The world now mobilises with the help of Twitter. The “SMS of the Internet” has pervaded into the life of more than 500 million users worldwide. Naturally, Twitter is eyed as a one of the most lucrative platforms by marketers and advertisers.  However, marketing on twitter requires a little slant in your approach.

1.    Trigger Grapevine: Twitter is purely people-to-people communication. Marketing strategy should focus on engaging people and initiating them to talk about your brand. Rather than disseminating promotional messages, give people something to talk about.

2.    Go Personal: On Twitter you cannot adopt your run-of-the-mill mass communication approach. When using social media for marketing, it always pays to target people individually. Twitter is about real people and adding a personal touch to your tweets helps to actually connect with people.

3.    Reason to Follow: This goes without saying that sans followers all marketing strategies would amount to nothing on Twitter. Listen to people, talk to them and help them out. Unless you offer some value in your tweets, people would not have a reason to follow you.

4.    The Syntax: On Twitter, you have to follow a specific syntax to be heard. Twitter is about being crisp and to the point sans the fanfare. Your hash tags also play a critical role in making your tweets more prominent to your relevant demographics. It also helps to maintain a syntax that can be re-tweeted easily along with comments.

In the realm of Internet marketing, Twitter is a unique platform which is exceedingly nifty and instant.  The most apt use of twitter is not as just another channel of communication but as a catalyst of conversation.

Image courtesy About.com

As a concept, market automation is broad, dense and extremely channelized. But in a layman’s term, it can be defined as a process that uses technology to get customer feedback, automatically. Think of it as a system that will free you up from the redundant tasks of your business. An automated way of sending business reminders, invitations, notices, applications, promotional gifts and prizes.

However, when it comes to SEO, what is it that marketing automation can do? Businesses clearly understand the importance of generating leads. And, with marketing automation you can get a whole lot of visitor attention to your website. Awesome SEO is a definite advantage of marketing automation. You get those prospective leads without spending anything more than the justified inbound marketing costs.  What are savior tools? Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, enhanced SEO and smart Social Media Marketing tactics.

If you are thinking about the innumerable channels (read: e-mails, direct mail, mobiles etc.) that you would be required to use for marketing automation, focus on the word “automatic” again. One you have created SEO friendly content, everything else from updating to sharing to feedback becomes automated. So, all that you are left with to do is creating quality content.

SEO has come a long way from being the days of simple optimization. Now, it is the foundation of interactive communities and social enterprises. If your SEO is right, your marketing will be incredible. Surely, nothing can beat the broad experience and knowledge of marketing; however, with SEO your business is 5 steps ahead always.

Image Courtesy Search Engine Land (www.searchengineland.com)

Travel writing is one of the most delightful activities for most writers. Given that travelling across the world is one of most followed passion for many individuals, a travel writer does the job of recreating a place on paper for a curious reader. Since many readers travel to a place without actually getting there, travel writing has to be information dissolved with creativity.

Here are the 5 essentials that every travel writer must carry with him for a better experience-

1. Photography Equipments- A travel write-up is incomplete without the pictures of the place visited.  As a travel writer, your aim is to take your writers to where you already have been, through your words and pictures. For this purpose, make sure you carry photography equipments with you wherever you go. Carry your DSLR camera, batteries and charging devices.
2. Backpack- An explorer cannot afford to carry a heavy baggage wherever he goes. A travel writer has to have a backpack that perfectly fits all essentials – a few light clothes, body care kits, headphones etc. As a traveler, you may not always get the luxury of living in hotels and well organized places. Carrying a backpack is the need of the hour in such circumstances.
3. Map and guide books- A few places that you visit may not have the sign boards to guide you everywhere, hence, a map is a must for all those who travel into new places and especially travel writers. Guide books can be second priority as the deal is also about travelling into the lesser known.
4. Sharing devices- Many a times, some of the best write-ups turn out to be the ones written on the spot. Sharing the pictures of the place on the social media websites before a travel piece comes out is also a great way to keep your readers wanting for more. For this purpose, always carry your laptop, IPad or any other device that keeps you connected with the rest of the world.
5. A Notebook- Carrying a notebook may sound ancient, but it’s a must to have in your bag. One cannot write on a laptop while interviewing a local on the road. A notebook will help you get your facts right and collect the information too.

