And no, it doesn’t involve yoga, meditation, diet, or exercise.
Happiness is a universal desire. Yet it’s something most people struggle to find, never mind sustain, says Dr. Nathaniel Daw, a professor in neuroscience at Princeton University. According to his research, published byMedical News Today, humans are wired for unhappiness. But this predisposition is anything but a prognosis.
As elusive as happiness may be, it doesn’t have to feel like a lifelong rabbit hunt where happiness springs up from nowhere as quickly as it disappears. The secret to finding happiness isn’t as much about knowing where to look for it, as it is knowing how to look at it, says AngelList co-founder, Naval Ravikant.
According to Ravikant, it was his ability to find happiness that helped him build a successful startup and become the billionaire he is today. Because success isn’t a path to happiness. Happiness is a path to success. And research proves it.
In other words, the happier you are, the more likely you are to be successful. Ravikant says there are a few simple things anyone can do to hack happiness–no matter how pessimistic you might naturally be.
Desire is suffering
While there is a benefit to innate unhappiness and dissatisfaction that is derived from a desire for more, Dr. Daw says this also “comes at the expense of constantly devaluing what we already have achieved, which the authors suggest might, taken to extremes, relate to depression.”
In other words, our desires serve as conditions for happiness. And we have all of these conditions for happiness that we have constructed.
Maybe we want more money, a nicer car, five-star vacations, a boss that recognizes our talents, an endlessly doting partner, a family that effortlessly gets along, or in-laws that don’t get on our nerves. But as long as we have these external gatekeepers to happiness, we’ll be hard-pressed to find happiness within ourselves.
Focus on one desire at a time
The problem then becomes, Ravikant says, that we have too many desires.
Limit your focus to one desire in order to achieve it. In this case, that one desire is happiness. So the question becomes, “does this ultimately lead me toward happiness?” When we field everything we do through a lens of whether or not our actions or thoughts help us or hinder us in the pursuit of our utmost desire, we set ourselves up for success.
Take for example a very mundane task such as taking out the garbage. No one enjoys doing it, but it does lend to our overall happiness as the alternative would ultimately lead to living in squalor–something no one truly enjoys.
Make happiness a priority
To quote Confucius: “The healthy man has 10,000 desires, but the sick man has just one.”
It illustrates that when things get difficult, we are able to eliminate the noise and clearly focus on what is important. In a dire position, priorities become obvious. But we don’t have to wait for an illness or a grim prognosis to prioritize happiness.
Entrepreneurs often fall prey to prioritization mismanagement. With so many (big) ideas, they are often left thinly spread. By doing a little of everything, like a jack of all trades, they turn into a master of none–goals and happiness included.
It’s this lack of prioritizing what matters most that drives many startups (and founders) into the ground.
Increase happiness through framing
There are two ways of seeing just about anything. This means that we can choose happiness by framing it the right way.
For example, consider a colleague who forwards you a number of emails you don’t need. You could think it’s obnoxious and that they don’t have any discernment (or even respect for your time). But you could frame it as though they are being considerate and keeping you in the loop, or that they are kindly giving you the power to decide which of the emails are of value to you.
It’s a process that eliminates negative judgment. It may not come as second nature in concept, but in practice it can. Soon we begin to look at the world through a positive lens, rather than a negative one, which shapes our experiences and our overall happiness.
Every entrepreneur seeks massive success, and yet to amass success, you need to amass happiness. The two go hand in hand, because while success does not equate to happiness, happiness is, by and large, success.
I was famously (infamously) unimpressed with Twitter when it first stormed the beaches a little more than a dozen years ago, telling my USA TODAY column readers not to tweet because “no one cares what you had for lunch!”
Admittedly, my then-editor at the time was not much better, awkwardly titling that column, “Should entrepreneurs Twitter? Uh, no.”
But for sheer audacity and getting-it-wrongness, we pale in comparison to the man who bought the platform for some $44 billion and proceeded, in a few short weeks, to practically burn it to the ground.
Want to ruin your small business? Then all you have to do is take a few pages out of Elon Musk’s playbook.
Businesspeople generally, and small businesspeople in particular, are wont to say our most valuable asset is our people, our team.
Makes sense, no? It is your valuable staff members who do the work, deal with customers, sell, put out fires, manage expectations and get the job done.
I once saw a report that said the most successful franchise owners were not the ones who understood marketing best, or who had the best locations, but rather were the ones who were the best managers. By being inclusive, positive and rewarding, great managers fostered great teams. Great teams begat happy customers and happy customers became repeat customers.
Elon seems to have forgotten that. After buying the company he:
Fired about 3,700 people, roughly half of Twitter’s workforce
Also fired the CEO, the COO, their general counsel and the head of policy. Other execs, seeing the writing on the wall, quit.
Making people work twice as hard because, literally, half the team is gone, and then giving them no leadership nor direction is a sure way to start sinking a ship.
But Elon wasn’t done there. Via email he also informed those remaining that the new normal of hybrid work was over and that all employees would be expected to be 100% full-time, in the office.
How very 2018.
Want to go out of business? Make people work more, work harder, fire their friends, fire their bosses and put them in an environment they don’t want to be in.
As a business model, Twitter is not great. It has only ever been profitable twice (2018 and 2019.) In 2020, the year the whole world moved online and chatted over the Internet, Twitter lost a billion dollars.
Twitter makes the vast majority of its revenue from ads and advertisers, meaning, you and I and the rest of Twitter’s tweeters are not really its customers. Its real customers are its corporate advertisers.
Well, with the business in freefall, with banned and suspended people likely coming back, with the executives that advertisers traditionally dealt with either gone or overworked, and with bots and hate speech running amok because content moderation is in decline, those same advertisers have given Twitter a serious rethink.
Indeed, Volkswagen, United Airlines and many other corporate advertisers have all paused their advertising on the platform.
Great brands are valuable, and they are tough to create. Branding takes time, effort, money, luck, consistency, and vision.
One way Twitter built its brand was by offering a valuable blue checkmark that verified some people as real top tweeters, legit voices worthy of attention. Blue ticks were not easy to get. But now it looks as if anyone with $8 a month to spare will be able to buy one.
Because, after all, if you lose your top advertisers, you have to make that money up somehow, right?
But if everyone can buy verification, then no one is actually verified, and that means that you can add even more fake accounts to this witch’s brew.
With no verification, short-staffed, morale among employees, advertisers, and users at an all-time low, with content moderation moderated, it is probably no surprise that Musk recently told those who are left on the sinking ship that . . . bankruptcy may be in Twitter’s future.
The man is a business startup genius for sure, but who knew that he was also gifted at shipwrecks?
By Steve Strauss
Steve Strauss is an in-demand speaker, attorney and the bestselling author of 18 books, including his latest,”Your Small Business Boom.” Named by SCORE as the top small-business champion in the country, you can learn more about Steve and the Strauss Group at MrAllBiz.com, get more tips at Planet Small Business and connect with him on Twitter at @SteveStrauss and on Facebook at PlanetSmallBusiness.
