by Subin John | Apr 29, 2021 | Uncategorized
Instagram, which started as a photo-sharing app, has grown to become a huge community and integral part of our lives. Businesses use Instagram to showcase their brands, kick start their new businesses, and achieve their targets and goals. Instagram has around one billion monthly active users, and people have started using this app on a persistent basis. People tend to get attracted to the visuals, follow the brand or the page, and purchase the products. Instagram has allowed the brands to grow manifold and reach out to people they otherwise would never have known.
The followers are highly influenced by the posts and can relate to the videos and reels posted. The main aim for any brand that posts on Instagram is to get a huge follower base to connect to a large group of the target audience. This is because it increases your brand’s presence in the market, boosts sales, and helps drive traffic to the website. Generally, brands resort to buying Instagram followers, Instagram likes, and Instagram views to gain initial success. It would help if you did not get tempted by seeing the ads that sell genuine Instagram followers. They provide little long term benefits but harm the account’s standing in the following ways:
Fake followers don’t engage with the account –
Purchasing Instagram followers will not provide genuine engagement for your account. Mostly they are fake bot accounts and not real people. Generally, even the comments are automated, or they will like the posts. If any brand wants to associate with you, they check the genuineness of the account. If it is a brand’s account, these followers will never engage with the posts. Bot followers do not even share the posts, and typically, their profiles are blank and lack a profile picture. Fake accounts generally follow a lot of people and then later unfollow them.
It makes your account questionable –
At times these fake followers increase your engagement statistics to such an extent that the account starts to look fake and questionable. This false engagement results in lowering your brand value. The likes and comments on the series of posts are way too suspicious and create ambiguity for the account.
Inappropriate bot comments –
At times the comments you get from these fake accounts are in a completely different language. Otherwise, they post just generic comments, which might be totally inappropriate and not related to the content posted.
Risk of spam –
Many a time, these bot followers open the account to risk spam posts. These accounts send spam emails to the email account provided while purchasing these followers. They may also deliver spam mailers to your genuine followers who, on seeing this, may un-follow your account.
Instagram recognizes fake followers –
Instagram puts in a lot of effort to find and block the account of fake followers. It keeps searching for such fake accounts regularly. If such a fake account follows your account, Instagram may even block your account temporarily.
Buying fake followers can suspend your account –
Instagram discourages buying followers. Not only do they find fake followers, but they also have the right to suspend your account. This lowers down the credibility of your account, and you may even lose genuine followers.
Lowers your credibility –
Buying fake followers depict that you are not a genuine influencer. Growing the followers organically is what everyone must desire. Taking shortcuts can destroy credibility, and the brands don’t want to associate with accounts that do not have genuine engagement. They make an opinion that you follow dishonest practices and shortcuts for success. It would help if you focused on sharing quality content that is relatable to the audience. This helps build a genuine follower base. Instead of buying followers, you may go in for some Instagram ads, which help expand your reach to the target audience.
No revenue generation –
The main aim of any brand is revenue generation. The fake followers will never engage in any purchase from your brand. They will never refer your brand to others. If you are an influencer, brands will not associate with you because you do not have genuine engagement, and you will never increase the revenue for these brands. Brands do not just see the number of followers an influencer has but also look for the engagement statistics involved.
No long term value addition to the profile –
The followers you buy would like, view, or comment on the posts initially, but if you talk about long-term engagement, then it is a big no. Only organic followers will keep sharing or commenting on your posts in the long run. These fake followers will surely not help in increasing the engagement of your account.
Dishonest performance metrics –
With a lot of fake followers, the brand can never measure the genuine connection with the audience. The bot or inactive accounts always skew the ratio, and you are never able to convert these followers into real clients. The amount spent on purchasing such followers is of no use. If your content is genuine and engaging, your loyal followers will engage with the brand and show a correct picture of the performance metrics.
Alternatives available to increase the followers
Instagram offers many marketing practices that you can follow to build your brand and reach out to a large number of audiences. This helps you grow organically and has a long-lasting effect:
Make the account public –
First and foremost, to gain huge followers, the account needs to be public so that people can view your profile and content regularly. You need to post regular content that the audience can go through while exploring pages, and this way, a genuine follower, can like and follow your page.
The quality of content –
This is by far the most important part. Your feed, videos, boomerangs, reels, or stories need to be engaging and relevant. Quality content builds trust, and people wait for your posts daily. The content should be witty and as per the recent trends. You may use many hashtags relevant to the post, which is again a great way to reach the target audience.
Use all the features to the fullest –
Instagram is growing day by day. It has upgraded its features to benefit the audience. You have options of going live on Instagram, using IGTV, Instagram stories, or even set up a shop on Instagram. All these help you connect to a vast group of people and engage with them regularly. This helps increase the engagement organically and with full authenticity.
Aesthetics to be followed while posting content –
The Instagram grid needs to look aesthetic, and the consistent visual posting must tell a story. The posts showcase your brand to the viewers who find it relatable to their problems. Putting up posts consistently helps build trust and gain genuine followers.
Share your account in other communications –
You must share your Instagram handle on your website; put it in your email signature and other places. This increases your reach and lets people know about your handle. Offline marketing materials like business cards, packing slips, posters, etc., must also carry your Instagram account name.
