October 2022 - Page 5 of 13 - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

Clever Marketer Twitter Tip – How to Effectively Use Other Peoples’ Content on Twitter

The secret to using twitter effectively and looking like the super-star network marketer that you are, is to follow the 80/20 rule when you are tweeting! Your tweets should be content rich and relevant to your niche 80% of the time and you should only be promoting yourself, your products, or your opportunity 20% of the time.

Unfortunately, a lot of network marketers on twitter make a fool of themselves and our industry. Many network marketers end up spamming links about their company or products to their followers. Yes, we are here to market ourselves and our businesses, but in order to make our marketing efforts effective it is important to give great value before we invite someone to our squeeze page or offer!

Think of yourself as a guest in the home of each of your twitter followers. You do not want them closing the shades and turning off the lights when they see you coming! You want to be welcome there and be invited over frequently. You do that by becoming known for providing awesome content that they look forward to reading!

But creating all that content can be overwhelming and time consuming! You are a busy network marketer with a team to support, clients/customers to take care of, and a business to run…and who has time to be writing articles, blog posts or recording videos or pod-casts all day? The secret to using Twitter effectively is to leverage the content that other people have created! Think about it like this…when you get invited to a dinner party and you bring a bottle of exceptional wine to the host, you are sharing something that someone else has created.

Who looks like the hero? The wine maker? No! You do!

Who does the host send a thank-you note to? The wine maker? No…he or she thanks YOU!

Sharing great content is the same thing…only you are going to look like a hero to both your followers and to the people who created the content you are sharing.

Here are 3 steps to effectively use other peoples’ content on Twitter to build your list of raving fans!

1. Search sites relevant to your market for great content. Spend a few minutes a day and select a few articles, blog posts, videos, etc. that you would like to share. Remember…the number one rule to twitter (or social media of any kind) is to offer valuable information that your followers want to learn or know about. Think T.I.N.Y. (Their Interests Not Yours) when you are looking for content to share!

2. Write about this great content in a short blog post and link to the website where you found it. Write a few sentences about the content you are sharing, what you loved about it, why you are sharing it, how it can help your readers, and make sure you give credit to the person who created the content!

3. Then tweet a link to your blog post to your followers! This is powerful because it will send them to your blog to get the information. If they like what they see on your blog the will opt in to your list! You are also helping the person who wrote the content you are sharing, which may lead to reciprocity. This is where they reciprocate and feature some of your content on their blog, which will help expose you to their audience.

Twitter is a very powerful tool for building your network marketing business on the internet. It can help you drive traffic to your marketing hub, twitter can help you meet prospective business builders and targeted product users, and twitter can help you brand yourself as a leader in your niche market.

Be a clever marketer on twitter and you will have followers who can not wait to read your next tweet and visit your blog for more great information!

Study Finds Strong Majority of Content Marketers Use Social Media Sharing

A research study conducted by Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, and sponsored by Skyword titled “Content Marketing Gets Social: 2013 Survey on Content Marketing Trends” found that a strong majority of content marketers are using social media outlets to share their information.

The report states that nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of content marketers publish their content to their websites and then promote it on their social networks. Surprisingly, close to one-quarter (21 percent) did not utilize the powerful tool of social media; while a mere eight percent were unsure.

What social media outlets are being utilized? Well, it’s the usual networks that dominate the headlines: Facebook (84 percent), Twitter (79 percent) and LinkedIn (64 percent). In addition, the largest amount of reader activity came from those social media venues: Facebook pegged 55 percent, Twitter posted 45 percent and LinkedIn had 39 percent.

A large majority of content marketers say their primary objectives are to engage both clients and prospects, enhance brand awareness and acquire leads – improving search rankings and increasing web traffic were the least likely goals.

However, these are not their biggest hurdles. Exactly two-thirds say the biggest challenge is creating content that is relevant and targeted to various Internet audiences. Incidentally, content marketers are producing their own content as 87 percent said they write their own.

Is the practice working? It’s still unknown as only 46 percent of respondents said yes and 37 percent noted that the content is currently under development or being planned. Meanwhile, 15 percent gave a definitive no and two percent didn’t know.
“There is a high expectation regarding social media but a very low understanding around measures to determine ROI versus activity,” said one survey participant, while a separate participant noted: “We don’t do as good a job at tracking the value of our efforts as we should be.”

The online study was conducted in August with 217 respondents from the reader base of Information Today’s CRM and EContent magazines.

Indeed, the business of social media marketing is astronomical. The Business Insider published an in-depth report recently that analyzed just how immense the industry is. For instance, to an outsider, it might appear that brands are wasting their money on advertising on social media websites considering how crowded it is. However, since Americans spend an estimated 12 to 20 hours per month on social media – most likely higher – companies can gauge a higher audience for their content.

Looking ahead, social media advertising, though in its infancy period, is forecasted to be an $11 billion industry as brands either allocate or increase their marketing budgets to include this form of advertising. Also, this could be a lot higher because of mobile device usage; half of Facebook and Twitter’s traffic already comes from smartphones and tablets.

It has been suggested by industry insiders that the primary trends to observe for the remainder of this year and into next year are increased budgets, gamification, community content, brand new corporate roles (I.E. social business manager, content strategist) and staff blogging.

Social Media for Business (2) – Twitter Branding Made Easy

Thanks to the Twitter revolution, establishing your brand awareness and expanding your customer base was never easier. In fact, the whole idea of “humanizing” your marketing strategy allowed companies to get a deeper understanding of their customers and serve them better as a result.

However, if you want to win the SMM game, you must know the rules and play right. If misused, social media sites can break not make your business. For example: if you showered your Twitter followers with Ads and sales-pitch-loaded tweets, you will lose them to a more “human” competitor!

Here are few insider tips to help you leverage Twitter for your corporate branding.

