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Smartwatches keep us on our toes by reminding us to keep track of our fitness levels. The most recent smartwatches keep us on our toes by letting us stay connected no matter what we are doing.

Wearable Technology

Wearables are smart electronic devices that can be worn on different parts of the body. Smartwatches, usually worn on the wrists, are the most popular smart devices.

When you say ‘smartwatch’, people automatically think of fitness trackers. Nowadays a smartwatch is much more than that. With the latest developments in wearable technology, makers of smartwatches are turning them into mini mobiles – almost.

Health and Fitness

Smartwatches first hit the scene as fitness trackers, with consumers mainly using them as step counters and heart rate monitors. Later as more features were added, fitness enthusiasts and athletes embraced them.

The most trending smartwatches today have a plethora of functions and features. Simultaneously, they can monitor and support your health activity daily.

Social Media and Connectivity

So how do smartwatches fit in with our need for constant connectivity?

Many smartwatches are now designed to let you stay connected to your social network while you are engaged in your activity. Message systems such as texting and email are incorporated into their functions.

Nowadays you can stay connected while you are sweating it out in a CrossFit class, with alerts and notifications from social media platforms.

The Top Trending Smartwatches

There are now many variations of smartwatches on the market to suit different needs. Major brands are constantly coming up with new features.

All the top makers offer a range from a more expensive to a more affordable option. Finding the right one for you will depend on what you want it to do.

Here is a quick rundown of what’s currently trending:

The Huawei Watch 3 offers specific health diagnosis features, blood oxygen monitoring, skin temperature, recovery time, and over 100 sports modes.

Samsung is reportedly launching its new smartwatches later this year, featuring a new version of the Google Wear OS. You will be able to track workouts, use Spotify and even download songs for offline listening.

The Fossil Latitude is a hybrid smartwatch. It offers you limited fitness tracking but it looks stylish and allows you easy access to notifications and messages.

The Garmin Fenix 6 is the most expensive in the Garmin range of smartwatches with its huge range of smart features. The much cheaper Garmin Vivo Active 4 features built-in sports apps and music.

Fitbit, one of the first fitness tracker smartwatches to hit the wearables market has now been acquired by Google and will incorporate all the Google Wear OS features.

Apple smartwatches which are the current most popular smartwatches boast all the latest technology. However, a new Apple Series 6 watch costs around $350 which is too expensive for many fans.

Fortunately, pre-owned Apple watches are available and much more affordable. If you are determined to get yourself an Apple watch, consider shopping the market for a used Apple watch that works just as well as a brand new one.

The post Smartwatch: More Than a Fitness Activity Tracker appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/mobile-2/smartwatch-more-than-a-fitness-activity-tracker/

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Weekend Favs July 10 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

It’s no secret that in this past year, more of us have been working from home than ever. Though our at-home setups may be good enough at the moment, the longer we spend working at home, the more we want our workspace to be as good as it can be.

If you want to elevate your at-home office to make it the best it can be, Everlasting Comfort has you covered with these comfort-boosting hacks that you can use to elevate your home office space.

With the Past Year, Many Things Have Moved Online

Last year, the pandemic caused many complications in everyone’s life. Everything seemingly came to a screeching halt, and everyone found themselves needing to stay inside the home for more time than ever before.

This quarantine, combined with our advances in technology, led to more things being moved online than ever. Among those was moving every job possible to a remote position.

We Spend More Time At Home Than Ever Before

For all of us, whether we work entirely online or part-time from home, we have been spending more time at home than ever before. That’s why it matters now more than ever that our home office setup is luxurious.

How You Can Make Your Home Office More Comfortable with Everlasting Comfort Products

So how do you elevate your at-home workspace with products from Everlasting Comfort?

Here are some fun tips and tricks to get your home office looking and feeling fantastic.

1. Make Your Seating Arrangement Perfect

Step one to maximizing your home office is to make the chair you sit in as comfortable as possible. Sitting all day can be uncomfortable enough, so why not make it a more pleasant place to spend your day by making your chair comfy and cozy.

Coccyx Cushion

If you get nothing else, get yourself a coccyx cushion.

These cushions are made from memory foam and sit in the bottom of your chair under your buttocks. They have a cutout in the back so that your tailbone doesn’t have to be pressed against a hard surface.

Lumbar Cushion<

A lumbar cushion, when placed correctly, fits the curve of your lower spine.

It also reminds you to sit forward in your seat, improving your posture and engaging those core muscles.

2. Add Some Moisture to the Air

Having dry air circulating through the room where you’re working could make it harder for you. This dry air can cause your sinuses to dry out and lead to dehydrated, cracked skin.

Adding a cool-mist humidifier to your home office can soothe dry skin and improve your cough or sniffles that keep you from being able to focus at work. It also relieves that dry throat, making business calls easier to get through.

