Marketing, Communication, and Connection Changes

For a business to succeed, the products, services, and messages that marketers are sending to consumers must fit upcoming trends to guarantee that marketing strategies meet what the consumers are interested in.

According to a forecast done by JWT Intelligence, a marketing and communications consulting firm, upcoming trends will be determined by different factors like advancing technology, the idea of shared responsibility, and the economic situation. If marketers consider these in their coming efforts to gain and appeal to consumers, they have a higher chance of keeping up with consumer needs.

Through the efforts of JWT in determining trends in the coming year, here are some of the changes in marketing, communication, and connection that marketers are going to see next year.

More Accessible Products and Services – due to the economic situation, marketers must find a way to make their products more economic-friendly. Consumers are faced with budgeting their money, but you still want them to purchase your goods. Try to reinvent products that will be inexpensive to consumers. Businesses can try to repack their products in smaller containers and sell them at a lower price, rather than offer bigger ones that may take them off budget.

Live a Little – consumers are more restrained now when it comes to purchasing products and services, but they are also found to willingly spend a little on things that will make them feel that they are not missing out on life. Marketers can take advantage of this by sending marketing messages on how consumers can still enjoy the pleasures of life with your product and services.

New Generation Business Owners – there are a lot of young entrepreneurs these days. Marketers need to create marketing and communication strategies that will appeal to these entrepreneurs.

Shared Value – due to cultural shifts and the rise of shared value, marketers must look into building their brands by establishing partnerships with local non-profit causes. This strategy will benefit the business through exposure and good cause, and at the same time benefits customers and the society.

Eco-Friendly Foods – consumers are becoming aware of the environmental impacts of food choices. Marketers can include in their marketing message about how their brand is helping the environment, in any way, in terms of producing goods. Consumers will be more inclined to go for products that are eco-friendly in the coming year.

Single Adults – because there are a lot of women these days that prefer to live on their own, marketers should reinvent their image of single adults. Successful women these days are buying their own property, therefore it is a good time to recreate messages that will appeal to single adults, especially to women.

A Dose of the Unexpected – reinventing randomness, different points of view, inspiration, and discovery will play a key part in upcoming trends. Giving consumers something different and random will benefit marketers if they want to attract and maintain consumer interest.

Touchscreens – touchscreen devices like tablets are really popular these days. It is interactive, easy to use, and appealing to consumers. Marketers can make use of these devices to attract consumers. Last year, Burberry placed iPads in their stores so customers can easily browse through their collections.

Redefine Aging – people are now more comfortable with and positive about aging. Marketers need to redefine how consumers view their age and the elderly. They can do this by choosing people with more depth and texture instead of the young skinny girls to represent their brands.

Premium Offerings – through technology, products are giving consumers the experience of receiving something more appealing. Marketers should focus on showing the premium offerings their products have to increase customer experience. Products can create unique and valuable gifts for others, such as the Postagram app by Sincerly. The app allows users to snap photos and send them as postcards; this adds a more personal touch to the postcard increasing its value for the customer.

JWT’s forecast results are based from a year-long study of consumer and market trends. The study used different research approaches to give businesses tips on what to expect from consumers this coming year. Businesses are dedicated to determining upcoming consumer trends because this is a way to keep that connection between consumers and what businesses can offer. Marketing strategies are also built on consumer trends to make sure that they hit the right mark with the way they communicate and market their products and services.

Author:
Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog and CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of #brandchat - a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

Why Gaming Plays a Part of Marketing

We are exposed to a lot of games and it is part of growing up. Today, there is a wide range of ways where people can play, like video games and games available on social media sites. The reality is that gaming attracts a huge audience. This makes gaming a good marketing opportunity. 

We are not just talking about creating a game where gamers can see your brand while playing it. Marketers and website product managers are using a marketing strategy called gamification. Gamification is a way to engage audiences into meeting a marketer’s goal by using game-design techniques. The purpose of using game-design techniques is to push audiences to progress until they reach a goal. Goals depend on what a company aims to achieve.

Advantages of Adding Gaming as a Marketing Strategy

A lot of businesses are using the gaming technique to keep customers engaged and interested to a certain product or service. It is always a good idea to hold consumer interest and with the right gaming plan, this will prove beneficial to any marketer. Gamification is not playing games; it is more of using the dynamics of gaming as a web marketing strategy. It is a way of getting the right behavior from your audience. To achieve this, you present them with challenges with rewards at the end of every challenge. This gives them the sense of progress and something that they will enjoy.

If you are worried about your audience, according to Forrester, just about everyone is playing games. Anyone who uses the Internet can easily be attracted to the right game. This is why gamification is used by a lot of companies as a web marketing strategy. And through gamification, people are encouraged to do tasks that are ordinarily considered boring.

Companies who use Gaming

Companies are including gaming as part of their efforts to attract and maintain customers. Here are some companies that are gamifying their web marketing strategy.

·         Nike – Nike is gamifying the exercise experience by using an iOS app. The app allows you to save runs, set goals, and challenge friends who are also using the app. Users will recognize the Nike brand and will continue to buy Nike+ supported shoes. The app stays too because it makes working out fun and you can compare workout results with friends. Once you reach your goal of outrunning your friends, you can either get bragging rights or you get a healthy and balanced body as a prize.

·         Starbucks – the company together with Foursquare, rewarded customers who checked in to multiple locations and gained a “Barista” badge. A customer must check in to 5 different Starbucks branch before they can unlock the badge. Loyal customers get $1 off as mayors special. This strategy engages a customer to keep choosing Starbucks every time they feel like having coffee and to keep using the Foursquare app to earn badges.

·         Groupon – this company is the fastest-growing company, ever. It uses game-design techniques in a way that a progress bar shows how many have brought a deal or how many are needed to unlock a deal, the amount of savings you get once a deal is unlocked, then the rewarding feeling of getting a good deal.

·         Twitter – social media sites are good examples of gaming. Twitter uses gaming in a way that users are engaged to attracting followers. Those who do not have a Twitter account hear about it and create their own account and starts following others. The quality of your profile determines how many followers you can attract.

