Erik Qualman's Blog, page 486

Effective Ways to Enhance Your Online Reputation

People are wary about dealing with businesses, organizations or individuals over the internet. It takes time to build up a positive online reputation. The reputation you do build up, can be destroyed quickly too. However, there are some simple and effective ways to prevent this from happening. These are some of the best ways to enhance your online reputation.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      Image via pixabay.com

Help Other Online Users

Helping others is a clear indication that a business, organization or individual cares about other online users. If people see you helping others regularly, they will be more likely to interact with you and trust you.

There are many simple ways you can help other people online, that do not take much effort or time. You can help people by giving advice on social media websites, forums and other interactive websites. Giving honest reviews and recommendations also helps to build trust. Once you are seen as a person or business who helps people, more people will also see you as an authority in your industry. This makes it more likely that more people will want to deal with you and your business.

Publish Valuable, Useful Content

High-quality content is the most important commodity on the internet. You should attempt to make a blog and get it high enough on the search engines, so that people will find your site first when they are interested in what you have to offer.

The websites and blogs that publish the most valuable, useful and relevant content, have the best reputations. This is why you should ensure that all the content you publish is of the highest quality. This helps to maintain a great reputation and also increases your potential website visitors and customers.

Share Valuable, Useful Content

The content you share with others is just as important as your own content you publish. If it’s useful and valuable, those you share it with will appreciate sharing it as well. The original publishers of the content you share should also be delighted that you are distributing their content for them.

Don’t Spam

Most people who go online hate spam. Spam takes many forms and should be avoided at all costs. The most common occurrences of spam include numerous, useless emails and numerous pointless comments on blogs and social media websites. All of your content should be useful, valuable and not intrusive.

Avoid Confrontation, Awkward Situations and Arguments

It’s often what you don’t say, that can enhance your reputation online. The interactive nature of modern websites and social media websites means it’s extremely easy to get drawn into confrontational or awkward situations.

Many arguments take place online in front of large online audiences. Those involved may not realize how this can affect their reputations. How you respond in these difficult situations, reflects positively or negatively on you. If you respond in a negative fashion, your reputation can be instantly damaged. Always avoid confrontation, awkward situations and arguments and you will keep your good reputation intact.

Maintaining a great reputation is vital, especially if you market and sell your products and services online. Following the tips above will help you avoid many of the pitfalls that can instantly damage your online reputation.

 

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Why Your Business Needs a Visual Dashboard

A dashboard is a dynamic representation of some area of company’s activity in a visual form – but it is not just a pretty picture. It helps to better understand what is happening with one’s business and its changes in real time, and provides a vivid insight into the inner workings of… well, anything relevant in your case, you name it: from social media presence to sales and marketing and so on.

Do you and your business really need it? We believe that yes, you do. Let us explain why.

1.    Dynamic Measurements

Peter Drucker, one of the most well-known management theorists of the 20th century, claimed that something that cannot be measured cannot be improved. A cleverly designed visual dashboard does exactly this – it measures current performance and progress, both of the company in general and its particular departments, and shows what can be improved, where you are not doing as well as you wished, what can be scrapped altogether and so on.

2.    Visualization

Visual information is easier to understand. Even if you don’t have problems with reading through reports and looking through dozens of pages with neatly arranged rows of figures, visual representation of the same data can be perceived in a fraction of the time you spend reading it. As a result, dashboards help you and your business save time and boost the ability to make urgent decisions.

3.    Performance to Plan

Most businesses function according to a certain plan that presupposes particular results at particular stages. Using a dashboard makes it much easier and more convenient to evaluate how well your company complies with the plan, and it can be done on the go, without the need to study numerous reports. This way it will not become a surprise for you to find out that you are lagging far behind, and you will be able to take the necessary measure well ahead of time.

