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Drinkers tout its health benefits, such as improved digestion and arthritis and cancer prevention. But what did we think?
1 min read
Kombucha is one of the latest buzzy health drinks making its rounds. The fermented drink features live cultures (think: yogurt). Drinkers tout its health benefits, such as improved digestion and arthritis and cancer prevention.
But what did the staff at Entrepreneur think of the fizzy drink? We put Humm Kombucha to the test in our latest Try-Day Friday video.
You can replace “CEO” with anything else you want and stand out from your competitors.
Having read similar advice in Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid, I created my own job title and description. It’s a simple process but not necessarily easy.
Using my experience as a guide, here’s some advice for creating your own job title and description.
Finding Your Greatest Strength
“Don’t be fungible. Have a distinctive expertise or perspective.” – Larry Summers, former U.S. Secretary of Treasury
When crafting your job title, Port recommends starting by figuring out your greatest strength. I knew I possessed many gifts and talents, but I didn’t have a clue which one to use to define myself.
In this case, Port suggests turning to friends and family—the people who know you best—and asking them to tell you the first three words that come to mind when they think of you.
I used Facebook to conduct a poll asking people for the first three words that came to mind when they thought of me.
Once I had 15-20 responses, I saw that the word most often associated with me was “creative” or “creativity.”
And that rang true for me. Everything I was passionate about doing and everything I enjoyed doing was some kind of creative exercise.
I knew, then, that I could specialize in being creative.
Crafting Your Entrepreneur Job Title
The trick now was to put the title together with a word to describe how I planned on using my creativity to help my target audience. How, exactly, was I going to serve them?
The answer to that was easier to see.
People routinely come to me for advice on a variety of problems and issues. They do so because I have a gift for seeing the big picture. I point out details they’ve overlooked and I help them overcome obstacles.
I decided that the word “consultant” best described the method of my delivery.
And so I became the “Creativity Consultant.”
But What Does It Mean?
I had a nifty title and that was fantastic—until someone asked me what it meant.
I didn’t know how to describe the work of a Creativity Consultant!
Sure, my title was catchy, but it was meaningless until I could put it into words that would help people understand how what I did was useful to them.
I had figured out a way to be remarkable, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to be remarkably useful.
Finding My Market
Most of the time, the first product that a startup brings to market won’t meet the market need. In the best cases, it will take a few revisions to get the product/market fit right. In the worst cases, the product will be way off base, and a complete re-think is required. – David Skok, Why Startups Fail
If my business efforts failed, it was because I didn’t start by finding my market. Without knowing my market, I couldn’t figure out what they needed. And I couldn’t create an offer for them that would be worth paying good money to receive.
Going back to Michael Port’s advice, decide who it is you wanted to serve. Whose concerns do you best understand? Who would it excite you to think about working with?
The answer became clear when I thought about my priorities in life, about what mattered most to me, and who shared those values.
My specific market is creative entrepreneurs. These are the people I understand best and whose struggles I share.
How Does That Help?
You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. – Zig Ziglar
Having my market defined was half the battle. But I still wasn’t clear on how my creativity could help creative entrepreneurs with their struggle to build successful businesses.
The connection between my title and the services I offer didn’t become clear to me until a few years later.
Working with an author, we looked at her book to find potential products she could build from it with little extra effort on her part. Our goal was to help her transform her book into the foundation of a very successful business.
As I worked on the project, I had an epiphany. I realized what I was doing to help this author was not only something I was good at, but it was also something valuable to the market I served.
Who wouldn’t pay $500 if they knew it would help them make $500,000 or more?
The Value of Your Title
William B. Dodds and Kent B. Monroe conducted a study in 1985 on the relationship between brands and perceived value. They demonstrated that the perceived value of a product has a direct influence on what and whether a consumer is willing to pay for it.
For your chosen title to be meaningful, you need to explain its value to your market in terms of dollars and cents.
What will they receive from you that justifies the money they spend with you?
With an audience clearly in mind, I knew that one of their biggest needs was help in figuring out how to bring in a steady stream of revenue from the things they create.
Most of these products are paintings or handcrafted pottery. It takes time and labor to produce each piece. These items are not things that can be mass manufactured without ruining the value.
The number of people, however, able to sell their pieces for thousands of dollars are very few, which leads to most creative entrepreneurs struggling to make ends meet, hence the stereotype of the “starving artist.”
There was a clear need for someone with the right talents and skills to help them overcome that obstacle.
Most of them were stuck in jobs they didn’t want because they didn’t know how to support themselves with their skills. And the stress of working in jobs that weren’t the right fit for their unique skills and talents led to medical and therapy bills adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime.
Health problems associated with job-related anxiety account for more deaths each year than Alzheimer’s disease or diabetes. – Gillian B. White: “The Alarming, Long-Term Consequences of Workplace Stress” The Atlantic
Yet, I knew there were ways I could help these creative entrepreneurs break out of the mold and earn more from every piece they produced.
I helped them spot possible products that could be developed from a single effort with the potential to bring in tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars with relatively little initial investment. By helping them find these products that could be created once and sold multiple times, I was helping them go beyond making a living to making a life for themselves and their families.
I now knew the real value my title had to offer and was ready to put together a pitch statement.
FREE eBook: Reimagining the Success Mindset
Creating the Pitch Statement
In the spring of 2015, Microsoft released a research study called “Attention Spans,” where it cited a statistic that the human attention span was just 8 seconds long.
That means you have exactly 8 seconds to catch hold of a prospect’s attention before they move on to something else.
This is why pitch statements are so popular.
They explain the big idea in a very short amount of time, but business owners often struggle to create them.
How do you take the big idea behind your business and condense it into a single sentence?
