Category: Marketing

What Twitter Redesign 2012 Means for Digital Marketing

October 6, 2012

Just a few weeks ago, Twitter completely redesigned the way its users’ profiles look. The redesign places more emphasis on photographs and personalization. In fact, it reminds users of a possibility that twitter is trying to look like Facebook in a subtle way, yet emphasizing the niche it has already carved out for itself. The redesign is great and it supports digital marketing in a positive manner. In fact, redesigned Twitter gives companies and individuals more space to reveal more about what they do, who they are and what they look like. What is in Store in the Twitter Redesign The new Twitter design was announced on the 18th of September, in a blog post titled “Because You Have More to Show“. This certainly suggests that twitter is trying to help companies and businesses to customize their Twitter profiles more efficiently than ever. The single-most striking feature is the all new header photo for iPad, iPhone, Android Twitter apps and also for its browser version. The image that is set as the all-new header photo will appear each time someone views your company’s profile on the apps or the browser. The new header photo can easily be uploaded from any app or even from a computer. It gives more real estate to twitter users. User information can be read by swiping the touchscreen or tap a thumbnail to view images in full screen. An additional ‘background photo’ complements your header and profile photos. Twitter claims that this redesign will make users presence on twitter more meaningful. How Companies Can Adapt to Changes Earlier, most companies has just one profile picture to display and they used the rest of the screen to personalize their profiles. The area outside the profile box can still be used to highlight information about your company, products and services. However, the updated Twitter profile also allows you to upload a header photo, which can be optimized to suit your business. In fact, it is good practice to keep your profile picture consistent and change your header photo often. Your profile picture is the picture that appears next to each of your tweets and the header photo appears on your profile page, similar to the banner photo on Facebook. Reveal your Human Side By changing header photo often, a company can give hint to news, updates, events and achievements. In fact, by changing a picture when there was a team outing or an office party, a company can display its more humane side. There is nothing more exciting than giving a closer look to what is happening behind the scenes. Twitter followers can instantly surmise that your company is not all about the products and services that you offer, but that you also have a unique lifestyle that matches the quality of products and services you offer. Feature New Products and Services Sometimes, it may be a good idea to change the header photo to reveal a product or service, if it has been launched newly. The header photo can reveal information about a new product to your followers that looks exciting. By changing the header photo each time you have a new product or service, you can utilize this screen real estate to prominently promote your product and services. Communicate with Followers and Visitors to your Twitter Profile Another way of using the header photo is to ask questions, communicate directly with who visits your profile. If you have upgrades for a software program or if you are offering a discount for a certain service, you can display that in an image after playing with fonts. There is nothing more promotional than having a text image that loudly tells visitors what they should be doing. The best part about the header photo is that your twitter practices and habits do not have to change. It is an added feature that can be optimized to suit your business’ needs. Depending on how creative you are and how imaginatively you can utilize this space, you will be able to optimize and promote your products and services on Twitter better than ever before. Probably it is time to get your designers to start working on images and header photos that can be rotated occasionally or if you would like to change them randomly and surprise your followers, that is a good idea too.

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Facebook Ads: Do Investors Gain More or the Advertisers?

