Using Social Bookmarking To Promote Start-Up Businesses

What Social Media Engagement Achieves For Business

Social media in essence is in relation to engagement through sharing, which for business means targeting your product range, your articles, or your services at engaging a potential customer or client base. Collectively, products, services and articles are known as content, and it is through offering quality content that success through your channels can be achieved.

Social marketing has around 900 million users globally, and covers every topic range you can think of. As well as engaging a potential customer and client base or readership, social media is also relevant to search engine optimization.

Social media is a unique format as it helps you promote your content on to your audience, and in turn it generates traffic via people sharing your content with others, and through SEO. Perhaps more importantly than this, however, social media with its online reviews helps a business build trust, and nearly every brand you can think of uses social media for this reason.

Think of this as: you come across two companies offering the same services; one has 250 Facebook likes, the other 43 - which one would you opt for? So regardless of whether you're an online retailer, an affiliate marketer, offer a service such as tuition, or run a news site, social media can assist you build your business online. Google estimates that by 2015, UK consumers will have purchased £40bn of products and services online.

Popular Social Media Sites And Their Uses

Getting to get grips with the nuances of social media's role in promoting your business can cause more than its fair share connected with headaches. Here is a list of the most popular social media sites and their uses:

Facebook is predominately for sharing. This can be products, articles, or services. In a nutshell, it's for sharing your content with as many people as possible.

Twitter is about sharing news on any subject. Don't let the word news make you feel it not apply for products. New product launches, new stock ready to be sold - Twitter is good for all of this.

Google+ is in part a combination of the two and has become important for search engine optimization if nothing else.

Blogging is a great way to impart news and expertise on your readership, customer and client base, or followers. It offers a good way to attract visitors on your site via search engines.

YouTube is about showcasing videos to a wide audience. It is being utilized by businesses all the time to sell products and services. As YouTube is owned by The search engines, videos tend to feature prominently on search engine results. You can also utilize the YouTube ads to make a secondary income stream.

Pinter est and other bookmarking sites are very good at showcasing visual products. If your business is selling something online, albeit a product or service, ensure you are posting on Pinter est and as many bookmarking sites you could find.

Social Media And Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Good positioning on search engines is about unique quality content that is well shared and well linked to from other websites. By sharing your content on social sites, the more chance there is of people liking it on Facebook, re tweeting with Twitter, or sharing the pin on Pinter est. Links are important for good SEO and posting your content on social sites provides a link from the social site to yours, and in every case this can be targeted to a specific web page.

By web page I mean a specific solution, service, or article. This also ensures Google indexes the web page. That is to say, it adds it to its database, ensuring it can be found on search engines.

Finding The Best Social Media Sites For Your Business

To find the best social sites suited to your business, think as to what your business is trying to do. If your business sells products or services, then use social sites that showcase pictures and videos to sell the product. YouTube, Pinter est, Delicious and Instagram are all really good for showcasing products.

If you're in the selling game, make videos of your products, take good professional photos and find them on these sites, and ensure you link the pictures and videos directly to the content on your site. If you sell on eBay or an affiliate seller, try to link directly to the product page where a potential customer can buy it. Also, put the products on your Facebook or my space page, Google+ page, and Twitter. For service providers, a slightly different spin on social media promotion is needed as, more often than not, a service provider will sit in the middle of visual social media, and text-based social sites.

This also applies to affiliate marketers. If you can, represent your services that has a picture or icon, and publish the picture or icon on the visual sites. Use videos to showcase your services - if you can get testimonials from clients, well, that's gold dust. Publish regularly on your blog and tweet the articles, together with insights into the industry. This engagement will help build trust with all your existing clients, showcase your skills, and help you to be found by people wishing to become new clients.

Social Media Advertising

If you have the budget for it, Facebook offers advertising on a click-through basis like Google Ad Sense, or it can be used to earn likes. It is often in instances of experimentation. For affiliate marketing revenue streams, click-through will expose the user to your revenue stream, while a like will ensure every time an article or new product is published they'll be informed. It's trial and error and seems to work well for some businesses, but others have lost faith from it.

Saving Time

By now, you have probably guessed that updating social sites, especially if you publish a lot of daily content, is hard work. Larger businesses employ people to keep on top of it, something many start-up business don't have the budget or the time for. It is possible to help automate your social accounts updating using automatic syndication sites.

