Popular Articles on Business 2 Community

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• 10 Tips On How To Use Google Plus Hangouts
• Social Media Branding: 16 Tips to Create a Consistent, Relevant & Trusted Social Brand
• Two Successful Customer Service Case Studies from (Surprise!) the Airlines
• Augmented Reality Gets Real (Infographic)
• The Top 10 Google AdWords Updates of 2013
• Marketing 2014: What To Expect
• Creative Content Marketing Strategy: 5 Hot Tips For A Business
• Why is Video Marketing so Effective?
• 6 Social Media Tips To Get the Most Out Of the Holidays
• Why Small Businesses Should be 100% Mobile-Focused in 2014
• 10 Things You Can Do Today for Happier Call Center Agents
• The Importance of Excellent Customer Service & Feedback Surveys

10 Tips On How To Use Google Plus Hangouts Posted: 03 Dec 2013 05:27 PM PST There's been a lot of talk lately about Google hangouts and the SEO advantages of hosting a Google hangout and using this as a source of engagement with your followers and customers. Let's just analyse this new piece of the SEO pie for a moment before we continue. Firstly, some ingredients that make for great SEO If the above are the core ingredients for SEO domination then Google Hangouts is the special ingredient that binds them all together. All sounds delicious right? So where's the cookbook? The following is a detailed account of what I have found to be the perfect recipe for hosting a Google Hangout on Air and, if executed correctly, can offer a vast improvement to your SEO. It includes the steps and 10 tips on how to use Google Plus Hangouts. So where do we start? What is a Google Hangout? There are two types of Google Hangouts, Hangouts and Hangouts on Air. Hangouts are more of an engagement tool with friends, very much like Google chat and Skype. What we're focussing on in this post is Google Hangouts on Air. Simply put, a Google Hangout on Air is a great alternative to expensive webinar solutions where you and up to 9 guests can hangout and discuss whatever topic takes your fancy and broadcast that conversation to the rest of the world. Your Google Hangout on Air is automatically broadcast live to both your Google+ home page and YouTube channel for the world to see. Step 1: Setting Up and Promoting a Hangout TOP TIP 1: SETUP AND OPERATE THROUGH YOUR GOOGLE+ BUSINESS PAGE Always use your business page rather than your personal page, this is the equivalent of using your Facebook business page to promote your business rather than your personal account. First things first, you're going to need to follow a few pointers from Google to make the most of your Google Hangout on Air experience; Google recommend using Chrome as your browser when running a Hangout on Air although from my experience all the popular web browsers will work perfectly well with no degradation of service. You'll also need to link a YouTube channel with your Google+ account before starting a Hangout on Air. This is very straightforward and you'll be prompted to do this when you first start testing with Hangout on Air. Finally you and your guests will need the Hangouts plugin, which again you're prompted to do when you first launch a Hangout. N.B You may need to open the plugin once downloaded to begin the installation even though the status on screen states 'initialising' – this seems to be a small bug. TOP TIP 2: USE GOOGLE+ COMMUNITIES TO CREATE A UNIQUE CIRCLE Take a look at the Google Communities from the drop down menu on the left hand side of your Google+ page and search for communities where your future followers are likely to hangout. Google+ allows you to create a number of different Circles where you can include as many people as you like. Ensure you take full advantage of this and create a new Circle specific to the people you want to engage with on your Hangout and then start searching for these people. If I'm running a Hangout on Air to talk about Social media for example, I'm going to search for this term within the Communities' page, this returns nearly 200 different groups with some groups having in excess of 65k members. Clicking on the community you're interested in takes you to their News Feed and on the left hand side you'll see the number of public members in the Community. Click on this and start adding these people to your new Circle. TOP TIP 3: GIVE YOURSELF AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE TO BUILD CIRCLES Google will limit the number of people you can add to a Circle daily, so give yourself as much time as possible before the Hangout is scheduled to add people to your Circle. TOP TIP 4: CREATE AN EVENT ON THE GOOGLE+ EVENT PAGE In order to be able to invite people in your new Circle to the Hangout on Air you need to create an event. This is found on the left hand side drop down box under events. Click Create Event. This is where you place all of the important information about the event/Hangout, time, date etc. You also need to give the event a title, try and make this as inviting and specific as possible to intrigue and encourage people to attend the event. Be sure to upload your own banner promoting the event. Make sure it's eye catching and unique. This needs to be at least 1200×300 dpi. A good example of a banner design is below as is clear, concise and provides the relevant and important points of the Hangout. Now you want to invite the Circle you've spent all that time building out. This invite will be sent to all those in the Circle, so again the more time you can spend building out the Circle, the larger the potential audience for your Hangout. By inviting people in this way, those that accept the invite will be sent an email reminder shortly before the Hangout is due to air with a link taking them to your YouTube channel where the Hangout will be streaming live. Finally, under event options, you need to make sure that you're marking the event as 'on air' – this is found under 'advanced'. You can also select 'show more options', which allows you to add your own website URL (this will become important and apparent later). The single most important part of hosting a Google Hangout on Air is that you want as many people to view the event as possible so you need to make it easy for people to do so. TOP TIP 5: PEOPLE DON'T NEED TO BE ON GOOGLE+ TO ENJOY YOUR HANGOUT It's a popular misconception that only people with a Google+ account or within your circle can view the Hangout. This simply isn't the case. You only need to have a Google+ account if you are a guest actively participating the Hangout rather than someone just viewing the Hangout. This is perhaps the most important tip I'm giving on this entire blog. With that in mind it's important to drive people to a single location to view the hangout. When inviting people from outside Google+ I'd suggest sending them to a dedicated page on your website or blog where you'll embed the YouTube video prior to 'going live'. How to do this is explained below. Step 2: Starting the Hangout So everyone's invited, you've got 1000's of people responding and saying how excited they are to hear what you have to say and the big day's arrived what do you do? TOP TIP 6: PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Google Hangouts, although highly effective, isn't the most intuitive piece of software that Google has ever released. It's important that you're comfortable with the inner workings way before the live Hangout takes place. Work with friends, family and colleagues to test the invites, software, features and functionality as much as possible before the Hangout date. TOP TIP 7: BE ORGANISED PRIOR TO THE HANGOUT Make Sure you enter the Hangout at least 15 to 30 minutes before it's due to start. Find 'Hangouts' under the 'Home' drop down box on the left hand side, from here click 'Start a Hangout on Air'. Give your Hangout the same name as you did the Event to ensure continuity and avoid confusion. Don't add anyone at this time. As a general rule of thumb, I'll open up the Hangout 30 minutes prior to the event actually starting. This gives me time to complete the following steps: 1. Grab your Video URL to embed on your Website/Blog First things first, make sure you grab the YouTube URL of your Hangout so you can embed this within the dedicated page of your blog/website or wherever you are driving your viewers to watch the Hangout. The URL can be found at the bottom of your Hangout screen. 2. Ensure your camera, sound and lighting are all working correctly. You can check all of this at your end, but it doesn't hurt to invite a colleague or friend onto the Hangout at this point to do some last minute video/sound quality checks for the people on the other side of the Hangout. Use headphones and encourage all your guests to do this same. This will improve the sound quality massively for those watching the broadcast. Shut down all other applications that may interference and call degradation (Skype, Spotify, etc.). 