How to Create a Huge Social Following

When it comes to the follower side of social media management, we all know quality trumps quantity. Yet the fact remains that follower count is still a significant vanity metric. You can’t grow your quality social contacts without focusing on quantity, at least as a secondary objective.

One of the questions I hear most often about social is a simple one: How do small businesses most effectively build their social following?

If you’re ready to see your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and beyond numbers start to swell with quality connections, this article will get you on track. Below are several expert-approved tips for creating a social following that truly wants to read your content.

Tip #1: Get Over Yourself:

The entire internet is now espousing the value of well-crafted content, but there’s a secret sauce in this practice that makes all the difference. If you want to build a loyal following, your content has to be truly stellar, unique, and of value to your demographic. But you probably already knew that.

The easiest way to guarantee you’re meeting these objectives is this: don’t generate narcissistic content. The majority of your offerings need to be informative, not incessantly rambling about any facet of your products. Value is not uncovered in me-focused content, but in information that is relevant to your demographic. A good rule of thumb: offer 1 piece of company-centric content for every 9 pieces of valuable shares. The result will not only be a bigger social following, but one that is volumes more loyal.

Tip #2: Create the Content People Want

So what does it really mean to create content of value? Well, you first need to know the audience you’re serving as intimately as possible; all their likes, dislikes, and so on. Once you have a clear view of your target, the types of content you create is critical. Here are some proven content types that people respond to:

Commenting on Industry News – Provide links to the latest advances in your niche, as well as insightful commentary on what the news might mean for the industry, or how it might specially impact your readers.

Asking Questions – By far one of the more successful techniques, but with one caveat: you actually have to listen. If your company can show a proven track record of asking poignant questions and responding to customer data, your loyalty and friend shares will go through the roof. Don’t just ask questions with the intent to ignore the answers, however, as folks will catch on.

User-Submitted Content – Sometimes your audience will ask fascinating questions or post relevant, intriguing comments. Use these in your social campaigns to not only showcase valuable content, but to make social stars out of your biggest fans.

The goal here is to share information, not status updates, company news, or things the mass audience will clearly not be interested in.

Tip #3: Own Your Expertise

One of the biggest mistakes companies make in attempting to create a social following is to be too generic. If you don’t echo yourself as an authority or guru for your chosen space, people simply won’t engage.

The folks with the biggest followings on sites like Twitter, aside from celebrities, are bona fide experts in their fields. Roy Povarchik calls this Twitter Greatness. Your content needs to reflect this expertise, not just in the actual information shared, but in the tone as well. Write with tremendous authority, be detailed in your knowledge share, and engender a sense of credibility in everything you produce.

This means you must include actual data at times to back up any declarations, and you also need to dedicate yourself to fact-checking. If you share any information that can easily rebuked, your reputation will most certainly suffer.

Tip #4: Stagger Your Content Shares

Want to know the single easiest way to get folks to unfollow you? Over-publishing content in “bursts” across your social channels. Tools like HootSuite allow you to schedule social media blasts, spacing out content releases in ideal time frames – use them to not only space out posts, but to publish them on optimal days and times (whenever your audience is most likely to be online.)

The most grievous offense in this category are auto-generated tweets and updates. If you run a poker site that auto-tweets every time someone wins a big hand, you may think you’re drawing worthy attention to your brand. The truth is, you’re likely to gain more followers short term, but lose them as fast you as you gained them with over-sharing.

Tip #5: Offers, Offers, Offers

There’s no easier way to offer value to your audience than giving away products or serving up significant offers. That’s also a proven method for boosting your followers by double digit percentages.

The key here is to truly make these offerings valuable. A 5% discount for an online store isn’t a sexy offer. A BOGO (buy one / get one) or 50% discount is. These offers must feel truly special in order to entice folks to take action, so make them worth your while, and your customers.

Tip #6: Be Positive!

Your social media tone is directly linked to your follower numbers. Those who opt for a more negative approach, who speak poorly about competitors or take on Twitter wars with other people or brands, are hardly ever those with impressive social numbers.

Instead, craft a voice that always has a positive message shining through. There’s a reason pictures of cats own the internet; they make people happy. Adopt the same philosophy with your brand’s social shares (either with or without the cats) and your numbers will most certainly increase.

