With words like “tweet,” “blog” and “unfriend” entering our standard lexicon, there’s no question that social networking has a significant place on our contemporary culture. And it’s no surprise that many companies have been using social media online to connect and communicate with their customers online.

But the benefits of social networking aren’t always immediately apparent to some. And that is especially true for businesses who are interested in having a lot of control over their brand name and brand image. Convincing some that every business has something to gain from online media marketing can be difficult. It can be hard to see how Web 2.0 marketing can result in a positive return on investment (ROI).

When it comes to convincing your boss or colleagues to invest in social networks, it helps to have a plan.

Here the 7 steps you can take when it comes to selling social media marketing to your boss or company.

1. Explain how social media is an unbeatable research tool. When a company is effectively tapped into the social media landscape, they get to hear a lot of chatter that they wouldn’t hear otherwise. Those engaged in social media marketing campaigns will be able to monitor channels for any mention of their company, competitors, industry, clients and potential clients. Setting up a social media marketing listening campaign lets a company know who is participating and what is happening.

Thanks to tools and services like Quantcast, Alexa and TweetMeme, it is now easier than ever to track and measure what people are talking about online. This information is invaluable for developing future marketing strategies, both online and offline.

2. Match the benefits of Web 2.0 marketing with your company’s goals. Whether your company or your client is a service provider, a business to business specialist or a business to consumer retailer, there’s a social media marketing strategy for them. But in order to convince others of online media marketing’s benefits, you have to be aware of the company’s goals. Do they want to enhance their customer service operations? To they want to reduce costs? Do they want to manage their reputation? Social networking can do a lot to help achieve all those goals. When you know what your boss or company wants, you can show how this will help them achieve it.

3. Start small. Even if they’re not bullish on social network marketing, your boss or others at your company are probably aware of the range of social applications and services that are out there. They may think that launching a social marketing campaign will be a huge undertaking, one that will require many work hours just to set everything up.

But that’s not necessarily true. A Web 2.0 marketing campaign doesn’t have to include a setting up a Facebook Fan Page, a Twitter account, a blog and a YouTube channel. In fact, it’s often easier to start small. Figure out which service will best match the stated goals of your boss or your company. It may be something as simple as registering a Twitter account and starting to engage people via tweets. Starting small requires little time and less cost. But the results can become apparent quickly. You can even begin to measure such results with a tracking service like Quantcast.

4. Set up a strategy and follow it. A social media campaign can appear strange and different, even to people who have plenty of marketing experience. If you don’t have a clear strategy for implementation and execution, reactions to your plan will be understandably skeptical to your social media marketing strategy. Take time to explain each step of the plan, describe why it’s being done and how it will benefit the company.

5. Look for examples of social media success. Lots of businesses, large and small, well-known and unknown, have been able to already achieve a lot with social media marketing. From Charles Schwab to FujiFilm to Goodwill, there are countless examples of companies who have been able to successfully use social networking to achieve their corporate goals. Find them and broadcast the results.

6. Anticipate Questions. It’s natural for people to be skeptical of new things and new ideas. While you may be well aware of the benefits of social media marketing, keep in mind that resistance may simply be the result of some people being overly cautions. That’s why it’s important to anticipate any and all questions or objections someone may raise. Find good case studies and other examples of social media marketing successes. Have these on hand to use as examples. Here are some common questions that skeptical bosses may have about social media marketing:

• Our customers aren’t online. This line of reasoning is being used less and less, but some companies may still think this is true. The truth is, at the cusp of the 2010s, nearly everyone is online. Online activity isn’t restricted to any gender, income level, education level, or location. There are countless surveys to prove this. One of the largest survey groups, the Pew Research Center, frequently provides data for online use, broken down by several categories.

• What if someone writes something bad? This is a common fear among those resistant to social media marketing. But studies show that when companies engage with customer complaints and criticisms, they end up looking better than before. Mention that people will likely complain whether you’re engaged in social media or not. It’s better for nearly every brand to appear involved with its customers. Even the angry ones.

• It’s too time-consuming. After setting up social media marketing accounts on networks like Facebook and Twitter, the actual maintenance doesn’t take that much time at all. You can spread social media marketing efforts among the staff, or you can task a single person to handle it. Either way, social media marketing doesn’t require countless work hours. Create a timeline showing the typical amount of time one will spend on social media every week to help prove this point.

7. Make your case. Prepare a short, punchy presentation that hits on all the above topics. Give your boss or colleagues plenty of time to ask questions. Think about your boss or colleagues’ personal preferences and consider how you can best sell your Web 2.0 marketing idea. And remember that there may be some things you don’t know. Social online marketing is still relatively new, and that means that there are still many unanswered questions out there. Be honest about what you don’t know, but make sure to point out all possible benefits to Web 2.0 marketing.

