Erik Qualman's Blog, page 580

Contests that actually work on Instagram

Instagram, the ever popular mobile app allows brands, influencers, and consumers to share and unveil their visual stories. Brands tease products, show insider stories on the development of campaigns. Influencers are tapped to help unveil new releases, do giveaways, and/or help promote the brand in unique and fun ways. Consumers – well consumers are doing whatever they want. They show their daily lives, a sneak peek into what makes them who they are, and the brands they choose to connect with.
And one thing, consumers seem to love on Instagram are contests. But here’s the thing, contests need to be simple, easy to complete via mobile, and not time consuming in order for consumers to participate.
A few simple contest methods that work:
1. Upload Photo and Tag with hashtag
2. Like and Comment on Post
3. Repost Image with Hashtag
4. Like and Tag Others
Make it cooler by:
1. Incorporating both brand, influencer and UGC elements. For example, allow an influencer the reins to your instagram handle for a day. Especially when it’s someone attractive (yes, really) people flock to the handle to check out what they have to say and what they post.
2. Giving a fan the chance to be featured is always fun for the consumer
3. Doing the contest around a special time of year, event, and/or tv show to boast the type
One contest that consumers could do without:
The Loop giveaway – This contests typically involves several steps including but not limited to:
1. Liking the photo of an influencer.
2. Answered a question in the comments.
3. Clicking on the next influencer tagged in the photo.
4. Repeating Steps 1 – 3 with that said influencer.
5. Repeating this several times (potentially up 25 or 30 times) until you are brought back to the original influencer you started with.
Who has time for that? I was dismayed the first time I attempted this because I thought the giveaway was cool. After going through 3-4 rounds of the above, I gave up and walked away. If it takes more than 90 seconds to enter a contest, I’m out. There are two things that work when it comes to contest on Instagram – simple and creative/fun. If it’s not that, then don’t waste your time brands!
Cool vendor to consider:
Offerpop  is a great partner that helps brands have a contest across social channels and site experiences. It allows the contests to go beyond the instagram interface. For example, people can enter a contest simply by uploading a photo through instagram (or channel of choice) and tagging appropriately with a particular hashtag and they’re entered. Then those entries can but thrown together in one place for all consumers to see and/or vote on for a second layer to the contest. I particularly like the example offerpop did with the Colts here because it involves puppies. Puppies always win. We know this.
Photo Sources: Firebellymarketing; scottgombar
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8 Paid Survey Money Making Tips

Contrary to what many people think, doing paid surveys is a legitimate and even effective way of making money. Yes, you have probably heard many times that it is impossible to earn any decent cash this way – but those who say it are generally those who tried it out without any preparation and research, didn’t get any immediate results and walked away, adamantly sure that there is no money in it.

That is why we have compiled this list – these tips will help you if you are ready to do your homework and make real money on paid surveys.

1.     Steer Clear of Scams

A lot of people hear that it is possible to make some extra cash filling in paid online surveys, try it out, run against a scam scheme and leave this line of business once and for all, completely sure that all survey agencies are con arts.

Ironically, it isn’t all that hard to distinguish a legit site from a scam even if you have no experience in this matter. Basically, scammers promise you the moon but at a certain stage will ask you to pay a small entry fee, either when you sign up or after you’ve completed a couple of surveys – to give you additional motivation to do it, as you have already invested time and effort into it. The rule is simple: real survey agencies won’t demand your money, period; it’s just not how they do business.

2.     Create a Separate E-Mail Address

After you make some results in this business, you will start receiving tons of e-mails every day – experts in this field say that they receive literally thousands of e-mails every month. If you use your regular address for this purpose, it will soon be flooded with survey offers and it will become impossible to find your other mail among them.

3.     Diversify

There are dozens of survey companies on the net, and all of them offer different surveys, different cooperation conditions, different sets of rules and rewards. However, the amount of surveys offered by any particular of them is limited, so you are not going to make much if you stick to just one or two. The answer is to sign up with as many legitimate survey agencies as possible and sift through their offers, going for the most lucrative ones. Here you can find a great list of the top online surveys with the highest paying offers.

