Category: Digital Marketing

Online display advertising or banner advertising has been prevalent in the advertising industry since 18 long years. Small business owners may find it worrisome to manage the campaign, given the fact that a lot of resources should be utilized to make the campaign a successful one. Here are a few tips to make the most out of your display ads: 1. Use great graphics The ads should sport intricately woven graphics in order to be attracting and at the same time appealing to the prospective customer, setting a precedent in designing. 2. Manage campaigns effectively These campaigns demand a complex administration process to be in place, involving the use of ad servers. It is up to you to manage them smartly. 3. Negotiate with web publishers You should have a way with words to negotiate contracts with website publishers (a number of them), taking them in your stride and garner a huge customer base by having your ads strewn in every possible place, over the vast expanse of virtual space that the internet wields its clout over. 4. Use humor Don’t shy away from using a bit of humor in your ads. When the audience is thoroughly entertained, it becomes obvious that the ad lingers in their mind for a long time. This retention of your ad in their memory can also make your brand a household name. It should also be noted that the humor that you use should be something on the lines that the audience can relate to, such as those relating to particular strata of the society, be it middle class, upper middle class, high class and the like. It can also relate to people of various interests such as foodies, travelers and people of various occupations. 5. Become socially aware and show that you are! Tie up with some NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) that support a benevolent cause. Announce that for the every purchase that the customers make, a part of it is donated for the so and so charitable cause. It is better to tie up with a popular NGO that is synonymous with charity- such as Red Cross, homes for destitute or juvenile delinquents, educational institutions that are into the education of the girl child, rehabilitation homes for the disaster-stricken families, orphanages, hospices for the elderly, organizations ministering to the prisoners in their emotional needs or education of theirs and their children, hospices for the paraplegic or quadriplegic soldiers and war widows. This is way too beneficial from a philanthropic perspective. 6. Be mindful of your target audience Bear in mind what section of the audience you are targeting and narrow down to a small section of that audience. Carry a few test runs on this audience as to whether there is a promise of ROI by going with them. Research on this customer database thoroughly as to how they react to specific acts of entertainment and rely on the information you have obtained from a number of surveys you have conducted on them and statistics you have collected from various reliable sources. The surveys should be an exhaustive and a voluminous compilation of questionnaire that has to be answered by ticking checkboxes next to the information. Paid surveys are best suited for this type of your endeavour as people won’t vouch for voluminous surveys as they can take a large chunk out of their precious time. If you opt for free surveys, they have to be conducted on weekends as there is loads of time available for the subject of the surveys and people are less likely to run errands for their family at this time as most public utilities and offices are closed. Locations should preferably be the ones bustling with people involved in leisurely activities such as parks, benches along the boulevard, malls flooded with window shoppers and the like. 7. Target your consumers Use demographic, behavioural and geographical targeting on your customer database. 8. Share ad costs Share ad costs of neighbor businesses like video stores or pizza parlours. Share each other’s coupons. 9. Become a renegade Use unusual approaches to tackle larger competitors, such as music, punch-lines and the like. 10. Be ready and prepared Plan for emergencies. You never know what your competitors are up to. Incorporating all these tips in your display ads can ensure that the tables are turned in favor of your esteemed business to make it a flourishing one.

