10 Essential Apps for Small Business Owners - #Infographic



When it comes to running, managing and maintaining an eCommerce business, you quite often have to be able to work on-the-go and have access to mobile applications that can help you run your business when you’re not sat at your desk. Whether it’s people management, stock control, keeping on top of finances or even updating your social media accounts, there are plenty of things to think about when running your own company. 

With the leap in technology - specifically mobile - over the last few years, we’re now able to access a wide range of applications and services that can be a huge help to eCommerce business owners. But how do we know which ones will actually help and be of use to you?

From apps that can save you time, reduce your workload and generally just quite helpful, there are now plenty of options and different apps available. Here are 10 essential apps for eCommerce business owners from 13-ten.


Essentials of Visual Content Marketing



Look back on yesteryears, during the first few years of the millennium, when the prevalent social media websites were MySpace, Friendster, Multiply, and LinkedIn. They were mostly for personal connections as people used them to interact with friends and relatives from faraway places. A few years after, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other online platforms came into play. People migrated over to them, gaining these sites millions of users.

Then, someone came up with the idea of a business creating a business account, connecting with people, and marketing to them. It worked. The rest, as they say, is history. How did it work though? Two words: visual content.


“What is visual content?” you ask.


In a nutshell, visual content are pieces of information that are seen instead of read—thus, the beginnings of visual content marketing.

This type of marketing is common today. Forty percent of people respond better to visual informationthan text. It’s no secret that images are easier to digest than writings. Subconsciously, they would rather take a few seconds to look at a picture than spend a longer time to read a wall of text.

This is why visual content is slowly taking over the marketing scene. Since it’s easier for marketers to interact with customers through images, the former have incorporated techniques involving visual content to enhance and solidify their strategies. Especially when social media platforms are concerned, proper implementation of strategies means higher customer interaction, conversion, and retention. 



“Visual content marketing?”


Doesn’t that sound beneficial for your business? It sure was for companies that executed it precisely and neatly, like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. Their strategies were all about their brands and how they want to be perceived. This effort to make their brand familiar and relatable translated well for their success.

Social media platforms are a big help, of course. This is the closest you can get to your target audience—instead of them going to you. By relying not only on your company website but also on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter, you spread your word to your audience; they, in turn, share to their connections. This ability is called “shareability.” When your posts are too great not to pass up to share, they will reach people you never even intended—or even expected—to know about you.

“Tell me more about this ‘visual content marketing.”


Infographic courtesy of: Mainstreethost.

Certainly! You already know what that is by definition. How can you maximize it?

There are lots of avenues; social media isn’t the only one. Your company website and blog should have visual appeal to it. You wouldn’t want your official business pages to be ignored, right? Visual content isn’t limited to social media platforms. Unless you want to have a richer Facebook timeline than your own site, then create content for other pages as well.

Easier said than done, though. Creating a shareable post takes creative effort. It’s not something you can do willy-nilly and expect people to just gobble up. Your posts should be: first of all, good and well thought of; secondly, relatable; and lastly, interesting. This is a point that you should not ignore. Using an infographic doesn’t guarantee shareability.



“What should I do then?”


You’re asking one of the basic questions now.

First off, you should get creative. A great post is shareable. Be creative with your image. There are several design techniques to do this, be it an infographic or a picture with embedded text. It boils down to your creative juices; and as they say, “The sky’s the limit.” If you’re not that confident about your artistic senses, then you can have visual artists do it.

Also, you still need to market your visual content. Just because you posted it doesn’t mean it will be shared instantly—and even if that happens, it occurs very rarely. Give your post a call to action. Aim to inspire your readers to do more than just sharing. Make your post an experience. That way, it won’t just be about the sharing; people can say that you and your post directly affected their lives in one way or another.



“Visual content marketing can do that?”


If executed properly, yes. Of course, there’s more to it for you.