3. Increase Energy by Adding a Scent

If you’re finding yourself getting sleepy in the afternoons, fighting back falling asleep in your chair, get yourself an essential oil diffuser and use some energizing scents.

There are a few different essential oils that boost energy. You can experiment by adding a few drops of them to your essential oil diffuser or get more creative by mixing some scents.

Some of the best essential oils to boost energy at work are peppermint oil, sweet orange oil, lemon oil, and lavender. Add a few drops of these to your essential oil diffuser at home to liven up the space.

4. Prop Your Feet Up

There are many benefits to elevating your legs following an injury, but propping your feet up at your desk can also offer some benefits. It helps reduce swelling, relieve muscle tension, and create better blood flow.

Using one of Everlasting Comfort’s under-desk foam footrest can keep your feet at a healthy angle, relieving pressure and improving circulation. This makes all the difference when you work long days at a desk.

5. Give Your Arms a Rest

When you’re working at home, you’re probably spending a lot of your day typing away at your computer. All of that typing takes a toll on your arms and wrists.

Everlasting Comfort offers premium foam armrests that you can attach to the arms of your office chair. This allows you to stop putting so much strain on your shoulders and elbows.

Take Your Home Office to the Next Level with Everlasting Comfort

If you’re working from home, you deserve the most comfortable workspace that you can get. Head over to Everlasting Comfort to elevate your home office today.

The post 5 Ways to Elevate Your Home Office with Everlasting Comfort Product Line appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/business-innovation-2/5-ways-to-elevate-your-home-office-with-everlasting-comfort-product-line/

The post 5 Ways to Elevate Your Home Office with Everlasting Comfort Product Line appeared first on connect social networks.

We all know how exciting it is to finally get to own a website and the tons of future uncertainties that behold the progress of the website.

Probably, you’ve been appointed to oversee the Search Engine Optimisation of the website and it seems as if the whole load of the website is on your desk.

Don’t be dismayed because SEO isn’t something you should be scared of attempting or giving a try.

Well, of course, SEO can pose a more difficult task to take on, but in this concise guide, you find trusted steps that you can use to build a solid SEO strategy.

There are lots of positive opinions about using SEO in one’s site to attract organic traffic, reaching out to the target audience and publicising your brand.

However, most website owners wouldn’t want to go through all these hassles and would prefer contacting an SEO agency rather.

So, if you want your SEO campaign to be carried out effectively by experts, you should contact Silicon Valley SEO.

We help to generate mind-blowing organic traffic to websites while ensuring that the audiences are targeted accordingly.

I wouldn’t want to be biased to those who seek to take on the SEO building strategy. So without further ado, let’s see the simple steps to build a solid SEO strategy.

Check Out These 7 Simple Ways To Build A Strong SEO Strategy

In this section, as earlier mentioned, you’ll find seven sure ways in which you can build a strong and efficient SEO strategy.

Naming Your Mice And Revealing Yourself written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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How To Grow Your Agency Even When Your Industry Is Completely Disrupted written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Airborne, a sales engagement platform. Learn more about how to set your team up for success at Airborneapp.io. Sales Engagement Platforms are fundamental to the Modern Tech Stack. Airborne delivers everything you would expect from a Sales Engagement Platform and then some. Get the most out of every interaction and make your team more effective with Airborne.

If you run a business with a small team, you probably have a love-hate relationship with social media. On the one hand, it allows you to connect with customers, drive more sales, and build social proof. It can also be wildly time-consuming and expensive to manage. Many small teams don’t have the bandwidth to manage their social media in-house. So they hire another company to manage it for them — often spending thousands per month.

If this sounds familiar, you might be wondering if your social media spend is paying off. You might grill new customers to discover how they heard about you and periodically evaluate the ROI. If the numbers aren’t quite adding up, it might be time to reconsider in-sourcing your social media.

Why It Might Be Worth It to Manage Your Own Social Media

There are many advantages to bringing your social media in-house rather than outsourcing to an agency. For one thing, social media is about humanizing your brand. Nobody knows your business better than the people who actually work there. Keeping your social media in-house makes it easier to speak to your audience authentically and strike just the right tone.

Managing your own social channels also allows you to react to trends, memes, and social-media challenges in real time. This gives you a chance to create fun, off-the-cuff content and potentially gain visibility. If you think your business is too stodgy to participate in social trends, think again. The hashtag #personalfinance has taken off on TikTok, with financial experts giving advice in short snappy videos.

But perhaps the biggest advantage to in-sourcing social media is the cost. Outsourcing the management of even one or two channels can get expensive very quickly. If you’re using an agency, you can expect to pay $100 to $250 per hour. Divvying up social responsibilities among your team members can cut your costs substantially.

