editor, Author at Mediastreet

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7 Ways You Can Use LinkedIn To Blow Up Your Brand

June 18, 2021 No Comments

Over the last three years, LinkedIn‘s active user base grew by a staggering 27 percent, from 500 million in 2018 to 740 million in 2021. Business owners and entrepreneurs can leverage the platform to grow their brand, generate new leads, establish partnerships and make connections.

The following seven ways can help you utilize LinkedIn to grow your brand and gain a competitive edge over your competition.

1. Optimize your company profile and connect with people

If you haven’t worked on your LinkedIn profile, please take some time and perfect it. Make sure it provides all the essential details about your company’s products and services. Put more emphasis on the headline and summary to ensure that it’s compelling, engaging, interesting and professional. Furthermore, optimize it for more B2B and B2C lead generation.

Within no time, you will start seeing the “Someone has viewed your profile” notification. Don’t just view their profile back. Instead, track the individuals who viewed your business’s profile. If they are an ideal prospect, invite them to connect. An individual who views your company profile is most likely finding out more about your brand. There could be a chance they are also interested in your products or services.

2. Post valuable content on LinkedIn publisher

You can use LinkedIn Publisher to publish blog posts that users can engage with and share. With more shares of your blogs, the higher the impact it has on growing your brand. The post can also get prospects interested in your products, triggering an open door for more partnerships.

Make it a habit to publish content on LinkedIn consistently — but remember quality is key. It can build a community of loyal followers who admire your brand. Through them, you have ambassadors who can create a good reputation out there about your business. When users see the value and insights in your content, it gives them the conviction to check out more about your company. It’s one of the most straightforward and subtle ways of promoting your brand on LinkedIn without being pushy.

3. Follow other companies

Don’t forget to follow other businesses within your industry, including those you have partnered with and those who can be potential partners. This way, you have a chance to learn about them and what they offer. Still, don’t limit yourself from poking around as it might be an eye-opener to some techniques other companies use to get more leads. Also, the more you position yourself out there, the higher your chances of getting more returns.

4. Join LinkedIn groups where your target clients gather

The right groups can be a very powerful tool in growing your brand. By using advanced search, you can locate practitioners within your sector and your firm. Group conversations can give you vital insights into your industry. You can also learn about emerging industry pains and the options you can use to solve these issues.

While in the group, learn about the rules to know if content sharing is allowed. If so, create your credibility by sharing relevant content that capture potential prospects. It can include links to articles about your brand, relevant blog posts, event notices for webinars and posts that quote your business. However, make sure the materials you post are a helpful source and avoid dominating the conversation.

5. Utilize plugins

LinkedIn can be an even more powerful lead generation tool by itself when you utilize the complementary add-ons. Tap into the following plugins:

LinkedIn Connection Revealer: The LinkedIn Connection Revealer shows you the following that your connections have. By pinpointing the users who travel in big circles, you can engage with them to leverage their platform and promote your brand.
LinMailPro: It’s a Chrome extension that gives you the capability to automatically find and invite individuals who have recently viewed your profile. You can also send personalized messages to them about your brand or deliver marketing messages.
Headlinr: You may have sponsored a great story, uploaded ads or put up posts, but without a great headline, your potential targets might not click on them. When you use Headlinr, a chrome paid plugin, it automatically generates multiple headline combinations with the keyword you specify depending on your industry. You will get compelling titles that lure users into clicking through your ads and stories.
Rapportive: If you are a Gmail user browsing in Chrome or Firefox, Rapportive can be a handy tool in getting more leads. It enables you to get LinkedIn profiles that have email addresses in your contacts. You can then send them personalized invites to their inbox to help you grow your network.

6. Create a sponsored InMail campaign

By utilizing sponsored InMail campaigns, you have an easier route to cut through the clutter and reach inboxes of individuals who matter to your business. You can send your target prospects compelling offers and rich content.

7. Ask your employees to post your business’s content

In most cases, entrepreneurs search for powerful brand advocates who can share their brand case studies and blogs. Yet, you can also do it through your employees. Research shows that about 50% of employees are already posting on social media platforms about their employers. Ask them to post blog content and other pieces relating to your brand to generate more traffic and leads. In fact, some organizations allow their marketers to pick company-approved content that their employees can share on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn can be a goldmine in attracting new clients and growing your brand, but correct execution is critical. Take your time to create your LinkedIn strategy, get clear about how you can offer prospective clients value first — then implement like crazy!

By Julie Guest

CEO of Bolder and Louder

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

In News

Leading Brain Expert on How to Learn Faster and Retain More: Ask Yourself These 3 Questions

June 18, 2021 No Comments

By Jeff Haden

Because knowledge isn’t power unless you actually use it.

When I read books, like many people I occasionally scribble a note or bookmark particularly interesting passages I want to remember or refer to later.

Unlike many people, I rarely go back and refer to them later. So I did a little experiment and went back to Adam Grant’s book Think Again to see what I had bookmarked. Right away I found something I had forgotten.

