Erik Qualman's Blog, page 480

Video Production for the Musician: If You Aren’t Producing, What Are You Doing?

If you are a musician looking for exposure, you should be on YouTube. It really is as simple as that. YouTube doesn’t cost you money to join or post videos, and the potential audience is huge. Making videos of you playing your songs gives you content to distribute to fans, as well as to venues and record labels. The best part is that, with smartphone camera quality as high as it now is, it is easy to get started. So let’s take a quick look at how to make videos as a musician.

Getting Started

You probably already own everything you need to start making videos for your music. If you have a laptop, you can use the webcam, but your smartphone might give you better quality. You will also want to be able to do some basic video editing. Many phones have apps for that, but iMovie comes for free with Macs and is much better. If you are on a PC, Windows Movie Maker works essentially the same way. One thing that you might not have, but should invest in if you are shooting on your phone, is a tripod. There are many options available, most of them very inexpensive, like this one on Amazon from Favolcano (shortlink is affiliate).

These are the basics for… the basics. So, if you are playing the guitar and singing, these basics should cover you, and maybe you want to add a microphone stand (considering your hands will be busy with the guitar). The same thing goes for those who play keys and sing. They will want a microphone stand, but if that is your gig, you’ll want a boom mic that will branch out over the keys and not get in your way. Similarly, if you are doing any other specialty type music, you will need to cover the basics for that style of music. An example is a beat producer. You will want to read up on exactly what you need, related to your style of music. Here is a place to start for beat producers.

Shooting the Video

Once you have a song you are ready to record, there are just a few things to check to make sure you are ready. First, make sure there is not anything around you making noise, like an AC fan, a microwave, a dishwasher or washing machine, or anything else that will make it hard to hear your song. Make sure you play and sing loudly enough to get good audio, but not so loud that it distorts. We are not talking “screeching” here, unless that is the style of the music that you record. We are talking about nice high-quality sound (YOUR sound) and no noise in the background (not even the friendly purring cat).

Second, ensure that you have a good microphone for your recording. Even the lowest level microphone is better than most microphones that are built into the camera. Think of it this way, the mic in the camera is only there for the “just in case” and to save the day when your kid accidentally flips the bowl of cereal on his head, and you want to capture it for the equivalent of a show like “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” That is it. The low quality mic is forgivable for that situation, but not for your debut album. Make sense? Then get a high quality mic. You will use it for more than just a youtube.

Being a professional sound engineer (as well as married to one), there is a wealth of information that I would love to share on that topic, but it goes a bit beyond the scope of this article. However, there is a quick reference to a couple of microphones that may get you going, at this related article on Examiner (also by yours truly).

Third, make sure your lighting is decent. Generally speaking, your light should be fairly bright and coming from behind your camera. Natural sunlight works great, but it depends on how easy it is to capture the natural light. Take a few pictures or test videos to dial it in and see what works best for you.

Fourth is framing. You should be centered in the frame, and your head should have some space above it (not right at the top of the uppermost hair follicle). A good, basic way to frame a shot while you play an acoustic guitar is for you to be in a chair and for the bottom of the frame to be a little above the bottom edge of the guitar when you’re sitting. Just like with your lighting, take a few test videos to make sure it looks right and ensure you can move around a little without leaving the frame.

Post it on YouTube

Once you have your video shot and editing down, it’s time to export it and put it on YouTube! If you already have a YouTube channel, you can use that one, but it might be a good idea to create another channel just for your music. Fortunately, that’s free! Once your video is up, be sure to write a good, short but detailed description. You can add links to your Facebook, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, or other similar pages. You can also tag the video to make it easier to search for. The most important thing is persistence. Keep playing music and making, posting, and sharing videos. Never let that music die! We’re ready for it!

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What Casual Games Can Teach You About Your Social Media Presence

In the digital age, there are two things we hold very dear: social media and casual gaming. But there’s a correlation between the two you may not realize. This correlation can guide your social media presence in an easily comprehendible and effective way.

