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YouTube, the video-sharing website, was created in 2005, and since then has become one of the largest, most visited websites in the world. YouTube has massive traffic and viewers with over 1,325,000,000 people utilizing it for personal, educational, and commercial reasons. There are currently 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day – that’s five hours of video content every second! 4,959,000,000 YouTube videos are viewed daily, and the total number of hours of video watched on YouTube each month is approximately 3.25 billion.

Today, YouTube is a critical marketing tool for any company in any industry. In fact, since its launch, the Top 100 Global Brands have published a total of 258,000 videos across 1,378 YouTube channels, attracting over 9.5 billion total views. What helps makes YouTube such an essential element of any marketing strategy is its ease of importing and uploading video content. With a simple flip camera, or even a mobile phone with video capabilities, basic videos can be created. And because of its easy-to-use format, messages on YouTube can spread quickly and efficiently across a variety of mediums including Facebook and Twitter, embedded in websites, and

Computer software, also known as a software program, is a set of instructions and associated documentation that tells a computer what to do or how to perform a task. Everything a computer does is done by using a computer program, from its basic operating system to any one of a myriad number of applications designed to accomplish a specific undertaking.

For example, this article was created using a word processing software program called Microsoft Word that was loaded onto a personal computer running the operating software program, Microsoft Vista. It was originally stored on a program called Trello, which is a collaboration program that organizes projects, and then it was uploaded to WordPress, which is an online, website creation tool. The finished article can then be accessed by a reader using a web browsing program such as Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari that is used to view web pages on the internet.

Software development is the process of writing and maintaining the source code that underlies all operating systems and applications. It includes all that is involved between the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of the pr

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Most social media platforms have their own built-in data analytics tools, which enable companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of their ad campaigns. Companies can address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including: current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public.

Social networking websites are based on building virtual communities that allow consumers to express their needs, wants, and values, online. Social media marketing then connects these consumers and audiences to businesses that share the same needs, wants, and values. Through social networking sites, companies can keep in touch with individual followers.

To this end, companies make use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to reach a much wider audience than they can through the use of traditional print, TV, and radio advertisements alone, and at a fraction of the cost. In return, customers can now post reviews of products and services, rate customer service, and ask

Ecommerce continues to grow and competition will ramp up, as well, in 2017. This means that customers will be harder to win, easier to lose, and fussier on price and user experience. The low barriers to entry and the fact that consumers can switch from brand to brand with the touch of a button, means that those who fall behind when it comes to customer experience and pricing strategy will lose out. So, the savvy online marketer will have to keep up with the latest trends in order to stay ahead of the pack.

Here are some tips for online marketing in 2017:

 Influencers are becoming increasingly important because they are considered credible and, unlike classic advertising, their opinion is trusted. To be successful in 2017, you will need to cooperate with bloggers, YouTubers, etc., and win them over with your products and services.
 Just as influencers need be enlisted, so must users. Users who are convinced of something are an ideal marketing instrument because they transfer their conviction to the wider market.
 Customers will have to be better informed and more inspired; it’s no longer enough just to offer products that are accompanied by a description.

Online, or digital marketing, is an umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies. It includes any effort to spread the word about a company that uses the internet as an advertising medium.

Over the last two decades, online marketing has become an absolute necessity for every business that wants to reach its target consumers. No longer can a company put an ad in the Sunday newspaper and assume that everyone will read it and then go out and buy its product. In fact, these days, if your business does not have an online presence, it might as well be invisible.

Indeed, online marketing has become so pervasive that is has resulted in a paradigm shift in the customer/advertiser relationship – people are now in control of their marketing experience and businesses must use various internet platforms in order to adapt to the changing expectations of consumers who are wanting ever-more sophisticated offerings throughout the purchasing journey.

But even though the balance of power has shifted in favor of the consumer, businesses should not be unmindful of the many advantages that online marketing offers. For example, the use of dig

Salesforce.com is a cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco, California, with regional headquarters in Morges, Switzerland, India, and Tokyo. The company was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive, Marc Benioff, and his partners, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez. The company specializes in SaaS – Software as a Service – a licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.