As they say, nothing is more enriching and enlightening than travelling. While you’re at it, ensure that you get the most out of a place using the essentials stated above.

Image courtesy ATCNA

The Panda created pandemonium when it was first rolled out in February 24, 2011. Webmasters from around the world were once again reminded that no matter what, Quality will remain the king of content. As content farms all around the world struggled to escape the clutches of the Panda, a number of writings on the internet were banished to some the end of Google listings.

The Panda arrived and conquered; and, SEO never remained the same.

Even though we have discussed quality as per Panda, before, we shall run a cursory glance through the Panda algorithm once again. Aimed at considerably improving the search result quality, Google Panda, now considers the most shared content as the most qualitative. So instead of the keyword density it will now be the Google Plus count of sharing that will determine your edge over the others. On a wider perspective, the bigger role of the Panda is to bin content that provides poor user experience.

But We aren’t Here to Talk About Another Panda Story!!

We ain’t here to sit back and grumble about how Panda gorged up our entire farm. We are here to resist its impact. So if your site was recently pushed down the ladder by the Panda, it’s time to get your ranking back. How do you do that? Five simple tips:

• Stop using black hat methods
• Optimize usage of coding and linking
• Take design seriously
• Update your content regularly
• Focus on quality

Since the Panda is most likely to attack websites that lack suitable SEO structure and contain too many adverts, it is essential to organize your work prior to making it available over the internet. No website can be “perfect”, but this excuse doesn’t work anymore. The quality standards have been raised significantly. Stop frowning and get down to business.

Image courtesy KISSWebmaster

The fact that social media platforms like Facebook have given companies a great platform to advertise and market their services has been stated numerous times now. Putting it across in a layman’s language- Create a page and get users to like it.

Creating a Facebook page is all about building a fan base, i.e. draw maximum number of likes. Engaging and retaining those fans follows next. Promotions and contests are arguably the easiest ways to build an audience. A usual Facebook page would ask users to ‘Like’ the page for taking part in the promotion or contest currently running. The promotion may be in the form of a discount on products or an invitation to a promotional event. Contests, on the other hand, select winners on certain basis. For example, some page would ask users to upload videos or photos with friends and then the best among them would be selected for giving away a prize.

Creating a Facebook contest is no rocket science, but it does require certain brain rummaging on your part for some innovative ideas. The more dynamic you want your contest to be, the higher would be the cost. Now there are various kinds of tools you can use to create a Facebook contest:

Fan Appz

Fan Appz offers you a package of applications that let you engage maximum users and facilitate viral sharing and help you to build a sustainable relationship with the fans

Oracle Virtue

This tool helps you build a fan base through Vitrue Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform. It makes way for cross-channel social media promotions and is used by various sports and entertainment companies around the world.

Votigo

Votigo is a tool that provides companies an ability to scale across multiple social networks. Votigo has its own set of products like Social Conversation Manager which uses an insightful dashboard to plan posts on several social channels. Votigo also uses analytics to monitor the social media and track the responses to posts in real-time manner.

Friend2Friend

Friend2Friend has a suite of engagement applications and products for building a social circle that encourages maximum user participation. It helps you conduct polls, quizzes, sweepstakes, etc. that help you increase your customer base and get a valuable feedback as well, turning your fans into customers.

Strutta

Strutta lets brands offer their fans a fully interactive brand experience. It provides you various tools like social gaming, photo galleries, social mobile, etc. this tool helps make quizzes or contest more interesting by facilitating the use of videos or images.

Image courtesy Hubspot

With Google Panda quality becomes a serious business. For those who still don’t get the basic Panda tactic, it is the new algorithm that automatically lowers the Google ranking of low quality content/ website/business. Seems scary? Watch out!!

