Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing in 2020

Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing in 2020

Humans now are extremely impatient and they speed date, eat fast food. They pay extra for overnight shipping, and go along with social media without actually planning a proper strategy

New trends and technology are constantly coming up and older ones are becoming redundant. So it is not really advisable to get into the social media bandwagon without setting a proper roadmap

Please note that social media is an ocean . It has millions of users. So by merely getting into it, will not help your brand .The digitalscool team has curated this comprehensive guide that will teach you everything you need to know about how to build a social media marketing strategy that will delivervalue to your audience and helps your business grow.

Why is social media important for your business?
A few years back, brands never considered social media as a marketing platform . It was just a trend and some also were under the opinion that it was a distraction for kids wasting constructive time to scroll through endless news feeds.

But in recent times, most brands are onboarding and have clearly leveraged the beauty of using social media as a powerful marketing tool.

According to research, there are 3.25 billion global internet users, and over three billion active social media users .It is a known fact now that If social media were a country, it would be the biggest country in the world in terms of population

We are telling you this because due to its gigantic size, social media can provide you with more exposure and brand awareness than any other marketing platform ever seen

The current social media platforms have become such an integral part of our lives that we are not thinking twice before telling the world about our desires, preferences, problems, plans and dreams

Now smart brands know how to benefit from the huge amount of data that potential customers are giving out in real time. Would you believe that recent statistics show five hundred million tweets uploaded , ninety million photos on Instagram, and four billion posts on facebook. Now among this ocean of information so easily available to brands, there are valuable insights about your customers-what do they like, what are they willing to pay for, what are their problems?

Social media has made it possible for brands to listen on the conversations their customers are having and also take part in the discussion. Social platforms can also help brands gather information about their target audience and create better and personalized marketing messages

What is Social Media Marketing?
For an instance consider yourself as the four year child you were when you just started taking swimming lessons. You were extremely scared to jump into the pool. The cool waters that beckon you now were looking threateningly at you that time. This is because it was an unknown territory for you . Plunging into something without knowing what is in there is scary

The same scenario holds true for getting started with social media marketing. If you are unaware of what strategies work there, you might end up burning your fingers

Social media marketing refers to the use of social media platforms to identify and connect with key audiences and build relationships

The goal of any brand is to increase brand awareness, generate leads and convert potential customers. But, you must understand that without building and nurturing relationships , you cannot sell them anything

Unlike traditional marketing, where brands start sending prospects with sales messages, social media platform is a community building process. In social media, brands need to listen, engage with their audience , become involved, and provide value with their prospects that can eventually lead to sales, thus direct selling is not powerful.

This takes time and patience

What are the benefits of Social Media Marketing?
Around ninety eight percent of digital marketers in the world are using social media as it has become an integral part of a brand’s marketing efforts

Surprisingly, not all businesses seem to understand the benefits of social media marketing. Recent studies show that even now around sixty percent of small businesses are not using social media marketing to promote their products/services.

Can you imagine the huge chunk of market opportunities they are missing out!
Even more surprising is that twenty percent of those businesses say that they do not even plan to use social media in the future.

This clearly shows that there is a huge gap between the people who understand the value social media can bring and those who still see it as just a trend among youngsters

Hence we list below a few benefits of social media marketing

Brand Recognition: Research shows that consumers tend to buy from the brands that they recognize and trust. Social media can get your business in front of the right people and influence them to engage with your brand even when they are not ready to make a purchase so that in future when they want to buy the product they go for your brand

Gives the Humanly touch to Your Brand: Social media makes it easier to show your customers that you are not just a faceless company that is only existing to take the money from their pockets. It assists you to build a brand voice and showcase your story , or the mission of your team. Our team does a great job of empowering their employees to be the face of our brand on social media platforms

Helps to Establish brand as an Authority: Social media is an effective platform to share useful content that tells brand solutions. Brands can respond to industry-related queries, participate in discussions, and share valuable resources with their network to become an authority in your industry

Improve Customer Service: Your customers are on social media so you better be there.Sixty five percent of consumersgo to social media for customer service. But that’s not all ,consumers expect brands to respond to their request immediately . So, while you are conveniently ignoring social media, your customers are talking about your business online.

There are many more benefits. Social media can also help drive traffic to your site, it also assists with link building for SEO

How can you build and implement a successful social media marketing plan.

How do you create a Social Media Marketing Plan for your business?
If you do not plan for your social media marketing, you will not be able to achieve the desired results and engagement

We have noticed many business owners and some digital marketers approach social media with no clear direction. They assume that they need to have a social media presence so they set up pages and accounts on every social platform and start publishing irrelevant and inconsistent content.

Hence we would like to stress the importance here that if you want to utilize the most of the social media for your business, first you need to understand your goals,what you are trying to achieve and the return on investment that can be achieved. Then you need to create a structured and laser targeted approach for moving towards that goal.

Here are the key aspects you should consider when you are putting together a social media marketing plan for your business.

Research on Social Media
Now you are aware that understanding your audience’s needs and expectations are vital to social media marketing . So it is important that social media research becomes the most important and key aspect of your social media strategy even before you start creating a page

It is very simple, the more you know about your customers, the easier it becomes to create content that caters to this set of customers’ specific needs.

However is it that straightforward?
The data and conversations on social media is so big that it can feel like a herculean task to look for valuable insights.

But of course it is possible to gain the valuable insights with the right strategies

First of all , you must start by asking the right questions for the specified platform

For instance consider an e commerce website selling eco friendly products. They want to start a new line of bamboo products. So they want to know what people are talking about when it comes to bamboo products. Some of the possible questions they may ask are: How are people responding to exclusive bamboo products? What will they use them for? Are the jugs more popular or the bags?Which are the companies currently into bamboo products?

Now they have questions and topics, they need to create a list of the possible keywords and phrases your audience might be using to discuss this topic on bamboo products. Also the funny part is people are not using the right words on social media so need to plan for those words too

Research on the right social media platform for your target audience. Once you are clear about the demographics of your audience, find out which platform they hang out on . For instance, younger audience hang out more on instagram . Target them with IGTV videos to gain huge engagement.

The same strategy works for twitter, facebook, snapchat and others, you need to customise content based on each

Analyze your results and refine the list. Exclude anything that isn’t relevant to your industry or is not providing any useful information.

With this data in hand, answer some basic questions, such as what is the overall sentiment for eco friendly products in this space, what audience categories are the most engaged about it, which region and which age group

Research should never stop. Consistently tweak as you experiment

Experiment analyse,tweak. Keep doing this consistently.This information can frame your approach to marketing your product or service to this particular group of people.

Paid and Organic Social Media Reach
By now you are sure that social media marketing can help you grow your business while spending within your budget. Like everything else, this too that takes time, patience, hard work and strategies

During recent times, organic reach has reduced tremendously and paid social media advertising is a better option when it comes to brand awareness, traffic generation and customer acquisition and overall reach

Organic social media marketing can help you put your business in front of the right audience for free (apart from your time of course). That is if you learn the rules of the game and play by them.

Here’s the thing: just as with search engine optimization, the algorithm for each social network changes regularly. Facebook, for instance, has significantly reduced the organic reach of businessesin recent years and it plans to lower it even more in the future.

Also this social network has made it clear that it will only show content that is useful, relevant, and valuable.

Most brands find cracking the facebook algorithm and getting your content in front of your audience is becoming increasingly difficult, but there are a few advantages to relying on organic social media instead of paying facebook immediately

Being consistent can benefit your brand longterm by developing authority and trust

If you have a tight marketing budget, it’s much more affordable;

Mostpeople trust organic engagement and messaging, more than they do paid advertisements labelled as sponsored

On the other hand, paid social media advertising can help brands achieve goals faster. One important thing to note here is that a paid campaign will stop driving traffic and leads the moment you stop the ads. But evergreen social media content that is engaging, valuable and insightful can generate ROI forever

In the end, both paid and organic is mandatory. You need to look at your metrics and budget to decide which option fits your business best and experiment with both. You must note that in the end, each of the social networks are businesses themselves, and they need to monetize their audience to sustain . Obviously, as this industry continues to mature, the ease of organic reach will continue to decrease. So if you think that social media is a free way to market your business, you will definetely end up being disappointed.

Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms
One of the biggest mistakes small business owners make is that they assume social media platforms as one single entity. True, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are all social networks, but they are so different . Everything from the audience to the style to the content is unique.

So, now it is important you ensure that you are focusing on the social platform that benefit your business’ goals?

Below are some factors to help you decide

User Demographics: Size isn’t always important. Instagram may be one of the fastest growing and highly popular platform,but if you are a B2B company then it would make more sense to focus your content and campaign on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Resources: Each platform needs a customised content style. Instagram and Pinterest, for example, require visuals, images, graphics and videos while Twitter emphasizes short crispquotes

Time: Unless you have a dedicated social media marketing team, it is just not possible to post on every social media channel. It is important to post daily on each platform

A brand needs to focus their complete efforton the social network that is relevant to theirtarget audience group.

