Why Your Promotion Never Works Out? 4 Ways You Will Ever Need

Everyone thinks they deserve a promotion. But how do you truly know if you deserve one? In the same time you get great reviews from your boss and your coworkers, so when a senior-level opening promotion in your group, you surprise that your boss has chosen a person for that promotion, and he picked someone else!! Not you

In my career I witnessed what I deemed to be travesties of employment equity laws when promoted colleague ahead of other employee. It's okay to be angry and upset, especially if you know you deserved that promotion or merit. Hang your ego on the hook with your coat and go back to work like normal. There's nothing for you to gain by moping around the office or being snarky or short with your colleagues—or the boss who passed you over. BUT focused on how seemingly unfair these outcomes were, never once did you consider your own contribution to your lack of success.

I have different perspective might be help to understand how to stand in the level to get on your management’s radar fast, to get identified as one of the key assets in your company, and get promoted and compensated accordingly

You may not agree with my advice below, but I believe it will work

1. Look outside, not in

It is really important to spend time observing external environments that ultimately will affect your organization’s future. Study trends, commentaries, and any other information that sends relevant signals about what is occurring in your sector. Begin to socialize these topics with operational and senior colleagues. Become known as the person who is wired in to what is going on in the market place.

2. Build up your image and Effective Relationships

Relationships between people can exist in many form, those that are most productive, effective and rewarding operate in a state of inter – dependence, such as involving yourself with voluntary and other groups relevant to your business. Identify individuals who may add value to your colleagues’ or your bosses’ business objectives. Self-awareness is considered as key role in building your image and relationship among your coworkers and group. With this awareness, you are able to approach new situations – those that excite you, those that daunt you and those that challenge you – with more confidence in yourself to deal with the issues you may encounter – known and unknown. This will no doubt enhance your relevance, relationships and opportunities.

3. Work to respect not to show off 

In the short term, promotions come and go – in the long game, respect builds a positive career trajectory. Also respect for others sets the work environment that allows the parties to interact with each other in a dignified way. To build sustainable respect with your leaders, exhibit the capacity to look for solutions when others may have given up. Being the positive voice when difficult issues arise will set you apart in the minds of your colleagues, and leave the clear impression that you can be relied upon in difficult or complex circumstances. Consistent and positive body language, along with a constructive attitude, will always provide long-term rewards.

4. Always be open minded

There are many benefits to be enjoyed from being open-minded, particularly in the workplace, I would say it helps us to experience new ideas and thoughts and we challenge the beliefs our currently have. It can be very liberating to look at the world through an open mind. No matter how important your role is to you, it is not who you are. This is a simple reality that took me a long time to learn and see how other think. 

The business that we are working in or with is not always fair; your reaction to defeat is often the best test of character known to your boss or manger. Being open-minded puts you above others who refuse to look beyond horizons they’ve set for themselves and explore possibilities.

By applying these four principles of the long game and sooner or later that promotion will likely come, within or outside your work environment.  I would therefore say business like life, is all about learning from it and more about yourself “You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you" - Barbara Sher .  In so doing, you will identify how you can make a valued contribution to your environment and stand out in the process.

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Promote Your Niche Will Change Your Image In The Market Place and Community

I believe people who plan to sell their image or promote their product or service need to find the sweet spot for their blog sometimes feel like tuning an old radio to new FM Channel. Am I right?

So by working to find out the proper way to get that perfect connection with your readers, it considered a main axis to build up the network with your customers, clients and other social networks

I would say that you know you’re close. You know some of the signal is getting through. But it’s not loud and clear.

And no matter which direction you turn the dial, you can’t find the perfect position. Sure, a few people share your posts. You get the occasional comment. And a handful of people have joined your email list for updates.

But it’s taken weeks, months or even years to get this far. How much longer must you wait to break through?

Luckily for you, a small adjustment is often all you need – a subtle shift in direction that allows your blog to finally resonate strongly with your readers.


Great Content, Design, and Other Blogging Myths.

As I mentioned before in my previous blog the quantity of your content isn’t enough to make your blog a success.In the same time you’ve probably found plenty of great content that you haven’t done anything about. You didn’t share it, you didn’t comment on it, and you didn’t subscribe to get more of it.

