Losing their hard-earned cryptocurrencies. Be it Bitcoin or any other altcoins.

What could you do?

Well, read on this guide to learn the essential guide for securing your cryptocurrencies from hackers.

Before that, we all are well aware that  2017 and the first quarter of 2018 have been dominated by two major buzzwords – cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Both these terms work hand-in-hand to promote what has essentially grown to become one of the most significant financial developments in recent memory.

The fact that merely attaching the word “Blockchain” can considerably improve the stock prices of products that have nothing to do with this terminology speaks volumes when it comes to the popularity of this phrase in today’s day-and-age.

More and more people want to get into the cryptocurrency scenario to earn a quick profit, even though things aren’t as simple as they might seem at first glance.

However, the fact of the matter is that cryptocurrency is still a viable avenue of investment that one should take into account if they genuinely want to explore and experiment in the financial domain.

Keep in mind that the information around blockchain and cryptocurrency is still pretty hazy, and one needs to be wary of the time and manner of their investment in this domain if they don’t want to lose out on a substantial amount of money.

While the decentralised nature of cryptocurrency does mean that your financial dealings will remain relatively secure, there are still some measures you should adopt from your side to guarantee an extra level of security.

4 essential security tips for Cryptocurrency hodler’s:

Manage your passwords efficiently:

It doesn’t take an expert to tell you that repeating the same password across multiple platforms is not a wise course of action to take. We also understand that, while forming complex and unique passwords for each online domain might sound like a neat idea, the reality is that most people won’t be able to remember all these complicated phrases. So, to make sure that you don’t end up forgetting your password to your crypto wallet and lose out on substantial sums of money, it’s highly recommended that you use a password manager like Dashlane or LastPass to make sure that you don’t forget any of your passwords.

Using two-factor authentication to secure your password is also a great way to ensure security – utilizing a personal question, an OTP on your phone, or anything else as a confirmation of sorts with your password can prove to be incredibly helpful.

Secure your computer:

The threat of a virus infecting your laptop is all too real and can prove to be incredibly harmful – especially if you’re dealing in the field of crypto. To prevent any debilitating attacks on your computer, make sure that you secure an anti-virus system that enables total protection for your PC.

Using an adblocker to avoid scam offers from even appearing in the first place is another level of security that you should enable.

In fact, uBlock (one of the most popular and useful adblockers around) is actively taking steps to prevent third-party cryptocurrency mining scripts from running on an unsuspecting person’s browser, which is a great course of action to take.

Maintain anonymity:

While utilising an anti-virus or an adblocker to prevent scams or attacks might work to an extent, a hacker who’s actively targeting your system won’t be deterred by such means. Therefore, in such a case, it’s imperative that you disguise your IP to prevent these attacks from inflicting any lasting damage. There are two ways to enable this anonymity – either a VPN or Tor.

In the case of a VPN, while your IP address is hidden, it’ll still be stored on the VPN provider’s domain. However, in the case of Tor, the browser re-routes your signal through many nodes that make it impossible for a hacker to track your IP.

Use a hardware wallet:

Even after following the points mentioned above, there’s still a chance that your foray into the field of crypto can be hampered by individuals who want to turn a quick profit at the expense of others.

The most important piece of your crypto wallet security is the private key. If you are storing your coins on an exchange, then it’s a big mistake. You own Bitcoin or other coins only when it’s in your wallet where you control the private key. CoinSutra has written an interesting article on different types of Crypto wallets which will give you a head start.

The best way to keep your Bitcoin or other coin is by using a hardware wallet.

A Hardware wallet ensures that your private key is never exposed to the computer or your mobile and thus ensures maximum security.   The fact that there has been no reported theft or loss of any form of cryptocurrency from a hardware wallet speaks volumes when it comes to the immense level of security that is enabled by this service.

Here are a couple of options for you in hardware wallet category:

• Ledger Nano S (Highly recommended)
• Trezor (New T model is what you should opt for)

There are few new companies also out there, but these two crypto hardware wallets are the best. One reason is, you can store Bitcoin, Ethereum, All ERC20 tokens and many more coins.

Summing it up:

Your password is the first line of defense which works for keeping your login secure on an exchange. Using 2 factor authentication is a must and something all popular exchanges like Binance and KuCoin offers these days.

However, the most important thing is to secure your wallet private key and that should be done using a hardware wallet. A mobile wallet or desktop wallet is easy to hack and should be avoided.

If you are seriously interested in dealing with cryptocurrency, then you should secure your transactions to help prevent any tampering with your crypto wallet.

After all, the boom in cryptocurrency pretty much speaks for itself when it comes to the profitable nature of this particular aspect of the financial domain.

Do let me know how you liked our security guide for cryptocurrency users. If you want us to cover any of these in details, feel free to ask. Cryptocurrency is a growing industry and the more informed you are, your chance of growth will be faster.

• Also check out: Best Cryptocurrency exchanges to trade cryptocurrencies

The post The Basic Yet Essential Security Guide for Cryptocurrency Users first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

However, when most of the people are talking about Social Media, there are few guys who are making the best use of it as a part of their business strategies like Social Media agencies. Thanks to those agencies that are helping their customers achieve great heights. Social Media agencies specialize in brand promotion via various social media platforms like social networks, blogs, forums discussion, social bookmarking, microblog and more, that in turn helps in maintaining the online reputation of their customers. Here we list out few most popular social media agencies across the world which are not only doing their job but also helping the media to move in the next age!

Top Social Media Agencies of US

1. Blueliner

Located in New York, USA, is a group of diverse, media and web savvy entrepreneurs that know how to put strategies in place for building brands and companies. By combining high level digital strategy services locally with offshore implementation and support, Blueliner leverages a cost effective servicing model to lower acquisition costs for client campaigns.

Major Clients – NYVS, Chaa Creek

2. Altimeter Group

Located in San Mateo, California offers thought leadership, research, and consulting on digital media strategies, focusing mainly on how companies can leverage social and emerging technologies.

Major Clients – Dr Pepper, American Airlines, HP, Dell.

3. Shift Communications

Located in San Francisco, Boston and New York City, is one of the nation’s fastest growing independent public relations agencies offering a full range of public relations services and much more. From initial market research and strategic planning to editorial services, media relations, blog consulting, social media strategy & execution, event planning and PR metrics, their comprehensive public relations services can be tailored to fit any PR situation.

Major Clients – RealNetworks, Bing, Quiznos, Virgin Mobile, Wells Fargo.

4. Crayon

Located in US, is a strategic consultancy that helps its clients achieve positive change and impact by joining the conversation. Crayon is a different kind of company – a mash-up of the best of the consulting, planning and agency worlds, specializing in helping brands differentiate and win by embracing change.

Major Clients – Cocacola, Gypsii, Audi, Kraftfood, Facebook.

5. Buddy Media

Located in New York, USA, is a fast becoming a digital branding powerhouse. Buddy Media selected by Facebook as a Preferred Developer Consultant and named top digital media company in the East by AlwaysOn! Make Social Work The Buddy Media Platform empowers brands and agencies with the tools and technology needed to easily control their social media efforts.

Major Clients – Acuvue teen, Carnival, T.J Maxx, Carnival.

6. Live World

Located in San Jose, California, is the go-to social media marketing agency and technology provider for everything Fortune 1000 companies need to leverage the power of social networking to build their brands and their business. They are the only online community provider company that offers a complete solution to create success in the online community space.

Major Clients – Sprint, HSBC, Sony Ericsson, Procter & Gamble.

7. Be Affinitive

Located in New York, NY and San Francisco, CA is a Word of Mouth (WOM) and social media marketing and technology solutions pioneer. Since 2002 they have been helping companies to democratize their brands through a consumer-centric approach focused on the core values of community and social networking, research, viral and buzz, education, and loyalty and CRM, coupled with our best-of-breed suite of fully managed Web 2.0 social media engagement platforms.

Major Clients – GM, Virgin Mobile, SEGA, At&t, Ubisoft.

8. Carrot Creative

Located in Brooklyn, NY is a new-media marketing agency specializing in social media strategy, design and development. They have the unique ability to take a project from initial ideation to full scale application development all under one roof. By harnessing traditional marketing tactics and applying them to the social-web, Carrot understands how to position and execute marketing plans for businesses operating in the Internet age.

Major Clients – League Baseball, PepsiCo, Crayola, The Onion and the NFL

9. Dachis Group

Located in Austin, Texas, was created to unlock the value of social technologies for large corporate enterprises through Social Business Design, via their global advisory practice and technology implementation program. The company’s strategy is backed by a commitment from Austin Ventures to build and grow organically and through acquisitions.

Major Clients – AXA, BBC, Forbes, Cocacola, Philips.

10. Ignite Social Media

Located in Cary, NC, is a new breed of company that specializes in helping corporations use social media tools, sites and applications to connect with customers and prospects.

Major Clients – Microsoft, Intel, Disney, The body shop.

