Tag Archives: online

Marketing

The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with Influencer Marketing

Today, the world’s most rising form of marketing is influencer marketing. About 40% of companies have started allotting a huge budget for influencer marketing and 80% believe that influencer marketing helps them achieve their company objectives. With the internet being accessible to almost everyone in the US, plus some of the biggest ISPs like Xfinity and Spectrum internet offering cheap internet, there are a lot of influencers with huge followers online. However, still, most of the people are unaware of how to take advantage of them.

What is Influencer Marketing?

The fusion of traditional and modern marketing methods is influencer marketing. It is a technique that corporations use by working with prominent bloggers, vloggers, or social media users to market their goods and services. These influencers hold a large following and a dedicated audience with which brands can gain recognition and even generate sales.

How does it work?

Influencer marketing is considered to successfully work with companies of all types and sizes, irrespective of whether you are a startup and want to create awareness, or a major company trying to promote a new line or push a particular product to offer. Brands would typically approach an influencer and pay them to make content regarding the products or services offered by a company. The influencer subsequently updates and shares the contents with their social network – typically Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc.

The price is traditionally negotiated and paid before the content has been produced to the influencer –generally based on the following size of the creator and surprisingly not on content quality.

Creating the Plan

Since 47% of users now use Adblock technology, influencer marketing is by all means the fastest and most efficient way of creating premium content for the consumers it is intended to attract. The strategic marketing approach can instantly boost brand awareness and supercharge sales.

Only ask yourself some crucial questions to get going first…

Why Use it?

In a survey carried out by the Keller Fay Party, 82 percent of respondents indicated that they were likely to obey an influencer ‘s advice. And, 70 percent of the young generation prefers goods promoted by non-celebrity influencers, according to a major Cultural Prejudice poll. Consumers are mostly attracted by micro-influencers because they are relevant, intriguing, and amiable – promoted by real people who themselves use and are satisfied by the brand and item. The engagement rates of micro-influencers have been shown to be higher than other big celebrities. Although major celebrities can set a massive network, it is highly likely that most of their followers won’t be in your brand – most of them being passive spectators instead of being active.

Micro-influencers, on the other hand, have devoted followers that are primarily engaged in their work. According to research, 3k to 10k is the ‘top pick’ for marketing, since, the engagement rate is inversely proportional to the audience size.

What is your Objective?

It is important to provide a specific campaign goal as it tells the content creator precisely what you expect of them. The first step towards creating exclusive, entertaining content for your brand is to prepare your approach and to identify your goals. It is all down to discovering out which technique best suits you.

Try to figure out what you want: is it boosting sales? Establish the image of your brand? You want to meet customers who are unaware of your company, or engage in the main target market?

For good quality material, a simple, succinct summary is important. This may be an inspiring vision across the board of your mood, a connection to a website, a discount code, and a submission that builds visibility and dedication.

How To Choose Suitable Influencers For Your Business?

After making a list of influencers, it is about time you find out who is worth talking to about partnering with you. You surely did some of this already while creating the list, but you ought to focus on discovering the right influencers for your company.

You have to deal with trustworthy and appreciable people. People who are effective and match your style and objectives. Therefore, observe their audience engagement, the audience must match well with the people you are targeting. Perhaps you should not spend time dealing with influencers that do not have a strong identity, your best option is to create a positive product experience – growing engagement levels and the impact of your potential relationship.

How To Sustain Healthy Influencer Relationships?

Influencers are smart enough to know how to best utilize their channels to boost the message of a brand in a way that works effectively for their followers. It is also very important to address the influencers with courtesy and compassion while choosing them – it is a partnership after all!

Final Thought

Most of influencer marketing lasts a couple of months only. However, taking the right approach with planning can prove to be extremely successful for your business, fulfilling all your goals be it creating brand awareness or generating profitable sales revenue.

Internet

What We Can Learn from Google Updates to Improve Our Marketing Strategies and Performance

Some digital marketers might yearn for life without Google updates because they think that it would be easier for them to attain the marketing goals. However, is it so? Those who are even slightly aware of the good that the updates can do for marketers would prefer to take its advantage for taking their marketing initiatives to new heights. The updates are the early signs of things to come and the sooner you can pick the signals, gain knowledge and stay prepared; you stand to make good gains in SEO. You will experience improvement in search rankings and traffic flow that promises of higher conversions and sales

Updates will happen

Google has to keep launching updates, which are nothing, but algorithmic changes, most of which are minor and few major ones. The Google search algorithm undergoes regular and continuous changes because of Google’s commitment to serving users with the best experience in searching. Indeed, this is not the only reason because the need to stay updated with the technological advancements compels Google to update the algorithm time and again. On an average, Google releases 500 to 600 updates in a year, and this has been happening ever since its inception. It points to the fact that Google works relentlessly to provide the best platform for online marketers.

