Branding – Why A Company Needs It?

Ever wondered why some products or companies take you on a walk down-the-memory-lane? It's because of the brand the company creates. A brand is a bridge that connects you to the company; it is what represents the company.

What is a brand?

A brand is not limited to eye-catchy logos, powerful ad campaigns or peppy slogans. It is much more than that. A brand is a result of the many experiences that a company creates; whether with employees or with customers, with communities or with shareholders. Over the years, these experiences transform into emotional bonds that these groups have with the company. 

A brand is the identity of the company. It is the image of how the rest of the world perceives the company. A brand helps build a reputation, have an edge over the competition, cover a larger customer base and establish the company in the market as well as in the minds of the customers. Perhaps that is why, people have a strong affinity towards the products or companies that remind them of their childhood.

The importance of branding

If a company wants the customer to pick its product from the shelf where other similar products are sitting too then, a branding can help deliver this result. A powerful branding helps in differentiating the company or product from the rest. With each passing day, new business ventures are setting up. The competition is growing each day. In such a scenario, a well establish brand will help the company stand out and have a distinguished image in the minds of the customers. 

Moreover, a brand name helps in effective marketing of the business. A reputation in the market allows the company to set a mark for itself hence, the potential customers already know about the company and its products and do not require any introduction. This will save a lot of money and time that is spent on introducing the company. Therefore, while a newbie company is spending a huge amount of money and time to introduce itself, a company with a brand name focuses on expanding the existing customer base.

Branding also helps in promoting the company along with its products. Many a time, the company becomes a brand name for its product. The classic example is – Xerox. The brand ' Xerox' has become a synonym for photocopying. This is the power of branding. Once a company becomes a household name, it faces no challenges to increase its customer base, or venture into new markets.

Additionally, branding helps in the building trust of the customers and results in loyalty. Customers give tags to the products or companies. For instance, iPhone is tagged as brilliant technology, Mc Donalds is tagged as quality and affordability. These tags that people give to products or companies are based on the experiences they have with the companies or products. Once a brand enters into the trust circle of a consumer, the loyalty of the customer towards that brand or company deepens.

For any business or company, branding is an important consideration that should be taken care of when setting up the company. A brand helps in connecting to the customers and building an emotional bond with them.

Big Data – The Bigger World Of Opportunities & Growth

Let's not get into what the dictionary says about Big Data, we know what it means, what we are here Today is to understand what it really means.

We already know that Big Data is an ever-expanding chunk of large data sets which include all the digital information that floats in the virtual world. This collection is so massive and complex that it is an arduous job to process this much information using our traditional data processing tools and applications.

As a business, when we look at the expanding universe of Big Data, we see limitless opportunities. These opportunities are expanding in two horizons. One is for the corporate and business world, while other is for the Big Data management industry.

For Businesses And Corporate Houses:

Big Data is spinning enormous amount of information with each passing minute, and corporate and businesses are extracting this information to gather data based stats on consumer behavior, market trends, economic conditions, etc. and alter their strategies accordingly to deliver high impact business decisions. It is an opportunity to gain never-before insights of their business and various crucial systems. This in turn, facilitates better decision making and prognostic business growth.

Businesses that realize this opportunity and implement analytics and tactics to benefit from the information that Big Data provides, to improve upon their strategies and working, will no doubt gain a competitive edge over the rest.

For Big Data Management Industry:

According to a recent report, Big Data is expected to become a $25 billion industry by 2015. The growth rate is fueled by industries across various sectors like, retail, manufacturing, telecom, financial services and healthcare. The compound annual growth rate of Big Data is 45%. 

The figures are a real treat for IT companies as they gear up to dominate the international markets with effective and reliable Big Data management solutions. In this scenario, the Indian IT industry is surely in for a rocket speed growth. Tech gurus are predicting an overwhelming growth of the Indian IT industry, growing from $200 million in 2012 to an astonishing $1 billion in 2015. The compound annual growth rate is expected to be approximately 83%! Needless to say, India will be an IT hot spot for the rest of the world.

