Author Archive for Patrick Clarke
Patrick Clarke - 21st Century Business Entrepreneur (Social Media Business Professional, Online & offline business owner & founder).
If you are a business owner or professional person looking to grow your business and get more sales or clients, or expand your network of connections, then I can help you.
If you need help with your LinkedIn profile, have a "dead" Facebook Fan Page, need professional blogging articles or don't know how to use Google+ for your Local SEO Marketing, then get in touch.
I would be pleased to assist. The results might astonish you!
8 Best Practices for Social Posts That Get Noticed
![8 Best Practices for Social Posts That Get Noticed [Infographic]](https://inbound.li/media/uploads/blog/crafting_social_posts/crafting_social_posts_infographic.png)
Courtesy of inboundli
Thanks to Gene Sobolev from Inboundli for the above infographic.
How To Tag Your Best LinkedIn Connections
Being able to tag your most appropriate LinkedIn connections when posting something new on LinkedIn needs to be an important skill in your LinkedIn armoury.
Rather than blindly firing off a new post or offer at random which might not be seen by those you most want to see it or worse, getting a bad name by swamping all your connections with highly annoying spam, it is possible to restrict what you want to share to specific categories or groups of clients.
This excellent article on LinkedIn Pulse by LinkedIn Expert & Author Viveka Von Rosen shows you precisely how. A short and informative video explanation by Viveka is also well worth the few minutes needed to view it:
Do feel free to ask any questions or make relevant comments if you wish to.
Do You Waste Time At Work
Do you ever catch yourself on social media or browsing the web while you’re at work? If you do, you’re not alone. GetVoIP recently surveyed 2063 people between the ages of 25 and 64 and found that 80.4% of employees waste time on the clock. Though some employees said that they only waste half an hour, nearly one in five admitted to wasting at least a third of their work day! Women and millennials were also found to waste more time than their counterparts. For more information on this survey, see the visuals below.
So one in five of those surveyed wasted a third of their working week!
The report suggested that women were more likely to be distracted by family commitments such as checking what their children were doing.
One reason offered by the survey’s authors for 25 to 34 year olds wasting more time at work was that they expected a more social work environment, which could increase non-work related distractions.
Anyway, should work productivity be measured simply in terms of the quantity of time worked, or would it not be far wiser to measure it by the quality of the results achieved from that work?
Do the findings surprise you? Do feel free to give your comments, ask any questions or indeed offer your own answers to this problem.
These visuals appear courtesy of getvoip.com/blog
How To Use Twitter For Business If You’re A Local Entrepreneur
Tips On How To Use Twitter For Business If You’re A Local Entrepreneur
Have you worked out how to use Twitter for business if you’re a local entrepreneur yet?
If not, you can get 16 great free tips in a recent free report by Social Quant, a business which enables companies to maximize their website traffic and relevant follower reach from social media initiatives on Twitter.
These are all easy to implement tips that will quickly arrange your Twitter profile in a way that will enable your business to get those extra results, including more revenue and more business, if that’s what you want it to achieve.
The first step is the biography part, which should be used as a concise summary of what your business has to offer. This needs to be followed by your profile picture. Remember that people relate far more to seeing a person than an image. If you have staff, perhaps stand with a few of them outside your office, shop or factory door and look welcoming.
Your corporate or brand image could come next on your your cover banner. Try to include contact details such as your website, telephone number and email address. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you and contact you.
To get the full 16 tips, plus further information if you want to work more closely with Social Quant, please see http://www.socialquant.net/how-to-use-twitter-for-business/
How Much Time Is Wasted At Your Workplace
How Much Time Is Wasted At Your Workplace – Infographic
How much time is wasted at your workplace? Focusing particularly on employee use of social media and digital communications, the folks at Biz 3.0 produced an infographic a few years ago based on research into this problem that summed up the extent of it. Many millions, possibly billions, in lost productivity are being lost to businesses every year. They kindly invited me to republish it here so that my readers and subscribers can take a look at a problem that is still as widespread as ever.
Do you agree that all businesses need a social media policy? Is simply banning social media at work a real social media policy? Surely finding an effective way to harness employee use of social media and digital communications is the way forward, turning a problem into a solution. Either way do send your own comments, questions and insights via the comments box below.
How To Invest Your Time Like Money by Elizabeth Grace Saunders
How To Invest Your Time Like Money by Elizabeth Grace Saunders. Click Here For Ordering Details & A Free Look Inside The Book
How To Invest Your Time Like Money by Elizabeth Grace Saunders was published on February 15th, 2015 and gives a concise and practical guide to breaking out of the time trap that holds back so many would be entrepreneurs. Elizabeth Grace Saunders is the founder & CEO of Real Life E®, a time coaching and training company. This book looks at an easily overlooked problem for new entrepreneurs. Lack of available time is a road block potentially every bit as formidable as lack of available finance.
The answer is not simply to work longer and longer until every available moment is taken or to do everything yourself so things barely move forward. Time needs to be budgeted for and invested every bit as properly as money is. This book sets out to teach how to not only identify what is important, but also how to identify (and fix) those habits and ways of thinking which would otherwise compromise decision making and how to spend your time.
