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5 Reasons Why You Should Try Influencer Marketing

by Tom Bowen
written by Tom Bowen

Since the dawn of the advertising age, brands have used celebrities to market their products to consumers. This concept has changed drastically since the beginning of social media, primarily because of the rise of influencers. Influencers may not be world-renowned celebrities, but these individuals possess a substantial follower that listens to their every word.

As a result, large businesses are starting to gravitate towards influencer marketing or the practice of employing influencers to market consumer products or services to a wider audience. However, is influencer marketing sustainable and is it worth the investment? In this article, you’ll learn about the five primary reasons why you should try influencer marketing for your business.

1. There is a Low Barrier of Entry

There are many levels of marketing that either requires extensive knowledge in the area, a large investment or are otherwise just difficult to break into. Social media marketing requires a business to understand who their target audience is, how to create effective ads, and distinguish the data behind their ads to make necessary improvement.

The same facts are true about other aspects of online marketing, such as SEO and link-building. Influencer marketing, on the other hand, is relatively simple to master. All you have to do is contact an influencer, express your interest, and begin a partnership. Afterward, you can let the results spring forth.

2. Your Options are Limitless

There are thousands of influencers on social media and the Internet, giving your business a limitless amount of options to choose from. For example, if you are running a custom clothing store, there are a wide array of YouTube personalities and social media celebrities that can market your products to their audience.

Influencers exist in a myriad of business sectors, so it should never be difficult finding an influencer that identifies with your particular brand.

3. Influencers Improve Brand Sentiment

It’s possible that you have witnessed an advertisement where an actor or celebrity has genuinely expressed their sincere love for a particular product or service. With influencer marketing, this scenario becomes more possible. Let’s take into account the previous example of a business selling clothing products.

If this business somehow comes into a business agreement with a influencer to create custom merchandise and the influencer is satisfied with their purchase, pursuing an influencer marketing relationship will become more effective.

The reason why is because the influencer can genuinely inform their audience about your products, which increases your brand sentiment and allows others to see that your business actually provided quality products.

4. Influencer Marketing Drives Brand Awareness

In online marketing, brand awareness is an important aspect that helps businesses understand how popular they are online. Since influencers contain a large following on social media or other Internet communities, your brand can possibly been seen by millions of people who will take notice to your business.

Increasing your brand awareness in this way can substantially increase your return on investment as well, since you are purchasing an sure-fire and effective method of boosting your brand’s online exposure.

Conclusion:

Overall, influencer marketing is an important online marketing venture that many businesses are beginning to particpate in. By finding the right influencer, you can excel your brand into new heights of exposure and revenue opportunities.

Did you find this article to be helpful? If so, feel free to share this article on Twitter, Facebook, and any other social media channels.

 

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What’s Up with WhatsApp?

by Pythagoras Matko
written by Pythagoras Matko

WhatsApp recently expanded its capabilities with a myriad of new features. In fact, the popular audio – video – chat platform now offers group calling for up to four people. With WhatsApp joining Instagram under the Facebook umbrella, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new features at the recent F8 Developer Conference in May. This is an annual event that highlights the current and burgeoning trends in the social media universe.

Starting a Group Call

Android and iOS app users can download the new updates for WhatsApp. In fact, here are the essentials of taking advantage of this new multi-person call platform:

  • To start a group call, simply start a usual one-on-one video call.
  • Tap the “add participant” button in the top right of the screen.
  • This allows you to add up to 4 contacts for a social, business or personal A/V conference call.
  • Group calls are encrypted with end-to-end encryption for optimal and secure communications.

While video calling is already available on WhatsApp, the newest feature eliminates the need of having multiple windows open for individual calls. Similarly, it rivals existing video chat apps like Facetime, while creating new ways for people to connect privately with close friends and business associates. With group calling, you can even create video-call groups for your clubs, sports teams, and social rosters.

WhatsApp Continues to Expand

Like Facebook and Twitter, WhatsApp has morphed into one of the largest social media networks in the world. With the recent announcement about the group calling feature, Mark Zuckerberg stated that people had already used about 2 billion minutes of video calling on the app alone. This is an indication that WhatsApp is rapidly becoming the go-to-video calling source for millions of users across the world. However, the main reason why people prefer the app is due to is privacy and encryption protocols. The app also continues to challenge Facebook, which has seen its share of recent privacy scandals.

Here are some more reasons why WhatsApp is slated to become the premier online and mobile communications platform in the months and years ahead:

  • WhatsApp is now the world’s largest fully-encrypted communications network.
  • The app features a convenient online version for users that prefer desktop and laptop access.
  • WhatsApp has enhanced its support for Instagram and Facebook video playback.
  • The app continues to allow YouTube videos to play natively – without forwarding users to the YouTube app on their mobile, wireless and digital devices.