Let’s face it and talk frankly, what we need else to enhance and promote the content that we publish?
It’s the same with great design.

Based on how often blogging and marketing sites talk about design, you could think it makes a huge difference. But it doesn’t.

Of course your site should look good. If it looks like it hasn’t been updated since the ’90s, people won’t expect much from your content either. But be honest – when was the last time you subscribed to a blog simply because it had good design? Exactly. Good design is simply a given – an expectation you have to meet. But it doesn’t give you an advantage.

Objection: People Don’t Care If You’re an Expert.

When you search about some content or find a site run by a recognized expert on the topic, it doesn’t mean you automatically subscribe. Even if you think the topics might help you, too many “experts” are sharing their ideas for that to make a difference anymore.

The same thing causes many businesses to struggle with sales.

For example, Online English Language Institute always claim to have solid-experience and reliable background. So, it’s just an expectation, which doesn’t have much weight in the qualification’s body to hold the process.

You need more to get excited enough to take action. And so do the people who find your blog.

So What Makes You Different?

Think what sets your content has to be differentiate and apart from the competition.

For example, do you provide more in-depth content than others? Or is your content more straightforward? Easier to implement? More entertaining? Or do you have specialized expertise or authority others in your field lack?

Do you focus on solving more specific problems? Or help a more specific group of people? Or help in a way others don’t? Something has to make you different.
The good news? Usually only a small adjustment is enough to make your blog worth the attention you desire. But if you don’t make that change, you have a squirrel’s chance on an eight-lane highway to build up a significant audience.

How to Make People Understand Why They Should Pay Attention

So you’ve figured out what makes you different. And written it down, so it’s not just in your head, right? Because it you haven’t written it somewhere, chances are the idea is less than perfectly clear.

For example, it could be something like this: “My blog helps people to improve their way to run the business in terms of Information Technology, Organizational  Sustainability and Digital Marketing, so they can change their vision or style on the mechanism of using technique in applying or adopting different tool to enhance their business. . I give them practical, interesting information that they can easily add to their strategy.”

The point is, you must already have it clarified for yourself. If you don’t, you’ll struggle to make your visitors understand why they should pay attention. You need to focus everything on getting that message across. Every aspect of your marketing needs to support it. 

Even the content you share in social media and your guest posts should work hard to make people understand your value proposition.

If anything isn’t in line with it, people won’t get a strong “signal” because you’re not consistent. And then, again, they have little reason to stick around reading your blog. But getting it across isn’t as complicated as you might think.

Dominate Your Niche
 
You know what compels people to pay attention to you, share your content, leave comments, and subscribe to your list.

You publish content that your target audience has been craving and would be willing to jump through flaming hoops for. And all your content is focused on making people understand your value proposition.

Things start rolling. People start subscribing. They share the content, so more people find you. Even Google understands you better when your content is focused.

You’ve found just the right position for the dial, and the signal is clear.

Try to apply what I  raised above and dig deep to find out additional details that might be help to support what we pointed out!

Good Luck

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Want Better Business Growth? You Should Harness the Power of Your Business Strategy

If you have a business or a company can you summarize your company’s strategy in two lines or less? If so, did you apply the sustainability as a management agenda in your business strategy? 

When I was sitting with one my friend who has a company offers Green IT Services, I asked him about his company strategy and how he created it when he started up the new business? 

He started talking about the concept of strategy statement and what we should do before even start doing any business and what is the road map we need to sketch out to know where we are going. I like the statement that he raised it “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there” so you we should have a clear goal and objective to your strategy to let stakeholders and shareholders know what is your vision and where youe plan to reach. 

There is sentence says “You could go into business tomorrow with the goal of becoming the world’s largest hamburger chain within 10 years. But will anyone invest in your company if you have not explained how you are going to reach your objective?

He explained to me how many months he spent to draw the outlines of his business strategy to make sure that it is one with which he feels comfortable, and what we need to ensure that our strategy is compatible with the type of business we want to run and the industry in which we will be working. 

The idea was to adopt a strategy that integrated Information Technology Services and Sustainability to foster greater collaboration and offering green services in organizations. The objective was to offer unique services that make his company different from rivals by focusing on energy conservation and applying “green” service. 

