Category: Business

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell, post! Social media marketing, and all types of marketing, are essential the whole year long. However, they’re especially important during the holiday season.

The onset of the holiday season means that it’s finally the time of year where we get to fully embrace family, love, and traditions. But exactly how do you combine them all to make sure you’re putting your best marketing forward?

We’ve come up with seven tasks you can complete to make sure your marketing efforts are top-notch this holiday season.

Host Holiday Events

Celebrating the spirit of the season is a fantastic way to involve your customers and show that you care for your community. If you have a physical location for your business, then hosting holiday events is a perfect way to step up your marketing during the season.

These events, which can be anything from special sales to charity toy or food drives, show your community that you are invested in its improvement. Attending events at your business also gives your potential customers the opportunity to check out your holiday sales.

Create A Holiday Hashtag

Brainstorm a creative holiday hashtag for your company. Then when customers attend one of your holiday events or make a purchase at your store, encourage them to take a picture, share the post, and include your holiday hashtag.

This is a fun opportunity for customers to feel more involved and a great way to connect your marketing efforts together across different users and platforms. Make sure that you encourage your customers to use the same holiday hashtag (spelled correctly!) across all their different social media platforms.

Swag Out Your Website For The Holidays

Your website should always remain true to your company’s principles, but that doesn’t mean that your site can’t also embrace the holiday spirit. Many major companies, including Google and Twitter, change their logos for the holidays so that users are greeted with a reminder that there are humans behind the screen. Show your customers your spirit by updating your logo and homepage to reflect the holidays.

When it comes to logo design, consider using bright colors, snowflakes, presents, snowmen, Santa Claus, and other traditional holiday images. However, make sure that the final version of your holiday logo doesn’t deviate too far from the spirit of your original, standard logo and your company’s principles. You want to show your customers that your business is celebrating just like they are, while remaining true to your identity.

Alter Your Newsletter For The Holidays

Once you have an updated holiday-specific logo for your website, it’s time to put it to good use everywhere else. On your email newsletter template, swap out your standard logo for the holiday version. You should also take the time to create a header and graphic that reflects your holiday theme.

Your newsletter is a great place to promote your company’s holiday events and to mention the company holiday hashtag. That way, customers will see that you’re invested in the community and in making a difference during the holiday season. Your email newsletter is a key communication tool.

Transform Your Social Media Presence

‘Tis the season to change that profile pic! Take the time to update your social media accounts with the holiday version of your logo. You should also update your Facebook Cover Photo and Twitter Header with a holiday themed graphic.

When you post to your business social media pages during the holidays, stick to one theme, which should visually tie to your holiday logo. You will have plenty of things to post about if you host holiday events that engage your community. Use all of your platforms to promote your holiday events and sales.

Highlight Holiday Testimonials

If possible, ask your customers for a quick testimonial about why they chose to shop at your business for their loved one’s gift. To make the post, pair the text of the testimonial with a holiday image that fits with your theme.

However, there’s not always time to get testimonials from a customer during the busy holidays. If this is the case for your business, you can still use previous testimonials from customers and pair them with holiday images. The ultimate goal is to make sure that your potential customers know that they can trust your business!

Create A Holiday Gift Guide

A holiday gift guide is a fun, creative way to engage your target market and show off your best products. You can photograph your favorite products surrounded by pine cones, tinsel, bows, or evergreen. You can photoshop in traditional holiday images that are connected to your new holiday logo.

How you go about creating the gift guide is up to you! Whichever direction you decide to take, don’t forget to post your guide to your company website, all your social media pages. Make sure you send out a special edition of your newsletter that highlights just the gift guide!

In Conclusion

The holiday season is an important part of the sales cycle and requires special attention. While you’re already putting in extra hours keeping your business running smoothly and your customers happy (with their loved ones’ gifts in hand!), don’t forget about your marketing. Make sure you choose a holiday theme for all your digital marketing efforts. Keep the spirit of the holidays in your business and in your heart!

The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted the business paradigm like nothing before. Stores across the country and the world have had to close shop and rely on their digital presence to see them through these difficult times.

However, it’s great to know that there are several large companies which are doing all they can to help small businesses stay afloat and perform the crucial tasks they need to ease their administrative burdens. Here are a few services your company can use during the pandemic to help your employees in a variety of ways. (images are also links to the sites)

DocuSign

Everything in this time is done digitally, so it makes sense to have software which allows you to sign documents electronically. This is where DocuSign comes in, and new customers who sign up for the software are currently getting three free months, including one hundred “envelope sends.”

