Helping the Rainforest — One NFT At a Time

Sometimes, you are lucky enough to work on something that you are passionate about, something that serves a grander purpose than simply the monetary gain you or someone else stands to make from it.

What I have been lucky enough to work on the past few months is something that fuses my love of technology with conservation efforts towards the rainforest. This is something that needs to be discussed and thought about on a wider scale, and efforts like last year’s COP26 and other efforts brought some attention towards the issues to the public eye — but working to conserve our planet’s most valuable natural resources are efforts that go hand-in-hand with work to combat climate change, and it is a cause I have always held close, coming from a part of the US that values nature.

With all of this in mind, it is finally time to unveil something that I have been working in tandem with a group of very brilliant people in bringing to market, something that I hope a huge community fosters around in order to not only play with an exciting new evolution in technology, but also something that actively works to foster care and commitment to conserving the world’s rainforests.

It’s called The Aeternals, and I’m excited to not only have been a part of it, but to be able to be able to talk about it with you here today. For you to fully grasp how this project works, you also need to be sure that you are up to speed on NFTs and a great organization known as Rainforest Partnership.

What’s an NFT?

First things first — let’s make sure you’re all up to speed on just what an “NFT” is and how it works — without this crucial tech, this entire project would not properly function in its intended state.

Anyone familiar with the cryptocurrency space might be familiar with the term “NFT,” but if you’re not privy to it, it’s a new way of verifying ownership of a digital asset, blocked by cryptography and a hot technology called the blockchain.

If these are new terms to you, don’t let them scare you off — a blockchain is simply a kind of database that is shared around the world, and it stores data in a way that can’t be tampered with. Cryptography, in computing terms, is the methodology in which digital information can be stored securely.

“NFT” is just a short way of saying Non-Fungible Token. This is some kind of a digital asset — such as a piece of art, a sound file, a video, or something else that is represented by metadata. Ownership of these digital tokens can be proven using the blockchain, and NFTs can be minted on different blockchains, the most popular currently being Ethereum and Solana. NFTs can represent all kinds of different things — ownership of a piece of digital art, a concert ticket, or even an asset in a video game.

Simple enough, right? Now let’s get into what I’ve been involved with lately, a fun and exciting new leap in interactive NFTs known as The Aeternals.

The Aeternals, Fusing Blockchain Tech and Conservation Efforts

So, that project I mentioned a bit ago? Now that you’re up to speed on the basics on the how the tech works, it’s time to let you in on the surprise so you can also get excited about participating if it sounds like something that you would enjoy!

The Aeternals is the culmination of months of hard work from a team of distributed digital artists, blockchain developers, game developers, and conservation partners in an effort to bring awareness to the growing need of rainforest conservation, in tandem with the Rainforest Partnership. The Rainforest Partnership has been working hard for a number of years to bring boots-on-the-ground efforts to doing their part to protect rainforests around the world.

Imagine a game environment where you can look around and interact with a serene plot of land. This plot of land is not inherently yours, but you are its guardian, helping oversee and protect this spot. Thousands of others just like you are doing the same thing, guarding their little piece of the rainforest, helping to keep it healthy and watching it thrive. Sounds fun and simple enough, right?

Now imagine your plot of land actively evolving the more you take care of it. This is exactly what will be possible when you take part in The Aeternals — our creative and gamification teams have worked incredibly hard to create a world that not only responds to the things you do in-game, but also evolves as you continue to help it thrive.

This is a huge thing for many reasons. First, it creates an exciting and simple way for people to get involved with new technology and conservation efforts at the same time. Plus, it represents something unique in the world of NFTs: a state of evolution. Normally, an NFT is something you can look at and enjoy, but not necessarily something you can interact with and help evolve over time. This is the first step into the world of what we are referring to as multi-dimensional NFTs, or, NFTs that are able to go into certain states based on certain conditions being met.

In the beautiful land of The Aeternals, it will be simple enough. Once you have your NFT, you will be able to log into your plot of land, interact with it, take good care of it, and watch it evolve and change in state over time. When you get into the higher states, you might even end up having a chance of winning some kind of prize — so make sure you stay tuned to see what kind of possibilities might be happening on that front.

Since all of this is happening in tandem with Rainforest Partnership, participants can be assured that their investments into this world are actually going to fund the conservation efforts — and how many projects can say that?

To Grow a Caring Community

One of the biggest goals of The Aeternals is to grow a community around the notion of rainforest conservation. It stays interesting and engaging because of the gamification and social elements. Not only will you be able to interact with your own plot of land, but you will also be able to get in touch with other players through our Discord channel, and see what we are doing through our Twitter and Medium updates. One huge goal of this project is to foster a community who cares for and engages with the cause that we are working to help, and this project is going to be a huge way to get people who care about this kind of thing together, not only to have fun, but to feel a sense of accomplishment, and there is nothing more rewarding than the feeling of knowing you are doing something great to help the planet.

Keep your eyes peeled for more news on The Aeternals — we will be announcing it live at the North American Bitcoin conference this January, and news will continue to be updated about the project through the official social channels and the website.

If this is something that you would like to participate in an effort to do to your part to help the rainforest conservation work that Rainforest Partnership is doing, along with learn about fun and exciting new technologies along the way, then you are going to absolutely love the world of The Aeternals.

Follow our teams Twitter for the latest updates along with sneak peak photos of the assets here: https://twitter.com/theaeternals or check out the website at https://aeternals.io

Have you discovered that improving your SEO will help you get found online more easily? You’ve probably heard that implementing keywords into the content on your website, blog, and URL are essential strategies for improving your SEO ranking. Nonetheless, including the wrong keywords or too many keywords can be just as detrimental .

Although you may not always notice them, keywords play an integral persona when it comes to helping a small business get found online. So let’s get to it by breaking down the long and short (tail) of it.

Do Your Own Keyword Research
Keyword research should never be a one-time duty, but rather an ever-changing process that involves a strategy and a comprehensive understanding of your objectives to become more informed about your company and your industry. Including keywords that are specific to your niche, the enterprises within them and industry you’re a part of. This will help to ensure that the correct customers are being driven to your door rather than simply any customer. Although we want to increase our customer base, we don’t want to target consumers that may not find the value in our business .

Using the Right Keywords
Short-tail keywords, or keywords comprised of very generic terms, might seem appealing because they’re searched more frequently than long-tail keywords, however, they’re also a lot more competitive. So, unless you’re writing content for a large company, like Apple or Macy’s, and buyers are likely searching specifically for your commodity, you don’t want to enter into an ocean of challenges with deep-pocketed brands that have even bigger pockets.

Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, may not be as often typed into a search engine — think, “Egg” vs. “ Poached Egg with Avocado and Bechemel “. By including more long-tail keywords into the content on your page, you’ll attract a greater number of customers who are likely to search for any combination of those long-tail keywords .

