Running a small to medium business is challenging because of the sheer number of tasks it takes to succeed. From finance to human resources to technical support, it would be unproductive and challenging for business owners to do it all themselves. Thankfully, the ease of hiring consultants has improved with technology, and business owners don’t have to figure out everything on their own anymore. In this article, we’ll explore what a business consultant does and how one can help your business thrive.
A business consultant is a professional with a wide array of skills who assists business owners with their initiatives. Consultants usually have the knowledge and skills backed by relevant education and previous experience.
Business consultants provide management consulting to help organizations improve their performance and efficiency. These professionals analyze multiple aspects of business and create solutions to help companies meet their goals.
Business owners should consider hiring business consultants when they need help or perspective on the current cycle they are in, or a wish to introduce a catalyst for change in their organizations.
There are various types of business consultants specializing in different business aspects.
• Strategy and Management Consultant – Consultants who can bring industry expertise to your business to help you scale, acquire new opportunities, and drive revenue;
• Operations Consultant - Consultants who specialize in operations can help you improve day-to-day processes. These business consultants take inventory of your current business model and figure out the best way to produce the same high-quality results at a fraction of the cost and time;
• Financial Consultant - They mainly assist in investment decisions and help you find the best way to handle your business’s assets and debts. Financial consultants may have even further specializations, including financial planning and advising your business on taxes, daily expenses, and more;
• Human Resource Consultant - These consultants can take over your day-to-day HR tasks, such as recruiting and retaining employees, processing payroll, performing administrative tasks, and managing employees’ performance;
• Marketing Consultant - Marketing consultants help businesses identify their strengths as a brand and expand upon them to create brand awareness and exposure. Whether your business needs a rebrand or a fresh marketing strategy, this type of consultant can be an asset in expanding your business’s reach.
The true value of a business consultant is that they can offer guidance and assistance in order to help you make the best decisions for your business. Here are 5 significant advantages that hiring a business consultant can provide your business with.
Running a successful business requires hard work, acumen, and most of all, a lot of time. Hiring a business consultant can help to lighten the load and free up time to work on other important issues.
Many businesses also choose to take on a business financial consultant in order to help streamline their processes or identify inefficiencies in the way they operate. This results in both better business practices and bigger financial savings.
Making business decisions can often be tough, especially when you don’t have much information to work with. An often overlooked and underestimated benefit of hiring a business consultant is that they can come into a situation with fresh eyes and see things from a new and objective angle.
Every business person has strengths and weaknesses. If there is a particular area of business in which you feel you need assistance with, it can be a good idea to hire someone with knowledge in the field, rather than risk operating with a gap in information.
Be it obtaining business acquisition financing, launching a new product, or hitting set KPIs for the quarter, a business consultant is trained to help businesses to accomplish their stated objectives in a process-oriented manner. This helps businesses avoid wasting resources on half-baked initiatives and mitigate risks overall.
The role of a business consultant is to stay on top of market trends, possess a wealth of experience and knowledge in different areas of business, and have a skill for strategizing and thinking outside of the box. Their job is to possess a level of expertise that allows them to advise and help business owners to make the best decisions for their business.
The above advantages of hiring businesses consulting services cannot be overstated. A good business consultant provides guidance, answers, solutions, and set a roadmap for the business.
If you think your business could benefit from any type of consultation, be it management consultant, a marketing consultant, or a general business consultant, we would love to hear from you. Get in touch today to see how we can help!
Every business can benefit from hiring a virtual assistant for various reasons. The most obvious reason is that employing a virtual assistant frees up your precious time, and allows you to focus on growing your business as the owner.
Virtual assistants can take care of various business processes, from customer service to event organizing. If you’re in the market for some help in sorting out organisational matters but just can’t make a decision yet, this list of statistics could help you justify the need to hire an assistant. Read on for 10 statistics on outsourcing assistance for your business.
Modern times have influenced traditional employment. More and more large companies hire freelancers and part-time workers, making virtual assistants more popular nowadays. This trend is likely to continue especially with the pandemic encouraging remote work. Virtual assistant usage statistics show that more than 80% of big businesses have decided to raise the number of contingent workers.
If you hire a full-time assistant on-site, you must factor in additional expenses such as a desk, computer, and so on. If you hire a virtual assistant, on the other hand, you will avoid these expenditures and save 78 percent of your company's costs every year, which greatly benefits small businesses who have to focus on scaling their resources.
Technology is constantly evolving and continuously benefitting organizations, so companies need to make sure to follow the trend. Over 94% of organizations using outsourcing make due improvements by hiring third-party providers to assist.
According to statistics on virtual assistants, companies that hire virtual assistants sometimes require them to do a few particular tasks, while others give VAs crucial roles in their teams. Some common virtual assistant services demanded by employers include general admin work, project management, bookkeeping, billing and invoicing, content research, blogging, customer research, customer support, data entry, etc.
People who have chosen to do independent work and rely on it as their primary source of income show increased contentment in their work. If we compare them to people who have 9- to-5 jobs by choice, we’ll see that the latter are less satisfied.
