Social networks are flooded with potential customers. Therefore, today’s companies need to foster a socially engaged culture within company walls.

A business becomes more inherently social by going beyond the corporate Twitter account and Facebook Page. A social business engages the entire company, from CEO to executive assistant. Take advantage of the opportunity to foster your company’s internal community and teach valuable social media skills as the space rapidly grows and evolves. But how do you get everyone on board?

1. Give Interactive Tutorials


It’s hard to get people to tweet consistently when they don’t understand what an @mention is. By hosting a few interactive Facebook and/or Twitter tutorials across the company, you can provide a valuable service to your coworkers, both in and out of the office.

Have everyone bring laptops and phones to the session to keep it interactive. Try setting tasks at the beginning of the session, such as creating a special tutorial hashtag, and then ask everyone to tweet photos of the tutorial.

2. Focus on Fun Ways to Use Twitter

Show your employees how to use a hashtag that they can relate to. For example, follow funny Twitter commentary while watching an episode of The Bachelor. Or show the foodies on your team curated lists of food truck Twitter accounts and how to see where they are parked.

Provide examples that demonstrate how Twitter can organize information and news for just about any job or industry. Once they learn the basic tools and creative uses of social media, they will naturally see how they can gather more information applicable to their jobs as well.

3. Find Influencers Within the Company

Chances are you already have several employees that love social media, whether they’re Pinterest fanatics or live tweet their entire weekends. Recognize these employees internally for their mastery of social media by highlighting their content. For example, the team member with the most active Instagram account could be in charge of documenting your company’s product launch party.

Once you start finding ways to feature and utilize the social media prowess of employees, more of the team will chime in and participate. Encourage the team to @mention the corporate Twitter feed when they find pertinent industry news and content. This will generate more content and a larger social media presence for the company as a whole.

It’s important that your internal experts feel their social skills and expertise are appreciated by the company. These people will naturally start helping and encouraging other employees to do the same.

4. Launch a Fun Contest or Internal Campaign

Once you’ve taught employees the basics and highlighted the company’s influencers, it’s time to get everyone involved in some straight-up fun. Try launching a contest: Record everyone’s Klout score and see who can improve hers the most within a month. Or announce an Instagram photo contest, in which the office chooses the winning photographs, and frames the winning entries as office art. Or host a company room on turntable.fm and vote on the company’s best DJ. That person could DJ the next office party.

Be sure to follow up with incentives and recognition, crucial aspects of any competition. Social media allows for a great deal of creativity, so take full advantage and set the contest up as a fun outlet for the company.

5. Engage

As you encourage your company to become more social media savvy, make sure to foster a sense of community. People want to learn information from social networks, but they also want to communicate with one another. Social media channels provide a way to do this outside the normal confines of cubicle culture, and can boost overall company moral by augmenting the experience of working together.

Occasionally highlight team members’ tweets, Facebook posts and content from the corporate accounts (with content, make sure to get permission). If someone has an especially funny or relevant tweet, draw attention to it. This activity not only shows employees and onlookers that team members are valued, but also personalizes and gives your brand authenticity. Plus, company employees will be more excited to share and listen to the company within social media channels.

6. Get creative!

The opportunities to infuse social behavior into your company only increase with engagement. You’ll be able to create more advanced tutorials, educate about emerging platforms, launch new initiatives that bring everyone closer together, and much more. Ask your employees what types of contests and initiatives they’d like to be a part of. Social media provides a company a way to have some fun at work, so make the most of it!

Convincing newbies to jump headfirst into social media can seem challenging, but by demonstrating value and communicating enthusiasm, your company will take off into social media stardom. If you explain how to use a social media channel, show its potential, and reward creative participation, you are well on your way to creating a company with social values built into its foundation.

Mae Karwowski runs social media strategy and oversees community management at Gilt City, a subsidiary of the Gilt Groupe. She also consults for several startups. 

Web or Visual design can be costly for designers; 
not only its process is time consuming, its tools involve hefty monetary investment too. Designers on budget are often hit with the same dilemma – powerful machine and lesser software, or settle with an average machine so you can purchase more design-related software, but in trade you suffer for the epic system lagging.

Graphics editors, code editors, file sharing and transferring tools, document and spreadsheet editors all cost money. These are future expenditures hard to anticipate. If you’ve went all-in into getting the best laptop, chances are it leaves you pretty limited in terms of budget for software. To give you an idea – Adobe Design Standard (comes with Photoshop, Illustrator and inDesign) costs about USD $1299; Adobe Photoshop alone costs about USD $699.00.

Way out of budget?
No worries, good news is, you still can get projects kick-off without spending a dime. Sounds familiar somewhere? No we are not talking about download pirated software.

In today’s post, we are going to give you a guide of all Windows software you may need on your laptop or desktop, and all of them are free. We’ll also throw in our recommendation as well as more free alternatives to give you more options, so let’s dive into the heaven of free software and see what they have in stock for you!

Web Browsing Software
Don’t look at me like that, I know all web browsers are free, just want to make sure that you have all awesome browsers in your garage!

For web browser, we think the Google Chrome is the best browser for now. Why? Faster browsing, cleaner user interface, better HTML5 and CSS3 support, and awesome Chrome extensions are rising more and more these years.

Besides, as the mobile has taken over some acres of the land of Web Design these years, it’s really important for you to have Opera Mobile Emulator to test your website on mobile browser settings.

Recommend: Google Chrome
More Alternatives: Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera Web Browser, Opera Mobile Emulator, IETester

Graphic Editing
There are a lot of graphics editors released to challenge the realm of Photoshop these years, but the GIMP stands firm on top of them, mainly due to its extensive features.

From photo enhancement to digital retouching to file format support, GIMP will let you feel that it’s the best alternative to the Photoshop. Its cluttered interface might be a bit complicated at first, but it’s far better than the pain of having software with fewer features.