11. The Buzz

Located in Glendale, NY and Boston, MA, is an award-winning social media and word of mouth marketing firm. With over 30 employees and offices in three cities, they are dedicated to helping businesses effectively leverage social media and word of mouth marketing. theKbuzz develops, manages, and executes social media and word of mouth marketing programs for businesses, non-profits, and organizations.

Major Clients – Cumberland, Verizon FIOS, Atlas Park, Epic.

12. Izea

Located in Orlando, FL, is a world leader in social media sponsorships and has a mission to empower everyone to value and exchange content, creativity and influence.

Major Clients – Volvo British Airways, Kao brands, Fox, LG.

13. Ripple6

Located in New York, USA, that helps companies create meaningful and measurable connections with people in social networks, by applying our experience and expertise and deploying our comprehensive social platform.

Major Clients – Moms Like Me, MixingBowl, Post Foods, Suave.

14. Six Apart

Located in San Francisco, CA, connects marketers and bloggers to a massive audience through its powerful social media platform that builds communities and activates brand advocates across the web.

Major Clients – Yahoo, HP, GE, Best Buy.

15. Under Current

Located in New York, USA, is a digital strategy firm that maintain a diverse collection of brilliant digital strategists – objective advisors focused solely on organization and performance. The team consults on long-term digital and social strategy, advises on organizational structure and process, orchestrates and manages digital campaigns, structures media and investment partnerships with emerging platforms, and develops bespoke measurement models that link digital activity back to real business results.

16. CrossTech Media

Located in Canton, MA is an integrated events and media company specializing in real time and online experiences primarily around business technology for mid-sized enterprises and organizations.

17. Hubspot

Located in Cambridge, MA, has a vision to provide a (killer) marketing application and provide great advice to small businesses enabling them to leverage these disruptive effects of the internet to “get found” by more prospects shopping in their niche and to convert a higher percentage of prospects into customers.

18. Mullen

Located in   Boston, MA, Winston-Salem, NC; Pittsburgh, PA and Detroit, MI, is a full service modern advertising agency, integrating disciplines from creative to direct response, public relations, full-service media, social influence, digital production and analytics.

19. Ants Eye View

Located in Redmond, WA, explains organizations through the process of transforming customer experience and brand engagement by activating and embedding customer voice in every aspect of their business. Guide

20. 7Summit Agency

Located in Milwaukee, WI & Chicago, IL, is a new type of agency bringing together the best creative talent with strong business acumen so that great things can happen. Their mission is to help customers, employees and partners building businesses. It help clients across a variety of markets create successful, measurable social business strategies.

Top Social Media Agencies of India

#ARM Worldwide

#ARM Worldwide is a digital marketing & communication consulting company working to achieve brand’s objectives on the global scale around digital marketing, PR, content marketing, technology & analytics solutions. The company has shown its mettle with several campaigns for its customers which is a comprehensive list of Indian and International brands. The organisation since its inception has kept its focus global and catered to several foreign markets along with India. #ARM has worked with an exhaustive list of national and international brands including start-ups, BFSI, fintech, technology giants, leaders in education space etc.

Major Client: Bajaj finsev, Asics, Sodexo, Zee learn, Ducati, Harman & others.

Awards:
Gold – PR Awards 2017 South East Asia for Tea for Trump campaign
Gold – Content Marketing – Foxglove 2017
Gold IPRCCA 2016
Gold India Digital Awards 2017
Gold DOD Awards – 2016

21. Media Redefined (It is closed now, you should check MediaZo)

Media Redefined is based out of New Delhi, India and specializes as a social media agency that provides strategic solutions for large scale social media campaigns and tactical online reputation management for global brands. They specialize in social technologies and provide insightful analysis and reporting for social media sales, support, engagement and outreach measurement. They’re the pioneers in blogger engagement program across the country.

21. MediaZo

MediaZo is a Digital Media & Technology agency offering strategic consulting and execution of digital/ social media plans aligned to business objectives across Marketing, Sales, Customer Support, Collaboration and other verticals.

Some of the brands they have  worked with in their previous avatar of Media Redefined includes Samsung Mobiles, Samsung Televisions, Maruti, Aircel, Micromax, VLCC, NIIT University, NASSCOM, LAVA Mobile, AutoX, Vigneshwara Developers, etc.

22. Pinstorm

Located in Mumbai, India, that sees enormous potential in integrated digital marketing – understanding buyer demand by analyzing customer conversations and search patterns across time, topic and geography and matching it to the offerings of our clients in real time, cost-effectively using a strategy that encompasses the ethos of search engine marketing, display advertising and social media marketing.

Major Clients – ICICI Bank, ET Now, Café Coffee Day.

23. Quasar

Located in New Delhi, India, believes in creating and maintaining uniqueness of the brand. At all times, with every client big or small, their endeavor is to deliver quality that is class apart.

Major Clients – Motorola, Xbox 360, Samsung.

24. Iffort

Located in Noida, India is a fresh web marketing and a social media consulting company that helps in crafting & implementing strategic web-solutions for clients, which takes into consideration the requirements and impact on different organizational functions.

Major Clients – Myheritage, Knowledge Platform.

25. Web Chutney

Located in New Delhi, India, works with leading companies in India by developing award winning and memorable experiences for brands to connect, engage with and build sustained relationships with their consumers online.

Major Clients – Unilever, P&G, HP, Airtel, Microsoft.

26. Blogworks

Located in New Delhi, helps global brands and organisations engage stakeholders in conversations to share, build communities, draw insights and co-create offerings for business impact. They deliver strategic social media and technology solutions to brands and organisations. Go social with programmes that are aligned with your organisational goals and deliver measurable value.

Major Clients – Fasttrack, Livejournal, Knocking, Cotton.

27. Phonethics

Located in Mumbai, India, is a Creative Digital agency which specializes in content creation and internet & mobile marketing. And their services include – social media marketing, display and search marketing, viral videos and content creation and application development.

Major Clients – Reebok, SOTC, Adidas, NIIT, Gadbury

28. Dinamehta

Located in Mumbai, India is a keen observer of how people are interacting with digital tools and social media.

Major Clients – Nokia, MTV, Dell, Pitney Bowes, and Unilever.

29. Ignitee

Located in Mumbai, India is a 360 degree internet marketing agency that provides comprehensive online advertising services such as Search Engine Marketing (PPC), Branding and Social Media.

Major Clients – Nimbus, DLF, Naukri.

30. Experience Commerce

Located in Mumbai, India, creates digital campaigns for people who love to drive their car out of the garage. Engage people around the new Cedia Sports.

Major Clients – Linc Pens, Xbox Gears of War 2, Airtel

31. Foxymoron

Located in Mumbai, India helps building your brand, your identity is the central framework through which all your communication charts its course. They also take great care and pride in building the best brands. Understanding psychology, understanding philosophy, understanding mindsets – and making everything look better than it ever could.

Major Clients – NLPL, Valencia, Neeta Lulla, Cadbury Bournville

32. New Media Guru

Located in New Delhi, India, help clients to reach their audience by the power of social media networking sites including Facebook, Orkut, Friendster, Hi-5 and many more, where visitors spend most of their quality time. They also help businesses trying to find ways in social media networks by creating customized winning social media applications.

Major Clients – Bacardi, Nikon, Havells, Dell.

33. Flea Global

Located in Mumbai, India is dedicated to generating strategic and creative solutions for clients. That could include designing a website, producing and seeding a viral film, developing an advertising campaign, or planning a digital display area in a store.

Major Clients – SBI Bicentenary, One Touch India, OIL

34. WAT Consult

Located in Mumbai, India, is India’s leading specialist social media agency. They bring together a combination of creative thinking and result oriented approach to every client and campaign that they undertake. Based out of Mumbai, India they are a 25 people team of young, energetic and passionate social media specialists.

Major Clients – Neo Sports, BIG Pictures, Force India.

35. Social Media Lab

Located in Chennai, India partners with industries to execute vertical specific research and help companies and government agencies leverage power of social media. Research activities are carried out by handpicked college students and guided by industry experts and social media gurus.

36. Infovedics

Located in Noida, India, has been working on innovative internet advertising techniques since 24th August 2007. The company was founded by a team of IIT graduates with keen interest in the internet domain. It helps clients to increase the visibility of their brands on social media sites by building online fan clubs around winning social applications.

37. Social Wave Length

Located in Mumbai, India, is a brand of Social PR. Outsourcing Pvt. Ltd. is Social Media Agency. They offer a variety of solutions to fulfill all your Social Media needs.

38. Mercury Communication

Located in Hyderabad, India is a social media agency firmly believes in this adage. They are forward-thinking new age Media Solutions Company and bring to you a totally new perspective in connecting with Web 2.0 generation.