Research into how forecasters form their opinions in areas like politics, technology, and the economy shows that accurate forecasting is based more on how you think than what you know. Sure, intelligence matters.

But what matters most is how often people update their beliefs: how often they look for new information. How often they revise their predictions. How willing they are to change their minds when they uncover new facts or discover new information.

In short, you have to be willing to be wrong — a lot — to eventually be right.

Cool premise.

Why had I forgotten it?

Because, as Jim Kwik says, I didn’t ask myself three questions:

“How can I use this?”
“Why must I use this?”
“When will I use this?”

According to Kwik, the author of the best-selling book Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life, knowledge isn’t power. Like experience, knowledge is only useful when actually used.

Using new information requires framing. How could I use what I learned about making better predictions? At the moment, I didn’t consider a use. I just thought it was a cool premise.

I could have thought, “Hmm. The next time I take a position, I should first take a step back and see if I can find information that disproves my belief, and whether I’m emotionally invested in my perspective.” (I never liked being supervised, so I’m quick to see greater employee latitude and responsibility as a good thing.)

That’s the how. As for why must I use it? Easy: My goal is to provide useful, actionable, beneficial information — not just spout some half-assed opinion. That’s a simple, yet powerful, “must.”

As for when must I use it? That’s also easy. Whenever I think, without thinking, that I’m right. (Which happens all the time.)

Or, better yet, the next time I sit down to write. That way my “when” won’t be fuzzy or indeterminate, which is the kiss of death for good intentions.

Had I asked myself those three questions, I would have remembered — because my new knowledge would have had a purpose, a motivation, and a time frame.

It would have been useful, meaningful, and actionable — which means it would have become a process, and not just a cool perspective.

Try it. The next time you learn something — better yet, the next time you want to learn something — ask yourself the three questions. Determine how. Determine why. Decide when.

And then actually follow through.

Because, as Kwik says, nothing you read works … unless you work.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Jeff Haden

Sourced from Inc.

In News

B2B video marketing strategy. Tips on how to produce successful video content

June 17, 2021 No Comments

Sourced from appPicker

Many newbies overlook the importance of video marketing. It appears to them that no one is going to waste their time watching even short clips, not to mention the long ones. Nevertheless, there are plenty of successful video marketing examples out there to contradict this point of view.

That being said, let’s delve more into B2B video marketing.

B2B video marketing – Why is it a thing?

Video production is a blessing for the employees of both producing and consuming companies. The first ones get the chance to express themselves, while the others can rest a bit from textual information and enjoy someone’s creativity.

So, back to the point. For B2B businesses, video promotion is a part of a digital marketing campaign that still maintains its important role. Video articles, tutorials, interviews, and many other forms of video content marketing stay popular among approximately 80% of consumers. Creators find this way of promotion effective as well. Almost 82% of businesses currently use it in their marketing strategies and plan to continue in the future.

Top 7 tips on how to start a video marketing strategy

While it’s clear that videos attract and engage a variety of people, how does the behind-the-scenes process of developing a cost-effective B2B video strategy look? There are 7 relatively easy steps to follow.

Step 1. Make sure you actually need videos

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Video series can be completely unnecessary and redundant for some companies. Marketers and business owners must define whether they really need to develop and use video content strategy. And if they do, it’s worth thinking about how to do it effectively.

Step 2. Define the goal of your strategy

The next step is to understand why a company needs to introduce business videos. Sales funnel conversion rate won’t increase itself simply because a couple of cat videos were uploaded to the blog posts. There must be a purpose behind the content, and certain video goals should be defined:

how many views should videos get?
how many likes (and dislikes) are expected?
how high should the content be on the search results page?

It’s necessary to think about these and other content marketing goals a company could benefit from.

Step 3. What does your audience think?

If your target audience appreciates videos, B2B marketers should conduct research on which content will suit their needs best. Usually, it includes such brand videos as:

event videos;
explainer videos (tutorials);
customer testimonials;
product reviews;
interviews, and many others.

Step 4. Choose your marketing platform

Choosing the right video platform requires knowing your audience’s preferences. While the majority of people use YouTube, there are other possible options for uploading a product brand video:

Twitch;
Dailymotion;
9GAG TV;
TED, etc.

Step 5. Analyse

Promoting a product or service is impossible without collecting the data and analysing it. It’s vital to understand:

what types of videos receive the most attention;
what time is the most optimal for a video to be uploaded;
how many new clients were attracted by videos;
which people leave most comments and likes, and many other things to consider.

Step 6. Adjust

Learn from your mistakes and make some corrections to your B2B marketing video strategy if necessary. It’s almost impossible to get it right the first time unless there is someone experienced and competent to assist.

Step 7. Enjoy the progress

Watch your views and likes grow and feel free to start working on the next project.

To sum up B2B marketing videos

It’s more natural for people to actually see the subject rather than read a text about it. This applies to B2B companies as well. There is always a person behind every firm, not some sort of collective intelligence to whom it’s easier to process enormous textual information rather than simply watch a video on YouTube or other platforms.

