What are the benefits with Relationship marketing?

Relationship marketing is a customer relationship management aspect that focuses on customer loyalty and long-term customer engagement rather than short-term goals such as customer acquisition and individual sales. Relationship marketing aims to create strong, even emotional customer connectivity with the brand, which can lead to continuous business, freedom of expression, and customer information that can lead to potential customers.

Strategies for customer relationship marketing are:

• Show customers who you value with each interaction - consider spontaneous recognition and unexpected enthusiasm
• Listen and respond to customers. Use social media monitoring tools to respond to comments and complaints as well as customer concerns
• Provide free information to your customers. Identify the topics and interests that customers have, and then create content to remove them and provide free access to customers, such as informational videos about recently purchased products.
• Expanded loyalty rewards. Any company can offer benefits and rewards, but you must expand beyond the typical rewards program and be offered to people who like them or recognize them in unexpected ways.
• Frequently contacted - Relationships are nothing without communication, so make sure you often communicate with your customers through social media, emails, messages, etc.

Customer Relationship Marketing Benefits

• Consistent customer experience;
• Collecting customer feedback;
• Raising customer profitability;
• Creating customer attorneys;

Social Media in Numbers

Every social networking sites have liminatition and recommendations about size of image, covers and videos. Numbers differs. Smart marketers should orient in this numbers and know dimensions and other details defined by each social media platform.

Facebook

Image for cover Photo should be 820x310px ut minimum size is 399 x 150 px and the smaller photo will be stretched.  Recommended upload size of shared image should be 1200 x 630 pixels.

Cover photo you upload must be at least 399px wide and 150px tall.

Timeline image is automatically scaled down to 40px by 40px but the thumbnails for shared links display at 450px by 235px.

Twitter

Header photo 1500x500 with maximum file size 10MB with file format JPG, GIF or PNG. Max to appear expanded 1024 x 512 pixels but minimum 440 x 220 pixels. Maximum file size for photo is 5 MB and 3 MB for animated GIF.  

Google +

It recommended to choose cover photo that has 1080 x 608 pixels when shared images should be with minimum width of 497 pixels and maximum upload 2048 x 2048 px. Google + also allow to use video for social media marketing.

Instagram supports vertical and horizontal images between 566px and 1350px in height. The maximum size for all image formats is 1080px. Instagram has 3 image orientation: square, horizontal, vertical.

Take into consideration mentioned information before you prepare media materials with different sizes for all social networks and save to your cloud, gallery, if you use the same images and videos for different channels.

We recommend to save images, videos in your cloud or computer’s Gallery with at once with one more key word that represent social media network. It will help you to choose the right image (size, dimension) faster for specific social media platform. For example, company_business-people-fc.jpg

What is Advertising?

You have probably heard of the word "Advertising". In this article, we will dig deeper into this!

What is Advertising?
Advertising is an audio or visual form of marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It is also known as "advertisement" or "ad" or "advert".


Where can you see Advertising?
You can see it almost anywhere in the various mass media - including newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor advertising or direct mail, search results, blogs, social media, websites and text messages.

Why should you start your company?
Ads are one of the ways how to boost the visibility of your company, if you do it right, it can be eye caching thing and anyone can recognize your brand and start trusting it. With ads, you are boosting customer base list!

Some interesting facts:

• Worldwide spending on advertising in 2015 amounted to an estimated US$529.43 billion.
• Advertising's projected distribution for 2017 was 40.4% on TV, 33.3% on digital, 9% on newspapers, 6.9% on magazines, 5.8% on outdoor and 4.3% on radio.
• Internationally, the largest ("big four") advertising-agency groups are Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP.
• In Latin, advertere means "to turn towards".

A bit of history:
Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters. Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia. Lost and found advertising on papyrus was common in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. The tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art paintings that date back to 4000 BC.

Marketing value

The marketing value, also known as customer value, is the difference between a potential client's assessment of the benefits and cost of one product compared to others. Value can also be expressed as the direct relationship between the benefits received and the costs incurred. 

