5 Things you must know before Buying a Web Content Management System

Before talking about how to buy a web content management system, let’s take a quick look at two important questions.

First question:

What is a WCM solution and how does it differ from a CMS? A WCM is a solution that makes it easy for your employees to make changes to your website, while offering templates and other features to maintain consistency.

There are fine points of difference between a WCM and CMS, but most solution providers offer a combination of both: every CMS has most of the features that you’d find in any WCM product.

Another important question: do you really need a WCM? Let’s take a quick look at the features and facilities offered by most WCM solutions to try and answer this question.

WYSIWYG editor
Drag-and-drop editing
Authoring templates
Collaboration capability
Scheduled publishing
Security and workflow controls
Site navigation and URL customization
Previewing and pre-rendering
Staging for separating content locally
Access control and permission for different users

Digital marketing and web analytics features

If you feel that these features will help you better manage your ecommerce store or business website, you need a WCM solution. The core function of a web CMS is to enable users with little technical knowledge to administer websites. Most WCM products have templates that simplify this task.

For example, Microsoft’s Sitecore or Sitefinity CMS come equipped with all the features that you’d find in a WCM solutions and a CMS.

Now, let’s take a look at what points you must consider while shopping for a WCMS (web content management system).

# 1. Central Features and Functionality

Let the choice of the WCMS be dictated by your wants. For instance, if you have a nice ecommerce website selling only a dozen types of products, you may not require too much customization with text or images. In such a case, a simple WordPress solution may be more than enough for your needs.

On the other hand, if you are managing a website with thousands of service or product pages – where you have different structure for different kinds of pages – you may have to invest in a high-end WCMS that offers more features. Other features like digital marketing, versioning, multi-website support and support for different languages also come into play in case of complex websites.

# 2. Communication and Collaboration

For large business organizations that have a large number of stakeholders, the following questions are significant:

Will your employees use the WCMS to collaborate and create documents?
Do you need a feature that enables a number of people to work on a document at the same time or at different times?
Do your sales people need a feature that allows them to communicate with different departments, employees and customers?
Will you be using it for email marketing? Do you need a feature that allows you to segment recoupments?

If you need all these facilities, you will have to shop for a system that provides modules for in-depth collaboration and communication.

# 3. Asset Management

While most web CMSes will have fantastic features of editing information, many of them do not offer enough facility for managing assets. If you are running a website that has a large number of images and other files, you need powerful asset management features. If the system is not designed to handle large quantity of web assets, it can lead to a lot of time waste and heartburn. Check what features a web CMS has for managing and displaying PDFs, images and other kinds of files.

#4. Access Control, Roles and Permissions

For smaller business, where just a couple of people are in charge of implementing web changes, there is no need for access control, but if dozens of people contribute to the website and make changes, you need to set up clear roles and permissions. So, it becomes imperative to choose a web content management system that simplifies the process of assigning roles and permissions to different sets of users.

#5. What kind of web content management system do I need?

The answer to this question will be clear after you have found an answer to the above questions. The most popular open-source systems –WordPress, Joomla, Drupal – pack a lot of punch, and these are good enough for most small business. However, if you are running a large ecommerce website, or require an enterprise-level solution, you may need to give it a little more thought.

You have two broad options 1) customize an open-source software and make sure that it is capable of fulfilling all your needs, or 2) Choose a propriety solutions that is most suitable to your existing website and your specific requirements (you may need customization here too). For instance, if you have an ASP.NET website and most of your employees are conversant only with MS tools and technologies, you might choose to go for Sitecore or Sitefinity CMS that offer a gentler learning curve.

Bottom Line

As you can see by looking at the above points, your choice of web CMS will be dictated by what your website and your employees need. If you are unsure of what is the right choice, it may be a good idea to consult your IT manager, or take advice from a friend whose business is already using a WCMS. After you have all the information in hand, it will be easier for your decide whether you want a simple a proprietary off-the-shelf web CMS, an open-source solution or a customized solution.

