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What are the steps to take for workers compensation claims after a work accident occurs

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Most people need to work in order to pay their bills. At the same time, many workplaces can actually be dangerous for the worker. While the workplace is actually getting safer in Australia, many workers face all sorts of risks simply by going to work. This is why all workers should be aware of what they need to do in the event of a work accident. Proper attention to procedures and an understanding of how best to respond offers many benefits. Workers who get prompt medical attention are more likely to recover from an injury. They’re also more likely to get a response for their workers compensation claims if they have completed all necessary steps related to an accident at work in a timely manner. These simple steps will help any worker make sure that all is done properly even after a serious accident at work.

Contact a Doctor

A minor slip may initially seem unimportant. However, even minor falls can have serious consequences. An injury of any kind may take several hours to be obvious. This is why it is best to contact a doctor as soon as possible even if the injury appears to be minor. Any company should have a list of medical professionals that can come to the workplace if needed. A doctor can examine the patient and determine if there are any injuries that need further attention. In the event of a more serious workplace accident, it’s best to contact help as soon as the accident is noted. Bringing an ambulance to the scene can help ward off more serious medical issues and make sure that all workers receive the prompt medical treatment required by workplace laws.

Secure the Area

The area where the accident happened needs to be secured. No one should be allowed there unless authorized. It’s a good idea to take lots of photographs if possible to indicate what the scene looked like in the immediate aftermath. Documentation can help indicate if there was negligence present on the part of the owners and employers. It can also make sure any conditions that led to the accident in the first place are remedied as soon as possible. Any machinery that isn’t working properly needs to be shut down immediately in order to avoid further accidents. This process should be highly documented at every turn, allowing any examiner to see what steps were taken to prevent any additional accidents and protect any remaining workers.

Begin an Investigation

Once workers have begun receiving any necessary medical treatment, any employer should begin the process of onsite investigation. An investigation should have several components. The employer needs to find out exactly what happened and why. They also need to know if this issue can arise again. All workers present on the scene at the time should be interviewed and have their interview formally recorded. Workers should also have the opportunity to explain what they think went wrong. Any adjacent areas next to the accident should also be carefully examined in order to see if there were factors there that contributed to the accident in some way.

The Injured Party

Anyone who has been injured in any kind of workplace accident should also take certain steps to protect their self-interest. Once they’ve received initial treatment and can function without immediate, ongoing, incapacitating pain, many people will find there are people trying to contact them about the accident. There may be investigators from the government that want to know what happened and gets their voices in person. Anyone facing a workplace injury should think carefully about their next step. Hiring a lawyer such as from Foyle legal can be very useful. Even a minor injury can have lasting consequences. For example, someone may have injured their shoulder. Going forward, this can make it hard for the person to raise their arms. If they are required to repeatedly lift their arms at work, an injury of this kind can make it harder for them to function on the job. This is why anyone who has any sort of injury should be aware of the kind of steps they might need to take going forward.

Medical Care

Medical care may be immediate and ongoing, or a combination of both as the injured party continues in the aftermath of the accident. Bills can also pile up. Anyone who has been in a workplace accident should find out if they are eligible for compensation in some way. Compensation can take many forms in the aftermath of workplace accident. An injured party may be eligible for a lump sum intended to help them get on their feet and compensate them for a permanent injury. They may also be eligible for other forms of compensation. For example, if the injured party is unable to work for a period of time, they may be able to apply for disability insurance, a lawyer can help the applicant figure out the ideal way to make such an application and make sure it is done properly the first time.

Additional Steps

An investigation may reveal many kinds of workplace issues that led to a workplace accident. The employer may not have been following all necessary safety procedures. An employer may also have failed to warn workers about specific issues on the job and offer them the training they needed to avoid injury. In cases where there was a major accident, government officials may begin a formal investigation into the circumstances of the accident in order to determine if the supervisors and company owners accidentally or even deliberately endangered their workers and can be held liable. In that case, the worker may be called upon to give formal testimony about the circumstances of the accident to a government worker or even in court. A worker who can receive compensation should also expect to be called upon for testimony by those in charge of determining if they are eligible for compensation.

Most Common Student Loan Forgiveness Misconceptions You Should Know About

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You talk about student loans, and your mind naturally enters a stressful state. Student loans are considered one of the root causes for many mental illnesses and financial instability. The inevitable loan burden is more of a never-ending dilemma, that only seems to add up, and all of your repayments are never adequate. Rather than putting yourself through mental, emotional and financial stress, every month; you should explore all your options to get as much ease and relief on this nerve-wracking part in your rather peaceful life. When it comes to loan forgiveness, people choose to stay in the dark or just don’t know what benefits they can get out of that. The reason being, people have several established misconceptions about the number of student loan forgiveness programs that they tend to ignore whatever is good about them. Most people assume that these forgiveness options are more like an additional expense on top of their standard repayment amount, which is definitely not the case. These wrongly held beliefs lead one to close all doors of opportunities that may be a rather easy and steady way out. Here are some myths that are misleading but are still considered authentic and worth believing; here’s the truth behind them that can help you make an informed decision.

