Business.com

Business.com

How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Your Personal Brand

Posted: 10 Sep 2019 10:30 AM PDT

Have you considered using LinkedIn to promote your business and improve your conversions? When marketers think of marketing on social media platforms, LinkedIn is usually one of the last ones they think of, even though it boasts 645 million members worldwide. When used correctly, it's a convenient tool that grows your business, creates buzz for your brand, and markets it to new people within your target audience.

Business professionals rely on LinkedIn to network and further their brand's reach, but those goals can only be achieved if the platform is used correctly. Not having an active or optimized LinkedIn account looks terrible to your audience and possible network connections. It shows you're inactive and might not know your way around this medium of technology. 

Why use LinkedIn to promote your brand?

LinkedIn is a social platform that lets businesses, brands, and professionals of all types engage with one another. It helps job seekers find opportunities and businesses reach their target market. 

Building authentic relationships online is easier when you have word of mouth marketing doing the work for you. Because LinkedIn focuses on professionals and creating networking connections, it provides the opportunity to spread the word about your brand without coming off pushy or overbearing. It feels natural and draws your audience in. 

Being active on LinkedIn creates awareness for your brand and builds recognition. It positions you as a leader in your industry and showcases your skills as an entrepreneur. The more credibility to your name, the easier it is to convince your audience that you're the brand they need.

When it comes to promoting your personal brand on LinkedIn, remember to:

  • Optimize your profile to increase awareness and reach

  • Customize your feed so you're interacting with the right people

  • Take advantage of LinkedIn Publisher

  • Create a company page

Optimize your profile

Your profile is the main ingredient in explaining who you are, what you do, and what opportunities you may be looking for. It's important to optimize every section of your profile so that your target audience and other professionals can easily find you and see what you're about. A completed user profile shows that you're active on the platform and will encourage more users to connect with you.

It's essential to optimize the main elements of your LinkedIn profile:

  • Profile photo: Choose a photo that's professional, up close, and clear so anyone would know it was you.

  • Headline: This explains your current role or position and how it's unique to you. This section gives you leeway to be witty and humorous.

  • Header photo: Providing a clean background that doesn't have too many distracting elements is your best bet.

  • URL: You need to customize your LinkedIn URL so that it's easy to link back to and for others to find you.

  • Summary: Explain what it is you do and the value you bring to your audience. What problems of theirs do you actively solve? Use keywords to boost your rankings in LinkedIn and Google searches.

  • Work experience: Fill out as many useful past experiences as you can that speak to your current role and got you where you are today.

Customize your feed

If you scroll through your LinkedIn feed and don't see much content that your brand can relate to, you aren't engaging with the right people or brands. If you want to promote your brand, you must engage and interact with likeminded businesses and professionals so your chances of getting noticed and responded to are significantly higher. 

This is an opportunity to make meaningful, secure connections with people in your industry. Building your LinkedIn network shows others the professional company you keep while simultaneously building your brand. LinkedIn automatically suggests contacts to you, so don't be afraid to send connection requests to those you know you could benefit from. 

Send out connection requests to colleagues old and new, classmates and industry leaders. This is the first step to networking towards a healthier, more optimized feed so that you only get the most relevant, useful content shown to you. 

Post content to LinkedIn Publisher

If content marketing isn't part of your LinkedIn promotion strategy, it should be. It's a way to generate leads and drive traffic to your website organically. In a recent study, 72% of marketers said that content marketing increases their brand's engagement. It's a cost-effective inbound marketing strategy that's proven time and time again that it can grow your business and promote your brand.

LinkedIn Publisher allows you to publish blog posts so users can engage with and share them. Imagine the impact of getting several shares across multiple accounts. Your content may end up in front of a leader in your industry, which would open the door to discuss opportunities.

Publishing content consistently on LinkedIn shows thought leadership and can build a growing community of loyal followers who admire you as a personal brand. When users see that your content offers them value and insight, it'll intrigue them enough to check you out. This is a subtle way of promoting your brand that isn't pushy and doesn't aggravate your audience.

Create a company page

LinkedIn lets businesses create a company page with details about their products and services. This keeps potential customers and new visitors informed about what your business does and how it solves your audience's problems. 

Creating a company page with LinkedIn also drives organic traffic to your website. When users search for terms and keywords relevant to your brand, they'll see a link leading back to your company page. This gives them further clarity by providing more information and nurtures them through the conversion funnel.

