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Tech News – Tiktok, Whatsapp and More

Hi, welcome to our second installment of Tech News!

Technology is a fast-paced world. Every now & then new updates, launches occur & it is a little difficult to keep up with all of them.

To make things easier for you we thought of a fresh idea to start a Tech News every 1st & 3rd Monday of the month!

I hope you have already associated yourself with our first Tech News. If not, give it a read here!

For this week we have the following news for you:

TIK-TOK’S PARENT COMPANY BYTEDANCE IS GOING TO LAUNCH MUSIC STREAMING SERVICE FROM NEXT MONTH

ByteDance Technology Co Ltd- the parent company of Tiktok is in talks with big music labels- Universal Music, Sony & Warner music, to include their songs on its new music subscription service.

From next month ByteDance is looking to launch its music streaming, initially starting with India, Indonesia & Brazil. Later it is going to expand in the United States, according to Financial Times.

For further details click here.

WHATSAPP’S NEW MULTI-DEVICE SUPPORT FEATURE

Whatsapp is starting to roll out its new feature called Registration Notifications to the iPhone users.

Earlier, it was reported that the Facebook-owned messaging platform is working on a multiple-device support feature. Well, the company has already started working on its new feature.

According to the reports, the new Registration Notifications feature will alert WhatsApp users if someone else tries to log in to their account. For now, the feature can be used only by iPhone users.

For a more detailed report, here is the link.

XIAOMI RETAINS THE NO.1 POSITION IN INDIA

According to the latest CMR India Mobile Handset Market Review Report for the third quarter of 2019, Xiaomi continues to rule at number one in smartphone shipments with one out of four users using Xiaomi in India.

The trail then followed by Samsung, Vivo, Realme & Oppo. Apple returned to be among the top ten players this time!

INDIA’S CONTRIBUTION MAKES CALL OF DUTY SURPASS PUBG MOBILE & FORTNITE

According to Sensor Tower, Call of duty: mobile has reached more than 148 million downloads in the first month, surpassing PUBG mobile & Fornite. And India is one of the prime contributors to Call of Duty.

The multi-player battle game crossed over 35 million downloads in less than a week of its launch.

To get more details read here.

APPLE BANS 181 VAPING-BASED APPS FROM ITS APP STORE

According to Business Today, Apple has pulled 181 vaping-related apps from the App Store worldwide.

Apple’s spokesperson recently said, “Recently, experts ranging from the CDC to the American Heart Association have attributed a variety of lung injuries and fatalities to e-cigarette and vaping products, going so far as to call the spread of these devices a public health crisis and a youth epidemic.”

MICROSOFT TO SHUT DOWN CORTANA FOR IOS & ANDROID

Cortana, the digital assistant for Microsoft will no longer be available as a standalone application to users in select markets including India, Australia, the UK, China, Spain, and Canada among others.

They are estimated to pull out Cortana from the market on January 31, 2020.

However, it doesn’t mean that Microsoft is shutting down the Cortana digital assistant.

It will offer Cortana as part of Microsoft 365 applications.

SAMSUNG TO DISH OUT MORE PHONES TO COMPETE WITH HUAWEI & XAOIMI

To get into the top of the market, Samsung is planning to outsource a fifth of its smartphone production to China.

Samsung has been coy about the volumes involved, but reports have been circulated that it plans to ship some 60 million phones made in China out of 300 million devices.

For more details, here is the link.

VODAFONE IDEA REPORTS RS. 51, OOO CRORES NET LOSS

Vodafone Idea on Thursday reported the biggest quarterly loss in India’s corporate history after making provisions for outstanding government dues.

It reported around the net loss of Rs. 50,900 crores in the second quarter to September.

To get the detailed report read the article here.

There you have it!

The most important Tech News of the week.

Did we miss out on anything? Share your suggestions in the comment section!

Also, for more such articles read here!

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White Space In Website Design?

In this era of digital marketing, a well-designed website has become vital for any business owner.

A good website designer has a lot of demand in the market. One of the most important tools for any website design is white space.

What is white space?

In simple words, white space is the area of the layout which is left empty.

However, you must know that contrary to its term white space isn’t white. It is the empty space between design elements or page layout, often considered the opposite of content.

Negative space is a kind of breathing room for the entire object on the page or screen.

Why White Space Is Important In A Design?

Let’s say you are in a room full of furniture. Sofa, center-table, bookshelves, T.V cabinet, like huge furniture. How will you feel? Suffocated right?

You won’t be able to concentrate on anything in particular in the clutter. Well, that’s pretty the same what users feel opening the page or screen without a vital air of negative space.

Some of the advantages of white space are:

Increased Content Legibility:

Designers often think that filling up white space with elements will help the readers. But it is actually the opposite. Whitespace between paragraphs and around blocks of text and images actually helps people understand what they are reading. The flow becomes smoother.

Ability to highlight CTA buttons:

The CTA buttons on the website need to get highlighted.

