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9 Must Know Secrets About Instagram
As Instagram gets bigger, the more complicated its app becomes. It’s easy to miss some of Instagram’s most clever shortcuts, such as the quickest way to “heart” a photo or preview a snapshot in your feed. There’s also a way to see your geo-tagged photos on a map—or wipe them off the map, for that matter. You can set your account to private, block unwanted followers, and erase tags of yourself that others have added to their photos. You can even get alerts when your favorite Instagrammers posts new photos—an important feature now that Instagram wants to change the way it arranges recent images in your photo feed. Read on for nine must-know tips for Instagram newbies, starting with…

1. Set your account to private

One of the biggest surprises awaiting an Instagram newcomer is the first time a complete stranger “likes” one of their snapshots. It’s a jarring reminder that by default, all the snapshots you post on Instagram are public.
Instagram
Note: Once you set your account to “private,” only your followers will be able to view your Instagram snapshots.

If you don’t want the everyone and their aunt flipping through your Instagram photos, you can set your account to “private.” This puts all your Instagram photos behind a privacy wall, meaning only your existing followers will be able to see them. Also, once you set your account to private, no one else on Instagram will be able to follow you without your approval.

Just tap the Profile button in the bottom corner of the main Instagram interface, tap the gear icon (on iOS) or the three-dot “overflow” button (on Android) in the top-right corner of the screen, then flip the Private Account switch.

2. Block randoms from following your account

You’ve set your account to private, but not before some strangers or friends of your enemies followed your account. You can remove them in a few simple steps.

Step 1: Tap the profile icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Instagram

Step 2: Tap “followers.”

Instagram

Step 3: Either scroll through your list of followers until you find the follower you’d like to remove, or search for a follower manually by tapping the search bar at the top of the screen. When you find the user you want to remove from your followers list, tap the three dots to the right of their name.

Instagram

Step 4: Tap “Remove” to remove the user from your followers list. Note: There is no confirmation window, so only tap “Remove” if you’re sure you want to remove the user from your followers list.

Instagram

Tap the Profile button in the bottom corner of the screen, tap Followers, then tap the name of someone you don’t want flipping through your photos. Now, tap the three-dot button in the top corner of the screen, then tap Block User.  Once that’s done, the blocked users won’t be able to view your snapshots anymore (and don\’t worry, they won’t be notified that you blocked them).

3. How to Quickly ‘like’ a photo

One of the primary pleasures of Instagram is scrolling through your Home feed, gazing at the latest snapshots of the users you’re following.

Instagram
Note: Double-tapping an Instagram photo is the easiest—and coolest—way to like it.

If there’s a picture you really like, you can tap the little heart button just below the image.

Even better, though, you can like a photo the way Instagram experts do: Just give it a quick double-tap.

4. How to see every photo you’ve ever liked

Liking snapshots on Instagram can get addicting—so addicting, in fact, that it’s easy to lose track of all the pictures you’ve liked.

Instagram
Note: Visit your profile screen to see every Instagram photo you’ve ever liked.

To take a look at your history of “hearted” photos, tap the Profile button, tap the gear icon (for iOS) or the three-dot button (Android) in the top corner of the screen, then tap Photos You’ve Liked option.

Extra tip: You can always “unlike” a photo by tapping the heart button again. (And no, double-tapping a liked snapshot won’t unlike it)

5. Long-press to preview a photo

If you tap the Search tab at the bottom of the Instagram interface, you’ll land on the Explore page and a grid of dozens of Instagram photos liked by your friends and followers as well as by all your fellow Instagrammers.

Instagram
Note: While viewing an Instagram photo preview on an Android device, slide your thumb down to “like” a photo, see its creator’s photo page, or share the image with other Instagram users.

You can tap any photo on the Explore screen to see a full-screen version, but there’s also a way to quickly preview a photo: Just tap and hold it. When you do, a larger version of the image will appear on the screen, and it’ll stay there until you release the image.