Creating a pitch statement is similar in many ways to writing a book blurb. You identify:
what you do
who you do it for
how you do it differently from anyone else doing it
how that helps your prospect achieve the success they desire
My pitch statement ended up being:
“I help creative entrepreneurs make more money by showing them how to use what they already know and do it in different ways.”
Testing and Refining
Once you have your pitch statement, test it.
Choose a social media outlet and join a group that caters to your target audience. If you’re using Twitter, research an appropriate hashtag to use. Then put your pitch statement out there.
Refine it based on how people respond to it. If they don’t respond at all, you know you need to work on it. You’ll know you have it right when people ask you to tell them more about what you do.
Improving Your Marketing
When I first started my business, I didn’t know how to market my work because I didn’t know how to describe what I did.
Neither did I know how to price my work because I didn’t know what value it offered. Once I had my job title in place, knew the people that needed what I had to offer, and was able to craft my pitch statement—suddenly marketing became easier.
I could explain what I did and what that was worth in dollars and cents to the people I wanted to serve. It was short and easy-to-digest but memorable because it was unique.
My confidence increased and because my marketing statement was keyed to my market, the responses I received improved.
Share Your Pitch
Don’t let this be just another article you’ve read. Put what you’ve learned into action.
As bloggers, we are trying to find creative ways to influence engagement on our website so we rely on tools to help us out. I read an article several months ago on heat maps and how they help in increasing user engagement. I’m a true believer that we should always invest our time and money into finding what works for our readers. Without high user engagement, it’s very hard to meet our bottom line, whatever the reason we started blogging. With higher traffic comes the opportunity for increased ROI, traffic, engagement, and influence. If you are new to the concept of heat maps, then let’s look at some benefits of using them in your business. Let’s get started…
What are Heat Maps?
These are representations of how visitors interact with your page. They will be shown in the form of different colors on your page, showing engagement. For example, the stronger color, orange, on a section of your page will show you where MOST of your visitors engage.
In the above image, you can see, in Google search, most of the interaction is on the right side where the search results actually appear.
How can they help you?
I’ll be going over some of the reasons heat maps are important for your blog. They can help you understand a lot about your audience and improve the overall user experience.
Web Design –
One of the main reasons heat maps are important is for web design and improvement. For example, knowing how my audience interacts with my website will allow me to make tweaks to those sections and others. First, where engagement is higher, I’d like to try and profit in those areas and I’ll be discussing this in more detail later. Secondly, where engagement is low, I’d like to try different things to increase it and understand how these improvements help my ROI.
Advertising –
If you have a huge traffic flow each month, then you can monetize by selling ad space on your blog. What’s even more amazing is with heat maps, you can find areas with high engagement, offering those sections for advertising space. The more ROI advertisers get from your blog, the more they’ll be willing to pay for banner space. Heat maps will help you understand and identify these high engagement sections so you can put together the right package for your sponsors.
Content Visibility –
The more visible your content, the higher chances of it being shared and producing conversions. If content marketing is your main strategy, then you want to focus on getting people to your content and this is only possible if you know where to put it on your site. For example, with heat maps, you’ll get a good breakdown of the sections your visitors are spending MOST of their time so it’s time to profit. Start placing content and links in those section because this increases the chances of them clicking-through.
Through content visibility, you are doing the following:
Increasing conversions
Social shares
Profits
External CTR
Internal CTR
Google –
We all know there are many factors that influence your rankings and you need to do what you can to tweak elements you have control over. For example, bounce rate has been known to affect rankings because a high % shows visitors don’t find your page engaging or doesn’t provide what they are looking for.
Through heat maps, you can reduce bounce rate by making other sections of your page engaging. If you see people are always on the left part of your page (as seen in illustration above), then add more engaging elements there to keep them browsing longer.
At the same time, you can try to improve other sections of your page to help with bounce rate.
In part three of her series, Jessica Abo sits down with the founder of Grayce & Co to learn what businesses need to have a successful marketing strategy.
2 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
ICYMI, I had a branding issue when I first met marketing expert Kathleen Griffith. In part one of our special series, I learned about fragmentation. Griffith encouraged me to pick one area of my business to focus on and she gave tips on how you can get do that, too. Then we delved into what I needed to develop a brand strategy and the importance of knowing your company's core values. In this episode, Griffith walks me through how to build a tactical marketing plan and has homework assignments that may help you as well.
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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Social Media Marketing Talk Show, a news show for marketers who want to stay on the leading edge of social media.
On this week’s Social Media Marketing Talk Show, we explore Facebook’s New subscription service for creators and pausing Messenger chatbots with Luria Petrucci, Facebook privacy updates, and other breaking social media marketing news of the week!
Watch the Social Media Marketing Talk Show
If you’re new to the show, click on the green “Watch replay” button below and sign in or register to watch our latest episode from Friday, March 30, 2018. You can also listen to the show as an audio podcast, found on iTunes/Apple Podcast, Android, Google Play, Stitcher, and RSS.
For this week’s top stories, you’ll find timestamps below that allow you to fast-forward in the replay above.
Facebook Tests Monthly Subscription Service for Creators: Last week, Facebook announced that it’s currently building a range of new monetization and audience tools for creators. One of these new monetization options is being described as a Patreon-like system where users can sign up for a monthly subscription to their favorite creators in exchange for exclusive content and a fan badge. TechCrunch reports that the subscriptions will begin at $4.99 with Facebook and either Google Play or the iOS App Store taking a cut. However, custom pricing could come later. Facebook is expected to launch the program next month with 10 creators across the U.S. and UK. (6:00)
Facebook Temporarily Pauses Chatbot and App Reviews: Along with a number of platform changes intended to protect user data and prevent its misuse, Facebook is currently pausing all app reviews. This means developers won’t be able to launch any new apps or new chatbots on the Facebook platform while the company reviews its current privacy and data policies. (18:09)
Facebook assures developers and users that existing Facebook Messenger bot experiences that have already been approved and connected “will continue to function as is.” Developers are also cautioned not to clear cookies, sign out, or attempt to reconnect their bots through any third-party tools such as ManyChat or ChatFuel until Facebook updates its policies.