Recommend: GIMP
More Alternatives: Paint.NET, Chasys Draw IES, FastStone Image Viewer,Picasa

Vector Design
There’s a time when you just need to create some perfect shapes that form awesome icons, logos or buttons, and the job can be well done with Inkscape.

Inkscape includes capabilities similar to Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, with the support of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Its main features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns and grouping, basically everything you need for drawing vector graphic!

Recommend: Inkscape
More Alternatives: Serif DrawPlus, Creative Docs.NET, Alchemy, Pencil, InsightPoint

Coding
Code Editor is one of the software you shouldn’t spend a buck on it, as there are just too many awesome code editors in the web!

For advanced coder, Notepad++ is your friendliest companion as it does not contain any complicated plugin or feature that drags the execution time and even your computer speed down. In short, it’s lightning fast.

If you would like to seek coding guidance from the editor, both Komodo Edit, Aptana Studio 3 and NetBeans IDE could be your good master. Also check out our list for CSS Editors.

Recommend: Notepad++
More Alternatives: Komodo Edit, Aptana Studio 3, NetBeans IDE, Bluefish, RJ TextEd, TotalEdit, ConTEXT, Geany, Sublime Text, Editra

FTP / File Transfering
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software helps you to transfer files from one host to another host over a network, such as your computer to your client’s website.

Filezilla makes sure you don’t spend any money on FTP software in your entire web design career. It not only allows you to browse the directories and upload multiple files real fast, but also provides secure connection to ensure that everything you do in the software is safe.

Recommend: Filezilla
More Alternatives: WinSCP, Cyberduck, FTP Rush, Core FTP Lite, Free FTP

Notetaking & Productivity
I’ve heard so many designers telling me the moment that the great ideas slipped through their mind, just because they didn’t take note of it. You probably don’t want this kind of incident happen in your life, and Evernote could prove to be a great helper in securing your precious ideas.

As its slogan says, Evernote helps you to remember everything, in everywhere. You can not only store text note but also audio note and even webcam note as well. What’s really awesome here is you can sync the documents to other devices of any Operating System such as Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and more!

We Recommend: Evernote
More Alternatives: Memonic Desktop, AllMyNotes, RedNotebook, EssentialPIM, KeepNote, Tomboy, WikiPad, Zim,CintaNotes, Personal Brain


Mind Mapping
You got to believe this: you need a mind map to organize, manage, and even spawn your ideas. Mind map makes you clear about what you’re doing, what you should not do, and what you can improve.

Most of the time we draw the mind map though papers and pen, that’s fine, but what if you want to carry the notes to everywhere, or you want to link certain ideas to the website? You need the mind mapping software, and XMind could be your best companion, as it got basically everything you need for doing a mind map, and the user interface is even intuitive.

Recommend: XMind
More Alternatives: Freemind, Freeplane,Blumind, SciPlore

Documents And Spreadsheets
From Text Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation and Database, OpenOffice is your reliable partner to assure your client’s confidence about your professionalism. The user interface is also intuitive enough that you can produce a presentation directly after the installation. Forget about Microsoft Office!

Libre Office 3 and Lotus Symphony 3 are relatively new but they also include certain awesome features as well, so do remember to check them out and choose the best for your office works!

Recommend: OpenOffice
More Alternatives: Libre Office 3, Lotus Symphony 3, SoftMaker Office, KOffice, GnomeOffice

File Sharing
Many of the computer users are still using the mail services like Gmail to send file(s) to other user. The method is fine, but now we are in the era of cloud computing, why don’t have a place in your computer, where you or your client can just put the file into a folder, and it will sync automatically on the other side?

Dropbox is the elf that allows you to share files with ease. The fact that this software is so awesome is that it actually requires no professional knowledge to setup the environment, it’s foolproof! Probably saved you tons of time on explanation part.

Recommend: Dropbox
More Alternatives: Box, SpiderOak, Ubuntu One, Windows Live Mesh, Wuala,TeamDrive, ZumoDrive, Tonido

Screen Capturing
They say a picture worth thousand words, and screen capture tools gotta help you capture any picture that you think it’s worth thousand words. There are a lot of screen capture tools in the web, but I found the Jing from TechSmith (the same company that forged SnagIt) particularly useful.

Jing allows you to not only capture screen, but also record 5 minutes of screen activities. After the capture, you can also put text, arrow, and frame to give the graphic some annotation, and that’s pretty much everything I need from a screen capture tool.

Recommend: Jing
More Alternatives: ZScreen, PicPick,Greenshot, DuckCapture, Shotty, PrtScr

Fonts Management
As a web designer, type is a big deal for us, as it’s one of the most essential elements that define the aesthetics of the web design you crafted, therefore knowing every type in your computer is important for you to choose the best one for your design.

While Nexus Font is not a font creation tool, it proves useful to provide you a glimpse of every font installed in your computer, making it possible for you to actually study, consider and choose the best font for your design.

Recommend: Nexus Font
More Alternatives: Cfont Pro, Dp4 Font Viewer, FontViewOK, Font Xplorer

Author: Alvaris Falcon

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) that is machine readable and designed to be read by smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded may be text, a URL, or other data.

Common in Japan, where it was created by Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994, it is one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes. The QR code was designed to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

The technology has seen frequent use in Japan and South Korea; the United Kingdom is the seventh-largest national consumer of QR codes.

Quick Response codes (QR codes) and other two-dimensional codes are expected to achieve widespread use this year – and for good reason. Consumers want immediate access to what’s relevant and QR codes are being used to make that possible.

QR Codes 101
If you’re not yet familiar with QR codes, they’re similar to the barcodes used by retailers to track inventory and price products at the point of sale. The key difference between the two is the amount of data they can hold or share.

