Category: Digital Marketing

Social media activism has long been dismissed as a form of ‘slacktivism’, similar to lazy journalism. It is easy to seem interested in a social cause, click on a few like buttons, share a few sympathy evoking posts and call it a day; and most people are doing just that. However, if you really want to be taken seriously for your social activism on social media, you need to do a little more than what everyone does. Social media is a reflection of real life Social media is a reflection of real life and if it can be said, it is a truer representation of the world around us. Social media filters out a lot of data and presents to us the world that we would like to see. In effect, we can say that what we see on social media is a truer version of the reality we are surrounded by. This is because, unlike in real life, social media helps you to choose the kind of information and news you want to see, making your online world a more real version of life you want to see. Thus, any social activism endeavor you take upon yourself will be a more intensified version of yourself. It is easy to talk about helping rural artisans in front of your boardroom and feel that you have done your bit as a corporate player. However, when you take your social activism to social media, you are more likely to encounter people who share similar interests. Most likely, people who are interested in your cause will end up interacting with you and getting to know your business as well. In this article, let us take a look at how you can optimize your social media activism. Brand yourself as a social activist There is nothing more important than personal branding when it comes to online interactions. You need to brand yourself as a business professional who is also interested in social activism. If you brand yourself as a social activist, you will probably be ignored by the ones who have money – businessmen. You need to ensure that you do not come across as a social activist who wants donations. Instead, you need to come across as someone who is fighting for a cause by using influence and capital that one has already earned; and that will earn you respect. Write like an activist While it is important to look like the successful business person that you really are, you also need to write and talk like a social activist. You need to know the depths of your cause and talk about it passionately. You need to write regular blog posts about why it is important to support your cause and how it can help the community your business works in. Promote your altruism Social activism runs parallel with altruism. Altruism is a defense mechanism that is, actually, positive, unlike other defense mechanisms that Sigmund Freud stated. Whenever you feel altruistic, talk about it on social media. Pique the interest of other altruistic business professionals who might be willing to jump into your band wagon. Make sure that you promote your acts of altruism on social media. If you acted on your social cause, write or tweet about it. Do not let even the smallest act of altruism go wasted. Connect with like-minded people The point of using social media activism is to ensure that you meet likeminded people. Those who feel similarly about the causes that you like will also want to work with you and do business with you. With that in mind, you need to make a list of people that you think will be useful for your business and are also interested in your causes. Connect with such people online and exchange information & pleasantries. Track the results of your activism Right from the moment you begin your social media activism, track the progress. Are people liking or talking about your causes? Are they ignoring your posts? Or do they find you boring and repetitive? Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to running social media activism campaigns. Work on your weaknesses and hone your strengths. Social media activism is a powerful way of making sure that you attract the right kind of audience; and it is also one of the best ways to attract both clients and customers. If you get lucky, you might even get good press mentions.

Like with any other social networking site, Pinterest has lately seen a number of fake pins, likes and comments. Some of these fake activities have blatantly sought attention and they have managed to get what they want, at the cost of genuine Pinterest users’ marketing success. Businesses that have used Pinterest spuriously have, thus, so far avoided penalties and warnings from any regulatory body. No more spamming and requesting for repins on Pinterest Thanks to a continued effort by Pinterest users and thanks to realization among Pinterest staff, the company announced its updated usage policy, which bans all spurious & spammy activities on Pinterest. The new update to policies ensures that fake pins and likes cannot be sought and money can’t be paid to people who will sit by the system and keeping pinning & liking. This will ensure that Pinterest will remain true to its goal and reliable information is made available to the larger Pinterest community. If you are a business owner who has been trying to figure out Pinterest, one thing is for sure – you need not indulge in any malpractices to build your audience. Instead, be honest and work hard towards building your Pinterest community. Here are some of the most important points that you need to take home: Do not pay people to pin You need not pay people for pinning or re-pinning your business pins. You also cannot compensate them monetarily for liking your pins. Instead, you can pay a person who runs the account; and that is obviously fair. What is not fair is, buying pins or likes. If you would like to pay commission for products and services that were sold through pins, you can pay commission using affiliate networks. How to run contests A person can pin only once in order to participate in a contest. Repeated pins are not allowed and do not suggest anywhere that Pinterest is your sponsor or that it endorses you. You also cannot ask people to pin from a selection of pins that already exist. Do ask participants not to pin the rules of the contest that you run. Don’t spam Make sure that you do not engage in old school spamming by asking people to comment on your pins. Do not ask them to re-pin or like your pins. If your pins are good enough, they will like or pin it anyway. Instead, focus on pinning great and informative stuff that people can actually use. Here is what you need to do: Like other pins and re-pin others’ pictures Instead of asking people to re-pin or like your pins, go ahead and choose the best pins that are related to your business and like them or re-pin them. Choose wisely so that you are not affected by competition. However, there is always a lot of information on Pinterest that can be liked and re-pinned without attracting unnecessary competition. Have Pinterest conversations Talk to people who you think will be great influencers. Find out what they like and go through their boards. Like or re-pin their pins (only if they are really useful to you and your audience). Do not go ahead and like images that have got nothing to do with your intended audience & business. Create useful boards Last but not the least, create Pinterest boards and categorize your boards in a smart fashion. Make sure that your audience does not feel inundated with information, no matter how useful it is. Instead, categorize and classify your pins so that they are easily accessible to people. Pinterest has seemed to understand that a lot of companies have been using the platform in unethical ways. Thankfully, the updated policies ensure fair play and it will no longer be possible to cheat on gaining a good audience. As long as you play fair and ensure that you are doing the right things by not spamming or asking for re-pins, you will be able to make use of Pinterest well. Pinterest is a very powerful visual social bookmarking service that has become wildly popular in recent years. It is also one of the most important social networking tools available for marketers today.