Your competitive advantage is the essence of your strategy: What your business will do differently from or better than others defines the all-important means by which you will achieve your stated objective.

I admit that I love the term of sustainability and what does this term details has as my MBA was in organization leadership and sustainability.  Not so long ago, sustainability wasn’t even on the radar screen of most companies. Nowadays, we can see there are several corporations view sustainability as a strategic opportunity and are pursuing it as operational competencies.

Recently, many business leaders have begun to view sustainability as a more integral component of their business strategy, identifying opportunities and risks as a way to enhance revenue, margins and brand value. Organizations with a broader, more strategic plan for sustainability will not only drive innovation across their enterprise including transforming key processes, but may also influence what their customers want and how their suppliers operate.

For instance, Toyota’s leadership drew a different direction that placed sustainability into the core of its business strategy. Unlike Ford, Toyota was not losing money; in 2010, it reported record profits of $14.9 billion. The company has built its strategy around all four aspects of sustainability (Social, Economic, Environment and Culture). Toyota’s efforts to build a company that is harmonious with the changing needs of society led it to develop a balanced and diversified portfolio of cars. 

So the movement toward sustainability is just getting started, and a few corporate leaders are rising to the challenge. Another example comes from the home-furnishing retailer IKEA has “air-hunters,” people who search for empty space to reduce the size of packaging, and the merchandiser will stop giving out plastic bags and start selling solar panels and smart energy meters.

I would therefore say, creating and implementing a strategy will not only set the company on a clearly articulated course to growth; it will also produce positive side effects. Having a business strategy can give us the real company future shape on long term. So when you are choosing your business strategy, you should consider the future of your business as well as your current resources and situation. 

You may want to think about the long-term potential of your business strategy and how it may develop and change as your business grows. So we need to make sure that we choose the right strategy for the present, in order to ensure that we achieve the success we need now before we can think about growth and expansion into new areas of the market. 

In fact, start up a company without a strategy may run the risk of losing the company! 

I hope that I presented my point of view in a right form :)

Thanks!

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Why Your Business Needs to Think Out of The Box?

Innovators have a major role in way we see the world but from different lens. Companies that successfully market and sell innovation are able to shift how people think not only about their product, but about themselves, the market, and the world.  Mark Zuckerberg was one of the great mind shifters of our time. He championed the mantra “think different” and create the way people think about social networking.

Innovations has entered many industries and have made the concept of impossible word to be unavailable in the dictionary of innovation. So whether big or small, ideas that challenge the status Quo usually lead to innovation, and  thinking outside the box is more than just a business cliché.

To truly move forward and make your name as well known trademark in  business and industry, you need to do things differently from the rest of the crowd. you should create a Blue Ocean Strategy to make your business unique and different. Not everything needs to be radically different but you shouldn’t wait around for other individuals or companies to come up with the ideas or solutions that you need. Find them on your own by remembering to think outside the box. When you open your mind to new ways of accomplishing things, you end up being a lot more innovative and this typically plays a key role for success.

In this article, I would speak about the role of Information technology in the power shift of Digital Marketing in the market place.

We know that the internet now provides a wide variety of search services for finding websites, sellers, services, product information, reviews, other search engines, and so on. There are now a variety of web search services and other social networks channels that enable both business and consumer—to find, at least, each other.

Marketing finds itself in the vanguard because it stands to gain the most from digitization. Digital data describes a customer’s history, preferences, and — as the proliferation of smartphones grows — immediate context. When combined with powerful analytics, digital data allow marketers to segment their audience and create propensity models that can predict how and when to influence customers to buy.

Digital data also describe the amount and location of current inventory, offering merchants an opportunity to make offers based on a sophisticated knowledge of supply and demand. From this point we can see how much the innovation in small part of IT side has significant impact in the evolution of digital marketing.

Furthermore, with data analytic as the driver and automation as the goal, marketing departments are scrambling to pull in skills that would have lived purely in IT and in the quantlabs of financial service firms. These skills are now reaching beyond data analysis to encompass information architecture, application development, and technology project management.

Over the last ten years, HubSpot.Com has grown from an upstart to a market leader in enterprise software for inbound marketing. From the beginning, HubSpot.com has focused on shifting the paradigm of inbound marketing as much as shifting customers over to its product.