Follow relevant accounts –
You must also start following accounts that are relevant to your business. When you follow someone, they will also check out your posts, stories, and reels, and if the content is relevant enough, they will start following you in return.
The Bottom Line
You must not buy followers or likes to fool the audience. You need to build a genuine relationship with your audience to benefit you in the long term. Though purchasing followers and likes can be tempting, it is of no good. It will only harm your credibility. Growing the account organically is what is needed. There is no shortcut to success, and when you gain followers through relevant and authentic content, you gain their trust for life.
by Subin John | Apr 28, 2021 | Uncategorized
Whether you are starting a business page, a creative blog, or a regular social media profile, it’s a more fun and profitable experience when you have many people following you.
People who want to become influencers specializing in different areas of interest might want to gain followers and start working towards a well-paying social media career. 10k followers is generally an important milestone for them. Not only does Instagram start allowing certain features at 10k, brands and companies start noticing you as well. And even if you are not an influencer, 10000 followers is a pretty respectable number that you can capitalize on in other ways.
If you’re just starting from 0, you might be wondering how long it will take you to reach the magic number – 10k. Well, there is no definitive answer to that question. It might take somewhere between 6 months to a couple of years. It depends on your interests and the specific content niche that you contribute to. Rare interests might not attract hordes of people. In contrast, the most popular interests are quite saturated with similar accounts and profiles.
If your style of publishing content is appealing and visually creative, you might even gain 10k followers in a couple of months. If you are Instagram-savvy and understand how the algorithms drive the content on the platform, you wouldn’t have any problem reaching that milestone.
Here are some ideas on how to grow your platform far quicker than most
Join Instagram engagement pods –
These are a great way to gain followers very quickly. The people in these engagement groups follow and interact with each other’s content to boost it in the algorithm. Join an engagement pod for your specific niche.
Use analytics to your benefit –
Monitor your Instagram analytics regularly to gauge what kind of content your followers most enthusiastically respond to. You can also use websites like Iconosquare and Socialbakers to understand how you can make your content better and engagement higher
.Maintain a consistent style –
It is important to maintain a consistent aesthetic and content niche. After viewing your posts for some time, your followers come to expect a certain kind of content from you, and they follow you to consume that content. If you make drastic changes, people are bound to unfollow.
Experiment a little –
Although maintaining some sense of uniformity is necessary, don’t be afraid to experiment with your style and content a little to see what sparks what kind of response from your audiences. You might get some great results.
Use Instagram to all its capacity –
Besides using the analytics features, you should use stories, polls, questions, stickers, boomerangs, filters, and other features to keep your audience engaged and your content fresh. The importance of interactive and cool Instagram stories cannot be emphasized enough.
Repost followers and influencers –
Keeping your followers interested in you is super important. Publish extra content on your page by reposting your followers and your favorite influencers. Tag them in the captain field. This will also encourage your other followers to tag you in their pictures.
Engage with your audience –
This has been mentioned quite a few times already, but this is also the most important thing to keep in mind. Don’t forget to follow people back, reply to comments under your posts, like and comment under posts by influencers who share the same niche as you.
Publish content regularly –
Do not slack off. Putting out content regularly helps gain new followers. Your older posts are not going to be noticed by newer audiences after a certain short time. Also, if you don’t post in a while, your existing audience might lose interest.
Use hashtags –
Do not use hashtags that are super generic like #love or #fitnessgoals. Those do not help newly emerging influencers. Use smaller hashtags related to your specific niche so that your posts can appear among the top ones in that hashtag and introduce more people to your content.
Stay up-to-date –
Staying alert to recent trends in your niche and Instagram algorithm and feature changes helps you out a lot. Keep your content up-to-date with pop-culture references and newer tools to make, edit, decorate and publish it.
Be your authentic self –
This happens often, but if you try to maintain a persona separate from your true personality, you start to lose credibility and followers both. It is essential to remain your real, authentic self on your account.
Cross-promote your social media pages –
Promote your Instagram page across your other social media pages like Facebook and Twitter. This will help increase your numbers by transferring your follower base to your IG account.
Host giveaways and partner with brands –
These are tried and tested methods of increasing followers. Hosting giveaways and asking brands to give you a shout-out when you’re working with them will help introduce new people to your profile.
Be creative and learn to create great content –
Creativity appeals to everyone. Watch tutorials and learn to make better and aesthetically pleasing posts, videos, and thumbnails. Be organized with your posting schedules as well.
Conclusion
Being popular on social media doesn’t just come by, it takes time and hard work to make it happen. A smart approach to social media can definitely help, though. You can also adopt practices like joining engagement pods, buy Instagram followers, or buy Instagram likes online. And while they are good for the beginning, you need to learn to create better content and constantly reinvent ways to stay at the top of the game.
by Subin John | Apr 6, 2021 | Uncategorized
The process of optimizing any site or landing page experience depending on any site visitor and improving the visitor’s probability to turn into a customer by following the desired instructions on the mentioned page. Online traffic is a destination of significant inconsistency. In today’s world, you have to make your probable customers perform the desired action. If you cannot win them at the first go, their chances of coming around for a second time are almost nil. Marketers understand this strategy the best.
They know that it is nothing but just an opportunity lost, where you could have won if the site visitor had taken some of the steps that would benefit you.
