Digital Marketing Course In APEC by Apec

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Digital Marketing – Introduction Digital Marketing – SEO Digital Marketing – Social Media Digital Marketing – Content Digital Marketing – Email Digital Marketing – Mobile Digital Marketing – Pay Per Click (PPC) Digital Marketing – Web Analytics Digital Marketing – Facebook Digital Marketing – Pinterest Digital Marketing – Twitter Digital Marketing – Linkedin Digital Marketing – Youtube Digital Marketing – Google AdWords Digital Marketing – Google Analytics Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Introduction SEO – Tactics & Methods SEO – Website Domain SEO – Relevant Filenames SEO – Design & Layout SEO – Optimized Keywords SEO – Optimized Metatags SEO – Title Optimization SEO – Optimized Anchor SEO – Content is the King SEO – Verifying website SEO – Link Building SEO – Mobile SEO techniques Social Media Marketing (SMM) – Introduction SMM – Facebook Marketing SMM – Twitter Marketing SMM – Linkedin Marketing SMM – Google+ Marketing SMM – Video Marketing SMM – Blogging SMM – Social Media Analysis SMM – Monitoring Social Media accounts

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DIGITAL MARKETING - INTRODUCTION In simple terms, digital marketing is the promotion of products or brands via one or more forms of electronic media. Digital marketing is often referred to as online marketing, internet marketing or web marketing. Digital marketing has been around for quite some time but it hasn’t been very well defined. We tend to think that digital marketing encompasses banner advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click. Yet, this is too narrow a definition, because digital marketing also includes e-mail, RSS, voice broadcast, fax broadcast, blogging, podcasting, video streams, wireless text messaging, and instant messaging. Yes! digital marketing has a very wide scope. What Digital Marketing is Not? To clearly define what digital marketing is, it’s sometimes easier to start with what it’s not. For instance, it does not include more traditional forms of marketing such as radio, TV, billboard and print as they do not offer instant feedback and report.

Why Digital Marketing? In digital marketing, a reporting and analytics engine can be layered within a campaign which allows the organization or brand to monitor in real-time how a campaign is performing, such as what is being viewed, how often, how long, as well as other actions such as response rates and purchases made. 

The use of digital marketing in the digital era not only allows for brands to market their products and services but also offers online customer support through 24x7 services to make the customer feel supported and valued.

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The use of social media in digital marketing interaction allows brands to receive both positive and negative feedback from their customers as well as determine what media platforms work well for them.

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Digital marketing provides increased advantage for brands and businesses. It is now common for consumers to post feedback online through social media sources, blogs, and websites about their experience with a product or brand.

Not surprisingly, billions of marketing dollars spent on traditional channels is already starting to shift to digital marketing campaigns and this will continue to increase as the Web matures. Digital Marketing revolves around four things

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DIGITAL MARKETING - SEO SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial, or natural search results on the search engines. Simply put, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the name given to the activity that attempts to improve search engine rankings. In many respects, it's simply quality control for websites. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, and news search engines. Employing a sound SEO strategy will help you position your website properly to be found at the most critical points in the buying process or when people need your site. Search Engine Crawlers The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!, use crawlersto find the pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically. Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.

Spiders crawl over the web in search of content (Hence the name Spider). Once they finish scanning and identifying the relevant content, they copy the searched content and store it in a search engines database. While they are scanning one web page, they make note of links to other web pages from this page and later scan the linked web pages as well & this process keeps going on for all webpages. ( For example : Page A links to Page B which in turn links to Page C. Here, Page A,B,C will be stored as well as any page which is linked from Page C ). Web Crawler will collect the following (not limited to) information from a web page -

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Indexing: Now that website information is stored in Search Engines Database, how will it know which page to put on top of search results and which on last ? Enter Indexing. Ranking is done based on keywords. As the engines crawl and index the contents of pages around the web, they keep track of those pages in keyword based indices. The search engines have millions and millions of smaller databases, each centred on particular keyword term or phrase. Next question, how does the search engine know which keyword to rank a page for? To determine so the search engine looks into the content of the page, Page Title , Page URL and other factors Next question, suppose there 20000 Webpages each catering to the same keyword say football. How does the Search Engine determine which Page to display as # 1 , # 2 and so on… Enter Search Engine Ranking Factors which considers Domain Age , Domain Trust , Topicality , Number and relevance of external pointing links to the page , social signals and many more. This will be covered in detailed later in the tutorial

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Displaying: The last step in search engine activity is retrieving the best matched results for search queries, which is displaying the search result in browser.

You should be careful to keep the following points in mind in order to ensure your brand is well positioned on search engines − 

Search engines want to do their jobs as best as possible by referring users to websites and content that is most relevant to what the user is looking for. This is determined by the site content, how fast your site loads, how often your site is linked to from other credible online resources, and user experience, including design, navigation and bounce rate.

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The items that the search engines don’t want are: keyword stuffing, buying links, and poor user experience (too many ads and high bounce rates).

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Domain naming is important to your overall branding. As a best practice, use sub-directory root domains (example.com/events) versus sub-domains (events.example.com). Other best practices with domain names are to use consistent domains and keywords in the URL.

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Optimize for different types of results. In addition to optimizing for desktop experience, focus on mobile and tablet optimization along with other media.

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Content on the site should have title tags and meta descriptions. Although meta tags aren’t as important as they used to be in the past; if you do use them, ensure they are formatted correctly.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - SOCIAL MEDIA Social media today is essentially word-of-mouth marketing. Getting people to connect with you online in the social arena helps spread the word about what your company is and what are your products and services. SEO and Social Media For many teams, there are different sets of people who work on SEO and social media separately; however, this scenario is changing lately. 

The two may still officially belong to separate teams, but social media marketers will need to be more informed on the SEO strategist’s agenda, so that the SEO strategy can go handin-hand with content promotion.

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SEO strategists too need to know how to work with social media marketers in order to receive the social signals it needs to make sure their company ranks high in search.

There are two functions of social media for business − 

Are you participating in the conversation and sharing?

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Are you listening and monitoring what is being said about you?

Start Social Media Marketing If you’re starting from scratch with your social media strategy, here are the basic steps to get you started − 

Step 1 − Choose your social networks

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Step 2 − Fill your proﬁles completely, remembering to load in your keywords

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Step 3 − Find your voice and tone

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Step 4 − Pick your pos ng strategy - how often, when, and what type of content

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Step 5 − Analyze and test

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Step 6 − Automate and engage

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Although we’ll be getting into the specifics in the latter half of the tutorial, here are a few things to consider in your general social media strategy. Facebook tops the list of social media strategy For many, social media starts with Facebook. Just having a page, however, does not suffice. Sophisticated content marketing is now the way to foster engagement on Facebook. If your business doesn’t have a content marketing strategy or a blog, but wants to maintain a strong Facebook presence, it may be time to create a content marketing strategy for Facebook. We’ll get to know more on this in a subsequent chapter. Optimize for mobile All social media efforts need to be optimized for mobile. You’ve probably heard, but everyone needs to make sure their websites are optimized for mobile. Social media managers need to be aware of this to ensure that the format of any promotions they do (especially those that include driving people to their company websites) are optimized for mobile. Any images used on social media should also be viewable on mobile for optimized user experience. Emphasize on human experience It may be digital, but you need to consider the “human experience.” Google and Facebook have made changes to their platforms to push businesses to focus more on the “human experience.” For social media marketers, your social media posts need to be more relevant, provide more value to your audience, and the engagement needs to be more “human.”

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DIGITAL MARKETING - CONTENT Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. It ultimately aims to drive profitable customer action.

Content marketing is an umbrella term covering a set of strategies, techniques, and tactics to fulfil business and customer goals by using the most relevant content to serve, attract, convert, retain, and engage customers. Content uses blogs, podcasts, video, and social media sites as a vehicle. It’s a practice now being used by 86% of businesses today. However, effective content marketing is not so easy to find. Goals of Content Marketing Given the fact that content plays a role in virtually all marketing techniques and tactics, there are no goals that can’t be reached using content. However, from a content marketing perspective, we see that marketers focus on some key goals such as − 

Brand awareness

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Lead generation

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Engagement

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Sales

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Lead nurturing

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Customer retention and loyalty

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Customer evangelism

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Up-selling and cross-selling

Although these are the typical goals found in content marketing research, think out of the box and look at the goals of your “audiences”. Start Content Marketing Here is brief set of guidelines that you can follow to start content marketing − 

First, find a reason to start using content marketing. Knowing what the reason and the purpose is important. In a few years from now, people will say content marketing doesn’t work. It’s like in social media: people start saying it doesn’t work because they often forget for what and whom they wanted it to work in the first place.

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Know the different people and types of customers and prospects you want. Be aware of how they “act”, what they want, and how they will use your content.

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Don’t reinvent the wheel. Before dreaming up new content, see what you already have. Often, the best content for your customers and business is already in the mind of your customers and the people in your business. You just need to present it in a way everyone understands.

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Once you know what content you have, figure out what you need.

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Now, it’s time to get that content organized and check out the best formats and channels. Know the different formats of content your prospective customers use and there are some good tips and tricks to make sure that your content is “engaging”. Align the content to the types of channels you think that it will be best received.

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It’s time to make sure that the content is found or used! If not there is little sense in spending all the energy, is there? Promote, connect and engage.

Finally, test, measure, and optimize continuously. Try different types of content. Check analytics. Monitor your expenditure. And always adapt.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - EMAIL In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations. Any email communication is considered as email marketing if it helps build customer loyalty, trust in a product or company, or brand recognition. For instance, when a company sends a commercial message to a group of people using electronic email mostly in the form of advertisements, requests for business or sales, or donation solicitation. Email marketing is an efficient way to stay connected with your clients while also promoting your business. Doing so, you can easily and quickly reach target markets without the need for large quantities of print space, television or radio time, or high production costs.

Additionally, while using email marketing software, you can maintain an email list that has been segmented based on several factors including the length of time addresses have been on the list, customers’ likes and dislikes, spending habits and other important criteria. Emails are then created and sent out to specific target members on the list, providing them with a personalized email detailing information that they are interested in or have requested. Email marketing can be carried out by − 

Email newsletters

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Digests

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Dedicated Emails

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Lead Nurturing

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Sponsorship Emails

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Transactional Emails

Email Newsletters Email newsletters offer the following three advantages − 

They can spread your brand awareness. By building habitual communication with your email subscribers, you enable them to recognize your brand and associate it with a positive sentiment.

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They can leverage the existing content. Many companies do quick summaries of their most popular blog posts and link to the articles from their newsletter.

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They give you the freedom to include different types of contentthat might be important to your organization.

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Digests Digests are generally easier to consume than newsletters as they generally consist of links and lists. One popular option is the blog digest, which collects notifications about the articles you publish throughout a certain time frame and releases an email with the links. Dedicated Emails Dedicated emails also known as stand-alone emails, contain information about just one offer. For instance, you can use a dedicated email to notify your target audience about a new whitepaper you've released or invite them to attend an event that you're hosting. Unlike newsletters, dedicated emails donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to include many graphical elements to separate the different blocks of text and prioritize information. Lead Nurturing The concept of lead nurturing introduces a tightly connected series of emails containing useful content with a coherent purpose. Lead nurturing is timely, automated, and is typically a low financial investment. Sponsorship Emails If you want to reach a totally new audience and generate net new leads, you might want to try sponsorship emails. In sponsorship emails, you pay for inclusion of your copy in another vendorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newsletter or dedicated send. Transactional Emails Transactional emails are the messages that get triggered by a specific action your contacts have taken, enabling them to complete that action. For instance, if you are signing up for a webinar, you will fill out a form and then receive a transactional (thank-you) email that provides you with the login information in order to join. Transactional emails are also the messages you receive from ecommerce sites like Amazon that confirm your order and give you shipment information and other details. The biggest advantage of transactional emails is that they enjoy a high click-through rate (CTR). Popular email marketing services include MailChimp, Constant Contact etc.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - MOBILE Mobile marketing is marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smartphone. Mobile marketing can provide the customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services, and ideas. Mobile marketing is similar to advertising delivered over other electronic channels such as text, graphic and voice messages. 

SMS messaging (text messaging) is currently the most common delivery channel for mobile marketing.

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Search engine marketing is the second-most common channel, followed by display-based campaigns.

New Mobile Marketing Channels The expanding capabilities of mobile devices enable new types of interactive marketing. New mobile marketing channels include − 

Location-based Service (LBS) involves detecting the area the user is connecting from (geolocation) and sending marketing messages for businesses in that area.

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Augmented reality mobile campaigns overlays the user's phone display with locationspecific information about businesses and products.

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2D barcodes are barcodes that scan vertically as well as horizontally to include much more information. A mobile user can scan barcodes in the environment to access associated information.

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GPS messaging involves location-specific messages that the user picks up when he comes into range.

Ways to Drive Conversions Beyond having a mobile-optimized site or app, certain strategies are more likely to improve the user experience, while boosting sales. In this section, we will discuss the four ways to drive engagement and conversions. Optimize for micro-moments Increasingly, users turn to their mobile devices for quick, in-the-moment advice, help, or information. Instead of sitting down to research a topic or issue in depth, they’re more likely to take immediate action, and to expect instantaneous answers.

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Use QR codes to streamline user experience One way to provide relevant information as quickly and seamlessly as possible to mobile users is through the use of QR codes. Whatever youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re using QR codes for, they should ideally act as shortcuts for getting valuable information into the hands of your customers and prospects.

Use hyperlocal marketing More than ever before, consumers are turning to their smartphones for location-specific information. And not just citywide information â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but hyperlocal based on very small, specific geographical locations (like neighborhoods or even specific streets).

