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How To Craft A LinkedIn Profile That Recruiters Love, According To 100 Hiring Professionals

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By Joseph Liu

LinkedIn remains one of the most essential platforms to establish a professional online presence and showcase your skills and accomplishments. With over 930 million users (and counting), LinkedIn remains the go-to platform for recruiters, hiring managers, and professionals looking for potential candidates.

“Your LinkedIn profile is your digital brand,” says Lianne Zhang, a director of talent at Milestone Technologies. “I can’t tell you the number of times where we had two equally qualified candidates and the one with the stronger LinkedIn profile got the job.”

In the personal branding workshops I regularly host, I often get questions about what recruiters and hiring managers prefer candidates include (and exclude) on their LinkedIn profiles. Since I’m not a recruiter myself, I solicited and compiled guidance from over 100 experienced recruiters and hiring managers around the world to find out exactly how to craft a LinkedIn profile that stands out to recruiters.

While I haven’t featured quotes from all 100 of them in this single article, the guidance that emerged from their collective views in response to the most frequently asked questions I receive about each LinkedIn section follows.

1. Photos: Upload Professional Images

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Joseph Liu

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

Joseph Liu helps people bravely pursue more meaningful careers during professional transitions, applying principles from his 10 years of international brand management experiences. Based in London, he’s a professional speaker, personal branding consultant, and host of the Career Relaunch® podcast, featuring personal stories of career reinvention with listeners in 170+ countries.

Sourced from Forbes

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Premiumisation: What Is It? What Isn’t It? When to Do It, and When Not To

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By Nick Liddell

In May 2019, Coca-Cola European Partners unleashed a premium range of signature mixers on the UK market. At launch, the range was heralded as an ‘exciting new frontier’ for the brand: building on its proud history in drinks and cocktail culture, updated to reflect a growing appetite for more complex flavours from an emergent generation of enthusiasts. The company collaborated with an international brand consultancy to develop an identity for the range, as well as investing significantly in a launch campaign that spanned social media, digital, outdoor, experiential events, bartender training, bespoke glassware, back-bar displays and menus.

Three years later (in October 2022), the range was discontinued. Why?

Certainly not through a lack of investment. The product had been co-created with mixologists. The opportunity had been validated through consumer research. The identity communicated the proposition clearly.

While the pandemic certainly didn’t help, a spokesperson for the brand explained to that the business was focusing instead on a streamlined portfolio of ‘hero’ products. Based on sales performance and feedback from consumers and customers, the decision was taken to focus on maintaining Schweppes’ leadership of the mixer category, rather than attempting to evolve Coca-Cola into a premium mixer brand.

This isn’t an exceptional case. It’s easy to find failed attempts at premiumisation. And if the world’s most valuable packaged goods brand can fall short, anybody can. Despite this, ‘premiumisation’ is a trend that never seems to go away. I work on brand portfolios across all sorts of categories (B2B, B2C and everything in between), and the question of when, where and how to premiumise crops up as frequently in B2B software and professional services as it does in tea and biscuits.

The sense is often that there’s a party going on and everybody wants to be a part of it. But there are good reasons to hold back.

I generally try to dissuade clients from making any assumptions about the attractiveness of the ‘premium’ segment of their market or sector. It’s easy to be seduced by the size-of-prize analysis, the high price points, the low price elasticity and the ability to talk about ‘craft’ or ‘provenance’ or ‘authenticity’. Instead, I try to focus on three questions:

  1.     Is the party worth joining?
  2.     What, if anything, can we bring to the party?
  3.     Will joining the party enhance, complement, distract or detract from our current business?

Is the party worth joining?

It seems an obvious place to start, but you’d be amazed how frequently it is taken for granted that the ‘premium’ end of a market is a good place to be, particularly when ‘premiumisation’ is so often presented as a macro trend. I’m going to use anonymised data to illustrate my thinking here: they are real-world data points, with all the labels either stripped out or genericised. The below data is taken from a retail packaged goods sector in which brands have been categorised as either ‘budget’, ‘mainstream’, ‘premium’, ‘super premium’ or ‘artisanal’. I selected this example because the client was extremely keen to discuss premiumisation: the belief was that our (mainstream) brand was under threat from Private Label and that there was significant headroom for growth in more premium parts of the market.

For each segment, the visual below indicates average price index (versus mainstream), value share of the total market, 2-year historical growth, segment share of the largest competitor brand and indicative competitor media spend. The ‘Our Brand’s Share’ column relates to our client’s brand: it has an 8% share of the ‘mainstream’ segment (far behind the segment leader, which has a 32% share).

So, based on the data below, is there an opportunity to premiumise?

Although our client’s brand doesn’t currently have a foothold in the ‘premium’ part of the market, this segment does look attractive: it accounts for just over a quarter of total value, it’s the fastest-growing part of the market, and brands in this space don’t seem to spend much on media, yet they command an average 21% price premium over mainstream equivalents. And based on the share of the biggest competitor in this space, the segment looks less intensely competitive than the mainstream space where we currently compete, which is dominated by a brand with 33% share.

The ‘super premium’ space is also potentially interesting: it’s also around a quarter of the total market value, it’s also growing impressively and brands in this space can command an average premium of around 60% over mainstream equivalents. However, the price premium comes at an obvious cost: a lot of money is being pumped into media by brands in this segment. This could be an expensive segment to enter.

The artisanal segment looks far less attractive: this is a tiny segment in value terms and isn’t growing significantly.

This is a small data set, but illustrates two general truths about premiumisation:

  • Firstly, premiumisation isn’t a ‘thing’. Opportunities to premiumise are highly category-specific and there are typically different levels and types of premiumness to consider (and different ways to premiumise within each of these levels, so beware any catch-all advice on how to premiumise successfully).
  • Secondly, the opportunity tends to tail off towards the upper echelons, as the distance from the ‘hump’ part of the market becomes greater.

So, we know based on the data above that there are two parties we’re potentially interested in joining.

Who’s at those parties? Will we be competing for space on a packed dancefloor? Or are there some empty spaces we could fill?

It’s helpful to map out the competition visually to see how crowded each space is, and if any gaps are revealed. The diagram below provides an indication of who the competition is and where they sit in terms of a price ladder (in practice, we’d look at a much broader data set across more dimensions but I’m trying to avoid this article becoming a thesis). At the bottom of the ladder are Private Label brands, which sell at a 50% discount to the mainstream average (indexed at 100 on the vertical scale). At the top of the ladder are artisanal brands in standard size packs, mainstream brands in large formats and premium/super premium brands in twin packs.

