harman minhas' blog

The holiday brings out the giver in everyone. It’s the time where people are shopping for holiday presents or simply therapeutic shopping to recover from finals. Whatever the reason may be, this is the busy season for retail and can be for some service industries as well. Online shopping has been increasing steadily over the years and that definitely will not change anytime soon. Last year ecommerce sales grew by 15%. There is a huge incentive to get ahead of competitors by having the most user-friendly website. Firstly, to increase…read more

The answer to successful marketing is using social media, right? Yes and no. A lot of us think that being on social media is enough and that alone counts as marketing. I was guilty of this as well. I learnt a lot in e-marketing and there is a lot more strategy and thought that goes into each post, tweet and share then I would have thought. It was actually an eye-opening experience for me. What I also learnt is that more is not always better. It is important to use…read more

The trailer for Zoolander 2 was released 3 days ago and became instantaneously viral. Zoolander was a comedy known for its cheap laughs, but enjoyed nonetheless by the masses. It was a movie that was able to create a cult following. Now that the sequel’s trailer has been released over a decade later, fans of the first movie eagerly await the second. Zoolander 2 seems to take on the same tone as the original with easy laughs where you can sit back and just not think, but like the original…read more

This week in class we talked about branding ourselves and ways to improve our LinkedIn profiles. Like most people I thought why do I need a personal brand? I’m going to be an accountant; does that count as my professional personal brand? However, I realized it is important to have a personal brand because after all first impressions can lead to lasting impressions. In a world where everyone is a Google search away, your first impression in a professional environment is probably going to be from your online social media…read more

With a wealth of knowledge available to us literally at our finger tips, online reviews have become an important part of a business’ online persona. Word of mouth recommendations have always been an important factor in driving sales for businesses and has now taken a new look. Just as the internet has changed the way many business activities are carried out, it has also changed the face of word of mouth recommendations. Word of mouth recommendations in a modern sense can be seen as online reviews. Most of us agree…read more

To: Email lovers and enthusiasts around the world Emails are here to stay! When it comes to online marketing, emails tend to be overlooked as a lesser platform of communicating information or is even forgotten about. Emails often get a bad rep for being a slower mode of communication in comparison to various other social media platforms available. However, this predicted virtual death of emails seems to be just that, a prediction. Just like the continued use of print advertisements and marketing, it is important to take email marketing seriously….read more

In class we discussed how through the use of social media consumers want immediate responses to their questions. Millennials are especially taking to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to have their questions, concerns and complaints immediately answered. This shift in consumer behaviour and expectations is what constitutes the norms of customer service in today’s world. An article outlined the 9 considerations a business has to take in order to provide Millennials with excellent customer service, which included a lot of things we would expect such as Millenials don’t…read more

I recently read an interesting article about what makes some advertisements or videos go viral. The result seems a little more common sense now that I am reflecting on it. “Viral emotions” were what the article attributed the success of the videos to. The three key differences in a successful viral video that drives its audience members to share the video with their network and a non-viral video are: The use of contrasting emotions – The use of contrasting emotions keeps the audience engaged emotionally. It is possible to gain…read more