Instagram is not as popular as Facebook or Twitter among marketers and that is because most marketing professionals do not “get it”. However, Instagram is a platform that simply cannot be avoided because of its sheer popularity among users. Why you need to care about Instagram? In just over 2 months of its release, there were more than 1 million users. Currently, the platform has more than 150 million users and they share & consume images every fraction of a second. Instagram is free to use and can be a very powerful medium to share corporate images & the story of your brand. Instagram is a powerful platform to connect with your target audience and increase brand visibility. All that one needs to do is create a free Instagram account and begin to post pictures that tell the story. There are several ways one can begin to use Instagram without feeling overwhelmed or “stuck”. In this article, let us take a look at some of the most important steps to connect with your target audience using Instagram. It is not difficult but it needs a little bit of planning and some amount of discipline. Create a profile Creating a profile on Instagram is free and does not take a lot of effort. Instagram will require you to use a smartphone in order to post pictures. Ensure that your smartphone has a good camera. Use a good Android smartphone with a decent camera or any of the iPhones. Use a profile image that clearly helps people in identifying your company. Keywords, mission and other information can be added to your profile to help people identify & recognize your brand. Learn to use the tools Instagram’s USP is its filters. The filters allow people to post pictures that are slightly altered to create a different mood. The trick is to identify which filter looks the best for a certain picture that you have taken. Sometimes, a black and white picture speaks a lot more than garishly colorful pictures. Other times, you might want to use retro filters to pique nostalgia among your followers. Instagram allows you to insert hashtags, just like Twitter and now, recently, like Facebook. These hashtags help people to identify your business quickly when they are looking for certain hashtags. Make sure that you have a collection of hashtags for which you would want to be uniquely identified. Good descriptions for each photograph helps people to find humor and wit, which naturally encourages them to follow you. The human touch There isn’t a better way to tell the story of your bran than to show that behind the veneer of business, you are all made of flesh and bones. Post pictures of your employees and of pets, if you have any. Cat pictures, naturally, guarantee follows, likes and comments. If you cannot have cats in your office premises, ensure that you click pictures of some ferals and prove your love for animals. A restaurant that is interested in saving feral cats by promoting trap-neuter-return (TNR) has more chances of finding followers on Instagram than a restaurant that posts pictures of various delectable dishes cooked by the master chef. Use Instagram to your advantage and do not be afraid to post pictures of causes that you support as a business. Importance of history and heritage Another great way to narrate the history of your brand is to rekindle some enthusiasm for history. If you have been around for a long time, post pictures of your earlier days. Do not have a history to boast? Then create some history by posting historical images from the community you operate in. All that a company needs to do is to get creative. Pictures of happy customers Ask your customers if you can take their pictures and post their pictures on Instagram, when they look happy and cheerful. Smiles always get attention and if they happen to be your customers. That will earn you more goodwill and positive attention. Community events Ensure that you always take part in community events and social causes. Whether it is feeding the homeless or taking care of stray dogs, make sure that you, as a business, have something to return to your community. When people get to know that you are more than just a money-making business, they will begin to respect your business on the whole. Whether you operate online or offline, you still operate within the jurisdiction of a community. Be grateful to that community and show your love & respect by trying to improve the place; and share those pictures for ensured goodwill. Follow the trends Instagram has trending topics just like Twitter does and it is a good way to understand what is popular at the moment. With that in mind, it is a good idea to follow some trends and participate in them as well. It might take a little while for you to understand how to use these tools but with practice, you will be able to learn how to post images that will gather more likes and comments, encouraging people to actually follow you & engage with you. Engage with your audience Just because you are a business does not mean you need to be dry and guarded. Let loose and engage with your audience. Make sure that you also stray off your own hashtags and keywords once in a while. It is a social media platform after all and not just a tool to add filters to photos and bombard your audience with them. Engage your audience and talk to them often like their pictures & even leave behind witty comments. People are bound to click on your ID and arrive at your pictures too. Have fun when you do it Do not use Instagram as if it were a duty to do so. Enjoy using it and have fun while you do so. By having fun when you use Instagram, you will be able to spread cheer and