Social network marketing is an exciting new medium that companies can use to achieve just about any business goal. By convincing your colleagues or your boss of the effectiveness of this type of online marketing, you’ll be on your way to discovering the enthralling, challenging and rewarding new world of online business networking.

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Social investing has received a lot of interest in recent years – especially following the financial crisis. Most people, however, are left wondering: What is social investing? Let’s answer this question.

To understand what social investing is, we must first consider how traditional investors look at the world. In traditional investing, investors weigh investment decisions by looking at two broad factors – risk and financial return.

Risk, Return – and Social Impact

Each investor has a certain comfort level across the risk-return spectrum, and he or she does their investing within that band of the spectrum. An investor might be comfortable giving up some of their return if an investment is safer. On the other hand, the same investor might be willing take a little more risk with an investment if it translates into a higher return.

In social investing, a third factor is thrown into consideration – social impact. Social impact means that the enterprise supported by the investment yields some benefit to society beyond the income it generates for investors. Conversely, an enterprise can also have some negative impact on society, and a social investor will also take this into consideration when making investments.

Just as traditional investors are willing to make a trade off between risk and return, social investors are willing to make a trade off between risk, return and social impact. If an enterprise is doing something that’s improving the environment, for example, a social investor may be willing to give up some financial return or assume greater risk on that investment depending on his or her individual comfort level.

In short, social investing can be defined as considering the social impact of an enterprise when making investment decisions. By this standard, a number of investment approaches fall under the umbrella of social investing: mission investing, responsible investing, double-bottom-line investing, triple-bottom-line investing, ethical investing, sustainable investing and green investing.

Social Screening

Within the universe of social investing, there are two broad categories: social screening and impact investing. In the social screening methodology, an investor comes up with a list of social standards that he or she wants his or her investments to meet.

The investor eliminates any company that does not meet these standards and then invests in the “socially responsible” companies that do meet the standards in a way that meets the investors risk and return objectives.

A number of socially responsible mutual funds have emerged that use such an approach. They adopt a social screening methodology, define a large basket of investments that adhere to those standards and then have their management company invest within that basket to meet the financial objectives of the mutual fund.

Impact Investing

The second broad category of social investing is known as impact investing or, sometimes, community investing. In impact investing, rather than investing in companies that do no harm, investments are made in companies that do social good.

Enterprises that fall under the impact investment heading perform services that have a charitable or social purpose but also have a business model that can generate income and support a financial investment. They straddle both the charity and business worlds.

Impact investment enterprises might be structured as non-profit or for-profit companies but rarely do they take the form of the large public companies listed in the capital markets. As a result, making an impact investment is more difficult and usually takes the form of a private investment in the form of a note or loan.

Impact Investment Sectors

So what exactly are these impact investment enterprises? To get a better sense, let’s look at some of the sectors that qualify as impact investments.

Affordable housing is one sector familiar to most people. Most people support an organization like Habitat for Humanity by making donations, but a foundation, for example, might support them by providing a low interest loan to fund the organization’s projects.

Microfinance is another impact investment sector. A microfinance institution makes small loans to entrepreneurial people in developing countries to give them the opportunity to start or grow their own business and lift themselves out of poverty. A microfinance institution works similar to a bank, so it is able to generate income and support investors.

There are many other similar sectors that generate income and have a social mission at their core: fair trade, community development organizations, social enterprises, etc. In each sector, companies can often find investors who are willing to give up some financial return or take on a bit more risk because of the social impact that these organizations have.

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Have you ever listened to conversations without an invitation? “Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves” is an idiom many people are all too familiar with. Essentially this phrase means if you eavesdrop on conversations where people are talking about you, more times than not you may hear many unfavorable things spoken about you. When brands read or listen to comments written about them it is not considered eavesdropping. Chatter that is in a social setting is open and not private. Hence, such conversations shift to social listening, as opposed to social eavesdropping.

Brands are doing more social listening as they connect to their audiences. Why? Oftentimes, customers do not feel that companies really listen to them. Sometimes out of frustration, they may post harsh comments that warrant immediate attention. Quite often, other consumers may jump on the bandwagon to fan the flames of negativity. Brands are finding out more than ever that social chatter through social media conversations can help them better understand their customers. Here are 5 beneficial reasons why brands should pay attention to social listening:

1. Social monitoring helps brands to enhance the customer experience. Eye and ear listening skills are used to understand and respond to what matters to the audience, and not what marketers or your social team may think matters to end-users.