What other top tips do you have for growing your social fan base?

Sprint, T-Mobile Deal Takes Significant Step Toward Completion

A major merger in the telecommunications world has moved one step closer to reality with Sprint finding eight banks to finance its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile, sources “familiar with the matter” told Reuters.

The debt package, which tops $40 billion, will include a bridge loan of approximately $20 billion to Sprint from Japan company Softbank Corp. The deal also includes $20 billion in refinancing for T-Mobile’s current debt load, Reuters reported.

t-mobileHeavy hitters JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group, Deutsche Bank AG, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup Inc are all in on the deal to enable Sprint, the No. 3 wireless carrier in the U.S. to scoop up its rival which currently sits in fourth place among the country’s top wireless providers. Japanese banks Mizuho Financial Group Inc, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group are also involved in the deal.

Sprint and T-Mobile are hoping to finalize financing details by the end of July and then announce a merger in August, the sources said.

T-Mobile

Sprint’s plan to buy T-Mobile first took root last year, but the Justice Department and the FCC have been a thorn in the side of the carriers. The government is maintaining its long-standing position that the market is competitive with four major carriers and would prefer to see it continue that way.

The two companies have argued their merger should be allowed to give current market leaders Verizon and AT&T stiffer competition.

T-Mobile has remained steady as the country’s fourth-ranking carrier but has been making inroads in the past few years. One bid to attract more customers included plans to pay new subscribers’ ETF fees to a limit of $350.

Google Acquires Alpental Technologies, mDialog

Google, it seems is taking its cue from Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, because it sure has been on a spending spree of late.

The technology titan has added wireless startup Alpental Technologies and video advertising company mDialog to the fold as it looks to improve its wireless technology and offer more high quality video options to its advertisers. The financial details for Google’s latest acquisitions have not been made public.

mDialog, which is joining the DoubleClick team at Google, will continue to offer its services to programmers and distributors as usual — at least for now.

“We’re excited to announce that mDialog is joining the DoubleClick team at Google,” reads a post on the mDialog website.

“Longer term, we’re also very excited about combining mDialog with the DoubleClick platform for publishers. Together, we’re looking forward to offering content creators new and even better ways to make money from their live and on-demand content.”

Google said the acquisition proves its commitment to offering more ways for publishers to monetize live, linear and on-demand video content across all screens.

“This represents the latest of our ongoing investments in helping brands connect with high-quality video content, like Google Partner Select, our new marketplace for premium programmatic video,” reads a Google+ post.

Google has been much more tight-lipped about its acquisition of Alpental Technologies, which it quietly purchased a few weeks ago.

Although a spokesman confirmed yesterday that Alpental’s staff has joined Google, he declined to divulge further details.

According to media speculation, however, the purchase of Alpental may be part of the $1-billion commitment Google made earlier this month to bring Internet to remote areas of the globe.

It is thought Alpental will play an active role in Project Loon, the technology giant’s balloon-powered Internet endeavor to bring the two-thirds of the world’s population with no connection online.

Cloud Computing Set to Burst in India

With its low barriers to entry and ability to handle large numbers of customers, cloud computing is enticing many of the country's 50 million startups and small businesses.

Indian online ticketing giant BookMyShow.com grew out of a simple idea hatched by three vacationing friends: What if you could buy movie tickets online? But simple can be incredibly powerful—especially in a country with 100 million people accessing the mobile Internet via smartphone. Spurred by Indians’ love affair with movies and growing tech-savviness, BookMyShow.com has since grown to add tickets for concerts, plays, expos, and more recently Formula 1 racing and India’s other national passion, cricket. In 2008, the company broke the 1,000-tickets-in-a-day barrier. In July 2011, it sold 100,000 tickets in a single day, and a year later sold more than 2 million tickets in a single month.

“The kind of demand they see everyday is huge,” says Shradha Sharma, founder of Bangalore-based YourStory.com, which promotes India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. “And the reason they’ve been able to do all this is because they are on cloud.”

