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Online Marketing

Online Marketing: How To Decide Which Social Media Platforms To Invest In

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Social Media

A good social media marketing strategy is an essential part of running any business. There’s a potential market of over two billion social media users out there. You’d be crazy not to reach out to it, right?  But for social media to work for your business, you need to invest time in it. Engaging with your audience is something you should ideally devote some time to every day. For the big brands, that’s no problem. They have round-the-clock social media teams running all of their online marketing. I’m guessing you don’t have the budget for that!

And that means it’s even more important to invest your limited time wisely by choosing the right social media platforms for your business. I’m going to show you how to decide which social media platform to invest in. From Facebook to Snapchat, each platform has its benefits and its drawbacks. Let’s take a look:

Facebook

Facebook is the world’s biggest social media platform, with around two billion monthly active users at the last count. Almost half of these users will check their account several times each day. Businesses can share a growing choice of content, including photos, updates, offers, events, links and live video. You can also make use of Facebook’s relatively affordable advertising tools to help your posts reach their target audience. Facebook users tend to be a little older than those of the newer social media platforms, with the majority falling in the 25-54 age range. So if this is your target audience, Facebook could be for you.

It’s also a good choice for the time-poor, as it’s important not to post too often. One quality post a day is the maximum you should be aiming for – that’s pretty low-maintenance. Facebook is a great platform for running brand contests. On Qwertee’s Facebook page, for example, they run a daily T-shirt giveaway. Users have to like, share and comment to be in with a chance of winning, giving their page a great boost and increasing visibility. The more engagement your post receives, the more visible it will become on Facebook.

Twitter

Using Twitter for your business is a highly effective way to connect with some of its 328 million active users. Many businesses use it both to promote their brand (with short 140-character Tweets) and handle customer service enquiries. Retweeting and sharing is key on Twitter, so take the time to get involved in conversations relevant to your business, link with influencers and celebrate your followers.

If networking and customer service are important parts of your business, Twitter could be an excellent choice for you. On the downside, click-through rates are usually pretty low in terms of driving traffic to your website. Innocent drinks have nailed their Twitter marketing by keeping content light, funny and friendly – then slipping in the odd tweet promoting their products.

Instagram

This popular photo-sharing platform has around 700 million active users and boasts way higher engagement stats than Facebook and Twitter. Businesses can share captioned photos and videos, with a selection of easy-to-use filters and editing tools on hand to make your content look its best. It’s a great place to build brand loyalty, although recent changes to their algorithm and the inability to include clickable links in your posts can make it difficult to convert engagement into sales.

The platform is in the process of launching Instagram Shopping, which allows users to tap directly on a photo to shop the product. So watch this space if your business sells clothes, jewellery or beauty products – you could potentially have a fantastic e-commerce platform here.

With its focus on visual imagery, Instagram is well-suited to businesses selling attractive products. Take online lifestyle store YOOX. Their Instagram account is packed with beautiful, feel-good images that not only feature their products, but help create the brand’s cohesive style and identity.

YouTube

If you fancy building a video presence online, YouTube can be an excellent platform for your business. Over 4 billion videos are being viewed every day – and that’s growing fast. Using YouTube as part of your marketing strategy will also help improve your authority and visibility in Google’s search results. You’ve probably noticed that YouTube videos feature more and more in their search results.

If your business is devoted to selling products with a practical application, YouTube is a great place to both demonstrate your products and establish yourself as a source of useful information. Lush Hair Extensions are nailing this with a regular stream of helpful and creative video tutorials, organised into easy-to-find categories. Their YouTube channel is all about subtly promoting their products while providing a valuable service to their subscribers.

Pinterest

This content-sharing platform is one for the ladies. Around 80% of Pinterest’s 100 million active users are women, making it the ideal choice for businesses reaching out to a female market. You can develop your own Pinterest boards to showcase products and build your brand identity, as well adding ‘Save’ buttons to your website so that visitors can ‘Pin’ your images to their own boards. This is a great way to grow traffic.

