Finding The Best Hashtag To Use On Twitter

February 27th, 2014

Twitter is that beloved social media platform that asks you to sum up your thoughts in 140 characters or less. It forces you to keep the message short and sweet, and arguably stimulate your creativity. And when it comes to creativity, hashtags are in a class all by themselves. After all, if you want people to click on the hashtag and follow, you need to make it interesting enough. Read on …

What The Heck Is A Hashtag?
A hashtag is a metadata tag that lets people search for and label social media updates. If enough people follow and promote it, the hashtag can trend, which means more people follow it. A hashtag can also be used as a means of describing a particular promotion or deal.
HashtagWould this be hashtag hash? – (Photo Credit: powerplantop)

Hashtag construction is simple and straight-forward; it’s a pound sign followed by characters. So for instance, #hashtagsrule could direct people to a discussion on your website about how awesome hashtags are. Using it in a tweet could look like this: “We have some great ideas about using hashtags! #hashtags rule”.

Getting The Most Use Out Of Hashtags
Okay, so now you know what a hashtag is, but how to put it to the best use?

You can use a hashtag for your own branding purpose. For instance, Ed Young Jr Ministries uses #hecknology as their hashtag and their brand. Make the hashtag unique to your brand. You should do a search for it on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Instagram, and Pinterest, to see if anyone else is using it. If possible, keep the hashtag short and sweet (easier for people to remember and spell!). If your hashtag pertains to a particular campaign, then make sure the names complement each other. If your bar decided that instead of holding a Happy Hour from 4 to 6, you’d have a Crappy Hour from 2 to 4, you could do #crappyhour2to4.

Just in case you think that hashtags are all branding and trending, let’s bring up the concept of content hashtags. These hashtags point to content that helps to raise exposure of your business and improve SEO. For instance, if you run a hobby shop, your tweet may have hashtags that reference content on #modelwarships, #electrictrains, or #noroyarn.

There are no restrictions or guidelines in using hashtags over and over, but still, try not to overuse them; too much of a good thing, and all that. When you’re tweeting on Twitter, don’t exceed three hashtags. Furthermore, try to stay relevant to the topic at hand. Check out popular keywords and try to create hashtags based on them, but don’t ride the coattails of other trends; start your own!

And finally, avail yourself of some nifty tools, and speaking of which …

Tools You Can Use
… it just so happens tools are being discussed right here. Wow, you’d think this was planned somehow! Here are some cool tools for making better hashtags.

Hashtags.org- This free service shows what hashtags have been trending over the last 24 hours. Any heavy duty function like storing or monitoring hashtags will cost you.

What The Trend- This Hootsuite-owned resource lets you see global trends based on nation and city data. You can even track individual hashtags as streams in Hootsuite. The global trend tracking can be done either daily or monthly. While What The Trend is free, Hootsuite Pro has a monthly fee (though their basic service is free, and has fewer functions).

Trendsmap- This site visualizes the local use of hashtags and places them on a world map. This enables you to see trends by city, country, or even continent. If you own a local business, this tool is just right for you. There’s Free, Basic, and Plus levels of membership, each granting more functions. The Free level really just gives you the bare minimum, and is not meant for heavy use anyway.

All in all, hashtags help people find you online, alerting customers to a business that they otherwise may not have known about. Keep your hashtags informative, don’t overdose on them, and use trend-spotting tools to get some idea of what topics to link up with. Learn from others’ mistakes, and you’ll remain competitive. Good luck!

Byline: John Terra has been a freelance writer since 1985. He writes about everything from SEO strategies to home maintenance, and everything in between.

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Posted in Guest Post, small business, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

8 Points That Could Save a Start-Up from Messing Up

February 20th, 2014

This article is built on the experiences of entrepreneurs who had fallen flat on their faces while trying to manage and host their start-up ventures.

We think of a mind-boggling business idea and expect it to spark up as soon as we prepare a proposal. Well, it never works that way. However good or bad an idea is, there are certain steps that need to be followed.

