Social Media Platform Review

Unless you are an incredibly well-connected Solopreneur who is making a killing and maybe even turning business away, social media will play a role in your branding and marketing strategies. Each platform has its cohort of devoted users and will be a good fit for some businesses, but maybe less so for others.

The platforms are free of charge, aside from the time it costs to keep your content up-to-date. No matter how responsive to social media marketing your venture is, time will not allow most Solopreneurs and business owners to maintain a presence on all platforms, unless social media management is outsourced. If the ROI positively impacts sales revenues, then the investment will be worthwhile. Let's take a look at Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Facebook

The most popular social media platform has 2.19 billion users (Statista, 1Q 2018) around the world. There are somewhat more female users than male and the bulk of the age demographic is 18-44 years. Forbes Magazine data indicates that 47% of Americans report that Facebook is their primary influencer when it comes to making purchases.

Facebook often delivers excellent ROI for B2C enterprises (somewhat less for B2B). In-store events and promotions, speaking engagements, your workshops and other events can be announced to Facebook Friends. Content provided in text, photos, or video can be uploaded. You can create groups and build communities, or post a customer survey. Share behind-the-scenes information about your business and what it takes to do what you do and in the process, you'll engage customers, strengthen your brand and build relationships.

Does that sound like too much work and too much sharing? Then create a Fan Page and limit your presence to basic info and a good call to action. Be aware that your presentation of text, photos and other content should be relaxed and welcoming, to create a personal feel (but remember that business is the context).

Instagram

You'll find 1 billion users (Statista, June 2018) from around the world and 80% are outside of the U.S. 95 million posts are shared daily, with many accessed on a mobile device. Approximately 59% of U.S. users are 18-29 years. As of 1Q 2018, there are 300 million daily Instagram Stories users and 30% of users have purchased a product.

Visual storytelling, behind-the-scenes photo montages, social selling, brand awareness, engaging with customers and creating relationships are good uses of Instagram. If you are in public relations or special event/conference planning, then you will find worthwhile B2B use, otherwise it's B2C as far as I can tell.

Photo sharing, brief video trailers and concise text postings that include a hashtag # to better distribute your content are ideal content. Add a link to your profile bio. Decide if you want a public or members-only account. Links cannot be shared.

LinkedIn

Considered the gold standard B2B social media platform, LinkedIn has 500 million members globally (Statista, January 2018). Business ventures large and small, Solopreneurs, corporate and nonprofit leaders, physicians and dentists, any employee who harbors professional aspirations and most college students maintain a profile page. Recruiters use LinkedIn to identify potential candidates for job openings. LinkedIn ProFinder helps Solpreneurs find project work.

LinkedIn is an excellent platform on which to build a community of professional colleagues through your connections and share with them your professional story, successes, highlights and other updates that support your personal brand. My B2B blog posts to my LinkedIn page and my connections receive notice of its arrival. Your connections will also share their stories and there is great opportunity to be in touch and nurture relationships.

Professional portfolios, videos, white papers, newsletters, blogs, infographics, SlideShare presentations and podcasts can be featured on your profile page to add depth to your brand story. Links to articles or studies that might interest your connections can be posted. Recommendations and endorsements let others verify your professional bona fides and you can return the favor.



In the Groups section, you'll engage with colleagues within your industry, or with alumni of your school. Topics of interest are explored through posted questions and group members can respond and in the process get to know one another and possibly, forge relationships that lead to doing business.

Thanks for reading,
Kim

Kim L. Clark is an external strategy and marketing consultant who brings agile skills to the for-profit and not-for-profit organization leaders with whom she works. Ensure that your organization is positioned to achieve mission-critical goals when you contact Kim http://polishedprofessionalsboston.com.

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The Importance of Knowing and Following All YouTube Rules

As it was formerly pointed out, if you are preparing on submitting videos to YouTube and sharing them with other web users, you are more likely to discover a bigger number of guidelines to follow. YouTube motivates you to utilise care when making your videos, as you never ever truly understand who will be seeing them. Not just do you have to stress about online predators seeing your YouTube videos, however you likewise have to fret about law enforcement doing the exact same thing.

