Digital marketing consists of a lot of strategies. In fact, it's a holistic approach to do different types of marketing activities across different online platforms. These methods get upgraded on a regular basis as new technologies emerge across the globe. Therefore, digital marketing has grown significantly over the past few years. If you are new to this field, you may want to read the basics of digital marketing explained below.
1. Invest in machine Learning and Artificial intelligence (AI)
First of all, the artificial intelligence (AI) will be quite popular in the coming years. Machine learning is another important part of digital marketing.
In the near future, social media bots will play a great role as far as connecting with potential customers is concerned. So, you may want to give more importance to social media if you want to communicate with your customers in an effective manner. According to experts, about 85% of customers will interact with bots to get the information they need.
2. Share your videos on Social Media
In 2019, make sure you share your business videos across different social media platforms. Unlike the images or written content, a good video is more effective as far as grabbing the eyes of the visitors is concerned. This is really important if you are going to market on the leading platforms, such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook.
According to the latest research, 80% of people like to watch videos on the internet. They don't want to read articles or blog posts that much.
3. Optimize your sites for Mobile Devices
In 2019, your marketing strategies should be focused on mobile technology as well. According to the latest Google algorithm, your site should be optimized for mobile phones or you may get a penalty from Google.
Nowadays, mobile phones are one of the most popular devices across the globe. The new year will grow the mobile video consumption by up to 30%. On the other hand, the demand for desktop computers and laptops will continue to decline.
4. Consider Mobile apps
In the world of digital marketing, mobile technology is the latest innovation. As a matter of fact, it's one of the most effective digital marketing tools in the here and now.
With the help of this cellular technology, you can compete with your competitors to stay ahead in the field. Without any doubt, if you have a mobile responsive website, you can grow your business to a large extent.
So, you may want to tap into the mobile apps as well. One such app is Whatsapp business. According to a source, mobile apps have generated $88 billion, give or take, in recent years.
5. Focus on the Customer Experience
For your business, customers play the same role your blood plays in your body. Therefore, it's important that you work on the consumer experience. This will help you increase your sales over time.
If your customers are satisfied with your products or service, they will keep coming back for more.
So, these are the tips that you may want to consider to improve your digital marketing campaigns in 2019.
DSDM is an ideal resource if you are interested in digital marketing training in West Delhi. You can check out their courses on DSDM.in.
3 Steps to Help You Create This Essential Part of Your Business Brand Identity
Creating your brand identity involves many different facets including the logo, taglines, website colours and brand voice.
Every brand has a voice. Your brand is unique, so your brand voice should be too. Your branding voice is the constant personality you use when communicating your message to the world.
From digital advertisements to social media posts to product packaging, it's important to have one consistent and unique branding voice across all your marketing materials. Otherwise, you'll end up with a muddled message that won't resonate with your customers on any level.
Here are some brand voice examples from well-known brands:
• Quirky, casual and fun.
• Friendly, optimistic and joyful.
• Inspiring, powerful and positive.
• Helpful, encouraging and funny.
No matter what you're selling, you need to create an engaging branding voice that's authentic to your values.
Here are 3 ways to make defining your marketing easier:
1. Make your brand voice relevant.
Think about who uses your product or service. You want to define your efforts to speak to your target audience and create an emotional connection to what you're offering.
If your audience is millennials who love yoga, your voice is going to be different than if you're targeting 40+ women shopping for clothing.
Some good questions to ask are:
1. How do your customers (or how do you want them to) define your brand identity?
2. What's the greatest benefit your product or service provides to people?
3. How do you want people using your product or service to feel?
4. How does your product or service stand out from the competition?
Once you've answered questions like these, you can...
2. Start with three words.
What three words do you want to reflect the personality of your brand? Three is the number commonly used by organizations to define this voice. Choosing more will just duplicate what you already have or water down your core characteristics.
Here are some examples of words to describe brand voice:
• Enthusiastic
• Confident
• Helpful
• Innovative
• Inspiring
• Fun
• Authoritative
Next, choose limitations for each word. For example, confident but not cocky. Funny but not silly. This will help you further define your brand identity and write targeted brand copy (or give your writers a guide when they're writing your copy).
3. Implement your brand voice everywhere.
If you're going to keep your brand consistent, you need to ensure every piece of writing reflects your brand's personality.
This means looking at your website, emails, social media accounts, and print materials such as business cards. You may have to rewrite older copy to reflect your voice or create totally new content, but don't skip this important detail.
Imagine getting an email with no defined plan or a totally different brand voice than the one you get on a company's website - it's jarring, confusing and doesn't evoke a feeling of trust.
These three steps will help you define your business as part of your bigger brand identity. Once you've defined your brand's identity, you can start speaking to your customers in an authentic and compelling way.
Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.
If you are new to Social Media and online marketing or find it overwhelming and confusing, my monthly group coaching program, AMPLIFY! Business Academy http://amplifybusinessacademy.com/ is a perfect way for you to incrementally learn the best strategies and tactics to help you grow your business online.
Influence is subtle yet powerful and this quote by TemitOpe Ibrahim does make us understand the potential of it: "Influence is when you are not the one talking and yet your words fill the room; when you are absent and yet your presence is felt everywhere." Well, business does not work on strategies alone, in fact, business runs on the science of marketing and advertising too.
Today, the face of marketing has made the world more open to opportunities, however, the latest concept that business runs on is influencer marketing as the archaic methods of marketing are not delivering what they used to deliver earlier in terms of audience attraction and profit maximization. Also, we live in an era where people have more faith on self-help gurus, experts, and buyers who provide genuine feedback that is why people now value advice from third parties and influencers whether micro or macro depending on the dynamism of the business.
