25 Quotes From Famous Entrepreneurs

Being an entrepreneur can be difficult but with

top quotes like these you can move forward

While entrepreneurs make their careers by doing things differently, the most successful ones have a handful of traits in common, including their drive, passion, and unwavering commitment to changing the world. Many of these traits are evident in the words of successful entrepreneurs in the limelight, which others can internalize to inspire their own quests for success. Here is a list of 25 such quotes from the most transformative minds on earth.

1. "I wake up every morning and think to myself, 'How far can I push the company forward in the next 24 hours?'" -Leah Busque, Founder of TaskRabbit
2. "If you had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." -Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company
3. "Your people determine your product." -Taso Du Val, Co-Founder and CEO o fToptal
4. "The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be." - Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn
5. "The question I ask myself almost every day is, 'Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?'" - Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook
6. "So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard." -Caterina Fake, Co-Founder of Flickr
7. "Don't compare yourself with anyone in this world...if you do so, you are insulting yourself." - Bill Gates, Founder and CEO of Microsoft
8. "Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect." -Jack Dorsey, Founder of Twitter
9. "Hire character. Train Skill." -Peter Schultz, Founder and former Director of theGenomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF)
10. "Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway." - Mary Kay Ash, Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
11. "So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground."  - Oprah Winfrey
12. "The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer not a dreamer." - Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari and Chuck-e-Cheese's
13. "If you're not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business." - Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's
14. "I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance." - Steve Jobs, former Co-Founder and CEO of Apple
15. "Fail often so you can succeed sooner." -Tom Kelley, Founder of IDEO
16. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison, inventor of the electric lightbulb
17. "Always deliver more than expected." -Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google
18. Success is most often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable." - Coco Chanel
19. "We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform." - Pete Cashmore, Founder and CEO of Mashable
20. "Data beats emotions." - Sean Rad, Founder of Adly and Tinder
21. "One thing I see all the time with entrepreneurs is that they give too much of their company away way too soon." -Tory Burch, Founder of Tory Burch LLC
22. "When you're first thinking through an idea, it's important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do." - Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group
23. "Don't be intimidated by what you don't know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently." - Sara Blakey, Founder of Spanx
24. "When I'm old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say 'wow , that was an adventure,' not 'wow, I sure felt safe.'" - Tom Preson-Werner, Co-Founder of Github"
25. When we love something, emotion often drives our actions. This is the gift and the challenge entrepreneurs face every day. The companies we dream of and build from scratch are part of us and intensely personal. They are our families. Our lives. But the entrepreneurial journey is not for everyone. Yes, the highs are high and the rewards can be thrilling. But the lows can break your heart. Entrepreneurs must love what they do to such a degree that doing it is worth sacrifice and, at times, pain. But doing anything else, we think, would be unimaginable." - Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks
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 Source: http://bit.ly/1ZAcqfw

What Your Favorite Social Media Network Says About You

“You are what you eat,” or so the old saying goes, but I’m pretty sure it’s high time we update that adage to “You are what you tweet.” Whether you want to admit it or not, the things you get up to online say a ton about who you really are as a person. Read on to find out what your favorite social media network says about you:

Instagram

If you had to describe yourself in three words, you’d say: “Foodie. Adventurer. Storyteller.” You can’t remember the last time you ate a meal without organizing the items on your plate in a particular way. Your fantasize about quitting your office job, taking a cab to the airport, and never looking back. You know a lot about angles and lighting and teeth-whitening products. Your most overused saying is, “We should totally get together soon! I’ll text you!” You dream in shades of Perpetua.

Facebook

You’ve got friends in low places, high places, and downright bizarre places… And you always know where they are at any given moment because they’ve all “checked in” on Facebook. Duh. You believe that everyone has the right to hear your opinion. Your 2016 New Year’s resolution was to stop getting so invested in other people’s problems. You haven’t had much success keeping that resolution, unfortunately.

