Building Your Digital Resume Event Recap

Recently, we hosted Building Your Digital Resume.

In case you missed it, would be so kind as to share it with someone, or wish to check it out again, you can see the recording by following most of the links in this email or by copying this URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLhieP25FvE

In this session, we talked to Professor Rebecca Dohrman of Washington University and Andrew Dauska of Rodgers Townsend about:

1. How to make yourself stand out to employers online.

2. What employers look for in candidates to best position themselves for the future.

3. What characteristics really excite employers.

We had a lot of great audience chat and Q&A in this session. Highlights include:

• While specialization is important, having variety can demonstrate your ability to play well in multiple situations.

• You can demonstrate curiosity through travel experience, unique work experience, books you've read, and more.

• The channels and places that are most important for you to shine online.

• What are the skills or traits that employers will be hiring for in the future?

• And more.

Check out the recording. And, please share!

Why You Need a Marketing Department (& How to Start Building One)

Designing a great product is easy. Getting it to market? Now that’s the hard part. Whether you’re running a large enterprise or a teeny-tiny business, marketing is one of the most important hats you wear. If your small business doesn’t have a marketing department, read this guide from the Social Media Club St. Louis to learn why you need one and what it takes to start marketing your brand.

What does a marketing department do?

Marketing isn’t just a fancy buzzword for sales. Sales converts leads into clients, but it’s marketing that convinces customers to do business with you in the first place. Marketing departments accomplish this by:

• Researching target markets, competitors, and trends.

• Building a strong brand identity and unified brand message

• Leveraging marketing channels to generate and nurture leads.

• Developing strategic marketing plans to achieve business objectives.

• Monitoring marketing results and returns on investment.

Why you need a marketing department

Marketing plays a vital role at every stage of business growth. It’s the face and voice of your company and the strategies you use to convert new customers and retain existing ones. Here are three key reasons your business needs a marketing department:

Establishing a brand

Branding is more than a business name and logo. Developing a brand starts with identifying your target market and developing buyer personas based on needs, pain points, behavior, and other audience data. After compiling buyer personas using market research and Google Analytics, marketers deliver relevant content and offers on the channels your audience frequents.

A brand style guide details the rules of your brand’s identity. This includes your company logo as well as its color palette, typography, iconography, tone of voice, and image guidelines. A comprehensive style guide guarantees a consistent brand identity which, in turn, fosters trust and loyalty.

Launching a new product

Bringing a new product to market is more difficult than it seems. You need to validate demand, develop a sales strategy, map the buyer journey, and generate buzz around a product before it launches. In addition to setting a go-to-market strategy, marketing departments monitor analytics to see what’s working and adjust what isn’t.

A digital whiteboard organizes the key components of your go-to-market strategy including tasks, insights, KPIs, and relevant files. For your first product launch use a whiteboard template to organize project details instead of starting from scratch. Here's an example of a go to market strategy that guides you through the process of establishing goals, markets, and outcomes for your product launch.

Increasing online presence

Customers increasingly find and engage with brands online. As a result, maintaining a brand’s digital presence is a big part of marketing department responsibilities. Major projects to boost digital presence include website development, search engine optimization, digital ad campaigns, and content marketing campaigns. On a day-to-day basis, marketing departments manage social media pages, publish content, send email campaigns, and otherwise engage audiences online.

These tasks are made efficient through a variety of marketing tools including software for customer relationship management, social media management, and email marketing automation as well as tools for analyzing website traffic and SEO performance. 

How to structure a marketing department

In an ideal world, every business would have a fully-staffed marketing department complete with project managers, brand strategists, SEO specialists, graphic designers, and content creators. However, many small businesses operate with lean teams including only a manager (often the business owner), a marketing generalist, and a designer.

When operating with a small marketing department, prioritize the channels and strategies that deliver the best returns rather than spreading your focus too thin. You can add capabilities as your company grows, but you can’t grow without effective marketing.

Developing a marketing department is a huge undertaking, even (or especially) if you’re working with a tiny team. It’s also one of the most impactful things you can do for your brand’s sustainability and growth. Instead of sidelining marketing until you can afford to hire a complete marketing team, identify the steps you can take today to build a strong brand identity and start reaching your audience.

How Can Task Management Help You Succeed in Your Personal and Professional Life?