If you’re an iOS user, you can push a photo preview up a bit to lock it in place and reveal three options: Like, Comment, and Send as Message (to another Instagram user).

On Android, the process is slightly different: Instead of nudging up a preview image, just slide your fingertip down to one of three options: Like, View Profile, or Share and then release.

6. Single-tap a photo to see people tags

Just like on Facebook, you can tag people in Instagram photos; indeed, you’ll be prompted to do so whenever you post a new picture on your Instagram profile.

When your viewing other photos, you might see a little circle with a blank silhouette in the bottom corner of the image. If you do, it means that the image has been tagged. Just tap the image to reveal the tags, then tap a tag to jump to that user’s Instagram profile.

Instagram
Note: Just tap an image to reveal any people tags, then tap a tag to visit that person’s Instagram profile.

7.  How to see every Instagram photo in which you’ve been tagged, and remove yourself from a tagged photo

Curious to see whether you’ve been tagged in someone else’s Instagram photo? There’s an easy way to find out.

Instagram
Note: If you don’t like a tag of yourself in an Instagram photo, tap the tag to hide it from your profile or (by tapping “More Options”) removing the tag altogether.

Tap the Profile button in the bottom corner of the screen, then tap the \”photos of you\” button (it’s the one that looks like a tag with a silhouette inside) near the top-right corner of the screen.

Now, let’s say you find you’ve been tagged in a photo you don’t want to be tagged in, or that a stranger has tagged you in a picture by mistake.

In that case, tap your tag to reveal your two options: Either hide the photo from your profile or remove the tag altogether. On Android, simple tap the Remove Tag option to nix the tag; on iOS, you’ll first need to tap More Options, then tap Remove Me from Photo.

8. Get notifications when your post are followed by Instagrammers

Ever since Instagram first launched, your main photos feed has always shown the most recent photos posted by your Instagram pals first, in strict chronological order.

Instagram
Note: You’ll never miss a post from your favorite Instagrammer once you turn on post notifications.

Recently, though, Instagram said it would start testing a new, Facebook-style algorithm that would favor the posts that it thinks you’ll want to see the most. Of course, that means the most recent pictures from your Instagram friends might not necessarily appear first in your Instagram feed.

That said, the advice of some panicked Instagram users—to turn on alerts for new posts from specific users—isn’t a bad one.

When you’re looking at the Instagram feed of someone you’re following, you can tap the three-dot menu button in the top corner of the screen, then tap Turn on Post Notifications.

Once that’s done, you’ll get an alert whenever that particular Instagram friend posts a photo, whether Instagram’s percolating feed algorithm thinks that user is important or not.

9. How to see (or remove) your photos on a map

If you tag your posted photos with a location, anyone on Instagram (or just your approved followers, in the case of private accounts) can tap the location tab on your profile screen to see your geotagged snapshots on a world map.

Instagram
Note: You can wipe photos off your Instagram photo map by tapping Edit, then tapping the snapshots you want to be removed.

Don’t like that idea? Then go to the location tab on your profile, tap the Edit button in the top-right corner of the screen, tap a photo to remove its location tag, then tap Done.

You can also click the grid button near the bottom of the screen to see all your visible geotagged snapshots at once; you can then tap Edit and select any photos you want to wipe off the map.

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Why Would I Use a Consultant

What is a consultant?

A consultant is an expert or an experienced professional in a specific field and has a wide knowledge of the subject matter(s).  A consultant can work permanently on site, a remote office location or a combination of the two.  Maybe you only need remote support for a few hours a week with a quick weekly office visit at one or multiple locations.

How to define the different security roles for interveiws
Building Business Relationships

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solving Business Problems

Businesses have a variety of problems that normally can’t be solved by conventional job requestions postings.  A consultant agency works with the business to not only identify the problems or pain points, but also the skills that the business is looking for.  Agencies should not only want their consultants to solve initial problems but continue to provide value and help solve new business pain points.

