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    7 Management Tactics Which Lead to Business Growth

    Ecbert Malcom
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    7 Management Tactics Which Lead to Business Growth

    The ultimate goal of every business process management is to see their business grow and attract new opportunities to develop and expand.

    Faced with the prospect of losing this drive to expand, business owners and companies develop various tactics for stimulating business growth.

    Management team behind this task often employ various methods in their efforts to encourage positive business process and ensure growth.

    If you are a business owner yourself, thinking about new ways for expanding and growing your business, we present you with some proven management tactics aimed at business growth.

    business-growth

    Innovations as the Engine of Growth

    No growth can continue endlessly. Even best business strategies which brought real results ultimately get outdated and seize producing benefits.

    This cycle of perpetual growth, maturity and contraction is known as an S-curve.

    How It Works

    A very simple, elegant and powerful solution many of the world’s most successful companies use to escape the inevitable rule of the S-curve is innovation.

    Innovation is the engine which fuels growth. Constant innovations propel your business and ensure that you are in the good zone.

    As we have said earlier, many successful companies are constantly searching for innovations, and the most innovative company will achieve most success in the market.

    Find Your Consumer Base

    The prime rule of successful business is knowing your consumer base. Companies target a specific audience, research their consumer base and focus their efforts on one part of the market, all according to company goals and long term strategy.

    How It Works

    The reason why finding your consumer base in vitally important is that this enables you to direct your efforts on a specific target and then use a specific strategy for speaking to your target audience.

    • Your business resources are thus properly used and there are strong chances for growth, presuming you have researched your consumer base and set realistic goals.
    • Without a consumer base and a clear strategy, you are running the risk of wasting your resources which will inevitably hamper growth.
    • Exploiting your consumer base greatly boost your chances for growth.

    Resource Management

    By definition, resource management includes efficient and effective deployment of resources when they are needed.

    Resources in this broad definition may include anything from financial resources to information and technology.

    How It Works

    Successful business owners are always aware of the fact that resources management and strategic allocation of resources to the most vital parts of one’s business efforts has beneficial effects on growth.

    • Knowing when to and where to invest your resources is the key towards growing your business.
    • Big companies are using resource management to determine where to invest. Resource management requires strategic planning.
    • You need to develop a long-term strategy to determine how to invest your resources.

    Build Partnerships

    Strategic partnerships strengthen your business in face of competition and boost your company’s image and credibility.

    How It Works

    Partnerships are a great opportunity for growth because they combine the best from both companies. If one company lacks technology and the other production capacities, a merger solves both issues and provides a new company with both technology and production capacities needed for successful business.

    Likewise, if you have the idea, but lack the market to place it, a merger with a company which already has an established position in the market is one of the solutions for this problem.

    Lastly, mergers generally represent good business signals and this generates growth.

    Forge a Lasting Relationship with Customers

    Needless to say, your income and growth directly depend on your customer base.

    Your customers are most important aspect in growing your business and your relationship with them plays a central role in your overall business efforts.

    How It Works

    It is crucial that you establish a stable, lasting relationship with your customers. If this is to happen you will need to build trust, and this requires a lot of effort.

    Encourage customers to engage, listen to their concerns, suggestions, and most importantly, take care of their needs. Customers should always know that you are there because of them.

    Once trust is established, the foundation for lasting relationship will stand on firm ground.

    Organization and Planning

    These two words are the two pillars of a successful business. Without them, the prospects of growth are significantly diminished.

    How It Works

    You must know what type of business organization to use, but also possess the ability to effectively enforce this organization so that it benefits your business efforts.

    Planning, especially strategic planning, ensures you are being consistent and systematic in your business strategy.

    In a way, your plan must closely reflect your business resume. If you write a stunning resume, you will also have an effective business plan.

    Create a Brand to Help You Grow Your Business

    Brands have immense power to affect your business. If you are to build your own brand you will need no small reserves of creativity, innovation and commitment.

    But once you establish your brand the effects will be immediate.

    How It Works

    Brands raise the awareness of your customers, make your products and services much more recognizable and convey a distinct message.

    The immediate benefits in your communication with your customers will, in turn, lead to growth.

    You just need to remember how world’s most famous brand communicate with their audience and have established trust between their business and customer base.

    Conclusion

    Smart business owners plan ahead and investigate all possibilities. Following some of these pieces of advice will definitively help you grow your business, but keep in mind that everything will depend on your dedication and skills in pursuing your business goals.

    7 Ways to Create Interesting Content for Boring Industries

    Ecbert Malcom
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    7 Ways to Create Interesting Content for Boring Industries

    q1

    Not everyone can have an exciting fun product or service. In fact, a lot of products that consumers must buy are pretty boring – insurance, cleaning products, paper goods, etc. Some purchased services are pretty boring too – lawn care, appliance repair, and tax preparation, for example. Customers just don’t get excited about spending money for these items. But this does not mean that, if you are in the business of selling these products or services, you have to be boring too. Your marketing content can be engaging, entertaining, and even inspirational, so that when consumers have to buy, they will think of you and buy from you. Here are seven ways to spice up your product or service with great content.