Various studies have shown that many business houses, whether startups or multinationals have increased their budget for marketing and are mainly focusing on the power of 'influencer marketing'. Since, ages we have seen cricketers and actors influencing the mass audience by endorsing various brands. Well, this is one perfect example of influencer marketing because as an audience, we tend to buy a product that is recommended to us by someone who is the face of the country and we have seen, otherwise, we know, there is no synergy between a cricketer and a toothpaste brand.
Why Does Your Business Need Influencers?
Any business works well when word-of-mouth is a part of it. In our daily lives also, recommendations play a great deal. Imagine yourself buying a product or a service online by just reading the reviews mentioned by some random people whom you don't even know. Well, mostly, we don't fall for it even if the product and services are great in reality. On the other hand, when the same piece of information comes from a reliable source then our brain automatically tends to believe it and gives a positive feedback if the influence is strong.
Influencers are great traffic generators, if influencers are ensuring to enlighten your brand amongst audiences then you ought to have a landing page as all this traffic will directly land to your website in order to generate good revenue.
However, now the smart customers do not fall for archaic marketing done via commercials or billboards, in fact, people now do all the research themselves and want to hear an honest feedback from someone they know and share a connection with and this is a major reason why various startups and multinationals are doing influencer marketing on various digital platforms.
Why Audience Matter?
Doing marketing on a larger scale has its own pitfalls if distinctions are not made. As a company, you must know what topics, blogs, and hashtags will your targeted audience follow and then play the influencer marketing card.
Every brand needs a different influencer marketing strategy as attracting the audience varies from brand to brand and if the influencer strategies are not distinctive then the end result will not be productive. Triggering the area of interest in the individuals will automatically let them follow you, share, or purchase your product or services.
How Influencer Marketing Works?
Specify Your Audience:
The first step to influencer marketing is identifying the online audience. Once that is done, understand the science behind their decision making, what impacts them the most, and what is the unique buying factor that they consider the most.
Think of An Apt Influencer:
After figuring out what the audiences need and how their decision making power works, implant a human magnet that attracts their needs in the right manner. If the buyers' decision-making power is not what is being targeted then the purpose of influencer marketing is not being fulfilled at all.
Track Influencers and Their Activities:
By tracking your influencers you get to know a lot about the activities they do to attract the audience. Always listen to the advice of your influencers. Watch them carefully; figure out what topics do they focus on, how and what do they share with the targeted audience, and how do they respond to the queries of the targeted mass audience?
Assessing The Result:
If you do not evaluate the outcome of the influencer marketing strategy you use, then it may suffer bottlenecks as and when it grows. Keep a close eye on your relationships. Develop a bond with them and then convert your targeted audience to your clients by providing a positive experience.
If the concept of influencer marketing is foreign to your brand still, then remember the saying; it is better to be late than never!
If e-paper has replaced newspaper in your home then don't feel guilty about it. You are not alone; in some years this will be a norm everywhere. It is primarily because of the penetration of internet services, high-end smartphones in remote corners of the world and cheap accessibility. Most of the action takes place in the online space and this is why it has become a common hunting ground for businesses at large.
Decoding Digital Marketing
Marketing is not merely an attempt to sell products or services but an integrated process aimed at creating a predefined impact. It is a strong influencing force that can transform a business. So, experts stress on the growing importance of digital marketing in shaping a business for maximum gain. There is a swelling number of internet users and this provides ample scope for a business - new as well as existing ones, for market attention and convert it to tangible gains.
Here's Why Digital Marketing Is Not An Option But Compulsory For Every Business
Digital marketing is a staple strategy for every business aiming to make it a noted venture in the respective industry. The process flows through several channels and uses a number of tools to accomplish the desired goal. It is specifically goal-oriented and you can see the results in lesser time than traditional marketing methods. Here are some of the most important reasons for relying on it for a successful business.
Concrete analysis and adaptation: In digital marketing, user activities are monitored to arrive on a concrete data about the targeted group. Real-time data that gets updated from time to time; it enables more accurate analysis. This makes it most effective in predicting market trends and adapting to the changes.
Unhindered communication: There are several barriers of communication, in traditional marketing processes which can hinder the transmission of messages to your target group. However, digital marketing communication does not encounter such hindrances because it is direct and engage customers for undivided attention.
Customized content: Based on the data, communication strategists decide on messages which can be easily understood by consumers, meet their demands or resolve their problems and direct them to purchase the products or services.
Customer tracking: Digital marketing services target individual customers by identifying them through the device they use and their demography. The analytics are used to predict customer preferences, behaviours and predict their actions. It tracks customers from their initial interaction to end sales.
Dynamic approach: It uses real-time data, reaches the maximum possible customer pool, provides an immediate workable solution and aids in easy sales. This dilutes the time-lapse between each procedure and encourages more consumer engagement and sales.
Digital marketing offers you easy and unmatched solutions to overcome some critical marketing challenges. This has become all the more relevant because of intensifying market competition and penetrating use of technology. Digital marketing services are leveraging business like never before.
Shyam Future Tech, being a renowned digital marketing company in Kolkata which offers it's customers best of services with regard to online presence in such a way that it captures the attention of the visitors, hence turn those visitors into prospective customers.
Nowadays there is huge competition prevailing in the online marketplaces. Thus, it has become very important to improve your online sales process and provide a better user-friendly experience. However, you will need effective tips to connect with your potential customers on your social media channels. By using the right plan, you can improve the experience of your visitors and create more sales.
1. Use messaging services to offer excellent sales support
You must focus on providing sales support by using native chatting within every social network. By using conversational e-commerce you can use the messaging services that will help you to personalize, automate and customize your communication. These messaging apps have become great go-to-choices for many customers. It helps them to directly interact with companies as these apps have increased engagement and retention rates.
So, if you aren't using messaging apps to automate confirmations and for selling, you're losing a big social e-commerce opportunity. However, make sure to be careful while using automated chat apps such as Facebook Messenger Bots.