If you put so much content on a single page, it may get lost in the mix. You can make images bigger or buttons bigger. However, surrounding the item with whitespace can be just as effective.

User Interaction:

A proper balance of whitespace will increase the interaction of the visitors by subtracting the distractions. Research by Human Factors International, whitespace increases interaction by 20%.

Creating Balance:

Whitespace in between design elements creates balance 7 cohesiveness. The key is to balance your designs and let whitespace act as a great tool to separate chunks of content for easy accessibility and improved user experience.

Creates a tidiness:

Your site’s first impression matters a lot. Great layouts, impressive fonts, good color schemes, all of it makes a page what it is. A well-balanced whitespace makes a website look neat & tidy. Whitespace is especially important because it indicates finesse and ingenuity.

Emotional Connect:

Whitespace can add an emotional element to your design. Again, it doesn’t have to be white, but can be any color, shape, or pattern you want.

Just like background images, background colors can have a big emotional effect on us.

However, there are few pitfalls of whitespace as well.

Some of them are listed down below:

Confuses the readers

Too much whitespace in a design can lead to a reader thinking that there is something wrong with the website.

He may think that he can’t see a few contents because of any inconvenience from his side. That is the last thing you want to do.

User interaction is extremely important for any website & to risk that factor can have a negative impact.

Poor effect on the search engine

Google has an algorithm that for a particular size of a page, content should be of a certain amount.

Now a few changes are ok but too much negative space in a single page means that the user has to scroll way down to get all the information. Google often sees that as a poor page construction.

Poor prioritization

Often designers forget that before styling or making it look perfect, the website is designed for the user to find a shortcut to his/her goal and solves his/her problem with an app or website.

Understanding what is most important is very crucial.

A website needs to ‘work’ effectively at first.

The trick is to find the correct balance for any design & of course to understand the client’s perspective. Maintaining an optimum level of white space in the design composition and creating a balance will only come by experience and practice.

Want to create a website perfectly suited for your company?

Contact our team at Skyram Technologies where our expert designers & developers will transform your vision to life! Connect with us here! Also, thank you so much for reading our blog. If you want to read more, click here! And do not forget to comment on what do you think about whitespace a website design?

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New Age Academics with E-Learning

E-learning has dramatically changed the system of education & learning processes in academic institutions.

As technology is growing, new modes of teaching is becoming prevalent nowadays. And E-learning is a big part of it.

E-learning has made studying fun & interactive!

From the primary level to higher degree studies, E-learning is covering all the necessary topics with ease.

E-learning is basically software & learning platforms to help kids remember information a lot more clearly.

It is a well-known fact that we use our senses to learn. But most importantly our sense of sight & hearing gets involved while learning.

E-learning has a positive impact on learning because children develop better hand-eye coordination and motor skills. These skills help them to form clearer images and improve their capabilities to solve problems.

Some of the core benefits of E-learning are

IMMERSING THE LEARNER

Empowered by Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality this system engages the students like nothing else!

E-learning helps the users to invoke a range of stimuli- visual, auditory, touch – making participation real.

For example, for a Lifesaving CPR class, a student might be encouraged into an interactive situation, asking them to react & fully immerse themselves into the circumstances.

Immersive e-learning technologies allow their users to truly get into a situation, making it real for them and creating an effective learning scenario.

SUITS MODERN LIFE

Today, for us the world is going digital.

So why live an important segment like education behind?

Students can spend time effectively on accessing online platforms, learning from them, work on their weaknesses & enhance their strengths.

Mobile learning has become the trend of the day, lending an easier access to the web-based educational activities.

Tools like video lectures are more fun & easy to catch up with. You would be comfortable if you can record a specific lecture & later catch up with the studies right?

FLEXIBILITY

One of the prime advantages of E-learning is its flexibility.

Apart from classroom learning, students can learn online whenever they wish. There is no time limit, no fixed hours.

Considering the US market alone, 77% of Americans own a smartphone, while just under 75% own a computer.

From simply attending classes via Skype, e-learning has made rapid leaps forward.

For example, if a kid wants to do some artwork in the evening. But he has exams tomorrow. He can simply download his syllabus or record all the necessary materials he needs for his test. He can then schedule his studies accordingly. No pressure!

UNLIMITED RESOURCES

The online platform is like an ocean!

The extent of resource material is vast for any kid. One can access online libraries, assignments, study materials, reference questions everything with much less money. So, eLearning opens up a treasure-trove for students to search and cull out what they want for their subjects. Even people who can’t afford proper education can learn so much just from E-learning.

PERSONALIZED STUDYING

Not all the students have the same interest or have the same aptitude to learn a specific thing. E-learning makes things much more tailor-made for students.

Take a student with ADHD or Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A student like that has a deficiency to stay focused, or remembering stuffs. These kids have difficulty to cope with traditional learning methods. E-learning helps these students with additional needs, working with them at their level.

INTERACTIONS AT A GLOBAL LEVEL

The world is becoming a global village!

With improved technologies, E-learning has connected people throughout the globe, with exchanging ideas, interactions, meetups.

