The Two All-Important Secrets of Online Trading and Investing

1000s of individual investors have pulled their money out of full-service brokerage accounts and are actually trading and managing their stock market investments online. They'd do well to keep in mind both great secrets of success in stock market investing: cutting losses early and riding together with your winners for as long as possible-up to the stage where they turn risky.

Secret One: Cutting losses early
In a classic essay on investing, "The Loser's Game," author Charles D. Ellis compared investing to playing tennis. Tennis pros, Ellis observed, possess qualities that most amateurs don't-like superior speed, strength, athleticism and shot-making skill. The typical amateur doesn't win a match the way in which that pros do-by making breathtaking shots. Instead, they often win by simply not losing. They keep carefully the ball in play long enough to let their opponent make the very first mistake. In other words, amateur tennis games aren't really won by anybody so much since they are lost by the weaker player. Average players are generally their own worst enemies, defeating themselves by attempting difficult shots when they'd be better off playing for the safe, sure thing.

Buying stocks has a great many similarities binary options. Way too many investors become their own worst enemies by ignoring what ought to be obvious. They fall deeply in love with an investment they own and then fail to recognize when it's time to sell. They fall deeply in love with an investment because it's an iconic name like Apple or Berkshire Hathaway, or they become infatuated because of all time, effort and ego they committed to picking the stock in the very first place.

Secret Two: Riding Winners Longer
The other trick to maximizing profits is to stick with a well-performing stock for as long as possible-up to the stage where owning it becomes risky. True, you won't lose money taking profits prematurely, but neither will you make much money. Legendary trader William Eckhardt puts it in this way: "Amateurs go broke by taking large losses; professionals go broke by taking small profits."

Even the pros are likely to offer their winners too early. As Eckhardt explains, that's because it's actually against human nature to operate in ways that maximizes gains. This is a vitally important point. Instinct tells us to do something in methods maximize our chances for gain, but that's different from maximizing the gains in total. We instinctively want to increase our number of winning trades (and to minimize our number of losing trades). What we really ought to focus on, however, is something else-the overall extent of gains and losses, which are what really matter.

How do you avoid falling deeply in love with an investment and possessing it long after you will have sold it? And how do you know when a winning stock you possess is running out of steam? It's less difficult than you could think. Future articles in this series will elaborate upon the ABCs of developing and pursuing an objective investment methodology, utilising the expanding array of online stock market tools and data that now available to everyone at minimum cost.

QuickBooks Cloud: A Detailed Overview

QuickBooks Cloud enables multiple users utilization of the identical QuickBooks company file in a single time space. A Bookkeeper, business client and CPA can access the identical file simultaneously. Forget slow and erratic in-house servers whenever you switch to QuickBooks Cloud services, the virtual Quickbooks cloud hosting service is clearly up, maintained by certified IT professionals of this service provider. So you could work from anywhere, anytime because your reach to your working environment can be as wide as internet, Quickbooks cloud hosting service eases the whole utilization of your QuickBooks files in multi-user mode from anywhere anytime.

Cloud Hosted QuickBooks services provide Fully Functional Desktop versions of QuickBooks software in a very secure multi-user environment. Accountant, Business Owner, Employees and all users who require access is going to be employed in the identical files at the identical time

quickbooks error h202. Hosted QuickBooks is an excellent solution for businesses that want real time access from multiple locations with the full functionality that only the full desktop versions of QuickBooks provide. Just forget about creating "Accountants Copies" or sending files back and forth.

QuickBooks hosting enables you to easily and remotely handle the task if your worker went sick or leaves the business meaning your accounting stays current. Take a peek at Quickbooks cloud hosting it just could be the best and most cost-effective solution for the accounting business. Some benefits are mentioned as below:

->Easy, Reliable, Multi-User Accessibility: QuickBooks Cloud Services offer strategically evolved IT infrastructure that's directed at delivering fully-functional hosted QuickBooks in a cost-effective and secure manner thereby ensuring complete business scalability.

->Freedom to accountants and clients: QuickBooks cloud hosting not merely gives freedom to accountants and clients from managing IT infrastructure but additionally it can help them manage applications and data from anywhere, anytime aside from geographical location. Hosted QuickBooks also supports multiple users to find yourself in the identical QuickBooks company file within a time space. A Bookkeeper, business client and the CPA can access the identical file simultaneously.