Snapchat

In your world, the weekend starts on Thursday night. You can’t remember the last time you turned down an invitation of any kind—you is an “up for anything” kind of person. You’re maybe a wee bit “much” for most people’s tastes, but you couldn’t care less, to be honest. You would describe your personal style as “Miley Cyrus meets Instagram model meets Blossom.”

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is your favorite social media network because it’s the only one you participate in. You simply can’t fathom why anyone would be so foolish as to have any part of their personal lives on the Internet for public consumption. Don’t they know that employers have Google, too?

Twitter

No one would ever accuse you of beating around the bush. You’re a straight shooter, and you like to keep things short and sweet. You aren’t afraid to call people out on their bullshit. There’s nothing you love more than a rousing debate, and you are well-versed in the world of Internet acronyms. You always have a dozen projects on the go, but you can’t seem to follow through with any of them. Your current undertaking? Writing a screenplay about a woman who stumbles upon a political cover up in action and live-tweets the entire thing.

 Source : http://bit.ly/1LmeWnj

15 ways to boost your brand’s social media ROI

Social media marketing is both a bane and a boon to business owners.

If it’s working for your business and driving traffic, you love it. If it’s not bringing in results, you hate it—and feel that you’re wasting your time.

So, stop wasting your time. Drive results, with the right tactics and appropriate planning.

Here are 15 strategies to improve your social ROI 

that every business owner should practice:

1. Use the right social channels.

The social networks you use for your marketing campaigns should fit your audience—as well as your goals. Consider these points when determining which channel(s) to target, taking into account the following metrics from Alexa:

· Facebook has the largest user base (1.1 billion users, compared to Twitter’s 500 million).

· Facebook garners 8 percent of page views on the web, compared to 1 percent for LinkedIn and Twitter, and .5 percent for Pinterest.

· LinkedIn and Twitter lean toward B2B marketing, while Facebook dominates the B2C market.

· YouTube is the second-largest search engine and is a great ad source to use for amplifying exposure to other social campaigns or your own videos.

Take the time to research your audience and niche so that you can create the blend of social channels that provides the highest return on your efforts.

2. Curate relevant content.

Since it’s not always easy to come up with fresh content, you should curate some. Find relevant articles, news, videos, images, memes, infographics, interviews and more that you can share with your audience.

3. Adapt your strategies based on competitive research.

You’re not the only player in the social landscape. You are competing for a portion of people’s awareness, attention, interests, time and money.

Analyze what the most engaging companies are doing, then innovate and do it better.

4. Keep your team on track.

Pay close attention to what your team should be focusing on, and set goals, identify important channels and eliminate activities that are ineffective. You always want to keep your team working on social activities that perform the best for your company.

5. Balance promotions, with value-oriented content.

Remember the 80/20 rule in everything you do. The importance of not spamming and overselling your business on social media cannot be emphasized enough. Keep your content 80 percent organic and value-oriented, and 20 percent promotional.

6. Push individual user engagement.

It doesn’t matter how big the company is: Customers love personal attention. Respond to those making comments, even if they’re not asking a question. Directly engage followers in all of your social channels. That builds trust and respect, and followers will be far more likely to do business with you.

7. Be authentic.

Today’s customers are savvy, and you can't fake it online. Says Sid Shuman, who runs social media for Sony Playstation: "They can smell that a mile away."

The same people who are die-hard fans of your brand will be the first to call you on the carpet for shady behavior or activity and content that does not reflect the culture that you’ve already created.

8. Stick to a calendar.

Fans appreciate it when they know they can expect certain types of content at certain times of the week. When you’re posting daily and then drop off the radar for a week, it’s noticed and remembered. Schedule your posts, set the number of posts per week and stick to the plan.

9. Leverage social media outside of social channels.

“Incorporate social into every aspect of what you do,” says Jordan Kretchmer, Livefyre's founder and chief executive. Kretchmer's company reports that 88 percent of businesses using Twitter feeds, comments, ratings and reviews on home pages have increased user engagement. Some 42 report of business have boosted their average time on site, says Lifefyre.