How Often You Should Post on Social Media
The digital marketing team at digitalscool have studied social media trends of 75 companies across platforms and found the right social media frequency that allows you to engage with your network, drive engagement and traffic, and increase brand awareness, without coming across as too much selling.

Below are our observations

Facebook:
Studies suggest that you should post just once or at most twice a day to Facebook. Anything more than that can result in viewers either ignoring your posts or even worse marking it as spam

Twitter: Usually it is found thatfifteen to sixteen Tweets per day is the best that gets you all the benefits of twitter marketing;

Pinterest: Between fifteen to thirty posts per day will bring you the best results on pinterest

Google+:  Google+ is very much alive and helpful. We have seen that it can benefit your SEO greatly. It is necessary to post relevant content at least twice per day;

LinkedIn: One post everyday for LinkedIn to the relevant audience

Instagram: Brands should post only 1-2 images per day on Instagram. But if you have more content that you want to share with your audience, use the Instagram Stories feature

Does all this seem like a lot of work. Curating and Posting content consistently on social media is made far easier with social media scheduling tools that you can find on another article we have written for you

The Best Time to Post on Social Media
After curating great content, you must be aware that timing is crucial to social media marketing success.

Consider this situation ,you have spent hours working on a blog that is insightful and is well researched and packed with helpful information. You are sure that lots of people would benefit from your hard work. You share it with your network. But, to your disappointment, there is no engagement on the content

That is why timing is important

What is the best time to post on social media?

Facebook: The best time to post on Facebook is Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The best time is 9 AM, 1 PM and 3 PM.

Twitter: The best time to post on Twitter is Wednesday between 5 and 6 PM;

Pinterest: Saturday is best day for connecting with your Pinterest audience. The best hours are 2 PM, 9 PM, and surprisingly late at night

LinkedIn: Midweek posting (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) early in the morning (between 7 and 8 AM) or in the afternoon (5-6PM) is your ideal time;

Instagram: One of the things that make Instagram so great is that users are active throughout the week. But, for maximum engagement,. Also make sure not to skip Mondays and Thursdays

Google+: The best time to post on Google+ is on Wednesdays, between 9 and 11 AM.

It would save a lot of time if you can pre-schedule content to be posted at these times rather than be active all day every day yourself

Social Media helps SEO
Google uses over two hundred and fifty parameters to decide which content to show higher in search engine results. We have noticed that social media signals are the less significant factors. But yet they do impact your rankings.

According to the digitalscool team,the relation between social signals and ranking position is extremely high. Over the years we have seen that sites that have large number of social signals perform better than those with lesser signals.

Social signals play in SEO is becoming more and more clear in recent times. For instance, if you create and share good quality content on social media, people are going to like it, share it and engage with it in different ways That builds traffic, your credibility, and trust. Finally , this leads to a higher ranking.

Another important aspect is that your social media pages will show up on page one of a search result when someone is looking for your brand. This is very important for authority and brand recognition.

Growing and sustaining a Social Media Audience

You now understand that social media is an effective way to promote and grow your business.

But the most difficult step is getting the first likes, comments and engagement

Likes, Followers, and Shares: You can do a lot of different things to increase your visibility. It is important for a brand to add links of their social media profiles to their site. Also engage consistently with people, use well researched hashtags, add links to their social media accounts in their email signature. These are only a few strategies that help build engagement. But it is important to note that all other efforts will fail if the content you share with your community provides no real value. Hence it is imperative to create quality content on a regular basis if you want to keep your audience engaged

Facebook: Both the big social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram is all about videos. Statistics have shown that live videos get fifty percent more views than other types of content. This is definitely a broad audience reach that will help your social media strategy by leaps and bounds. But necessary caution needs to be imposed as you need to keep yourself updated with the latest trends as these trends keep changing , and you will need to adapt with the changing trends

Facebook Messenger: Messenger is highly popular and will continue to be in 2020 and a lot of companies believe this is here to stay. It is a social media channel that could compete with email marketing with personalised niche targeting. With Facebook Messenger brands can use  Chatbots to engage with prospective leads. They can also expand their reach with messenger advertising. In 2020 marketers suggest brand utilize this amazing mode of reaching out to your leads

Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups: Both Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups are very beneficial in building a community . The major difference could be your Facebook Page, is where some of your audience might be there just to benefit from some offers or some new trends or products. In a Facebook Group usually people are interested and engaged in a specific topic. Every brand now has one or more facebook groups as you can take part in the discussion and project yourself as an industry expert. Facebook Groups also get better organic reach, compared to Business Pages. It is free and has huge reach. So use the benefits of both

Twitter: Twitter is a very interactive medium. In twitter you can retweet, Like, and engage with followers and other users as often as possible to grow your audience. If you want to start a quick growth and sustain it over time, you must useonline twitter tools. Refer previously published article on this

LinkedIn: LinkedIn has evolved from an ordinary recruiting tool to a powerful publishing platform. Brands use this platform to connect with B2B market and publish content that will put your business in front of a target audience. Linkedln is extremely powerful as a networking platform

Pinterest: In Pinterest, collaboration is the key to success. You can invite bloggers and influencers in your industry to contribute to your boards. This way, you can increase your community and network.

Snapchat: If you want to build an audience on Snapchat, then you should come up with a storyline. You should just not post random photos or videos. Build a story that will keep users engaged.

Social Listening

There is a highly beneficial aspect of social media that you can utilize. But it is hardly utilized

It is called social listening.

The reason is to be able to deliver good quality content to your audience, you need to learn about their interests and behaviour. The only smart way to reach that level is to become a good listener.

The brand mentions, likes, comments and your competition can reveal something valuable about how you can reach your audience. This information can help brands not only improve their customer engagement but also understand how your target audience perceives you in comparison to your competitors. You could also identify pain points that no one is addressing. You could also set complaints right or identify industry influencers.

Brands must monitor keywords, such as your brand name , related words ,your competitors’ names, your product or service names, your hashtags, and the names people in your company.

Social Media Community Management

No brand can build a successful social media marketing plan if they are ignoring their fans and followers. You must immediately respond to comments and also send thempersonalized welcome/thank you direct messages. You must hare useful content

It is necessary to keep at least one hour per day to to social media community management and listening . Make an effort to respond to those mentioning your brand as this is what matters for fans to build trust with your brand. There are many tools available that makes it easy to schedule posts and to listen to conversations.

Social Media Advertising

While it is very important to put good efforts towards growing a social media presence organically, nowadays, with the limitations of organic reach it is becoming more important to invest in social media advertising

The customer journey is never a straight line. Leads or prospects go through different stages before they decide whether they are interested in your products and services or not.

In order to get consistent outcomes from social media marketing, brands need to create as many touch points as possible, and advertising provides the most controlled and measurable way of doing so.

Here’s a plan to effective social media advertising that makes sense in combination with quality content and an organic growth plan

Create engaging and quality content and publish it on your website;

Promote it organically to ensure it reaches the widest audience possible;

Add a Facebook pixel to your website that captures the information of people who visit and engage with your content;

Remarketing your content to the audience that has shown interest in your brand;

Generate leads that already trust you

Social Media Management Tools

Social media can get overwhelming if you are trying to manage everything on your own. Simultaneously you need to create content, schedule it, engage with your network, promote posts, share other people’s content, manage your community, and lot of related tasks

Fortunately, there are plenty of tools you can use to take some of the pressure off your shoulders. We have another article written on the best tools available for social media management

Social Media Reporting

The final and one of the most important aspect to consider when building your social media marketing strategy, is to analyse and track results.

Research suggests that forty six percent of companies had no idea whether or not their social media efforts were successful.

No company would be ready to invest any amount of money without a proper return on investment.

Following three steps are useful for tracking the ROI of your social media marketing:

Set SMART goals

We know what SMART goals are – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely goals.

For example set a smart goal such as Increase customer conversions from social media by 12% this month

Learn the metrics that contribute to those goals

What are the metrics that will tell you whether you were able to achieve your goal?

Every brand investing in social media must set up a baseline set of metrics that tell them their current status

The brand could set up a goal in Google Analytics that identifies and alerts when a lead converts into a customer. This is based on an event they trigger or page they visit. In this manner, if they use these URL parameters in their social media sharing of content, they can identify how many people have converted into customers directly from social media.

Track these metrics

Use Google Analytics, or other social media monitoring and reporting tools, to track these metrics and improve your analysis over time.

It is suggested that you analyse data from the social media platforms itself. They have some amazing reporting on your social media activity such as post engagement, follower counts, interactions, impressions and clicks.

Outsource social media marketing or keep it in-house

Sometimes whether to choose to outsource or hire in-house talent, to plan and execute your social media marketing strategy, can be a challenging decision.

There are a number of pros and cons to consider…

The pros of hiring in-house social media talent

They understand your business more accurately

They can take action more quickly when required

They are well connectedto your work culture

You have complete control of your marketing

The cons of hiring in-house social media talent

They may not have the expertise or experience that an outsourced resource has

The cost is more, sometimes a liability and processes need to be in place if you need to replace them

It prevents you from being able to scale quickly

It’s hard to find good in house resources

Wrapping up

We have seen that creating a social media marketing plan is both exciting and challenging at the same time.

