Social media marketing describes the use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service

Why Social Media Marketing?

When comparing social media traffic to other forms of traffic, such as search engine, the numbers typically are going to look rather bleak. While you’ll hopefully see a spike in number of visitors and page views that will often be accompanied by higher bounce rates, lower page views per visitor, and a lower average time on the site. With stats like this many bloggers wonder if social media traffic is even worth the time and effort.

Despite the tendency of many social media visitors to quickly exit your site and move on to the next one, there are still some very convincing reasons why you should care about social media and why it is worth your time.

1. Quick Results

Building a successful website takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Search engine rankings, for instance, can take years to build in a competitive niche. On the other hand, with social media you can develop content and be seen by thousands of visitors within the same day. For this reason, social media is a great option for getting a new website or blog noticed right away

2. Its Flexible

There are so many different social media websites that just about every imaginable niche is covered in one way or another. There are social news sites, bookmarking sites, and general networking sites. Whatever your needs and your audience there should be an option to use social media for your benefit.

Also, you’re not stuck to using the same social media sites over and over. If you’re not getting results in one place there’s usually other options that you can try out.

3. It Gets Easier with Time

If you’re new to blogging and social media and you feel like everyone else is getting traffic but you, understand that it takes some time and effort, but it will get easier. Once you have established a bit of a reader base and you’ve hopefully attracted some social media users to your blog, it will be much easier for you to get votes and ultimately get more exposure. The more you use social media the more you will understand about how it works and how users will respond.

4. It Will Lead to Other Valuable Sources of Traffic

Although visitors from social media sites may be less responsive than other types of visitors, success with social media will likely increase the number of inbound links you receive. Links will boost your search engine rankings and they’ll also drive click-through traffic your way. Both are generally high quality traffic sources.

5. Building Links with Social Media is Safer than Buying Links

If you plan to cut out the need for social media by purchasing links from other sites, you’re running the risk of being penalized or banned by Google. For some, this is a risk worth taking, but in most cases I would strongly discourage taking this chance. Personally, I focus on building links for my primary blog through the combination of content and social media.

6. Social Media Users are Predictable

The whole concept or link bait or Digg bait wouldn’t even be possible if social media users were unpredictable. But the truth is you can usually have a good idea of what is likely to draw a response and what is not. This will come with time, and of course there is no 100% guarantee. However, once you know a social media audience pretty well, you can cater content to their preferences with a pretty high success rate. What you learn about social media can easily be duplicated to your other blogs or to serving clients.

7. It Doesn’t Require as Much Time as You Might Think

Personally, I use social media every day, but on a very limited basis. If you think that you have to spend all day on Digg or Stumbling pages to get some results of your own, you may be surprised. With the right approach you can get fantastic results with just a few hours per week on social media sites. To be a top Digg user you’ll need more time than that, but being a top Digg user isn’t necessary to draw social media traffic.

8. Branding through Social Media is Possible

One of the great benefits to the exposure that you can get through social media is the result it has on the branding of your blog. Branding is key to building a success blog in the long-term, and social media is an excellent, free option for helping visitors to see your blog in a particular light.

9. Links Can Help Your Search Engine Rankings Rise Quickly

Earlier I mentioned to social media can provide instant results. Well, in addition to sending loads of traffic directly, the links that result from social media success can get your new posts ranking very well with search engines almost immediately. It’s not uncommon for me to see a very respectable number of visitors from Google searches to a brand new post that just drew a lot of links through social media. While it will take a while to build search engine rankings as a whole, it is possible to create specific posts to rank well right away.

10. The Future of the Internet is Social

Social media and social networking aren’t going away any time soon. The major players and the types of social sites may change of the course of time, but this is a trend that online marketers need to adjust to. Without finding ways to build a website or blog through social media you could be left behind by your competitors.

Too difficult a job for those who cast their rights to select and for those who stand up for the same. So who is a Leader? Someone said ‘a leader is one who is simply content to point a direction’ but I feel it’s much more than that. To me Leadership is all about directing, taking action as well as accountability, taking full responsibility of your decision and choices- something not everyone can do in actuality.