39. Catalyst Lab

Located in Bangalore, India is a sui generis organisation with a distinct expertise in the emerging fields of Technology Evangelism, Social Media Marketing and Presentation Design. The organisation deals with evangelising new technologies using new / social media. Design philosophies are utilised to produce effective results by delivering a targeted impact to specific audience groups around the world.

40. 2020 Social

Located in Bangalore & New Delhi, India builds and nurtures online communities for Indian and international clients, connects their customers, partners and employees, and helps them achieve their business objectives.

Top Social Media Agencies of Europe

41. We Are Social

Located in London, UK a conversation agency that help brands to listen, understand and engage in conversations in social media.

Major Clients – Coca-Cola, Ford, Unilever, Microsoft, Tesco, Orange

42. Broadsight

Located in London, UK is a team that delivered many successful strategies and market entries, helped businesses obtain funding, designed platforms and services, turned companies around into Web 2.0 players, and have been interim managers and consultants for companies involved in all parts of project and product lifecycles in this space.

Major Clients – eGovernmnet, IPTV, New Media

43. The Duffy Agency

Located in Sweden, is an independent, full-service advertising agency, utilizing both social media and traditional campaigns for branding companies. While the Agency helps brands go to market with communication and tactics, Consult helps brands prepare for market with custom research, positioning, brand strategy, corporate identity, training, workshops and social media strategy.

Major Clients – Absolut, GSK, SAAB, IKEA

44. Business Logs

Located in London, UK is helping companies communicate better with their customers through the use of weblogs and smart user interface design. The company also focuses on creating blogs for business.

Major Clients – ForeverGeek, Infographiclabs, IndyPosted

45. Ethority

Located in Hamburg, Germany, is offering a whole range of research and consulting products that allow marketers and publishers to gain consumer insights and market intelligence.

Major Clients – Olympus, O2, Siemens, Atlanta, Nike

46. Fistashki

Located in Moscow, Russia, is a creative social media agency, managed by four individuals that develops directions of social media marketing for companies.

Major Clients – GOODMAN, Filimonova and Yankel, Kolbasoff, Mama’s Pasta

47. Idea Goras

Located in Madrid, Spain is a business ecosystem that has as its core principle innovation in creating brand experiences and in bringing and managing change in organizations.

Major Clients – AKGA, Cymfony, Forrester, IMS Health

48. Knallgrau

Located in Vienna, Austria was founded in 2001 and launched the first commercial Weblog Hoster for the German speaking market in 2003. There after it focused on Web 2.0, Social Software and Social Media delivering consulting, concept, design, development and hosting for our clients solutions in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

Major Clients – BMW, Mini, Axel Springer, Coca-Cola

49. Open Knowledge

Located in Milan, Italy is  is a consulting company helping clients to realize their business potential through creative approaches. OpenKnowledge aims to increase the level of performance and efficiency for our clients through leveraging their social capital; using informal social networks and collaboration software as tools media by corporations.

Major Clients – Barclays, Cisco, Oracle, Lago

50. Somesso

Located in Zurich, Switzerland is exists to accelerate the understanding and adoption of social. They further offer social business strategy consulting services, host events, and share everything we do in our website archive.

Major Clients – ZDNet, IBM

Top Social Media Agencies of Middle East

51. Blinkit

Located in Israel, is a pioneer in Israel in the Conversation Marketing, which means the integration of brands ranging conversation conducted online organizations. They specialize in content management for enterprises, research, online PR and social media presence and characterization of designing and building Web2.0 tools such as enterprise blogs, forums and communities. The company also specializes in developing solutions and building inter-organizational community-based portals.

Major Clients – Orange, Cisco, Oracle, Don.

52. Illuminea

Located in Israel, is an internet presence and marketing firm that focuses on creating effective and engaging websites and web marketing campaigns.

Major Clients – Commit CRM, Picscout, Israel Newsletter, NGO-Monitor

53. Dubai Media Consultancy

Located in Dubai, UAE is consulting company provides strategic and operational guidance to help H2O clients understand the impacts and opportunities generated by the convergence of media platforms (Social Media) in the Middle East. Their digital consulting capability spans online media, social media, online advertising, online marketing, digital commerce and digital strategy.

Major Clients – DailyMail, G2 Investment Capital, HP, IQPC.

54. Xtend Media

Located in Israel, was developed with the goal of turning the everyday ad network on its head. Built around the unique partnerships that XTEND holds with its Advertisers and Publishers, a dynamic model of successful online media solutions was born, and XTEND is one of the fastest growing ad networks today.

Major Clients – Imeem, Metacafe, Zylom, Star.

55. Harren Media Network

Located in Argentina, is a global leader in the presentation of 360° online marketing solutions through the implementation of marketing actions, client training and online channel branding, to brands that are looking to expand their business and improve their positioning within the market and regarding their competition. Their experience has taught us that the online world is the place to be for brands and business.

Major Clients – AOL, Photobucket, Webshots.

56. Simply Zesty

Located in Dublin, Ireland helps building companies brand through social media and promote your business through online PR and social media, enabling you to talk directly to your customers.

Major Clients –Vodafone, Nokia, Dulux.

57. Flip Corp

Located in Abu Dhabi, UAE helps clients connect all the dots in digital world to bridge the gap between a brand’s goals and the needs of consumers. The award-winning team of visual communicators brings our clients’ brands to life with striking creative landscapes that communicate messages effectively and leave lasting impressions.

Major Clients – Abu Dhabi Education Council, Abu Dhabi Finance, CMCS.

58. Global Media Insight

Located in Dubai, UAE is an interactive agency handles everything from classy website design & website development, crisp SEO and out of the box online advertising to innovative web applications and smart email marketing, they as an interactive agency foster relationships between your brands and the consumers.’

Major Clients – Nestle Middle East, Dubai City Church, Indigo Optima.

59. Online Marketing Me

Based in Dubai, UAE is a leading performance-based online marketing company with enabling technology that connects marketers to consumers through a comprehensive set of online media services.  Their expertise resides in online marketing, customer acquisition, lead generation and generating sales for your business.

Major Clients – Panasonic, AL Maya Group, Corys

60. Global Media

Located in Middle East is a pioneer in the Middle East for online advertising. Their clients use the expertise in online advertising through banner ads, search advertising / SEM (Google adwords, adCenter ( Microsoft-Yahoo search), SEO, social media marketing (social network marketing), email marketing (email advertising) & SMS marketing (SMS advertising) to cost effectively target their target audience leveraging the various online advertising channels.

Top Social Media Agencies of Canada

61. Social Media Group

Located in Toronto, Canada, offers a variety of smart services and processes that help you identify, clarify, reach and measure your social media goals.

Major Clients – SAP, Yamaha, Corbis, CNN

62. Eleven marketing

Located in Vancouver, Canada  is an Internet marketing company specializes in the growing, ever-changing field of social network marketing. Strategic Internet Marketing Solutions includes social media marketing, viral marketing, online media purchasing, and more.

Major Clients – Alpha, Subleaser, Holiday Trails.

63. Meidia

Located in Canada, is a social media agency intends to create products and services that facilitate conversation and incite interaction between people. The agency further helps individuals, organizations and businesses to use web technologies.

Major Clients – Le Cirque du Soleil, Ubisoft, Radio Canada, Musique Plus,

64. Anduro

Located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada is a professional Internet Marketing firm that can guide companies through this process. Based in Calgary, they offer tailored products and services to maximize your Online Marketing potential. Performing consultation and development, they will take company through the Web Marketing process.

Major Clients – Dell, H&R Block, Thomson Reuters, Intel

65. Social Media404

Located in Atlantic Canada is a brand new organization born of the need to bridge the gap between traditional business functions and practices, and the explosive use of new social media technologies.

Major Clients – Concertia, AccessTec, Atkinson, Canadian Nurses Association

66. Capulet

Located in Vancouver, BC, Canada is a marketing company that specializes in promoting remarkable products and services–especially terrific technology. They use all the tools of the trade–everything from email newsletters to online contests, social media marketing and solid web writing–to help you reach your customers. In everything we do we emphasize two things: authenticity and originality.

Major Clients – ActiveState, AEP Networks, Jiibe, Rococo Software

67. Radian6

Located in Fredericton, NB, Canada was created with the idea that companies need to be listening to the social web in order to effectively participate. Intelligence about online conversations is critical: companies need to know what’s being said about their brand, industry, and competitors online. So, they built a listening platform designed to help companies do just that.

Major Clients – 3M, AAA, AMD, Adobe, GE

68. Radical Trust

Located in Canada, is a marketer’s guide to social media, brand democratization and corporate transparency.

69. Agent Wildfire

Located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a Word of Mouth, Social Influence Marketing and Online Community Experts. Period. They prefer to specialize in over 30 grassroots marketing, media and innovation services that sets your marketing world on fire.

70. Search Tactix

Located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada is a search marketing agency, helps the clients in managing online buzz, and social media activities.