Companies can get a piece of advice from professional marketing teams concerning all types of marketing, including video promotion. Such agencies can be found in the USA, Europe, Canada, USA and other parts of the world. While it’s entirely possible to develop and launch a marketing company by own efforts with 7 easy steps, opting for a skill never hurts.

Sourced from appPicker

In News

Try these remote work “life hacks” to boost focus, ergonomics and well-being

June 17, 2021 No Comments

By R. Dallon Adams

From virtual networking opportunities to strategies focused on fostering a healthier work-life balance, these remote work tips could optimize your virtual routine.

In the last year, many professionals have transitioned to the home office with varying degrees of success. Compared to the traditional work environment, telecommuting comes with its own unique set of challenges. This includes ergonomic considerations when designing a workspace, crafting new pre-and post-work routines to more abstract considerations around work-life balance. We spoke with a number of academics, executives and remote workers to compile a list of WFH tips to enhance the virtual 9-to-5 grind.

Work from home tips: Understanding your tendencies

Before adding new strategies to your virtual workflow, it could be a good idea to take an introspective look at your approach to telecommuting and work boundaries, in general. In more basic terms: What type of remote worker are you?

Timothy Golden, a professor at the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, discussed tips to structure the workday based on these preferences and traits for two general types of remote workers: “Segmentors” and integrators.

“Segmentation and integration of work and home lives has to do with how comfortable people are with mixing these two aspects of their lives together. Some prefer to keep them separate and distinct, while others are comfortable carrying out both at the same time,” Golden said.

These segmentors prefer to separate their work and home lives, Golden explained, and as a result, he “often” finds these remote workers “are sure” to log off “after work hours and refrain from checking” messages in their personal time. Additionally, Golden said segmentors are “disciplined in their work habits” and “reserve work time for work, and family time for family.”

Conversely, integrators are fine with mixing their home life with the professional workday, he explained, noting that successful telecommuters with a penchant for integration “permit their work to spill over into their family lives” and do not mind answering person calls on the clock or check the inbox after logging off for the day. Although there are integration caveats to consider.

“While integrators are more comfortable with letting work spill over into their family lives and vice versa, they still need to carefully balance the demands from both their work and their family,” Golden said.

Ergonomics, movement and focus

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, many organizations switched to virtual operations on short notice. While some companies offered stipends to help employees festoon their remote office, many people were left to finagle workstations with in-situ materials a la kitchen tables, stackable accouterments and more.

To this point, Chad Henriksen, the director of WorkSiteRight at Northwestern Health Sciences University, discussed ways to ergonomically utilize everyday items around the house to complement remote workflows. This includes using an ironing board as a standing desk if so inclined.

Additionally, Henriksen recommended following the “90-degree rule,” and this means ensuring a person’s “arms and legs are parallel to the floor” and “as close to a 90-degree angle at the elbow and the knee as possible.” Henriksen also suggested taking steps to ensure your eyes are looking straight ahead.

“Keep your eyes in line with the screen. If you are slightly looking down or gazing up at your screen, use some books or a box to raise your screen to the proper height,” he said.

Additionally, Henriksen suggested taking “micro-breaks” for approximately 10 to 15 seconds every half hour to stretch, add activity to the workday and “refresh” a person’s focus.

As a “bonus tip,” he also encouraged people to take their meetings standing up and or tuning in to calls while on a walk to incorporate movement to the task.

Tweaking the daily commute

The lack of a daily commute is one of the top remote work perks and this can save some professionals multiple hours each week. Although for some, this dedicated buffer space does serve as a beneficial time to ramp up and wind down before and after work. Gabriel Dungan, founder and CEO of ViscoSoft, said that he has incorporated a “fake commute” of sorts into the remote workday.

“Rather than just rolling out of bed and immediately checking Slack and email, I take at least 30 minutes to ‘commute’ to my home office. Instead of driving, I take a walk around my neighbourhood and listen to music or a podcast,” Dungan said. “This act of leaving the house, getting fresh air, and ‘commuting’ means that when I get back home, I’ve signalled to myself that it’s time to be at work.”

Over the last year, the home has pulled double and triple duty as a residence, virtual learning center and home office for many households, blurring the lines between personal and professional spaces.

Psychotherapist Angela Ficken who has been working remotely for the last 12 months, made note of some of the benefits of telecommuting while also detailing the downsides, stating that many people have difficulty setting boundaries between home and work life.

“Responding to emails at all hours and not shutting off notifications after regular business hours, all of this means that they are now working longer, which increases stress, and they are now not honouring their own time,” she said.

A few strategies Ficken suggested include turning off inbox notifications after 5 pm, scheduling short periodic breaks to stretch, get some air and enjoy a snack. Ficken also recommended remote workers plan at least one “fun thing to look forward to each week.”

“Maybe that’s seeing a friend, trying a new recipe, or going for a bike ride. You don’t need to move a mountain to feel better. These are small steps that do help increase self-care, overall wellbeing, and can help you manage your stress,” Ficken.