Bar codes are linear one-dimensional codes and can only hold up to 20 numerical digits, whereas QR codes are two-dimensional (2D) matrix barcodes that can hold thousands of alphanumeric characters of information. Their ability to hold more information and their ease of use makes them practical for small businesses.

When you scan or read a QR code with your iPhone, Android or other camera-enabled Smartphone, you can link to digital content on the web; activate a number of phone functions including email, IM and SMS; and connect the mobile device to a web browser.

Any of these desired functions are easily achieved by properly creating your QR code.  It’s a simple process of entering the appropriate data into the QR code generator, described below, and it all takes just a few minutes.

The ability of QR codes to connect people with each other and to multimedia digital content is very useful for businesses and consumers alike.

The Origins of QR CodesWhile QR codes are still considered a novelty here in the United States, they’ve been actively used for over a decade in Japan where they were invented.  QR is a registered trademark of Denso Wave, a subsidiary of Toyota.  Denso Wave has elected not to exercise their patent rights of QR codes and that has encouraged their widespread use.

There are other software companies that have created 2D codes that work much like QR codes, with Microsoft being the most notable.  Microsoft developed their own proprietary software to create codes known as MS tags.  Unlike QR codes, which can be read by a number of different readers, MS tags can only be read by the Microsoft Tag Reader.

Choosing to use QR codes or MS tags is a personal choice.  It seems that MS tags presently allow for more possibilities for creative graphic designs, such as incorporating images and logos into the tag. 

How QR Codes WorkQR code Generators – There are a number of sites for generating QR codes and they’re all free.  An Internet search for QR code generator will offer many choices.

One that has worked well for me is Kaywa, a site created by Datamatrix, which is another pioneer of 2D codes.  You can use it to create QR codes that link to a web page, text, phone numbers, or SMS.  Another with even greater capabilities, including customizing the color and format of your codes is Kerem Erkan.

QR code Readers – The QR code reader app that works well on my iPhone is i-nigma, which claims to be the most widely used reader in the world.  It accommodates virtually any type of camera phone. For the android, you can also try Barcode Scanner. If you already own the popular price-checking app Red Laser, they’ve recently adapted their technology to accommodate QR code reading.

Applications for QR Codes
Sharing – There’s no limit to how, or even how much, you can share with QR codes.  While a video or landing page is easily shared, you could go further and share an entire eBook and even multiple pieces of content that share a common link.

QR code Like button to the author’s Facebook page.

Community – Sharing is how you build community, and one of the favorite arenas for doing this is Facebook.  You can use Likify to create a QR code that links your mobile device to a fully functioning LIKE button for your Facebook page.

Calls to Action – After building a community, the next logical step is to mobilize them to take action.   What are you trying to accomplish?  You can alternate special offers by simply linking your QR codes to new landing pages, and you can combine then with email opt-ins to build your list.

The QR code above takes visitors to a Facebook page welcome tab where the calls to action are Liking the page and a list opt-in.

SEO and SMO – Earlier this month I wrote an article on social graphs where I discuss how web objects such as images, music clips, and videos add valuable content to your social graph.  QR codes enhance both your search engine and social media optimization.  Now you can increase traffic to those searchable objects to further optimize them by encouraging more sharing.

Social Proof – To help build a community offline, it can be helpful to use your vibrant online communities as social proof of your influence and expertise.  As one example, you can use QR codes to link to specific blog posts that have earned an abundance of activity.

Analytics - QR codes most commonly link to urls, which is why link shortening services bit.ly and goo.gl now automatically generate a QR code for sharing your shortened links.  Using goo.gl as an example, you simply click on the “more” link after you create your shortened link, where you are taken to a page that not only gives you the QR code, but useful analytics.

MyQR.co is another site that provides analytics and the ability to customize the color of your QR codes

This screenshot shows how bit.ly serves up analytics and a QR code for a shortened link. Scan it to go to a list of recommended QR code readers.

Practical Uses of QR Codes
Here are some ways for using QR codes that are mostly in practice now, as well as we will be seeing in the very near future.

Where
QR Codes could be used:

• The back (or front and back) of your business card.
• Your brochures and other marketing materials.
• The sides of trucks and trailers.
• Product tags and packaging
• Convention and event nametags
• Restaurant menus
• Event ticket stubs
• Point-of-sale receipts

What
QR Codes could link to:

• Installation instructions
• Sources for replacement parts and service
• Directions to your business
• The process for hiring your professional services
• Valuable coupons and special offers
• Recommendations for complementary products and services
• Free mp3 downloads
• Customer feedback forms

How
You can you maximize your effectiveness with QR codes:

• Provide explanations about their use and benefits
• Encourage actions that support your marketing plan
• Assuage the fears of the technically challenged
• Give reasons to come back
• Experiment with the size, location, and color of your QR codes
• Study your analytics
• Make the process fun, such as a QR code scavenger hunt
• Experiment

Practical ExamplesUnited Airlines – Many of the major airlines are now using 2D codes as digital boarding passes.  I recently learned that by the end of 2011 all carriers will be required to provide this service for international flights.

Google Places – When you register your local business with Google Places, you’ll receive a decal for your place of business that includes a QR code to your company website. Be sure that QR code links to the most relevant information that potential customers are interested in – such as hours of operation and current specials and offers.

The Future of QR Codes and TagsThe potential for QR Codes is limitless.  What’s most exciting is how they take what social media is doing well now, bringing people together with technology, and extending it to enhance the experience.

The next generation of barcodes will hold even more information – so much that an Internet connection will not even be necessary.  The content will be effectively embedded in the code.  Imagine scanning a digital code to manifest physical reality?

