Erik Qualman's Blog, page 582

3 Things You Most Likely Do Not Know About Social Media Marketing

Most people think that social media marketing is really easy. They think that they just have to post some messages on Twitter or Facebook and that they will be successful in the future. That is definitely not the case. While social media is quite cheap for marketers, this does not mean that it is free. At the same time, there are many things that are not known by most people out there. Here are 3 that are really important to comprehend.

Marketing Gurus Spend A Lot Of Money

Most marketing gurus are telling you lies. They do offer really good advice that you can take into account and you can so easily use it to get great results but do not feel bad in the event that you do not get the same results. You will hear incredible stories and you will almost surely never make it to that point because of the fact that you do not have such a huge investment budget available.

Most people fell into this trap and end up spending money on products, services and books as there is a guru that offers a “guaranteed” success method. Do not feel disheartened though since success will eventually come, just not overnight. You have to make the most out of your Facebook marketing budget while gurus have much higher budgets.

Quantity Counts

Everybody talks about how important quality is and it is a shame to notice that quantity is dismissed. For instance, let us say that you figure out the fact that personal social networking profiles are really important for your success but what do people see when they visit? If the profile is not often updated, it will not have the impact that you want to see.

What you have to do is establish some sort of content marketing calendar. It will make it easier to create really high quality content. In time, the amount of content that you create has to increase in volume, as quality is respected.

Social Media Marketing Takes Time

One of the really interesting lies about social media is that all you need is half an hour every day. According to Blog For Web, this is one of the most common SMM mistakes that small businesses make. They just take a few links and post them, thus spending a maximum of 30 minutes daily working on their social media pages. The truth is that the average small business requires 10 to 20 hours of social media work per week.

Social Media Marketing Has To Be Social

Such a marketing method is not only about posting advertising messages on social platforms. The truth is that social media marketing stands out as being different than traditional marketing in the sense that you have to put yourself in the shoes of your audience. This is what will help you to create proper messages and have good results on the long run. Have patience and try to learn all that you can about what works in this type of marketing. Never assume that regular methods will work on the long run.

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Market view: Twitter approaches one year on the NYSE

The next two weeks are pretty pivotal for Twitter.

It shares its Q3 earnings on October 27, shortly before celebrating one  full year on the stock market on November 7.  Its share price ended day one at $44, giving the company a value of $24.48 billion dollars and raising a healthy $2.09 billion for the company.

All in all, it was a solid debut. The estimated launch price for the company was just $11.25 billion (though IG’s grey market, which allows traders to speculate on an IPO’s value, had long been stuck around the $44 mark), so Twitter managed to avoid the mistakes made by Facebook and enter the markets on a positive note.

Facebook’s influence

In fact, following Facebook could be seen to have made a major impact on Twitter over the past year.

Firstly, it helped its IPO in a few ways. When Facebook listed in 2012 it saw the huge demand for its shares and hiked prices, which led to a sell off: a mistake that Twitter wisely avoided. Facebook was also damaged by a delay caused by faults with NASDAQ technology, which is in part why Twitter listed instead on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Finally, many traders who slept on Facebook’s listing – which after a shaky start is now soaring – saw Twitter’s IPO as a chance to make up for a missed opportunity.

It also probably contributed to Twitter’s initial momentum on the market. Twitter saw some strong initial growth in 2013, peaking on Boxing Day at $73; over 60% higher than its initial value.

Earnings have been mixed

Twitter’s stock stayed in the $60-$70 range for a while, or at least until its first earnings report (released on February 5) proved underwhelming. Revenue beat expectations, but user growth was markedly slowing and the markets – always wary of social media’s ability to vanish – reacted accordingly. Twitter stock dropped 25% to around $50.

A few months later, Twitter tested the $30 mark off of the back of another poorly received earnings call which revealed, once again, that user growth was stalling. Just as before, revenue was strong and the company’s advertising platform appeared to be working well, but investors couldn’t see beyond the faltering user stats.