Our client’s brand (the red circle) competes in the mainstream segment with Brand A, which has a 33% share of the segment. It’s worth noting that the brand is priced to undercut Brand A’s standard pack: we’re the challenger brand in a segment dominated by a single large brand (which is available in a variety of pack sizes that stretch the brand across the price ladder). It’s also worth noting that while there’s space below us (only PL is cheaper in standard packs), there’s very little space above us: every rung on the price ladder contains at least one brand available in a standard pack. To extend our party analogy, these dancefloors are already busy and it’s difficult to see an obvious or large space we could fill.

The artisanal party in particular is bursting at the seams: eight of the fourteen competitor brands are packed into this tiny space and many of these have clearly been squeezed down the price ladder: Brand G is selling at parity with mainstream Brand A in standard packs. In pure commercial and competitive terms, the artisan segment looks like one to avoid.

But the premium and super premium segments are also busy. We’ll have to contend with Brands B and C if we want to compete in the premium segment, as well as a ‘premium’ subbrand from Brand A (our mainstream rival). From a price perspective, this presents us with a challenge: our main rival has arrived at this party before us and is undercutting the incumbent brands. Our ‘challenger’ status has been challenged. And the super premium segment is being driven by Brand D, which has grown aggressively through a high and sustained marketing investment. There are few obvious gaps to fill: we’re late to both parties and they are in full swing. If we want to gate crash successfully, then we’d better make sure we can bring something interesting with us.

What, if anything, can we bring to the party?

Below is some example data from our client’s brand equity study: top two box agreement with brand image statements (based on all consumers in the category who are aware of each brand).

One obvious point to note is that there are few genuinely strong brands in the category: Brands A and C have strong associations with enjoyment, but beyond this most image associations are weak. This isn’t good news for a category that’s worried about the threat of Private Label brands. Our brand trades heavily on value for money associations, so our client’s concern about this threat is well-grounded. But this is also likely to limit our ability to compete in premium and super premium segments of the market, where the leading brands rely more on emotive attributes, such as enjoyment, tradition, modernity and authenticity. Our brand is too weak to compete on those terms, so we’d either need to reposition our brand (away from value) to be able to stretch into more premium spaces, or we’d need to create an entirely new brand to compete in these spaces. There’s very little in the data to suggest that our brand has any chance of stretching successfully into premium segments.

This is a strategic issue that many brands face when they contemplate premiumising: there’s a great party going on, but they’ve got nothing (or at least nothing compelling) to bring to it.

In 2019, Coca-Cola saw that premium mixer brands like Fever Tree, San Pellegrino and Fentimans were attracting significant attention with stories of exceptional growth and decided it wanted to muscle in on the action with its enormously powerful mass market brand. By 2023 the GB market made it abundantly clear to Coca-Cola that they didn’t want to mix their super premium spirits with an enormously powerful mass market mixer. In the end, the people at Coke clearly decided that there are other opportunities out there that the brands in their portfolio are better suited to meet.

Will joining the party enhance, complement, distract or detract from our current business?

To recap: our client’s business is reliant on a brand that competes as a value-for-money challenger to the mainstream category leader. Although the premium and super premium spaces are commercially attractive and the brands in these spaces generally have a weak image, our brand is ill-equipped to compete. We could respond by creating and launching a new premium brand with a stronger positioning and identity than the competitive set, but we have finite resources and the Private Label threat to our existing brand remains a concern.

So, what do we do?

Brands A, B, C and D all sell twin packs and large format packs, in addition to their standard packs. In fact, a significant proportion of their sales are through these formats, which also give them greater visibility at fixture and more room to manoeuvre when contemplating pricing and promotional strategy. Our brand is currently only available as a standard pack, so a more obvious route to growth would be to expand the existing brand into new pack formats.

Brand equity data also suggest that we’ve got significant work to do to strengthen our brand, particularly if we are to fend off Private Label brands. So, the next most obvious thing to do would be to cultivate a clearer and more compelling brand image: priority number one is to strengthen the brand’s ability to compete against Private Label brands and Brand A in the mainstream segment, but there’s also an opportunity to explore whether repositioning the brand could help us to stretch into premium spaces in future. It was reasonable of our client to explore the premium opportunity, but closer examination suggests this should be regarded as a slow burn: there is a risk that committing to a strategy of premiumisation could have distracted our client from growth opportunities that are more significant and more attainable in the short-term.

So far, I’ve focused on a client with a single brand and a single product, but what about portfolios involving multiple brands, subbrands and ranges that compete at different levels of premiumness? Here’s another anonymised data set from a client in another category:

Each dot represents a distinct product line and the chart above maps their level of premiumness (measured based on a price index, where 100 is the category average) against their average margin, expressed as a percentage of net sales. The average margin across the portfolio is 59%: any ranges that deliver below the horizontal line are margin dilutive, while ranges above the line are margin accretive.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed there’s some odd stuff going on here.

Most obviously, the range with the highest-price premium is also contributing the lowest margin (the solitary red dot at the far bottom right of the chart). More generally, there is no obvious relationship between the premiumness of a product line and the margin it delivers.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

On the positive side, this is because the business is actually pretty good at generating strong margins from product lines that carry a low price: you don’t need to have a premium product to generate strong margins. And that’s good news for this client, as 80% of their sales are in the top left quadrant of this chart: low-priced, high margin lines.

On the negative side, this also means that the business is poor at generating strong margins from higher priced product lines. And that’s a huge issue because all those dots in the bottom right quadrant are undoing the great work that the core product lines in the top left are delivering. Nearly half of the product lines in the portfolio are premium (or above), but every time the business successfully persuades a consumer to ‘trade up’ to one of these more expensive lines, it loses money (with two or three exceptions). This is the opposite of what should happen: if we’re going to ask people to trade up to more expensive lines, then we should make more money as a result. In cold, hard financial terms, premium ranges are detracting from the core business.

And this isn’t an exceptional or weird example: it’s very typical of the type of data I see. Premium brands and product lines are more expensive to deliver than budget and mainstream equivalents. This is something that’s easy to forget but vital to bear in mind if you’re contemplating premiumisation: being able to create a desirable premium brand or line is only half the problem: you have to be able to deliver it more profitably. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out this was part of the reason for Coca-Cola’s discontinuation of its signature mixers. Coke has hundreds of years of practice at producing fizzy drinks efficiently at large volumes for the mass market. Inevitably, it is less experienced in how to produce artisanal mixers for a discerning niche audience and still make a healthy margin.

Succeeding in premium segments often involves learning to play by a different set of rules.

And that’s what explains the solitary red dot at the bottom right of the previous chart: it belongs to a small, artisanal pilot brand. The intention is not to try to find a formula for immediate success in the premium space, but to learn by managing a brand at the extreme end of the category. It sells through a channel that the business has no prior experience of (direct-to-consumer). It’s reaching an audience that the business has never traditionally interacted with. And it’s enabling the business to work with suppliers and partners that it wouldn’t normally deal with. Everything the business learns will eventually inform a better and more profitable approach to unlocking premium opportunities.