Survey panels usually list the estimated time for survey completion along with the reward, so you will be able to judge if it is worth taking part in. Take note that the majority of surveys take less time than advertised – especially after you get some practice.

4.     Increase Your Speed

We don’t mean that you should blindly click on random boxes. We mean that you should eliminate the necessity to answer the same questions over and over again, which is especially boring in case of screening surveys that are aimed at defining whether you belong to the target demographic.

The solution to this problem is a software along the lines of RoboForm – you can program it to hold the answers to different variations of the most common questions (gender, job, age, income and so on) so that instead of tediously choosing the correct answers the hundredth time you can simply click the RoboForm button and have it all filled in for you. There are probably free analogs of this software, but even commercial ones are going to pay for themselves in the long run, as they save your time and effort.

5.     Pay Attention

Although there is real money in paid survey business, a lot of survey panels don’t pay in hard cash – instead they offer discounts, coupons, points you may collect to get a gift, subscriptions to services and so on. Of course, if you encounter an interesting deal you can and should use it – but if you want to earn real money, get used to reading the fine print and concentrating on survey panels that offer monetary rewards.

6.     Look out for Focus Groups

Sometimes survey sites will offer you to take part in more traditional focus groups, which are somewhat different from simple polls and have peculiarities you should take into account. Each separate focus group will bring you much more money than a survey, but it takes more time and you can hardly hope to get into more than a couple a year – if you are lucky to get into the target demographic of a company that conducts the research. In addition to that, you have to spend a considerable amount of time with a panel to become eligible for these things.

7.     Take Notice of Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes conducted by some panels are more of a pleasant bonus than a stable income source, as they are unpredictable and you can hardly hope to be among the winners – especially since the number of people participating in paid surveys is constantly on the increase. However, it is another good reason to sign up with numerous panels and pay equal attention to a number of them, for in order to become eligible for sweepstakes you usually have to spend some time regularly filling in surveys for a particular panel.

8.     Be Honest

Most surveys are preceded by screening polls that determine whether you belong to the target demographic. You may think that the winning strategy is to define at whom the survey is aimed, answer correspondingly and then give answers at random to increase your output. Right?

Wrong. Survey companies often check your previous answers and compare them with the new ones. If you change your age, job, interests and other characteristic feature from survey to survey it will attract suspicion sooner rather than later. Your account may be suspended, your balance wiped out and so on – so it pays to be honest or at least to have one persona at a time.

Over the years paid surveys have turned into an industry in and of themselves – and just like any other industry it has its rules and principles. Follow them and you will get a pleasant and low-effort source of income.

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How to Stay Anonymous on the Web

There may be multiple reasons why you might want to hide your identity on the Internet. You may want to prevent data miners from collecting your personal information, your interests and preferences. You may want to test the customer support of your newly created service, which requires contacting it from several different IP addresses. Or you may be paranoid and believe that everybody is out there to get you – the reason doesn’t really matter.

What matters is approaching this task in a clever fashion. Here are ways of staying anonymous you may use, with their pros and cons.

1.     Anonymizers

Anonymizers are probably the simplest and most widespread method of hiding your online identity, and they may be really helpful in some situations. Some of them are free, others are available at a small subscription fee, and their capabilities differ in the same fashion – some offer more possibilities, others, simpler ones, like Anonymouse, offer the bare bones functionality which, however, may come in handy for less complicated situations – for example, if you want to visit a site that for some reasons blocks connections from your region of the world. However, they won’t help you with anything more complex: chatting with customer support, downloading files, sending and receiving e-mails and suchlike is out of the question.

2.     Proxy Servers

Proxy servers reroute the signals received from your computer through a server that has nothing to do with you, changing your IP and generally making you look as if you were coming from a different country. This approached used to be extremely popular to evade restrictions on particular regions that prevented Internet users located there from visiting particular sites, but right now it is losing in popularity due to being rather convoluted and unstable – proxy servers appear, change and disappear pretty quickly and the one you used yesterday may be out of order tomorrow. In other words, using this approach requires a lot of attention and micromanagement, and not everybody is ready to penetrate all the intricacies of proxy usage.

