,

The Wild and Crazy Career Paths of 5 Self-Made Billionaires (Infographic)

Just starting your business and feeling lost? From their humble beginnings, all of these self-made billionaires have changed course scores of times. Let these stories serve as inspiration for you!

Virgin Empire founder Richard Branson’s first job was selling Christmas trees. NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s first job was selling garbage bags. Las Vegas Sands Corporation CEO Sheldon Adelson’s first job was selling newspapers. Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky’s first job was selling carpets. And Elon Musk, the founder of Telsa Motors and PayPal, started his working life writing video games.

The infographic below, generated by San Francisco-based startup organization Funders and Founders, shows just how many different businesses these legendary entrepreneurs launched.

Funders and Founders also analyzed all 1,426 billionaires in the world. From there, the company segmented out the 960 that are self made and determined that 830 of them earned their wealth from more than one business.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228067

 

/by
, , , , , , ,

Social Media Strategy in 8 Steps

When working in an industry like social media you can’t create strategies for the present. By the time you complete your marketing strategy, all the tools and networks you rely on will have changed. In order to be strategic and be ahead of your competitors, you have to look into the future. What trends are on the horizon for social media? What’s coming next that we need to prepare for? Here’s what we think:

Step 1: Build an Ark

Nobody should “own” social media strategy in your organization. Social impacts all corners of the company, and should be more like air (everywhere) than like water (you have to go get it). Thus, the first step in the process is to create a cross-functional team to help conceive and operate the rest of the strategy.

 

Step 2: Listen and Compare

It’s an old social media strategy chestnut by now, but “listen” is still good advice that’s often ignored. The reality is that your customers (and competitors) will give you a good guide to where and how you should be active in social media, if you broaden your social listening beyond your brand name.

 

Step 3: What’s the Point?

Yes, you can use social media to help accomplish several business objectives. Butthe best social media strategies are those that focus (at least initially) on a more narrow rationale for social. What do you primarily want to use social for? Awareness? Sales? Loyalty and retention? Pick one.

 

Step 4: Select Success Metrics

How are you going to determine whether this is actually making a difference in your business? What key measures will you use to evaluate social media strategy effectiveness? How will you transcend (hopefully) likes and engagement? Will you measure ROI?

 

Step 5: Analyze Your Audiences

With whom will you be interacting in social media? What are the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your current or prospective customers? How does that impact what you can and should attempt in social media?

 

Step 6: What’s Your One Thing?

Passion is the fuel of social media.

It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you sell, your product features and benefits aren’t enough to create a passion-worthy stir. How will your organization appeal to the heart of your audience, rather than the head? Disney isn’t about movies, it’s about magic. Apple isn’t about technology, it’s about innovation. What are you about?

 

Step 7: How Will You Be Human?

Social media is about people, not logos. 

The mechanics of social force companies to compete for attention versus your customers’ friends and family members. Thus, your company has to (at least to some degree) act like a person, not an entity. How will you do that?

 

Step 8: Create a Channel Plan

Only after you know why you’re active in social at all, and how you’ll measure social media strategy success should you turn your attention to the “how” of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the rest. This channel plan should be distinct, in that you have a specific, defensible reason for participating in each.

 

/by
, ,

Promoting Yourself Through Social Media

Sharing your posts via social media should be one of the first things you do when you are looking to showcase new content on your blog. It is important to share these updates on social media sites because it builds brand awareness, helps to increase traffic on your website, and is great for reader engagement.

 

Here are a few tips to help you make the most of your blog posts to successfully promote yourself.

  •  Select what social media platforms you want to use to help promote your blog. Base your choices on what works best for you and what you feel comfortable with, but try to choose more than one type of social media platform, this will allow you to reach a variety of readers. Facebook is wonderful for promoting new content with text and image, Twitter is great for short and sweet bursts of information and links, and Pinterest is mainly used for eye-catching images and graphics.
  • Write as if you are sharing information with a close friend; blogs should be informal, simple, and friendly. Writing like this makes it a little more fun and you don’t feel so pressured to come up with super structured dialect.
  • Ask questions you genuinely want answered and don’t be afraid to interact with your readers. A lot of people are probably visiting your blog because they have interest in your posts and what you have to say, so conversation should flow pretty naturally.
  • Update your blog regularly! Keep people interested in your website by providing new content as often as possible.