The Philippines and India are the best destinations for finding virtual assistants because both countries are on the top of the list of global outsourcing. Virtual assistant trends show that while Filipinos are easy to work with and excel at Business English, India is popular for IT and back- office work.
Modern society has brought changes to the way we work and look for a job. As a result, many skilled professionals have chosen to work remotely as virtual assistants. Data suggest that nearly 60% of virtual assistants are well-educated professionals who have a college degree to prove it.
Virtual assistant rates of income can vary depending on the country as well as their skill set and specialties. However, the average pay of virtual assistants in the United States is $67,115. From that, it can be inferred that virtual assistants make $32/hour, or around $5,600/month, on average.
Many company owners have turned to virtual assistant services to help them with everyday duties such as social media management, email marketing, and project management during the last few years. This has allowed businesses to do more, and workers feel more productive towards their KPIs. Thus, the worldwide virtual assistant business is growing in tandem with the continuous rise in demand.
Virtual assistants come in a variety of shapes and sizes, depending on the business. Because the corporate sector is so broad, there is no definitive number of VA kinds. However, we can still construct a list of the most common types: virtual administrative assistant, virtual social media marketing assistant, virtual assistant writer, virtual bookkeeper, and virtual real estate assistant.
We hope this list helps you prepare and decide whether your business could benefit from hiring a virtual assistant.
Don’t know where to look for a qualified virtual assistant? NFT can help! Send us a message today or reach us at +61 2 9089 8875 to take the first step.
Most businesses have upgraded their techniques for driving traffic to their websites. However, the real challenge for businesses remains to be increasing conversion rates.
When you have a website for your business, it’s important to understand that it is much like a constantly evolving creature, and best practices from last year may not work next year. You’ve got to stay ahead of the curve and keep optimizing or you risk falling behind the competition. This is where Conversion Rate Optimization, frequently termed CRO, comes in.
Whether your conversion is for visitors to sign up for a newsletter, buy a product, or enroll in a subscription service, you must constantly be thinking of how to improve your conversion rates. In this guide, we will go over all the terminology in addition to providing a list of things you can do to increase your conversion rates in different business cycles.
Conversion Rate Optimization can be defined as the regular practice of enhancing your website to increase the percentage of users who perform a designated action. These actions may include product purchases, form fills, video views, or clicking a link on your website.
CRO focuses on understanding what is persuading your users to convert, what is hindering them and what would make your conversion process much more user-focused. Understanding these factors can help improve your website’s user experience and ultimately encourage users to convert.
As the term indicates, the overall benefit of CRO is achieving the purpose that your website was created for, whether it be brand awareness, sales, or getting leads. Let’s break down what CRO does for your business.
Customer Insights – Conversion rate optimization focuses on understanding what your key audience responds well to and making optimizations that enhance their user experience. This focus on user experience is rewarded by Google Search Bots which decides how well your website can rank on search engines;
Increased ROI – Increasing your conversion rate reduces the number of resources you need to allocate on increasing new customer acquisition efforts. This means you are getting the most out of your current marketing efforts;
Scale Your Resources – CRO allows you to get the most out of your internal resources and your current audience. Audiences are limited, so it is important to turn your current audience into loyal consumers for better future growth;
Better User Experience – CRO identifies what hinders or encourages conversions, and leads companies to make appropriate changes for a better user experience;
Increased Trust – Through improving your website’s conversion process, you will increase trust that your business is a safe organization for end-users to share their credit card and personal information with.
CRO focuses on conversion research, user experience, website effectiveness, and personalization. Focusing on all four of these elements will help improve conversion rates and sales.
Conversion Research – It is beneficial to gather information to guide your creation of improvement ideas. This research may come from analytics, heat maps, or surveys. Conversion research is the most important factor of CRO because it provides real insight into how your users interact with your site;
Website Effectiveness – Implement persuasive and relatable copywriting to encourage end-users they need to engage with your product or services. Using social proof, scarcity and urgency can strongly encourage users to purchase or convert;
User Experience – Improving user experience will allow your consumers to browse and find more information easily. Improved navigation, forms, and information flow can lead to an increase in conversions;
Personalization – Implementing personalization techniques will help you discover the highest converting experience on your website for end-users. Personalized landing pages for different audience groups can help with this.
Before you can begin setting conversion rate goals, you need to identify all of the microconversions that need to take place before your macroconversion is complete.
The macroconversion is the main conversion you would like to visitors to do on your website. This conversion should guide your website copy, layout, design, and call to action buttons.
Microconversions are the small steps that must be taken before the macroconversion can take place. These microconversions may help educate and build trust with your consumers.
Below is a list of macroconversions that you may set:
Make navigation for your customers as easy as possible. Customers who get lost in the maze of internal links won’t find what they’re looking for—so they won’t take action. Improving store navigation through the layout and site architecture is an easy way to increase your CRO (and your SEO at the same time). Avoid unnecessary content that clutters the page and makes browsing confusing; for example, if you have an eCommerce website, make it easy to find products, make it easy to find variants, and make it easy to check out.
With all the work you put into SEO and social media marketing and paid ads, you want to make sure your customers land somewhere appealing. Think back again to those brick-and-mortar days: when you landed in a department store decked out with holiday cheer, it effectively got you into the spirit of buying. No matter the time of year, your store’s homepage is the place to make a great first impression. Make sure your call-to-action (CTA) is prominently displayed and well-placed as well, whether you want visitors to buy from you or to sign up for a newsletter.
