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The Advantages of Outsourcing Content Creator

By: Jennifer Chiongson Reyes

When we talk about a website or social media content, we are referring to anything written or visual that we post on our portal site or social media pages. It could be a blog post, a piece of news, a simple text quotation, or a graphic design and videos. 

Why do we need to regularly post content on our website and social media pages? 

Content should be posted regularly as it helps your company or business site or pages rank higher in search engines. As you rank higher, your page and website are getting more visible to the audience or market that allows you to reach out to potential customers. 

Having an idea now of the importance of content and its regular posting on our websites and social media accounts, here comes the problem of, what content should you pin?

This could be stressful as you need to think of the kind of content you should be posting every day as there should be a variety of it. Without variation, followers will get bored and they will no longer take time to check your page and this will not only affect your ranking in the search engine but ultimately, this will affect the ultimate purpose of establishing your product brand or business in the online market.

Unless you are a jack of all trades and a master of everything, an expert in graphic design, video creation, and content writing, this won’t be a problem. With the right tools, you can easily optimize your content, social media pages, and website without a sweat. Everything comes easy especially if you are willing to spend much for an ad on every platform like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to boost your page and increase the traffic on your website. 

What if you are not an expert in design and video creation? How many hours will it take you to research and write an article for your blog page? How long it will take to finish a video and a graphic content? The time spend for those which you supposedly be spending with friends and family? How much will it cost you for the tools and paid advertisement? 

Here are the pros of outsourcing a content creator. 

  1. You can have ample time to do other tasks needed for your business as well as time to spend quality time for your family.
  2. A content creator will take care of the planning of the variety of content that will be posted on your social media sites and website. There will be a collaboration of course before the creation of the content and approval from you before the posting.
  3. You no longer need to purchase costly tools for graphic designs and video creations especially if you are hiring the service of a marketing agency as they already have their tools for the purpose. Mostly, with freelancers, you have to provide them with the software needed for graphic design and video creation. 
  4. There is a diverse group of talents in an agency. There would be different people, depending on their skill that will handle the creation of your videos, the editing of your graphics and the writing of your blog content. In cases of technical problems in your websites, depending on your agreement or contract, the agency can even provide you additional technical service if needed. 
  5. You can reach a wider audience as your content creator will surely help you share your content on their websites and social media pages too. 

Reading the pros and cons, you now have the option of whether to stick with the I-will-do-it-myself content for your website and social media pages or hire a content creator to free yourself from stress and have freedom with your time. You also have an option of whether to hire a freelancer or make a contract with a marketing agency. 

There are a lot of marketing agencies that offer content creation to various businesses. We at Booseebee assured you that we will be providing you with the best quality content that will suit your budget. We have the people, the tools, and the strategy or plan of what content is best for your brand and the variation of content to make your website and social media pages interesting to the audience. 

How to Start with Social Media Management

By: Jennifer Tan Chiongson

Social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are used as a means of introducing your product or service to the market. It is used as a medium to relay events and information to the public. 

When we speak of social media management, it involves a variety of tasks. It is not limited only with creating content and having it posted in your social media pages, and gotcha, we consider it a mission accomplished. 

It is a regular commitment of time. It involves creativity and analysis. It is a social responsibility of educating and sharing information with a balanced point of view to the audience. 

How should you start managing your social media pages or the social media pages of your clients? Is it just simply increasing the number of your followers without the concern of their location, age, and preferences? 

Here are some tips on how you should start managing your social media pages or the social media pages of your clients.

KNOW YOUR PRODUCT AND SERVICE AND IDENTIFY YOUR MARKET

Is your product or service good only to be delivered within your locality or are you capable of serving the global market?

You should know who you are targeting to deliver your product or service. It is just a waste of time adding hundreds of followers when these people are living in another country while you are offering a food meal that needs to be delivered and consumed within just an hour or two. Why add thousands of people from an Islamic country when you are selling Christian books and products? 

You should have a clear view of your target market. Is your niche for teens or the elderly? For men or women? For construction workers or Fitness instructors?

IF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA IS ALREADY EXISTING AND YOU ARE TASKED TO MANAGE THOSE BY YOUR CLIENTS, CHECK THE INSIGHTS. 

Which of the social media accounts are the most and the least contributor to traffic on your website?

What content is getting more views? Is it animated videos? The images? The articles?

From what location are you getting most views and of what age and gender bracket?

Which day and what time are you getting views and visits to your social media pages or websites?

The information you will be getting herein will be your reference on what to improve, maintain, or discontinue doing on your social media pages.

If you are just about to create your social media pages, remember that there is no need for you to establish your presence on all social media sites. You can be on IG or Facebook, Facebook, and Youtube, Twitter and IG, Linkedin, and Facebook. This will depend on the niche of your business. Those who are engaged in call center service chose to establish their presence on Linkedin while bakeries are on Instagram or Facebook and moviemakers on Youtube.

HOW MUCH MONEY ARE YOU OR YOUR CLIENT IS WILLING TO SPEND FOR TOOLS, ADS, OPTIMIZATION OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES?  

This will determine the cost and time you will be spending on managing the social media sites, depending on whether you will do things organically or through paid tools or site’s paid ads. 

