Category: Insights

The Constant Evolution of Voice Search

Miley on October 12, 2018

Technology is all around us, and there is no escaping it. The best thing is that it is continually evolving as technological breakthroughs are seen almost on a daily basis. One of the technologies which are getting better every day and making our lives easier is voice search.

When Did It All Begin?

More than half a century ago, IBM introduced IBM Shoebox which was the first speech recognition tool. The father of voice recognition devices was able to recognize 16 words and the digits from 0 to 9.

Mostly implemented by mobile device manufacturers, today’s voice technology gives users the ability to do online searches, find information about products, ask questions, ask for directions or for the weather forecast, and many other things just by talking to a device.

How Does Voice Search Work?

First of all, it processes and transcribes the human speech into text before analyzing it in order to detect questions and commands. After that, it connects to external data sources such as search engines to find the relevant information and translates that information into a digestible format to fulfill the user’s intent.

What Are The Best Voice Search Engines?

There is a continuous battle between big players to make the best voice search engine. This is good news as voice search assistants are becoming more and more sophisticated, thus making our lives easier. Let’s take a look at the top brands manufacturing these devices.

Google’s Google Assistant is powered by AI and is primarily available on mobile and smart home devices. It was launched in 2016, and the thing which makes it different from its predecessors is that it can engage in two-way conversations.
Microsoft’s Cortana was released in April 2014. Available in multiple languages, it has the ability to set reminders, recognizes a natural voice, and answer questions by using the information found on Bing.
Amazon’s Echo has many capabilities, such as voice interaction, music playback, creating to-do lists, and streaming podcasts, to name just a few. The best thing about it is that it can be extended by installing other functions which are developed by third-party vendors.
Samsung’s Bixby is a voice-powered digital assistant introduced in 2017. It is a major reboot for S Voice. Aside from being used on smartphones and other mobile devices, Bixby is included in Samsung’s Family Hub 2.0 refrigerators, which are the first non-mobile products to include a virtual assistant.
Apple’s Siri is part of its iOS, watchOS, macOS, HomePod, and tvOS operating systems. It works by using voice queries and a natural-language user interface to do actions such as answering questions, checking for information, navigating, and many other things.

What Lies Ahead?

As of January this year, around 1 billion voice searches were made per month, and in the next couple of years, 50% of searches will be made using the voice-enabled technology.

It is also predicted that in the years that follow the voice recognition market is going to experience huge growth, with an estimated $601 million in 2019 only.

Conclusion

We can definitely say that the future of voice-enabled technology is bright. The constant need for improvement is the driving force that makes companies produce the best voice assistants out there. Both the companies and their customers bear the fruit from it.

Development Insights Products

Ways To Prevent Mold Formation In HVAC Unit

Miley on October 9, 2018

If you fail to maintain your HVAC unit, the chances are high that it will grow mold. This bacteria and fungus then might get pumped out right into the air that you, along with your loved ones, breathe. This could result in you being the unwanted victim of respiratory problems and allergic reactions. So, it is time to learn how you can actually prevent mold from growing in the first place. If you have already been a victim of such an issue, you should consider getting professional cleaning booked in, be it via Willard Power Vac or any other service provider. But, by following the following simple and easy steps on a daily basis, you can prevent the formation of mold and avoid this issue altogether.

Make sure to clean your system whenever you get time:

The first step in this regard is to check on the cleanliness of the current HVAC system. Look for any of the areas which are damp or leaking. And then you have to confirm it by placing the right air fitters in those areas. The experts from reputed centers are here to help you with the cleaning of the air duct in case you are completely unsure of where you might want to begin with the unit. To prevent the formation of mold in air ducts, you have to keep a note of this point for sure.

Get yourself the best humidifiers as available online:

The addition of some terms like humidifiers, standalone heaters in homes and fans can help in regulating humidity in the air. It can further help in cutting back on the mold growth to a great extent. You have to buy the best humidifier, which will match your requirements well. Purchasing the best one can cut back down on how much you might have to spend on the cleanup services otherwise.

Keep the windows and doors closed:

Whenever the weather remains warm or damp, avoid opening doors and windows all the way around. Giving chance to the outside elements to enter your place can increase the level of moisture inside your house and that will affect the HVAC system to a great way. Shutting down the doors and windows will help in minimizing the air duct cleaning ordeal and will also help the system to remain clean and free from molds, if not more. As the products are not getting way too exposed to elements, so things are designed to act in your favor for sure.

For the concluding note:

Once you have learned the easiest ways to keep the molds from forming, you should start working on it now. To be on the safer side, keep the numbers of the experts handy. These professionals are licensed and they have a certificate to prove their worth. They know what they are doing and always ready to help you in the best manner possible. Once you have contacted the team for help, there is no need to look for any other secondary service. If the mold infestation is way too much for you to handle, then let the experts be your guide for the day.