Show Real Interest in Your Followers

When someone follows your brand on Twitter, chances are he/she is a hot prospect. It is worth your while to check their profiles and send them a message thanking them for following you and needless to say, you must follow them back. You also need to reply to their private messages promptly. If that sounds like a lot of work, hire someone to do it on your behalf.

And hey, you need to follow people as well in and 99.99% of the cases, they will show their appreciation of your gesture by following you back. Reciprocation is ingrained in the human nature. If you take the “nice” road, many people will follow your track.

Ask Intelligent Questions to Boost Your Brand Awareness

From time to time, (please do NOT overdo what I am about to say) ask followers to give their opinion about your new product/campaign. If your questions were interesting enough, your followers will probably retweet them to others which translates into more brand visibility. If some of them gave you some sound advice(s) that you implemented, you need let them know and, even better, publicize your appreciation by acknowledging their help in several tweets. If you do, they will be happy to share your brand with the world.

I couldn’t think of a better way to let people know who you are (as a brand) and what you offer.

Out of the endless social media sites out there, Twitter is the simplest mainly because of its 140-characters microblogging magic! It goes without saying that tweeting is much faster and easier than writing a conventional blog post. With Twitter, you can build a powerful online presence at a fraction of the time compared to other social media tools. That’s why; you need to take your time and dig deep in the Twitter world if you want to make the most out of it. In future articles, we will be discussing more Twitter branding tips. See you then…

The Watchdog of the Indian Markets – SEBI

What is the SEBI?

SEBI, which is a abbreviation for Securities and Exchange Board of India, which has functions similar to the SEC or Securities Exchange Commission in the USA. In other words the SEBI regulates the working of the financial markets in India, vis-à-vis investor protection and laying down of ethical standards for the working of the financial markets in India. This is why SEBI is also called as the watchdog of the Indian Markets. There have been many instances where SEBI has acted in the interests of the investor by preventing insider trading in various companies in the equity markets. Similarly there have also been cases when SEBI has acted in the interest of the small investor in the Mutual Fund Industry.

What is the mutual fund industry?

The origin of this industry in India is with the introduction of the concept of a mutual fund by UTI in the year 1963. Although the growth was slow at that time, it accelerated post 1987, when the non-UTI players entered the industry. Not everyone can time the equity markets as well as some investors do. For the benefit of those unfortunate investors who cannot, there is the mutual fund industry. This is an instrument which invests in equities on behalf of the individual investor so as to maximise his gains. A mutual fund is a basked of equity investments which are done based on exhaustive research and development. This research and development is carried out by the asset management companies of the mutual funds. They are also called as AMCs. The product portfolio of these funds contains investments in equities which would yield good results over a period of time. The mutual funds are rated by various rating agencies. This rating is carried out by the agencies like CRISIL, etc. These funds tend to hedge the risks for the individual investor so as to minimise his losses. At times they may also concentrate on one particular sector.

Role of SEBI

The SEBI was first established in the year 1988. At that time it acted as a non-statutory body for the regulation of the securities market. In the year 1992, it became an autonomous body with independent powers. Through the passing of an ordinance, more powers were given to the SEBI. Now it independently regulates the securities markets with its independent powers.

The main objectives of the SEBI are as under:

Develops the securities markets
Promotes investor interest.
Makes rules and regulations for the securities markets.

As far as the functions of SEBI are concerned, it performs the following functions:

Regulates the securities markets.
Checks trading of securities
Checks the malpractices occurring in the securities markets.
Enhances investor knowledge, with regard to the markets by providing education from time to time.
Regulates the stock-brokers and sub-brokers
Promotes research and investigation.

SEBIs introduction of the SEBI (Mutual Fund Regulation) 1993 was established to have direct control over the mutual funds for both the private and the public sector.

2 CASES

CASESTUDY 1:

On August 1st, 2009, nearly one year back, the SEBI, the stock market regulator acted to prohibit mutual funds from levying entry loads. Typically these funds used to charge entry loads at the rate of 2.25% of the of the NAV of the mutual fund in question. This money was then used to pay the agent commissions. In the new regime, SEBI wanted the investor and the agent to negotiate and arrive at a rate of commission, which would then be paid by the investor to the agent by way of a separate cheque.

Although this made it cheaper for retail investors to buy mutual funds, the fall in commission for its agents, effectively left few people to sell it to them. Now, even after one year of this rule being passed, there are net redemptions occurring in this industry. Assets under management for equity funds, which are said to have the most amount of retail participation among the various segments, have seen net redemptions in 8 out of 11 months since the ban on entry loads was introduced by the SEBI.

There have been net outflows since August 2009 in case of equity mutual funds. One industry person also said that the need for mutual funds could not be compared with the need for toothpaste and toilet soaps. The latter happened to be necessities, whereas the former were luxuries for people who had excess income after fulfilling their basic needs. As ULIPs began offering more commissions to its agents on their sales, agents dropped mutual funds and flocked to ULIPs. It is said that between July 2009 and March 2010, ULIPs managed to raise Rs108.83 crore in total. This incident clearly illustrates the power of commissions in a country which is just coming out of the throes of financial illiteracy.

There was an attempt to bring in parity between ULIPs and mutual funds, when SEBI said that all ULIPs should register themselves with the SEBI, but an ordinance that placed the controls definitively in the hands of the Insurance Regulator IRDA, and away from the hands of the market regulator put paid to a glimmer of hope for the mutual fund industry. Fund houses grappling with changes are said to be finding it difficult to wean the retail customer The head of a foreign mutual fund house said that the change was brought about too fast and the new business model will take time to percolate in the market. Thus the engagement with the end consumer has gone down as everyone is focussed internally.