June 29, 2012

Recently people have begun to argue if Facebook is acting too fast and hastily in offering ad services to businesses. People have begun to wonder if this is to entice investors or truly help advertisers. Before we discuss that, let’s understand how Facebook ads work. Why and How to Begin with Facebook Ad Campaigns? Most companies will soon need to utilize advertising services offered by Facebook, as social media has thrust unforeseen ramifications on traditional marketing methods. It is no longer enough to rest one’s marketing case by targeting PPC campaigns on search engines and assume that all is going just perfect. It is important to understand the significance of social signals and why it is necessary to adopt Facebook ad campaigns as part of a larger marketing plan. If you wanted to know how to set up regular Facebook ads, it is rather easy. Key elements that make up Facebook Ads are the Ads themselves and whatever ‘Ad Creative’ is required to publish that. You would also need to know who you must target and set the bids and budgets right. There are tools that help you to engage in analytics and optimization of your marketing campaign on Facebook as well. Where Can Facebook Ads Be Placed? Facebook ads can be placed on Facebook Pages, Facebook Applications, Facebook Connect and Facebook Events. Facebook offers two kinds of advertisements that are particularly popular, regardless of the various test features they have introduced lately (including Sponsored Stories). Types of Facebook Ads Facebook Ads are traditional branded ads that lead the users to an external site or a Facebook app or Page. A Social Ad is a fully branded ad but appears in sync with social interactions performed by users’ contacts. Social Ads are displayed in the Mini Feeds. Ideally, you should first use Social Ads and move on to Facebook Ads in order to reach a wider target audience. The key is to encourage people to like your Facebook business page so that social actions take place in a coordinated fashion. When your fan base on Facebook builds, Social Actions (user actions that result in required marketing results) increase and your marketing campaign may even go viral. What Are Facebook’s ‘Sponsored Stories’? Last year, Facebook announced the Open Graph and savvy marketing professionals immediately knew that it was going to change the way we advertised. Just a few months, Facebook also announced a novel kind of Sponsored Story which is based on the premise of Open Graph. When a Facebook user reads and article or listens to a song, advertisers would be able to target that user even if they do not own the app that the user is accessing the content through. However, the ads appear only if one of the users friends on Facebook have viewed, listened or watched a particular piece of content. This helps to target the user in a very accurate manner, with the logic being if friends like something, a particular user must like that product or service too. However, it comes with the disadvantage of severe restrictions over the exposure of the Ad. Facebook Unveils Offsite Ad Sharing Facebook also recently started testing shareable ad units which would allow users to share offsite ads on Facebook. Until now, marketing professionals have had to purchase their ad units or Sponsored Stories. The new proposal will allow marketers to share ads through Facebook’s Open Graph even when these ads are not located on Facebook. In the likely scenario, a company would be able to place Facebook share buttons on external ads, and when a user clicks on these share/like buttons on an external ad, he/she would be able to share that such offsite ads on Facebook. This can have enormous ramifications on the way we currently ad social advertising and online marketing. If offsite ads can be shared on Facebook, they may become bigger than Sponsored Stories. Is Facebook Trying to Win Over Investors or Helping Advertisers? The enthusiasm at Facebook to introduce advertising features has made people skeptical and caused them to wonder if these services are meant for advertisers or investors. We must remember that Facebook recently went public and did not have a smooth start at Wall Street. In fact, Facebook has been criticized for a number of reasons and its stock fell considerable within days of announcement that it went public. Facebook IPO was a failure, most investors and analysts admit. This makes many analysts think that the new advertising features may simply be a ploy to attract investors and keep them in good humor. It may partly be true, but we must remember that at the end of the day, Facebook needs advertisers to keep itself and its investors happy. With that in mind, if its advertising services did not appeal to businesses and if they didn’t work as planned, Facebook would lose its investors as well. It is probably a win-win-win situation for all the 3 entities involved. Not only will Facebook become established as a major revenue generator for companies, it will also appease investors and make profits for itself. Thus, it is quite possible that Facebook Ads were designed for both advertisers and investors and that is not a bad thing.

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15 Marketing Best Practices Before Launching a PPC Ad Campaign

June 28, 2012

Online marketing teams usually need to encounter PPC campaigns once in a while. PPC or Pay-Per-Click campaigns are very different from other ad campaigns that are run on the Internet. The idea behind PPC is to find resources that help you determine exactly who visits your website. In a PPC campaign, one only pays for clicks to the website and not for impressions. If someone clicks on a search engine result, banner or link somewhere else and ends up visiting your website, you pay for that click. However, if someone just sees your link when they browse the website and do not click on it, you do not pay for it. If a person sees your paid link but does not click on it, it is known as an impression. There are ad campaigns that revolve around impressions as well, but in this article, we only discuss PPC campaigns. A well planned and well managed PPC ad campaign helps to drive traffic that results in some sort of action. The key to successful PPC campaigning is to target the right demographics, as is the case with most ad campaigns. When a user types a query on a search engine, a search engine results page (SERP) appears on the screen. This page consists of both organic (natural) search results and paid advertisements. Organic listings appear because of certain algorithms that search engines employ to decide which link is the most relevant to a search query. These algorithms cannot be tampered with and companies cannot buy inclusion into an algorithm. How Does PPC Really Work? Paid search ads that are placed next to relevant keyword queries can be bought in a manner that is similar to auctions. Higher bids get placed at the top level, while those who pay lesser get placed at the bottom of the list of paid search ads. Even here, a search engine’s perceived relevance of a website can make the ad appear at the top of the list. When a user clicks on any of these ads, you will have to pay. Thus, Pay-Per-Click ad campaigns require you to pay for each click that brings a visitor to your website. If a web user simply ‘saw’ (impression) your link, you do not have to pay. What Homework Must Be Completed before Plunging into a PPC Campaign? First and foremost, it is important to know your sector. You will need to understand what your partners, competitors, suppliers and customers are talking about, what they like and dislike, and what their business opinions are. It also becomes imperative to choose keywords that matter to your sector the most. Should the Landing Page Be Altered? While ‘alter’ is not the word that must be used, it is PPC best practice to make sure that the landing page synchronizes with your ad campaign. In fact, you could ask in-house designers to create custom pages that are in libne with the campaign and then take them offline when no longer required. Irrelevant landing pages disrupt sales and drive visitors away from your website. It also means that you will end up paying unnecessarily for clicks that do not materialize in sales. Should a PPC Campaign Start Big at the Outset, or Build Up Gradually? There is always the attraction of hitting the nail with an enormous PPC campaign right at the outset. However, such campaigns can’t be measured overnight and most of the clicks may not produce any ROI. It is always prudent to start nominally, understand who is clicking on the ads and then build up gradually, while measuring the PPC campaign all along. How to Target PPC Campaigns Efficiently It is always a good idea to set up ad groups for each country that you plan to advertise in. If you do not plan to advertise in multiple countries, it is better to stick to just the U.S. If your business is concerned with micro-geographical focus, specific zip codes can be associated with your ad campaign, so that your ad appears in your business’s delivery area. Apart from these factors, you might also want to do some homework regarding the best time of the day to run your ads, especially when the target audience is most active online. How Many Keywords to Use? There really isn’t a consensus on this one, except to say that less number of keywords is easier to manage. However, that will limit your PPC campaign. Having more number of keywords open up more opportunities but also come with their baggage to deal with. Your PPC reports would be inundated with keywords and it becomes difficult to monitor the campaign. This is a question that can’t be answered easily, but would certainly depend upon the size of the company, subject matter, business that the company is involved in and also how much the company is willing to spend in terms of money and time. How Much Does It Cost to Run a PPC Campaign? It is difficult to assess how much it would cost to run an entire PPC campaign. Instead, one could expect to pay between 50 cents to $4 per click, depending on how premium the material is. Though it may sound like a lot of money to pay almost $4 per click, one must remember that clicks that lead to sales will usually compensate for the expenditure. What Sort of Editorial Guidelines Can One Expect? Search engines are very strict about terms that are related to violence, sex, gambling and drugs. Thus, weapons, pharmaceuticals and casinos will have to bear with restrictions as they fall under regulations. If your business is not associated with any of these areas, you may choose your language carefully not to offend anyone, and run a successful PPC campaign. Which Search Engine Is the Best to Advertise On? The answer is very simple, and it is certainly Google. However, we must also remember that Yahoo! and Microsoft’s Bing are major players too, and the 3 search engines