Development Insights Products

Increasing Sales of Online Fashion Store with Instagram Marketing

Miley on September 30, 2018

Acceptance of online fashion stores is increasing these days. With the advent of time, people are getting comfortable as well as accustomed to online shopping. As a result, they want more convenience in online-based shopping. It is a difficult thing to shop for fashion items, especially clothing items online. With the advent of many well-developed e-commerce websites for fashion clothing items as well as accessories, it has become simpler for the buyers to find products as per their preferences or choices. Along with adopting some essential changes to the e-commerce website for selling fashion items, businesses have to focus on business promotion or marketing to gain more traffic as well as visibility. For online marketing of fashion e-commerce store, different social media platforms can be used. Instead of conventional marketing, social media marketing works well for the online fashion stores. Now, different social media platforms are there. There are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These are the major platforms. Along with them, a lot of other social media platforms available. Using Instagram has certain benefits in the process of social media marketing. It can increase sales and give better profitability to your business. Here is a guide for you in this matter.

A Perfectly Created Instagram Account

It is to be noted that Instagram marketing would be successful once the foundation is strong. This is simply comparable to a building structure. If the foundation is not strong, building structure would not be strong. So, the foundation has to be strong enough. To work on the foundation, different strategies and expertise are required. To make the foundation strong, different techniques should be adopted. To create an Instagram account, you need to follow the basic procedure of signing up. Once you register with your account, you need to follow some simple measures. Here are the things that you need to ensure when you are creating an Instagram account. Make sure that you are following the steps as mentioned below with perfection.

Profile information: The profile should be stuffed with all the necessary as well as crucial information. It is important to understand all the things that are required for showcasing information on your profile. Right from the bio section to the contact section, all section should be stuffed with genuine and useful information.
Display Photo: A business profile on Instagram is not complete without a good display photograph. You need to make your profile photograph complete with the right selection of the display picture. Make sure that business profile picture for your Instagram account should come with business logo or emblem. It helps in creating brand awareness.
Verified Profile: You need to verify your business profile through proper documents. Not verifying the profile would not stop the copyright violation issues.

Once all these things are done, you are ready for an Instagram marketing job. Now, this job has to be conducted with perfection. The first step is planning. You need to chalk out the blueprint for the Instagram marketing campaign. Once the blueprint has been created, you need to go for the process of business marketing to enhance traffic for your website and eventually enhance your profitability. In order to learn more about this matter and to get brilliant social media marketing services, you can get in touch with Gramista.

Sharing Fashion Related Photographs and Contents on Instagram

Content is the king in the field of business marketing. You need good content to make the process of Instagram marketing seamless. You have to work on your content with more dedication. The aim should be developing seamless as well as lucid contents. When it comes to Instagram marketing, visual contents are used more than text-based contents. For visual content, you need to be unique just like the text-based contents. Basically, using photographs from other without permission may drag you into trouble. Using copyright protected photographs is a serious offense. So, it is important to create or craft contents with perfection. Now, when it comes to promoting fashion related website, you need to focus on the fashion domain. You need to focus on sharing contents that are related to the fashion industry. Popularly, businesses share photographs or their products on the Instagram account. Make sure that the products are showcased in a creative style. If they are not shown in creative style, they will not draw the much-required attention. It is also a good idea to go for a professional photo shoot with models for various fashionable garments and fashion accessories. Combination of all these things will help your business immensely.

Share Fashion Tips

The basic aim of Instagram marketing should be sharing such posts that can draw engagement. You have to engage the fans or followers on your social media activities or posts. Sharing the fashion tips is helpful in this regard. Your followers would love to get some unique and advanced fashion tips. They would love to get some great tips regarding usage of various fashionable accessories. Many businesses sell innovative fashion items, and people do not know how to use them properly. Videos can be created to show people how these accessories can be used to appear more fashionable. Overall, different techniques and methods can be tried to create awareness and share useful tips among the followers. If followers start getting something worthy from your regular Instagram posts, they shall keep in touch with you and encourage others to follow you. This is a common way of driving more revenue.

Celebrating Festivals with Discounts

Every buyer loves discounts and freebies. So, it is a great thing for the buyers, if they are offered freebies, especially during the festive seasons. To announce various discounts and freebies, you can use Instagram profile of your fashion e-commerce store. You need to create posters or interesting text contents to promote various offers and other related things. In this way, you can gain more potential buyers for your store, and that would eventually result in high revenue earning.

Author Bio

Harris is a leading blog writer and content marketing professional with thousands of real Instagram followers for his postings. To know about Instagram marketing, you can follow his articles and visit Gramista.

