5 Signs That It Is Time to Update Your Social Media Profiles

When it comes to social media, if you have been in business for any length of time, you will already know how important it is to have business pages up and live on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Not only is social media an excellent way to engage with customers, build meaningful relationships, and make lasting impressions, it is critical for outreach, brand visibility, and lead generation.

However, if your business is projecting the wrong image, is out of the loop, or has outdated tactics, information, and design, then your social media marketing campaigns will fail. With this said, it can be hard to know whether you are out of the loop or not, which is why we have compiled a list of a few tell-tale signs that it is time to update those profiles.

 

  • You Are Not Getting Any New Leads.
    If you are never posting on your social media profiles, never re-sharing content, and never interacting with those who do come by your profiles, than you are not going to generate new leads. If you find that you are not getting any messages from potential customers, are not getting comments, likes, or re-shares on content that is posted, than you are not generating enough interest in your business or brand. One way to fix this is to make sure that your social media marketing campaigns and paid advertising is targeting the right audience and demographics. Beyond this, post on a consistent and regular basis with a wide variety of content types such as video, live streams, infographics, images, and regular posts. Finally, make sure that you are responding to those who do interact with you in a positive manner that reflects your business’ brand personality. You may also want to check that you have proper call-to-action buttons located across your profiles as engagement is not enough to make those sales. Give your audiences specific instructions to “click here for more information about [product]” or “sign up here for our monthly newsletter,” and watch as the metrics closely to see which call-to-action buttons work best.

 

  • You Are Unable to Measure Your Metrics.
    If you are not tracking your social reach, your engagement, your social acquisitions, conversion rates, and overall activity, than how are you to know what your business needs to do to improve? You can’t without knowing the metrics. If you are unable to measure the listed metrics or do not understand how to, then your social media profiles need an update with this in mind. Utilize Facebook’s analytics program or Twitter’s engagement tools to gather these metrics.  When you track your reach, you see your audience growth rate; when you track engagement you see how your actions create growth; when you track acquisition, you get to see visitor frequency rates. As you can see, tracking these metrics provides you with invaluable information about the growth, profit, and visibility of your business.

 

  • You Have an Outdated Website.
    An outdated website is going to be difficult to navigate, which is going to cause users to move on quickly causing your website pages to have higher bounce rates. If your website hasn’t had a visual update in the past five years with regards to font styles, templates, image effects, background textures, and the layout of your written content, than it’s going to show when compared to newer, more modern renditions. This may cause people to ignore your business or brand completely as they will not feel attached to your website. Beyond this, if you do not have an SSL certificate on your website, which is used for data encryption purposes, than customers are not going to submit their data to you.

 

  • You Are Selling to Everyone and Not to Specific Audience.
    If you are sending your advertisements, messages, and products to all potential customers, then you are running a very ineffective marketing strategy. Rather, you want to segment out your customers based on their individually assigned categories; some may respond well to social media messages on Facebook while others may respond better to updates through LinkedIn, and others may prefer to see live stories through Instagram. When you identify who your customers are and segment them based on their preferences, you can find improved success in getting them to purchase your products, use your services, or engage with your business.

 

  • Your Website is Not Mobile Friendly.
    Any user who visits your website is a potential customer and a potential leads. According to Statista, about 52.2% of website traffic that was generated in 2018 was done through mobile phones alone. If your website does not adapt to those using mobile phones, you are going to lose out on conversions. Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly by using mobile-friendly templates and website hosts that offer dynamic sizing for things like banners and images. Keep in mind that it is not just mobile phones that you have to worry about but also tablets and other small devices.

For more in-depth training and resources to leverage social media marketing to generate an unlimited supply of your perfect customers, join the EZMetrics Mastermind.  

 

What Is Text Message Marketing & Why Is It So Important For Businesses?

When it comes to business marketing, keeping your customers happy, satisfied, and engaged with your brand is easier said than done, especially in today’s market where younger demographics have shorter attention spans and a major sensitivity to advertisement overload. One way marketers are getting around this is through text message marketing, where text messages are used to deliver advertisements, promotions, and discounts directly to customers. It is effective because consumers appreciate the ease of access that text messaging provides as it’s simple to open a link or click on a picture through a text and with billions of hours spent texting, it makes sense for businesses to tap into this marketing platform.