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5 Killer Tips to Achieve Success with Niche Blogging

June 25, 2012

Every company needs to have a blog and perhaps if every individual had a blog of their own, things would be much better. A blog allows visitors to gain insight into a corporation’s or an individual’s mind and help visitors in accessing material that may otherwise be lost in time and space. However, both individuals and companies should avoid generic blogs that do not have a direction. Instead, by identifying niche categories and topics that are relevant to a corporation’s services and products, or an individual’s profession and business interests, one can set up niche blogs that help companies and individuals towards becoming thought leaders in their identified areas. To maintain a niche blog is not an easy task, and it requires an incredible amount of discipline, effort and expertise. Here are some tips that help businesses and individuals to achieve success with their niche blogs. Identify and Justify your Niche It is very important for companies and individuals to identify particular niche areas that interest them. These topics are subjects should always be related to one’s profession or products & services that they may offer. By choosing particular areas of interest, one can make sure that blog posts do not digress from the original niche. This helps readers to identify your blog with a particular niche area and visit umpteen times for information, updates and in-depth opinion. Niche blogs are driven by expert opinions and thus it is very important to choose topics in which you have considerable expertise. Once niche areas are identified, it is necessary to justify the choice of these topics with valid and reliable facts. These may come in the form of level of expertise, marketing plans, future professional development and business goals. Observational Learning, Modeling and Applying Bloggers need to observe other people’s writing and blog posts as well. In fact, psychological theories of observational learning are extremely important in the field of blogging. Only when a blogger observes other blogs will he know how to choose topics, work with the flow of a blog post and ultimately provide expert opinion to his readers. It is advisable to make a list of blogs and authors who write about the niche areas that you have chosen. Once you make a list, you could choose to actively observe them, by trying to communicate them with the help of social media or commenting on your model’s posts. Modeling must not be understood as copying. Modeling is again a psychological term that denotes the process of learning from those who we identify as worthy enough. Niche blogs and subject matter experts may be studied, observed, modeled and their qualities may be modified to suit the needs of your niche blog. Layout, content, style of writing, presentation of topics and frequency of posts may all be observed and modeled. By observing and modeling one may also break from existing norms and do something more radical. The more radical and controversial your niche blog will be, the more traffic it will attract. Research, Learn and Contribute In order to become a thought leader in the identified niche, you would need to read white papers, research documents, blogs, books or just about anything that would help you to know your topic well. Only when you know your niche topics well enough will you be able to write about it expertly. Only when you write with an expert’s knowledge will you be able to hold the interest of knowledgeable readers, who will help you sustain your blog in the long run. Moreover, if you do not have a keen interest in your chosen topic, you probably would not be able to blog in a sustained and long-term manner. Planning and Setting Attainable Goals A niche blog requires a lot of discipline, tenacity, perseverance and effort from your side. You would need to become clear about every nook and corner of your niche area and chart a plan for writing content accordingly. You must identify your target audience and stay tuned to the latest happenings in the area. Do not expect to write unrealistic number of blog posts. It is simply not possible. Instead, have a realistic goal of a few posts per week, depending on how much time you can devote. Surprise yourself and Your Readers Niche blogs have the capacity to go viral, solely because no one else is writing about those topics. It is in your interest to be unpredictable but relevant, random but structured, shocking yet informative, controversial but never offensive. Surprise yourself with occasional posts that may stir up a controversy. Controversial topics lead to comments, discussions and footfalls. Readers love to visit blogs that have an alternative view to existing beliefs and ideas. Finally, after following these 5 topics, you must never lose interest in your original goals and must continue to carve a niche for yourself in the identified niche topic. Originality, unconventional ideas and opinions, discipline and hard work will take you a long way in your quest to becoming a thought leader.

