Social Media Content Strategy: How to Respond to a Changing Marketplace

Do you have a content strategy for your social media marketing? Wondering how content and social media strategies can fit together? To explore how to use content strategically for 2020 and beyond, I interview Jay Baer on the Social Media Marketing Podcast. Jay is a marketing and customer experience strategist. He’s the founder of Convince […]

The post Social Media Content Strategy: How to Respond to a Changing Marketplace appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.

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Step by Step Guide to Creating a Website

In 2017, 71% of small businesses had a website, and 92% of businesses without a website said they’d have one by the end of 2018. Today, having a website is as necessary for a company as having a phone number.

Maybe you’re starting a new business venture or developing your personal brand. Or, maybe you’re looking to update your company’s outdated website. Whatever the case, creating a new website can feel overwhelming, particularly without technical expertise or a budget for web developers.To alleviate any frustration you might feel, we’ve put together a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to creating a website. Best of all, you won’t need a coder, web designer, or big budget to create one -- all you’ll need to do is follow the seven steps below.

1. Choose your CMS.

The first thing you’ll need to do when creating a website is find the right CMS (content management system) for your business. There are plenty of free or budget-friendly site builders out there, but they aren’t all created equal, so you’ll want to weigh the pros and cons before choosing one.

For instance, consider whether you need a platform that allows you to code, or whether you’d like to avoid coding altogether. You might also narrow your list if you want your website to support multiple languages. Perhaps you simply want to check out templates offered by different CMS systems, or price ranges to see which you can afford.

Popular CMS systems include Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix, and, of course, HubSpot. In fact, the new HubSpot CMS will be released in 2020.

Check out 15 of the Best Free Website Builders to simplify your decision-making process. Once you’ve chosen the best CMS for your needs, continue to step two.

2. Get a domain name and web hosting.

One of the easiest ways to appear illegitimate as a company is to shirk on paying for a domain name. If you were looking for a freelance writer, would you more likely hire from Carolineforsey.weebly.com or Carolineforsey.com? A .weebly or .wordpress extension is an indicator you didn’t pay for the full service, which might seem unprofessional or lower in quality -- worst case, a consumer might wonder why you can’t afford the full service, and draw conclusions that you’re not fully established.

Fortunately, purchasing a domain name is typically inexpensive, and there are a few different domain sites you can use. Both Godaddy.com and Bluehost.com are cheap, secure, and effective options for buying a domain name, with added benefits such as SSL security and office 365.

Here’s where it gets tricky. You’ll need to choose a domain name as similar as possible to the name of your company, but with over 1.8 billion websites out there today, your company's name might already be taken.

If your ideal domain name is already taken, consider using a different extension. I’d advise you to use one of the three most common extensions if you can: .com, .net, or .org. However, if it makes sense for your business, you might want to check out an alternate extension like .us or .shop.

Play around with it. Once you’ve chosen and paid for a domain name, you’ll usually also get personal email accounts attached, so make sure you’re happy to use your domain name as your main online identity.

3. Choose a template for your site.

Now, for the fun part.

On whatever CMS platform you chose, take the time to browse through templates and themes, and choose one you think best represents your brand.

When in doubt, you can’t go wrong if you choose something clean with straight lines, and a limited amount of text. If you need some inspiration, check out 27 of the Best Website Designs to Inspire You in 2020.

Ultimately, no one knows your business better than you. Take the time to consider which template would most likely appeal to your ideal demographic.

Within your CMS, you can probably use filters or search to narrow down on templates related to your industry.

It’s important your template is responsive, so your site will look the same on all devices. When considering templates, you also need to decide whether you want a static header or slideshow header, and how many pages you’ll need to fit in your menu bar. Stay away from hard-to-read fonts or flashy backgrounds that could distract a consumer from understanding your core message.

Once you’ve chosen a template and theme, take the time to customize it. Your site’s design and functionality is your chance to persuade an audience to take a closer look. It’s imperative your design makes sense to your ideal consumer and works to enhance your product’s success rather than hinder it.

4. Add pages to your site.

It’s important to plan exactly which pages you’ll need to include in your site. While it varies business to business, I’d guess you’ll need at least a "Home" page, an “About Us” page, a “Services/Product” page, and a “Contact Us” page.

Of course, you can choose to rearrange page topics any way you want, or combine them. If you’re unsure, check out other company websites within your industry to get ideas for how to organize your navigation bar, or which pages to include and exclude.

I might be biased, but you should probably also include a blog -- you know, sometimes they come in handy.

While every platform is different, it’s typically easy to add and remove pages on whichever platform you use.

5. Write content.

This is arguably the most important step. Now that you have your pages set up, what will you put on them?

I’d suggest writing rough drafts for pages like your “About Us” page and landing page. Talk with coworkers and stakeholders -- what message do you want to put out there? What tone do you want to set? Should you make jokes and be funny, or aim to be more inspirational?

If your online audience stumbled across your site, what questions would they have first?

Imagine your website is your only chance to have a full conversation with a potential customer. The home page is the preliminary introduction, “Hey, we do XYZ.” Your “About Us” page digs deeper, “We are XYZ.” And your products or services pages are your big push to the finish line: “You want to work with us? Great, here’s how you’ll benefit.”

During this stage, it’s imperative you do your keyword research.

For instance, if you’re selling eyeglasses, and you notice “retro eyeglasses” has more monthly search volume than “vintage eyeglasses”, you might use this research to steer the direction of the content on your site.

If you’re stuck, check out competitor’s websites to gauge what other companies in your industry are doing.

6. Fill in general settings.

Once you’ve filled in your pages with the heavy-hitter content, you can still increase your search visibility by filling in gaps in your CMS settings.