->Simplified Access: Quickbooks cloud hosting allows you to access your QuickBooks files from any PC or MAC computer without having to install QuickBooks on local computers via terminal servers or any Citrix application.

->QuickBooks Hosting Terminal Servers: QuickBooks Terminal Server hosting transforms a standalone platform right right into a truly collaborative experience in the absolute most innovative way possible, making it immensely ideal for both business owners, along with their accountant or bookkeeper.

->Data Security Standards: To ascertain your own personal computer data security within the Internet, QuickBooks hosting uses the identical data-encryption technology as leading banks. QuickBooks hosting can be a VeriSign Secure product and is SAS70 compliant.

QuickBooks Cloud supports most QuickBooks Add-ons, which supports anyone to integrate various industry specific business requirements in the absolute most economical way. Some major QuickBooks Add-ons are the following:

-> QuickBooks Payroll Solution

-> QuickBooks Online Backup Solution

-> Bill.com software integration

-> Qvinci software integration

-> Sourcelink Integration

-> Results software integration

-> Minute7 software integration

-> QuickBooks Time Tracker integration

Tina Smith is an accountant with SageNext Infotech. She's having expertise in project management, accounting operations. With SageNext, she consults the client accountants about the main benefit of QuickBooks Cloud. SageNext is a respected QuickBooks hosting provider, dealing in all kinds of tax and accounting application hosting.

Nutrient Stripped Vegetables - The Downside of Modern Agriculture

The average current day vegetable producer did an excellent job of feeding massive amounts of people on a large scale. The trade off, however, appears to be at the cost of optimal taste and nutrition. During tough economic times, it can be a rather daunting task to find a very good nutritional value for your family's budget, in regards to fresh vegetables, in super-sized grocery stores.

According to Donald R. Davis, a former research keep company with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin claims, "there is surely a correlation between the high and low yield varieties, and in the varying amount of nutrients they contain."

What is commonly known, today, whilst the'genetic dilution effect ', was discovered and published in a 1981 study conducted by W.M. Jarrell and R.B. Beverly in the "Advances In Agronomy ".What's been less studied, will be the nutritional aftereffects of selective genetic breeding of plant foods chosen designed for higher yields.

In 1996 and'97 ', a study was performed in South Carolina using a number of broccoli chosen for the high yields. It absolutely was shown that selective genetic breeding lead to a lack of protein, amino acids, and as many as six different minerals. Davis says, "jumbo sizing the conclusion product is no assurance of increased nutrition and is, in effect, winding up with more dry matter that dilutes mineral concentrations, making for a nutritionally emptier food source chc agritech."

Loss of important nutrients can also be related to the industrialization of agriculture that relies, heavily, on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and rushed harvesting techniques. When plant foods are harvested earlier, the plant has received less time and energy to occupy minerals from the soil it must undergo its natural synthesis process.

Farming practices such as for instance those stated earlier, along with not enough crop rotations, has generated over using soils to the point of mineral depletion. Not merely do plants need a wide variety of nutrients to cultivate healthy, we need them to stay the plant food source, in abundance, so they're naturally healthy for all of us to eat.

It's estimated that there surely is approximately 5 to 40 percent less protein and minerals in commercially grown vegetables, when comparing to organic or locally grown produce. Fifty years back, this is less of a problem than it is now today, and it's uncertain just how much fruits are effected when comparing to vegetables.

As intimidating as this information like this may sound for your requirements, don't allow it shake you up so much. This might be one reason why nutritional health experts have recently started recommending 7 to 9 servings a day (or more) of the important food group. The old recommended 5 a day guideline has suddenly become outdated.

Realistically, what can we do to increase our advantages of adding more fruit and vegetable nutrition to your daily diets? Well, you can test growing a tiny vegetable garden. If you do not have the green thumb understand how, then your simplest alternative is to shop as organically and locally as you possibly can.

Give attention to getting more whole foods that are grown and raised as nature intended with sustainable growing practices. A lot of people will agree food raised this way not just tastes better, it's often of better quality and is significantly fresher.