Pinterest can be one of the more time-consuming platforms to manage, but once your images start being shared traffic can grow exponentially as users effectively act as your promoters. There’s also a new Pinterest buy button that allows customers to buy your product without leaving Pinterest – and it’s free!

If your business is all about beautiful products, whether that’s fashion, food or interiors, Pinterest could be your ideal match. Green Wedding Shoes are a big Pinterest success story, creating inspirational boards showcasing wedding trends and ideas, as well as adding ‘Save’ buttons to their site.

Snapchat

If your business has a young target market, you might want to consider using mobile app, Snapchat. Over 60% of its 166 million daily users are under the age of 24. It might take a little time to get your head around but, used creatively, Snapchat can be a fantastic way of reaching the millennial market.

You basically create photo and video content, or Snaps, that disappear after 10 seconds of viewing – great for building hype around short-term deals. There are also chat features along with loads of fun filters and effects to play around with. You can even pay to create your own Snapchat filter for your business. Make-up brand Birchbox use Snapchat to showcase their products with ingenious Snapchat Stories charting the stages of real makeovers. They also offer up exclusive Snapchat deals and host live chats once a week.

[“Source-businesscomputingworld”]

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Education

IBPS RRB VI prelims admit card/call letter released: Where and how to download

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) will release the admit cards of RRBs officers Scale I preliminary examination 2017 this month.

The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) on Monday released the admit cards of officers Scale I preliminary examination 2017 for recruitment in participating regional rural banks (RRBs). The online preliminary examination for officer scale I will be held on September 9, September 10 and September 16, 2017 (if required).

Steps to download the call letter/admit card for Officer Scale I exam:

1) Go to official website of IBPS

2) Click on the link to download call letter (admit card) for CRP RRBs-VI officers scale I running on the top of the page

3) You will be directed to the login page

4) Enter your registration no and password

5) Enter the captcha code

6) Click on login and your admit card will be displayed on the screen

7) Take a print-out and save it on your computer

No hard copy of admit card will be sent to the candidates.

The commission has also issued an information handout for the examination which can be checked at the bottom of the page.

Preliminary exam pattern:

The preliminary examination will be of 45-minute duration, with two sections carrying 80 marks for 80 questions.

For officer scale I there will be 40 questions of reasoning and 40 questions of quantitative aptitude while for office assistant there will be 40 questions of reasoning and 40 questions of numerical ability. The medium of exam will be Hindi/English.

To be successful (for both posts), one needs to qualify in both the tests by securing a minimum cut-off marks set by the IBPS.

 

 

[“source=hindustantimes”]

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News Update

From Wallets and UPI to Blockchain, How Digital Payments are Evolving in India

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

From Wallets and UPI to Blockchain, How Digital Payments are Evolving in India

HIGHLIGHTS

  • The government has played a key role in the digitisation of cash in India
  • Digital payments went down in February but are rising again
  • Upcoming payments firms will have to expand reach via new channels

Most accounts of successful digitisation feature technology providers or tech-hungry consumers in the lead role. But in the story of digital payments in India, it is the government that is the unlikely hero.

In his budget speech this year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley set the nation a target of 25 billion digital transactions for 2017-18. And enabling this, we have the creation of a new category of financial institutions, namely the Payments Banks. Telecom/ e-commerce companies have turned into payments banks, and are processing huge numbers of low-value transactions via digital wallets and other electronic prepaid instruments for their subscribers and customers, many of whom never had the benefit of formal financial services.

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In August 2014, India’s financial inclusion agenda got a huge boost with the launch of the “Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana”, devised to provide every Indian easy access to basic banking services. In just over two and a half years, the Jan Dhan Yojana has garnered a record breaking 282.3 million “no-frills” bank accounts and deposits worth Rs. 640 billion. From here, the next step is to enable these accounts to make and receive digital payments. Aadhaar, India’s unique identification program, is the perfect platform for that because it links to bank accounts to enable both Direct Benefit Transfer (of government payouts) and a host of simple financial transactions via the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System.

aadhaar card reuters 548

Another government initiative that ended up promoting digital payments, even though that was not its primary intent, was the overnight demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes in November 2016. With about 86 percent of cash instantly going out of circulation, consumers from all segments, and even tiny, unorganised businesses were forced into digital transactions, shooting that number from 672 million in November 2016, to 958 million just a month later. Even after the new notes flowed into the system and digital transactions dipped considerably, they remained at higher than pre-demonetisation levels at 763 million in February 2017, and were at 844.7 million in June 2017, as per the RBI.