 So how important is a leader in a business organization? Very. In today’s world where it is a battle of minds, skill and technology, it is essential to have individuals with leadership qualities who have a ‘vision’, vertical as well as horizontal knowledge of domain, someone to think out of the box, to motivate and encourage others, introduce team spirit instead of simply compelling with deadlines. In other words, he is someone who has the ability to shape up an organization and most importantly follow what he is preaching.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across training organizations that assist in building these Leadership qualities in individuals. Then again there some who are born Leaders, you don’t have to train to become one. In fact I wonder if some of the most influential and successful business people have ever received any such rule book training sessions.

 Nevertheless let’s take a look at some of the following objectives outlined by an institute:

 * Understanding good Leadership Behaviors
* Learning the difference between Leadership and Management
* Gaining insight into your Patterns, Beliefs and Rules
* Defining Qualities and Strengths
* Determining how well you Perceive what’s going on around you
* Polishing Interpersonal Skills and Communication Skills
* Learning about Commitment and How to Move Things Forward
* Making Key Decisions
* Handling Your and Other People’s Stress
* Empowering, Motivating and Inspiring Others
* Leading by Example

 I would anytime go with the last 4 bullets to be the top most attributes in being a Leader. How would you outline your key thoughts? Are you a Leader?-even if not, let’s talk!

“Service Sales” as a business model has always been a good revenue earner, but the “uncertainties of business” and “depleting service revenues” have made companies look for something that assures them a return… thus reasons for Product Development and marketing!

Some of the pre-requisites that anyone who steps into Product Development understands (or may be should do, if they don’t) are  (1) they have to make revenue out of it (read it as continued revenue), (2) their product should have a target (should be sizeable) audience and (3) the product should have a long shelf life (should have a long term vision).

As more and more service companies move to product development – we decided to investigate, if SMART AIMS too could tread a similar path!

Before that though, we decided on a quick research to find out, if Product Companies are successful and if this model is just right for all. Results were eye-opening to say the least!

• Off every 100 Product Ideas that are shortlisted and put on the development table… just 2 see the end of a successful development phase and are released…
• Off a 100 products that are released, just 1 (one) makes for a positive ROI and the others are just lost and do not even make to the tables for the targets they were thought for!

With all these facts and ideas in the bag, we decided to place the following question to all our friends, partners and clients who have helped us be SMART AIMS.

Is a ‘SMART Product” the Future for SMART AIMS and how do we say that the product idea that we have (we do have more than one though) is the way to go?

Please take a moment to help us make the next move, do write in your suggestions and send us your comments and feedback to info@smartaims.com .

We wish all Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year, and assure you to be back older and matured with 2011.

Bidding adieu to 2010 and wishing that 2011 helps SMART AIMS grow and be more visible, we thank all for their continued support and cooperation.

For those well wishers who were waiting to hear from us.. (an being an optimist, we believe there would be some) we are back again! Will not get lost in a hurry.. and are here to make our presence felt..

Our next post is going to be more informative on whats’ next at SMART AIMS, but for now just for all our friends, fans and followers.. we are into Mobile application Development, a specialised team of iPhone and Android developers who are ready to take up a challenge and deliver results. If you have a requirement, a concept an idea that you want to put it in as an application.. trust SMART AIMS to deliver!

If above was just what is next, there is something else too that is helping us fight this lull in business.. Social Media Marketing .. a lot is being talked about.. but if you need to see results and see if it actually works for your website.. trust us.

You need your website to be analysed and see how Social Media Marketing can help.. the easiest way is to get in touch with us for a : “Free and No Commitment” quote. Email us now at info@smartaims.com

We will be back with our next post in how Social Media Marketing can add to your business! Keep watching this space

SMART AIMS is planning to enter new business areas … areas/avenues that are either a fallout of our current business process, and/or relatively newer territories.. and what we are currently doing at SMART AIMS is evaluating and planning for the same.