Use SMS marketing Use SMS marketing to connect with users on-the-go. A few ways to do this include offering incentives, publicizing sales and events, sending appointment reminders, and sharing customer surveys.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - PAY PER CLICK Pay Per Click, commonly known as PPC, refers to a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Pay-per-click is calculated by dividing the advertising cost by the number of clicks generated by an advertisement. The basic formula is − Pay-per-click ($) = Advertising cost ($) ÷ Ads clicked (#) Essentially, PPC is a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to earn visits organically.

Search Engine Advertising Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC. It allows advertisers to bid for an ad placement in a search engine's sponsored links when someone searches using a keyword that is related to their business offering.

For example, if you bid on the keyword “marketing classes,” several ads might show up in the very top spot on the Google results page. Every time a specific ad is clicked, sending a visitor to their DIGITAL MARKETING

website, they have to pay the search engine a small fee. When PPC is working correctly, the fee is trivial, because the visit is worth more than what is paid for it. Advantage of PPC Marketing The unique advantage of PPC marketing is that the ad networks used to manage PPC campaigns don’t just reward the highest bidders for that ad space, rather they reward the highest-quality ads (meaning the ads that are most popular with the users). 

Ads are rewarded for good performance.

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The better the ad, the greater the click-through rates and lower the costs.

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Many marketers choose to use Google AdWords to manage their PPC campaigns. The AdWords platform enables businesses to create ads that appear on Google’s search engine and other Google properties.

Factors behind Successful PPC Advertising How often your PPC ads appear depends on which keywords and match types you select. While a number of factors determine how successful your PPC advertising campaign will be, you can achieve a lot by focusing on − 

Keyword Relevance − Cra ing relevant PPC keyword lists, ght keyword groups, and proper ad text.

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Landing Page Quality − Crea ng op mized landing pages with persuasive, relevant content and a clear call-to-action, tailored to specific search queries.

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Quality Score − Quality Score is Google's ra ng of the quality and relevance of your keywords, landing pages, and PPC campaigns. Advertisers with better quality scores get more ad clicks at lower costs.

Your entire PPC campaign is built around keywords, and the most successful AdWords advertisers continuously grow and refine their PPC keyword list. In conclusion, PPC advertising offers a unique opportunity to − 

Grow Your Customer Base − Connect with searchers ac vely looking for products and services like yours, and respond to the need by providing them with an offer relevant to their search query.

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Generate Leads at Low Costs − As pay-per-click marketing allows you to reach leads and prospects when they’re researching and looking to buy, it’s a highly effective way to bring interested visitors to your site. In addition, you can enjoy an algorithmically generated discount from the search engines in exchange for making their users happy.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - WEB ANALYTICS Web Analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage. The focus of web analytics is to understand the users of a site, their behavior, and activities. The study of online user behavior and activities generate valuable marketing intelligence and provides − 

Performance measures of the website against targets.

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Insight on user behaviors and needs, and how the site meets those needs.

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Optimization ability to make modifications to improve the website based on the results.

Web Analytics Tools An average web analytics tool offers hundreds of metrics. All of them are interesting but only a few would be useful for measuring the website’s performance. Focus on what is important to get meaningful insights on your website, and start your web analytics initiative by defining realistic and measurable objectives for your site. 

In order to identify the users, web analytics tools need to report on user sessions (also referred to as visits). There are different techniques to identify users such as IP addresses, user agent and IP address combination, cookies, and authenticated user.

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Nowadays, the most common user identification technique is via cookies which are small packets of data that are usually deposited on the user’s computer hard disk when the person visits a website.

How to Review Web Metrics When reviewing metrics, there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure you are encompassing the set of data that best evaluates your efficiency − Think People and Process No doubt, technology is important, but you need to go beyond it. Take time and care to thoroughly understand your stakeholders’ measurement needs. Segmentation There’s more to data than just total number of page views. Many organizations unfortunately still report on total page views and miss out on all the non-page view interactions such as video, downloads and rich media. Analytics platforms such as Google Analytics, MixPanel, Flurry and others, are very powerful and allow us the ability to go beyond simplistic hit collection, and really dive into rich data and patterns. You can easily report and derive insights with visitor segmentation, have quick visibility into buyer or non-buyer behavior, group content by asset type, measure gated or ungated content consumption, and with relatively ease run a cohort analysis. These are just a few views that could be utilized while segmenting your data. Think Visitors, Not Visits Explore data such as where visitors came from, what course they took between pages while on your website, and where they spent the most (or least) time during their visit. Later, after two or three visits they got converted to customers. With this information, you’re able to gain increased awareness of visitors and how they interact with your content throughout the buying cycle. Optimize What Matters Most Optimize conversions on all things digital. Take it one notch higher and optimize on the Lifetime Value of a customer. Put into place a system that gives you the ability to measure behavior and interaction across multi-devices and multiple channels for (most) users that come from mobile, web, etc. Maximize Returns You’ll maximize the return on gathering, reporting and analyzing data, when you do so consistently. Commit to the process and develop a list of priorities and a measurement “roadmap.” Audit what you have periodically. Websites and mobile apps are constantly evolving, so ensure your analytics implementation is in-line with such changes. DIGITAL MARKETING

DIGITAL MARKETING - FACEBOOK Facebook has 1.28 billion active users and is currently the largest social network – that adds up to a lot of potential brand exposure. Your Facebook Page makes your business − 

Discoverable − When people search for you on Facebook, they’ll be able to ﬁnd you.

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Connected − Have one-on-one conversations with your customers, who can like your page, read your posts and share them with friends, and check in when they visit.

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Timely − Your page can help you reach large groups of people frequently, with messages tailored to their needs and interests.

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Insightful − Analy cs on your page will give you a deeper understanding of your customers and your marketing activities.

Start Facebook Marketing Ready to get started? Let’s walk through the steps! Step 1: Set Goals Any strategy begins with goals. What do you want out of your Facebook Page? Sales is the obvious choice, but there can also be secondary goals that lead to sales. Consider some of these Facebook marketing goals as you craft your plan − 

Increase overall exposure and awareness.

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Create a loyal and engaged community.

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Establish authority and showcase your knowledge.

Step 2: Research Your Facebook research will include these areas − 

Identify your audience and where they spend their time.

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Research your competition and watch what is working for them.

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Understand the latest techniques. Make sure you know the latest techniques on Facebook that are effective. Keep up with the trends so you know what is working for others.

Step 3: Design the Facebook Experience Now that you have your goals set up, work backwards from those goals to determine how you will achieve them. 

Set up an editorial calendar. Plan your content that you want to share. You can schedule your daily activity, weekly activity and monthly activity by using a simple Excel spreadsheet.

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Set up an activity calendar. Map out your long-term activity and marketing plan, along with an estimate of your outcomes. Also decide when and how often to engage with your key influencers.

Step 4: Measure Your Progress Take time to look back at your progress on Facebook so you know if your marketing is working. Become familiar with how Facebook Insights work so you know which posts are working for you.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - PINTEREST Pinterest helps people discover things in a simple, visual way. Pinners might find something they love while browsing your boards, scrolling through a category you’re listed in or searching for you directly.

Pinterest Pins On Pinterest, each Pin is an idea - a gift, recipe, or even a quote. They always point back to the sites they came from (like yours!) If you add the Save button to your site, people can use it to add your content to Pinterest. Pinterest pins are 100 times more spreadable than a tweet, with the retweet average hitting only 1.4%. And, as for Facebook, the half-life of a pin is 1,6000x longer than a Facebook post. Boards are where people collect and organize their Pins. Each board tells a unique story about what that person cares about. People can follow boards whose Pins they like. Pinterest Business Account If you don’t have an account already, or if your account is personal, you’re going to need to sign up for an official Pinterest for Business account in order to tap into the full potential of Pinterest. By creating a business account, you’ll also be getting access to Pinterest Analytics, one of the newest and most awesome features of Pinterest for Business account. When you verify your account, you get access to important tracking information. You’ll be able to see which strategies and content work, so you can constantly improve your marketing. DIGITAL MARKETING

Must-follow Rules of Pinterest When it comes to basic Pinterest Marketing Strategy, you should always follow the set of rules discussed here − Keep clean and organized boards A large part of Pinterest’s popularity is based on its clean and organized structure. Even with large boards with loads of content, it’s naturally pleasing to the eye and easily digestible. This means creating multiple boards where the content is broken down by category so that the relevant content is lumped together. Pin shareable images The goal of a Pinterest campaign is to get the most exposure possible with repins, likes, comments, and new followers. A large part of this revolves around pinning images that people find captivating and want to share. As this is one of the most image-centric social networks, try to pin appealing images based on user psychology. Research has shown that images with several dominant colors perform well, and reddish images do better than blue-toned images; light images perform better than darker images. Follow the right people Acquiring some initial followers is often one of the hardest parts because it takes time to build credibility. To speed up this process, it helps to follow some relevant pinners. This is advantageous because every person you follow will be notified, which can bring immediate exposure. Assuming you have quality content, a considerable number of those people will be inclined to follow you back. Once you gain a few followers, there tends to be an accumulative effect where your follower count will continue to grow. Pinning frequency It’s important to find the right balance of pinning! Too much can annoy your followers, too little and you’ll be forgotten. Pin content that matches your audience Food, crafts and beauty tend to do really well on Pinterest, but don’t force a category that doesn’t relate to your brand just to try and get impressions. Create unique content for Pinterest Image sizes vary across social media channels. On Pinterest, all pins have the same width, with an unlimited length. A good size to shoot for is 736×1102 pixels for a typical pin. It’s not too big, and not too small.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - TWITTER With hundreds of millions of users and over 500 million tweets being sent each day, there is a great opportunity for businesses to reach a global audience of new and existing customers through Twitter. Twitter is a social communication tool where people broadcast short messages. These messages, called tweets, are limited to 140 characters in length. As a Twitter user, you select which other people you wish to follow; when you follow someone, their tweets show up in a list known as your Twitter stream. Anyone who chooses to follow you will see your tweets in their stream. It is not necessary to follow everyone who follows you, and not everyone you choose to follow will follow you back. Conversations on Twitter are just like the face-to-face encounters you have with customers each day. Compelling content will help you attract new followers and keep them engaged over time, building awareness of your brand and asserting yourself or your brand as an authority in the industry or niche area.

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Use your brand name as your Twitter name. It may seem obvious, but it needs to be said!

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If branding a company is your number one priority, use your logo as your Twitter picture.

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You should tweet 10 to 20 times a day to keep your brand name in the Twitter stream.

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Schedule the tweets that have links to valuable content and complement that with 10 or so personalized tweets where you are interacting with other Twitter users.

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Reply to Everything! Really, everything.

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Learn to give. To build a strong brand on Twitter you will need to give back as much as you get. Share content from your “tweeps,” retweet, and favorite relevant content.

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Follow at least two new people a day. Follow back anyone who followed you. It’s the best way to keep followers! Click on “Followers” and then follow anyone in your stream that you are not connected with.

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One of the biggest mistake people make on Twitter is not using relevant hashtags. You may want to create your own personal hashtag to archive your tweets but use hashtags that are trending when posting, so that your content gets seen.

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Tweet questions or a call-to-action when you post. People are more likely to respond when they’re asked something. There’s an option to create polls too.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - LINKEDIN LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for individuals and companies looking to make new connections, generate leads, and build their brand. In addition to being a great way to recruit new talent, LinkedIn marketing is a likely top marketing tool to employ for B2B businesses. It consistently proves to be the platform of choice for marketing product launches and lead generation. A comprehensive LinkedIn marketing strategy requires ongoing management, monitoring, analysis, and adjustments. Create a dynamic company page for your brand To create a business presence on LinkedIn and gain access to additional features that enhance your visibility, you must build a LinkedIn company page. Consider this page an extension of your website and fill out the complete profile, including products and services. Invite your employees and customers to follow the page. Be an authority in your industry You need to plan out what type of content you can provide that will have decision-makers thinking twice about the approaches they're taking. Think about the discussions you can create that make you stand out as a thought leader. Also determine whether the content is relevant and for whom, and whether the content inspires prospects to want to take action. Engage in the community It's not about how many connections you make or followers you have on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. It's about how many people you reach and engage with. The best way to engage in social media is to create a community. In LinkedIn, you can create actual groups that you manage. Consider taking an active role and creating a group in the industry that you are active in. Or, simply join an existing group and share the relevant content. Either way, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be creating new contacts and participating in worthwhile conversations with industry leaders in your field.

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View the stats The new LinkedIn Publisher stats offer amazing insight into not only how many people are viewing each post, but the lifespan of each post, reader demographics, and the people who engage with your posts. To see your stats, go to the Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Viewed Your Posts tab, which is located under Profile in the main navigation under Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Viewed Your Profile. Click on any post to see a graph that shows the number of views in the last 7 days, 15 days, 30 days, 6 months or 1 year. This gives you incredible perspective to see the shelf life of each post. Review these numbers, as well as the elements of the posts themselves, to see patterns that will tell you what topics, format, and length your readers are most interested in.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - YOUTUBE YouTube is no longer a new platform; it’s over ten years old! However, it is seeing tremendous growth. If it isn’t already a part of your online marketing strategy, it needs to be. But what types of YouTube videos should you be making? The key is to find the place where, what your brand stands for and what your audience cares about intersect. Creating the relevant content is step one, but optimizing it on YouTube is what gets that content seen by those that matter to your brand. Common Video Themes Not sure what type of content will resonate with your audience? Here are some commonly employed video themes that are used by businesses and brands − 

Tutorials − Show your viewers how to perform a task or demonstrate how to use your product.

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Customer testimonials − Interview a sa sﬁed customer, or share a usergenerated testimonial on your YouTube channel.

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Behind-the-scenes videos − Take your viewers on a tour of your oﬃce or workspace, or introduce them to your staff or co-workers.

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Tips and tricks − Share useful insights that will help your prospects.

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Live presentations − Speaking at a conference or tradeshow? Record and share it with your YouTube viewers.