In connection with your YouTube video material, you likewise require to make sure that your video material is in fact yours. In current times, there have actually been numerous circumstances where YouTube made it on the news for having a big number of copyright products on their site. You will desire to make sure that videos you publish online were really made by you.

If you are, you will require signing up for a complimentary YouTube subscription account. In a matter of minutes, you can be on your method to ranking or evaluating the YouTube videos you enjoy or even submitting your own videos!

In a matter of minutes, you can be on your method to ranking or evaluating the YouTube videos you enjoy or even publishing your own videos! YouTube is a lot of enjoyable, whether you are just interested in seeing videos or if you desire to publish your own, YouTube, like all other online sites, have a number of limitations and guidelines. Must you forget your YouTube login info; you must be able to follow YouTube's guidelines to obtain your YouTube indication in name, as well as your password.

Another guideline that lots of video watchers have to follow issues leaving remarks on YouTube video pages or getting involved in the YouTube online forums. In connection with your YouTube video material, you likewise require to make sure that your video material is really yours.

If you are just interested in enjoying YouTube videos, not always submitting your own, you will discover that there are fewer guidelines and constraints for you. Need to you forget your YouTube login info, you ought to be able to follow YouTube's guidelines to obtain your YouTube indication in name, as well as your password.

The above discussed guidelines are simply a few of the lots of that you might be anticipated to follow when utilising YouTube. If you sent a video that went versus YouTube's standards, your video might be gotten rid of.

Another guideline is that numerous YouTube video watchers have to follow issues leaving remarks on YouTube video pages or taking part in the YouTube online forums. Whenever you leave remarks for a YouTube video submitter, you are encouraged to utilize your finest judgment.

YouTube is a lot of enjoyable, whether you are just interested in seeing videos or if you desire to publish your own, YouTube, like all other online sites, have a number of limitations and guidelines. It is not just essential that you understand those guidelines, however that you follow them, as there are a variety of repercussions for not.

Simply a few of the guidelines imposed on YouTube are detailed listed below.

1. You should only have one email address linked with your account.
2. You should certainly not post duplicate content.
3. You should always make your videos applicable to its title & keywords.
4. You should not ever purchase views.
5. You should certainly not ever use software to add ratings, comments, or friends automatically.
6. You should not use irrelevant keywords
7. With YouTube's new insight feature, they are following the attention people are giving to each video. YouTube can understand this and then easily assume that your title is very relevant to the information on the video if people are watching your entire video.

8. The Google search ranking rules of providing good, decent and, accurate content that generate public attention are exactly the same rules that You Tube is using as well so bear that in mind when choosing the title.

So these are all some common stipulations you should keep in mind before publishing any video in YouTube.

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How Can I Generate More Traffic To My Website?

It's the question asked by every new online entrepreneur and every seasoned online entrepreneur, "How can I generate more traffic to my website?". But you don't just want traffic. You want to get more web traffic that is targeted and wants more than your free stuff. You want to catch the attention of people who really want what you're offering and will buy what you're offering.

Plan the Right Content

Check to see what content is most popular on your website. The create more of that type of content. If you don't have much content so far, study the content material that your audience looks at from your competition and create similar content. Don't copy, but do deliver to your audience the type of content that they want.

Learn Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important to learn when it comes to getting more traffic to your website. It enables potential customers to find your website by using the search engines. For instance, using keywords in headings, anchor text, titles, subject lines, meta descriptions and alt text for images that are related to your content, you'll move further up the search engine results.

Advertise Your Content

Just like you would advertise one of your most valuable products or services, you need to promote your content. The good news is, using paid traffic to your website does not have to be costly. As an example, Facebook Ads make it possible to directly target your audience in a very cost effective way.

Create Targeted Freebies

Create freebies that are targeted toward a need that your audience has. If you can solve one problem for them, create that freebie. Then offer that freebie in exchange for a prospect's email address. When you have their email address you can message them with links to your website whenever you want.

Use Different Types Of Content

Don't just use written text for on your website. Search engines like a mixture of content. Mix it up and use text, illustrations or photos, online video and audio to make the ways you provide information to your audience complete.

Facebook Groups

A Facebook group is essentially a community where people with similar interests can interact with you and each other. Facebook groups bring in more website traffic because once you gain trust, make friends, and gain followers, you can promote your business effectively in these groups.