Development Insights

How Technology is Changing HR in Startups and Big Organisations

Miley on September 29, 2018

Companies spend a lot of money managing human resources. HR is big business whether you’re a small business, startup or a giant multinational. If you don’t get your HR right, you won’t have the right people working for you and you’ll end up failing. When it comes to HR spending, it’s obvious that the way businesses spend is changing. Nowadays, the startup, as well as the big company, is looking for technology – it can help companies save money. HR investment is particularly flowing towards human resource management systems, especially if the technology is also utilizing things like cloud computing and artificial intelligence. With investments clearly considering technology in HR to be such a beneficial force, what is the actual consequence for HR? How is technology changing HR in startups and big organizations alike?

Providing opportunities to outsource HR

One of the major ways technology is transforming HR is by making it another aspect the company can outsource. Outsourced HR has not been possible previously in a way that would have made it effective and beneficial. However, both startups and larger companies can now easily let third parties run the HR system. Technology can deal with most HR needs efficiently these days. Automated learning, artificial intelligence, and cloud-based platforms mean you don’t need a whole department to look after payroll, onboarding or even recruitment. Instead, the modern human resource management system just requires a few HR professionals to manage even large employee portfolios. Automation will provide companies with an easier and more cost-effective way of running HR. This doesn’t mean internal HR departments would come obsolete. It just means that organizations don’t have to build gigantic departments any longer and waste resources on professionals whose services they might not require on a regular basis. Instead, departments can become more productive and scalable, allowing companies to focus on the most crucial matters and to help the HR workforce they have to become more professional.

Improving HR’s understanding of employee wellness

Having an organization full of happy and healthy employees will mean the organization has a motivated and productive workforce. In the modern world, employee wellness and wellbeing are the most important things HR has to cover and technology is improving their understanding of these issues. Due to cloud-based technology and increasing focus on behalf of the human resource management systems to cover issues of wellbeing, employees and employers are better able to take charge of their health. The focus is flowing towards simply steps like allowing people to manage their healthcare insurance choices through these apps to promoting healthier choices. There is even emphasis on monitoring employee wellness with the help of wearables. By integrating some of these technologies with the HR’s human resource management system, companies are able to better assess how employees are doing, what kind of help they might need and how to support a more productive workforce.

Training the next generation of workers

Technology is having a huge impact on society and it’s changing many professions on the go. It’s only natural for HR to adopt a technology, as this can ensure the workplace as a whole is taking on this digital revolution. Many employees are entering workplaces that do not look anything like they did a few decades ago. However, for many millennials, technology might not have been part of training and certain digital aspects of the workplace are not something many of know prior to just trying them out. HR’s role has always been to ensure the workforce is up to the task and it has the right tools to operate with. In the modern world, this means helping employees embrace and use technology. The cool thing about this digital revolution is not that HR has to help educate employees but also the way they can train. This is because of the way human resource management systems have adopted cloud-based training as part of their appeal. HR doesn’t have to do traditional classroom and course-driven approach to developing talent. Instead, everything can happen according to the employee’s abilities and time. You can provide more personalized talent with modern technology, ensuring employees only learn what they need and do so at a time that allows them to be effective and productive.

HR success comes with the right technology-adaptation

HR is the key to business success and startups and big organizations alike need it to thrive. However, HR doesn’t just stay the same and technology can play a big role in shaping how HR works at any given organization. By staying on top of changes in technology, companies can also ensure their HR departments are effective and pushing them toward success.

Development Insights

Improving Your Customers User Experience: Micro-Interactions

Miley on September 26, 2018

One of the most important statistics in the world of marketing is the fact that a present-day internet user has a shorter attention span than a goldfish. That being said, you need to understand how to make them engage with your brand and your website without distracting them from your main objective, making a purchase, subscribing or further exploring your domain. Making your audience phase through pages and pages can be quite lucrative for your overall rank, yet, it really doesn’t do much to boost the overall user experience, especially if your loading time isn’t that impressive. Fortunately, with micro-interactions, you can do just that. Here are a few tips and suggestions.

1. Highly intuitive

The first massive advantage of the improved customer user experience through micro-interactions lies in the fact that they are incredibly easy to use. Think about the ‘like’ feature on Facebook. This universal symbol is more than a clear indicator of what the actual function does, yet, this is not your only option for micro-transaction implementation. In a lot of cases, the micro-interaction has a confirm button, which allows you to reverse the action before others are able to see it. Without this finality, your audience might be more content with playing around with your website, seeing as how they are confident that their interactions stay private until they deem otherwise.

More importantly, you need to understand that it is not a job of a micro-interaction to change the way your audience’s brain works, it’s only there to capitalize on this symbolism and association patterns. As we said, thumb up and heart were always positive symbols while the ‘x’ symbol, a broken heart, a minus or a thumb down always indicated something negative. Emoticons can also be quite efficient, seeing as how they have a simple graphic way of displaying approval and disapproval. Overall, you should study these behavioral patterns if you’re to connect with your audience.

