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Category: Business

Brand Permission Stratagies

You don’t have to have a sales team if you have brand permission strategies in place.

What is Brand permission? Let me answer it by asking you the question – why do big brands like Apple, Microsoft, always advertise, even though the average consumer knows about them? The two essential things they try to achieve is maintaining brand recognition and educate the consumer – you on the value of their product.

So for example when your kids are going back to school, you make a natural buying decision base on a brand you know and feel you can trust.

So Brand permission is creating brand awareness and value of your product or service before you ask for a sale.

Note

If your business depends on sales, it makes it easier for your sales team to achieve sales goals if the consumer has already given your team permission to sell to them.

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Facebook Changes, What They Mean, and What Is Ahead

Hello everyone! Let me start off this update by (finally) introducing myself and let you know  what my role is at Authentic Imaging.  My name is Ashley and for the last couple of years, I have been the person scheduling and finding relatable content for social media as well as performing small website updates as directed by Philip. Additionally, I try to keep up with the latest trends and algorithm changes behind each social media platform to ensure Authentic Imaging is doing our part in keeping our clients ahead in the digital marketing landscape.

As some of you may have heard, two weeks ago Facebook announced some major changes to their news feed and what people will (or won’t) be seeing from business pages and groups.  In plain terms, Facebook is limiting the amount of posts that people will see from business pages in an effort to connect people who care about each other in a more meaningful way. They have determined that mindlessly scrolling through posts that we do not connect to is detrimental to our health and are taking steps to correct this, even if it means spending less time of Facebook.

With that being said, a large number of businesses and social media marketers initially went into panic mode. The reason being is simpleâ€ĶFacebook has been a great source of extremely cheap, and far-reaching, advertising for a good number of years. Businesses, especially those who concentrated on e-commerce sales, could advertise to people all over the world that were interested in their products without much focus on creating meaningful relationships. However, this announcement really shouldn’t have come with too much shock. The reality is that Facebook was created to connect people, not a place for businesses to advertise their products.

The good news in all of this is that this announcement falls in line with what Authentic Imaging has been saying for over a year.  Make social media more sociable and relatable.  We’ve never been digital marketers that only focus on selling a product. We want followers of the pages we manage to find useful information that they can use in their lives and keep coming back to our clients as knowledgeable sources of the information they are looking for.

The bad news is that providing this relative information is no longer enough. We need to make sure that our client’s Facebook pages are a community for people to come and interact with business owners and staff who know what they are talking about.  We need to encourage dialogue and conversation that is useful to everyone involved. A personal relationship must now be developed on a digital platform.

What does this all mean for the future? It means that we need to develop a more in-depth and constant communication with our clients about what is going on inside their business in order for our clients and their followers to form the connection that Facebook is looking for. As to how we are going to make this happen, Authentic Imaging is still in the strategic planning phase and will let each digital marketing client know exactly what changes will be coming and/or be in contact for a more in-depth meeting in the following weeks.  In the meantime, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.  Thank you!

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Why 97 percent of your social media content will not reach your audience

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Best practices for highly effective websites

Best practices for highly effective websites

Get the maximum value for your site Website Review Balancedietbillings.com by special request (Toni Kramer)

Scenario

  • This is Nancy – I’m cranky & Impatient
  • I just moved to Billings
  • I plan on getting married in June
  • I work a 9 to 4 week day job
  • I’m also looking after my old parents
  • I have tried several weight loss program
I’m looking to find local weight management in billings and happen to find several places locally online.
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How To Turn Your Site Idea Into a Finished Website: 8 Important Steps You Need To Consider

How To Turn Your Site Idea Into a Finished Website: 8 Important Steps You Need To Consider

The eCommerce industry is one of the fastest growing industries globally today. The global eCommerce industry is a $1.5 trillion dollar industry according to the latest estimates (2015). Considering the industry is still growing at a very fast pace and more people are getting online, the eCommerce industry shows no signs of slowing down. The industry’s potential presents very many unique opportunities. For instance, you can start your own online business from home provided you have a computer and a good internet connection.

It is, however, important to note that being a successful online business owner is easier said than done. Very many people have great online business ideas however, very few turn them into finished websites (finished online businesses). If you’re interested in knowing how to go about turning your idea into a finished website, look no further. Below is a detailed discussion highlighting the steps you need to take.

Are your solving a problem that makes sense?

Every website starts with an idea. Before you start building your website, you need to answer these basic but very important questions that will help you assess the validity of your idea;

What is your product/service about?

Every website offers a certain product or service to its visitors and different products and services solve different problems. When identifying a suitable product or service to offer with your website, think of the problem you are attempting to solve, your solution to that problem as well as your audience.