Indeed, the coming years will witness exceptional growth and dynamics in the field of Technology, data-sharing, knowledge sharing, analyzing information, and the way businesses operate.
As of now, businesses, corporate houses and IT professionals are waiting with anticipation for a lot more to unravel.

Pure Spam – How To Fix It If You Are Tagged As One

If you have received an email from Google Webmaster stating that your website has been penalised for being 'pure spam', and you have no idea what it is, and how to handle it, you have come to the right place.

Let's start with the basics. In the past and recently, Google has rolled out many updates to implement algorithms that filter away spam, discourage 'black-hat' SEO practices and enable the search engine to deliver relevant and genuine search results. Now, to effectively handle the spam situation, Google Webmaster has tagged and penalised the websites that are linked to spam or indulge in spam creation. 'Pure spam' is a tag given by Google to websites that have implemented and performed the most outrageous spam activities.

According to Matt Cutts (head of the Webspam team at Google), Pure spam includes “auto generated gibberish, cloaking, scraping, throwaway sites, or throwaway domains, where someone is more or less doing churn and burn, where they are creating as many sites as possible to make as much money as possible before they get caught.”

Now that your website has been flagged as 'pure spam', the next immediate step is to fix the issue and request for a reconsideration by Google.

Fixing the issue:
• First of all, check the history of your website. Incase, you have bought a new website, do a thorough check on archive.org. This will help you in knowing the complete history of your website, and if there were any spam issues earlier.
• If the domain has some previous spam issues, there are high chances that these have triggered Google Webmaster penalty.
• To recover from this, ensure that whatever you now put up on your website is well under the guidelines of Google's updates. Avoid linking anything that lingers on the line of being a spam.
• With consistent efforts and non-spam actions within the site, you can build up the image in Google's eyes as a reliable website, and worth indexing.
• In the event that your website has been long in the network, and the 'pure spam' tag has been generated by the practices of your own, then the recovery takes a long and consistent effort.
• Before you start, carefully go through the details on Google Webmaster, and strictly adhere to the set guidelines.
• Make certain that every action, link, page that has contributed to the 'pure spam' tagging has been removed.
• Consider building your website from scratch rather than making elaborate changes on it. This way, you will be able to manage the website well, and adhere to the guidelines as well.
• Whether you build a new website or make changes on the existing one, it is crucial to document each and every clean up tasks implemented.

Follow these steps and file for a reconsideration for your website. If you religiously adhere to the guidelines provided to you by Google Webmaster, and aim at staying away form anything that even remotely falls into the category of spam, we are sure you will get rid of the 'pure spam' tag.

A Negative Online Reputation Can Mean A Dead End For Your Business

85% of the consumers read online reviews for the local businesses & their services/products
79% of the consumers trust the online reviews
73% of the consumers trust the business with positive customer reviews
65% of the consumers prefer the business having positive online reviews

These statistics clearly show the power of a single positive or negative review about your brand or product. More than ever, today consumers trust online reviews, and perceive the company as good or as bad as the reviews say it is.

Businesses function in a very dynamic environment where huge changes can occur overnight. With all the various factors that you need to take care of for ensuring the proper functioning of your business, a very pissed consumer is the last thing that you would want on your platter. Given the uncountable consumer forums, and social platforms, just imagine the kind of damage that can be done to your online business image. Don't fall for the illusion that this won't happen to you. If you have a product or services, chances are high that you already are being discussed by someone, somewhere!

If you are still thinking that your business can survive without engaging in online reputation management, then you are in for a huge mistake, probably a blunder.

