Millennial workers can do a lot of good as well as harm to a product, service or brand even when not directly involved in the company’s social marketing team. They can also make a lot of difference with their personal tweets, updates, and posts related to the business. This is where you must find ways to create an internal campaign that points to this untapped leverage for your brand. By doing it right, you can guarantee creating an astounding social media presence that will create wave upon wave of success for your brand.

Social media solutions like all other marketing strategies for your brand require some deep thinking, planning, and practice. Content production, for instance, requires certain level of research to know precisely how to position a message. In the hopes of bringing utmost effectiveness to your campaign, training and guidance for your millennial workforce are essential factors to ensure that a clear-cut, unique and consistent brand voice be heard.

Without a doubt, your brand identity had been through a lot of successes and failures over the years. That somehow makes it easier to establish the right voice for your brand. For startups and businesses that wish to carve a new identity in the market, however, such concept may not be the case. The need to establish the right voice is crucial for them to make their social media presence felt and reverberated.

To develop such a challenging feat, certain aspects must be considered. One is to carefully identify what the company and its products or services truly stand for. Do you have a unique sales or service philosophy that differs from the rest? Methods of communication between customers or clients and the company must also be identified. So are your goals and objectives as well as expectations. Most importantly, it is also imperative to delineate what benefits customers are to enjoy from your brand.

Creating a solid brand voice must be infused along with these tenets. While a millennial workforce may have great advantage in utilizing social media, only by knowing what and how you want the brand to be perceived by your target audience or prospects will mark the difference.

The efforts in building a solid voice does not stop in generating a solid voice for your brand though. It requires a certain level of commitment to deliver something in a consistent manner. One challenge to this is the perceived unpredictability of millennials when it comes to marketing. Finding a way to ensure that they effectively infuse their individual personalities into the brand’s voice without restraining their creativity as well as enthusiasm will be of great help in creating a consistent brand voice. Add to that the real-time feedback of customers to make things go full circle.

All in all, gearing your millennial workforce with the right knowledge and unwavering loyalty will help amplify your brand’s social media leverage. Engage them. Train them to become brand ambassadors for your business. With their creativity and zeal for achievement– and social media savvy, you can finally guarantee delivering a brand voice that will echo the nucleus of your brand.

Fortunately, there are ways for you to make any crisis situation work to your advantage. You can also practice it to perfection. To get you started, here are some points to consider:

1. Take a pause and do nothing. Do not panic either. While it is noble to immediately act and rectify the problem, some womenpreneurs tend to be taken by their emotions in a roller coaster ride leading to horrendous results. So before you jump into the situation, try to take a step back, compose yourself, and see the problem from the outside looking in. This will help give you a better perspective and respond in a more effective and productive manner.

2. Consider consulting a reliable crisis management team for tough situations. This is even more so in situations that directly impact community or environmental standards. These firms know precisely what buttons to push and when to do it.

3. Confer with your own team particularly on internal issues or crisis situations involving product, service or brand. Do acknowledge that you cannot do everything in your lonesome. At this point, you will need everyone’s cooperation and ideas. As a rule of thumb, playing the blame-game will get your efforts nowhere. So, seek out your team’s help and find solutions instead of adding more to the problem.

4.  After weighing everything, it is time to pursue your planned course of action. Be proactive when managing a game-plan though. Always have contingencies in place. Make sure also to create identifiable measures to help monitor if the executed plan is effective or not.

5. Assess carefully the root cause of the problem, how it got blown out of proportion, and how it was being handled. Look at possible gaps in the measures being done. Through careful evaluation, you can prevent such crisis situation from recurring or device certain policies that could mitigate matters before they get worst.

6. Always maintain a positive mindset. Most womenpreneurs tend to consider a “worst case scenario” which is a good thing but not during a crisis situation. See mistakes and fiasco’s as avenues for improvement. Always believe that in every mistake lies the learning of how to do it right the next time around.

Indeed, there will always come a time for a crisis to crop up in a business. No matter how big or small, it is imperative to craft a robust crisis management system. In doing so, you can simply expect the unexpected and formulate solution to mitigate, if not eliminate, the issue at hand.

There are so many definitions about self-esteem. Sense of worth, confidence, and self-respect are just some of those listed in online dictionaries. It is basically that inner monologue telling you if you are good enough to achieve something or if you can actually do it. It is how one values himself. It is your own assessment on who you are and what you’re capable of. In most cases, however, your thoughts get askew with other people’s perception and treatment.

It is important to note that self-esteem runs parallel with talent or genius or expertise. You can be good in so many things but still have low regard for yourself. On the other spectrum, there are also people who, amid their lack of ability or talent, can project strong self-esteem. With this, it is logical to see that having low regards of oneself will impact directly one’s decision-making capabilities and behavior in general.

There are many ways to boost one’s dwindling self-esteem. But before that, it is essential to recognize some of its likely causes. Do you have issues with your talent and capacity? Have you encountered a life-changing failure or a series of poorly made decision that made you question your capabilities? Do you have acquired habits that continually erode your sense of self-respect? Are there people around you who made you feel inadequate?

Recognizing that you have a self-esteem problem and identifying some of its likely causes will make it easier for you to address them. While everybody is different, there are certain ground rules which anyone can apply:

But while self-help may be effective to others, developing a robust self-esteem can vary from situation to situation and from person to person. Some people can take themselves from a rut and improve their confidence level without seeking out outside help. Others, however, take refuge from the assistance of friends, colleagues, a mentor or a coach. Whichever way it maybe, it is imperative to address low self-esteem to prevent dilemmas from cropping up in business and in life in general.

Regardless of what you have in mind, it is known fact that your life’s strongest pursuit is that of the realization of your dreams. Your focus is to ensure that you land that dream job or get a promotion, or be successful with your startup business, or simply have a happy family, raise equally successful kids, or be a model citizen in the community. Each one of you is beholden to such challenges. The part when you start to work on the achievement of such goals, however, must start somewhere.

While motivation, personal goals and success are directly correlated, it is imperative to draw out your personal goals before everything. These goals will become your focus to motivate yourself to succeed. Setting personal goals is like turning on a car’s ignition. Motivation, on the other hand, is your way of driving continually and to go through every bump and puddle to ultimately arrive at success, your destination. By correlating these three aspects, you can guarantee facing life’s many challenges without flinching or backtracking.

Personal goals can come in many forms.  It could be academic, career, monetary, physical, creative, or ethical. These goals collectively point to your own domestic goals or how you wish to live life in the future. These personal goals come with two important perspectives—motivation and continuing direction.

To be useful however, experts suggested making your goal-setting SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timed. You need to know exactly what you want to be able to find ways to achieve them. To make sure that you can assess your progress, you need to set certain metrics. Of course, it must be realistic, relevant, and attainable—and to be more effective, a timeline must be set for the achievement of such goals.

But just because you create SMART goals then, that should be enough is a totally erroneous mindset. The world is also moving as you trudge in the realization of those goals. With this, you need to assess and re-assess your personal goals every step of the way. You need to check if such goals are still relevant or if you are still on the right track. In some cases, what you felt was of utmost importance before could no longer be as relevant due to sudden shifts in your life, job or business. If there is a need to rehash, improve or completely change them, then do so.

Goals must be solid enough to be able to move you, stimulate you to carry on, excite you. When these three concepts – goals, motivation and success—are properly aligned, you are definitely on the way for greatness.

To ensure that you get to easily move from one job to another, you need to have versatile or adaptable skills set. This particular skills set should not only be focused on one career path but must be broad-spectrum in a sense that it can fit to most, if not all, employment sectors. Employers are looking for people who have “employ-ability” skills or skills set that can fit to various job roles. So, what are these skills?

Communication Skills. Be prepared to have both excellent written and oral skills. Your own resume and its cover letter will deliver the “first impression” on your written capabilities while your interview will sound off that of your oral skills. Make sure to demonstrate articulateness when speaking while writing succinctly and with clarity. Employers look for these as it helps to carve a growth mindset, creativity, and aptitude.

Interpersonal Skills. Unless it’s a one-person mission to the moon, you will most definitely be working with co-employees, customers and clients, bosses, and so on. This is why the need to have good interpersonal skills is essential. This allows you to effectively partake as a team member, negotiate, and make good decisions. It also helps in satisfying client expectations as well as customer satisfaction. Excellent interpersonal skills usually stimulate empathetic listening leading to ease in building rapport with everyone.

Critical Thinking. Employers will also be on the lookout for your problem-solving and decision-making skills. Critical thinking is the ability to gather and evaluate relevant information—and the eye to pick the best solution. Along these lines, people with good critical thinking skills are also known to be effective in terms of planning, organizing, and getting things done efficiently.

Leadership Skills. While many believe that leadership skills are mainly focused for managerial or supervisory positions, this one is virtually being deemed essential on all new hires. This ability is about influencing others to achieve goals. Often, self-confidence is the best gauge being looked at by employers.

Computer Skills. This is the information age when everything is driven by technology and the Internet. Aside from knowing basic computer skills, some employers also look for specific requirements like ability to use apps, e-mail platform, social media, or programs related to their operation will be sought out.

Creative Skills. Bring your innovative and inventive mindset when applying for a new job. This skills are no longer just limited to marketing and designing but in many aspects. Finding new ways and means to make systems and procedures more effective and efficient has always been a target of businesses.

Numeracy-Presentation Skills. These two skills set are often interrelated. Presentation often require the ability to understand certain data like statistics, surveys, graphs, demographics, and other aspects essential to decision-making and reasoning. Numeracy skills can also become irrelevant if presentation skills are lacking.

While these skills sets are often on the table for employers and headhunters to consider, it is also important to develop positive attitude towards people, work, and the company you wish to work for. Expertise may be required in some aspects particularly in highly technical jobs but, all in all, employers will always choose someone who is willing to develop, learn and grow with the company.

Millennials or not, first meetings can bring out anxiety in anyone. There is simply nothing more unnerving than being sized up by the other party. It is also but natural to want to be liked and be given the amount of attention and respect. But the need to create a killer first impression is the first step in building rapport, a salient aspect in excellent interpersonal skills.

People naturally feel intimidated or unsettled when being entrusted into an unfamiliar environment. But confidence and optimism will help you overcome situations like this. But while many millennials are touted to be oozing with confidence, building rapport still needs consistency and constant practice way beyond the ease of first meet-ups. To build rapport, certain skills set like verbal and nonverbal, motivational, active listening, sense of humor, and empathy must be utilized.

Building rapport is the very process that turns a killer first impression into a lasting one. This is where trust and mutual respect usually comes in. To start, here are some important behaviors to consider:

Building rapport by starting strong on your first impression can be tricky. Experts believe that first impressions carry a huge weight in dealing with other people. While it may be true, it still takes a lot of consistency and constant communication to tighten such rapport. Practice and mentorship will help largely on this aspect. When done accordingly, you can guarantee building lasting relations with everyone else—and often to your advantage.

Health experts often reveal that exercise prevent frustrations from building up. It encourages mental clarity, release endorphin, and deliver needed energy to last throughout the day. While it is almost a daily occurrence for problems and challenges to take place in your office, store, or in your life, you can engage in an early morning workout like a jog around the block or a 30-minute run on the treadmill can be of great help. Yoga or Pilates is also an excellent choice of workout as both can strengthen the muscles, release positive, and enhance mental clarity. Don’t have time? Walk or bike to commute for work or business.

People often overthink when dealing with a difficult situation. Things can get overwhelming that it often gets the worst out of their character. Do not go down that slippery slope. Once you put yourself in the midst of it all, you tend to go down faster than you can handle. Try to pause, if not, step back and see the whole thing from another perspective. One way of doing so is to get out and rest your mind. Some topnotch entrepreneurs go for long walks or visit a nearby spa for an hour of full body massage. This helps revive the mind and let’s get a glance from an outside perspective. Often, being too engrossed in your work or business will make your imagination well run dry. Get some fresh air. Once you get back, you’ll be amazed at the results.

Too much analysis can be draining. It just does not help to feel that no matter what you do, it will not simply matter. The complex situation will still persist. It will drive you to think negative thoughts about your co-workers or your employees, your business partners, or yourself. So, why not gain full control of yourself. Accountability matters when problems start to rise. Too much finger-pointing leads to nowhere. Acknowledge there is a problem. Work out a solution. Then, delegate accordingly. The best way to address a problem is not just in finding solutions but also in ensuring that such will be applied accordingly.

When it comes to dealing with complex situations, two things usually come into play—emotion and change. Problems, uncertainties, and changes are often considered negative. By simply curving such fixed mindset into a growth mindset, you can easily see the opportunities lurking behind. Gain back control on your thoughts and actions, and spread positivity to everyone. When this happens, you can guarantee turning any complex situation into an opportunity for growth.

Customers make the world of business go round. If you are an entrepreneur, much of your focus usually points to that of keeping them happy, contented, and loyal to your products, services, or brand. If they need the moon, you will very much pick it from the sky and deliver it to their doorsteps. Truly, your customers’ happiness and satisfaction come first and foremost.

Today, however, it is wise to accept the truth that customer loyalty is a highly volatile aspect of business. Markets, with the aid of technological and Internet advancements, have become so customer-centric leading to business to be always on their toes to prevent using costly means to keep them satisfied. Be reminded that loyal customers are automatically considered brand advocates. Their “word of mouth” recommendations are often, preferred due to high trust ratings noting the fact that their feedback emanate from actual experience.

This is why many companies, big or small, engage in market research. Such efforts help to point specifically where target markets thrive. Studies are also being done internally via social media interaction to put your own selves in their shoes, that is, to look at your products or services via the customers’ lens. After all, customer behavior is best understood from within.

While market research may seem the best approach, it still has holes that need to be looked at—closely. You need to be in the very position that will help convert customers to make purchase decision and be able to share such decision to others. This is why the need to understand customer behavior at a much closer vantage point helps to strengthen your clout on the future of your product, service, brand or company as a whole.

1. Observe carefully customers behavior on your own website. People rely mostly on the Internet to search for products or services and often, they leave traces behind like where they usually go, the amount of time they usually allot for such, and the keywords and phrases they often use to search for you. Some website analytics also offer insights on how well your website perform in terms of traffic and conversion, and other factors which you may deem pivotal to the purchasing power of your customers. All these will help point strengths of the business and the weaknesses for you to immediately patch up.

2. Social media is another important route to gather salient points on customer behavior. Crowdsourcing, for instance, is some form of behavioral targeting that allows businesses to take a closer glimpse to what the customer deep down wants. Some agencies and consultancy firm also make use of social media to gather behavioral data.

3. Carefully identify customer types and pursue each of them accordingly. This is going to be tedious but, when done appropriately, can mean the world to your business. Focusing your efforts on customer types that appeal more to the business will help point you to the right direction.

4. Make good use of the “mystery shopper” approach. Be a customer yourself and see for yourself how your business truly deals customers on the level. This helps to gain complete knowledge on how the purchasing and feedback process run.

5. You may also try to get into the recordings of customer care and assistance to verify if policies are followed. Sometimes, the problem is not in your product or service offerings but in your customer support.

Customer behavior is everything to a business. No matter how good a product, service or brand, if your efforts are not aligned with that of your customers, everything is for nothing. With these pointers, you can finally analyze customer behavior and craft ways to satisfy their needs.

When going on a job interview, it is important to make employers judge you accurately. You would also want them to lean on your best side. Start on the right foot and ensure that it lasts long before the interview is over with these pointers:

1. Signify your objectives and set your goal clearly. Before going to an interview, it is imperative that you know precisely what you want. This will help ready your system to whatever will be thrown your way. Knowing that you want to be hired will maintain your focus to getting the job leading you to channel all the positive energy within.