7 Reasons Why Text Message Marketing Is Crucial for Businesses

  • E-mail Is Not As Popular As Text Messaging. Although e-mail is excellent for selling products that are behind catchy headlines and beautiful images, the response rate is abysmal as spam filters, junk folders, and promotional e-mail tabs keep them out of sight. If an e-mail does get opened, if the intended target doesn’t respond right away, it’s unlikely that they will take a second look. Text messaging, on the other hand, lends itself to popularity with being built right into our smartphone devices and all. Customers would rather have appointment reminders, prescription refills, and promotions sent directly to their phones via text messages than any other mode of communication, because it’s easy and accessible. After all, barely anyone deletes a text message without reading it. Beyond this, the Pew Research center notes that out of the twenty-one countries they polled, 75% use texting. That’s a massive number when you look at the global scale of smartphone device users.
  • Text Messaging Provides One Of The Highest Reaches. Although text messaging is associated with younger generations, it’s not strictly for them. When you actually take a look at the percentages against the demographics, you see that 72% of adult use text messaging on a daily basis and 65% of those in their forties and 50% in their sixties are texting. With trillions of text messages being sent every year, the text message market has one of the highest mass media reaches possible.
  • Text Messages Have Extremely High Open Rates. When you compare the open rates between e-mail marketing and text message marketing, the difference between the two is massive. About one in every four e-mails are opened or about 20% while almost 90% of text messages are read within the first three minutes of being received and have an open rate of 98%.
  • You Can Create a Positive Brand By Sending Uplifting Messages. One of the ways that brands can utilize text messages to create a positive relationship with customers is by sending uplifting messages on a regular basis. Thanking a customer for their most recent order, sending a coupon just because they are awesome, or reminding them that life is good when they are having a bad day can go a long way to retaining customer engagement.
  • You Can Personalize SMS Content. Unlike advertising on billboards or the ads you see in digital website space, SMS campaigns are heavily targeted towards a specific type of demographic. You don’t have to blast your message to those who are not interested as SMS campaigns can be made to only go to those who have opted in to receiving messages from you. Like other forms of advertising, you can also segment text message marketing out into specific categories, allowing you to maximize your open rates, redemption rates, and click-through rates.
  • Text Messaging Is Preferred Over Other Communication Methods.  Although cellphones are popular, with billions being purchased worldwide, voice calling is actually trending downward. The culture around phone calls is changing, as they can now seem rude and intrusive in our very busy lives. They can become awkward when you have to hang up in the middle of one or let the call go to voice mail because you’re driving, in a meeting, or are too tired to answer. Text messages provide time to contemplate what is being said, they don’t require you to have your phone on, and they can be referenced back to at any time. As a business, you do not need your customer’s undivided attention when you send out a promotion or coupon because they can come back to it when the time suits them.
  • Text Messaging Has Higher Conversion Rates. It is incredibly easy for a customer to text a reply, text-to-win a discount or promotion, or click on a link to be taken to a website. Due to ease of access, text messaging has higher conversion rates both with coupons and promotions getting redeemed and links being clicked on. To put this in perspective, text message engagement is about 6-8% higher than e-mails.

Although text messaging started out as a simple mode of communication, it is now the preferred method for brand communications due to its relevance in our smartphone-dominated world. With the ability to earn customer loyalty, provide convenience, and pack text messages with goodies and surprises, it’s easy to see why text message marketing provides high engagement and business revenue.  

For more in-depth training and resources to leverage digital marketing to generate an unlimited supply of your perfect customers, join the EZMetrics Mastermind.  

 

3 Marketing Tools that Every Entrepreneur Needs

As an entrepreneur, it can feel like there is not enough time in the day to accomplish all of the tasks at hand. There are a few tools that I recommend, to greatly impact your business while helping you manage your time.

Use Evernote to stay organized. When it comes to marketing your business, organization is essential.  You never know when a new idea will come to mind, and if you are not able to organize and prioritize your notes,  you may miss out on opportunities to grow. Evernote will assist you with capturing your ideas, trends, and inspirations, all while storing them on one easily accessible location. You can access this material on your phone, laptop, or tablet. This is a perfect tool to help capture your research and brainstorm ideas all in one place.

Buffer is helpful with Social Media Management. Buffer is a social media management tool that will help you establish your social posting efforts. Social media is extremely powerful within your business, this is why it is important that you stay active and relevant on different platforms. Buffer gives you the ability to connect on multiple accounts and then creates one dashboard to hold all of your platforms. With Buffer, you will be able to schedule and analyze the success of your posts. Buffer’s free plan would be beneficial for a new business that is looking to grow their social presence.

SurveyMonkey can be used to secure customer feedback. SurveyMonkey is one of the most popular free online survey tools. Surveys are a beneficial way to collect data from consumers in order to uncover trends and secure tangible insight on your business. This software is incredibly simple to learn and intuitive to use. Additionally, once you publish your survey, you will be able to analyze the results on the backend.