2. Analyse conversations about your brand and services
When it comes to participating in conversations with your customer's social media is the most effective tool. However, the continuous attack by customers make it difficult to determine the useful information. Thus, keeping an eye on your users online activities will help you to understand the confusing situations. You will be able to generate more leads and create effective marketing strategies.
Brand listening is the skills of developing important insights by analysing your clients' conversations about your services, brand, and competitors. However, you will need to need to focus on more than simply monitoring your official social media accounts.
3. Encourage your users to share their personal experience
There is no doubt that the success of every social media is not based how much they talk about themselves. Instead, it depends on how much their customers talk about their services and brand. Thus, you must provide your customers an option to share their experience before, during and after making a purchase.
A recent evidence has shown that 1 out of 3 Facebook user has first shared, liked and commented the product prior to purchasing it.
4. Provide easy and quick buying options on your social channels
These days we can see a great expansion in retail sales that are driven by social channels. In these channels buying buttons play a major role in generating more sales. With the help of the buy buttons your clients can make smooth and secure purchases from within the social networks. This reduces the need to follow a multi-step process and limit it to a single click sale process.
5. Feature User-generated content (UGC)
The content that is created and shared by your customers, followers and fans on social channels also generate content - User-generated content (UGC). They either create it instinctively or through other options like giveaways or contests. Curating UGC's work effectively for e-commerce businesses. Usually, people who see UGC are 97% more likely to buy your services, according to Business Insider.
The content generated in the form of images by the customers also work effectively. In fact, 77% of online shoppers choose Instagram pictures when they were to make a choice between UGC (like images posted on Instagram's) and professional images (given on the pages of product description). When you use authentic pictures it works as a social proof, enhance your ad performance, attract high-intent visitors from Instagram to product pages and improve on-site conversion rates.
6. Develop seasonal and business-related content
Almost all eCommerce businesses create effective business-related according to the seasonal calendar. They perform very well in generating sales, creating special offers, incentives and emails. They also outdo at stocking their social channels with announcements about all related seasonal e-commerce activities.
Nearly all businesses using social streams are hard pressed to create social-friendly content. As users are more knowledgeable and they avoid generic stock images. According to a Chute Digi day Study over 70% of users find it at least two times more effective to use pictures than only written content alone.
However, the problem arises when a web owner is not able to hire a professional designer. In that case, you can consider using Buffer's Pablo, which offers more than 600,000 royalty-free photos to choose from. On the other hand, if you need pictures for graphics and infographics, using Venn gage will be a great option. It offers hundreds of design templates to generate detailed images quickly. These templates are usually are categorized into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. So, you can choose pictures according to your level of expertise.
In today's digital era, a marketer should not underestimate the power of video, as it solidifies your presence over the internet or intranet. It's no real surprise that it has now become the need of the time, without which your digital marketing strategy is incomplete. To hit the head like a pro, you need to get out of your comfort zone and jump on the bandwagon that gives you the results. Customers or visitors find videos more interesting and easier to communicate than the content itself. It clarifies and conveys the thoughts better than the written text. While indulging in the strategy, here are some mistakes that you need to avoid, have a look to know them.
Creating Never-Ending Videos: Just because videos have now become an integral part of digital marketing strategy, doesn't mean you make it lengthy or never-ending. If you did so, it'll only ruin your impression and break your images in front of the clients. Thus, you should keep in mind the duration of the video and try to make it as short, simple and knowledgeable, as possible.
Try Not To Push Sale: While creating a video for your company, you need to keep in mind the point that it is to attract people and advertise your products or services to them in a smarter way. If you are not doing so, it'll break your impression and deliver the wrong results. Make sure the video you create convenience them to try out your products and services, rather than trying to foist it on them forcefully.
No Title And Description: Video makes it easier for a viewer to understand your offerings, similarly, title and descriptions help the Google to index it for better ranking. Thus, you should create SEO-friendly title and description that justify your video and make it easier for search engines to index it.
No Call-To-Action: Be it content or video content, a call-to-action phrase is very much important to attract the audience and, to increase the chances of conversion. If you are not adding it to your videos, so, it'll zero your efforts of generating the leads.
These are a few video marketing mistakes that being a marketer, you must avoid. To add a professional touch to your videos, you shouldn't hesitate to take the assistance of the experts. Do remember, video marketing has the power to make or break your company's impression and, you should use this tool ideally to make it work for your goals.
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Writing great, effective, valuable content is absolutely critical to the success of your brand. However, once you have written that amazing content, you still need to promote it so that other people pay attention to what you are sharing with them and to what you are offering them.
The many purposes of your content
You probably already understand this really well but your content serves many valuable purposes. One of the most important purposes is that it should elevate your brand and enable you to bring your business to the next level. Of course, that will only happen if you promote your content effectively so that other people pay attention to what you are doing, buy into your approach, tell other people about your offerings, and become loyal to you on an enduring basis.
There are several steps that you can take in order to cause your content to get noticed.
Send out Email blasts: The fact is that If you have a person's Email address, they opted in at some point in the past. Otherwise, you wouldn't have the Email address. That is just common sense. So, with that in mind, it makes perfect sense for you to send out a targeted Email blast to your Email recipients. Because you already have an established connection with those recipients, there is a really good likelihood that they will open your Email and (hopefully) read it in its entirety.
Your Email blast is married to whatever content you are posting at the time. You will want to post the content and then send out the Email blast. You don't want to do it the other way around. Without the Email, there is a much smaller chance that your online connections will be aware that you have just posted the content that you want them to read. Don't forget to include a call-to-action (CTA) in your Email. That is the way that your recipients will connect with you (whether that means clicking on a link, Emailing you back, or some other means of communication).