 

In the end, if you feel good about what you are posting on your blog, share it! Once you develop your own little online community, people will be watching for your updates. It may feel a bit forced or uncomfortable at first, but practice does help.

 

 

Source: http://www.hollymariedesigns.com/promotion-social-media/

/by

New changes to Facebook’s Algorithm

Facebook is always making changes to the look, feel and back-end and the system and profiles. This article came out yesterday on HubSpot about  5 Ways You Can Capitalize on Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm Update We wanted to touch on this real quick, as a social media management company we are always making sure with the tools and strategy we are using that our clients posts are coming up in peoples news feeds on a daily basis. This can be a very difficult task to achieve for some people.

Here are the 5 steps HubSpot talks about to read this article in full please click here 

5 Marketing Takeaways From the Facebook News Feed Update

1) If you’re using Facebook for lead generation, you need to make sure that every post counts.

With the new Story Bumping feature (which resurfaces older posts that you may have “missed” to the top of the News Feed), you have even more opportunities for your content to be resurfaced to your Fans — that is, if it’s good.

We’re guessing that visual content will be even more important than it already was, as photos get 53% more likes than the average post — so figure out how you can make the most of your images and cover photo updates to benefit your Facebook lead generation. If you’re trying to reach your Fans in order to generate leads, really think about what content would be most engaging; you might end up staying in the News Feed for longer than you used to. (And if you need a few ideas to jump-start your lead generation creativity, check out this blog post.)

2) But if your Facebook posts flop quickly, you’ll have more chances to get it right.

On the flip side of Story Bumping, if your content isn’t performing as well, it will be pushed down much more quickly. While at first glance this means that your content must perform well — and perform well fast — to remain in the News Feed, it actually is a positive thing. According to EdgeRank Checker, Story Bumping will decrease the effect of Time Decay — which means if you’re swinging and missing with Facebook content, you’ll have more opportunities to test content to engage with your audience.

3) At the same time, you could also get knocked for posting a flurry of updates … so find a delicate balance for your Facebook posting schedule.

That being said, once Facebook gets the Chronological by Last Actor feature right, flurries of updates will get grouped together in the News Feed … which means your individual post engagement (and potential for lead generation) could decrease. With this new change, you should really monitor your posting frequency to make sure you’re not posting too much. Plan out spaces between your social media updates accordingly and then test to see if you can adjust the timing between posts to increase engagement and conversions.

The good news about the overall algorithm update is that it won’t help people who send out spam update after spam update, as they’ll get removed again and again from the News Feed.

4) Throw out impression-based metrics: Engagement is king.

The whole Last Actor part of the algorithm is a huge indication of the core metric Facebook values: engagement. So while “post reach” is an interesting metric you may want to keep an eye on, Facebook seems to care more about people actually interacting with your Facebook content. This is a huge win for small businesses or companies who have small Facebook Company Page followings — focus on engaging people with your posts, and you should appear in their News Feeds more often.

5) Supplement your efforts with Facebook advertising to potentially increase engagement.

If you’re trying to ramp up your engagement metric but your current fans’ engagement isn’t enough, you might want to consider testing Facebook Ads. They could help you reach a new audience that would love to engage with you — again, taking advantage of the Last Actor metric. Also, keep in mind that the Story Bumping feature does not affect ads on the News Feed — ads are determined by a different algorithm. If you need help getting started with Facebook ads, check out this free ebook.

The moral of the story all comes down to one thing: with all of these changes, you need to test what works on your Company Page with your Fans. What works for one marketer in one business could completely fail in another. So get testing — with the right data, you’ll start increasing your Facebook engagement and leads in no time!

We love getting updates from HubSpot!

/by
, , ,

Where and Why to Publish Short-Form Content

Smart content marketers know that constantly producing content can feel like trying to feed a beast with a nearly insatiable appetite. If long-form content like ebooks and whitepapers is a meal, then short-form content is like a snack, providing bite-sized information that’s easily digestible.

Both long- and short-form content should be part of your marketing menu, but the beauty of short-form content is that it lends itself to a variety of formats and can be repurposed into longer pieces. On top of that, short-form content can often be produced and distributed more quickly than longer pieces that require extensive planning and research.