Cloud computing in India is set to skyrocket. Tech research company IDC put the cloud market in India at $688 million in 2012 and expects it to hit $3.5 billion by 2016—a five-fold increase. Shradha says all the big corporations in the country already run at least part of their business in the cloud. And she says a growing number of smaller companies are joining the trend, led by success stories like BookMyShow.com, its bus ticketing counterpart redBus and many others.

Cloud Appeal:

The appeal of the cloud for startups and small businesses is clear. Cloud computing lets them outsource computer programs and functions like data processing and storage away from local devices to a network of remote servers (“the cloud”). These resources can then be accessed from anywhere on-demand via connected devices such as smartphones, tablets and PCs—great for companies that want to get up and running fast, need to scale quickly and/or don’t have a big IT budget.

Shradha says the cloud holds particular allure for Indian entrepreneurs, many of whom share a frugal mindset that favors things like pay-as-you-go, comparative shopping and learning from other companies’ case studies. It’s a mindset that has led many small and midsized businesses to prefer pirated or copied software over paying full price.

“But cloud allows software vendors to sell useful, legitimate, high-end tools on a SaaS (software-as-a-service) pay-as-you-go model, or a mixed freemium model,” Shradha says, referring to the popular tiered pricing strategy that includes free and premium services.

The cloud also puts otherwise-pricey big data and analytic capabilities within reach of startups. The combination of social media and mobile cloud allows startups to set up an online presence, market themselves, sell services and/or content, and mine analytics to help with development of future customers and/or products. All of which, Shradha says, has helped propel startup acceleration in the cloud era past the startup growth rate of the pre-cloud dotcom-boom era of the late 1990s. Today, India is home to more than 10,000 technology-based startups, with up to 8,000 new ones sprouting every year—an effective growth rate of 25 percent to 30 percent, according to YourStory.com.

Barriers to Cloud Adoption:

But the cloud boom is just getting started. Of the roughly 50 million startups and small and mid-sized businesses in India, Shradha says the vast majority—43 million—are traditional small businesses that are not even online.

“That’s a huge market,” she says. “There’s a huge opportunity for them to go online and start interacting online.”

Some of the factors keeping these companies offline are technical—access, reliability and security, for example. Only 1.1 per every 100 inhabitants has access to fixed broadband in India, which ranks 122 in the world for fixed broadband penetration, according to a 2013 report by the Broadband Commission. Compare that with 41.9 per 100 people for top-ranked Switzerland.

As fixed broadband connectivity increases, cloud adoption is expected to follow. But Indians aren’t waiting around. Many of the country’s 900 million mobile subscribers use mobile phones to access cloud resources. And venture capitalists have taken note.

“In the mobile app space is one of the biggest areas they’re looking at, both from an innovation perspective and in terms of reaching the mass Indian user base,” Shradha says.

There are also non-technical barriers to cloud adoption. According to Intuit India survey results shared recently on Bloomberg TV, Indians resist cloud adoption due to perceptions around cost and affordability, a lack of skilled labor available to small businesses and concerns about return on investment (ROI). That said, a recent IDC survey of 473 respondents, 200 of which were small organizations, showed a huge willingness to adopt cloud technology.

“At least in the startup space, people are very eager and hungry to adopt,” Shradha says.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All:

Many B2B and B2C startups have taken the leap into the cloud with great results, especially in certain sectors. They include companies like HealthcareMagic, Neurosynaptic and Drishti Eye Centre in the healthcare space; FrontalRain Technologies and Cropin Technology in the agri-tech space; Indix, Aurus Network and Flipkart in the big data analytics, education and e-commerce spaces, respectively; and many more in the tech, media, ERP and finance spaces.

“All these spaces are seeing a lot of innovation,” Shradha says.

She adds that, when it comes to shopping for a cloud provider, Indian entrepreneurs are extremely value-conscious and keenly aware that one size doesn’t fit all. Some are very focused on the support that’s available. Others—especially in data-heavy analytics companies—are focused on security. Still others want open source offerings from their cloud provider. And they’re willing to shop around to get what they want.

“If they see a greater value, they don’t mind shifting to another platform,” Shradha says. “And that’s what’s very exciting about startups—they’re ready to explore.”

And in India, with its 1.2 billion inhabitants, the cloud offers so much to explore.

“The change is happening very fast,” Shradha says.

