Blogging is writing about “a product”,
“expressing your thoughts in words” or could be even “describing a how
to method”. The topics can range anything from your hobby to your
profession or about a celebrity, a sport or just simply current news. It
is a medium to express yourself on the internet and also a way to
impart your knowledge to everyone around the world. It is a powerful,
one of the most popular and easiest ways to make money online.
When used the right way, it can turn into a powerful cash making
machine for you. Here is an inspirational piece of information for you;
John Chow who is a popular blogger makers about 40000 dollars every
month with his blog (www.JohnChow.com). Blogging is also an entry point
to the internet marketing world, teaching you the necessary technical
skills required to create & maintain a blog and also helps you learn
the basics of opt-in lists, getting traffic and monetizing. So what
does a blogger do? At the very basic, he or she writes a few pages of
information related to the blog topic, so that it is available for
reading to everyone on the internet.Friday, March 09, 2012
How to Make Money Blogging
Blogging is writing about “a product”,
“expressing your thoughts in words” or could be even “describing a how
to method”. The topics can range anything from your hobby to your
profession or about a celebrity, a sport or just simply current news. It
is a medium to express yourself on the internet and also a way to
impart your knowledge to everyone around the world. It is a powerful,
one of the most popular and easiest ways to make money online.
When used the right way, it can turn into a powerful cash making
machine for you. Here is an inspirational piece of information for you;
John Chow who is a popular blogger makers about 40000 dollars every
month with his blog (www.JohnChow.com). Blogging is also an entry point
to the internet marketing world, teaching you the necessary technical
skills required to create & maintain a blog and also helps you learn
the basics of opt-in lists, getting traffic and monetizing. So what
does a blogger do? At the very basic, he or she writes a few pages of
information related to the blog topic, so that it is available for
reading to everyone on the internet.
How to Make Money
xMakeMoney provides ideas on how to make money online as well as offline, using informative guides & step by step methods to enable college students, working professionals, housewives, retired professionals and just about everyone including kids to earn. Whether you want to finish off that credit card debt, buy that luxury car, need cash urgently to pay the school fees of your children, or just want to quit your day job and get financial security in life, this website would be of help to you. In this site we will see how you can easily earn, whatever state of life you are in and whatever your skill sets are. This site also has guides exclusively for entrepreneurs and also those who are looking for good investment opportunities. Everyone in this world deserves to get wealth and happiness; one just needs to apply their mind and remain focused; hard-work coupled with honesty will surely help you achieve this goal. In this guide you will find many ways to get some cash in your wallet or bank account and get passive income.
Work From Home; Cottage Industry; You can manufacture, package and sell items right from your home without much investment. There is always a market for niche physical goods like designer candles, custom perfume soaps or even a uniquely designed cake. Try to make FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) products because they sell pretty much fast and expanding the business is also easier. SOHO; Nowadays the internet, mobile phones and other forms of communications has made it possible to sit at your house and run a virtual office. Some examples are running a virtual outsourcing center, data entry work, being a virtual assistant to someone and also stuff like phone/email based customer support.
Feelancing; This is one method that can fill your pockets instantly and is also easy to do because there are no long term commitments. Thanks to the internet, people from all over the world can do small tasks for others and make a decent income out of it by working just a couple of hours a day from home.
How to make money online; The internet also provides many different ways to earn a substantial income with lesser effort and funds than that is required in the offline physical world. Blogging and affiliate programs are two of the most popular ways to earn on the internet. Then there are also sites like fiverr which provides a kind of reverse auction to freelancing. If you are a software developer, you might want to consider selling custom developed software scripts or offer internet marketing services like SEO and back-linking.
Freelancing;
- Content Writing
- Offer Technology Services
- Offer Internet Marketing Services
- Become a Virtual Assistant
- Provider services through Fiverr
- Affiliate Marketing
- ClickBank
- Amazon Associates Program
- Run a Forum
- Blogging
- Flip Websites
- Sell info products
- Run a membership website
- Opt-in list – Email Marketing
- Outsourcing
- PPC to Offline
For Students & Working Professionals; Take Tuitions – become a tutor; If you are a college grad or if you are pursuing a post graduate degree, you can earn by teaching other students (juniors) or helping them do their homework. Look around your neighborhood for those who might be interested in your teaching services. Nowadays there are also websites through which you can teach a student over the internet and get paid on an hourly basis.