Facebook Announces Upcoming Platform Changes and Stricter Developer Policies: In addition to pausing its app and chatbot review process, Facebook announced several other platform updates that will take effect in the “upcoming days and beyond.” There will be stricter policies and terms for B2B app development and more user control over what data those apps are permitted to access. Facebook is also conducting a full audit of any app with suspicious activity and making it simpler for users to report any misuses of data they find. Facebook promises to ban developers that misuse personally identifiable information and notify users if an app is removed for this reason. (25:55)
Facebook Establishes New Privacy Tools: Facebook announced a new set of changes to its user-facing privacy settings and is rolling out the ability to manage, download, and delete any data that has been previously collected by Facebook across its platform. Facebook redesigned and streamlined its account settings to a single page on mobile, added a new Privacy Shortcuts menu, added extra layers of security, and much more. These updates will be available to all users “in the coming weeks.” (29:49)
Facebook Unveils New Comment Privacy Feature: Facebook appears to be testing a new privacy feature for comments. A new Lock icon allows users to toggle two privacy settings for comments on public posts: open to the public or only visible to you and the profile or page owner. This possible new feature was spotted in the UK and shared by Matt Navarra. (33:04)
Facebook Plans to Shut Down Third-Party Ad Data: In a separate statement, Facebook announced plans to shut down Partner Categories soon, a product that enables third-party data providers to offer ad targeting data directly on Facebook. Recode reports that Facebook currently allows advertisers to target groups of people based on a mix of offline data such as offline purchasing activity collected by companies like Experian and Acxiom, user activity and profile data collected by Facebook, and a company’s own customer data. Facebook will wind down the practice of including third-party ad data “over the next six months” in a continued effort to improve and protect privacy on Facebook.
Facebook Temporarily Drops Audience Reach Estimates From Custom Ads: In an email to brands and advertisers, Facebook stated that after identifying a new technical issue with reach estimation for custom audiences that could “potentially allow misuse of the functionality,” it’s removing the ability to see reach estimates for all custom audiences across all of its interfaces until the issue can be resolved. Facebook will also limit how many custom audiences an advertiser can create during this time.
Exclusive: Facebook will no longer show audience reach estimates for Custom Audiences after vulnerability detected by @ginnymarvinhttps://t.co/8vP68D2MwT
Facebook Prioritizes Local News Globally: Earlier this year, Facebook announced plans to prioritize news items from users’ local towns or cities in the news feed. This update initially rolled out in the U.S. but has now been expanded to “people in all countries, in all languages.” Facebook states that this update will help “local publishers who cover multiple, nearby cities reach audiences in those cities” and “[connect] people to local publishers from those cities.”
Facebook Expands Local News Section to More U.S. Cities: In January, Facebook began testing a new section of the mobile app that connects users to a separate feed entirely dedicated to local news, events, and announcements. This new section, called Today In, was being vetted by local publishers in six U.S. cities. Due to the positive response to this experimental feature, Facebook plans to expand the test to 25 additional U.S. cities over the next few weeks. The list of cities and how to find Today In can be found on the Facebook Media blog.
Today we announced that we are expanding the test for Today In, a dedicated section on Facebook that connects people to news and information about their community.
We have seen a positive response from people and will be rolling out the test into 25 more US cities over the next few weeks.
More details here: https://media.fb.com/2018/03/28/bringing-local-news-section-today-in-to-more-us-cities/
Along with this rollout, Facebook is starting a small test with some first-responder pages “to help them communicate local alerts on Facebook” and determine if posts are an effective way to support established emergency alert systems. The local alert indicator will appear in both the news feed and Today In in a select number of cities, where Today In is currently available.
LinkedIn Introduces Native Video for Sponsored Content and Company Pages: LinkedIn is rolling out autoplaying native video ads that will be featured as stand-alone posts in the LinkedIn news feed. LinkedIn is also introducing the ability for businesses and publishers to include native video on their company pages. Both of these capabilities are rolling out now and will be available to all businesses “in the next few weeks.”
Facebook Tests Expiring Friend Requests: Facebook is testing 14-day time limits on accepting friend requests with a small subset of users. TechCrunch notes this new feature is “a way to assist people with managing unwanted friend requests by eventually deleting those people [they] saw but didn’t accept.”
Facebook Adds Video Cover Image Options for Profiles: Facebook now allows users to select a video for a profile cover image from the Cover Artwork library. Previously, Facebook only offered static images in this gallery.
Pinterest Rolled Out New Following Tab: Pinterest announced it’s rolling out a new way to discover ideas from the people and brands you already follow on the platform. The new Following tab makes it “easy to see the latest Pins from all the people you follow, in the order they save them.” This new feature is available on the web and on mobile for both iOS and Android.
Twitter Adds New Companies to Official Partners Program: In 2015, Twitter launched its Official Partner Program, which features an “elite set of companies… [that can help brands] increase returns on advertising campaigns, gain brand insights, scale customer care, and more.” This week, Twitter announced that it’s adding six new partners to this program. These companies include Curalate, Jebbit, VidMob, Vidsy, Animoto, and Social Native.
Today we’re expanding the @TwitterMktg toolset with six innovative solutions that deliver memorable, high-quality #creative for brands.
These innovators share how they learned from their setbacks.