With TikTok expected to rake in $10 billion in ad revenue in 2022, a ban would likely have a serious effect on marketers and advertisers.
Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr called last month for the Council on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to take action to ban TikTok, according to an Axios report. And the FBI weighed in on TikTok security concerns this past week.
Though the FCC itself has no outright power to ban the popular social media platform, which has a reported 200 million downloads in the United States alone, the popular app has come under fire due to its Chinese ownership as well as concerns about security and the spread of misinformation. A strong stance by the FCC — Carr is one of five commissioners — could prompt Congress to take action regarding the platform.
Such a ban would have an effect on marketers and advertisers. According to a New York Times article, TikTok expects to generate $10 billion in ad revenue this year.
Below are some of the pros and cons of potentially banning the platform.
Pro: TikTok Is Poor at Handling Data
TikTok should be banned in the United States, said Lyle Solomon, Oak View Law Group principal attorney, citing TikTok’s handling of US user data and its “blatant contradictions” in how it handles the data.
TikTok’s US branch has repeatedly claimed that its data centers are in the country, Solomon explained. “However, the more extensive links of sharing US user data with the parent company, ByteDance, cannot be underplayed. Data from US users was repeatedly accessed within China’s borders by ByteDance employees. Senior TikTok employees claimed that certain ByteDance employees in China had access to all US personal data.”
Chinese law also concerns Solomon because the government can ask Chinese companies for any amount of user data. He pointed out that TikTok’s close ties with its parent company, ByteDance, the fact that Chinese authorities can legally ask for the personal data of US citizens and that TikTok has repeatedly misused US user data has put him in favour of a TikTok ban.
Con: Another TikTok-Like Platform Would Fill the Void
Suggesting that TikTok should be banned is reactionary and fails to consider the nature of such platforms, according to William Pickering, digital marketing executive at The Big Phone Store. “If TikTok were to be banned, another platform would simply fill the gap left in the market, just as TikTok was once Music.ly, and Vine acted as a precursor to both platforms in delivering short-form video content.”
Arguing that TikTok should be banned is taking a prescriptivist attitude toward technology based on one’s own personal biases and refusing to accept the inevitable evolution and proliferation of social media platforms based on current trends, Pickering added. “I think you would be hard pressed to find a member of Gen Z who holds the opinion that TikTok should be outright banned, outside of blatant contrarianism and paranoia over Chinese state surveillance.”
TikTok could make some changes to address objections about its business practices and platform, Pickering said. “But such issues are present on any major social media platform. There are problems with any system based on delivering users’ content specifically tailored to their preferences through an algorithm: such as echo chambers, the grooming of young children, reduction in attention span, etc.”
But a knee-jerk banning of TikTok in its entirety is a refusal to accept that these issues are based on the manipulation of base human psychological traits, Pickering concluded.
Pro: TikTok Is a ‘Cancerous’ Technology
Nima Olumi, Lightyear Strategies CEO, thinks not only that TikTok should be banned, but regulators should also take a hard look at Meta’s Facebook.
“TikTok and Meta are cancerous technologies that destroy human productivity and attention spans,” Olumi argues. “We need to tax social media — either the company or the user — to get daily active usage down. The average American currently spends four hours a day on social media.”
Just over one-fifth (21%) of Americans made 2022 New Year’s resolutions that included reducing time on social media, but, like many such resolutions, there’s no indication of a slowdown, with users spending 95 minutes a day on TikTok alone.
“This is clearly a cry for help,” Olumi said, adding that these platforms detract from a person’s productivity. “Apps like TikTok and Meta are designed to keep users on the platform for as much time as possible. They make their revenue through ad dollars and engagement is the only metric they care about.”
Con: TikTok Ban Would Negatively Impact US Livelihoods
Luke Lintz, HighKey Enterprises LLC founder and CEO, agreed that TikTok is no different from many other social media platforms, though it likely collects more data than others.
TikTok is expanding into a wide range of industries and partnering with major merchants to launch a marketplace to compete with Amazon, Lintz added. TikTok has already figured out the top of the marketing funnel, so the expansion will enable users to buy products and services without leaving the TikTok platform.
“Banning TikTok is not the correct solution because there are so many US content creators making their livelihoods from TikTok, and many users enjoy the platform,” Lintz added. “I believe the correct solution is setting guidelines for a USA majority stake ownership in TikTok.”
Final Thoughts on Banning TikTok
There is no questioning the popularity of the platform, nor its use as an effective marketing tool for many. Even so, members of both major political parties are wary of anything involving oversight by the Chinese government, and the privacy of personal data is a major concern, with the United States and European Union continuing to strengthen laws concerning personally identifiable information.
So the debate regarding whether or not to ban TikTok is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
Did everyone start treating you differently around when you hit 40? A new study helps explain why.
There are plenty of reasons for people to get a bit grumpier as they age. Many of us gain more responsibilities to juggle as we get older. The resulting exhaustion wears on the nerves. Then there are all the usual petty indignities of age — the creaky knees, sore backs, bottles of hair dye. Those cheer no one up either.
But perhaps the most annoying aspect of growing older for women is the biases and stereotypes you’re confronted with. Sure, people may underestimate or inappropriately sexualize younger women (and that’s no picnic). But cross the boundary of 40 and suddenly you have another problem: when people look at you, they automatically think of their nagging mom, kooky aunt, or cranky battle ax of a boss.
Don’t believe me? Then I have a wildly annoying new study out of UC Berkeley to show you.
Middle-aged women versus outdated stereotypes
As Berkely Haas News reports, the study was inspired by the personal experiences of Jennifer Chatman, a tenured professor at the university’s Haas School of Business who has won many teaching awards, and received glowing student feedback earlier in her career. But when she hit 40, something weird happened.
While Chatman felt objectively better at her job — she had more experience and knowledge under her belt, after all — her student evaluations began to decline. Why might that be, she wondered?
Whether the research team asked volunteers to rate fictional supervisors or dug into mountains of data on student evaluations throughout professors’ careers, the conclusion was the same. As women enter middle age, others tend to automatically see them as less warm and therefore less likable. And that’s true even if literally nothing changes about them except for the number of candles on the birthday cake.
In one study, the researchers gave volunteers short profiles of a fictional boss. All the details of these profiles were the same except from the name. Sometimes the boss was named “Sue,” other times “Steve.” Despite the profiles containing identical information, participants rated middle-aged “Sue” as significantly less warm and friendly.
“It’s just stunning,” Chatman says. “These stereotypes are so hardwired and deeply entrenched that they come out even when absolutely identical information is provided about a man and a woman.”
Yet another hurdle for ambitious women
It is of course infuriating that people are primed to see women of a certain age as, in the vernacular, bitches. Chatman points out it is also a big block to their career advancement.
“Middle age is a make-or-break time, when people are being groomed and considered for the top jobs,” she commented. “We have to look beyond the pipeline to see what’s actually happening in terms of the experiences women are having throughout their careers.”
