A fascinating intersection of creativity and community, Instagram is much more than just a social media platform. Businesses have opportunities to thrive in the online world with existing and yet-to-be-launched augmented and virtual reality assistance. It has opened limitless options to take your business to the next level and create an exciting and engaging online presence. This article will look at why is Instagram needed for startups in 2022 and how you can turn it into a time-effective marketing place. WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE AN INSTAGRAM PROFILE FOR YOUR STARTUP? As stated by Instagram Business, 60% of active Instagram users search for and discover new products on this application. Over 80% have at least one brand/business in their following, and around 200 million profiles visit a business page each day. Interestingly, over 60% of these visitors are people who do not follow the specific brand they land on. Here are some of the advantages you can expect from an active Instagram representation: Brand awareness about your service Organic traffic to your website Knowledge of what your target audience is interested in Staying updated with trends for Newsjacking Getting influencers to market your startup Launch advertising campaigns And the list goes on and on. Read: 10 BEST INSTAGRAM FEATURES TO MARKET YOUR STARTUP WHAT IS THE GROWTH RATE OF BUSINESS ON INSTAGRAM? Every big brand name, be it Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Adidas, Nike, or even McDonalds, owns an Instagram profile, each having millions of followers who love their products and are happy to connect with them! Currently, it is the most prominent marketing podium for both big and small names, and companies see crazy sales from people who see their product launches and ads on Instagram. According to a study by Dana Rebecca Designs, 72% of the people who participated in the survey have bought a style or fashion product after seeing it on Instagram. There is an average growth of 1.46% monthly followers growth seen by Business accounts on Instagram. WHY SHOULD YOU HIRE AN INSTAGRAM MANAGER? While it is noteworthy that Instagram has an infinite potential for startups to flourish, it requires time, effort, and consistency to make a presentable profile. It is best to hire a Social Media Manager who will look after your Instagram account, create regular content and keep track of public interaction with your account so you can focus on improving the quality of your service. Let’s look at how an Insta Manager can take your small business off the roof! A Strategic social media management plan is needed for startups to create a following who’s interested in their service. While you may think that you can manage your Instagram well, you might actually not know specific tips and tricks to boost your credibility online. All time active customer service will work wonders in both creating your brand name and maintaining it. You can’t be available full-time to answer customer queries, but you can always hire someone to manage it. By creating content that focuses on driving public attention and engagement, your Instagram manager will form an active two-way communication between you and your target audience. A Tailwind study reveals a direct relationship between the frequency of engaging posts and an increase in the number of followers. Instagram can be a great platform to look for like-minded people willing to partner with you and recruit new employees. A manager can search for and filter such people, so you don’t have to worry about finding ‘the best employees for your startup. And above all. You will have sufficient time to focus on vital tasks to keep your business up and running when you’re satisfied that your Instagram profile, tracking, and advertising is in safe hands. WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN HIRING AN INSTAGRAM MANAGER? To find the best candidate for your Instagram business account, don’t forget to look at the few vitals that make a good manager. Look at the accounts they’re already managing. Your startup is already in a struggling phase, so you can’t afford any mistakes. If these accounts do not show consistent growth, they’re not suitable for you. Ask for their previous client testimonials. If their existing client is satisfied with their service, the chances are high that you will be too. Make sure they have access to all the essential tools for Instagram management. Look for candidates that own premium tools to track metrics. Set realistic goals beforehand and provide them with a target to achieve them within a limited time frame. END NOTE: Currently, the platform’s primary focus is to explore new markets and reach a greater audience which you can drive on your business website. However, it is expected that Instagram will launch its native payment options at scale, which will be a significant breakthrough for businesses. So an active Instagram business account is a pressing need at the time.

