Social Media Tools That Will Help You Reach Your Marketing Goals

Whether you’re a solo marketer, startup or multinational enterprise, you'll find it's nearly an insurmountable feat to manage your social media without the help of some third-party tools.

It's these tools that make it possible for you to reach marketing goals, track results and engage more efficiently across a multitude of platforms. And, more and more, they're a necessary step, given that 52 percent of online adults now use two or more social media sites, and the average social media user maintains five accounts.
The good news is, when you're getting started, is that there are plenty of mobile apps and web-based tools to choose from; they range from specialized to multipurpose.
Below, I’ve compiled a list of my top five most recommended social tools for managing your marketing campaigns and making scaling your online marketing efforts that much easier.

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is considered to  a leader when it comes to managing social media. The platform offers everything you need to monitor social chatter and manage content publishing and multiple accounts. It also offers detailed reporting and collaboration features.
Each of your accounts can be displayed side by side in multiple streams for quick monitoring. This is especially helpful when big trending topics and conversations are taking place across all of your social channels. That listening ability is a big part of social engagement, and Hootsuite makes it easy.
“I use social media as an idea generator, trend mapper, and strategic compass for all of our online business ventures,” says Paul Barron, founder of Digital CoCo.
Hootsuite is available in a free plan as well as via multiple paid-plan options, and can be used on a desktop web environment or via mobile app.

2. Flickr with Creative Commons search

This is a go-to source for great stock photos for any kind of social promotional purposes, content marketing, branding and more. It’s ideal for blogs and presentations. With its advanced search feature, you can browse photos that have been made specifically available under Flickr with Creative Commons licensing, which allows you to use photos with attribution.
Visuals are an important part of social and content marketing. When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10 percent of it, according to data collected and analyzed by John Medina in his book Brain Rules. But if a relevant image is paired with the same information, that retention rate jumps to 65 percent -- even three days later.
For slightly higher-grade photos, I recommend purchasing images from Shutterstock.

3. Bit.ly

Bit.ly is the dominant URL shortener, and in my opinion it’s the best choice for the function it offers as well as its value-added benefits. Bit.ly's tracking and analytics are on point, though I recommend utilizing a shortener whenever possible. The “+” feature is a nice perk, as well: By adding the “+” to the end of any bit.ly URL, you can see how many times it has been clicked on and who clicked on it.
It’s a great way to check in on trending topics, find influencers and even keep an eye on your competitors if they're using the service, as well.
Because creating unique bit.ly links is so easy, the tool is also a great way to do A/B testing, on real-time social networks like Twitter.

4. TubeMogul

Video is a big part of social engagement; that’s why sites like Facebook have upgraded their services to incorporate native video-uploading as well as live streaming. Twitter has done the same thing since its acquisition of Vine back in 2012, and Periscope in 2015. Video provides a means to engage your audience with fun, entertaining content -- content that drives social shares.
“The play button is the most compelling call to action on the web,” -- says Michael Litt, co-founder of Vidyard.
TubeMogul takes the demand of manual upload and simplifies it so you can upload a single video clip directly to dozens of video sites. In addition to faster upload, it gives you comparative statistics on the number of views and the length of each view, site by site. It’s a fantastic tool for moving beyond individual video upload into strategic video optimization as part of a broad social media strategy.

5. Notifier

Notifier scans your content for the names of influencers in your posts and gives you one-click access to generate @mentions on social media. It’s a simple and effective way to notify influencers (and their audience) that you’ve mentioned them within your content.

Four Must Have Apps

If you want to simplify your daily investing ventures, then I truly believe that you need to have a few of the right apps to help you along the way. The right app can simplify investing, help you stay connected with the outside world and expedite the entire trading process for you. Here are four of the best investing apps for any trader to consider.

1. iPhone’s stock app.

Let’s start with the basics. The iPhone’s basic default stock tracking app is actually a pretty good tool that you can use to keep an eye on the major indices throughout the day as well as select stocks in your portfolio. This isn’t an app that you should be using to do analysis and make buy or sell decisions. But it will help you keep your finger on the pulse of the market no matter where you are. The top mistake investors make is not checking in with the market frequently enough. That’s how small losses become major losses. So even when you’re away from your desk or do not have access to a trading dashboard, even a simple tool like this could save you a lot of money.

2. eTrade.

If you haven’t tried the eTrade app to manage all of your trades, then it is time that you start. This app is super convenient and it puts all of the wealth-building tools you need right at your fingertips. When you want to make quick trades on-the-go, this is one of the tools I suggest you turn to. Plus, it is filled with tons of information and analysis features to help you make smart decisions.

3. StocksToTrade.com.

When I need a program that can help with scanning stocks and examining charts, I use StockToTrade. This software program claims to be powerful enough for a hedge-fund, but that it’s built for the average Joe investor and in all reality, I agree with them. I love this software program. It is super powerful, it’s easy for my students to use and it’s easy for me to use when I need to make huge trades from my home office or whenever I’m traveling. StocksToTrade also has scans for news as it relates to trading setups and patterns. One of my favorite features is being able to sort stocks based on a multitude of characteristics such as share price, market cap, etc. The pre-programmed scans for certain trade setups also make it very easy to build a trading strategy.

4. Entrepreneur.com.

When it comes to the tools I rely on most for investing, there is nothing quite like Entrepreneur.com. This is a prime example of it being about more than just apps, this site simply makes it easier for me to invest. I truly believe that investing without knowledge is risky. This is why I am always reading and always finding out new information. I spend a lot of time studying the articles on Entrepreneur to see what is happening in business. 

And now, for the one app that I don’t use…

5. Robinhood free broker app.

I am always willing to look at different apps in order to find programs that can help me in my everyday investing ventures. Some apps are great, others are just OK, but this app is one that I simply won’t use. I warn all of my students against using the Robinhood app, for a few reasons. This app has bad executions, weak short-selling options and it tries to lure people in by being “free.” Be careful with this one. Plus, there are no after-hours trading. In my opinion, it is better to just pay for quality.


Keep these apps in mind whenever you are looking for a new program to help you with your investing ventures. The right app can help make all of the difference in how easy it is for you to handle your daily trades with ease.

Social-Media Mistakes Your Business Can't Afford

Social media marketing is something you need to be doing. It’s too effective when it comes to growing your business to ignore it. As more businesses make it a larger component of its marketing strategies, I see more mistakes being made.
Here are four mistakes you don't want to make on social media.

1. You're not interacting with followers.

Guess what the number one line of communication is for customer service? Social media.

The majority of consumers are constantly plugged into social media, which is the reason social media is a major customer support tool. I see a lot of businesses that understand this, but its social media feed is just a long list of support replies.

Since your followers are plugged in around the clock, use it as an opportunity to create raving fans of your business. Every business is going to have a different audience and target market, so you need to think of content that your followers would be likely to engage with.

For example, if your audience is millennials, memes might be a good play. Memes spark engagement, like comments and social shares, generating buzz about your business. Remember, your social media posts don’t have to be traditional advertisements to convert followers into customers.

2. You're overly promotional.

Continuing where the previous point left off, don’t post ad after ad, and expect your followers to stick around.

An offer here and there is fine, but if your followers feel that all of your posts are glorified advertisements, they will find other accounts to follow and leave you behind. They don’t need you. You need them.

3. You don't include calls-to-action (CTAs).

Collecting followers alone isn’t going to magically translate into increased sales and revenue. Every social media profile gives you a place to put your website link, yet so many businesses miss out on an opportunity to collect leads, or push traffic directly to an offer because it simply puts its website’s homepage URL in these sections.

Don’t do that. Instead, put a link to your newsletter offer, downloadable whitepaper or a direct-to-purchase offer. Most clicks originating from social media and hitting your homepage are wasted clicks. Nobody has time to try to find offers. Send them directly to your offers, and this will greatly increase your conversion rates.

You should also mix in some CTAs in your posts. CTAs don’t have to be promotional.