The charts and data that I’ve peppered throughout this article may have given you the impression that premiumisation is best approached with a cold and critical eye, but that’s only partly true.

Brands that live and breathe ‘premium’ are a different beast to mainstream and value brands.

Premiumness is embedded in their culture and decision-making. A large part of the difficulty in managing a portfolio that extends from mainstream to premium segments is that success involves deliberately cultivating cultural differences. Most organisations prefer to have a strong, single culture, rather than one where a ‘premium’ team invests lavishly while everyone else keeps one eye on costs and the other on consumers. Consultants like me experience this all the time: working with Prada and Wimbledon is different to working with Mars and Hyundai. It’s no simple thing for an organisation to be able to accommodate both ways of working.

That solitary red dot represents an organisation’s desire to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time. Premium lines are currently detracting from their business (and in many cases are distracting time and attention away from the lines that deserve greater investment). In the short-term, there will be an inevitable scaling back of premium lines and a focus on driving greater profitability across the portfolio. But the long-term opportunity is significant enough that the organisation is willing to channel some of those profits into experiments that help people gain first-hand experience of how to deliver ‘premium’ brilliantly.

The goal is to develop an approach to premium lines that complements the approach to budget and mainstream lines: the business will have learned to work at two different speeds.

Seen this way, it’s very possible that Coca-Cola’s signature mixers experiment will yield long-term dividends. Lessons may have been learned the painful way, but I’d expect that the teams involved have gained some valuable insights, relationships and ways of working that will carry forward into future successes. There’s no shame in an organisation dipping its toes into the premium space and often this is a more realistic approach than expecting to ‘win in premium’ by employing a playbook that has only been applied successfully to the mainstream.

The move from ‘mainstream’ to ‘premium’ is often larger than first appears. And not every organisation needs to make it. I’ve seen first-hand that the opportunity is easily overstated and the comparatively boring business of getting better at what you already do is often a quicker and surer way to create value. If you feel like there’s a party going on and you’re feeling a sense of FOMO, then ask yourself:

  1. Am I sure the party is worth joining?
  2. Am I clear on what I’m bringing to the party?
  3. And will joining the party enhance, complement, distract or detract from my current business?

Only once you’re happy that you can answer all three questions should you contemplate putting on your dancing shoes.

Feature Image Credit: Fortis Design

By Nick Liddell

I’m a brand strategist with over 20 years of experience. I began my career at Interbrand, where I led their brand valuation offer, and have subsequently developed and spearheaded the consultancy teams at M&C Saatchi Clear, Dragon Rouge, and The Clearing. I’m a member of the Superbrands Council in the UK, as well as a regular conference speaker, contributor to marketing publications, and author of two books on business, branding, and sustainability.

Sourced from Brandingmag

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Why newsletters are set to be the hottest side hustle of 2023

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By AJ Eckstein

Newsletters are being supercharged with brand money.

Have you noticed that at the end of almost every Tweet, LinkedIn post, or Instagram post, creators seem to be asking their audience to subscribe to their newsletter?

Newsletters have been around for decades, but have recently resurged in popularity and skyrocketed in value. In 2020, Insider purchased a majority stake in Morning Brew (which at the time had 4 million subscribers), valuing its business at $75 million. And in 2021, Hubspot acquired The Hustle (which had some 1.5 million subscribers) in a deal worth $27 million.

This trend of companies acquiring niche newsletters appears to be accelerating. This year, a crypto newsletter, Milk Road and its 250,000 subscribers was acquired, just 10 months after launching.

And newsletter distribution giants, such as LinkedIn, say the category is growing significantly. According to LinkedIn editor-in-chief Daniel Roth, “LinkedIn has 284 million total subscriptions (up 3x year-over-year) to 90 thousand different newsletters (up 5x year-over-year) among 64 million individual newsletter subscribers (up 2x year-over-year).”

Here’s why newsletters are set to be the hottest side hustle of 2023.

Newsletters give readers more intimacy

To put it simply, there is no marketing channel more intimate than a newsletter.

Newsletter audiences pay more attention than social media audiences, said Josh Kaplan, cofounder of The Publish Press newsletter, which covers topics impacting digital creators. “Newsletters offer 1-on-1 private communication with the creator (since you can just hit reply via email), whereas social media offers a public communication channel and is not as intimate,” said Kaplan via email.

In a world of increasingly cluttered marketing channels, newsletters offer a unique opportunity to reach your audience directly. Unlike banner ads or social media campaigns, which are often seen by a wide range of people, newsletters are delivered directly to the inboxes of people who have opted in to receive them.

Newsletters are being supercharged with brand money

The intimacy that newsletters offer is leading brands to invest heavily in newsletters through sponsorships and acquisitions.

Kaplan has seen a “huge appetite from brands wanting to sponsor our newsletter since brands see creators as the next class of small to midsize businesses. We are able to sponsor about 70% of our newsletter editions.”

The Publish Press (which has 60,000 subscribers) charges $7,000 for a primary ad slot and $2,000 for a listed ad, shared Kaplan.

The Rundown newsletter, which gives its 160,000 daily readers “the rundown” on the latest developments in AI, charges $2,000 for a main ad and $1,000 for a trending ad. Founder Rowan Cheung says there is “significant appetite for AI-specific sponsorships.”

Brands also love sponsoring newsletters due to guaranteed distribution—meaning, brands know their message will be received by consumers. Alex Valaitis, founder of the Big Brain newsletter, says there is “definitely a market out there for brand sponsorships, especially since with email you have guaranteed distribution versus unclear distribution with social media.”

Newsletters give writers ownership

This guaranteed distribution gives newsletter creators a unique level of ownership, which can be rare in the world of digital-content creation. Many creators have shifted to writing newsletters this year because of the allure of independence, said Kaplan.

“2023 brings a new class of creators . . . ones who don’t want to build solely on rented land,” he explained. “Owning an email newsletter offers more ownership over your audience, whereas social media platforms control your distribution and can be unstable.”

To be sure, many social media platforms have been especially unstable this year. From the Elon Musk takeover of Twitter to Montana banning TikTok, creators need to be extra cautious about relying too heavily on one platform. “It all comes down to ownership, which you can’t do with most social media platforms,” argues Valaitis. “Especially with all the turmoil going on with social media platforms, creators are preparing for the worst.”

Newsletters offer monetization options

Many creators are also focusing on diversifying monetization options outside of brand sponsorships, paid subscriptions, affiliates, and community memberships.

Cheung shares that “there are more monetization options today for newsletters. For example, Sparkloop enables newsletters to earn revenue for every subscriber they receive from another newsletter.”