Gaming offers a lot of advantages to any company, but it requires careful planning. It is important that you have an objective in adding gaming to your website. Stick to your business goals and figure out what you want to achieve and how you can achieve it with gaming. Once you have your objectives, create a path to your goals and think how you can make your audience behave in a way to meet your goals. Think of ways of how to reward your audience. It can be anything from monetary (discounted products), followers (sense of importance), or anything that will make a person feel good about themselves.

In the end, incorporating gaming into your web marketing strategy rewards you with customer loyalty and the possibility of gaining more customers through word of mouth.

Author:
Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog and CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of#brandchat - a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

Email Marketing Done Right

Email marketing is a powerful, cost-effective and flexible way of marketing a business. If done right, you can attract customers, increase sales, spread brand awareness, generate leads, and save time while reducing marketing cost. A lot of people have an email address, and because of technology, most of consumers can read their emails directly from their mobile phones. This gives email marketing a wide reach.

It is easy to create an email about your business and send them out, but how effective is it? Because you are marketing your business, you want to make sure that people will open, read, and contact you after reading the email. Email marketing is a powerful marketing tool and you want it to be effective to ensure that all efforts return by means of reaching your goal.

There are a lot of ways on how to make email marketing work for you. You need patience and strategy like taking time to write the right content, building a list of target customers, and timing when and how to send your email.

Here are some tips on how to make email marketing work for you:

The Email Content & Design – You want people to read and know more about what you are marketing. Before you can do this, you have to make sure that your content is designed to engage a reader. What you can do is create magazine-like content instead of the normal email format. Add videos and links in your content; make it creative so the person who is looking at your email does not delete it right away. Keep them engaged and give them teasers of articles of what they can find on your website.

Adding active links to your content will also increase your reader’s interest. Make it easy for them to find and learn more about what you are marketing. According to HubSpot, placing the right amount of links on your content will give a higher clickthrough rate. Placing a lot of links in your content will also decrease the unsubscribe rate. Don’t forget to add link tracking on your content because this gives you an idea on the effectiveness of your email.

Make sure that your content is mobile friendly. A lot of people are opening their emails on their smartphones and when they do, this might be the only chance you get with them. It is important that you give them the right impression. Choosing the right subject line is crucial because you want your recipient to open your email. Use subject lines like Posts, Jobs, Survey, and E-newsletter rather than Confirm, Features, Magic, and Raffle.

The List – once you are sending the right email, you start building a list of subscribers. It is important that you manage your list of subscribers by sending them news about your business. Track your emails and watch those that bounce and try to reconnect with them through Twitter or LinkedIn. This will give your subscribers a sense that you value their interest in your business. Start conversations or direct them to your social sites like Twitter or Facebook.

How and When to Send – now it is time to choose the right Email Service Provider (ESP) for your business. Choose a provider that will give you a high deliverability rate, provides reporting, reasonable price, and comes with high quality service. Once you have an ESP, the timing of sending your emails is crucial. According to HubSpot, the best times of the week to send emails are towards the weekend, from Friday to Sunday. These days show that readers are more engaged to look at your content than any other days of the week. Clickthrough rates are higher during these days and readers have more time to understand what you are marketing. In terms of time-of-day, clickthrough rates are highest during early morning and drops to its lowest during the afternoon, then it rises up again as it approaches midnight.

Now that you have your content and you have an idea when to send it out to your readers, it is time to track your email’s success. Look at your email metrics and study how many of your readers opened and clicked-through. You can also track your web metrics and study the traffic that goes to your website. Look at the stats and wait for feedback.

These are all essential in your email marketing success because you will be given an idea of how to improve your next email campaign. You will have an idea of what works for your readers and what topics have grabbed the most attention. Do not be afraid to experiment with topics and timing. And whatever happens, respect your list of readers. In any business, you do your best to give your customers the sense of importance and your business will have a higher chance of succeeding.

Author:
Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog and CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of#brandchat - a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

Product Review: Producteev

Task management is something that many of us practice. We sort, organize, and create an agenda in order to make our work days more efficient. To aid us in our task management, Producteev has created a solution to help us manage our work. This software is still new to the market, but has much potential, and it can be quite useful for anyone, not just businesses.

Task management has been something we each do ourselves. When we want to work, we turn off our cell-phones, avoid messages, and even e-mails. But those dings and alerts tend to still get us. They distract us from what we’re doing, even if it’s for just a second. Then, out of curiosity, we find ourselves checking our messages. That seems a little counterproductive to what we’re trying to do- work. This is where Prodcteev comes in.

Producteev is designed to help you organize your day, set time allotments for work, and even allow you to receive messages when you’re ready for them, rather than filling your workspace up with data that has to wait. Overall, the idea is awesome and very affordable. You can start with a minimum setup for free. The regular, which has email abilities, is only five dollars a month. With the email options, comes the ability to add, review, and sort tasks, set deadlines, and upload your files.

When you’re using the management system, your emails can be forwarded to Producteev, and they will create a task list and send you alerts when needed. Wherever your workspace is preferred, whether it be through instant messaging, email, web, phone, or Gmail, they can help you manage your tasks through these mediums. This provides a wide outlet of available task sourcing so that you can be reached just about anywhere you are.

A bonus app was designed for the iPhone, offering some rather cool options. You can choose and structure a schedule for when you want to be able to receive messages and alerts. You can even set up important notifications that you want to alert you when you need them too. Say for instance that you need to focus on work, so you have your alerts turned off. In case of emergency, those alerts of your choosing can still alert you so that you don’t have to turn your phone off to avoid unnecessary calls.

Unfortunately, the iPhone is the only mobile device to have the app, so far. Until they have apps for the droid and other cellular devices, your best bet is to simply turn them to silent until you’re ready to be in contact again.