2. Sense of control

As soon as they enter your website, your audience is in your domain, which is what robs them of some of their control. Sure, they’re there by their own will and they can shuffle through your offers, however, in order to make them really feel welcome, you have to show them that they are the ones whose actions matter the most. Any form of interactions can get you a part of the way but according to the guys from the digital agency from Melbourne, you can make all of these micro-interactions into a breadcrumb trail towards your CTA (call-to-action) button. After all, it’s much easier to make your audience interact with the most important element of your page if you’ve already persuaded them to do so several times over in the previous two minutes.

3. No need for the loading screen

The greatest advantage of micro-interactions is that they don’t require you to reload the page. Think about the Instagram ‘like’ button which immediately shows a red heart symbol (as opposed to the empty heart icon) when you click on it. Sure, interacting with your website in a different way would also be a probability, yet a loading screen can be a potential deterrent. By relying on micro-interactions, your pushing the biggest obstacle out of the way.

4. Keeping your users entertained

Depending on the content of your landing page or your platform, you might have a hard time keeping your users entertained. This is where micro-interactions come in, seeing as how they give your audience something to do every step of the way. By evoking emotions or using interesting animations, you can take this one step further.

5. Avoids unnecessary confusion

While this may not seem like that great of a deal, avoiding unnecessary confusion definitely improves your user experience. For starters, whether or not you’ve clicked a certain button shouldn’t be a concern with micro-interactions. On the other hand, if they’re poorly integrated or non-responsive, this could turn into an even greater problem.

Fortunately, most micro-interactions respond instantaneously, leaving your audience without a shred of doubt in their mind on whether or not the website received your order. Delayed reactions are even worse, especially when clicking twice on the same button has the potential to undo your first action. Overall, micro-interactions can be much more efficient at avoiding unnecessary confusion.

6. More reliable feedback

Due to the fact that micro-interactions make people more eager to interact with your website, you also get a more reliable feedback and an easier access to all sorts of user-related information. Most people automatically assume that we’re talking about the way in which your audience responds to your content but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sure, micro-interactions are great, however, each intractable element you add to your page requires some additional resources. In this way, you get to see first-hand, which of these buttons are audience-favorites and which, they could easily live without. In other words, you’re using micro-transactions in order to alter your own micro-transaction strategy.

7. More efficient instructions

Finally, learning of the example is probably the most efficient didactic method, yet, a lot of people are still quite reluctant to do so. Fortunately, with the help of micro-interactions, your users can get an emulation of using your app or platform in a safe, learning-friendly environment. Sometimes, simply highlighting or flashing a button that your audience should click next can help make this learning process more seamless. Moreover, this can help gamify the entire experience of using the app, which is definitely a trend that goes ever in your favor.

In conclusion

The best thing is the fact that these seven aspects aren’t the only ways in which micro-interactions stand to improve the overall user experience. Sure, no matter how ingenious, these features don’t have the power to make or break your brand, yet, they do act as powerful enhancers. In other words, they can make all your efforts better and more relatable, which is what your web design efforts and your digital marketing campaign are supposed to be all about.

Development Insights

10 Traits to Look for When Hiring A Right-Hand Person for Your Business

Miley on September 24, 2018

Many of the world’s biggest companies were founded not by one entrepreneur, but by two or more partners who shared the same vision: Warner Brothers, Hewlett Packard, McDonald’s, Apple, Google, Ben & Jerry just to name a few. Of course, all of them had to overcome rough patches along the way, these examples show that two heads are better than one and that a business can accomplish great things if it’s ran by partners who complete each other.

If you’re an entrepreneur with a big dream, you shouldn’t feel at a disadvantage because you didn’t happen to meet your business partner in childhood and you didn’t go to college together. In many ways, hiring a right hand to help you run things in your organization is better, because you can look for traits that indicate they are the best possible match:

Experienced

It’s not impossible to succeed in the business world without prior experience, but the few success stories we can give as an example are actually quite scarce. In most cases, lack of experience leads to costly mistakes and you might not get a second chance to apply what you’ve learned from them. An experienced business partner can help you avoid them by providing valuable know-how, advising you on fiscal matters and providing market insight.

Supportive

Business partners should have each other’s backs. The right hand you are looking for has to believe in your talent and support you along the way because this is the key to achieving success. According to psychologist Sherrie Campbell, a partnership based on support increases trust boosts motivation and helps you stay positive in spite of setbacks.

Patient

In business, success rarely comes easy. It might take years of trial and error until you manage to develop that brilliant product or until you find your first customers. The person you choose as your right hand has to be patient and stand by your side for as long as you need. There is nothing wrong with wanting to work quickly, but this shouldn’t come at the cost of compromised production or rash decisions.

Dedicated

No matter how many qualifications a person has, they won’t help you if they don’t believe in your goal and aren’t dedicated to seeing it become a reality. Look for commitment in your business partners and you won’t regret it.

Visionary

The world’s greatest inventions were created by people who were visionaries and had the courage to think outside the box. Find yourself a business partner who isn’t afraid to think upside down and challenge the status quo.