Newsletters also give creators opportunities to sell physical products. Look no further than Gemma Roberts, founder of the Mindset Matters newsletter, who provides her 600,000 subscribers with tools and advice to help people thrive at work. Roberts turned her newsletter hustle into a physical book launch that’s a direct spin off of her newsletter.

Even newsletter distribution platforms have weighed in on the multitude of monetization options newsletter creators have today. Tyler Denk, CEO of Beehiiv, says that “there are several ways to monetize newsletters. With just a few subscriptions and an occasional ad, you can quickly turn a profit for your newsletter.”

Beehiiv helps creators monetize their newsletters through premium subscriptions. Denk shared that Beehiiv has facilitated $1 million in earnings paid out to newsletters in paid subscriptions and $100k paid out to newsletters for ads. The largest newsletters source their own ads, says Denk, adding that he believes these newsletters generated up to seven-figures in ad revenue in just the past year.

Having more intimacy with an audience, brand money flocking to this space, more ownership, and the ability to offer several monetization options are all reasons why I started my own newsletter, the Knockout Newsletter.

Creating a quality newsletter takes relentless consistency and dedication, yet the opportunity could not be hotter—it’s up to you whether you “subscribe” to the hype and take the leap.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By AJ Eckstein

AJ Eckstein is a global speaker and writer focusing on Gen Z, career advice, leadership, and the future of work. He’s also the founder of The Final Round.

Sourced from FastCompany

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Data Analytics Tools You Need To Know in 2023

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What tools do you need to know to be a successful data analyst?

You may want to transition into data analytics, or it could be a completely new field for you. Regardless, being prepared is always crucial. The majority of people who enter a new career are looking at the end goal: getting a job. However, some are so focused on landing their dream job: they forget that they need to be proficient in the required skills and tools.

What is a Data Analyst?

A Data Analyst is someone who looks through data and provides reports and visualisations which explain the data.

A data analyst does not typically spend their day coding. Their responsibilities involve using their technical mindset along with their excel, coding, or SQL skills to identify trends, patterns and solutions that can aid a business’s decision-making process. They are also responsible for turning these findings into visualisations to present to stakeholders.

Now let’s get into the must-have tools that a data analyst needs to be successful in their job.

What tools do you need to know as a Data Analyst?

Excel

  • Type of tool: Spreadsheet software.
  • Availability: Commercial.
  • Use: Data wrangling and reporting.

Excel has been frequently used by many people from different industries – it is a staple in most fields. If you remember in school, you probably used it but didn’t realise its full capabilities. Apart from sorting and organising data, it also has calculation and graphing functions which are very ideal for data analysis.

Although Excel is popular and uses a lot of useful functions and plug-ins. It also comes with its downfalls. Due to its capabilities and processing power, it runs very slowly when dealing with big datasets and can lead to calculation errors and inaccuracies.

Python

  • Type of tool: Programming language.
  • Availability: Open-source.
  • Use: Developing websites/software, task automation, data analysis, and data visualization

Python is a general-purpose programming language known for its simple syntax making it easy to learn a programming language. It is currently the most popular programming language due to its intuitive syntax. It contains a variety of libraries, such as NumPy to help process computational tasks.

As a Data Analyst, you can use Python to help with your data analysis, such as importing and filtering data, statistical tests, finding correlations between the data and producing visualization.

R

  • Type of tool: Programming language.
  • Availability: Open-source.
  • Use: Statistical analysis and data mining.

A lot of people have trouble choosing which programming language to learn – Python or R. Python is known for being a general-purpose programming language, whereas R is a statistical programming language.

The syntax for R is more complicated in comparison to Python, but this is due to it being built specifically to handle heavy statistical computing tasks and create data visualizations.

SQL

  • Type of tool: Standardized programming language.
  • Availability: Commercial.
  • Use: Communicate with a database

As a Data Analyst, you will spend a lot of time communicating with databases. It is used to perform tasks such as updating data on a database or retrieving data from a database. It provides you with a simpler way to scan through your database and explore new findings with a few lines of code.

Jupyter Notebook

  • Type of tool: Interactive authoring software.
  • Availability: Open-source.
  • Use: creating and sharing code/computational documents.

Jupyter Notebook is an open-source software which provides interactive computing and is compatible across different programming languages. It can create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations, and text between members of the team.

Its top uses are programming practice, collaboration across projects, data cleaning, data visualisation, and sharing. It also integrates with big data analysis tools such as Apache Spark, which we will speak about next.

Apache Spark

  • Type of tool: Data processing framework.
  • Availability: Open-source.
  • Use: Big data workloads.

Apache Spark is an analytics engine that can process large-scale data, quickly and effectively. It is known that Apache Spark can help you run your workloads 100 times faster. As a Data Analyst, you will use it to process various datasets and analyze unstructured big data, along with machine learning.

The framework is compatible with programming languages such as Python, R, Java, Scala, and SQL.

Tableau

  • Type of tool: Data visualization tool.
  • Availability: Commercial.
  • Use: Connect data, and build workbooks, stories, and dashboards.

Tableau is one of the market-leading business intelligence tools which is used to analyze and visualize data in an easy format. If you are a data analyst that doesn’t have proficient coding skills but you still want to be able to create interactive visualizations and dashboards to present to stakeholders, Tableau is here to save you.

It contains features such as machine learning, statistics, natural language, and smart data prep. It has not only made life easier for data scientists, but also for business users.

SAS

  • Type of tool: Statistical software suite.
  • Availability: Commercial.
  • Use: statistical analysis and data visualization.

SAS is a command-driven software, only for Windows operating systems. It stands for Statistical Analysis System and is a group of programs that work collectively to store and retrieve data, be able to modify it, compute statistical analyses, and create visualisations and reports.

The software helps you to gain quick insights into your data, in which you can then use automated analysis which is backed by machine learning, to then produce reports that are easy to understand for the decision-making process.

KNIME

  • Type of tool: Data integration platform.
  • Availability: Open-source.
  • Use: access, blend, analyze, and visualize data

KNIME is an open-source software, that allows you to build analyses at any complexity level. You can either use the:

  • KNIME Analytics Platform – to clean and gather your data, analyze it and make it accessible to everyone using visualisations.
  • KNIME Server – the deployment of workflows, whilst making them accessible to the team for collaboration, management, and automation.

Microsoft Power BI

  • Type of tool: Business analytics suite.
  • Availability: Commercial.
  • Use: Transform data into visually immersive, and interactive insights

Microsoft Power BI allows you to take your data and create interactive visual reports and dashboards to share your findings more comfortably. It operates with Excel, text files, SQL, and cloud sources. Your data is safe with Power BI as it uses sensitivity labelling, end-to-end encryption, and real-time access monitoring.