What are the benefits of using a consultant?

Save Time and Money

How many hours are spent by a Manager or HR professional reviewing resumes, setting up and conducting interviews?  How many individuals are included in the initial screening calls and first and second round interviews on applicants that would not have made the cut and what is that total hourly rate cost?  A consulting agency filters out 80% of the applicants and gets you the 20% that you want to interview.

When a business looks at using a consultant vs hiring an employee it is typically related to managing liability. When an employee is hired, employees receive benefits such as stock options, health benefits, paid training, paid sick days and holidays, etc.  When you hire a consultant, all of the benefits, paid off days, training etc that are presented to the consultant are paid by the consultant agency.  In the unfortunate event that the consultant is not the right fit for the business, the consultant agency handles the communication and your business would not have to pay unemployment costs.

Get Qualified Resources

Our approach is simple.  With your pain points and required skills identified we sort through our resources to find the qualified candidates vs applications.  A lot of talent attraction is aimed at attracting applicants, whether they are responding to an advertisement, applying on special board, or through your website. A lot of these people may not be good matches for the role hence a lot of time will be invested in filtering, assessing, matching and communicating with them. When we talk about a bad candidate experience it’s normally an application experience that we are referring to. Time and resource-poor recruitment teams may not be able to run a thorough matching process. Using a recruitment agency should mean that you see only candidates – job seekers who have been pre-selected to match all the criteria that you are looking for and who are worthy of consideration and interview.

Managing Candidates

Another added benefit is a consulting agency manages the candidates.  When HR professional has to directly call a passive candidate this often results in an offhand behavior, unreasonable demands and a lack of showing up for interviews.  Candidates often have the upper hand at this point and that is not what we want.  We a candidate is referred to the HR professional, all of the wrinkles should be ironed out.  At this point, there have been several interactions to increases the percentage of intent.  This also put the HR professional back in the position of power, which can save the business thousands and it’s much easier to manage candidates.

Time to Decide

Most business can determine if a consultant is going to work for their business or team within the first 90 days.  If it’s not going to work out for the consultant after the desired term, we will do our best to find a consultant that will.  Consultant agencies offer a couple of models.  Models offered are Contract to Hire (CTR) or Contract for a term.  In both models, the agency is paid a rate usually with a standard finder fee and everything else is handled by the consultant agency throughout the CTR period or the full contract term. With the contract to hire model, the same conditions apply and a buy option when the consultant is hired as an employee.

Knowledge of the Market

The best recruiters will have their finger on the pulse of their specialist markets and can give the hiring team insight into what is happening. They should know the available talent, where they are and how to reach out to them, salary rates, career expectations, available skill-sets and current hiring complexities. If other businesses are struggling to find the same people as you, they should be able to advise on alternative solutions. The best will act as partners and collaborators, and should still be your eyes and ears in the market.

 

17 Years Experience

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Prevent Identity Theft

Identity Theft

Identity (ID) theft is a crime where a thief steals your personal information, such as your full name or social security number, to commit fraud. The identity thief can use your information to fraudulently apply for credit, file taxes, or get medical services. These acts can damage your credit status, and cost you time and money to restore your good name. You may not know that you are the victim of ID theft until you experience a financial consequence (mystery bills, credit collections, denied loans) down the road from actions that the thief has taken with your stolen identity. 

There are several common types of identity theft that can affect you:

Child ID theft – Children’s IDs are vulnerable because the theft may go undetected for many years. By the time they are adults, the damage has already been done to their identities.
Tax ID theft – A thief uses your social security number to falsely file tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service or state government.
Medical ID theft – This form of ID theft happens when someone steals your personal information, such as your Medicare ID or health insurance member number to get medical services or to issue fraudulent billing to your health insurance provider.
Senior ID theft – ID theft schemes that target seniors. Seniors are vulnerable to ID theft because they are in more frequent contact with medical professionals who get their medical insurance information, or caregivers and staff at long-term care facilities that have access to personal information or financial documents.
Social ID theft – A thief uses your name, photos, and other personal information to create a phony account on a social media platform.