2. Social listening helps brands respond expeditiously to reputation management. It can open them up to a world of opportunities, insights, growth and development.

3. Engagement is more efficient by offering new products and services that consumers want. Social dialogue is a good way to take suggestions or problems customers may express on social platforms and use them to produce a new offering for their consumers.

4. Social listening assists in maximizing marketing-generated investments, services and revenue.

5. Companies can learn and benefit from targeted points made on social channels. It’s a helpmate in analyzing what competitors are or aren’t doing. Such comments can help brands become pioneers in select services or technology.

Social chatter is not limited to big brands. Regardless of size, every brand with an audience needs to engage in social listening. Companies hear through their social platforms and other popular social channels they may not be connected to. It’s been known that marketers and other company employees run across comments, reviews, praises or complaints they may not be aware of exists among cyber-chatter. Brands are able to conduct research through social listening, touch the pulse points of customers and monitor their marketing campaigns to maximize their investments. Yet, companies can also benefit from negative comments, as much as they can from positive feedback.

Are you monitoring all of your social media platforms, including your video channels? Are you seriously listening to the social chatter taking place on your social networks? Social listening does not only apply to a brand’s specific industry, but also through contrasting brands or competitor’s social responses. You can learn a lot by how others react and respond. Social media listening is built for the textual world to target and influence customers and make sure they are heard. Conversations are coming from a variety of social sources and brands must reach their audience by listening to them in a profound way.

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Believing that you that you are unacceptable or unlikable socially can be painful. Lack of self-confidence can make you get afraid to interact socially. When in situations where you will be observed by others or where you need to speak in front of a crowd or to strangers you might feel anxious. This might cause you to act awkward. You might avoid eye contact and behave too cautiously. The idea that you are socially unacceptable might get reinforced to you when you feel that other people react strangely towards you.

As the result of the challenges you face you might end up avoiding social contact even though you know being in social places and interacting with others is a big part of any persons’ life. We cannot always avoid social situations in living our daily lives. You might get invited to parties where friends are celebrating or by colleagues at work celebrating their birthdays. It is not always possible to avoid interacting socially.

So how do you improve social self-confidence when you do not have it? Before I tell you how, let me start by telling a little story about a rat.

When you have a rat in the house that eats up your tomatoes and messes up your fruits. To catch it, you would need to know how and when and where it operates. You would want to catch it when the house is quite with a piece of cheese in the mouse trap or place a rat poison in places where the rat is likely to hang around.

A similar approach is applicable to improving self-confidence. You need to understand how your mind operates and what patterns you go through so that you can interrupt those patterns and form new ones.

The first trigger is mentally, you get images of you doing something that will cause you embarrassment. What you think is what you feel. Your thoughts cause you to feel anxious. When feeling anxious you respond by avoiding interacting socially and the result is that you lack social self-confidence. To overcome social anxiety therefore you need to influence this pattern. Let’s draw how the pattern looks like:

social situation (environment) – images of embarrassment (thought) – anxiety, fear (feelings)- avoidance (response)

We do know that we cannot change the external environment (sometimes you will be in a social situation whether you want to or not). We can only influence ourselves internally in terms of how we respond to the external environment. Constantly trying to avoid social situations may serve as a temporary solution. However, this cannot guarantee long-term success towards improving how you interact socially. What you can change is the thought process, your feelings as well as your responses.

Past failures might have conditioned you to view every social situation that you need to interact in as anxiety triggering. We are human after all human, once we are burned we never want to move near a lit candle. So to help you improve social self-confidence you might first need to forget past failures and try to change how you view social situations first. Here are the 3 ways that I have developed to help you overcome social anxiety and improve social interaction.

1. View social situations as opportunities by recalling past success

Some successful sport teams have a tradition in which they take players through past successes before a cup final. The players get shown previous cup finals before the match and get taken through all the trophies that the team has won before. The past success of the team helps players get motivated to win another cup final for the team. If you ever had past successes interacting socially use this as anchors for yourself. Remember how you successfully delivered a presentation in front of an audience and interacted very well with a stranger. Have you ever been in a situation where you delivered a public speech and did well despite your fear? This is the time to have these memories fresh in your mind. Remembering your past successes and celebrating past victories can help you believe in yourself and be able to overcome present anxiety feelings toward social interactions.

2. Use visualization to empower yourself for social situations

Access the power of your subconscious mind by constantly picturing yourself interacting well socially. This need not take long. Just spending 5 minutes seeing yourself approaching a stranger and having a pleasant conversation or picturing yourself delivering a great presentation publicly can help. Once our mind has been where we want to be, our bodies just need to support us in getting there. By mentally picturing yourself having social self-confidence, you will be able to give yourself better strength to play out your mental images in real life when the situations calls for it. Be careful though, visualization needs to be done before a social interaction. Doing this actively as you are interacting socially might be problematic because it will force you to think about what you are doing. When thinking about what you are doing you are more likely to get anxious. So visualize before social interactions and try as much as you can to remain natural when in social situations.