We need to really think about these technologies and how they’re going to assist us. Analytics at it’s most basic level is the information resulting from the systematic analysis of data.  It is not only relating with the marketing digitization it pertains to online marketing, analytics platforms are the systems that collect, aggregate and report on the activity of visitors to your business online site(s) or social media interactions. 

For instance, Search Analytics – backlinks are the gold standard of ranking on the internet and rank drives traffic and conversions. As result, tools that help you monitor your search engine keywords, competitors, and how your content is ranking can help you to attract new visitors and build content strategies that drive business. In the same time the ability to track products in use makes it possible to respond to customer behavior. And of course, products can now be connected with other products, leading to new analytics and new services for more effective forecasting, process optimization, and customer service experiences.

From my perspective, I would say technology impacts marketing and marketers in several ways, a wide range of technologies could be identified including hardware, software and communication technology. It could be shown that technology has a strong impact on the marketing strategy in terms of collect, handle, interchange, communicate, analyze and customize information, leading to cost reductions, more effective marketing procedures and improved customer satisfaction.

To sum up, thinking outside of the box starts with you and your creativity. It is what separates you from the rest of the crowd — to have the freedom to think on your own and your business as well as having the ability to apply it to what your working on is worth more than any amount of money in this world.

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What Wikipedia Couldn't Tell You About Social Media Marketing Plans?

When I went Scuba Diving for the first time, I had no idea what I was doing. My friend and I were complete newbies about the technique breathe underwater and every other bit of what is a basic technical understanding and requires that the diver has equipment that is appropriate for this activity.

We saw others doing it spectacularly well. We were thrilled at the thought of diving deeply in the sea; but we had no idea how to get there. From that day, I’d imagine that a social media marketing plan could feel the same way.

I would say If you’re starting from square one, you should know what you want to do and why. For instance, the people we met in scuba diving they have known what the techniques and have experience level to deep descend in the water. I would say it is like a social media when you plan to target your audience by knowing the technique and get few ideas about how to get there.

It’d help to have a plan!

The idea that I came out about social media marketing plan has stemmed from the personal experience behind scuba diving situation.

Starting at the ground floor and building up, here is our overview of how to create a social media marketing plan from scratch.

I like to think of this plan like a road trip. Start out by pointing yourself in the right direction, then choose the way you’re going to get there, check in regularly to make sure you’re on track, and have some fun along the way.

Step 1: Choose your social networks
Step 2: Fill out your profiles completely
Step 3: Find your voice and tone
Step 4: Pick your posting strategy
Step 5: Analyze and test
Step 6: Listen and engage

 

Step 1: Which social media sites you should use.

Social Media is as homogenous from network to network as soda pop is from brand to brand. Sure, it’s all social media, but Google+ and Twitter might as well be Mountain Dew and Pepsi. Each network is unique, with its own best practices, own style, and own audience.

You should choose the social networks that best fit your strategy and the goals you want to achieve on social media. You don’t have to be on them all—just the ones that matter to you and your audience.

Some things to consider that can help you choose not only which social networks to try but also how many to try

Time – Did you put a plan about how much time can you devote to a social network?
Resources - What personnel and skills do you have to work with? Visual social networks like Pinterest and Instagram require images and photos. Social networks like Google+ emphasize quality content. Do you have the resources to create what’s needed?
Your audience – Where do your potential customers hang out? Which social network has the right demographics?

For the latter part of this decision, you can reference the audience research and demographics from surveys like those conducted by Pew Research. For instance, Pew has complete data, collected last fall, of the demographics for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Step 2: Fill out your profiles completely

Be loyalty and let your customers or audiences know how you are when they visit each of every single platform you have or any hub you stand on or social media profiles and make sure that your avatar, cover photos, bio, and profile info is up-to-date and complete. It’s a key part to your social media audit. A completed profile shows professionalism, cohesive branding, and a signal to visitors that you’re serious about engaging. Did you work on that?

On the other hand we should know that the profiles will require two parts: visuals and text. Both complement each other, yet both are distinct in many ways.

Till date we see many people are still only catching up to text based social media without focusing on visual aspect, for instance LinkedIn isn’t Pinterest. It’s not Instagram. It’s a text-heavy platform.  

