One of the most exciting times of each holiday season is getting to redesign to your personal—or even professional—lighting display. Your holiday lights display is an excellent opportunity for you to showcase your unique personality, decorative creativity, and, of course, your overall love for the holiday season.

It seems as if with each passing year, there are typically more holiday decorations available for you to choose from than ever before. Because you obviously cannot choose every decoration to be included in your particular display, this means that you will have to be very selective when making your final decisions.

One of the most important decisions you will need to make this year is the specific type of holiday lights that you will choose to use. Over the past few years, LED Christmas Lights have become quite popular among ordinary consumers and professional decorators alike. These lights are known for their general ease of installation, their delightful aesthetic appeal, their relative affordability, and the distinct possibility of adding a personal touch.

Within the world of LED Lighting, many people have decided to forego the more traditional “string lighting” option in favor of using LED Cluster Lights. These lights are often considered to be an excellent alternative due to their unique shape, distribution, appearance, and style. In this article, we will closely examine everything you need to know about LED Cluster Lights. We will also help you brainstorm which sorts of displays may be best for your home.

What is the difference between LED Cluster Lights and ordinary LED Lights?

The holiday lighting industry has been aggressively moving towards the use of LED lighting technology as a whole. While the benefits of LED lighting (mentioned above) are quite obvious, choosing the exact form of LED lights that are best for your display poses an additional challenge.

Traditionally, Christmas lights are evenly spaced a few centimeters or more apart. However, as time has gone on, many professional and amateur decorators have realized that this specific orientation is certainly less than ideal. Because many people prefer for their lights to be concentrated—in other words, “clustered”—at the end of the strings, the emergence of LED Cluster Lights is something that appears to be quite natural.

Essentially, the difference between LED Cluster Lights and their more formal alternatives is that cluster lights are bunched together in order to create a distinctive aesthetic effect. Due to the consequences of bundling, these lights are able to concentrate the effects of their lighting and create a unique visual experience that you are unlikely to find elsewhere.

What are the benefits of choosing LED Cluster Lights?

Though ordinary, linear LED Christmas Lights certainly have their merits—and are, in fact, the best-selling lights on the market—there are several different reasons that someone might consider using LED Cluster Lights instead.

• Creating a much more “natural” feel—resembling trees, icicles, etc.
• Concentrating light where it needs to be the most
• Avoiding wasting space (bulbs will be placed directly after one another)
• Creating a lighting display in the most efficient way possible

These are just a few of the reasons that many people consider using LED Cluster Lights. Depending on the specific type of holiday lighting display that you are attempting to make, you may want to consider combining multiple different types of LED holiday lights or even customizing the use of certain colors.

What are some of the possible uses of LED Cluster Lights?

Due to their uniquely concentrated nature, LED Cluster Lights can be used in a variety of different ways. For example, the specific shape of these lights is exceptionally conducive to imitating the natural form of a Christmas (coniferous) tree. Whether you are installing these lights on a pre-existing tree or attempting to create a tree-like appearance of your own, LED Cluster Lights may be the most realistic option that you currently have available.

These lights can also be used to help complement various different natural components of your overall Christmas display. Battery-powered cluster lights may be exceptionally useful for illuminating a wreath without the hassle of ordinary wires. Other natural effects that you might consider using include hanging “icicles” from your roof or adding general lighting clusters to any of the trees in your yard.

LED Cluster Lights can be used in both indoor and outdoor environments. Scattering them throughout your home—above your fireplace, along your staircase, in your kitchen, and various other locations—can create an incredibly powerful aesthetic effect. Even if it is no longer the holiday season, these lights are an excellent option for parties or various other gatherings.

What should I think about when shopping for different LED Cluster Lights?

The development of the LED holiday lighting industry has enable consumers to have a number of different options. Taking the time to think about the specific type of cluster lights that will be most appropriate for your display will certainly be quite beneficial.