Let’s assume you created a very informative infographic for your blog and want to drive traffic to it. Most businesses would just post the URL on social media and hope people will check it out. By including a strong CTA, such as, “You have to check out this cool infographic we just did -- especially point No. 3,” will drive significantly more traffic than just listing the post title and a link.

4. You spread yourself too thin.

You have to accept the fact that you more than likely can’t be active on all social media channels, unless you have a dedicated social media team or outsource your social media to a digital agency.
It will benefit you much more if you are great on three social media outlets, rather than mediocre on more. Pick the social networks that your business thrives on, and focus on making your impact even bigger.
With just a small handful of social networks to worry about, it makes answering messages and engaging with your followers much more manageable. The faster you can reply and the more you can engage, the stronger that connection will become. Social media is a great tool to build relationships that create life-long brand supporters.

Using Linked In Efficiently

Social media is a double-edged sword for many business owners and entrepreneurs. On the one hand, it promises so much, but on the other hand, it can take up a lot of your valuable time -- especially if you don't have a proven social media plan. But if you're mainly selling to other businesses, then there's one place you definitely need to be -- LinkedIn.
With more than 400 million users and the ability to connect with new leads, new partners or influencers who can help you spread the word about your brand, it's the obvious choice for B2B.
But are you getting the most out of it or are you just tinkering around at the edges? Here are 11 giveaway signs that you've mastered LinkedIn.

1. You know your objectives.

So many people go round and round in circles in LinkedIn. Not you. You know exactly the outcomes you desire, and you go after them.

You understand that you need to do less to get more, so your focus is on three main areas -- getting more media exposure, creating partnerships and generating leads for your business. Your effort is focused on these three areas, and anything outside of this does not attract your attention.

2. You know who you're targeting.

Because you know your objectives, you know exactly who you want to connect with. You don't connect with people willy nilly hoping that somewhere, sometime, someone will get back to you. You know who you want to connect with, what they do and where they're based. You're not interested in spending time on building a network of people with half-hearted profiles. You're after the movers and shakers, the "A" Graders. Guesswork is not part of your approach.

3. You have a structured approach.

Because you know what you want, and because you know who can help you, your approach can be much more structured. But not only one approach. Each approach is dictated by your needs (e.g. increase exposure, identify partners, generate leads). Each approach is clearly structured and is tailored towards a successful outcome.

Ultimately, you know exactly where you want to get your connections. Whether that's on a phone call or a face-to-face meeting, it's a structured approach that isn't left to chance.

4. You're focused on relationships.

Selling yourself, your expertise or your products and services is your ultimate goal. But there's a time and place for that. People rarely buy on first contact. That's why your approach is built on creating trust and building a relationship from the start.

5. You're committed to content.

You understand the value of world class content, and you offer this to your networks. Because you know your expected outcomes, you understand the challenges and the problems that your target audience face. You create content that addresses these issues.

Whether that's regular LinkedIn Updates or longer LinkedIn Posts, you create world class content to make sure that you stay front of mind with your target audience.

6. A solution-focused profile.

Your profile isn't a dry read that looks like an online CV. Instead it reads more like a set of solutions that you can offer. When your connections come to check you out, they see that you are a solution provider. They see that you understand their needs and that you are a credible partner for them.

Your profile pops with your own media, whether that's articles, photos, videos or presentations.

7. You segment your contacts.

You've got several objectives, and that means several audiences. Not all of them will be interested in the same content. That's why you segment your contacts to make sure that they only get the content that's relevant to them.

8. You don't preach to groups. You ask questions.

Whether you're running a group or you're a member of a group, you understand that asking questions is more powerful than promoting your own content. You understand that asking questions elicits responses in ways that posting content to a group doesn't, and it allows you to direct them to useful resources.

Sure, you know there's a time and place to make a pitch. It just isn't here.

9. It's your comfort zone for cold calling.

One of the reasons you use LinkedIn is because you hate cold calling. You hate the way that it's unpredictable, intrusive and annoying. That's why you prefer a structured approach based on known objectives, targeted outreach and high value content.

10. You're patient.

It would be great if you could just hit it out of the park at the first attempt. But you know that's not going to happen. Building relationships and creating trust takes time. That's why you're patient and methodical. You know that things need to occur in a certain order, and that if you're in too much of a hurry, your prospects will notice.

11. You enjoy it.

Finally, above all else, you enjoy developing meaningful relationships based on mutual benefit. As much as you enjoy growing your own business, you enjoy sharing your knowledge and helping others solve their problems and grow their businesses. For you, this is where LinkedIn really comes into it's own.
LinkedIn is powerful. If you're selling to businesses, it's the place to be. But just going in all guns a-blazing isn't going to work. Whether you're looking for more media exposure, partnerships or new leads, you need to know your desired outcomes and have a structured plan in place to achieve your objectives.
LinkedIn works best for people who understand their outcomes, and people who understand who they want to work with and they have a structured plan to engage with them.

Penguin 4.0 In Nutshell

6 Must Have Marketing Essentials

It’s all about the money. When it comes to getting a new product off the ground, raising money for a cause, exploring growth opportunities for your small business and building your brand, crowdfunding offers a nontraditional way to reach non-conventional investors.

Crowdfunding reaches a larger and more diversified pool of interest than many standard methods of raising capital. It invites investment at any level, small-dollar and big. And, it helps you do something new and important for yourself and your investors. Plain and simple, it just makes sense to explore the marketing side of crowdfunding.

Six Marketing Essentials

Here are six essentials culled from our conversation to keep in mind before getting a crowdfunding campaign started.

1. Straddle the fence. Crowdfunding is all about capturing the personal ethos of the campaign -- a connection between message and emotion. However professional it looks and sounds, your marketing has to separate itself from the corporate impression with something casual, humorous or sentimental. If your message is somehow too proper and perfect, the audience might wonder why it requires crowdfunding.

2. Make it worthwhile. The object of the campaign has to come across as special or unique. It should embody an element of innovation, need or scarcity in any market. Scarcity drives the demand for any product, so you have to offer some exchange for the participation. It might be a T-shirt for helping fund a charity walk, or equity participation in a startup, or even an early model of the product (if it’s a physical gadget). But, creating marketing reciprocity must have a felt quality that takes more than just convincing language.

3. Build momentum. Every campaign needs an end date. At some point, the funding has to stop. So, several tracks run in sequence:

• You need a calendar to plan your strategy for the action and implementation.
• During the period before launch, it’s the campaign owner’s job to generate as much interest as possible. Usually through collecting emails and marketing to them.
• Lastly, a specific marketing event launches the period of funding.

Your strategic thinking has to visualize this rollout. You might, for example, peg your calendars around the date for the specific marketing event. That date cannot conflict with competing events like religious holidays, seasonal distractions, equity market activities and more. It’s to your benefit to make your launch stand alone.

4. Write a narrative. Everyone involved should follow the same script. They should all know the story of how things started, where you want to go and how you intend to get there. Your story needs an explanation of why you are pursuing crowdfunding as opposed to other investment strategies and a description of how the funding will make a difference.

It’s also important to respect the needs for copy writing. That is, your team has to brainstorm the language repeatedly until you can reduce the message to one quotable phrase. Then, all parties must be able to speak and write briefly from no more than four to five talking points.

5. Make it multi-dimensional. Content copy is important. It has to convince and persuade. It needs to testify with proof and credibility. Be sure to support your pitch with facts, figures and specifics on costs, forecasts and expectations. You’ll also want to make this a media event, something that goes viral across many a platform.

That takes vivid visuals, such as photos of people interacting with the product, commitments by key principles, testimonials by end users and so on. Finally, well-educated and entertaining videos of prototypes in action, users involved, or analysts’ comments will help your campaign go viral.