Content Complied from Jeff Korhan

The spotlight is now on social media buttons that can be integrated into your website or blog. These buttons help visitors share the content on your site with friends, family and colleagues. As webmasters begin to unearth the hidden potential of social media and its use for business promotion, more and more websites are displaying such buttons.

A website must be developed to compete against the best in business; it needs to cover all bases and make sure that it uses every marketing tool available at its disposal, to promote its information and products and services.  Social share buttons have emerged as a new tool in the intensely competitive world of online promotion.

A one-click shortcut

As a website owner, you might wonder as to why integrate a social share button. If visitors want to share your content or link with somebody, they can always logon to Facebook, Twitter etc and do it. Why have buttons on your website? Yes, your website visitor can do this, but they won’t. Why would they waste time and effort in going through the whole process, after all, you aren’t paying them for it, are you? What social media buttons do, is that they offer a ‘shortcut’ for your visitors. All they need to do is click on a particular button, and they are done. They wouldn’t mind doing that.

Impact your marketing efforts

You want your website content to be seen by the maximum number of people. And for this to happen, you are using numerous online marketing tools and techniques. Using social media buttons will make your marketing efforts even more worthwhile. You will give relevance to your site content, by enabling users to share it across various social networking sites. If you get your buttons and content right, there is a good chance that your social media button will leave the kind of impact that you are looking for.

Promotes a Culture of Engagement

Unlike some of the more overt online branding efforts, integrating social share buttons on your website is a way of branding, but one that is not ‘in your face’. When visitors come across a social media button placed on a particular page, they are given to understand that you want to interact with them at a certain level.  For you, customer engagement is more important than just selling your products and services. This is one way of ensuring that your prospective customers see you as a credible and professional merchant, whose content they wouldn’t mind sharing with the people they know.

A word about the different Social Media Buttons

Some people are consumed by the benefits they see in Facebook and Twitter when it comes to social media buttons. No doubt, these buttons help share content and links, quickly and conveniently, but you must not forget that there are other social media buttons available. Take for example LinkedIn. If you are offering the kind of products and services that are targeting working professionals, this social media button might be better suited for your needs. Stumble Upon, is yet another button that can be used. It’s a popular social media platform, which means your content can be seen by many prospective customers. Google +1 is a recent entrant in the world of social media buttons, and helps people recommend the links and content that interest them.

There are plenty of options available. So, the best way to go about it will be to use a combination of social media buttons, which you think can effectively market your site.

Posted By - Evan

Nowadays, with Internet spreading its wings all over the globe, more and more people are switching from physical mediums of business promotion to online marketing. Email marketing is one of the best means of promoting your products and services online. It is also one of the oldest sources of business-to-business marketing used by virtually everyone.
A well planned effective email marketing campaign can help your business products and services gain maximum visibility and recognition, not only locally but all over the world. With this direct marketing procedure you start getting quick response once your email reaches your targeted customers.


The Importance
In today’s world of cut-throat business competition, companies and enterprises are making use of only the most effective means of business promotion, and email marketing is one of these mediums. Businesses find email marketing beneficial because of its ability to be highly adaptable to today’s constantly changing business world.

Other factor that adds to the inevitable importance of email marketing is its aspect of being highly inexpensive and affordable. It can also easily be built into existing marketing systems of any organization seeking promotion at international level. Moreover, online marketing can make business promotion more efficiently, short, and real time in terms of delivering something to your clients and customers. 


Benefit Of Email Marketing

Rightly executed email marketing can compliment all other marketing initiatives and reap you many benefits, some of which are as follows:

Cost-Effectiveness
No matter how inexpensive the conventional mediums of marketing and business promotion can get, they can never be compared to the cost-effectiveness of email marketing. Marketing collateral, like press advertisements, brochures, flyers and posters require a significant financial outlay. On the other hand, email marketing is live, constantly changing and is easy to implement, along with being inexpensive.

Global Approach
A good advantage of email marketing comes with the globalism of the Internet. No matter where you are or whom you need to reach, email marketing paves the way to a global approach of business promotion. Borders are no obstacles in email marketing.

A Personalized Medium
Email marketing is a personalized medium of advertising and business promotion. It enables you to create a special bond with the prospects. Unlike other mediums of marketing and promotions, email marketing can be segmented in terms of its target audience, meaning that you can split people off into smaller, more focused lists. This too gives a more personalized approach to your marketing messages.

Gauge Results
Any marketing campaign needs to be gauged in terms of its results and feedback from the target market. With email marketing as a tool of business promotion, you can easily carry out litmus tests on your target audience regarding different campaigns.
You can accurately measure click-through rate, conversion rate, how a person arrived at your website, and more, through readily available tools on the Internet, and assess the success of different email campaigns.

Quicker Response
Time Another advantage of email marketing over the conventional means of business promotion is that it has a quicker response time. The average response time of email marketing is one to three days at max and you get the most responses on the first day itself, while a direct mail campaign would take minimum two weeks to generate any responses.

Ease of UseEmail marketing comes with an ease of use for both the sender and the receiver. Executing an email marketing campaign is simple and anyone can do it without any extensive resources.

6 Tips To Do It Well

For every effective marketing campaign, doing it right matters a lot. Following are certain tips which will help you execute better and more effective email marketing campaigns.

1. Pre-determine Your Campaign’s Objectives
Before executing any campaign, its objectives and targets need to be pre-determined in order to get the maximum out of it. A general email marketing campaign can have two basic objectives i.e. to strengthen customer loyalty and ongoing relationships and to drive direct response of the customers. Whichever of these two are your campaign objectives, it is important that you plan it out and then set it for execution.

2. Avoid Spamming
No matter how easy, affordable and responsive it gets, the biggest hurdle in the way of a successful email marketing campaign is the spam filters. When more and more people started misusing email marketing, email service providers all over the world introduced spam filters, which were a great setback for this mode of business promotion. Therefore, when the successful marketing practitioners realized that people’s dislike to spam destroyed the customer loyalty they worked so hard to address the problem with best practices that revolved around the aspect of ‘permission’.

