Save Time and Money With This Social

Media Automation Tool

"You can't improve what you don't measure" is an age-old adage that is widely
practiced in management. But the same ethos can be applied for social media
marketing. After all, how else will you know if the strategies you put in place
contribute to your bottom line? How will you figure out which tactics to
maintain and abolish if you have nary an idea of their efficacy?

It's understandable, then, that digital marketers expend so much effort in

building comprehensive reports to their bosses and clients to show them what
works and what doesn't. In fact, the average marketer spends around 20 hours a
month slapping together reports. Frankly, that's too much time spent on
wrangling a cascade of spreadsheets, screenshots, and slides, and jumping from
one tool to another. That time could be better reserved for finetuning and
iterating social media marketing efforts instead.

Social Status is a powerful tool that takes the hassle out of social media
reporting. Used and trusted by thousands of marketers, businesses, and agencies,
including the likes of Microsoft, Havas, and Ogilvy, it offers an all-in-one
solution to track, analyze, and quantify social media performance — sans the
need for pouring countless hours compiling reports.

Think of Social Status as the Swiss army knife for social media reporting. It
integrates all the products needed to put together meaningful reports, including
Profile Analytics, Ad Analytics, Competitor Analytics, and Influencer
Analytics. You can plug in all the pages, channels, and profiles you manage into
the platform, and it will yield full-funnel metrics like impressions, reach, link
clicks, ad campaign performance, and a whole more. You can also use it to keep
tabs on the performance of all the influencers you work with, as well as study
how your KPIs stack up against your competitors. And to save you hours on
designing slides, the tool will generate presentation-ready PDF reports for you
on demand, so you have something to share with your clients.
Why Soft Skills Make Strong Networks
I’m not much of a “new-age” guy. Yet, I believe in the immense power of the
Law of Reciprocity. This concept touches upon the deep-rooted psychological
urge to do something nice for someone who did something nice for you.

There is certainly value in soft skills, but if you would like to see some evidence
as to why those skills work, I can tell you there’s a lot out there to support the
Law of Reciprocity, starting with the Nash equilibrium theory (the acronym of
which is, ironically, NET).  

Nash’s equilibrium theory basically states that the best result will come when
everyone in the group is doing what is best for both themselves and the group --
a form of reciprocity. The optimal outcome of a situation is one where no
individual has an incentive to deviate from their chosen strategy after
considering the other participant’s choices.

Reciprocal altruism is another form of reciprocity. It involves an equitable

balance between collective altruism and personal need. Collective altruism
looks at the needs of the group but doesn’t give strong consideration to the
needs of the individual. Reciprocal altruism attempts to consider both.

In early writings by Socrates and Alexis de Tocqueville on ethics and

government, the concept of enlightened self-Interest was all about reciprocity.
Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy which states that people who act to
further the interests of others, or interests of the group or groups to which they
belong, ultimately serve their own self-interest. In other words, it is possible to
do well, by doing good.

Related: What It Takes to Grow a Little Company Founded on a Big

Vision

As I grew my company BNI, I incorporated the use of the term, Givers

Gain® into the lexicon of our operations from the very beginning. The
underlying foundation of this term is predicated on the age-old concept of “what
goes around, comes around.”  But it’s more complex than that.
Networking is about relationship building. I have found that the best way to
build a relationship with someone quickly is to help them first.  If you can help
someone -- and I’m not talking about selling them your product or service, I
mean genuinely help them -- by giving them an introduction, information,
article, really anything that serves their need, and you will begin a professional
relationship with them.  

Creating a relationship helps build trust. Trust is the cornerstone of effective

networking. When you practice Givers Gain often enough, you will be on the
road to building a powerful personal network predicated on trust, built through
helping to serve someone else.  

This concept, whatever term you choose to use, serves as a bridge between
individuals and a community of people for collaboration of all kinds, and it fuels
individual and professional growth – not to mention increased referrals and
business.

Read this: Networking Like a Pro, 2nd Edition 

Research has shown that social cooperation is rewarding to our brains.

Cooperation increases the frequency of dopamine release within the brain.
Interestingly, dopamine decreases without social cooperation. Each of the above
strategies are about cooperation and collaboration, and each can increase
dopamine production.

