Tag Archives: CBS-CBS.com

Small Businesses will be Affected by Facebook’s Newsfeed Change. Here’s What to Do About It.

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Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that Facebook would be making some significant changes to how content is viewed on the platform’s Newsfeed. In a Facebook post on January 11, Zuckerberg specifically pointed to “public content,” which are posts from brands, businesses, and media, as “crowding out” personal posts. Facebook is making a major shift to mainly show posts from friends on the Newsfeed, as opposed to promotional material.

Small businesses can expect this change to hit them the hardest. Smaller brands are the most likely to promote Facebook posts. This year, this strategy will require drastic changes. Here are several tips suggested by CBS Corporate Business Solutions consultants on how small businesses can get around the Newsfeed change:

Produce High-Quality Content—Facebook users are mostly annoyed by spam posts that are blatantly pitch products. To keep your posts on Facebook, start producing better quality content. Meaning content that is highly relevant, timely, and interesting to the target audience. Avoid clickbait and misleading headlines. Invest in articles or video that the target audience would genuinely be interested in.

Consider Paying for Facebook Ads—If Facebook is essential for marketing to your company’s target audience, then seriously consider paying for Facebook ads. The ads will be strategically displayed alongside the Newsfeed so the new change doesn’t affect ads.

Create Content based on Engagement Metrics—The content that is most likely to be successful on Facebook is the type of content with the highest engagement rating. If the videos your company is posting on Facebook is generating high engagement numbers, then it’s safe to continue producing the same type of content. Facebook issues an “engagement rate” for each post your business profile submits. Use this rate to measure which content is becoming popular on the platform, and the continue to make more of it.

Ask Users to Allow Posts—Facebook has a feature called “see it first” that allows users to prioritize content seen on Newsfeeds. Users can click on the “see it first” button for your brand’s profile so that the content you produce won’t be filtered out with the rest of the public content. So conduct a campaign to get Facebook followers to make this change.

There are also alternatives to Facebook marketing your small business can try. Consult with a Corporate Business Solutions expert to find out more.

 

Everything Small Businesses Know about Hard Work is Wrong

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Working hard is an idea that’s drilled into us from a young age. As the belief goes, if one works hard, they will be rewarded for their effort. The latest business research and insight is seriously challenging this notion of working hard. That is to say, does a business need hard-working employees? According to some companies, no.

Perhaps the most well-known company to challenge the notion of hard work was Netflix. Yes, the popular online streaming service made some serious changes to its internal culture after years of stumbling sales. Some of the reforms the company introduced include unlimited vacation times and flexible working hours. Netflix also let go of a good majority of its workforce. The intriguing part is exactly who was let go.

During the layoff period, Netflix didn’t keep its hardest working employees around while laying off the rest. Instead, the company separated employees into two groups: who was crucial to the business and who was not. It didn’t matter if the employees showed up to work on time and worked 10-hour days. If the employee was not considered essential to the business, they were let go.

Such an approach does not seem fair, or particularly smart. However, Netflix managed to turn its dismal finances around to become the premiere streaming service in the world. Why did the Netflix approach work? Read below for explanations from Corporate Business Solutions consultants:

It’s a Results-Based Approach – The Netflix method works because it’s a solely results-based method for running a business. Instead of evaluating employees by how long they spend at the office, the approach isolates employees who bring in results and have the most potential to contribute to the company. It works because those remaining can deliver when it comes to the company’s goals.

Reduce Stress for Necessary Employees – Removing employees who are not needed does reduce stress for employees who contribute to the core business. They don’t have to work with people who are unnecessary to the team.

Focus on Innovation – Ultimately, staffing the workforce is essential to employees who deliver results, allowing companies to innovate. Netflix succeeded because the brand returned as an innovative leader within the industry, not because it had the most hard-working employees.

