Facebook

5 Guaranteed Ways to Get More Fans on Facebook

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Today, an estimated 40 million small businesses are using Facebook to promote their business and connect with their customers. Trying to attract new “likes” to your page can be a challenge, but one that is well worth the effort. One study found that the average value of a single Facebook fan is $174. While this number varies depending on your business and industry, capturing the loyalty of your target audience is essential.

Here are five guaranteed ways to attract more visitors and garner more fans on Facebook.

1. Images
A regular part of your Facebook content strategy should revolve around images. Posting captivating and relevant pictures to your Facebook page is an excellent way for you to increase engagement with your audience. As your audience shares the photos that you post, you’ll begin to see a boost in your reach, leading to more exposure and fans.

2. Produce Great Content
One of the quickest ways to lose fans is by posting less than stellar content. The most common reason people will leave, unlike a brand page, is because the business continues to post uninteresting content. Keep more of the fans that you’ve already gained by creating engaging content that adds value and meets the needs of your audience.

3. Hold a Contest
People love to win stuff. Holding a contest on your business Facebook page is still a great way to persuade people to like your page. It is essential to spread the word about the contest on your website as well as sending the information about it to your email list. If the contest is inventive enough, you’ll be able to spread your reach even further and gain more fans. Just make sure that you make “liking” your page a requirement for your contest.

4. Buy Them
Facebook has some of the most targeted advertising at your disposal. You can use Facebook advertisements to drive more people to your page with the hopes of converting them into fans. With this method, it is crucial that you have a compelling call to action on your page to turn these new fans into customers.

5. Cross Promote
A part of your overall social media strategy should include cross-promoting your content across multiple social media platforms. Drive some of your Twitter or YouTube followers over to your Facebook page by providing them with high-quality content and quality engagement on your Facebook fan page.

Just like with all your marketing efforts, it is going to take some time to build your fan base on Facebook. By creating great content and engaging with your audience you’ll turn your Facebook Fan page into a thriving community.

Instagram

4 Easy Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram

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Over the last few years, Instagram has become a well-loved social media platform with over a billion active users (June 2018). If you’re looking to grow your business, get more traffic to your blog, and build a stronger community for your brand you can do this through Instagram.  Building a large Instagram following isn’t hard, but it definitely takes time.

Here are four surefire ways you can grow your Instagram followers for your business.

Like Photos in Your Industry
The best way to get your name out there is by liking other people’s photos. Every day, spend 10 minutes on Instagram and like five to ten pictures on someone’s account. You should also try and leave them a genuine comment and start following them. To find users in your industry or niche, check hashtags and view the followers of your favorite Instagram accounts.

Get Your Own Hashtag
Creating a hashtag for your business is a great way to build your community and gain new content for your account. The first step is creating a unique hashtag that isn’t already in use. Next, ask others to use it. Once people start using your hashtag, you can begin to repost the images from your followers. This allows you to build a community by showing your followers that you appreciate their photos and it gives you new content for your account.

Respond to Your Followers
The entire nature of social media platforms like Instagram is to be social. To grow your Instagram followers, you need to respond to any comments that you receive and leave comments for other people. It is important that your comments be genuine, and they should encourage them to post even more photos.

Collaborate with Others
Another awesome way to extend your reach on Instagram and grow your following is to collaborate with others. This can be either through a partnership of sponsorship. A partnership allows both parties to provide value to their followers while expanding their exposure and reaching new audiences. With high engagement rates and more than one billion monthly active users, it’s no wonder getting more Instagram followers is a huge priority for businesses.

One of the most important factors to remember when trying to build your Instagram followers is to share great content that is relevant to your target audience, and that provides them with value. If you want to develop your presence quickly, follow these four tips in your Instagram social marketing strategy today.

Crypto, Forex

Should You Trade Or Invest In Bitcoin?

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This is a subject quite close to my heart because as well as owning Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, I like to trade them using a traditional broker such as JAFX.

Trading and investing may sound the same, but in reality, they are as different as day and night. Trading refers to a short-term method of trying to profit from buying and selling of bitcoins while investing refers to a long-term strategy where a buyer will hold on to their coins for a long time and ride out any dips in the market price.

The Trader

The Bitcoin trader thrives on the exciting volatility of crypto. They’ll try to time the market and buy coins when the price dips and then they’ll wait for the price to go up before they sell them. Trading is a high-risk game because you’re betting for the price to go up or down. Not everyone can trade, however. The most successful traders are those who have nerves of steel and can detach their emotions from their trades.

Traders don’t get scared of dips in the price because they are optimistic it’s going to go up again, sooner or later. They are looking to maximize their profits, too, so they’ll mostly invest a lump sum and buy at the lowest price they can possibly go for, and then they’ll wait until the price is high enough for them to make significant profit.

Trading takes a lot of guts. It takes a lot of thought and analysis. If you’re an emotional type of person who gets physically sick with every dip in bitcoin price, then you’re better off investing, and not trading, in bitcoins.

The Bitcoin Investor

Bitcoin investors are different from traders. They’re in it for the long haul. They’re not looking to take advantage of short-term fluctuations in the exchange rate. If the price goes down by hundreds or thousands of dollars, they’re probably going to get worried, but they’re not going to pull out their investment because they’ve already decided they’re going to hold it for the next 10, 20 or 30 years.

A wise investor will practice the dollar cost averaging method to manage risk. This means whether the price goes up or down, they’re going to buy bitcoins and hold them. This strategy is perfect for long-term investments as you’re essentially spreading the risk. Though profits may not be as significant as short-term trading, the bitcoin investor probably sleeps easier at night as they’re not worried how the charts are going to look like tomorrow or the day after.