In June 2004 the company’s initial public offering was listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol CRM and raised $110 million. Today, Salesforce is one of the most highly-valued, American cloud computing companies with a market capitalization above $55 billon. It has nearly 20,000 employees and revenues of $7 billion per year. Salesforce.com has its services translated into 16 different languages and has over 2.1 million subscribers.

Salesforce’s main product is a CRM (Client Relationship Management) system that helps companies automate such tasks as customer information, contact and case management, communication tracking and scheduling, and sales opportunities and forecasting. It gathers, organ

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that approximately 400,000 new businesses are started every year in America. But according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about half of them survive more than five years. And the Small Business Administration estimates that 50 percent of new businesses actually fail during their first year, alone.

There are a lot of reasons why businesses, especially new ones, don’t make the grade. But it is safe to assume that one major reason is simple enough to deduce: not enough customers. It’s no secret that in order to get those customers a business must advertise – and a new business must advertise even more intelligently, if not more extensively, because . . .well, it’s new. Nobody yet knows that it’s out there.

One challenge for any new business is that it is likely competing with more established operations that are more well-known and more experienced in the advertising side of things. Another challenge is monetary; start-up costs often eat up a large percentage of a new business’ budget and there may be scant funds left over for a major marketing campaign.

The good news, though, is that today, the internet has helpe

These days, more than ever, it’s not enough just to be good at your business – you have to know how reach your customers and potential customers where they live. And, today, more and more of them are living online. So, if they can’t find you on their computers, tablets, and smart phones, then you are probably losing them to your competition. Here are some tips that will help them find you when they look:

1.You must have a professional looking website that is highly functional and easy to navigate. If your customers can’t get the information they are seeking within seconds, they will hit the back button and go looking somewhere else. Make sure that your website meets current usability standards and that it is optimized for use on a mobile phone; that the information is correct and up-to-date; and that it is easy for a potential customer to do business with you.

2. Concentrate on your local market as most consumers still prefer to do business with those nearby. Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing provide business owners with a free way to get businesses listed ahead of all the search results via their default map systems.

3. Get listed on review sites. People want to know that others have done business with you and have had positive experiences.

4. Attract buyers by blogging. Blogging not only elevates your professional profile, it can help raise your

Search engine marketing has become an integral part of a business’s online strategy, and paid search is one of the top sources for driving traffic to a company’s website. In fact, PPC (pay-per-click) advertising provides the highest ROI (return on investment) of any type of online marketing scheme.

The two main search engine platforms for PPC campaigns are Google AdWords and the Yahoo! Bing Network. Each one has its pluses and minuses and depending on a business’s market, budget, competition, etc. one may be a more viable solution that the other.

Google AdWords is the leading search engine with 67 percent of the market share. It consists of two networks: Google Search Network and Google Search Partners. Google AdWords is generally considered an easier platform to manage; it’s user-friendly, has a high search volume, and more advertising extensions than Bing. It’s better for medium or low competition markets with a clear advertising strategy and flexible budget.

Like Google, Bing also allows businesses to advertise through two different networks: Bing Search Network and Bing Content Network. Bing Ads has less competition than Google and its CPC (cost-per-click) are 50-70 percent cheaper; its impressions are 90 percent cheaper, as well. With Bing Ads, small businesses can easily rank higher while getting increased ad exposure, despite relatively small marketi

If people are clicking on your PPC ad, but then are not converting to a sale, you’re spending money, but not making any. The point of your entire campaign is to convert lookers to buyers, so in order to create a successful PPC campaign – one that results in enough conversions to make it worth your while – you need to do many things, some big, some small.

Here are some big and some small things that can help you increase the ROI of your PPC campaign by increasing your conversion rate:

• Understand the five general phases of the customer buying cycle: Awareness (Can you help me?), Consideration (What do you do?), Interest (What’s different about you?), Preference (Are you the best value for me?), and Purchase (How much? How long? And When?). Now, make sure that your ad contains elements that appeal to customers in each stage of the cycle.

• Track everything from the beginning. In order to be successful with PPC you need to analyze and adjust constantly. Little changes over time make h