The nice thing about Producteev is that it works both online or offline. Scheduling and alerts still go on as scheduled, allowing you to continue keeping your agenda no matter where you are. You can label, arrange, organize your schedule, and then have complete access to it whether or not you’re uplinked to the system.

The compatibility with Google is nice. Gmail and Google Calendar both have the ability to sync with Producteev to keep your agenda flowing smoothly. You don’t have to jump around to try to find out where you need to be. Everything can be centralized in one place to keep things simple for you. Producteev also has compatibility with Outlook in order to expand its coverage to ensure a quality task management system.

Overall, Producteev is a handy tool for the business person on the go. We don’t all have time to manage our time, and it can be worth it to have a helping hand ready to take some of the load. While it isn’t as available for the cellular systems as it could be, there is still time to expand their horizon. If you’re in need of a good task management system, Producteev is affordable and can make your day flow smoothly as planned.
Author:
Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog and CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of#brandchat - a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

Your Facebook Contact Information

Almost everyone is on Facebook nowadays and even businesses and professionals have set up an account to take advantage of the marketing opportunity. Facebook is ranked with the highest usage compared to other social network sites. With over 250 million active users around the world, whatever you are marketing, you have a high chance of attracting customers to your business.

Facebook makes it easy for people to create profiles. It is interactive, efficient, effective, and easy to maintain. Professionals rely on Facebook profiles nowadays as a way to look at the information they need about a person or business. If you are someone who is marketing something and you want to promote and attract people to your profile, it is essential that you have all the information that your target market is looking for, like your contact information.

It is essential that your contact information is easily found on your page. Once people get to your page and you catch their interest, they will want to know how to get in touch with you. The contact information on your Facebook page can be found at the bottom of your “Info” page. The location might sometimes be difficult for others to see, so as a social media marketing strategy, you want people to see your contact information right away or at least where it is more accessible.

If you are confused on how to define accessible, the website Mashable released a heatmap that determines the part of your profile that gets the most clicks. The clicks tell you where others go when they visit your profile. This gives you an idea on where you can make your contact information accessible.

Here are some of the top spots where you can place your contact information:

Profile Picture – this part of your profile is found to be the most clicked on part in a Facebook page. Normally, when people like your profile picture, they leave comments. What you can do is comment on your own photo. In the comment box, leave your contact information and any link where they can easily connect with you or find more information about you. If you have a website or you want them to follow you on Twitter, you can just link them. This strategy will make it easier for others to know more about you. You can be creative in what you input there to get your visitors' attention.

Employment Section – this is the second most clicked area on a Facebook page. This is where you put your employment information including history. This part will give your visitors an understanding of what you do and where you get your work experiences. Almost all businesses have their own Facebook page now and putting your employer details there will link them to your employer’s main Facebook page.

If you have your own business Facebook page, what you can do is put your own page under the employer category. This strategy directs them to more information about what you do rather than direct them to your employer’s page where they cannot see any information about you.

Info Tab – people also look at this part of your Facebook page, so you want to make sure that your information is there when they click it. Notice that when you click on your info tab, your employer is the first thing that you see. What you can do is place active hyperlinks of your own in the description section of your employer details. This is another way of giving people more information of what you do or what you want them to see that is related to what you do. Placing them where they can easily see it is another strategy that will generate more visitors to your own sites.

If you notice, Facebook’s format always puts your contact information at the bottom of the info page. This is true for the old and new format. Take advantage of placing your contact information in accessible places where your visitors no longer need to scroll down to the bottom of your page.

With the new format, you have the “About” page. If you click on it, the first that you will see is your employer. Again, make sure to include your details and active links in the description box. When you scroll down, that is where you see all your contact details. What you can do is place links to your website or Facebook page in the “About” section on the right side of the page. This saves your visitors time in finding your contact information or any links that you want to direct them to.

Author:
Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog and CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of #brandchat - a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

Al Gore and The Cloud

The blessing for which I am most grateful this Christmas season is Al Gore's invention of the internet. Al freed us from dealing with the mall's frenzied Christmas crazies. Surely he deserves at lease one Nobel prize for science and technology. There are obvious Orwellian consequences to living on the internet. The large and small details of our lives are stored on servers throughout the world. I'm not going to rage against the world wide web machine. That ship didn't just sail. We freely boarded the good ships Facebook, Google and Amazon.com. Our willingness to cruise the internet sea may, however, be a torpedo aimed at squarely at the bow of battleship Microsoft.

As I write these words, the processor in my computer is being intermittently highjacked by a half dozen computer processes. I witness this highjacking by running the Windows task manager. Task manager shows me not only what programs I am running, but what programs are running me. I see my processor utilization percentage leap to ninety percent. The computer won't even allow me to type. All I can do is yell, “Give me back my damn cursor.”

Why does my computer begin taking orders from some higher power than me? Every time, we start our internet connected computers, many of the programs we have installed call home across the internet the way E.T. called home. They call home to check for updates. For the most part, these updates are bug fixes. Isn't that a good thing?

In moderation, instant bug fixes are a good idea. However, when you have twenty programs all checking for updates at the same time, your computer doesn't have the processing capability to work for you. It is entirely a slave to internet updates. Goodbye productive time.

We are living through the beginning of an historic transition in the computer industry. E.T.'s phoning home destroys the productivity of hundreds of millions of computer users around the world. A lot of smart people have noticed – even at Microsoft. We are witnessing the true acceptance of cloud computing. Ten years ago, we flirted with the cloud, but ultimately returned to our Windows desktops. The cloud models of the early 2000's suffered from poor design and not enough internet bandwidth. But, like Freddy Krueger, cloud computing came back and back and back. Now cloud computing is back to stay.

What is cloud computing? Cloud computing is letting someone else host your programs and data. Think of cloud computing at the far right end of a computing continuum. On the far left, the computer processor and hard drive file storage are on the computer or a network of computers in your office. At the far right end, you have true or complete cloud computing where both your processing and data storage are on someone else's computer or computer network. In between are a whole bunch of hybrid models.

