Top 10 Brands on Instagram

Start of the year 2013, 90 million monthly active users in Instagram. And last week (June Mid week 2013) CEO C0-founder Kevin Systrom announced "Instagram now has 130 million monthly active users who have uploaded 16 Billion photos, liking 1 Billion photos a day and has been growing significantly in popularity”, Last week Instagram launched new feature 15 sec video sharing (Video forInstagram), this means Instagram showing a good growth in Social Media.

With the introduction of Facebook Hashtag and Videos for Instagram, potential for impressions on branded Instagram accounts are greater than ever. Wondering when Instagram going to launch their advertising feature. While them thinking to inspiring their users to create content. In the last month Instagram users uploaded 591K photos and news feed tagged #Starbucks, generating 180MM+ impression for free.

Nitogram is a tool which used to Analyze and see Engagement through out the Instagram platform for brands. They had put together the top 10 index for branded Instagram accounts to showcase who is creating more discussion through their channels, by taking into account two main factors

1. Number of Followers of the Brand’s Account
2. Number of Photos posted on the Brand’s Hashtag

In Nitogram index list Nike is the overall top brand on Instagram. @Nike is highly active on Instagram, one example includes Nike PHOTOiD Air Max campaign where they matched sneaker colors with the aid of Instagram snapshots, and #ProjectFlySF where they invited Instagram influencers.

1. Nike
2. Starbucks
3. Forever 21
4. Adidas
5. Topshop
6. Victoria’sSecret
7. Vans
8. Red Bull
9. Michael Kors
10. Converse 

We can see in the top ten lists mostly brands falls in fashion or footwear in some way. Most popular brands on Instagram have on average 2X more photos on their #hashtag than followers on their @account.

Stats Source :  Nitogram, Instagram
Image Source : cdn-static.zdnet.com, Nitogram

SEO Step by Step Guide - 2

Hope you all had look on Step by Step Guide to SEO-1, We discuss about the title tag and the meta description they are the most important SEO elements, but remember they are not the only ones.  Be sure to corporate the  following  into your website's pages content to ranked in search engines.

Internal Links

Link building is not just for external sites linking your website. Make search engines know more about your website by internally linking to other pages on your website within the content you have.  For example in this blog post I had linked to my previous post  in start and here as well (SEO Sri Lanka). As much as possible link your internal web pages inside your content  to get to known by search engines.

Header Tags

This blog post utilizes different level of HTML header  tags that help to break the content into different sections  and let search engines know more about what each sections contains. Mostly the <H1> </H1> will be the post title. and we can say there should be only one set of  <H1> </H1> tag per page. The <H2></H2> to <H6></H6> tags surround subheadings on the page, and there can be multiple instances of all head tags. make sure to use header tags in your pages that helps both readers and search engines up break you content into readable sections.

Image Name and ALT tags

Everyone use images in their websites, if you're using images in your website, you should think keywords for both the image name and alt tag. The image we used in first in this post <img src="step-by-step-seo.jpg" alt =" step by step seo" />, goal of this is to optimize it for the keyword on-site search optimization. This a help for search engines find good images for their image search.

Bold text

You don't need to do this in a crazy way. But occasionally bolding a selection of text. This makes reader's to get attention, can also help search engines important information and keywords in the page's content.

Content 

Keep update with new content what the topic is your web is about. The more content you have the likely your visitors will look around your website. And more content you have search engines will be to put more of your website's pages in the search index.  Good quality content can include a variety of things including, but not limited to, the following.

• Blog Posts
• Industry Articles
• Tutorials & How To Guides
• Infographics
• Videos
• Podcast

Making good quality content for your website can be a huge investment, its worth it. Search engine will love it and visitors also love it. Mostly good contents are shared on Social Media, leading to more visitors.

That all in SEO Step by Step by Guide-2 . Next will be little advanced section, hope you guys can get into track with my blog posts .

Image Source : topseopicks.com,  oracledigital.com.au

What is Google Plus or G+?