Hard-worker

Success often comes at the cost of countless sleepless nights, never-ending brainstorming sessions and hours of pitching over the phone. Your partner has to be willing to do all this and work harder than every other employee when the situation calls for it.

Communicative

The way you communicate with your business partner is essential. Not only do you have to be open to each other’s ideas, but also accept positive and constructive feedback. Without communication, you won’t know what’s wrong and you will not make the most out of your collaboration.

Kind

In the business world, the power of kindness is underrated. Contrary to how popular media pictures executives, you don’t have to be ruthless and cynical to succeed. A partner who cares about the needs of employees as much as for the needs of the business is really valuable, so score that during the interviews as well.

Proactive

Proactivity is the trait of people who anticipate change before it happens and know how to react to it. Proactive people are those who have initiative, adapt in challenging situations and have a results-oriented attitude. Instead of having a passive mindset, where they wait for things to happen and then sit back as idle observers, proactive people try to anticipate and prevent problems and when they occur, they actively try to solve them.

Integrity

And last, but definitely not least, your right hand should act with integrity in all business matters. Associating yourself with someone who acts by unorthodox practices and is willing to cut corners for the sake of profit is very dangerous and could put your business at risk.

No matter what you are looking for in a right-hand person for your business, remember that the two of you should be compatible. Finding the Steve Wozniak to your Steve Jobs might take a while, but you should never rush your decision and you should only go with someone you can trust. Whether you are choosing an SEO agency or hiring an employee, integrity is paramount.

About the author

Brandon Stapper is the Chief Executive Officer of Nonstop Signs & Graphics. a Los Angeles Signage Company. At 20 years old, with no formal education and only a few hundred dollars, Stapper turned a $400 custom decal machine in a garage into a printing powerhouse. Nonstop Signs & Graphics has made the Forbes Fastest Growing Companies Award 4 years in a row and services 10,000 clients yearly.

Development Insights

MVP Development for Mobile App: Things to Know and Principles to Follow

Miley on September 21, 2018

Building a successful app with everything fine-tuned and designed to perfection is a strenuous task requiring years of creative effort and continued focus. The fact that seeing your app alive on app marketplace will take months is enough demotivation for many of us. What about creating and launching an app in a jiffy? What about quickly building an app that perfectly holds together your idea with a straightforward execution? Well, that is precisely what MVP development is meant for. MVP apps give you the pleasure of making your app lives much earlier.

What Is Minimum Viable Product (MVP) all about?

So many tech startups are mushrooming these days with brainstorming new and innovative app ideas. They have fewer resources, less money, and less manpower to take care of a large development project. But in a highly competitive and quality-focused app market, they cannot settle for less. With an ambition to stay ahead of the competition, they cannot settle for a sloppy app. The only solution is to build a minimum viable product (MVP) with few and most important features and the basic app idea executed to perfection. This urgency of the quick launching of apps with relevant features makes MVP a credible option now among many developers. For example, app developers in India the emerging market now considers MVP crucial for staying competitive. Because faster development cycle helps them stay ahead of the competition, where one of such solution worth checking out would be flutter development. MVP or minimum viable product in the context of mobile apps refers to the essential app with core features, design and user experience that expressly define the uniqueness and utility of the app. All other additional features or value-additions or design enhancements can be done upon this basic app built with MVP development principle. An MVP is neither the beta app version nor they are actionable app mock-ups. MVP apps are not also minimum featured apps unless it carries the principal app idea throughout.

Why develop an MVP app?

We have already seen that MVP mobile app serves mainly as the starting point for an app development project. The MVP app is the basic approach to shape an idea into a well-featured executable app. The enterprises can build MVP apps quickly, can assess the potential of the app idea without taking too much strain and can keep the cost lower at the initial stage of development.

Let us now have a look at the key reasons to go for an MVP app.

An MVP by boasting of the important app idea and quintessential UX element can help to launch a fully functional app in minimum time.
Taking less development time and costing too little MVP apps offer minimum development risk.
MVP app easily allows assessing the app idea through original market presence and user interactions.
All the guesswork and assessment without material grounds are no longer needed thanks to the option of building an MVP app.
An MVP also helps a business getting feedback of customers and all associates after launching a fully working app, not without it.
When people can’t decide about the features that suit their needs most, you can build a few MVP variants and help them make their choice.
MVP apps being stripped of the unnecessary elements are more performance-driven and least vulnerable to errors and bugs.
As the basic version MVP app always remains open to get better with subsequent development efforts.

Features and aspects that make MVP apps stand out

To beat the cut-throat competition in app marketplaces the developers and strategists always need to come with something genuinely viable, useful, unique and relevant for the users. This is why, shaping the basic app idea into a viable product is more important than building a fully-fledged, feature-rich app. This precisely makes MVP a commendable alternative. There are two basic sets of features, respectively as the user application and the admin panel. For the first one change can be necessary for contents and to meet the norms of respective platforms. Rest of the features in an MVP app depends as per the industry and niche. Let us describe features of MVP apps of various niches.