• Wires: black, green, and white are the most common options available.
• Colors: rainbow, red and green, and white are the most popular. Many online providers will allow you to create a customized color scheme that satisfies your personal taste.
• Wired or wireless: this will depend on where the lights will be and the various power sources (outlets) that you have available.
• Bulb Variety: there are many different types of LED holiday bulbs. For LED Cluster Lights, 5mm Wide Angle Conical Bulbs and T5 LED Lights are among the most common options available.
• Accessories: there are many different accessories available that can help complete your display. In addition to LED Cluster Lights, you may want to consider purchasing icicle lights, net lights, fairy lights, snowflake lights, or various others.

The more you can think about your specific display in advance, the easier it will be once you begin the process of shopping around online.

Conclusion

The benefits and potential uses of LED Cluster Lights are abundantly clear. Because these lights can concentrate their energy where it is needed the most, easily adapt to both indoor and outdoor spaces, and be used for seemingly any holiday lighting display, there is no surprise that they have become incredibly popular over the past few years.

If you’re looking to become one of the most successful investors out there, then this guide is what you should be reading. It includes all the dynamics that you should know regarding stock options vs RSU. Over the last decade, some of the biggest players in Silicon Valley have been taking full advantage of company stock incentives like stock options and restricted stock units.

As a way of maintaining the loyalty of their employees, the companies operating in Silicon Valley are making use of these equity compensations to improve their employee benefits and mind you, it’s very cost-effective.

Most of the savvy investors now think that Facebook has contributed to the increased popularity of RSU stock options in the financial world. Under a $4 billion valuation, Microsoft decided to invest $200 million in Facebook back in 2007. Given the high valuation, it became hard for Facebook to make loyal employees. This was until they offered them appealing RSU agreements.

Based on our own experience and what we hear from the trading community, chances are high that you have no idea what a restricted stock unit is. We have outlined, in this guide, all you need to do to profit from investing in restricted stock units.

What Are Restricted Stock Units?

Basically, a restricted stock unit is a grant of company stock whose ownership is transferred to you once it has been vested. We know that all these new technical terms might cause a slight scare in you but don’t worry; we’ll take it slowly until you get it all.

For the purpose of making this conversation about what is RSU stock option lighter and more interactive, let’s bring in our imagination and basically follow the well-known Millennial generation storyline.

Suppose a guy named Joe just started working at a big company. The company deals with technology and is publicly traded. Joe has been awarded shares that he can’t sell, at least not yet. These shares that Joe gets are what we are referring to as restricted stock units or RSU.

The grant date is the exact day that Joe receives these shares. If Joe desires to sell his shares, certain conditions must be met first. This is attributed to the vesting schedule that the company has decided on before Joe can release his shares.

The company has two methods through which they can create this vesting schedule:

● Gradual Schedule – This is a type of vesting through which the employee can get small portions of his shares over a timeline of 3-5 years. Say for instance the company follows a 5-year schedule, then Joe will get a fifth of the shares per year.

● Cliff Schedule - In this type of vesting, it’s possible for Joe to receive all the vested shares after a predetermined service period. Typically, he will receive his shares after he has worked in the company for a certain number of years. The number of years will be determined after Joe’s compensation package has been fully negotiated.

For both the tech company and Joe, this is a win-win situation. For one, the tech company will be assured that Joe will stick around for a long time. This translates into more outcome from the company and ultimately more profits will be made.

On Joe’s side, motivation will not be an issue. He will be assured of a bigger paycheck once his shares are vested and sold. He will also be under the obligation to stay with the tech company for the specified vesting period to win those shares.

An RSU stock option is made restricted by the need to vest it.

Once Joe has the shares in his name, he can decide to either sell them or hold them if he is of the opinion that the price will go up. He can also do a combination of the two.

RSUs, just as the name suggests, are just a restricted certificate of stock or a restricted form of shares. They are also referred to as restricted securities or letter stock in financial terms.

What Are Stock Options?

A stock option is basically a contract between two parties which allows the buyer to either buy or sell underlying stocks within a specified period of time and at a predetermined price.

An option writer is the seller of the stock option. The seller is usually paid a certain amount of money from the contract purchased by the buyer of the stock options.

There exist two types of stock options:

● A stock call option that gives the buyer the right to buy stock. However, he’s not obliged to do so. When the price of the underlying stock rises, the stock call option increases in value.

