While it is easy to simply create a professional website and link it to a social media page like LinkedIn, marketing your skills require utmost care. You need to “brand” your own capabilities in such a way that you will “sell” to the right employers and eventually enjoy the best career opportunities in the industry you wish to belong. So, how to do just that? Here are some tips to get you on the right path:

1. Be yourself and make sure you know that “self”. As a professional, it is imperative to be aware of both your strengths and weaknesses—and make them work to your advantage. Take a good look at your experiences and correlate these with your skills and talents while considering the path you wish to carve for your professional life.

2. List down your career goals. A professional journey requires some form of direction. This will give you a sense of purpose and focus on how to brand and promote your skills set and your capabilities. Your goals will deliver clarity and direction on when, where and how to invest your time and efforts.

3. Carefully map out an introduction or summary about yourself. The key is to be concise, complete and credible on all the things you write. See to it that you clearly present who you are, your mission and vision, your expectations, and in what way you will be an asset to the company. Focus on your strengths when doing this.

4. Create an online presence tailored to the industry you wish to pursue. A personal website with your curriculum vitae (CV) duly connected to your social media profiles can also come handy. Keep information up-to-date and accurate. Be precise in your educational background, skills, past experiences, certifications and qualifications, and other notable aspects related to your professional goals. Doing so will help increase your job search success rate.

5. If you are careless on using social media before, today is the time to revamp your online presence. Accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are a heavily utilized tool by headhunting agencies and employers. What could be a fun post can easily damage your reputation.

6. Network extensively. Use platforms like LinkedIn, online networking events and referrals, professional organizations and groups, discussion forums, and so on. Make connections with alumni friends and former work colleagues. This will allow you vast access to information in the industry as well as more hits from prospective employers via referrals and recommendations.

7. Be on the point in your chosen field. Make good use of short and long keywords that will attract online crawlers to find you. Litter your professional website and social media profiles with such keywords to make you more visible. This is the digital world after all. So, try to convert your passion into catch words and phrases that attract Internet searches.

There are many ways to market your own professional self to employers. The key is to show what you got, pique a prospective employer’s interest, and to instill trust. Selling yourself is but a small part of the job search game. Make sure you don’t short-sell your own and downplay your potential to succeed.

But what happens when dealing with business partners from different cultural backgrounds?

Dealing with entrepreneurs from different cultural backgrounds is doubly challenging. Apart from the usual nuances of negotiations, other cultural aspects come into play. Think about different negotiating methods, language barrier, physical cues, or issues on punctuality. Some may take these aspects as some form of trivialities, but a closer look will tell you something else. You need to remember that first impression does matter in business.

How you conduct yourself during these deals will ultimately set the tone for your future negotiations. If you plan to expand or grow your business, it is only fitting to learn the right way of handling cross-cultural negotiations like a winner. Here are some ways how:

When it comes to cross cultural negotiations, it is a must to maintain professionalism all throughout. Womenpreneurs are known for their resiliency and creative genius even when under pressure. While many tend to prod you and your efforts, always remember to rise above the occasion and show them what you are made of.

Social networking event, TweetChat, is akin to old-school chatrooms but with a twist. Instead of just agreeing to meet at a specified schedule, hashtags are being used to track down topics being discussed. This makes the chatroom swarming with online crawlers agitating market algorithms to go haywire. For first-timers, hosting or joining a TweetChat room can be of great help in organically building your brand online. To achieve your goals, here are tips to start it out right for the first time.

1. Follow common chatroom etiquette. Tweetchats all have a distinctive format which will set out the governing rules of the whole chatting period. Questions are usually numbered and with chat-specific hashtag. When you engage with someone on the chatroom, with the host or otherwise, always indicate the question number and your answer. This allows easy tracking of responses or exchanges. It is important to be courteous, too. You can be booted out or, worst, ignored with your rotten behavior.

2. Keep responses succinct and relevant. Do remember to inject some fun anecdotes, too. When someone engages with you, it is important to respond with ease. Akin to being in a party, engaging in small talks will help expand your network as you work your way to the punch bowl.

3. Go for effective visuals. Present funny memes, photos, or GIFs relevant to the topics at hand. Using appropriate emojis will also help relay emotions. For business accounts, it is essential to remember that relevant and suitable visuals be used. You can easily get lost in the labyrinth of discussion but, always remember to maintain objectivity at all times.

4. Engage with other chatters. While your main aim is to serve your own answers to the host’s questions, it would be wise to chat with other users, too. Take time to observe and look for those whom you can easily converse with.

5. For hosts, focus on your role. You are not only there to answer questions. You need to moderate interactions, too. Make sure to improve your typing speed particularly when topics posted are inundated with replies or questions.

6. Keep track of the hashtags being used. This allows you a way to measure the effectiveness of the event.  Monitoring sites like Hootsuite or Twubs can be of help in gauging the performance for the said social networking event.

7. Build up connection by participating in 2 or 3 Tweetchats. More so, consider being a “regular” on these chatrooms. This will help expand your connections as well as your following. At the very least, an hour of engagement will help fortify that connection.

Tweetchat is a hot commodity on Twitter right now. Seize the moment and be on the lookout for relevant topics. To be effective, strive to be extra careful and maintain proper etiquette. Build your social brand now!

One does not need a perfectly crafted schedule to reclaim the time that is dwindling away. The idea is to act fast and, by that, to act now, right now! Successful entrepreneurs know the impact and the value of strategy sessions. When strategizing, smart decisions must be done minute by minute with one key takeaway: outthinking your competition, revitalizing obsolete thoughts and creating an optimum performance plan.  To give you an idea, Allison Todd came up with a sound 12-minute strategy session that can help you leap over your professional or entrepreneurial plateau.  Here’s what you can do to take action in your business success:

All in all, Allison’s 12-minute strategy session motivates creative thinking that produces high impact solutions.  Breakthrough decisions can be productive when you complete consistent, specific actions while focusing on the big picture.

Your personal money blueprint is not necessarily all about how you interact with money. It also delves on how it affects your personal interaction with others. As unique individuals with frailties, it is important to realize your own imperfections and challenges that hinder financial well-being. You need to assess how you deal with money and your attitude to others who do things differently than you do. It must also assess your thoughts on debt, charity, savings, investing, and spending. Your reaction to inflation, work compensation, and so on will also be considered—and a host of other aspects that rests largely on your personal convictions.

In truth, your very own money blue print is your financial DNA. It is part and parcel of who you are. From the moment you develop a brain in the womb, your mother’s financial convictions are subconsciously linked to you. This is then, consistently being embedded into your life as you grow old and become more conscious of the world. Pre-programmed—yes, that’s who you are in terms of money and wealth—by your parents, the people who surround you, and external factors like mainstream media, school teachings, and so on.

No matter how your money blueprint was shaped up though, changing your mindset and behavior can be done. It is, of course, going to a heavy tug-of-war with your subconscious attacking your awareness on each and every turn. Changing your mindset on wealth creation though, must start with an eager desire to recognize your financial frailties and start reconstructing your mindset from there. Adjust your thoughts and outlook on spending, saving and investing by doing daily motivational acts and of embracing life’s simple realities.

To live, you need to spend on necessities. To live and be happy, you have to put a little leeway for luxury like travel and other fun-filled experiences. To live happily and successfully, you need to cultivate a money mindset on wise investment. To live happily, successfully and with a sense of purpose, you need to be able to share what you have with others. To achieve your goals, you need to embrace that there will always be hardships along the way. You need to rethink everything and to step out of your comfort zone. A good coach will be a great help at some point. In the end, your money blueprint and whatever positive changes you wish to impose all begins with one thing—YOU.

Whether for brand awareness or for increasing followers on Instagram, hashtags play a crucial role. In 2017, some of the most popular hashtags on Instagram are #love, #instagood, #photooftheday, #tbt, #followme, #picoftheday, #summer, #tagforlikes, #food, #art, #family, #nofilter, #style, #life, #fitness, #OOTD, #music, #travel, #foodporn, #makeup, #iphoneonly, #wedding, and so on. These hashtags, among others, seem to show up on your tablets, smartphones, TV screens– all to promote some sort of running conversation.

Keep in mind that most social media networks particularly Instagram, Facebook and Twitter rely heavily on hashtags to connect to a targeted market. While it is essential to go with the flow on your maiden voyage with Instagram, the need to create your own unique brand-specific hashtags must be also taken into mind. To give you an idea, here are 4 secrets to building your own arsenal of power hashtags on Instagram.

Bottom line is: Hashtags are part and parcel of Instagram campaigns. Wise play of hashtags will make your product, service or brand gain extra mileage earning added followers, traffic and sales potential to your business. Next time, try to create a hashtag contest to seek out your audience’s participation. Give it a try. It’s going to be fun!

When it comes to hashtag use, experts strongly standby its efficacy in growing an Instagram account. However, this comes with a caveat– using the “right” ones. It’s not just forming two or three words. It is more like showcasing your interest, relevance of your brand, your company core values and that of your potential followers. When done accordingly, it can initiate exposure of your brand, product or service to your targeted markets or niche audience.

Hashtags amplify your chances of acquiring new followers. It also increases awareness to your brand and marketing campaign. It also helps increase your traffic engagement which may result to more conversion. You see, hashtags are used to organize/categorize both photos and video content materials. This process helps enhance optimization of your account’s content.

Now, here comes another challenge– finding the right hashtags for your brand. Like ice cream is for summer and hot cocoa for winter, so does framing of your hashtags correspond effectively to the audiences you wish to capture. There are two main types of Instagram hashtags– branded and community-based. Knowing how to use both will help greatly in expanding your account’s point of interest vis-a-vis that of your targeted niche.

Branded hashtags are those uniquely made for your business. This could be the name of your company, products or services. It could be a slogan or tagline used. It could be a representation of your brand’s identity or the core values of the business. These hashtags have one solid design– to connect themes between you and your target audience. It appeals largely on a more personal level.

Community hashtags, on the other hand, is like a string that binds the rest of flower petals to create a beautiful lei. It is designed to connect people on their common interest or around specific subjects. These hashtags are used to penetrate deep into the very lair where people thrive together allowing you access to them thereby gaining more followers and growing alongside them in the said community.

Without a doubt, Instagram hashtags is one of the best way to grow your clout in this powerful social media platform. But finding or creating the best hashtags can be a bit tricky. To be effective, you need to do some in-depth research through your audience, industry leaders, and last but not least, competitors. Find out what relevant ones are being used by followers and influencers and shape up your hashtags to follow their lead. Look for loopholes on your competitors and use such weakness to work in your own hashtag creative process’ favor. Piggybacking on top influencers is great but do make sure to do your own when connections have been established. All in all, identifying and learning how to properly manage hashtags will help your business greatly.

Need help creating powerful Instagram campaign? Schedule a consultation with Allison Todd now!