Essentially, these are your SEO elements. On your pages, you should include:

• High-quality page content
• Page titles
• Headers
• Meta descriptions
• Image alt-text
• Structured markup
• Page URLs
• Internal linking
• Mobile responsiveness
• Site speed

Make sure you include a site title and tagline in the “Settings” of your website building platform. Go through, and check out the URLs -- are those optimized for search?

All these elements should be optimized because it tells Google all about your website and how you provide value to visitors and customers. It helps your site be optimized for both human eyes and search engine bots.

7. Install plugins.

Lastly, take a look at your site and figure out what you’re missing. The best CMS platform will ideally offer all the integrations you need.

Website plugins are individual services that improve a specific functionality of your site.

Perhaps your business is ecommerce, in which case, it might be wise to install a Shopify plugin extension.

Or, maybe you want to ensure your website is secure, to protect client data. In that case, find a plugin that offers firewall protection and attacks malware or other threats.

Plugins regarding security, SEO, image compression, and social media are necessities because it's much easier to do all this work in one place rather than having to log on to several platforms.

Whatever the case, browse your plugin library and pick and choose a few you think will take the effectiveness of your site to the next level.

Once you’re ready, click “Publish”, and your site is ready for use.

How to make a website with HubSpot

Lastly, let’s take a look at how to make a website with HubSpot. If you're not using HubSpot already, you can try the CMS free trial. If you’re already using HubSpot’s CRM, it probably makes the most sense to build a website within HubSpot to integrate all your sales and marketing needs in one place.

HubSpot offers a variety of plugins and extensions, themed templates, and sophisticated tools for SEO analysis.

If you want to build a website with HubSpot, it’s easy and intuitive. Here’s how:

1. Create home page.

Within your HubSpot portal, click “Content” on the dashboard at the top of your screen. Then, click “Landing Pages”.

After that, click the orange “Create landing page” button and name your page. 

2. Select a template.

Now, you’ll be taken to this “Select a template” page. Scroll through your options, search page templates, or check out the Marketplace. When you’ve found a template you like, select it.

3. Edit the modules.

This is your landing page. You can scroll over text boxes, images, or other modules to edit them. In the below picture, I scrolled over the “See The World” Banner Text, and when I click it, it allows me to edit that text.

You can also click the “Edit modules” tool on the right side of your screen and edit from there. For instance, I selected “Service 2 Text”, which directed me to the “Make it your own” paragraph on my landing page. You can add text, images, sections, forms, and more from the “Edit modules” section.

4. Create other pages on your website.

When you’re happy with your landing page and want to move on, go back to your dashboard and click “Content” at the top of your screen, and then “Website Pages”.

Here, you’ll click the orange “Create website page” button and name your page, just like your landing page. Then, you’ll be taken through a similar process of choosing a template and adding content. If you want a more in-depth tutorial, check out a quick tour of website pages.

5. Incorporate social media accounts.

If you want to incorporate your social media accounts, click “Social” on your dashboard. You can monitor all your social media accounts and also publish tweets, Facebook statuses and comments, Instagram pictures, and other content straight from your HubSpot dashboard.

6. View analytics.

If you want to check out your site analytics, go to “Reports” and then “Analytics Tools”. You’ll need to install the tracking code, which is easy to do within the HubSpot platform by clicking the orange “Install the tracking code” button. If you’re still unsure, check out how to install the HubSpot tracking code.

7. Add blogs to your site.

If you want to write blog posts, go to “Content” > “Blog” on your dashboard to create, publish, and monitor your website’s blog posts.

This is a fairly broad and general overview to get you started building a website with HubSpot, but there are plenty of more in-depth features and tools you might want to explore with a HubSpot specialist, or by checking out some articles on academy.hubspot.com.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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How to Understand & Calculate Statistical Significance [Example]

Have you ever presented results from a marketing campaign and been asked “But are these results statistically significant?” If you were feeling snarky, you might have responded “Well, the results are different from what we saw before. Isn’t that significant?”

All kidding aside, as data-driven marketers, we’re not only asked to measure the results of our marketing campaigns, but also to demonstrate the validity of the data.

Just recently, I had a call with a customer asking that exact thing. The two marketers had each created a version of a landing page and used HubSpot’s A/B testing functionality to collect the results. They had a friendly wager over which one would win.

After a few days, they had the results; one had a slightly higher conversion rate, but they were left wondering if the results were statistically significant. (I’m going to guess that it was the person with the lower conversion rate that asked this question.) I love a little friendly competition -- my family still tells the story about how I challenged my brother to an apple-peeling contest just to “make things interesting” one Thanksgiving. Needless to say, I was happy to help settle this bet.

While there are a number of free tools out there to calculate statistical significance for you (HubSpot even has one here), in order to truly understand what these tools are telling you, it’s helpful to understand what they’re calculating and what it means. We'll geek out on the numbers using a specific example below to help you understand statistical significance. 

1. Determine what you'd like to test.

First, decide what you’d like to test. This could be comparing conversion rates on two landing pages with different images, click-through rates on emails with different subject lines, or conversion rates on different call-to-action buttons at the end of a blog post. The number of choices are endless.

My advice would be to keep it simple; pick a piece of content that you want to create two different variations of and decide what your goal is -- a better conversion rate or more views are good places to start.

You can certainly test additional variations or even create a multivariate test, but for the purpose of this example, we’ll stick to two variations of a landing page with the goal being increasing conversion rates. If you’d like to learn more about A/B testing and multivariate tests, check out "The Critical Difference Between A/B and Multivariate Tests."

