In light of the recent state of the economy, you may be feeling like you need to scale back your finances and skip your vacation this year. This article is the perfect starting point for the economical traveler.First of all, plan carefully your travel and select the places are worth visiting. Try visiting photo-sharing sites where the pictures of cities round the world are classified by the cities where they were shot. Thus, travel planning will be easier, as you can find in one place pictures published by many travelers and you can benefit from their opinions.Amusements parks and other attractions have options of printing tickets out online before you leave for your destination. This is more than worth the huge lines that you will avoid. If the park uses a timed entry system, you won’t need to wait in line to enter, either.It takes time to acclimate your dog to travel. A dog needs to be leashed at all times, and trained to respond to voice commands. You can be sure of your pet’s safety if he is under your control while traveling.A desert vacation delivers a unique environment that few will ever encounter, including interesting plants and animals. Someone who has never experienced a desert will likely find their first exposure very striking. Life is not too short to include a peek at the unique environment of an arid region.If a hotel is fully booked, you may still be in luck; ask for a room that is listed as out of service. Sometimes a hotel will classify a room as being out-of-service for minor cosmetic needs.Before you arrive, try to learn the local culture and laws. You could get in trouble for doing something judged offensive or illegal, even if you do not consider it to be problematic. Show your respect for the laws and the people through your behavior.Make sure you understand the situation in the country that you plan on visiting. The Consular Affairs Bureau has a regularly updated list of potential situations that could be dangerous for foreign travelers. This resource can help keep you out of situations that may threaten your well-being.If your plane or bus ride is very long, get up and walk around at least once every hour. Just walk around the cabin or go to the bathroom. Sitting for extended periods is bad for the muscles and can even be dangerous. It can cause blood clots.When deciding on trip clothing, be sure to pack anything that can be worn for multiple days. For example, footwear and jackets can usually accommodate more than one outfit. This will reduce the overall amount of items you need to carry with you on your trip.A tight budget is no reason to give up the idea of traveling for fun. If you use the advice contained in this article, you will have no problem getting that next vacation set up.
Small And Midsized Company Content Marketing – How You Can Improve It
A lot of thought has gone into your marketing and marketing communications plans, but now – only a few months into the new year – you begin to wonder… Are you really equipped for the challenges ahead?Recent activity on the U.S. and international stock markets, extreme weather patterns, the upcoming elections – all are causing caution and pessimism regarding future purchases.Moreover, today’s marketplace is radically different from the one we’ve been used to. Today’s buyers have become proactive, searching for information before they buy. This buyer-driven environment has given rise to an overwhelming number of new (and often confusing) media strategies.One of them, content marketing, has taken center stage among B2C, B2B and nonprofit marketers. But, despite its current popularity, questions remain – What content formats should be used? What should the message be? And, for that matter, does content marketing actually work?Content Marketing Goals, Usage and Challenges
The most recent study by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs indicates that marketers’ primary goals for using content marketing are to improve:
Lead generation
Sales
Brand awareness
Lead nurturing
Customer engagement and loyalty
Marketers see content marketing as being useful for a variety of purposes, which might indicate a lack of focus.Confirming this, the study showed that many different formats were employed for content marketing efforts, with different types of marketers using different formats.For example, among both B2C and B2B marketers the following content marketing formats were employed by nearly all (eighty to ninety percent):
Social media, other than blogs
Photos/illustrations
Enewsletters
Videos
Articles on website
In-person events, blogs and Infographics were also used by both groups, although to a lesser extent (sixty to eighty percent).Both groups were also likely to use webinars/webcasts and online presentations, but in this case they were more popular among B2B marketers. And, case studies and white papers were far more likely to be used by B2B marketers than by B2C marketers.Not surprisingly, given the broadness of the goals for content marketing and the variety of formats employed to achieve these goals, marketers feel they are ill equipped to operate in this new environment. Their most pressing challenges are “producing engaging content”, “measuring content effectiveness”, “producing content consistently”, and “measuring the ROI of content marketing plans”. About one-third also mention “lack of budget” and “producing a variety of content”.Beyond the challenges of content marketing itself, we can’t escape the fact that the second half of this year will be filled with an unprecedented amount of political advertising and, if the past is any predictor, it will most probably be negative and raising even more the issue of “trust”. What can you, as a marketer, do to offset this increased pessimism and doubt being felt by your customers and prospects?You must have content, new or traditional, that builds trust in something… like your brand. Give them reasons to believe in you and communicate these reasons be it through “old” or “new” media, in a sincere manner.So, how can you do that?How to Improve Marketing Communications ROI
The art and science of effectively communicating with customers and prospects is nothing new, but it has never been more important. And while the volume and diversity of content marketing is exploding, it is, after all, just “another” marketing tactic. So perhaps this is the time to take a step back and recognize that traditional media still dominates marketing communications spending and the basic principles of how to market still apply.So, while the need to clarify messaging, as well as to create meaningful and on-going content poses a significant challenge, relying on the tried and true marketing tactics can help you through this maze and, hopefully, even improve your ROI.
Real knowledge of your target audience through market research always trumps opinion. Most small and midsized companies believe they fully understand the wants and needs of their customers and hope they understand their prospects. This just doesn’t work anymore.
Consider employing market research to determine if your audience knows your brand, how they compare it to the competition, and what’s the most important thing they want to know about you. Doesn’t this approach make a lot of sense, especially on a limited budget?
A marketing communications audit can provide meaningful direction. If you haven’t recently (or ever) conducted a marketing communications audit, now is the ideal time to consider one. It will provide you with an actionable and coordinated analysis of your current messaging, message delivery, media mix and spending allocation. And, like a financial audit, it’s a significant tool for improving your profitability.