Facebook may come up with a new system of tagging its content called hash tags. As part of its aggressive marketing strategy, it constantly devises a plan to adapt to the ever changing market trends. It has proven its mettle time and again. This ability of Facebook to strike the right chord with people has made it what it is today. Now let us take a look at what Facebook hashtags are all about. What are hashtags? It is somewhat similar to keywords used in search engines. Information associated with a particular topic is grouped to be utilized categorically at the click of a button. It is basically a ‘#’ followed by a topic it has been assigned to, with no spaces in between. For example, #womenreservationbill. Hashtags on twitter These tags were originally used in chat rooms, but were popularized later with their introduction to twitter. It is used by this social medium to file its tweets in an organized manner. It also uses them at an extent to keep its users updated with the topics that are ‘trending’ or on a more sober note, that are in vogue. How is the use of these tags on Facebook different from that on Twitter? Definitely, Facebook uses them differently. Here, Facebook is not mimicking Twitter. It is not a rudderless ship to copy from twitter. Going by its gesticulations, Facebook does not shoot in the dark. Facebook hashtags are bound to be a success. Facebook is ensconced in high places. It has got the ‘Midas touch’- everything that it touches, turns into gold. This tryst of it with gold extends to the hashtags too. It will create its own customized version of hash tags replete with eminence. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is reticent of the plans for his brainchild to be incorporated with hash tags. These evasive manoeuvres of the CEO suggest that he is contemplating something big, not attempted before. According to reports, Facebook plans to use hashtags for grouping conversations of its users and to generate revenue from advertisements. Why would businesses vouch for Facebook hashtags? Facebook is ultra popular. It has a user base of about 950 million and climbing. 50 percent of its users are in the age group of 18-24 years. Moreover, 42 percent of marketers report that Facebook is critical to their businesses. Businesses would like to take advantage of these facts. As we can see, Facebook caters mainly to the needs of a young population who have fallen in love with the ‘coolness’ of this social networking giant. Any businesses and products that fancy these juvenile minds can promote on Facebook. Naturally, companies involved with gadgets and gizmos can tap the potential of Facebook. But as a word of caution, you have to be more organized as Facebook presents a problem of plenty. Implementation of Facebook hashtags for businesses Advertisers on Facebook could hypothetically promote user posts that contain particular hash tags just as they now promote ‘likes’ of their business pages. These likes can set off a chain reaction of likes among users creating awareness of the brand. Such promoted posts could get more prominent and long-lasting placement on Facebook’s news feed, where non-promoted items are sorted by relevance. Previously, brands were only alerted to mentions of their brand name either via users commenting on brand pages or tagging brands in status updates (only for users with a public profile). Now, conceivably, brands will be constantly tagged in millions of conversations via Facebook by mentioning them, meaning not only will have a huge volume of data at their disposal to prey upon, they will also be able to encourage more real-time conversations, and influence a million more conversations on Facebook. Hash tags from brand pages perspective Brand pages on Facebook are tediously maintained targeting a specific consumer population and a lot of time and money is spent on projecting a tailor made brand image on the users of this virtual platform. The jaw dropping effort it takes in the management and sustenance of these pages- be it the input of the content or capital or monitoring of statistics, is an arduous task in itself. Does all this qualify to be a wasted resource? Are all the efforts reined in to maintain these pages futile? I would say no. The introduction of hash tags does not sound a death knell to the brand pages. A testimony to the camaraderie shared between the brand pages and hash tags is twitter. They both coexist since the stepping of twitter into the virtual world. Implications of the introduction of hash tags to Facebook Firstly, this introduction would mean that Facebook needs to mobilize its resources in order to meet the burgeoning demand of labour by inducting new recruits. This would provide for the smooth functioning of its marketing department. Secondly, the brands too need to make arrangements for extra resources in coping up with the demand. The content writers, statistics monitoring people who work in the background for these brands should be augmented to meet the demand arising out of this change to the existing marketing strategies. Thirdly, this calls for research to be done on the effects of these changes on consumer behavior. This being a new change, it calls for a tab to be kept on these parameters. What could be the reaction of the consumer to these changes? Would these changes be accepted? Privacy is not a concern on Facebook As these broad, sweeping changes take effect, many would question the security and privacy of user accounts. Security and privacy issues are not a cause for concern on Facebook. These issues came to the fore long back, when an ‘ethical hacking group’ compromised many accounts by stealing the passwords. This was done to make the users aware of the fallibility of Facebook. This made the social network to make a lot of changes to the existing security status. The users were given much control over who sees their profile, photos and wall