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Product launches − Share the release of new products with your YouTube viewers.

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Statistics − To establish yourself as an expert in your ﬁeld, share industry-related statistics, data, and research via a simple slideshow-like video.

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FAQs − Compile a list of frequently asked ques ons and respond to them via video.

Optimize Your Videos Next, you’ll need to optimize your videos for on-site and Google search. Utilizing relevant keywords in your title, tags, and description can help the users find your videos for related searches.

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Google recommends using your keywords first, and branding second. Use seasons and episodes if relevant. Tags are your keywords. Put the most important ones first. Include a call to action in your description and be sure to enable closed captioning (loaded with those keywords). When viewers are scrolling through search results, thumbnails can have the biggest impact on clicks. Make sure you use captivating, colorful, high-contrast images that work well both in small and large formats. The optimal size for your thumbnail image is 1280 x 720 pixels.

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DIGITAL MARKETING - GOOGLE ADWORDS Google AdWords is a marketplace where companies pay to have their website ranked right with the top organic search results, based on keywords. The basic gist is, you select to promote your brand based on keywords. A keyword is a word or phrase the user searches for, who then sees your ad. Your ads will only show up for the keywords you pick. Google counts the clicks on your ads and charges you for each click. They also count impressions, which is simply the number that tells you how often your ad has already been shown when the users searched for that keyword. If you divide clicks by impressions, you get the click-through-rate or CTR. This is the percentage of users who land on your advertised page, because they clicked on your ad.

Consider Google AdWords to be an auction house. You set a budget and a bid. The bid sets how much you are willing to pay per click. If your maximum bid is $2, Google will only show your ad to people, if other arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bidding more on average.

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Google doesn’t just want to show people the ads by the highest bidder – they could still be horrible ads. They care about their users so much that they’d rather show them a more relevant and better ad by someone who pays less. Therefore − Quality ads + good bid = win!

Create a Google AdWords Account To create a Google AdWords account, visit − www.adwords.google.com/. From there you’ll create your account, and set up your first campaign. Here are the steps − Step 1 Select your campaign type and name. Step 2 Choose the geographic location where you’d like ads to show. Step 3 Choose your “bid strategy,” and set your daily budget. Change the default “Bid strategy” to “I’ll manually set my bids for clicks”. This gives you more control and will help you learn AdWords at a greater level of understanding. Step 4 Create your first ad group, and write your first ad. More people click on ads when the headline includes the keyword they’re searching on. So use your keywords in your headline when you can. You’re limited to 25 characters here, so for some search terms, you’ll need to use abbreviations or shorter synonyms. Here’s the short version of your ad template − 

Headline: Up to 25 characters of text

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2nd line: Up to 35 characters

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3rd line: Up to 35 characters

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4th line: Your display URL

Step 5 Insert your keywords into the keyword field in your account. Paste in your keywords. Start with just one set, and add plus signs (+), brackets ([ ]), and quotes (“ “) to see precisely how many searches of each type you’ll get. Step 6 Set your maximum cost-per-click. Set your maximum price-per-click (called your “default bid”). However, realize this: Every keyword is theoretically a different market, which means that each of your major keywords will need a bid price of its own. Google will let you set individual bids for each keyword later. Step 7 Enter your billing information and Voila!

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DIGITAL MARKETING - GOOGLE ANALYTICS Do you have a blog? Do you have a static website? If yes, then you need Google Analytics. This tool can do so many things. Even if you just use it for the most basic of information, you can learn a lot about your website visitors and traffic. A quick glimpse at Google Analytics can tell you − 

How many people visit the website?

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Where do the visitors live?

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Is there a need for a mobile-friendly website?

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Which other websites send traffic to the website?

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Which marketing tactics drive the most traffic to the website?

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Which pages on the website are the most popular?

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How many visitors got converted into leads or customers?

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How to improve the website's speed?

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Which blog content the visitors like the most?

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Which place do the converting visitors belong to and what did they visit on the website?

Create a Google Analytics Account First, you need to have a Google Analytics account. If you have a primary Google account that you use for other services like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google+, or YouTube, then you should set up your Google Analytics using that Google account. Otherwise, create a new one. 

Once you have a Google account, you can go to Google Analytics by clicking the Sign into Google Analytics button.

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After you click the Sign Up button, you will need to fill out information for your website. You can have up to 100 Google Analytics accounts under one Google account.

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Once you’ve filled in the properties for your website, click the “Get Tracking ID” button. Agree to the terms and conditions and you will get a Google Analytics code. This must be installed on every page on your website. The installation will depend on what type of website you have.

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After you install your tracking code on the website, you will want to configure the Goals Setting. Goals will tell Google Analytics when something important has happened on your website.

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In Google Analytics, click the New Goal button. From there, you will choose the custom option or template options. You can create up to 20 goals on your website. Be sure that the ones you create are highly important to your business. This is the simplest of all conversion tracking in Google Analytics.

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If you want to add a new Google Analytics account, you can do so by going to your Admin menu, clicking the drop-down under the Account column, and clicking the Create New Account link. Once you've installed Google Analytics on your website(s), set up your goals, and wait about 24 hours for it to start getting data.

How to Use Google Analytics? Each time you log in to Google Analytics, you will be taken to your Audience Overview report, from where you can access one of more than 50 reports available through Google Analytics.

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In the report at the top-right corner as shown in the above screenshot, you can click on the dates to change the date range of the data you are viewing.

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You can also check the Compare box to compare your data from one date range (such as this month) to a previous date range (such as the last month) to view your data.

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Beneath the main metrics, you will see reports that you can switch through to see the top ten languages, countries, cities, browsers, operating systems, service providers, and screen resolutions of the visitors.

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Make Optimum Use of Google Analytics Using the endless tools available through Google Analytics, you can view various details. We have given here a few examples − Audience - Demographic – Age You can use Google Analytics to find demographic details of the visitors to your site.

Audience - Geo – Location You can find out where the traffic is coming from. It can either be global or local information.

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Acquisition Overview You can determine which channels your traffic is coming from.

Behavior - Site Content You can determine which pages on your website are being viewed the most.

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Translating Insights into Action Unfortunately, many firms find their digital marketing analytics programs fail to translate analytics into action. However, most of the times, translating insights into action involves manipulating your data for distinct insights. Some of them include − 

Looking for relationships among your data. For instance, you might uncover a relationship between top performing posts and specific keywords used or publication timing.

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Looking at trends rather than data points. Trends often help you identify meaning in your data such as cyclical trends or when a particular data point stands out from others versus simply representing normal fluctuation.

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Turn data into predictive models. Don’t stop with viewing data as isolated points and basing forecasts on simple linear extrapolations. Predictive models use historical data to determine the relationship among a set of factors and desired outcomes (like KPIs).

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Predict future KPI performance. Analysts use algorithms to predict future KPI performance. You can even play “what-if” games to determine the impact on the performance of various actions. This helps determine which changes represent the greatest impact on performance.

Don’t forget that data analysis is part Art and part Science. Translating insights into action involves a certain amount of playfulness with the data to discover deeper insights.

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SEO SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is all about optimizing a website for search engines. SEO is a technique for: 

designing and developing a website to rank well in search engine results.

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improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines.

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marketing by understanding how search algorithms work, and what human visitors might search.

SEO is a subset of search engine marketing. SEO is also referred as SEO copyrighting, because most of the techniques that are used to promote sites in search engines, deal with text. If you plan to do some basic SEO, it is essential that you understand how search engines work. How Search Engine Works? Search engines perform several activities in order to deliver search results. 

Crawling - Process of fetching all the web pages linked to a website. This task is performed by a software, called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, in case of Google).

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Indexing - Process of creating index for all the fetched web pages and keeping them into a giant database from where it can later be retrieved. Essentially, the process of indexing is identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page and assigning the page to particular keywords.

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Processing - When a search request comes, the search engine processes it, i.e. it compares the search string in the search request with the indexed pages in the database.

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Calculating Relevancy - It is likely that more than one page contains the search string, so the search engine starts calculating the relevancy of each of the pages in its index to the search string.

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Retrieving Results - The last step in search engine activities is retrieving the best matched results. Basically, it is nothing more than simply displaying them in the browser.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! often update their relevancy algorithm dozens of times per month. When you see changes in your rankings it is due to an algorithmic shift or something else outside of your control. Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor differences between their relevancy algorithms lead to major changes in results relevancy.

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What is SEO Copywriting? SEO Copywriting is the technique of writing viewable text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for the surfer, and also targets specific search terms. Its purpose is to rank highly in the search engines for the targeted search terms. Along with viewable text, SEO copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description, Keywords tags, headings, and alternative text. The idea behind SEO copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages often called "doorway pages" that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings. What is Search Engine Rank? When you search any keyword using a search engine, it displays thousands of results found in its database. A page ranking is measured by the position of web pages displayed in the search engine results. If a search engine is putting your web page on the first position, then your web page rank will be number 1 and it will be assumed as the page with the highest rank. SEO is the process of designing and developing a website to attain a high rank in search engine results. What is On-Page and Off-page SEO? Conceptually, there are two ways of optimization: ď&#x201A;ˇ

On-Page SEO - It includes providing good content, good keywords selection, putting keywords on correct places, giving appropriate title to every page, etc.

ď&#x201A;ˇ

Off-Page SEO - It includes link building, increasing link popularity by submitting open directories, search engines, link exchange, etc.

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SEO - TACTICS & METHODS SEO techniques are classified into two broad categories: 

White Hat SEO - Techniques that search engines recommend as part of a good design.

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Black Hat SEO - Techniques that search engines do not approve and attempt to minimize the effect of. These techniques are also known as spamdexing.

White Hat SEO An SEO tactic is considered as White Hat if it has the following features: 

It conforms to the search engine's guidelines.

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It does not involve in any deception.

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It ensures that the content a search engine indexes, and subsequently ranks, is the same content a user will see.

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It ensures that a web page content should have been created for the users and not just for the search engines.

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It ensures good quality of the web pages.

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It ensures availability of useful content on the web pages.

Always follow a White Hat SEO tactic and do not try to fool your site visitors. Be honest and you will definitely get something more. Black Hat or Spamdexing An SEO tactic, is considered as Black Hat or Spamdexing if it has the following features: 

Attempting ranking improvements that are disapproved by the search engines and/or involve deception.

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Redirecting users from a page that is built for search engines to one that is more human friendly.

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Redirecting users to a page that was different from the page the search engine ranked.

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Serving one version of a page to search engine spiders/bots and another version to human visitors. This is called Cloaking SEO tactic.

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Using hidden or invisible text or with the page background color, using a tiny font size or hiding them within the HTML code such as "no frame" sections.

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Repeating keywords in the metatags, and using keywords that are unrelated to the website content. This is called metatag stuffing.

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Calculated placement of keywords within a page to raise the keyword count, variety, and density of the page. This is called keyword stuffing.

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Creating low-quality web pages that contain very little content but are instead stuffed with very similar keywords and phrases. These pages are called Doorway or Gateway Pages.

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Mirror websites by hosting multiple websites - all with conceptually similar content but using different URLs.

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Creating a rogue copy of a popular website which shows contents similar to the original to a web crawler, but redirects web surfers to unrelated or malicious websites. This is called page hijacking.

Always stay away from any of the above Black Hat tactics to improve the rank of your site. Search engines are smart enough to identify all the above properties of your site and ultimately you are not going to get anything.

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SEO - WEB SITE DOMAIN When you start thinking of doing a business through internet, the first thing that you think about is your website domain name. Before you choose a domain name, you should consider the following: 

Who would be your target audience?

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What you intend to sell to them. Is it a tangible item or just text content?

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What will make your business idea unique or different from everything else that is already avilable in the market?

Many people think it is important to have keywords in a domain. Keywords in the domain name are usually important, but it usually can be done while keeping the domain name short, memorable, and free of hyphens. Using keywords in your domain name gives you a strong competitive advantage over your competitors. Having your keywords in your domain name can increase click-through-rates on search engine listings and paid ads as well as make it easier to use your keywords in get keyword rich descriptive inbound links. Avoid buying long and confusing domain names. Many people separate the words in their domain names using either dashes or hyphens. In the past, the domain name itself was a significant ranking factor but now search engines have advanced features and it is not a very significant factor anymore. Keep two to three words in your domain name that will be easy to memorize. Some of the most notable websites do a great job of branding by creating their own word. Few examples are eBay, Yahoo!, Expedia, Slashdot, Fark, Wikipedia, Google, etc. You should be able to say it over the telephone once, and the other person should know how to spell it, and they should be able to guess what you sell. Finally, you should be able to answer the following questions: 

Why do you want to build your website?

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Why should people buy off your site and not from other site?

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What makes you different from others?

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Who are your target audience and what do you intend to sell?

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List 5 to 10 websites that you think are amazing. Now think why they are amazing.

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Create 5 different domain names. Make at least 1 of them funny. Tell them to half a dozen people and see which ones are the most memorable. You will get more honest feedback if the people do not know you well.

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Buy your domain name that is catchy, memorable, and relevant to your business.

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SEO - RELEVANT FILENAMES One of the simplest methods to improve your search engine optimization is to look at the way you name your files. Before writing this tutorial, we did a lot of research on file-names and found that search engines like Google give too much importance to file names. You should think what you want put in your web page and then give a relevant file name to this page. Just try giving any keyword in Google search engine and you will find file names highlighted with the keyword you have given. It proves that your file name should have appropriate keywords. File Naming Style 

The filename should preferably be short and descriptive.

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It is always good to use same keywords in a filename as well as in page title.

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Do not use filenames such as service.htm or job.htm as they are generic. Use actual service name in your file name such as computer-repairing.htm.

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Do not use more than 3-4 words in file names.

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Separate the keywords with hyphens rather than underscores.

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Try to use 2 keywords if possible.