Be media neutral when evaluating content delivery. Don’t get caught up with all of the excitement surrounding the latest content format. If you’re gotten a handle on points #1 and #2 above, you should be in a pretty good position to evaluate Facebook versus Instagram or LinkedIn; videos versus in-person events; articles (like this one) versus case studies or white papers; etc. The dramatic growth of digital tactics has created many unique opportunities but it’s also created a lot of clutter.
Real value from marketing communications consultants is available. Having the professional skill set (must less the time) to evaluate and develop the various aspects of a content marketing program, or marketing communications in general, may not be your organization’s strong suit. If not, you should seriously consider tapping into established, experienced and media neutral consultants.
Look for consultants with broad industry and brand experience, who also focus on analytics to measure ROI, and are willing to promote candor throughout your organization. Don’t limit your search to just your industry as someone with experience across many brands – B2C, B2B or nonprofit – will often have the insight to see what you’re missing.
Content marketing may not be the silver bullet in the short term, but it can go a long way toward improving your marketing communications ROI. Embrace the opportunity, and be honest with your communications. But, with the uncertainties ahead and limited resources, remember what Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
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How Social Media Allies and Upsides Your SEO Efforts?
SMM and Search Engine Optimization are usually given a separate space in the digital marketing arena.
And, quite reasonably, they are the two most decisive factors in the online marketing sphere.
But what we fail to understand is why many businesses do not acknowledge social media marketing as one of SEO’s most influential allies.
Do we intend to say that social media directly encourages your Search engine rankings?
The simple answer could be NO!
You must recognize that social metrics like Facebook likes and Twitter followers indicate social profile authority but have no hand in directly circumscribing the search engine rankings.
Surely, our straightforward answer is confusing. However, we completely believe that SEO and smo are powerful collaborators whose association must be leveraged for digital marketing success.
Let’s dig deeper and express how SMM can merit and warrant your SEO strategy.
The Relationship Between Social Metrics & SEO
Let’s assume that there might have been experiments conducted in the past that determine the use of social-media metrics such as social mentions and engagement level for search engine rankings.
But due to the unpredictable and unstable nature of smo and the weak signals generated, professionals might have dropped the attempts.
This was well elaborated by Matt Cutts back in 2014 in a Webmasters video. He was the Head of Google’s Webspam Team back then, and he revealed that social media provided incomplete signals.
Also, search engine algorithms can’t ascertain the reliability and authority of the smo posts and the profile.
Nevertheless, is there an Indirect way that social media influences search engine rankings?
And, this was embellished in the Cutt’s video itself.
He said that Google treats all social media websites like any other website on the Internet, which means that the same rules apply to Facebook, Twitter and so on as it applies to other websites.
Benefits of Social Media for Business
A Linkable Opportunity
As most social media consists of links to other websites, site owners and content creators can use it to promote their content.
You can employ a particular mixture of organic and paid promotions strategy to maximize your audience base.
Here’s how this happens-
As you use social media, there might have been countless times that some articles impacted you.
The impression an article made is evident in the things you share and communicate on social media. You might often use the information from the article in your other works, giving the source article a reference.
Understand that people cannot relate to something unless they know about it. Social media gives the perfect opportunity to content creators to prompt the audience and share link-worthy content.
You might well concede that SMM has given attention to many websites and individuals who were not known before. Creating Brand Mentions
Now, suppose someone or something (brand, product, service, individual, business, etc.) that has not yet been identified by Google suddenly notices many remarks online. In that case, it will influence Google to categorize them as an “entity”.
These are some unique circumstances that can boost your search engine rankings. This is bound to the context you are being mentioned or how people are talking about you online.
Understand that you are not adjudicated for how high you rank for a thing but what you entail as an entity.
So your website might not be getting a mention for a specific thing right now, but seeing the number of people who put trust in you, they can well start recognizing your business for that particular piece.
This is called the power of positive mentions.
Nevertheless, you need to make sure that positive mentions are not just on social media but on all public forums.
You can spring your brand marketing with your true audience base and inspire positive reinforcement and communication on social media.
Social Media For Searches
You cannot miss the fact that people use social media to search for a particular product or brand, and your audience base is just not limited to Google or Bing.
As you operate Twitter, you will realize that the social media channel with its trends, hashtags, insights and other tools give you a perfect opportunity to collude with the potential customers, making your content visible to the users.
You will find similar responses to Pinterest and Instagram.
Also, if anyone wants to know more about your company, he/she will likely ascertain your presence on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter channels- do a quick search and decide upon if he/she wants to deal with your business or not.
In 2016 Mark Zuckerberg had mentioned that “Now people are doing more than 2 billion searches a day between looking up people, businesses, and other things they care about.”- source Techcrunch.
Facebook had earlier retreated on a semantic graph search engine and launched a true keyword search, which landed in more search queries for media channel.
Twitter, since its onset, has been the leading destination for the population to flock for searches, especially in the event of big global news. Full post search appeared to have worked for Facebook and have expedited query volume.
Changing The Idea Of SEO
We have reached the phase where SEO is not just centered till Google optimization. We need to realize that search engine optimization is extending and converging on smo.
Also, if Google has been unclear about its stand, Bing, on the other hand, has been quite positive in including social metrics in its search engine algorithms.
You may well agree that the audience that reaches the company website, lurking through digital media channels, has already interacted with the company in a very pragmatic sense.
Also, digital media gives users the capability to engage more powerfully and compellingly. Hence, it will be only effective to broaden your social, media capacities and elicit brand awareness and growth.