An infographic by the team at College Degree Search

And amidst all these milestones, Scott Cook and Tom Proulx quietly made history on their own, founding Intuit and creating Quicken, the breakthrough financial management software.

Here’s a look back at 30 years of technology and innovation milestones from Intuit and other tech luminaries.

Double click on the image below to enlarge.

Intuit 30th Anniversary

Infographic by Column Five

Did you know: Companies that blog have 55% more traffic to their websites?

Content marketing is fast becoming a regular marketing tool (marketers now spend 25% of their marketing budget on content marketing). And it’s having a huge impact on how consumers view and interact with companies: 68% of consumers spend time reading content from brands they are interested in.

The following infographic shows how companies are using content marketing to and how consumers interact with it.

Which type of content marketing do you find most effective? How do you use it? Let us know in the comments.

Written By Nick Steeves @ Wishpond

Is your business on LinkedIn? Do you have your company page set up to function as effectively as it could? We asked Viveka von Rosen, author of “LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour Day” to give us a few insider’s tips about how business owners can make LinkedIn work for them. Here’s what she told us:

ShortStack: There are still a lot of people who seem to think LinkedIn is only for job hunting. Can you set them straight? 

Viveka von Rosen: Even though LinkedIn was designed to facilitate business relationships from the Silicon Valley based founders, it was quickly adopted by jobseekers and recruiters. And became known as a job hunting site. But it is so much more than that! Over 225 million business professionals use it to not only source candidates, but find prospects, create partnerships, find vendors, and establish branding every day. As a businessperson, if you’re not using LinkedIn to generate visibility and leads for your business you’re really missing out!

ShortStack: What is the biggest mistake businesses make in regards to their LinkedIn pages?

Viveka von Rosen: The biggest mistake people make is using a personal LinkedIn profile as a company profile. LinkedIn has company pages that you can use to establish your company and your company’s brand on LinkedIn. There are some options available with the Company page that you can’t do with your personal profile.

• You can create targeted updates with statistics.

• You can create targeted products and services pages pointing directly at your niche markets.

• You can create banners with landing pages targeted at a specific audience – for free!

• You can highlight certain employees

• You can upload client testimonial videos

• You can make special offers

All on your company page!

ShortStack: What is the best way to use LinkedIn groups to cultivate both community and leads?

Viveka von Rosen: LinkedIn groups are great for creating relationships because they are one of the few places where you can engage and have a conversation with someone who is not a first level connection. Because groups are formed on common interests, it should be easier to engage with people you don’t yet know. Groups are also a great way to showcase your product and service – but you must make sure not to make sales pitches. Every conversation in a LinkedIn group needs to provide true benefits to the audience in order to generate trust.

If you use LinkedIn as an outbound marketing channel – you’re going to irritate people, alienate people, and maybe even get kicked off LinkedIn. LinkedIn is not for sales pitches! It is highly unlikely that you will sell your product and service just by posting an update. You must use LinkedIn to generate relationships and engage. It is from that engagement that you might make a sale.

 ShortStack: Any secrets for optimizing a profile? How about a business page?

Viveka von Rosen: I like using LinkedIn.com/skills to find LinkedIn relevant keywords – otherwise known as related skills – to optimize my profile. You will want to add these relevant keywords to your professional headline, title fields, summary section, education fields, and interest section. But don’t keyword stuff your profile. Just put the keywords in areas where they are relevant. More on creating a great profile here.

Use the targeting functions on your Company page. Both the targeted updates I mentioned earlier and the targeted products and services pages. Chapter 4 of my book LinkedIn Marketing in our day will take you through that step-by-step. It’s free! (Company pages that is – not my book!)

ShortStack: What is the one LinkedIn feature you think everyone should be using but isn’t?

Viveka von Rosen: I am enamored of the new contacts feature on LinkedIn. You can get it at contacts.LinkedIn.com.  While this new CRM system is not as comprehensive as I wish it was, it’s sure better than what we had before. I don’t have the time and space to go into it, but I wrote a series about it at my website. You can find it here. Let me just tell you it is the best tool LinkedIn has released in a long time! It will allow you to organize, make notes on, engage with, and follow up with your connections in a way that was not possible before! And it’s free!

ShortStack: Who is doing LinkedIn pages right?

Viveka von Rosen: I recommend looking at the company page MLT creative has created. They are a client – but they also did an excellent job! Hubspot has a great company page as does the Social Media Examiner. Take a look and learn :-):

• MLT

• Hubspot

• Social Media Examiner

The cliché is true – time is money. And the big secret to getting the most out of your website is quite a simple one.

You need to keep the momentum going and make sure that you are in a position to smoothly go through the project efficiently and end up with a successful website launched (and with it taking up as little of your time as possible).

It always sounds easier said than done doesn’t it? Well there’s a little known way to make it easy. In fact, it’s truly obvious once you think about it. You may have just been in denial because it sounds awfully like hard work.

And you know what, we’re not going to lie. It is hard work.

But it’s always completely worth it.

Plan properly now and save time later

Pull one or two long meetings right now and you will save yourself a lot of time and money. By thinking properly about your aims, and thinking ahead to what questions your designer will ask, you will end up with a stronger initial concept that matches your needs which naturally leads to a shorter, smoother project.

Your first planning session (pre-logo, or redesign)

1) Write/ go over your business plan. Look at your objectives and how you plan on increasing your sales

2) Think about how you can develop or tie-in your brand to help you achieve your business goals.

3) Think about how your logo can be the best platform for your brand and for your message

Deliverables:

• Write/tweak/redraft your business plan
• Write/tweak/redraft your brand values and outlines
• Write up your logo design brief

OR – if you already have a business plan, brand and logo that you are 100% happy with then proceed to the next step.

Your second planning session (pre-website)

4) [Deciding your call to action] Think about what action you want customers to take after looking at your website

5) [planning your content] What information do your customers need to see in order to be persuaded to take your call to action?

6) [planning your website design brief] Think about the main message you want to get over. Do you have any ideas about how to display this visually? (don’t worry if not – your designer should be able to help you with this).

Deliverables:

• Write up/redraft your content for the website
• Write up your design brief (most designers will provide you with a questionnaire)

These two planning sessions could be as quick as a few hours (obviously allowing extra time for one person to write up the plans, content and design briefs as necessary – but those tasks can be delegated with confidence once all the decisions have been made). It’s time well spent as these questions will be asked of you anyway and if you aren’t prepared and busy in the necessary day-to-day running of your business then your website project will inevitably start to stall and lose momentum. In fact, a fairly simple website can be stalled by months for a lack of good planning in the beginning where you can easily put aside time.

Work hard (and efficiently) and you’ll find yourself working a lot less to realise your next big goal of getting a stellar website up on the internet and bringing you in new business.

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Connected customers in the information age with a ‘web of voices’ expect Innovation to be both faster and surer. For businesses, Innovation is not only about differentiating from competitors but more importantly about gaining value stickiness from customers – immediately and consistently.

Time-to-market has a younger cousin now – time-in-market. There are 2 key dimensions to Innovation Stickiness.

1.) Inside-out view on Innovation stickiness:

Innovation starts with spotting the new wave by being connected to the market and the last mile is about ensuring the Innovative product/service is a success. With the ‘web of voices’, continuous failures would only lead to a buzz of negative views about the company, making it an uphill battle for the next launch. Technology can help make Innovation faster and surer – In-memory computing, Big data analytics, Cloud etc can help companies with the following steps

• Big Idea: listen to the market, pick up trends to ask new questions internally and come up with the next Big Idea(s).

• Better Business case: speed up the innovation process based on market data – quickly move from right Idea to Innovation.

• Insure your Innovation: test market the innovation, leverage real-time insights and get customers, prospects, employees on company’s side to advocate, arbitrate and increase the probability of success.

• Power your Innovation: IT engines don’t have to be custom-built/proprietary on-premise, simply secure cloud based enterprise solutions to quickly achieve a whole new IT model and drive time-to-market,

The way these 4 steps are handled will determine whether Innovation is Incremental or Transformational; handled poorly, then perhaps no Innovation at all. In terms of incremental Innovation, high processing speed (Points 1, 2, 3 from above) and even medium IT ‘turn-around’ speed (Point 4 from above) will make the difference between the product ‘sequel’ making an impact or some other company leapfrogging. In terms of Transformational Innovation which does not only involve product/service innovation, but also business model innovation, a high score across all 4 points above is critical.

Today we have In-memory, Big data analytics, Cloud solutions that makes it possible to carry out all these steps in a faster and surer way. Imagine what this can bring to a digital enterprise – Simplicity( which is the core of the business).

Software functionality and business processes are no longer the differentiators as it was in the time-to-market dominated era, in the new digital era Innovation stickiness (time-in-market) is key.

2.) Outside-In view on Innovation stickiness:

There are 3 E’s from a customers’ point of view that are crucial.

Effectiveness

Imagine large retailers like Walmart with more than 4000 retails units in America or large ecommerce companies, banks – the amount of information that’s collected from transactional data (say billion plus records of sales data), browsing data and trending data in the region could be analysed in real-time to run highly effective campaigns and do campaign course correction to offers in real-time. From a customers’ perspective this is fantastic as the company is helping them achieve something in line with their preferences, its time saving and reduces research effort.

