In today’s digital landscape we spend an ever-increasing amount of time-consuming content on our phones and computers.

A recent study revealed that the average person spends 90 minutes a day on their phone, which equates to 23 days out of the year. If you are spending this much time handling your business or personal email, you are likely having to sacrifice time otherwise spent on your passions or with the important people in your life.

There are some organization skills you can implement into your Gmail workflow to become more efficient at managing your inbox.

Create Organized Email Inbox Systems

There are a lot of productivity gurus who advocate for “inbox zero” but if your inbox is anything like mine, it is far from zero. Creating filters, folders, and star systems can be great ways to manage your far from zero inbox, for example.

Manage Email Inbox Subscriptions

Managing email subscriptions and sales spam can be the biggest weight in our inbox. Unsubscribing from these mass email blasts can be arduous but a way around that is to filter the email to immediately delete.

There are also some really helpful tools you can implement into your email. If those email subscriptions continue to pile up, try installing the unroll.me plugin and quickly unsubscribe to the newsletters you no longer read.

Use Email Responder Templates

If most of your time spent on Gmail is replying, try using templated responses to automate the work. Having canned responses can greatly speed up your response time and impress colleagues with your newfound productivity.

Since the average person spends 28 percent of their workday reading, answering, and otherwise managing their email, it should come as no surprise that becoming more efficient with Gmail will result in freeing up time that can be spent far more productively.

Try implementing some of these Gmail tips from GetVoIP into your email management to streamline your workflow.

This is a This is a guest post by Drew Page, a content marketing manager.

The number of social media users is increasing at an alarming rate. As obvious as it may seem, being active on social media plays a major role in business strategy. Every business or business owner is trying to devise a unique way to reach out to their audience and improve their social media engagement metrics.

While creating unique content is important, one needs to pay special attention to engaging their audiences too. Having good content should be a major part of planning your social media marketing.

This is where most businesses have a problem. Engagement with your audience shows you or your business is liked, and subsequently, it makes it easier to convert them into potential leads for your business. Audience engagement can go a long way in deciding and strategizing your business goals.

Social media is a lot like real life. People make connections and share ideas. Like real people, your audience tends to trust people and businesses they have known, liked, and trusted over the years. Expecting someone to trust you without interactions is a lot like expecting the bus man to lend you money. This entails making long-term relationships that grow over a period of time.

There are times when you could have great content posted on social media, but you do not have a lot of engagement. Anyone who has worked in social media knows that this struggle is real.

Finding fresh content on a regular basis becomes a major hindrance while trying to engage audiences. One needs to post content that resonates with their audiences perfectly for them to stay around.

7 Ways to Boost Your Social Media Engagement Metrics

1. Connect your content with recent news and updates

Your audience is full of real human beings doing real things in life. They watch the news and are aware of things happening around them.

Connect your content with the festivals or the major things happening around you.

For example, if it’s Christmas and you are a toy store. You can connect your content with the occasion, by suggesting how you can help them shop for the occasion.

2. Respond to audience queries and issues

Social media is just not about promoting fresh content anymore. Social media has become a major channel for customer service.

Most people seek customer service on social media. Sadly, most companies fail at this. Customers expect a fast response to their queries or issues on social media. Your immediate and appropriate response shows you care. This will make it more likely for your audience to trust you and see you as a dependable business.

3. AMAs, or Ask me anything, is a hit

Reddit has become a major game changer in the social media world lately. The site has a very great audience with people dedicatedly following it. It is known for its excellent audience engagement.

The coolest thing they have, by far, is their AMA sessions. People can ask the person hosting a session anything they like. It helps both parties to have a more personal and true connection.

This is available on Twitter and Facebook too.

4. Promote your audience-generated content and hashtags

Your audience and your users always have something to say. You don’t necessarily have to repeat what they say, but promote what they post.

This is a great conversation starter. Not just that, it makes your business seem more believable and relatable.

#Hashtags are also popular. This is usually a word (or words) related to your business preceded by a #.

Businesses today are creating their own and making use of others in their genre. You can do the same and build an audience. You can also search for people who have used a certain hashtag and respond to connect with them.