One hybrid model is called the hosted application model. In fact, there are a number of different hosted applications models. For example, we no longer maintain an e-mail server on our premises. We use a program called Microsoft Exchange along with Microsoft Outlook. In early summer, we exchanged our Exchange server for an Exchange server hosted by a company specializing in hosted solutions. The computers in our office originate our e-mail, provide the program to read our e-mail, and initiate changes to our calendars. However, all of our e-mails and calendars reside on someone else's server.

Why did we outsource the data storage for our e-mail and calendars? We didn't have the resources to manage the storage effectively. I personally save thirty minutes each morning, because their spam blocker is ten times more effective than ours. I don't spend forty minutes each morning deleting penis enlargement ads. (How do the spammers know? By the way, they don't work either.) I spend ten minutes. We don't have to worry about backing up the data or applying the at least weekly updates to Microsoft Exchange. Their spam program alone is saving me one hundred hours annually. Imagine those savings multiplied across an entire company. This increase in productivity is the promise of cloud computing.

Our hosted Exchange model is a rudimentary version of a hosted application. We still have a lot of computing resources in our office devoted to e-mail and calendar processing. Our e-mail writer and reader, Outlook, is still uses the processors in our office computers and is stored on our hard drives.

A more advanced hosted application model stores both programs and data on a remote server and only uses local computers for actual processing. This is really server leasing. You take everything, programs and data, located on your in-house server and move it to a remote server. Application hosts are now specializing by industry. For instance, there are companies now specializing in CPA firms.

There are still downsides to the various hosted application flavors. First, you are still running the same desktop applications. They are just located on someone else's server. That someone else takes care of backups and program patches, but the program patches still exist. You are also still dependent on the processing power of your individual computer and the operating system running on it. You are still cruising on battleship Microsoft.

The second big disadvantage of the hosted application model is that large amounts of internet bandwidth are required for your office computer, which is still actually running the applications, to communicate with the servers storing your data. Large amounts of data pass through your internet provider. You still pay dearly for large amounts of bandwidth even if you don't pay nearly as much as you would have ten years ago.

The submarine, with torpedoes aimed at battleship Microsoft, is true cloud computing. With true cloud computing, both your processing and storage are moved to remote servers. The computers in your office are merely the screens that display program output and keyboards that provide input. They are just devices to interact with the servers in the cloud. You probably don't even know the actual geographic locations of your programs and data.

The programs you run in the cloud are called multi-tenant programs. That means you aren't leasing a dedicated server and processor as with hybrid cloud models. You are sharing remote servers and processors with perhaps thousands or even millions of other users. Google Apps is a perfect example of true cloud computing. You neither know nor care where your programs and data reside as long as you can interact with them from anywhere with an internet connection. Another good example is QuickBooks online. If you have an internet browser, you have access to your accounting data.

There are important computer hardware and operating system consequences from true cloud computing. First, you no longer need powerful desktop computers. If the programs aren't running on your computer, you don't need a powerful computer on your desk. You just need an appliance to access the internet. Even smart phones don't have to be very smart to operate cloud applications.

Second, you no longer need a powerful operating system running in the computer on your desk. The operating system, typically Windows, provides services your programs need to operate. If your programs aren't operating on your desktop computer, you don't need a powerful operating system. This is the torpedo aimed at battleship Microsoft. Microsoft has controlled you by controlling your computer's operating system. If a program doesn't run on Windows, and you aren't an Apple user, you can't use that program.

Microsoft was slow to recognize the consequences of the cloud, but they finally caught on and offer versions of their popular desktop products like Excel and Word in the cloud. Microsoft was also slow to recognize the importance of the internet in the nineties, but they caught up, and Internet Explorer took over the browser market despite playing catchup. Does anyone remember Netscape? Netscape was clearly superior to Explorer, but Microsoft manipulated the Windows operating system to favor Explorer. They dealt a death blow to Netscape when Explorer became part of Windows. Microsoft controlled your operating system. So eventually they controlled the program to ran to access the internet.

The cloud is different, however. With true cloud computing, the operating system you use to access your programs in the cloud is irrelevant. Any operating system will do. In fact the simpler and faster the better. If you are frustrated with waiting fifteen minutes for your computer to start in the morning, the cloud promises instant on computer hardware. Imagine that – you flip the switch and your computer is on. You flip it again and your computer turns off.

Since the operating system is irrelevant accessing the cloud, Microsoft must compete on a level playing field with cloud applications from other providers like Google and Yahoo. In fact Microsoft is way behind and has expensive cloud solutions. The torpedoes haven't sunk Microsoft yet. The company is full of smart people and has survived and prospered from change before. But the cloud is a real, credible threat.

How should small business owners approach cloud computing? First, understand that the computer file server in your office may be the last one you ever own. In the near future, you will spending substantially less on computer hardware but substantially more on software hosting and services. We are quickly moving away from a business model of purchasing software to a business model where we will rent software. I can't promise you lower total costs, but I am really certain our productivity will increase as we spend less time waiting for our computers to pay attention to what we want to accomplish. We'll get our damn cursors back.

Second, inventory your mission critical computer applications. Begin determining which ones are moving to the cloud. E-mail and calendar applications are already there. Depending on the features you need in an accounting software package, the cloud might meet your needs now. More likely, your accounting is a couple years away from the cloud.

Third, contact a few hosting companies. Find out what they offer and do a cost comparison to determine if switching to a hosted solution will save you money. Don't just look at hard costs. Consider productivity increases and decreases in the time required to maintain your internal systems. I am betting you will decide to move at least some of your applications to some sort of cloud solution. We moved our e-mail and calendaring. Our project management is a true cloud solution. I foresee our income tax preparation program moving to the cloud in two or three years. I am determined to never buy another five grand computer file server.

Please check out our main S&k web site at www.skcpas.com. Thanks for reading!

Frank

The Importance of Niche

In the highly competitive world of today, having a strong personal brand is what makes you stand out among the rest and be successful in your chosen field. It’s not enough to have the knowledge, skills and abilities to perform the job anymore, when there are others out there who say the same thing about themselves. To classify yourself as the true expert, you need to offer something unique and different, something that only you can provide, and this is basically what personal branding is all about.