Most of us understand what social media is: various online communication channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. We’re also familiar with casual gaming: games enjoyed by a mass audience, often a global one, with simple rules and no major commitment required.

In many ways, these two trends are very similar. They both require little long-term commitment, although many would argue that they control large portions of our lives, and they both work on a system which rewards its participants — social media with attention and gratification, and games with rewards, prizes and a sense of achievement. With so many similarities, is there a way that we can borrow the mechanics of one to use in the other?

Photo from cognify.co.uk

If you’re trying to build a social media presence, you may struggle to engage your audience with your content. It’s a tough, competitive market out there — Facebook recently revealed that it hosts over 40,000,000 active small business pages. However, the site also has 1.6 billion active users, so there’s a powerful audience ready to interact with your messages. So we know that social media is a popular tool that can reap great rewards for businesses that invest time in it. Still, it can sometimes seem so hard to win over an audience there.

Looking at another big online trend, casual gaming has gone from strength to strength over the last few years. In 2015, the most popular category on Apple’s App Store was games — taking 22.4% of the overall download numbers. It’s been reported that more than 50% of all online users in the U.S. play casual games monthly, which rises to more than 70% when you look at the total mobile audience.

Casual gaming doesn’t show bias when it comes to who plays, either. In fact, contrary to traditional stereotypes, today’s casual gamers are more likely to be female, are often higher-income consumers and are younger in terms of age, all according to the ESA. So, this is another healthy market and one that can offer some insights into how to run an effective social media-based marketing strategy. If you begin to think about running your social media accounts like a game, we believe, you’ll see great results in building your online presence.

Let’s take a look at the some of the similarities and methods that you can take from casual games and use them to improve your social media presence.

Gamification

Gamification has become a bit of a buzzword in marketing circles as of late, and it’s one technique that marketers are certainly emphasizing to improve their social media presence. Essentially, you’re trying to bring elements of game-playing into your marketing strategy, targeting your real audience no matter what their reach is, and having some fun with your social channels.

But don’t just take our word for it. In 2014, more than 70% of the world’s 2,000 largest companies were expected to have deployed at least one gamified application. In the same year, vendors claimed that gamification strategies could lead to a 100% to 150% increase in engagement metrics. These are good-looking statistics for your own social media strategy.

Here’s what we think makes it so popular, and the lessons you can learn from integrating gamification.

Rewards

To demonstrate how you can bring rewards into your social media strategy, let’s look at one of the most popular casual games on the market, Candy Crush Saga. It is a match-three puzzle type game with an average of 93 million active users daily. This game is obviously doing something right.

In King Games’ Candy Crush, when you achieve a good move, you are rewarded with a sugar drop. When you collect a certain number of sugar drops, you are awarded with prizes that you can use in your gameplay to make levels easier. These rewards encourage players to play more efficiently and also to keep playing when a level is hard. One also can’t deny that everyone likes a reward for doing something good.

Photo from http://www.independent.co.uk/

On social media, you can implement a reward structure in many ways to increase consumer engagement with each channel. These rewards may include competitions, blogger giveaways, games and prizes. One simple technique is to hold a weekly giveaway, bearing in mind each channel and country’s restrictions on competitions. If you establish a weekly event like this, people are more likely to follow and visit a social account to see what the latest giveaway is.

Of course, there are also more sophisticated ways to add a reward structure to your social accounts. In 2013, Audi launched their new A3 car in South Africa to a Twitter frenzy. They began their campaign by driving a truck though South Africa that was carrying a brand new A3 Sportback. The truck’s navigation was determined by the tweets of hopeful South Africans; the final destination of the truck would be the location that had tweeted the most. At this final location, a few lucky tweeters were offered the chance to exchange their car for the Sportback. This technique takes gamification (and rewards) to the extreme, but it’s a good example of what a brilliant, interactive idea can do for your brand.

Engagement

You ultimately want your social media presence to reach the widest audience possible, and to do this you have to increase your social engagement to cast a wider net.