5. Use other influential content

You can’t survive long by only posting about yourself. Some believe that sharing other peoples content means routing their audience to them. Yes, that’s right!

Businesses need to have belief in their content. If your strategy is right your audience would always come back to you.

You are on social media to provide your audience with information for their use. It’s not possible to cover everything under the roof… and it’s not advisable either. Sharing other content that is meaningful and useful for your audience promotes authority and trust. It shows you are confident and willing to share.

6. Share quizzes, infographics, memes, contests, and surveys

Though mainstream, these types of content are evergreen. Not only are these great ways to engage your audience, but also a great way to learn more about their preferences.

Use Infographics to summarize a large dataset into an interesting pictorial representation.

7. Implement videos

Videos can be a great way to tell a story you want to convey to your audience. Make use of your behind the scene videos or product videos etc, to engage your audience.

The rise of the internet gave birth to changes in education, marketing, and nearly every aspect of our life.

 

This is a guest post by Swaraj Das Mohanty. He is a Content Marketer at PagePotato, a graduate in Journalism from Bangalore University, and a former radio jockey. He helps brands put their best content online, is a bookworm who knows to cook… and likes to drive in search of lip-smacking street food. Follow him on Instagram at @BoredBelly.

If you go back in time two decades ago when social networking sites were nonexistent, you would see what great an impact they have been to the marketplace. Today, thousands of businesses owe social media to their rise and continued growth.

Social Media for Small Business

Practically, all business enterprises that exist today have enjoyed the opportunities that social media has afforded them. While there are dozens of networks that exist today, these are the top six social media for small business platforms that brands love.

1. Facebook

With two billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social networking platform in the world. It is an extraordinary platform for business promotion where business owners can connect with customers from all walks of life.

The platform remains the easiest social media site to manage as well as conduct laser sharp ad targeting. Unlike other networks, anyone can use it. It allows sharing several types of content including video, links, and photos.

If you want to get shares and comments on your posts as well as in-depth data about the people who interact with your business, then Facebook is the platform to use.

2. LinkedIn

This platform is perfect for people in the B2B space. The social site brings together business professionals in different industries, allowing them to connect and network. Therefore, if your business targets business executives, LinkedIn might be the platform to use.

You can target these decision makers based on their job titles, industry, company size, etc. The social network is centered on building business and work relationships, making it the perfect platform for job seekers, business leaders, and recruiters.

It uses an old-fashioned approach to networking in the digital age.

3. Instagram

Instagram is the perfect social networking site for visual-centric brands. These include food, lifestyle, personalities, luxury, and fashion brands.

When you have visual content to share like photos and short videos, Instagram provides an ideal platform.

With tools like Growr now helping brands increase their organic followers at an accelerated speed, brands with a lot of visual content to share have an opportunity to grow faster within a short time.

4. Twitter

To make the most of the opportunities that Twitter presents, you must find shareable content with the potential to go viral.

Retweeting is a big part of growing on Twitter, meaning that your ability to create content that Twitter users will be more than glad to retweet determines how fast your business increases its following. For additional momentum of your posts, use relevant hashtags.

Remember, Twitter is about starting conversations, participating in ongoing ones, and ensuring you are at the fore of every relevant conversation that takes place on the platform.

5. Pinterest

Many brands have been frustrated on Pinterest because they have no great images to share. On this platform, it is quite hard to get a low-quality image to go viral. Create images that people with a huge following would find interesting enough to pin. This multiplies the visibility of your image to incredible proportions.

Pinterest is also an excellent platform to promote products. Unlike Instagram, you can add clickable links to each image you publish.

Because most of the active Pinterest users are women, brands that target women do better on this platform.

6. Google+

Perhaps more than any other reason, Google+ has maintained relevance because it is a product of Google. While it may not give you the social juice that Facebook can, it is a great platform for a business that wants to improve its search engine optimization (SEO). That is why many small businesses prefer it.

In addition, hashtags and keywords on Google+ have more search value than on Facebook.

Which of these social networks makes the most sense to you and your enterprise? Is there any social network that you have neglected and would want to know how you can leverage it for your business? And are there new social networking sites that you think will take over the scene in the near future?

Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

  This is a guest post by Monica Wilson at Social Growr. 