Some time ago, I received an email from Amruth, a BNI member in India with a
great metaphor for this philosophy. He said words to the effect of: imagine that
you have two spoons, a small spoon and a large serving spoon. Which one are
we using the most? The small spoon serves only us, but the large spoon allows
us to serve others. The more that we all use the large spoon, the more we will all
have plenty for the small spoon.

A networking group using the large spoon for everyone creates amazing success
for all. In the book Go Giver, co-written by my friend, Bob Burg, the authors
say, “Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well
you serve them.”  

Call it Nash’s equilibrium, reciprocal altruism, enlightened self-interest, or

Givers Gain: I believe that reciprocity is about taking off your bib and putting
on your apron. This kind of networking is where individuals enter, and
communities emerge.
Learn How to Make Smarter Real Estate
Investments
An intelligently chosen, diverse portfolio can ease many of your startup woes.
Having a variety of investments in stocks, bonds, hedge funds and more can
grow your wealth, creating a safety cushion of finances you can turn to if your
new venture hits a rough patch. Keeping your portfolio diverse also lowers your
overall risk: if there’s a dip in one market, you can rely on your other
investments to keep your finances afloat.

Real estate is a fascinating and lucrative route to explore when you’re creating a
solid portfolio. If you haven’t dipped a toe in the real estate pool before, you’ll
need some help making smart decisions. The Real Estate Investment Master
Class Bundle has you covered.

These five can’t-miss courses kick off with the Pre-Investing Course covers
vital information you’ll need to know before you dive in and make your first
investment. You’ll learn how to evaluate residential and commercial real estate
properties, identifying and mitigating risks for safer investments with higher
payouts.

With Introduction to Commercial Real Estate Analysis, you use detailed case
studies to learn how the pros evaluate commercial deals across a wide range of
asset types. In Fundamentals of Real Estate Analysis, you’ll cover flips and
flops, rental properties and other opportunities to make your portfolio shine.

Next, you’ll discover how to analyze wholesale deals. Wholesaling is best for
entrepreneurs who are hunting for a short-term investing strategy. You find a
distressed home (one that’s mired in disrepair with a motivated seller), then
place it under contract. After you’ve determined what repairs the property needs
and put together a team of professionals, you’ll find a buyer (preferably another
investor or contractor) to purchase the home.

This bundle’s wholesaling class teaches you how to analyze these deals from
top to bottom, providing you with a custom calculator to help you determine the
After Repair Value so you can get the cut you deserve from the sale.
If you choose to take a partner along with you in your real estate adventure, the
bundle’s waterfall class will help you figure out how to fairly divide your profits
among partners who did different types and amounts of work. The Waterfall
Distribution Framework makes sure everyone gets their fair share.
Learn How to Build a Successful Brand With
This Online Course
Great branding has always been the key to entrepreneurial success, but today
it’s more important than ever. Your company needs a cohesive presence across
marketing avenues that didn’t exist in the past: your social media, email
newsletters and video ads must have the same voice. Marketing and advertising
expert Porter Gale can set you on the right track with her online course,
Building Your Brand.

Porter Gale has 20 years of marketing, advertising, and filmmaking experience

to share in this course. She condenses her knowledge in this class, walking you
through every step from your initial idea to the front pages of the biggest
publications around.

Your company’s name is your introduction to your customers, and Porter will
teach you how to find an inviting name that holds consumers’ attention. You’ll
also learn how to create a fun yet effective corporate culture, then you’ll explore
all of the different marketing channels you can pursue. Porter covers everything
from social media to email marketing to PR. No matter where your customers
find you, they’ll understand your company’s mission, values, and offerings.
10 Time Management Tips That Work

Chances are good that, at some time in your life, you've taken a time
management class, read about it in books, and tried to use an electronic or
paper-based day planner to organize, prioritize and schedule your day. "Why,
with this knowledge and these gadgets," you may ask, "do I still feel like I can't
get everything done I need to?"

The answer is simple. Before you can even begin to manage time, you must
learn what time is. A dictionary defines time as "the point or period at which
things occur." Put simply, time is when stuff happens.

There are two types of time: clock time and real time. In clock time, there are 60
seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a
year. All time passes equally. When someone turns 50, they are exactly 50 years
old, no more or no less.