These tools can help you grow your business by freeing up more of your time, so that you can do more of the income-producing activities you need to do.

Keep pressing forward to success!

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5 Ways to Position Yourself as a Public Speaker

We all have the ability to become a public speaker, but we all have different things holding us back. What is holding you back from becoming a paid public speaker? First you need to determine what differentiates you from volunteer versus a paid speaker. Your value is not the only thing that is listed on your Facebook and Linkedin, but instead the importance of delivery, branding, and the audience’s experience.

Here are 5 steps to improve your public speaking skills.

Solve a Problem: When going on stage, it is important to have a compelling story, but it is crucial to bring value. Therefore, you should ask yourself, “what problem am I solving?” As you begin to create content for your speech, always think about what you are going to solve.

Create an Appealing Visual Presentation: Studies have shown that 65% of people are visual learners. Your visual aid is not to help you as the speaker, but instead to help the audience understand your vision and story. A website that can be helpful to create a visual aid is Canva.com. With this tool you will be able to create infographics along with appealing slides in order to keep the audience’s attention.

Tell a Story: Your audience will be more likely to become intrigued by your speech if you share it as if you’re telling them a story. A story will bring the audience in closer, allowing them to relate to you, making it more natural for them to follow your encouragement and advice.

Have a Clear Ending: Instead of having a slide at the end of your presentation that says “thank you”, create a strong, clear ending that motivates everyone in the audience to stand up and clap. Additionally, avoid giving a Q&A after your presentation, but rather, encourage individuals to meet you in the back of the room to ask their questions. This gives you the ability to create a deeper connection.

Create a Speaker Fee: Now that you have created strong content and a presentation, it is time to put a price on the value you are bringing to the audience. When a customer pays you, you are not just being paid for that hour of your time, you are being paid for the change you are able to make in others lives!

You have the ability to alter people’s lives for the positive. Believe in yourself and you will be unstoppable. EZMetrics can help you achieve your dreams!

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What is the difference between working on your business vs in your business?

Let’s face it.  You started your business because you love what you do, and you’re extremely passionate about it. Therefore, it can be extremely easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operations of your business. You may want your hands on every part of it. So much so, that it can consume a lot of your time.

While it is important to focus on your daily tasks, especially in the beginning, it is also crucial that you plan for the future. As an entrepreneur, you are the visionary of your business. You must keep your eye on the prize, your dreams within sight, and your goals written down.  If you don’t, growth will be a bit more challenging.

Ask yourself: what made you want to get into this business to begin with? Why do you continue to go to work?  If there were no obstacles like money, time, or personnel, what would your business look like next year – in 5 years – in 15 years?

Of course, it is important to be driven and feel like you have a purpose at work. But, the line between purpose and daily tasks can become blurred over time if you lose sight of your goals and dreams for your business and life.

In order to truly live out our purpose and calling, we need to feel fulfilled and well-rounded in both business and personal life. At first, this can feel awkward, even stressful to begin. With practice and discipline, you will become more and more proficient at outsourcing and finding great people to come alongside you so that you can spend more time in your zone of genius.  

So what is the difference between working ON your business and IN your business?  Working IN your business tends to be busy-work that do not necessarily require your gifts and talents. This could be things such as invoicing, scheduling, answering customer service, etc.  Working ON your business involves vision-casting, goal setting, automating processes, etc. Both are required. All is needed. However, you cannot do it all. Nor should you.

When you take time for yourself, you are able to reflect on what has gone well in your life and business, what areas need time and improvement, and come up with new ideas. When you dive into dreams you begin to see how you can make those dreams become your reality. When you are constantly working on the daily tasks, you constrain yourself and could potentially stunt the growth of your business.

Most people want to own their own business to be their own boss and have more freedom. While this is true that you become your own boss, if you’re not careful, you can also spend that freedom doing more work than you need to do.  

You and your business are both a work in progress, therefore, create time in your schedule to refresh!  

Balancing Family, Friends, and Your Business

Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but it is hard to understand the impact that this will have on your friends and family.  When you take the next step of becoming a business owner, you can lose friends and your family relationships could weaken — without balance. This is because some entrepreneurs are so consumed with the role of creating a business that their business begins to consume their life.

Have you ever felt like when you are not at work all you can think about is what you need to perform in your business?

Have you begun to outgrow people as they do not understand your busy lifestyle?

Do you feel like you do not have time for small talk or to get caught up with friends?

