6 Keys to Building a Successful User Experience

I have talked about user’s experience in one of my articles and I explained what the benefit of adopting UX when start creating the website for your business! In this article I would like to take about two things that can build or break the user’s experience and has negatively or positively impact to your business: copy and design. They are both essential and equally responsible for guiding the user through the steps of how to use your product. Great writing can enhance the user experience, just as subpar instructions can hamper your otherwise wonderful UI.

Here are 6 keys that leads to a great user experience:

1. Present it in simplicity

No matter what the technology that your product has or how sophisticated its features, always think of how your user think and try break things down to the lowest common denominator. Use simple language so that the average person (without technical training) can understand. Don’t use advance technical language to present your product and then trying to explain what it means–the more technical and specific you get, the less likely the reader will stick with you. Communicate the absolute minimum information your reader needs to understand the major components of the product and how to use it.

2. Nab your instructions

If your website offers online services or it is an application, dont go with repetitive instructions as it is come up with counterproductive. Don't repeat information on the tenth step in case they didn't read it in the first. Instructions are like training wheels on a bike: the goal is not to need them after some time. The design of the product should allow it to become self-explanatory after some initial instruction. 

3. Become one with the product

UX writing differs from content writing. Content writing is about creating a voice that readers can relate to. UX writing is about creating the best possible way for someone to understand how to use and enjoy a product or the services in your website. UX writing should reflect the product and its features, not the writer’s vision of the product or their opinion. For example, imagine teaching someone to left-click on the tools tab. You may say, “Easily left-click on the tools tab for an awesome experience.” Or you could simplify and say, “Left-click on the tools tab.” The less convoluted the instructions, the easier the action seems.

4. Start your FAQs as a user

Predict the questions users might ask and address them in your descriptions. Product testing, user comments and experiences will all help you identify any potentially confusing stages in using your services on your website. Integrate these questions into your instructions. For example, if people are used to study in traditional classroom, but your business service is to offer online learning community, point that out as one of its features before you have to respond to 50 messages asking how they can reach you and come by the institution or attend the classes. You want to be sure to give the user a heads up about the way your product may be different from what they’re used to. Anticipate questions and seed within your instructions to avoid future headaches.

5. Make sure that your content is being read

We can spend a lot of time to produce great content, no matter how efficient your workflow is. As the old saying goes, time equals money, and it only makes sense to get as much out of your content as you can. Good and useful content will yield vastly different results from your users. As we know it is hardly to anyone to start at the top of the page and read every single word until get to the bottom. We’re going to scan to find the essential information, so make your page scan-friendly. Provide users a visual that is easy on the eyes, no small print or hard to read fonts. Make sure the color of the text is compatible with the color of the background so that it doesn't strain the eye.

6. Use “You” secret’s word

Finally, using “you” instead of “we” is an easy technique to create intimacy between you and the user. Simply put, saying “you” makes the reader feel you’re talking to them. Using “we” on the other hand, makes them feel like they’re listening to you talk about yourself. Ex: “You’ll be able to organize your notes and ideas more efficiently with Evernote.” vs. “We at Evernote have created a revolutionary way to organize notes and ideas.” The first one tells the user about how they can benefit from your product. The second one tells them how clever you and your team are. Which one will get them to sign up? Exactly.

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Want To Step Up Your Business? You Need To Build An Online Community

Search Engine optimization is an effective method to enhance the value of your website and market your online business. Every day, things are changing in SEO. If you’re not already working on creating new technique and adapting different strategies, today’s the day.

And it’s your time, use it and don’t waste it!

I am not saying the existing SEO is dead or that backlinks around are obsolete, or whatever all that crazy talk is that's been going around. It's that there's a way to integrate all the pieces into the big picture of building a better company by building an online community around it.

When I studied the marketing module in my MBA @ University of Cumbria , I have discovered in marketing strategy program there are lots of benefits to building a community around your company, but if I had to choose a few, here are my filtered top five:

It will help you to build your record in Google’s algorithms


Building an online community is one of the best ways to weather Google’s algorithms. If you're continually chasing the algorithm, you're putting all of your power in what Google's going to do next. If you're building a community around your business, you're putting the focus where it belongs: on your business. Building a strong company and brand isn't something that Google can take away.