Prevent Identity Theft

Take steps to protect yourself from identity theft:
  • Secure your social security number (SSN). Don’t carry your social security card in your wallet or write your number on your checks. Only give out your SSN when absolutely necessary.
  • Don’t respond to unsolicited requests for personal information (your name, birthdate, social security number, or bank account number) by phone, mail, or online.
  • Contact the three credit reporting agencies to request a freeze of your credit reports.
  • Collect mail promptly. Place a hold on your mail when you are away from home for several days. 
  • Pay attention to your billing cycles. If bills or financial statements are late, contact the sender.
  • Enable the security features on mobile devices, especially if you have contacts, banking websites and applications saved.
  • Update sharing and firewall settings when you\’re on a public wi-fi network.  
  • Consider using a virtual private network, which can give you the privacy of secured private network.
  • Review your credit card and bank account statements. Promptly compare receipts with account statements. Watch for unauthorized transactions.
  • Shred receipts, credit offers, account statements, and expired credit cards, to prevent “dumpster divers” from getting your personal information.
  • Store personal information in a safe.
  • Install firewalls and virus-detection software on your home computer.
  • Create complex passwords that identity thieves cannot guess easily.
  • Change your passwords if a company that you do business with has a breach of its databases.
  • Review your credit report once a year to be certain that it doesn\’t include accounts that you have not opened. You can order it for free from Annualcreditreport.com.

Sleep better knowing your Information is Protected

Follow the link below to read more about the benifits of using a security consultant or contact us for a free consultation.
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Hack the Web Traffic Algorithm

Stacking the Deck

On a previous post, we used a PowerBall Image and provided information about how to play.  We did this for three reasons.  One, to show that you should always represent what you post.  We don\’t recommend or condone false representation.  Two, we really didn\’t know how to play and figured that, like everything else, if it took us time to put together the research then why not share.  Finally, the word Powerball is a monthly relevant term that is searched millions of times.  How is that for relevance.  Also if you look into the source code you can see many valuable keywords that can be utilized for traffic keyword utilization, Alt image descriptions and add tons of good searchable meta keywords in the code behind the curtains to make crush the search engine ranking algorithm. 

SEO

Meta

Tags

Page Source

Find out the keywords your competitors are using is to visit their website and then view the Page Source.

The easiest way is to go to the webpage of your choice and either right click and choose \”view source\” or just press F12 or Alt F12 and the source code will pop up.

You can then search for these tags to understand the keywords your competitors are using on their website.

  • title – This tag is a headline description of the page and is the way Google displays your site in listings.
  • meta name=”description” – Is the snippet that appears underneath the title tag on search engines results.
  • meta name=”keywords” – Many sites no longer use this tag, but it’s worth checking to see if your competitors are using it.

From the above tags, you can get a fairly good feel for the type of keywords your competitors are using to promote their website.

Google Adwords

Sign up for a free Google AdWords account then visit https://adwords.google.com/ . Click the “Search for new keyword and ad group ideas” link. Use the information that we pulled from the source code view under the <keywords> or <meta> tags for a good start.

Hack the Web Traffic Algorithm
Hack the Web Traffic Algorithm

Keyword Planner

Use Chrome and add the extension \”Open SEO Stats(Formerly: PageRank Status)\”.  After the extension is added, use the words or phrases that you pulled from the Google Adwords and enter each into the google search bar. 

When you add the word or phrase an indicator will display to show you how many times that word or phrase has been searched for recently.  Relevance is key for climbing the search result pages and attracting traffic to your site. 

Stack the deck.

Give the search engine algorithm what it wants.  The more time you can get your site to come up in searches, no matter what page the more relevant it will become and the search engine will place it higher in the results.  Equations go like this {Content searched x number of hits x frequency between hits}.