Study Your Analytics

The analytics you can gather from your website are very important, because it can tell you what content is getting traffic to your website so that you know what to create more of.

Everybody likes 'free'. If you're a website owner, you probably want more free, targeted traffic from Google and other search engines, rather than having to pay for it. For more free website traffic methods that will lower your reliance on potentially costly paid traffic sources download my Free Website Traffic Checklist at https://jonallo.com/freetrafficchecklist

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How to Choose the Right Traffic Source

If you knew that articles were where you were going to be able to get all of your traction... Or guest blogging was where you were going to get all your traction... Or Google+, or Facebook was where you were going to get all of your traction... Then you could take what I just shared with you and you could say, "Okay, I'll just go out and I will become an expert at that one source of traffic."

However, there's a preliminary stage that has to happen. You've got to figure out which one of these is going to work better for you. In the process of figuring out which one is better for you, you might try multiple sources of traffic.

You'll notice I talked about this second, not first. That's because I wanted you to hear what I just said about specialization first, before I talked about trying out the different traffic sources. Because, if you're not careful you'll come away from what I'm getting ready to say, and say "Okay, well they said go out and try 10 different traffic sources."

Then they don't hear the part where I say "for a limited time period."

They try 10 different traffic sources, 10 years later they're still wallowing in 10 different traffic sources, and they've never become an expert. So they're not generating very much traffic.

What I recommend that you do is: choose any, some, or all of these traffic sources that you wish. And you set up a tracking page for every one of these.

For example, if you write an article that goes to EzineArticles, you send them to a unique squeeze page, that has a unique webform code on it, so you know exactly how many subscribers are being generated every single month from those articles.

You know exactly how many subscribers are generated every month from guest blogging.

You know exactly how many subscribers are generated from LinkedIn, from Facebook, from your affiliate program, from anywhere else.

Then you'll combine that with a time sheet. Call it a traffic time sheet. Every time you sit down to work on traffic, you log into your traffic time sheet. You can do this in an Excel spreadsheet. You can do this with pencil and paper.

Here's how to use it:

If you work on articles for 15 minutes you write down "Articles - 15 minutes."

Let's say, for example, that it's April, so you have an April spreadsheet. And it says, "Articles - 15 minutes. LinkedIn - 30 minutes." Then you spend another 20 minutes in Articles, so you need to update Articles to 35 minutes.

At the end of the month you'll be able to see at a glance that you spent 200 minutes on articles. You spent 100 minutes on guest blogging. You spent 75 minutes in LinkedIn. You spent 95 minutes in Facebook. So on, and so on.

Next you're going to look at how many subscribers you generated from each one of those traffic sources. Do the math! For example:

You spent 75 minutes on Facebook and you got 4 subscribers. That's 1 subscriber every 18.5 minutes or so. For articles you get 10 subscribers for 200 minutes of work, that's 1 subscriber per 20 minutes of work. And at the end of the month, you'll be able to say "Okay, from one traffic source I get a subscriber for every 10 minutes of work. From one traffic source I get a subscriber from 20 minutes of work. From another traffic source it takes me 30 minutes of work."

What does this mean?

It means if you're going to continue to do the work in the future, you probably want to get subscribers that are coming in from sources that don't take you as long to get. Or, what it means is, if you hire somebody to do your work for you, you know what to have them do to be the most cost-effective. Let's say you hire somebody for 10 hours a week to do work for you. If you're going to pay them for 10 hours of work a week, you want them on the traffic source that will allow them to generate the most number of subscribers for you as fast as possible.

The only way you will know is with your spreadsheet.

By the way, would you like to get the newbie-friendly insider's secrets to building a stable, thriving business online... year after year? Swing on by our friendly Business Builders Cafe at http://infobusinessuniversity.com/cafe for the latest freshly-made marketing techniques... that just plain work beautifully. You'll love what you receive!

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How to Generate Traffic Using Facebook

Social networking sites like Facebook are great platforms to not only find your old friends and make new ones, but also to use for generating traffic to any website or blog. 

• You have to create a Facebook profile for your business and add a link to your site or blog with a brief introduction to generate traffic to your site or blog. 

• Make it a point to add new people as your Facebook friends everyday as the more friends you have, the more people your profile is shared with. The more people who see your website or blog link on your Facebook profile, the more traffic and potential sales it generates. 