Of the three major social networking sites, LinkedIn is probably the most serious and professional. While Twitter is more journalistic in nature, when it comes to making business connections, LinkedIn proves to be far more important. LinkedIn not only serves as a platform to look for business opportunities and hire people but it is also a great platform to look for leads and connect with them. Lead generation activity on LinkedIn is one of the primary methods to boost sales in today’s world. LinkedIn has proven to be consistently important and managers & social media experts have often relied heavily upon this tool alone. In this article, let us take a look at how one can use LinkedIn to boost sales and generate leads. After all, 2014 is the year of digital and one will need to start using these tools every day. It is no longer just another method to generate leads but one of the crucial methods to generate leads and be successful in whatever you are trying to do. LinkedIn has certainly come a long way and those who have been using it for the last few years will vouch for its growing importance. Let us take a look at how LinkedIn can be used for lead generation: • Ask for introductions Sift through your contacts and visit profiles of people that you might want to connect with. If you run into people who are not yet connected to you, ask a common friend to introduce you to them. It is perfectly OK to do so, if you ask nicely. You can make a list of names that you would like to be connected with and when you are ready, ask your friend to introduce them on LinkedIn to you. Send a message with a blurb that will help your friend to simply copy and paste & introduce you to their connections. It might seem a little embarrassing but it’s a good way to connect with people that might prove to be important leads. Most people hesitate to ask for introductions but it is never a bad practice to do so. • Search for possible connections Just search on Google for possible people that you want to connect with. You need to go to Google and type in keywords & Linkedin.com in order to allow Google to fetch a list of results. Sift through this list and add people that you want to. If you are unable to do so, join Groups that they have joined and checked whether they have made that information public. • Engage in discussions There is nothing worse than creating a LinkedIn profile and not engaging with your audience. Engage and participate in conversations so that people get to know that you exist as a person & as a business entity. Targeted group discussions on LinkedIn are a great way to appear successful, knowledgeable and important enough. People, usually, try and get back to you when they realize you have a lot to offer to them. Contribute to the group’s discussion and offer your knowledge. Do not be stingy about revealing information. • Find interests you have in common Once you realize whom you want to talk to, make a list of common interests. Then, check if they are members of any group. Once you know in which groups they are taking part, you can quickly send them a private message using Group Messages. LinkedIn Groups offer a unique feature wherein you can send messages to perfect strangers even if you are not yet connected. • Utilize Lead Collection Lead Collection is a unique feature of LinkedIn. When you opt for LinkedIn Ads, you can choose Lead Collection as well. This lets people to click on a certain ad of yours, arrive at a landing page and then ask to be contacted. That is enough proof for you to know that they are not only going to be leads but also prospective clients or customers as well. • Stalk your stalkers There is nothing more thrilling than to know that someone is stalking you online in a professional and harmless way. When someone visits your profile on LinkedIn, visit their profile back and see if your interests match. If they do, contact them right away with a message that asks if you could help them, as they had visited your profile. This is a great way to not only arrive at potential leads but also ensure that you are being courteous. Of course, do not indulge in stalking that might come across as creepy. Do not stalk your former employees or your clients, especially, if you had a thing for them. • Use advanced filters LinkedIn comes with a number of filters, when it comes to searching for people. Use these advanced filters to get a list of people that closely match your tastes and needs. If you have subscribed to premium advanced search, it becomes all much easier to find people that truly matter. Advanced filters help you to weed out unnecessary leads that might not be forthcoming or useful. By ensuring that you filter out those who are not promising enough, you will be left with a pool of small but important leads that are bound to be useful for your business. • Remain active After you create your LinkedIn profile, do not go silent. It is imperative that you remain talking and sharing information. Your status updates matter a lot and people can easily come to know what you are up to & why they need to engage with you. Share information that you are an expert of and talk to people as well. Most people update their status only when they edit their profiles and some do not even do that. LinkedIn is a social networking site, which needs to be updated constantly. It is only prudent to remain active on LinkedIn so that you can engage with your audience and remain in their unconscious memory so