Once you have a list of leads, develop a targeted marketing strategy. Many businesses send daily or weekly emails with content such as recipes, advice, and gift ideas. With the range of email marketing suites we have today, you can also personalize emails for anniversaries, birthdays, and other client milestones. Retargeting is a long-term strategy, and it’s even more relevant today when consumers need as many as seven points of contact before making a move. Make sure you have some sort of system set up to send an email to customers who have abandoned the conversion process.
In today’s era of social media, shopping choices are often influenced by what friends and connections are doing. This has created a strong sentiment of customer trust in user-generated content. UGC on your site can include videos, pictures, and reviews from past customers. You can integrate your site with Instagram images using a service like Instafeed. Written reviews are also still important, but their power to instill a sense of trust goes even further when they’re accompanied by pictures of the reviewers and their social media handles.
There’s no question about it: you’ve got to make your site responsive on mobile devices. Mobile visits have already been outpacing desktop traffic since 2017. But the need for CRO is even more pressing with mobile because research shows that mobile visits have a higher bounce rate and that visitors spend less time on the site. That said, it’s important that the mobile version of your site looks amazing and presents a seamless user experience in order to get users browsing to come back later when they have more time to look around your site.
Your conversion rate can tell a lot about the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Attracting traffic to your site is good, but getting those visitors to convert is the most significant element of inbound marketing. Conversion rate optimization has a direct effect to other important metrics, especially the ones that your business are interested in.
If you're ready to get started on your CRO, you can reach us at +61 2 9089 8875 or use our contact form.
We're excited to be a part of your company's future success!
Running a campaign on Facebook has been a proven way to rapidly increase traffic to a site and convert more customers online. With Facebook being one of the world’s top social media channels, its user base of millions allows you to cast a wide net and target a diverse set of audiences anytime.
However, if you’re a marketer who has explored working with Facebook to achieve your business goals, you’re likely to be aware of how much time and money it takes to advertise on the platform, especially in highly competitive markets.
It seems difficult, but it is possible to get ahead of your competitors – even with a minimal budget! The key is to go the extra mile in setting up processes and organizing your campaigns. Read on for three (3) rules you can follow when setting up a Facebook Ads campaign, so you can win more with less.
Small to medium businesses often find themselves in a creek without a paddle when they try to do a Facebook Ads campaign that has no proper bidding strategy and budgeting plan. And oftentimes, they might not even know they're making huge mistakes. This usually happens when companies decide to DIY instead of hiring an expert. Facebook Ads can be very effective, but only if used correctly.
It’s impossible to manage what you don’t measure. Hence, our first tip is to identify your campaign goals before anything else, so you know you’re spending your money right.
An advertiser’s goals can be any of the following, but we recommend sticking to one, as focus is one of the factors that can help maximize a limited advertising budget.
• Brand awareness: Get more visitors on your website or Facebook page;
• Collecting leads: Acquire information on targeted customers;
• Increasing sales: Get your audience to make purchases on your site for things such as products, paid subscriptions, digital assets, etc.
How fast you burn your budget will be largely dependent on the goal you choose. How well you spend it is up to your processes.
To illustrate, a brand awareness campaign could benefit a business running a seasonal promotion targeted to a large audience. This might work best only for businesses who have developed a strong brand and have made loyal customers. The only goal is to get the word out there.
For those who want to do their own campaign without professional help, you’re in luck. Facebook has a tool called Optimised CPM that basically helps you get the most bang out of your budget. They’ve created this tool because they know that explaining the finer points on budgeting, audience targeting, CPC (Cost Per Click), and CPM (Cost Per Impression) can be like explaining scientific facts to a climate change denier – nigh impossible. But just a caveat: big campaigns should not be done without the guidance of a professional. Optimised CPM can only do so much.
There are only a few campaigns that link their Facebook ads directly to their site without a landing page. And there’s a good reason why. Landing pages are vital for user education, thus creating a higher conversion rate.
If your audience clicks on your ad and gets to your page without knowing exactly what to do, they won’t sign up, buy your stuff, or whatever it is you need them to do. It’s just common sense. Also, landing pages can be the best tool to capture data that would help your campaign be better.
One thing to remember, however, is to prioritize essential information on landing pages you create. When we crowd information into a single page, we forgo readability and risk overwhelming a potential customer with too much information.
Remember to highlight only the information your prospects need at the top of your landing page and leave further details that can help them decide in the lower part. This way, you’re giving them enough information to reassure them they’ve come to the right place without bombarding them with too many things at once.
Of course, this same rule applies even to traditional marketing. But with Facebook Ads, you have access to a very powerful tool called Audience Insights. With this tool, you can find out so much about the demographics you are targeting even before you blow your budget on your first ads set.
Instead of fumbling around unknown territory, you can now find out what your market is like through data taken from your page’s current audience. This will also help you create several targeted ads for different demographics or sets of audiences. You will also be able to further optimise (using test ads) in the future, making your campaign even more powerful.
