Is Viral Marketing the New Money Tree? (Lessons to Learn From Kony 2012)

The Internet Joins The Advertising Industry 

Ever since the emergence of the online media, the advertising industry has went through a huge revolution.

What used to be only found in newspapers, television, radio, billboards, etc, also exist in the online media now; which can be stored permanently and accessed anytime.

Majority of the people worldwide spends more of their time on the online media than any other traditional media. The online media is evolving rapidly and turning into the media that most people depend on the most these days. 

In recent years, social networking sites are trending worldwide and have managed to attract millions of users globally.

This phenomenon has caused big organisations and advertisers to target the online media, especially social networking sites to be a great platform to reach out to a large number of individuals or the intended demographics. 

The ‘Viral’ Phenomenon in Online Media 

‘Viral’ is a term constantly used to describe any form of work, production, or information that is being circulated rapidly, mainly in the internet. The term ‘viral’ was derived from the term ‘virus’, describing an effect of spreading rapidly and widely like a virus. 

Among the things that go viral in the internet, videos go viral most frequently. Ever since Youtube, a video-sharing website, was created in 2005, users are able to watch all types of videos from it and are even able to upload their own recordings and productions on Youtube.

With simple and convenient functions such as the search bar and the ‘trending videos’ section, users are able to search for videos they want to watch easily and can even watch what is trending at the moment. Furthermore, the emergence of social networking sites allow users to share these videos easily on popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and such.

This is where the ‘viral’ phenomenon kicks in. The videos are shared to all of their friends and connections in social networking sites. Then, the people who see it and also find it interesting might also share the video again to their own circle of friends and community. The cycle goes on and on and this is how the ‘viral’ phenomenon take place and functions. 

To make something go viral, it is essential for the content to be attention grabbing. It could be something interesting, controversial, offensive, shocking, or any other creative elements that can garner attention regardless of it being in the form of images, videos or whatsoever.

The mission here is to create something that will entice users to share it to their group of social circle, with the ultimate goal to make it circulate around the internet. 

KONY 2012 – Most Viral Video in 2012 

On 5th of March 2012, a short film called KONY 2012 was uploaded onto Youtube. It is produced by Invisible Children, Inc., an organization that aims to create awareness among the public globally to stop the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader, Joseph Kony.

The video introduces Joseph Kony to the viewers, providing details and provoking viewers to support the organization in their actions of appealing to the officials to take the issue more heavily and deploy more troops to arrest Joseph Kony. KONY 2012 achieved more than 32 million views within its first week, and has more than 100 million views currently.

The video has been massively spread and circulated in the internet due to the use of the few major social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

The success of it was mainly due to the excellent videography and scriptwriting techniques that were employed in producing the video, accompanied with a strong emotional touch that touches the viewers. Users were sharing the video with their own input of opinions, expressing how it touches them and convince others to watch it as well. 

Why Viral Marketing? 

As of now, the public is even harder to please than ever. Therefore, companies must constantly come out with creative ideas to get the public’s attention.

Viral marketing does so and the circulation effect it achieves is astonishing. With that being said, viral content is not something that is easily created.

A huge amount of ideas and effort is needed in order to create something that relates to the public; something so good that when an individual sees it, he/she couldn’t resist to share it. 

Viral marketing is so successful because the content is extremely engaging and people are far more open to recommendations and testimonials from their friends compared to that of the media.

They are slightly more skeptical towards advertisements found in the media as they know organisations paid large sum of money to the media to broadcast their advertisements; while they are more likely to believe information provided from a personal source that they trust. 

As the world slowly evolves and improves, it is necessary for us to keep up with its pace and be up to date in recognising the social phenomenon.

It is undeniable that viral marketing is a great marketing and advertising tool for companies to get their message across as well as achieving brand recognition; but what makes it so special is that it also prompts the public to insert their own input into it while sharing it online, encouraging them to speak their mind and inspire them to invoke the creative and innovative potential within them.

Alternative Marketing with a 100% Delivery statistic

Consider mobile advertising done right with SMS. There is no limitation of connectivity or problems with compatibility. Reach every customer within your database to inform, educate, or to advertise your new product or service.

This method very much like social media is competitively cheaper when compared to billboard, and traditional media advertising.

Within the strategy of viral marketing impose reminders to your customers to have exposure to more than just social media channels but also through mobile channels.

Mobile is huge with penetration within Malaysia alone to be over 140%. Take on this new strategy for added growth now.

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Announcement - DiGi Planned Maintenance Notification - 14th November 2016

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a planned system maintenance by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

14th November (Monday) 2016

00:01 ~ 06:00 hrs (GMT +8)

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a planned maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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4 Marketing Strategies to Engage Generation Z

Marketing trends are cyclical, rotating around generations in a different social upbringing. Marketing strategies that target Baby Boomers, Generation X and Y, and the Millennials is something of the past with a new generation coming forth, Generation Z.

This generation is exposed to the Internet from a young age. Technology and social media is the norm for communication with family, friends, purchases, their workplace, etc.

Internet is no longer a shiny new toy, it is a necessity that every business should be on immediately. Generation Z is the modern day consumer, with the Internet widespread in a variety of industries and impacting everyday tasks and needs.

Businesses should start to put effort in understand the behavioral patterns of Generation Z.

Children are big influencers. Ask parents and most will tell you their purchasing behavior is strongly influenced by their children. That goes without saying that the purchasing power of this new generation is approximately $44 billion.

Generation Z consumers are different from other groups. Companies must deliberately craft information that target and engage them through the appropriate channels.