Steps are outlined how to regain and keep control of available time, commit to a trusted system that suits you and avoid the trap of perfectionism. Anyone feeling overwhelmed through trying to do too much by themselves, or finding themselves bombarded to try all sorts of additional extras, would do well to take a step back and implement the measures outlined in this book to regain control of their commitments.
The beauty of the internet is that you can do anything but that doesn’t mean you should do everything. Saying no nicely to something which isn’t essential or doesn’t move your business forward is a necessary asset. There are plenty of people out there with their own agenda. The volume of spam any email address or contact details posted on attracts is an obvious example of that.
If you go to Amazon, there’s a chance to read the opening pages of the book and find out what it is about so that you never find yourself saying £there aren’t enogh hours in the day”.
Click Here For Ordering Details & Read More Reviews On Amazon
Any relevant questions or comments about the book are warmly welcomed in the Comments Section below
How To Drive Traffic With Twitter Cards
Since their introduction in 2012, Twitter Cards have proved invaluable for expanding a tweet. Twitter cards allow much greater context to be added to a tweet including photos, article summaries, direct downloads, audio clips, and more. What’s more, Pinterest also supports Twitter Cards. This means that you can view a Pin that has been shared via Twitter without the need to also head over to Pinterest to actually see it.
Here’s a great infographic from the team at SurePayroll to explain it all in more detail with particular emphasis on how to drive traffic with Twitter Cards:
If you decide to take Twitter Cards for a spin do be sure to tell us how it goes by sending your informed comments for publication in our comments section below this article, especially your own insights into how to drive traffic with Twitter Cards.
LinkedIn Checklist
The LinkedIn Checklist
This LinkedIn Infographic posted by Carolyn Coates on http://bootcampdigital.com certainly catches the eye:
It certainly carries some no nonsense guidance that anybody wanting to take LinkedIn seriously would do well to check they are implementing.
There’s also an informative article by Carolyn Coates to go with the infographic which you can read at http://bootcampdigital.com
Are you following everything listed yet? Let us know by sending your comments in the comments section.
Social Media For Recruitment
A faster, smarter, better way to recruit
The above infographic appears courtesy of Staff.com, a global recruitment platform. The infographic highlights both the increasing importance that businesses now attach to Social Media when it comes to recruitment and also serves as a reminder to any potential recruit that their Social Media Profiles are being looked at way beyond those who they intend it for. 1 in 3 employers have rejected an applicant based on something they’ve found on a Social Media platform with references to drug use and sexual activity having the greatest adverse effect.
It’s not only those in the media spotlight such as sports stars, politicians, public officials and figures in the entertainment industry who can come unstuck because of careless or inappropriate Social Media activity. Don’t say you’ve not been warned!
Troubleshooting Major Storage Issues To Achieve Business Growth
Source: http://www.optimumorg.com/dyn/operations-development/supply-chain-excellence/inventory-management/
Britain has become the self-employment capital of Europe with no less than 4.5 million Britons working for themselves. This is over 15% of the country’s total workforce.
Many reasons have been put forward for this trend. Perhaps the lack of paid employment opportunities is forcing peoples’ hands. Perhaps there is a stronger entrepreneurial culture in the UK which drives more people to try their hand at going it alone than is the case in many other Western economies, including our European trading partners.
Whatever the explanation however, new entrepreneurs will quickly be confronted by formidable challenges in seeking to move their business forward. One of the biggest obstacles is going to be the issue of storage. A lot of agony later can be spared by troubleshooting major storage issues to achieve business growth.
To begin with, use of space in the home or somewhere attached to the house might be attractive in terms of keeping costs down but this will soon seriously inhibit the possibility of growth due to inevitable restrictions of space. It will also have a major impact on domestic life. An understanding and supportive partner will be essential for anyone in a family environment. Even if little inventory is required, paperwork, record keeping and other requirements will quickly mount. Security will also be an important issue.
Most new entrepreneurs and small businesses will probably have no idea how to go about developing their own storage systems. I am amused with my new discovery of Warehouse Storage Solutions Company, one of the UK’s largest providers of mezzanine floors and other storage solutions to cater to any business’s needs.
Any business reaching this stage of development will find it essential to have relevant guidance from an experienced storage provider, otherwise their costs will quickly escalate and have a major impact on profitability. “Turnkey” packages with electrical works, sprinklers, groundworks etc will greatly assist the efficiency of a storage project. It will be better to have the appropriate guidance on what is needed from an independent provider which doesn’t manufacture it’s own range of storage equipment so that there is no conflict of interest.
Now that cloud computing has come of age, devices can talk to each other. An account with any of the leading cloud storage providers means that you can text or email a customer and organise mutually agreed times for the delivery of their order. Customers will be looking for a prompt response when ordering, so keeping up with mobile and cloud advances will be essential.
Whichever of the best providers you choose will makes little difference. Dropbox, Google Drive or iCloud all offer some storage capacity for free with the option to upgrade as business storage needs grow. If you’re a Microsoft user and a 365 subscriber, there’s also the option of unlimited storage via OneDrive as it rolls out in the coming months.
Efficient relocation will either make or break any business as it expands. UKRS is an efficient relocation service which is popular amongst many new business starters. It will be essential not to fall between two stools, either by overexpanding capacity before there is a need or by not thinking big enough and being unable to meet customer expectations. Issues of Health and Safety must also be carefully addressed so discussing your needs with a reputable storage provider is more important than ever.