Location-based keywords are keywords that directly relate to your business’s physical spot. For lesson, if your business is a bakery in a popular vicinity in Charlotte, NC, you’ll want to include not only Charlotte, but also the name of that specific neighborhood. By doing so, you’re more likely to target guests in your region rather than across township who are likely to or may not ever make it to your location.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Speaking of misinforming customers… If you add irrelevant keywords that are not tailored to the content your customers may not find importance in your business, lending almost any keyword under the sun forwarded to as keyword stuffing and is largely regarded as a taboo in the digital marketing world. Like with any other digital marketing rule of thumb, less is more and choosing the correct keywords will always conquer quantity. Ideally, a website’s content should be incorporated into keywords in a natural way.

Nonetheless, by using keywords over and over into a few sentences and reciting them over and over, you’re stuffing your content with keywords. Even if they’re good keywords, it’s still too much.

Now that you’ve read through this tips, you’re ready to become an SEO expert too !

Originally published at FunnelWave.

You might be wondering what exactly is a social media influencer. Well these are simply the people on social media with a very high profile; their following is large and they hold major pull over their followers.

The reason you want to develop a relationship with a social media influencer is because people listen to them. Their opinions are held in high esteem and if you are able to cozy up to them enough that they endorse you or your company, their followers are likely to act on their recommendation! If you’re looking for increased site traffic, exposure, or even help selling a service/ product, an influencer can definitely give you a boost.

An easy example of someone with this type of influence is Oprah Winfrey. Any author would be more than grateful to get their book mentioned by Oprah herself. With the millions of people who love and trust Oprah, any recommendation from her will guarantee your book to be a bestseller.

The question of the day is, how exactly do you go about connecting with the right influencer?
Always be aware of your target audience; whom are you trying to reach? Knowing who your potential customers are, you must find whom they are following, and whom they listen to. The influencers your customers follow are whom you want to reach. You’ll have to put in the time and do a bit of online sleuthing with search engines and other tools, but your effort will be well worth it in the end!

An example of how you’d search for an influencer would look something like this:
You’re searching for an influencer for your company’s hair product. You would start by searching for hair/ beauty bloggers; hair tutorial vloggers; Instagram models; product review bloggers/ vloggers. Basically, anyone who has anything to do with nice hair and hair products and who also have a large and devoted following will.

So you’ve found the perfect influencer, now what?
The first thing to remember is to NOT immediately ask this person to help publicize your business. You’ll come off as opportunistic and will probably not get a response. You DO want to start following them and interacting with content they post. Building a positive relationship with them is the best way to get them to help you later on. Comment on what they’re posting; engage them by asking questions.
You’re sure to grab their attention, and most definitely their appreciation, if you share your posts within your own posts and if you tweet them. Also, don’t forget to post them to LinkedIn and other social media platforms! Anything and everything you do will not go unnoticed.

Now you need to start thinking about your strategy for social sharing.
There are two things you are trying to do:
1. Share an influencer’s posts in order to develop a relationship.
2. Attract followers by sharing your posts and demonstrating your knowledge.
What is the balance you need to attain?
Using the 4–1–1 social sharing strategy is recommended by Brandscaping author, Andrew Davis. This means that for every 6 pieces of content that you share on a social media platform, you should share:

• 4 of your targeted influencer’s posts that are significant to your audience
• 1 of your own posts that not only helps your audience, but simultaneously demonstrates your knowledge
• 1 of your posts that is sales based, such as a coupon or press release

Although the 4–1–1 ratio is ideal, the numbers do need to be followed so precisely. The idea is that most of the content you’re sharing is not your own. In this way you draw attention to whichever influencer you’re attempting to cultivate. By sharing this individuals content without asking for anything in return, there’s a better chance that when you do ask them for a favor the influencer will be happy to oblige.

Originally published at Derreck Smallwood.

Bitmain, the largest manufacturer of cryptocurrency mining hardware, has launched the Antminer S9 Hydro. It is the 8th miner launched by the company this year. The 18 Tera hash water cooled system is held to have an advantage over air-cooled miners regarding its energy efficiency. The Antminer S9 Hydro can be purchased in BTC from the official website.

Today I opened my email and saw the coupon that you can find at the end of this blog post. I’ve been under the impression that with the movement away from ASIC mining that I might want to sell my rigs and get out of the game. However, this news just released yesterday by Crypto Disrupt (Read the Full article here) revealed to me that the s9 push is real and will always be the top contender in the hashrate race at a whooping 18 TH/s compared to Halong Mining’s Dragon Mint 16Th/s production.

A strong way to come back after the anonymous co-owner of Bitcoin.org calling Halong Mining a “scam.” However, on Friday, the 13, 2018, Cobra Bitcoin apologized to the Halong Mining company.

“I was completely wrong about Halong Mining,” explains Cobra Bitcoin over Twitter.

I was completely wrong about Halong Mining. Even though they’re secretive and mysterious company and raised some major red flags, it seems they’ve delivered functional hardware as promised. I’m extremely sorry to them for my attacks and I await my shipment of crow.

Antminer S9 Hydro specifications

The main advantages of the Antminer S9 Hydro are that it is less noisy and more energy efficient, due to its innovative water cooling system. According to Bitmain, large mining companies can save up to 12% on electricity costs. The water cooling system can directly enter the mining rig and dissipate heat, ensuring the long-term stability of mining operations. A reduction of 20 DB can be observed in comparison to other miners. Due to its design, it is also dustproof with a reduction in total required air volume.

At 18 Tera hash per second (TH/s), the Antminer S9 Hydro is a very impressive miner, though there are other miners coming into the market with superior hash rates. Its water cooling technology will definitely be a huge bonus in large mining operations, where the maintenance of such advanced machines can kill the profitability of a mining farm. The Antminer S9 Hydro is large by mining standards, resembling the GMO Group’s B3 in its design.

Not that $55 is going to help you much.. But it appears that with a previous purchase you will get a discount.

Coupon Notice

Dear customer,

Thank you for your support towards our Antminers. In order to express our gratitude towards our customers, we are going to release coupons to customers who fulfill the condition(s) as listed below:

• Those who have purchased and fully paid for Antminers listed below (S9/S9i/S9j/T9+/A3/B3/D3/E3/L3+/L3++/V9/X3/Z9/Z9 mini) on our website (https://shop.bitmain.com/) from 2017–09–01 00:00:00 (Beijing time, GMT+8) onwards to 2018–08–20 23:59:59 (Beijing time, GMT+8), will receive one unit of 55 USD coupon for each miner purchased.

Please note that,

1. The coupons will be released before 31st, Aug., 2018, and the coupon expiry date is 23:59:59, 30th, Nov, 2018 (Beijing time, GMT+8).

2. The coupons can only be applied to new purchases of the Antminers on https://shop.bitmain.com/

3. The coupons will not be issued in cash and cannot be exchanged for cash. They can only be used to deduct the payment amount when you purchase our miners through https://shop.bitmain.com/

4. More than one coupon cannot be used for the purchase of one miner, and total coupon discount applied during checkout should not be more than 50% of the total purchase amount. For the specific usage rules, please check specific product page as reference.

5. During the purchase process, once a coupon has been selected and the order has been submitted, the coupon is deemed to have been used and cannot be used again, even if such an order is not fully paid.

6. Coupons can be transferred to other users’ accounts on www.bitmain.com.

7. The amount deducted by the use of a coupon or coupons cannot be invoiced.

Thank you for your continuous support. We look forward to servicing you again.