One of the first things you need to do in order to establish your personal brand is to identify your niche. Whether you’re a direct seller, an executive, or a small business owner, defining your niche market is the essential first step before going ahead with the rest of your personal branding campaign. This will essentially be the foundation of your personal brand, and without it, your brand is simply going to fail.

Why exactly is this so? Why is finding your niche so important? Here are the reasons:

1.   It gives you a clear vision of what you need to do

People are bombarded with so much noise and information nowadays that if you don’t clearly define what you want to do, then they’re just going to move on from the products or services that you’re offering. Knowing your niche will give you a clear vision of what goals you want to achieve and what steps you need to take to achieve these goals. You also have a clearer vision of how to tailor your products or services to suit your target audience.

2.   It gives you a specific topic to focus on

The market is so highly saturated that you really need to have a specific topic you want to tackle in order to stand out from the crowd. Maybe you want to focus on blogging, but can you just imagine how many people out there are already talking about blogging? How do you differentiate yourself? This is why you have to choose your niche carefully. Narrow down your focus. Blogging for stay at home moms, for example, would be a better market because it is a lot more specific and targeted. You can now go into detail about this topic because you clearly have an idea about the niche market you’re targeting.

3.   You can more easily position yourself as the expert

When you find your niche market, it is a lot easier to position yourself as the expert that people look up to. First of all, there’s less competition – imagine the number of bloggers out there compared to bloggers who are also stay at home moms. Second, a niche market will give you more focused topics to talk about, which makes it easier to become the go-to person for your chosen niche. Third, with a clearly defined niche market, you would know exactly where to go to find your target audience. It’s a lot easier for you to find related groups, blogs, communities, networks, and so on.

Now that you understand the importance of finding your niche, how exactly do you define who your niche market is? Here are some tips:

·         Know what you’re passionate about – though you may be interested in a lot of topics, there is surely one topic that you find yourself very passionate about, and this should be the basis of your niche market. When you’re passionate about something, it clearly shows in what you do, and this is what you want your target audience to see, so they can share in your passion.

·         Know what makes you different – to effectively position yourself in the market, you need to identify what separates you from all the others who may be offering similar products or services. What can you bring to the table that no one else has? This is basically your unique selling proposition, which is a vital part of your personal brand.

·         Know your target audience’s pain – What do you need to address? What is it that you offer that can solve problems or offer solutions to your target market? You need to be able to offer your niche market something of value, something that they need, that only you can give.

The importance of knowing your niche for your personal brand cannot be stressed. It can be the difference between success and failure. So make sure you clearly define your niche market before proceeding with the other steps of your personal branding campaign. 

Author:
Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog, CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of #brandchat - a weekly twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

Talking the Talk

Successful people know the importance of having a distinctive and strong personal brand. Wherever you go, whatever you do, your reputation precedes you, so having a strong personal brand can ensure that you will survive even if you get laid off from your job or have to move to another town or state to start over.

Nowadays, there are so many tools you can utilize in order to establish your personal brand. The online world has given people the ability to create a name for themselves without having to spend too much – through blogging, networking, and social media, there are so many ways for you to create a powerful online presence that people can look up to and admire.

But even if you have a strong personal brand in the online world, you need to remember that establishing yourself offline is just as important. And one of the most powerful things you can do for your personal brand in the real world is to speak in public.

You see, your personal brand is basically how people perceive you, and it is directly linked to what people’s experiences of you are and how they are exposed to you. When you place too much emphasis on your online reputation without considering your offline one, then you limit how people perceive you.

This is why even politicians who have successfully utilized online tools such as networking and social media to become popular, but don’t know how to speak well to an audience about their viewpoints, can never succeed in their political campaign. There’s just something about hearing someone passionately speak about their ideas and opinions that really resonates with people – and this is why public speaking is one of the best tools you can utilize for your personal brand.

Other reasons why public speaking should be part of your branding campaign:

·         It positions you as the expert – most people assume that if you’re qualified enough to speak in a roomful of people with confidence, then you’re most likely an expert on the subject.

·         It builds your credibility – there’s a reason why not everyone is a sought-after speaker; becoming one can definitely help you build credibility in your chosen niche.

·         It helps people get to know you – in branding, it’s important that people know you and what you’re about. Speaking in public can help people get to know you better so people relate with you and remember you.

So how do you use speaking to promote your personal brand? What are some of the best practices when speaking in public?

1.   Choose your topic well

It’s important that you speak about a topic you’re passionate about and that means something to you. People can easily see if you’re really into a topic or you’re just forcing yourself to speak. It should also be a topic you’re already familiar with and something that you have personal experience with. This is important in establishing your personal brand and your expertise.

2.   Know your audience

You should know your audience and what they’re interested in so that you can tailor your presentation to address them. If you’re addressing a group of social media managers, for example, you may want to refrain from going over social media once again and how it can help businesses – you should offer something different, something new that offers them value.

This is where listening to your audience is very important – it’s a good idea to connect with your audience even before your presentation, or to come early to mingle with them and learn what their viewpoints are. This will be very helpful in giving you some insights on how to tailor your presentation for them.

3.   Tell a story

Sometimes, people don’t even remember what you’re talking about, but if there’s one thing that many people always recall during presentations is a good story told that helps them relate with you. So to avoid being just one of the random speakers they’ve heard in the course of time, tell a story – specifically, your story. Make it relevant to your audience so that it resonates with them. This is how you connect with your audience and make yourself remembered.

How people perceive you is your personal brand. And this is why it’s important to utilize as many tools as possible to position yourself as an expert in your chosen niche and be remembered by your audience. Don’t just rely on having a strong online presence, because this limits how people know you. Utilize public speaking so that people can really get to know you and what you can offer to them. 