Features of E-commerce MVP app

Some key features of an MVP e-commerce app include the following.

Payment gateway with different options like credit and debit card, net banking, Cash on Delivery, PayPal, etc.
Navigation menu by-products, categories, and subcategories.
Ecommerce Cart
Customer registration and profile management
Order history management
Product page along with relevant filters
Product rate, reviews, and recommendations

Features for MVP food delivery app

The typical key features that any MVP food delivery app cannot do without include two basic sets of features, respectively for customers and the restaurant or food chain admin. Let’s have a look at these features.

Customer-side features

Geolocation and integrated map
Order list
Payment page with multiple payment options including credit and debit card, net banking and Cash on Delivery
Search option for food and restaurants with various filters
Restaurant profile and menu
Cart management
Notifications about order and delivery status

Restaurant-side features

Restaurant profile page
Menu page
Manage orders
View balance
Order history and analytics

Features for social network MVP app

If you are going to launch a social network app with a minimum viable product (MVP) features, the key elements that you need to ensure include the following.

Newsfeed
Registration, profile and timeline management
Friends and follower management
Creating posts
Tagging and hashtagging
Like or reactions to posts
Sharing posts
Reporting posts and profiles
Event-oriented notifications
Social bookmarking

Conclusion

So, the minimum viable product (MVP) is to boast of faster development of a useful app with all the most relevant features. Instead of opting for so-called cool or stunning features the MVP app of any niche concentrates principally on relevance and accordingly chooses the irreplaceable features that make it meaningful for the users.

Insights Products

Best Software Solutions for PCB Design

Miley on September 15, 2018

With the electronics market getting more innovative by the day it is important that the design software that is in place to support this is as innovative also. If you think of the size of a circuit board today compared to 10 years ago – now they are tiny whereas they used to be massive. This is all down to better technological advances in the electronics field and one that continues to be extremely innovative.

When you think of the designers of these products, the room for error on such a small appliance is quite big which further supports the need to have really good software for layout design which can keep up with today’s routing demands. There are many different packages out there now with the changes to support creative design engineers.

What To Look For In A Software Package

No matter what level of detail you want to get into with the end component that you are making, you will still be looking for a software package that makes it all very simple for you. These software packages on the internet look extremely complex but they don’t need to be. Here are some things that in a modern software package you would be looking for:

Storage – It sounds a no-brainer however you would be surprised the number of times you hear that people have run out of storage space in their library. Make sure that you check this out before purchasing and ensure that the storage space that they offer is adequate for your needs. Clearly, you want to keep as much of the original items in your library and do not want to have add-on storage options. Most modern software solutions have ample storage space.
Simulations – When you have finished designing a product, wouldn’t it be great if you could run a simulation to understand how it actually potentially performs? Most modern layout design packages have this option. Not only can you run it on individual components but you can assemble your products together and run an assembly simulation. Before the days of simulation, design engineers relied heavily on the robustness of their design and even the outcome of any FMEA activities that they would complete supporting this. If you do not run a simulation, you run the risk of designing components that are not fit for purpose and it is only when they have been manufactured that this all becomes clear. It’s much better to be pro-active.
Advanced Tools – When you think of advanced tools we are talking about things such as different views. Most modern software packages will have the option to complete the design in 2D or even 3D. The majority of designers prefer to complete the component level design in 2D but then move on to the 3D for the assembly, but you have your own choice on what best suits you.

Bear in mind that these software packages will also update very regularly, therefore, keep an eye out from the retailer or software originator to ensure that you get any updates downloaded.

Insights

4 Reasons Why Your Mac Needs Bitdefender

Miley on September 15, 2018

Each year, consumers lose nearly $2.3 billion due to malware infections. If you are an Apple loyalist, your computer of choice is probably a MacBook. These laptops have been one of the most popular in the world for years now and for good reason.

Rather than leaving the important information on your computer vulnerable to attack, you need to take advantage of the power of Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac. The developers of this program set out to make antivirus software that was both easy to use and very effective.

Read below to find out more about Bitdefender and why having it on your Mac is essential.

1. Take Advantage of the Bitdefender Shield

If you are like most Mac users, you want a program that continuously monitors your computer for malware and computer viruses. With the help of the Bitdefender Shield, you will be able to detect and remove threats without having to manually scan your computer.

Once you have turned on the Bitdefender Shield, you will not have to worry about nefarious malware getting onto your computer. Being able to set and forget your virus and malware protection will help you focus on more important things.

2. Cross-Platform Malware Detection Gives You Peace of Mind

During your time on the Internet, you will come across a number of programs that are made for other platforms. Many Windows-based programs can be accessed on a Mac computer. If you do not have comprehensive malware protection, hackers can use Windows-based programs to infiltrate your Mac and take the sensitive information stored on it.