Best regards,

The Bitmain team

Have some Crypto News? Join the Hashrate Hunters FREE Facebook Community to share your latest mining rig builds and join in on the conversation. Let me know where you think that ASIC mining is headed. Should I sell?

Originally published at Derreck Smallwood.

Are Facebooks Ads The Future of Social Media Marketing?

With over 2 billion monthly users, It’s no surprise that Facebook is considered the “King of Social Networking”, especially since it paid an astounding $1 billion to acquire Instagram back in 2012.

This means that not only are you able to target ads to the massive audience on Facebook, but you also have access to Instagram’s social platform which adds an additional 800 million active users!

Even better, it has been shown that 80% of all these users are outside the U.S, suggesting that the platform has massive global reach. These are some impressive numbers, but they are only the beginning of the benefit you could be reaping with Facebook Ads!

So without further ado, Here are 8 of the best reasons Facebook Ads will help make your business super successful in 2018, starting right now.

1. People LOVE to spend time on Facebook!

Let’s be honest… you just did the “facebook scroll” before landing on this article, didn’t you? Don’t hang your head in shame, you are not alone. In fact, the average person spends over 28 percent of his or her time online on social networks — -up to 2 hours per day!

Sound crazy? Lucky for you, it’s not! The truth is that Facebook users like more than 4.1 million posts, post comments, make status updates, and post photos every single minute of every single day, and yet there are only 2 million active advertisers!

Are you kidding me! Talk about a “Blue Ocean”!

If you want your products to be seen, you need to have an audience! Facebook provides a platform with not only an almost 3 billion reach, but also a place where it is almost guaranteed your ads will be seen by engaged users!

2. Targeting is Easy and Super Awesome

So, you have a giant Facebook audience to put your ads in front of… You could rent a blimp and sale it across the world and get a large audience viewing, too, right?

Obviously, there is more to advertising success than just getting it in front of many eyes. This makes Facebook’s targeting feature another massive asset you should be using! With Facebook Ads, you can use location, demographics, age, gender, interests, behavior, and connections to define a target audience!

Better yet…

Facebook allows you to get in front of specific and motivated segments of your audience with several other powerful ad targeting options! These targeting features include:

• Using recent purchase behavior to target.
• Life-event targeting — Of course that mom who just had a baby is going to be interested in diapers!
• Custom audiences that nurture leads and build loyalty.
• Create audiences that look like your own targets (“lookalike audiences”).
• Layer targeting options and get super granular with your targeting.

With so many targeting features, Facebook is a platform that will let you get your product or service in front of the people who will want to buy! What more could you ask for!

3. Your Promotions Will Get Your Posts in Front of People!

So we know that with the recent Facebook algorithm changes, your business page’s organic reach has basically died. Check your organic posts, and you will see a measly 5, maybe 1o viewers, per post! It’s stupid and unfair, but it IS the way things are. The sad truth is that if you have a business page, only 0.5 percent of your fans, on average, will actually see your updates.

Fortunately for Facebook Ad users, though, Facebook is more than happy to show your posts to people if you are willing to dole out the money. It may seem unfair (though I can’t really blame Facebook for making the changes) but if you want to see growth it is time to bite the bullet and invest in Facebook ads…

The good news, though, is that although your organic reach may need some “money-sprucing” with Facebook ads, you won’t have to empty your wallet to get your posts in front of people. Typically, $50 will get your message in front of 5,000 to 10,000 people. And you can be extremely picky about who you target!

4. Organic Growth is Best Grown With Ads!

Say what!

It’s true, By using ads, you’ll likely end up getting more organic reach for your content!

It might seem counterintuitive, but the truth of the matter is that if you have awesome content and you put forth the initial money to get it seen via Facebook ads, the likelihood of your organic reach shooting up is pretty high!

Sound too good to be true?

I promise you it’s not because once your content is in front of people, influencers can share your Facebook Ads (yes, people DO share ads), leading to your content being exposed to an even larger audience who can organically share, who lead to a bigger audience who can share, who lead to a bigger audience…

Remember, engagement snowballs as you go on social media!

5. The Facebook Ads Remarketing Feature!

What am I talking about?

Well if you didn’t already know, with Facebook ads you can “retarget” audiences who have already been exposed to your product or service! Maybe they have visited your website, used your mobile app, or given you their email address. When someone interacts with your brand, Facebook follows up by allowing you to specifically target that audience with your ads when they visit or shop on other websites, use social media, watch videos, use other mobile apps, or search on Google.

If you do not understand the power of this you need to get your head on straight! The truth is that remarketing is probably the most powerful way you can grow your business.In fact, targeting a warm audience (those who have interacted with your brand before) can turn a single-digit conversion rate into a double-digit one! Seriously! Just make sure you are using remarketing for your hard offers — sign-ups, consultations, downloads, etc.

Oh, and don’t forget to set up your Facebook pixel!

6. The Call-to-Action Buttons Feed You Leads Like Crazy.

With almost 1.4 million mobile Facebook viewers every month, and half a billion of its users only accessing the network via mobile, having “call-to-action buttons” is an insane opportunity to capture leads!

Honestly, in terms of gaining leads, this Facebook Ad feature may be the best thing out there! Think about it! all it takes is for someone to see an ad, click on the call-to-action button, and voilà the lead is captured. Amazing!

No longer do you have to depend on the old-school desktop search conversion funnel where a viewer has to see an ad, click on it, visit a landing page, and even after all that only (some) leads are captured. The call-to-action buttons are so easy to use and allow you to completely bypass the old, stupid, and dated funnel concept entirely!

It doesn’t get better than that!

7. Facebook Has Tools That Make Managing Ads EASY!

A lot of people still want to say that Facebook Ads are too complicated and not worth putting the effort into, but it’s just not the case once you learn to use the awesome tools Facebook makes available to you!

These include:

• The Facebook Ads iOS App which lets you manage your campaigns and even create new ads from your mobile device.
• The Facebook Ads Text Overlay Tool which you can use to upload your images and see if they qualify as ad images.
• Social Stats which offers a great way to visualize the potential audience for your Facebook Ads.
• Qwaya which allows you to create and test multiple versions of your ads. (though it is a paid tool, so you will have to dish out some money to use it.)

and several others that can help you manage and grow your audience and convert leads into customers!

If you still aren’t convinced that you can manage Facebook Ads, but you see the obvious truth that you should be! You can either check out this awesome training course put together by our friends (and massive influencers in the small business industry) over at Sendjim, or if you just don’t want to mess with the hassle of learning all the ins and out of Facebook ads, the team at Growthswag can set up and run your ad campaign for you!

Seriously, though, don’t wait! Facebook Ad’s are the future and will have huge benefits for any business! Make 2018 the year where you get on board and grow your business like never before!

Originally published at Derreck Smallwood.

LinkedIn can be a unique animal, especially when it comes to growing and scaling company pages. Here are a few things I’ve learned that might point you in the right direction:

1) Make sure your employees (or members of your clique that are customer/client interacting) properly are tagging your company page from their profiles. You might have to create some kind of how to guide to make sure they are doing it correctly. When you have everyone properly tagging your business page, you increase your chances of receiving some follower overflow from their personal connections.