Inbound marketing is based on the fact that creating awareness among the audience is most critical to the prospect of finding leads and resulting in conversions. It gives a much needed reprieve to the customer from the constant bugging and begging in other marketing models and has garnered a huge liking among marketers especially with the advent of the social media since the last decade or so. The success of this model of marketing strategy is solely dependent on full and optimal utilization of the social media platform. The setbacks suffered otherwise, are listed in full detail in the course of this article’s subsequent paragraphs. These should be considered a taboo in your model of the inbound marketing strategy. Mistakes to avoid 1. Haphazard plans Don’t rely on poorly laid-out plans and bite only what you can chew. Gauge the resources at your disposal and plan with a keen foresight to utilize them effectively. 2. Negative comments and feedback Don’t ignore negative comments and feedback. Sometimes, these harried opinions can be a silent precursor of an impending carnage, threatening the very popularity of your deemed business. Discern between misguided, malicious, insulting comments (these are common on social media pages) and those that are constructive criticisms levied against you with best intentions in mind. 3.  Keep your audience informed Avoid posting objectionable content that does not augur well for your business. Keep your followers constantly updated on a lot of happenings, be it the opening of your stores or branches in particular areas, recent changes in the designs of your products, new products added, changed specifications and features, details of acquisitions if you are expanding horizons, if any warm memories you conjure up from your historic past such as your founders or ancestors of your loyal partners, ‘this day that year’ type of posts and so on. 4. Discourage bad behavior Don’t encourage groupism, racism, sexism or rude behavior. In case you are hurtful to others sentiments by being outspoken, do not be indifferent. Be quick to respond. Try to laugh it off using a bit of humor. This can soothe ruffled feathers and alleviate tensions in a situation that could have otherwise blown out of proportion, amid a heightened sense of drama. 5. Do not overwhelm your followers with posts Don’t post material constantly and flood your followers’ feed with a deluge of posts and thus alienate them. An average brand shares about 22 posts per day. If you post constantly, your followers cannot cope up with your posts and in the welling up of information, certain important posts may lose your clients’ attention. This surely, from his side, will be a problem of plenty. 6. Avoid neglecting your followers Don’t neglect your followers and avoid a tendency to keep them in awe of you. Having interactive sessions with your followers can forge strong ties with them. Start with questions that can send a message to them that you are making an effort to know them. Get acquainted with their background, occupations, life, city and other credentials. Though it is not mandatory to have these sessions daily, try to include them in your schedule and make it a point to communicate with them at least once a week or on a fortnightly basis. 7. Stop being nonchalant Be consistent with the brand image that you prefer on these sites. Here is an example of an amicable, pro government and philanthropic brand image: By way of your posts, you can dissuade your followers from engaging in riots resulting from a rage on part of the government’s atrocities, negligence, corruption and the like and maintain calm in the society. You can also urge them to desist from supporting illegal, incriminating and anti-government organizations such as WikiLeaks. 8. Stop being annoying Don’t bug leads by pestering them into buying your products through using their personal information. Do it only with valuable lead prospects, arrived at by lead nurturing strategies. 9. Don’t neglect analytics Don’t neglect analytics that you have collected. You will be at a loss of devising new and effective strategies to lure customers. 10. Avoid using terrible websites Avoid using defunct and outdated websites, as they can falter in capturing qualified leads. By avoiding these mistakes, you are bound to make great strides in your marketing endeavor, though improvisation and adaptability are key to success in any marketing strategy.

If you are a business that offers services or products, it is also important to make your presence felt online. Granted, you have more international clients and consumers but advertising online will only add to your credibility and success. With that in mind, you can’t afford to avoid PPC online advertising. It helps you to gain both local and distant audiences, which will prove to be invaluable in the long term. These tips are handpicked from a collection of bankable options to suit your campaigning needs. 1.  Weigh your options among various PPC models With the introduction of more channels like mobiles and handheld devices, there are a number of models available in the markets, which are an improvisation of PPC marketing. Pay Per Action (PPA) is also a reliable model for the advertiser based on the business objectives of driving users to the site and gaining conversions. CPM-based model is another entrant to this new category of improvised approach to PPC marketing and is more effective from a branding perspective. For these models, it is advisable to gauge the worth of each conversion with a focus on the end goal, the worth of each visitor and the amount you end up paying per thousand impressions. 2.  Have a bit of foresight Traffic is not an end goal. Devise a plan with clear goals and objectives in mind: What is it that your PPC campaign needs to do to attain the desirable objectives? What are the key performance indicators you can use for the measurement of the plan? What are the key metrics that are helpful in gauging the performance? The goal of your PPC campaigns should be the materialization of the clicks into conversions. During the course of the campaign you can realize that measuring the effect of the PPC campaign on the business objectives is critical to improving ROI, and not performance metrics. 3.  Measure and track Be sure to measure your key performance indicators through your analytics tracking. Use keyword-level ROI to curb expenses and focus on them. This can accurately measure the effect of each keyword on the business by merging data from several sources. 4.  Optimize the conversion path The traditional thought is that the conversion path starts with the user being directed to the landing page, when, factually it starts the moment the user interacts with your ad on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). All of the tactics you use (including ad copy, targeting, landing page managing and the subsequent site conversion path) must be dictated by the end goal. Messaging and offers should pitch a consistent effort to gain conversion and nurture the lead into a prospect for the sales department. The conversion path should answer all the queries in the user’s mind to facilitate him in his decision of purchasing the product or not. 5.  