4.    Selectiveness

One of the drawbacks to getting your information from reports is the fact that you have to go through enormous amounts of data most of which is rarely of any use. In case of dashboards you can arrange and customize them exactly in the way you want them, leaving only valuable data that will be updated in real time. This way you’ll be constantly on top of things and won’t have to get side-tracked in the process.

5.    Flexibility

Another helpful aspect of using dashboards is that you don’t have to depend on people to create and distribute the data you need. You decide what you are interested in, and this data is automatically updated in real time, and both you and other people who need to know about it can access it wherever they are.

Visual dashboards are indeed an extremely useful instrument when used skillfully and carefully, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that there is no business that wouldn’t win by investing into arranging its core data into dynamic dashboards.

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#OscarsSoWhite Trends on Twitter

What type of bread do you want your Oscar Meyer bologna on?

White. Last night, the 88th Academy Awards brought forth, not only the “long overdue” winning spotlight of Leonardo Dicaprio for best actor, but diversity issues as well. #OscarsSoWhite has been trending across Twitter. Reminder: actors and actresses of color were not nominated for the main categories in the Academy Awards. Individuals are infuriated and confused as to why there was a lack of black actors & actresses. Bette Midler tweeted, “The Oscars are today! You know, the awards show where Leonardo Dicaprio is ‘overdue’ but black people can ‘wait till next year’.”

There were also casual words thrown in about Black History Month and quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. to support the “Black Lives Matter”. Chris Rock, host of the Oscars, made sure to address the issue head on from the start – “Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood is racist. Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like, we like you Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.” #RockOn. (Source USA Today)

Microsoft’s Virtual Reality

HoloLens, Microsoft’s new virtual reality headgear will transform your sight. The $3,000 headgear is available for preorder and can be expected to ship by March 30th. The technology combines see-through lenses, HD displays and precise eye calibration to bring 3-D graphics into your home. Microsoft advertised the headgear during the Super Bowl. It shows football fans watching the NFL as the players seem to be slamming through your walls and kicking a football across to your kitchen. Pretty much it combines your real-life settings with virtual reality feats. This trippy system may lead you to never want to leave the virtual world. We might all get a chance to experience and understand what it’s like to be a hardcore gamer. (Source Mashable)

Picture Perfect

Ever wonder how you were going to get that professional LinkedIn pic? Well, Adobe has a solution. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC can be downloaded on your smartphone. All you need to do is take a selfie, crop & edit it to a black & white pic. Whola! A profile masterpiece. Check out the tutorial here. (Source Adobe)

Watch all the Oscars on Your New Kindle – only $49.99

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Tips on Making Your Social Media Campaign The Next Big Thing

Social Media can make or break the whole marketing campaign. If you want to make your campaign the talk of the town, (of course, in good light!), then do pay attention to even menial details that otherwise go unnoticed. You launch campaigns to create awareness and generate leads, remember the very first thing. So, what is it that you can do on social media to make your business a hot property, let’s find out.

Choose Story That Everybody Can Connect To

Build stories around social concerns such as better treatment needs for children, common myths, phrases most in use (remember #LikeAGirl campaign of P&G’s Always brand?) and see how people sit up and take actual notice of the message you want to put across. Product buying is more of identification with the self and this is the chord that sellers need to hit when they start designing a campaign on social media.

Bringing people to social media is not much of a fuss, the real challenge lies in moving them to spread the word and gain desired popularity. Thus, make use of props that are most used, or use phrases that are employed often while commenting or conversing. Your story has to be something like every reader is forced to say ‘it seems like my story’.

Come With Ideas That Actually Are of Great Help

A product that, actually, is a solution to any problem is sure to sell, no doubt about it! But, a social media marketer has to ensure that he is able to dish out the utility of the product in exactly the way the product does. No under-statement or over-statement, Please!

Ikea ‘bookbook’ video campaign that became a rage in 2015 is classy as well as apt. Ikea is promoting itself as a look enhancer for the home. The products are finest in design and sturdiness, nothing more than a catalogue can help better in spreading a word about the aesthetic value or utility of furniture. The same comes across very beautifully in this catalogue promoting campaign.

