Photography as a Profession – what you need to start with?

With coming of high end mobile phones and great DSLR cameras, easily affordable by people, everybody loves to take photographs, and photography is hobby of every second person. Few artsy candid clicks from different angles, lot of editing done in Photoshop or Light room, and boom…everybody is a photographer.

 RESEARCH AND FOCUS

The first step of being any kind of professional is that you need to research on the profession you want to take up. Focus is the key to perfection. Once we know what exactly we want from our photography, we know how to make it our profession. There are no hard and fast rules in photography because it’s an art and art is all about discovering and finding, but researching about photography, its history, its techniques can make you discover great things. Always remember, research is the foundation of new things.

YOUR CAMERA IS YOUR BABY

For any artist to create a work of art, he or she needs to know its tools and techniques. So to be a professional photographer, it is very important to know their gear inside and out. Your camera and your equipment’s are like your baby. You need to know exactly how to get maximum usage out of it and keeping it safe and clean for a longer and healthier life.

DECIDE YOUR SPECIALIZATION

For any photographer to be a professional, it is needed to decide a forte in which they can excel and create wonders. Experimenting new things may seem like a good idea for an artist, but to be a professional, you need to think practically like a pro. Deciding your forte tells others that you are not a lost wandering photographer and you can work with perfection. You can be great at portraits, weddings, food, baby, or street photography, all you need to be is master of one and no jack to all because your specialization makes you special.

BUILD PROFESSIONAL PORTFOLIO

The first step of being professional is to look professional and for that, a professional photographer needs to build up his/her portfolio showcasing all their strengths and abilities. A portfolio is a like a first impression and it should always be the best. Therefore special emphasis should be laid on it, showing of variety of work you can do with your lens.

MAKE IT BUSINESS

For treating photography as a profession, you need to start thinking of taking pictures as a form of your business. Set up your rate cards and prices, make contracts with your customers and handle deals properly. And always remember that if you are providing your service for free, you are going to incur losses in your business.

GOALS GIVE YOU A DIRECTION

For any business to prosper, you need to prepare certain goals which would make you work towards them in a better way. Goals and objectives give you a direction and a path to walk on and get fruitful results.

MARKETING AND ADVERTISING

A renowned photographer once quoted that a good picture is 10% creativity and 90% marketing. So every Professional Photography   needs to learn to market and advertise their skills in a way that it brings in more customer and make your work visible to people.

JOURNEY OF LEARNING

For a profession, which requires skills, it’s important to keep learning all throughout the profession. It’s a long journey of learning of being better and best. A professional photographer needs to learn the new technology coming up and keep themselves upgraded by the new things happening.

Last but the not least…LOVE YOUR PROFESSION 

For any photographer to be a professional, you need to love what you do. Because it’s only then that you get to have great results for the work you do. If you treat photography just like a medium to earn, you will never be successful. And to be successful, you need to love this art and keep working on being better because once you become the best; there is no scope for improvement.
So love what you do, and keep clicking because the more you work towards your skill, the more you will learn. Happy Clicking!

What are the Parameters of Website Development

 The term Website Development is vast beyond our imagination. People often neglect the fact that a properly developed website is basically the collection of a number of different parameters. All these parameters are to be optimized and then applied on the design of the website, so as to acquire an optimized website. While developing websites for your online business, it is the duty of the Website Development Company to focus on the consistency and integrity of all these parameters of website development. Below is a list of some of the most important parameters of website development:

Content is the King

With no deep introduction required to this one, we know that content is the basic requirement of all web development services. The only element which is capable of engulfing the visitors is the content present on your website. For this purpose, the content to be included should be user- focused and should be understandable to the readers. Also, it is important to remove as well as modify the currently present content from time to time.

Easy and meaningful navigation

When clients go to any Web Page Development Company, their primary concern is to modernize the navigation throughout their website. Navigation should be paid attention on because the more conveniently people can switch between different pages on your website, the more frequently they will like to visit your business. The visitors should be provided with convenient paths for moving from one page to another. For this purpose, all the navigations should be made easily clickable and include labels wherever you feel the need for.

Do not forget the White space

For websites running on different platforms, it is very necessary to have the right amount of whitespaces. In case of mobile websites, the need of whitespace is further very important and this is exactly why including whitespaces is one of the primary concerns of all companies that deal in providing web development services. With the help of white spaces, the users are able to distinguish between different elements present on a website, such as the icons, buttons, and text and so on. Some of the common methods for making the most out of whitespaces are using small fonts for text, use of padding, use of grids and frames.

