The Benefits of Personal Branding

The Benefits of Personal Branding

There are plenty of opportunities in the world, but there’s also a lot of competition for those opportunities, too. As such, to get the positions that you want, it’s important that you’re taking steps to make yourself stand out from the crowd. Alas, sometimes people do bring attention to themselves, but not the right kind. If you haven’t worked on your personal branding, then it’s possible that a recruiter could find something that compromises your application for a job. 

There can be a lot of confusion surrounding personal branding, but it’s essentially just a way to control your message. It’s about promoting the qualities that you want people to see, and not the things that could compromise your professionalism. This is important because, well, the internet is important. If you’re applying for a job, then it’s highly likely that the hiring company will conduct a search of your name online. So it’s extra important that what they’re finding is positive, or at least non-negative. 

It’s not just would-be employees that can make the most of personal branding, either. It can help CEOs to boost their brand, and is, in many ways, a form of under-the-radar advertising. Having a strong personal brand can also lead to any number of opportunities, both for you on a professional level and for your business. 

While it’s a relatively new trend, it looks like it’s one that’s here to stay. To learn more about branding, take a look at the infographic from the University of Maryland below. 


Infographic design by University of Maryland University of Maryland
Get More From Your Social Media Campaign

Get More From Your Social Media Campaign

Are you running a social media campaign as part of the marketing for your business? If so, then you do need to think about how to get the most out of this option. There are a few possibilities to consider here. If you take this advice you’ll find that your potential grows dramatically. 

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Diversify 

One of the best options when building a social media campaign is to work to ensure that it is as diverse as possible. You can start by thinking about running your campaign across different networks and changing the content so that it matches or provides the best results. However, the content that you offer should also be different. You should be providing blogs, quick updates, links, videos, images, and infographics. It’s important that any content that you do add matches the level of quality that your customers expect. So, if you are adding a video to your feed, make sure that it was created using a professional video production company

Follow the 80:20 Rule

A lot of business owners will make a mistake and believe that social media should be used for pure promotion. However, this is not the case and the reality is that if you do this you will be limiting the power or potential of your campaign. Instead, you need to ensure that you follow the 80:20 rule here. This is simple to understand. 20% of the content you produce should be pure promotion. The rest should provide value to your customers and followers. By doing this, you can ensure that your social media is a valuable resource. You can also set yourself up as an expert that customers can trust. This is always going to provide great benefits to you. Some business marketers would even suggest that it’s more 90:10.

Use Your Followers

Another great way to use social media is to ensure that you are able to get the most out of your followers. It’s possible to use the followers you have and guarantee that they are going to be able to push up your campaign. You can do this by taking complete advantage of user-generated content. When followers create content that could be beneficial to your campaign, remember to retweet or share the content. This could be as simple as a positive review from your customer. Remember, other clients, are more likely to trust their word then direct marketing from your business. If you are struggling to get user-generated content, you can set up promotions and challenges to encourage them to engage. You can also engage with them directly by opening up conversations. This is a great way to get to know the followers and customers of your business. 

We hope you love these ideas and look forward to incorporating them into your own social networking marketing campaign. Remember, social media is a powerful tool for any business. You just need to make sure that you are using it the right way to gain the best results.

Reduce Pesky Periods Of Low Profit

Reduce Pesky Periods Of Low Profit

Periods of low profit are not only pesky, but they can be downright concerning. During times of low profit your business is not able to function as it usually would. Instead, your business has to run on the reduced funds coming in. Cutbacks sometimes have to be made in prolonged periods of low profit, which is not something that you want to deal with. It’s a stage you don’t want to get to, and we’re here to try and help you prevent it. There are many preventative measures that you can take to ensure that profit does not dip low enough to cause a need for a cost cutting budget to come into play. As a small business, the need for profit to be on a constant increase is crucial. Dips in profit for a small business can lead to administration. Funds might not be flowing at the best of times. So, keep on reading and see if the following tips can help to keep you out of a profit deficit. 

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Reduce Downtime 

Downtime for any business has long lasting negative effects. It is not only a sign of a lack of professionalism, but it’s also a sign of a business without the right systems in place to prevent it. If you have frequent sessions of downtime due to your server or network, the total over the course of a month could be close to an hour. It’s not only a lot of sales time to miss out on, but if customers are frequently coming to your website and are unable to access it, it’s going to leave a bad impression. Midwest Data Center is just one of the brands you could turn to for server support, which can in turn help to reduce downtime. Small businesses don’t often focus on the solution for their downtime, but it’s far more cost effective to move to managed servers sooner rather than later. 

Improve Systems 

Hopefully you will have systems in place that will allow your business to run smoothly. Popular systems include procurement software that will allow you to cut costs of purchasing. But again, small businesses often forget the power of software. Although a large amount of them require some sort of fee, the value they hold is more than worth it. Every step your business takes for it to go from sale to finished product should have some sort of software that can aid the process. Even procuring the sales has software to do so. Better customer outreach is always achieved with the help of software. 