Tired stereotypes of middle-aged women as naggy, frumpy, and grumpy create an additional barrier to female advancement. At just the age that many professional women have accumulated the skills and contacts they need to soar in their careers, they are saddled with outmoded expectations that can prevent them from reaching their full potential.
You’re plenty nice, it’s the world that has to change
What’s the takeaway here? If your first impulse is to counsel middle-aged women to act nicer at work, maybe take a pause. (And not just because our cheeks are already aching from all the fake smiling we do.) The problem here isn’t that middle-aged women are actually grumpy, rude, or sour-faced. The problem is bias in society. That’s what needs to change, according to the researchers.
“I would hate for the message to be that women need to be more careful about how they present themselves,” says Chatman, “because these findings already point to the fact that women have a narrower band of acceptable behavior.”
Instead, the researchers hope their work will nudge bosses to be more thoughtful when judging employees. If you know that nearly all of us have been exposed to these stereotypes, you’ll be better placed to make sure they don’t creep in when you’re evaluating employees.
“We need to create systems and standardization for how we discuss and evaluate candidates,” study co-author Laura Kray says, “and either exclude feedback on personality, or make sure it is considered equally for men.” Leaders, keep that in mind next time you’re tempted to a dismiss a middle-aged woman as cold, cranky, or unlikable.
Before investing in augmented reality (AR), brands must consider some basic principles – and no, QR codes are no longer enough. Zappar’s Dave Mather outlines the rules of engagement for using AR in marketing strategy.
It’s nearly 2023. The metaverse and associated immersive technologies are key talking points in boardrooms across the globe. For many, they represent new and interesting ways to reach and engage younger, more discerning audiences as tried-and-tested marketing channels fail to cut through.
According to Snap’s latest Augmentality Shift report with Ipsos, four out of five brands that use augmented reality (AR) say that it helps to drive sales, acquire new customers, and increase performance. These are all metrics that marketers should care about.
However, many aren’t driving consistent results from the technology. Worse yet, many are still failing to use it at all.
With immersive technologies becoming a mainstay in how we communicate, marketers must start thinking about how they can use AR to increase engagement. Before diving in headfirst, read up on these five key principles.
1. Don’t use AR for AR’s sake
AR is not for everybody. Nor should it be used to ‘tick a box’. Instead, think deeply about the problem you’re solving with AR and how it ties back to your campaign objectives (and wider marketing strategy). If you don’t have a clearly defined objective or measurement of success, don’t do it.
You should be able to communicate the reason you’re using the technology back to the business (or client) before you start thinking about creating any AR solution.
2. Put your audience first
All marketers should be familiar with this rule: put your audience first. This comes down to where they are, who they are, what device they’re likely using, and where they are in the world.
Without this, you can’t use AR effectively. Understanding your audience deeply, and in what context they’ll be consuming your AR experience, is key.
3. Be authentic to your brand
As with any campaign, you want it to embody the essence of your brand, your values, mission, and purpose. It’s no different in AR. In fact, the technology heightens this dimension.
We’re seeing this more with brands entering the metaverse and not necessarily understanding the technology, audience, and purpose (I’m looking at you, Walmart). Make sure your AR experience fits with your brand values, tone of voice and (to reiterate the second rule) your audience.
A great example of this is a campaign we worked on at Zappar for Yorkshire Tea and their ‘Yorkshire Tree’ campaign. The AR experience took their mission to plant one million trees across Kenya and the UK to a new level, immersing users in their story with an interactive AR mini-game that put them in the driving seat, helping them plant the trees.
4. Think engagement, not reach
AR is great for a lot of things: explaining complex concepts, visualizing products in their natural habitats, and delivering greater personalization at scale. However, where it really adds true value is engagement.
It can be as simple as adding a holographic video message in AR within your customer comms from a senior leader, or as complex as creating AR portals into new worlds.
Think about the additional engagement this offers your marketing. Yes, AR is a ton more accessible than 3-4 years ago with the advent of WebAR (3.9bn devices to be precise). Delivering a deeply personal and visceral experience is where you’ll pocket the difference.
The key takeaway here is that people are actively engaging with the AR content you create, more often than not in the real world by physically moving around 3D content. This is a step change from watching a video ad across paid social.
5. Don’t get lazy with your CTA
Don’t forget about your call to action (CTA) and how you’re getting people into your AR experience. A great call to action is simple, direct, and to the point. Remember to communicate the unique value you’re offering your audience clearly and simply.
At the end of the day, it’s a value exchange and people want a return on the time they’re investing in your experience. Please, don’t add a basic ‘scan me’ to your AR; it simply isn’t enough nowadays, and you won’t get people into the content you’ve spent so much time creating.
Get these five principles right and you’ll be well on your way to creating more successful marketing campaigns that put AR front-and-center, driving real business value.
Here’s how to combat targeted ads, hackers, and cyber thieves.
Sometimes I feel like I spend my entire day dodging attacks on my digital identity. I wake up to scammy text messages begging me to click sketchy links. I delete them. Brush my teeth.
Open my email and voila! Fake sweepstakes emails — from my own email address, no less — telling me I won everything from a power drill to a Yeti cooler. I delete those, too. By noon I’ve silenced at least a half dozen robocalls, and at least once a day I see a Facebook ad for something I recently talked to my husband about — is Siri eavesdropping on me, too?
Screengrab of scam email from me.
Jennifer Jolly
Obviously, I’m not alone. With so many scams floating around we’re all starting to see privacy dangers around every mouse click, even where they might not exist, like in a Snapchat filter.
The recent midterm elections and upcoming Black Friday/Cyber Monday online shopping extravaganza have only made these concerns more intense. If you haven’t gotten at least a hundred unsolicited text messages — again, with sketchy-looking links — consider yourself lucky.
Where is all of this headed? Are we forever doomed to a future of digital paranoia, and the threat of cybercrime, stolen money, identities or worse? Is there a way to break free from all these shady spammers, scammers and thieves?
The good news is: It all gets a lot less scary once you realize what is going on.
I get emails from myself all the time … only I never sent them. They’re often low-effort scam-bait messages claiming that I won something or I have unclaimed funds somewhere. Or even more annoying, that I’ve been hacked “watching porn” on my laptop and better pay up — or else.
Spoiler alert, there’s no watching porn or getting hacked actually going on, these are among the most common of threats.
You likely get these, too. No doubt, looking at your own email address in the “From” line is unsettling, but how does that even happen?
Sadly, it’s easy. The email addresses that populate when you open an email are rarely verified, especially if you use a free email service. Using a less-secure Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server, a scammer can just type in what they want the “To” and “From” addresses to say.
Someone using one of these servers — a scammer can just set one up themselves — can make an email look like it came from anyone, including you. It really is that easy.
As annoying as it is to change an email service, you can avoid these spoofed emails and do away with a whole lot of spam and scam messages by switching to a secure email provider.