Perfect branding

Branding includes the use of a certain colour or logo for creating an identity of a website on the internet. Since the positioning of these elements may be different on the mobile platform, hence the initial placing should be done keeping in mind a responsive web design.

Apart from these, space for feedback and comments are also an integral part of all websites these days. 

More Information and News on Website Development 

• Waterfall vs. Agile: Which is the Right Development Methodology for Your Project?
• ITE offers varoius short courses on Website Development

A Minute on Facebook

It is very interesting to know that what is happening on Facebook in a time span of a minute from accounts creation to photos uploaded and from friend Request sent to message sent from link shares to links added. Have a look on facts about Facebook

• Accounts added – 500 
• Photos Uploaded – 243,055
• Items Shared – 3,298,611
• Friend Requests – 100,000
• Message Sent – 150,000
• Links shared – 50,000
• Like and share buttons are viewed – 15,277,777
• Apps Installed – 13,888
• Money made – $11,700 

All this happens in a minute. It’s Very Amazing but it is true. This is a fact of a minute on Facebook . 

6 Reasons Why Facebook is going so Strong !

If you talk about Social Media than without naming Facebook in it’s been a wrong. And it is True that no one of us aren't saying goodbye to our Facebook accounts anytime soon. The thought of deleting your Facebook account permanently has probably crossed your mind. In a simple Stats in a Image below, I want to show you that How Facebook has conquered the world of Social Media since 2009 till present.    

Stats Show How Facebook in Blue in June 2009 - June 2013 -Spot the difference

Now comes some factors that why people are following Facebook and it going so strong - here are the Reasons -

1. Facebook is one of the best ways to stay in touch :  First reason is this the Best way to reach out our friends and family, What they are doing, their updates, Photos, Videos and more. It brings your friends close enough without in physical touch.   

2. Facebook stalking is an invaluable tool : It is a invaluable tool because it keeps your  Tab on your friends Updates, Groups, Tags, Posts and more. 

3. Facebook private groups are useful for work, school and networking : You can create your own private social groups of work place, family tree, friends, technical areas and invite friends , Chat with them , share views, ideas and more.   

4. Facebook Events Invites : Recently introduced tool is very useful for news lovers. Facebook introduced it's News feed with the naming of Trending. this very popular as you can watch this in your profile only.   

5. Facebook Gaming : Most important reason that Facebook is still standing Tall this feature only. one study has predicted these facts about games on Facebook.

• 53% of Facebook users play games. 
• 69% of Facebook Gamers are females. 
• 20% have paid cash for in-game benefits.  
• Average time spent on Facebook is 421 minutes in a month. 
• 50% of Facebook log-ins are specifically to play games.

6. Storehouse or Scrapbook of your General life : It is Store house of your personnel Photos, Videos, posts , sharing and more  which you share with friends and family on personal Facebook account. It can be called as Online Scrapbook.  

here a some reasons that i have mentioned of why Facebook is Very popular and be sure it is not dying very soon but rather it has a Bright Future ahead.  

End of a era in Social Media - Orkut to Discontinue

Google had stepped first in the Social Media World with its famous Orkut on January 24, 2004,  ahead of Facebook that was launched on February 4 in the same year. At that time nobody knew the fate of both social platforms.

Recent news says Google will be shutting down its early social-networking service, “Orkut”, which was widely used in Brazil and India before the Facebook craze. It is interesting to know that after the failure of Orkut, Google has successfully maintained its presence in the Social Media world with its other tools including Google+, Youtube and Blogger.

“With Passing time since last decade, YouTube, Blogger and Google+ have taken place instead of Orkut which ran well till 2006 and 2007 with more and more communities around the world springing up in every corner of the world. Because the growth of these communities has outpaced Orkut's growth, we've decided to bid Orkut farewell," Google said in a post on the Orkut blog on Monday.

The Orkut service's shutdown comes as Google's social networking plans remain in question as it is projecting Google+ (launched in 2011) as user identity on varoius Google’s properties including Youtube before posting comments about videos. 

The company said it would preserve an archive of all Orkut "communities" that will be available from Sept. 30. "If you don't want your posts or name to be included in the community archive, you can remove Orkut permanently from your Google account," Google said.

