Social media has become an integral part of our day-to-day lives. Businesses of all size and shapes have started making the most of available mediums. Today we will try to anatomize tips on social media for small businesses. There are a plethora of small businesses eyeing social medium to promote their business/services. However, majorly these small businesses are failing or not being able to make optimum use of social media for their business growth. There are many theories and strategies on how to effectively use social media for established brands, but the topic social media for small businesses is seldom addressed. According to Digital state of eMarketing India 2017 Octane Research:

60% small businesses promote their business on social media. 50% focus on SEO and 35% use multichannel marketing funnel.
70% small businesses consider content strategy as their primary marketing activity.
52% business owners are using social media as to efficiently address customer engagement.
More than 20% of business owners said that they are making 50% plus profit using social media.

The primary reasons for the low turnout are uncertainty on an application of social media, calculating return on investment and persuade employees/stakeholders to clinch social media. Hence it is important to address the elephant in the room and analyze how beneficial is Social media for small businesses.

Social media for small businesses is a great way for emerging businesses to generate lead and build a reputation. If regularly updated, social media can deliver more results as compared to traditional mediums. Social media for small businesses gives brands an edge of control over the content that they want to post. Also, since social media is a two-way dialogue process, it helps businesses to instantly identify what is benefitting them. Social media for small businesses also helps generate Word of Mouth, which is one of the best tools for emerging businesses.

Social Media for small businesses | 10 Tips to effectively use Social Media

Define your Target Audience
The first and foremost important part that small businesses should focus on is to define their target audience. This helps small businesses to device their social media strategy accordingly. The target audience should be defined basis age group, sex, location, users' online behaviors, their likes, interests, and preferences. For niche products, business owners can even target users based on their birthdays, anniversaries and important milestone. Audience targeting plays a very crucial role in the outcome of the results. For e.g.: a local shop selling footwear should not target users with interest in entertainment. The shop definitely won't get the desired results.

Set achievable goals
Overnight success is a myth. Small businesses must understand this basic fact. Generally, when a new business starts selling on social media, there is palpable excitement is achieving more than set targeted sales. Businesses need to set goals which are upwards and forward. To achieve enormous goals, small businesses start updating social feed with multiple updates in shorter duration. This leads to user's disinterest in the product/service. The set goals should be in sync with brand's core capabilities and expertise. For e.g.: if a business is into selling shoes, they shouldn't set a goal to repair maximum shoes in their area.

Choose the right medium
By now everyone knows, social media is for free. Even paid campaigns can be conducted at a relatively low cost as compared to traditional mediums. It is in this scenario, that we often see small businesses jumping the bandwagon and creating profiles on all the available platforms. Creating social profile doesn't hamper brand image, but aggressively promoting a brand on wrong platforms can lead to brand losing its potential customers. Hence it is advisable for SME's to first identify the right platform through which they can maximize their business. For e.g.: If a shoe selling brand tries to aggressively sell on LinkedIn, they won't get a plausible response as compared to promotions on Facebook/Instagram.

Promote your core product/services
Since each and every business is riding in the social media wave, it is important for a them to promote their core product/services. Nowadays, we see a lot of businesses promoting their services as well as promoting peripheral products/services, which revolves around their core product/services. Majority of the times, this SME's doesn't have capabilities to fulfill a requirement, which can lead to a bad word of mouth for their business on social media platforms. Let us go back to our example; if a shoe seller is trying to aggressively promote socks instead of shoes, it is not going to benefit the business in the long run.

Create quality content
Now that we have covered the topics of identifying the target audience, setting achievable goals, choosing the right medium and promoting the right product/services let us now take a look at the type of content a business should promote on their social pages. A business should always focus on creating good quality content rather than not-good quantity content. Even if the business updates their page once in a day as long as it is relevant to their business, advocates about its core products send across a clear message it is considered as a good quality content. Antagonistically, if a business posts multiple updates which aren't even relevant to the business's products and services leads to users considering the business as fake/spam. Also, new businesses should try and refrain from promoting other businesses on their social platforms initially.

Create a content calendar
Making a small business successful on social platforms is no small task. It takes a lot of efforts for the businesses to keep up their conversion ratio. One such effort is to create a content calendar. Small businesses must anticipate important events and create a content calendar accordingly. Ideally, a content calendar must be planned a month in advance but an even weekly content calendar is highly recommended. This helps businesses to avoid any last minute hassles, strategize much more effectively and it also helps in creating curiosity amongst its loyal fans/customers.

Test and re-test
Social media is highly unpredictable. The content a business posts today, might not work for tomorrow. Hence, small businesses must always test their content before publishing it on their pages. Testing content also applies to the platform a small business chooses to promote. Small business owners must always don the consumer's hat before posting about any product feature, updates, schemes or offers. A consumer's perspective is the key when testing the content that has to be uploaded.

Look for inspiration
Small businesses must always look for inspiration from a competitor who is successful in the same category. Copy pasting competitors idea or content is not the answer. Small businesses must look for the kind of content its competitors are putting up and derive their own strategies subsequently. Inspiring content/stories always make a business to strive to create their own content that is appreciated by one and all. It helps in increasing brand consideration, brand visibility thereby increasing conversions for the business.

