8 Content Marketing Practices That Power Your Impact

8 Content Marketing Practices That Power Your Impact
LinkedIn Finally Adds Sponsored Updates
How Entrepreneurial Women Can Forge Global Partnerships
Apple Program Addresses Faulty Third Party Adapters
Boost Your Productivity With a Portable LED Monitor From AOC

Posted: 13 Aug 2013 04:00 PM PDT

content marketing practices

Have you Googled yourself lately?

Go ahead do it now. I do it regularly to get a sense of how my content and marketing is being represented in the online world. Google brands us as we tell it to. It only publishes what we put out there, so if you want to be found and known for certain things – then that is what your content should reflect.

As someone who works with small businesses, entrepreneurs and professional consultants, I do a lot of educating, inspiring and helping them build a ”content marketing culture”. This foundation for small business branding and success is vital.

We have officially shifted from the sell first model to the serve first model. What content marketing does so well is help build trust much more meaningfully and personally. Content marketing and the tactics used to publish, share, attract and engage, power your brand impact and reach.

If you don’t create it, there’s nothing to be found. So create it and be found.

Content Marketing Practices: Power Your Impact and Reach

1) Make a Commitment

Whatever you decide is the best content strategy for you and your business, make a commitment to doing it. Don’t overwhelm yourself with big, lofty, long term goals. Best to keep them SMART, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

The key here is achievable and realistic, which could mean a few content activities in short term blocks, like 3 months.

2) Be Consistent

Turn your commitment into a consistent activity. Daily content is the high end of the scale and not for everyone. If you can create and publish a few times a week or even a month, then stick to that and it will build traction for you.

It’s amazing how even moderate activity gets picked up when it's consistent, key worded and relevant.

3) Focus Your Content

What expertise, values and affiliations do you want to be known for? Whatever that is, is what you should be creating content around. From food, fashion, business and technology to medical, money, manners and fun, your blog, books, social media posts, Web copy and videos should focus on your knowledge, perspective and experience.

4) Customize Your Content

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to content medias and tactics. Match your content to your community and the media you are on. LinkedIn and Twitter are more professional platforms. Facebook, blogs and eMarketing can be more personable platforms where you can show more personality, have more fun and post pictures.

Watch, study and emulate others that are active and getting engagement.

5) Be Strategic

Plan, develop and be very strategic about articulating the focus of your brand, what you do and stand for. With the massive barrage of information we get hourly and daily, “being strategic” gives you the best chance of standing out and being remembered.

Less is more, so focus on a few strong ideas, aspects and takes that you want people to take away.

6) 60/20/20 – Educate, Inspire, Sell

Sales and selling still rank high on the process and results scale, but we are doing this very differently today. Yes, asking for the business is important but building relationships is what paves the way for asking.

The biggest mistakes people are making today are sending mass spam sales emails or social media posts trying to sell with no relationship. Please, don’t do this.

7) Show Heart and Kindness

Professional fundamentals blended with personal fundamentals drive the “why.” People do business with people – not companies. Big or small, it still comes down to personal relationships.

Show people who you are and they will remember you for how you make them feel.

8) Use Words That Convey Trust

I registered the hashtag #trusthewhy as my synonym for the importance of relevance, solid fundamentals and values on all levels. The WHY is about being prepared for change, making transition a way of life, being current, following best practices and being authentic. Much of the content I publish is about those things and this hashtag now aggregates my content when I include it. Do you have a hashtag that represents your fundamentals and values? Create one and start adding it to your social media, so people will find you.

What content marketing practices work best for you and have powered your impact?

The post 8 Content Marketing Practices That Power Your Impact appeared first on Small Business Trends.

LinkedIn Finally Adds Sponsored Updates

Posted: 13 Aug 2013 01:30 PM PDT

Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are all doing it, so LinkedIn was bound to follow suit. The professional networking site recently announced the introduction of Sponsored Updates with a few sample posts from Mercedes-Benz USA and Adobe.

Introducing the new feature on the official LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Blog, Linkedin Vice President of Product Management David Hahn explained:

With more than 3 million Company Pages on LinkedIn, companies, organizations and institutions have emerged as highly valued sources of relevant content on LinkedIn. Sponsored Updates enable these entities to build relationships by delivering their content into the homepage feed of members beyond those who are following their company.

How It Works

The new Sponsored Updates on LinkedIn are similar to those offered by other social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. You can target your updates to reach any segment of LinkedIn’s premium audience including an estimated 225 million members.

To learn more, simply visit the new Sponsored Update page, push “get started,” indicate the country where your business is located and a rough marketing budget. Then hit the “contact us” button, fill out some more basic information about your needs and a customer representative will be in touch.

For now, Hahn says sponsored posts are available to businesses only through an account representative. However, he says sponsored posts will be available to any business with a LinkedIn Company Page by the end of the month.

