Building A Startup As A Global Business

Thanks to the Internet, entrepreneurs are no longer confined to a local geography when building a new business—the world can be their market from day one.
But building a startup as a global business requires managers with skills and strategy much different from their predecessors of even a generation ago. If you are a global entrepreneur, says Harvard Business School Associate Professor William R. Kerr, “you have to think much earlier and much faster.”
The new MBA second-year course Launching Global Ventures (LGV), developed by Kerr and taught for the first time last winter, teaches students just those skills.
When Kerr started drafting a syllabus for the course, he knew fresh business cases were needed—much of the academic research and course materials on global entrepreneurship he reviewed were dated. For example, earlier HBS courses on international ventures typically focused mainly on the challenges of starting a company in a specific country—such as Argentina or Thailand—instead of launching internationally from the get-go, as many entrepreneurs do today.
Kerr says he wanted LGV to “go straight to global,” helping students understand at early points in the business life cycle how these fledgling ventures can operate across multiple countries. The course would also identify advantages and liabilities of starting an international company, how to manage it locally and globally, and building partnerships and personal networks—an area of continuing interest for the researcher.
Kerr didn’t have to look far for material, with several recent HBS grads—and a then second-year MBA student—starting global companies, the perfect subjects for about half of the dozen case studies used in the course. After many interviews, Kerr was able to glean powerful details on the challenges that these entrepreneurs took on as they built companies operating in multiple geographies. Eighteen months later, he was ready to launch the new course, which puts an up-to-the-minute spin on an ancient form of trade.

‘BORN GLOBAL’ NOT NEW

Forming global companies is nothing new, Kerr says. Phoenicians served as the middlemen for trade across the Mediterranean region, for instance, and Europeans built nation-spanning operations as they explored and colonized, exploiting valuable resources along the way.
Throughout history, Kerr argues, global ventures have been governed by two common forces. First, there must be an advantage to connecting two different places—Christopher Columbus’s desire to link European markets to Chinese silks, say, or Silicon Valley’s desire for cheaper programming talent in India. Second, a global company needs methods and tools to enable the venture, such as long-haul ships for Columbus or the Internet and telecom infrastructure for Skype.
During his research and course development, Kerr focused on three key pieces for LGV cases: identifying case examples of larger trends and phenomena being uncovered by research; describing the most recent questions entrepreneurs are facing, even if the answers are far from certain; and identifying areas where previous HBS students felt underprepared for handling the challenges.
As an example, one case discussed in LGV was EverTrue Mobile Technology Development, which centers on Brent Grinna (HBS MBA 2010), who founded the company when he was a second-year student at HBS. In the case, EverTrue is creating a mobile application that would allow schools to connect more easily to their alumni networks. Grinna was asked to build a prototype of the application for Brown University’s Alumni Association board in two months. Trouble was, Grinna lacked a technical background.
In class discussion, students consider whether Grinna should hire local programmers or a CTO to do the work; outsource the work using a global labor platform like oDesk; or partner with Dashfire, a new venture that takes equity in startups in exchange for development work in India. They also evaluate the managerial challenges that Grinna will face if his team becomes spread across two countries at such an early stage. And there is an opportunity to discuss various online outsourcing models, which represent a major trend in global labor markets.
In the end, students grapple with a very recent phenomenon for entrepreneurial companies—they may start global for the first phases of development and then consolidate into a single location, the opposite of traditional patterns where international operations commence with company growth and maturity.