     

    #1. Make Your Niche Marketing Humorous

    Who in the world thinks that toilet paper is humorous? No one. But years ago, Charmin had the right idea. Long before the Internet, TV commercials revolved around Mr. Wippel, a grocery store owner who decided he had to keep people from squeezing the Charmin, just because it was so soft and gave them a thrill. The commercials featured him stalking customers and catching them giving that bathroom tissue a squeeze. Humor has certainly become more sophisticated since then, and Charmin has moved to the Internet. Here is an example of a Facebook post from Father’s Day:

     

    q2

    Other boring niches have found ways to use humor, but it takes a bit of creativity. Geico Insurance has its Gecko with his own Facebook page and thousands upon thousands of followers. Even if you cannot come up with humor on a regular basis, you can use the humor of others. Start with a joke of the day Tweet; or use Instagram to publish memes with funny quotes. You don’t always have to push your product or service. The goal is to get brand recognition, to gain a reputation for being funny, human, and an organization that is made up of real people who can appreciate humor and a good joke.

     

    #2. Use Explainer and “How-To” Videos

    Consumers love videos, and they have a high viewing rate. They don’t have to be perfect – a good Smart phone will do the trick. You can explain your product or service in a human way, even injecting some humor. If you have not checked out the explainer video on the home page of “Dollar Shave Club,” you should. It is all over social media too. On a more serious note, check out any of Porter Paint “how-to” videos on painting or staining decks – they are not expensive productions – just normal people with DIY projects.

     

    q3

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI

     

    #3. Publish Stories About and by Your Customers

    Ask your customers for their stories about using your product or service. Ask them if you can use them on your website, your blog, and your social media platforms. Regions Bank does it; WD-40 does it with customer stories of unique uses for its product. This “human interest” is engaging and tells customers that there are real people behind boring products and services. Storytelling is one of the most effective means to spread a brand.

    Customers may have stories not directly related to your niche but related to your target audience. Tell their stories. Everyone, for example, looks for ways to balance work and personal lives – do your customers have tips and suggestions? Publish them.

     

    #4. Support a Cause

    Remember, consumers today want social responsibility. Millennials, the biggest consumer group right now, don’t want to do business with companies they feel put profits ahead of everything else. The way to take a boring niche to millennials in engaging ways is to get a cause, to support that cause, and to ask your customers to support that cause too.

    Aflac Insurance Company has taken up the cause of children’s cancer treatment. Here is how it publicizes its cause:

     

    q4

     

    You will reap big benefits from social responsibility, and you feel good doing it. Give back – it’s the right thing to do. And then use your content marketing venues to show it and encourage your customers to pitch in.

     

    #5. Use Current Events

    There are two ways to do this. There are some events and circumstances that occur regularly every year – holidays for example. When you can use those as a part of your content marketing, you can engage consumers.

    UPS has established a new post-Christmas holiday – “National Returns Day.” It sets up and promotes online events, engages followers all over social media, and just has fun with the hassle that consumers go through when they have to return gifts.

     

    q5

     

    When the water crisis hit Flint, Michigan, Aquahydrate, owned by Mark Wahlberg and Puff Daddy, stepped up to the plate and donated a million bottles of water. They will continue to do so until the crisis subsides. They got great press and promoted their activities all over social media – brand spreading in a great way.

     

    #6. Find Creative Ways to Present FAQ’s

    You don’t have to publish a boring list of Q & A’s about your product or service. Create a video, a podcast or an infographic to do these things. Potential customers do have questions about your product or service. Create an animated video that answers them. If you can add some humor, all the better.

     

    #7. Use Emotional Appeal

    Much of this tip relates to the previous six, because emotions are heavily involved in content marketing. When people are entertained, inspired, or in awe, they pay attention.

    Here are three still shots from a video that was created for a copy writing company called Purple feather. It features a blind man begging. The copywriter comes by, changes the wording on his sign, and turns his day around. The point made is that how things are worded is critical, and that companies need good copywriters if they intend to be successful.

    q6

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU

    A content marketer from Purple Feather changes his sign.

     

    q7

     

     

    He collects an enormous amount of money. When he asks the content marketer what she did, she merely states that she just changed the word. Point made through an emotionally appealing scenario.

     

    q8

     

    You may have a “boring” niche. You can add spark ad splash to your marketing so that your target audience comes to know you as entertaining, human, fun and committed. When you do this, they will remember your brand when it is time to buy. Everyone is your organization should be generating ideas for content – it works!

    About the author: Samantha Brannon is an entrepreneur and freelancer. She is also a contributing blogger for several websites and a writing editor at Trust Essays writing service. Samantha loves self-education and rock music. Connect with her via Twitter

    7 Techniques To Get People Talking About Your Blog Post

    Maitreya Patni
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    7 Techniques To Get People Talking About Your Blog Post

    Blogging can be boring, exhausting and even discouraging when you receive little or no feedback at all. The reason behind blogging is to educate your relevant audience and get them talking about various topics. Comments are good for SEO rankings and status uplifting. Those few comments won’t place you in a reputable position that you so much desire. However, this is not the end of things for you! I have some pretty awesome tips to get people commenting not only on a single post but for the next 20 or so posts that you publish.