Online marketers understand that by running the conversion rate optimization campaigns effectively, they can improve their chances at the business and get more conversions. The importance of a good conversion rate optimization campaign is measured by saving lots of time, money, and energy and exploring new strategies and ideas for the growth of the business that is being recently discovered.
Understanding the conversion rate optimization helps you to know more about your site’s usability. It also helps to better customer behavior knowledge with tips to improve your UX to achieve your targets.
Main elements of CRO
Conversion rate optimization or CRO is the process that is spread across several stages. A campaign is successful when it can make a site more relatable to users after profound studies and research to analyze the result, runs multiple texts, tweaks more content to make it more relevant to the visitors, and draws necessary conclusions. There are six primary elements of conversion rate optimization as follows –
Landing page design
The landing page is the very first thing that any visitor gets to see. So, its design should be of utmost importance as it sets the tone for the site’s usability and success rate. A tasteful landing page will always attract more customers. The design of the page holds a lot of significance as it can make or break a deal.
If we take an example, any customer who visits amazon comes with a pure intention of buying things. So it is important to give even the most minor information to every customer about any product. So, the company has strategically designed all its product pages so that any website visitor finds it very easy to get any information about the product. And adding any item to their shopping cart would never be a big deal. one can quickly notice the prominent vibrant color, orange, and just a single tap can easily add the item on the “Add to Cart” button.
Any website visitor can never miss the prominent and vibrant color of that button on the website. Moreover, the use of excellent images of the product also helps the customers have faith in the website’s services. Thus, the landing page design is often the first thing of any website that captures visitors’ attention.
Website copy
Any well-designed and beautiful website can attract web traffic to itself, but what can turn it into potential leads is the website’s content. Words are said to mesmerize and hook any visitor verbally. That has to be employed to make your website a considerable success.
The content has to be relevant and engaging to capture the visitors’ hearts and persuade them to take the desired actions. The power of the content is the factor that decides if a visitor will stay and take necessary measures or it will leave the site without taking any action. Website copy can be further classified into Headline and Body content.
A. Headline
As the name suggests, headlines are the first and topmost lines that any viewer gets to see. It always gives the first impression of the business and its quality of services. When people like the headline, they are willing to scroll down and further look at the other things on the site. But if they are displeased at the very first line of the website, the chances of them staying on the website any longer is very little. Focussing on some of the things is necessary to get the correct headline, and they are as follows –
- a. Lower-alpha type
- b. Tea
- c. Coca Cola
B. Body content
After the headline comes to the body, which plays a fundamental role in creating a visitor’s trust in the website, mesmerizing body content is necessary. But answering the basic queries of any visitor can create the best interesting content ever. Take note of the following points to make a clear, concise, and exciting persona for your brand.
- a. Formatting – Dividing the content into short paragraphs increases the readability of the content. Use as many subheadings as possible. It makes the content more readable. Listing or adding bulletins to the body where necessary can also make its structure enjoyable. Font type, size, and color can play a significant role in attracting readers.
- b. Writing style – Set the right tone to target your audience. Use metaphors, adjectives, and other exciting elements to highlight specific areas. Talk directly to the visitors. It makes them feel special and at home. It also helps to promote faith on the site.
Answer the questions of the visitors to give them a better experience of the services of the business. Adding keywords is another thing that gives better results and increased overall usability.
An awesome heading with beautiful content that is short, up to a point, and Answers all queries, will certainly be eye-catching and intriguing.
Call-to-Action
The Call-to-Action (CTA) is absolutely what its name suggests. Add a specific and proper way by which customers can contact the person who can help them by solving their doubts or taking the desired action. The actions can also be subscribing to a newsletter or booking a slot in some seminar. Creating a robust and small CTA that takes the minimum amount of time of any user can result in a maximum number of leads.
Search for more interesting CTAs that work best to result in more conversions. It is a powerful tool that plays a significant role in the attraction of leads.
Navigation and site structure
Who loves complexities? No one is right! The same goes for website visitors—none like to handle a complex site. The structure of the site must target to build an experience that is particularly easy to navigate. Site structure is the primary thing behind any action. It is typically the knowledge of how different pages of your website can interact with each other.
Different websites have different navigations, but the primary example is always the hierarchy style. A user starts navigating from the homepage and then arrives at and explores the list of categories and subcategories. If the entire process is as easy as explained here, it will not be difficult for users to handle and navigate the site.
The real problem arises when the site is not structured correctly, and they get lost in their search for something. It will ultimately lead the confused people to leave the site and search for other areas to give them their desirable services.
In short, creating an easy, fluid, and easy to navigate website can help to increase conversions.
Forms
Forms are essential for some companies especially if it belongs from the sales background. Forms are mainly customer touchpoints. Optimizing them will help the company to understand and improve its conversion rate. You will get many suggestions over the internet on making an excellent and efficient form for your company; they may or may not work for all the businesses. However, always try to balance the lead quality and the volume of leads that get the best ROI. Here are four tips to make your forms outstanding-
(i) Keep the fields few –
Keeping the areas fewer makes it better by making it less time-consuming. However, this trick works most of the time but not all the time, especially when your business is from the marketing funnel. There, the team requires additional information, and it focuses only on those that are serious leads, and they can get further details depending on other fields.