Earn by writing articles; If you good in English, content writing is once of the easiest way to earn. There are many websites like Freelancer, Warrior Forum from where you can get such orders. You can get paid anywhere from 3 to 10$ for 300 to 500 words of writing on a given topic.
If you have old text-books you can easily sell them on websites like eBay. You might also want to make yourself technically savvy on topics like software programming, design etc. which can help you start your own tech startup on the internet even when you are studying. There are many success stories of young people and teenagers who have made a fortune while working on their spare time after college or school. Even the small amount that you earn can be very useful for paying the education fees or even helping your parents financially.
Without Investment; Some amount of startup capital is usually required to start a business so that you earn even more than what you currently are getting. However do not worry if you are not in a position to get this seed capital. There are many ways to get funded or bootstrapped by starting with almost nothing. And also remember that this initial seed fund is required just when you are starting; you can use the profits or income from your new venture to invest even more in other businesses. Do some freelancing jobs, odd part time jobs or even make a garage sale of unwanted things in your house like old textbooks. If you are not in a day job, try getting a day job, because it is crucial for survival (especially if you are in a desparate situation). Nowadays the power of the internet has enabled everyone to earn sitting at home; some of the ready to go jobs that you can do if you have access to the internet are writing articles, being a virtual assistant or providing a variety of services, like in Fiverr. Use this cash to start a new venture on a shoe string budget and then gradually expand the offerings or service.
Offline; Open a niche local shop; There are many shops that can be opened with very little capital amount and can also turn profitable in very quick time. One idea will be to open a small shop (or even sell from your house) selling a product which is not readily available in your neighborhood. Think about when you had to go to some other locality to buy something because it wasn’t sold anywhere near your house. Why not open a shop which sells the same?
Start a consulting service; Not all professions require a formal education to be successful or to work in a legitimate way. Try learning a new method, way or skill and then use your knowledge to provide advice & consulting services to others for which you can charge a fee. Some of the examples of skills which you can learn and impart are: fitness, sports & games and even things like astrology. The list is endless, you just have to find one which you are interested in and whic you can learn in a short period of time.
Partner with someone to use your skills; More often than not partnerships & joint ventures are the keys to success. Even if you do not have enough funds to invest, you can provide your skills as an investment in a company while your partner can take care of the monetary part. An advertisement in a classified section of the local newspaper telling about your skills can also help in connecting you with someone who might be interested in such a partnership.
There is no dearth to the number of oppurtunities to make money online or offline in the World; for a moment push away all negative and pessimistic thoughts like ‘can i’, ‘oh I have already tried that’ from your mind. Think for a moment how it would feel if you were financially well settled with all your debts cleared and enough cash to buy anything you desire, six months to 12 months down the line. Now how about spending the next three days of your life researching on a good method to make your dream come true? It is well worth the time spent on this because the next three days will be the ones which is going to change your life. Allocate sometime this weekend to do this research and I am sure that you are already on your way to success if you do it. Thank you.
How Apple Became the World’s Most Valuable Company
Written by Nick Scheidies
Let me take you back for a moment to 1997.
Stock in Apple Inc. was trading at a ten-year low ($13 per share).
The Macintosh was outdated, the Newton had flopped, and Apple’s board of
directors had just ousted their second CEO in as many years.
It looked like Apple would be obsolete by the millennium.
But you know the rest of the story: Steve Jobs took the reins in 1998, unveiled the iMac, and proceeded to guide Apple through an unprecedented period of growth and profitability.
Last week, stock in Apple Inc. surpassed $500 per share for the first time – which makes it the world’s most valuable company. Below, I’ll explain four ways Apple climbed to the top of Wall Street and how you can apply the same strategies with your business.
Apple has been developing products for emerging markets since they first started in 1976. Of course, back then the personal computer was still in an emerging market.
A lot has changed in the last 35 years, but Apple continues to focus its efforts on markets that are new – and therefore less competitive. Their products aren’t usually the first of their kind, but they are almost always the first to get it right.
Take the iPod. It wasn’t the first portable mp3 player, but it was the first to be intuitively designed and well-marketed.
