5 Habits That Will Badly Fail You as a Businessman

Business is all around us. With the world getting over populated, ideas are flooding around everywhere. Every new idea gives birth to a new earning plan. The most difficult process for any type of earning strategy is taking the first initiative to turn an idea into a practical plan. Rest all those profit and loss sinusoidal waves follow naturally by themselves. I started blogging back in ending months of the year 2008 and to be honest I never thought it would turn out to be an everlasting business engine. This year thought me great lessons when it comes to expanding this little blog into a network of ecommerce services and online websites that gave a whole new definition to the medium I work in. After going through the lives of some famous investors and successful executives I came to a point where I realized that business is not all about Long Term Investment, there is a lot more to it.

Note: For bloggers and freelancers who are looking to expand their career goals, the habits below are a must read.

The success of a real time earning mechanism is based on strong principles and set out rules and unless you know them then you are really just riding your business on a knife edge. I am sharing below some significant habits in a businessman's life that unless rectified could lead to a terrible end that leads no where.


1. No Clarity + No Purpose = No Results

Most of the business decisions that often fail are because of no clear rules, aims and financial plans. Statistics from U.S Small Business administration reveal that approximately about half of all new small business launched in USA will fail in coming 10 years. Reason? Poor financial management and set out goals.

Unless you clearly know what you need to do, how can you lead the cavalry following you at your back. Make your goals clear and write them in paper and pin it on your notice board to keep yourself focused and determined. Now to achieved these well defined goals, you need to be clear with every move you make. The best advise in this case is to look at your competitor and track all his moves. Only then you know what can turn into profit and what can cause loss. Keeping an upper hand is also the Market Samurai's style.  Clarity and Purpose will surely give fruitful result at the end of the day.

2. Abusing The Freedom

The above picture defines it all. Its every entrepreneur's dream to work late and sleep late. Having the freedom to work when you want and do what you want is awesome but this will drag you down to floor! Yes you are the sole boss of your business but you need to be much more disciplined when you are not working under someone. There is competition all around you and your competitor is well focused and his eyes are on all your activities. A slightest slumber can ruin all your empire. Being lazy will certainly fail you but hard work would undoubtedly rise you high.
To be honest being lazy at work is my biggest weakness. With increasing readership I should rather be thankful and should work even more, but the physical laziness has pushed me several miles away. The readers often find it uncomfortable to receive late replies to emails and comments but being late at their call is badly ruining the blog's growth. This something we need to work on it seriously.

3. Acting Like a Rabbit Rather a Wise Turtle

People often switch from one idea to another. Anything that seems more attracting, distracts your attention you jump to that discarding the project you were working on. Have patience  and give your plans a space to grow. Act wisely and never postpone or abandon a business target unless you are too sure.  Consistency and strong determination are key requirements for a risky career like entrepreneurship. Don't run like a attention seeking rabbit with distractions all around him, walk like a focused turtle who knows what his target is and how long will it take to finish.

4. Early Demands

Small business owners often attach huge expectations before the Business has not even groomed properly. Keeping short term goals is the biggest mistake you can commit. Keep your demands high and expect them once the time is right. give a space for the business exposure. Let the market know and publicize your services as far as you can. Once you become the next Giant whale fish, you can take at a gallop all the small fishes.

5. Keeping Two Coins and  Investing One
The great billionaire and one of world's richest investors: Warren buffett gives great emphasis on investment. To grow a company no matter small or big, you will need to sacrifice a bigger share of your cake piece.  You need to keep the stomach half empty else too full a tummy could turn you clumsy and let your competitor win the applause. You must learn to invest more and store less for a bigger and faster Boom.

Just this month I upgraded the salary of both authors who work for us. They will now be publishing posts not just at our sister blog on smart earning methods but they will also be actively publishing posts at this blog. This will provide readers with a variety of fresh new posts daily and along with good quality. In order to keep readership engaged and entertained, this small investment was important.

How Can Students Become Millionaires While Studying?

 Seems far-fetched, doesn't it? Looks like an ad similar to the ones that say 'Google pays me so and so', yes? Well, you might be only half right, because nothing is impossible, or should I say, impossible is nothing in the world. It is only a matter of perspective and setting up goals. Now most of you are thinking, people can easily earn money by creating a blog, but that money definitely isn't in seven figures. Well, perhaps it's time to think outside the box.