Author:
Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog, CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of #brandchat - a weekly twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

Tax Planning Follies - Part Two

Lady Gaga is touring the country promoting awareness of bullying. I think she is a good argument for more bullying. If she had been bullied the proper amount, she wouldn't be so strange. If she didn't have a great singing voice, she would be toiling at a tattoo parlor in some God forsaken place. She is a fine example for kids everywhere. How many more tattoo artists does the world need? If you're “born this way,” you might want to consider changing.

Late breaking news – I read in yesterday's Washington Post that Maryland's Governor, Martin O'Malley, wants to team up with Lady GagMe for an anti-bullying initiative. This is political correctness for a political purpose. He would rather deal with bullying than face the perennial Maryland budget mess to which he contributes annually. Soon he'll announce that motherhood is sacred, and that we should all eat our veggies.

If you believe your child has been bullied on Facebook, please learn some parenting skills. Bullying, by definition, cannot happen on a web site. Really. If little Susie can't survive a little drama on Facebook, don't be surprised when she is thirty years old and still living with you. At this point, I intended to write, “I get so mad about this subject, I could smack a dwarf.” But my wife made me delete it. I wish I had a great segue into tax planning from this, but I don't.

There are two primary tax planning techniques that can be used to reduce your income taxes. Actually, there are three. The first is doing no planning at all. I covered that adequately in my first installment on tax planning.

The first real method of income tax planning is creating less taxable income or creating more non-taxable income. For example, you can accomplish this by investing in tax free municipal bonds instead of regular taxable bonds. You can also create less taxable income by something as simple as accurately tracking all of your business expenses. In other words, take full advantage of the tax breaks available.

Contributing to a Roth IRA is another great way to create non-taxable income. While you don't get a tax deduction for the Roth contribution, the income in your Roth account grows tax free, and most importantly, can be withdrawn tax free at retirement.

Similarly contributing to a section 529 college savings plan creates non-taxable income. The contributions get only a limited state tax deduction, but the earnings can be withdrawn tax free for qualified college expenses.

Another cool way of creating taxable income that isn't as taxable as it might be is to put your children on your payroll. Kids are typically in lower tax brackets than their parents. In many cases, the tax rate on a child is zero. Shifting income from parents to children saves taxes. There are rules governing how you have to do this. Your kids actually have to work – unlike many of your other employees. There are other restrictions as well, but this is a fine technique we suggest regularly. Consult with your CPA for details – yada, yada, yada - insert disclaimer here.

The second method of tax planning is deferring income or accelerating deductions. One popular way to defer income is to delay your December billing so that you don't get paid until the next year. The key point about tax deferral is that you aren't really reducing your taxes. You are electing to pay them later. The problem is that later comes eventually.

A really popular real estate tax strategy is the section 1031 exchange. In a 1031 exchange, you defer taxes on the profit from selling a property by buying another piece of real estate. The profit from the first property doesn't escape tax. The profit reduces your tax basis in the new property. When you sell the second property, you pay the taxes then unless you do another 1031 exchange. This tactic seems like a no brainer. You get to delay paying taxes. Isn't that always good?

No, in fact it is not always good. I know a few people, who have done 1031 exchanges in the last couple of years, who have really screwed themselves. In the year they sold the first property, the federal capital gains tax rate was fifteen percent. Given the federal deficit, how long do you think the low fifteen percent capital gains rate will continue? I am betting in another year or two, that these people will find out they deferred income from a fifteen percent year into at least a twenty-eight percent year. Yes, I raised this issue with them. This pay no taxes now attitude is just a variant of the pay no taxes ever attitude I discussed in part I. The saying in the tax business is “Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered.” Oink oink, Miss Piggy. Two years from now, these people will incur an ugly tax bill.

There are lots of other ways to defer income taxes. Accelerating depreciation deductions is another effective tactic. As I write this, you can fully depreciate up to $500K of equipment purchased during 2011. For 2012, the amount goes down to $125K. This is called a section 179 deduction. There are a number of limits that would take more space than I have and more indulgence than you would give me. But I should mention that a section 179 deduction cannot reduce your taxable business income below zero. It cannot be used to create a loss.

There is another type of accelerated depreciation still in effect for 2011 called bonus depreciation. Bonus depreciation only applies to the purchase of new equipment, furniture, and fixtures. Purchasing used items doesn't qualify. In 2011, you can deduct the entire purchase price paid for most equipment, furniture, and fixtures. Again, there are some limits, but nonetheless, it is a really good deal in a lot of circumstances.

Notice I didn't say accelerated methods of depreciation are good in all situations. When you deduct accelerated depreciation now, you are really just borrowing deductions from future years. For instance, if you deduct the cost of a $25K machine you purchased in 2011, you will get no further depreciation deductions on this machine in the future. This isn't always the correct decision. If you expect to be in a lower tax rate in 2011 than in the future, you shouldn't take accelerated depreciation. Save the deductions for the higher tax rate years. Many tax preparers automatically use accelerated depreciation without considering the effect of future income and tax rates. If you are using one of them, it sucks to be you.

From mid-October through December 31^st, I work practically full time preparing income tax projections for clients. I believe strongly in the value of tax planning. Of course, it pays pretty well too. All I am really doing over and over is using the two basic methods of tax planning discussed above: creating non-taxable income and deferring , or accelerating in some cases, taxable income.

Thanks for reading. Merry Christmas! For more information on S&K tax planning services, please visit the main S&K web site www.skcpas.com. End of commercial message.

Google+ for Brands

Google has finally launched its Google+ business pages, allowing brands and businesses to join its social network. Many people have been looking forward to this, ever since Google banned companies from setting up Google+ profiles, letting people know that it’s only for personal users. They have been hinting about what they’re going to roll out for brands for quite a while now, and finally it is here.

Though somewhat similar to Facebook fan pages, the Google+ counterpart does have some additional nifty features that brands may like. One of the most promising is, of course, the integration of Google+ brand pages with the Google search engine. Having a brand page with Google+ will definitely help brands and businesses rank better in search. There is also a new feature called Direct Connect, which allows anyone using the Google search engine to jump straight to a Google+ brand page simply by searching for “+name of brand.”