In other words, companies who sign up for soon can send multiple documents to be signed in the same envelope, which is always a nice feature to have. The software is a godsend for law firms and other companies who need to acquire legal signatures from remote locations.

Microsoft

Easy and efficient communications have become one of the most important cornerstones of the new business realm. Luckily, Microsoft has developed Microsoft Teams to become one of the most effective and widely used platforms for connecting teams from home.

When customers commit to an annual plan for Microsoft Teams, they also receive a free six months of Microsoft 365 Business Basic, which is a great way to connect your many communication channels. Better yet, the licensing fee for the products is extremely affordable and includes online versions of popular Microsoft applications such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy has been one of the premiere businesses for acquiring a domain name, but they’ve recently started to help small businesses during the pandemic. Most prominently, GoDaddy is helping small businesses improve their marketing and advertising efforts due to shrinking budgets and other constrictions brought about by the virus.

Companies which sign up with GoDaddy’s service actually receive a free website, on top of use of GoDaddy’s e-mail marketing resources, which include Google Busines and Facebook. For those companies who already own a site, GoDaddy is also offering great tools for social media marketing.

PayChex

Administrative burdens are always a headache in the best of times, and the pandemic has made them overwhelming obstacles to daily activities for many businesses. Working remotely is extremely different for administrators who need to be up-to-date and cognizant of every detail and problem within a payroll system. There’s good news for companies who are struggling to keep up with their administrative duties, however; Paychex is currently offering three months free for their payroll services.

In addition to the help Paychex is providing through their streamlining of payroll services, they’re also providing State Unemployment Insurances services for three months when customers sign up to their software. As an extra help to small businesses, Paychex is also helping businesses retain and pay their employees until the economy recovers from the shock of the pandemic.

Freshworks

Despite its name, Freshworks actually provides software which eases communication efforts and helps teams everywhere stay connected while working remotely. Business with less than fifty businesses can currently purchases their customer engagement tools for free; these tools include their popular Freshchat and Freshcaller services.

Freshchat is a platform which makes chatting and messaging easier within organizations and Freshcaller is designed to move your call center to the cloud, creating a hotline which can be answered at any time by members of your team working remotely. These services substantially ease the pressures of communicating within your team and with valued customers.

Hootsuite

Social media is more important than ever as customers are accessing companies and their services through digital means. Social media allows companies to engage and interact with customers but the breadth and complexity of social media sites can sometimes be difficult to manage. That’s where Hootsuite comes in.

Hootsuite allows businesses to manage their social media platforms and make posting to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram easier and coordinated more consistently. It presents your social media sites and presence in one easy-to-read dashboard and makes the creation of an overarching strategy simple and easy.

1Password

Password protection and security is a crucial but undervalued component for many small business owners. Good quality protection for passwords is a great way to ensure security and stability for your site and offer great peace of mind for years to come.

1Password is a great tool to use to generate and manage passwords so your company keeps hackers off balance and unable to access your site through a direct attack. In addition, 1Password is helping small businesses by providing their services for free for the first six months.

Flocksy

On top of all of these great companies, you can always trust Flocksy to handle and execute your media needs with ease and professionalism. Flocksy is a trusted platform which handles the needs of many companies from a media perspective.

Their team of trusted copywriters can create original content, edit your already created content, shoot video, write scripts, and perform many more tasks in all areas of creation and brand management. If you need a partner to help you with your media needs, there’s no better ally than Flocksy.

The pandemic has altered the way men and women all over the country do business. On top of bringing seismic shifts to work and home life, the virus has taken a toll on many peoples’ psyche because of the isolation and loneliness it’s caused over the last seven months. This general malaise often extends into the workplace too, and it’s imperative that you help your employees cope with their stress and sadness in a timely, sensitive manner.

BetterUp has recently released a study which found that lonely workers are less satisfied with their jobs, receive fewer promotions, and, most importantly to your business, switch jobs at a far higher rate than those whose mental health are more stable. These lonely employees are also far more likely to switch jobs within the next six months, which means turnover in your company and the training of new staff and the costs of recruiting.

Epidemic Status

The issue of loneliness isn’t something new just due to the pandemic, even if the virus has expanded the complexity and scope of the problem. Workplace loneliness and fatigue problems have both been of increasing severity in the last decade, as many individuals are feeling disconnected from life in general; the problems have gotten so bad that some experts have started describing them as an epidemic. The virus has worsened these feelings, however, as many are home alone for extended periods of time. In such isolation, mental health quickly begins to degrade, and many are undergoing a sort of extreme form of “cabin fever.”