The team at Bitdefender has developed a way to both monitors and protect Mac computers from cross-platform malware attacks. If you are confronted with a virus-filled program, Bitdefender will detect this threat and remove any viruses it finds along the way.

3. Fast Virus-Scanning Capabilities

Modern consumers have a notoriously short attention span. If you are concerned with getting your Mac scanned for viruses without having to wait a long time for the results, then the Bitdefender program is definitely for you.

The Bitdefender program combines speed and accuracy to provide consumers with lightning fast virus scans. Not only are these scans fast, they are very detailed. This means you will not have to worry about finding and eliminating viruses and malware on your Mac.

Source-Pixabay

4. Bitdefender is Consistently Getting Better

Using a cloud-based virus and malware detection program is essential when trying to guard your computer against new cyber-threats. The Bitdefender program is constantly updating and getting better with each passing day.

This means that you will not have to worry about your Mac being attacked by new hacking methods. Since this program is cloud-based, you will not have to worry about any drag on your Mac’s resources while updates are taking place.

The last thing you want is for your sensitive information to be compromised due to a lack of cyber-protection. With the Bitdefender program, you will have no problem keeping hackers at bay for a long time to come.

Insights Products

Facebook Advertising 101: How to Create Stellar Ads That Work

Miley on September 12, 2018

Image via Pixino

It’s no secret that Facebook is the premier online advertising tool for businesses. Rightfully so, Facebook’s advertising platform makes it simple for marketers to conduct granular searches for an ideal target audience. With this useful function, the task of creating beautiful ads is entirely left up to your prerogative and ability, or you can opt for some of the tools that can help you with dynamic creative.

Frankly, advertising on Facebook isn’t as convenient as it may initially seem. There is a wide range of obstacles modern advertisers face, even on Facebook’s advanced platform. One of the primary issues advertisers face is building ads that actually work. Now, how is the word “work” defined in this context?

You guessed it. I am simply referring to the complexity of encouraging people to view, engage, and click on your ads. Otherwise, what’s the point of creating business ads in the first place?

So, how can you develop outstanding ads that capture the attention of your target audience? What are some creative and innovative ways you can design your ads to achieve optimal results? Overall, how can you get the most return for your advertising investment?

Read on to learn how you can create stellar ads that will actually work for your business.

Coordinate Your Ads with Your Campaign’s Landing Page

When you are creating your Facebook ads, it’s essential to coordinate your ads to the content of your campaign’s landing page for two primary reasons.

First, you’ll receive a substantially higher Ad Relevance rating, giving you the incentive to pay less per click. Facebook Ads are starting to become more competitive, and its CPC rates are steadily rising as a result.

Next, align your ads with your landing pages can boost your conversion rate. When interested buyers click on one of your ads to make a purchase, they expect to receive exactly what they were promised in the ad. If this happens, your brand and your website can gain credibility with your customers who will likely do business with you again.

With the number of online scams spreading throughout the internet, trust is a determining factor to influence prospective customers to provide you with their payment information. Besides, the alignment of your ads and landing pages can effectively decrease your shopping cart drop-off rates.

Constantly Conduct Rigorous Experiments

Needless to say, all businesses are different. Each business has their own target audience, voice, and messages that they want to convey. Hence, you will only waste your time if you rely on industry research and experiments conducted by other businesses that attempt to inform you of how you should run your ad campaigns.

Try conducting your own experiments to generate marketing data you can use to analyze the advertising techniques that work for your business and the ones that don’t. One popular method of accomplishing this is to simply split test your ads.

You can begin by taking your best ad, making copies of it, and changing the headlines of each ad. When you’re finished, you’ll now have multiple ads to experiment with. During your experiment, record important data and metrics such as likes, shares, views, and comments to determine which ad receives the best response.

Once your first experiment is finished, move on to another element such as descriptions and images. Make sure you are testing one element at a time to gain the information you need to construct the perfect ad.

Invest in Video Ads

If you are creating fruitless ads that aren’t performing well on Facebook, it may be time to implement an innovative strategy to boost your ROI and conversion rates.

Investing in video ads is a perfect method of capturing the attention of your audience, and this option gives you the best opportunity to present a timely message in a creative fashion. Facebook allows businesses to create stunning video ads with their custom software, but it can initially be difficult brainstorming quality video ideas that will make your audience bow down and worship your products or services.

If you are struggling with the concept of producing the perfect video ad, take a look at Nike’s video ads for inspiration.

Nike Facebook Ad Video Embed Code

Nike’s video ads carry a motivational tone that successfully inspires their customers to purchase their products. Although Nike has a variety of celebrities at their disposal to market their products in these ads, you can craft an exceptional video and by just following this simple marketing principle: keep all of your ads relevant to your niche.