Whenever people want to start blogging, they think it’s as simple as just writing a blog post and letting things run their course. Not only is this false, it also creates the illusion of blogging as a simple task and job. Because of that, it has influenced thousands of people negatively. Even some more experienced blogger makes these mistakes because they haven’t learned the proper way of doing things.

You can easily find blogs that contain one or more of these mistakes outlined below.

5 Common Beginner Blogging Mistakes

Luckily, there are some excellent guides on this topic and I’m going to help you out even more by showing you the five most common beginner blogging mistakes.

1. Don’t Just Write for the Sake of Writing

People often write just because they want to write. This isn’t always the best strategy when it comes to blogging. It’s also important to not force yourself to write just because you didn’t create a new blog post on your website for some time.

Whenever you feel like something is interesting, you could offer that something to your readers, then continue by taking the next step – putting your thoughts into words on a page.

2. Don’t Use Improper Titles

Another beginner blogging mistake often seen on blogs is the use of improper titles. When you write a blog post, you’ll need to think of a title. After all, there’s no other way to identify your work and get a slight feeling of what your blog post is about.

Titles aren’t easy to think of, and they’re even more difficult when you need to think of a powerful, yet accurate title.

You should look out for the use of SEO focused titles. These are incredibly important when it comes to boosting the visibility of your blog. Think of something relevant and short.

3. Don’t Know your Target Audience

If you mostly write about cars and you suddenly start writing about fruit – are you doing the right thing? Well, not exactly.

Once a target audience gets established, you’ll be having a hard time adjusting your content to a different audience. This can be avoided by writing general blog posts, so you have a broad audience that is acceptant of every topic (life a lifestyle blog).

However, if you want to focus more on something, you’ll have to focus on one target audience. Smaller, but more knowledgeable.

4. Don’t Identify with the Proper Niche

Your audience will always assume that you know a lot about the topics you’re writing about. If you fail to prove this, they won’t be hanging out for long.

If you decide to focus on one specific topic, research it as much as possible, so you have all the facts in your head. As long as you are precise and truthful to what you’re writing your audience will love the content you release.

One additional thing here: You should try your hand at a niche that is currently popular. This way, you’ll gain some extra followers!

5. Don’t Respond to Reader Comments

If your readers like your content, they’ll try to engage with you and share some of their thoughts and feelings as well. Your job, as a blogger, includes responding to these comments. Don’t ignore your readers!

If you don’t communicate with your readers, you won’t be receiving the recognition and respect you should get as a blogger.

Be nice and make your readers feel appreciated and respected!

In the end, none of these mistakes are difficult to fix. When you start writing next time, keep this list near you and follow the guidelines. Additionally, try to research this topic even further.

To get started blogging, check out a review of iPage, a domain hosting service. It will easily help you get started blogging.

 

This is a guest post by Tiffany Watts at HostingReviewBox.com.

For those just starting their online business, one of the most challenging tasks is to select a web host for a website or blog. This task is difficult because of the number of web hosting companies available. When it comes to finding the best website host to run a blog or a website, there are a few warning signs that business owners, as well as bloggers, need to be aware of to ensure their website or blog is hosted on a secure server. Web hosting plays an important role when it comes to your site’s performance and functionality online. To stay away from issues like sluggish website speed that could affect your site’s traffic and ranking. It’s also important to protect your website from all potential cyber threats. Here is a comprehensive infographic that highlights the 21 warning signs you need to look out for when choosing a new web host for your business. Take a look at the infographic below to learn the signs of a low-quality web host. To learn more, click here. This is a guest post by Sudhir Bhushan – a tech and social enthusiast. He is also a web entrepreneur.  

The introduction of chatbots has made the marketing world reach customers and monetize business strategies more efficiently than ever before.

Many companies like Google, Amazon, Nordstrom and even Neiman Marcus are utilizing chatbot technology as a means of improving customer service. As an upcoming marketer, don’t be scared to create and use chatbot AI.

6 Things to Do Before Using Chatbot AI

1.    Your chatbot should be unique

Make your chatbot outstanding by giving it a unique name. A lot of companies are coming up with chatbots, and soon we will have a chatbot crowd. Give your chatbot a catchy name so that customers will remember it.