When it comes to purchasing organic, buyer beware of the shady business tactics of big agri that has tainted the organic food label. Just because the label says it's organic, does not mean it actually is. Many smaller, local farmers raise organic quality food, but cannot pay the expensive certification process necessary to legally label them as such.

If you frequently shop local farmers markets, and organic is very important for your requirements, just consult with the folks who raise the food you are buying. Striking up a conversation is the best way to discover that which you are wanting to know. Organically grown produce definitely bumps up your nutritional intake of the food group, so much so, that eating 5 a day might be a sufficient add up to keep you relatively healthy.

Depending in your regional climate and soil conditions, deficiencies in locally grown fruits and vegetables may leave you hardly any options apart from to eat commercially grown produce. If here is the case, don't worry so much about it. Certainly, it's much better to eat them, irrespective of how they're grown, than not at all.

It's possible to take advantage of what few nutrients may be around inside them, making them work more effectively for you personally, by drinking more water. I'm not kidding you on this, simply pure water is going to do a better job of carrying nutrients to cell membranes, supports nutrient absorption by keeping cells well hydrated, plus it washes away oxidative waste residues and toxins.

Water does not count as pure water when it is in the form of sodas, teas, and coffee, or juices. Water must function as dominate beverage that gets you through each and everyday, saving those other drinks for occasional use, and in mindful moderation.

Buying Backlinks Guide

After reading this article you'll discover the great and bad places to buy links.

Let's have the bad stuff from the way first. Link brokerage is generally bad. There are several reasons. To start with Google can very quickly detect those back links using reverse engineering and penalize your rankings. Second of all, they often link out to spammers and don't produce good results in terms of rankings.

Now let's examine the great places to buy links we bought them from marketing1on1.com.

1) Paid directories: Spammers prefer quantity over quality. Payment often serves as an effective barrier to entry. This means that a spammer will endeavour to put links on 1000 ineffective directories and avoid paying for the high-quality directories. Nearly all paid directories have staff that reviews submissions. Search engines like sites reviewed by humans and give them more trust. Priciest directories are dir.Yahoo.com and business.com.

This is a list of secondary directories that it's worth submitting to:

WoW Directory
BOTW
Gimpsy
JoeAnt
GoGuides
Jayde
STPT
You must review them manually, because unfortunately a number of them change for the worst. During the time with this writing they are still good. Also Check your local directories (especially effective for local brick-and-mortar businesses)

It's this that you need to check: Do they accept all listings automatically once you spend them? In that case it's not a good sign because spammers may buy links also. How many backlinks does the directory have? How often does it get crawled by Google (check info.directorydomain.com to see last cached date)? What is their Alexa rankings (how much traffic do they get)?

You can exchange links with directories, but only when they're vertical directories relevant to your industry. An excellent approach is to make a directory yourself and populate it with listings. Utilize it to url to directories which need a link back as a swap for a totally free listing. Never link back once again to inferior directories.

Carefully examine the "directory submission services", often times they own all the directories to which they're submitting. This will create inferior backlinks for often astronomical prices.

2) Donations: Many non-profit organizations have a listing of men and women who made a donation. You can often create a small donation and obtain a link back once again to your site. Several places have common keywords on site such as for example "nfp", "npo" etc. Try searching for these keywords to find these organizations.

You'll be doing something good while getting links in the process.

Online Marketing Through Social Networking (Part 1)

Social networking online is certainly one of today's hottest trends. Many, however, wonder how social networking will help their careers or businesses and exactly ways to get started with this online marketing technique. Here partly 1, I can help you get started. Next month partly 2, I'll explain some processes for expanding your presence and creating a quality network of online contacts.

What is Online Social Networking?

From the conceptual standpoint, online social networking isn't any different than traditional networking and socializing. You meet people and get to learn them by sharing information about each other. Those you like and/or share interests with become part of one's "network." The marketing magic kicks in when those in your network start speaing frankly about you. Your reputation spreads by word-of-mouth.

The Internet and related technology have got networking to another level, expanding each individual's reach and exposure through online marketing. Where traditionally people gather in person to network -- at the same time frame and place as others -- members of online networking groups are not limited by time or geography. Each group member can interact 24/7 from any location worldwide. Consequently, online networking techniques are completely different from in-person networking.