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How to Write Clickable Ad-text in Google Adwords

June 21, 2012

The most difficult task in Search Engine Marketing is “writing an ad copy ” that works. This is because the Google ads have limited space and it is not easy to fit everything you want to convey about your business in just few words. Moreover the website visitors will just glance at the ads, so the ads should catch their attention at the very moment. The ad itself does not sell, it just grabs the attention of prospective customers, so they click on it and in turn are taken to the website where actual sales happen. So writing an effective ad copy that generates high CTR is the key to the success of the Search Engine Marketing campaign. Writing an ad copy involves thoughtful approach and careful observations. While Writing an Ad Copy, Consider the Following Questions: How to make a strong call to action that will impact ad performance Why to include the keyword in the title Does price inclusion in the ad text reduce unwanted click? The following tips will help you in writing an effective ad copy that stands out and generate result. Highlight the USP of Your Product/Service The USP differentiate you from others. So highlight what makes you different from others. Why customers should go for your product or services. Your proposition should be something which your competitor cannot and should not offer. You may be providing free shipping, For example the USP of FedEx is “When your packages absolutely, positively have to get there overnight.” Use Question to Arouse Curiosity or Interest If your ad can arise curiosity among the visitors they will definitely click on it. But make sure your landing page is equally effective else the conversion will be less. For example you can say “Want to make money working from home?” Include Price and Promotions If you are running any promotion for customers, make sure the message reaches to customers. So include any promotion or any special price in your ad text. For example you can add “Get 50% off when you buy now.” Tell About Benefits Before Features If you can show what will be the benefit of your product/service, then someone looking for it will be enticed to click on your ad. For example a person with obesity is more likely to click on ad that says “Loose 30lbs in 30 days.” Include Keyword in Your Ad Text The ad text must contain atleast one of your keyword. This is because the adwords ads are contextual and when people are searching for a keyword, they are more likely to notice your ad if it contains the keyword. Capitalize Every Keywords It has been seen that Capitalizing keywords have boost CTR by 80%. So make it a practice to capitalize every keyword, but do not capitalize words like in, an, of etc. Match Your ad to Landing Page Whatever products you are advertising on the ad should be present on the landing page else it will create confusion among customers and this will reduce the conversion rate. Create Trust Through Endorsement When you associate a testimonial of a celebrity or a renowned person to your product or get the review from a trusted brand, it will build trust among users. For example you can include phrase like “ranked #1 virus cleaner by PC World” Tell a story If you include a personal experience in your ad text that is more likely to bring attention. For example “How I made $6000 in a day” will surely make customers enthusiastic and they will want to know more. Use Dots in Description Text Using dots in the description creates an impression that there is more that can be seen upon clicking on the ad. Mindvalley Labs published a report that compares the CTR and Conversion rate of similar ads, but one with dots at the end and other without dots. Think Yourself as a Google Searcher There is nothing better than putting yourself in customers shoes. So if you can think like a visitor who is searching for the exact keyword you are advertising. If you are advertising “Stain remover”, you are willing to find, “how to remove stains”. So users might be interested in if he sees ad that says “How to remove stains quickly” or something similar. Try Using the Keyword Free “Free” is a magical keyword when it comes to online advertising. But this may not fit in all and every products and services being advertised. However if you have a product or website that has something free for every users, you must include it. Remove Common Words Common words like a, an, the, and, on etc. consumes word. So avoid them as much as possible because ad text has limitation in characters. Use Call to Action Phrases If it is an image ad, it is easy to add a call to action button and make it standout. But we can use the same approach in ad text by utilizing call to action phrases. Some of the phrases that can be used for this purpose are “Try Free”, “Download Now”, “Save 40%” etc. Components of Google Text Ads The Text Ads of Google Have Three Components as Mentioned Below: Headline: This is the first line of Google text ad. This is the main text of the ad that is noticed by customers. The main goal of any ad is to grab customer’s attention. So you need to make this as attention grabbing as possible. Also include keyword in the headline too. People are more likely to click on the ad if they find something similar to what they are looking for. The headline is limited to 25 characters only. Description: The ad description contains information about the products or services you are offering and how it meets the need of the users who is looking for something related. The description has a limit of 70 characters and it is spread into 2 lines. Each line can have a maximum

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Pinterest – The New Social Networking Kid on the Block

