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Time To Say Hello To Instagram Stories!

Post author By binadmin
Post date 15 Nov 2018
No Comments on Time To Say Hello To Instagram Stories!

The audience was just getting hooked to the various filters & dynamics of Snapchat Stories that we got a sweet surprise from Instagram! Ever since its launch, it has spread like a wild fire. Whether its personal endorsements, daily routine updates or brand announcements, both the viewers & the uploader are equally in awe & love of this darling feature!

What is the BIG DEAL?

While, in the beginning Instagram received a lot of flak for copying “Snapchat”, it definitely has a lot more to offer. Honestly, the biggest difference is that unlike Snapchat, users can add text and stickers, draw on them, and even include a link or mention other users. It’s the last two features that help Instagram’s version stand out, though.

With the ability to add links and mention users Instagram creates a culture of inclusion, rather than secrecy and exclusion that is often the draw of Snapchat.

Instagram Stories are also searchable and appear publicly on a profile if a profile is set to public. This stands in contrast to Snapchat, which doesn’t have “profiles” for users to see previous content or view Stories. You must follow someone on Snapchat to discover his or her content.

That’s not all, more recently, Instagram moved Boomerang directly into the app. Now, users can create a Boomerang directly in a Story.

So, how do we LEVERAGE this?

One of the most important reasons for businesses to use Instagram Stories is relevancy in your followers’ feeds. Since Instagram updated the feed to be & algorithmic in June of 2016, having stories always appear at the top of a follower’s feed helps your brand remain top-of-mind. Popular Stories also appear at the top of the Explore page, helping gain an even wider reach.

The most common mistake that content creators or users make is missing out on opportunity of building a larger audience.

You’re creating Stories, but do you think that’s enough? Well sure, you can use relevant hashtags and tag as many people as regular images but that’s not the key.

Check out our recommended tactics and strategies below :

1. Repost or prepost content from your Stories to your feed

About to have an event? Post an announcement image to your regular feed letting users know to be on the lookout for the upcoming Stories that are sure to come.

Create a great Story? Before you post it, press the “save” button in the lower right and post it again as a regular image. You can save images after posting them by opening your Story and swiping up. If you’ve posted more than one image, it will save as a video slideshow.

2. Go live often

Alongside other popular trending Stories in the Explore page are the “Top Live” posts. Live video is becoming an arms race and Instagram is pushing it just as hard.

If you’re going live and providing great content, more people are going to tune in. These videos often rotate as more viewers tune in, and live videos end. So by going live often, you’re giving yourself a chance to appear and gain more followers.

Dr.Pradeep Gadge, diabetologist in Mumbai is often seen interacting with his audience LIVE on Instagram on various topic linked to #Diabetes.

3. Mention people

It’s no secret that people love attention, especially on social media. Give the people what they want by using the mention feature in your Instagram Stories. You can tag customers, followers, or those who inspire you with a personalized message. This sends a notification to the user who will more than likely see the content. Be careful with this one, though. You don’t want to wear out your welcome by over-tagging people.

IISM , India’s Pioneer in Sports Management Education, using the tag feature to promote the sponsors for their Life@IISM initiative :Junoon Sports Fet

4. Give out all the relevant information

Where was this picture taken? How beautiful was the location? Were you eating some amazing food or dancing to your favourite album? These little details can intrigue your audiences to know more & engage.

Softsens Baby, organic baby care product & apparel comapny using the LOCATION feature to promote its store at Banglore.

5. Gain more followers

This one seems pretty straightforward because it is. The more followers you have, the more potential your Instagram Stories have to be seen. Follow other users, use relevant hashtags on regular posts, and engage with the content of those you would like to follow you back.

6. Create great content

Again, not groundbreaking but still the best way to organically grow your following. The more accounts that are watching your Stories, sending messages, and engaging with them in other ways, the better chance your brand’s account has of appearing on the “Explore” page alongside other trending Stories.

Use interactive gifs, ask some cool poll questions, conduct a Q&A , just ensure your content is driving the user towards you & not pushing them away.

Binaryic, a digital marketing firm, interacting with their audience by using the POLL feature..