(ii) Make it good-looking –
A pleasant user experience is often related to stunning forms. Keep the documents sound by keeping the text clear and prominent with consistent styling. Keep the tooltips and validation in the proper place. You can also categorize and arrange the fields according to their importance – starting with the more important ones and ending with the least important ones. Experimenting with progress forms can also improve the rate of conversions.
(iii) Easy password creation –
Making password creation easy can lighten the whole form filling process. According to some studies, the password of any form takes up most of the time to fill. As seen and everywhere, inspiring the users to create a solid yet easy password to remember is of immense help for both the user and the company.
(iv) Keep it to one-click forms –
Who doesn’t want to get work done with just a few taps? This one-click form submits it can work wonders for any conversion process.
Page speed
Page speed has a significant impact on the performance of the business. The page loading time affects the user experience directly at the first go. Longer page loading time can result in lower conversion rates of the site, and in turn, the business rank on the search engine gets affected.
Some studies show that if any site loads in 1.7 seconds, it’s way faster than 75% of the other sites. Moreover, people are no longer willing to wait. A bit longer in the page loading drives people away from the area, searching for something faster. A minimum of one-second delay can make you reduce your conversions by 11%.
Calculation of conversion rate
The fundamental formula for conversion rate is :
Conversion rate = Total number of conversions/ Total number of sessions
Here’s an example –
For suppose, in a month, your website arrives at a total of 100,000 sessions and lists 10,000 orders. The conversion rate for your site is = 10,000/100,000 = 10%
Number of visitors used in the formula
When you take a look at your program’s analytics, you will get to see the number of sessions used in the formula. Even if a single user pays a visit to the site twice, it will result in two sessions in the calculation. It is because ‘unique visitors’ is the metric that is being used for the analyses.
Any successful Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) program includes in it the integrated costs and revenues. These formulas come in the form of Pay-Per click (PPC), Return on investment (ROI), and Average Order Value (AOV).
The formulas can seem to be a bit scary. But with time, you will get used to the basic math used here.
To get the pay-per-click (PPC) for an advertising campaign in a minimum way, you should always calculate the budget for your campaign, cost per click, and its impacts on profit.
Two elements control the success of online paid campaigns. They are – The cost required for the campaign and The revenue generated. The amount spent per click can permanently impact the profit margin of your business.
Tools required for CRO
The three types of ultimate vital tools required for Conversion Rate Optimization are as follows –
- Web analytics tool – This is an essential tool that helps you keep an eye on the immediate website conversion rate and metric success performance. You can get good visitor awareness and also catch hold of poorly converting pages to make improvements. An example of a simple web analytics tool is Google Analytics. It needs to be set up first for use.
- Visitor feedback tools – Feedback from visitors can give you an enormous ground to improve your site to make user usability and navigation easier. It helps you to understand their requirements and also gives you great ideas for improvements. And this ultimately results in high conversion rates. Visitor feedback tools like Hotjar.com are essential. User tester tools like Userfeel.com are also necessary.
- An A/B testing tool – This tool comes in handy when you are stuck between two choices and cannot decide which one will be better for the website visitors. It usually arises for choosing the Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons, page layouts, and so on. It helps you to understand which one will bring in more conversion rates. Some great tools to start with for a low-cost A/B testing tool are VWO.
Benefits of doing CRO
Get to know your customers better
Even in online Marketing, retailers need to know the requirements of the customers. Know your customers well so that you can stock what your customers require, increasing your conversion rates. It will also be helpful to be able to market them wisely. It is where Conversion Rate Optimization helps you immensely to enhance your e-commerce business.
Testing is also an essential part of getting assured that your online business is running effectively. CRO helps you to know who your customers are and with whom you are precisely dealing, along with knowing their necessities and preferences.
If you are still planning to take some CRO initiatives for your business website, it will be best to start by doing some conversion research and understanding it from the depth. Understand well the visitors’ interaction with your service and the problems that are causing the thinning of your sales. Gather data and learn more about your customers, their requirements, and challenges. Develop user personas for your site with conversion optimization and understand who you are marketing to.
Increase your customers
it is the best part that everyone is in search of. CRO can help you to reduce the cost per acquisition in your e-commerce. Continue optimizing your store, and after knowing your customers well, you can also improve their overall shopping experience. It will attract your better web traffic.
Better the user experience for visitors, the more the customers you get, and the more rapidly your business grows. You get to save your money by making more of it as it will gradually cost you less when you acquire more customers.
Streamline your store and make it more engaging to capture the visitor’s attention. That interest can turn any random visitor into a loyal customer. The significant advantage that you can receive through CRO is detected and find a solution to the short span of attention of the customer of the present time and giving them precisely what they are looking for.
It Becomes Your Secret Weapon
When you apply CRO to your site, you get an edge higher than the websites that are not using it. Your competitors may or may not use CRO. But if they are not using it, they will start with it very soon because everyone has to use it one day. When you apply search engine optimization or social media marketing to your store, your contestant can easily understand it by analyzing your store. But when it comes to CRO, they can’t understand it immediately as the optimization is done on all levels and is a nice mix of everything.
So understanding it without any prior knowledge about Conversion Rate Optimization is a bit difficult. CRO becomes this secret weapon when you work with the data related to your environment. The results can vary, and a single strategy doesn’t need to work for every e-commerce website.