About the author:

Kinjal is working as a digital marketer and blogger with 5 years of experience. She is full time employee with Cygnet Infotech expert in delivering complete ecommerce solution. She is always happy to share her passion for ecommerce and mobile technologies. Follow Kinjal on Twitter @adeshara_kinjal or connect with her on Google+, Facebook or Linkedin

October 12, 2012March 24, 2014

The ARTS + VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS

What is ‘The Arts’ ?

1.    The Arts is a group of disciplines, comprising many genres, endeavours or art forms, all united by their employment of the human creative impulse, to express and communicate through various art forms.
2.    New and additional genres are being added daily.
3.    Let us put them all in one box for ease of understanding. This may be contentious to some globally, who have different perceptions of The Arts.
4.    The many forms of expression create an adequate or enormous income for many players, but for others, sadly it must just be perceived as a pastime, due to lack of funds or infrastructures.
5.    The Arts are dying in many countries, which are not getting sufficient financial support from their governments or other and so it is time to seek other means of exposure and marketing platforms.

What do The Arts enable ?

1.    Imparting a message
2.    Telling a true story
3.    Education
4.    Imparting own gifts
5.    Creating mindset shifts
6.    Enabling interactive conversation
7.    Enabling enjoyment, laughter, sadness, joy etc
8.    Self expression
9.    Enabling escape from real life – and so on

Let’s look at some players in ‘The Arts’

MUSICIANS – all genres from jazz to rap
ARTISTS – all mediums, including sculptors, potters, etc
DANCERS – al genres, from ballet to hip hop
COMEDIANS
MAGICIANS
SINGERS – from OPERA to RAP – including producers, choreographers
FILM/THEATRE – actors, directors, writers, producers, choreographers
WRITERS/AUTHORS – all genres, including poets, fiction, non-fiction, biographies, etc

Players in ‘The Arts’ need to up their marketing game + would do well, by using the Social networking sites + incorporating VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS into their marketing mix

Adding VIDEO CONFERENCING / WEBINARS into the marketing mix :

More and more of The Arts genres are embracing this powerful technology as an adjunct marketing, training, collaboration, communication and exposure platform. Due to budget and time constraints, people cannot always travel far distances to attend an event/training etc..

DISTANCE Training/Workshops

Globally teaching, learning + rehearsing dance routines, orchestral music arrangements + scores, scripts etc in advance before show time
Creating a global environment for creative research across diverse disciplines, where all players can collaborate, experiment and enjoy artistic exchange and learning, exploring the boundaries of synthesizing art and technology
In this global environment, students can actively explore their creativity and develop, using their own creative gifts through active engagement, reflection and collaboration
More and more music teachers world wide are embracing this technology to teach pupils to play various instruments in remote areas

SHOWCASING

Virtual shows can be created in a global Video Meeting Room, where interested parties can participate in interactive sessions, with people interested in learning more about their particular genre of Art.

BOOK LAUNCHES

o Authors can save a fortune by hosting a virtual book tour.

o This can be co-marketed with e-commerce book companies, online communities and off-line bookstores, that want to drive traffic to their stores and sites.

MEDIA INTERVIEWS

o Invite reporters or editors to an online web interview.

o These web events can be conducted with the media, through relevant websites and e-commerce sites.

o Online web interviews enable interviewing all relevant journalists at once, with the promotion of their stories on Movie, TV, Radio, Theatre, Music, Dance, Arts etc.

o Webinars enable you to expose large groups of people at once to interviews with actors, singers, dancers, poets, playwrights, producers, choreographers, directors etc..

ART EXHIBITIONS

o Artists across all art form mediums, can use Video Conferencing to go global, communicate and show their art to the world.

o They could even stream a pre-recorded video on a virtual tour of their art from their own studio or gallery.

o Inviting a well known art expert as a guest speaker to a Webinar, who in their own rights, will attract numbers to the web event, would be an added bonus.

