The Death of Pay Per Click Advertising

For something that's been around for just a few years, PayPer click advertising, or ppc has become an established part of online marketing for many companies. Paid search marketing is the process of gaining traffic by purchasing ads on search engine. However, recent research revealed that 18% of SMEs using google ads words actually get reimbursed by their reinvestment.

Two Reasons Why It's Failing Businesses

1. It's a short term fix- PPC i purely about grabbing the consumers attention instead of establishing a relationship with them.
2. It is brand unaware- PPC is purely about the ad and about capturing the interest of window shoppers. These people are more worried about cost rather than quality. 

Uconn Student's Mac and Cheese Viral Meltdown Spawns Fundraisers

Freshmen members of the University Of Connecticut raised money for all the workers involved in the 2015 Uconn Mac and Cheese incident with Luke Gatti. Sadie Rumsey set up a page on gofundme.com to give the workers involved a night out. A statement from UConn states that employees can not receive gifts due to their employment. However, the school would like to recognize the workers for how they handled such an awful situation for everyone. Social media is a two edged sword and can really hurt ones reputation. Supposedly now the boy is filing for accelerated rehabilitation, rightly so. Here's a link to the alarming video.

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/UConn-Student-Arrested-When-Mac-and-Cheese-Quest-Gets-Physical-330910772.html

Social Media Vs. Police Brutality

Social media is changing the game and now putting the government under pressure. With all the social media that there is now, police brutality is often highly frowned upon. What does social media do? It exposes the brutality in police departments and now exhibits consequences for actions. For example, police now have body cameras on them. However, they can choose whether the camera is on or not. With the constant stories of racial profiling and young black males being killed, the government is now under pressure to not use excessive force. Social Media cannot stop police brutality as a whole because well, it's still happening! For now, it's good that our government is being exposed for unreasonable force because it's starting to change corruption within society. Here's an example of social media and police brutality.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/12/07/ronald-johnson-video-chicago-police-sot.cnn/video/playlists/ronald-johnson-police-shooting/

NYPD's Twitter Outreach Backfires In Most Predictable Way Possible

Twitter has now been around for eight years and it still hasn't made sense to them that it's still a terrible place to promote your brand. Especially when you have a bad reputation for police brutality, unnecessary roughness, and racial profiling. Twitter took a very bad stab when they asked, "Do you have a photo with a  member of the NYPD? Tweet us and tag it." You can only imagine the amount of occupy Wall street people posted along with a photo of an 84 year old man being bloodied for jaywalking. Social media can be rough if you set yourself up for it!

7 Ways to Market Your Business on Facebook

Facebook is the number one way to connect and share with friends online. It has now grown into a venue for businesses to market online. In this post, we will highlight 7 ways to market your business on Facebook.

1. Making the most of your page- This is a great want to create your brand and identity. With that, people also enjoy humor on the site. Hence, share videos that are pertaining to your products or services so you engage people.
2. Facebook Advertising: Classified Ads- Facebook offers it's own advertising that are known as "Classified Ads". They include a headline with copy, an image, and a click-through link to a Facebook ad, Facebook app, or outside websie.
3. Hosting Facebook Contests- Running contests, sweepstakes, or promotions, is another tactic that can help you gain fans and increase awareness. 
4. Facebook Promoted Posts- Facebook promoted posts let Facebook page owners pay a flat rate in order to have their individual posts reach a certain amount of consumers. 
5. Facebook Sponsored Stories- This tool shows an ad of another consumers interaction with the business. Basically, it's a word of mouth tool. Therefore, the more your business grows, the more inclined people are going to see it.
6. Facebook Open Graph- This graph lets businesses label a users action with the app. Businesses can create third party applications that connect to a user and post a notice on Facebook when a user performs a specific action within the app. An example of this would be Spotify. Anytime a business requires you to sign in with Facebook, Facebook then receives the feedback immediately. 
7. Facebook Exchange( FBX)- Facebook Exchange lets advertisers take advantage of ad retargeting on Facebook through real-time bidding. Advertisers can target consumer markets based on web history data when a user visits a product page on a retailer’s website, but fails to make a purchase, the retailer can then display an ad for that same product on Facebook with FBX.

Why Using Social Media for Fundraising Isn't Effective

You couldn't look anywhere on Facebook or Instagram without seeing it. There were countless posts of people dumping ice water over their heads for the ALS ice bucket challenge for Lou Gehrig's disease. The 2014 challenged raised over $115 million for ALS research. Hence, you would think that Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram are effective ways of marketing for fundraising. Wrong. These challenges aren't effective in actually getting people to click and donate. Obviously, these challenges help because it gets issues on the radar. "It's useful because people are seeing your issue," says Michael Ward, a principal at strategy firm M+R that publishes the Benchmark, a nonprofit industry guide to online fundraising and advocacy. "But then to actually get them to divert that knowledge into a donation, it really takes other channels, such as email marketing or even direct marketing to close that loop." It is said that only 3% of people donate due to social media channels according to an Adobe. "Adobe collected data for a year from websites. But the Adobe findings also echoed the results of a Red Cross survey also done in 2014, which found that online solicitations and engagements helped sway people to donate; however, people didn't report them to be as motivational as in-person requests or emails and direct mail, which remain the bread and butter of fundraising."

How To Start Freelancing With No Experience

In 2011 Financial Times (UK Magazine) reported a 12% increase in freelance growth from 2008. The popular site known as Elance has had consistent growth over the years. In 2012, there were 200,000 job postings in the first quarter. There was 300,000 jobs posted shortly a year after. With freelancing being so enticing, people have serious thought in starting up but do not know how. No worries, you will learn today. 

1. Choice your craft- Almost anything can be outsourced these days. So think about what you enjoy and what you can realistically offer. You need to find demand for ultimately what you want to do. 

2. Create a brand- Your brand is your identity that you're associated with such as website, blog, and social media sources. Make sure you narrow down your target market and find the industry you think you can succeed in!

3. Build a portfolio and source testimonials- The freelancing world is not as defined as the corporate world. This is due to to the fact that your prospective clients aren't concerned with your background. They want to see your work and proof that it is excellent. Therefore, if you create testimonials to show your success, there's a better chance you succeed. 

4. Start pitching- You should only seek paying clients when you have an effective portfolio and testimonials. At this point you should start pitching to your target market. If everything is done well, you already know who you're target market is!

5. Play the odds- Freelance work is a numbers game. The more clients you contact, the more work you're more likely to find. Hence, get motivated and follow up.