When it comes to managing, social media profiles the task can seem almost overwhelming at times.
To that end, tools like HootSuite have been made available as resources for people to be able to more easily take care of building their social media communities.
HootSuite Company was founded in 2008 and is in Vancouver, Canada.
The CEO, Ryan Holmes, launched HootSuite to help user manage social media accounts like G+, Twitter & Facebook plus more.
While Hootsuite is the perfect solution for many, there are others like me in the market who have never quite been able to integrate into the platform, though I have tried.
Which brings us to asking if there are good alternatives for what HootSuite offers?
Fortunately, the answer is yes and we are about to explore each.
10 Alternatives to HootSuite
It should be noted that the following suggestions are not listed in any order of preference but rather offered so that you can review each further to determine the best way of taking care of your social media marketing initiatives.
I want to become a blogger but I don�t have a PC. What would be your reaction if you hear a reason like this?
Obviously you would just stare at that person who said this. It just happened to me and that young boy got me out of my imaginary world where everything is not much bad. He was from a small town of Punjab province of Pakistan where having PC is still a luxury. I am not talking about the old days of 90s. It happened to me this year.
I am talking here about whole Pakistan and not about a few big cities. We very enthusiastically read a post about top bloggers of Pakistan. They are from a few big cities of Pakistan. What about rest of this beautiful country.
That�s why on social media many bloggers badly want to shift to a big city to become a successful blogger. Wherever they may be they can�t become successful if these reasons are not addressed.
I admit most of these reasons are out of control of bloggers. But we can at least stand together to create as much smooth field for blogging industry as possible.
Right now let�s have a look on these typically local reasons why most of Pakistani bloggers fail or quit at the early stage of their struggle.
1. Power breakdown
Summer season extends up to October starting from March here. So in eight months we experience frequent power breakdowns of 4 to 8 hours daily both scheduled and unscheduled. Unfortunately it doesn�t seem to end in near future.
Every one can�t afford to buy a generator or high quality backup system to get uninterrupted power supply. So it�s a big challenge for a blogger to perform equally well in summer season as his competitors in rest of the world do. So his lagging behind is obvious.
2. Internet still a luxury
Internet is not a utility in Pakistan like electricity and gas. A speedy internet connection costs nearly 20 to 30 dollars per month. It�s an amount sufficient to serve four days food needs of a family of four. So can a person afford to pay 8th part of his food needs to get a speedy internet connection?
Low quality internet is cheap but a blogger has to work 18 hours instead of 12 just to keep pace with his competitors who have fast internet. So it becomes a reason of failure because a newbie blogger achieves less in more time.
3. High quality IT products are costly
Our local IT products market is largely of used products. Those having hardware knowledge can work with such products easily. But those who are not much techie can�t manage them properly.
To buy a new product they have to pay higher price. For example a new laptop�s price is minimum $350. It�s an average income of a lower class family. How a student of small town can buy a new laptop to work fast and become a successful blogger.
4. No PayPal
What you would feel if you can earn but can�t receive your earning. This is the problem of bloggers of all those countries where PayPal is not open.
You are right that by following a few tricks one can get a PayPal account but what is the use of a facility you don�t know how long it will be with you. Partially confirmed PayPal account is a risky venture and hats off to those who still have such facility.
So after knowing they can�t receive their earnings most of the bloggers lose their heart and instead of playing any over-smart trick prefer to quit.
5. No family support
Can a family of sane members would be happy to know that their son or daughter has 50 per cent chances of success if he/she works for one year round the clock as a blogger.
They would obviously advise you to learn web development instead and start earning $45 for each contract of designing a five-page website.
6. No local demand
How many Americans make a purchase decision after reading a blog post? We all know it�s about 70 per cent. How many Pakistanis do this? Shhhhhhhhhhh... Never tell this secret to anyone. Else the entire blogging community would shift to our country. Lolz.
7. Language barrier
You can�t put your dreams accurately into a piece of content created in a non-native language. Why? It�s because you see dreams in your native language. While a translation of highest quality robs the originality of content to some extents.
