Up Market

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• Tips for a Successful 2012 Social Media Strategy
• Business Book Recommendation: QBQ! The Question Behind the Question
• Mastering the Interpersonal Nature of Business
• How to Create an Awesome Work Portfolio

Tips for a Successful 2012 Social Media Strategy Posted: 21 Jan 2012 08:30 AM PST Social media is an unavoidable part of marketing a business (whether big or small), and will become even more prevalent in 2012. But a haphazard approach won't yield impressive results. Like everything in business, it's essential to have a strategy. PCWorld shares the following 5 tips for creating a successful social media strategy in 2012: Claim your name everywhere  The social media world is no longer limited to Facebook and Twitter. You'll want to stake your claim on Google+ and LinkedIn with a company page as well. Make sure you are taking advantage of any directories available on the websites of any professional associations you belong to, as these valuable links back to your website help build your credibility both with potential customers and the search engines. Do a month-by-month plan with clear goals Come up with a clear goal for what you want to do with social media. Do you want to help customers, make more sales, drive more people to your website, or a combination of all three? Then come up with a plan to meet those goals month-to-month and assign the proper resources to it. Find a way to measure results  Planning is futile without a way to measure results. Get familiar with Google Analytics and Hootsuite. For beginners, Klout is a good way of measuring how effective your social media efforts are, with a number and practical suggestions for improvement on a week-to-week-basis. Don't be afraid to outsource  Ask your Web design firm either to quote you on social media services or recommend someone who does it. When it comes to hiring for this position, you'll want to go with someone referred to you since it is too easy for anyone to hang out a shingle and call themselves a social media consultant. Add your social media links to online and printed collateral  Once you've got your social media profiles set up and launched, make sure that you're adding your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages to business cards, brochures, fliers, and any other printed materials. You can read the article in its entirety at PCWorld. What are the key elements of your social media strategy? Please share with us in the comments. Photo Credit: clasesdeperiodismo

Business Book Recommendation: QBQ! The Question Behind the Question Posted: 21 Jan 2012 06:00 AM PST When are they ever going to get us our supplies? Why can't they work as fast as us? Who forgot to call back that customer? We all ask questions like these in both our professional and personal lives. As we do a little whine comes into our voice and we think we are improving the situation by blaming someone. After all, it's not our fault. If only everyone would work as hard as we do. But, these types of questions don't help and they don't create solutions. Could there be better questions? John Miller proposes in QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life that we need to change the way we ask questions. Instead of playing the blame game why not assert some personal accountability and work toward a solution. He calls these improved questions QBQs. The Question Behind the Question. QBQ's have three simple rules. By restructuring the questions we ask in our work and home life we can change our attitude and our productivity. 1. All QBQ's begin with what or how, not why, when, or who. 2. All QBQ's contain the personal pronoun I, and not they, their, we, or you. 3. All QBQ's focus on action. Examples: How can I solve that customer's problem? What can I do to simplify this process? How can I help my employees do their job better? QBQ's are very powerful. I use them often and find that when I do my emotions level off, my voice drops, and the situation seems less stressful. I wish I could say QBQ's can change the world, but the spirit of QBQ is personal accountability. We can only change ourselves. It is easy to go around wanting other people to be different. We even try to help them change. We say things like: Why can't you get to work on time? When are you going to finish that report? Who didn't close that sale? When we ask questions like these, (John calls them IQ's [inappropriate questions]), we cause other people to get defensive and nothing is solved. Instead we should ask QBQ's and decide what we can do ourselves to change the situation. This is not a long book; in fact you could probably finish it on your lunch hour. But it is powerful. John gives great examples of people using QBQ successfully and shows us how to change IQ's into QBQ's. He discusses leadership, procrastination, change, barriers, working inside the box, and many other topics that business people confront every day. And most importantly, he shows us how to use QBQ to help us embrace personal accountability. I believe this is the one book that every employee, manager, or CEO should read. If you could work in an environment where everyone pulls their weight, no one places blame, and action was encouraged what would you achieve? Greatness comes from asking the QBQ. Image Credit: QBQ.com

Mastering the Interpersonal Nature of Business Posted: 20 Jan 2012 03:00 PM PST This is the first piece in an on-going column on effective communication skills – especially as related to work and the workplace.   “The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.” -Tony Robbins   The most enjoyable and productive relationships are those in which there is a high enough quality of rapport out of which we will spontaneously contribute to one another’s well being. I’m going to define an effective interpersonal relationship as one that has the following two conditions: - I trust that my needs matter to you - You trust that your needs matter to me Once these two conditions are met: - we will problem-solve collaboratively - our solutions will have mutual buy-in making them more effective and durable - we will enjoy each other more and will be more likely to learn from our interactions - we will be more likely to prevent misunderstandings or conflicts, or at least resolve them more quickly and less painfully. If interpersonal communication is a two-way street, then it’s got critically important intra-personal cul-de-sacs on each end. My own work on myself is critical to the quality of my communication and to our interactions. If I am not self-aware, how honest or authentic can I be? If I am not present – barely listening or understanding how much this means to you – how far can our communication really go? If you have not worked out your tendency to hear criticism and attacks when others offer you potentially helpful feedback, how much of a learning organization can we have? Constantly blaming others, how much have you limited your personal and professional growth? Communication is at least as much about the consciousness and the intentionality that we bring to our interactions as it is about the specific words we use. The most effective relationships I know are based on a willingness to: - create mutual understanding without coercion - prioritize the relationship over “getting my way” - work toward mutually agreeable, win-win outcomes. Old world: It’s OK to motivate people through fear, guilt, shame, duty, obligation, the promise of a reward, the threat of punishment, shoulds, or have-tos. We are essentially separate and discrete entities from one another. It’s OK to get my way at the expense of the other person and the relationship is secondary. New world: Any time I meet my needs at the expense of another, in the long run my own needs will not be met. After all, we are all interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent. Any time I create a win-lose, in the long run we both lose. If I prioritize the relationship over a specific outcome, I trust that we will together find a win-win solution. (A "win-win" is far beyond “compromise.” In the latter we each give in or give up a little. In a true win-win no one feels like they lost anything.) Old world: If my needs mattered (if they loved me, if they cared), then they would give me what I’m wanting, when and how I’m wanting it, without me having to ask. Because if I have to ask, it’s just not the same. New world: Each of us needs to take responsibility for what we’re wanting by making requests (not demands). Whether or not the other person cares about our needs is not measured against their psychic abilities. Resolve, right now, to have fantastic interpersonal relationships and communication skills. This decision on your part will by itself improve most of your relationships immediately. Embrace a mindset of life-long learning in this realm. The most enlightened business people I know understand that mastering interpersonal skills – and surrounding themselves with enjoyable and high-functioning relationships – is what sets them apart from the herd, and what makes their business remarkable and creative. My intention with this new column is to give you actionable tips, tricks, tactics and mindsets that you can use to move the needle for yourself on the quality of your communication and relationships. I’ll engage with theory only insofar as it can make your practice more effective. Please send me your questions and situations so that I can give you tips, tricks, and pointers in future columns.

How to Create an Awesome Work Portfolio Posted: 20 Jan 2012 12:00 PM PST Whatever industry you are in, a portfolio can be a good way of promoting your achievements to others.

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