What action do you want your users to take?

This is another important question you should consider asking yourself if you’re keen on turning your online business idea into a finished website. This question helps you design a website that helps you achieve your site goals perfectly. For instance, do you want your website visitors to sign up, become subscribers, download content, buy services/products? There are all kinds of website building tools for achieving any site user outcome you can imagine. You must, however decide what you want your website visitors to do when they visit your site and craft mechanisms for making sure it happens before you start building your website.

Breakdown your site into different components

Let’s face it! Websites are very complex. It is, therefore, important to break down your site into many small components if you are keen on having an easier time building and finishing your site. You can break down your site into 4 main parts namely;

  1. The 1st fold: This part focuses on everything your users see when they 1st visit your site. The 1st fold encompasses everything that has to do with the first impression of the site i.e. the site’s pitch, image/s, theme as well as a proper call-to-action to prompt the desired action from site users.
  2. How the site works: Now that you have gotten your user’s attention with a good 1st impression and gotten them interested by describing their problem/s, it’s time to tell them how you are going to solve their problems. Since sites are very complex, it’s very important to determine how your site will work separately because you give site functionality the attention it deserves.
  3. Building credibility: You also need to think about making your site credible. Having a site that attracts visitors and works perfectly isn’t enough if the site doesn’t have credibility. Website credibility is crucial since it’s what makes people trust your site and place orders for the product/s or service/s you are offering. You need to think of how you will collect testimonials from your users, showcase reviews and success stories from your users as well as any other positive PR attention you receive.
  4. About information: A good site also needs to have a good story of the founder, their team, mission, vision, goals, contact information among other important info. About information is very important because it creates a stronger connection between users and site owners. Your website visitors are more likely to support you if they know who you are, your vision, mission, goals etc.

Once you have the above parts, your site idea will be a step closer to becoming a finished website. You just need to make sure you build all the above parts of your site to completion. You can use readily available tools online like germ.io which have pre-thought templates to help you build all the above components of your site fast and easy.

Breakdown your planning & development process

Site building entails meticulous planning and development. To be able to track your site planning and development process effectively, you need to break the entire process into small tasks which can be tracked easily. Luckily, there are free and fun tools like Trello that make this process easy.

Write user stories

A user story can be defined as a discrete description of the task/s a person can perform with your website. User stories help to clarify the thoughts of a website owner. The stories give you concrete information to discuss with web designers and developers among other stakeholders of your site i.e. your potential visitors, investors etc. User stories are easy to write. They should be composed of two things namely; the kind of person (it can be a subscriber, new visitor etc.) and the task that person should be able to do; As a<person>I can<do something>

For instance, logged-in users/subscribers should be able to access their profile information as well as other parts of a site that non-subscribers can’t access. User stories are important because they show you how you should think about your site’s features and functionality.

Create a use case model

After writing user stories, you can proceed and create a use case model whose aim is to help you visualize the user stories you have written. Visualizing user stories is important because it makes it easier to understand and implement those stories.

Create an activity diagram

You also need an activity diagram to show you all the different paths your site users can take while on the site.

Build your prototype

Once you have a case model and an activity diagram, you can proceed and build your prototype site. You can do this on your own using free site prototyping software or pass over the task to your web developer/designer. The aim of the prototype is to show you how the site will look like and function. It’s also easier to modify site prototypes than work on code. Prototypes also help you identify site flaws early. If you’re keen on finishing your website, you really need to consider this step.

Polish and release

Once you have a prototype working, it’s very easy to proceed. You can hire a web designer/developer at this point to turn your prototype site into a fully functional site. A web designer will be in a better position to determine the technologies you need to build your site if you are not a web designer yourself. Since a prototype site lets you know if your site idea has potential and you also get to identify site flaws early, finishing your site shouldn’t be a problem going forward.

Summary

Most people have problems turning their ideas into finished websites because they fail to simplify the process. When you break down your website idea into small manageable and systematic steps like the ones discussed above, you shouldn’t have a problem turning your idea into a finished site. Furthermore, there are very many free, fun, effective and user-friendly site building tools available online today.

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The Importance Of Being Different And Succeed In The Market Place

The Importance Of Being Different And Succeed In The Market Place written by: Philp Agyeman-Budu

There is a powerful quote which says about the man and the crowd and how far he can go, can in fact be applied in every aspect in everyday situations; from love affairs to businesses and marketing. It’s actually a very strong message, that has been said by a number of famous people, such as Einstein and F. P. Wernig, but it hasn’t lost its importance. It means that when you walk alone and become your own leader -and stop being a follower- you set your own standards and try to achieve your own goals.