This latest feature is still in beta phase, however, and won’t work for every Google+ that has been set up. Right now, there are certain criteria that determine a page’s eligibility for Direct Connect, which is mostly based on how popular it is with people through the number of searches for the brand and other social signals.

Other useful features that Google+ brand pages have that Facebook fan pages don’t include the Hangouts video chat service and the Circles feature. With Hangouts, brands can actually chat with their customers – this could be useful for doing promotions, offering deals, engaging customers in conversation, and even giving them customer support that’s personal and interactive. Since brands have the ability to deliver video and IM via the Google+ platform, they can offer unique content broadcasts to targeted consumers, which can be very helpful for the business.

And with Circles, similar to how personal users are using it, brands can create groups of users whom they can target specifically for special deals, promotions, events, and many more. Unlike Facebook, where businesses simply post to their page and hope that everyone who would like to see would be able to, with Circles, brands can target their communication based on what you know about these particular set of customers. Though it may sound tricky at first, once a brand is able to manage their Circles well, they can really give consumers what they want to see.

And there’s the +1 feature of Google+, which is somewhat similar to Facebook’s Likes, with the main difference is the fact that the +1 has Google juice. Google seems to plan to utilize this for its search engine, so that users will be able to see the most popular content – aka, the one with the most number of +1s – so that it can stand out among the rest.

Generally, however, many people are still speculating whether Google+ can become the giant that Facebook is today for brands and businesses. Though Google+ reports that it has over 40 million users now, the main question is, are these users interacting with brands through the platform? A recent report by BrightEdge, an SEO firm, discovered that although 61 percent of the world’s top 100 brands have created a Google+ page, most of them don’t really have a huge following yet, and fans aren’t doing a lot of brand interaction within the site as well.

Of course, remember that Google+ brand pages have only recently come out, so it’s not a surprise that they’re still struggling to establish themselves in this world of social networking sites. It would definitely be interesting to see what they come up with in the future, as they push out more features that would help brands connect and engage better with their consumers.

The main challenge for brands is convincing their customers to connect with them through this excellent platform. As Google+ continues to provide more value to its users, brands also need to determine what experiences they can offer through the site that’s different from other pages they have established.

Many predict that Google+ will continue to put out more features that will prove to be invaluable to brands and businesses later on. An integration with Google Analytics, for example, would definitely be an excellent feature, since right now, Google+ brand pages don’t have any way of determining the success of their campaigns.

The truth is, Google+ can still learn a lot from Facebook, but if it really wants to succeed in competing with the giant, it really needs to offer brands and users something different and more innovative than what Facebook has to offer. 

Author:
Maria Elena Duron, is managing editor of the Personal Branding Blog, CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm.   She helps create connection, credibility, community and cha-ching through mobile marketing and social commerce around your brand. She is co-founder of #brandchat - a weekly twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding.

Can I write off start-up costs?

Q: Can I write off the money I’ve spent to research and prepare to startup my new small business?

A: Yes, you can claim tax deductions for, i. e., “write off,” amounts incurred in connection with investigating, creating or acquiring an active trade or business before you begin operating.  But the tax and accounting rules for startup costs are complex, so you should consult with a CPA.

For tax years beginning in 2010, you can write off up to $10,000 in startup costs and another $10,000 in organizational expenses in the year that you start your business. These deductions are reduced if you have more than $60,000 of either type of expense.  Any costs over the $10,000 limits will have to be amortized, or spread out, over 15 years.

Sound like a long time to have to wait to get the full benefit of a startup deduction? It is. But most small business startups typically don’t have much more than $10,000 in total pre-opening costs and can live with these rules.

Startup and organizational costs incurred by new businesses are generally treated as capital expenses. Therefore, they need to be amortized, that is, part of the cost is “written off” in each of a number of years.

Startup expenses include such things as the cost of travel, trade shows, educational or training seminars, consulting fees, building costs, and supplies or materials needed to get your business started (not inventory or raw materials).

Organizational fees include the costs relating to forming or creating the business, such as, fees paid to obtain licenses, and accounting or attorney fees paid to form a legal entity for your company.

But, from a tax standpoint, when does your business actually begin? You can be in business if you are ready to accept customers. The actual event that triggers you being in business will vary by the type of business and your own personal way of operating.

You don't have to have customers or made a profit to be in business, but, if you don't make a profit in three out of five years you could trigger the hobby-loss rule and face restrictions on your startup tax deductions.  Review your situation with a good tax pro.

In any event, it should be clear that, for those investigating or starting up a business, it’s important to keep good records of your costs or you will have difficulty recovering all of them.

Your Social Editorial Calendar

There are a lot of challenges for businesses of today in managing their social presence. Let’s face it – it’s become essential for businesses to be active in the online social world, because this is where most people can be found. The fast-paced world of the Internet, however, has made it tricky for brands to keep their customers engaged and focused. You want your audience to remember your message, not get lost in all the different voices available out there.

This is where a social media editorial calendar comes in handy. Having a strategy for your social media posts will ensure that you have a solid social media presence that effectively reaches your audience and gets your message across.

As you know, content is what drives marketing – without content, no one will ever know that you’re offering some excellent products or services. Though you could easily just post whatever content you have randomly without planning it beforehand, this is not going to be effective in making sure that your posts get as much visibility as possible and reach a greater audience. Remember, social media has changed how the world communicates; sometimes it seems like content becomes so easily obsolete because of how rapidly people absorb a message and then move on to the next available post.

So how do you create your social editorial calendar? How do you make sure that you’re able to reach your audience and customers?

1.   Choose your platforms wisely

First of all, it’s important that you choose the platforms where you will share content wisely. Though you may like to use all the platforms available to you, this may not be a good decision, especially when you’re looking into managing your time well. So choose a couple of platforms that you believe you’ll be able to reach your target audience the most and stick to them.