3. Make social interaction a challenging game of exposure

Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously and this does not help. Improving social anxiety requires you to occasionally have a playful attitude. Use a playful attitude to expose yourself socially. Exposure is scientifically proven to be very effective when it comes to improving social anxiety. I know this is the last thing that you might want to hear because when you are uncomfortable interacting socially the immediate response is to avoid social interaction. However, the more exposure you get interacting socially the better you will become. Aim to start a small conversation every time you are in a social situation with a stranger. This can be as simple as saying hallo to a cashier each time you pay for items in a store or when shopping. Just asking the cashier his/her name and thanking him/her for the service is enough to get you going.

Few of us remember to appreciate cashiers when shopping, you will make their day just showing appreciation and equally improve yourself. Try as much as you can to expose yourself.

Petrol attendants are also good people to interact with in a non-threatening environment to start a conversation. This is better done playfully so that you see it as a challenge instead of getting too serious and reading too much on the results. The more you bring it to your awareness to interact with others the better you will expose yourself and improve how you interact socially.

Spending time with a friend who is not afraid to interact socially might also help in this situation. Human beings learn by seeing also. If your anxiety is specific such as falling in a public place then get a friend to pretend falling in a public space so that you can visually see that the results are not as worse as you thought they would be. Expose yourself without emotional attachment. Use a playful attitude with any friend who is comfortable interacting socially and have fun doing so. Practice makes perfect, this is also true in getting rid of social anxiety.

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We did have a society sometime back, but today we have social media! An agent of transformation, it has had a major impact on our culture, business and on the world-at-large. There has been an increase in transparency, with a growing number of people expressing themselves on the social web.

There have been hardly any facets of our daily lives, uninfluenced by this amazing tool. Ever wondered how social media has changed us? Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube et.al have gone on to revolutionize the way we interact with one another.

Social Web 2015 – What does it look like?

There are so many exciting developments on the social web, which has led to a massive insurgence. Social messaging platforms such as Snapchat and Whatsapp have gone on to influence social sphere in such a way that they’re now being seen as quasi social networks in their own way.

Smartphone penetration has soared like never before, with about 1.65 billion global active mobile social accounts. Mobile has come across as an obsessive technology fueling growth on the social sphere, and becoming an agent of disruption.

How Social Media has changed us – The Positive Side

Our world has transformed into a Global Village, connected at all times by the social web. So much is the impact of social in our lives that staying away from it can take you to extinction, and who wants to go obsolete in today’s world of intensive connectivity?

Here’s a brief lowdown on the positive impact of social media:

· Free Flowing Communication

Remember those times when you hesitated to share your opinion? Today, the social sphere encompasses untrammeled communication devoid of interaction barriers. It enables like-minded individuals come together and opine on a common platform. It helps in uniting people working for common goals and also gives them a viable direction for investing their efforts.

· Empowerment of Masses

Don’t you wonder how social media has changed us, and empowered us furthermore? There is a mass empowerment, resulted by sharing of ideas on social sphere. Masses have become more empowered and are more informed. It enables individuals to get first-hand information and the world is becoming a smaller place to live in.

· Businesses & Marketing

Today boundaries between businesses and their target audiences are rapidly reducing. It has become easier to connect with customers and procure feedback. This has helped businesses focus on greater customer centricity and augment the quality of their services.

The playing fields have become level today, and the power of strong business ideas makes it possible for businesses to thrive, with the influence of social increasing exponentially.

How Social Media has changed us – The Downside

With a fair amount of advantages, it is easy to believe that the social sphere is a rosy path, leading to positive changes. The path is however, not that rosy! The thorns that stick up with the benefits of going social also have the power to suppress the sweet scent of its various advantages. Discussed below are some ways the social sphere hasn’t been too good for us:

· Lack of Authenticity

There is so much data on the social sphere, that it could be very challenging to sift through authentic information. Authenticity is left best to the discretion of general public, which makes them highly opinionated too. This lack of authentic information makes most people misinformed and even sparks unnecessary tirades.

· Mudslinging and Angry Social Mobs

Love consuming news on a regular basis from your favourite social networking website? It can be great to get news on your fingertips, but not too good if it becomes a judgment ground for anything. While this does have a favorable outcome in most cases, there is also a downside to it. Sometimes the news goes on to spark mass social wars that result in ugly political tirades followed by defamation and mudslinging on public platforms.