How To Interact Through Social Networking

Methods to interact are numerous. The initial order of business is to choose what your marketing goals are regarding social networking. While "finding new friends" is really a sufficient personal reason behind social networking, business marketing goals must be more specific. Have you been a person buying job or freelance work? Do you intend to gain exposure for the product, band or company? Have you been searching for potential employees or contractors? Do you intend to get prospects interested enough to see your Website or contact you? Your goals will dictate that which you put on your own profile and social networking website along with who you appear for the become part of one's network.

After you've decided on your own purpose for online networking, choose which social networking Website(s) you'll participate in.

Where you should Network Online

You'll find a thorough listing of social networking site at Wikipedia here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites. I'm acquainted with those listed below. They will give you a notion of the number of opportunities you will find at social networking Websites:

Yahoo! 360 (360.yahoo.com): Yahoo!' s social networking site is in beta around this writing. The initial feature here's your Yahoo! 360 space is cross-promoted with other Yahoo! products, such as with your reviews on Yahoo! Local and your Yahoo! Groups. Like many social networking sites, you may also host a blog on the server.

MySpace (myspace.com): Here is the mother of social networking sites. Originally dominated by teens, you can find reports of the "graying of myspace" as seniors and businesses may also be networking on the site. It might be worth your while to spend some time there to see if your target customers go out there.

LinkedIn (linkedin.com): LinkedIn is excellent for professional, career-related online marketing as it focuses exclusively on business and professional networking. You will find interfaces for connecting with classmates or colleagues (both past and present); find service providers or clients; post or find a job; and ask or answer business-related questions.

Gather (gather.com): This network incorporates user publications (in the shape of articles) and a points reward system into the usual social networking activities.

Each social networking Website has it's own "personality" and a different mix of men and women to interact with. Before signing up, go to each site and explore a little -- search on keywords linked to your goals and interests, read the different groups, the experience level, etc. This can help you determine if a site will undoubtedly be advantageous to you. Once you find a site that interests you, establish your presence by signing up and filling out the questions for the profile and site home page. Once that is done, you're ready to interact Free blog posting site to share your blog.

Whom To Interact With

Individuals you intend to associate with (i.e. make "friends" or be "connected" to) will depend largely on your own goals. There are several forms of people you may wish to consider contacting . Each can help you in different ways, so consider searching for more than one kind of "target friend:"

Customers and Consumers: Individuals who will benefit from that which you do, consume or buy your products or services, and rave about you with their friends

Others Within Your Industry: Individuals with whom you can network, share resources and cross-promote with.

Media and Publishers: Individuals who work for or can influence publications you want to be mentioned in (e-zines, newspapers, Websites, etc).

Consultants: Individuals who might want to hire or purchase products from you.

Event, Company or Organization representatives: Individuals who operate business and associations that support your industry.

How To Find Friends

Some people will find you based on your own profile, but you'll desire to actively search for quality friends. You can begin to get friends by joining groups linked to your expertise, that have members who match your target friend profile or interest you in general. You can also approach individuals and inquire further becoming a friend and/or part of one's network.

Next month partly 2 I'll detail more specific networking and marketing techniques. Until then, explore your social networking sites, get comfortable with the features and find a couple of friends.

Social Capital in Online Social Networks

Social networking sites are suddenly rising to the the surface of the Alexa ranked sites on the internet, in addition to blazing a steep trail through the stock market. So, what's inducing the sudden rise is both arenas? What is causing their amazing success, and what sort of impact will their users have upon the economy? The facts of those questions is pretty simple, however the character and depth upon how they'll affect our future and society all together is totally a mystery. One of many main areas that will be suffering from these social network societies are charities, and the ratio of donations that will be provided in their mind through the e-commerce which occurs within social networking sites.

First and foremost, the success of a social network is due to the number of functionality that it provides to its users. From the dawn of the social network age, people experienced simple desires and demands. Due to this fact, until now, the success of a social network is based mostly on just how many demands that it meets because of its users, in addition to the caliber of the way they meet these demands. Users want to generally meet new and interesting people, in addition to keep in touch with friends and family. However, they do not want to have to visit, or spend a lot of time and money through the method of doing so. Social networking sites allow users to trade messages and comments with people near and far, in addition to to talk about pictures, videos, music, and to express their thoughts and emotions through the content and design of the profiles.