CASE STUDY 2:

The ban on 197 FIIs and 342 sub-accounts from fresh buys, in the markets. SEBI said that if these organizations are willing to make these disclosures for other regulators, when why not for SEBI? The FIIs were given a deadline to meet these disclosure norms and those who flouted the rules were not allowed to take fresh positions. (There’s no impact of this on their current positions). More controversial is the proposed code of conduct of SEBI. This proposes to identify key people in merchant banks, mutual fund companies and brokerages, who can be held responsible for frauds and violation of norms. This is in addition to setting up a common database of defaulters that will carry information on past and ongoing frauds, investigations and defaults by market players, etc. Market analyst and CEO Value Research, is not sure how this will work but according to him it boils down to the legal framework and establishing the evidence of fault.

SEBI is doing this primarily to discipline the market so that the individual or retail investor may not hesitate to give his hard earned money to the mutual funds and securities markets. It is said that India was saved from the after effects of the global meltdown only due to the actions of this regulator which is acting as a watchdog protecting investor interest in a volatile market full of wannabe AMCs and mutual funds.

Advantages of Offshore Medical Coding

The arena of the healthcare department is huge. Apart from providing the best treatment, there are several types of healthcare management required to follow to run a hospital efficiently. Accuracy is required to maintain in each and every department of healthcare industry. Health information management (HIM) is an integral part of a hospital. And in HIM, medical coding is something that cannot be taken lightly. Through accurate coding, a hospital ensures that patients are receiving proper care and the medical billing is accurate.

Medical coding is the process where the data of medical diagnosis and procedures is transformed into universal medical code numbers. The work is done only by coding experts who have taken special coding training and have good experience in the field. These days, most hospitals prefer to outsource the work. The coding work has been outsourcing for many years and the medical industry have found it beneficial. Outsourcing is the process where a company shared its job responsibility to an offshore agency that are expert in handling the same work responsibility. There are several advantages of offshore medical coding, check them out.

Accuracy
This is a focal point in medical coding. A high level of accuracy is required to maintain in coding. A little mistake can cause trouble in medical billing that can affect the overall performance of a hospital. Outsourcing coding agencies eliminate inaccuracy chances. They hire well trained coders who keep themselves aware of the latest development on Local Medical Review Policies (LMRP) and Correct Coding Initiative (CCI). Mostly, three level of proofreading is done where workers are divided into three positions-junior, senior and superior. Proofreading increases the accuracy rate. There is no chance of any type of error in coding as coders are well aware of medical methodology.

Work Transparency
Outsourcing coding agencies maintain happy customer relationships by keeping their clients well connected with their work production. The work progress report is sent by the outsourcing agency to the client from time to time. Easy access to the work is offered to clients to make them assure about work flow. Clients receive regular feedbacks on coding changes, periodic reports, case-mix review and coding related denial analysis.

Privacy
Offshore medical coding offers high level of privacy. The work is sent safely via email. No work report is disclosed to third person in any case. This is one of the biggest advantages of outsourcing.

Enhances Revenue for Clients
Right medical coding work leads to generate revenue for clients. Both patients and physicians are benefited from it. Medical billing work goes smooth. Patients are able to claim to their insurance agency for maximum reimbursement. Thus, patients get financial assistance and physicians get the right amount for treatment.

Saving of Money to Healthcare
A great deal of saving is made by the healthcare industry. Outsourcing coding work prevents a hospital to make a special space for coding work and hire medical coders on a regular basis.

On Time Work Guarantee
Outsourcing coding agencies offer not only accuracy but on time work guarantee.

Writing Resources You NEED to Know About

Many aspiring authors spend hours and hours, alone behind their computers tap, tap, tapping away. Then those hours turn into months, and of course, the months slip into years.

This is admirable. If I’m confident of anything, it’s that to be an author you have to be willing to spend hours of your life equivalent to entire years out of your life slaving away writing. I’m just for sure that you need to read at least just as much.

One thing that gets unfortunately overlooked by many is that you also have to be willing to leave your books and your computer behind sometimes. To engage others.

Not that you can’t be an introvert. Thousands of widely regarded successful authors were introverts. That’s is because in some way or another they were able to overcome, albeit sometimes only briefly, their restrictions and step outside of their comfort zones.

That’s because while writing can take many forms; journaling, hobbies writing, personal letter writing. Authorship is a profession, and that means that it falls within a business structure. No matter how sincerely you believe that Jack Kerouac went from nothing to a fantastic book within two weeks of boozing (which FYI, in reality, he didn’t). If you want to move books from shelves, you will need to approach the task earnestly. With a humble attitude that is open to working with others.

The business of writing, designing, editing, publishing, marketing, and selling your books requires a multitude of strangers. Regardless of whether you have a small budget, or you’re JK Rowling.

In fact, the small your budget, the approach is better suited to involving a large number of people each with small, potentially volunteer style task. For instance, having friends complete a narrative edit before giving it to a professional editor, to reduce the amount of paid time the editor has to spend on the manuscript.

For your first book, I highly suggest having a strong group of people who can offer various products, services, and insights to help you stay focused, motivated, and up-to-speed on the ever-changing self-publishing landscape.

Being a successful author requires a lot more than just writing a great book. You have to get into the weeds, be willing to change out of your writer’s cap and into a variety of other hats depending on where you are in the process.

You may not have the skills or willingness to tackle everything with your own two hands, and that’s why it’s so important to develop your own file of go-to resources along the way.

Here are 30 more resources to tap into along the way!

While this list is mostly self-publishing focused, if you’re going the traditional publishing route, you should still have a rigorous shift through them to make sure you are familiar with what is out there.

Useful Blogs and Sites

1. The Write Life

This workhorse blog is a one-stop-shop offering all you need to figure out how to work with clients, navigate the changing landscape of publishing, learn the ins and outs of social media, grow a following for your blog and find a community that will support you along the way. You’ll always find something useful for your book business here. Try not to get lost in the rabbit hole though. There is so much helpful information here I try to time my visits to make sure I’m not eating into my writing time!

