Small Business News

Author: hbr.org

Do you dread going into the office Monday morning? Maybe a new boss has entered the equation, creating a rift between how you once felt and how you now feel. Perhaps your company has recently been acquired, changing the culture. Maybe you simply have outgrown your role and are bored to tears in your cubicle.

I have found that whether we enjoy our work often boils down to how our job fits with our sense of purpose. Where we work, the role we hold, our broader sense of purpose — all three are subject to change. Thus if we want to stay in the “sweet spot” among these three, we must not fear career transitions or even change itself; indeed, we must seek them out.

Having a sense of purpose in our life is critical to well-being. In fact, in a longitudinal study researchers found that people who demonstrate a sense of purpose in their lives have a 15% lower risk of death. Having a sense of purpose in our roles at work is equally important. And yet it’s not enough to find that sense of purpose once — you have to continually refind it as circumstances (and you) change.

Read More at hbr.org

Author: financialpost.com

By its bootstraps: How Netflix uses content to market content

Netflix is lavishing attention on the promotion of its exclusive properties using content marketing — unique material designed to stimulate buzz around such hit fare as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. The online television provider makes it look easy, really. Yet copycats take note: campaigns of Netflix’s complexity require effective partnerships with reputable media brands, the services of professional content creators, and research into results to make sure that marketing dollars are well-invested.

“Around the thought leadership of sponsored content, Netflix is at the top of the heap,” says Chad Pollitt, co-founder of Relevance, a digital magazine, agency and events company specializing in content strategy, and an adjunct professor of Internet marketing at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. “One thing they’re doing well is partnering with outlets, such as the New York Times, with strong brand equity. They’re not doing massive-scale content marketing campaigns on mommy blogger sites.”

Read More at financialpost.com

Author: Jeff Bullas

What Content Strategy Will Work For You? (With Examples)

There are so many contrasting views on content marketing and creation, that it is impossible to find your way out, unscathed and unaffected.

While some say ‘tis the year of video marketing, others insist email marketing was and is the best way forward. On top of that, there is an ever-going war on the length of written content – whether it should be customer friendly or SEO friendly, snack-sized or long form, and so on.

For someone who is not intimately involved with content marketing, selecting amongst the divergent routes may look especially daunting.

So here we are, with no-bullshit, bitterly honest reviews for a few content strategies (revolving around different content formats) that worked – or didn’t – for some companies.

No sports fan would be a stranger to SB Nation’s immersive game threads and biting news. The site boasts more than 80 million unique visitors and great content, on and off-season.

A while back, they introduced long-form content in addition to their usual news bytes and short commentaries. These included in-depth profiles, memoirs, essays and thought-provoking editorials.

Read More at jeffbullas.com

Author: Kylan Nieh

We’ve been hard at work since launching the new Campaign Manager last year. Now we’re rolling out several new features to make it even easier for marketers to manage and optimize their campaigns on LinkedIn.

These releases are just some of the many advertising platform enhancements we’ll make in 2016 to help marketers better engage LinkedIn’s audience of over 433 million influencers and business decision-makers.

With that, here are some new tools and features we are adding to Campaign Manager.

We know that thinking through and customizing a target audience for very specific marketing objectives can take some time, especially for people who manage many Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, or Text Ads campaigns. Advertisers will soon be able to save a targeted professional audience for reuse on other campaigns, which should save you time when setting up your targeting.

Starting in early June, advertisers will see a “Save audience as template” section at the bottom of the Audience page, which is where you set up your campaign targeting. This option will allow you to save all selected targeting facets as a template. You can apply that template to any future campaigns across any account you have access to, without having to manually enter your targeting criteria multiple times.

Read More at business.linkedin.com