With 1.16 billion users, Instagram is one of the most popular networking sites today, which means using this platform to market your startups is now needed more than ever!This article will highlight how you can harness this whopping audience to the advantage of your venture by using these 10 best Instagram features. BUILD A BUSINESS PROFILE: Optimizing your ‘Instagram for your business profile is the first step towards an effective Instagram marketing plan. You’ll not only portray a professional outlook but also get access to Insights, a tool to trace your engagement in the app. Set the logo of your startup as the profile photo, and write a killer bio that should include the following: The name of your startup A short description that explains what you deal with A link to your website Your contact info TRACK YOUR METRICS: While Instagram Insights gives you a fair idea about how your content is doing with your followers, you should also consider some online tools. Hootsuite, CoSchedule, or Sprout Social can give you great help to schedule your content as per the audience engagement rates, i.e., the days and times at which your target audience is most active. Also, try to do a competitive analysis of your profile with a brand of a similar niche having a greater reach. DESIGN TEASER POSTS: Ordinary informative posts about your business won’t attract people. Pick beautiful free stock images from sites like Pexels and Unsplash related to your service, edit them well to suit your profile, and give them catchy, relevant captions. Remember, Instagram is all about glam, so aesthetics matters! Stick to a specific color palette for your posts. An organized feed is way more attractive than random posts. Read: Social Media Marketing by Beacon Innovation: The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need USE STORIES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE: Instagram Stories are a leading way to communicate with your viewers and know what they expect from your startup. Create regular polls and question stickers about your product and see how you can improvise your services to generate more sales. Don’t forget to make a Frequently Asked Questions story highlight on your account. Stories disappear after 24 hours, so you can run your creativity wild here and experiment with different ideas, e.g., behind-the-scenes stories or stickers. CREATE SPONSORED ADS: Hit the pain points of your viewers with appealing ads to generate organic engagement on your startup profile. Newsjacking can be a great way to create tempting ads that contain limited-time discounts and deals and offer incredible Returns on investment. Include promo codes for people who interact with your posts more frequently to keep them on board. MAKE USE OF LIVE VIDEOS: Live videos are fantastic features where you can interact with your online community and make a reputed brand name. Live videos do not stay on your profile, and the best part about them is, when you go live, your followers receive a notification about it. Answer customer queries in real-time, welcome their suggestions and use the live videos to promote your startup by announcing giveaways and promotions in them. IGTV or Instagram TV: On the other hand, it is for long videos you want to keep on your feed. It is a video-sharing platform within Instagram, and you will need to sign up for IGTV before you can create your first video. Be creative in making captivating videos about your startup, the services you are providing, how your clients will benefit from them, client reviews and even behind-the-scenes shots! USE HASHTAGS WISELY: Popular hashtags can increase your reach to a tremendous level. They also give you great content ideas, make a habit to check out the top posts on a popular tag for inspiration. Plan giveaways and shout-outs with the top performers that match your niche to get their traffic. Add a geotag in your posts to target an audience from a specific location. Also, a personal brand tag is a must-have! Your followers will use it when they post your products’ reviews to add user-generated content to your tag. Partner with influencers to promote your brand tag; influencer marketing has paramount potential with a global market value of $13.8 billion as of 2021! GET AUGMENTED REALITY FILTERS: AR filters have been in use for quite a long in Snapchat and Instagram cameras. But now, certain brands can create custom filters for their products! This was initiated when Facebook, the owner company of Instagram, allowed Kylie Jenner’s brand, Kylie Cosmetics, to create filters so people could literally ‘try on’ their favorite makeup products virtually before buying! This has opened a whole new world of opportunities for businesses to grow their reach to an insane level. SET UP PHOTO MAPS: Instagram has also released a feature to share your photos on Google maps, so you can feature your startup’s descriptive photos on maps for targeting the public from your nearby geographical location. Before making it visible on Google Maps, you will review the geotags your photo contains. You can change the pictures or remove them anytime from the Map, and they’ll be kept intact on your profile! With all these exciting features, and more expected to be added on Instagram, entrepreneurs have, now more than ever, a limitless space to grow their businesses. Now it’s upon you how creatively you use Instagram’s powers to pause your audience from mindless scrolling and investing in what you have in store for them!