Taking the example of a recent report from Yelp, a popular, and trusted online review site, let's talk about the impact of the negative reviews. Yelp has rolled out new algorithms to tackle the fake reviews floating on their website. If you think it is for the fabricated positive reviews alone, well, that's not the case. Yelp is keeping a close check on the negative reviews as well. A high percentage of brands suffer a lot due to the negative reviews about their product or brand by an annoyed customer, with no fault of theirs. Also, more often than not, competitors fill negative reviews, and give low rankings, to pull a brand down. You already know the impact of online reviews on your consumers, a negative online reputation is nearly an end for a business.

Therefore, it has become very crucial for any business to manage their online reputation well in time. Why wait for something to happen and, then react to it? It's always better to be on a constant reality check of what your consumers think of you as.

One cannot deny the importance, and merits of a good online reputation, perhaps that is why it is a fast emerging field. More and more companies are hiring professionals who ensure, and maintain a good online reputation of their clients.

smartData Inc. is one such name who has the expertise and experience in dealing with ORM. Our huge client base in countries like, Australia, US, UK, stand as a testimony to our smart and ingenious services.

The Latest Facebook iOS App Allows You To Search FB For Hash Tags

Keeping up with the rapidly changing trends of the social media world, Facebook has recently added the hash tag (#) support to keep a track of the popular topics across this giant networking website. A hash tag used before the word or phrase makes it a click-able link, allowing you to see a feed of public posts. Along with this update, Facebook also added the OpenTable integration and local television listing to its native app. This update allows the users to make restaurant reservations instantly from the Facebook app, using 'Nearby Places' feature and restaurant fan pages. Let's take a sneak peek into the changes these add-ons will bring, and how to go about it.

•  First of all, you need to download and install the updated version of Facebook iOS app to search for a hash tag on Facebook.
• After launching the latest Facebook app, you need to search the hash tag through the search bar. For this, just type the '#' at the start of the word or phrase in the search bar. The search bar will take a fraction of a second to show the listings of the hash tag.
• Now, browse through the posts that include the hash tag, and like or dislike as per your preferences. The hash tag listed at the top of the Facebook screen shows the word or phrase you are browsing through.
• The hash tags become black or highlighted when used in a post. It is because the hash tag is now a link that redirects you to a timeline associated with the related posts. Whenever you see a post with a hash tag, just tap on it to see similar posts or to like or comment on a particular post.  

This upgrade is a good news for businesses who are active on FB, and want to utilise it to garner attention and gain popularity. According to a recent survey, an overwhelming 71% of respondents use hash tags on a regular basis, and 34% of the respondents use hast tags for searching and following their favourite brands on the social media platforms. Which clearly means that by using the right hast tags on your Facebook posts, you become more search-able, and hence, attract ample amount of attention to your brand or product.

This upgrade will definitely make Facebook more popular on iOS devices. While some people (the android or other mobile users) may not be very much excited about hash tags feature, some will find it more useful as a discovery tool as it will enhance your search-ability.

Whatever be the reason behind using it, one thing is sure, it will definitely change the way you interact on Facebook, for better we hope!!

How to increase your website's ranking post Penguin 2.0

The much dreaded Penguin update has been rolled out. And perhaps you are still wondering what it means for you and your business. Allow us to introduce you to the world of Penguin.

Penguin 2.0, is an algorithm which cuts back on spamming to give clean and relevant searches. It is designed to penalize websites that use black hat SEO techniques and reward websites that offer genuine and quality content. So post Penguin, how can you increase the ranking of your website?

Quality content + Right media activity = Authority = Better/higher rankings. Read on for answers!

Quality content matters

Whatever you create – on-site or off-site, should have quality content. Write for humans and not search engines. Create content that guides, entertains or tells somethings. Quality content will help your business become an authority and hence gain higher rankings. Invest on relevant and related features, articles, blogs, news, videos etc. All this will benefit your customer base and eventually benefit you as well.

Invest in on-site content

Google rewards websites that publish content on their own webpages. Content is a crucial metric that Google uses to set authority. Post Penguin 2.0, it becomes all the more essential to post content on your own website as it enables easy sharing of content via social media. This in turn will generate more natural and earned inbound links to your site.