Staying updated

The continuous changes happening in the technological arena like the advent of the social media, the popularity of mobile devices and similar developments impact the behavior of users. As user behavior keeps changing, Google adjusts its algorithms to suit the behavior of providing them the best experience.  As a result, marketers receive new directives in the form of updates. A typical effect of Google update resulted in providing a guide for real backlinks when the focus shifted to the quality of backlinks and not its quantity as it used to be earlier. In this article, we have discussed the reasons that prompt Google to release updates. We will also evaluate the benefits marketers derive from updates.

Updates can do much good to marketers

Although there are reservations among some marketers about Google updates, there is no good reason for it. Google wants to keep improving its game and marketers who can adjust to the changes as quickly as possible, would reap the rewards.  There is a wrong perception about updates that marketers look upon it as some penal action, which it is not.  Taking the updates in the right spirit would elevate the marketing campaign, as marketers can derive lots of benefits from updates. It is the unnecessary fear that arises from ignorance that holds back marketers from taking advantage of Google updates.  However, marketers have no choice but stay tuned to the updates or algorithmic changes because being on the wrong side would spell the doom for the marketing campaign.

The motivation for creating high-quality content

Content is the prime mover of the marketing campaign, and it is not for nothing that people consider content as king in marketing.  Despite admitting the need for quality content, marketers often tend to lose direction in marketing and fall back upon low quality and thin content hoping to make gains in link building. However, with the release of Google Panda update, there is no place for any low-quality content in the campaign. As low-quality content drives you nowhere, the update compels marketers to create high-quality unique content that is long enough to provide its inherent strength.

Well-researched, informative and relevant content creates better user engagement, reduces bounce rates, drives more traffic and improves conversions. Long content attracts Google too, as it looks upon it as value providing content that is capable of improving search rankings. In-depth, innovative and educational content that we now see around us is the result of Google Panda update.

Keep the content fresh

Google updates have helped to do away with stale content. Marketers eager to remain in the good books of Google have understood how important it is to maintain a steady pipeline of contents so that they can serve fresh content to viewers. Whenever you publish fresh content on the website, Google not only indexes it but also awards a score for it. To keep earning the recognition of Google, marketers have no choice but keep producing fresh content on a continuous basis that ultimately pushes up search rankings. At least, one new content every week is the norm today.

Increased brand awareness

Some of Google’s algorithmic changes have compelled marketers to give more emphasis on branding.  The trend of stuffing internal links with keyword rich anchor text is now gone. Instead, including brand names in the anchor text has helped marketers to give the brand building exercise a boost.

Updates are good for marketers provided you can understand it in the right perspective.

 

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About the author: Derek Iwasiuk is a Google webmaster who has acted as a guide for real backlinks in several top-notch SEO projects.  His knowledge and experience have helped many marketers to change their fortunes. Derek is fond of books and reading thrillers is what excites him most.

Internet, Marketing

5 Golden Rules for Introducing Your Business to Online Audience

The digital revolution in India has encouraged many businesses to opt for their website. Two major things can be observed here: First, even the brick and mortar businesses that earlier refused to go for online operations have also started investing on the digital presence, and secondly, the businesses don’t stop at just building their own website and social media pages. They want their websites to be professionally and strategically designed to market their business and eventually increase the revenue. In short, the website creation is not just an option for the Indian businesses that want to grow- it is the mandatory condition. So, let us see the best practices to adopt while designing or marketing a website geared to make your presence stronger and increase the revenue:

Don’t be just another site by overselling

Millions of websites float on the digital ocean just like a number of huge ships and small boats that are laden with a number of items they are hawking to sell. Right from the world tour to mundane industrial tools, these sites sell almost anything under the Sun.

Being exposed to 5000+ messages geared towards marketing the product the consumer today has actually developed contempt towards commercially motivated messages forcing them to buy the products he doesn’t want. Hence any attempt at over-selling will ironically diminish your chances to sell your products or services. Besides, when everyone is overselling and you also join the bandwagon with the similar semblance- where lays the uniqueness, the innovative appeal. Instead of selling the products sell the “purpose-designed content presented in most natural format. Let genuineness guide the content and ensure that the content should be captivating, interesting and above all informative.

Content is really the king – Respect it

The content should complement the products you offer and subtly reveal it to the clients during the natural course of reading. Three things that will offer you a distinct appeal will be – the language, media, and knowledge. In fact, the aim should not be to make sales or acquire a client but to establish a definite rapport with the reader that would start a long lasting relation. This approach will help you to acquire loyalty and eventually converts readers into client. Whether you are finalizing the content of the website or writing company blogs, always ensure that you should use the simple language, a beautiful flow and some genuine knowledge in your content.