With an increased focus on social media marketing and social sharing, companies have begun to bask in the glory of attention, free marketing & increased sales. However, social media marketing also has its flipside, just like everything else in this life. Customers can post negative criticism and complaints against your company, for everyone else to read. This will eventually hurt your brand image and sales in the short & long terms. Why you must handle negative comments and complaints intelligently While most of the complaints maybe genuine (providing you with an opportunity to fix your issues), some of the complaints maybe downright nasty. Without dwelling on whether the complaints are true or false, you need to have a social media complaint handling policy in place. So, what would you do in order to make sure that unfair complaints are reduced online? There is a lot that a company can do in order to weed out complaints that are malicious and libelous in nature. There is also a lot that a company can do to fix legitimate complaints that customers usually make. In this article, let us take a look at how a company can reduce these complaints in order to improve brand image and goodwill. You must act fast There was a time when negative complaints only went so far. If a customer was not satisfied with what you offer, he or she might have complained to 10 people. You probably had to lose those 10 prospective clients/customers. Now, thanks to social media, a single complaint can reach far and wide, across the world, to thousands of people. This is a scenario that one cannot take lightly. With that in mind, each negative complaint must be handled quickly and efficiently. Understand who is most likely to complain A recent study found that younger customers tend to complain more on social networking sites. Those who are aged between 18 and 24 tend to complain on Twitter and Facebook more often than their older peers. These negative complaints maybe genuine or malicious but they will indeed mar your image online and can hurt your sales. The onus is on you to make sure that negativity is handled with care and that all complaints are resolved, even if it seems irrational to you. Assign somebody to handle complaints It is a good idea to hire someone to handle complaints exclusively. This person might post under your company’s profile or he/she can use their name to resolve complaints. We believe that it is a good idea to receive complaints under the company page or profile but when complaints are very negative, you might want an individual to respond to those complaints. It not only looks like you care but the very fact that a human is responding to a complaint will resolve a lot of conflict between you and your customer. Complaint handling policy The next step is for you to decide how you will approach complaints. No matter how nasty the complaint is, make sure that you maintain your grace. Do not lose your temper online or sound haughty, which will affect your further sales with other people. Humility and sincere concern for the complaint will go a long way but arrogance will hurt you more than the complaint will ever. Communicating availability to customers When a customer posts complaints on Facebook or Twitter, they are mostly unable to reach you immediately. When you respond, be polite and offer to call them back or if that is not possible, ask them to send you a private message with their contact details so that you can get in touch. When customers learn that you are available to listen to their grievances, they will not usually post their complaints again and elsewhere. This reduces the chances of complaints being reposted unnecessarily. Of course, make sure that you get in touch with the person immediately and resolve his or her issues. Resolve issues on social media Whenever there is a complaint written on your official page, treat it as a PR opportunity. Ensure that you mention that a certain complaint is resolved and they could get in touch with you over phone or email, if issues persist. The idea is to let everyone know that you handled the complaint positively and that you resolved the issue. Do not provoke trolls When it comes to social media, you can always expect trolls to bother you, with repeated complaints and requests. Trolls usually seek attention and sometimes they like the other person to respond no matter what. Respond politely and reassure that the problem has been fixed. If you need to repost the response, that is perfectly ok. Most people understand when someone is being a troll. Do not ignore even the smallest of complaints No matter how trivial a complaint sounds, do not ignore it. That can cause your downfall. Instead, fix even the most trivial issue and attend to complaints as soon as possible. Do not let a complaint remain not responded on social networking sites as that implies that you don’t care. Sometimes people need a small reason to get angry. It is your business duty to save your company and that means, sometimes having to be nice to even the most unfair of customers. As long as you solve problems, you should not really worry about anything else. Encourage positive reviews Ask your customers to post positive reviews if they are happy with your products and services. Get people to write reviews, leave comments and spread some goodwill about your company. That helps to reduce negativity and builds positive image about your company. These customers act as brand ambassadors who do not even need to be paid and they genuinely spread goodwill. Create an HR policy Make sure that you have an HR policy in place so that your ex-employees do not speak ill about your company; legal help maybe necessary to draft such a policy. Make it clear to your employees from

Lead generation is probably the most important part of doing business. Without making a list of potential leads, we don’t know whom to contact and persuade and how best to design a marketing campaign. With everything considered, lead generation is the single most important task for a business to run successfully. Using technology to generate leads Lead generation also is no more old school and one does not have to painstakingly make huge lists of potential clients & customers and write them down oneself. There are automated tools and forms that can do this job for you; and automation brings into our mind technology. Without proper technology, it is not possible to have a good lead generation plan in place. Moreover, efficient use of technology helps you to make a list of higher quality leads that will indeed convert and help you make sales. With all that in mind, it is important to make use of available technology to the fullest and ensure that leads are generated automatically. In this article, let us take