Increase Your Customer Lifetime Value
Everything and every e-commerce site aim to get people to visit their site and purchase their item, which will lead to conversions. Giving out some special offers and discounts can also bring in more customers. It motivates people to make purchases. But the absence of optimization will ultimately lead the most effective marketing campaigns to get invalidated. CRO guides site visitors to make some purchases. It makes your marketing more effective, and your customers come back eventually for more purchases once they enjoy their first shopping experience. It ultimately boils down to higher customer lifetime values.
What is a reasonable conversion rate?
It is often the most significant query of the majority of the people. Now, we come to the answer. The reasonable rates of conversion can vary. Conversion rates depend significantly on your website type, unique value schemes, and marketing struggles. So the rates vary from time to time and from site to site.
Though proper values cannot be told, a rough standard is 2% average for an e-commerce site. Any value above 5% is contemplated as very good.
Still, never compare your values with anyone else’s site as they can differ drastically for the difference in tactics and web traffic, causing you unnecessary tension. On the other hand, it’s also essential to gradually increase your conversion rates, as improvements have no limit!
The bottom line
The benefits of conversion rate optimization are numerous. CRO makes sure that your store’s digital existence is on your website along with the entire web. It helps you make your site as effective as it can be made by constantly optimizing various things. A skilled conversion rate optimizer is the best way to get the work done in a brief period. It also improves the profits obtained from your business. Now you can effectively optimize your site after knowing everything about CRO and increase conversion rates. Conducting frequent testing can give your site a new look and also a new life!
by Subin John | Mar 2, 2021 | Uncategorized
Last year when the whole world was abuzz with excitement and celebrating the beginning of a new decade, no one had the slightest of a clue that this year would be a changing pedestal and add a new page to our history, which would be a life learning lesson for many years to come and that is the ongoing corona pandemic which forced this ever running world to stop and reflect on what we have been doing and what should be changed, like an anonymous call quote that I read somewhere said
Corona has proved that everything around us is so temporary. Things revolve around ……work, gym, malls, movies, Society have all gone for a toss as we’re learning to live without them.
It has taught us that in the end, it’s your own home and family that keeps you safe.
The entertainment industry has suffered the most incurring a massive loss because of the lockdown. Even people feel the absence of every Friday releasing movies, celeb interviews, TV world gossips, etc., and online platforms took the place of theatres, and series replaced films affecting the industry even more. We have two Industries ruling the world at this moment that is Bollywood and Hollywood. Among these two, Hollywood is at number one and is considered the mother industry of Bollywood from where our Indian industry draws all its inspiration and knowledge.
If we have a look at the statistics we see that the world wide Economy incurred a monetary loss at the global gross domestic product of about 75 billion US dollars in 2020 out of these it is the entertainment industry that suffered incurring a huge loss of approximately 30 billion US dollars as theatres, film releases ,promotions, shootings everything I had come to a sudden halt even the people felt the absence of every Friday releasing movies, the excitement around it ,celebrity interviews, TV world gossips etc.
The Hollywood is being too hopeful, that soon everything would be back to normal and theatres would be back in business and so the calendar is flooded with movies scheduled to release this year as statistics also state that there has been an increase in people watching movies is now people have time in the hands as they are stuck in homes though they also seriously wish everything to return back to normal so that they can use the big screen once again as you might agree or not going for a movie with friends or family is an outing on its own and awaited by all. So before diving in to the .movies let’s have a quick look at the background and touch history a bit:-
The Count of Monte Cristo was the first film to be completed in 1908 though most of the shoot was done in Chicago, so the first film shot entirely in Hollywood was a short film named In Old California in the year 1910. With the coming of 1911, the first movie Sunset Boulevard had come up. By 1915 many more Motion Picture companies had shifted their base to Hollywood from the East Coast. Hollywood was an apt place to produce movies since movie makers couldn’t be sued for infringing on Motion Pictures Film Patents held by Thomas Edison and his Motion Picture Patents Companies. It also had pleasant, predictable, sunny weather and varied terrain that was ideal for movie backdrops.
With the vaccine out there in the markets now, though the effects will still be felt through 2021, people are still looking forward to movies, and Hollywood is optimistic, and the calendar is flooded with movie releases. So we have a lot to look forward to like we have a new Matrix edition. A yet another thrilling edition of Mission Impossible, Spider-Man, and not to forget The Fast and the Furious 9 scheduled to release this year, along with these we have a Bond movie, Venom, Minions, Top Gun: Maverick and Ghostbusters along with these look forward to some new franchises which are set to release this year like Dune, Uncharted, and Chaos Walking are the major ones going to release with some smaller sporadic releases spread all over the year, e.g., Jungle Cruise, the king’s man, suicide squad, no time to die, Mobius, Black Widow, free guy, reminiscence and a lot more.
Let’s dive deeper and give a quick cursory glance to some of the big banner movies stated to release this year:-
1. Chaos Walking
Set to Release in March, this thrilling science fiction is directed by Doug Liman and written by Patrick Ness; the movie is based on the scientific trilogy Chaos Walking; the story of the film starts with our protagonist Todd was brought up to believe that a germ was released by the Spackle, killing all the women and releasing noise on the remaining men. His adoptive parents told him to leave with just a map of the New World, a letter, and several unanswered questions after finding a patch of silence in the swamp. The root of the silence, a girl named Viola, he soon learns.
