Social Media for Professionals

There’s no hiding from it anymore: social media has become one of the most important weapons in the marketing arsenal. It doesn’t matter if your blog is the most authoritative on a given subject, if no one is reading it. You need to spread the word!

Spending time on social media needn’t mean wasting time. There are many advantages to using these technologies, including, but not restricted to, the following:

• Put yourself / your blog forward
• Show off your skills
• Keep up to date on your area of interest/expertise
• Take part in conversations with fellow bloggers

Of course, as with all things, you get out what you put in with social media. It is very easy to be sucked into the worlds of Facebook or Twitter and emerge bleary eyed hours later, realising that you haven’t done much of value for your site. So, how to avoid falling into the black hole of time wasting? Have a plan!

Your social media attack plan should work towards the aims you have for your blog. Keeping in mind your aims will help you focus as you dive into forums or the blogoverse, as well as help you in developing different tactics to hit those aims. To this end, social media can be used for three purposes:

• Marketing
• Socialising
• Learning

Your plan should mix and match the three on the various platforms to maximise your time and effort.  For example, Twitter could be used to promote your newest article, LinkedIn can be used to find and connect with similar companies or experts, whilst forums can be a veritable storehouse of how-tos, help and advice. Bearing in mind the variety of social media sites out there and the multitude of different ways to use them, your action plan should definitely not only be focused on one site. You also need to make sure not to spread yourself thin trying to be active on ALL the sites. This is nigh on impossible and will only lead to burnout.

For your plan to work you need to have an allotted amount of time each day for your social media management strategy (and it does need to be every day, the online world evolves very quickly).  Setting aside this time, keeping in mind your aims for each of your social media sites, lets you work through your strategy quickly and efficiently, and makes for a very productive hour or two.

When used correctly and responsibly, social media has so many opportunities and advantages specially for language professionals; I met a large number of professionals offering translation services in UK that took advantage of Social Media to promote themselves

.

Most importantly, it connects you to a wider audience with opinions, knowledge and stories waiting to be shared, all of which can be useful to you and your website. Whether you use the available information to learn more about your craft or to inspire a whole series of articles, it’s all up to you.

Read More

Main Problems in Digital Marketing

Electronic commerce

Due to low prices and great assortment of goods and of course to convenience of online shopping consumer expenditures have risen to high levels. According to data for the last 12 months in the USA people spent on online buys more than 304 billion dollars. Among them 100 billion was spent on travelling and other 110 billion on retail purchases.

Companies which work only with online retail (as eBay, Amazon) were able to make real business empires due to electronic commerce. For example, Amazon has 110 millions unique visitors per month. But such triumphal march of electronic commerce means that a regular offline shop is under the threat. In other words, retailers which can’t hold their market part now will have more and more difficulties in future.

Different products categories move to online with different speed, and that makes new difficulties for retailers who work with different categories, for example, big supermarkets. Nowadays about 30% of electronics are sold thought the Internet and only 1% of everyday goods.

Moving of whole channels to the online world can have some influence upon prices and it can promote lowing of them. Internet allows finding the necessary goods on the lowest price.

Social media

ComScore data show us that part of social media according to the time which user spend in the web is higher than part of web-portals. Last year in November in the USA Facebook attracted 150 million unique users. It had 10% part from the whole number of minutes, which users spent in the Internet. But social networks are not only Facebook. The same month LinkedIn had 41 million users, Twitter – 40 million, Google+ had 29 million and Instagram and Pinterest – more than 25 million. 

Users’ activity rise in social networks puts market members before new challenge: how to use new channels in order to communicate with consumer. People often expect from social networks a word of mouth effect. But there are a lot of questions. For example, how much does “a fan” of goods or brand cost? What is better: paid popularity in social networks or the earned popularity? How is it possible to calculate the profit which was received from investments to social media? Today they do a lot of studies in order to have answers to such questions.

ComScore offers a special service which is called “Social Essentials”, it helps to measure quantitatively productivity of marketing efforts in social networks, based on the demographic and behavioral composition of the audience of one or another brand in social media. Such tool also shows coverage and frequency of advertising views in social media. These options give a chance to companies to link their actions in social media with the desired consumer behavior, including brand involvement and buying activity. They also allow measuring the productivity of the current campaign.

But social media can be not only a promotional platform, market researchers think about how to make them a data source about the consumers’ minds. Some of them even believe that in the next five years social networks will completely replace the buyers’ surveys.