So being a non-native English speaker is one of the biggest hurdles to achieve huge success by creating globally appealing contents.
So many Pakistan bloggers fail to create readers engagement like a native English speaker could do. If a king (content) is not of high quality, how his kingdom (blog) can grow.
8. Cultural barrier
How would be response of a resident of Quetta (one of the provincial capitals of Pakistan) if you try to convince him that the most tasty grilled food is Sajji (desi style grilled chicken or mutton leg). He would just laugh at you because Sajji is the special dish of his city since centuries.
Same happens to those Pakistani bloggers who try to convince foreign buyers how to make their Valentine unforgettable by buying their recommended products. Those who have been following a culture since centuries would not be impressed with a sermon on it given by a stranger.
9. No or a few drop shippers
You can sell everything on your blog to people around you if you have a drop shipper. This is the company or service that picks a product from a manufacturer or seller and delivers it to your buyer and charges you its fee.
There are a few drop shippers in Pakistan such as TCS and they are also limited to a few products. So you can�t sell any product made in Pakistan to the one who lives in Pakistan. As a result bloggers remain deprived of this opportunity to earn and keep trying to sell foreign products to foreigners from here.
10. Confined to IT sector
How many are pro bloggers in Pakistan. Almost all of them are from IT sector or they learnt any technical skill of IT while blogging. That is why blogging is confined to IT sector only.
Do you know anyone with no IT background has a top blog? Usually those who have no IT background eventually quit blogging by assuming it is the field of IT experts only.
So these are the ten typically local reasons why Pakistan bloggers mostly fail. They either quit or just become another blogger.
I would love to hear your thoughts as I know this blog�s audience is very vibrant.
Guest post submitted by Mi Muba, who is a great friend. He has been blogging for the last five years. You can join him on Facebook to learn money blogging.
This is again the continued post on React Native series. This post explains routing and navigation to different tabs in an application using React Native. Navigation is all about how the user can access possible sequences of pages in a web application. Routing is the encoding and decoding of URLs used in the application. Routing is supported by some set of rules. Each application must provide defined set of rules. Once the routing rules are defined, we can use the URLs containing view names and their parameters to navigate to different pages/tabs in the application.
Writing is an exciting activity that requires the use of your creative initiative and concentration ability.
Writing is a lot fun thing to do but, your invested time and energy can end up wasted if at the end your writing is unproductive.
Sometimes, people input their best effort and writing skill into practice, but at the end, it doesn�t come back home with good result, productivity.
What could be the cause?
Are there some important things left out?
Of course, writing requires some elements that make them unique.
Your un-productivity is about to take a shift into productivity, with these eight identified elements and tips of a productive writing.
Tip #1: Create a Writing Schedule
Let us start from here.
Writing involves a series of steps which should be taken one at a time; it starts from deciding what to write, making outlines and then writing.
We are always eager to start writing and end it at a go.
That won�t make the best writing!
Writing has to do with concentrating your inner attention and allowing the brain to select between the best available ideas, while your pen bleeds red.
An attempt to write a long write-up without a schedule as when to write and what to write, gives your writing a repulsive shape.
This tutorial explains how to upgrade to Ionic 3 and Angular 4 and how to use signature pad for your application. If you are working with some agreement related project or something which needs some written proof from the customers, we might in need of a signature pad. The combination of Ionic 3 and Angular 4 provides some better features to achieve signature pad. This will allow you to sign/draw something on the application and save that image as data on the screen. Using this tutorial, you can also make a signature pad with Ionic 2 and Angular 3. Why late? Let’s start this small, but most commonly used task in your application.
Bloggers Community Conference 2017 was organized on 16th April 2017, at Karachi Arts Council by a Former sub-editor of GEO NEWS, Mohsin Zia and his fellow friend Engr Usama Masood . Several professionals from various walks of life participated which included journalists, intellectuals, bloggers, freelancers, pranksters and online business experts, all on a single platform.