File Name Example Listed below are some filenames which would be ideal from the users' point of view as well as SEO. slazenger-brand-balls.html wimbledon-brand-balls.html wilson-brand-balls.html Notice that the keywords are separated by hyphens rather than underscores. Google sees good filenames as follows: seo-relevant-filename as seo relevant filename(good) Filenames with underscores are not a good option. seo_relevant_filename as seorelevantfilename (not good) File Extension You should notice that .html, .htm, .php and any other extension do NOTHING for your visitors, and they are simply a means of offloading some of the work of configuring your webserver properly

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onto your visitor's. In effect, you are asking your site visitors to tell your webserver HOW to produce the page, not which one? Many Web masters think that it is a good idea to use filename without using extension. It may help you, but not a whole lot. URL Sub-Directory Name From Search Engine Optimization point of view, URL sub-directory name hardly matters. You can try giving any keyword in any search, and you will not find any sub-directory name matching with your keywords. But from the user's point of view, you should keep an abbreviated sub-directory name.

Keep the following points in mind before naming your files: 

Keep the web page filename short, simple, descriptive, and relevant to the page content.

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Try to use a maximum of 3-4 keywords in your filename, and these keywords should appear on your web page title as well.

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Separate all keywords with hyphen rather than with underscore.

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Keep your sub-directories name as short as possible.

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Restrict the file size to less than 101K because Google chops almost everything above that.

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SEO - DESIGN & LAYOUT The website design and layout gives the first impression about your site. There are sites which are too fancy and regular net surfers just reach those sites and come out even without creating a single click. Search engines are very smart but after all, they are software and not human being, who can read the content of their interest. If you make your site too complicated, then the search engine would not be able to parse the content of your site properly, and finally indexing would not be efficient, which results in a low rank. The actual page content should have a keyword density of about 10% and should weigh in at about 200 words - but there are as many opinions about this as there are SEO experts. Some say, keyword density should be 5% and some say it should be 20%. You can go with 10% which is good enough. Here are a few guidelines that you should keep in mind while designing a web page. 

You should have more text content than HTML elements.

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No frames. They are the enemies of search engines, and search engines are enemies of frames.

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No ads if possible. Because most of the ads use Java-Script which is not advised to be used.

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No JavaScript. If you need JavaScript, call it from an external file rather than dumping the code in the HTML file. JavaScript drop-down menus prevent spiders from crawling beyond your homepage. If you use them, be sure to include text links at the bottom of the page.

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Do not put anything in the page topic that does not fit perfectly.

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No unnecessary directories. Keep your files as close to the root as possible.

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No fancy stuff (Flash, Splash, Animated Gifs, Rollovers, etc.) unless absolutely necessary.

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SEO - OPTIMIZED KEYWORDS A keyword is a term that is used to match with the query a person enters into a search engine to find specific information. Most people enter search phrases that consist of two to five words. Such phrases may be called search phrases, keyword phrases, query phrases, or just keywords. Good keyword phrases are specific and descriptive. The following concepts related to keywords, help in optimizing the keywords on a web page. Keyword Frequency This is calculated as how often does a keyword appear in a website title or description. You do not want to go overboard with frequency, however, since on some engines if you repeat a word too many times, you are be penalized for "spamming" or keyword stuffing. In general though, repeat your keyword in the document as many times as you can get away with, and up to 3-7 times in your list of metatags. Keyword Weight It refers to the number of keywords appearing on your web page compared to the total number of words appearing on that same page. Some search engines consider this while determining the rank of your website for a particular keyword search. One technique that often works well is to create some smaller pages, generally just a paragraph long that emphasizes a particular keyword. By keeping the overall number of words to a minimum, you can increase the "weight" of the keyword you are emphasizing. Keyword Proximity It refers to the placement of keywords on a web page in relation to each other or, in some cases, in relation to other words with a similar meaning as the queried keyword. For search engines, that grade a keyword match by keyword proximity, the connected phrase home loans will outrank a citation that mentions home mortgage loans assuming that you are searching only for the phrase "home loans". Keyword Prominence It is a measure of how early or high up on a page, the keywords are found. Having keywords in the first heading and in the first paragraph (first 20 words or so) on a page are best. Keyword Placement Where your keywords are placed on a page is very important. For example, in most engines, placing the keywords in the Title of the page, or in the Heading tags will give it more relevancy. On some engines, placing keywords in the link text, the part that is underlined on the screen in a browser, can add more relevancy to those words. DIGITAL MARKETING

Best Places to Put Keywords Here is a list of places where you should try to use your main keywords. 

Keywords in the <title> tag(s).

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Keywords in the <meta name="description">.

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Keywords in the <meta name="keyword">.

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Keywords in <h1> or other headline tags.

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Keywords in the <a href="http://yourcompany.com">keywords</a> link tags.

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Keywords in the body copy.

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Keywords in alt tags.

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Keywords in <!-- insert comments here> comments tags.

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Keywords in the URL or website address.

Finding Keywords There are many different ways to find keywords for your website. Some good keyword ideas are: 

The potential words, people would use to find your product or service.

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The problems that your prospective customers may try to solve with your product or service.

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Keyword tags on competitor's websites.

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Visible page copy on competitor's websites.

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Related search suggestions on top search engines.

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Using an online tool such as Google Keyword Tool

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By analyzing your website carefully and finding out proper keywords. This task can be done by expert SEO copywriters.

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Pay attention to stemming for your keywords - particularly to what the root word is and what Google considers to be a match for that word, when optimizing pages over time.

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You can do brainstorming to identify correct keywords for your site.

What is Word Stemming? Google uses a feature called word stemming that allows all forms of the word - singular, plural, verb form as well as similar words to be returned for a given search query. So if someone types in "house plans", not only the pages that are optimized for that phrase but the pages that contain all variations of that phrase are returned. For example, "house plan", "house planning", "house planner".

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SEO - OPTIMIZED METATAGS There are two important meta tags: 

Meta description tags

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Meta keyword tags

Some search engines may display the meta description as a part of the search results, but the meta keyword tags should not appear in search results. The general consensus among SEO experts is that metatags are dead. Even so, many of these same experts continue to use metatags in their own sites. For Google, adding the description meta tag does not result in a boost in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), but the description might be used for the description for your SERP listings in Google. Yahoo! says, they use the Keyword Meta Tag when it ranks a page. Hence it makes sense to add one for Yahoo! and any other minor search engines that still use.

What Do the Metatags Look Like? You can add the following in the head section of the web page: <meta name="keywords" content="KEYWORD1 KEYWORD2 KEYPHRASE1 etc. about 30 to 40 unique words">

Meta Description Tag Tips Important tips for good Meta description tags: 

Use keywords in your meta description tag.

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Try not to repeat the words overly often, but try to use multiple syntaxes of your key words.

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There should not be more than 150 characters in a description metatag of a single web page.

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Use a different meta description tag for each page, as each page is different and stands a better chance of being found if you place a good title and description on it.

Meta Keywords Tag Tips Please refer to the previous chapter for identifying good keywords. Use the following tips for preparing good meta keywords tags. 

Use synonyms.

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Use unique keywords.

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No need to repeat any given phrase.

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You can repeat a word any number of time, as long as each time it is part of a different phrase.

Robots Meta Tag The important metatag that you may need sometime is the Robots Metatag which looks like this: <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"> Using the above metatag, you can tell a spider or a robot that you do not want some of your pages indexed, or that you do not want your links followed.

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SEO - TITLE OPTIMIZATION An HTML TITLE tag is put inside the head tag. The page title (not to be confused with the heading for a page) is what is displayed in the title bar of your browser window, and is also what is displayed when you bookmark a page or add it to your browser Favorites. This is the one place on a webpage where your keywords MUST be present. Correct use of keywords in the title of every page of your website is extremely important to Google - particularly for the homepage. If you do nothing else to optimize your site, remember to do this! Here are some considerations while designing the title of a webpage: 

The title shouldn't consist of more than about 9 words or 60 characters.

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Use keywords at the very beginning of the title.

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Do not include your company name in the title unless your company name is very well known.

Improper or nonexistent use of titles in webpages keeps more websites out of top rankings on Google than any other factor except perhaps for a lack of relevant content on a page or a lack of quality links from other websites that point to your site. Best Practices for Creating Titles Here are some best practices you should follow for creating titles on pages: 

Each page should have a unique title.

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If practical, try to include your Primary Keyword Phrase in every title of every page.

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Begin the title of your home page with your Primary Keyword Phrase, followed by your best Secondary Keyword Phrases.

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Use more specific variations to your Primary Keyword Phrase on your specific product, service, or content pages.



If you must include your company name, put it at the end of the title.



Use the best form, plural or singular, for your keywords based on what WordTracker says is searched on more often.



Do not overdo it - do not repeat your keywords more than 2 to 3 times in the title.



Make sure the <title> tag is the first element in the <head> section of your page - this makes it easier for Google to find the page.

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SEO - OPTIMIZED ANCHOR Use descriptive anchor text for all your text links. Most search engines consider anchor text of incoming links when ranking pages. Here is an example of anchor: <a href="otherpage.htm" title="Anchor Title">Anchor Text</a> Listed below are some of the important points to note about anchors: 

The Anchor Title plays a very important role and is seen by most of the search engines. The anchor title should have appropriate keywords. Anchor title helps the site visitors using a balloon, and displaying written text.



The Anchor Text is another important part, which should be selected very carefully because this text is used not only for search engines but also for navigation purpose. You should try to use the best keywords in your anchor text.



The otherpage.htm is the link to another webpage. This link could be to an external site. Here, you need to ensure that the linked page does exist; otherwise it is called a broken link, which gives a bad impression to search engines as well as to site visitors.

Another example of an anchor could be as follows: <a href="otherpage.htm" title="Anchor Title"> <img src="image.gif" alt="keywords" /> </a> In this case, Anchor Text has been replaced by an image. So, while using an image in place of an anchor text, it should be checked that you have put alttag properly. An image alt tag should have appropriate keywords.

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SEO - CONTENT IS THE KING Content basically includes what you see on the site: the text, graphics, and even links to other websites. You should not use excessive graphics because they are not Search Engine Friendly plus heavy graphics normally put the users out when they get downloaded, especially over a slow network. Thousands of articles, books, and forum entries are available on how to make your website search engine friendly, but ultimately, one rule stands above the rest: Unique, high-quality, unduplicated content is the king. Superior the quality of your content, the higher the ranking you achieve, larger the traffic you gain and greater the popularity of your website. Search engines prefer good quality sites in their index and search results. Relevant, fresh, and timely content is crucial in attracting visitors to your website. It helps you both draw traffic from search engines and create audience loyalty. Unique, High-Quality Content When people visit a website for information, they want your unique spin on a topic. How is your material or content unique? Is that uniqueness obvious, and easy to find and to understand? Visitors want unique, high-quality site content. It is not only your home page content, but also all the linked pages should have useful and easy-to-understand content. Now-a-days, search engines have become very smart and they are able to understand complete grammar and complete phrase. Hence while ranking a page against other, the content available on a page matters. Sites with duplicated, syndicated, or free content are get given red flags by the search engines. SEO Content Writing (Copy Writing) SEO Content Writing (also referred as SEO Copy writing), involves the process of integrating keywords and informative phrases which make up the actual content of your website. While writing your webpage content, the following tips may help you in keeping it better than others. 

The content should be directed for the specified target audience.



Keyword density is strictly adhered as per search engine guidelines.



Titles should always be eye-catching, compelling your visitors to read on and want to know what you offer in your website.

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

Do not use confusing, ambiguous, and complex language. Use small statements to make your content more understandable.



Keep your web pages short.



Organize and distribute the content on the webpages.



Divide your web page content also into short paragraphs.

Other Advantages of Having Great Content It is not only SEO you need to think about. Many factors contribute to make your site popular. 

If your site is having something really unique, then people like to suggest it to their friends.



Other webmasters like to create a link of your site on their sites.



Your site visitors start trusting on your site and they look forward for the next content update and keep coming again and again.



Although you are listed out by search engine, a but net surfer will click only that page whose content snippet looks more unique and interesting.

Conclusion Creating, editing, and promoting unique high-quality content is difficult and time consuming. But in the end, the golden rule of SEO is that Content is the King. It is not because of a search engine, but it is for your site visitors. A page that is read by people is better than a page that is read by bots. So, write your content after a serious thought. Keep your title, keywords, link text, metatags up-todate, unique, and interesting.

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SEO - VERIFYING WEB SITE You design and develop a website but how would you know if you have put all the HTML syntax in a correct way. Most browsers do not complain against your wrong syntax, but wrong is wrong. There are many SEO experts who claim that SEO is not dependent on site HTML/XHTML verification. But we will discuss various reasons why your site should be W3C Compliance. Why HTML/XHTML Verification is Required? There are various reasons to verify your website before hosting it over the internet. 

Any webpage quality depends on how well you have written your webpage.It should be syntactically correct and should pass all the Quality Gates.



When any search engine does indexing for your web page content, it might get confused if the HTML tags are not written properly, and much of the web page content might not be indexed properly.



There might be many HTML tags, which you are using in your webpage but then have been depreciated and many of the search engines do not support them.



Consistency, HTML Code Beauty, Process Compliance are always appreciated by good webmasters.

What is W3C Compliance? W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium and since 1994, the W3C has provided the guidelines by which, websites and webpages should be structured and created. Here are the links to validate your web pages: 

Validate HTML/XHTML File against W3C Standard HTML/XHTML Validator.



Validate CSS File against W3C Standard CSS Validator.

While verification, you may get errors along with appropriate reasons. All the validations will be done using XHTML DTD, which is a refined version of HTML. Rules for W3C Compliance There following rules, are to be following while developing a webpage. 

Use XHTML declaration statements to start every XHTML page:



<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">



Every tag must be closed.

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

The head and body tags are now mandatory.