Here are some examples of short-form content and tips on how to use them:

  • Blog posts and articles: Blog posts and articles can take a variety of forms including round-ups, reviews, or Q & As. For instance, Eloqua posted a round-up post of marketing tips from the Content2Conversion Conference in New York City earlier this year. Publish content on your own blog or provide it as a guest post with a link back to your blog or website. When posting on your own blog, make sure there’s an easy way for readers to subscribe via RSS or email so they’ll stay engaged with your content. Blog posts and articles published on your own site or elsewhere can be easily shared on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and email newsletters.
  • Curated content: Finding and sharing outside content that’s relevant for your readers helps position your brand as an industry thought leader. You could share links on social media or link to other sources on your blog with added commentary explaining why the topic is relevant to your readers. Companies in virtually every industry find curation useful. The Oregon Wine Board curates news on the state’s wine industry, including tasting events, legislation that’s applicable to growers, and more. And in its news section, Lawyers.com shares infographics, quirky news items, and other links of interest to the legal profession. Our Content Curation Look Book contains several other real world examples of companies large and small that use content curation effectively.
  • Podcasts: Not everyone wants to consume content through reading, so offering content in an audio format like a downloadable podcast lets them listen in as they’re driving, cleaning, working out, or otherwise going about their daily lives. Marketing expert Heidi Cohen lists the benefits of podcasting for content marketers, among them extending your content’s reach beyond your blog. One format that works well for podcasts is having a conversation or question and answer session with an expert guest. With the right host, a solo podcast works as well. Podcasts can be posted on your blog and made available as a free subscription through iTunes such as theContent Marketing Podcast by Rachel Parker.
  • Videos: A growing number of internet users now watch videos on their smartphones or tablets, making this a great format for relaying information to users on the go. Post videos on YouTube or Vimeo and include relevant tags and keywords so users can easily find them. Videos can also be embedded on your blog, pinned to Pinterest, posted on Facebook, and shared in a variety of other ways. KnowledgeVision posted a video of a skype interview and also weaved highlights of the video into a blog post.
  • Webinars: Webinars are a great way to drive email signups and demonstrate your value to current and prospective customers. Content for a webinar can be repurposed from other formats such as a blog post or ebook and polls or surveys completed during the webinar can provide fodder for new content pieces. Create a hashtag for your webinar and encourage attendees to tweet tidbits from the webinar to help build buzz. We hosted a content marketing webinar with Eloqua last year and wrote a blog post as a follow up to the webinar.
  • Infographics: Thanks to popularity of big data and visual platforms like Pinterest and Visual.ly, infographics are all the rage. You could create an infographic based on data your company has collected or synthesize data and other information from a variety of sources to tell a compelling story. Include your company’s logo in the infographic so that the original source is clear when it gets shared. Post your completed infographics on Pinterest and Facebook and encourage other bloggers in your niche to share the graphic with their readers.

Tell us! How have you used short-form content to build brand awareness and engage readers? Any other formats you’d add to the list above?

/by

Inbound Marketing… Huh?

what-is-inbound-marketing

Inbound Marketing: Any marketing tactic that relies on earning people’s interest instead of buying it. Inbound marketing means creating and sharing content that is specifically designed to appeal to your qualified prospects. The content keeps these dream customers and businesses coming back for more until they are ready to make a purchase.

We’ve put together this list of what we consider to be Inbound Marketing. Which tactics do you use for your business and how have you seen them increase your website traffic?

 

/by

Creating a Social Media Strategy

Social media can seem very time consuming when you are getting started with it either for personal use or even more with business use. As a business owner it is so important that you have an online presence, it is your reputation these days. If someone is searching for you, and they can’t find you online, then you may be losing customers and business. If you are just getting started with social media you need to make sure you have a strategy behind what you are doing. Here are a few tips to help with your social media strategy:

# 1 – Know what your goals are going to be

When you are starting to market online with social media you need to spend some time figuring out what you want to put into social media and what you want to get out of social media. Really take time to write these things down. Be realistic, most people think since you have a Facebook page that your phone is going to start ringing off the hook that is not the case!  Sometimes your business and your personal life on social media can easily blend and distract you from your real goals, so it’s important to know where you are spending your time, and what tactics work to earn you more business. Figure out how much time you are willing to spend each day to put into social media, we usually recommend an hour a day. Use a time block that will work for you and your schedule. For example, if your goal is to use Facebook to drive more traffic and leads to your blog then make sure you are blogging frequently so people want to read your blog!