a look at what technological requirements exist to generate leads that are of high quality. Lead generation form Most people do not realize that lead generation forms are some of the most important tools in our business for generating leads. Lead generation forms are no longer manual but are mostly automated. Thus, a lead generation form must be user-friendly and people must not feel annoyed when they fill up information. The lead generation form could be anything – from a simple ‘contact us’ form to a form that collects information before letting visitors download something for free, an eBook for instance. Lead generation forms need to be short and error free & must not ask for unnecessary information. Social media Social media is certainly one of the most important tools of lead generation. Social media includes but is not limited to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram. Usually, Facebook and LinkedIn also give you access to people’s e-mail addresses, which is a good thing. You will be able to use those e-mail addresses for lead generation activities as well; only make sure that you do not bother people by contacting them incessantly. E-mail E-mail is something that should be used carefully. It is quite clear that everyone uses e-mail at one point or another. Even the most unsophisticated person in a secluded village might have access to e-mail if he or she doesn’t use Facebook. Teh ubiquity of email makes it an attractive lead generation tool. However, be aware that you can get marked as spam if you do not design your email campaigns well. You need to make sure that you do not end up being marked as spam by several people, which will automatically prove you to be a spammer. That is not what we want. Web browsing and cookies You can always use cookies and trackers to understand the kind of people that visit your website. Their browser and IP location & other details can give you a whole lot of information about who is interested in your content and who might become your clients. This way, you will want to contact the right kind of people instead of wasting your efforts on people who might not be interested in what you offer. Make sure that you track web visitors and do let them know that you track. Identifying information might not be collected or saved. Direct contact The best form of lead generation is when leads contact you themselves after having seen your advertisement or after having come to know about you somewhere. Classify those people under high quality leads as they are more likely to become your clients or customers. They might not initially state that they are interested in a purchase but you can always ask them if it is ok for them if you contacted them once in a while through email about news and products. Most people do agree. There is nothing more important than in knowing how to use technology to your advantage. If you automate everything and think it is all over for you, you are mighty wrong. You need to, instead, automate some activities and check manually sometimes. That holds true in the case of lead generation as well.

When you collect information about random people and try to filter out possible people who might purchase your services or products, you are trying to generate leads. The idea is to build a marketing base so that you can follow-up over email or telephone. Lead generation helps in email and telemarketing. The outcome of lead generation is sales and new contacts to contact. Demand generation, on the other hand, is more subtle. It is the process in which you deliberately create demand for your products and services subtly or not so subtly. The outcome of demand generation is that people are more likely to purchase your products or services. Understanding the difference between the two Marketers often do not understand the difference between the two and confuse it along the way. Moreover, they mix demand generation with lead generation and annoy potential leads and customers both. Demand generation helps you to gain customers and lead generation helps you to gain leads for whom you might create demand later on. Thus, the initial step is to collect all the leads and save them in a database. Once you have your leads, you can create demand using content marketing, advertising and direct persuasion. But wait a minute. Is it always like that? Can’t one create demand when no leads are in sight? Quite possible. In this article, let us take a look at why you need to place demand generation before lead generation, though the opposite is the norm usually. Create demand generation using great content Content marketing is not the same as demand generation. However, when you write great content and offer information for free, people will come back to you as there is already a demand created subtly through persuasive content and informative blog posts. Blogs can be persuasive even when they are not written in a persuasive way. In fact, blogs need to be opinionated, honest and informative. They should not be persuasive at all. Yet, people tend to respect the people who write those informative blogs than those who do not. Already, a sort of persuasion and demand generation is taking place. Leads generated after being exposed to demand generation are more likely to purchase Once you create tasks and campaigns for demand generation, it is easy to understand who will be your customers and who will just walk away after reading your content. Creating demand in the form of marketing campaigns or content marketing will help you to expose your potential leads to what you offer as an entity. They will ‘know’ you already and thus, it is easy for them to accept to be leads. The leads who were initially exposed to your demand generation strategies are more likely to make purchases as well; and that is a great way to build your database of leads who are more likely to proceed towards making purchases. Demand generation filters unwanted people