A Social Media Strategy

Step 1: Create a Facebook Page, Twitter account and Google+ Page For Business

These have their uses regardless of the type of business, and all help considerably with SEO. Ensure you create business pages on Facebook in addition to Google+. This keeps your personal details and indeed social media life hidden from your customers or clients, and it offers better options to promote a business.

Step 2: Identify Social Media Sites That Are The Most Important To Your Business

If your site sells products, make a list of all the online bookmarking and video sites you could find and create accounts. Ensure you use Pinter est and YouTube. If your business is for services, information, or is for an affiliate marketing revenue stream, you want to spread the word in as many ways as possible. Use blogging sites such as Tumble, Blogger and WordPress. org to syndicate your sites and services, and try to create news content if you provide services to show your expertise in your field.

Step 3: Use Social Media Tools Such As 'If This Then That'

'If this then that' or ifttt.com automatically updates your social accounts. This is easy to establish and works by syndicating the information across a host of social sites automatically as soon as one site is updated. This, as you can imagine, saves a lot of time. Be cautions, however, and ensure social sites suited to the business, such as bookmarking sites for online retailers, appear just as you want them to be found.

Automatic syndication has limitations and often links and pictures do not appear as you would like them to. Nonetheless, and especially for syndicating blog posts via an RSS feed, it is a very good time-saver for promoting your business via social media. Not all social media can be syndicated in this way, but the sites that committer syndicates to are well worth creating accounts on to promote your business. The more social media sites you post on, the better.

Step 4: Use #hashtags

Whenever you post your content, ensure you use appropriate #hashtags. This will help users find your content when they search for it. So if I'm selling tyres on eBay, #tyres, #cartyres, #car, #treys is good, and for sports news, #sports news, #football #cricket, and so on is good.

Step 5: Once It Starts

Once your content starts hitting the web 2. 0 world, monitor your accounts for feedback. Concentrate on the sites you've identified as important to your business and respond to questions and comments. When responding, try to be helpful and non-abusive, even if the commentator is not pleasant. Professionalism goes along way.

Step 6: Participation

Twitter and Google+ show trending topics and these include popular subjects people are discussing. It is worth performing the odd Twitter search to see what people are talking about in relation to your business, and making a contribution to the discussion. This is a good way to make connections and hopefully achieve more success.

Step 7: Monitoring Success

Monitoring success has confirmed to be quite difficult for social media. Unlike SEO results, which can be measured on click-through and content engagement, it is not so simple on social sites for a variety of reasons. You may feel if you provide news that 10 comments on one story is a good sign of success, while 100 likes of a product video on YouTube with no obvious link to sales most likely are not immediately obvious as positive.

It is worth remembering, however, that though people may not directly access your main site via social sites, it may prompt them to return later. Always keep in mind that social media is for sharing content, so any like, comment or re tweet is positive.

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Social Media & Its Importance in Business

The entire landscape of marketing has changed with the inception of Social media. Social Networking sites are one of the fastest growing websites in the world. The motive behind SMM marketing is to build a brand in the market and increase its visibility by engaging with potential customers. Due to the continuous development of Internet Marketing Industry, there are many social networking sites, each of which has unique characteristics and purpose.

The people on social networking websites has been increasing day by day not only for personal use but also for business use. But, some people still dig in their heels and say- how SMO marketing is beneficial to me? Does my business need it? Yes, your business needs it, and many companies are providing Social Media Marketing Services, you can hire them to build your business presence. Here are some of the most compelling reasons why it is essential for every business:

Helps in Driving Traffic

Marketing your business on Social Media can bring the other users than usual customers. The people who already know about your business are likely to search for the same keywords for which your business already ranks for. Not making use of Social media may lead to difficulty in getting more loyal customers outside your circle. Every piece of quality content you post on any Social Media site is a big opportunity to acquire a new customer.

Boosts SEO and Improves Search Engine Rankings

Now Social networking sites are themselves becoming search engines. If you put efforts on the social networking sites, in your SEO strategies, you will definitely get positive results. It may be possible that Google and other search engines calculate the rankings by taking into account the social media presence. Though, it is not enough to regularly update the blog, Meta descriptions, titles etc. on your website; it has also become imperative to update or communicate on Social networking sites. It means to rank higher on SERP's for a given set of keywords, having a strong presence on social media is essential.

