Posts

Showing posts with the label Images

The Top 4 Social Media Tools for Your Business—In Order

Image
Are you hoping to launch a successful social media campaign? The process can be overwhelming: between producing content on a multitude of platforms, publishing at the right times, interacting with followers, and more, it can seem like a full-time job in itself. Aren’t there tools to make it easier? Absolutely—but now the question is, which tools do what?  Some tools are channel-specific, and others can help you manage multiple accounts from one platform (don’t you think it would be convenient to be able to tweet and respond to Facebook comments all in the same place?). Because executing a social media campaign is not an overnight process, the order in which you take your steps matters, too; and some tools are best for helping you with particular milestones. Here are some of the best social media tools, in order from campaign launch to completion:  Hootsuite  Hootsuite is known as a scheduling tool, but it also offers social listening capabilities. If you are a fledgling ...
Read more

8 Profitable Pinterest Power Plays

Image
Pinterest has been a popular social media platform for many years now and it has been successfully adopted by hundreds of thousands of businesses and entrepreneurs during this time. But not all marketers have gotten on board or fully utilized this versatile medium.  In fact, Pinterest seems to be one of the platforms that many companies choose to skip in favor of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn , YouTube, and even our mediocre friend Google Plus! I'm not saying you should ditch any of these tried and true platforms (except perhaps the lowly Google+ ... even though I personally use it almost daily to cover my bases), but you should give Pinterest a fair shot and maximize its potential. When most people think of Pinterest they usually think of DIY projects, design ideas, weddings, fashion, and fitness... but that's kind of like thinking  YouTube is just for cat videos, or that Instagram is just for Selfies (wait it's not?). Don't let this close-minded perspective...
Read more

Five Fantastic Free Image Editing Programs

Image
Creating and modifying eye-catching images is critical for small business owners and corporations alike. But not everyone can afford Adobe Creative Suite programs such as Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator for image creation and editing. And not everyone has the technical expertise to successfully utilize these programs for their business graphic design. Luckily for frugal entrepreneurs and smaller businesses, there are plenty of useful low-cost or free programs you can use to get the job done. While there are a lot of great options out there, in  this post I'll focus on five free image editing resources I've used often and recommended to several others. These programs won't make you a professional graphic designer but they'll usually help you to  get the job done for no cost. If it's free it's for me! 1)  Canva  With brand evangelist Guy Kawasaki on board with Canva you know it's a great website! You can create custom dimensions up to 5000 x 5000 pixels but...
Read more

5 Crucial Characteristics for Startup Survival

Image
Driven individuals are taking the startup route much more frequently now than ever before. No longer are we seeing the same trend of people working for companies for decades at a time. Competition is fierce as 90% of startups fail within the first year. There is a growing need to be as economical as you can in order to survive.  What sets that last 10% apart from the rest? How can your business be successful without having to take such extreme measures? Here are 5 crucial characteristics of savvy startups : 1. Be Economical  Sometimes there is very little funding for startups but that does not mean that they are destined to fail. It's important to look for free tools and resources that can help your business grow. In a new series I've begun discussing how you can start a digital media startup for only $10. In a very recent article I also went over a helpful list of  5 fantastic free image editing programs .  Another amazing new tool to add to that list of great imag...
Read more

Frugal Content Creation With Infographics

Image
As a startup or a small business owner, you are very familiar with the struggle to keep up a constant flow of content and outreach without losing a massive flow of cash. You have to figure out advertising, web copy, blogging content, white papers or media kits, email campaigns - and don’t forget about social media ! The worst part is that all of these different areas require different kinds of content, which costs you in time, money, and energy.  At least, that’s what you’ve been thinking, right?. But what if you could use one tool that helps you not only cut costs and save time, but can give you content that can be used multiple times, on multiple platforms, and with great results? Enter infographics.  Infographic Basics  In case you didn’t know, an infographic is a visual (chart, graph, timeline, symbols, etc.) that essentially recaps or represents information. What an infographic is not is a place to just re-type boring text that can be saved as an image (people do sti...
Read more