Some remote workers are devising clever tactics to help compartmentalize and separate the workday from their personal lives. Nicole Graham, a lifestyle and relationship coach at Womenio, has “adorned” the office door with various signs to signify when the workspace is offline or open for business.

“As ridiculous as it may sound, if you promise yourself that you will not work once the sign reads “closed,” it will work,” Graham said.

“It’s easy to want to appear productive when you work from home, and it’s simple to let your work time spill over into your personal life. But before you know it, you’re up until the wee hours of the morning, wondering where the day went,” Graham said. “Working from home, I’ve discovered that having clear boundaries between work and personal life makes me [a] lot more productive and happier.”

Expanding your professional network

Compared to the traditional office environment, working from home lacks the social interactions and haphazard water-cooler conversations afforded by on-site work. Interestingly, about half of professionals believe telecommuting has negatively impacted their careers and many feel as though working from home has reduced internal and external networking opportunities, According to a 2020 Blind survey.

Alison French, CEO and co-founder of Emerged, a healthcare-focused SaaS company, made note of the phrase “your network is your net worth” and detailed a few remote networking strategies to consider.

“Working from home can stifle the growth of your network so take advantage of university alumni groups or professional organizations to maximize your future net worth,” French said.

Additionally, French said people are “never too busy to say yes to an invite to coffee, lunch, etc.” adding that these social opportunities “are key to your sanity if you plan to WFH for the long haul.” She also suggested creating a network of other remote works in a person’s industry.

“Start a group chat or Slack channel. A quick Slack or group chat to share a joke, idea or vent help break up the monotony of spending the day alone in your house,” French said.

Emphasizing empathy

Anna Lyons, senior vice president of people and culture at Alegeus, said she encourages employees to have “realistic” remote work expectations and this includes making “concise and focused” to-do lists covering the “critical” tasks so people can “feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of every day.”

The last year has come with no shortage of stressors for remote teams wrestling with new collaboration tools, less than optimal work setups and technical issues amid a global pandemic.

Speaking to pandemic-related stressors, Lyons suggested that remote workers “lead with empathy and understanding – for ourselves and our colleagues.”

“Work-life balance doesn’t exist in COVID (cue the screaming child in the background). When we recognize that, we can give ourselves and others the space and grace we need,” she said.

Feature Image Credit: GettyImages/filadendron

By R. Dallon Adams

Sourced from TechRepublic

In News

What does the death of the third-party cookie mean for e-commerce?

June 17, 2021 No Comments

By Lee Goldberg

The elimination of the third-party cookie will profoundly impact e-commerce. This shouldn’t be a shock. We were headed down this path long before Google announced that it would deprecate the cookie in Chrome in 2022. Perhaps more than any arrow in the marketer’s quiver, e-commerce’s targeting accuracy has traditionally been built around the cookie. However, Happy Cog’s Lee Goldberg says instead of viewing this scenario as dire, e-commerce players should view this inflection point in data-driven marketing as an opportunity to rethink it all.

During the era of the third-party cookie, the e-commerce community has fallen prey to the fixation on short-term sales conversions. As tempting as this paradigm is, over the long haul it can actually stunt long-term consumer engagement and limit lifetime customer value. The opportunity and challenge in 2022 and beyond is to flip this script – and get customers and prospects to voluntarily opt in. Yes, emphasizing lead gen over sales in the short-term doesn’t sound particularly sexy, but over the long haul it will actually increase ROI.

A more methodical, incremental approach will bear greater results. Instead of driving hard for a purchase, perhaps appeal to your customer base through softer engagement promotional activity that targets an email address or an account creation instead of a purchase. Facebook, LinkedIn and Google (through Discovery campaigns) all offer lead generation opportunities. By deploying a robust CRM platform (such as MailChimp, Klaviyo or Salesforce) to organize these emails for dynamic ad targeting, e-commerce brands can focus on establishing ongoing, positive relationships with both prospects and customers. If you have a compelling offer or value proposition, customers are generally willing to opt in.

By rewiring your priorities to place demand generation over sales, your brand will forge deeper connections with consumers. E-commerce marketers tend to get hung up on quick conversion metrics while losing sight of the RFM model (recency, frequency and monetary value). RFM modelling is an under-used marketing analysis tool to help companies better predict which customers are more likely to make future purchases, as well as to glean insights to turn occasional buyers into habitual ones.

Interestingly, there has already been growing pressure on e-commerce retailers to re-orient around first-party cookies, built by the collection of data from their own domains like user log-ins, passwords and shopping cart data. Google and Facebook have both been pushing this with their evolving product suites. Before third-party cookie deprecation picked up steam over the past few years, it had become readily apparent to anyone paying attention that dynamic retargeting through networks like Criteo and AdRoll were not long for this world. Both of these retargeting pioneers have now adapted and repositioned themselves for a post-cookie world.

