Identity Marketing Digest

A blog all about identity marketing!

[identitymarketingdigest]

This infographic shows you some of cybersecurity's best practices that will help keep your enterprise safe, plus fascinating cybercrime statistics.

If you or someone you know has ever been a victim of cybercrime, you’re probably aware that cleanup is not pretty. If you’d like to avoid becoming a cybercrime statistic, check out this infographic. In it, we’ll show you cybersecurity best practices for keeping your company safe.

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Amazing Ways to Call Philippines From USA

Since the service of making international calls over the years has gained immense popularity, many providers are emerging with it. With the introduction of latest calling technologies, making international calls at cheap rates is no more an issue.

If you have a friend or a family member in Philippines then you need not worry while making a call. There are varied means made available by service providers by which you can make international calls to Philippines at low cost and with best voice quality.

Some of the popular methods to make calls to Philippines at cheap rates include:

Access the number calling

One of the simplest methods to make cheap calls to Philippines is using the services which give discounted prices through an access number. All you require doing is to register/sign up for a cheap international call service, register your landline or cell number then dial an exclusive number and get connected at inexpensive rates. The best part about this process is that it is extremely quick and the host company amasses your registered number and is recognized automatically.

An additional feature is the ability to get a virtual number for almost all the countries of the world, including Philippines. With this feature, just the local price is applied to make calls. For instance, if you have an office in India but have a majority of the clients in Philippines then you can get a Philippines phone number with which you can make cheap international calls almost at local Philippines calling rates. It is the finest way to save loads of your money while doing international business.

VOIP technology (Voice over Internet Protocol)

With the Voice over internet protocol technology, you can easily make calls at low rates to relatives or friends residing in Philippines. VOIP has been accessible to all the customers having a computer along with a speedy Internet connectivity.

To avail this service, all you require doing is to set up an account with a service provider giving this technology. You just need to download the software, which enables making international calls via the Internet and communicate through your PC with your friends, family or business associates.

Several companies provide you a phone number along with a small device, which you plug in your PC in order to receive and send calls just like a landline. This service can be combined with others like the satellite television with the main aim to offer you maximum savings. But, individually also, VOIP is an extremely cheap method to talk to your relatives residing abroad.

If you are traveling and do not have access to PC then also you can use a calling card to make cheap calls to Philippines from USA .

[identitymarketingdigest]

How to Make Cheapest Calls to Other Countries?

The communication industry is related to constant changes and development. The major reason behind the development is the ever changing need of humans. They are the driving force behind every change in technology. The most important change was seen in making calls to distant countries. These international calls were made simpler and cheaper day by day.

There are several ways of making the cheap calls to distant countries. The first one is the usage of the very popular international calling cards. The usage of these phone cards is very simple. All that you need to do is to is log on to some cheap price comparison portal that can provide you the facility of calling cards. There you have to make the selection of source and destination countries for the international call to be made. As soon as the selection is made, the user gets a screen full of choices of various cards. The choice is unto you to select the best and cheapest card. The selection is made on the basis of the low cost of the card, and the low call rates. As soon as the card is selected the detailed information of the card is displayed.

Another of making cheap international calls is the free access numbers. These are termed as free due to two reasons. The primary reason is the availability of these access numbers for free. The user has to log in to some mobile shopping website where the choice of the source and destination countries is made. The very next moment the user will receive the particular access number. This number is to be prefixed to the destination number whenever a call is to be made to that particular country. The call rates in these calls are so so low that you feel making free calls altogether. PS: DroidCall offers the cheapest VoIP calls to Philippines form USA. Register yourself today to get the maximum benefits. https://www.droidcall.com/

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Vastu Tips To Bring Positive Energy Into Home

Vastu is a term that has gained popularity and importance among several cultures. The term vastu means ‘Science of construction’. The vastu is completely based on the concept of directional alignment. It includes five major elements that are air, water, space, earth and fire. It includes an array of a range including design to the alignment of doors.

It is true that every home has its own form of positive energy that directly affects the people living in it. Therefore, when you are going to buy or design home, you should try to bring maximum possible positive energy. In achieving the maximum positivity, vastu plays a vital role. In case, if you are looking to buy 2 bhk apartment in Jaipur, be sure your new home design matches what vastu suggests.

Here I am sharing some of vastu tips that bring positive energy into your home.

