Your employees are your next big social media opportunity

According to LinkedIn:

• 2% of employees re-share content that their companies have shared on LinkedIn.
• This 2% of employees are responsible for 20% of an average company's LinkedIn engagement, such as clicks, likes, comments, and shares.
• When someone shares 6 pieces of content on LinkedIn, they average 6 new profile views and make 2 new connections, and their employer averages 6 job views, 3 company page views, and 1 new company page follower.

That's a lot of engagement. And it's all the reason why LinkedIn is about to launch Elevate, an app that will help companies to enable their employees to share desired content, such as blog posts, guides, upcoming events and quotes. 

Tech Crunch says that Elevate is

“A paid mobile and desktop app that suggests articles to its users — based on algorithms from its news recommendation services Pulse and Newsle, as well as “human curation” — and then lets users schedule and share those links across LinkedIn and Twitter, with the aim to add more networks like Facebook over time.”

— http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/12/linkedin-elevate/

Marketing impacts the majority of the buying cycle

Marketing matters. Here's one reason why:

"75% of the buying cycle is completed by the customer before the sales team gets involved. This means that companies that effectively engage consumers – supplying interesting content, answering questions, providing contextually relevant sales messages – across all digital channels will be far better positioned to capture the sale. "

From 

Image by Thomas Hawk

Geeks, Rejoice! The Email Renaissance Has Arrived

From Geeks, Rejoice! The Email Renaissance Has Arrived

"I’ve noticed a commonality among the very best digital marketers: They absolutely thrive on a changing landscape. It’s what makes our work interesting."

Photo by Maria Elena

Things Successful People Do Differently

From Things Successful People Do Differently:

"Nobody is immune to stress. It’s not whether we experience stress, it’s how we respond. Understanding stress as your body bringing in reinforcements to defeat a challenge, rather than being defeated, isn’t just motivational fluff, it’s a biological shift. You’ll literally live longer, and feel better."

Photo by Kevin T. Houle

If your employees are idiots, you're the one to blame

I stumbled on this interesting article on leadership and low-performing direct reports:

The first problem of course is thinking that one of your people is an idiot. Once one of your people knows your low opinion of them they are unlikely to exceed your low expectations. Never ask or expect less from your people than you need or want them to deliver.

If you’ve hired someone and they are not getting the job done there are only two possibilities.

You’re not going to like either one.

The first one is that you simply hired the wrong person. Yes, you simply hired the wrong person. If they truly cannot get the job done then why did you hire them? If they didn’t have the skills, knowledge, and experience to successfully complete the requirements of their role then why in the world did you hire them? You must have just hired the wrong person.

The second possibility is that you did hire the right person but you’re not giving them the tools they need to succeed. You, as a leader may not be teaching them the additional skills required to truly excel. Your may not be transferring your additional knowledge and experience to them.

Either way, if you’ve hired someone who is not succeeding it’s your responsibility. When you accept 100% responsibility for the success of your people you begin to grow as a leader.

When you accept 100% responsibility for the success of the people you’ve hired you’ll no longer be so quick to dismiss them with a “they’re an idiot” flick of your tongue. You will stop “spending time on” and start “investing time with” your people.

Photo by Kristina D.C. Hoeppner

"Social media as a lead generation tool is simply a really powerful way to build and nurture..."

“Social media as a lead generation tool is simply a really powerful way to build and nurture relationships. Stop using it as a broadcast tool and start thinking about influencing and adding value around 50 or 100 prospects.

Go to LinkedIn and leave all those industry and job title related groups you signed up for and find two or three groups where your actual prospects hang out and look for advice. Start asking and answering questions in these groups. Start building targeted prospect lists in these groups using LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator tool.

Start building trusted relationships based on your expertise and your network, start referring others and connecting these people to the tools, answers and resources they need and you’ll start to generation the right leads in social media.”



- Top B2B Lead Generation Tactics

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The challenge for marketers

“The challenge for marketers is not only that consumers seek out information online and from social media, but also that consumers trust these sources more than traditional advertising”



- Why Marketers Should Be Followers

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Facebook study lacks transparency

“Research with human subjects is generally governed by strict ethical standards, including the informed consent of the people who are studied. Facebook’s generic click-through agreement, which almost no one reads and which doesn’t mention this kind of experimentation, was the only form of consent cited in the paper. The subjects in the study still, to this day, have not been informed that they were in the study. If there had been federal funding, such a complacent notion of informed consent would probably have been considered a crime. Subjects would most likely have been screened so that those at special risk would be excluded or handled with extra care.”



- Jaron Lanier on Lack of Transparency in Facebook Study - NYTimes.com

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"There is an old African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far,..."

“There is an old African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This is particularly true within the world of innovation, where it has never been easier to quickly frame up concepts in isolation, yet it’s when you start collaborating with your customers/audiences that amazing and unexpected things can happen.”



- How Do You Connect With Your Consumers In The ‘Participation Age?’

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""Our enterprise customers oftentimes have significant investments in both vendors’..."

“"Our enterprise customers oftentimes have significant investments in both vendors’ technologies, and this closer coupling will enable us to integrate tools and systems more quickly, driving additional solution value,” Davis told CRN.”



- Microsoft And Salesforce Bury Hatchet In New Partnership - Page: 1 | CRN

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""It’s important all enterprises, and individuals, consider and understand the role each of us..."

“"It’s important all enterprises, and individuals, consider and understand the role each of us can play in improving the future, regardless of the scale of our capabilities. Every action matters." - Jeff Davis, Perficient, Inc.”



- Benioffs, Gates Team Up For $100 Million Donation To Fight Premature Births - Page: 1 | CRN

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