Many casual games implement some sort of social engagement, which encourages players to involve their friends in their gameplay. We’ll use game app Pokerstars Duel as an example of how you can borrow such social elements.

PokerStars is an already established online poker company. A recently released app by the brand, PokerStars Duel is an online gaming app which allows people to play one-on-one poker. To invite others to play, users send invites via text message, social media or in-app through a friends list. This friend’s list can be built up, as is the case with social media, but to a limit of 100 friends.

The idea behind this app is to encourage more people to take an interest in poker by offering them a quick, casual game to whet their appetite. Friends invite more friends to play with them, spreading the app further and further, thus increasing the game’s popularity.

Photo from pokernews.com

Encouraging people to share your content on social media can be hard — especially if you are not supposed to openly ask for it as a business. What you can do, however, is find topics and content that your followers enjoy and want their friends to enjoy too.

Create images that are beautiful, funny or thought provoking. Write pieces of content that answer questions, challenge popular discussion topics or are enjoyable to read, always related to your brand and products. You may also consider incentivizing shares, but you have to be aware of the individual rules of each social channel. On Twitter, it is perfectly acceptable to ask people to retweet your messages so that their friends can benefit from what you are saying too; on the contrary, on Facebook you are penalized for this kind of activity.

One technique you might consider would be to offer exclusive offers and deals only to your fans on social media; anyone who shares your offer with their friends could benefit from extra discounts. This practice not only encourages your fans to share your content, it also makes them feel privileged, as if they’re getting a better deal because of their loyalty.

Competition and Skill

Many people enjoy casual games because of the competitive element they provide and the skill that they require to complete. Although many players will happily complete levels at their own pace, they take pride in achieving better results than their peers.

A casual game that demonstrates how competition and skill can play an important role is Words with Friends. This is the world’s most popular word-based mobile game, with almost 23 million active users per day. The concept is simple — it’s Scrabble on your mobile that you play on a turn-based system.

You can play this game by Zynga Inc. on your own, but the fun really starts when you take on your friends and strangers, pitching your vocabulary and spelling knowledge against theirs. It’s this competitive edge that has made this game so popular, and it’s one you can use on your social channels too.

The simplest way to bring this idea to your social accounts would be to create skill-based competitions, moving beyond a simple sweepstake approach and challenging your fans to demonstrate knowledge and complete tasks.

Photo from http://www.digitaltrends.com/

One brand that has utilized the skill-based competition mechanic though their social channels is Starbucks. In 2014, Starbucks ran a competition where they asked people to demonstrate skill and artistic creativity by drawing on their white cups and uploading their creations to Starbucks’ social media accounts. They received over 4,000 entries in just three weeks and gained huge social exposure for an idea that saw people drawing on an asset that the company was handing out on a daily basis.

At the heart of what they stand for, casual games are fun and accessible. They generate competition, offer rewards and allow people to demonstrate skill. If you think about these elements when managing your social media accounts, you’ll go some way towards improving your presence and creating a more robust fan base for your business.

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Crowdfunding: How to Raise Funds for Your Personal Projects

Many great ideas that can make a big difference to others never make it off the ground due to lack of funding. The greatest idea without funding is simply an idea.

Unlike other ideas and projects that can receive grants and sponsorship from foundations and governments, personal projects are not eligible to receive such grants and the most likely way to raise funds is to solicit donations from individuals. It is not easy knocking on doors and convincing strangers to donate to your project. It is sometimes even harder to approach your relatives and friends often due to pride, or it’s simply not comfortable.

Thankfully, there is another way that you can ensure you get your idea off the ground, and it is to use donations website where people from around the world contribute to causes, investors meet with entrepreneurs, and patrons get to turn ideas into reality. It is on these websites that an individual looking for funding reach out to a large community online through an open call, and this is known as crowdfunding. Some of the best known crowdfunding sites are: Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and crowdfunder. Forbes list the top ten crowdfunding sites here.