It all comes down not to working hard, but to working smart. Small businesses that want to succeed must focus on increasing efficiency and productivity at the workplace. Invest in employees who drive innovation in a manner that makes the business more competitive. Avoiding the traditional corporate work environment and driving efficiency and innovation is the way to succeed in 2018. To learn more, visit CBS-CBS.com.

Tips for Motivating Your Employees This New Year

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Do you think your small business’s managers are motivating their employees? According to a recent survey by the human capital management company Ultimate Software, a shocking 56 percent of employees didn’t think so. The survey analyzed more than 2,000 employees in North America. While the overwhelming majority, 71 percent, of managers said they knew how to motivate their subordinates, the majority of employees disagreed.

Motivated employees are crucial to the success of a small business. Employees are also most satisfied when their relationship with the immediate manager is highly positive. Motivation is most important at the beginning of a new year when everyone is looking for a fresh start at work and in their personal lives. Here are several tips for managers and executives to keep employees motivated this new year from CBS Corporate Business Solutions consultants:

Hire Friendly Managers – The personality and social interactions of the manager will highly affect how employees perceive him or her. No one likes to work with bad-tempered and irascible managers. To create a successful relationship between managers and employees, hire people who are approachable and friendly. Employees should be able to communicate their workplace issues to the manager in order to solve problems. If that doesn’t happen, the productivity levels of the small business would be fundamentally flawed.

Do Ask Employees to Contribute – Managers who tell employees what to do all the time are just bad managers. They should direct teams, not dictate to them. When managers are authoritative, it leads back to the fundamental communication issue mentioned above. Dictatorial managers may never know the reality of the situation for the team. Without that knowledge, it’s impossible to make teams more productive or efficient. This type of manager also stifles innovation. Therefore, managers should be able to ask employees to contribute to projects and meetings. Employees are best for conveying what’s wrong from the working side. This information is crucial for seeing projects to completion.

Get Employee Feedback – The Company should also conduct surveys and open avenues for employees to offer feedback on their working conditions, including management styles. Ask your employees what’s wrong directly to fix the issue.

It’s the start of the New Year, so it’s wise for your small business to learn from the mistakes of the past and avoid repeating them. You can request one of our acclaimed Corporate Business Solutions Reviews to analyze your company’s management style and get feedback from the experts.

Holiday Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

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The holidays are finally here. The season typically lasts well into end of January, so small businesses should be getting prepped to stand out among rivals. Most of your employees will be looking forward to spending time with family, but the holidays are definitely not the time to take a break from marketing to clients. It’s the prime time for people to shop, even if some of the biggest holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving are far behind. People continue to go on spending sprees particularly as the New Year rolls around. Here are several ideas from CBS Corporate Business Solutions consultants about marketing during the holiday season:

Up the Social Media Game—The holidays are definitely the time to be on social media. Everyone is checking their Facebook or Instagram feeds, commenting on friends’ pictures and posts. This is the best time for a brand to launch a word-of-mouth campaign. Keep in mind that many other brands will be active on social media as well. So it would be important to stand out from the crowd.

Personalize All Marketing Material—Customers are bombarded with marketing messages from everywhere during the season. Therefore, to capture the attention of the target audience, personalize all marketing material. Avoid the usual “Dear Customer” and use names. If your business has compiled customer profiles, now is the time to use them.

Send Gifts—Gifting not only shows your client base that your brand actually cares about them, it also helps clients keep your brand in mind the following year. Increase your small business’s loyal customer base, and subsequently sales, by sending personalized gifts to loyal customers and important clients.

Offer Deals and Discounts—The holiday season is definitely the time for sales, so offering your customers deals and discounts is more of an obligation at the end of each year. Small businesses can get more out of these deal offerings by smartly timing them. Also, make sure customers are aware of what the company is offering, especially for the season.

It’s the end of the year, so it’s also the time to opt for one of our Corporate Business Solutions Reviews to see exactly how your business performed in the past year, and how much better it can perform in the coming year.

