Part time job for a social media agent  

Do you blog, comment, respond, post, chat, like, re-tweet, add to circles, pin…? Do you monitor what’s hot on social media in your language? Do you have 2 hours a day that you can fully dedicate to avast! social media? Can you be the eyes and ears of avast! in your country as if your own reputation depended on it?

We seek a highly motivated individual with experience and fanatical passion for blogging, micro-blogging and community participation to simply communicate with avast! followers in your mother tongue. You will help us approach new users in your country, so we can spread avast! Free Antivirus across the globe!

This is a part time position – at least 10 hours a week

That will not happen to you

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They say size doesn’t matter… however, at Twitter it actually does! How can you express yourself, knowing that you MUST use no more than 140 characters? How can you tell everything about Avast and still fit within this number? How can you respond to Avast users knowing this limitation? Well, by setting up and communicating daily via our avast! Twitter account, we have accepted this challenge and now we have one for you…  But before we get there, let me tell why you should start following us on Twitter.

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It is a credit to the quality of our Facebook and Twitter fans that so many take the time to write us with appreciation and praise. It is extremely meaningful for us to receive your feedback, positive or negative, but we are especially motivated and thrilled to learn when we are satisfying our customers. Here are some examples of messages we have received lately on social media. Thanks to all who have written to us.

We invite all our avast! users to join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Earlier this week, we announced that Avast teamed up with Socialbakers to create a social media “listening post” for Avast. You may be wondering just who is doing all that listening and responding to your questions, comments, and suggestions. Today we want to introduce you to our two Queens of the FREEks, also known as the avast! social media content and engagement team.

First Responders

Deborah S. is Avast’s U.S. Marketing Manager based in our east coast U.S. office. She does much of the blogging for Avast, as well as working closely with her fellow queen, Julia, to build social media into an important communication channel for the company.

Here are some fun facts about Deborah:

• She is a Master Scuba Diver and once got attacked by a Titan Triggerfish in the Philippines. There are teeth marks on her beanie to prove it!
• She plays clarinet in a wind band and has performed for Olympic teams, Presidents, and Mickey Mouse. ♫
• She lived in Europe and Asia for many years, and traveled all over the world. Next stop – Nepal!
• She runs marathons for fitness but mainly so she can eat cookies constantly and not gain weight.
• Before joining the Avast team, she worked at a successful start-up company that does crowd-sourced website reputation rating.

Julia S. is Avast’s Community Manager based at our headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic. Julia worked in different areas of the company before taking the role of community manager. For a few years she did it by herself, learning about social media and working to build and nurture the community.

Here are some fun facts about Julia:

• She is a fanatic about languages, speaks four and currently studies Brazilian Portuguese! Julia adora Brasil. ♥
• She loves salsa, and the spirit, mentality and vibe of Latin America.
• She loves traveling. Sightseeing, history, meeting new cultures, people, testing local food – brings spice into her life. If you have a tip for a next trip, drop her a line on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dzulaya.
• She doesn’t run marathons, but she still enjoys eating, so in order to stay fit she must…dance more salsa.
• Before joining the Avast team, she worked in many different places, supporting herself as a student.

Follow avast! on social media

You can talk to the Queens of the FREEks (our Facebook fans know what that means ), ask questions, make comments, learn about security issues, or just say hello on social media.

Like the avast! Antivirus page on Facebook

Tweet at us on Twitter

Join us on Google+

Watch avast! videos on YouTube

See some pretty pictures on Pinterest

Where in the world?

This wouldn’t be social media if we didn’t try to get you talking. So here’s a question for you – both Deborah and Julia like to travel. Where in the world do you think they were in these photos? Make your guesses in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter.

In October 2012, the same week that Avast reached the milestone of 2 million likes on Facebook, Vince Steckler, CEO of Avast Software, approved the creation of a social media “listening post” using Socialbakers powerful suite of analytical, listening and publishing tools. Avast is Socialbakers 1000th customer. A small, but dedicated, community team works on communications, content creation, customer care, and marketing from Avast headquarters in the Czech Republic and a satellite office in the United States.

“Socialbakers helps us monitor thousands of online conversations about our products and services on a global scale in real time,” said Steckler. “This allows for timely review and response to social media posts and content. We look forward to a long, productive relationship.” Read more…

AVAST Software Announces Winner of its Latest Facebook-Based Promotion

To promote the release of new avast! version 7, AVAST Software ran a promotion for a lucky user to win seven days in ‘paradise’, an all-inclusive holiday for the winner to a destination of his or her dreams. To win, participants had to enter the promotion on www.facebook.com/avast and estimate correctly what the avast! active user base would be two months later. Surprisingly, eight participants actually got the correct number of 150,107,324 active users.

However, it was Daniel Santos do Nascimento from Maceió in Brazil who picked the correct number nearly 7 weeks earlier. “I thought of it like a maths test,” explains Daniel, “I looked at the last 6 months number of active users and used the approximate growth to estimate the probable next number – but  to be honest, I was just lucky!”

Daniel, an avast! user for over three years, decided to let his wife choose the destination, “My wife has always wanted to go Rio de Janeiro and this opportunity has allowed her dreams to come true,”

Daniel, his wife and son are now planning their all expenses paid trip and avast is now planning a bigger competition to coincide with the registration of the 200 millionth user which based on strong growth could well take place in 2012.

We like to think that the avast! voice telling us that our virus database has been updated is almost like a pleasant song, something to cheer us all up, reminding us that nobody needs to sing the PC blues.

So it’s great to know we’re not alone, and that our users also think this way. Here’s an example by “Ferrett Steinmetz,” an Ohio-based writer, who recently tweeted:

A quick read down Mr. Steinmetz’s twitter wall shows similar cleverisms about a large number of subjects. You can follow him on twitter @ferretthimself.

Also, feel free to change your avast! voice or even record your own avast! voices via our avast.com Community pages.

Yes, most of us complain about all the seemingly unnecessary changes that Facebook initiates far more often than we’d like (just about the time we figure out how to navigate everything)… but it’s good to remember that Facebook is a free service. Of course some will argue that nothing is really ‘free’, but at least +140 million active avast! Community members know differently.

Value proposition

Some of you will remember the days of Rolodex. Mine was typically overfilled with business cards and scraps of paper – taped, glued, or even stapled in place. Sometimes a few ‘creative’ oversized business cards or paper scraps would clog up the ‘machine’, and maintaining changes to phone numbers, addresses, and job titles was always a major problem.

So Facebook, for me, was a welcome change. All my contacts keep their own info updated, and I can find them at any time via the search box. And my Facebook account serves 4 key purposes:

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I’ve seen this happen many times, but this time I decided to get a screenshot of it. In a small box, facebook recommends that I add a friend because we have friends in common… or I get a direct friend request from someone I don’t know. I click the profile to investigate and, indeed, we have several friends in common. But an instinct triggers that something isn’t quite right.

Example 1 – Notice:

1. New profile
2. No personal information other than “Single”
3. Only 17 friends
4. All 17 friends are male
5. Only 1 photo, with a focal point of breasts and eyes (maybe I should have titled this post “Why men are easy targets for spammers”)

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