7. Sponsored Instagram Story Ads

This one is more indirect, but running ads is a good way to increase both followers and engagement on your account. Plus, it can provide a boost to your algorithmic score. In turn, this can make it more likely that your Stories will appear on the Explore page.

SoulTree- Organic beauty,skin & hair care provider promotes its festive offer with Sponsored Story Ads

What’s Next?

• Strategise :

Use this knowledge to develop a strategy for promoting your brand, inviting followers behind the scenes, and broadening your audience with high-quality live video and stories.

• Define A Goal :

There are many creative ways brands are using Instagram already. Ultimately, it comes down to what your campaign goals are for Instagram.

Do you want to help a promotion gain a wider audience?
Are you attempting to drive more traffic to a blog post, landing page, or video?

• Get, Set, Go!

Whether you’re a casual Instagram user or leading a social media team looking for more ways to engage your audience, Instagram Stories can benefit you and your company.

Now is the time to capitalize on a well-thought-out strategy before your competitors do. Engage your audience more with Instagram Stories and be sure to drive them to a relevant, dedicated landing page.

What’s your take on this? We’d love to know, share below!

Business Lessons from Auto-Anna

Case Studies

Post author By binadmin
Post date 04 Sep 2018
No Comments on Business Lessons from Auto-Anna

Inspiration comes from the most unlikely of sources. Annadurai, a 26 year old autorickshaw driver and more commonly known as the Auto Anna is giving successful corporates a run for their money with his innovative marketing and customer techniques.

A share auto driver who runs in OMR-Thiruvanmiyur area, Chennai, rose to national and international fame with his incredible marketing strategy helping him give three Ted-Talks in the process. Anna earns around INR 2500-3500 per day and ends up spending INR 12000 on newspapers, magazines and other amenities he offers through his auto-rickshaw. Up to date with technology and himself being technology savvy, Auto Anna also keeps an i-pad and a laptop for his customers. His eye-catching auto-rickshaw is Wi-Fi enabled and fitted with a small screen which displays important news clips of the days. Anna saves these clips when he’s back home watching news.

Anna’s customer retention would put big firms to shame with customers, mostly IT professionals waiting hours to take a ride in his auto. He is active on social media handles and has more than 12000 likes on Facebook while also running his own website.

Auto Anna rose to overnight national and international fame after his story went viral on Facebook by a group called – ‘Photos That Shook The World’. The post was shared more than 10000 times all around the world opening up unexplored and rewarding paths for Anna. He also featured in a short-film on a prominent YouTube channel – Pocket Films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR-6FfiUraU

The short-film garnered 200000+views with more than 6000 likes. While the love has been over-whelming for Anna, he feels the customers who ride through his rickshaw are gods. It’s because of them that he’s able to take care of himself and he wants to put in the extra effort to give back to his customers in whatever way he can.

Anna received more than 2000 calls o the day his story broke out on Facebook and was up all night receiving and acknowledging them.

Auto Anna’s strategy and customer relations is a handy lesson for even the biggest of companies who struggle with consumer expectations and retention. Anna who started transforming his regular auto-rickshaw by putting daily newspapers for commuters. He slowly and steadily started modifications by adding magazines, integrating a display and Wi-Fi. To help riders who didn’t have a mobile or laptop, he bought a tablet and soon upgraded to an I-pad.

Anna’s customer loyalty schemes are also innovative. He started a customer relationship contest for regular customers with a quiz of five questions. The winner takes home INR 1000. Similarly, every rider boarding Anna’s auto gets a token. The customer can redeem the tokens for cash, 20 tokens give you INR 250 back, 30 tokens give back INR 500. Anna truly believes in giving back to the community and plans to sponsor the education of at-least ten homeless children in addition to opening an old-age home.

The success and growth of any business are imperative to innovations and technological advancements and Auto Anna keeps striving to experiment new things to offer his customers. He is presently working on an app which would book auto rides in advance, order food on the way and help build a community of auto-rickshaw drivers.

Anna’s approach to a meagre business of running an auto-rickshaw has already transformed a number of lives and given unforgettable experience to countless commuters every day. He is an inspiration for everyone who have lost heart and run out of ideas in increasing and expanding their businesses. He story helps us understand it’s the little things you do for your consumer that creates a massive difference.

