Millions of people use Instagram as a media and social platform every day, in fact, over 400 million daily and over 600 million monthly according to Instagram. It uses a very simple, effective and accessible format which allows users to seamlessly scroll through a timeline of photographs and images. Naturally, it has also become a place for business advertising, so that as users are scrolling through collections of images they will also scroll past short visual advertisements, tailored to their location. According to the website itself, over 5 million businesses use Instagram for advertising.

Many businesses have their own Instagram account, and the website claims that over 70% of users are following a business of sorts. This allows them to effectively place adverts on their audience's timelines without even paying for advertising. Instagram also offers users to publish in a variety of formats besides your conventional imagine including videos of up to a minute long and “stories” which effectively allows a stream of images and short video clips to be played consecutively, which gives businesses a choice of ways to advertise their product or to spread their message and even feature full screen sized ads.

Having a business profile on Instagram also allows other benefits for users. Instagram offers insights into followers and posts providing potentially valuable information for your business. Businesses can also boost posts by paying for promotion to spread it to a larger audience.

Instagram allows users to p[ay for advertising in a variety of different formats. There are simple photo advertisements which appear in people's timelines like any other photo. Also, users can post like this in video format if you have a longer message or want to capture attention with movement. There is an option where advertisements appear in a carousel format which allows users to swipe sideways through a collection of visuals if they wish to find out more. Lastly you can advertise using the stories feature for the biggest and boldest adverts.

You can tailor your adverts to reach specific audiences by filtering who will see the advert by location, demographics, interests, behaviour and much more. This means you can refine your target audience and reach only the people that matter to your business, although it is worth being aware that most users of the platform tend to be from younger generations. Certain companies like Harley Davidson have used Instagram to create a new, younger audience for their product and to broaden their customer base. Other companies use it to reinforce and to expand their current consumer base.

With younger generations relying more and more on their mobile devices, the quickest way to develop any business targeting this audience is through apps and mobile advertising. It helps to engage them in a familiar environment and connects with them on a very subconscious level. In an age where people seldom have the time to read a larger piece of text, quick visual elements are the most effective at delivering a message quickly and effectively, and for this Instagram is the perfect tool for any developing business to expand its audience.

It goes without saying that knowledge of a second languages can have serious benefits on your career prospects and your chances of getting hired. The USA is a country built on immigration and there is a large percentage of the population who speak English as a second language. The most popular languages in the US are as follows;

1 - English. Considering this is the national language it is obviously the most spoken. It is also the most international language in the world, taking the top spots in the tourism, business and academia, and has become essential to creating business connections worldwide. An extensive knowledge of English is essential to anybody looking to stay or work in the US.

2 - Spanish. Sharing it's borders with Central and Latin America, it comes as no surprise that there is a large demand for Spanish as a second language. There are, in fact, more Spanish speakers in the US now than there are in Spain, according to the New York Post, with more than 41 million native Spanish speakers residing in the US and a further 11.6 million who are bilingual. A report in the US Census Office suggests that by 2050 there may even be up to 138 million Spanish speakers in the US, making it the world's largest Spanish speaking nation with Spanish being the mother tongue of nearly a third of the population. A large percentage of the Spanish speaking population live in Florida and California, however you will always find Spanish speakers in the US and a little bit of knowledge can carry you a long way.

3 - Chinese. Nearly 3 million people in the US speak a Chinese dialect, such as Mandarin or Cantonese, and these figures are quickly increasing. With such a large population and a booming industry, China is quickly becoming a global trading superpower with strong connections worldwide. Most Chinese speakers reside in the larger and more famous cities such as New York, LA and San Francisco.

4 - Tagalog. This is a language that comes from The Phillipines and is spoken by just over 1.5 million people in the US. This figures has tripled in the last three decades and has surprisingly surpassed the demand for Vietnamese and French.

5 - Vietnamese. The number of Vietnamese speakers has had the largest increase in the last few years, and there are currently around 1.5 million speakers in the US.

6 - French. Compared to 1980, there has been a 28% increase in French Speakers in the US. There is a much larger demand for French speakers in Canada which boasts a large French-Canadian population in Quebec and neighbouring cities. The population is denser in the north eastern states, arguably because of the influence from French-Canadian populations in the immediate proximity.

Learning a second language opens up a plethora of different opportunities, both in business and in your personal life. It allows you to possess a larger perspective and can even delay brain disorders such as Alzheimers and Dementia. With the US becoming an increasingly international nation, maybe it's time you picked up your Spanish dictionary to pad out your resume a little more.

