How To Translate & Rank Your Videos For Most Popular 100 Foreign Languages With Lingo Blaster

On By marketingscoopsIn Content Marketing, Video Affiliate Page, Video Marketing App, Video Ranker Tools, Video Ranking ToolLeave a comment

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Lingo Blaster is using YouTube API and yes… it’s true… Lingo will give you an UNFAIR advantage over all the other videos…But you will just be using a YouTube feature that is in YouTube API and anybody can use it.
The thing is that, nobody does that…

Because manually to translate your video titles and descriptions in 100 foreign languages is ULTRA expensive and a lot of work! With Lingo everything is automated, and there are no COSTS! After you get access to Lingo, you can translate as many videos as you want! This is 100% WHITEHAT! The potential of Lingo Blaster is extremely powerful.

It gives you the ability to literally manipulate YouTube RESULTS. The ability to rank in foreign languages is one the most powerful TRAFFIC generating methods. So, if you purchase Lingo Blaster, I hope you’ll make the commitment to use this
powerful TRAFFIC method ONLY for the ultimate good of your customers.

In less than 48 hours the special sale for Lingo Blaster will come to an end. Let me ask you this…

#1 Did you know that 75% of the searches made on the internet… are not in English???
But still you try to rank ONLY for english keywords…

#2 Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine in the world???
And still you focus all your efforts trying to rank and get traffic from Google while All the visitors that you will EVER need are already on YouTube!

#3 Did you know that with ONLY 3 clicks you can translate your videos in 100+ foreign languages???

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Your video will STAND OUT from your competitors, because you will be the ONLY one who will address to your viewers in their native languages… And because of that, your traffic will convert 10x better! Your videos will start to rank for foreign keywords and…

It is 100 times easier to rank for let’s say “guitar lesson” in GERMAN than in english…
or to rank in FRENCH…SPANISH…PORTUGUESE… and 100 other languages! Check out how how in 2 MINUTES you can TRANSLATE and RANK one video
in the most popular foreign languages

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Give Your Employees Kudos on LinkedIn – Michael Guta

On By marketingscoopsIn Business Hacks, Business/Customer Care, Content Marketing, Linkedin Business Tools, Linkedin Study/StrategyLeave a comment

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Recognizing your employees for what they do has a bigger impact than most owners or managers may realize. LinkedIn is addressing this very issue with a new feature it calls Kudos so you can show your appreciation to everyone with whom you work.

The simple act of saying thank you goes a long way to making your employees feel valued, and forgetting to say it or to show your appreciation can have the opposite effect. So much so it can cost your company money.

For small businesses, it becomes even more important because retaining employees is that much harder, especially in today’s highly competitive tight labor market. The LinkedIn Kudos application makes it easier and a good practice.

LinkedIn Product Manager, Hermes Alvarez, writing on the LinkedIn Official Blog, explains:

“Saying thank you and recognizing others is also something we see happening frequently on LinkedIn, so we wanted to make it even easier for you to give a shout-out to those that make a difference in your week. With LinkedIn Kudos, you now have a fun and easy way to share your appreciation for people in your professional community.”

Sending Your Appreciation via LinkedIn Kudos

There are 10 different categories you can choose from including Thank You, Going above and beyond, Team Player and more. To use the app, Alvarez says you simply:

  • Open your LinkedIn app on iOS or Android,
  • Tap the ribbon icon in the share box at the top of your feed,
  • Pick one or more connections to whom you want to send kudos,
  • Select one of the 10 kudos categories available, including “Team Player,” “Amazing Mentor,” or “Inspirational Leader,”
  • Then simply post to share your kudos with the person or people you selected,
  • Your team members will receive a notification letting them know about the shout-out and will see it in their feeds.

How Important is Recognizing the People You Work With?

According to the Harvard Business Review, one of the easiest things you can do as a boss is recognizing great work. In a study cited by the publication, 87% of employees at companies with strong recognition practices report a good relationship with their direct manager compared to just 51% at companies lacking these practices.

As it gets much harder to find the best talent in today’s labor market, small business owners must do all they can to ensure their employees stay for as long as possible. Using the LinkedIn Kudos application to show appreciation for a job well done is one of the ways to approach this.

If everyone who read the articles and like it, that would be favorable to have your donations – Thank you.

