Whoever said life was unfair must have certainly gone through the ever-changing Google algorithm updates. Because with every update that Google releases, SEO gets seems to get a little more complex. But, here are the Top 6 SEO Trends that will Dominate 2018 to make your lives easier. There is not just one but two main buckets that search engines look at when assessing your site compared to other sites on the web.

1. On-page: What is your site all about?
2. Off-page: How convincing is your site? How popular is it?

Gone are the days when on-page SEO was essentially synonymous with keyword stuffing, while off-page SEO involved a bit more than getting as many links as possible to your pages, that too as quickly as possible. In other words, what you rank for is largely determined by on-page factors, while how high you rank in the search results is largely determined by off-page factors. But now, both on and off-page SEO have advanced and evolved significantly. Each element of search engine optimisation now entails its own components to cater to, and each one offers its own potential for ROI. Now we are sure you definitely want to know some important differences between on-page and off-page search engine optimisation so that you can prioritise your SEO tasks effectively. As crucial as both on-page and off-page are to the success of an SEO campaign, they’re on completely different sides of the fence when it comes to enhancing your search engine rankings.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO helps in optimising diverse parts of your website that affect your search engine rankings. It’s something that you have control over and can change on your own. Some of the biggest factors are:

TITLE TAGS

Your title tags should include your keywords on each page of your site. You could look at the many best practices that go into writing an effective title tag.

HEADINGS (H1)

They are called headings for a reason. And are usually the biggest words on the page. Any wonder then, search engines give them a little more weight than your other page copy. It would be a super idea to work your target keywords into the headings of each web page.

METADATA

Metadata is a well-written description summarising the content of a particular webpage. It used to be one of the most important factors affecting search engine optimisation once upon a time. Meta descriptions should be created within a limit of 155- 160 characters, which effectively should not have anything but alphanumeric characters. Though in the current scenario, it can’t influence search engine rankings, but Meta Data does help in getting a high click-through rate.

URL STRUCTURE

Add keywords into your URLs if that can be done easily. However, you do not have to change the current URLs just so they have keywords in them. Don’t alter old URLs unless you plan on redirecting your old ones to your new ones. Consult someone who knows about this before you set out to do this.

ALT TEXT FOR IMAGES

Alt text should be added to all images on your website. The average visitor can’t see this text. The screen reader software uses alt text to help blind internet users understand the content of your images. Search engines crawl images in more or less the same way, so introducing some appropriate keywords while accurately describing the image will help search engines understand your page’s content.

FAST-LOADING PAGES, OR PAGE LOAD SPEED

In a world where everything seems to revolve around speed, we can’t blame Google for wanting to help its users find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible. It does this to provide the best user experience. Thus, optimising your pages to load faster helps your site rank higher in the search results.

PAGE CONTENT

Fresh, relevant, and useful – the content on your pages needs to be all this and more. If the users are looking for something specific on your page, they need to be able to find what they’re looking for. It needs to be easy to read and provide value to the end-user. Search engines, especially Google, have several ways to measure if your content is useful.

INTERLINKING

It is but common sense to link pages. Linking one of your website pages to other similar pages on your website offers context to the search engine and to the readers as well. Some of the known best practices are:

1. Include links in the main content of each page.
2. Paragraph links carry the most weight.
3. Use keyword-rich anchor text in links.
4. Avoid using non-descriptive anchor text (for example, read more, click here, etc.).
5. Link to relevant, deep pages.
6. Use breadcrumb navigation on every page.
7. Monitor your inbound links through Google Webmaster Tools.
8. Avoid multiple links to the same page from a single page.
9. Less links= More authority per link.

The most common practice of showing “related links” or “tags” at the end of a page or in a sidebar is done to thematically relate one page to another.

SCHEMA MARKUP

Google's understanding of a page's content is improved by adding structured data. In addition, structured data is used by Google to display "rich results" in SERPs. There are a variety of ways to add structured data to your website (plugins, Google Tag Manager, and so on), but it's always better to employ a professional if you're not comfortable writing code.

SOCIAL TAGS

It shows Google that your material is interesting, informative, and trustworthy when people share it on social media. Although not all of your website's pages are shareable, you can make the ones that are with these recommendations - ensure you have Open Graph tags and Cards installed, and provide links or social sharing buttons to make it easy for visitors to share your material.

PAGE EXPERIENCE

According to Google, "optimising for these qualities makes the web more pleasurable for users across all web browsers and surfaces, as well as helps sites progress toward user expectations on mobile." Google is working on a new ranking indicator that will favour websites that give positive user experiences (coming out in 2021). The 'page experience signal' will include core Web Vitals, as well as mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security, and obtrusive interstitial guidelines.

CORE WEB VITALS

The long-term success of a website is determined by the user experience. Google introduced Core Web Vitals in April 2020, that is, a set of signals that the company considers "essential" to all users' web experiences. These signals are used to quantify a website's user experience - from page visual stability and load speed to interactions.

