Facebook has replaced box with application tabs, which could be a good or a bad news depending upon from where you are looking at it. My objective is not to prove one group right and another wrong, but it is to suggest you ways to apply this new feature.

3 steps to add application tabs

Step 1: Click on the profile page link and wait for the profile page to appear.

Step 2: Go to the area where wall, info, and photos are written. At the end of this line, you will find a + sign, click on that.

Step 3: In a drop-down menu you will see a series of application avaialble for you. Below that you wil find a box beneath “search application tabs”. Enter the keywords of the application tabs you want to use.

That’s it. You have added your favorite application in facebook’s application tabs.

This feature will transform Facebook into a mega pplication which will host almost all the inforamtion that you routinly seek from the web. It will become your RSS reader twitter feed agregator, blog reader, etc.

But, at presnet the choice is quite limited, so there is nothing much that you can do with it. Still, there is no harm is testing this feature.

Guide to a perfect speech generation:

Map the audience

Find out whom you are going to deliver your speech to, how old they are, and which part of the country they are from. The better you analyze your audience, the easier it will be for you to prepare the speech. It will help you to develop the perfect style, set the mood, and connect with the audience by including relevant jargons. Most importantly, it will help you to pick up the apt topic, as per the interest of the audience. It must add value to their lives whether by solving a problem or setting new goals and vision. Develop an emotional connect with the audience.

Pick a relevant topic

Topic should relate to the audience. Don’t pick up a topic you are not comfortable with. You can turn spontaneous only when you have some command on the topic. Pick up a topic of interest. It can be an outcome of your personal life, general topic, current topic, or a browsed topic from Internet, magazines and newspapers. Unless you are passionate about the topic, don’t pick it up.

Set the objective and time frame

Every communication has a set objective. Speech is not an exception either. Set specific objective like what you want to achieve or want the audience to do. It will help you develop the structure of the speech, limit the content, streamline your thoughts, and march towards a desired outcome. Make important points and elaborate them, but don’t stretch too far. Too much elaboration bore the audience.

Use your imagination and build story

Hues of imagination instill life into a speech. Stretch your imagination and let it fly high. Grab attention of the audience right from the beginning. Use vivid examples while explaining the points you put across. Talk about personal experiences. Make it dramatic and personalized.

Relax and speak

Don’t appear as if you are rushing. Relax while you speak. Don’t talk in too high pitch. Don’t get too nervous, little bit of fear is okay. If initially you are to scared start practicing in front of family, friends, and mirror.

Last but not the least, enjoy!

Confidence oozes when you enjoy the session. It shouldn’t seem like a burden but an enjoyable activity. Make eye contact to appear confident and bold. Be yourself. Don’t get tempted to be like someone else.

And soon you’ll find you are the master of speech delivery.

• S – Strength
• W – Weakness
• O – Opportunity
• T – Threat

Strength and weakness are internal elements, which mean they are inherent to the product or organization. And opportunity and threat are external elements, which mean they are not inbuilt in, but are outside of the product or organization.

Opportunity is presented by the market, whereas, your competitors (both direct and indirect) can be a threat.

Benefit of SWOT analysis

• It helps you find out the opportunity that you can use to maximize the market penetration of your product or services.
• It helps you gauge your competition, and tells you what to avoid.
• It also brings the weakness of your product on the table, which you can eliminative before reaching to the market.
• SWOT analysis will help you make a better decision.

How to do SWOT Analysis?

Step 1: Find the strengths of your product

Step 2: Find the weaknesses of the product you are offering.

Step 3: Find the need gap (opportunity) in the market, based on the strength of your product.

Step 4: List the potential threats that you might face, if you cash in on the opportunity.

Notes:

1. 1. Always Use Bullet points to do the SWOT. There is no need to write long descriptive points.
2. 2. Do not reverse the order. Always start with analyzing S and W elements of SWOT followed by the analysis of O and T elements.

A parting thought

SWOT analysis is just a tool, and how well you use the tool will decide what result you will get from it. It is easy to get biased towards one’s own product and organization, but you should avoid this trap. Stay objective and stay focused when doing a SWOT analysis of your product or organization.

Elements of a website review

Introduction

A brief introduction about the purpose of the website you are going to review is very critical. In the introduction write in brief what the website is about, and give a brief history of the company and what it does. You can also mention in brief your opinion about the website.

Design

Design is the first thing anyone notice when he comes to a website. Analyze the following layout of the content and try to answer the following questions.

• Is it too cluttered? Or is it clutter-free?
• Does the color-scheme of the website good for the niche it operates in?
• Is it appealing?
• Is it easy to find information on the website?
• Is the design SEO-friendly?

Navigation

Navigation plays an important role in the whole website. Try to answer the following question in your review.

• Is the navigation intuitive?
• How many clicks does it require before you can reach the desired page?
• Are all page connected to the home page?
• Is the website using flash, Java-script or any other scripting for the navigation?
• How flat is the navigation? Or is it too-much layered?
• Are there any broken link?
• On which side of the website is the navigation?
• Does the website have an HTML and an XML site map?
• Is the navigation SEO-friendly?

Focus element

Focus element of the website is the core of the website, for which the website has been built. It’s the intent of the website is clear.

• Is the intent of the website clear?
• Does the focus element of the website express the objective?
• How quickly can a visitor tell what the website is about?
• What’s the website trying to accomplish?

Content

Content of a website is its lifeline. The quality of content will determine how long visitors stay on the website? The quality of the website’s content will determine if a visitor will return or not, and whether he will make a purchase or not.