Top 4 Steps for a Successful Crowdfunding Project:

1. Pick the right platform

Determine your fundraising goals and select the appropriate crowdfunding platform to help achieve them. There are many crowdfunding websites for donations that focus on specific areas like healthcare, arts, music or non-profit, and their possibility to contribute depends on whether your type of project is within the area they focus on. For example Kickstarter might be less business friendly then Indiegogo. If you have a business project, you might have to decide on equity crowdfunding where your donors will become shareholders in the business. To help you decide, Forbes has a list of the top crowdfunding sites here.

2. Grab the attention of your donors

It is possible that there are thousands of people looking for funding using the same platform as yours. Competition is fierce, so getting the attention of potential donors is not easy. This is why your initial pitch and message should be able to command the attention of a donor or funder quickly and easily. After getting the attention you need, engage them on what your project is about and why it is important for it to succeed. Do not forget to show them how they will benefit from the project. Spending the money on a quality video to be able to “show” versus “tell” about your project is often money well spent.

3. Engage a good number of supporters

It is always important to deal with the foundations before moving ahead. Before an unknown person gets to support your project, there has to be proof that those around you (family, friends, advisors, partner organizations, notable investors and supporters) back you up. Without this proof, there is a possibility of donors having little trust in your project and may fail to make a donation. If they do, you will still need those supporters to launch your project! Just like people like to see a line at a popular nightclub, investors usually want to fund projects that others think will be successful too.

 

4. Have a good marketing and outreach plan

For a successful crowdsourcing campaign, you should reach out to as many people as possible. Whichever platform you choose, you will need to direct much effort and attention into that platform. Create a media page, produce great videos and images, and use social media strategically while targeting your potential donors.

Your project does not need to stall due to lack of funding especially now that the crowdfunding industry is in need of funding seekers to meet those who want to make donations.

We hope you found the above promoted content as entertaining and interesting as we did!

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How to Tell If Someone Is Impersonating You on Facebook

New Facebook Feature Alerts Impersonation

Facebook is trying to prevent online harassment and general confusion with a new feature that alerts you if they think someone is impersonating you with your name and profile picture. If Facebook thinks that someone is trying to be you, you’ll be asked to identify whether or not it is an impersonator. The feature is live in about 75% of the world. Sounds like they are trying to prevent catfish, sorry Nev and Max at MTV. (Source Mashable)



Instagram Notifications on the Web

Instagram’s web presence has been slow. They started web in 2012 with user profiles, then allowed for scrollable feed with likes and comments in 2013 and launched search in 2015. So what was missing? The notifications – which some might argue are the most important part. Yesterday, Instagram rolled out the activity tab on the web so now users can see who has given them #InstaLove. (Source TechCrunch)



Thanks for Recycling, Here’s an iPhone Wallpaper

Apple wants customers to donate old iPhone devices with their Apple Renew program. As an incentive to get Apple customers to participate, they are redirecting those who have participated to Apple.com/Thanks where they are able to download one of three wallpapers for their Apple devices. Typically store credit is given for recycling but Apple wanted to offer a virtual gift as well. #iRecycle (Source Mashable)

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Twitter Turns Ten – List of Most Popular Tweets

What to Say When Your Baby Turns 10 …

Pass the Kleenex. Jack Dorsey is an emotional parent. Yesterday Twitter celebrated its 10th birthday with a flashback of the most popular tweets within the last 10 years. Think black & blue dress, the birth of a royal baby, and Leo Dicaprio’s first Oscar award. Twitter highlighted world news, famous accounts, and other interesting metrics from the last decade. Here’s the full list but forewarned make sure you have a handy Kleenex ready because we can promise some waterworks and a trip down memory lane.