2. Determine your hypothesis.

Before I start collecting data, I find it helpful to state my hypothesis at the beginning of the test and determine the degree of confidence I want to test. Since I’m testing out a landing page and want to see if one performs better, my hypothesis is that there is a relationship between the landing page the visitors receive and their conversion rate.

3. Start collecting your data.

Now that you’ve determined what you’d like to test, it’s time to start collecting your data. Since you’re likely running this test to determine what piece of content is best to use in the future, you’ll want to pull a sample size. For a landing page, that might mean picking a set amount of time to run your test (e.g. make your page live for 3 days).

For something like an email, you might pick a random sample of your list to randomly send variations of your emails to. Determining the right sample size can be tricky, and the right sample size will vary between each test. As a general rule of thumb, you want the expected value for each variation to be greater than 5. (We’ll cover expected values further down.)

4. Calculate Chi-Squared results

There are a number of different statistical tests that you can run to measure significance based on your data. Determining which is the best one to use depends on what you’re trying to test and what type of data you’re collecting. In most cases, you’ll use a Chi-Squared test since the data is discrete.

Discrete is a fancy way of saying that there are a finite number of results that can be produced. For example, a visitor will either convert or not convert; there aren’t varying degrees of conversion for a single visitor.

You can test based on varying degrees of confidence (sometimes referred to as the alpha of the test). If you want the requirement for reaching statistical significance to be high, the lower your alpha will be. You may have seen statistical significance reported in terms of confidence.

For example, "The results are statistically significant with 95% confidence." In this scenario, the alpha was .05 (confidence is calculated as 1 minus the alpha), meaning that there's a one in 20 chance of making an error in the stated relationship.

After I’ve collected the data, I put it in a chart to make it easy to organize. Since I’m testing out 2 different variations (A and B) and there are 2 possible outcomes (converted, did not convert), I’ll have a 2x2 chart. I’ll total each column and row so I can easily see the results in aggregate.

5. Calculate your expected values.

Now, I’ll calculate what the expected values are. In the example above, if there was no relationship between what landing page visitors saw and their conversion rate, we would expect to see the same conversion rates with both version A and version B. From the totals, we can see that 1,945 people converted out of the 4,935 total visitors, or roughly 39% of visitors.

To calculate the expected frequencies for each version of the landing page assuming there’s no difference, we can multiply the row total for that cell by the column total for that cell, and divide it by the total number of visitors. In this example, to find the expected value of conversion on version A, I would use the following equation: (1945*2401)/4935 = 946

6. See how your results differ from what you expected.

To calculate Chi-Square, I compare the observed frequencies to the expected frequencies. This comparison is done by subtracting the observed from the expected, squaring the result, and then dividing it by the value of the expected frequency.

Essentially, I’m trying to see how different my actual results are from what we might expect. Squaring the difference amplifies the effects of the difference, and dividing by what’s expected normalizes the results. The equation looks like this: (expected - observed)^2)/expected

7. Find your sum.

I then sum the four results to get my Chi-Square number. In this case, it’s .95. To see whether or not the conversion rates for my landing pages are different with statistical significance, I compare this with the value from a Chi-Squared distribution table based on my alpha (in this case, .05) and the degrees of freedom.

Degrees of freedom is based on how many variables you have. With a 2x2 table like in this example, the degrees of freedom is 1. 

In this case, the Chi-Square value would need to be equal or exceed 3.84 for the results to be statistically significant. Since .95 is less than 3.84, my results are not statistically different. This means that there is not a relationship between what version of landing page a visitor receives and conversion rate with statistical significance.

Why Statistical Significance Is Significant

You may be asking yourself why this is important if you can just use a free tool to run the calculation. Understanding how statistical significance is calculated can help you determine how to best test results from your own experiments.

Many tools use a 95% confidence rate, but for your experiments, it might make sense to use a lower confidence rate if you don’t need the test to be as stringent.

Understanding the underlying calculations also helps you explain why your results might be significant to people who aren't already familiar with statistics.

If you’d like to download the spreadsheet I used in this example so you can see the calculations on your own, click here.

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in April 2013, but was updated in January 2020 for freshness and comprehensiveness.

 

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The 60 Best Free Online Courses For Whatever You Want to Learn

Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

That’s never been truer than it is today. With new technology emerging at breakneck speeds, there's a palpable pressure to continuously upskill.

Whether you want that job promotion or to sidestep into a new field, you'll need to commit to learning new skills.

However, learning new skills can be both time-consuming and challenging. In fact, according to Josh Kaufman, international bestselling author of The Personal MBA, it takes 20 hours to go from knowing nothing about a particular subject to being pretty good at it. Of course, if you want to become an expert -- well, that takes even longer.

Blog posts and podcasts are great starting points for exploring a particular topic. But online business courses will provide you with the time and space you need to go deep and truly master a new skill. Plus, most courses are made up of on-demand videos and exercises that you can progress through at your own pace.

Below, we've gathered 60 of the best free online business courses. These cover the main business skills you'll need to advance in today's rapidly changing workplace -- from digital marketing and coding to selling, leadership, and more. Keep reading to become an expert in whatever subject you feel can best help you succeed.

If you'd prefer, click on one of the following topics to jump straight to courses regarding that topic in particular:

• Fundamental Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing
• SEO
• Sales
• Ecommerce
• Coding & Developer Courses
• Personal & Professional Development Courses
• Design
• Business & Finance

Free Online Courses

Fundamental Marketing Courses

1. Inbound Certification by HubSpot Academy

From attracting leads to engaging prospects and delighting customers, this course covers the fundamentals of what inbound marketing is all about.

2. Marketing Fundamentals: Who Is Your Customer? by EdX

Discover how to acquire the right customers and grow your business.