Facebook is a great avenue for growing your customer base, being packed with powerful tools that can help you get to specific demographics and make engaging ads.
By implementing best practices in crafting your campaigns, you can run low-budget campaigns that drive big results. Speak to one of our specialists today if you’re in the market for marketers with strong experience in building effective Facebook Ads campaigns.
In today’s age of highly digitized processes, the difference between a successful business and one that is lagging behind is the integration deft management and suitable skills to complement its processes.
From small concerns to large establishments, many businesses are choosing to acquire business assistance as innovative and advanced services have become increasingly accessible in the current competitive and ever-evolving business climate.
The textbook definition of business assistance, or more commonly called business outsourcing, is the process of subcontracting multiple business operations and functions to third-party service providers.
That means that it is a business practice in which an organization contracts with a third-party vendor or external service provider to perform a specific business task or function. The third-party service provider is therefore solely responsible for carrying out all the tasks pertaining to that business function.
There are many reasons why companies acquire business assistance. The major reason is to save money and increase their work efficiency.
Generally, companies outsource skills because they get better, cheaper, and faster work done for their particular task. They can hand over tedious and time-consuming tasks that often take lots of time and effort. Thus by getting business assistance, they can focus on more critical work, turning to their advantage in the market.
Some companies outsource their work to third-party services as they cannot hire in-house employees who have specialized skills to perform specific tasks. Another reason is that sometimes companies don't want to handle regulatory requirements or obligations, and that's why they move over the management of these tasks to third-party services.
If you find yourself in these business situations, it may be time for you to start seeking assistance for your operations.
Broadly speaking, organizations get assistance for two key areas of operations. They include:
Below, we go into more detail of some functions that companies get assistance with:
Like all business decisions, company executives must arrive at the decision to acquire business assistance by weighing and considering various factors and reasons in addition to being mindful of the economic conditions and market forces.
Transferring internal processes to an external third party or outsourcing company requires change management as it impacts the workflow processes, employees and the business as a whole. This is not necessarily a negative outcome that may spring from getting assistance for some business operations, but when this step isn’t done right, it may impact the organization negatively rather than create benefits.
Employee outsourcing or acquiring assistants for multiple business operations is something that many organizations have benefitted from. It’s starting to become a normal setup in most companies, where company executives focus on the more critical areas of the business while employing talents in repetitive and time-consuming operations.
Before jumping on a decision to get assistance, it's essential to know which is the right one for you that meets your needs and demands. NFT offers business assistance as one of our services and we can help you get the right talents for the functions outlined above.
If you’re in the market for business assistance, contact us at +61290898875 or leave a comment below to get started with a free consultation.
Most businesses rely on surveys, focus groups, and other forms of research to identify what influences the attitudes and behaviour of customers. However, in an ever-changing consumer market, surveys and focus groups tend to tap into customers’ memories and fleeting impressions, which can be unreliable factors to use in deciding how to get ahead of the competition and serve customers better.
Want to better connect with consumers and more effectively utilise your customer data? Then you need to build a real-time research process for your marketing team to guide you in all your marketing efforts. Real-time data based on the information you collect about your target audience leads to more relevant marketing and, in turn, better marketing and business outcomes.
Real-time research is a unique data collection method that gathers information on a customer’s experience as it is happening. In comparison to agile research or traditional market research methods, real-time research is all about the reality of a customer's experience rather than a customer’s reflection on products and services.
It’s the need for a more accurate understanding of consumer reflections and behaviour that gave way to this approach. Most market research methods are built on statistics, while real-time methods will be driven mostly by data science.
Our accessibility to data has greatly improved since the introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics. One example is the adoption of smartphones and how it has made it easier for businesses to gather data on a consumer’s purchase habits, location, and even browsing history, on a more consistent, real-time basis. As a result, the benefits of real-time research are numerous:
With real-time market research, you can collect thousands of data points around your brand, industry, competitors, or any chosen topic and punch them into an analytics platform to focus on certain demographics.
Before anything, it’s important to note that having the proper marketing software in place for your business is critical to accessing the benefits of real-time research. Not all marketing technologies are created equal. You should first look at the degree of research you want to dive into and select a marketing platform that can supply you with the tools you need for both data collection and analysis.
If you’re set on using real-time research to direct marketing for your business, connect your preferred marketing platforms to all your interaction points with customers, whether it be SMS, email, or social media.
Lastly, communicate your findings to the marketing team and act on them. Collecting data is one thing – analysis is another. You may choose to visualize insights through graphs and charts to better communicate them to the rest of your team. The key then for effective marketing decisions is for the team to base future activities on the data gathered.
Businesses can use real-time research to strengthen their brand’s reputation, manage crises, and improve customer service. Some of its use cases in marketing are as follows:
Brand events include product launches and customer-facing events where content strategy, pre-approvals, media plans, hashtags, creative, and editorial calendars must be prepared in advance. Following hashtags on Twitter, for example, and jumping in on conversations surrounding them is a form of marketing based on real-time research.
Another relatively small but growing area of real-time research is based on predictive analytics. Amazon has long used predictive data to display recommendations to customers based on browsing and purchase history. This trend will gain momentum as data solutions become more accessible and simpler to implement.