Growth “Strategies” Small Businesses Must Avoid

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Growing or scaling is one of the core aspects of running a small business. Most business owners CBS Corporate Business Solutions have come across invest a lot of time and money for their companies to grow. There are definitely legitimate growth strategies, and sometimes “hacks,” that small businesses can use to grow. Then there are certain tactics that our consultants strongly advise small business owners to avoid. Here is a list:

Signing up customers to email lists without their knowledge – If a customer is on a company mailing list, then that person should have signed up for it themselves. Some companies use a shady tactic where customers who provide their email address are signed up for mailing lists without their knowledge. While this is not technically illegal, it’s a horrible practice that should be avoided. The customers will not be happy about getting email newsletters they didn’t sign up for. It will, in fact, have the opposite effect. Instead of a customer being more attached to a business, the customer will very likely learn to avoid the business.  Moreover, Congress passed an anti-spam law which imposes certain requirements on businesses engaged in email marketing.  The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 is a spam law that established the national standards for sending commercial email (which is different from transactional or relationship email) and providing guidelines for sending behavior, content and unsubscribe compliance. To follow the guidelines in place, you must include a visible and operational unsubscribe option in your commercial emails, a legitimate physical address of the company, accurate “From” information and subject lines, and you cannot send to harvested email addresses.

Adding customers to social media groups – This is a similar tactic to auto-signing up people for email lists. Don’t add customers to Facebook groups or similar social media networks without their explicit consent. People do not like getting random notifications. It may even lead the customers to complain about your company’s practices to social media site owners. That is definitely not a position a brand wants to be in.

Aggressive selling from the get go – If an interested person signs up for an email newsletter or like the brand’s Facebook profile, don’t target that person as a potential customer right away. Don’t start trying to push products on the potential customer. The interested party needs to get used to the brand and build a trustworthy connection before he or she buys a product. If the business starts to aggressively sell right away, this connection will be severed right away.

Posting fake statistics – Companies do get a lot of leeway when it comes to making marketing claims. However, don’t push it. While some exaggerations may be acceptable, don’t try to paint these exaggerations as actual fact. You may call your brand the number one in the field, but don’t make up statistics or studies to “prove” a claim like that. Don’t post fake statistics about customer satisfaction levels, various “scores” for products, and so on. These will only be lies and your long-term growth plan will only get hurt.  Moreover, using fake statistics is not considered harmless by state Attorney Generals who are charged with protecting consumers against businesses making false claims. Such claims are prohibited by consumer protections statutes against misleading advertising and also under general business statutes involving unfair business practices.   For legitimate techniques a small business can use to promote growth, consult with a Corporate Business Solutions expert.

What to Do When Customers Bash Your Brand or Product on Social Media

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Social media is essential for engaging with customers. Sometimes though, small businesses may wish customers were not so engaged on social media. If clients are taking to social media, not to praise your products, but to bitterly criticize, then your company will have a full-blown crisis on hand. Understandably, not all customers who engage with a brand post positive or neutral comments. The goal of a marketing strategy is to maximize positive engagement and minimize negative engagement down to near zero.

But what happens when the negatives end up overtaking the positives? How can a small business respond without spending too much or making the crisis worse?

Don’t Confront the Negative Posters – Being confrontational on a public platform like social media will never end well for a brand. Unless being confrontational is actually one of the traits the brand is trying to promote. Most brands, however, do not want this. If your team tries to confront the accusers, regardless of the merits of the claims, you risk a small argument from snowballing into a veritable social media spectacle. It takes years to build the reputation of a brand, and only minutes to destroy it beyond repair.

Take the High Road and Put the Matter to Rest Quickly – For example, learn about what happened to Iggy Azalea, a promising musician who damaged her brand permanently by relentlessly arguing with critics on Twitter. Keep in mind that the negative reviewers are not losing massive profits by arguing with a business. Therefore, the company should take the high road. Without sounding condescending or deceptive, put the matter to rest with a genial post. Keep it short and apologize if you have to. Don’t drag on an argument any longer than it needs to and let the news cycle move on.