In other news Twitter indicated their newest algorithm which sorts tweets in a non-chronological manner is being well received by its user base. Originally the announcement that tweets would be sorted based on a “recommended for you” order had people so outraged you’d have thought they were a bunch of angry toddlers throwing a temper tantrum(Say that 3x fast). Now the switch rate to the old Twitter is low and the update  is resluting in more tweet favorites, retweets, and user interaction. (Source TechCrunch)

Instagram Updates

Instagram is hopping on board with the likes of Twitter and Facebook with an update to its newsfeed algorithm. The update is all about optimizing each individual’s news feed and depends “on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting, and the timeliness of the post.” CEO Kevin Systrom stated that users are missing out on 70% of the content in their newsfeed and “what this is about is making sure that the 30 percent you see is the best 30 percent possible.”

Instagram promises for a hotter newsfeed but this move is also a way to better monetize their offerings. Q4 earnings were recently announced for Facebook – they own Instagram – and Instagram has seen +51% growth over last year helping Facebook to a record   $5.8 billion dollars in revenue. Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 Million so they are trying to make sure their investment pays off. (Source TechCrunch)

In Case You Missed It…

Apple’s new product announcements are easier to miss than ever. Don’t worry we’ve got you covered. The  Fruit just announced the release of its new iPhone SE, iPad Pro and other products during its spring reveal. Wanna know all the dirt in under 90 seconds? Look no further Mashable’s got the skinny for us in this video. Happy Tuesday and keep on keeping on.

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3 Amazing Tools to Track Employee Time

Time is so valuable, especially when it comes to your business. Being able to track an employees’ time and productivity is essentially to business success.

If you are having trouble monitoring what is going on in your shop when you aren’t there or if you want more control over employee productivity and payroll, here are three pretty smart and simple ways to track your employee payroll time.

1. Cameras: Time is always slipping away from us and it’s vital that your employees’ time spent on the clock is handled productively. It’s remarkable how much more productive your PM shift becomes when you install in-house cameras. In terms of tech tips, cameras are still pretty basic but a lot of the add-ons which are currently available makes this consideration really attractive. In fact you can install software that you can take with you wherever you go. So on your desktop, laptop, smartphone, or tablet, you can peek in on your crew to see what is going on. Give them a call as you’re spying on them doing something nefarious and see how often that type of thing happens again.

Image Courtesy of pixabay.com

2. Apps: If you trust your team and just need to have a way to do payroll at home or on the go, there are any number of employee time clock apps at your disposal today.

3. Programs: An employee time clock resource that is good for offices or desk jobs is Clockspot. It is pretty amazing as it can be used from any cell phone, landline or mobile device. Their tagline, “See who’s working when, where and on what – instantly” gives you all the ammunition that you need to approach those who aren’t fulfilling their potential. If they are taking weeks on a project that should only have taken them a few days, Clockspot allows you to go to them with the hours that they have logged on in pursuit of fulfilling this task.

                                                                                       Image Courtesy of picjumbo.com

There are many tools to help make your office more productive. Lack of productivity in your office or business is costly. It’s vital to your business to ensure that productivity goals are not just being met but rather are being exceeded. These are just three simple ways to employ technology to ensure your workplace hums with synergy, productivity, and more profitability!

We hope you found the above promoted content as entertaining and helpful as we did!

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How to Harness the Power of Emotion in Social Media Marketing

If you don’t recognize that playing with consumer emotions has a significant impact on your marketing efforts, you better brush up on your skills. There’s a huge market for targeting your audience through emotional connections, and there’s no better place to focus those marketing efforts than social media.

According to a 2013 survey performed by the consulting firm, Brand Keys, 70 percent of the decision making process is driven by emotions while the other 30 percent is logical thought. In other words, using logic in your social media interactions is good for those who take a second glance, but for first impressions, emotional connections are key.

If you want to make those powerful social media connections, it’s important to understand how emotion can be used best. Here are a few suggestions for improving your social media marketing by using emotions.

Post Multimedia

You can connect emotionally with a wider audience if you simply post multiple forms of media on your page. Consumers are more likely to make an emotional connection if you post in a variety of styles, even if it’s not something you would normally discuss in relation to your company.