Social Media Marketing: With the growth of world wide web as a marketing medium, the need for understanding the most effective way to promote your brand and get the maximum returns on your investment has become a need.. We at SMART AIMS have been studying and researching ways that can help our clients/customers/prospects in making the best off their investments and own a virtual identity in the mind of their customers.

Waste Management: An area that is very much a futuristic business idea.. an industry that needs both recognition and is yet to be organised in the trues sense. More on waste management in future discussions..

Do let us know if there are any other topics that you would like us to research on.. and also if there is a business idea that we could help you with.. we are not only a business.. we believe in building a new business entreprenur.. the key here is a mutually beneficial exchange!

As an entrepreneur, this journey has been yet another great learning and I am sure it will help me in the future as well.. like always.. We started with 1 full time working person (that was myself, Pradip Nagpal) and cam up to 9 at one point of time in the year and now are closing the year at 8.. no mean achievement keeping the fact in mind.. that we started when there was a downturn.. and are now seeing things picking up again…

SMART AIMS does not believe in being just another company amongst the host of others.. and certainly I would not like that to be.. and therefore we have decided to make some changes/arrangements that help us grow.. we will be revisiting each and every part/department of our small organisation.. and looking for ways to make it more effective.. as well as help it grow..

We may not be in the news for some time in the future (not that we were making headlines anyways), but we assure you by the end of these changes.. we will evolve stronger and with a better focus and management that takes us far ahead…

We once again thank all friends and partners (clients and employee) who have been with us in the journey and help us live a dream year..

Would love to finish this article off on a real positive note.. SMART AIMS is now Technology Partners for a major start-up in US.. design, development and concept partners.. and thats just the beginning..

Keep following us for more information.. and we assure you wouldn’t be disappointed.

Basically “Business Intelligence” is the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action towards a desired goal.”.

Business Intelligence (BI) also refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products or departments or associated costs and incomes. ^[1]

Going through the current trends and predictions the future of  Business Intelligence seems to be very bright.

A 2009 Gartner paper predicted these developments in the business intelligence market .^[7]

• Because of lack of information, processes, and tools, through 2012, more than 35 percent of the top 5,000 global companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets.
• By 2012, business units will control at least 40 percent of the total budget for business intelligence.
• By 2010, 20 per cent of organizations will have an industry-specific analytic application delivered via software as a service as a standard component of their business intelligence portfolio.
• In 2009, collaborative decision making will emerge as a new product category that combines social software with business intelligence platform capabilities.
• By 2012, one-third of analytic applications applied to business processes will be delivered through coarse-grained application mashups.

Keep looking for our Blog to read more about BI and the techniques that businesses today follow.

SMART AIMS deliverables:

Designer’s perspective:
We start with a mockup.. try and get it to the point whereby the client is satisfied with it.. we go through multiple iterations.. and finally ..”The client selects and approves it”.

Developer’s Perspective:
The selected template is now to be integrated to Joomla.. a theme (layout) which is close to the one selected by the client is chosen and integrated.
The designer helps the developer it changing the backgrounds, css and implements the template as he had designed.
The developer now starts adding the modules/plugins that the template is supposed to have.. and changes the css for them appropriately to reflect the selected design.

Template Integration complete..

Added Requirements by the client:
Installed Joomla already. Use the current content and plugins into the Joomla template that we had built!

SMART AIMS Delivers yet again!

The brief this time just increased the work we had to do.. not within the scope of the project defined earlier.. but again.. being a customer oriented organisation we had to  deliver.

The template was uploaded using the Joomla Administrative Section:

Log in to Administrative Section

• Click on Extensions > Install/Unistall
• Select the Zip file for the Template designed and click on Upload File and Install
• Go to Extensions > Template Manager and select the newly installed template.

Phew! and we thought it was over.. but the game had just begun.. the plugins which the client had incorporated in the earlier Joomla template.. added to our woes.. we had to work on the css and getting them into specific positions in the template! It took time and effort.. but we did get through and updated the same for our client.