ProtonMail is a popular one these days. It’s free for a private email account, and since it uses more advanced protocols than most free services, it spots spoofed emails, so you don’t have to.
Oh, passwords. I don’t know of a single person on the planet that actually likes the password system, but there’s no getting around them … or is there?
“Passwords have been the default mechanism for authentication since the beginning of computer technology,” Bob Eckel, president and CEO of Aware, a biometrics software company based out of Massachusetts, tells me over email.
“They don’t require extra or special hardware, there are no compatibility issues and they are a cost-effective option for companies and businesses of all sizes, which is why they are still the go-to for identity or use authentication today.”
The biggest problem with passwords is that they’re far less secure now than they were a couple of decades ago. Modern hackers use more advanced techniques, and most of us don’t practice good password hygiene, such as using a different password for every account.
If you use your birthday, maiden name, pet’s name or one of the most easily hacked passwords on the planet, like 1234, or “password,” you’re just begging to get scammed.
Companies like Apple and Google pioneered new methods for securing digital devices such as smartphones and even laptops, but individual accounts for the millions of apps we all use still require passwords. Our own fear and apprehension are a big part of the reason that certain biometric technologies aren’t catching on as fast as they could.
“Certain segments of the general public, such as baby boomers, for example, continue to be weary of facial authentication; instead, they’re much more receptive to fingerprints. Therefore, we need to continue our mission to educate both organizations and consumers about the technology and special techniques used to make facial authentication highly safe, secure, and accurate,” Eckel says.
While we wait for passwords to kick the bucket, utilizing features like Apple’s “Sign in with Apple” can effectively bypass many app login requirements and use your smartphone as the default for verification.
It’s also a lot more convenient than inventing a new password for every app, and lets you use FaceID or TouchID (depending on your device) to log into just about anything.
Do you ever see an ad for something you were just talking about with a friend, within earshot of your phone?
It’s easy to assume that since our phones are constantly listening to us — waiting for the trigger word, like “Hey Siri,” “Okay Google,” or even “Alexa” — that they may be working behind the scenes to feed us relevant ads. That’s not exactly right, but it’s not that far off either.
“Our phones are designed to listen, first and foremost, to virtually assist us, which can explain why you may be served ads that directly relate to a conversation you just had,” Eckel adds. “It is similar to how search engines work by tracking your activity to ensure it is delivering the most relevant results.”
But it’s important to note that Apple, Amazon and Google have all stated that they treat the audio from their respective virtual assistants with the utmost security and privacy.
You may get a relevant ad on your computer, related to a voice prompt if you choose to search Amazon’s marketplace using Alexa, for example, but having a background conversation with a friend isn’t the reason you get those ads.
The more likely scenario is that your searches on desktop or mobile triggered an ad algorithm to suggest those relevant products for you.
I know it can seem creepy and weird, but unless the big three companies are lying through their teeth — and security researchers haven’t busted them yet — it’s just a coincidence and a cleverly-designed ad system.
What can you do about it all? Here are some simple steps you can take to search for information online as privately as possible these days:
Use a privacy-focused search engine that doesn’t collect as much data about your habits as say, Google. Options here include DuckDuckGo or Brave Search.
Disable your mobile ad ID on your smartphone and tablet, and block ads on your laptop and desktop browsers. Most smartphone apps default to collecting tons of data about your behavior. There are easy ways to disable these functions in the settings on iPhones and Androids that run on the Google operating system.
Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech columnist. Email her at j[email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @JenniferJolly. The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY.
The public boycott of advertising on Twitter is starting to look a lot like a long goodbye.
GroupM, the world’s largest media buying agency, is telling clients that Twitter is now a “high risk” media buy following a barrage of controversies, U-turns and confusion that capped off Elon Musk’s second week as the owner of the social network.
The advice was shared in a document, seen by Digiday, that warns marketers of the risks of advertising on the volatile social network. It reads: “Based on the news yesterday [Nov. 10] of additional senior management resignations from key posts, high profile examples of blue check abuse on corporate accounts, and the potential inability for Twitter to comply with their federal consent decree, GroupM’s Twitter Risk Assessment is increased to a High-Risk rating for all tactics.”
If this stance is to change, Twitter has to resolve several issues, per the document. They are as follows:
Return to baseline NSFW levels
Re-population of IT security, privacy, trust & safety senior staff
Establishment of internal checks & balances
Full transparency on future development plans of community guidelines/content moderation/ anything affecting user security or brand safety
Demonstrated commitment to effective content moderation, enforcing current Twitter Rules, e.g., account impersonation, violative content removal timing, intolerance of hate speech & misinformation, etc.
It’s a reminder of where the real power lies in this standoff between Twitter and advertisers. Hint: advertising on Twitter has always been a nice to have, not a must have for the advertisers that spend on it. That may be one of the few things that hasn’t changed since Musk took over.
That’s not to say that advertisers are apathetic on Twitter’s fate. They’re concerned, of course — the social network still serves as a major cog in the global news cycle, after all — but they’re not rattled. Not even as Twitter’s senior ranks unravel.
The unraveling accelerated after Musk held an hour-long pow wow on the platform last week (Nov 10). It was done to reassure advertisers that Twitter’s future was fine. A series of sudden resignations and subsequent reversals of them revealed they were anything but. Not least because it involved some of the same people who have wanted the market to believe in Musk. Robin Wheeler, Twitter’s de facto head of ad sales, for starters. A little over a day after she was talking up Musk’s plans on Twitter Spaces, she resigned, and then decided to stay, per Bloomberg.
The symbolism isn’t lost on marketers.
“Corporance governance is shifting all the time,” said one senior marketer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to Digiday. “I can afford to wait and see how this all shakes out. This isn’t like Facebook or YouTube where we might structure media plans around those platforms. On the contrary, our organization is trying to call in any fungible spending right now. Thank you Mr. Musk.”
It gets worse. The other executive on that call with Musk and Wheeler — Twitter’s head of trust and safety Yoel Roth — also resigned. Unlike Wheeler, Roth doesn’t seem to have reversed that decision. Neither has Twitter’s chief information security officer and chief privacy officer, who have also resigned. Oh, and don’t forget all this is happening as the Federal Trade Commission watches on with “deep concern.”
So not only does Twitter pose a brand safety risk to advertisers, it could also be a cybersecurity risk too.
Either one would blow a hole in the ads business of any platform in the current climate — let alone one that most marketers aren’t too concerned about.
“Yes, Twitter is part of the cultural moment, but it doesn’t have a good direct response product so spending there is quite nebulous — or just not good,” said a media director at one of the advertisers that has stopped advertising on the social network. “It’s never been a critical part of the media strategies or plans that I oversee.”
Nothing Musk has said to advertisers either on stage, on calls or even his tweets has been able to change that sobering fact. In fact, the more the controversial billionaire talks about Twitter and advertising on it, the more confused advertisers seem to get.
The way Musk sees it, Twitter is like a town square where “freedom of speech is not freedom of reach”. In other words, people can say all sorts of things — some of it even unsavory — it just doesn’t necessarily have to get amplified to the masses.