3. How Websites Work by Google Garage

Learn the basics of websites, local business listings, review sites, social media, mobile apps, and more.

4. Google Analytics for Beginners by Google

This course shows new Google Analytics users how to create an account, implement a tracking code, and set up data filters. You'll learn how to navigate the Google Analytics interface and reports, and set up dashboards and shortcuts.

Content Marketing Courses

5. Content Marketing Certification by HubSpot Academy

Power your business with remarkable content. This course will teach you how storytelling, content creation, repurposing, and promotion come together to build a content marketing machine that grows your business, and your career.

6. Viral Marketing and How to Create Contagious Content by Coursera

Ever wondered why some things become popular, while other things don't? This course explains how things catch on, and can help you apply those ideas to become a more effective marketer.

7. Business Blogging by HubSpot Academy

Business blogging is more than just writing and publishing content in the hopes you'll attract customers. In this course, you'll learn how to craft a blogging strategy that drives business growth, create quality blog content that customers love, and build a guest blogging strategy that's powered by SEO.

8. Online Video Marketing Course by HubSpot Academy

This online video marketing training will teach you how to get started with online video marketing to better attract, engage, and delight your audience.

 

Social Media Marketing Courses

9. Social Media Course by HubSpot Academy

This course provides you with everything you need to build a social media strategy. The course is free, but it's $199 to take the exam.

10. Introduction to Social Media Strategy by Skillshare/Buffer

Whether you're looking to foster brand awareness, increase website traffic, or drive sales, this course can teach you how to craft a social media strategy to achieve your goals on Facebook and Twitter. From finding your voice to paid advertising, Brian Peters (Digital Marketing Strategist at Buffer) walks through his process for custom social strategies.

Note: Skillshare offers community members two free months of Skillshare -- you'll need to sign up as a member to access the class for free.

11. Facebook Blueprint by Facebook

This huge resource of free, self-paced social media classes will cover best-practices and top strategies used by some of the world's largest brands.

12. YouTube Courses by Creator Academy

YouTube Courses teaches you everything related to the platform, including how to earn money with YouTube ads, how to gain insights with Google Analytics, and more.

13. Video Storytelling for Social Media by Social Creators

This one-hour crash course will help you make high-quality videos with your iPhone or Android device so you can start vlogging and share engaging videos on your social media accounts.

14. Instagram Marketing 2019: Grow from 0 to 40K in 4 Months by Coursera

Learn how to take an Instagram account from an idea to 40K followers in four months.

15. Developing an End-to-End Instagram Marketing Strategy For Your Business by HubSpot Academy

Learn how to build and implement a successful organic Instagram marketing strategy.

16. Build & Grow Your Brand on Instagram (Sue Zimmerman) by CreativeLive

Sue Zimmerman will help you crack Instagram's algorithm. You'll learn how to gain more followers, drive more sales, and boost your business.

17. Free Social Media Analytics Course for Beginners by Quintly

This class will cover the basic principles of social media analytics, and is helpful both for beginners and for marketers who want to refresh their knowledge. It aims to help anybody involved in social media analytics, whether you're working for a brand, an agency, or the media.

18. Flight School -- Video Ads on Twitter by Twitter

Whether you're a traditional TV Buyer, a Digital Buyer, or a Social Strategist, these two courses will help you build the knowledge and skills you need to meet your clients' video advertising goals. The courses have been designed to help you level up your expertise with video advertising on Twitter, so that you and your clients can succeed.

19. Introduction to Social Media Advertising by Skillshare

Social media advertising is one of the most powerful ways to connect with customers and drive marketing impact. This course will help you demystify vocabulary, set campaign goals, target audience segments, develop compelling copy and visuals, and optimize campaigns for long-term success.

 

Email Marketing Courses

20. Cold Email Masterclass by Mailshake

Whether you use cold email to connect with influencers, build your personal brand, find mentors, or grow your network, there's no underestimating its power. Sujan Patel reveals eight lessons that will show you how to turn theory into practice, tapping into existing cold email best practices and deploying them in a way that's both efficient and effective.

21. Email Marketing by Constant Contact

Learn how to plan, design, create and measure your emails.

 

SEO Courses

22. Paid Ads by Google

If you don't know where to start with Google's ad products, Academy for Ads may be for you. You'll figure out where to get started in mini, bite‐sized lessons. Topics include programmatic ads, Adwords, double-click and video ads.

23. SEO Training by Moz by Udemy

Learn SEO tips and tricks from Moz. Build skills in everything from keyword research and link building to site audits, and more.

 

Sales Courses

24. Inbound Sales Certification by HubSpot Academy

In this certification course you'll learn how to grow your sales pipeline, close more leads, and grow your career.

25. The Art of Sales: Mastering the Selling Process Specialization by Coursera

This course is designed to make you more effective and efficient as you pursue your sales goals. Understand how to stand out in the crowd, attract customers, and build support for initiatives within your company.

26. Sales Enablement Certification by HubSpot Academy

In this self-paced online course and exam, you'll learn how to align marketing and sales for optimal efficiency. Bridge the gap between marketing and sales teams with strategies and tactics from over 25 world-renowned leaders.

27. Sales Manager Training by HubSpot Academy

Learn how to define your target market, create a scalable sales process, and build training, coaching, hiring, and on-boarding programs to help your sales team grow.

28. Sales Prospecting Advanced Techniques by SalesScripter

This program is designed to give you a strategy-backed process. It covers building a value proposition, asking the right questions, closing more effectively, and more. You'll sell more, and even better -- selling will become more fun.