Consider the viral food video craze, for example. Every time you open Facebook, you’re likely to come face to face with a video showing a pair of hands making some delicious treat. It became huge with BuzzFeed Food, but other companies who have nothing to do with food have started to share similar videos to bring more people to their brand. They’ve recognized the emotional connection that food has with their consumers, so they made a way for these posts to work with their brand.

Know Your Audience

No matter how compelling your social posts are, you’ll never make it far without first understanding your audience. If you don’t have a clear idea of that target group right now, take steps to get there. Conduct surveys, interview returning customers, visit the websites they visit, post to the forums and social networks they use, and, come to understand the emotions that will drive them to take action.

This will come fairly naturally through your multimedia posts, and as you continue to learn about the target market, you can begin to tweak these posts accordingly. As established previously, buying decisions are typically made based on emotion, and you can’t hope to make that emotional connection if you don’t know your audience inside and out.

Foster Connections

Studies have shown time and again that consumers are more likely to make purchases from companies they feel emotionally connected to. It’s more than liking the product. It means that every time a customer sees the brand, they feel something, whether it’s inspiration, family ties, humor, or compassion.

A major part of fostering this emotional connection is forming a brand users can actually identify with. Think about major brands like Nike, Coca Cola, and Johnson & Johnson. The check-like Nike symbol generally creates an inspiration and motivation to do something amazing. The Coca Cola feeling makes everyone smile inside every time the polar bears take a sip, and the Johnson & Johnson company always includes pictures of babies, which is sure to inspire an emotional connection every time.

These major corporations have developed this connection through years of maintaining quality products, but also by knowing their audience and creating an undeniable connection with them. Marketing is all about sending the right message, and emotional channels are the easiest ways to do that.

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Get More Social in Meeting Your Needs

From the standpoint of many consumers, the web is a vital resource when looking for products and services.

With that being the case, consumers should never hesitate in using the social media component of the Internet to find what they need.

As more and more businesses are learning on a yearly basis, having a presence on social media is really not a choice, it is all but a necessity in today’s world.

Social Media is a Garden of Information

When it comes right down to it, turning to social media to find the products and services you need simply make sense.

So, what are some social avenues you as a consumer should be exploring?

They include:

Company sites themselves – Any company worth its weight in gold will be active on several social platforms. The best way to find where they’re at is by going to their webpages, searching for the different social icons used to demonstrate a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. Whether you go to a company or organization’s site to find information on real estate, insurance, tips for home improvements, doing a California license plate lookup, healthcare, travel tips and a host of other options, always look to see what social sites they are active on. If they’re rather lax when it comes to social media initiatives, you might wonder how up to speed they are with being a forward-looking company in 2016 and beyond;
Facebook – The top-ranked site in the social networking world, Facebook is a walking encyclopedia of social media information. You can go to a brand’s Facebook page (they’d be missing out on a free mode of marketing and advertising if they did not have one) and find information about their products or services. You also might come across company contests, contests whereby you can win prizes, discounts on merchandise and much more. Even better, you can oftentimes find how they engage with consumers (including current customers). This will give you an inside look at whether or not they’re the type of business or organization you truly want to do business with;
Twitter – Not far behind Facebook is Twitter, a site that has found a certain niche with not only celebrities, athletes, politicians and others, but also the business world. Many companies (and individuals for that matter) that are involved in heavy marketing of their respective brands use Twitter to drum-up more business. Since that’s the case, it would behoove you as a consumer to follow a number of these companies and groups that have products and/or services of interest to you. When people are tweeting and retweeting, it opens up a world of conversations for both the business owner or organizational leader and the general public. Since you’re typically in the latter group, take advantage of such discussions to learn more about the things you’re most interested in;
Instagram – Growing leaps and bounds the last couple of years, Instagram is great for seeing what products and services actually look like and what they can do. Take for example a business that sells real estate. They would quite frankly be foolish not to have a presence on Instagram. In doing so, they can post pictures and information on houses, apartments, condos, office rental properties and more. In turn, the prospective buyer (it might just be you) can see firsthand what the property looks like without having to dig through a newspaper listing or other such periodical. If you don’t already have your own Instagram account, you might want to consider changing that this year. If a brand’s product or service is of interest to you, do a Google search to see if they have an Instagram account. While some may be locked in a “private” mode, most businesses have open accounts for the public to see and learn about.

