Fitness Tips for the New Year

Is your New Year’s resolution to get fit and look great for the new year? Working out at the gym can produce some spectacular results, but can be daunting if you haven’t been before. It can seem as though everyone knows what they’re doing but you. You worry about looking stupid, or about what people will think about your body, or about whether you’ll remember everything you’ve been told.

The first day is usually okay (because most gyms provide an introductory session on how to operate the machines) – but the second day can be confusing and even embarrassing, unless you’ve signed up with a personal trainer. You’re quite likely to find that you can’t remember which machines you’re supposed to use, or even how they work.

Relax. Everyone goes through it. You’ll find it easier on the third day, and by the fourth you’ll be feeling quite confident. Within weeks you’ll be powering through your exercises as though you were born in the gym!

Here are a few tips that might ease the way in the first few weeks:

1. If you’re a complete beginner, it might be worth your while to sign up with a personal trainer for at least a couple of sessions, until you’re feeling more confident. Otherwise, go with a friend. If you’re both new, you can muddle through together. If your friend is experienced, he or she will help you out.

2. Take a notepad and pen with you for your introductory session. Write down the name of the machine and its position in the gym as well as a few words that will remind you what you’re supposed to do on it. (Some machines can be used in several different ways.)

3. Don’t hesitate to ask a staff member for help if you can’t adjust the machine for your weight and height, or if you can’t remember exactly how it works. They won’t mind showing you again. They want their customers to keep coming back!

4. Don’t push yourself too hard to begin with. If you work out so hard that you can barely walk, you’ll be tempted to miss a day while you recover. One day doesn’t matter much, but if you continually skip days because you’re too sore, you’re likely to drop out altogether. What’s the hurry? After a few weeks, when your body is getting used to the extra exercise, you can increase the intensity.

5. If your knees and ankles react badly to increasing the speed on the treadmill, try increasing the grade instead. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that a slower speed, with the treadmill on an incline, burns more calories than jogging.

6. Smile and nod to the other gym users, but don’t hold up their workout programs by chatting. As you become recognized as a regular, you will find that you gravitate to your own little group – probably people who have the same goals and needs as you do.

7. Wear comfortable clothing – either loose or with plenty of stretch. Avoid the temptation to buy workout gear that’s two sizes too small in the hope that you’ll lose weight quickly. (You might well shed those pounds fast – but if it takes longer that you’d anticipated, you’ll always be conscious of those too-tight clothes.)

8. Don’t worry about being overweight. In a way, it’s good to start off with quite a few excess pounds to lose – your success is much more noticeable than it is on slimmer gym users, and you’ll find the positive comments really motivating. Make sure you get a ‘before’ photo of yourself at the gym when you start out. After a few months, you’ll be amazed at the difference.

9. If you’re considerably overweight, you are likely to find that your stomach gets in the way on some machines. Just do what you can. You might feel better just increasing your fitness and losing some weight on the treadmill for the first month or so, then moving on to the machines when moving and stretching is more comfortable. Consider doing a few laps in the pool (either walking or swimming) as well as your other gym work. The water will help to support your weight and provide variety.

10. Try to find a happy medium between challenging yourself and resting on your laurels. If you can easily manage three sets at the current weight, try increasing it for the first set. If you can do twenty minutes on the treadmill without sweating, then increase either the speed or the grade (or both!) Remember… “if nothing changes, then nothing changes!”

One final tip: once you have decided on your regular gym days, resolve that nothing but an emergency will stop you going. Make your gym attendance a habit – and before too long, the exciting results will have you trying to convert all your friends to becoming exercise lovers too!

How to Benefit From Internet Marketing Tips

Having your own website in place is the best thing you can do in ensuring that you get maximum profits through online business. You just need to let the internet work as you watch.

Knowing what you are after is the basic concept which gives you an easy process and making the internet becomes your friend. The internet can amaze you on finding how much it can do for your business when you are just sitting down and doing small work on the computer. Here are some of the tips for internet marketing which can help you to move from the ground and start something worthwhile in generating some income.

Search engine optimization:

For your internet marketing to succeed, learning how to use the SEO-search engine optimization and getting its benefits will be a good start. You have to ensure that you are able to dominate in the search engines at the top pages whenever someone types the keyword. This not only increases the chances of customers landing into your site but also gives chance to convert visitors into becoming potential customers. You have to learn to do this effectively or if you can’t, an option of finding a company to do this for you is always there.

