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10 Time Management Hacks Every Entrepreneur Needs To Know

Entrepreneurs lead a busy and overwhelming life, whether you’re just starting out or already leading a company – you know how much your time is worth to you. But do you know where your time goes? Turns out, most people don’t, we all end up staring at our phones way too often and wondering just how we spent all day working without really achieving much. With life getting out of hand daily, everyone wants more control over their time. This is where time management comes in, a topic much raved about but still rarely practiced. Here are ten tips to get you started:

1. Track your time

The more you know about where your time goes, the more you’ll be able to hold yourself accountable. If you’re into time sheets, block out your day in a notebook and start writing down what you spend time on. If however, you’d rather save time tracking time, try one of the time tracking tools available out there and finally get a sense of your time. Time management expert, Laura Vanderkam suggest tracking all of your time for a week (precisely, 168 hours) to get a better sense of your habits. It’s a great start and the results are bound to dazzle you.

2. Stop guesstimating

Now that you’re tracking time, you have a lot more insight into what tasks take the most of your time and how long certain tasks take. Set goals for every week and try to estimate how long will these take to accomplish. Your goal for next week will be bringing estimates as close as possible to reality. If you’ve ever worked in a management position, you know how hard it is for some people to estimate the time it’ll take for certain tasks. Now, try it for yourself and don’t worry if you’re way off – you’ll get better, that’s what time management is about anyway.

3. Plan ahead

Apparently, every minute you spend on planning saves you at least ten minutes in execution. If this sounds too good to be true – try it for yourself. Start your week on a Sunday, grab a pen and paper and think thoroughly about everything you want to achieve this week, think about bigger goals but also try to line up the steps needed. Make sure you’re ready to start work on Monday, rather than spending your morning trying to figure out where to start from.

4. Make a smarter to-do list

Don’t just list our everything that needs to be done and expect to cross things off the list as they come. Organize your list by priority, make your goals realistic, and set a daily focus for each day of the week. This will help you clear your head and make your to-do list a bit more bearable, it also will help focus and stop wasting your time on reorganizing the list.

5. Batch related tasks together

Since focus is key to productivity, be smart about the things you choose to dedicate your time to and what time of day you spend on these. If you try managing your company internal stuff while emailing investors and discussing new feature requests, you’re bound to lose focus on at least one if not all of those things. So try to divide your weekly tasks in categories – internal, fundraising, development etc. Your brain can’t do context switching full time, try to keep focus on similar tasks to stay on track and save time.

6. Schedule time for interruptions

You have a team of employees depending on you, you have a hundred unread notifications on your phone, you have meetings that require follow-ups, and the cleaners also need you to let them into the parking lot once they arrive. You’re an entrepreneur, you get interrupted a lot. This is why you should never schedule your day 100%, make plans for being interrupted. This might sound counterintuitive make sure you to optimize your schedule so the interruptions don’t disrupt your entire workflow.

7. Make use of prep time

Whether it’s a meeting or a phone call – anything that might go on forever and eat out your time while you helplessly try to get back to work – plan it out. Make an agenda for every meeting or phone call you have scheduled, make sure you lay out the goals you want to achieve with this, start with an introduction to everyone involved, be a leader of every conversation you’re in, and once everybody’s gotten what they wanted from it. Start with your exit strategy and don’t let small talk take over.

8. Take breaks

Contrary to popular belief and modern business culture, breaks are not a waste of time. Breaks help restore focus and give you a fresh start for any task you have on hand. Be generous to yourself and take breaks often, don’t let the feeling of burnout get to you. Whether it’s a walk to the nearby park or a quick round of Candy Crush, you’ll feel refreshed and as good as new when back to work. Alternatively, try the Pomodoro method and see how it fits into your workflow.