To stay afloat in a rapidly changing market landscape, businesses must explore new digital communication methods that can help market researchers target specific audiences more quickly, gather and analyze data and trends, and iterate more frequently. Enabling your marketing efforts with real-time data can help marketers deeply enrich and inform the dialogue they want to have with customers.
If you’re keen to learn more about real-time research and how you can use it to gain a competitive advantage in your industry, speak to one of our marketing specialists today for a free consultation on starting your digital transformation.
We hope this has been a helpful list of tips for marketing! If you need more advice on enhancing your marketing efforts, drop us a message to speak to a specialist who can guide your first steps.
keywords: social media marketing, social media strategy, social media campaign
One of the most popular trends seen today is marketing done through social media. It enables businesses to increase their brand awareness to new heights by disseminating their information to the individuals who are most interested in the products or services they provide. Because marketing on social networking sites is now possible for free, a growing number of organisations are beginning to integrate social media marketing into their day-to-day operations. This is one reason why so many people are using social networking sites. The concept of "social media marketing" could appear to be difficult, but in reality, it's quite simple. It's as simple as using social media platforms to market your company and brand in a way that's appropriate for the objectives you have set for yourself. The use of social media marketing by businesses is an excellent approach to spread awareness of their brand and generate excitement about the goods or services they offer.
Marketing on social media platforms provides companies with an excellent opportunity to develop meaningful connections with their clientele while also ensuring that these exchanges take place in an environment that is risk-free and private. It is what enables you to connect with your target audience, which is something that cannot be accomplished with the use of email alone. Platforms like Facebook and other social networking sites are crucial because they allow you to create relationships rapidly and exchange valuable content with prospects in real time. This makes these sites important platforms.
However, is there anything more that we should be aware of? In order to assist your company in thriving in the digital realm, we are going to elaborate on the things that you need to know about social media marketing in today's world.
Social media is a powerful marketing tool that can be used to promote your business. It has the potential to reach millions of people and bring in new customers.
A social media marketing strategy is a plan that outlines what you will do on social media and how you will measure success. You need to write it down so you can stay on track and keep up with what's working and what's not.
There are numerous factors to consider when developing an efficient social media strategy. Before initiating a campaign, you should identify your intended audience, the campaign's objectives, and the message you wish to convey. It is also essential to create a plan so you can evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign.
Here are some guidelines for developing a social media marketing strategy that will assist you in achieving your objectives:
Before you can build a successful social media marketing strategy, you must understand what is currently succeeding and why. You should also examine your audience's demographics, interests, and preferred brand interaction methods. This can be accomplished by conducting research on:
-The competition
- What types of content perform well in this space (images vs. videos vs. text)
- How much time people spend on different platforms (Facebook vs. Instagram vs)
Once you've determined what works best for your audience and how they prefer to consume material on each platform, it's time to determine how many followers/engagements/etc. you'd like to acquire over the next year or so. These objectives must be detailed (e.g., 100 new followers per week), measurable (e.g., a 10% increase in post engagement), and attainable.
The next step is to design a strategy outlining how you intend to go about conducting your campaign. What kind of content do you plan to create in the future? What is the frequency of the updates? Which operating systems will it be available for? Before beginning any kind of campaign, you need to give careful consideration to all of these questions.
Doing so will allow you to ensure that the campaign is carried out efficiently and effectively reaches the target audience without wasting time or money on steps or materials that aren't necessary. You have to create the information on your website in a way that will make it interesting to the people you intend to read it. To ensure that people will want to share your material with their loved ones and friends, you need to make sure that the information you provide is both entertaining and pertinent.
Make sure that everyone who contributes to the creation of the content is aware of what they are doing and that they collaborate on aspects such as the time and distribution of the content.
keywords: social media marketing strategy, how to create a social media marketing plan
Social media campaigns are an excellent approach to reach consumers and prospective customers. They can be utilised for marketing, customer service, and numerous other applications. But how can one develop a successful social media campaign?
The social media platforms provide the ideal environment for developing a successful campaign. However, if you aren't sure what you're doing, it might be a complete and utter waste of both your time and your money.
Follow these steps to ensure that your social media campaign is as successful as it possibly can be:
1. Ensure that your marketing initiatives on social media are consistent with everything else that you do in relation to your marketing activities. If they are not, they will not be effective!
2. You shouldn't only make posts about yourself or your product or service; instead, you should interact with other users. In order to keep the conversation continuing, you should both ask and answer their questions.
3.Keep it honest and authentic! Try not to pretend to be someone else or that everything is great if you want to keep your consumers from seeing through you.
keywords: how to create a successful campaign, how to create a successful campaign on facebook
The use of social media has permeated every aspect of modern culture. We employ it in advertising, socialising, and information gathering. It's also been used as a method of handling administrative tasks including customer support, internal communications, and recruitment.
The prevalence of social media in today's culture makes it challenging to keep up with it all. Thankfully, there are a number of resources available that can streamline and simplify everything from planning content to analysing results.
