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Building A Referral Success System written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Whether you are a college grad looking for an office job or a truck driver looking for a good haul, there are plenty of opportunities for you online just waiting to be found. Businesses are relying more and more on social media to both advertise their job openings and find potential candidates for different positions. On top of that, social media is also a good place to meet well-connected people in your chosen fields. These are individuals who might not be making hiring decisions themselves, but who can introduce you to the people who do make these decisions.

For these and other reasons, learning how to advertise your talent and look for opportunities on social media is worth your effort. And if you want to improve your chances of being offered job opportunities thanks to your social media profiles, here are some tips that can help.

1 – Stay sharp

It’s important to keep your social media profiles clean, straightforward, and professional when you are using them to try and find work. From the photos you post to your profile description and even your online username, everything should be professional and business-friendly. First impressions count, so go over your profile trying to imagine how a company representative would react seeing these things.

The best way to achieve all of this is to have social media profiles dedicated entirely to your professional life. This allows you to engage in a more relaxed way on your profiles while keeping your professional ones clean. And make sure your niche is immediately apparent the moment someone opens your profile. Writing your interests and the previous job description on your profile bio may seem cliché. If you have experience working as a mobile diesel mechanic Dallas, you don’t want potential employers to have to play detective to find that out.

2 – Make yourself easy to find

One of the advantages of having professional profiles is that you don’t have to worry about privacy too much. The whole point of them is that they should be easy to find and only contain what you are willing to share, so make sure you go into your privacy settings and set all your posts, photos, and your profile itself to “public”. Different platforms have different options, but they all have settings you can change to make your profile easy to find.

Using your real name as your username is also useful. This not only makes your profile look more professional, but it increases the chances that your social media will come up when a potential employer googles your name.

3 – Create a portfolio

Having an online resume and a portfolio can be very helpful. The more an employer can find out about you without having to ask you for anything, the easier it’ll be for them to get invested in the idea of hiring you for their company. You can put together a portfolio and a resume on your professional account through images and text posts. Or you can just create a dedicated landing page that contains all of that information. There are plenty of free website creation tools that will help you put a landing page together with minimal effort.

4 – Be active and helpful

Being active and helpful in conversations and communities relevant to your field is a good way to be noticed. Don’t be afraid to connect with people who can’t hire you themselves; you never know what opportunities will arise because you met someone who knows someone.

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Cultivating A Sense Of Self-Worth written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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When it comes to marketing platforms, social media is a non-negotiable tool. Social ad spending in the United States is set to increase by over 20% this year. However, social media isn’t just for advertising to your customers. It’s also for communicating with them.

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are hubs for identifying, and acting on, customer wants and needs. Here are some ways that your business can use social media listening to enhance not only your customer experience (CX), but also your entire experience management process.

1. Engage in Real Time

Your customers are active on social media day and night. And while traditional customer service platforms require some wait time, social platforms close this gap. Your social team can interact with your customers in real time. If a customer has a question or problem, your business can answer within seconds.

Real-time interactions help customers feel more immersed in your brand experience. Your business provides more attentive customer service, and the customers become more than just a name on the screen. To boost response time, be sure to use a social media management tool that provides real-time alerts. You might also set up an auto-response to direct customers to additional support tools.

2. Identify Common Problems

Your business likely collects customer feedback through surveys and comment boxes. But are you getting the real story? Social media is where customers go to be honest — for better or worse. If customers are experiencing issues with your products or services, chances are you’ll receive comments and messages.

As you handle this type of feedback, be on the lookout for patterns. Social media is a great tool for spotting common problems that your customers are having. If similar issues keep popping up across multiple users, the fix might be bigger than a one-time refund or coupon. Instruct your social team to alert management to patterns so you can make adjustments as needed.

3. Field Customer Questions

Social listening helps your business attend to customer questions, and you can do this in a few ways. The first is to monitor comments and direct messages for inquiries and respond quickly. Answering one-off questions improves individual customer experiences, but you can also broaden your reach. Post answers to frequently asked questions to keep all your customers in the know.

The Live features on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter can also be useful tools for answering customer inquiries. Consider hosting “ask me anything” sessions on social media to engage customers and broaden social listening opportunities. Hearing directly from a company representative not only humanizes your business, but it elevates your CX to make customers part of the story.

4. Highlight Positive Experiences

Customer experience is about more than addressing common problems. Your business should also respond to positive customer feedback. Start by monitoring the photos and posts that your company is tagged in. You can then respond to happy customers and thank them for their business. This attention not only boosts visibility, but also makes your customers feel important.