Everything considered, it was a rough first half of the year. But good news soon followed; the platform had a stellar month during the World Cup, and prominent broker Nomura highlighted several reasons why the company was not actually performing as badly as detractors may have felt.

The stage was set, and Twitter’s last earnings call stunned traders. Revenue smashed expectations, in particular from mobile and international sources. Average monthly users also came in higher than the anticipated figure, and Twitter showed a clear ability to better monetize its users. Finally, predicted figures for the next quarter were raised considerably: the company clearly believed it could do more.

What next?

Twitter’s value climbed back to $50, the level it had dropped to after that initial earnings disaster, and the level it is at heading to its one year anniversary. Another positive call will see the company looking back on a strong first year; a repeat of the previous three and it could be facing negative growth.

A pivotal period indeed. Twitter has a balancing act on its hands: it needs to continue attracting new users and maintaining engagement whilst also monetising those users with a strong, effective ad platform. The ubiquity of Facebook ads has recently led to criticism of the company, even if it has pleased investors.

Following Facebook’s lead might not work for Twitter in this instance, then. Over the past 12 months the site has shown an ability to survive and possibly thrive on the markets. The next fortnight will reveal a lot more about whether it can continue to do so.

 

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6 Ideas for Teaching Digital Leadership to College Students

 

 

Times have changed. Our graduating seniors can no longer rely on a one page resume to get their first job out of college. Our students need a strong digital reputation of which they can be proud and share with others. Some of our students may not want or be fit for the traditional career path, which is even more of a reason for them to leverage the digital tools that are available to them. Digital leadership skills will not only be necessary for them to obtain in order to be successful in their career, but also these skills will empower them to be the best version of themselves living in the digital age. As the ACPA Digital Technology in Higher Education Task Force works to better understand the habits and traits of a digital educator we recently worked to create a definition. Note the definition below is a working definition and we welcome readers to provide feedback and thoughts in the comments of this post:

Digital educators are professionals working in Higher Education who are using single or multiple technology platforms to engage students in the collegiate environment, and working to empower students to become responsible digital citizens.

Since our role as digital educators is to empower students to become responsible digital citizens, we are sharing some fresh ideas you can start using to help your students understand the potential for using technology to produce their digital reputation and develop their skills as a digital leader.

1. Tweet Your Mission: When teaching your students about the mission statement for your office/organization, take the opportunity to infuse a lesson about digital reputation. Explain Twitter to your students (remember not all “digital natives” automatically understand Twitter!), and how it can be used as a platform to share your message with a global audience. Then have each student come up with 10 tweets the office or organization might use as a means to connect or engage online. If you think you can take it to an advanced level, have them come up with 10 pieces of content that could be shared on Twitter. This will get them thinking about the images or links they may attach to the tweets they come up with.  This is also a great exercise in creative writing!

Digital Leadership Lesson: What you tweet says a lot about who you are, use it as a positive platform to share a message that aligns with your mission.

2. Use Instagram to Break Negative Stereotypes: There are several stereotypes about the different peer groups around campus. One example might be the ‘dumb jock’ stereotype about student athletes. What if a select group of student-athletes got social media training and shared access to an Instagram account? They could document the real life of a student-athlete with behind the scenes pictures and videos. This could show students at practice, their meals illustrating the importance of eating a healthy diet, studying on the bus on the way to an away match, and more. Swap out student athletes for any group of students and you could do some serious damage to those nasty stereotypes. *Remember, you wouldn’t give a 16 year old with no drivers ed training the keys to your car. Don’t hand over a university social media platform without proper training! This Instagram account could be a very powerful exercise in breaking down stereotypes if the students receive the appropriate training on anything from crafting a digital voice to taking the perfect photo with your smartphone.

Digital Leadership Lesson: Your pictures tell a story to your followers. Be thoughtful about what you want for your story, and leverage these tools for social good.