The event was immensely advertised through print and electronic media as a result of which it succeeded to grab the attention of people from all across the city and beyond. Arts Council community hall was so filled with people that even the air conditioning system stopped working.
I had the pleasure of attending this seminar as a guest speaker along with Abdul Wali, Umer Iftikhar, Nadir Ali, Zahid Shahid and Shujain Ali.
Event Objective
Bloggers Community Conference gathered some leading entrepreneurs, pro bloggers, YouTubers web enthusiasts, affiliate marketers and social media marketers from across the province i.e. Sindh.
The primary objective of the event was to educate newbies with online business ideas and strategies. It's goal was to help students, parents, graduates, jobless and the employed to understand the importance of setting up an online business with zero investment.
Guest speakers shared their real life stories and practical business strategies that worked for them in the field of blogging and vlogging. Sharing in-depth details of the following:
Google Adsense
YouTube Partner's Program
Affiliate marketing
Blogging and SEO
Programming
Web development
E-Commerce
Content Marketing
Amazon Affiliate Program
Freelancing ( Fiverr, upwork)
Social Media Marketing
It was in short the A-Z of how one can make a consistent income online to survive in this competitive world of Information and technology. Yes it was all about Make Money Online!
At the end of the event, all registered participants were given free web hosting as a Thanksgiving.
Apart from a normal talk on blogging, SEO, affiliate marketing and digital product selling, I focused deeply this time on setting up an amazon affiliate niche site and shared the business strategy for it to ensure a lucrative and sustainable income online.
Important points discussed that day are listed below:
Explained the fundamental difference between victims of corporate slave mentality
Talked in detail about the difference between PlanA and PlanB system of life
Shared basics such setting up website architecture, producing SEO friendly content and finally marketing the brand through AdWords and Facebook.
I discussed basics of Affiliate business such as setting up site, uploading trending content, promoting content via info graphics, videos and guest posting.
I gave a helicopter view of how affiliate business works and how blogging helps youngsters to make a living online by producing quality content.
Shared some real life SEO examples of clients websites that I was working on.
Share a website model that I created for "Ifza" and will launch soon inshAllah.
I shared tips on how housewives can setup their blogs or vlogs and start making money straight from their living rooms.
I emphasized on the importance of learning a skill set that is currently the only way to succeed in this competitive world.
I encouraged the students to learn these 3 core things:
Web Development (CSS3, HTML4, JavaScript/jQuery, PHP/MySQL)
Mobile Development (Java and Objective C)
Adobe After Effects (For a successful YouTube Career)
Abdul Wali
I am sure Onlineustaad needs no introduction. I always enjoy accompanying Wali. He is one of my best online buddies who is no less than a brother and family member now.
Wali shared some interesting tips to setup a blog and how a simple blog post on Payoneer with few affiliate links helps him make thousands of dollars. He displayed his Payoneer earning screenshot as motivation and then explained further on how one can start his freelance career through upwork, fiverr and other freelancing community platforms. In short it was a productive and informative session, of course with a lot of humour! :)
Mohammad Umer Iftikhar
Umer is a highly humble and talented gentleman. He is the one who invited me to the conference also. He is an active YouTuber and blogs at BloggingCEO
Umer shared YouTube earning strategies that worked for him and mentioned ways to ensure you abide by YouTube Community Guidelines. He also shared some of his real life experiences covering all ups and downs.
He emphasized upon uploading quality content on YouTube and strictly advised against stealing someone's copyrights. He categorically stated that indeed during the start of his online career, he did make some mistakes and now he is all set to avoid making those mistakes.
He is an extremely honest man and I had never seen a guest speaker as humble, to the ground and honest as him. He surely deserves an applause here.
Zahid Shahid Sheikha
Shahid runs amazon affiliate niche sites and is an expert in social media marketing.
Shahid emphasized that success of any human being depends on how he schedules his time because after all time is money. No dream can come true if you are not allocating your time properly. And I second that because I am personally a victim of laziness ever since I got married! =d
Shujain Ali
I, unfortunately, missed his session due to prayers. Shujain is a talented guy who makes a handsome amount of money with his online company that offers SEO consultanncy and social media services.