Targeting and engaging Generation Z:

1. Visuals

In our experience video is the number 1 engagement media for Generation Z, with pictures coming second and words being the least effective. Modern consumers want to instantly consume and access information conveniently quick. Being conveniently quick means adoption of marketing content that must cater to mobile. Mobile adoption rates in the smartphone categories have been changing the global marketplace and your business should implement this right from the get-go.

Just to name a few; Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest have a lasting popularity because the platform allows Generation Z to consume quickly, share with the social circles that matter to them, and rely on information that trusted influencers recommend conveniently.

Conversations are changing. Short video messages, photos embedded with text allows Generation Z to share their life experiences with rich depth compared to describing their experiences through text.

2. Clear & Concise

Research shows that the attention span of Generation Z is approximately 8 seconds. The blame for this shocking revelation should be on the existence of smartphones and their ‘scrolling’ nature. All of the social media apps or mobile web pages exist in a scrolling form. Scrolling is extremely convenient, in fact, it is too convenient. It causes them to just scroll through or swipe away if they’re not interested in a particular post at first glance. This is why brands’ content posted on social media need to be able to grab their attention instantly to avoid being scrolled through and ignored.

Messages need to be bite-sized: short, simple, and direct. Keep this in mind, ‘less is more’.

Keep your message on point like how a drag queen’s makeup is always on point.

3. Word-of-Mouth

As permanent tenants in social media, Generation Z has been groomed to enjoy sharing in social media. They can’t be fooled easily by marketing schemes and will only share things that they find interesting or genuine. Therefore, your content needs to be authentic.

Incorporating influencers into your marketing strategy is an excellent way to achieve this. Generation Z tend to look up on opinions from a third party to obtain a non-biased opinion. Hearing it from a social media influencer which happens to be an expert in a particular field will definitely convince them into believe in your brand.

Furthermore, testimonials, reviews, and postings from people who’ve really tried it is important as well. Use your customers to convince your customers to trust your brand.

4. Locate Them & Go To Them

Put effort in finding out which social network is the widely used by Generation Z. While Facebook holds the record for the most amount of users among all social networking sites/apps, it is unlikely that you’ll reach a huge amount of Generation Z users in Facebook. Research has shown that Facebook is populated by mostly adults, while Generation Z regards Facebook as less interesting and is constantly looking to be entertained by new alternatives. New social networking platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and etc are more preferred by Generation Z as its mechanics and nature differs greatly from Facebook and offers a more innovative way to communicate with each other.

Understand these trends and factors to reach and engage them successfully. Most brands make the mistake of thinking that targeting 10 year olds are a waste of time, effort and money. This is by far the worst mistake they’ll ever make because these Post-Millennials are forming perceptions towards brands since an early age. They play a huge part in their parent’s buying decisions and has huge potential in turning into your loyal customers in the future. It is definitely a long run investment that benefits your business greatly in the future.

Find out more on how your business can focus on crafting marketing strategy to engage Generation Z while having peace of mind of having technical infrastructure being taken care of here.

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Learn The Secret to Unlocking the Content Marketing Treasure-trove

The phrase ‘content is king’ gets thrown around very frequently to highlight how important content is. In my view interactivity plays an important role and should not be discounted from the content creation process.

Interactive content is extremely beneficial for business as it attracts audience, boosts engagement, increases web traffic, and increases conversion rate. Businesses often neglect the importance of the interactive element as they are too driven to produce more content. Producing excessive content will make it seem generic and even make your audience lose interest when you see them swimming off to other competitors that are most focused on content that are engaging.

Think of it this way, if you’re planning to buy something online, what is the first thing you do? You'll want to make sure you check online to read reviews and when convinced you will try your level best to find the best deals you can get in the marketplace. Access to an array of information freely has caused today's consumers to be more savvy when making a purchase with online research taking a foothold in the decision making process before a buying decision is even made. This is different from conventional purchasing habits. However traditional recommendations from high-value connections in your network which consumers view and trust highly still play an integral role in the buying decision too. This is why ever more so you should facilitate a consumer's behavior by servicing their need for information with interactive thoughtful ideas to further enhance their decision to purchase from you.

Interactive content is the fundamentals of lead generation and conversion. It enriches your marketing plan as it elevates it to a different tier that creates an engaging experience for your customers.

Interactive content is different from traditional content as it seeks to engage and entertain its users. The mechanics of the internet and websites have allowed content to exist in different forms that can be presented in various ways.

The few common and effective interactive content are:

i) Infographics

ii) GIFs,

iii) Videos

iv) Podcasts

v) Webinars

The examples above do not represent the boundaries of interactive content. Interactivity should be embodied by creative freedom. Innovative elements with the guide of thought to engage the audience by providing an experience can unlock a lot of potential in the content you produce. Rather than taking the side of the informant, why not gamify, request for an opinion, or start a conversation, because these are some of the building blocks to making highly successful interactive content. Have your audience engage and interact with your content and you would have developed a valuable community that shares and relies on the information you recommend to them, and this can indirectly lead to better sales opportunities and strong positive brand perceptions.

Now, the million dollar question: Why, and how is interactive content beneficial?

Enriches The Appeal Of Your Website

Interactive content contributes heavily to make a website seem well-designed. We cannot deny that humans like to be satisfied visually. We like seeing beautiful things and are always mesmerised by things that are visually stunning. This is why the way a website looks is crucial in attracting and sustaining your audience.