Change with time

You also need to assess the present scenario identify the obliterated practices and shunning them the same time you can identify the present shift in trends and predict the futuristic strategy. That will offer eh cutting edge over your clients. For example, e current trend is to value images much more than content. People of today now need something quick that does not to be read while squinting but could be seen while effortlessly. Hence employing n infographic can be the best way pp enjoy the attention.

Graphics attract but is moderate

You should also ensure that the audience should get the swift entry while they type for any search. You can offer a number of infographics that will allow you the entry a well-designed calendar. Besides the mobile search have now surpassed he desktop search. Hence a having a mobile enabled infographic can be the best choice.

While design plays a key role in impacting the audience you need to be very careful while designing your site. The major objectives of a site are not to overstuff your site with design elements but to offer a design that is most relevant with r studying habits.

Minimalism is the Mantra

Go for minimalism when it comes to eh designing. Opt for the simple design with brand specific features. Whether it is design, content, colors or programming the minimalistic approach will offer you a good rapport with the audience and will play a major role in increasing your reach while widening the opportunities to sell. There should be a Concord symphony between the design and content. The design should caress the eyes while communicant g with the audience in a nutshell.

Social Media

The Future of Social Media [Infographic]

 

Since the dawn of social media, it’s been evolving and growing at a rapid pace. As we move through 2016, that trend will continue, but where is all of this going? More importantly, if you’re trying to market a business or a blog, how can you stay ahead of the curve?

Today we’ll look at the future of social media, followed by an infographic that helps you make the most of your efforts on today’s platforms.

Predicting the Future of Social Media

Over at on blast blog, I’m always looking to the future, whether it’s in the world of blogging, social media, or anything in between. I’m a big fan of staying ahead of the curve. So, let’s look at social media’s upcoming trends.

The first trend we’ll see coming down the pipeline is more integration in the workplace. For years, companies tried to keep their employees off of Facebook during work hours, but now those same social tools will become crucial to the business.

Things like Facebook For Work are allowing employees to utilize the connected nature of social media to increase their efficiency. While most businesses are also using blogs, we’re going to see a lot more people stop working in offices, and instead work from home.

Entrepreneurs are beginning to see the potential of their blog post ideas in the realm of business, and that’s leading to more bloggers promoting their content on social media. In addition, new types of content like video and virtual reality will become important to implement into your online strategies.

Becoming a Social Media Master (Infographic)

Knowing the future is only half the battle. Now you should use the infographic below to understand the how’s and why’s behind social media platforms. Let us know how it helps you in the comments below!

Social-Media-Image-Sizing-Cheat-Sheet (6)

 

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This is a guest post by Matt Banner. You can read more from him on his blog, OnBlastBlog.com

Internet, Marketing

Report: The Real ROI of Social Media Marketing

social-media-facebook

Social media and digital marketing is everywhere. Any brand attempting to promote, engage, and connect with their target audience in today’s day and age is using social media to market to their constituents. While only 10 years old, social media has become a catalyst in restoring the one to one relationship between brands and consumers.

In its 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, Social Media Examiner, a leader in the space, has provided invaluable insight as to how brands and individuals are using social media for marketing purposes.

Interestingly, the most important question (“What is the ROI of social media?”)remains to be answered in a concrete manner. Does that mean that social media will disappear? Probably not. What this report does seem to document is that, with the initial trend of social media integration behind us, companies and brands are now transitioning to a point requiring a more transparent and clearer reporting for concrete results of social media marketing.

The Highlights

After reviewing Top Rank’s analysis of the report, which enumerates five major benefits of social media on business, there are some additional findings which warrant discussion and should be raised for longer term consideration.

The Role of Video Marketing

While nearly 60% of marketers already utilize video in their marketing efforts, 72% indicated that video marketing is part of their short term goals to integrate into their digital strategy. Especially with recent changes on Facebook, video marketing is clearly an important channel for content creation and marketing.

In fact, in the study, learning to create videos is the number one area that marketers wish to increase their knowledge and expertise.

Growth of Podcasting in Digital Mix

To date, only 10% of marketers are using podcasting as a tool to create content and engage with an audience.

Why?

Like video, podcasting requires a significant investment in resources to produce a final product. While Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram represent platforms on which content can be automated or quickly shared, podcasting can only be distributed after the raw content has been edited and modified for optimal brand promotion. Unlike blog content, which can be edited in real time, the time and energy involved prior to distributing podcast content, dissuades many marketing teams from integrating this form of content.

Interestingly, the small group of marketers using podcasting praise its value and high engagement rates since the content is automatically pushed and syndicated to a user’s phone or desktop via a platform like Itunes. While content on a blog can be sent via email, the simplicity of podcast syndication and ability to listen at one’s leisure signifies a user controlled experience with which other forms of content are unable to compete.