Demand generation campaigns are useful in a twisted sort of way. They make sure that they turn off people who are not interested in your communication. When they are exposed to your demand generation content, they will know whether they are interested or not in what you offer. You will be less likely to send your marketing information and telemarketing calls towards these people who are not interested in being contacted at all. Demand generation sort of primes people into becoming leads and then, becoming customers. Thus, demand generation acts as a filter to avoid people who are not likely to become leads. Specific marketing campaigns can be designed once demand is generated When you design demand generation campaigns, you will get to know who your real target audience is. The answers can be pretty startling. A candy that was flavored with an exotic fruit from Thailand became hugely popular among those who had returned from Thailand. These Americans who vacationed in Thailand were more likely to purchase the candy than someone who had not visited Thailand. By communicating about the fruit that is grown in Thailand, one could identify a potential lead pool, who will probably buy the candy for the sake of nostalgia. There can be many more examples of how demand generation can be used to design specific marketing campaigns. Demand generation is quickly becoming the preferred form of short-listing potential leads before even one gets to lead generation; and this is a positive development.

The last time you visited CNN.com or some other authoritative website, you probably noticed a few links with thumbnails under the heading ‘From around the web’. These links direct you to websites that are not part of the CNN network. In other words, it is pretty evident that CNN syndicates these links for a certain amount of money, helping those syndicated websites to receive the massive traffic that CNN usually enjoys. By paying a certain amount of money to content syndication companies like Outbrain or Taboola, companies and businesses can get their blogs, articles and columns featured or syndicated on authoritative websites like Huffington Post, CNN or just about any important online publication out there. Content syndication has slowly come to be one of the most important steps in content marketing. You might be having a lot of content that has been published in all these years. However, if you are not marketing your content on all the available platforms, it is probably going unnoticed from the larger targeted web traffic. With that in mind, we strive to explain not only the importance of content syndication in content marketing, but also give you a brief overview about how best to do it. Let us take a look at 5 important reasons why content syndication is important as part of content marketing: • Visibility on authoritative websites It is not always that you get to make your content available on a highly authoritative website. When you choose a content syndication service, your content, which could probably never get a mention in mainstream media, can find a place on of the most important websites. No matter how relatively unknown your own content is, letting your content appear on a more authoritative website will make you visible. • Increase lead generation Content syndication helps targeted people to click on your links, after they probably read a related article on the publisher’s site. Usually, content syndication takes into account the demographics, psychographics and browsing patterns before making your link appear down below. This leads to a targeted lead generation as those who click on your link tend to be more or less interested in what you offer. • Increase revenue When your blogs, articles, columns and even landing pages are syndicated on a third party website, chances are, more people will end up buying your product or service. If you are involved in monetizing your content, content syndication directly helps you to increase your revenue. This is one of the better ways to increase revenue with existing content. • Accidental discovery A number of people who arrive at web pages do so accidentally. When they click on syndicated links accidentally, they might turn out to be leads or even prospects. This helps you to make yourself be discovered accidentally. It is a great way to make sure that your content is being discovered by audiences that you earlier had no access to. • Increase and sustain traffic Any form of content syndication leads people to click on your links. That increases traffic to your website. When you continue to be a part of content syndication programs, you will be able to sustain your increased traffic over a period of time; and that is very important for traffic generation and sustenance. While content syndication can be amazingly good for your traffic, certain myths still lurk around. In this section, we dispel 3 myths that are doing rounds across content marketing departments. Myth #1: Syndication reduces traffic This is one of the biggest myths around when it comes to content syndication. Many people believe that if their content is published elsewhere, people will begin to look for it elsewhere. That is really not the case. The fact that you are trying to syndicate your content on some other website shows that you need more traffic. Content syndication is done in order to increase traffic and thus, reduction in traffic is a rather absurd idea. Myth #2: Syndication is not good for SEO Many SEO professionals mistakenly believe that content syndication is not good for SEO. SEO professionals believe rightly when they say that content duplication is bad for SEO. However, content syndication is a process by which you are only letting your thumbnail, title and an excerpt be visible on a third party website for a price; and that is allowed by Google. Thus, content syndication is not bad for SEO at all. Myth #3: Paid distribution makes you look desperate