Since employees have ten times more social reach than the companies they work for, it's important to share your employees' content on your company page. This gives viewers a sense of your company culture, shows them the type of team members you have, and builds a genuine connection back to your brand.

Use the company page to create job postings to find candidates who are the right fit for your brand. There might be job seekers who haven't come across your brand yet, but when they see your job posting, they'll have the option to read more about your company too.

Wrapping up

With so many social platforms out there, sometimes LinkedIn gets overlooked. Remember that it can be a goldmine for making important professional connections, growing your business, and promoting your brand. Optimizing your profile is the first step to using LinkedIn to its full potential. Auditing your connections and forming new, valuable ones in their place is how you'll receive and circulate content that's relevant to you and your brand. Using all of the company page's features will drive traffic to your website and help you find your next hires. Finally, it's essential to take advantage of LinkedIn Publisher so your content is front and center for your audience and can get the engagement it deserves.

Choosing the Right Outsourcing Partner

Posted: 10 Sep 2019 07:15 AM PDT

Outsourcing is a blessing for businesses in today's dynamic markets. But, as businesses look to scale or expand through outsourcing, it is critical to choose an outsourcing partner that helps to yield the best dividends possible.

When it comes to outsourcing IT requirements, Asia, and particularly India, is one of the main outsourcing hubs that offers many benefits. For example, outsourcing is reliable, highly cost-effective and helps to quicken the time-to-market period.

To realize all these benefits, you also need to consider a number of factors before making a final decision. Factors that, if overlooked, can result in failures, time loss and additional costs.

While the process of choosing the right outsourcing partner, whether from India or any other country, is almost always the same, but due to the exceptional rise in IT outsourcing, it's important that you don't rush into things.

Following these best practices will help you to find the right outsourcing partner, but it will also help you in building a competitive advantage.

1. Define a clear scope of work

Before you start reaching out to potential outsourcing partners write a clear scope of work document. It's your responsibility to decide business goals, what is it that your business needs, and what could be the best possible solution to achieve your desired outcomes.

If writing a scope of work document is too technical for you at the beginning, then you can also start by answering some simple questions like:

  • What is your exact need?
  • What could be the best potential solution for that?

Answering these two simple questions will help you identify the problem you're solving, prepare a clear roadmap for solving that particular problem, and identify your overall business goals. 

It's important for you to understand that outsourcing isn't a plug-and-play proposition, but an approach used for a specific effect. Nobody knows your business better than you. So, expecting an outsider to promptly have the same level of familiarity as you isn't really fair to the outsourcing partner either.

In simple words, you cannot share vague requirements with your outsourcing partner like "create a mobile app that our customers will love" or "introduce something new in our web app" and then expect the best outcomes.

The key takeaway is, if you want to yield the best results possible, you need to be extra-specific in terms of what you want to build.

2. Make expertise an important criteria in the hiring process

After writing the scope of work document, you can start reaching out to prospective outsourcing partners. Once you shortlist three to five vendors, you need to evaluate them based on the following factors:

  • Technical expertise
  • Skillsets
  • Access to the latest technology
  • Experience in solving complex challenges
  • Last but not least, passion for your project

Remember, technical expertise, even though is often overlooked, but it is actually crucial for the success of any outsourcing deal. Therefore, you should never choose an outsourcing partner who has expertise in limited technologies, even if they're best in those few technologies.

The general rule of thumb is, the more software technologies an outsourcing partner has expertise in, the better the quality of your project will be.

3. Market reputation is equally important

No business can afford to compromise on quality. But more importantly, no business can also afford to work with a partner who always misses deadlines or is not polite to work with. Therefore, it is equally important to check the market reputation of your outsourcing partner before signing an agreement.

In today's internet-connected world, especially, it wouldn't be much difficult to check the history and reputation of an outsourcing partner. There are even platforms like Clutch and GoodFirms, for example, where you can check out their past clients' reviews.

If there are still any doubts, you can always connect with a few of their past clients and note their experience working with the outsourcing partner. In any case, you should only hire an outsourcing partner if you're fully convinced that the selected vendor has a good market reputation, can align well with your business goals, and has a track record of delivering on time.

4. Communicate clearly about budget

Cost is one of the most underlooked factors that can ruin not just your relationship with an IT vendor, but also your project. If you expect superior services from an outsourcing partner, then you must also know that superior services often cost higher than the average.

So, before approaching an outsourcing partner, you need to figure out and finalize how much money you are willing to invest in your project and communicate clearly about your budget with the selected outsourcing partner.