The Secondary Benefits of Social Media Marketing

The report does indicate that those marketers involved in social media for over two years are actually seeing sales from the relationships and communities that they’ve established. To date, the secondary benefits (branding, exposure, partnerships, lead gen, cost savings, search rankings) outweigh the direct impact of social media on business revenue.

An intriguing development in the secondary benefits of social media is the ability for content writing and social conversation to enable a brand or personality to position themselves as thought leaders within an industry.

In today’s digital space, these secondary benefits are indeed significant, within the context of a brand’s ability to solidify the opportunities into concrete sales. Briefly stated, search ranking, for example, does help a brand gain advantage over its competitors on search engines. If, however, the user is directed to a site that is not optimized for conversion or otherwise confusing, the benefit of search engine optimization has proven to be insignificant.

Measuring the ROI of Social Media

One of the most significant results that emerged from the study is that only 42% of marketers can actually measure the direct result of their marketing efforts. While the number does show 5% increase from 2014, and 16% increase from 2013, the results still do raise questions in terms of return on investment.

Many of the marketers claiming this challenge are ill-equipped with the necessary reporting tools or do not invest the necessary time on social media as the primary factors in their inability to show direct ROI.

What are some of the most effective social media platforms?

An important aspect of the report was a list of the top seven social media platforms being used by marketers. In order of usage- Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram. Instagram did increase its position by 8% and, despite the common notion that Google+ is becoming more insignificant, the social media platform increased by 2% since 2014.

An important distinction made in the report is the social media platforms used by B2B vs B2C marketers. B2C marketers focus on Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram. These four are highly visual based platforms that resonate with consumers looking for visually appealing content prior to making purchase decisions.

For B2B marketers, the focus shifts to Linkedin, Twitter, Google+ and Slideshare. The reason for this differential is that B2B marketing efforts focus on establishing relationships, industry related content and understanding the employee within the context of his or her professional role.

As marketers prepare for future social media efforts, both B2B and B2C efforts are shifting their efforts to increase usage on Twitter, learning to leverage video marketing and integrating Instagram into their overall digital strategy. Again, while many individuals in the social media sphere shy away from Google+, the report indicates that 78% of marketers plan to maintain or increase their activities on this platform.

With regards to newer social media platforms including Snapchat, the report indicates a low rate of interest of marketers to integrate Snapchat or other new social platforms into their overall marketing efforts.

In terms of Snapchat, the reasons could be lack of interest, lack of familiarity with usability or associating Snapchat with an audience incongruent with their target audience. For other new platforms, marketers could be showing a sense of complacency to constantly learn and integrate new platforms or they could be more interested in proving value in the core, more commonly accepted, platforms before venturing into new ones.

For those marketers who are comfortable with being early adopters in new platforms or are willing to risk venturing into new territories, these platforms do indeed present significant opportunities.

Like Top Rank, I agree that a very important result from the 2015 Social Media Examiner report is the ability of marketers to quantify specific objectives and show results that meet these goals. With this report, an important question that remains unanswered in the social media marketing sphere is which benefits play a more significant role direct or indirect sales benefits?

 

This post was originally published on noholtzbarred blog

Accessories, Internet

New ‘Star Wars’ Emoji Available on Twitter

star_wars_the_force_awakens_BB-8_droid

At a recent kick-off celebration of Disney’s next big Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Anaheim, California, director and producer J.J. Abrams (who happened to wear a shiny stainless-still Apple watch on his wrist) officially unveiled to a welcoming crowd of Star Wars fans, a cute rolling droid, called the BB-8.

Meanwhile, as you plainly can see above, Twitter has added three custom Star Wars emoji shortcuts to your keyboard and such.

The new episode, which will be coming out on the big screen in time for the Christmas holidays of 2015, is making quite a buzz these days as the film’s second official trailer video has landed. Yeah, that’s they’re way to keep in touch with the fans and make them all feel enthused and excited.

[youtube id=”ngElkyQ6Rhs”]

via polygon
General, Marketing

14 Great Free Online Resources To Boost Traffic To Your Blog

Traffic

Congratulations, you’ve started a blog for your business. Content Marketing is one of the key ways to drive online leads to your business, so you’re off to a good start.

But how can you find the best topics to write about, the best design tools and the best ways to distribute your content? Just as importantly, how can you do it all without breaking the bank?

To help your business we’ve collected 14 awesome free resources to help you grow your blog traffic. How do we know they are awesome? We’ve tried and tested them for ourselves, and we’ve only included the tools that we’ve seen have really made a difference to our blog traffic.

1. Generate Content Ideas- from BuzzSumo

Starting a blog isn’t the hard part, knowing what to write is. Start off with BuzzSumo to check what content on your online site drives the most traffic, as well as what your competitors are writing about that is getting them attention from your potential customers.