‘It sounds a little extreme, but in this day and age, if your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist,’ says Austin Kleon, the New York Times Bestselling author of Show Your Work! and while talking about the real estate industry, we can’t disagree. According to the statistics gathered by the National Association of Realtors, 52% of homebuyers search for available property online before buying property for themselves. With the right strategies provided to you by an internet marketing agency, you can easily make them your clients. How can a digital marketing agency help your real estate business? Being flexible with customers’ needs and remaining available to them are the new earmarks of the real estate industry. To take your business up a notch, the first step you must do is connect with a team of experts running a digital marketing agency. They are experienced in understanding the audience, elements that affect their decisions, and the response expected according to their behaviors online. Here’s how we think it will benefit you. It helps make your business hassle-free. Let’s be honest, do you think you can handle advertising, communicating with customers, running your social media pages, exploring new projects, and managing sales all by yourself? Alone, it gets overwhelming to look after everything, but working together with an efficient agency makes it doable. People prefer services that are automated, user-friendly, and time-saving. A digital marketing agency can help maintain all three by identifying target markets for your real estate business and providing them with an accessible platform for buying, leasing, and filing the required documents. It provides business transparency. By making you a mobile-friendly website equipped with chatbots and android/iOS applications, a digital marketing agency can ensure customer of transparency in this industry. Studies show that a whopping 67% of people use chatbots for customer support. Website design, compatibility, and functioning must be accessible for those who visit it. Accurate information about current projects is made available on these services on the go, which includes pricing, location, legal documentation, value-added features, and your contact information. You can add search filters like budget, accommodation, and features on your website to help your consumers find their dream homes. It opens doors for creativity. Gone are the days when there was no room for creativity in the real estate industry, and you only had to rely on data. With on-point digital resources, you can easily stand out among your competitors through minute creative changes. A few examples are creating virtual tours of your projects using original shoots covering the surrounding areas and adding compelling voiceovers to aim at potential buyers. Use digital platforms effectively to identify target markets by launching different creative campaigns. The options are countless; a team of experts will help you craft a practical layout that matches your business profile because individuality matters the most in this industry. Read: 10 Best Instagram Features To Market  Your Startup It helps connect with clients. A digital marketing agency can build for you an engaging online presence through social media platforms. Being visible online improves organic traffic on your websites and mobile applications to a great extent. You can hire persuasive social media managers to look after your community and answer their queries related to the business. Using pay-per-click advertisements, you can also offer your loyal followers exclusive promo codes that will eventually make their minds up to consider you as their go-to real estate agent. You can build your brand credibility by adding online reviews of these devoted followers on your websites. Effective use of backlinks and the right Search Engine Optimization game plan can help you gain an online reputation effortlessly. The endnote: Hiring a digital marketing agency to look after your real estate’s digital needs has to be appropriately monitored. Before signing the contract, it’s essential to have a detailed discussion about the tools they have in store for you to use, the custom plan they’re providing you, and assess their expertise in the field. At the end of the day, your key focus is attracting quality leads and generating more significant sales. To learn more about our digital marketing services and packages, visit the Beacon Innovation services page.