Don’t place mirrors in the bedroom:

As far as possible try to place mirrors in the master bedroom. This may lead to misunderstanding among couples. And if you want to keep the mirror place it along the north-east wall.

Don’t keep medicines in the kitchen:

The kitchen is the powerhouse of a home. It is known for positive health and happiness. Medicines mean illness and therefore they should not be kept in the kitchen.

Remove all the clutters:

We always push a lot of old things and items under the bed. According to vastu, the practice keeps us weighs. Therefore, remove all the clutters from under the bed. Unwanted items bring negativity in us.

Always place nameplate:

According to vastu, if there is no nameplate outside your door, you will miss new opportunities. Always keep nameplate, it brings positive energy to the house owner.

If you want to share some vastu tips, please mention them in the comment section below.

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Energy drinks should be consumed only in moderation

High blood pressure is often seen as a silent killer since there may not be any symptoms while damage is being done to your body. It's therefore vitally important to be careful about your blood pressure. Mayo Clinic News Network reported on March 13, 2015, drinking energy drinks may raise your resting blood pressure. This rise in blood pressure may be more dramatic in those people who are not used to caffeine. 

Mayo Clinic researchers observed that young adults who don’t consume caffeine on a regular basis experienced a higher increase in resting blood pressure after drinking a commercially available energy drink in comparison to a placebo drink. This has raised the concern that consumption of energy drinks may increase the risk of cardiac events.

 In this study participants experienced a marked increase in blood pressure after drinking the energy drink in comparison to the placebo. People who do not generally consume much caffeine were found to have the most dramatic increase in blood pressure from the energy drink. In fact overall there was more than a doubled increase in blood pressure in caffeine naive adults after consuming the energy drink in comparison to the placebo. 

WebMD reports there may be a bit too much of a boost to your heart from energy drinks. This can lead to strain on your heart therefore causing it to contract more rapidly than usual. There are therefore concerns that energy drinks may be bad for the heart. 

The consumption of energy drinks is widespread and has been increasing, particularly among young people. There are deepening concerns about the potential negative effects of energy drinks on blood pressure and heart function, particularly in people who do not generally consume caffeine. It's therefore advisable to only drink energy drinks in moderation. Drinking too many of these drinks really could kill you.

So guys, take charge of your health. If you know anyone who is suffering from high blood pressure problem, check out this amazing post on effective home remedies for high blood pressure and let us know how was the experience.

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Coffee as blood vessels medicine: Drink coffee for healthy heart, blood pressure

Coffee as blood vessels medicine and coffee for a healthy heart and healthy blood pressure was the finding of a Japanese research study that was presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2013 this week. “The next time you take a coffee break, you might want to consider a triple espresso. The extra caffeine may reduce your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease,” reported the Los Angeles Times. 

Coffee drinkers around the world, smart coffee drinkers that is, already know from their own experience that a healthy amount of coffee has a positive effect on blood vessels, blood circulation, and the heart. Coffee also works as a great natural way for low blood pressure.

 Coffee drinkers who skip that morning coffee or afternoon coffee, especially in Europe, know that coffee and blood vessels are somehow related. Feeling sluggish or getting a headache after skipping that morning coffee can easily be caused by decreased blood vessels function and blood circulation. 

What many people already know or have sensed about the effect of coffee on blood vessels has now been the results of a research study conducted by Japanese scientists. 

After drinking 5-ounce cups of coffee (for the sake of science), the blood pressure and blood flow of 27 young adults in their 20s was measured by placing a probe on the tip of each volunteer’s left index finger or thumb. The technique called “laser Doppler flowmetry to measure blood flow to the digit" works by shining a laser beam through the blood and measuring how much the laser beam is scattered by the movement of red blood cells. 

The measurement, which was applied after interrupting the blood flow to the hand for one minute, indicated how well the small blood vessels in the body were working again after drinking coffee. “It turned out that blood flow measured in the finger or thumb was 30% higher on the day they [the coffee drinkers] had regular coffee than on the day they had decaf.” 

Measuring the coffee drinkers’ blood vessels performance, blood flow, and blood pressure after the coffee consumption, showed not only an increased blood flow but also that the blood pressure rose “significantly” on the days that the volunteers drank regular coffee. 