Before putting your idea into a set of plans and procedures on paper, here are a few things that need to be understood.

Business Startup

Business Startup

Is my idea functional?

Before getting caught in the excitement of your brilliant idea, spare a thought: can the idea be put into execution?

The concept needs to be grounded in bigger ideas for you to be able to sell it. Don’t tangle up too many ideas, focus on one at a time, and build different techniques to make them happen.

The objective here is to make sure that your idea can be pinned down to work out for the market.

Scoring funds isn’t easy

Take my word; capital will not come to you effortlessly.

You may have to pitch time and again to win investors to your side. Pitching is extremely significant. The dumbest idea can pass if the pitch is awesome.

Do thorough researches, take your time to prepare each slide to be presented, and propagate how unique your business proposition is.

If you feel it is taking too long to get funds and time is running out, pitch in your investments. It can help your business, and play the credibility factor when pitching to investors at the same time.

Be prepared to touch the highs and lows

The business is not going to flourish as soon as you start. It will take time to accomplish each milestone.

Additionally, it is important for you to be prepared in case the plan doesn’t work. Amend your strategies, be focused and push your organization to reach the targets.

If every move is drawing the results you desired, you can go for that extra mile to make your business better. But don’t be too hard on yourself or your employees.

Hire carefully and appreciate candidly

Only a good team, which believes and backs your idea, can let you take over the market.

Hence, hiring is going to be a challenging job for you. Ideally, your team should have skilled professionals, men and women with industry experience and members who have prior understanding of successfully managing a start-up.

Employees at every level need guidance, assurance and motivation, which are to come from you, the person who leads. A lot of effort is taken to build a start-up, so don’t miss out on appreciating employee efforts.

Work individually, but work more as a team

Needless to say, your team is vital to the success of your business.

The objective of the business can be reached faster and smoother if you are held together as a team. Organizational growth comes through sheer team work, and hence it is important to keep your employees as content as your investors.

Hear out the needs of the employees, provide them with adequate requirements and channelize them to use the limited resources available.

Bring the focus to limelight

With a considerable amount of work being allotted daily, it is easy to get carried away and slip into a whirlpool of confusions and heated exchanges.

It is definitely better to acquaint each team with the other ones, mainly to have them understand where they are heading in the middle of a mission. As a leader, you should take up the responsibility of constantly reminding (of course not nagging) them about the objectives of the business.

Time is precious – start acting!

When you are done with thinking and researching, the next step is to start acting, whichever small way possible.

It takes quite some time to build the brand; the earlier the better. You don’t need to wait for investors to fund in order to start your business. Begin with limited costs and resources.

Build networks and relationships

Bond with everyone – investors, employees, suppliers and stakeholders.

Start-ups usually tend to make mistakes or face hurdles frequently. Be it with resources, technology or monetary issues, it doesn’t matter. Building reliable relationships can actually help your company cope with such setbacks.

Most of these tips might have passed your thoughts, but it’s easy to forget them. To keep it simple, make a journal of everything that you did and things you have to do.

Your start-up can go terribly wrong if you don’t have these pointers on your mind. These are simple steps. Without them, you will end up pushing costs too high and fail to impress.

Author bio:-

Matt Davis a partner at Empire commercial Finance, a firm specializing in business mortgage Chester seeking to serve client of UK with ease.  A company with expert professional commercial finance brokers providing financial support for all start-up business 

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Posted in Entrepreneur, Guest Post, small business | 2 Comments »

Happy New Year 2014

January 1st, 2014

Happy_2014Surely, the year 2013 was indeed a wonderful year for me. Even though I had so much to do offline and I couldn’t blog as much as I would have love to, I wish to sincerely thank all my blog readers. Thank you all for visiting, reading, commenting and sharing my blog posts in social media.

It is my sincere prayer that this year 2014 will bring to each of you glad tidings. God bless you richly. Happy New Year!