The winners of the post-cookie world

While most of our industry was retargeting customers with abandon, Amazon was quietly off to the side for years amassing an enormous amount of first-party data. Amazon’s dominance in the paid search world will now pay off by orders of magnitude. It wouldn’t be at all shocking to see Amazon sunset its relatively nascent demand-side platform (DSP) despite the heavy investment. With the growing marketer interest in other formats such as connected TV (CTV) and connected audio, expect Amazon to reshape its DSP to meet these opportunities – much as players such as The Trade Desk have already done.

In a post-cookie world, the push towards first-party data will make it easier for brands to do their own attribution rather than relying on Facebook and Google. While true multi-touch attribution remains elusive, e-commerce folks will be able to attain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of full-funnel consumer behaviour.

Life beyond the third-party cookie will be complex and there will be many new twists and turns, but a new paradigm will coalesce around stronger customer engagement. Privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have been the catalysts for change. While compliance may be a big motivator, ultimately an ability to maintain the big picture by putting engagement – not targeting – first is the secret to long-term success.

That lesson may not be resonating at scale yet, as evidenced by the continuing obsession with targeting within the context of new identity solutions like Google’s Privacy Sandbox, as well as in the conversations around first-party data utilization and contextual targeting 2.0. Unless we flip the script and focus on engagement first, the mistakes of the past will likely be repeated.

For more, sign up for The Drum’s daily US email here.

By Lee Goldberg

Lee Goldberg is co-founder and president, digital marketing at Happy Cog.

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Watch for a Coming Sea Change in Online Advertising

June 16, 2021 No Comments

By Garrett Lance & Sheri Porath Rockwell

A confluence of technological and legal developments may usher in significant changes to the multi-billion dollar digital advertising industry.

The online advertising ecosystem is currently dominated by targeted behavioural advertising—the practice of tracking people’s online behaviour across websites by placing cookies or other trackers on their devices, building a profile based on their perceived interests, and then delivering personalized ads to them based on such profiles.

The backbone of the industry, as currently configured, is the use of third-party cookies and similar tracking technologies. When a person visits a website, a third party—with the permission of the website’s operator—may embed a tiny text file, called a cookie, in the browser. This cookie will then track the person’s online conduct, including other websites they visit and what they do on those sites (e.g., what products they purchase or evaluate), in addition to queries they enter into their browsers.

With data about the individual’s online activities in hand, digital advertising companies can deliver advertisements targeted to the person’s interests.

Commercial Trends to Limit Online Tracking

Google is phasing out its support of third-party cookies on its Chrome browser, which currently commands about two-thirds of the web browser market. This means that by 2022, third parties will not be able to use cookies to access information about users’ browsing history on Chrome to build profiles that facilitate the delivery of targeted advertisements or see how those ads perform.

At the same time, Apple’s Safari web browser, several smaller web browsers, and a handful of search engines are already offering consumers the ability to block advertising cookies and cross-site tracking by default. One company, Brave, is seeking to further upend the digital advertising model by sharing ad revenue with users that opt in to view advertisements.

In the mobile application space, Apple’s new app tracking transparency framework now blocks devices’ identifier for advertisers by default and requires customers to affirmatively agree to tracking. The consent mechanism is prominently displayed in a large pop-up screen and asks if the user wants to allow the app to track their activity across other companies’ apps and websites.

Apps on Apple’s App Store also must now disclose data the app developer links to a user and what, if any, data it uses to track users. Google recently announced it will soon require Android app developers to make similar disclosures about how they collect and share user data.

Consumer choice is also at the centre of efforts undertaken by the Global Privacy Control project, a group of technologists, researchers, and consumer advocates working to develop a technological specification that would allow users to set privacy preferences for all websites and apps they visit, across all browsers and devices.

New Legal Requirements Mandating Advertising Opt-Outs

These private sector developments come in the wake of new data privacy laws passed in California and Virginia. Beginning 2023, both laws, the California Privacy Rights Act and the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, will give consumers the right to direct businesses not to allow their personal information to be shared with third parties to deliver targeted advertisements.

These opt-out rights do not specifically prohibit businesses from engaging in first-party advertising, that is, delivering targeted advertisements based on information obtained from a business’s own website or app. Yet, in practice, the ability to conduct first-party advertising may arguably also be at risk because both laws give consumers the separate right to opt out of certain consumer profiling activities. Further regulatory or interpretive guidance is needed to better understand the scope of these profiling opt-outs.

Pressures on third-party cookies and other forms of internet and device tracking do not necessarily signal the end of targeted advertising. Businesses are adapting. In just the last few months, several companies have announced plans to monetize data collected about visitors to their own digital properties.

For example, while Google will remove support for third-party cookies that allow digital advertisers to serve ads based on individuals’ unique behaviours across the internet, it is testing a product that will offer to sell ads using information about groups of individuals with similar interests based on data gleaned from their use of Chrome and Google-affiliated products (e.g., YouTube).

Similarly, Adobe has a new software platform that will allow businesses to deliver targeted ads using data collected through Adobe products.