While there was a difference in blood vessel performance depending on whether the test subjects drank regular or decaffeinated coffee, researchers found that drinking coffee also had an effect on the levels of the neurotransmitters epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) and norepinephrine in the volunteers’ blood plasma but that the kind of coffee did not make a difference. 

Epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) and Norepinephrine (noradrenaline) are neurotransmitters and a hormone that are involved in controlling a person’s heart rate, blood vessels, bronchial airways, blood sugar levels, converting bodily fats to fatty acids, and a person’s fight-or-flight response. 

After the Japanese research findings of the effects of coffee on blood vessels, Tsutsui, a professor of pharmacology at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, said in a statement from the American Heart Association that this gives us a clue about how coffee may help improve cardiovascular health.

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Overweight moms more likely to have offspring with asthma

Women who are overweight when they become pregnant and women who gain excessive weight during pregnancy are more likely to develop complications that affect their health as well as that of their unborn child. Now, a large new study has found another negative impact of being an overweight mom: childhood asthma. The findings were published online on July 21 in the journal Pediatrics.

 The authors note that environmental or lifestyle exposures of a developing infant may affect the development of childhood asthma. Therefore, they conducted a meta-analysis to determine whether maternal obesity in pregnancy or increased maternal gestational weight gain increased the risk of asthma in offspring. (A meta-analysis is a compilation of data from several studies to clarify a point.) The researchers reviewed all pertinent studies published until October 2013 in PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, The Cochrane Database, and Ovid. They conducted a statistical analysis of the data to determine the overall risk of childhood asthma.

Read more: How to cure asthma naturally permanently

The researchers located 14 pertinent studies (108,321 mother–child pairs). Twelve of the studies reported maternal obesity, and five reported gestational weight gain. The ages of the children ranged from 14 months to 16 years. Maternal obesity in pregnancy was associated with higher odds of asthma or wheeze at any time (1.31-fold increased risk) or current (1.21-fold increased risk); each 1-kg/m2 (1 kg = 2.2 lbs) increase in maternal body mass index (BMI) was associated with a 2% to 3% increase in the risk of childhood asthma. High gestational weight gain was associated with higher odds of asthma or wheeze at any time (1.16-fold increased risk). In contrast, maternal underweight and low gestational weight gain were not associated with childhood asthma or wheeze. A statistical analysis of the data found a negative association of borderline significance for maternal asthma history. The researchers noted that significant heterogeneity was found among the studies, meaning that the studies were not similar. Therefore, they recommended that standardized approaches were needed for future studies on the topic.

The authors concluded that maternal obesity in pregnancy or high gestational weight gain during pregnancy are associated with an increased risk of childhood asthma. They noted that this finding may be particularly significant for mothers without a history of asthma. They recommended that future, well-structured studies were needed.

 Take home message: 

The best course of action is to shed excess pounds before attempting a pregnancy and to avoid excess weight gain during pregnancy. Obstetricians stress weight control during pregnancy and they and/or their staff can provide guidance in this regard. Also don’t forget to check here best home remedies for Asthma that can help you out.

[identitymarketingdigest]

What is Arduino and its Importance in Technology

Want to have a machine which makes coffee for you? Then, you may be interested to know what Arduino is.

Arduino is intended to build electronics which are more approachable to hobbyists, designers and artists. They basically make your surroundings very interactive. Arduino is open sourced, flexible in nature and has a software and hardware which is easy-to-setup and use. Simple arduino projects can be easily built whereas their sophisticated companions come with reasonable price tags. Now, when talking about hardware, they come in various format specifications ranging from wearable devices to huge modules.

The platform for programming is rooted on wiring language and unlike other microcontrollers, arduino can be used on Macintosh OS X, Linux and Windows.

Application of Arduino

Arduino easily gets along with different devices and enhances its functionalities. It can make interactive objects which take signals from sensors and switches and regulate outputs like actuators, motors and light. Arduino can connect with APIs like Twitter or computer software like Flash.

Arduino Projects

Arduino supports developers all around the world who are contributing to the open source community. There are wide range of projects available in from thermostat controllers to coffee appliance controlling machines. If you search for the list, you can see a whole sea of Arduino based projects and ideas.

Importance

You may have a notion about some arduino projects being silly or jokey but every arduino project has a potential to enhance the current trends in technology. Moreover, with the term “Internet of Things” gaining popularity, as people are looking out for devices which are capable of connecting with each other sharing information efficiently, Arduino projects are in high demand as the unique selling point of the technology- “flexibility” makes it easy to implant Arduino in every objects which are used daily.