April 26, 2012

Pinterest is the latest entrant in the field of Social bookmarking. It is a social bookmarking site with a little twist. Pinterest is based on the concept of curation. It allows users to create visual collection of things they find interesting on the web. You surf the web and when you come across something interesting, you pin those onto something called “pinboards”. These pinboards are then organized based upon the theme like “Infographics”, “Places of Interest”, “Home decoration”, “wedding gowns” etc. These pinned items and boards can be shared with others. Other people with similar interest can follow you and like your pins and also can comment on it. So Pinterest is not only a social bookmarking and sharing site but also a acts like a social network site too.   In a very short span of time it has created quite a buzz in the Internet. A primary reason for the enormous success of Pinterest is because of the fact that basic human behavior has been transported to the web. Many of us during our teenage days, have created collages by cutting pictures of celebrities and visual ads and pasted it on the wall to feel cool. The same way we feel cool about sharing interesting stuffs on the web. According to founder of Pinterest the mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the “things” they find interesting”. And true to it’s mission it is helping like-minded people with similar tastes to connect with each other virtually. Few Facts about Pinterest Pinterest is co-founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp and was launched as beta among a closed group of people in March 2010, later on it opened up to public as invitation only. It is built in Python(Django), MySQL, Redis, Solr and Hadoop. Among the Pinterest users, 80% are female, 47% are between ages of 18-34 and 69% have household income between $25,000 to $75,000 per year. In a minute almost 1090 users visit Pinterest. Pinterest is the fastest growing social network site with more than 10 million users in 2 years since it’s launch. Pinterest became the third largest social network in US in March 2012. Jane Wang the most followed user in Pinterest with 2854609 followers is the mother of co-founder Ben Silbermann’s mother. Pinterest accounts for 3.6% of referral traffic almost same as twitter with 3.61%. So it is increasingly being preferred by brands. Uses of Pinterest Pinterest is the most efficient content creation tool. With Pinterest the social media has evolved from long form to push button publishing. The image below shows evolution of social media through various forms: Pinterest is used extensively by brands and online marketers to promote their products as it has got a high rate of referral traffic. It is used by users to plan wedding, decorate homes, saving recipes, finding styles, saving infographics, learning language development and lot more. Getting Started with Pinterest Before we let you know the tips to use Pinterest effectively, let’s familiarize with few pinterest based terms: Pin: A pin is an images attached to anything you share. The images may be from the ink you are sharing or can be uploaded. Pins can include a description also called caption. If the caption contains a price, then the images attached can have a diagonal bar showing the price. Repin: Once you pin a stuff on Pinterest, other users can share it, it is called repin. Board: Pins are organized into boards based on the theme. Each board can be considered having pins of similar theme or niche. Pinmarklet/PinIt Bookmarklet: It is a browser button which helps in pinning the stuffs on the Internet. Once you install the pinmarklet on your browser, you can just push on the button if you want to share something on pinterest. This will automatically grab an image and source link. Signing up with Pinterest Pinterest has not yet opened the registration for the masses. It is currently in invitation only. So in order to signup for Pinterest, you need to head over to the website pinterest.com and request an invite or ask someone who is already having an account in Pinterest. After receiving an invite you can register through Facebook connect or Twitter. Editing Profile After you are logged in to Pinterest, you can edit your profile. In order to edit your profile, click on your username at the top-right and click on Settings. You can see many fields like First name, Last name, Email, Passwword, Profile picture, Bio, Website URl, Location etc. which can be edited. Another good thing is that Pinterest allows changing the username any time you wish. Changing Profile Picture You can either choose to display your Facebook profile picture or Twitter profile picture. If you want to add your own picture, you can choose to upload an image from your computer and set that as your profile picture. You will see 2 buttons “refresh from Facebok” and “refresh from Twitter” near the profile image that helps in updating Facebook and Twitter profile picture as your Pinterest picture. Adding/Inviting Friends You can even find friends from other social network as well as your email contacts. Go to http://pinterest.com/invites/ and select the services from where you want to find and invite friends. After you select the desired service, you have to allow Pinterest to access the service. Creating Pin Board Boards and Pins are the heart of Pinterest. Boards or Pin boards are collection of pins belonging to similar theme or niche. The first thing you need to do after you edit your profile is to create few boards based on the things you like. Pinterest will automatically give you few pin board ideas, you can choose those or create your own pin boards. You can have boards like Places of interest, Recipe collection, Shades of my life, blogging resources etc. If you want to add new boards any time in the future, you can click on the Add button which will

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Making Money from Mobile Apps