How to Use Keyword Gap Analysis to Land High-Quality Guest Posts – Dustin Christensen

On By marketingscoopsIn Content Blogger Tool, Content Building Tools, Content Curation Apps, Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Content Targeting, Keyword Targeting, Niche Marketing, SEO Training ToolsLeave a comment

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The days of guest blogging strictly for SEO purposes may be over – Google long ago called out the tactic  – but it is still a great way to build rapport with your industry. Guest posting is also an ideal way to provide value to your audience without having a large platform yourself, which is often the case with new brands or websites.

One of the most challenging parts of this process is finding the right topic to pitch to your target sites. This can be particularly difficult when approaching large sites that have hundreds or thousands of published articles spanning many years. The chance that your topic has already been covered may be high.

Recently, I discovered an easy way to find potential topics for your guest posts that can nearly guarantee you will pitch something they haven’t covered before. It takes some research, but can dramatically improve your success rate when it comes to editors accepting your ideas.

Here is how it works:

1. Find a website you’d like to write for and identify their main organic competition.

2. Use the SEMrush Keyword Gap Tool to find keywords that the competition ranks for, but your target site does not.

With this data, you will have plenty of topics that your target site hasn’t sufficiently covered, and with the right approach, you can craft a pitch that is tailored to that site’s focus and audience. This doesn’t mean you will automatically get your idea published, but it will help you avoid pitching topics they have already discussed.

In your pitch, you can also allude to the fact that their closest competitors have covered the topic, which may help your case.

I recently used this strategy to write a contributor post for Foundr.com; a site focused on early-stage entrepreneurship. Here is a look at the process I used, and how you can apply this to your guest blogging campaigns.

Find Your Target Website

Many websites still accept guest posts or editorial submissions, so building your potential prospect list should be straightforward. I began by looking for entrepreneurship, business, and marketing sites that seemed accessible, and made a list of 5 – 10 websites I wanted to pitch.

From there, I started with Foundr.com because the site met my criteria and includes a contributor page with information on how to submit content ideas. When a site offers this info, it is much easier to adapt your pitch to exactly what they are looking for.

foundr contributor form

Aside from being a fan of Foundr’s podcast, I also spent some time browsing their recent and most popular blog articles to get an idea of the site’s tone, voice, and style. Once I was comfortable knowing I could pitch a topic that would be valuable to their audience, I began researching the site’s organic competition.

Identify the Organic Competition

The SEMrush Organic Competitors report identified more than 7,500 domains that had keywords in common with Foundr.com, including large sites like Forbes.com, Entrepreneur.com, and Medium.com.

foundr organic competition

When choosing domains to run through the Keyword Gap Analysis, however, I like to use sites that aren’t too large – otherwise, you will get a lot of keywords and topics that aren’t necessarily related to your target site.

If I were to run YouTube and Foundr through the analysis, for example, I would get thousands of keywords YouTube ranks for that are unrelated to Foundr.

It helps to identify sites of the same relative size and scope of your target site, and this will make the next step easier when choosing keywords and potential content topics. In my research, I found one site that seemed to have a large amount of data to work with, but was focused enough to provide targeted results, and that was Harvard Business Review.

foundr competition

Harvard Business Review covers everything from entrepreneurship to leadership, management, and marketing. The site seemed a good fit because Foundr takes a decidedly young approach to entrepreneurship, where HBR is a decades-old non-profit whose goal is “to improve the practice of management in a changing world.” They may cover similar topics, but their philosophies are different, and I believed I could use this to my advantage when crafting article ideas.

The next step was to find keywords and topics that HBR ranked for that Foundr did not.

Use Keyword Gap Analysis to Find Relevant Keywords

Using the Keyword Gap tool, I entered HBR.org as the first domain and Foundr.com as the second. In between, I chose the “Unique to the first domain’s keywords” option. This gave me more than one million keywords.

foundr gap analysis tool

To clean things up, I narrowed down the results by volume (keywords between 80 and 500 searches) and keyword difficulty (less than 85). This gave me a more manageable starting point of about 150,000 keywords.

how to build resilience at work keyword

Next, I began going through the keywords to see if there was anything I could use as the seed of an article for Foundr. Here is where critical thinking comes into play, and although it is not always fun to work through hundreds of keywords, the time you put into this stage can make or break your pitches down the road.