You will want to keep track of the responses to the Email blast so that you can include it in your analytics (to make sure that you identify what is working and what is not). These data are extremely important to your business. After a certain number of days (within a week after you have sent out the first Email blast), resend the Email blast. There may be many people who didn't open your Email the first time around who will open it the next time around. Their not having opened it may have nothing to do with anything more serious than the fact that they were busy and distracted at the time when they received it from you.
Engage your connections as much as possible: The only way to truly secure a solid relationship with the other person is to engage that person as much as possible. If you are not sure how to go about engaging, there is a great deal of information online that can help you with that. Assuming that you are a member of the most effective social networks, you should start there. Each one gives you the opportunity to engage other people. Not only will you be able to do that but you can do it in a really effective, really deep way. That is exactly what social networks are made for.
As far as engaging is concerned, you should just jump right in there. When you are doing the research to determine which groups are the right groups for your business, it is important that you identify groups that are relevant to what you are doing and appropriate. After you have identified those groups, join them and start to become a valued part of the discussion. As thought-provoking questions and comment on what other people are saying. Engaging other people is an extremely important part of your brand and it will help you to bring your business to the next level. There are many opportunities to engage other people and you just need to identify which ones are the best fit for your brand and your business.
Connect with other people through your social media channels: You have golden opportunities to connect with other people online in many different ways. One of those ways is social media channels. Interacting with your fans and followers is a great way to promote your content. Once you have discussed your content, you can expect many of those people to want to read your content. That is certainly effective promotion. If you aren't sure where to find people who you believe would be interested in the topics that you write about, search for groups that are related (or mention) those particular topics.
As you are searching, you should put in the right keywords and/or key phrases. That will help you to identify the right groups and the right people. You can use the keywords and/or key phrases that you have used in your content. Another part of your connecting with other people through social media channels is identifying the influencers with whom you would like to share a connection. Those influencers will help you to bring your business to the next level.
Once you have established those connections with influencers, you can allow the influencers to carry you to the next step by using their name/influence to interest other people in what you are doing. That will be very attractive to your other online connections.
Try to get your content included in many different ways and places: You have something really valuable when it comes to your content and it definitely needs to be shared with other people. In fact, when given the opportunity, the other people would definitely agree with that. You just need to make them aware of what you have to say.
Part of the answer to that is about the exposure of your content. If you are able to post your content in many different places on a regular basis, other people will start to get used to seeing your posts, reading them, interacting with you, and become loyal to your brand. That is exactly how it works.
Conclusion Your content is essential to the success of your business. However, that doesn't only mean that you need to write top-quality content. It also means that you need to promote your content so that other people have the opportunity to benefit from your words of wisdom. You have a lot to offer. Perhaps, you have a lot more than you are even aware of. However, it is very important that you spend your time and energy promoting your content in an efficient, effective way.
Your time is extremely valuable, just as is the time of other people. The bottom line is that your content will be totally ineffective if you don't tell other people about it. After all, you are not in it all by yourself. You need other people to ensure your brand's success.
Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company's Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.
His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.
Mr. Cohn earned a Master's degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master's degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.
Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
You probably interact with several different social networks. As a business owner, you are probably familiar with online marketing because you recognize the need for social media marketing. The reality is that since everyone else is doing it online, you need to do it as well. If you don't have that approach, you will be left in the dust and everyone else will move past you. However, what you may not realize is that there are several different types of social networks that may benefit your business.
The popular social networks and then some
The chances are that you are involved with the popular social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. You may also be interacting using Instagram and YouTube. On the other hand, you may not even be aware of the other social networks and how amazing they may be for your brand and for your business. What you may not realize is just how much there is to social media and how much more you may be able to get out of it than you are aware of right now.
Social networks: The function and purpose of a social network are really simple. Social networks connect people to each other. That is exactly why they are called social networks. Social networks can benefit your business in several different ways, such as allowing you to do market research, generating leads, building relationships, etc.
Discussion forums: A discussion forum is a great place to get involved if you want to share your opinions with other people, hear their opinions, and really get a stimulating conversation going. All sorts of interesting nuggets of information can emerge as a result of a discussion that you have on a discussion forum.
Networks that share media: A network that shares media does just that. It is a network where people can share all types of media, such as photos, videos, and any other type of media that you can imagine. This type of network can benefit your business in similar ways to what happens with social networks. They can help you to build your brand and to build relationships, engage your target audience members, and generate leads, among a whole list of benefits. In many cases, these types of media are more effective than words (if used in combination, your content will be highly effective). It is important to remember that many people are visual, which is why they respond so well to visual content.
Content curation and bookmarking networks: If you are searching for new content, this is the type of network to do it. There is a good chance that not all of the content that you share is original content. You may be curating some of your content, which is an intelligent part of your online content marketing strategy. There are networks that can help you to get where you are going in this regard. This type of network can benefit your business in several different ways, including increasing your brand awareness, engaging your target audience members, and increasing traffic to your website.
Networks where you can leave product and/or service reviews: This is an important type of network because other business owners count on your opinion and similar opinions from other people. The fact is that everyone considers and buys a variety of products and services. Why not go a step further and share your opinion about what you have researched and purchased? It will certainly help the business owners if you do so.
Networks for publishing content: Content is the bread and butter of all businesses. No matter what you do and what you offer, the fact is that you will need to tell other people about those offering and your brand. Otherwise, the person on the other end will not know about you and if they don't know about you, you will not be able to establish a relationship with them and they will not buy anything from you at any point. Content marketing is a necessary approach for all businesses. The networks that specifically enable business people to effectively share their content for maximum impact are a critical tool to the success of those businesses (yours included).
Networks where people with common interests can get together: This type of network can apply to personal or professional interests. They are very effective and very successful on the whole. Because this type of network helps people to build relationships, that also means that you will be engaging the other person and build your brand.
Networks where people can shop for products: Since shopping is necessary and everyone does it, this type of network will be around for a very long time. Similarly to the other networks that have been discussed here, this type of network can also build brand awareness, enhance engagement, and sell products to other people.