Emerging Tools In Social Media

Social media marketing is still a new business tool, relatively speaking. There’s no magic formula for success, and the potential benefits of your efforts are broad and not entirely predictable.
That promise is appealing, especially to young entrepreneurs, but results don’t come automatically -- even if you have a solid strategic foundation for your campaign. In fact, it requires a tremendous amount of planning, effort and refinement before you start to see results. And in most cases, the tools and features offered by social media platforms straightaway aren’t typically enough to give you the edge you need.
Social media operates in a hyper-competitive arena, and if you want to stay alive, you’re going to have to use the newest tools to support your efforts.

The key measure of success in social media, as in most other forms of marketing, is your overall return on investment (ROI). When most people think about ROI, they focus on the return they’re getting, and how to improve it.
Some tools will help you do this by providing more data you can use to target your demographics more accurately or allowing you to reach wider audiences than you have up to this point. However, most tools are directed at the other side of the equation -- the investment side.
They help you work more efficiently, to reduce the amount of time and money you expend in managing a campaign, and increase the power of everything you create or direct. In theory, at least, this should boost the potential of every dollar or hour you put in.

With those goals in mind, we want to show you five incredibly powerful up-and-coming social media tools you should be using to enhance your campaign:

 

1. Notifier.

One of the biggest trends in social media marketing right now is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is the art of engaging with prominent authorities to earn more visibility for your posts and brand. Notifier is a tool that helps automate and improve your influencer relationships. By plugging in your content, it will automatically search it for references you’ve made to other brands, and pull up their social information so you can notify them that you’ve cited them. This gives you an “in” for engaging with new influencers, streamlining your influencer marketing campaign.

 

2. Real Geeks’ Facebook Marketing Tool.

If you’ve ever been intimidated or frustrated by the process of Facebook advertising, but are convinced of the potential value there, Real Geeks’ Facebook marketing tool is perfect for you. Designed for realtors, the tool connects your Facebook ad campaign directly to your website. From there, it automatically pulls data (such as home listings, images, etc.) and generates the type of ads that tend to generate the best results. You’ll be able to monitor and adjust these ads before they go out, and create your own if you so desire. The tool also provides detailed, easy-to-follow reporting, so you can track your progress accurately.

 

3. SocialOomph.

SocialOomph doesn’t have a particularly fancy user experience layer, but its functionality is powerful. With this, you’ll be able to connect all your social media profiles into one area, schedule posts in advance, and even “bulk upload” updates to have them roll out periodically over a preset schedule. It’s fantastic if you’re in the business of content syndication (as you should be), and it offers a number of audience insight tools as well.

4. Sprout Social.

Sprout Social is similar to Hootsuite in concept, but offers more robust functionality. You can connect to almost every major social media platform, schedule posts, monitor progress in terms of likes, engagements, and user activity, and easily see how your content performs over time. Sprout Social also furnishes social listening functionality, which allows you to perform better content topic research and market research by plugging into your key users’ social media conversations. Perhaps best of all, Sprout Social was designed with teams in mind, so you can establish different user roles and delegate tasks here too.

 

5. Crate.

Crate is a relatively new content curation tool designed to help you find the best-performing content on the web. Plug in the types of content and social media feeds you want to see more of, and Crate will generate a list of the topics that have performed best on social media. You can use this list to fuel your own social sharing strategy, or use it as inspiration to write better content for your blog. Either way, it’s incredibly useful.
Before you go out and start using these tools indiscriminately, let’s leave you with a pertinent cautionary note about automation in a marketing campaign. Automation can be incredibly valuable; it can give you more objective insights and save both time and money.

You don’t need to worry actively about these weaknesses or forgo automation tools because of such concerns. You merely need to acknowledge them, and keep them in mind when you choose to employ such tools to complement and build your campaign. It’s all about achieving a proper balance.

Five Tips That May Help You Grow Socially

In today’s market, harnessing the power of social media is a must if you want to grow your business and grow your brand. From my Instagram posts to my Twitter announcements, I have found that there is no end to the new opportunities that a carefully managed social media campaign can bring. With this in mind, any entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur who has yet to try out the power of social media needs to start working on creating a stronger online presence. It's something that I have seen bring great value to my own business and great value to others I have worked with in the market.
Through my experience, here are eight of the top tips that I have found can help any entrepreneur looking to expand their social media presence and their business.

1. Be consistent.

When it comes to your posts, your message and how frequently you use social media, keep consistency in mind. It is truly the key to success with any social media campaign. Make a plan for what you're going to post and how often you're going to post, and stick with it. This should ideally be a few times a day or a week, depending on your goals and your following. You can’t go from posting once a month to five times a day and then back and expect to have an engaged following. 

2. Use all social networks.

You may have a social network that you prefer over others, but it doesn’t mean that all of your followers feel that way. If you want to be successful with social media, then you need to post across all networks. This means having and maintaining an account with all of the big social media sites, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

3. Format content to optimize for each platform.

Maintaining accounts across all of the major social media platforms doesn’t mean posting the same thing on four different sites every day. It means formatting content specifically meant for each platform. You need photos for Instagram, long posts for LinkedIn, videos and memes for Facebook and short and snappy announcements for Twitter. All of your posts should be different, even if they are delivering the same message. 

4. Push on those networks that really work well.

There are some networks that are going to work better for you than others. When you find that network that really works for your specific type of business and your specific type of customer, then you need to really push on that network and take advantage of the opportunity.

5. Make sure that your content aligns with your message.

When it comes to building a strong social media presence, getting likes and follows is great. However, it's about more than just the number of responses each of your posts get. You may be tempted to deliver a post that simply gets a lot of attention, but that will do nothing for your brand if you don’t make sure that the content aligns with your message. Everything needs to fit within your brand identity and promote what it is that you're trying to say to the world.

When and what to post on your brand’s social media channels is different for every business. Often, what you post on Facebook will not be suitable for Pinterest. Or even if it is, the best post times for each will likely differ. Being in tune with your audience and understanding which types of content work for which channels will help you devise a strong social media strategy.

Best time to post on social media

It is fact that social media plays a valuable role in marketing, sales, branding and more. That’s why it’s vital for your company to keep up with new social media channels and constantly evolving practices. Knowing who your target audience is and what the best times to post are key components toward an effective social media strategy.
Start by conducting industry research and checking out your competition’s social channels. You may be overwhelmed by the number of posts out there and find yourself confused about when you should deploy your own content. That’s why, after analyzing million social media posts by brands, marketing analytics software providers has drawn conclusion of  its Best Times to Post on Social Media.

The best times to post vary by industry, channel and target audience. On five of the major social media networks -- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest -- user interaction peaks at certain times. The report reveals that Thursday at 5 p.m. (all times Eastern) is an ideal time to send out a tweet, while Thursday at 8 p.m. provides the greatest chance of a customer clicking, liking, sharing or commenting on a Facebook post.
Fridays evenings are an ideal time to reach Instagrammers, and Pinterest’s peak hour is 1 a.m. on Friday. Unsurprisingly, Wednesday morning is an effective time for a LinkedIn post -- you’re most likely to get in touch with business professionals before they start the work day.
The report also examines post times specific to 75 industries. From airlines/aviation to fashion to law, optimal post times differ according to when target customers and followers tend to check their social accounts. In the aviation/airline industry, the best time to post on Twitter is 1 p.m. on Friday -- probably because people are preparing for trips or commuting. For the architecture industry, the best time to send a tweet is on Saturday morning when people have time away from work to think about home projects or renovations.

When and what to post on your brand’s social media channels is different for every business. Often, what you post on Facebook will not be suitable for Pinterest. Or even if it is, the best post times for each will likely differ. Being in tune with your audience and understanding which types of content work for which channels will help you devise a strong social media strategy.
Check out the graphic below to find out what times your company should be posting online, or click here to download TrackMaven's Cheat Sheet for 75 Industries.