Empty tags get a terminating slash. An empty tag is a tag that doesn't require an end tag. Examples include <br> and <hr>.



<BR> is now <br />.





All tags must be lower-case. This does not apply to attributes, only tags. For example, both of these formats are acceptable under the XHTML DTD:



<FONT color="#ffffcc"> is invalid



<font color="#ffffcc"> is valid <font color="#FFFFCC"> is also valid



All the attribute values should be put with in double quotes.



Tags may not be nested.



<b><i>Text</b></i> This is invalid <b><i>Text</i></b> This is valid



The <pre> tag should not contain: img, object, big, small, sub, or sup.



One <form> tag cannot be inside another <form> tag.



If your code contains a &, it must be written as &amp;.



Any use of CSS should use all lower-case letter.

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SEO - LINK BUILDING Link building is the SEO practice of obtaining links from external websites to your own to improve both direct referrals (i.e., people clicking on the links), and search engine ranking. Link building is all about increasing your site link popularity. Website Crawler goes to a site again and again whose ranking in a search engine is high. You can verify this fact by putting your site on a high-rank site. If your site link is available on a high-rank website, then you have 99.99% chances that your site is indexed within 24Hrs. How to Increase Link Popularity? There are various ways of increasing your website link popularity. You can follow the tips given below, which are easily doable. 

Submit your site in popular search engines manually. Do not go for automated submission.



Get your site listed in Open Directory Projects like dmog.org, yahoo.com. Getting listed in these directories gives a boost in link popularity and improve search engine ranking in other search engines.



Provide high quality content so that anyone would naturally link to your site if you are featuring what they want, and that is not available anywhere else.



Leverage your personal relations with other webmasters. Put your site link on their sites. One-way links often count for more than reciprocal links.



Participate in Link Exchange Programs. Find top 20 sites doing the same business and contact them for reciprocal links. Link exchange between unrelated sites might affect the ranking of websites in the search engine.



If you are subscribed in a forum and the forum does not have any restriction to keep your site link as your signature, then it can help you to increase your site popularity.



Submit your site to bookmark sites like DIGG and Slashdot. Before submitting, please go through their spam policy.



Write good articles in blogging sites and give a few references of your links within that article.



Keep providing good content to your site visitors. Try to keep them busy on your site. If possible create forums, newsletters, blogs, etc.

There are other ways, but you need to spend some dollars to go for such alternatives. 

Buy a place on high-rank website where you can put your link.



Subscribe for Google's AdWords program to drive traffic towards your site.



You can go for alternative advertising option to increase the number of hits on your site, which can result in your site link popularity.

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MOBILE SEO TECHNIQUES Millions of users these days access the web using smartphones running on Android, iOS, or Windows. Hence, it has become imperative that websites adapt themselves to this changing environment and make suitable changes in their website design to attract more viewership. The desktop version of a site might be difficult to view and use on a mobile device. The version that is not mobile-friendly requires the user to pinch or zoom in order to read the content. Users find this a frustrating experience and are likely to abandon the site. In contrast, a mobile-friendly version is readable and immediately usable. A recent Google update makes it mandatory that a website should be mobile-friendly to be effective on Mobile Search Engines. Note that a website that is not mobile-friendly will not have any impact on regular search engines either. In this chapter, we will see how to make a website mobile-friendly in order to ensure the visitors who access the website from mobile devices have an optimized experience. What is Mobile SEO? Mobile Search Engine Optimization is the process of designing a website to make it suitable for viewing on mobile devices of different screen sizes having low bandwidth. Apart from following all the SEO rules which are applicable to a desktop website, we need to take additional care while designing a website for mobile devices. A website is mobile friendly if it has the following attributes 

A good mobile website has a responsive design which performs well on desktops as well as mobile devices. It not only reduces the maintenance of the website but also makes the content consistent for the search engines.



The contents of a good mobile website are easy to read on a mobile device without having to zoom the screen. It has appropriate fonts, colors, and layouts.



It is easy to navigate through a good mobile website on a small screen. It provides links and buttons that can be easily maneuvered using a finger.



A good mobile website is lightweight such that it takes less bandwidth and time to load on mobile networks.



The Home Page of a mobile website plays the most important role in connecting users to the content they are looking for. Therefore, good mobile websites make sure the most important links are displayed on the Home Page so that they get enough visibility.

The ranking of a website depends heavily on how user friendly it is. You can follow the guidelines given below to design a great mobile-friendly website.

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Optimize Your Site for Mobile If your site is already optimized for search engines, then it should not be too difficult to optimize it for mobile devices. First, let us understand what it takes to go mobile. We can categorize the steps into three broad categories − Step 1 − Select a Mobile Conﬁgura on Step 2 − Inform Search Engines Step 3 − Avoid Common Mistakes Select a Mobile Configuration There are three different mobile configurations that you can choose from − Step 1 − Responsive Web Design Step 2 − Dynamic Serving Step 3 − Separate URLs Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Google recommends responsive design, however it supports all three configurations. The following table shows how the mobile configuration affects your URL and HTML code − Mobile Configuration

URL

HTML

Responsive Web Design

Stays the same

Dynamic Serving

Stays the same

Different HTMLs

Separate URLs

Different URLs

Different HTMLs

Responsive Web Design Google recommends responsive web design become it is the simplest mobile configuration and very easy to implement. It serves the same HTML code on the same URL, however it adjusts the display based on the screen size of the mobile device.

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Dynamic Serving Dynamic serving is a type of mobile configuration where the URL of your website remains unchanged, but it serves different HTML content when accessed from a mobile device.

When your content is dynamically served from the server, make sure you inform Google that the content it is crawling may look different on mobile devices. A major drawback of this approach is that you will have to do additional processing on your content at the server level before severing it to the user. This approach puts unnecessary load on your server and makes it slow. Separate URLs When you maintain two different URLs — one for mobile users and another for desktop users – make sure you inform Google explicitly when to serve which version. Google does not recommend separate URLs because it can detect automatically that your mobile pages are different from your desktop pages. This approach is not practical when you have a big website because maintaining two versions of the same website will require double the effort and money. At the same time, you cannot avoid various discrepancies in your content while maintaining two versions. From the viewpoint of SEO, each URL performs separately. Hence your desktop ranking will never be added to the mobile ranking and they will always be assumed as separate websites. We don’t recommend maintaining different URLs for mobile and desktop versions if you want to draw the benefits of SEO. Inform Search Engines Make sure Google and other search engines understand your mobile configuration. Most important of all, Google must understand your page so that it can rank your website properly. How you inform

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Google depends on which mobile configuration — responsive web design, dynamic serving, or separate URLs — you have opted for. In case your site has a responsive design, Google’s algorithms can understand it automatically without you having to inform Google. When you have a responsive design, just make sure you have the following meta-tag in your webpage header − <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> The viewport decides how your webpage will be displayed on a device. A site with responsive design varies its size based on the size of the device screen. Declare a viewport so that your webpage displays correctly on any device. If your website is dynamically served, make sure you allow Google detect your configuration using the Vary HTTP header − Vary: User-Agent The Vary header is important to tell the search engines that different content will be served on desktops and mobile devices. This header is really important when your content is served by any cache system like a Content Delivery Network and those systems will make use of this header while serving content on different devices. In case you maintain separate URLs, e.g., example.com and m.example.com, then you can inform Google by adding a special link rel=alternate tag in your desktop version and vice versa as follows. Desktop page should have following in its header: <link rel="alternate" media="only screen and (max-width: 640px)" href="http://m.example.com" > Mobile page should have following in its header: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com" > Avoid Common Mistakes In order to optimize your website for mobile devices, make sure you avoid committing the following mistakes − 

Slow Mobile Pages − Mobile networks are slower as compared to wired Internet networks, so it is important to pay attention to how fast your mobile pages load. It is a critical Google ranking factor. Use a mobile SEO tool to find out your mobile page speed. Google provides a

number

good

tools

that

you

can

use.

Browse

the

following

link

−https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ 

Don't Block CSS and JavaScript − Google recommends to use inline CSS and Javascripts for mobile friendly websites so that they can be downloaded along with the content. So if you

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don’t have much CSS, then try to adjust it within the tag itself; but if you are using a lot of CSS in separate files, then try to include it at the bottom which will stop blocking the other content being downloaded. The same rule applies to Javascript, which can be kept inside the page itself or included at the bottom of the page. If you can avoid including the file at the top of the page, then make use of async attribute while including them. <script async type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script> 

Mobile Redirects − Since mobile networks are normally slow, too many redirects can hurt your page speed. If you are maintaining multiple URLs, make sure all your links point to the relevant pages. In case you maintain multiple URLs and you recognize a user is visiting a desktop page from a mobile device and you have an equivalent mobile page at a different URL, then redirect the user to that URL instead of displaying a 404 error.



Heavy Images − Heavy images increase the load me, however we cannot completely get rid of them since they are useful and effective. Therefore you should maintain a good balance between text and heavy images. Use a good tool to optimize your images and save them at low resolution to avoid heavy downloads.



Avoid plug-ins and pop-ups − Plug-ins like Flash and Java may not be available on user’s mobile device. Always ensure you don’t have any unplayable content on your mobile page. Avoid using pop-ups on mobile pages because it becomes quite clumsy to close these popups on a mobile device.

Useful Tools Here is a list of some useful tools that you can use to find out how mobile friendly your site is − 

Google Webmaster Tools − Use the available Google tools and techniques to understand what should be used and what should be avoided while designing desktop as well as mobile websites.



Mobile Emulator − It lets you see how your site appears on a wide variety of mobile devices.



Moz Local − Use this tool to ensure that your local SEO is in order.



Responsive Web Design Testing Tool − Use this tool to see how your responsive site looks like on a variety of mobile devices with different standard screen sizes.



Screaming Frog − This is a useful tool that allows you to analyze your site and double-check all the redirects.



User Agent Switcher − This is a Firefox add-on that you can use to find out how your site looks like when accessed from a different user agent.

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SEO - MISCELLANEOUS TECHNIQUES There are various other tips related to SEO. We have not categorized them into any special category and hence, putting these in miscellaneous category. Go through these tips one by one. To-Don't List 

Don't keep hidden text on your webpages.



Don't create alternate image spamming by putting wrong keywords.



Don't use meta tags stuffing.



Don't use frames and flash on your site.



Don't exchange your links with black listed sites.



Don't try to fool your site visitors by using misspelled keyword.



Don't send spam emails to thousands of email IDs.



Don't use too much graphics on your site.



Don't create too many doorway pages.



Don't try to create duplicate content of pages.



Don't submit your website many times in a single search engine.



Don't use sub-directory depth more than 1-2.



Don't create too many dynamic pages. Try to convert them into static pages.



Don't bloat your pages with code.



Don't nest your pages.

To-Do List There are various other tips which can help you to optimize your website for many search engines. 

Create logs of pages and each page should however contain a minimum of about 200 visible words of text to maximize relevance with Google.



Create a Sitemap, Help, FAQ, About Us, Link to Us, Copyright, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy pages on mandatory basis.



Create a homepage link to each and every webpage and provide easy navigation through all the pages.



Pay attention to your dynamic page URLs. Google can crawl and index dynamic pages as long as you don't have more than 2 parameters in the URL.



Check your complete site for broken links. Broken links will reduce your other pages rank as well.

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SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Social Media Marketing is the activity of driving website traffic through social media sites. This is a brief tutorial that explains how you can use popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ to promote your business and create greater awareness about the products and services you offer. Business in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s day and age is dominated by customers and their demands. People prefer to see referrals, reviews over Google search results, or a website before purchasing a product. To stand by the flow, we need to learn what people say about us. You need to actively participate in relevant communities to interact and influence masses. You need to engage with social media to manage your online reputation. Social media marketing is a must to target a wider customer base and expand your business. Social Media Marketing is the activity of driving website traffic through social media sites. What is Social Media? Social Media is a platform that lets us participate in social networking. We can share our posts on various social media platforms to improve business visibility. Today it is the best source for news updates, marketing, education, and entertainment.

History of Social Media Marketing Social Media seems to be a new trend, but its roots stretch to the beginning of computer era. What we see today is the result of centuries-old social media development. Usernets, which was launched in 1979, was the first progenitor of social media, and the journey from Usernets to Facebook is a long one. Usernets allowed users to post on newsgroups. It was followed by bulletin board systems (BBS) which allowed users to login and interact. Online services like progidy were the precursors to BBS. After online services, internet relay chat came into light which gave way to instant messaging. In the 90s, dating sites and forums were on peak, which led to the development of social networks. But they did not let users make friend lists. Six degrees launched to overcome this feature. It allowed profile creation and listing pears. It was purchased and shut down after playing for a decade. Blogging emerged in this phase, creating a sensation in social media. It is popular even DIGITAL MARKETING

today. Other sites like BlackPlanet (African-American Social Website) and MiGente (Latino) cropped up having provision to create profiles and add friends. Modern social networks came into picture post 2000. Apple launched its Friendster in 2002. It has millions of users. Hi5 and Linkedin were launched in 2003. Linkedin is a ground for professionals to reach out to one another. MySpace also originated in 2003 and became well known by 2006. Similarly Facebook was launched in 2004 and surpassed MySpace, Orkut, Multiply, etc., and is still expanding. This decade also conceived media sharing platforms like photobucket, flickr, youtube, instagram, etc., along with news and bookmarking platforms like Digg and Delicious. Since 2000, Social Media has bloomed to horizon and is still expanding limitlessly. Along with media sharing, many other portals that provide real-time updates were introduced, for example, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. In 2007, Facebook launched its advertising system. Importance of Social Media The importance of social media is undebatable. It is a powerful channel of marketing − a game changer for any business. It provides us the flexibility to communicate at both personal as well as business levels. Business owners can improve search rankings, leads, sales, and traffic using search media. This can be done at reduced marketing expenses. Besides business, it is a cool platform to connect with friends and dear ones. SMO Strategy for Business A wisely implemented Social Media Optimization (SMO) strategy can give a great boost to your business. To draw maximum benefit out of Social Media, you need to set clear and well-defined business goals and objectives. The following points are the backbone of any well-laid SMO strategy 

Set measurable and achievable goals.