With that being said, the thing that truly engages them is the interactive content you have distributed over your website. Interactive content emphasises more on visual elements, which is much more appealing than normal content. It enhances the overall ‘beauty’ of your website and has a higher chance in making page visitors to explore your website because let’s face it, no one would be interested in navigating through a boring website that is lackluster in its design and content.

Entices Your Audience To Buy

Interactive content grabs an online user’s attention. Furthermore, it’s extremely informative and educative. The interactive mechanism allows users to understand the product more in an innovative way, along with relevant information that drives the users to purchase.

It also important to intelligently incorporate your interactive content with your website’s call-to-action (CTAs) widgets. Delivering content that entices your audience should also be capitalized, build content so that it translates to measurable goals. By incorporating these in your strategy your audience will be more convinced to interact with the product or service in which you have to offer.

Increases Social Sharings & Engagements

When people had hands-on experience on how remarkable your interactive content is, they will surely share it with friends, either by mouth or through social media. Word of your business will reach more people, increasing brand awareness.

Keep up the momentum and provide updates constantly to entertain your audience and keep them on the hook. Utilise social media as a tool to spread the news about your interactive content and get more people to visit it.

Boosts Your Business Revenues

Successfully improving readership and website visits means that there are more people who will mostly likely end up buying your products/services. It exposes your content to more visibility and more people will visit it and experience it themselves. The increase in readers/viewership automatically translate it to higher sales for your business as the chances of people buying your products/services are higher.

Most companies put attracting customers/readers/viewership as their utmost priority because your business needs to get a notable amount of visibility and exposure in order to reach the right people that are interested in your products/services.

Interactive content is the key to acing your content marketing strategy. It drives leads and conversions, which ultimately results in the boost of business revenue. Devise your content marketing plan carefully and be sure to produce interactive content that will lay an impact to your audience.

You can find more information on how you can deploy your interactive content here through EVERWORKS unique mobile distribution gateways.

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Announcement - MyIX Maintenance - 22 October 2016

Dear MyIX members/peers,

Please take note that AIMS-CYBERJAYA link (74km) will be brought down for final UAT.  The details as below :-

Date      :  22/10/2016 (Saturday)
Time      : 0000 to 0400
Activity  :  UAT

However, there is no impact to peering as traffic will be will diverted to another path during the activity.

Any inconvenience is regretted.

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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Website Redesign ROI

The ROI of website redesign can be hard to quantify with no concrete metric that can be used to directly relate to ROI measurement. Like any ROI the calculations are based on cost and results.

Costs

Website pricing really varies. The costs range from free DIY tools to millions of dollars for high-end digital agencies. Web designers can start low for a freelancer or expensive for a complex website from a big web development firm. Generally the price of a website relates to the amount of time it takes to create it, as there are very little or no material costs, since pixels and code aren't bought like inventory the costs are based on the estimates of time required for design, programming, communication, and license purchase.

The content (writing and images) also takes time, whether handled by the web firm or a freelance team or the company itself. This adds up to a total amount of hours that must be used multiply with the hourly rate equating to the total project fee.

Here are some of the major cost factors:

• Project management and communication: How many people required to work on your project.
• Design: Is this an off-the-shelf template being used or something made custom.
• Programming: Is it a standard feature or more custom?
• Team: Are there a lot of specialists required?
• Content: Is it a site that requires a lot of new writing? Is there photography or video production needed?
• CMS Platform: This isn't really a factor because different platforms can still be made use to achieve complex things. WordPress is also used for sites like CNN.com
• Licenses: Important thing to factor in when using some features or functions or images on your site. This can incur an additional cost to the project.

Results

There is a clear distinction between the objectives of the website where revenue generating metrics can be calculated directly from e-commerce sites or in the value of leads for a lead generation website.

There are many factors that affect the calculation for the return on investment, but generally they are:

• The cost of creating the website
• The cost of maintaining the website - post-launch operating expense (content marketing and advertising)
• The traffic - number of visitors is normally a measure of a successful marketing activity not web design.
• Conversion rate - this is a web design metric and not a marketing activity as this has an impact on conversions but together the traffic times the conversion rate equals results.
• The website lifespan.

Just compare objectively costs and returns over a period of time to identify if the right marketing strategies are in place to drive relevant traffic for conversion to occur.

Ensure that you suffer from very little downtime to ensure that your website investment is given sufficient opportunity to display its potential conversion capabilities to your target customers here.

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How to Choose a Programming Language for Your Business

With technology now central to most business processes and as a business owner you might be asking  how do I know that the developers I have engaged is using the programming language that's best for my business? To solve this let's do it in a few bite-sized steps:

What should you ask first?

An early easy check is to just ask the appointed developer if he has done this kind of work before and find out if it was successful. Just check their references and you have to understand that you can't treat all technology you are asking for as a one size fits all solution to work just straight out of the box. Shoes have different sizes and technology also has different fits depending on the specific requirements your business might have. As a result you need to choose a programming language that is flexible and scalable to adapt along with your business needs. This can take a few different versions before it actually gets right.

Are there any specific requirements you need to get from your lead programmer?

First ask what programming language and framework are going to be used and what the thought process is behind that decision. Second ask if they have already checked out third-party libraries for ready made code that can be used off the rack so the programming team isn't spending unnecessary time  to reinvent the wheel when the wheel has already been invented.

Which languages are the safest?

1. Web apps, use Ruby on Rails
2. For iPhone apps use Swift or Objective C
3. For Android use Native Development Kit
4. For a simple website, go with WordPress
5. For e-commerce, use WordPress and WooCommerce or Shopify if you are looking for an all-in-one solution (This is a simple web-store that can function perform most tasks well).