Changing business practices and new privacy laws are putting the squeeze on targeted behavioural advertising as we know it. But these changes present opportunities for innovation in the digital advertising industry.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

Feature Image Credit: Jean Chung/Bloomberg

By Garrett Lance & Sheri Porath Rockwell

Garrett Lance is an associate in Sidley Austin LLP’s Washington, D.C., office where he focuses on privacy and cybersecurity law.

Sheri Porath Rockwell is an associate in Sidley Austin LLP’s Century City office where she focuses on privacy and cybersecurity law.

Sourced from Bloomberg Law

In News

The simple trick Steve Jobs followed to be ‘most productive,’ according to his former executive assistant

June 16, 2021 No Comments

By Courtney Connley.

As a former executive assistant to late Apple founder Steve Jobs, Naz Beheshti got an up-close view of what it took for the tech CEO to be successful.

In addition to prioritizing his well-being by exercising regularly and meditating daily, Beheshti, who is now an executive wellness coach and founder of the corporate wellness company Prananaz, says Jobs also was “extremely efficient and productive because he worked on his energy management and not necessarily time management.”

“Yes, it’s good to manage some of your time,” the author of “Pause. Breathe. Choose: Become the CEO of Your Well-Being,” tells CNBC Make It. “But to optimize your day and be most productive and not fall into the productivity trap, you have to manage your energy.”

Executive wellness coach Naz Beheshti. Photo credit: Naz Beheshti

A productivity trap, Beheshti describes, is “when we’re just constantly chasing more hours in the day” and “wearing our lack of sleep like a badge of honour.”

“The way some people do it, even my clients when they first come to me, is they say, ‘Oh, I only slept two hours.’ Or ‘I pulled an all-nighter because I needed those extra hours in the day to be more productive,’” she explains. “But is your quality of work productive and up to par during those hours where you are supposed to be sleeping and rebooting your body and mind? Typically it’s not because you’re not performing at your best when you’re exhausted.”

To avoid this trap of working around the clock, Beheshti suggests managing your workload the way Jobs did by “looking at your day and defining or identifying what parts of your day you have the most energy.”

“Do the things that you typically procrastinate on, or that are challenging or that you don’t typically find as inspiring when you have the most energy and focus on optimizing your day based on your energy rather than the time,” she says. “Because we all have the same number of hours in the day, right? But this is why some people get a lot more done in a day than someone else does.”

This “important shift” from time management to energy management is what Beheshti says she advises all of her clients to do as they work towards managing their stress and overall well-being.

“Your well-being is really about taking empowered action,” she says. “It’s your choice to become the CEO of your well-being. And, when you are the CEO of your well-being, you show up as your best self in all areas of your life.”

Feature Image Credit: The late Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

By Courtney Connley

Sourced from CNBC

In News

Wix vs Squarespace: which is better?

June 16, 2021 No Comments

By Anna Sevilla,

Flexibility or structure, the choice is all yours

When it comes to picking the best website builder for you to build an online presence, many have similar features that could make picking the right one for you quite challenging.

Two of the most popular names in easy-to-use website builders are Wix and Squarespace.

Behind over 50% of the websites created using website builders, on the surface you may think that there’s not much distinction between Wix and Squarespace in terms of their offerings, but there are actually key differences you may want to consider before making a final decision on which one to pick.

From awesome templates to user-friendly navigation, website builders gaining popularity these days is not at all surprising. After all, these website building tools are a big help for businesses to gain online presence.

In this article, we will thoroughly examine the differences between Wix and Squarespace, highlighting all their pros and cons so that you can then decide for yourself which of the two is right for you.

1. Wix – a top-notch website builder
Wix is top dog when it comes to free website builders, but it also offers some powerful paid plans. These start from as little as $8.50 per month for the Combo plan, which gets you 3GB of storage space, a free domain and free SSL certificate. View Deal

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No coding skills? No problem. Both Wix and Squarespace utilize tools known as ‘software as a service’ or SaaS, which allows the creation and maintenance of a website to be done by a novice. Be that as it may, here are some identified differences between the two.

Wix relatively makes creating the website without coding skills a lot easier than Squarespace. The latter, however, becomes easier with practice, and for website builders who don’t have a lot of time to spare, Wix is an easy choice.

Wix vs Squarespace: the main difference

Wix allows a lot more freedom to customize your website pages whereas Squarespace has a structured editor. Wix has more overall features to work with but Squarespace is designed to make the features it does have easier to apply and use.

Page Editor

Here's some of the Wix templates available — Here’s some of the Wix templates available (Image credit: Wix)

Wix offers drag-and-drop by the pixel. That means any element can be moved to any space on the page. This drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to start designing your website as you can do so freely. Wix’s editor is intuitive, which is ideal for beginners who have very little experience of building a website. This also makes reverting to previous versions easier as well as recovering content in the event that the need arises.