Permission is best and the only authentic way to avoid spamming in the process of email marketing. This may sound a tedious process to you, however, in actual getting permission is not much difficult. Offer something useful to your customers (a coupon or special discounts, a research related to your product or perhaps an informational newsletter) in return as if the person agrees on receive your messages and, often, to provide valuable personal information.

Never underestimate the power of "free" and use the same in taking customer’s permission for email marketing. When you will give them something free, build the relationship and then recommend products or services, they are likely to buy from you and will stay loyal to your brand.

3. Opt-in Option
An opt-in option is a perfect way of taking permission and carrying out an effective email marketing campaign. Adding an opt-in form to your email marketing message is the best practice in terms of marketing ethics and effectiveness.
Considering the importance of an opt-in option, larger organizations even go for a ‘double opt-in’ option i.e. after the receiver of their marketing message firstly enters his/her email address to subscribe to their list, they send them a confirmation email which contains a special link back to their email marketing campaign, which verifies that this visitor did indeed sign up to their mailing list. This way they easily avoid spamming and their customers develop a sense of respect for them.

4. Creating the Message
Once you plan out your campaign objectives and also get permissions of your customers, the next step is to create the actual message that needs to be sent out. There are some points to be remembered while creating your email marketing message:

• The subject line is the most essential element of email message content. The subject line should always make sense and should standout.
• Create the content of your message absolutely clear and easily readable.
• Go for the ‘inverted pyramid model of message construction i.e. start from ‘most important’ information to ‘less important’ one
• Web readers have very less time and are always in a hurry so keep your message short, to-the-point and ensure its relevance.
• There are certain essential elements of an email message content i.e. the ‘to’ line and ‘from’ line, the subject line, the offer, the format, the body copy, the message category, message personalization and targeting.
• Like the subject line, signature has a crucial importance in an email message. Always include a signature at the bottom of your emails, as it is a good way to attract more traffic to your website. This signature should include your personal details, your company details, and an opt-out link.

5. Testing the Message
Before sending out the actual campaign in execution, it is better to test its different aspects with trial and error method. Try out different fonts for both content and links, re-positioning images such as logos and buttons and experiment with different emailing patterns (including the greeting and sign off).

Send three different patterns of your email, compare their click-thru stats and see which one works best. This way you will be sending the right mix of content and images that will attract more visitors, and ultimately more sales.

6. Develop and Maintain the Email List
As mentioned earlier, in order for your email marketing campaign to be successful, it is important to be focused in every aspect of execution. Similar is the case with email list. You need to develop a proper and well-searched email list for your campaign (probably of the people who are interested or have opted-in for your marketing initiatives).

Also, email list is not a one-time thing. It needs to be trimmed and maintained according to the circumstances. Longer lists should be broken down into smaller segments, targeting the consumer and personalizing the message. Also, after every three months, shed off the people in your list who do not rear or respond to your messages.



The Conclusion

Email marketing is a fully grown and well-used tactic for business promotion via emails. It is cost-effective, easily executed and gives a good impact to your campaigns. Email marketing does not replace your other marketing activities but compliments them extremely well. A well run and good email marketing campaign can grow your customer pool and add to customer’s loyalty.

Hearing from your brand repeatedly, with good content reminds readers of your business’ value, especially if they take your advice and find it works for them. Although email marketing comes with lower risks and higher profitability, however, this can only be achieved through proper planning and execution tuning into higher success rates for your business.

By Arfa Mirza

1. Desktop: With your desktop you can search your computer. You can retrieve email, files and much more very easily and more efficiently.

2. Toolbar: The toolbar of Fire fox find suggestions for your searches, you can add buttons which provide you quick access to different web sites. You can also share web pages.

3. Google Health: This application is for those writers who manage their own health insurance. They can use it in order to organize their records, and they can learn about their health issues and much more.

4. Calendar: You can use this web-based calendar for document sharing and collaboration

5. Reader: Easily get latest information coming from your favorite blogs & feeds with the help of Google Reader.

6. Google Sync for Blackberry: Specially made for such writers on the road: they can sync up your Google calendars and Blackberry calendar.

7. Maps: You can use maps in order to get directions to your next meeting or look up a vendor’s location.

8. Product Search: Using this product search you can shop for home office supplies and much more.

9. Ride Finder: Finding taxis or any other transportation is no more any issue. So now it doesn’t matter weather you are flying to Atlanta, San Francisco or Washington DC for an interview or meeting. You should take services of ride finder.

10. Notebook: Use new Google Notebook far taking down ideas and get rid from all other sticky notes.

11. Docs: Online word processor which you can access any time and you can share changes in real time

12. Sketch Up: SketchUp is used for brainstorm and mock up a project with a co-worker.

13. Lively: Now chat in 3D virtual world with co-workers and design a project visually.

14.Blogger: With Blogger you can refer your client to your blog so that he can get updates on how you’re progressing with their project.

15.Pack: Google Pack is providing free services like Picasa uploader, Notifier for the Mac, Desktop, Google Earth etc.


Tools for your Website or Blog
Blog of a writer is indeed vital to expanding his or her brand, where he can advertise services and other updates. You can use these apps to make the most of your online space.

16. Google Code Search: You can use this search engine if you’re looking for code licenses and public source files.

17. Blogger Mobile: With this app you can post to your Blogger blog from your phone.

18. Feedburner: Make money by using FeedBurner Ad Network. It will help you to market your content, analyze your blog’s traffic and audience.

19. Sites: Create your own website for your own organization by using sites.

20. OpenSocial: Create developer-friendly social applications for your websites you can use Open Social apps.

21.Google Checkout: It’s a payment service which you can add to your site. It makes easier for your clients to pay your invoices.