2. Kindlepreneur

If you want to dig deep into the goulash of marketing your books, Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur is your man. His strategies are groundbreaking. Every successful author has to wear many hats, and Dave shares his years of marketing experience and success to show you how to promote the heck out of your books.

3. The Book Designer

Joel Friedlander, the creator of The Book Designer, says “Writers change the world one reader at a time. But you can’t change the world with a book that’s still on your hard drive or in a box under your bed.” This embodies the Community Writer mentality. Joel gives you everything you need to get your book out of the box with a variety of self-publishing guides, advice, templates, and toolkits. With his experience in book design and advertising, Joel has the creds to help you produce and sell a great-looking book.

4. The Creative Penn

The Creative Penn is run by Joanna Penn, who has been wildly successful with fiction and nonfiction. In her blog and podcast, she covers every aspect of what it takes to start and run a successful author business. She also has a grab bag of books on various self-publishing topics if you can’t get enough on her blog.

5. Jane Friedman’s website

Jane has more than 20 years of experience in the book and magazine publishing industry, with expertise in digital media and the future of authorship. Her site is full of actionable content and detailed strategies for the aspiring author from someone who’s been there and done that many times over.

Podcasts Worth Your Time

6. Podcast – Neuralle (Uncommon)

Please forgive the shameless self-promotion here, but aside from the fact that I will be most likely appearing on this podcast at some point, Neuralle is a fantastic self-development podcast and in my humble opinion a must for any aspiring author or entrepreneur.

Past guests have included Venture Capitalists, Entrepreneurs, Chefs, Restaurant Owners, Body Builders, Strength Coaches, Activists, Winemakers, Filmmakers and many, many more.

7. Tim Ferris Podcast

This show is the first publishing-related podcast that I followed, and it’s still an all-time favourite. It’s hosted by Tim Ferris an American best-selling author, entrepreneur, self-proclaimed “human guinea pig”, and public speaker.

8. Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Every green writer should bookmark this podcast. With helpful and insightful tips on grammar and storytelling, Mignon Fogarty’s podcast is sure to help you improve your narrative and technical writing skills.

9. The Writer Files

Hosted by Kelton Reid, The Writer Files is a long-running podcast that delves deep into habits and habitats of famed writers. Reid interviews writers from a broad spectrum, giving each listener a chance to see into the mind of an accomplished wordsmith within their genre or interest.

Forums

10. Neil Gaiman Board

Neil Gaiman’s Official Message Board. Enough said.

11. Goodreads Groups

Goodreads is the mega-site (with over 20 million members) for authors and readers. They have more specific groups than you can count, and if you can’t find an answer or inspiration here, then it doesn’t exist. You might feel a bit overwhelmed, but here’s a smart article on using Goodreads to support your author business.

12. Scribophile

There are tons of writing forums out there to choose from, so I suggest you have a play with a few of them. This one works a bit differently which is why I like it though. Scribophile provides detailed and helpful critiques from a member exchange. The analyses you’ll get are so much more than just a pat on the back – you’ll get actionable ways to improve your writing.

Writing Tools

13. Scrivener

Scrivener is a powerful writing tool for authors that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring your documents. Get a free 30-day trial and watch some brief YouTube tutorials to get acquainted with the system quickly.

14. Grammarly

This proofreading application is an improved version of your standard spellchecking program. Just copy and paste blocks of text into Grammarly, and it will check your writing for common mistakes. The reason it’s better than most spellcheckers is that it provides useful feedback that will improve the overall quality of your book. You will learn a lot very quickly by taking heed of the side bar suggestions and explanations.

15. Hemingway Editor

Excellent writing is quite often straightforward writing, and Hemingway was the master at that. Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, your narrative should get to the point with simple language. With the Hemingway software, you will learn how to simplify your writing.

Book Publishing and Freelance Help

16. Archangel Ink

Archangel Ink is a one-stop solution for getting your book ready to publish. Archangel offers a range of services to help you with cover design, editing, formatting, audiobook production and much more. I feel that if you haven’t published before you learn a lot by manually going through the process of completing your manuscript via Scrivner, finding editors/cover creators via say Reedsy/Freelancer and then uploading it to KDP/Createspace. However it can be frustrating, so I completely understand throwing down some cash and handing of some or all of this to someone else. I’m currently considering using Archangel Ink to produce and audiobook for me.

17. 99 Designs

This is a service where you post a design project, like your book cover, and dozens of freelancers submit mock-up examples. You then select finalists based on the submissions and choose the winner to work with you to create a finalised version. 99Designs can be pricey, but it’s a great option if you want a professional cover design for your book.

18. Grammarly

I won’t rant on this too much as already do that frequently enough if you don’t have the free version of this you need to get it now. What some of you might not know, is that via the paid version they have an option to connect you with a professional proof reader. I haven’t used this before but considering the calibre of everything else they do I think it’s worth investigating.

19. Freelancer

One the most significant websites for hiring freelance talent. If you want to find the largest pool of people, then this is a great place to look. The app makes chatting with prospective freelancers seamless so you can manage your project and selection of the perfect candidate on the go.

20. Reedsy

Reedsy offers a boutique experience in editing and cover design. Most freelancers here have worked in the publishing industry, so they have a thorough understanding of what will work for your books. But you should also expect to pay more for the freelancers you find here. If you’re going the self-publishing route within fiction, a professional editor is a must, an absolute necessity, seriously. Reedsy is a great way to find one, with almost every budget available. If you can’t afford the lower tier, I suggest saving your pennies or going the traditional publishing route, where a publisher will provide you a professional editor to work with.

Getting Feedback

21. Survey Monkey

Is an easy to use survey builder; ask multiple choice questions and get demographic information about your audiences, like age, sex, or occupation. You can use it for your current email list, or post a survey with a lead magnet somewhere your target audience will see it (forums, pay-per-click ad etc.)