Some businesses go the extra mile by offering perks to particularly delighted customers. If a customer posts a photo of an appetizer from your restaurant, you might respond, “Next one’s on us!” You’re sure to have a loyal customer after that.

5. Monitor Your Reputation

Customer reviews certainly tip you off to your business’s reputation, but social listening provides even more hints. Monitoring customer feedback gives you a feel for how the public perceives your business.

Are there common words customers are using to describe their experience? Do the positive messages outweigh the bad? Using social listening for reputation management helps identify areas for improvement.

Keep your fingers on the pulse by setting up brand mention alerts. Recommendations, glowing reviews, and posts from repeat customers are signs of a positive reputation. A steady flow of complaints and poor reviews are not. Regardless of which way your reputation is leaning, be quick to acknowledge the feedback and prioritize customer happiness.

6. Engage Potential Customers

Many people go to social media for recommendations, and these recs are a prime opportunity for social listening and customer engagement. When you notice that someone has mentioned your brand as a recommendation, be sure to respond quickly.

Direct the prospective client to your website and ask whether they have questions. Engaging in the comment thread shows that you’re attentive to customers and proactive with leads. That will improve your CX from the start.

7. Improve Your Offerings

To better your customer experience, you’ll need to make certain your business is offering the products and services customers want. Social listening is the perfect tool for doing so. As you monitor mentions, comments, and direct messages, note which products customers are posting about the most. If you own a coffee shop, your data might show that one particular latte is showing up in photos more than others.

Logging this data will help you determine which products are popular and which are falling out of favor. Compare this data to sales numbers to see whether it’s worth adjusting your product or service lines. You can also use product mentions to quickly spot defects or other issues, addressing them right away.

8. Identify Competitor Strengths

Social listening allows you to tap into your customer base, but it also clues you in to your competition. Keeping tabs on your competitor’s social media activity, as well as that of their customers, will help you improve your own. You can analyze your competitor’s social media engagement and compare it to yours. Your rivals might be generating traffic with a type of content that you haven’t even considered.

Identifying which content engages your competitor’s customer base will better inform your own. The same goes for their strategy. Notice how your competition engages with their customers and compare their response times to yours. You might see room for improvement on your end.

Managing your brand’s social media profiles requires time and attention. However, the extra effort is well worth the customer experience boost. Social listening is an essential tool for better understanding customers’ needs so you can eventually exceed their expectations.

