WordPress posted How to Keep WordPress Secure at the beginning of the weekend to explain this worm’s threat.

If you haven’t already, be sure to upgrade to version 2.8.4 as soon as possible and pass the news along to your clients and communities.  You can download the upgrade or install it automatically through your admin panel.

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If you’re just getting started in blogging or are hoping to fine-tune an established blog, I’m sure you’ll get some value out of this free training. I’ve been following Problogger for a while, and have found both the website and Darren’s book to be a wonderful resource as I’ve ventured into the blogosphere.

I’m excited to be a part of the challenge. Worst case scenario, I unsubscribe after a couple of days with a start. Any other Mar-Com-ers out there want to join me? Darron mentioned that there is a group of 50 Italian bloggers who joined together to have the added benefit of the power of a group. It’d be kind of fun to see if we could give them a run for their money. I can think of a blog that could benefit from this sort of community effort….. Anyone, anyone, Buehlor?

Enough with the arm twisting, here are a few details from the instructor:

1. It is free and kicks off on 6 April.
2. Each day over the challenge period (31 Days) you’ll receive an email notifying you of a new post that contains teaching and practical tasks to help you improve your blog.
3. Tasks will be small enough to do in 10-15 minutes
4. You may unsubscribe at any point if the challenge doesn’t fit with your needs or situation.

New to blogging? Come on in, the water’s fine.

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Social Media Marketing Industry Report

Earlier this week, I received a flutter of tweets through my twitter account about Michael A. Stelzner’s hot off the presses white paper: Social Media Marketing Industry Report-How Marketers are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.

Whether or not you’re involved in social media marketing today, you should take a moment to read the paper. Stelzner provides great details and plenty of charts to help you build a business case for easing into this new realm of marketing.

Major Findings About Social Media Marketing

Want to know what you’ll find in the report? Here are Stelzner’s major findings. I found these to be very interesting and spot-on with what I have experienced while working with my clients. In fact, the top three questions are always the first thing questions my clients ask!

Top Three Questions Marketers Want Answered

1. What are the best tactics to use?
2. How do I measure the effectiveness of social media?
3. Where do I start?

Marketers are Mostly New to Social Media

• Of those surveyed, 88% are using social media to market their business (author’s note: call for survey takers was sent out through social media, so this is not a surprising number, really).
• BUT only 72% have been doing so for only a few months or less.

How Much Time Does This Take?

• 64% use social media 5 hours or less each week.
• 39% use social media 10 hours or more each week.

The Top Benefits of Social Media Marketing

• 81% reported that generating exposure for the business was the top benefit
• increasing traffic
• building new business partnerships

Top Social Media Tools

• Twitter
• Blogs
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

Social Media Tools Marketers Want to Learn About

• Social bookmarking sites
• Twitter

What are your opinions of these findings? I’m looking forward to learning of your perspective in the comments.

Louellen Coker is President and Founder of Content Solutions, a certified-woman owned business. Content Solutions meets your content needs by helping you create and present your content in an innovative, engaging, and purposeful manner. You can find additional musings on her blogs: Content Notes and Content Portfolio.

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