Content Is King The Same Old Fact

Writing shallow, generic content is easy, requires minimal research and demands little prior knowledge of the subject -- all of which are selling points for content writers. However, clients are looking to stand out from their competitors and demonstrate to their audience why they are the right choice; readers are looking to be informed or entertained with something new; and Google ranks unique content high in search results. Content that just scratches the surface fails to please all three.
The problem is that there is a huge amount of content already on the web, making it difficult for writers to create something completely original. However, by taking a different approach to content creation, you can intrigue your readers and provide value to your audience. Here are a few ideas how to avoid being generic and go deeper into your subject matter.

1. Write from a different angle

You can turn even what may at first seem like an uninteresting subject matter into an exciting piece of content when you consider how you feel about the issue.
Most Creative People recommends sticking to topics in which you already have some interest; however, we understand that this is not always possible. In the case you do have to write on a subject you find boring for a B2B company, never allow your audience to feel your despair. Liven up the content by finding aspects that make the subject compelling, taking an angle you've never tried before. You may not be an expert on the subject matter, but this has no bearing. In fact, limited knowledge can often be beneficial, as you are even more likely to have some fresh ideas that your client's readers had never considered.

2. Infuse pieces with your personality

Nothing makes for more shallow content than facts presented in a bland, dry tone. Your content may be completely free from grammatical or comprehensive errors, but this does not necessarily mean it is well-written.
Enhance your content by allowing your personality to shine through. Pay attention to your choice of vocabulary, style and structure to ensure your writing reflects who you are, while still taking an appropriate tone and voice to meet your clients’ requirements.

3. Experiment with various formats

Mix things up by trying out a variety of formats for your content. For instance, if search results on your subject are turning up many pieces in data analysis form, try a Q&A, opinion piece or how-to instead. Simply by presenting the information differently can be inspiring and may lead you to coming up with a range of new ideas or penetrating the subject in greater depth.
Whether you are tackling a completely new issue or returning to a topic that you have covered many times before, it is always possible to put a new spin on the subject. Keep your clients happy, encourage their readers to come back for more, and improve search engine rankings all by creating something fresh and thoughtful.

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Why Linkedin ????

Today, that means using LinkedIn (and sometimes Facebook and Google) to try to get to someone. And going in warm is almost always better than going in cold.

How to Linkedin your way to success.

If used correctly, LinkedIn is a powerful tool that can lead to plenty of great contacts and successful sales and deals. You can literally get deals done on LinkedIn -- if you just know how to navigate it.Here's how you do it.

Your Profile: Make sure you have a professional looking Linkedin profile. It goes a long way to someone wanting to do business with you. That includes a profile picture, summary, job history and your education. Plus, if you can get some good recommendations from colleagues, that's a big help. Make it look good so people want to do business with you.

Getting to someone: If you want to get to a specific person, type his or her name into LinkedIn. When you get to their profile, see if you have any "common connections."
If you find a common connection, congratulations. Now you have two options.

1. Ask your common connection to make an introduction for you. If they're willing to do so, that's great. But remember, you're now on their timetable. And besides, they may not know each other very well... they may just be "LinkedIn friends."
2. Your other option is to simply reach out to the person you're trying to get to. Of course they may not respond, but...and it's a big but, when they see that you have a common connection or two, they'll assume that you're someone worth being connected to. In other words, that common connection is essentially vouching for you without even knowing it.

If you don't know anyone in common, that's ok. Now you just have to dig a little deeper. Go through their profile and maybe you have something in common with them, whether it's their college, a previous job or an interest.

Company search: If they work or used to work for a decent sized company, you can search that company on LinkedIn. You'll get a list of everyone on LinkedIn at that company -- as well as what level of connection you are to each of them.
You can even connect with random people at a company, so that when you try to connect to the person you really want to get to, it appears to them that you already know people at the company, so they are more likely to accept your request.
The Pro version of LinkedIn, while not cheap, is worth the investment if you're serious about connecting with people and building your network. You can even test it free for one month. You can use that month to expand you base of contacts and see if it's a worthwhile investment for you.
Another benefit of the Pro version is that you can see when someone looks at your profile. Not everyone you reach out to will look at your profile, but it's nice to know when someone does. At least you know you've got their attention.


For some reason, the mobile app lets you send connection requests with fewer steps and to more people than using the website. Strange as that may seem, it does appear to be the case.
To start you off in the right direction, send me a connection request on LinkedIn -- that way, you'll be one step closer to my 1,365 contacts and your own LinkedIn success story.

Why Mobile Important Now ???

 A little more than a year later, over half of all worldwide searches happen on mobile devices. It’s a big deal in marketing.If your site isn't mobile-friendly, you’re waving goodbye to more than half of your potential. Google wants to help with useful links and tools as well as guides designed specifically for content management systems (CMS). It’s good for you, and it’s good for Google.

A mobile world.

It’s hard to remember the world before smartphones. They’ve changed everything. According to Morgan Stanley, 91 percent of Americans keep their phones within reach 24/7.
We use them all the time for what’s been dubbed “micro-moments,” those countless instances when we turn to our phones for information, directions, to do something, to buy something, to compare, to evaluate, to learn and more.
Consider this: Search queries using “near me,” “close” or “nearby” have increased 34 times since 2011. Among smartphone users, 82 percent use a search engine when looking for local businesses. It must be a magic number: 82 percent of smartphone owners also consult their devices while shopping in a store. With apologies to Stanley Kramer, it’s a mobile, mobile, mobile, mobile world.
Related: 15 Tips for Designing a Mobile-Friendly E-Commerce Site
Talking about “mobile SEO" vs.“regular SEO" is a bit of a misnomer. It’s just SEO. They’re all cogs in the same machine.
That said, if the thought of launching a “mobile SEO" campaign gives you nightmares, it's worth walking through the basics. Take these steps to avoid being penalized by search engines (you need their love) and begin targeting mobile users.

Mobile-friendly is a must.

Mobile-friendly simply means a site looks good and behaves properly on a mobile device. A mobile-friendly site can be designed in a number ways:

• Responsive. The site morphs depending on the size of the screen.
• Parallel-mobile. A second, independent site created for mobile users.
• Dynamic-serving. The server detects and loads an appropriate page depending on the user agent.  

Each type of site has its pros and cons, but a responsive site is the easiest and most cost-effective to implement. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also Google’s official recommendation. You can accomplish this using a responsive theme, for which you’ll find free options and paid options, or a responsive plug-in.
Your first step is to determine whether your website is, in fact, mobile-friendly.
The mobile-friendly test from Google is straightforward. Enter your URL. Google's tool will tell if you're you're mobile-friendly and what you can do to improve your results if you don't pass muster.

Page speed matters.

We know mobile friendliness is a ranking signal. So is site speed. Mobile users expect service on demand: 40 percent of surfers will abandon a site that takes longer than three seconds to load.
Check your site’s speed using PageSpeed Insights. The guide presents both mobile and desktop results, letting you know which features are issue-free and helpfully suggesting which elements need serious attention. GTmetrix is another handy resource.
Next, turn to the Google Search Console for tons of useful tools and advice. To tackle speed concerns, you’ll need to look into your Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) data. AMP is a stripped-down, faster HTML designed for mobile users. You can use Google AMP tools to see all pages that implement AMP, identify which of them contain errors and learn what you can do to fix those mistakes.
Pages built using AMP load anywhere from 15 to 85 percent faster, but that’s only the start of the story. You can learn more at AMP Project (including tutorials for getting started). Just be aware it’s not for everyone or every site. It’s best for news-type sites such as blogs, and that’s in part because AMP doesn’t support opt-in forms. Adding AMP to Wordpress is reasonably uncomplicated, and sites using it will rank higher in mobile search-engine results pages (SERPs).
Finally, explore Mobile Usability on the Google Search Console. It reports any existing errors, which might include flash usage, a font that’s too small or a viewport that isn’t configured. Any errors will affect your mobile SEO, so eliminate them wherever you can.

Use Google My Business.

One stop. Done. Want to be found when people search online? Google My Business gets your address, contact details and hours on both Google Search and Google Maps. You can edit it all from one convenient platform. Add photos, respond to reviews and shape how your business appears online.
It’s easy. And crucial. Do it.