3.     VPN (Virtual Private Network) Service

An optimal variant for those who want a safe, stable, universal and easy-to-use anonymization system and don’t shy away from spending a little money on it – because all VPN service providers worth using are commercial ones, available at a subscription fee or after you buy some kind of software. Unlike anonymizers, they don’t simply let you connect websites making it look as if your IP were different, they syphon all your traffic through themselves, which allows you to download and send files, receive and send e-mails, participate in chats and conferences, choose your proxy servers and much more – actual functions may differ from VPN to VPN.

4.     TOR Network

TOR network is aimed at making your stay in the Internet completely anonymous – with the accent on ‘aimed’, because right now it is still far from being perfectly safe. It works by bouncing all signals coming from your computer between several other servers, effectively concealing your IP. However, it comes at a price: TOR is excruciatingly slow and again, won’t do much good aside from surfing the Internet.

Finally, one thing you should understand before using any of these methods: none of them provides you with complete protection from tracking, they simply mean that determining your IP and your identity is going to be somewhat harder. The worst thing you may do is succumb to the feeling of false invulnerability and try to do something illegal, believing that anonymization is going to protect you from retribution – it isn’t so. If it is really necessary to track someone’s activity through the Internet, it can always be done. Anonymization just ensures that in most cases nobody would care enough to do it.

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Business Financial Planning Tips for Young Entrepreneurs

One factor young and green entrepreneurs forget to factor into their business planning is having lines of credit to finance their operations. One of the beauties of credit is that it lets a business grow without taking money from equity sources, leaving them in a position of managerial authority where the managers don’t have to succumb to the wishes of non-involved investors.

How does a business create such lines of credit where they can debt finance operations? It takes time and gratuitous amounts of effort.

Companies like Qualcomm and Sony have the financial performance records to acquire such credit lines from banks, but can an entrepreneur? Unless you are Mark Cuban, you simply can’t acquire a great line of credit. There is a vicious circle when it comes to debt financing with start ups. Because the business isn’t very liquid, and at times takes time to procure consistent cash flows, the business owners usually take to credit cards to finance their company.

It’s a Vicious Circle

This is where the vicious circle begins. If you are a business that can’t factor receivables, then you run into cash problems. If by chance you are a business that is growing quite well, then you will need cash to grow operations and expand. Because you don’t have cash, you can’t grow, so the next best alternative is to acquire some form of third party financing. A business (more so a corporation or partnership) can sell equity or acquire debt. If you are trying to solicit funds from a prospective investor, you will need to show results and growth.

Cash is King

As said by many businessmen, “Cash is king,” and a cash poor business is usually weak in the funds department. Unless the entrepreneur can propose a stage financing proposal or an exceptional business model, the entrepreneur will have to exact resources from friends and family. Now that avenue is exhausted, so the entrepreneur must turn to the bank. Like the financiers, the bank will want to see financial results and cash positions.

Best-case scenario, the entrepreneur has a great business that has crazy revenue recognition principles and can’t collect cash until next year; if the business owner can get an audit of their financial statements by a great auditing firm. The young entrepreneur can then present his audited financials to the bank and take his word that he has sound business strategies and will not become insolvent in the coming years; but that’s the best-case scenario.

Solvency

As stated earlier, the bank will want to see cash performance. If the business cannot prove great cash flows, it will be difficult to procure a loan of material size to expand operations and perhaps enter new regions. A great way to establish credit is to establish solvency.

Since you may not be working with the best-case scenario, it may be wise to go with a business credit law firm. Organizations like Lexington Law specialize in repairing credit and can direct you to the most useful resources. They have already proven themselves, so you can feel comfortable knowing help is at your fingertips.

The best advice a young entrepreneur can take to heart is:

~First become passionate about his/her idea.
~Then find a way to monetize that idea, and create a business model that can support that idea.
~After weeks of market research and product development, take your idea to market and try to insource as much as you can. Once you can demonstrate you have a viable product that has yielded concrete results, then go seek investors and banks.

Approaching this from a debt financing perspective will only yield a lack of investor confidence and scrutiny from the bank.