• Largest Contentful Paint - Indicates when the majority of the page content has been downloaded and gauges perceived page loading speed.
• First Input Delay - Measures how long it takes a user to engage with a page for the first time.
• Cumulative Layout Shift – Assesses the visual stability of a page by quantifying the amount of layout shift on the visible page content.

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO concentrates on increasing the ability as well as the authority of your domain through the act of getting links from other websites. There’s something called “Domain Authority” that calculates how authoritative your website is compared to other sites.

Characteristics of Off-Page SEO Work

Managing an off-page SEO initiative is typically a larger responsibility and a harder task to undertake because you’ve got to start trying to affect the big wide search world, not just your corner of it. Done accurately and precisely, you can get some big bumps from off-page work. The most important and by far the biggest off-page SEO factor is the number and quality of backlinks to your website. Some examples of ways you can build good links to your website are:

• Create mind-blowing content that interests people and they want to link to it because of its value.

• Be active on social media, as the shares of your content there will ultimately generate links.

Facebook

• With 1.23 billion active users, you can and should share your content on Facebook. But don’t use a promotional tone; rather keep it light and not intrusive. Please keep in mind that interesting and light topics with pictures get more attention in the form of Likes and Share on Facebook.

Twitter and LinkedIn

• You can look at distributing your content on both these platforms. Content here can be in the form of an article, video, image, or even in the form of a simple update. If you have content of amazing quality you’ll surely be able to create a buzz around it.

Pinterest

• Pinterest is an image-sharing website that allows you to share pictures from your post to appeal to your target audience. The site can help you drive your sales.

Quora

• A question & answer platform, Quora can help you establish yourself as a subject matter expert in your field.

Video Sharing

• You can create entertaining as well as informational videos on topics like pet-care tips or different retail strategies to share them on free video hosting sites like Vimeo, YouTube, etc., generating billions of unique viewers every month.

Leveraging social interaction with your site

These days, the use of social metrics or social engagement as a ranking factor is an increasing trend. Apart from backlinks, Google now gives particular importance to social signals around your content. Whether it’s the number of people who tweet, ‘Like’, social bookmark, or “vote” via Google +1 for your content, your site’s social footprints have a direct relation with your rankings. SEO has now evolved into social.

Guest Blogging

Another way of gaining strong backlinks is guest blogging. All you need to do is create relevant and high-quality content and submit it to blogs with higher page ranks. If your article reads really well and impresses all, it will get published. But remember; don’t just take it up for the sake of getting backlinks. Also submitting articles to substandard blog sites is not going to fetch you the advantages you are looking for. And while size does matter, please remember that quality supersedes quantity. And the truth is just that creating excellent, shareable content is the first step to earning valuable links and improving your off-page SEO. So how many links is a good number of links for good off-page SEO? That is a mean one to answer and the solution will be based on the Domain Authority of your contenders, as you want to make sure you’re playing on the same field.

Which one is more important?

You simply can’t choose between on and off-page SEO. That would be almost like choosing between a foundation and a roof if you had to decide which to use for your house. On-page and off-page SEO work together in tandem to improve your search engine rankings. They complement each other. But putting the house in order would require you to focus firstly on On-page SEO and then looking at off-page SEO. Much like a foundation, you may be required to come back and do some touch-ups to your on-page SEO from time to time. Striking the right balance between the two will help make your website “bilingual” so that your users can understand it as well as the search engine robots- and that’s how your rankings start to improve. Both are extremely important and fundamental to the success of an online business. Though the world of SEO has changed over the years, it is very critical for online businesses to understand that both on-page and off-page SEOs are needed to get organic traffic from search engines. So while Off-Page SEO gets you at the top of the search engine rankings, On-Page SEO keeps you there. Consider a scenario wher e Google is considering your site’s ranking based on bounce rate, time on site, and other search engine ranking metrics. In this case, Off-Page SEO will have to push you to the top spot first. Only On-Page SEO cannot do it, except on a niche with low competition. Your site’s authority comes from the number of links pointing back to it. If you check top ranking sites for any keyword on search engine results, you will notice that most top-ranked sites have a good number of backlinks. So does it mean that Off-Page SEO is more important? According to us, On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO are both important, if you have a well-optimized post, fewer backlinks can shoot you into the top spot compared to when you have a poorly optimised site with the same number of backlinks. You can’t use one without the other, each simply supports the other. Learn both and use both to create a balance in your ranking technique and see your site succeed easily. We believe that on-page SEO and off-page SEO are like “Ying and Yang,” you just simply need both to fully flourish and enjoy maximum results. So we hope we are on the same page when we say that both on-page and off-page SEO are fundamental components of modern digital marketing. While one could go on and on that on-page is more critical since you need on-page content to have a web presence at all, off-page SEO is where much of your content promotion comes from. Off-page SEO drives extra viewers to your site. And if it sounds like we’re saying you need to promote your content, yes, that is basically what it actually comes down to. The more awareness you can build of the quality content on your web page, the more leads you’ll generate.

Conclusion

Practising both on-page and off-page SEO marketing strategies can be a tall order, and in order to utilise these strategies in an appropriate manner it’s highly recommended that you avail the services of #ARM Worldwide, the leading provider of SEO services in India. Contact us now to know more!