You reach out to your target market and get potential customers. That means conversion rates. You also get to connect with your customers, and they think better of you. That’s a plus for your reputation. When your reputation is good, then this cycles back to potential customers—since there’s already proof from other customers that your company is that good. This also leads to “top of mind awareness.” People remember you easily resulting to more customers.

It’s a whole cycle of benefits.

“Whoa.”

Whoa indeed! Now that you see how beneficial a proper visual content marketing strategy is, you would want to take that action. It may and can be difficult, but the rewards are worth it. While there’s some risk involved, there’s nothing much for you to lose, but so much for you to gain. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get creative!

Why Your Business Should Market on LinkedIn (infographic)



LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world. It’s a popular website for people to find jobs, and it’s even more popular as a place to rub elbows with their coworkers. 

But as you’ll see in this infographic from WebpageFX, LinkedIn is also a place to promote your business. 

Whether you run a B2B or B2C company, LinkedIn provides you with the audience and means to create new sales. 

You can blog, comment on content, send connection requests, create private messages, and more all from your LinkedIn dashboard. Altogether, that makes it an incredible marketing opportunity. 

But most people have their doubts. After all, why would a professional social network also double as a marketing medium? 

The answer lies in LinkedIn’s userbase. 

Every second, two new users sign up for LinkedIn. Based on their income, spending habits, and personal data, each of them is worth about $84. 

Beyond that, 45% of LinkedIn users are in upper management positions, also known as key “decision-maker” positions that are so valuable to the sales process. 

You also won’t find many LinkedIn users other places online. 83% of them don’t use Pinterest, 59% of them don’t use Twitter, and 13% of them don’t even use Facebook. 

Altogether, that gives you a unique audience of business-minded individuals who are in a position to buy from your B2B. 

And if you’re a B2C, the deal is even sweeter. 90% of LinkedIn users say they make household decisions, meaning you can safely market and sell to almost all of LinkedIn’s 450 million users. 

To earn these valuable sales leads, you can do a few different things. 

First, write longform blogs specifically made for LinkedIn. Longform authors have 42 followers on average, as opposed to “connections.” 

Second, post 20 times per month. That’s about five times per week, or every weekday. 

Next, grab the attention of your audience with titles that are proven to work on LinkedIn. Starting a title with “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” or “how” is a sure bet since 28% of LinkedIn’s top articles include those words. 

You can also use “you” or “your” (27%) or lists (20%). 

After that, make sure your topic will work for LinkedIn’s audience. Career management, workplace psychology, and talent management are the three most popular categories for LinkedIn articles. 

Finally, post at the proper time. The best time to publish is between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. for your intended audience — during their work day.


Online Automation: How to Use it to Improve your Marketing Channel




To run any vehicle smoothly, it is very important to take care of its engine. In the same way, your marketing channel is similar to that of a well-oiled engine that would let you run your digital or online business well. No doubt, there are many others components present within an engine that work together to help things run efficiently. The same goes with your marketing channel too. If one component does not happen to work well, it will spoil the whole flow and that is where a marketing automation comes into play. Marketing automation will make sure that all the components are working properly in order to create a fine marketing channel.

So now, let us have a look on how does marketing automation work:

Knowledge about your leads:

A major delusion with online or marketing automation is that people assume it to be similar to that of an email marketing. Though email marketing is often used, but online or marketing automation is much more complex and touches every digital marketing strategy within your marketing funnel.

Marketing or online automation is a technique that allows you to be proactive with your leads, which can be termed as lead profiling. Lead profiling is simply an approach to collect all the important profile information about your leads, including: age, location, interests and much more. The idea behind profiling is simply to obtain a better understanding of your target audience. By doing this, you give yourself the ability to generate more relevant content because it’s genuinely what your leads want to see. Online automation can also show you where your leads stand within a buying cycle.


Make your potential customers feel important:

No doubt, your ultimate goal would be to convert your leads to your customers while making them feel comfortable with your brand where marketing or online automation can serve that concern. A recent study shows that lead nurturing creates 50% more sales leads at 33% lower cost, which could bring a 20% increase in sales opportunities.