Types of marketing values:

Monetary value: The price paid in this case depends on the offered securities. This value requires a compromise between other values ​​and monetary costs.

Psychological Value: The extent to which a product allows consumers to express themselves or feel better.

Social Value: The extent to which a product owner or service provider allows the consumer to communicate with others.

Functional value: this type of value is an offer, a solution offered by the customer.

And more...

By giving value to the marketing and your potential clients, it might increase sales and better your service and rank. Marketing is one of the most necessary things in business, don't forget to give the value to it.

In order for a company to deliver value to its customers, they must take into account what is called the "common market offer". This includes the reputation of the organization, the representation of employees, the benefits of products and technological qualities compared to competitors' market offerings and prices. Thus, the value can be defined as the relationship between the company's offerings on the market and its competitors.

The underlying concept of value in marketing is human needs. The basic human needs may include food, shelter, affiliation, love and self-expression. Both culture and individual personality shape human needs, which is known as the will. When they want to support purchasing power, they become requirements.

What are the types of marketing?

Any of businesses needs to have at least one marketing idea and use it to acquire customers and maintain a relationship with them. We will go through some of the most popular marketing types.

Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is also known as SEO, and it important for websites to improve the rankings or visibility of a web page in search engines search results. SEO programs work to move targeted search results higher in rankings when results are presented to users of search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and others. The higher the ranking when results are displayed, the more likely consumers are to click on the link and go to the targeted website.

Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is important for business visibility and recognition. It is marketing using social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter Google+ or other similar sites.

E-Mail Marketing
E-mail marketing is based on the distribution of a message via e-mail. E-Mail marketing can consist of a text message, a combination of words and images such as in a display ad, or provide access to a video on a website or public video site such as YouTube. E-mail marketing also has the ability to offer a link to a specific website to drive traffic and revenue to that site.

Video Marketing
Video Marketing is marketing through the use of videos, such as found on YouTube or similar sites. Video marketing marries the strengths of sound and moving the sight to present a powerful message.

Which of the marketings do your business use?

What does copyright sign mean?

Almost all of the websites use copyright symbol(©) in the footer section. But hat does that symbol means? We will go through the meaning of it in this article!

What does © mean?
© stands for copyright. It is copyright symbol or also known as copyright sign. The symbol is used in copyright notices for works other than sound recordings.

Use of the notice informs the public that a work is protected by copyright, identifies the copyright owner, and shows the year of first publication. Furthermore, in the event that a work is infringed, if the work carries a proper notice, the court will not give any weight to a defendant’s use of an innocent infringement defence—that is, to a claim that the defendant did not realize that the work was protected. An innocent infringement defence can result in a reduction in damages that the copyright owner would otherwise receive.

The notice for visually perceptible copies should generally contain these elements together, or in close proximity to each other:

• The symbol © (letter C in a circle); the word “Copyright”; or the abbreviation “Copr.”
• The year of first publication.
• The name of the copyright owner.

Examples:

• © 2015 Microsoft
• © 2012 Google Inc. All rights reserved.
• © 1997-2015 Netflix, Inc.
• © 2015 The New York Times Company
• © 2015 NFL Enterprises LLC.

What is white hat hacker?

There are many types of hackers and one of them is white hat hackers, also known as ethical hackers. Today we will discuss what is an ethical hacker.

What is a hacker?
Hacker is a person who uses computer and networking or other skills to overcome technical problems. By hearing term "hacker" the very first thought might be - the person who uses his or her abilities to gain unauthorized access to systems or networks in order to commit crimes, but as mentioned before - there are many types of hackers like an ethical hacker, black hat hacker and grey hat hacker. A hacker may, for example, steal information to hurt people via identity theft, damage or bring down systems and, often, hold those systems hostage to collect a ransom.