In today’s digital age, no matter how small or big your business is, having an online presence is undeniable. You can start with developing a website, interact on social media networks, embrace SEO strategies and create awareness using digital marketing techniques for your business. But that’s not sufficient, as for any business to survive and do well in the digital world requires “visibility and accessibility” that helps target visitors to your site. Making your business accessible and visible can increase the customer base. Aspects such as dynamic search algorithms help customers locate different businesses, places, shops, etc., online. A business with an online presence yet not accessible to users is understood as non-existent in today’s contemporary and competitive business environment. Thanks to the “Google My Business” (GMB) account that’s allowing small and local business owners to promote their product and service in the fastest and most effective way! Keep ahead by following these Best SEO Techniques to Rank #1 in Search Engines.

What is Google Business Account?

Google My Business is the top local business listing platform for owners and potential customers. It’s an online directory that helps business owners to streamline the basic yet essential information such as phone number, open hours, and address across Google Search, Google+, and Google Maps. If you have a physical office, opening a Google My Business account is a must, especially when there are multiple centres and the customer wants to locate the nearest. Google Business Account is a new interactive communication channel with your target customer, audience, and existing clients. Formerly known as Google Places, the Google My Business account is free to create and easy to update. The account also allows adding images, reviews, virtual tours, and videos of past customers to make that first quality impression. Further, Google My Business Account incorporates useful analytics on how a customer searched for your place, where they come from, and then track the performance of your work. To make the most out of your business, creating a Google Business Account is highly recommended.

How to Create a Google My Business Account?

You can create a Google My Business Account in 5 simple steps: Step 1 – Select a Gmail Account – To get started, you first need to select a Gmail Account. It is better to choose a Gmail account for marketing instead of any personal Gmail account. It will allow multiple contributors to have access to the hosting account. However, if you don't have one, it's okay to create a new Gmail just for marketing/business purposes. Step 2 – Sign up with Google My Business – Go to https://www.google.com/business/ and sign in with your Gmail Account. Now click on the main menu of "Google My Business" on the top left of the page. Step 3 – Add Business Name – Select the second option, "Create business account". It will prompt you to choose a short account name that identifies your business. Step 4 – Add Your Business Information – You need to go back to the main menu to select "Add Your Business" and create a Google Business account profile. You need to fill in your basic company name, address, website URL, business category, phone number, etc. Make sure you fill as relevant information as possible and click continue. Step 5 – Verify – You need to verify your business and go through the verification process that Google asks for; you need to agree to the terms and conditions. Make sure you follow the verification process as your Google My Business account won't go live until Google verifies your business.

You get three options to verify your business -

1. Postcard verification - Is one of the most used methods to verify business and is available to all businesses. A verification postcard is sent to the address you register in this process. On receiving the code, enter it into your GMB account to verify your business.
2. Phone verification - This option is limited to a few businesses only. You get to know if you get the option of ‘verify by phone. In this, you get an automated message to verify, and you can enter the code in your GMB account Setup.
3. Email verification - In this, you receive a code in your mail account, which is linked to your GMB account, and you enter the verification stage.

The other options include instant verification, which is available if your business’s website is verified with Google Search Console. Bulk verification is for managing the business from more than one location.

How to make the most out of Google Business Account?

Google My Business account can benefit any company/firm/shop regardless of its size and location. Once you have a verified Google business account, your customer can directly connect with you. While you are free to add or delete your product and services, the key is to include more persistent information. More relevant information will lead to higher ranking and convenience for a potential customer to reach you. Here are a few things you can do to make the most out of a Google Business Account:

• Apart from basic information make sure you have an introduction about your business, driving and parking directions, landmark, promotional offers, clear photos (nothing less than 1080×608 pixels), engaging videos and your location on Google Map updated to attract more audience.
• Never miss out on reading and responding to customers’ reviews. Nearly, 70% of customers rely on online review as much as a personal recommendation.
• Review insights and analyze analytics about your business performance and learn how to improve.
• Encourage your customers to show their appreciation with ratings, and ask them to click on the Plus One button that can endorse your product/service.
• Always keep Google happy by adhering its quality guidelines – https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?visit_id=1-636260687911278346-718463157&rd=1

As a business owner you are bound to get many benefits by using Google My Business. So try out this fun and easy way to build engagement today!

With an ever increasing focus on content creation and hence marketing that content effectively, a large focus is on the distribution channels and effectively disseminating that content to the people who can not just consume it but also effectively pass it on forward for the layman to consume the content and hence influence his actions. PR or newswires, among others like social media marketing or investing in search, are an excellent way to ensure that your brand gets a coverage or is spoken about without enforcing your ideas or being too pushy on an influencer, media personnel or a blogger.