Managing all your business duties and personal chores can be intimidating if done without proper planning and control. Task management skills play a crucial role in helping people improve their efficiency and balance their responsibilities. Courtesy of Social Media Club St. Louis, here are some of the skills small business owners have learned with their experience, which can help you achieve your milestones in every aspect of your life.

Planning and Goal Setting

Task planning is essential to ensure the smooth execution of your daily assignments. Planning your tasks ahead of time helps accommodate deadlines and due dates. Making to-do lists is a planning strategy used by many small business owners. This simple yet effective task planning method helps you stay organized and track your goal completion. Using to-do list apps and programs automates planning work and provides reminders and notifications about completed and pending tasks. Planning and goal setting are regarded as crucial steps for successful task management in professional and personal life.

Prioritizing Is the Key to Task Management

When you're preoccupied with pending backlogs, categorizing what's important right away helps you stay organized. Once you analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your assignments, it becomes easier to understand what matters most at the moment. Many business owners have observed increasing productivity levels when they prioritize and complete these projects according to importance.

Tasks can be divided into the following four categories:

•          Important and urgent for your personal life and career—complete these immediately

•          Important, but less urgent—plan these in advance

•          Urgent, but less important—delegate these tasks

•          Not important, not urgent—eliminate these projects

The Kanban Method

The Kanban Method is a technique developed by Taiichi Ohno to increase efficiency. According to a study, this approach improved the productivity and efficiency of Toyota. With Kanban, you can visualize your tasks and check daily progress and advancement. The Kanban board consists of a list of cards categorizing the tasks as done, doing, and to-do. You can customize your Kanban board according to the needs and requirements of your employees by connecting checklists and to-do lists to your cards. With Kanban cards, you can also organize your personal tasks and strike a balance between your professional and personal duties.

Delegation of the Workload

Your productivity may be negatively affected when you're overburdened with tasks. Delegation helps divide the workload and gives subordinates a sense of responsibility. Managers who don't effectively delegate work among their team members or outside agencies can experience lower productivity than those who share their duties. By trusting others with duties and responsibilities, you can help your team grow and increase the overall efficiency of your business. For example, if you need help getting a handle on your SEO, appoint someone on your marketing staff to connect with local SEO services to learn more about how to boost your company’s online ranking.

Digital Tools and Apps to Make Your Work Easier

Automating your tasks helps you in many ways. For instance, using digital payroll apps such as SurePayroll and QuickBooks can simplify the payroll process, saving time, resources, and effort, while time-tracking apps like DeskTime record and analyze the actual time spent on each task. You can also use separate apps to manage your personal and business tasks, including nTask for tracking your daily chores and apps with advanced management features such as ProofHub to handle your business operations. When selecting your task management tools, pay attention to other necessary features, such as real-time reporting, software integration, and compatibility with mobile devices. 

With task management, you can organize, track, and analyze the time and effort to complete various projects. By effectively managing all tasks, you can benefit significantly in your personal and professional life.

A Look at Some of the Best Benefits You Can Offer Your Employees

A strong benefits package is one of your greatest tools when it comes to attracting the best talent to your business. Useful, high-value benefits are especially effective for finding ways to boost the overall value of your compensation package, making you better able to compete with larger companies that may be able to offer a higher salary rate. That said, many business owners are unsure which benefits will be the most attractive to potential - and current - employees.

That’s why Social Media Club St. Louis is presenting this guide. The following article lists some of the most useful and enticing benefits a company can offer. Consider these options if you’re looking to go above and beyond for the employees who make your business great:

Paying for Education

Many employers make the mistake of assuming their workers have already finished their educational journeys. Although many people do leave school behind them once they’ve entered a steady career, others will want to continue to expand their knowledge base and boost their skills within that career. These are the exact employees most likely to make a difference in your company, which is why paying for continued education is mutually beneficial. 

You can offer to pay for higher education classes in full or in part in order to help your employees grow. Many businesses limit this benefit to the degrees and topics that will be most useful for their work. For example, you may feel more comfortable helping an employee earn an accounting degree, which will empower them to help you manage financial statements and growth than, say, an art history degree (unless, of course, your work is in art history). Point them toward online options, which are more likely to fit into their existing work schedules.

Saving for Retirement

One of the most attractive benefits you can offer is a great retirement plan, ideally with a match. Giving your employees the chance to secure a strong and stable future helps to foster employee loyalty. It shows that you’re thinking about your employees as people with lives beyond your business, rather than cogs in a machine.