BuzzSumo

2. Check interest and Influencers with Topsy

You can also use Topsy to check that there is a general interest in your topic, and to learn which influencers are already talking about your topic. You can then embed their tweets in your posts, or quote them to add value to your blog, and interest for your readers.

Topsy

3. Brainstorm topics with Hubspot’s Free Blog Topic Generator

Have a general idea about what to write about now but can’t seem to put the words together in a catchy way? You need Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator. Just put in a few nouns related to your topic of choice and this fantastic free resource will create a ton of great headline options to inspire you.

Hubspot-headline-generator

4. Craft The Perfect Title with Co-Schedule’s Headline Analyzer

Once you’ve got some headline options you need to craft the perfect headline to grab your readers’ attention. I’m a huge fan of Co-Schedule’s headline analyzer to help create that perfect headline. Enter in your headline of choice and you’ll get both an analysis and an overall score to hone your title to perfection.

Co-schedule-headline

5. Use Evernote for Content Structuring and Brainstorming

Once you’ve crafted your headline you can start collecting ideas for your blog post. I love using Evernote for this, but you can also simply open a Google Doc and share it with your team. Collect all your ideas and begin to shape your blog content.

Evernote

6. Use Atomic Reach for Testing and Honing Your Content

Written out a blog post outline? Great! Now you just need to check it is relevant and interesting for your audience. We’ve been testing out the Atomic Reach App, for exactly this purpose, and we are loving how easy it makes it to check your content.

It not only checks it for appropriate sentence length, spelling mistakes and more, it also lets you know if your content is relevant for your audience.

Atomic

Ready to launch your beautifully crafted, appropriate content into the blogisphere? Wait a minute! You’ve forgotten images. Posts with images have a 50% higher click rate, so if you want to stand out from the crowd you’ll need interesting and appropriate images.

7. Beautiful, free images from Canva

Canva is a freemium service which helps you design beautiful images to accompany your blog posts. Whilst many templates will cost you a token $1 to use, there are enough free options to help a beginner blogger create beautiful, functional images.

canva

8. Free images for social media, including great collages from PicMonkey

Another fantastic free resource for creating images for your blog posts is PicMonkey. PicMonkey not only offers you a great choice of free backgrounds and fonts, but can also create perfect collages for your blog needs, perfect for tool roundups, or posts about influencers in your field.

PicMonkey

9. Super simple design for your blog from Pablo

Looking for even more options for gorgeous graphics to help your blog post stand out? We’re loving the beautiful new tool from the team over at Buffer, Pablo.  Pablo is simplicity itself, enabling you to create wonderful images in mere seconds.

Pablo

So you’ve picked your topic, you’ve written your headline, you’ve finished your content, and you’ve added beautiful images to really show off your work. Now what?

Without distribution nobody is going to get to your content. You don’t need an enterprise budget to distribute your content to your target audience. There are some fantastic free tools to get you started without paying a dollar.

10. Social Media Distribution the easy way with Buffer

Buffer is a fantastic free social scheduling tool to help you distribute your content across all your social networks. You don’t need any social media knowledge to be able to use Buffer, which really is the simplest social media tool around, and totally free.

Buffer

11. Promote your blog via your email signature with WiseStamp

When promoting your blog post don’t just add it to your Buffer and forget about it. Add your blog link to your email signature with WiseStamp and every email you send out becomes a blog promotion tool. Promoting a company blog? Double, triple or quadruple your blog exposure by using a team signature solution like WiseStamp for Business.

wisestamp

12. Add a call to action to your blog with Snip.ly

Snip.ly is an ingenious little free tool which allows you to add a personalized call to action to either your content, or somebody else’s content. You can use snip.ly to drive your blog traffic by linking to other content from authoritative sources on a similar topic, and adding a snip.ly call to action to drive readers to your content. You can also add a call to action to your blog with snip.ly to convert more of your readers into users.

snip.ly

13. Track and amplify to your blog progress with Mention

I love Mention! Mention pulls up your footprint from the web and social media, so you can track exactly who is sharing your blog, and where. By being responsive to your readers you can double your blog traffic, as well as engage and create dialogue by looking for people asking the question that your blog post answers.

mention

14. Test, and retest with Google Analytics

You’ve sent your blog post out, and with our free tools at your disposal, your traffic is looking good. Use Google Analytics to monitor not only your numbers, but also your traffic referrals, so you can thank your users, make any relevant changes to your blog post, and craft even better content next time.

Google_Analytics

 

This is a guest post by Naomi Goldberg, a British-born content marketer and mummy to three, crafting and promoting content and social for WiseStamp for Business.

This post was originally published on WiseStamp blog

Marketing

These Numbers Show Exactly Why You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy [INFOGRAPHIC]

Digital Marketing is probably the fastest growing channel for the delivery of sustainable growth and jobs for businesses and individuals. The digital space is experiencing exponential growth with the aim of bringing more marketing potential and money into the online world. This is true across all industries as the economy evolves and more marketers shift money into digital.