A startup can consume your life — if you allow it to.  

You need to leave time for your own personal growth and spiritual growth. You can do this by prioritizing your time. You should create time in your schedule to spend in your faith and with your family.  

You can balance your family, friends, faith, and your business, and when you do, you will find that everything feels like it is happening with ease.  You will begin to see how the benefits of one area reflect in other parts of your life.

Zig Ziglar used a tool when he explained this concept called the Wheel of Life. In his presentations, he would hold up a wheel with 7 spokes.  Each spoke represented different areas of life one has to balance: Mental, Spiritual, Physical, Family, Financial, Personal, and Career.   When one is out of balance, it affects the other 6.

When you are spending time with your family, turn off your phone and laptop. Even though this can be extremely hard to do, it is important that you continue to build stronger relationships within your family and balance work vs. home in a way that is appropriate.

For your mental “spoke”, take for example your friendships.  You are in complete control of who engages with you. If you do not want to talk with someone, then you should not respond. If your friends are not encouraging you or celebrating your wins with you, you should eliminate them from your life. It is very easy to get run down within a business, therefore, you need to keep those around you positive and protect your energy as much as possible.

Even though it can feel challenging to make time for family and friends, it is crucial for your own growth and success!

Where did the time go?

3 Ways to Find More Time in your Workday

Have you ever felt like the time goes so fast during your work day, and wonder, “where did the time go?”  

Managing your time effectively can be the difference between success or failure within your business.

Here are three ways that you can you improve your time-management skills:

Avoid Multitasking

  • There will always be more than one thing competing for your attention. At times, it can be hard to focus on just one thing and seeing it through completion. Even though it can be difficult, it is very important to avoid multitasking! Single tasking is the most effective way to achieve your goal. When you focus on one thing at a time you are able to devote all of your knowledge to this task. Therefore, you are able to perform your best work.

Communication Within your Business

  • When you own a business, it is easy to take on every task instead of delegating to your team members. At first, it can be hard to let go of tasks, as you want them to be done a specific way. It is crucial that you hire the right team members that you can trust and have faith in their abilities. Delegate that which does not require your personality or your specific skill-set. As a leader, it is important that you communicate to your team members in order for them to realize the importance of their task, along with clear directions to complete the job.

Organize Your Business

  • Organizing and cleaning after a long day at the office is the last thing that most people want to participate in. However, when everything is organized and clean, it makes your team more efficient. Additionally, clients are less likely to fall through the cracks, which creates ease of mind for both the employees and the owner.

 

Of course, in today’s world of technology, it is easy to succumb to being distracted hundreds of times per day!  Think about how many micro-breaks you take each day to scroll social media or watch a YouTube video.


A majority of time wasted is in small increments rather than all at once. If you would add up the five minutes spent here and there performing small things like aimlessly scrolling on your social media accounts or playing an online game, it would amount to numerous hours wasted. This is time spent that could have been used to grow your business!

A great solution that many successful entrepreneurs and employees use, is to set a timer. On your phone, set a timer for 20 minutes and “go dark”. Don’t answer texts, messages, calls, etc. Shut down all other tabs on your computer, remove any distractions from your eyesight, and get to work on your task at hand for that 20 minutes.  It’s pretty incredible the amount of work you will get done when you just focus on a single task.


Let us know… what areas are you wasting minutes of your day? Have you found these tips helpful? We’d love to know what you implement and the results you have!

Committing to Your Success

We all have at least one good idea that we can make become our reality. If this is true, then why are there not more successful people? Unfortunately, there can be a large amount of obstacles that entrepreneurs face. Even though becoming successful can be an uphill battle, it is important to not make excuses and to act on your plans.

Time: You may feel that you do not have any spare time for yourself to help grow your business and ideas. This might be true that you are sparse on extra time, but if you do not start accomplishing your goals, someone else will accomplish them in your place. Most people take too much time planning and waiting on others. You need to hire the right people to help you accomplish the projects that you cannot. While the other person that you hired is working on your task, do not wait for them! Continue to work on your end goal instead of focusing on where you are today.

Commitment: You need to make a full commitment to your business. This does not mean you need to quit your job as it may not be financially feasible. You do need to commit mentally and set goals for yourself daily. For example, you could commit to filming one video a week, or posting twice on your business social media page, or calling five leads each day. The possibilities are endless and will vary depending on your business. Lastly, it is important to create a schedule that is a roadmap of your entire day. This gives you the ability to commit to each task at the time scheduled so that you do not go off-course.