Get online and host with a reliable and affordable web host so you can get any of your ideas online and in front of your targeted audience.

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The Straightforward Guide to Choosing Between Wordpress vs Joomla vs Drupal

A website is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. Companies are scrambling to get onto the bandwagon, and some are doing it with greater ease than others.

How is this being accomplished?

Marketing teams now can leverage on the Content Management System ("CMS"), which allows you to make changes to a website without needing to touch a single line of code.

Do you have an intention to get a new powerful website online but can't wait around to invest a good amount of investment into a custom site, then look no more because CMS is here.

WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal all offer great features and a ton of customizations, ease, and great security. The best bit is these are free.

The big question is then which do you choose from when all of them are free and all have good options and functions to perform certain tasks.

All 3 CMS choices have their different advantages and personally I approach them differently depending on the task I need to complete. Find out how these compare below:

WordPress

The world's most popular content management system. Great for beginners.

1. Easy to install - many web hosting companies offer instant, automated WordPress installs. That means you can get a brand new website up-and-running in less than five minutes.
2. Customizable - has more plugins because of its widespread popularity.
3. Free - Yes no-strings-attached and free to use.
4. Community support - Have any issues or questions about your new WordPress site tap into the millions of people already using and supporting it.

The biggest drawback is you can't have the ability to make significant visual edits, without the help of a designer and/or a developer.

Drupal

Number two.

1. Technically advanced - Drupal is for tech people who likes to get their hands dirty.
2. Improved Performance - Drupal pages load more quickly and faster response time when compared to WordPress or Joomla. This means you might need a powerful server only when you have too many third party plugins bogging down the performance of your site.
3. Customizable - Drupal is easy to customize with many widely available plug-ins, themes, and other configurable options to choose from.
4. Free - Like WordPress Drupal is also free.

Drupal is the most powerful CMS out of the box, but you do need to have a basic knowledge of HTML, PHP and other programming languages and being able to trouble shoot error messages and identify code problems will be a massive benefit.

You will need to hire technical expertise as your site becomes more complex and this can be a problem as it is typically harder to find someone with deep Drupal knowledge because  of its steep learning curve unlike WordPress programmers. You need to host first before you start on a new Drupal site and this can be a stumbling block for most people.

Joomla

The CMS that is between both WordPress and Drupal.

Powerful enough to run most websites with no problems and doesn't require the same level of technical experience to run as Drupal either.

It's number two behind WordPress as the most used CMS. So there are plenty of available plugins and themes to choose from.

Joomla is a good choice if one of the following is what you want to achieve:

1. Commerce sites - You can get a store done quickly without much customization work.
2. Social Networking - You can set up really quickly and easily using Joomla.
3. Not too technical - Joomla is in the middle between ease and power so its good news to non-tech savvy people.
4. Help portal - Asking questions and getting technical support.
5. Free - Just like WordPress and Drupal.

Making your choice.

This can be a tough choice, with a lot of users online that are debating one is better than another. However, it should be noted that each does have benefits that lean more to one side when compared to another. Here are amongst some tips I can give below:

1. Want to start with a simple website or blog use WordPress.
2. If your website will grow significantly needing extensive features and unlimited customizations use Drupal.
3. If you are split between both or need a social network or an eCommerce site, use Joomla.

Don't worry because all three platforms are free, and each offers a variety of helpful third-party tools to add unique features to your website. There is readily available technical support, but Drupal's is among the most expensive.

Once you have chosen which platform to use and leverage on make sure you check out a reliable hosting provider to ensure that your website is always online to reach your target audiences.

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10 Effortless Ways to Secure Your Wordpress Website

I've had my website hacked once, and believe me it isn't anyone else should experience. When your website gets hacked you end up spending a good amount of time trying to fix things that you don't necessarily understand. Thankfully the hack wasn't deep it and if it was, that would mean all of the effort that I have previously put into my website going up in smoke in a flash. I learned things the hard way, I had to patch multiple things and change my web host and that did the trick and fixed everything. More on the importance of choosing the right hosting plan later below. I do acknowledge that not everyone is as lucky as me. I've got a friend that had not just his site taken down but his whole domain blacklisted.

I did some research and it seems that WordPress site hacking is much more common than we would like it to be and it is steadily rising. A lot of people, like me, have their sites hacked too. Although I shouldn't sound so enthusiastic over this, but it is a sad fact.

Wait didn't we all ask this one question before:

Why would anyone want to hack my site? It is worth nothing.

I know, I know our site isn't up there in with the stars of the show. But after reading up a bit it seems that a great majority of attacks are automated where hackers (people who hack our websites) create bots (pieces of software) to crawl the online web space and look for vulnerable websites. Why would they do that? It seems that if they are successful the hacked website gets added to their portfolio, so to speak, and used for whatever objectives that they might have.

Wordpress is awesome, and popular, but it does have its problems. So to say WordPress security doesn't happen automatically. Think of it this way, why go after a CMS that nobody really uses. Going after the most popular one makes the most "hacking sense".

This is the beginner's guide. An absolute must just to make sure that bots don't find you too easy to hack.

This you must do:

1. Secure your Admin account

Don't use an obvious login/username for your administrator account like "admin" for example. This is too easy for anyone to guess, instead try "darth-vader" or "king-alexander". You might be wondering right now hey wait a sec, doesn't Wordpress not allow you to change WordPress once installation has been set? Don't worry there is a way around it all you have to do is:

Create a new user account (Users > Add New), then assign the new user an Administrator role;
Delete your original administrator account (also in users) then you are good to go!