If you imagine Google Plus is just another Social Media channel, this article will give you big surprise. Mainly Google+ is NOT the Facebook killer which many think (or hope) it is. Yes Google would like to steal away people from Facebook if they could, and they will be doing some re-targeting advertisements.

From the launched year 2011, Google Plus has been moving towards one of the most active social networks with hundreds of million people having active accounts. But what is Google+?

There is the temptation of saying it is like Facebook or like Twitter but once you get use or involved, Google plus is not similar to either. They all involve “Social” and “people” and “Communication” and both of them are doing well what they do. But Google+ is something different, Bringing people to join within context of most of Google service. Better experience and see. In easy way we can say Google had added a Social layer across the services people like and use every day. We can see Google Plus includes Search, Gmail, Youtube, Calendar, Android, Chat, etc. This is why many people cannot understand the concept of Google+.


Keep follow the Blog, there is lot more to come about G+, How to use, How to do Marketing with G+, etc. If you’re still not in Google Plus watch the video and create one.

Image source : cdn1.seomagz.com, tiptoptens.com

Video for Instagram

Today's topic in Social Media channels video facility in Instagram, but no one knows its announced by Facebook,  at the press meet June 20th 2013. They announced  "The addition of video to popular photo sharing application Instagram". can say this move is an obvious against Twitter's video sharing app Vine, comes with the introduction of Vine for Android. (Vine another Social Media channel which used to shared video of 6 sec)

What is Instagram ? 

Instagram is a photo sharing (and now video) with filter facility. People share photos on Instagram, People login, Like other people's photos, People comment on photos, etc, and now  its allows video to share, it allows 15seconds of video. 

Instagram video basics

• 15 second video clips (with the ability to edit sections within videos)
• 13 Custom filters designed for Instagram Video only.
• No Looping
• The ability to select a cover frame (excellent opportunity for brands)
• Day One iOS and Android Support
• Full support for Video on Instagram.com Web Profiles
• Auto-play on mobile upon touch release, play button on web
• Instagram Cinema: Powerful Cinematic stabilization for Instagram Videos
  

The move made by Facebook to play on larger social landscape to increase usage across both apps drive value to ads on platforms. after buying Instagram a year ago, both(Facebook and Instagram) changed significantly and closer connected through sharing, privacy and now introduction of Facebook hashtag.

Instagram CEO C0-founder Kevin Systrom announced "Instagram now has 130 million monthly active users who have uploaded 16 Billion photos, liking 1 Billion photos a day and has been growing significantly in popularity " announced on 20th June 2013 after a brief by Mark Zukerberg.

How Instagram video works

1>Instagram users will have same interface what they used, now with a new video icon and the ability record 15 sec  video. 

2>you have to press and hold down the button to record. let go when your finish or you can record another scene.

3>small advantage here if you like the video you can move to next step if you dont like the clip click the delete button it will erase from the timeline.

4>Instagram partnered with video filter specializes.  you can find 13 brand new custom filters designed specifically for video.

5>Grate advantage ability to choose the thumbnail or cover frame from any clip in the video.

6>Same as photo you can add description , include #hashtag (which will now work for Twitter and Facebook), add location, and you can share on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

7> When you see in your stream, video are marked by and icon in the top right. when you surf through video will auto play, you can pause if you want,  it will not loop.

I'm sure this is a good move by Facebook, this feature won't be thread for youtube. in the announcement today they didn't mention of  embeddable video clips.  Comment what you guys think about this new feature by Facebook to Instagram...  

Image Source : lh5.ggpht.com, cbc.ca, static2.businessinsider.com, ignitesocialmedia.com

Step by Step Guide to SEO -1

When considering to do Search Engine Optimization for a new website,  some business can't afford to hire or get help from an experienced in-house SEO or Consultant. so they won't do anything  and just carry on without doing SEO and try to success their business. in new era of internet if you wanna  success your business you need to be ranked in top search results.

In this blog post we gona look some basic steps you can do without SEO experts,  this will help you to have your right foot in Search Engine world. even if you can't hire a professional to help out your are going to be listed in Search Engine.