● A stock put option that gives the buyer the right to short sell the stock. When the price of the underlying stock drops, a put option increases in value.

You will find that investment bankers usually buy both types of options either individually or as a combination so that they can employ certain trading techniques, as well as a covered call.

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How RSUs Work

Let’s get back to Joe and assume that he has been given 1,000 shares, each valued at $10. Joe goes ahead and agrees to a 4-year vesting period. This means that at the end of every year he will be receiving 250 shares for the 4-year vesting period.

At the end of the first year, the price of one share goes up to $11. His 250 shares are now worth $2,750 ($11*250 shares.)

Now assume that at the end of the second year, the price of one share goes down to $9.50. The now vested 250 shares are worth $2,375 ($9.50*250 shares.)

Please keep in mind that the major difference of RSU, when compared to stock options, is that despite the stock price is lower than that at the grant date, the value of your shares is evaluated according to the current market price.

At the end of the third year, once the third quarter of Joe’s shares is vested, the stock price has shot up to $15. Therefore, the price of his shares will be $3,750 ($15*250 shares.)

We are now in the last year, and the final 250 shares have been vested. The price has appreciated to $20 per share. The final shares are now worth a total of $5,000.

From the calculations, the resulting profit (or new income) from the first 1,000 shares of RSU will amount to $13,875.

Once again, let’s cut through the same example and see the difference between RSU and stock options. 

As opposed to receiving RSUs from your employer, you get 1,000 shares in stock options. Taking all things to be equal as in the example above, you will receive $20,000 at the end of the 4-year period (1,000 shares x $20)

The Difference Between Stock Options and RSU

The major difference between the stock options and the RSU is that RSUs limit the downside. However, they also put a limit on the upside. Stock options, on the other hand, maximize the upside.

The RSUs are advantageous since there’s a way through which you can structure them to give you all the benefits of stock options. From this perspective, given both RSUs and stock options, RSUs are more flexible than stock options.

The third major difference between the two (RSU and stock options) is their method of taxation. The RSUs are taxed by the regular income rates. On the other hand, the taxation of the stock options is more complex.

Options vs. Restricted Stock Units

As part of your compensation plan, companies can settle on either options or restricted stock units. Stock options are just another form of equity compensation (quite common, actually). It’s an agreement that gives the terms that a buyer should comply with to purchase some shares at a particular price. The hope here is that the company’s value will increase over time, as will the shares.

There will be no losses for you if the share price depreciates since you don’t own the shares after all. The only option available to you is to buy them.

Look at it like free pizza!

If, however, the share price appreciates, you have the potential for profit as well as the upside advantage. You will not lose anything if the price drops.

There are two types of stock options:

● Non qualifies options

● Incentive stock options (ISO)

While we may not feel the need to delve deeper into the two types, we will just lay the foundation for you that will enable you to build a base that will be instrumental in building wealth.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Restricted Stock Units

There’s usually too much confusion on the advantages of RSUs. We are, therefore, going just to give you the pros and cons of RSUs.

Here are the main benefits of restricted stock units:

● Both the company and the employee have the same objective; to see the company succeed.

● The employee will be earning extra cash for his work.

● The higher the price of the stock goes, the more your profits will increase.

The restricted stock units also have their cons:

● Restricted stock units are taxed based on the income.

● You face the risk of earning less money if the stock price goes down.

● You also face the risk of losing your vested shares if you’re terminated.

A Primer on Equity Compensation

The number of instruments used for incentives in equity has steadily increased over time. With more choices, comes more complexity. The advantage with this is that there will also be more choices.

Below, we have outlined some of these instruments:

● Stock Options - They give you the right to purchase a company’s stock sometime in the future at a price that will be set now. You might be set to make huge profits in the future if high-growth companies can very well surpass their current value by great lengths. Once you exercise your shares, you become an official company shareholder.

● Restricted Stock - This is just stock on which restrictions have been placed, and payment isn’t really necessary. In most cases, it’s just normal stock that has been vested. The holder cannot sell this stock until it has vested. If one is terminated, the company reserves the right to repurchase all the unvested shares. A restricted shareholder is officially a shareholder in the company.