For a particular subject, say Maths you can be tutored by a teacher in America!

How E-learning is helping adults?

E-learning can be so beneficial for adults as well.

With our busy lives, it is very difficult for us to get time to learn new things. E-learning has made studying for adults much more easy.

Even for me, I started learning Spanish from an app called Duolingo. It was almost like a game, making it flexible for me to learn the language on the commute!

Few popular E-learning programs for kids

BYJU‘s

It is currently one of the most popular E-learning app in India.

The main focus of the platform is on Mathematics & Science, where concepts are explained through animation. Currently, BYJU’s reports to have 33 million users.

ClassDojo

ClassDojo is a “virtual classroom learning app” for kids. Using this app, parents, students, and teachers can all interact with one another. The program has a number of features where teachers can communicate about their educational needs.

Duolingo

This app is for people who want to learn foreign languages!

With this app, your kid can learn French, English, Spanish, Danish, Irish, Italian, and others. You can download the app for free and use the same app each time for any language you wish to learn. The best part? It has no hidden fees!

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle is one of the oldest reading platforms. Reading enhances a child’s perspective & let’s face it, it is important to read. You will find hundreds of kid-friendly books in the store, which are free to download.

Youtube Kids

New in the field, Youtube kids offers entertainment & educational videos exclusively for children to boost their minds. Kids can watch their favorite shows on the app anytime they want to. The app is kid-oriented and simple to handle.

It is also important for your child to knowledge other than smartphones. E-learning is helping all kinds of kids to invest more and more in learning through digital media.

What are your thoughts on E-learning? Comment down here!

Also, for more such interesting blogs read here!

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Location Marketing With GPS

With the rise in marketing strategies, location-based marketing is taking personalized marketing to the next level.

According to BIA Advisory Services, marketers will spend over $26 billion in 2019 on geo-targeted campaigns.

What does Location-based marketing means?

It is a strategy that uses global positioning technology, to send geographic-specific business marketing to consumers over their mobile devices.

It is a huge opportunity for businesses. Just think, if a GPS system can give you the right direction when lost, what can it do for marketing?

Many expert marketers say, that ads which have customers’ location integrated on it generate around 10 times more leads than a generic ad.

Done successfully, location-based targeting improves response rates by up to 5 times the normal rate.

Industries that use location-based marketing

Nowadays, more & more industries are opting for GPS enabled location-based marketing systems.

Here are few industries to rely on location-based marketing a lot:

  • Retail – Marketers for these brands use audiences seen at their locations the previous year & often use them to target their audience the following year. Seasonal stores often use GPS systems to create geotargeting campaigns. Even pop-up stores for that matter use these methods.

  • Tourism – This one is a no brainer. The tourism industry highly depends on location-based marketing. For example, a bed & breakfast situated near Shimla, India will target audience mainly living in Delhi, Chandigarh.

  • Restaurants– Heavily based on location marketing, restaurants obviously caters to people mainly living near to that particular area.

Other than this, industries like hospital, event planners, Stadiums, Transportation also does location-based marketing.

Now,

How does GPS in location-based marketing works?

Generally, it can be done in three ways.

  • Targeting customers within a certain area of business

This one is not new. To have a specific business show up in search results for a certain product because it’s nearby can help to give a leg up against the competition.

Mobile is itself a very convenient tool & using it for targeted mobile-based geolocation helps to user to get results while searching for a particular business.

  • Targeting customers within a certain area of a competitor’s business

One effective way of utilizing geolocation-based targeting is to enlist your own company’s marketing near your competitor’s business area.

Let me give you an example. Say you own a Chinese restaurant, so your competition will be a restaurant that has a similar cuisine as yours.

Now, once you target your nearby competitors, when your potential customer searches for your competition, your business name pops up as well.

This is especially useful if your business has a promotion going on that would give a customer a better deal on similar products from your business.

  • Search Results based on location

Now with mobile usage higher than ever, though this is a big deal for mobile marketing success.

According to HubSpot, 34% of the users search for “Near me” options while browsing for a particular product.


“Near Me Search Results”

Now, people who are using their mobile for a product will expect the same kind of tailored result on their computer as well.

Being able to have content, store or restaurant locations, products, etc. show up based on their location makes for a much better, more personalized customer experience.

Now, to start using GPS for location-based marketing you need to follow a few tricks to use the technology effectively.

  • Allow Customers to opt-in– Understand that not all of your customers will be comfortable to share their location. So they should have options to choose from.

  • Transparency– Transparency builds trust. Provide your customers with all the necessary information about how you are planning to use their personal information.

  • Option to opt-out– If your customer isn’t satisfied with your explanation, do not lock them into a program forcing them to continue.

  • Do not sell their information– this is a terrible malpractice of personal information. You might get tempted to earn money to share information about your customers, but keep in mind your clients are your assets.

Hopefully, now you are well-accustomed with the idea of GPS based marketing.

Want to try out this new digital marketing technique? Contact our team at Skyram!

And for more such blogs read here!