Myth # 1: There’s A Strict Eligibility Criteria

Well, every policy and program has certain criteria, and the same goes for these forgiveness programs. However, the eligibility criteria cover a vast number of people, without them realizing it. There are various programs based on your particular jobs, pay scale and other issues such as disability. Despite having standard criteria, these programs provide the debt relief most people are looking for. For example, there are programs like public service loan forgiveness, and is of great assistance for people working in the public sector. Similarly, people with total or permanent disability can benefit from the disability discharge program. Teachers have great advantages with the teacher loan forgiveness program where they can get a good amount of principal reduction along with early forgiveness. The myths or misconceptions regarding eligibility for these beneficial programs are baseless, and one should always consider doing their own research about them because you may qualify for a principal reduction, relief or even complete and partial reduction.

Myth # 2: You Can Only Get Forgiveness On Federal Loans

This is more of a belief than a myth; most people think that there are no benefits, relief or forgiveness that can be availed on private loans. The options may not be as many as federal loans, but there still are options like negotiating with your lender and getting some relief, if not forgiveness based on your credit history. You can also consolidate your loans and get some settlement over a number of private loans. 

Myth # 3: Bankruptcy is not your way out

Most people assume bankruptcy as an option never to be considered because it is only taken into account as a last resort by most people. It is not easy to opt for bankruptcy, but if your student loan repayment may result in causing you genuine undue financial hardships, then this can help in going for bankruptcy. Jay S. Fleischman, who is a lawyer and deal the student loan problems says,

“Many people who seek a discharge of their student loans in bankruptcy end up settling on a reduced balance or affordable payment plan, which may accomplish your goal of bringing the payments in line with your financial abilities.”

Quick Tip: Dealing with a creditor can be more beneficial than with an attorney.

Myth # 4: Public Service Loan Forgiveness Requires Employer Certification 

While it is important to provide proof and certification regarding your job being public service, it is not necessary to provide employer certificates and documents. Anything that authentically proves that you are a public service employee can get you the benefits of public service loan forgiveness. It is not necessary to fill out a plethora of employer certification because payments paid on direct loans and after Oct 2007, while you were working for a public service job will eventually be counted as the 120 payments the program requires.

Myth # 5: Student Loan Forgiveness Is Not For Parents:

When it comes to student loans, it is usually parents cosigning for their loans, but with PLUS loans there are no options like forgiveness. They either have to keep paying for their children or opt for consolidation. What most parents don’t know is: the public service loan forgiveness program offers income contingent and income-based repayment methods for which they can easily qualify and get relief on the hefty debt they have to pay along with several other loans like a mortgage.

Loan forgiveness is a means to help people with student loans to easily get rid of their debt, and for more and more people to benefit from, them. However, with all these myths most people don’t even bother looking into options as beneficial as these. With matters like student loans, it is extremely important that you do constant and thorough research, while consulting people with the expertise as much as you can to be able to make your way out of debt, as soon as possible.

Ask The Right Question To Be A Better Boss

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Ask the right question to be a better boss, feels the academy award winning movie and TV producer, Brian Grazer. He doesn’t prefer telling people what to do. If we want to control the curiosity then asking questions is the best solution. That is how he manages it. Normally he has around 50 conversations in a day that includes him asking questions. According to Grazer, the best administrative device is asking questions.

Asking questions gets us the information. But it also creates the gap for people to raise any issues of which they are worried about and where a boss, or colleagues, may not know. Through questions, we get a varied story from people of which we weren’t expecting. He says through questions people tell us their decision of how they want to proceed.

He is of the view that in any business it’s important to know how to “make your case”. Like the movie business or the entertainment business, it can be anywhere. The important criterion laid down is that we should know the way to present the question of how, why, what, why not and, etc. He being a producer had to make his case for around hundreds of times in over seven years for his first big production, SPLASH. For survival in any field or industry, everyone should learn how to present the questions that they wish to do.

Making the case is not limited to business; we can ask questions about any person about their life, their plan, their worries, etc. These questions are not yes/no question. They are structured in such a way that when we answer them, we can say stories that can be both one-liners and the proper big ones.

Asking questions creates assurance amongst people with whom we work. For example, we are working on a movie that has some trouble. At that time asking the executive about their plan regarding the trouble is like asking them on what should be done and how to handle the problem.

It’s human nature if we order someone to do something there can be a rebel behavior seen in that person, but if we just tell them what needs to be done, they will surely do it.  That’s the idea of how to ask questions. Being more subtle helps in getting the work done else people will find reasons to avoid the things which are supposed to be done.

While shooting for a movie there can be plenty of trouble relating to the expenses and budget, how we manage and convince the star to help is a big question.