Top Social Media Agencies of Australia

71. Headshift

Located in New South Wales, Australia was launched in mid-2008 and builds on Headshift’s reputation as Europe’s leading enterprise social computing consultancy. Their global team contains some of the best and most innovative minds in this exciting new field.

Major Clients – British Airways, Compass, BBC Blogs

72. Jay Hollywood

Located in Perth, Western Australia is own by Jay who specialise in branding, user experience, and interface design, specifically when it relates to the digital world. He work with all types of clients to achieve specific results and exceptional outcomes through creative problems solving and development.

Major Clients – Launchlist, Clover Cottage, Propellr,

73. Ictip

Located in Sydney, Australia is an award winning Internet Marketing solutions company focused on Internet Marketing , Social Media Management, Web Design and Website Development, for medium to large size businesses.

Major Clients – UniLodge, Benchstrength, Unilodge Realty

74. Smart Company

Located in Melbourne, Victoria, is a completely free news, information and resource site for Australia’s entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners and business managers to help keep them ahead of their competition.

Major Clients – Cisco, Business Victoria, Optus.

75. SEO Company Sydney

Located in Sydney, Australia, is a social media agency speclaize in offering Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SEO Marketing Services, SEO Consultancy, SEO Expert & SEO, web analysis and more.

Major Clients – Mobile Tracking, Betting, Maria

76. Search Engine Rankings

Located in Victoria, Australia, is experienced in advertising, direct marketing and Web application development. With the marketing environment undergoing a change, conventional methods like telemarketing and direct mail are no longer providing the competitive edge. To inspire and achieve outstanding outcomes for Australian businesses through best in class internet marketing methods.

Major Clients – Sliver Service, sunlover, Fuji Xerox

77. The Defectors

Located in Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia has a mission to create brands the people can believe in again. A brand is more than just a logo and some pretty colours. It is more like a person with it’s own identity, life story, personality and plans for the future.

Major Clients – ING Direct, Q Station, Rock The Schools.

78. Thinktank Media

Located in Melbourne, Australia is a full-service social media advertising agency that is helping clients in speaking with their market in new and exciting ways. They combine social media with traditional formats, such as ambient, large format press, thereby creating powerful, interactive and engaging campaigns and communication strategies.

79. Switchedonmedia

Located in Sydney, Australia, is a leading digital marketing agency combining SEO and Social Media enabling brands to engage with consumers and deliver ROI. Switched on Media has proven expertise in the automotive, financial, retail and travel sectors, working with world renowned brands such Canon, PayPal and Westfield.

80. Logannathan

Located in Sydney, Australia believes that social media has taken the marketing world by storm and ignoring it can result in lost market share and opportunities to promote brand awareness among a far wider community of prospects that traditional media can ever hope to reach. An amazing business tool, social media, if used correctly can open up an entirely new communication channel to enable businesses engage with customers, obtain valuable insights and respond in an appropriate manner to gain brand equity and increase the level of trust with the company.

Top Social Media Agencies of Africa

81. Kbi Training

Located in Johannesburg, South Africa is social media agency that consult, speak, train, customize and license training and business building systems and processes in the areas of sales, sales management, personal marketing, entrepreneurship, customer service, social media marketing, and call centre training on collections, inbound and outbound selling and customer service.

Major Clients – ABSA, SAPPi, Ned Bank.

82. Peronii

Located in Peronii, South Africa, specializes in web design, online marketing and graphic design. PERONii Solutions uses the web and clever design to complement existing brand strategies and business operations.

Major Clients – Liberty, Lentelus, Umlungu

83. Biz Community

Located in Johannesburg, South Africa is a daily media, marketing and advertising news agency.

84. Fuseware

Located in Cape Town, South Africa provides in-depth online market research packaged into reports containing business intelligence about your brand, products, personnel or competitors. These include online demographics, key conversations, top influencers, sentiment analysis and more.

Major Clients – Concargo, Nokia, Snap Tech

85. Gorilla Creative Media

Located in Durban, South Africa is a social media agency that loves to build brands for clients. The site contains lot of informative blog posts!

Major Clients – Actor Pharma, Fox Clothing, DC

86. Pamoja Media

Located in Kennesaw, GA South Africa, is a digital marketing agency that focuses on providing online marketing strategy for Africa’s emerging brands. The agency helps organizations to align their Internet advertising strategies with the wants and patterns of their consumers.

Major Clients – Western Union, Emirates, Kenya Airways, WildlifeDirect

87. Emarketing Egypt

Located in Egypt, South Africa is a market leader providing total internet marketing services, and the first online competitive intelligence consulting for the internet businesses in the Middle East. We provide a wide range of emarketing services such as SEO, SEM, Viral marketing, SMO, Banner ads and Online B2B marketing, in addition to the integrated e-marketing consulting and Online Competitive Intelligence.

Major Clients – Microsoft BizSpark, Intel, CMC

88. Social Light Media Kenya

Located in GPO Nairobi, Kenya, South Africa is a premier start-up company which specializes in providing Social Media solutions to businesses in Kenya.

89. Alex Maina

Located in Kenya, South Africa is a social media agency deals with Article Marketing Campaigns, Business blogging campaigns, Social Media Campaigns, Political Campaigns, Product Launches and more web related campaigns.

90. Social Media Strategy

Located in Vanderbijlpark, Africa is the agency all about Internet Marketing and strives to inform you how you as a company can build your brand and leverage the internet to achieve your business goals.

Top Social Media Agencies from Other Parts of World

91. Vocanic

Located in Singapore, believes that experiential marketing has a big role to play in brand advocacy and Word Of Mouth marketing. It is among the most powerful techniques we use today.  By creating immersive environments for your customers to experience your brand, we create opportunities for you to elicit positive and powerful emotional connections from your customers for your brand.

Major Clients – Tourism Australia, WarnerTV

92. Agenciafrog

Located in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, South America a leading Social Media and Digital Marketing agency that delivers planning, strategy, websites, viral campaigns and social media presence to brands as Oi (telecommunications leader in South America), Multiplan (Shopping centers), Motorola, Icatu-Hartford (Finance), Ediouro (Publishing) and Vale (mining).

93. Pullcolab –

Located in Santiago, Chile, South America is a virtual living lab regarding design, innovation and social computing. They use design thinking methodology to create and deliver strategist within the social web and are passionate about social media, enterprise 2.0, elearning 2.0 and design thinking.

94. Ayerviernes

Located in SAN SALVADOR, Chile, South America is a social media agency that specializes in strategy and design for your digital moves.

95. Media Rockets

Located in Tokyo, Japan sells social media promotion, strategy and enterprise software and services to cost-effectively market, engage and monetize customers in Asia Pacific.

96. Ijump Online

Located in Auckland, New Zealand helps business people understand what social media is and how they can use it to engage with people online. They use workshops, seminars and programs to make it easy for people to try new things with social media, and most importantly understand that it’s not about technology at all – it’s about people.

97. KPT Social Media

Located in Bangkok, is s social media consultant offering business and marketing consultancy and also providing resources to implement and maintain social media network for your business.

98. Kumeiti

Located in Singapore, help people understand what all these mambo jumbo about internet marketing and web 2.0 is all about. Their social media marketing services help you find leads, grow brand awareness and increase sales. Of course, to prove our point we will show you how others have achieve these benefits using our services.

99. Resonance China

Located in China, creates connection and engagement between Brands and their customers. to create connection and engagement between Brands and customers through social community in China. By increasing the value of Brand “heart” assets, our messages resonate more than traditional channels allow.

100.Agency

Located in Sri Lanka, is a Sri Lankan web design company and an one stop Internet solution provider all under one roof. Their expertise range from the first steps of Web Designing to the later stages of Online and Digital Marketing.
Last but not least if we missed out any name then feel free to inform us via comments !

Suggested by readers

New Media Strategies
HQ’d in Arlington, VA, New Media Strategies managed more than 1500 word of mouth campaigns in more than 60 different industries; unparalleled experience in this fast moving industry that gives NMS clients a distinct competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Major Clients: Dominos, Disney, The Ad Council, Sony, Intel, CSPAN, Special Olympics etc.

Banyan Branch
Located in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle, Banyan Branch is a pure social media agency that is pioneering the way brands, companies, and movements can harness the power of social media for their benefit.
Major Clients

Note: This is not a ranking of social media agencies, its just a list for reference.

Nothing is prefect, neither do this list. If you think some agency is missing or someone does not belong here then please help us in improvising this list with your valid points !