2. Nobody
Set to Release in April, this action crime drama is directed by Ilya Naischuller and written by Derek Kolstad; the movie is a story of a bystander who saves a woman from being molested by a group of men, and that is why becomes the target of a vengeful drug lord.
3. Fast and the Furious 9
Set to Release in May, this most awaited action-adventure film is directed and written by Justin Lee; the movie is a sequel of the most famous series of Fast and the Furious story where once again, the story revolves around Dominic Toretto and his crew who come together to fight the most experienced killer and high-performance driver they’ve ever met, John, Dom’s forsaken brother.
4. Venom: Let there be Carnage
Set to Release in June, this adventure superhero movie is directed by Andy Serkis and written by Kelly Marcel. This forthcoming American superhero film is based on the Venom character from the Marvel comics.
5. Minions: The Rise of Gru
Stated to release in July, this most famous animated movie directed by Kyle Balda, Brad Abelson, Jonathan Del Val. This is the tale of a 12-year-old’s dream of being Minions’ biggest supervillain in Minions: The Rise of Gru.
6. Suicide Squad
Scheduled to release in August, this action thriller genre, directed and written by James Gunn the movie is based on John Ostrandevi’s Suicide Squad; this is yet another American superhero film based on the DC Comics team with the same name. Harley Quinn, Rick Flag, and their team of assembled Supervillains are back.
7. Reminiscence
Scheduled to release in September, this Sci-Fi thriller drama written and directed by Lisa Joy; the movie sees a scientist discovering a way to relive his past. He uses technology to search for long-lost love.
8. Dune
An altogether brand new franchise scheduled to release in October, directed by Dennis Villeneuve and written by Frank Herbert, John Spaiths, and Eric Roth, the movie is a feature adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Sci-Fi novel about a noble family’s son entrusted with the protection of the most valuable asset and the most vital element in the galaxy.
9. Mission Impossible 7
Scheduled to release in November, this action spy film written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie is the seventh instalment of the Mission Impossible film series based on Bruce Geller’s synonymous novel titled Mission Impossible.
10. Untitled Spider-Man: Far from Home
Scheduled to release in December, this superhero action film directed by John Watson written by Steve Ditko is a sequel to the previously released Spider-Man: Far from Home and American superhero film based on the Marvel comic character Spiderman.
Conclusion
With the scare of Corona Pandemic still looming on our heads and we still are locked in our houses somewhat, these movie releases are slightly a piece of good news, I feel, and as Roman Polanski says Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theatre.
Movies have the power to send you into a zone far away from reality so that you can relax, de-stress and forget what is going around you for the time being, so let’s wait and watch what is in store for us in 2021.
by Subin John | Feb 24, 2021 | Uncategorized
The online world has opened doors to endless opportunities for marketers today, with a vast scope from potential customers making their buying decisions online.
Although neglecting the online front as marketers is out of option today, thriving here is a no joke either. One needs to put efforts into marketing the products contenting against the vast competition. Digital marketing strategies come into the picture here, playing an integral role in defining the actions needed to help the business reach its set goals.
The series of actions assist the marketing formats from planning to execution and can be achieved through either paid, owned, or earned media. But with the changing online demographics and algorithms, it is hard to keep up in the race. The following article brings you some of the most effective digital marketing strategies(2021) you must incorporate in your business plans for better results online.
1. SEO(Search Engine Optimization)
One can never place enough emphasis on how important SEO is for digital marketing.
Google places high emphasis on the SEO of a website, and since it is a top search engine and an excellent platform for people with online businesses, overlooking SEO is not a smart choice.
It is imperative to optimize your content and website so that more people can find you easily, increasing the traffic on your website directly. Though Google’s algorithm can get a little tricky to process at times, it is minor fixes and adjustments that can get you to rank way higher in search engine rankings.
In case keeping up with algorithm updates is hard, contacting a professional to manage the SEO is always an option.
A smart SEO strategy typically contains formatting, keywords, link building, and technical SEO.
Two of the most recent and effective SEO strategies include – HTTPS and Google Rich Snippets.
HTTPS – Switching to HTTPS from HTTP formats ensures better security for your content. Google will shortly label the content under HTTP format as “non-secure” as they are vulnerable with higher chances of being hacked and ripped off of critical information.
Google Rich Snippets – unlike the typical search results, which contain – title tag, meta description, and URL, a Rich Snippet will display additional data like ratings, views, etc. Google gets these data from Structured Markup from your HTML page, making your search results more eye-catching.
2. Content Marketing
Content marketing is essential in targeting the right audience and claiming potential prospects. It is vital to prioritize your content over everything else. Content marketing primarily is about making your content relevant, reliable, valuable, consistent, and worth the time of people consuming it.
Ensuring that your post’s content is evergreen or is frequently updated to match the market will build your business’s credibility.
Engaging in quick setups like using a black hat SEO will only provide short-term effects with extreme risks like banning, etc., as Google’s algorithm is automated to suspend such activities and make frequent changes to avoid cases.
Many aspects need consideration while formulating a content marketing strategy. One of which is mobile content. Smartphones are among some of the most widely used devices, and modifying one’s content with additional automation tools helps target a must vaster audience with proper measures.
3. Social Media Marketing
Many brands and businesses have effectively explored social media to their advantage. Social media is undoubtedly the best shot to boost their business and establish their grounds as marketers.