The idea of creating a blog and earning money from it might have been considered 'thinking outside the box' a few years ago. But as of now, it is residing deep inside the box. Hence, the need of a change of perspective, or mindset if you will.
You can make some serious money if you have the right aptitude for it. Students, of course are the best fit, because they are quicker learners. But this doesn't other people can't read this post, which will discuss about some of the productive ways of earning money.
Besides creating a blog and earning through advertisements and affiliate programs, you can do many things to earn some good money. Nowadays, earning money is no longer easy. With evolving trends in the industries, skill is the need of the hour. Those who have equipped themselves with it are earning millions, while others are sitting back and waiting for people to lick on their ads (:P). So the bottom line is, people, especially students need to spend their time in more productive things, rather than playing games and chatting on Facebook.
Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying that earning through blogs is a bad idea, or that blogging is not productive. Oh no! Quite the contrary! If you have a blog, then that's excellent! It will help you all the more. But maybe, it's time to equip yourself with some new skills so you can counter anything coming your way in the future.
So the big question is, what to do? Well, here are a few suggestions.

Learn web development

Information Technology has already taken over out lives. Already, online connectivity is the need of the many, with new trends towards online usage growing the form of cloud computing and more. If there;s one thing for certain, it's that computers and the internet are definitely here to stay. So that makes web technologies all the more important.
The amazing thing about this field is, it hasn't gone stale. Ever since Tim Breners-Lee created HTTP in the late 80s, the field has grown in importance. Look at Mark Zuckerberg. He was a student when he created Facebook. In any of you have seen his movie, The Social Network, you'll know how he first created a website called Face Mash, which earned him reputation, and he eventually got approached by some seniors who had a project in mind, which later became Facebook. See how developing a simple website turned his luck? Now, he is a $20 Billion man!
There are other countless examples! Look at Larry Page, the founder of Google. As big as it seems now, Google must have started from scratch at one point. And it didn't just become a proper search engine at once. It was built, little by little. Look where it is now. You can find countless other such examples, like Matt Mullenweg - founder of WordPress, or Sergey Brin, founder of O'Reilly Media. All of these started from zero, yet used their skills to make their companies what they are now.
There are many places you can learn the required skills from. Just Google what you want to do. Personally, I'd recommend Lynda.com, and O'Reilly Media. They are simply the best resources available on the web today!
You don't necessarily need to make a website. You could create your own tools for your blog, or make a web app and implement it on your blog/website etc. There are literally thousands of ways you can put your skills to good use.

Create an app

For those of you who are into programming, creating an app for a smartphone is a really good idea! Not many people think about it, which makes it that much more special. Again, you can learn how to make apps fro the leading online resources such as Lynda.com and O'Reilly Media. There's really no shortage of resources one can complain about.
Now about the app itself. The important thing is to start. The challenge seems daunting, which is why most people can't get past the thinking phase. Grab any good idea that comes to your head, and run with it. Remember; for your first app, you don't really need to be unique. You can make something as simple as a currency-converter or a calculator. This will get you acquainted with the working of things. Once you have your first app, you can start thinking of a unique game or app idea. Forget Angry birds, believe me, there are people who are earning loads of money from much simpler ideas. You can make a simple app too. It'll either be popular, or it won't. But in either case, you'll learn something, and that is why you'll always be the winner.
Popular smartphone platforms are Android and iOS. So it'd be wise to create an app for them. Symbian and Blackberry platforms have since lost their touch. And as a beginner, you ought to give yourself the best chances.

Freelance projects

If you aren't into programming, then you can always look for other work that best suits your needs. Freelance workers are being hired ever day for all sorts of works. Maybe you can show them your skills and get hired. Picking up freelance projects can really buff up your pocket. There are many freelance websites where you could look for work.
Sometimes, it might be hard to find freelance work, because you have nothing to show on your portfolio. You can, however, start with the small websites, such as fiverr, or its alternatives. These will give you a fairer opportunity to show your skills to the world. And also, they will help you get your freelancing career started.

