Here are some of the warning signs of online job scams. If you spot any of them in your potential job prospects, trash it. You might be looking at a scam.

1. Asks for money. If a potential employer charges fees for more job and company information, start-up kit, training, software, or hiring you, it is most likely a scam. In the first place, you are not supposed to give money to an employer; it’s the other way around.
2. Describes itself as legitimate. If what is said about a job is more on its legitimacy but less on the company, pay, nature, and other important details, beware. This is probably just one of the marketing strategies.
3. Promises big and quick cash. Forget the job that says, “Get rich quick. Earn $1000 weekly.” Or anything of that sort. The truth is, no job can promise you fast financial success. It takes time. It takes hard labor. Such claims are typical to scams.
4. Requires no experience or skill at all. A real job needs to be done by qualified individuals. If an employer says there is little effort on your part, forget it. A legitimate employer wouldn’t entrust an important job to unreliable people. It would be a waste of their money.
5. Comes from an unsolicited email. A job posting you know you haven’t applied to and which appears in an unsolicited email message is most often a scam. Coming from an unsolicited email message, in itself, is quite suspicious.
6. Has a questionable website. A legitimate company normally provides complete contact details in its website. The absence of which might be an indicative it is a scam. If it also tells less about the company history, nature, and what it stands for, be careful.

What to do
The rule of thumb when looking for legitimate online jobs is to do a thorough research. If you find a company rather dubious, look it up in the web by typing the company name and the word “scam” in the search box. The search results can tell you whether a company is reputable.

You can also contact the employer. Ask for important details about the job such as the salary, mode of payment, and other job details not mentioned in the ad post. If the response is somewhat shady, you may want to skip that job out. An employer can tell all the job details upfront if it is legitimate.

To be more assured of the legitimacy of the job, you can ask for a list of references. It should include the company’s employees and contractors. Inquire from them how it is working for the company. Their responses should help you determine whether a job is a scam. Remember, you need to be very careful and decisive when taking on a potential job, as working online scams are growing in number.

There are three types of affiliate marketing methods of payment – either pay-per-click (generated by actual clicks or referrals to the merchant from the affiliate’s site), pay-per-action or pay-per-sale (very similar, in that the affiliate receives payment, either a fixed amount or commission, based on the sales or subscriptions that have come through referrals or adverts on the affiliate’s site.) The last two methods of payment are generally preferred by merchants, due to many fraudsters taking advantage of the click system and setting up sites with forced clicks, pop-ups, adware, spam, false advertising and many other “black hat” techniques.

Affiliate marketing is not limited to only display-adverts on an affiliate site, but also comes in the form of email, blogs, rss feeds, content and niche sites, loyalty sites, comparison sites or shopping directories, and other forms. It is an extremely low cost, but highly effective form of marketing and advertising, presenting little to no risk for both the merchant and the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing began just four years after the world wide web was launched, originally popularized by well known companies such as CDNOW or Amazon.com. Google’s Adsense is also a very well known type of affiliated marketing, but is not really considered as true affiliate marketing as the adverts usually centers around the theme of the website they are displayed (known more as contextual advertising.) Google does not also directly sell a specific product, but generates money in other ways.

Affiliate marketing is highly cost-effective, and in effect costs both the advertiser and the affiliate nothing, while having the potential of bringing in a very large form of income for both parties. While pay per click (or cost-per-click) mentioned above can present a risk to the advertiser, the cost-per-sale (CPS) system has very little or no risk at all for both parties, and is therefore preferred.

When an affiliate joins in with an e-commerce merchant of some sort (be it a subscription service, a shopping site etc…) payment is received through referrals done from the affiliate’s website – done through the following methods

1)Pay-per click systems  basically, the affiliate displays adverts on their site and is paid when a customer or internet user clicks on that website

2)RSS feeds or blogs – even personal sites can sit under this category. Blogging is fast becoming a staple form of marketing and promotion, and affiliate marketing partners well with this form of online communication

3)Comparison sites and shopping directories – such as review sites or legit advertising sites

4)Loyalty sites – this is when a reward system is in place via a cash back or points back system (or charitable donations)

5)Coupon sites that focus strictly on marketing and promotions

6)Email lists – legit email lists to subscribers of the affiliate’s website etc – NOT spam

7)A registration path – when a person registers with a specific site, be it for a newsletter or subscription, offers from other companies are represented and advertised

8)Networks – there are many affiliate marketing networks. Some even function on a multi-tier or multi-level marketing sort of set up.