Many keywords were related to careers and management, including:

  • How to tell someone they are being laid off
  • Office politics hbr
  • How to write short cover letter

Some of these may be good long-tail topics, but Foundr is about early-career entrepreneurs and founders – not traditional career advice. After some research, one of the top keywords stood out:

  • how to build resilience at work

That was something that applied to entrepreneurship because of the immense obstacles and challenges facing those looking to build businesses. Resilience isn’t just helpful for founders – it is practically a requirement.

After doing further research on Foundr’s content, including a Google “site:” search, I found no other article that seemed to hit on the same topic. I had a winner.

Tailor Your Keyword with an Appealing Angle

Once you have your keywords in mind, it is not enough to simply pitch that search query as your topic. You will want to craft an angle that is specific to your target site’s audience and goals. For Foundr, it was not a stretch to relate resilience and entrepreneurship, but I needed to refocus the keyword to be more focused on their brand and business goals.

In my submission, I described “how entrepreneurs can build world-class resiliency by rethinking the way they approach their struggles and challenges.” I explained that for entrepreneurs, resilience is often more important than more concrete skills that are easier to quantify.

The search “how to build resilience at work” then became the topic of how to build resilience while building a business.

I sent the pitch and the next day received an email from the editor saying they were interested in the article. Several drafts, revisions, and months later, the article was published and shared more than 70 times.

building resilience article

Conclusion

For many writers and marketers, finding a good angle for content is often harder than the writing itself. Using the SEMrush Gap Analysis tool, I was able to cut hours of time from my prep work by focusing on topics I knew websites would be more likely to publish. It is not a fool-proof method to landing guest posts, but it can make the outreach process much more efficient.

In the end, the success of your guest post campaigns comes down to your ability to provide real, practical value to your audience, and the right keyword research can help you demonstrate that value front and center starting with your guest blog pitch.

If everyone who read the articles and like it, that would be favorable to have your donations – Thank you.

When It Comes To Success In Business, EQ Eats IQ For Breakfast – Chris Myers

On By marketingscoopsIn Business Hacks, Business Psychology, Business/Innovation, Content Marketing, Content Targeting, Educational Technology, Emotional Science, Inspiration/Motivation, Life & Success, Life Skills, Motivation/Ambition, Success Facts, Successful Strategy/Practice, Thinking Strategy/SolutionsLeave a comment

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When I was younger, I bought into the fallacy that the “smartest” person always won. I pushed myself to achieve the highest scores, earn the most recognition, and excel in every field.

I worked as hard as I could, but I almost always fell short of my goals.

Growing up, I often found myself surrounded by people who were smarter and far more talented than I could ever hope to be.

This left me feeling as though I was destined for a life of mediocrity, forever destined to live in the shadows of others.

Despite this, I always seemed to excel in the workplace. Throughout my career, from my first internship to my stint in corporate America, I managed to gain the trust and respect of my managers and peers.

As I climbed the proverbial ladder, many of the peers who were undoubtedly smarter than me jeered. They claimed that the people I worked for were idiots and that I was merely lucky. Still, I continued to move forward much to their chagrin.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, as I’m working to find the right school for my son, Jack.

Jack, it turns out, is exceptionally bright. With an IQ of 145, he’s in the top percentile of intelligence in a traditional sense.

You’d think that having such raw intellectual horsepower would make life easy for him, but it’s quite the opposite. He has all of the typical emotional challenges of a normal seven year old, and then some.

While his IQ is high, his EQ or emotional quotient, is lower than average. As a father, it’s my job to try to raise as well rounded of an individual as possible, and that’s why I spend so much time trying to nurture his EQ.

It turns out, success in both life and business is a matter of emotion, relationships, and character, rather than raw intelligence. In fact, throughout my career, I’ve learned three facts that every successful person seems to remember.

EQ trumps IQ   

Maya Angelou once remarked, that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

This certainly holds true in the realm of business. People buy emotions, not products. Teams rally around missions, not directives. Entrepreneurs take on incredible challenges because of passion, not logic.

Fortune follows people who demonstrate a high degree of emotional intelligence, or EQ. While IQ might be largely determined by genetics, EQ can be learned, developed, and refined.

Individuals with high EQ can speak to the soul of another person and ultimately influence their behavior. In the workplace, EQ trumps IQ every day of the week.

Humility goes a long way  

Human beings crave status and recognition above just about all else. This is especially apparent in the workplace, where many buy into the belief that self-promotion is the path to success.

I’ve found that the opposite is true. Humility, it turns out, is central to success.