You now are aware of the benefits you can leverage but there are so many factors that affect it, you do know where to get started.

We hope that this comprehensive guide will help you plan an effective strategy for 2020

In the end, you must know that your customers are out there on social media platforms, so you cannot and should not ignore them

What questions do you have about social media marketing? Leave them in the comments below and the expert social media team at digitalscool will be happy to help

Gist

Humans now are extremely impatient and they speed date, eat fast food. They pay extra for overnight shipping, and go along with social media without actually planning a proper strategy

New trends and technology are constantly coming up and older ones are becoming redundant. So it is not really advisable to get into the social media bandwagon without setting a proper roadmap

Please note that social media is an ocean . It has millions of users. So by merely getting into it, will not help your brand .The digitalscool team has curated this comprehensive guide that will teach you everything you need to know about how to build a social media marketing strategy that will delivervalue to your audience and helps your business grow.

A few years back, brands never considered social media as a marketing platform . It was just a trend and some also were under the opinion that it was a distraction for kids wasting constructive time to scroll through endless news feeds.

But in recent times,most brands are onboarding and have clearly leveraged the beauty of using social media as a powerful marketing tool.

Snippet:Social media marketing refers to the use of social media platforms to identify and connect with key audiences and build relationships

The goal of any brand is to increase brand awareness, generate leads and convert potential customers. But, you must understand that without building and nurturing relationships , you cannot sell them anything

Unlike traditional marketing, where brands start sending prospects with sales messages, social media platform is a community building process. In social media,brands need to listen, engage with their audience , become involved, and provide value with their prospects that can eventually lead to sales, thus direct selling is not powerful

This takes time and patience

Around ninety eight percent of digital marketers in the world are using social media as it has become an integral part of a brand’s marketing efforts

Surprisingly, not all businesses seem to understand the benefits of social media marketing. Recent studies show that even now around sixty percent of small businesses are not using social media marketing to promote their products/services.

Can you imagine the huge chunk of market opportunities they are missing out!

Even more surprising is that twenty percent of those businesses say that they do not even plan to use social media in the future.

We have seen that creating a social media marketing plan is both exciting and challenging at the same time.

You now are aware of the benefits you can leverage but there are so many factors that affect it, you do know where to get started.

We hope that this comprehensive guide will help you plan an effective strategy for 2020

In the end, you must know that your customers are out there on social media platforms, so you cannot and should not ignore them

We at Digitalscool, strive to bring this guide that shows the best times to post,how often you should post in different social platforms.

Let us discuss how can we add value to you

Enroll in our upcoming batches

Trends in Online Learning 2020 to watch out for

Trends in Online Learning 2020 to watch out for

It is now a well-known fact that the only thing constant in digital transformation is change. So, we provide you some insights into the digital transformation trends in E learning education that you can look forward to ,in 2020

Customized Learning Experiences
Rupesh is an entrepreneur. He has a small start-up. He has heard of the benefits of utilizing digital marketing to grow his company. He is also aware that his competitors are using google ads and social media marketing. But Rupesh wants to learn how to do it himself instead of outsourcing it. According to Rupesh, no one knows his business as much as him .But there is an issue. He cannot go and sit in a classroom every day because of his other commitments. So the best option for him would be to opt for an online digital marketing course such as Skillzlearn

There are e learning courses that develop such customized learning experiences for their students that they are able to determine how they would as an individual prefer to express their learning from each lesson . This sort of personalized experiences is a great relief compared to the usual courses where it is mostly a standardized form of teaching

The tailor made courses of Skillzlearn will teach you to optimize website content for the best possible search engine ranking. You will learn the theory behind Google search and other search engine algorithms. In this customised course ,you will also build practical, real-world skills that you can apply to a career in digital marketing or online content development, including on-page and off-page optimization, optimizing for local and international audiences, conducting search-focused website audits, and aligning SEO with overall business strategies. The specialization culminates in a hands-on live project, in which you will apply your skills to a comprehensive SEO consulting task.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will definitely play a role in analysing individual student learning aptitude ; although that may be a bit further off than next year.

Accessibility 
A good question would be to ask if knowing how to read is itself important or not , with new digital transformation trends in technology. One of the most amazing and interesting fact about technology is that it’s making information and knowledge accessible, regardless of how well someone is able to read it. This is all the more significant for voice-to-text and text-to-voice transcription technologies that are found to be helpful to students with learning issues. It is slowly becoming evident that there is also an increasing volume of information available in video and audio format, ensuring that learning is no longer limited by the easy ability to read. This significantly changes education as a whole

Digital transformations trends in education are making it less important where the student lives. Raj works full time . But he is looking at learning some fresh skills in digital marketing that will give him the much required push to his career. But due to various reasons, he cannot quit his present job to attend courses. Fortunately for him now, Skillzlearn makes it easier for even the most remote students to get the specialized support they need.

Internet of Things
The Internet of Things ( IOT ), holds tremendous potential in terms of creating smarter learning experiences. The IOT over the recent years has significantly helped to keep students safer and more connected. IOT has helped everyone stay better connected in a simple and fast manner

Big Data Is Getting Bigger
Personalized learning has been a dominant and most useful theme in the online education industry . The ability to personalize the process to an individual’s needs is one of the greatest online learning advantages. Big data analytics can help with that.

Sandhya loves spending time on social media. She is still in college. Though her parents are forcing her to take up a job,she wants to take-up something that interests her. She loves to write and she loves social media. In today’s times it has become easy to make your hobby, your passion into your profession . Sandhya has recently enrolled in the social media marketing certification course offered by Skillzlearn Here she was able to learn the principles and strategies that work in social media marketing . Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger… any marketing via social media.

The optimization of your social media accounts is a REQUIRED skill for ALL marketers and business owners.

VR E-Learning Projects
Consider a situation when you are trying to learn about art and your tutor is an art museum curator. They take you around a huge museum visually , explaining the history and techniques behind the works. You’ll get to see impressive pieces of art through an experience that’s as close to real life as it gets. This is the kind of immersive learning experience that we expect to see happening in the near future.

Online learning is not a small industry anymore learning is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 7% between 2019 and 2022 and expected to cross the $200 billion mark by 2025.

Arthi is a home maker. She has been a rank holder throughout school and college. But after her child was born , she had to completely give up her career . Now her child goes to school and she has lot of time in her hands. After a few months of futile efforts on job searching, she heard about “Hire Her”. An initiative by Skillzlearn for women who are looking to restart their careers. She is now a certified digital marketing professional. With the updated skills , Arthi is placed in a reputed company.

It has been observed that learning through a virtual medium has increased significantly over the last few years. This trend is true over all areas of e learning education , from basic education or for corporate trainings or courses related to medicine. E learning or online learning has made its place in people as a reliable and convenient form of learning

Skillzlearn prioritizes customised learnings. Based on the profile and preferences of the student, the courses are designed and delivered.

And as the time is progressing in every area scientifically, the learning (rather, eLearning) community is witnessing substantial changes in the ways that education has been adopted till now. Normal, subjective content has long left the field and now is the time to in still interactiveness in your courses.

Video-based learning content
It is no secret that finding time and the focus to sit through a heavy-on-content online lesson for hours at a stretch seems impossible for the busy professional in today’s world. For this reason, interactive video lessons are taking the centre stage in the learning community.

Skillzlearn believes that video content is more beneficial and effective in an online mode of learning compared to traditional methodologies, engagement building in a course requires much more.

Micro-learning
It is a well-researched fact that the average attention span of readers is not more than 8 seconds hence e learning course developers have always tried to address this need of learners . Micro-learning is a concept that caters to learners by keeping their lessons short, concise and action-oriented.

There is a growing trend towards eLearning course providers are now opting for course layouts that require the learners to invest not more than 15 minutes a day for a lesson.

2020-The Future of eLearning

It is clearly seen now that the global workforce is trending working professionals, students, entrepreneurs who would want to update their skills without disturbing their daily routine. Keeping their concerns in mind, the expert team at Skillzlearn has carefully designed and structured the course content ant timings. More and more students from all around the world are opting for online learning rather than traditional classroom-based methods. In 2020,we will observe a growing trend in this industry

One can expect VR-based courses, gamification, and big data to drive the industry as the greatest trends of 2020. For more information on how you can learn digital marketing and upskill yourself to this career which is highly in demand in the market , please contact www.skillzlearn.com

Quora

Related Questions
What is the next big thing for online education?

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Is online MBA the next big trend in higher education?

Given the action in e-learning, what do you think will be the major trends over the next 5 years in online education?

What are the trends of education?

Which is the best digital marketing institute in India

Can I learn digital marketing online?

Can I learn Social media marketing online?

