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.

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.

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. 

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.

How to Make Full Use of Twitter’s 140 Characters

1. Provide more context in replies

One vast advantage of this update is that the undeniable fact that user @names can now not count against your a hundred and forty characters. Now, whenever you begin a tweet back to a different user, you continue to have space to mention everything you needed to in your tweet, while not having to think about the length of their Twitter handle.

This unveil more room to supply extra details that antecedently could have taken one or two of tweets. for instance, if you’re responding to a client service question, you'll share your reply in a hundred and forty characters, however conjointly add a GIF voice communication “Thanks for reaching out” or a screencast video to any make a case for a way to fix their support issue.

2. Utilize visuals more often

Visuals area unit a good thanks to stand out on Twitter. Studies have shown that visual and media attachments on tweets area unit a giant consider boosting engagement and retweets. One study by Twitter found that photos average a thirty fifth boost in Retweets and videos get a twenty eighth boost:
However, until now, it’s been difficult to convey the message you’d like in your tweet text and conjointly embody a media attachment in a hundred and forty characters.
When these changes area unit unrolled, Twitter users are able to utilize the total a hundred and forty characters to share their copy and still embody media, while not infringing thereon limit. For marketers, this suggests a lot of chance to incorporate beautiful visuals, videos, product demos, and a lot of at intervals our tweets. For client support groups, it conjointly provides the possibility to share further content like screenshots and screencasts to assist customers with their support tickets.

3. No more need for the .@ to begin tweets

These changes bring associate degree finish to a long-standing Twitter peculiarity wherever tweets that began with usernames were visible solely to users UN agency followed each the person tweeting and therefore the person named. This cause several users starting conversations or tweets that mention alternative users with a ‘.’ before the @name, for example:
This quirk has invariably been slightly confusing for a few of Twitter’s users, each new and recent. And Jack Dorsey hopes this modification can facilitate to create Twitter a trifle easier to grasp: “Unfortunately those rules area unit hidden, so they verify later,” Dorsey same to The Verge. “So then they need to find out this weird syntax that sort of appearance janky. thus we would like to require that away initial and foremost to get rid of a number of the confusing aspects of the service.”

4. Quote yourself to share longer thoughts

It’s become fairly common to break up a tweet into a couple of sections to fully elaborate and share thoughts. However, with Twitter’s quote option, you can share two tweets that are intertwined and easy to follow – meaning users won’t have to scroll in the timeline of visit your profile to see the first part of your tweet. This gives you 280 characters to play with.

How does it work? Simply share your first tweet, and then quote that tweet and add the rest of your message in the 140 characters available to you in the second tweet.

5. Opportunity for better conversation

Twitter, at its heart, is all about conversation and connecting with others. One of the most important factors in this update is that we now have the opportunity for better conversation on the platform. With usernames not counting against character counts, we can fully embrace the 140 characters available to us to express ourselves.
Previously, having a conversation with two or more participants could become a little difficult as usernames could take up anywhere from 5-20+ characters, leaving little room to get your thoughts across.

Conclusion 
These were some of the suggestions that might be helpful but till there v can be others as well. 

Now Longer Tweets : All You Need to Know About Twitter’s 140 Character Update

Twitter has simply created an enormous modification to the approach tweets work.

From today, Twitter is cutting short on what styles of content can use its 140-character limit.

Now, @names in replies, media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) and quoted Tweets can now not be counted against the precious a hundred and forty characters that structure a tweet. this enables for richer public conversations that ar easier to follow on Twitter and ensures individuals will attach media to tweets while not sacrificing the characters they need to precise themselves.

Twitter initial proclaimed this update back in might however didn’t quite ensure a date once these changes would reach Twitter’s 300m+ users. However, nowadays the corporate confirmed the update has been unrolled.

What’s changed? Full details on Twitter’s 140 character update

This update has been much anticipated by many Twitter users and on their blog, Twitter shared the full details of what’s changed:

• Replies: When replying to a Tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count. This will make having conversations on Twitter easier and more straightforward, no more penny-pinching your words to ensure they reach the whole group.
• Media attachments: When you add attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, that media will no longer count as characters within your Tweet. More room for words!
• Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself: We’ll be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed.
• Goodbye, .@: These changes will help simplify the rules around Tweets that start with a username. New Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. (That means you’ll no longer have to use the ”.@” convention, which people currently use to broadcast Tweets broadly.) If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, you will be able to Retweet it to signal that you intend for it to be viewed more broadly.