All posts by Steven

Digital Branding

Social Media – Use And Abuse with Anonymous Blog “The Doe”

When people hear the term “fake news“, their usual first thought is about those social-media posts that contain inconceivable and bizarre stories. While the posts that are shared on different social media channels happens to be an aspect that is most visible, there is a lot more to “fake news” than an exaggerated article title on a social media feed. The Doe is an anonymous newspaper that provides a safe space for honest, straightforward thought-provoking news and is central in the fight against fake news. They discuss the use and abuse of social media in the world of news at the moment.

Cyber Propaganda And Fake News

Fake news often appears to be new. However, it usually just the platform that has been used that is new. Propaganda has been in use and around for hundreds of years, and the Internet has become the most current form of communication that is abused to tell lies and spread misinformation.

A Fire Triangle is a representation of 3 elements that are needed for a fire to burn. This includes fuel, heat, and oxygen. In a similar way, “fake news” needs 3 items in order to succeed. These items combined represent the Fake News Triangle. When one of these factors is missing, the misinformation and lies are not able to reach targeted audiences and spread.

The Fake News Triangle

The initial requirement includes services and tools to spread and manipulate a message across specific social media platforms or networks and many of these are sold across several online communities all over the world. There is a wide range of services and tools available, with some that are somewhat simple (paid followers/likes, etc.), while others are a bit more unusual, with services that promise to overstuff online polls. There are even services that force the owners of websites to remove stories. Regardless of what tactic is used, the services and tools for social media promotions are available from outside and the inside of the underground scenes.

In order for these types of tools to become useful, social channels need to be present as the platforms to spread propaganda. With more and more people spending a lot more of their time on such sites to gather information and to keep up-to-date with the current news, their importance when it comes to spreading fake stories and news should not be underestimated. However, there are differences between just putting up a propaganda post and turning the post into something targeted audiences consume. We give information on the types of techniques that spammers use to attract users into watching or reading their stories.

Analyzing social media provides us with more of an understanding of relationships that occur between bots and recipients of a social media promotion when it comes to platforms such as Twitter. This offers us a good idea of the organization and scope of these campaigns that are attempting to manipulate the opinions of the public.

Finally, propaganda campaigns are also always accompanied by the question: why? We talk about the motivations and goals behind these fake stories and news. In some cases, it is simply the desire to make profits through advertising. While in other situations, the goals may vary from political to criminal. Regardless of what the motive might be, how successful the propaganda campaign will be is based on the way that it has an impact on the “real world”.

Users, companies, and governments, have started to become more aware of the seriousness of manipulating public opinion, which has manifested in the form “fake news”.

Governments have started to realize that propaganda and “fake news” is something that needs to be dealt with. Many different government agencies have now started to set up services that are focused on exposing these stories, that they believe are false. Some government entities have even started to consider imposing regulations along with punishing and fining websites that have published this misinformation.

There is plenty of room for opinion-based reporting without it becoming fake news. Thedoe is a great source for this.

Some of the targets linked to the latest regulations include social-networking services. This will make misinformation and fake news extremely bad for businesses, and this is why they have taken the necessary steps to avoid it. These steps include suspending suspicious accounts/bots, adding in features that allow their users to file a report on fake news, and hiring additional personnel to assist with handling such reports.

However, at the end of the day, users need to become more informed and educated. In our paper, we go over the main signals to look out for when it comes to fake news, which will help readers to determine whether the posts they are reading are real or fake. We also go over the psychology linked to fake news in the way of explaining what makes these types of campaigns work, along with how they convince readers. When readers are aware of these techniques we hope that it will empower them to resist these misleading stories and information.

Legal Branding

4 Benefits of Putting Property In a Trust

If you are considering your options for when you pass away you may have put some consideration into how your property is handled. A trust, or a legal document that outlines how your property and assets are distributed after you pass away, may be your best option.

Compared to a will, putting your property in a trust offers several distinct advantages which you’ll learn about below. But before we dive into the four benefits of putting property in a trust let’s explain the two main types of trusts that exist.

Revocable & Irrevocable Trusts

Revocable, or living, trusts give you full access and ownership of the trust until you pass. 

Irrevocable trusts, on the other hand, put a trustee in charge of the trust even while you are still alive. Another advantage to irrevocable trusts is that your property is removed from the value of your estate, saving money on taxes after death.

This is just one benefit of having a trust in place, here are four others:

1. Avoid the Probate Process

If you put a trust in place in lieu of using a will, you can avoid probate. If you don’t put a trust in place and leave your property in a will, your family will have to go through the court-supervised process of distributing assets, paying taxes, paying bills, thus delaying the time in which your beneficiaries can claim your property.

