How to Build a Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign?

The use of social media has increased exponentially, creating a fertile ground for platforms as a medium for advertising. However, advertising on social media can be very different from traditional advertising, due to the nature of the medium and the way on which marketing messages may be received. However, while there are differences compared to traditional marketing, there are also some similarities; with the stages of planning. The process of developing a social media marketing campaign may be broken down in to different stages; Determine the specific goals for the campaign. Identification of target market. Decision on the marketing message and specific content that will appeal to the target market. Framing of the message, and choice of medium. Communication of the message. Monitoring of the message impact. Adapting the message. These different stages may be seen as akin to the traditional marketing process, with a requirement to determine the specific Continue reading

Flexible v/s Fixed Foreign Exchange Rates

An exchange rate is simply the price of one currency in terms of another. The process by which that price is determined depends on the particular exchange rate mechanism adopted. In a floating rate system, the exchange rate is determined directly by market forces, and is liable to fluctuate continually, as dictated by changing market conditions. In a ‘fixed’, or managed rate system, the authorities attempt to regulate the exchange rate at some level that they consider appropriate. Such a system often seems appealing to those who are troubled by the uncertainties of the present, highly volatile, floating rate environment. But the choice of exchange rate regime involves considerations that extend beyond the stability or otherwise of currency prices. Exchange rates stability has always been the objective of monetary policy of almost all countries. Except during the period of great depression and world war II , the exchange rate have been Continue reading

Fundamental Analysis of Stocks

Definition of Fundamental Analysis Fundamental analysis of stocks is defined as the practice of examining the fundamentals of an organization in order to determine if a business has turned out to be a good investment. Fundamental analysis aims are answering questions related to the business finance and capital investment, such as “what are the probabilities that this business investment is going to fail or become bankrupt” and “how sure can a portfolio manager be that the stock continues to pay dividends?” In other words, fundamental analysis involves detailed study in regards to financial statements like the balance sheet. It is considered as a complete contrast to technical analysis of stocks. Fundamental analysis of stocks deals with the analysis of the financial, economic, as well as other quantitative and qualitative elements associated with a security with the sole intention of determining its intrinsic value. Even though this technique is employed for Continue reading

Research Design

A research design is nothing but a detailed plan of action for the research.  A researcher attempting to solve the research problem, should necessarily prepare a plan which will help him to attain his ultimate motto. This plan is nothing but a research design. It is a plan which defines research problem, identifies data needed, decides on tool of data collection, and type of study etc. It is a tentative plan which undergoes many modifications as the research study progresses. It presents a series of guide posts to enable the researcher to progress in the right direction. Definitions of Research Design Several definitions of Research Design have been advanced by several writers on the subject of research methodology. Few of them are presented here: According to Claire Seltiz, Research Design is a catalogue of the various and facts relating to the formulation of a research effort. It is the arrangement Continue reading

Mintzberg’s Model of Organizational Structure

Management expert Henry Mintzberg  proposed that traditionally organizations (profit making or not for profit) can be divided into five components. In practice organizational structure may differ from proposed model. Factors influencing organizational structure are industry norms,   size, experience, culture, external forces (competition, inflation, minimum wage legislation etc). Components identified by Mintzberg is useful for understanding the workflow of organizations. The structure of an organization can be defined simply as the sum total of the ways in which it divides its labor into distinct tasks and then achieves coordination among them” –  The Structuring of Organizations,  Henry Mintzberg. 1. Strategic Apex Strategic   apex is the most senior level in the organization. Management working at this level is referred as board of Directors (chairman, CEO, executes and non executive directors). They set the objectives (increase sales by 10% in one year) and strategic direction (new product and markets developments) of Continue reading

Data Mining Functionalities

Data mining has an important place in today’s world. It becomes an important research area as there is a huge amount of data available in most of the applications. This huge amount of data must be processed in order to extract useful information and knowledge, since they are not explicit. Data Mining is the process of discovering interesting knowledge from large amount of data. The kinds of patterns that can be discovered depend upon the data mining tasks employed. By and large, there are two types of data mining tasks: descriptive data mining tasks that describe the general properties of the existing data, and predictive data mining tasks that attempt to do predictions based on inference on available data. The data mining functionalities and the variety of knowledge they discover are briefly presented in the following list: Characterization: It is the summarization of general features of objects in a target Continue reading