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Lessons Learned From a Business Internship

Like most students and prospective interns, I’ve probably read a thousand articles about how to be successful in an internship. The same old ideas apply–work hard, listen, learn, be positive, make connections, stay in contact. I’ve been there and done that, and while it’s tried and true advice for a reason, I’ve found that doing a great job in your internship with a great company isn’t such a big boost if that company simply isn’t hiring when you’re looking for a full-time position after graduation. Glowing letters of recommendation aside, the place where you interned has more positive feelings about you than the place that reads about where you interned.

So what do you do? Evaluate internship offers–should you receive more than one–based on your predicted prospects for their future hiring capacity? Maybe. But most likely, you’ll make more of your internship if you expect going in that you will not end up working for the company full-time.

That might sound illogical, but it will place you in a mindset that will foster a more broadly marketable experience for you. Here’s how you can get the most for yourself in an internship, regardless of your future employer.

Learn What Companies Need

The most important thing to understand is the inner workings of your company. Don’t just focus on the outward face–events, products, and so forth. Learn about the legal hurdles, personnel problems, and especially the financial conditions of the firm. When you can understand these issues and learn to develop solutions for management, then you have built some great value for yourself, no matter where you work.

Not every firm will be forthcoming with these topics, of course. Litigation in particular is kept under very tight wraps. But much of what happens does eventually make it in front of the public eye. Take that information to heart and think about what the implications are for the company. Try to predict their course of action in certain circumstances. That’s how you develop your own managerial and entrepreneurial skills.

Learn To Notice Details…

A wise employer or entrepreneur understands that everything that happens in a business has happened by design. There’s a reason for using a certain shipping company, a particular office furniture supplier,and their chosen long-distance provider. And if it seems that there’s no thought going into those choices, or at least not lately, somebody probably needs to be checking it out.

… And Learn To Notice Opportunities for Yourself

For example, let’s say the company’s lone custodian has just retired after 30 years. They may have already decided to contract the work to an outside firm after passing him his gold watch, because the equipment and products he is using today make his job much faster than when he was hired. If you’re career-minded, it will occur to you that not only is this firm finding a full-time custodian obsolete, but others are likely reaching the same conclusion. That means there could be enough work available throughout the city to support you in starting a cleaning business.

That’s one very specific option, of course, but it could be anything. What suppliers or services do they struggle to source? What skills are lacking in their staff? Do they need IT support? What about their marketing materials? Who does their photographs and layout? Are they happy with them? Always be vigilant for a chance to make the internship work for you, not just the other way around.

Whatever opportunities come your way, always be on the lookout for how they can spawn other options for you. Take a broad view of what you’re learning and how you can apply it.

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How Did Apple Become The Most Admirable Brand Under Steve Job’s Leadership?

Steve Jobs was one of the most meticulous people to ever step into Apple headquarters, and that is saying something. There are a ton of random stories you hear when walking through the halls. How Steve Jobs cared so much about the new laptops Apple was making, he knew the exact amount of screws being used in each laptop.

Or the time Steve Jobs once took 6 months to approve the way the mouse scrolled in the new OS X software he was about to release. During his first tenure with Apple, he wanted the entire motherboard in those big bulky computers redone, simply because it looked ugly.

To Steve Jobs, the only way to win over consumers for life, was to make sure every piece of software and equipment was perfect. Even the pieces or parts that could not been seen, or applications and programs that 95% of the world did not know existed. Everything was held to a certain standard, and that standard was perfection.

Steve Jobs and Apple: Run #2

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he came back a slightly more lenient man. Not more lenient on the products, that always demanded the utmost quality, but in his vision for Apple products. In his earlier years, Jobs required that if you wanted a Mac, every part of the process had to be run by Mac parts.

The desktop screen was a Mac, so the processing tower had to be a Mac. The plugs and cords all had to be Mac related. This made Mac prices significantly higher than the PC counterparts, which lead to most consumers purchasing PC’s.

Back for a second run with Apple as the lead man, Jobs relented in this aspect. With this little change in his decision making, he allowed Apple to become a juggernaut in the electronics industry. However, history could easily be singing a different tune here.