Snippet
2020-The Future of eLearning
More and more students from all around the world are opting for online learning rather than traditional classroom-based methods. In 2020,we will observe a growing trend in this industry

One can expect VR-based courses, gamification, and big data to drive the industry as the greatest trends of 2020. Interactive video lessons and customised courses are taking the centre stage in the learning community.

With the expert Skillzlearn team, learning digital marketing at the comfort of your home , will become much easier. This not only makes learning fun but helps in better retention . In 2020, personalized curated courses on digital marketing will become a reality. More and more women will be able to join the workforce as they will complete courses at flexible times and be certified.

Companies cannot ignore the need for a digital and social media marketing strategy any longer, and they will hire skilled professionals who can help them compete in the digital world

Gist
Irrespective of the background or profession, 2020 will see a huge upsurge in people opting for digital marketing online courses. This is partly because of the huge gap in the market. The demand for certified digital marketing professionals is much higher than there are skilled and certified professionals. Every company whether a start up or a big multi national company is thirsting for social media and digital marketers. No company can survive without going online in 2020. Four out of ten marketing jobs, require digital marketing skills. However the people qualified to do these jobs is not keeping pace

Infographics
According to statista, Digital marketing spending will increase from $200 billion in 2015 to $306 billion in 2020. Over half of businesses struggle to find skilled professionals for marketing positions,with 46% citing the search as challenging and 7% claiming it to be challenging

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Top strategies to make your brand memorable- For agencies

Top strategies to make your brand memorable- For agencies

You know you are great at what you do. You have mastered all the skills. That is why you built a digital agency around it.

You have also been smart and niched out on social media, graphic design, website building, or content marketing. But the problems we all run into are similar. That is why we at skillzlearn through our years of experience in this field are letting you know the strategies to sail through these problems and emerge successful

These problems look the same but the solutions are all different. Let us look into it

With a little guidance you can avoid making the same mistakes that we all have made in the initial stages

When reading the 4 P’s below, remember that this is not like the 4Ps taught to you at marketing school. This is real life principles.

Even though your systems and processes are in place and efficient, you should strive to make them loophole free that comes only with experience and guidance. We live in a world where customer expectations keep changing as the technology and world around us keep changing, so if you do not constantly upgrade your skills and methodologies you will be beaten by your compititors

  • Proposals

Think of all those important hours you spend at your desk crafting proposals for prospective clients. The worst part is when you spend all of that time and effort and yet end up to losing out the leads to a competitor. You have now officially wasted all the precious resources for nothing.

What do you have to tweak in your proposals? Why are your competitors better at crafting proposals?

Create Value.

If your proposals are not creating value to your consumers,but only showing how much money you will be taking from the customers, you have sure got a bad strategy

You need to find out the problems faced by your leads. Point them out. How going to your agency will solve their problems and make their lives better .You have to tell them that your services are going to help them feel better in just a little way. You do not have to write stories. It just needs to be a crisp narrative

Your customer tries to see the value he gets out of your proposal. Even if your price was lower, the proposal of your competitor won the deal. Remember the time?

Build value every step at every opportunity. When the client sees the rupee symbol, they won’t hesitate because they’ll know they’re making an investment

  • Project Management

The online space is cluttered. Every brand wants to have an online presence. This is the reason brands want to hire agencies after they have burnt their fingers trying to do it on their own and failing. This also means clients don’t understand everything you do. So, during the course of the project, they have will not think it a big deal to asking for more of this and that. This is because in their minds it’s just a “small addition or change of course” .But to you it could mean an extra three to four productive hours of work. This keeps happening and finally you see yourself spending a full day doing the extra work

For example imagine you were an architect and you got a client Your client wants a basic 2 bedroom home as they have a small family. So you begin the construction and halfway through, they decide it’s not enough and opt for four bedrooms, a home movie theatre, fountain and they still expect you to stay within the specified budget and on time.

This is how clients are. They pay so you cooperate . People understand that would mean more plumbing, electrical work, and a whole lot of things.

Similarly your client would have no problem asking you to make one more graphic change the complete design, or to create another landing page. Then you give it to them because you have a hard time saying no and he is after all writing your cheque at the end of the day or because you don’t want to cause harm to the relationship. This is called scope creep

What is this scope creep? It is any work that falls outside of the predefined and agreed upon project scope. You must firmly inform, define, and enforce scope creep policies. It is the extra work that will take over your service bandwidth and your time will lead to unprofitable projects.

Do you think we are suggesting something not practical? You think that saying no to a client might annoy them?

To avoid this situation with clients, you must clearly write and show them before the project begins that anything other than this scope of work that they want , outside of the original scope will cost them extra money. Also let them know that previously defined timelines do not apply then. As soon as something like this comes up remember to enforce it or the client will not respect your proposal and opinions. This will also let the client know that you take the budget and timeline very seriously. Clients will finally understand that they are dealing with a seasoned professional and abide by your rules

When a project gets delivered on time and on budget they will definetely forget about you firm stand and recommend your professional service to others

  • Pricing

You as an agency are aware of dozens of pricing models, strategies and planning techniques. Some agencies adopt a pricing structure and succeed while another agency copies the same and fails

Neither do you want to underprice your services. What is the perfectly competitive price for your services?

High prices can make you seem well experienced, but if you set your prices too high your agency will lose clients. Low prices can attract more clients, but if you set them too low you will be cutting into your profit margins

You must know that setting low prices is that you are automatically attracting and inviting a certain calibre of client. The bottom of the rung ,clients who expect you to jump through hoops and who get extra work done at no additional cost. Then when a cheaper option comes along they will dump your agency without prior notice. The strategy is either you be the lowest in the industry or the highest. This is because if you are not the lowest then no one wants to go for the second lowest

Is it possible that your agency could sustain being the cheapest option?

Also remember here that increasing your prices will have its consequences too, and you will leave out a whole lot of clients. Scary is it? But think of it like this.

You could be charging Rs 1000 and have 10000 clients ,or you could be charging Rs 1,0000 and have 100 clients. Which strategy means less work with getting the same profits? Which one will likely result in happier clients? Which one is more sustainable?

Under-pricing your services will not attract more clients, and it certainly will not attract the clients you want to work with in the long run. If you are always getting stuck working with bad clients it is usually because your pricing model is attracting these clients. You are doing this to yourself ,a disservice by charging too little. If you have the skills, a great dedicated team, you need to charge the right prices.

The right clients will understand and accept it. Learn to build such clients in your community

Positioning

Your brand positioning is extremely crucial. When you first begin your agency, you’re small with a little pull. You need to find your clients. You create some ripples in the market but certainly not making any waves. The bigger and stronger your agency and brand positioning gets, the more powerful you become.

Failure to position or failing to have a positioning strategy can be a huge mistake . Brand positioning is where your agency sits in the mind of the customer. Regardless of the efforts you make, every single person that encounters your brand will form some kind of relationship or association with it. Having a strategy and a predefined brand positioning will help ensure that those moments and associations are positive. This is important in the regardless of which stage your agency is in

Defining and establishing a clear brand position will help you agency establish the right picture in the market. Positioning will do the essentials and nurturing so when a lead is ready to buy, your agency will already be established in their mind as the trustworthy and reliable agency that they can go to. Sounds pretty exciting right? In a recent survey, only forty percent of employees believe their management team uses brand positioning to sail through daily operational decisions along with marketing plans

Most agencies do not rely on their brand positioning to guide their marketing initiatives . It is because brand positioning statement is built through consistent planning and research

Your positioning statement, should represent in every single campaign, promotion, design, and decision. If it aligns with your positioning statement, you know it will reach attract and be received well by your target audience.

If you are not filtering every decision then you could potentially be curating and distributing content that will confuse or push away your target audience. This is not what you want right?

With these four important P , you should have gain some strategies to help your agency get up and running. Moving forward, you will be aware of the consequences if you don’t give these parameters the attention they need.

There is always scope for improvement. Hence you should constantly be changing and improving. These strategies are not to be read once and forgotten. You need to implement them in your day to day operations

As an agency you must continuously analyze and monitor your growth. You must listen to your clients and get their feedback. We list below a few strategies that will help you stand out among this cluttered space

1. Anticipate upcoming Trends

In a continuously evolving industry like digital marketing, anticipating the future is key. It is easy to get caught in day to day operations and problems.To anticipate trends and to spot opportunities requires constant upgradation. Learning may be from relevant blogs, attending conferences and seminars and speaking and getting feedback from clients, using your research skills to understand algorithm changes which happened regularly .

2. Focus On Long Term Work

Don’t do short term projects. Focus on long-term work and only think about brand building from day one. Move beyond the idea of a launch because successful brands need to stay in a market which requires consistent efforts and not just efforts in creating awareness every now and again.

3. Make Consistent Service your Mantra

Be consistent in providing client services. Have written standards and vision statements that you team is also well trained about and aware of to ensure that every client interaction is handled abiding by these lines and reflects the mission of the agency. Don’t talk products or services that you offer ,talk needs, and how you can help your clients meet those needs.