Claim your business.

Claim your business and check the details on local directories such as Yelp, Bing Places, Yellow Pages, CityGrid and Foursquare.
These services are increasingly popular, and people use them to find local products and services. Bonus: They’re ranked favorably by the search engines. Follow the guidelines, and make sure everything is up-to-date.
Google Maps may lead the way in mobile location-finding, but Apple Maps still is at the party. Don’t ignore it. Publish accurate information so people can find and contact you when they’re on the go.

Track mobile stats on Google Analytics.

Log in to Google Analytics and conduct some research on your mobile site visitors. Filter those results by day, time and device to discover exactly when your mobile customers are most active. Publish mobile-friendly content (more on that below) at those times to maximize your effect and reach.

Create mobile-friendly content.

Not all content is mobile-friendly, even when it’s on a mobile-friendly site. Focus on these tactics:

• Bullet points, which are easy to scan
• Short and concise text
• Easily shared articles and links
• Compressed images and videos that do not auto-play, so you benefit from faster load times and less data consumption
• Meta-title and meta descriptions that are short and to the point -- perfect for mobile displays

Time of day is a factor here, too. Publish shorter content during morning and afternoon commutes and longer pieces during typical lunch breaks for your target market. Save your longest content for when people are likely to be at home. And remember, mobile users often look for informational content.

Use local keywords.

When conducting keyword research, be sure include local vocabulary that might be unique to your area. Think about terms and slang that don’t appear anywhere else: nicknames for neighborhoods or the city itself, colorful and relevant expressions, regional specialties or whatever.
When people search for you online, what language and words might they actually use? Target them.

Optimize for voice search.

People are talking to Siri or Google Now more than ever on their smartphones. In fact, 20 percent of Google searches on Android are now done via voice search. That amounts to hundreds of millions of inquiries, with 55 percent of teens and 41 percent of adults using voice search at least once per day.
Voice search is the better option when walking (or driving -- which you shouldn’t do). But it does have its own set of criteria. Voice-search queries tend to be more conversational. We pose a question or ask our phones to perform a task in the same way we would talk to another human being.
Craft your content to match those specific, real-life questions and optimize for the three biggest voice platforms.

Remember the takeaway.

There’s a lot more you could do, but this is a great jumping-off point. It is the beginner’s guide, after all.
If you take away only two things, these are it: Make sure you’re mobile friendly, and remember that page speed matters.Mobile optimization will get only more important. Don’t be left behind.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

So you’re thinking about adding Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to your website? Stop thinking and start doing! Of course, it is all about how you implement AMP, but we'll get into that.
If you’re unfamiliar with AMP, it’s an open-source technology that enables pages on your site to load quickly for users on a mobile device. This happens with the help of a JavaScript library and some additional HTML markup.
Here are five reasons why you should add AMP technology to your website:

1. AMP is essential for good mobile SEO.

By now, you already know that if you want your site to rank well, you need to make sure that it’s mobile-friendly. That’s also why you need AMP. Think of it as the latest iteration of mobile-friendly design.
With AMP, your pages and blog posts will load quickly on mobile devices. That will not only give your users a better experience, but it will also give Google a good reason to rank your site well in the mobile search engine results pages (SERPs).
But it’s not just about organic ranking with AMP. Your site could be featured at the very top of the SERPs. How? With Google’s carousel that displays AMP pages -- and only AMP pages -- at the very top of the results list.
If you take your mobile device right now and Google a keyword related to current events, you’ll see that the results include a carousel of AMP pages at the very top of the SERPs. That’s where your page could be, but only if you adopt AMP.

2. AMP is so fast, it will reduce your bounce rate.

Don’t you hate a high bounce rate? When people visit your site, hang around for a few seconds, and then go somewhere else, you’re obviously not doing something right to inspire them to hang around for a while.
One reason people bounce -- the site is just too darned slow. That’s why AMP is so valuable. It will load your pages in a flash so that users will have one less reason to run away.

3. AMP could help you monetize your site.

Do you know why some sites are agonizingly slow? It’s because they’re loaded up with ad technology. It’s ironic, really. Websites increase ads to generate more revenue, but in the process the increased load times caused by the new ads also cause people to leave the site. That means, in all likelihood, less revenue in the long run.
Of course, some users who really like ad-overloaded websites will install ad blockers just so that the sites load faster. That’s also a problem for publishers because their ads won’t be seen, and they’ll lose revenue.
Enter AMP. It was designed with ad monetization in mind.
Here’s what the folks who started the AMP project have to say about their technology as it relates to advertising. “A goal of the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project is to ensure effective ad monetization on the mobile web while embracing a user-centric approach. With that context, the objective is to provide support for a comprehensive range of ad formats, ad networks and technologies in Accelerated Mobile Pages.”
The idea is that mobile pages -- even ones with an abundance of ads -- will load quickly with AMP. As a result, mobile users won’t see any reason to install ad blockers. AMP is great news for advertisers and publishers alike.

4. AMP offers analytics.

By now, everybody in the online marketing universe knows about the importance of analytics. Those are key metrics that offer insight about the effectiveness of specific marketing campaigns. AMP offers analytics as well.
Using AMP, you can track important information about visitor counts, new versus returning users, clicks, conversions, video engagement, link tracking and more.
Even better -- AMP analytics offer built-in support for almost every marketer’s favorite analytics tool, Google Analytics. Specifically, you can easily track three request values with AMP -- page views, events and social interactions.
If you’re really a hardcore GA aficionado, you can even use AMP to send custom dimension parameters to Google Analytics. That way, you can track very specific data points.

5. Google loves AMP so you should too. 

If you want to maximize the visibility of your website, then you need to play nice with Google. And Google absolutely loves AMP.
Just within the past few weeks, Google has made it easier to split-test AMP pages, announced that it will display AMP errors to site owners in search results and announced that AMP pages will be added to Google’s organic search results.
And that’s not all. If your site doesn’t support AMP, you might log in to the Search Console and see the following message -- “Google has detected that your site has many pages that may benefit from being served as AMP pages. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are HTML pages that are optimized to load fast on mobile devices. Learn more about AMP benefits in the resources below. Valid AMP pages on your site will be eligible to be shown in search results and receive special badging in search results.”
In other words, Google really wants you to use AMP. Why not get started today?

It's pretty clear that AMP is here to stay. They are even making AMP possible for e-commerce websites now.

How does SME sector helps Improve Business ??

The SME sector is the backbone of India’s growth contributing to 45% of manufacturing output, 40% of total exports and targeted to contribute to 20% of India’s GDP by 2020. Backed by the government via the Digital India initiative, this sector is likely to embrace technology in a big way to promote growth. Irrespective of segment, there are numerous research reports that provide statistics on the link between technology adoption and the SME sector growth with some stating that SME’s who were early adopters of technology could increase their annual revenue 15% faster than their competitors.
This article explores the five leading ways in which technology will encourage growth in the SME sector:

1. Creating a digital business: SME success depends upon creating early differentiators. Thinking through and executing a digital business model could mean getting that ticket to differentiation. This requires a fundamental shift in strategy in favor of leveraging digital, to either bring out a new offering or take the existing offering to market in newer ways.  This means being able to explore technologies such as IoT for say creating a new business offerings, leveraging robotics for say faster plant output, analytics for a deeper understanding into the internal and external business environment to leveraging social for customer outreach or cloud for flexibility and lower capex. The option are numerous. It only requires very strong business understanding to be able to analyze the existing business models, analyze what the ecosystem looks like, have a very strong understanding of the customer and their unstated expectations to then be able to devise an appropriate strategy to create the digital business model.
2. Hiring the right talent: Senior management of SME’s need to change the lens with which they view enterprise talent. Digital talent is not only about technical skills, but goes much beyond permeating business processes, to deal with the new requirements brought about by changing customer expectations. As a famous quote goes “Even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15% of one’s financial success is due one’s technical knowledge and about 85% is due to skill in human engineering, to personality and the ability to lead people.”  Transforming business by leveraging digital is a huge opportunity provided that the SME equips itself with the right talent that is able to accelerate the pace of growth.
3. Information Management to increase productivity: With fully automated business processes, the SME creates a paperless office, where the right information to execute a business process seamlessly is available to the right user when they need it. No longer do they need to clamor for information – everything that they need to deliver process cycle time is available to them on their fingertips including complete automation of workflows and integration to the ERP or back end applications. What this really leads to is significant increase in productivity and doing more with less.
4. Understanding the customer / customer outreach: What used to be a last channel of resort for customers is now turning out to be the natural and most immediate touch point for progressive brands.  According to some studies, companies with social care experience see a 5.6% increase in the first contact resolutions, 6.5% increase in agent productivity and 17.5% increase in SLA attainment. Social is being leveraged by SME’s like never before to gain a good understanding of the customer. With social and sentiment analysis, SME’s in the B2C space are not only able to better understand customer’s perception of a brand and their expectations, but also leverage it for generating leads, managing engagement with prospects to delivering customer service in newer ways.
5. Lower capex with cloud: Rather than owning assets, SME’s can leverage cloud to be operators of those assets owned by an external provider. This enables quick readiness and faster ‘reach to their enterprise goals’, thereby making it a significant driver for SME growth.

The SME segment plays a very crucial role in the socio-economic growth story of the country, and technology is likely to become a sine qua non for driving business growth. Taking a lead early on in this respect will make a big difference between the also-rans to those who are really going to drive a new wave of growth enabled by technology.

Growth Strategies Hiring Technology Small BizTips Small Businesses

Buying Needs Social proofs

These days consumers are influenced by other people more than they realize it is also that  social norms influence consumption behavior and even private interests, including one’s taste in music. This is what makes the concept of social proof a powerful one.

What is social proof?

In Science social proof is described as a psychological phenomenon in which people follow the actions of others in an effort to reflect what is considered correct behavior for any given situation -- including online experiences. Simply put, social proof influences people's decisions on how they should behave.
We've traditionally turned to a variety of useful sources as social proof. These include credible experts, thought leaders, celebrities, friends and the wisdom of the crowd. But today's diners rarely go to a restaurant without first visiting Yelp, and shoppers seldom make a meaningful purchase without first reading what verified buyers have to say. Online reviews have significant effects on purchasing behaviors. Predictably, they've emerged as one of the most potent forms of social proof.

When customers read reviews on various sites such as Google, Amazon or TripAdvisor, they depend on star ratings to determine the quality of a product or service. They read others' comments and ask increasingly specific questions.

• “Will this bank location help solve my problem the way it solved others’ problems?”
• “Is the food as good as advertised? What do previous diners really think?”
• “How long will I have to wait before I see the doctor? How long did others have to wait?”
• “Based on others’ experiences, what potential issues or problems might I have to face when I decide to buy this product?”

Do reviews really guide purchase decisions?

According to a survey nearly eighty percent of consumers in the United States read reviews before making a purchase decision. The report reinforces findings in a previous study that found that 87 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust friends and family. On the other end of the spectrum, four out of five consumers reverse their purchase decisions based on negative reviews.

People take positive reviews and high ratings as social proof a product or service is worth the purchase. They reason, “This has great reviews, so I’m buying it.”

How do reviews shape perception and future feedback?

According to a study published in Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, the average rating for a hotel with 11 to 20 reviews is 3.5 out of 5 stars, with “terrible” reviews (a rating of 1 star) at close to 12 percent. Interesting, as a hotel sees 101 reviews or more, its average star rating increases to 3.9. The feedback pattern, therefore, favors quantity. The more your business is reviewed, the likelier you are to receive higher ratings.
Apart from providing social proof for customers looking to make a purchase decision, reviews also provide social proof in other ways. These online testimonials shape how people perceive brands. And reviews also influence what people think they should say, when it's time to add their own voice to the conversation.
A customer’s opinion about a Yelp-listed restaurant with 100 reviews and an average rating of 4.5 stars is less likely to go against the grain and offer a counterpoint to all the positive feedback. The consumer thinks, “This has great reviews, so I’m going to say the same about it.”

How should you manage and respond to reviews?

To stay competitive, you must be able to effectively manage your online reputation. Track and monitor your reviews. Know when and where your customers are talking about your brand. Respond to customer feedback, both positive and negative. Dive deeper into the comments to look for useful insights and information that will help you improve the customer experience.
Related: Why Big Businesses Must Proactively Manage Their Online Reputations
Here are a few tips on responding to negative reviews:

• If you or your staff made a mistake, apologize. Even if you didn’t make a mistake, apologize and thank the reviewer for taking time to tell you what he or she thinks. Social proof is most potent when you’re able to turn unhappy customers into loyal fans. If someone wrote a harshly unfair comment and gave your business a low rating, keep your head up, say sorry, and tell them you hope they’ll come back so you can offer a better experience.
• Address all parts of the review. For example, if the reviewer writes the bank teller was rude or your bank’s app is buggy, acknowledge the issues and address them individually in your response.
• Ask the customer to reach out to you directly. Explore whether there’s anything you can do to make up for the customer's bad experience. There's a caveat, though: Never offer bribes or incentives for customers to change their review's sentiment.

Of course, harnessing the potential of reviews as social proof isn’t only about righting wrongs or recovering critics and detractors. It’s also about activating happy customers and promoters. Keeping that in mind, here are some equally important tips on maximizing the social proof inherent in positive reviews:

• Say thank you. If a customer took the time to present social proof for other prospective customers to see, expressing your gratitude is the very least you can do.
• Reinforce what customers love most about their experiences. In your response, explain that the delicious cupcakes actually are homemade. Let them in on how you grow your own arugula, or tell them others also have commented on the amazing views from your resort's cliffside swimming pool.
• Respond in a reasonable amount of time. Seven days or less is an ideal time frame to start.

Customers who are active online can influence others’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. While there's no way to control what people say about your business online or offline, you do have the power to change the conversation. Managing customer feedback and leveraging the right kind of social proof ensures you account for the positive opinions shared by your happiest customers. 

Not Yet Samsung Re- Launched Note 7

Samsung has said it will delay restarting the sale of its Galaxy Note 7 phone in South Korea, as the firm needs more time for the global recall of the device.

The South Korean tech giant was forced to recall some 2.5 million devices globally due to overheating batteries.
Dozens of devices were reported to have caught fire.
The phone was to be back on the shelf on 28 September but is now expected to be available 1 October at the earliest.
On 2 September Samsung had said it would stop selling the phones and offered to replace the ones already sold. The firm also urged people to stop using the device.
The global recall affects 10 markets. In South Korea, some 200,000 customers have already returned their devices with the same number of people still left for the recall, according to Samsung.
Reuters reported that the next markets where the phone will be available for sale again will be Australia and Singapore in October.

What makes lithium batteries catch fire?
On Friday, cabin crew on an Indian passenger aircraft used a fire extinguisher to tackle a smoking older Samsung handset.
The Galaxy Note 2 - a model launched in 2012 - was smouldering and spitting sparks, according to a statement from airline IndiGo.

Image copyright Ariel Gonzalez

Image caption The recall came after reports of 'exploding' phones

In the US, regulators have ordered a formal recall of the Note 7, while the country's Federal Aviation Administration has told airline passengers not to bring the phones on planes unless they keep them turned off and don't charge them during the flight.
A number of airlines around the globe have also banned the phone from being used or charged on their planes.
The phone was originally launched on 19 August and had been generally well-received by critics and consumers.
The recall comes at a crucial time for Samsung as rival Apple has just released its new iPhone 7.

Why Email marketing ???