Show Your Gracious Side

Everybody wants to associate with brands with a positive streak. So, if you have thought of starting a campaign on social media, use this promotional tool to project yourself as messenger of goodness. You are quite likely to get lots of shares, comments and likes, as goodness is the spirit of human beings.

#thisiswholesome campaign of Honey Maid, the brand of Nabisco prepared a video that showed families from a number of races together. People could not associate it with much, but their response ‘Love’ video in the form of an artwork, gave it all the attention that it needed. The company was not only able to show its humanitarian side, it also was able to share they make products keeping everybody’s feelings in mind – a beautiful way to connect!

Want To Know How To Schedule Campaign? Try These

Social media campaigns are the sure-fire way to build a digital reputation. There are various tools using which you can ensure your constant presence. Scheduling the posts is one of the most important activities so that you are there exactly when you should be. Some interesting time-saving social media tools are:

Buffer: This social media tool is like an online calendar. You can connect the social media network of your choice and schedule posts on it date-wise. User also has the liberty to connect as many social networks as required. It is a great time-saver for regularizing the social media campaign.
IFTTT: IFTTT stands for if this then that. It work on ripple effect and can stimulate a number of social media channels in single attempt. For example, what you like in YouTube, you can share on Tumblr and likewise. So, you get to experiment with a number of activities without putting effort in them individually.
Tweetdeck: This handy tool is used to schedule future tweets. You can also monitor the activity on various Twitter accounts at one go using this tool.

Social media marketing is an unignorable tool for promoting businesses and services. Marketers during their academic phase, with assignment help, learn to build projects revolving various marketing ideas. Once you have got into this business, after thorough preparation, you can surely make a mark if you have paid proper attention to what works on social networks and how to use these to the fullest without wasting time and effort.

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Take Command of Your Move with Social Networking

Military families know that moving is part of their lifestyle.

However, moving is always challenging and stressful, no matter how ready you are. Whether it’s just you, yourself, or you have a spouse and children, this is a transition.

You can make it as smooth as possible, though, by following some checklists, guidelines and being prepared.

You can also find some help and support online with social media.

Checklists and Guidelines

As the following article notes, when you are looking at how to make your military move as smooth as possible, organization is key.

Whether it’s just you or a family, there are things you can do well ahead of time, closer to the move and during it to make it less stressful and a little easier.

Let’s take a look:

• Keep it simple. In other words, don’t hold onto a lot of junk. If you can consistently weed out the things you can live without and know you won’t be moving, it will save you time and trouble when the move actually comes about. So go ahead and toss those old magazines and clothes that are out of style. You don’t need to lug them around from place to place.

• During the move, pack a box (or suitcase) of need it now things. You don’t want to end up in your new home without enough clothes or toiletries. Keep the essentials on you.

• Keep organized with lists of things to get done in the new and the old place. Try to do as much ahead of time as makes sense so you can focus the move when it’s happening.

• Find out the details. Is the military taking complete care of your move or do you have some say so and responsibility? What about your pets? Find out about your entitlement and how much the military will take care of.

• Create checklists of anything and everything, from contact phone numbers, both here and there; to things you want to pack yourself. It can release stress to actually have a list.

Can Social Media Help?

Yes, social media can be an important player in making your military move smoother.

Not only can you continue to keep in touch with old friends through social media, but you can also find new groups in your new location and connect through social media.

There are a few military sites that will be helpful in connecting and offering support.

Among them, Military.com offers some helpful support and information to help with a move’s transition.

Blogs can be very helpful, too.

Maybe you can connect with others this way who are experiencing the same thing, now or in the past. You may even consider starting your own blog as a way to connect and share your own experience.

Moves are trying. They are exciting but stressful, and part of your military life.