     

    #1 The ultimate ending

    After having put so much effort in explaining the concepts of your title, it’s time to challenge the reader with some questions. Remember your target is to get the insightful helpful comments that can lift you up to the next level. These can only be driven by a well-thought and formulated question. Compare these two comments and tell me which is better:

    “A well-researched post”. I like how you explain the importance of digital marketing. Keep up with the good work”.

    “Thanks for the post.”

    Both are comments, yes, but the first one is encouraging and highlights some key areas the writer did well. Such are the kind of comments I’m talking about here. During formulating the questions, you need to think yourself as the reader then think about a question which can really encourage you to comment. Ask for their opinion; give open-ended questions or just comparisons with a “why” at the end. General questions are better at getting much attention and feedback.

    #2 Publish a controversial post

    Both you and I can agree that mediocrity stinks. Being ordinary and normal is boring. Posting the same usual content is mediocrity and with the competition out there, mediocrity has no room. Once in a while, it’s good to give your audience some controversial post that breaks the monotony. Assault the normal trends and look for a controversial belief or myth in your field then argue for or against it. Disagreeing with such a common belief will definitely get people talking. Most of them will try and convince you into how wrong you whereas some will agree with you. All you have to do is think very well about your subject and engage your readers in a well-thought manner so that they’re convinced about your crafted piece. Such topics as “why a social media policy is stupid” can easily achieve lots of commenting. Also, don’t be afraid to promote the things you love. For example, perhaps you’ve taken an awesome training course (like the ASM amazon selling machine) — don’t be afraid to shout about it! There’s nothing wrong with a shameless plug, once in a while.

     

    computers

    #3 Make it easy for them to comment

    People hate it when they have to go through a lot of hassle just to leave some insightful comment (that you so much require). Remove barriers such as spam filters, verification, log-in requirements and so on. These will just discourage people from commenting on your posts. Make sure the comment box is well placed just after the blog/ CTA’s so that the readers access it easily and fast. Just include the name, email and comment fields. This isn’t a questionnaire we’re filling here, it’s a comment that you always dream of.

    #4 Engage them by asking for their contributions, ideas or suggestions

    This is especially helpful if you have subdivided your content into a numbered list such as the one I have here. It could also apply for posts that have been divided into subheadings. Now, the trick here is to leave out some common pointers and asking your audience to contribute to your post. That way, you can be sure to receive some audience contributions. Use an appealing tone to convince them to contribute their opinions in the comment box. You may also ask for professional opinions about certain topics that you’re passionate about. Ask fellow artists to help you come up with a design (describe it a little) that’s been nagging you. Remember you also don’t want to look like “the know-it-all” type. People appreciate and love others who tend to be interested in knowing some concept especially from a first-hand source.

    #5 Reply to their comments

    This is a trick that I have personally adopted myself. Every once in a while, I go back to my posts and interact with my audience by replying to their comments. Besides the good feeling that comes along with being appreciated for your comments, the reader feels knows that they’re actually reading a post from a fellow human being. Courtesy dictates that when you’re given something, you reciprocate with an action. Don’t underestimate the need of replying to your reader’s comments. Regardless of whether it’s an elaboration, question, a simple “it was an amazing” comment or whatever the reader says, just say something back. They are waiting for you to reply. Clarify that point and engage your reader in a personal, more specific area of your comment. They will always look up for you articles to read and comment. All bloggers should know that replying to an audience’s comment shows how much we care and need their comments.

     

    testing

    #6 Comment on other bloggers works

    We usually talk about leading by example which is usually just another preacher of wine who takes water. Why should we have people commenting on our blogs if we don’t really comment in the larger blogging community? Does this mean we don’t read similar blogs in the larger community? I hardly agree with this thought. We also read what other bloggers say about our various topics. It is basic research and information hunting. We as the ‘leaders’ should comment well-thought and formulated comments so that our audience can follow the same trend. This is especially important when you intend to add some links to our blogs.  You’ll end up garnering some more visitors to your blog if you leave a sensible comment which they wouldn’t confuse for spam. Online traffic is very important because, without it, people will never get to read your blog leave alone commenting on it. The author of that site may feel obliged to return the favor. Alternatively, you can feature another writer’s blog in yours. The working is all the same.

    #7 Take the discussion social

    Social media’s influence is just exceptional. It is unlike any other and bloggers should have known that by now. It’s expected that every blogger has various social media pages in which fans and followers are familiar with. This being the case, we should make use of these platforms to ask for reader comments. Simply share the topics and the links to the various blog posts that you have then ask your followers to comment or give their opinions about them. Get creative and use some unique appealing words to get people talking about your post. Words such as “would love to hear from you, please leave your feedback!” can be very persuasive and encouraging.

    Garnering some hundred comments or so isn’t as simple as it appears on the face value. It requires some effort and I certainly believe that these tips will be handy for you as you seek to improve your blog SEO rankings and grow your brand online. Wish you all the best as you choose from the above expert tips on how to get the next 1000+ comments on your blog.  If you encounter problems generating high-quality content to get you these 1000+ comments on your blog, choose any of these online reviews to help you generate the content you need.