However, user needs and demands have evolved and developed on the years. As competition has grown within the social network industry, users have begun to expect the newest and greatest features and functionality within their social network. Many social network users have invested a lot of time each and every week with communicating making use of their friends, and are becoming used to spending a long time online each and every day. That, combined with fact that social support systems introduced advertising within their sites, has allowed users to now become used to the fact they can accomplish much more through a common social network in regards to being a consumer. Now, they could find amazing products and services through their social network, which allows them to purchase an item or service without leaving their house, or their social network for that fact! Instead of getting to leave their social network to surf and look for products, now then will find some truly amazing deals within their social network.

Users are participating in purchasing products and services found within social network sites so much, a boat load of earnings have now been realized within some of the very most successful social support systems on the internet. In a written report submitted by eMarketer back 2007, MySpace, still typically the most popular social network undoubtedly, was estimated to generate $525 million in U.S. advertising revenue Social media to promote yourself and business. Facebook, a quick growing competitor of MySpace earned around $125 million, and both were projected to have significant advertising revenue growth on the coming years. Combined, MySpace and Facebook are projected to take into account 75% of social network advertising spending in 2008. Advertising revenue generated within social support systems is a clear trend which shows that more and more social network users are looking for products and services while they are utilizing their social networks.

Along side advertising revenue being generated for the social support systems, a new opportunity comes up for the charity community. Business owners and internet marketers, who wish to help charities by donating a percentage of proceeds to charity from their earned advertising revenue, enables charities to also take advantage of their new found successes. More and more internet marketers and businesses are beginning to realize that they have the greatest ability to help charities through this implies, either independently or through the efforts of the marketing and business opportunity representatives within the charity community. Thus, the number of charity aware advertisers within social support systems are growing each and every day. In the beginning of 2007, within Facebook, the social network which put applications or widgets on the "social networking map", had charity awareness applications numbering in the tens. Now, in 2008, you will find hundreds of applications within Facebook which either raise charity awareness, allow users to donate straight to charity, or utilize online advertising for money-saving products which donate a percentage of proceeds to charity.

Without the ultimate ingredient for this success formula, charities wouldn't be able to take advantage of this ground breaking opportunity. The final ingredient is social network user awareness. By educating the social network user community there are advertising opportunities which benefit charities, either direct advertising or through applications and widgets, they'll then have the opportunity to make a conscious decision to select these opportunities over others. Retail sales figures throughout the last 10 years have shown a substantial trend based upon product affiliations to charities. Customers will purchase a quality product which benefits a charity through the sale, over another quality product, or even the same product, without any charity affiliation. Through this same model, we can assume that customers will be more likely to do business through e-commerce sites which provide a quality product or service online, saving the consumer a visit to the store, but which also provides a portion of the proceeds to charity.

It's truly essential that the social network community become aware of those opportunities, so they can seek them out. In case a Facebook or MySpace users want to purchase an item online, then it'd require they search for advertising for that product within their network. Then, it can be imperative they choose advertised items which also donate a portion of the proceeds to charity. Advertisers that may offer this charity affiliation, and also a discount that the consumer cannot find somewhere else, gives users a double take advantage of the e-commerce transaction, and will truly find success. Even though a lot of burden raising user awareness belongs to internet marketers, some of this user awareness burden lies on the charities themselves. Charities need to help make the online community aware of those social network opportunities by marketing them independently websites. This will ensure maximum exposure towards these social network charity donation opportunities, in addition to the total amount of success that the charity community may find with your endeavors.

In the end, charity awareness will determine how much success that the charity community may find through social network advertising. By raising the charity awareness of the advertising community, there is a results of more advertisers looking to greatly help charities through their particular successes. By raising the charity awareness of the social network user community, more users will seek out e-commerce opportunities within their network which will benefit charities at the same time. Plus, by charities raising their particular awareness of advertisers and social networking applications which are donating proceeds to the charity community, they will have the ability to help them with marketing of the products and services, thus raising the user community's awareness of the availability. If this charity awareness synergy is realized, it becomes quite apparent that the social network communities have the greatest potential to boost an immeasurable number of charitable donations through social network e-commerce and advertising revenue. 