3. Using Vine for Ongoing Training: Do you supervise students in a student union that have to rememberer room set-ups or AV equipment? Even if you don’t, you can probably think of a skill set or duty that is similar in nature, and you can most likely attest to the need for ongoing training on some of these more specific duties/skills. Well, Vine can help! Identify a few rockstar staffers and give them access to a Vine account for your office (with proper training of course). Then, when they come to work have them create 6-second how-to Vines on anything from how to troubleshot a muted microphone to how to set up the lounge space for a program.  The time crunch will definitely force your staffers to get creative, which is a bonus skill builder built in to this exercise. It will also engage all of your students in a new and exciting way.

Digital Leadership Lesson: If you have a special talent or skill, digital tools make it very easy to share that skill with the world.

4. There is Something To Do on Campus: We have all heard our college students call home to complain that there is nothing to do on campus. We also know this is simply not true, and there is actually lots of things to do on campus! One of my favorite social media campaigns is #dontsithome. The campaign was started by Amanda Morrison who is documenting all of her adventures around the New York and the Hoboken area on a variety of social media platforms. Her mission is to show people all the great things to do around town so they get out and enjoy life. This model could easily work in a college setting to help promote all of the great things going on around campus. The trick will be to select the right students and train them on how to use social media to tell the stories of their adventures. Bonus, your admissions office might get some great content from it!

Digital Leadership Lesson: Everyone can be a digital storyteller if they have a purpose and the right training on the appropriate digital tools.

5. Campus Lecture or Q&A Program with A YouTube Star: Have you seen the new ads for YouTube? The ads share snippets of videos from young people who have used YouTube to build a base, share their message, and make a name for themselves. I’m not talking about the “Charlie bit my finger” YouTube stars. I am talking about the young people giving cooking lessons or make-up tutorials on a channel that garners thousands of views a day. That is a very empowering message for young people. Bring in one of these YouTube stars for a program on campus to talk about what it takes to build a following, develop good creative content and use YouTube as a positive platform to share your message with the world.

Digital Leadership Lesson: Success in the digital age takes hard work and determination. The tools level the playing field to some degree, but you still have to hustle if you want to build a name for yourself.

6. Tweet It Up With The Best of Them: Thousands of Twitter chats happen each week. There is a hashtag for just about any discipline, and professionals are jumping on and connecting with other professionals across the world about topics related to their discipline. If you are teaching a senior seminar in a certain major, teach your students how to participate in these Twitter chats. Then create an assignment where they jump in and join one. Here is anAWESOME example of a business faculty member at the University of Delaware who had her students jump into #MMchat (a marketing chat). It’s absolutely incredible to see how much value the students brought to the chat and to see how much they learned from it as well! This approach will teach them a great habit to get into if they want to be well-connected in their field.

Digital Leadership Lesson: Networking can be amplified when we use digital tools. Forget the small talk at events and conferences. A Twitter chat gives you a chance to talk about real issues and topics with a much bigger group of people!

When we approach digital reputation in an empowering way it allows us to reframe the conversation. Instead of nagging students about not posting party pictures on Facebook, we can empower them to build a digital reputation that aligns with the legacy they hope to achieve. If we build the conversation in that way from the beginning then they will choose to be cautious about what they share because they will already understand the big picture. Digital educators understand this and they work each day to promote this positive message and empower our next generation of digital leaders. If you have any initiatives that you would add to the list please share them in the comments.

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Defending Customers’ Rights as a New Online Business Model

With the business activities moving firmly into the domain of Internet, customer protection, transaction security and insurance in the World Wide Web become more and more of an issue. And, similarly to any other problem, it gives rise to business ideas that go about solving it. In addition to that, Internet serves as an excellent platform for providing consulting services, direct assistance and advice in easy-to-digest form.