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When you are going through an acquisition with a good Mamp;A advisor it is important to have a plan of action and set clear-cut objectives for the sale. While you might be thinking of your bottom line there is a whole range of other objectives that need to be considered because they will impact your team and the companys future success. What are the reasons you want to sell the business? Which acquirer is best suited for you? What are the exit strategies for the co-founders? What do you want for your team? What do you want for your customers? How will the mission be continued? Knowing what you want out of the acquisition will give you more control. Have minimum and maximum lines clearly defined and plan for negotiating and the unexpected. Prepare The Team Preparing the team for an acquisition is another important aspect of keeping control of the process. The buyer needs to fit in with the company culture or the transition can be painful. Can your team align with the acquirers values and beliefs? How can you prepare your team for the acquisition? Keep your team informed: Never blindside your team with an acquisition if you can help it. Instead communicate often with your team and answer their questions and concerns. You can also offer them a timeline with milestones concerning the acquisition to put their minds at ease. Develop a transition plan: A well-developed transition plan will help employees from both companies integrate. While the buyer might have his own plans such as training plans company name changes and more you can still have an effective strategy for preparing your own team for the transition. Unify company objectives: Get your team acquainted with the new companys culture and values so they know what the new company expects of them when the acquisition occurs. Be positive: Positivity is a game changer. Dont let your team get discouraged because it can affect their productivity and ultimately the valuation and ability to close the deal. Get an expert valuation Valuations dont only let the acquirer know your worth. It helps you to know how to negotiate during the acquisition process. Valuations will help the acquirer understand the startups potential for growth and establish a baseline value. Get your accounting in order The acquirer is going to tear right through your financials. As they should before making a big purchase. But if you have your accounting in order; revenue expenses and assets supported by documentation the acquisition process will go a lot smoother. The following are some of the documentation you need to gather: Past performance: All of your accounting up to this point. Short-term projections: These include weekly monthly and the following year projections. Multi-year plans: These include 3-5 year projections that give the acquirers insight into the future of the company. The Startup Acquisition Process Now that you have positioned the deal and established your worth you can get the ball rolling on the acquisition process. Develop an acquisition plan Your acquirer is already developing a plan to negotiate the offer. Prepare yourself with potential offers and negotiating steps so you dont get steamrolled by a large corporation. You know they have seen value in your business or they wouldnt be devising an acquisition plan. Prepare an acquisition team Gather an acquisition team with IT experts the CEO an acquisition lawyer and all other relevant personnel you feel should be at the acquisition meeting. They help provide information on the startups technical infrastructure and inner workings of the business that the acquirers might have questions for. Do your due diligence The acquirer will be doing plenty of digging of their own. Dont just leave the ball in their court. You should be vetting them as much as they are investigating you. Negotiate An acquirer will often start out low. Counteroffer and both parties can meet in the middle. How much do you want? What is your company worth and are you willing to part with the startup for less? Make sure that everyones objectives can be seen in the final agreement. Dont feel like you lost a battle. Ensure the conversation is within the parameters of your main objectives before you get too deep. Especially as you can expect a lot of renegotiating and discounts in the process. Closing the deal Closing the deal is a huge moment for a startup and even when things have gone according to plan you may experience mixed emotions. Contracts are signed and now you know your hard work and effort in your business has paid off its time to let go. What Acquirers Consider When Buying a Startup You can control the acquisition process by knowing what the acquirers want. They are not just looking at the dollar signs. Understanding their mindset will help you grab their attention and get the best deal for yourself and the buyer. So what are acquirers looking for in a startup? This can vary widely but may include: Cost per customer: What does it cost to get a new customer? The acquirer will want to know what it will cost to get new consumers and the cost of tapping into a new market. Customer base: Is your customer base thriving? If you already have traction buyers will notice. Team expertise: How much experience does the team have? A good team has knowledge of the product consumers and industry the potential buyer might not. What To Consider Before An Acquisition Selling your startup can be a life-changing experience. You have put everything into it for the last couple of years and you may feel a deep connection to the staff the product and the business. Heres what you should consider before taking the leap. Are you ready to sell your startup? Startups can take years to establish and the demand can begin to pile up. You know youre ready to sell when you are prepared to hand over the stress and anxiety which often occurs to first-time founders. You may even decide to stay on after the acquisition or move on to greater things. Is it the right time to sell? Founders may begin to experience burnout when you need to keep raising funds. To relieve yourself of this burden your choices are to increase capital or a merger and acquisition venture. Will you be able to accept the consequences? The consequences of the acquisition include: Having enough money to retire or fund future ventures The acquirers might not take care of your startup as much as you hope There needs to be enough money to pay your early investors off The Bottom Line The acquisition process can be laborious for the founders and acquirers but the common goal is to generate value. The last thing that the founder should be worried about is losing control of the acquisition process. You understand the value of the company and its potential for the future so you deserve appropriate compensation for the work you put into your product. To keep control you need to know the ins and outs of the company. Have all your financials in order and prepare your team for the acquisition. Do your due diligence and hire a valuation expert as well as a full acquisition team to ensure you are getting the most out of the deal. You have done the hard work and deserve to reap the rewards. Author Bio Alejandro Cremades is a serial entrepreneur and the author of The Art of Startup Fundraising. With a foreword by Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran and published by John Wiley amp; Sons the book was named one of the best books for entrepreneurs. The book offers a step-by-step guide to todays way of raising money for entrepreneurs. Most recently Alejandro built and exited CoFoundersLab which is one of the largest communities of founders online. Prior to CoFoundersLab Alejandro worked as a lawyer at King amp; Spalding where he was involved in one of the biggest investment arbitration cases in history ($113 billion at stake). Alejandro is an active speaker and has given guest lectures at the Wharton School of Business Columbia Business School and at NYU Stern School of Business. Alejandro has been involved with the JOBS Act since inception and was invited to the White House and the US House of Representatives to provide his stands on the new regulatory changes concerning fundraising online. The post Expectations and Goals in Acquisitions appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/business-innovation-2/expectations-and-goals-in-acquisitions/ The post Expectations and Goals in Acquisitions appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/expectations-and-goals-in-acquisitions/

How To Get Customers Back And Back Again written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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The Business Of Story Podcast – The Ultimate Marketing Engine written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Your customers are distracted by the multitude of ways to buy. And as a business, you want to be able to cancel all the noise and confusion so you can start creating authentic relationships with your customers and convert them into life-long customers.

But, you can only turn them into customers for life by changing your view of them as a member instead of a transaction. The secret is to align your focus in helping them achieve the transformation they are seeking and focusing on their success rather than your own. Being able to guide them from where they are to where they want to go is where you will find consistent growth in your business.

In this episode of the Business of Story podcast, I sat down with host Park Howell to talk about how you can use the Marketing Hourglass that reimagines the typical customer funnel process. You’ll learn the seven prospect and customer behaviors of the marketing hourglass and how you can leverage the stories they’re telling themselves about you to attract and keep more ideal customers — all of which are concepts from my upcoming book, The Ultimate Marketing Engine.