• Start a group related to your business and invite your friends to join your group so that you can prove to your friends that you are an expert in your industry and use this avenue for generating more sales for your business. 

• Join groups related to your business, and have your friends join them so that you can share your views on your industry, prove your expertise at your work and thus experience more sales. 

• By creating a Facebook page, it gets indexed by search engines so that it can be accessed even by people who are not on Facebook.

• Organize an event based on or related to your business and use Facebook to promote it by inviting all your Facebook friends and thus increase your website traffic. 

Facebook has a provision where you can advertise either a Facebook page or your website on the site and have more visitors to your site. You can use the Facebook marketplace to sell your products and services and thus have more visitors to your site. 

With the help of these tips and the social networking site Facebook, you will soon see a marked increase in your website traffic.

Negative Effects of Social Media

Alexander Pope said "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." it goes perfectly with the amateur usage of social media especially in the 21st century. We take social media for granted and do whatever we want which comes biting back later.

Social media has brought about new opportunities and avenues for the world to connect at large. With social media, the world has become a smaller place. On one hand, it is a great invention, and a lot can be done to better our lifestyles. But if we look at it with thousands of immature users it is becoming a somewhat scary place to live in.

There is a reason why most parents or older siblings try to keep the young ones away from social media handles these days. From being a platform to connect or share worldviews it has narrowed down to bring a platform to boost and troll. That is sad given that we can do so much with social media, it is sad to see how low to stoop.

Today kids of ages 10 have the access and accounts on social handles; it can turn into over addiction and an escape to a fantasy world. This fantasy world that we create behind the 15-inch laptop screen might be a scary affair. The fit models with perfect bodies, exotic travel locations, and photo-perfect moments most often don't match with the lives we lead on a daily basis. This disconnect might want us to aspire for more which might not be possible in reality and can affect our mental health.

The thrust for more followers or likes has a dangerous effect on our mental health. You start feeling anxious, a lack of identity, less sleep causing insomnia, a negative body image can be some of the significant issues that a social media addict might, face. You make yourself as desirable as the models you see around you, you keep adding filters and edit your pictures to look 'perfect, and your sense of self is lost. You want to become someone you are not. You start hating yourself for not having the ideal body, the perfect shape, so on and so forth.

Researchers across the globe have found that the "fear of missing out" created across all popular social feeds can substantially lower self-esteem and fuel issues like anxiety and depression among individuals.

Cyberbullying is also heavily linked to the constant need to prove oneself better than the others on social media.

On a large scale, not only teenagers but people nowadays take the social platform too literally and believe in a lot of fake news of hoax that is being circulated just for publicity purposes. People today are falling for dangerous trends that they see on social media or think it is cool to be a part of. The trend of being a part of a social group is what is causing more harm than good.

You have to understand you being social has nothing to do with the number of friends or followers you have on social media. It can all be a farce, just by seeing another peer having many followers you cannot be jealous and want that life. Don't let social media be a drug that is so addictive that you cannot live without.

All of these leads to identify threats that take place due to the sharing of too much personal information on the net unnecessarily. You can also see a rise in hate speech and social disgust across social media accounts which is completely uncalled for. The most disgusting thing that is coming up a lot in the 21st century is cyberstalking. It can be too dangerous and is even taking lives. Immature usage of social platform has to stop and stop now.

After using social media handles many people decide to keep themselves away from it as there is no or very minimal privacy with the extensive use of social platforms. If not handled sensibly your life becomes a window to the world. A subject of discussion.

We as a world lack smart users. We either take everything for granted, or we take things too literally. Having said all of this it does not mean that social media is all that bad with only negatives. Of course, not, there are plenty of benefits of social media. It keeps us connected across vast distances, let's us find our school buddies and long lost colleagues. If your motive is to stay connect or share an opinion about life and other stuff but if social site is your source of news or emotional upliftment it is undoubtedly a bad idea.

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Understanding Your Content Through Facebook's Video Insights

A big number of videos are being viewed on Facebook every day. And now that Facebook's algorithm prioritizes video over other types of posts, you've probably also included video in your Facebook paid advertising strategy.