IN THE CLASSROOM

The LGV cases represent a range of businesses. Kerr kicked off the first class with the story of Celtel International, a Pan-African cellular provider that at the time was operating in 13 countries. He began the discussion by questioning what the venture had gained by operating in multiple countries and spreading its talent across the locations. He then asked when does a global startup become more than the sum of its parts. As an example, the company’s operations in contiguous countries had greatly boosted its product design potential (e.g., cross-border roaming), but it had also lowered the potential diversification benefits that many students highlighted as a key Celtel advantage when operating in Africa.
Another LGV case centers on 2011 HBS alum Rebeca Minguela’s model for Blink Booking, a website based in Spain for last-minute travelers that she cofounded and modeled on the US company Hotel Tonight. Blink offers a mobile application that provides same-day booking of boutique hotels across Europe, taking advantage of market price differentiations to determine the “best last-minute price” for users. Minguela’s larger goal, Kerr says, is to create a global replication platform that will encourage more entrepreneurship in Spain.
Blink Booking served as a springboard for the class to discuss what makes a good candidate for international replication, along with the structure and ethics of these platforms. Students also discussed German incubator Rocket Internet, which clones successful business models and sites like eBay and Groupon GRPN +4.54% around the world. Rocket Internet, a buzz company on campus that has attracted a number of HBS students as employees, is “the quintessential LGV company,” Kerr says.
Kerr expected to see many entrepreneurs on the first day of class but was surprised by the students’ diversity. Although about 60 percent had an active business idea they were working on, a substantial portion came from private equity or consulting backgrounds (e.g., McKinsey or The Boston Consulting Group Boston Consulting Group) and had worked or were planning to work with clients engaged in global ventures. “This was a way for them to develop skills to help with their international client work or when evaluating investment candidates,” Kerr says.
Many signs indicate that the global venture model has become a mainstream option for entrepreneurial companies, which was highlighted during a panel discussion in class that included a local venture capital investor and recent HBS entrepreneurs. Several students inquired how the VC viewed and evaluated founders of domestic-based companies compared with those starting global ventures.
“The VC quickly replied that there is no distinction anymore,” Kerr says. “Even if the startup is based solely in Boston, the world and competition move so fast that founders need to think globally from the start.”


http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/08/26/building-a-startup-as-a-global-business/2/

5 crazy SEO mistakes not to make in WordPress

There’s a nasty rumor going around that WordPress is beautifully set up for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) “out of the box.” Now don’t get me wrong - I’m a huge fan of WordPress - but the core software does need a little nudge in the right direction when it comes to SEO. Tom Ewer from ManageWP.
In reality, if your idea of optimizing your WordPress stops at hitting Publish on your latest post, you’re missing out on a lot of potential. But even those of you who feel that you are doing quite a lot in terms of onsite optimization are probably making at least one of the following mistakes (I know I certainly have done in the past).
So take a few moments to digest the following common SEO mistakes made by WordPress users - I’ll be offering straightforward solutions to each one!

1) Not Providing an XML Sitemap

Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site we might not otherwise discover.
- Google

I have a simple rule of thumb when it comes to learning new SEO strategies - if I hear it on the grapevine I take it with a hefty pinch of salt, but if I hear it from Google I take it as gospel. That’s why my position regarding sitemaps is simple: if Google says it helps them to find pages on your site that they may not otherwise discover, I’m going to give them one.
But that’s not all there is to sitemaps. They can also be used to supply additional information about your website (such as how often you expect pages to be updated) and meta data relating to specific media types (such as the running time of a video). And if you are running a new site or one with only a handful backlinks pointing towards it, a sitemap can make a big difference in enabling Google to discover and index all of the relevant pages on your website.
In simple terms, a sitemap is simply a specifically formatted list of the pages on your site that you would like to be indexed by the search engines. You could create one manually if you like carrying out jobs that can be automated with ease. Otherwise I have a couple of suggestions:
Google XML Sitemaps: with over ten million downloads and an average rating of 4.7 out of 5, you can rest assured that this free plugin gets the job done.
WordPress SEO by Yoast: this free plugin has a number of SEO-related functions, one of which is an excellent XML sitemap generator.
The process of building an updating a sitemap is almost entirely automated. You set a few options as you see fit then let the plugin do the rest. Google says that “[most] webmasters will benefit from sitemap submission, and in no case will you be penalized for it.” With that in mind, why wouldn’t you create a sitemap for your WordPress website?

2) Poor Categorization and Tagging

Few things bug me more than sites that do not utilize categories and tags (sometimes referred to collectively as taxonomies) properly. The simple fact is that categories and tags offer opportunities for increased engagement and traffic, but the bigger issue at hand is that poor use of categories and tags can actually persuade a visitor to leave your site.
This is what you need to know about WordPress taxonomies: if categories are your table of contents, tags are your index When people try to tell me that tags are useless, I ask them of how many non-fiction books they have read that don’t have an index (I just checked five on my bookshelf and discovered that only one of them doesn’t).
Conscientious categorization and tagging of your posts will not only make it easier for visitors to find what they want (assuming of course you create an Archives page that makes accessing categories and tags simple) but it will also boost your onsite SEO. While Google may not rank category and tag pages high in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) (although it certainly does happen), it will be able to get a much better grasp on the keywords that are most relevant to your site by examining them.
Let me give you an example. Say for instance you run a site about zoo animals which has a particular focus on llamas. If you have a tag page for llamas that links to various pages and has various pages linking back to it, that is a strong indicator to Google that llamas are kind of a big deal on your site.
If you want to know more about how to categorize and tag effectively, click here