What Every Financial Institution Should Know About Social Networking

Social network to promote yourself and business

The aim of any business will be successful and profitable through the duration of the organization. The evolution of communication technology in recent years has helped get this to possible by improving a business's ability to network with its existing and potential customers. What once required face-to-face conversations and the physical exchange of contact information may now be performed in a completely virtual environment with only a click of a button.

Advances in communication technology, such as for example texting, blogging, emailing, media sharing and gaming, have created new social norms and revolutionized just how people communicate. It is no wonder, then, that the financial services industry is beginning to make use of various forms of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) to improve customer support and improve current products and services. The most popular kind of CMC are social networking websites such as for example Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, which are employed primarily to steadfastly keep up or build connections among users.

Social networking sites represent a big market with tremendous growth potential that may be easily targeted by financial institutions if they understand how to use these sites for their advantage. Like many organizations that have already experienced the benefits of using social networking sites to improve their business, financial institutions are beginning to comprehend and embrace the power of social networking because it relates for their day-to-day business activities as well. Whether educating customers on new services, boosting customer confidence, increasing sales outreach or personally connecting using their customers to meet their banking needs - social networking is an essential communication tool that financial institutions can utilize in several of their customer business interactions.

Understanding Social Networking
Social networking is a form of collaboration and networking where individuals develop groups and associations, often forming a virtual community. While social networking is possible in a face-to-face setting, such as for example on a college campus, it is usually seen online in a CMC environment . The size and popularity of the "communities" created by MySpace and Facebook and other social networking websites have seen substantial growth as more and more folks invite their acquaintances, co-workers, friends and household members into these virtual communities.

The standard roles of the sender and receiver involve delivering messages in a definite and concise way and providing feedback to attain agreement of a certain subject. Social networking uses these same basic building blocks but accomplishes the conclusion results in a slightly different way Social network to promote yourself and business. The cues that help facilitate understanding in a face-to-face environment (e.g., intonation of voice, body gestures, facial expressions, physical distance, etc.) are often removed in a social networking environment. Although some websites offer an audio visual element, social networking is largely text-based, depending on "digital gestures" to show emotions and add emphasis to a note, such as for example:

• Forwarding.
• Recommending.
• Sharing.
• Tagging.

Social Networking Applications for Business
Networking happens to be an integral success factor available world. Networking involves linking together folks who, through trust and relationship building, become walking, talking advertisements for one another. Traditional networking often happens face-to-face at business lunches, conferences or exhibitions, where people are able to meet and establish mutually beneficial working relationships.

Online social networking offers many of the same benefits as traditional networking, while allowing bankers to easier network with the average consumer in addition to using their colleagues in the financial industry. Used appropriately, online social networking offers businesses the ability to develop meaningful, long-lasting customer relationships.

A study of the banking industry and the ways by which several banks'board members networked with others showed that though these professionals are enthusiastic about using networking to secure clients and to steadfastly keep up and develop existing customer relationships, in addition they want to make use of networking to represent their banks in community, professional and trade organizations and to procure market trends and competitive information.

To achieve the goals identified in this study, board members and other bank employees must first understand what social networking is and how it can be utilized to position their banks above others in the industry. If properly trained, these employees can use social networking to attain their banks'organizational goals and place their banks in the most truly effective positions in the industry in these five ways:

• Community building.
• Product research.
• Customer service.
• Marketing and promotion.
• Transparency.

Social networking is currently getting used to bolster the reputations of the financial institutions that utilize it, providing information both internally and externally. This kind of information sharing builds consumer confidence and helps employees understand the importance of their roles inside their banks and how they should strive to attain the greatest standard of customer service.

Challenges of Social Networking in the Workplace
One of many first challenges of integrating social networking with the workplace is helping employees understand the importance of using this technological tool. Another challenge is in addressing the training needs of the business to bring all employees up-to-speed on the etiquette, functionality and general norms of this kind of medium. This means determining who will be maintaining the web sites, how end users will experience the web sites, and how policies and procedures concerning social networking will be shared, and with whom within the organization. And finally, relationship management in a virtual environment poses a challenge. This last challenge should be a primary focus when implementing a social networking-friendly policy or procedure.