2. Avoid Probate Fees

If you leave your property in a will, the above logistics will require legal counsel. This will add additional costs to your family and may result in the family having to pay up to 3% of your asset’s value in probate fees. 

3. Avoid Public Record

If you’d prefer to keep the delegation of your assets private and free from public records, trust is the way to go. Probate is a public process and allows the will to become public records after your death. This means disputing family members may be able to see who got what and cause inheritance issues.

4. No Delays in Property Transference

Probate is often a lengthy process that has to be wrapped before assets are transferred. Alternatively, a trust will allow your beneficiaries to receive their property immediately upon your passing. They can also sell the property immediately if they choose to do so.

Cons of a Trust

Of course, anything that has this many benefits also has a few negatives you should be aware of. 

For starters, setting up a trust is a much more involved process, resulting in additional upfront attorneys fees. Expect the fees to increase the more properties you have to transfer.

Other logistics will have to be factored in as well, including the retitling of assets for the trust to ensure they’ll be inherited as intended. For example, your homeowner’s insurance may need to be updated, as will any other related service-based companies that are connected to your name.

Finally, sometimes a trust alone will not cover all the assets of the deceased so a will may still be necessary. This is why it is important to consult with an attorney or financial planner to determine how your estate will be handled once you pass.

Legal Branding

How to Keep Yourself Moving If You’re Feeling Stuck at Work

It is easy to get stuck and feel bored at work. This is likely due to the fact that you’re not encountering any challenges enough, not having proper work to do, or just getting tired of doing the same mundane tasks daily. Regardless of how the issue could be, boredom at work can lead to negativity, lack of inspiration and effort which is something you don’t want to put yourself in. Here are some essential ways to get rid of the agonizing feeling of boredom and make your working life exciting again!

1. Visualize Success

Visualization has been adopted by people to imagine their desired outcomes and successes. This exercise allows one to achieve their task or goal with complete focus and confidence. Mastering this skill will help you and the professional CV writing service you team up with demonstrate all your strengths and achievements on your CV if you decide on a career change. Visualization assists in developing a creative subconscious which promotes generating unique ideas. Take for instance, while sitting down with your colleagues for a brainstorm session, encourage everyone to visualize to develop a theme for a marketing campaign.

Practicing visualization is a straightforward method. Sit in a comfortable spot, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and let your imagination take its course. Construct a visual in your mind that represents the dream or your goal that you want to accomplish. Maintain your focus on the imagery and affirm yourself that you can attain it. Keep practicing it twice a day as part of your daily routine so that you can accelerate your achievement of those goals and dreams.

2. Talk to your boss or supervisor about the problems in your job

The best way to resolve this issue is to go directly to your superior so that they can help you out. You can discuss handling more challenging work or tasks, preferably that fits your interest. This approach would certainly benefit both sides as you get to improve and learn more while helping the company by filling up the gaps in areas that require more support.

This is your opportunity to exercise your ability and time to its fullest by going beyond your boss’s expectations. Once you have completed the repetitive and mundane tasks, invest your remaining time on duties that are beyond your job scope. Over time, your boss will recognize your work ethics and commitment. The opportunity to climb your career ladder would be within your grasp.

3. Pick up new skills when you have downtime

If you have plenty of spare time during or after work, take this opportunity to expand your knowledge and learn new skills. Arming yourself with new knowledge can be beneficial to you as well as getting rid of the sense of feeling stuck at work. If you are looking for resources, here are some of the best e-learning platforms to pick up any skill that you need.

  • Skillshare: platform focused on creative education. Topics covered from graphic design, music production to fine art and cooking. Other technical classes include data science, analytics, and e-commerce as well.
  • Udemy: over 80,000 different courses, Udemy is one of the best online learning platform marketplaces. Not only it covers professional skills, but Udemy also covers hobbies as well ranging from growing plants to playing video games. That being said, there are not many well-known instructors that use Udemy as the main learning platform.
  • Coursera: an online course marketplace that is mainly catered for professionals. Coursera features some of the world’s best companies and universities in the world. Courses include arts, humanities, sciences, business, IT, languages, personal development and many more.
  • LinkedIn Learning: platform tailored to business professionals. There are over 1,000 courses on topics such as project management, web development, and digital marketing. It’s also one of the best platforms if you’re looking at your skill up-to-date. LinkedIn Learning also provides certification for you to include in your profile, displaying your expertise and improving your online resume.