Irrespective of the channel that you pick up, it is absolutely a must that you get your approach right and you target the people who are in synergy with the Target Audience of the brand which is communicating. It is also a must that if you want to effectively reach out to your audience that you do not stop at one mantra for success and keep exploring paths while keeping what's working for you in the mix. However, there are a few things that act as a golden rule which you must always keep in mind while drafting a digital PR that you are about to send, they are:

1) Make sure that the headline is Engaging and Tweetable

Just like any piece of content on the internet, make sure that the PR you release has a headline that is catchy and can be tweeted as it is by the influencer who reads the PR for the first time. Using a question, metaphor or even sarcasm in the headline which is poking could be a good way of writing a headline on the PR. Make sure you do not give away all the information in the PR alone so that the people actually care to go through what is written.

2) Use everyday language in the content of your PR

It is imperative to remember that not everybody is proficient in the English language equally and therefore you need to make sure that what is written is simple enough and straightforward enough for everyone to grasp it in one go. The language needs to be crisp and to the point without any ambiguity.

3) Include interesting graphics, images or even infographics in the PR

It is very important that you give full value and best chance for the blogger or journalist to cover your wire when sending it to them in the form of a PR. For this, you need to ensure that you include a good high-resolution product image, a supporting video, maybe even an infographic to support or highlight the data that is being alluded to in the release that is going out.

4) Ensure that the PR is mobile consumable

The world is going mobile and if you are approaching a blogger or an influencer, there is a very high chance he is on the move and will consume your PR on mobile. Therefore, you need to check that the PR is perfectly readable on mobile. To facilitate this, you must keep formatting simple, use universal fonts, avoid adding images or content like a gif in the body of the E-Mail.

5) Include relevant links and excerpts from Social Networks if they are active

In your digital PR, it is always a good idea to include the links of a forum or a place where the reader can either view or participate in the conversation. You should ideally also include the links as well as some chatter to all the social network accounts so that the one consuming the PR will be able to follow you for regular updates. Make sure that all the links that you include in the PR are working perfectly fine as there is nothing more embarrassing than a 404 error bein thrown on one of the links that you included in PR.

Those were some of the things that you got to keep in mind when shooting out any Digital PR. Which of the points above do you think is the most critical, or is there something that we missed out on? Let us know in the section below or on the Social Media platforms where the post has been shared.

The content of the blog post has been inspired by a newsletter issued by PRNewswire. We would like to go on record to acknowledging their work and give the due credits. You can read the entire newsletter here.

We at ARM Worldwide are super excited to announce our collaborative effort with Indian School of Communications and Reputation (SCoRe) towards providing training in the Digital PR sector, establishing it further as a critical mandate in Digital Marketing. We would be providing training for one of our expertise services, Digital PR and Communications under SCoRe's Ace Digital programme. The objective towards this collaboration is to help upcoming marketers understand the newly introduced concept of PR when it meets the Digital multiverse. Following will be our prime arenas of focus towards this initiative:

• Communications for Digital Ecosystem
• Content Strategy
• Bloggers Relationship Building and Outreach
• Online Reputation Management

On this auspicious announcement, industry veteran and SCoRe's founding dean Amith Prabhu shared his thoughts on our efforts ahead with SCoRe:

"We are creating learning modules with like-minded partners who bring a wealth of experience and solid expertise in a specific domain. These partner organisations are led by leaders of repute who want to share knowledge with a new generation of communicators. By collaborating with ARM Digital we have ensured that PR professionals get exposed to new tools in digital communications beyond social and content. We are confident this will greatly benefit client servicing abilities of participants." -- Amith Prabhu, founding dean at SCoRe

On similar note, Ritesh Singh, our CEO shared his statement of endeavour and excitement of this initiative:

When we see the traditional PR industry, we see a lot of talent, amazingly crafted communication and wisdom. But the only gap that needs to be bridged is the knowledge of Digital. With that in place, PR professionals will not only be equipped to engage an converse with the brand's audience but, will also be able to contribute towards converting them into consumers. One of our company's core value is Ecosystem++; that is giving back to the ecosystem. This association reflects the same ideology. When we endeavour to develop a robust industry acumen, the industry grows at both, micro and macro levels. -- Ritesh Singh, CEO at ARM Worldwide

To learn more about Ace Digital and SCoRe, check out their website. You can also apply for the said training.

“Google magic is working for you, even on the tiniest screens." Google stated it by unveiling their new logo which meant to reflect above lines. Believing to be updated with the modern style of working and needs, Google has also tried to make its look trendier. From being static to only desktop browser Google has now walked along to be in the race with Digital world. The main theme of this change is to be part of huge collection of sites, apps, and services that you visit on PCs, Chromebooks, smartphones, and anywhere you can find a web browser. Since 17 years, it had followed the tradition of putting same colours with changes either in its typography or putting shadow effects making the text bold or light. But this time Google has introduced a new logo and brought more reality to it through animation that wipes away the old logo and draws in the new one. The wordmark has been evolving since 1998 but this new one is the most creative and best from all. Though it has used same colour theme but the feel and style is different. With bidding adieu to “g” and signing in to “G” on browser tabs enclosed within Google colours makes it more appealing.