The same could be said of the iPhone for the smart phone market and the iPad for the tablet market. Apple has come to dominate these niches that are now well-developed and very lucrative.
Stock in Apple Inc. was trading at a ten-year low ($13 per share).
The Macintosh was outdated, the Newton had flopped, and Apple’s board of
directors had just ousted their second CEO in as many years.It looked like Apple would be obsolete by the millennium.
But you know the rest of the story: Steve Jobs took the reins in 1998, unveiled the iMac, and proceeded to guide Apple through an unprecedented period of growth and profitability.
Last week, stock in Apple Inc. surpassed $500 per share for the first time – which makes it the world’s most valuable company. Below, I’ll explain four ways Apple climbed to the top of Wall Street and how you can apply the same strategies with your business.
Apple Targeted Emerging Markets
Apple has been developing products for emerging markets since they first started in 1976. Of course, back then the personal computer was still in an emerging market.
A lot has changed in the last 35 years, but Apple continues to focus its efforts on markets that are new – and therefore less competitive. Their products aren’t usually the first of their kind, but they are almost always the first to get it right.
Take the iPod. It wasn’t the first portable mp3 player, but it was the first to be intuitively designed and well-marketed.
The same could be said of the iPhone for the smart phone market and the iPad for the tablet market. Apple has come to dominate these niches that are now well-developed and very lucrative.
Make Money Blogging: Top Bloggers And How Much They Earn
Can you make money blogging? Apparently so, as these top bloggers can attest!
These days, when I bump into other mothers on play dates, or when I
see people I haven’t seen for sometime, I get asked how and what I’ve
been doing lately. I pause, then tell them that I “blog”. That of
course, inspires a lengthy discussion about the subject of “blogging”; I
tell them why I do it and why I’ve traded my almost 20 year old career
in technology and software development for this new-fangled activity.
Blogging is one of those “cheap hobbies” that turned me into an accidental entrepreneur. It’s work that I find enjoyable, that is sufficiently challenging, that allows me to keep learning and expanding my knowledge in so many ways (and not just in the area of finance). It’s something that I can actually earn money from while affording me the ability to set my own hours and work on my own terms. What more can you ask for in a “job”?
Then again, it may not be for everyone: it can make you fat (I believe) and for some people, it’s even a health hazard! But if you’re interested in giving it a go, here are the basic steps to get started:
2. Register your own domain and sign up with a hosting plan. As I mentioned, serious bloggers who want to monetize their sites fully will benefit from hooking up with a solid and cheap hosting provider. I initially used Dreamhost and Web Hosting Pad but then they gave me too much downtime and poor service, so I switched to Hostmonster, which has been awesome! I have since moved my larger sites to SliceHost, but keep HostMonster for my other blogs and online projects. One other good choice that I’ve heard great feedback on is Bluehost. As for domain registration, I’ve been using GoDaddy.
4. Be patient as you learn the ropes. There’s a lot to learn, but the best way to get inspired is to see how others have done it!
Here are a few enthralling details about successful bloggers that I sourced from BusinessWeek. These profiles can inspire you to pursue your online aspirations:
Blogging is one of those “cheap hobbies” that turned me into an accidental entrepreneur. It’s work that I find enjoyable, that is sufficiently challenging, that allows me to keep learning and expanding my knowledge in so many ways (and not just in the area of finance). It’s something that I can actually earn money from while affording me the ability to set my own hours and work on my own terms. What more can you ask for in a “job”?
Then again, it may not be for everyone: it can make you fat (I believe) and for some people, it’s even a health hazard! But if you’re interested in giving it a go, here are the basic steps to get started:
How To Start Blogging
1. Learn the basics using a free blogging platform such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com. Now there may be limitations with how you can monetize a site if you use these platforms. More serious bloggers actually decide to get their own domains and self-host their blogs to have full control of their web properties.2. Register your own domain and sign up with a hosting plan. As I mentioned, serious bloggers who want to monetize their sites fully will benefit from hooking up with a solid and cheap hosting provider. I initially used Dreamhost and Web Hosting Pad but then they gave me too much downtime and poor service, so I switched to Hostmonster, which has been awesome! I have since moved my larger sites to SliceHost, but keep HostMonster for my other blogs and online projects. One other good choice that I’ve heard great feedback on is Bluehost. As for domain registration, I’ve been using GoDaddy.