2. Use an Editor account for content work

Using your main Administrator account for editing/publishing work can be risky especially if you are using wifi at a cafe or a public space. You should instead work on an Editor account for all content work you do making the login not so obvious. To do this go back again to creating a new user account (Users > Add New), then assign a new user to be an Editor. Now you are good to go!

3. Use secure passwords

1. Don't use passwords that are easy to guess. 
2. You can sign up for LastPass (don't worry it's free) and set that ultra secure password as your main password.
3. Then use LastPass to generate safe passwords for everything going on with your site.

4. Limit login attempts

Password guessing is a big threat. A bot, or human can make multiple attempts at guessing your password combinations until they get it right. They might not succeed in 10-20 attempts but if you are using a semi-complex password the 100,000th attempt can be successful.

5. Secure your own machine 

Securing your website would be pointless if the machine you are using to access the site is compromised. This is a simple solution that most people overlook. Install good anti-virus software and take good care of your computer.

6. Update WordPress regularly

Updating WordPress is one of those things that everyone knows it is important to do, but it still ends up being forgotten. For every change of a new release of WordPress they release a change log, every bug that has been fixed is listed. Look at it as a manual for hackers who want to target older versions of WordPress. The solution is simpler than you would think it is. Just enable auto-updates for your WordPress sites or make an update manually as soon as you see a notification on your dashboard.

7. Update plugins regularly

Updates shouldn't just be on WordPress make sure you repeat the update process for your plugins.

8. Backup.

Backups won't secure your site from being hacked, but it is an absolute necessity in case things do get out of hand. Backups are invaluable. You can restore your site back to normal no matter what bad things might happen.

I use a free plugin WordPress Backup to Dropbox; or you could do it through a more feature-rich solution VaultPress (this costs money).

9. Choose the best web host you can afford.

Cheap hosting can lead to a host of problems. Think of it as renting a computer that has little management on it. This may not be the issue with your site but it can be the server itself that got hacked.

Some quality recommendations:

1. EVERWORKS
2. Bluehost

10. Download plugins and themes from known sources

Same old rule with email. Only download email you know rule. Same applies with themes and plugins. Go for the tried and tested reputable offers such as ThemeForest and CodeCanyon. They do a fair bit of reviewing for each new theme and plugin submitted there so you should be fine.

Is this a bit too overwhelming to implement all at once? Don't sweat it. Make sure you update your WordPress it is by far the easiest thing to do.

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Easy ECommerce Content Marketing for Absolute Beginners

Ecommerce is gaining momentum in Malaysia these days.

The chances of whatever you are selling is going up against some tough competition. It can feel daunting like David against Goliath. The great thing about it is David won and so can you.

Sure you need traffic that means getting backlinks and getting links to product pages is tough. So you should be excited to know that there is a proven and predictable way to build backlinks, build authority and increase your website traffic. This isn't a buy leads advertisement. This is 100% legit and should increase traffic to your website.

What is it? It's called Ecommerce Content Marketing and it involves a six step sequence of actions you are about to discover below. 

1. Buyer personas

You should start with creating a persona. The chances are that you already have a picture in your mind of who they are. The only thing is you now need to know where they live, what their income, their job, their needs and everything about them to know them better. Don't worry if it isn't 100% accurate but the main idea is to get the ideal so that you know what content you will be creating an most importantly for who.

2. Identify influencers

You can have the best of everything but you won't have anything if no one is interested or pays an attention to you. It is very crucial to develop a valid audience that will keep up with what you have to offerings and eventually become active buyers. There is a slow boring way to build up a slow following but there's a faster way than that.

This involves influencers. People in your niche who are going to help you with the heavy lifting when it comes to promoting your content. There are some common characteristics such as a blog with an engaged audience, an active social media presence, or they operate in the same niche that has the same audience with you but is non-competitive in nature.

One you got that list going you need to start an outreach campaign that could start with simply following them on social media and subscribing to their blogs, commenting on their blogs and interacting with their audience and promoting them whenever possible.

Over time as you get better at creating content and your authority grows so will your confidence grow and you could probably get away with a more direct approach.

3. Content for traffic

Before that there is a fact that in 2012 Google does not endorse websites with little content and questionable linking profiles. You should invest into obtaining backlinks from reputable, high quality, authority sites; but as you should know these don't come easily you gotta earn it.

Example:

1. List based content - example: top 20 hosting companies in Malaysia.
2. Side by side comparisons - which is better managed hosting or do-it-yourself hosting.

4. conversion content

Content can get you more than just traffic. There are proven content that work hard at the business end of the funnel where when you have already engaged your visitor they engage your visitor to consider converting to purchase. These content examples include: Buyers guide, How to guides, Product videos, Case studies, etc.

Running an Ecommerce store is tough especially when you live or die through traffic generation. This means you need links and these are not easy to come by. A proven way is to get backlinks and social shares from authority sites.

So what types of content do you like? Are you using any of these types of content already? Please share your experience on what works best for you.

Host your Ecommerce now. Find out how you can - click here.

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3 Magic Tips to Increase Your Marketing ROI

Data is everywhere. Everything from social media followers, to unique visitors through ppc, or organic visitors generated through SEO. It can be overwhelming, but don't get confused about how marketing analytics relates to ROI. All you need to do is set a clear, short and long-term objectives to surely start the beginning of profit improvement and well planned resource allocation.

Often ROI underperforms due to distractions in the expected performance. The solution? Recognize the distractions and execute differently.