The post Top 100 Social Media Agency – Worldwide Review first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

The post How to Enhance & Build the Personal Brand first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

1. Avoid login on third party applications which require email logins.
2. Avoid accessing account through any email link as it can be risky. If the email turns out to be fraudulent then cyber criminal will have access to your account information.
3. Avoid having single password or PINs for accessing all your online accounts, this can again lead to identity theft.
4. Avoid using unsafe site that does not come with term ‘https‘. The “S” stands for secure and you should always make note of it before accessing any site.
5. Avoid clicking on pop-ups that says “Your Pc is Insecure”, such links can have malware automatically downloaded to your PC.
6. Avoid downloading free stuffs such as screen saver and those stupid smiley faces. Such things are very dangerous to your PC and you will soon notice it has turned slow then earlier. Sites like download.com are safe to use.
7. Be careful with those phishing mails, they may create a sense of urgency as “Your Account is in Risk” or an “Unauthorized transaction has taken place” so send your account details. Remember any bank will not ask your account detail via mail.
8. Make sure you always have updated antivirus software in place.
9. Always check with your bank if they have any additional security for your online transactions, such as IPIN’s or Zero liability card.
10. Always have your CC details save in real world. Do not share it with anybody via sending mails or over even on telephone.
11. Never forget to delete the system’s cache, passwords or history, it could easily lead to identity theft and stolen bank and email information.
12. You have won a lottery and or an IPod are the common terms used by spammers to trap you, avoid falling to such traps.
13. Always blacklist the spammers you come across in mails without just deleting the spam mails.
14. Don’t ever click on the Close window without logging of your account especially if you are at cybercafé for accessing Internet then you are more at risk.
15. Always have a back up for your emails just as how you keep a hard copy of your important docs and other things.
16. Avoid believing in those brainless “Microsoft Is Sharing Its Fortune” kind of mail, they are just spammers requiring your details to trouble you more.
17. Always have a habit of not clicking on phishing email, the goal of phisher is to fool you for entering your details into something that actually appears to be safe and secure, but in reality is just a fake site set up by the scammer.
18. Avoid giving your full name, home address, phone number, Social Security number, passwords, names of family members, credit card numbers online. Best is to remain anonymous and enjoy surfing
19. Never forget to scan the attachment you receive in your mail box. Virus attacks are mostly through such attachments.
20. Social networking sites are something we cannot avoid these days, yet it is always secure to follow known person on Twitter or to add on Facebook. Don’t forget to do security check if you tend to add unknown person.

This article intends to offer you basic information on how you can be safe on Internet and enjoy surfing through it. We certainly don’t deserve to face problems when using Internet, so you just require knowing where the pitfalls are, use some common sense and caution, and you are safe. Good Luck!

The post 20 Common Mistakes To Avoid By Any Internet Surfers first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

1. Use a decision making model: Some of the most popular and effective decision making models are – The Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision model, The Kepner-Tregoe Matrix, OODA Loops, etc. The basis of the Vroom-Yetton-Jago model is that there is no fixed leadership method or decision making model that suits all situations and so you need to use a logical approach that takes into account the usefulness of participative management and the requirement to make effective decisions. On the other hand, the Kepner-Tregoe Matrix is an organized method where you evaluate and give importance to both risks and advantages of the available options. The OODA Loops model helps you be proactive, anticipate probable obstacles and work around them in environments that are unpredictable and quick decisions are required. Decision models are not perfect but definitely assist you in being consistent in your thinking and rationally analyzing the situations.

2. Deciding amidst uncertainty: There is always some uncertainty; especially, while you are deciding as you do not know what the exact consequences might be. Quantifying the non-numerical areas of the alternatives available, shortlist some of the most suitable options and evaluate what the results of each decision might be to arrive at the most suitable one. Decision tree analysis, Scenario analysis, Mote Carlo analysis etc are some of the approaches that you can practice while making decisions in uncertain situations.

3. Perspectives matter: This technique is also called ‘6 Thinking Hats’ as in this approach you need to place yourself as the various customers or people and then explore the different types of thinking or perceptions that can be possible. This approach calls for perspectives that act as a critic’s point of view, rationality, emotional aspects, etc. Your wide imaginations about the different perspectives will only help dissect the result of the decision that might be.

4. Risky business: Risks are involved during decision making and it differs in your capacity or inclination towards taking up risks. Extreme behavior effects the decision making capabilities, whether it is high inclination towards taking risks, or exercising absolutely cautious behavior towards risks. The probability of making a responsible decision, therefore, will come when the approach to risks is balanced. The overtly risk-friendly person needs to adopt caution and think well and not rush into making a decision. On the other hand a person who is by nature averse to taking risks should try to take the risks so as to not let a good opportunity or a decision pass by.

5. Avoiding common flaws while deciding: The most common types of flaws that you do while deciding are when decisions are based on assumptions and if the assumptions are not based on facts then the outcome of such decisions can be disastrous. Jumping to conclusions indicate that the decision is not well thought of and has been arrived by blind faith in something that may not be true at all. Over confidence about your capability of judgment or ignoring the facts and going by gut-feeling can be proven wrong. So, by avoiding such faulty thinking ensures a better success rate of your choices and decisions made.

6. Pressure advantages: Before you make a decision you are well aware of the pros and cons of the probable decisions and this adds to the pressure that is already present. However, what can make the load easier to carry is if you have a contingency plan in place or probable options that you could pick in case the decision you have made brings undesirable results. This is greatly helpful because many a times there are unanticipated problems or the time to find solutions and make decisions may hardly be at your disposal. So, preparing beforehand for pressurizing situations helps make good decisions.

7. Resource optimization: Decisions more usual than not are involving resources that are personal or professional. The resources can be people, time, money, logistics or space, and so on. They need to be allocated judiciously amongst numerous demands for it at the same time. By using a mathematical technique or a graph, you can find the most suitable way to distribute the resources to the various demands and get maximum benefit from the combination. This method is also known as Linear programming.

8. Develop critical thinking skills: By ensuring that you think rationally and critically, you increase your success rate. Doing this means you are consciously practicing a particular way of thinking so that it fetches you success or the results that you are working towards. This surfaces when you practice other skills such as comparing and contrasting; rationalizing, prioritizing, evaluating, observing, predicting, rationalizing, summarizing, analyzing cause and effects, and synthesizing. To ensure that the above skills are acquired, it is important to have an open mindset, with logical, experimental, well-informed, contextual, and clarification seeking mindset.

9. Cost/Benefit analysis: Before implementing a change it will help you greatly if you can work out the cost of bringing about the changes to the existing system or thought, and then analyze the benefits you may receive from it. Weigh the two sets and set aside a value to both the cost and the benefit. This will help you decide the option or choice to be exercised. However, the cost/ benefit analysis is applicable only with monetary costs and benefits. The numbers give the method of decision making a great deal of subjectivity.

10. Break-even analysis: This is yet another method that helps in making decisions by calculating your profits after deducting the costs from the entire revenue that is generated from a  deal or  venture. This method is especially useful during the early stages of planning as it helps you predict how the real profits would seem like after you take into account the liabilities before you take on a project or business venture. Considering all factors that pitch in for the costs need to be considered while making a decision on this basis.

The post 10 Tips To Improve Decision Making Skills first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

1. Direction of your career: Each of you may have a certain set of interests that you would like to pursue for long term. Understanding why and what you like to do and how it benefits you by choosing it as career are some of the thoughts and areas that you need to explore.
2. SWOT analysis: Firstly SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, opportunities and Threats. This is one of the most powerful tools that can help you analyze what your strengths are and utilize it to the maximum, realize where the opportunities lie and explore them, work on your weaknesses and strategize to eradicate the threats.
3. Taking up psychometric tests: Psychometrics tests are an excellent method of bringing peoples’ hidden traits to the surface. Though person’s attitude, reasoning, motivation can be judged personally with questions and introspection, you could run the risk of being judgmental or biased. However, psychometric tests are used to help give an impartial analysis.
4. Networking: Networking means getting acquainted with people. This helps you know other’s varied interests, share information, and so on. Networking also helps you work efficiently using others experience, improve interpersonal skills, adapt to changes quickly, and so on. Importantly, it helps you get first-hand impressions on the different career options available.
5. Financial knowledge: Financial accounting is an inevitable part of your career. Financial decisions, profit analysis, cost sharing, and so on may take some amount of training to understand but with a little practice and experience you can easily become well versed with accounts and further your career growth with this knowledge.
6. Progressing in your career: Choose a role that factor in the goals and plans that you have drawn for yourself. Become noticeable through your work and capabilities, build a solid network, upgrade your skills periodically, highlight your achievements, and accept new and challenging roles. These steps will surely help you in progressing your career.
7. Managing various career stages: At different stages in your career, whether you are starting a new job, going up the job ladder, or looking for a job, ensure that you individually manage them effectively. Ensure that you have enough information on the current scenario, work towards a plan, and stay up-to-date on information and technology.
8. Be a mentor: Mentors guide the mentee professionally and personally, to grow. By being a mentor, you get an opportunity to enhance your leadership skills, enhance interpersonal and communication skills, and receive immense job satisfaction by helping another person. Being a mentor also opens your outlook to new experiences and forms mutually beneficial relationships.
9. Balance your work and life: It is important to give complete attention to your progress at work. However, it is equally important to ensure there is a balance between work and personal life. Just like work, your personal relationships and interests require time and attention. With no balance you run the risk of an early burnout.
10. Overcoming challenges: Challenges are opportunities for growth and learning. When your plans do not work out with the results you want, your ability to come back with renewed interest and vigor counts. Track your learning and refrain from repeating the same mistakes again. Develop tactics to stay strong and healthy body and mind.

