Check out the video to know what you might be missing on your social media marketing efforts!

Plain unfortunate

McDonalds used a couple of trends on twitter #mcdstories and #meetthefarmers to promote the brand. But unfortunately the #mcdstories trend went wrong when customers used it to recount their bad experiences at McDonalds. This apparently was never anticipated by the promoters.

This could happen to anyone; it’s plain unfortunate. The only thing that this teaches us is to perhaps treat customers well and serve quality products. From the social media side of things, there was nothing really wrong – it was a good idea, only, one that went horribly wrong.

Knowing when it’s NOT funny: Don’t act on an impulse
There were some brands that took things a little too far while trying to be funny. For example, the Home Appliance brand, KitchenAid posted an offensive tweet, when Obama mentioned that his grandmother died three days before he was elected. This was after the first-of-three Presidential debates.  It said, “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president. #nbcpolitics”

The twitter handler probably thought it was funny, but social media marketing 101: Never offend any person or a belief, much less the President of the United States of America, as a brand. It’s bad for marketing. It need not be taught; it’s quite simply, common sense. The tweet immediately went viral, earning them negative publicity.

Such errors also happen when people act on an impulse. If the social media rep thought about it for some time, he might have come to his senses. But the prospect of posting such a joke, expecting many people to appreciate it might have made him/her post it on an impulse. They did not see beyond it – besides the joke, there is this big picture of how it will affect the brand they are trying to promote.

Not being careful enough
NRA tweeted, “Good Morning Shooters. Happy Friday! Weekend plans?” just as news about the Aurora theatre shooting was unfolding. This is clearly the classic case of scheduling tweets in advance. However, it does look insensitive and careless at such a time.

It’s true that scheduling tweets and posts saves a lot of time during the ordinary days, but it is better to have a qualified person working for you, if your organization is big enough and what you are going to say would affect people.

These are some social media disasters from which we can learn valuable lessons. Some of them could be avoided – like the Obama one and even the NRA post. The McDonald campaign was honestly unfortunate; they intended something and the opposite happened. Do you have any such incidents to share with us? Share your comments and stories via comments below.

Have you watched the MasterChef series? It’s a popular reality show on Star World and many people’s favorite, mine too.  Contestants are required to not only make tasty food, but they are required to make tasty food quickly.

There is a time limit for every challenge – even if the food is tasty, they might be out of the game if they do not complete the challenge on time. A chef would be out of business if he does not prepare food for customers on time, right? People don’t like to be kept waiting when they are hungry.

Not just in the restaurant business, time management is important for any task you deliver. Be it writing, designing, software development, fashion etc, timely delivery of work is of utmost importance. So, how do you effectively manage time?

Here is a check list. Things you must ensure in order to make the best use of the time you have.

• Prepare a To-Do list
• Prioritize tasks and schedule them
• Manage distractions

Prepare a To-Do list
Preparing a to-do list with the bigger picture in mind gives you direction. There is an easy way to prepare this To-Do list. Do not start from Step 1. Instead try to trace back the steps necessary from the end result. Write down the end objective of the task. Then it would be easier for you to jot down the steps necessary in order to achieve that end.

Prioritize tasks and schedule them
You have the end objective ready and a list of things to do in order to achieve this objective. Now you have to determine how important each task is and how long it will take for you to complete each of them. This is where multitasking comes into the picture. Depending on the time each task takes, you can see if you can do two tasks simultaneously. Chop vegetables when the water is boiling. This kind of multitasking is possible when you plan your tasks and prioritize them in advance.

Manage distractions
It is very easy to get distracted by a million things when you are trying to focus on something – but the trick is to stay focused! Try to anticipate in advance, the things that might possibly distract you. The phone? Switch it off till you complete the task. The door? Have a DND message out if possible. There might be things that you do not anticipate, you cannot help that but what you can do is avoid things that you can help.

Once you prepare a to-do list, are clear about the end objective and priority of tasks, most of your time management in place. How do you manage time? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Well the answer is
1) There are 2 headlines that clash with each other and so no singular focus
2) The headline has too many conjunctions. It is hard to understand.