4. Specialize

When we started our agency, our first step was to research and identify on a niche where we knew we had special expertise. Then we worked hard to build our credibility even deeper, through writing extensively on this. We suggest you find your niche,your core strength. Don’t try to do everything a client asks you to do

5. Find out Your Client’s Story

Every brand has a story to tell. When your agency can understand your client’s business story how they started, what they want to do , then you can engage their audience with far more clarity, impact and get the expected results

6. Build a set process

Our practical advice to agency owners is to focus on two prime areas: One, keep your expenses low, which is crucial to sustaining your business and understanding your finances. Two, you must build a systematic and efficient sales process:

Identify and define your ideal customer profile.Also test channels to acquire customers in a systematic way. These strategies will help sustain and build your agency

7. Build a practical marketing plan

A marketing plan is necessary to build your marketing agency in a systematic manner. Do not forget to write blogs, organize events and do SEO for your own brand

8. Build a strong team

A company is made by its people. If you can search for and spend time hiring the right people, you are spending your time rightly.

9. Create Success For Your Clients

Know and identify your strong points. Know where your strength lies. Do not assure clients of all services even if you think you can deliver

10. Aim Big, Plan right

Do not hesitate to aim for the stars, even when you are small. You will never be fully ready or equipped . Unless you plunge . Take risks and experiment

11. Build Repeatable Processes

From early stages, create repeatable processes that can be performed by your team who are not yet experts in their field and can handle tasks when you are away. This will save you time to focus on strategy and save time on training new team members every time they are recruited

12. Get Out Of Your Own Way

Learn to delegate tasks. Never consider yourself as indispensable. If proper training and your agency visions are delivered to your team, you get time to focus on driving the agency ahead instead of focussing on day to day operations

Wrapping up

You have established your value and have been scrutinizing and have been selective about your commitments, but that has been helping you grow.

Some agencies try to scale their client base without establishing the team and the resources to do so effectively, but there’s a big gap between delivering your best work to one client and after scaling you see that it is not the same delivering your best work to several clients and there is a significant dip in the efficiency

Agency life as you know means long hours, high pressure work and deadlines . You can’t afford to dive in without some structure and basic plan

Once your team hits a certain size, you will then realize it is important to now add a level of middle management also. This is because you do not want all team members reporting directly to you. Make it clear for every team member that there’s a strategy in place and each person in the team can understand how they fit into that plan.

Don’t be afraid to hire and fire. For an agency that is part of scaling, it’s important to know when it’s appropriate to push people . This will allow them to perform at their max . Also know when to move on and hire new talent if your current team is not performing adequately. Nothing should stop you from growing your agency. Remember that If you are not solving new problems, then your agency is probably not growing.Being standstill will wipe you out

You have to constantly grow your agency and provide exceptional services to your clients.

Building and scaling an agency is a consistent approach

Growth requires you to put your agency’s core offering to the prospective and existing clients .

Please let us know what strategies have made your brand memorable in the below comments

Snippet

You have established your value and have been scrutinizing and have been selective about your commitments, but that has been helping you grow.

Some agencies try to scale their client base without establishing the team and the resources to do so effectively, but there’s a big gap between delivering your best work to one client and after scaling you see that it is not the same delivering your best work to several clients and there is a significant dip in the efficiency

Agency life as you know means long hours, high pressure work and deadlines . You can’t afford to dive in without some structure and basic plan

Once your team hits a certain size, you will then realize it is important to now add a level of middle management also. This is because you do not want all team members reporting directly to you. Make it clear for every team member that there’s a strategy in place and each person in the team can understand how they fit into that plan.

Don’t be afraid to hire and fire. For an agency that is part of scaling, it’s important to know when it’s appropriate to push people . This will allow them to perform at their max . Also know when to move on and hire new talent if your current team is not performing adequately. Nothing should stop you from growing your agency. Remember that If you are not solving new problems, then your agency is probably not growing. Being a standstill will wipe you out

You have to constantly grow your agency and provide exceptional services to your clients.

Building and scaling an agency is a consistent approach

Growth requires you to put your agency’s core offering to the prospective and existing clients .

Gist: With these four important P , you should have gain some strategies to help your agency get up and running. Moving forward, you will be aware of the consequences if you don’t give these parameters the attention they need.

There is always scope for improvement. Hence you should constantly be changing and improving. These strategies are not to be read once and forgotten. You need to implement them in your day to day operations

From early stages, create efficient well experimented processes that can be performed by your team who are not yet experienced in their field and can handle tasks when you are away. This will save you time to focus on strategy and save time on training new team members every time they are recruited.

Let us discuss how can we add value to you

Enroll in our upcoming batches

How Blogs on your Website help SEO?

How Blogs on your Website help SEO?

“How much chilli powder must I add to the sarson ka saag recipe mum?” asked Anshu.

“Just, google it Anshu!” retorted her mum.

Google has become the first stop for most people when they want to look for just about anything

This means that if you want people to find you, your website needs to show up in the search engine. One of the best ways to do this is to constantly update your website with blog posts that have unique content.

There are some well researched reasons for this

  • Blogs help in creating a new URL

Every time you write a new blog post, you create a new URL for your site .Every new URL is a new opportunity for your website to be ranked in search. None of the other pages of your website gives you the opportunity to create a new page that discusses important topics and terms for which you would like your business to rank on an ongoing and perpetual basis. It is very simple. When your target audience goes online to search for content, blogging provides endless opportunities to put your content out there

  • Blogging keeps your website fresh and current.

If you come across a website that has not been updated in years, you probably immediately lose some trust in the information you’re seeing. The company it represents could have gone out of business completely or the website could be providing information that’s been completely outdated or changed since that last update.

It also gives the search engine algorithms more reason to index your website frequently.

A blog is a practical tool for adding new and fresh content to your website on a regular basis.

  • Blog keeps the visitors on your site for longer

The number one priority of any search engine number is providing the people performing searches with the information they’re looking for. If someone who does a search clicks on the first link, then finds it unhelpful and immediately leaves to go back to the search page – that tells Google that the first result wasn’t as helpful as they thought. On the other hand, when someone clicks on a result and stays on the website for a while, that signals to Google that this website is helpful to the user

Someone who comes to your website from a blog post that shows up in the search results is going to have more reason to stick around for a while and read the whole thing than someone who lands on a page with less text or information.

Blogging helps you target long-tail keywords

Search engine optimization is highly competitive. Mr Rao owns a customised gifting company. He hopes that anyone who searches for “ customised gifting company “ should land on his site. But unfortunately for Mr Rao there are hundreds of other related companies also sharing the same hope! So Mr Rao needs to tweak his SEO strategy. He can start targeting relevant long tail keywords . Most people search for four or more terms . It would not be possible to fit these into our product pages or for that matter any other pages. But it would be absolutely perfect to target these keywords in a blog post and make it interesting too. You could try to put up a blog post that addresses your customer’s pain points. Mr Rao might address the problem of busy professionals unable to plan for gifts and then offer the best solution to his customers through a blog.

These searches don’t attract as much traffic as “customised gift” does, but they come from people clearly in your target audience of gift searchers and, if you can make it onto page one, you’ll get way more traffic from these topics than you would on page five or ten for broader more popular terms.

  • Blogs contribute significantly in internal linking

Search engine optimisation is all about strategies to get more external and internal links to your website. The best and easiest way to do this is by creating them yourself. As you add more pages on various related topics, you add more opportunities to link those pages to each other and drive in more organic traffic

Every time you do so, you can strategically use the anchor text that better tells Google about the page that you have linked to is to is about

  • Blogs help in acquiring external links to your site

So now you have created internal links. They are very helpful. But the hardest part of Search Engine optimisation is earning the external links. For Google to see your website as authoritative and trustworthy , other good quality sites have to link back to yours. External links could be got without blogging but is much harder

When you write a blog you fill your website with lot of unique and valuable information. When another website decides it’s valuable to their readers to point them to useful information on a different site, there’s a better probability that your website will provide that information that’s worth linking to if you’ve got some quality blog posts.

Research suggests that websites that have blog posts are usually the sites that have maximum inbound links

It is obvious that other sites would link to Mr Rao’s blog posts that talks about “ Best Diwali gifts to buy for your dad in 2019” than to his “About Us” page

  • Blogs help build a relationship with your audience

When your audience reads a post they like, there are huge probabilities they would engage with it by sharing it . This drives more traffic to the post and in turn to your site. When they have liked the type of content you are offering, they tend to come back to your website again to see more of your content . In this way when the traffic to your website increases and has repeat visitors, it shows Google that people like your website and raises your authority level in their algorithm.

More than trying to secure high ranking for particular keywords and rank higher up in Google search results, it is more important that your website should draw quality target audience who enjoy visiting your website. They are able to easily connect to it and they become regular visitors. This is significantly more important than trying to acquire the first spot on Google

Google algorithm Panda allows Google to assess the quality of the content in your site and adjust the ranking accordingly. So it is not just enough to upload blogs on relevant topic, but to make sure you are putting high quality informative content that provides good user experience.