It’s true that most marketers know how important is to differentiate in the market place, in order to acquire more buyers and gain a great amount of profits, but people are trained -since they were kids- to go after the norm. For example, many children ask their parents to buy them the same toy, skirt or bicycle like the one their friends have, even if they don’t really need it. They just desire the same item, because someone else has it. And this is because they don’t want to go against the norm.

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Thankfully, as people mature, they tend to realize that by keep following the crowd is not always the best choice. Instead they learn to appreciate the fact that by being different and follow their own path, they can actually succeed a lot of things in their personal life. But unfortunately in most cases this does not apply to business matters. And this is because people unconsciously need to look out of the norm and if they want to make the difference and succeed in the market area, they’ll have to really work on it and try hard to achieve it.

In business, in order to be different, the owners have to create their own unique selling proposition (known also as USP), if they want to stand out of the rest of business owners and successful. In fact, the USP has to be of a certain value for a specific audience in order the owner to create an a competitive advantage. Even this may sounds easy, actually it’s not.

Competitors can duplicate your advantage

compitition-copying-business-stragiesActually it’s not an easy thing to do. There is no company that wants to give up so easily, because the USP of their competitor is more interesting than their own. For example, Starbucks, in Seattle, has tried a few times the last years to improve its tea, but without a big success. More specifically, the markets that the company struggled to break were pastries, as well as bread and dessert firms, while other stores were more successful. This is because of the high quality of tea and bakery items the other brands offered. So they concluded that it was their unique selling point (UPS) which made them to differentiate themselves from Starbucks. But even they were right to believe that in fact their brick house would save them from the “bad wolf” (Starbucks), it didn’t happen this way at the end of this story.

Never underestimate the competition

A good business owner has always to take into consideration the abilities of other owners who sell similar products. After all, a competitor has always the option -if he can’t make a better product- to buy someone to do it for them. For example, in June 2012 Starbucks bought a famous bakery, as to expand its bakery products. It was a big move and until then all the medium/small shops that were competing with the ‘Big Bad Wolf” felt safe with their USP and on the last day of the same year, Starbucks made “Teavana” it’s subsidiary, by acquiring it in a very low price. This actually strongly underlines the need of some firms to overcome a competitive advantage. Like Starbucks, which was a minor player and in a few months dominated the market.

The use of USP as an advantage

Whether someone is the CEO of a company or just a client, has to know how the USP works. Also individuals pieces of content can and actually should have their own USP and use it accordingly to their advantage. Most companies that are struggling to compete with a big brand have to pay attention to their USP and this way they will see their sales to climb. A USP is actually what sets a business apart from others and stand for something specific. Many businesses make the mistake to try to stand for everything when they’re getting started. In fact, they want to do everything well, with the best quality and the lowest prices in the market. But this eventually will lead them to disaster. Of course, there are always some exceptions. For example, a big marketing agency can become known for many services and can fulfill all of them, since they have many departments and employees. But if a smaller firm wants to steal a market share from a competitor, it’s better to stand out for something and succeed in this, rather than trying to do everything.

Branding

“The Mast Brothers Chocolate” competes several other companies that sell chocolate. The “Mast” chocolate company is based in Brooklyn and was founded in 2007 by Rick and Michael Mast. But what makes them distinguish in the market? First of all the have an obsession with crafting chocolate. In fact they pay attention to every detail; they make every piece of chocolate by themselves and the packages as well Their dedication makes for a great USP, but that’s not only the case. They travel with a wooden sailboat to foreign places in order to find the best cacao on the planet. It’s actually a story of dedication, where no other chocolate company on earth can match. They actually have done a perfect job by selling something different from the big brands in chocolate industry.

Most of the business owners have to know their USP and review it regularly, because the same one won’t work forever. And this is because the marketplaces change and the competitors may catch up. So, the USP has to be adjusted to every new situation in order for a company to succeed. Online or offline, a company has to differentiate itself from the crowd; stand out of it and succeed.

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How to add an account manager to manage your Ads on Facebook

Step 1

Using the drop-down arrow on the far right select Manage Ads

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Step 2

Right below the search bar, select account settings

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Step 3

Scroll down to Ad Account Roles, click on the Add a Person button. Enter email to add

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Your Brand is killing Your Content Marketing

THE SECRET TO SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETING – GREAT DESIGN

The marketing team at Apple was very excited. They were about to launch a new computer in the market. And boy, did the computer rock! It was faster, smarter, sleeker than anything else that the competitors were producing. They decided to market the computer by its features. They were sure, that when they did it, the consumers would love it.

Steve Jobs vetoed the campaign.

He insisted that they sell the computer based on the fact that it was transparent. The rest, as they say is history. It became one of the most successful campaigns in the history of marketing. And also, one of the most successful product launches.