2) Ensure the channel is part of your social integration strategy. Companies are really good at displaying links to more active social networks like Facebook and Twitter. However, they often forget about LinkedIn. Adding those buttons to websites, e-blasts and other areas across your digital footprint can assist in driving additional traffic. The unique company page link should also be in your email signature.

3) Fill out all aspects of the page. Ensure your creative is updated, the description is accurate and the products/services are filled out. Sounds simple, but I think a more complete page has a tendency to attract followers.

4) Update the page regularly with content. I can’t tell you how many companies I see that simply leave their page blank. They set it up, then totally neglect it. This is another place to distribute content that points back to your site/blog, so leverage it. Give people a reason to follow the page. If there is nothing of value there, it will be a really hard sell.

5) Consider sponsored updates. Create a few test campaigns and sponsor a few updates once a month. I would avoid display targeting and stick with in-stream ads. While LinkedIn ads are VERY expensive compared to AdWords in my opinion, you have the opportunity to target audiences based on geography, industry, seniority, role, group affiliation and more. The targeting features are awesome and I’ve seen great results, especially when it comes to B2B lead generation (following up with folks who take a social action on the ad).

Anyway, these are just a few simple ideas to get you headed in the right direction. Follow me on LinkedIn here <←Yes there

The customer service experience is a key factor in the success of any business. You need to constantly grow and maintain brand loyalty, regardless of the size of your company, the industry you’re in, or the service/ product you provide. Creating a positive and memorable experience for your customer will always go a long way!

Whether you’ve noticed your customers are slowly leaving, or you seem to be stuck in a rut with your services, now is the best time to build your customer loyalty. Start to think outside the box and build loyalty with a fresh approach!

Here are four ways you can increase your customer loyalty:

1. Gratitude:

There are gestures that are pretty typical for customers to expect from businesses, such as birthday wishes or after purchase surveys; the best thing you can do is to express appreciation for your customer when they’re not expecting it. Keeping a hold on your customers’ loyalty is a constant process, and it’s the small gestures that have a large impact. You don’t always need to show gratitude in the same way either; mixing things up with simple tactics such as phone calls, small gifts, and handwritten thank you notes are great ways of keeping customers.

How I did this with $35.00

Adding gifts as an available option for our SendJim users was going to be huge and we just knew it! I wanted to do a simple test to find out some metrics before the company dumped thousands in development and my findings were magical.

In order to give it a shot I decided to start manually sending gifts after my cleaning company had finished up the work for a customer. I decided that the most relatable gifts would be the customers pets and general snack boxes that I could order as gifts online.

My crews began documenting all the pets names and any other details to our CRM (HouseCall Pro) in the notes section, and the rest of the process was simple, if they spent over $400 I was going to send a larger gift and $250–400 would receive smaller gifts. The payoff was beyond fantastic. The initial $665 job turned into a large up-sell of $2400 and then the customer decided to go with quarterly cleanings on two homes.

The graph above is one customer that received a BarkBox addressed to their Dogs names and was delivered on the day of a social gathering the home owners was hosting. It’s actually a fantastic story that I will have to share sometime.

Expressing appreciation in other ways that set you apart from other businesses will trigger the Gratitude effect.

The actual ROI and Conversion rate of Gratitude may never be a accurate number but one thing you can do is find out the Lifetime Value of your customer and calculate the percentage of each job you want to invest back into the relationships with your customers.

Customer Lifetime Value is the single most important metric for understanding your customers. CLV helps you make important business decisions about sales, marketing, product development, and customer support.

For example:

• Marketing: How much should I spend to acquire a customer?
• Product: How can I offer products and services tailored for my best customers?
• Customer Support: How much should I spend to service and retain a customer?
• Sales: What types of customers should sales reps spend the most time on trying to acquire?

My partner and I have put together a cool pdf that is editable and you can add to your Business Binder.

Download the Customer Lifetime editable worksheet here

2. Education:

When speaking with customers, do not attempt to make every instance a direct sales opportunity. The best way to bringup your product/ service is to use personal anecdotes or previous customers experiences in your explanations. This way, you’re not just giving them a sales pitch; you’re making yourself relatable and approachable. The capability of forming connections by using the top down method in sales will help boost loyalty to your brand. If you have difficulty thinking of experiences to help when talking to your customers you can always get assistance from third party vendors.

3. New Offers:

There’s nothing new with the concept of reducing prices or one time deals, it’s what you have to offer that’s new.Introducing something that sets you apart from your competition is a great way to distinguish your business; everyone else is already slashing prices, give people something they can’t find with your competition! As soon as you have decided on a new approach, make sure to highlight its benefits and how this deal makes you different from your competition. These little extras you offer are a great way to get customers coming back.

4. Casual Communication:

Your outbound communication with customers should always be relaxed and open. You can do this by checking in with your customers in a no pressure manner about a month or so after they’ve purchased. This type of phone call shouldn’t differ far from a couple of friends chatting; try not to make this feel scripted. This is also the same vibe that you should have in your store (if you have one). A customer is more likely to return and recommend your business if they feel valued and that they were part of a positive experience. They will become loyal to your brand.

Above I have given 4 general principles to guide you in auditing your current follow-up and service systems. While there are a ton of ways that you can craft your own unique brand story that appeals to your target customers.

Connect with Me.

Website: Derreck.me

On Facebook

On Twitter

On LinkedIn

Why Use Facebook Video Content

If you haven’t started using video content on Facebook yet, now is the time. At 32 billion views on Facebook per day, you cannot afford to not get in on it. Still not convinced? Check out these other impressive facts about Facebook video below.

There’s currently a problem with social media platforms having a decline in their organic reach. At the same time, though, it is impossible to ignore how much video content is being watched on Facebook. Because of this, having interesting video content can be a great way to extend your reach, especially since now the newsfeed algorithm makes it more difficult to gain organic reach.

It’s true that it takes some time and effort to create video content, but you can get the most out of this effort by using a marketing calendar like CoSchedule, which has tools like social video that allows you to upload your videos to your calendar, and schedule them to be posted at the best time.

Getting started with Facebook Video Marketing is totally worth it and surprisingly simple, and this article will show you exactly how you can get use Facebook to market your own content videos.

Best Facebook Video Marketing Practices and Mechanics

What Video Format is Supported

The first thing you need to know to start creating content using Facebook video hosting is to know what types of video files are supported. Video file types that Facebook recommends using are .MP4 and .MOV files, but they also allow you use other supported formats, as well.

Should You Host On Facebook or a Separate Hosting Platform Like Youtube

YouTube is in competition with Facebook as a video hosting option, and as such they prefer videos to be uploaded directly onto the Facebook instead of using a separate platform like Youtube. Doing so makes it easier for Facebook’s algorithm to get your video in front of the audience that would be interested.

Uploading directly to Facebook means you’ll have a higher chance of getting more views, comments, and even shares. This was confirmed by a study, done by Quintly, where it was found that native Facebook videos got 186% more interaction rates compared to YouTube videos.