Like every other piece of content on that site, yours is competing for your target audience's attention. This means that while your videos are getting views, they might not actually keep your audience's interest for long. Worse, it won't lead to your ultimate goal-getting conversions.

Luckily, Facebook has a feature to measure how long your audiences view your videos, and then some. By understanding all these tools, Facebook allows you to work around what your audiences consider interesting. It can help you develop better strategies for video marketing.

Audience Retention

This feature shows your video's retention over time. That includes:

• the average view duration

• the total views for the first 28 days since it was uploaded, and

• the number of users who watched your video to completion or for 30 seconds.

Audience retention is useful for knowing how long people spend watching your videos. For instance, you could find that within ten seconds, your audience views dropped by 40 per cent. With this information in mind, you can create shorter content to keep your audience intrigued by what you offer.

If in the middle of your video you find that there was a large drop in views, try to find what people didn't find engaging, and work on it.

Facebook will be adding new and even more useful features to measure audience retention. They are currently not available yet, but we're rounding up how it can benefit content creating more.

Followers vs. Non-followers

This metric segregates viewers who are followers and non-followers of a page. This can help provide insights as to which people are able to reach your content and the kind of audience you want your page to attract.

Zoom Chart

The Zoom Chart helps you manage your data more accurately by letting you look closer at your stats to see which moments in your video are more engaging than the rest. This can help you create more content that focuses on something your audience considers engaging.

Audience Demographics

This metric helps you measure your audiences' retention by gender. In other words, you'll be able to see whether male or female viewers have longer video retention.

While creating content is not always easy, measuring what your audiences consider interesting can help. In the golden age of videos, it can seem like your advertising campaign could be fighting to stay relevant. By understanding what your customers want, you can come up with more ways to create engaging videos.

Whether you're hiring a company to assist you with your videos for Facebook paid advertising or creating them by yourself, it helps to know how to use these features for measuring your videos' impact on Facebook.

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Basic Guidelines for a Friendly Search Engine Website

Tips for Creating an Effective & Efficient Website Homepage

1. The top categories of your website should be visible. Make sure that they stand out.

2. Include sub categories, which are relevant to the top categories on your website.

3. Your message and/or motto should be informative, engaging and memorable.

4. Users should know what your website is about on the Homepage.

5. Create content, which is unique & contains valuable information.

"My rule of thumb is build a site for a user, not a spider."
Dave Naylor.

Important Elements that you Should Consider While Planning your Website:

Your website is your gateway to reaching customers and gaining a loyal audience. There are two really important elements, which should be checked before the development and designing of a website. For starters, your website should be user friendly. Visitors and users should be able to navigate throughout your website with ease. Secondly, always keep in mind that your website will be essential in the way people will find your services and/or products.

The most important page on a website is the Homepage, as this will be the first page that visitors and users usually stumble upon during searches on different search engines. If your website's Homepage is designed in a user friendly fashion - it is more than likely that users and/or visitors will navigate through other pages of your website.

Navigation layout and/or design is paramount to the success of your website, as users are often put off by web pages that aren't user friendly. Arrange categories in a way, that will make it simple for users and for customers to browse through. Also, make sure that your website loads promptly, as slow loading website can be detrimental to your website.

Use Friendly SEO Urls:

On websites, create pages that are clear and that describe each topic, product or service. SEO friendly websites go hand in hand with the development and design of the website. Be sure to utilize SEO friendly urls.

• An unfriendly URL is a URL with irrelevant characters. Avoid using characters that do not pertain to the page's topic. An example of an unfriendly and irrelevant URL would contain characters that do not include the brand name or subject of the web page. Unfriendly urls, can also, contain characters such as:!,#,% and other symbols and/or letters, that do not pertain to your web page. Do not use these formats.

• An SEO friendly URL, typically has the topic or name of the page within the URL.

Keep these tips in mind when creating the different pages of your website. Friendly urls will attract more visitors and users, as these pages won't appear suspicious.

The Importance of Website Pages' Titles:

The title used for each page on a website is of utter importance for your website's success. Keeping it simple and clear usually is the best route to go. Titles on different pages of a website should contain a keyword, which you know users are searching for on different search engines.

The titles of pages on a website will appear on the website URL, as well, as in search engines. Titles should describe the content of the page. It is recommended for each document to contain a title tag.