If you are still unsure of what to learn, general skills can be fun and useful to learn at making you a more well-rounded person. Some of the best general skills that you should consider picking up include:

  • Speed reading
  • Learn a new language
  • Learn how to draw
  • Learn basic photoshop
  • Photography
  • Gain the ability to be humorous

4. Find positivity in your job

Regardless of what your job is, there will always be a positive side in your profession. Whether it’s being helpful and supportive of others by creating value in their work or just being able to engage with people, you will find something that you enjoy doing with your career. Another approach is to volunteer to lead in a project, instead of waiting for work to be assigned to you and get stuck with the same mundane task. In this way, you can have more freedom over your work and establishing a better impression of your superior for your willingness to lead projects.

Most importantly, surround yourself with positive people at the workplace because they can provide you with the motivation to achieve your goals, empower you to make the changes to succeed and cheer you on your success.

5. Build momentum through achieving small success

No matter how mundane your job is, obtaining success is still a catalyst that provides joy when you completed tasks and being recognized by your peers. Appreciating your small successes and the small steps you take can be the tipping point between failing and succeeding. The lack of appreciation and gratefulness can also lead you down the path of not being able to see the significance of your own small successes. Last but not least, reward yourself for achieving your small goals. This could be anything from treating yourself to your favorite meal or a drink. Always having something to look forward to is the best approach to train your brain into creating motivation.

About the Author

You Jing is a content writer who writes about career and lifestyle topics to inspire job seekers and employers alike on their journey to work-life balance, empowerment, and transformation in their career path.

Basic education
Personal Branding

How To Advance Your Career With Continuing Education

Education is a continuous process. You can’t ever say that “I’ve had enough education” because there’s no “enough” in this journey to be educated. After completing their schools and universities, people start worrying about getting a job or making a career in a particular field. They think that the rest of their lives will all be about “money making” and that they won’t have to worry about any books, exams, or results, etc. Well, this is where they are wrong. People need to understand that furthering their education will only help them with their careers. With continuing education by your side, you will come across all those opportunities that you have been dreaming about.

However, you shouldn’t take any step without proper research, and that’s what we are here for today. Today we are going to help you in advancing your career by continuing your education. This article can change your life, so take notes and do read it all thoroughly.

Why Pursue Continuing Education

What's your continuing education goal

1- Goal Evaluation

The very first thing you need to do is to evaluate your goal before you get back to school for education. Your goal can be anything, from getting a pay raise at work or polishing your skills or entering a new field entirely. No matter what it is, you have to work on identifying that goal, and that’s when you can think about the rest of the things you have to do for the continuation of your education.

2- Professional Feedback

Just reading an online article isn’t enough. You are about to make a decision that will probably change your life, and this is where you should seek professional help. Ask around for opinions, talk to people who are continuing their education with their career. Speak to your boss or an HR representative so that you know that the step you are about to take is a wise one.

College lecture

3- Continuing Education Options

If it’s a “yes” from everyone and all the signs are positive for you, then the next step is to identify what you are going to do. Are you going to pursue your studies full time at a physical campus or will you be opting for a method that saves you time and doesn’t interrupt your work too?

Our suggestion here is to opt for online courses that provide certificates the very next day when you are done with the course, such as  https://cpdonline.co.uk/. Here you’ll get the best courses that will not only help you with your skills and knowledge, in fact, these courses will open better opportunities for you too. It’s just that you need to do proper research and then make a final decision. The CPD online courses are tried and tested, and they are the best for you.

Online learning

4- Time Management

No matter what it is, you cannot deny the fact that you need to manage your time if you want to continue education with your career. It’s a necessity and not an option, so work on time management and then see the results on your own. If you don’t manage your time, you won’t be able to continue your education, and on top of it all, your work will get disturbed too, which is the last thing on Earth that you want.

Conclusion

These are some of the things you have to do in order to continue your education with your career. Believe it or not, this can be the best decision of your life, so think about it and follow all of what we’ve mentioned above.

Boosting your company's digital image
Digital Branding

How to Boost Your Company’s Digital Image

In today’s world, so much of life operates on the internet. Although this has an impact on everyday society and social interactions, it also has significant repercussions on how businesses operate. Of course, the quality of a company’s products and customer service are still incredibly important in retaining customers and earning referrals. But, increasingly, a company is not viable in the long-term unless it has an excellent digital image.