Test each piece of information you reveal The key to a successful test strategy lies in achieving the right balance between the size of the test and the size of the account. The larger the test, the longer is the testing process to gain statistically relevant data. Irrespective of the size of the test, budgeting the necessary time is as important as budgeting the media spend. 6.  Get over behavioral targeting and explore other options No doubt, behavioral targeting produces effective results in PPC marketing, but there are other well laid out options too such as geo-targeting, day-parting and demographic targeting. For example, as the name suggests, geo-targeting helps you to cater to your users of a specific region or location. To illustrate, selling skiing gear in Florida wouldn’t be rewarding, but selling air conditioners would be. 7.  Vouch for vertical search engines Vertical search engines are most suitable for your small business as they present an effective method of lowering cost per click and improving overall quality of traffic. Their services fit in a limited budget. 8.  Try to take a peek into your prospective user’s life to understand them better Analysis on keywords leads you to torso keywords as the best option suitable to your business needs. This options fares well with the cost criterion in this campaign but has comparatively lower search volume than long tail keywords. 9.  Quality score is merely an indicator and not a destination A poor one indicates that you look into your ad copy, landing pages and keywords, or reassign ad groups in an effort to adjust it. 10.  Measure and keep a tab on cost per conversion and not on cost per click. Being the vast subject that effectively managing a PPC campaign is, these are the most useful tips that can be included in this article to acquaint you with, so that you can utilize them and be assured of a smooth and successful campaign.

A well planned SEO strategy will take into account a combination of on-and off-page tactics that will ultimately improve a given website’s page rank for a certain search term and use it to its advantage. By creating a SEO strategy that is consistent with the needs of your customers, you will be able to target the right keywords and attract more traffic that is likely to result in conversions. Importance of market research Market research reports are important to your business as they will intimate you with the best keywords that you can choose to elicit response from customers in the form of clicks. This can aid you in garnering many prospective customers for your business needs, which can ultimately result in conversions. Market research also helps you to start your B2B endeavour on a more solid footing with a host of information about your prospective customer at your disposal, such as the type of cosmetic products they prefer, the staple food in their area, hobbies and interests and so on. Market research can provide you with a peek into the users’ activities, their preferences and also the way in which they are looking for products. A listing of the statistics showing user habits that can aid in your market research is shown below: . 61 percent of global internet users research products online . 41 percent of online shoppers begin by using a search engine . There are a recorded 131 billion searches per month by users on the internet . 57 percent of TV viewers use the web simultaneously by way of their smartphones . 67 percent of the links that search users click are free of cost Market research will allow you to compete with other players in your field and take your SEO strategy to a whole new level. Here are a few insights into the way in which market research can facilitate you in your SEO needs:  Market research can keep you one step ahead of your competitors by attracting your customers with more targeted search phrases and being aware of their developments- the phrases they are focusing on in their searches and the relevant topics they vouch for. This is a good way of filling your coffers by using richer keywords than your competitors, leaving you way ahead in these dog fights.  Many popular search engines like Google are favoring keyword-rich websites and those that are darling of the masses. This means that either you should incorporate popular and most-sought-after keywords or you should garner many outbound links from popular websites. The former encourages you to raise the bar and deliver quality-rich content.  Market research aids in the creation of quality content that is consistent with your customer’s needs. Being appealing and valuable to them can mean that they are more likely to share it with others via social media, external links and email. A better understanding of your customer needs is critical to a successful SEO strategy. The benefits of market research mentioned above can boost your search rankings and by building relationships with customers, you are most likely to find a loyal one. Think beyond keywords Creating content around customer’s needs rather than a generic search term aims for a satisfying customer experience and is more likely to result in conversions. The main aim of a SEO strategy is to optimize its keywords through research and make its content to top search engine rankings. What happens later with this hard-earned traffic? Here’s the catch, people click on the links out of curiosity and after satisfying it, they opt to navigate away from the page, not resulting in conversions. A fleeting remedy to these high bounce rates is to create a content that is not only keyword-rich, but also relevant and entertaining as well. Market research is the key ingredient in a successful strategy. While analytics tools are absolutely fundamental in creating one, research in the form of surveys cannot be ignored. Surveys can be conducted via your brand’s consumer email database, social media pages or even through your newsletter to gain insight into consumer’s needs and their preferred search terms. All these prerequisites go a long way in fulfilling your dream of a successful SEO strategy suitable for your business.

