For businesses, the security of sensitive data is critical. If this information is lost or stolen, it could lead to crippling financial losses, legal disputes, and more importantly, loss of customer trust. And while those of you with Microsoft Office 365 installed have some security and compliance tools, there are still some data protection best practices you need to consider. Here are seven of them: Take advantage of policy alerts Establishing policy notifications in Office 365’s Compliance Center can help you meet your company’s data security obligations. For instance, policy tips can warn employees about sending confidential information anytime they’re about to send messages to contacts who aren’t listed in the company network. These preemptive warnings can prevent data leaks and also educate users on safer data sharing practices. Secure mobile devices With the growing trend of using personal smartphones and tablets to access work email, calendar, contacts, and documents, securing mobile devices is now a critical part of protecting your organization’s data. Installing mobile device management features for Office 365 enables you to manage security policies and access rules, and remotely wipe sensitive data from mobile devices if they’re lost or stolen. Use multi-factor authentication Because of the growing sophistication of today’s cyberattacks, a single password shouldn’t be the only safeguard for Office 365 accounts. To reduce account hijacking instances, you must enable Office 365 multi-factor authentication. This feature makes it more difficult for hackers to access your account since they not only have to guess user passwords but also provide a second authentication factor like a temporary SMS code. Apply session timeouts Many employees usually forget to log out of their Office 365 accounts and keep their computers or mobile devices unlocked. This could give unauthorized users unfettered access to company accounts, allowing them to compromise sensitive data. But by applying session timeouts to Office 365, email accounts, and internal networks, the system will automatically log users out after 10 minutes, preventing hackers from simply opening company workstations and accessing private information. Avoid public calendar sharing Office 365 calendar sharing features allows employees to share and sync their schedules with their colleagues. However, publicly sharing this schedule is a bad idea. Enabling public calendar sharing helps attackers understand how your company works, determine who’s away, and identify your most vulnerable users. For instance, if security administrators are publicly listed as “Away on vacation,” an attacker may see this as an opportunity to unleash a slew of malware attacks to corrupt your data before your business can respond. Employ role-based access controls Another Office 365 feature that will limit the flow of sensitive data across your company is access management. This lets you determine which user (or users) have access to specific files in your company. For example, front-of-house staff won’t be able to read or edit executive-level documents, minimizing data leaks. Encrypt emails Encrypting classified information is your last line of defense to secure your data. Should hackers intercept your emails, encryption tools will make files unreadable to unauthorized recipients. This is a must-have for Office 365, where files and emails are shared on a regular basis. While Office 365 offers users the ability to share data and collaborate flexibly, you must be aware of the potential data security risks at all times. When you work with Multi IT, we will make sure your business keeps up with ever-changing data security and compliance obligations. And if you need help securing your Office 365, we can help with that too! Simply contact Multi IT on 011 435 0450 today!.

When working with web platforms like WordPress, there are three letters that induce anxiety in any business owner: SEO (search engine optimization). It’s one of the most confusing aspects of running a modern business, and web apps that rate your SEO with no more than a red or green light don’t make it any easier. Read on to find out whether your site’s images are the cause of that annoying red light. Do my images really affect my SEO? One of the reasons images tend to be overlooked when auditing SEO is because it’s easy to forget just how many your website has. Maybe when you first built your site you had a few photos on your homepage, but nowhere else. Over time however, you probably added countless visual elements in blog posts, landing pages and team photos -- drastically increasing the influence of your images on your SEO. Image resolution and load speed The first thing to check is how your images affect your site’s speed. If you’re using ultra high-resolution photos, users on mobile devices or satellite data connections will have trouble loading your site. Site load times affect your site’s ranking on Google, so make sure to pare them down to a more reasonable resolution and save them as web-friendly file types (GIF, JPEG and PNG). Keywords and image title The days of keyword-stuffing are long gone, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with uploading images with filenames like DSC2558.jpg. Before uploading an image to your site, make sure to name it something relevant to the content, such as gym-trainer-helping-lift.jpg or call-center-customer-service.jpg. This makes it easier for search engines to derive information about the content from the images on a page. “Alt text” and title text Even though Google is getting better at recognizing image content without any help from text identifiers, describing your images in your website’s backend is still important for SEO. Every image on your site should have as much text-based information as possible without disrupting the user experience. To see how this works in WordPress, open up your site dashboard and click on Media. This will display all the images, videos and audio on your site. Select any photo and click “Edit more details.” Whatever you include in the Caption field will be shown below the image, so make sure it corresponds with your content. If it doesn’t work with the content, skip it. In this case user experience takes priority over SEO. The Alternative Text and Description fields will be shown to visitors only if the image doesn’t load or if they select it manually. They may not seem all that important, but these should be considered non-negotiable for SEO purposes. Check that your site is doing all these things before requesting another SEO report. If your score changes, start regularly auditing your image optimizations. If you’re still seeing red, there are a number of web- and cloud-based platforms that can help you improve your content. Give Multi IT a call today on 011 435 0450 to find out more!

A while back, Pinterest launched its first paid advertising service, “Promoted Pins,” which is geared toward large enterprises. Recently, a similar product named “DIY Promoted Pins” was released for small- and medium-sized businesses. This shows how popular social media has become in helping to establish an online presence for your business, and here are some tips to get you started. Know your audience According to a study conducted by Ahalogy and AcuPOLL Precision Research, Inc., Pinterest is largely used by women, mostly “Millennial Moms.” If your typical customer demographic is predominantly male, your marketing efforts would probably be better spent elsewhere. But if your business caters to women between the ages 15-29, you should consider creating an online presence on Pinterest. Think like a content marketer Users are looking for engaging content, which is why 59% of active Pinterest users go for Pins that lead to blog posts, articles, and even photos. The most popular topics on the platform are more visual (e.g., food, fashion, decor, etc.), so if you don't have highly visual content, then infographics, images from blog entries, and even photos of staff members also do the trick. Look for inspiration Getting stuck in a creative rut happens to the best of us, so check out the boards that are saving your Pins to get some fresh insight. There's a good chance that people saving your Pins have related content that can help you gain insight into what your typical customer is interested in. Not only that, it also helps you identify trends and come up with new ideas for a marketing campaign. Categorize your boards By creating and properly labeling multiple boards -- one for each of your products or services -- your users are able to engage not only with your general content but also with content they’re more interested in. Determine posting frequency Excessive pinning might overwhelm or simply annoy your audience, but not pinning enough might cause followers to lose interest. Create a posting schedule and gauge audience reaction before making any changes to the frequency of Pins. In order to surpass the stiff competition, you’ll need all the help you can get, and that includes social media marketing. If you have any questions about Pinterest and how it can help your business grow, don’t hesitate to give Multi IT a call on 011 435 0450 or to visit our website!