The problem is who gets to decide what gets amplified? Whatever the answer is, chances are it’s going to be inextricably linked to pernicious relativism. It’s hard to see otherwise after Musk said he viewed the “truth is a nebulous concept”. Controversy is never far from views like this, and that’s the last thing marketers want to be near right now.
“Elon saying ‘truth is a nebulous concept’ at the start of the session is highly concerning,” said Ruben Schreurs, group chief product officer at media management firm Ebiquity. “This is Kellyanne Conway making a case for ‘alternative facts’ all over again. Truth is truth, simple as that. There’s nothing nebulous about it.”
Schreurs frustration echoes a lot of what the 15 ad executives Digiday has spoken to since Musk took have said. They bemoan a pitch to advertisers that’s light on core principles and permanently in a state of flux, or as amenable behind closed doors as it is combative in the spotlight. In short, marketers aren’t too bothered by what Musk says on Twitter Spaces, at conferences or behind closed doors. They only care about what he does.
“Speaking more specifically about our client set that potentially applies to an even broader group of advertisers, Twitter is not integral enough to their advertising mix to demand this much of their attention and time,” said Adam Telian, vp of media services at marketing agency New Engen.
Needless to say, those pulled ad dollars don’t look like they’re going to be coming back this side of 2023. Then again, they never really were. Advertisers had essentially cut short their spending for this year on Twitter. Nothing Musk has done so far has been able to convince them otherwise.
His new verification scheme? The indecision over it has allowed for fake and parody accounts to proliferate in its slipstream. What about Musk’s plan for Twitter to take another crack at video, or become a payments company or even re-architect the backend of its ad tech in order to power better targeting? Easier said than done at the company in the throes of an employee exodus. It’s the same with his threats. Remember, Musk’s vow to “thermonuclear name and shame” the advertisers that had pulled ad dollars? Still waiting.
Color marketers confused.
“At a base level, Twitter’s reason for being is currently very unclear, as evidenced by his “we’re going to be everything” comments, making it a highly suspect platform to spend money on,” said Evan Levy, president at ad agency Fitzco. “We know TikTok’s reason for being. We know the NFL’s reason for being. Understanding the platforms or properties we’re investing media dollars into should be table stakes. Twitter? To be determined – and so should brands’ investment there.”
It’s a precarious position for any business built on ad dollars — even more so one that’s intrinsically entwined to Musk. His antics are having a direct impact on the business on multiple fronts. Not that he would know. Rather, Musk believes, as stated in meetings with advertisers, that his actions should be divorced from his business — even as ad dollars continue to pour out of it as a direct result of what he’s doing. Regardless of how he opts to try and prop up his flagging asset, the clock is ticking. The entrepreneur has already warned that his company won’t be able to come through the economic downturn if it can’t replace the ad dollars the business has lost since his arrival with additional income. Bankruptcy is not out of the question, he has said. Advertisers are a lot of things, charitable isn’t one of them.
Let’s dive into why you shouldn’t outsource your content and how to manage content creation internally.
Outsourcing your content creation sounds like a great idea, but I want to make the case for the opposite. Don’t do it. The benefits far outweigh any possible risks. Let me explain.
In today’s business world, there are a lot of things you can outsource–from bookkeeping to social media marketing. However, one thing you shouldn’t outsource is content writing.
Great content requires the expertise and product knowledge only you have. Besides, average content brings average results, and average is what you are most likely to get with content outsourcing.
In this article, I will dive into why you shouldn’t outsource your content and how to manage content creation internally.
You are the expert on your business.
No one knows your business better than you do. This means that you and your team, who are actually working in the business, are the best people to write about your products or services. When you outsource content creation, you are relying on an unrelated party to be an expert on your business. That’s a recipe for disaster.
Quality control is more difficult.
When you outsource content creation, it can be difficult to maintain quality control. After all, you are not the one writing the content, and may not be familiar with the writer’s style or methods. This can lead to subpar content being published in your name–which can reflect poorly on your business (and on your personal brand, as well).
It can be costly.
It’s not as affordable as you think, because you always get what you pay for. Outsourcing content creation can be just as costly as having the writers’ team in-house, especially when working with a professional writer or agency. In addition, there may be hidden costs associated with outsourcing, such as project management fees or overhead.
It takes time to develop a relationship.
Building a relationship with a professional writer or agency takes time–time that could be spent creating great content yourself. In addition, it may take a while to develop a working knowledge of the outsourced company’s systems and procedures. This learning curve can further delay the production of high-quality content.
So how do you create great content internally?
1. Write it yourself.
The best way to ensure that your content is of the highest quality is to write it yourself. This way, you can ensure that the information is accurate and relevant and that it conforms to your company’s style guide (if one exists). Writing your own content also lets you infuse your brand’s voice into the piece–something that is difficult to do when outsourcing.
2. Hire an internal writer.
If writing is not your strong suit, or you simply don’t have the time to write blog posts, articles, or web copy yourself, consider hiring an internal writer. This person should work closely with you and other members of your team to produce high-quality content that reflects your brand’s voice and message.
3. Leverage user-generated content.
Another great way to create quality content without breaking the bank is to leverage user-generated content (UGC). UGC refers to any type of content–including videos, reviews, and social media posts–that has been created by users of your product or service. Utilizing UGC is a great way to add fresh perspectives and new voices to your brand’s story while saving money on professional services.
4. Repurpose existing content.
If all else fails and you simply can’t find the time or resources necessary to produce original content, consider repurposing existing content. For example, if you have an ebook, you could break it up into individual blog posts or create an infographic based on its contents. Alternatively, if you have a series of blog posts on a similar topic, you could combine them into an ebook or create an online course.
As you can see, there are several reasons why outsourcing content creation is not always the best idea. Creating high-quality content requires a deep understanding of your product or service, as well as your target audience. It also takes time and effort to produce quality content internally. However, the extra effort can pay off in improved brand recognition and increased customer satisfaction.
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.
Search engine optimization (SEO) enterprise tools perform a host of functions. These tools can be invaluable in your marketing slack, from keyword research to site error detection.
But which among the platforms available in the market suits your organization’s unique digital marketing needs?
Answering this question as part of a large organization is important. You need a platform that considers your company’s size to help you launch and implement a well-coordinated SEO campaign.
So, if you’re facing the same problem in your organization, this post is for you!
It lists the enterprise SEO tools that can help you create a well-developed SEO plan from the ground up, no matter how big your company is.
Semrush
Semrush is one of the most recognizable names in the SEO industry, and it’s easy to see why.
Its vast array of highly versatile enterprise SEO features will help solidify your digital marketing strategy. But don’t take our word for it. PCMag ranked it as “excellent.” And actual users on TrustRadius, have given it a cumulative score of 9 out of 10.