Write articles

Freelance writing is another profitable way to earn money. If you have a good grammar and good writing skills, then you should definitely try this. You can either write for big article directories, such as EzineArticles, or write for blogs that are looking for paid authors. Visit different blogs on a regular basis, and see which ones are looking for paid authors.
Those were some of the killer ways you could make money. It isn't easy, except for the last one, but if you get them right, you can be raking in bucks. And it never hurts to learn something that's not on your course :)

How to Run a Successful E-Commerce Business from Start to Finish

If you’re thinking about starting an e-commerce business, you should probably think about what you need to do to make sure it succeeds. Running a profitable online store is more than creating a website and selling products. Follow the eight steps below and you’ll soon be on your way to becoming a successful e-commerce merchant!

1. Establish an Idea

The very first thing you need to do is figure out what you’re going to sell. Do you want to sell products or services? If you’re having trouble thinking of an idea, do a little research on popular e-commerce industries. Online tech support services, dating websites, and online stores selling goods such as electronics and tobacco are some popular industries today. If you’ve decided to sell products, you’ll need to obtain a supplier’s agreement on all of the products that you’ll be selling.

2. Create a Business Plan

Now that you know what you’re going to sell, who are you going to sell it to and how are they going to find out about it? While a business plan will help put your new e-commerce business into perspective, it’ll also come in handy when applying for a merchant account — but we’ll get to that a little later. A standard business plan should include:

    A description of your business
    A description of the product or service you’re selling
    An analysis of your target market
    An advertising strategy
    A six-month sales projection
    A description of your management team

3. Find a Web Hosting Server

Your next step is to find a website hosting service provider. The Web host is what will allow you to make your site accessible online. You need to consider many things when choosing a host. Do they have what you need to build your website? Look into how much bandwidth they offer. How much uptime do they warranty, and do they reimburse you for any long time downtime? Do they have a support team and what’s the availability of their support team? Compare prices and, of course, read reviews.

4. Design and Develop Your Website

After you have somewhere to host your website, you can begin designing and developing it. I could go on for days about this topic, but I’ll stick with some of the most important factors. Once you’ve decided on an effective layout and color scheme, here are some aspects to keep in mind:

    Keep font faces clean and simple, and try to avoid fonts that are too over the top, such as Comic
    Sans and Kristen ITC.
    Write detailed product descriptions that will make your customers want to buy what you’re selling.
    Display multiple photos of your products highlighting different features. Also, make sure the image
    size isn’t too small.
    Include About Us and Contact Us pages. The About Us page will help your customers get to know
    you better, and the Contact Us page will give them a way of getting in touch with you if they have
    any issues.

5. Apply for a Merchant Account
Now that your website is up and running, you need to find a payment processor that can help you open up a merchant account — a special kind of bank account provided by acquiring banks that allows businesses to process credit cards. Since you are processing card-not-present transactions, acquiring banks will automatically label your business as “high risk,” so you should find a processor who works with high risk merchants. When applying for a merchant account, you’ll have to provide documents for the bank’s underwriting process. These documents may include:

    Résumé or CV
    Business and marketing plan
    Supplier’s agreement
    Personal bank reference letter
    Photo ID
    Utility bill
    Certificate of incorporation or sole proprietorship documentation
    Credit card processing history (if applicable)

6. Get a Shopping Cart

Once a bank approves you for a merchant account, you’ll need to find a shopping cart to integrate into your website and payment gateway. A payment gateway is a web application that encrypts and sends transaction information from your website to the bank for approval or denial. Not all shopping carts are compatible with all payment gateways, so be sure to get your cart after you get a merchant account and payment gateway. Ask your merchant account provider what shopping carts work with their gateway, and if they have any modules to make the integration process easy.