Listen to the episode here.

Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/the-business-of-story-podcast-the-ultimate-marketing-engine/

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When the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, posted a video on his profile, he probably didn’t expect the number of disgruntled comments he’d receive from businesses and influencers around the world. Mosseri announced that Instagram has chosen to shift and become less of a photo-sharing app.

It will now be geared toward becoming a video entertainment platform to keep up with competitors like TikTok and YouTube.

Regardless of how you feel about this transformation of the app, we’ll all have to abide by the algorithm’s new guidelines to stay relevant and ensure our content continues to be seen by our followers. You might be thinking that video is not your strong suit, and if that’s the case, you aren’t alone.

Numerous online tutorials explain how to become more confident in front of the camera. Posting to your stories and creating reels to add to your content strategy, however, aren’t anything new.

Reels have been around since August 2020, and they won’t be going anywhere, anytime soon. The human attention span has collapsed to become lower than that of a goldfish. We aren’t joking.

The average attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds. The average human attention span fell from 12 seconds in 2000 to only 8 seconds according to a study reported in July of this year.

Reels are no longer than thirty seconds. The average reel lasts about ten to fifteen seconds. This means you have roughly eight seconds of video content to get your message across to as many viewers as possible.

So you may be asking yourself: How do I manage to create a successful reel? Here are three essential tips to help you make the most out of your Instagram reels.

1. Use Text In Your Videos

Creating reels doesn’t require you to say a single word on camera. You might not even have to appear physically in your reel at all. With the availability of stock video online, you can avoid having to face your fear of being on camera.

An effective alternative is to use text in your videos. For example, say you have a ten-second reel with footage of the ocean waves. You intend to use the reel to provide the seven best tips to get over writer’s block. That’s a lot of benefits to cram into a short amount of time.

This might sound like an impossible task, but because your video is so short, the viewer will have to rewatch it several times over to grab all seven tips. The more views the reel has, the higher the engagement. The higher the engagement, the more people will see your reel.

2. Put More Information in Your Caption

Reels are a great way to become a lead generation source. But how do you get people to sign up for your online course or download your free eBook with a reel? You want to provide a call to action (CTA). Here’s a way to do it.

You’re a yoga instructor that has written an eBook you’re giving away as an incentive to build your email list. The book is all about how to find mindfulness during the daily grind. This is a perfect prompt for your Instagram reel.

Create a short video that simply poses the question, “How do I manage to stay mindful when life is so hectic?” A successful CTA for this example is to have the last piece of text on your video to say, “read the caption to learn how.”

Your caption can provide substantially more detail, which gives you an opportunity to include a CTA. That’s where you can invite people to sign up to receive a free eBook. Congratulations! You’ve now learned how to create a sales funnel through a ten-second reel on Instagram!

3. Partner with Other Influencers

What an influencer has that you might not is simple: more followers in your industry than you do. Influencers offer you a chance to connect with significantly more people around the world.

According to Relevance, the digital marketing and PR firm, influencer marketing’s global reach has grown upwards of 57% as of 2020. This number is only expected to continue rising.

The level of influencer you connect with will determine what compensation they might require. As of now, there are four levels of influencers.

Nano Influencers (1k-10k followers)

Micro-Influencers (10k-50k followers)

Mid-tier Influencers (50k-500k followers)

Premium or Macro-Influencers (500k-1 million+ followers)

Finding The Work That Makes You Come Alive written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Many organizations know they should do better when it comes to becoming a data-driven organization. The thing about human behavior is that we often know what we should do in order to improve, but the status quo and inertia of a situation to keep doing what we’ve always done in the past often sets in and clouds our thinking.

Maybe we could all use a gentle nudge to consider making more data-driven decisions instead of just going with our gut. Consider that only 24% of executives had created data-driven organizations. Perhaps even more shocking is that 73% of all data within an organization is never even analyzed.

Google Analytics can get you part of the way there, but there are some serious power tools found within Google Analytics 360. Advanced tools such as BigQuery Export, Data Driven Attribution and more are accessible as well as benefits of privacy, support and training. Also shorter delays in accessing new data, unlimited sessions and reports that combine data from several properties.

If you are an organization that needs to make marketing and advertising decisions daily, desires more advanced analysis of hit-level data, or simply needs better integration with other Google products, Google Analytics 360 will not only be a helpful tool to begin using but a necessary one as well. Google Analytics 360 is the solution for anyone who wants to get the most out of their data, especially to those who are looking for a little help to get started.

Learn more about harnessing the power transforming into a data-driven organization through the visual deep dive below:

Source: InfoTrust

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