Tip: For more choices, I’ve prepared a list of cheap web hosting services in case you’d like additional options.
3. Download and set up the WordPress application in your hosted environment. Your web host provider may be able to assist you with this.4. Be patient as you learn the ropes. There’s a lot to learn, but the best way to get inspired is to see how others have done it!
Here are a few enthralling details about successful bloggers that I sourced from BusinessWeek. These profiles can inspire you to pursue your online aspirations:
Top Earning Blogs – Make Money Online Blogging
Written by Michael Dunlop
These are blogs and success stories that have inspired me to become a blogger. These Superstar bloggers continue to inspire me to this day – and they have kept me motivated to not give up whenever it got tough, especially in the early days.
If I have not already done so I hope that with this list you can see just how powerful and rewarding blogging can be and inspire you to FOLLOW THE DREAM and create a blog of your own.
Special Notes:
1) To give you some idea of the potential available – top blogging network, Weblogs, Inc. is believed to earn about $30 million a month revenue from 13 million unique visitors.
2) And it is not just about making money monthly it is also about building a BUSINESS that can be sold, such as 22 year old Johns Wu did when he sold his blog for $15 Million.
Check out the TOP EARNING BLOGS list below. I have already interviewed a number of these Superstar bloggers but hope to interview a lot more of them over the coming months – so watch out for that.
To Our Blogging Success
Michael
Superstar Bloggers Making Fortunes Online
Today I decided to research how much my favorite blog’s are earning every month and I wasn’t surprised to see some of them make over $100000 per month.These are blogs and success stories that have inspired me to become a blogger. These Superstar bloggers continue to inspire me to this day – and they have kept me motivated to not give up whenever it got tough, especially in the early days.
If I have not already done so I hope that with this list you can see just how powerful and rewarding blogging can be and inspire you to FOLLOW THE DREAM and create a blog of your own.
Special Notes:
1) To give you some idea of the potential available – top blogging network, Weblogs, Inc. is believed to earn about $30 million a month revenue from 13 million unique visitors.
2) And it is not just about making money monthly it is also about building a BUSINESS that can be sold, such as 22 year old Johns Wu did when he sold his blog for $15 Million.
Check out the TOP EARNING BLOGS list below. I have already interviewed a number of these Superstar bloggers but hope to interview a lot more of them over the coming months – so watch out for that.
To Our Blogging Success
Michael
30 Blog’s That Make A Lot Of Money Online
Top Earning Websites
Written by Michael Dunlop
Today I created a list of the top 30 earning websites in the world, for some of these websites, $50 million in revenue a day is just a typical day, crazy isn’t it? And it was all created in the last 10 or so years! I usually would do a write up about how the list rocks and why you should do it to but I think the figures speak for themselves, enjoy!
30 Websites That Make A Lot Of Money Online
| Rank | Website | Found | Annual Revenue | Per Second | |
| 1 | Larry Page and Sergey Brin | $21,800,000,000 | $691.27 | ||
| 2 | Amazon | Jeff Bezos | $19,166,000,000 | $607.75 | |
| 3 | Yahoo | Jerry Yang and David Filo | $7,200,000,000 | $228.31 | |
| 4 | eBay | Pierre Omidyar | $6,290,000,000 | $199.45 | |
| 5 | MSN/Live | Nathan Myhrvold. | $3,214,000,000 | $101.92 | |
| 6 | PayPal | Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek | $2,250,000,000 | $71.35 | |
| 7 | iTunes | Jeff Robbin | $1,900,000,000 | $60.25 | |
| 8 | Reuters | Marshal Vace | $1,892,000,000 | $59.99 | |
| 9 | Priceline | Jesse Fink | $1,884,000,000 | $59.74 | |
| 10 | Expedia | Added Mark Schroeder | $1,447,000,000 | $45.88 | |
| 11 | NetFlix | Reed Hastings | $1,200,000,000 | $38.05 | |
| 12 | Travelocity | Terry Jones | $1,100,000,000 | $38.05 | |
| 13 | Zappos | Nick Swinmurn | $1,000,000,000 | $31.71 | |
| 14 | Hotels.com | David Litman | $1,000,000,000 | $31.71 | |
| 15 | AOL | Erik Prince | $968,000,000 | $30.70 | |
| 16 | Orbitz | Jeff Katz | $870,000,000 | $27.59 | |