When picking a shopping cart, make a list of features that are most important to you. Here are some features to consider when choosing a cart:

    Payment options (e.g. debit/credit cards, electronic checks)
    Multiple currency processing
    Shipping options (e.g. USPS, UPS, FedEx, pick up in store)
    Multiple images per item description
    Allow customers to write product or service reviews
    Printable invoices
    Sales reports

7. Learn How to Prevent and Fight Chargebacks

There will come a time when a customer feels you’ve wrongly charged them. When this happens, they may contact their credit card issuing bank and request a chargeback, asking for their money back. Chargebacks result in a loss in the approved funds, as well as having to pay a chargeback fee. There are several reasons why a customer would file a chargeback, including:

    They didn’t receive the products or services they purchased
    The cardholder didn’t authorize the transaction
    The amount on their credit card statement is different from the amount at the time of the purchase
    When the customer received the products they bought, they were damaged or not as described
    on your site

A high chargeback ratio could mean losing your merchant account and payment processing abilities. MasterCard and Visa have different requirements, but it’s a good rule of thumb to keep your chargeback ratio below 1%. However, there are ways to prevent chargebacks.

    Always deliver your goods as advertised on your site
    Customize your billing descriptor so the charge is recognizable on the cardholder’s statement
    Email customers an online transaction receipt and require them to email or fax a signed copy back to you
    Call the customer to verify the transaction and purchase
    Provide a toll-free telephone number so your customers can call you directly with any questions
    Use a delivery service that requires a signature upon receiving the goods

Even if you do all that you can to prevent chargebacks, it’s inevitable that they will happen. When they do, be sure to dispute them. When a customer files for a chargeback, your acquiring bank will notify you, and you’ll have three days to dispute it. Each credit card association requires different documents when disputing chargebacks, but supporting documents should include:

    A signed invoice
    A signed delivery receipt
    A copy of the credit card and/or a photo ID

8. Market Your New E-Commerce Business
OK — Now that you’re website is up, and you’re able to accept credit cards online, you need to let people know you’re open for business. Social media is an excellent (and free!) tool that lets you reach a global customer base. Create a Facebook page for your online store and offer promotions and deals. Ask for customer feedback and respond to all comments in a timely manner. Use Twitter to join in on a larger conversation. Create a blog. Use Pinterest to help maintain a consistent brand for your business. Social media marketing helps advertise your business, and it also helps boost your SEO ratings.

How People Find Work Online

These days almost everybody could do with some extra money!  What with the cost of living getting higher because of the ever increasing price of commodities.  It should not come as a surprise that the internet has become one of the most common, if not THE most common, places where people find work online. This is because it is so convenient and online jobs can fit flexibly into anyone’s schedule. You can even do more than one online job if your schedule permits it or if you are really interested in a subject. If you are interested in making extra money, you could learn some earn online strategies that can help you get just the right online job for you. It is not complicated at all, in fact it’s so easy that many people now earn a second income online!

The Advantages Of Having An Online Job

There are a number of advantages to having an online job. The first and probably the most common reason why people do it is that, compared to full time work, online jobs are reasonably easy to find. There are plenty of freelance opportunities that you can apply for that don’t need a very rigorous selection process.  There are a lot of people who even get online work simply because someone has recommended or referred them.

Although there is some sort of process that you need to go through in order to get the job, it would not be as strict as those for regular jobs. Most of the time, the only things that you need are the necessary skills, a computer, and an internet connection. You don’t have to report to an office every single day as you can work from home, which is very convenient for those people who want to be in control of their time. Although there are some online jobs that require you to work full time, there are plenty others that do not require a full eight hours of work every day.  This means that you can find something that works for you.

Basically, you have a lot of options if you want to find work online. There are a lot of opportunities out there, you do not have to limit yourself to just one, and you do not have to be restricted with the requirements of a particular employer. You can choose who to work for because there are just so many of them out there.

The Kind Of Work That You Will Do
There are various jobs that are offered online. A lot of people do article writing, graphic design, web development, etc. online. There is a huge demand for people who possess certain skills. So, the first thing that you need to do is assess yourself and determine what skills you have, what capabilities you have with which you can earn money online. When we talk about earn online strategies, you do not even have to be limited with the obvious skill sets (i.e. article writing or web development), or any others that are related.

This is because there are some people who hired people online to do some work for them as an outsourcing transaction. This means that a company or a business needs some tasks to be done, but they don’t want to handle these tasks themselves necessarily (for several reasons) so they hire people who can do those tasks for them so that their business can run as usual.

For example, there are people who are hired to do bookkeeping, to handle finances, design a leaflet, or to do other routine tasks that a company needs. You have to know that the choices are many, but one of the earn online strategies that can help you be successful in your search for the right online job is to narrow your search according to the things that you can do. The other choices are there, but you can’t really do anything about them unless you know how to do them yourself. So it would be easier and faster to start searching according to your personal skill sets.

Show Recommendations From Past Clients
This is one of the best ways to find work online!  Getting someone to refer you or recommend you to other people is a great way to find work online and build up a client list.  Businesses want to hire people that they know will deliver what they are asking of them.  If they know that you had done some previous work for someone else, then they can ask for a recommendation from them.  If you can provide them with this, then you stand a much better chance of landing the job.  When you think about it, it’s no different that including references on your CV or Resume.

3 Tips For Freelance Writers On Elance – Honesty Is The Best Policy

The cardinal rule for any freelance writer operating in a virtual arena like Elance is: “Don’t over-promise and under-deliver.”  This habit is quick to kill off your freelance writing career.

If you are acquainted with Elance, or similar job posting sites, then you know how important honesty is to your success. On social medial platforms like Elance, your reputation grows by positive feedback from clients. Abandoning honesty will put you in a dangerous position. This is because when a client expects a high grade of work and receives a medium grade, he or she may write a contractor off altogether.

One of the sneaky things about over-promising is that it can easily happen to the best of us. One little exaggeration on a contractor’s Elance digital profile can result in big misunderstandings and disappointed clients.
Tips To Help You On Elance

Here are three tips from Elance contractors that should be practiced by all freelance writers, whether they work on Elance or not.

1- Be Honest With Yourself

Each one of us has a different set of strengths and weaknesses. Believe it or not, your freelance writing career will flourish with an honest eye. Distinguishing between your strengths and weaknesses does not make you a poor writer; it makes you a specialized writer. Here are a few more thoughts to consider:

    Remember, each project you undertake is a work in progress. From the time you bid on a job, to the day of its completion, you are working to make it better than it was the day before.
    Remember, you work from a digital platform. This makes honestly doubly important. On Elance, especially, face-to-face meetings are few and far between. Thus, it is important for you, the contractor, to regularly check in with your client and receive their approval before going ahead with the project.

2- Write Your Personal Bio In The Third Person

Elance Website 3 Tips For Freelance Writers On Elance Honesty Is The Best Policy

Let’s take a minute to talk about client- contractor communication. Your professional bio, resume, or personal website is the first form of communication you have with a client. It is the first step in establishing a relationship. Yet, these are the places where freelancers tend to slip and over-promise.

For the Elance freelance contractor, the first step in fostering these relationships is creating a bio that exudes warmth and honesty to pique the interest of future clients. You want to showcase your skills accurately, and you want to attract specific types of projects.

Writing in the third person allows freelancers to discuss their credentials, accomplishments, and qualifications without seeming haughty. It also allows them to display their likeability and exude confidence “safely,” without putting off potential clients. It forces one to honestly consider how others would describe their techniques and talents.

3- Bring Clarity To Your Proposals

The proposal phase of a project is just one more place where freelance writers feel tempted to over-promise. A proposal is essentially an opportunity for a freelancer to convince a potential client that he or she is the right person for the client’s job. If you are not careful, you will find that you have agreed to complete a job you are not qualified to do. Don’t let your persuasive skills make you dishonest.

Here is how you can avoid dishonesty:

    Keep Communication Clear - It’s important to keep the message of a proposal clear by discussing the project being bid on. “Reflect the project back to the client as you understand it and emphasize the benefits of the project as you see them.” http://www.elancefreelancewriting.com/
    Make A Plan – How will you carry out the job you are bidding on? Once you have a plan, explain it to the potential client in your proposal. This demonstrates to the client that you have taken an honest look at what they require. Likewise, this is an opportunity to honestly assess whether your skills will benefit the project.
    Highlight Your Skills – Your potential client needs to know that you have the necessary skills with which to do his or her job well. Let your strengths shine, but be honest about your weaknesses should the client ask.

Honesty is an important trait for all freelancers working to generate an online income. Don’t become the writer that over-promises and under- delivers.