On-Site SEO Basic
Most important step in SEO is On-Site Optimization or we can say On-Page Optimization  needs to happen in your web page,  all heard about link building (if not we will be discussing in a later post), if there is no good On-Site Optimization no point of having good links mean doing linked building is useless and not effective. okay lets discuss some basic On-Site Optimization must to be done on your web pages importantly in your home page.

We say these steps as Golden Rule of On-Site Optimization. wait, before getting start  keep in mind when using any of the following elements in not to overdo.  tempted to show a lot of keywords on pages, remember that's not the goal.  When it comes to keyword optimization think up to five keywords or keyword phrases for each page on your  website and optimize.

Title Tag
<title> OrangeHRM :: Free Human Resource Management Software</title>
This tag explain to search engine what is on your web page, what the page is about. Title should be 70 character or less and need to include your brand name or business name and keywords that related to specific page. and the title tag place between <head></head> tag near top of HTML code.

Meta Description Tag
<meta name="description" content="World's most popular open source HRMS serving more than 1 million users. Feature packed HR software with live support and customization options" />

Meta description give search engine little more insights into what your page about.  still in SEO there is debate about whether meta descriptions can help with keyword rankings.  basically character count for meta description is 150 or less, its helps when search results are displayed to human easy to understand about the page also and it helps your search results stand out to the searcher when they are searching those terms.

Try to execute these steps, then follow this post  Step by Step Guide to SEO -2. and if you guys have time visit this blog post as well to understand more about SEO.

Image Source : seo-hacker.com, howtoprogramwithjava.com, gawpstorage.s3.amazonaws.com

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

SEO explained in simple term!!

Imagine for a minute that your librarian, But not a normal one your librarian for every book in the world, people depend on you to find exact book they need every day , how do you do it ? You need a system, you need to know what’s inside every book and how book relate to each other. Your system need to take in lot information and split the best answer for the question and its not an easy job.

Search engine like Google and Bing are the librarian of internet, there system collect information every page on the web so they help exactly people looking for. And every search engine has a secret recipe called algorithm for turning all those information into useful search results.

Now if you own a web site search results matter, when your page is having higher rankings they help more people find you, the key to higher ranking is making sure your website has the ingredients, search engines needs there recipe’s this is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

As turns out most of the ingredients known

1>Words Matter – search engine account for every word on the web, when some one search for shoe repair, search engine can narrow to only the pages that about those words

2>Titles Matter – Each page on the web has an official title, you never see it because its inside the code <title>Sample Title code </title> search engine pay lot of attention to page title because they often summaries likes a books title

3>Links Matter -  Links between websites matter,  when one web links to another  its usually a recommendation telling search engine this site has good information. A web with lot links comes to it can look to search engines, but some people try to fool search engine by creating or buying lot of links all over the web that point to there website. Usually search engine can deduct on a site that has link lot. Account for it by giving link from trust worth sites more wait in recipe.

4>Words in Link – If your webpage says “Amazon has lot of books” and the word books linked   to amazon.com, search engine can establish that amazon.com related to the word books, this way when some one search for books amazon.com will rank well. 

5> Reputation – Sites with consist record of fresh, engaging  content and growing numbers of quality links may be consider rising stars and do well in search rankings.  

These are just basics, and recipe is refined and change all the time. Good SEO is making sure has great content that’s supported by ingredients search engines needs for there recipe

Help Source: Google Analytics - Blog/Youtube/Help, Search Engine Land
Image Source: tacticalphilanthropy.com, onvizi.co.uk, turnthepage-onlinemarketing.com, seo-hacker.com

Facebook '#' hashtag

Last couple of days i was really annoyed by this Facebook hashtag news, really I'm not getting it why people in Facebook keen about this news, I was little late to get this news, after 10hrs of release only i got to know about it. still I'm in a confusion stage to understand what this hashtag going to do in Facebook, because we are using hash tag in Twitter, Instagram, G+, etc what the difference going to be ? mainly arrives question are whats going to happened to privacy setting for status's? not to worry about the public shared status, and about group status's like 3 kind of groups are there how they gona be displayed while using the Hash tag ?

