Tag: internet marketing

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Five Tips for Working with Micro-Influencers

When you start seriously thinking about working with influencers, your thoughts probably go to a huge influencer that you really love. You may imagine them using your product, and the experience goes viral, and you make a million bucks. This can happen but not without a good plan and a lot of money.

 

Top reasons to work with micro or nano influencers:

 

  • They are more affordable
  • They have a higher return on investment
  • Their audience is more loyal and targeted
  • They are more genuine and authentic

 

The following are five tips for working with micro-influencers to gain a higher return on investment:

 

Be Niche Specific

 

Because nano and micro-influencers have a specific target audience, you want to be sure their niche matches yours. In other words, their target audience must match yours for it to be successful.  

 

Always Allow Creative Freedom

 

Be sure to avoid micromanaging. Just because they are a smaller influencer does not mean they are not professional. Guide them with the proper product and business information and expectations, but always allow for creative freedom. They have the targeted audience and loyal following for a reason, their content. If you take over, it will quickly come off as ingenuine to their audience.

 

Research and Watch Their Engagement

 

Micro-influencers have more time to engage with their audience by responding to comments and offering a closer friendship-like experience for their audience and followers. Due to this feeling that the audience is close to the influencer, they are often more likely to take the influencer’s recommendations on what to buy.

 

Consider More Than One

 

When working with small influencers, one way to compensate for the smaller audience numbers is to work with more than one at a time for a rolling campaign. For example, choose five influencers with small audiences of 10 to 50 K each and have each influencer start their campaign on a slightly different date to get the ball rolling.

 

Compensate Fairly

 

Just because they have a smaller following, subscriber base, or audience does not mean they deserve to be well compensated. Avoid product-only compensation models if you can. Giving them more for sales and just for trying can really help encourage them to do more.

 

Working with micro-influencers may actually be more beneficial for you if you have a smaller budget. Plus, studies show that micro-influencers have more responsive audiences than huge influencers anyway.

The Do’s and Don’ts to Influencer Marketing

 

 

 

 

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How to Create an Influencer Contract or Agreement

Developing your influencer contracts isn’t as hard as most people make it. The truth is that it’s always a good idea to get a lawyer to help you create your contracts but signing a document that you create is also acceptable in a court of law.

 

The following are the basic requirements for any social media influencer contract:

 

  • Parties To the Agreement – Include the legal names of the people subject to the contract terms, including their business name and entity type and address and contact information.

 

  • Terms Of the Agreement – One way to put all the terms you’ve agreed to in the contract is to just list out by number each person’s responsibilities in order of importance.

 

  • Timeline Of the Campaign – Dates and the timeline are imperative inclusions into any contract if you want it to be enforceable.

How to Search and Vet Potential Influencers

  • Content Creation Expectations – Be very specific about what you’re expecting the influencer to create for your payment.

 

  • Compensation Amounts – Describe not only how much but what signals the payment to take place and how it’ll be done. For example, you might want to pay them half up front, half after the campaign, or some other schedule.

 

  • Advertiser Policies – Always include any policies that you want to have, such as not including bad language, grammar, and punctuation, as Facebook’s Advertising policy states.

 

  • Confidentiality Agreements – If you have one, put it in the contract and be very specific.

 

  • Non-Disclosure or Exclusivity Agreements – If there is something you don’t want to be disclosed, such as the private marketing stats you provided to them, make sure it’s in the contract. Likewise, if you don’t want the influencer recommending your competition, make sure to say so.

 

  • Breach of Contract Clause – What happens if either party breaches the contract? If you describe what should happen now, it’ll make it easier should something go wrong.

 

  • Governing Law – Always include which state, city, and county (or country) law’s will be the guiding force of this agreement should there be a disagreement.

 

  • Signatures of All Parties – Don’t forget to get it signed. It doesn’t have to be notarized, but this can help. Using software to sign is also helpful.