What is an ethical hacker?
Ethical hackers, strive to operate in the public's best interest, rather than to create turmoil. Many white hat hackers work doing penetration testing, hired to attempt to break into the company's networks to find and report on security vulnerabilities. The security firms then help their customers mitigate security issues before criminal hackers can exploit them.

Businesses need ethical hackers now more than ever because almost every company invest time, money and resources in securing their systems and platforms to prevent data breaches, illegal intrusions and DDOS attacks. The global cyber spending will most probably cross $1 trillion by 2021. Data breaches happening almost daily, that's why businesses look to ethical hacking professionals who can prevent devastating security intrusions.

Power of Hashtag

Nowadays hashtags are used by millions on all social networking sites. The idea of using a hashtag came from Chris Messina in 2007 but Twitter added an option for users to search for hashtags only in 2009. It is a way of making it easier for people to find, follow, and contribute to a conversation.

You need to follow some simple rules to make #: no punctuation, special characters like % ‘’ ! and no spaces, start from #, don’t string too many words together with a single hashtag, Avoid over-tagging every word in your post.

Why do you need to use a hashtag?

• It helps you get found by your target audience.
• It improves your clickthrough rates
• A hashtag is an easy way for people to categorize, find and join conversations on a particular topic.
• Hashtags can help you to communicate with followers, drive engagement for your content, and attract a new audience to your brand.

# should become part of every post so start from popular hashtags in your industry or trending # and move to using specific company hashtag.

Here are facts about the hashtag.

• Around 125 million hashtags are shared by Twitter’s 328 million users every day.
• The first hashtag to be used on Twitter was Messina’s sample #barcamp.
• The term hashtag was added to the Merriam Webster dictionary in 2014. The definition said: “A word or phrase preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorises the accompanying text (such as a tweet).”
• It was originally called Octothorpe. AT&T employee Don MacPherson thought the sign needed a more official name, so he chose Octothorpe—“octo” because it has eight points, and “thorpe” because he was a fan of football hero Jim Thorpe.

At the moment, most popular business’ hashtags are #jobs, #business, #sales, #economy, #marketing, #socialmedia, #startup.

What are the most used hashtags for you?

Internationalization and localization of website

In our global world and competition is not possible to be focused on consumers from one region who speak only one language. Every business think about enlargement.

For this reason, your webpage should be translated and available to read in different languages for different people all over the world. It means that we are facing with two definitions “internationalization”and “localization”.

Internationalization (also called globalization) is adaptation by design and develop of website or document content to languages and cultures. For example, varieties of writing direction. English is left to right, but Arabic are right to left. Some Asian languages are read vertically. Internationalization is happening automatically if your website has Unicode. Unicode is a system for "the interchange, processing, and display of the written texts of the diverse languages of the modern world." Unicode has become the top standard for identifying characters in text in nearly any language. It also supports many classical and historical texts in a number of languages.

Localization of website is adaptation to meet the particular language, cultural and other requirements of a specific target local market. It is related with customization. You need to find right words, symbols, images to adapt website to consumers. For example, icon using fingers such as an OK sign mean different things to different cultures. So why many web pages have option to switch between offered languages and choose more acceptable for website visitor. Process of localization needs both programming expertise, linguistic and cultural knowledge.

When you chose localization of website you should think about many aspects. So why it should be smart to involve native speakers and persons with knowledge about cultures. Non-professional translation looks comicand because we could not translate phrases, metaphors, words directly to the target language.

Mistakes on important details do not show respect to specific audience. Think global!

Business cards in 2018

A business card doesn’t show only information about your company or you as a worker but it also is the first impression of your business brand.

Elements you should include in your visit cards:

• Logo and company name
• Name, surname and job title
• Contact information. You want people to contact you tell them how. Nowadays, classic information address is not necessary for all business cards. For example, for photographer more important is to include a phone number or email.
• Website

Nowadays, some business cards could include information about Social Media profiles but not all.