Back in 1991, Grazer was shooting the movie Far and Away with Tom Cruise as the lead. Tom was at the top of his career, at 29 years of age he was already big in the industry. The movie, Far and away, was a challenging movie to get made. The movie got expensive and not being a commercial movie the studio told him to cut down the budget. He asked Tom to help after telling him that it can’t be a big budget movie. Tom understood and convinced other people to hold the line but still complete the movie. Tom set an example for everyone present there. Tom was actuated, and he helped people see that. It was a thing that Tom understood and did. He wasn’t told what to do. He appreciated that they came to him with the problem, treated him the same and also as a part of the answer. It is always sensible to ask people of their help rather than being directional and ordering what to do.

Questions are of such great importance that if used in a proper way can send the right message all along. We aren’t that person who just marches and give orders telling people what to do and what not to.

Asking Tom for his help in solving the problem and managing the whole movie is a strong message that ends in a question mark.

Being analytical at work isn’t a fashion. The idea is much stronger because being the head of a business, asking questions helps us in improving the culture of the company or the group.

It’s not about how friendly you are. The concern is about understanding the severity of the business world. The work is hard as there is never a correct answer.

Asking questions let us know what is happening in other people’s mind. Various modern problems have all types of answers, some being helpful, some not. To get all the possible outcomes, we need to ask questions and get the possible reactions.

Questions help the people to come up with ideas and also take a stand for them. It has a very clear message that we can listen to a variety of ideas and suggestions and get a solution for the issue.

There should be a similar kind of behavioral pattern between the boss and the worker in a workplace. While the boss asks questions about the work, how much time to devote to the company. Similarly, the people should ask the relevant questions to their bosses that they need to know to accomplish the tasks assigned to them.

Thus, the case should be that people at whatever level present should have that much of sense to ask questions as it helps in reducing the barriers in the workplace. It stops the idea that a higher post is only available to a person who has a good idea.

Imagine is as same as any other workplace. Meetings, miscommunication, brainstorming sessions, etc. happen. It’s not a perfect place, but the important thing here nobody is stopped from asking questions. Everybody asks questions, and nobody is scared to answer. He says people accept the advice or order given to them if they ask for it in the first place. They always will listen to the answer after asking the question.

5 Best Times of Job Negotiation

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Negotiation means a formal discussion with someone to reach an agreement with him/her. While working in a company, we often negotiate. But when we negotiated and got a failure, the effect can set us back in both aspects professional and personal. Perhaps the case of our job negotiation can be strong and even made an influential impact on the board.

Still, the question appears. Was the timing of the job negotiation right?

The fact is the timing of the request is crucial so that the impact of your conversations are in your side. This task is simple to do, but this can be possible only if you have primary knowledge of asking opportunity. Requesting at the right time can only drive your negotiation in a positive direction. There are five occasions on which the positive direction of your job negotiation can be driven:

  1. When you knock it out of the park on any project

If the negotiation means power to influence people then first see what the opposite party greed from you and vice versa. Then use your important wins to make your advantage. For example, if your publicity in favor of company and you along with your value is talked in a best possible way. Take this as a form of currency and use this as your advantage. Start asking for your increment in responsibility that points towards your inventory of current examples of organizing proper business value.

  1. Time when your company is experiencing a flux

The most difficult time of negotiation is when the future of the Company is uncertain. But when there is any flux about the future of the company, for example, a shakeup, merger or downsizing- the opportunity is high at that time. Perhaps the request made by you could lead an important goal for your company in the future, meet a need that is pressing one or could stabilize the born crisis there. Let’s take an example, in any company that is forcing to their employee for unprecedented productivity, keep asking for your expected role to share half with your peer. Here it is up to you to make this case as the company will get your efforts as more than one person’s total effort and also the productivity.

  1. When your company or your department has achieved an important win

Perhaps it becomes fortunate for you to work in any hot area of your organization. Even when you are not amongst those lucky masses, your involvement in that shared win should be capitalized. And after it, you will get a proper time of negotiation. Perhaps you are working as a marketer who just helped in launching of a campaign that brings your organization on the map, or you are working in HR, and the organization is recently recognized as the best place to work in. In these cases, you can utilize your presence and involvement in the successful group projects to negotiate and make your request. You should be ready to show the way your contribution mattered and also added something very important.

  1. When you have gone above and beyond

Beyond wowing your peers with a continuous great performance in the project, doing some extra can make your position uniquely good to negotiate. For example, when your senior asks you to go somewhere that no other employees want to travel, indulge you in any ridiculous 11:00 pm request of any client or to do anything at the weekend. These are some examples of discretionary effort which results in your trustworthiness, loyalty, and reliability to your boss.

  1. After you are told “No” on minimum two other requests

If you had heard this before, then you got your positive direction. When someone asks for something important to us, a natural pressure arises on the other side. When you had said “No” several times then the pressure of telling “Yes” is increased on the other party.  As most people cannot like to reject any person on numerous occasions, then this historic information can be used to your advantage. You can try by saying, “I’ve been told 3 “no’s” in last several months on project pitches. So based on XYZ evidence, I must say this one is worth pursuing.”