It was indeed a privilege for Pakistan – as has been stated by the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Through its clean and green initiatives, Pakistan has earned this honor. The Executive Director of UNEP, Inger Andersen applauded the country’s leading efforts and said that Pakistan is walking the talk. Malik Amin Aslam, Special Adviser to PM for Climate Change, took pride in announcing the launch of UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 with Pakistan being the host of this year’s World Environment Day, setting up the direction for the next ten years. The World Environment Day 2021, was hosted by Pakistan in the Convention Center, Islamabad. Ms. Zartaj Gul, Climate Change Minister Pakistan, begun the session and briefly talked about following Pakistan’s Initiative to combat climate change. Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Electric Vehicle Initiative: aims to have 30% elective vehicles in Pakistan by 2030 Recharge Pakistan: to utilize rain and flood water to increase the water table Climate Smart Agriculture: to be introduced in the areas of Punjab and Sindh to enhance food security Ecosystem Restoration Initiative: aims to reverse the damages to ecosystem Tree 20 Youth Package: to link tree plantation with students’ evaluation in schools Climate induced migration was also highlighted and efforts are requested towards a policy for climate induced migrants facilitation. President World Economic Forum Børge Brende, talked about opportunities coming out of UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration i.e. Eco-preneurship Opportunities for youth. He also called for investments, education and capacity-building initiatives for nature protection and restoration Executive Director UNEP, Inger Andersen, joined the session and highlighted four points for Ecosystem Restoration and how Pakistan has taken the lead in all of the below-mentioned initiatives. Finance flowing: must increase three times by 2030 and four folds by 2050. For this purpose, Governments’ should allocate funds. Protection of those who manage land in law and in deed Cities should become green havens by making nature a fundamental part of urban settings and enhance green spaces. Restoration of the blue planet UN Secretary General, António Guterres, marked UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration a Global Call to Action where everyone can contribute to mutually make peace with the nature Malik Amin Aslam, Special Adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan, made major announcements regarding Pakistan’s commitments to combat the adverse effects of climate change. In relation to Bonn Challenge, Pakistan has registered restoration of one lac hectare of forest area Protected Areas Initiative: There will be 15 new national parks in Pakistan. For this purpose, National Park Services Academy will be established in Ziarat, Quetta for training of 5,000 youth. Recharge Pakistan: 15 wetlands on the left and right of Indus River will be recharged with flood and rain water. Two pilot projects are to be started soon. Green financing: includes Green Bonds of worth 500 million dollars that are launched by WAPDA last week and blue bonds which are in discussion with three countries. UK’s Prime Minister Borris Johnson and China’s President Mr. Xi Jinping shared messages for Pakistan’s World Environment Day Session. Prime Minister Imran Khan concluded the session with his inspiring remarks and stated that UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration is a course correction opportunity for the world. It is imperative to combat the negative impacts of consumerism. He also talked about global warming and the need to direct efforts towards melting glaciers. Globally, countries are affected by the unpredictable and adverse impacts of climate change such as a thousand glaciers has melted in Tajikistan, while Philippines is affected by cyclones and hurricanes. Besides, PM Imran Khan, applauded the forest guards who have assisted Pakistan in achieving plantation of one billion trees. He also appreciated the women in northern Pakistan who have planted nurseries. As a way forward, he has laid emphasis on the awareness of planting trees and the significance of the role of schools and teachers. Read More: Beacon Innovation Digital Agency

Article Summary: Present study examined the experiences of teachers regarding online education challenges during COVID 19 in Pakistan. Findings of study illustrated that the majority of faculty members had no previous experience of online teaching while few faculty members reported previous experience of online teaching. According to findings of current study, the majority of teachers reported satisfactory online teaching experiences during COVID-19 and agreed to the use of technology for education as a way forward in Pakistan. Moreover, findings illustrated that barriers experienced by teachers in online teaching included increased workload, less interaction with students, lack of policies, lack of instructors training, lack of quality of course, inability to control students cheating, and lack of internet connectivity. Thus, it is clear that there are some major barriers associated with online education which need to be addressed.  