Following are some of the core points to consider before writing blogs

  1. Never, never put duplicated content out there. Avoid copying content from other sites by spinning a few words here and there. Google algorithms are getting smarter
  2. Pay extreme precautions to careless grammatical errors. Anything that can be interpreted as a bad user experience will give you a low rating
  3. Avoid keyword stuffing. SEO experts usually guide us about using five to six relevant keywords in a page. Avoiding keyword stuffing helps you rank higher
  4. Quality content is achieved by curating content which means that you go deep into selected topic giving the necessary information the reader seeks
  5. Update your content including your blog posts at least once in a year

Websites with blog posts have seen 55% increase in traffic year after year. Blogging helps establish your brand as an expert in your field. When you share tips and give away some helpful information on your blogs, people will visit your site repeatedly . Through blogs, case studies telling stories about your brand can also be shared. It has been found that such success stories drive in lot of traffic . Also they are more likely to be shared on social media.

It is understandable that you would love to have blogs only about your relevant topics. But it is necessary to start covering topics from all angles that will ultimately lead relevant visitors to your site. It has been observed that both B2B and B2B companies see more traffic and leads , with frequent blogging.

There are thousands of brands for consumers to choose from in every industry. You putting out good quality information through blogging can sway the reader’s decision from one brand to another. The key to effective blogging is to create interesting and engaging content that readers who like to read at leisure. Over time you create a relationship with your readers and create brand loyalty

Through blogging you can show the quality work your company can do . You can tell the stories of the past. Even months after a blog post has gone live, they continue to attract visitors and helps increase sales

Another strategy of blogging that has been found to be effective is updating a blog that has gained significant authority/ranking to fulfil the current campaign goals

Effective blogging not only helps in capturing new leads but in nurturing and engaging new customers

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How to create your Twitter profile

How to create your Twitter profile

how to create a twitter profile | skillzlearn

Create your Twitter profile

Sunny Deol : You know, just the other day, I said a hi to Sachin Tendulkar.

Rainy Deol : Wow! Really? You are so lucky! How?

Sunny Deol : Yeah, then I thought I would speak to Deepika Padukone for a while so I wrote her a message.

Rainy Deol : No way. Directly to her? How?

Sunny Deol : I was a little tired. I found out Starbucks opened right next door so I went there for a coffee.

Rainy Deol : Ok, how did you know?

Sunny Deol : While there, I thought I would ask Anand Mahindra for some business advice for my startup.

Rainy Deol : Are you kidding me? How?

Sunny Deol : Then I approached the Dalai Lama to know how to achieve peace of mind.

Rainy Deol : Seriously? THE Dalai Lama? How?

Sunny Deol : Oh and I also told Narendra Modi that I loved his Make in India idea. He was happy to know that.

Rainy Deol : Stop it and just tell me HOW.

Sunny Deol : Oh simple. I tweeted him.

Rainy Deol : You what?

Sunny Deol : I tweeted them.

Rainy Deol : What do you mean? How does one do that?

Sunny Deol : It is very simple. All you need to do is create your Twitter account. Just enter your name, the e-mail with which you would like to associate your account and a secure password in a page that looks something like this. And then start tweeting i.e. uploading messages of up to 140 characters. You can follow anyone you like. If they want, they can follow you back. So they know what you are doing and you know about them.

Rainy Deol : That is very cool! Can I use this for my business too? You know, reach out to more people so that they know what I do, what my products are, etc.?

Sunny Deol: Oh surely. There are many companies on Twitter. In fact, it might be difficult to find a name that doesn’t exploit the tremendous potential of reaching out to millions at almost-zero cost.

Rainy Deol : Oh. I better join immediately. What do I do?

Sunny Deol : Let me take you through the process. After you have joined Twitter, like I told you above, make your profile.

Look at the below image for details about what to put where on your Twitter business profile.

This is the username of your business. Twitter calls it your “handle”. It is preceded by an @ sign. It is your unique identification that will help customers look for you. It can be up to 15 characters long.

This is the profile photo of your page (just like on Facebook). This can be your company logo along with its tagline or any other photo you deem fit. This photo is what will accompany every tweet you make on Twitter.

This is where you describe your business. Consider it a 160-character sales pitch for your business. Make the content informative and enticing. It will help to include basics like your location and working hours. Use this space to provide a direct link back to your company website. A Bitly link will help you track the number of clicks so you know the how many people visited your website directly from your Twitter page.

The header image is like your Facebook cover page. This is like a free hoarding. There are multiple options for how you can fill this space. You can put the company tag line, the company motto, a visual representation of your company, feature existing products, give teasers for upcoming launches, run campaigns, the choices are endless. Make sure this image is constantly changed to bring some life into your page.

This is called your pinned tweet. The tweet you pin will stay at the top of your page. It could be a clarification your company has issued, an imminent product launch, a news article on your company, anything that you definitely don’t want your customers to miss. To do this, go to the tweet you want to pin, click on the ‘More’ option and select ‘Pin to your profile page’.

And you’re done! You can start tweeting!

Rainy Deol : That was easy! Hey, since most of my competitors are already on Twitter, can you give me some quick tips on making sure I beat them and get noticed?

Sunny Deol : Since you’re so enthusiastic about succeeding, here are some basics you must definitely keep in mind.

1. Don’t just say it, display it. Be visual. Twitter being a character-based format should not limit you to posting simple updates. Tweeting photos along with relevant captions and links will keep your audience engrossed. See one of the

most iconic tweets of all times by Barack Obama.

2. Tweet often but do not start spamming. Learn where to draw the line.

3. Format your tweets well. Since there is a character limitation, be concise. As a professional, refrain from using internet slangs. Use relevant hashtags where needed.

4. Re-tweet. If you like something some entrepreneur has said or if a media house has featured your business, re-tweet. This will keep you in the news of your followers.

5. Engage with your audience by conducting polls and discussions. Make it a two-way street.

6. Timing is everything. Take a look at this : http://www.businessinsider.com/13-epic-twitter-fails-by-big-brands-2012-2?IR=T

7. And don’t forget to be funny. Engage in humour with your followers or other companies without saying anything legally damaging or insensitive.

One of my personal favourites is this one between Jet Airways and one of its customers.

Now that you’re all set, wish you the very best! Make it rain, Rainy Deol!

Let us discuss how can we add value to you

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Search Tricks You Must Be Aware of to Get Most Out of Google

Search Tricks You Must Be Aware of to Get Most Out of Google

google search tricks | skillzlearn

What’s your pick? Choosing the right social media channel for your business

Search Tricks

Google – A name all of us type absent-mindedly into our browsers when we need to check our internet connection; a search engine so big that it has been inducted into the Oxford dictionary; a name none of us is unfamiliar with.

You use Google almost every single day. It has the answers to all your questions. Since it just might be your homepage (it is mine!), you would probably know all there is to know about it too, right?

Well, as they say, there is always room for knowledge!

Let us help you to know more about how to navigate through the world’s largest search engine better.

NeedSolutionExample
Exact PhrasePut phrase within double quotes“Back to the summer of ‘69”
RangeUse ‘…’Macbook 50000..70000 INR
Exclude wordsPut a – (minus) sign in front of word you want to excludeMacbook –Air
Proximity – given words should be near to each other in contentUse ‘AROUND(XX)’ between the keywords where XX is the maximum acceptable distance between the keywords in terms of number of wordsMacbook AROUND(10) durable
Particular websiteUse ‘site:’site:Wikipedia.org India
File formatUse ‘filetype:doc’ or whatever extension is desiredMacbook Air filetype:pptx
Missing a wordUse * (asterisk) when you don’t know a word in a phrasea bird in hand is worth * in the bush
Keywords on a websiteUse ‘site:twitter.com’ or whatever website you want after the keywordTroll site:Twitter.com
ImagesSave the image, go to Google Images, look for it using the camera button 

Now that we have covered some of the essentials, let’s have some fun!

Picture this.

You are on a diet and can’t decide between French fries and garlic bread along with your pizza (all of us have cheated on our diets, that’s ok!).

You could ask Google for “French fries vs garlic bread” and it will do a side-by-side nutritional value comparison for you!

Once you have decided, trying to find a restaurant in your locality will become much easier if you add your pincode to it. (“Pizza joints in 112233”)

But what if your friend and you have to decide who will pay for the garlic bread, have to flip a coin for it but don’t have one? Just go to Google, click on the mic on the search bar and say “heads or tails” or “flip a coin”.

Now that you’re full, how about reading something romantic? Again press the mic icon on the search bar, and say “give me a love quote” or “I love you”.

Oh but you wouldn’t want anyone to know that you googled love quotes (see, I used it as a verb!), right? Go to http://startpage.com/ which shows results from Google without your location or IP being tracked.

But what is your IP address? Find out by typing ‘IP address’ in Google.

Want to know about a new app on your iOS? Just search for the app name in Google, click on More, then Apps.