Everybody falls at some point. You stay humble so that the people around you want to help you up, not knock you back down.

As a leader, I’ve found that people who demonstrate humility in thought, word, and deed tend to rise quickly inside of an organization because people are naturally inclined to help them succeed.

Arrogant, entitled, and prideful employees, on the other hand, tend to fail rather spectacularly. They may be smart, but they’re unable to garner any loyalty from the people around them.

It all comes down to grit

Perhaps the most important factor in determining success is grit.

Grit is just another word for strength of character. An individual or team who displays grit is someone who can take a hit and just keep on going, no matter what.

It’s this resilience that enables successful teams to avoid the pitfalls of depression, lethargy, and apathy that people tend to run into when faced with adversity.

As I look back on my career to-date, I can honestly say that I never gave up. I pivoted and evolved, but I never capitulated.

Many highly intelligent individuals are so afraid of failure and hardship that they never take risks. Instead, they sit back, comfortable and safe while others drive the world forward.

These trailblazers stumble, fall, and fail more than their more risk-averse counterparts, but grit keeps them moving forward.

As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Nothing is simple 

My advice to  my son, as well as the students, friends, and team members I mentor is always the same: nothing in this life is simple.

It doesn’t matter how smart you are. What matters is how you’re able to connect, understand, and inspire other people.

Never think too highly of yourself just because you’re smart. In the end, it’s the people who understand feelings, not facts, who win the day.

If everyone who read the articles and like it, that would be favorable to have your donations – Thank you.

Google Strives for Transparency with Rebooted Ad Settings – Genevieve Dietz

On By marketingscoopsIn Content Marketing, Google Analytics, Google Apps, Google Business Tool, Google Education, Google/Yahoo NewsLeave a comment

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Google is giving us more control over data and ad targeting by launching a revamped version of Ad Settings. These new and improved controls allow us to curate our ad experiences by picking and choosing (and removing) which topics we want to see ads around.

Ad Settings was originally launched in 2009 as a single place for users to get an accurate read on ads. The new Ad Settings builds on what made the first edition so great by giving us new information about how our demographics, interests, and our browsing history factor into the ads we see everyday.

Ad Settings can also show you information from advertisers that partner with Google to show ads.

Let’s say you’re a horror fan and you frequently search for horror trailers on YouTube or Google search. Because of this activity, you’ll probably see some ads for horror movie tickets or rentals.

This information is made available to you in Google Ad Settings and you have the option to turn off ads related to horror or manage that specific interest.

Turning off a factor means you’ll no longer receive tailored ads related to it across our services, and on websites and apps that partner with us to show ads, as long as you’re signed in to your Google Account.

The ads you see can still be based on general factors, like the subject of what you’re looking at or the time of day, or any other factor that is still turned on.”

Google Improves Transparency

Google is also being more open about why users see the tailored ads they do by expanding ‘Why this ad?’ to all Google-partnered sites (including YouTube and Search). ‘Why this ad?’(originally launched in 2011) is a link feature that appears next to ads.

This clickable label helps users understand why certain ads are being targeted to them and where they came from.

For example, if a user wants to know why they are seeing so many ads for hotels in London, the feature will tell them it’s because they’ve either searched for London hotels, visited London tourism sites, or clicked on London hotel ads in the past.

The updated version of “Why this ad?” brings the link feature to Youtube, Google Play, and various other sites.

Before Ad Settings and “Why this Ad?,” ad targeting was a pretty foreign, and opaque topic for most users. Advertisers and brands were the only ones who had any semblance of control over ad delivery.

In recent years however, demand for digital transparency has grown and after the Cambridge Analytica data breach, that demand skyrocketed.

While consumers are usually okay with giving up some of their information to brands for things like quizzes, e-commerce, and other services, they still expect some level of transparency in regards to how their information is used for targeted ads.

Implications for Marketers

Ad Settings, and other ad controls, are not only beneficial for users, they’re important for marketers. Consumers are more likely to trust marketers who are open about their ad policies and how they collect data for targeting.

Brand transparency removes that cold sense of disconnect we, as users, sometimes feel when we hand off our information to companies who hide their intentions. We are much more likely to make persistent engagements with brands that are open and honest so, as marketers, we should strive to remove the veil of secrecy from our ad targeting methods.

Because these new Ad Settings allow consumers to be more proactive in the content marketing process, marketers will need to be hyper aware of the authenticity of their personalized marketing messages.