There are many benefits to building online communities. One of those being the SEO benefits it can have for your organization’s website. Google algorithm updates such as panda and penguin removed many of the old ways of ‘doing SEO.’ They represent the lengths to which Google will go to try to weed out poor or low-quality content.

It will add more value to your business


Today, the Internet can be a great tool for businesses if you learn to properly use it for marketing and selling, but it hurts businesses that try to survive without it. As the number of people going online increases (due to the growth in mobile devices and mobile internet speeds). The future of every business involves online marketing and e-commerce solutions that replace or accent traditional selling methods, and here's the information that proves it.

For me, I always looking to build up an online business, and try to focus on one direction when start building online community. You have to do a bunch of stuff to better serve your customers like creating quality content and resources, enhancing your product or services, and improving your systems and processes. Doing these things adds equity and value to your business and attracts the right customers to your community.


It will help you have purpose


There’s a lot of effort involved in building a community around your brand, and it’s not just about creating content or being on social media just because everyone else is doing it. When you’re strategic about community building, it forces you to identify goals and put a solid purpose behind your efforts.


It will help you stand out


If you’re committed to the process of building a community, you are going to be doing a great deal of self-discovery and applying older marketing model (acronym AIDA). It stands for: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. In parallel you should look out your window and write down all the businesses that provide a product or service within your sight. During this process you’ll determine what you’re all about, what you love to do, and what it’s going to take to help you stand out among the competition.


It will put the focus on goals, not tools

Building an online community isn’t a bunch of fluffy stuff. I would say, in trying to differentiate your company, the temptation is to try to do everything for everyone. Determine what you do best and focus on that. Let your customers engage into your story, products, services and business. It’s the seamless integration of tools like SEO, social media, content marketing, email marketing, and all kinds of other important stuff (like hard work and passion). But in order for the tools to be effective, they’ve got to be driven by a strategy that is rooted in the goals of your whole business.

Want to know what really matters to your audience? Ask them and then listen (really listen) to their answers. It’s about making meaningful connections. It’s about building relationships and giving without the expectation of receiving something in return.

A present for you

For the past several months, I have been writing a lot about how to know on your market, keywords and topics, understand your marketing funnel and how to attract customers to it. And now, lucky for you, I'd like to share our process for how to build an online community for your business. 

Whether you’re building a community from scratch, or you’re working to grow an existing one, you can use this process to get your community rolling or optimize and leverage what you already have.

Developing a powerful online community provides you with the perfect platform to both promote and engage with your customers, providing significant benefits for your business

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How to Improve Your Next Business Engagement in 8 Steps

Nowadays, when people talk about social media, they are talking about all the ways using social media can increase their networks, reputation and the way of selling their image! On the other hand we can see most marketers are trying to use social media to increase a company's bottom line. At the end and as final outcome if we used it properly we can say social media has changed the world.
From my perspective, It’s not just about using platforms and tools for the new look and feel design of it, I think it’s important to remember how crucial the old fashioned relationship and business communications are.

In this article I would like to raise one of the most important elements which considered a key success factors in social media “Engagement”

But what does engagement actually mean? And are social media follower counts really important?

Engagement in a product or services business refers to how much people interact with a brand's social media and website. For instance, if you are selling chocolate cinnamon cake, I would say it may be tough to convince your clients or customers to share your secret chocolate sauce, a new dark chocolate product, or even a bad chocolate taste story with customers.

But, openness can go a long way in social media. Your community will feel involved in your company and appreciate the trust you show toward them. They may become interested in your story, want to get involved in your product trials, or stay in touch with updates. That hook may be what you need to generate new, long-term customers.

When I did my research via different online sources I found there are over 1.82 billion social network users worldwide; do you believe that?? That number is expected to increase to approximately 2.33 by 2017. Needless to say, being active on social media is an essential part of your marketing plan.

But active without followers like bird without wings. If you have followers on your social media channels who are engaged by your updates and realize tangible value from them your marketing efforts will be better rewarded.

I believe you have a question now and ask; how do you get followers and reach your audience over the internet? The answer is by providing them with real value and having a two-way conversation. People enjoy reading posts that offer advice, tips and tricks, but if they can then engage with the author of those posts or the company behind them, it takes their experience to the next level. Below are the most active steps that let your business, services, blog, website get more followers and engaged.