Networks where people can trade: This one is probably obvious. If you have things that you don't want or need anymore, there is a very good chance that there is another person who does need and want it. It is a great way to clean up and build some sort of relationship at the same time.
Networks where people can be anonymous: One of the most attractive features of the Internet for many people is the idea that they are anonymous. Before the Internet, many people were reluctant or afraid to communicate using their own name. Now they can hide behind anonymity, which feels safer. Of course, it is not always the right approach to take but it is how many people feel.
Conclusion
Even if you don't get involved with all of the different types of social networks, it is important that you are aware of their existence and understand exactly what they are for and how they work. It is interesting to note that most of the different types of social networks have common threads: building brand awareness, engaging audience members, and establishing new relationships. It is only then that you will be in the position to reject them if you don't feel that they will work effectively for your business.
Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company's Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.
His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.
Mr. Cohn earned a Master's degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master's degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.
Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
The recent changes to the Facebook algorithm has set many entrepreneurs who were using Facebook to promote their businesses into a tailspin. In basic terms, Facebook will now prioritize relevant content from friends and family on timelines.
The reason for the change was, to some extent, a reaction to the issue of "fake content" on the social media platform. Facebook now wants to promote "real content" from real people, not international propaganda agencies disguised as people.
This means that posts from businesses will be less visible and is particularly hard on ordinary, honest businesses that are producing genuine content without trying to misinform or damage anyone.
So what does this mean for your business?
Good Content Will Always Be Shared
If you have plenty of engagement in regards to your content, you have a better likelihood of being in the new news feed. But even if you're not, those who genuinely like what you do will generally come to visit your page specifically to see what's new and to interact with your content.
Create a Facebook Group
Your personal Facebook page is for socializing. Your Facebook group is for socializing, and communicating with others that are interested in the topic or market in which you are doing business. When people join a group that you create, on a topic they're interested in, they look at you as a leader in that area. This means that you can promote your business while being in control of the process, something you can't do in someone else's Facebook group, or successfully from your own personal profile page.
Leverage Influencers
Influencers are folks who have grown a significant following on Facebook over time. They often keep to one niche or subject and offer their thoughts, opinions and expertise. Interact with their content, and you will become more noticeable. When people click on your name, they can go to your account, like your page, and start receiving your posts on their data feeds.
Offer A Variety of Content
Don't limit your marketing on Facebook to one kind of content, for example text only. Include things like memes, video, live video, short content, long content, infographics and so on. Videos should be short, sharp, informative and entertaining. Don't forget to ask for comments and shares.
It's not the first time Facebook have made major changes, and at least they informed people about them on this occasion. It's just a case of being more innovative and thorough, and watching how things unfold in the future.
Facebook wants you to succeed using their advertising platform. This just makes sense. If you achieve your business goals while spending money on Facebook advertising, you're likely to use that marketing practice again in the future. To learn how to make your Facebook marketing successful and profitable, download my Free Checklist, Successful Facebook Ads at https://jonallo.com/FBads
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.
Many business don't do the marketing the right way, especially when it comes to social media marketing. What you need to keep in mind is that your social media campaigns have to be effective and affordable. If done the right way, they can help you grow your business. Targeting the wrong audience is not a good idea. Let's talk about 5 do's of effective social marketing.
1. Learn to use the power of social media
On the Internet, you can find a lot of information about marketing. You can find free courses as well as paid ones. Understanding these things is not difficult as long as you want to educate yourself.
So, it's important that your take your time to find out how these marketing campaigns work. Although basics are the same, businesses have to customize these strategies so as to grab the eyes of their potential customers or clients.
2. Listen to your prospective customers
How can you find out what your customers want from you? There is only way. You need to listen to them. Aside from this, it's important that you make use of social media platforms to extend your customer service, as more and more customers present their feedback and opinion on websites, such as Facebook and Twitter.
By listening to your clients or customers, you can avail a lot of opportunities too. For instance, you can read up on the key influences to find out how you can improve your products or services.
3. Make use of automation tools
It's not a good idea to opt for spammy automation. Instead, you should use the smart automation. Blasting out a lot of promotional offers all the time is not a good idea. This may prove counterproductive and your followers may lose interest in your offers. What you need to do is make use of social media to get in touch with your customers and offer useful information. By doing so, you can build a loyal audience that can become your customers.
4. Engage with your audience
You don't just need to keep updating your social media pages, it won't work. What you need to do is keep in touch with your audience and keep them engaged. What matters is their satisfaction.
If you engage your audience, you can find out more about the problems that they are facing. Then, you can work harder to resolve those issues and make those customers satisfied.
5. Work on just two platforms first
It may not be possible for you to stay active on all of the social media sites. If you are just starting out, make sure you choose one or two platforms and focus all your efforts on them. Most of your customers will be active on two big platforms, such as social media and Twitter.
So, these are 5 do's of social marketing. If done well, they can help you run effective social media campaigns to grow your customers and clients to expand your business.
It is no secret that social media has become a part of our daily lives. It is a direct platform for reaching consumers. The best thing about it is that people spend so much time on social media that you are sure that it will reach a portion of your market. In addition, it gives you realistic data and statistics which are easy to measure and interpret. Consequently it is the ideal way to build your brand and get customers.
How do you do it?
Create your social media pages and complete all the info. Add an attractive cover picture with a call to action. Add your logo as the profile photo. Then post on a daily basis, because each post only reaches a percentage of followers therefore posting every day is ideal.
Prepare a strategy that is your guideline to what will be posted on the social media. Don't just post anything. Be deliberate with what you share.
Post relevant and interesting content. You may be tempted to post ads every day. But rather break it up with interesting tips or fun posts in between. Make sure that the tips or fun posts are in line with your brand.