Personalized messages can also come across as creepy to consumers, almost like Big Brother is keeping tabs on them. This, of course, isn’t true but it’s important to be transparent and authentic anyway to keep from scaring off our audiences.

Doing this can also alleviate some of that coldness present in some marketing materials and attract new audiences looking for some honesty and warmth.

If everyone who read the articles and like it, that would be favorable to have your donations – Thank you.

 

New iPhone Leak Confirms Apple’s Significant Decision – Ewan Spence

On By marketingscoopsIn Apple Tech/News, Apple Tools, Content MarketingLeave a comment

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Apple is set to sacrifice screen quality for margins in this year’s iPhone portfolio. The latest reports from the supply chains and analysts suggest that the Cupertino-based company will choose cheaper LCD screens for the new iPhones expected in September 2018. That’s great news for Apple’s bottom line, but it leaves the iPhone lagging behind Android devices in terms of quality and appearance.

The advantage of OLED screens are well-known at this stage. Key is the reduced power requirements – especially important as the display can be one of the biggest drains on a smartphone’s battery. The screen has a much wider viewing angle before colors start to become washed out, and the colors presented by an OLED screen can be much more vibrant and ‘pop’ out of the screen.

In contrast, LCD screens require more power (the entire screen must be backlit, including ‘black’ pixels, unlike OLED where individual pixels provide the illumination). The colours will be washed out, the viewing angle is narrower, and motion blur is far more prevalent.

I would assume that the significance of choosing the cheaper LCD screen will be weighing heavily on Apple’s mind.

Last year’s new iPhone mix of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X include the first OLED-equipped iPhone (in the shape of the X) and two LCD based units (the iPhone 8 family). Tim Cook and his team were counting on a surge of interest in the advanced iPhone X (advanced compared to other iOS devices, I would argue the X simply offered parity with high-end Android-powered smartphones).

That super-cycle never appeared, suppliers had orders cut in the quarter following the launch, and while the iPhone X may have broken Apple’s internal records, the external evidence points to it falling short of the ambitious targets set by Cupertino.

I suspect that talk of Apple upping the availability of LCD units will simply be Apple reflecting the same sales pattern as last year and ordering parts on that basis, not on the mirage of iPhone X sales it was hoping for.

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But there are other advantages to keeping a mix of LCD and OLED in the portfolio. Not only will staying with cheaper LCD displays on the lower priced handsets increase the average revenue per handset, it will increase the attractiveness of Apple’s higher-end iPhones which will ship with the OLED technology.

As Apple’s market share of the smartphone market continues to fall, it is increasingly reliant on boosting the average revenue per handset or switching customers to handsets with greater margins. Keeping the high-end as expensive and as desirable as possible to make upselling from the ‘cheaper’ $799 handsets will be a key strategy.

The new iPhone models are expected to be announced at an Apple event in early September, with availability of the first US models in late September.

If everyone who read the articles and like it, that would be favorable to have your donations – Thank you.

4 Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing Tech for Your Business – Jonathan Herrick

On By marketingscoopsIn Business Assistant Tool, Business Hacks, business News, Business/Innovation, Computer Tech, Content Marketing, Tech NewsLeave a comment

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Technology is often thought of as the antidote to business woes. Once you get the right tech in place, the thinking goes, you’ll start doing whatever it is you do much faster, better and more efficiently. The thing about technology, though, is that new advancements hit the market daily.

Just think about how much artificial intelligence has advanced in a very short period of time. We went from Microsoft’s now-iconic Clippy to Google unveiling a chatbot with humanlike tendencies, Apple releasing an augmented reality upgrade to counter smartphone addiction and researchers from Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania developing an autonomous robot that can complete high-level tasks by sensing its surroundings.

Innovations such as these aren’t just fueling competition in the tech industry. They’ve made many companies question their relevance. Some would argue that they’ve led to a full-blown fear of missing out on the latest tech.

So not only are the options near endless (Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen estimates that upward of 30,000 products launch each year), but the pressure can also be so strong that you might invest in a solution that isn’t a great fit. And when you’re lacking the underlying strategy that ensures technology adds value, you have no real way to tell whether it was worth the investment at all.

An ounce of cure?

Even when you do pull the trigger on tech, the right choice may not stabilize the business like you thought it would. Sure, chatbots can provide 24/7 customer service, even using a caller’s preferences and past order history to inform interactions. But if you often have to engage in complicated, nuanced conversations with your customers, a chatbot probably won’t be able to deliver.