5. Data and intellectual property security

In today's digital era, privacy and data security are two of the biggest concerns, especially for businesses. And when you outsource a project, you will often find yourself sharing sensitive business information with the outsourcing partner.

If such sensitive information is not managed properly, then your data can be mishandled. It is highly recommended that you sign an NDA with the selected partner before sharing any sensitive information.

Apart from this, you must also consider hiring a vendor who regularly conducts network and security audits in their workplace. They must be using specific tools that will help in protecting all your sensitive data and prevent any data leaks from happening.

6. Development process

The only way to survive in today's market conditions is by accommodating customers' always changing requirements. To accommodate the changing needs of your customers, you have to utilize Agile methodologies.

The agile methodologies is basically a modern software development practice that offers a highly-collaborative environment and gives quick results. If you want to be a leader in your industry, prefer to hire a vendor who follows agile methodologies so that they can easily adapt to changing requirements of your customers.

7. Flexibility

Flexibility is also an important criteria to consider when choosing an outsourcing partner for your project. Your selected outsourcing vendor must be flexible enough to serve any urgent requirement or problem when arises. Flexibility, in fact, is especially critical when you and your partner are in different time zones. You must include flexibility in terms of urgency and support in the agreement before finalizing them.

Conclusion

When building a business solution, you always have two options; Either hire an in-house team or outsource the project.

While many businesses find it difficult to outsource their requirements, but outsourcing is actually a surefire way to boost business growth and efficiency. In fact, many popular global companies like Github, Skype, and Slack have done it before. The only question is, are you ready to follow their lead?

If your answer is yes, then these are the main points you should lead with when choosing an outsourcing partner for your next business idea or project.

Implement DevOps the Right Way

Posted: 10 Sep 2019 06:00 AM PDT

Cross-departmental communication is standard practice in most IT companies. You can't get the car moving if you don't operate as one massive, well-oiled machine, right?

Barriers often exist between departments, making communication a challenge and hindering your organization's ability to quickly get products to market. This is where DevOps enters the picture.

DevOps can help

DevOps, at its core, is a system of collaboration that does away with siloed development and operations teams, enabling organizations to get software to the market much faster, among other benefits. DevOps is an integration of developers and operations teams to improve productivity and collaboration. This is done by measuring application performance on a continuous basis, automating infrastructure and workflows and continuously measuring application performance. 

Implementing DevOps in tech workplaces

DevOps isn't an "all-in-one solution" that can simply be copied and pasted. An effective DevOps strategy must be tailored to your specific workplace. You'll need an implementation strategy for deploying DevOps in tech vs. creative workplaces.

Get buy-in

Successful DevOps implementation requires everyone to buy-in, from the top of your organization to the bottom. How can this be accomplished? Look at incentives. 

  • Are certain types of behaviors being rewarded?
  • Is there any motivation for cross-team collaboration?
  • What are the things that matter most to your organization? 

It's essential your Dev and Ops teams understand the importance of working together for the sake of continually delivering high-quality applications to your customers. 

Automate, automate, automate 

Have your employees get into the practice of visiting the DevOps team in your organization. Have them work together to discover tools that will help them automate their work to improve efficiency and productivity.

One popular tool is Jenkins, which empowers developers to test new code on each new build in a developer-friendly language. Another such tool is Atlassian's Bitbucket. Bitbucket serves as a web-based version control repository hosting service for developmental projects and source code. 

Improve security 

There are far too many organizations that fail to take their security seriously. Generally, one of the upsides of DevOps is improved security practices. Implement tools to help you check system vulnerabilities in your organization (penetration testing is your friend).

Netsparker is an automatic web application used for penetration testing. It can scan more than 1,000 web applications a day and identify everything from SQL injections to cross-site scripting. And Aircrack can identify flaws within wireless connections. Not only can it test Wi-Fi devices, but it can also test driver capabilities.

No matter what tools you use, you can never completely eliminate the human element. Mistakes can and will happen, but it's often negligence that lies at the core of many organizational security issues. 

Mitigate security risks

  • When deploying web applications, what type of SSL/TLS certificates are you deploying? 
  • Is your hard drive encrypted?
  • Are you using a password manager? 

Cross-department cooperation and software increases the possibility of a single security flaw spreading across the entirety of your business (as opposed to staying contained to a single department). Proper DevOps implementation requires a complete mind shift in the way your organization approaches security. 