Humans need interaction and connectivity throughout the day, two essential components of life COVID-19 has invariably removed for most. Employees who are single and childless are at the greatest risk of mental health decline, as are those who are well educated and possess graduate degrees. To improve the lives of your workers and save money and time in the process, you should be tuned in to the mental health of your workers. Here are four steps you can take to mitigate their loneliness and isolation in these uncertain times.

Create Meaning In Daily Life

Undoubtedly the greatest step employers can take is to create a shared sense of meaning for their employees. Many today don’t feel as if their work has purpose or meaning and are struggling to stay enthusiastic and connected to what they do on a daily basis. Managers and other supervisors can counteract these feelings by taking time to speak to employees and connecting them to the work they’re doing.

Employee/manager communications are essential to help boost morale and demonstrate the worth of the work your workers have performing every day. It’s best to foster a shared sense of purpose for all of your employees, try to bring them together and know as a unit that what they’re doing is worthwhile and appreciated. Make an effort to single out many individual employees when they perform well and help unify them around a common goal, such as a project they’re working on. Recognition is a huge part of creating shared meaning and boosting morale for the entire office.

Check In Often

The virus has forced many workplaces to use Zoom and other video communications to connect for work purposes, but your employees want a deeper, more personal connection after work is done for the day. Your managers should take time out of their days to connect with employees on a more personal level, unrelated to work or Zoom. Regular phone calls are still good for connecting with people one on one, there’s no need for a video chat when calling in to ask about an employee’s day or home life.

The call should be totally unrelated to work; just two human beings having a chat about how the employee is doing and if there’s anything the manager can do to ease negative feelings at work. Whoever makes the call should open themselves up to vulnerabilities, just as you want your employee to do. Managers and supervisors have a story to tell during this pandemic too, and they should be free to do so to ease the minds of the worker.

Open Paths To Team Connections

Although difficult, it’s a smart idea to remake the kinds of connections and camaraderie that would be present in the office. Try and allow your employees to connect in the same organic way they would if they were all in the office during a regular year, chatting and making small talk to generally relieve their minds from the stress of work and life. This can be a difficult process, but there are a few steps you can take to create this sort of healthy work environment.

There are channels you can make on applications like Slack that allow your employees to share their feelings and interact with each other in a non-work context. You can also set up “social hangouts,” which are virtual meetings for your employees to join and chat with one another outside of work. Any method which allows them to meet and connect without having to worry about talking about their work is a great start to decrease loneliness and isolation.

Provide Mental Health Help

Your company’s health package should provide some form of mental health aid. It may be costly, but it’s well worth the peace of mind and psychological easing it will provide your employees. People all over the country are dealing with stress levels not seen in a long time and providing them with a mental health option will help them relieve this stress and tension.

Not only is this a generally ethical option to provide, your employees will also work more efficiently and effectively if they’re not mired in stress and fatigue throughout the day. Even if your employees are working from home, you should provide access to remote counseling or another form of mental health help. Do everything you can to ensure your employees are receiving the attention and care they need during these tumultuous times.

Whether it’s financial stress, your relationships, a big work deadline, or just the world we live in, stress is all around us. It finds its way into almost every aspect of our lives, leading many of us to begin to fall in a mental hole: becoming overwhelmed.

While we use one word to describe the feeling, being “overwhelmed” actually includes symptoms of depression, tension headaches, anger, anxiety, panic, even isolation. All together, this cluster of feelings and symptoms can lead to a poor diet, less exercise, and an overall decline in our health and wellness.

Instead of getting trapped in the same cycle you do every time you get overwhelmed, try some of these techniques the next time you start to feel like it’s all too much.

Focus On Boundaries

A commonly known phrase says that fences make for better neighbors. The same is true when we put fences up psychologically in our lives. For example, creating a boundary about what work you will and won’t bring home, or what favors you are and are not willing to do for certain people in your life.

Take some time to identify what things are contributing to your feelings of being overwhelmed and decide what boundaries you need to set up to create more harmony within yourself.

Don’t Be Afraid To Vent

You know that feeling when you just need to unleash all your stress and frustration, so you go to a trusted friend or partner and suddenly it all comes out? That’s the perfect example of venting. We all need to vent sometimes.

Even if you don’t have someone you can talk to, you can still vent to yourself. Get a journal or notebook and spend a few minutes every day venting about the things making you feel overwhelmed. Chances are, you will feel loads better after.

Let Some Things Go

As much as we would like to be able to say yes to everything and do everything, it’s just not feasible. If you find you are constantly overbooked and overwhelmed because of it, consider letting some of the things on your to do list go. You don’t necessarily have to give up on everything.