Subjective expected utility is a method developed by L. J. Savage in 1954. It makes an attempt to gauge and minimize the risks involved in decision-making. This mathematical approach is a novel method and a sober, calculative one that facilitates you in the prompt addressal of the threat of risks looming large in respect to your deemed business. This can help you in coming up with a promising choice from a wide variety of inessential, low performing, unfruitful and unyielding items aiding you in achieving your cherished goals. Subjective utility in mathematical terms Subjective utility is the summation of the utility function of the possibility of outcomes and the probability distribution multiplied. The theory of subjective expected utility combines two subjective concepts: first, a personal utility function, and second a personal probability distribution (based on Bayesian probability theory). It was proved that, if you adhere to axioms of rationality, if you believe an uncertain event has possible outcomes {xi} each with a utility to you of (xi) ,then your choices can be explained as arising from a function in which you believe that the subjective probability of each outcome is P(xi) , and your subjective expected utility is the expected value of the utility,. You may be able to make a decision which can change the possible outcomes to {yj},in which case your subjective utility will become . Which decision you prefer depends on which subjective expected utility is higher. The type of decision taken solely rests on the person who takes it, as different people may arrive at different utility functions and different outcomes according to their perspectives and thus, different probabilities. How is probability measured? To help you have a vague idea about probability, it is very essential for you to have a look at this analogy of throwing a dice. A dice thrown has a property of delivering six possible outcomes. The probables have a possibility of resulting in a wide array of numbers from 1 to 6. A roll of the dice, thus, has a probability of 1/6 or in a rounded up decimal of 0.17. As you can see, the higher the outcome the lower is the probability and the lower the outcome, the higher is the probability. Thus, the resulting number can be a measure of the probability and can help you in deciding choices for your digital marketing campaign. Objective oversight Objective oversight or the process of overseeing and tracking the objectives to ensure that they attain the desired goal is essential for a digital marketing campaign. This can aid in the materialization of high yielding conversions. Objective oversight might seem frivolous, but it is essential to keep your marketing campaign on a short leash and make it worthwhile. Dependency on objective oversight to provide an effective strategy is advised, but it should not negate the fact that subjective utility is more crucial to a successful campaign. Why does one outweigh the other? As the objectives you are going to attain, depends on the variable involved in the subjective utility, objective oversight is not more important or independent and is closely dependent on subjective utility. In simple words, the choices that you are going to make, which seem to you as promising ones for your digital marketing campaign are practically responsible in deciding the course of the objectives that you have listed. It is important that you oversee whether the objectives that you listed are attained and are not deviating in the whole process of digital marketing and that they wholly depend on the right choice of the items that you are going to make. For example, if you are planning to choose from a large database of keywords, you need to pick a keyword that scores more on subjective utility. Take into account all the possible outcomes with each utility and carefully arrive at a subjective utility that stands out, and the one that has a highest score proves promising for your digital marketing campaign. You need to oversee that the keywords are thoroughly and perfectly checked and utilized to satisfy your interests in the attaining of your objectives that can result in conversions, but you need to remember that the choice of keywords you make based on the subjective utility score, are solely responsible in determining or resulting in conversions.

Pay Per Click campaigns require continuous monitoring on part of you to be profitable and able to produce the desired outcome. Use these tried and tested methods to extract more ROI out of your pay per click marketing: 1. Make a specific plan Chart out a specific plan for your campaign. Make sure you fix the deviations from the plan, then and there, before they go haywire. Bear in mind the size of your campaign- is it a large one or a limited one? If you planned for a small one and the campaign ends up blowing out of proportion, your PPC dashboard can get overwhelmed with the content of your campaign and be rendered unmanageable. This surely is a point to be noted down. Start with a good outline before you even begin this set up phase. ‘Catch them when they are young’ and you’ll thank yourself in the months to come. 2. Importance of keyword research Ensure you are thorough with your keyword research. Make sure you are consistent with your end users and if at all you are targeting them, keep away from your industry parlance in the keywords you decide to use. Ideally speaking, your very searchers should be the topic of your research. First, carry out your research on a small group of customer database that you are targeting, in the form of testing. Also, do not hire third party researchers, so that you can save a great deal on your costs by lowering irrelevant traffic. 3. Austerity works in PPC too Don’t have grand plans in mind. Exercising a bit of austerity won’t hurt. Settle down for #2 or #3 spot instead of #1, as there is no dearth of relevant keywords which need not necessarily be expensive (relatively speaking). This understandably is a technique that requires more work, but doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket. This can qualify as a reliable tactic, as it often results in more conversions. 