What is a trend of business card 2018?
Simple design. Minimalism. It helps the client to focus on more important things, for example, company’s name, contact details.
A symbol that expresses your business. It also could be the simplified logo.
Interactive card design or form. Who said that business card should be rectangular. Unusual geometric form business card tells others that your company is creative and pay attention to details. Horizontal layouts are widely used format for a business card but not mandatory.
Oversized typeface. Of course, not for all possible text on the business card.
Die-cut cards. It helps to concentrate on the business card and show “wow” factor. Let clients to think about the message you want to send to them. Step up is handmade business cards.



Unusual material or removable element. Be creative and use wood, recycled paper, metal, cardboard, leather, textile, elastics, even baked goods (cookies). Give sensory experience to clients and stand out.

The digital business card shows that you follow up time. You can quickly share it. Be sure that you didn’t run too far because not all clients are so digitally intelligent.

The company have to think about details of a business card with designers, discuss and choose the best option. The card needs to be suitable for your company and represent it.

What does "™" means?

You have probably seen a ™ sign around. Do you know the usage of it? If no, then after reading this article, you will know what ™ is used for and what it actually is. Let's begin!

Where can you see a ™ sign?

A trademark may be located on a package, a label, a voucher, or on the product itself. For the sake of corporate identity, trademarks are often displayed on company buildings.

What is a ™ sign?

™ full name is Trademark and it identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others, although trademarks used to identify services are usually called service marks. The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity.

Where is ™ used?

Trademark is used to identify the brand owner of a particular product or service.

Keep in mind:

• A lot of counties require formal registration of a trademark as a precondition for pursuing this type of action;

• United States, Canada and other countries also recognize common law trademark rights;

• common law trademarks offer the holder in general less legal protection than registered trademarks.

History

In 1266, King Henry III of England passed a law requiring all bakers to make a distinctive mark for all the bread they sold. The Löwenbraü brewery in Munich, Germany claims it has used a lion (Löwenbraü means "lion's brew") as its trademark since 1383. The logo of Bass Brewery, which was trademarked in 1876, is the first image to be registered as a trademark in the United Kingdom.

The first modern trademark law was promulgated in France in 1857, and Britain first issued its trademark law, the Merchandise Marks Act, in 1862. The British act made it a criminal offence to try and sell a product under the auspices of another manufacturer.

In the U.S., Congress tried to pass a trademark law in 1870, but it was struck down by the Supreme Court that year. Congress tried again in 1881, which was revised into the Trademark Act in 1905.

Source:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/trademark.asp#ixzz5ENg6yv

Useful shortcut keys

There are a lot of useful shortcut keys, that can help you to do many tasks much faster and it is very helpful to know them, especially when you use your computer every day. In the previous article we went through F-keys usage that you can read, and in this article, we will go through some of the most popular shortcut keys.
What are we waiting for? Let's start!

Copy & Paste
If you want to copy the text you should use CTRL + C and not RMB(Right mouse button) + Copy because there are too many actions to do, right? For pasting, you can use CTRL + V.
CTRL + C = Copy text
CTRL + V = Paste text

Finding the specific text
If you want to find the specific text on the website or anywhere else - use CTRL + F or F3 key.
CTRL + F = find text
F3 = find text

Deleting full word
If you want to delete full word - use CTRL + Backspace.
CTRL + Backspace = delete full word

Save the document
If you want to save the document faster, then just use shortcut CTRL + S.
CTRL + S = save the document.

Select all
If you want to select all text or any other objects - use CTRL + A.
CTRL + A = Select all

Undo and Redo
If you want to undo your last action use CTRL + Z, but if you want the action back, use CTRL + Y, it will redo the action.
CTRL + Z = Undo
CTRL + Y = Redo


Here it is - the most used shortcut key combinations.

It’s Time to Change Your Facebook Cover

Everyone remember times when Facebook offered to add cover photo on page only but from 2017 Facebook gives interesting option to use video as cover.