Features
With the Semrush enterprise SEO platform, you get immediate access to 55+ nifty tools that have been carefully designed to accomplish various tasks, such as:
Keyword research – It helps you find the best and most relevant keywords. Next, filter them according to search volume, difficulty, and others. You can also see which keywords your competitors are ranking for.
On-page SEO – Run a website audit to spot issues so you can fix them immediately. It also tells you how to improve the SEO score of your site pages to improve their rankings.
Competitor analysis – Find out how much organic traffic your competitors are getting. Also, monitor how the competition leverage paid search and social media to their advantage. Then use the gathered data to help you make better marketing decisions.
Content marketing – Brainstorm content topics and create optimized content for each. Then manage your content strategy by filling out your editorial calendar with these topics.
Local SEO – Automatically distribute your business data to reputable local online directories. And optimize your Google Maps listings for local search.
Pricing
Subscription to Semrush starts at $119.95/month. The enterprise SEO Business plan, priced at $449.95/month, is available to large enterprises and agencies. It includes 40 projects, 50,000 results per report, and 50,000 keywords to track.
Frase is an AI-powered enterprise-grade SEO platform allowing content creators to create briefs and optimize content quickly and easily.
This enterprise SEO software also helps content teams create SEO-focused content in half the time. This is because its AI content features expedite the research, writing, and optimization process for you.
Features
Frase helps teams amplify the effectiveness of their enterprise SEO efforts with these features:
Question research – Frase removes the need to spend hours researching questions on Reddit, Quora, forums, search engines, and other resources. You type in a keyword, and Frase returns a list of questions within seconds.
AI-generated content briefs – Unwilling to spend copious amounts of time creating briefs? Don’t know how to create a content brief? No problem! Frase can automatically create a content brief based on your search queries in seconds.
Templates – Frase offers various templates to help expedite the writing process. These include Content Brief, Best Post, Listicle, Alternatives, and more.
Answer engine – Frase Answers is a chatbot that helps deliver content to site visitors asking questions on your website. It crawls and analyzes all your site’s content and shares them as answers to their questions.
Pricing
Frase has three pricing tiers. All three include an AI writing plan that can generate up to 20,000 characters per month:
Solo – $14.99/month, one user seat with the ability to write and optimize four articles.
Basic – $44.99.month, one user seat with the ability to write and optimize 30 articles.
Team – $114.99/month, three user seats with the ability to write and optimize unlimited articles. Each extra user seat is an additional $25/month.
You can also get the Pro add-on for $35/month to unlock more features, such as:
MarketMuse is an enterprise SEO platform that boosts website ranking in search engines through data-driven content optimized for your target audience. It uses patented artificial intelligence (AI) technology to accelerate content research and development.
Features
To help your SEO team create remarkable content, MarketMuse offers the following features:
Automated inventory collection and audit – You can automatically collect, organize, and analyze your pages for better accessibility.
Content metrics – MarketMuse offers AI-powered metrics such as Authority, Content Score, User Intent, and Personalized Difficulty. These help enterprise SEO and content teams identify and leverage the best content opportunities.
Content briefs – No more guessing which types of content get the most search traffic. With MarketMuse’s content briefs, your team can confidently produce comprehensive content that addresses user pain points.
Optimization – With MarketMuse’s AI-powered text editor, content creators get real-time feedback on content quality and how well they cover a topic. This way, you produce content that search spiders would want to index.
Pricing
MarketMuse has three subscription tiers. And Optimize, Research, Compete, Questions, and Connect are available applications for all tiers.
Free – At $0/month, one user can execute 15 queries per month and work on 10 projects. A query happens whenever you enter a URL or focus topic into a MarketMuse application and press “Run.”
Standard – Priced at $7,200/year ($600/month), this subscription plan allows one user to export data, perform 100 queries per month, and complete an unlimited number of projects. Each additional user costs $99/month.
Premium – This plan starts at $12,000/year ($1,000/month). It comes with on-demand content audit capabilities, managed topics tracking, domain analysis, unlimited queries, unlimited projects, a dedicated account manager, and workflow/platform training for teams.
Botify is another enterprise SEO platform worth considering. It enables executives, content teams, and technical SEO professionals to prioritize the SEO tasks that yield the most impact. It can be leveraged for various use cases, including:
Keyword research
Keyword tracking
Site migrations
Mobile SEO
JavaScript SEO
Content analysis
Features
Botify offers essential enterprise SEO features that can maximize the potential of your online assets:
Botify Analytics – All the data you need about your websites from various search phases—crawl, render, index, rank, and convert—is available here. There’s also an option to import log files for additional crawl insights. From here, you can analyze your site’s bounce rate, conversions, and other SEO metrics.
Botify Intelligence – Powered by machine learning, the tool lets you identify technical SEO and content opportunities prioritized by impact. It also has an early warning system for catching SEO issues before they become real problems.
Botify Activation – Faster, autonomous implementation of SEO initiatives such as quick and easy submission of new and updated pages. This allows for faster content indexing.
Professional Services – Need help making the most of Botify to power your SEO strategy? You can tap its SEO professionals for various enterprise SEO services, such as site migration, understanding how JavaScript impacts your website, and more.
Pricing
Botify offers three subscription plans:
Essential – For websites that want end-to-end SEO data plus prescriptive recommendations for better performance
Pro – For organizations that get the bulk of their revenue from organic search
Enterprise – For organizations with complex, large, or multiple websites
Botify doesn’t list pricing on its website, as each package is unique to each customer’s needs. Reach out to their sales team for a custom quote.
Conductor
Built for enterprise SEO, web, and content teams, Conductor tracks search and content performance. It is a search engine optimization tool that integrates with a wide range of technology tools, including:
Analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics.
Project management platforms such as Asana.
Consumer intelligence tools like Talkwalker.
Other SEO tools, such as Semrush.
And so many others!
Features
This enterprise SEO software offers powerful features such as:
Keyword explorer – Helps with research into keywords (organic and paid), topics, demographic insights, audience sentiment, competitive research, social insights, etc.
Content guidance – Provides AI-powered recommendations for creating content that resonates with your target audience.
Digital presence tracking – Monitors the visibility of your digital assets across channels. This includes search engines, social media, press coverage, owned content, and earned media.
Technical SEO – Assists with ensuring your website is technically sound and provides the best user experience possible. Choose between ContentKing or Lumar for real-time technical monitoring.
Chrome extension – Free SEO tool that delivers advanced SEO intelligence about any page. Insights include page fundamentals such as metadata, media, technical SEO, and many more.
Pricing
Conductor builds unique enterprise SEO subscription packages according to your needs and budget. Contact their sales team for a custom quote.
BrightEdge
BrightEdge is a comprehensive enterprise SEO tool offering an impressive set of features from search, content, social, and local. It provides SEOs and digital marketers with the actionable insights necessary to boost website visibility and increase search traffic.
Features
This enterprise SEO software provides the tools your SEO team needs to more effectively and quickly optimize website content. Below are other things it can do:
Demand discovery – Create a list of target keywords that delivers the best results. You can then determine which search queries generate the most organic traffic to your site.