Why do I need to include images there? Most people think of LinkedIn as being a professional profile – where words do the talking, not pictures. Baby boomers are learning to create blogs, they’re learning to use Twitter, and starting to grasp the concept of text based social media.

But things have changed in the world of LinkedIn with the introduction of what is called “Professional Portfolio” earlier this year…and for this Visual Social Media Fan, it’s a very positive change.

Step 3: Find your marketing voice and tone

The temptation at this point might be to jump right in and start sharing. Just one more step before you do. Your foray into social media will be more focused and more on point if you come up with a voice and tone for your content right off the bat.

To do so, you could spend time coming up with marketing personas and debating the finer points of your mission statement and customer base. These are all well and good. However, for a social media marketing plan just getting off the ground, you can make this process a bit easier.

Start with questions like these:

• If your brand was a person, what kind of personality would it have? 
• If your brand was a person, what’s their relationship to the consumer? (a coach, friend, teacher, dad, etc) 
• Describe in adjectives what your company’s personality is not. 
• Are there any companies that have a similar personality to yours? Why are they similar? 
• How do you want your customers to think about your company?

Step 4: Pick your posting strategy.

What’s the ideal amount to post per day? How often should you post? When should you post? What should you post? Where should start your posting? So you need to determine your goal. I would therefore say, every post you make on a social network needs to have a purpose. Something you can measure and quantify as being part of an overall strategy. Here are some common purposes and goals.

So much of the social media experience is about your individual audience and niche. What works for you might not work for me, and you never know until you try. Each post type may or may not resonate with your audience such that they will respond to it and help you achieve your goal. That’s okay, you can test the different post types to see which ones do.

That being said, there is some pretty good data and insight about where to start. Here’s what we’ve found to be good jumping off points..

What should you be posting?

The push toward visual content has plenty of anecdotal evidence—as you browse the streams on Twitter and Facebook, you’re likely to see images all over. There’s data behind the reason why. Image posts get more views, clicks, re-shares, and likes than any other type of post. And it’s not even close.

On Facebook, photos get 53 pecent more likes, 104 percent more comments and 84 percent more click-through on links than text-based posts.

Same goes for Twitter. In a study of over two million tweets from verified users across a number of different industries, Twitter found that photos have the greatest effect on re-tweets.

When should you be posting?

There are many neat tools to show you the best time of day to post to Facebook, Twitter, and more. These tools look at your followers and your history of posts to see when your audience is online and when historically have been your best times to share.

So what’s someone to do who’s just starting out on these social networks, with no audience and no history?

Again, this is where best practices come in. I have seen in one of the most important article in info graphic about timing comes from Sum All, which compiled timing research from sites like Visual.ly, Search Engine Watch, and Social Media Today to create its awesome visual. Here’s an overview of what they found in terms of timing (all times are Eastern Time).

Twitter - 1-3pm weekdays
Facebook - 1-4pm and 2-5pm weekdays
LinkedIn - 7-8:30am and 5-6pm Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
Tumblr - 7-10pm weekdays and 4pm on Fridays
Instagram - 5-6pm weekdays and 8pm on Mondays with a sweetspot at 6pm
Pinterest - 2-4pm and 8-11pm weekdays with weekends being the best
Google+ - 9-11am weekdays

Step 5: Analyze, test, and iterate

Remember how I mentioned about the deep descend in the water, so now you’re data-driven. Your company speaks the language of data and has a full-blown analytics set up tracking every piece of your digital marketing efforts. So you need to go deep and do test, test and test. Test landing pages. Test ad copy. Test content. Test website images and themes. Test everything.

On the other hand, we need to know that more you post, the more you’ll discover which content, timing, and frequency is right for you.

How will you know? It’s best to get a reporting tool. Most major social networks will have basic analytics built into the site; it’s just a little easier to seek and find this information from an all-encompassing dashboard.

Step 6: Engage, and listen.

The final piece of a social media marketing plan involves having a system you can follow to help you stay on top of updates and engaged with your community.

Your plan doesn’t end with posting content and find out audience. Social media requires engagement, too. When people talk to you, talk back. Set aside time during your day to follow up with conversations that are happening on social media. These are conversations with potential customers, references, friends, and colleagues. They’re too important to ignore.