 

Lawyers aren’t required to make contract legal, but they are required to know what you are permitted to put in the contract as you cannot contract illegal things. If you write an agreement on a napkin and sign it, it’s legal as long as the items put in the contract are also permitted. A self-designed contract is better than no contract, but it is advisable to seek help from an attorney or paralegal to perfect your arrangements.

 

 

 

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These Niches Benefit the Most from Influencer Marketing

Any product or service can benefit from influencer marketing. However, some certain niches or genres perform better and see far more success than others. This is likely because the content is easily shareable, visual, consumable, and in high demand.

 

The following are the most popular industries for influencer marketing:

 

Beauty and Fashion

 

This is probably the most obvious niche within influencer marketing as it makes up the bulk of it. Products and services within this niche are built on their ability to make bold, beautiful, and colorful works of art. They are highly shareable and consumable, making them a powerful product to influence. The Instagram platform is a visual social media that is one of the most used for this niche as the niche creates amazing visuals.

 

Gaming

 

Another niche that probably won’t come to you as a surprise. This industry is worth over 130 billion dollars. Those who love gaming thrive for information to learn how to complete their game or compete at the highest level against their rivals. Sharing reviews on the most anticipated game of the year or console or walkthroughs and guides on how to achieve the highest level in competitive play are just a few things audiences crave. You can often find gaming influencers on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and even Twitter.

 

Health and Fitness

 

Most people want to learn how to be healthy, improve their apparencies or maintain their weight. It is vital to your survival, meaning there is high demand for needed information. Weight loss how-to videos, advertising sportswear, or selling weightless programs are a few great things in this niche that influencers can promote.

 

Food and Travel

 

Mouthwatering dishes, videos on how to bake the perfect cake, how-to guides on traveling the world on a small budget, or simply sharing the meals you’ve tried while traveling to exotic places are just a few examples of content audiences crave within these niches. Many young adults have reported using Instagram as their source of information before they book their travels or YouTube to learn how to cook a new meal.

 

While these are the most common and successful industries in influencer marketing, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a try if your niche didn’t make this list. You can be an innovator and start something new within your industry as long as you use the right tools and resources.

 

Find the right social media platform and influencer, and create the best content with your target audience and business goals in mind. This extensive list shows that influencer marketing will likely benefit your company as long as you can provide visual content that solves a high-demand problem. Influencer marketing thrives on high-quality visuals and in-demand content.

Tools and Tips to Help You Automate Social Media Marketing

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Learn The SMART Goal Making Process

Proper goal setting is one of the most important skills you can learn in terms of how much goodness it’ll add to your life. By learning this goal-setting system, you’ll gain a sense of direction so that you can organize your resources in a way that helps you reach your goals.

 

When you craft a SMART goal, the way you phrase the goal helps you focus on what’s important so that you can make decisions about the actions you’re taking in a way that impacts your goal. Not only that, but the goal also provides the motivation you need to take the small daily actions toward success.

 

Example of a SMART Goal: “By Sunday night, I’m going to increase my total weekly word count from 7000 words to 10,000 words a week by adding 427 words a day to my normal daily 1000-word goal.”

 

  • Specific – The goal you set has to be very precise in order to help the person reading the goal understand and become certain about the expected impact or deliverables. Ask yourself questions to get this right, such as: What am I doing, why am I doing it, what do I need to do it right?

 

  • Measurable – As you craft the goal, you also need to use numbers that allow you to judge whether or not you’re reaching your objectives. Numbers like time, range, weight, steps, and so forth all make sense.

 

  • Attainable – Don’t bother setting impossible goals. If you have never walked an hour a day in your life, don’t start with that as your goal. Instead, start with five minutes and then craft a plan to add on a minute a day until you reach your goal of walking an hour a day.

 

  • Relevant – Also, each goal that you make has an overarching objective you’re trying to accomplish. For example, if you’re trying to write a novel writing the words is just one aspect of the novel publishing goal, but it is directly related.

 

  • Timely – Never leave a goal timeline open-ended. Even if you have to adjust the timeframe due to reality, the truth is we all fill up the time we give ourselves. If you give yourself three hours to check the mail, you’re going to take three hours. Tighten up your timelines to create a schedule that includes structured action that is easy to habituate – no motivation needed.

 

As you craft your goals, consider who will do the actions that help you reach the goal and think about what you really want to accomplish. When you do that and create a realistic time frame for it all to be done, you’re more likely actually to achieve the results you want and need.

Better Goal Setting Tips for Maximum Productivity

 

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Developing The Habit of Doing

Whenever you set up your schedule, there may be things you put on your schedule that you don’t want to do, or try to avoid doing, which can lead to procrastination and other problems. If you want to stop allowing this to happen, there are some strategies you can put in place that help you develop the habit of doing.

 

Schedule Everything

 

How you arrange your calendar makes all the difference. Most people only put work and appointments in their calendars. Put everything you want to do in your calendar, from lunch with your spouse to ladies’ night out with friends to a picnic with your daughter. If you’re going to get it done, it has to be in the schedule, or it won’t happen.

 

Schedule Properly

 

When you do create your schedule, it’s not going to help to list the things you want to do without knowing how long you’ll take, where you’ll do it, how you’ll do it, and more. This requires research. Scheduling properly includes considering the real amount of time you will take and where and how you’ll do it.

 

Understand That Perfection Does Not Exist

 

Sometimes putting something off is done to save face. You think that you’re not good at doing it, so you put it off. The thing is, no one is perfect. As long as you do things according to directions, the best you can do is better than not done but done never means perfect.

 

Results Matter More Than Intention

 

You mean to do the thing. Truly really mean to. Then fail anyway. But if you didn’t do it when you said you would, whether you told yourself or someone else, you’re going to feel guilty. Why put yourself in a position of guilt to start with? If something is that bad, and you can do it, outsource it. Until then, just do it.

 

Do It for Two Minutes

 

Sometimes all you really need is to get started. If you’ve done a good job with your schedule, it’s not going to be that hard for you to use rote memorization to get going and get started. You don’t even need to assign a feeling to it. Just start doing it for two minutes, and if you still don’t want to do it after that, you can stop.

 

Plan For Breaks

Scheduling to Avoid Burnout: Learn to Take More Breaks

When you are doing anything that you dislike doing, don’t torture yourself. Yes, get it done as soon as possible according to your needs but don’t make yourself do the thing you hate for 8 hours when it’s not necessary. Plan for breaks and try to give yourself incentives along the way.

 

The fact is, whenever you need to get something done, simply doing it will take less time and cause less stress than all the gymnastics most people do when they try to avoid something. If you just get it done, you’ll be able to move on. Make this a habit by creating better schedules and then just getting it done. After all, if it’s running through your mind, it’s taking up space that can be used in a much more creative way if you just finish it.

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Say No At Least Once a Week

As you work building in daily habits that will make you more successful, one of the skills you need to practice and habituate is saying no more.

For the next month or so, start saying no to something at least once a week.

say no

The way to choose what to say no to is to check your goals, look at your schedule, and ask yourself what you really want. If an action leads you to reach your goals and fits your schedule, saying yes is fine, but if it does not provide any value to you or does not fit into your schedule right now, say no.

 

When you do say no, you don’t owe anyone a reason with few exceptions. However, here are some reasons and ways that you can say no more often.

 

If You Already Know Say So

 

Sometimes you simply know that you don’t want to do something no matter what. Instead of putting people off or saying yes just to avoid the issue, start saying no right away. For example, if you have a friend involved in an MLM and constantly asks you to come to parties or buy things, and you have but resent it, start saying no and ask them to stop asking you.

 

Say I’ll Think About It

 

You don’t have to give people answers right away about anything. This can help you reduce the pressure on yourself to say yes to anything. Start making it a habit always to say, “Let me check my schedule. I’ll get back to you by 3 pm on Friday with my answer.” This way, they can wait patiently, and you can ensure that you want to say yes or no.

 

Always Check Your Schedule

 

Even if your first thought is that it’s something you want to do, you must always check your schedule before saying yes. You may be over booked already, and even if you’re going to say yes, you need to say no. Doing this will ward off burnout. Stretching yourself too thin is bad for you and everyone else that depends on you too.

 

Offer Alternatives

 

Sometimes you can’t do what your customer or the person wants, but you can turn your no into a yes in the recipient’s mind. If you know someone who can do the thing being asked of you better, tell them about it. If you can offer some help but not exactly what was asked for, say exactly that to the person.

 

One thing to remember is that you don’t have to be part of everything in your community. Saying no allows others to step up. Suppose you’re the type that runs your PTA, a small business, and more than two or three community organizations and clubs. You’re probably doing too much. Let others shine and take your time back. Your friends and family and you will thank you.

Write Down 3 Things You’re Grateful for Each Day

 

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Your Lack of Focus Is Getting in Your Way

Are you constantly struggling to get your work done? You start one project only to find yourself tapping away at another, then the next two minutes, you find yourself doing it again but on something completely different. Even with a to-do list, you can’t seem to get on track and find the focus to finish your tasks. It’s easy to do, but you must change your bad habit before it gets in your way.

 

Your lack of focus is affecting your business success in the following common ways:

 

Leads to Poor Productivity and Quality of Work

When you don’t have the right focus and concentration on your work, it leads to mistakes and poor decisions as you don’t have the clarity you need to work at your best.

 

Leads to Inconsistent Habits and Results

You need innovation and creativity to stay relevant and competitive—all of which could be stalled or lackluster without proper focus.

 

Uses Valuable Resources Incorrectly

Ultimately it depletes valuable time and financial resources that could better be used somewhere else. When you don’t do your best the first time, you’ll leave behind mistakes.

 

If you have trouble with focus, here are five things you can give a try right now:

 

#1: Reoutline Your Intentions

One cause of lack of focus is that they forgot what they were going after. Even worse, they chose goals that were unrealistic and didn’t relate to who they really are. It’s easy to lose track if you really don’t want it.

 

#2: Craft A Vision Board

Create a board of pictures, drawings, or objects that inspire your ideal life and dreams. In five years, what are your expectations about your life and your business? Even better, what are you working on in your business right now that will make the most impact on your success as you envision it? Add that to your vision board and put it somewhere you will see every day to encourage you to get right back on track. Often a lack of focus is due to an unclear vision of the future.

 

#3: Play Brain Games

Make it fun and play memory and concentration-building games from Lumosity. Lumosity provides many fun games that include a specific section to improve your focus. The idea is to exercise your brain just like you would do other parts of your body at the gym.

 

#4: Change Your Environment

Create an environment that influences movement and positivity. As you work on different projects or goals, change the setting to fit.

 

#5: Go to Bed

Are you constantly yawning or getting blurry vision? Then you need to get some sleep. If you don’t have the right amount of sleep, you won’t be capable of concentrating.

 

As you can see, focus plays a crucial role in the actions you take for your business and life. Without it, you easily leave behind a messy and disorganized company.

 

Stay More Focused with These Five Simple Steps

 

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Essential Elements of The Realistic Optimist

If you want to be more productive, striving to be more of a realistic optimist might be the strategy for you. If you ask a successful entrepreneur what values or attitudes you should project, realism and optimism will likely be high on their list. An optimistic mindset should always be filtered with realism to see success. You can be a positive person all day long, but that doesn’t mean you will get what you want if you don’t act.

 

Here are a few tips to help you become a realistic optimist:

 

Unrealistic Vs. Realistic Optimist: Understand the Difference

One of the best methods to learning how to do something is to discover what not to do first. Being positive is great and has many benefits but doesn’t do anyone favors if it’s unrealistic. Toxic positivity only keeps you back and focused on the wrong things.

 

The distinction between a realistic optimist and an unrealistic one is their actions and their perspective on the world. Unrealistic optimists believe they will have success no matter what, even if they don’t work on it. They deserve and are owed success and the path to it won’t be complicated or challenging.

 

Realistic optimists are the exact opposite. While they too believe their life will be successful, they understand it is still up to them to realize that they have to seek knowledge and education, recognize mistakes, improve skills, and go after their dreams. They don’t wait around for it to come. They are proactive and always take on new challenges because they see them grow and gain more.

Changing Your Mindset: Attitude is Everything

Keep It Positive but Relevant and Attainable

An optimist is someone who is hopeful and confident about their life and the direction it will go. They believe that the world is ultimately good, and that evil will never prevail. While it sounds great, it’s not very practical on its own.

 

The world may be ultimately good, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be hard or challenging, which is why you need realism to balance it out. Realism makes sure that the plan you are taking is relevant to your ultimate dreams and ultimately attainable.

 

Only Focus on What You Can Control

One of the main objectives of a realistic optimist is to only focus on and control what you can. There is no point in ruminating or overthinking something that you have no ability to change.

 

You can’t change the weather; you can’t control people’s emotions, but you can control how you respond and which actions you take or don’t to get around it. You know the weather can change at a moment’s notice, so always have a plan B, for example.

 

Use these tips to be more positive and realistic to achieve maximum productivity, happiness and never miss any opportunity.

 

Changing Your Mindset: Attitude is Everything

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Don’t Let This Momentum Killer Destroy Your Success

Avoiding ownership and accountability impacts your life and business in many unhealthy ways. It is the momentum killer that ultimately eats away at your success, if there was any hope to start with, and certainly stalls any results for which you were hoping.

The price of Greatness

 

Waiting for others to do the work for you, blaming faults on everyone else, or finding excuse after excuse as to why bad things keep happening or why you keep delaying action will halt any success you hope to see in your life. Taking ownership and accountability is important:

 

  • For accelerated progress and business success.
  • For refining goals and responsibilities.
  • For improving your weaknesses and industry expertise.
  • To provide a sense of validation and control.
  • To keep you focused and engaged on what is most important.

 

Steps to improving your accountability and ownership for increased business success:

 

Step 1: Accept and Highlight the Truth

No one likes being wrong. It won’t feel the best at first, but there is a greater chance for peace with acceptance. Learn to highlight your weaknesses and problem areas so you can actively fight to do what’s right each step of the way. It’s not always as dramatic as it feels in the moment and most of the time, accepting it right away and verbally taking responsibility is all you need to get back on track and de-stress.

 

Step 2: Manage Your Expectations

Only rely on yourself and the actions you take to be successful. Don’t expect the world to give you everything on a silver platter. While success can and will happen to you, you must realize that it acts from you, and only you to get there. Please find what you need to do and make it happen. Don’t wait around for the world or others to make you happy.

 

Step 3: Find an Accountability Partner or Mentor

This is an excellent strategy if you have the extra funds or a friend and partner willing to help. When other people rely on you or expecting something from you, you are more willing and likely to do it. Not only that, but mentors can also provide knowledge, experiences, and perspectives that are far beyond your current reach to use and improve your ways.

 

Step 4: End the Excuses

Finally, the most important thing you must do is to stop excuses. Excuses only hold you back and prevent you from seeing the actual cause of your actions. It’s not the alarm clocks’ fault you didn’t show up on time again. It’s the lack of understanding why you keep hitting snooze and not putting in the effort to go after your goals.

Are You Being Realistic About Your Goals?

According to the dictionary, accountability is all about taking responsibility for your actions and inactions (as the case may be) and dealing with the consequences, good, bad, or indifferent, to do better in life and achieve your goals. With consistent effort and the commitment to be a better person, you are more likely to be successful.