Other Features

In addition to the group calling, the app will also be offering support for stickers in the coming months. This will allow third-party developers to offer more creative ways to enjoy the app. Similarly, WhatsApp will also roll out new group administrator functions. This allows existing group admins to revoke rights from other participants if needed. You will simply access the user in “Group Info”, while selecting the “Dismiss As Admin” features. However, you can use the same portal to make users admins in your private group chats.

With WhatsApp continuing to grow at alarming rates, it’s imperative to add this crucial program to your social media networks. While social in nature, the app is proving to be an effective tool for business and client communications as well. So much so that more people downloaded WhatsApp in the last six months than Skype and other popular audio-video-chat interfaces.

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Small Business Checklist – Three Ways to Improve Rankings

by Pythagoras Matko
written by Pythagoras Matko

Search engine optimization (SEO) is never easy for any company. With so many metrics involved, it can be truly challenging to secure measurable results for any new or existing brand. Similarly, digital marketing can be complicated for clients with limited time, money and resources. This is why it’s pivotal to have a seasoned and reputable company handle all your online advertising needs.  For small to medium-sized businesses, there are several ways to improve your visibility and Google rankings. In fact, here are some key points to address on any business SEO checklist:

  • What to address in your online SEO marketing campaign?
  • Why is SEO important for any new or existing company?
  • Which tools will help you secure higher visibility, page rankings, and client – customer patronage?
  • How much time commitment is involved for improving my business rankings and industry ratings?

If these are some of the questions you have, it’s important to know that great organic (natural) rankings do not happen overnight. In fact, it’s a comprehensive, cohesive and ongoing process that requires you to have patience across the board. Similarly, a sound and effective SEO package reflect all the current and burgeoning trends. This includes mobile optimization for pages, along with social media integration and captivating and compelling content. With this in mind, here are three ways that have been proven to improve rankings for small and mid-sized businesses across the nation.

1. Understand What your Customers are Looking For

Before you venture into SEO, you need to know what your customers are looking for. For example specific products, tailor-made services, or quick responses to customer questions and concerns. Analyzing and assessing your small business needs is a specialty of any seasoned and reputable SEO agency. In fact, they can provide timely solutions for the following:

  • Optimizing your websites and blogs to reflect the latest changes in Google algorithms. Creating gripping websites that attract and engage your geo-specific or core customer bases.
  • Incorporating mobile optimization to secure higher visibility on Google Maps, local search results, and business listings. This is a crucial way to build a strong mobile presence while promoting your brands to new clients and consumers.
  • Ensuring your sites, blogs and online stores are fully compatible with desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. SEO experts take into account page loading times, which is important in reducing bounce rates and keeping potential customers on your pages longer.
  • Making sure your content is easy to scan and digest with industry-specific keywords, relevant text, and social media links (embedded and visible).
  • Promoting your business on Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Bing, and all social – mobile – and business platforms and directories.

2. Fix your Technical Issues

Another important aspect of small business SEO is fixing technical issues. While you may a great looking website, an SEO audit is the only way to ensure complete optimization across your pages. In fact, the way you present your pages are just as important as your business offerings and content. With this in mind, here are some of the technical issues SEO professionals address and resolve:

  • Speed and page download times. Long gone are the days of lengthy content and flash intros that would take forever to load.
  • Checking for duplicate content on the Web. This is important since duplicate content can seriously impact your rankings, ratings, and web-traffic.
  • Repairing broken links to ensure customers link back to the products, services, and information they seek. Broken links can prompt users and visitors to leave your sites and go elsewhere. Similarly, Google can penalize your pages for promoting misleading, false, or incorrect content and links.
  • Making sure all your pages are fully optimized for SEO. This allows search engines to properly crawl and index you web-pages on their listings and user searches.
  • Enhancing the strong areas of your pages, while improving the weaker and non-optimized areas of your website.

3. Optimizing your Pages

SEO on-page optimization is much more than just placing strategic keywords on pages. In fact, your content must also be streamlined, centralized and properly structured across your pages. Similarly, you must have keywords (preferably long-tailed) that effectively target your specific customer and client bases. With SEO content specialists, you are able to tap into important ranking signals and non-spammy keywords and links. Local experts will also optimize the following for optimal results:

  • Website, blog and online store titles and sub-titles.
  • Meta descriptions with back-links to your sites and pages. The correct form of preview content that can be accessed by users – by simply hovering their computer mouses over the content and links.
  • Body content – easy to scan content that is precise, concise and gets your messages across to users.

These are some of the ways to improve your small-business visibility on Google. However, you need a dedicated SEO company to cover all bases and take your brands to new heights in any industry.

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The Internet

by Tom Bowen
written by Tom Bowen

The future is here, we’re living in it. Science fiction has become the science. Everywhere you look you see smartphones, tablets, TV’s and devices that essentially connect us from one part of the world to the other without much delay.

The world that we’re living in is interconnected and the Internet is the reason why.