When you first begin to market your product or service, you will need to be PATIENT with your results. It takes time to produce exposure and leads but this is not time wasted! You should be IMPATIENT with your activities; continue to try new things. Many of your ideas will fail, but it is important that you continue to try new things. If an idea fails, have a backup plan so that you can avoid waiting and proceed toward your goals. If you continue to stay on the same path, you will never succeed. It is important to continuously look for opportunities to better your business.

Get More Out of Twitter

 

  • Understand the Algorithm: It is very important that you are extremely present and active on Twitter. It is in live time, which means as soon as you tweet, it begins to scroll to the bottom of your followers feed. Twitter’s algorithm is not as advanced as Facebook’s; a major downfall regarding this platform. A way to help combat this algorithm is by liking, retweeting, and responding to your tweets and mentions. Many businesses are lenient when creating a Twitter as this is a platform where celebrities hang out and tweet. Even though this is true, Twitter is still a beneficial platform to grow and connect to more potential customers.

 

  • Condensed Content: Twitter only gives their users 280 characters for each tweet. Using fewer words to get your point across is most beneficial. This allows your content to be read and retweeted quickly. We recommend posting at least six times a day to help ensure that you will reach your followers.

 

  • Use Videos to Your Advantage: When posting on Twitter, videos are the best in terms of performance. You can also go live, which allows your followers the ability to connect to you on a more personal level.

 

  • Hashtags and Trends: It is very important to stay relevant. This can be done by researching hashtags and trends. Topics that are trending now are seen by millions of people. You can retweet and respond to comments to help grow your following and outreach. This shows that are you are a part of the conversation!

 

  • Follow the Right People: When thinking about social media, you always want to grow your following as fast as possible. It is important to gain followers, but you want them to be individuals that are interested in your offer or goal. If you have 100,000 followers but none of them meet your demographic of an ideal client, this is not beneficial to you. It is important to follow people who share your values and interests, along with industry leaders.

 

Even though Twitter is filled with influencers and celebrities, you still have a voice on this platform! It is important that you show up and stay engaged with your followers.

 

What Makes A Great Leader?

When talking about business leadership, many different characteristics come to mind.  A leader can be silent and put the focus on doing rather than showing.  A leader can also be assertive and full of excitement and gusto, relaying their energy and enthusiasm to their team to push them forward.  These are the two poles of leadership characteristics, and in most cases, business leaders display a little bit of both depending on the situation or context.

Then you have leadership styles. Wisetoast has put together a list of 12 common leadership styles among business leaders today.  These styles each take a different focus, whether it’s:

  • Autocratic
  • Democratic
  • Strategic
  • Transformational
  • Team-Oriented
  • Cross-Cultural
  • Facilitative
  • Laissez-faire
  • Transactional
  • Coaching
  • Charismatic
  • Visionary

That’s a lot of style jammed into a single list.  Do you resonate with a few of the types above?

The truth is, humans are fluid.  We do not just fit into a specific box or “type”.  Someone can be an autocratic leader one week and a democratic leader the next.  We each have distinct personality traits from our character as adults.  In order to harness great leadership then, the focus should be less on style and more on personal attributes. 

Here are 5 attributes of great leadership that you can nurture no matter what personality type you are: 

  • Flexibility.  Being able to adjust plans and schedules without getting flustered is an important skill.  It takes composure and a realization that you can only control a small fraction of things in your vicinity – the rest is up to others, whom you have to trust.
  • Strong Communication.  Always being clear and remaining in touch with your team is important.  It can be a simple “hi, how are you?” or a detailed email about a new project.  Whatever the content, the motive remains the same, and that’s the key.
  • Courage.  Being able to overcome obstacles and remain confident is a requirement of great leadership.
  • Humility.  Appreciating the fragility of life and your place within it will help you make choices for the group, rather than for yourself.  A humble person is also able to admit mistakes. 
  • Organized and Responsible.  A leader must be on top of all responsibilities and organize people throughout all stages of a project. 

Contrary to what some people say, leadership is not something a few people are born with and the rest of us are out to lunch.  Hard work and vision are the key to becoming a great leader. 

Find a way to center your business culture around models of great leadership, and cultivate and environment that induces employees to take on more responsibility.  With responsibility comes accountability, and learning how to be accountable is step 1 on the road to great leadership. 


Zig Ziglar said, “You don’t build a business – you build people – and then people build the business.”

It all starts at the top.  As a leader within your business, it’s on your shoulders to set the tone and be a great leader for the team by focusing on these attributes and how you can educate, equip, and empower your team to build your business.