WHAT CONTENT SHOULD YOU CREATE, POST, OR DELIVER?

The content should be something related to your niche as your page is intended to introduce your business or your brand.

It should be something trending too. If the animated video is making an impact nowadays, why do a lot of text content and images then for your social media sites? 

Importantly, aside from it should be niche-related, eye-catching, and trending, your content must also be trustworthy. It should be balanced and informative that one should not be wasting his time watching and reading those without them getting the right answers to the right questions specifically about your product and service and their needs. 

Also, see to it that you are setting a regular schedule for your content post. 

ENGAGE YOURSELF IN SOCIAL MEDIA, ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS.

Content is a big help but as you start managing a social media site and side from creating content, you should also start building relationships. Discuss things with your audience. Share information. Reach out. This will not only help in the optimization of your sites but this will establish goodwill. The latter is the best kind of advertisement and a good source of getting and keeping customers than online ads. 

There are still a lot of things to consider when managing social media sites as we are not aiming only with establishing our online presence. We need to gather leads and customers. We have to rank high in the search engine. It is still best to do more research, read, and as much attend webinars and training to become a pro. With these basic tips, however, you can now start creating plans, strategies, and goals for your social media management tasks. 

THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL BENEFITS OF YOGA AND ITS HEALING POWER

By: Jennifer Chiongson Reyes

Our body is connected to our mind. Our brain affects our health. Stress and conflict shock impact our being.

Doing physical exercise improves health but a true health warrior understands that it requires harmony of the physical and psychological functions to be perfectly fit. That makes yoga the best form of exercise.

Physical benefits 

  1. Flexibility – Yoga works on stretching your muscles. This lessens the pain in our shoulders, back, hips and hamstrings and eventually improves our mobility.
  2. Strength and Balance – There are yoga poses that can build strength and balance. The standing poses that require you to support your body weight is for strength. The one leg stand or the poses where you are supporting yourself with your arm develop balance. If done over the course of several breaths, it can build core strength.
  3. Body Pain – Simply resting in bed will or even over the counter medicine can only provide temporary relief for body pains. Yoga can address the root of this problem. Strengthening and stretching yoga exercises align your muscles and can help resolve the tightness and spinal compression.
  4. Breathing – Breathing calms the central nervous system. Yoga has a breathing exercise that teach us how to take deep breaths that can make you relax and is good for your heart.
  5. Better posture – When you do yoga, you become more aware of your body posture. You quickly adjust when you feel like you are slouching or slumping because you are getting used with the correct body posture that the activity requires you to have on your regular exercise.

 Mental Benefits

  1. Stress – Yoga promotes relaxation thus reduces stress. They say, there is an emotional healing on the mat. When you stand or sit into it, you are connecting to the deeper dimension of your being. You are letting your mind come down to your heart. You are giving yourself a break from your stress.
  2. Mental Calmness – Yoga has meditation techniques. The skill could help those who are suffering from anxiety or insomnia. It sharpens attention and concentration.
  3. Self- confidence – When you are into yoga, you became fully aware of your body. You learn to subtly do things that improve and align your well-being and this can boost self-confidence.
  4. Depression – Yoga is able to decrease stress hormone called cortisol. Cortisol affect the serotonin, the neurotransmitter often associated with depression.

The root cause of our sickness or ailment is our failure to balance both our physical and mental fitness. We can prevent and even cure our illness and improve our well-being if we commit to take care of not only our physical health but as well as our mental condition. We can do the holistic alternative approach to heal and be healthy.

Like any exercise, there will be pain and soreness in the first few sessions if you do yoga exercise. This is a natural process of muscle recovery trying to repair and rebuild. The soreness will be gone in two or three days’ time. Just do not overdo the process in just one day and stay active every day.

My prescription for a healthy body and soul, meditation. Practice yoga.

Why Should We Switch from Chemical-based to Organic and Natural Hair Care Products?

By: Jennifer Chiongson Reyes

Despite the gaining popularity in the use of organic and natural shampoo and conditioner, there are some who are still hesitant to change their commercial synthetic products. The long years of use could be the factor.

Know the harmful effects of chemical based products and the good benefits of using organic and natural one. This could help you decide whether to stick with your conventional synthetic shampoo and conditioner or switch to a sustainable organic and natural based ingredients. Take note that the primary difference between the organic and natural products vs. the synthetic products are basically the ingredients.

Mass market shampoos usually contains sulfate that when mixed with water will quickly turn into foam. It effectively does the job of cleaning dirt, oil and dead skin in our hair and scalp. These shampoos are the one we commonly find in our local supermarket.  

Sulfate is safe to use if the chemical is in low concentration and if not frequently used – I hope this will not be however, an excuse to skip taking a bath every day.

Frequent and excessive use of sulfate strips away the natural proteins and oil in the scalp and hair. If you have a dry hair, the loss of oil can worsen the condition.

The loss of natural protein from excessive exposure to sulfate can likely weaken your hair and result to its breakage. It also slows down the growth of the newer hair.   

Ingredients in synthetic hair care products can also cause allergies and irritation. It may give you flaky skin. It can harm not only the skin but also the eyes.