People wait for a proper invitation to start any negotiation. They may ask some extra money at the performance review, no doubt a veritable desert of the precious time, when the increment has usually been established. Now it’s all up to you to decide when your career capital is at its highest, and then it’s time to act.

36 Unconventional Lessons Everyone Needs To Learn To Be Successful In Business

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Apart from hard work and smart work, there are some unconventional lessons that one needs to learn to achieve great heights in one’s own business:

01. Working on the same thing over and over is not going to help anyone. There are wide varieties of opportunities waiting in the outside world. There are always more offers and deals than the ones you are working at right now. The best way to find them is just to walk away and explore the openings around you.

02. Mean and vindictive officials suck the patience and inspiration out of anyone. If one such person is going to be your boss, then it can get even worse. The best way to get out of such a scenario is to avoid those kinds of mean people.

03. The only way to improve your business is to sell what you make. If you believe in what your business does, you may also want the public to benefit from what you make. If you are not going to sell something, then there exist possibilities of losing everything.

04. For any business, employees are the biggest assets. Working together is sure to fetch you success. Take time in deciding who to hire considering the long-term return you would need from them.

05. Even the small details of your work matters a lot to the clients.

06. Attitude matters more than your actions. The tone of your voice and presentation of speech is going to be more important than what you say. Greet with a firm handshake and make sure you keep an eye contact with whomsoever you converse, be it an employee or a customer or the boss.

07. It is not the plan, but it is the people involved in those plans that fail. So once you get the employees and customers on track, the plans are sure to ensue as expected.

08. Dream big and do big. Stop being economical, believe in the outcome of your business and invest in your success.

09. Dedication and willingness to work decides your position. In business, it is involvement that confirms your success.

10. To be successful, you have to be unique. You are not going to be a choice for your customers unless you give them something new. It is your innovation that is going to portray you with a difference, or else you simply join the club of customer’s confusion.

11. Get the bills paid before the due date. This would help in managing the cash flow.

12. The skilled professionals have a suggestion to make at every decision you formulate. But believe and work at your own opinion first and then try hard to prove to them that you can also make the correct choices.

13. Do not compensate with ‘better’ results. Analyze what would give the ‘best’ results and then struggle to achieve it.

14. Care for the results you get out of your work to such an extent that it may even bring tears.

15. Recruit employees who want to be better and updated. Only such workforce would help you achieve the best results. The egoists are not going to be helpful when needed.

16. When something is going wrong, take time to think and help others.

17. Communicate frequently, either through emails or calls. It is your message that matters and not the device you use to communicate.

18. Dream and execute your plans. It keeps your business going.

19. Even if you feel like celebrating your success, act as if you are used to such victories. Rejoicing a lot is a sign of weakness.

20. Leave off your stupidity, laziness, and selfishness while trying to do something amazing.

21. Accept your mistake and apologize at the right time. It proves your humanity to the public.

22. When your clients are emotional, your logic is of no concern.

23. Give the best choices to your customers for they need a dream.

24. Do not drop heart if you are losing. Keep trying, and that would take you to greater heights.

25. Do not show off about the success and stop acting dominative. Such attitude is going to take you nowhere.

26. Talk to your clients about the bad things that had happened in your business.

27. Cut off the unnecessary costs but not your sales.

28. Be drastically different.

29. Time is gold. Do things rightly at the first attempt itself; there is no time to rectify.

30. Even if it is business, try being emotional. Care for your people, and they would care for you too.

31. Stop bragging about the previous achievements for the sake of concealing the things you have done wrong.

32. Do not expect to win everybody in your field.

33. Life is lived only once. So stop being a bore and take risks. No one knows what luck has in hand for you.

34. Act kind.

35. You got to be really amazing rather than just being good.

36. It is hard work that matters even more than your smart work.

10 Working Strategies – Work Smarter, Not Harder

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Smart Work is always the one that we aim for, and that is most required. Smartness lies in the capabilities of the performer and not on the task being performed. Everyone on this Earth has an equal number of hours to work, but there’s a thin line that differentiates a successful entrepreneur from an average person. This is the line of SMARTNESS. And if you think that you lag smartness, so can’t be an entrepreneur or a successful person. In that case, I would like to quote that, ‘working in a smarter way is a property, that can be inhibited by anyone and everyone’. So everyone on this Earth has an equal capability of being successful, granted he/she is willing to put in efforts.

Ten strategies that contribute in increasing efficiency and work smartly include the following:

Less Time Means More Efficiency

This is a pretty simple law and goes by the explanation that the lesser time we get, more hastily do we complete that task. The biggest issue that arises is of the efficiency achieved in this scenario.

Seeking Your Interest

If you are into cooking and are forced into engineering, you won’t be able to pursue a successful career. Hence, it is suggested that you should follow your interest and take the path leading to that interest. Otherwise, you may get bored and end up working non-efficiently.

Single-Tasking

It is a common misconception that every person can flawlessly perform more than one task at a time. It is a difficult job to train our mind to work in two opposite directions. So, it is always preferred that one must take just one task at a time. If many tasks are lined up, set a priority and pick the highly prioritized task first, followed by the next and so on.