7 min read
No matter what you do, if you decide to pursue entrepreneurship, you’re going to have to deal with a lot of “no’s.” But it isn’t the setback that defines who you are, but how you handle it. You want to make sure that if you hit a brick wall, you don’t let it deter you from staying the course.
Read on for what the most innovative and successful leaders took away from their brushes with rejection.
Steve Jobs There's no denying that Jobs is a tech icon. But his famously combative leadership style often rubbed people the wrong way, so much so that in 1985, he was fired from the company he founded when Apple’s board of directors removed him. In the interim, Jobs launched another business, software company NeXT, and bought a little animation studio called Pixar. In 1997, he returned to Apple and set it on the course to become one of the most valuable publicly traded companies. In his oft-quoted 2005 Stanford University commencement speech, Jobs said that this time away from Apple was actually beneficial. “I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
J.K. Rowling In 2016, the Harry Potter author took to Twitter to share some of the toughest rejection letters she received over the years, both for the first Harry Potter book -- which was famously turned down 12 times before Bloomsbury agreed to publish it -- and for her Cormoran Strike detective series, which she wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Since she was applying anonymously, she didn’t have the benefit of the Potter caché when she submitted that manuscript. But she kept going anyway. “I wasn't going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen,” Rowling wrote. “I had nothing to lose and sometimes that makes you brave enough to try.”
Elon Musk If you look closely, Musk’s career is actually littered with rejections and missteps. He apparently didn’t get any traction when he applied for a gig at Netscape in the 1990s. He was fired from his job as PayPal’s CEO after spending some time in the position after the company bought his finance startup X.com. His early attempts at building an aerospace business saw him dealing with less than enthused Russian entities that refused to sell him any rockets. But after each rejection, he went on to build something new. After his stint at Netscape came his first business, Zip2. After PayPal, he went on to co-found Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company. Musk still deals with setbacks such as Tesla production bottlenecks and enough rocket explosions to edit together a montage. But he is still reaching for the stars.
Oprah Winfrey While Winfrey is a huge success now, it was actually an early setback that helped forge the media icon she later became. After seven months as a co-anchor for the evening news at a local Baltimore station, sharing the news desk with a veteran anchor who frequently disrespected her, Winfrey was fired from the job. She was then tapped to host the network’s morning show, People Are Talking, which yielded some less than stellar reviews in the early go. Undeterred, Winfrey was going to make the most of the opportunity. Reflecting on the experience to The Baltimore Sun, Winfrey said, "Not all my memories of Baltimore are fond ones. … But I do have fond memories of Baltimore, because it grew me into a real woman. I came in naive, unskilled, not really knowing anything about the business -- or about life. And Baltimore grew me up.”
Warren Buffett Warren Buffett, one of the richest men on the planet, has been operating in the business world for a long time. The octogenarian CEO of Berkshire Hathaway starting making investments when he was just 11-years-old. You might think most of his career was smooth sailing, but the Oracle of Omaha has dealt with rejection too. At 19, he tried to get into his dream school Harvard, but it didn't happen. In an interview with Alice Schroeder in her biography of the tycoon, he shared how his application went awry. "I looked about 16 and emotionally was about 9. I spent 10 minutes with the Harvard alumnus who was doing the interview, and he assessed my capabilities and turned me down." While Harvard wasn’t the right fit, it led him to Columbia where he honed his skills in investing. It has clearly paid off.
Barbara Corcoran Real estate mogul and investor Barbara Corcoran’s career also began somewhat inauspiciously. The then 22-year-old waitress got a loan from her boyfriend to launch a real estate firm. They built the company together, but then seven years in, she was blindsided when he told her that he was leaving -- and marrying her secretary. Years later, when Corcoran was in contention to be one of the judges on Shark Tank, she had the job, lost it to another female entrepreneur, and then won it back by writing a letter to the production team telling them what they would lose out on if they didn’t hire her for the team. “I said that all the best things happened to me on the heels of rejection and I considered his rejection a lucky charm,” Corcoran told Entrepreneur. “I cited half dozen similar situations throughout my career where obstacles turned into my greatest opportunities.”
Jeff Bezos Even though Amazon is so successful that American cities are actively bidding to host the ecommerce giant's second headquarters, at the beginning of the company’s life, Bezos was met with a lot of questions about whether it could even get off the ground. In an interview with 60 Minutes, he explained the juggling act he had to do to raise early funds for the business. “I had to take 60 meetings to raise $1 million, and I raised it from 22 people at approximately $50,000 a person,” Bezos recalled. “It was nip and tuck whether I was going to be able to raise that money. So, the whole thing could have ended before the whole thing started. That was 1995, and the first question every investor asked me was: ‘What’s the internet?'” Eventually, it seemed that people caught on to what he was building.
Sallie Krawcheck Krawcheck was one of the most recognizable women on Wall Street. But in 2008, during the height of the financial crisis, she was publicly fired from her position as Citigroup’s chief financial officer after she said that the firm had an obligation to pay back some of the money that their clients had lost because of its advice. Krawcheck also believes that being a woman in a high-ranking leadership role led to her dismissal. But she channeled that rejection into becoming a first-time entrepreneur and launched an investing platform for women called Ellevest. “The biggest risk is not taking any career risk," Krawcheck told Entrepreneur. "We all need to be pushing ourselves in different directions, otherwise we risk having the world just pass us by.”
How do you bounce back from rejection? Let us know in the comments.
Ever hear of progressive web apps, or PWAs? They combine the best parts of the web and mobile experiences.
6 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Americans love their media. As eMarketer noted, U.S. adults spend more than five hours daily on their mobile devices and desktops. And, according to Com Score research, 57 percent of that five hours happens on apps.