22. PickFu

PickFu allows authors to get instant feedback on your book before you publish using audience polls. This is a more advanced option for those who already have income streams, again I don’t suggest paying for a resource unless you’ve used a free version and had equitable success with it.

Email Marketing

23. AWeber

With a drag and drop email builder, unlimited image storage and an easy to use interface, AWeber is a great option to manage your email marketing communication.

24. MailChimp

MailChimp offers 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers – free. That’s what MailChimp can do for you. A great email marketing resource if you’re just getting started. MailChimp is easy to set up, easy to manage and offers an easy to scale pricing plan as your list grows. As the Wix email option ‘Shoutout’ has a capped number of emails you can send but an exportable email list. You can use MailChimp to send additional emails if you are pushing the boundaries of the free Wix option.

25. Constant Contact

You can’t call yourself constant contact and then not be available to your customers. And that’s just what makes this email automation company shine. They offer round the clock support 7 days a week. They also offer 60-day FREE trial.

26. SpyFU

Search for any domain and see every place they’ve shown up on Google: every keyword they’ve bought on AdWords, every organic rank, and every ad variation in the last 11 years. This combined with Wix’s seamless SEO makes key words unbelievably easy. You don’t need to have some ten years long.

Learn how to connect with these domains, too. Find online and traditional leads methods — social media, email, phone, and address — you can’t find anywhere else. So you can look at other authors within your niche and find out exactly where readers are going to find them.

Staying Organized

27. Google Keep

Keep is an excellent organisation tool. It stores every idea, research plan and content structure. Which can quickly be dumped into Scrivner later.

28. Evernote

Another option this is with a few more features is Evernote, you can save snippets of content you find online and go back to all of it in a searchable, taggable easy to find notebooks on Evernote. It also connects to my Google Home via IFTTT which frustratingly Google Keep doesn’t seem to, so I can handsfree keep notes easily.

29. Google Drive

Accessible from anywhere with internet, Google Drive is a great collaborative tool for teams to use when you’re working with content, files, or images in tandem. Google Sheets and Google Docs makes group work seamless, and all work can easily be shared with hyperlinks.

30. Tomato Timer

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management strategy preferred by many authors. It’s not always easy to keep track of the non-writing tasks related to your book projects. With Brain Focus Productivity Timer, an excel sheet (or just pen and paper) and Scrivner’s session tracking you can keep motivated with tangible evidence of how hard you’re working. Not only time associated with the project. Team Viz is another excellent paid alternative to this method, and you can’t forget the simple Tomato Timer (tomato-timer.com)

31. Slack

It’s like super chat. Instant communication. Instant file transfer. Indexed and Searchable. It is fantastic for collaboration if you have a specific project you are working on. Again, use wisely, if you are co-authoring for example. Not if you’re just working with a freelancer for a short time, instead use the platform’s chat for content protection!

32. Lander App

You can learn more about A/B testing here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing

I have experimented with A/B testing in the past but didn’t feel that it was hugely beneficial. I think that you have to have a relatively sophisticated reason to use A/B testing. Potentially I’ll use this for a book launch with a landing page in the future. Of those that I experimented with, I found Lander App to be the most straightforward to use.

Again, if you don’t know what A/B testing doesn’t worry, you don’t need to! Don’t jump to trying to use A/B testing, focus instead on the following:

– Mailing list Opt-in rate

– You unique visitor Site traffic

– Total engagement (comments, email responses) / Book Sales

For the third point there, you concentrate on engagement if you haven’t released your first book yet!

Website Hosting

33. Freenom – A Name for Everyone

One of my favourite hosting companies, if you’re just starting out, I don’t suggest spending any money on anything if you can avoid it. This is perfect for this, as instead of choosing a.com or a.net you can get a free domain and easily swap with redirection later once you’re profitable. Personally, I use Wix for all website things, but this is an excellent option if you’re just starting out.

34. WP Engine

WP Engine is a hosting company that provides managed WordPress hosting for websites around the world. They have great support, and their servers help your WordPress site run a top speed. I use Wix as I find it far more user-friendly, however, the advanced features do require a minimum annual cost. With WordPress, most features can be scaled up for free, but a bit more mucking around with add-ons and tech stuff.

How to Create Profits Using Viral Marketing Techniques

The Difference Among Viral, Buzz, and Word-of-Mouth

There are certain words, jargon that stands in for theory, that starts with marketing industry insiders and before you know it becomes the ‘in’ subject of books, blogs, articles, and MBA dissertations. But as jargon filters down to the less sophisticated, the meaning and ideas behind these words becomes lost. Such is the case with the current state of thinking on Buzz, Viral, and Word-of-Mouth marketing.

These terms are often used interchangeably but are they the same thing? Dave Balter and John Butman in their book, “Grapevine,’ describe Buzz as a marketing tactic aimed at generating publicity or awareness often without regard to any specific message, while Viral marketing is a means of spreading a marketing message through the use of contagious creative most often Web-video and Word-of-Mouth is the process of product story-telling. Balter’s marketing agency concentrates on creating word-of-mouth campaigns for his clients but the name of his company is BzzAgent – no wonder the confusion.

Mark Huges, author of the book ‘Buzz Marketing- Get People to Talk About Your Stuff’ points out that in order to create buzz about your company or product you must develop a marketing campaign that incorporates at least one, and preferable more, of his Six Elements of Buzz:

Taboo,
Unusual,

Outrageous,

Hilarious,

Remarkable, and

Secret.

It would seem that these six elements are the same elements that generate the contagious spread of information – Viral marketing. In order for something to become viral, people must talk about it, ergo word-of-mouth. But people can talk and spread the word of a video or stunt without ever generating much talk about the product. The famous, or infamous, Oprah Winfrey-General Motors audience car give-away stunt is a prime example of generating talk about a stunt without generating much talk about the product. If as Balter suggest, word-of-mouth is ‘product story-telling,’ then there is definitely a difference between Buzz and Word-of-Mouth.