If you are running a barista, it doesn’t make much sense to create a video ad that’s full of promotions and no substance. What do individuals in your niche crave? For a barista, this obviously would be coffee.

Therefore, if you are promoting a free tasting event at your local barista, create a video ad that displays people drinking and enjoying your coffee and include a call to action at the end of the video. If a single picture is worth a thousand words, then a video should give you unlimited potential to spread your message to your audience.

Nike does this by displaying their products and allowing viewers to make their own decision about continuing with a purchase at the end of the video. Overall, investing in video ads are extremely efficacious for reaching your target audience. Nonetheless, be mindful that your video ads should tell your story and subtly promote your products or services.

Use Facebook Targeting to Your Ad Copy’s Advantage

When it comes to advertising your products or services online, it can be tempting to write your ad copy like you’re giving a speech on a stage. Though, if you want to be effective, create well-written ads that are personable. This means writing ads copy as if you’re selling to one person, and one person only.

This single individual is the person that you’ll have to convince to purchase your goods. Just as if you were a salesperson, you need to prioritize this person’s needs. Of course, your content has to be universal if it’s displayed on your website. However, Facebook gives advertisers the ability to narrow down granular audiences.

For example, if you are selling sportswear but want to create a message just for women, you can target your ads to women who are under 35 that live in the United States and are interested in exercising and fitness. Once you have your specific target audience, you can develop an ad that speaks directly to them.

Ensure That Your Ad Copy Matches Your Visuals

Most smaller business, usually in the B2B section, typically don’t have access to a ton of visuals for their social media networks. Consequently, when it’s time to create an ad, these businesses often scramble to find a last-minute image to accompany their campaign.

This can lead to creating an ad that mismatched. If your ad copy doesn’t align with your image, your audience will have no idea of what you’re advertising and your ad will be wasted.

Starbucks regularly posts captivating visuals that complement their ads. In their signature #StarbucksDate campaign ad, the copy mentioned that anyone who attended the event will receive a French press Caffe Verona with a delicious chocolate brownie. Do you know what images the company used in this ad?

You’re correct. The ad contained images of the French press Caffe Verona with the delicious chocolate brownie. By including a perfect visual in this ad campaign, Starbucks reminded its audience of what they would obtain if they attended their event, resulting in an outstanding ad.

Keep Your Call to Action Very Clear

The most effective Facebook ads have a clear and concise objective. Are you trying to obtain a lead, sell a product, or increase your brand awareness? Without this, your audience will see your ad, but they won’t know what to do or how to engage it.

Society6 sells and advertises custom cell phone cases, and their ads show the perfect example of how a call to action should be displayed.

This ad is much more than a beautiful depiction of quality iPhone cases; the ad contains a simple call to action that’s succinct and easily accessible to Facebook users. Once the image catches the eye of a prospective user, the only thing they will have to do is click “shop now” and they can move forward with their purchase.

Focus on the Offer, Not the Copy

Let’s begin this section by observing a quote left to us by the late Gary Halbert, one of the most brilliant advertisers of the 20th century.

“Strong copy will not overcome a weak offer but…in many cases, a strong offer will succeed in spite of weak copy written by marketing morons.”

In the broadest sense, Halbert communicated that a good offer will succeed on its own. This isn’t to say that excellent copy isn’t integral to an ad’s success, but the offer should always be attractive to be truly effective.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

Offer #1

Offer #2

Both of these offers are great, but there is only one offer that truly stands out. Which is it? You would be correct at selecting the second offer, and here’s why.

Although the first offer promises 50% off a women hoodie, the second offer will obviously elicit a more emotional response from its audience. Hence, it’s a very bankable offer. If you’re a dog lover, you will likely purchase the shirt just to feed the shelter dogs without realizing you just bought a shirt.

This isn’t to say that you should begin your own dog shelter, but you’ll only maximize your ad’s potential if you can sweeten up your offer. The best method of doing so is to sell an item without your audience realizing you are.

The fundamental lesson in all of this is to create compelling ads that don’t directly sell your products. Allow your offer to speak for itself, you’ll successfully entice your audience to transform themselves into valuable leads for your business.

About the author:

Rolando Herrera

VP of Marketing for Insignia SEO (Co-Founder)

Business Website: https://insigniaseo.com/

Personal Website: http://rolandolherrera.com/

I’m a marketing executive and entrepreneur that enjoys helping people and businesses grow their concepts. I’ve worked in corporate for Disney, Boston Market, and many others and helped them deliver their brands to consumers. I’m currently a co-founder of a marketing agency, Insignia SEO, with business in over 50 cities in the US. My expertise is in Digital Marketing strategies that use Organic Marketing, Content Marketing, Paid Search Advertising, and Social Media as the delivery of information to the consumer. I have over 10 years of experience in the Tech and Digital Marketing space and I’m passionate about the fruition of a concept in the marketplace.