For instance, let’s say that someone viewed a product on your website and then left. In such a situation, sending them an automated email with a small discount could serve to be a great way of enticing them to come back to visit your site. This can be termed as a great example of lead fostering, where you are simply using marketing automation to covert your lead to your customer.

Don’t loose your command on the content part:

It’s easy to hit any old email together and send it out, but it could come with several negative consequences. Therefore, you have to know where your lead is lying within the buying cycle. Based on their position in the buying cycle and what they are viewing, you need to send relevant content to that individual visitor.

Your content can also be beneficial for your brand awareness while performing online automation. Unfortunately, there are many people who might be unaware of your company, so it’s your job to build trust and introduce them to your brand. A fine way of doing so is by sending them educational content, based on their interest. This builds trust and credibility for your company.

How to determine your success of practicing online automation?

Marketing or online automation should be one of those providing a positive return. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to lock down all the concrete numbers on your marketing automation campaign, but there are a few key indicators of whether it’s working or not that line as follow:

Leads Generated:

If you have not gained the number of leads, then you’ve got nothing, as leads are something that brings your marketing channel to life. Take a look at the bounce rate and time spent on your website in order to determine whether you are attracting quality leads to your website or not. If you’ve got a high bounce rate and low visiting time for your web page, then chances are your marketing and automation campaign is summiting your leads in the wrong direction.

Content Interaction:

A heavy majority of the returns from your marketing or online automation campaign is going to depend on the content you generate. Without relevant, high-quality content, your marketing automation will never get off the ground. So take a look at the connections that your leads are exchanging with your content. This goes for all sorts of content, including website, email campaigns, and even social media accounts.

Bonus infographic:

infographic courtesy of: Adeccousa.

Digital marketing is constantly changing and getting higher in terms of online advertising, as what worked yesterday might produce no results today. Therefore, it becomes very important to stay ahead of your leads and predict the next step of your buyers’ behavior. Marketing automation will allow you to do this. By knowing their practice and behavior well, or by sending them the relevant information and shoving them down the channel, you will surely end up with a positive rate of return in your overall digital marketing strategy.

Build Your Business With Google+ Communities - #infographic




According to Miernicki's 2015 data, Google+ has over 2.5 billion users worldwide, 300 million* of which are active as of October 2013.

This network specializes in displaying relevant content to people with similar interests, bringing them together in one place.

Not only is this network optimized for better search results, it also showcases innovative ads that target specific users according to their needs and preferences.

One of Google Plus’s special features, Google+ Communities, lets people share and discuss their common passions publicly and privately, allowing people to expand their connections.

Some business professionals consider this an avenue to interact with their customers in order to optimize their brands.

This infographic from SlideGenius.com shows you how Google+ communities’ effectiveness influences both startups and established businesses, how this social platform encourages customer interactions, and to start building your brand with it.

*According to StoneTemple study Google+ has approximately 212 million active users as of April 2015.

10 Ways Hackers Can Hack A Facebook Account & How To Protect It (infographic)




It's without a doubt that Facebook is a monster when it comes to the number of users that they have worldwide, with estimated figures of around 1.5 billion. This makes it easily the most widely used social networking site in the world. With such success and popularity that Facebook has, comes the inevitable attention from hackers and with that, makes them a massive target for these cyber thieves. Thousands of accounts get hacked every day and in some cases cause the user a whole lot of problems as usually personal data is stolen and used against them.

The infographic below by the guys over at TopTenSelect illustrates the top 10 ways that hackers use to get into your Facebook accounts and cause absolute havoc! The graphic also shows you just how you can combat these low life crooks by making your accounts extra secure.

You can find all this valuable information at the bottom of the graphic under the section ““Ways To Protect Your Facebook Account From Hackers”. Simple tips such as not saving passwords to your browser and increasing the character count of your password can make such a difference.

Don’t become another victim to Facebook hacking. It’s vital you take action now, because if you don’t, you could just well be next.