Source Code Optimized for SEO

Source code isn’t scary. It’s simply the code that web browsers “read” to figure out how to display a webpage’s contents. Google and other search engines read your source code to find out what your site is about.

Title Tags

Ctrl+U  – To view a page\’s title tag. Have one title tag per page. What you put in the title tag is basically how Google decides what’s going to be in search engine results.

Meta Descriptions

The meta description.  This is a description of the page.  Duplicating content here across pages doesn\’t hurt your rankings but you’re ruining your chance at taking advantage of free advertising.  Copy and paste for now, then come back and fix when you get a chance.

Image Alt Tags

An Image Alt Tag is another tag that is extremely important, especially if you’re in eCommerce.  It tells a search engine what an image is about and it helps your image become higher in the image search.

Are you ready to scale your traffic?

GET STARTED

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POWERBALL stacking the Deck

Powerball Jackpot: How to Play, Find a Retailer

Why are we talking about Powerball.  Easy – because of it is an example of a  hot topic the brings visitors to your new site monthly.  If you check Google Search results, PowerBall has over 5 Million hits monthly.  First, we will provide a little info about Powerball and then keep reading for how Powerball relates to your business website.

Playing the Game

  • Choose your own numbers on a play slip. Pick five different numbers from 1 through 69; then select one Powerball number from 1 through 26.
  • Or you can play Easy Pick and let the computer choose your numbers.
  • You can also use a combination of these play methods – pick some of your favorite numbers, and let the computer fill in the rest.
  • Each play (six numbers) costs $2.
  • Powerball draws are held Wednesday and Saturday at 11:00 p.m.
  • All prizes, except the jackpot, are fixed dollar amounts. The jackpot total is dependent on the amount of money in the draw\’s total prize pool.

Collect Your Winnings

Match all six numbers, and you win the Powerball jackpot! But that\’s not all – check out the chart for all NINE ways to win a prize in Powerball. If you do win the jackpot, you will need to choose either an annual payout or cash option when you claim your prize.

Play with Power Play

Power Play® is a powerful add-on feature that allows you to win even more money for just $1 per play. Power Play® can increase your winnings up to $2 million! If you win with Power Play®, your non-jackpot prize is increased 2, 3, 4, 5, or 10 times! depending on the Power Play® number drawn for that draw. Check the chart to see how adding Power Play® increases any non-jackpot win. Add Power Play® and match five numbers without t the Powerball, and you automatically win $2 million – guaranteed!  The 10x multiplier applies to advertised annuity jackpots of $150 Million and below.

Where to Play

POWERBALL stacking the Deck

America\’s favorite lottery is played in 44 States, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Play Powerball, It\’s America\’s Game®!

Click here to find out where to watch the drawings.

Click here to learn more about prizes and odds.

Courtesy of Powerball.com

Stacking the Deck

  • Join a lottery syndicate
  • Play more tickets
  • Play every draw
  • Follow a strategy to select your numbers

That about raps of our knowledge of Powerball, as this is not our specialty.  We decided to add this bit of information to our blog because like-minded people take like-minded actions.  What is our specialty is creating an amazing website and moving past the hurdle of bringing clients to your business and website.  

How and why we added Powerball to our site

Because there is a lot of good information, we have decided to clean the slate and add this information to a clean page.  Follow this link to go to a new page and find out why we added this information and how it can help you bring traffic to your site.

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Bringing a Product Online
360Logic Insider: Bringing a Product on Line, Product Launch, New Product Introduction Process, Launch innovation products, product campaign strategy

Successful product launches

Today, the pace of news is limited only by the speed of light. The new media incorporates far fewer product outlets; rather, it is made up of a reduced number of slimmed-down (books, magazines, etc.) and an excessive number of specialist writers (on shared online pages). Getting\”ink\” might be easier, but surprisingly, getting attention has become very very hard. And the attention you do get is forgotten within minutes as the constant flow of even \”newer news\” pushes your announcement out of the total (of everything or everyone) mindshare.