Use what you can to help ease the stress, and before long you’ll be settled in your new location.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

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Everyday is World Backup Day

It will not happen to me!

That is precisely what most of us (who deal with online data) think about security breaches or data theft or loss.But, it is important to remember that data loss could happen at any time and it mostly happens when we least expect it. With the advancement of technology, we use internet devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, more regularly. This has led to various security threats to our online data.The data could be accessed or stolen in an unauthorized manner or even destroyed intentionally or unintentionally due to viruses, software corruption, hardware malfunction or human error.

Natural disasters cannot even be ruled out!

And, these threats could turn into security attacks even if you are doing something simple like playing a game or accessing an application on your smartphone or tablet.You never know what kind of access, such mobile apps may get to your data and there is always the risk that a bug could corrupt your data! And, you would not want to lose confidential data or priceless memories due to a lack of good data backup!

So, you need to be careful when using your devices and you need to frequently back up your data! And, to mark the importance of data backups, every year March 31 gets celebrated as World Backup Day. This day will serve as a reminder to always have copies of all your online data at an off-site location. Additionally, data also need to be backed up with some storage media.

Rather than relying on remembering to daily make a backup, you can also set your system to do automatic backups. This would be useful to restore or recover data when disaster strikes in whatever form.

So, here is an infographic that offers tips to plan a good data backup strategy, along with ways to make backups.

Courtesy of: Cloudwards.net

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What You Need To Know About Creating Great SEO Strategies

With a splurge of people using the Internet for finding products and services, businesses have realized the importance of having an online presence. Research suggests about 78% of Internet users rely on the web for searching products. With businesses thriving on the Internet like never before, competition is fierce and growing.

Search Engine Optimization is one the most widely used ways for getting a website to the top of search engine rankings. However, the SEO landscape has transformed dramatically over these years. After releasing Google Algorithms, Panda & Penguin, marketers had to change their strategies to fit  Google’s new guidelines.  Meaning many previews SEO tactics are now obsolete.

In fact some can actually negatively impact your website.

So what does work? Quality and relevancy are the most important factors. Here are some quick tips and tactics for today’s marketing, SEO, and branding strategy.

Market Research vs. Keyword Research

Gone are the days when keyword research was considered extremely important. Instead, market research has risen dramatically in importance. Google no longer blindly gives preference to pages that have been well-optimized for a given keyword. This technique is phasing out. Google wants you to think about your users and customers. Understanding their needs and wants will help you roll out the best strategy. In nutshell, be crystal clear about who your target audience is and what they actually need.

Content, content, content

Churning out more content without relevance isn’t going to help you. What matters is useful, relevant, meaningful and shareable content. The importance of content will only increase in the future. Focus your efforts on content marketing. This includes creating, curating and sharing content that revolves around your users’ preferences. You can hire professional writers such as CustomWritings.com for unique and valuable content. Create websites, blog posts, e-books, video content, white papers, case study etc. to offer your customers with something valuable. Read more about buying a case study here. Content forms the backbone of your SEO strategy.

Follow best practices

Keeping in mind the best SEO tactics will take you a long way. Don’t spam your users. Google is constantly coming up with highly effective algorithms that try to find out what’s actually relevant to users. Never utilize black hat SEO strategies to gain rankings. Overcome your tunnel vision and see how your customers are benefitted. Put up a website keeping in mind your users. It is equally important to know how Google crawls your content. Knowing that will help you create a site that can be indexed and accessed properly.

Link building techniques

When Google rolled out the Panda and Penguin updates, it became extremely hard for SEO managers to build links utilizing old ways. Spinning content and commenting on blogs to get link backs no longer works. The key to getting quality link backs is to have quality content. Check out this advanced SEO guide for link building techniques here by Neil Patel.