Less Marketing Cost

It is enough to spend 1 to 2 hours every day in social media rather than spending 6 hours every day to generate increased traffic. Just spending 1 hour in developing your content and syndicating it is more than enough to see the results of your efforts. Paid advertising on Facebook to boost your post is not costly; you can try it with less amount without any worry and increase it once you get to know that you are getting results as per your expectations. You can increase your budget and consequently conversions.

Increases Conversions

Any content, image or any post that you put on Social Network platforms is a big opportunity for customers to convert. It provides you with access to new customers as well as old customer, which allows you to interact with them. Every piece of content on social media is a chance for someone to respond or react and each response or reaction can lead to website visit, consequently a conversion.

Increases Brand Recognition

Social Networking sites are the latest channels for your business voice and content. They make it easier for you as they help to interact with your existing as well as a new customer. For instance, a regular user of Twitter may come to know about your business for the first time or an already acquired customer may feel better and attain more trust on your brand after seeing your presence on various networks.

Conclusion

SMM Marketing, if done correctly can lead to brand awareness, recognition, drive more traffic, and increase conversions. If you are looking forward to get started or you are not sure where to start, then hire a social media marketing agency and achieve success in your business.

Vineet Kumar Singh used Orkut as his first Social Media Website. Till Now, he has used various social media platforms and actively share his thoughts there. He is currently associated with a Social Media Marketing Agency in Delhi

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3 In-Demand Virtual Assistant Jobs From Home

Many people are aspiring to find virtual assistant jobs from home. Looking for jobs online is quite a stressful moment for every aspiring applicant, and some don't even have an idea of what job to choose. There are lots of factors that affect a person's decision in picking for a job to apply on, some of these are: if the skills and traits they possess are fit for the job, hourly and monthly salary rates, and the difficulty of the jobs that clients mostly give. Here are three jobs that clients need a virtual assistant to do.

1. Graphics Designing - Clients need virtual assistants that can make graphic designs. Visual planners make visual ideas, utilizing PC programming or by hand, to impart thoughts that rouse, illuminate, and spellbind shoppers. They build up the general format and generation outline for different applications, for example, notices, leaflets, magazines, and corporate reports. As a graphic designer, you should have your client's vision realized. An honest to goodness readiness to comprehend and feel for the design client's wants and difficulties go far. It's tied in with satisfying their brief in a way that is proper to their brand - not kneading your design sensibilities. Standard pay rates for graphic designers is 2-5$ per design or an hourly rate of 8-12$ per hour.
According to Anthony Wood (2015), there are ten essential traits a graphic designer must have and these are communication, curiosity, passion and drive, openness, ability to take criticism, problem solving, self-doubt, patience, reliability, and evolution.

2. Social media manager - online businesses need a VA to manage advertisements and customers inquiries on social media sites. Numerous companies have seen the magnificent esteem and advantage in social media marketing. You've perceived how Social media drives quality movement, leads, and deals and lifts your online notoriety. The social media manager is an exceptionally energetic, imaginative individual with encounter and enthusiasm for associating with present and future customers. That energy comes through as he/she connects with customers daily, with a definitive objective of transforming fans into customers. Full-time Social media managers usually receive a rate of 250-600$ per month (5 skills a social media manager must have, click on this link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/06/08/5-skills-your-social-media-manager-must-have/#73655f7cac56).

3. Content writer - Website content writing goes for importance and pursuit capacity. Importance implies that the site content ought to be valuable and useful to web users. Pursuit capacity shows the utilization of catchphrases to help web indexes guide web users to sites that meet their inquiry criteria. Composing on the web is unique compared to creating and developing substance for printed materials. Web users tend to filter message as opposed to understanding it nearly, skipping what they see to be pointless data and chasing for what they view as generally important. Content writers are online workers that specialize in written content. Standard pay rates for content writers extends from 300$ up to 500$ a month or an hourly rate of 3$ to 15$.

According to https://www.scripted.com/content-marketing/what-is-a-content-writer, there are six skills a content writer must have, and these are:
· Having a solid grammar and style
· Excellent researching ability
· Can write quickly and keep up with deadlines.
· Must write in a variety of tones, on a variety of subjects, within a variety of structures.
· Having a strong knowledge of the field to write
· Creative ability to build up content ideas

As an online worker, always remember that there is a wide variety of online jobs and services a virtual assistant can offer. If you are still starting in this kind of work, don't think much of the salary but think of every job you receive as your training ground to be a better and well-rounded VA.