2.    Market your Chatbot

There is still a good percentage of people who are not conversant with chatbots. So, taking the responsibility of approaching them at a personal level will add you dividends, and they will notice your brand.

3.    Conversational flow is paramount

Your bot should have conversational flow. This will allow you to understand customer’s needs and at the same time, gather valuable data to help you grow. Therefore, it’s vital to ensure that there’s an open interaction between your chatbot and customers.

4.    Be willing to start small and be straightforward

You are just starting out, and your bot is in its infancy stage, so keep it simple. Focus on keeping your bot’s communication short and understandable. The best way to achieve this is by monitoring the behavior of your audience. This will help you improve your business by developing new versions.

5.    Do not overwhelm your audience

Ensure you introduce one feature at a time to your customers. Unveiling too many features at once will overwhelm your customers and they will get bored.

6.    Learn from your competitors

Keep track of your competitor’s progress. Pick things that are making them do well and implement this into your chatbot. Monitor things they are doing wrong and ensure you don’t make the same mistakes. Keep in mind that there’s still room for improvement.

When starting out, ensure that your chatbot is easy to use, accessible, and don’t forget its simplicity.

 

This is a guest post by Josh Wardini, Community Manager at Webmastersjury.org. The infographic is from 16best.net.

We’ve all had the unfortunate experience of bearing witness to many business presentations that lacked energy, dynamism, creativity, and in general, left us staring at our watch far too often. Poor presentation skills cost businesses time and money on a regular basis.

For those seeking new investment, or for established enterprises updating their clientele on their latest venture, a strong business presentation can be the difference between success and failure.

4 Keys to Nail a Business Powerpoint Presentation

Giving a sales pitch or a presentation to a vast array of clients is all about wowing your audience. It’s a spectacle and should be treated as a performance. This is the style of speaking that will leave your audience continually talking as they walk down the hall long after you finish.

The knack for giving a powerful presentation is coachable. Below are our top tips to giving a great business presentation.

Business Presentation Template

1. Build A Narrative

Business presentations require the appropriate level of professionalism, subject to your field of expertise, but this does not exclude the performance role involved in distributing your idea to the audience. This is where the story comes in – you need to build a narrative and enthrall your audience with the story of your project.

Accessing your audience’s emotions through a well-pitched narrative = nailing your presentation. Frame the steps you’ve taken to get where you are and conceptualize the project at hand so that your audience isn’t merely listening to an analysis but is engaged with an idea, a brand, a history – a relatable and personable path.

This will immerse your audience in the narrative you have built, allowing you to pitch your project accordingly.

2. Immerse Yourself in the Material

Plan the delivery of your presentation and don’t be afraid to vary the style. If the presentation seems standardized to you, then it will feel the same for your audience. Immersing yourself in the material means a lot of rehearsal time, but the payoff will be worth it. Knowing your material will give you a license for freedom on stage and enable you to engage your audience emotionally with the project at hand.

“More importantly, this will show a degree of professionalism and passion that your audience will find relatable and impressionable. It will allow you to interact with the audience and transition seamlessly from point-to-point on your agenda. This flow will immerse your audience in the content, and from there they’ll engage with the content beneath the surface level,” suggests Kevin Daniels, a business writer at BigAssignments.

3. Presentation Tools

If you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail. The design, editing, and wording of a presentation will be essential. In the same ways, you must rehearse your performance; you must also proofread your backdrop. We have recommendable tools that will make this daunting aspect a breeze:

1. Via Writing and Grammar Checker are essential grammar guides for any presenter and will guarantee the elements of professionalism you’re seeking.
2. LetsGoAndLearn and SimpleGrad will add a style to your presentation, guiding your presentation tone.
3. Elite Assignment Help, as suggested by the Huffington Post, ensure that attention to detail is top of its game. Proofreading is as important as rehearsal.
4. My Writing Way and Writing Populist provide great guides on style and tone to ensure your presentation hits its mark.
5. UKWritings and Assignment Help provide communities for you to trial your material with very useful in the rehearsal phase.

4. Stage Persona

You’ve built a narrative, immersed yourself in it, and used the tools to prepare your backdrop – now you need to deliver it via a strong and empowering stage persona. A powerful speech is as much performance as information, and a calm, controlled presence on stage will relax your audience allowing the information being delivered to soak in.