As Steve Jobs knew it, and so do every successful marketer – people react to what they see.

The iMac would never have been successful if it was not a great computer and performed amazingly well. However, what sparked the initial interests of the buyers was the fact that it was trendiest, most amazing looking gadget that they had ever seen.

As this is true of marketing, so is it for content marketing.

CONTENT IS KING, BUT DESIGN IS QUEEN

It is extremely easy to run down design. Why do you need to have great design when your content is amazing?

Let us use another example. You meet someone for the first time. He is dressed smartly; he has great body language, and when he is introduced to him, he speaks well too. You take an instant liking to that person. You are then willing to listen to him patiently. Only then do you realize that he also has very interesting things to say.

On the other hand, if he had approached you wearing shabby, smelly clothes, rasping badly, would you have given him a fair ear?

Design is like the clothes a person wears, his appearance, his voice, even his body language. True, there are some people who get by without any of these, but the truly successful among them are rare.

Similarly, your website could be the best of its kind in the world with really terrific content, but if it is not well designed, no one will even take the time to know it.

DESIGN GIVES YOUR CONTENT PUNCH

Think of the most popular websites in the world. You will find that each one of them is amazingly designed. Coincidence? Hardly.

The thing is – design is that extra something that makes content more interesting. It is what adds flavor to your content, that special fizz that makes it more attractive, more readable.

A good design actually adds power to the content.

DESIGN KEEPS THINGS FRESH

If you see any movies from the eighties, the first things you will be struck by are the funny hairstyles and clothes. In fact, you may find it difficult to concentrate on the story.

Fashions change. Hairstyle, clothes, and even design. Naturally, if you come across a website that looks as if it was designed about ten years ago, you will find it difficult to concentrate on the content. You may also leave the page soon.

The thing is fashions change because of a reason. Our eyes get tired of seeing the same things over and over again. Hence, clothes and hairstyles that looked the ultimate in cool in the eighties look corny today.

Trends in design too changes over the years
What seemed extremely classy last year may seem tacky today.
It is therefore absolutely essential to keep the design of your website fresh and trendy.

DESIGN HELPS YOU STAND OUT

Did you know that there are more than a billion websites out there!

That means that your website will be competing with a billion other sites for your reader’s attention. That’s some tough competition. You will, therefore, be advised to use every trick in your arsenal to catch some eyeballs. In this battle, design plays a crucial role.

Design can not only help you customers but also give you the opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

DESIGN GIVES YOU PERSONALITY

Is your website youthful or elegant, functional or esoteric? Does it cater to teenagers or middle-aged readers? The design of your website needs to reflect the personality of your prospective readers.

DESIGN MAKES CONTENT FRESH

Content is content. No matter how well it has been written. It is design that makes it exciting and fresh. Updating the design of your website can give it a new lease of life.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazonâ€Ķ they are all extremely successful websites. However, they too make the effort to change the whole look of their sites.

Why do they need to do that when they already have billions of hits, every day?

The answer is simple. This ensures that the people who visit their site do not get bored by them quickly. Even if your site is extremely successful, you need to look at getting a fresh new design, ever so often.

DESIGN IS FUNCTIONAL

This is what most people forget. Design plays a very important practical role in a website. Good design can help the reader go from one section to another. Lead them to new areas of interest and, of course, encourage them to explore more.

Every functional aspect of your website is tied down to design. There is no point in having many links and buttons if they are not well designed.

Sometimes a design may look visually amazing but may not perform practically. That is BAD DESIGN. Do not let your designers fool you into thinking that aesthetics should be more important than functionality. Good design is one in which both blend seamlessly.

DESIGN INSPIRES LOYALTY

So, you have managed to generate traffic in your website. How do you ensure that the people who are visiting your website will come back again and again?

Yes, you guessed it right, with design.

Among the many factors that inspire brand loyalty, design is the most important. It is also the thing that people recall the most about a website.

The ideal position would be – when a visitor to your website recognizes your site by just a glance.

GIVE YOUR CONTENT WHAT IT DESERVES – GREAT DESIGN

The simple fact is, if your website does not have great design, you are being unjust to your content. Great content deserves great design.

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Skype Goes Down September 21 2015

Skype Goes Down September 21 2015

If you are a Skype users, you might have started your day with a rude awakening. Like most people you end up restarting your computer or re-installing Skype or clicked on “Can’t access your account?”

skype-trying-to-load

Skype, a Microsoft’s acquisition has been down for an unknown amount of time causing 40% of the world’s online video telecommunication to come to a halt. Skype officials have not given any details of the issue.

Follow up on twitter

What is be said on twitter – you can follow the updates at @skype

skype-down-twitter-feed

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