The minimum dimension of Facebook Cover Video is the same as the current cover area dimension for picture: 820 x 312 pixels but recommended size: 820 x 462 pixels and resolutions should be 1080p. Videos must be at least 20 seconds long but no longer than 90 seconds. If a video isn’t specifically designed for the cover, Facebook will crop it to recommended size 820 x 462 pixels or you shall receive an error.

Facebook Cover video will autoplay and auto-loop automatically.Videos might be the perfect opportunity to give prospective visitors a taste of what it would be like to use your services or product. It is a way to introduce yourself.

How to start and how to add?

First of all, you should decide about type of video, content and set main goal you want to achieve.

Some ideas for cover video:

• 360 grade view and give a tour of your business.
• Show how to use your products or call attention to each of services.
• Use styled photoshoots and fast-changing shot.

Using services of professionals could be other way how to make videos.

Check does video set the requirements.

Next step is to log in and go to the main page of your profile.

1. Click on the “Change Cover” button. 
2. Then, when the menu appears, select “Upload Photo/Video”. 
3. Select and update necessary video. 
4. Once it’s uploaded, drag it and reposition it to your liking. 
5. Click “Next”.
6. Choose thumbnail option.
7. Click “Publish” and be proud with your work.

Wish you an inspiration!

What all of the F-keys actually do?

Have you ever wondered what does actually all F-keys do? Now, let's dig deeper into it because it can turn out very useful for you in the future.
F-keys is also known as Function keys, they are used as shortcuts to proceed certain functions. Let's start with the first one:

F1
F1 is a shortcut for help function in almost all of the applications.
Windows + F1 = Microsoft’s universal Windows Help and Support.

F2
F2 is considered as an edit key. It functions as a "rename" shortcut.
Alt + Ctrl + F2 = opens the Documents Library while on MS Office suite.

F3

F3 functions as a search shortcut. (You can also use CTRL + F shortcut)

F4
ALT + F4 is used as the great escape key. It will immediately close the current program without saving.

F5
F5 is used to refresh internet browser.
ALT + F5 will do a hard refresh - it means that it will clear the browser’s cache for a specific page, forcing it to load the most recent version that includes changes to stylesheets or other scripts. It can be very helpful for web programmers.

F6
F6 is used to toggle from the desktop files to the taskbar and the system tray icons and also is used to bring focuses on the address bar on most browsers.

F7
F7 can be used to turn on Caret browsing on Mozilla Firefox.

F8
F8 lets you enter into the Windows Start Menu during the Windows boot.

F9
F9 is used in Integrated Development Environments. By pressing CTRL + F9 it will complete the code and run it.

F10
F10 shows the menu by highlighting it in most programs.
Shift + F10 = context menu (the same as the right click).

F11
F11 opens full-screen mode.
Shift + F11 adds a new sheet on applications like on MS Excel.

F12
F12 opens "Save as" function to save your work.

Which of the F-keys did you found the most useful?

Video as Digital Marketing Tool

Using video as digital marketing tool is trend of 2018 and it is one of the newest additions to promotion toolbox. This has been a full-on video revolution year for marketers. It is a fact that most part of population is visual learners.

Video allows to increase the time spent by visitors on your site. Most of visitors use mobiles and other devices to visit your website, use social networking sites and to watch videos.

You can reach more visitors by posting videos on social networking sites.

• YouTube: More than 5 billion video views are watched each day

• Twitter: 82% of Twitter's audience watches video content

• Facebook: Around 500 million people watch Facebook videos every day

Videos can play good card for you by answering customer FAQs, showcasing

products in action, demonstrating something customers can do with your product.

It is good to know possible types of video or take consultancy from specialists from

the start for choosing the best type for your company and for each marketing steps

or products.

For example, animated videos could be done without operator, attributes, actors.

Especially, boring people talking long texts are not enough anymore to break through the clutter.

No one is interested in long videos. Make your videos short even with 15 seconds would be enough.

You just need to be with willingness to show yourself to your existing customers and potential customers.

The right Content Management System

Content Management Systems are web-based applications that are designed for the creation and updating of websites.

How important is selecting the right content management system (CMS)?