| 17 | Overstock | Robert Brazell | $834,000,000 | $26.45 | |
| 18 | MySpace | Tom Anderson | $800,000,000 | $25.37 | |
| 19 | Skype | Niklas Zennstrom | $550,841,000 | $17.47 | |
| 20 | Sohu | Zhang Chaoyang | $429,000,000 | $13.60 | |
| 21 | Buy.com | Robb Brock | $400,000,000 | $12.68 | |
| 22 | StubHub | Eric Baker | $400,000,000 | $12.68 | |
| 23 | Alibaba | Jack Ma | $316,000,000 | $10.02 | |
| 24 | Mark Zuckerberg | $300,000,000 | $9.51 | ||
| 25 | YouTube | Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim | $300,000,000 | $9.51 | |
| 26 | Blue Nile | Mark Vadon | $295,000,000 | $9.35 | |
| 27 | Tripadvisor | Stephen Kaufer | $260,000,000 | $8.24 | |
| 28 | Getty Images | Mark Getty | $233,200,000 | $7.39 | |
| 29 | Bidz | Garry Itkin | $207,000,000 | $6.56 | |
| 30 | NYTimes | Henry Jarvis Raymond | $175,000,000 | $5.55 |
Monday, March 05, 2012
Evidence of iPad 3 and iOS 6? Server Logs Tell the Tale
Lady Gaga the First to Hit 20 Million Twitter Followers
by Gaga topped fellow pop icon Britney Spears in August of 2010 to become the most-followed person on Twitter. Currently, Spears has 13.5 million Twitter followers
Is This the iPad 3? [VIDEO]
by
Itching to see what the iPad 3 looks like and don’t want to wait until Wednesday?
Tech blog MIC Gadget has reportedly obtained parts of the next-generation iPad. If this is real, it’s the closest look yet at the new tablet from Apple.
In line with industry speculation, the clip reveals that the iPad 3 touts a larger camera lens and a slightly thicker shell. In addition, it will once again include a home button, disputing rumors that the touchscreen itself could serve as the home button.
Top 10 Most Amazing iPhone Puzzle Games
by
Since the days of Tetris on the original Game Boy, puzzle games and handheld devices have gone hand in hand. With the App Store encouraging creative developers to come up with their own ideas for addicting brain-teasers, there are plenty of quality puzzle games out there for the iPhone and iPad. But these puzzlers are the cream of the crop. From new takes on familiar ideas to unique hybrids — these are the ten best puzzle games for iOS.
Since the days of Tetris on the original Game Boy, puzzle games and handheld devices have gone hand in hand. With the App Store encouraging creative developers to come up with their own ideas for addicting brain-teasers, there are plenty of quality puzzle games out there for the iPhone and iPad. But these puzzlers are the cream of the crop. From new takes on familiar ideas to unique hybrids — these are the ten best puzzle games for iOS.
![10 Awesome Animated Google+ Profiles [VIDEOS]](http://8.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/125,animatedgoogleplusprofiles.jpg)
Apple Inc., Made In America
There are two sayings on the back of every Apple product:
Designed By Apple in California and Assembled in China. These statements
attempt to say that even though the products might be assembled in a
different country, Apple is an American company — a fact Apple
proclaimed loudly today with a new web page titled Creating jobs through innovation.Apple has been under fire lately regarding its overseas manufacturing partners. Apple hired the Fair Labor Association to conduct voluntary audits of the final assembly partners, including Foxconn’s massive Asian facilities. But consumers and activists alike aren’t buying it. It’s a smokescreen, they say. Foxconn will just hide the children and give everyone a new pillow prior to inspector’s arrival. This has rightly put Apple on the defensive.
How To Manufacture Desire
Editor’s Note: This guest post is written by Nir Eyal,
a founder of two startups and an advisor to several Bay Area companies
and incubators. Nir blogs about technology and behavior engineering at nirandfar.com.Type the name of almost any successful consumer web company into your search bar and add the word “addict” after it. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Try “Facebook addict” or “Zynga addict” or even “Pinterest addict” and you’ll soon get a slew of results from hooked users and observers deriding the narcotic-like properties of these web sites. How is it that these companies, producing little more than bits of code displayed on a screen, can seemingly control users’ minds? Why are these sites so addictive and what does their power mean for the future of the web?