2-Minute Rule

The 2-Minute rule is very famous and is applied all over the world. It explains the working of a person in the small windows that he gets and completing as much task as possible in that little window. Thinking too much just leads to procrastination and delay of the task. So take out the small 2-minute window and complete the task that comes up in your mind.

Syncing Biology with the Task

We are always taught that the beginning hours of the dawn are the most active for our brain. This is scientifically true as at morning, rise in the body temperature leads to increase in the blood flow towards the brain. This leads to the quick response and functioning of our Central Nervous System. The effectiveness decreases after lunch as the energy starts getting consumed in digestion. If we can sync our working and task completion routine with this biological setup, we are surely prone to achieve heights of success.

Reverse Engineering

Sometimes it is more efficient to start from the finished product and reach the root of a problem in the product. This is called Reverse Engineering and is an innovation and is highly efficient in different fields. Language decoding, Dis-assembly and analysis, and many other such tasks have become easy due to Reverse Engineering.

Willpower Trilogy

Optimism may open up many doors and windows to the pathway of success. But there’s a whole new phase of difficulties that needs to be crossed in order to reach the optimistic path.

Beginning from I won’t, it is more of a resisting power restricting a person from achieving his goal.

Then I will power is what one should aspire for. Full of optimism would surely lead to success.

The I want is mandatory as it informs the person about the aims and targets he has in his mind.

Work/Rest Ratio

It is commonly observed that a person takes up rest of 60 minutes after doing a task for 45 minutes. This increases inefficiency, and thus the ideal work/rest ratio gets set up. It suggests that our brain must take up rest of 20 minutes after a focused work of 90 minutes.

Posture

It may sound peculiar, but the way you stand or sit does affect your productivity. Work Study and Ergonomics is the study of this thing only. Having a proper posture may increase the easiness by reduction in the fatigue and other problems occurring in the task, you are performing.

Validation of Product

Producing an improper product over and over would just lead to increase in losses due to the reducing demand. Hence, it is viable to get the product validated from the cells. Beyond validation, setting up proper quality checks on the production procedure would be a smart option.

Instagram For Business: Give An Instant Boost To Your Advert Promotions

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Recently, we have been witnessing the growing popularity of Instagram. It has been steadily carving out a niche for itself. For a time-savvy generation who doesn’t want to go through loads of content, this light picture sharing platform has captured the mind of many a user. Not only as a social media platform, but Instagram is also now gaining credibility as an advertising platform too.

Having discussed what Facebook for Business has on offer for the modern marketer (click here to view) in our previous issue, in this article, we will try to explore the world of Instagram adverts, and their growing relevance to the modern marketer.

What it offers for the marketer

Instagram is the pinnacle of the power of visual story telling.

Qualitatively, it is exactly how today’s generation wants to spend their leisure time. Relaxing with their smartphones, scrolling down the screen, connected with the people they want and browsing through photos (pics in the modern “lingo”). It is everything they want and how they want it – in a form that is not content heavy and kind of secure.

Quantitatively, a rapidly expanding monthly user base of 400 million out of which around 75% are outside US and 40 billion pictures with around 3.5 billion daily likes are heavy numbers for this light platform. Combined with the targeting prowess of Facebook, it makes complete sense for marketers to advertise their content on Instagram, given the reach prospects it offers.

Content Strategy

Instagram advises advertisers to have a clear goal in mind, as to what they desire to achieve through their advert. It can be brand awareness, website clicks, app installs and so on. This allows both of them to align their concepts to provide the best visibility possible for the brand or business.

Another point that advertisers should keep in mind is brand consistency across all the campaigns. Yes, the campaigns need to be customized according to the target audience, but in the end, they should appear to be revolving around a central concept, a theme unique to the brand. It may be anything as simple as the artistic style, color theme, etc.

Instagram Adverts

Adverts on Instagram can be managed in two ways – either through Instagram Ad Solutions, or via its parent Facebook’s self-service interfaces, which include – Ads Manager, Power Editor, and Marketing API. These allow advertisers to create campaigns customized to their requirements.

Instagram Ad Solutions

This offers marketers dedicated end-to-end advertising solutions. These are based on metrics designed to generate real returns for businesses.

The advert formats can include:

  • Photo Adverts
  • Video Adverts: Audio-visual adverts have a greater and long-lasting impact on the viewers. So Instagram allows for video adverts, up to 60 seconds long
  • Carousel Adverts: These contain more than one image, and these additional images are accompanied with a call to action buttons, depending upon the users’ interests.
  • Stories ads: Instagram Stories is another way to take advantage of people’s passions and encourage them to take action. Your business can share photos and videos with its full screen and vertical format that immerse Instagrammers in your content.
  • Collection ads: Collection ads can be used to encourage and help the audience to discover, browse and purchase your products. Tell an integrated story with a product or lifestyle focus, through video, images or both.

The Five formats of Instagram Adverts: Photo, Video, Carousel (left to right), Stories and collection.

