Learn Ways to Take Advantages of Twitter

Actively Tweeting has become the modern “mantra” for the entrepreneurs and these days social media experts expect everyone to follow this. Especially, in the case of small businesses, this become a necessity, because these are the people who are using Twitter to maximize their product/brand awareness. As a result, they are boosting their sales through existing customers and generating new businesses.

There are examples of many small businesses who have achieved tremendous results using Twitter. They say that using Twitter is as simple as an appointment, offering some advice or just commenting on other people's conversations. Tweeting is the perfect way to create brand awareness among the target customers for small business. It does not cost a penny, and at the same time, it allows you to reinforce your individual character and personal touch to the business. It can be said that if your are not in Twitter, you cannot gain from the benefits.

To be more clear in understanding the benefits of Tweeting, let us discuss some examples of small businesses that have benefited from this new business “mantra”.

First of all, take example of Humphry Slocombe, a 14 seat ice cream shop in San Francisco. According to the co-owner Sean Vahey, at one point of time they have zero money for any kind of advertising or promotions for their business. Hence, they started Tweeting, they received an insane response. They gathered nearly 300,000 Twitter followers. Now, their flavors change daily. They wanted to have a way to keep their clients up-to-date by tweeting. 

In an another example, Chrysta Wilson, the owner of a small bakery in Los Angeles, says that Twitter is just like a focus group for her to see which of her products gets the best tweets. She likes to experiment each of her new products through Twitter. “It’s great for getting input – they become your sounding board” she says. “It’s a way to break out of the business owner’s bubble and get an outsider’s perspective.”

For a Houston-based shop, The Coffee Groundz, Twitter has helped a lot to grow its small business with almost doubling its clientèle. J R Cohen, Operations Manager at the Coffee Groundz, says that he joined Twitter a few years ago without really understanding what it was. After tweeting with some of the Houstone community members for some time, one day he answered a tweet. A client wanted to order some breakfast and have it ready by the time he arrived. It was for the first time Cohen accepted such type of order and said yes to the customer. This simple exchange of communication generated a lot of buzz on Twitter. Grasping this opportunity, Cohen launched the system of taking orders via direct messages from any of his Twitter followers. Gradually, the sales of the Coffee Groundz doubled and their business expanded. 

There are many examples of such small businesses who have gained great benefits of using Twitter. Twitter can also be used to understand your customers by using Twitter polls; form valuable business relationship with the key people; create buzz of hosting new events by broadcasting the details; offer exclusive offers and promotions among the followers; create reputation; and a lot more.  

Posted on Srisys Blog on April 4, 2011: http://srisysinc.blogspot.in/2011/04/learn-ways-to-take-advantages-of.html

A Close Look at the Twitter Marketing Tricks

Presently, Twitter is a popular social media service that gives bloggers and other Internet users a completely new way to communicate with one another. Twitter is quite a comprehensive tool to getting you and your business recognized. It is all about micro blogging, or communicating through small, quick spurts of content. Twitter can be a great advantage for those who know how to benefit from regular blogging formats. Twitter offers the same benefits of blogging but in a quicker and more bite sized format. Here are some of the informative Twitter marketing tips:

Post Meaningful and Relevant Tweets: First of all post meaningful and relevant content that would benefit those who are following you. Always remember that people are looking for answers to their marketing problems and if you are providing valuable content that helps them you will be seen as a valuable person that is worth following. Post meaningful, relevant and readable content that subscribers look forward to and derive value; do not spam it.

Communicate Effectively: Your target audience demand you to be as clear, expressive and impactful as possible. Twitter marketing endeavors can be more successful if this indispensable factor is not ignored. When you have a plan for how you will communicate with other businesses online, you will be more successful with Twitter and those who you communicate with on the service. Use twitter as a medium for conversation but remember that it will benefit only if you know how to communicate effectively.

Start a Conversation: One of the important ways to promote your business on Twitter is to share information as many people as you can and facilitate conversations by asking questions just like on Facebook. Make efforts to take polls, ask conversation-building questions and come up with other unique ways to get your readers to respond to you. This will help build your brand image & market your product effectively. “Thank People for Following You.”

Participation: In order to get the most out of your Twitter marketing endeavor, make sure to participate in the community while corresponding correctly in the process. Twitter is largely a community based social networking site, so participating in conversations, communicating with other businesses, consumers and other individuals will help to get the word out about your business.

Avoid Over Promotion: Over promoting your products and services can be as bad as under promoting it. Hence, do not make your product or service the sole focus of discussion on Twitter. Post all kinds of relevant information about your company, your products, the industry or anything else that is pertinent. Posting tweets on a single topic can be overwhelming or irritating for readers.

Create Networking with Targeted Audience: The best way is to develop a network with bloggers, webmasters, publishers, journalists and business owners in spite of focusing on just end users. People who work in your field and own web sites that can send you links and traffic, are more influential than random followers who in some cases turn out to be spammers and self promoters.

Keyword Searching and Link Building can boost SEO: News Item

Keyword Search and Link Building are the two significant ways to promote Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Before starting off with an Effective SEO campaign, it is better to have a thorough research on the use of best keywords. Use of the best keywords enable firms to establish a foundation of an on-line portal early on its creation.