Practice makes perfect, and a little rehearsal time will make all the difference – especially if you’re the type of person who doesn’t enjoy preaching to a large audience. The key thing to remember is to keep it natural – you don’t need to be on every part of the stage at all times. Slow, decisive, and calm movements are all it takes to instill a sense of confidence. Underselling is sometimes the best sales method.

Putting these points together will ensure you deliver a well-rounded performance, immersing your audience in the content of your speech. Prepare your content using helpful tools, rehearse the material, and deliver a great business presentation.

  This is a guest post by Grace Carter. She helps users of Resumention create business presentations and improve business writing skills. Also, Grace is an online editor and proofreader at Revieweal website.

It goes without saying that every business aims for growth at some point during their career. One of the major aspects of business growth is boosting your return on investment, or ROI.

How does this happen? The answer is simple – by boosting your income and diminishing your costs. So, if you are in the position that you are earning more than a dollar for every dollar invested, then you are heading in the right direction for growth. In the end, the greater your ROI is, the simpler and quicker it will be for you to measure your sales and marketing efforts.

Increase Profits with this ROI Formula

So, what do you need to in order to increase your ROI? An ROI formula. Monitor every single thing related to your marketing investments. This way, you’ll know what your current ROI is and what works best for you. Then, you can implement these five ROI tactics to truly become profitable.

1. Implement upselling and cross-selling

Upselling and cross-selling are proven tactics for boosting your ROI. The former offers a better version of the product that you are selling, while the latter offers products that are related to the one that your customer is buying.

Upselling is something that Amazon has been doing well for a long time. Let’s say you are buying a laptop. Eventually, you will be asked if you want to upgrade your memory card or purchase a superior one. Some people will see this as a logical step, but if you show this message on a daily basis, your customers will be up to spending a little more money.

As for cross-selling, this is something that food chains such as McDonald’s are pros at. It’s basically all about offering the customer something different that is still related to the original product they have purchased.

This is where the well-known questions come in, such as “Do you want fries with that?” or a more subtle one, “Will that be all?” It’s a great way to drive your customers to take another good look at your menu.

2. Determine what your crucial metrics are

It is essential that you are well-aware of which metrics are most important to your business.

For starters, you are definitely going to calculate and optimize your sales. Next, there are also leads and traffic. When it comes to the latter, you must remember that not all of it is equally formed. The traffic that is targeted to your sales pages will affect your ROI much more than any other section of your website.

What you need to do is analyze the data and figure out the best solution to problems you find. Then, make it even better.

For example, you can take a good look at your blog posts that are near the top when it comes to your target keyword and then create high-quality backlinks in order to get your content to the top.

3. Think about online business loans

It is pretty common for businesses today to decide on an online business loan as a financing option. Many online lenders use modern technology and algorithms to evaluate traditional credit standards, like cash flow or personal credit score, as well as non-traditional metrics such as social media engagements and customer reviews.

Many mortgage brokers in Sydney use this type of “new” technologies because you can deal with your capital much more quickly and easily than when it comes to banks or credit card unions.

You should hire a professional to be certain your loans are properly set up for days to come. This will ensure you don’t have any future problems with valuations and servicing.

4. Automate everything

If you really want to be efficient and have a maximum ROI, you should automate everything and let the software do its job for you.

For example, a great solution when it comes to automation is an email auto-responder. It sets up a string of emails to be sent at intervals you determine are the best responses to an incoming email. It’s basically leaving your operations on autopilot while creating value and instilling trust to your audience.

Basically, it is all about saving time. The simplest tools, like the ones that schedule your social media posts, can help you focus on more important aspects of your business.

5. Give headlines the attention that they need

When someone comes to your website, one of the first things they pay attention to is the headline. This basically means that if you aren’t putting enough effort into creating headlines, which are bound to engage users, then you are certainly going to experience higher bounce rates than you would like.

The largest percentage of people who abandon your website never come back. So, it is essential to focus on converting them the very first time they stumble upon your site.

Thinking about recurring visitors only comes later in the process. So remember, even a simple element such as an engaging headline can have a huge impact.