Infographic: Facebook Business Manager (For Beginners)




Gone are the days when businesses and companies alike created dissimilar profiles to manage their Facebook pages. The era of taking turns when using one log-in to access a business page has been finally eradicated when Facebook officially launched the Facebook Business Manager in April 2014.

Facebook Business Manager is a free tool that simplifies a company’s use of Facebook pages for tasks such as accessing, managing, and organizing multiple pages, advertising accounts, and applications. It is a common place in which members can perform tasks simultaneously without having to share log-in information. 

There are several instances when you should use Facebook Business Manager: handling multiple business pages and ad accounts, working with an agency or client partner, designating page permissions with different access levels to members, and requesting access to other pages or ad accounts.

With Facebook Business Manager, you can assign access to partners and colleagues without adding them in your personal profile. By adding their email address, you can invite or remove members and supervise their activities per section.

This guide is an easy-to-follow tutorial that teaches you the basics and mechanics of Facebook Business Manager – adding a plus point in your venture as a thriving business owner. Learn how to use Facebook Business Manager through this step-by-step infographic, courtesy of Slidegenius.

Click image to enlarge+.

Just follow these steps and you’ll be done in a jiffy! Wasn’t that easy? Now that you have an idea how Facebook Business Manager works, you can start exploring its features here.

Adjusting to Facebook’s changing features can be puzzling. Just be patient: read and read and read! Going through a pile of online innovations is not only a big accomplishment, but also an advantage for your business.

Digital Marketing Trends To Look Forward In 2016-17



The overall online spending is growing exponentially due to the constant state of flux in the Digital Marketing landscape, and the marketers are making millions from it. The top-notch are reaching the highest highs of the digital sphere effortlessly; however, there remains a long list of names that are toiling to cross the bar of mere $1000. The question arises- What the best-class marketers are doing that everyone else is failing to attempt? 

While we can clearly see the pace at which digital world is growing, one thing is certain that to be ahead in the race, marketers have to adapt the evolving digital trends sooner than others. As we are through with half of the year already, and the marketers have started gearing up for 2017, here are some of the digital marketing trends that will shake up the digital world in coming months.

Content Will Only Get Stronger

With 88% of the marketing done through content, standing out in the crowd has become extremely demanding in the digital world. To broaden the scope of content, marketers will focus on creating distinctive, hyper-targeted, and authoritative content that reflects the creativity quotient of the team and engages the users effectively. New types of content like simple quizzes, clickable whitepapers, HTML5 infographics, etc. will be leveraged by marketers to build confidence, develop brand, and become a true thought-leader in their segment. As too much of unneeded verbiage is already scattered online, the businesses will now aim to rise above the noise by contributing something original and substantial to attract and engage the visitor. 

Rise Of Live Video Streaming

The customer of today wants information in real time and real fast! With so much of content flooding ceaselessly online, you can no longer rely on a static blog or image to leave an impact on the user. The brands that incorporate live videos in their marketing strategies are receiving more engagement from the visitors. An average visitor seeks for an immense experience that connects him/her to the brand, for which live streaming platforms like periscope, Facebook live, Snapchat, and meerkat are rapidly booming. 


Source: wideo.

IOT Is Here To Stay

The Internet is not just the internet anymore. It has become an invasive part of the ecosystem that’s slowly taking over the things we use daily. As per 51% of the world’s top global marketer’s, IOT will completely revolutionize the digital world by the end of 2020. Marketers will further rely on real-time data to learn how customers interact with the products, take decisions, and make purchases. Not just that, IOT will also help to learn about the customers and leverage upon the gathered data to improve the customer service.

Growing User Generated Content

A research from twitter shows that about 50% of the visitors look for customer reviews before taking decisions. Also, over 92% of the visitors trust user recommendations over any other form of advertising media- This is where the importance of user-generated content comes into play. Soon the user-generated content will cover a major share of online content. The trend is economical, result-oriented, and highly effective to engage visitors and push them down the sales funnel. 

