The freelancing industry enjoyed impressive growth in the past several years.

In 2011, the Financial Times (UK) reported a 12% growth in the number of freelancers from 2008. Popular freelance broker site Elance enjoyed consistent growth in past years, with the number of jobs posted rising from around 200,000 in the first quarter of 2012 to 300,000 in the same period in 2013.

In addition to a more flexible work schedule, freelancers tend to be happy. According to the 2012 Freelance Industry Report, 90% of freelancers are happier now than they were before going solo, and nearly half felt no impact from the economic downturn. Perhaps most tellingly, 77% of freelancers were optimistic about their business prospects over the following 12 months.

With freelance work being such an enticing prospect, no one would blame you for giving it some serious thought. However, a common issue is simply not knowing how to start. Fortunately, building a successful freelancing career is easier than it seems — just follow the steps below.

1. Choose Your Craft
Just about everything can be outsourced these days. That's why there's a strong likelihood that the skills on your résumé contain one or more freelancing opportunities.

You may be required to think outside of the box — we're not all graphic designers or programmers. However, you may find that your "secondary" skills can offer up freelancing opportunities. For instance, if you are a strong writer, then you have the potential to develop a freelance writing business.

Don't be paralyzed by a preconception that you do not have the necessary skills or experience — you would be surprised how little experience you need in order to get started. A little faith in your abilities will take you a long way.

2. Create a Brand
If you plan to succeed in the world of freelancing, you will need to create a strong brand that sets you apart from the competition. Your brand is your identity (i.e. your website, blog and social media accounts) and it should clearly communicate your unique selling proposition — what you do that makes you special.

With that in mind, you should narrow down your focus to a specific industry. For instance, as a graphic designer you might choose to do branding work for digital startup businesses only. This form of specialization will make you far more attractive to a specific set of prospective clients and give you a greater chance of success. You can try to cater to all and sundry, but you will probably only provoke indifference.

3. Build a Portfolio and Source Testimonials
The world of freelancing lacks the red tape of the corporate world. Many prospective clients are not concerned with qualifications; they simply want to see what you have done in the past and judge whether it is the right fit for them.

Therefore, if you are good at what you do and can demonstrate your skill through a quality portfolio and positive client testimonials, you have every chance of success. The conundrum, however, is in building a portfolio without experience.

Many freelancers will react to this by picking up the smallest and least lucrative jobs around, but that puts them into a vicious cycle of bargain-basement work. To work for high-paying clients, you need to demonstrate that you are worth big money by doing good work.

So don't be afraid to do pro bono work for the right clients when you are first starting out. The free work you do at this stage can ultimately be priceless when it clearly communicates your worth to future potential clients via an extensive portfolio and glowing testimonials. Also, offering your services at no cost is a gentle introduction into the world of freelancing where you do not feel the pressure of having to deliver a service of requisite value.

4. Start Pitching
You should only seek paying clients when you are able to demonstrate your abilities (and your reputation) with a quality portfolio and testimonials. Once you have done so by working on pro bono jobs, it's time to start pitching.

But whom should you pitch? Well, if you branded yourself correctly then you should know exactly whom to pitch. By having such a narrow focus, potential clients are far more likely to take you seriously than if you offered a generic service. Businesses want to work with freelancers who seemingly came into existence to serve them specifically — you can create this illusion through specialization.

Potential clients can be found everywhere: from Google to social media to your doorstep. The possibilities are endless.

The two keys to successful pitching are relevance and volume. Only pitch those clients who fit the mold of your brand and pitch a lot of them. Ruth Zive of Marketing Wise, a content marketing firm based in Canada, had a "ten before ten" rule when she first started out as a freelance writer — she would make sure to pitch ten prospective clients before 10 a.m. every working day. Those numbers add up quickly.

5. Play the OddsUltimately, securing freelance work is a numbers game — the more prospective clients you contact, the more likely you are to find work. That is the equation you should keep in mind. If you have a reasonable skill set and create a quality brand, there is no reason why you cannot succeed in the world of freelancing like so many others have before you.