Calculate ROI
Even a small promotional budget is not justifiable if there is no mechanism to calculate its return on investment. It is more important in case of small businesses. It is very important for a small business to keep a tab on the budgets allocated to any promotions and the subsequent ROI related to it. If a certain promotion is not doing well or the business is not getting desired results, the brand custodian can always look for other platforms to generate quality conversions.

Analyze and Re-strategize
There can be umpteen instances where a particular campaign/promotion might not work for a business. That doesn't mean that the promotion is wrong or the product/service is not good. Doing an analysis of the campaign is as important as setting the objective. This helps the business to formulate their upcoming strategies in more effective ways. At the end of every campaign, brands must note down the learning's from that campaign and identify if the content/idea was appreciated by their fans or not. This helps businesses to skip the non-performing updates from future communications.

Final Thoughts
Social media for small businesses is definitely beneficial and fruitful. If followed correctly, small businesses can benefit tremendously from the power of social media promotions.

For More details you can visit: http://www.infunotion.com/blog

Have you ever thought of keeping on 'earning money while doing nothing'? Isn't it a great idea? O yes, it is. All of us want to earn and keep on earning money in abundance without doing a job or work. Some people may feel this thing like a dream, not reality. But, it is quite possible. However, it needs a lot of intelligence, smart work, the right usage of time and energy, experience and knowledge, and a long journey, no doubt.

Today I'm going to talk about passive income and wealth building. There are two types of income: active, and passive. Active income needs you to keep on working constantly like a regular 9-5 job. If you are jobless or fired from the job, unluckily, you will stop getting paychecks. No work; no paycheck. It is that simple. On the other hand, passive income doesn't need you to go to office daily and work for 6-8 hours.

So, how is it possible to have money in abundance and coming continuously while staying at home and having fun? For this type of income, you need to build assets and wealth, like:

One of the easiest and the most feasible ways of building wealth and assets, and creating a source of passive income is to join a Direct Sales and Network Marketing company.

First of all, let me give you the idea what Direct Sales and Network Marketing companies are:

A direct sales company sells its products through individual distributors. It has authorized shop/dealers to run the business. Its products are not available on retail stores and common shops. You won't see any type of advertisement of the company and products on media. If you want to have their product(s), you need to join them as distributor or purchase through any authorized distributor. That's why, it is called direct sales company.

You join such a company through a distributor who performs as a 'sponsor' for you. He/she introduces you to the system and products, and you join as his/her 'downline' or 'network'. An authorized distributor can spread his/her network to thousands of people by sponsoring them. When you join a company under one's sponsorship, you too become an authorized distributor. Then you also invite new people for purchasing company's products and join it also. The bigger the network grows; the more you and the company earn. If you have an initial network of three people, they will make their network of three persons each. That way, you all will grow. Each of the individual distributor will get his/her own profit as well as a fixed chunk of the sales done by the 'downline'. That's why, it is called a network marketing company. Generally, all the companies in this category work on both the models: direct sales and network marketing.

If you want to join such a company, first of all, do research about the Network Marketing companies in your state/country. Have answers of these questions first of all.

21st century is called the century of Direct Sales and Network Marketing business. The beauty of this business is that it doesn't need a business administration degree, huge investment, and hiring an office building etc. It just needs determination, a burning desire for freedom of money and time, willingness to learn new things, and a strong will power to do anything to achieve success. Direct Sales and Network Marketing companies give you training which won't be free of cost. This training is going to let you know how to work as a distributor and develop a network.

Around the world, there are hundreds of Direct Sales and Network Marketing companies. Some are working on country level and some on international level also, allowing any person of any creed, color, religion, and nationality to join. This is declared a superb source of passive income and wealth building. A few of the initial years are tough but after that, you have to do nothing. Money will automatically come to you.

If you want to have a great source of passive income, join a Direct Sales and Network Marketing company in your area.

Rizwanaa Shaikh is directly involved in network marketing business. She closely follows network marketing trends and can be contacted for any relevant assistance on Twitter: @Rashwriter.

As of today, we have about 2.5 million Filipinos working abroad and countless of these must go through a needle hole just to survive the financial demand of landing a job overseas.

While there is an abundance of talents expansive in the country, few skilled laborers attempt their fate abroad because of the financial requirements needed to land their dream job. While opportunities keep from coming out from here and there, Filipinos are dubious to select only those offers that they can afford given their financial climate.

Economic capacity thwarts some skilled workers from vying a work abroad. While there is no doubt that competitive candidates in the Philippines is in surplus, employers and recruiters should understand that there are limiting factors for global talents from pursuing a career overseas.

Apart from the cost of documentary requirements and processing fees, the prevalent burden among aspiring overseas Filipino workers is the weight of placement fees charged by some recruitment agency.

Section 51 of the Revised Rules and Regulations allow recruitment agencies from charging placement fee as approved by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). This is usually equivalent to a worker's basic salary for a month that should be paid by the worker once an employment certificate is furnished.