1. Start by Planning

Plan for ROI. Value exists in quantifying the expected outcomes from the marketing activities you are about to enter into. Learn what to measure, when to measure, and how to measure them so that your marketing investments make quantifiable logic. In order to achieve your goals, make sure you establish specific steps to ensure that the processes that you are embarking on has clarity wrapped around the actions you are going to take.

There is a great desire for every campaign to be measured but only very few are able to effectively evaluate the ROI of each channel employed, and only half are using web analytics tools to measure marketing campaign effectively.

Start by creating an initial outline. Look at historical data (if none, don't fret just start) and notice if there are any trends that work parallel with campaigns carried out or outliers that occur when no marketing activity has been carried out. Make sure there is an implementation plan to install analytics into your existing plan. Without it you will have no capability to measure the results of your campaigns effectively.

Once you have both your initial outline and web analytics implementation plan in place you should come to realize that measuring ROI is a lot easier when you have a good plan in place. Preparing this has benefits as it relates to senior management in terms of marketing dollars and gives them a good expectation based on the objectives you have outlined allowing them to identify the anticipated ROI.

Make sure you keep in mind to:

1. Align your marketing plans and analytics with financial goals your organization has.
2. Use predictive modeling in the analysis of your marketing data.
3. Make sure to capture customer engagement data from social feeds to show positive conversions.

2. Don't use vanity measures

Distractions are always nice to have, but you shouldn't tempt yourself with them. Followers, likes and number of shares gives good bragging rights but they do not correlate to conversions or revenues. You should focus on metrics that convert. This in turn equates to ROI. Use metrics like lifetime value, blog shares, cost per acquisition, engagement, and number of active users. 

Mentioned before there is a wealth of data available but it is important that you collect the right data. This saves you time and allows you to make better decisions. This helps you to: 

1. create better customized reports with the data that matters to your company, 
2. consistently track your customers behavior, 
3. and analyze the performance of your marketing campaigns with better accuracy.

3. Sales

Your customers aren't like before, customers today are informed buyers. They make purchases based on blogs, reviews and social networks. Good news. Now with the efforts above you should be able to gain a wealth of information on your customers' behaviors. There is a value to knowing that information but your team and senior management can't relate. Why? Simple, because all that data isn't in the form of revenue.

Bring it all back to where we started. Get your team and senior management on the bandwagon. Your marketing campaigns that produce quantifiable ROI should suggest that everyone should focus on how marketing impacts sales not spend that is not measurable in terms of revenue.

Use data to increase sales by:

1. Use analytics
2. Understanding the journey of the customer
3. Creating a ROI discussion throughout the organization not just marketing and sales.

Data is really important to organizations today. Focus on your marketing ROI and don't let pesky technological infrastructure bog you down. Find out how - click here.

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Copy This Process to Create Data-Driven Marketing Campaigns

Is marketing dead?

Previously brands that have the most incentive to spend large amounts of money had the most authority in their fields and therefore, won the battle. As the world continues to grow there is a shift that today we have moved to a more customer centric are where your brand's value is determined by its ability to connect effectively with your target audience. You could win them over by going above and beyond to cater to everything they need and all of their interests.

This may sound like a win-win situation, but this proves to be extremely challenging when on a massive scale. That is why every marketer should turn to data to understand what their customers really want on a deeper more personal level.

With data you can attain basic demographical information but you could have stronger access to more valuable information like buying patterns and conversion performances on promotions and offers.

Key to your data is interpreting it in a way that brings most value to your goal. This information enriches your campaigns and makes them more pertinent to your audience.

Big Data

Big data tech is making big waves in multiple industries and there is a lot of chatter on the internet regarding this matter.

The name itself makes it feel vague and very allusive with those of us who are unfamiliar with it. In simple terms the term "big data" is actually a process of analyzing large sets of data in order to attain patterns in behavior, activities and many other important implications.

Doesn't this sound all too familiar? These data represent information that is valuable to you and the key is in analyzing those data, which we will discuss as you read along.

You should be able to see that from a marketing standpoint this is an absolute deal breaker. What if you had all the necessary information in one easy place regarding all the buying habits, trends, the likes and dislikes of a particular user segment.

ou would be able to tune all of your marketing activities to set it according to your customer needs and specify your targeting initiatives to the next level. This could give you more sales, greater loyalty and customer retention all of which are game changers your business could do with.

There are numerous case studies that show how big data has improved established businesses and this could be of help to you too.

You must be wondering by now, if big data is really helping big businesses give better insights into their customers, doesn't that mean that this will require expertise that you do not have? Good thing here is you can take advantage of big data technology providers and you can learn how below through proven strategies.

1. Retargeting campaigns

Retargeting is crucial for all expert marketers where according to Inbound Ascension efforts resulted in an increase of 7425% ROI, which shows the effectiveness of these campaigns

Results such as this increases the potential engagement and loyalty from customers and it is what makes retargeting very popular especially in the realm of ecommerce and other similar industries.

Essentially retargeting reaches out to people who have previously shown interest under specific products when you have access to valuable data such as location, interests, and which products have been looked at in the past.

2. Targeted email marketing

To bring your email marketing campaigns to the next level, keep everything mentioned above in your thoughts. All of the data collected will help you bring all the information necessary to create personas of various micro segments so that you can develop effective email campaigns specifically geared to their needs and interests in order to grab them from the beginning.

For example, you can pair all the doctors in Kuala Lumpur, or group together a bunch of teen Pokemon Go players living in Johor. You shouldn't just stop there, create emails to trigger their behavior and it should recapture disengaged customers.