Crypto

4 Strategies for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Investors

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Investing in highly volatile Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is risky business. These currencies are all electronic or virtual in nature, and thus have no physical presence. They don’t even have intrinsic value. However, no one can deny that right now these cryptocurrencies are extremely valuable and those who invested in the early days, and held on to their investments, are living the high life now as multi-millionaires, and even billionaires!

If you want to be like these wise investors sometime in the future, then follow these 4 investing strategies to increase your chances for success.

1 – Prepare For Volatility

It’s a given with cryptocurrencies that they are going to be extremely volatile. One minute the price is sitting at 5 digits, and the next it’s at 4 or even 3 digits! It’s absolutely unpredictable, and if you don’t take its volatility seriously, you could get in a lot of trouble. You could panic and sell off your crypto so you can minimize your loss.

However, if you’ve braced yourself for scenarios like this, then you’d probably just shut down your computer, or turn off your TV, and lie down and sleep off your doubts. Tomorrow is a different day, the price could go back up, and all will be fine with the world. Being prepared for volatility is tough, but it’s definitely doable.

Only trade with money you are quite happy to lose – it definitely can happen!

2 – Proceed With Caution

Do your research before you start investing in bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. When you’re dealing with hard-earned money, you don’t want to lose everything in one day.  You’re investing to make a profit sometime in the future. Don’t go all in without studying what you’re putting your money into.

3 – Diversify Your Portfolio

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. Don’t just invest in Bitcoin. If possible, invest in other cryptocurrencies as well as traditional assets like stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. At least if bitcoin prices drop, then you’re not going to be totally in the red. Your other investments will help keep you afloat.

4 – Store Your Virtual Coins in Cold Wallets

Investing is a long-term game, and it is not advisable to keep your cryptocurrencies in online wallets such as your exchange’s wallet, or even your mobile app wallet. Keep your private keys in cold wallets such as paper or hardware wallets since these aren’t connected to the Internet. You can keep small amounts in your online wallets, but the bulk of your investments should be offline.

iMarketsLiveIf you’ve never invested in trading before you need a good team around you to trade successfully.  There are plenty of groups on Facebook and online forums, but it really helps to be in a successful team who know their stuff.  If you want to join a really great team who are smashing it with Forex and Crypto send me an email and I’ll get you onboard today!

Crypto, Forex

Cryptocurrency Scams – Red Flags!

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Unfortunately, cryptocurrency scams seem to be catching out a lot of people who are new to the crypto world. Con artists prey on those of us who don’t know the difference between a real crypto platform and a fake one, or who don’t know a Ponzi scheme from a legitimate affiliate program. These scammers fool people into thinking that their well-designed websites give them a strong impression of legitimacy, but on closer inspection, these sites won’t pass muster. Here are some giant red flags you should be aware of:

1 – Website Has No SSL Certificate

It’s extremely important for a website that deals with cryptocurrencies to have an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate installed. Websites with no SSL only display HTTP before their domain names, but more secure websites with SSL show HTTPS. Many scam websites are here today, gone tomorrow types of sites, which means once they’ve scammed a certain number of people, they’ll shut down that site and move on to a fresh domain. It’s quite easy to transfer website files from one domain to another; this is why these scammers can set up shop very quickly.

2 – The Offer Is Too Good To Be True 

Whether you’re trying to get the best rates for your dollars or bitcoins, it’s only natural that you’d want the best possible deal. Since cryptocurrencies are decentralized, most crypto exchanges have their own exchange rates. However, these rates don’t vary by much. If you see a website offering rates that are significantly lower or higher than other established exchanges, then it’s a giant red flag. It’s better to do business with a trusted platform with higher fees than to try to get the best deal out of an unknown website that could possibly swindle you out of your entire fortune.

3 – Beware Of Ponzi Scams

Some Ponzi scams are not as obvious especially if they’ve been around for a few weeks or months. This is because their first members would already have received their profits (derived from payments by new recruits) and would be posting glowing reviews on the Internet. At first glance, you might be fooled into thinking it’s a legitimate crypto operation especially if you personally know someone who’s made money from the scheme. Check out those positive reviews, and you’ll see they’re basically saying the same thing. We’d even like to bet they would have their affiliate or referral links somewhere on the review.

4 – Website Has Been Set Up Recently

One more red flag to be aware of is the date the website was originally set up.  Scam websites have usually been set up in the last few weeks or months so look out for recent dates.

You can find the Registration Date of any website by using the whois directory.  Simply go to www.whois.com and type in the domain you are querying then hit Search.

You will see the domain listed as ‘unavailable’ so just hit the Whois button to find out when the domain name was first registered.  In the example below you can see this was 2016-11-13.

Keep a close eye out for any of these red flags when you see an offer which is ‘too good to be true’.  Because, usually it will be.  Don’t let them win!

Find out more about Bitcoin and Crypto in general over at my new section.

First Steps

1000s of Royalty Free Images for Nothing? Really?

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I stumbled across Pixabay about 6 months ago and signed up for a free account when I was searching for a few images for my website.  The site is so easy to use and gives you access to thousands of amazing photographs and images in loads of different categories.

All you have to do is upload some of your own photos that you’re willing to share with others so that you can have access to the huge selection available from other Pixabay users.

I’ve recorded a short video to give you an over-the-shoulder view of the website (www.pixabay.com) and hope you find it really useful.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you found this helpful.