We’re on the precipice of a new era of the web. As infinite distractions compete for our attention, companies are learning to master new tactics to stay relevant in users’ minds and lives. Today, just amassing millions of users is no longer good enough. Companies increasingly find that their economic value is a function of the strength of the habits they create. But as some companies are just waking up to this new reality, others are already cashing in.
Top 10 Bloggers of the world and their earnings
We all know Blogging is a hobby and half of humans on internet have a
blog. But do you know its becoming a serious business, more serious
than you can ever imagine. Do you know that there are some bloggers in
the world whose earnings sometime exceeds the earning capability of a
large firm where thousands of people work.These are the people who have
created a new breed of business.
A business where no investement is required except a laptop and an Internet connection (sometime nominal hosting charges).
A business which anyone can start off but some can really make it BIG.
A business which is location Independent .
A business where 99% of the people start it a hobby and after
sometime they see that this hobby had surpassed their lifetime income.
I have tried to collect few bloggers and their earning from the whole world. Have a Look.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
10 Strategies for Non-Profits on Pinterest
Non-profits are utilizing Pinterest as an extension of their organizations, using photography, infographics and other visuals to show supporters more about their missions.
Pinterest’s goal is to connect “people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests.” Non-profits, then, can use the social site to connect people based on their social passions, and since non-profits work with and for the community, Pinterest can certainly come in handy.
Last week, we covered 10 non-profits that are particularly awesome at leveraging Pinterest for social good, but how did they get there? What are their strategies?
1. Know Your Audience
It’s important to understand who is using Pinterest before you start branding through the network. Of Pinterest’s 10 million+ users, 87% are women, and the average age of users spans between 25 and 54. So, what do you do with this information? How do you know what to pin?
Daljit Singh, office manager intern at Jolkona and curator of the organization’s Pinterest, says that a fun project helped. The staff of the non-profit, which is a web platform that connects you with global development projects and shows you the impact of your donation, asked: If Jolkona were a person, who would it be? They decided that Jolkona would be a woman in her mid-to-late 20s with mixed ethnicity. She would also drink coffee, ride the bus and listen to indie rock.
“Because so many of our regular online donors match the demographic of users on Pinterest,” says Singh, “it wasn’t really a question of if we should request an invite, but rather when we would receive an invite.”
Jolkona tries to keep its pins colorful, light, creative and relevant to the non-profit’s mission. Whenever Singh needs to determine if a pin is relevant, she can think back to the description of Jolkona as a person.
2. Get Personal
When it comes to social media, users respond better to personal influence than widespread branding.
Sarah Cohen, communications and development manager at charity: water, a non-profit that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations, says it’s important for staff members who are pinning to be familiar with Pinterest and really love the site. “Our staff is young, curious and hungry for information,” she says. “We love sharing books we’ve read, bands we just checked out, the newest gadget or some new gear for the field.”
3. Reveal Yourself
When the Jolkona staff looked at its Facebook statistics, they found that the most engagement came from posting visuals. “At first, Pinterest was a great place to find new infographics and pictures to provide content for Facebook and our blog,” says Singh. “However, as we started gaining new followers, our strategy changed and we decided it was best to pin things…that help show our audience who we really are.” You can find various campaigns, projects, goals and photos of staff members and volunteers on Jolkona’s Pinterest page.
The folks at charity: water have a board called “Photo of the Day,” a concept that founder Scott Harrison came up with in 2009 for the organization’s Twitter page. Mo Scarpelli, the multimedia producer at charity: water, says, “Many of our followers [on Pinterest and Twitter] look to the POD as a daily source of inspiration and hope, a reminder that we can change (and are already changing) the water crisis.”
Cohen adds, “This idea of showing the impact is core to the work we do…The spirit and the joy of our photography was a perfect fit for the optimistic nature of [Pinterest].”
4. Focus on the Achievable
It has become a trend for individuals to use Pinterest for dreams — dream houses, dream weddings, etc. But as a non-profit organization, you’re all about making things possible.