22.Trends: Use trend and compare search terms and figure out what people are looking for online. After that, you can customize your site according to those trends..

Time Savers: These applications are made to save your precious time while searching and when you’re on the go.

24. Google Chrome: You will find this beta browser more speedy and more secure than before. So while using Google Chrome you can connect to your favorite sites at a faster rate.

25. SMS for your phone: Get your business listings, stock quotes and all other random information which would be sent to your phone by text message.

26.Special Searches: Use special searches in order to save your time on research & find only what you want.

Creativity
Following Google apps are designed to boost up your creativity.

27. Picasa: Picasa is a photo manager and organizer that would be used for inspiration, It provide more dimension to your written pieces and you can also share photos with friends and family.

28.Photos Screensaver: Use Photos screensavers to inspire your current projects. Your projects will pop up whenever you go idle.

Communication:
Want to stay connected with colleagues, clients, editors, agents and even friends and family, use following Google apps and makes your communication easier.

29. Talk: Now get connected around all over the world.Google Talk supports IM and VoIP so you can connect with contacts all over the world very easily.

30. Google Groups: Keep track of your projects or keep up with your family via Google Groups.

31. Orkut: Orkut is a social media web site where you can share videos and photos and get connect with your co-workers or friends. It also provide facility of  instant messaging.

32. Grand Central: Syncs up all your communication tools with Grand Central. Now only with one number rings all your phones, just one voicemail box keeps your messages organized; you can also save all your contacts in address book.

33. Language Tools: With this application you can translate text from primary sources. Language tools also play an important role in order to expand your customer and vendor base.

34. GOOG 411: Use Goog411 and get Connected with businesses and vendors without wasting your phone minutes.

35. Gmail: Google Gmail is the mail service with tons of space available for your files and they are easily searchable.

36.Google Mobile: Those writers who have to visit different places or who are not always at home and can not always site near there computer should use this Google mobile tool.

37.Friend Connect: This app allows you to implement social tools inside your website.This encourage visitors to comment and hence become more engaged.

38.Transit: With the help of Google Transit, it is easier for you to get connected with vendors, clients, editors and even more. It also enables you to find public transportation stops in your area and across all over the country.

Branding and Business
Use Google apps to increase your business and develop your own brand.

39. AdWords: AdWords is an online advertising tool made for your blog.

40. Alerts: You cab set Google Alerts for yourself in order to keep tabs on who is publishing you and similarly who is reviewing you.

41. Google Grants: If you qualify for this system of in-kind advertising or if you are doing little writing for a non profit on the side then use Google Grants.

42.Knol: Share and build up authoritative posts and reviews at Knol, it is a way to market yourself.

43. Base: Use Base to submit content or services. It works on the slogan “make them as easy as possible for people to find when they search.”

Reference
Reference tools are free to use and you can connect with the information you need at a faster rate.

44. Blog Search: Use this tool and narrow your search to find material from blogs.

45. Book Search: Now there is no need to do your research in a library. Book Search enables you to find quotations, inspiration and much more in fiction and non-fiction books.

46. Scholar: Use this tool and limit your searches to scholarly material

47. Video: Search online videos on a very simple and clear platform with this application.

48. Finance: Google Finance is a great social, political and economic indicator which gives inspiration and also works as fact checker. This tool can also be used for organizing your own investments.

49. News Archive Search: Google News Archive Search display results in a time line. Better organize your research results.

50. Google Buzz: Start conversations about the things you find interesting. Share updates, photos, videos and more with your friends.

51. Google +1 Button: The +1 button is shorthand for "this is pretty cool" or "you should check this out."Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1's can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.

52. Google Plus +: The Google+ project makes sharing online more like sharing in real life. Take the interactive tour for a quick look at five of the first key features.

Search engine optimization or SEO is actually a complete package of services that every website needs to have these days.

The competition is such that if you are seriously focusing on internet as a means of marketing and making money, then you cannot do without an SEO strategy.

With search engine optimization, everything about the website, that is, on and off the page, can be improved.

Through SEO, the web traffic to the website can be increased and search engines will also find the website good enough to be ranked high. But all this is done in an effort to make the website more visible and be able to generate more sales.

For any business, every visitor viewing its website is a potential buyer. More potential buyers are brought in with SEO and this means that there are more sales.

SEO is also not a process which can be forgotten at any point or can be achieved fully only once. You need to always improve and improvise the SEO methods so that your website is always ranked high and is seen by more and more people.

Remember that nothing in the internet world is static. There is always movement and changes so you need to stay updated.

A good SEO strategy can be broadly broken up into four steps. Each of these is important and integral to the whole, as the whole thing can only provide the desired results.


The first of these steps is the website analysis.

1. During this phase you should do a detailed study of your website, analyze it point by point, its structure, layout, content, SEO details, visitor reactions and appeal.

2. You should be able to see what keywords are being used, how effective these are depending on the ranking of the website on search engines.

3. Then, you will see if the visitors are allowed to post their feedback, what the feed backs say, how good and relevant is the content, what follow-up procedures are done to keep a client, the RSS feeds on your page and links.

4. You should also be able to check which search engines your site appears on and check the effectiveness of your search engine marketing (SEM).

 
The second phase is to analyze your rivals or competitors in the same way.

While each detail is noted as for your site, a comparative study is also conducted. The competitors are first identified according to the audience and then every detail is noted starting from ranking to website structure and even links. These services will help to put your links on these sites on a sharing basis.

The third step is to define what needs to be done after studying your website and comparing it to your competitors' websites.

The three steps above should provide you with ideas on how to improve the web traffic to your page and in effect, increase your sales.

The fourth step is the implementation plan and the assessment of the results achieved.