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Sales Conversions With E-Commerce Remarketing

E-commerce like any other business is based on targets, sales & revenues.

Now E-commerce marketing, as we all know is done through digital media mostly. So much of it is based on lead generations & conversions!

However, just shipping products isn’t all when it comes to growing their business.

Remarketing is an important part of any E-commerce marketing. This strategy is used by everyone, from smaller E-commerce brands to giants like Amazon.

You may ask how important is it? Or what are the most effective strategies used by companies for remarketing?

But before diving into all of that, let’s start with the basics.

What is E-commerce remarketing?

One of the most popular online marketing strategies, E-commerce remarketing targets those who have already visited your website.

It is mainly retargeting your visitors to convince them to buy your products!

If you are still confused, let me give you an example.

Have you ever noticed that you looked at a product once at some website, say Myntra, & you get ads from them everywhere in your social media handles?

Yes, that is exactly what remarketing is!

The company saw that you have looked into a few or maybe a single product from their website & now they are trying to get you back!

E-Commerce Remarketing

The importance of e-commerce remarketing

Here are a few reasons why companies spend so much on E-commerce remarketing all the time.

Abandoned Carts

This is quite a common reason why companies do remarketing for their customers.

Often visitors check out a few products, add to their wishlist or their carts but didn’t end up buying. Most of the time it is because the price is too expensive. Remarketing to these consumers with a discount code or free shipping would be a great strategy to bring them back to your website and complete their purchase.

Multi-Channel Promotion

75% of the customers buy from the brand after establishing 3-5 touchpoints.

The best way to go forward with this is by establishing multiple touchpoints with your visitors across different platforms. Creating multi-channel promotions will help you to create touchpoints for your visitors encouraging them to check your products every time.

To Tap Your Competitor’s Customers

The e-commerce business is growing tougher each day. Business owners are trying to get customers anyhow. Studies have shown that 11% of marketers use remarketing to target competitors’ customers.

This is another way to get customers that convert who are interested in products similar to yours but at another e-commerce store.

To Get Highly Targeted Traffics

Remarketing helps you to target customers who are highly relevant to your brand.

Portraying a strong brand image and a consistent marketing pattern to the people helps you earn their trust. This way you can yield a much more bounce to your website & also can increase your ROI.

Now the question arises that what are the main tactics used by marketers for remarketing?

Some of the most effective strategies for retargeting or remarketing are.

  • FACEBOOK APP INSTALL ADS

Remarketing to Facebook users is always a good strategy, as Facebook has a large share of the population.

If your business has a consumer-facing app, you can remarket to users who have visited your website with Facebook App Install Ads. These users are generally familiar with your brand & with the app install ads, it makes it easier for them to convert.

70% of the Facebook users visit their app from smartphones which makes a perfect platform for your brand to advertise your company.

  • CATEGORY SPECIFIC BUT DID NOT CONVERT

Increasing your relevancy is important while remarketing your app which means segmenting your products into categories, your customer has viewed.

Remarketing this way will make sure that customer thinks about the abandoned cart whenever he/she is browsing the net. Google display network, the largest display network on the net will show the products they have viewed, reminding them of your website.

  • FACEBOOK REMARKETING OFFER PROMOTIONS

Again a great solution for cart abandonment.

Here Facebook’s offer ads unlock a discount code that users can get to receive a discount on their purchase.

One of the prime benefits of this type of marketing is that they often get shared. People make deals with their friends, so not only you are targeting old users, you are bringing new ones as well!

It is a win-win situation. The discount codes get emailed to the users, they can use it while buying the product.

Remarketing also depends on the type of product your company specializes in.

However, if you want to stay relevant in the industry remarketing is an essential part.

Thinking of doing some e-commerce remarketing? Talk to our experts at Skyram Technologies. We specialize in E-commerce marketing, social media ads & promotions, digital promotions, etc. Contact us here!

And for more blogs click here!

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I Am An Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is a passion.

People take years to learn the tricks & trades of the industry before taking the plunge.

With our new series “I Am…” we have been presenting you with different perspectives of people on entrepreneurship.

For our final article, we chose an entrepreneur himself, who will talk about his journey & give his insights about the industry.

So our topic for today is-

“I Am…An Entrepreneur”

The Starting…

The seed of passion for entrepreneurship was there in me from the very beginning of 2011 or 2012. Of course, I used to work for a company, but that was because I wanted to learn more about how a business runs, you know behind the scene kinds of stuff.

It was very clear that I wanted to be in the IT sector from the beginning.

I switched companies to gain more experience with the workings of the business world. I joined as a Business Developer later on.

For me, not only India but I wanted to know about world business as well.

After that, I decided to create my core team to start building up my company.

I, with my childhood friend, started our journey of developing our own business with my team.

Honestly, at that time we didn’t think of creating a full-fledged company, but gradually as things fell into place I thought of giving it a shot!

The approach

Look, two things are extremely important while doing any business. One, your funding & two, your idea. The two need to be at pace with each other.