Use attractive images in your ads and add a call to action. Good pictures grab attention. Either, get a photographer to take pictures of your products or business, or make use of stock photos to create eye catching adverts.
Set up sponsored adverts that are targeted to your specific market. Specify the interests of the people you are targeting as well as the area. Be realistic with the area definition but also don't limit yourself too much. If you select an area that is very small, you will not see good results. Actually the results may show a very low reach in terms of the people that see the advert. You want as many people as possible to see the advert and the ones who are interested to interact with you.
Build a community by being available. Many businesses build a social media presence but don't maintain it. When people ask you questions, whether it is about your product or simply a question that you could answer, then answer it. Answer it quickly. Don't wait a week to get back to the person.
Remember they are probably on social media every day and may check if you've replied. If you don't respond, they may think that your brand doesn't care about them.
These are a few tips on how to get your brand noticed and your marketing campaign to generate leads.
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Chances are, the person reading this right now has Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Social media surrounds our world, but some businesses still think of social media as an afterthought. Any digital marketing company will tell you your business can thrive with the right social media marketing strategies.
About 20 percent of customers use social media channels to find information about any business. That means your role as a business owner should be to maintain your brand's online presence.
What some entrepreneurs fail to understand is that it isn't just for fun-it's a force to be reckoned with. When used right, it can bring power to your business. On the other hand, flops on social media can be bad for business. Here are the top social media marketing mistakes companies make.
1. Having Too Many Social Channels
Alright, so if you're on social media, you don't have to be on all the platforms. Your company just needs to be on the ones that are best able to reach your customers. After all, the content you post on LinkedIn may not apply to Snapchat, as your audiences on both platforms may also differ.
Additionally, every channel you sign up for is another platform to maintain regularly. It is a real-time channel, which means content should always be flowing on your page. So if you have five different channels (which you can), you have to make sure you can manage all of them regularly.
2. Ignoring Feedback
This applies to both good and bad feedback. Customers love hearing from a brand they follow because it gives your company a friendly, human face. While it may be tricky to keep track of your followers' interactions, the more (and quicker) you respond to their comments, the more chances you'll have of giving them a good experience.
It's said that 71 per cent of customers who have a good experience with a brand are more likely to recommend it to others. This is also your chance to express brand personality. You don't have to sound like a robot. Use a voice that works for your branding. Spotify's brand identity targets millennials, so their tone is fun and hip.
3. Posting Content Manually
Creating content and managing social channels regularly are tough tasks. It takes a lot of time and effort, which is why some businesses fail to update frequently. Luckily, there are lots of tools that can help you optimize your social media management.
There are tools for different needs. For publishing, there's Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social; for quick graphics, there's Canva. These are just some of the examples of tools you can use to save time, and make its management easier.
4. Not Optimizing Content for Each Platform
Your hashtags on Instagram make sense but on Facebook, not really. At the same time, the ideal character count on Facebook is not the same on Twitter, and the number of emojis you put on Instagram won't work on LinkedIn. Each social media platform has different ideal posts, so you should optimize your posts for each channel.
Any digital marketing company knows social media marketing is more than just signing up for accounts. Maintaining your channels is a lot of work but it can build brand loyalty, which is something hard to find. So the next time you sign your business up for a social media account, remember to maintain it on a regular business.
Every digital agency cannot become the favorite without highly skilled logo designers and think tank marketers. It is important to develop the skills and craft in a devoted industry. Users are keener to experience the visual designs and other graphics to connect with the product naturally. Digital designs indicate the energy, feel, graphics, U.I & U.X, site prints etc. where the audience usually focus on.
Calm Designs:
The emerging trend is calm and soothing designs with gradient effect that illustrates the smooth dimension of a digital design. Such effect with small icons and blue hues would definitely go conventional this year. The descriptions are sleeker and could capture the user's mind. This year the digital designs are more inclined towards creating the artwork close to reality. A new canvas is launched for the preparation for such calming designs. The designers are handling the Photoshop and other software tactfully to create something futuristic.
Compassionate Designs:
The surreal designs and other visual trends are now a day creating more hot flashes by capturing user's attentions. The artwork that makes virtual effects is producing lush side of digital tendency. By staying positive and encouraged the designs with blend of correct color scheming can enhance the feel of a design. As the recent typefaces are making innovative layouts for a site with effective support for impressive visual effects.
3-D Application & Tools:
The packaging designs should be dealt with the 3-D designs. The shape and edges of a rounded element can be challenging for a 3-D packaging. With the help of emerging software(s) it is possible for a shape shifter items be decorated with new 3-D tools. It presents a real look on the packaging with discuss color blending displays.
Isometric Rule:
With the versatile typography and new imagery dimensions the isometric design is the latest trend for 2018. It has 2 kinds of components in it i: e:
1. Artificial-ism
2. Real imagery.
In isometric design the advertisements are meant to fit in displays of hypothetically real images which is close to actual scene. The style is irresistibly fashionable in digital world. Such images and display pictures are effective by captivating user's mind on laptops, smart phones and other devices.
3D images have built their own world with made-up and adventurous geometric slash isometric blended designs. It makes the user urge for a better exploration.
Conclusion:
The year 2018 is gathering the most innovative and creative trends that is captivating the minimalism approach. The daring colors and advanced technology surely taking away the era positively.
Many designers are experimenting the new techniques for hyper real imagery with popping colors. The recent trends are purely contributing in the advancement of technology along with plenty of designs to ponder upon.
In 2016 the digital and flat designs took the center stage where the designers started to emphasize on the custom logo design.With the changing creativity in designs the tools also took an evolution for more variation to sustain the audience's expectations from a brand.
Word-of-mouth represents 20-50% of all purchasing decisions. Customers are more likely to respond to endorsements from a person they respect than to advertisements. In the world of digital relationships, word of mouth extends beyond friends and family, and into the realm of influencer marketing.