Know you customers.



Research over market and trends.



Explore more social networking platforms. Reflect your presence on all.



Choose core topics related to your business. Use them in content.



Set Social Engagement parameters.



Plan your resource use.



Track your results.

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SMO − Key Concepts 

Aim for building reputation by depicting yourself as a trusted source or business.



Encourage more engagement and sharing.



Be an authorized name in your industry.



Gear up originality.



Keep it social.



Master over your media platforms.



Optimize every single point that hinders your efforts.

Business Profile Creation Create an impactful Business profile. Add a well-defined persona and proficiency statement of your business. 

Study competitors’ business profile, analyze their strong points, and add them to yours.



Add prominent features of your business that makes it stand out among others.



Include the milestones achieved by your company.



Add address and other details.



Include data and statistics.



List your renowned vendors.



Add some keywords to it to get noticed by the web crawler.

Brand Awareness Brand awareness is a degree to which your brand name is known. Brand name solidifies customers’ trust. So, it is important that your brand name overshadows your products. Promoting the brand name helps your business grow and get over obsolete business state. Social Media Marketing can help you in branding your business. It helps you increase your public profile as well. All you need is to 

Choose right Social Media Channel for your business.



Finalize a social content strategy.



Make a strong content strategy.



Participate in good conversation with your customers to let them feel more connected.



Keep track of all key metrics like potential reach, conversation share, links, etc.

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Social Engagement Social Media Engagement is the process of reaching out to potential customers and interacting with them through Social Media. It is primarily done in order to draw attention towards a particular product or a service. It is a two-way channel where a consumer can share a good relationship with the vendors. To achieve optimum reach, you need to engage with your audience. It can be a relentless task. To grab more out of less, you need to strategize your social media engagement norms. 

Use 'Social Channels' to reach out fans.



Use Social Media platforms to announce any event you are organizing.



Entertain Posts your audience is posting.



Use Social Media Circles to participate in valuable and educational conversations.



Participate in Social Media groups.

Measure your engagement level to trace your engagement efforts. It is basically a ratio between the social platforms that you use and the social platforms that you don't use to engage. The higher is the level, the stronger is your bonding with the audience. Viral Marketing Any hot topic that is infectious is Viral Marketing. It is 'exposing an idea' for a cause. It is a message getting viral by passing it from one to another with an intention of boosting your business. Social Media Viral Marketing is the use of social media channels to spread any message for creating brand awareness. Viral marketing rate may differ on each level. Examples of Viral Marketing ALS Ice Bucket Challenge − ALS Associa on received increased media a en on by soaking the whole world. Even celebrities and entrepreneurs participated in it. Ashton Kutcher hits 1M − Ashton has been a seeding strategist who inﬂuenced his fans by an influencing message that went viral. Hotmail went viral − Hotmail team placed a link 'Want a free email account? Sign-up for Hotmail today.' in the footer of any mail sent from a Hotmail account. It was a viral hit.

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SMM - FACEBOOK MARKETING Facebook is a social networking service provider. It lets you invite and connect with friends, send messages and pictures, like and comment or share them. Facebook has seen outstanding growth since its inception and is poised to maintain its dominance in social networking. History of Facebook Facebook was founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg on February 4, 2004. In May 2007, Facebook opened up its developer platform to allow third-party developers to build applications and widgets that, once approved, could be distributed through the Facebook community. In May 2008, Facebook engineers announced Facebook connect, a cross-site initiative that allows users to publish on third-party sites in their Facebook newsfeed. The site was redesigned in late 2008, intended to streamline the website and make it easier to see what friends were doing. What is Facebook Marketing? Facebook is undoubtedly the most popular social media platform available with many advantages associated with it. It is primarily a social networking site, however it can be used as a handy tool for promoting and advertising a business. We can use Facebook to promote a brand, market a company, or create awareness about a service or a product.

Success with this form of marketing requires more than a fan page and a few friends. When used effectively, Facebook marketing can provide a business with exciting benefits and results. Facebook marketing can enable businessmen to greatly improve their brand awareness and reach out to a wider audience. How to Create a Fan Page? A Facebook fan page is an amazing way to promote your business, build awareness for a cause, and gather support for your brand. If you would like to create a fan page, follow these easy steps − 



Click on the settings on the top right-hand corner of your page.



Click on create page.



Click on the type of page you would like to create.



Fill in all the information required.



Click on "get started".



Upload a profile picture and click on save photo.

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

Complete the 'about' section and click 'save info'.



Now decide whether you want to enable ads or skip (it will be payable if you enable).

Facebook Profiles Facebook Profiles are for people and they are generally meant for personal use only. A Facebook profile is an account that is allocated against an individual, who can use it to network with friends and colleagues, and share information with them. It is designed to be a unique profile on the Facebook network for that one individual, and it is not meant to be used to represent a company, an organization, or a fictional character. Facebook Places Facebook Places enable people to provide real-time update of where they are and what they are doing when they are on the move. It also enables its users to take advantage of unexpected coincidences such as discovering that they are at some concert as their friends. Users can check in when they arrive at a location, and see whether their friends are nearby. The best part about Facebook places is that it will more or less maintain itself once it has been created. Facebook users do have the ability to 'like' the Facebook places as well, so encourage visitors to press the 'like' button after they check in. Facebook Groups Facebook Groups are the places for small group communication where users can share their common interests and express their opinion. Groups allow people to come together around a common cause. Groups are for discussing issues and share related content. When we create a group, we can decide whether to make it publicly available for anyone to join, require administrator approval for members to join, or keep it private and by invitation only. Groups range widely − from light-hearted themes to organizing activities to serious topics such as politics and world events. Facebook Community A Facebook Community is about an organization, a celebrity, or a topic. Community pages are meant for general topics and all kinds of unofficial but interesting things. These pages let us stay connected with others who share similar interests and experiences. Grow Your Business with Facebook Facebook is fast becoming a powerhouse of marketing activity due to the sheer number of engaging users on the site and the simplicity of connecting with them directly. Facebook can provide your business with a branding outpost on the web where customers, employees, and even the media can find information about your company, products, and services. Facebook connects you and your staff directly to your customers and fans. Facebook can generate new leads for your business by drawing users’ attention towards what you are offering. Facebook helps in sharing links, images, and posts on a customizable page to project a DIGITAL MARKETING

better sense of your business. Facebook runs tactics like contests, sweepstakes, etc., that can increase fans and brand awareness of your business.

Latest Facebook Trends The nature of social media marketing is ever-changing, so it is important to constantly stay updated with what the current market trends are. The latest Facebook trends that a business should be aware of are â&#x2C6;&#x2019; using the cover photo for marketing, different types of Facebook posts, more pictures, etc. Facebook looks completely different from how it was a year ago, so it should not be surprising that marketing on the social network has also changed a great deal. What are Adverts? Adverts on Facebook are unique. They are shown to specific groups of highly engaged people. If your adverts have a great creative content and are well targeted, they get more likes, comments, and shares. When we boost our page posts or expand the audience for the adverts, more people will see them when they visit Facebook. Facebook ads allow us to promote our business, get more fans to our business page, and drive more leads for our sales team. Facebook ads allow us to advertise a website or content that we manage on Facebook (like a group, page, or event) To create an ad, go to â&#x2C6;&#x2019; Facebook And click "create an ad". How to Create a Campaign? With targeted ads, stories, and wall posts, a successful campaign can be a powerful tool in our advertising arsenal. When running a Facebook campaign, we can draw on several Facebook components such as wall posts, Facebook ads, sponsored marketing, unique page tabs, etc. We can break down reports by campaign and also easily start/stop all ad sets within that campaign. Campaigns correspond to each of our advertising objectives, like building brand awareness or driving web traffic. They are designed to help optimize and measure our results for each objective across multiple ad sites and ads. Each campaign can feature multiple ad sets, each of which has its own budget and schedule. We can also organize each ad set to represent a particular audience segment, for example, we can have an ad set for people who live near our store. This will help us control the amount we spend on each audience, decide when they will see our ads, and measure DIGITAL MARKETING

their response. Within each ad set, we can have multiple ads, each of which can feature a different set of images, links, videos, or text. Facebook − Do's and Don'ts Do's 

Use Facebook to stay in touch with your friends and make new ones.

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Use Facebook to advertise your organization’s events.

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Use Facebook to get involved with the campus community and learn what is happening around.

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Use Facebook customer support page since it contains valuable information about privacy controls and other important safety information.

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Do check each friend request carefully after visiting their profile.

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Do use "privacy settings" while building up your photo albums.

Don'ts 

Don't use your wall to announce your schedules, journey and planning.

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Don't use public walls as your own. Try to maintain the decorum of groups and fan pages.

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Don't accept friend requests from strangers.

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Don't use Facebook for ragging and bullying anyone.

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Don't post pictures of your friends without their permission.

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Don't disclose personal information such as cell phone number, address, etc., unless you feel comfortable.

Increase Facebook Likes for a Fan Page 

Create a Facebook fan page with an instantly appealing image, as it will help in attracting more attention.

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Keep the Facebook fan page up to date by writing suitable description and posting interesting and friendly page titles. Always try to provide your readers with something fresh to read.

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If you are running a contest on your page, then ask your visitors to like your fan page. Facebook contests are the easiest way to get people excited, as the lure of a big prize compels your target customers to 'like' your page and become your fan.

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If you are running a business, then you should promote your fan page by using ads in the Facebook, as it is the easiest way to increase the visibility of your brand and reach out to a highly targeted audience.

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Promote your page on your official website because it helps you to get likes from new visitors on your site. Having a 'like' button on your website is an easy way to drive new likes over time.

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Synchronize your Facebook page with your other profiles on other social networking sites like Twitter, dig, etc. It will help you get more visitor response.

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Sometimes educational content is a better incentive for a 'like' than a discount offer or a prize, depending on your industry or the target audience. Providing free written content such as eBooks can drive tons of new fans and customers.

What are Facebook Apps? Facebook apps are basically software programs that can be added to users' Facebook profiles. These interactive software applications are developed to utilize the core technologies of the Facebook platform. Applications for Facebook have gained massive popularity in the last few years due to its uniqueness and the ease of creating them. Facebook apps integrate Facebook newsfeeds, notifications, various social channels, and other features to generate awareness and interest in the app by the Facebook users. Apps and games are normally developed to enhance your experience on Facebook. You can add the apps that interest you from the app center. The information found in these apps is stored on developer servers that are not hosted by Facebook. The developers are responsible for their servers. It has not been possible to exchange real currency directly within Facebook apps, however apps can utilize 'Facebook credits', a virtual currency that can be purchased in order to acquire virtual goods and services within Facebook apps. Facebook Apps − Advantages 

Increased exposure to potential customers.

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Easily create new product or service campaigns online.

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Lower marketing expenses.

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Reach a targeted customer.

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Build brand loyalty.

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Provide multiple marketing platforms.

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Budget-friendly ads.

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Marketing strategy is low cost.

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Allows business to communicate with existing and prospective clients.

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Can easily update everyone at once about your business.

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SMM - TWITTER MARKETING Twitter is another social networking platform that allows registered users to read and write 140character messages called 'tweets'. It is available across all devices such as cell phones, desktops, laptops, and tablets. History of Twitter Jack Dorsey, an undergraduate student at New York University, introduced the idea of an individual using a message service to communicate with a small group. Twitter was launched as an SMS-based communication platform. Initially it was known as "twttr". On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey sent the first ever tweet − "just se ng up my tw r". What is Twitter Marketing? Twitter marketing is a powerful tool for companies of every size and structure to reach out to new customers, promote their brand, and connect with the rest of the companies. Users can find out if customers are talking about them, and the business can accordingly respond. Tweets create another instance for the business that shows up in the search engine results. Twitter serves as a solid foundation for your business to branch out into other social sites. Twitter is a great platform for projecting what your company is doing and accessing a large audience, where your Tweets can promote products and events.

Create a Twitter Account for Your Business Before creating a profile, make sure every element of your profile reflects your business identity and personality. Follow the steps given below to create an account for your business − 

Sign up for Twitter or go to twitter.com − Supply all the required informa on in the lower box on the right side of your screen including your username, email address, and password.

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Confirm your account − Twi er will send you an email to the email address you provided that will include a link that verifies your account. All you need to do is to click on the link to activate the account.

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Make your first connections − When you are done with crea ng your account, the network will suggest people to follow. Twitter will recommend some popular accounts of celebrities to follow. Skip this step if you don’t want to follow an account.

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Add profile details − Click "edit proﬁle" on the right side of your screen. Upload two different appropriate and suitable photos to your profile and update the basic information that appears in your bio. Try to convey what your business or brand is all about.

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Send your first tweet − Everything is ready, now you are set to start twee ng! Hit the "Tweet" button and you are off and running with Twitter.

How to Increase Followers on Twitter? 

Grow your community by adding a follow button in your website and promote your username.

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Get noticed with hash tags like #smallbiz etc.

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Engage with your followers by collecting feedback to build a better business.

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Sync your email contacts with Twitter.

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Keep your bio updated with the events or the business campaign you are running.

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Embed your best tweets and tweet to people every day.

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You can promote your twitter account on any printed material, e.g., business cards.

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Follow people who follow you.

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Make sure you are engaging with your customers on twitter and not to your product.

What is Hash Tag? The symbol hash tag (#) is used to mark keywords in a tweet. It was originally created by Twitter users. This symbol helps them to categorize the tweets and show them easily when people search for them. Hash tags can occur anywhere in a tweet − middle, end, or at the beginning. If you tweet with a hash tag on a public account, anyone who does a search for that hash tag will find you. A hash tag is a way for people to search for tweets having a common topic. Hash tags allow you to create communities of people interested in the same topic by making it easier to share and find information related to the common topic.