One way to stay up on all the conversations that are happening around you and your bsuiness is to create a system for listening. Tools like Mention will send you an alert every time you’re mentioned online, and you can rely on custom searches and email alerts for mentions on specific networks, too.
What would you share with someone new to social media?

Coming up with a social media marketing plan is a great step toward diving in to social. If social media looks thrilling and overwhelming all at once, start with a plan. Once you see the blueprint in front of you, it’s a little easier to see what lies ahead.

• Pick your networks 
• Fill out your infoFind your voice
• Choose your strategy
• Analyze and test 
• Listen and engage

Finally it done!

How did you develop your social media strategy? I’d love to keep the conversation going in the comments. If you know someone who could use this, feel free to pass this along. If you can use it yourself, let me know how it goes!

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What the Business Would Be Like If Content Marketing Didn't Exist

Content marketing is becoming more than just a buzzword in the Internet marketing and SEO industries.

Here's an in-depth look at content marketing, including the ideas of Content Marketing System and the idea behind it, its potential problems, and what it means to create "quality" content.

Contrary to popular opinion, the idea of "content marketing" and its importance isn't a new one. Bill Gates first drew attention to the concept in his appropriately titled 1996 essay "Content Is King." In the essay, he talks about his predictions for the Internet after its recent birth and his message is simple: understand that companies who find ways to inform and entertain will thrive on the Internet and reign supreme.

Gates' 18-year-old prediction was accurate - it's still an extremely important issue today. Content marketing should be adopted as a philosophy, not taken to and tested like a trend. There are plenty of misconceptions and assumptions about content marketing, so what's it all about?

Marketers now understand that brands must become publishers. The “why” of content marketing is no longer in question. But marketers are still asking “how?” How can marketers or team in marketing department able to generate the high quality and quantity of content necessary to succeed in the new marketing era.

From my point of view, if you we want to generate high quality and quantity content we should build up and operate a Content Marketing system that outputs accurate, relevant content that attracts leads at the top of the funnel and leads them down. But do you know what the definition of Content Marketing is? Put simply, it's the strategy of attracting and retaining customers by way of creating content.

What Is "Content" Exactly?

That's a pretty subjective question. There are many different types of content and some of the more popular forms are: blogs, e-books, videos, webinars, podcasts, whitepapers, competitions, press releases, emails, newsletters, and info graphics.

As a business owner, the trick is to work out the type of content that's right for your audience. If you sell information technology services, for example, your approach to attracting audiences is probably going be very different than if you sell cars. Either way, the umbrella principle is that compelling stories drive action.

Why Have a Content Marketing System?

People are tuning out to traditional forms of marketing. Marketing is pretty simple in theory: you create something of value and then tell everyone about it. But what if people aren't listening? Well, that's where content marketing comes in.

Thanks to technology, people love looking at content whether they're at work or on the bus - so potential customers have never been so accessible.

Creating great content takes time, but it's a very cost-effective strategy.

Here’s a description of the different components of the system:

• Plan: Create a strategic structure for your content marketing 
• Team: Assemble the group to manage your content marketing operation  
• Ideas: Generate a steady flow of ideas for your content 
• Production and Distribution: Assemble your content and distribute it across the web
• Audience Development: Generate traffic to your content  
• Conversion & Nurture: Convert visitor to leads, nurture them to opportunities 
• Measure & Optimize: Analyze and improve performance

Idea Behind Content Marketing.

Put simply, content marketing is used to attract audiences to your shop window and genuinely nurture relationships. The days of the hard sell are gone - this is about building brand loyalty through emotion, interest, and usefulness. The tactics you use will vary. Some businesses may just need a cool product and people will flock anyway. Many might need a fashionable brand identity. Others aren't so lucky and will have to think a bit more laterally, maybe by using content that's unrelated to the business. Content marketing is subtle. It's used to create a loyal community of people that either don't notice or don't care that they're being sold to.

I would say, content marketing is a hot topic right now. Why? Because it’s an effective method of advertising at a time when old marketing models aren’t as effective as they once were. Rather than buying a full-page newspaper ad and hoping your customers see it.

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