Saturday, August 15, 2015

Netiquette Samples Of Terrible Subject Lines - Via Netiquette IQ

Netiquette examples, both good and bad, can be very basic or more detailed and complex. It can usually be beneficial to make note of these. The article below is a list of some bad subject fields.
 8 Terrible Email Subject Lines
Chris Raeside AUGUST 14, 2015  from www.business2community.com

You have read a literal mountain of articles, whitepapers, and eBooks on how to craft the perfect email subject line. You’ve taken great strides in mastering this art, creating that one line that captures your reader’s attention in the fraction of a second.
But in order to fully understand how the email subject line works, you can’t just focus on the best. You also have to explore the worst.
Email subject lines are a delicate touch point. You can create a brand advocate with a great one, but you can also lose a subscriber, get marked as spam, and lose all credibility with your audience with a poor one. Oftentimes, there’s a fine line between what is considered “good” and what is just outright “bad”. Where is the line? How do you avoid crossing it?
Well, we’ve already covered Amazingly Effective Email Subject Lines, so let’s check the other side of the coin and draw the line between what works and what tends to backfire. Here are eight ugly, horrible, no good, terrible subject lines:
1. “Chris, you won’t believe what we have in store for you!!!”
Let’s start out with one that we can easily identify as junk. This combination of vague wording and an obviously lazy personalization combine to create a subject line that will immediately get deleted when it shows up in my inbox. “Clickbait” subject lines are just a cheap parlor trick. They may work the first time they’re seen, but consistent use will leave your audience initially bored, and eventually angry. And think about context: your recipients are probably getting hundreds of email a day. Clickbait fatigue probably sets in at about email number 10.
2. “See What’s New this November”
(See also, “Happy New Year’s!”)
Most companies getting their feet wet in email marketing will start out with the bar set at “monthly newsletter”. Unfortunately, this leads quickly to a rut filled with repetitive and inherently boring information.
Filler words, generic copy, and underwhelming content are the quickest way to kill your open rates. Yes, sometimes you and your staff will do something interesting. But when your readers see the same subject line (or even something remotely similar) each month, they will assume the content within is also the same.
3. “We Know You’ll Love This”
image: http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/shutterstock_164636486-Converted3.jpg.jpg

This line is so close to being decent that it physically hurts me to write it. For marketers with a solid database and automated tracking, identifying the individual needs of your demographic and segmenting them appropriately is an insanely effective course of action. There are two reasons why this subject line sucks:
  • It’s vague (seeing a theme here?) As the recipient of this email, I have no idea what to expect upon opening it, which typically means I’m deleting it and moving on. I can normally infer the content based on the company sending the email, but if companies offer multiple products, I will want to know exactly what I’m getting into before jumping into an email like this one.
  • Will I actually love it? Yes, they think I will, but how accurate is their segmentation? If the content of this email isn’t something I immediately identify as something I need, then I’m unsubscribing. It’s a gamble to run email subject lines like this unless you are a master of segmentation and of identifying your customers’ needs, as well as the degree of emotion they might attach to having that need filled.
4. “We Did a Study and Now We Want You to Read the Whole Thing Right Now So That We Can Get Feedback and Sell You Something”