With in-store maps gaining popularity amongst customers to help them locate products or price comparison apps; contextually relevant real-time offers, content etc are more relevant than offline coupons and material which customers don’t tend to carry with them or simply don’t read through all the coupons/product material they get.

Effectiveness is not only a front-line issue, customers looking for the right product at the right place at the right time means having a smart supply chain management as well.

Experience

Business process and functionality used to give the edge in running businesses and customer relationship management, now it’s not even omni-channel experience. Customers simply expect companies to match their product/services experience with the brand promise made – differentiation is in the experience.

In retail, though the above example is about effectiveness, with the marketing, commerce, supply-chain unit so interconnected in order to deliver a good customer experience, any slippages would lead to a social media/PR disaster, affecting the brand perception.

Similar to intuitive web designs, customers are now expecting intuitive store designs or delivery mechanisms. With more and more customers using In-store map applications to locate products, traffic heat map data could be used to map it with sales data to build an intuitive store for a good customer experience. In Banks such applications could give alerts to branch managers when a high-value customer enters the branch, so that the manager can meet them and offer a personalised service (perhaps cross-sell, up-sell)

Expectations

Continuous Innovation combined with effective customer interactions and good experience only makes customers anticipate the next launch more eagerly, creating a good pull factor. Future services/products have a better chance of being in line with or exceeding expectations due to the insights based on massive data sets across social, location, mobile, transactional information and results from running pilots.

When the market is changing at a rapid pace, crowd-sourcing plays an important role in continuous innovation. Time-to-market and Time-in-market need to go hand-in-hand by leveraging the customer, employee, influencer ecosystem to build a sustainable business and future.

Keen to hear you views.

Well, for those who missed the news last week, Twitter finally put that hassle to an end!

Twitter’s official analytics feature is slowly being rolled out to non-advertisers and Twitter has stated they’re “happy with the response thus far.” With that said, we can expect the analytics to slowly make their way to all users in the near future.

To see if you’ve been given access, head to Twitter’s advertising page and log in with your regular Twitter account.

After you log in, you should see “Analytics” in the top left corner of your screen with a drop down that gives you the option of Timeline Activity and Followers.

Timeline Activity Section

The Timeline Activity section gives a broad overview of the performance of your recent tweets and even offers the ability to break that down by “Best” and “Good” tweets (presumably, based on the number of retweets, favorites, and clicks).

Official Twitter analytics are slowly rolling out to all users (Click to view larger image)

Similar to using Facebook Insights, you can filter your updates and get an idea of what kind of topics or content appeal most to your followers.

Followers Section

The Followers section of Twitter Analytics allows you to review your account’s growth over time and also gives helpful demographic information such as your followers’ interests, genders, locations, and more.

That information is gold for marketers and brands who are constantly striving to better understand who their customers are and what they care about.

Twitter Analytics shows follower growth and interesting demographics to get to know your followers (Click to view larger image) Image Credit: Mashable

Got Access?

Have you received access to Twitter Analytics yet? Check out the analytics by logging in on Twitter’s advertising page. In the mean time, leave us a comment about what future uses you see for marketers and brands on Twitter!

Readers want to be told what to read/listen to/download first. There’s too much information out there to take it all in at once, and The Atlantic – along with most other sites – tries to provide its audience with the freshest content in the (supposedly) most accessible places. That said, Thompson and his analytics team found that the majority of readers aren’t clicking on that content; they’re clicking on the content that’s hidden all the way at the bottom of the page, but under a very specific headline: Most Popular.

An interesting study conducted by two sociologists showed that people chose to download and listen to songs that were classified as “Most Popular,” even if they weren’t actually the most popular downloads of the time. Thompson triggered a realization for me: people want to consume content that others are consuming. This might not be the best content, but they trust that it will be worthwhile because it’s popular. We trust the opinions of our peers over the opinion of the site hosting the content.

I don’t always trust sites to give me what they believe is their top content; of course they think it’s great — they wrote it. Of course an artist thinks his music downloads are the best — he created them. Most Popular lists are the most community-based way to organize the content on the Internet, and that’s why people flock towards them. Most Popular lists do have a flaw, though. According to Thompson, these lists can be fixed effortlessly. The consequence of this is that readers are tricked into consuming and “liking” things that they might not have liked or found useful if not for a number 1 or 2 next to the title.

The solution:  Human curation. We need to provide readers with lists and collections of content that are popular within a certain field because they are genuinely popular to those who know about or are interested in that field. Most Popular lists on websites are generated by algorithms, making them extremely easy to game (by clicking the same content repeatedly, for instance) which in turn leads readers to believe they’ve found good content when they oftentimes haven’t. It’s the job of the curator, as a human, to let other humans know what they (the curator) are finding to be the best pieces of content on a topic — as someone who knows about a specific subject or interest.

If news sites and other content providers paired up with expert curators to create lists of content that would be popular among those with the authority to judge, then the most valuable content will naturally become the most popular content. Combining the power of fellow readers’ and curators’ opinions with the positive impact which rankings of popularity have on content consumption is the key to create an environment where the most popular content is also the best content. In that place, everyone wins!

This post has been republished with permission. View original article.

Recently I read an article about Coca-Cola’s new can that can be split in half so consumers can “share happiness.” Over the years, Coca-Cola has had big campaigns, all focused around its brand promise of fun, freedom and refreshment. Most don’t realize that Coca-Cola is the reason we think of Santa Claus as a jolly old man wearing a red outfit with rosy cheeks. He was jolly because he was drinking Coca-Cola. But those were all just campaigns. Coca-Cola’s latest campaign is “Share Happiness.” Its Happiness Truck was a nice promotional initiative to bring that idea to life, but it wasn’t completely focused on experiencing the product. Splitting the can in half, however, is the most literal delivery of its promise through the product itself. It’s so simple, but so brilliant.

Brands face this challenge: commit to delivering on a promise or commit to fighting relative sameness. In a previous post, I wrote that most companies compete in a world of relative sameness. This is as true in the consumer world as it is in the B2B world, which is why the promise your brand makes to its customers is so critical to success. It needs to be differentiated and it needs to be believable. But even more so, it can’t be delivered solely through an interesting campaign. Coke vs. Pepsi is an age old debate. Pepsi just launched its new campaign, “Live for Now,” with its Pepsi Pulse site and a new commercial from Beyonce. Coca-Cola split their can in half!

Coca-Cola has demonstrated how the entire experience of the brand can, and should, deliver on its promise. This is especially important in the B2B space, as the experience goes far beyond just the product itself. Clearly, people need to know and believe that a product or service is going to deliver what it promises. But purchasing that product or service often requires consultation before the sale and training and support after it. From the initial contact with a customer to the sale itself to delivery, installation and support, the entire organization plays a role. But they don’t always think about it that way.

I always go back to IBM. They seem to continually get it right. Their entire business was structured around “eBusiness” in the 90s and early 2000s and “Smarter Planet” now. Back in 2008, their CEO outlined an agenda for building a “Smarter Planet.” And now everything they do supports that.

First and foremost, management needs to believe in the promise, and understand why it’s important to the growth of their business. Each functional area within an organization then needs to understand their role in delivering the promise – from research & development to manufacturing to quality and regulatory to sales, distribution, technical support, customer service and so on. Everyone should understand what is required of them on a day-to-day basis and why it’s important.

When developed properly, a brand promise will not only help differentiate today, it will also provide the guidepost to the future. Providing focus for new features and releases, new delivery and/or service offerings, and new markets to go after. Otherwise, your brand will face a future of relative sameness.

It’s fairly simple: Make a promise. And make sure everyone is committed to delivering it. It’s as simple as splitting a can in half, right?

Since then, there’s been a lot of confusion about whether businesses should use:

1. a Fan Page, or
2. a Profile

to promote themselves on Facebook.

Unfortunately, a lot of businesses have chosen #2 — a Profile.

In fact, I’m betting you — yes, you — have at least 5 to 10 Facebook “friends” who are actually businesses, not people.

I know I do.

So let’s take a step back & try to figure this out.

If I’m a business owner, which should I use — a Profile or a Page?

Hopefully the answer to this question will be clear after I discuss the following:

• the differences between Profiles & Pages
• the Pros & Cons of using each for business
• whether you should convert your Profile to a Page
• how to actually covert it
• how other Facebook users can report your Profile — if it’s being used primarily for business

So let’s begin.

Profile or Fan Page: What’s the Difference?

Each person on Facebook — each living, breathing human being — is allowed to have ONE Profile.

Your Profile:

1. can be accessed via an account with login information
2. has a single “personal Timeline”
3. can be used to manage multiple Pages, Apps, Ad accounts etc. inside of Facebook

Your Profile is a kind of web passport, Social Security Number (sorry non-Americans) & personal identity all wrapped into one.

It’s is who you are online… according to Facebook, at least.

And it’s for this reason that Facebook allows you to only have one.