You’re not just choosing technology (source). You are looking for a solution that can be tailored to support the needs of your business.

For example, Obsidian Solutions offers those CMSs:

• WordPress;
• Drupal;
• Joomla;
• Typo3

WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal all offer great features, tons of customizations, ease-of-use, and strong security.

WordPress is the most popular!

According to the latest data, WordPress controls nearly 40 % of the CMS market. Wordpress is based on PHP and MySQL. It is immensely popular amongst the blogging community.

Drupal

The most difficult, but also the most powerful. It requires a familiar understanding of HTML, CSS and PHP.

Joomla

Great for e-commerce or social networking websites, but requires an understanding of technical skills. It’s powerful enough to run most websites without any problems, and it doesn’t require the same level of technical experience to run as Drupal either.

Typo3

Probably the main goal for which Typo3 was created, was its modularity and diversity. It is a flexible open source based on PHP and MySQL.

Note that you do not need to be genius to start using CMS and you can always use a service company that can deal with any problems and manage the source, adds new features and options.

There is almost no limit to the factors that must be considered before an organization decides to invest in a CMS. There are a few basic functionalities to always look for, such as an easy-to-use editor interface and intelligent search capabilities.

However, most factors depend on organization, aims, and view.

Filter them with your own expectations, your aims, and the purpose of the website.

Social Media Sites for Business

Social Media is quite young computer-based technology but really rapidly developing.

The first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other users.

It's 2018. Nowadays, people have so many social networking sites, tools, apps etc..

Each of them has specific audience, functions, aims and presents detailed analytics.

On that day most popular social networking sites are:

1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Instagram
4. Twitter
5. Reddit
6. Pinterest
7. Ask.fm
8. Google +
9. LinkedIn
10. VK

Company should pay attention on this and choose the right one for itself. Actually, it could be more than one social media site. It depend on when your customers are located. VK is popular in Russia but the majority of Facebook users live in U.S..

Social Networking sites also trying to get place on the sun. It is plus for both sides. Facebook, for example, offer Audience Insight. It says:

"The more customer insights you have, the better you’re equipped to deliver meaningful messages to people. That’s the thinking behind Facebook Audience Insights, a new tool designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences, including aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more".

 YouTube offers YouTube Analytics and says:

"YouTube Analytics is your channel's pulse. Learn how to uncover trends to see what’s working and what's not. Find out who’s watching, what they like to watch, and which videos could make you the most money."

 With Twitter Analytics, company explores how closely its content aligns with audience profile. “Audience” analytics can help to take a closer look at your followers’:

• Demographics
• Interests
• Mobile footprint
• Buying habits

And Obsidian Solutions has question for you now. How many social networking sites do you use?

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business- and employment-oriented social networking service that operates via websites and mobile apps.

Why should you use it?

Reinforcing your reputation: As a marketing tool, LinkedIn provides a great way to share your company’s story, and develop trust and subject-matter authority through regular updates and customer recommendations. You can generate leads and referrals. With LinkedIn’s company pages, it’s easy to communicate what you have to offer and to tailor this message to different industries, groups, and demographics.

Your LinkedIn profile basically represents a more complete (and interactive) resume. You can include it as a link perhaps in an email or your cover letter when you apply for jobs.

You'll always get recommendations from LinkedIn about jobs you may be interested in.

LinkedIn features:

The home feed is your news feed, showing recent posts from your connections with other professionals and company pages you're following.

All sorts of jobs listings are posted on LinkedIn everyday by employers, and LinkedIn will recommend specific jobs to you based on your current information, including your location and optional job preferences that you can fill out to get better-tailored job listings.

In addition to your connections with professionals, you can follow certain interests on LinkedIn as well. These include company pages, groups according to location or interest, LinkedIn's SlideShare platform for slideshow publishing and LinkedIn's Lynda platform for educational purposes.

When other professionals invite you to connect with them on LinkedIn, you'll receive an invitation that you'll have to approve.