I like to call this sort of subject line the “Terms and Conditions,” because it’s long, boring, takes forever to get to the point, and I end up just moving on with my life before finishing it.
The absurd length guarantees it will be cut off by most email platforms (no way I’m getting that monster to fit on my iPhone) and the initial wording doesn’t have enough detail to really draw me in. You have to front load your subject line (important keywords first), and keep it short! Brevity is the soul of wit, and the heart of email marketing.
The only exception to this rule is the weekly digest I get from Invision, which I can never seem to resist opening regardless of the fact that I can’t see the full subject line. This length issue can be overcome with top-shelf content, and only after you’ve proven value to your readers with shorter introduction emails.
5. “You Have to Act Now”
Oh, I do?
really have to act right now, dropping everything to buy your eBook, or score tickets to an event that is still 97% unsold?
This is another one of those “right place, right time” sort of subject lines, and should be used with caution. If you’re honestly communicating something so urgent that it warrants a borderline rude opening statement, then by all means dive right in. But for most of us, this subject line will cause a bit of bad blood and a “boy who cried wolf” relationship dynamic moving forward.
6. “THIS EBOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR BUSINESS FOREVER!!!”
Please stop yelling, you’re going to scream your way right into the trash.
Caps can be used sparingly, but never in a manner that could be conveyed as someone yelling at the reader. Typically, the caps lock button should be reserved for angry YouTube comments and sweet emails from your grandma on your birthday.
7. “Our Service is So Great, Let Me Tell You About It”
image: http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/shutterstock_278340521-Converted-300x200.jpg-300x200.jpg
Are you only ever talking about yourself in your email subject lines? That’s too bad, since you’re creating a massive rift between you and your readers. A constant focus on “ME, ME, MEEE” doesn’t help connect your product or service to your potential or existing customers. It’s the equivalent of the friend in the group who always has to top every story with their own “much better” tale in turn:
“Oh, you went to Hawaii for 10 days on your honeymoon? Well, I went to Fiji on mine for three whole weeks, and the locals named a sandwich after me. So…”
Please, don’t be this person. (Focus on the benefit of your product or service, and what problems it solves for your readers, rather than how inherently great it is.)
8. “Marketers are raving about a new tool that…”
This is a trick that I like to call “using the force,” since it places an incomplete sentence in the subject line, in an effort to force the reader to open it just to find out if it is worth reading.
Not only will this dance dangerously close to the outright clickbait category, you will likely lose a fair number of subscribers if the content of your email isn’t a perfect match. No one likes to be tricked into anything, and a single open is never worth losing a subscriber for.
Conclusions
So what did we learn? Let’s move away from the cesspool that I just placed before us, and look to a few positive takeaways:
  • Be quick and get to the point. (Hemingway should be a solid reference for this point)
  • Be specific. No email that your readers open should be a surprise. Set a clear expectation, and fulfill whatever expectation you set.
  • Make sure there is a clear benefit to the reader. (This goes for every campaign, and every reader)
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For a great email parody, view the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgYHHKs0Zw&__scoop_post=bcaa0440-2548-11e5-c1bd-90b11c3d2b20&__scoop_topic=2455618
============================================== 
**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications. 

Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
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Friday, August 14, 2015

Netiquette IQ Blog - A horrible Violation Of Netiquette - A startup dissolved overnight and laid off its 400 employees via email with no warning

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Much of Netiquette involves email communications between two people or among a small group. In my book, noted below, I discuss email and bad news. Using electronic communication in this way is really a last resort if the message pr sentiment can be done in a more personal way, even by phone.
When I read the article below, I was very taken aback by the way an entire company was laid off! I assume most of these people worked in the same location. To chose email to achieve this was , in my opinion, despicable.
For you readers, read on and decide for yourselves.
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Good Netiquette to all!
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A startup dissolved overnight and laid off its 400 employees via email with no warning
From http://uk.businessinsider.com/ Aug. 11, 2015, 1:13 AM


Aug. 11, 2015, 1:13 AM

In the middle of the night, a startup that had raised $5.5 million dissolved and disappeared. It deleted its Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, and Google+ profile. It changed its website to say it was "pausing operations."

At 1:34 a.m. PT on Monday, Zirtual, a virtual-assistant company, sent an email to all of its employees saying it had ceased operations, effective immediately.
A follow-up note to its clients said it was "pausing operations" to reorganize its structure.
The news stung because there was no warning from the company, according to several former employees who spoke with Business Insider.
The company and its CEO, Maren Kate Donovan, did not respond to requests for comment on this article.
Everything seemed normal ...
Even 13 hours before it shut down, Zirtual was still accepting sign ups and the money that came with them, according to Aaron Weber, who posted photos of his short-lived run with Zirtual on Twitter.
Donovan, the company's CEO and cofounder, had just written three weeks ago in Fortune about the need for transparency during a company shift, saying employees needed time to adjust:
Because what my employees don't know could ultimately hurt the entire business. The sooner your team knows about upcoming shifts in the company — the better.
Additionally, give your employees ample time to adjust, as change in a company can often lead to people feeling unstable in their positions. And be transparent.
Yet Monday's email was not a warning to employees, but a door slammed in their face. Employees said they felt blindsided and not prepared for the news, according to the employees Business Insider spoke with and the outpouring of shock on Twitter.
"I woke up this morning thinking it was a normal Monday morning. I was going to wake up, have my coffee, and have my weekly morning call with my client," Carol Murrah, who had worked for Zirtual for 2 1/2 years, told Business Insider.
Before Murrah had a chance to read the email, the client broke the news over the phone as Murrah tried to fire up her computer and found herself locked out.
"I always knew I was going to get my paycheck, until today," Murrah said. "I expected to get paid this Friday, and that's not happening."
Growing, but too fast?
Former employees told Business Insider the company had been on a rapid hiring spree during the past 18 months, ballooning its numbers from around 150 to the 400 employees it laid off Monday.
In an interview on Friday with Jason Calacanis — who is also an investor in the company — on "This Week in Startups," Donovan said the hardest part of scaling Zirtual was "growth capital."
"Since we're employees versus contractors, it's hiring ahead, building out this stuff," Donovan said of the challenges, just three days before the startup shut down. "It's seeing the future and playing the game right now."
Over the past few months, work had slowed from some of its virtual assistants, but many thought it was because of the summer vacation season.
"In the last two months or so, work has slowed down significantly," Murrah said. "We were pretty confused as to why. We weren't having client cancellations. We were never once told that was something to worry about."
For employees, it seemed as if growth was on the up-and-up, according to several virtual assistants we spoke with. Donovan's monthly "state of the union" emails never hinted at problems, and there was even talk of gradually raising the minimum wage of virtual assistants to $15 an hour from $11. Zirtual was beta-testing a teams product that could allow whole teams to sign up.
"We were looking at it as, 'Oh, there's progression, we're growing,'" Daniell Wells, a virtual assistant who was with the company since February, told Business Insider.
What goes up, must come down
In the end, it's unclear why Zirtual has shut down, though it's clear it was in haste. While the company had raised $5.5 million, all of its rounds after seed funding were debt rounds, including one at the end of July.
When it started, Zirtual was a personal, virtual concierge service that charged only $99 a month for unlimited tasks, Donovan said on the show. The company has been loyal to some of those plans, though, and that may have cost it.
"A completely unsustainable business model, but we still have some legacy plans that are sticking around," Donovan told Calacanis. "We grandfathered a crap ton of stuff."
Calacanis, who had interviewed Donovan on Friday, said on Twitter he found out as an investor that there were problems only on Saturday, though he hopes it can make a comeback.
Calacanis did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
 
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For a great email parody, view the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgYHHKs0Zw&__scoop_post=bcaa0440-2548-11e5-c1bd-90b11c3d2b20&__scoop_topic=2455618
============================================== 
**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications. 

Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
==============================================

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Netiquette IQ Blog Of 8/13/2015 - Infiltrating The Online "Black Market"

 The Internet "Dark Side"
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By GRAHAM KATES/THE CRIME REPORT CBS NEWS August 11, 2015, 5:55 AM
How authorities infiltrate
On July 15, law enforcement authorities from 20 countries arrested more than two dozen suspects allegedly associated with Darkode, an online forum for malicious hacking.
For agencies tasked with cracking down on the Internet's underworld, it was a rare victory, according to experts.