4.  Use longtail keywords More keywords mean more opportunities for conversion. Web users of 16-30 year old age group prefer longtail keywords to category specific searches. With carefully grouping keywords, you can vouch for algorithmically generated discount from search engines. 5. Use negative keywords with precaution Negative keywords can be used, but with utmost precaution. Many webmasters nonchalantly assign ‘free’ as a negative keyword, thinking that people seeking freebies can never be prospective buyers. This is illogical, as users checking for freebies could be aiming for their money’s worth. 6. Campaign phrase matches Set your campaign for phrase matches and exact matches. This is much more economical and results in high quality traffic. 7. Ad copy testing Test your ad copy. Going by the limited number of words allocated by the search engines to write your ad, I know it is difficult to write an appealing text. Experience plays the part in such a context, as this calls for a deep understanding of the market you want to target. Do remember to use your keyword in your ad’s headline and use customer-specific lingo in the text, while adhering to the strict limit of 95 characters. 8. Homepage is not landing page Do not use your home page as a landing page. Directing visitors to your home page is expensive (due to weak quality score), materializing into less conversions. Create individual pages for each keyword. 9. Lure people to signup for newsletters Use an exit pop to entice your PPC visitors with irresistible offers of signing up for your newsletters while they navigate away from your page. 10. Optimize your resources Optimize resources, so that they can be consistent with your budget, by setting up test runs. 11. Delete unproductive campaigns Don’t shy away from deleting an unproductive campaign, as it can create a vicious cycle of losses with respect to CTR, quality score and PPC- as CTR decreases, quality score decreases and effects in the increase of your PPC. 12. Test strategies continuously Continuously test your strategies to check whether they produce the desired results or not. Keeping a track of the progress of your campaign by using stats and other tools is advised. Monitor various activities related to your campaign with a keen eye for any irregularities and attend to them promptly. These tips cover a lot of impediments that arise and prevent the successful execution of your pay per click campaign. You can come across a lot of articles on this topic, but your discretion is advised. Best of luck for your campaign!

Almost every website features a log in form and it is one section that is checked by every visitor of your website to delve for more information or access his account. Conceptualizing a log-in form to uphold all the key elements and blending it impeccably with the aesthetics of a website may be an uphill task for most of the veteran web designers, but if it is done craftily the results can be very promising. Having your log in form meet the requirements of your visitors can make them visit your website often without any hesitation. Let us face it, a complicated log in form is a turn off in itself and casts us down to visit a website as a result of which we start looking for a website with less hassles. To have your visitors move away from your webpage just because of an ineffective log in form is the last thing you would want. Over the past few years, these inefficient log-in forms were outshined by their smarter versions and the results were alarming, this led to a belief that the user friendliness of a log in form is crucial in up keeping the traffic of a website. The log-in page of a website is a doorway to your website and if you bungle up in putting together a decent log-in page you may lose potential customers. We will discuss a few ideas and smart designing tips to optimize the elements in a log-in page of a website. 1. Simplicity is definitely the best policy in this realm. While filling in a log-in form the last thing a visitor would want is to ladle out personal details. This principle has been well perceived by almost all the website designers hence in most of the cases all you will see a field for username and password, but there are exceptions. A very few websites still feature fields like gender and date of birth which are not only unnecessary but some viewers may find these discriminatory too. Steer clear of such fields until and unless it is very important to the business your website represents or you are legally obliged to feature such fields owing to the content of your website. 2. A standard log-in page is easier to identify with. It has been observed that visitors of a website can easily identify with the basic elements of a log-in form; any unwanted deviation in the basic structure leaves them in a daze. You may play around with the theme and the color scheme but try to maintain the basic arrangement in the log-in form, have a field for user username or email and just below it place the field to enter password. With the phenomenal number of user ids a single user owns it is undisputable that the person will forget the password for each user id. It is advisable to have an option for retrieving password, right on the front page of a log-in form. This option saves the efforts taken by a visitor to punch in his username and password only to find out that they were not matching. 