Ask a Consultant What to Do – Marketing experts like the Corporate Business Solutions consultants can help your small business respond to a major PR crisis in a timely and sensitive manner. If your marketing team is inexperienced in responding to negative feedback that is making its way to media, hire the experts to manage the problem.

The main thing during a PR crisis is to avoid the problem from getting worse. Refer to CBS-CBS.com on how your small business can prepare for negative publicity in advance.

Tips for Managing Freelancers

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Freelancers—it’s a word that evokes both elated and derisive responses from small business owners. Companies, both big and small, rely on freelancers to a certain extent. Inarguably, it doesn’t make sense to hire full-time employees for temporary tasks that may not exist in several months. Some companies, especially tiny ones, rely on freelancers if hiring full-time employees is too expensive.

Corporate Business Solutions can help your small business decide whether it wants to hire freelancers or not. But the tough part comes when the business has to manage the freelancers. Here are several tips on how to manage freelance employees of your company:

Get Ready to be Flexible—Most people work as freelancers to have flexibility. That is to say, freelancers don’t like working 9 to 5. That doesn’t mean freelancers work less efficiently. Most freelancers keep irregular hours and tend to prioritize work based on fees and importance. Therefore, when negotiating with freelancers, be flexible. Set deadlines instead of hours.

Do Convey Your Expectations—Unlike office workers, freelancers are practically strangers who don’t know about the goals and priorities of your company. Therefore, for each project, the expectations should be conveyed clearly. Be explicit about the standard of work you expect and when you want things to get done. If you require the project to be completed in stages, be clear about that as well.

Communicate Well—Do keep in touch with freelancers when a project is ongoing. It can easily clear up misunderstandings. If expectations or standards for project changes, don’t wait until the last moment to inform the freelancer. Keeping in touch is very important for striking a good working relationship with the freelancer.

Build a Good Relationship—It’s a nightmare to hire and fire freelancers all the time. Therefore, test a few and start building a professional relationship with freelancers your company can rely on. If the relationship is strong, your business will be able to rely on the freelancer for years.

Do you think your business could save time and money with more freelancers? Opt for Corporate Business Solutions Reviews to find out whether hiring freelancers would help or weaken your small business’s team.

How Should a Small Business Handle a Publicity Crisis

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It’s the worst nightmare of any business. Public relations or perception crises are not wholly uncommon to small businesses. Usually, it’s the big businesses that are plagued by publicity issues. But small businesses should not feel too secure. Publicity crises can happen for many different reasons. It could be due to a misunderstanding, a mistake on the part of the business, or even unforeseen legal issues popping up. Whatever the cause is, here is some brief advice from Corporate Business Solutions for small businesses on how to weather a publicity storm:

Diagnose the Problem – First of all, the company should move quickly to understand exactly what the problem is. If outsiders are accusing the business of anything, there should be an internal investigation to find out if such accusations hold any merit. Once the CEO and the top managers know exactly what is going wrong, then the business can move to address the problem effectively.

Leadership is Important – Leadership is most important during a time of crisis. Without a good leader, a CEO or a senior manager, there’s little chance that the business could navigate the crisis. If the executive officers are not showing good leadership skills at the moment, or if the crisis is somehow their fault, it’s time to find a new leader capable of keeping the company together in a time of crisis.

Take Swift Action – If action is called for, don’t wait around to do it. In most public relations crises, businesses are accused of malpractice or selling low-quality products in some form. If the customers are complaining, then don’t wait to apologize. At lease inform that the problem is being looked at. Do not try to shift blame, because it will not be perceived well.

Stay in Touch with Customers – Don’t ignore customers and their complaints during a time of crisis. It’s more important than ever to provide good customer support as the crisis is unfolding. They won’t be too happy, but it’s important to keep communication lines open to avoid complete abandonment.

Inform Shareholders and Investors – Keep internal stakeholders like shareholders informed of what is happening and keep them updated on new developments as the business addresses the crisis. The last thing a company needs in a time of disaster is a shareholder revolt.