Tell a story

Perhaps the story is something as simple as how the new application that you developed on Android phones solved a memory size issue. Whatever the case, the power of a good story can’t be denied. It’s the follow-up to a story that was shared, including absorbing and responding to the reactions. It’s the action of connecting with someone that was affected by your story in one way or another and nurturing the beginning of a relationship with that person. Because of this, engagement can often unearth new stories or add to old ones, providing you with even more content.

Build trust

Building trust within your social community is considered an essential part and critical in online discussions. Building trust via social media channels is one way to build this credibility.

Respond to positive feedback

Positive feedback is your gate to pass the quiz in engagement session! It offers your brand a chance to turn casual fans and admirers into full-blown fanatics — the people we refer to as brand evangelists.

Respond to negative feedback

By listening carefully to your online community, you’ll easily spot customer complaints as they arise and quickly defuse find out a proper way to fix those situations.

 

Show your personality

Always keep in mind; you’re having a conversation, not publishing a press release. The simple act of responding like a human being will delight your community. If your brand was a person, what would you want people to say about him or her? How does your online presence reflect your answer?

Go beyond Facebook and Twitter

Though Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are still among the most popular, marketers can benefit from using social networks beyond these three.

Find, create, and share content

Producing and sharing your own content is a great way to add your voice to the conversations about your industry.

Follow back

Remember, not only is following those that follow you a kind gesture, but it will also help grow your overall following by showing potential new followers that you’re the type of brand who engages, not only broadcasts

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Attracting High - End Clients By Applying Promotion Frameworks

Many of my friends who have a business ask me different questions about how to promote their business and what is the fastest way to find new customers and attracting high - end clients?  In this post I am going to explain the most important secret to attracting high - end clients. This could be the most important article you’ll read in your business (sure, everyone says that), but from my perspective I strongly say the logic says 1 plus 1 equal 2 and in my math I would add when you master the art of attracting high - end clients, you’ll transform your whole business.

Everyone wants to attract more clients. But I think it’s even more important to set your sights on attracting more high - end clients. What do you think?
I have sketch out a new framework about the high - end clients. And I define high - end clients in the following three ways: 

1- They are “ideal clients.” That is, clients you can really make a difference with and whom you love to work with.
2- They are “long - term clients.” These are clients with whom you can offer programs and services for a year or more.
3- They are “high - paying clients.” They understand the value you offer and are willing to pay you more than average clients will.

Today, there are many forms of promotional media. Some marketers also refer to them as "touch points," since they are every place where people encounter your brand. I'll describe a one of most important technique (which I know best) that helps many businesses to boost revenue in a positive direction. Keep in mind, what works for one industry or brand may not work for other industries and brands. This is simply to provide you with an idea of the options; it's imperative that you adapt the medium to what works best for your brand, your stakeholders, and your goals.

An advertisement would be effective only if the media audience accepts that message and is motivated to take the requisite action. The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he/she will look at the advertisement and start to read it; which will then interest him, so that he/she will continue to read it; then to persuade him/her, so that when he/she has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement. 

AIDA Model

AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. It is an acronym used in marketing and advertising, which helps marketing managers develop effective communication strategies and communicate with customers in a way that better responds to their needs and desires. AIDA describes a common list of events that occur when a consumer views an advertisement. Each letter in the acronym stands for the following:

The "A" represents attention or awareness, and the ability to attract the attention of the consumers. Without attention, I can hardly persuade them of anything. Your marketing messages, materials, marketing strategies and sales processes need to communicate the message that you offer higher - end services. Perception is essential. Every impression you make should communicate: “I offer high quality, pay attention to details, follow - up professionally and produce great results.”

For instance, When I write blog posts, I like to split the title into two parts: what I’m talking about (the feature), and the result of it (the benefit),  just look at my last few blog post titles here:

- Build Your Income By Creating Your Own Online Business
- Balanced Scorecard Your Tool to Translate Business Performance
- Putting Information Technology on Track and Why it Matters for Marketing!

The "I" is interest and points to the ability to raise the interest of consumers by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising). Once I have their attention, I will sustain that attention by getting the other person interested!

You can bolster interest with offers and compelling reasons why you’re better than your competitor, and how you can solve customers’ problems. Features and benefits weigh heavily in this level, and social media can help you kick their interest into high gear.

For instance, you’ve got my attention, but I’m not ready to buy your product yet. And even if I was, I need to know you can actually UNDERSTAND and SOLVE my problem… which is why you need to tell me what problem I’m having and how can you really help me solve it.