3) Not Defining Canonical URLs

If you have never heard about canonicalization before then brace yourself - it can be a slightly confusing concept. In order to define it effectively I will turn to Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Search:

Canonicalization is the process of picking the best URL when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:

• www.example.com
• example.com/
• www.example.com/index.html
• example.com/home.asp

But technically all of these URLs are different. A web server could return completely different content for all them. When Google “canonicalizes” a URL, we try to pick the one that seems like the best representative from that set.

Put simply, if you don’t tell Google and friends which version of a page to index and rank, they’re going to try to figure it out themselves. The last thing you want is search engines having to pick from multiple instances what is essentially the exact same page. The solution is to provide them with a canonical URL.
This is essentially a three step process:

• Tell WordPress how to present your site (i.e. http://www.yoursite.com/ or http://yoursite.com/).
• Tell Google (using Webmaster Tools) which URL type you want them to use.
• Use a plugin (such as the aforementioned WordPress SEO by Yoast) to ensure that canonical URLs are defined on each page of your site.

That may sound complicated but in reality it’s a piece of cake. You can find a complete guide to canonicalization in WordPress here.

4) Not Optimizing Your Site for Google+ Authorship

Like it or not, Google+ is here to stay. You may be surprised to know that it is the second biggest social network behind Facebook, beating the likes of YouTube and Twitter.
But I’m not here to talk about social media strategization. Instead I want to focus on the concept of Google+ authorship and how it can be utilized to strengthen your position in the SERPs and boost click through rates.
If you’ve not heard of Google+ authorship before, you’ve almost certainly seen it. Every search result in Google that incorporates a profile photo of the author is an example. Astonishingly, that little photo has been proven to boost clickthrough rates in the SERPs by 150%. Further, an experiment by Cyrus Shepard from Moz resulted in an additional 56% increase in clickthroughs. In short, by incorporating Google+ authorship on your site, you can attract more search engine traffic with the same rankings.
Getting Google to verify your authorship is not an entirely straightforward process but it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes and will subsequently offer you ongoing benefits. In short, it’s well worth doing. My favorite tutorial is by WPBeginner

5) Not Optimizing How Your Posts Look in the SERPs

This mistake is similar to the previous one regarding Google+ authorship, as it relates to your clickthrough rate in the SERPs.
It is borne out of an ignorance of the importance of what searchers see on Google as opposed to simply where they see it. Although the placement of a website on the SERPs (ie, 1 - 10) is a key factor, people can often be drawn to lower rankings if the titles and/or descriptions are compelling. That is why you should optimize each of your posts to give yourself the best possible chance of attracting a good clickthrough rate.
There are two things that you should concern yourself with:

• The Meta Title: this is what will display on the SERPs in place of any headline you choose for the post onsite.
• The Meta Description: Google may choose to use this in place of an excerpt from your post (which can often be nothing more than a confusing mass of words).

By default there is no way to define these in WordPress - you need a plugin to get the job done. You can either choose a standalone plugin (for which my recommendation would be Add Meta Tags) or a plugin that incorporates multiple SEO features (such as the aforementioned WordPress SEO by Yoast).

What Mistakes Have You Made?

Let’s face it - we’re not perfect. If you haven’t made a few SEO blunders in your time then you’re simply not trying hard enough. In reality, this post could be called, “Top 5 SEO Mistakes I Have Made With WordPress.”
With that in mind, I’d love for you to share your wisdom in the comments section. What have you learned from your forays into the world of SEO that you think others will benefit from reading about? Fire away!


http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/seo-wordpress-mistakes?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=c9c682f3c7-Newsletter_210&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6cdc864080-c9c682f3c7-287576792

Analysis: G20 plans for a global IP regime and universal internet access

The B20 task force is a group of CEOs who represent the world’s most innovative companies and want a ‘world of creators’ to emerge from their recommendations at September’s G20 summit.