• Is the content relevant to the website? Does it serve the purpose of the website?
• Is it well-written?
• Does it make sense?
• Does it contain grammatical, punctuation, or structural errors?
• Is the content professionally written?
• Is it SEO-friendly?

This is the basics of writing a website review. In case you need to go into more complex details when writing a website review then I will suggest you to wait till the next article comes along. Until then practice writing basic review using the elements suggested above.

What is a resource box?

The text written at the bottom of an article that talks about the author is known as resource box. A resource box contains a brief bio of the author, 2 to 3 links to the author’s home page and an author’s photograph. A resource box may look like the following:

Why we need Article Marketing

The ultimate goal of an article written for article directories is to get backlinks and visitors for the author’s website. But it has two intermediary goals as well. The first one is to get the article picked by various online publishers, and second is to establish oneself as an expert in the chosen field.

These two goals are worthy because the more people will pick your article the more backlink you will get. And the more established as an expert you will become for your field the more reliable your advices will be. This, in turn, will result in more visitors and more sales.

Generally, author of an article in this case is the webmaster who owns the website to which the article is linking.

What is article directories

An article directory is a website where an author can submit his or her articles. The article directories are often free, and they generate revenue by placing ads in the articles published under its domain. Some of the best known article directories are:

• Ezine Articles
• Go Articles
• Article Dashboard
• Article Alley
• Amazines
• Buzzle
• Search Wrap

In the coming posts, I will discuss about different aspects of article marketing, so stay tuned.

The number one step in this plan is to keep your resume as current as possible.  By frequently updating your resume with your most recent accomplishments, or work history, you ensure it’s current and very reflective of you.  Beyond that you want to customize your objective to tailor to the company to which you are applying.  Your objective should not be a bland description of what you want out of a job, but rather what you want to put into a job.  Specifically focused on the company to which you are applying.

Highlight your stability from previous jobs.  By emphasizing that you are a worker that is reliable, and also with a fair amount of loyalty, you make yourself an asset to an organization.  Companies are looking to people that they can count on if they’re actually hiring during a recession.  Highlight the fact that you are dependable, and that a company would do well to hire you for that fact.

Finally, make sure that you personalize the resume for each company.  You need to have a job specific resume each time, so that you are presenting yourself as an interested party.  By making the resume count for them, you look interested and ready to commit to the position.  The work you put in before you actually get a job will pay off on your road to getting hired.

Below, I am giving a handful of writing tips that will help people like me read more on the Internet, by the way, most of the people on the Internet are like me only.

1. Use Headlines, headings and subheading that make sense. Keep clever lines safe for print.
2. Use simple words. No one like using a dictionary when scanning through the Internet.
3. Use short sentences to convey the idea.
4. Use short paragraphs. Paragraphs that run into 10s of sentences are strict no-no for the web.
5. Write a proper paragraph; one idea per paragraph.
6. Break the articles into small chunks by using headings and subheads.
7. Make your text more scannable by making important keywords bold, italic or by underlining it.
8. Use lists like this one, wherever it is possible. It is easy to go through a list than a 10-sentence paragraph.
9. Use objective language. Do not make your article sound like a promotion material.
10. Link old articles or blog-posts on your domain to retain visitors for long.

1. Begin with telling your name and company’s name, and do it as succinctly as you can.

2. Use this brief moment to gain access to more time, may be 45-50 seconds more. This can only be done, if you address the client’s problem in one single line. You got me right. You will need to do some research before making the cold call. No blind cold calls please!

3. Once you got the time you asked for, get directly to the point and build the case, so that you can get a chance to have a face to face meeting.

4. Give some detail about the problem you seek to address and hide some details. The idea is to build curiosity.

5. Let the client take the lead. Your objective is to get to the meeting table, not to practice the one-upmanship.

6. No one likes pushy sales person, so hang up if the person is not interested.

Yes, if it’s done right then it is worth the effort. Cold calling is one of the most cost effective and widely used lead generation techniques. Indeed, there are many much more effective ways of lead generation, but the utility of cold calling cannot be ignored.  If you are running tight on budget, cold calling can help you getting your foot in the door, and from there you can begin your elevator pitch. Cold calling can be more effective than any other means of communication in the following three situations:

Introduction: There are situations in which cold calling is more effective than any other technique. If you are new in the market, and you want the clientele to take notice of you then you can consider using the cold calling techniques. Unlike introductory e-mails, a call to one of your prospective clients will buy you at least 10-15 seconds before they hang up. Use these 10-15 seconds to introduce your business, and if the call continues ask for 45-50 more seconds to discuss the things in detail. Use the time allotted to you very wisely. You do not need to supply all the essential detail in this 45-50-second time, just power pack the allotted time with an objective to fix a meeting by building interest in the services or products you are offering.

Database Tuning: A reply is not guaranteed when you send an e-mail to a random person from your database. The chances of your e-mail landing directly into trash bin are quite high, but when you make a call the person on the other end has to reply with either a yes or no; at time, people may be rude and just hung up the phone, nonetheless, you got the answer you were seeking. Use it to clean up the garbage from your database.

Sales Qualification: Use cold calling to see if your prospect is in the frame of mind to receive your salesperson or not. Given the complexity of sales life and the demand put on the organization’s resources (time, money and effort) cold calling can save hundreds to hundred thousands of dollars. This of course depends upon the size of your organization and resources you allot to prospecting and lead generation.

Be pushy and you lose the customer. This is guaranteed. No one likes pushy salesperson. Can you think of any more way in which we can use cold calling effectively? Write into the comment box below your inputs and suggestions. In the next article on cold calling, I will be giving a framework for a typical cold call.

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