That is, every business must have an effective and appealing internet presence if it is going to be successful. Therefore, factors such as social media activity and website layout should be important to you as you grow or build your business. Here are a few ways you can begin to create a reliable and viable internet presence for your company.

Make your website design clear

21185368 – website template

Clean Up Your Website and Other Professional Profiles

If your company has been around for a while, chances are your website has, too. Even if it’s only been a few years since you updated and upgraded your website, it’s probably time to do it again. Effective websites should be aesthetically appealing, simple, and easy to navigate. Especially if your website was created a while ago, it may be overly busy or bright, since that used to be the preferred style online. Today, however, that style doesn’t fly anymore. Your website should have clean, simple colors and easy-to-read fonts.

Every page on your site should be accessible via a “map” that runs either on the side or on the top of the website. This will make sure that your visitors can get anywhere on the website that they’d like to, with one simple click. While you’re redoing the style of your website, also update any old content, and double check for typos or grammatical errors. Small typos on the front page of your website will turn away customers before they even have a chance to figure out what your company is all about.

Maximize website SEO

Make Use of SEO for your Website

Even the most beautiful and functional website is useless unless people are actually visiting. After you’ve upgraded and modernized your website, it’s time to boost the number of visitors. To increase traffic to your website, make use of SEO — search engine optimization. SEO runs on a number of factors, one of the most important of which is keyword use. Do some research and find out the most relevant keywords used when people search for companies such as yours. Then, incorporate those keywords throughout your website content, so that your website will begin to appear higher in search engines’ results.

Be warned not to overuse keywords, however. This can get your website marked as “spam,” and can also turn visitors away if the content does not read naturally and fluidly. For instance, a digital marketing firm may make good use of the keyword “Above The Fold Media – SEO firm” by utilizing it in website headers or photo captions. However, attempting to weave a phrase such as that into the text of blog posts may prove tricky and ultimately be detrimental to the company’s SEO rankings.

Check out this video by SEO link builder Julian Goldie and learn more about keyword research:

 

 

Stay Up-to-Date with Social Media

While you’re paying attention to your website, don’t forget to make use of social media as well. Make sure that your company has an official and accurate Facebook page, and check it regularly so that you can respond quickly to any comments or messages. If relevant to your company, also consider starting a Twitter or Instagram account, so that you can interact with your customer base and earn followers through your posts.

Keep in mind that internet trends can change quickly, so it’s important to be in tune with your customer base. Pay attention to any feedback you get from customers, and you’ll be well on your way to creating an appealing internet presence for your company.

Employment lawyer
Local Branding

What Things To Look For in an Employment Lawyer

Being an employer is not just about hiring people according to their skills and capabilities, in fact, there’s a lot more to this job. An employer undeniably is the most powerful person in a company, but at the same time, he has to deal with other things too that may require clarification from an employment lawyer.

For example, in case of any fraud or contract breachment, the employer may have to initiate actions The legal advice that you want can only be given to you by an employment lawyer, and that’s what we are here to discuss today. If you want the best value for your money and if the case is serious, then you should opt for a strong firm like Abogados Laborales de Kingsley y Kingsley.

An ordinary employment lawyer might not be able to help you with your case, which is why it’s important to consider a few factors before hiring a specialist. To aid you in this process, here are some of the most important things that you should look for in an employment lawyer.

Law books

What To Look For In An Employment Lawyer

1- Reputation

When it comes to lawyers and advocates, reputation is everything, and you should always consider it while hiring someone. No court case is easy, and it takes a strong lawyer to win the case for you, so a little research on hiring the right person for the job shouldn’t hurt. It’s not difficult, all you have to do is to do some online research and ask a few people around about the particular lawyer that you are looking forward to hiring. Is the lawyer well known and well regarded? If there are no red flags that you come across, then you should confidently proceed with hiring him you

2- Experience With Employment Cases

Attorneys always have a portfolio that lists the types of cases they have taken and the outcomes; You should ask the employment lawyers about the work they have previously done for other clients. Never hire someone without having a look at their portfolio which should include cases similar to yours in the past. This way, you will be able to trust him more with your case.

3- Online Reviews

A good lawyer or a good law agency will always have a strong online presence. It can be a Facebook page or a proper website. Our suggestion here for you is to always hire the person that has a proper website working under his name. This shows the professionalism of the lawyer. Speaking of online presence, it’s quite obvious that if you are hiring an experienced employment lawyer, people have certain reviews about him. Now what you are supposed to do is to search for those online reviews, read them, and make sure that you are hiring the right person. Online reviews have a lot to say about an employment lawyer, his professionalism, and the way he deals, so do take notice of that.