Arduino can be considered as the new tool to explore possibilities in the field of interactive devices. It can help developers to innovate efficiently and can remove barriers at the entry level for enthusiasts who are looking for opportunities where they can experiment and build new devices to make your daily lives better.

[identitymarketingdigest]

5 must have Google Sheet Add ons!

Google spreadsheet has lots of advantages over the Excel and in that big list the most appreciated thing is it’s always growing ecosystem of third party apps. These third party applications take the usage of Google drive to a next level where they give users a plethora of new feature that were not available before. If you have not encountered them yet then open your Google drive and look for the add ons menu. Here you will get an extension with which you can perform almost everything you want your Google doc or Sheet to do. Let’s have a look at some of the Google sheet add ons here from the list.

An extension to merge your sheets!

So you have 10 sheets with the data from the same website, and you want to know what is changed and where. Well, Merge Sheets extension is there to save you. It scans two sheets for the values based on a key column and updates your main table with the missing information. So you can see it is a good option whenever you want to compare two sheets and want the latest changes to your table.

An Extension to Map your Google Sheets!

Now plot your data values directly on Google Map with this add on. You can plot several locations under the limit of 10MB because of the limitation of Google App script. It is really helpful when you are trying to plan out a vacation. This extension will craft a giant map based on your contacts and that too at the cost of some minute seconds.

An extension to remove duplicates!

Find Fuzzy Matches- This super handy third party extension lets you find duplicate entries in your spreadsheet having a slight variation in the name. For example john, jon, jhon are same in the eyes of this Find Fuzzy Matches. So when you want to find such slightly different terms, this tool will be really useful.

An extension for text analysis!

The Text Analysis add on is there to analysis any text (links, images, tweets or documents) without going away from your spreadsheet. The package on which it is built upon has natural language processing and artificial intelligence tools that is why it has pretty much sophisticated text analysis capabilities.

An extension to translate your sheet!

With the help of this simple Google sheet add on, you can translate your sheet in more than 100 languages either cell by cell or the entire cell. It is based on the Google translate API so you can see there is no compromise on accuracy.

Hence, these are some of my all time favorite add ons to enhance my productivity. What’s yours?

Tell me in the comments below!

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Gmail hacks to turn your Inbox into a productivity powerhouse!

Gmail with its endless customization capabilities beats every other email provider not just because of the fact that it is a part of Google product integration but because it has an amazing spam filter and a big library of external add ons. You won’t believe but there’s an endless amount of tricks, tips and extensions that can entirely change the way you play the gmail game.

From undoing a sent email to pre-writing a message to sending money, Gmail can do pretty much everything. All you need is a right direction and you are all set to go. So here in this article I have outlined some of the not so known but useful Gmail hacks for you. Let’s have a look!

Fake your Timestamp with Boomerang!

Boomerang is a Gmail app that is used to schedule your emails, to set up a snooze message and to set reminders. So with this you don’t need to be in the constant touch with Gmail when you are on your vacation. Just schedule your email at Boomerang and relax. The another benefit of this amazing app is that it makes your inbox less cluttered by handling all your reminders.

PS: when scheduling an email using Boomerang, don’t forget to include yourself in BCC, just to make sure everything fine.

Increase your speed with these Keyboard shortcuts!

In Gmail you can perform many Gmail actions with the help of some quick keyboard keys. To enable these keyboard shortcuts, go to the gear icon and then settings. Here scroll down to keyboard shortcuts and turn them on and then save your changes. Now when you need to draft a new mail press “c”, Need to mark something as important press “+”, and to mark a mail as unread just hit Shift+ U.

Undo a hastily sent message!

Gmail has included a lot of options in its library, among them “Undo send” feature is most likely to use. As it happens often that we hastily press the hit button before even completely writing it. Don’t panic on that as Gmail has a in built feature for you. Just go to the settings and under the lab section scroll down to the “undo send” feature and set it to “enable”. This feature will allow you to unsend an email up to 30 seconds you hit the send button.

Set your canned responses!

In a situation where you need to send same message again and again, this feature of setting up some auto responses will help you a lot. To enable this feature, once again go to the settings and under the labs section, scroll down to the canned responses and enable it. Now when you compose an email, you will find a small arrow right next to the trash symbol. When you click upon that arrow, a list of your canned responses will pop up. There you can select or create any automatic message you want.