Online merchants find affiliate marketing highly advantageous due to the fact that it presents little to no risk both for the merchant and the ‘affiliate.’ The way it works is that the affiliate earns a type of commission or fixed amount based on the number of sales the affiliate brings to the merchant, either through on-line links on the affiliates website – or through email, blogs, rss feeds and many other kinds of on-line communication. Some merchants (only about 1% of affiliate marketing) use a cost-per-click remuneration system, which simply means that the affiliate earns every time an internet searcher clicks on an advert on their site or email. However, due to fraudsters taking advantage of this method (creating ad-ware, sending spam, or useless indexing sites) this form of remuneration is not preferred and becomes too risky for merchants to use.
Affiliate marketing also bears no cost on the merchant in the original set-up – in other words, it costs nothing to place advertising banners on affiliate’s sites, and there is only a cost if a lead or sale has been generated (which is advantageous for all.) Merchants also get to set the parameters, and decide on the incentive schemes. Thus, it is a very inexpensive (but highly efficient way) to grow a business.

Check out the “Affiliate Marketing Starter Pack”

As stated above the package comes with three very helpful eBooks to get you started. The Affiliate Marketer Handbook comes with a companion Audio version so you can listen to it at anytime by downloading them to any MP3 player. That package also comes with an affiliate kit that you can start using to start your own affiliate site and four videos on how to effectively develop an affiliate marketing strategy. All of this for the very low price of $19.95.

CLICK THE BUTTON TO PURCHASE THIS MUST HAVE PACKAGE TODAY:
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So What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is a way of promoting online business through affiliate programs and advertising that pay the affiliate (or publisher) a type of commission based on the amount of business their website brings the merchant company.

It’s a form of revenue sharing or commission based advertising. The term “affiliate marketing,” however, is often associated with network marketing or multi-level marketing and therefore many companies prefer to use the term “performance marketing”. Affiliate marketing is the most cost effective sort of marketing there is, and is actually incredibly efficient. For this reason, many companies (especially those that started in the early days of e-commerce) owe a tremendous amount to affiliate marketing (amazon.com is a good example) and it has now become normal for companies to include affiliate marketing in many of their plans.

There are three types of compensation methods that are associated with affiliated marketing. The first type is Cost per Click (CPC) or Cost per Mil (CPM.) Basically, the affiliate earns by how many clicks the advertising on hisher site generates, or by just having the advert published on the website. But because of click fraud and many other questionable tactics, CPC is no longer the general form used for affiliate marketing. Generally, companies now either use CPA (Cost per Action) or CPS (Cost per Sale.) The first is based on how much the advert generates interest by the clicker to actually buy or register at the advertised site, the second is based strictly on sales. In other words, an affiliate is paid if the clicker actually purchases something on the advertised site.

Social Media has become a major phenomenon. It has spawned a whole new vocabulary of terms that will perhaps add several more pages into the Oxford (or Merriam-Webster’s) Dictionary. People are tweeting, Facebooking, tagging, liking, sharing, embedding and wall writing. Some are LIONs, some LIONs are also tweeting… And guess what, these Tweeting LIONs can even have their own channel… Imagine that…

(Let’s make this fun let me know of some fun terms you’ve learned dealing with Social Media – Contact Me or place a comment below)

Until recently I have been somewhat averse to going into these sites. Not really quite sure what to make of it. The Information Security geek in me is waving all the red flags, pressing the red alert button, flashing the red lights and sounding the alarms telling me to “STAY AWAY FROM THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT!!!”

WHOA!!!