In real time, all time is relative. Time flies or drags depending on what you're
doing. Two hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles can feel like 12 years.
And yet our 12-year-old children seem to have grown up in only two hours.

Related: 101 Time Management Tips to Boost Productivity Every Day

Which time describes the world in which you really live, real time or clock
time?

The reason time management gadgets and systems don't work is that these
systems are designed to manage clock time. Clock time is irrelevant. You don't
live in or even have access to clock time. You live in real time, a world in which
all time flies when you are having fun or drags when you are doing your taxes.

The good news is that real time is mental. It exists between your ears. You
create it. Anything you create, you can manage. It's time to remove any self-
sabotage or self-limitation you have around "not having enough time," or today
not being "the right time" to start a business or manage your current business
properly.
There are only three ways to spend time: thoughts, conversations and actions.
Regardless of the type of business you own, your work will be composed of
those three items.

As an entrepreneur, you may be frequently interrupted or pulled in different

directions. While you cannot eliminate interruptions, you do get a say on how
much time you will spend on them and how much time you will spend on the
thoughts, conversations and actions that will lead you to success. 
How to Get Motivated (Even When You Don't Feel Like
It)
How do some of the most prolific artists in the world motivate themselves? They don't
merely set schedules, they build rituals.

Twyla Tharp is widely regarded as one of the greatest dancers and choreographers of the
modern era. In her best-selling book, The Creative Habit (audiobook), Tharp discusses
the role rituals, or pre-game routines, have played in her success:

I begin each day of my life with a ritual; I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout
clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan
home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st street
and First Avenue, where I workout for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and
weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab.
The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

It’s a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it — makes it
repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It
is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.

Many other famous creatives have rituals too. In his popular book Daily Rituals: How
Artists Work, author Mason Currey notes that many of the world’s great artists follow a
consistent schedule.

 Maya Angelou rented a local hotel room and went there to write. She arrived at
6:30 AM, wrote until 2 PM, and then went home to do some editing. She never slept
at the hotel.

 Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon writes five nights per week from 10 PM to
3 AM.

 Haruki Murakami wakes up at 4 AM, writes for five hours, and then goes for a
run.
The work of top creatives isn’t dependent upon motivation or inspiration, but rather it
follows a consistent pattern and routine. Here are some examples of how you can apply
ritual and routine to get motivated:

 Exercise more consistently: Use the same warm up routine in the gym.

 Become more creative: Follow a creative ritual before you start writing or

painting or singing.

 Start each day stress-free: Create a five-minute morning meditation ritual.

 Sleep better: Follow a “power down” routine before bed.

The power of a ritual, or what I like to call a pre-game routine, is that it provides a
mindless way to initiate your behavior. It makes starting your habits easier and that
means following through on a consistent basis is easier.

The key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision: What should I
do first? When should I do this? How should I do this? Most people never get moving
because they can’t decide how to get started. You want starting a behavior to be easy and
automatic so you have the strength to finish it when it becomes difficult and challenging.
Why We Make Poor Decisions
I like to think of myself as a rational person, but I’m not one. The good news is it’s not
just me — or you. We are all irrational. For a long time, researchers and economists
believed that humans made logical, well-considered decisions. In recent decades,
however, researchers have uncovered a wide range of mental errors that derail our
thinking. The articles below outline where we often go wrong and what to do about it.

 5 Common Mental Errors That Sway You From Making Good Decisions: Let's
talk about the mental errors that show up most frequently in our lives and break
them down in easy-to-understand language. This article outlines how survivorship
bias, loss aversion, the availability heuristic, anchoring, and confirmation bias sway
you from making good decisions.

 How to Spot a Common Mental Error That Leads to Misguided

Thinking: Hundreds of psychology studies have proven that we tend to
overestimate the importance of events we can easily recall and underestimate the
importance of events we have trouble recalling. Psychologists refer to this little
brain mistake as an “illusory correlation.” In this article, we talk about a simple
strategy you can use to spot your hidden assumptions and prevent yourself from
making an illusory correlation.