 

In his book Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, Chris Anderson, ex-editor of Wired and the author of influential book The Long Tail, talks of a future where 3D printing means we will all become makers of our own products.

While Anderson’s vision is simplistic and alluring, it adds to the trend of believing everybody is an entrepreneur and that we can all create our digital and physical worlds through 3D printers and the internet.

The reality is that if different countries have different rules on IP and Information and Communications Technology (ICT), as well as energy sufficiency, then some makers will be more equal than others.

The B20 task force on Innovation and Development hopes to address this by a number of initiatives. The group comprises 39 participants of the Innovation and Development as a Global Priority Task Force that represents CEOs from G20 countries.

Next week it will deliver a report in Saint Petersburg as part of the roadmap to the G20 Summit in September that it wants to adopt its recommendations of a connected world of not only makers, but connected creators.

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"Our task force members are working on a plan of action that will not only correspond with the interests of all countries, but will also bridge the gap between developed and developing nations," said Viktor Vekselberg, Chairman of the B20 Taskforce (Innovation and Development as a Global Priority).
"This is not just the simple redistribution of resources, but also the creation on a global scale of conditions for effective growth in emerging economies through permanent innovation.
“We are proposing ways to transition to a more efficient model of global innovation involving as many countries and entrepreneurial communities as possible. That’s why the key recommendations in our package address innovation development – the transformation of the IP regime and the creation of a global legal framework to improve global competition in innovation markets”, he said.
The report wants to set a G20 agenda by not only giving universal internet access, but also improving the global IP regime that will balance innovation and development with the ecosystem of societal and business interests.
The B20 says that this will foster faster and more efficient technology transfer and, if adopted by G20 leaders, will stimulate economic growth and create jobs through technological collaboration between developed and developing countries.
It also suggests that such a global IP regime will "make markets freer and less pliant to counterproductive distortions through harmonisation and stabilisation of regulation and reduction of barriers for economic co-operation, including non-tariff borders".
While that type of gobbledegook language is always difficult to understand, but standard for this type of report, the aspiration is noble and important. By and large in developed countries, if entrepreneurs come up with a good idea, they can then take that idea to market relatively quickly and without bureaucratic impediment.
For other countries, it isn’t straightforward. A 24-nation report* last month from the BBC World Service reported that while countries such as Indonesia, the US, India and Australia are the most entrepreneur-friendly, other countries such as Italy, Turkey and Russia make things very difficult for ‘creators’.
A global IP regime would not only enable entrepreneurs in every country to work on the ‘level playing field’ so favoured by cliche-makers, it would also prevent the one-sided brain drain from developing to developed countries that offer more transparent and open opportunities.
The G20 is under no obligation to adopt the B20’s recommendations in September, but a world where ideas are equal and where everybody from Brindisi to Novosibirsk to Abuja and own these ideas and take them to market has to be a good thing... and one that Chris Anderson would undoubtedly endorse.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/10127201/Analysis-G20-plans-for-a-global-IP-regime-and-universal-internet-access.html

The web’s biggest scam artists are coining it: here’s how

We have all seen the scummy and scammy internet marketing scams that aim to defraud pretty much anyone who is unlucky enough to fall for their link bait; but who are these fraudulent masterminds and how much money do they actually make?
Well first let’s look at why it works. There are a few basic emotions that these scam artists play on.
Laziness
Inherently, people are lazy. People take shortcuts and would rather (in general) find the quickest easiest way of achieving a goal than to actually do the hard yards and earn it! These online scammers pray on that human trait and expose it.
Pride
Their methods make it sound as if this is the best, most well-kept secret on the history of the planet and that you are actually smarter than everyone else for finding this gem of an opportunity.
Community
We like to feel like we belong. Scammers play on this emotion and feed off of it like it’s candy. They lure you in and make you feel like you are part of an exclusive club with smoking jackets, wood panels and butlers who call you “sir”.
So essentially the rationale behind this post is to talk a little about those who are giving real internet marketing types a bad name. The traditional sense of the phrase refers to those guys who are practicing SEO; SEM; social marketing and content marketing (i.e — the good guys). But there are also con artists doing their level best to take your money away from you.
In short, they are the “gurus” who are trying to sell you a cure-for-all; make money while you sleep solution that is going to radically change your life. There is no such thing — at least not in any legitimate form.
There is an internet marketing circle in the United States where these guys have literally made millions upon millions of dollars.