According to SEO consultant Alan Bleiweiss, “large amounts of content ready to be uploaded to a website might prove to be irrelevant if there is no keyword plan in place.” "Even if it’s relevant, it could be lacking the focus necessary to current search trends. In an SEO audit, keyword research is paramount," he asserted.

Hence, firms should focus on establishing how much content is required and where it should be located on an on-line portal to get the desired effect in an campaign.

It has also been pointed out that many organizations neglect outgoing links on their on-line portal. SEO Experts suggest that outgoing links can be a powerful part of a SEO strategy, but this aspect has often been avoided for fear of pushing visitors away from a website.

According to Ted Chef, SEO Expert, linking to “relevant high quality resources using deep links” can make an on-line portal rank higher in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). He also commented that “Google favors 'hub sites' which link to relevant content, adding that firms should try to link out a great deal or not at all.” “Embrace linking out to industry peers wholeheartedly and don’t be nit-picky about every single link.”

Tips on Effective Web Designing

“Great design does not come from great processes; it comes from great designers.”

Web Design is all about creating an informative website that fulfills both the user's expectations and business needs. Going for developing a website to promote their business/services, some like to present themselves by giving priority to the designing perspective. But most people do not use websites in order to be visually stimulated. Instead they go for finding information, making reservations or keeping in touch wit contacts. So web design makes sense when it is developed in the context of what the user expects and the business needs.

Design-for-designs'-sake can create a lot of conflict for both web designers and the users. While designing a new website or redesigning an existing one, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another important perspective that needs to be taken care of. In most cases, SEOs are often a big problem for web designers and vice versa. Both web designing and SEO are the extremely important features for creating an effective website. Because, if the visitors find a design unappealing, confusing or lacking in credibility, they are likely to click back. And if the website is not found in search engine results, that is a waste attempt for the business.

Keeping all these points in mind, this article presents a few guidelines for developing an effective website that caters to both the users expectations and business needs.

Understanding the Purpose of the Website

One of the most important aspect of web design is to clearly understand the purpose of the site, i.e., who, what and how of the website.

• Who will use the website?
• What will people use the website to do?
• How will people find the website?

Your site must reflect the values, needs and desires of your target audience. Put yourself in the users shoes. Figure out the characters to build up a profile that suits the user base. Try to point out the question that comes to you while first visiting a website as a user. Always remember that the primary function of your website is to understand what you want your user to do with your website. Accordingly, develop the site with proper layout, graphics and text to encourage the user towards taking that action. Nonetheless, focus on SEO, i.e., how the user will find the website while searching with a keyword. That means your site should be SEO friendly – fast, crawlable and rich with content.

Understanding the Visual Design Factors and Clarity

Both the graphical element of web design, and spacial relationships on the page, play a significant role in the process of web designing. As the saying goes, “ a picture is worth a thousand words”, ensure that the graphics of your website reinforce the values and needs of your target audience. Not only Appropriate and pleasing graphics, but also the form and text should convey the meaning of you purpose.

Try to split the pages up into headlines and short paragraphs. However, the shorter it is, the more important it is to design text for usability. Use proper keywords in heading tags. When somebody arrives at your site through a search engine, make sure that s/he can quickly and easily scan the page and find the keyword phase.

Clarity, both in terms of visual attraction and conveying meaning, is very important for designing a website. Unless you quickly convey a visitor that he is in the right place, there are chances of losing that visitor.

Crawlablity and Speed

The website which cannot be crawled is almost invisible to the search engines. Hence, include a Google Site Map to your website. Make your navigation text based, wherever possible.

The most important one is speed, i.e., how fast your page appears in front of the visitor when s/he clicks on your page. Speed is not just important, it is everything. Or else the visitor may click back. Hence, better to sacrifice graphics and features for speed, wherever it needs.

Branding

Branding is something that brings you an identity. Branding comprises some of the aspects such as how speed your web pages load at, clear layout, ease of navigation, tone of your writing, how quickly you answer queries, how quick and easy to contact you. Good Design motivates the audience towards your brand.

Conflicting Agenda and Structure

Web design is primarily about structure; the information flow; and facilitating the interaction. It is about expedite a process – the way people move around and follow steps. In spite of good presentation, a website will not be accepted if it makes process more complicated. Both style and substance are inseparable. Hence, both designers and SEOs must find a way in order to arrive at one goal: a successful web site.

Follow these tips while going for web designing. One thing is inevitable: motivate the audience to do something, i.e., buy a product, use a service, visit a location, or learn certain information. “The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.”

Posted in SRISYS Blog on April 1, 2011: http://srisysinc.blogspot.in/2011/04/tips-on-effective-web-designing.html

The Second Largest Search Engine after Google: YouTube

YouTube, the six year old video-sharing website, has been considered as the second largest search engine in the world after Google. As per current statistics, YouTube gets more than two billion views a day. A startup set up by three PayPal employees in 2005, YouTube was bought by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion. Now it is strengthening itself to compete with television.