3. Ensure that the apps you want to use on the Hangout are active. There's a whole host of apps that you can use to enhance your Google Hangout on Air experience, too many to discuss in this blog, however the two that I feel are essential requirements for your Hangout are the Hangout toolbox and the Q&A app. The Hangout Toolbox allows you to use the lower third of the screen to promote your business and the hangout topic, in much the same way you'd see on a news channel. This is a great feature and adds professionalism to your Hangout. You can create your own custom overlay, this needs to be a 640×360 transparent .png file which can uploaded via the hangout toolbox. The Q&A app allows those people watching from your Google+ home page or YouTube channel to type a question to you and your guests. This is a great way to interact with your viewers, people like nothing more than a 'shout out' during a live broadcast and this helps to encourage engagement. Ensure you play around with these apps on your test Hangouts to get a good understanding of how they work and function. TOP TIP 8: MAKE SURE YOU INVITE GUESTS USING THE CORRECT EMAIL ADDRESS AND ENSURE YOU RESIDE WITHIN THEIR CIRCLE It sounds obvious, but as most people have more than a single email address nowadays you need to make sure you use the email address that your guest used to create their Google+ account. If you use a different address or your guest does not follow you, you won't be able to invite them to the call. Invite your guests into the 'Green Room' Guests are not automatically placed into the Hangout on Air – you need to invite them. I like to invite my guests around 15 minutes before the Hangout is due to start. This gives me time to make any necessary introductions and allows everyone to get settled and relaxed before going 'on air'. To do this, hover over the top of the screen where the required option is presented. GET READY TO GO 'ON AIR' – SMILE AND HIT THE START BROADCAST BUTTON!! Step 3: During the Hangout TOP TIP 9: UNDERSTAND YOUR ROLES DURING THE HANGOUT During the Hangout, you become the Host, Cameraman, Sound Technician and Production Assistant so it's important that you're confident on how to control these features before you go into your Hangout on Air and again, the best way to do this is to play around and experiment beforehand. However, remember that this is a 'live Hangout', people won't judge you for not being perfect, you're not making a blockbuster movie and mistakes simply help you engage more with the viewers and makes the whole experience that more personal. The most important part is the content so keep this flowing as best you can. Depending on the number of guests you have on the Hangout, it might be appropriate to mute their microphones until it's their time to speak. The last thing you want is everyone talking at the same time. This is done on the bottom of the screen, in the area called the 'film strip' that shows the video image of your guests. From here you can also manage what the viewers see. By default the software will switch to the camera picking up the dominant sound, this can sometimes be overly sensitive, so I'd advise you to manage this yourself. Simply click on the guest you want the viewers to see. Throughout the call, carry out screen grabs using your computer at appropriate times so these can be used for post promotion after the event. Step 4: After the Hangout After the event take the opportunity to optimise and edit your video through the YouTube video editor on your YouTube Channel. Add appropriate keywords for SEO purposes ensuring the most relevant are used first. Add annotations and edit the Hangout as necessary. TOP TIP 10: DON'T STOP PROMOTING THE HANGOUT SIMPLY BECAUSE IT'S OVER Continue to promote the success of the event through the usual social media channels using the screen captures caught during the Hangout and snippets of video. I've quickly had to come to grips with all of the above as I'm talking with Gary Vaynerchuk this Wednesday about his new book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook – come along (blog.oodals.com.au) and see how all of the above can come together to give you great unique content and the SEO equivalent of a quart of rocket fuel to push you up the Google rankings.

Social Media Branding: 16 Tips to Create a Consistent, Relevant & Trusted Social Brand Posted: 03 Dec 2013 12:47 PM PST Did you know that it takes at minimum 6-7 brand touches before someone will remember your brand. Every impression counts. Each brand touch with a potential new client, current customer, brand advocate or even those who know nothing about your brand is leaving behind an impression. It's an impression that is going to be positive, neutral or negative. Your goal is to make each and every brand impression as positive and memorable as it can be. Consistency Consistency is key when it comes to social branding. Consistency doesn't have to equal boring. It simply means you have a consistent representation of who you are, what you do and how you portray it to the world. Your tone may vary based on the audience you are engaging with but there should be a foundation of consistency for which you leverage to build relationships. It is important to also understand the definition of authenticity and transparency which many confuse. Being real and authentic doesn't mean you have to share what you had for breakfast, lunch and dinner on all of the social networks. Transparency is how much information you share with different audiences. Read more here-> Social Brand Humanization: Authenticity vs Transparency Relevancy Relevancy is how you connect and are able to relate to human beings. You must be relevant to them as a human. You must treat, speak and engage with them as humans. You must speak in a manner and choose words which mean something to them. They must understand what it is you are trying to say and why. Your words and actions should inspire them to connect and engage with you. Trust Building trust with your communities and audience via the social networks is going to take time. As you can see from the diagram below, initially your community members are going to start out as lurkers, new members and people who are "checking you out." They are deciding if they want to engage with you. They're deciding if they want to click, like, read, share and invest themselves in your brand. It is up to you to move them from being a "free member" to a loyal evangelist or paying customer. The combination of consistency, relevancy, value and trust are going to help ignite this movement from the left of the diagram you see below to the right. 16 Tips to Create a Consistent, Relevant & Trusted Social Brand 1. Know your audience. Who is your audience? What are their demographics? What problems do they have that you can help solve? How can you bring value to their life and/or business? The better you know your audience, the better you can create content and a social platform that provides relevancy and value for them. If just starting on the social networks, start by listening. The best social brands listen more than they talk. Social media is not just about talking, it's about engaging in a relevant conversation with real human beings. Download-> Audience Analysis & Goal Setting Worksheet 2. Know yourself. Who are you? What do you have to offer that is unique? How can you provide unique value to your target audiences, stakeholders and larger community? 3. Know your goals. You will likely never read a blog post from me that I do not remind you how important goals are. It does not matter how small or large your business is, how many customers you have or how much cash you have in the bank. You must set goals and objectives. Who are you now and who do you want to be when you grow up? Do you want to increase brand awareness? Increase brand equity? Reach new markets? Reposition your organization? Nurture relationships as a top priority? Knowing your goals is important to setting the right tone and tempo with all of your audiences. Make it a goal to minimize all random acts of Marketing. Don't focus only on technology. Know the technology and tools, but focus on how you can use it to meet business goals and provide value to your audience. Minimize random acts of marketing (RAMs) as they will eat every last morsel of ROI before you wake up for breakfast each day! Download-> Audience Analysis & Goal Setting Worksheet 4. Branding starts from the inside out. Your brand is who you are when people are watching and when they are not watching. Your brand is what your employees say and do when they are working and even when they are not working. Social media will simply reveal what is already inside the walls of your organization. The key here is to focus on inspiring and empowering your internal employees and advocates as a top priority. 5. Create a brand message architecture. Your brand is not simply your logo, colors and tagline. Your brand is everything you tweet, pin, post, do, say, and do. How you represent yourself to the outside world is going to determine your success. Don't just think logo or colors. Think brand and message architecture. We help our clients create brand architectures that break down silos, and empower them to communicate with their core audiences in a simple, relevant and impactful way. A brand and message architecture will help you create a content marketing strategy as you will better understand your audience and their needs. Sometimes writing these things down and getting key stakeholders to agree on the core messages is a first step. As you become more advanced in this area you will want to create a "message house" or "message bible" as we often like to call it that covers message tiers from the corporate vision, value proposition, positioning statements, elevator pitches to detailed feature, benefit and even value proposition message for each of your core audiences. If you are new to branding this may sound overwhelming. Need help with this? Contact us. We love even the most complicated brand architectures! 6. Leverage what you got. It is important that you leverage what you already have. If you have already invested in content marketing assets such as videos, podcasts, white papers etc., be sure to leverage them. Check out this asset inventory worksheet that will help you identify and categorize each of your content assets. It will also help you identify gaps and justify areas needing investment. Be sure to map it to your core audiences and focus on developing content assets that will help you inspire and connect with your target audiences and markets. Download-> Content Marketing Asset Inventory Worksheet 7. Create an editorial calendar. Once you have an idea of where you are going it is important to create an editorial calendar so you develop a healthy rhythm for your communication with your priority audiences. Use this editorial calendar template to get started. Download-> Content editorial calendar 8. Refresh does a brand good. Digital brand execution does not always = same as offline. Don't simply take your 1999 corporate collateral and split it into 2000 tweets to be auto scheduled for publication over the next year. Instead, leverage what you have but start fresh. Keep the focus on your audience, their needs and how you can provide the highest value possible to them. If you have not updated your digital assets in awhile it is likely that they will need a refresh. Taking the time to organize your brand architecture, deciding on a consistent look and feel for both online and off line will deliver a high ROI for both the short and long term. 9. Stake your territory. As you make progress in determining how your social digital brand is going to be executed, start staking your territory. Grab your brand name and relevant product names as appropriate on the social networks. If you find that someone or another brand has grabbed it before you and now has your brand name Twitter handle or YouTube account, you will need to negotiate each social network account individually. Make sure to have your trademark filing records and other legal documentation ready for submission to the social networks as needed. 10. Choose a consistent social network brand name if possible. If possible, choose a consistent social network brand name. Even if your favorite one is taken on some networks it may be good to select a different one that you can have across more of the platforms. When you see a new social network launch that looks like it might gain quick traction, be sure to grab your account and name so you won't have to worry about it later should someone else or another brand grab it. As an example I use @PamMktgNut on almost every platform including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and more. For our agency we use @MktgNutz and Marketing Nutz. 11. Use the same photo or logo. For personal branding, it is important to get professional photographs taken. Remember your smiling face is likely the first impression you are going to make when people see you on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the numerous other social networks. Select 2-3 top photographs to use consistently across the social networks. This will help you build your brand and consistency. You want people to be able to recognize you regardless what platform they see you on. If they trust you on one platform this will help build trust further by connecting with you on additional networks. For business branding, create the proper size logo images for each of the social networks. Take the time to do these right. Don't force fit the wrong size into an avatar on a social network. Make sure you can see the entire logo or image. Keep the image simple, clean and representative of you and your brand. 12. Less is more. Focus on depth and connection, not just pretty pictures. Less is truly more when it comes to social branding. You don't have to spend tens of thousands to create a social brand. If you are new to this, it is more important you focus on your audience first and your brand and message architecture second. Creating a fancy Twitter background and Facebook cover image is going to do very little for you if you don't know your audience and how you are going to provide value to them, inspire them and connect with them in a genuine way. Focus more on content and connection than you do on pretty pictures. The pretty images will come in time and they will mean so much more to the audience once the words behind them have meaning. No need to cram every social network address on every social profile image. If you create good content, people will track you down and find you because they find you and your content relevant. You don't need to blast your urls in their face at every opportunity you get. Many people will see this as spam and be turned off vs attracted to you and your brand. 13. Be human. Remember you are communicating with human beings. Just as you want to connect with the human beings within your social communities, they also want to connect with you as a human being. People buy from people. They also communicate better with people than they do with only logos. Share the inside of your organization with your network. Share the human aspect, the events, parties, conversations. 14. Don't fake it until you make it. Yes, you should be confident and be who you want to be tomorrow, today. However, this does not mean that you should focus on fake social proof, over spin on social vanity metrics to fake people out. I have written much about this topic. Read this article ->Moving from Social Media Buzz to Bucks 15. Don't be afraid to ask for help. If you don't know how to work in Photoshop, don't waste the next year learning Photoshop so you can simply create a new or refreshed logo. Delegate the tasks and work that does not align with your core competencies or where you want to grow your business. When working with outside partners, agencies and consultants, take your time. Don't settle on the first one you find. Look behind the social glass curtain. There are many who are "faking and trying to make it" and if you only look at their pretty Facebook cover image you are likely to waste a lot of money. Know your goals and hire partners who can help you achieve them. If a 3rd party wants to jump straight to developing your website or Facebook cover image without knowing about your brand and your audience, run the other way. Slowing down to speed up in this area will definitely pay off in both the short and long term. 16. Take them on your journey. Becoming a social brand is a journey, not a destination. You are going to learn, grow, evolve. You are going to fall down and hit your head, hard. How you stand up, wipe off your knees and keep moving will determine your success. Use video, photos and podcasts to tell your story. Take your clients, partners, and social community members on your journey as you grow. If you share your ups and downs, the members of your community will also celebrate with you when you win. Why you ask? Because they will know they were part of what built you. Be humble. Be real. Be you!

Two Successful Customer Service Case Studies from (Surprise!) the Airlines Posted: 03 Dec 2013 12:05 PM PST A June 2013 report by the American Customer Satisfaction Index found that for the 70,000 Americans it surveyed, the only industries ranking below the airlines for customer service are subscription TV and Internet service providers.  Yet an individual employee in any industry can take personal responsibility to make a lasting favorable impression on a customer. Allow me to share with you two days in my life as a professional speaker (and traveler). Day One How do you lose a piece of carry-on luggage? Delta did that to me today. It was gate checked on the commuter flight from Atlanta to Birmingham, then didn’t show up on the ramp when I arrived. Those of us from the flight missing luggage asked at the American baggage claim office in Birmingham if there was a representative for Delta. (The little area for Delta's baggage claim office was dark and the door was locked.) The rep for American just became defensive and hostile as he responded while walking away. Finally the Delta baggage service representative showed up. Now as Jerry Seinfeld says, “Nobody announces ‘I want to work in Baggage Service when I grow up.’” But this employee may have been the exception. Allan Day has worked for Delta for 27 years, in various positions. He began his day today by first listening empathetically to our plights and quickly communicating that he was on our side.  Allan then exhibited a sense of urgency to resolve the problem. Compared to the reception we received from the American rep, we couldn’t help but feel better knowing that Allan was doing all that he could to locate our lost luggage. In addition to giving me free frequent flyer points, Allan gave me food vouchers to use while I waited for my found piece to come in on the next flight – even another voucher to use tomorrow night. "Judging from my experience, what probably happened was that your luggage went back to Atlanta.  I sincerely apologize, but that is the most likely case.  I'll post a bulletin in my system so that the employees there will be on the lookout for it, retrieve it and send it back." Allan then wrote down his name and number and asked me to be sure to give him a call before the next flight from Atlanta arrived.  What he described was exactly what happened. Checking in with Allan later, he said, "Good news!  I just checked with Atlanta.  Your bag will be here on the 8:40 flight!" I teach customer service but tonight Allan Day taught me a few lessons. “I just treat the customer the way I know I would want to be treated if it happened to me,” he explained. (Somehow I get the feeling that if my encounter had instead been with the representative from American, he would have tried to make me feel badly for inconveniencing him and trying to ruin his day.) If you are ever in the Birmingham airport, stop by Delta Baggage Service, smile and say ‘hi’ to Allan Day! Day Two "What would you like to drink, Ted?" “Huh?” This evening on American flight 4105 from Columbus to Chicago, a flight attendant named Rebecca came down the aisle and addressed each passenger by name. I have been on over 1,000 flights and I have never seen or heard that before. So when Rebecca came to me and also addressed me by name, I was stunned.  So I asked her, “How do you do that?” “It’s easy,” Rebecca replied. “I just read the manifest. I can’t believe every flight attendant doesn’t do it!” In response, I told her that I deliver customer service training and asked if she could send me a "selfie" that I could use in my presentations, so she did. Along with the photograph, she enclosed this note: As an update to my story, I wanted to let you know that I continue to receive lots of positive letters from our passengers that rave about my use of their name when addressing them and my attitude! It it what keeps me going.   Thank you for being an uplifting part of my life. You really made my day when I had you on my flight! I LOVE MY JOB!!!!   Best regards, Rebecca Even if you work in an industry not generally known for providing outstanding customer service, what ordinary thing could you do to become, like Allan and Rebecca, extraordinary?  (In the process, you may find like Rebecca did that you love your job!)

Augmented Reality Gets Real (Infographic) Posted: 02 Dec 2013 06:19 PM PST Have you ever wondered what it would be like to look at a restaurant and know whether it’s a 5 star or a 2 star before you enter the door? Or what about seeing if a piece of furniture would work in your new home before you commit to it? Well both these things, and more, are possible with the advances of augmented reality (AR). AR is about bringing more information to your everyday life, instantly. Google Glass ushered in it’s visibility to the mainstream audience but more and more companies are implementing AR strategies. The horizon is vast for AR – education, medicine, design, and fashion, it’s just a matter of time before augmented reality becomes our actual reality. Infographic courtesy of CenturyLink Deals.

The Top 10 Google AdWords Updates of 2013 Posted: 02 Dec 2013 06:01 PM PST The folks at Google AdWords have been busy elves over the last year – so much so that just keeping up with all of the changes is practically a full-time job. By my estimation Google has rolled out over a thousand new AdWords features and changes in the last year alone. That's almost 20 new features or changes every week! The challenge for marketers is that we often just discover the new stuff as we make our way through our accounts; Google doesn't even announce the vast majority of their AdWords updates. Don't worry – we've got your back! We've kept on top of the notable changes this year and identified the ten most impactful updates for paid search marketers. Some were great and necessary improvements and others… not so much. However, they're all changes you should know about, in order to understand their potential impact on your AdWords performance. This list was informed by my social network of PPC pros on Twitter – particularly, those who participate in #PPCchat – who recently shared their favorite new AdWords features of 2013. Participants including Robert Brady, Melissa Mackey, Matt Umbro, David Szetela, John Rampton, Susan Waldes, Sam & Carrie from Hanapin Marketing and all others who answered our call to uncover the memorable PPC changes from 2013. Which Google AdWords updates made the most noise this past year? Check it out: 10) Change in Ad Rank Formula: Extensions & Ad Formats Matter Just last month, Google announced a change in their Ad Rank formula that was voted the most important update of 2013 by our panel of experts. This update is also the most difficult to understand. Ad Rank is not a new feature; rather, this change affects how AdWords decides the ranking order of competing ads on a keyword search listing page. It also plays a huge role in determining the prominence of your ads on a search results page and your cost-per-click. Considering the impact of this update, Google's announcement about it was relatively quiet. The order in which competing ads are ranked on a SERP obviously has a huge impact on the visibility of your ads to potential customers. Prior to the update, Google would take the maximum you were willing to pay, multiply it by your quality score, and place ads in descending order based on ad rank. A lesser known fact about Ad Rank is that it plays a huge role in determining how much your competitors will pay for their clicks. The formula AdWords uses to calculate your CPC (which is not the same thing as your maximum CPC bid; that is the most you are willing to pay, but not necessarily what you are actually charged) has everything to do with the Ad Rank of your closest competitor, divided by your Quality Score, plus 1 cent. Ad Rank helps determines both your ad position and the cost-per-click of your nearest competitor. As of last month, the Ad Rank formula will also take into account a new third component: the expected impact from your ad extensions and formats. In addition, Google has increased the importance of Ad Rank in determining whether your ad is eligible to be displayed with extensions and formats. If Google anticipates a positive impact from your Ad Extensions, your ad position will improve, your CPC will go down, and your competitors will see their CPCs increase. Conversely, if your competitors use Ad Extensions and if you fail to use them, your ad positions will drop, your CPCs will go up, and your competitors' CPCs will go down. For this reason, the use of Ad Extensions is no longer optional, in my opinion. Google is effectively penalizing advertisers who don't use them. If you didn't get the memo, now you know: it's time to audit your ads and make sure they employ as many relevant ad extensions as possible! 9) Flexible Bid Strategies Flexible bid strategies (announced in May) allow marketers to apply different bidding strategies within the same campaign or across different campaigns. This gives you the freedom to choose the appropriate bid strategy – whether optimizing for cost per click, position, or conversion – without the constraints of how your account is structured. One of the most challenging aspects of the new feature is simply finding it. It's located in the Shared Library tab under Bid Strategies. Simply create and save a bid strategy according to your goals, then apply that strategy to any of your campaigns or ad groups. This is a welcome change; previously, you had to choose one bid management strategy for all keywords and ad groups within a campaign. 8) Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) Next on the list, we have an incredible new feature that impacts both remarketing and search, called "Remarketing Lists for Search Ads" or RLSA. This lets you customize your search ads campaign for people who have previously visited your site and tailor your bids/ads to these visitors when they’re searching on Google. When people leave your site without buying anything, remarketing lists for search ads helps you reconnect with these potential customers as they continue using Google Search. You can set your bids, create ads, or select keywords, keeping in mind that these customers have previously visited your website. There are two basic strategies for using remarketing lists with search ads: Bid on keywords you don’t normally bid on to target people who have recently visited your site, or have converted on your site in the past. This can help increase your sales. For example, you could bid on more generic keywords, only for those who have previously purchased from you. Optimize existing keyword bids for visitors on your remarketing lists. For example, you can increase your bid by 25% for those who viewed your website in the last 30 days. Or, you could show a different ad to site visitors who have placed items in a shopping cart, but have not purchased them. RLSA is an exciting way that Search and Display advertising technologies are converging, allowing for more precise targeting. It's accessible within the Audience Tab in AdWords. 7) Paid vs. Organic Report The Paid vs. Organic Report update was announced in August and is designed to help you analyze and optimize your search footprint on Google. Previously, most search reports showed paid and organic performance separately, without any insights on user behavior when they overlap. The new report is the first to let you see and compare your performance for a query when you have either an ad, an organic listing, or both appearing on the search results page. The key benefits of the new report include the ability to: Discover additional keywords. Discover potential keywords to add to your AdWords accounts by looking for queries where you only appear in organic search, with no associated ads. Optimize presence on high-value queries. Use the report to improve your presence in paid results and monitor your high-value queries for organic results. Measure changes holistically. As you test website improvements or AdWords changes to bids, budgets, or keywords, you can more easily report the impact across paid, organic, and combined traffic. 6) Ready Image Ads & Ready Ad Gallery This year also saw the release of an incredible pair of new features: Ready Image Ads and Ready Ad Gallery. Display ads need to captivate consumers with rich creative and dynamic messaging, yet creating an engaging, beautiful ad takes more time and effort than some advertisers (especially SMBs) can justify. Ready Creatives puts the power back in your hands and makes it easier than ever before to create beautiful ads that can be consistently displayed across screens. Simply click "Create New Ad" and Google will then scan your website and automatically create a portfolio of Flash and HTML5 ads in different dimensions. AdWords now makes it easy for advertisers to add images and edit text. If you want to make bigger changes, use the editor to further customize your ad appearance. There's a rich library of premade templates to choose from. Creating display ads has never been simpler – particularly for small businesses who might not employ full-time graphics design resources. All advertisers can now more easily create awesome and compelling ads for remarketing and display ad campaigns. 5) In Market Targeting While we're on the subject of Display Ads, another big feature (that hasn't even been announced yet) is the new "In Market Targeting" feature on the Google Display Network. Google does this all the time – they release really important features and don't even tell people about it. Listed under Interest Categories, the new In-Market Buyers segments are designed to target visitors whose site visitation habits suggest they are in active-consideration mode and want to make a purchase. Using In Market Targeting, you can target consumers who are further down in the funnel and considering buying a product or service like yours. You're basically identifying people who want to make a purchase based on their search and site behavior, rather than specific behavior. Shout out to my friend and colleague David Szetela, Owner & CEO of paid search agency FMB Media, who spotted the quiet roll-out in several of his client accounts earlier this month and provided the screenshot above. 4) Dynamic Remarketing A third and final remarketing feature that made the list this year is Dynamic Remarketing. Retailers with a Google Merchant Center account can use dynamic remarketing to construct remarketing ads on the fly, using the products and messages predicted to perform best based on visitors' past actions on-site. For example, customers who browsed the dresses category on an advertiser's website might see an ad with an array of the exact products they've already viewed, in addition to related products from the company's catalog. In the screenshot above, the ad also shows details of a recently viewed dress, including the price. Dynamic Remarketing is an ideal solution for online retailers with thousands of different products. That's a lot of significant changes, so far. See what I mean? Google doesn't even TELL you about some of these. Stay put, because we're just getting to the Top 3 features of Enhanced Campaigns, which dominated the news for most of the year. 3) Location-Based Bid Management This favorite Enhanced Campaigns feature set allows for more precise geotargeting. Advertisers no longer have to create a separate campaign to target a specific state, city, or area code. This update made it possible to set bidding adjustments for specific locations within each campaign, making it a huge timesaver for PPC marketers. Location-based bid management is available in the Settings tab, under Locations > Edit Locations. Once you've added and saved your locations, Google will present a bid modifier for each location. Simple! These adjustments allow you to raise or lower bids in specific areas using positive or negative indicators. For example, a +15% adjustment for the city of New York tells AdWords you're willing to increase your maximum bid there by 15%. Conversely, a -10% adjustment means you want your max bid 10% lower in that geographical area. This is a fantastic tool that allows for much greater control over campaigns spanning a wide area. 2) Time-Based Bid Management The ability to schedule bid adjustments for specific times of day and days of the week is an incredibly valuable one for advertisers. You can choose to lower your max bid in the overnight hours, for example, or to increase your bids during hours of the day you've found more competitive. This feature is also found in the Settings tab, under Ad Schedule > Edit Ad Schedule. This works in the same way as location based bid management, in that you use a positive or negative percentage to indicate to Google the amount you wish to increase/decrease your bids at specific times. It gets REALLY granular when you begin using a few of these features together, to pinpoint exactly the right person, at the right time, with the right message. And my pick for the most impactful AdWords feature update of 2013: 1) Enhanced Sitelinks! New Enhanced Sitelinks provide advertisers with far greater control over the appearance of their ads. For example, you can now schedule your sitelinks to talk about lunch specials at lunch time, or dinner specials in the evening. (Genius!) Moreover, you can designate sitelinks as being mobile preferred, thus providing an opportunity to present ads that are more relevant to the user context (i.e. where, what time, and  from what device did the search originate from). Best of all, you can do all of this within a single campaign now. Furthermore you can now report on the performance of individual sitelinks – previously you could only report on groupings of sitelinks. For all of these reasons, new enhanced sitelinks in 2013 were far and away the most popular feature of Enhanced Campaigns this year. 2014 Promises More Change… Are You Ready? There may well be another thousand updates and tweaks to AdWords in the coming year, many of which will launch quietly, unannounced by Google and only discovered when we come across them in our accounts. There's still time to prepare! Start by goof-proofing your account to be sure you aren't making any rookie mistakes, then commit to getting more active in your account – even in 20 minutes a week, you can start making big improvements. Finally, enter for your chance to win a $25,000 Marketing Makeover courtesy of yours truly, including Google AdWords budget, email and PPC software to grow your business in 2014. Hurry, the contest closes December 15!

Marketing 2014: What To Expect Posted: 02 Dec 2013 01:43 PM PST While 2013 is coming to an end, marketers all over the world are thinking over the results of the year, new prospects of the upcoming year, new social media strategies and so on and so forth. WebDAM company found out that social media marketing will come to a head in the next few years, as it will be given more budget, and original content will become more important 'cause companies will compete for a share of the market to win users' attention. In 2014 marketers will use dynamic content  for targeted personalized audience at the right time at the right place. So, what should we wait for? Here are some hints: Budgets Are Growing We observe this tendency every year. Marketing budgets are growing. 55% of companies increased their digital marketing budget this year. And in 2014 marketing teams will spend $135 billion on Digital marketing support. SMM marketing budgets will double over the next 5 years. 73% of marketers who use PPC plan to increase their budget in 2014. PPC Online advertising is evolutionising, it is becoming more and more effective thanks to geo, age, interests targeting, etc. Up to 2015 online advertising will take 25% of the total advertising market. SMM There is a prejudice that social media is for teens. But the fastest growing age group in Twitter – 55-64 years. This figure has changed by 79% since 2012. The fastest growing demographic group in Facebook and Google+ – people aged 45 to 54 years. Today 93% of marketers are using SMM for business. Only 7% of marketers say that they don't use social media. 52% of companies have found new clients using LinkedIn in 2013.  Social networks buttons in the letters will increase CTR by 158%. Sounds good? SEO Some people think that SEO is dead, especially after the recent updates of Google. But it is not. And it helps in lead generation a lot. 33% of search engine traffic comes from the first position in SERP. Inbound Marketing And Content Strategy Inbound Marketing provides 54% more leads than traditional outbound marketing. 78% of CMOs believe that original content is the future of marketing. Almost 50% of companies have developed strategies for content marketing. 67% B2B marketers believe content marketing is one of the most effective strategies in online marketing. Corporate Blogging B2B companies that have a blog generate 67% more leads than companies that do not have a corporate blog. Although 62% of marketers have or plan to have a blog, only 9% of the U.S. marketing firms hire a full-time blogger. Visual Content 65% of people are visuals, which leads to a switch to visual content marketing. Visual content is processed by the brain 60 000 times faster than text. Video on landing pages increases conversion by 86%. 73% of journalists believe that press releases should contain photos. Mobility Very few people today haven't heard the statement that the world is going mobile. And that's true and marketers must take it into account. 5% of smartphone users from 18 to 44 years cannot remember the last time they were without their smartphones. About 25% cannot remember the last time their phone has been away from them – respectively, such people are always online.189 million Facebook users enter the social network using mobile devices. Facebook has millions of users who never go there from a computer or laptop, these people usually generate about 30% of the advertising revenue. This figure increased by 7% since 2012.

Creative Content Marketing Strategy: 5 Hot Tips For A Business Posted: 02 Dec 2013 01:06 PM PST Content marketing is more than just a hot topic in marketing circles. It’s actually a solid, reliable method for your business to engage with customers and spread the word about who you are and what you do. However, many businesses faced with the concept of content strategy freeze as if with stage fright. Content marketing can also seem like a lot of work, and this can be especially daunting for small businesses that do not have too many resources. Below are five tips for a creative content strategy that a company or organization of any size can put to use. Decide Who You Are The first key to successful creative content marketing is to decide who you are and how you want to convey that through content marketing. Is your business a warm and approachable knitting and craft store, a group of cutting-edge designers or a green-oriented building supply company? How can you convey that image through your content marketing? The craft store might go with a photo blog or Pinterest boards displaying customers’ recent creations while the cutting-edge designers might highlight news and information about design innovation and the building supply company could focus on tips for more sustainable living. Make a Plan How often will you post and what channels will you use? It’s better to post regularly but infrequently than in bursts followed by long silences, and your channels will depend upon the demographic you are hoping to reach. Some of your choices for content marketing include blogging, e-newsletters or mailing lists and various forms of social media. It’s better to focus on just a few outlets done thoroughly and effectively unless you are a company with enough resources to do it all. Curated Content Once you’ve decided who you are where you’d like to make yourself more visible, you may feel overwhelmed by the work ahead of you. However, providing good content isn’t about producing everything yourself. You can be a valuable resource for your customers by compiling links to information online. You might do this in the form of a weekly blog post or newsletter that curates all the news of the week relating to your field for example. Linking is also a good way to engage with others online and may encourage links back although this should not be the primary goal of content curation. Let Others Do the Work There are a number of other ways you can produce fresh and engaging content that is linked to the identity of your business. Guest blogging is often a win/win situation; your site gets more content while guest bloggers get more exposure. Customers can also be encouraged to share over social media, and that brings us to the final tip. Make Social Media Work for You Social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus can engage with customers in a way that encourages them to produce content rather than simply broadcasting messages. Open-ended questions get more substantial replies while more closed questions tend to get a higher volume of answers. A home improvement store could encourage people to post photos or stories of recent home improvement successes or even funny stories of failures as an open-ended question while it might simply ask people what room in their house they are currently improving to get a higher volume of quick responses. Whatever method you use in your content marketing strategy be creative and endeavour to listen to what people want and engage on their level. There is always a place for interesting, relevant and informative content. What creative initiatives have you deployed as part of your content marketing strategy?

Why is Video Marketing so Effective? Posted: 02 Dec 2013 06:09 AM PST There is an old saying: "a picture is worth 1,000 words." Well then, it would stand to draw the conclusion: if a picture is worth a 1,000 words, than an online a video is worth 30 pictures a second. If you haven't noticed the increasing frequency of video production used for content marketing and other general promotions, then here's an eye opener for you. Webinars, price quotes, surveys, demos, free trials, and even e-books are great as a part of your marketing strategy, but without a plan for video marketing, all of the above won't bring you the results you desire. A recent study done by Forbes Magazine shows 90% of marketing respondents prefer to incorporate video marketing to all of the mentioned methods above. But, Why is Video Marketing so Effective? Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D (a.k.a "The Brain Lady"), a speaker, author, and consultant for brands like Amazon, Disney, and Walmart, has uncovered why video marketing is a must have, in any marketing strategy. The reasons are simple: we, as humans, are programmed to respond to humans. Below are the psychological reasons, why we are drawn to video and why it is so effective. #1: The Fusiform Facial area makes us pay attention to faces – This is a brain function which programs us to use what we see in other human faces to interpret information and decide how believable something may be. So, viewing a speaking face, opposed to watching text scroll by, actually grabs our attention because we are programmed that way! #2: Voice conveys rich information – Not only does the added stimulus of a voice keep our attention, it also serves as a way to deliver a message and transform meaningless text into living, breathing content. #3: Emotions are contagious – Posting a message in a video also brings along the added advantage of spreading the excitement. We pick up on body language and emotion through video that we may miss when reading text. #4: Movement grabs attention – Movement keeps our attention and keeps us engaged in whatever is happening. Movement can also convey emotion and prompt viewers to get excited and stay stimulated throughout the video. So there is a science being all this video madness. Isn't it great! Yet more proof the power of video can transform the way you communicate to your customers and stakeholders.

6 Social Media Tips To Get the Most Out Of the Holidays Posted: 02 Dec 2013 05:54 AM PST I can't believe it, but it's already December, and the holidays are bearing down on us. While you're undoubtedly busy planning your personal social schedule with family and friends, now is also a perfect time to be planning your social media activity for the coming weeks. Planning can be critical to ensure you've got your ducks in a row for when you inevitably take a bit of time off to enjoy the season, and to sustain activity and engagement with your audience during this time. In the interest of avoiding over-used clichés and long-winded rambling, let's get into it: Plan your content calendars This is an obvious one, but certainly worth noting. Be sure that you not only have your December content calendar ready to publish (which you should already have), but that you have your January calendar ready to go as well. If you work with a team on content creation, or require any approvals from management, clients, legal, or anyone else, they aren't likely to be around during the latter part of the month to accommodate your requests. Therefore, be sure to have your January calendar prepped and ready for approvals well in advance of people taking off for the holiday. Spend a few extra minutes thinking about your holiday-specific content If Christmas, Boxing Day, or New Years Eve have any relevance to your business, brand or audience, which they likely do, then it might be worthwhile spending a bit of extra time thinking of how to create special content for those days. Sure, you can keep things simple and wish everyone a safe and happy holiday, but you could also embrace these days as a creative opportunity with your content. Have a monitoring schedule in place It would be easy to forget about your social media communities during the holidays, but the reality is that you should really try to keep an eye on any activity that might be going on during this busy time of year. Keep it simple by setting a schedule for yourself to login, quickly monitor and moderate, and then get back to enjoying some time off. Reflect on the year that is largely behind us There is a tremendous amount to be learned by reviewing past performance, amazing successes, and dramatic failures. Take some time before the craziness of the holidays to reflect on how things have gone for you and your business in 2013 on social media. You might be able to identify helpful trends, reinforce activity to avoid or not replicate, think about new ideas that haven't been explored, or more. Without a doubt, dedicating some time to reflect will be revealing, and of great benefit. Set goals for the coming year New Years Day represents a fresh beginning, and opportune time to enact resolutions and find ways to build upon successes of years past, and the same holds true for businesses, many of which have a fiscal year that mirrors the calendar year. While having a personal resolution to lay off fried food, or visit the gym more frequently are easy to identify and put into action, business resolutions – or goals to be more direct about it – should be more thoughtful and strategic, and thus, require more time to think about. So, if you haven't been thinking about your social media and content marketing goals for 2014, now is a perfect time to start. Take some time for yourself Taking time away from social media can be reinvigorating, energizing, and save you from being made fun of by your family and friends for your unhealthy obsession with checking Twitter and Pinterest. Remember to take some time for yourself and to not stress about the craziness of social media and content marketing; you deserve it. It's the holidays, and you really should be spending some quality time with the people who matter most to you. _ What are your tips and tricks for prepping for the holidays? If you have anything to add it would be great to hear from you in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial Original Post

Why Small Businesses Should be 100% Mobile-Focused in 2014 Posted: 02 Dec 2013 05:00 AM PST There was a time, just a few short years ago, when having a website was unnecessary. People looked up businesses using the phone book, and asked friends and family for recommendations. Businesses promoted themselves by advertising through traditional channels (like mailers, flyers, billboards, television ads, and magazine ads), or earned new business through word of mouth referrals. It was a simpler time. But then came the Internet. The website revolution At first, having a website wasn't that important. It wasn't a well-developed channel, and the majority of a business's customers still came from elsewhere. Over time, however, the Internet became more and more significant. Now, most businesses can't survive without their website. There are, of course, certain exceptions, but if you want to succeed nowadays, even as a small, local business, a website is generally a must-have. The same change is now taking place with mobile technology. Why the mobile revolution is the same Once, mobile phones were just like ordinary phones, without the cord. Now, each one is a miniature computer. And with the rise of smartphones and affordable data plans, consumers have eagerly made the switch from desktop browsing to mobile browsing. In fact, over half of Internet traffic comes from mobile devices in many industries and geographic locations. And even where the 50% mark hasn't been exceeded, the trend lines generally indicate that it will be soon enough. The world is going mobile. So, why is this a big deal? Well, if your website isn't mobile-optimized, you might as well not have one at all when it comes to mobile visitors. Sound extreme? Studies of user behavior show that if a site isn't mobile-optimized, most users hit the back button and rarely return. Instead, they head to competing websites and bring their business with them. If your website isn't mobile-optimized, you simply "don't exist" to what will soon the majority of users, if it hasn't happened already. It's a harsh reality, but there's also a huge opportunity to get ahead, if you're willing to meet the issue head on. Think mobile-first You wouldn't depend entirely on the phone book for your business, right? Mobile is coming to be the same way. Depending solely on a website that isn't mobile-optimized is a very costly mistake, and these losses will only grow in the coming year. For that reason, when it comes to the Internet and digital marketing, you need to think mobile first in 2014. That's where everyone will be. Help me go mobile! Click here to get started today.

10 Things You Can Do Today for Happier Call Center Agents Posted: 02 Dec 2013 04:00 AM PST Happiness in the call center is often considered an oxymoron. But the quality of your customer service depends on these people in a position that deals so much with anger, frustration, and stress. Happiness is so interesting, because we all have different ideas about what it is and how to get it. It's also no surprise that it's a key to organizations who outperform the competition with their customer service delivery. I'm generally happy, and people around be will back that up. I think that most people want to be happy too. This is an excerpt from BufferApp's original post on 10 simple things you can do today to make you happier, backed by science. I would love to be happier, as I'm sure most people would, so I thought it would be interesting to find some ways to become a happier person that are actually backed up by science. Here are ten of the best ones I found. 1. Exercise more – 7 minutes might be enough Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it's actually been proven to be an effective strategy for overcoming depression. In a study cited in Shawn Achor's book, The Happiness Advantage, three groups of patients treated their depression with either medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this study really surprised me. Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels to begin with, the follow up assessments proved to be radically different: The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent! 2. Sleep more – you'll be less sensitive to negative emotions We know that sleep helps our bodies to recover from the day and repair themselves, and that it helps us focus and be more productive. It turns out, it's also important for our happiness. In one experiment by Walker, sleep-deprived college students tried to memorize a list of words. They could remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like "cancer." But they could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like "sunshine" or "basket." The BPS Research Digest explores another study that proves sleep affects our sensitivity to negative emotions. Using a facial recognition task over the course of a day, the researchers studied how sensitive participants were to positive and negative emotions. Those who worked through the afternoon without taking a nap became more sensitive late in the day to negative emotions like fear and anger. 3. Move closer to work – a short commute is worth more than a big house Our commute to the office can have a surprisingly powerful impact on our happiness. The fact that we tend to do this twice a day, five days a week, makes it unsurprising that its effect would build up over time and make us less and less happy. According to The Art of Manliness, having a long commute is something we often fail to realize will affect us so dramatically: … while many voluntary conditions don't affect our happiness in the long term because we acclimate to them, people never get accustomed to their daily slog to work because sometimes the traffic is awful and sometimes it's not. Or as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert put it, "Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day." 4. Spend time with family and friends Staying in touch with friends and family is one of the top five regrets of the dying. If you want more evidence that it's beneficial for you, I've found some research that proves it can make you happier right now. Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel, generally. 5. Go outside, get fresh air In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor recommends spending time in the fresh air to improve your happiness: Making time to go outside on a nice day also delivers a huge advantage; one study found that spending 20 minutes outside in good weather not only boosted positive mood, but broadened thinking and improved working memory… This is pretty good news for those of us who are worried about fitting new habits into our already-busy schedules. Twenty minutes is a short enough time to spend outside that you could fit it into your commute or even your lunch break. 6. Help others One of the most useful pieces of advice I found is that to make yourself feel happier, you should help others. In fact, 100 hours per year (or two hours per week) is the optimal time we should dedicate to helping others in order to enrich our lives. In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman explains that helping others can improve our own lives: …we scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested. 7. Practice smiling – it can alleviate pain Smiling itself can make us feel better, but it's more effective when we back it up with positive thoughts. According to PsyBlog, smiling can improve our attention and help us perform better on cognitive tasks: Smiling makes us feel good which also increases our attentional flexibility and our ability to think holistically. When this idea was tested by Johnson et al. (2010), the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the trees. 8. Plan a trip – but don't take one As opposed to actually taking a vacation, it seems that planning a vacation or just a break from work can improve our happiness. A study published in the journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life showed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage of a vacation as employees enjoyed the sense of anticipation: In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks. After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people. Shawn Achor has some info for us on this point, as well: One study found that people who just thought about watching their favorite movie actually raised their endorphin levels by 27 percent. If you can't take the time for a vacation right now, or even a night out with friends, put something on the calendar—even if it's a month or a year down the road. Then whenever you need a boost of happiness, remind yourself about it. 9. Meditate – rewire your brain for happiness Meditation is often touted as an important habit for improving focus, clarity and attention span, as well as helping to keep you calm. It turns out it's also useful for improving your happiness: Meditation literally clears your mind and calms you down, it's been often proven to be the single most effective way to live a happier live. According to Shawn Achor, meditation can actually make you happier long-term: Studies show that in the minutes right after meditating, we experience feelings of calm and contentment, as well as heightened awareness and empathy. And, research even shows that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness. The fact that we can actually alter our brain structure through mediation is most surprising to me and somewhat reassuring that however we feel and think today isn't permanent. 10. Practice gratitude – increase both happiness and life satisfaction This is a seemingly simple strategy, but I've personally found it to make a huge difference to my outlook. There are lots of ways to practice gratitude, from keeping a journal of things you're grateful for, sharing three good things that happen each day with a friend or your partner, and going out of your way to show gratitude when others help you. The Journal of Happiness studies published a study that used letters of gratitude to test how being grateful can affect our levels of happiness. The results indicated that writing letters of gratitude increased participants' happiness and life satisfaction, while decreasing depressive symptoms. See? Happiness isn't hard. You don't need more money, a better job, a fancy car, or have to depend on others to do it for you. You are in control. You have the power to be happy. So go out there and do it. If you aren't in a good situation, a circumstance where you are happy: choose to change it. Then go and do it.

The Importance of Excellent Customer Service & Feedback Surveys Posted: 02 Dec 2013 03:30 AM PST Is offering a good customer service important? Of course it is. You don't need me to tell you that, because we all know it already. Although that's a sure truth, it doesn't harm anybody to take a look at the stats showing why we need to pay attention to this part of our businesses. Customer service is important because it can make the difference in your business. It can be the reason for a customer to switch either towards you or towards your competitors, depending on who offers the best customer service. A research conducted by RightNow on Customer Experience Impact in 2011 revealed that 89% of customers gave up being a company's client and turned to competitors after receiving poor customer service. That's quite a high percentage, definitely worth considering before raising the voice at your client because he's asking you the same question over and over again. Providing quality customer service is even important when it comes to pricing: as the data from a Customer Experience Survey says, 86% of customers are willing to pay a company more money just to get better customer service and to feel more valued as a client. While we already concluded good customer experience through offering quality service is important, unfortunately only 37% of brands got scores like "good" or "excellent" for their customer service, the rest ended up with values like "average", "poor" or "very poor", according to Forrester's Customer Experience study from 2012. Thus, clients have pre-defined standards and ideas on how their experience with the brand or the company should be and, eventually, they're straight forwarded when it comes to rating your service. Considering the facts, there's absolutely no doubt every company should provide not just customer service, but excellent customer service. Besides the key-data presented above, one more reason speaks for striving towards high-quality customer service. That reason emerges from the practical aspect that keeping a customer is generally more cost- and time-effective than trying to find a new one. Hence, you might consider undertaking measures to at least maintain customer satisfaction, if not try to constantly raise it, because a satisfied customer is a loyal customer. And a loyal customer might become a brand advocate for your company, promoting it to their environment and, directly or not, recommending it to others. What about feedback surveys (customer satisfaction surveys)? One crucial step towards maintaining or raising customer satisfaction is through running feedback surveys. Such type of research can be conducted by yourself, as long as you have an online tool aiding you in this process. A free or paid survey building tool can enhance the feedback gathering while offering multiple customization & publishing options. Feedback surveys have become more and more popular because of the advantages that come to light after conceiving a feedback survey and publishing it on your website, blog or even Facebook page: - you give your clients the opportunity to tell you what they like/dislike regarding your business or your product - it's a good way of finding out what your customers really want, instead of assuming that you know what they desire - you can correct past actions and practices which didn't appeal to your customer - future actions and business strategies can be planned to be more effective and more customer-oriented - the business budget can be directed towards the aspects your clients suggest you, thus you avoid throwing money in vain. A tricky thing about customer satisfaction surveys lies in the way they're designed. Oftentimes, companies run long and boring surveys which just annoy the customer and don't really provide useful (honest) data. Did it happen to you to purchase an online product from a big seller and afterwards receive a feedback survey through your email, asking how your overall experience was? Because it happened to me. Since I didn't have a reason of discontentment and the survey was quite complex, I just didn't feel like filling it out. If you want your survey to have a high completion rate, keep it short and simple (that's always a good advice, even when it comes to market research). You can opt, for example, for asking just one or two questions on core aspects you want to find out and post them on your website or Facebook page. By giving people the opportunity to find the survey themselves on your site, they'll feel more likely to share their feedback with you. Thus, not stuffing a questionnaire under your visitor's nose might be more action-inviting for them. While these are a few recommendations which evolved from user experience, fact is that a good mixture between listening to your customers' feedback and offering them good service should generally be an infallible recipe to success. Image courtesy of stockimages/freedigitalphotos.net

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