Without data analytics however, creating personalized email campaigns that truly match a customer's unique preferences is nearly impossible, it becomes more of a guessing game. Having a non-stable platform to facilitate data retrieval is also a potential problem; more on this later.

3. Landing Pages

A logical user journey is a simple analogy used as a way to better understand mass user preferences. Landing pages allow you to reel customers in according to a logical user journey.

Customers connect to you through various search terms relevant to the products and/or solutions you offer and are more likely to engage with your desired call to action.

Backed with data analytics can bring this to another level. Unlike typical landing pages, targeted landing pages use data to come up with which segments of your audience is interested to come up with particular topics to meet their interests.

This way, you can target the most relevant personas for each landing page, gaining interest and more relevant prospects each time.

Infrastructure Reliability

Using data to drive your campaigns can help your marketing soar to new heights. You become more connected to your customers' needs and as a result, they are more likely to rely on your solutions for years to come. This is evident with a stable environment that facilities reliable architecture on a strong infrastructure network. It is also important to have a platform to facilitate data retrieval and with reliable hosting to keep your website up 24 hours to allow constant customer engagement.

Final thoughts

Use data to drive your campaigns.

Your marketing will be a step above generic unfocused marketing efforts. Target the most effective segments to make the most of your marketing investments and benefit through stronger ROI.

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Announcement - 2016 Selamat Hari Raya and Office Closure

Dear Valued Customers,

In conjunction with the celebration of  Hari Raya Aidilfitri, we would like to inform you that our office will be closed on 6^th of July 2016 (Wednesday). 

We will resume our operation on 11^th of July 2016 (Monday).

Kindly please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further clarification. We would like to take this opportunity to wish ‘Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri’.

Thank you for your continuous support.

Best Regards,
EVERWORKS Solutions (M) Sdn Bhd - Malaysia

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Announcement - MYNIC Planned Maintenance Notice - 24th - 25th May 2016

Dear Valued Resellers,

Please be informed that MYNIC will be conducting planned maintenance works as below:

Start : 24 May 2016 (Tuesday) 11.00 PM
End  : 25 May 2016 (Wednesday) 1.00 AM

Kindly note that MYNIC's Domain Management System (DMS) services will not be available during the maintenance time. MYNIC will try their best to minimize the downtime.

Please contact MYNIC at customercare@mynic.my or call 1 300-88-7277 should you have any inquiries.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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Foreign Investment Mobile Opportunity

EVERWORKS leverages on foreign small-cap opportunity as there is a noticeable gap where investments into this segment represents little exposure to the investment ecosystem and there is a tendency for it to be underinvested. With historically good returns international small-caps represent a good place to invest as there are better growth opportunities abroad, less covered by analysts and as a result represents more opportunity to discover undiscovered underpriced companies.

There are three primary strategies that we tend to follow:

1. The first strategy we tend to follow is our want to get to know the companies that we want to invest in. How we discover information in a diluted information space is represented in a few fundamentals that we really like. We have a strong tendency to invest into an industry that is similar to the one that we are currently pursuing as we have strong expertise in the technological engineering departments to identify what are the strengths the company can offer that we might be interested in. We tend to do fundamental research into the market competitiveness situation and talk to people that are knowledgeable in the industry.
2. Secondly, we follow the future, where at one period of time there was only 500 apps and now some over 500,000 apps available for the iPhone with 3G or 4G data usage expected to increase from 27% to 80% by the end of the decade so we own companies that are innovative to take advantage of the increased demand with ways to meet this through the employment of technological infrastructures and strategies.
3. Thirdly, we invest in hard performance companies. We look for companies with strong cash flows and positive net working capital before justifying our interest in the target company. Among some of the other areas we look into include low liability commitments and healthy cash flow that is able to repay monthly commitments without the need for separate financing or dependencies.

These represent a general guideline for out foreign investment process but there are variations that may affect our decisions even when the fundamentals above indicate a strong possibility for investment. Amongst some of the major factors that may influence our decision to invest or not to invest represents exchange rate risks, the liquidity of the target company, and the overall economic performance of the country being invested into for the particular industry we are considering.

Within our ability to take advantage of our competitive advantages in our existing business model and infrastructure we are able to identify key areas that our investments lack. We don't necessarily invest for financial gain, but we look towards the benefits those companies can bring to our current environment to strengthen our competitiveness against our current competitors or to strengthen key areas that represent a threat to our business model.

We also consider the opportunity to diversify our gains and strategic ability in key regions to counter movements of our competitors or to take advantage of regulatory environment that promotes our business model.

Foreign investments represent to be an opportunity for us to develop a strong internationally diversified network for mobile related opportunities to expand into and for strengthening our position competitively against our competitors.

For related opportunities or ways to participate in this please feel free to refer to our webpage for products that may be part of an ability to develop a capability for your business to build a sustainable competitive advantage. 

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Announcement - WebNIC Maintenance - 15th May 2016

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that WebNIC will be conducting a Maintenance for WebNIC default DNS (ns1@ezydomain.com & ns2@ezydomain.com).

During the maintenance period, all the domain using WebNIC default DNS will be having intermittent connection error.

The maintenance details are as follow:

Maintenance
Unit	Date	Start Time (GMT+0800)	End Time (GMT+0800)	Production Downtime
WebNIC	May 15, 2016 (Sunday)	1300 hrs	1500 hrs	2 hour

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at support@webnic.cc.