By implementing the right tactics, you can generate better ROI and make your business a lot more profitable.

Upselling and cross-selling are old tactics that still work well. There is a lot of analyzing and making use of the right metrics. Automation also helps a lot and sometimes it’s the smallest of things, such as your headlines, that can make a difference. Finally, think about online business loans in order to be completely set up for the times to come.

 

This is a guest post from Nick Brown.

There is no direct way to block emails directly from the iPhone. You have to do it from your computer.

Why would you want to block emails on your iPhone? Well, two reasons – one is spam. No matter how many times I unsubscribe from emails, I still get some from the same sender. Then, there are those people you just want to cut out of your life… and your inbox.

How to Block Emails on iPhone through Mac Mail

1. Open Mac Mail App
2. Click on ‘Preferences’ in the menu on top
3. Click on ‘Rules’
4. Click on ‘Add Rule’
5. Define Rule by adding the email address of the sender you wish to block
6. Click on ‘Delete Message’ under ‘Perform the following Actions’

How to Block Emails on iPhone through Gmail

1. Open the email you’re using on your iPhone
2. Find an email from the sender you wish to block
3. Open the email
4. Click on the downward arrow for options
5. Click on ‘Block-Name of the Sender’ option
6. Click ‘Block’ when the mail requests so

How to Block Emails on iPhone through Outlook

1. Open the Outlook email inbox
2. Click on the Settings (Gear Icon)
3. Click on ‘View Full Settings’
4. Click on ‘Mail’ on the left of the screen
5. Click on ‘Junk Email’ located in the middle of the settings
6. Click on ‘Save’ after adding the email address of the sender you wish to block in the ‘Blocked Senders’ Tab

Marketing is the heart and soul of any business, but it’s not easy as it seems. Most business owners aren’t marketing experts which means they aren’t aware of the latest marketing trends and tactics.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you run, there will always be marketing mistakes. Startups and newly built businesses need to try to avoid these mistakes because of low budgets.

Top 6 Marketing Mistakes Business Owners Make

While there is no shortcut to marketing success, you need to avoid these marketing mistakes to increase to become a successful brand.

1. No Marketing Plan

A marketing plan should cover all the information regarding your marketing campaign including budget, target market, and your marketing strategy. Just as other plans you make for your business, a solid marketing plan is also very necessary.

Starting your marketing campaign without a plan is just like shopping with a blindfold over your eyes – there are some chances to get your desired item, but the odds are very low.

2. Not Using All Marketing Channels

We have seen many business owners only targeting one marketing platform that provides them a significant ROI… in the short term. They don’t think about what will happen if their audience leaves that platform.

It’s better to diversify your marketing approach by targeting a wider audience across all the main marketing channels. Putting all your eggs in one basket is never a wise move.

3. Being Unclear About Your Target Audience

Having a highly focused understanding of your target audience is the most significant part of marketing.

If you are a small business owner, you must understand that you can’t afford to target everyone. You also need to keep an eye on your competitors and how they’re targeting your audience. Sometimes it’s better to not focus on the audience they are aiming at, but instead, to target a small niche market they are overlooking.

4. You Are Not Taking Advantage of Social Media

Some business owners think of social media as a huge marketing platform, but some also see it as useless with no practical advantages. Social media marketing is a great way to increase your sales and revenue in a short span of time, but a lack of understanding of how to achieve those results can be complicated. There are plenty of social media marketing tools available to make it a profitable platform… if you use it correctly.

5. You Fail to Track Results

Many business owners are spending a lot of amount on marketing, but they aren’t tracking everything which they are doing.

If you do not measure the results of your campaigns, then you can’t tell what the return on investment (ROI) was. The tracking of results will also help to identify your weak links. By fixing them, you can create a more powerful strategy in the future.

6. Not Knowing the Importance of Your Budget

Marketing can affect your entire business. That’s why your marketing budget is very critical to your success.

Marketing is not just advertising and making decisions. You may also set a different budget for different phases of marketing campaigns in your business.

 

This is a guest post by Jessica Watson. Jessica has been writing in various niches with her primary focus on business, finance, social media, and technology. Currently, she is associated with Aurion International who offers ISO training in Dubai and across all UAE.