Decrease Production 

Sometimes it’s best to anticipate when slower periods are coming, and then slow production. Therefore you’re not putting in as much in terms of cash flow in production, but you’re not necessarily making business cuts. It’s so simple to reverse the decreased input into production as soon as orders begin to flow again. It’s pretty much a no brained! During a time of decreased production, money should be funnelled into marketing techniques that will hopefully allow the pace to pick up again soon. 

Balancing Your Budget When You Cannot Work

Balancing Your Budget When You Cannot Work

Injury, accident, or disease can all be reasons why it is currently impossible for you to work. Unfortunately, your regular bills and monthly outgoings don’t just disappear at the same time. Something that means you have just as much money to find as when you have a full-time wage coming in. Fortunately, there are some tactics you can use help balance your budget if you find yourself in this situation. Read on to find out what they are. 

Cut back on groceries 

The first tactic is simple, indeed, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. In fact, there is often a considerable amount of money to be saved in the area of groceries, if you just put in a little effort. One way you can do this is to only shop with the offers, something that can help you fill your basket and cupboards for a significantly reduced price. 

Alternatively, you may wish to go ahead and plan the meals that you will eat each day. Then you will only need to buy specific ingredients, and so can find it much easier to keep to a lower budget. 

Finally, if your illness or injury allows, why not consider using coupons to create a stockpile? Then you can not only get what you need week to week but can buy food and household goods for practically nothing and create a store of them to use in the future as well. This being a tactic that will really save you a great deal of money. 

Claim damages 

Another way that you can make it easier to balance your budget when you are unable to work is to consider claiming damages. That is to seek compensation from the party responsible for your accident, illness, or injury. 

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Of course, to be able to do this, you will need to find a legal professional that can help you make your case. Happily, all you need to do is contact a specialist like the ones at Thomas Law Offices to see if your lawsuit will be viable. Something that could help you to gain a significant amount of compensation and so make financial survival much more likely. 

Try a side hustle 

You may also wish to consider starting up a side hustle business while you can no longer work at your regular job. Something that can help bring in at least some income during this time. In fact, there is a whole range of side hustle you can choose from. Such as creating and selling art, offering tuition in a specialist subject, and even reselling on platforms like eBay. 

Although it is worth noting that choosing this route may affect your financial status in other areas such as benefits and taxes. It can even impact on any damages you receive. The reason being that it may show that your injuries are not as severe as you suggest because you can do some type of work. Something that it is vital to think about carefully before using a side hustle to help balance your books. 

The Biggest Innovations In Display Technology Right Now

The Biggest Innovations In Display Technology Right Now

Technology moves so fast and one area where you can see a visible change is in display technology. Compare a modern TV to one that is just 5 years old and you will see a huge difference in the quality of the picture and the depth of the color. It seems like new technologies are being developed all the time and the quality will just keep getting better. It’s not just about quality either, there are also advancements in things like energy efficiency and portability too. 

Over the last few years, TV makers, in particular, moved away from simply focusing on picture quality and starting adding new features like 3D and creating smart TVs that can run apps like Netflix. But 3D didn’t really catch on and smart TVs now come as standard, which means that companies are starting to look for new ways to revolutionize display technology. These are some of the latest innovations that are likely to have a big impact in the coming years. 

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OLED And QLED 

The majority of people that bought a TV in the last few years have a 4K TV, but even that technology is being rendered obsolete by OLED (organic light emitting diodes) and QLED (quantum dot LED) TVs. These TVs are already out there and available to buy, but they are incredibly expensive, so not many people have them. There is also a debate about which technology is better, with Samsung championing QLED and LG pushing for OLED. Both technologies promise improved color contrast and better picture, and they don’t require the use of a backlight like a traditional LCD TV as the diodes in both TVs emit their own light. At the moment, there isn’t much separating the two but QLED TVs have not reached their full potential so only time will tell which technology will come out on top. 

Optical Bonding 

Display technology isn’t just about TVs, it has a lot of applications in areas like aerospace, military, construction, and agriculture. This gives rise to the need for durable, practical displays, which is where optical bonding comes in. Optical bonding is a process that uses an optically clear adhesive to attach a lens or touch panel to the front of a screen. This allows for increased durability, better readability in sunlight, and a reduction in dust and condensation, so screens can be used in more difficult environments. This will allow for a lot more applications for display technology. 

Foldable Screens 

The biggest innovation in display technology right now has to be foldable screens. Smartphone manufacturers are always looking for ways to make our life easier and improve the way that our phones work, and for many of them, foldable screens are the next step. There are already a few phones with foldable screens on the market but this technology can be used for so much more. There is a lot of research going into flexible screens with the eventual end goals of creating screens that can simply be rolled up and carried around wherever you go, which could have a massive impact. 

There is no way to know for sure what the future of display technology holds but it is likely that these innovations will have a big part to play. 

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