DIGITAL MARKETING

Sponsored Tweets and Hash Tags Sponsored Tweets Sponsored tweets are advertising platforms that connect companies with tweeters. Sponsored tweets allow brands to tap into a Twitter user's followers to reach out to new customers. By giving companies access to your twitter stream, tweeters are compensated for each advertisement they accept. The only thing tweeters need to do is to write a tweet based on some simple guidelines provided by the advertiser. Sponsored tweets take care of the rest, and will even tweet it out for you. Companies choose twitter followers they like based on a variety of factors, including how many followers you have and how much influence you have over those followers. Sponsored Hash Tags Sponsored hash tags place the tag of a customer's choice among the list of trending topics that users see when they access the social network through the web. Twitter Account Promotion Promoted accounts are ad units that enable you to quickly gain followers. Promoted accounts help you build trust and a fan following over time that gets people to see more of your tweets regularly. Once your promoted account is created, you can reach the audience who would most likely be interested in your business and want to follow your account. Promoted accounts are shown in the twitter section of "who to follow", located on the left side of twitter feed. Promoted accounts help introduce a wider variety of accounts that people can enjoy. Tools to Integrate Twitter on Your Blog or Website 

Add the twitter widget to your site’s sidebar as it’s a great way to show your latest tweets on your website.

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Choose from 40 different well-designed twitter buttons to quickly create a badge to promote your account.

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TwitThis is a little button that can be placed in your HTML file or in your blog to allow your readers to quickly and easily share what they are reading with their twitter followers.

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Chirrup is another solution for pulling Twitter comments across any platform. It allows you to display all the references from Twitter on a given webpage.

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Aweber has an excellent feature for any newsletter marketer. Newsletter delivery service has actually created a way to convert RSS to email to tweet.

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Twitterfeed is a pioneer of website and Twitter integration which allows you to automatically insert tweets into your Twitter from any RSS feed.

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Twitter API Twitter API stands for twitter programming interface that programmers use to make applications, websites, and widgets that interact with Twitter. You can use 'Web Intent', 'Tweet Button', etc. to your site for providing basic functionality. You can similarly embed more complex integrations. How to Integrate a Twitter Account to Your Website? To integrate Twitter with your website, you need to have 'admin rights' of your website. 

Open two tabs simultaneously in your browser. Open your website in one tab and Twitter in another.

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Click 'Widgets' under 'Twitter'. Create a widget. Copy the HTML code.

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Finish and grab code.

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Choose the area where you want to show your twitter box. Paste the code in the HTML code section.

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Update and Save.

Twitter Automation Tools Following are some of the twitter automation tools that make your profile look like an announcement board. 

Twitterfeed is a service that allows you to set up RSS from your blog or website.

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Social Oomph is a tool to create an automated direct message for new followers.

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Tweet Old Post is a great plugin which allows you to connect a Twitter account with your blog and regularly tweet posts to your followers.

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Hootsuite is a free tool that you can use if you have fewer than five social profiles to manage. It offers an option to schedule updates to specific social media accounts.

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Visibili is a free service that lets you create a custom sharing bar that goes with any links to share through their service.

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Twitter Showdown is a tool that provides valuable insights on follower-to-following ratio, level of Tweet engagement, tweet timing, and how two accounts compare.

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SMM - LINKEDIN MARKETING LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site launched in 2003. It has 300+ million users across the world. It is available in 20 languages. It allows users to create and customize profiles and connect with people having similar interest areas. Presently, it is the largest platform for social networking, assisting people with job opportunities. Jobseekers can connect and follow hiring managers and can update their profiles in a defined fashion to get easily discovered.

One can follow a company, get notifications, bookmark jobs, like and comment other’s posts, and invite others on LinkedIn. The best part of LinkedIn is that you can see your recent visitors and endorse others’ skills. History of LinkedIn LinkedIn was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and it was launched in 2003. Early on, its growth was slow, but it accelerated by the end of 2003. 

In 2004, it introduced new features such as the ability to upload addresses to invite others and introduce groups and partners with American Express. It assorted 1 million members.

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Jobs and subscriptions were introduced in 2005. Membership toll increased to 4 M.

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In 2006, LinkedIn launched public profiles as your current and past career record.

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In 2007, Reid Hoffman stepped aside and Dan Nye took over. Membership toll rises to 17 M.

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In 2008, LinkedIn becomes global by opening its office in London and launching the Spanish and French version of the website.

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In 2009, the membership count tipped over 50 million. Jeff Weiner joined LinkedIn as its CEO.

DIGITAL MARKETING

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In 2010, LinkedIn grows amazingly with 90 million members and 1000 employees in 10 offices around the globe.

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In 2011, LinkedIn became a publicly traded company on New York Stock Exchange and hosted a Town Hall meeting with Obama. Membership reaches 135 million.

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The site was redesigned in 2012 focusing on making LinkedIn simpler and easy to use.

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LinkedIn turned ten in 2013 with 225 million users across the globe.

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By the end of 2014, Linkedin had grown to a significant extent with 315+ million registered users and well over 5000 employees in 27 cities. It continues to grow, adding features and delivering its users a better experience every time they log onto LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Marketing LinkedIn is a professional networking platform and it has all the features of a great marketing opportunity provider. Here you interact with people who mean business. To market through LinkedIn, you need to do the following − 

Build a robust business page that displays your products and services in a compelling format.

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Invite clients and vendors to follow and recommend your page.

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Launch a group that is related to your business. It can attract significant traffic.

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Reach your audience through targeted advertising.

LinkedIn is a powerful social media tool. You just need to follow its policies and best practices.

Premium Account LinkedIn offers different levels of premium account options for people with different goals based on their specific needs.

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LinkedIn Premium for General Users − starts at $24.95 per month. These plans include features such as InMail, seeing more profiles when you search, access to premium search filters, ability to view expanded profiles on LinkedIn, and more.

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LinkedIn Premium for Recruiters − starts at $49.95 per month. These plans include talentfinding filters, saved searches with alerts for new candidates who meet your criteria, reference search, and more.

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LinkedIn Premium for Job Seekers − starts at $19.95 per month. These plans include the ability to zero in on $100K plus jobs with detailed salary information, ability to move up to the top of the list as a featured applicant, access to the job seeker community, and more.

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LinkedIn Premium for Sales Professionals − starts at $19.95 per month. These plans include a Lead Builder organizer, introductions to companies you are targeting, and more.

While some features exist only under specific accounts, such as featured applicant status for job seekers, most features are similar to the general user premium package. Connect with Your Customers You can use LinkedIn to connect with other users and convert them into your clients. To do so, you need to − 

Maximize your links that direct to catchy pages. These links can lure users to take interest in your products or services.

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Invite more and more people. Connect to even second degree connections. Message them frequently. Keep interactions open.

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Make your profile professional. It imbibes faith of your invitees in your business.

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Stay current. Allow people to know what you have to offer and what advantages they can sought from you.

Promote Your Business on LinkedIn LinkedIn is a valuable marketing tool. It involves targeting your own network and creating more links from it. You can use the following tips to draw maximum benefit from LinkedIn − 

Search for highly targeted clients. Set filters to refine your search so that they meet your business criteria.

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Stay updated and in focus of customers. Keep in touch with them by messaging, feed, etc.

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Post quality content. Keep posting new and correct information about your business. Make it viral.

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Use sponsored post to reach the right audience.

DIGITAL MARKETING

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Connect to relevant groups and circles and encourage your employees to be a part of it.

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Customize your company page to make it compelling and descriptive. Use images, colors, and clips to describe what you have to offer.

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Pay attention to your profile. Address in first person and make your points clear and succinct.

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Maintain good relationship with your clients. Nurture your specific connection without forcing yourself on it.

Create an Ad Campaign To create an Ad campaign on LinkedIn, you need to log on to LinkedIn.Thereafter, follow the steps given below − 

Select 'new campaign' and 'start New'.

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Give a name to your campaign.

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Choose your desired language.

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Choose your media type − basic, video, etc.

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Write your ad copy. Use 25 characters for heading and 75 characters for Body.

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Include a desired call-to-action that is liable to convert.

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Choose demographic areas and location you want your ad to be targeted in.

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Choose payment methods between cost-per-click and cost-per-impressions.

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Set a daily budget. This is the amount you are willing to pay on paid marketing through LinkedIn per day.

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Decide conversion metrics and trace them regularly to get the scope of improvement.

Grow Your Business through LinkedIn Marketing LinkedIn has 300+ million users. It is an ideal platform to showcase your services and demonstrate your expertise. LinkedIn offers plenty of options to grow a business. Some of them are stated below 

Hire new talent for your business.

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You can establish credibility by discussing topics relevant to your business. Thus, you can demonstrate the expertise of your company.

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You can reach cream prospect. You can reach top people who can support your business.

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If you are using LinkedIn to market your products and services, then you have a wide reach to incur traffic from.

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You can expand your market base by constantly promoting your products and services.

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SMM - GOOGLE+ MARKETING Google+ is a social networking platform served by Google and relished by millions of users. Besides being a networking platform, it is a channel to make you known to search engines. Your presence on Google+ helps in improving your local search visibility. You can follow people in 'Circles' on Google+ for sharing information.

Advantages of Google+ 

Branding − Google will fetch data from Google+ for brand-named keywords. Your presence on Google+ marks up high on SERP.

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Improved Search Rankings − Shares (+1) are like social recommenda ons that aﬀect your search rankings.

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Link Building − One link on Google+ acts as one backlink for your website. Your link gets submitted to Google’s index straightaway.

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Quality Reviews − Google ﬂashes the ra ngs and the reviews you have received, making your business more compelling.

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Appear in Local Carousal − You can mark the presence of your business on Google+ to be more visible.

Creating a Business Page on Google+ Create a Google+ account. Visit Google+ Look for 'create Google+ page' options. Follow Up! Choose from the displayed options. You will come across − 

Local Business or Place

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Product or Brand

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Company, Institution, or Organization

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Arts, Entertainment, or Sports

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Other

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Upon selecting the main category, you will be shown sub-categories to showcase your business with more details. Select your sub-categories and move to next. Add some basic information describing your business, provide your website link (optional), and select a category your content is appropriate for.

Check "I agree to the Pages Terms....." and Continue.... Page Customization Add a cover photo and a profile picture. You can either select them from your device or can import from Picasa (if you are an active user).

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Under Story, add a tagline and a storyline. Fill your contact information. Click the 'finish' button. Use the 'About' section to make up how people see your business page. Add people in circles to get the communication going. You are ready with your Google business page. Start sharing contents...!! +1 & Sharing Google created '+1' and 'share' buttons for easy and painless content sharing. Earlier, sharing was capsuled in +1. Users who liked a post were not being able to share it in their circle. 

'+1' is for those users who want to express their preference for the content. "Yes I like it, it was helpful".

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'Share' is for users want to share the content to make it available to others.

Integrate Google+ Business Page on Your Blog or Website There are many ways to do it. You should implement as many as possible. 

+1 Button − Use plugins like WPSocialite to embed Google +1 bu on on your page to direct traffic through Google+. It is always a good strategy to broadcast content on Google+. There are many ways you can implement to get more followers for your Google+ business page.

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Share content from your personal profile − You can make the most of your personal proﬁle by sharing content among your connections. It can be then accessed by your followers and others who are connected with them.

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Use Hashtags − When you use hashtags, your post get categorized to a particular stream. Anyone searching for that particular keyword can easily avail your content.

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Follow what is in trend − Prepare for memes by building an editorial calendar with contents fabricated with hashtags based on upcoming events.

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Follow ‘hot & recommended’ tab − Share content enough mes to trigger the algorithm to notify Google+ about your content.

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Request people to follow − Include a compelling call-to-action in your post that instructs people humbly. Give them perks for sharing.

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Segment your followers in circles − Create a new circle category-wise. This will expose your content to other circles in the same category.

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Add a Google+ Badge − Adding badges make it easy for people to add you in a circle. It even notifies you when someone follows your page.

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Use +Post Ads − It helps you to display your content to millions who are a part of the Google Display Network.

Increase Followers on Google+ Promote your business on Google+ to tap the power of networking sites. The objective is to connect as many people as possible to your business. In order to succeed through Google+, you need to do the following − 

Embed Google+ badge on your website to bind users. It allows users to follow you without quitting from your badge.

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Provide users something meaningful and useful. Keep your posts up to date.

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Express your business with clear and attractive photos.

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Use Google+ as your business page. Use the page when interacting with communities.

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Hold Google+ Hangouts. You can stream videos with participants and users to get your message going.

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Participate in communities related to your business.

Promote Your Business on Google+ Promote your Google+ page. Your business is automatically promoted... Google+ can be a source that can draw immense traffic to your website. To promote your business using Google+, try to use all its available features. Google+ helps your website stand out among millions. It gives your website a measurable momentum and continuous growth. You can easily integrate other services (YouTube, Hangout, etc.) to avail maximum benefit. It helps you build credibility.

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Tips and Tricks 

Make a descriptive business page. Include site URL and implement a good call-to-action to compel users to visit your website. Embed cover photos related to your business.

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Create circles and segment them in themes. Share content in your circle. This is the best way to make a post viral.

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Engage in communities. Revert nicely on comments and feedbacks. Take part in dialogues. Your response must be personalized.

Google+ Tools Google+ provides quite a few useful tools, some of which are listed here − 

DoShare − It is a Google Chrome extension that lets you write and schedule your updates on Google+ Page.

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SproutSocial − It is a management tool that lets you manage social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. for your website.

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Buffer − You can schedule your updates in a buﬀer calendar to set up and organize your posts.