Implementing DevOps in creative workplaces 

Creative departments, such as developers and designers, are cut from a different cloth than those in operations. More often than not a web designer requires more than just a technical skillset. They require the creativity to implement those skills to produce a unique product that stands out from the competition.  

As such, the rules they play by are just a little bit different, and creative workplaces require a shift in the way you approach your DevOps strategy. 

Encourage creative problem-solving 

When software engineers fix a bug, they have to consider the possibility it may crash the next system it runs on. To avoid future issues, creative types need to put their thinking caps on and look at the problem from all angles. 

A truly creative person wouldn't just see the bug as an isolated incident, but as a possible symptom of a more widespread problem. Writing code, creating new software or designing a website requires out of the box thinking. 

Often developers and creatives approach projects without taking into consideration what the other is thinking. Simply tossing a PDF file of a design over to the developer team next door is bound to come with a medley of communication problems. 

Cross-department cooperation can be improved by establishing a clear understanding of the project, working side by side, agreeing upon milestones and understanding that both sides will likely approach the project with different methodologies.

Implementing DevOps in a creative workplace requires a culture of nurturing creativity. Otherwise, your creative team members are simply completing the tasks assigned to them.  

Do away with the 9-to-5 mindset

The more you work with creative team members the more it becomes clear that creativity doesn't work on a set schedule. A creative breakthrough may not come through during business hours. It may hit while at home, during a vacation or right at the end of a shift. 

For creative types, work shouldn't be determined by the hours spent at work, but on the actual value of the end product. This type of innovation comes from being handed a problem and given all the time they need to find a solution. 

With that being said, it's still imperative to follow schedules and deadlines. This is the primary reason why it's important that the creative professionals in your organization work with the professionals in operations who will help to keep them on track with schedules and timelines. 

Evolve creative culture

Creative organizations have a culture unique to their own. Propping up a DevOps environment is going to create shifts in that culture. The key here is to ensure that shift improves processes, output and the end product, rather than hindering those things.

A great way to do this is with team building activities such as "War Games." War games are any variation of simulations and exercises that both teams can take part of. They encourage collaboration while at the same time improving efficiency by putting different skills to the test and giving teams the ability to handle real-life situations with more confidence.

Here are some war games that creative organizations can implement:

  • Penetration test - Hack your own system and leave it to the team to fix the issue. One test like this will increase security awareness almost immediately. However, to keep your teams on their toes, it's important to do this indefinitely (switching between once a quarter to semi-annually).
  • Simulate peak demand - What happens to your systems when running at demand peak (or worse, a DDOS attack)? Will the system be able to scale or crash? You never know until you run this scenario.
  • Single line disruption - Run your development and deployment workflow by changing one single line of code. Does the disruption get noticed, does it get fixed with the next iteration? This is a great way to improve the accuracy of your teams.
  • Disaster recovery -  In this scenario, backup your system and simulate a particular disaster. See how the teams collaborate and get through the event. Were they able to remedy the issue or did things reach to a catastrophic fail? Test different disasters as much as you can to keep your teams on their toes.

DevOps is a continuous process

When DevOps is appropriately implemented in your organization, you'll harvest the benefits of getting your products to market that much faster as you focus on improving your business. 

DevOps isn't a one-off deal, however. It's a process that continually requires and improves collaboration and communication. Take a look at the workplace where you intend on implementing your DevOps strategy and focus on best practices to ensure your success.

How Influencer Marketing Fraud Scams Businesses

Posted: 10 Sep 2019 05:00 AM PDT

Businesses strive to go where the market is. But, some struggle with how to really reach a new generation of consumers. If your brand seems out of touch, it can come off as pandering. This media-savvy generation can smell insincerity from a mile away. 

What they want is authenticity. 

So, many business owners turn to marketing professionals in an effort to generate the kind of scientifically-tested content that meets millennials where they live: in the world of social media. Some have decided that a great way to do that is to connect with a popular media influencer.

What is a social media influencer?

Social media influencers marry word-of-mouth advertising with the concept of going viral. The idea is that someone with a large social media following would also have a lot of influence on the tastes and trends of a very desirable demographic. What the Kylie Jenners of the world wear, eat, or care about makes an impression on their social media audience. 

Rather than trying to buy ads or game metrics by triangulating social media outreach efforts, marketers pay individuals with a large social media following to post about their client's products and services.

However, whenever there's lots of money and notoriety involved, fraud is sure to follow. 

Editor's note: Looking for the right online marketing service for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you about your needs.