 

Ecommerce Courses

29. Dropshipping 101 by Shopify Academy

Corey Ferreira shares his methods for finding a product to sell, testing its popularity, and building an unforgettable brand. 

30. Product Photography for Ecommerce by Shopify Academy

In this course, you'll learn how to set-up your own home studio and take product photos with your smartphone or digital SLR.

31. Inbound Marketing for Ecommerce by Groove Commerce

Discover easy ways to ignite your site's performance with this comprehensive guide to e-commerce inbound marketing.

32. Email marketing for Ecommerce by Skillshare

Learn how to use automation, optimization, and personalization to boost your business through email.

 

Coding & Developer Courses

33. Learn to Code by Codecademy

Online coding tutorials with easy-to-follow instructions, immediate feedback, and a tested curriculum that can help anyone learn how to code.

34. Intro to Computer Science by Udacity

Get to grips with key computer science concepts in this introductory Python course. You'll learn by doing, and will build your own search engine and social network.

35. Intro to HTML and CSS by Udacity

In this course, you'll learn the fundamentals of web development, along with best practices and professional problem-solving techniques using Developer Tools.

36. App Development for iPhone by Alison

This iPhone app development course will give you all you need -- from how to use Objective C programming to creating multi-touch functionality. With clear video tutorials that are easy to follow, this course will get you up-to-date with the latest in iPhone app development trends.

37. Deep Learning Prerequisites: The Numpy Stack in Python by Udemy

The Numpy, Scipy, Pandas, and Matplotlib stack -- prep for deep learning, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

38. Algorithms, Part I by Coursera

This course by Princeton University covers the essential information that every serious programmer needs to know about algorithms and data structures, with emphasis on applications and scientific performance analysis of Java implementations.

39. Self-Driving Fundamentals: Featuring Apollo by Udacity

Through this course, you'll be able to identify key parts of self-driving cars and get to know Apollo architecture. You'll be able to utilize Apollo HD Map, localization, perception, prediction, planning and control, and start the learning path of building a self-driving car.

40. Machine Learning by Coursera

Machine learning is the science of getting computers to act without being explicitly programmed.

 

Personal & Professional Development Courses

41. Conquering the Fear of Public Speaking by Udemy

Understand the fundamental techniques to get over the fear of public speaking.

42. Learning How to Learn: Powerful Mental Tools to Help You Master Tough Subjects by Coursera

This course gives you easy access to invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines.

43. Communication Skills - Persuasion and Motivation by Alison

This course will introduce you to the essential communication skills that aid persuasion, guide you through the differences between persuasion and manipulation, and show you how to use strong communication to motivate the people around you. These abilities will be a great boost for both your career and personal relationships.

44. Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills by Coursera

In the course created by the University of Michigan, you'll learn about and practice four key steps to a successful negotiation.

45. The Manager's Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Managing People at Work by Coursera

This course gives you a practical guide to managing people at work. It doesn't matter whether you are a first time manager in a shop or a middle manager in an office environment -- the same skills apply to every work place.

46. What Great Leaders Do by Alison

Professor Bob Sutton outlines the hallmarks of great leaders, why leaders need to hear the truth, and how to deal with team disagreements. You will learn the types of habits practiced by those who fail to lead, and gain a strong understanding of how to become a better group leader.

47. Introduction to Project Management by Udemy

This course offers essential project management tools and techniques.

48. Conflict Resolution Skills by Coursera

Learn listening skills, verbal and non-verbal communication skills, and how to assemble a conflict management plan likely to yield positive resolutions.

49. Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills by Coursera

We all negotiate on a daily basis. On a personal level, we negotiate with friends, family, landlords, car sellers, employers, and many others. Negotiation is also the key to business success. No business can survive without profitable contracts. Negotiation skills can lead to your career advancement.

50. Career Success Specialization by Coursera

Build essential skills for the workplace. Improve your employability and advance in today's dynamic workforce.

51. The Science of Happiness by EdX

A free eight-week Science of Happiness course that will offer practical, research-backed tips on living a happy and meaningful life.

52. The Science of Wellbeing by Coursera

The purpose of this course is to not only learn what psychological research says about what makes us happy, but also to put those strategies into practice.

 

Design Courses

53. Free UX Design Course by Springboard

Learn UX design with this free curriculum covering the best techniques and methods including user research, personas, prototyping and wireframing.

54. Adobe Illustrator for Absolute Beginners by EduOnix

Learn how to master Adobe Illustrator with real world examples.

 

Business & Finance Courses

55. Free Online MBA by Smartly

Designed with business professors from top residential MBA programs, Smartly's proprietary curriculum combines a self-guided software approach with collaborative online case studies and group projects. It's flexible, yet structured for the modern professional.

56. Foundations of Business Strategy by Coursera

Develop your ability to think strategically, analyze the competitive environment, and recommend firm positioning and value creation. In this course, you'll explore the underlying theory and foundation of a successful business strategy, and gain the tools you need to understand that strategy.

57. How to Build a Startup by Udacity

In an introduction to the basics of the famous Customer Development Process, Steve Blank provides insight into the key steps needed to build a successful start-up.

58. Alison Free Diploma in E-Business by Alison

This course is designed to boost your understanding of what e-business involves and how to implement a successful e-business strategy, so that the website you manage truly delivers.

59. Stock Market Investing for Beginners by Udemy

Learn the basics of the stock market through comprehensive, interesting and fun lectures.

60. Corporate Finance by New York University by iTunes

Corporate Finance is a big picture class. It looks at the financial principles that govern how businesses raise funds, invest those funds in assets and projects, and return those funds to investors.

Learning is an investment that continues to pay

We hope you find the online business course you need to take the next step in your career -- whether you're looking for a promotion or a sidestep into an entirely new field.