9. Make use of incubation

Incubation, in terms of psychology, is one of the four stages of creativity and it starts when you’re not actively thinking about whatever problems need solving or ideas you’re trying to develop. Don’t think about work all the time. I know it might seem hard for someone that is supposed to always be working toward their goals but you’re actually more likely to get new ideas and think of solutions to problems you’re facing when you’re not actively thinking about the solutions. Many entrepreneurs boast about not taking weekends off or bringing their work home. The truth is you’re far more productive when not constantly keeping busy.

10. Calm down

Have you ever noticed how time goes by so slowly when you just calm down, clear your head and stay in the moment? Yoga, meditation, mindfulness are all methods of taking back some control over present, rather than planning for the future or thinking about the past. However, you don’t have to turn into a zen guru to feel the moment. It’s enough to try and not think about anything for a few minutes, enjoy a view, play with a pet, enjoy artwork or simply gaze at the sky. Be present and don’t let your time be taken over by the numerous distractions of the modern world and you’ll be happier and more productive in no time.

Source : http://bit.ly/1Q5eI3W

Merry Marketing Christmas

3 Tips for Promoting Your Products on Social Media

Today’s gift guides include printed pages and online formats to include more products than ever.

A great product can generate a lot of talk on social media by being presented attractively for digital consumption. Editors such as The Kit’s Michelle Bilodeau are looking to fill their corporate Instagram feeds as well as publication pages. 

Follow these three steps and help your products land on both:

1. Plan around the online and social hit.

Craft your pitches to include elements that readers will want to share on social media. Think about a creative way consumers can engage with your product along with a campaign hashtag. Just as when you include a storyline in a pitch, including decorations on your product’s theme can help editors imagine how to photograph them. This reduces one step of the design process for the publication and gives you additional influence on how your product is presented to the world. 

Bilodeau relies on her art department to turn attractive products into social collateral. “We always welcome brands who are open to us sharing the products on social,” she said. Bilodeau said she will feature some materials in the magazine and others only on social media.

When you give editors more to work with, they are more likely to find a medium to talk about your product. 

Benefit Cosmetics has this down to a science. When the brand' managers share products with influencers and magazines, they do it as part of an integrated message—between package design, social media and top-of-the-line marketing—that defines a specific product. Ruth Goudie, senior marketing manager at Benefit Cosmetics Canada, says that by the time she sends a product to a magazine she knows it is a hit.

“We really focus in on that one thing makes the product unique and focus out marketing on that one-thing,” she said. ”With influencers and magazines, we try to create and play up the experience. We sell an experience that happens to be through makeup.”

Benefit uses social hashtags to build niches on social media. An example is #WowYourBrows, with which the brand on Wednesdays shares photos of their followers and holds product giveaways on Instagram. In Canada, this has resulted in more than 1,500 posts on Instagram.

Bilodeau recently received a pinwheel from Cover Girl in promotion of the brand’s Butterfly Mascara. The pinwheel featured The Kit’s branding, which caught Bilodeau’s attention.

“You can tell they took some time to think it all through and customize it for us,” she said. 

2. Be aware of industry themes.

Help editors categorize your product into their lists by watching your competition and identifying which themes they have in common.

“It might be in how the product is priced, the botanicals that are included or a particular look that can be achieved with it,” Bilodeau offered.

Digital editors often work in 30-minute intervals getting items online as soon as news crosses their inbox. A product that makes it into a gift guide might have been pitched for as a news item months ago and recalled for a guide.

“I probably have 30-products on my desk right now to review and test,” Bilodeau said. “I want pitches that are creative, well thought out and include all of the information I need.”

3. Provide unique access.

Bilodeau’s favourite pitch came from Smashbox cosmetics, which had partnered with Canadian illustrator Donald Robertson to design a lipstick collection. To promote the line, Smashbox gave The Kit access to the renowned artist who has been dubbed the “Andy Warhol of Instagram” by Vogueand the Globe and Mail.

 The magazine ran a Q-and-A with Robertson and photographed him as he sketched Beyonce with a Sharpie and a Smashbox lipstick from his line.