You have a choice between their range of products such as Power BI Desktop, Power BI Pro, Power BI Premium, Power BI Mobile, Power BI Embedded, and Power BI Report Server.

Conclusion

As you continue your journey as a data analyst, you will see these current tools advance and new tools emerge in the market. Your skillset is dependent on where you want to be in the next 10 years. The more you know, the better.

If you are still unsure about the path to data analysis and need more guidance, have a read of:

Feature Image Credit: Author

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Nisha Arya is a Data Scientist, Freelance Technical Writer and Community Manager at KDnuggets. She is particularly interested in providing Data Science career advice or tutorials and theory based knowledge around Data Science. She also wishes to explore the different ways Artificial Intelligence is/can benefit the longevity of human life. A keen learner, seeking to broaden her tech knowledge and writing skills, whilst helping guide others.

Sourced from KDnuggets

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Seven Steps to Get Your Business and Personal Brand AI-Ready?

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Sourced from The Network Journal

Online competition for attention and engagement has never been more intense and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is exponentially increasing this tension, experts note. They advise leaders to get their personal and business brands AI-ready in order to stand out from the crowd and compete.

One such expert is Karen Tiber Leland, founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding and marketing strategy firm specializing in personal, business and CEO branding.

“Any CEO or entrepreneur who is not preparing their personal and business brands for the coming AI tidal wave is in a dangerous place,” Leland says.

Because AI language models (such as the hyper-popular ChatGPT) rely on large datasets of text from the Internet to learn and generate responses, she explains, “You have to teach Google who you are and what your company is about — across the net…If you don’t have online discoverability, credibility and relatability, you can’t compete.”

Not having enough quality content that Google can find creates AI generated generic responses about a brand based on the limited information available, she notes.

In a recent test, Leland asked AI about CEO clients who had very little online presence. “The response was, ‘I don’t have enough information to provide an accurate response,’ or, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know much about this person,’” she says. “Not being on the radar becomes a huge opportunity cost.”

Below are seven essential steps Leland recommends taking to prepare personal and business brands for AI and explains why.

Stop avoiding AI and embrace education and experimentation. The more you avoid AI, the further behind you will get. One way to stop avoiding AI and prepare your brand is to educate yourself with the abundant online resources and experiment to see how it could work for your personal and business brands.

Accept the need to create a parallel CEO brand. Although 82 percent of all Americans (88 percent of older millennials) agree that companies are more influential if their CEO and executives have a personal brand, many C-suite leaders still believe they don’t need to create one, Leland says. “What they fail to understand is that they already have one. It is just a matter of if they want their brands to be by default or design.”

Consistently create an abundance of online, high-quality content. AI models can better understand and generate contextually relevant and accurate responses as they become more advanced. If your content is visible on Google and considered an authoritative source, it is more likely to be referenced by AI models when generating answers to relevant queries. Content can be articles, blog posts, podcasts, media interviews, social media posts, videos, etc.

Take a fresh look at your target audience. Knowing whom you are trying to reach and their concerns is critical in being AI-ready. AI itself can be a good source of gaining data and insights about what your target audience is now wanting and needing. This allows you to create brand messaging and content that resonates with them.

Monitor your online reputation monthly. Keeping track of when you are mentioned online, by whom and what is said is necessary in today’s wired world. A whole host of AI online reputation management tools can help you stay on top of your personal and business brands and allow you to address any issues sooner rather than later.

Flip the focus of your social media. A robust social media presence is undoubtedly essential in building a brand. Leland says the problem is that 80 percent of most companies’ posts focus on the company, with only 20 percent being educational or entertaining. The key is to start having 80 percent of your posts written around keywords, industry topics, trends, customer interests and thought leadership.

Teach Google who you are and what you stand for. If you want to be an authority, you must author something, says Leland. Leland suggests writing at least one long-form (600-1000 words) social media or blog post a month is the minimum you should go for. In addition, measuring social media solely through the lens of “engagement” is a mistake. Part of the purpose of today’s social media posting is to make yourself discoverable to Google and to teach it who you are and what you stand for.

The bottom line is, ignoring the trend of AI and chatbots in business and personal branding is a significant mistake, Leland warns. Even if you are not preparing your personal and business brands for AI, your competitors are.

Karen Tiber Leland is the author of “The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand.”

Feature Image Credit: Sanket Mishra

Sourced from The Network Journal

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More Brands Are Losing Touch With Their Customers. Do These 4 Things to Make Sure Yours Isn’t One of Them.

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By Pierre Raymond

Despite the growth of online marketing and digital sales tactics, more brands are struggling to connect with their customers and target audiences. To reunite with them, they need to do these things.

With the world becoming more hyperconnected following the mainstream adoption of the online ecosystem, more brands are struggling than ever before to connect with their customers. Changing economic conditions, a shifting consumer perspective and evolving technology have driven a wedge between brands and their target audience.

The multi-facet and blossoming digital landscape has allowed businesses and brands to have a plethora of information and consumer data at their disposal, allowing them to create more personalized online experiences and cater to a digitally-centric marketplace.

However, at the same time these technologies have brought more attention to the importance of customer preference, the same systems have simultaneously created a disconnect among brands and consumers.

The path to disconnection

The strategies that once helped marketers reach their audience are no longer working as effectively as they once did. Nearly 30% of marketers experience average-to-no returns on their online and digital marketing investments.

Even with seemingly limitless access to consumer information, different research shows that 68.6% of businesses have little understanding of how their customers think and how to cater to these evolving needs.

Although technology is at the crux of the disconnection crisis, other leading factors, including hybrid and remote working models, have also led to greater feelings of less engagement among teams and customers.

In a 2022 State of Remote Work Report, nearly 52% of employees that started working remotely due to the pandemic are feeling less connected with their coworkers. Efforts to get employees back into the office during recent years have been met with hostility, as the majority of workers now favor increased autonomy and flexibility in their day-to-day work lives.

The disconnection between brands and customers, as well as brands and technology, have fueled stagnant growth for online representation — shrinking the bottom line performance of businesses.

While multiple other challenges can present themselves to business owners and entrepreneurs, reconnecting with customers in a digitally-centered world has posed far greater problems than many would have imagined.

Reuniting the brand and the consumer

Managing several customer retention strategies over different platforms requires not only the know-how on how to manage all of these systems but also requires a large team of clued-up professionals that know how to efficiently execute these strategies without fail.

While this doesn’t seem impossible, seemingly out of reach for smaller business ventures and startups, leveraging key strategies that ensure ongoing brand development and message delivery can become an effective tool through which marketers can narrow the divide between brands and customers.

Meet customers where they are

An effective growth strategy starts by building awareness of where customers are and refocusing on the overall customer connection through these channels.