Adding VMail – The new EMAIL – into the marketing mix

What is a Vmail ?

o Video Email is simple to use, online, browser based technology, which enables you to create your own personal Vmails.

o Most technology platforms allow 20 minutes of talk time, which is more than adequate to impart your message.

o Additional videos may also be uploaded into the Vmail, e.g. a virtual tour of an Artist’s gallery or studio, a Singer or Dancer’s debut or demo, etc..

o No software downloads are necessary.

o Bandwidth is not compromised, as the VMail opens on the Internet.

o Most Vmail purveyors allow full integration into your social networks to share on Youtube or Facebook, etc..

WHY use VMAIL ?

Video Email is the new Email ! It is a perfect adjunct marketing tool to incorporate into your Video Communications suite –

Why ?

It’s Different
More powerful
More Personal
More Effective
Is Creative
Seeing is Believing
Has more Impact
Grabs the customer’s Attention
Enables you to literally look into your contact’s eyes and develop a relationship with that person, engaging them on a level that is simply not possible with a static text email
Enables your voice to resonate on a subliminal level
Static text emails, are easy to ignore, and at their best, give a customer only the vaguest notion of what your business or craft really values

Facts :

– Google loves Video !
– Cisco predict there will be a 10 fold increase in the use of Video over the next 5 years
– Internet Video traffic is now 40% of consumer internet
– People retain 10% of what they hear, but 50% of what they see
– Video is the single, most effective form of communication
– Additional creative marketing platforms are constantly being sought
– ‘Old school’ marketing is no longer effective

Heather de Wit considers herself to be an ‘out of the box’ thinker and is happy to share her knowledge on the merits of utilising Video Email and Conferencing/Webinars. Her experience as a sole Entrepreneur for over 20 years spans marketing, advertising and PR. She enjoys creative writing, singing at functions and is a self-taught artist.

Get in touch with heather :

Facebook
LinkedIn
SKYPE : heather.de.wit
Mobile +27824907143+27824907143
EMail: heather@boundless-activities.net

August 11, 2012March 24, 2014

Marketing with VIDEO CONFERENCING / WEBINARS

This technology can change the world !

Facts :

· Google loves Video !

· Cisco predict there will be a 10 fold increase in the use of Video Conferencing/Webinars over the next 5 years

· Internet Video traffic is now 40% of consumer internet

· People retain 10% of what they hear, but 50% of what they see

· Video is the single, most effective form of communication

· Companies continue to look for additional creative marketing platforms

· ‘Old school’ marketing is no longer effective

What is a Video Conference / Webinar ?

Called by many names a Video Conference, a Video Meeting or a Webinar – all meaning the same thing. It is an highly effective, browser based, simple to use virtual Video Meeting Room, where, at the click of a button with a link, you are able to host large or small online meetings with people locally or globally, to connect, communicate and collaborate.

Access to online meetings is now available on most ‘smart phones’.

Some are saying it is the ‘new’ business card.

Many have not yet fully embraced or grasped the power of this technology, perhaps for fear of losing ‘the personal’ touch or the ‘face to face’ meeting scenario. However, we cannot stop progress and this is where things are headed if you want to see it.

‘Going green’ is what the world is advocating and what better way to save on time, energy, airfares, hotel accommodation, increase productivity and ultimately save money, than by hosting meetings, trainings, launches etc online.

This could be perceived as an adjunct marketing platform, or an additional marketing tool to what you already have in place.

The marketplace has become global and this technology enables you to go global with ease.

General features –

· Attract and drive more people to your business

· Share Powerpoint presentations

· Share ideas

· Share Videos

· Show websites

· Share photos

· Review contracts or documents in a safe and secure environment

· Share your desktop

· Use the white boarding feature, with interactive tools, like drawing and highlighting, to make it simpler for your attendees to collaborate with you.

Creative Uses :

· WEBINAR SERIES

Develop a series of Webinars over a number of weeks, with content relevant to your clients or prospects. In this space, you can educate and demonstrate the value of your products or services. Guest specialist speakers always add value.