With billions of users worldwide and an ever-active user base, social media has endless opportunities for businesses. But, it is critical to manage and put efforts into social media marketing to thrive in this intense competition online.
There are a number of tips and tricks to target the right audience for your content and effectively charm them with what you have to offer. Some of these include – customer interaction and service, content delivery and active appealing, media usage, promotions, contests, etc.
Social media has significant scope in the times to come with the shifting focus towards making everything accessible and niche-specific.
4. Email Marketing
No matter how drastically the online world may revolutionize, emails will remain an essential communication source, speaking for their integral role in digital marketing.
Emails are widely used all over the world and are an effective way to reach the intended targets. It allows easy setup by creating a list of all the potential prospects and customers and directly communicating with them via mail all at once.
Automated emails let you schedule them, saving your time and money as it is among the cheapest ways to market business. One can also easily customize the emails to add features that are especially intriguing, like discounts and links, etc.
5. Search Engine Marketing
Paid advertising methods are becoming increasingly popular today with their effectiveness in boosting your SERPs( Search Engine Result Pages).
Google Ads are especially recommended due to their attention to the customization of an Ad. Depending on your target audience, business tactics, and style, Google, keeping your preference in mind, lets you decide on the types of ads. They also allow you to track your ad’s efficiency, with options to form localized ads for better reach.
Google Ads are an exceptionally excellent method but, at the same time, are tricky and need a proper understanding of the process. Consulting an expert in the field is your best shot at getting the most out of your efforts.
6. Focus On Smartphones And Web Designs
As mentioned earlier, smartphones are in the race to set new standards for both marketers and customers. Most websites are designed for desktops, and therefore it is critical to adopt a responsive web design that works well with smartphones as well.
Smartwatches and tablets are also included in the format of the web designs, deeming their increasing popularity in the market. A web designer can present an efficient, user-friendly look to your websites on mobile screens; however, one must consult an expert for Responsive Design (RWD).
7. Videos Are the New Trend
The decreasing attention span of the present-day generation and which is to come makes it essential to find an alternative to lengthy text formatted and boring content.
In this era of quick and easy information access, video formats have become popular and more efficient in getting the point across. Incorporating visual media in your digital marketing strategies like advertisement and promotions is sure to reach a massive front.
But, ensuring the quality of your video, its content, and its ability to capture the audience’s attention within the first few seconds is utterly essential.
Make your videos to the point, relatable and niche-specific, to attract the audience genuinely interested in what you have to offer. Make sure you don’t create a lengthy video; keep it short and easy to grasp.
8. Influencers For Marketing
What’s better than creating a customer base from scratch? It is to address the already existing loyal audience and fan base of influencers or someone with more followers to get that instant boost with a direct reach to vast potential prospects.
Conduct proper research on the target audience and find a perfect influencer with that precise niche following. It is okay if you can’t get an extremely influential person or celebrity to endorse your brand. Go for someone with a considerable amount of following and contact them.
Some influencers demand free products while others settle for a fee. The following of these influencers act as your direct targeted audience, giving your business the vast exposure and boost needed.
Do not indulge with influencers who seem to have a fake following, always ensure that the influencer is genuine with active followers and a loyal audience. More followers do not ensure more products being sold. It is critical to find the niche-specific audience willing to invest faith in the person’s recommendations.
9. Local Search Marketing
With the increased ease in finding the services near oneself using the google search results, investing efforts in local search marketing is a sure way to build a solid customer base.
Local search marketing refers to putting up one’s business online on the maps, which shows up in the local search results whenever some put up related keywords or searches for similar services.
It is equally critical to maintain business real-time as it is through online sales; therefore, the need to be found by locals grows. Asking for their reviews online and ratings help build your social reputation. Better reviews and comments lure more people into buying your services and products, ranking you higher in the search results.
10. Marketing Automation And UGC
One cannot handle multiple tasks and platforms at the same time; marketing automation comes into the picture, helping you sort the marketing schedule.
The software effectively lets you manage multiple processes, campaigns and channels automatically. It avoids missing out on the target audience at the right time with scheduled automated messages, emails, and other strategies to build a connection with the customers. It also prevents human errors with better efficiency of the content.
UGC(User Generated Content) is another way to build engagement and trust. It is directed towards users themselves creating content related to the brand, making the services seem more credible for others.
The methods include the users posting a picture of themselves using the products, reviewing, commenting, or engaging in the brand activities.
Conclusion
Online marketing has certainly brought in new and seamless opportunities for marketers, but the growing competition online makes the process complicated. Proper strategy build-ups and execution is imperative in deciding how well a business does online.
Designing a perfect digital marketing strategy or appointing an expert for the task ensures that your brand reaches the desired goals and attracts potential prospects. Constant hard work and smart moves can help you build a healthy and active customer base from the get-go, setting your business up in the right direction. Happy Scrolling!
by Subin John | Feb 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
Even if the stock market is not your cup of tea, you might still have heard about the stocks in recent days. Especially about the stocks of GameStop, which is a retailer of video games, has gotten in the news due to an apparently extraordinary situation where masses of individual, small investors worked in a manner that hurt firms that were extremely well-funded. Additionally, GameStop is not the only stock targeted by these individual small investors of the subreddit WallStreetBets, which is the initiator of this.
Due to the clouds of confusion that surround the financial system for a lot of people, the unusualness of this situation itself is also a barrier to working out what is going on here. Following is the breakdown to help you understand it better.