New tactics are required to get the notice you deserve. So here are some steps for a successful launch in these fickle times:

  1. Start early. Don’t expect reporters to write about you when you want. Get a head start and begin preparing long before you plan to launch. A rolling launch is a great way to keep the conversation going. Start your outreach activities 6-8 weeks before the official launch date and then keep the news going up to, and beyond the official launch date. The steps below describe how to do this.
  2. Make the product or service available to important influencers as a first step. Influencers can be friendly customers, prospects, or even bloggers who have a sizable online presence. Encourage these people to use your product or service and then write review articles or posts. These folks are also great resources to talk to analysts about your offering pre-launch.
  3. Brief industry analysts during this early phase as well. Scheduling calls with these folks take time to do this early. Invest the time to write compelling briefing requests. These guys are busy, so you will want to make sure your meeting request clearly states why it is worth their time to hear about your offering.
  4. Seed the social space with “leaks.” Target people who are naturally eager to learn about your offering. For example, ‘coming soon’ tweets and ‘leaked’ photos of your product create an aura of intrigue that builds interest. Apple is a master of this technique.
  5. Don’t expect a “big bang” release unless your product or service is truly revolutionary or if you are Microsoft or Apple. Unless you have a massive launch event planned, the official launch date should only signify the day your product is actually available.
  6. Keep the release rolling. You don’t know when reporters will have time to write, so give them some opportunity to write about the offering after the official launch date. Continue to produce fresh news like announcements concerning novel uses of the product, customer stories, details about how the offering provides a return on investment (ROI) to customers, etc.
  7. Do something unusual during the release cycle. Some examples include creating a funny video, doing a stunt centered around an industry event, publishing a survey that supports the value of your product, or creating an interesting infographic that describes the need for your product. As an example, for a recent product launch, I created a mock public service announcement (PSA) website that warned of the ‘dangers’ of using our new mobile product while walking. The irony created an enormous buzz around the launch and even led to a huge spike in free product downloads. You can check it out here.
  8. Get partners involved. Channel and marketing partners who have a financial stake in the success of the launch are natural allies. The more people that are talking about the release, the better chances it will get a pickup.
  9. Make it easy for people to learn more about your product with free trials, downloads, product videos, and demos.
  10. Ignore the elements of the launch that do not drive business. Unless your offering appeals to a mass consumer audience, don’t focus on the number of Facebook likes and Twitter followers you collect. Rather, use these social channels for more meaningful engagement. See who is talking about your offering online and then make contact with them. See how these folks can help you further promote your offering within their social circles.

Launch Strategy

A successful new product launch does not take a research, planning, and costly skilled marketing team. You can put this together yourself with the right information.  The product must satisfy a person\’s (who uses a product or service) needs and provide an emotional connection through its promise and brand. Businesses often make the mistake of presenting new products to people without (good) enough research or (related to a plan to reach a goal) planning. Today\’s intelligent people (who use a product or service) demand products that make happy (by meeting a need or reaching a goal) them on many levels including quality, price, status, and function. Prepare a new product launch (success plan(s)/way(s) of reaching goals) for the best chance of success with your new product.

 

Here are some links that we pulled together for your reference:

Event Planning Courses
Train to Become an Event Planner. Online Event Planning Course – Tuition. Info!
ashworthcollege.edu/Event-Planning
 

Purpose of a product start

The first (or most important) purpose of a product start is business growth. Businesses must master the idea and process of a product launch to enable growth through successfully introducing new products into the market. Product launches build sales and money/money
income through (the act of something getting bigger, wider, etc.) of the customer base. By
introducing new products, a business can target (before that/before now) untapped customer
 markets. The resulting growth allows businesses to hire added/more sales and support staff.