Finding the right social media management tool can be challenging if you're just getting started. We've compiled a list of the best social media management apps out there right now:
Over three million people use Buffer, making it one of the most widely adopted social media management platforms. In addition to allowing you to schedule posts in advance across numerous accounts, they also provide analytics on the performance of each individual post to help you better tailor future updates.
When compared to Buffer, Sprout Social is similar in many ways, but it also includes an analytics package that shows you which posts did well and which did not, so you can make adjustments moving forward. Furthermore, it has customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities to let your team work together more efficiently in managing many social network accounts simultaneously (like an office manager might do).
Hootsuite facilitates the administration of several social media platforms. You may monitor consumer feedback by monitoring many streams at once. You can make posts, check for responses, arrange messages, and look over statistics. Time-saving social media tactics like this are used by companies like Coca-Cola and Sony Music. The app simplifies the process of keeping tabs on several accounts by letting you create a profile for each one. View and interaction counts for your posts are publicly available. This allows you to tailor your content to specific demographics. You may learn from the past successes and failures of your content with Hootsuite's analytics tools.
Different tools will work better for different people, so the best way to figure out which one is right for you is to try them out and see which ones work best for you!
keywords: best tools for managing your accounts, best tools for managing your facebook account
You need to be aware of a number of important things, one of the most important of which is that businesses are spending more money on social media than they did the previous year, not less. The Internet is, in most respects, the most significant technological advance of the preceding half-century. There aren't many people that would argue with what's being said here. Because of this, it should not come as a surprise that almost every industry and organisation has been forced to make significant adjustments to the marketing strategies they employ in this new era of connectivity; even conventional businesses that operate out of brick and mortar locations now have an online presence.
This doesn't surprise me because it's so convenient. Because of social media, it is now possible to communicate with virtually all people instantly, from any location, without exerting any additional effort and at no expense. I have no doubt that the existence of this fact alone has a significant impact on the rise in expenses.
The practise of marketing through social media consists of a wide variety of subfields and only gets more complex with each passing day. You can, however, master the skill of using this marketing channel if you have the appropriate direction and remain persistent. This will allow you to genuinely transform your organisation and the opportunities to grow revenue.
Building an effective website is essential for running any type of business; no matter what field you are in. Your company’s website is where customers interact with you most frequently: either through email correspondence or direct contact with the company itself via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
While you may want to prioritize website attractiveness and functionality, it’s critical to also take into account SEO factors that contribute to your site’s visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs). After all, a beautiful website won’t benefit your business if your target customers are unable to find it.
If you’re embarking on a new web development project, read on to learn 6 web development tips you should know to ensure an end-product that is effective and profitable.
Get High-Quality Hosting
Choosing a quality web host is an important decision which could affect the success or failure of your website. The hosting provider you choose plays a great role in ensuring a fast, reliable, and secure online storefront. Outages in this context can include slow page loading times or connection disruptions due to maintenance or server overloads.
Choose a high-quality managed service provider that provides scalable hosting services that ensures availability and security. Some of the best web hosting providers in 2022 include BlueHost, SiteGround, Hostinger, and WPEngine.
For businesses that expect a significant amount of traffic at any moment, it would be wise to avoid shared hosting setups as server resources such as processor and memory are divided among users this way, causing slow and buggy websites.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A Content Delivery Network or CDN consists of several servers distributed in different locations worldwide. Its function is to shorten the physical distance by serving the content from the nearest server to the user, improving the time it takes to complete requests made through a website.
A few of the most trusted CDNs out today include Azure, Cloudflare, Fastly and Google Cloud. CDN service providers may vary in pricing, so it’s best to take a look at your budget and requirements before choosing one. More servers mean better performance but also higher pricing. If you’re on a budget, or if this is your first time implementing a CDN, you can opt for a service provider with less servers but have good coverage in locations where your customers are mostly located.
Minimize HTTP Requests
The fewer HTTP requests a website has to make, the faster the site can load. HTTP requests are made for elements such as embedded videos, external links, ads, and images. It is best to keep HTTP request density in mind when designing your website as too much of it can cause delays and ultimately turn visitors away.
If you already have a website in place, you can use Google Chrome's Network Panel to check how many HTTP requests each of your website pages make, and what files are taking the longest to load.
Optimize File Sizes
A large volume of unoptimized images is usually the most common reason behind poor website performance. Files are not limited to images – other elements contributing to slow page speeds may include heavy JavaScript, CSS, and HTML code density.
Optimizing file sizes makes sure all devices can access your content while using less memory on their systems or internet browsers. Keeping your files small improves page load times and makes your website more stable. In addition to reducing server load, minifying also makes development easier since you don’t need to watch for technical issues with large scripts.
To ensure your website files are optimized, compress your files before you upload them to your website. You can also hop into your page builder and scale down images to adjust to modern screen resolutions. By combining compression with resizing, you can reduce image file sizes drastically and speed up your website simultaneously.
Minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML Files
Minification is the process of minimizing code and markup in your web pages and script files. It’s one of the main methods used to reduce load times and bandwidth usage on websites. Minification dramatically improves site accessibility, directly translating into a better user experience.
To minify JS, CSS and HTML files, comments and extra spaces need to be removed, as well as crunch variable names to minimize code and reduce file size. The minified file version provides the same functionality while reducing the bandwidth of network requests.