The post 10 Tips to Strategize Your Career Move first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

1. Mind mapping: This is an organized method of recording information and enhances your creative thinking and problem solving skills. Mind mapping helps by retaining information in your mind in a way that the mind finds it easy to remember. It helps you consolidate and summarize the data, you can remember most of the information just by looking at one item or part of the mapped data too.

2. Find a suitable learning style: There are different learning styles and many people have their own different preferences of learning methods. It is also possible that you choose a particular learning style depending on the situation and available time. By using the most suitable learning style for yourself you are better able to benefit from it and make better decisions or apply the learning in the most effective manner.

3. Multi-pass method: This technique calls for exposing your mind to new information or data even if it’s for a few moments. By doing this, your mind chews on that data and tries to understand it. The next time that you read or look at the same data again, your mind would have already started processing it. This technique is most effective when you are genuinely curious to learn and know new things.

4. Sharpening learning skills through other activities: Learning to play a musical instrument helps you develop a keen ear and precise timing. Sketching or sculpturing enhances the eye and hand co-ordination, playing sports helps improve your co-ordination properly. These activities refresh your mind which is otherwise constantly thinking, remembering, analysing etc. Moreover, these activities make use of those parts of the brain which are otherwise dormant.

5. Develop inquisitiveness: Curiosity is one of the key factors that encourage learning. When you have the interest to explore new areas of knowledge, places, events or people, you will be able to grasp the learning fast and also find it enjoyable in the process. If for some reason you think a particular matter is boring, persuade yourself to change your perspective and think and approach it as interesting, they will open up your mind to learning.

6. Learn by teaching others: When you explain a concept or an idea or a process to somebody, you learn a great deal in the process. To be able to teach or talk means there is clarity of thought and good comprehension of the matter. Also, when the listener asks queries or doubts, you will be exploring the matter inside out, in depth and this will also enhance your own understanding.

7. Asking the right questions: Every time you ask a question, you are that much closer to a whole new world of information and knowledge. By absorbing whatever information you get without questioning it you miss out on learning why it is so. You learn only when you ask about things and become open to other perspectives.

8. Focus on your learning: Trying to accomplish more by distributing your attention to multiple tasks at a time will not help instead it slows you down and you absorb less as you are not focusing on one thing at a time. Anxiety increases when you try to multiple things at the same time and this will reduce your idea creation and absorption ability.

9. De-stress: Sitting at your desk and continuously learning may seem like an ideal option but it will only add to your stress. Instead, take short break in between tasks or chapters. Set milestones for your learning and once you reach there, give yourself some time to unwind and relax. Better if you can apply your mind to something that is different from your learning subject.

10. Improve your memory: The more you learn the more your mind will stretch to remember the data and accommodate all the information it receives. Memory improving techniques like Link method (coding data to images and then connecting the images to get the full picture), Story technique (the data is remembered in the form of a story, helps maintain logical order and sequences), Mnemonics (tolls that enhance your memory by connecting to everyday ideas and items which later help you remember what you want), etc are just some of the popular memory improving methods.

You can also watch this video having all the tips

The post 10 Tips to Develop Learning Skills first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

1. Project Management Jargons: The jargons used may make it appear like they are more complicated than it is actually is. So ensuring you are familiar with the project management jargons will help you understand the conversations around you, increase your understanding of the work involved etc. The jargons may differ from company to company too.

2. Project Planning: First step before you embark on a project is to plan it well. Quite often to get the work started, enough importance is not given to the planning phase and repercussions of this are seen through the project. The plan includes scope, schedule, requirements gathering, financial and quality management, risk and procurement management, etc.

3. Initiation Documentation: To avoid different perspectives of where the project is or how it is to be executed, a project initiation document is required. It brings clarity to everyone and helps document the plan. This document defines the scope and clarifies the need for the project, charts out the roles of each team member, etc.

4. Time Estimation: A project comes with an end date and hence the tasks also need to be estimated and timed. This gives an idea to the team about when they need to complete what set of activities, and is crucial for getting the contracts, fixing the revenue and knowing what the profit margins are. For further tips you should learn more about 10 time management skills.

5. Estimation and Managing Costs: The project cost management process ensures that all the costs involved in the project are recorded or accounted for, necessary approvals and sanctions are in place and tracked from time to time. More importantly, the project manager needs to ensure the costs do not overshoot the budget and result in losses.

6. Breakdown of Work: A project is made easy by breaking down the entire structure to manageable bits in a methodical manner. The structure clarifies or calls out tasks that can be performed without any dependence, assigns responsibilities to the various team members, allocates other resources and also acts as a controller of the project.

7. RACI Matrix: This represents ‘Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed’.  To accomplish the desired result / task is ‘Responsible’. Person in charge of the accuracy of task is ‘Accountable’ (usually ‘Responsible’ reports to ‘Accountable’). Subject matter experts on the project are the ‘Consulted’; and the people kept informed about the progress made are the ‘Informed’.

8. Reporting: Project progress reports are essential to let the stakeholders know of the progress, issues, milestones met, budget status, identified risks, mitigations etc. The reports are usually created by project managers and the target audience is project sponsor, finance, executive team, and project team members.  The reports can also help analyze trend lines. If you are a project manger then you must aware of these team management skills.

9. Handling Change Management: It is unrealistic to expect no changes to happen in the scope, time or budget of the project and assume it will go exactly as planned. As a project manager, you will need to make the transition and help in implementing the change as easily as possible by all people involved.

10. Project Review: Conducting a project implementation review helps examine if the project achieved its goals, how the project was executed, learning from failed processes, and better ways to do the project.  Thus, it empowers you greatly to execute the next project in a more efficient method and makes note of the best practices.

The post 10 Tips to Build Project Management skills first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

1. Listening: Some people think if they are fabulous speakers then they are good at communication, forgetting that listening is a very key factor in communication. And unless you are a great listener you cannot be a great communicator too. To be a good listener takes genuine interest in other peoples’ view points and perceptions, avoid distractions, make notes if you are unable to remember all that you listen, don’t interrupt another person while they are speaking, listen to them till they have finished without jumping into conclusions about what they might say. These are some of the practices you can adopt to become a good listener.

2. Read: Reading helps you to understand a language, the grammar, the way sentences are formed, helps you acquaint yourselves with jargons, opens up your mind to new perspectives, helps you learn new things, increases your creativity, and also enables you to be an interesting speaker. Sharing views with people you would like to have conversations with or just for the pure pleasure of your personality development, whatever be the reason, reading definitely brings you the benefits and improves your communication skills.

3. Watch Your Body Language: We not only speak verbally but also non-verbally. By understanding or reading a person’s body language such as their tone, gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, etc you can decipher their true intentions or message. Body language helps you improve your understanding and communication by mapping others’ words with their body signals as it is believed that body language gives out what truly goes on inside of us. However, it is important to keep in mind that body language can also be influenced by various cultures.

4. Questioning Right: Asking questions is a crucial part of communication as it helps you understand the topic or point or matter clearly. It enables the exchange of information between people. Some of the various types of questions are open and closed questions, rhetorical questions, leading questions, funnel type, probing questions etc. Questioning right and also listening intently will help you while communicating and enhances your comprehension.

5. Understanding the Basics of Communication: What is the communication process? A communication process or a cycle is applicable to all situations and to everybody. It involves steps and by understanding the process, you can figure out your strengths and areas of improvement in communication. You can avoid the communication loopholes and make the process effective. The communications cycle involves: A goal – encoding the message – transmitting the message – receiving the message – decoding or understanding the received message – providing feedback or responding to the sender.

6. Negotiation: There maybe situations where you may have to negotiate with another person or group to meet your goals and it is quite possible that the other person or group may also try to win the negotiation. Effective negotiation occurs when you listen well to others needs and perspectives; talk with an open mind, direct your interaction towards a win-win solution rather than trying to win at the other’s expense.

7. Making Notes: Sharing information or circulating the minutes of the meeting is one way to remember all points discussed and track them to closure. Prepare an agenda well before the meeting so that people can come prepared for the meeting, and everyone’s time is better utilized. Assigning owners for action items and informing them helps not only get the work done but also saves time in co-ordination.

8. Public Speaking: Addressing an audience requires preparation of the content to be presented either orally or by projecting the information on a screen. Be confident and make eye contact with the audience. Speaking slowly but clearly will ensure the audience are able to understand your message. Too much data or too many statistics may spoil your presentation. It is important you focus on the needs of the audience.

9. Receiving and Giving Feedback: Feedback forms a key role in communication. It helps the sender and the receiver improvise their communication or work. Being fair in your judgment also helps in enhancing working relationships and communicating further in a better way. A positive attitude towards feedback can get you that much nearer to success.