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Growing Your Online Social Community Effectively

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Social communities are all around you and the chances are very good that you are a part of at least a few online social communities for your business. However, did you ever think about building your own online community and populating it with the people who you feel will be most effective? There are easy ways to accomplish that and before you know it, you will have created an amazing online social community of your own.

Choosing the right theme and the right people 
When it comes to growing a social community online, there are certain important things that you will want to consider so that your community is really effective and it really accomplishes the goals that you have set up to accomplish over time.

Once you have been able to build your social community, you will need to grow that community and continue to populate it with the most appropriate people so that the discussions that occur help the community to flourish. That means that you not only need to work the community once you have attracted the initial number of people but that you also need to continue to attract the right kind of people so that your community can grow and grow in the right way.

At this point, you are probably wondering exactly you should go about establishing and growing your social community and you should understand that it is not as intimidating or difficult as you may think it is.

Recognize that establishing and growing your online social community is a really good thing: There are several positive aspects of this. First of all, if the community belongs to you, you have control over who you admit and who you don't admit. You can choose to put limits on the types of discussions that occur or to let the people who are interacting to have a tremendous amount of freedom with the discussions that they are having. It is totally your call. Of course, the other people have free will. They can choose to be a part of your community or not.

If they choose to leave, so be it. On the other hand, if they find your community to be valuable and to support their values and what they are trying to accomplish with their own businesses, they will probably be with you for quite a while. Another thing that is totally under your control is the types of people you want to have in your community.

You can promote the community in different ways and you can customize your promotion to appeal to the people you want to have around you. You should remember that if you populate your community with the right people, the quality of the interactions that you share with the community members will be very high.

Do it for the right reasons: If you are going to go through the effort and time to establish your community and then to populate it with cherry-picked members, you need to make sure that the commitment that you are making to the community is for the right reasons. Your community is a reflection of you and of the members of your community.

That means that you will express your values and anyone who is involved with your community will understand your position on a whole bunch of issues, not to mention that your core values and your mission will be apparent as well. Just as is the case with the other communities (belonging to other people) of which you are a member, you will need to revolve around top-quality, relevant, valuable content that allows the community to grow in the right direction.

It is important to remain well aware of the fact that your community is made up of human beings. That means that you all interact on an emotional level. That fact alone will allow you to grow the groups successfully because the relationships that you share with the other group members will become deeper and more meaningful over time.

Choose the right members: In addition to establishing your social community for the right reasons, you also need to choose the right people with whom to populate your community. Without them, your community will not be successful. You will want to be very careful about the demographics that you choose. Considering that it is an online community, geography may not play an extremely important role. However, each community is different and your community may end up being a combination of online and in-person. That is entirely up to you. Whatever demographic aspects you choose, you will want to make sure that the people who possess those features actually enhance your community.

Ensure that your community experience is valuable to your members: The truth is that there is a lot of information out there and, let's be honest, a lot of garbage out there as well. The fact is that, once you establish your community, you have a responsibility to the members of that community. You should make certain decisions right at the beginning, as you are building the foundation of your community. It is important to remember that your social community is not just for your benefit. The members of the community deserve just as much as you do.

The only difference between you is that you are in a position in which you can make decisions. In your quest to attract the most appropriate people, you will need to make a tremendous effort to let those people know that not only is your community worthwhile for them but that you will also do your best to make them want to stick around for a long time. Smoke and mirrors can be very impressive; however, if you have not substance or real meaning to your community, what is the point?

The people are what is important: The reality is that you will need to tell the right people about your community; however, the promotion of the community is not nearly as important as the people themselves. Your community is a democracy (to a great extent). That means that your members have opinions, thoughts, and feelings that matter to you and that matter to the community as a whole. You must always make the community members understand that you are not in it by yourself. Without them, there would be no community. Human beings love to be valued and they love to feel that there needs and want are important.

Conclusion 
Your online social community can really do a lot of great work. Your online social community will increase your business' visibility and your credibility will increase. The people in your community will take you a very long way if you choose them appropriately. For that reason, you will want to take your time and choose them carefully. If you combine the right people (who have all sorts of amazing ideas) with the right information (content that is on target and extremely effective), you have a winning combination that will be a raging 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).

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Using the Different Types of Social Networks to Benefit Your Business

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.

The different types of social networks do all sorts of different things and help you to accomplish what you want to accomplish in many different creative ways.

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).

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