A number of companies believe they will look spammy and even desperate when they let their blogs, articles and other content be visible on third party websites. In reality, it just makes you look more authoritative because your content is visible on a more authoritative website. Nothing could be father than this from the truth. Planning a syndication strategy In order to benefit the most from content syndication, you need to know what you are trying to achieve. Some of the goals could be increasing traffic to the website, making you more visible and building awareness of your products or something else that is a priority. No matter what it is, you need to first describe the motive behind content syndication. If you are trying to build traffic, you will probably want to just leave a text link to your blog post or at the most, a thumbnail, excerpt and the title at the bottom of the page. However, if you are looking to build awareness of your product, you might want to consider other forms of syndication. No matter what, you need to know what you are trying to achieve and why you need content syndication in the first place. Choose the right content syndication partner There are paid and unpaid content syndication partners. Paid ones include Outbrain, Zemanta, Taboola and others. Unpaid content syndication platforms include certain websites which are open to linking your content from their websites. Choosing a paid service is infinitely better because you will be able to track and analyze the

Whether you learned about bitcoins through tech professionals or you learned about them when the police confiscated bitcoins belonging to the founder of Silk Route, an illegal online narcotic drug market place, chances are you have read about them already. Yet, a lot of people we come across do not know what bitcoins are, how they are used and what their legal value really is. In this article, we explain what bitcoins are, how they are used and what their legal status is. What is a bitcoin? Bitcoin is a peer to peer payment system used in a digital realm. The digital currency was introduced in 2009 as an open source software. It has quickly gained acceptance among netizens as a viable form of payment and is often referred to as digital currency, virtual currency, crypto-currency or electronic money. When it is capitalized (Bitcoin), it refers to the technology and network in which it operates. When it used with lowercase (bitcoin), it refers to the virtual currency. Who controls bitcoin and how is it used? Bitcoin is not controlled by a single entity and is, thus, known as a decentralized currency. Bitcoins are created by a process called mining. The process involves users authenticating their computing power and verifying their payments into a public ledger. When they do this, they receive newly minted bitcoins in exchange. One can also receive bitcoins in exchange for currencies, services or even products. One needs to use either a web application or a cellphone or a tablet or a personal computer to send and receive bitcoins. Is it a recognized form of payment? Though the U.S. bitcoin-friendly authorities have often worried about tax-related issues and money laundering which could be used for illegal and potentially threatening causes. Other countries are not so friendly towards bitcoins. In fact, China does not allow people to exchange bitcoins for its local currency. The European Union discourages people from using bitcoins because it does not come with consumer protections. At the moment, more speculators have begun to purchase it rather than actual commercial users. Speculators have hoped that bitcoins will increase in value and they have too. It is often believed that bitcoins might soon become mainstream as merchants will feel inclined to use them, thanks to lower transaction fees when compared with credit card transaction fees, which range between 2-3%. Now that we know what bitcoins are, let us take a look at some of the advantages that they have: • Not so anonymous Those who use bitcoins are not identified by name, which gives them a sense of anonymity. However, particular transactions can be linked to companies and individuals. In some jurisdictions, it is required that personal information is collected when people buy or sell bitcoins against cash. Even when individuals and companies use different bitcoin address for each transaction, their transaction history always links back to the original user. Thus, we can say that bitcoins are no more anonymous than credit card payments. If this were true, fears about bitcoins being used for illegal and criminal purposes are unwarranted. Each bitcoin transaction can be traced back to the original user; and that is a good thing. • Wallets and cryptography We all worry about identity thefts and fake credit card transactions. These fraudulent transactions are becoming increasingly commonplace. Bitcoins, on the other hand, use public-key cryptography. What this means is that a pair of private and public cryptographic keys are generated. A collection of such keys is known as a wallet, in bitcoin parlance. Keys can be generated offline on a computer that is not compromised. Thus, bitcoins could be more secure than credit cards, in a way. However, there have been cases of thefts related to bitcoins as with any other electronic form of payment. • Alternative to national currencies There are a number of countries which have terrible economies. Absurd levels of inflation, devaluation of local currencies and other problems have encouraged people to look at bitcoins as an option. Bitcoin users can, thus, circumvent capital controls, currency devaluation, inflation and other economic problems. Many Argentineans have already begun to use bitcoins in place of their own currency as their country is plagued by inflation. Bitcoin could also be used as a form of international remittance. This is particularly useful to people who work in the Middle