So if Buzz is the tactic for drawing attention to your company; and Viral is the method of spreading the message; and Word-of-Mouth is the result; we then have a clear distinction between the three marketing terms.

The question is how can we construct a Web-based marketing campaign that uses the Buzz tactic, Viral method, and Word-of-Mouth message to produce the ultimate marketing objective: more sales and profits; and are Huges’ Six Elements of Buzz the only media attributes that deliver a marketing stir?

Solve The Marketing Mystery: Discover Means + Motive + Opportunity

We’ve all watched enough ‘Law and Orders’ on television to know that solving a mystery requires learning the means, motive and opportunity of the puzzle. For today’s marketers these elements are clear.

Motive: to attract attention, breed interest, stimulate desire, and generate action that ultimately produces increased sales and profits.

Means: the advent of relatively low cost desktop digital video tools and the creation of a new class of professional multimedia Web-video producers brings affordable multimedia creative to businesses that in the past could not afford professional video content.

Opportunity: the penetration of high-speed Internet connections plus the Web’s ability to delivery multimedia audio and video combined with the introduction of Web-video search databases by dominant Internet players like Google and YouTube create the necessary opportunity.

Why Web-Video Solves the Buzz-Viral-Word-of-Mouth Mystery

The 5 Strategic Goals of Marketing
The Anthropomorphization of Brands

Maslow’s Extended Hierarchy of Needs

The 5 Elements of Communication

The 5 Strategic Goals of Marketing

Increased sales and profits is every company’s prime motive, however, in order to achieve those goals, certain intermediate objectives must be met, especially as it concerns the Web that by its nature is a sterile, remote environment. Marketing campaigns should be constructed to provide the appropriate audiences with five essential elements:

Awareness
Emotional Utility

Functional Utility

Process Facility

Confidence

Target audiences must be made aware of the company’s existence and must be made to comprehend its relevance to their needs; and market audiences must be provided with a platform to participate or get involved with the company.

A successful marketing campaign must tap into an audience’s need for emotional utility, a quality created in the audience’s collective consciousness from brand personality resulting from corporate behavior and audience experience.

The campaign must also be able to speak to the functional utility of the company’s products or services. Hard information and easily understood instructions must be made available so that customers are actually able to generate the promised benefits of the product or service.

The campaign must facilitate the process of moving potential customers easily and conveniently from awareness, to utility, to incentive, to sale. The process must be transparent and mechanisms must be put in place to accommodate customers when things go wrong.

The campaign must also create confidence in the organization’s ability to deliver the promised benefits both emotional and functional.

The Anthropomorphization of Brands

More marketers are beginning to appreciate the effect of brand personality on their relationships with customers and prospects. It is apparent that markets have a clear idea as to a brand’s personality, whether a company pays attention to it or not. And just as significantly, it is clear that companies can’t just change their television commercials or advertising agency to overcome an unwanted or undesirable personality.

Brand personality is a function of audience experience: everything from the way you respond to telephone inquiries, to users ability to comprehend packaging instructions, to your website and email inquiry response times. No amount of smiling friendly faces in advertisements will make up for the irritation of a multiple-transfer-disconnect when trying to resolve a problem over the telephone.

Companies are ultimately separate entities whose personalities are composed of a collective consumer consciousness created through experience, interpreted from a very human perspective. It is human nature to anthropomorphize non-human entities in order to better deal with them. Batra, Lehman & Singh point out in their 1993 paper that there are five significant human personality traits.

The Big Five Human Personality Traits:
Extroversion/Introversion,

Agreeableness,

Consciousness,

Emotional Stability, and

Culture.

Jennifer Aaker in her ‘Journal of Marketing Research’ article, Dimensions of brand personality, relates the Big Five Human Personality Traits to the Big Five Brand Personality Traits.

Big Five Brand Personality Traits:
Sincerity,

Excitement,

Competence,

Sophistication,

Ruggedness.

When companies build a website or implement any marketing initiative there are consequences in the market collective; managing those consequences is critical to not just developing a brand personality but managing and fostering it to meet your ultimate marketing motive; generating more sales and profits.

Maslow’s Extended Hierarchy of Needs as it relates to Marketing

Abraham Maslow, who was the chairman of the psychology department at Brandeis University in the early 1950’s, developed a theory for the hierarchy of human needs. Before his death in 1970 he revised his theory by extending the hierarchy to include higher value components.

The bottom of the pyramid starts with our physiological needs: the need to maintain physical well-being and self-preservation; as you move up the pyramid the needs become more socio-cultural: the need to be accepted in society; while at the top of the list the needs become more abstract and intellectual as they relate to self-identity and the need to communicate that identity to others.

Maslow’s Extended Hierarchy of Needs

Physiological Needs
Water, food, sleep, warmth, health, exercise, sex.

Safety & Security Needs
Physical safety, economic security, comfort, peace, freedom from threats.

Social Needs
Peer acceptance, group membership, love, and association with successful groups.

Self-esteem Needs
Association with importance projects, recognition of strength, intelligence, prestige and status.

Self-actualization Needs
Need to take on challenging projects, opportunities for innovation and creativity, learning at a high level.

Cognitive Needs
Need to acquire knowledge and to understand that knowledge.

Aesthetic Needs
Need for beauty balance, structure.

As marketers, Maslow provides us with a blueprint for developing a brand personality that can effectively deliver a compelling, comprehensible, effective marketing message. Decide which of Maslow’s needs your company satisfies and then construct a marketing plan that delivers both the personality and message that speaks to those needs.

We are lucky to live in the age of the Internet, for even the smallest of companies has the opportunity to communicate its brand personality and marketing message using the most effective communication environment ever invented, The Web.