# 2 – Building an online Brand- Know your audience.

For some people and companies, it can take some time to really understand what your brad is. Having a clear picture on what your brand is and who the audience is, and then you can choose the right social media platforms, that you feel would be the best for your brand.  Remember, if you can’t be on a platform, and do it consistently well against your local competitors, figure out which ones you will choose to focus on.

 

# 3 – Measuring your success – ROI

When it comes to analyzing your return and success, this is one area that is peoples least favorite and most often overlooked. The ONLY way you will be able to see if social media and Internet marketing are working for you, is to be analyzing it! From Search Engine Optimization (SEO), blog traffic, referrals, mobile and social media, having a firm understanding of how and when you reach your audience is the best way to know what social media efforts are paying off. Which content is popular? What gets shared the most? Do you ask how the callers on the other end of the phone how they found you? (A lot of companies DO NOT ask where their customers are coming from. CRAZY!)

Here are some basic steps:

  • Set up Google Analytics on your blog. Take one to two hours familiarizing yourself with the various free tools, real-time traffic, social referrals, and mobile activity.
  • Do research on hot keywords for your business through Google Here is a great tool for Twitter on hashtags http://tagboard.com/
  • Use social media measuring tools like Hootsuite to help you understand who is retweeting you and following you.
  • Did traffic increase when you started doing more posts on LinkedIn? Did your use of Pinterest for 30 days increase views of your website? Get your coffee, a quiet morning once a week, and analyze. You’ll be doing more for your business than more than 80 percent of marketers on social media!

# 4 – When is it time to try something new?

The one thing you can always count on with social media is it is constantly changing, as are the consumers who interact with them. Be watchful of these trends, not the ones of those you compete with in the industry. It’s very common as an industry to follow our crowd of opinions and do something because someone said it was a groundbreaking new technology, or suddenly everyone started doing it, or a report came out saying all the popular people in the industry were doing it. These are NOT the metrics upon which to decide a social media or marketing strategy. 

Be cautious; be analytical; try new things; have fun; be yourself; build your brand voice; and measure your success!

/by

LinkedIn Gradually Rolling Out Ability to Comment/Like Status Updates as Your Company

One of the many services that Boundless Internet Marketing offers is managing companies LinkedIn accounts. As one of the newer social media networking services, LinkedIn is constantly making changes. Most recently, Linkedin has made the decision to roll out the ability to comment/like status updates as your company. Is this an improvement, or a step back? This article explains the change, and examines the pros and cons of the companies most recent decision:

Well, it looks like this morning’s LinkedIn quick tip wasn’t the only LinkedIn feature rollout to slip through our cracks in the past several months. To be fair though, I can’t really find an official announcement about this one from LinkedIn.

 

In any event, it looks like LinkedIn is slowly rolling out the ability for Company Page admins to comment on and “like” posts on their Company Page as their company, rather than their personal profile. In other words, if our social media manager, Brittany, wanted to comment on or like a post appearing on HubSpot’s LinkedIn Company Page, she can now do so as HubSpot instead of as Brittany.

 

The Pros & Cons of Commenting/Liking as Your Company

That being said, it seems like commenting as HubSpot is now her only option. I can’t for the life of me figure out a way to swap back and forth between a personal and company account like you can with Facebook’s “use Facebook as ____” feature, and unfortunately, LinkedIn has published very little detail about the feature. Furthermore, this capability seems to be limited to the activity on your Company Page alone. In other words, as an admin, if I comment on or like another status update on someone else’s personal profile or Company Page, I’d be commenting as myself even though I’m an admin of the HubSpot Company Page. Believe me — I tried it. (Sorry for the somewhat fake comment, Bob and IMPACT.) 😉

 

So depending on how you look at it, this update has both pros and cons …

On the “pro” side of the coin, the ability to comment/like as a company is beneficial to a social media manager like Brittany because it allows her to keep her personal and marketing use of LinkedIn separate. Furthermore, it shows other visitors to yourLinkedIn Company Page that certain comments and likes are officially from HubSpot, leaving the guesswork out of it and making your page look more professional.

