Etiqueta: Company

Brands Will Become Media: Here’s How


 

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If your company doesn’t have the above model in place a year from now, you may regret it.

You’ve probably felt it for some time, but now the roadmap is becoming clear—companies must build their own media empires. And if they don’t, they risk missing a window of opportunity that provides myriad benefits, whether it’s telling their own stories or becoming more efficient with the media dollars they spend.

Trends in media consumption point to the convergence of savvy marketing tactics combined with a real-time newsroom approach for brands to be seen and heard in a collectively social, digital and mobile world.

Facebook: Engagement Isn’t Enough

First, let’s start with Facebook which, thanks to an alleged algorithm change, has been at the center of controversy in the marketing world. Though it’s cited as the reason brands have noticed their content reaching a lower volume of Facebook users, the caveat is that there is much a company can do to increase the odds of being seen and heard on Facebook. But, it relies on a brand doing a few things really well.

For starters, it’s not enough to solely engage on Facebook. A company now has to provide a steady flow of high-quality content, which then relies  not only on organic content sharing from Facebook users but also on subsequent media purchases with Facebook in order for that message to spread.

Sound familiar? It’s how advertising has been done in the past, only with a big difference. Much of the content that tends to do best is oftentimes associated with current news or highly relevant social issues. Take for example whatOreo has done with its Daily Twist initiative, where in honor of the cookie’s 100th anniversary, agency teams get together daily to decide how to riff off of relevant, often newsworthy, subjects that, by day’s end, produce a new piece of clever, highly shareable visual content that’s sent out into the digital ecosystem. This type of approach makes clear what most pundits miss when challenging the notion of “ROI” in social media—the reason a company wants to amass followers in social media is to build their own marketing/communications network, which bypasses the middle man and goes right to the source.

The end game in social media won’t be accumulation of fans but rather your ability to reach them and potentially inspire action.

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Keep Your Best Employees: 5 Steps | business.time.com


http://business.time.com

Rachel came to us with strong work ethic, experience creating organizational hierarchies, an understanding of what it takes to be operationally excellent, and perhaps most importantly, a devotion to our company’s cause: promoting client needs in a collaborative team-oriented environment.Keep Your Best Employee

I put her in a role that made the most sense to me-that is, the job that took the bulk of my time. I was the project manager on almost every project for our customers, but in order to grow the company, I realized I needed to focus on higher-level goals, and not the day-to-day grind. I had intentionally hired someone who had a different skill set, someone who’d be good at nurturing employees by implementing human resource structure (which I’m not). Isn’t that what the experts tell you to do? But I made a critical mistake. I gave her a job that fit my personality, not hers.

She was miserable. She hated the job. The project manager role was external facing and required being heavy-handed with our clients to keep projects on task and within scope.  While Rachel is great at getting employees to tow the line, she struggled with this requirement when it came to our clients.

My instinct told me she was exactly the type of employee User Insight needed to be successful based on her background, professionalism, experience, and approach to the job, but I also knew she was on the way out if things didn’t change, and change quickly.So, in the lobby of a hotel during a business trip, Rachel and I sat down over a stale cup of coffee to discuss how we might carve out a job that would entice her to stay at User Insight.

This is how I did it:   Leer más “Keep Your Best Employees: 5 Steps | business.time.com”

entrepreneur.com | Stories


3 Tools That Can Take the Headaches Out of Hiring and HR
3 Tools That Can Take the Headaches Out of Hiring and HR

image credit: Shutterstock

Growing and managing a workforce is almost never easy. And when it comes to staffing up, business owners have to juggle issues such as tracking resumes, analyzing candidates and other human resources obligations. For smaller firms, the difficulties associated with managing these duties can often be amplified.

The good news is there are several useful toolsthat can help. Though they will not replace a physical HR manager, these three services should be able to help even the smallest company hire and manage employees more efficiently:

Read more »
Small Business Job Growth Continues
Small Business Job Growth Continues
image credit: Shutterstock

Small businesses continued to add jobs in October, but the question remains whether this will be a sustainable trend given growing uncertainty about the economy and looming fiscal issues.

Employment in private small business (companies with one to 49 employees) payrolls rose by 50,000 in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP Small Business Report released Thursday. This is the largest payroll increase since July and accounts for 32 percent of employment gains across all company size groups.

Within small businesses, 37 percent of the employment growth contribution was associated with companies having between one to 19 employees while 63 percent of October’s small business growth was driven by companies with 20 to 49 employees.
Many small businesses remain confident in the economy’s future growth despite and a recent study by Kauffman/LegalZoom Startup Confidence Index suggested that the credit crunch for small businesses may be easing.

 

Read more »

90% of Marketers Know the Importance of Content, but only 38% Have a Strategy


Author: Ally | http://blog.scoop.it
http://goo.gl/xHbP7

According to a recent survey conducted by Econsultancy, 90% of respondents (1,300 marketing professionals) believe that content marketing will continue becoming increasingly important within the next year, but a surprisingly low 38% of them actually have a content strategy in place.

It’s hard to say that a day goes by for marketers without hearing, talking, or reading about some type of content marketing strategy. This is clearly demonstrated by the 73% of respondents who believe that brands are becoming publishers. Why is it, then, that only 38% of companies currently have a defined content marketing strategy and only 55-58% say that they are planning one?

After seeing these numbers, I thought of a few reasons why companies wouldn’t have a content marketing strategy, and why those reasons are not acceptable excuses.

1. We don’t have time to create our own content…     Leer más “90% of Marketers Know the Importance of Content, but only 38% Have a Strategy”

Keep Your Best Employees: 5 Steps | business.time.com


Looking to attract and retain the talent required to take your company out of start-up phase and onto the next level? Be open to change.

Rachel came to us with strong work ethic, experience creating organizational hierarchies, an understanding of what it takes to be operationally excellent, and perhaps most importantly, a devotion to our company’s cause: promoting client needs in a collaborative team-oriented environment.

I put her in a role that made the most sense to me-that is, the job that took the bulk of my time. I was the project manager on almost every project for our customers, but in order to grow the company, I realized I needed to focus on higher-level goals, and not the day-to-day grind. I had intentionally hired someone who had a different skill set, someone who’d be good at nurturing employees by implementing human resource structure (which I’m not). Isn’t that what the experts tell you to do? But I made a critical mistake. I gave her a job that fit my personality, not hers.

She was miserable. She hated the job. The project manager role was external facing and required being heavy-handed with our clients to keep projects on task and within scope.  While Rachel is great at getting employees to tow the line, she struggled with this requirement when it came to our clients.

My instinct told me she was exactly the type of employee User Insight needed to be successful based on her background, professionalism, experience, and approach to the job, but I also knew she was on the way out if things didn’t change, and change quickly.

So, in the lobby of a hotel during a business trip, Rachel and I sat down over a stale cup of coffee to discuss how we might carve out a job that would entice her to stay at User Insight.

This is how I did it…     Leer más “Keep Your Best Employees: 5 Steps | business.time.com”

Create your own definition of innovation | game-changer.net


by Jorge Barba…
innovation clarity

As part of my auditing process, one of the key questions I ask is: what was the most recent innovation in your industry?

Depending on how this question is answered, it will tell me a few things:

  • How this company both defines and perceives innovation
  • If they are focused on innovation
  • If they are keeping tabs on their respective industry

That question is followed up with a similar but less obvious question: who is the most loved in your industry and why?. This one tells me if they even care about delighting their customers. But it can also tell me if they associate customer loyalty with innovation. Leer más “Create your own definition of innovation | game-changer.net”