In today's digital age, almost anything and everything can be delivered to your front door after pushing a few buttons on your computer, potentially even less with options such as amazon.com's buy with one click option. Because of this, consumers are leaving their houses less and therefore gaining less exercise. Also, by spending all of your money online, less money goes into the local community. There's also the cost of shipping to consider when buying online, although more and more companies are now offering this at discounted prices, sometimes even free, which can increase the net price of your product substantially, and the ESG disadvantages of transporting your purchases to your address, but there are some serious benefits to shopping online.

Firstly, it's convenient. It's a time saving method which eliminates the need to walk to town, and what used to take an hour can now potentially take five minutes. Some services, particularly online supermarkets, will remember your previous purchases, so while your first visit to the online store might take some time to complete, your second visit could take merely minutes if you require the same grocery list as before.

With more competition online, prices tend to diminish and so you have more chance of finding a good deal. Sometimes you can buy direct from the manufacturer which cuts out the middle-man and pushes that price down even further. With the advantage of not having to keep and maintain a physical shop, the companies operating online tend to be able to save a lot of money and to attract a larger consumer base off their cheaper prices. Also with more competition comes more variety. If you're looking for something very specific, you are most likely to find it, and if not, you are likely to find a website or a contact you can consult on how to get that. The high street is a little more refined and generic and can't compete with the variety online. There are even websites these days that do all the hard work for you and find the cheapest prices and tell you where to shop to save the most money.

Sometimes you can even cut yourself out as the middle-man. If you require sending a gift to somebody, often you can have it gift wrapped and shipped directly to the intended recipient without having to lay your hands on the purchase yourself.

There no crowded shops online, and for people who don't like being around busy markets or other people for that matter, or for people who don't have time to be waiting in a queue every time they go to buy a new t-shirt, online shopping is perfect. There is a lot less pressure to buy things quickly as people can shop at a pace that suits them, and this also encourages less spontaneous purchases which are often initiated by good deals at the checkout.

One disadvantage is when you're shopping for attire, because you can't physically try on the product. This however is beginning to change as some larger clothing companies offer free return services if it is the wrong size.

As long as you don't mind cutting the social interaction from your shopping experience, online shopping can save you a lot of time and money.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment is when a person decides with whom they should invest with beyond monetary benefits, mainly based upon social, environmental and ethical reasons. There are two different types of ESG investors; active and passive.

An active ESG investor is somebody who still keeps their profit in mind. While they will bear in mind the environmental, social and ethical values of a company they decide to invest in, their top priority is the profit they can make. An active manager would be somebody looking for a financially beneficial reason to integrate ESG factors into their business. An example of this would be a company switching to wind power to provide electricity for them because their consumer base was demanding a greener process, and so therefore to appeal to more like minded customers the company decides that the best way to expand on their business is to integrate a more environmentally operation.

Passive ESG investment is when an investor is not so interested by the profit they will make from an investment, but rather the ethical contribution it will make towards their portfolio. An example of this would be choosing one company over another to invest in as, although their projected growth was lower, the chosen company invests a large portion of money in environmental protection programmes that align with the investors values and so therefore strengthens their portfolio by non-profit means and towards an ethical goal.

To analyse a passive investors portfolio, first you must decide which values you wish to emphasise with. While some people choose to measure ESG using a point scoring system, the reality of it is much more fluid as it is based on consumers and investors opinions and beliefs over something as black and white as a fact. Basically, what is important to one person could be insignificant to somebody else.

As well as deciding which factors are deemed significant enough, investors have to decide the best ways to measure them. This can vary drastically on the investors beliefs and values and overall understanding of what they consider important.

One of the most common factors considered when making investments is fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas pollution. The general consensus is that we are running out of fossil fuels, so investing in green renewable energy is a long term solution for when these limited supplies are exhausted. Risky investments are not considered stable for long term investors.

When creating a passive investment portfolio it is also worth considering which industry sectors most align with your values. Energy companies tend to have low ESG scores, however industries such as technology tend to be much more favourable due to the nature of the underlying business models.

As the world develops and changes and consumers and investors wish to be better informed of the nature of a company and their values and beliefs, access to this information is becoming more accessible, and it is becoming more possible to refine your portfolio to something which goes far beyond merely producing a profit; you can produce a statement with where you decide to place your money.