10. Conflict Resolving: Conflicts are a natural part of interaction and working relationships. If managed badly, conflicts can blow up businesses and profitable deals or relationships. Communicating in a polite but firm manner, focusing on resolving the conflict instead of focusing on the individual or group, exploring facts rather than basing decisions on assumptions etc are some of the ways communication can help resolve conflicts.

The post 10 Tips to Improve Communication Skills first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

1. List your ideas: When you are trying to arrive at a creative solution for a challenge in front of you, your mind maybe filled with various ideas and random thoughts. By making a list of them all, you will not lose any ideas because of loss in memory. By writing them your mind also starts to process the benefits, risks involved, and so on, of each idea and your thoughts become clearer getting you that much closer to what you want.

2. Rewind – unwind: Many a times when you are desperately looking for creative ideas, it may seem that much harder to get them. In such situations it greatly helps to relax and unwind by taking a walk, or listening to music or playing a game. Do some activity where you have fun and refresh your mind.

3. Change in perspective: Being open to new ideas from other quarters too is required to be able to come up with new perspectives yourself. Also understanding others’ ideas helps us broaden our knowledge horizons and be more effective in our creative work. Being accommodative of suggestions, exploring various perceptions of the same subject, analyzing why a particular idea worked while others didn’t, etc are some methods of increasing your own creativity.

4. Brainstorm: Share and discuss ideas in a group. This not only gives everyone a chance to bring forth their creative ideas, it also helps people look at the proc and cons of each idea, consider all factors associated with it before arriving at a decision by mutual consent. And as the saying goes, two heads are better than one.

5. Reflect on learning: Very often we are in so much of a hurry to finish our tasks and be done with our responsibilities that we seldom sit back and reflect on what we have learnt from the recent experiences. We may observe certain patterns or repetitive processes in our approach; or be biased towards old ideas; or slow on adapting to fast changing needs of our creativity…reflecting on it all will help get better.

6. Use lateral thinking tool: Random input is one of the lateral thinking tools that comes handy when you need to place new ideas on board or see things in a different light. Select a random noun (different from the subject you are trying to solve) from a book and try to build ideas based on that noun. One major benefit from this type of thinking is that it cracks old and repetitive forms of thinking or patterns.

7. Just DO-IT: DO-IT is an acronym, the full form is: D – Define the problem, O-Open mind and apply creative methods, I-Identify the best possible solution, T-Transform. In simple words, the DO-IT process is a methodical or structured process for creativity. It helps you maximize the returns of your creativity.

8. Implement your ideas: Most of the times that you generate an idea, you tend to look at the loopholes rather than appreciate the goodness or returns in it. And as a result, many a times you hesitate to implement it. A good idea may just get wasted. Instead, act upon your idea and as you succeed with each idea, your confidence grows and helps you think of many more creative ones.

9. Read and research: Keep your mind active and informed. Reading up on things that interest you, researching on topics that you are working on etc will help increase your creative juices. Every time you explore something new, you learn. And it is this learning that will fuel your thinking.

10. Permutation and combination: Interesting results are obtained when you permute and combine different items or ideas or attributes of a product, a service or ideology you are working on. Dissect and inspect every aspect of these permutations and combinations to choose the best available or possible creative solution.

The post 10 Tips to Gain Creativity in your Ideas first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

There are many things that can cause us stress, the reasons are almost infinite. Your stress can be caused by work, by family, by health, or any other reason. Nevertheless, it can be controlled and managed by using some simple yet important tips. Earlier we saw how to kill procrastination and here is a list of 10 things that you can do and work on that at the end of the day help you manage your stress.

1. Meditation as Stress Management
   

   Meditation is an important relaxant to manage all kinds of stress. Meditation helps you relax and focus on inner energies. There are many different techniques of meditation; you can pick the one that you find most effective. It is recommended to spend some time on medication on an everyday basis.

2. Nutrition as Stress Management
   

   Nutrition is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. It is important to ensure that the nutrition is in balance with the work you do. This includes ensuring simple things like not drinking too much coffee, having nutritious and well-balanced food, drinking lots of water, and not skipping meals.

3. Exercise as Stress Management

   Exercise is a very important part of a person’s day. A common misconception is that you should exercise to lose weight; while exercise is a must for all to keep fit. Additionally, exercise is also a huge stress buster. The thumb rule is to exercise 3 hours a week minimum.

4. Take rest and time off

   Rest is usually very underrated. Rest is an important part of a person’s well-being and general health. The general rule is to get at least 7 hours sleep time, to refresh your day. Additionally, you should also take breaks between tasks and include that much-needed vacation every 3-4 months.

5. Manage your time
   

   There is no substitute to time management. The more you manage you time, the less are the chances that you would get stressed over different things that need to get done. Ensure that the time you spend on the different activities is apt and you don’t find yourself stalling on anything.

6. Plan ahead
   

   Planning helps you to be prepared to what you will have to do. This reduces the stress levels because when you have planned it in advance, you are already prepared for the outcome. Planning helps you to understand and analyze the consequences and possible outcomes of the job at hand.

7. Motivate yourself
   

   Self-motivation is the best form of motivation. Irrespective of what others think, you faith in yourself is more important. When you are a little stressed, you can talk to yourself and motivate yourself to believe that you can handle the situation. This can help you also create positive energy.

8. Write your stress down
   

   Writing is a phenomenal outlet to release all your negative energy. When you are stressed out, or have negative thoughts, it can help to write it all down as you feel it. That helps you put everything out, after which you can move on or find solutions to the issue.

9. Seek support
   

   If you are in an extremely overwhelming situation, it helps to talk to a friend about it. Therefore, socializing becomes an important part of reducing stress. Ensure that you have friends in different spheres of life – at work and off work; this provides you a safe environment to unwind.

10. Divert your thoughts
    

    If you find yourself in an overwhelming situation, take some time off from thinking about it. When you come back after a break, you could look at it differently and have a fresh perspective. Sometimes, to find a solution, you might have to not think of the issue for a while.

The post 10 Management Skills to Deal With Stress first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

1. Develop your decision making skills: Being a leader you will realise that you constantly have to make decisions and most of them are decisions to be made under pressure. So it is important that you develop your decision making skills in order to be an effective leader. As a leader, you will be completely aware of emotional factors, monetary, physical, statistical factors that will nevertheless influence your decision making ability. Leaders have the knowledge about the right time, right people, right resources, and right way to go about making decisions. By making note of the various situations that you have had to make a decision, what was the basis of your decisions, what were the implications of those decisions and so on, can be a learning experience for you as you strive to be a good leader.

2. Leveraging opportunities: When opportunity knocks on your door you need to be ready to grab it and make full use of it but leaders go a step further and find opportunities for themselves and their teams. They look for hidden opportunities and make them fruitful for them. They are capable of creating opportunities and ensure that they get the maximum benefit without increasing the effort thus optimizing the situation, people, space, time, or event to the best extent possible.

3. Developing problem solving skills: The word ‘leader’ itself in indicative that the main purpose of the person who is known as a leader is to ‘lead’. And a great extent of this skill is tested when faced with a problem or issue individually or as a team. A good leader not only has to be a good problem solver by exploring the problem fully, planning the method of addressing, generating or finding suitable solutions, weighing the pros and cons of each options and finally choosing the best possible solution and implementing it. Problem solving leaders know how to identify problems, how to address them and take the initiative in resolving even hidden issues before they become serious and big.

4. The right leadership style for the right situation: There are numerous leadership styles and they are suitable for different situations, people and time. The most primitive form of leadership is the autocratic style where you, as a leader, have full power over your team/department. The team follows your instructions and have no freedom or right to voice their opinions or suggestions. Bureaucratic leaders follow the rules of the trade to the T. Processes are usually mandatory and help in situations where safety measures or precautions are involved. People oriented leadership focus on developing, supporting, encouraging people. Whereas, task oriented leader assigns tasks, follows up on them closely till closure, set structures and practices in place to be followed to ensure the tasks are done. So, while there are varied styles of leading, choosing which style fits which situation, at what time and to whom are the key decisions a leader makes and ensures these decisions bring success.

5. Using emotional intelligence: Emotional intelligence in a leader helps him understand his/her emotions and also those of others. Leaders are self-aware and this means they know how they feel at all times and use this understanding by extending it to the team members too, they know how their words, thoughts or actions impact other people. Leaders have empathy and care for others’ feelings. They look for balancing emotions of their own as well as others’ while they strive to be a great leader. Being an emotionally intelligent leader brings you success and appreciation.

6. Flexibility and adaptability: You need to be prepared as a leader to expect unusual or unplanned situations and changes. Adapting yourself and your team members to changes makes it easier to move forward in the face of obstacles. By being flexible you become strong and able to meet challenges head on. Being open to new thoughts and suggestions, attending to unanticipated issues and formulating strategies that get you closer and achieve success is one of the core skills of a great leader.