Unfortunately, there is one downside to hosting on Facebook, as it seems that native Facebook videos have a life shelf that is much shorter. This means that videos tend to sink to the bottom after the likes and shares cease. This can make finding old videos on Facebook hard and it can be a struggle to directly link to them.

Knowing this, sometimes you’ll be best off uploading your Video to Facebook, and other times to YouTube. You can always upload your video on both platforms, but if you’re choosing one follow these tips to choose the best one:

• If people won’t care about the video in a month, choose Facebook
• If the video will be appealing long-term (evergreen), use YouTube
• If your video is over a couple minutes in length, you’ll probably want to use YouTube, which we’ll discuss in a bit.

Facebook Video Length Requirements

Facebook allows you to upload videos up to 45 minutes long, but for engagement’s sake, the ideal length is about 1:30 minutes.

Facebook recommends you concentrate on creating a cohesive and succinct story, rather than focusing on the length of the video, though. So long as your video isn’t longer or shorter than the amount of time needed to tell your story you should be good.

What should you think about timewise when creating Facebook video content, then?

• Keep them to the point and short
• If your video is longer, try breaking it into episodes that are easier to digest
• Don’t ignore your Facebook analytics, find what’s working and continue with it

What Types of Videos Should I Make?

There are a plethora of video categories you can consider, so aim for the ones that you think your audience will love. Depending on what your audience, here are some ideas:

• How-to: videos on how to perform some task.
• Entertaining: funny animal videos, memes, anything you can imagine that would be entertaining.
• Behind the scene: a video showcasing what it’s like in your company, or how you create something.
• Product demonstration: show how your service/product works.
• Customer testimonials: recording a customer giving you rave reviews.
• Live video: you can live stream to Facebook and it will broadcast directly to your profile page.

Equipment You’ll Need

Of course, this will depend on your budget, but you’ll want to invest in some quality production. If you have an awesome idea for a video, as well as polish and effort, you can generate amazing results even if you don’t have a production team.

The first step in this game is to get your equipment together.

Camera Type Selection

The kind of video quality in your content can have a massive impact, so make sure you are using a camera that fits with your goals.

• Smartphone: if you’re in a pinch, a smartphone can shoot hi-resolution videos that will work well enough.
• Digital SLR: you can get a decent entry level one for at least $500, and will shoot awesome videos.
• Handicam: an amateur digital camera will work if you’re able to spend a few hundred dollars.
• Professional video camera: any business with an in-house videographer will demand this equipment, and you should provide it if you can.

Mic Selection:

Audio quality can make a big difference depending on the content you are creating.

• Smartphone microphone: you don’t need to spend too much money on a smartphone condenser mic, and it will improve the quality of your audio
• Camera mic: these start around $50 and up

Tripod Selection:

Don’t underestimate what a good tripod may do for your content. A stable vs shaky video can make your content much more visually appealing and boost engagement.

• Smartphone tripod: this will go a long way in shooting a better video. Also, a smartphone adapter for a full-sized tripod will also work
• Monopod: affordable and lightweight
• Actual tripod: the best option, but also the most expensive

Even if you have zero experience in shooting videos, (don’t worry the more you do it the better you’ll get) with the right equipment, you won’t even need to be a video pro to make awesome videos for your audience.

How Should I Shoot My Video?

Shoot Vertically if Using a Mobile Phone:

Shooting video in this style may be going against the old practice of shooting in landscape view, but they look better on mobile devices, and shooting vertically on your phone produces better results.

The Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is that you should split your frame into a 9x9 grid. Doing this will help you to produce more visually appealing shots because it helps with balance.

Subject Must Fit In The Frame

This one is simple. Don’t cut off any limbs or heads in the frame, and shoot people above the waist. Allow your audience to clearly see what is happening.

This picture is a great example. The subject is positioned off-center (following the Rule of Thirds), with everything important in the frame.

Use the First Few Seconds to Grab Audience Attention

Generally, people scrolling down their news feeds don’t have the longest attention span, so make the first few seconds count. Facebook says that you have about 3 seconds to grab your viewers’ attention, and even then, only 65% will watch into the next 10 seconds. Cut out the dramatic build-ups and intro’s and just get to the point.

How To Promote Your Facebook Videos?

So you’ve done all the work shooting it, now how do you get others to watch it?

Write strong post copy

Write a copy that attracts views and includes videos in your posts. Here’s how:

• Create a post with questions, while alluding that the answers are in your video.
• Get your followers excited for your video by hyping it up.
• Spark curiosity in your writing.

Embed Facebook Video Content on Other Web pages.

You can actually embed Facebook videos on web pages, similar to how you would a YouTube video. This means that you can have blog posts or static web pages with your Facebook videos embedded in them. It’s as easy as selecting the arrow in the upper right corner of any video, then selecting embed. You can also include the whole post by selecting the box

It is important to note that your video will be embedded in an iframe, which may possibly break RSS feeds. To avoid this, you should select embed video, choose advanced settings to bring up the embed video player configurator, then select code. Lastly, follow the directions on-screen to copy and paste JavaScript code into the correct place.

If using WordPress, switch to text view and then paste the top code at the top of your page.

Add Featured Video to Your Facebook Page

If there’s a video you really want your followers to see, a great way to promote it is to feature it on your Facebook page. To do that you will need to go to your Facebook page, select videos, and then add featured video. This will allow you to choose any of the videos you’ve uploaded. By doing this, your video will be displayed on your profile’s main page under the “about” section.

Use Video As Cover Photo

In case you didn’t already know, you can make your cover image a video. Your cover video should be 820x462 pixels wide and 20–90 seconds long. It is important to note, though, that if you want a video as your cover photo you need to use a Facebook business page. Go to “change cover” and choose from videos/ upload video. Then you simply select which video you want as your cover photo. Once you click to confirm your video, it becomes your cover photo.

Or you can utilize a paid route and use…

Video Advertising or Paid Promotion

You can reach more people and get more views by paying for your video to be promoted or turning your video into an ad. If you plan on doing this, though, you must follow Facebook’s design guideline for ads. You can also read Wordstream’s guide on Facebook ads as well.

How Can You Drive More Traffic From Facebook Video?

Even though Facebook removed the “Call To Action” links on facebook videos, there are still ways you can drive traffic to your site through your native Facebook videos by using:

1. Links in post’s copy: you can add a link to the post copy that accompanies your video
2. Tags to other accounts mentioned in the video: if you reference other companies/people in your video, tag them. Doing this will distribute your video to their fans as well

How To Measure Your Success

Video marketing on Facebook can be lots of work and you will want to know if it’s paying off. To check your data and analytics and see if you’re meeting your goals, you can use Facebook insights to access all this information and figure out what works and what needs improving on.

To view your video metrics, go to your Facebook page and select insights, then select videos on the left.

With this you can see the total minutes of the video that’s been viewed, the number of video shares, and the change over time.

You can also view each video’s detailed analytics, simply select which video you want to see stats around. This will show you a full breakdown of the analytics for that specific video.

How Do You Set Facebook Marketing Goals?

You should always set your goals the SMART way!