According to a Senior Officer at YouTube, the distinction between the Internet and television is going to disappear with the popularity of o-demand video. It is also reported that YouTube has signed up with MGM and CBS to upload films and TV serials with advertisement in the US. Previously, it launched an on-line film rental service in the US.

The YouTube brand is one of the of the fastest growing sites. Some of the videos that are hosted on the sites get millions of hits each day. The company does not charge users for using the site and they get their revenue from traditional sources like sponsorships, banner advertising, promotions, contextual advertising and partnerships. They partner with various media companies like Warner Music Group and NBC.

Google says it will continue to offer free content and monetize the traffic to generate advertising revenues. It is monetizing over 2 billion video views in the US every week and has more than 1,000 partners. Advertisers like Samsung say YouTube's 24/7 availability, specially to office goers is a big draw.

Posted in SRISYS Blog on March 29, 2011:http://srisysinc.blogspot.in/2011/03/second-largest-search-engine-after.html

Eight Smart Tips of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Looking for designing a new website or redesign the existing one; establishing a new business or enriching the existing one, remember these eight smart tips of SEO to create your presence on the Internet. They are:

Content: First of all, focus on preparing high quality content for your website. This draws attention of your target audience towards your website. Content for your website needs to be genuinely interesting, informative and useful. Even an ugly website can work wonders as long as it has high quality of content. The content should be regular, inviting and concise. This develops an understanding among your targeted audience about what you are in business for, and why they should come to you.

Keywords: The content of your web page should have relevant keywords, which should make up two to six percent. These keyword helps your website get recognized in the Internet searches. When your target audience search for a particular keyword that links to you business, the search engine recognizes your website in the search results. Try to have 10 to 12 keywords per page.

Multiple Domains: Multiple domains can help improve your search engine rankings for your main site. Home page is very essential for a website, but may not have the most practical name or keyword. Hence, make your landing pages search engine optimized, which can redirect back to your main page.

Linking: Millions of people are spending lots of their time on the Internet. And to optimize your site, it is necessary to make your website accessible to search engines. Hence link your website with other sites, that helps your credibility in many ways. Google ranks sites according to how many other sites link to it. Links are high priority for anyone serious about SEO.

Avoid Templates and Duplicate Content: Always try to present your website with original template and content. Search Engines likely to crawl less sites with duplicate content. Apart from this, if you copy a website, the spiders will recognize the code and you will get a bad rating among the spiders.

Newsletters: There are several benefits of publishing newsletters. First of all it is a link, which links to many more places on the web. This is the perfect combination to use to get your stuff out there. There are many free and paid softwares to share your newsletters to the targeted audience. This also increases your publicity by drawing attention of the audience.

Social Bookmarking: The smartest way to get your content topped by the search engines is Social media marketing, which is always growing. First of all, make sure people can add your website or comment on your website. For this, install a plugin such as social marker which actually submits fresh content to 50 of these sites for free. All of these are links to your site which help to rank your site on search engines and bring traffic.

Have Variety: It is very important to have multiple keywords. Stick to the same set of words, can be recognized by the spider. Better to shift the words around to make it slightly different. This gives you a variety of quick tips to get you started on the Internet.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very important. Without this, your website is out in the dark. The only way to bring people to your website with any measure of success is to make sure you are optimized. These are all proven techniques and good starting points to give you a grasp on where to start your SEO campaign.

Posted in SRISYS Blog on March 28, 2011 : http://srisysinc.blogspot.in/2011/03/eight-smart-tips-of-search-engine.html

Model Rules of Social Media Marketing - News Item

To have an on-line presence is the crucial business “mantra” today. According to the Web Analysts, the best way to establish a strong foundation in the virtual world is through Social Media Marketing (SMM). Social Media, through its various networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog posts, creates a unique platform to allow interaction between a brand and a consumer in a contemporary manner.

With the changing scenario of the marketing policy, today consumers are more conscious about the in-depth information of a business/brand before taking it up. The more unique interactive social platform a business creates, the more favorable it becomes whereby consumer queries, information, and updates can be discussed openly and directly. Social Media Marketing is one of the easiest ways to connect with the targeted audience.

Social media has been exploding in last several years and easily accessible to anyone with the Internet access. But to create an awareness among the targeted audience, it is also very important to know the model rules to strategically approach for favorable end-results.

• Undergo Intensive Research: Organizations should make extensive research about the social sites, which are most visited by their consumers. Understand the activities that take center-stage in prospect sites and become aware of the strengths and weakness of each platform.
• Proactive Presence: The key prerogative of social media is interaction. Without proactive interaction, the marketing efforts will be rendered pointless. With regular updates, interactive sessions, and even adjustments in page content from time to time, consumers become more aware and involved about a business/brand.
• Focus on Holistic Growth: Social Media Marketing efforts must collate harmoniously with other marketing efforts. Every strategy must enhance the other in order to have a well-rounded impact.
• Quality over Quantity: It is not just the number of activities, but the quality of activities that adds to good consumer response. The content/activities must entice interest, excitement and a need to pursue more in relation to the brand.
  
  
  Posted on SRISYS Blog in March 26, 2011