Internet Safety

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received Facebook friend requests from people I don’t know or from people that have no mutual friends with me. Or the number of times that I’ve been friend requested by people I’m already friends with. They’ve been hacked!

There are many easy ways to be safe online, in any capacity whether it’s social media, online purchasing, and even just email.

• First off, keep your profile PRIVATE! If you are not a public official or personality, why do you want the whole world knowing your business, seeing your private family photos, and knowing what you do on a daily basis? Go and Google yourself. See what Google knows about you. You might be surprised. Social media outlets have the ability to be private, so only people you approve or are friends with can see your postings. Check Facebook privacy basics here.
• If your account is already private, make sure you are accepting friend requests, follow requests, or +1 from people you know! Go through your friends list, how many of these people do you actually know? Delete them if you don’t!
• LinkedIn is geared towards professionals and business, so you might not want a private LinkedIn profile, but there options to maintain some degree of privacy.
• Don’t share your passwords. Also, don’t use the same password for all accounts. Let’s face it. The majority of us pay our bills online; we shop online, and probably even pay our taxes online. Keep a list (somewhere safe) of passwords, and make them difficult! Include numbers, special characters and capital letters.
• Speaking of passwords. You know how when you set up a new account and you’re asked to answer security questions? Provide fake answers. Why? Well, have you ever noticed that the majority of these Facebook quizzes and “tell me about yourself” posts are geared towards some of the most common questions? Such as your home city, street you grew up on, favorite vacation spot; the list goes on and on. Don’t answer these quizzes, they’re click bait! When you answer these questions, you’re giving hackers insight which can be used to access your accounts! Why do you need to tell your friends all about yourself, shouldn’t they know already?
• Check out the Apps you’ve allowed on your social media accounts. Remove any that you don’t use, and limit the information you allow them to see.
• Be careful what you click on. Sadly, too many times I’ve opened a news story (from an actual news source) only to have “You’ve been selected to win…” pop up in my window. Don’t click it! Back out or close the window.
• Don’t open emails that look funny or are from people you don’t know. Almost every store today asks for an email address for discounts or rewards points. I have a separate email account which I use for things like that. I also give out a fake phone number.
• Rather than give your credit card information out online, consider using PayPal, or Apple Pay. Link it to a bank account or a credit card that doesn’t have a ton of available funds.

 
In addition to these safety precautions, it’s wise to have a good anti-virus or spyware program installed on your computer.

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Is your Facebook password Strong?

Facebook is one of the most popular social media websites where people get to interact with their friends and families. As of the fourth quarter of 2016, Facebook has over 1.86 billion users. This makes it a target for those who are trying to steal information by using different tricks to get Facebook user’s accounts information. There are several precautions you can take to secure your Facebook from being hacked.

Create a strong Password. It is recommended that you avoid using your name, birthday, pets, numbers from 1 to 9 or common words in your password. A strong password should be at least 8 characters in length, the more the characters are the better. The characters should contain at least one upper case letter, lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Change your password every 6 months; this is not only good advice for Facebook only but other online accounts as well.

Do not use the “remember password” feature on web browsers. When your browsers prompt the “remember password”, simply click Not Now.  If you use the “remember password” feature on someone else’s computer, it will give them access to your Facebook account whenever they want.

Avoid Facebook Quizzes.  Do not interact with every quiz that pops up in your timeline. Quizzes use catch phrases like “What Do People Say behind My Back?” or “Who Are the Hottest Friends around You?” These quizzes usually request your information such as name, profile picture, age, sex, birthday and other private information. This is giving out your personal identifying information to strangers who might use this information to hack your Facebook account, your bank account and more.

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3rd Annual Bradenton River Regatta

The 3^rd Annual Bradenton Area River Regatta was a huge success! After having cold and rainy weather in its 2^nd year, this year went off without a hitch, and it has been reported that there were about 100,000 people in attendance!

I was looking forward to this for weeks, and was so happy when the day turned out beautiful! I had guests so I didn’t get to make it there as early as I would have liked. (Clydesdales are my favorite, and I had hoped to see them cross the “Green Bridge”)

We got there for the 2pm Powerboat Division Final. Parking was a bit of a challenge, but that was to be expected. There were so many people! On the walk to the river, we passed a concert, there weren’t many people listening, probably because the big event was about to happen.

We actually found the perfect spot, right between both bridges, and right on the rail, which we didn’t think would happen. We were right in front of the pavilion, where soon after we got there, a BMX bike show was going on. There were literally people everywhere. The whole length of the bridge was lined with people, the waterfront was full, and people were way up on the embankment too.

The show didn’t start at 2, but that was fine. There was plenty of action on the other side of the bridge. We couldn’t see from where we were, but it was the Hydro Cross Qualifier’s. We did have a little entertainment though; a wake boarder came out on a jet ski. He was pretty incredible! There were also a few helicopters. Had I thoroughly read about the Regatta prior to getting there, I would have known that there were helicopter rides too! They were flying so low, and came right above the crowd so we could wave at the passengers, it was quite fun.