Twitter has shown that...
49% of buyers will seek advice from social media influencers,
20% of users said that Tweets from an influencer motivated them to share their own product endorsements, and,
40% of users claimed they made a purchase as a direct result of an influencer's Tweet
Who Is a Social Media Influencer?
A Social Media Influencer is a user of social media who can show a level of authority in a specific industry. They have access to large audiences through their knowledge and scope of impact.
What is Social Media Influencer Marketing?
Influencer Marketing is the practice of creating relationships with people who can then build additional relationships for you in return. Whether the audience is small or large, an influencer can touch consumers via social networks and blogs, in ways traditional branding may not be able to reach.
Celebrity endorsements were the original form of influencer marketing. We've all see T.V. commercials where a well-known person takes 30 seconds to tell you how great a product is.
Now, with online media, regular people have become online "celebrities" with highly engaging social media followings. A survey last year found that YouTube creators took eight of the ten top spots in a survey of influencers, outranking traditional celebrities.
Increase Your Traffic by Becoming a Social Media Influencer
Social Media Influencing has become very popular with blog enthusiasts to make passive income through affiliate marketing and utilizing these Influencers have become standard practice among many of the top companies selling on the market today.
But why stop there? Why not generate even more leads and traffic to your Brand by becoming one of the Influencers yourself. There are a number of recommended actions out there to become a social media influencer. Here we've gleaned together 4 steps to help you to get started...
Choose 2-4 social media channels you'll use to cover your subject, taking into consideration what you excel at. Are you good at writing engaging posts on Facebook and Twitter, or are you better at photography or creating and editing your own videos?
The type of content you want to publish should showcase your best skills. If you've decided to be a platform-specific influencer, clearly, you'll want to use that as your primary social network then utilize the others for greater exposure.
Create a strategy for your content. What are your information preferences? Try to imagine why people will be enthusiastic to follow you, then plan accordingly. Try to plan for at least 3 months in advance, prepare the strategy, and then start posting.The purpose of your content is to attract people. To accomplish this, you must be publishing consistently. You know what message you want to convey so stick to it, but also make sure you are keeping a lookout for new info.
Promote yourself by guiding your audience to your content. Share it everywhere it might seem interesting to other followers. Build your community by going to forums, fan pages, and inviting new people to engage with them as well.
Contact other people and brands in your industry. Chat, comment on other posts, exchange likes and ideas. One of the fastest ways to gain status is to contribute your unique content to other blogs and publications. Guest postings can improve your merit among peers and increase traffic to your own blog. Show that you notice other people and you'll start to be noticed too.
Over time your efforts will start to pay off. You'll begin to cultivate an audience that will listen to and follow you. The more people who join your audience, the more seriously your views will be taken and the level of influence you create over others will increase.
Publish on LinkedIn
People generally believe LinkedIn posts are from the most influential leaders in a particular subject. So, in addition to your own blog, create posts using LinkedIn's publishing platform. You can accomplish this most easily by cutting and pasting your previously published blog posts and add a headline with keywords and an image to draw the eye. Consequently, when people in your network also see your articles on LinkedIn, they will start to view you as an authority too.
Finally, keep your content and sources organized for easy access. This way if someone asks a question about a particular post, you can easily answer the question or elaborate. This will also assist you in giving the appearance of having a good knowledge base of your subject. There is no reason to hold anything back. Sharing your expertise is how you can truly be a good influencer.
So, make sure you interact and build meaningful relationships with your audience as well as your peers. This way you can present yourself to brands as having a strong following in your subject.
For additional info on becoming a Social Media Influencer, check out this post at https://marketingland.com/step-step-guide-becoming-influencer-industry-142696
Confused on how or where to start marketing online?
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The young generating is getting seriously into freelancing, making it their first priority. Everybody wants to become their own boss, to really enjoy the life and live without stress. Thanks to technology and specifically the Internet, freelancing has become way much simpler compared to 10 years ago. It's actually becoming a huge business, where people use their skills to help others at a lower rate.
Short tasks or micro tasks.
Several college students, for example, are working from home. Same for homemakers and stay home mothers. All this is thanks to online platforms that allow anyone to join an accept online jobs from companies. Housewives, for instance, perform micro jobs in their spare time. The good thing is that these jobs require maximum one hour per day to complete. In case you have kids at home, you know how hard it's to get things done, but that doesn't mean you can't work from home. Short tasks or micro tasks are perfect for busy moms. They can earn some good money this way and take care of their kids at the same time. Here is a good list of the tasks you can perform if you're in that group of people:
Take surveys: you can easily make up to $100 per month just by taking online surveys. All you need to do is perform a Google search for "paid survey sites". Join several of these sites to increase the income. When you register, use your main email address to receive regular invitations to make new surveys.
Most of these surveys pay up to $3 and take up to 45 minutes to complete.
You get paid in cash, gift cards, free products, or free entries to sweepstakes.
You don't need to pay to participate in surveys, so if anyone asks you for money to join a survey site, don't pay them.
Check the privacy policy of the website to verify they won't sell your personal information.
Test websites: participate in something called "remote usability testing", this means getting paid to navigate a website and provide feedback. Most of these tests take 15 minutes to do, and you get paid up tp $10 per test. One of these tests is about performing a scenario in the client's website and while recording yourself. An example: go through the process of buying a product on a retailer's website. You'll need: a computer, a microphone, fast internet connection.
Tutor students: you can certainly help students by being what is known as online tutors. Nowadays several families really like this option to teach their kids. You can help a kid with his homework or help a college student studying for an exam. It depends on the level of education you have. All you need is your own computer and fast internet. Online companies assign students to you depending on your profile. You get paid from $9 to $30 per hour, it depends on your educational background and the subject you'll teach.
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Web analytics software should tell you where people are clicking from to get to you. Are there ads you should do more of? Website traffic is essential no matter what your online goals are. For this reason it is very important to learn the best, and highest-yield tactics for getting traffic.