Often brands look at customers through the viewpoint of management, hoping to deliver a marketing message from every angle possible. Unfortunately, these strategies create a further breach between the two, making it harder for brands to see growing message engagement.

Overwhelming consumers with targeted ads, emails, blog posts and online content has led to an increase in digital fatigue. Start by focusing on a growth strategy that looks to enrich the customer’s online journey, and use these channels to foster more purposeful connections.

Have a data-driven approach

Paradoxically, data can be a key ingredient in the marketing growth strategy that can help bring the brand back into the peripheral view of the client.

Using data ensures that businesses have a clear understanding of where to find their target audience, and how to effectively deliver their branding message. Consider where customers often start their online journey, track their online activity, and what their preferences are in terms of social media platforms and other digital channels.

A report by BrightEdge Research found that 68% of online interaction starts through search engines. Using these metrics in combination with customer activity already starts creating a clear picture of how data can create a more proactive marketing approach, without having to overwhelm audiences.

Evolve beyond CRM technologies

Instead of managing customers through outdated CRM technologies, try to instead focus on how to structure a platform that can offer marketers better flexibility and scalability. Building a central, yet consistent customer experience requires businesses to migrate their data away from siloed databases.

Evolving beyond the familiar does however require substantial financial input, especially in the case of utilizing shared cloud-based data platforms.

Building more fluid connections between marketing techniques, sales and customer feedback ensures that brands can deliver high-quality messaging, but at the same time improve their overall customer engagement.

More consumers than ever before value things such as speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and on-demand customer service following a report that found 80% of American consumers now consider these important elements as part of a positive customer experience journey.

Adopting ways to break down different silos within the business, and integrating these efforts onto one advanced platform gives businesses the technological edge above their competitors.

Improve purchasing channels

Now more than ever, it’s important for brands to step up to the plate and create purchasing channels that cater to their target audience and help improve the overall online experience by improving backend sales systems such as fast, safe and reliable checkout features on ecommerce platforms.

Not only do online stores need to be more customer-oriented in terms of finalizing purchases and minimizing the possibility of cart abandonment, but there should be substantial efforts directed toward creating mobile-friendly experiences.

A growing number of internet users have reported using shopping applications on smartphones and/or tablets, with research showing that 69.4% of online consumers now prefer these methods as opposed to ordinary websites.

Taking the time to properly integrate these features into the digital marketing strategy might seem a bit far off during the early stages of business development. Yet, these are the consumer trends that are reshaping the way brands can connect with their audiences and further grow their digital impression.

Now is the time to stay connected

Building a marketing growth strategy that ensures the effective delivery of brand messages requires businesses to be more agile and adaptable in a fast-changing digital ecosystem.

With consumers constantly evolving and trends rapidly changing, being united with loyal customers means that brands need to have a better understanding of where to find their customers online, but also how to construct an online experience without overwhelming them at the same time.

Finding a balance means that businesses and marketing teams need to be more open to trying new methods, but at the same time, develop strategies that are unique to their clientele, brand and online presence.

By Pierre Raymond

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor, Founder of OTOS. Pierre Raymond is a bilingual project consultant/business analyst with over 20 years of experience in financial services and data management IT solutions.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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The Future Of Generative AI Beyond ChatGPT

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By Bernard Marr

Generative tools like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion have got everyone talking about artificial intelligence (AI) – but where is it headed next?

It’s already clear that this exciting technology will have a big impact on the way we live and work. UK energy provider Octopus Energy has said that 44% of its customer service emails are now being answered by AI. And the CEO of software firm Freshworks has said that tasks that previously took eight to 10 weeks are now being completed in days as a consequence of adopting AI tools into its workflows.

But we’re still only at the beginning. In the coming weeks, months, and years we will see an acceleration in the pace of development of new forms of generative AI. These will be capable of carrying out an ever-growing number of tasks and augmenting our skills in all manner of ways. Some of them may seem as unbelievable to us today as the rise of ChatGPT and similar tools would have done just a few months back.

So, let’s take a look at some of the ways we can expect generative AI to evolve in the near future and some of the tasks it will be lending a hand with before too long:

Beyond ChatGPT

Text-based generative AI is already pretty impressive, particularly for research, creating first drafts, and planning. You might have had fun getting it to write stories or poems, too, but probably realized it isn’t quite Stephen King or Shakespeare yet, particularly when it comes to coming up with original ideas. Next-generation language models – beyond GPT-4 – will understand factors like psychology and the human creative process in more depth, enabling them to create written copy that’s deeper and more engaging. We will also see models iterating on the progress made by tools such as AutoGPT, which enable text-based generative AI applications to create their own prompts, allowing them to carry out more complex tasks.

As well as text, current generative AI technology is quite good at creating images based on natural language prompts, and there are even some tools that use it to generate video. However, they have some limitations due to the intensive nature of the required data processing. As this domain of generative AI becomes more advanced, it’s likely that it will become easy to create images and videos of just about anything, to the extent that it becomes difficult to distinguish generative AI content from reality. This could lead to issues such as deepfakes becoming problematic, resulting in the spread of fake news and disinformation.

Generative AI in the Metaverse

There are many predictions about how the way we interact with information and each other in the digital domain will involve. Many of these focus on immersive, 3D environments and experiences that can be explored through virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR). Generative AI will speed up the design and development of these environments, which is a time and resource-intensive process, and Meta (formerly Facebook) has indicated that this could play a part in the future of its 3D worlds platforms. Additionally, generative AI can be used to create more lifelike avatars that help to bring these environments to life, capable of more dynamic actions and interactions with other users.

Generative Audio, Music, and Voice AI

AI models are already impressively capable when it comes to generating music and mimicking human voices. In music, generative AI is likely to increasingly become an invaluable tool for songwriters and composers, creating novel compositions that can serve as inspiration or encourage musicians to approach their creative process in new ways. We are also likely to see it being used to create real-time, adaptive soundtracks – for example, in video games or even to accompany live footage of real-world events such as sports. AI voice synthesis will also improve, bringing computer-generated voices closer to the levels of expression, inflection, and emotion conveyed by a human voice. This will open new possibilities for real-time translation, audio dubbing, and automated, real-time voiceovers and narrations.

Generative Design

AI can be used by designers to assist in prototyping and creating new products of many shapes and sizes. Generative design is the term given for processes that use AI tools to do this. Tools are emerging that will allow designers to simply enter the details of the materials that will be used and the properties that the finished product must have, and the algorithms will create step-by-step instructions for engineering the finished item. Airbus engineers used tools like this to design interior partitions for the A320 passenger jet, resulting in a weight reduction of 45% over human-designed versions. In the future, we can expect many more designers to adopt these processes and AI to play a part in the creation of increasingly complex objects and systems.