● Restricted Stock Units - They are a commitment by the company to give some shares after a certain period of time. Payment isn’t usually required. Some conditions have to be met, however, before the holder of the shares can be handed the predetermined value. A settlement of the same might be in the form of the stock or the cash value of the shares. Once a holder receives the stock, they are now officially a company shareholder.

● Stock Appreciation Rights - These are cash or stock bonuses based solely on the performance of the company’s stock over a certain period of time. A holder of such is not an official shareholder.

● Phantom Stock – It’s cash or stock bonus that signifies holding a company’s stock over some time. It is, however, not stock, so one isn’t really a stockholder.

● Profits Interests - They are basically a claim to an LLC with an increase in value over time. Their availability is limited to LLCs. Public companies employ most of these tools while private corporations use only restricted stock and stock options.

Conclusion

If you’re an investor, you need to ask yourself if you would one day go out there and purchase these stocks if you weren’t employed by a particular company. In most cases, emotional attachment to your company might arise, and this might create a bias in you regarding the price of a stock.

An instance may occur where the company you work for, if it’s a startup, especially, increases the stock price significantly. If it one day becomes a giant in its field and you never sold your shares, you stand the chance of making millions. 

Self storage business is proving to be a lucrative one, despite that, there is also a lot of competitions coming up since many people are venturing into it. So if you are considering starting or you already have a storage business, here are tips that will make your business stand out from the rest.

Make offers

A business will grow if you keep on attracting new clients to your business, you can accomplish this by offering unlimited storage for important documents, photos along with videos in the online backup apps that can store information for a long time, thus increasing the number of customers making your in addition to making business unique. Former and current clients will recommend your company to friends and family further increasing your customer base.     

 Promotion through social media

Social media continues to have a great impact in the business world, so you can create social media handles in different platforms for creating awareness about your storage business, its charges, and benefits of using one as well as interacting with similar businesses while exchanging ideas that can help your business grow further. Through social media, you will also interact with clients and potential clients to know what they need in a storage facility or what you need to improve on, these inputs will help you in providing better services.   

Keep in touch with clients

Another approach for keeping your former clients coming back is keeping in touch with them. You can do this by sending them holiday greetings or just occasionally, keep on reminding them you will be happy to serve them again as well. Some will surely come back and those who won’t come will spread the word to their family and friends.

Give incentive for referrals

Some people come to your business because they were referred by some of your clients, therefore, you should make the clients enticing offers to show them you appreciate their efforts, and it could be in the form of discount for storage space. Give the people who refer your business but do not rent the storage units gift cards for food or drinks, this will go a long way.   

Give out gifts

Giving out gifts to new customers renting your self-storage units is a great strategy. It will motivate them to come back again because everybody loves gifts. Some of the gift ideas to offer a customer would be items imprinted with your company’s logo; it will show how thoughtful and appreciative you are.

 Hand out physical and digital fliers

Another great way of advertising is through handing out hardcopy and softcopy fliers containing your company’s information such as address, phone number, prices, person in charge etc. Using the internet to send the fliers is very effective as it will help you minimize your expenses while advertising to a large audience. You can distribute physical fliers in events such as in exhibitions. Fliers can prove to be incredibly effective when they are tactically shared out to capture the interest of potential clients.   

MSNBC is a corporate merger that came to effect in 1996. It was a merger between computer corporate Microsoft and media power house NBC News. The merger which was on a 50/50 basis led to the start of MSNBC, where MS stands for Microsoft and NBC stands for the media company. The merger ensured that the media provided by the company was comprehensive and able to compete on equal standard with other media corporations.

Workings of MSNBC

Like any other media power house, MSNBC concerns itself with relaying information. This is made possible through the use of MSNBC live. This entails telling of information on a live basis. That is, news is relayed to viewers on a one on one basis from the actual venue of the incident. Live stories are used to generate coverage in order to show the current happenings of a place, event or a situation. Moreover, it involves live interviews from politicians and other key individuals thus offering a platform for the viewers to interact with the guests through questions and discussions.