Consider using the 4D’s method: Delete; Delegate; Defer; and Do. You can simply cancel certain tasks or obligations. Others you might be able to delegate to another person. If you can put off something, go ahead and do that! What you’re left with are your “Do’s,” the things that you actually need to worry about.

Remove Yourself

Just like we do with our children, sometimes we need to put ourselves in a time out. Even a few minutes removed from a situation that is making you feel overwhelmed can help you to gain some perspective and come back to it with a fresh mind.

Be careful of falling into the trap of procrastinating too long or using this as an excuse to avoid your responsibilities. Simply set a timer and let yourself mentally and physically remove yourself from the overwhelming task.

Focus On One Thing At A Time

We all think we are great at multitasking, but science says otherwise. You will never be as productive on something when your attention is split. Instead, let yourself work on a single task for a determined amount of time. Once that amount of time is over, you can switch to the next thing and come back to the first task.

Be Okay With Imperfection

The quest for perfect could be your top reason for feeling overwhelmed. Take the example of drawing a perfect circle. You might go into the task of drawing a perfect circle feeling confident.

You’ve drawn plenty of circles in your lifetime! But once you draw the circle, you notice a flaw. Not a problem, you try again. Then you see another flaw. Soon your whole sheet of paper is filled with nearly-perfect circles and you have to get a new piece of paper and start over entirely!

The same cycle is repeated when you approach your work and life tasks with the same sense of perfectionism. At some point, you have to let yourself be a little imperfect. A nearly-perfect completed task is better than an incomplete task.

Get Out Of Your Own Way

Going along with letting yourself be a little imperfect, you have to learn how to get out of your own way. We all have a tendency to overthink things, especially when they have to do with our professional lives.

The problem with overthinking is that it can stunt you, even damn you, in once place. You could stay in that same spot for years because you are simply overthinking.

The root of this is fear: fear that you won’t be good enough, that you can’t do something, that it won’t be perfect. Instead of letting yourself wallow in that fear, overcome it by acting! Just make one little step toward your goal or the completion of your task and you will find it’s likely not as scary as you thought.

Take Aways

Whatever the reason for your feeling of being overwhelmed, there are ways to overcome it. Instead of letting fear and perfectionism weigh you down, take one step toward the finish line. Let yourself focus on one thing at a time, and if you need to vent then do it! Take a time out and allow yourself to reset. And never be afraid of eliminating some of the causes of your overwhelmed feeling.

In our technology-driven marketplace, consumers are constantly evolving. We are inundated with new products and platforms, and the constant change that comes with it. Because the needs and attention of consumers are always shifting with these changes, businesses must adapt through their own innovations.

When we think about how innovation happens, we may find a few ingredients to help a business that wants to adjust their strategy. There is no set formula for effecting necessary changes, but leading experts tell us that one of the most important parts involved in changing business tactics is also one of the things initiating these movements in the marketplace: technology.

Technology’s role in marketplace changes

To explore how technology spurs these marketplace changes that are requiring businesses to innovate, we can look at the example of print media.

For generations, print media – for example, newspapers and magazines – were the source of our news. These were our main way of staying informed. For local communities, it was how changes within a community were progressing. And then came the internet.

We all saw as print media began to suffer. The new-kid-on-the-block was stealing the focus and the physical products were becoming obsolete. In the last two decades, many people have transitioned from getting the daily newspaper or having a magazine subscription to simply catching the stories they want to read online. They look to social media platforms and digital print.

So, print media adapted. They used technology to adjust their model and innovated their product to become enticing to the consumer. Now, major publications have online subscriptions; they still use ads to bring in revenue, though these are now online; and they use social media to increase their readership.

How technology fits with innovation

As we see with the example of print media, the same technology that could be the reason to consider a change could also be the way you make that change.

In fact, innovation in business could be boiled down to meaning a new way to drive efficiency. One of the hallmarks of technology is its ability to help us become more efficient.

Anyone who has worked in the marketplace has the memory of a time before computer systems were so widely used, when paper was king and stacks and stacks of files were everywhere, even requiring their own room in the workplace.

As technology advances, it finds ways to make our businesses more efficient. A survey by PwC showed that “70% of CEOs invest in IT to reduce costs and become more efficient, and 54% allocate funds to emerging technologies to help drive growth.”

Why is technology so important for innovation?

Technology is improving business in many ways. One that we can’t ignore is how much it improves the human element. More and more technology is being developed to identify and resolve human errors. It also allows us to test out products, our marketing campaigns, our message in a low-cost and at speeds that were once considered a fairytale.