Imagine if Jobs only allowed ipods to play music in his favorite digital format, A.A.C. Would that have spelled a disaster for him and the company? Almost every person with access to the internet knew what an MP3 was, but what was A.A.C.?

Instead of just taking a tiny piece of the pie and forcing MP3 users to convert over to A.A.C. formats, Jobs created an item that appealed to the masses. A unique, one of a kind item that completely took the entire music industry by storm. The ipod appealed to every single music lover because of the all the tiny details that went into making the item perfect, without forcing customers to conform to Apple only products and digital formats.

Besides the Ipod, another great compromise on the part of Jobs was his mouse. In earlier models (if you remember that far back) Jobs refused to put in a right click button on his mouse. Yet again Jobs compromised on this and allowed for the double finger click to act as a right click (PC).

I know I personally was one of the users completely frustrated with the early version of Macs when something as simple as selecting a click here button became a task in itself. On PCs you could click the click here button, use the right click button to select items, copy and paste, etc… But Jobs learned from his previous mistakes and continued to take over the marketplace.

Life after Steve Jobs

This is the hardest thing for many Apple users, and even some employees to accept. Life after Steve Jobs will be tough. This is not to say that the new executives in charge are not capable of handing the tasks, or that they aren’t up to trying to fill the huge shoes left by Jobs.

The problem is that Jobs literally nailed every single product release he had during his second tenure with Apple. When the Ipod came out, it literally revolutionized the way the masses listened to music.

When the iphone came out, people literally had to pick their jaws up off the floor. Combining the groundbreaking ipod into a cell phone? Throw in a ton of apps and games that could be played at all times, just for kicks and giggles.

How can we talk about absolutely dominating product launches without mentioning the ipad? Bigger than your iphone or ipod, yet smaller than a laptop. Lightweight, and compact enough to fit into a purse.

What made the job Steve Jobs did even harder to replicate is the improvements to each new model. Increasing the hard drive space on ipods. Increasing the battery life and improving the processors in each new iphone model. Encouraging more and more apps to be developed for these platforms. Allowing your ipad to not only take photos, but record videos, so every soccer mom can now look cool while getting a little clip of their childs game.

Steve Jobs helped mold Apple into one of the most influential companies of the new millennium, and it is up to the new folks in charge to make sure it stays that way!

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10 Predictions that Determine the Future of Programming

Every programmer should be aware of the up and coming trends that determine the future of programming. There are new platforms, new systems and new bugs that need understanding before you can start programming on that platform. Each platform is coming up with newer trends for the coming year, while some are developing trends that may come true in the coming 5 years time. These predictions are merely subjective and chances of them not coming true are high.

Here are 10 such predictions determining the way forward for the world of programming.

CPUs Replaced by GPUs

Bragging about graphics card seems to be the gamers way of living technology. While initially GPUs were merely restricted to graphical usage, today more and more programmers are developing visuals that can use the parallel architecture present in GPUs. These GPUs are being broadly used by scientists, physicists etc. to study an array of subjects. Applications based on GPU will become popular as compilers file out programs specifically targeted towards them.

Sophisticated Analysis by Databases

The gennext databases will perform tasks that are not specific to storage. There will be tasks that will do more than just storing your data. They will have sophisticated report generating units, the algorithms will run in a better way using these sophisticated databases. In fact moving and storing data with these databases will become efficient as well as affordable.

Command Line Survives

For those coding using ASP.Net development techniques or PHP development techniques will find themselves still using text editors and terminal windows. These things won’t die for the programmer in you. Most people have predicted a silent death of the command line, but it seems their wish is not to be granted. The command line will survive and last longer than expected.

JavaScripting Everything

Running JavaScript leads to lowering the load on your website and device. You will see that the future of technology will include Javascript for every single piece of programming. Every connection that the client makes will be commanded by the Javascript. Javascript may not be as zippy as native code but it makes sure your web performance is optimized.

Android Based Devices

The future of programming will see newer and better featured devices that are totally based on Android platform. These devices would not be restricted to computers and phones. You will see your refrigerators, cars, TV etc. using the Android Platform.