If you’re worried that none of your team members are social-media experts, you shouldn’t let that stop you from in-sourcing. If you’re paying a hefty retainer to an agency, hiring a dedicated social-media expert might actually be cheaper.

You don’t have to be a marketing agency to manage social media effectively. Proof of this is seen in a Florida-based law firm that decided to bring its marketing in-house. The Law Offices of Anidjar & Levine realized they could negotiate better deals with advertisers by cutting out the middleman, enabling them to have more control over the narrative and make more efficient decisions.

Even if managing your own social media makes financial sense, it can feel daunting to bring it back in-house. Here are four tips for maximizing your success — no matter which platforms you choose:

1. Have a clear strategy.

If you haven’t developed and articulated a clear social-media strategy, now is the time to do it. This ensures that you aren’t just spinning your wheels and wasting time that would be better spent on the business. If you’re managing more than one social channel, you should have a strategy for each one.

When creating a strategy, start with what you’re hoping to achieve with your social presence. Is your goal simply to stay top of mind with your current customers? Are you trying to build credibility in a new niche? Do you just want to drive more sales during peak season?

Once you know what you’re trying to achieve, you can tailor your approach accordingly. Sit down with whoever will be managing your social channels and discuss the best way to achieve your goal. Then determine a few key metrics that will help you measure your progress.

2. Focus on one or two high-impact channels.

Social media is always changing. Whenever you see a new platform in the news, you might automatically think your business needs a presence there, too. This is classic FOMO — fear of missing out — and it’s likely to result in a scattershot approach.

With a small team, you need to start small. It’s far more effective to choose one or two channels and get to know them inside and out. Be strategic when choosing which channels to focus on. Don’t automatically opt for the shiny new platform just because it’s getting a lot of hype. Do your homework to understand where your audience is already congregating and which platforms are the best fit.

Facebook tends to reach an older audience, with fewer than 30 percent of users under the age of 35. LinkedIn is great for B2B businesses that want to connect with industry professionals. Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are all popular with younger users.

Once you understand which channels your audience prefers, consider which platform is the best fit for your business. Can your team create eye-catching visual content, or would you excel at creating informative how-to videos? Do you feel comfortable incorporating humor on TikTok, or would you prefer to keep it professional?

Finally, consider whether your team will be able to keep up with the content demands of your chosen platform. In general, it’s a lot more time-consuming to create a TikTok video than to capture a great image for Instagram.

3. Use a social-media calendar.

One of the biggest hurdles that keeps businesses from succeeding on social media is a lack of consistency. For Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, posting every day is ideal. For YouTube, content creators getting the most traction are posting at least once per week.

That might not sound like much, but coming up with fresh content ideas on the spot gets challenging quickly. If an employee is tasked with managing social alongside their normal duties, they may let weeks slip by without posting. If multiple people are sharing the responsibility, it can also be difficult to keep track of who is posting when. Even dedicated social-media marketers find a calendar helpful for planning out posts.

Your social-media calendar doesn’t have to be fancy. Even a simple spreadsheet will work. Loomly and Social Sprout are specialized tools with more bells and whistles for social-media management. Sprout Social gives you insights into your audience and the ability to schedule posts. Loomly offers post inspiration and real-time optimization tips.

4. Repurpose content across channels.

If your business wants to cultivate a presence across multiple channels, you can repurpose content to save time. An Instagram post can be shared easily on Facebook right within the app itself. You can also use a tool like Canva to tweak the size and content of an image or graphic. This way, you can get more mileage out of a single piece of content. You can even cut down a longer YouTube video for Instagram Stories or edit it for TikTok.

If you do plan to repurpose content, make sure you understand the norms of each channel you’re using. Otherwise your content will likely be buried in social-media obscurity. Instagram is for sharing beautiful images, and users are accustomed to seeing long lists of hashtags. TikTok users expect to be entertained. Quick cuts, music, sounds, dance, and humor all do well there. Long-form how-to videos, product reviews, and explainers all do well on YouTube.

If you have a small team, adding anything to your plate can feel like a stretch. But if you’re currently paying someone else to manage your social media, you might be overspending. Bringing on a dedicated social-media expert can be more cost-effective and give you better results. Or you can divide up responsibilities among your current team members. The trick is to start small, work smart, and be consistent in your efforts.

The post 4 Secrets to Bringing Your Social Media In-House With a Small Team appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/4-secrets-to-bringing-your-social-media-in-house-with-a-small-team/

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The direct-to-consumer business model has gained some serious traction lately, especially in light of the events of 2020 that threw a wrench in the brick-and-mortar approach.