What Happened To The GameStop Stocks?
Behind this entire scenario is a lot of complicated financial weirdness to explain here. Still, to simplify the story to its bare bones, the gist of the situation is this: A group of people on the platform Reddit determined that if they all invested in meme stocks, not only could they make some cash, but also be able to troll hedge funds. A hedge fund is a type of firm which is set up so that one individual can utilize the money of a group of people to manipulate the market.
So, how did the Redditors achieve this? They did it by adding an additional wrinkle to the stock market strategy, which was apparently not expected by Wall Street. Essentially, users from the subreddit WallStreetBets invested in stocks that were marked as “shorts,” a kind of investment that is also referred to as “short sellers” by the investors. To sum it up, The Wall Street types bet their money thinking GameStop’s stock would keep on falling, which it did not.
You might recognize this Wall Street logic, which basically states “buy low, sell at high,” which works out well when investing from a long position. As explained by Business Insider, a short position is taken by a short seller when an investment borrowed from a stock lender is sold at a higher price only to purchase it back later at a lower price. Sell the stock at a high price, buy it back at low, but you still have to return it back to the lender.
For Example, you short a random company, say A at a share price of $100, and the next day it goes to $10. You pay the cost of $10 from your own pocket to purchase back the stock and return it back to the lender from whom you borrowed it, and now you have $90 as your profit. Shorting of stocks is risky at the same time as the shares still have to be returned to the original lender, even if the prices go up instead of going down. In the same situation, if the stock went up to $120 instead of falling to $10, then the short-seller would have to bear the loss of $20 from his own pocket to buy back the stock and return to the lender.
In addition, lenders can also demand the borrowed stocks back, which forces the short seller to purchase back those stocks, even if they are not getting any profit or worse deals.
GameStop was an appealing target to these Wall Street types who wished to short stocks since they believed the future of the company was grim as a brick-and-mortar retailer of video games trying to weather a pandemic when a majority of its retail products can be downloaded from the comfort of home. A tremendous amount of money was invested, believing that the stocks of GameStop would continue to fall; According to Market Insiders on Jan 26, Short sellers of GameStop had already lost a massive amount of $5 billion in the market. One of the hedge funds even decided to get out of its investment in GameStop.
What’s worth noting, GameStop was only the first stock facing this dynamic to make the news. Since then, a number of companies that were forgotten from the pre-pandemic era have come across similar activity, companies including Bed Bath & Beyond, AMC Theatres, mobile companies like Nokia and BlackBerry, even Build-a-Bear Workshop, which is not shorted experienced a spike in its stock price.
Is it bizarre that Redditors are doing this?
It sort of is Reddit, and its users have gained a reputation of being toxic. According to the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, the community itself is described as “like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal illness”. 4chan is another popular message board that allows its users to remain anonymous. Bloomberg terminals are setups intended for financial purposes and are named after Michael Bloomberg; the terminal illness is a twist of humor that is characteristic of Reddit humor.
Discord, which is an online messaging service, announced on January 27 that it had banned the server of WallStreetBets for violation of community guidelines, including “glorifying violence, spreading misinformation, and hate speech.” According to a report by Verge, moderators of WallStreetBets said they were not able to moderate 250,000 users effectively as people discovered workarounds to continue using offensive and banned language.
Reddit is a platform that is used by tens of millions of people, and it would be simply irresponsible to characterize them as a part of a particular group. You also don’t have to be politically entirely aligned with anyone involved in it to be fascinated by what happened in a showdown between Wall Street and Reddit. The stock market is not exactly a system famous for its own high moral standards either; neither do you have to be rooting for anyone in particular to enjoy this fight.
What can teens learn from this?
The stock market can be a gateway to financial freedom as well as fortune, and this holds true especially to those from lower-income backgrounds. Teenagers that are curious about the stock market have the advantage of having more time in their hands than adults, and in all likelihood, have fewer expenses to look after.
The moment the shares of GameStop hit a record high; it captured the attention of the public. Teens across the world turned to social media platforms to learn more about the situation and stock market.
Posts on social media that explain the situation to individuals who have likely never interacted with the stock market before are gaining huge attention. A large number of contents are being posted on social media platforms that explain the GameStop stock price surge with analogies, personal anecdotes, and graphs.
The future of the stock market will significantly change as Generation Z joins the workforce; a group of analysts from Bank of America calls this generation “the most disruptive ever.”
As stated by BofA, the younger generation will lead the stock market away from more classical institutions to focus on sustainability, climate change efforts, and new technology.
Mobile applications such as Robinhood were used to a great extent for trading GameStop stocks; such apps have already made investing more accessible to individuals and younger generations. According to Seeking Alpha, which is a financial market company, Millennials have been more reluctant than any other generation to invest in the past.
A lot of millennials who experienced the devastation of the financial crisis are more careful when it comes to investing in the stock market. In contrast, Generation Z was too young to have experienced the direct impact and pain caused by the Financial Crisis. Even if Gen Z is willing to save some money and potentially invest in stocks, cash available to them is still somewhat limited.
Conclusion
Parents should make sure that their teens understand money basics before they attempt to invest in stocks. Parents can also help their kids in identifying companies they may be interested in and while it is worth learning about, it should also be clear that investing is not a game.