By Tom Ewer

Keyboard Shorcuts (Microsoft Windows)
1. CTRL+C (Copy)
2. CTRL+X (Cut)
3. CTRL+V (Paste)
4. CTRL+Z (Undo)
5. DELETE (Delete)
6. SHIFT+DELETE (Delete the selected item permanently without placing the item in the Recycle Bin)
7. CTRL while dragging an item (Copy the selected item)
8. CTRL+SHIFT while dragging an item (Create a shortcut to the selected item)
9. F2 key (Rename the selected item)
10. CTRL+RIGHT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next word)
11. CTRL+LEFT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word)
12. CTRL+DOWN ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next paragraph)
13. CTRL+UP ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous paragraph)
14. CTRL+SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Highlight a block of text) - SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Select more than 1 item in a window or on the desktop, or select text in a document)
15. CTRL+A (Select all)
16. F3 key (Search for a file or a folder)
17. ALT+ENTER (View the properties for the selected item)
18. ALT+F4 (Close the active item, or quit the active program)
19. ALT+ENTER (Display the properties of the selected object)
20. ALT+SPACEBAR (Open the shortcut menu for the active window)
21. CTRL+F4 (Close active document in programs that enable you to have multiple documents open simultaneously)
22. ALT+TAB (Switch between the open items)
23. ALT+ESC (Cycle through items in the order that they had been opened)
24. F6 key (Cycle through the screen elements in a window or on the desktop)
25. F4 key (Display the Address bar list in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
26. SHIFT+F10 (Display the shortcut menu for the selected item)
27. ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the System menu for the active window)
28. CTRL+ESC (Display the Start menu)
29. ALT+Underlined letter in a menu name (Display the corresponding menu) Underlined letter in a command name on an open menu (Perform the corresponding command)
30. F10 key (Activate the menu bar in the active program)
31. RIGHT ARROW (Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu)
32. LEFT ARROW (Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu)
33. F5 key (Update the active window)
34. BACKSPACE (View the folder onelevel up in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
35. ESC (Cancel the current task)
36. SHIFT when you insert a CD-ROMinto the CD-ROM drive (Prevent the CD-ROM from automatically playing)

Dialog Box - Keyboard Shortcuts
1. CTRL+TAB (Move forward through the tabs)
2. CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the tabs)
3. TAB (Move forward through the options)
4. SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the options)
5. ALT+Underlined letter (Perform the corresponding command or select the corresponding option)
6. ENTER (Perform the command for the active option or button)
7. SPACEBAR (Select or clear the check box if the active option is a check box)
8. Arrow keys (Select a button if the active option is a group of option buttons)
9. F1 key (Display Help)
10. F4 key (Display the items in the active list)
11. BACKSPACE (Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or Open dialog box)

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Shortcuts
1. Windows Logo (Display or hide the Start menu)
2. Windows Logo+BREAK (Display the System Properties dialog box)
3. Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop)
4. Windows Logo+M (Minimize all of the windows)
5. Windows Logo+SHIFT+M (Restorethe minimized windows)
6. Windows Logo+E (Open My Computer)
7. Windows Logo+F (Search for a file or a folder)
8. CTRL+Windows Logo+F (Search for computers)
9. Windows Logo+F1 (Display Windows Help)
10. Windows Logo+ L (Lock the keyboard)
11. Windows Logo+R (Open the Run dialog box)
12. Windows Logo+U (Open Utility Manager)
13. Accessibility Keyboard Shortcuts
14. Right SHIFT for eight seconds (Switch FilterKeys either on or off)
15. Left ALT+left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN (Switch High Contrast either on or off)
16. Left ALT+left SHIFT+NUM LOCK (Switch the MouseKeys either on or off)
17. SHIFT five times (Switch the StickyKeys either on or off)
18. NUM LOCK for five seconds (Switch the ToggleKeys either on or off)
19. Windows Logo +U (Open Utility Manager)
20. Windows Explorer Keyboard Shortcuts
21. END (Display the bottom of the active window)
22. HOME (Display the top of the active window)
23. NUM LOCK+Asterisk sign (*) (Display all of the subfolders that are under the selected folder)
24. NUM LOCK+Plus sign (+) (Display the contents of the selected folder)
25. NUM LOCK+Minus sign (-) (Collapse the selected folder)
26. LEFT ARROW (Collapse the current selection if it is expanded, or select the parent folder)
27. RIGHT ARROW (Display the current selection if it is collapsed, or select the first subfolder)
Shortcut Keys for Character Map