Content for Websites - Use Unique and Relevant Keywords:

Before creating and adding content to your website, be certain that you've done thorough research on what your targeted audience and customers are looking for. For instance, you can utilize Buzzsumo to analyze the content that's being used on an array of topics and/or competitors. Find out about the latest trends and about topics that are being shared - this way you can stay ahead of your competition.

The Importance of Heading Tags:

Use H1, H2 and up to H6 headings for heading tags on content. Such will show Google, which texts are more important and what the topic is about. The heading tags will help rank your website.

Why Internal and External Links are Important for SEO:

INTERNAL LINKS -

Internal links are links that are found within your website. Internal links will help your users and visitors to navigate through relevant pages and topics faster. Adding hyperlinks to the content on your website will re-direct users to other pages on your website. Google follows such links to be able to track the associations of links to and from the website content.

EXTERNAL LINKS -

External links are links, which are found on other websites that will re-direct users back to your website and website pages. External links can also, be found on your website, which re-direct users and visitors to other websites. Google will follow these links, as these links can have an immense impact on your domain's rank.

For example, a link from Forbes magazine that links back to your website, can generate a significant amount of traffic, which will increase your page's visibility and authority. However, stay away from unethical SEO practices and shortcuts - such as - suspicious link building. Google will penalize your website if you are caught utilizing unethical SEO practices.

It is advised for you to use Ahrefs to analyze back links on blogs and competitors. Ahrefs will identify the amount of back links that website content has generated, social shares, organic keywords, organic traffic and lists of paid keywords.

Clear Calls to Action:

Call to actions are buttons or links that inform and persuade users and visitors to click on these buttons and/or links to do something else. Some examples of call to actions include:

• Contact Us
• Call Us
• Subscribe to My Email
• Buy Now
• View Details

All the above calls to actions will persuade users to take the next step.

Call to actions alert users in taking actions quicker. Furthermore, call to actions - also, helps with user-engagement and conversion rates.

What you can expect when you implement the above tips:

Implement all the tips that we have mentioned when developing or revising your website and surely, your website will be successful and fruitful. Cater and engage with your audience in all possible ways and you will notice an increase on the traffic of your website.

Implement the tips mentioned above when developing your website. If you do - surely, your website will be successful! Cater & engage with your targeted audience in all ways possible. You will see an increase on the traffic of your website before you know it!

Learn more about Digital Marketing when you visit: http://www.mysticwebdesigns.com's blog page, which has continuous updates on marketing trends.

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How Technology Has Altered Your Work/Life Balance

If you work 48 weeks in the year and spend a conservative 5 hours per week commuting to and from work, you are spending 240 hours per year driving. This takes time away from family, hobbies, friends, and much more. How can technology be leveraged to gain that time back?

Up until recent years, the only option for working was to physically go into an office to put in your 40-50 hours per week behind a stuffy desk surrounded by people you may or may not enjoy working with. As technology has evolved, so has the flexibility of whether you work at the office, at home, at the beach, or some other locale.

While technology does make it easier for employers to allow telecommuting, there is still a trust factor that comes into play. There are ways each employer can measure productivity differently, but some employers are simply more comfortable knowing for certain their employee is at their desk during a specified time every day. Another consideration for employers is the morale of employees that are not working from home while another is permitted that luxury. Should they have 1 happy employee and 10 disgruntled employees or 10 content employees and 1 disgruntled employee? Rather than examining the struggles for employers that are faced with this decision, lets examine the technologies that allow working from home to be a reality much more frequently than it was 20-30 years ago.

If an employer decides to allow telecommuting, there are several tools on the market that safeguard their investment.

· Worksnaps: This tool allows an employer to monitor how productive the work-at-home employee has been throughout the day. There are less detailed tools available but this one doesn't leave a lot of room for a work around by the employee. Beyond monitoring the time spent in productive programs (Facebook not being one of them) the tool takes screenshots of the worker's computer screen throughout the day to make sure the employee is productive while activity is showing on their computer. They will even count the number of mouse and keyboard clicks.

· Internet: This is rather obvious but probably the most important tool. The internet allows you to communicate with members of your team, your company, and any outside clients. Many companies have web-based products they use for housing databases or other tools that are essential to job duties of their employees.