The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network‘s mission is to advance research, support patients and create hope. “Our goal is to provide helpful content for all individuals who have been affected by pancreatic cancer,” says Laura Behrman, social media manager at the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, “whether they are a survivor, have a loved one diagnosed with the disease or have lost a friend. In an effort to attract more support for our efforts, we are educating the general public about the organization and the disease through Pinterest.”
For charity: water, Cohen says the staff “looks to inspire our supporters with images of hope and opportunity that the water crisis is solvable.”
5. Make It a Team Effort
Get various staff members involved with your organization’s Pinterest to diversify your boards and flesh them out.
A recently added charity: water board is “Products We Love.” Cohen says that the board is comprised of brands the staff admires, most of which “are partnering with a non-profit or have a philanthropic component to their business model, like Feed Projects, TOMS and Falling Whistles.”
You don’t necessarily need to have multiple staffers use the Pinterest account directly. At the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, for example, Behrman is currently the only one pinning, but employees and volunteers contribute ideas and repin on their personal boards.
6. Fundraise
Pinterest makes it extremely simple to sell various items, helping you raise money for your non-profit. Whether it’s a t-shirt with your company logo or an inspiring poster, all you need to do is pin the image and type the “$” sign with the price in the description box. Pinterest automatically adds a nifty banner in the top-left corner of the image, displaying the cost, and the item will be added to the Gifts tab on the Pinterest homepage.
7. Repin/Highlight Other Non-Profits
Like all forms of social media, Pinterest isn’t a place to over-promote. Avoid this is by mixing original pinning with repins of images from other non-profits within your sphere of influence. Users receive an email notification when their images are repinned and they are credited on your repin, which can increase their following. The non-profit you repin may return the favor, allowing Pinterest to become a channel for valuable, non-disruptive cross-promotion.
8. Add Pinterest to Your Website/Project Pages
This may seem obvious, but it’s often overlooked with new networks. You can add various Pinterest “goodies” (a “pin it” button, follow button, logos, etc.) not only to your homepage, but also to project pages for more exposure.
9. Pin Videos
She admits that Jolkona hasn’t received many repins for videos, but it has helped to increase traffic to the blog and adds something interesting to the Pinterest page. “There are far fewer videos than images on Pinterest at this point, so use them to distinguish [your non-profit],” Singh advises.
10. Be Inviting
Pinning can sometimes seem like an individualized, solitary action, but it’s important to interact with others and keep community in mind. For non-profits, Pinterest is more than just posting interesting visuals — if used properly, it can be an extension of your organization and, when applicable, a support system.
Through the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network’s Pinterest, says Behrman, “We create a community that is inviting for others to share their story and connect with not just our organization, but with others going through a similar experience.”
How to Maintain Traditional Customer Service in the Social Media Age
Duke Chung co-founded Parature
in 2000, with a vision to provide superior customer support software
accessible via the Internet. Today, Parature’s Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS) product suite supports millions of end users worldwide.
You’ve been monitoring your Facebook wall and Twitter
pages, responding to customer inquiries. But what are the next steps
you should take to stay abreast of the latest trends in social service?The emergence of social media communities requires you to track a new set of customer service metrics. Fortunately, you’ll have a better understanding of who your customers are and their service expectations. In some cases, it might even mean the end of traditional service level agreements (SLAs).
Service Level Agreements — How Will They Change?
SLAs are becoming more complex to manage because of the public, viral nature of social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Some consumers decide to “cut the line,” gravitating to these channels because they think they will get the fastest response.
So, are SLAs still relevant? Is it acceptable to let customers “cut the line?” Should you always prioritize Twitter service requests over requests placed through traditional service channels? What should be the response time on each channel — be it web, email, phone or social media?
The fact is that SLAs still have a purpose, but because of the very public nature of social media channels, companies need to know where their customers are and understand expected response time on each of those channels. It’s a delicate balance: Companies must understand that some channels require faster more personal responses, but traditional service channels still demand attention.
We have a few recommendations on how to handle impact of social channels on service requests and traditional SLAs.