So get ready to give a shock or to impress your co workers by boosting your abilities to go through your morning mails.

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5 Slack features that you must aware of!

You must have heard about “Slack”. Yeah, the ever-popular communication tool and the current helping hand of our enterprise world is growing like crazy. And the reason is pretty obvious.

It’s that instant online messaging app that every school group and workplace seems to be using. And it’s not the slack users only that keeps it growing but Slack itself is introducing new features each passing day. Slack has added lots of features since its launch and it is possible that you might have missed some. So this article is a summary of latest Slack features to let people know how beneficial Slack can be for their remote conversations.

Take a look at them and decide on yourself.

Get quick answers to your questions about Slack!

Don’t know how to do something at Slack and stuck in between? Don’t worry, just type in your query or some keywords and Slackbot will try its best to solve your query. In absence of any answer from Slackbot, you will get link of some helpful articles from our help center to guide you the best.

Add customized, automatic responses!

You can help your team members and yourself by creating some custom questions and their answers at Slackbot, if your admin has allowed you to do so. For example to help your team members when they forget the wifi password, you can create a custom response to that. So that whenever someone types in “What’s the wifi password?” Slackbot is able to answer with the password here.

You can also add varied responses for a single question.

Forward your personal emails to Slackbot!

Paid teams and their members can direct their personal emails to slack with just few changes in settings. With this there is no need to open your inbox again and again to check your pending mails. Slack is your one stop place.

Do not Disturb!

Just like your smartphone, Slack also has a DND option as a bliss. Slack can snooze your notifications whenever you want. Click on the bell icon at the sidebar and select your time period to snooze your notifications. Now your team members can keep sending you the messages and you’ll get them once your DND period is over.

So these are some of my favorite Slack features but there are more. Share yours with me in the comment box below and spread the knowledge.

[identitymarketingdigest]

Gmail productivity hacks to make you a power user!

Emails are most certainly the cornerstones of your overall online communication. Whether it is to pitch new clients, tracking existing ones or maintaining staffs, emails are essential to manage all of them. In short, emails are too important that people are vying to get a place in each other’s inbox.

So it is for sure that you are using it all day, everyday but are you sure you are gaining the most of it? Behind it’s extremely simple Interface, Gmail saves several useful features for you to improve your productivity. For Gmail users, there is an endless stream of Gmail hacks and extensions that makes it the best of all. Here in this article I am going to explain some of them one by one so just have a look:

Bring your friends and mails all along!

Suppose you just opened up another gmail account and want your old contacts into this new one. In Gmail you can do it with just few clicks. Head to settings -> my account and go to the Import section. Here choose “Import mail and contacts link” and you’ll be now able to import your stuff from popular email providers like Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail etc.

De-clutter your inbox and stay organized!

Gmail allows you to store your emails in separate folders. This feature is useful when you do not want to delete your mails but to remove clutter from your inbox. To create folders for your mails first go to the “Settings” and click on the “Labels” to create a new label. Now name your folder in the text box asking for label name.

To store emails in your newly created folder, simply select the email and then click on the folder icon and select the folder you want to move that email.

Useful Gmail Browser extensions!

Gmail Offline: This Google Chrome Browser allows you to access your inbox even when you don’t have internet access.

Boomerang: With this extension you can schedule your emails and follow up on them with minimum fluster. It is supported by Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Checker plus for Gmail: This chrome extension is to notify you when you get a new mail. You can even delete that email without opening it into Gmail.

So these are some of my Gmail hacks that I use to save some time for me and for increased productivity. What’s yours?

Feel free to drop any of your question in the comment box below.

[identitymarketingdigest]

The most popular Slack integrations developers should use!

It is worldly known that Slack is becoming the modern standard for office communication.There is no doubt that Slack is taking the world by storm. From big companies to small businesses, everywhere Slack is becoming their favorite team communication tool. One of the main reason behind its popularity is that it has dramatically improved the speed and efficiency of your team.

You can do pretty much everything on Slack, from participating into different communication that are going on different channels to receive a daily digest of top news from around the web. So from past few years, Slack has become a robust tool for organizations due to its extreme ease of usability and fun to use capability. Apart from all these slack can integrate with other applications so that you do not need to shuffle among several applications you use on daily basis.