New Product Marketing Companies

Intromark – Official Site

www.intromark.com
Intromark is a new product licensing and marketing firm that gives companies access to thousands of inventions and product ideas.
 
Davison.com(225) 910-6275
We Help Turn Ideas into Products. No Cost Consultation – Start Today
100% Confidential – A better way to invent
 

Chief Outsiders – Marketing Company

contact.chiefoutsiders.com/marketing(201) 204-9267
Fast, Effective Marketing Strategy. Get in Contact w/our CMOs & Learn More Today
Expand into New Markets · Part-time Marketing Execs
Service catalog: Outsourced CMOs, Advisory CMOs, Marketing Strategy 
 

How to Market a Brand New Product | Inc.com

www.inc.com/…/marketing-a-brand-new-product.html
How to Market a Brand New Product. … The direct marketing consumer product company used a similar solution-based method when promoting Topsy Turvy

New Product Launch Checklist

 Planning

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 Marketing and Sales

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 Product Support

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Contact Us

Contact us with all of your questions.  No projects too small or too big.  Free consultations.  

Connect

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Choosing a Great Brand Name

If you need to choose a great brand name for your product, service or business, start by (thinking about/when one thinks about) the importance of the name in your calling/labeling efforts.
Your business name is an extension of your brand, reinforcing the value you provide or distancing you from it. When you’re developing your business name, a service or a product, you have some options:

• Create a new word (Amazon, Google)
• Choose a word the describes something (Sprint)
• Describes what you do (Transatlantic)
• Using the inventor or founders name (Walt Disney)
• Take a word out of context (Apple)

When deciding it’s important to think about what your name should mean and represent. For example, if you’re running a company that provides business marketing services, your name should be a sample of your work, right?

business concepts blog post

Naming Steps & Key Concepts

Before you choose a brand name

Since your name is an extension of your brand, it’s important to develop your brand strategy before you start the naming process.

Do you need to hire someone?

With a good process and strategy, you can probably develop a good name on your own. However, you may not have the resources or desire to handle the project internally. While it’s no guarantee that a firm or consultant will develop a better name, they may do it more quickly and objectively.

 

 

There are a number of factors to consider, including

• The stakes: if you’re investing a lot of money into launching a new product to a major market with established competition, the stakes are high.
• Your confidence in your team’s creative firepower or objectivity.
• The amount of time and energy you have to devote to the project.
• Whether you can afford to bring in an outside resource.

Develop a strategy to choose a great brand name

• Determine what your name needs to accomplish.
• Decide how it will work with existing product or service names (if applicable).
• Determine what kind of name to develop – descriptive, invented, founder’s name, etc.
• Develop objective criteria to evaluate the names you generate.

Generate plenty of potential names

If you’re competing beyond your local area, you may find that many of your potential names (or URLs) are already taken, so you’ll need to create a long list. Invite a variety of people to a brainstorming session. Plan it well, and capture every idea for further evaluation.
Evaluate the list against your criteria

Your goal is to fairly and without emotion find the name that meets your judging requirements, so be careful about asking friends and family whether they “like” a name. For example, a name that raises eyebrows may do so because it’s different – and it may be the most unforgettable and powerful one in the bunch.

Test your name

Make sure it:
• Won’t be constantly mispronounced or misspelled, which defeats the purpose of a name
• Sounds good over the phone (for example, when a sales rep calls a prospect)
• Isn’t confusing
• Conveys your desired brand personality
• Has a URL that works with it

Protect your brand name

It’s important to protect your name to the appropriate degree. If you choose a name that violates another company’s copyright, you could receive an (order to stop doing something and never do it again) letter and have to go to court and/or change your name after months or even years of use. By protecting your name, you also gain the ability to prevent future competitors from using it.

After Naming

After you choose your great brand name, you can create your logo and corporate identity, and (related to big business) then begin creating your brand story, brand personality and call me/label messaging to use throughout your sales materials and marketing efforts.