Key Words: Online Education, Challenges, Teachers’ Perspective, Pakistan Background: Closure of educational institutions during COVID-19 is one of the leading steps in combating the pandemic. In Pakistan, introducing a digital learning system on a national level has been challenging for the Higher Education Commission (HEC). However, HEC (2020) sanctioned educational institutions to adopt a digital platform for continuing teaching and learning during a crisis. Because: Stop teaching and learning was not a wise decision. Thus, embracing the digital education system became a need of time. Online education was unconventional in Pakistan (Akram et al., 2020) however, studies conducted on digital learning reported the feasibility of online teaching and learning (Mukhtar et al., 2020; Sethi et al., 2019; Jawad & Ashraf, 2012). In developing countries, lack of resources is a main concern in the use of digital media for education. Besides, lack of resources it is considered that the foremost challenge in use of digital media is lack of technical skills among teachers (Riaz et al., 2020). Capability of instructors in order to incorporate different tasks and tools while teaching digital education are important to attain course goals and objectives (Bailey & Lee, 2020). Students attending online courses might easily get distracted by the content available on technology which may influence their participation in online class (Melor et al., 2012). Thus, it is crucial to engage students in live online sessions that can be only possible if instructors have previous knowledge and skills in adopting digital media as a medium for education. To make digital learning more effective, improving technical skills and competencies is a crucial need of the present era. Though, training teachers to enhance their capabilities in technology seems challenging and costly, it is vivid that such initiatives ensure the standard, productivity and efficacy of online education. Therefore, it is important to identify teachers’ perceived barriers in online teaching. Keeping in view the major concerns of digital education, this study examines teachers’ experiences of online education challenges during COVID 19, perceived online teaching barriers and  perceptions of teachers regarding the use of technology for education as a way forward in Pakistan. Methodology Sample  A total sample consisted of 52 teachers (Females = 58%, Males = 42%). Due to Covid 19, this sample was approached through online platforms such as LinkedIn, Email, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. In current study, 75% of the teachers were teaching at private universities, 14% at semi-government universities while 11% teaching at public universities. Moreover, the status of teachers suggested that 83% of teachers were working full-time while 17% working part-time.  Survey Instrument  Primarily items from Lioyd et al. (2012) were used including a limited number of authors’ self-developed items. The 11-item questionnaire consisted of four subscales including interpersonal barriers, administrative issues, internet access, and technical issues. Items were scored on 5-point Likert type scale ranging from 1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree.  In addition, two items were used to assess the faculty experiences of online teaching. For instance, “Have you previously taught online?” scored on “Yes and No”. Secondly, “How was your experience of online teaching during CVOID-19?” scored on “Good, Neutral and Worst”. Lastly, teachers were also asked “Is using technology for education the way forward in Pakistan” responded on a 4-point Likert type scale ranging from “Definitely Not, Probably Not, Probably Yes, and Definitely Yes”. Results Findings in figure 1 revealed that the majority of the teachers had no previous experience of online teaching (62%) however, 38% teachers reported previous experience of online teaching. Figure 1. Distribution of Teachers Responses on Previous Experience of Online Teaching Based on survey results, the majority of teachers marked online teaching experience as satisfactory (50%) however, 40% teachers reported their online teaching experience as neutral. In addition, 10% of teachers considered online teaching as the worst experience (See Figure 2). Figure 2. Responses of teachers on online teaching experiences during COVID-19. Current study investigated the perception of teachers regarding the use of technology for education as a way forward in Pakistan. According to findings, the majority of the teachers agreed (90%) to the use of technology for education as a way forward in Pakistan while 10% of teachers disagreed (See Figure 3). Figure 3. Distribution of teachers responses on use of technology for education as a way forward in Pakistan. According to findings, the majority of teachers reported an increase of workload during online classes (71%), lack social interaction with students (64%) while 23% of teachers reported issues related to time management and anxiety/fear during online classes (15%) (See Figure 4). Figure 4. Percentage of teachers’ response on items related to interpersonal barriers. Responses of teachers on the items related to administrative and training issues depicted that the majority of teachers confronted troubles in controlling cheating (81%) and readjustment of quizzes, assignments and midterms (67%). In addition, other barriers associated with administrative and training issues included lack of policies for online classes (52%), lack of instructors training (48%), and difficulties in conveying course concepts (36%) (See Figure 5). Figure 5. Percentage of teachers’ response on items related to administrative and training issues. 42% of teachers agreed that there was a lack of internet services during online classes