Preparing documents

Conclusion

These are some of the important things you should consider when hiring an employment lawyer. Just consider all of what we said, and we assure you that you will end up with the right person who will give you the best legal advice.

Now, search for an employment lawyer or ask your friends and family if they have someone to refer to. If yes, consider these factors and hire him right away!

Social media promotion
Digital Branding

8 Powerful Ways to Promote Your Product in Social Media

Social media has become an innate part of everyday life for a lot of people all over the world. Not only is it a universal tool but it is also quite powerful. You can use social media for personal purposes but a lot of businesses have also found social media to be useful when it comes to promoting their products to a wide variety of audiences.

If you don’t have a social media presence as a business, you might find that you lose out on opportunities with potential clients. On that note, you should try and learn how to utilize social media to help power up your business. Here are several ways you can do that.

Social media marketing

Ideas To Promote Your Business On Social Media

Partner with Bloggers and Influencers

The great thing about social media is that it gives normal, average people the chance to become noticed and generate a solid following. They can have a variety of interests so if you have a particular niche as a business, you’re bound to find an influencer or blogger that has the following filled with your target customers.

Some businesses can get away with partnering with bloggers and influencers regardless of who their followers mainly are. However, to ensure that you aren’t wasting your money partnering with certain bloggers and influencers you want to do your research and figure out who their main audience is.

Knowing what you want from your influencers and bloggers will ensure that you have a smoother transaction with them. After all, not all of them know how to deal with business transactions so you should take charge.

Create Explainer Videos

There are plenty of ways you can advertise your products online. From online image ads to sponsored content, you will have plenty of avenues to promote your product on social media. For particular products, one content that you should invest in is explainer videos.

Plenty of experienced branding agency Auckland based know that you should create explainer videos for your products. The types of products that will most need explainer videos are software if you’re selling them. Having an explainer video will make it simpler for your customers to understand how to use your product.

Even if you have a product that might seem like a no-brainer, like clothes, it might be great to have an “explainer” video. It doesn’t really explain how to use the product. It just shows how it looks on a video.

Social media sharing

Share on Social Media

The most important task that you should do for your business’s social media is to share the content in some form on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be every day. As long as you are consistent and have a schedule for when you post, then you should be able to build a considerable size for your community on social media.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should be constantly sharing posts that are promoting your products. It can feel like you’re a always showing ad so people might be irritated. You should share not only content that you produce but also content that other fans of your products have produced. It’s a great way to build a relationship with your community.

Run Social Media Contests

One way to attract attention to your social media accounts is by running a social media contest to give out awards on those who engage with the contest. Before you run any social media contests, you first have to make sure that you aren’t breaking any rules for specific social media platforms that you are running it in.

Use Email Marketing

Many people might think that email is no longer a popular avenue to communicate with your target audience. However, every expert marketer knows that email marketing is still a strong avenue that can attract a lot of attention to your business.

Use email newsletters as a way to share relevant information with your subscribers as well as an avenue to share promotions and sales to them.

Create In-Store Promotions

If you have physical locations then you might as well create promotions online that will persuade anyone who sees it go to your store location. One way to do that is by creating a sale that is only applied inside your physical location. You can also market a specific product that is only available at particular branches.

Offer an Upgrade or Trade-In

If the product that you are offering isn’t a physical product and is instead a service, then you might want to create offers for upgrades or trade-ins. These upgrades are best marketed towards your more loyal customers is so that you can continue to have them with you for a long time.

Loyal customers will be an advocate for your brand without you even asking them to as long as you treat them well consistently.

Share Customer Reviews

Making use of the positive reviews that you get from previous customers will help potential customers that are on the fence about whether they should use your product or not. Sharing these reviews on social media every once in a while can help persuade them to be a customer too.

Use social media for business

Over To You

Social media as a powerful tool and it would be a shame as a business owner if you don’t utilize this for the growth of your business. The ways listed above are but a drop in the ocean when it comes to how you can make the most out of your social media presence for your business. Apply them in your next marketing plan and you will surely realize growth in your business.

American ginseng tea
Local Branding

Tips To Make American Ginseng Tea At Home

If you are here right now, it looks like you’ve heard about the benefits of Ginseng from your friends or family, or you just read about it online, and now you want to give it a try. If that’s the case and if you really do want to give the Ginseng tea a try, then know that you are about to take one great step

Ginseng is currently the talk of the town, and it’s not just being used in one country or one region: in fact, it’s being used all around the globe. This is probably the reason why you’ll always find Ginseng roots to be extremely expensive, and even a pound of them can cost you hundreds of dollars. But at the same time, there’s another fact: you won’t ever find something as useful as Ginseng.