Moreover, if you publish content on your own content you retain all publishing controls which enables you to make any required changes in the content published if necessary in future as well.

Create social presence; Go G+

1. Ever wondered what benefits you could reap if you create a Google + profile of your website?
2. All your new content get indexed in Google immediately
3. You use Google products=Google rewards you!
4. It will help you generate higher number of inbound links.
5. You will have better social media reach & benefits
6. You will have wider blogger outreach & additional SEO power to guest posts

Boost up your content to create authority

What is an authority site? Simply put, authority sites that you bookmark to view again and again in any category or sub-category. Now let's understand how to make your website an authority website.

Give some serious thinking to where you want to show your content, who is your audience and the quality of your content. Post Penguin 2.0, it is no more about a link now. You have to keep in mind many factors before you randomly post your website's link anywhere. Links on poor quality sites can penalize your website.

Social shares and likes are very important now for search success. Google now reviews how many times content or pages of your website have been shared. Algorithms based on these factors will help you in building your authority in Google’s eyes. Google has made quite clear that it will judge sites on their authority. So the question arises that how Google will determine authority? There are five parameters which would easily do that;

1. Number & quality of inbound links
2. Number of social shares
3. Time on site
4. Bounce rate
5. Number of visitors

By using proper & effective content amplification services you can benefit from the authority parameters, letting Google know that you are an authority.

Hence, it is crucial and imperative to engage in genuine and quality content for your websites. Moreover, it will pay if your website and business is socially active and connected to the target audience.

HL7 Integration: One of the most extensively used application data standards

The present vibrant market conditions within healthcare persist to introduce new challenges to the security of health information. As the industry is quickly evolving, decision-making in the health information role is becoming by large a technological guessing game. Though laboratories and medical practices began to store their data in the computers, there was no single standard or system. This has led to numerous contrasting files, databases, interfaces and system types. Presently, the medical industry seems to be waking up to the significance of integrating their databases and interfaces.

There is a massive requirement in the healthcare industry for the integration engine, HL7 (Health Level Seven) interface, one of the most extensively used application data standards in the IT industry. HL7 is a standard series of pre-defined logical formats for healthcare data in the structure of messages to be transmitted among computer systems. It has been designed to help various file types and computer applications within the medical industry to communicate with each other. For easier understanding, HL7 is a technique for different medical industry providers to efficiently share data and talk with each other.

These days, most of the medical laboratories and service providers are moving to interface engines so as to help develop HL7 enabled applications that will allow for full communication with all of their partners like doctors office and hospitals. The HL7 basically acts as a router between the two Medicare providers.

The prime benefit of HL7 interface engine is that it simplifies the implementation of interfaces and reduces the need for custom interfaces. HL7 interface engines are, less complicated, more economical and faster. The HL7 interface also improves work flow by allowing medical professionals to focus on their core business activities and provide quality medical care. In place of writing specifications from scratch every point in time data needs to be sent between two systems, it can make reference to a standardized document that assist in providing a common understanding to both systems.

Essentially, HL7 integration has been and continues to be a blessing for various health care providers. Without having a structured standard for different systems and companies to communicate with each other there would be much confusion. Fortunately, by implementing HL7 Integration engine the pace of continued integration will boost manifold. This signifies that very soon, all of the files and medical records will be integrated to almost every medical records and database. This will facilitate the health care providers and doctors to access the information they call for in bid to make life-saving medical decisions.

smartData Enterprises has built its reputation with a tightly focused team in Healthcare Integration. As a result of the challenges in the health domain, smartData has expanded into health information security with the sound business model and strong core values. smartData Enterprises has been successful in developing HL7 interfaces and will work with your staff to guarantee the secure upload of completed reports. Today, we can produce results with excellence, and guarantee the direction our clients require in healthcare integration and health information security.

To help you with the healthcare integration and health information security for your business, please check out our website www.smartdatainc.com or get in touch with through phone, chat or e-mail.