Social media can bring you indirect ROI right on your website because of the social authority that comes with being active and engaging your fans.

10. Experiment and monitor ROI

Don’t be afraid to break the mold and try new things. Some of those things won’t work, but many will, and you’ll be adding to your toolbox of tactics to improve engagement over the long term.

11. Use paid promotions.

More and more social platforms are offering you the opportunity to promote your page, push specific messages and more, beyond your immediate network of fans.

You’ll see much-improved ROI by boosting posts and sponsoring Instagram photos, not only for immediate campaigns, but also for long-term ROI from newly acquired fans who otherwise never would have discovered you.

12. Tag URLs to better track ROI

With multiple campaigns running, it can be difficult to see the return across a variety of channels. One way to simplify that is to use UTM tags in the URL that tag a specific campaign source.

This lets you see traffic from Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud or YouTube within your analytics. Now, you can actively see the return as it applies to specific posts or campaigns.

13. Join conversations.

Get to know your audience in groups and communities like Reddit, and let them know who you are as you contribute organically to the conversation. The more you engage your audience, the more you can build trust, brand visibility and referral traffic.

14. Mention people.

When there are opportunities to mention “influencers” and brand advocates in your industry, do it. When you have a proud customer, highlight that person or company. Mentioning people, and tagging them, puts a spotlight on them that leads back to your social channels—a spotlight that everyone in their network can see.

15. Recycle past content

Past content, especially content that your fans enjoyed, should be repurposed whenever possible because you’re always gaining new fans who never saw the original piece.

If you’re short on content, grab some of your “greatest hits” material and repost.

Which social platform(s) bring you the highest returns or the most engagement?

  Source : http://bit.ly/1Toag2a

Social media key tool for B2B firms

Social media marketing offers business-to-business marketers many benefits

Many business-to-business chief executives still believe that social media isn’t right for them. And it’s no surprise.

The attention being paid to social media today mostly focuses on reaching out to consumers. But social media marketing can offer business-to-business (B2B) marketers a range of benefits if they take advantage of it, from increasing engagement and influencing decision making before the sales call to customising sales messages and enhancing their company’s reputation.

The Content Marketing Institute reports that social media marketing can help business-to-business brands build awareness and showcase their expertise. McKinsey points out that social media is a great place for business-to-business marketers to uncover early intelligence on competitor developments and on customer problems, needs and beliefs. They can also respond to questions and influence the emotional reaction to their brand.

In addition, the number of people likely to seek and share a business-to-business experience is increasing. In a Demand Gen Reports survey, almost all respondents (97 per cent) gave more credence to content that included peer reviews and user-generated content during the business-to-business purchasing decision process – higher than what was found for business-to-consumer products.

Most importantly, business-to-business companies are proving that social media builds sales and profits for brands. For example, Maersk Line, one of the world’s biggest container and bulk shipping companies, has made social media an integral part of its marketing mix by leveraging more than 30 local and global social media accounts. The company uses everything fromFacebook and LinkedIn to Twitter and Instagram, where, interestingly, it got a sales lead from a Russian company off one of its posts.

Business-to-business companies need to take this to heart. Instead of ignoring social efforts, they need to engage. Here are a few steps to get started:

1 Sell in by connecting the benefits of social media marketing to the concerns and objectives of your organisation. Since senior management tends to discount the value of social media marketing, stay away from using terms like “followers” and “engagement”. Rather, show how social media will help the organisation achieve objectives such as generating leads and facilitating conversions.

2 Identify your key audience and goals to achieve. What do you want your social media programme to do? Identify who you should reach and what your aims are. It’s important to note that the social media channels and the content that’s consumed and shared will be very different in the business-to-business world, so assumptions should not be drawn from business-to-consumer case studies.

To ensure success, find out where current and potential customers are talking and what subjects they are discussing before creating strategies to influence brand perceptions and identify sales leads.