Whatever your reason, learning new skills will give you a competitive advantage in today's rapidly changing workplace. Plus, the more you invest in your learning, the better you'll grow.

If you're looking for one single place to learn how to take your career to the next level and/or grow your business, check out HubSpot Academy. It contains tons of free certified courses on everything from inbound and content marketing to social media and sales.

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Which Instagram Story Formats Really Engage Viewers [New Research]

In 2019, Instagram Stories hit 500 million daily users.

Since launching in 2016, the Stories feature alone has made Instagram more popular than other Story and mobile video platform competitors including Snapchat, TikTok, and its owner's own platform: Facebook Stories.

Even if you've already published a handful on branded Stories, you still might want to up your game by making them even more engaging. After all, Stories can provide great benefits related to audience engagement, brand awareness, and even purchase-related conversions.

Despite the growing number of benefits that Instagram Stories offers brands, crafting good content still takes time, energy, and brainstorming. Even when you put your best efforts into creating a Story, you might still find that it falls flat, sees a high drop-off, or shows other signs of low engagement.

As you build your social media content strategy for 2020, you might be asking yourself, "What type of Instagram Story format do people actually engage with?"

To get to the bottom of which Story style is most engaging, I surveyed 350 people using Lucid software to learn more about their favorite Story formats, sound preferences, and ideal Story length.

In this post, I'll highlight what consumers said about their favorite Instagram Story formats and show you examples along the way.

Preferred Instagram Story Formats

While some brands and users post Stories focused purely on interactive features, others might post visual storytelling content such as short narratives or longer video stories that feel more like documentaries.

But, which one of the many Instagram Story formats is most intriguing to people?

I asked consumers, "Which Instagram Story are you most likely to tap all the way through until the end?"

At this point, you may have your own predictions of how people might have voted. While research says that interactive stickers, such as Quizzes, Polls, or Questions are highly engaging, you might also be thinking about the times you've tapped through an influencer or brand's behind the scenes videos via their Story. So which, ultimately did people choose?

Stories centered around Quiz or Poll stickers were one of the most popular formats with 15% of the votes. However, 35% of consumers actually prefer short narratives with a mix of photos, text, and videos.

Data Source: Lucid Software

Short Narrative Stories

Short narratives are basically articles translated for a more visual audience. They rely on brief paragraphs and bullet points of text, accompanied by related visuals, to tell a story in a few cohesive short slides. Here's a great example of a short story that swipes up to a longer piece of web content from Harvard Business Review:

This strategy is a great way to get more eyes on your blog content without asking people to leave the Instagram app.

Aside from informing your audience of a topic related to your industry, you can also take a note from HBR and other publishers by using Stories as a traffic generator. In the example above, HBR — which has a verified account — has adapted a long-form article into a short Story and included the full post at the end as a swipe-up link.

With this tactic, the Instagram Story serves as a teaser as viewers who are very interested in the topic can swipe up to read more about it on HBR.org.

Quiz or Poll-Centered Stories

Another strong Story format uses Quiz or Poll stickers. Essentially these Stories feel like they are just created to quiz the viewer by including the Quiz sticker on most pages, or brands can leverage Stories with polls primarily on each page to get their audience's insights on a topic.

These Stories are intriguing and entertaining to viewers because it allows them to test themselves and learn about a new topic interactively, or vote in a poll and see what other audiences think about a certain topic or theme. Here's an example of an interactive Story from HubSpot which centered around a Poll-styled quiz and revealed the answers at the end.

While you can also use an actual Quiz sticker, which will immediately tell viewers quiz questions, HubSpot's strategy also works as it allows viewers to get a glimpse at what others guessed and see a rundown of the actual answers at the end. This might keep viewers engaged, entertained, and in the Story for longer if they know that there will be a payoff on the last page.

While fewer people voted for Stories centered around Question stickers, this feature could still be a great feature to experiment with as it can help you interact with and learn more about your audience in a more open-ended way that Polls.

Here's an example of a Question sticker in a HubSpot Story. After this page, the Story went on to share the answers that viewers submitted.

Although open-ended Questions seem like a great way to learn about and interact with your audience, keep in mind that viewers will need to take time to fill out answers rather than simply tapping on a Poll or Quiz sticker. This means that if your audience isn't as interested in the topic or question, you might run into issues getting responses.

If you'd like to learn more about how to use and leverage the Instagram Questions sticker in your Stories, check out this helpful guide which includes examples of brands that used the feature successfully.

Demos and Tutorials

Brands can also leverage tutorials and demos, which was the fifth most popular Story style. This tactic might be especially helpful if you're interested in ecommerce or purchase-related conversions as a growing number of people prefer to learn more about products via video. Here's an example of a tutorial from Kylie Cosmetics, where CEO Kylie Jenner puts on a new lip liner from the brand.

Story formats that include demos or tutorials can be advantageous to brands because it allows them to show off how their products work. Additionally, if you have over 10,000 followers or are a verified user, you can link these Stories to your ecommerce site or a purchasing page for the products shown. This way, if a viewer is impressed by a tutorial or demo, they can simply swipe up to learn more about or purchase the product.

A Mix of Content

Because many people don't have a preference or prefer a mix of multiple elements in Instagram Stories, be sure to add a bit of variation to your content strategy. For example, brainstorm ways to add interactive features, such as Quiz or Poll stickers to narratives, tutorials, or other types of Story content. This will add an extra layer of engaging content to a Story that might already be interesting to viewers.