· ANNOUNCEMENTS, NEW PRODUCTS or CAMPAIGNS

Invite your media contacts, industry analysts, clients and prospects. Elevate the level of conversation by inviting specialists in your audience to answer questions and provide input.

· GUEST SPEAKERS

People perceive you differently when they know where you are coming from – eg, reducing your carbon footprint. Attract people ‘through the back door’ by hosting a Video Conference, selecting a relevant and current ’green’ subject matter, with the added attraction of a guest speaker, who should be a well-known expert or specialist in that particular field. Your guest speaker will, in their own right, easily attract a large audience – Everyone benefits.

· BOOK LAUNCHES

A book tour can be very costly. Authors can save a fortune by hosting a virtual book tour. This can be co-marketed with e-commerce book companies, online communities and off-line bookstores, that want to drive traffic to their stores and sites.

· The ARTS

For Movie/TV/Radio/Theatre/Music/Dance Promotions, use Webinars to reach large groups of people to interview actors, singers, dancers, poets, playwrights, producers, choreographers, directors etc. These web events can be conducted with the media, through relevant websites, e-commerce sites, TV, newspaper or magazine, radio web sites.

· ART EXHIBITIONS

Artists across all art form mediums, can use Video Conferencing to go global, communicate and show their art to the world. They could even stream a pre-recorded video on a virtual tour of their art from their own studio or gallery. Inviting a well known art expert as a guest speaker, who in their own rights, will attract numbers to the web event, would be an added bonus.

· MEDIA INTERVIEWS

To better assist journalists with their stories, invite reporters or editors to an online web interview to discuss issues, show products, present information and data.

· MARKET RESEARCH

Focus groups can view and research products through audio, chat or text-based questions. Polls and online surveys are also a popular feature in these focus groups and are available features with this technology.

· SPECIAL EVENTS/TRADE SHOWS/EXHIBITIONS

Create a virtual show in a Video Meeting Room, where different companies can participate in interactive sessions, with people interested in learning more about your company’s products and services. Due to budget and time constraints, people cannot always travel far distances to attend an event. CUSTOMER SERVICE

Give E-Commerce customers live assistance when choosing products. Invite them to a product knowledge session. The Video Meeting Room can feature a live individual or be a pre-recorded session.

• CUSTOMER SERVICE

Give E-Commerce customers live assistance when choosing products. Invite them to a product knowledge session. The Video Meeting Room can feature a live individual or be a pre-recorded session.

· DEMONSTRATING PRODUCTS

Web conferencing is a great way to demonstrate the uses of products.

· EDITING on the fly

Edit on the fly in a safe and secure environment, with people from different geographic regions. Everyone can view the same document simultaneously, so edits can be made quickly and efficiently, without costly delays.

· Editing WEB SITES

This is a highly efficient way to review web pages with a group of people.

· SKILLING, TRAINING

Webinars are becoming increasingly popular and convenient as a training tool.

· RECRUITMENT

Companies can easily go global and hire the best from anywhere in the world, using Video Conferencing as an interviewing tool, inviting prospective employees to interact and collaborate. Here they can upload their resumes and review same with them, together with others, who are part of the hiring process, but are located in other regions.

· CONTACT US

Video Meeting Rooms can be used as a ‘Contact Us’ feature. People can request an instant meeting to talk with you and learn more about what you do.

· INVESTOR RELATIONS

Invite analysts, media and shareholders to a Web Conference for quarterly reviews, announcements and appointments.

· COMMUNITY

A great tool for Community forums and groups to connect, collaborate and communicate on :

o Community issues, problems

o Neighbourhood watches can have a better handle on crime and policing

· COMPANY STAFF, COMMITTEE, SALES or BOARD MEETINGS

More and more businesses are seeing the value of using this technology to communicate and collaborate with employees and management nationally or globally on a more regular basis, saving time, energy, travel, communication bills, accommodation bills, etc, increasing productivity and ultimately saving money.