The benefits of the pitch were twofold: Smashbox got its new lipstick in the pages of The Kit and Bilodeau got direct access to a big name for content that ran Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Source : http://entm.ag/1MXj90h

Daily Social Media and Marketing updates.

5 Essential Social Media Metrics You Need To Know

Social Media Marketers are a lucky bunch. Especially when it comes to analytics.

There’s a gigantic number of free tools available, paid tools with insight beyond your wildest dreams and even software that can connect the dots between your social media platforms and your website.

There’s tons of information at hand.

But when 60% of marketer’s still have trouble understanding the success of their social media, it’s time to look at the essential metrics – what’s really going behind the scenes that will  make a difference to your marketing and your revenue?

We’ve put together a list of the 5 top metrics,analytics or stats that you can pull from each platforms own analytics dashboard – for free.

Twitter Analytics

1.Account Home Dashboard Data

With all the amazing social media tools available, we can forget to look at the dashboards behind the social platform itself, and the new Twitter Analytics is one you definitely do not want to miss.

So what’s the big deal? This is the Holy Grail for Social Media Marketers. From engagement rates and number of mentions to top performing tweets and top followers, the dashboard should be your daily go-to to understand your Twitter profile performance.

How to find it: analytics.twitter.com – and don’t you forget it!

2. Top 10 Interests of your Followers

Often, when we think about analytics and insight we think hard data. But what about the insight and analytics around your followers? Twitter Analytics will show you the top 10 interests of your followers, their demographics, lifestyle, consumer behaviour and their shoe size (if you look hard enough!).

So what’s the big deal? You get a clear insight into who your followers actually are, beyond standard demographics. And you can clearly see what they want to read about – their interests. Use these interests as a guideline for content topics and ideas, and know that you’re on track to create content that resonates with your audience.

How to find it: analytics.twitter.com and click on ‘Followers’ in the menu at the top of the page. You’ll find the interests on the main Follower dashboard and a tab to more in-depth information including demographics, lifestyle, behaviour and mobile footprint! *faints*.

LinkedIn Analytics

3. Reach – Unique

When it comes to measuring your reach, impressions are a great indicator but they won’t tell you how many people are viewing your posts. This is where the ‘Unique’ are useful within LinkedIn.

So what’s the big deal? Uniques will tell you how many unique users are viewing your posts on a daily basis. If you see the graph trending upwards, you know you’re building and increasing the size of your engaged audience – good stuff!

How to find it: Head to your company page on LinkedIn and find the Analytics tab. From here you scroll down to the ‘Reach’ graph and voila – Uniques are located next to impressions.

4. Visitors – Visitor Demographics

This is a useful little nugget much like the ‘top interests’ data from your Twitter dashboard. Visitor demographics will highlight WHO is visiting your company page and provide you with a percentile breakdown of your most common visitors.

So what’s the big deal? Along with job seniority, you’ll glean insight into the top industries of visitors to your company page, company size and job function. All of this data helps you understand WHO your followers are and what industry they’re in.  Knowledge is power and you can use these insights as an indicator for content topics and ideas.

How to find it: Head to your Company page and find the Analytics again, Scroll right to the bottom and it’s the little graph in the right hand corner.

Facebook Analytics

5. Reach Tab – Likes, Comments and Shares Graph

Facebook is notoriously difficult for B2B marketers to crack, especially with the recent changes to organic reach activity (details available here). Boosting your reach through paid activity is one way of getting your business out there, but you need to keep an eye on all metrics that can affect you organically too.

So what’s the big deal? Within their analytics, Facebook provides an overall view of organic vs paid reach AND a breakdown of Likes, Comments and Shares. If you can boost these metrics, you will reach more people organically (so no costs involved!).

How to find it: Head to your company page, then click on the ‘Insights’ tab, this gives you a top-level view. If you then click on the ‘Reach’ tab and scroll down, you’ll find the Likes, Comments and Shares breakdown.

Source : http://bit.ly/1KN5Zwu