Impact of Online Reputation Will Grow

80% of the customers agreed that online reputation of a company impacts their purchase decisions heavily. Marketers have realized the impact that online reviews and opinions have on their business. In coming months, more and more companies will make efforts to enhance their online reputation. As Google is now conveniently displaying a company's review alongside the search result, it would become crucial for the marketers to have good customer reviews in their bank if they want to make it large in the digital landscape.

New Search Engines Will Boom

Conventional search engines like Google, yahoo, Bing, and Dogpile could only extract the pages that are easily accessible or are large enough to be located on World Wide Web. However, there are other lesser known engines like Broadreader, Dotmis.com, omgili, etc. that dig deeper into the web and extract results. The new trend will use various social media applications, and strategies to find small but vital information from groups like Behance, Reddit, Tumblr, and other password protected sites and blogs that are ignored blatantly as they are hard to find, or not registered with search engines.

Infographic courtesy of: Click.

The ever-evolving digital sphere is playing in trillions, and to be at par with their efforts marketers have to adapt the emerging trends as quickly as possible. Here's a piece of advice for the businesses that are constantly trying to leave their mark in digital world - Every business has its own data and metrics that guide the managers to take actions and form strategies. Observe the trends and look for inspiration, but don't simply copy what the top-class marketers are doing. The outcome might deceive.

Thanks for the read! Good Luck.

How To Tame Your Task List: 5 Proven Ways To Do It (infographic)



Are you drowning in tasks and just can’t seem to keep up? Do you ever feel like you could work nonstop but still not make a dent in the list of things you need to get done? You are not alone.

Every day, someone at work is feeling overwhelmed by their massive list of tasks and feels like they’ll fall behind. The good news is that your large amount of tasks most likely means that your leader entrusts you with skills and know-how to get these assignments completed. 

With a little time management and organization, you can start managing your office tasks instead of allowing them to manage you. Read on to discover five ways you can tame that task list and become more productive at work!

1. Prioritize and Define the Most Important Tasks

Productivity happens when prioritization is happening. At the beginning of each day, look over your list of assignments and determine which ones are the most pressing. When you can single out which tasks are most important and can then break it down into a simple daily “to-do” list, you’ll find the satisfaction of checking things off helps fuel your work energy. You’ll find yourself making more headway simply because you’ve restructured the way your task list looks.

2. Use Technology In Your Favor

With all the apps, programs and software that are available today, you are guaranteed to find something that can help you automate reports and complete tasks quicker. Your web browser offers a host of extensions that can help you battle the day to day grind. Utilizing SaaS programs can help reduce manual labor and even create higher levels of employee engagement. For example, many companies are turning to gamification in the workplace to increase productivity and boost morale.

3. Eliminate All Distractions

With any job also comes a variety of distractions that can keep you from working at your max performance. Did you know that it takes an average of 23 minutes for a worker to resume a task once an interruption has occurred? Interruptions can be a variety of things - from email notifications, text messages, chatty coworkers and so much more. Eliminating distractions can add time to your day and help you chip away at that ever-growing task list. Limit your email use, turn off your phone or even place a sign on near your desk that allows coworkers to know that you’re dialed in.

4. Take Lunch Away From Your Desk

It’s been proven that when employees take a lunch away from their desk, they are more productive because it helps manage their time. When you take a moment to get away from your work environment and get away from the computer, you’ll find that the benefits of taking a lunch break far outweigh what you can do by working through it.

5. Assign Due Dates and Hold Yourself To Them

A task without a due date is like having a destination without a set of directions: you know where you need to end up but you have no idea how to get there. Yes, a due date on a task increases the pressure but it also increases urgency. Without deadlines, assignments can be pushed farther back and eventually off the table slowing down task outcomes. If your tasks do have dates, assign yourself subtasks with dates so you can stay productive and start completing assignments earlier than expected.

By implementing some of these strategies in your daily work, you’ll find your task list seeming less overwhelming and more manageable. Once you feel in control of your work, your quality of work will go up and you will become a task slaying machine! 

Infographic courtesy of: Quill.

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