    5 Strategies for Launching a Successful Blog

    Ecbert Malcom
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    5 Strategies for Launching a Successful Blog

     

    Did you know that B2B marketers are able to get 67% more leads, if they have a blog? Besides, companies that have a blog, can get up to 97% links back to their website! Now, you must already know all this and more. Isn’t that why you want to not only launch a blog, but make it successful as well?

    Remember, a new blog added to the world wide web every half a second.

     

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    The world of blogs has evolved with time and is also constantly changing with the trends in the marketing and the digital world. This is the most important thing to remember that this playing field changes. Here are others:

    Points to remember before you launch a blog:

    • Do not assume that your blog will be successful immediately. Success will come, but it may take some time to be so.
    • You need to focus a lot on your blog to make it successful. It’s not a once a month activity. To remain ahead of the curve, you need to pay a lot of attention to your blog.
    • If you have a budget, you will need to hire others to help you maintain your blog.
    • If not, then you need to sacrifice your personal time to make your blog successful.

    When you have a blog, you need to develop an audience and make sure you leave an impact. You may assume that cultivating your blog to become successful would be hard. Isn’t that so? Although it would take some real effort on your part to makes yours stand out of the crowd, it isn’t that hard.

    Here are 5 strategies for launching a successful blog:

     

    Strategy #1. Share Unique Content

    Just because you want some traffic on your site, do not be tempted to jump on the bandwagon and write about the same things that others have already written. Your audience wants to read quality content. Content that has credible information will also be well-liked and appreciated by the readers. While you are at it, make sure that you share content to the world ONLY after it is thoroughly proofread and edited.

    Nothing is more irritating to a reader than to go through a blog that is riddled with typographical errors, spelling errors and the loopholes in the way the ideas are presented. Your credibility and your professionalism are in grave danger when your blog is not edited or proofread well. If you don’t have the time to do it yourself, you can always hire help to edit your blog posts. You can

    also proofread your website directly. Tools where you can paste the URL of your blog post and it will catch your grammar, spelling errors in no time.

     

    Strategy #2. Share Unique Graphics

    People are visual learners. Readers can process a visual much faster than a big chunk of text. A compelling graphic or an image can trigger certain reactions in the minds of your reader. An association is formed and you have your reader hooked! As the digital and marketing world progresses to reach new levels, it’s time to step up the game.

    You don’t have to be a certified designer. You can fake being a designer with online tools! Canva is a great tool that helps you create images that are easily shareable on social media. You can add texts in your images, or create an intriguing infographic. All that is appreciated by your readers.

     

    canva

    Strategy #3. Build-up Your Social Media

    Speaking of creating shareable images and graphics, social media is an important strategy to make your blog successful. Depending on the nature of your blog, using different social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn can help you promote your blog and drive traffic back to your website.

    You need to be careful which channel you choose though. You don’t have to spread yourself thin trying to be there on every platform. You can choose either one or two of these social media platforms and be consistent. Facebook allows you to boost your posts to promote for more reach, at a fee. You can use tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite to line up your posts for the week or the month.

    Strategy #4. Mobile-Optimize Your blog

    Everything and everyone is going mobile now. The screen sizes are different. The way people behave on mobile is also different. You need to optimize your website to suit your mobile audience. Google penalizes websites that are not mobile-friendly. You will need to test your images and blog posts and even how much time your website takes to load on your mobile devices.

    Strategy #5. Publish Consistently

    Subscribers look forward to reading more content from you. When you know your audience, it is easy to get blog post ideas. Therefore, it is wise to build a calendar for posts to be scheduled for the next two months. You will need a publishing schedule and you must stick to it.

    Depending on your budget, capabilities, and time you can decide if you want to post five times a week or less. Regardless of how many posts you decide to publish in a week, you need to ensure to maintain the consistency.

    The Top 8 ways to Target and Engage Customers with Social Media

    Ecbert Malcom
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    The Top 8 ways to Target and Engage Customers with Social Media

    Ever since the explosion of social media we have been looking for ways to use it to target and engage more customers with it.

    It seems that engagement is a word that is used a lot these days concerning social media. Basically it is the way that we define building and nurturing a relationship with potential customers and shareholders of the business. It also is about how we communicate with those groups of people.  What information we pass to them and that which they pass back in the form of comments, suggestions, and marketing impact.

     

    Social Media Marketing Plan

     

    socialmedia

    If your business is using social media as a marketing plan then you need to be sure that you are using it correctly. This means you did not build a business page to get followers or friends, you set it up to communicate with the audience which most should be your targeted audience.  Followers or friends are important to you social media plan but social media should be used a long term marketing tool. You use it for branding as inbound content marketing that will bring the follower to your page.

    The sharing of relevant and informative content on social media helps bring people to you and allows them to trust you which then will lead to conversion in the future. This all starts with engagement. Getting readers to click on your information, read it, and click on links to further information.