1800’s-1948

  • In 1873 the first fully digital communication system was created, the Telegraph.
  • The Telegraph and Telex machines would transmit data from point to point through an electromagnetic medium, radio or an electrical wire.
  • In 1948 Claude Shannon created the Information Theory with the fundamental results being source coding theorem. This helped transmit reliable communication over noisy channels.

1950’s

  • In the 1950’s Computers were invented.
  • Early Computers allowed the Central Processing Unit (CPU) to connect to remote terminals. This essentially is a precursor of what we know to be the Cloud today.
  • Around the 1950’s Packet Networking originated.

1960’s

  • In the early 1960’s the US Department of Defense awarded contracts for the development of ARPANET. (A packet network system)
  • In 1965 Emails where created as a way of allowing the users of a network to communicate.
  • In the mid-1960’s the precursor to Instant Messaging was created on systems like the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) and Multiplexed Information and Computing Service (Multics)
  • In 1969 the first message was sent from UCLA to the second network node at the Stanford Research Institute.
  • In the late 1960s and early 1970s packet switching networks were developed with communications protocols. This created protocols for internetworking.

1970’s

  • In 1971 Emails received the @ sign to separate mailbox names from their hostnames.
  • In 1971 the ARPANET is used to arrange the sale of Cannabis between Stanford and MIT, the first act of E-commerce.
  • In 1974 the name “Internet” was adopted to define the interconnections of the different networks created.
  • In 1979 the first online shopping system is created.

1980’s

  • Access to ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network.
  • In 1982 the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) was introduced as a standard.
  • In 1984 Compuserve launches the Electronic Mall which sets up the first complete electronic commerce service.
  • In 1986 universities and government agencies were using the internet.
  • In 1986 although the Internet has no governance, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which provides the technical direction for the internet was created.
  • With the growth of the internet, Commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) began to emerge for a more public use of the internet.
  • In 1989 Sir. Tim Berners-Lee invented a network-based implementation of hypertext which is known as the modern day World Wide Web. It was also the first web browser, which was later renamed Nexus.

1990’s

  • In 1990 the ARPANET was decommissioned.
  • In 1994 the first Smartphone was invented (although the term wasn’t coined at the time), it was the Simon Personal Communicator, and it could make and receive calls as well as send and receive faxes. You could use it to email and it had other apps.
  • In 1994 Marc Andreesen invented the browser Netscape Navigator which accounted for 90% of all web users.
  • The Search Engines where a system to index the information on the Internet, some of those are; Yahoo in 1994, Altavista in 1995, and Google in 1998.
  • In the mid-1990’s PowWow, ICQ, and AOL Instant Messenger started popularizing Instant Messaging.
  • In the late 1990s, many mobile phone users carried a device called a PDA which was a small device that would operate various Operating Systems separate from the Cellphone.
  • In 1995 Microsoft created the Internet Explorer browser and as it was bundled with the operating system Windows it peaked at over 95% of usage share by 2002.
  • In 1998 (ICANN) the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers was created. They provide oversight for namespaces in the Internet protocol address space and the Doman Name System.
  • In 1998 Netscape launched the Mozilla Foundation which eventually became Firefox.
  • In 1999 Napster became the first peer to peer file sharing system.
  • In 1999 the first mobile internet service, Imode was created and this was considered the birth of the mobile phone.

2000’s

  • In early 2000, the Ericsson R380 was the first device marketed as a “Smartphone”.
  • In the early 2000s, the Dot-com bubble helped the internet take off. Companies started seeing the profitability of doing business via-Internet and everyone started using web services as a method of achieving profits with fewer expenditures.
  • During the early 2000s, many companies start seeing profits. Alibaba.com achieved profitability, eBay acquires PayPal, Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.
  • In 2001 the mobile phone email system Research in Motion for the Blackberry product was launched in America.
  • In 2004 a major development was the introduction of the telephone calls using the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) or VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol.
  • In the early 2000’s Social Networking is established with the birthplace of the Social Media titans we know today.
  • In 2003 LinkedIn is launched.
  • In 2004 Facebook is launched.
  • In 2006 Twitter is created.
  • In 2007 Apple Inc. introduced the iPhone.
  • In 2008 the first Android operated device the HTC Dream was released.
  • In 2008, 80% of all PBX (Private Branch Exchange) lines installed internationally were VoIP.
  • In 2010 the Internet is accessible in Space (before this they uses point to point links through the Deep Space Network)
  • As of 2011 Firefox has 28% of usage share through its browser.
  • In April 2014 Chromes browser usage had more than 45% of the market share for browsers.

The Internet has come a long way from its beginnings. With a couple key breakthroughs at its beginnings, we’ve seen technology advance rapidly year to year. Seeing where we were, and where we are, it’s hard to fathom where we’ll be. With the nature of this evolution, what we see in movies today as science fiction might very well be tomorrow’s science.

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