A lot of the CMC occurring in social networking happens through what's become referred to as Social Information Processing (SIP) theory. The theoretician who first introduced SIP, Joseph Walther, stated that the nature of relationships created online can be drastically different from those established face-to-face, specially when individuals act differently than they'd in a non-virtual environment. While Walther acknowledged that the rate at which these relationships are formed may change over time as individuals become more familiar with the technology, he argued that relationships in a CMC environment would take around four times longer to establish.

To counter this potential limitation, banks might seek to make use of the idea of attribution, which states that individuals link observed behaviors of others with causal explanations to help them understand what sort of people they are communicating with. Enough time to develop relationships can be shortened using attribution theory because bankers can use their observations to produce product or service recommendations predicated on needs they have established.

Using Social Networking to Relate solely to Customers
Though social networking poses its challenges, it may also be used to overcome other challenges that banks may face. For example, social networking allows financial institutions to enhance consumer confidence, increase sales, and strengthen customer relationships, which are typical aspects of concern as they could give a bank a competitive edge over others in the banking industry.

When consumer confidence is low and distrust of the banking industry is high, particularly in times of economic crisis, social networking has allowed for greater transparency and has opened up a conversation with consumers. People forum created by websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace supply the financial services industry an ability to address customers'banking needs by:

• Acting as a moderate for customers to send their questions and concerns to a bank, with immediate feedback from the banking expert.
• Replacing one-sided information dissemination like press releases or bank-sponsored advertisements.
• Reassuring the public of safety and soundness policies and procedures.
• Eliminating skepticism through informative links, text, graphics and audio or visual elements.
• Educating customers about products and services that address specific needs.

Protecting Customer Information
One of many main concerns of financial institutions is the protection of information and financial assets. As technology helps it be easier to speak with people in remote locations or to conduct financial transactions, additionally it enables thieves to acquire customers'confidential, nonpublic information, putting customers at risk of identity theft and other similar schemes.

Financial institutions have addressed these potential information security breaches by creating Know Your Customer (KYC) programs and prioritizing identity verification and the reporting of suspicious activity. Exactly the same precautions and care should really be exercised when using social networking websites to ensure that customer information remains protected.

Implications for Legal Compliance and Record Keeping
Once a financial institution's directors and staff understand the implications and proper usage of social networking websites, it is essential that the institution's policies and procedures be revised to reflect the addition of these new business activities. This ensures that the institution remains in compliance with industry laws and regulations, and it demonstrates to the public that the business is fair and respectful of customers and employees and so it works to protect its customers'information and financial assets.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) recently issued a publication that provides guidance to financial institutions regarding the utilization of social media in their business operations. FINRA Regulatory Notice 10-06 outlines the mandatory recordkeeping requirements that financial institutions must adhere to and provides guidelines for the supervision of non-static messages sent social networking websites.

Because social networking websites are fairly new and financial institutions are only just just starting to explore their potential uses, the twelve government agencies that control the financial services industry, along with other organizations like FINRA, are continuing to develop and amend regulations. For example, the utilization of social networking affects advertising requirements for financial institutions, as previously mentioned in Regulations Z and DD. In addition, it affects Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) membership, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and non-deposit retail investment and fair lending implications. It is the responsibility of every institution to keep yourself informed of current regulations and how their usage of these websites affects their compliance current law. Management must also understand the risks of noncompliance and be sure that their policies and procedures are updated to reflect these changes.

Final Word
Financial institutions must consider the risks and rewards of using social networking tools in their everyday business operations, and ensure that these tools comply with policies and legislation, while meeting the wants of their customers. Because clients are the driving force for success in the financial services industry, the main element to protecting them is through employee education. It is imperative that bank employees are appropriately trained before and during the utilization of almost any social networking tool. Understanding how this new kind of communication impacts the business in the long-term can help a financial institution arrange for and attain future success, while emphasizing keeping customer relationships strong and information and financial assets secure as social networking becomes an even more prominent business tool.

Dr. Linda Eagle is Founder & President of The Edcomm Group Banker's Academy-a 23-year-old education and consulting firm dedicated to serving Banks, Credit Unions, Money Services Businesses (MSBs) and all aspects of the Global Financial Community with a large number of generic and customized training programs in areas such as for example BSA/AML, Regulatory Compliance, Teller Training, Systems Training, Sales and Service Training, and many more.