To flesh out this picture; the “internet marketers” who form the “syndicate” are the major players; the guys who get rich. These are the guys who come up with the scams and lay the foundations to get it into motion. The “boiler rooms” are, for all intents and purposes, the call centres that are filled with “pressure salesmen” who will hard sell you into the ground; playing on your emotions and make you feel like you are doing them a favour by buying their product. The “companies” are the fronts who these people say they work for. This is so that if you search their company name online, you find something real, something that reassures you that this is a legitimate business. Within these companies you then have some specialist salesmen who again complete the circle and are the face of the companies.
The syndicate all work together; this is to create the illusion that this incredible offer that they have for you is truly legitimate and that; because more that one company is trying to sell it to you; it cannot possibly be a scam!
Once they have you hooked; they take everything that they can and give you nothing but an empty bank account in return. Their methods are incredulous and their morals are severely lacking; often guised as a hedonistic view of philanthropic entrepreneurialism.
The general rules still and always will apply:

• Never give them your credit card or banking details.
• They are not your friends (they are the trench coat wearing sycophants luring you with lollipops into their windowless van, lined with tear-stained mattresses).
• Get rich quick schemes don’t exist — if you think it is too good to be true — then it probably is.

While I have never been caught (thankfully) in any of these schemes; I do implore you to share your stories with anyone and everyone who will listen to make sure that the syndicates are exposed and that more and more people are made aware of how unscrupulous the villains of internet marketing can really be.

http://memeburn.com/2013/06/get-rich-click-schemes-the-webs-biggest-scam-artists-are-coining-it/
 

Get the Most Out of Your Social Video Marketing

Over the past few years, social media has become an internet giant. Because of this, companies of all types are jumping into the video marketing scene to advertise their business, products and services. When you want the most benefit from your efforts, social video marketing is definitely the way to go. Below, you can see how to get the most out of this dynamic marketing tool.

Why Use Social Video Marketing
Social video has made it’s way into homes across the globe. Millions of people actively log onto social media sites day and night for entertainment purposes, to research products and to make their purchases. Some of these most popular sites are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google+.
When you place your marketing videos on these sites, you can literally advertise to thousands, if not millions of people. Best of all, you do not have to choose just one. You can post your videos to all of them. The more videos you post, the more quickly your name will become known.
Sharing Capability
One of the greatest features of social media is the ability for the audience to share your videos. Social media platforms have made this function simple with the help of the “Share” button. By placing your marketing videos onto various social media sites, the viewer can watch and then share your video with their friends, family and co-workers with a quick click of a button. Not only does this quickly spread your company name, it is also a great way to have your audience do some of the marketing for you.
Make Your Video Stand Out
When using social video marketing it is imperative that your video stands out from the rest. This is especially true when posting videos onto social media sites. Your goal on these sites should be to get the viewer distracted from what they’re doing and get them focused on your video instead. You can do this by making your video unique, exciting and catchy. Make it stand out and you will effectively get their attention.

Use Your Company Logo
There are likely many other companies out there who have products and services similar to yours. This is why it is important that you place your logo on each of your internet marketing videos. Whether it be simple or complex, in the beginning or the end, your logo must be visible to the viewer and memorable. Furthermore, your company logo helps to protect your videos from being stolen, copied and republished using someone else’s name.

Specify a Call-To-Action
In order to get the greatest results from social video marketing, you must have a call-to-action on each of your videos. This call-to-action is determined by your specific goal. This may be to have your viewers visit your website, make a purchase, sign up for newsletters or mailings, or contact you. Whichever you choose, you can put the call-to-action directly into your video. This enables the viewers to do business with you quickly and with ease, right from the video itself. Not only does this make the process convenient for the consumer, it also gives you immediate results.
Know Your Audience with Analytics
There are numerous reports that you can obtain through social media sites, which can greatly help you to improve your marketing efforts. These reports help you to analyze trends, such as how many views your videos get, at what times, from which locations and even the average age and gender of your viewers. With this information you can adjust your marketing to better target your audience.
With these great tools you can experience the outstanding benefits of social video marketing. Don’t let the competition get ahead of you. Start today and watch as your company goes to the next level. Have you had any experiences with social marketing?