· Lack of Security

Whenever faced with the question of how social media has changed us, one word that comes to my mind is insecurity… Due to the humongous amount of informative exchanges on the social sphere, it has become a leading champion of distrust. It has become one of those channels of communication, which is increasingly being deemed as insecure and untrustworthy. It enables dissemination of information to untrustworthy audiences, leading to greater crime rates.

That was an honest bit about the downside and upside of going social from our end… If I were to conclude about how social media has changed us, I’d say that it has its own ups and downs, but it is up to us to make the best out of it. It is imperative to exercise caution while using it, but the benefits of social media are too good to be ignored.

Did you know about the amazing ways in which going social could help you inch closer to success? If not, get in touch with the digital marketing experts to make an everlasting impact on the social sphere!

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Kids have dialogues with themselves if they enlist in imaginative play. Role-playing implies developing a story and providing a voice on the various figures in the story. When kids copy others, they’re creating a vocabulary which enables them to brand and go over the world around them. Less verbal kids may well chat much more during innovative play than in some other ways.

Psychologist Lev Vygotsky’ s concept of cognitive development posits that info through the outside world is converted and also internalized through language. Because words is both a symbolic method of interaction and a cultural tool utilized to transmit history and culture, play is a crucial aspect of each language development along with a child ‘s comprehension of the outside world. When a kid is at play, he or she is in a continuous dialogue possibly with others or self.

Kids at play are making good sense of the earth through a procedure for “inner speech” – that’s, they’re frequently speaking aloud to themselves. As adults, we drop this particular capacity since it’s not socially sanctioned.

In case we actually tune in kids at play, we are able to audibly hear the way they converse with themselves in an effort to make good sense of the outside world. Mimicking adults is usually the most apparent means this procedure could be observed. (“Now, we need to clean the hands of ours and ingest supper” a kid playing “family” may say, for instance).

Based on Vygotsky, words also serves the goal of regulation, or maybe self control more than one ‘s very own cognitive tasks like thought and memory. As we produce, we switch from being other regulated to remaining self regulated in the cognitive processes of ours. Discovering dialect via play is a crucial aspect of this change.

The social interaction of play develops cognition

Vygotsky had also been enthusiastic about the function of social interaction on cognitive growth and also argued that improvement initially takes place socially. That’s, parental behavior is observed by children, tune in parents’ speech, and attempt to mimic them. As kids process through imitation, parents will direct kids, fix them, and also supply challenges. Through child centered play, kids tackle roles that are different and also try various language uses, almost all of that help them over the journey from remaining externally regulated to internally controlled in cognition. Through play, kids start to be far more proficient in the language use of theirs and also start regulating the own thought processes.

Vygotsky’s principle is among the foundations of constructivism. Three leading themes concerning social interaction, are asserted by the more skillful other, and also the zone of proximal advancement. A fundamental role in the practice of cognitive development is played by social interaction. In comparison to Jean Piaget’s comprehension of kid development (in what progress necessarily precedes knowing), Vygotsky sensed community learning precedes development. He states: “Every feature within the kid’s cultural advancement appears twice: for starters, on the interpersonal level, and also later, on the unique level; for starters, between individuals (interpsychological) after which inside the kid (intrapsychological)”.

The greater Knowledgeable Other (MKO) The MKO describes any person who’s got a clear understanding or maybe a greater capacity level than the learner, with regard to a specific undertaking, process, and idea. The MKO is generally considered as being older adult, coach, or a teacher, but the MKO might be also colleagues, a young individual, or maybe perhaps computers.

THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL Development (ZPD)

The ZPD is the distance between a student ‘s potential to do a task under adult guidance as well as with peer cooperation and the student ‘s potential solving the issue by themselves. Based on Vygotsky, learning it happens in this specific zone.

Vygotsky centered on the connections between individuals as well as the sociocultural context where they take action and interact in shared experiences. Based on Vygotsky ideas, people use equipment that develop a lifestyle, like writing and speech, to mediate their sociable environments. Initially kids develop these tools to deliver solely as sociable features, means to communicate needs. Vygotsky thought the internalization of these resources resulted in increased thinking skills.

Uses Of the VYGOTSKY’S Social Development THEORY

Lots of schools have usually held a transmissionist or maybe instructionist model of education where a teacher or maybe lecturer’ transmits’ info to pupils. In comparison, Vygotsky’s principle encourages learning contexts where pupils have an active part in learning. Functions of the instructor along with pupil are thus shifted, since a teacher must collaborate with his or maybe the students of her to be able to simply help facilitate meaning construction in pupils. Learning thus turns into a reci

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