Before going into the Facebook hashtag how many of you know whats hash tag is ? who invented it ? for what purpose it was invented ? 
not going to discuss fully about hashtag we ill see in another blog post. just basic the hash tag symbol (#) was created in 2007, and Twitter declined one of their key defining features.

The Facebook hashtag feature more likely on twitter, can be added to the post and when its clicked words begins with the symbol will be automatically showed in a page as group. this feature is piece of Facebook's effort to make things easier. this feature was hinted around march by facebook and they rolled out in june. when its comes to rolled out means they were little hurry about this release with the competitors like G+, the reason still the Mobile users of Facebook have to wait a bit longer than the desktop users to fully adopt the hashtag.

Mainly can see as advantage allows you to click on a hashtag and view all the recent post of friends, pages, and group into one convenient stream. mainly before Facebook makes this feature as paid make use of it. with million of people using Facebook companies have opportunity to create additional, untapped value by bringing together people who are talking about the same things.

How Facebook going to benefit from this hashtag, the users those who re-share from other social-media platforms, their hashtags will become click-able, linking back to the related conversation on facebook. advertising on facebook will gain higher ROI(Return on Investment) by use of hashtag, same hash can now be used across all social networks. Future advertisers able to target their advertisement based on users hashtag.

hashtag played a major part in SMM(Social Media Marketing) through the micro blogging site Twitter. Facebook was forced to move into hashtag feature, finally Facebook going to be direct competitor to Twitter. but remember Twitter is not a small company it had more than 200 million monthly active users up 2012 December, the growth from 140 million march 2012


What ever the advantage by hashtag, as a facebook user there are conflict in this new feature keep following for the Facebook hashtag updates.

Image source : Facebook News, mstrust.org.uk, firepolemarketing.com

Facebook Marketing do List-1

Nowadays Hot, Trending, Most wanted topic is Facebook marketing!! Everyone started doing it simply without knowing the depth of the Facebook Marketing. They think if they know how to create a account or how to chat in Facebook or how to create a page & some thinks just uploading a picture is Facebook marketing.  By watching some of the page activities I decided to write about Facebook Marketing do List. 

Before you start Facebook marketing you need to place some things correctly in order to get good results. 

1> A proper website - Website is your main connecting point to your business, from the web you can showcase your offers to customers.  Mainly nowadays your website need to be responsive. You guys might think what's this new word 'Responsive'. Simply it's about the web can align to the device that surf it. 

2>A proper business plan - Money!! how it's going to arrive to your business. Most people never think how or the source of money  comes to their business, it means they don't have a solid business plan. And they don't understand things like the cost of goods or how much money they can allocate for Marketing

3>A e-mail marketing - Mostly large consumer products do not needed a email delivery system, but most business need the email marketing as part of overall marketing strategy.  We can say email is not dead yet and best way being seen by the bulk of your current and needed customers. There are lot of email providers out there get the best one. I can suggest MailChimp, EmailBrain which is used by us most of the time for personal and work purposes. ( I'll be writing about How to do eMail marketing.... Wait for that) 

4>An Optimized Facebook Page - Before you start Facebook marketing create your Facebook page properly. Oh! you guys might think what 'properly' sounds for. It's not about going to Facebook page section creating page, when you create your page understand what category or type or kind your business going to be fall on.  After creating page have proper profile picture, may be your business logo.  Then a cover photo, please follow the terms and condition of Facebook while uploading cover photo, fill up your business details like description, website contact info, if you have opening hours etc.  Then fill up your timeline like started date, found date, Awards, Milestone etc. Think you guys got what I meant by properly!! 

Hope these four most do list will take at-least 1 week time to finish, once you guys finish these steps follow my blog I'll be updating the Facebook Marketing do List-2
Image sources : cdn1.hubspot.com, senitro.com, cce.clark.edu, prosar.com, dreamgrow.com