The story of Typography

According to an interview, back in 2014 Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the logo there were a lot of different colour iterations. He said that we ended up with the primary colour, but instead of having the pattern go in order, we put a secondary colour on the L, which brought back the idea that Google doesn't follow the rules of being primary. With its first logo in the year 1998 Google has used a serif word-mark (serifs are the filigree on the ends of traditional print typefaces like Times New Roman). With passing years the company has played not much with the typography but involved letter spacing and removing drop shadow. But the latest buzz about the 2015 logo is not about its typography but landing first time in the animation world. Though it has used the typeface geometric san-serif from serif that was in the last millennium.

Conclusion

Google love to play with colours, but during its reign it has also used logo without colours on a local homepage in recognition with the tragedy of several days. The favourite from its different style was Google Doodle which believed in new innovations. The first Google Doodle was in honour of the Burning Man Festival in the year 1998. Since then it has followed a trend to create new with every occasion. With this new logo we believe the Doodle also gets more interesting and innovating. We look forward to see more beautiful creations and ideation under the supervision of CEO, Sundar Pichai.

The trend in design changes frequently. At times, between a gap of 10 years and, rest until a company like Google decides to disrupt the concept of design, eg. the recent material approach to mobile-first designs. But in between all fuss, there is always a "language" to how a brand adapts a new face. This "language" is the mark of consistency and original face of a brand. Everything else comes on top of it. This consistent portion of translative design is what empowers a brand. The above image shows seven iterations of the Windows logo from Microsoft. They all are different in broad design. Windows 3.1 logo from 1992 is a basic artwork of a glass window. Between Windows 95 and XP, the design saw a tilt in its orientation. From Vista, Microsoft adopted this glossy-emboss approach to its design. Windows 8 became a lot simpler, flater - given the flat design trend in late 2012. It took 25 years of design evolution to get Windows 8 logo from Windows 1; a gap between 1985 and 2012. But if you look closely, Windows logo has always been about the "+" shaped separators, while the four glass panes kept changing. This was Microsoft's "language" for Windows. A person knows it is a Windows logo when he sees one - this is Microsoft Windows' brand power.

A company’s brand is consumers’ perception of that company.

Similarly, BMW would be a great example of design consistency over a really long time. They have managed to change their car designs from vintage boxes to right-out-of-sketchbooks hybrids like BMW i8. Yet, keeping their signature front grill and logo same. For over 50 years, people have recognised a BMW without failing, thanks for their "language" atop modern design. We will not go short of examples for this phenomenon of consistency in design. There is Apple, UPS, Mercedes-Benz and Pepsi to name the popular ones. But how do a brand find their "language" to design?

Breakdown Your Existing Design Philosophy

Apparently, the best way to discover your most important element of brand in design is to break it down. Start by ripping of colors. Then, shapes. Tear down everything unless you are left with that irremovable element after which you will lose your brand identity. That element, sire, is the most basic and first component to your "language".

Make a Framework For Your Design

A framework is called itself because everything else is build on top of it. A brand's design framework should define the pillars to its approach with design. It has to be future-proof, ready to tear down walls and be still against winds of change. A good framework is adaptive - to colors, shapes and angles. The above mentioned change in Windows logo is the best example to this framework. The "+" borderline between each of the four window panes is Windows' framework. It is adaptive to color, shapes and angles. It will welcome change without losing its brand significance.

Don't Change; Adapt

This is the bitter truth. A consumer can only percept about your brand when he recognises it well. Distinguishing comes later. It is recommended to be less prone to overhaul change. Instead, adapt, without losing the consistency. A brand should resist overhauling their philosophy to design at small intervals. To not be left behind in trends, they should consider adapting few pros of it and test on feedbacks. This will add clarity to your brand without losing on the juices of brand recall. For example, the current trend is flat and colorful. Instead of redesigning themselves, a brand should first consider losing the skeuomorphic elements from their current set. Flat will follow.

A few days ago, I was interviewed for the Ernst & Young (EY) Social Media Marketing India Trend Study. The report is very insightful if you are looking to explore questions like: "What are the key challenges that digital marketers are facing?" or "How do companies evaluate, strategize & invest in social". Some of my thoughts were also published in the study and I also shared my thoughts on "How bloggers & influencers being leveraged by brands". The key highlights of the report as follows:

Influencers & bloggers are early adopters , they have high online following/reach and always stay ahead of mass for testing new technology/product or services, this is major reason brands have started leveraging them for marketing.

Following are some of the ways, in which brands leverage these influencers:

1. Review of new products, services & offering by offering them early access. (Example: Sending mobile devices way before launch or giving fashion accessories for testing)
2. Outreach using their assets (blogs/Instagram/youtube/twitter/vine) or by sending them regular content (PR) or inviting them over events.(Example: CitiBank did #HappierDiwali & #OMGSale campaign purely using influencers & observed nearly 200% increase in sales)
3. As a content creator for creating content that can be use as marketing for influencing normal audience. (Example: Gionee creating content with bloggers & doing digital media push to amplify it)
4. Brand Evangelists & Guardian: Helps in feedback, research & also acts as beta testers for the future product of a brand & suggest add-on features that can be included in future releases. (Example: all major mobile OEM's, automobile & FnB brands).
5. As ORM (online reputation management) custodians by creating positive sentiments.
6. Brand Ambassadors/Hosts as a face of the company, this helps in creating trust among audience & helps in uplifting the brand image.
7. Brand giveaway hosted on bloggers/influencers platforms(can be blog/Instagram/twitter/youtube or others) to giveaway products.