Not surprisingly, brands want to leverage these impressive statistics. And that's no surprise since clearly the best place to acquire and engage customers is through their screens.
Yet both startups and more established corporations are eschewing traditional web apps in favor of progressive web apps, or PWAs. PWAs are web pages, even whole websites, that look like apps. Their aim is to combine the features that browsers offer with the benefits of a mobile experience.
What's so special about PWAs? From a customer's viewpoint, not much; from a sales and service standpoint, everything.
Users operating PWAs simply mimic behaviors they exhibit when navigating super-fast native web apps (meaning apps written for a particular platform or device). In other words, these users are in their comfort zone and tend to respond positively. That's exactly why Pinterest moved to a PWA when it discovered that four out of five loyalists checked in on mobile devices, according to MarTech Advisor. After the change, 40 percent more pinners engaged with the site for five-plus minutes compared with the time they spent interacting with the platform's native app.
Will every startup or entrepreneur be ready for PWAs? Nope. At the same time, though, those prepared to take the plunge may discover a new method to foster consumer loyalty and business growth.
Why PWAs stand out from other apps.
In the early years of the iPhone, Steve Jobs instructed developers to create web apps rather than customized iPhone software. The idea was to create a mobile version of a website that functioned like an app. While this notion helped spark the realization that websites should be responsive, the available plugins, coding language and device functions didn't really make Apple's initial goal viable.
The result was that Jobs (and Apple) soon shifted directions, embracing third-party apps. But other companies had already begun to initiate responsive web design so that their fonts, buttons, graphics and more would adapt to any screen resolution. The problem? All of those responsive sites couldn't perform native app functions such as connecting to phone features.
PWAs are the next iteration of "write once, deploy everywhere." Not only do they allow sites to automatically format for users' benefit, but the user experience feels like that of a traditional mobile app. Users get push notifications and phenomenal load times thanks to cached information. At the same time, they can use PWAs offline or whereever wi-fi is spotty.
Best of all, users avoid the arduous task of heading to the App Store, finding an app, waiting for it to download, opting in to all sorts of settings and, finally, signing in. And heaven forbid that users forget their IDs -- what a drag. In contrast, PWAs, such as those available on Lyft and, notably, the Financial Timessite, give consumers access to app capabilities.
These include the ability to add the site to their device's or desktop's home screen -- without a lengthy download time holding up the process.
How you can leverage PWAs today for big wins tomorrow.
For small businesses and entrepreneurs wanting to capitalize on this equalizer allowing them to bypass the App Store -- or even for those who simply want to give browsers a taste test of what their native apps can deliver -- here are three best practices to keep in mind:
1. Determine how a PWA would work for your strategy. As with any technology, consider how PWAs might dovetail with your overall corporate goals before you green-light any projects.
True, most websites can benefit from some PWA features, such as offline content availability or the chance for the user to tap into phone-specific features, like geographic location. At the same time, mapping out how you'll use your PWA to match your offerings and engage your customers is essential. The last thing you want to do is launch a PWA for the sake of novelty before understanding why it's right for your organization.
For instance, if you're a design firm, like my company, could a PWA showcase work you've done? Or could it provide a tool that helps prospects build potential products? Maybe you have a mobile app and want to offer functionality via your PWA rather than explaining why your native app is the best. Games such as 2048 and social networks such as Twitter use PWAs to offer free trials, or "taste tests." Your company can do this, too -- but only if it fits with your objectives.
2. Leverage PWAs to strengthen internal content and related efforts. Are you running a blog or news site? How about a retail establishment? Would you like to get users to opt-in to your web pages so you can push out notifications, understand where people are geographically located and enable offline news check-in possibilities?
Deploying a PWA could provide your customers with exactly what they need without making them download your app -- which of course won't work when they're removed from a good internet hot spot. Consumers love fast sites, which is why native apps have a leg up over websites. But they might not be updated, and many have nasty glitches.
PWAs avoid weird load waits, which Google says cause 61 percent of people to jump ship. Speed might kill in some situations, but it's also your best friend on the web.
Could that be why Starbucks was quick to release its PWA in 2017? That PWA lets users not only navigate the coffee shop's menu, but do it no matter where they are. Likewise, Alibaba's PWA quadrupled the company's user engagement, according to a Google case study.
3. Work to preserve and enhance search engine optimization. One of the biggest hassles of native apps is that they do nothing for SEO because they don't provide back links. But PWAs can provide you with the SEO your native app is missing because they fall somewhere between a website and a downloadable app.
Even if you don't get SEO love from your PWA directly, you can get it through brand recognition. For instance, when Weather.com decided to take the lead in the meterorology it provided -- it adopted PWAs. According to a Google case study, The Weather Channel's PWA nearly doubled its loading speed and now works in 178 countries.
Every industry is competitive. Consequently, companies like yours and mine need to immediately showcase their specialties. With people preferring digital devices to other mechanisms for getting data these days, PWAs provide an opportunity for small businesses and entrepreneurs to further their reach.
Plus, they bypass the annoyances related to slow website load times and annoying native app downloads -- creating the best of all worlds that all companies can (and should) take advantage of.
In happy Elon Musk news, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 10 communications satellites today. In bad Elon Musk news, Tesla announced the recall of 123,000 Model S cars because of a steering bolt that is prone to rust.
Under Armour revealed that 150 million MyFitnessPal app accounts were compromised in one of the biggest data breaches in history. Hackers gained access to usernames, email addresses and scrambled passwords.
A judge ruled that Starbucks and other coffee sellers must put a cancer warning on coffee sold in California. We're going to go full science-denier on this piece of news and just pretend we never heard it.