Making American Ginseng Tea At Home

Here are some tips that can help you get the best out of your American Ginseng tea at home;

1- Always Buy From A Reputable Place

We cannot stress enough on the importance of buying Ginseng from a reputable place. There are people who hunt young Ginseng plants, which of course, means that you don’t get to enjoy all the benefits of this plant. But at the same time, there are some companies who don’t compromise on the quality of Ginseng at all. Especially if you are drinking the tea for health purposes, you need to ensure that you are buying the roots from a quality place.

2- Use Fresh Roots

Ginseng roots aren’t like wine that the older they are, the better they taste. In fact, it’s the opposite when it comes to these roots and their taste. The fresher the roots are, the better the tea will be. In this case, you can do two things! First is that you can grow Ginseng in your own house (if you live in areas where this is permitted), and the second thing you can do is that you can buy from a company that sells fresh Ginseng roots at a reasonable price. The fresher the roots, the more you can rely on the benefits of Ginseng tea.

Tea with lemon

3- Add Honey And Lemon

Honey and lemon is probably the best combination in the world to enhance the taste of literally any tea in the world that you make including  Ginseng tea. If you want your tea to taste great, then just add a spoon of honey and half a lemon inside your cup and enjoy it. It won’t only taste good this way, in fact, it will also be more beneficial because you already know how good honey and lemon are for your body.

4- Let The Essence Spread

There are several ways to make the Ginseng tea, and all of them include the process of boiling some water and putting the roots inside. Now it’s quite obvious that if you let the roots sit inside the water for long, the essence, the taste etc, everything will get better. So here’s another tip that can help you get the best out of your GInseng tea. Just let the roots sit in the water for long and then see the results on your own.

Conclusion: American Ginseng Tea

These are some basic tips that can help you make a great cup of American GInseng tea that will taste great, it will feel great, and on top of everything else, it will be beneficial for you. You can have at least 3 to 4 cups of this tea every day, and within a week or two, you will be shocked with the benefits for your health.

 

Digital BrandingPersonal Branding

An Expert’s Guide to Generating Leads on Facebook

Marketing isn’t always straightforward, and for many marketers and entrepreneurs, generating leads is a challenge. Facebook is a great platform to help you generate more leads. It’s a place where you can turn a conversation into customer loyalty and purchases, as well as getting to know your customers even better. Let’s see what it takes to generate leads on Facebook.

Why Facebook Is An Ideal Platform To Generate Leads On

There are a couple of reasons why Facebook is one of the best platforms to generate leads. And while you might have read that Facebook’s network growth has slowed down, they still have over 2.50 billion monthly active users. So, if you create a well-strategized presence focused on both organic and paid advertising methods, your possibilities on this platform are endless.

Another reason to use Facebook is that you can set different objectives as your goal with a campaign, which is something that most other platforms are not able to provide, even in 2020.  But not just that, the platform has made its name in lead generation with thanks to one of marketing’s golden rules: ‘know your audience.’ And while many marketers, such as yourself, might think that they already know their audience, the data you’ll gather when advertising on Facebook, might say otherwise.

Building Engagement And Expertise

f you want to start generating organic Facebook likes, it is essential to remember that you’re going to need to build a community that trusts you and create a lot of engagement.

Engagement And Community Building

Increasing or building brand engagement is important because the trust you create will eventually trigger more purchases. People are engaged with your content if they like, click, and comment. To make sure this happens, you will have to create value for your audience by writing exciting content, showing entertaining videos, and answering questions about your product/service.

You can also utilize customer reviews to build more trust. But if you do, it is an essential thing to keep in mind that you have to remember to always reply to messages, customer reviews, and questions. This will help you build a relationship with your potential customers, which will eventually generate more leads. 

Another thing you can do to improve the engagement with your brand and products is to build a community on Facebook. When you start with creating your community, you need to take a good look at yourself. A community is not about making a profit (or at least not directly); it is about personal success and helping others to succeed too. It creates mutually beneficial relationships that add value to your business, your own life, and that of the other community members.

When building a community, you can introduce the expert approach. This means you share valuable, expert level, information about topics that relate to your audience and product. The aim is to trigger a more in-depth conversation or discussion. You do this by asking questions and making comments as well as inviting others to share content too. Once you have established brand engagement and trust, you’re ready to start with Facebook Advertising. 