Today, consumers act like ROBO (Research Online & Buy Offline). Influencers have large loyal audience; they can shape opinion of people and are usually ones whom people look up to, for advice while making big purchasing decisions. An authentic review or feedback of online influencers plays a major role in the purchase behavior of users. Brands are clearly seeing ROI out of this & keen in developing more avenues of native advertising by utilising bloggers.

You can download the complete report published by EY and use it to benchmark your key objectives, campaigns and media plans. It helps you to optimize digital strategies for your brand. Download EY Social Media Marketing India Trend Study

Twitter contests have become an intrinsic element in the complex compound to boost brand engagement today. Big or small alike, every brand looking for digital engagement is skewing or has skewed in the past towards a twitter contest. While some brands do it through their own handles, the rest pick a person with more than 3000 Twitter followers, commonly called the Twel-eb or Twitter Celeb to do it on their behalf. The major aim of these contests is to flood the twitter timelines of users so that brand awareness is achieved without burning a hole in your advertising budget. Usually a grand prize followed by some goodies or vouchers are on offer during these contests and if done right with the correct visual attractions and influencers, Twitter contests generally end up finding a space in the trending column which calls for a pat on the back of the digital marketing team.

Why the need for evaluation?

However, there are a few observations we made while conducting some of these contests which is why we decided to write this post on judging twitter contests effectively:

1. Twitter contests usually appeal to a large set of the audience, therefore it becomes a bit of a pain to decide the right winner due to the sheer volume of participation.
2. While Twitter contests sure bring engagement, not a lot of this engagement is positive engagement as tweeps spam the time lines in order to get the maximum entries.
3. There is always a cry after a Twitter Contest that the winners were stitched or fixed.
4. There is no set of rules by which a contest could be played. Each brand makes its own set of rules so there is usually a lack of transparency in the results.
5. No matter how fairly you conduct the contest, there always will be backlash from those who did not win it. It is a must therefore to ensure that only the fair and deserving candidates win.
6. Most people make a secondary twitter account, which is used only to play such contests, and after winning they end up selling off what they won to gain monetary profits.

Post observing all of the points above, we went to our drawing board to design a mechanism on how to judge a Twitter contest which involves simple question and answer format, the most popular way of doing this, by far. We deviced a set of rules for ourselves and list the parameters, which we would judge the contest on and set it as a goalpost within which we shall play. Our focus at all times was quality engagement and interaction rather than just encouraging those who spam the brand for the sake of numbers. While we were devising our set of rules, we kept the following in mind:

1. The system must be fair to all the users so that everyone has an equal chance to win.
2. Spammers and those who are flooding the TL with mindless tweets must be ignored.
3. Quality content at all times must be encouraged.
4. Only those that follow the instructions correctly should be considered for prizes.

The Drill to select a deserving winner

After a bit of brainstorming with our team and experimenting with a couple of contests, we wrote the rules the down, and this is what we did.   1) We used our in-house Social Media tracking tool, Social ORM to monitor and record all the tweets that came in. We inserted the keyword, which was the mandatory hashtag to record all the tweets. 2) Once the contest was over, we extracted the Social ORM report and the data obviously only contained the tweets that contained the used hashtag. 3) We offset the time, so that only those tweets, which were within the stipulated time of contest, are considered. 4) We ran a duplicity test in the tweet field, and any user found making the same tweet more than thrice was immediately red listed as a spammer. We obviously removed the brand tweets too. 5) After doing this, we converted the whole data to a pivot table. This table had the twitter contest’s user name in the rows while the columns contained, the total number of tweets made, total number of followers, total numbers of people following, Klout score (calculated from klout.com as an influence parameter).   6) Once we had this data in the excel sheet filled, we applied the formula: Total score= No. of tweets *10 + Number of followers+ Number of following+ Klout score*10+ 25*number of tweets with media attachment. 7) Using this comprehensive data we got a unique score for every contestant. Since the score takes all the important parameters into account and is a good balance between those who tweeted a lot and those who tweeted less but have a higher reach. We arranged the score in the descending order and the winners were declared fair and square.

Rating the Twitter Contest for gauging performances

After you have declared the winners and dust of excitement has settled, it is imperative to judge your own team and evaluate the contest. Obviously there is the qualitative versus the quantitative way of looking at things. While the former is subjective and often variable based on the sentiment analysis tool you use, the latter is absolute. Hence we prefer the quantitative approach. There are two metrics to judge the performance quantitatively:

Judging the contest by the growth of Hashtag:

This is a relatively simple exercise and can be done by counting the ratio between the tweets made by the brand versus the mention of the hashtag within the stipulated hours of the contest. The larger the ratio is, the better the contest has been executed. For example, if the brand made 5 tweets with the hashtag #ThisPost and received a mention with 50 entries with #ThisPost, the ratio would read 5:50 or 1:10. A wide ratio indicates a successfully run contest. Whether the hashtag trended or not, is another indication of the overall success of the content.