Benefits:

  • Clicks on your website
  • Call to actions, if used and placed wisely, can drive website conversions for you
  • Engagement with new and existing users via app installations
  • A predictable reach of your advert allows to better streamline your efforts, providing greater control over aspects like message frequency and even your content

Instagram Partner Program

Launched in 2015, this innovative program allows Instagram advertisers to get the best out of expert knowledge and technology. As a part of this initiative, Instagram gives you opportunities to find and connect to certain third-party experts in the following four domains:

  • Ad Tech: Experts in this domain assist advertisers in managing and buying ads, and scaling their reach as per requirement.
  • Content Marketing: Content has become highly relevant today, and needs to be both sourced from and delivered to the right audience. This is where content marketing comes into the picture.
  • Community Management: Your online community is what you earn. They need to be kept engaged with your brand. Experts in this domain manage comments and get audience insights, allowing your content and creative to be as relevant as possible to your audience.
  • Media Buying (newly launched, presently in US only)

Many a times it happens that in-house advertisers for small businesses know what they want but not how to achieve it. Collaborating with experts in these key areas is thus a valuable aid for them. It might even become a disruptive concept in the advertising world in the coming years.

Instameets

Instameets, or meetings of groups of like-minded Instagram users in a particular city are also getting more frequent. This is also an opportunity for brands and businesses to connect with a highly relevant section of the online community, thus enhancing the conversion rates and providing more headroom for word of mouth publicity.

Instagram as a brand

Instagram today is a brand in itself, with its popularity on the rise. As a brand it values its brand assets like logos and wants to maintain brand consistency. For instance, it has always been in favor of using original logos from its website, rather than just simply picking it up from anywhere online.

So, all said and done, having discussed both Facebook and Instagram marketing for businesses, one realizes the tremendous advertising potential these social media platforms offer. Combine them along with Facebook’s Audience Network, and you get an optimized targeting and marketing platform. Happy advertising!!

5 Tips On Acing Your Interviewing Skills

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It may seem a fun task to interview people and then hire them. But in reality, it is a lot more than it may seem to be. Hiring people is one of those tasks that require a lot of planning and management. To hire people means to look at every aspect of the person and the compatibility between the interviewee and the interviewer. Ask the hiring managers, and they will tell you what a task it is. Now let us look at some of the best tips you can use to make your work of hiring employees easy enough for you.

Formulate a plan

Without planning to conduct this process of hiring would be lot more difficult. This will not just increase your burden but also make your work more chaotic. To formulate a plan before you get down working on anything. Start with the blueprint for the process. Keep in mind all the things that have to be taken care of.

Number of interviews that are to be conducted; Placing candidates in a row for the interview; How many interviewers are supposed to be there for the process; What would be the time frame; the place for conducting interviews and much more.

So if you have planned for all of it before, your work becomes much easier in the subsequent steps, and so does the process efficiency.

What questions!

As your blueprinting is done, next thing is to look for what questions you are supposed to ask the person. Although each one prefers something or the other in order to evaluate the interviewee, it should not digress from what you seek in the candidate.

Interviews can start with very basic introductory questions and can lead to a further flow of conversation. However, many prefer to stick to specific questions and ask technical and skill-related questions can are specific for the job. So although there is no defined format, some pointers that can be kept in mind and can help in easy flow of interview are as follows:

  • Start the conversation with open-ended questions or introductions; something that eases the candidate. Once the candidate opens up and speak ask him questions as per his answers. This will lead to a flow in the interview process.
  • Ask questions about the person skills to judge his ability to work. This skill may not be relevant to the job but can still help you judge a person’s dedication for his work.
  • Also, ask him situation based questions to judge the person understands and his/her response to a situation.
  • In the end, if the profile demands ask for specific technical questions that may help you in judging the person.

The Interview Judgment

Differentiating the candidates is one of the major tasks. This needs to be done with proper measures and efforts. Some pointers that can help you in the same are as follows:

  • Make sure you don’t just ask but also listen to the candidate properly. This will help you understand a lot more things about him/ her that you may usually miss out. So listen to the person carefully and ask questions on what he/ she have stated. Trust me, this will get you answers to many questions and can help you judge the person easily.
  • Instead of asking some very common questions that the candidate has already prepared and memorized, ask him something that he was not expecting. This will again help you in judging the person. Candidates usually give some learnt answers when asked about hobbies, strengths, weakness, So make sure you keep a note of all of those and look for the originality in the candidate.

 Background

Before you interview someone for a post, make sure you look at how authentic all the documents and certificates shown by the person are. In case of recruiting for a higher post, it becomes much more important. The person should satisfy all the criteria as mentioned in the job post. Anything missing or fake should be taken care of and dealt in an appropriate manner. Faking things should straight away lead to the rejection of the candidate.