 Two Harvard Professors Reveal One Reason Our Brains Love to

Procrastinate: We have a tendency to care too much about our present selves and
not enough about our future selves. If you want to beat procrastination and make
better long-term choices, then you have to find a way to make your present self act
in the best interest of your future self. This article breaks down three simple ways to
do just that.
What is Goal Setting?
Most goal setting exercises start with an overpaid consultant standing by a whiteboard
and asking something like, “What does success look like to you? In very specific terms,
what do you want to achieve?”

If we are serious about achieving our goals, however, we should start with a much
different question. Rather than considering what kind of success we want, we should
ask, “What kind of pain do I want?”

This is a strategy I learned from my friend and author, Mark Manson. What Mark has
realized is that having a goal is the easy part. Who wouldn't want to write a best-selling
book or lose weight or earn more money? Everybody wants to achieve these goals.

The real challenge is not determining if you want the result, but if you are willing to
accept the sacrifices required to achieve your goal. Do you want the lifestyle that comes
with your quest? Do you want the boring and ugly process that comes before the exciting
and glamorous outcome?

It's easy to sit around and think what we could do or what we'd like to do. It is an
entirely different thing to accept the tradeoffs that come with our goals. Everybody
wants a gold medal. Few people want to train like an Olympian.

This brings us to our first key insight. Goal setting is not only about choosing the
rewards you want to enjoy, but also the costs you are willing to pay.
Lessons on Living a Meaningful Life
 The Top Life Regret of Dying Hospital Patients: Bronnie Ware is a nurse in
Australia. She has spent more than a decade counseling dying people. Over that
time span, she began recording the top regrets that people have on their death bed.
Read the article to find out what this regret is, and how you can make sure that you
don't end up feeling the same way.

 The Proven Path to Doing Unique and Meaningful Work: In June of 2004, Arno
Rafael Minkkinen stepped up to the microphone at the New England School of
Photography to deliver the commencement speech. As he looked out at the
graduating students, Minkkinen shared a simple theory that, in his estimation,
made all the difference between success and failure. He called it The Helsinki Bus
Station Theory.

 The Easiest Way to Live a Short, Unimportant Life: The easiest way to live a
short, unimportant life is to consume the world around you rather than contribute
to it. But why is this true? And how can you apply it to your own life?

 116 Years Old: Lessons Left Behind From the World's Oldest Living Person:
During an interview with the Guinness Book of World Records, Besse Cooper was
asked about the keys to living a long life. She offered two pieces of advice: “I mind
my own business. And I don't eat junk food.” This article discusses the wisdom in
those two simple statements and how you can use it to live better
5 Lessons On Being Wrong
Being wrong isn't as bad as we make it out to be. I have made many mistakes and I have
discovered five major lessons from my experiences.

1. Choices that seem poor in hindsight are an indication of growth, not self-
worth or intelligence. When you look back on your choices from a year ago, you
should always hope to find a few decisions that seem stupid now because that means
you are growing. If you only live in the safety zone where you know you can’t mess up,
then you’ll never unleash your true potential. If you know enough about something to
make the optimal decision on the first try, then you’re not challenging yourself.

2. Given that your first choice is likely to be wrong, the best thing you can do
is get started. The faster you learn from being wrong, the sooner you can discover
what is right. For complex situations like relationships or entrepreneurship, you literally
have to start before you feel ready because it’s not possible for anyone to be truly ready.
The best way to learn is to start practicing. 
3. Break down topics that are too big to master into smaller tasks that can
be mastered. I can't look at any business and tell you what to do. Entrepreneurship is
too big of a topic. But, I can look at any website and tell you how to optimize it for
building an email list because that topic is small enough for me to develop some level of
expertise. If you want to get better at making accurate first choices, then play in a
smaller arena. As Neils Bohr, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, famously said, “An
expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow
field.”

4. The time to trust your gut is when you have the knowledge or experience
to back it up. You can trust yourself to make sharp decisions in areas where you
already have proven expertise. For everything else, the only way to discover what works
is to adopt a philosophy of experimentation.

5. The fact that failure will happen is not an excuse for expecting to
fail. There is no reason to be depressed or give up simply because you will make a few
wrong choices. Even more crucial, you must try your best every time because it is the
effort and the practice that drives the learning process. They are essential, even if you
fail. Realize that no single choice is destined to fail, but that occasional failure is the cost
you have to pay if you want to be right. Expect to win and play like it from the outset