Please note achievements do not happen overnight, they are a gradual process... so be patient ~~~

By Author: M. Moume

Online selling & auctions are great places for entrepreneurs and bargain shoppers alike. Online selling site or auction sites are like giant flea markets; they provide a forum for buyers and sellers to find or sell just about anything.

There are many ways to approach online auctions. For many, selling items on Internet auctions sites is a hobby and a good way to supplement their income. For others, it is a job and way of life. For buyers, it’s a great way to find good deals on rare, unusual collectibles or everyday items.

Here is few top sites you may look in to to kick off you business:

INTERNATIONAL SITE

eBay
www.ebay.com

Amazon
www.amazon.com

Webstore
www.webstore.com

Onlineauction.com
www.onlineauction.com

Quicksales
www.quicksales.com.au

Overstock
www.overstock.com

Webidz
www.webidz.com

Cqout
www.cqout.com

uBid
www.ubid.com

ePier
www.epier.com


MALAYSIA SITES

Mudah
www.mudah.my

Lelong
www.lelong.com.my

MyBarang
www.mybarang.com

Shoppy
www.shoppy.com.my

Autoworld - Car Selling Site
www.autoworld.com.my

Hope the above resources able to assist you search to selling online, if you have any good site that come across and want to suggest, feel free to leave at the comment. THANK YOU!!!

Being able to take a look at the words and phrases people use when looking for things online is invaluable. Rather than listening to people say what they think they might do, you get to observe what they actually did. And when aggregated, you get a nice view of the words people most often use when thinking about and searching for a certain topic.

Once armed with keyword intelligence that’s relevant to your niche, you have the unique ability to create highly-relevant content that aids your site visitors and enhances your credibility. You’re speaking the language of the audience after all, and satisfying their needs.

And if you get it right, you’ll likely rank well in the search engines too, after promoting the content in a strategic way. It may seem strange to view search traffic as a secondary benefit in a Google-driven world, but that’s exactly how you should view it. Google won’t treat you as relevant until someone else does first.

The counter intuitive rule of search engine keyword research is to try to forget that search engines can send you traffic. View the data as free or low-cost market research and you’ll have the proper mindset to formulate a content strategy that has a shot at ranking well. People need to like your content before Google will.


Here are the 5 essential things to cover when it comes to keyword research:

1. Research Tools
Some will tell you that Google’s Keyword Tool is all you need for research. Another free option is Aaron Wall’s SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool, which incorporates Yahoo! Search data and other useful metrics. Paid tools may be superior choices to those provided by search engines since the proprietors are not motivated to sell you search advertising, and include Wordtrackerand Keyword Discovery.

2. Get Specific “Keyword”
The term that gets tossed around, but what you’re really after in most cases are keyword phrases. For example, a real estate attorney in Austin, Texas would gain very little actual benefit from ranking highly for the single word “attorney” (and good luck anyway), but specific keyword phrases based on geography and specialty would yield highly targeted traffic (“Austin real estate lawyer”). And don’t forget synonyms.

3. Strength in Numbers
Don’t take as gospel truth the reported number of monthly searches provided by any particular tool. But do pay attention to relative popularity among search terms. You want to make sure enough people use that phrase when thinking of your niche to make it worth your while, especially if this is one of the primary search terms you want to target for your site overall. At the same time, be realistic. If you are trying to rank in a very competitive sector, aim for something attainable first, or make sure that a certain keyword combination can rank for an easier phrase if the more competitive term ends up out of reach.

4. Highly Relevant
Make sure that the search terms you are considering are highly relevant to your ultimate goal. If you are a service provider or selling specific products, keyword relevancy may be easier to determine--you ultimately want someone to purchase the product or service. Other goals may require more careful consideration, such as subscriptions to content publications and contributions to charities, for example.

5. Develop a Resource
Here’s the key element. Can a particular keyword phrase support the development of content that is a valuable resource to readers?

Something that:

• Satisfies the preliminary needs of the site visitor
• Acts as the first step in your sales or action cycle
• Is worth linking to

by Brian Clark

Searching & hunting a good place to showcase your products, services and websites for free in the online world is a dream for everyone – Facebook has made this a reality. With half a billion Facebook users and thousands of online communities to choose from, Facebook has brought potential customers much closer to you.

There is much more to marketing on Facebook than just creating a profile. Keeping your fans engaged is the key. Don’t be a hard sales brand, but be a community they love being a part of. Here is few tips that able to show you how you can use the medium of Facebook to increase your visibility and your customer base as well as retain the ones you have!

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CREATE YOUR PRESENCE ON FACEBOOK 1. Facebook Profile: By creating a profile for yourself or your business, you are establishing your identity. This will take you a long way in developing relationships with fellow users and in positioning your business. You profile lets you interact with people on a personal note, more so if it’s a local business.

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o Profile Picture:Always put your best foot forward, which means use the most flattering picture as your profile picture.  No matter what they say, a book is judged by its cover. for examplae M.A.C makeup’s profile and thought it was really catchy with the colors used on the face. Hundreds of indifferent people with little time to spare are going to decide whether to add you based on your picture. So, make sure you get this one right!

o Add Friends: After creating a profile, don’t wait for things to happen. Add new friends every day and the word will spread that you’re on Facebook. Before you know it, you’ll be starting your day by accepting friend requests! However, make sure you don’t add more than 25 – 30 people a day as excessive adding can get your profile removed from Facebook.

o Wall: This is your main platform to interact with Facebook users. Post messages on your wall and also comment on members’ activities, though, only when relevant. A cafe once commented on my status when it was something about food. And there! A personal connection was built in a second! However, make sure you don’t spam people every other day or they may remove you from their friend list.

o Photo Albums and Videos: Photos and videos are a great way to showcase the latest collection of your product. I know many people who love to see what goes on behind the scene during a photo shoot or while a baker does his magic in the kitchen. Moreover, the first thing most Facebook users check are photo updates. So take your camera and start taking nice images!