Webmasters would in days of old pile keywords at the top of their web page and some even tried to mask them at the bottom. Search engines have since gotten clever and they can spot keyword spamming a mile off. However professional Webmasters get unlimited, targeted search engine traffic free of charge by playing by the rules and implementing white hat and ethical traffic tactics!
Social marketing is the current new wave added to most webmasters traffic tactics arsenal and is a fantastic resource if it is done properly.Posting in Guestbooks on lenses is a privilege if you abuse that privilege (by posting self-promotional links, spamming the guestbook, being rude, or posting otherwise irrelevant or offensive stuff), then the lensmasters have the ability to flag your actions. Post good quality articles at sites that are related to your blog content or to the sites that simply need someone to post articles to them. Try searching them in Google then Post a free classified ad on Flugpo about your blog.By Giving a teaser from your post as the headline to your classified ad you should see a result based obviously on quality of post.If you are lucky enough to have produced some great content that people love then the page will get voted up and up and up and could eventually send you hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Link to those posts from your blog that's right, link to them! Links are one thing, but straight links are a dime a dozen, they're just not worth what they used to be. Sure, you can get some page rank but when it comes down to it, the power of return visitors is invaluable.
Start with the problem, add actions to resolve the problem, and conclude with results. Finally you need a biography box to seal the article. Start a blog for your business and update it on a regular basis as a business blog is an excellent tool to toot your own horn, let the world know about your new products, and tell your target customers why they should do business with you, rather than your competitor.Start article marketing today, and your results will grow quickly over time. Imagine what you could do if you combined this approach with some other traffic generating techniques? Also pay careful consideration to what your content is about as Traffic matters a lot on what content you are selecting to write on.
Google (like the other search engines) favour content that is new (therefore deemed more relevant) so if you update the website infrequently then you can expect to see fluctuations in your Google traffic. Writing new content on a regular basis ensures that they index your website on a regular basis (Seopher.com has new posts indexed within hours of posting). Google XML Sitemaps this plugin automatically generates and updates a sitemaps.org compliant sitemap for your blog. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com use that sitemap format to aid their spidering robots' efforts to index sites more completely.Search engines absolutely LOVE keyword rich domains and will usually index them far faster. Google also says the best way to ensure that pages in your site are indexed is to build links to them.
Choosing a keyword rich domain name will also improve your chances of ranking higher in search engine listing thus increasing the number of visitors to your site.Search engines actually pay closer attention to what is included on a home page than what might be included elsewhere on a website.An important point to understand is that Searchers are looking for information they don't want to be sold to. Search engines want searchers to have a good experience when they search and that means finding good information easily.
Submit sites about feeds only as Submitting your site to directories does not only give you more hits, it also increases your link popularity.Ultimately the number of web pages linking to your site is considered an important factor by many search engines to achieve a high ranking.
Article submission is generally free, though software is available to speed up the process but can be expensive. Whilst there is free software available, the range of directories the free submission services submit to is very small, and does not generally cover the best sites.However I can assure you that Article writing is no where near as hard as it seems, it is a skill that you can learn, and once you learn the basics just keep writing and you will get better.
Sending traffic to other sites is fun to do especially when someone usually only gets 20 visitors on the average day, and a casual mention might send them hundreds or thousands. Everybody's always asking me how to get more traffic to their site. Send out an all-points bulletin to your affiliates recognize their efforts in a big way and you will find that more of your affiliates will start to come up with great ideas of their own.
Targeted traffic helps you achieve your goal and that goal could be anything selling a product or a service, generating ad revenue or encouraging people to subscribe to your newsletter or RSS feeds.So my advice to you in closing is if you look after your traffic then your traffic will look after you.If you do as i suggest then you will be well on your way to Starting your Internet empire and the final leg of your journey to total financial freedom.
To Your Success As Always
Douglas Stuart
Author: Douglas Stuart of: [http://douglas-stuart.com]
Douglas Stuart is an active internet marketeer.
Who provides "Practical Advice" and "instruction"
On Internet and Affiliate Marketing.
Find out how "You" can "Quickly" expand your horizons
Video marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate targeted traffic. Once you create the right video you can submit to YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Viddler and other places that allow video submissions. By listing your website information in the description section, most people tend to follow-up with the video presentation if it is compelling enough. Remember that people preferred videos over reading and you should take advantage of this.
This is because it is much easier to watch videos and it is simpler to convey your points when you do so using images and someone speaking directly to them. In fact, in a recent survey from Vimeo, respondents explained that they were three times more likely to want to watch a video instead of reading a blog post.
One of the recent trends in video marketing for targeted traffic is a video called a Vine. These short videos that are around five or 6 seconds and tap into the emotion, understanding of trends and focus into a single expression that can captivate thousands even millions of viewers. This new style of video marketing has also been linked to products and services that can be promoted quickly and in an entertaining and interesting fashion that deals with the short attention span that most potential customers and clients have.
Another powerful form of video marketing is when you take the time to teach and/or instruct people in a hot topic and then follow-up with them by demonstrating that you can provide additional information that they need to be successful.
For example, there are many videos online teaching about the basics of internet marketing; but in order to get the full story you will need to subscribe to the marketers e-mail list and then follow-up for additional lessons, usually at a service fee or membership fee rate. These how-to videos generate huge amounts of targeted traffic and almost anybody can create them. Remember to focus on solving problems and you will have plenty of traffic from these videos.
Another great way to generate traffic using videos is to focus on high targeted videos that are receiving millions of views and then approaching the owner and asking them if you can pay them some money for them to post your URL in their description section. Since most people are not marketers and see this as an opportunity to make a few dollars each month, a majority of people will be happy to do this and you will also receive lots of targeted traffic when you do this.
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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?