· Google docs: This is free to anyone that has a Gmail account. It provides Microsoft based tools to people no matter where they are in the world. Google docs can be accessed to share documents whether for informational purposes or for each member of a team to edit the document. If you don't have Microsoft programs on your home computer, this is a great way to use them. They don't have the most current benefits of the current programs, but it will work in a pinch.

· Trello: This is a popular tool that allows for project management across your team no matter everyone's location. This can be used for individuals to organize to-do lists or monitor projects, so everyone knows where the team is at. The program permits you to break the project into segments that can be more closely observed as the project progresses.

· Zoho: This is another project management tool, but it looks to have an abundance of features including overlapping features I've already discussed. There is the ability to monitor time spent on projects, offers charts and written documentation of the progress of the specific projects the team is working on, a calendar that the entire team can contribute to and view, document sharing capabilities, notes area for recording specific hurdles or bugs that need to be resolved. This is just the tip of the ice burg in terms of the capabilities of this tool. The cost is relatively inexpensive as well ranging from $0 for limited access to $100/month/employee for all access.

· Yammer: This is described as a Facebook for work. This platform allows an employer to send only relevant information to employees. Then employees can communicate within their specific teams to accomplish goals.

· Skype: This is a free service that allows face-to-face communication between employees. The tool is internet based and allows you to bring several people into the conversation/collaboration.

· GoTo Meeting: This is a great tool for webinars as it will allow you to broadcast to hundreds of people that join. In addition, for those that cannot attend the meeting or want to watch the meeting for a second time the meetings can be recorded. You can share your screen with those that signed up for the meeting allowing for project collaboration or even training.

· Viewflux: There are several sites geared towards designers, viewflux being one of them. These sites allow you to share your designs with a group of people. Those people can specify changes they want made by marking up the page. Have you ever wanted someone to change something about a graphic and you try to describe in several words what just a few words and an arrow could describe? These sites make a world of difference for designers and their clients and team members.

· Dropbox: If you have files larger than what can fit on the Google drive, dropbox is an option for a place to share files with your team. According to Dropbox, this is a secure way to share files.

· Nimble: This is a great tool for sales people and people with large networks to stay organized. This tool combines your social media and email contacts into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. The tool even links conversations you've had with these contacts, so you can remember the contact in that specific context.

These are just a few of the tools that people can use when they work from home or even work in the office. The collaboration potential with the tools can simplify processes that are long overdue for change. In addition, the telecommuter can easily connect with and contribute to projects that are being working on in the office. Without these connections, the telecommuter could quickly be disregarded as part of the dynamic of the department they once worked with in person.

While some may argue that society is more disconnected from one another than ever before, consider that technology is not a hindrance to our efforts to communicate but rather an advantage. I would maintain that society is communicating more efficiently, more frequently, and more effectively than ever before because of technology.

Imagine being able to work from 7:00-4:00 and being able to start dinner at 4:05 rather than 5:05. Now you have time to patiently help the kids with their homework, easily pick up the kids from soccer practice, spend time focusing on your spouse. The pressure to get things done can decrease as the level of technology increases if we leverage the two. What would the ability to telecommute mean to your life? Do you do it currently? What have you found to be beneficial about it?

Read more about Remote Work Options.

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A Guide to Going Viral

Reaching customers and creating awareness is something that determines the success of any business. The access to customers has become significantly easier over the years thanks to the development of social media platforms. These platforms have given businesses a way to reach out to their customers in an effective and efficient manner. This is the reason why it has become significantly important for businesses to come up with campaign ideas for their viral marketing efforts and implement these ideas by teams that have been specifically designed to take care of viral marketing efforts of the business.

All of the famous brands worldwide have successfully built a strong viral presence and that is exactly what you need to do in order to succeed and take your business forward. In this article, we discuss tips that will enable you to design and implement a strong viral marketing campaign thus creating awareness for your business and making a place for it on The Virality Map.

Step 1: Identify Your Target Audience

The first step of making a strong viral presence is doing the background work that will help you understand your marketing goals. This includes identifying and understanding your target audience. As well all know anything that goes viral catches the attention of millions of people. However, you need to specify the audience that your campaign intends to target to guarantee success. Do a detailed analysis of your target audience including the demographics, psychographics,and other behavioral factors.