Regularly Monitor Website Speed
Page speed is arguably the SEO factor businesses should pay most attention to, because addressing loading times improves your rankings, the user experience you deliver, and ultimately, your conversion rate. A poor conversion rate usually translates to a website that needs improvement in many aspects.
There are various online tools that your business can leverage to see how your website stacks up to SEO standards. While some of them are free, you may also want to invest in paid tools to monitor other factors and stay on top of Google’s ever-changing algorithm.
One free tool to do this is Google PageSpeed Insights, which helps you find and fix issues slowing down your web application. It aggregates your website performance score based on various factors, and the scores are categorized into Good, Needs Improvement, or Poor. You can toggle between the desktop and mobile versions of the report, which is helpful when optimizing the user experience. Any score above 90 is considered good. However, it shouldn’t be the only performance testing tool in your repertoire.
Wrapping Up
NFT is an outsourcing service provider that can help businesses build a website and keep it updated and running. NFT has the expertise to design, develop and maintain websites using the latest technologies and best practices.
If you have an idea to launch a website and you want to get a web design or web development project started, NFT can help. With NFT, you can get the help of experienced developers and designers right away and approach the web development process correctly.
Outsourcing is a strategy widely used by many businesses to increase team productivity. It allows a business to acquire the resources they need to grow without hiring full-time employees, which saves a significant amount of time and money.
Along with the rise of remote work and workplace diversification, outsourcing became a critical aspect in growing and competing in today’s global economy. Although there are many misconceptions surrounding this strategy, these 5 benefits far outweigh the risks associated with failing to approach outsourcing properly.
Outsourcing allows businesses to acquire talent that they might not already have in-house. Some skills that can be outsourced include internal communications, customer service, product development, management and marketing.
However, outsourcing is not limited to skills – companies can also outsource physical assets such as property or vehicles. By adding new skills to an existing team and leveraging additional assets, companies can speed up operations and scale sustainably.
The biggest challenge associated with this strategy revolves around employee retention when organizations fail to treat workers fairly. While outsourcing can power up an organization skill-wise, employers consequently receive the responsibility of creating an environment where both workers and contractors feel valued despite not being full-time employees.
Business expenses can be minimized by outsourcing tasks that are time-consuming, complex, or are inefficient due to human error. Additionally, by hiring independent contractors, organizations can avoid costly tax regulations, hiring expenses, and payroll taxes and retain profitability.
Take for example a web development project for a startup. With the limited budget and skill set available in young companies, the project can greatly impact finances if the business were to hire a project manager, a designer, and a developer. Web development agencies exist to solve this problem, as outsourcing the task of building a website significantly cuts down on labor costs. It also allows the business to save money on hosting and maintenance as these services usually come with web development packages offered by agencies.
The risks involved in business can be mitigated by outsourcing skills and assets to independent contractors. This works in two ways: First, independent contractors don’t pose the same risks as employees because they are not entitled to benefits such as health insurance, time off, and retirement funds. Second, by outsourcing assets like vehicles and equipment, a company doesn't have to maintain them to use after a project is completed.
This works especially well for businesses that are starting to gain more customers but lack the resources required to serve a bigger market. Choosing to enter this new business phase always involves investing in new technology, staff, and equipment. Subcontracting these requirements to a third party, instead of purchasing or hiring, gives the company a buffer against issues that could rise as they scale up.
When a company finds itself in a good position to explore new opportunities or branch out, outsourcing can help you plant your foot more firmly within today’s increasingly global markets. One way to outsource is by offshoring, where a business arranges to get its work done by a skilled worker from a different country. Businesses typically consider offshore outsourcing for its cost benefit, but the gains can span into more than just lower labor costs.
Depending on where your outsourced roles are located, you may gain a time zone advantage from competitors by having offices that are in sync with different world business schedules. Many retail companies have seen significant growth in customer service from offshore outsourcing because it allows them to localize their offerings.
Several countries also offer tax breaks and financial incentives to entice foreign companies. By outsourcing a part of your operations offshore, you may discover more profitable market areas to tap into. Having trusted talents from the location helps you pivot into these new opportunities more quickly, compared to seeking out these markets from a foreign perspective.
When you house all your business functions in one team, things can get busy and complicated. Core functions tend to get overwhelmed by outside issues which can cause missed opportunities and failure in offering services and products that your customers deem worthy of their money.
Back-end operations, such as customer service, sales, or maintenance require significant attention. As long as you’re ready with systems and processes in place, subcontracting these responsibilities to a third-party can allow managers to focus more on central concerns of the business.
The increased efficiency and ability to focus on your core business functions also positively impacts customer satisfaction. By breaking your organization down into units, you increase your ability to respond quickly to changes or issues, so any customer complaints or company issues can be handled with more thought and diligence.
Outsourcing is one of the best ways to grow your business by accomplishing more in less time. It allows companies to accelerate time to market with access to new skills they don’t already have in house while still maintaining control over costs. Decide which departments would be best outsourced to a third-party and start looking around for experts who fit the bill. It may seem daunting at first, but it will do wonders for your bottom line.