Posted in Blogging, Entrepreneur | No Comments »

4 Mobile WordPress Plugins to Rock Your Blog

November 18th, 2013

Most people access blogs through mobile devices now. Because of that, you need to make sure your blog is perfect for mobile viewing. Since WordPress is so widely used and very simple for maintaining a blog, there are many plugins available that make it perfect for viewing on a smartphone or tablet computer. Here are four of the best worth considering to rock your blog.


If your website isn’t suitable for mobile, there’s not much point in it

WP Mobile Detector

Not everybody uses a smartphone to check the internet. While they seem so popular, some are still using traditional mobile phones. Plugin developers have created WP Mobile Detector with that in mind. The plugin will recognize when someone is viewing from a phone, determine the type of phone it is and then make sure the website or blog loads in a way that is suitable for that specific user.

It can detect over 5000 different types of mobiles and is the first of all plugins to be able to do this. It not only considers the layout of the blog but will resize images, format the content properly and work with the specific statistics of the device. If you don’t download and install any other WordPress plugin, this is the one to get.

WP Touch

The downside to WP Mobile Detector is that it only works for phones; not all mobile devices. There are many readers now accessing through tablet computers. The problem with mobile devices is that they have different needs for loading articles and smaller screens for viewing pages compared to laptop and desktop computers. WP Touch solves that problem.

It determines the type of mobile device used, including the type of operating system, to make sure the website loads smoothly and looks right. Another difference that WP Touch has is that you can change the appearance. You can decide on having a faster and more user-friendly design without the need of changing the code or having any coding experience at all. The different look for the mobile device is standalone and has no effect over the main theme viewed from a desktop.


Allow people to browse on a platform that suits them

MobilePress

MobilePress creates a simple, mobile-friendly version of your blog or website. However, it isn’t as good as the previous two options. The plugin offers a little customization with themes and settings but at the moment simply creates a version that is easily viewed on any mobile device. It can’t tell the type of device that a reader is using.

There are changes to this plugin. New features are due to be added although the developers are not releasing much detail. There are some notes about it being incompatible with other plugins. This can happen with any type of plugin used. The best thing to do is limit use of plugins to as few as possible to avoid these incompatibility issues that can stop websites working.

Wapple Architect

Wapple Architect is another plugin that will turn your WordPress blog into a mobilized version. Like WP Touch, the specific type of device is detected so that the blog will look perfect; no matter what type of device is being used. Its use isn’t to create a basic design of your blog, but to make sure that all the functions work and the user can do everything he or she would want to do on a laptop or desktop computer. There is also no redirection used, unlike on other plugins, so all URLs remain the same.

The developers have created their own tools for recognizing the devices. This means that they remain in full control instead of worrying if a third party will close down. It also makes sure the settings can be detected on the newest products on the market.


Be the blog everyone is sharing and talking about

You need a blog that is suitable for all types of viewing and is dynamic. This means it needs to be ready for mobile. There are many different types of devices to think about, each with different layouts, needs and screen sizes. For WordPress blogs, this is much easier through the use of plugins. However, avoid downloading and installing too many as it can affect the capabilities of your website.

Alexandria Ingham is a freelance writer covering technology, building websites and tips to online reputation management.

Images courtesy of adamr/FreeDigitalPhotos.net and KROMKRATHOG/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Posted in Blogging, Guest Post, Tips & Tricks | 3 Comments »

Insider’s secret to Creating a Blog Contest for Exposure and Traffic

July 10th, 2013

There are lots of blogs online and more are created on a daily basis, promoting the blog becomes a challenge for most new bloggers.

One way to effectively promote the blog is by way of creating a blog contest. Even sponsors like blog contest because it’s an avenue for them to promote their blog, product or service by offering good prizes and or cash prizes for a certain time.

If you’re considering starting a blog contest for the purpose of promoting your blog, then this article will show you how to effectively do it and succeed.