Increasing Platforms

Which platform are you going to develop your program for? Which base are you going to use to develop your program? You will find yourself surrounded by choices. ASP.Net development, PHP Development etc. are gaining popularity which simply means you are in for some complex choices and solutions.

Open Source Grows Popular

While open source portrays a lot of security issues, the future will see top notch open source companies securing their platforms while ensuring more customers and conversions. While open source is a good way of determining development and programming for those who cannot spend a lot of money, it comes with bugs and other issues. Though there are companies who have ventured the world of hackers, they still remain open source. These bugs will be removed by such companies and they will tighten the security around them.

WordPress- The Next Big Thing

Developing websites from the scratch seems to be a bad idea. Get started quickly by building your own website using WordPress and its numerous plugins. You just need install wordpress add the various plugins and get started. This way you can pay more attention to the website design and interface rather than the coding and overall development.

Plugins Will Grow

Why code and waste your time behind quality check of the code when you can incorporate plugins to your website. These powerful code snippets that get plugged onto the bigger framework can give a certain boost to your website. Moreover with these snippets coding can be reduced. The whole issue of removing bugs and checking the ecology of the website or the app can be ignored once you have plugins associated with the website.

Both Outsourcing & Insourcing will Co-Exist

Some believe outsourcing will be cheaper and companies will opt for this method of development, while others believe quality will be considered over price. Both these statements are true. Outsourcing would be considered if the companies believe the agency can get them a good deal. The whole idea behind outsourcing is to make possible those things that a simple tool cannot get done!

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Infographic: How to Build your Own Instagram Empire

If you are thinking of launching an ecommerce business, Instagram is what you need. It is rapidly becoming the prime channel for building and marketing your brand. The great thing about Instagram is that it is the perfect place for visual advertising.

But like any other platform, there are two ways to use it – right and wrong. Here are some tips to increase engagement and develop a huge following on Instagram:

When it comes to hashtags, choose wisely

Using the right hashtag not only gives you a targeted audience, but also increases engagement with the users. As your followers on Instagram grow, you’ll find it increasingly important to hashtag your content so that it becomes easier to find. If you use the right tag, your content becomes available to a much larger audience.

Filters are Important

Keyword hashtags are not the only things that require your attention, using filters can be fairly tricky too. Instagram followers seem to favor a few filters over the rest. Some popular filters are:

Normal (No Filter)
Early bird
Amaro
Rise
Hudson
Sierra

These can also vary depending on the sort of audience you have in your account

Timing is Important

Apart from having the right filter and the right hashtag, you must also consider the right time. Having a targeted approach can analyze what works for you and what doesn’t. You can even get a detailed analysis of your account history, highlighting the best times of the day or week to post content. Scheduling your posts can also be a simple yet effective way of increasing your engagement on Instagram, and interacting with your followers.

We have compiled an infographic (posted below) to clearly highlight the dos and don’ts of using Instagram.

Source

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How Small Businesses Should Utilize the Underdogs of Social Media — A Deeper Look at Snapchat and Reddit

Facebook and Twitter are arguably the most popular social networking sites of the last decade. Incredibly, many people — particularly millennials — look to these social media platforms not only for socializing, but also as their primary resource for breaking news and information. However, as new generations turn to social media, the landscape continues to shift and grow. While Facebook and Twitter will remain popular for a long time (and quite possibly the long run), small businesses should look to platforms like Reddit and Snapchat for alternative digital marketing distribution.

Snapchat is a hot social media platform right now, especially among the high school, collegiate, and yuppie crowds. Because people can send photos back and forth that are only available for a short amount of seconds, it’s an easy way to communicate ideas without the hassle or concern of posting something with long-term accessibility to all of your friends. Now, Snapchat has expanded beyond just selfies shared amongst friends. Businesses are able to communicate inside information about their company in a matter of seconds. The idea of exclusive offers and product updates that the general public doesn’t yet know is enticing to consumers. Thus, “snapchatting” photos to a wide population pushes information out easily and effectively.