What if you are interested in only the latest results, those posted, say, within the last 45 mins? Hmm, this is slightly tricky but this is how that can be done. Once you have typed what you are looking for, click on Search. After the result page is loaded, go to where the page URL is and, without spaces and without quotes, add “&tbs=qdr:XN”, where X is years, m is months, d is days, h is hours, n is minutes and s is seconds. Do not confuse n with N; N is the number. So, for the results in the last 45 mins, add  “&tbs=qdr:n45” to the address bar.

If you are looking for an image and are particular about the size, colour, type, time, copyright etc., search for your desired image in Google Images and go to Search Tools right under the search bar.

Confused about how to read 235720749 in number terms? Ask Google by searching for the number followed by ‘in English’.

Want to know your flight status? Simple search for your airlines names followed by the flight number.

What to know if downloading something from a particular website is safe or not? Go to http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagnostic/.

For all you online shopping addicts, find a quick summary of your recent orders across all websites by searching for ‘My purchases’.

Want your own Google doodle in your name? Search for Google Gothic and click on ‘I’m feeling lucky’.

Type ‘I’m feeling curious’ or ‘fun facts’ to learn some new facts without leaving your Google homepage.

So you’ve done all the above and are just looking to pass time. You would already know that you can play Atari Breakout on Google by searching for it on Google images. For some more fun, go to Google and click on ‘I’m feeling lucky’ to go through their doodle collection. Or type Google Pacman or Zerg Rush or Google Gravity (and click on ‘I’m feeling lucky’)! Enjoy!

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WHAT ARE THE TOPMOST SKILLS REQUIRED TO BE A DIGITAL MARKETING PROFESSIONAL?

SEO Checklist for your website

SEO Checklist for your website

seo checklist for website | skillzlearn

Search Engine Optimization

So you have just finished setting up your new website and have made your business pages on FacebookTwitterGoogle + and every other social media platform you could think of. You seem to have done all the basics right and now want to have a commendable internet visibility.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to ensure that every time anyone googles anything related to your business or industry, yours is one of the first results, that too free of cost?

Read on to find out the steps that will help you achieve that coveted ranking. Remember, you DO NOT need to perform all the steps. Some may not even be applicable to you. From those that do, only do as many as you can.

Set up Gmail Have filters for your new site, or configure a new email addressn

        • Install Google Analytics
        • Install Google Search Console
        • Install Bing Webmaster Tools
        • If you’re using WordPress, install Google Analytics by Yoast and Yoast SEO.
        • Check Google’s Search Console for 404 / 500 errors, duplicate content, missing titles and other technical errors that Google has found.
        • Keep checking the messages Google sends
        • Check for more errors using browseo Pay special attention to 302 redirects that should be 301 redirects.
        • Use Screaming Frog to find broken links, errors, and crawl problems
        • Use Google’s Keyword Planner. Here, make sure you consider searcher intent and difficulty, pick 1 keyword per page, and preferably start with lower-volume keywords first.
        • heck link profiles of competitors. Understand the anchor text they are using, and how and where they use their links. Take help from the SEO ToolboxahrefsLink DiagnosisOpen Site Explorer, or Majestic
        • Incorporate a primary keyword into your page URL
        • Ensure your title tags are 65 characters or less as anything over this will be truncated in results
        • Ensure your meta description tags are 155 characters or less. Like title tags, any spillover will be truncated in results
        • Think about your H1 tag – its usage, the presence of your keyword in the tag, its placement with respect to any other (H2, H3, H4..) tags, number of H1 tags
        • Ensure you have an abundance of search engine-friendly content on your site. Having at least 100 words of text would give the engines enough opportunities to understand your topic. Anything below 100 might skip you from certain searches. Absolutely refrain from putting inconsequential text.
        • Use synonyms in your copy.
        • Put apt descriptive ALT tags and filenames on your images as search engines use these to read images
        • Link to your internal pages in an SEO-friendly way and describe the linked page well enough for the users and search engine to know what the page is about
        • Do not use anchor text in your global navigation. Place in-content links instead.
        • Perform off-page optimization and build inks. Use ClickMinded Link Building Strategy Guide to get started.
        • Use 301 redirects, canonical tags or use Google Webmaster Tools to fix any duplicate content that might be indexing and penalizing your site
        • Use absolute URLs in your code? Some CMS platforms give you the option. Use absolute URLs instead of relative ones.
        • Check your site speed with Google PageSpeed Tools
        • Create an XML sitemap and submit it to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools? Use XML-Sitemaps.com or the Google XML Sitemaps WordPress Plugin.
        • Create a Robots.txt file and submit it in Google and Bing Webmaster Tools
        • Claim your business / website username on other major networks for reputation management reasons. This is to ensure your account name belongs only to you. This will also lead to you “owning” all the results on the first page of a search for your brand if you’re a new website or company.
        • Check if your website is mobile friendly. Use BrowserStack for that
        • Once you have set up your social media accounts, add Authorship Markup to your site. Authorship markup search snippet images are gone, but you may still want to add it to your site. Use the Authorship Markup Walkthrough.
        • Use an SEO Audit Toolto double-check everything once you’re live
        • Review all of the free SEO tools at your disposal before completing this audit. If you don’t understand some of the high-level concepts, review the Beginner’s Guide to SEO.

Once you have checked the steps that apply to your page, you should see the results soon!

Wish you the best!

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Different Social Media Channels and their utility for different types of business

Different Social Media Channels and their utility for different types of business

social media channels | skillzlearn

Social Media in Different Types

How many times have you seen a brand advertise itself aggressively on Instagram and wondered why they don’t do the same on Google+?
Have you ever come across a bank advertising itself on Pinterest? Or a jewelry store on Twitter? Or silk scarf stores on LinkedIn? Have you ever looked at any ad on Facebook and wondered if that was the right forum to advertise your business on? What about those e-commerce websites ads right before your favourite YouTube videos play?
Who decides which medium to use?
Do you want to know what would be the best channel for your business?
Read on to find a comprehensive guide on deciding which social media channel should get most of your attention.

Who are the social media behemoths?
Social media is the all-powerful tool now. It is perfect in every way – widespread reach at negligible costs at lightning fast speed. It, therefore, makes perfect sense to use that resource for one’s business. One of the most relevant parameters to judge the popularity and effectiveness of a social media platform is the number of monthly active users on it.
Who should use it: Every type of business, big or small, local or multinational

If Facebook was a country, it would be the most populated in the world, ahead of China. As of December 2015, there were 1.4 billion active monthly mobile users. No doubt Facebook is the king of social media platforms. It is the most popular in terms of number of users as well as name recognition.
What to share: All types of online content, promotion, events, ads, updates
Post frequency: Once or twice a day
Useful tools: Bitly not only shortens links but also offers statistics of clicks generated from a link each time that specific link is converted. This helps know how much Facebook contributes to the online footfall.

Youtube

As a country, YouTube would be the third most populous country, only behind China and India, ahead of the US. It is the second biggest search engine after Google. Around 1/3 of all internet users use YouTube. A staggering 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube monthly.
Who should use it: Any business that requires videos, tutorials or explanation (Think cosmetics, education, debates etc.)
What to share: Precise video content, preferably of less than 120 seconds
Post frequency: Once or twice a week
Useful tools: YouTube links make it to near the top of Google search results. An apt name and description of videos can ensure the target audience finds your page easily. A subscription widget or link to your website can help convert single views into a long-term alliance.

Instagram

Despite the declining engagement rates, Instagram is still a powerful marketing tool. In its short lifetime, it has already garnered more monthly active advertisers than Twitter. A user can follow accounts to be constantly updated with the brand.
Who should use it: Fashion, food, travel, lifestyle, luxury brands, personalities – any product/brand that requires visual description
What to share: Visually catchy content, short videos of up to 15-20 seconds
Post frequency: Twice or thrice a day
Useful tools: The integrated sharing functions for Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter enable you to repurpose your Instagram posts. Make sure to include appropriate hashtags to increase discover-ability on Instagram and to track engagement across sites where the content is shared.

Google

Despite its active base, only around 6.6 million users have made 50 posts or more on Google+. Over 90% profiles have never posted anything at all. This level of inactivity reflects the struggle of Google+ and often leaves it being simply another platform rather than the platform of choice for any marketer.
Who should use it: Any business already existing on other platforms, mainly B2B
What to share: Content much similar to Facebook except more professionally formatted, optimal usage of hashtags to promote search, mainly to direct traffic back to own website
Post frequency: Once or twice a day
Useful tools: Google Authorship can help bloggers ensure their Google+ profile are displayed in their content across the internet in search results.

Twitter

An impressive 79% of the ‘Twitter ati’ is based outside of the US. That is the global appeal it has. It is also available in 35 languages. It is the platform of choice when it is important to know the happenings around the world in real time.
Who should use it: Everyone
What to share: Any content that can encourage direct interaction with the customers as long as it is brief and relevant, start discussions, post polls, invite feedback, post short updates
Post frequency: Multiple times per day
Useful tools: You can schedule content in advance using Buffer. This way you can post 24X7 without actually manually doing it at all times. This will engage followers in different time zones across the world.