3. Helping users with their user id and password. A smart log-in form identifies the user id and confirms that the password mentioned may be incorrect but the user still has an account with the website. When an incorrect password is punched these websites return with the user name and profile image of the user. This feature is a big hit amongst internet users as it assures them that their account still exists and all that needs to be done is punch the correct password. As we know that most of the users are irretentive, especially when it comes to remembering user ids and passwords. There are classic cases when user ids are forgotten, leave alone passwords. There are few websites which immediately revert with a message “No account found for this email address” and confirm whether the account associated with the user id mentioned by you is valid or not and prompts you create a new account right them and there. 4. Asking for password time and again creates room for error. Few sign-up forms prompt users to type their passwords time and again in separate fields, this may ensure safety but it definitely puts users off. It is understandable that asking for password time and again may be an essential requirement of the business that the website is associated with, in which case it must not be avoided. This feature is mainly noticed in websites which deal with monetary transactions. If it is not a vital requirement of the business, this feature should be avoided. 5. Not every website needs CAPTCHA CAPTCHAs are primarily used to employ a screening procedure which keeps spam at bay. Conventional CAPTCHAs demand the users to decipher and type the cryptic distorted letters which annoys most of the internet users. This screening approach cannot be avoided for websites which are haunted by spams, but for others this approach can be dropped. Most of the users are extremely fussy about filling in the CAPTCHA text and have a propensity to avoid logging into the website just because of this seemingly unnecessary test. There are few smart ways to avoid CAPTCHA, designers can resort to using Honeypot Captcha approach or have a Javascript on the client-side generate a hidden text field which spambots cannot fill on their own. 6. Let the users use their email address as log in ids. This is by far the easiest way to get users hooked onto your website, as no one fancies remembering user names. Usually users register the same email address with all websites and when they are given an option of using their email address as their user name they heave a sigh of relief as they do not have to remember the user name. This feature can relieve the users from the pain caused by their selective memory. 7. Do not direct

A powerful advertising tool is the one which grabs attention instantly and conveys the message within fraction of a second, and when we are talking about such effective advertising tools we cannot afford to overlook banner ads. Banner ads have been in the advertising industry right from its inception and they have very well played a major role in gathering the target audience. This tool is so effective that even till date its potential is exploited by everybody who wants to be put on the map. Banner ads definitely put your name out there but you need to know the tricks of the trade to get the desired publicity. Banner ads are extremely effective in directing traffic to your enterprise if only you get it right and not try too hard. There are ways to get your Banner noticed and if you master these ways you can even make your own banner and save a bundle of monies. Myriads of advertising agencies generate exorbitant revenues from just advising on how to get it right with Banner ads, but if you are in no mood to burn a hole in your pocket you can follow these basic steps and become a know-all in making banner ads. 1 Research never hurts. Most of us are not blessed with creativity and more often than not we depend on others to get inspiration. It is only wise to look around and get an idea of how certain banners fare in the market, this market intelligence will help you in understanding the dos and don’ts. You can pick up the best examples available with you, draw inspiration from them and make your own Banner ad. You can study the color code that grabs attention, appropriate font size to make your banner look flashy and the basic size of a banner. Make sure that the purpose of doing this research is to seek inspiration and not promote plagiarism, to avoid copyright hassles do not pick designs from other banners. 2 Carefully pick the content of your banner. While making banner ads it must be kept in mind that its purpose is to broadcast the essence hence do not make it look like a catalogue.  Pick a clear message that conveys the purpose of the advertisement, it should be strong and be able to make the desired impact. This part of the banner making process is the trickiest part as it involves a lot of brainstorming and you cannot afford to slip here.  Discuss the caption with your critics and check whether you get the desire response or not. You can come up with a clear message only if you thoroughly understand your product and have a clear idea about benefits you are offering to your customers. 3 Limit the file size to limit the wait. Most of the viewers have a wandering eye and do not spare more than a fraction of a second to check banner ads and it becomes a challenge to make a lasting impression if your banner ad takes long to load. Make sure that the file size is minimum to avoid the frustration while it loads, something to the tune of 12 kilobytes is considered standard. To achieve an optimum size you can even try to limit the number of colors in the banner ad and have it saved as a GIF file.  When it comes to file size the less the better, it helps the banner ad to show up instantly as soon as the page loads. 4 Go easy on animation. As much fun it may be to look at, too much animation can make your banner ad look flimsy and spoil the desired effect. You must use animation only if it is indispensible to the advertisement campaign. Animation depends on creativity and free will so it is possible that you may think of just anything and try to get it animated, while doing so make sure you do not offend the viewers. Using animation is a tricky business because some relate to it easily while others find it difficult to understand and may get offended. Animation speed is another important parameter which should be considered while including animations in banner ads. Let us face it, no one likes a continuous distraction on a page for too long and more often viewers tend to close the page. To avoid the animation on your banner ad look annoying make sure that it is changes at a moderate pace and stops after three cycles of repetition. 