     

    Top 8 ways to engage and target the audience

    We have put together the top 5 things you can do to engage and target the audience in order to convert them in to customers in the future.

    1. See what your target audience is engaging with on social media then make sure that your content resonates with them. The more the reader can relate to your post the faster they will share it or reply to it. You also need to be sure that content is easy to read and respond to with mobile devices as more and more people are using smartphones and tablets over the more traditional desktop computer.
    2. Use photos and videos in posts, photos and videos get more engagement than just text. You may also want to ask your followers to post photos or videos of them using your product or service. Tutorial or how to use features videos are great for this.
    3. Run contest or sweepstakes on social media just use this carefully and not repeatedly post about the contest or sweepstakes you are running. Post that a contest is beginning about a week before you start it. Post the day it starts, then a week before it ends post that the final days to enter are here and then post when the winner has been chosen as to who the winner was.
    4. Use a poll or asks questions. The type of questions should be clever. Maybe post a use of your product that hasn’t really been marketed as much and ask others how they have found to use the product. An example would be Mr. Clean Magic Eraser; I used my magic erase to remove tree sap from my porch tile, how have you used your magic eraser?
    5. Respond to every comment that is left on your social media page to show that you are listening. If you do not know the answer, find someone in the company who does and ask them to reply to that particular question or comment. The responses do not have to be extremely long but a short reply such as thank you for your suggestion or hey I hadn’t thought of that use, is good.
    6. Use key words in your social media posts this will allow search engines to find your social media page. Key words that you have used content are the ones you want to use for this.
    7. Analyze and track your results with content key words so you know what works and what don’t.
    8. If you do not have time to write your own content then you need to hire someone e.g. Papers Board writing service to do it. There are many places you can get quality content from such as places like my guest blog or guest blog it.

     

    Bonus ways you can engage your social media audience

    Here are a few bonus ways you can engage your audience with social media.

    • Research how other businesses use social media to engage and target users.
    • Speak to your target audience directly.
    • Use comedy, kindness, and understanding. Never underestimate these emotions as they help us relate and create bonds.
    • Make notes of others posts for idea topics.
    • Have a blog and look for other blogs in your industry or niche and ask them to do a guest post on your blog and to do a guest post on their blog. The people who usually read the blog will see the posts and possibly find a reason to share it with their social media network. This can bring in new potential readers.
    • Have your blog posts automatically post to your social media channels. You may require a scheduler for this but there are plenty of free schedulers available for this purpose.

    Conclusions

    Understanding how to engage and target your audience on social media is a must, especially since social media has exploded the way it has. If you wish to reach your audience and convert them to customers in the future you need to know who to make social media work for you when it comes to building trust with your audience.

    By posting new and engaging content in your social media channels you can keep your followers/readers coming back and sharing it on their social media network. When done properly it can be a huge benefit with future sales and continue to grow readers for years to come as well as continue to engage more people from your targeted audience.

    How Workflow Automation Software Can Benefit Your Business

    jamesjones
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    How Workflow Automation Software Can Benefit Your Business

    When we talk about the large businesses, almost all of them are running on the business workflow automation. With time, businesses have realised a fact that a large amount of time and capital can be saved. This was literally a challenge for them when the automation technology was new in the market. Businesses even hesitated to adopt it and were skeptical about its functioning. With time, the businesses started trusting them for their efficient performance and user friendly. In this post, we would discuss some reason why and how workflow automation is efficient for the business.

    1. The Growth Aspect

    In business, the successful personalities have always uttered a thing that what can be done easily by the machines and algorithms should never be done by the humans. This is infact true and way more refined because the businesses were using the manual force for almost every other tasks related to data handling. Workflow automation software was then introduced and evolved over the long period of time. It possess the capability to handle multiple processes and workflow tasks that were earlier handled by the team of people.

    2. Time and Money

    Workflow automation software is capable of saving time and cost to company to a larger extent. The cost efficient model and good time management is something that every business wants to achieve in their work environment. Every business cares for their customer and with the increase in workflow tasks, sometimes the quality of time is compromised and customer may find it offensive. While a workflow software can easily handle these extra tasks and process them way faster than before, the businesses can evenly focus on their customer base again.

    Automation-Process

    3. Handles Technical Requirements

    We all aware of the fact that every business runs on the efficiency of the IT department. Any minute issue in the server or programs can easily compromise the whole workflow. While the engineers and technical assistance are still required, the workflow automation can evenly minimize the staff requirement and possible half of existing staff can finely handle the IT requirements. Files, programs and their execution can even be automated for later. Even for the non-technical person, handling such tools are not a pain. Most of the features are self explanatory.

    4. Versatility

    Workflow automation software is pretty versatile in its approach. It nearly can react with any task that runs on the operating systems like windows. It creates a hierarchy in the task structure and so these can be easily sorted.

    5. Error Handling

    Errors are handled in a manner that  you get the notification so that you can re-execute the same. Also, you can define the trigger that executes the program again in case of error. The proper error log is created and you can easily find how much the process is progressed. It also eliminates the scope of human based error and the tasks can be handled and completed more efficiently.