Have you ever watch a reality TV show like the Apprentice, Survivor, American Idol etc or any series movie series like 24, Prison Break, Nikita etc, these are popular contest and have built an audience that improve the rating of the channel and the brand of the company doing it. That is why most of the reality TV show or movie series have been turn into seasons and whenever it’s release, the audience turn to it again.

The shows follow some trend: good content produces good audiences and builds loyalty among them which will be eager for more from the provider. At these stage we’ll say, they have built a brand that is why people are eager to see their next project.

So the question is can you create a blog contest that will pull in more audience that will make people and sponsors to be eager to for more? Below are some tips for conducting a successful contest on your blow.

Have someone who decide on the result

This are people who you’ll recruit especially people who are expert or have good idea about the subject and give them some certain instruction about how to judge the contest.

Give them the guidelines, links and points to consider as correct. You’re not doing all the work, but trying to coordinate the entire process and to allow them do a fair judgment since you’re off it. This is good as you’ll not give preferential treatment to your friends or any sponsors, but will reward the winner base on quality.

Make your contest viral using social media

Although this depend on what you intent to achieve in your contest. If you intent to build visibility and credibility, build list, build your brand and to be an authority under a niche, then using social media is the best place you can start and the best place to make your contest go viral.

Don’t just stop there, continue to other social bookmarking sites this also boost your search engine ranking. Create a special page for your contest and encourage your blog visitors to share the page. That is not the only benefit the during contest, even after that as you’ll continue to enjoy the traffic.

You can write review in your page and at the end of it, put in some simple contest term for your visitor to read and subscribe to it.

Give the sponsors some benefit

Having sponsors for the contest is good, then try and do something special that will keep then willing to take part in the next contest. Let it begin by giving them some important benefits.

Give them some form of appreciation, it can be a book that interest them, a T-shirt, recommendation of how to improve their site and offer them some value to sponsor the next context.

How to make the contests exciting with benefits

  1. Now after having finish a successful contest and all parties have benefited. There were some who could not participate and yet contribute to your website. Don’t just leave them like that show them how important they’re by giving them some incentive. You can ask them to comment or ask a question and the person with the best comment or question, will be rewarded. This also will generate more traffic and more people will join your contest next time.
  2. From your feedback and comments, you can create a poll or voting widgets and ask your spectators and contestants too to vote their favorite blog comments or blog and who they fear the most in the contest. This way your next contest will exciting, because you have engaged your visitors or spectators.
  3.  If the contest is running for a limited time, maybe for a month, you need to keep updating the leader-board with stats every week. This is a way telling the contestants and visitors that you are fair and credible. Playing the game with no partiality at all.

Plan the contest in other to avoid mistakes

Effective planning makes your contest stand out from the crowd. The following are suggestions on how to plan before the contest.

  1. Make the name unique and attractive
  2. Make sure the name is short and can be remembered easily
  3. Design your promotional tools with both text and banners included.
  4. Make the rules and state clearly what will disqualify any contestant.
  5. Make a disclaimer; these will avert the fight that may arise when the final result is announced.
  6. Limit the number of participants. These will make it easier for you to calculate points and easy to judge.
  7. Tell contestants on what they need to do exactly.
  8. Make the contestant have the same eligibility criteria for them to be admitted.
  9. Don’t forget your sponsors after the contest. Keep emailing them for next context and don’t forget to tell them the benefit.

Keep the best and eliminate the poor ones

Making your contest more exciting should be the top priority. When the contest is on, start eliminating those that are poor and keep the strong contestants to compete together. This will make the spectators to be more interested in the contest.

Announce the blog contest winners

At the end of your contest, don’t just announce the winners just like that. Give the exact calculation of the points and state clearly why the winner was chosen. Mention what the prize is and how you intent to reward the spectators. And when it’s successful, then start working on the next contest.

Author bio

Bako Yila is a blogger and have been blogging for the past three years on various subjects like blogging, personal finance, inspiration and lifestyle. Visit our blog for more on personal finance, inspiration and lifestyle.

Posted in Blogging, Guest Post, Tips & Tricks | 1 Comment »

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