Similarly, smart devices can provide companies with real-time data. If you were to install sensors in your brick-and-mortar store, for instance, you could track customer traffic patterns to determine the best locations to place displays. But at the same time, employing them opens you up to risk. Should sensitive information in your system fall prey to hackers, you could be looking at a class-action lawsuit.

All that’s to say: If you’re going to chase technology, you must ensure that it’s not only a good fit for your business needs, but also that you fully understand the risks and rewards. This, then, leads to the question: How do you choose and use tech advancements to move your startup forward? The following tips are a good place to start:

1. Go full Sherlock on the competition.

Competitive analyses have been around for decades, but even still, few companies widen the scope beyond potential threats, barriers and vulnerabilities. If you already monitor rivals, why not see what technology they’re leveraging? AI has a way of making all things equal and allows a startup to go head-to-head with its Moriarty. Besides, more than 50 percent of business and tech professionals are considering implementing AI, according to Forrester Research. But again, invest only in technology that fills a hole or makes business sense.

2. Seek validation from your VIPs.

You know your customers. Most marketing, communication and product development decisions are already based on what appeals to them. But these customer insights can also help prioritize your technology needs and shed light on where to improve the user experience.

For instance, statistics from Kik reveal that chatbots have a fairly limited audience, with 60 percent of users being in their teens and the majority (81 percent) living in the United States. So if you speak to an older audience, chatbots might not be the best fit. Think long and hard about your product and audience before investing in any technology.

3. Make your money matter.

Choosing tech is like any other business decision: You need to do your due diligence. Yet research from the Queensland University of Technology published in The Conversation has shown company leaders often make poor decisions when it comes to technology because they don’t accurately weigh the benefits with the costs. You’ll be bound to your investment — and it’ll be an investment — for years to come. So consider what you gain by choosing one thing over another. Will it free up time to focus on other priorities? Or is it just a novelty with a short shelf life?

4. Don’t assume your job is finished after implementation.

Many advanced technologies require more than a financial investment; they demand your time. You can’t rely on technology to take over completely. When machines are left to generate tailored messaging from customer data, for example, there’s definitely room for error. Remember when Microsoft’s AI chatbot set off a racist tweet storm?

To avoid such a mistake, you must add a human component to all interactions and constantly do A/B tests to determine the best options. According to the previously mentioned research from the Queensland University of Technology in The Conversation, businesses grow when technology and human capabilities come together to meet consumer needs.

Trying to be on the cutting edge of technology is a great ambition for any business — big or small. But as you sleuth out your options, make sure to spend some time actually evaluating whether this tech will move your company forward.

If everyone who read the articles and like it, that would be favorable to have your donations – Thank you.

Shaking Hands is Disgusting – Here’s What Else You Can Do – Nicky Milner

On By marketingscoopsIn Content Marketing, Health & Beauty, Health/Hygienic, Health/Immune System, Health/Medicine News, Health/Skin care/Anti Aging, Healthcare Study, Home/HygienicLeave a comment

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The traditional handshake plays a central role in our daily lives. We shake hands with people we know and those who are new to us. A handshake communicates our personality and mood to people and we use them as a mutually acceptable way of agreeing to seal the deal in endless scenarios.

But if you stop all that handshaking for a moment and take a closer look at the science behind this gesture, things might not seem quite so pleasant. This is in part because the human body contains many different types of bacteria. Some are good and we rely on these to help keep us healthy. Others are not so good and might make us sick.

We constantly gain and lose bacteria and so we are never sure when we might pick up an infection. Surfaces act as a route of transmission for bacteria and therefore every time we touch a surface we share bacteria unknowingly. This is why the risk of picking up an infectious disease is increased in places such as toilet seats. But have you ever thought about what bacteria you share when shaking somebody’s hand?

The power of a handshake

According to research from the University of Colorado, on average we carry 3,200 bacteria from 150 different species on our hands. And yet, shaking hands can be an everyday occurrence. It is considered to be an accepted means of greeting people and is the epitome of politeness in diverse cultures – especially in the Western world. As well as being a means of greeting people, it is also used to build rapport and trust with people. Ignoring a handshake is deemed to be impolite and rude.