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2. Fan Pages: Facebook Pages, known as Fan Pages, are designed for businesses, brands, companies, products and celebrities. It enables public figures, organizations and other entities to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook. You can encourage users to become fans of your page and share information with them by uploading pictures, videos, status updates, hosting discussions and displaying wall posts. Unlike Facebook Profiles, Pages are visible to everyone on the internet and are generally better for long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers.
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3.Groups: Facebook Groups allow people to come together around a common cause or activity to express their views. One of the best features of groups is the ability to send messages directly to members’ Facebook inboxes.  It’s a great way to form a community and help your brand image.

Nowadays, it’s almost a necessity for movies to establish their presence on Facebook during its post-release period as Facebook users look for movies here. The good thing here is that you can send bulk invites to your friends, while it is manually done on Pages. Groups are generally better for hosting quick active discussions and attracting attention.

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4. Events: Simply put, Facebook Events can help you connect with your target audience and invite them for your events, even if they aren’t on your friend list or one of your fans. Events can be created individually or even from Profiles, Pages. What make it so special is Facebook gives you a choice between making the event Public and Private.
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HOW TO USE FACEBOOK FOR ONLINE MARKETING??

Social Media Marketing is still in its infancy. Lets consider this as an advantage because there are not many set rules, you can try & experiment with different methods & techniques. However, if you don’t want to experiment, here are some tried and tested methods that will ensure success:

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5. Be Unique and Keep Updating: There’s nothing more boring than bland Facebook pages. Add lots of personality and fun to your profile. If possible, try to create applications just for your page. Offer something different so that they keep coming back, instead of letting them wait for updates from you. If you check Dell’s Facebook page, you’ll see that it keeps updating its status and gives new information on their products and about technology.

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6. Use a Big Profile Picture: Who says size doesn’t matter?! Using a big profile picture is one of the best ways to brand your Facebook page. Facebook allows images of up to 200pix wide x 600pix high to be used as profile images Pages. This way, you stand out in a crowd.  Check out Bob Marley or Johnny Depp’s page on Facebook and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

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7. Tag Fans in Photos: You can tag your fans in pictures of new collections, or even ask them to tag themselves as a part of a game or contest. Musician Lenny Kravitz uploaded pictures of his concert in Italy in 2009 and asked everyone to tag themselves. This gave him good publicity as the update on being tagged appeared on the fans’ walls.

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8. Exclusive Landing Page for Users: Use different pages to target different sets of people. Take new users to a page that encourages them to ‘Like’ you or to a page they would find interesting enough to keep coming back. Members/fans can be directed to the wall or a game page that might interest them. Red Bull’s profile page is designed in a way that users are given a hint to ‘Like’ the page, while fans are taken directly to the Wall. You can get innovative in designing landing pages and targeting different people. 

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9. Reward Loyal Supporters: Encourage loyal supporters to join your Page and reward them. Tabs or badges like ‘member of the month’ that can be placed on their profiles for visibility can be awarded to them. A happy customer on Facebook can get you lots of attention.  Remind users to Like and Share information about you. When their friends see the updates on the News Feed, it’s highly likely for them to do the same.

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10. Use Contests and Polls: Holding contests encourage fans to interact directly with you. Domino’s ‘Show Us Your Pizza’ is a contest where people can send pictures of Domino’s pizzas they’ve orders. The best picture will be chosen by Domino’s and the photographer gets a prize of $500 and a chance to get his picture featured in an ad. This has received a lot of attention from Facebook users.

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11. Actively Participate Outside Your Page: Find other Facebook pages related to your industry or topic using Facebook Search & start actively commenting on their posts & updates. This is a great way to build relationships in your industry and even adds credibility to your business. If you’re willing to offer free advice on communities and discussions, it will encourage people to check your website out.

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12. Integrate Facebook Social Plugins to Your Site: The Like button on your site enables users to share pages from your site back to their Facebook profile and the Recommendation button gives users of your site personalized suggestions for pages that they like. There are many more buttons like LikeBox, Comments, Live Stream (Just like what you see in my website) etc that you can add to your website. With this, you can see for yourself what your target likes and design your product/service accordingly.

You can also integrate Facebook Connect Plugin in your blog which will enable Facebook users to leave comments on your blog without registering. The comment they make will be put up on their wall instantly which will be visible to all their friends. So, you effectively get a lot of exposure without doing much!

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13. Marketplace: With Facebook Marketplace, you can buy and sell anything using the listing service. The Marketplace application page displays all the most recent listings in your networks. The difference between normal listings and the Marketplace is that you don’t see another boring list of business, but they show up as the site’s own updates. For example, a sales listing would show up in news feeds as “John is selling Abstract Art.” In this case, John can be a ‘friend’ of your or even a friend’s friend. You can find out what people want, what they are offering and also how you are connected to these people on Facebook.
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14. Don’t Just Write for an Audience of Teenagers: It’s time we free ourselves of this misconception. Facebook isn’t filled with youngsters. Though Facebook has many youngsters who belong to the age group 16 to 25, we see an increase in the number of people from other age groups who use Facebook regularly. According to Pingdom, 61% of Facebook users are over 35 years old. In fact, the 26 – 34 age group rivals the 18 – 25 age group in both the US and the UK. So, make sure communicate to your target the right way.

15. News Feed: The Facebook News Feed gives your posts wide exposure by syndicating it, like an RSS feed.  When a user joins your group, responds to an invitation, or engages you in any way, Facebook automatically adds that transaction to each user’s “mini feed” in the form of a “recent news” stream.  This stream unifies all actions so that everyone can see what’s been going on with your business.