March 26, 2012

Every now and then we heard stories about app developers making fortune from the app they developed. Though the news are hard to believe, they are in fact true, as mobile app market has untapped potential to make money. The other side of the story also laments that not every app developers make money with their apps, which is also true to the T. Considering the fact that there are millions of apps in Apple App Store as well as Android Market, everyone into the app development cannot make money. Having a careful look at the top selling apps, we can see that all popular apps have few things in common which makes them popular and people do not think twice to pay money to have those apps in their smartphone. If you understand these distinguishing factors and incorporate those into your next mobile app, you can still win against the competition and your app will get visibility, more importantly it will serve as a money making machine. Before we proceed further on “how to make money through mobile apps”, lets us have a look at the recipes for a successful mobile app. If our app is successful then it will make us money. If you are serious about making money from your app, you need to clearly understand the elements of successful mobile apps. Researching the App Store With infinite competing apps in the market, you need to do proper research to find out the niche that has very few apps or no apps at all. This will lead you to face less competition. Researching on the app stores will also give you insight on the current trend of the app usage. You will get to know about what is making people dissatisfied about an app and what are they looking for in an app. Creating an Innovative App It takes lot of efforts, time and money to create an app that looks good and performs. So do not waste your effort in replicating an existing concept, rather utilize that to come up with something new. The app market is flooded with all sorts of app, so if the app you develop is another archetypical app available in the market with a little twist, it will disperse in the vast sea of app store and you will hardly find any takers. On the other hand after a thorough research if you come up with something unique that solves certain problem the smart phone users are facing, you will have lot of takers for that app. Performance and Loading Time The success of an app depends upon how consistently it performs. The app has to be tested properly in all conditions before it is released in the app market. The app should consume less memory and CPU power so it can run on all kind of smartphones including the starter range. The main reason people prefer mobile app is because they want to access information faster. Mobile apps which take long time to load are removed as soon as they are installed. Loading time of 5-7 seconds is fine but above that creates dissatisfaction. Enticing User Interface The main reason of success of a smartphone app is the user interface. If the user interface is appealing and has simple and easy navigation, it will be user friendly and hence will be popular among all kind of smart phone users. If the UI of an app is cluttered, it will fail to gain user acceptance. Apps like Feathers, Gowalla, Instagram are considered having the best User Interface. Value Proposition The mobile app has to be usable, that means it has to offer some sort of a solutions to something needed by the users and make life easier. Such an app will gain popularity quite rapidly. Such apps offer something extra then other app and engage the users. If you look at apps like Flixter, Gowalla, Echofon, Tripit etc. they all have what it takes to be a top selling app. Now that we are done with identifying the recipes of a successful app, it is time to know how to make money from our app. Once our app is ready to launch, there are 2 important steps that need to be successfully completed. Getting Approved in the App store After your app is developed the only hindrance before it is available to public is getting approved in the app store for the respective platform. While it is easier to be approved in Android marketplace, getting approved in Apple App store is quite difficult. But if the submitted app complies with all the policies and guidelines, it will definitely get thumbs up. If Apple feels that the App is just a copycat and does not add any value addition to iPhone, contains pornographic and racial content then the app is likely to be disapproved. Promoting the App Once the app is approved and listed in the App market place your next goal is to let customers know about it so that they will download the app. The best promotion technique is to get features as a new app in the category or top selling app. But to be featured in the app market place you need numbers. So there are external ways to promote the app and get the desired numbers and then automatically get featured in the app marketplace and you will see a sudden increase in downloads as soon as your app get featured in the marketplace. You can create a dedicated website for your app, utilize blogs in the same niche to write about your apps, Take help of influential people in social media to talk about your app in Twitter and Facebook. These methods will create a buzz about your app and information about it will reach to more and more people. With good promotion and marketing, your app will gradually gain visibility and it is time to see the result in terms of monetary benefit you

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Using Link Baiting for SEO

March 19, 2012

Today the Internet Marketing landscape is quite competitive and everyone knows how difficult it is get quality traffic. So Internet marketers and SEO specialists are often employing innovative ways to drive quality traffic and back links to their websites. One such technique of garnering back links is called “Link Baiting”. We can define Link bait as a “technique to garner back links to a website naturally”. In link baiting, we create a compelling piece of content that arouses people’s interest, so they wish to link to that content from their website. In normal link building we approach others to link to our websites or we exchange links with others, but in Link baiting the content that we create attract people and they are compelled to link to the site as they want to share it with their readers too. The goal of perfect link bait is to let people keep sharing it till everyone in the Internet sees it. A Viral link bait is quite useful and give result beyond imagination. Types of Link Bait There are various approaches the professional link baiters follow to create link baiting strategies (hooks). However these strategies can be broadly categorized into the following: News Hook This kind of link baiting strategy is dependent on the freshness of the content. You need to be pretty proactive in publishing the news as and when it happens. The news like a much anticipated product launch or preview of a gadget before it launch gets quite lot of attention in Internet community and can help you in getting lot of backlinks. The unveiling of iPhone 4 by Gizmodo is the best example in using this link bait hook. It has got 244K Facebook shares and more than 4000 back links from diverse domains. Humor Hook Put something in a funny way, make a cartoon of a celebrity or write a funny story or a joke and you will get lot of people talking about it. You can even make fun of yourself or fun of a renowned celebrity or the industry. But make sure your content is unique and special then million of other sites. Resource Hook Infographics, widgets and online gadgets serve as good link bait items. Resource hooks are the best and easiest link baiting strategy. There are lots of opportunities to do some ground breaking research and put your research finding in a nicely done infographics, which is enough to get you a plethora of backlinks. You can even write How-to-guides or an ebook and you will get backlinks for sure. Though this strategy is time consuming, it gives desired result. Attack Hook This strategy relies on negative views and comments to create buzz. But this can lead you to making few enemies for sure. Talking bad about someone or something creates a debate sort of thing and divides people into 2 groups who indulge in fighting among themselves and indirectly help in promoting the content. Political bloggers and critiques are good at this strategy. Incentive Hooks This strategy is employed by almost everyone at some point in time. Running contests on blogs, asking people to write review about your site etc come under this. When you give people something in return, they will never hesitate to write about you. Elements of Link Bait For maximum return from link baiting, the quality of content should be good and unique. It should be well edited and properly formatted. This will let others to skim over the content and decide to link to it. With that in mind, we need to consider following things: Headline: A strong and alluring headline is a must. So the first step is to decide on a catchy headline that will automatically divert people’s attention and they will think of reading. When people will link they may use this headline to link to your site which in turn will serve as an added benefit and will increase traffic inflow. Main Content: Remember that great link bait content cannot be produced in a few hours. The main content should be written thoughtfully and in an easy to understand manner. The information provided in the content should be thoroughly researched. The content should be well formatted and should be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Graphics and Visuals: Pictures speak better than the words. So complement your content with graphics and visuals. If you have an infographics in place for any research based article, do include that and talk about the infographics in brief. Targeted list: Before you publish the article meant for link baiting, build up a list of bloggers and web masters who will be able to help you in promoting by sharing the link bait. This way it will get more visibility and can go viral faster. Launch with a Buzz: Even if you have a great article, complemented with pictures and graphics, you cannot expect people to find it and link to it on their won. You have to put little efforts to make it viral. Social media is the best choice in the regard. Use social media like Facebook and Twitter and social bookmarking service s like Digg, Reddit etc. to submit the content and promote it. Make sure that you are not over promoting it, else it will be regarded as Spam and will be of no use. Factors for Link bait success The ultimate aim of link bait is to gain backlinks which helps in SEO. Because one of the prime requisite in SEO is gaining backlinks. The social media like Facebook and Twitter act as catalyst which trigger the link bait posts to be mentioned in traditional blogs and websites. That is when the actual magic of link bait can be seen. Link baiting is the natural way of building backlinks. Main purpose of any SEO campaign is to bring traffic to a website by employing various methods and link bait serves this purpose effectively. One of the factors for the success of link