Some of the platforms you could use include a blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, and so on. Having a blog is definitely recommended for any brand out there who wishes to engage their audience through long, informative posts that encourage discussion. Though Facebook and Twitter are ideal for short, quick and interactive messages, a blog lets you go deeper into a topic and showcase what makes you or your company awesome and unique. Your customers can easily participate in the conversation by commenting on your blog posts, giving you invaluable feedback and insights.

2.   Decide on the topics you’ll cover

Though you could easily jump from topic to topic in the content you share with your audience, that’s not going to help your customers understand what your brand is all about. So in your social editorial calendar, you need to determine the key topics that you’re going to be tackling. You should also decide on how specific or broad you want to be. The more specific your focus, the better you’ll reach your target audience. On the other hand, if you’re looking to attract more people who may not be aware of your brand yet, you can offer broader content that would be appealing to wider array of people.

3.   Choose what types of content you’ll offer

After you’ve chosen the topics you’ll be covering, you can now specify what types of content you’ll have for your audience. These could be articles, blog posts, status updates, videos, photos, events, newsletters, and so much more. It’s a good idea to vary your content so that people who prefer one over the other would better accept the message you’re trying to deliver.

4.   Specify your social media goals

A very important aspect of your social editorial calendar is your social media goal. Ask yourself how many times per week you plan to post on each platform, and then detail how many times you’re going to cover a specific topic, post a particular type of content, and on which platform you plan to share it. The more detailed your strategy is, the better for your brand.

5.   Laying it all out in your calendar

After you’ve made a decision on the four things tackled earlier on, it’s time to place them in your social editorial calendar. Most people simply use an Excel file to make this, but you can also utilize other software programs as well. You can now create a weekly schedule of what content you’ll be sharing and have it all laid out neatly and precisely.

With a social media editorial calendar, managing your social media content will be a lot easier and less confusing. This would enable you to focus more on offering value to your audience and make sure to engage and connect with them. 

Tax Planning Follies – Part One

Raise your hand if you think the Redskins have a quarterback problem. You're wrong. The Redskins have a quarterback problem the way a kid flunking algebra has a calculus problem; the way a homeless man has a wealth management problem; the way a blind man has a problem at a shooting range. Actually, if you're with a blind man at a shooting range, you have the problem.

The Redskins have two more urgent offensive issues than settling Grossman versus Beck versus the next great white quarterback hope from the draft. First, the offensive line can't consistently run or pass block. Second, the offense suffers from a chronic case of knucklehead syndrome. Two members of the offense, Trent Williams (tackle) and Fred Davis (tight end), have been suspended for the rest of the season for failing at least one drug test, they knew in advance was coming. Mike Shanahan needs to tell these two knuckleheads what the manager of the trading department told Charlie Sheen's character in the original Wall Street movie. “Somebody's gonna pay for this and it ain't gonna be me.”

One of these guys has to go to maintain even a joking sense of discipline. My choice is Fred Davis. Offensive tackles are hard to find. Tight ends are almost as easily available as day laborers in Herndon, Virginia. You can find one at any Seven Eleven.

December is the silly season for tax planning. We will have at least one hundred meetings aimed at minimizing taxes while there is still time in the year to make changes. I strongly believe in tax planning. The most important reason is that I don't like getting yelled at during tax season. Yes, it truly is all about me. Every March and April, I have five or six really brutal conversations with clients who owe far more in taxes than they expected. Before we really focused on bringing people in for tax planning, I used to feel really bad about these conversations. Now, I approach these conversations with a clear conscience, since I know we offered the opportunity for every client to know exactly where he stands tax wise while there was still time to make changes. Here is how these conversations now unfold.

Client: “Frank, I really didn't expect to owe ten grand this year.”

Here's the thing about expectations. To have an expectation, you have to have an idea what you are expecting, so that you can compare that to reality. Here is how I would like to reply.

Frank: “And how did you come up with what you were expecting? Tarot cards? Ouija board? Mike Shanahan? Here is how you might have come to your expectation. You might have accepted one of our half dozen offers for a tax planning meeting.”

Of course, I don't really say that. I sugar coat it a little. The subject of tax expectations is a good place to start a discussion about tax planning in general. The first step in tax planning is to develop a set of objectives. Some people just want to know they won't have to write big checks on April 15^th. Some people want the opportunity to actually change their eventual balance due or refund. One way or the other, we have to discuss objectives at the start.

One of my least favorite types of client is the business owner who insists on paying zero taxes. To pay zero taxes, you have to have zero taxable income. That should seem obvious. Your income can't exceed your deductions like mortgage interest, real estate taxes, and all your other itemized deductions. For wage earners,this is typically unlikely. For business owners, however, a bad year can result in very little income. I don't have a problem with that situation.

I have a problem with the business owners who do every thing possible, and some impossible things, to manipulate their income. For example, they want to hold all of the customer checks they receive for the entire month of December under the mistaken impression that they aren't income if they aren't deposited until January. You might find this hard to believe, but the IRS already knows this trick and how to look for it in an audit. However, I have a problem with this sort of tactic not just because it is wrong. The tactic isn't even in the business owner's best interests. Here is a typical conversation that occurs a month or so after we have completed the income tax return for the prior year.

Client: “Frank, the bank wants financial information. I need you to make me look good.”

Frank: “It's not my job to make you look good. That's your job. Remember how you insisted on paying nothing? That means your profit and loss statement looks like hell. Good luck with the bank.”

Imagine that?! Showing zero profit isn't good for bank relations. From this, you can conclude that tax planning is a balancing act. You are getting some benefit in exchange for giving up something else. It is a classic trade off situation. Lowering your taxes makes getting a bank loan less likely. What is your objective – paying less in taxes or getting a bank loan? That's your decision as a business owner. I can help you go in either direction, but I can't set your objectives.

In my next installment, I will cover basic tax planning techniques and some common mistakes. People can be amazingly creative in torturing themselves.

Thanks for reading! Please check out the real, authentic S&K web site http://www.skcpas.com.

Frank