 

[image error]

Canada’s New CASL Email Marketing Laws

On July 1st, 2014 the new changes to the Canadian Anti SPAM Law went into effect. This new legislation is designed to protect consumers from unsolicited email from those who would otherwise abuse email sending. Since email marketing is a part of all online marketing campaigns including social we will outline the core takeaways and how this may change how you currently operate.

Implied or Express Consent is Required:

In the USA the CAN SPAM Act of 2003 allows one to send marketing email to an email address that hasn’t opted in or consented to receiving email in the past as long as you provide an easy way to unsubscribe. The new Canadian law doesn’t work that way. Users must either give express consent (filling out online form, checking a box during online checkout, etc) or implied consent in order to be eligible recipients of any marketing email. Implied consent is given by being a customer, client, associate, donor, supporter, volunteer, etc in the past two years.

No Part of The Message Can be Misleading:

Similar to the USA CAN SPAM Act law, the new Canadian law requires that every part of the electronic message including subject line, FROM name and email address, and body content be accurate and not misleading.

Required Elements:

Most of these are universal to both CASL and the CAN SPAM Act.

Name and Business
Name of anyone else on whose behalf you are sending the message
Current mailing address
Either a phone number, email address, or web address (Above and beyond CAN SPAM Act of USA)
Details on how to unsubscribe in EVERY message

All these elements must be accurate and valid for a minimum of 60 days after sending the message

All unsubscribe requests must be honored within 10 days or less at no cost to the recipient.

Here is a great info-graphic made available by the Canadian government. This and other resources are available at http://fightspam.gc.ca

 

More detailed information about the USA CAN SPAM Act of 2003 here.

 

 

[image error]