Often, in my experience, I have seen that a person might have big ideas, but to execute that he lacks the funding.

For me, I started out with my own funds. So at that time, I was very clear that I can’t go beyond certain things for a project. It won’t be practical.

To execute an idea that was beyond my company’s funding capability, I had to take risks in terms of outsourcing my resources, right?

But what if that idea fails? My company would fall apart!

So, while taking big decisions, you need to think about what is at stake.

Also, while you are managing a team you need to understand the workings of each & every member, inside out! Be it designers, business developers, content developers you need to have an idea about everything before starting a business.

I have seen many times that entrepreneurs investing all of their funding into a certain product, leaving almost nothing for the marketing. They used up all their funding in the production, investing time & energy. They couldn’t market the product ultimately crashing their business!

The Competitions…

For me, I prefer to swim at my own pace.

Competitions will be there. It was there when I started my passion, it is there at present & will be there in the future as well.

I don’t think about my competitors getting investors or funding. I know for the fact that if I do my own things right & get my funding, my brain will automatically start creating new ideas!

At the end of the day, I need to keep my brain at peace to start working on new ideas. I only think about where I want to be in the next 5 or 6 years. That’s it for me.

The Audience…

In terms of my business, I work with a lot of international clients, startups.

So, the target audience in that region is important for my company while working on those projects.

Again, while working with local clients, I focus on local audiences.

However, for new entrepreneurs who want to tap the local market, I would suggest that you need to focus on the analytics of the business.

The person who understands data & analytics has an asset!

For any business, research is the foundation. A person oblivious to market analytics, can’t go on for a long time.

Business Vs Creativity

I have heard a lot of times that business & creation doesn’t gel well.

Let me tell you, entrepreneurship is a passion. I don’t know about other entrepreneurs but for me, this was & still is my passion, my dream. I never thought about creating a business, I thought about creating a company!

One thing I would like to say for aspiring entrepreneurs is that decision making is extremely important for any start-up.

When I look back, I often see the stupid decisions I made & frankly, you would do that too!

But that is the part of the journey.

People would be there who would try to poke you or discourage you, or you may even feel defeated at times. But do not lose hope. The actual trick is to stay positive & stay persistent.

There you have it!

We are ending this series on a positive note.

Just remember, these are stories or journeys of different individuals. Entrepreneurship is a journey, where different people have different stories to tell. Everyone’s stories are unlike one another.

Hopefully, you guys like it. And if you have missed out on any other articles click here!

And if you have any suggestions or ideas for our blogs, write here!

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I Am A YouTuber – A Guide to Entrepreneurs

Youtube is one of the thriving platforms for content creators.

However, even today very few people see Youtube as a legit career option.

Well, there can be reasons for that, non-reliable channels, not a “steady” income source & also our mindset as well.

But Youtube is a form of entrepreneurship as well.

Think about it! You invest, you produce & you earn revenues.

But how do Youtube run like a business? What are the ways to earn money? How do promotions work on Youtube?

To answer all of these questions we have a Youtuber in this article of “I Am…” series.

My Journey…

I started Youtube around 2010, 2011 where individual Youtube channels were a pretty new concept, especially in India. Most of them were uploading pirated videos.

For me, my passion for music drove me to create my own channel. I with few of my friends in the music industry started producing our own videos on Youtube, at that time, as it was the only free online streaming platform.

Also, Youtube creators have a very good community. I personally love this small community, it was more important than just earning money.

Let’s start!

The Rise In Competitions…

Look, competition is there in each & every field.

For Youtube, the main competition lies is, of course, to be on the ‘Trending’ page.

Tum Hi Ho by 88 Keys to Euphoria

In India, as far as I can remember, the competition for cover music of Bollywood numbers started around 2013 with a “Tum Hi Ho” rendition that was covered in Akash Gandhi’s channel. The acoustic cover got millions of views & people went crazy over the version sung by Sanam Puri & Jonita Gandhi, launching their individual music career.

From then on, music channels got into a tough fight to cover the latest Bollywood numbers to be on top of the page!

To tap this industry you need to be quick, prompt & a quality content producer.

For cover artists, there is a one week window- starting from the launch till the next week. You need to upload your version by that time.

It is the whole “tried & tested” industry, I think. You need to choose your goals properly. Like there are channels that produce evergreen music cover tracks. These do not have a timeline & can be produced extensively.

So, I would suggest that before looking into the competition, try to focus on what you want to produce.

Earnings…

“Oh, you produce Youtube videos? You must be filthy rich then?”

I hear this comment a lot!

Although it is true for some people, obviously I can’t deny that Sanam Puri or Lilly Singh is earning in millions through Youtube.

However, what people don’t see is the investment that Youtuber makes years before earning that amount.

You can have it in two ways- you invest an insane amount of money at once or you go step-by-step with your investment.

In both cases, though the revenue will be generated with time.

Suppose, you are investing an X amount of money in 2019, you need to understand that this will take at least two years to get your profit!