East and send money back home in other Asian countries. • Investment option Many people have begun to buy bitcoins as a long term investment plan. However, bitcoins are very high-risk investment options and it cannot be said what their status will be in the future. For investors who are not very experienced, bitcoins might prove to be very dangerous. Yet, experienced investors have begun to buy bitcoins and its value has certainly increased in recent months. Some investors have also advocated investing in bitcoin mining. • Acceptance by merchants There are a number of reasons why merchants would want to accept bitcoins instead of credit cards or other forms of payment. Bitcoins are secure and they are electronic in nature. Though there is a sense of anonymity, the original person can always be tracked back. Moreover, bitcoins have a lower transaction fee than the 2-3% that credit cards usually charge. Companies like Zynga, Clearly Canadian, TigerDirect, Virgin Galactic and others have begun to accept bitcoins as a form of payment. Though there are several advantages to bitcoins, there are an equal number of disadvantages as well. Let us take a look at why people are still skeptical about using bitcoins. • Skepticism by banks Banks have not shown the kind of enthusiasm that investors have toward bitcoins. Many companies that deal with bitcoins have found it difficult to open traditional bank accounts. Lenders are not only wary of bitcoins but also about those who engage in bitcoins. Part of the wariness comes from an assumption that bitcoin users are not reliable. • Black markets Mainstream media has often asserted that bitcoins can be used to purchase

Last month, Google announced that it has begun to encrypt Gmail messages in order to provide an extra layer of security. The idea was to keep content on Gmail protected from both criminal and government snooping. Encryption was already made available as an option in 2010 but right now, you cannot turn it off even if you wanted to. Google explicitly states that no one can read or listen to your messages as they are sent back and forth from Gmail’s servers. This rule holds good whether you are using a public Wi-Fi or you are using your own computer at home. 100% of the message that you send is encrypted internally so that they remain safe even when they are moved internally between Google’s centers. The announcement from Google also makes a reference to Edward Snowden’s revelations in a very subtle manner “last summer’s revelations”. What about the Heart Bleed bug that has affected websites? Google’s decision was a step in the right direction, especially, when recent news reports have begun to flow that the Heart Bleed bug is out there, affecting millions of websites on the Internet. The Heart Bleed bug attacks the OpenSSL software, which encrypts data so that no one can snoop on you. Hackers can easily exploit certain flaws within OpenSSL encryption and steal credit card numbers, personal details and other sensitive information. You might think that changing your password will protect you but it only does so much. If the server on which your information is located has not updated their software to ensure that the Heart Bleed bug is taken care of, it really doesn’t matter whether you change it or not. Gmail and other tech bigwigs have already updated their software to protect you against the Heart Bleed bug. What is worse is, any site that uses the OpenSSL encryption can be compromised and until they fix the patch, there is very little that you can do about it. Tip #1: However, to begin with, you can change your Gmail password along with those for your Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Amazon and Tumblr accounts. Tip #2: In whichever website you have saved your credit card information, you should change passwords on them as there is absolutely no way to know which websites have been affected. Current status of Google’s encryption and the Heart Bleed bug As of now, Gmail looks like it is protected and the fact that they made the effort to encrypt all our messages last month is an indication that tech companies are taking security seriously. On the other hand, it also exposes the vulnerability of cyber security, which constantly needs to be monitored and there is no way to make sure that we will always be safe. A heightened sense of vigilance will help us to make sure that our information is not compromised. If more companies begin to follow Google’s example to encrypt all data, risks will certainly reduce to a large extent. Is there anything else that you can do to keep yourself safe? She probably made a pop-culture reference but we cannot ignore the dry humor in Ellen DeGeneres tweet: “I keep getting emails to change my passwords. I’m not falling for it. I’m sticking with “Portia123” thank you very much.” We cannot stress enough on the importance of making your passwords complex and difficult to crack. There are still people who use their birthdays, father’s names and other easily identifiable information as their passwords. It is very easy to hack these accounts and there is no one to blame except the user who refused to make his or her website’s password difficult. Try and make your passwords long and always include letters in upper and lower cases, numbers and special characters. Tumblr, which recently sent an email advising its users to change their passwords not only on its website but elsewhere too, had this to say: “You should also strongly consider enabling two-factor authentication. It’ll go a long way to ensure that no one besides you can access your account. Thanks, and take care”. Try to safeguard yourself online from potential threats by changing passwords and making them complex; and also be thankful that Google was one of the first tech companies to encrypt e-mails. After the Heart Bleed bug saga, encryption, complex passwords and two-factor authentication have become all the more important.