The "D" represents desire. The advertisement convinces consumers that they want and desire the product or service because it will satisfy their needs. I believe once they are interested in my business and what I offer.

In the “interest” stage you’ve already done the clever storytelling… now you need to tell me what it is you want me to buy:

Social media can help bolster desire through communication and engagement, but to fully satisfy someone’s desire to buy, you need to have a site that is streamlined and optimized. Take the time to go through your site and optimize the presentation and the shopping cart experience. Testimonials gathered from linkable social profiles are a great asset. Take the customer from interest to desire with a clean, easy to navigate, info rich, and functional site.

What’s the exact name of your product and what’s in it?
What’s in each module, why is each module important and why is it given in the order you show it?
What bonuses are you giving me?

The "A" is action, which leads consumers toward taking action by purchasing the product or service. I would add, this is the magic stage when they take action on their desires and actually do their purchase and buy my products or services.

In small-business marketing, AIDA helps owners communicate more effectively with their customers. I would to say, the AIDA is like a tool we can use it to convince others not only in business or promote the product, I believe it's door key which persuade others to achieve the desired goal.

In this regard, AIDA has become a sales-driven tool that is strategized to lead the potential buyer towards an end suggested by the advertiser.

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Your Company Is Socially Engaged, But Do Your Employees Even Know?

Another year, another grim report on employee engagement.  Gallup’s 2013 “State of the Global Workplace Report” reveals that only 13% of employees are engaged at work.    

That abysmal number is undoubtedly related to the fact that, according to a different study, only 42% of employees know their organization’s vision, mission, and values.  That same report found that management transparency is the top factor when determining employee happiness.  Amongst other business “fails” resulting from this sort of a wide engagement gap, unengaged employees do not create engaged customers. As your company’s best brand ambassadors, your employees need to feel continually connected to the best vision of what your business can be in order to convey those principles to the world at large.  The ideals that you pursue with your corporate philanthropy are an important part of this ongoing conversation with your employees.

So how are you conducting this conversation?  And are your employees even listening?

If you’re like many companies, your corporate communications focuses on your community far more than your employees.  And when you do talk to your employees, you’re relying more on email and company intranets than the social media platforms where your employees are actually “living.”  

A recent report by LinkedIn and Altimeter Group found that a majority of engaged employees  - 54% - read content by their company through social media.  The study, which focused on the behaviors of companies that were found to the the best at engaging their employees, concluded that the top performing companies build relationships with their employees through social media and leverage their core values to empower their employees to be brand ambassadors.  “It all begins with authentic, meaningful engagement and content,” the report noted.

Other highlights of the report reveal: 

• Employees are far more engaged and optimistic at top socially engaged companies: 52% versus 41%.
• 40% of engaged employees cite their company’s social media communication as the source for keeping informed on important news
• 38% of engaged employees are more likely to share relevant company content with coworkers and customers when the company shares content in social media.
• 20% of employees are more likely to feel inspired based on how companies use social media to engage with them.  
• Socially engaged employees are more likely to feel proud about the leadership of their company.  
• Socially engaged employees are not just connected to those in their own department, they also expand their networks to include other employees, customers, and prospects.
• A full 59% of engaged employees use social media to build relationships within the company

Further, social media engagement contributes to a competitive advantage, with the most engaged companies prevailing in the never-ending battle to recruit and retain top talent.

It’s clear that social media is critical to creating and increasing employee engagement.  What’s equally clear is that a company’s philanthropic work can play a starring role in its conversations with employees on social media. 

A company’s corporate social responsibility activities should be at the forefront of its employee relationships and the dialogue that keeps those relationships energized.  Whether social media is leveraged to discuss the causes that are important to the company’s leaders and employees; share employee stories about volunteering and giving; congratulate winners of a company’s crowdfunding events; promote upcoming community events; address the ways in which the company’s people have made a difference in the causes they care about - and chart the ongoing goals they’re setting for themselves; philanthropy can be a connector, uniter and pillar of engagement.  But only if your employees understand and participate in your CSR efforts.  

Empowering and inspiring your employees isn’t optional anymore, so make sure you’re communicating in ways that are being heard by your most important demographic

Source: Ryan Scott CEO, Causecast ..

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Will Social Media Ever Rule Your Business Growth?

I believe when you went through my previous articles you found a lot of topics about social media and content marketing that we are using it as privately, and most of our business. However, there is a huge difference between these two.