Here's an example of a Story from Starbucks that mixes in storytelling and interactive stickers to announce the return of a popular seasonal beverage:

Other Instagram Story Formats

When it came to the Story styles with lower rankings, consumers were actually less interested in behind-the-scenes content, mini-documentaries, and Stories that center around customer testimonials.

This might hint that marketers on these platforms might want to be thinking more creatively when launching content on Instagram Stories. Rather than just focusing on your product or customer testimonials, you might want to test out creating informative short narratives or interactive Stories that relate strongly to your brand. While this will engage Instagram audiences, it might also show off your company's expertise in its industry.

While this poll deemed a few Story formats less engaging, I still encourage you to mix things up and experiment with some of these styles just in case they work for you. Here are a few to try.

Customer Testimonials

Although customer testimonials aren't as interesting to consumers, this doesn't mean that you should scratch them entirely. In fact, they're still a commonly used tactic in many brands and industries, despite consumer preferences. For example, a number of companies, like Planet Fitness, have built their strategy around testimonials. Here's an example:

In the above scenario, the customer testimonial strategy works for Planet Fitness because it helps gym prospects feel less intimidated and more motivated to take on physical fitness after seeing a customer's success story.

Behind-the-Scenes Stories

No, behind-the-scenes Stories don't necessarily talk about your product front and center, but they can give prospects an idea of what your company is like, the inner workings of your industry, and a look at the staff that customers could work with.

Behind-the-scenes videos allow you to show off how hardworking or relatable your business might be, which might make viewers feel more comfortable working with you.

One example of a brand that uses this technique is the NBA. The basketball league regularly shares videos of professional basketball players behind the scenes at games or celebrations. In the image below, they shared an Instagram Story video of basketball players taking a photo with the rapper Drake:

Mini-Documentaries

Like narrative styled Instagram content, mini-documentaries tell a journalistic story that are slightly more complex and primarily centered around video -- like a documentary that you tap through.

These are often higher-quality and incredibly informative, so they are more prominently used by publishers such as National Geographic. Here's just the beginning of a long documentary-styled Story where NatGro visits NASA's offices to uncover facts about the first moon landing:

If you're a small to medium-sized business that's just ramping up your Instagram strategy, you might want to stick to a short narrative Story, like the ones noted at the beginning of this post. These will allow you to similarly show a combination of videos, photos, and text without as much production time and effort. However, if you're a content creator or feel like covering an event or newsworthy topic in your industry might boost brand awareness, you might want to experiment with this longer-form, in-depth visual storytelling style.

Ideal Story Length

For years, social media managers have been trying to determine how long the perfect Instagram Story should be. This has been such a major question that marketing blogs and publications have done further research on the matter.

If you're a small to medium-sized business marketer, Story length is a valid thing to consider, especially if you have low time or resources. While you ideally want to engage people with low dropoff throughout your entire Story, you might not want to spend time making incredibly long pieces of content with multiple pages if you know people in your industry usually only tap through a small number of pages.

So, what exactly is a good Story length? To get some added insight on this, I surveyed the 350 consumers and asked them, "On average, how many pages of an Instagram Story will you tap through before swiping out?"

Before looking at the results, you might think "The ideal Story should be as short as possible," simply because it's content on a fast-paced social media platform. But, then, you might also remember that a number of publications, like Harvard Business Publishing and The Washington Post have leveraged Stories as a way to share long-form content.

So, which approach is right and which is wrong?'

It seems that there are solid themes in ideal Story length, however, there still might not be an ideal number of pages in this type of content.

According to the poll, 63% of consumers will tap through six pages or less, with 34% saying they tap through four to six pages on average. However, more than one-third of consumers will tap through stories with more than seven pages, with 20% saying they'll tap through 10 or more.

Data Source: Lucid Software

The results above are similar to research published by Buffer which noted that Stories made up of seven or fewer pages are the most engaging. However, the fact that a large chunk of Lucid respondents will watch beyond seven pages hints that you might not need to shrink down your content to ensure that it's seen.

When determining the best Story length for your audience, we encourage you to consider the age group of your audience, the type of topics they engage with, and how fast-paced their lifestyles might be. If you have an idea for a great topic that your audience will love and is compatible with interactive Story features, you might be able to get away with a longer Story.

If you have a topic that you worry might feel dry or too complex to explain on Stories, you might want to format this as a smaller Story with a swipe up link to longer-form content.

As you start posting regular Instagram Stories, you should also experiment with both long and short Stories. Then, look at the dropoff rate of each Story. If many people seem to drop out of one long story but not another, this might be due to the topic or the writing rather than the length. However, if people regularly drop out of your longer-form Stories around a certain page number, you might want to limit your Story content to that number of pages.

Telling an Engaging Visual Story

Regardless of what your topic you're publishing a Story about, or which format you decide on using, make sure it informs the audience about something they care about, provides entertainment value, and highlights your brand's credibility in your industry.

If you're unsure about how you can leverage Instagram Stories to better market your brand, it can be helpful to look at examples from similar companies in your industry. For a long list of Instagram Story examples from a wide variety of brands, check out this helpful blog post.

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Types of Blogs that Make Money in 2020

Blogs are all about you — what you want to write about, create, and share with the world. That's probably the best part about them:the opportunities are endless.

You've probably come to this post because you know you want to start a blog, but have no idea what you want to write about, or how your blog can stand out against the millions of others published on the internet.

For that, I refer you to the first paragraph of this post, as well as the ones to come.

From music to marketing, the type of blog you create should be one catered to your interests. Without that motivation, it's unlikely that you will continue to update it.

Here, we've cultivated a list of some of the more popular topics for blogs, as well as a section on blogs that typically make more money, to help you find inspiration to get started with your own blog.