You should also work to help your employees see the benefits of a tax-free retirement plan. Although these plans often cost more upfront, you wind up paying less overall than you would with a tax-deferred plan. Give employees the tools to figure out which approach is best for their situation, as well as opportunities to diversify their accounts to get the best cost-benefit balance.

Flexible Remote Working Options

Finally, an extremely attractive benefit for many right now is flexibility in remote work. Although some businesses genuinely cannot function without meeting in person, many can make a partially - or even fully - remote team work. Allowing your employees to decide for themselves whether they want to work in person or in the comfort of their own homes can make your business far more competitive when it comes to seeking talent.

For a long time, business owners worried that productivity would plummet when employees worked from home. Since the start of the pandemic, however, we’ve learned that the reality is more complicated than we’d previously thought. Although some people do struggle with staying productive in a remote environment, others are at their best when working from home. Offering both options empowers your employees to choose the method that’s best for their life, work style, and the project at hand.

These are just a few ideas for benefits you can offer to keep your employees happy and well-compensated. If you’re interested in figuring out exactly what your workers are looking for, an employee survey is a great starting point. Asking directly helps you to identify the best options for your staff so you can meet their needs and create a benefits package that works!

Redesigning Your Home Office for Safe and Professional Client Meetings

Are you thinking about opening a home office? Congratulations. That is the first step toward becoming a remote worker or home-based entrepreneur. But, it’s not as simple as just slapping a computer on a desk and getting yourself up and running. Before you start any new projects, you’ll first want to make sure that you can legally work from home. Once you’ve gotten the okay, it’s time to make sure your new professional workspace is safe, functional, and ready for business. The Social Media Club St. Louis shares these tips to help you get started.

Business First

First things first, you should know that not all buildings or neighborhoods allow for a home office, especially if doing so will increase road or foot traffic. Contact your local zoning commission for more information. You may also be required to get permits or to make changes to your physical structure, such as adding an extra bathroom, to accommodate in-person customers. Next, if your home office is part of a home business, get your business structure settled early. In most cases, this will be an LLC. 

The costs of financing a home office redesign can add up quickly, so be sure to monitor your business’s financial health. For example, you can use accounting software like FreshBooks or Quickbooks to automate tasks like batch invoicing. This software saves considerable time by letting you send multiple invoices at once. Automating your invoicing allows you to gain visibility on your finances.

Functional Office Ideas

Now that you have the go ahead, you can get to work creating a safe and functional home office. Start by choosing your location wisely. Ideally, you’ll want a room with lots of natural light and in close proximity to or with a private bathroom. Your office should also be large enough to accommodate your desk and chair and spaced out seating for visitors. A side note here: You should also have a spot designated for video conferences. The Ladders business blog explains that you need to pay attention to your background. Further, your office should be far enough away from everyone else in your home that you avoid accidental on-camera intrusions. Remember, your kids can and will show up at the worst possible time if you let them.

Something else to consider is the color that you paint your office walls. If you want to add a pop of visual interest, you can start with a soft gray and then use textured or patterned wallpaper as an accent. If you’ve never hung wallpaper, there are lots of new options available, and you can install it on your own in just a few minutes with a minimal amount of tools. If wallpaper isn’t an option, such as if your walls are brick or already textured, a statement art piece can serve as an icebreaker when you have new clients on-site.

Your next priority is organization. An organized office is a professional office and, more importantly, efficient. Real Homes offers many tips on how to organize your home office, including adding modular storage and using a variety of different types of shelves and containers to put your stuff in.

Remember to also keep cleaning top of mind. And while it’s great if you have the time, it may be worthwhile to have someone else come in to clean your office from time to time. If you have large windows, you’ll want to have those professionally cleaned as well. Simply search for “house or window cleaning services near me” to find the right experts to do the job.

A final thought: Invest in the best technology. This means your internet, computers, printers, phone and even your headphones. Having the right tools at your disposal will ensure that your home office is every bit as able to handle common business transactions as your customers expect.

Working from home comes with many challenges, but creating the perfect office doesn’t have to be one of them. Before you slap a desk in a room, make sure that you’re legally able to do so, and then pay attention to your design. A large office with plenty of sunlight, seating, and shelves should do the trick.