Allow yourself to learn internet marketing tips from others:

No one can ever claim that he or she is a superstar in relation to internet business since its all about creativity and what you think you know. You will be surprised that there are those who are better in the field than you. Thus, allowing yourself to get information from those who have been in the industry for some time before you came and also those who have succeeded in internet marketing, will give you tips and ideas on what should be done and what should be avoided. You end up being shocked about how some tips which you viewed as irrelevant have been used by others in online marketing and have performed superbly well. The best folks always have the best ideas in this industry-and that’s a fact.

Check your favorite forum which offers internet marketing:

This is a very crucial step in ensuring you get the maximum from internet marketing. The importance of these forums is that they give options for internet marketing and the great among them is that they give you a chance to be able to interact with the best and successful business owners in the online marketing world. In this you are also sure to build some links to your sites. Isn’t it?

Ensuring you follow these internet marketing tips, gives you a way to start or improve your strategies on internet marketing.

How to Produce a Killer Video Marketing Strategy

Whether you work for yourself or as part of a team, planning your own corporate video marketing strategy is a big responsibility; something that you should definitely be proud of.

Video is soon to be an invaluable tool throughout every business, the sooner you start with your video marketing strategy, the sooner you can get that competitive advantage over your competition. Don’t know where to start? My guide should help you understand everything you need to know about how to plan a killer video marketing strategy.

But I don’t even know what a video marketing strategy really is!

Don’t panic! It sounds more complicated than it is; a video marketing strategy is in fact just like any marketing strategy, it is a rough guide on what sort of video you want to produce, for whom, what you are trying to achieve and how you are going to measure its success.

Decide on what you want to achieve

Before you start you need to come up with an end goal for your strategy. This will be crucial in your strategy and underpins the whole plan.

A good place to start is simply by taking a piece of paper and writing everything down which you would like to achieve. Once you have this you can create a mission type statement summing up your strategy. By using such simple and clear goals it is then easy to work to achieve them.

Who are you targeting?

The MOST important part of your strategy is understanding the demographic of the individuals you are targeting. Ask yourself; Are they old or young? Tech savvy or not tech savvy? etc. You get the idea. By having a true understanding of who you are targeting you can vastly improve the success of your videos by simply making sure they are of interest to the individuals you are targeting.

What type of corporate video should you use?

You now have a goal and an in depth understanding of who you are targeting. The next stage is thinking about how you can best achieve that goal with video. Coming up with fresh new content ideas and concepts is not always the easiest of tasks, however there are a few simple things you can do to help break the process down.

First, take a blank sheet of paper and write down the types of video you might want to use. Think about the following categories: sales/promotional, branding, health & safety, internal communications and corporate events etc.

I’ve decided on the type of video, how do I come up with ideas?
Great, you’re all set with the type of video you need to produce, but what now? Well of course you need a concept and ideas to tie everything together! Your best chance of coming up with a great video concept is by telling a story with your video(s). Telling a story is a great way of engaging viewers and really helps to make an effective video.

Do you have a corporate video producer?

All you need now is somebody to put your strategy into action, a video producer. You may already have a video producer you know or perhaps not. Either way, hiring the right video producer is crucial in making sure your strategy is a success. By hiring the right video producer you can make sure that your strategy, vision and ideas have the highest chance of being successful and giving you the greatest return on investment.

Video Producers are fantastically creative individuals whose experience and input is invaluable in creating your video(s). Don’t fight them thinking you know best; take their advice and guidance very seriously. After all, they spend all day everyday producing video – they know what they’re talking about.

Get your video out there!
You may well be thinking, surely I just put it on YouTube and embed it on my website!? Brilliant, this is a great start. However there are a few other things you can do to better optimise the placement of your newly produced content.

Including a plan of how you distribute your new content is an important part of any strategy as it will often determine how successful your video will be. As first mentioned, uploading it to YouTube and/or Vimeo is a good start; it allows you to share and embed it easily throughout your blogs, website and social media, as well as allowing others to do the same. Once your content is on a platform such as YouTube or Vimeo you can then embed and link to your video onto your blog, or in any guest articles you write. You could even submit it to industry related publications to see if it is of interest to them and their online readership.

Measure the performance of your corporate video marketing

Having spent all this money creating a great looking video, everything is looking good. But hang on just a minute, you need to be able to measure the performance of your video right? After spending thousands on your latest strategy you need facts on what’s working and what’s not? By having these facts you can adjust your strategy so your future videos are more effective and provide you with a greater return on investment.