3 Don’t rush out with a sales pitch. Business-to-business brands need to concentrate on engaging core audiences and providing valuable information. When the time is right, and with enough cultivation, the sales will happen.

4 Determine analytics and how best to track them. Rather than merely adopting the typical key performance indicators and tracking tools for business-to-consumer brands, business-to-business marketers need to find the most appropriate metrics for the unique category. In developing metrics, remember that influencing a business-to-business purchase with social content is much more valuable than a business-to-consumer purchase, since a single purchase could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Source : http://bit.ly/23c5KqS

10 Stupid Mistakes Small Businesses Make With Social Media

It’s hard to find a person or a company that doesn’t have a Facebook, Twitter, and/or LinkedIn account—but small companies beware! Just because everybody uses social media doesn’t make it a useful marketing tool. In fact, without a smart strategy, committing human and financial resources to a social media campaign could cost you big, draining resources and generating negative ROI.

Here are 10 mistakes to avoid:

1. Spreading Yourself Too Thin

Building a social media presence takes a lot of time and effort. You have to engage with people continually, and communicate highly informative and/or provocative messages to stand out from the crowd. It’s hard enough to do this on one social platform, let alone two, three, or twenty. Smart small businesses, knowing their internal resources are limited, take on one platform at a time.

2. Having an Undifferentiated Strategy

When companies make mistake No. 1, they begin taking shortcuts, usually in the form of mechanically sharing the same content on each of their platforms. Big mistake. Social media users use multiple platforms; once they read your company’s same message everywhere, they will lose interest. Have a unique strategy for each platform. For instance, use Twitter to announce sales promotions and Facebook to share action shots of your products in use. This gives users a clear reason to follow you on the applicable platform(s).

3. Not Responding to Comments

It’s amazing how many companies forget social media is social. When someone reaches out to your company with a comment, you must respond—quickly and thoughtfully. Once the perception takes hold that your company is above engaging with the audience, you are dead. You will be labeled as a company that is interested only in self-promotion, a cardinal sin of social media marketing.

4. Controlling the Message

Similar to No. 3, companies err by viewing their social media accounts as advertising platforms. On social media, authenticity is valued highly. It’s OK to admit a mistake, ask for help, and respond frankly to criticism. Many small companies are unwilling to do this, and if you are one of them, either change your attitude or look for another method of Internet marketing.

5. Not Giving to Get

“Giving to get” is the path to success in social media. This strategy requires a generous spirit. Small companies succeed in social media when they go out of their way to help people by providing useful content, sharing other people’s content, jumping into conversations where they can lend a hand, and making it easy for people to try their products and services.

6. Selling Too Much

Social media users don’t like the hard sell. As a matter of fact, many use social media to escape commercialism. Don’t try too hard to sell your products and services; there will be a backlash. Again, social media is social. The best path to generating sales is to build relationships with your social media community, and then introduce the idea of doing business together.

7. Not Selling Enough

The flip side of No. 6 is also a big mistake—not attempting to sell through your social media campaign. This amounts to not having a strategy at all. If you view social media as a way to build credibility and brand awareness, that’s fine, but at some point you have to turn that credibility and brand awareness into sales. Smart small businesses gradually ramp up lead and revenue generation activities on their social media accounts; not doing it prematurely, but when the time is right to convert the “soft” asset of brand affinity into hard dollars.

8. Failing to Leverage Your Knowledge

Small companies know a lot about their products, services, markets and audiences. This knowledge, when communicated on social media, attracts the interest of potential customers. When a small business delegates its social media campaigning to a junior staffer with limited business knowledge, these potential customers will not be attracted, and may additionally conclude your entire firm is inexperienced and incompetent. By overdelegating, such companies turn their biggest potential advantage into a crippling disadvantage.