- Know inside and out who your customers are, what channels they gravitate to when it comes to customer service, and the expectation for response time on those channels. For example, if the majority of your customers frequent Facebook and Twitter for customer support, invest more in personal, timely responses from both your customer service and marketing teams. When a consumer asks a question on Facebook, he does not want to receive an automated response, fast as it may be. Consumers expect both personal and fast replies on Facebook. If you find that many of your customers seek help on your social media channels, host knowledge bases on those networks. It is a good way for consumers to find answers to commonly asked questions, and it frees up the time your customer service team would otherwise spend personally answering the same questions over and over again.
- Evaluate how urgent the inquiry really is, and see if you’re able to answer quickly and personally with some initial suggestions to solve his or her problem. If the answer requires further involvement, that’s ok. Tell the consumer his inquiry has been received and that it is being further evaluated by the customer service team. This will not only show that you’re responsive, but it will also give you more time to escalate the issue and route it to the correct representative in a more reasonable timeframe. Customers will understand that every service question cannot be answered instantly.
- Social media service instantly reflects on your brand and directly impacts your company’s marketing efforts. If you are slow to provide an initial response, or you don’t provide any response at all, it can cast your brand in a poor light. Your social media responses are public and will be read and shared with other consumers. The fact is that social media has really blurred the lines between marketing and customer service. Just make sure the two teams work together to tackle social service.
- Don’t ignore traditional channels because you’ve become focused on social media. Remember that social media has simply provided a new channel for engaging with your customers; it has not replaced the other channels. And just because a customer is reaching out to you on Twitter does not mean you need to drop everything and respond instantly; you must evaluate and discern the level of urgency first. The balance is important: You can’t simply move all of your great service exclusively to social media channels at the expense of traditional channels.
Better Metrics Management
In social service 2.0, it’s important to track several metrics and adjust your strategy as volume and complexity grow. Response time, time to resolve, tickets opened per day and tickets resolved per day are all part of traditional customer service metrics, but social media can render them more complex.
Devise a system that allows you to track the number and complexity of support requests coming through social media vs. phone or email. Keep track of response times across sites like Twitter and Facebook. As time increases, develop a strategy to push complex requests to another channel, such as email, where customer service representatives (CSRs) can quickly match up new inquiries with cases that have already been opened. As the volume (tickets opened per day) mounts, create canned content, in the form of responses or linkable knowledge base articles, for the most frequently asked questions.
You should also monitor these additional metrics that specifically involve social media channels.
- The “net-new” group of customers. These are the people for whom you’ve provided a support channel over social channels. It’s likely that this new group of social users is different than the customers who have been contacting you via email or phone.
- The number of times other customers — not the company — respond to support requests and inquiries. For example, a visitor to your Facebook page asks technical questions about a particular product release, and he or she is quickly answered by one of your Facebook fans. The frequency of this sort of event indicates the value of your social support, and shows how many brand advocates you have.
Marketing and Customer Service Both Report to Social Media Training
If a B2B company has established an online community to address technical problems, customer service probably owns the social media effort. But B2C companies are heavily invested in tracking customer attitude and effect on brand issues. In these companies, marketing will have to collaborate with support teams about inquiries via social media channels.
Make sure that each team knows the protocol for dealing with social media. Hot button issues will arise — via Twitter in particular — and sometimes you’ll have to respond as quickly as possible. In such cases, it’s appropriate for marketing to step in and indicate that they’re responding in turn.
In anticipation of these issues, have a triage and a crisis response plan in place. As discussed, a negative comment on Twitter doesn’t automatically constitute a crisis that requires interrupting a service rep. Discern the nature and depth of the complaint and respond appropriately. As a safeguard, monitor who in the company is responding to inquiries to ensure collaboration between marketing and customer service.
Bottom Line: Adapt and Evolve
Consumer facing companies will have to learn the rules of the road for social service 2.0 if they want to survive. SLAs with long windows of response time simply don’t work on today’s public social platforms.
Know your audience, understand the tight response expectations on social media channels, and keep in mind the very public nature of these platforms that will directly impact your brand. Use tools like knowledge bases to save time and costs, and make sure your marketing and customer service teams are tightly connected and openly communicating with one another.
While you can’t totally control whether consumers “cut the line” by racing to social networks, you can control how quickly and personally you respond on those channels. Stay on top of important metrics to make sure you are responding to each customer, regardless of the channel he is using, in a timely, thoughtful manner that will reflect positively on your brand.
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