5 Must Have iPhone Apps For Doing Business

Apple continues to prove that there is truth in their campaign, “There’s an app for that.” After they have dominated social media and entertainment, they are striving to extend the iPhone’s functionality by catering to business enterprises and middle-market entities.  If you own a business yourself, here are five recommended iPhone apps which can help you cut deals and connect with your clients all through your iPhone.
iPhone Apps for Business

 LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the ultimate social networking site for professionals. It debunks the notion that social media is all about leisure and entertainment by being the virtual indexer of resumes and business contact cards.

If you are an employee, you can easily use a LinkedIn app in acquainting with affiliates or searching for new jobs. If you are an employer, LinkedIn helps you establish a connection with your clients for future reference.

The best part: you can manage your professional network for free.


CardManager 

 For just a dollar, you won’t have to worry losing your potential clients’ or partners’ business cards. With CardManager, you can instruct your iPhone to store relevant contact information printed on tangible business cards.

To make this happen, you need to take a photo of the business card received. CardManager converts it into a digital copy and automatically saves it on your Contacts list. Once saved, you can quickly send a message, email, or make a call anytime.




Intuit Gopayment 

Intuit is a specialized app for business owners involved in selling goods and services. This Intuit GoPayment app comes with a portable Card Reader, which can be plugged into your iPhone’s audio jack, if needed.

With GoPayment, you can even accept credit card payments from your customers. All you have to do is ask your customers to swipe their cards on the reader, and the payment will automatically be reflected on their bill. Transactions are guaranteed secured by means of encryption. If your customer wishes for a receipt, you can send them an official electronic copy via email.

All your GoPayment transactions are reported on your QuickBooks online, which you can download so you can easily manage your sales and expenses.


Evernote 

If you are torn between a Dictaphone or transcribing by text, you can have both options in just one device.

By means of Evernote, you can take note of important topics during your meeting or track the discussion verbatim through recording. Evernote also allows users to take snapshots, if necessary. All files created can be synced to your web account, so you can access them from any other device at any time.






Viber 

If you cannot miss a trip but need to listen to a meeting, you can make free reliable phone calls by means of Viber. Viber connects almost 90 million people all over the world by means of photo sharing, text messaging, and free mobile calling. The best feature is that Viber is totally ad-free, which only guarantees that your calls will be free from any disruptions.

Do you have other business apps to suggest? How did it help you in conducting your business tasks? Share it with us through a comment below.

Using Mobile Games To Promote Your Online Business

Creating mobile games and apps to promote your online business is now easier than in the past and well worth the effort for many online business owners. The use of mobile apps has been shown to cut costs, increase productivity, and give your business a stronger hold on the market. Yet it’s a good idea not only to think about integrating mobile apps with your business, but also to think about what kind of apps will be most effective.

Recent surveys assessing the public’s use of mobile apps have overwhelmingly showed that the most popular apps are mobile games. According to a survey conducted by BusinessDegree.net, 64% of smartphone users play games, with the average iPhone user averaging 14.7 hours per month. As a result, online business owners might want to determine how to best integrate mobile games as a promotional tool.

The Benefits Of Using Mobile Games
There are many uses of mobile apps for business owners, including new payment models that allow users to swipe their phone rather than carry credit cards. Yet gaming unlocks the door to unique promotional possibilities. By using mobile games to promote your business, you can reach a wide audience and create a buzz around your brand. Businesses can tie promotional offers as rewards for beating levels of the game, for example, or use customer purchases to unlock a new level of the game.

People love a challenge, and using mobile games as a promotional tool allows you to tap into that aspect of human nature. With more and more of the public conducting business and making purchases on the go, another benefit is that business owners can reach their target audience no matter where they might be.

Three Steps For Integrating Mobile Gaming
Laying the groundwork for this type of promotion simply involves optimizing your web design using ecommerce web hosting tools. You can then get creative with promotional possibilities.

1. Get your Website in Order
You don’t want your new customers to be underwhelmed by your actual business after playing with a fun and catchy mobile game. Preventing this means creating an ecommerce site that’s easy to navigate, visually appealing, and secure. A common mistake that overeager entrepreneurs make is to launch a huge marketing push before their website is ready. It’s easy to give your website a makeover with templates and content management systems provided by today’s services such as the Shopify ecommerce platform. Once this is squared away, you can progress on to the next level of promotions.