The Titanium Mastermind opened last night with a welcome dinner party that feature great food, music, dancing, drums, and fireworks. It was a lot of fun. If you have never been to a Titanium Mastermind, you need to get there! It’s a great way to experience what it’s like to live the Dot Com Lifestyle.
How To Live The Ultimate Dot Com Lifestyle
I have many internet products and services that makes me money while I’m sleeping. Continuity affiliate programs like Aweber, LeadPages, ClickFunnel, MOBE, and others ensure a steady flow of income no matter what I’m doing or where I am in the world. Of all the programs, MOBE has consistently been one of the highest earners. It’s the program I recommend for new and experienced Internet marketers.
The best way to start is by applying for the 21 Step System. This is a step by step system that I created with MOBE to help you make your first $1,250, $3,300, $5,500, and even $10,000 online. In addition to the steps, you’ll also be given a one-on-one coach who will help you get started on the right track. I can’t promise that you’ll make as much as me, but you will be given access to the same tools and methods I use to make money online.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
"Tech entrepreneurs who start companies in nascent industries face a whole new set of challenges. Think of them as “virtual hurdles” that they need to overcome to be successful. There is no roadmap to follow, no precedent to learn from. Working in an industry that’s just starting out or not even a thing yet, these entrepreneurs not only have to invent brand new ways of thinking and seeing the world, they also need to convince others to buy into their vision.
Below are tips from three CEOs on how they succeeded in an industry that didn’t even exist yet.
Image credit: Avi Horowitz
Taylor Freeman, CEO and Co-Founder of Upload
Build a community.
"When building a company in an industry that's also in the process of building itself, you have to find like-minded people who share your passion. We hosted a series of meet-ups around VR and used our online properties to keep people up to date about the latest industry news. To date, we've hosted more than 450 events and have reached more than 200 million people online."
"When you're clear about your vision and have defined the pillars around which you are going to build your company, you can always point back to those truths and remain inspired to keep pushing forward—no matter how difficult things may become. For Upload, our pillars are connection, experience, and inspiration. These are the three areas that continue to drive our decision making for new products and services as the industry and community evolve."
Ask for advice.
"Establish relationships with smart investors early on to prove your passion and show them that you’re someone who sticks to their word. We met our series-A investor two years before they invested in us, giving them a chance to watch and experience our growth and progress as a company."
Image credit: Nicole Biesek
Nonny De La Pena , CEO and Founder of Emblematic
Ignore the nay-sayers.
"I remember colleagues pointing their fingers in my face or cornering me to tell me that what I was doing could not work. Ultimately, I ended up losing my job over pursuing virtual reality. But I believed in what I was doing and so I had to figure out how to make it happen anyway and that ethos is what I try to imbue now at Emblematic: There is always a way to make things work."
Make people literally lean in.
"Always to be aware of the moments when you need command a room. I recognized early on when I needed to consider speaking in a deeper tone. I tend to be naturally boisterous and opinionated so, I have to remember that I have often seen some of the most powerful people dominate the room by lowering their voice and practically whispering."
"Try to find ways to simplify your life, including outsourcing HR, insurance and payroll into one service. I got bad advice to try to do each separately to save the money but once I moved over into a combined service, the streamlining saved me so much time that I was able to concentrate on bigger issues in growing the company."
Image credit: Misti Lane
Charlie Nooney, CEO of MobiTV
Reinvent yourself.
"MobiTV originally built the first technology designed for mobile devices to receive live video content streams. We changed the market, then the market changed on us. The business foundations around mobile became less relevant in the marketplace as the industry evolved. However, we came to the realization that the tech developed around our legacy business was incredibly relevant to IPTV delivery of video to the home. So we figured out a way to use our technology to help a new set of customers who needed to evolve: pay-TV providers."
Mind the gaps.
"It's highly unlikely that there aren't holes in your business that need to be addressed. Look at your strengths and create a plan to fill those gaps quickly. Then, stay focused on direction so you're taking aim at success, aggressively, with a clear understanding of what you need to do to make your team the best it can be."
Get an early win.
"In the beginning stages of your company, there will skepticism from the market, investors, and perhaps even employees. The sooner you secure a solid win, the sooner the doubt will subside. As a leader, your job is to instill confidence in your team and anyone standing behind you in your business. No matter how ready you are to make an impact on a new industry, it's impossible to be ready for everything. There will be bumps and surprises. Expect them and close as many positive wins as you can, from day one, to keep your team and investors focused on the positivity, while the bumps continue to show up along the road."
Related video: 7 Crucial Lessons I Learned While Starting a Business
In this series, Open Every Door, Entrepreneur staff writer Nina Zipkin shares her conversations with leaders about understanding what you have to offer, navigating the obstacles that will block your path, identifying opportunity and creating it for yourself and for others.
It’s normal to feel nervous about striking out on your own. But if you start to feel yourself hesitate in pursuit of your goals, take Jean Case’s motto to heart and “Be Fearless.”
Case is the CEO and co-founder of the Case Foundation. She has been running the organization with her husband, AOL co-founder Steve Case, since 1997. Through their work, the Cases are dedicated to dismantling myths about who can be a business leader by providing not only data but resources and funding to help underrepresented entrepreneurs make an impact.
Much of Jean Case’s career has been about seeing what others might not, especially in the world of technology. Before the Case Foundation, Case worked at GE developing the marketing strategy for its early online service The Source. She then made the leap and joined the startup that would evolve into AOL.
In addition to her duties at the Case Foundation, she is the chair of the National Geographic Society Board of Trustees and sits on the boards of Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2), the White House Historical Association and BrainScope Company.
Case shared her insights about how make your mistakes truly count and how to find the people that will keep you honest and help you identify your strengths.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you tell me about a time that you needed to create an opportunity for yourself or others? How did you approach it?