Once you have identified your target audience, it is necessary to understand the kind of material they are likely to share and be interested in. Find out more about your target audience in order to come up with a campaign that is sure to grab their attention.

Step 2: Pick the Right Platforms

After identifying and understanding your target audience you have to decide on the kind of platform you will be using for your marketing efforts. There are a number of options that are available to marketers in terms of social media platforms. However, the kind of platform you choose will depend on the kind of marketing technique you will be using to move your message across.

Instagram will, for example, give you an option of choosing a picture story whereas LinkedIn can be used if you have written content that you wish to use for your campaign, Facebook can be used for video messages as well as other strategies. While choosing the right platform also keep in mind the interests of your target audience in order to guarantee success. You can seek help from consultants who can help your determine the right strategy to be used when dealing with the different platforms available.

Step 3: Create Engaging Content

Most of the social media platforms suggest content to their users based on their interests and behaviors. This is done by using an algorithm that gives ranking to different content going viral according to the needs and interests of the user. So, in order to reach the target audience, it is necessary for you to create the kind of content that will be surely enjoyed by your target customer. It is also important to keep the content interesting and exciting for the target audience. This can be done by using catchy headlines or using content that will make the audience feel emotionally connected. You can also use the services of different independent creative consultants to help you create the perfect content for your needs.

Step 4: Post at the Right Time

Timing is extremely important in determining the success of your viral marketing campaign. In order to make your viral efforts successful, you need to keep yourself updated about the latest trends and news based on the interests of your target audience. If there is a hot trending topic that seems relevant and beneficial for your post you can plan the posting in such a way that it coincides with the trending topics.

Do not forget to use those hashtags! However, if there is no such trend, you can plan your posting accordingly. Just make sure not to post it at a time of tragedy. Nobody wants their business to be associated with a negative event.

Step 5: Use Ads To Create Visibility

Another way of creating awareness for your business/brand could be by spending some money on paid ads that will help you gain some visibility. This can help your content becoming viral however it will require some amount of investment from your side.

Step 6: Engage Influencers

Using an influencer in order to gain visibility and awareness for your brand is an effective and time-saving strategy. With the advent of social media, there has been an increasing trend of influencers creating awareness of different brands to their target audience. You can use the help of a social media influencer who can help you introduce the brand to the target audience. However, it is extremely important to choose the right social media influencer. This can be done by going back to your research done in Step

Step 7: Track And Measure

It is also imperative to keep track of your viral marketing efforts to ensure effectiveness. Once the viral marketing campaign has started you need to use different analytics tools in order to determine the success. Do not expect yourself to reach your goals with the first campaign. If you find something to be unsuccessful in a particular campaign that does not produce desired results, you should immediately make changes accordingly in the strategy. For this, you will have to keep tracking and measuring the performance of your ongoing viral marketing campaign.

Step 8: Add Calls To Action

Do not leave your audience hanging after grabbing their attention. Make sure you add a call to action factor in your viral marketing campaign that will motivate the audience to take a step. This can be done by offering discounts on their first purchase, offering them free membership or a free trial.

Step 9: Attract More Attention

Once your viral marketing campaign has reached a considerable number of views, you can then move on to attracting more attention for your campaign by contacting different news organizations and bringing their attention to the success of your marketing campaign. However, before contacting any news organization, it is a good idea to work on developing a press release that is sure to get attention and does not lack content and authenticity.

Step 10: Use Content To Create Originality

Nothing great comes from plagiarizing and copying the efforts of others. Similarly, it will not be beneficial for you if you use content for your viral marketing effort that uses the ideas of others. A campaign that lacks originality will not be welcomed by the audience and will have a difficult time becoming etched in their minds. Hence, make sure your campaign uses new ideas and thoughts. If you require ideas and innovation in your campaign you can use the services of creative consultants who are known for creating and designing successful viral marketing campaigns. li

http://www.mattiabaggiani.com

In the end, it can be established that the use of viral media marketing in developing awareness for the business cannot be undermined. So plan your campaign with the help of creative consultants such as Matta Baggiani http://www.mattiabaggiani.com and witness the success of your business.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Mattia_Baggiani/2495776
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