The above-mentioned social sites are but three of many out there.

As a consumer, take the time and effort to familiarize yourself with those companies or organizations that are socially active.

In the end, doing so could ultimately save you time and money when it comes to finding the brands you want and need for your lifestyle.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

 

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Advantages of Using a Virtual Private Network

We all know very well about virtual private networks (VPNs). Most of us also know about how VPNs work. We know that VPNs are fast enough to transfer the data at high speed. But have we ever bothered to know about the advantages that VPNs provide us? Essentially not!

Therefore, here, in this article, I would like to elaborate about some of the potential benefits that VPNs provide us with. Without much ado, let’s start.

Enhanced security

VPNs ensure maximum security for internet users, like you. A VPN essentially encrypts the data – that is to be sent – and then encapsulates that data within a secured tunnel. With encryption and encapsulation techniques, a VPN connection increases the overall security of the data and the internet user.

Remote access

One of the best advantages of using a VPN connection is that it facilitates remote access to the data. Therefore, if an organization has a VPN setup within, the staff can have access to organizational data – for official use – from any location, other than home or office. Consequently, VPNs do play a role in increasing the overall organizational productivity.

File sharing

With a VPN connection in place, internet users can effortlessly share their desired files amongst themselves. Meanwhile, the process of sharing files becomes speedy, without anyone knowing about the activities being carried out over the internet. Now, with peer-to-peer file sharing mechanism available, netizens can easily share their torrent files with each other.

Anonymity over the web

If you want to surf the internet anonymously, a VPN connection is your best solution. Most of the users tend to use proxies and IP-hiding software to protect their identities online. But with a secure VPN connection, they can easily access web applications and websites. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush!

Circumvent websites and bypass filters

What if you are living in a country other than the United States or the United Kingdom, and you still want to have access to American or British TV shows and all the entertainment stuff available on the US or UK websites. Well, don’t worry! With a VPN connection, you can easily access all the web content available around the world. A VPN connection essentially helps you to circumnavigate blocked websites and bypass all unwanted filters, while giving you unrestricted access to online entertainment channels available around the world.

Different IP addresses

One of the major functions that a virtual private network (VPN) performs is frequently changing the IP address of an internet user. Changing of an IP address works really fine when you want to access a website from a location, other than your home country. It means that with a VPN, you can easily access a US-based website (your home country) from another country, for instance, Australia or the Netherlands, etc. Hence, you can use an Australian IP address to access a US-based website.

Better Performance

A VPN essentially increases your bandwidth usage efficiency by manifolds. As the performance of your VPN connection improves, the speed of the VPN connection also increases. Hence, a VPN connection ensures fast speeds for data transfer and file sharing, by optimizing a server’s overall performance.

Cost Reduction

Once a VPN connection is in place, and starts working smoothly, the maintenance cost of the same decreases drastically. You can call it a one-time investment. And if you have a VPN service provider by your side, you don’t have to fear about surveillance anymore.

This brings us to the end of this blog. Well, there are many more advantages of using a VPN connection, but I have only enlisted eight of them. Now it’s your turn to contribute to this blog with your valuable suggestions and opinions. Your contributions will be highly appreciated.

Author Bio

Having worked in different business sectors, Brad finally settled down as a Digital Media Marketer at Ivacy. He writes about online privacy and security and keeps a keen eye on data retention laws all over the world. His recent interest is in torrent vpns, and when he is not researching, he likes to sing, dance and play his acoustic guitar. For more info connect Ivacy vpn.