Early in my career, I ended up at GE working on an online service. I was on a really fast track at GE and everything was going swimmingly. Then this opportunity came along for a new startup. It looked like this opportunity could lead to much greater impact in terms of democratizing access to ideas, information and communication. I had to make the jump.
What I find is that every moment where there was some some big opportunity around the corner it was usually preceded by necessitating risk to make that jump. When I think about sort of pivots or turns or opportunities that were created I think back to that. Of course that company would become AOL, but at the time it was a real risk in proving that [it was a good idea]. My mom and friends said, "Are you crazy? You got the best job in the world. Why would you take a risk and go there?" I never considered that a mistake.
Did this experience or any other in your career change how you think about leadership?
I've been pretty public about a failure that we had at the Case Foundation, which was a global water initiative in sub-Saharan Africa. I launched it at the Clinton Global Initiative with President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush by my side. It was very high profile. As we got started, things weren't going well. The initiative wasn't going forward the way we wanted it to, there were just problems cropping up everywhere. So we spent about a year trying to course correct and then it became clear that we weren't going to be able to.
So we faced the tough decision of what to do and it was at that moment where I determined I had to be transparent and clear with our stakeholders and the public and just say this isn't working. We need to pivot, we need to walk away from this initiative and find a new way forward in clean water. That's exactly what we did. That was a watershed moment for me because it really was the most public moment of acknowledging failure up until that point in my life. Today, when I speak, particularly on college campuses, I often open with what I call my failure resume because [my talk] will follow this bio that sounds so perfect. Like everything just went as I planned it. Then I talk about whose failures or mistakes I made along the way and how they almost had to happen in order for these other opportunities to emerge.
What surprised you most about opening up about that failure?
We do ourselves a disservice if we don't talk about how the best things don't come easy. I often quote Albert Einstein, who said failure is success in progress. If we looked at it that way, we would probably feel very different in those low moments, because we could really embrace the idea that something great must be around the corner.
[I wrote a blog post about what had happened] and that was going to be our message to the world that we have failed. When I hit send, I was filled with insecurity. I worried about what people would say. But in fact what happened is a number of colleagues and peers started calling, emailing and finding me and saying thank you. No one ever talks about it. So that actually for us began something that was to emerge as a major initiative called Be Fearless. [We looked at] great movements, companies, products and ask experts what's behind them. It always involves risk-taking. You have to be open to the idea that you may fail and if you do fail, make that failure matter, by making it right.
What personal traits or strategies do you rely on to create opportunity for yourself and others?
I learned about myself early on that my true north is that I really love to empower others. There's this myth out there that to find success you have to step on others. I have found exactly the opposite. A great path to success is to focus on empowering others. Chances are that's going to lift you and where you're trying to go -- and at the same time lift people around you.
When you experience a setback, what do you do to keep going? How do you get unstuck?
We all have our blind spots. Particularly if you're in a valley, it's really tough to see over the mountain. But it turns out you might have colleagues, friends and family members who can kind of put things in perspective. So first I surround myself with what I call my personal board and I advise the next generation. I always ask them, Do you have a personal board? Those people can be honest with you about your strengths and weaknesses and maybe see beyond what you can see. I turn to that when I have challenges.
For people who want to advocate for themselves, what are actionable steps they can take to make themselves heard? What steps do you take?
Women particularly struggle with self-advocacy. We're brought into this world really championing others. On the subject of how to advocate for yourself, it's really important to have a solid set of folks in your life who know you well and can help you understand what your strengths and weaknesses are, because often we can't see our own strengths and weaknesses very clearly. So once someone points out your great gifts, now you have a list. Treat advocacy like a muscle. Be confident about your strengths and literally rehearse it in front of a mirror if you have to, before you're in a situation where you are advocating for yourself. Be comfortable with your go-to talking points around what makes you uniquely qualified or in a position to do this.
Is there a blindspot that leaders have about opportunity? What should they be doing instead?
If you have a group of people with different perspectives around the table, you are going to end up in a better place, in decisions you make and in things you decide to invest in. Where there are more diverse teams, you can make better, smarter decisions. Leaders think about the point of having diversity as a check-the-box thing, instead of a powerful business opportunity. What I think has changed only in recent years -- and we still need more -- is data to drive to help this become clear for those who need to see it.
The ways blockchain is transforming business and technology is alarming. It seems like only a year ago only the most committed early adopters of cryptocurrencies and blockchain had heard of the tech. There were fewer who had accepted it. However, the technology is maturing. It’s gone from simple store of value to quickly building value. In fact, it’s making many industries more efficient. This includes startups who create and profit from the technology. Also, blockchain is helping numerous businesses be safer, quicker and more efficient.
It’s no secret that data is new the oil when it comes to value. This is one of the main examples of how blockchain is making industries more efficient. Companies like Google and Facebook exchange free services like Gmail and Messenger in order to mine data from users. Additionally, these services leverage their customers’ actions to train artificial intelligence algorithms.
For example, Gmail lets users tag spam. That way, it can train its algorithm to identify it. Messenger tracks online chats to train their AI language program. The feedback is valuable. It helps optimize their business processes and data usage.
However, these companies have a vertical monopoly on this data. They collect, use and store it in their own servers. That way, it’s for their own use. No other AI models can benefit or profit from it. Furthermore, the consumers that create the value are left uncompensated. Meanwhile, these companies make billions of dollars.
Synapse
One blockchain startup, Synapse, has created the world’s first decentralized data and AI marketplace. Here, AI systems can learn and grow together. It gives anyone the ability to contribute their data. Therefore, they can train autonomous systems and machine learning models. This powerful network will bring participants, known as agents, together. From there, they can contribute to training AI. At the same time, they are incentivized.