So let’s have a look at some best slack app integrations here:

Twitter for Slack!

Twitter, the popular social network can be integrated with Slack to notify employees what is going on their Twitter profile. This is useful to keep you on the top of your social media marketing and helpful for those who communicate with their clients via Twitter.

Github for Slack!

This is essential for those who works on both. At Github, you collaborate, review and use code for open source and private projects. Integration of Github will send notifications for the following to your Slack channel.

Commits

Pull requests

issues

Growthbot for Slack!

This is for our marketers and sales person who focus on Growth. Here @growthbot channel you can ask question related to different systems, trends and analytics.

To ask question from Growthbot you can use both the ways, you can either start a direct messaging at @growthbot channel or can use Slack’s “/” (slash) command (/growthbot) to chat with Growthbot.

Giphy for Slack!

So you want to add a pinch of fun in your team communication. Then replace your boring text with expressive GIFs. With Giphy’s slack app you just need to type in the command “/giphy” and add any phrase like “What is happening”, “awesome” or anything and it will create a random GIF for that.

And for more you can type “/giphy awesome” ten times to get different GIFs for awesome.

On Slack you can integrate many more such useful applications. Just type in your demand and will let you know whether Slack has any solution for this or not.

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Arduino development: Advantages and Features!

Usage of Arduino is increasing exponentially and it is all because of its readiness and easiness. It has been launched in 2005 to provide hobbyists, students and professionals a cheaper way to make applications that are environment adaptive and have superior interactive controls.

The most common Arduino projects for students and inexperienced are simple robots and motion detectors. Arduino is basically a hardware consisting of a board designed around an 8 bit controller or a 32-bit ARM. Arduino offers simple integrated development environment that can run on regular personal computers for users to write programming code for Arduino using C or C++.

Major benefits of using Arduino!

It is always Ready-to-use!

Arduino is a complete package including a 5V regulator, a burner, an oscillator, a micro-controller, a serial communication interface, LED and headers for the connections. So you can see there is no need of any other interface. Just type in a few lines of coding and you are all ready to change the world with your new Arduino project idea.

A big library of codes!

Arduino has a big library of example softwares within its software only. For example if you want to measure the voltage using Arduino then its software already has a pre-built program for that. You only need to put some reasonable resistors and diodes.

Effortless functions!

During your time of coding you must need some easy to go function, right? Arduino has this capability as well. Arduino has an automatic unit conversion property. So in debugging there will be no problems related to these units. With this in built function, now you can entirely focus on the main part of your project and leave all the side parts aside, Arduino will take care of them.

Cross-Platform!

Arduino software is cross platform. The same software can run on windows, Mac Os and Linux operating systems. We have seen that many micro controller softwares are compatible to Windows only.

Large community!

Arduino has a big community on the internet where people discuss various problems and queries related to it. If you are stuck at something while building your Arduino project then you can easily find help here. Additionally, Arduino on its website itself explains each and every function of Arduino.

So you can see the advantages are huge. Try your hand on Arduino and see your next idea into execution. Good luck friends!

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Mistakes you need to avoid while writing professional bio!

Professional bio is a must have thing for everyone but not every person bothers to write one. A brief bio about yourself is your strong impression to the world and is a powerful tool to advertise your skills and accomplishments. A short bio is absolutely necessary for social media profiles, company websites, press releases, event programs, brochures and for book covers.

When writing a bio can be a cakewalk for our wordsmiths but still they often stumble while writing a professional bio. Here are such common mistakes that people often make while creating one. Just read the article and share your opinions via the comments below.

Mistake #1: Lack of Consistency:

On web there are multiple windows asking for your professional bios. It may be some of your social media profiles, some blog submission sites and many others. While it is necessary to have different sets of bios for each vertical but all of them should be consistent. At least, what you do and where you work should be same everywhere.

Mistake #2: No links for further call-to-action!

Until and unless your bio is not going to print on a paper, it is essential to have a link to your LinkedIn or Twitter profile. You can also add a link to your blog or company website to showcase your work.

Mistake #3: poor grammar!

Well, this is the least possible case that being a writer you made some stupid grammatical errors. Using passive voices in your bio is a cardinal sin. I mean you are the person who has done all those things then why using passive statements. You should write them in a way that you mean it and proud of them.

Mistake #4: Making a simple list!