Content creation and optimization – Receive SEO suggestions on boosting content relevance and visibility. And you can monitor existing pages for potential errors and fix them before they become critical issues.
Content performance prediction – Identify which content type ranks for a search term before writing it. Then estimate the impact of your content initiative so you can better prioritize tasks and campaigns.
Results measurement – Generate website performance reports to help communicate to stakeholders for high-value keywords and best-performing content.
Pricing
Pricing information is not available on the BrightEdge website. Call their sales hotline to get a custom quote.
Linkdex
Another enterprise SEO tool that deserves its place on this list is Linkdex. It aggregates insights from various channels like search engines, social networks, and influencer marketing. This way, all the data you need is available via a centralized enterprise SEO platform.
Features
Linkdex carries many features to help enterprise SEO and marketing teams maximize their SEO efforts. These include:
Visibility and crawl analytics – Compare multiple domains using domain and keyword filters. Crawl thousands of pages, even your competitors, to uncover performance issues and opportunities to optimize your pages.
Ranking intelligence – Get better insights into your (and your competitors’) keyword rankings. Then analyze the search traffic value and ranking of any page to gauge how you’re faring against competitors.
SEO reporting and forecasting – Using Linkdex data, create smart, insightful SEO reports with just a few clicks. Next, turn data into smart forecasts to better communicate your content marketing and SEO efforts.
Author discovery – Using targeted keywords, find influencers and the people behind high-ranking content. Reach out and build relationships with topical influencers to boost your website’s authority.
Content strategy – Comb through various SEO data like technical SEO, analytics, social, rank, and link. This way, you can create content that’s highly shareable and link-worthy.
Smart SEO alerting – Create custom alerts through email or in-app so you know immediately when to take action. Fix lost or broken links, investigate significant traffic drops, enact appropriate changes, etc.
Pricing
Linkdex offers three subscription plans:
Starter Package – For $600/month, you get 10,000 rank tracking credits and 20 content and link credits. Linkdex SEO tools for research, task management, and workflow engine are also unlimited.
Power Users – This plan has the same features as the Starter Package but with more credits. It includes 25,000 rank tracking credits, 45 content, and link credits. Starting price is $1,200/month.
Enterprise Users: Discounted custom plans are available for enterprise users. Contact the sales team for more details.
Pitchbox
Looking for an enterprise SEO platform to help you build quality backlinks, boost visibility, and increase credibility? Then, Pitchbox is for you.
Pitchbox is an email outreach platform for building backlinks using various link building strategies more effectively.
It’s an end-to-end link-building and prospecting tool that increases team productivity.
Features
Pitchbox enables enterprise SEO teams to build links at scale through the following features:
Prospecting – Take advantage of built-in targeting and prospecting features to identify the best link building opportunities in less time. Find relevant blogs and articles in any niche. You can also import domain lists and other data from other SEO tools.
Outreach and follow-up – Reach out to prospects at scale using smart templates. You can also schedule your messages and follow-ups to reach prospects’ inboxes at the right time. This way, you receive more responses and close more deals.
CRM – Aggregate all link-building and prospecting data and information in one place. Segment leads by relationship status, SEO metrics, age, etc. This allows you real-time visibility into your pipeline, making it easier to turn opportunities into wins.
Reports – Pitchbox reports provide deep-dive insights into the performance of your campaigns and how they’re progressing. Track team activity and identify monthly, quarterly, and yearly trends.
Pricing
Pitchbox doesn’t provide pricing details on its website, but some review sites say plans start at approximately $500/month. Contact their sales team for more information and a private walkthrough.
Quattr
Quattr is an AI-driven enterprise SEO tool that empowers digital marketing teams. With it, they can leverage data-driven SEO insights to boost their search rankings and capture highly targeted traffic.
If you need help maximizing the tool’s power, Quattr’s SEO Concierge team is available for personalized consulting.
Features
Features you get when you subscribe to Quattr include:
Competitive trends – Quattr identifies which pages on your website are underperforming and provides optimization suggestions. It gives you real-time visibility into your market share and how much traffic competitors are getting.
Ranking factors – This enterprise SEO platform tracks your site’s ranking based on various SEO factors. Plus, it shows how you’re doing against competitors. And if you identify any problems, you can fix them directly from the Quattr platform.
Prioritized keyword recommendations – Quattr’s recommendations let you optimize your content to rank them higher in SERPs. You can then preview how your changes improve your site’s search performance. If the results are positive, only then should you implement them.
Usability recommendations – Unlock the technical insights necessary to improve your site. To do this, fix any issues surrounding accessibility, performance, and mobile-friendliness.
Pricing
Quattr has not provided any pricing details. The amount you pay will vary greatly depending on your enterprise SEO requirements. Contact their sales team for more information.
SearchMetrics
Another notable contender on this list of enterprise SEO tools is SearchMetrics. It helps enterprises:
Identify market opportunities to increase sales from organic search using actual data from the search engines.
Build comprehensive plans tailored to boost search engine rankings and visibility.
Implement and monitor those plans.
Perform competitor analysis for benchmarking and outranking them.
Track performance and tweak as needed.
Create reports for management to justify SEO spending (and get funding increases, if necessary).
Features
The SearchMetrics Suite allows organizations to take control of their search revenue via features such as:
Research Cloud – Run a competitive analysis to identify content gaps and factors enabling winning content. Then launch real-time ranking performance monitoring and search visibility auditing to uncover more SEO opportunities.
Content Experience – You can create topic-aligned briefs to help write your content. Refer to its real-time Content Score to further optimize your content. There’s also Topic Explorer, a WordPress plugin to help you identify the topics people are searching for.
Search Experience – Enterprise SEO users like yourself can track top-performing keywords and ranking dips and analyze URL performance and competitor search features.
Site Experience – This web crawler alerts you and other enterprise SEO agencies to risks and opportunities for improving site performance.
Pricing
The SearchMetrics website doesn’t provide pricing details. A PCMag review, however, says their plans start at $69/month. But this was from 2019, so the amount may no longer apply. Contact the SearchMetrics sales team for more details.
seoClarity
Last but not least on our list of market-leading SEO platforms is seoClarity. As its name suggests, it provides clarity and visibility into your SEO efforts through AI-powered insights.
It does the following:
Crawl data
Deliver ranking and search demand insights
Provide content optimization recommendations
Perform technical SEO analysis
One-click automated SEO execution
Create and send automated reporting
Features
Get the following features and capabilities when you subscribe to seoClarity:
Daily rankings – Manage site performance on organic search by knowing where your site ranks for its target keywords. You can also find insights on securing the Google featured snippet to position your website on top of SERPs.
Technical and on-page optimization – Crawl pages to identify and remedy site errors. Analyze log files to get the bigger SEO picture about performance, rankings, and search bots. From here, you can optimize your web pages to improve their crawlability and indexability.
Insights from real-time analysis – Leverage advanced AI analysis to help you provide actionable items. You can also compare your sites with competitors based on SEO metrics to benchmark their performances. Finally, determine if you have a healthy link profile through constant link analysis and monitoring.