If you use social media for business, you would benefit from goals, focus and consistency. It requires a thorough understanding of how social media work (and I would like to stress the word social here) and how to optimize your efforts on the various platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

You need to learn how to plan your activities and how to link them to your business goals. Besides that, you might need to learn new skills like writing inspiring blogs and catchy updates.

Learn more get more?

Last week I was lucky to attend Digital Marketing Meetup| Writing for Social Media. This meeting or session was all about tips and tricks about Digital Marketing and how you can change your business in effective way, but you will need to understand how your mind works in a change process.

Learning new social media skills and creating the habit of doing regular updates, interacting with people online and writing blog posts, all have the characteristics of a change process: it can be unsettling, time-consuming and often we give up at the first sign of a setback. At least that’s what I have experienced since I decided to make social media my core business.

The mashable.com now became the famous technology and social media online blog founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005.  The blog taught me some valuable lessons about change. Once you apply these lessons to your activities on social media, you might be better able to see the bigger picture of the changes you go through. It will help you in the process of incorporating social media in your day-to-day business activities.

10 ways to make social media an effective business habit.

1) Follow the bright spots. You might have people in your environment who have been using social media for business for a longer time than yourself. Ask what works for them, what they do and how they do it. How often do they post? What do they discuss in their blogs? How do they stay focussed? You can also look for the bright spots in yourself. What has worked for you on social media so far? How can you repeat your successes?

2) Shrink the change. Once you decide to share your knowledge and expertise in blogs and updates, you might get overwhelmed by all the choices you have to make. Is it better to write a blog? Will video be more effective? On which platforms do you need to post and how to vary your updates and tweets?

Set yourself small goals and develop a step-by-step plan. Instead of starting with two blogs a week, start with one blog every two weeks for the first half year and limit your time on social media to 15 or 30 minutes per day. This will enable you to take social media one step at a time and keep the overview you need.

3) Be proud and celebrate your accomplishments. It is easy to get distracted on social media. You will come across people in your field of business who are ahead of you, which can be really demotivating sometimes. To keep the spirit high you can better look at what you have already accomplished. Maybe you have written a few blogs since you started, and you might have created your first newsletter. Well done! Be proud, celebrate your achievements and then move on.

4) Set specific dates and times for your activities. A consistent presence is important on social media. It is better to publish a blog every two weeks, than four blogs in one week followed by four weeks of silence. Being consistent on social media is what most business people struggle with. Before the week starts, block time in your agenda to write your blog and to do your updates. Be as specific as possible, e.g. I will write my block this Wednesday after lunch time. Being specific will increase your chances of making things happen.

5) Use checklists. Checklists give peace of mind and keep you focused. Create a checklist for the promotion of your training programmers and events. And even if you start blogging, it helps to use a checklist to ensure you don’t overlook important aspects of the content, lay out and promotion of your blog.

6) Find a buddy. It helps to have a friend, colleague or business partner who is going through the same process and who you can share experiences with. This will keep you motivated and you can encourage each other when you lack motivation or don’t see where you are heading to.

7) Give yourself clear directions. This will help you to stay motivated. How many new followers would you like to get this month on Twitter? How many new LinkedIn contacts would you like to give a call this week? How often will you write a blog?

8) Change your mindset. I sometimes come across people who say that social media is not ‘their thing’. What happens if you would say to yourself: ‘as a professional business owner I embrace social media as it enables me to get in touch with relevant people. Via social media I can share my passion and expertise with my audience.’ Which type do you want to be? Who would you like to identify with?

9) Find the feeling. Social media is about connections and interactions. Posting updates without interaction might easily make you feel disconnected. Chat with people via Twitter. Engage in a discussion on LinkedIn. Find the human touch.

10) Accept your learning curve. As mentioned before, learning how to apply social media is all about change. Each change has a learning curve. It is tempting to expect direct results from your efforts on social media, as it is such a direct form of communication. Some people easily lose interest once the magic is not happening. I completely understand. However, give yourself time and accept that mistakes and frustrations are part of the process.

How easy is it to for you to incorporate social media in your business? What do you struggle with?

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Think Like A User And Let Your Business Grow

Understanding your customers and their buying habits will help your business to sell products effectively, compete with other suppliers, target new customers and identify new opportunities. Generating demand for your product requires more than simply releasing it onto the market. You need to conduct research, determine what consumers' needs are, establish yourself as a leader in your industry and repeatedly prove your products' worth

From my perspective, there are many factors can help your business to grow and differentiate from other competitors, creating a website for your business consider as one of these factors. But do you think only the website has a positive impact on your business image and reputation without having a good content or web strategy? Without strategy, you might just get a great looking website that doesn’t work.  I would therefore say any successful website begins by first understanding client’s business and brand strategy, their objectives, and the market. 

On the other hand, when you created your business website did you ask questions below?

What do visitors do on your site?
What would you like your audience to do?  

These simple questions relate directly to your overall website (and business) strategy.  When you have a well thought-out strategy, that is executed well, you’ll also have more engaged visitors. But how, specifically, do you get engaged visitors?

User experience (also known as UX) has direct impact in visitors’ engagement in your website and it can mean many things to different people, depending on who you ask and the type of business they conduct. At its core, UX is the process of creating equilibrium between consumer needs and business needs.

The consumer wants to find information, make comparisons, purchase something from a website, or comment on your company’s blog. The business wants to create awareness, increase user participation, make a profit, and keep their clients happy. Each of the aforementioned activities takes the same basic concept into account – to create the best user experience.

Therefore, user experience (UX) is an important part of any startup website journey, and providing a great customer experience is critical to the viability and profitability of any business. From my point of view; applying UX method will lead to better business growth and generally facilitates faster new customer acquisition. This leads to dramatically lower customer acquisition costs, increased revenue, and a massive competitive advantage. It also keeps customers happy, and reminds them that your organization never needs a second chance to make a first impression.

For instance, recently, I went to the website of a Emirates Airline to find out good package journey to Europe. The website was amazing because it has a massive online services, was valuable content of data, and latest features in their website. While waiting for the Skywards cards to be delivered to my P.O Box, I received status email messages that have clear information about the package and the journey.

This “customer experience” was decidedly great and positively impacted my overall impression of the company, which will lead to my spending more money with this company to do other reservation.

Today, Emirates says its passenger traffic is rising at 20 percent annually and it generated greater traffic for the this year compared with markets in airline serves

To conclude, user experience (UX) will not only drive new leads and opportunities, it will enable you to nurture long-term relationships that are fundamental to growing your business.

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Time to Fix Your Digital Business Development Path

The internet has a big role and impact in the customers’ engagement with brands and services review. It is transforming the economics of marketing and making obsolete many of the function’s traditional strategies and structures. For marketers, the old way of doing business is unsustainable, nowadays the use of technology to radically improve performance or reach of enterprises – is becoming a hot topic for companies across the globe. Executives in all industries are using digital advances such as analytics, mobility, social media and smart embedded devices, and improving their use of traditional technologies such as ERP – to change customer relationships, internal processes, and value propositions

Consider this example: Not long ago, a car buyer would methodically go through several processes pare down the available choices until he arrived at the one that best met his criteria. 

In old school process which I name it "Analog Business" a dealer would reel him in and try to make the sale. The buyer’s relationship with both the dealer and the manufacturer would typically dissipate after the purchase. But today in all the digital process and technology, customers are promiscuous in their brand relationships: They connect with myriad brands—through new media channels beyond the manufacturer’s and the retailer’s control or even knowledge—and evaluate a shifting array of them, often expanding the pool before narrowing it
For instance, booking an appointment for your car maintenance entails calling the dealership and speaking with a person who uses scheduling software and checks a database for the necessary parts. 

In the Digital Business era, your car acts as a semi-autonomous agent on your behalf; alerting you and the dealer to the need for maintenance, scheduling the appointment, and ordering the necessary parts. It may even drive itself to the shop. 

So back in the good old days before the internet and social media there weren’t that many places you could complain, certainly not that publicly anyway
All complaints would largely be in the form of a phone call, a letter or maybe even an ad hoc visit, but your complaint was very much between you and them.  There was no public hanging for providing a bad service unless it got to the press. There was an element of being able to keep things quiet. 

Then along came the internet, review sites, forums, blogging and of course social media! Now there is no hiding place.  Forums and review sites gave people the chance to share their opinions and experiences but this still meant that your thoughts were largely hidden away.  

Social Media nowadays, such as Twitter or Facebook has allowed people to rant to an even bigger audience, example below shows how the technology has facilitate the communication channel with the services supplier to raise the complaint and get responds faster.

The use of digital business techniques, such as experience design, mobile and social media leverage, and information and systems integration across the enterprise can produce unified business and customer relationship views. There are several valuable initiatives underway in the industry today. These include product bundling and innovative stickiness-generating features, as well as advanced analytics for granular segmentation –

The Digital Business Development Path (see Figure 1) examines six different business era models from before the Web to after the Nexus of Forces (social, mobile, cloud, information) to help organizations understand their current state and assist CIOs in making the case for digital business.  Figure 1. Gartner’s Digital Business Development Path

Gartner predicts that by 2020, 75% of business will be transforming to digital businesses or preparing to become one. Based on Gartner digital business survey we deduce that only 22% of respondents defined themselves as already being a digital business. Most organizations, or 41%, see themselves as a digital marketing business, and 22% of companies remain Web businesses.  

Where is your organization today and where do you want it to be before your competitors?

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Why Brand Personality is the Best Thing To Improve Your Content Marketing

As I mentioned in my previous articles, the great content is always your key to better engagement, and in turn, more conversions. What's the key to great content? Make what you produce more personal.

To begin with, I would like to start the article by small introduction about content and say content is the driver of many brand experiences - and even if you sell a product, often your marketing and thought leadership content is the filler that keeps the relationship strong and healthy. 

Great Content means build Great Engagement! But it also defines a brand or author and helps people stay focused on the core message or value. Be it games or whitepapers or tweets or micro-sites, content is both integral and inextricable to the relationship. I'm also convinced that it needs to be more personal.

I believe everybody here knows that content marketing works and has a good impact. If it didn’t then the whole idea of using the internet for marketing purposes would be in dispute! Do you know why?

Well, the internet is an information machine full of content! videos, ebooks, whitepapers, press releases, Facebook, forums, blog posts, podcast, tweets, articles, etc. It’s all content isn’t it? 

However, the problem lies with whether or not the content marketing strategy you use will fit in with your personality or not. I would therefore say the automation of personality can have a big impact on content marketing success. As in any brand personality, the characteristics must be authentic and sustainable. Unlike "human interactions" where we use lots of clues - behavior, physical characteristics, attitudes, beliefs, and demographics - to form opinions and likability, a brand personality is built through every direct or indirect interaction with the brand. Introducing appropriate emotion into your message is another recipe for personality. Personality comes out naturally when you tell a story. Everything has a story behind it. The trick is in the telling. So content is a common interaction - usually indirect but often direct, too. 

Marketers have long given brands a "personality." The brand personality enables a consumer to express his or her own self - or ideal self - by participating with the brand. It is not your logo it is not your photo, it is your voice, design and reputation combined into one impression. Unlike product attributes, which tend to serve a utilitarian function for consumers, brand personalities tend to serve a symbolic or self-expressive function. 

If you’re not building any impact, you aren’t encouraging repeat business, and you aren’t creating curious new customers, meaning they won’t be there to convert later on. The key to brand impact, both online and offline is a content marketing strategy that focuses on shareable, valuable content. Having a large group of followers is meaningless if those people are not engaged. So the challenge is to how to allow the "real people" behind the brand to build a personal and enduring relationship that supports and doesn't usurp or dilute the brand.

As you create your content, consider how it impacts your brand and how people perceive you. Always keep an eye on the bigger picture. Personality is one thing—over-sharing is quite another.

The social nature of our digital lifestyles has led to a new level of "sharing" of personal information. While I don't think sharing private information in a business context is appropriate, sharing some level of personal information makes perfect sense. Yet, talking about the kids or your dog or morning commute via a brand account can extend the level of the brand relationship.

No one pretends that the brand is an actual human being, but it does have characteristics and a voice that speak through social channels. We all know and value that there are people behind that Twitter or Google + account and that those people have lives and interests and experiences. Exposing some of that personal information as part of the content strategy is certainly appropriate and builds on the perception of the brand level persona.

For example, you're sure to have amazing moments at your company that are awesome to share - like a promotion for someone on the team, or the launch of a new product feature, or the project that you implemented. Your reaction to those events is personal - but not private information - and thus makes the brand more real and connected to the humans that customers want to have a relationship with.

Relationships with your clients and prospects are what bring the buying life cycle to a natural close, resulting in a sale. Establishing a personality within your communications will help you develop that relationship and grow your business.

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