When McDonalds featured shots of LeBron James in their recent campaign, it was a coveted find by Snapchat users who felt special for being let in on the tangible secret. Utilizing the app’s time limit and providing interesting information in an entertaining way is the secret to gaining Snapchat popularity. With the amount of people using this social media outlet, it is important for small businesses to take note: move away from the rigid belief that social media marketing equates to simply creating facebook and twitter accounts.

Reddit is used by savvy Internet users across the globe as a hub for constant entertainment. Uniquely, Reddit is a site dedicated to rewarding good entertainment and burying bad entertainment where it can no longer be seen. Reddit surf the site in order to find something interesting to make their day better and maybe even just pass the time. Some businesses may see this as the perfect opportunity to post about their products and services; however, Reddit users do not want to be advertised to. They don’t want to be sold — they want to discover interesting content on their own.

One of the best things about Reddit is that it has boards that users can browse through, which are dedicated to various categories of topics. There is even a Reddit board for small businesses. On this board, business owners can ask Reddit users questions, while subtly advertising at the same time. If a business posts something interesting enough, it can get enough upvotes to make it one of the most popular sites on the social media outlet. Positing something entertaining and fun that can apply to a young audience is vital in getting a small business’s name out there — in both the virtual and real marketplaces.

Understandably, small business owners are busy people who wear many hats. The vast number of social media outlets available can seem a little overwhelming, but these platforms are important to utilize for increasing brand awareness and engagement. Dashboard tools such as SumAll allow you to comprehensively track and manage social media analytics together in an easy to use platform. With the help of online tools, startups and small businesses can have the ability to grow their target audience, engage with these interested prospects, convert them into product consumers, and nurture them into lifelong customers.

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AT&T/DirecTV Merger Debate: Should We Be Worried?

AT&T + DirecTV: Should We Be Worried?

AT&T and DirecTV have announced plans to merge, creating a single player within the communications space for over 70 million customers nationwide. The move has been seen in some circles as controversial, particularly in light of limited competition in these markets. But does this pose a threat to consumer choice and competition, and should we be actively worried about a merger of this kind?

The FCC has a spoken aim of increasing competition in the broadband market. In an industry dominated by only a handful of major players, there is concern that consumers are losing out, and FCC Chair Tom Wheeler has discussed the need for more varied competition in the sector.

Funny, then, that the move to unite AT&T and DirecTV should be allowed to pass without the hubbub that might ordinarily be expected from such a sizeable merger – one of the countries biggest communications companies, partnering with the second biggest pay-TV provider, in a marketplace already threatened by a lack of viable alternatives.

With too few players in the market as it is, why aren’t there more people crying ‘foul’, and arguing against this potential threat to consumer diversity and choice?

While it is true that the merger will create a new satellite communications giant, there are good reasons from both camps for the move. DirecTV has huge national coverage, but still partner up with individual providers (like AT&T) for delivering phone and broadband services, and bolting on to AT&T more closely works for ensuring wider roll-out. For AT&T, the chance to gain such a stronghold in the satellite TV market makes them a worthy rival for their own nearest competitors, including in particular Comcast.

Comcast, the industry leader, is already in the process of merging with Time Warner Cable, which would create the undisputed biggest player in the communications industry – effectively dwarfing both AT&T and DirecTV in their respective markets.  Rather than contributing to the lack of competition, the AT&T/DirecTV merger might just be essential in maintaining a competitive balance. Or to put it another way, AT&T DirecTV might be the only company capable of preventing a larger Comcast from fully controlling the market.

It’s still early days, and of course there is still the outside chance that the proposed Comcast merger fails, in which case questions about the legitimacy of an AT&T merger may start to feel more pressing. But for consumers in the short-term, bringing AT&T and DirecTV together is a helpful synergy for diversity of choice, and a strong competitor for the much bigger threat to competition of the proposed Comcast merger.

While the FCC may be pursuing the admirable aim of increasing competition and choice for consumers within these markets, the AT&T/DirecTV merger seems on the face of it to be helpful to the cause, as a challenger for the new, much larger Comcast. However, the fact remains that more competition could still survive within these markets, and may in time prove necessary to bring the benefits of greater consumer choice to millions across America.

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