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Hootsuite − It is a social media dashboard that allows you to schedule, create, and keep track of your content. You can manage multiple streams in one place.

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Rival IQ − It is a compe tor research tool that lets you monitor your ﬂow on Google+ so as to let you make the most of Google+.

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Circle Count − It helps you explore circles and communi es for your brand. It allows you to measure the effectiveness of your content.

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Circloscope − It helps to ﬁlter, remove, and un-circle inactive users. It is available in paid and free versions.

DIGITAL MARKETING

SMM - VIDEO MARKETING We are compelled by what we see over what actually exists. In digital marketing, what people see actually sells. This is the reason why 'online video marketing' is on the rise. Video Marketing is the process of using a video in marketing to promote a business or a service.

History of Video Marketing Video Marketing has been a key advertising module since 1940s. The first video ad was launched in 1941 by Boluva. It was a commercial on a New York TV station during Yankee game. Since then, the popularity of video advertising is continuously rising. 

In 1979, video disrupted traditional media when MTV released the video of "video killed the radio star." It was produced on a budget of $50,000 in South London.

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In 1984, Apple launched an iconic TV commercial for Apple Macintosh PC. Its production cost was around $900,000.

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The year 1995 marked the beginning of Viral Videos. An Executive at Fox Commissions made a video Christmas card (Jesus v/s Santa) for his friends and family and it became viral.

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In 1996, "The dancing baby" entertained millions by the humorous dance of an animated baby.

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"Charlie bit my finger again" took the world by storm in 2007.

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In 2012, the video Gangnam Style became a huge hit and broke all records in YouTube.

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In 2014, YouTube begins to create superstars out of video contributors. In the same year, charity begins when ALS made a million people to take 'Ice bucket challenge' and raised $100 millions.

Gangnam Style made $10 million only from one video on YouTube. Here is a list of some other examples of such viral videos − 

Will it blend?

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Red Bull

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Our Blades are f***ing great

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Old spice

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The production cost of these video ads were pretty low compared to the result they achieved by reaching millions of hearts directly. The key concept behind their success was a creative and unique idea.

YouTube YouTube is a video sharing website that lets you upload, view, and share videos. You can also like and comment on videos. It is used by millions of users. It is a great tool for business branding. Create an Account on YouTube Branding through YouTube makes sense, as YouTube users are constantly increasing. Short clips or a brief video description of your company can double your presence. To create a business account on YouTube, tie it with your Google+ account. There are two discrete ways of doing it − 

Use your Google+ account to create a YouTube account. To do so, click the dropdown on the top-right corner of your Google+ page. Select 'create a channel' and follow the instructions.

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Create a YouTube account and it will automatically create a Google+ page for you. To do so, navigate through YouTube. Click the thumbnails on top-right corner of the page. Click ‘Creator Studio’. Choose to create ‘new channel’ Follow-up next.

Upload Video on YouTube 

Signin to Youtube.

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Navigate to 'my guide' on the upper left corner of the screen. Search for 'my channel'.

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Click 'upload'.

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Select the video you want to upload and click 'confirm'.

Vimeo Vimeo is also designed to share videos just like YouTube, but the difference is that it is a community of professionals. It is not meant for corporate advertisements. Create an Account on Vimeo 

Go to Vimeo.com and sign-up. Fill in the required details. Now you are a registered member of Vimeo.

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To create a channel, log in to Vimeo and click 'Create a channel' on the right.

Upload Video on Vimeo 

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Click the 'Upload Video' button. Ensure that you are permitted to upload videos. Make sure you are uploading original videos and not copyrighted ones.

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Click 'choose a file to upload' button. Select a file and confirm.

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Let the video convert. It gets converted once uploaded. Go through your E-mail to confirm.

Dailymotion Dailymotion is similar to Vimeo and YouTube. It allows users to upload, share, and view videos. Create an Account on Dailymotion 

Join Dailymotion by registering on dailymotion.com. Fill in the required details.

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Enter your e-mail, password, and date of birth.

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Create your public name, link URL, and enter your passcode. Congrats! You are done with it.

Upload Video on Dailymotion 

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Click 'upload a video' button on the top-left of the page.

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Select the desired video from the dashboard.

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Choose the file and click 'Open'.

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Enter the required details on the form. Wait for the upload to finish. Confirm by saving it.

Ranking Factors of a Video 

Relevance − A video should be relevant to the user’s search query. Since the content is video, its‘title’forms the basic relevancy measuring factor.

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User Engagement − The video should be able to keep the users engaged.

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Authority − Trust and authority aﬀects the video ranking. Platforms check for authority as a trust factor in order to avoid spams.

DIGITAL MARKETING

Increase Subscribers and Views Seeking more visibility for your videos? Here is a list of tips and tricks that you can apply to increase subscribers and views − 

Post consistently. Make sure you provide valuable content.

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Write titles of your videos strategically. Keep it basic and relevant.

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Make use of annotations. It may attract more subscriptions.

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Ask for likes and subscribes at the end of the video.

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Create a video channel. Make a posting schedule and stick to it.

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Develop transitions. It cultivates your brands to a wider reach. Thus it has large impact on your branding.

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Subscribe to other channels to attract more subscribers.

Increase Video Views You can increase your video views quite significantly by taking the following measures − 

Add video links to your blog.

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Share it wisely on social media platforms.

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Add it to your IM and status (say skype status).

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Create catchy titles.

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Make is compelling and worth seeing.

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Ask a third party to approve your descriptions.

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Add a custom/appealing thumbnail.

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Add annotations.

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Ask for shares.

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Create a jukebox type playlist of your videos. Idea is accumulate them in a capsule.

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Actively reply to comments.

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Purchase views.

Advantages of Video Ads 

Video ads are more eye-catching then text ads. Hence, they are more likely to convert.

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Video ads generate tremendous viewers’ interest.

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Video ads rank well on SERP due to descriptive tags.

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A video ad can create quicker publicity as compared to text or image ads.

Promote Your Video Ads To draw maximum benefit from a video ad, you must promote it 

Promote it on your blog or website.

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Include your video in your e-mail, IMs, status, etc.

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Make it viral on all video channels.

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Have a noticeable presence on social media.

DIGITAL MARKETING

SMM - BLOGGING A blog is basically a 'weblog', a kind of website, a journal that is updated regularly. It is a discussion platform besides being a content achieve. People can discuss a topic on a blog and comment on posts. It is basically run by an individual or a small group.

Blogging Every activity and skillset that is required to manage a blog comes under the purview of Blogging, for example, writing posts, publishing them, designing, social marketing, etc. In simple words, blogging is the process of adding new content to a blog and updating it at regular intervals. 

Blogger (Person) − Person involved in blogging is called a 'blogger'.

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Blogger (Service) − It is a service provided by Google that allows us to compose a post, edit, update, and manage it. You can customize your blogs easily with the help of a 'blogger'. It lets you share what is on your mind and earn money. It is a convenient platform for avid as well as novice users. No technical knowledge or coding is required. It runs directly on Google servers and is impossible to hack.

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WordPress − It’s a free so ware to create and customize a search engine friendly website or a blog. A number of themes and plugins are available to transform your website as required. Approximately 70 million people are a part of WordPress community. WordPress is available in both free and premium plans.

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Blogspot − Blogspot is a free web hos ng service gi ed to web developers by Google. It helps Google Blogger in delivering its service. We cannot use any other platform to use it.

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Tumbler − It is a microblogging platform that allows us to make a blog and customize it. We may use stories, images, videos, audio, etc. Bloggers can either keep their blogs private or follow other blogs.

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Advantages of Blogging 

Better online influence. It assists in making impressions in grabbing a good profile.

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It forms a good source of income. Pat Flynn earns $100,000 per year from his blog 'Green Exam Academy'.

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Maintaining a blog can help improve your writing skills.

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A blogger can easily become a published author.

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You can get instant feedbacks in the form of comments, shares, etc.

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Bloggers can be sound learners, as they tend to read and engage more in such content.

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Get a long fan following list.

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Blogs can help you build a strong network.

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Maintaining a blog can help you improve your technical skills on Wordpress, SEO, etc.

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Sell Online − Blogs can be a great virtual store.

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Express yourself − Blogging is a great way to share your ideas through inspira onal means.

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Blogging is an easy, yet a sure way to build trust online.

Setting a Blog using WordPress You can create blogs on many platforms. They can be either free or paid. Here is how you can create a blog using WordPress − 

Create your account on WordPress.com. Enter your name and Email address and other required details.

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Select a web address; it can be either free or premium.

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Choose a suitable WordPress plan.

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Set up your profile and build your profile page.

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Configure site settings like Site Title and tagline.

Setting a Blog using Blogger Blogger.com is a popular platform that is being used widely for creating ready-to-post blogs. Follow the steps given below to create a blog using blogger − 

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Enter display name and click 'create your blog now'.

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Choose your blog title and URL. Verify whether it is available.

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Choose a desirable template from the given options.

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You would come across the 'posting' tab. Create post, edit posts, and page here.

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Enter the title of your post on the 'title' tab.

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The rest of your post goes in the 'Compose' text editor. You can customize your post by editing its font, size, text color, etc. 'Edit HTML' option is available to insert your content in HTML format.

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Select 'post option' if you want to enable readers’ comment.

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Save once you are done with it. You can preview the final page before publishing it. Click 'Publish' to publish the post directly.

Blog Promotion You can take the following measures to promote your blog − 

Connect your blog to Google+ to allow auto-sharing.

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Post quality content and post regularly.

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Write search engine friendly content.

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Have an Email button in order to receive feedback from your readers.

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Use your blog link in mail signatures.

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Enable site feed to let more and more people subscribe to your content.

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Add your blog to Blogger’s listings. Submit your URL to blog directories.

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Actively comment on other’s posts. This way, your profile gets more exposure.

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Participate in online forums.

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Use social media for branding.

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Hold a contest or a carnival.

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Write as a guest blogger. Write multiple pages and link them together.

Blog Commenting Commenting on a blog is an art. You need to put some effort to post comments that catch users’ attention. 

Add a few attractive phrases with exclamation mark to draw attention.

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Comment as early as possible, as the first few comments are the ones read by most.

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Refrain yourself from over-promoting.

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Don’t be rude or use offensive language.

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Include questions in your comments. They seek more attention.

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Be influencing by updating an article.

DIGITAL MARKETING

SMM - SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSIS Reporting Tools for Social Media Analysis There are numerous tools available to analyze and measure Social Media Marketing initiatives. It is you who need to determine which tool serves your purpose. Some are customized and real time dashboards that display and measure your efforts, while others are simple and just functional. They may cost you or they may come free. Some of these tools are described in this section.

Viralheat It supports all major social media platforms like Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Pinterest, Youtube, etc. The payment plans range from $49.99 to $499.00 per month. It compares search terms across the web and displays information in a graph or a pie chart. Spreadfast It supports all major social platforms. Its payment plans are in the range of $1000 to $2500 per month. It is a scalable platform and can greatly organize the content by larger groups. Sysomos It supports all social platforms, blogs, and forums. It is a real-time monitoring tool that collects online conversions about your business and provides insights report on it. It is charged at $550 pm. This plan includes unlimited data, 5 users, and account managers. SproutSocial It supports Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and YouTube. It allows you to find opportunities to engage in social conversation, publish your message on social media, and measure the performance of your social efforts. It is priced at $39 to $99 per month. UberVU It provides you actionable insights of data. It keeps track of all your audience in real time and lets you engage with your audience. It supports Facebook, Twitter, and all other major platforms. You can use it to measure the social buzz about your business. It costs around $500 to $1000 a month.

DIGITAL MARKETING

SMM - MONITORING SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS Once you are done with implementing Social Media Optimization (SMO) strategies, you need to check your output and the places where you shine. To analyze your efforts, you need to gather data incurred via Social Media.

You can use the following tools to analyze what you have gained and how successful you were in engaging people across the world. 

howsocialable.com − Find out your social scores.

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semrush.com − Analyze the social status of your compe tors.

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Google Insights − Analyze the insights of your business, for example, traﬃc sources, page views, etc.

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socialmention.com − Track what people are saying about your company, a new product, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time.

SMO at Various Levels 

Twitter − Op mize your business summary here. Use brief summary instead of tles. Its 140-character word limit compels users to use less but wise words. It makes twitter summaries outstanding. If you master writing great summaries on Twitter, your business will soon reach the top bracket.

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Facebook − Be conversa onal. Use of news feeds. Post good and engaging content. Conversational summaries bind people and bring them closer to you.

DIGITAL MARKETING

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Linkedin − Share your content and discuss your posts here. Create and a end group discussions related to your business. It marks your presence on the web. Optimize your content and make it informative. Rewrite it in a manner that invites commentary. It makes followers feel like a part of it.

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Google − Share strong images relevant to your business. It repurposes your content, making it more readable.

Tools to Measure Your Popularity We all are very much interested in what people say about our business. Referring to search queries is one way to know it, however there are plenty of tools available for this purpose − 

Google E-Mail Alert Systems

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SocialMention

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TweetDeck

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Technorati

All these tools let you know what is in air about you by sending keywords and phrases in your inbox or showing them in real-time on tool dashboard. Goal Creation and Achievement 

Have a strong strategic goal. Determine what you want achieve.

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Make your goals measurable and work towards achieving them.

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Set realistic goals keeping your brand health in mind.

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Set goals according to the market and current trends.

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Your goals should ultimately materialize in creating greater revenue.

Traffic, Analytics, and Statistics You can use Analytics to measure the traffic incurred through social media. Just set up goals that match your business goals and measure them. Social media reports give you a clear picture. 

Go to the social media reporting section under traffic sources.

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Discover the social media sites that redirect traffic to your site.

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You can also opt for advanced segments to individually analyze each visit.

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Take a look at the audience report and track their behavior. See what is benefitting you and where you are losing.

DIGITAL MARKETING

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