Image #1 sourced from (nhwellnesscenters.com)

Image #2 sourced from (authntk.com)

http://www.business2community.com/social-media/get-the-most-out-of-your-social-video-marketing-0510978

Why Offline Businesses Need Online Marketing

Your Customers Are Here, Are You?


You have a local based brick and mortar business, so no reason to invest in online marketing, right? Location based businesses couldn’t be more wrong. Do not miss out on sales and customers by ignoring or avoiding online marketing.  One of the key principles of business is to be where your target audience is looking for you. A growing number of consumers are searching online before making a purchase decision, so your business needs to be there in order for them to find you and include your company in their decision making process.
According to the BIA/Kelsey  report, 97% of consumers use online media before making local purchases.  Google Research  showed that 9 out of 10 internet searches resulted in a follow up action, such as calling or visiting the business. Mobile searches triggered an additional action or conversion 73% of the time; and 28% of mobile searches resulted in a store visit or purchase. Since mobile searches are on the rise, this behavior is only going to continue to increase. How do consumers search for businesses?

1. 90% use a search engine
2. 48% use the online Yellow Pages
3. 42% use comparison shopping websites

Embracing and online marketing can help you get the edge on your competition; especially when you take into consideration that a recent study  shows that 50% of small businesses’ online listings are incorrect and 70% of small business owners state they do not have time to keep their online listings updated. Therefore, something as simple as updating and optimizing your online listings, including the Yellow Pages, will give your business the edge over the competition.
Four takeaways for brick and mortar businesses looking to take advantage of online marketing:

1. With so much of your competition having an incorrect listing or nonexistent presence online, taking just a few minutes to fill in the data about your business in your online listing will make your business more visible to consumers searching for the products or services you sell, even if you do not sell anything online.
2. Websites for your local business should include a responsive design so that it can be easily read via mobile devices. Especially considering that tablets will outsell PCs this year, and more than half of all cell phones are smartphones. What is responsive design? The Wikipedia definition of responsive design  “is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones)”. Mashable named 2013 The Year of Responsive Design and rightfully so with the growth of mobile search that results in visits to local businesses.
3. Including online sign up for appointments or reservations on your website will increase conversions and also provide an added convenience of allowing them to make appointments online 24/7. Of the consumers surveyed, 19% made appointments with a local business through the business’ website, that doesn’t include restaurant reservations; Cornell University research shows that over half of those surveyed made restaurant reservations online. If you do not have an online reservation system you have the potential to double your seatings.
4. Embracing social media will allow you to keep connected with these new customers that are tech savvy; making customer retention easier. Get social with the community, build a following host events, and engage with local consumers in an effort to stay top of mind.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-offline-businesses-need-online-marketing/62406/

Facebook Notes

Using Facebook to get a business recognized online is very effective and easy to do. Facebook users range in the millions at any given time thus making the platform for target audience almost infinite. Understanding the working of how to go about optimizing this tool will contribute to the success of any endeavour.

Just creating a profile is simply not the end to the Facebook style of launching and capitalizing on any endeavor. It entails much more than simply this and the following are some points to consider:

 After creating a suitable profile the continuous step of ensuring the line of communication is kept open at all times is important. Positioning the business platform and staying in touch with the viewers will give the site the exposure it needs.

 Unfortunate but all so true is the fact that the eye makes judgments’ long before the actual material is examined therefore presenting a pleasing file picture is very important as is the follow up information featured. This is the one chance the posting has to attract the viewer within the very slim window of opportunity.

The wall is the main platform of interaction thus the need to post relevant and interesting content. Keeping this light and entertaining will help to keep viewers come back for more.

However constant alerts may cause an annoyance so striking a comfortable balance is important. Society now is predominantly more attracted to visual stimulation and this is further broken down into the popular viewing of pictures and photos and other similar platforms when compared to the written word.

Therefore there is a need to explore the possibility of offering a well designed pictorial viewing that will help to enhance the viewer’s experience. Getting into a Facebook group is also another way to create interest in the endeavour being promoted as those within the group are usually like minded or connected to the posting in a more personal way.