The over use of silicones, alcohol and sulphates overtime will make the hair looks dry, dull and lifeless.

On the other hand, Holistic hair care means treating our scalp and hair with sustainable organic and natural ingredients.

Natural and organic shampoos contain different minerals and essential oils that are gentle to the skin. These minerals and oils can even repair damaged hair (split ends). It improves the hair strands, regenerate the follicle and renew dormant hair cells. 

Skin is considered as the largest part of the body. When we take a bath using synthetic shampoos, the chemicals like the phthalates, will come into contact with our skin and will be absorbed by our entire body. When absorbed, it can cause several health problems and can even alter reproductive development.

In contrast, think of the health benefits that the organic and natural products can give when the herbs and oil are absorbed by the skin from scalp to toes .

The use of organic and natural shampoo can restore the skins’ correct pH balance. Restoring the correct pH balance is necessary because it helps our scalp and skin natural acidic sebum fights bacteria and fungus that is causing hair loss and skin diseases.

Synthetic shampoo contains silicon. Silicon can later build up in the roots of your hair and block the moisture and natural oils from spreading. This can result to greasy hair. Organic and natural products on the other hand produces oil that cleans the roots of your hair making each strand healthy and strong.   

When you do hair color, the harsh alkaline ingredients damage the protective layer affecting the scalp. Using natural and organic ingredients will help resolve the damage without ruining your hair color. The essentials from the organic ingredients will do the curing.

We are also helping our habitat when we use organic and natural hair care products. The ingredients are produced through organic farming. There are no pesticides used that can harm the environment. The ingredients used for production are also biodegradable.

We are saving our aquatic wildlife from chemicals and poisons when we use organic and natural products. The water that streams down from our bathroom drain to the waterways are safe and will not poison our marine species.

No animals are being harmed for testing organic and natural products during its production.

Lastly, when you buy organic and natural products, you are giving back to the communities by helping the farmers who are producing the organic ingredients.

Summer Memories of My Grandpa … And Why I am In Love with The Earth

By : Leah Marlie Pagunsan-Tambanillo

                I was lucky because I grew up seeing my fraternal grandfather whom neighbors and associates and in fact everyone in town, called “Maestro Abing.”

                In the ancestral house built for his children, my Daddy among them, I would go to him and listen to his never-ending stories of old, watch him at work in his garden and orchard, and on starry nights, learn about the constellations.

                Maestro Abing was a teacher trained by Americans and I remember he was very fluent in English. He would laugh when someone mispronounce a word, use/speak a grammatically wrong sentence and he was very willing to teach or to correct  if you misspell an English word.

                On  summer mornings, I, my brother Val and cousin Ian would often tag along when he went fishing using his “isda-isda” or a wooden floater shaped like a fish. A long nylon with baits was attached to the wood, he would let this wood float in the water and it would go along with the tide. When Maestro Abing pulls the wooden floater ashore, there would be plenty of fish trying to free itself from the baits.

                We had fun  taking those fishes out of the baits and each of us would carry what our little hands could muster. Walking back to the ancestral house, we wore our broadest smile and proudly proclaimed that we caught those fishes ourselves!

                On rainy afternoons, we would again come with him to the almost 2-hectare piece of land which he owned. Carrying a shovel or anything that can loosen the wet soil in one hand and  coconut seedling on the other hand, we would be happily following him. Watching him make a hole in which those coconut seedling will be planted was such a joy, a priceless childhood joy which until now I still cherish.

                Those coconut seedlings are now grown and produced much fruit and everyone in the clan had benefitted from the trees.

If anyone of you had passed through the national highway of our hometown Belison, you would notice the neat line of sturdy and almost a hundred year-old acacias.

                I called them the acacias of my childhood.

                We spent hot lazy afternoons under its shades, picking up seeds of tipolo. Those tiny white seeds which birds would pick from tipolo tree tops somewhere in the forest and would drop from atop the acacia crown. These tipolo seeds taste so yummy, just like peanuts when cooked.

                Grown-up and working in my Province’s Tourism Office, I would pass by my hometown going North and I would smile with the memory of my acacias.

                Lately, our 94-year old Aunt (Daddy’s surviving sister) told me that it was Maestro Abing who planted those acacia trees in his younger years. He planted those acacia trees together with his co-teachers, Maestra Cande Samulde and Mestra Elena Esquierdo (the great grandmother of Belison’s Vice Mayor Darell dela Flor.

                Was I amazed with this information! And I remember that hearty feeling of attachment to those acacia trees!

                Daddy would also commend me that “apo kaw gid man ni Maestro Abing” every time he sees me putting soil into empty tin cans and fruit tree seedlings into it.

                The fruit trees growing in our backyard now are the proofs that I have in my heart and in my veins the gardener’s thumb and blood of Maestro Abing.

                Needless to say, I also imparted to my children that love for nature and the environment. Planting and gardening and caring for fruit trees are parts of our summer and rainy day’s activities.

                Fruits are abundant in our backyard and we don’t need to spend much if we want to eat fresh fruits.

                And for this, I have Maestro Abing to thank for.