Obviously, there are exceptions, where your video gets viral but you can’t always depend on miracles, can you?

Even in Youtube’s community, it is said that it takes a 3 year incubation period before it gets a certain fan following & you have to constantly produce videos during that time.

Going into more details!

Youtubers mainly earn from ads, product promotions & brand deals.

To get monetized through Google AdSense, you must have a total watch time of 4,000 hours in the past 12 months and a minimum of 1,000 subscribers.

Now, if you are a new Youtuber, you will need to wait for a few years to get the ROI from your videos.

Now, Youtube has a very good policy that channels that produce quality videos with good content consistently, they might be able to land on the ‘Suggested’ section of the platform.

With good content, you can earn a niche audience eventually, which will help you get sponsorships, brand deals & others.

Like, for example, a company starts to produce dark chocolate. Now if you are a Youtuber who produces fitness or health-related videos, you can collaborate with the company to promote their brand.

Because your target audience & their target audience will be quite similar.

Trendy Contents or Quality-based Contents

There are two types of content on Youtube.

The one who makes trendy, product promotional content, which is for a short term & gets you to the trending page much quicker. One of the downside to it is that trends can fade away quickly.

And another type of content is based on long-lasting topics that take time but can earn you money for the long term.

Connecting With Fans…

As a Youtuber, you get a lot of time to interact with your fans.

More than you get through Facebook or Instagram. So connecting with your fans is comparatively easier here. A Q&A session, reading out fan comments, wishing someone on their birthday can help to reach more people.

There are many Youtubers who dedicate a day of weekly content to their fans. They read out questions, they do live streaming which brings them closer to the Youtube fan following.

The Challenges…

Money is a big issue obviously while producing a video!

Most of you, I assume will self-fund your video, so that it can be tiring after a point of time. Finding investors at an early stage is difficult as a Youtuber.

And as a music video producer, the most trouble I have faced is with copyright issues.

If you are producing original music, you need to protect your own right. And for cover music, the company that owns the copyrights can create conflict.

Though, at present with new Youtube guidelines for cover videos, the revenue gets distributed between the copyright holder & the channel.

Lastly, you need to understand that being a Youtuber is being an entrepreneur.

It is no different than running a business of your own. So you need to be diligent & persistent with your content to earn your profit!

Do you have any questions regarding our blogs? Comment down below!

And for more such interesting topics, click here!

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I Am A Designer – A Guide To Entrepreneurs

If you guys are thinking “How does a designer fit into the market of entrepreneurship?”

In that case, let me tell you that a designer is one of the most vital elements of any successful marketing campaign. Although technically, he is a core member of the creative team, but to understand the market, you need to understand a designer’s perspective as well.

Therefore, let’s hear it from a designer in this segment of the “I Am…” series where we discuss different facets of marketing from a first person’s perspective.

Today’s topic-

“I Am…A Designer”

The Approach…

This one is very subjective!

One of the most interesting parts of my job is to work on a blank canvas, most of the time. So the approach varies with the kind of project I am handling currently.

One thing I keep in mind is that design should be for the users & not the client!

I always think about the target audience. Even clients prefer a user-friendly design which will be beneficiary for his target customers.

Therefore, more than the client, I always try to comprehend who would be the visitors & what will be appropriate for them.

The next important aspect after my target audience is understanding the logo, fonts & color palette that would suit the design.

Next comes the part where I decide which area of the design I should focus more on.

Let me explain.

For example, say I am working on a sports website.

Now for a sports site, my target audience is vast, everyone from a teenager to a 70-year-old, who is a sports-lover will visit the site.

The design for a website like this should be bold & vibrant. Sports are energetic, so bold edgy fonts, animations can be used. I can play with a lot of colors as well.

Whereas, for a doctor’s clinic the idea of the design should be pretty different even with the same target audience!

A doctor’s clinic website can be visited by a 15-year-old & also a 75-year-old. But bold colors, edgy fonts won’t serve the purpose obviously!

You yourself won’t like a doctor’s website with bright funky colors, right?

For that, the site should have soothing colors with a much professional vibe to it!

The Differences…

When you are working with the marketing team, being a hardcore creative person will lead to conflicts, for sure!

The main conflict arises when you have to mix creativity with the business aspect as well.

Look, if you ask me, I would prefer a creative approach for any project. I think you don’t need to push your customers too much to buy your product or service. If he likes it, he will buy it eventually! If he doesn’t no matter how much you push, he won’t buy it! It is that simple.

Now how to overcome the conflict?

The trick is to create the right balance in your whole design.

For instance, if your design is fantastic with all the right elements, but users are unable to locate the main contact button on the website, it is useless. Also, a great design with too many CTA buttons can ruin its creativity.

As a designer, you need to understand the importance of Content.

Your whole design should revolve around the content, you cannot expect the vice versa.

The Changes…

Previously, the design was majorly text-based.

Every day, there are a lot of changes that occur in design.

Keeping up with the on-going trend is important. Today, websites have more specific content.

Even with social media, design is changing with the changing trend.