Forms of MSNBC live

To start the day, MSNBC starts the day with a live morning show. The show has an array of fixed anchors that alternate on a daily basis. There are instances where anchors hold a specific day or ending up hosting all the morning shows for particular periods of time. During these shows, they report live from their headquarters and are able to hold live talks with people due to the presence of reporters on the ground.

The president of the United States is one of the most followed personalities by the media. Any updates on his travels, campaigns, health and initiatives are captured by MSNBC. For credibility, the media house has correspondents in the white house who provide any update on the president.

Sudden and unexpected news is captured by MSNBC. Calamities that occur in any part of the world are reported live. Live stories are generated from the scene of the calamity. This is also the case when there are elections. Elections provide a wide viewership and thus, live stories provide utility to the audience.

            Functions of MSNBC live

There are other brands by NBC News that focus wholly on news coverage. Nonetheless, this particular brand focuses on live coverage. The death of a prominent person, presidential elections, natural calamities, vehicle news and world cup games are provided as live stories in order to get the unforgettable experience of that time. 

Holidays can range from national holidays to religious holidays. All these are covered by MSNBC. For national holidays, heads of government hold press conferences that warrant live coverage from the press. Moreover, this provides a platform for the media house to show how people with diverse cultures and norms celebrate their holidays. 

There are many shows that are aired on NBC News. In the event that any one of these shows is not renewed for another season, MSNBC takes over with its live platform thus signaling to the viewer the end of one show and the start of another. 

Similar to any type of competition people who takes advantage of tools can be at a better spot for winning, in YouTube competition is getting worst every day, it is true that the popularity of this application has increased a lot over time and it offers better opportunities to make a career as YouTuber and influencer, however, you need to get ahead of competition to succeed. One great way to do it is to buy real YouTube views, the power of views is something unknown for some people, they see it as destine and not as a way for achieving success. Sometimes people just need a good impulse to achieve great things, sometimes the only thing needed are a nice increase in views for achieving success. The bad thing is that doing it naturally can’t be something easy, you need to have some sort of support. That support are the views you can get if you buy real YouTube views, because it is so easy that you only needed to get a subscription with a company that sells views for YouTube.

Modern competition

YouTube is part of the internet, of course. And because it is part of internet, internet can affect directly the behavior of it. Companies that sell views realized that there are legal ways of increasing views, they achieve it by using some software for creating a great number of accounts that can watch your videos immediately and you can increase the number of views so fast. They can attract people with interests similar to what your channel and videos are about. That way they can connect their social media to your videos and they can increase the number of views. They know how to do it, that’s why some companies offer warranty in case you don’t get what you expected, that is because they are confident about their systems that they know it works perfectly.

This mode of competition has become a norm in this part of the 21st century. It is poised to become the biggest mode of marketing strategy by the end of the year. Short quality videos have proven to be the most effective ways to reach out to audiences. The potential customers have the irresistible urge to watch videos with more enthusiasm and concentration that reading texts of ads.

All about respect

Once you get more views into your videos it means that your videos are getting more respect for users, they will be willing to watch your videos and share them with friends in social media because they see in them success. Getting respect and trustworthiness is something that big YouTubers always want to get.

Views can be interpreted directly as an impact to the online society. The quicker they rise means ultimate support and connection to the video. It means that the content is relatable and has touched the hearts and attention of many people.

Beware that a rise in views comes with critical comments too. Not everyone who watches the vide finds if fascinating, relevant, or good-for-watching. Be prepared for the harshest and meanest comments on the spaces. This should not shake you one bit because it means the topic is engaging and you are bound to gain more loyalty and respect.

After a good video performance online, the respect earned attracts more subscriptions meaning that your subsequent videos are likely to be watched by more people.

Appear higher on YouTube searching

This is a good sign that things are working out nicely. If you appear higher on the searches made by users you can feel good because most people are going to watch your videos. It is a correlative effect, the more views you get, the higher you appear on searching and the more views you will get then. This is the key for creating popularity. You can increase the number of views dramatically because you only needed a good impulse that you got by buying YouTube views.

Beware of malicious rivals who may strive to destroy your reputation through a method called negative SEO. Monitor your video performances for any sudden changes in the trend. They could be a result of someone pulling down your content, duplicating, or sending removal requests to collaborators and associating sites.