• Specific: you should set firm numbers/percentages to hit
• Measurable: track progress with data
• Attainable: everyone on your team should agree on the goals
• Realistic: be ambitious, yet attainable
• Timebound: deadlines matter

Now that you know how to set goals, what metrics do you track? Here are your options:

• Engagement: anyone liking and sharing and commenting on your videos?
• Views: how many people watch your videos, and how long are they watching?
• Traffic: do your videos link back to your site? How much traffic do they drive?
• Revenue: how much money are you earning from video ads that direct to an e-commerce page or signup form?

Awesome, you now know how to:

1. Create content for your video your audience wants
2. Set goals for your video content, and achieve them
3. Use your current budget and resources to accomplish it all

All that’s left for you to do is shoot the video!

Originally published at Derreck Smallwood.

If you follow the steps given in this post, I can guarantee that 77% of you will boost your traffic from your posting schedule on social media by 192%!

Pumped about increasing your website traffic yet? Well, there is more!

Of those who choose to follow these steps, traffic will increase for 40% of you, by 268%; there will also be a 483% traffic increase for 37% of you. This is proof that this posting formula works.

This is an example of the success you can achieve after one week of applying this social media posting schedule just to Twitter. Honestly, you’ll get even more traffic from each social network if you use the process outlined in this article.

Content is usually only shared on social media about 1–3 times by 77% of you. 40% of you only share 2–3 times on social media, and 37% only have one social media share after it’s published.

It’s actually pretty easy to understand; You apply the formula to your current schedule for social media posting to share posts within minutes. You can grow your traffic, save time and get organized just by following the process.

This is it:

“Appealing messages on social media + new post promotion game plan + ideal social sharing frequency + best content shared again = way more social media traffic.”

It’s as simple as sending the most absorbing social messages for content and getting more traffic.

So, if you want to learn the formula for driving traffic that works amazingly when used with your social media templates, then continue reading.

STEP ONE

Write Captivating Social Media Messages for High Click through’s

You write social media messages as an invitation for the party on your blog, so make sure the party is one that people want to attend! If it sounds lame, they won’t care to show up.

Each message should be treated as a call to action:

• Sell the value your followers will get by clicking on your post.
• Get them to question a belief with the potential to a solution
• Get them to feel like they’re missing out on something amazing

You have the potential to gain 38% more click-through rates compared to typical messages by learning how to write the best social media messages.

Now, here is exactly how you will grab traffic on your social media posting schedule:

For every blog post you write, create 25–30 headlines to use for social shares. Upworthy is known for using this technique, and they’ve found that the more you write, the better they get.

Even though Upworthy may only write 25 headlines, you can write 30 titles for the better. The titles with the most shares on social media are How To, Questions and List Posts. The more shares you get, the more click through’s you get.

Write 10 headlines for each of these most shared headline types, and choose the best of each type for an A/B/C test.

If this sounds a bit tricky at first, here are 10 templates to help you get started:

How To

1. How To Start _____ That Will Help You _____
2. How To Improve _____ So You’ll Feel Like A _____
3. How To Grow _____ To Be A Successful _____
4. How To Increase _____ When You _____
5. How To Boost _____ With A _____
6. How To _____ For The _____
7. How To Make A _____ In A _____
8. How To Create The Best _____ In The World
9. How To Run A Successful _____ To _____
10. How To Do Outstanding _____ On A ______

Question

1. When Is The Best Time To _____?
2. How Do You _____ When You _____?
3. Will _____ Help You _____?
4. Why Is _____ Better Than _____?
5. What Can _____ Teach You About _____?
6. Where Is The Best _____ To _____?
7. How Can You _____ To _____?
8. How Will _____ Make Your _____ More Successful?
9. Is _____? Insider Advice to _____
10. What Really Is The Best _____?

List

1. 43 _____ From _____ Of The Most Popular _____
2. 20 Ways To Be _____ When You Don’t Feel _____
3. 25 _____ That Will Amplify Your _____
4. The 6 Types Of _____ That Will Give You _____
5. 11 _____ That Will Make You _____
6. 23 Ways To Get Even More From _____ To _____
7. 10 Rules For _____ Your ______ Will Love
8. The Easy 5-Step Process To _____ In Just 30 Days
9. The 10-Minute, 10-Step Solution For The Best _____
10. 21+ Easy Ways To _____ That Will Skyrocket By _____ In 1 Year

Use this social media hack for increased click-through rate:

1. As soon as you publish your post, share the headline to Twitter.
2. After an hour, share your second-best headline to Twitter,

• Check Twitter analytics to see which headline had the best click through’s.

1. Now use the best headline for your post and all subsequent social media posts.

You Want Your Questions to Arouse Curiosity

Open-ended questions are thought to help a conversation continue, which is true, but these questions will actually hinder your click-through rate when used in social media posting schedules.

When compared to social messages that are open-ended, close-ended questions get more click-through rates. On average, you’ll get 255% more click through’s on close-ended questions compared to open-ended.

Saying “yes” or “no” to a close-ended question in your mind gives the impression that the answer is only a click away.

Take People Off Guard With Your Advice

Try to imagine that you’re driving down a road when you see a horse in a field. Its just a regular looking brown horse, nothing extraordinary. But, what if the horse was hot pink. That would be something to stop for! Sharing messages on social media that are original and extraordinary, when everyone else is posting the same things, will help your post stand out.

The messages that stand out are the ones that get the most click-throughs.

Catch your audience off guard with these different types of messages:

You Know Nothing

It isn’t always easy realizing that something you thought you knew is actually wrong. It so happens that posting about something that is mostly accepted to be true will indeed increase your rate of click through’s.

How do you write messages like this? Controversy is key, and you can use anecdotal evidence in your posts when writing them!

• You don’t always offend others with controversial content. If you want higher click through’s in fact, your messages shouldn’t be offensive. You want to connect with the three B’s: behavior, belonging, and beliefs.

Creating a division in a person’s behavior, beliefs, or feeling of belonging will get them to try to disprove or confirm your stance. Either way, it’s good because it will create a buzz.

• When information is based on a person’s experience, it may not be very true, this is called anecdotal evidence.

1. Share data in your post that you find which disproves commonly held norms
2. Share your thoughts about opinions that may differ from others

It’s alright to add on to already great ideas others have written about. Basically, nothing is original; this ties into people liking to either confirm or disprove beliefs.

Humor

Research shows that humorous content is shared by 49% or people. How can you include humor in your social messages?

• Break the pattern after writing three series. People have been conditioned since childhood to like series of three, and it’s funny when the pattern is detached.
• How to get more clicks by 157% by creating better posts, increasing shares, and giving your dog more treats.
• The use of cacophony. Basically, this is using funny sounding words (cucumber, car keys, hippopotamus, etc.). combining cacophony and alliteration is extra funny. Use Evernote to create a word bank of cacophonous words in your industry for future use.
• Create comics. Draw them yourself too!
• GIFs are great. GIFs drive traffic, they get 22% more engagement compared to messages and images. GIF messages get 167% more click through’s than messages with images.

Use GIF sites like Giphy or Pokey to find funny GIFs that relate to whatever message you’re sharing. Then top it off with an awesome social message.

What’s In It For You?

This is a completely legit question, of course, your followers are going to want to know if your content is worth their time.