Contribution To Marketing…

A well-comprehended design can add a lot of value in terms of marketing.

Product is also important in terms of marketing design.

I often come across mediocre products where there is not much to play around it. I focus on elements like fonts & colors of a design to make the branding look good.

Client’s vision plays a major role for a designer.

A client should be clear about what he/she wants. Just by saying their goal doesn’t offer much to a designer.

Like a client can have a goal like “I need to increase my visitors by 50% within the next six months.”

For me, that is not a worthwhile information. You have a marketing team for that.

For me what can work is some references, some vision that will give me something to work on!

So for future entrepreneurs, be open with your clients. Try & communicate as much as possible because that will give you an understanding of what he is trying to convey to his users.

How much are you enjoying our series? Tell us in the comment section!

And if you haven’t read our previous blogs, click here & enjoy!

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I Am A Marketer – A Guide To Entrepreneurs

Marketing is one of the prime aspects of any business.

As we said earlier marketing is the bridge between your “Big Idea” & your customers. Startups solely with extensive marketing can make entrepreneurship into a brand!

Although marketing can be offline & online, we will discuss online marketing today.

And as you might have catch-on by now, in this “I Am…” series for new entrepreneurs, we discuss different facets of marketing with a first person’s perspective.

Today we have a marketing expert!

The Drive…

Marketing for me is the most interesting part of any business, because as a part of a marketing team, you really get to see an idea becoming a reality.

You get to try a lot of different things as you never know what will click with your audience.

Frankly speaking, I never thought to be a marketer before becoming one. But my interest to see a business grow gradually drove me to digital marketing– that what will work? What business strategy I should use? What is in trend? All of it matters when it comes to being a digital marketer.

What’s Trending…

Nowadays, social media plays a very important part of digital marketing. You can literally build a brand through social media ads, promotions, strategies, etc.

But another important aspect of digital marketing is also the usage of AI technology! It is amazing how Artificial Intelligence can be used for brand promotions.

Take Lenskart for instance. They have started a new campaign where they will select lens frames based on your face shape.

You see how they made marketing into an experience? This will help them with audience engagement!

The use of AI in marketing can be a gamechanger & lots of companies are doing that.

Approaching A New Brand…

“How should I plan a digital marketing strategy for a new brand?”

A lot of people, new entrepreneurs especially deals with this dilemma.

Well, from my 6 years of experience, I ask myself two questions- Is there a demand for a particular brand? & who is my target audience?

If a brand, with much less product demand, approaches me where they want to promote a company through radio, I would rather not entertain the idea. It would be a waste of time & money.

Now if the brand has a demand I focus on the target audience next. And also ways to promote the demand among the set target audience.

Now for a luxury car like BMW, it has a very small target audience here in Kolkata. So for me, the customer base is very important while approaching a brand.

Keeping Up…

For a digital marketer like me, keeping at par with the new trends, changes, updates are extremely essential.

If you are thinking of becoming a digital marketing expert, you need to be updated constantly.

For me, I read blogs, subscribe to newsletters to keep myself updated with change in marketing dynamics.

Look, the main difference between traditional & digital marketing according to me is visualization.

Online marketing will give you the effect of visualization for a particular design. For instance, take the 3D effect. Obviously, a billboard can never match the amount of user engagement of a 3D image!

Furthermore, audience engagement is much more effective with digital marketing, at least nowadays.

Earlier, people had the time to see a hoarding, maybe note phone numbers. But now nobody has got the time for that. Online presence is much more effective in terms of audience engagement.

Now comes the question, how valid is traditional marketing at this point in time?

Will traditional marketing become useless in a few years?

No, of course not!

For a few segments of business, traditional marketing will always be valid.

Take, for example, publishing houses like a well known local brand “Chhaya Prakashani”. This brand does traditional marketing more because of its base customers.

The Challenges…

We cannot ignore the recent Bert Update from Google. It is a big challenge for us, the online marketers.

Earlier, SEO used to be a big part of digital marketing. It still is. SEO friendly content will always be a big part of online content marketing.

But earlier, there were many contents that are just based on stuffed keywords to get better ranking on the search page.

At present, quality content is the only way to get rank on Google page. Just by using SEO keywords, Outbound & Inbound links will not be sufficient enough for your site.

Lastly, for future entrepreneurs, I would suggest that understand the demand for your product or service before investing.

And audience targeting should be done first before you enter into the market.

Just think, you want to open a Graphic Designing company. And you don’t have a proper website before approaching your client. How much of a bad reputation will that create? As a graphic designing company, an impressive artistic website is the foremost important thing!

There you have it!

A detailed marketing perspective for a digital marketer himself. Do you have any suggestions for us? Comment down!

Also, for more such innovative blogs visit our website here!

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Google Search Algorithm Update Timeline

The recent BERT update that Google rolled out has made some waves among the digital marketers!

Generally, Google updates its algorithm almost 500 to 600 times a year but not all of them have major impacts.

Also, to list all of the updates will take days to discuss, really.