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Explainer Videos: A Potent Internet Marketing Tool

March 7, 2012

Once companies manage to get a slick website to entice customers or clients, they tend to believe they are all set to make their foray into the Internet. However, marketing oneself or one’s company isn’t all that simple and one needs to tap into the consumer’s psychology. Psychological theories of learning emphasize on the importance of sensory inputs. For instance, a website that only has text is the least appealing. When it offers images and colourful pictures, a visitor stays on a page for a longer time. Similarly, when the website appeals to the auditory sensors, depending on the situation the visitor to the page may lurk around a little much longer. Also, having text, images, audio and video would be a complete sensory experience and this is perhaps why one should consider uploading and publishing explainer videos that grab the attention of the visitor, provide information and also allow for interactive sharing through social media. Most importantly, explainer videos are viral, if they are good enough. What Are Explainer Videos and What Are Their Benefits? Animated explainers or promotional videos are a great addition to one’s marketing plan as they add a little bit of fun to one’s business and effectively explain one’s services and products. First off, explainer videos grab the attention of the viewer and also help in sustaining it. This means, the page visits last for a longer duration and helps in increasing web traffic. This automatically helps in increasing page views, brand awareness, ad exposure and finally helps in memorizing one’s company’s information and reach a wider target audience through social media or otherwise. What Are the Key Features of a Good Explainer Video? If one were to ask what must be included in an explainer video, it is rather simple and clear. The explainer video needs to be simple and non-intrusive. Much as a video is sensually stimulating, it must not prove to be intrusive and annoying. The information and the video must be clutter-free and must avoid unnecessary information. An explainer video must also not be very lengthy and should not last for more than 2 minutes. The idea is to grab the viewers’ attention for a few seconds more than usual, and not make them get distracted from the actual content. Explainer videos must be interactive and fun. This means that one must make use of rich animation, graphics, visual effects and an attractive voice over in order to convey the message effectively in a non-intrusive manner. It is a good idea to approach a video production company or speak to web designers themselves if they could play around with animation and make an attractive video. It is rather simple to create an explainer video and is more affordable than getting actors to play their roles. How Can One Make a Good Explainer Video? A good explainer video must have a plan. The plan must describe the content, tone and medium. Once the plan is written, the next step is to visualize it on a storyboard. Storyboards help in visualizing the video and also in editing once the video has been shot. Voice-overs are very important and a soothing background music with or without voice-overs can be a great tool in maintaining the visitor’s attention. Once the video has been shot, edited and completed, it is time to share it on as many websites as possible. Social media websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ always come to one’s rescue. How Can Explainer Videos Help in Marketing? Explainer videos are particularly useful in a web marketing campaign as videos can go viral. They can drive traffic from YouTube and social networking sites. Visitors spend 45% longer on a website which has explainer videos. Research also reveals that people tend to buy products or service twice as likely when videos are present. They help in driving a sales pitch without being too intrusive and eventually help in creating valuable online brands. Which are some popular companies creating explainer videos? Oomphbox provides a cost-effective solution for creating compelling explainer videos that can easily grab attention of your prospects and explain your innovative business model, products or services for higher conversion rates. Some of the other companies that make professional videos are Common Craft, Demo Duck, My Promo Videos, Grumo Media, Epipheo Studios, Explania.