Make sure to show how they will benefit by clicking through to read your content. Here are some classically good types of messages:

Quote

You probably did a lot of research before starting our post. Use a quote from someone you referenced as inspiration for your message on social media.

Follow up the quote with why your followers should read your content (also known as a call to action).

It’s as simple as copying a quote from your article and referencing the source. Be sure to write something such as “Learn how you can start this!” with a link to your post.

Benefits

Your post should solve some sort of problem for your reader, there needs to be value in your post.

Don’t forget that your followers on social media are selfish (not negatively). They care about themselves more than others, and they will click to read content to improve themselves in some way.

This will help you create posts that your followers will connect with emotionally, meaning they’ll click through to your content.

Snippet

As simple as taking a cool sentence from your post to share a social message.

You can use a Click To Tweet plugin to get more shares for your work, and it’s free!

To reiterate, you’ve just learned that these messages on social media will get you the most traffic:

• Emotional headlines
• Closed-ended questions
• Controversial messages
• Humor
• Quotes
• Benefits
• Helpful snippet

You can write a bunch of social messages one time and reuse the messages time and again on a social media schedules posting. You can accomplish all of this without copying and pasting or logging in and out of networks.

STEP TWO

Each New Blog Post Should Follow A Proven Social Media Posting Schedule

The majority of people (67%) spend about 2–4 hours writing a post, and 30 minutes creating social media messages. After all this work, 77% of people share just 1–3 times on social media.

Why is there a lack of promotion with all the effort put into the post?

At least by the time you’ve gotten to this point you have about 9 different social media messages that will help you share the post more than once without annoying your followers.

This is how you can add those messages to your posting schedule:

Best Time To Share

Scheduling your messages for the highest traffic times is key. You can use the Google Analytics custom report to see what times your followers are most active on social media. The first page you’ll come to in this report is the landing page listing your networks in order of highest trafficked (by page views).

Select any of the networks in your list to discover exactly which times traffic is highest. You can then use this information to plan your schedule for posts.

1. Use Google analytics to see when your followers are most active
2. Create a spreadsheet with the number of page views per hour per network. You can easily use the export function, then sort your data according to the hour; then simply copy and paste into your schedule spreadsheet.

• Figure out when you’re getting the most traffic on each network so you know when you should be sharing for optimal views.

Once you’ve reached this point, you have already written 9 different social media messages per post. You also now know the optimal times to post your messages to get the most traffic. Next, you’ll promote your content for a month by setting up your posting schedule with your own data.

Here’s a couple things to keep in mind when starting out:

• Since you have multiple messages you’re able to share one post multiple times. Be sure that each network gets lots of different messages.
• You’re able to share more often on some networks compared to others.

Now that your schedule for social media posting is set up, you can start exploring the peak social sharing frequencies. Doing this will allow you to add more messages for older content on evergreen which will then allow you to get more traffic by sharing your content more frequently.

STEP THREE

How Often You Can Post On Social Media Every Day

According to Buffer:

• 3 scheduled tweets per day: engagement drops after the third tweet.
• 2 scheduled Facebook posts per day: Be unique, even if you’re sharing the same content, change up the picture or message accompanying it. Unless you’re targeting specific time zones, you don’t want to share the same thing over again. After your second Facebook post a day your likes/comments drop, so approximately 10 posts per week seems to work.
• 1 scheduled LinkedIn post per day: since you only get one post per day to be successful, make sure that the image and copy are the best.
• 3 scheduled Google+ posts: 3 seems to work best, but more can be posted if you are an avid Google+ user.
• 5 Pin shares per day: Pinterest has shown great success with lots of posts (3–10 per day). If you don’t have many posts 5 may be tough, but try to shoot for at least 3 per day.
• 5 Instagram shares: May sound weird, but this is just based on data. Try to post 1–2 times per day if you have high-quality posts.

According to Constant Contact, here’s what you should be posting (similar to what Buffer recommends):

• 35 tweets per week: this works out to 5 tweets per day since Twitter is described as a low value, high volume network
• 3 Facebook posts per week: Facebook is described as a high value, low volume network, so you don’t want to over post, and quality is key.
• 2 LinkedIn posts per week: users of LinkedIn are mostly professionals, so you must schedule in a way that maximizes the work week
• 3 Google+ posts per week: they recommend you post at least 3 times a week, and at most 10 times.
• 35 Pin shares per week: this is a high volume high-value network, so post a lot to get a lot, aim for 5–10 times per day.

These are simple guidelines you can follow to get the most out of your posts, however, this will all vary depending on how often your followers engage, and how constant you are at up keeping these frequencies while also creating great posts.

There is also some research conducted by Hubspot which revealed that followers responded differently depending on the industry. While some industries required more frequent posting, others seemed to require less.

So, how often should you post for your industry? Well, there is a ton of sources with varying advice, so here is a list of the minimum and maximum posts you should be scheduling per day. Play with these numbers until you find what works best for you!

• Twitter: 15 posts
• Facebook: 1 post; 2 posts if your audience is over 10,000.
• LinkedIn: 4/week
• Google+: 2 posts
• Pinterest: 9 pins

With all the information you’ve just taken in, this is what you should take away: create your posting schedule; share the appropriate number of messages for each network per day; do this with sharing your older content.

STEP FOUR

With Your Most Successful Older Blog, Set Up A New Posting Schedule For Social Media

By sharing several more messages per day, you’ll be able to boost your traffic from your posting schedule. Keep in mind, though you may already have multiple messages for every post, don’t forget to also share lots of different content to keep your feed varied.

Share Your Most Recent Best Performing Content

When you get your content shared, it allows you to see what type of content is most enjoyable or helpful to your followers. Use this information to decide what you should continue to share after your first post.

Average out the shares each post has received with this formula: the sum of all posts/number of posts in your sample = average number of shares per post.

Using the results of your calculation, you can know to re-share the posts that got higher than the average share. If you do this, you’ll definitely see more traffic to your content as well as more followers!

Share The Still Awesome Older Posts

To fulfill your maximum social sharing schedule, you can add in those older evergreen posts that still bring in the traffic. If you need to figure out what content your followers want to see again, look at your most shared blog posts. This will show you your most popular posts that you can easily share again. Google Analytics will also show you the most get the most page views as well as sessions. This way you can see the posts that are still bringing the traffic in and now you just need to share them again.

In order to make this go smoothly, it’s not a bad thing to actually set aside a block of time for this specific task. Use this time to find the best of your old posts that you can then input into your schedule so that they’ll be shared on the appropriate day at the appropriate time. Once this task is complete, you no longer need to think about it or try to remember when you need to post something.

You can easily create different social templates for what you need to make this happen:

• One for new posts
• One for newly published re-sharing
• However many you need for the sharing of the older posts

You’ve made it this far, with all the information you’ve read, here is a review of what you’ve learned to help you become a savvy social media sharer.

• Social messages that are unique and stand out amongst all the other feed. Try out multiple headlines, be controversial, use humor, quotes, snippets, share benefits and ask some questions.
• Newly published posts need a social template. Google Analytics custom report will help you find the best times, then you can map the social shares to an entire month of social share.
• How often you should post to social media matters, as it will help you to get the most traffic while not turning away followers. Try to schedule 15 tweets, 1 Facebook post, 2 Google+ posts, and 9 pins per day, as well as 4 LinkedIn posts every week.
• Schedule messages for older posts with different social templates. To steer clear of annoying your followers with too many messages, make sure you stagger the times and days for shares.

Originally published at Derreck Smallwood.

There are different systems you can use for personal productivity, and what you use will directly impact how productive you are. It is imperative to understand how these different systems are connected in order for you to eliminate any friction between them so that you can reach your goals. Keep reading to learn how to leverage the two most critical personal systems by using a calendar and task manager together.

Your personal productivity system is there to help you efficiently accomplish what you need to so that you’ll have the time to do the important things in your life. To do this, you’ll need to use your task manager and calendar together. Tasks are the things that you need to get done; the job of the task manager is to show you what needs to be done when you’re in the place to get them done. The way the calendar balances the task manager is by allowing you to visually see your day and the things you have to do so that you can manage when you can get things done.

The first thing you need to do before beginning your tasks is to understand how these tools are incorporated into your workflow. Since these tools are used to show you the best time to accomplish your tasks, you need an understanding of how to use them together. Task managers and calendars are completely different tools with very different functions.

Task Manager:

• Shows tasks needing to be completed in an actionable way
• Filter tasks by project, context, due date, mental state
• You can use other criteria to show items that need to be done at a given moment

Calendar:

• Shows things that must be done at specific times
• Only shows you things you MUST do (not should do)
• Everything in the calendar is critical as to not accumulate clutter

This being said, your calendar will only show you some tasks, not all. Your calendar should not be comprised of everything you have to do; don’t load the calendar with tasks every day. It is the task manager that shows you what you should be working on and when. This tool can display which tasks you can get done at any moment. Tasks can be filtered by project, context, and due date, so long as you enter all pertinent info when you create the task.

Task — a single thing that must get done.

Project — things that need to get done that have several steps.

Single-Action List — project containing separate tasks/ items that are not related.

Understanding these concepts is crucial for you to capture all the things you need to do in your task manager. Being able to differentiate between a task and a project, and to correctly break a project down into steps is a great skill that you will use time and again.

When entering information into your task manager, you must always answer these questions:

1. What is it? — You need to answer this in order to know if it is a task. Once you can answer this, you need to know if it’s a separate project, currently part of a project, or a task that can be added to a single item list.
2. Should you be doing this? — after you’ve confirmed this is a task, you need to be sure it’s worth doing, and that you’re the correct person to be doing this task. Don’t sign onto something that someone else should be doing it.
3. When do you need to do this? — you need to know when you can get a task done, as well as whether or not there’s a due date. Don’t use random due dates as seeing a bunch of overdue tasks that actually aren’t overdue is stressful. Instead, use a defer date or start date if there is no known deadline. This way, you can see what tasks you can work on and not get stressed about arbitrary due dates.
4. What do you need to do this? — This is the context, it’s the tool, place, or person you need to get things done.

When using your calendar with a task manager, you should review it weekly to confirm everything’s on your calendar that should be there. At the same time, you can go through your projects to see which tasks need attention, what can be deleted, and what can be added to the calendar. You need to maintain your task manager since you will rely on it when planning the coming days and weeks on your calendar.

Basically, you’ll be using your task manager to plan what you need to get done, but only some of the items are entered into your calendar.

What should go on your calendar?

These are the 3 different event types should e included in your calendar:

Appointments/meetings — places you must be at a certain time on a certain day.

Time-specific tasks — Any task that has to be done at a specific time.

Time blocks — blocks of time you set aside to do important things that have no urgent tasks.

By creating blocks of time for yourself to work on your tasks (time-blocking), you can effectively get going on tasks that would have otherwise been pushed aside. Although you don’t need to plan everything in your week out, it is helpful to know where you need to be and what you need to be doing from a high-level perspective. “Time is money”, right? Take this approach to managing your calendar so you can get the important things done with the time you have.

Time-blocking is also effective in helping you have more free time, even though your calendar may look fuller. By having these times allotted, you may find it easier to get it done quicker since you’ll be mentally prepared to sit down and get to it. You also will find a bit more time you can use to either relax or get started earlier on a certain task.

An important time-block to create for yourself is one for focus time. This time-block is important because it probably won’t happen unless you section off some time specifically for it. If time isn’t allotted to focus on tasks that are most important, it easy to get pulled in to others’ requests. So, if it is important for you to have focus time, make sure to black out some time for this.

This is also true for other things you would like to create time for. Say you like to jog regularly, it’s perfectly acceptable to block out some time every day or every second day specifically for jogging. This way, it becomes less likely that something else will come into that allotted space since you’re already committed to it. There’s a higher chance that you will stick to these plans if you create a space for that activity beforehand.

The “buffer” time-block is also great to add to your calendar. This time-block can be used for random things such as checking emails or cleaning up your computer. Since these small things usually come up within a work day, buffer time-blocks set at the beginning and end of your day are a great way to take care of them.

Incorporating a “breakout” time-block is another one you should think about adding. If you have a hard time turning off from work, this allotted time will give you the opportunity to take a break and recharge. You’ll go back to work with a clearer mind and get things done a lot easier if you can take some time off for a bit each day.

Your calendar should be considered your holy ground when it comes to tasks that are time specific. Only put musts and time-sensitive tasks into your calendar, don’t fill it with arbitrary deadlines. You don’t want to fill up your calendar with unnecessary items, instead add these items to your to-do list.

Here are some good apps to get if you are using a task manager and calendar together.:

Task Manager Apps:

OmniFocus :

• great if you use Apple
• offers features other task managers don’t (defer dates)
• can create your own custom perspectives
• can use on Mac, iOS, Apple watch

Todolist:

• Available on any computing platform
• Offers additional features (IFTTT, Amazon Echo integration)
• Can share tasks with others

Asana:

• Has a user interface, and great for team management.
• Updated consistently with new options/features.

2Do:

• Mac and iOS app
• Additional features (like tags)

Trello:

• Built on concept of Kanban boards
• Different way of looking at your tasks
• Shows the big picture view

Reminders:

• Built in reminders app
• Functions as a basic to-do list
• Offers system level integration

Calendar apps:

BusyCal:

• Pricey, but offers customization features
• Info panel allows you to view and edit additional event info.
• Offers Microsoft Exchange support

Fantastical:

• 2015 Apple design award winner
• has a powerful natural language parser allows you to quickly create events/reminders

Timepage:

• Put out by Moleskin
• Beautiful app
• Swipe between icons to set up time to leave notifications
• Has an assistant feature for sending rain alerts, give you daily briefings, tell you what’s upcoming, when to leave, reminders to follow-up

Calendar:

• Built in calendar app
• Manages your calendar
• Offers system-level integration

In conclusion, be sure to pick your tools carefully to help your work without making things complicated. The simple tools are the best to use until you get to the point where you need additional features in your app, only then upgrade. If you really don’t need the additional features, stay away from those apps as you don’t want to make things more complicated than they need to be.