Squarespace has a more structured drag-and-drop feature in that it’s more section-based as opposed to the drag-and-drop anywhere feature that Wix offers. This means that when you drag elements, you’ll essentially be dropping them into specific columns and rows where they can snap into. This takes away a great deal of the creative freedom Wix offers, but it only takes some getting used to and it becomes just as easy to manoeuvre.

Pricing

Wix offers a free plan where the most basic tools can be utilized. Its paid plans are divided into two categories: website plans for when you’re creating a professional website, and business and eCommerce plans for when the website needs to accept online payments.

With prices ranging from US $4.50 to $24.50 per month, users who avail of the website plans get from 1GB to unlimited bandwidth, up to 35GB of storage space, up to five hours of video, Site Booster and Visitor Analytics apps free for an entire year, a professional logo, social media logo files, and 24/7 dedicated customer support.

Business and eCommerce plans, on the other hand, range from US $17 to $35 per month. These plans allow users not only to accept online payments, but also scale their business and access to the full VIP suite. All plans offer unlimited bandwidth, 20, 35, and 50GB of storage, and the same level of dedicated customer care as the website plans.

Choosing a Squarespace plan is less complicated as there are only four. It follows the logic of getting more features made available the higher the tier of the plan users choose. The cheapest plan called the Personal plan gives a user a custom domain whereas Wix’s Connect or most basic plan doesn’t. This basic plan also gives users unlimited bandwidth and storage, as opposed to Wix’s 1GB bandwidth and 500MB of storage for the same plan.

Though noticeably different in features, it is important to consider the price difference between the two basic plans. Wix Connect Domain plan has a monthly recurring charge of US $4.50, whereas Squarespace Personal plan costs $12 per month. It is also worth noting that Wix Connect Domain plan displays Wix ads, something a user would not have to deal with if they went with Squarespace.

For users who aren’t as concerned about bandwidth and storage and want to focus on design and having a website and don’t mind ads, Wix is a cheaper option.

Extra Features

Squarespace extensions — Squarespace’s extra features can be added in-house unlike Wix’s preferred method of using apps (Image credit: Squarespace)

With over 200 apps for third party integration (both paid and free) found exclusively in its own dedicated App Market, Wix lets users maximize how they can personalize their website even further. The App Market offers a wide selection of “made by Wix” apps as well as third party apps that help add an extra layer of functionality to sites easily. The apps featured in the App Market include email marketing apps, call conversion apps, interactive videos, dropshipping tools, calendars, notification tools, and a lot more.

Squarespace, on the other hand, doesn’t offer extra features in the form of apps. Instead, anything that isn’t already offered by Squarespace in-house can be added via third-party integration. Instead of an app store, Squarespace has extensions that help users manage, optimize, and expand their site. There are extensions for shipping and fulfilment, finance, inventory and products, and sales and marketing.

Wix definitely outdoes Squarespace in the number of apps to choose from, making customization much easier, however, quality-wise, we think Squarespace has the edge over Wix.

Ecommerce: Wix Store vs Squarespace Shop

Squarespace online store — Squarespace’s online store has a slick overall design (Image credit: Squarespace)

Wix Store lets users create a professional online store with features such as custom product pages, shopping cart, multiple sales channels, and a lot more. Mainly, it’s geared towards small and medium online stores alike, and it’s affordable and convenient.

Squarespace does not fall behind Wix in terms of features, and certainly has the upper hand when it comes to a sleek overall design. It’s main disadvantage, however, is that it does not have its own store, which means if the feature is not built-in, it can’t be implemented.

Verdict

If you’re ready for your business to take off, choosing the best builder can help you get started. Unless you’ve found the perfect tools and have found comfort in either option, you can opt to try them both and see where the most benefits are.

As Wix is for anyone who wants to give website creation a try, it comes highly recommended as the interface is intuitive, and there are tons of extra options. You can get your creativity working, and personalize your site as much as you need to.

Squarespace is the perfect option if you want to achieve giving your site a sleek look with premium features, never mind how limited the options are.

Feature Image Credit: Wix vs Squarespace: which is better? (Image credit: Pixabay)

By Anna Sevilla,

Sourced from techradar.pro

In News

iOS 14.6 has a secret new feature that Apple didn’t announce

June 15, 2021 No Comments

By Jacob Siegal,

After rolling out beta releases for four months between the release of iOS 14.4 and iOS 14.5, Apple stepped on the gas with its latest update, launching iOS 14.6 to the general public just four weeks after iOS 14.5 arrived. Although iOS 14.6 is a significantly smaller update than iOS 14.5 — which added App Transparency Tracking, Unlock with Apple Watch, support for PS5 and Xbox Series X controllers, and more — there are still plenty of reasons to update right away.

Of course, there are obvious reasons, such as security updates and bug fixes that could keep your data safe from attackers, but we are also discovering new reasons to install iOS 14.6 as iPhone users get their hands on the software. As spotted by 9to5Mac, some users on Twitter and Reddit claim that actions in the Shortcuts app are running faster on the latest version of iOS.