2. Consider your overall visual impact. Yes, people rely mostly on their sense of sight for that nanosecond of judgment. Dress appropriately for the occasion. Make-up and hairdo must not be too stiff and not too all-over-the-place. So are your choices of jewelry. Be reminded also that wearing a watch is a must. It gives the impression of being prompt and “dedicated”. Some people seek out the help of a fashion coach in this regard.

3. Your nonverbal cues will take some 40 percent of the overall first impression. The way you carry yourself in a conversation, your mannerisms, hand gestures when you talk, the way you smile or laugh—these are all taken into account. Practice in front of a mirror. Shoot a practice interview with a friend or partner and review the video footage. Or you may also seek out the help of coach to hone your communication skills both verbal and body language.

4. Practice the essence of positivity. Days can easily turn from bad to worst. At some point, you may feel bad mood, anxiety or fear creeping under your clammy skin as you prepare for an interview. Find a corner and do a short meditative technique. It is called optimism. When your mind is free from all the burden of negativity, it will shine brightly into your eyes, your smile and words.

5. Be sincere. No matter how you feign interest or make yourself interesting, if the virtue of sincerity is not there, you are wasting your time. Make your approach genuine. Do not be afraid to ask questions. Clarify points not clear to you. An interviewer or employer always appreciates conversations built upon mutual curiosity.

Building lasting impression during job-seeking can be quite challenging. You need to be at the best of your game. So, try to assess yourself, draw out your strength, and turn your weakness as an advantage. Remember, you only get that one shot—make sure to make it count.

Simply put, many businesses do not “talk” to their customers. Many failed (and are continually failing) to learn from their audience, more so listen to them at their level. There are some however, who have learned to leverage actual feedback from consumers—and these are some of the important points they shared:

1. Learn where your customers thrive. Where do they spend time online? What and who are they following on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms? What products and services appeal to them? What posts and other content pique their interest or keep them interested? Starting a conversation with your own audience and seek out these information. The more you learn about customer intricacies, the more effective engagements will be.

2. Engage in active listening. Often, the best conversations start when you engage customers to tell you their thoughts and views. Put yourself in their shoes, would you not feel important when a company asks for your inputs? Let your on-boarding initiative be customer-centric. The moment you open your ears to their concerns and views, the more you can make them work to your business’ advantage.

3. Ask customers the reason for either liking or disliking your product, service or brand. Real insights always come from real-time feedback, from real people buying your brand. Talk to them directly and infuse the reasons behind their actions. Through that, you can gain more traction on your social media growth strategy.

4. Know what your customer needs. Even with good intentions in mind, what your own perception of what the customer needs may actually be not aligned with their views. So, consider asking them what specific improvements and other quirkiness they need. When you put those commendable points, you can immediately turn customers into brand ambassadors.

5. Engage your customers. Crowd-sourcing is the trend these days. So are the use of beta testing, round-table live discussions, hashtag conversation, and hangouts. Involve them in the process. Valuing your customers’ thoughts and opinions, particularly when crafting new products or business solutions, often boomerang in a positive way.

6. Learn your audience’s lingo. Sometimes, we get so caught up in our own industry’s jargon forgetting the fact that our customers may actually have their own language. Pay close attention to that. Often, miscommunication can put your brand-building efforts on digital media astray leading to its failure.

7. Don’t forget to give thanks to those who continually embrace your brand. Sincerity is a powerful thing. When they do not, it is also essential to ask the reason behind. Be open-minded and accept both positive and negative criticisms. In both instances, always show gratitude as both encourage growth to your brand.

Customers are, indeed, shaping up the minutiae of brand-building. Talk to your customers in a language they can understand. Dissect what they deep down need. Connect with them and be sincere at that. In doing so, you can finally strengthen your social brand and make big with your goals in mind.