Research has shown that on average, we will shake hands on average 15,000 times in our lifetime. So there are lots of opportunities for spreading bacteria between people – particularly if they are carrying potentially infectious bacteria that could make us ill. This includes faecal bacteria, which is quite common on hands.

This risk increases even further when we don’t wash our hands regularly – which is why good hand hygiene is essential. And of course, if the bacteria are resistant to antibiotics then we could inadvertently playing a role in spreading antibiotic resistance within our environment.

Fist pumps preferred

Some hospitals are so concerned about the spread of germs via handshakes that they are looking at creating handshake-free zones. Good hand hygiene and regular hand washing is often very low in hospitals. And hospital acquired infections are a major concern in healthcare institutions.

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The hospital environment is regularly monitored for the presence of potentially infectious agents that can be acquired by a patient during a stay there. Critical care wards, and those containing vulnerable patients (such as the very young, elderly and immunocompromised) are especially important since patients are more prone to severe infections.

Research performed in neonatal intensive care wards – where sick newborn babies are cared for – explored the potential for handshake free zones. The wards ran a trial to see if they could discourage handshaking and actively encourage alternative greetings – such as fist bumps, smiling and eye contact – to try to reduce the person to person spread of infectious agents.

Alternative hand shakes

But it’s not just limited to fist pumps – around the world there are many different ways of saying hello and you don’t have to look far to find “healthier” ways of greeting. The New Zealand Maori, for example, rub noses and foreheads in their traditional hongi greeting and the Japanese bow to each other. Then there are the “dap greetings” such as high fives and fist bumps – which are commonly used by young people in the Western world.

Research has shown that the amount of bacteria transferred through a handshake is twice as much when compared to a high five. Significantly lower numbers of bacteria are also transferred when a fist bump is used. This is largely due to the difference in surface areas that are in contact with each other – despite the greeting taking the same time and number of bacteria on the surface of the person initiating the greeting on each occasion.

So, is the traditional handshake being replaced with more diverse and healthier options? This will take time – if it happens at all. But that said, as awareness of infectious diseases grows and people actively try to reduce the spread of infection, perhaps there could be a future where we all high five and fist pump rather than formally shake the hands of those we meet. Or at the very least better adoption of handwashing.

If everyone who read the articles and like it, that would be favorable to have your donations – Thank you.

Should Healthy People Take Probiotic Supplements – Koldunov Alexey

On By marketingscoopsIn Content Marketing, Drugs, Health/Immune System, Health/Medicine Innovations, Health/Medicine News, Healthcare StudyLeave a comment

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A visit to the supermarket these days can feel more like walking through a pharmacy, with an ever-expanding range of milks, yoghurts, pills, powders and speciality foods promoting their “probiotic” prowess.

Advocates of probiotics have hailed them as the answer to all sorts of health issues and conditions. But what exactly are probiotics? And, more importantly, should you be taking them?

Probiotics are scientifically defined as “live micro-organisms which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host”. In simple terms, they’re “good” bacteria that are beneficial to the body.

Probiotics exist naturally in some foods (such as some types of yoghurt and fermented vegetables such as pickles and sauerkraut), but can also be taken in dietary supplement form, via products such as Yakult and Inner Health Plus.

While our digestive system ordinarily contains trillions of microbes, including both “good” and “bad” bacteria, sometimes the balance between these can get out of whack. Diseases, poor lifestyle behaviours (such as not eating enough fruit and vegetables, heavy drinking, smoking, and physical inactivity) and ageing can all disrupt this balance.

By many accounts, probiotics can improve the number and diversity of “good” gut bacteria that help to keep our digestive system healthy and working efficiently. As such, probiotics have been proposed to:

However, most scientific research on the health benefits of probiotic supplementation seems to have been done in people with existing health problems. Evidence supporting the health benefits of probiotics in healthy adults is very limited. Probiotic supplements are most likely to be consumed by the general (and otherwise healthy) population, despite this group receiving relatively little documented benefit.