Really, why would I want to provide my “Top Secret” info to some complete stranger that I would be somewhat hesitant to share with my own family? Okay that may be a tad bit exaggerated, but we all are familiar with the privacy implications of being in this Social Networking sites. First you are sharing information with people that you may, may barely or may not know. Second this information is shared somewhere in cyberspace controlled by people who may or may not have your best interest in their “business model”.

Let’s get this straight, if it hasn’t sink in yet… Folks who run these social networking sites created their sites not as a public service, they created their sites to make money. And they are offering you their services for free… In life in general, and in the Internet in particular, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH. They will need to and they WILL make money out of you.

In this era that we call the Information Age, knowledge is power and INFORMATION IS MONEY. You, me, us, the freeloaders are actually not riding for free. We are providing them with their most valuable asset. We are providing them statistics, metrics, behavior, OUR INFORMATION.

Hey Mr. Advertiser, did you know that Don likes beer and long walks by the beach? Why don’t you target him with your fancy Corona ad with the picturesque shoreline of Cancun in the background?

FIND AND CONNECT WITH YOUR LONG LOST FRIEND NOW. FREE!!!
(Seriously… There was probably a big reason why I lost him in the first place…)

Okay so enough with the scary and creepy part… (But before that, how about sharing some other creepy crawlies that you can think of when dealing with Social Media – Contact Me or Comment Below)

I’m a geek, a security geek… But I am also a business person. While the security geek in me is placing all the stop signs and telling me to batten down the hatches and lock all doors, the entrepreneur in me is yelling, GO! GO! GO! YOU CAN DO IT! DON’T MISS OUT IN THIS ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY! WAIT THERE’S MORE!!!

Holy Crap! Imagine all the opportunities. I could be the one selling you that Corona using Cancun as a back drop. And I can do this without loosing an arm, a leg or my shirt for that matter. I can keep all of them as a matter of fact, all I need to do is to have you join, follow, make friends with, connect with or link with me or check out my profile, photo, video or note in some greatest thing ever that happened in this thingamajig that they call the Internet. And no, I will not be considered a spammer… Man, this is just the greatest thing since sliced bread!!!

Major businesses understand this. Entrepreneurs and small businesses should, too. Here is a quick demographic for you:

A recent survey shows that 55 percent of 120 surveyed small business owners believe that online social networking — such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook — can be beneficial to their businesses.

The survey, conducted by online payroll service SurePayroll, indicates that one out of every five of the small business owners polled have obtained at least one new customer as a direct result of using social media.

According to the company’s report:

With more than 50 million non-college attendees using Facebook today, the prominence of social media is growing. Professional social networking site LinkedIn grew 187% over the past year. Based on a research project developed by Universal McCann, 36% of online users think more positively about companies that have blogs. In the SurePayroll survey, 85% of business owners participating in social media for business are doing so by way of blogging online. – Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=284

Social Networking is essentially Networking on steroids. You get all that mass without leaving your seat. You gain without the pain (of having to look pretty to talk to a complete stranger in person in a strange place where they serve $12 beer – I like beer, but I don’t like it that much)…

Before we get all excited and start yelling CA-CHING!!! There is a third aspect to Social Media that we must consider. Your Momma, Grandma and your snooty sister-in-law all love to use Facebook and they are your “friends.” You like to share with them pictures of Snoopy your puppy, but somehow, you don’t want any of them to be snooping around all up your bizniz. It’s just not a comfortable conversation in front of the dinner table for some reason or another.

On the other side of the coin, you also don’t want Joe-potential-client-or-potential-boss Schmoe to be snooping around your kids pics or your wild vacation in King Tut’s Tomb. There in lies the dilemma. And we’ve finally got down to the bottom line of this article.

How does one balance the need for privacy and need to do business? How do you separate your personal life from your professional life?

I have to cut this post short, because if I continue on, this is going to be a long-ass article and no amount of corny jokes and sarcasm can keep you reading this entry…

For now, though how about answering the above questions: How does one balance the need for privacy and need to do business? How do you separate your personal life from your professional life? Contact Me or comment below.

If you are looking for Part 2, click the link: Social Media: Separating the Personal from the Professional (Part 2)