 

How fraud infiltrates influencer marketing

This brand of digital marketing fraud goes beyond bots and fake accounts, which major social media platforms claim to be working hard to clean up. Social media influencers are considered to be more genuine than some pro athlete or a Hollywood star who you know is getting big money in exchange for brand approval. 

Rising social media stars are sometimes called "micro-influencers." They've risen to fame due to their popularity on platforms like YouTube and Instagram, and their intuition about trends allows them to penetrate niche markets with laser-like precision. The reason many are so influential is that they're relatable. Unlike the Kardashian types, micro-influencers could be someone we know.

Celebrities like Beyoncé and Ariana Grande are legitimately popular stars, online and off. Their fans want to look and dress like them, use the same products and frequent the same places. They're also outside of the pay grade for the average brand when it comes to endorsements. 

Social media influencers are a different story. Their fans still support their causes and mimic their tastes, but a company isn't going to have to offer a $100 million contract for them to endorse their products. This category of influencer is within reach of emerging brands. The biggest influencers make up to $250,000 per social media post – which isn't chump change but is considerably less than it costs for any of the Kardashian/Jenner clan to hold a Coke in their hand rather than a Pepsi. And, the ROI can also be substantial at this level.

So, where does fraud enter the picture?

Social media celebrity is becoming big business. It seems like everyone and their brother has a monetized YouTube channel or trending Instagram account. With all of the instant celebrity – as well as the bank accounts and benefits that come with it – a lot of people are defrauding their way onto the social media marketing gravy train. 

Popular influencers have a million followers or more, and top influencers have followers numbering in the tens of millions. It's estimated that by 2020, brands will be spending close to $10 billion to get some of that market share. 

Approval from the right influencer can take a product from obscurity to must-have with just a few posts, or they can break a brand with a few negative words. But, what are companies getting for their advertising dollar? 

How to spot a fake influencer

Even some legitimately popular social media stars are unintentionally contributing to the fraud. The nature of social media celebrity, the rise and fall of trendy platforms, and the fleeting nature of fame mean that sometimes a valid number of followers doesn't necessarily translate to actual engagement. 

Someone might have three million subscribers or followers but have very few who are still actively engaged on the platform. Most social media users just drift away from platforms after a while, meaning the numbers don't actually reflect who's still around. 

How can you tell? Look beyond the total number of followers at how many are actually engaged. What is the ratio of followers to the number of users the account is following? Is it balanced or fairly even? How many of the followers are from developing countries? There's a large market for fake accounts and bot farms originating in these areas. 

Will Ellis, CTO of security research group Privacy Australia, has studied identity theft prevention and recommends looking closely at an influencer's account history using an analytics tool Social Blade. He says that if you see a sudden increase in either followers or engagement (but not both) over a short period of time, the influencer might be buying social signals.  

The true cost of influencer fraud

While it's estimated that companies will spend billions to purchase some social media street cred, a report by the cybersecurity company Cheq estimates that Instagram fraud alone will cost corporations about $1.5 billion within the next year. 

According to a Wall Street Journal story, a survey conducted by Points North Group found that media influencers with followings of 50,000 to 100,000 users (which is considered midlevel) pad their number of followers by up to 20%. 

What does that mean for marketers? When you're paying someone thousands of dollars for a social media post that's supposed to reach the feeds of 100,000 people, that number of users doesn't actually exist; you're wasting your money. 

You see, the money involved in user-generated content is leading to a sort of attention economy where everyone wants to be a celebrity. In an effort for that viral moment that will get them big-money endorsements and fame, fake influencers are buying followers and likes for as little as $16 per 1,000; you can even purchase them from vending machines in Russia. 

One influencer in Britain was charging 22 different brands $1,000 per media post to reach her 230,000 Instagram followers, 96% of which were non-existent. As it turns out, she was paying $2 for every 1,000 likes or shares per post, netting her a profit of $998 dollars per post – a big loss for the companies who paid for her "influence."

The real fallout for the social media influencer industry is that companies are eventually going to stop throwing money at this new brand of "star" if they don't come up with a way to weed out the rascals. There are plenty of easier ways to waste money than PayPal-ing it to a YouTube pipsqueak with delusions of grandeur.

Final thoughts about influencer marketing

Despite the risks of fraudulent followers, influencer marketing can be a great way to reach new demographics. Platforms are using AI and other technology to weed out those with fake followings from legitimately influential people, but the creator industry needs to step up its efforts to police its own influencers, and brands need to take a critical look at who's influencing who before they invest in an illusion.
Posted by: at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)