We are No 1 thing People do on Mobile Phones – Facebook

Recently at a event Organised by FICCI on Ladies Organisation in New Delhi , Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg asserted that Facebook is the No 1 thing that every person in this world does on his or Mobile devices. Negating the speculation, she said that Facebook is not planning to launch Facebook Mobile phones or Smart Phone like Google does.  "We don’t need Hardware as we are going well with software", she added.

She further said that our Mission is connecting the World;  we not only intend to connect person to person but also aim to boost commerce and Trade.

Facebook is now considering India as Second largest Market after United States of America. Adding further that India accounts 100 million Facebook users with 900,000 small and medium business on board and is keenly looking forward to monetize its business in India. 

Sheryl Sandberg who worked for Google in her initial career, also shared  many Facebook future plans.

Who is Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Kara Sandberg  born on August 28, 1969 is an American activist and author of many known books. Now she is the chief operating officer of Facebook since August 2013,. In June 2012, she was elected to the board of directors by the existing board members becoming the first woman to serve on Facebook's board. Before Facebook, Sandburg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google, In 2012 she was named in the Times 100, as 100 most influential people in the world according to Time magazine.

Facts you should know about Social networking sites on World Social Media Day 2014

With ever increasing importance of Social Media Platforms and Social Networking sites among peoples it's importance has increased many folds from the time it had started. here are some interesting facts and figures about top social media platforms you should know on World Social Media Day 2014

Social Media Marketing Statistics 2014: 

52 times average increase in reach when social posts are syndicated by your channel partners
87% of all small businesses say social media helps their business
85% of the business decision makers said at least one social media channel is very important when making business technology purchase decision.
77% of fortune global 100 companies have a twitter account.
34% of high tech companies have reduced their traditional advertising budget to fund digital marketing activities.
74% of brand marketers saw an increase in website traffic after investing just 6 hours per week in social media
40% of small business feel that social media is amplifying word of mouth referrals

Facebook

Companies that generate more than 1,000 Facebook likes also receive nearly 1,400 website visits a day.
52% of marketers have gained customer via Facebook. 23% of users check their accounts 5 times or more every day.
80% of users prefer to connect with brands on Facebook.
75% of marketers say Facebook is critically important for their business.
Total number of Facebook pages-54,200,000
Total 2013 Facebook revenue-$6,150,000,000

Google plus 

Currently 350 million daily active users
500 million uses in total
Second largest social media platform after Facebook
Approximately 625,000 Join as new google+ users every day
48% of Fortune Global 100 companies are now on Google+
10 million users just in two weeks after launch
Users of Google+ are ranked higher in search engine than any other social media
platforms

Twitter

Total number of active registered Twitter users-645,750,000
Number of new Twitter users signing up everyday-135,000
Number of unique Twitter site visitors every month-190 million
Number of Twitter search engine queries every day-2.1 billion
Twitter Annual Advertising Revenue- 2013- $405,500,000

LinkedIn 

Every second, two new members join LinkedIn.
Total number of LinkedIn users: 277 million
Number of monthly unique visitors to LinkedIn 187 million
Total number of LinkedIn endorsements I billion

If you know some more facts do share with us. Thanks for reading the article on Social Media latest Trends.
Also read Social Media Trends 2014 

Latest Social Media Trends for 2014

What's going in Social Media Platforms this year in 2014 - let's check out  

Vine  has gradually crawled its way into the world of social media. When Instagram introduced video, it looked like Vine didn’t stand a chance. Instead, the 6-second looping videos pulled inmillions of users to the application available on App Store, Google Play and Windows. Brands such as Dunkin Donuts has produced various advertisements about its products. Owing to the wittiness of Viners and short attention span of users, the app has become an effective marketing method. Five tweets every second include a Vine link. Vine also recently made browsing videos available to the public (even for those without an account).

Google Plus is now in full stride as a social media platform. The majority agrees that now is the time to leap into the fray, if for no other reason than to garner the extra SEO advantages that Google gives to their own Google Plus-based traffic.

Video Content on Instagram and Twitter : Vine’s popularity has not vanquished Instavideo.One can upload longer edited videos on Instagram which enablesbrands to create advertisements and lifestyle videos for their pages. Instagram is already competing with the leading social media giants in marketing and is a preferable platform for sharing video content. Even Twitter has now introduced GIFs which are more like VIFs (Mp4 videos playing in a loop).