When the power boats finally came out, the crowd was filled with excitement! Check out this video below!

Boy those things are loud. Honestly, I was expecting something like a big cigarette boat, but realistically, they wouldn’t have even fit in that small area. Of course, I picked my favorite, a purple boat to win, but a white one and a yellow one were the leaders. Those little boats move fast! They were almost running in a figure 8, and I believe the white boat lapped the others.

Since it didn’t get under way on time, and one of the boats broke down stopping the action again, we left. So we didn’t see who won, but it was a lot of fun while we were there. As I said before, I had company, and if it were up to me, I would have stayed all day! There’s always next year.

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Email Set Up

Did you get a new phone or tablet for Christmas and need to set up your email? Well, Webtivity has got you covered! Follow the steps below to set up your Android device, Apple device, and computer.

Android Device

1. Open Outlook for Android.
2. Go to Settings > Add Account > Add Email Account
3. Enter your email address then continue
4. Enter your email account password
5. Allow calendar and contact permissions
6. Your email account is set up!

Apple Device

1. Open Outlook for iOS
2. Go to Settings > Add Account > Add Email Account
3. Enter your email address
4. Enter your email account password
5. Select yes allow calendar and contact permissions
6. Your email account is set up!

To set up an IMAP account, such as our smarter mail email accounts, follow these steps:

1. In Outlook, go to File, Click the Info tab
2. Click Add Account
3. Click manually configure server settings or additional server types radio button.
4. Click Next.
5. Click the Internet Email radio button.
6. Click Next.
7. Enter the following information:
   • Your Name:
   • Email address:
   • Incoming Server:
   • Outgoing Mail server:
   • User name:
   • Password:
8. Click Next.

If your mail server requires SMTP Authentication, follow these steps. If you are not sure if your mail server requires SMTP Authentication, please contact your hosting company or ISP.

• Click on More Settings.
• Navigate to Outgoing Server Tab
• Check “My Outgoing Server requires SMTP Authentication”.
• Click OK.

1. Click Next.
2. Click Finish.

Server Details for Webtivity email clients:

Webtivity Server: a.mx.webtivity.us

Pop port: 110(TLS), or 995(SSL)

IMAP

Port: 143(TLS), or 993(SSL)

SMTP

Port: 25(TLS), 587(TLS), or 465(SSL)

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Holiday Marketing Campaign.

During the holidays businesses tend to run a milliard of different promotions. When the year is almost over people spend more than compared to other times of the year. Christmas, arguably the biggest holiday of the year, is right around the corner, as a business you should be running different types of marketing campaigns to take advantage of this temporary increase in spending.

At Webtivity, we can help you figure out which type of marketing best fits your business and would bring you the kind of results you desire. Here are some examples of different types of promotions you can run during holidays.

1. Make sure you have a website to drive your customer to, having a website makes a huge difference to a customer’s buying decisions. If you have a website, it must be attractive to customers and mobile friendly because, in this era, everything is done on cell phones.

2. Social Media: If you are trying to promote your business during holidays, you need to be active on social media which allows you to connect with a lot of different potential customers. Using social media can also help you to create attractive ads for your business that are easy to share. This makes it easy for anyone who likes your promotions and ads to share them with their friends. Therefore gaining your business some much needed exposure.

3. Advertise ahead of the holiday. This allows you to promote your business and to allow people to get to know your services before the holidays. In case they need your services during the holidays they are more likely to use a business whose offerings they are familiar.

4. Content: Make sure your website has great content, you do not want to drive customers to a website that does not have good content or is attractive enough to turn them into a client.

Webtivity Marketing & Designs would like to wish you and your family happy holidays!

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Why Digital Marketing is Necessary for Business.

In the digital marketing field, we are experiencing a change in the way businesses operate. Almost any good or service can be sold or advertised online which is the reason why most companies have changed their strategies on how to advertise their products. The goal of internet marketing is to spread awareness of the business’ product and services.
Digital marketing encompasses a growing field of different strategies, like search engine optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising and social media outreach.
Business owners and organizations are investing more and more money in marketing but with an emphasis on digital marketing because our society is getting more and more dependent on the Internet to provide information on just about any subject. The most top rated companies today are using some form of Pay-Per-Click advertising. This is the reason why advertising platforms like Google’s Adwords are bringing in on average more than 100 million dollars per day.
According to marketingland.com, Mobile Pay-Per-Click advertising is the fastest growing segment of digital advertising.

online marketing advertisment

There are numerous online marketing benefits:

1. Businesses that decide to advertise online have a chance to present their products to millions of online users simultaneously.
2. Online marketing brings traffic to your website. when the clients are happy with your product they can always come back to your website to purchase more or refer a friend and that is called free advertisement .
3. Digital marketing generates high conversion rates .
4. Digital marketing connects you with mobile consumers which allow them to connect with the business on the real time.

We have seen the grow of digital marketing for the last 5 years where it doubled since 2012.

online marketing

Digital Marketing in 2013

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