Judging the contest with an absolute number:

The other way of judging the performance is by evaluating a real number and using that as a matrix or a benchmark to judge your future contest. Again there are a couple of ways of doing this:

1: Evaluating the value of one participant:

  To do this is pretty straight forward: Value of 1 engagement= Value of the giveaway+ Value of the hours of the team involved in planning and executing the contest divided by the total number of unique participants. The value should be low for a good contest. Let’s take an example: Giveaway value= 3* INR 500 worth coupons= INR 1500 Total team members=2, their wages per hour= Rs 300, total hours= 7. Total team investment= 300*7*2= INR 4200 Hence, total investment= Rs 4200+ 1500= INR 5,700. Total unique participants= 10 Value of 1 unique participant= 5700/10 = Rs 570.

2: Evaluating the absolute number of the contest:

  A unitless contest scale could be designed to evaluate your performance. To do this, simply follow the formula: Contest Number= (No. of impressions generated/ 1 Million)+ (Followers gained+ Total tweets received)/1000. You will arrive at a solid number that becomes the evaluating line for your future contests. By using this method, you simplify things and take into account the quality of engagement too by bringing in the factor of impressions.

Key Take Away

As a complete digital consulting firm, we have been the faces behind several successful twitter contests in the past and, we feel we have the right nous and the experience of using the platform to place down markers. Also, since the methods above encompass each and every important sub variable, which contributes towards a higher brand engagement and presence, we feel our methods work down the till for us. Obviously, there are other markers that work and you may well have one that is just as unique. However, the major objective of writing down the post was to argue the importance of having a structure or a clear mechanism when declaring Twitter winners, as well as having a reference line to judge your own performance and how exactly did the contest perform as an activity. Do let us know what your mechanism is whole judging contests on Social Media platforms such as Twitter. You can reach us via E-Mail or our Social Media Networks. >>To know about great Marketing Tools for SMB’s.    

Ever since advent of the age of computing, computers have used for office chores and connecting libraries to each other. Yet, one aspect of these machines has always been a welcome retreat for all of us. Old, young, boys or girls, we have all experienced it.

Welcome to the fun world of gaming! A world where you are no longer bound by your mortal shell. You can be what you want to be. Save a princess, destroy a kingdom, save the world from an apocalypse or act as the best bet of a space faring race of humans to save the galaxy. In this section which will be up every Tuesday, we will be talking about all things and everything gaming. Your favourites, my favourites and the ones which are yet to be launched and yet have the potential to be our favourites.

We will commence with the world of FPS (First Person Shooter) gaming. Here’s my list of the top 5 games you need to play to call yourself a true FPS lover! You can obviously interpret this as my list of five best ever FPS games, so without building any suspense, lets jump into it, perhaps with a gun:

Doom (1993)

One of the very first and influential FPS games to have ever been made! This was the game that defined and laid down the foundation of the FPS genre as it is today. Ask a true FPS lover and he would recall the name for sure. Ask your Dad if he was ever a gaming person and chances are he’d be willing to take you on, even today.

Quake (1996)

Quake has often been called the true successor to the Doom series. Quake was built to carry the legacy forward, with full time 3D rendering and OpenGL support, Quake added multiplayer options and made it easier for people from around the world to connect and play together in a host of different game modes. It made it easier to find and compete against each other on the Internet truly expanding the bases of FPS gaming.

Half-Life Series (1998)

Doom had set the stage for the popularisation of FPS gaming while Quake had proven true to its legacy. Valve Corp. took on itself to re-define it. Enter, the Half-Life series, the game was an instant success and is revered as one of the most inspiring storyline based FPS to this day. We can just wait and wish to see what Half Life 3 would offer. Gabe Newell, we hope you are listening.

Counter-Strike Series (1999)

If you have lived in a hostel or hold an engineering background this series needs no introduction. Chances are, that if you have witnessed the IT revolution in India, you have played this game at least once in your life if not more and ruined semesters after semesters. Or, if you are a grown up yet just cannot resist another round like me, you still play it and take pride in it. Counter Strike 1.6 is widely regarded as the game that gave rise to the world of Professional Gaming in India. Countless parlours still make a large moolah cause the kids want to come in and compete on CS against their friends over LAN.

Call of Duty (2003)

All our previous games had laid the foundation and established FPS as the biggest genre in online gaming. The developers of CoD took it on themselves to give it a fresh and unique take. CoD series is often regarded as the most played RP-FPS (Role Playing-First Person Shooter) selling over a 100 million copies till date.

So there we have it, the 5 FPS games that introduced and defined professional gaming. You must have noticed that in neither of the games we have given away the story of the series, simply because we do not want to spoil it for you in case you haven't played it. So go ahead and give these games a shot on your old PlayStations or PCs.

But now PUBG Mobile is the trending game.

Don't forget to write to us which of the above is your favorite title and also, in case you have a pick that we have not listed above, let us know.