After you double-click a character on the grid of characters, you can move through the grid by using the keyboard shortcuts:
1. RIGHT ARROW (Move to the rightor to the beginning of the next line)
2. LEFT ARROW (Move to the left orto the end of the previous line)
3. UP ARROW (Move up one row)
4. DOWN ARROW (Move down one row)
5. PAGE UP (Move up one screen at a time)
6. PAGE DOWN (Move down one screen at a time)
7. HOME (Move to the beginning of the line)
8. END (Move to the end of the line)
9. CTRL+HOME (Move to the first character)
10. CTRL+END (Move to the last character)
11. SPACEBAR (Switch between Enlarged and Normal mode when a character is selected)

Microsoft Management Console (MMC)
Main Window Keyboard Shortcuts
1. CTRL+O (Open a saved console)
2. CTRL+N (Open a new console)
3. CTRL+S (Save the open console)
4. CTRL+M (Add or remove a console item)
5. CTRL+W (Open a new window)
6. F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
7. ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the MMC window menu)
8. ALT+F4 (Close the console)
9. ALT+A (Display the Action menu)
10. ALT+V (Display the View menu)
11. ALT+F (Display the File menu)
12. ALT+O (Display the Favorites menu)

MMC Console Window Keyboard Shortcuts
1. CTRL+P (Print the current page or active pane)
2. ALT+Minus sign (-) (Display the window menu for the active console window)
3. SHIFT+F10 (Display the Action shortcut menu for the selected item)
4. F1 key (Open the Help topic, if any, for the selected item)
5. F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
6. CTRL+F10 (Maximize the active console window)
7. CTRL+F5 (Restore the active console window)
8. ALT+ENTER (Display the Properties dialog box, if any, for the selected item)
9. F2 key (Rename the selected item)
10. CTRL+F4 (Close the active console window. When a console has only one console window, this shortcut closes the console)

Remote Desktop Connection Navigation
1. CTRL+ALT+END (Open the Microsoft Windows NT Security dialog box)
2. ALT+PAGE UP (Switch between programs from left to right)
3. ALT+PAGE DOWN (Switch between programs from right to left)
4. ALT+INSERT (Cycle through the programs in most recently used order)
5. ALT+HOME (Display the Start menu)
6. CTRL+ALT+BREAK (Switch the client computer between a window and a full screen)
7. ALT+DELETE (Display the Windows menu)
8. CTRL+ALT+Minus sign (-) (Place a snapshot of the active window in the client on the Terminal server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing PRINT SCREEN on a local computer.)
9. CTRL+ALT+Plus sign (+) (Place asnapshot of the entire client window area on the Terminal server clipboardand provide the same functionality aspressing ALT+PRINT SCREEN on a local computer.)

Microsoft Internet Explorer Keyboard Shortcuts
1. CTRL+B (Open the Organize Favourites dialog box)
2. CTRL+E (Open the Search bar)
3. CTRL+F (Start the Find utility)
4. CTRL+H (Open the History bar)
5. CTRL+I (Open the Favorites bar)
6. CTRL+L (Open the Open dialog box)
7. CTRL+N (Start another instance of the browser with the same Web address)
8. CTRL+O (Open the Open dialog box,the same as CTRL+L)
9. CTRL+P (Open the Print dialog box)
10. CTRL+R (Update the current Web )

Whether your company is just getting its social sea legs or excelling in the digital world, there is a niche and opportunity for every brand on social media.