How to start with SLATE in simple steps

Case Studies

Post author By binadmin
Post date 13 Sep 2017
No Comments on How to start with SLATE in simple steps

We are very much aware of how Shopify works and how it can get tremendous benefits to your Ecommerce store. However, it is important to note how to start using SLATE and how to get maximum benefits from the same. SLATE is a front-end framework that helps to build Shopify themes. There are usually a number of theme options and with modern tools and the command line the tasks become simpler and better. This helps in faster developmental processes especially for theme developers. Lets start beginning with the basic steps for using SLATE platform and understand the features of Slate:

Installation of Node.js and Slate

To start using Slate, the first step is to install Node.js and npm installed on the computer. As we know Slate is an npm package, it does require its parent file. You can check if the version is up and running-by-running the “node” function on the computer. Usually, Slate runs on v.4 or higher versions if you have low version than you may want to install the latest Node version.

Installing Slate

For installation of the Slate, you will need to run the given below command from any directory by using the command line or running a terminal app on the computer:

npm install -g @shopify/slate

In the above, -g shows that you are running Slate globally on the machine and it indicates that it is working in any directory. Troubleshoot by checking Node.js, if you face any issues while running.

Creating a New Theme

The next step you need is creating a scaffold theme by using Slate. You can run the below command from the directory:

slate theme [theme-name]

Do not include any spaces in your theme name the first name in the theme directory will be your new theme directory name. The final command should look something like below.

slate theme my-custom-theme

Uploading the Theme

Run a command from inside the local theme directory, navigate in your theme directory and type the below command line:

cd [theme-name]

cd command stands for “change directory” and it takes you inside of the directory path that will specify after it. Inside the directory you can run following command:

slate zip

The above command will help compress a directory in a zip file for easy handling of the manual that is uploaded to client’s store. After running, you can see the upload having a zipped theme.

Shopify admin can follow this process by going to theOnline store > Themes > Upload theme > Upload the new Zip file > Publish the theme once it is uploaded on your store.

Connecting Store to local

After uploading Shopify theme made with Slate, you are now able to connect the local version that has been uploaded.

Rename the file as config-sample.yml

Here, you can add your store information and also you can add private information.

Password – For getting the password, you will need to set up API key for adding config.yml that helps to create connection between the client store and local theme store. One can create a private app. Go to Shopify Admin, click on apps and click on View private apps. Click on Generate API for creating a private app.

Theme_id – It is the unique id used in the theme to write for deploying to the store.

Let us start discussing the things that are of utter importance while working with SLATE:

Slate start – Slate is a front-end framework hence it is highly important to know its commands before you fully start using it. The command “slate start” runs slate build, slate deploy and slate watch features that help to develop faster. The command runs all the three commands so if you have made changes to client’s store and you haven’t made those changes locally then the local version may potentially wipe out those settings. Consider that the files have changed on your client’s store and they do not exist in local version of the theme.

Style Sheets – while you are importing style sheets it is to be noted that import statements that are found in Slates theme.scss are not Sass import statements. The imports build your stylesheet while running slate commands; they do require a build script to make a proper compilation. For adding additional Sass files, start to create new files in appropriate directory in the styles folder, add a new import line for newly created files having a correct. You can then run slate watch and see the changes that are reflected.

Tips and sources to start learning PHP

Case Studies

Post author By binadmin
Post date 13 Sep 2017
No Comments on Tips and sources to start learning PHP

PHP is a wonderful programming language and as you dig deeper into its different aspects, you find more interesting things in store for you. For newcomers, who are looking to get into programming world may wonder in amazement as to why one should learn PHP, what are its benefits and how it helps them. Let us start right from the basics and get a deeper grip into the world of PHP.

PHP stands for “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor”, it is the most common server side language that is used in programming today. It is an open source platform hence it is widely popular, any person can access it through the power of Internet. It is a free access tool to everything PHP online. The reasons and justification for using PHP go far beyond the reasoning fact that it is the language any programmer uses to not only develop their programming skills but using a free implementation. This language can be embedded in HTML. Learning is learner’s passion hence it is highly important to know where to start and how to start.

To start with PHP, one obviously needs PHP installed on their computers where they can write the code. Visual Studio Code is good platform to start with, download and install the program and save it like the way we usually save a notepad document. The extension for PHP file would be .php. Go to Open with > Select Studio Code > Open a Blank template for using. PHP coding always use PHP tags so do not forget them.