9. Failing to Establish Metrics

Many small businesses that have been on social media for a few years have absolutely no idea how well their campaign is working. Obviously, not having a way to evaluate a social media campaign leads to wasted investment and an inability to improve campaign effectiveness. Popular and useful metrics include tracking brand mentions; social shares of your company’s content; referred traffic from social media sites to your company website; and the number of engaged community members as measured by comments, direct messages. and other measurable actions. These metrics are not perfect, but provide a reliable sense of whether your campaign is stagnant, improving, or worsening.

10. Putting Too Many Eggs in the Social Basket

Social media marketing is really, really tempting for small companies because the financial barriers to entry are basically zero—signing up is free and the main investment is time. However, for revenue generation, brand awareness, and credibility building, other Internet marketing options may produce far better and quicker results—pay-per-click advertising and email marketing, to name two of the more obvious. Companies are smart to test various options. Social media could be the path of most resistance, but you won’t know unless you test. Budget accordingly and prosper!

Source : http://bit.ly/1QatO8u

VISUAL CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR 2016

Stand Out on Social Media with These Visual Marketing Strategies

Visual content is still the best kind of content for social media marketing. Images and videos get more likes, shares, comments, and other engagement than text-only updates. Creating and sharing visual content    is essential for any social media marketing campaign. In order to stand out, create content that resonates with your audience in a way that speaks directly to their needs and desires.

According to a recent infographic on  Curalate, only seven percent of marketers feel confident about their current visual content strategy:

Today’s savvy social media prospect quickly dismisses the run-of-the-mill or average image that doesn’t directly appeal to their emotions or needs. When your business is able to craft the right message for your   target market with a personal approach, your images can leads to more prospects and growth in your networks.

1. Creating Stand-Out Visual Content

The best way to go visual on social media is to create and share your own unique content. This can include photographs, professional images, videos, infographics, or memes that you make using tools and editing programs.

You don’t have to have a large budget to achieve this, and many free and low-cost resources are available to use such as Canva, Pablo by Buffer, Flipagram, Adobe Photoshop Express, SlideShare, and more.

2. Snippets and Previews

In addition to sharing your own visual creations, you can share snippets or movie clips as a preview of the content you want to share. On social media sites such as Facebook, the site automatically picks out an image from your content to create a preview. Along with a catchy headline, this thumbnail image gives your followers an idea of what to expect if they click your link.

3. Focus on the Right Style for Each Social Network

Depending on where your target audience is hanging out your business will want to focus on crafting visual content that not only matches the format of a particular social media platform, but also is the most responsive for your community. Facebook and Instagram posts, for example, garner a larger response from personalized photos, quotes, emotional or funny videos, or product images.

Here’s a great example on Instagram from marketing expert, Rebekah Radice:

If your audience loves to hang out on Pinterest then color tends to do better than low-saturation images, like this Pin from   Mashable:

The most effective images can be discovered by researching what your competition is posting or tweeting, and creating your own original spin. Keep a record of what garners the most response and any repetitive patterns that are working the best.

4. Crowdsourcing Images

Another shortcut to create visual content is to crowdsource. Give your social media followers a challenge. For example, ask them to take pictures of creative uses of your products. They give you the images and you post them on places like Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. This method gives your followers a way to participate directly in your brand and gives you easy, fun content. If you set up a contest with prizes, you’re even more likely to get a slew of interesting visuals to share. Applebees   involves its fans and customers by posting their dining experiences on Instagram:

5. Getting the Most out of Visuals on Social Media

Sharing visual content will get you more activity on your social media profiles, but here are some other ways to leverage your visuals and make the most of them.

• Actively use Pinterest, Instagram, and other visual social media platforms and take advantage of their sharing capabilities to share on Facebook, Twitter, and the other social media sites you use.
• Take time to create or choose a picture for your profile that conveys your brand message and vision (this is particularly important for your Facebook Timeline cover photo).
• Invest in tools that are easy for you to use and include all the features you need, and get into a regular routine of visual content creation and sharing.
• Find good sources for visual content curation to augment your content creation schedule.
• Get into a regular routine of creating short, one to two minute videos for social media sharing.