“Before this update [iOS 14.6], it took a little over a second to run the “Night Mode” shortcut I made that contains only seven different simple Settings actions,” said Reddit user jasonefmonk on Tuesday. “I’ve noticed after the update that it now runs in approximately 1/4 second! It is very noticeable and a welcome fix for something that should be quite quick.”

Another user in the thread claimed that their 700 action shortcut used to take 30 seconds to run on iOS 14.5 and earlier, but now completes in just 13 seconds. Others saw more modest gains, but pretty much everyone who tested their shortcuts seemed to confirm the speed boost.

In order to further corroborate these claims, 9to5Mac did tests of its own and saw improvements on both iOS 14.6 and the first iOS 14.7 beta, which began rolling out to developers and public beta testers last week. That said, the site only began to notice significant gains on shortcuts that involved “dozens or hundreds of actions.” In one test, 9to5Mac ran a shortcut with 380 actions. On one iPhone running iOS 14.5.1, the shortcut completed in 8 seconds, but on another with iOS 14.6, it took 4 seconds.

Apple usually highlights all of the biggest changes in the release notes for its software updates, but for whatever reason, faster shortcuts didn’t make the cut for the iOS 14.6 release notes. Nevertheless, all evidence points to shortcuts being faster, so if you’re an avid shortcut user, update today.

Of course, you really shouldn’t need any additional reasons to update your iPhone, because Apple released a security notice about iOS 14.6 on Monday covering the dozens of security flaws addressed by the update. Spend just a minute or two scrolling through all of the dangerous exploits that Apple patched in iOS 14.6 and iPadOS 14.6, and I can all but guarantee you that you will be installing the update on every device you own as quickly as possible.

By Jacob Siegal,

Jacob started covering video games and technology in college as a hobby, but it quickly became clear to him that this was what he wanted to do for a living. He currently resides in New York writing for BGR. His previously published work can be found on TechHive, VentureBeat and Game Rant.

Sourced from BGR

In News

If You Still Don’t Know What Clubhouse Is, You Should. Here’s How the App Can Take Your Business to the Next Level.

June 15, 2021 No Comments

By Kevin Leyes

This invite-only platform is an excellent way to learn from experts, find exceptional employees and become an established authority in your field.

Clubhouse is an audio-based platform drawing in celebrities, huge businesses, crypto experts and social-media stars. The platform is like a podcast — but on steroids.

Clubhouse users can engage with an array of audio-only activities on the app. Some events are scheduled and marketed ahead of time while others pop up randomly. Users can create rooms and clubs in this virtual space — some events are interactive, allowing multiple users to participate in a discussion, but others are more like presentations or panels. These conversations aren’t recorded, so users must be on the app at the right time to hear content.

The versatile platform is currently in a beta stage, meaning that it’s trying to control its audience while it finalizes bugs and works out exactly how it wants its platform to work. Because of this, Clubhouse is invite-only and not open to the general public. If you manage to score an invite from an existing user, now is the time to establish your business profile and gain traction.

Using Clubhouse for organic growth

Clubhouse has excellent potential for organic business growth, and the key is to get your business profile started now. While the platform has grown exponentially in the past few months, even with an invite-only feature, now is a great time to build your reach before the general population floods the app. Here are three ways you can use Clubhouse to develop your business today.

1. Networking

Clubhouse connects you with people in your industry. By using the app, you can hear industry perspectives and trends as they are happening. You don’t need to wait for the next national conference or industry report to come out — you can hear from the industry leaders themselves.

2. Becoming an industry authority

Putting out expert content in your industry is crucial to gain traction. Think of this aspect of Clubhouse like a well-tailored blog or article that your company puts out on a critical issue that your business is knowledgeable about. Clubhouse allows you to take it one step further by allowing you to put out real-time audio to answer questions and connect with other users. Becoming an industry authority by putting out quality audio content on topics relevant to your business allows your clients or buyers to see that you are an expert and their money is in good hands.

3. Virtual events

Covid-19 has created a profoundly digital world where meetings, conferences and events take place online. The need to have several hundred people in a conference hall is gone. Instead, you can have several thousand people in your Clubhouse room listen to whatever content you create. Sharing your insight, hosting speakers and creating content relevant to your industry will help your business take off.

Clubhouse is shaping the way we do business

The CEO and founder of Spark Business Strategies, Brad Caldwell, was able to gain clients and close sales because of Clubhouse. He joined the platform and answered another business owner’s question on branding during an audio event. Because he had established himself as an authority in the industry, the company messaged him and offered him a contract. Clubhouse has given him opportunities to do interviews with business leaders and close huge sales. Caldwell saw the potential of the platform and has used it to create organic growth for his company.

While you may not be able to post videos or show your face, like on TikTok or Instagram, Clubhouse works wonders for organic business growth. You can listen to investors talk about cryptocurrency, offer solutions on marketing or be interviewed by a leader in your field, and all of it unfolds in real time for maximum audience engagement — helping your business establish critical connections.

By Kevin Leyes

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor, Chairman of Leyes Empire, CEO of Leyes Media and VVS

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe