Wisdom Wednesday: Master Snapchat In Your Business

by Felicien | May 17, 2017 | Education

When it comes to social media marketing, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are no longer enough. Get an edge over your competition by mastering Snapchat now!

Since all but taking over online communication, social media has become a viable business tool as well. Social media is easy and affordable to use, and it allows access to vast numbers of potential new customers. While Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are being used liberally by today’s businesses, there’s one exciting platform that isn’t seeing as much traffic: Snapchat.
Snapchat is one of the fastest-growing social media options with millennials. There are well over 100 million active Snapchat users, and over 70 percent are under the age of 34. Put quite simply, businesses looking to connect with this crowd should be on Snapchat.
Easy to Use
Snapchat works by providing an interface through which users can easily send photos and videos, or “Snaps,” to their followers. The media sent is only viewable for up to 10 seconds (the user gets to determine the length of the display). Afterward, it disappears forever. Multiple snaps can be strung together to create a “story” viewable for up to 24 hours.
Some other compelling Snapchat facts and stats include:

Users are Highly Active. An impressive 65 percent of Snapchat users post new content at least once per day. You can do the same, and your business will stay active in the consciousness of potential customers.
Ready to Buy. Nearly 60 percent of college students said they were very likely purchase a product using a coupon they received via Snapchat.
Get More Personal with Users. Snapchat allows for showing current and potential customers a more casual, behind-the-scenes view of your company.
Builds Trust. Trust in your brand will grow the more you post on Snapchat. Users will come to feel as if they “know” your company and be more likely to choose you over your competitors.

Growing Your Snapchat Network
Unlike Instagram and Twitter, hashtags aren’t enough to entice new followers. On Snapchat, users must find and add you. To add users, you must know their Snapchat names. Snapchat does not have native discovery capabilities. Gaining Snapchat followers requires using your company’s online presence – including your other social media accounts – to raise awareness about your Snapchat account. Here are some tips for getting the ball rolling:

Promote Actively. Promote your Snapchat account name within your other social media profiles as well as in email signatures, blog posts and on your website.
Use the “Add Me URL.” This feature allows for sharing a customized URL on other social media platforms. It lets users easily and rapidly connect with you. Use this link and replace “username” with your business Snapchat account name:https://www.snapchat.com/add/username
Share Valuable, Compelling Content. Plan a content series that tells a story, teaches something new, allows users to play a game, or otherwise keeps them engaged.
Use Snapcodes. Grab your Snapchat QR code image as a cropped screen shot and use it within your other social media account profiles.

Getting active on Snapchat now can vault your business ahead of the competition on this fast-moving platform. If your company is ready to succeed on Snapchat, contact {company} of {city} at {phone} or {email}. We look forward to helping you succeed!

Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks

by Felicien | May 17, 2017 | Education

Microsoft Teams is a chat-based work hub destined to change the way you communicate with team members. Follow these tips and tricks to make the most of your Office 365 experience.