The Darkode bust, they said, shows that you don't have to scour the deep web -- a part of the Internet that isn't indexed by search engines -- to find illegal products. The Internet is home to hundreds of illicit markets, where products ranging from hacking tools and codes to guns and drugs can be purchased with relative anonymity. Nevertheless, infiltrating and busting illicit markets in cyberspace remains extremely difficult for investigators.
The best markets can't be found with a simple Google search, but the first step is to find the ones that can, according to Tom Holt, a professor at Michigan State University who researches illicit data markets.
"There are multiple tiers, and the lower tier ones are different in what's offered," he said. "You'll see marketing for credit card information and basic DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service), but in those more secure ones you'll find more sophisticated, brand new products."
Researchers and investigators often start by looking in basic hacking forums for links and references to the more secure markets -- a few actually actively advertise on the less-secure sites -- but once those markets are found, it can be tricky getting inside.
Invitation-Only Markets
Many illicit online markets are invitation-only, which means a current member has to vouch for a new member. The best way to earn enough trust to get recommended is to purchase something illegal on a basic market, said Holt. Researchers representing universities aren't allowed to pursue that option, but government informants have been known to.
"Paying for a service is helpful, because it demonstrates a willingness to really engage in the market, you can't be trusted to invest in a community if you're not going to invest in its products," Holt said.
But just buying a product or service isn't enough.
Investigators and researchers trying to avoid unwanted attention also have to learn the lingo.
During an October 2014 seminar at the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Orlando, John Szydlik, a special agent with the Secret Service, gave tips on fitting in when interacting on an illegal market.
Szydlik told a room of roughly three dozen police officials that while arresting a suspect accused of data crimes, he asked how to make it so no one on a dark forum will think he's a cop.
"All you gotta do is refer to everybody as 'bro' and you'll be OK," Szydlik said the suspect told him.
"Bro" certainly gets thrown around a lot, but Szydlik noted that agents also need to know how to use proxies and drop emails -- and be conversationally familiar with sophisticated money-laundering techniques and a host of other tools that malicious hackers use to obscure their crimes.
Still, talking a good game can only get you so far, said Chase Cunningham, the threat intelligence lead for FireHost, a secure cloud service.
Alternative Identities
Cybercriminals are aware that researchers and investigators are constantly seeking access to their forums and markets, and can be particularly paranoid. To gain trust and access, Cunningham said he has put years into building alternative online identities that have reputations on dark markets.
"You need to have people vouch for you, but they're not going to vouch for Chase Cunningham, so I've spent quite a bit of time building these entities that will get me in," he said.
A lot of work goes into gaining access without actually running afoul of the law, Cunningham said.
"Social media accounts and everything else have to sync up," Cunningham said. "You have to construct that whole entity so it all looks legit; you're trying to get knowledge without doing anything illegal."
This is the point that separates researchers from investigators. While an FBI informant can purchase malware or other products as part of an undercover investigation, people like Holt and Cunningham can only go so far, they both said.
But an undercover case can take years to develop as dark markets expand in number and scope, researchers said.
Cunningham said a few markets rapidly filled the vacuum left behind by Darkode, as many of that market's most active participants switched their locations.
He named one market on the verge of taking off: exploit.in
"It's at least as good as Darkode," Cunningham said.
Exploit.in is a forum and market where, like on Darkode, malicious hacks, guns and other products can be bought and sold. And then there's the elephant in the dark room: the primarily language used on Exploit.in is Russian.
Darkode, an English-language site, may have been a powerful player in the illicit cybereconomy, but those with experience say the best markets conduct business in Russian.
Researchers working with Holt at Michigan State University and East Carolina University analyzed 1,899 threads used as forums for black market data dealers.
The study, which was funded in part by the federal National Institute of Justice, found that the most reliable dealers -- and expensive credit card dumps -- are on Russian-language threads, while English-language markets are crowded with customers complaining about ripoffs.
Even Europol and the Justice Department were careful to couch their celebratory press releases about the Darkode bust with the caveat that it was "prolific" and "sophisticated" for an English-language forum.
It's a point echoed by Szydlik, the Secret Service agent, and Holt.
"Sophisticated" Russians
"The Russian-language markets are better, more sophisticated," said Holt, whose research team included Russian-speaking analysts. He noted that certain countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia, Ukraine and Romania, have become hubs for cybercrime, in part because hackers in the U.S. and in Western Europe are pursued by a more determined, better funded, set of law enforcement.
Even on Russian markets, when financial information is sold, it tends to be American. That's partly because of the United States' strong financial standing, and partly because American firms have yet to implement the more secure cards used throughout Europe that employ "chip and pin" technology -- a system that makes it harder for hackers to make use of stolen credit card information.
"If you've got the United States as your cash cow, why would you spend your time trying to find your way around chip and pins?" Szydlik said.
But while Russian is the language of the darkest corners of the Internet, English markets still remain a challenge for law enforcement. Just two weeks after Darkode shuttered, a new site bearing its name popped up in the Deep Web.
Multiple outlets reported in late July that Darkode.cc -- a site that can be reached using the Tor anonymous router -- launched with the following message from a reputed administrator who uses the name, "Sp3cial1st."
"Most of the staff is intact, along with senior members," Sp3cial1st reportedly wrote. "It appears the raids focused on newly added individuals or people that have been retired from the scene for years."
"The forum will be ... invite only, and members we can confirm are still active will be given an invite."
The site is now harder to find and harder to access than ever before.
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For a great email parody, view the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgYHHKs0Zw&__scoop_post=bcaa0440-2548-11e5-c1bd-90b11c3d2b20&__scoop_topic=2455618
============================================== 
**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications. 

Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone.
==============================================