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Technical Writing: A Layman’s Gateway to Software Use

September 8, 2006

In an era when the e-world is reaching beyond the material Universe and almost everything turning digital, it becomes a duty of the Elite to give the plebeian an essence of the technological advancements. However, the Elite do understand a layman’s limitations, both psychological and existential – and is perhaps the only time when he agreed with the Technocrats worldwide. It was the Technocrats who longed to market their high-end technical innovations but was not knowledgeable enough to break down the tech-lingo into a simpler form. Upon their quest for a solution, they met the Elite who just loved studying technology, but this time he had to study the subject with the prime objective of explaining it to the common man in the easiest way possible. Nothing comes without a price, so technology had to face the commoner without its armaments i.e. the jaw-breaking terminologies and jargons through an inscribed gateway. The gateway under discussion is today’s Technical Writing, which marked the Second Coming of Technology. What is Technical Writing? A detailed or persuasive form of writing to convey information for technical or business purposes, technical writing needs to be useful and the presented information must be easily understood and acted upon. Highly under-rated as just what-to-do and how-to-do-it instructions, it is a difficult task demanding an easy and lucid style while writing about technical subjects. Very often technical writing has flat edge making documents, difficult and tedious to read. But there’s no reason why technical writing shouldn’t be lively and interesting. Technical writing must follow certain guidelines, which are: An Intelligent architecture – The style of writing must allow the reader a prompt understanding of the subject. Avoidance of Confusion – Technical writing should be devoid of any expression whose meaning cannot be determined from its context. Choice of Words: Malapropism (misusing a word) or the usage of difficult words should be avoided as a rule of thumb. Conciseness – The writer should be capable of expressing a great deal in just a few words. Needless to say, apart from the points mentioned above, grammatical rules should be given prime importance. How does Technical Writing Work? The sole idea of Technical writing is to convey information to the mass without the technical jargons associated through a three-fold process: The Language: Technical writing involves easy-to-understand, lucid language. The Instructions: Technical writing cuts short on technical complexity giving usability options the first preference. The Precision: Technical writing excludes irrelevant information that offers nothing significant to users. The above points are the grounds where technical writing really cashes in. However, we must also present here the related fields where technical writing has sown its seeds. The table provided underneath is intended to provide a clear vision on the topic. Sub Divisions Field of Application Details User Groups Basic Technical Writing Installation Manuals Step-by-step guide for installing/setting-up an equipment/software. Novice end users. Intermediates. Casual Users. Maintenance Manuals Step-by-step guide for maintaining a piece of equipment. User Guides and Product Manuals Descriptive, step-by-step guide for learning how to operate an equipment/product. Quick Reference Guides Troubleshooting/additional information delivering books. Computer-based Training Subject specific step-by-step guide for learning computers. Online Help guides Troubleshooting guides available on the Internet. High End Technical Writing Software/Code Documentation A form of documentation embedded within the source code of software, describing the various aspects of the codes intended operation(s). Should be easily accessible to a user. System Administrators Database Developers Programmers Project planning & Management A process that identifies the lifecycle and visibility of the tools a project may use and describes the essential planning i.e. organization plan, risk factors, test plans, installation plan etc. Development Managers, Project Managers, System Administrators, Test Managers. Indexing of Printed and Online documents. A detailed topic analysis of any given text or a condensed overview of related texts in the form of a conceptual map. Indexing helps readers to navigate easily through the information provided in the main content(s). End users and consumers. Since we started off this topic with the prime intention of explaining how technical writing aids the plebeian to comprehend the binary universe, for the time being, we shall concentrate only upon one of the aspects of basic technical writing, User Guide. A definition for the term is a must and it’s something, which should come first. Primarily written for non-technical individuals; User Guides are technical communication document or instruction manuals that explain in layman’s terms how to use a software and are generally a part of some other documentation like System Administration guides or some other related material. These guidebooks are meant for a basic, if not a proper understanding of an application or system. Simple language with short sentences and accompanying graphics are considered key factors for any of these User Guides, the sole reason being to help the user as much as possible while he tries to muster in his head the different aspects of a given application. User Guides are generally read in a hurry; they only come out when one is frustrated and losing patience with the software. This is where the easy and lucid style of writing and illustrations come handy. A user guide comprises of several sections that help in getting the most out of the extensive functionality and content available. Usually, a user guide comprises of the following sections: A preface, containing details of related documents and information on how to best use the user guide. A contents page, listing the contents of the user guide. A guide on how to use at least the main functions of the system. A troubleshooting section detailing possible errors or problems that may occur along with how to fix them. A FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). Where to find further help and contact details. A glossary and, for larger documents, an index. The Mindset: The common man is not interested in knowing the steps of an operation; his preference is always the result obtained by the click of a mouse. A user guide makes it easy for

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