2. Optimize your Website for Mobile Visitors

When someone accesses your website from a tablet or smartphone, they will have a more user-friendly experience if the site has been optimized for this use. This is simply a matter of taking your already existing website, and presenting it for smaller screens. The navigation tools may need to be tweaked a bit so that they can be accessed with a touchpad rather than a mouse. You can then link your optimized mobile website to the game.

3. Create Mobile Game Apps for Your Business

The best games are usually those with relatively simple designs. It’s helpful to think about how mobile games typically work. Players usually are trying to beat their own score, or play to unlock new levels of content. To tie this in with your business, you could reward players with coupons, sales, free shipping, or other rewards when they beat a level.

Another use of mobile games could be to spark the initial introduction to your brand, by asking them to register their personal details in exchange for gaining access to the game. Purchases can be connected to the mobile app, so whenever a customer buys something, they will get a password that gives them an edge in the game or unlocks a new level of content.  The possibilities are endless with this type of promotional opportunity, helping engage your existing customers and gain new ones at the same time.

How To Increase The Reach Of Your Facebook Page Updates

Thousands of Facebook page fans and only a handful of likes, shares and comments – sound familiar? After all that time you’ve spent reading about the greatest Facebook marketing tricks and ways to get your fans to engage with you, and you’re doing everything right – you just can’t seem to get more people to click “Like”, and shares and comment seem more and more like mission impossible. It can’t be that they don’t like what you’re putting out – it’s all positive and engaging, not offensive, by all standards the content you’re publishing is shareable.

And well, you’re probably right. Even if you’re doing it all by the book in terms of selecting the content, finding the voice that your audience loves and choosing the right time of the day, you’re probably not taking one thing into consideration:

How many people actually see your Facebook Page updates?

Officially according to Facebook, Facebook page updates reach about 16% of fans on average. In reality, most Facebook page updates fall into the average of 7% daily!  That means that only 7 out of 100 fans will see whatever you post on your Wall, status updates, images, videos, links, etc.

Don’t you just hate when you realize that your efforts are, for the biggest part, in vain? 93 out of 100 people won’t see that carefully crafted status update nor that link that you are trying to get them to click on. Or 930 out of 1000. And so on – no matter how many fans your page has, the percentage of those who statistically won’t see it is huge.
Luckily, you can do something about it.

First tip: Do you know how well you’re doing now?

Statistical data is one thing, but your actual numbers can be well below or beyond that 7% mark. This is pretty easy to find out – unless you’re using Sponsored Stories, but that’s another scenario. Just go to your Insights and check the numbers of your reach. To be more accurate, take the numbers from the last 30 days and take the average; then divide the number you got by the number of your fans – and there you go, something to start from.

The simplest way to increase engagement! (and pretty effective too)

Images! Facebook users love images, and Facebook loves what their users love. Facebook EdgeRank (what determines whether your content will reach a greater number of people) prefers visual to textual content. So yes, funny and meaningful status updates are all fine, but you can accompany them with an image for better visibility, or write them across the image (all it takes is two minutes of your time and basic Photoshop skills, or even simple Paint).

Status updates, quotes, practically anything you can publish as text – you can publish as an image as well. They’re more likely to be seen and read than the plain text updates (although you don’t want to forget about those either), and they don’t take time to be seen as the video content does.

Second tip: Stimulate the engagement, it’s not as difficult as you may think.
Increased interaction also influences your EdgeRank, and it’s up to you to create it – your Facebook page fans won’t get activated by themselves. This doesn’t require you to be online all the time, nor to spend large amounts of money on sweepstakes and contest prizes; it doesn’t even require that you be insanely creative – you can look around, see what others are doing, modify their idea to suit your audience, and you’re all set.

Some of the most engaging activities on Facebook include:

    Asking a personal question that the fans should answer to by filling in the blank (it has to be personal, because your fans will be delighted to share something about themselves)
    Multiple choice Q&A – even one letter comment (y or n) counts as a comment, don’t forget that!
    Sharing inspirational quotes (people easily relate to them and want to show them to their friends)

In one month, do the above calculation again and see how well you did – for the boost in morale; then just continue with the tips we shared, and add some more – and you’ll do just fine.