6. Size and Style

Be careful with sizing and take note of size requirements when adding images to your social media profiles. Always look at your images as you post them to make sure they look the way they should. Make sure that you understand the sizing requirements of the social media sites you use, especially Facebook, which often makes changes to these requirements.

Here’s a great chart provided by the Marketing TechBlog:

The general rule of thumb is to    create your images at the largest possible size  according to each network. If you’re sharing video, direct uploads work best on Facebook while Google Plus is integrated with YouTube. For shorter videos on places like Instagram and Vine you can try on programs like iMovie or Flipagram to make edits or upload directly and edit right from Instagram.

7. Focus on Fun

Just like your regular content, focus on providing value and sharing content that’s relevant. But with visual content, another important element is fun. This is a major reason why people share the content they like: it inspires them, makes them laugh or entertains them in some way. Try to strike a good balance between informing and entertaining.

Visual marketing for the upcoming years will continue to climb as a dominant force in growing your business online. Through creative, relevant, and original images or video that directly speak to your audience you can create a stronger loyal following with higher conversion rates. High quality content that best represents your brand message can go a long way in making new connections who will want to share what you have to offer.

Source :  http://bit.ly/1IVMsPQ

13 Social Media Resolutions to Try in 2016

  





1) Refresh your friends and followings. Give your newsfeeds a fresh start by letting go of your unnecessary or unhealthy online connections, and only follow the people you really care to get updates from.

2) Limit your Snapchat stories to 1 minute or less. Just because they removed the numbers in the timer, doesn't mean we won't realize your story is ridiculously long. Unless you're DJ Khaled.

3) Slow down with your posts during Fashion Week. Front row snapshots, show invitations, celebrity spottings—keeping up with your social media during Fashion Week is a job in itself. Post less, we all have enough blurry runway pics to scroll through on our Instagram feed.

4) Show some love to your LinkedIn. LinkedIn—the poor neglected child of your social media sites. Update your profile, accept those invitations that have been sitting in your inbox for months and add your latest work to your page—take advantage of the resource, you never know what kind of career connections you can make.

5) Try taking advantage of the "see less" Facebook feature if you're going through a breakup. Not ready to see your ex on social media? Hide their activity from your feed if it'll help heal those wounds. (Or better yet, just delete them).

6) If you're still in a relationship, keep it on the DL. We know you treasure the special moments you have with your significant other, but don't rub it in everyone's faces. Which, similarly, leads us to #7...

7) Your child is cute. We get it.

8) Take a break from the Facetune and other face-editing apps. Often when you use them, you get so sucked in that you forget what looks natural. Unless you've mastered a way to flawlessly cover your blemishes and add a light tan without it looking completely obvious—as it usually does—you're better off with #nofilter.

9) Think before you comment and argue. As we enter upon an election year, opinions will fire up more often and conversations will be all the more volatile. This doesn't mean you should stop sharing your beliefs, but just be wary of (and prepared for) what reactions the articles or statements you post will incite. Not everything has to be a political rant or a comment showdown—as entertaining as it is for your followers.

10) Chill with the online tests. Do you really need to know who secretly wants to marry you, or which characters from the cast of "Friends" you and your buddies are? (You're Rachel anyways, duh.) These are funny once or twice, but it's not something your followers want to see every day. In fact, each time you sign up for one of these tests, you give that website access to your friends list and personal info. That might not be something you want going around.

11) Put the "act" in activism. Changing your profile picture or cover photo is a great way to spread awareness about a cause. But this year, try challenging yourself to offer more than post. Maybe make a small donation to an associated charity or sign a related petition. That'll give a lot more meaning to the causes on your page.

12) Live in the moment. The new year has a lot in store for you—you won't want to miss out by being too glued to your screen.

13) If you're still using a selfie stick: it will only go downhill from here.

Source : http://bit.ly/1TznvKv