Here are some important statistics about Digital Marketing and why you should be considering a digital strategy as well.

Digital-Marketing-Fund

Infographic is courtesy of Dot Com Infoway

Video

Imgur’s Web Tool Makes It Easier To Convert Any Video to GIF

GIFs are the internet. Wherever you go across the net, you see a lot of crazy photos posted all over web. Whether these are cats, dogs or any other pet you have, let alone extreme and funny activities or just a crying newborn baby take– It’s all there. And people like GIFS, really, they do, but what is the most convenient way to make one? There are many tools to create animated GIFs online, that can easily be found on the Internet by doing a simple search on Google.

Imgur, the popular photo sharing service, today released another tool to the pond, but not JUST another one, if you will, but more like the easiest of ’em all. Yeah, the online tool (sorry, mobile users but service is currently only available on the desktop site) which goes under the name Video to GIF will help you turn a video into a GIF image by simply copying the wanted URL address from a wide range of popular video websites directly into the given input window. From there on, when you’re surfing in the following link (imgur.com/vidgif) just click and drag to set your start time and drag to adjust the total runtime, rightly after. You can add any text at your choice if you want and then choose the “Create GIF” option to officially start the process.

The tool is not perfect, but yet allows us to create some truly beautiful high-quality GIF images. Sometimes it will save the file into a .gif and in some other occasions will push it into Imgur’s GIFV format in the form of a .gifv extension.

 Let us know what you think about the new service.

Design, Marketing

Here Are Some Of The Most Important Conversion Optimization Numbers You Should Know About

It is that time of the year again when everyone rushes to sum up the year and plan for the next. So these past few weeks we have been working on getting as many numbers as possible to understand the current conversion optimization statistics. Understanding what marketers are doing, how shoppers are behaving, what devices people are converting on and more importantly what to look forward to in 2015 can be a crucial part of your plans for the upcoming year.

Here are some very interesting numbers coming up from this year’s companies and spenders:

  • 63% of marketers optimize websites based on intuition & best practices.
  • 73% of companies have no idea why consumers abandon their shopping carts.
  • Poor A/B testing methodologies are costing online retailers up to $13bn a year in lost revenue.

Here’s what you all should look at in the conversion optimization statistics infographic below:

2014:

  • What marketers are doing
  • How Customers Are Spending
  • Conversion by traffic
  • Conversion by Devices
  • Mobile Apps Numbers
  • Where & When to Invest in Social Marketing
  • Making Videos Convert
  • Retail Numbers and Stats

2015:

  • What’s next?

Conversion-optimization-numbers-2014

This post originally published on Talia Wolf’s blog

Talia helps businesses plan and execute conversion optimization programs. She runs thousands of A/B tests using emotional targeting and persuasive design to grow their business.

 

Talia is a frequent keynote speaker at marketing conferences and was recently listed as one of the most influential experts in conversion optimization. Follow her on twitter at @taliagw and learn more about her conversion optimization training programs.

Applications, Internet, News

Google Wave Introduced, Offering Real-Time Collaborative Interaction Between Instant Messaging, Email Notifications, Document Editing And Other Cool Meshup Extensions

2 Comments

google_wave_logoNot sure if any of this necessarily relates to Microsoft’s search-engine (AKA: Bing) announcement, that suppose to take place in the following days, but this way or another, Google has definitely managed to steal some focus from Redmond’s coming events, by catching our eyes with its latest innovative meshing application – also known as Google Wave. And while many of us tend to separately use IM clients, mail services or word processing editors to work our day, Google’s Australian team has diligently strove for the past two years in putting together these three daily assignments into one amazing collaborative tool which was built into the web-browser sphere in the form of HTML 5.0 and about to be released in the following months.

What is Wave? It’s a new model for communication and collaboration on the web, as a group of people can communicate and work together with rich format text, photos, videos, maps, blogs and more, while any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add even more participants at any point in the process, with a “playback” mode, allowing newcomers to rewind the wave to see who said what and when, before joining the service. And if that wasn’t enough, the entire gathering process, which makes the Wave such a great collaborative tool, surprisingly happens on a real-time platform, where different group members can concurrently read (character-by-character) whatever you type, as you type, without waiting long (private mode is optional).