Facebook Advertising

Advertising is used for many different things, and such is the case with Facebook Advertising as well. Objectives like doing market research, getting customer feedback, and increasing conversion can be applied to create advertisements on Facebook. In this paragraph, we will focus on Facebook Lead Ads. 

Facebook Lead Ads are promotion forms that allow marketers, or anyone else who is interested in the matter, to collect information from possible customers. You’re also able to connect with prospects, get them to sign-up for newsletters, demo requests, and blog notifications. 

And by using dynamic creative, you can make sure to deliver the right message, at the right time to the right person.

Facebook lead generation lets you sync with your company’s CRM, which allows you to follow-up quicker and more efficiently. When you create a lead ad and someone clicks on it, they get presented with a unique form that automatically selects the information on their profile. After that, the users only need to confirm with a few clicks, super easy. You get the data into your CRM and will be able to give this new possible customer a quick call. You should also check out onlineacademy.com/ if you’re looking for some of the best training on Facebook advertising. This will help you cut your learning curve in half and go straight to making profits for your clients or your ecommerce website.

A tip for creating leads ads that will convert is that people are more willing to help you if you help them. Meaning, if you offer something in return for the data that you need, users are often more inclined to fill out the form. 

Building campaigns

Building campaigns with Facebook is relatively easy. The first thing you will have to do is to set a goal for your campaign. Facebook offers three different categories of objectives to choose from awareness, consideration, and conversion. If you’re going to get more leads, you’ll need to select conversion. These are the next steps to building a campaign:

  • Specify the ad set, that will determine how your ad will run. Think about this carefully, because targetting will make or break your campaign. 
  • After you’ve selected all the qualities of your possible customers, it’s time to build and test your ad creative. You can choose from different formats that are set up, which makes it easy to run. 
  • Once this is done, you are ready to launch your campaign. 

Statistics

After you’ve set up your campaign and it is running, it’s time to take a look at Facebook Statistics. We’ve selected the five most important measurements to keep track of to maximize your Return On Investment with Facebook Ads. 

1. The first is impressions, also known as the number of times your ad is shown and seen.

2. The number of clicks and the click-through-rate shows how interested people are in your ad. You can calculate the CTR by dividing the number of clicks through the number of impressions. 

3. Conversion rate, the conversion relates to the actions taken on your website after users come from your ad. 

4. Return on ads spend is defined as revenue divided by the costs of the ads. 

5. Lifetime value is the projected value that a customer will have during his or her entire life. In marketing, you often set a goal as to how much you want that value to be.

Increasing click-through rates

The click-through rate (CTR) of your ads is one of the best ways to understand how your audience is responding to your ads. There are a couple of things that will help you increase your CTR. 

The first is to distill your audience. You are increasing your CTR through audience redefining means that you will only select the users who are most likely to click on your ad. Let’s say that you noticed that men between 20 and 30 are clicking the most, and women of the same age group almost not at all. You should retarget your audience to men between 20 and 30. This means you are targetting the highest quality audience, which will increase your click-through rate. In other words, you are shifting from volume to value-based marketing. 

Another aspect of improving your CTR is content. The images and text you use play a huge role in your CTR. Unfortunately, there is no easy fix for this one; you will have to test to figure out what works for your audience. 

Facebook Messenger

Another way of reaching your audience is through Facebook Messenger. Through a messenger, you will be able to engage in actual, live conversations with your prospects. These conversations can help you gather more information and ask in-depth questions.

It is also possible to create ads that have a click-through to a messenger. If you set up an automated chat, you will be able to get an excellent and full idea of who your potential customers are and what they are looking for in a product.  

Facebook’s messages objective is a tool that will help start even more conversations. Through this tool, your ad gets delivered to people who are statistically most likely to want to have a conversation with your business. 

Conclusion

We hope that after reading this article, you feel comfortable enough about generating leads on Facebook to give it a try. The platform offers great flexibility when it comes to marketing goals and has an immense network of possible customers. Facebook Advertising and Facebook Messenger allow you to get to know and understand your potential customers. If you are patient enough to build your audience’s engagement and earn their trust, you will soon be swimming in leads.

Digital Branding

Email Marketing 2020: A Guide on How You Can Properly Use Email Marketing

Without a doubt, email marketing can do wonders for your business. So, if you are quite new to it, you will need a guide to email marketing to know how it all plays out. 

But first, let us explain why email marketing is important. 

Importance of Email Marketing

Email marketing harnesses the power email to create meaningful relationships with your audience. 