Here’s how Facebook describes the different functions of Profiles & Pages (paraphrased for clarity):

Facebook Profiles:

• for individual, non-commercial use
• represents an individual person & must be held under an individual name
• can be friended
• can be followed — to see public updates in News Feed

Facebook Pages:

• look similar to Profiles, but offer unique tools for connecting people to topics they care about, like a business, brand, organization or celebrity
• managed by admins who have Profiles — Pages are not separate Facebook accounts & do not have separate login information from a Profile
• provide insights to help admins understand how people are interacting with the Page
• can be Liked — to see updates in News Feed

So what are the Pros & Cons of each?

Optimization:

• Profiles are optimized for individual people to connect & interact with friends & followers
• Pages are optimized for artists, businesses & brands to showcase their work & interact with fans

Connections:

• Profiles can have a max of 5000 friends & an unlimited number of followers
• Pages can have an unlimited number of fans

Messages:

• Profiles can send unlimited private messages to “friends”
• Pages can send private messages to fans — but only after the fan has sent the first message

Limits:

• Profiles are limited to one per person
• Pages are unlimited — you can admin as many pages as you want

Apps:

• Profiles cannot have biz & marketing apps installed on them
• Pages come pre-installed with custom functionality designed for their category — developers also build a huge array of 3rd-party apps for admins to add to their Pages

Lead Capture:

• Profiles don’t allow apps for lead capture
• Pages allow you to create custom apps to gather email leads for marketing outside of Facebook

Check-in:

• Profiles can be tagged (by friends) but not checked in to
• Pages can be checked in to (if a local business) — alerting friends of the person checking in that they’re at your business

Direct Calling:

• Profiles cannot be called from Facebook mobile app
• Pages can be called directly from the Facebook mobile app — when a fan visits your page

Facebook ads:

• Profiles can only “boost” a post for $6.99 — and that’s it (no targeting)
• Pages can run hyper-targeted ads to get traffic, emails, Likes, etc.

Post Scheduling:

• Profiles cannot schedule future posts (unless you’re using a 3rd party app like Post Planner, of course)
• Pages can schedule future posts

Insights:

• Profiles do not have access to stats on posts, friends & friend demographics, etc.
• Pages can access a huge array of stats on posts, fans & fan demographics, etc.

So all in all, Pages have a lot more commercial functionality than Profiles.  Which makes sense, since Facebook explicitly states Profiles are not to be used “primarily” for commercial purposes:

From their Terms of Service:

You will not use your personal timeline [Profile] primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.

Then again… if you’re an artist, photographer, entertainer, etc., then maybe your Profile is meeting your commercial needs just fine.

In that case, is it a mistake to continue using your profile solely for commercial purposes?

In a word, yes!

It’s a mistake because you’re violating Facebook’s Terms of Service — and eventually, sooner or later, you WILL be shut down.

And that’s why you may want to convert your Profile to a Fan Page.

Why should I convert my Profile to a Page?

Here’s Facebook’s answer:

Facebook Pages offer different features for organizations, businesses, public figures, brands and organizations. It’s also a violation of our terms to use a personal account to represent something other than yourself (ex: your business).

If you’re a public figure, you can continue posting to your audience from your personal account by allowing followers. When people follow your personal account, they’ll be able to get your updates in News Feed without being friends with you. You should only add someone as a friend when you know them personally.

If you’re not a public figure and you’re using your account to represent something other than yourself, you could risk permanently losing access to your account and all of its content if you don’t convert it to a Page.

How do I convert my Profile to a Page?

Again Facebook’s words:

When you convert your personal account to a Facebook Page, a business account will be created to manage your Page.

We’ll (Facebook) transfer your current profile picture and add all your friends and followers as people who like your Page.

Your account’s username will become the username for your Page, and the name associated with your personal account will become your Page’s name. If you want your Page to have a different name, consider creating a new one.

No other content will be carried over to your new Page, so be sure to save any important content before beginning the conversion:

1. Download your timeline information. You can download a file that contains all of your sent and received messages and all of the photos and videos you’ve uploaded to Facebook.
2. Appoint a new group admin to any groups you manage. You’ll be unable to manage groups once the conversion begins.

For full access to Pages features, manage your new Page from a personal account or add admins to your Page.

When you’re ready, start converting your personal account to a Facebook Page.

Will all my Profile’s content be transferred when I convert it to a Page?

From Facebook:

When you convert your personal account to a Page, some things will be automatically transferred for you:

• All your confirmed friends and followers will be converted to people who like your new Page
• Your current profile picture will become your Page’s picture.
• Your username will become your Page’s username
• You’ll remain the admin of any Facebook Pages you managed

You won’t remain the admin of any groups or apps you managed from your personal account so be sure to add new admins before converting.

Also, content on your timeline (ex. photo albums, profile information, etc.) won’t be transferred to your Page. Make sure you download any important content before you begin converting.

*** If this isn’t enough detail, Jon Loomer wrote a great article on how to convert to a page HERE.

What will happen if I ignore this & just keep doing what I’m doing?

Honestly, probably nothing — for the time being.

But one thing you should know is that Facebook is making it easier & easier for users to report your Profile — if you’re using it primarily for commercial purposes

How users can report your Profile:

Step 1: They go to your profile

Step 2: They click on the drowdown arrow on the right side of your cover photo:

Step 3: They click “Report/Block:”

Step 4: They choose “Submit a Report”

Step 5: They select “Report XYZ’s account”

Step 6: They select “This profile represents a business or organization.”

Step 7: They submit a Report

Facebook then prompts them to send a message asking you to change your account to a page.

Step 8: They Confirm Report

Facebook wants them to be certain they want to submit the report:

They see this box after clicking “Confirm”:

Your profile has just been officially reported to Facebook.

What happens next?

Honestly, I have no idea.  But do you really want to wait & see?… while an hugely important part of your business’s online marketing hangs in the balance?

I assume Facebook will review the report, contact you & give you a chance to convert.

Or maybe they’ll just shut your profile down.

Or maybe they’ll do nothing.

In any case, once a person reports you, that person can’t do it again — they can only block you.

Our advice: Convert

If you’re using a Profile in the name of a business & as a business… please… STOP right now & convert your Profile to a Page!

If you don’t, you could lose your profile & all the connections you’ve worked so hard to make over the years.

Plus, by converting to a Page, you will gain a ton of features that will help take your business to another level on Facebook.

But what if my Brand is Me?  What if I have tons of Followers?

Great question!

If your brand is you — ie. if you are a “Public Figure” (an artist, actor, politician, consultant, “guru”, lawyer, massage therapist, etc. etc.)– then I have a different recommendation:

Use both your Profile and a Fan Page!

I’ll be writing a follow-up post to this one on exactly the best way to do this — ie. how to configure each one, how to manage your posting to both, etc.

In the meantime, please let me hear from you:

• Are you using a profile for mainly commercial purposes?
• Do you have qualms about converting to a Page?
• Have you actually converted a Profile to a Page?

I’d love to know your experience, so please sound off in the comments below.

While credit card processing fees may seem insignificant, accounting for a mere 3-4% of the sale, the addition of a per-transaction fee up to $0.20 can add up quickly, especially for merchants who make a lot of smaller sales.

A new settlement brought by retailers around the United States against banks issuing cards has now given merchants the right to pass on a surcharge to customers paying with plastic, as well as the ability to set a minimum purchase amount to cover overhead.

Still, this leaves a lot of questions and it may not be the huge victory it seems for small business owners. Not all businesses may legally be allowed to add a surcharge, despite the ruling, and it may not be in your best interest to do so.

Can You Legally Add Credit Card Surcharges?

Before you even think about adopting such a surcharge, it’s important to realize that there are still many conflicting laws across the United States as well as varying policies by different card networks.

Some states forbid charging extra for a credit card transaction, including California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Connecticut, Florida, Maine and Kansas. This already accounts for about 40% of the population in the country and a handful of other states are considering similar laws.

The issue becomes even more complicated if you have locations in multiple states. If you have even one store location in a state that bans these surcharges, you won’t be able to charge extra at any of your locations thanks to rules set by Mastercard and Visa banning retailers from adopting different payment policies in different locations.

Do you accept American Express? If so, you need to understand that this new settlement bans merchants from discriminating across credit card networks and American Express requires that all payment forms be treated equally. If you accept American Express and want to add a surcharge to Visa and Mastercard transactions, you must apply this same surcharge for debit card transactions.

Given the fact that debit card transactions have lower discount rates and fees, it can be a losing wager to levy the surcharge against customers.

Are Surcharges Even a Good Idea?

Assuming you don’t operate in a state with an outright ban on credit card surcharges, is it even a smart move to pass along these fees to your customers? Small business owners have the most to gain by charging a surcharge as the 3-4% arguably hurts them more than it does large retailers. Still, there are serious consequences to consider.

We are quickly becoming a cashless society. In 2011, only 27% of point-of-sale purchases were made using cash and, by 2017, that number is estimated to be only 23%. A growing number of restaurants and stores won’t even accept cash anymore.

If customers can’t use their debit or credit card at your store without paying a fee, they may simply go elsewhere.

Here’s another often overlooked consideration: customers tend to spend more when they use plastic over cash, which is all the more reason to make it easier for them. This well-known effect has been studied since the 80′s and researchers have found that people using a credit card actually pay less attention to prices when paying with plastic and are less likely to remember how much they spent on their card than if they paid in cash.

A Note About Minimum Payments

Until recently, minimum payments were prohibited by most card networks, forbidding merchants to set a minimum for credit card purchases to help cover their cost for payment processing.