Still in an early build, with so many useful embedded features around, Google’s online sharing platform undoubtedly shaped for changing our common old-fashioned traits while vigorously aiming to completely revamp any sort of existing mailing interaction, which currently controlled by – you’ve guessed right – Microsoft itself. But turning Wave into such a powerful application that sincerely pretends to revolutionize our fixed behavior, certainly requires a joint effort involvement from diversified groups across the globe, which probably explains why Google has deliberately decided to widely open up its API platform for 3rd party developers, explicitly asking their generous assistance in building extensions and outsourcing widgets in order to enhance and maximize interface usability. And speaking about widgets and extensions, it seems there are plenty interesting ways to use Wave, either collaborating together on a new document, sharing embedded photos and videos among friends, IM chatting with multiple users (real-time spelling correction and translation robots included), handling real-time RSVP invitations, or simply playing casual entertaining games – At this point, all options available – and yet it looks like Wave is only halfway through to reach its full potential. Hit the links below to start learning the protocols. Additionally, you can watch Wave’s full demo introduction after the break (long video).

Develop
Learn how to put waves in your site and build wave extensions with the Google Wave APIs.
Visit code.google.com/apis/wave.

Build
Google Wave uses an open protocol, so anyone can build their own wave system.
Learn more at www.waveprotocol.org.

google-wave

[Google]

Continue reading Google Wave Introduced, Offering Real-Time Collaborative Interaction Between Instant Messaging, Email Notifications, Document Editing And Other Cool Meshup Extensions →

Internet, Mobile, Phones

Apple Has Launched iPhone 3G Online Buying Service

Do you feel reluctant standing in another long tiresome queue to buy an iPhone 3G? It seems Apple has decided to end this torture by announcing a new online tool that can assist potential customers shorten the process. From now on, you can go online and type-in all the billing forms, including name, address, payment details, etc, choose your desirable plan and schedule the time and date you wish to get to any nearby Apple store, in order to collect the merchandise and complete the activation. Regretfully, you get no home delivery and still bound to a 2 years contract, but Apple’s intention is affirmative.

[Apple]

General, Internet, Music, News

Best Buy Acquires Online Music Service Napster For $121M

Online digital music market is getting warmed up, as US retail giant, Best Buy, announces it will acquire Napser for an astonishing $121 million price tag. The transaction is set to be accomplished in Q4 of this year and we have no doubt it was carried out in order to try snatching a substantial share from iTunes’ market dominance. Napster allows its 708,000 subscribers to access an unlimited library of music or using the “Napster Mobile” platform, on their mobile phones, for a small monthly fee of $15. Having said that, the company has never turned a profit, during its long years of existence.

Best Buy president Brian Dunn confirms the company’s desire to expand Napster services and to use “Napster’s capabilities and digital subscriber base to reach new customers with an enhanced experience for exploring and selecting music and other digital entertainment products over an increasing array of devices.” Be sure it’s just the beginning and we expect more developments to take place in the near future. We do hope this move will increase the competition and at the end of the day, will be profitable for the consumers.

[via ZDNet]

Applications, Games, Internet, Mobile

Apple App Store Goes Live

4 Comments

I bet you all been waiting for the official Apple App Store to make a debut and today it is finally available in both iPhone 2.0 and iTunes, running smooth, offering many applications to download, some are free some are priced. Among the assortment you can find applications like:

  • eBay – cool application that lets you use the service from your iPhone device, search items, watch favorite stuff, place a bid and follow auctions, all for free.
  • Loopt – a nice location-based application that lets you discover who’s hanging within your location range (don’t try to hide with this service ON).
  • TypePad – one of the most popular blogging services, now available from your iPhone, allowing users to upload real time photos, straight from their handset, directly to their blogs.
  • Associated Press – another free application, allowing users to upload their media stuff to AP service and contribute to the content.
  • Band – a cool feature, developed by an independent insurance developer, allowing users to create their own music and play it from their own iPhone device, with the ability to choose from a various of instruments.
  • MLB.com – a nice application, designated for baseball fans, allowing them to receive real time results and watch highlighted moments.
  • MySpace – iPhone app that allows you to manage their MySpace social network account, including add friends, exchange messages, upload photos,and more, all for free.
  • Kyte Mobile Producer – a great application that lets you upload images you take with your iphone, directly to your Kyte account or the available channels, including blogs, social networks (Facebook, MySpace) etc. You can make slides, conduct polls and add captions.
  • AIM – Finally an instant-messaging application on your iphone, lets you interact with your friends and chat online via Wi-Fi. In additio, you can mark contacts as your favorites and can even send away messages.
  • Twitterrific – The official twitter client to send your messages via twitter.
  • Facebook – Manage your Facebook account from your iphone device. The application lets you view messages, search friends and even chat with them whenever you want.
  • Pandora – The cool online radio service comes to your iphone, allowing you to play your favorite music while recommending similar bands and artists.
  • Remote Control – Lets you control your iTunes or your Apple TV with your iphone device. You can play, pause, skip, and even search in libraries.

Some additional Apple App lists:

Engadget – preliminary list.

Gizmodo – variety of applications list.

TechCrunch –  Great applications list (with video).