But arguably, the government’s crowning achievement is the Unified Payments Interface, which has transformed the fragmented mobile payments landscape with an environment where money can move from any bank or financial provider to any other, instantly, cheaply, securely and transparently.

The path ahead
Although the average Indian consumer is way more financially empowered today than a few years ago, as a nation, India still has a long way to go. Getting the one billion plus largely feature phone subscribers to use their device for simple financial transactions is one thing, educating them into financially responsible, informed consumers, quite another. Although India’s payments infrastructure is looking solid, there is a need for a massive effort to build awareness about basic financial management as well as safe financial practices to protect customers from fraud. The fact that India is deemed a favourite target for cyber-attack underlines the seriousness of the problem.

Viability is a big challenge for India’s niche digital payment providers, who are pouring large sums of money into acquiring customers and keeping them happy. At present, almost all digital payment services are being offered free of cost or with attractive incentives – for instance Paytm Payments Bankcharges no fees on any online transaction, while Airtel Payments Bank offers free talktime. Once the honeymoon is over, providers will certainly look at charging these services, which might put the brakes on growth.

payent1

One way to keep costs (and hence fees and charges) down is to leverage Blockchain and other open source technologies to facilitate digital payment transactions. Actually, Blockchain fells several challenges in one go – it collapses transaction time and cost, improves transparency, and provides virtually impenetrable security. It can also scale up to meet India’s requirements with ease.

The last point is crucial because it is also the key to viability. Niche payment providers will need to extend their services down to the very last mile and feature phone to sustain the business; banks, although under less pressure, should also look at expanding reach via mobile and other channels, such as micro ATMs and business correspondent agents carrying handheld devices for delivering digital payments to the doorstep.

Rajashekara V Maiya is Associate Vice President & Head – Finacle Product Strategy.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]
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News Update

Paytm update: No need to open app now, transfer money directly from phone book; here’s how

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

paytm app, paytm, paytm update, paytm app update, paytm transfer, paytm money, paytm send money, paytm share money, paytm transaction, paytm application, paytm phone book, paytm contacts, paytm money transfer, paytm mobile

One of India’s most popular mobile applications Paytm has just rolled out a new update. Under the latest changes being made, Paytm has launched a new feature where it will enable users to send money without even opening the app. This new update is a major change as it will make money sharing and easier process on the app and it is meant for that. Paytm will essentially enable users to share money with his/her contacts directly from the phonebook app. They will now have no reason to open the Paytm app every time they wish to make a transaction unless they prefer to do so.

It should be noted that the latest feature on Paytm is currently only available for Android smartphones only. This means iOS users cannot avail the service right now, but may expect it to launch on their devices soon. Paytm says the new feature is designed to make it easier for users to send money to friends and family. The app will put Paytm in direct competition with WhatsApp, which is currently the biggest messaging app in India with over 200 million monthly active users. Interestingly the report comes as WhatsApp is working on integrating UPI payments service within the app. Paytm claims to have over 200 million users in India.

Here’s how to use the new feature to make payments via Paytm: Just open the contacts list on your smartphone, select a contact, tap on ‘Send Money’ and enter the desired amount to instantly transfer money. A user will need to update their Paytm app as well in order to enable the feature. Also, you will need to give Paytm access to your contacts book in order for this feature to work.

While the new feature will make payments from Paytm directly integrated into contacts, reports indicate the company has plans to go beyond the payments space. A new report by PTI had said Paytm is planning to introduce a messaging service, which will be rolled out by the end of the month.

Source:-financial express

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