We reviewed the scientific literature (45 original studies) on probiotic supplementation in healthy adults. Our findings, published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that giving healthy adults live bacteria (either in yoghurt, capsules, or drinks) can have a few benefits:

1) it can increase the concentration of “good” bacteria. So, if an imbalance of digestive system bacteria does occur in healthy adults (due to poor lifestyle, the use of antibiotics, or ageing), probiotic supplementation may help restore the balance

2) it can reduce abdominal discomfort caused by irregular bowel movements and constipation

3) it can increase the population of “good” bacteria in and around the vagina. From the four studies conducted in this area, all four demonstrate improvements in vaginal lactobacilli after probiotic capsules or suppositories were used. This may help prevent urinary tract infection and bacterial vaginosis

4) there is some evidence that it can boost the immune system, and help reduce the incidence, duration and severity of the common cold. While the exact mechanism for this is not clear, probiotics might influence immune responses by stimulating production and improving activity of cells that fight respiratory infections. But only three studies have shown these benefits in healthy adults.

While this sounds like great news for probiotics, let’s not get carried away. Our review also found the changes appear to be short-lived. In other words, you need to keep taking the probiotic supplements for the effects to last. If you stop taking them, your gut bacteria are likely return to their pre-supplementation condition within one to three weeks.

You may be able to get longer-lasting changes by “feeding the healthy bacteria”. Like all living organisms, bacteria need food to survive. Foods that are high in dietary fibre, such as fruit and vegetables, can be used as energy sources (or so called “prebiotics”) for these bacteria.

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We also found little evidence that probiotic supplements can reduce cholesterol in healthy adults. And there is little evidence to show that probiotics can improve glucose (blood sugar) and insulin responses in healthy adults. Taking probiotics won’t reduce heart disease risk, or prevent you from developing type 2 diabetes.

So if you have a poor diet (you eat too much take-away food and not enough fruit, vegetables and whole-grain products, or you drink alcohol too much and too often) and don’t exercise regularly, your digestive bacteria may benefit from probiotic supplements, though you’ll have to keep taking them to get lasting effects.

But if you are otherwise healthy, probiotic supplements are likely to be a waste of money. Here’s some simple advice: take what you spend on probiotic supplements, and use it to buy and eat more fruit and vegetables.

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71% of Millennial Small Business Owners Use Tech to Keep Employees Safe – Michael Guta

On By marketingscoopsIn Business Hacks, business News, Business Psychology, Content Marketing, Employee Behaviour/Strategy, Employment/RecruitementLeave a comment

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When it comes to safety and the many regulatory compliance companies have to abide by, it can be challenging, especially for small businesses. The Nationwide fourth annual Business Owner Survey, reveals 71% of millennial small business owners are using connected technology to keep their employees safe.

Technology to Keep Employees Safe

The rate at which millennial’s are using connected technology is more than double the average business owner, which is at 32%. According to Nationwide, a Fortune 100 insurance and financial company, this demographic is using the technologies to ensure and improve the safety of their workforce.

For small business owners using connected technologies, new levels of efficiency in cost savings, regulatory compliances and a more accountable and safe working environment have been seen. But like Mark McGhiey, associate vice president of Nationwide’s Loss Control Services, says on the official Nationwide blog, this doesn’t solve all safety problems.

McGhiey adds, “There’s always going to be an element of human-driven effort to ensure workers can do their jobs safely and efficiently. That’s why it’s so important for employers to follow best safety practices that are tailored to their specific business — and it’s why our experts provide individualized risk management consultation and safety training to business owners across the country.”

Technologies Millennial Small Business Owners Use

The connected technologies millennial small business owners use dramatically reduce manual processes. This allows them to use their workforce more efficiently and collect valuable data which can be analyzed to improve workplace safety.

Thirty-six percent of millennial’s use building sensors for detecting humidity, temperature, water leaks and equipment failure, while less than half or 16% of all business owners use the same technology.

Wearables are equally popular with millennial business owners with 32% saying they are using these devices compared with 13% for everyone else. Watches, belts and other wearable sensors are used to detect physical strain.

Drones, which are being used in many different industries, have been used to inspect sites that can pose danger to workers.  In this case, only 7% of regular small business owners use drones, while 21% of millennials have deployed the technology.

When it comes to vehicle telematics, 20% of millennials have installed these devices to keep their employees from being distracted while driving. For the rest of the small business population, the number is 11%.

National Safety Month

June is National Safety Month and according to the National Safety Council, close to 13,000 Americans workers are injured every single day.

No matter how big or small your company is, the safety of your workforce has to be a priority.

The survey was carried out online from April 9-20, 2018 among a sample of 1,000 U.S. business owners. The businesses had between 1-499 employees and the respondents were 18 years or older and self-reporting as either a sole or partial owner of their business. Nationwide commissioned Edelman Intelligence to conduct the 20-minute survey.

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