     

    5 Tactics that Boost Social Media Engagement

    Ecbert Malcom
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    5 Tactics that Boost Social Media Engagement

    Social media is a way for people to connect online. All the behavioral traits come into play when engaging on this medium. Social media marketers can apply different human relation principles to tactically increase the engagement of their users. There are many potential avenues to use when reaching a reader. Many times a marketer will have to use a combination of principles to achieve their stated goal.

     

    #1 – Group Dynamics

    Humans form social groups at all stages of their life and get meaning from their place within them. They can look at their position in the group and be curious of what people they admire like. Marketers can constructively guide this curiosity to create advantages for the things they are promoting. People can seek cues from watching others  develop behavior. In the social media world, this is sometimes referenced by the term influencers.

    For a variety of reasons, these people have developed a personality that others seek to emulate. The products or services they consume can lead others to want the same things. If a marketer can provide something of value to the influence the chance of this being shared increases exponentially.

    Followers

    A chain reaction occurs as followers of the influencer share the information on social media. Each follower’s individual social group also will be interested in what is being discussed. Eventually, people many times removed from these first movers can be swayed by their choices because it is found all around them. It can be challenging to show up on the screen of the influencer due to limited time and too much information. But if the marketer succeeds the rewards are great.

     

    #2 – Engagement

    Human emotions influence rational thoughts. Consumers can develop a personal appeal for a product or service. These fans feel an emotional connection. Companies can nurture these feelings through social media. Product previews or launches make them feel engaged. In return, these fans will promote the company on their own social media accounts to friends and family.

    Emotional Appeal

    Marketing content is more likely to be read when framed from an emotional standpoint. If people feel something after reading your message they will retain the information longer. Bypassing the rational and finding emotional triggers is a valuable skill for marketers. You want a reader to laugh, cry or get angry.  Obviously, there is an infinite sliding scale between these emotions but the main point is to cause a feeling. This skill is difficult for many writers and takes practice.

    An anecdote or story can convey a complex message masquerading as something else. Emotional appeals can be risky if an unexpected feeling is linked to your product or service. This content writing technique can be very powerful but it should be tested on a small scale before pushing out to a large audience. Connecting your concrete information to the emotional side is the ultimate goal.

     

    #3 – Offerings

    Depending on what is being promoted, limited amounts will usually equate to exclusivity in social media. A marketer can offer something special to a select group of people who have access. This preview can be given to a select customer segment. While this principle is not designed for mass appeal it can be an efficient way of engaging a core group that is considered important to the marketer.

    Loyalty

    The idea is appealing to these customers that they have been chosen for a special offer. They also can connect with other people who were afforded this privilege and feel validation for their importance to a business.  A feeling of loyalty is more likely to emerge from this type of interaction. This loyalty can lead to long-term engagement.

     

    #4 – Leadership

    Instead of being a generalist a marketer might be better served choosing a topic to become an expert on. This is not accomplished overnight and requires dedication to achieve. A constant drip of content proving your knowledge in said topic can draw other social media users.

    You can bypass traditional media to broadcast your thoughts. If the ideas you present to readers resonates they will continue to communicate with you. Social media will provide a forum for two-way communication and you will gain insight from other comments.

     

    Trends

    https://pixabay.com

     

    Trends you might have missed can be revealed by paying attention to what people discuss. Instead of claiming to know all, just giving your informed opinion can gain you the respect of users. They will follow you to get your take on issues affecting their lives. If enough people value your unique insights you could parlay this into a separate brand.

     

    #5 – Personalization

    Be cognizant of the self-interested side of human nature when attempting to increase your social media profile. Pushing a message that no one wants over and over again just annoys people. You should not take their refusal personally instead view it as a form of constructive criticism.  These are opportunities to self-evaluate and readapt the message. If the content you provide doesn’t immediately show what’s in it for the user it can be discarded just as quickly. So before you set out to market yourself ask why should anyone care about this?

     

    Benefits

    Look at your end user from their perspective and you might be surprised what you see. What you thought wonderful, to them is not so interesting. This could be because they don’t see anything in it for them. Pointing out exactly how interacting with you will benefit their life is a step in the right direction. After you establish an ongoing exchange you can introduce different ideas that they might not have listened to at the beginning of the relationship.

    As technology advances and enters more areas of human life, some things still remain the same. Human relation principles like those discussed above will always affect people no matter where they choose to interact.  Adapting to the reality of human behavior will give marketers a chance to more closely interact with users on social media.

    5 Rules to Create Engaging Social Media Posts

    Maitreya Patni
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    5 Rules to Create Engaging Social Media Posts

    Social media is the place to be if you want to promote your business or your personal brand nowadays. There are around 2.307 billion people currently on social media networks, representing 31% of the world population, figures that have been growing by 10% per year, according to the Global Web Index.

    And, as there are so many networks out there, you are bound to find one that will meet your needs and expectations – and where you can talk to your target audience, of course.

    But it is also true that what is a great marketing opportunity can also be seen as a challenge. The competition is stiff, and each person is receiving tons of information on their timelines on a daily basis. This is to say that grabbing their attention isn’t an easy task.