Customers will also be able to choose between cost per click and cost per view options for their sponsored updates. They can then use comprehensive analytics provided by LinkedIn to follow and tweak their results, Hahn said.

The post LinkedIn Finally Adds Sponsored Updates appeared first on Small Business Trends.

How Entrepreneurial Women Can Forge Global Partnerships

Posted: 13 Aug 2013 11:00 AM PDT

entrepreneurial women

American women continue to embrace business ownership. As the American Express OPEN 2013 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report: A Summary of Important Trends, 1997-2013 (PDF) reports there are an estimated 8.6 million women-owned businesses in the country.

But women all over the world have also taken hold of entrepreneurship as shown by the Gender Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (Gender-GEDI) released in June and the just-released Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2012 Women's Report, sponsored by Babson College and two international universities.

According to the GEM Report there are more than 126 million women entrepreneurs worldwide. As great as that sounds the Report says:

Much needs to be done for women entrepreneurs to further boost and grow their businesses.

One of the solutions GEM suggests is that women entrepreneurs "build new collaborations and leverage ideas."

And while a great way to collaborate is global expansion, there's not a lot of that going on. According to the Report:

Female entrepreneurs in most developing regions report lower levels of internationalization than male entrepreneurs.

Women entrepreneurs in Israel (27 percent) and the developing nations in Europe (24 percent) had the highest levels of doing business internationally. Surprisingly, the United States (including Latin America and the Caribbean nations) has the second-lowest ranking among the regions coming in at a shockingly low 7 percent. Altogether, in developed economies, more men than women (except in Israel) “sell at least 25 percent of their products or services outside their national borders.”

This "overly local focus" concludes the GEM Report, "may represent missed opportunities for women," particularly in the U.S.

Don't Let the Numbers Scare You

It is possible and profitable to expand globally. One of the best ways to do it is to find partners in other nations to work with. In June at the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) conference in Istanbul, I talked with several entrepreneurial women who are doing just that.

Lauren Flanagan is the Executive Chair of Current Motor, a company that manufactures all-electric motor scooters and the managing partner of several angel funds. Two years ago, after attending a DWEN conference in Rio de Janeiro, Flanagan partnered with a Brazilian company to expand Current internationally. Next up is expansion throughout the Americas.

Flanagan says it's not hard to partner with women in other countries. She's made her international connections by finding "like-minded women open to win-win business opportunities" through organizations like DWEN, Springboard Enterprises and 85 Broads.

That said it can be daunting to work with women in another country. But, Flanagan says don't let fears of a language barrier or cultural differences stop you. "Most businesswomen from other countries speak English," she says. To build good business relationships she urges entrepreneurs "make the effort to learn at least a few common words [in other languages] and pronounce them correctly." Flanagan also believes "it's important to do some research and explore the country you want to do business in. Try to meet the locals and do as they do, instead of doing American touristy things."

Eliasabete Miranda is the president of CQfluency, a communications company that offers translation, interpretation and multi-cultural solutions to help companies do business globally. A native of Brazil, when Miranda moved her translation business to America she realized her "hardest transition was not language, but the cultural adaptation." She transformed her business to one that "facilitates true cultural understanding between people who don't speak the same language" – essentially to increase their cultural intelligence.

Miranda believes "there is no substitute for face-to-face networking" for making connections with other entrepreneurs. Miranda attributes her involvement with women's groups for the exposure that led to her being selected to participate in programs like the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women and DWEN. Participating in these organizations says Miranda, is "a source of limitless inspiration, mentors, friends and partnerships."

Do Your Homework

Miranda agrees with Flanagan that it's important to do your homework and says social media can help. When attending events she advises you to:

Get the attendee list.
Identify the people you want to potentially engage with.
“Actively listen as much as you can. . .learn early on if the person is someone you want to have as a partner.”

It's important, she adds, to make sure you and your potential partner share common purposes, values, wants and needs. She also believes language is not a barrier to partnering with a foreign company:

Fortunately, there is a language that everyone speaks – the language of doing good business.

Of course there are risks to pursuing international partnerships. Flanagan ran into problems with a previous international venture and advises entrepreneurs vet their partners (particularly their financial situation) carefully. If someone wants an exclusive arrangement she suggests you get "significant upfront payments."

Amy Millman, president of Springboard Enterprises, who also has forged several international partnerships says make sure you have a strong legal agreement with your partners. Flanagan agrees and says you need "experienced legal counsel with strong local representation in the country of interest." She suggests you "structure the deal as win-win with performance-based incentives tied to clearly defined milestones." If you need help vetting potential partners the U.S. Department of Commerce is a "great resource."

Millman and Wendy Simpson, the chair of Springboard Australia, advise entrepreneurs forging international agreements to keep an open mind:

Don't try to fit [everything] in the same box. Always be open to new solutions and be willing to reframe your message.

Miranda believes "partnerships are the best way for small businesses to expand" globally. Despite any language or cultural differences, she adds, there is a trait almost every entrepreneur shares:

[They] do business with people they trust and like. Being curious and learning about your potential partner's culture can be a huge first step to a successful partnership.