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Importance of Using Social Media for Press Release Distribution

When creating a public relations strategy, a marketer’s first move is to commence on publishing the press release(s). This strategy would have been effective a few years ago; however, there are some tactics that are more effective today.  Ensure you know the right time to release a press release to improve its effectiveness to your public relations strategy.

Benefits of social media press release

  Provides for a multi media approach

Essentially, when referring to social media press release, we refer to a type press release that is prepared using a fact-oriented and multi-media approach. When press releases integrate social media, they include bookmarks, video clips, blog posts, citations, multiple links and other resources that allow any news editor to pick the information required that might best service their audience, interest, and editorial style.

With multiple media provided by social media press releases, then you are assured of text that is richly unique. The media is open for re-distribution, re-use, and transforms static text-only type of press release into media that has relevant discourse for the purposes of your public relations strategy.

Other Publications can pick up your Publication

You are able to get your news to as many people as you would want. There are companies that are successful by posting press release via the internet where there are thousands other similar publications and it may be reposted online.

However, it is imperative to use some tactics to make this possible. For instance, ensure that you include data in your press release. This will ensure that it is picked up by other publications. Improve the quality of your content by including interesting sound bites to your story, do not just write plain content, and expect success. Essentially, the more people like journalists view your press release, the more your publication increases the chances of being picked by other publications. Therefore, ensure your timing is right and you use the above tactics.

You get to build links

Link building is a great strategy to include in your PR marketing strategy. The press release you use as a PR marketing strategy may not help with SEO; however, the editorial coverage that the press release provides has great benefits on your SEO. Ensure that you include the keywords that you want to improve rank in the press release, this way, when the journalists view the press release, they will include the keywords too. It is even more essential if they include some of your quotes and include them in publications that belong to them.

There is a major connection between PR and SEO according to an article in the Search Engine Watch. There is a major boost for SEO managers for any press that comes from a press release. Essentially, this is because the spur created by content creation also spurs content coverage. This coverage will most likely come with inbound links or back links to your website. Therefore, do not assume that your press release has completed all the work to be done. It could be a spur for additional content to be created by others on the same issue.

Helps Journalists Check and Confirm Information

Creation of a press release with integrated social media helps journalists find information about your Company from a single location. External documents such as research documents and presentations can be found in a press release. This allows journalists to find accurate information for referencing purposes in order to write a story about you.

When communicating to a journalist via email about your PR marketing strategy, ensure you that you include and attachment in the press release. This will help the journalist get all the information they need about your company. You do not have to wait for publication to be picked up randomly by the journalist on the wire. It will make it easy to write about your company and establish a good working relationship for future press release coverage.

 Helps refine your message

As you prepare a press release, ensure that all the messaging is put together perfectly to ensure you get maximum exposure from the announcement. This is the place all people will go to when they need a story or need to cite important data for your company both internally and externally. Once you refine the messaging for your press release, what you are doing is proving the right information for other content creators to get their sources. Bloggers, sales reps and content creators outside your company will talk about your brand in unified voice as the draft your press release.

Provision of Content for Various Marketing Channels Is a Good Recipe for a Successful Press Release

There is a standard format for any press release. There is the opening paragraph that provides more information about the story, there is the company background information, and the boilerplate found at the end. However, extra stuff in the press release makes the value of your press release skyrocket. For instance, including embedded pictures and videos in the press release is a great improvement. You can make use of 18percent for the photos and 55percent for the videos.

Based on previous data on press releases, photos have been shown to increase the views of a press release by three times and videos have been shown to double the viewership of the same press release. The press release will show you clearly that your Public Relations efforts using press release is improving when you inculcate photos and videos into it. In addition, you will find that including the same techniques in other marketing strategies for your company is equally effective. These include improving marketing using social media, emails, landing pages, and blog posts. With visual media on all these marketing strategies, you are assured that your company like Hispanic PR firms will get the attention that you are looking for and your sales, conversion, as well as performance will improve. This is all because of using press release that includes various types of social media as well as additional material.

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