  

Visual-Based Content : Making your content visual-based is another significant step, you could take to drive social networking engagement. Truth be told, photos make up 93 percent of the most engaging posts on Facebook. If you are content is not visual based, you should start doing that. A lot of brands and people solely depend on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook for showcasing their product through visual imagery. This mother of 2 daughters has rocketed to fame with her articles on various websites like  The Huffington Post,  Daily Mail and Way out of World with her Instagram pictures of Edible Art.

Hashtags are everywhere. With integration across Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Google Plus, and now Facebook, hashtags have become an excellent way to express feelings and search for content. Brands create their own catchy tags that users can use, without creating a feeling of being too marketing-heavy. New tags spike every day, and this summer will be no different.

Social Searches : Both Facebook and Google + have increased the importance placed on social search. Facebook’s “grid” feature is being launched; allowing users to search with specific terms

Why has Twitter introduced GIF images on its platform?

In a recent Update to its features Twitter gave its users a surprise with the introduction of GIFs on on 18^th June’14. Twitter announced that GIFs - a moving image or animated images will now be shared and viewed on Twitter's version of iPhone, Android and web.  

It is to be noted that Google has been the first to start with GIF Images on its Social platform – Google+, whereas Pinterst was the second one to introduce Gif Support in January 2014.  There are speculations that even Facebook plans to roll out GIF support by August 2014.

Talking about Twitter which as of now doesn’t allow sharing a Video unless it has been shared on Vine, GIF inclusion will fill this gap as it is the first Video-type content that can be shared directly on twitter for regular users.  

Why GIF is extremely important

GIF also known as Animated Images is used to tell stories, news or express emotions, and they have been there since 25 years with invent of internet. Initially they were in the form Clipart. The year 2013 saw an increase in the use of GIFs, specially on Google+. This has made other Social Media platforms to roll out their support to GIF. The popularity of the same is expected to go even higher as animated images drive more traffic than any regular images in jpeg / png formats. 

Also Read  : Why Social Media is Important 

15 Dont's for Search Engine Optimization

Whenever you enter a query in a search engine and hit ‘enter’, you get myriads of results for the query term. Users normally tend to visit websites that are at the top of this list as they perceive those to be more relevant to the query. If you have ever wondered why some of these websites rank better than the others, then you must know that it is because of a powerful web marketing technique called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 

Here’s a list of what Google tells you to avoid in SEO and for better ranking you should not these few steps listed below:

1.  Choose related Title which relevant to the content on the page.

2.  Never use default or vague titles like “Untitled” or “New Page 1″ for your website.

3.  Never use a single title tag on all of your website pages.

4.  Never use lengthy title beyond 60 characters as it is unhelpful to users and Google didn't read them.

5.  Don’t stuff useless keywords in your Meta tags.

6.  Description Meta tag should be sum up of content on the particular page.

7.  Always use generic descriptions for Meta description tags.

8.  Never fill the Meta description with only keywords, always fill with content 

9.  Never use lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters

10. Avoiding duplicity in content is first and foremost task while updating and maintaining a website because Google likes content, but it *usually* needs to be well linked with unique and original content to get you to the top!

11.  If you hide text on your website. Google will defiantly remove your website from the SERPS (search engine results pages).

12. Never relay on buying links because thinking that they will work better and get you on the top is a myth. Google likes only natural link growth and often on mass link buying.

13. Never use same “anchor text” or link phrase because this could flag you as a SEO.

14. Keeping in mind for Google PR - chasing 100′s of links. Think quality of links….not quantity.

15. Never purchase many keyword rich domains and filling them with similar content as at your site and linking them to your site is totally a bad SEO practice and can lead you banned from Google. It might have worked yesterday but will not work tomorrow.

SEO Don’t by Matt Cutts (Google Spam Head) in 2014

•  Spammy Guest Blogging : In it's recent video by Matt Cutts on his blog mentioned why Guest Blogging is loosing it's pace with Google 2014 updates.  Google now treating much of guest Blogging as spam   

• Optimized Anchors : Never Over Optimize your Anchors Text with Keyword Stuffing or irrelevant Phrases . 

•  Quantity of links over quality :  Always relay on Quality of relevant links that match to your website content instead of quantity of unnecessary links because this could not help you out in Google SERPs . 

•  Keyword Heavy Content :  Google always focus on informative content instead of Keyword rich content as it seems to much more fake than any original content.  

Conclusion : As we have discussed all the points that we have to avoid in SEO - Search engine optimization to bring a website in top of Google SERP(Search Engine Result Pages) , these are very necessary steps to follow. 

Also Read: 3 pillars of Search engine optimization