    Still, there are many businesses achieving this goal and so can you. You only need to be aware of a few rules that will increase your chances to write engaging posts to your audience, such as these below.

     

    Rule # 1 – Adapt it to the social media network

    The first big mistake that people make is to ignore the particularities of each social media network. There are so many of them to deal with daily that it is very easy to decide to go for an automation tool and just to write one single post and publish it as it is on all of them.

    But the thing is that while those tools are great resources to save time, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t adapt your text to each social media network. Facebook posts are completely different from Twitter and Instagram ones, for instance. While some of them are more visual, others require that you follow a specific format, such as the 140-characters’ rule on Twitter.

    So make sure that you analyze each social media carefully before publishing anything, so then you can start preparing posts that will fit their specifications and the expectations of their users.

     

    Rule # 2 – Make it a conversation

    If you want to write engaging social media posts, you will need to make them sound like a conversation. You will have to remember that people are there to be social, not for unilateral presentation – when they want that they go for blogs and sites, as you might know.

    That is to say that your posts should be interactive with a call-to-action that will allow your audience also to say what they think about the topic in question. Embrace comments and talk to them instead of pitching – hard sales rarely go well on social media.

     

    Rule # 3 – Make it useful

    With so much information available, it is understandable that people will start to screen what they are going to read or not. And if they don’t check your post, they certainly won’t engage with it. And with little time at their disposal, it is very likely that their choice will be for something useful, something that will worth those few minutes they have to spend on social media.

    So make sure that your post has some kind of takeaway, an extra that your audience will consider as relevant to them, or that will make their lives easier or happier. This is the best way to say that they will be interest in reading your post and, hopefully, will lead to a higher engagement rate.

     

    Rule # 4 – Add auditory and visual resources

    Another proven way to engage an audience on social media is by adding auditory and visual resources to your posts. And we aren’t talking about adding a simple stock image to it. The idea is to create and offer images that will trigger an emotion and this you certainly can’t get with cold pre-made resources.

    So, when possible, try to add photos of your own business, products, and services. Show your team and how you work. Create a video showing how your product is created or a podcast with your vision of the future. This will have a much higher effect on your audience for sure.

     

    Rule # 5 – Keep it short

    Least but not last, you should always keep your posts short. Most of the people don’t have the time or the patience to read long posts and don’t even think they should – they save those both things for books and blogs.

    So make sure that you go straight to the point, that your sentences are short, and that your paragraphs are easy to scan. This way your audience will be more likely to engage and share it.

     

    To Sum Up

    If you want to create engaging social media posts, you will have to keep them short and useful. Their format and content should be exactly what your audience is looking for and what the social media network in question requires.

    It is always a good idea also to add some visual and auditory resources to it, such as videos and photos of your company and products. If you do these things, you will certainly see the number of comments and shares increasing on your profiles and pages in no time.

    Top 10 Tools for Writing User Generated Content for Your Blog

    Ecbert Malcom
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    0
    Top 10 Tools for Writing User Generated Content for Your Blog

    Generating high quality content isn’t as easy as many people think. This is the kind of content that entice people to click, read, share and leave lots of comments. Brainstorming for these ideas is in itself a difficult task, but more difficult is to gather the information from social media platforms and organize it into your blog. I mean, anyone can write, but exceptionally good writers know how to make use of writing tools to create high quality content which is currently being sought for by major companies to market them out there in this competitive market space. Since content creation has not yet been automated like most areas such as business and marketing, there is a need for content creation tools to help in generating high quality content for writers. Here I present you with some of the best tools used out there to create user-friendly high quality content.

     

    1. Site: search

    Google is an incredible search engine which displays your content fast and with a lot of traffic. It is incredible how you can twist it to do searches that are limited to one website. This tactic is especially handy when you want to refer to expert ideas or read the specific posts in certain blogs. You easily type site: URL and the keyword you’re searching for. For example, if your key words are digital marketing, then you input site: thebroodle.com digital marketing. It displays all the posts in this site. This is the output;

    Search Google

    2. Quora

    Yes! Quora is a platform where people interact by asking questions and having them answered. The good thing about it is that real experienced professionals get to answer your queries and share ideas on where you could gather more insight in the area of your interest. This site is full of people of all characters and can be a really helpful source for brainstorming blogging ideas. All you have to do is create a free account, paste your questions, then sit back to see what real people get to reply. It’s a pretty simple and basic tool for sourcing information.

    3. Twitter posts

    Twitter by itself sis a very resourceful tool when it comes to new trendy topics. If you’re looking for content inspiration around you or around the globe, this tool comes in very handy. The good thing about it is that you can customize your account to receive tweets from cities around you or just receive tailor feeds from your followers and those around you. Twitter lists provide insightful information about influential people who bloggers and content creators can follow. Keeping track of their conversations, their followings or followers may brainstorm you to come up with high quality content.