Here is a list of 9 major Google Algorithm Updates that created a huge impact on its search engine results.

PANDA

Launch date: February 24, 2011

Initially, Panda was a filter rather than an update but in January 2016, it was officially incorporated into the core algorithm.

The Hazards?

Plagiarism, Duplicate Content, User- Generated Spam, keyword stuffing, poor user experiences.

Panda used to assign a content quality to webpages & down ranking sites with low-quality or spam content. Panda works with “quality score” to web pages.

Regular site checks by a site crawler, like Website Auditor to check any plagiarism or thin content.

PENGUIN

Launch date: April 24, 2012

The main objective of this update was to down-rank sites whose links seemed manipulative.

The Hazards?

Spammy or irrelevant links, Links coming from sites created purely for SEO link building, Paid links, Links with overly optimized anchor text.

Since 2016, Penguin is also a part of Google’s core ranking algorithm, which operates in real-time ensuring penalties & recovery in less time.

To be safe, look out for any spikes in your profile link, get rid of any spammy links in your profile by contacting the webmasters of the linking sites.

HUMMINGBIRD

Launch date: August 22, 2013

Hummingbird was launched by Google to better interpret search results & match them with searchers’ intent.

The Hazards?

Keyword stuffing; low-quality content.

Although keywords are important, Hummingbird made it easier for pages to get a rank even it sometimes did not have the same exact keywords. It was a natural language processor & is a major algorithm for interpreting search results as it adds a meaning behind a search as a whole.

The solution is to focus on related searches, that can be synonyms to diversify your content expansions. Also adding a keyword that your target audience speaks is also a way to get better results with Hummingbird.

PIGEON

Launch date: July 24, 2014 (US); December 22, 2014 (UK, Canada, Australia)

Pigeon had a major role in terms of searches in which the user’s location plays an important part.

The hazards it focused on?

Poorly optimized pages, Improper setup of a Google My Business page, Poor on- and off-page SEO.

Pigeon creates a closer tie between local & core algorithm which means similar SEO factors are now being used to rank local & non-local Google results.

To adjust your site’s result one has to Invest effort into on- and off-page SEO.

After this update there was a 50% decline in the number of queries local packs are returned for, giving a ranking boost local directory sites with more cohesiveness between Google Search & Google Maps.

MOBILE UPDATE

Launch date: April 21, 2015

This one was a BIG update for Google.

The hazards?

Lack of a mobile version of the page; poor mobile usability.

Google Mobile Update ensured that mobile-friendly pages or sites appear at the top rank whereas, pages not optimized for mobile ranking were either taken down from the SERP’s or ranked down low.

To stay safe from this update the obvious way is to make your site mobile friendly.

Also, taking a ‘mobile-friendly test” is extremely important if you want to get a good rank in mobile SERP’s. WebSite Auditor can be used to check for this test.

RANKBRAIN

Launch date: October 26, 2015

RankBrain is a machine learning system that is a part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm.

The hazards it targeted?

Lack of query-specific relevance features; shallow content; poor UX.

RankBrain helps Google to decipher the meaning behind each & every query & providing the best response. Arguably, RankBrain can sometimes summarize what a page is about, evaluate the relevancy of search results, and teach itself to get even better at it with time.

One of the prime ways to handle this algorithm is to increase the User Experience of your website or page. There is a definite reason why low user experience can rank your page down in Google’s SERP & that is your site should be useful for the audience you are targeting. Also, content optimization is very essential to help with the tight-knit competition in the market.

POSSUM

Launch date: September 1, 2016

Possum update was based on changes in Google’s local ranking filter. This update gives results depending on the physical availability of the search result.

The hazard it targeted?

Sharing a physical address with a similar business, competition in your target location.

Possum also resulted in greater variety among results ranking for very similar queries giving a boost to the local businesses, especially ones outside the city area.

To combat this update you need to upgrade your usage of local keywords which can easily be tracked. Location-specific rank tracking can also be used to increase your visibility range.

FRED

Launch date: March 8, 2017

With Fred, it targeted thin, affiliate-heavy or ad-centered content.

Fred especially targets websites that violates Google webmasters guidelines. Many blog sites are there low-quality posts that appear to be created mostly for the purpose of generating ad revenue.

To avoid this update, you need to watch out for your content. Review your site for irrelevant content, and update the low word count pages with relevant, useful information.

And lastly,

BERT

Launch date: October 25, 2019

BERT is arguably the biggest change to Google search in the past 5 years. Bert was introduced for Google to better understand search queries.

Bert targeted search results with all nuances of contexts. BERT algorithm is a deep learning algorithm related to natural language processing.

For instance, Google will now take prepositions like “to” or “for” to understand & give more meaningful results.

There are many other updates by Google but as we said, it is not possible to describe each of them. But if you are still interested to get more updated information, you can check out this page here!

Want your business to get a top rank at the Google search results? We at Skyram provide SEO & complete digital business strategy to give your brand maximum page visibility & traffic. Connect with us here!

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