Technology is also helping to create new markets. An example is AI technology. It is becoming a more readily available and widely used tool in business thanks to its increasing efficiency and effectiveness.

According to a Harvard Business Review survey, “25% of the 250 business executives in their survey think AI will help them pursue new markets.” With this we see that technology is helping to forge a path for businesses to explore new avenues.

Finally, technology is innovating the way we reach customers. Social media platforms in the last decade have allowed for lower advertising costs and the concept of “going viral” is the goal of many new companies.

On the opposite side of the coin, customers are using the new advancements in technology to find small businesses they may not have had access to before. Ultimately, technology is innovating our business’s relationship with the consumer.

Take-aways

Technology is here to stay, but not here to stay the same. It will constantly evolve and we can and should evolve with it. It will help us become even more efficient through new methods of reaching customers and new ways for customers to find us.

In the recipe for business success, technological innovation is key

• Productivity tools and practices can distract you from actually getting work done.
• Procrastination happens when people feel the need to avoid feelings of failure.
• Being more flexible and adaptable in your work can help you get more done.

Planning is crucial to productivity. At least, that’s what gurus would have you think. But all the pretty planners, color-coding, and overpriced to-do apps in the world can’t solve the problem of procrastination. Indeed, many people lean on planning as a way of avoiding the work they need to do.

After all, planning feels good and productive. Few things are more satisfying than writing a list or updating your planner. Unfortunately, experts say that spending a lot of time organizing your life can be a sign of procrastination, uncertainty, and perfectionism. Here’s how you can tell if your productivity routine is actually holding you back from getting things done.

You feel anxious while doing your planning

Experts advise that you listen to your gut as you break out that planner. Do you feel like you’re in the flow and able to tackle the tasks on your list? Or do you have a pit in your stomach and feel icky about all that you have to do? If the latter, you’re likely using your planning as a way to control the chaos and avoid the potentially unpleasant tasks you have to do.

Instead, start diving into your work whenever you feel anxious. If you feel most creative and productive in the morning, take that post-coffee jolt and save the email-checking and list-making for later. Don’t let the appeal of “getting organized” distract you from the work that needs to be done. Focus on reflecting at the end of the day: you’ll start to feel more on top of things.

You stack your schedule every day.

Do you identify just a few key priorities for the day, or do you schedule every minute of the day in order to maximize your productivity? Over planning is a sign of procrastination, and by doing so, you’re likely impairing your ability to get things done.

Let’s face it: stuff happens. Meetings run late, you get hungry, tasks take longer than you expected. When you pack your calendar full, you’re removing any capacity to accommodate change — which can cause stress — and you’re forcing yourself into an impossible situation.

Build leeway into your schedule: it may feel like you’re relinquishing control, but the opposite is true. You’ll feel more in control and more capable of tackling your work. Your life will also feel less hectic and scattered, which will make you feel more capable of tackling your to-dos rather than hiding behind your task list.

You craft your to-do list in terms of goals

Setting goals is essential to personal development and productivity — but it can also be a way to hide your feelings of insecurity or avoid the possibility of failure. Many people enjoy the process of goal-setting so much that they forget to do the actual work. You may have read some articles advising you to devote set amounts of time per day for your goals. But life doesn’t work that way. Your to-do list should be flexible enough to accommodate life’s curveballs.

That’s why experts recommend that you set goals, but think of them as guidance rather than rules. Focus on what you can accomplish each day rather than viewing your to-do list as an endless march toward your goals. Make adjustments if needed, and forgive yourself if you don’t meet an arbitrary daily quota.

You’re unwilling to take action unless things are perfect

If you’ve ever planned a project into oblivion, you were a victim of perfectionism disguised as productivity. Many people wait until everything is perfect before taking action. In the meanwhile, the momentum they already have for the project fades. As the saying goes, the ship has sailed, and you find that you spent too much time planning to actually take action.

Be willing to jump in feet-first, and trust that you’ll adapt to curve balls and new information. That’s not to say you should skip essential tasks before launching a project, but it’s okay to work on things as you’re inspired to do so. You don’t have to have the perfect to-do list to get started.

Wrapping Up

To maximize your productivity, resist the temptation to over-plan your work. Filling out planners and making to-do lists feels good, but it’s an excellent method of procrastination that distracts us from actually getting things done.

When in doubt, listen to your gut: do you feel stressed and overwhelmed, or do you feel empowered and capable? If you’re making lots of lists and still feel uncertain, you might be hiding behind your productivity scheme. Be willing to step outside your comfort zone and throw yourself into your work — even if your to-do list isn’t perfect.