Website speed & performance still matters

How quickly your site loads including its overall performance might not have a substantial effect on your rankings but it still matters. Why? Again, it’s the users who are affected if your site is low. Users prefer staying on sites that load quickly and offer the best experience. Use Google PageSpeed Online to test your site’s speed. Analytics can also help you track the page load speed. Make sure you double check the images of your website. These are often the reason why your site is slow in terms of loading.

Final Words

SEO, if done, in the right way, can bring immense benefits to your business. All these strategies will help you acquire new customers and at a reduced cost.

Please feel free to share any comments or questions below.

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Branding Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make All the Time

Branding is important at all levels of business. Whether you’re birthing a new startup or guiding an established enterprise, branding is what allows a business to connect with customers and establish equity in the marketplace. And while plenty of companies get it right when it comes to branding, a healthy percentage are still making common mistakes.

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid

Launching, growing, and sustaining a successful business depends on a number of different things. First, you need a strong business idea. Second, you need the foresight to put your plan into action. Third, you need to successfully build a brand that resonates with your target market. Unfortunately, far too many businesses focus on the first two aspects and then haphazardly approach the third component with very little planning.

As an entrepreneur, you need to make branding a priority. Relegating it to the back burner will inhibit your ability to grow. Here are five specific branding mistakes you must avoid at all costs:

1. Not Defining a Target Market

At the root of successful branding is a precise recognition of your target market. Sadly, many entrepreneurs fail to identify their target market and proceed with branding based on unsubstantiated assumptions about who they’re selling to. You can’t afford to make this mistake.

Defining your target market takes time, but it isn’t something that can be overlooked. You need to spend as much time as it takes getting to know your target market, what their preferences are, and what they’re looking for in a brand. Do these things and you’ll be fine.

2. Choosing the Wrong Name

The second mistake is often a byproduct of the first. Choosing the wrong name can haunt your brand for years to come. isn’t easy, but it is necessary. If you’re going to build a brand that’s successful for a number of decades, the name needs to be strong and exemplary.

You want your name to be simple, concise, and accurate. An individual who has never interacted with your brand in the past should be able to read your brand name and get a basic idea of what it is you do. An inability to convey this is a failure on your part.

3. Trying to Save Money on Web Design

When it comes to branding, your website design is incredibly important. This is not the place to be frugal. Spend whatever it takes to create a highly functional and aesthetically pleasing website that connects with your target audience. Today, that means developing a responsive website that’s fluid and fast.

4. Failing to Leverage Social Media

While your website is your “home turf” on the internet, social media is your most visible and scalable platform. A failure to properly leverage key platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn may not hurt you in the beginning, but will certainly harm you in the future. Far too many companies are ignoring this aspect of branding and assuming they can rely on their past brand equity, only to find out that social media is not optional in today’s marketplace.

5. Communicating Too Much

There’s a fine line between communicating too little and too much. And while there are companies on both ends of the spectrum, more brands gravitate towards the communicating too much side. It’s important to narrow your focus. Be specific in the brand messages you send. When you cast your net too broad, your target market doesn’t know what to think.

Don’t Make These Mistakes

By no means is this a comprehensive list of the branding mistakes entrepreneurs make; however, it is a good starting point. If you can successfully evade these issues, you’ll have a better chance of succeeding than many of your peers.

 

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Apple Throws Out Court Order

What To Say When Cleaning Your Inbox…

Trash, trash, trash. Apple is feeling the same way towards the FBI court order. In case you haven’t been keeping up with Apple – Apple is refusing to develop software to open the encryption on iPhones even for criminals like those behind the San Bernardino massacre. Yesterday, Apple filed to throw out the court order with the argument that this would set a dangerous precedent that would undermine security and privacy. Yikes. (Source Re/code)

Mark Zuckerberg Stands Up

Some employees at Facebook have been scratching out “Black Lives Matter” on the company’s wall and replacing it with “All Lives Matter”. Zuckerberg decided to handle this in a nice-ish way by telling people that, “We expect everybody to treat each other with respect.” In a post on a private employee announcement page Zuckerberg said the following:

 

(Source Gizmodo)

So What Are Your Weekend Plans?