Mohsin Zia
I met Mohsin for the first time, although we are friends on Facebook for years. I found him a multi-tasking machine, a human with a pure heart and a man with a determination to do something exceptional for the youth. It is honestly quite difficult to introduce him because he is into so many things. He is a Journalist by profession, Blogger by passion, a social media marketer, Entrepreneur and a Trainer. He has worked with GEO as a sub-editor and has great reputation among journalist community. He also runs Twenty2Studio, a digital agency.
Mohsin organized this seminar to abridge the gap between the professionals and the newbies. To help new comers to understand the challenges faced in setting up an online career by giving real life examples of professionals. He wants to educate the youth with proper strategies required to succeed online.
Mohsin also announced that he is soon going to launch an IT institute unparalleled in its services and educational standard. The institute will aim at providing guidance and consultancy to students in the field of blogging, vlogging, ecommerce, affiliate marketing, SEO and everything make money online.
He emphasized that unlike a normal institute, where students are given a brief overview of a tool or technology without giving them career path guidance and help on how to utilize those skills practically online, his institute will do the reverse.
After the conference, Mohsin served all his guests with a delicious Mutton Karahi at Shaheen Shanwari restaurant as a thanksgiving.
Engr Usama Masood
Usama is a dedicated engineer who runs a web hosting company from Hyderabad and knows his field quite well.
Usama was the event's co-organizer. He expressed his intention of accompanying Mohsin in his dream of a setting up an IT academy very soon.
Fortunately, Usama was kind enough to offer free Web Hosting to all the participants of the conference!
Funny Moments: Meet One Who Pranked Me Years Ago
Nadir Ali is a famous Prankster and YouTuber from Pakistan, who runs the popular P 4 Pakao YouTube Channel. He has succeeded so far in getting millions of views on his videos and reaching a subscription list of over 188K subscribers so far.
His story is quite motivating. He started his career with Metro One Channel as a co-actor to play pranks on people. He said he used to write prank scripts to convince his producer to at least give him a single chance to showcase his talent. His scripts were often taken and shows were recorded by taking someone else instead of giving Nadir a chance. Finally one day, he got a role to exhibit his talent to the world.
But after sometime, he quit acting at that show and remained jobless for half a year. No channel was able to understand the worth of this hidden star until one day he met "Mohammad Umer Iftikhar" who guided him that he can start uploading his prank videos on YouTube and monetize his channel to make money online through AdSense.
Umer guided him with the technical aspect and helped him to setup his own webTV. Today P4 Pakao channel has over 188K subscribers with million of views, which for sure makes Nadir a hell lot of money compared to his fixed waged Job.
'Now that's the power of the internet - It can you make you a star overnight!'
This is how Nadir Ali pranked me years ago when I was going home with a shop containing raw meat in it ;)
Event Photography
I was accompanied by Salman Awan and thanks to him, we captured some important moments.
Our Seminars are never planned but we do always announce it on STCnetwork FB page or on my personal FB profile MyBloggerTricks.
Concluding Remarks
And yet another great conference comes to an end. Such events are the backbone to enrich the creative skills of newbies and help them with all their queries in mind. Conferences like this immensely help in transforming first-hand knowledge from professionals to beginners.
I would whole heartedly thank Mohsin Zia and Umer Iftikhar for inviting STCnetwork to the conference and giving us the honor to share whatever knowledge we have with the young energetic souls present that day.
I would also like to thank Abid, Ammar, Abdul Samad, Noman, Adnan, Shah Faisal and everyone else for attending the conference and adding more colors to it.
Wish you all the best of life and a happy and successful online career, filled with sustainable income and ever growing business. Peace buddies! =)
Kindly do post your queries and your feedback about this conference in the comment box below.
Bloggers Community Conference 2017 was organized on 16th April 2017, at Karachi Arts Council by a Former sub-editor of GEO NEWS, 