· DISTANCE EDUCATION

More and more institutions are embracing this technology for :

o Distance learning

o Extra mural classes moderated by Teachers

o Students can ‘study together’ without ‘being together’

o School board meetings

o Teacher training

o Academic contests e.g. debates, with other institutions

· CHURCHES, NGO’s (Charities), CLUBS

Institutions using Webinars can :

o Interact with members and constituents

o Conduct remote study with exchange groups

o Conduct Church meetings

o Conduct Board or Committee meetings

o Host Fundraising campaigns

o Host Planning sessions

o Host Remote counselling

Infographic: Video Conferencing

Get in touch with heather :

Facebook
LinkedIn
SKYPE : heather.de.wit
Mobile +27824907143+27824907143
EMail: heather@boundless-activities.net

July 5, 2012March 24, 2014

5 Jobs for Tomorrow’s Marketing Team

If you want to see the future of marketing, just take a look at recent job postings. Recruiters increasingly request such new generation skills as SEO, analytics, mobile, social media and content in lieu of mass media and direct mail acumen, for example.

At the same time, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects marketing payrolls to swell by at least 13 percent between 2010 and 2020. So what does this shift in desired skills mean for the industry? What new positions to experts expect will be created during that time period? This week, I asked more than 30 marketing and recruiting specialists what they see in the industry’s employment future.

Here are five of the most common new roles they envision.

“The industry needs to emulate, then stimulate, consumers’ nonlinear, multi-screen, in-control purchase behavior,” Protagonist Partner Tom Cotton said.

1. Cotton and others I interviewed see companies recruiting a Marketing Integration Planner in the future, or someone that would identify ways to deliver a single marketing message, campaign or branding effort across multiple digital channels. For example, using a pay-per-click advertising campaign to promote a viral video, or using SEO keyword analysis to help craft a press release.

Marketing consultant Jocelyn Saurini said “people don’t call directly in from an infomercial or click a banner and immediately buy items.” Instead, they search for reviews, interact with brands on social media and pay attention to trending topics in the industry. So marketing teams need to make sure they utilize every channel at once with a unified message.

2. Other experts I interviewed introduced this idea of a Crowdsourcing Specialist. This plays into the idea that companies can no longer dictate their brand identity to the customer. They need someone–in this case the Crowdsourcer–to monitor conversations happening on the Web about the brand and develop messaging that responds to customers’ voiced expectations.

That person would also use the crowd to promote and send out calls to action, such as inviting customers to compete to create the best video about the brand, and perhaps tying the theme to something trending on Twitter.

3. Marketing automation, browser history, on-demand advertising, Google analytics and other data gathering tools have armed marketers with more return on investment resources than ever before. For this reason, companies will look to one expert, a Vice President of Marketing Data Analytics possibly, to decide when, why and how marketing data should be tracked. Their goals would be to improve marketing performance and predictive modeling, and continually refine the company’s definition of the ideal customer.

This information would be shared with brand and campaign strategists who design promotions.

4. Also as a result of new data, companies have increasingly moved their marketing budget strategy from quarterly allotments for print, direct mail and media advertising to constantly-shifting spending from one channel to another. This could develop into a ROI and Marketing Budget Officer position, experts said. This person would constantly track ROI from all promotion channels and adjust spending based on those results.

5. “The idea is to get marketing tactics out there quickly, track results, then continue with ones that work and dump ones that don’t,” says crowdSPRING co-founder Mike Samson. “The idea is to try a bunch of things and learn through constant trial and error.”

6. Finally, content creation is likely one of the fasted growing skills in marketing teams today. Every expert I interviewed mentioned companies wanting to hone their content strategy. Eventually, this might be led by one Content Marketing Manager or Officer that would plan websites, blog, video, infographic, webinars, social media and other content vehicle development. The individual would decide how that content would be promoted and cross-promoted, then track its performance.