Last but not least, call in a consultant like CBS Corporate Business Solutions to formulate a plan of action to address the disaster head-on.

 

Paid Advertising Mistakes Small Businesses Should Avoid

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Paying for advertising is one of the biggest investments small businesses make. Therefore, the money should be spent wisely. CBS-CBS.com consultants advise many clients on setting up small businesses budgets. One of the major issues we have seen is wasteful spending on digital marketing. Here is our advice for small businesses that want to avoid overspending on online ads. These are some mistakes to avoid:

Using an un-optimized landing page—The landing page is the primary reason your Google Adwords traffic becomes conversions. If the landing page is slow, boring, irrelevant, or not optimized in any meaningful manner, your site will not see increased sales. Therefore, make sure the landing page is tested to drive conversions.

Limiting promotions to only one paid advertiser—Paid advertising is a varied genre. Therefore, don’t limit your budget to just one, like Google Adwords. Make use of other paid channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and so on. Also, try to find niche paid advertising channels in which your target audience is most likely to engage. If your company is B2B, for example, then LinkedIn would be a better place to buy ads than Facebook.

Ignoring specialized publishers—When you buy an ad on Google or Facebook, you are advertising to a general audience. If you want to advertise to a very specific audience, then you need an ad publisher who can reach websites, blogs, and media companies that reach this audience. Therefore, do invest in publishers like BuySellAds and Blogads to reach niche audience with the likelihood of high conversion rates. You can contact a CBS Corporate Business Solutions consultant regarding reaching niche audiences through paid advertising.

Not using remarketing strategies—Remarketing and retargeting strategies aim to attract people who have already visited your website or followed a link. Visiting at least once indicates the interest of some sort. Therefore, paying for advertising to this audience is a great way to attract high-quality traffic. You can get more for your money considering that only users who were at least once interested in your products are returning.

Last but not least, your paid advertising strategy must match your budget and vice versa. If you are on a limited budget, redo the strategy to benefit from only the most lucrative channels, and not experimental ones. You should match the budget to strategy to avoid both overspending and underspending.

The Must-Know Laws of Writing Business Emails

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Writing business emails are a fact of life for those who run a small business. But do you know how to write proper business emails? Here is a list of rules that all small business owners must follow when writing business-related emails:

Enter a Subject Line – Never send business emails without a subject line, warns Corporate Business Solutions, unless you want the emails to be ignored. Emails without subject lines would just end up in the trash or spam folder.

Add a Signature at the End – Gmail and other email services let users add an electronic signature to all emails sent. It’s highly advisable to use this feature when sending formal and semi-formal business emails. It’s just like adding your actual signature at the end of a memo or a business letter.

Avoid the “Hi”—Instead of starting the email with a “hey” or a “hi,” try using a professional salutation like Ms (name). Hello is more acceptable than hi, and you can start emails with Hello (name of recipient). Decide which is more suitable depending on the nature of the correspondence.

Read it Once Over – Don’t send the business email without reading it at least once. Avoiding embarrassing spelling mistakes might help you land a deal. Even a silly error could be interpreted by the recipient as you being sloppy and not serious, which is bad for business.

Let the Recipient Know What You are Talking about – Keep in mind that the recipient might not always know what you are talking about, especially if you are responding to a chain email. To employ the use of “one-liners” to refer to the subject matter. For example, write “with regards to (subject)” first and then continue the email.

Avoid Trying to be Funny – Don’t assume that jokes translate well in emailed text as in real-time conversations. Even an innocent joke could be misinterpreted by the person on the other end. So, don’t try to be funny and instead be formal when sending any business email.

Do Reply—Reply in a timely manner to all responses you get to business emails. If you don’t have time to write a lengthy message, do address that and at least say you will get back later with a better response.

Master the above email etiquette to improve your professionalism as a small business owner. Get more advice at CBS-CBS.com.