Apple-App-Store-2

Continue reading Apple App Store Goes Live →

Internet, News

Microsoft-Yahoo Affair : End Of Story?

yahoo-microsoft Alright, so Microsoft has officially backed off from bidding on Yahoo, after a roller coaster of ups and downs, that started with an official offer to buy the company for $44.6 Billion, price that reflected $31 per share, back in February. The generous bid has never made any impression on Yahoo’s management, as the company’s directors has officially decided to turn off Microsoft’s hostile acquisition, claiming the bid is substantially lower than its real value, and whoever wants to buy them should hit $40 per share, meaning extra $9 to Steve Ballmer’s offer. Still, Microsoft clutched to its original bid (desperately trying to stay a major internet player in the growing online advertisement and searching markets) and considered an hostile takeover, by pursuing Yahoo share holders, but at the end of the day, after taking off their threatening suit, the Redmond’s were willing to raise the bid to $33, which was rejected by Yahoo as well and lead to today’s proposal withdraw announcement.

“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” said Ballmer.

Again, that wasn’t much of a squall to Sunnyvale, as Yahoo’s CEO, Jerry Yang, has apathetically responded:

…”With the distraction of Microsoft’s unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies on executing the most important transition in our history so that we can maximize our potential to the benefit of our shareholders, employees, partners and users.”

End of story? I’m not so sure, Temporary cease-fire? definitely yes.

[via Microsoft]

Games, Internet

GTA IV Gets Online Social Google Maps Service To Share Your discoveries With Your Friends

4 Comments

Everybody wants to take part and have a roll in the GTA IV madness, as I hear that Liberty City locals will enjoy the ability to navigate their way through the massive number of “points of interest”, interspersed across the town, with Google Maps. The service provides online social game mapping, allowing players to share their discovery points (like restaurants, clubs, bars, bowling, ATM, gun shops or Internet Cafe) with their friends, by simply adding markers on the map and pointing the exact location of the place. I wonder if someone has time to read this thing, as I find many of my friends busy all day, playing the game, burning the roads.

GTA-IV-google-maps

[grandtheftauto.ign via kotaku]

Internet, Video

Hulu Video Content Portal Goes Live

Finally, after 18 weeks of closed beta, Hulu.com opens its doors to everyone in the U.S who looks for free video streaming service. The site offers over 100 full-length movies, full-length episodes, and other content line-up from libraries of giants like FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony and Warner Bros. Among the videos, You can find hit shows like The Simpsons, The Office, classics like The incredible Hulk, Miami Vice and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Arrested Development, Firefly and Friday night lights. Among the full movies you can find The Usual Suspects, The Big Lebowski, Myself & Irene, Three Amigos and many more. As for the sports, it seems the guys from Hulu have teamed up with the NBA management to bring you the best moves and clips, and we expect more events to be added soon. Mind you, the TV episodes will be available for only 5 weeks after broadcasting date. Meanwhile, you can enjoy hours of fun clips, videos or movies, read users reviews and share them with others in your web site – COOL !!

hulu

[via Hulu]

Applications, Audio, Games, Internet, Video

Sony PS3 Might Get Messaging Capabilities

This mysterious teaser snappily appeared on PS3 official site for a very short time, alluding messaging capabilities support for the game console. If this info is real, and we assume it is, PS3 users finally get voice and video chat services, allowing them to connect with their friends whenever they pop up online or during a game. The sneaky image reads “Talk to others during game play, say hello anytime you’re online, or have a video chat with an Eye camera; USB Camera or headset.” Hopefully, Sony is going to embed the messaging services in the next firmware update, so here’s a very good reason to anticipate the next version.

 PS3-messaging

[via slashgear]

Music, News, Phones

Nokia Offers Free Music For 1 Year

Nokia_MusicRecently, we have reported on a new Nokia online music store. The new store provides music purchasing services directly from your mobile phones or downloading to your PC. Now we hear, that Nokia has closed a contract with Universal, to offer free, unlimited songs from various of millions of tracks, to those who will purchase a Nokia phone. Although the new Nokia Comes With Music program is limited to 1 year, it is considered a huge revolution, since the users will be allowed to keep the songs for themselves, after the subscription is over.

And we say: Let The Competition Start.

Update: Tracks format is WMA 128kbps and 192kbps.
[via gizmodo]

Internet

Dizzler Media Player

68 Comments

Dizzler free downloadable application allows users to search online and play free music, videos, games, and radio stations on their desktop or mobile device. Dizzler even allows people to embed their player in various social networks such as Myspace, Facebook or any weblog, by simply adding a code line.

With Dizzler, all you need is an internet connection to access millions of songs, videos and games, free and legally. The player is fully adaptable, and Dizzler offers tons of skins in its website.

Dizzler Desktop

 

Continue reading Dizzler Media Player →