Increased cost of digital advertising

Spending on advertising is rapidly flowing to the Internet. According to the IAB data, in the third quarter of 2012 online advertising increased by 18% compared with the previous year. In the first three quarters of 2012 the growth was 15% it is more than 3.8% of the general increase of advertising costs during the same period in all media, in which the research was conducted. The IAB report points to significant growth in different formats, especially in the mobile Internet (+92%), video (+18%), search (+17%) and banners (+12%). The only exception is the multimedia advertising (here we see the recession in 34%)

There is a hypothesis that the high cost of such advertising leads to the rejection from this format in favor of others, especially video, which allows you to transform 30-second video into 15-second easily and inexpensively. At the same time, advertisers and agencies are more and more concerned with the limitation of available advertising space and time. Many say that price for thousand shows of the video often exceeds the price for ads on TV.

It is clear, however, that the more exact the targeting will be the more consumers will be involved and the faster the video rate in the Internet will live behind the price for ads on TV.

Audience targeting or specific publications

The availability of strange platforms and exchanging them in real time helped to the spreading of such phenomena as buying audience through the computer via cookies. According to some rates, about 20% of all display ads views are buying with the help of auctions in real time. This figure will continue growing. The advantages of methods of buying the audience are well documented.

But there is a negative side too: publishers are anxious about the trend towards lowering the prices for ads. This, in turn, led to the creation of private SSP which make possible the acquisition of specific audiences on web sites with the help of program. There is a hope that it will help publishers to protect their premium prices, but giving the opportunity to advertisers to enjoy some advantages of buying audience at the same time.

About the author: Paul Smith provides the students with online writing help. He is especially interested in online marketing and web promotion. You can ask him any questions at Google+

Read More

Step By Step Action Plan For When You Inherit A WordPress Site

A person can acquire a WordPress website from another guy and what follows thereafter is very important. You don't just inherit the site and then you claim that you are good to go with its management. The all idea of inheriting a WordPress has its own distinct consideration that you must attend to before you start its smooth running. Since you don't have a clue as a developer about the credentials, content, links, password and many more, the following ideas are the most important things you should do after you immediately inherit an existing WordPress site.

1. Change Existing Administrator Password and Email

The first step that you engage yourself after taking his/her WordPress site is to change the admin password and emails. It is essential to make sure that the previous owner of that site does have an authority any more after you take full responsibility of the site.

2. Backup Creation

The site you should then have its own backup created when you are done with password and email change. It is not an option but mandatory to have a site's backup. Failure to do this can end you up in stressful situation just because you don't have any other relevant data from that site. A copy of the original should be available all the time.

3. Roles of the Users Should Be Updated

The other day you acquired a WordPress site; you become the focal point of everything that is taking place both at its server and client point. You must change the admin permission and of course roles. The only person who can be granted permission is one who you trust or share the same inherited WordPress site.

4. SEO and Tracking Matters

It is wise to understand that the SEO strategies of WordPress administrators or bloggers do vary significantly. The best step to attend to this difference is to understand the tracking and SEO technique that is used for that site. For example, you can change the tracking by simply modifying the Google Analytic code. You then have to insert your own tracking so as to maintain the privacy.

5. Perform Security Scans

No one wants to have a site that is not secured. The best thing to do is to use a WordPress verified security scan tool to analyze its status. The performance of the site should also be determined if it needs major scan. A simple way to verify if it needs thorough scan is just to view how fast the pages load. The plugins that came with the inherited site should also be affirmed to be able to determine if they are optimal.

6. Familiarization

You need then to understand what does what. If you are not very conversant with WordPress sites, that should not deter you from exploring it. You can always get tutorials that will help in this. If you are sure of what you are doing, you should analyze and then have a thorough understanding of what each plugin does. You should write this done so as not to omit any information.

7. Clean Up

It is now evident that you have done what must be done when you have inherited a WordPress site. The last but not the least step to take is to remove unnecessary file. For example, the previous user of the site might have had several themes that you may not use again. It is best to delete it instead of just having it by your side. Accounts of users that are no longer in use should also be inactivated. What about unused plugins. For this, just make sure you may not need it in any future before completely deleting them.

Conclusion

Inheriting WordPress sites should not be something to shun. It just needs a person who understands what needs to be done before you proceed with it. The above are also some of the many things you can do to such a site but these are the main ones that need to be attended to. If you don't have a thorough understanding of WordPress sites, you can always use a tutorial either in soft copy or video option. 

Next time you buy a used WordPress site, don't ever forget to do the above and you will be good to go.

Author Bio :

Jason Smith is an online marketing strategist for Mosquito Magnet - Solutions to deal with a Mosquito Infestation He likes to blog about recent updates and tricks to boost business through digital marketing.

Read More

4 Incredible Tools to Host a Contest On Your Facebook

Social media in general and Facebook in particular have come a long way in terms of reach, importance and its effect on brand and business popularity. Today, Facebook not only offers profile and fan pages but allows embedding of third party applications which enhances its functionality. These applications are entrenched within the Facebook fan page via code, widget or tab making the task of engaging, managing, measuring and converting the four social media metrics a breeze.  