Nine Must-Have Tools and Apps for Business Executives

You’re only as current as the technology you utilize, so if you’re a digital business owner looking to get to the top, staying trendy is part of the process. With technology moving at light speed, however, that alone can be a full time job.

If you’re ready to nab some new gadgets and apps that make your life more productive and happy, check out the list below. While these babies may not help you source world peace, they will make the ardent task of running an online business a lot more manageable overall.

Phone Charging On-the-Run:

We are now officially smart phone addicts in this world, but keeping the suckers fully charged continues to be an elusive task at times.

If you’re after an inexpensive and portable way to keep your phone alive and connected to your entire digital world, checkout the offerings from Nomad. Products include USB cables and iPhone charges that fit on your keychain, or double as a credit card in your wallet. All products are just $29, and connect to Android or iOS systems. You’ll never have to face the dreaded dead battery again.

Keep Your Meetings in Sync:

The meeting calendar of a typical exec can change dramatically in a given day, so it’s often challenging to stay on top of current schedules. Lowdown is a new iOS app that automatically extracts real-time calendar data from your phone and other systems to keep you in-the-know about scheduling shifts.

Lowdown also works with LinkedIn to present data about meeting attendees, so you can walk into each session with plenty of information about who you’re meeting with. It also syncs with your email to keep you informed about new messages from any meeting attendees, in case they need to cancel or reschedule, etc.

Flash Drives for Sensitive Data:

We have long since all adopted thumb drives to store important data, but how often have you misplaced them and lamented losing secret information? If you regularly carry around sensitive data, Lok-It is a must. This flash drive is encrypted and offers hardware authentication, making it virtually hack-proof. Lok-It also sports a number lock system which requires a passcode to unlock, adding yet another layer of security. These flash drives are cross-platform compatible, and plugin to USB ports like regular drives too.

Phone-Friendly Task Management:

If you’re like most business execs, you start the day at dawn and end well into the evening hours. Keeping organized is always, always a conundrum. OmniFocus is a nifty iPhone app that helps keep everything in perspective as you zip about your day. OmniFocus keeps track of tasks based on projects, people, places, or dates. It will notify you about upcoming deadlines, and allows you to clip data from email, instant messaging apps, and many more locations.

OmniFocus will do the heavy-lifting around gathering and organizing tasks, so all you have to do is keep knocking them down.

Mobile Meetings:

Need to initiate meetings from your smart phone? Yeah, there’s an app for that. Check out Cisco WebEx and prepare to take your meetings to the mobile space. This free iPhone app lets you propose and join meetings from just about any device. This means you no longer have to plan meetings around your desk or office time; meetings can virtually happen anywhere.

Ergonomic Laptop Stand:

Destined to put chiropractors out of business is laptop stand The Roost. Because business owners spend scads of time staring at their screens, all too often posture is less than perfect and plenty of pain can result.

The Roost comes to our rescue with a portable style that positions laptop screens at eye level, thereby thwarting the urge to hunch and do damage to spines and muscles. This Kickstarter project has received numerous accolades from busy professionals who can no longer live without the sleek design and ergonomic styling.

A Smart Way to Aggregate all that Data:

We all now live in the era of big data, and trying to keep all your company’s important information in an organized fashion can trigger an immediate migraine. SumAll aims to help you manage that stress. SumAll aggregates data in an easy to understand format, including social media, revenues, analytics, SEO, URLs – you name it, SumAll helps you keep it organized.

Secure eSignature Software

Sometimes it’s the little things that truly make life easier. DocuSign fits that statement to a T. This program simply lets you electronically sign any contract from any device, in a safe and secure manner. If you’re still signing docs the old-fashioned way, a simple tool like DocuSign can make you feel volumes more empowered.

Keep it Personal

Have you ever sent a personal, even intimate correspondence to your significant other, only to find out it accidentally went to someone in your work world? Using the same tools for business and pleasure can be dicey. That’s where Twyxt comes in. This app lets you send photos, messages, moods, and other communications just to your partner, in a secure manner that guarantees no other eyeballs will view it.

What other apps and tools have made your life as a business owner easier and more carefree? We’d love to know!