Generative AI in Video Games

Generative AI has the potential to significantly impact the way video games are designed, built, and played. Designers can use it to help conceptualize and build the immersive environments that games use to challenge players. AI algorithms can be trained to generate landscapes, terrain, and architecture, freeing up time for designers to work on engaging stories, puzzles, and gameplay mechanics. It can also create dynamic content – such as non-player characters (NPCs) that behave in realistic ways and can communicate with players as if they are humans (or orcs or aliens) themselves, rather than being restricted to following scripts. Once game designers get to grips with implementing generative AI into their workflows, we can expect to see games and simulations that react to players’ interactions on the fly, with less need for scripted scenarios and challenges. This could potentially lead to games that are far more immersive and realistic than even the most advanced games available today.

Feature Image Credit: Adobe Stock

By Bernard Marr

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things. Why don’t you connect with Bernard on Twitter (@bernardmarr), LinkedIn (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/bernardmarr) or instagram (bernard.marr)?

Sourced from Forbes

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5 Mistakes Business-to-Business CEOs Make in Marketing

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By Samuel Thimothy

As an industry expert who’s had the privilege of advising hundreds, if not thousands, of B2B CEOs over my career, I often notice recurring misconceptions about marketing. There is a common belief among companies that their unique problems can’t be solved with conventional tactics. Some excuses are all too frequent and they’re simply not true.

It’s important to keep in mind that any business (big or small) today has access to powerful digital strategies, which can really give them the edge. In this article, I want to talk about the most frequent marketing mistakes in more detail so you know how best to utilize your resources for success and achieve the best return on your investment.

Mistake 1: Looking at Marketing as a Cost Centre Rather than a Profit Centre

One common mistake B2B CEOs make is investing in their marketing based on the allocated budget rather than the lifetime value of a customer. While it’s easy to estimate the profit from hiring another sales representative, you can’t estimate immediate ROI by trying a different marketing strategy. You need to monitor progress and tweak it all the time based on the reaction of your audience. Also, what works for your competitors will not necessarily work for you. And what worked for you once might get zero results the next time you do it. In a sense, marketing is a combination of creativity and psychology. That’s why adjusting your efforts to the budget reduces your chances for success. It should be the other way around.

Mistake 2: Treating Your Website as a Brochure with Texts and Images

We’re way past the times when people only visit your website for pretty pictures and location. Your website is a digital storefront of your business. And as your customers explore their options, they research the alternatives from cover to cover. Make no mistake: They will check your website, directories and social media. Based on their findings, they will make their buying decision, and you won’t even know. Remember that by the time your prospects reach out to our sales team, they have already completed most of their buyer’s journey.

Mistake 3: Making Future Strategic Decisions Based on the Failed Attempts

It’s smart to learn from your mistakes. However, when it comes to digital marketing, people often generalize and find faults in the wrong things. Let’s say you tried blogging for a couple of months but only wrote 300-word-long blogs while Google requires 500 to 3,000 words to have a blog ranked for keywords, would you consider blogging a mistake? Or if you started a podcast and gave up after 10 episodes, would you say podcasting doesn’t work? When you implement a strategy and it doesn’t work, make sure you identify the real reason behind the failure before you move on to something else.

Mistake 4: Being Unwilling to Share Your Knowledge With Your Customers

This is a very common concern among our B2B clients and I can understand why. When advised to share their insider information with a wider audience, many B2B CEOs and marketing leaders take it literally. They don’t want to share their insights or business processes for fear that their competitors will use them or that their prospects will solve their problems on their own. While this is a valid concern and you certainly don’t have to reveal trade secrets, we always advise looking at it from a different perspective. Your customers are trying to solve their problems. Will they find advice from you or from your competitors?

Mistake 5: Undervaluing the Brand Equity

Many business leaders underestimate the value of a brand and hardly ever consider it as a measuring rod for why they should invest in digital marketing. However, even if you don’t get enough leads in the process, you’re still building your brand. With a well-established brand name, you can create long-term customer relationships as well as higher profits and ROI over time. Once your brand is really known for something positive, it can stand out in a crowded marketplace and differentiate itself from the competition.

When it comes to B2B digital marketing, some misconceptions can damage your success if not addressed correctly. It is crucial to take a more thoughtful approach, utilizing powerful digital strategies and avoiding common mistakes. With a strategic approach and understanding of the target audience, your company can find success in the digital world.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Samuel Thimothy

VP at OneIMS.com, an inbound marketing agency, and co-founder of Clickx.io, the digital marketing intelligence platform.

Sourced from Inc.

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The Ultimate Guide To Building And Implementing An Effective Digital Branding Strategy

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By Vikas Agrawal

Branding can be a complex and confusing process if you don’t have clear guidelines and examples.

Have you wondered how leading brands have gained exponential popularity and become household names? It’s no secret that businesses apply various branding techniques to connect with the audience and build a positive image, but what do the industry giants do differently?

The answer is strategic digital branding. After all, with over 4.57 billion active internet users worldwide, the digital medium offers unparalleled opportunities for brands to reach a wider audience compared to traditional methods. And businesses that have leveraged digital mediums with a clever strategic approach have found great success with branding.

Sounds interesting? Keep reading to learn how to create and implement the proven digital branding strategies that have earned top brands their place as industry behemoths.

The importance of a digital branding strategy

A digital branding strategy is the process of communicating your brand’s identity to consumers online, with the ultimate goal of increasing customer loyalty and sales. A company without a brand is akin to a person lacking a personality — dull and uninspiring. Unsurprisingly, people tend to avoid such entities.

In contrast, a well-executed digital branding strategy can help you foster trust, which is crucial given that 81% of consumers say trust is the leading factor in their purchasing decisions. A strong digital branding strategy can also increase company value, boost sales, heighten perceived brand quality and reduce employee turnover.

How to implement your digital branding strategy

Let’s discuss the steps to make and use a powerful digital branding strategy that will take your brand image and popularity to the next level.

1. Assess your brand identity

Before diving into your digital branding strategy, take the time to define and assess your brand identity. This involves determining your brand’s mission, vision and unique selling proposition (USP). Your brand identity should convey who you are, what you stand for and what you aim to achieve. By clearly understanding your brand identity, you can ensure that all aspects of your digital branding strategy are consistent and aligned with your core values.

2. Understand your target audience

An in-depth understanding of your target audience is critical to the success of your digital branding strategy. Conduct thorough research to analyze their demographics, interests and preferences, and use this information to create detailed buyer personas. By having a clear picture of your target audience, you can develop content and messaging that resonates with them, increasing engagement and conversions.

3. Creating a unique value proposition

Your unique value proposition (UVP) is the reason customers should choose your brand over competitors. It highlights the benefits and features of your products or services that make you stand out. To create a powerful UVP, focus on the aspects of your offerings that differentiate you from others and communicate this message clearly, concisely and compellingly. A strong UVP not only attracts customers but also helps build brand loyalty.

