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How Emergent Leadership Can Help Your Team Thrive

Leadership
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How Emergent Leadership Can Help Your Team Thrive Think of every group project you’ve been in – whether in high school, college, internship, or other. Often, someone would naturally take the reigns without being officially appointed as the leader – that’s called emergent leadership and it’s something you may want to leverage in your professional life. Learn the key characteristics of emergent leadership, examples of it in daily life, and the benefits of this approach. Emergent leadership allows the right leader to be elected once they have demonstrated their potential in group settings. This will be someone who has earned the respect and trust of their colleagues and are able to inspire them. Too often, companies bring in new leaders and there’s a big adjustment period. They may struggle with communication, understanding their teams’ values, establishing trust, or a number of key elements needed to propel a team forward. This approach democratizes leadership by letting employees make key decisions regarding not only their leaders but also their projects. As a result, you can get employees who are more invested in the company and serve as its champion. Promoting emergent leadership within your team is all about fostering an environment of collaboration and ownership. As a manager, you will serve as a resource while allowing your team to take the lead. By creating this environment, your direct reports will feel comfortable bringing their full selves to work and take the lead whenever their skills align. To recap, emergent leadership:...

The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Marketing

Pinterest Marketing
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The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Marketing Pinterest marketing is incredibly effective.  Marketers target Pinterest users by sharing content that’s too irresistible for us to pass up. And with over 433 million people on Pinterest, why wouldn’t marketers want to be on the platform? Not to mention 83% of users have made a purchase from content they’ve seen on Pinterest. So, how can your business use Pinterest as a marketing tactic to help improve your brand awareness and conversions? In this guide, we’ll cover the answer to that question as well as how Pinterest works, which Pinterest marketing strategies you should implement, how small businesses can benefit from the platform, and which tools you can use to ensure your Pinterest marketing strategy works for your business. But first, we’ll review what the platform is and how it works — let’s get started.   Users add, or Pin, their chosen content to boards with a common theme to keep it organized so other users can discover new content related to their interests. If you haven't yet opened a Pinterest account, learn more about that process here. Once you sign up, you can begin sharing content and, therefore, social media marketing on the platform. To make the most of the platform, upload your business’s content from your computer or mobile device, Pin content you find on the platform, and add content you find on the web using the Pinterest browser button. Engagement is key. Follow the boards of your friends...

How to Create a 5-Year Plan You’ll Actually Stick To [In 4 Steps]

Goal Setting
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How to Create a 5-Year Plan You'll Actually Stick To One common question you’ll get asked in an interview is, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" When it’s coming from a hiring manager, we usually have an answer ready. When it comes to your personal life, do you have a five-year plan? In the most stressful times in my life, planning brings me great joy and peace. But who says you have to wait for the stress to come? In this article, we’ll outline why you should create a five-year plan and how to build one you’ll follow through with. Benefits of a 5-Year Plan Whether professional or personal, a five-year plan can serve as a reset for your life. Who doesn’t like a fresh start? After all, that’s why New Year’s resolutions are so popular. They give us something to look forward to. There’s also something to be said about writing out a detailed plan. It can be a great motivator to put something in motion. Personally, I’ve said countless times that I want to be fluent in Spanish. However, it's not until I write a detailed plan for how that it will become real.  This brings us to our next point: clarity. Sometimes, a path seems scarier than it actually is because we don’t actually know what it looks like. Creating a plan is like pointing a flashlight in a dark road. A more accurate description is that it turns that dark,...

Why Every Company Needs to Know Its Core Competencies

Goal Setting
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Why Every Company Needs to Know Its Core Competencies Every resume has a skills section. It’s an opportunity to highlight your top professional attributes to attract employers. Core competencies serve the same purpose for brands and their customers. Let’s dive into what exactly a core competency is, why you need it, and how to find it in your brand. You might be wondering, "Isn’t this a value proposition? " Not exactly. While both are used to differentiate you from your competitors, competencies are what you leverage to support your value proposition. For instance, at Uber, their value proposition is "Always on, always available." What’s their core competency? An easy-to-use app and reliable access to its services at any time of the day. Establishing your core competencies early on is incredibly valuable, as it can inform your marketing strategy moving forward. You can use them in your messaging to attract your target audience and stand out among your competitors. If you’re a trailblazing company with a fresh product in an underserved market, then finding your core competency will be easy to spell out. However, if you’re in a saturated market and struggling to distinguish your brand, working on your core competencies will be key to your success. The sooner you discover what they are, the quicker you can implement them in your marketing and sales strategies. From an individual standpoint, everyone has core competencies that they leverage in their professional lives. When you want to land a new...

How to Build and Maintain Workforce Resilience, According to Experts

Human Resources
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How to Build and Maintain Workforce Resilience, According to Experts To understand the importance of resilience in the workplace, let's start with an example. Let's say your company has just been acquired by a major corporation. This means your organization is about to undergo some major changes — including your workplace culture, leadership structure, and even your team's goals and objectives. When it comes time to deliver the message to your marketing team, however, you're surprised by their reactions. While there is some trepidation, most of your employees are upbeat, positive, and excited about the new opportunities and challenges ahead of them. Their reaction doesn't mean they aren't also hesitant, nervous, or unsure of the future. It simply means that your team feels secure, confident, and capable of taking on those new challenges, whatever they may be. This is the power of workforce resiliency. Here, we'll dive into why workforce resiliency is one of the strongest predictors of long-term employee satisfaction and retention. Plus, how to build a more resilient workforce, according to leaders who've done it. What is workforce resilience? To understand workforce resiliency, we first need to define what resiliency is. As Merriam-Webster defines it, resiliency is "an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change". Essentially, a resilient person is someone who can adapt well to life's unexpected challenges, stresses, and uncertainties. Birdeye's Head of People & Culture Camille Boothe told me, "When I think about resilience, certain thoughts come to mind...

How Your Audience Could Shift in Web 3 [Executive Insights + Podcast Episode]

Marketing Trends
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How Your Audience Could Shift in Web 3 If you work in tech, media, or even marketing, you've likely heard a lot of buzz around Web 3. And, when filtering through all the noise about future versions of the internet, you might find it hard to differentiate all of the predictions from myths and reality. And, more importantly, if you're likely asking questions like, "How could Web 3 impact my business?", "Will I fall behind if I don't get in on Web 3 now?", and "Is Web 3 just built on hype?" "When you're listening to the news, or you're on Twitter, and people are talking about NFTs and Web 3, it seems really abstract and futuristic and stupid. It's really easy to naysay all of it. I get that," says Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot CMO. "A lot of it is going to be crap. And a lot of it's going to fall away." But, Bodnar adds, "In the last version of the internet, your whole job was to make a product or value proposition 10 times better than it was before. In the next generation, the internet, it's making something somebody thought was impossible possible." "And if you can't pull that magic trick out as a business over the next 10, 20, or 30 years, you're not going to exist. Because that is the game that's going to change. Don't think about the technology, think about the changing customer experience and that move from impossible to possible,"...

How to Find a Job After College: The Ultimate Guide

Job Search
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How to Find a Job After College: The Ultimate Guide College graduation is just around the corner, which means it’s almost speech season. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good graduation speech and all the platitudes that come along with it, but very few of them give guidance on how to find a job after college.  We want to help. At HubSpot, we’re lucky enough to interview and hire a lot of recent graduates, so I’ve rounded up some advice below based on interviews, applications, and feedback we hear from hiring managers, recruiters, and job candidates alike. And for free templates and tools you can use to put the advice below into practice download this post's complementary guide here. But before we dive into how to find a job after college, let’s first shed some light on why the job searching process is so difficult for college graduates.  Why is it hard to find a job after college? One of the leading factors that make finding a job after college difficult is fierce competition.According to Statista, the percentage of the U.S. population that have a 4-year college degree has steadily increased since the 1940s. As of 2020, 38.3% of women and 36.7% of men have completed four years of college or more.With college degrees becoming more and more common, graduates are finding it difficult to stand out to employers. The competition can be even more intense for college students who either did not complete an internship in...

How to Make Money on Pinterest: 9 Ways to Monetize Your Pinterest Account

Pinterest Marketing
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How to Make Money on Pinterest: 9 Ways to Monetize Your Pinterest Account Home to countless cookie recipes, laughable memes, and perfect last-minute gift ideas, there's certainly already a lot to love about Pinterest. But what if we told you that it’s possible to make money on Pinterest? The simple truth is this: Amidst the ab workouts and IKEA furniture hacks, there lies a huge opportunity for businesses to use Pinterest to drive revenue. And with 31% of online American adults using Pinterest, this isn't an opportunity you'll want to leave on the table. Can you make money on Pinterest? Whether you are a content creator, have an eCommerce business, or are trying to drive traffic to your blog, Pinterest can be a key tool for monetization. If your target customers are on Pinterest, they’re likely ready to buy. According to demographic data from Pinterest, 45% of adults in the U.S. with a household income over $100K per year are active on the platform. Additionally, 83% of Pinterest users make purchases based on what they see on the platform. If you aren’t monetizing through Pinterest, now is a great time to start. To help you get a handle on how to make Pinterest work better for your business, check out the tips below. How to Make Money on Pinterest 1. Generate traffic to your eCommerce products. Best for: eCommerce businesses. If you sell products online, one of the...

Data-Backed Tips for Successful Hybrid Team Leadership in 2022

Leadership
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Data-Backed Tips for Successful Hybrid Team Leadership in 2022 According to Microsoft’s 2022 Annual Work Trend Index Report, 53% of employees are considering transitioning to a hybrid work setup in the next year and hybrid work is up seven points from 2021. So, what does it take to lead a hybrid team? We’ve got a few tips. 1. Set rules of engagement. When everyone’s in the office, many rules and behaviors go unsaid. After all, everyone is in the same space, so it’s easier to pick up on cues. However, when everyone is scattered, it changes how you approach them. Microsoft’s report found that following the pandemic, few companies (only 28%) have met with their teams to define their new normal since switching to a hybrid or remote model. This can lead to confusion, unmet expectations, and high attrition rates. Setting a structure around communication and collaboration allows the team to work more efficiently as it promotes cohesion among all members, despite the physical distance. 2. Leverage asynchronous communication. Speaking of distance, it can be nearly impossible to get everyone on a call at the same time depending on where your team is. For instance, say you have some team members in California, others in New York, and some overseas in Kenya. Those are three time zones, meaning three different work schedules. One way to keep your team connected is to leverage asynchronous tools. For instance, you can utilize bots within your messaging system, whether it’s Slack, Teams, or...