7. Leadership across cultures: One of the impacts of globalization is that people across countries work with each other from their respective countries or by residing in another country. Since cultures differ greatly, it is only essential and natural that leaders understand the various cultures and be sensitive towards people working together coming from different cultures. This helps bring out the best in the team too. Symbols, languages, traditions and beliefs are some of the key aspects that a leader should look into and if necessary even adopt.

8. Authenticity: Leaders see themselves as adequate, strong, fair, intelligent, compassionate, ambitious, driven, and goal oriented. Crisp, precise and clarity in thought and communication, and ethical values make a good leader. Leadership is not an easy role and many a times leaders find themselves in tough situations where trusting another person/people is crucial to progress but indiscipline and betrayals make it harder to play this role with full justice. Leaders do not lose their authenticity in such situations. Positive outlook, motivating the team, leading by values are some of the key traits in a good leader and this comes by consistent practice.

9. Example leads: Positivity, trust and goodwill of the employees will grow and build strong when the leaders practice what they preach. If they prefer preaching but end up doing things exactly different from what they say, the team is disappointed and this would affect the work. By doing the right things a leader affirms the commitment to the people and the organization. This motivates and inspires others too and hence the success rate goes up.

10. Develop more leaders: A true leader understands the need for people to grow into leadership roles. A leader identifies potential leaders, guides them, nurtures them and strengthens them. They develop visions for the company as well the people and work towards making them a reality. Creating new leaders explores the strengths in people and adds value to themselves, other people and the organization. By developing leaders around you, you prepare the organization to meet and accept new challenges and achieve success.

The post 10 Tips to Build Leadership Skills in Your Personality first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

The best way to solve a problem is research, research for understating the audience, weekness areas, gaps in previously done work, competition offerings, defining right scenarios for achieving the desired results.

What is Strategy?

Originating from the military, the word Strategy refers to a plan to do something or take action in order to achieve a particular goal or a set objective. Analysis, on the other hand, means to examine and evaluate the information minutely in order to understand the concepts involved. This understanding may give way to making decisions, or choosing the best courses of action amongst various available options or to arrive at a conclusion about a certain subject. Some of the best strategy tools and analysis tips are listed below:

1. Assessing Balance of Power: Traditionally, this tool is used to understand and check profitability. It assesses new products or services, to ensure prospects of being profitable. In addition, Porter’s 5 forces also help you know the strength of your current competitive position and know the strength of the position you aspire to be in future.
2. PEST Analysis: PEST stands for Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural and Technological environments that you are working in. These bring change in the world; adjusting in accordance to these forces helps you get favorable results. This tool assists you in seeing the ‘big picture’ and adapt to your new surroundings breaking free of any assumptions.
3. Gap Analysis: Gap analysis is a tool that helps you identify the difference between the desired state and your current situation or placement. It is a reality check where you face the facts, work to bridge gaps by prioritizing effort. Such analysis
   can be performed at the strategic, operational, or organization or business.
4. Risk Analysis: Risk is a possible threat where you may lose something that is of value to you. You start with identifying your areas of vulnerabilities, assess the extent of possible loss, come up with contingency plans to manage your risks, and periodically review them in order to keep them under check.
5. Core Competence Analysis: This analysis is a powerful tool that helps you estimates facts and data; it also analysis skills and wherewithal required by you or your organization or team to offer the products or services. This tool facilitates development of those areas you are weak at before they become issues or crisis.
6. Strategic Group Mapping: This technique of helps you categorizes your competitors into meaningful groups on the basis of at least 2 strategic variables. Helps you identify areas you need to get better at. Helps position your product, service, business well in the market. Identifies your rivals competence and work accordingly to gain advantage.
7. Decision Analysis: This is a tool that helps you arrive at responsible, accurate decisions using tree-like graph or structure of decisions with their probable outcomes. They identify strategies that will take you to your goal. It can be depicted as an influence diagram that brings your attention to issues and relationships between events.
8. SWOT Analysis: This analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and threats. This is a strategic planning method that helps you analyze all these factors in any project or business venture that you are contemplating on taking or updating. This analysis basic element of the marketing plan to make projections for proposed marketing activities.
   
9. Ansoff Matrix Strategy tool: This is a tool that helps you identify objectives and provides strategic choices to achieve the identified objectives. It provides analysis, objectives, and strategies for market penetration, market development, product development and diversification. It was first published in the Harvard Business Review, in 1957, in an article called Strategies for Diversification.
   
10. Scenario Planning: Scenario Planning is a tool that helps analyze the current scenario that helps in bettering future prospects. It provides the option to bring different perspectives within the organization, including different managers, and then consider different forecasts. It helps in early predictions, inclusive understanding and acceptance between stakeholders, and lateral thinking for all involved.

The post 10 Best Strategy Tools and Analysis Tips first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

We all have 24 hours. Some do wonders & some procrastinates for tomorrow. Time management is all about defining priorities in life & then taking necessary actions.

There are many a ways to develop and sustain time management skills. Here is a list of 10 time management development tips. This ensures that you stick to all that needs to be done while ensuring you are having fun. Needless to say these are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what all you can do to develop your time management skills.

How I developed my Time management skills:

• • Plan ahead: Apart from know all the things you need to get done; it is really important that everything is planned ahead. Last minute contingencies plans can be accommodated only if everything else is planned. Otherwise, every task will be viewed as a crisis, without the planning that existing tasks require.
  • Keep To-Do lists: Lists are always helpful. When you have lists of all the things you need to get done on a particular day, or within a time frame, it helps you track the work and ensures that nothing is missed out. Scratching a completed task out of the list can be very motivating.
  • Prioritize: It may be true that a lot of tasks must be performed within a stipulated time; however, it is just as important to ensure that the tasks are prioritized based on their importance and urgency. This will ensure that focus is placed in the order or requirement.
  • Set small targets: Break down tasks and put them down as small steps. Smaller tasks are easier to handle, help you focus on one task at a time, and give you the motivation of getting things out of the way quickly. Additionally, smaller tasks seem more achievable than large tiresome tasks.
  • Stick to deadlines: Deadlines are important. It is immaterial if the deadlines are set by someone else or set by you. For every task set deadlines and ensure that you stick to them. This ensures that you are on your toes and helps you work towards a set goal that is in itself motivating.
  • Stick to achievable goals: Sometimes you might want to do a whole bunch of things all at the same time. However, sometimes it is not possible to get everything done on the same day. So, it’s important to stick to practically doable things that help you feel satisfied at the end of each day.
  • Stop procrastinating: Do not postpone work that you know needs to be done. When you feel that you are postponing tell yourself that you will do at least a part of the work that you need to get done. Once the start is made and the momentum sets it will be easier to finish the job.
  • Plan breaks: This might not be something that you’d expect in time management tips; however, it is very important to recognize its importance. One cannot work continuously work for hours without taking breaks. Continuous work will end up burning you up thereby making it difficult to work over a period of time.
  • Do what you find interesting: If you are supposed to get something done, you will do it with more focus if you find it interesting. If the situation is such that you have to do stuff that are not always interesting, then find something to do interesting while you are on a break, to entertain yourself.
  • Reward yourself: Congratulate yourself when a job is well done. When you complete a task ensure that you reward yourself. This does two important things, it helps you relax and take your mind off the task, and additionally keeps you motivated to do the rest of the tasks effectively.

Follow these tips and let me know if it worked for you not, because it worked for me. If there is any other tip you would like to share for developing time-management skills, do share it with me.

The post 10 Tips to Develop Time Management Skills first appeared on Honeytech Blog.

Now a day consumer interaction on digital is driven from various micro moments. As a result, it is injecting a behaviour changes in consumers lifestyle. Is there anything new i’m writing here? Nothing, we all knew that, we have started consuming Twitter for realtime news & Facebook for video consumption. Question is how many of us are breaking the mandate and adopting the new measurement parameters to tracks these micro-moments, content engagements, brand advocacy or even PR effectiveness?

3 critical things required for driving the growth:

We need to be open for accepting the changes, learn from it & reinforce our strategy to drive growth. Single word to define this is – Be Agile. For growth we must rethink and start considering what really matters, be agile and check what is working & hence decide what is possible.

What Really Matters: Define business objective & derive marketing objectives from the business objectives. For example: Getting leads can be business objectives but meaningful conversations driving share of voice can be a KPI (key performance indicator).

You need to define what really matters for achieving your business goals.

What is working: You have to have a patience & risk appetite for measuring what is working. Give the desired time to the team & explore new tools to estimate what is working.

What is possible: If you believe is something, have a faith and start the experiment. Give more freedom & confidence to the team for exploring the new possibilities.

Last but not least, if you can help in defining above 3 parameters(what really matters, what is working, what is possible), i would love to add it to this article.

The post 3 critical things required for driving the business growth first appeared on Honeytech Blog.