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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Announcement - MYNIC Interruption on WHOIS and Domain Management System - 14th April 2016

Dear Valued Resellers,

Please be informed that MYNIC will be conducting planned maintenance works as below:

Start : 14 April 2016 (Thursday) 11.30 PM
End   : 15 April 2016 (Friday) 1.30 AM

Kindly note that MYNIC's WHOIS and Domain Management System (DMS) services will not be available during the maintenance time. MYNIC will try their best to minimize the downtime.

Please contact MYNIC at customercare@mynic.my or call 1 300-88-7277 should you have any inquiries.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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Announcement - DiGi Planned Maintenance Notification - 14th April 2016

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a planned system maintenance by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

14th April (Thursday) 2016

01:00 ~ 05:00 hrs (GMT +8)

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a planned maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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Announcement - Intelligent Earnings is Hiring (Referrers Get a RM300 Cash Reward)

Please Recommend for Us!

Intelligent Earnings is one of the fastest-growing mobile app development companies. We seek talents with a solid background in creative with impeccable project development skills and exceptional communication skills. 

If you know the candidates would be someone who is proactive, resourceful, and organized, kindly recommend to us! The candidates who successful enroll, the referral will get RM300 cash reward.

We are looking for :
1. Mobile Application Developer (iOS or Android)
2. Backend System Developer (Java or Php)
3. Mobile Game Developer (iOS or Android)

At Intelligent Earnings, we know how mobile applications are big deals on small devices.

Therefore we provide a 360 solution to all partners and clients from start-to-end and raw-to-finesse. We always believe in forging new and meaningful business relationships through our commitment and dedication to provide anything but extraordinary！

Check it out on www.intelligent-earnings.com

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Job opportunity at Intelligent Earnings Sdn Bhd

Intelligent Earnings is one of the fastest-growing mobile app development companies. We seek talents with a solid background in creative with impeccable project development skills and exceptional communication skills. If you know the candidates would be someone who is proactive, resourceful, and organized, kindly recommend to us! The candidates who successful enroll, the referral will get RM300 cash reward.

We are looking for :
1. Mobile Application Developer (iOS or Android)
2. Backend System Developer (Java or Php)
3. Mobile Game Developer (iOS or Android)

Intelligent Earnings Sdn Bhd is a leading publisher and developer of mobile apps and games in ASEAN. We partner with world top applications and game studios and publish in ASEAN countries. And we also develop topnotch app with absolute pixel perfection to enhance user interactivity and experience.

At Intelligent Earnings, we know how mobile applications are big deals on small devices. Therefore we provide a 360 solution to all partners and clients from start-to-end and raw-to-finesse. We always believe in forging new and meaningful business relationships through our commitment and dedication to provide anything but extraordinary！

Check it out on www.intelligent-earnings.com

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Announcement - WebNIC Maintenance - 13th March 2016

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that WebNIC will be conducting a Maintenance for WebNIC default DNS (ns1@ezydomain.com & ns2@ezydomain.com).

During the maintenance period, all the domain using WebNIC default DNS will be having intermittent connection error.

The maintenance details are as follow:

Maintenance
Unit	Date	Start Time (GMT+0800)	End Time (GMT+0800)	Production Downtime
WebNIC	March 13, 2016 (Sunday)	1100 hrs	1200 hrs	1 hour

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at support@webnic.cc.

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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5 Tips for Creating The Perfect SMS Marketing Message

Text Message Marketing (SMS Marketing) has only 160-Characters, but can leave a lasting impression on your customers. It is also very personal and care must be taken when crafting a message. This fundamental character limit forces you to make sure that the text message being marketed is clear and simple.

1. Always Deliver Value

This may seem obvious, but with a strong personal attachment to the mobile phone you have to make sure that you have a strong time sensitive offer to give people a strong sense of value. They need to feel that they are getting something that others are not and it was a good decision to give up their mobile phone number. Good SMS content can come from exclusive offers that are different from sending out vague sale alerts resulting in a tendency for the customer to regard it as spam and want to opt-out. This is consistent with the need to be clear and concise. 

2. Speak in Plain Language

Do not type in acronyms. Although it does shorten text messages, but it leaves customers questioning what those acronyms mean. It is better to speak in plain simple language, so that there is clear ability to digest the message with a short glance. This eliminates the need to decipher code and leave an impression that your brand as coming off as "trying to hard".

3. Display Business Name First

Many people neglect this. Often numbers sent out are using automated processes and systems. Put your business name first to remove all doubt. Although, there is a possible way to display a name as a caller ID, but issue arises when the user is actually unable to respond.

4. Add Interactive Call to Action

You can engage a customer by mobile by adding quality call to actions. Discussed here are two primary methods of engaging a user with SMS:

• User reply with a keyword trigger, an auto reply, or forward to an application.
• Add a URL linking to a mobile web page. Google map, mobile video, application download or other rich media. Use a URL Shortener like bit.ly to save on characters and bit.ly has analytics so you can see how many recipients visited the link and with what device.

5. Remind about made opt-in decisions

Customers should be reminded of how they came to be on your list, whether a loyalty program member, previous purchaser or previous competition entrant you shouldn't generate frustration in the user as a perceived spammer.

Find out how you can start your SMS Campaign now here.

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Announcement - 2016 Office Closure for Chinese New Year

Dear Valued Customers & Readers,

EVERWORKS Office will be closed for Chinese New Year:

From

Monday (8th Feb 2016)

To

Friday (12th Feb 2016)

Normal operations will resume on:

Monday (15th Feb 2016)

Thank you so much for your kind understanding. For issues requiring immediate attention please do not hesitate to contact our technical team.

For technical support, please do not hesitate to contact 24-hour email support at:

cvs@everworks.com

Happy Holidays!

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