Retailers and small business owners approached Congress, however, and got a small notice placed in the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, legally allowing merchants to set a minimum purchase up to $10, provided all cards are treated the same.

While this wasn’t part of the settlement, it’s important because that rule was expected to create a big backlash with customers, although this never materialized. It seems most consumers in the United States understand that profit margins can be very slim, especially for small businesses, and business owners risk losing money on a transaction without such a limit.

It also wasn’t adopted on a wide scale, as mostly independent and small businesses turn to this option when necessary.

The parallels between minimum payments and surcharges are there, and adding a surcharge may or may not be the huge deal it seems, depending on how much your customers spend, on average.

The Bottom Line

For most retailers, these new credit card surcharge rules won’t change very much, although small business owners may appreciate the ability to offset their costs. Still, there is a better alternative to adding a surcharge that won’t alienate customers: institute a small price change across the board to cover the cost of credit card processing and offer a discount to customers who pay in cash. In this way, you can appear generous rather than stingy to your customers and avoid losing business to competitors who have adopted the same strategy.

Boston based Inbound marketing software company, HubSpot, Inc. announced yesterday the company’s Social Inbox dashboard tool will be capable of integrating with all LinkedIn company pages as of June 17, 2013.  The company’s announcement makes them one of the first official software companies to take on the initiative. The announcement also means content on Social Inbox is now publishable on Twitter, Facebook, and the entirety of the LinkedIn suite including profile, company, and group pages.

HubSpot CMO, Mike Volpe, said the company was focused on providing the LinkedIn service because current market data shows LinkedIn provides higher visitor-to-lead conversation rates than any other social channel. The information is interesting to many of those who thought Facebook or Twitter was ahead of the rest when it comes to lead generation.

The much-welcomed addition to HubSpot’s Social Inbox means the software can provide a more whole and personalized interaction between users across most big-time social media platforms. The idea being that with the more personalized software capabilities HubSpot’s Social Inbox provides for publishing, the content is closer to the users true intention. The integration is evidence of the software company’s more recent claim that it was designed to maximize social impact of marketers while minimizing the actual time spent managing each account/handle.

Now one of only a few inbound marketing software companies that allows integrated capabilities to the three top social sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn; HubSpot will continue to develop and provide its more traditional inbound abilities that include scheduling content, viewing results, and monitoring activity with multi-platform monitoring tools.

via: Hubspot

Storytelling in its simplest form is a connection of cause and effect. Narrative helps us make sense of the world around us. In fact, our conversations are dominated by stories; researcher Jeremy Hsu found 65% of our conversations are made up of personal stories and gossip.

The power of storytelling is something so many businesses fail to realise in marketing their brand and products. When information is communicated in story form, studies show people better relate and remember it. Stories have the ability to spark emotions, whether it’s happiness, empathy, trust or anger. When listening to them not only are the language-processing parts of our brain activated, experiential parts of our brain come alive too. Stories about food activate our sensory cortex, motion stories activate the motor cortex – fundamentally our brains are more engaged when listening to stories.

Brand storytelling isn’t new; companies have used advertising to evoke emotions through storytelling for years. However the landscape has changed, the digital revolution spurred new platforms, channels and devices through which to share and tell stories, opening up greater opportunities, but simultaneously greater challenges.

How do you cut through the noise, get your stories heard and resonate with the consumer? Here are my top tips for the art of storytelling in business:

1. Uncover your stories

This question is a common one: “What does our company have to say on social media, in a case study, in a newsletter etc. and why will anyone care?” And one that we are regularly asked by clients.

Firstly, everyone has stories. It’s the day-to-day things that you take for granted, which provide great content. From your customers’ stories, events you’re attending, an exciting project you’re working on, to a new product or service you’ve introduced, stories can be found everywhere.

And why will people care? By drawing on real life examples and telling stories through characters your audience will resonate with, the stories will be ones people want to hear.

2. Get your company values across

What is your brand and company about? Do you pride yourself on excellent customer service? Are you innovative, quirky, fun or you just really believe that your products or services are great? Define what makes your company great, work out how you are least like the competition and tell that story.

3. Make them colourful

The basic principles of storytelling apply: have a beginning, middle and end. In the beginning set up your story; who, what, why, where, when; in the middle present a conflict or dilemma, followed by a solution that ends in a happy-ever-after.

Above all, a good story is one that provokes an emotional reaction. Make the listener share the pains your customers were experiencing, illustrate how your product or service will make their life less stressful, lovelier, more luxurious, and get this across through your story. Remember it’s all about them not you. You need to understand your target market and audience and engage with them as you would in real life; appeal to people’s lifestyles, problems, interests and needs.

4. Use the appropriate format

Whilst content is king, how you make this content consumable is the crux of the marketing challenge. Your stories need to be not only relevant and engaging, they must be easily digestible – whatever format they take.

A story that’s right for Facebook isn’t necessarily the content of a customer case study. Remember stories don’t have to be words; pictures, videos, infographics, polyvores, can be fantastic ways of sharing a brand story and engaging the consumer. And how are you going to deliver them? Straight to someone’s inbox, via social media, or in a whitepaper perhaps.

Consider the shareability of the content too. Consumers don’t go sharing the technical spec of your product or listing your business services to their friends. Instead they tell the stories of the benefits; the impact your product or service has on real lives. Make your stories easy to share across multiple channels and good stories will speak for themselves.

Whatever the format, it is important to use experts who have the different skillsets required for each platform, including the ability to make the content consumable and shareable, and the knowledge of the media to get your stories across.

5. Leave people wanting more

Your stories need to give people a reason to come back. If you provide a service you don’t want to give away all your tricks before a potential client is engaged, but equally you need to give enough to hook them.

Consider teasers, “watch this space,” “see the sneak preview,” “like this page to find out more”. And remember when people come back for more they need to find more stories. You may have one really good customer case study but unless there are others, it’s not believable. Meaningful, consistent content across multiple channels, will give people a reason to return again and again.

In today’s fast-paced, multi-media and increasingly social marketing environment, stories have become an essential part of crafting valuable engagement with consumers. So what are you waiting for, tell us your story.

Long -term, high-powered gurus rarely help. They do really well after you’ve got traction in your business and you’re well on your way. They’ll recommend things like giving away CDs, following certain steps for your launch, jazzing up your copy, holding a new teleseminar or sending out emails more often. Those are all good …but only if you’ve got something going already. That’s like saying, “Let’s fix the relationship” when you’ve never got out with the same guy three times.

These reasons can be painful to experience. So make sure you’re reading in a quiet, safe space. Grab the cat and take a drink of something. Then start reading.

Reason #1: People don’t care about what you have. Your topic just isn’t hot. As in, “Frankly, my dar, I don’t give a damn.”

Not fatal if you have a lot of ideas and keep testing. If you don’t have a good feel for a market place, choose a business model where you rely on data. A good example is Reach Desperate Buyers.

If you’re a techie, or willing to be a techie, you have a choice of gold mines. For instance, the WordPress theme Thesis is updating to a new version, Thesis 2.0 It’s a mystery and source of frustration to many people. If you like the theme and want to decode the mysteries of the new version, you’ve got a great business out there, and you don’t have to be very good at marketing: just know your stuff and collect testimonials. You’ll have plenty of money to hire a good copywriter.

Reason #2: You’ve got a hot topic, but nobody believes you can deliver solutions.

A fifty-something widow asked me to write copy for her new dating service, targeted to 20-somethings of a particular religion. I told her to test the waters. Did they want a gramdmother-type person organizing and hosting these events? She found that they did not. .

Alternatively, you may have created a fuzzy or inconsistent image so prospects don’t associate you with anything except confusion. I’ve been there. The solution is to take a break or wait till you get a powerful idea for a re-brand; wait till you’re sure before diving in feet first.

Or let’s say I wanted to promote myself as a fashion consultant. Stop laughing and move on to …

Reason #3: You’re not differentiated from the more established competition.

Ask your clients and prospects how you’re perceived, i.e., what makes you great. (I have some clever ways to do this when I work with my own clients.) If they say, “You’re like Guru X but smaller,” you’ve got a branding issue. If they’re puzzled by the question, you’ve got a branding and message issue.

If you’re on track with Reasons #1 and #2, it’s time to go on a treasure hunt. Book a single session with someone who resonates with you and focus exclusively on figuring out how you’re unique. Create a big, bold statement – something you feel genuinely comfortable promoting that fits “you” and also promises a client benefit.
After your first one-on-one call, try writing some copy with what you’ve learned. Ideally, you’ll get started on some copy during the consultation or shortly afterward. Sometimes your mentor’s brilliant insight will fade away as you try to capture it in copy, like a ghost that disappears when you try to capture an image. Sometimes you need more help translating the message.

I once interviewed a consultant I’ll call Georgina. I was fascinated by something I’d read in her blog and for the interview, I drew her out on the topic. My audience was riveted. Afterward, several people wrote to say, “I had heard of Georgina and been to her site. I even get her ezine. But I didn’t know that ‘s what she could do.”

Alas, I really try to avoid making a sales pitch after an interview, but I really wanted to! I did tell Georgina about the feedback, but she didn’t take the bait.

And sometimes you have to realize you got a bum steer. For instance, one branding consultant told me to push the idea of coffee and energy. It sounded good till I tried to write copy. Since I can usually write copy about anything, I had to stop and figure out what was going on.

If you haven’t guessed, there’s no client benefit. People don’t want high energy or coffee with their content. They want results. I’ve since changed the names of some of my caffeinated offers, despite the comments from so-called marketing coaches.

Reason #4: Your solution scares people away.

An internet marketing trainer insisted that his clients learn some HTML. He was skeptical of WordPress because it just didn’t have the best features from a technical perspective. People were scared: who wanted to learn HTML?

A marketing coach based her pitch on teaching clients to love cold calling. As in, “You must be kidding.”

Frankly, I am in total sympathy with these marketers. They’re right. All too often we have to give people what they want in order to get them to buy at all. Even doctors have to do this; just try explaining that a popular diagnostic test is so flawed it’s almost useless, and anyway there’s not much you can do if you get a positive result. End of discussion and patient goes doc-shopping.

Reason #5: You’re not one of the Beautiful People.

OK, about 90% of the time this complaint is sour grapes, but sometimes it’s true. It helps to be beautiful, especially if you’re female. It helps if you have a nice smile with straight teeth and a wrinkle-free face (or a good artist who can photoshop them for you). It helps if your voice is strong, confdient and pleasing.

But you’re not off the hook. You can find a business model that leaes you out of the picture, literally and figuratively. Once again, think of Alexis Dawes, author of Reach Desperate Buyers. She never shows a photo or speaks to prospective buyers via audio ro video. Apparently she’s an attractive woman with a great voice, but she doesn’t use them. You don’t have to either.
Reason #6. You’re clueless.

You’re sending out emails asking people if you can guest blog (or even trade links).

“Olga” invited me to be a guest on her teleseminar series. I said yes. Her next step should have been a phone meeting or a list of specifics, e.g., setting up a date and time, guidance on the topic, what she’d need when, and any special instructions.

Instead, Olga told me to go to her Time Trade account, find a time slot and book myself in. The time slots were confusing and I just gave up and never got back to Olga. She never followed up with me either. Her programs never took off and I could see why. She was clueless about the basics.

Mentors actually can help if you’ve identified “cluelessness” as your major (or only) stumbling block. You’ll learn the code, etiquette and secret handshake. But if you’re one of those social misfits (think of Elaine May’s character in A New Leaf), you might refer to the Reach Desperate Buyers model and stay out of trouble.

Reason #7: You hate what you’re doing but you’re determined to keep going. And it shows.

Forget mentors. Find a good life coach or therapist. This is about YOU, not your business.

Managing social media campaigns takes time and energy, so it’s understandable to want to cut back on that expenditure. With Facebook still reigning over the social empire, it could even be reasonable to think about focusing all your efforts toward just that site, and nixing other profiles and platforms.

The truth is, diversification is a valuable tool for social media. The old adage about not putting all your eggs in one basket translates to social marketing; pins, tweets, and likes are all vital.

So what are the benefits of spreading yourself out across the Internet? Utilizing multiple platforms:

1. Offers Different Benefits

Each social network offers something different to its users. Businesses can capitalize on this by taking advantage of the unique appeal of varying platforms. For example, Twitter is an excellent venue for flash sales and frequent updates; Pinterest can humanize a business, by posting pictures of the workplace and more lighthearted fare. Once you realize why users visit certain social networks and what they are hoping to get from them, you’ll have the information you need to use each one more effectively, and independently of the others.

2. Reaches Different Audiences

Some social marketing principles translate regardless of the site. Deals for consumers who engage with you—whether by following, liking, checking in, or repinning—are a standard marketing tip, and rightly so. The difference between a check-in on Foursquare and a repin on Pinterest comes down to audience. While there is a great deal of overlap among social media platforms, with many people belonging to three or even more, the engagement rate and demographic breakdown change drastically. By having multiple social media presences, you’ll reach as many people in as many ways as possible, like the growing population of online senior citizens.

3. Creates a Safety Net

The current social media giant is Facebook, as everyone knows. But there is no guarantee it won’t one day go the way of MySpace, or that any of the other contenders might take its place at the top. If that happens, you don’t want your business scrambling to build a page from scratch on the new hit site, while your competition has had an established presence there for years. When you stay on top of all the popular platforms, though it might require more work, you won’t lose out to the capricious whims of the Internet.

4. Isn’t as Hard as You Think!

Best of all, maintaining a business account on social networks isn’t as time consuming as it sounds. There are multiple applications and built-in features that will cross-post between platforms, reducing your workload and strengthening your overall social media presence at the same time. Before you shrug your shoulders and decide you don’t have the time to put the effort in, keep in mind that you may only be heavily practicing social marketing for one or two sites, and simply networking to connect to the others.

Social media platforms are like potato chips: you can’t have just one. For best results, indulge in the entire variety!

Some folks ask me — “is photography an art form?”

So instead of explaining the “yes” to the silly question. I am simply going to point them to Jose’s site or his Facebook page. And like many photographers that I have interviewed. Jose has no formal education. He is self-taught with the help of the Internet and his passion for nature and landscape.

The Interview

LBTL: You are a nature and landscape photographer what was it that attracted you to this type of photography?

JR: I’ve always been extremely passionate about nature. I was born in a small city, surrounded by endless golden plains, adorned with scattered trees, which is a traditional landscape from that region (Alentejo). There’s a strong link between the people from this region and nature, as it is one of the main sources of income for the population.

I can remember venturing into the fields on my bicycle, when I was quite young, and spending long periods of time gazing at the infinitude of the landscape, in absolute awe. I guess it’s not easy to explain why someone feels so attracted to nature, but I’m one of those people who just needs to be “there” quite often, or the “nature hangover” will quickly kick in! Nature represents our roots, it’s an extension of ourselves (or vice-versa), it’s the ultimate display of harmony and pure beauty, a teacher of precious lessons, a mother, a nurturer, and so much more…

LBTL: What was it? What was your “Ah Ha!” moment? When you decided that photography will be your creative escape?

JR: My “Ah Ha!” moment happened on the day when I decided to experiment with shooting non-snapshot photos, trying to capture the beauty of my surroundings. I decided to post some of those photos on DeviantArt (an online art community), and was amazed with the fact people started commenting on these photos, encouraging me to post more images. The full circle of sharing art was completed, and having the opportunity to show these landscapes, so precious to me, to other people, felt like heaven.

LBTL: Your images are incredibly beautiful. And it’s clear that you have a great deal of mastery over composition and post-processing. But how did you develop those photographic skills?

JR: Thank you for such kind words. The Internet was, without a shade of doubt, my most important “teacher”. I have never been a fan of dense and dull readings, and I already have enough of them in the shape of medical textbooks! Blogs, forums and online communities were by biggest source of learning, which is quite an interactive and smooth way of learning photography, as you are the one who decides what and how you want to learn something.

If I had to choose a single aspect that has really enhanced my photographs, perhaps it was watching hundreds of photos from talented photographers and reading critiques about them, as well as receiving critiques about my own work.

LBTL: Today you live in two worlds — photography and working as a doctor. Do you ever see yourself leaving the psychiatry field and pursuing photography full-time?

JR: I went to the Medical School before I started photographing, so medicine is a passion that came first. I love being a psychiatrist, and the mind/brain subject absolutely fascinates me. Working as a doctor is currently my main source of income, and it will probably continue to be, allowing me to approach photography in a totally free and independent way.

This makes it much easier to preserve artistic integrity and never feel exhausted about going out shooting and having to deliver quality images. Right now these are two areas of my life which complement each other, and I can’t imagine giving up on one of them in the near future.

LBTL: In your opinion, what 3 things, should a young photographer spend their time learning?

JR: Learning basic photography theory, learning your gear and learning about light, which means being out there, searching for the best light and trying to capture it.

Call To Action

If your passion is photography then pursue it. Regardless of what your primary job is. There is nothing worse than not pursuing a passion because of your day job.

Dos. Social media marketers need to:

1. Engage often with prospects, customers and industry thought leaders. Share, RT and comment on their content to let them know you are interested.
2. Monitor competitors’ @handles and #tags to see what type of content they are sharing and who is following them, as well as what others are saying in reference to them.
3. Be prepared and have processes in place for escalation. Social media is used today for lead gen, customer service, awareness and discovery. Make sure you have the answers in place to reply back in a timely manner or that a workflow is in place to escalate specific issues/comments that are directed at your brand.

Don’ts. Social media marketers need to not:

1. Just push out content and forget about it. Thank those that share your content and/or reply to inquiries within four hours or less.
2. Issue posts during national tragedies. Hit the pause button on scheduled posts during a national emergency. Send only your condolences or similar offerings.
3. Go overboard with self-promoting. There is only so much you can share about your company’s positive attributes before you turn people off. You need to have a varying mix of content that is shared across social channels, making sure to incorporate RTs from thought leaders and industry-related news peppered into the posting schedule.

Some companies just get social media:

@Oreo and @Tide do a good job of interjecting their brands into highly relevant topics using multimedia via social. They share graphical representations of their products, showcasing their brands in a fun, lighthearted manner that elicits response/engagement from their online communities. When humor site The Onion parodied Tide’s social accomplishments by joking about a non-existent video, Tide responded lightning-fast by actually creating the video.

Dunkin Donuts and Southwest show their support by giving a reason to insert themselves into social responsibility conversations/topics:

@DunkinDonuts – During the Boston bombing they kept their stores open to serve free coffee and food to the citizens of Boston and promoted offer via social.

@SouthwestAir- They had no flight-change fees for people trying to get back to Boston and shared this across their social channels.

Social media is still a relatively new medium that you and I alike are getting accustomed to for business marketing purposes. Who would have imagined what an integral role social would play in our personal and professional lives? Ways of communicating, sharing ideas and engaging via social is still a work in progress as the social landscape is continuously evolving.

As social marketers, we are always looking to see how other practitioners are leveraging social media to drive business forward. Join me, @PR_Maven and thought leader @DrNatalie, on Tues, June 25^th at 6:00pm PT for the #MktgActionChat where we will discuss in greater detail the social do’s and don’ts. Add the event to your calendar: www.act-on.com/mktgactionchat.

If you have any social marketing dos or don’ts to share, we’d love to hear them. Leave a comment below….

Some recent numbers from an advertising and analytics start up Optimal show that when tracking the numbers from from 4,330 brands, that Twitter followers grew at a 55% faster rate than Facebook likes.

This doesn’t mean that Twitter is overtaking Facebook anytime soon but the trend is strong and the numbers are looking good for the social media network that has made being short cool.

It is also the social media network that marketers know how to set up and brand but when it comes to effectiveness, the car is still in the garage. Many brands know what to do with Facebook and marketing strategies are well planned and executed. With Twitter the lack of self service ads until recently has made it a playmate you took out for a fun date rather than asked to marry.

Marketing needs calls to action

It’s fun to Tweet but if you want to get results then you need to ask for some action from your viewers and readers.

Twitter has run some analytics over 20,000 “Promoted Tweets” that were sampled over a 3 month period. The study looked at how various types of Promoted Tweet engagements differed depending on which types of calls to action were included in the Promoted Tweet, as compared to a baseline of Promoted Tweets including no calls to action.

Top 4 Twitter “calls to action”

These are the results showing the top four most effective “call to action” Tweets that the study uncovered.

#1. Ask for a download

Want someone to download your new ebook or app. The tweets that asked you to download increased URL clicks by an average of 13% when this call to action was included.

Twitter recommends the following to increase effectiveness.

• Give clear directions
• Provide an incentive to click
• Use hashtags sparingly to keep the clicks focused on the call to action
• Increase urgency by including a deadline

#2. Ask for a Retweet

If you provide an incentive to retweet such as Cadbury have done in the tweet below then it increases retweets by an average of 311%. As most marketers know that a contest or a sweepstake is a popular type of incentive to encourage a call to action.

Twitter recommends the following.

• Provide context
• Keep it simple, so people know exactly what you want them to do

#3. Ask for a follow

Growing your followers gives you more reach. Add an incentive to follow and you can grow your follower base rapidly. The study showed that Promoted Tweets that asked for a follow increased responses by 258%.

Twitter recommends these tips to increase effectiveness.

• Highlight the exclusive content eg “You will get exclusive behind the scenes photos if you follow”
• Provide an incentive to sweeten the offer “win daily prizes”

#4. Ask for a reply

Want a response? Then ask. You can ask a question and provide an incentive to response. Your engagement will then show a significant increase. The Twitter study showed that this increased replies by 334%.

Some tips for improved responses.

• Get personal
• Be conversational
• Combine the question with a contest

What about you?

How is your twitter marketing strategy…. still parked? Is twitter part of your social media markting tactics or is facebook all you’ve got?

Look forward to reading your insights and replies in the comments below.

Want to learn how to grow your Twitter followers?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 149,000.

Download and read it now.

Image by Shutterstock

According to the Nielsen Norman Group’s extensive Email Newsletter Usability report (based on 270 email newsletters across 6 different countries), readers feel an emotional attachment to their email newsletters.

Newsletters feel personal because they arrive in users’ inboxes, and users have an ongoing relationship with them… The positive aspect of this emotional relationship is that newsletters can create much more of a bond between users and a company than a website can.”

– Nielsen Norman Group

So how do we keep that bond with our customers and ensure we remain connected to our readers? Follow these seven steps and you’ll be golden:

1. Be informative

Being informative and relevant is the end-all, be-all in the newsletter realm. Telling useful and/or compelling stories is also how we catch up with friends. If your email looks like a newsletter, but isn’t full of valuable, interesting, educational content, then it isn’t really a newsletter, nor is it a very good friend. But what do people consider valuable content?

According to the Nielsen Norman Group, more than 40% of users said that each of the following aspects make for valuable email newsletters:

• Informs of work-related news or company actions (mentioned by 2/3 of users)
• Informs about personal interests/hobbies
• Informs about events/deadlines/important dates
• Reports prices/sales

Lisa Lillien aka Hungry Girl has an uber-enlightening daily newsletter (with more than 1 million subscribers!). If you love food, but you’re watching your weight, she’s got the know-how on just about everything including newly released low fat/cal sweets, eats & recipes. Starting with just an email newsletter in 2004, Hungry Girl today has exploded into NY Times Bestseller book deals, a Food Network TV show, and features on The Rachel Ray Show, Good Morning America and more. Looks like an informative newsletter pays off!

Here are some examples of informative content you can include in a newsletter:

• Blog posts
• Tips, tactics, how-tos, tutorials
• Industry news/third party news
• Events, dates to remember, holidays
• Interesting facts
• Reviews
• Photos
• Contests/contest winners
• Resources
• Company news – updates, improvements, new products, awards, volunteer projects, etc.
• Infographics
• Webinars and/or videos
• Testimonials
• Recipes
• Fan photos

2. Lose the (sales) hype

People like to be informed of sales, but selling shouldn’t be the main focus of an email newsletter – send your offers in promo-specific emails. Think of your newsletter as a trusted friend that your reader has let into their home/inbox. If someone lets you into their home and you instantly transform into a pushy salesman with a pitch, they’re going to think twice about opening the door for you (i.e., opening your newsletter) again. If you want to plug a sale or a product in your newsletter, do so like a friend would: “Did you know we’re having a friends and family sale this Saturday? You can save 50%!” and leave it at that.

3. Keep it brief & aim for a click

Guess how long the average person spends reading a newsletter? 51 seconds! Don’t let that get you down though – attention spans are spread thin. Keeping your content scannable with content blocks, brief blurbs, snapshots, takeaways and/or bullet points and including call-to-action buttons will give your readers’ eyes a scanning sigh of relief. But remember, friendship is give and take, and you deserve something too! Satisfy your readers with just enough info, but leave them eager to learn more. Lead readers back to your site/blog/social media network for more info. The point of a newsletter isn’t to make a sale, it’s to build a relationship with your audience, to inform/educate, and snag some clicks … which, with any luck, will eventually lead to a sale.

Put clear, strong and specific calls-to-actions after each content block so your readers know they need to “Learn More,” “Read More,” “Watch the Video” for more juicy details.

Newsletters need to be smooth and easy: they must be seen to reduce the burdens of modern life. Even if free, the cost in e-mail clutter must be paid for by being helpful and relevant to users – and by communicating these benefits in a few characters in the subject line.”

– Nielsen Norman Group

4. Be reliable and consistent

Flaky friends – We have them, love them, but they’re unreliable, unpredictable, and the more they flake, the less likely we look to them for friendship. The same goes for your newsletter. If you tell readers to look for your newsletter each week, you better be there. Pick a frequency, whether it be daily, weekly, monthly, etc. and stick to it. Make sure to tell readers on your opt-in form just how often they can expect to hear from you – some people don’t like surprises, last minute drop ins or no shows.

69% of users said that they look forward to receiving at least one newsletter, and most users said a newsletter had become part of their routine. Very few other promotional efforts can claim this degree of customer buy-in.”

– Nielsen Norman Group

5. Have a Compelling Opening Line

First impressions are important for establishing any type of relationship, professional or personal. How you introduce yourself to someone can either pique or fizzle his or her interest in continuing a conversation. The same goes for your email newsletter’s subject line. If the subject line isn’t compelling, interesting, intriguing, thought provoking, etc. your reader may not make it past “Hello.” In fact, the Nielson Norman Group even found that “Some users who forwarded email newsletters on to others said they sometimes changed the subject line to make it more interesting…”

In your “From Label,” state clearly whom the email newsletter is coming from. Typically, using your company name (since it’s more recognizable than a personal name) is advisable.

When crafting up your newsletter subject line, avoid using generic lines like: June Newsletter, Your Monthly Newsletter, This Week’s Newsletter, The Insider, etc. and make sure to take advantage of your pre-header – It’s like a secondary subject line (and possibly a second chance!).

The word “newsletter” isn’t instructive or informative, and pushes valuable information-about the content-out of view in an email inbox.”

– Nielsen Norman Group

6. Respond

Nothing’s worse than talking to a friend who clearly isn’t listening – You ask a question and all you get are crickets. Using a “do not reply” email address when sending out a newsletter indicates to recipients that any responses will not be seen or answered. Allowing customers to reply to your email newsletter, and responding to those inquiries or comments lets your readers know a friend listening on the other end. You’ll also receive valuable insight, feedback, and questions that very well may improve your newsletter for next time.

7. Let them opt-out easily

Break ups are rough, but would you rather someone break up with you calmly, or unknowingly throw you under a bus? A person unsubscribing from your newsletter is just a fact of life, and it’s nothing to take personally. However, the harder you make it for someone to unsubscribe, the easier it allows them to click that seemingly insignificant “spam” button, and under the bus you go. Let your readers go easily if they so desire (they can always come back!) and make your unsubscribe link easy to find. Otherwise, sitting in a spam box will only cause your delivery, open, click through, etc. rates to go down.

Creating a personable, presentable and effective email newsletter takes work, but it creates a friendship with your customers that most marketing strategies can’t. Follow these seven golden steps, and your customers will “thank you for being a friend.”

She found a void and filled it.

As any B2B content marketer will tell you, conveying complicated concepts in a digestible way is truly an art. In this sense, Joan is an artist – and one who understands the worth of her work. In speaking with her, you’re guaranteed to hear the word “value.” Her clients recognize the value of content that’s compelling and useful in that it helps transition a reader from visitor to lead to customer. On her end, her writing has value in that it’s what she gets paid to do. These two elements are closely tied, for Joan succeeds when her clients succeed.

I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Joan, who shared her expertise on how content marketing editors and publishers can increase the value of the writing they produce, both for their clients and for themselves. Here are 5 key highlights from our conversation:

Own it.

Joan says, “I think we need to examine the organization of marketing in companies.” It used to be that all public messaging could go through marcom. But now, customer service has a Twitter account, marketing has a Twitter account and a Facebook page, and leadership is spouting off on LinkedIn. This siloing needs to stop, she says, and someone must own all the content from blogs to YouTube. She is calling for the creation of a Media Center of Excellence in organizations. Basically, many cooks can add their unique touches, but only one chef should choose the cuisine.

Use the “So What” Test.

Whatever your idea for a piece of writing, she recommends you ask yourself, “So what?” “Sure, your product does X, Y and Z, and it does it in 5 seconds. Well, so what?” When you can answer that question, you actually have something to say in your writing, and readers will find it relevant.

Don’t lose touch.

Content marketers are voracious readers. With such an overload of dialoguing at the speed of light, we can sometimes cut corners and get hooked on current trends, entirely losing sight of our marketing purposes. Joan recently edited a piece of writing that was full of buzzwords and content marketing cliches. These pitfalls exist in every industry. She reminds writers to identify the difference between a buzzword and something that adds value to the topic.

Streamline the messy.

The creative element of writing is messy. “Let it get messy,” says Joan, but don’t let a disorganized process get in the way of efficiency. Streamlining the communication, approval, and distribution of content will save you a lot of headaches and, more importantly, it will save you money. Full disclosure, I met Joan when she shared her thoughts about Kapost on Business 2 Community. A client of hers began using the software to streamline the content marketing process from ideation to social media promotions. By tidying up the workflow and organizing the process, she was able to make more money per piece of writing because she wasn’t wasting time with tedious (and costly) tasks.

Serve sales.

To stay on top of her field, Joan reads a lot of sales blogs. While she is not directly in sales, she sees her role as supporting sales and helping them close more customers. Recently, she was asked by a salesperson, “Is one more white paper going to help me meet my $2 million quota?” It’s a great question, and one that identifies a common division between marketing and sales. To bridge the gap, content marketing folks should ask themselves some questions: When is a good time to hand off this contact to sales as a lead? What keywords can I use to increase visibility of this piece to drive sales? How is sales framing our product and how can I align what I do to support that effort?

In her thirteen years freelancing, Joan has worked with a myriad of clients. Across all industries, the need for valuable content – content that marries the technical and compelling, converts visitors to customers, and supports sales – is consistent.

Joan Damico is a B2B copywriter and marcom consultant with more than 15 years’ experience in B2B marcom for high tech and industrial companies. She helps them leverage social media and traditional media to build brands, boost leads and drive sales. Joan is the author of Integrated Marcom Minute blog andnewsletter. She has presented copywriting and integrated marcom seminars for clients and industry associations including the American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI), Business Marketing Association (BMA), Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and has taught marcom and copywriting courses at colleges and universities including New York University (NYU). A social media enthusiast, Joan is a former community manager of the LinkedIn Group, B2B Social Media, where she took the group from 2,000 members to more than 10,000 in 18 months.

(HS) What problem does KnowledgeTree solve?

(DC) Today’s buyers are more educated on markets, products, and competitors than ever. This makes it critical that sales teams are seen as partners that add value to the conversation. One way they can do so is by providing content that resonates with individual prospects and advances the sales cycle.

KnowledgeTree answers that challenge by helping sales teams discover the right marketing content at the right time. Our rules-based discovery tools surface presentations, documents, and other marketing content that speaks to the exact information need of buyers.

(HS) Content has become the fuel for so much of marketing these days. In your view, does that flood of new content help or hinder the average salesperson?

(DC) Content Marketing is a major weapon for marketers, but it hasn’t always translated into value in the selling process. Sales teams can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of case studies, white papers, and other collateral. This avalanche of content drives “Content Anxiety”– more discontent, if you will. Salespeople can’t find the precise content that they need, when they need it, so they’ll opt simply not to offer content at all. Or, they’ll waste time looking for content. Or, they’ll use the same generic content time and time again, material that doesn’t resonate with prospects.

Salespeople need a better approach to take advantage of the wealth of content they have. We call that approach Content Selling.

(HS) How are most Salesforce users storing and sharing sales content? What are the challenges that presents?

(DC) In most organizations, content is spread across multiple locations: in the cloud, on a shared drive, on a rep’s desktop, wherever. There is no one, central repository, and as a result, it becomes very difficult for an account manager or ISR to find the content that he or she needs at the very moment it’s needed. Small wonder that 60-70% of marketing content goes unused, according to Sirius Decisions. And it’s also no surprise why we found that a major issue that salespeople have with marketing in general is what they perceive as a lack of relevant content to use in their sales process.

Most tools to date simply recreate the problem by giving salespeople hundreds of search results with no understanding for what content a rep should actually use. So reps either waste time looking for content or simply use what they’re comfortable with – the same, potentially out-of-date, untargeted content.

(HS) What can marketers do to make content more available and usable for salespeople?

(DC) The approach that we recommend is “rules-based discovery”. As marketers, we segment our messages based on which message resonates with different prospects. We build white papers for early stage evaluators, case studies for building a business case, industry papers to show vertical expertise, and so on.

The same principles apply to Content Selling. When a sales person upsells to a financial services company in Germany, certain messages will resonate better compared to a manufacturer in the US. And when a sales person is speaking to a new prospect, certain messages will be more effective compared to when speaking to someone in the final evaluation stage.

Just as marketers map content to the lead lifecycle (early, mid, late stage), they should also map content to the selling process – industries, products, sales stages, and more. But more than that, marketers need to make content discoverable in the tool that salespeople use every day – their CRM.

Secondly: measurement. As marketers, we aggressively test and measure the effectiveness of our various marketing channels using Marketing Automation tools. That same rigor needs to apply to messages and content used by sales. We recommend closely measuring the ROI that comes from content’s role in the selling process.

Then, apply “Survivor” rules. Good content that advances the sales process stays and gets promoted. Bad content leaves the island. One company we work with has used this approach to double their RFP win-rate to the tune of $7 million in incremental sales. All from helping deliver better content to prospects during the sales process.

(HS) The overwhelming trend in B2B demand generation today is for marketing to not only drive raw inquiries, but also to convert and nurture those inquiries into sales-ready leads. In that model, if salespeople are only involved at later stages of the selling cycle, what implications does it have for the type of content they need and how they need to use it?

(DC) It makes it more critical than ever that salespeople have great content on hand to serve better educated prospects. When prospects are armed with insight into the market, your competitors, and your products, they demand a partner in the selling process. Not someone who will simply throw any old content at them and expect it to resonate.

Today’s salesperson needs to have access to content that is matched to their sales engagement – content that helps him or her advance the purchasing cycle and boost the prospect’s confidence and trust. That was the biggest lesson of Content Marketing. And it’s why Content Selling is so critical.

(HS) Thanks Daniel!

For more information on the Knowledgetree solution, visit their Website or follow them on Twitter at @KnowledgeTree.

If I feel overwhelmed with social media postings, imagine what the typical data stream looks like for a corporation. Individuals aren’t the only ones who can be overwhelmed by information flow.

Today’s data managers are searching for better ways not only to contain the massive flow of big data through their servers every day, but also to help their corporations use that data in useful and instinctual ways. The best way to do that, however, can mean very different things to different people.

A recent survey by IDG Research Services shows some of the many challenges that today’s IT professionals may have in containing that data flow. While almost all managers are looking to contain costs in their data-management systems, their other needs are often quite varied. Right below cost containment lie two challenges which seem neck and neck: better real-time data management and better access and support for remote workers.

Channeling the Flow of Real-Time Data

Real-time data management has become a complex task for companies, just as my own social media habits have made my screen time more consuming. I’m not the only one that’s connected to the Internet all the time and – like me – customers and corporate officers alike have become accustomed to having the latest data at their fingertips. This means processing massive amounts of information from multiple platforms – information pouring in from desktop computers, mobile phones, tablets and the cloud.

It also means finding a platform that can sort through this information quickly for relevant data in seconds or fractions of seconds. No one wants to miss out an opportunity to woo a potential customer with a virtual coupon only to discover that she’s hungry for a burger and a beer at the PYT bar in Northern Liberties, not shopping for a new blouse at your boutique in East Passyunk Square.

Buoying Remote Workers, Whatever Their Access Points

While supporting a remote workforce may seem like a different demand entirely, at second glance, it’s also a demand that calls for many of the same skills in the scenario above. Remote workers sign on to various platforms across time zones and with numerous devices. Their workflow varies and their information needs can turn on a dime, from a quick glance at a company newsletter to a call for huge data analysis for their quarterly reports.

What both situations have in common is immediacy. Systems need to process reams of information quickly, in the most flexible ways possible. This sounds, to some, like an impossible task, especially given the overall need to contain costs above all. But customer service – and customer satisfaction – can depend on it.

Integrating a Rush of Information

So what’s an overwhelmed IT professional to do? I can limit my screen time when I’m feeling overloaded, muting Twitter streams or shutting down the laptop. They’re not as lucky. But one solution that may make things more manageable is as an integrated software platform. Dismissing the need for expensive – albeit effective – new hardware, or custom-built systems that suck up time and money, integrated software platforms turn the sheer size of that data cloud into an online advantage. By using open standards on software that can be delivered as a dedicated bundle or remotely through the cloud, IT managers have the ability to react quickly, to adapt in almost real time and to offer up-to-the-minute data solutions to customers and workers alike. Changes can happen on the fly and, even at times of peak traffic, information can be captured and re-purposed as it ebbs and flows.

Most importantly, it can all happen behind the scenes, seamlessly, allowing a company to rise above the noise of the social media world and deliver an eye-catching pitch to a potential customer.

With integrated software, a company’s data can allow them not only to identify that hungry girl in Northern Liberties the first time, but can also help them tweak a pitch that will make her consider a crosstown drive for those cute shoes at your boutique, framed in that Gmail ad she’s glimpsing while answering an email from her own client over her juicy burger. And there’s nothing virtual about that reality.

Want to learn more? Get the full scoop from IDG Research.

Now is as good a time as any to help your friends out by branding their career. Make sure they’re on the right track, so they can begin to build their own personal brand.

Here are five personal branding secrets to share with your friends:

1. Everything you do is part of your brand.

Your personal brand exists, whether you do anything about it or not. It is composed of everything you do and say. By accepting its existence, you can then decide to build it up to represent your capabilities in the professional world. Throughout your career, you need to be aware of how people see you. What you post on social media, how you behave both in and outside of work, all of these things matter. Consider how these things can help or hurt your brand. Behave professionally and you will be remembered as a professional.

2. There are many branding platforms online.

Your personal brand is shaped online by the social networking platforms you use. Think about your personal website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or wherever else you visit regularly. Make a list of the ones you think are most beneficial to you, and share these with your friends. If you are on similar career paths, these might be perfect options for your friends, as well. If you are in very different fields, think about how they can use these platforms to benefit them.

3. Consistency strengthens your brand.

If there are two key concepts one must know about personal brands, it is to be professional and be consistent. Be consistent in how you define yourself, the profile photos you publish, and the way you write your name. Carry the same consistency both on and offline. Help your friends be constant professionals. Consistency makes the people in your network (including potential employers) remember you.

4. There are many ways to network successfully.

To someone who is unfamiliar with the concept of networking, it can seem overwhelming. Help out your friend by telling them about the most successful networking experiences you’ve had. Did you connect with someone on LinkedIn and set up an interview? Did you attend a networking event and meet someone who hooked you up with one of their colleagues? Whatever it was, hearing real success stories can help others down the right path when they start networking for themselves.

5. Monitor your brand.

Once you decide the components of your brand, you are never truly finished cultivating it. You need to update it regularly and monitor how you are perceived. There are lots of sites, like Google Alerts, to help you do this. How do you monitor your personal brand? Help your friends set up ways to monitor their brand like you.

You want your friends to have successful careers, just like you, so helping them out with something like their personal brands is an easy way to do it. Plus, since you are closely associated with your friends, helping them with their brands can only benefit your own.

What other personal branding secrets would you share with your friends?

Author:

Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for job search and human resources technologies. She is also the instructor of Find Me A Job: How To Score A Job Before Your Friends, author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011) and #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.

Obviously this is extremely useful for businesses as it helps to hone the offering and reduce mistakes if processes are changed to incorporate this kind of feedback. But what about the processes that make this possible?

What is Agile?

Many companies used to use the traditional waterfall approach to create a product vision, developing it and then launching it. But technological advances now mean this is no longer such an efficient way of working. One way businesses can look to embrace these advances and overcome complexity is through agile working.

PWC says that to be more agile, “businesses need to re-think the way they operate to reduce organisational complexity and create more flexible, scalable operating models that are capable of quickly responding to new market opportunities and/or operate at lower cost.” Agile working can be really beneficial in terms of achieving business goals rapidly, but changing processes can be scary and isn’t something that should be undertaken on a whim. Start small; pick a project to test the process out on, such as implementing a new IT system internally. Make it cross functional, so that different experts and departments can get involved and see the benefits of changing to a more reactive way of working.

Improving Agility

But improving your agility doesn’t just have to mean agile working; there are other ways of innovating internal processes that can help break down complexity. Try working to shorter planning cycles. Giving shorter time frames can encourage quick thinking, but there are a few important things to remember:

• Keep the team focused otherwise short term goals are likely to be missed. Try having one face-to-face meeting a day to help motivate and concentrate energies on the things that count.
• Don’t worry about failure (in the short term)
• Encourage experimentation and risk, place less importance on lengthy presentations and sign-offs

Another way of improving agility is through implementing simple social collaboration tools such as Mindjet Tasks or Yammer. Reducing email and taking things “offline” can be a great way to encourage conversation and content sharing, but make sure you invest in the right tools to support this for your organisation. For some people a conversational social tool is right, but for others something more visual may work better.

However you choose to innovate in your processes, remember that Agile working is not new, but it is a new way of working. Varying working practices, deploying new technologies and creating new working environments will reduce complexity and help the business provide a better product to customers.

The video embedded herein is sort of a “greatest hits” anthology of some of Kiyosaki’s teachings—a sampler of just a few of his most seminal views. What he teaches here has the potential to totally transform your paradigm regarding entrepreneurship and small business ownership.

Introducing the Cash Flow Quadrant

The first thing you’ll see in the video is a chart, divided into four quadrants; this is what Kiyosaki refers to as the “Cash Flow Quadrant,” and it offers brief characterizations of the four kinds of people you meet in this world:

• The first quadrant, labeled with an “E,” represents employees—i.e., those who work for other people.
• Beneath that is the “S,” which refers to someone who is effectively self-employed through work as a doctor, lawyer, or other qualified professional.
• On the other side of the chart we find “B,” which represents business owners.
• Finally, there is “I,” which represents investors.

Perspectives on Wealth

Kiyosaki’s question is a simple one: Which one of these four quadrants represents the best way to get rich and successful? The answer is certainly not to become an employee, because employees face the least favorable tax laws, they can be fired any time, and, in the end, all of their hard work is really benefitting the employer, not providing them with anything lasting.

Some might view the self-employed professionals—the doctors and lawyers—as the smartest folks on the chart, and in some ways they are—but maybe that’s a problem, Kiyosaki tells us. To become successful as a doctor or a lawyer, you need to perform well in school, and for many of us, that’s a mightily tall order!

It’s in the other half of the quadrant—the business owners and the investors—that true prosperity is found. Employees—and to some extent self-employed professionals—are really just working for security. They are fighting to stay afloat and to keep their jobs even when they know they could get fired at any time, and when they face some bleak tax laws. Those who find themselves in the other two categories, meanwhile, are working to build something that will last a lifetime—something they can pass down to subsequent generations, and which is more about freedom than mere job security.

The Importance of Cash Flow

We already noted that these four characterizations are part of the “Cash Flow Quadrant,” and certainly, Kiyosaki affirms that cash flow is the most importance term in any truly successful person’s vocabulary. A rich person is someone who controls cash flow, and who has more assets than he or she has liabilities:

• An asset is something that makes you money—whether you are working or not.
• A liability is something that just takes money out of your pocket.
• If you quit working right now, would your assets amount to more than your liabilities? This, we are told, is the true gauge of success.

Building Assets Through Entrepreneurship

To bring this discussion full-circle, consider the folks in the Cash Flow Quadrants. Those who are employees, or self-employed, are not truly building assets. If they quit their jobs, their liabilities will persist, but they’ll have no money coming into their pockets—a dangerous scenario, to say the least!

Those who are in the other quadrants, though—they are building assets. By cultivating a successful business, you’re doing more than just keeping the liabilities at bay. You’re actually building something that will generate money in the long term, even if you one day decide to step back and transfer direct management of the company. That’s an enviable position to be in, and one that any entrepreneur is ultimately aiming for!