Apple Gets Ready to Tell Consumers Why They Want a smartwatch

Apple does not rush to promote with its product. It waits for the competition to pave the method -- experimenting and infrequently failing to ignite abundant interest. Then, once it's Apple time, the corporate growth with a fantastically designed iWhatever and easily tells consumers: "This is what you would like." It worked with the iPod, iPhone Associate in Nursingd iPad -- however can it work with an "iWatch"?

Apple reportedly is making ready to ship multiple versions of a smartwatch this coming back fall, as competition will increase within the wearable technology area.

Its long-rumored smartwatch are out there in multiple screen sizes and can embrace quite ten sensors that may permit it to trace the wearer's health and fitness metrics, among alternative info, in line with a Wall Street Journal report.

Apple needs to deal with the notion that smartwatches presently on the market don't give vital further practicality on the far side what a smartphone will do, it seems.

Apple provided a touch of its plans for health and fitness options once it unveiled  Health at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month. The app aims to concentrate all of a user's fitness and health info. The reveal of the app intercalary fuel to the rumors that Apple was making ready to launch its smartwatch imminently.

New Product Lines:

The company's chief govt, Tim Cook, already had secure to push into new product classes by the tip of the year. The last time Apple debuted a significant new product was four years past, once it launched the iPad -- before Cook took charge of the corporate.

Production of the smartwatch could begin at intervals a couple of months at Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta laptop, with the aim of delivery the device to plug by Oct. Quanta is predicted to start out trial runs later this month, the WSJ aforementioned, with total shipments of between ten million and fifteen million by the tip of the year. Apple is claimed to be confirming the specifications before beginning production.

Whenever Apple happens to debut its smartwatch, it'll be late. Samsung has the Galaxy Gear smartwatch and Google has Google Glass. The stone smartwatch syncs with the wearer's smartphone and provides notifications as well as for incoming calls, text messages and emails. Meanwhile, many wearable devices track the wearer's health and fitness information, like Nike's FuelBand and also the Fitbit.

'Stronger Status Symbol':

"In effect, the smartwatch could replace the smartphone," said Rob Enderle, principal at the Enderle Group.

Apple's watch "could have a display that was nearly as large. It would be harder to lose and drop, it would be easier to use hands-free -- with voice command -- and it would be more visible, making it a stronger status symbol," he told TechNewsWorld.

"I doubt Apple will go this way though," Enderle continued, "because they want people to buy both an iPhone and an iWatch -- not cannibalize the phones. So it will likely be more of an extension of the iPhone with an exercise focus. It will likely alert you if you leave your phone behind and become a phone tracker if you misplace the phone."

Wearable technology is a key growth sector, with global sales predicted to reach 19 million units this year, more than tripling sales. Device sales will soar to 111.9 million within four years, according to IDC.

However, Apple might face a tough battle getting its smartwatch onto the wrists of consumers.

'Simply Gadgets':

"The fact of the matter so far is that consumers don't want smartwatches as they are currently designed. That's why they don't sell," said Carl Howe, vice president of research and data sciences at the Yankee Group.

"That suggests that today's products are largely technology solutions for problems that don't strike most consumers as true needs; they simply are gadgets," he told TechNewsWorld.

"New areas like this have to be defined first before there is demand. For instance, no one really wanted a car in the 1900s except the geeks of that time," Enderle said.

"Now, because the market has been defined, most everyone wants a car. Tablets were a nonstarter outside of vertical markets before the iPad, as well. But most consumers don't yet want a smartwatch because no one has brought one to market that consumers have been attracted to," he observed. "You need both a compelling product and a way to create demand for it. This isn't a 'build it and they will come' market."

Market-Defining Opportunity:

The Apple brand is powerful. It created consumer desire for smartphones, and it might do the same for the smartwatch.

"Until the iPhone, consumer demand for touchscreen phones was nil. Some of that was that the products were bad, but some of that also was that they didn't do enough to solve a real consumer problem," Howe noted.

"What Apple did was to design something in which the touchscreen was a means to be able to synthesize three products in one. [It combined] an iPod, a phone and an Internet communications device into one elegant device," he said. "I suspect Apple will do something similar in future wearable products as well. Their wearability will be a feature, but they'll actually address several consumer wants and desires in one elegant product."