Final Result:

A happy client who paid us for doing that bit extra!.. well it was not about money.. but the way we went about the work that the client was impressed with..

Get in touch with us if you have requirements and for a great customer experience!

The Good news is.. we are BACK.. and we are still there.. Surviving the changes both technology and resources wise, and making slow but steady progress. We have been busy with too many things including planning for the year 2010.. apart from working on projects/clients, structuring the workforce and adding key people to the organisation.. and thats been keeping us busy.. but we promise you to update of whats up with us from now.. at regular intervals.

SMART AIMS has been adding technology expertise and we are now working more and more with Open Source applications/tools like Joomla, Wordpress, Zencart apart from the still going strong PHP. Open source development is the mantra for us in 2010.. and we will be adding technologies and expertise and ofcourse resources as and when we grow! You have a requirement that needs a dedicated and sincere team.. wait no further and get in touch with us right away. Our clients vouch for our excellent support and deliverables.. feel free to ask for references!

Mobile application development is another avenue that we at SMART AIMS have been exploring, Windows Mobile was always there, but we are now moving towards Symbian and Android development, both of which are expected to nose us ahead of competition.

Our web designs have always been a class apart and have been openly accepted by our clients… but thats not where we stop.. we are now moving ahead to make our client websites more sale able.. adding Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation expertise.. that will allow us to serve our client better and be a One Stop Web Solution company. We look to constantly innovate and upgrade ourselves to give our clients the best in class solutions!

Product development is another avenue that we have forayed and it adds an important dimension to our portfolio.. We intend to develop secured and easy to deploy products.. more on it in times to come!

Being an organisation that has grown from the society, we decide to do our bit for the society.. and in this endevor of ours we are being supported by none other than the mighty Microsoft..  after being Microsoft BizSpark members, we are now trying to contribute and work with Microsoft on the S2B  (Students to business Initiative), and contribute in whatever extent we can to the community.

Keep checking our blog for the latest happenings in SMART AIMS and the progress we have made!

1. Recession is a correction process and will happen for sure.. be prepared for it or else you would be ruing for a real long time.

2. From Service (in 2008 and mid 2009 as a Business Development and Project Manager) to Business (as owner of SMART AIMS), one thing which did not change was “Entrepreneurship”…. if your an entrepreneur in service.. you are more likely to be a notch better than others when you step into business..  “Responsibility and Calmness” are the other attributes that Business demands.. I think I have lost my cool more often than not in service.. but Business teaches you to be calm and collective.. 

3) What makes a difference in the way we do it and what we do it is ‘ATTITUDE”, a positive attitude helps in winning more than half the battle and the rest is luck and hardwork.. carry your most positive attitude to work and things are bound to fall in place more often than not.

4) Business and Company is not  a “One man game” and thats the reason we at SMART AIMS are looking for people who can join our family and take an entrepreneur’s role to the “Tee”.

2009 was good in ways more than one to us personally.. finally SMART AIMS came ahead as a full fledged company.. rather than being a consultancy organisation and  a business generating website who would help source business to the people I did service for ..  

Friends and partners were obvious for the growth of SMART AIMS.. its the rough times that prove once and always that those who are friends will be with you.. whereas the selfish would just turn away just as the way they entered your life..  there were some who did it.. not that we cared for them .. but just reiterated the point that we need to separate the food from the roughage!

Competition always helps.. friends may or may not!

2010 will be a new beginning for SMART AIMS and we are committed to growth and excellence in the field.. our learning from 2009 will be with us forever but what 2010 holds for SMART AIMS.. is a surprise that will unfold for us.. and a lot of others who are watching us..

Please do keep us in mind.. and we assure you honesty and dedication in whatever we do.. 

Our journey to another SMART AIM begins on Jan 1, 2010.. we aim to conquer more frontiers in 2010 and would appreciate your valuable support and co-operation always.