After some criticisms and speedbumps, D2C is finally emerging as a legitimate, sustainable model of business for the digital age. Brands save untold sums of money on overhead, have near-complete control over supply chains, and can innovate with compelling new products like never before.

But while D2C brands showed their strength in 2020, the challenge they face now is in the marketing department, especially with traditional retail channels coming back in a big way.

How are D2C brands navigating the complex and competitive marketing landscape in 2021 and beyond? Kevin Miller, Co-Founder and CEO of GR0, is leading the way with aggressive, innovating digital marketing for D2C brands right now – here’s how.

Quality Content – The D2C Marketing Key

There are a few distinct challenges facing D2C brands in the realm of marketing, starting with the fact that many of these companies are still relatively new and unknown.

While the D2C trend took root years ago, it did not catch a wave until a few years back. Newcomers to the space are just finding their footing, and have their work cut out.

According to Miller, generating a deep library of quality blog content is the first step towards building an online audience and getting the gears turning for search engine ascension.

“Our main focus is on excellent written content – that’s what D2C brands need to establish that trusted voice in competitive industries,” said Miller. “People want an authoritative voice and content that actually helps them out. Weak, generic articles won’t help brands make that mark.”

Miller and a staff of talented writers deliver original, highly researched content to GR0’s clients on a daily basis, giving D2C brands the reputation of authority and trust they need online.

Blog articles are just one piece of the puzzle for a well-rounded content strategy. Writers also create comprehensive how-to guides and encyclopedic breakdowns of key industry terms and concepts that help brands get a leg up over the competition.

“It’s a matter of pure value,” said Miller. “How much are you bringing to the table, aside from flashy images and videos? That stuff matters, but quality writing is a much more valuable asset in the long run.”

PR with an SEO Twist for D2C Brands

While great on-site writing can do a lot for an emerging D2C brand, these small companies need more leverage to expand their reach and grow their networks for increased awareness online.

A strong PR strategy is the next step that Miller and GR0 employ for their clients, using methods like reporter outreach and journalist connections to boost public image and carve out territory in the media madness of the internet.

Using platforms like HARO and a wide-ranging network of media connections, GR0 is able to position clients in the best possible light and put its products in the conversation among industry giants.

“Public relations is an overlooked driver of brand growth, and we’ve had a lot of success with reporter outreach and other techniques to generate good press,” Miller stated. “Brands that get a good writeup from a major outlet are going to get noticed no matter what.”

By partnering with Cision, the world’s largest PR company, GR0 has put clients in the spotlight in outlets like CNN, Forbes, The New York Times, and other industry giants.

This allows D2C brands to get their “big break” in the media and generate tons of organic traffic to their sites as a result. Additionally, clients earn “do-follow” backlinks to their pages, which helps increase SEO scores on Google and positions client sites higher in the search rankings.

“It’s a smart move from a PR standpoint, and for word-of-mouth buzz and excitement,” said Miller. “These are trusted sources and their opinions are taken seriously. We tap into a huge network of interested readers who want to know about the next best thing, and it works wonders for clients.”

Technical SEO Expertise – The Missing Link

Aside from blog content and strategic PR, Miller and GR0 are heavily invested in the technical side of SEO, optimizing client pages for performance and crawlability.

Google is constantly updating its algorithm to account for new tech trends and design features, all of which have an impact on the speed, accessibility, and SEO impact of D2C websites.

“Most of our clients are competing exclusively on the internet, meaning they need every advantage possible from a tech perspective,” said Miller. “Their sites need to be completely free of bugs, inefficiencies, and have all the right features for top placement in search.”

Among GR0’s optimization services include organic performance analysis, keyword mapping, meta tag creation, search volume analysis, and Google search console integration.

Desktop search is just one aspect of today’s search trends, meaning that GR0 also works to optimize client web pages for mobile search, voice search, local search, and more.

“These are non-intuitive things for small D2C brands getting started, so we’re happy to help them get a grip on those technical details,” said Miller. “Our team is tuned into all the latest best practices and requirements that these companies need to get an edge.”

What’s Next for D2C Marketing Online?

The era of D2C business has only just begun, and more companies are launching with this highly efficient, customer-centric model online. While they might have great ideas for products and some social media hype, Miller and his team are ready to help them get to the next level when they’re ready.

“So many new brands are emerging, but they don’t have that comprehensive strategy for organic SEO they need to thrive,” Miller said. “That’s the whole mission of GR0 and my personal philosophy on SEO – there is no substitute for putting in the groundwork.”

It will be exciting to watch the next generation of D2C commerce unfold, and Miller will be there to help brands level up along the way.

The post How Kevin Miller and GR0 are Innovating Digital Marketing for D2C Brands appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/digital-marketing/how-kevin-miller-and-gr0-are-innovating-digital-marketing-for-d2c-brands/

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