In many reported cases, an amount of P80,000 to P120,000 are collected by abusive agencies even to domestic helpers, which are exempted from this ruling. Apparently, recruitment fees or placement fees only led to exploitation of OFWs even before they went abroad. Majority of OFWs fly overseas with their feet buried in debt because of charges like such.

In this lieu, all licensed recruitment agencies were suspended in processing household service workers since March 6, 2018, given the ballooning number of abuses among domestic workers.

Only 10 out of 2,000 recruitment agencies in the country don't collect placement fees from workers. They usually charge it from employers, who must also shoulder a greater chunk of the costs to bring a worker to their country.

Many Filipinos decide to work overseas to gain better compensation and to improve the lives of their family left in the Philippines. Even if the price at stake is high, many of them could sacrifice even their own house or land title or a portion of their properties just to fund their way abroad.

Non-collection of placement fee is a public service for the majority of Filipinos who have not enough to shell out to pay for a job. This could also mitigate the risks of debt bondage among OFWs and the possibility for a forced labor. This prohibits recruitment agencies from turning to the brink of exploitation.

Zero placement fee will need agencies to charge it from employers. This scheme will not just benefit the worker but the company itself because the worker would become more productive in the workplace. Financial stress significantly affects the productivity of an employee, so alleviating worries on money woes and supporting their financial wellness will not just benefit them, but the efficiency of service that they could render at your workplace.

Job offers with no placement fee would essentially factor out candidates based on their capabilities and experience, and not their financial ability to pay for a profession. A candidate's capacity to fund his application doesn't equate to his compatibility and effectiveness to match vacancies.

Non-fee charging agencies would slightly cost more for client companies but along their ranks are attested undisputed producers of best workers and professionals to foreign markets. "No placement fee" tag, apparently, is an effective magnet to best-performing candidates.

These few agencies with no alike fees collected believe that reaching the green pasture doesn't need to be as costly as it was because there is a better option that recruitment agencies could offer the Filipino working class. No placement fee is true and working abroad is not an impossible dream, especially for the less privileged portion of the society.

Even with few pioneering agencies like Rensol who employ zero placement fee, efforts to enrich ethical recruitment in the market is on the works and the employer-paying market has been realizing the importance of non-fee charging agencies to the plight of underprivileged yet globally-competitive overseas Filipino workers.

Rensol Recruitment and Consulting, Inc. ( https://rensol.com/ ) is the fastest growing recruitment agency in the Philippines. A career consultant that aims to go above and beyond the level of expectations of both the aspirations of the candidates and the dream team standards of employers through providing exceptional opportunities and unparalleled quality-driven recruitment services.

What is a Funnel and How Do They Work?

When the word funnel is mentioned I usually visualize a car with the hood opened and an oil funnel in the picture. I'm not the only one, I know because a number of people have asked me to explain what a marketing funnel is. The subject gets many confused and a bit discouraged but it need not be so.

A marketing funnel is really very simple and some make it more complicated than it needs to be. Actually, the best and most successful funnels have only 3 steps and are very simple. The more steps that are added leave a better chance that the viewer will not finish the process designed to get them to a certain end result.

The end result, or goal, of the funnel, can be a number of things including a sale, an opt-in, a phone call, a sign-up, or lead. These are called conversions and are the end result of the funnel.

A website is a funnel even if someone doesn't understand just what a marketing funnel is. Someone sets up their site with the intentions of drawing traffic to their site for a specific purpose, let's say to purchase a product. They might see an advertisement ad on another site and click on it to get to the someone's site. The visitor reads some of the website content and clicks to go to the next step or to make a purchase.

That's typical of a sales funnel and sounds really simple, right? There are said to be over 2 billion viewers online and any website owner would love to get as much of that traffic coming to their site as possible.

Through various outreach campaigns on social media sites and forums, articles written, podcast, videos made, or a webinar, the site owner draws traffic into the funnel that travels through the website page and a percentage will click to proceed and the rest will move onto something else.

That is how simple a funnel is and as mentioned, the end result or goal can be to get an email address, get the visitor to click something, or to make a purchase, each is considered a conversion.

There are funnels that have more steps depending on what the design of the funnel is for the visitor but the fewer steps get better results.

How do they work?

Think of yourself as a tour guide leading visitors onto and through your website and leading them where you would like them to go and to do what you would like them to do. The site owner tries to direct them to click here or go there and see a great product that will enrich their lives in one way or another.

So website owners are like tour guides on their own websites and it's best that they understand drawing viewers into a funnel, their website, and being a tour guide leading them to the goal, or point of conversion with every page.

The Components and Tools Needed for a Funnel

The very first thing needed for a funnel is an idea. An idea could be for a video, a blog post, podcast, audiobook, a presentation, a free offer, or a webinar.

Another thing that's needed is a desired goal or end result, whether it be a sign-up, a sale or something else. Then figure out how to get the desired end results starting from the idea.

Figure out what you want your site visitors to do. What's the purpose of the site? Determine what your funnels end result is and then you can design the pathway toward the end result.

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