Pinterest

Fast gaining prominent, Pinterest is predominantly a woman’s domain with a vast majority of its members being females. 93% of the ‘Pinners’ make purchases or plan to make purchases after seeing something on Pinterest. This fact is increasingly enticing brands to join the form with 1 million businesses already a member.
Who should use it: Fashion, food, travel, lifestyle, luxury brands, personalities – any product/brand that requires visual description (much like Instagram), DIYs
What to share: Visually appealing content
Post frequency: Multiple times per day
Useful tools: Pinterest relies heavily on recent content. So to promote your business, make sure you constantly pin and re-pin your content.

Linkedin

LinkedIn has around 400 million members but only 25% of those log into their accounts each month. This channel is mainly restricted to job openings, offerings and company updates. It is more like an employment portal or an online version of one’s resume than a marketing domain.
Who should use it: Recruiters, those looking for new employment opportunities, B2B
What to share: Job vacancies, company descriptions (highly formal content)
Post frequency: Twice a week
Useful tools: LinkedIn allows premium users to check who has visited their profiles. If you are visiting a page of a potential new employer (and obviously would want to hide it from your current boss!), do a Google search instead.

Snapchat

Snapchat is becoming so popular that internally they measure daily and hourly active users. Snapchat has a daily active user base of 100 million. Such is its popularity that in the UK, Vodafone has announced that 75% of the upload bandwidth of its customers is on Snapchat.
Who should use it: Those brands that exist on platforms like Instagram and Pinterest
What to share: 10-second videos (or teasers of upcoming products)
Post frequency: Multiple times a day
Useful tools: Snapchat mainly targets youth under the age of 25. If your target group is not the young demographic, consider limiting yourself to more far-reaching domains.

How should I know which channel is for me?
Answer the following three questions to understand the right platform for marketing your business:

  1. Who is your desired customer group?
  2. Where is your desired customer group most active?
  3. What sort of content would your business need to market?

Any other special tips?

  1. Use analytics to understand where your traffic is coming from.
  2. Be active and post relevant content regularly and timely
  3. Use creative visually engaging images or videos
  4. Engage the consumer by interacting with them. Post questions, invite polls, encourage discussions instead of simply dropping links to promote your product.
  5. Post the same thing multiple times in different ways. This way the user will keep reading new and different posts without realizing that the links in all of them lead to the same content.
  6. Limit yourself to a maximum of 5 websites. Choose quality over quantity.
  7. Always, always, always maintain professional standards including correct grammar.

Of course all this is all and above ensuring that your posts are to the point and suitable to the medium you choose. It would not make sense to try and put a lengthy description of your business on Twitter by breaking it down into 3-4 tweets. (No one has that long an attention span!)

If you are facing a paucity of time, remember, social media clout can be bought too.

No points for guessing that a conversation relevant to your industry or business is occurring on Twitter at this moment or similar business pages are being started on Facebook.

Are you a part of it yet?

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LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing : Pros and Cons

LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing : Pros and Cons

live online course | skillzlearn

LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing : Pros and Cons

Every Coin has two sides and a Digital Marketing Course in a LIVE instructor led online format is no different. There are several pros and cons attached with an online avatar of a much in demand and popular Digital Marketing Course. In this Blog, I will try to weigh the different Pros and Cons attached with a LIVE online instructor led Course in Digital Marketing.

I will try to discuss few pros first followed by the cons of attending a LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing.

Same Course Content with zero compromise: More updated

A LIVE online course offers the same course content which can be found out in any regular classroom course or program in Digital Marketing. There’s no reason to believe that there would be compromise on the course content and deliverables in a LIVE online course format. You must not forget that you are learning Digital Marketing on a digital device from Digital Marketing Trainers and Experts, it can’t get better this. In fact, most of the classroom courses teach you outdated tools and techniques and the online courses are upgraded regularly with industry trends and changes in search engine algorithms and social media updates.

No Missed Lectures with Session Recordings

How many times, you have found yourself in a situation that you miss out on lectures in a classroom course? Sometimes due to your family and social commitments, many a times due to work preferences and sometimes you don’t feel like travelling to your classroom center and even due to not being well or down with fever. If you are attending a LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing, you do get access to the recordings of missed out lectures which you can see online or download them. This ensures that you don’t miss out on lectures any more. If it doesn’t suffice, you are to free attend other ongoing batches which offers the same lectures which you missed out last time.

Industry Experts, Subject Matter Experts and Trainers from different geographies

It might sound like a bitter truth but most of the Trainers who offer classroom course in your region lack practical experience in Digital Marketing even though they are good with concepts. Digital Marketing is best learnt with practical training and hands-on experience of tools and techniques assisted by trainers who come with a relevant industry experience. Digital Marketing is a dynamic field and updates which are overnight can have a big impact on what you do and the results which you want your brand or business. People working in the industry are always updated about these changes and they include it in the course content instantly. The problem with most of the Trainers who are working in industry is that they don’t have sufficient time to come down for a classroom course and they prefer taking LIVE online classes for Digital Marketing. Plus, they are subject matter experts who will teach you individual modules rather than one trainer teaching you the entire course.

Diversity of participants: Learning is fun with participants from different geographies and backgrounds

The best thing which I like about a LIVE online class in Digital Marketing is diversity of participants. I have been taking LIVE online classes for different companies such as simplilearn, skillzlearn, zeolearn, dmtree and few others. Most of the time, I see participants joining the classes from different geographies which includes different cities, states and even countries. Apart from this, they do come from different academic and professional backgrounds. There is a lot of insights which get shared and discussed by both participants and the trainers from different industries and different geographies which adds a lot of value to the participant’s overall learning experience in a LIVE online instructor led class for Digital Marketing.

Classroom Discussions are more fun and real with a LIVE online instructor led course

Simply because you are attending a LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing Course doesn’t mean that you are devoid of classroom discussions and fall into hearing mode. Most of the webinar tools which are being used for LIVE online classes have tools for discussions. You have a chat window, wherein you can ask queries from Trainers and even discuss with participants. Trainers can enable voice and you can directly interact with them in a voice chat. Not only this, you can share your computer screen in real time and show and discuss problems which you face. And all of this takes place in real-time and super quick. What can you ask more to learn Digital Marketing in real-time?

Flexibility and convenience: LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing

There’s a point in life where you look out for more flexibility and convenience specially if you have been working for quite long number of years. I am not sure if your work or job would provide you that sort of flexibility and convenience but a LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing would provide you one for sure. You can take up a LIVE online course either from your work station, coffee shop, living room, bed room or even from your hotel. I am sure that you don’t want location to be a constraint for you while learning Digital Marketing.

24*7*365 access to the Course

Let’s admit the fact that everyone is busy and no matter how much committed we are, we would always find an occasion wherein we seek access at our own ease and schedule. Your Trainer can’t be available all the time and as per your convenience but the classroom lectures can be if you attend a LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing. Once you have attended the lecture or even missed out on few, you always want to revisit these lectures when you find time or if you are looking for some help while working on the projects. LIVE lectures get recorded and can be accessed by you either online or even downloaded and stored in your computer for reference whenever or wherever you need them. This is something which you won’t find with the classroom lectures. Even scientists believe audio visual content helps you in better learning and helps you remember more than your old text book style of learning with the notes provided with classroom lectures.

Save your valuable time: Time is Money, It can be bliss!

How often you complain to yourself and regret about spending too much time on daily commutation to your office or work location and feeling guilty about not being able to find time for your family and loved ones or even to pursue your hobbies or interests. The primary reason why I chose Digital Marketing as a career option is that I don’t need to travel and can manage my work with my computer and phone from anywhere in the world. A LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing offers you the same benefit. Imagine, taking 30 classroom sessions each of 3 hours and then spending 3 additional hours for travelling for each of these sessions. You would be spending double the time spent on training only in travelling which further makes you deprived of the time which you could have used not only for yourself but also for working on digital marketing projects. Didn’t I mention that ‘Time is Money’.

Visual Aids for better Learning

We have discussed most of the pros attached with a LIVE online instructor led course in Digital Marketing. Let’s try to analyze the cons of attending such a course. Here are few of them:

Personal connect with Trainers

A classroom course would always help you to establish a healthy relationship with Trainers. Moreover, you might want to explore more learning and career or business opportunities with the help of your Trainers.

Learning Online: Grouped in virtual world, Alone in real world

If you are person challenged by technology, you would surely struggle initially to find a LIVE online instructor-led course in Digital Marketing conducive and viable for you. Specially, if you are an extrovert and love to interact with people then you might be in for a big disappointment. Even being a digital marketing professional and a tech savvy individual, I was in awe when I took my first LIVE online session for a Digital Marketing Course. But, it surely isn’t too tough to get accustomed with. After 1 or two sessions, you will find yourself at ease with the online learning mode if your Trainer is really good and the participants are active.

Apart from this, I don’t find any reason for disappointment with a a LIVE online instructor-led course in Digital Marketing.

If you are still worried, try this link for registration for a free online demo session in Digital Marketing

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