The 5 Elements of Communication

To effectively take advantage of the Web’s ability to communicate, you must understand the five elements of communication:

The Environment: the Web is a sterile environment that needs to be humanized in order to effectively deliver your brand personality and marketing message.

The Message: the Web is an information-infotainment environment where compelling, informative, memorable content is paramount.

The Messenger: the Web is a one-to-one communication system compared to traditional broadcast and print communication that is a one-to-many system.

The Audience: the Web is a place where visitors choose to visit you, do not short change them with second-rate information, poorly delivered in unimaginative, ascetically challenged presentations.
The Process: the Web’s multimedia audio and video

capabilities combined with the penetration of high-speed access makes for the perfect system to deliver brand personality and needs related marketing messages that humanize your website, speak directly to your audience on a one-to-one basis, and inform, enlighten and entertain your audience in a compelling, memorable manner.

Conclusion

There has always been an ongoing business battle between those responsible for technology services and those responsible for marketing services. The Internet may be a great technological achievement, and it no doubt can be used to provide extremely useful technological solutions, but at its core and from its earliest pre-Web days, it was always a way to connect and communicate information and ideas, and isn’t that the essence of marketing?

The need for businesses to create awareness (Buzz), to spread that awareness throughout the marketplace (Viral), and to involve an audience in the spread of needs fulfillment (Word-of-Mouth) is achieved by taking advantage of the Web’s multimedia communication capabilities. In short, the Web is a communication tool that can be used by marketers to speak with a human voice and human face directly to your attentive publics on a personal, human, one-to-one basis in order to achieve the prime business motive: more sales and profits.

Social Networking For HR – Driving Recruitment and Engagement

Social networks have risen to such popular heights because they satisfied a basic human need: to be connected to the rest of the world. Through social media websites, users can create virtual communities that allow them to interact with like-minded individuals from all parts of the world. Because of the effectiveness of online communities in disseminating information, social media websites have become indispensable tools in various industries. These days, human resources social networking is becoming the new trend for HR professionals. They can put the power of a social network to work in recruitment, employee engagement, increasing retention and more.

Recruiting with social media

Recruiting and brand building is social media’s biggest use for human resources currently. It’s not uncommon to find companies recruiting through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. HR professionals are recruiting employees using LinkedIn and applying practically the same principles that marketing and advertising use to attract a particular targeted audience.

HR can maximize the use of social networking given the right strategies. Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind.

Go to the right networks

It doesn’t make sense to explore social networks that do not meet your targeted demographic. For instance, if you’re in search of a person to fit a high-level position such as a product manager, it would save you time if you stayed away from MySpace or other sites known for its younger subscribers. These networks are great if you’re looking to recruit summer interns, entry-level employees or even college part-time job seekers.

Recruiting employees using LinkedIn is a great idea because the site is known for having subscribers who are professionals. It is a great search venue if you’re looking for experienced individuals in practically any industry.

Take the time to search

It’s going to take a bit of practice to learn the ropes of human resources social networking. For starters, you want to master searching through these networks – streamlining each search to ensure that the results are trimmed down to the best candidates. You want to avoid using broad searches because they come up with far too many results that you wouldn’t be able to efficiently weed out.

Move or lose!

It’s also important to note that you’re not the only organization or head-hunter recruiting through social media. Others have begun tapping into this technique long before you have started exploring it. So it’s important that you act on a qualified candidate as soon as possible because other people are sure to have their eyes set on that potential employee as well.

Be professional

Even in cyberspace, appearances are everything. If you’re going to put up a profile on Facebook or Twitter for recruiting, you want to maintain a certain degree of professionalism in your pages. It seems obvious to say it, but it’s also important to be nice. Don’t treat people rudely. Word of mouth works fast, especially in a diverse online community. You don’t want to be the subject of a blog post or YouTube video making the rounds of how you were unprofessional to a particular applicant.

Use social networks to promote employee engagement

According to studies, employee engagement can make your organization perform 2.6 times better than other companies. When employees feel passionate about the company’s products and services, sales improve. Social networks can have a huge impact on employee engagement, and more and more organizations now use it to increase involvement and commitment among workers.

Using social networks, you can do all the three internal communication components of successful workforce engagement – that is, TALK, LISTEN, and RESPOND. If Web 2.0 social networking is successfully integrated into your company’s culture, you can send positive team building messages instantly, communicate to all employees faster, and get feedback right away.

Many successful companies (Shell, General Electric, Procter & Gamble) use Facebook to connect networks of employees who don’t have the time to interact personally every day. They don’t just rely on this social network for instant messaging. More importantly, they use it to send messages espousing emotional attachment, commitment, and involvement among employees – for example, stories about the company’s charitable involvements, news about career growth possibilities, and recognition of exemplary performances. Social networks have a high success rate in generating engagement.

These are just a few of the many tips that you have to keep in mind when working with social networking websites. But at the end of the day, it’s still important to remember that the best way to connect with your workforce is directly and in person.

3 Ways to Keep the Desire for Learning During the Summer of 2020

The 2020 Pandemic has challenged you to rise to new levels of creativity and flexibility for you and your family. Many school districts have had their teachers in Zoom virtual classrooms teaching your school age children for 4 to 5 hours a day! Also, some parents have homeschooling their children to maintain a learning environment for their children.

Now that summer has arrived, how can you leverage the familiarity with technology and combine it with the resources at your fingertips to keep your child’s thirst for knowledge alive during the Summer? Here are 3 simple strategies to create a fun adventure for your family:

1. Involve your child (or teen) in the “virtual vacation planning” process. This is essential for them to buy into the idea and maintain interest. I’d recommend creating a short list of destinations. Then let them research and choose those that interest them.

Some of these virtual tours are so marvelous “they make you feel like you are actually there”.

Where have you and your family longed to go? This is your opportunity!