1.     Legal Advice

Let’s face it – for the majority of people the world of law is a whole new universe, with unfamiliar rules, and incomprehensible language. And while learning all the ins and outs of this system in order to protect their rights holds certain allure for some individuals (usually with too much time on their hands for their own good), most people are unwilling to deal with this weird and alien world on their own. They are ready to pay money for the privilege of not thinking about insurance, consumer protection and suchlike – which opens a way for an interesting new business model.

In this area, just like in online business in general, content marketing is the thing right now – you should make sure your website has content that is interesting and useful for your visitors. For example, you may start a service helping clients to deal with PPI claims on a commercial basis, but supplement it with a comprehensive instruction on how to claim back PPI yourself. Firstly, it will show that you know your business. Secondly, it will attract people looking for this information. Thirdly, it will show them how horribly complicated the entire process is, making them more likely to ask for your services.

2.     Dealing with Online Services

Online businesses which are selling non-material services are on the increase as the communication via the Internet grows ever simpler and faster. Resume writing services, virtual personal assistants, web-design, etc. – some of these things have been around for some time and simply have been transformed by the advent of the Internet, others are a completely new product of our age. But how to deal with them if you don’t have enough experience? How to protect your rights if the service you receive is not up to much?

Helping people deal with this problem may turn out to be a profitable venture. It may be anything from resume writing services reviews to agencies providing assistance in getting your money back from dishonest or incompetent services or freelancers.

3.     Keeping People Informed

Sometimes there is no need for official legal proceedings to protect one’s rights – the existing law is more than enough to cover all the eventualities and the person should simply know what rights he has. However, the legislature sometimes seems as if it was doing its best to conceal the real meaning of what it says, which means that resources expressing its meaning in simple, comprehensible form will always be in demand.

Tips on particular situations, manuals, case studies, examples from real life – everything will do. Monetization of such site can be done by usual means, or it can provide paid personal consultations for those who need them. What you have to do is show that you know your way around.

The more complicated our world gets, the more situations the legislature has to account for, which means that no person who doesn’t make it his or her business to know all the ins and outs of consumer protection law can know everything on this topic. Previously if somebody got into such a situation he would go to a lawyer – today he can simply Google the issue. And it is your business to be the one which he finds as a result.

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Socializing Annuities to Make More Income

Millions of Americans are taking advantage of everything annuities have to offer and social media is helping to spread the word.

As with any financial decision, it’s important to get as much information on the subject as possible, which is something that the social arena provides.

With social finances in mind, here are just a few ways people like you are using social media to find out more about annuities:

Annuity Promotion

Many annuity providers use sites like Facebook and Twitter to engage users in promotional polls and questionnaires that benefit both the customer and the company.

Whether it’s a tweet that asks pertinent financial questions or Facebook polls that ask users their thoughts on annuities, providers are using education to promote annuities.

If you’re interested in increasing your income with an annuity then social media is a great place to learn more about the financial process.

The promotional efforts above will help familiarize you with annuities in a relaxed, social environment and direct you to products and services that annuity companies provide.

Interactive Social Resources

When it comes to getting the most information possible when searching subject matter online, interactive resources can’t be beat.

Annuity providers are integrating their social profiles with interactive financial planning calculators and annuity tools that help users truly understand how annuities work.

By providing financial planning tools through their Facebook pages, annuity providers are creating an environment where you, the customer, can get a feel for the income benefits of annuities.

Because these resources are available through user-friendly social sites, it promotes an open forum where users can find the firsthand information they’re looking for.

Questions and Comments

There’s no better place to get your questions answered and your comments read than social media sites.

As the following article shows, from retirement savings to questions surrounding “lifetime annuities,” annuity providers are using social sites like Facebook and Twitter as a way to answer questions and concerns.

Social media is also becoming a trusted resource for people to research companies before deciding to do business with them.

Annuity providers know this and are using social pages as a place where their customers can leave feedback. From new customers to those experienced in annuities, social media is hotspot for those in the market for annuities.