The final offering

Once you are done with all the questions and answers, the next and the last stage is your final offering to the candidate. Make sure you do not over or under promise things to him/ her. Does a background check and see what the offerings were in the last job. The offer for the job should be relevant as per the position and the candidate’s profile. Anything more or less could be a big issue and may lead to the rejection of the offer. So do your study well before making the final offer.

These steps may seem easy but require a lot of effort in practice. So start with a blueprint and keep going until you find the most suitable candidate!

Bill Gates The Brain Behind “Microsoft”, 21 Quotes From Bill Gates That Take You Inside The Mind Of The World’s Richest Man

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Bill Gates – A name is known to almost every person in existence. The billionaire has an estimated personal net worth of $80 billion. His foundation set up by his wife and him in the year 1997, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, gives away about $4  billion a year; proving that he has the power to help more people than any other individual. But a person does not get successful overnight. Through 20 interviews, reporters have been able to get an inside view of how this successful man thinks, and these quotes taken out of context are sure to give us a tour of the mind of Mr. Bill Gates.

01. In the Rolling Stone magazine, March 13, 2014: Gates talks about how he has seen the world turn from technology-less to computers being a part of our everyday life. Computers having this impact on our lives were his dream. In fact, he thought that by now there should have been more machines than there are.

02. On BBC, on June 19, 2008: Gates spoke about his competitors preferred to have one product that would be a hit, but wouldn’t be perfect in terms of engineering. This is what makes him stand out as he concentrates on efficiency and improving the software to get this product suitable for the next generation.

03. When interviewed by AllThingsD on May 31, 2007: Gates spoke about his progress with Macintosh. The factors like price, quality and work schedules were uncertain but their faith in the graphics interfaces let a cheaper model of it be unleashed, and they were happy with it.

04. Again in AllThingsD, May 31, 2007: Gates expressed his faith in his company, Microsoft during 1975. They expected computers to be taken by every company and every house but never wondered if they can achieve it; instead, they planned on doubling sales.

05. Gates is one for doing work on his own: he has helped, but some things are most satisfying when done by himself, in Reddit on February 10, 2014.

06. Success makes smart people: think that they can’t lose so one shouldn’t let success get the best of him, in The Road Ahead in 1995.

07. In Reddit, on February 10, 2014: he said his plan was his guilty pleasure. It might be excessive, but it’s what gets him places comfortably, and he finds nothing wrong in it.

08. In The Financial Times on November 1, 2013: we saw the human side of Gates. He compared the Infosys of Bangalore and the places close to it where people were well on the poverty side. He told us that having the best technology is not what everyone needs; there are those out there still searching for the basic comforts of life.

09. In The Telegraph UK, on January 18, 2013: he spoke about his interest in seeing eradications happen. He prefers zero than anything else even close to it because if it’s not zero, then it’s just going to come back again. Then everything else is a waste of money, activity, and credibility.

10. He goes on to say that money is only a factor to him: to build his organization and get resources to the poor of the world who need it.

11. In All ThingsD on May 31, 2007: Gates confessed that no matter what he does, his work on computers will always be special to him; he was so obsessed that he delayed a lot in life until he succeeded, even marriage.

12. In Rolling Stone on March 13, 2014: Gates tells us that a government needs highly qualified people because with having the right metrics, the government can be a perfect tool.

13. In the same edition: he says that developed is taken as a project that has less effect that is true, but then shouldn’t venture capital be considered insignificant too? But we do know that venture capital funded right could bring in big gains, so is development if you work hard enough.

14. In Forbes, March 4, 2014: he says that unhappy customers are the best sources of learning from mistakes.

15. In InfoWorld on October 1, 2004: he boasted that Microsoft did have competitors before and is forgotten by most; but not by them.

16. In the TIME on January 13, 1997: he jokes that it feels like the universe is meant to help him succeed, and he sure is happy about it.

17. In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 7, 2011: he says that intellectual property barely lasts long so make the most of it.

18. In the Playboy in July 1994: he says that he spends 10% of his time dwelling on business; it isn’t complicated and doesn’t need to be over thought about.

19. On TED Talk in February 2009: he explains that the market can only be used to do right things by brilliant people’s efforts to bring people in to make progress instead of expecting the government, the communicators and the scientists to do it for us.

20. On the Rolling Stone of March 13, 2014: he said that politics did not create our modern lifestyle. Before the year 1700, everybody was poor with hard lives. It wasn’t politicians that changed us, but the invention of steam engines, electricity, medicine, microprocessors, genetic study, etc. that did. Though education and stability are important, it was innovation that brought us here.

Facebook Marketing: Drive Your Sales Using Facebook For Business

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Facebook started off as a social media platform, so that people could interact with each other. Now, who needs interaction desperately? Let’s substitute interaction with engagement. Now does it ring a bell? Marketers, maybe?

Brands looking to create a top of the mind recall in the heads of the customers, businesses looking to grow, to acquire new customers and create an ever-lasting relationship with the existing ones. Facebook, with its vast user base, a number of engagement options and ease of connection, provides an ideal platform for all this and much more. It provides a base for the simplest, and yet the most powerful form of promotion, word-of-mouth.