Watch Fuller House obviously. The Full House spinoff premiered on Netflix today and people are freaking out. The kids are now grown up and it’s basically a switched up version of the classic. You can watch the 13 episodes on Netflix now. (Source Today)

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5 Tech Entrepreneur’s to Follow in 2016

Every second day, we wake up to a new marvel of technology making life easier, thanks to the abundance of energy and technical prowess that is around today. And it takes a person with technical bent of mind and the spirit to follow the possibility is required. We are looking at a list of 5 tech entrepreneurs who have inspired either by deed or speech or both to inspire people: -

1)      Dena Marrinucci

The fight against cancer has received a serious boost. Dena Marrinucci’s start-up claims to be able to detect cancer at an early stage without biopsy. It is more efficient than conventional biopsy. Compared to a conventional biopsy which detects cancer after it has grown significantly, her method is capable of detecting it at an incredibly nascent stage. She uses newer methods like protein expression in cells to achieve her results, beyond the conventional biological markers for detection.

Instead of trying to explain the working, it is easier to refer to her own words: “By the time you see cancer cells on a PET or CT scan, there are thousands of them, and that’s what we are trying to change.”

Follow this incredible woman at: twitter.com/DenaEpicSci

2)      Lars Blackmore

If you ever thought science fiction can be reality, then here is an entrepreneur who shares the spirit. Lars Blackmore is working on ensuring space travel is commercially feasible by reducing the cost involved. How? He is working on ensuring that rockets once used are not done with; they can land back on earth without damage and reused- easier said than done.

Major cost of rockets are actually into building it and not fuel. So if he succeeds, space travel could become a daily routine or a special holiday getaway. And his algorithm is inching towards perfection every day.

To know how close dream to reality is, follow him: twitter.com/larsblackmore

3)      Travis Deyle

Isaac Asimov’s famous robot series had many people fancying the chances of a world with robots helping humanity in achieving better life. Travis Deyle brings home the theory into practice. He has already made robots that run through wireless technology. His robots are capable of bringing people their due medication in due time for consumption.

Currently, he is working with Google to explore further possibilities with robots. In his own words:

“Almost every field can benefit from robotics.” & “Improving people’s lives is the key thing.”

To know how he is progressing, look him up at: twitter.com/hizook

4)      Rahul Panicker

A man who has given life to innumerable new born babies- literally, by simply figuring out the practical gap between technical knowledge and real life situation. More than a century ago we learnt that for premature babies to survive, additional warmth is required. And yet, they died due to not the lack of high cost of the incubators available in this century but the lack of technical expertise to operate them.

From his own experience during a project in Nepal, Rahul Panicker decided to do something about it and he did. He designed low cost incubators that can be operated by a non-expert easily, keeping the cost at 1% to traditional solutions. The incubator runs without electricity for up to 6 hours! His message to the world: -

“I hope future generations look to us as role models and take inspiration to go down the route of social entrepreneurship.”

Follow this amazing man to be inspired: twitter.com/rahulapanicker

5)      Yevgen Borodin

To help physically challenged people has always been one of the foremost goals of ever advancing technology. With the digital world emerging as the vital life force of commerce, economy and even social platform, it was becoming increasingly difficult to provide people with blindness a level playing field with the rest.

This was until Yevgen Borodin came up with his invention and commercialized it. There were software solutions always provided to help the blind operate computers, but none as effective as Yevgen’s product. Since its introduction in 2014, millions of downloads have taken place all over the world.

Follow him to know when he might get top his next goal- optical character recognition and speech to text technology in a new look.

His twitter profile: twitter.com/borodiya

Look further into the blogging mind of an entrepreneur as Richart Ruddie provides random anecdotes on business, technology, entrepreneurship, and everyday living advice that is helpful for a lucrative 2016.

 

 

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