Three Ships Media CEO and founder Zach Clayton described it this way: “the people who are able to create a lot of value in the marketing organization of the future think in terms of content, not channels, and in terms of insight, not data.”

Research for this article as provided by softwareadvice.com/crm.

Photo courtesy of Victor1558.

About the author:

Ashley Furness is a Market Analyst for research firm Software Advice. Her professional experience spans journalism, sales, advertising and SEO marketing. She’s a seasoned writer having produced copy for business journals, a sports magazine, daily deals advertising and industry blogs. She can be contacted at Ashleyfurness[@]softwareadvice.com, or by calling 512-582-2314512-582-2314. LinkedIn – Twitter – Google +

January 12, 2012

Stop censorship

Congress is about to pass internet censorship, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill – PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House – to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity.

March 4, 2011October 8, 2011

How to loose in social media? Just talk about yourself!

If you like many other out there talk about yourself in social media than you miss a great opportunity to be recognized as an interesting source of information.

Imagine you are on a cocktail party! And one guy stands with a group of people and start involve in the conversation. Then you understand that this person is only talking about himself. What would you think?

Yeah, you are right!

You would think this guy has no social behavior and this guy is doing shameless self promotion. Instead of sharing something his community cares about!

If you don’t have anything of value to add to the conversation, than you should keep your thoughts for yourself!

If you want to be accepted by a community and earn their trust, become something like an Trust Agent, like Chris Brogan has described in his homonymous book, you have to listen first and then, and only then if you have come up with some fresh angle, you can do a smart review to the conversation.

You can make or break the communities trust! Shameless self promotion is no marketing!

Social media is there to connect on a more personal basis. Be personal and share advice, promote other people, and ultimately learn from others. To gain authority shares your personal perspectives to your communities.

Just be yourself instead of only talking about yourself!

First you have to earn the communities trust, than you can carefully start promoting because people will be curious about you.

The more personality, restraint and expertise you show, the less you talk about yourself, the more authority and trust you will gain with your communities!

How do you promote and do you think self promotion woks? I am curious to read your opinion. Your comment is appreciated!

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How many sales leads does your website generate?

March 12, 2010March 12, 2010

Do You Use Video For SEO?

It has become harder for websites to gain a first page top listing on Google. This has opened the opportunity for you to go other ways to gain your top listing.

Images and video are two of the ways you can go to gain a Google top listing. Forrester Research has found out that videos have 53 times more chances to receive an organic first-page ranking than traditional web pages.

You can start by uploading video to YouTube. This ensures that you have been indexed in Google search engine this is no guarantee that you get a first page result but Google knows that your content exists.

Your next step can bee to include those videos from YouTube into your website or blog and to add an extra page where all your videos are shown with their description.

Now you can start with video SEO. Google is actually not able to see what is inside your videos and it relies on title and Meta data you have included to learn about what content your videos actually contain.

Include your title, description and keywords. Make clear the title tag of the page matches the title of the video to get better results. Target more specific phrases this could help you to get more and better results

To appear in Google search results submit your videos by using Google webmaster tools a video sitemap . This is the same like a XML sitemap and it’s specially formatted for video and contains information about your videos and the included content.

Ensure that you have a robots.txt file on all video pages so Google can verify it.

Even new and small sites can compete with larger and more established web presences. No matter if you are small or new one you can take advantage of the video SEO opportunities.

Further resources:

Let me know what you think and comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

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January 16, 2010January 20, 2010

HELP Us To Help Haiti

Dear valued readers and clients,

In the past days we all saw the tragic of the Haiti earthquake.

For this reason we at inBlurbs have decided to not only give a New Year Promotion discount of 20% to our new clients and new orders made until the 7th February of 2010.

Moreover we will additionally donate 20% of each orders made until the 7th February of 2010 to help the people of Haiti.

All new clients who accompany us on this will be mentioned In a separate blog entry about the results.

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January 1, 2010December 22, 2009

Happy New Year!

I wish you a Happy New Year! Success, health and all the best you wish for your self!