Content ideas and gaps – Identify content gaps and opportunities using People Also Ask datasets. From here, you can write compelling, authoritative content to answer their questions using seoClarity’s AI writer.
Pricing
seoClarity offers multiple subscription options:
Essentials – Price starts at $750/month. Essentials provide daily rank tracking, live chat, and email support.
Core – Price starts at $3,000/month. Core offers daily and weekly rank tracking, a dedicated success manager, and an SEO advisor.
Professional – Price starts at $4,500/month. It gives you everything Core provides, advanced technical SEO tools and the highest level of support.
Agency: This subscription tier includes all the elements of Core plus an unlimited number of users. Get a custom quote by contacting the seoClarity sales team.
How to Choose an Enterprise SEO Tool from the List Above
There’s a lot of feature overlap among the SEO enterprise software above. This makes choosing the right one for your corporation much more difficult.
But to help with the selection process, below are the things you must do:
Determine Your Needs
Start by looking at what you expect from an enterprise SEO platform based on the needs of the business. Create a list of all the features you want, the must-haves and nice-to-haves.
Any vendor that doesn’t offer the features your SEO and digital marketing strategies can’t live without is not a good fit.
Schedule Demos with Applicable Vendors
Once you’re ready with a shortlist of vendors, it’s time to schedule demos. When on the demo call, ask questions if something isn’t clear. And be sure to watch out for the following:
Presence of critical features.
The vendor’s understanding of your marketing and business needs.
Ease of use.
The type of after-sales support you’ll be getting.
Negotiate Contract
Enterprise SEO software providers generally don’t advertise that they’re amenable to negotiating contracts.
Not only can you get the best pricing and discounts for multi-year contracts. But you can also negotiate the support facilities available, warranties, backups and recovery plans, service level agreements (SLA), etc.
Which Among the Enterprise SEO Tools do I Recommend?
So there you have it—our list of some of the best enterprise SEO platforms on the market today.
And since we know you’re expecting us to suggest a tool or two, here are our top picks:
Semrush: It’s an all-in-one solution and, therefore, ideal for large SEO and content teams. Plus, it’s a household name in the SEO industry—meaning it’s reliable.
Conductor: Want high-performing content? Take Conductor with you. Most tools on this list help drive content that converts, but Conductor’s ability to integrate with various business tools makes it stand out.
As mentioned above, however, the needs of your business come first. Determine your must-haves and choosing the best fit should be smooth sailing.
Christopher Jan Benitez is a professional freelance writer who provides small businesses and startups with content that aims to grow their engagement and conversion with their audience. To learn more about Christopher, you can follow him on Twitter.
Being an entrepreneur can be overwhelming and all-encompassing, with an ‘always on’ working style that pulls them in multiple directions, answering the phone, sending emails and managing their social media. All the while, some of the most crucial business tasks end up unfinished. Some apps and tools can help focus the mind and boost productivity, but some entrepreneurs have discovered their own ways of staying focused in business.
Ditch the multitasking
The ability to multitask, performing two tasks simultaneously, or switching from one task to another, is a skill often held in high regard, especially among entrepreneurs. But according to Sarah Knight, founder of the Mind The Gap Business Academy, multitasking is a myth that should never be a badge of honour.
She says: “There’s something called the switch cost effect. Switching from one task to another incurs a cost in your attention and focus, as you have to switch your brain off from one thing to another.”
By focusing on one task at a time, whether it’s responding to emails or doing business accounts, and focusing on only that one thing, you’ll be more efficient and more productive. “By reducing your load, you are achieving and setting yourself up for success,” adds Knight.
Stand up to the task
One way of enhancing productivity and reducing mental fatigue is to use a standing desk, as revealed in a study by the BMJ. Paulomi Debnath, jewellery designer and founder of Handmade by Tinni, uses hers to help her focus. She breaks up her work schedule with regular intervals of standing, especially when on Zoom calls or presenting. She says: “I try to stand and work for 30 minutes followed by a one-hour interval. When I’m on my feet, I’m less relaxed, which helps me focus on the task. I also feel more energetic and less stressed. However, I prefer the relaxed mode that comes with sitting when doing my jewellery design, which is more intricate work.”
Plan ahead
Sarah Willingham, CEO of Nightcap PLC, has found the perfect solution to keep her focus; creating a pie chart every year and dividing up her time to show where she is currently and where she wants to go. The former Dragons’ Den dragon and serial investor and her husband came up with the idea as a way of looking at how they were spending their time and ensuring they had the balance right.
“We start in January, reflect on the year before, and think about the year ahead,” she says. “We may want to do more exercise or learn a new skill, so we will out the pie chart accordingly. You need to put in a sensible amount of time for work which will show the direct impact what you choose to do has on everything else. It’s a great way of maintaining the right balance and looking at what you need to change, and it helps me to keep focused.”
Take the plunge
The thought of a daily cold water swim may not be everyone’s idea of a great start to the day. Still, Matt Connelly, founder and CEO of laundry service firm ihateironing, finds the short sharp shock keeps him centered, focused and calm, especially when under pressure. He says: “A cold water swim has an incredible effect on the body and the mind. It takes a lot of willpower to get into a freezing pool first thing in the morning and then a lot of endurance to keep going. After a swim, I feel calm and centered for the next few hours, which helps me be focused at work and get the important tasks done.”
Make a list
Creating a to-do list is one of the simplest ways of working out what needs to be done and in what order, allowing the list maker to write the tasks down, carry them out and cross them off the list one by one. It creates a sense of control and provides a clear plan that can be followed, a key to solid focus. It’s a method favoured by Lewis Raymond Taylor, CEO of The Coaching Masters.
He says: “Each week, I make a list of everything that needs to be done in order of priority and delegate what I can, which leaves me with the most important, high-level tasks that will make the biggest difference in the business.” He segments the most critical income-generating tasks and goes large with them, which could mean him spending a whole day filming video content, in meetings with the team, or planning business strategy.
Stay tuned
Many people say that background music helps them focus on their work, but unless it is the right sort of music, it can have the opposite effect. Listening to music allows Richard Mabey, cofounder and CEO of lawtech firm Juro, to increase his focus and do good, deep work. His preferred background music is movie scores.
He says: “There are two advantages to this; the tracks are longer, so you don’t have a change every three minutes as you would with an album, and the music is generally a little less upbeat and consequently, for me, less distracting. I’m convinced that I owe my best work to Hans Zimmer mixes on YouTube.”
A freelance journalist, founder of Coleman Media. For the last 20 years I’ve covered business stories for national and international online and print publications, with a special interest in entrepreneurs and their startups. Away from business, I’m an accomplished ghostwriter: ‘Pure Dynamite – The Autobiography of the Dynamite Kid’, was a satisfying journalistic diversion. Follow me on Twitter @alisonbcoleman or see my latest work at www.alisoncoleman.co.uk