Success Photo via Shutterstock

The post How Entrepreneurial Women Can Forge Global Partnerships appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Apple Program Addresses Faulty Third Party Adapters

Posted: 13 Aug 2013 08:00 AM PDT

faulty adapters

You own a smartphone to improve your productivity and make your business more mobile, not to cause property damage or even worse death.

But reports of just such occurrences motivated Apple Inc. to offer an adapter take-back program aimed at getting potentially substandard adapters off the street.

Here’s How It Works

Participating in the take-back program couldn’t be easier. Starting Friday, just take any suspect UBS adapters for iPhones, iPads or iPods to your nearest Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. They’ll take care of the rest.

Dropped off USB adapters are disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner. For a limited time you can also replace it with an Apple USB Adapter, which the company says undergoes rigorous testing and is designed to meet safety standards all over the world.

Apple is selling the replacement adapter, limited to one per device, for a special low cost of $10. To qualify for the special price, customers must bring in their iPhone, iPad or iPod for serial number verification. Special pricing is valid through Oct. 18.

Incidents Cause Safety Concerns

Concerns over suspect mobile adapters began when a Chinese woman was electrocuted in July after answering a call on her iPhone. A similar incident with an iPhone put a Beijing man in a coma after he also received an electric shock.

Apple hasn’t been the only tech company with serious safety issues raised over incidents related to their phones either. A Samsung Galaxy S4 reportedly caught fire and destroyed a family’s apartment in Hong Kong last month. Again faulty parts not original to the device are suspected.

Fire Photo via Shutterstock

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Boost Your Productivity With a Portable LED Monitor From AOC

Posted: 13 Aug 2013 05:00 AM PDT

Recent research shows that multi-tasking is a myth. That research states that our brains cannot actually do more than one thing at a time. So when AOC reps offered to send me a 16″ portable LED monitor as a temporary media loaner for product review purposes — for my laptop no less — I balked.

Why would I bother to carry a second monitor around with my laptop?

Well, after just a short time of using this portable LED monitor (pictured), I could easily fall in love with this lightweight extra device in my bag. Here is how it starts:

First day: "Two screens is silly; I have worked with one for years."
Second day: "Hmm. This is interesting. Maybe I cannot multi-task, but I sure can switch between email or Web and document editing faster by looking between two screens."
Third day: "I get a lot more done with two screens … . Okay, I'm sold."

This monitor attaches to your laptop with a USB cable. Once I plugged in the USB cable to connect and power the monitor, I opened up the Windows 7 control panel to check the display settings. There were three main settings. I could duplicate my laptop display, extend it (almost everyone is planning to do this), or run solely on the additional LED monitor.

To be fair, I wouldn't carry this screen everywhere, especially short trips. But on trips where I know I will be hunkered down in a hotel room or making presentations in small settings, it would be a lifesaver.

Rather than have everyone huddle around my laptop, which can be pretty uncomfortable, I could simply duplicate the screen on the second monitor. Then I can turn the AOC LED monitor around to face the group. Sweet.

The “power” cable has two USB connections on one end because the manual states that you may need both USB connections to provide enough power. But I was able to run on one, even while on battery, so I was thankful for that. USB ports are often at a premium. The LED monitor is compatible with both PC and Mac.

There is at least a warning in the documentation to avoid touching, applying any pressure to the LED screen if and when you change the position or angle. I did find that it feels a bit fragile, but even with a lot of handling it is still going strong.

What I Really Liked about the AOC brand monitor:

This portable LED monitor receives both power and signal from a single USB 3.0 cable that you plug into your laptop. It does not require a separate power cord or VGA cable. Some systems require two USBs to operate the monitor and it comes configured that way.
It comes with a basic padded case that fits in a laptop bag making it easy to carry it along. Lightweight, at under 3 pounds.
It also comes with a fold-out stand on the back.
Simple to set up with plug-and-play connection. It took a couple of full restarts on my laptop computer for it to acknowledge the additional AOC display, but that's not uncommon. I probably have a lot more drivers on my system that confused it.
Excellent image quality with the LED display. Resolution is 1366 x 786.
Can be viewed in portrait mode (great for productivity) or landscape mode (perfect for PowerPoint presentations).

What I Would Like to See:

The location of the USB port is awkward. Frankly, I don't know where else they could move it, but it sits behind the fold-out stand. Once you get used to it, you remember to plug the USB in after you extend the stand.

If you have wondered about simple ways to improve your productivity, adding a second monitor might boost your daily efficiency. It does not matter what the research shows – having faster access to your applications, and more of them, helps you get more done. And if you travel out in the field on sales calls or to meet with small groups, having a portable monitor makes the experience so much better.

The AOC 16″ portable LED monitor makes it easy on the eyes and on the budget. You can find it online at Amazon and other eCommerce sites for under $100.

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