Aiming for high quality should be your utmost priority. And also take note of the following points:

1. Don’t Let Ads Lure Away Traffic. Where links and advertisements were considered important for SEO, for making the Panda work for you, it is suggested that you keep links and ads that can supersede your content, to the minimum. The more the ad blocks on your content page, the more will be the drop in your ranking
2. Pay More Heed to Social Media. Sharing is important. Share your content on social media websites and help increase its visibility. Make your content interactive. Make it worthy of being shared by others. This will automatically determine your content’s quality.
3. Improve Brand Indicators. This will help you win some much needed trust. While discussing the technique of improving brand indicators is beyond the scope of this blog, it is important to understand that an increased level of trust comes from high quality and means higher Google ranking.
4. Make it Exclusive: Before you share your content, ask yourself the following:
   1. Is it “Engaging” and will it be shared?
   2. Does the content have a goal and does it reach a conclusion?
   3. Is it complete?

If your answer to all these is a yes then you can take a deep breath and be assured that you haven’t just added to the heap of low-quality content on the internet. The list given above is not comprehensive. It comprises of the simplest ways of dealing with the Panda. If you are sure of the quality, your ratings won’t be adversely impacted.

Even though it may seem like another bottleneck towards achieving quality, Google Panda is, indeed, a way of rewarding excellent quality. Having expressed its wrath against substandard content, the Panda pushes your content on the route of perfection.

Image credit goes to www.berkenboschmarketing.com

The concept of Marketing was originated to suffice for the need of a more intelligent and effective system for the delivery of services and goods. The concept still holds good but the modalities of its application have undergone a major change. With regard to the contemporary information age we live in, traditional marketing techniques have gradually given way to the need to market your product/service digitally. Read on to know why.

1. Engaging the Customer: The cardinal principle of marketing is to engage the customer and keep him engaged. Whilst traditional marketing methods have proved to be effective for this purpose, they are more or less passive in contrast to digital marketing. Digital marketing enables you to engage your customer on a much more intimate level. With social media, customers become an active member of the whole marketing communication process, enabling the marketers to establish a genuine rapport with them.
2. Seamless Simplification:  Unlike traditional marketing, the reach of digital marketing is not limited by geographical factors. The development cycle for a digital marketing campaign is fairly short and campaigns can be launched without much ado.
3. Individualised Approach: Via digital medium, you can specifically target your key demographics. Social media enables marketers to segregate the audience up to an individual level, as they have the access to the preferences, likes and interests of each person. Adding a personal touch goes a long way in terms of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – a key tenet of marketing.
4. Micro View: It is exceedingly simple to project and analyse results with digital marketing campaigns. As results are available in real-time and with every possible detail, it is possible to adopt a highly analytical approach with digital marketing.
5. Instant Feedback: Through traditional means it is almost impossible to gain feedback of the customer instantly. With instant feedback, digital marketing can help you identify and counter the shortcomings of the product/service which is crucial for a long term success.

Owing to the increasing dominance of the digital world over the real one, the past has seen the birth of many brands through digital marketing. “Digital” is the language the contemporary generation seems to conversing in and it will only be natural for the marketers to communicate with their audience in their colloquial language.

We are social.

Global? May be.

Globally on the same level? Not at the present.

It is surprising overwhelming that one of thebiggest challenges before social media is to become a “multinational platform”. Otherwise, it is failing to be an efficient channel of communication. However, becoming truly multinational is easier said than done. Look at it this way: Your business has multiple networks, a number of profiles in various languages. But, how do you exercise maximum control on each and every aspect of social media? Managing cross-cultural issues can be extremely tricky and challenging. But is there a way out? Yes, there is.

Since the problem of Multinational Social Media lies in its vast reach, its solution lies in defining the audience. And, then all you need to do is treat YOUR audience like YOUR universe.