Synapse is ahead of the curve. They are positioning themselves to be a key part of the AI industry. This industry is expected to grow by 56 percent (compound annual growth rate) through 2025. This equates to nearly $60 billion in revenue.
Healthcare
The state of the current American healthcare industry can be summed up in one word: inefficiency. In fact, America spends more on healthcare than any other OECD country. However, it has little to show for it. There is still poor care quality. Now, blockchain is adding this to where it is making industries more efficient.
Existing Health Records (EHRs), the system for storing and sharing medical data, is fragmented, insecure and inefficient. The most costly part is no interoperability between systems. When switching healthcare systems, patients struggle to transfer their health histories. It takes considerable time and resources to locate these records. This prevents the doctor from providing optimal care.
Currently, the Iris Network is attempting to add value to the industry. They are replacing the inefficiency of the current system of EHRs.
Utilizing blockchain technology, Iris allows providers, patients and researchers to upload data to its blockchain network. Each participant can access a globally available, time-stamped and secure data storage. This brings EHR into the 21st century. The result is incalculable value for the healthcare industry. Researchers were once limited to voluntary surveys and academic studies due to strict confidentiality laws. Now they could have access to millions of completely confidential health profiles.
Insurance companies with access to aggregates of confidential health data would be able to properly adjust and streamline premiums and rates in real time. Blockchain isn’t just revolutionizing store of value. It’s adding value to how all types of industries operate.
Retail investing and HybridBlock
To many millennials, cryptocurrency represented the first time many could invest, trade and profit. Previously, high fees prohibited many from participating in traditional stocks. Instead, the cryptocraze taught a generation that they could trade stocks with innovative technology, an internet connection and optimism.
Technologies like HybridBlock, an all-in-one crypto investment learning tool, is educating millions of young new retail investors. It uses a multi-platformed interface and a one-of-its-kind mobile app. HybridBlock teaches trading crypto essentials. This includes wallets, exchanges and taxes. Also, it provides investing basics for the Facebook generation.
By capitalizing on the cheap, universal nature of cryptotrading, HybridBlock is creating potentially millions of future investors. They will invest in stocks, bonds and securities by using HybridBlock’s free and low-risk training wheels.
Despite the benefits, some still see cryptocurrencies as disruptive. However, the best young blockchain entrepreneurs envision the potentially symbiotic components that can help any industry become more efficient.
This week’s roundup, includes tips to make the most of your Social Media remarketing campaigns, design an attractive website that is responsive, and create evergreen Content.
Learn how to perform SEO keyword research for multiple Locations, and increase Conversion rates on your Thank You pages. We’ve covered all of this news and, much more, below!
From the UpCity Blog:
Clifford Almeida explains how to deliver up front value and close more business as a result.
Know when the ‘do it yourself’ plan isn’t the best route for your agency.
Grant Effinger walks us through how removing pages from Google can actually help a site rank better.
Ashley Minaudo runs through the top trends to follow when marketing in the food and beverage industry.
Check in on Ola Moana, our Growth Hacking Giveaway winner, as they work to unlock the time to sell.
Content Marketing:
Jessica Thiefels discusses how strategies such as developing an ebook, creating multimedia and leveraging social media can help marketers revive old content in the year 2018.
Casey Weisbach offers guidance to improve SEO rankings and expand readership through core Content linking.
Jenya Armstrong highlights the significance of evergreen Content for small businesses and offers guidance to create evergreen Content.
Learn how On-Page SEO can help marketers boost their Content Marketing efforts, from Andrew Schulkind.
Conversion Optimization:
Mary Fernandez discusses ways to increase Conversion rates on your Thank You pages.
Fatema Mulla offers succinct tips to improve the Conversion rate of your eCommerce store.
Melissa Thompson’s blog presents a three step process to help marketers improve the number of website Conversions.
Email Marketing:
Learn how to make Email content more engaging, from David Roe’s blog.
Mike Lieberman offers guidance to ensure that your Email stands out in inboxes with many Emails.
Jeff Cox draws special attention to realistic Email Marketing goals that marketers should aim for in the year 2018.
Local Optimization:
Follow the valuable tips from Michelle Biller to enhance your Local SEO efforts.
Jill Bridges emphasizes the need to clean up your Google My Business page, build Local service pages and write about Local issues, for ranking high in Local Search.
Learn how to perform SEO keyword research for multiple Locations, from Jordan Choo’s blog.
Mobile Optimization:
Learn how to keep your knowledge base updated to optimize websites for Mobile, from Martin Ceisel’s blog.
Dawn Anderson offers practical tips to help marketers prepare for Mobile-first indexing.
Reputation Management:
Campbell Donohue draws special attention to cases of failure in Online Reputation Management and offers guidance to deal with negative reviews.
Search Engine Optimization:
Chad emphasizes the need to leverage the current Organic traffic, identify high value keyword opportunities and analyze your competitor’s rankings, for enhancing your SEO efforts.
Vinay Prajapati offers useful tips to help marketers create an SEO friendly website design.
Social Optimization:
Justin Herring draws special attention to the significance of Social Media in SEO and discusses how Social Media platforms can be leveraged for the benefit of SEO.
Michael Serrano discusses how Social Media tactics such as making engagement a priority and planning a content strategy can keep you ahead of the competition in the year 2018.
Learn how to make the most of your Social Media remarketing campaigns, from Macy Storm’s blog.
UX/UI:
Website Design:
Liliana Gawrys highlights the essential elements of website homepage design, to help marketers design successful homepages of websites.
Learn how to design an attractive website that is responsive, from Brenda Barron’s blog.
Souvik Banerjee discusses how experimental videos, floating navigation menus and broken grid layouts are in trend for designing websites in 2018.