2) Ask your children to write in their journal about their virtual vacation. Encourage them to record the experiences they found fascinating. Ask them 1) what they learned about each place they visited and 2) what they enjoyed most about each place? If your child is too young to write it down, ask them the two questions and write down their answers.

(Have your older children write down any questions or observations they would like to explore when they visit the destination in real life.)

3) Then have a picnic in your backyard with a few of the foods you and your children have cooked up in honor of your visit. Making special dishes your family enjoys as well as new dishes from your virtual vacation. By using new and old family favorite recipes your children will be reading and measuring out ingredients, which will help them in both math and science.

I remember fondly cooking meals with my Mom and Grandma. With my Mom, we made pecan and pumpkin pies, and blintzes. My Grandma Mary, educated me in the fine art of creating Hungarian cuisine to make stews, roasts and sides. It all began with cooking the sauces for 3 to 4 hours with the stew meat and adding in the Hungarian spices. The stews and roasts were delicious and the pies were mouthwatering. Many years later I played concerts in Hungary at their Liszt Academy of Music and eat at fabulous restaurants with my husband while listening to Robby Lakatos, Gypsy violinist.

*At your picnic have each person reads their responses to their two questions. Ask your younger children to answer the two questions and if needed quietly remind them what they said earlier when you wrote it down for them. You want to begin your children’s creative process of learning and thinking.

* Have reading family time every night. Involve your child or teen by asking for their input in selecting an adventure story they would enjoy reading as a family. Parents begin by reading with excitement and joy using different voices for each character. Then ask your older children to read and do this too! Afterwards discuss the story you have read together by asking your children questions to guide them through their thought process.

Here are a few resources to start with for your virtual vacation:

Disney Virtual with Rides https://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/disney-vacations/watch-disney-rides-on-youtube

Australia and Great Barrier Reef https://www.insider.com/australia-virtual-tour-guide-great-barrier-reef-2020-4

Virtual Venice https://www.thegeographicalcure.com/post/virtual-venice-how-to-tour-venice-from-home

So, where have you and your children decided to travel on your virtual vacation?

Are their Journals ready to go?

Have your children decided what food they want to cook for their picnic after their virtual travel?

What recipes do your children want to search for on the internet?

Make Money Online the Proper Way

You, me and everyone I meet wants to make money on-line, and why not? It is possible and with so many great reasons to get into making money on-line like digital products not having manufacturing costs, websites being cheap to run and being accessible from anywhere in the world making money using the internet is very attractive.

The big problem is that too many people want to become rich quick and sell rubbish. Let us be clear about this, many of the things that are sold on-line as the next miracle push button software are useless and often they are over priced.

These internet marketer’s build email lists as quick as possible so they can promote and sell any old software in large numbers to unsuspecting punters swelling their bank accounts in a matter of days. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money fast, many people have debts to pay off or want to change their lives before they get too old and would love for it to happen quickly but is it right to sell products that really don’t work to people who simply want to do the same?

The truth is this, the products that they say will make you rich won’t. They will make the marketer rich but not you. The marketer sells a software product at $37 or more to a few hundred punters and they have a nice wave of cash crash into their bank account. You on the other hand will be one of those hundreds trying to get that software to generate money.

The software usually makes an easy but slightly time-consuming job into an even easier and less time-consuming job. That is it! It doesn’t suddenly generate an influx of cash. For example, there have been a couple of software products that worked similar by sending eBooks or articles in PDF form to sharing sites across the web and they would either contain an affiliate link or a link to a website supposedly generating commissions or traffic to your site.

The problem is that these sharing sites do not like duplicate content and with the software searching out the same articles using keywords you have hundreds of people posting the same articles and eBooks to the same sharing sites. They were either removed or if they were not detected your eBook became one of several hundred sat waiting to be viewed.

Nothing happens if you do not promote your stuff so what will articles and eBooks do for you if they are sat collecting virtual dust on a cyber book shelf?

Yet we still buy these products hoping they will change our lives, even worse, people who realise that this is how to make money on-line fast create more of these useless software products and start selling them to other unfortunate people.

The sad thing is if you work out how much people spend on eBooks, over priced courses, useless software and costly website building services, that amount would have probably paid to have a quality website built and promoted for a year.

A simple WordPress blog can cost less than $100 a year, some membership courses charge $97 a month only to teach what you can get for free on YouTube or on quality sites written and owned by ethical bloggers and internet marketers. I know of a few marketers charging up to £1997 to build a standard WordPress blog designed to promote their own product as an affiliate product! It is scandalous!

Pat Flynn regularly makes $40,000 a month from his few blogs and he doesn’t create or sell dodgy software, it can be done. He isn’t alone, there are many other people making great money from blogs that teach quality information for free and recommend quality products. There is no hard selling or promoting of useless products.

How many courses or products have you bought? I bet you could have built a quality website, had content created, built an email list and started to build a long-term on-line business with the amount you have spent. A business that not only would be worth a lot of money down the line but one you would be seriously proud of as well.

Look around and don’t be impatient, you will find all the information you need to start that quality on-line business and be left with the money you need to invest into it.

I remember sitting and chatting with a guy who attended several seminars by UK internet marketers and direct mail marketers who were supposedly teaching people how to make money fast. These businesses were costly to run and they be left with no money to invest after they had paid their £10,000 attendance fee. This one guy had done nothing but attend seminar after seminar, I am sure he had spent in excess of £50,000 and still hadn’t started his business.

For that amount he could now be the proud owner of a seriously profitable online business. Many others could be in the same position if they stopped buying from marketers promoting the next big ClickBank product. I just hope that you are not in that group either. Do not buy on impulse, these marketers write great sales copy and create brilliant videos designed to make you desire the product and buy there and then.

Choose your mentors, your membership courses and products wisely, and then take action. Action is the key to success; yes by all means learn methods but methods mean nothing if they are not implemented. Choose wisely and spend your money on doing!