4. Choose the right platforms for your brand

Selecting the appropriate platforms for your brand is pivotal in reaching your target audience. Investigate the social media platforms, websites and other digital channels that your audience frequents, and concentrate on establishing a strong presence there. You can connect with your audience, increase brand visibility and foster long-lasting relationships by being active on the right platforms.

5. Crafting compelling content

Content is the cornerstone of your digital branding strategy. To craft compelling content, focus on developing engaging, informative and relevant pieces for your target audience. Utilize storytelling to build emotional connections with your audience, making your brand more relatable and memorable.

Also, consider diversifying your content types, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts and social media posts, to cater to different preferences and consumption habits. Videos are particularly effective, as about 86% of businesses use them effectively as a marketing medium.

6. Monitor and analyse performance

Continuously tracking the performance of your digital branding strategy is crucial for its success. Monitor relevant metrics like engagement, conversion rates and website traffic to gauge the effectiveness of your strategy. Analysing this data will help you identify areas for improvement and optimize your approach for better results. Regularly assessing your digital branding strategy ensures that it remains relevant and impactful over time.

Examples of an effective digital branding strategy

Here are three examples of brands that have successfully crafted and implemented a digital branding strategy to grow their popularity and reach-

Apple’s “Share Your Gifts”

Apple stands as an excellent example of a brand that has mastered the art of storytelling. Through digital content such as videos, podcasts and social media posts, Apple’s branding experts communicate passion, creativity and relationship-building. Their popular video, “Share Your Gifts,” has garnered over 25 million views on YouTube and demonstrates their ability to prioritize storytelling instead of merely showcasing their products.

In the video, Apple evokes emotions and builds connections with viewers without explicitly promoting its products. This approach helps the audience relate to the brand personally, enhancing brand recall and loyalty.

IKEA’s “Oddly IKEA”

IKEA, a furniture store with affordable pricing, is growing alongside its customer base. This brand is popular among younger demographics and is known for its fun and quirky personality. IKEA’s branding strategists realized the need to stay connected with their buyer personas. They created personalized campaigns using digital content channels such as social media, YouTube and art installations, such as the Oddly IKEA campaign.

Researchers noticed a trend of ASMR videos among younger demographics, particularly college students. They produced a 25-minute ASMR video featuring IKEA merchandise such as comforters, pillows and sheets to appeal to this trend. The team thought outside the box and used innovative methods to engage with their target audience.

By thoroughly understanding your brand identity, knowing your target audience, crafting a unique value proposition, choosing the right platforms, creating compelling content and regularly monitoring performance, you can develop a digital branding strategy to help your brand thrive.

If this sounds complicated, you can always take the support of a competent digital branding agency. So, start working with an experienced digital branding agency to build and implement a proven branding strategy to drive your brand’s growth. All the best!

By Vikas Agrawal

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor. CEO of Infobrandz.com. Vikas Agrawal is a co-founder of the full-service agency Infobrandz.com, He is a strategic marketing consultant. Vikas advises and plans the visual marketing & branding & investor funding campaigns of small to mid-size companies.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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6 Tips To Grow Your Followers Organically On Instagram

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By Vasid Qureshi

Do you plan to grow your Instagram followers organically? Well, who does not want to, but most of you are not as skilled as it requires. You need to follow various tips and tricks to get more Instagram followers and expand your Instagram platform.

In the near-decade that this digital media handle has been everywhere, it keeps modifying its algorithms and offering new features, meaning brands require constant profile growth.

Well, how do businesses adapt? By incorporating and trying out novel growth planes. Indeed some services can boost growth via offering paid followers and likes, but organic followers are best than things. It is best for the startups and newbies to buy these followers count but beware of the bots. If you are afraid of such scams, then look for the means to earn organic followers.

What describes Instagram Growth?

Instagram is the key element when you discuss the growth of your business. But how can you describe the development of these social media channels? It begins with the followers’ count you gain and have.

But to have these novel followers, you will require improving interaction with your profile business exposure and making a compelling post. Otherwise, why else would anyone follow you? If your Instagram growth is static and likes to add a little spark into your plan, suggest testing these tips.

Tip #1. Research

Whether you discuss this photo-sharing application or other online handles, the main key to the success path would be RESEARCH. In Instagram cases, you have to research your focused people. It is useless to run after the users who are not curious about your things. Via research, you might target a specific group of individuals who like to know about your services.

Here are the top tips to help on learning your focused audience:

Categorization: Begin categorizing your focused people based on multiple factors like:

  • location
  • age groups
  • main interests

Besides that, you are also required to explore that kind of post that shall draw their attention.

Communicate: Remember, communication is a magic potion to every brand’s growth. Thus, we would suggest you interact with your followers. Talking to the focused people would never be feasible. Hence you can make it happen via indirect means like feeds and stories. Via, these Instagram stories, you may ask them regarding their disinterest and interests.

Competitors’ analysis: You must always be conscious of your competitor’s activity. Assure that your business is going through your rival posting plan regularly. Also, study other factors too, like:

  • comment on the post
  • primary content

Increase Instagram followers: Buying Instagram likes and followers are famous these days. Many users go to get Instagram followers UK to mark their presence.

Tip #2. Planning:

After identifying your target people, you have to begin working on the content plan. Remember never to post anything randomly just for posting purposes. It would never help you in this manner, but in the end, it decreases your credibility. Hence, it will be it that you schedule your e post well before uploading it finally.

Tip #3. Support Similar Profile:

You must always follow a similar profile which is the same as yours. It’s a suitable means to keep some exposure. View and like on their content and show your presence. Take out time from the routine and interact with a similar profile.

Tip #4. Hashtag

Usage of #tags has been a suitable plan to have more followers. Using 30 tags is not necessary but use the relevant ones. In Instagram, it is the game of quality and not quantity. Remember the hashtag show the true image of your content in front of the target users.

Tip #5. Use other Mediums:

It would help if you always boosted your official profile on other social media handles. These may be Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. You can try out incorporating the widget to the official FB profile that can implant your Instagram information in the Facebook profile. Also, add the noteworthy Instagram profile to your Instagram account whenever you send an email.

Tip #6. Geolocation Tagging

If you upload the content from any Instagramable area, assure you use geotags effectively. If you are reposting any post or using the images, you must mention the concerned owners in the caption. Chances are more that your page will earn the same recognition. You must perform with joint interests; hence, you both get benefits.

Wrap it up:

Having fewer Instagram boosts although many activities on this channel shall offer you a bad feeling. But never hope because these tips will help you expand your Instagram profile effectively. All you require is patience.

By Vasid Qureshi

Sourced from INFLUENCIVE

 

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