It is fact that Email marketing allows you to reach a highly targeted audience at a low cost. In fact, experts at Campaign Monitor, an email marketing company, estimate that an effective email marketing message has the potential to result in $38 in revenue, for just $1 of marketing investment.Here are some email marketing conversion tips all small businesses can use:

1. Include descriptive tags with your images. 

Online publication giants revealed that the average person receives more than 400 commercial emails a month. Emails that include images can help your small business stand out in an already-crowded inbox, especially if you choose those that evoke an emotional response to a product, a promotional campaign concept or your brand. 

However, email marketing now comes with a “catch 22,” given that at least half of all email messages are checked on a mobile device, according to experts at Litmus, an email analytics company. While mobile devices may positively boost response to time-sensitive messages, small screens aren’t always conducive to images. If a recipient opens your email only to see that images have been blocked, you could be banished to his or her spam box indefinitely. The more often that happens, the harder it is to form a reputation as a sender whose emails are recognized as legitimate: According to the experts at Sender Score, 28 percent of the email messages that are sent reach a user’s inbox.

2. Don’t send messages that aren’t targeted. 

While you may not have robust data on prospects, you can learn a little more about what they respond to with each message you send. Diligently track open and click-through rates with each campaign, including the optimal times to send messages based on response and headline tests. Place email recipients in segments based on your findings to build an effective drip campaign that is personalized and relevant based on their activity.  Internet Retailer reports that retailer totes Isotoner improved its email marketing campaign revenue by a whopping 7,000 percent when it used analytics based on past email activity, site search history and past purchases to deliver highly targeted email messages.

3. Don’t ask for too much. 

Segment your email marketing campaigns so that each recipient is served the most relevant offer based on his or her preferences, and that he or she is presented with one clear message, call to action and a seamless checkout experience -- whether on a desktop or mobile device. Prefill special offers the email message may include so customers aren’t required to key special discount codes that are part of your email offer at checkout. Partner with a reputable mobile payment provider for a secure and branded checkout experience to eliminate concerns with payment security, or require the customer to take additional steps to complete the transaction. For example, Mobile Commerce Daily reports that despite the popularity of PayPal by retailers in online sales, evidence suggests that it kills conversion by nearly 15 percent (particularly when consumers are shopping on a mobile device), because it requires additional steps to make a purchase.

4. Use emails to form a lasting relationship. 

Email campaigns should build upon one another, and acknowledge what you know about the customer, based on his or her past activity. In fact, marketing firm Epsilon cites data indicating that “triggered” emails targeted based on a recipient’s engagement with past messages have open rates that are 76 percent higher than those with generic messaging. If you cannot convince your customers to click on your message, you can’t convert them, regardless of your pricing or product quality.

Conclusion 

Email marketing is an affordable way to communicate with prospects and customers, gain valuable insights about their preferences and increase sales. However, it requires strategy to convert message recipients into buyers. Follow these steps to improve the ROI you realize from every email you send.

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Make Your Digital Marketing to the Customer Experience

As much as two decades ago, the way consumers seek for buying brands depended on how much the brands were able to thrust their products into the consumers’ vicinity and at the same time, appeal to their taste. For instance, a commercial soap ad in between a TV series or a radio program, would be enough to sway consumers’ preferences of buying a soap product. In fact, that gave rise to the term ‘soap operas.’ Procter and Gamble (P&G) would produce radio and TV shows so that they could advertise their products during the breaks.
Fast forward to 2016, and you will see that brands have drastically changed the way they communicate with consumers. In the Internet era, brands push their products to their consumers in the form of recommendations. That is why Amazon and other ecommerce sites are able to execute targeted ads in the form of suggestions and recommendations.

Today’s technologically-savvy consumers are more informed and knowledgeable, and are moving out of the traditional route of researching and making purchasing decisions about products. They research well before buying a product or a service. This post that highlights ‘from search to store’ by Matt Lawson does great justice about how brands must ‘deliver on expectations in moments that matter’. Then the pertinent question to digital marketers is:

• What is our customer's’ decision making journey?
• Why and how should we align our digital marketing strategies that will fall in place with the customer’s decision?

Let’s give a quick look at what our customer’s decision making journey looks like: Recognition → Familiarization → Consideration → Purchase
The idea is to avoid premature optimization in marketing. We don’t solve a non-existent problem, when it comes to engineering. But we identify a problem and build a solution around it. Similarly we must focus on the right things at the right stage when it comes to digital marketing.

Recognition.

If you think about building a business, your website would be a natural location to showcase everything about your business and product. And one way to build maximum awareness and recognition is by generating traffic to your website. So, your first objective would be to get, say, 100 visitors a day, and then, 1,000 visitors a week.
37Signals wrote an interesting post on how they built the buzz with their side projects. “It takes a lot to differentiate your brand in today’s “me too” world of electronic business solutions”, it says. And it is very important to engage in such projects that will ensure that traffic is headed your way -- consistently. How:

• Hang out where your audience hangs out and sign out with your website details -- answer relevant questions on Reddit, HackerNews, Quora etc., so that the audience learns of your expertise in the space.
• Use Call to Actions at different places on the site so that the visitors are engaged and are compelled to explore the website, rather than opt for an early exit.
• Invest in SEO efforts to drive organic search traffic to your website.
• Paid Search is one of the most effective ways of driving traffic to your website, but businesses must be able to justify the expenses while measuring the outcome. (Here’s a hack - you could experiment with a paid search channel like Google Adwords even before you build your product, if you have the budget. This works well as a research tool, to see if the product you are building has demand and will sell).

Familiarization.

Right, now that you have a 1.000 potential leads visiting your site, how do you familiarize them with your product? How do you ensure that they know what they have signed up for? Customers rely on their common sense of familiarity of choosing a familiar and known brand. How do you feature there? Simple - meaningful and engaging content.

Content Marketing found its origins in 1891. More than a century ago, August Oetker, the German inventor of baking powder - Backin, sold packages to households. What made Backin a familiar brand was the little recipes printed on the back of these packages. In 1911, he published his cookbook and over 100 years, it reached a global audience with about 19 million copies. That was the first example of content marketing.
It’s 2016, and that’s still pretty much how we could do it too along with the added advantage of using social media. With the right message and relevant content, across mediums, marketers should focus their attention on their target market.

Consideration.

The top of the mind problem for a brief time is signup conversion. So you move to the next stage, which is user engagement. Now, here’s the thing about brand consideration. In today’s digital world, consumers speak with brands as much as brands speak with consumers. In this two way communication, you would need to empower customers to explore your product, to play around the sandbox test site, to ask questions. How:

• Two way engagement with customers
• Test and prioritize objectives. Optimize CTAs. Here are some great posts on optimizing CTAs by HubSpot and CrazyEgg.
• Treat pricing as a filter. Change pricing to attract the right audience that you need.

Buying.

Now you are happy with user engagement, why aren't they converting into paying customers sooner? How:        

• Continue making tweaks -- tweak application onboarding process.
• Setup demo calls with prospects to understand their business requirements and make  suggestions on how your product can cater to them.
• Fix application onboarding with drip emails, simplifying documentation, product and measure time it takes for customers to go-live.

While you are at it, rinse and repeat what is already working for your business to bring in more traffic. With hundreds of such iterations you now have a pipe instead of a straw to convert visitors into customers. A positive user experience through all these bottlenecks will ensure that your customers who have now bought your product will spread positive word about not just your business, but your attention to detail to improve customer experience.

Truths About the Internet Marketing World

Wherever you look, you're inundated with advertising for varied merchandise and services from web marketers. you cannot scroll through Facebook while not seeing a poster for a few webinar that guarantees the key system to create six or seven figures with their signature providing. you would like to grow your business and make freedom therefore these offers square measure tempting.

 The scariest a part of the net selling world these days is all the cash that's being spent on coaches, courses and digital data merchandise that solely deliver promotion. it is a nice chance for on-line entrepreneurs to grow revenue however there square measure over a number of dangerous apples (as in any trade) that square measure symptom the name of the industry normally. Here square measure 5 arduous realities of the net selling world these days.