This also allows you to capture important information from your audience by letting them subscribe to your email list. That way, you can send exclusive content and easily build rapport with them.

When done right, email marketing will not just let you build a relationship with your audience. You can also use email to compel to make a transaction with you. Hence, email marketing can be a viable stream of income for your business.

Mind you, there are tons of tips and guides online that lets you learn how email marketing can generate a return on investment. 

Types of Emails

Now that you know why you need email marketing for your business, it is time to get familiar with various types of emails:

1. Marketing Emails

These are either promotional or informational emails sent out to users who asked you to keep them updated.

Marketing emails are usually sent in the form of newsletters, announcements, sales promotions, follow-ups, press releases, surveys, and so on. Check out these email copywriting tips in order to write high-converting email copy.

2. Transaction Emails

Transactional emails are usually automated and sent out based on site visitors’ activities. Examples of these are order tracking, welcome messages, received payments, registration confirmation, and so on. 

If you have sent a transactional email to a user and they have at least completed one action, then they will likely want to engage with you again.

Usually, these are considered as trusted emails and have higher open rates because they provide a lot of opportunities for engagement and cross-selling. 

3. Operational Emails

This kind of email provides important data about your business. Examples of these are maintenance plans, holiday closures, changes to the availability of your services, and so on. 

While you might think that operational emails don’t have much impact on your sales, you still have to be consistent on it for trust and engagement purposes. 

There’s likely a hidden value in these messages. Although most of them tend to be informative, they help improve your sales and the value of your image. 

Let’s say your site will be down for maintenance, informing your subscribers about it and describing the updates you will perform is a great way to remind them of the kind of value that you provide. 

Strategies for Email Marketing

As mentioned earlier, email marketing can bring in ROI for your business as long as it is done properly. That said, we have listed down eight tactics that can help you build a successful email marketing campaign:

1. Know Your Audience

According to Kevin Urrutia of VoyMedia Marketing Agency NYC, having a deep understanding of your target audience is one of the important things that you have to take into consideration before you start sending emails. 

Ask yourself these questions:

  • How and when do they prefer to be communicated to?
  • Is there a specific language or slang that would resonate with them more?
  • What kind of action or activities make them stand out from the rest of the population?

2. Personalize Your Emails

Nowadays, neither blast nor batch emails will not work and would lead to high conversion or engagement rates.

Personalization is not a new concept but it is still picking up traction, which makes it increasingly important.

3. Think Quality Over Frequency

Email marketing is an excellent tool for communicating digitally. But you should also prioritize quality over quantity. 

For instance, sending too many emails to your subscribers cannot help you achieve your desired results. Worse, they will unsubscribe the moment they feel overwhelmed with the emails that you send.

Worst, they might even mark you as spam. 

4. Make it Easy to Unsubscribe

Although on the surface, you look like you are providing clients with an easy way to opt-out, if users want you to remove your name from their list and they could not easily do so, they will flag you as spam.

This can pose problems for you later on. 

5. Find the Perfect Time

Knowing what’s the perfect time to send your emails is no easy feat. But although there is no silver bullet answer to that, having an audience insight could come in handy.

For instance, you can try sending out emails during “off times.” For example, in the afternoon when people are less likely to open their inbox because they are busy having lunch. You can also try sending emails in the evening when everyone’s having dinner or they are fast asleep. 

Sending emails on top of the hour increases the chances that your email will be delayed, and will not reach your recipient as you originally intended it. 

6. Make Emails Mobile-Friendly

What is the first thing that most people do in the morning? Well, most of them reach for their phones.

In relation to this, do you know that 66% of email opens happen in phones and tablets? If your email is not optimized for these devices, then you could be missing out on a higher open rate. 

7. Keep it Out of Spam Folder

If you send out poorly constructed emails and are flagged by users as spam, then your emails are less likely to see the light of day.

Poorly formatted emails will hurt you in the long run. Also, note that every spam filter works differently.

An email might pass through one filter and then flagged and caught up in another. To learn more about this, check out MailChimp‘s guide for a comprehensive explanation of how those filters work. 

8. Always be Testing

Do not send out anything if you are not sure that it is working properly.

Double-check your emails and see if you want them to look the way you want them to be before you send them out. 

View them first on Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook, and different mobile devices before you decide to finalize your drafts. 

Over to You

Email marketing can be a powerful tool to drive more sales and revenue to your business. It also has proven itself to have a greater reach and ROI than any marketing channel out there.

So, follow the tips we have outlined in this guide so that you can easily get your hands on email marketing.