How to correct it?
1) Remove the headline section “what is kick off labs?” (It is there in every page and is totally unnecessary)
2) Change the second headline as given below

Before:
Design and manage your own landing pages
Your style, branding and website domain, on our hosting and without IT

After
Design landing pages for your website
No IT expertise needed

Check out this video to learn about the AIDA marketing model. This principle is applied in our telemarketing efforts as well. To know more about our Telemarketing wing, visit our website

Work, for most people these days, is synonymous with stress. Sadly not many people love what they do.

But imagine doing something you really like and getting paid for it. Of course something legal

You wake up every morning looking forward to going to work, instead of dreading it. You don’t check your watch every five minutes waiting for your time out; rather you lose track of the time as you work. You get paid for enjoying what you do. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Well, that’s what mystery shoppers do. They shop. Anyone enjoys shopping. They do too, and get paid for it. Wondering what’s the catch?

Well, there is no catch, but there is a twist!
Mystery shopping has shoppers who do everything that a normal shopper does – except that they stay anonymous and are hired by the very business to which they pose as customers.

Take a restaurant for instance. The restaurant management, without the knowledge of their staff or other customers, discreetly hires a mystery shopper. This person will go to the restaurant, order a meal like a normal customer would do and report everything that happened there back to the management. This may involve the quality of food, service, the ambiance, how long a customer waits for a table and so on. They are required to fill out a report that has a series of questions. From these findings, the restaurant will be able to assess the performance of their staff and also to enhance the dining experience of their customers.

Similarly, several businesses like hotels, retail stores, apartment complexes, banks etc hire mystery shoppers to enhance their business.

Mystery shopping: the work
All said and done, these shoppers have their work cut out for them.

They are primarily hired to report their findings to the business in question. There is a popular misconception that mystery shoppers evaluate the performance of staff and give their opinion on the business. Their job is not to evaluate, but merely report what they find. After a project, they usually fill out a report that has mostly only specific yes/no questions. Were you attended to in less than a minute? Were you given a receipt?

Questions like these have to be answered. They are required to be observant and must possess good writing skills. There are no necessary qualifications to become a mystery shopper.

Interested in mystery shopping?
There are several mystery shopping agencies across the world. Anyone interested can find and join a reliable one. You can also take a look at some companies that offer the service. Such as our site called Telestar Telemarketing. 

This is definitely interesting and can bring you a decent income. It is not easy to make a living out of this, however, that is possible if you are experienced and have several quality projects lined up.

If you love shopping, you can become a mystery shopper too. Finally you can get paid for having some fun! Have you had any such experience? Share it with us by commenting below.

Check out the video to know how we at Telestar approach Telemarketing. For more about Telestar, visit our website

We at Integra use Colour Psychology for designing our websites.  Check out our latest website to see how we implemented this.

So this brings us to the question

What happens when there are bigger numbers to manage?
Here is when the downward spiral begins. As the numbers get bigger, you begin to lose clarity on some very crucial things. You are likely to miss appointments with prospects when you have too many contacts to follow up. Also there are times when contact details have to be updated with every change of phone number and email id!

The result is a wild goose chase. You try and do things as and when you remember them. And what happens? The ROI is far from being met. Moreover your bigger business decisions are delayed thanks to appointment setting eating up your time!

So how can you make telemarketing work for you without driving you nuts?
The best solution out of this is to let an expert take over. Assign your telemarketing tasks to specialists who focus on it as their only task. This way you can have telemarketing work for you. There are companies that exclusively take up telemarketing appointment setting.

But what if you cannot afford the cost of a telemarketing agency?

 Introducing Telestar Telemarketing: The appointment setting experts
Telestar is our telemarketing division set up exclusively for Telemarketing operations. The best thing about outsourcing to us is the value for money you get. We understand your apprehension with outsourced telemarketing and we started Telestar with the intention of setting a respectable standard for outsourced telemarketing operations. We also chose to function separately in order to focus our energies exclusively on this.

The Telestar team comprises of individuals who possess good communication skills along with the ability to sell. The Team leaders  are pragmatic people who act on your behalf in guiding the team towards its goals while strictly maintaining standards.

Let Telestar take over your Telemarketing appointment setting tasks while you sit back and enjoy qualified leads at low prices!