1. The sales copy is better, leading you to buy things you don't need.

Over the years, marketers have gotten better at finding your emotional triggers and creating copy that plays on those triggers. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm definitely not saying all marketers are shady or that writing to emotional triggers is always wrong. What I am saying is that the copy is designed to make you feel a certain way and take certain actions that will eventually lead to a sale.
When making a business decision, you have to keep your emotions out of the equation as much as possible. Look past the copy, and evaluate what the practical takeaways would be and how they would benefit where you are in your business right now. Look at the offer; study the testimonials; and examine the person, who is teaching, to make sure they know what they're talking about.

2. The premium content doesn't go deep enough.

Too much of the premium Internet marketing offerings are designed for one thing: to upsell you on the more advanced offering. You buy one thing, and you are constantly being upsold on something else. The content gives you advice, such as create good content, but it doesn't tell you what good content is, how to create it or the most effective ways to market the good content. To get those next steps, you have to join the exclusive next step.

If you are thinking about investing in information training, make sure the training goes as deep as you need it to. Don't be afraid to ask questions or talk to others who have taken the training. Make sure you are going to get the type of information and strategies you can use for implementation and growth.

3. You don't get the personal support you need to actually make progress.

One of the biggest downfalls of online based training is that you can't get your questions answered. There are a lot of courses that are simply a talking head video, and that's it.

When you start implementing and have questions, you don't have the option to get them answered. And, if there is a private group for the program, the marketer isn't usually too active in the group. Don't invest in training where you can't get your questions answered. And, you will have questions.

4. You are pushed to spend beyond what makes you comfortable.

A common upsell tactic in Internet marketing is when you are convinced that you don't care about your growth and personal development if you aren't willing to spend crazy amounts of money.

It's just not true. You can care about your personal development without going broke by buying a certain course, product or investing with a certain coach that you can't afford or whose training is way too advanced for you.

Yes, you want to push yourself out of your comfort zone, but only where it makes practical sense. You don't want to spend the rent money in the name of personal development and growth.

5. You already have the resources you need to grow on your own.

There is a wealth of free information through videos, podcasts and blogs that have the information and strategies that can help you grow. The reality is that we, as humans, consume too much information. You probably have more knowledge about a topic than you realize. Use what is avaiable for free. When you hit a wall, think about what investment makes sense to get you to the next level.
Before you spend money on a coach or a course, make sure you have thoroughly done your research. Make sure you are in a position to benefit from the training. There are many great investments that will be good for your business, but only after you reach a certain level. Don't be fooled by sales copy that makes it seem like you need to spend money right now. Know yourself, and know your business.

Guest Posting

It is great idea to connect with most of the prominent people in your own industry.So  when we consider it important then we would start thinging about the guest posting.Pay attention to the title, Steve. I said publishing, not posting.

Guest posting typically starts and ends with the aim of link building. It takes no time to degenerate into “wildly getting your content posted anywhere you can manage for a backlink” strategy.
What good is that?
When you say guest publishing, you are aiming to get your content (and by extension – your name and domain) plastered on some of the top ranking and highly revered online publications for your industry vertical. If you are a web developer, aim for Smashing Magazine. If you are an inbound marketer, shoot for Inbound.org, Unbounce, KissMetrics, and so on.

Getting featured on a well-known, niche-relevant blog/publication will place you as an industry insider/subject-matter expert in your target audience’s mind.
This gives a massive boost to your online reputation. This is the kind of content you can talk about at dinner parties (with other similarly-inclined guests, obviously).
A strategic link placed on your website to this post (once it’s published) will get you SEO points (link juice), and of course, a nice portion of audience as referral traffic.

Must Have SEO Optimizations You Can't Afford to Ignore

The technique of  Search Engine Optimization strategies have shifted dramatically throughout the years. Most marketers understand the need for allocating some of their budget towards new SEO tactics. Nonetheless, you need to invest in SEO because it gives you more targeted advertising, it is not as expensive as you think, and hey — your customers expect to find you when they search. With that in mind, here are nine SEO optimizations that you can not afford to ignore.

1. Anticipate the Intention

Contemporary SEO practices show that you no longer need an exact keyword match to provide a relevant search result. These days, search engines want to see how people are interacting with your website. Are they coming back for more? Is your site providing them with the right answers? In the past, SEO was focused on getting clicks. Today, it is revolved around post-click activity. Furthermore, you need to satisfy your searcher’s intent as well.

2. Deep Links Via Apps Are Growing in Importance

Mirroring a demographic shift toward mobile users accessing the Internet, Google has been indexing apps for several years. Google believes, as do many others, that apps will overtake traditional websites with regards to functionality and popularity. This is why deep links to apps are a growing trend.
They are essentially links within apps that point toward specific pages. Accordingly, you’ll start to hear the term “app optimization” more often. So, if you don’t have an app you should consider getting one ASAP. If you still want to wait it out, then at least get your business listed on as many other apps as you can.

3. Mobile Optimization Will Overcome Desktop Optimization

We’re all used to using the desktop for search. However, 2016 was the year that mobile searches finally outstripped desktop searches. This shift will not likely stop. Some analysts believe that the desktop will fade into obscurity within five years. In fact, Google even announced that a desktop-specific site is no longer necessary.

4. Page Speed Is Critical

One major ranking factor with website pages is speed. With mobile outpacing the desktop, who has time to wait for a page to load? Think of it this way: all else being equal, the site that loads faster will always outrank the slower page. Not to mention, a slow-loading page will waste your site’s crawl budget. Why? Because Google bots won’t stay on your page for longer than a specified time frame.
The slower your pages load means the fewer chances you have for them to get indexed by Google. Yet, there’s more. Page speed is essential for user experience. Instead of watching your rank drop faster than a hot potato, optimize your page load speeds today.

5. Digital Assistants Are Changing the Game

If you haven’t already noticed, an increasing number of queries are started by digital assistants such as Google Now, Siri, and Cortana. This makes search a bit more complex. To illustrate, spoken language queries are a bit different from typed queries. This means a new form of long-tail keyword queries that emulates spoken dialogue is coming into play. As a result, pages may rank higher if they have conversational content.

6. Google Values Content Marketing

If you want to provide value to your visitors, you need to invest in content marketing. Of course, you have to provide the solutions to the problems your followers are looking to solve. Just do a basic search for something you find interesting. Many articles on the first page are lists and how-tos. This is because they are the types of articles people want. You have to figure out exactly what your audience wants, and serve it up to them on a Google platter.

7. Social Content Will Gain More Relevance

Since Google already partners with Facebook and Twitter, you’ll find that if you search for a news item, a few tweets might appear in your mobile search results. In 2016, more networks will be more heavily indexed. This means that social posts will like carry more and more value. There will no longer be such a distinct separation of “web” and “social” media. So, by all means, post away.

8. Don’t Forget Local SEO

You just can’t forget local SEO. Since Google’s Pigeon update, local SEO has been imperative for every single business that wants to rank well. On mobile devices, 50 percent of desktop searches have local intent.

9. Optimize for Rich Answers

According to Stone Temple Consulting, Google returns “rich answers” to 35% of search queries. That’s a significant increase over the past few years. Many times rich answers are based on public data. For starters, you need high-quality, unique, proprietary content. This is because the rich answers Google uses often come with external data and a link to its source.
If your page is featured in a rich answer, you will certainly experience a spike in traffic. The good news is this can happen even if your site’s authority is not yet very high. An example of rich answers are Wikipedia snippets you find in your search queries. To get the same profile you would:
• Begin with longtail keyword research.
• Find the most commonly searched questions in your industry.
• Curate content that answers these questions. Include the question and direct answer.
• Provide additional information on the question at hand.
• Make sure your content can be found by Google bots, your social accounts and through your site’s navigation.

Conclusion 

The SEO landscape is constantly evolving. Make sure your website and your search marketing strategies evolve along with it.