Annuity Awareness

If it weren’t for social media, annuity providers would have a difficult time spreading awareness about the benefits of annuities.

One way annuity providers and marketers are increasing awareness is through National Annuity Awareness Month.

Every year around June, annuity providers get together to inform the public about everything there is to know about annuities. They post Annuity Awareness webcasts on their Facebook pages and heavily promote their retirement savings plans and annuity products via social sites too.

Asking Friends and Family

If you’re unsure which annuity provider to choose or you still don’t know if an annuity is right for you, social media is a great place to ask your friends and family their opinion.

Chances are someone you know on social media has experience with annuities, so hit the social pavement and ask around – you might be surprised how helpful your social media contacts are when it comes to annuities.

From resources to awareness, it’s plain to see that social media is helping to spread the word about annuities.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Go Home with Social Media

Owning a home comes with a good share of responsibilities.

You need to take care of the yard, keep the exterior clean and looking nice, keep the interior in good condition, fix any appliances or items that break and more.

Home ownership is expensive, but by keeping your place in tip-top condition, you can reduce or eliminate some of the larger repairs that may otherwise be needed.

Connecting with Businesses to Protect Your Home

With more than 80 percent of small businesses (and almost 100 percent of large businesses) using social media, the various platforms can be a great way for homeowners to connect with local handymen, remodeling companies and home improvement retailers.

You can connect by using the top social media platforms, including:

Facebook – Simply “Like” home improvement company pages in your local area and look for discounts or any special promotions. You can also ask your friends on Facebook if they have any recommendations for finding a home improvement provider in your area.
Twitter – Twitter is one of the best tools companies use for marketing their businesses. Create your own Twitter account in less than five minutes and search and follow home improvement companies in your area.


Google Plus – Once you find a few local companies, go to their Google Plus page to see if other homeowners are recommending them and to see if they have any promotions taking place.

Social media is not only great for connecting you with companies you need, but it also keeps you in the loop as to what’s going on with the company.

Are they hiring? Are they offering any discounts this week? What are their plans long-term?

If the company is using social media correctly, it will answer all of these questions and more, providing the customer with exactly what they’re looking for.

Tips on Keeping Your Residence Safe and Looking Good

As a homeowner, safety should be a top priority of yours.

To keep your place safe, make sure all doors and windows remain locked, make sure your smoke detectors are installed and working properly, look for areas where it might be easy to trip and figure out a solution to make it less dangerous, put a locked gate around your pool, place wires up high to avoid tripping and more.

When you first purchase a home, you will want to keep it looking new.

As the years go on, it does get harder to maintain the newness, but it’s still very important to stay on top of the upkeep of your home. Little problems can turn into big problems if not taken care of.

As the following article shows, when looking at “gutters and gutter guards how much can you save?,” keep in mind that if you don’t clean your roof and gutters a few times a year, the gutters can clog and lead to moisture-related issues. A simple gutter cleaning two times a year may prevent you from paying thousands of dollars in water damage on your home.

Other things you can do to keep your residence looking good include power washing the exterior, getting a fresh coat of paint applied every 6-8 years, keeping up with the landscaping (this could be weekly or monthly depending on where you live), making sure the windows remain caulked and keeping all cracks filled and sealed.

By combining your own skills along with professionals that you can find and learn from on social media, your home is better suited to remain in good condition.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of franky242 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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The Power of Social Media in the Tech-Savvy Business Landscape

When social networking sites first launched, they were designed for social communication. Whether this was intended to be the heart of the matter or not, social networking was a way to make the Internet a little smaller.

Instead of having to swim around in a sea containing billions of users, you could easily locate a group of a few dozen, hundred, or thousand people and bond around similar interests, ideas, and beliefs.

But along the way, social media sites grew into something much larger than anyone could have anticipated. No longer are they just an online hangout for Internet users; they have become a way of life.

Social media is now so engrained in the lifestyle of most Americans that it’s difficult to isolate it. Savvy business owners and marketers, having noticed the growth of this phenomenon over the past decade, invested heavily in channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google Plus to grow their business, connect with customers, and raise brand awareness.

Why is social media so vital for business?

An might wonder: “Why is social media so important to businesses?” While the matter may only be fully understood when experienced firsthand, it can be explore by discussing a few of the most valuable uses to which business owners put social media today:

Meeting customers where they spend their time. One of the first things any business student learns is to go where potential customers are hanging out. In the case of social media, your customers are already using it, so why not go to them?According to Business Insider, social media is now the top Internet activity for Americans. That means the average American spends more time on Facebook and Twitter than he or she does checking email or surfing news sites. By using social media for marketing, advertising, or networking, companies can increase their chance of engaging with potential and existing customers.


Gaining a competitive advantage. While many businesses are already on social media, most aren’t very effective in their use of it. A well-developed, sophisticated, and strategic social media plan can give your business a competitive advantage over peers in your industry. Setting up a social media account isn’t enough; it’s all about using it efficiently and effectively.


Engaging with the target audience. The beauty of social media is that you can connect with anyone just about anywhere. For businesses, that removes most of the boundaries associated with gaining customer feedback and engaging with target audiences.While focus groups, interviews, research studies, and other similar tools continue to have their place, social media has opened up an entirely new realm of possibilities. It gives businesses the ability to engage directly with people they might never have known existed.

Is social media driving a business revolution?

Social media is driving a business revolution, and has the ability to open up opportunities that would never have existed.

CEOs are being forced to evolve. Old-school CEOs are slowly giving in to social media, but it’s still a widely untapped resource for others.

As the weeks, months, and years pass, though, even the busiest and most stubborn CEOs have succumbed to this new-school method of marketing, advertising, and networking.

Social media is also powering customer-driven change. Businesses that use social media sites are able to see what’s working, what’s not, and what their customers most want to see. This makes it easier to make changes and ensures the customer gets heard.

Finally, social media gives small startups a fighting chance in competitive and crowded industries. The best part about social media marketing is that it can be deployed without spending millions.

How can your business use social media?

The question is how can you use social media to grow, change, or improve your business? While each business is unique, many firms — small and large alike — are using social media in the following three ways:

To increase brand awareness. With millions of registered users on such sites as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, using social media to increase brand awareness is a no-brainer. Simply getting your logo, products, and brand out there for the masses to see can produce results.


To drive sales. While sites like Facebook and Pinterest don’t allow you to sell directly on your page with them, you can use social media to direct customers to your own e-commerce site or dedicated landing pages. Then, by using a software that captures payments and facilitates the sales process, you can convert social media followers into conversions.


To gather insights. Social media is an excellent source of market research. It gives you the ability to engage with customers directly or indirectly, and gain valuable feedback.

The power of social media is clearly in evidence in 2014. Is your business taking full advantage of its capabilities?

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Be More Social in Promoting Your Franchise

Has working for someone else either gotten old or even stressful at this point in your career?

What if you could own your own franchise, allowing you to call the shots and potentially make a decent amount of revenue over time? If it is something you have thought about, perhaps now is the time to take action.

For more Americans the idea of owning a franchise has become more appealing especially in a day and age when workplace security is average at best.

Networking Can Do Wonders

In the event you are considering a home-based or onsite franchise, the first goal is to determine which industry is best for you.

One of the ways to go about solving this puzzle is by working with a franchise information provider, someone who can offer you the latest franchise availability, trends in the franchise arena and much more. Whether you choose a provider like Franchise Expo or one of the others out there, such assistance can prove very valuable.

Once you have decided on a franchise choice, never overlook the importance of marketing your company, especially through social media.

For starters, set up business accounts on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest if you don’t already have them.

Have a Plan in Place

Next, set up a social media plan for sharing, tweeting, pinning etc.

One of the big mistakes company owners make is trying to be too many things for too many people or not doing enough when it comes to social media. Point blank, you need a social media plan for your franchise in order to properly promote it.

For starters, determine how often you are going to be active on social media.

Too many franchise owners utilizing social media make the mistake of not being active enough. Their occasional shares, tweets or pins essentially go unnoticed over time. Instead of falling into that whole, set a schedule for the week on when you plan to be socially active and stick to it.

Next, steer clear of any negative confrontations with folks on social media.

If a customer had a bad experience with you and they take to social media to discuss it, handle it as professionally as possible. The negative fallout from doing otherwise could lead to irreplaceable harm for your franchise. If you can take the discussion private, by all means do that.

It is also important not to portray any competitors in a negative light on social networks. In doing so, you run the risk of looking less than professional, potentially scaring off and current or potential customers.

Lastly, look at social media as beneficial, not a hindrance.

Too often, those running businesses feel like social media is yet one more huge responsibility that they just don’t have time for.

Yes, while it is a responsibility to do it correctly, it can be a huge benefit to your franchise.

What are you waiting for?

Get more social today!

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Crowdfunding: Where Will We Go From Here? [Infographic]

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about crowdfunding or stories of everyday people raising thousands or millions of dollars online. Research estimates $5.1 billion has been raised with crowdfunding so far in 2014; double the amount raised in all of 2012. The folks at BusinessProfiles.com created this insightful infographic showcasing the growth of crowdfunding and its impact on our global economy, as well as what is expected to come in the future.

 

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Do Your Employees Schedule Too Much Social Interaction?

Whether one runs a small business or one employs hundreds or even thousands of individuals, workplace productivity is always the main goal in order to get the best results for the company and its customers.

With that said, just how productive are your employees on any given day of the week?

While many business owners are fortunate to have hard-working and reliable employees that show up at the front door or via telecommuting each and every day of the week, others have to deal with workers who are late to their desks, don’t do a good job of handling customer questions and complaints, and ultimately just don’t invest the needed time on a daily basis in their jobs, instead socializing.

Yes, much of that is certainly the fault of the employee, but the business owner who is not on top of the issue bears some responsibility too.

Letting your employees know from the day you hire them that they are expected to be on time and productive while at work is critical to a successful operation.

How Much Work is Truly Being Done?

One of the ways to greatly improve the odds of your employees being more productive than counter-productive each day in the office or through telecommuting or when out and about with clients is keeping them on a proper schedule.

Sure, some employees may not like the hours they’re asked to work, but unless they are the cream of the crop workers who you feel are worth working around to a degree, you can certainly find those willing to work the needed hours.

If you decide to turn to an employee schedule maker, you can make things much easier for both you and your employees.

Such a tool allows you to add employees, locales and positions in just minutes. This employee manifest can even be imported via an excel spreadsheet or CSV file.

If you find the need to have one or more workers cover a last-minute shift, you can use the employee schedule maker to fill that need by sending them a mobile alert and email regarding the required shift.

Now about those shifts….

Even though you think you hired the best employees available, are some of them spending a little bit too much time socializing during the day, specifically on their computers and mobile phones?

If employees are wasting time at work (your time specifically), they are ultimately doing a dis-service not only to the customers, but also their boss.

In order to keep employees on a proper and productive schedule, make sure you:

Set the ground rules from day one;
Put in place schedules that are fair and consistent;
Realize that workers are humans, not machines. That said know that they need a couple of breaks (see below) during the day;
Allow for “social” breaks during the day in 5 or 10 minute spans. Instead of employees trying to sneak in time chatting with loved ones or friends on their personal devices or using social sites on their computers for shopping ventures and other ventures when they are supposed to be working, the breaks are a good idea. It allows them to hopefully focus on their work and have the break/s to look forward to.

When you set schedules and rules for both you and your employees, good things more times than not are bound to happen.

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