OMD, one of the top media agencies in the world, works with clients of various size and social media exposure. Within the agency, OMD Word is the social intelligence arm that helps amplify clients through social media. The department ensures the client’s social channels are leveraged and optimized to support traditional and digital solutions.

According to Word’s U.S. Director Colin Sutton, your level of understanding impacts your brand’s ability to perform on social media. Generally, this is the first thing that brands should be thinking about when they want to launch a social campaign.

“Social is touching so many pieces of a business these days that I’d be remiss to say it’s just about the person we’re interfacing with,” says Sutton. “Even at the CMO or CEO level, we’ve started to see examples of how the level of understanding can really change how businesses are thinking about their product all the way down to the marketing.”

Depending on the brand’s social media know-how, Sutton says that Facebook and Twitter are the building blocks that a brand should start with in the social sphere.

Setting goals ahead of time is another important factor. Sutton says that brands just starting out on social media should focus on acquisition and filling their channels with the appropriate community. Meanwhile, more savvy brands should look for engagement, awareness and advocacy.

1. Don’t Be an Island
If you’re planning a social campaign that’s not connected to the rest of your communications, marketing and media plans, then rethink it. Traditional and digital media need to support an integrated campaign that has social media at its core.

2. It’s a Brave New World — Accept It
Don’t try to approach, execute or measure campaigns or strategies like traditional planners. More data is available than ever. The opportunity now is to connect through two-way communications with your customers across devices and media, and to time your messages accordingly.

Your content can, should and will be your ad. Is it strong enough to break through the clutter?

3. Listen Up — and Not Just at the End of the Campaign
Social listening can and should impact planning, execution, optimization and results measurement. Automated tools and reliance upon technology is not enough.

True value from listening data comes from your analysts, so make sure they are involved and prioritize what you are listening for, how you are going to capture it and how you are going to share the results.

4. Connect the Dots to Win
Content is king and media is amplification. Make sure your teams are connected and working together on the same agreed-upon goals.

5. Goals Can Unite and Ignite Your Efforts
Agree to goals across agencies and confirm how you are going to measure them. Listen again to make sure they make sense.

Volume is an important goal, but not the only one. Engagement as a goal is nebulous, so identify the most desired social actions, and design the user flow and related metrics accordingly.

6. Benchmark
Relentlessly Data is available. Find it and ensure your media teams and clients are working towards realistic goals. Past campaigns are the best way to set benchmarks.

If this is the first campaign, look to the publishing partner and find out what other campaigns have been run in a similar field or with a comparable objective.

7. Long-Term Value Exchange Is Paramount
Quick hits are good, but meaningful experiences drive long-term relationships and build advocacy and love. It’s okay for campaigns to have disparate goals, but overall there should be a guiding principle that governs your efforts.

8. Understand All of the Social Channels You Are Targeting, or Get Familiar With Them Fast
Nuances exist everywhere, so if you don’t understand how each channel works and how your customers live and breathe there, make sure you ask someone who does.

9. Optimize Ruthlessly and Intelligently
Data should be consistently understood and learned. Know its availability and optimize it with each campaign not only in real-time, but also over the long term.

10. Think About Eyes, Minds and Wallet When You’re Evaluating Success
A lot of clients put a media or dollar valuation against earned media. Generating $100,000 worth of value through monthly engagement on Facebook is putting a media value on what’s earned.

Think about what customers have seen. There’s a lot of value in that, but it doesn’t help measure perception. Consider the consumer’s minds, brand health, net promoter score and measurements to gain a more complete understanding of your perception.

What social media advice does your company go by? Let us know in the comments.

Series presented by IDG 

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!

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

Author: Kyzson

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 Codes While 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.

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​

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

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