One of the popular applications which can be synched with Facebook fan page is "Contest". The contest app creates instant buzz and coerces users to participate, and thereby increase brand value and customer loyalty.

Mentioned below are some of the trendy contests.

1. Photo contest by far is the most popular. As an administrator, you can ask users to submit a photo, vote for others and "like" company page; a prerequisite to participate. The idea is to engage users through voting. It is easy to set up and the images offer a visually soothing experience.
2. The second most popular way of engaging users via contest is "Scratch & Win". Instead of using a physical tool such as a coin to scratch, users simply scratch online, with the help of mouse to view result.  Timer can be set up so that a participant can enter only once in 24 hours.
3. Creating an interesting timeline contest is the next on this list. However, it does have limitations and may not be the right way to analyse page metrics. This type of contest will not generate leads because of its inherent workings.
4. Caption contest is a great way to engage users and generate user content. Businesses can set up this type of contest by uploading the image which could be a product or advertisement, and ask users to express their views.

Listed below are four incredible tools to host a contest on Facebook.

1. Agorapulse

This versatile, intuitive and easy to use marketing and CRM suite is one of the favourite tools of many administrators and marketers. The reasons for its popularity are many.

So what makes it the choice of community managers? Here are the reasons.

• It helps gain more fans through a gamut of apps such as quiz, instant prizes, contests, coupons and sweepstakes.
• Using these apps translates into efficient people engagement which in turn means more fans.
• On the other hand a contest application generates amazing number of opt-in leads.

Although, Agorapulse is an enterprise class tool, it can also be used by mid and small-sized businesses, non-profit entities and even NGO's. A free trial is available for a limited period. However, the basic price structure starts at $29. Agorapulse apps, especially contest, help marketers turn fans into customers. With this tool managing information whether email submissions or polls is a breeze. It can be synched with CRM and email software very easily.

2. Woobox

Woobox is another amazing Facebook tool which allows administrators and marketers to built instant buzz with contest application. Create innumerable intelligent and intriguing contests. Let your creativity go wild. Mentioned below are some of the "contests" which can be created with Woobox.

• Photo contests, where users can participate and vote for the best media.
• Audio/video contests - If you are a marketer or a community manager for a company this type of engagement can instantly catapult a brand to dizzying heights.
• Article, poem, short story contests are some of the other options which every administrator should exploit.

Some of the important features of Woobox are:

• Sweepstakes - An interesting app which allows community managers to collect entries and pick winners in the most transparent way. 
• Coupons - They are simply compelling. It forces users to interact. Coupons have a randomly generated code, offered during seasonal sales, festivals and entry to exclusive shows.
• HTML Fangate
• Poll - This application promises unbiased fan/user inputs whether it is about a brand or service
• Instagram and Pinterest tabs offer a quick way to post images of new products and get instant feedback in the form of followers.

3. Votigo

Votigo is an all in one marketing tool for Facebook page. It offers comprehensive features with maximum customization in terms of look, feel and back end storage of information collected from the fans. It can be used as an application or tab. In either case the user information is stored in a separate database. Some of the engagement tools that it offers are: user or self generated contests such as photo, video and essay. It also offers other routine apps like sweepstakes, polls, input forms and a host of other interesting ways to generate fan page likes.

Salient features of Votigo -

• Better conversion and more Facebook likes.
• It offers compelling apps for Facebook.
• Apps typically translate into high profile viral branding.
• High conversion factor leads to significant increase in customers.

4. Social Prize 

Social Prize is yet another tool which is simply brilliant in terms of engaging with fans, building trust, creating brand hype. A must have tool for every marketer. One of its interesting features is the "cash giveaways", a kind of contest which can be setup in minutes and offers instant brand recognition.

Social Prize offers a two prong strategy.

SHARE TO WIN -

The contest app can be easily embedded as a widget. Administrators need to simply copy paste the code. However, its simplicity doesn't make it less effective. On the contrary it offers an array of tools to monitor the success of contest through online statistics. It also offers several interesting features such as downloading and building leads, creating user generated content and customization of contests, prominent among them the feature which recognizes a single winner each day.

GROW YOUR BASE -

Email lists, content created by fans/users through social engagement like contest app makes sure the company never runs short of customers. In other words, a fan base which grows consistently. 

Author Bio:

Derek Fraser is an online manager for Maxwell Systems - construction estimating. He likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation. In his free time he likes to travel and explore new places.