    4. Evernote

    This tool is pretty amazing when it comes to saving or editing any written content. You no longer have to worry about losing your content every time your device goes off. Basically, Evernote is like a journal which allows you to do all your content creation. People might ask: what is so unique about the tool? Having used the tool on several occasions myself, I would say it’s how Evernote is sync to several devices and its capability of automatically saving all work done. For content creation, it has a text editor which allows you to compose the text you want. It is ideal for saving audio recordings, picture, web pages, texts, snippets, reminders and a bunch of other stuff. The tagging system is very handy in that it allows you to check your tagged items later on.

    5. Hemmingway app

    This simple editor allows you to check your text for weak writing mistakes. Once you paste your text in this editor, it identifies different mistakes, classifies them and gives you a readability score. Passive voice and hard-to-read sentences are some of the mistakes it identifies. Remember your aim is to reach as many people as possible. Low grade readability should be your aim. Check out a seventh grade reading level.

    6. Grammarly

    This tool allows you to create punctuation, spelling, style, sentence structure and other mistakes free content. You need to create an account then paste or upload your large document into Grammarly then have it checked. For those writers whose English is pretty broken like mine, this tool can be very handy. It also identifies grammatical errors and allows has a correction option which unfortunately comes at a price. You can always upgrade to the paid version to see advanced mistakes and for automatic corrections. Correctica and Essay Republic may be used in place of Grammarly.

    7. Word2cleanHTML

    This tool was meant for bloggers who use MS word, notepad, Google drive or Evernote to draft their posts. It becomes problematic when you paste your text into WordPress or whatever your content management system you’re using. Formatting errors arise and dealing with these is a cumbersome task.  This tool allows you to fix all these errors so you can transfer the clean copy into your CMS. Pretty amazing, right?

    8. Infogr.am

    Info-graphics are continually gaining popularity as they attract more readers to visit a blog and read whatever content is posted. Neil Patel explains the significance of info-graphic in marketing. With infogr.am, you can now create high quality info-graphics without bothering to visit a professional designer. You can use the templates then add your personalized text.

    9. Google webmaster tools

    If you’re conducting keyword and SEO research, then this is an impeccable tool. You can get your site indexed by Google, thanks to Google Webmaster. Additionally, you can get your search crawled and do away with bad links. It simply helps you analyze your site against another using generated analytics.

    10. Emotional Marketing Headline Analyzer

    After having created high quality content, you need an attractive headline so as to pull the masses to your blog. How do you know that your headline is attractive or not? This tool will help you answer this question. Just visit Emotional Marketing Headline Analyzer , submit the headline of your choice, choose a category from the drop box menu, then click on submit. It displays an Emotional Marketing Value in percentage to show how good your headline is. Never underestimate the importance of a good headline.

    The Fundamental Building Blocks of iOS Development

    Ecbert Malcom
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    0
    The Fundamental Building Blocks of iOS Development

    iOS Architecture

    • Core OS: services such as the Local Authentication and Core Bluetooth frameworks, Security.

    • Core Services: the Core Foundation and the Foundation Framework are found by the developers here which are basic system services. This layer also supports features such as location and networking services.

    • Cocoa Touch: hold up the basic app infrastructure and delivers key application frameworks such as, multitasking, touch-based input and push notifications.

    • Media: enables the app to deliver audio, video and graphic capabilities.

    Integrated Development Environment (IDE) – Xcode

    The most ideal IDE to construct iOS applications is Xcode. Apple’s Xcode IDE is the most productive and holistic iOS application and comprises the core of tasks involved in app development. Xcode is only compatible with OS X Yosemite or later and needs a Mac to use it. The Xcode can be used to design, develop and debug apps on iOS platform. It has features useful for editors to work with the code, engage using interface elements and most importantly use templates for developing various other apps. Xcode has powerful features such as iOS simulator which give you a look and feel of the app on different devices, the automatic layout that automatically adapts screen sizes to different devices and storyboards that give physical representations of related objects and their hierarchy.

    The Xcode also requires a language such as Objective C and swift to carry out development. Objective C is found to be reliable whereas swift being newly introduced is found to be easy to learn and design with, at the same time.

    Application bundle – iOS

    A bundle is a file directory with a defined structure and file extension. Application bundles are directory hierarchies. The core of this bundle is comprised of the compiled code in the form of an app executable file. The bundle includes property list file , custom files, localized resource files placed in their own language-specific sub-directories.

    UI/UX Design

    The UI and UX Design should cater to the current market needs of the customer. For example, if the customer is looking for a simple look and feel as opposed to unnecessary complexity in the UI then the design must be prioritized accordingly.

    It is always good to decide on optimal text size in the app since excessive size leads to more scrolling, and if the text is illegibly small it leads to loss of time in zooming in parts of the app for clarity. Every task performed must have the minimum number of steps logically required to arrive at the end result. Touch functions are another major priority. For example, the duration of touch that is used as a variation for different touch functions.

    Testing

    One of the most vital steps in developing an iOS app is the testing phase wherein the app is released to a fixed group of developers who test out the app- this is called the alpha review. The next step is to release the app on a trial basis to its customers so that any bug fixes required can be incorporated based on user feedback- this is called the beta review.

    While testing the app, X code IDE is equipped with a debugger which can be used in locating issues in the code by inspecting the data structures and the control flow. This data is then later used to rewrite the code as required.

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