5 Be sure about the color scheme that you use. Picking colors for a banner ad can be a tedious task, especially when you do not have a fixed color scheme. You can do a little research to find out how customers react to certain colors and also pick the most popular color schemes. With this activity you will shortlist the best color schemes available, now to pick from this pool of color schemes you can check which color scheme identifies the most with the product that you are selling. Try not to use many colors because it increases the file size. Steer clear of universal mismatches like red and green, black and brown, etc. Picking subtle shades for background dark shades for the font is a safe bet . 6 Choose an appropriate font size. When you put a display message on a banner ad you expect it to get noticed and not mingle with the content of the website it is displayed on. To ensure that it strikes the right note with the viewer you must increase the font size as compared to that of the rest of the text displayed on the website. You can also use variable font size to focus on the power words like “free” , “incredible”, “offer” this works very well in focusing on the major focus points of your campaign. Large fonts on a banner ad are acceptable but don’t go overboard with it and make

Television viewers seem to really enjoy the opportunity to connect with others by following those who are like minded or share similar inclinations on Twitter. They regale each other by way of tweeting and posting pictures of their favorite entertainers, links to other sites such as Instagram. Tweeting around TV follows a fairly predictable pattern: first, anticipatory tweets appear 15-30 minutes before the show airs; then, the tweets surge during the episode (with sharp spikes in response to surprises and reveals); finally, there is another 15-30 minutes of post-show buzz and reaction. There are a number of small bands that gained predominance because of their association with social media giants like twitter. Twitter can give artistes exposure and astounding success, if he can manage to capitalize on the available resources and the stats recorded. Observing the trends and promoting in an organized manner can help video artistes garner a huge following and thus help to improve the rating of their shows. Nielsen TV ratings and twitter Nielsen entered into the foray of rating television shows in early 1950s and is still rendering class services. It is a global leader in measurement and information spread over a 100 countries around the world, providing its clients the most complete understanding of what consumers watch and buy. It has found that for premiere episodes, an 8.5 percent increase in twitter volume resulted in a 1 percent increase in ratings among 18 to 34 year olds. For mid-season episodes, a 4.2 percent increase in tweets effected in a 1 percent increase in ratings. For 34 to 49 year old age groups, a 14 percent increase in twitter volume translated into a 1 percent increase in ratings. Fake profiles on twitter There are fake profiles on twitter which mar the image of many celebrities of tinsel town. You can only imagine the damage they can cause to your reputation by sharing hateful tweets and inciting quarrel among the people from your fraternity or other twitteratis. While most of these impostors tweet demeaning messages on this social medium, others do it for fun to entertain people seeking humor. For example, there are a lot of fake profiles doing the rounds on Twitter to poke fun at celebrities. A popular one being that of  Kim Jong Un of North Korea. The tweets generated from this profile point to the reaction of Kim to the various issues and happenings or current affairs that find a place in the media. What is the advice? Being the popular medium that Twitter is, any user generated content on Twitter is instant news material. For the profiles of the former type, video artistes are advised to create a profile without much ado and verify their accounts via their email addresses. This is an ingenious way devised by Twitter to keep at bay the sick impostors who indulge in such activities. Here are a few tips that a video artiste can consider: 1. Retweet information related to your TV shows and start trending topics about your shows. 2. Start tweeting about your upcoming events, concerts to keep your followers updated. 3. Engage viewers in real-time conversations regarding your shows. 4. The key is to keep the audience guessing and wanting for more by keeping the viewers updated about interesting plots in the available video through a number of tweets. Arousing curiosity in the audience’s mind has been the tried and tested method and the primordial aspect of wooing TV viewers. Albeit a rapidly growing part of the business mentality, fuelled by the irresistible promise of reduced customer acquisition costs (nominal charges are levied on advertisers on twitter) and yet higher bottom line returns, the science behind managing audiences in the internet enabled age is still young. Social media was a major milestone, opening marketers eyes to the almost unfathomable potential reach of their messaging. Yet, in its current form, social mediums like twitter remain too self-conflicted and limiting to enable marketers to effectively gauge the value of audience built on such a network. I believe that these observations of mine can deliver to the video artistes like you, the bankable option that Twitter is and that it can provide a wholly enriching experience by growing under the refuge of its wings.