The goal of Office 365 developers is not only to make better productivity applications, but they also want to allow for a more collaborative experience among users. To achieve this goal, they have developed a new application for their suite of products called Microsoft Teams. The driving force behind Teams is to get everyone working together in the most efficient way possible.
Microsoft Teams Overview
With Microsoft Teams, users have a digital hub for all their most important workplace applications. The service comes with Office 365 and the new chat element allows for easy collaboration for team projects. Teams was created as a competitor to the very popular service Slack. With Teams, real-time messaging with application integration makes the service a must have on any compatible device. Unlike Slack, Teams uses threaded conversations in order to avoid the confusion of searching through too many messages on your screen. As long as you’re an enterprise-level Office 365 subscriber, the application is completely free. It’s very important to have a business-level Office 365 subscription. Otherwise, Teams is unavailable on single subscriptions.
Tips and Tricks of Microsoft Teams
Toggle between private chat and team chat. You are in control of who sees your messages. Write to the entire team or send an individual message from the application. You can schedule and create as many group chat sessions as you like. All chat history is saved to help you go back and review previous messages. This is helpful if you need to locate a shared URL, image, or attachment. With messaging taking place in the cloud, you never have to worry about any information exchanged within the program being lost.
Give access to all of the tools your team needs to success. Microsoft Teams is more than just a chat room. Microsoft has enabled all of their most popular applications to be shared within Teams. Your team will be able to exchange information via OneNote, SharePoint, and Skype for Business.
Using Microsoft Teams can be overwhelming at first. The interface is fairly simple to figure out, but Microsoft offers plenty of tools to help navigate the interface. Within Teams is a new assistive feature referred to as “bots.” These bots are ready to answer any questions you pose to them. For instance, a “Whobot” will help you find team members based on their skill set or previous work assignments. Bots are expected to pop up from top companies such as Trello and SAP. These bots will help you better organize your current and future projects.
Calendar integration is another feature you should be using within Teams. All team members can schedule meetings within the application including the addition of recurring events. There is also a free and busy calendar option to let others know your current and future availability.
Although chat is a quick and easy form of communicating among teams, you may also choose to go live in real-time. With Skype for Business, you can begin a live video chat session in high-definition with premium sound.
Bring Microsoft Teams with you wherever you go. The application works on all computers running Windows 10, but also can run on iOS devices. Android and Windows phones and tablets can also run Microsoft Teams. Accessibility is very important to Microsoft developers and this is why options include keyboard only navigation, higher contrast resolution, and support for screen readers.
The most important feature is the high level of security offered with the Microsoft Teams framework. Teams abide by all global security practices and standards to keep your data confidential within the cloud.
Don’t miss out on this exciting new rollout from Microsoft 365.

Wisdom Wednesday: Tips and Tricks: Voice to Text Apps

by Felicien | May 17, 2017 | Education

Over time, you’ll learn how to master the art of creating the perfect voice to text transcriptions. Voice to text applications helps speed up workplace communications.  

Voice dictation can be a huge timesaver. Instead of using your device’s keyboard to awkwardly type out an instant message or email, you can use an application to convert all your utterances to readable text. If you search for voice to text applications in your Android or Apple stores, you’ll find dozens of choices. Standouts include TalkBox, Dragon Dictation, iSpeech and Voice Assistant. To make the most out of dictation applications, use the following tips and tricks.
Slow Down
Racing through your transcription will undermine the end result. Talking too fast causes voice to text applications to misunderstand your words. Enunciate clearly as you speak naturally into your phone’s microphone. You don’t have to take long breaks between each word, but try to sound off each word fully before moving on to the next. Many speech recognition programs improve over time. The application is programmed to learn how to better familiarize itself with your distinct speech patterns.
Quiet Please
Don’t make the mistake of trying to dictate a message while the TV or radio is blaring in the background. The voice to text application is likely to transcribe any recognizable words emitting from the background. Within some applications, there may be an option for ambient noise reduction to improve speech recognition capabilities.
Get Familiar With Commands
Each voice to text application will operate differently. Find out what commands are accepted by the application you use before dictating messages. For instance, to add punctuation you’ll typically speak the words “comma” or “period.” To format the message, you could say things such as “new line” or “tab key.” Another option may be “caps on” or “spacing off.”
Always Proofread
Want to avoid an epic voice to text fail? Then, always glance over the final product before pushing the send button. All voice to text applications plan for a certain margin of error. Take the time to reread your messages and correct any typos. This is especially important with any messages containing proper nouns. After manually entering a word your speech recognition application doesn’t recognize, the word is typically automatically added to the software’s virtual dictionary. The program may also have a built-in censor to block curse words from being dictated.
The application Voice Assistant will check your message for proper grammar and make suggestions on screen. In most cases, changes and deletions must be performed from the screen and not through speech commands.
Direct Send
Applications such as Dragon Dictation and Voice Assistant permit you to send your voice to text dictations directly from the application. Share instantly to your social media pages or create a new email message. Alternatively, you can press down on the text and copy and paste the message into the desired location. Multiple applications allow you to save your dictated message for later use. The application Evernote saves both the audio and text file of each transcription session. The majority of apps require an online connection to work properly.
Mobile voice to text applications are easy to use and come in handy when you’re trying to increase the efficiency of workplace communications.