What’s more? Having realized the opportunity, Facebook came up with Facebook for business, a dedicated service for brands to advertise and actually grow, with metrics to define this growth. Metrics, which are much more relevant in today’s world than the conventional ones. What many of us don’t realize today is the impact of our social lives on the decisions we take personally, and this impact is precisely what has led to Facebook marketing becoming a vital cog in the marketing mix of any successful brand.

With Facebook for business, the platform transgressed to a whole new level. It provides highly customizable promotion routes which can be used by both small and big businesses alike, custom made to suit the purpose of their advertising/promotion. In this issue we explore the world of Facebook marketing, and what it can offer to these businesses.

Dynamic Adverts:

Dynamic content is highly relevant in the ever changing scenario today. Facebook offers dynamic adverts for businesses that have large product catalogs. This has many benefits:

  • Increases success ratio: By customizing what products to show from amongst the catalog to which user based upon his likes, the promotions are much more effective
  • Scalability: The campaigns and adverts can be scaled up and down as per your requirement
  • A cross-device experience: The adverts are independent of the original touch point, providing a seamless experience to the user

In the end, it is all about targeted marketing, and with all sorts of data about user preferences and likes, Facebook offers a very powerful and methodical way to do so.

Facebook allows you to manage your own promotional campaigns and customize it as per your requirements via its Advert Manager Tool, and an app for the same. Let us learn about their features.

Targeting Options:

You can choose the target audience to which you want your advert to be conveyed on the basis of:

  • Location: country, region, postal code
  • Demographics: age, gender, language
  • Interests: movies, sports, music, reading, shopping
  • Behavior: the kinds of products/content which users view and finally engage with
  • Connections: people who like pages, apps, etc. through their connected friends

Features:

  • Custom Audiences: This allows you to connect to your existing customers on Facebook, on the basis of your contact list, your website traffic or app activity; ideal for engagement
  • Lookalike Audiences: An excellent way to attract new users, this feature uses insights from Facebook marketing to provide an audience similar to your best customers

Such kind of targeting is thus, both highly relevant and actionable, with various possible calls to action like – directions to your store, downloading your app, redirecting to your website or maybe even place an order directly. At the same time, it allows you to target social acquaintances of users who engage with your adverts, thus a more effective means to channel your communication.

Success and Result Measurement Tools:

One of the greatest positives in Facebook marketing is the provision of highly relevant metrics to gauge the impact of your adverts and campaigns.

Facebook terms these as Page Insights. These include:

  • Likes: It tells you how many people liked/un-liked your content; and the channel through which they did so.
  • Reach: It is a measure of total engagement with your content and includes likes, comments, and shares. It consists of both your organic reach and engagements via Facebook adverts.
  • Visits: Implies the user base which responds most to your adverts, their characteristics, and channel of engagement.
  • Posts: This monitors responses to your posts which include clicks and likes. It also gives an in-built option to boost your posts.
  • Visitors: Perhaps the most essential one, this allows to see the demographics of your user base and their times of engagement, allowing you to put up the right content at the right time for maximum visibility and effect.

Adverts Performance:

1. Track your daily expenditure on promotions and campaigns.
2. Run multiple campaigns for your business and monitor them all at one place.
3. Monitor your average cost per action, an excellent metric for gauging return on investment in campaigns for post engagement.
4. Each campaign can be individually monitored, with Facebook doing all the number crunching.
5. Gauge whether your adverts are really adding value or not.

Facebook Pixel:

This unique feature combines the best features of conversion tracking and custom audience, into a piece of code which Facebook advertisers and marketers can insert into the coding of their respective websites to measure and optimize their marketing attempts. It even allows Facebook to build suitable audiences for their advert campaigns.

Its beauty lies in the fact that it allows you to integrate your Facebook marketing efforts with your website, hence allowing you to streamline your adverts and their positioning according to the current dynamics of users that engage with your website. The functionality includes:

  • Cross-device conversions: Based upon the need for conversion optimization, this allows the marketer to trace the entire conversion process and at the same time provide a seamless experience to the user. It even measures the cost per conversion through your adverts.
  • Custom Audiences: This augments the custom audiences feature in that it finds your website visitors on Facebook and then includes them in your custom audience list increasing the probability of engagement and brand recall.
  • Traffic Analysis: It provides an analysis of your website traffic, providing you pointers to the section of population that is most likely to engage, and that you should target in future.
  • Projects your advert to relevant users only, engages with your website visitors after finding them on Facebook.

After all, creativity is the strongest competitive advantage any business can possess. Facebook offers you a medium to show your most creative side and at the same time ensure that it reaches the correct section of users, the one you intend to engage with. The best of both worlds, if I may say so. This kind of mass customization is exactly what businesses are looking out for today.

Thus, Facebook marketing is indeed a highly relevant component of digit marketing and will only grow in importance, and in terms of the value, it adds to businesses, as the modern man becomes more and more social. Hence this form of marketing cannot and should not be overlooked, as it promises an optimized approach.