The starting of the tag looks like ‘<?php’ (<? This is outdated and hence it may create some problems. To run PHP program, one requires software where they can run it. Most people use Xampp, once you download it, there are some modifications that can be done to make it run smoothly. If no changes are made, Xampp will be saved in C:\ drive of your computer. When you open the file, it will open up many options but save all of your files in ‘htdocs’ folder. When you click on the Run option, you will see two numbers under the ports that appear, the numbers that you can see are 443 plus a second one. We would be considering second number that is displayed. Now open a web browser and type localhost: 801/hello-world.php. You would write the second number where I have put 801. Once you hit the enter button, you will be taken to a white blank page. The next step is to confirm whether the browser that we are currently using is programmed to read PHP tags or not. For this, you will have to open hello-world.php file and in between PHP tags, you have to write “Hello”. To check this on the browser, go to the browser and reload the page.

Finally, now that we have installed PHP, and the way to write its code, we have to start learning how to actually use PHP. There are a number of online resources and books available online, some resources are freely available. There is a lot of information available online to learn so many things, search with keywords like PHP programming, PHP free online resources, mySQL Web development, etc. some programs and books will be quite lengthier than you think, but do not get nervous. Lengthier the pages, the deeper understanding of the programming and the processes they have used. There are ample of books available that will give you good amount of information to learn PHP section wise.

PHP is a smart language, once you dig deeper into it, you shall see how tremendously useful this language is. Sometimes, you may be utterly frustrated if codes do not work what you programmed them for. But, do not give up, scan through online courses, mark different solutions that you get to fix your problem and try again.

Grow your Search traffic by adding JSON-LD

Case Studies

Post author By binadmin
Post date 09 Sep 2017
No Comments on Grow your Search traffic by adding JSON-LD

If there is one objective that every Ecommerce has in common is the search for Organic traffic on their websites. Although, there are many limiting factors with search engines, the choices to get Organic Traffic are vast. Search engines often face the problem of analyzing huge quantities of HTML data that is complex and non-standardized. Search engines extract data and present it to the users for the queries they ask in the search box. They do it with the help of Structured data, one may wonder how structured data helps for search engines to recognize and analyze the query.

Structured data is the information about a web page that helps search engines to understand the contents of the page. Search engines do not have to parse entire HTML document, they can analyze the page through structured data. Let us understand the Role of JSON-LD in getting Organic search traffic:

What is JSON-LD?

Google highly recommends making use of structured data in all of the sites and JSON-LD is one format of the structured data. The biggest benefit of using JSON-LD amongst other type of structured data is that it doesn’t have to be interspaced within HTML coding. As compared to this, other formats require you to change HTML, add the elements and attributes to show where each part is located in the page. Sometimes it is difficult to detect any errors due to which it may affect the search results. With JSON-LD, the code is embedded in HTML that acts as a block to JSON data. This doesn’t affect how HTML looks and is invisible to regular users.

How to Add JSON-LD

JSON is a popular data format and JSON-LD is based on it that many developers create or update it. Developers’ find using JSON-LD easy if they have already worked with other structured data formats like microformats or RDFs. Other benefits of using JSON-LD is, that it works with stores having dynamic backend that helps to create web pages. JSON-LD is the data that is separated from the actual page. The stores using dynamic data are able to easily create a template for JSON-LD; they can then re-use it across all product pages.

A person not having technical background is easily able to check the details of the product page details like the name, description, brand, image, url, sku, condition, etc. Other things that can be checked about the offer are price, condition, currency, availability, etc.

Easy Updating

All the data combined together help the search engines understand the product for sale. Some data are duplicated in both the product and offer section. JSON-LD format allows listing the details of the product page. Try to give as much data as possible to the search engines when you set-up JSON-LD, they can use it for search results.

Include Core Data

Core product data is highly important to include in your product JSON-LD. Product element terms like name, description, itemcondition, availability, price, pricecurrency, aggregaterating, offers, etc are used to provide for organic listings. Adding JSON-LD helps search engines to parse the products and offers available on your online store. They greatly help to increase organic search traffic.