On the flip side of the coin, the ability to (only) comment/like as a company sort of makes things a little bit less personal. And in social media, personalization is kind of what it’s all about. At least when Brittany had to comment as herself, she could manually denote that she was HubSpot’s social media manager in her comment.

How to Use the Feature

Considering you really don’t have any choice on the matter right now, you might as well know how it all works. And it’s pretty simple really.

You’ll know if you have the ability to comment as your company if you’re an admin of your LinkedIn Company Page and you see this banner atop the page. If you don’t see the banner, the feature hasn’t been rolled out to you yet (or you’re not an admin), and you’ll have to be patient. Unfortunately, LinkedIn doesn’t seem to have made any mention of when it will be rolled out to everyone — just that they’re rolling it out gradually.

 

Step 1: Make sure you’re an admin of your LinkedIn Company Page. If you’re not, you’ll need to ask an admin to designate you as one in your page’s settings.

 

Step 2: This is literally the last step. Just leave a comment on your Company Page, and it will show up as being from your company, accompanied by your company logo. Easy, right?

Article S0urce-

http://blog.hubspot.com/linkedin-rolling-out-commenting-liking-as-your-company-nj?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=9629097&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9zHE7HOT5p_45drTdQUL6cSopulZ7JaM1p8iN0Ft0NrdVx0fgfOjcPTMPD8TPztcxbFeJMhXxmLte43Io7M3WM4ll1wdc5kYUZfq0c0vmssLVa3Qc&_hsmi=9629097

/by

10 important steps to your LinkedIn Profile

With over 175 million users, LinkedIn is a potent platform that can get you and your business the attention it deserves.

The following 10 steps will walk you through the process of building your LinkedIn network. These steps will help you optimize your LinkedIn presence for networking, marketing and growing your business.

1. Post Your Head Shot

It’s a Social World, if you don’t post a professional-looking headshot, your visitors will think you must be hiding something!

2. Write a Compelling Headline

Instead of just listing your current job title, write (120 character maximum) a compelling headline that describes what you do. Use keywords that will attract your ideal followers. (Insert Keywords)

3. List your Experience

Post your current and 2 most recent past positions. Describe the positions and your role. Use the keywords from your compelling headline.

4. Complete the Summary

The LinkedIn Summary is the place where you can communicate who you are and how you help people. Write your summary in the third person, as too many “I”s may appear self-effacing. Google picks up this section, be sure to insert keywords here!

5. Get Endorsed

List the skills you want your LinkedIn connections to endorse. You receive endorsements when your connections click on the + sign next to each of your particular skills. These endorsements show up on your profile in the Skills & Expertise section. That is why it’s important to complete the Skills & Expertise section with keywords that people in your target market will be searching for to find folks with your experience and background.

6. Request Recommendations

Recommendations require a bit more effort from your connections, as they are LinkedIn’s versions of client testimonials. So, choose your biggest fans and ask them to write you a recommendation.

#7 Complete the Organizations Section

Each organization is hyper-linked to other users who are also members of your listed organizations.

#8 Customize Your LinkedIn URL. 

Edit your URL (located under your profile photo) with your name. For example, mine is www.linkedin.com/in/amberirwin/ . This helps search engines if someone is searching for your name.

#9 Customize Your Website Listing

Located in the “Edit Contact Info” section under your profile box. Chose “Other.”  Edit and name your website.

#10 Make Your Profile PUBLIC TO EVERYONE

Congratulations! Having a completed LinkedIn profile is the most effective way to communicate your background, experience, talents and interests. With a completed profile, you will demonstrate your social saavy!

What to do next:

  • Make sure your profile is 100% completed
  • Create business page
  • Add connections
  • Upload contacts list
  • Get involved with at least 5 good groups
  • Post to those groups as a discussion 1 time a week

 

/by

Your Marketing Voice has merged companies!

I am very excited to announce as of July 1st, 2013 Your Marketing Voice and Boundless SEM have merged companies to Boundless Internet Marketing Solutions AKA The BIMS Team. We manage everything from social media, blogging, videos, PPC, Facebook Ads, lead tracking and much more! We would love to bring your company on as a client and manage your Internet Marketing campaigns. For more information about what we do please visit that website http://thebimsteam.com/

/0 Comments/by