If you are considering outsourcing your support team, IT development, or marketing services, NFT has a track-record of finding the right skilled talents for your business and getting the job done.
Contact us to speak to a specialist who can help you scope out outsourcing possibilities.
Managing a business is not an easy task. When you first started out, you didn't know that you'd be mixing responsibilities as an entrepreneur with administrative duties—not a desirable situation.
And being on your own is insufficient to cover all aspects of running a successful business. You need to get a virtual assistant!
Choosing the correct virtual assistant (VA) will allow you to assign daily duties to someone who is always available to help. You don't have to suffocate in a sea of responsibilities in order to care for and build your business! In other words, focus on the tasks that really need your attention and delegate the rest to your virtual assistant.
A virtual assistant is a person who does administrative work for businesses while working from a remote location. An executive assistant, administrative assistant, or personal assistant can all be functions that can be performed by a virtual assistant, depending on the needs of one business.
Still not convinced? Here are some reasons why you should hire a virtual assistant as soon as possible:
Cost-cutting is the primary motivation for organisations to employ a skilled virtual assistant. Employing a virtual assistant instead of a full-time staff member can save you up to 85% on annual operating expenses.
Why? Because they can work for themselves or for a company that employs them as virtual assistants. All of the fees and perks provided to employees, as well as expenditures like office space, are now the responsibility of a third party, not the service provider or client.
No additional perks, rental space, internet, or other utility costs are incurred when you hire a virtual assistant.
We need to keep in mind that, in addition to being an entrepreneur, we also have a variety of responsibilities in our personal lives. It is not just our professional relationships that require attention and care. We have more time to do the things we enjoy when we have someone to assist us.
Burnout can be avoided by having more time to yourself, which improves your productivity. It helps you concentrate on the most important aspects of your business.
By delegating mundane duties to your virtual assistant, you free up time in your day to work on other projects.
With more time on your hands, you'll be able to spend it with the people who matter most in your life.
Let's face it; having a virtual assistant to assist you with the day-to-day operations of your business reduces the amount of work and stress you have to deal with. As a result, you'll be able to spend more time with your loved ones. In other words, you're regaining control of your social life.
Working with virtual assistants not only saves time and money but also boosts productivity.
For those of us who get bogged down in activities or to-do lists, here's a piece of advice: prioritise your tasks and prioritise your to-do lists. All of that and more may be accomplished with the assistance of a top-notch virtual assistant.
One strategy to avoid becoming overworked is to delegate jobs to someone who is capable of handling several duties and obligations. A virtual assistant (VA) can help you divide and conquer the tasks on your to-do list. In light of this, it makes sense to use the services of a virtual assistant.
Having a clear set of tasks to outsource to a virtual assistant can help you get things done and develop your business. Virtual assistants can assist you in prioritising which duties to complete first.
You'll be able to find a VA who is capable of doing any task you give them. The majority of VAs have a wide range of skills that can be put to use for their clients, including client communication, basic administrative tasks, and in-depth research.
Take the term "assistant" in its broadest sense. Virtual assistants (VAs) receive training in a variety of specific abilities, most of which call for a particular skill level as well as experience, such as managing social media, transcription, copywriting, and email marketing, amongst others.
There are many advantages to working with foreign virtual assistants. To get the job done, you only need to find someone who is skilled and competent without having to worry about location, tax, and other difficulties. Hiring from a global talent pool, on the other hand, provides access to a more diversified and qualified group of candidates.
You can learn a lot about different cultures and people by interacting with VAs from all around the world. They can provide you with information that is both new and based on first-hand knowledge. Every once in a while, we could all benefit from taking a step back and looking at things from a different angle—this is especially true for those of us who run our own companies!
Delegation is the not-so-secret technique that propels great business owners to the top of their fields. Work delegation has been shown to boost productivity, energy levels, and happiness. Delegating is important for your mental health as well as your physical well-being because it reduces your stress level.
On a daily basis, the majority of business owners find themselves feeling overwhelmed by the tasks required to run a business. With the help of a professional, you can relax and know that everything will be taken care of for you. In order to free up your time and minimise your stress levels, consider working with a virtual assistant.
It is now a widely acknowledged and recognised fact that being an entrepreneur comes with a psychological cost. No matter how cheerful and enthusiastic you appear to the outside world, we can tell you're having a hard time keeping your head above water. A virtual assistant will allow you to take some time off, go for a stroll, or just get away from the craziness of being an entrepreneur for a little while. A person's emotional well-being can be greatly enhanced simply by being aware that someone is there to assist them.
Your business and your personal life will benefit greatly from the services of an experienced virtual assistant (VA). In the early stages of business ownership, a sense of dread and anxiety quickly builds in. Anxiety and pressure can be alleviated by having your VA by your side. If you've ever had to go through a day with a lot of mental stress, you know how important it is to have someone there to lean on.
Any successful business owner will tell you that finding the right balance is important and that setting priorities is the best way to grow a business.
So hire a virtual assistant today to grow your business and enjoy a stress-free business.
Don’t know where to look for a qualified Virtual Assistant? NFT will help you, just give us a message or reach us at +61 2 9089 8875
We're excited to be a part of your company's future success!