Writing a professional bio doesn’t mean simply listing your jobs followed by your degrees. It is an opportunity to sing your hard work,and achievements you had so far. However, don’t boast each and everything, add only those that are relevant.

Mistake #5:Save yourself from hyperbole!

You need to avoid phrases like “ the greatest author of the decade”, “the most beloved actor of all the time”, or “the most innovative businessman around the globe”. I hope you get the idea..!

So these are some very common mistakes people often commit unknowingly. So in the time of internet make sure you have an updated bio for yourself keeping mentioned points in mind.

[identitymarketingdigest]

How to write an impressive author bio!

Sometimes it can be real tough to write about yourself and that too if it is tend to represent yourself professionally. Even our skillful writers find it tedious when the article submission sites ask them to submit their author bio. Afterall, it’s not as simple as it seems.

Your professional bio is your one or two line description highlighting who you are, what you do, and what achievements you have. In short this is same as your biographical introduction in a cover letter. People often feel uncomfortable in expressing themselves and this is one of the reasons they lose an opportunity. But don’t give up, here are some tips to cater your perfect professional bio.

Have a look!

Introduce yourself!

There is always a conflict between what to use to introduce yourself in a corporate bio- First person or Third Person. If you opt writing it in First person, there you can’t brag much about yourself. Obviously it will come across like conceited. And on the other hand if you write in third person, especially when everything is in First person then definitely it will look weird too. It will come across as if you have hired someone to brag about you.

Then how should you introduce yourself?

Well, this is a hard choice to make between the two. Write your professional bio in Third person in case of query letters and write it in first person when you are submitting proposals and article bylines.

Make it professional!

Yeah, professional bio is to reflect your personality but it doesn’t mean you make it too funny or fancy.  Look at best professional bio examples and learn what they include to make themselves look like a real person.

Notable achievements!

Don’t forget to boast your achievements but be relevant to your intended audience while writing your bio. Authors can list down their publications where they have published their articles. Business professionals on the other hand can mention their notable awards and recognition they got in their career.

Contact details!

The best way to end your professional bio is by specifying your one or two touch points from where your readers can contact you. It may be your Twitter account or your LinkedIn profile link.

So these are some of the tips that are worth implementing while crafting a professional bio. Start creating one for you and share your opinions with us via the comment box below.

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Omni-Channel Retail Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities!

So your company has decided to offer a consistent and seamless shopping experience that is entirely driven by customer interactions  which in summary indicates that you are going omni-channel. But are you really providing the kind of omni-channel customer experiences that today’s customers really crave for.

With the growing integration of smartphones and digital technology into our daily lives, customers are also merging their online and in-person retail experiences. Now their entire window shopping is done online. These mobile activities not only drive conversions but also increase in-store transactions. This mostly happen when a customer narrow down his choices and went to see an item in store to make the final decision. And the companies who take full advantage of customers’ such habits to perform a range of activities from browsing to locating the stock and buying are the most successful ones. Plus they keep one thing in mind that this can be done anytime, anywhere on any device. And this holistic approach to adapt to any platform to provide a hassle-free shopping experience across all of their devices as well as in the store is generally known as Omni-channel shopping for retail.

For retailers there is one and only pre-requisite i.e. they must be able to connect websites, mobile apps and in-store activities to offer a multi-faceted, value-added purchasing experience.

Pros and Cons of Omni-channel marketing!

Omni-channel marketing no doubt has lots of benefits but it is nothing without its challenges. Social media accounts and in house customer data provides valuable customer insights regarding customer buying habits. The level of data that retailers gain from these customer insights can put them in a situation where they can’t tackle on their own. This requires a seamless collaboration between multiple departments and information silos, which can be a daunting task for many organizations. For this, they need to change the strategies of their sales and marketing team that covers all platforms.

Another benefit of Omni-channel shopping is that customers get lifetime value no matter they are shopping online or doing in-house purchasing. Additionally it helps in customer retention throughout the entire buying process.

The fear of “show-rooming” (where a customer sees a product in store and purchases it at cheaper cost somewhere online) is also greatly reduced by Omni-channel marketing. An omni-channel approach allows customers to do all their tasks in a single process. Even if they don't make a purchase Omni-channel marketing delivers an exceptional customer experience that encourage them to buy in the future.

In short Omni-channel shopping is the most effective customer experience improvement program that gives the increased revenue in the future to retailers.