Read More

Technology advancements from Tablet to Tablet

The art of written communication has evolved completely over time but in another sense it has come full circle, we have journeyed from the stone tablet to the digital tablet over the last 7,000 years. The first known apparatus used for writing was the Stone Tablet, with Moses famously writing the Ten Commandments from the Bible on them. It thenevolved to using the first ever form on paper, papyrus in Ancient China, Guttenberg’s Printing Press during the Reformation, the chalkboard, the typewriter, the computer, the mobile telephone, the internet and finally the electronic tablet. To come from a block of stone to a slim, multi-functional electronic tablet is quite the feat. The 2 main figures involved in each of these, respectively, were Moses and Steve Jobs. You may wonder what they have in common, coming from completely different times in history but both men were responsible for creating and writing their own 10 Commandments. Moses focused on how he thought you should live a good life whereas Jobs’ commandments are dedicated on how to get ahead in business. The widespread use of electronic tablets also questions if the use of paper will go the same way the stone tablet did, eventually becoming obsolete. With an application available for just about anything nowadays on a tablet will there be need for any other form of written communication. You can even download an app to make your electronic tablet represent a stone tablet. The history of written communication has become more efficient, faster and in most cases reliable over time. What will come after the electronic tablet is still unknown but it is believed that it will continue to evolve and become more and more advanced to suit peoples ever changing needs. From tablet to tablet, the journey continues…[Presented by www.needashredder.ie]

Read More

10 Powerful Online Tools For Testing Your Website Under Various Resolutions

The era of fixed resolution screens has long gone by. In this digital world of notebooks, tablets and smartphones, every screen has a different resolution. Your creative juices spent on your website may bear little or no fruits if the website is not tested for various screen resolutions. 

Here are 10 powerful online tools for testing your website under various resolutions: 

1. Resizemybrowser.com

This tool enables you to fit your website's browser in the resolution provided by your device, be it a tablet, a smartphone or a notebook. You also have the liberty of defining your own resolution settings which can later be removed.

2. Screenfly (Quirktools) 

This is another famous screen testing tool for websites. This has a number of screen resolution sizes to show you your webpage on various devices viz. TV screens, tablets etc. Once you type in your URL and click on 'Go', Screenfly will present you your website in various screen resolutions. 

3. Testsize.com

This is another online tool for testing your web pages on different screen sizes. You need to just type in the URL and select the screen size from the drop down menu or even manually enter the screen size. Click the open button and view your website in the screen resolution you want to see it in.

4. Firesizer

This works in Firefox and enables you to check your site's pages in various screen sizes. At the right bottom of the screen you can see the present resolution of the screen in the status bar. You can click here to see other screen sizes that are available for preview. You also have the liberty to feed in your own dimensions for testing.

5. Yet Another Window Resizer

This is another easy to use Firefox add on. All you have to do to test your website for a different resolution is click anywhere on the website and choose the resolution from the list that appears. 

6. Resolution Test

This is a Google Chrome extension that enables resolution testing of your website. After you install this tool, you need to just press on the test button which you can find at the right corner of the browser. This extension keeps a record of most frequently used screen sizes and displays them in a list for you to choose from. You can also feed in your own settings of resolution.

7. Window Resizer

It is very similar to Resolution Test. It also features a list of preset resolution sizes which may be utilized for your website testing. Like Resolution Test, it also enables you to define your own presets. 

8. InfoByIP's Screen Resolution Simulator

This tool features a list of various screen sizes for laptops, desktops, mobile phones and tablets. You can also manually enter the screen size of your choice. You have two options available with this tool. You can either check the "in browser" or leave it unchecked. If "in browser" is chosen, the resolution that you get to view the site in is of the selected monitor along with some space for the task bar and other controls and borders. If "in browser" is left unchecked, you get to see the resolution of the webpage. This is very useful in testing your site's visual compatibility with mobile devices' screens since they always render websites in full screen. 

9. Dimentions

This is a Responsive Web Design testing tool which works well on all versions of Chrome and Firefox. It consists of a screen sized progress bar that shows you how does your website look on various resolutions and devices.

10. Screen-Resolution.com

This is yet another excellent resolution testing tool. Apart from being an efficient resolution testing solution, this is quick and simple too. With this tool you can manually select the resolution that you wish to view your website in. It is most compatible with Internet Explorer where it displays the result in the same window. A new window pops up in case of other browsers like Chrome or Firefox. All you need to do is open the website, enter your URL and click on "check page". 

Armed with these tools to test your website for various screen resolutions, you are certain to design a versatile website in terms of screen resolutions that it is compatible with. You also diminish the chances of your website having poor display on different screens due to resolution mismatches.

Author Bio:

Jason Smith is an online marketing strategist for CJPonyParts. Have a look at their research on Gasoline Prices In The US  He likes to blog about recent updates and tricks to boost business through digital marketing.

Read More