Jawaharlal Nehru famously said, “The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down”. Predicting trends or what is going to happen is like playing with fire, you may burn your hands, but if you get it right even once, it’s like winning a grand jackpot. As 2014 approaches, how about setting atop a voyage and traveling to take a peek into the future? If digital marketing is your cup of everyday tea, join us as we pitch, what would be the trend setters and would set alight the ever changing world of digital marketing.

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#Hashtags will be a new Search Tool

When twitter was launched, it introduced the concept of hashtags where users could simply click on a hashtag and find conversations around the same topic. With twitter covering more and more contemporary topics and becoming a huge source of news, hashtags will be the new search tool. You can search along a hashtag and enter the world of information and conversations around that topic. More and more social networking sites such as Facebook and Google+ have jumped on the hashtag bandwagon and this will only go higher up. The planning and investment in hashtags will be a big trend in 2014 as the hashtag would be your one key to unlock the marketing potential of your device. As hashtags begin to appear in Google Searches, you could be forgiven for calling 2014 the #2014 Year. [divider]

Everyone will focus on #Lifeblogging

We may sit and fear NSA and a thousand other people secretly spying on us, but the big fat reality remains, the internet will live on and people will continue to share precious moments of their life. Microblogging platforms such as Twitter will remain the best places to project your work and to engage with people. Platforms like Pinterest and Google Plus which collect images and are image centric will grow bigger. The likes of Instagram, Buzzfeed will interest people more as they look to derive information in the form of pictures that are informative and context oriented. The collection of images on the internet will grow bigger as largely the services are free and the access to the internet is literally clicks away. More and more smartphones come with Cameras and with wearable tech such as Smartwatches and Google Glasses becoming more and more prominent, the consumer is more likely to share pictures and moment of their life than ever. Apps such as 365project.org are a unique opportunity to connect with the audience and in 2014, be prepared to see more services and application that make use of your personal information to serve you content that is personalised and stitched for you. [divider]

The #Content will Remain Liquid, it will Flow

Content is a bit like music from Beatles, its evergreen, its here to stay, its here to stay forever. As long as the digital world exists, content will be engine to drive it. Nothing is a bigger turn on than Crisp, sharp, engaging and interesting use of words put together. However, in 2014, the focus would be on pushing the content that is visually appealing. We will move towards flatter and cleaner designs. Micro video sites such as Vine and Instagram Video will gain more and more importance as they aim to capture the attention of users and deliver the message within seconds. With data plans still on the expensive side, a user is more likely to click on a Vine content than a full featured 5 minute Youtube video. The blogger industry will remain the focal point as the drivers of opinions and with strategically made relationship programmes, your brand can only profit more. The bloggers are not just content producers but the definition of new world media which is ready to take the fight to the bigger publishers. With the rise of Social media, both branded and unbranded content will equally be important if you want to drive home on successful consumer engagement. [divider]

#Mobile will remain to Captain the Ship

According to the reports, India is the third largest Smart Phone market in the world only behind the likes of China and the United States. There are more than 4 billion mobile phones on the planet and by 2014, it is projected that the Internet usage on mobile will overtake that on desktops. No wonder most web developers are taking that extra bit of care in making their site mobile friendly. And in 2014, this will only grow. With more and more mobile players coming in and the devices becoming a hub of entertainment and knowledge sharing, the opportunity to advertise and push content via mobile will be better than ever. Mobile marketing is well cheaper as compared to buying slots on the TV or even on the web. It is a staggering stat that the open rate of a text message is about 95% while the same of an E-Mail is around 1 to 15%. Therefore with the right mix of mobile web development, mobile landing pages, mobile apps, mobile ads and mobile text messages your brand stands to benefit a lot more in 2014 than ever before. [divider]

E-Commerce and Mobile #Commerce will Continue to Dominate

We live in a world where comfort and ease often superimpose everything else. No wonder the E-Commerce players have been hugely successful. Why travel to a store, when you can sit in the comfort of your chair, with light music playing while you enjoy your favourite lunch and simultaneously with a click on your mobile or tablet order pretty much anything in the world. E-Commerce will continue to thrive in 2014 and things like express delivery or 1 day delivery will continue to see the big players get bigger. Just like in the airline industry, where the Indigoes, Ryan Airs and Air Asia's continue to emerge and play a key role while Emirates, KLMs and Deltas of the world continued to get bigger and bigger, the E-Commerce world will see players like Jabong, Myntra, Shopclues emerge along nicely. Mobile Commerce will flourish given how widely mobile is used. For transactions, transferring the funds between friend easily and even something as small as booking tickets for a movie show, you are more likely to reach out for your smartphone than any other means of technology. Mobile commerce sales reached $4.7 billion in in the second quarter of 2013, up 24 percent percent year-over-year, and the roller coaster will only go up. (stat via:CMO) As we move towards the most digitally advanced year, ever, that 2014 sure would be, the five points above would be worth keeping in mind when you execute a campaign or are looking to be success on the digital platform. Whether we will have any other emerging trend or not, is anybody’s guess. Till that happens though, here’s wishing you and yours a very happy and successful 2014.