Setting a “Social Style Guide” will prove to be of great help. So if your business is contemplating setting up Social Media on a Multinational platform, work on a social style guide to be adhered to by your audience. However, this doesn’t mean that you curb the freedom of those accessing the platform. Instead introduce tactic that bring in flexibility, while at the same time, covey uniformity.

As a Social Platform of business it is important that your brand and business both speak the same language. In other words, the social profiles of your business should exhibit you as you are. Not just the facts, figures and essential detail should be true, but, the style in which you present yourself should reflect your identity.

List Your Priorities and handle them first. As a multinational, it is extremely important that you prioritize your social media activities. This way you can manage the most critical of activities in the shortest span on time. Proceed logically, and systematically. On a multinational platform, you will also need to synchronize your priorities. Don’t leave any thread loose and remain connected.

Apple couldn’t have been such a huge name without the vision of Steve Jobs. We may not know how but Jobs definitely had the talent of shafting the essential from the non-essential; and, the courage to toss the dispensable.

At the heart of the extraordinary success of Apple lies the empathetic involvement of every member working with and for it. So what is there for writers to cull from a brand like Apple. Answer? Values!!

The Core Philosophy at Apple….and what it Teaches?

 Jobs was right when he said that the user doesn’t always know what they want. True, because until someone gave them the idea, they were not aware that such a concept/thing/service could exist. This might seem like a long lost lesson, but Jobs adopted the idea of familiarizing people with their wants and needs.

The same applies to content. Readers really don’t know what they are about to read in the very next line. They are not “aware” about the vast knowledge pool that exists on or off the internet. Lesson #1 that can be taken from Jobs’s philosophy is that content (and its marketing) needs to reach people for them to know about the existence of the source. Lesson #2 which emerges from the core philosophy of Apple is that until and unless you experiment with a new writing style, no one will be able to figure out that something could be written THAT WAY too.

How Did Success Happen to Them….And How Can it Happen to You

 It was not an overnight achievement. There was careful planning and adherence to values. Apple believed in turning the most ordinary of concepts into delightfully beautiful products. Your takeaway as a writer “Take something ordinary and make it gripping/interesting for your reader”.

Another great philosophy at Apple’s is to communicate the way the user does. How do YOU do that? By empathizing. Know your audience. Write the way that you think will be understandable by them. Writing for an IT company? Let the tone reflect you as an IT expert. Writing for a fashion magazine? Make it fun, fresh yet simple to understand. Last but not the least, “Think Different”.

With demand for online PR services at its peak, the cost for professional web content writing has gone up further. The basic principle behind outsourcing the job of writing for a company’s website is to maximize traffic to the website. Now there are different categories when it comes to website content, and each has its own price points:

Landing page

To understand the significance of the Landing page, you only have to remind yourself of the cliché, ‘first impression is the last impression’, which pretty much says it all. A landing page may be welcome page or the about us page of a website that talks about the company and its services in brief. Monotony is the tendency of the hour when it comes to writing for such pages. For converting the browsing audience into buyers, the content has to be innovative that catches attention on first contact. This is when the need to spend extra bucks on the website content arises.

Reputed copy and content creation agencies quote a higher price as they have the best writers in business. A lot of research goes into writing for the landing pages that is successful and acts as an effective salesman for your website, thus justifying the expensive fees.

SEO Blogs

There is no dearth of shortcuts to anything and everything, and so to increasing the website traffic. SEO blogs count among the most convenient and effective ways to increase traffic to your website. The conversational blogs give people a reason to visit a website and browse it. Blog writers can target topics based on the study of analytics and success of a particular write-up in the past. They are better attuned to the penchant of the readers, making sure the next click after the blog is the website URL.

Linkbait articles

Now there is not much of a difference between Linkbait articles and SEO blogs, minus the length and viral-ism associated with Linkbait articles. These articles require much more than just a regular write-up or a writer. People entrusted with writing a Linkbait article need to be more innovative in their writing and they have to spend a considerable amount of time while researching and writing these articles. Editing these articles takes even more time than writing. Most content writing companies would charge you per word when it comes to Linkbait articles.