1. Food

As a self-proclaimed foodie, food blogs are my favorite types of blog. They usually follow a similar content format of categorically-organized recipes. Some have videos to pair with those recipes, as well as social media channels that all connect to the blog in some way.

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Above is an example of one of my favorite food blogs, Minimalist Baker. Note how the title of the post contains information that might pull a foodie in — "5 minutes," and "plant-based". This recipe will appeal to anyone who searches for easy, no-fuss cooking.

2. Sports

Sports blogs exist for every type of sport imaginable — even squash. If you have a passion for ESPN and love writing, this may be the perfect intersection for you. From covering games to giving player insights, sports blogs are an important source for fans to catch up on what they missed.

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Like this screengrab from ESPN, sports blogs also report on news going on in the industry — these two stories are about the Super Bowl. So if you're thinking about doing a sports blog, you have options. You can either focus on a specific sport, or take a more holistic approach, like ESPN.

3. Travel

If you love to go on trips and capture the moments, a travel blog might be right up your alley. There's something about travel blogs that are so relaxing, in my opinion — seeing pictures of gorgeous destinations is always a treat. That's why, if you're thinking of launching a travel blog, you might want to invest in a nice camera.

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For instance, look at this vibrant, colorful photo of the Charles River. (I'm probably a little biased, considering I live in Boston and commute over this river daily). To rank highly on the SERPs, you'll want to have high-quality images so travel enthusiasts are compelled to view your posts.

4. Lifestyle

Lifestyle blogs are probably the most versatile of blog types. Aptly named, lifestyle blogs are about a person's life. What they like to do, where they like to eat and shop … think of a lifestyle blog as a website for influencers. Check out this lifestyle blog, Love Taza, as an example:

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A number of influencers use blogs as a way to market themselves and build a more solid following. Oftentimes, businesses will look for an influencers' blog or website to find out more information on them (as well as contact information) if they're interested in cultivating a partnership. If you're interested in becoming an influencer or simply want to share more of your life with friends and family, this might be the right blog for you.

5. Parenting

This is another guilty pleasure blog type of mine, mostly because parenting blogs have incredible interior decorating going on (another blog type, FYI). Parenting blogs usually give advice and share relatable stories to other parents, or those expecting.

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Parenting blogs can be a great resource to new parents, as well as a way to branch out into other outlets. Plenty of parenting blogs have added a YouTube channel to keep content fresh, more engaging, and expand into new target markets For instance, Happily Eva After, the parenting blog shown above, now has a thriving YouTube channel.

6. Gaming

Gaming has turned into an industry that now typically happens online. Between downloadable content (DLCs) and games that depend on an internet connection, it's hard to be a gamer if you're not online. Because of that, gaming blogs are extremely popular.

From game announcements to corporate sponsorships, gaming blogs can go a couple of different ways. They can include game reviews, walkthroughs, cheat codes, or content codes. Since gaming YouTube channels attract a lot of fans, this type of blog can also grow into a YouTube channel all its own. Additionally, it's a good space for gamers to connect with each other, especially if you create opportunities for your readers to engage (like in the comments section of your blog).

7. B2B/Marketing

You've probably guessed — this blog that you're currently reading is an example of the B2B/Marketing category. I want to make it clear that marketing isn't the only industry represented by B2B blogs. Instead, it's more of an example of the type of B2B blogs you can find out there.

If you're in a different industry, you can definitely use that as a cross-section for a B2B blog. For more information about B2B marketing and how a blog would look in that industry, check out our ultimate guide here.

8. Fitness

You may have heard of "Fitstagrams" (Instagram accounts dedicated to fitness journeys) but fitness blogs are also a dime and a dozen. These blogs recommend workout tips, healthy recipes, and sometimes offer full workout plans in a "How-to" format, like this post from Nerd Fitness.

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Fitness blogs can be a great companion to those looking to embark on their fitness journey. They're usually geared towards a holistic view on healthy living in general, not just working out. Readers might be interested on perfecting their fitness routine, finding new ways to make healthy eating exciting, or looking for motivation to stick to their fitness lifestyle.

Recall that this is not an expansive list. If you have an idea, see what can come of it. The good thing about blogs is that you can take it wherever you want, and if the content is compelling for a certain readership, money and notoriety comes after.

If you're getting into blogging strictly to make money, however, this post has tips for that, too. Read on to find out more about the types of blogs most likely to become profitable.

Types of Blogs That Make Money

When you're thinking about creating a blog that earns money, there's some different ways you can go about it, whether it be affiliate links, sponsorships, or content offers.

Affiliate links are a partnership, in which a company puts their website links on yours, so when anyone clicks on the link, you earn a percentage and so does that company. Next, in blog sponsorships, generally, companies ask that you write a review of their product for a fee or a portion of the product's sales.

Finally, content offers are a way for you to leverage any content resources you have and monetize them. So content like an ebook or template can be turned into a call-to-action to entice readers to find out more.

1. Health and Fitness (Interviews and Guides)

Fitness blog Love Sweat Fitness, started by Katie Dunlap, is an expansive fitness blog offering content ranging from workouts, planning templates, healthy recipes, and travel tips. Among these categories is a lifestyle one, offering workout playlists and a beauty section.

In this category, readers can find posts like fashion obsessions, back to school looks, makeup tutorials, and more. It also has sponsorships, like the one shown below with Vooray. The two brands collaborated on a gym bag in 2017, releasing it on the LSF blog and website:

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This gym bag and its design were chosen by Dunlap and Vooray. With brand partnerships, companies usually seek out heavy hitters in their industry (like Vooray did with LSF) and offer the brand the ability to design a product exclusively for base pay and a percentage of the profits. And, while this happens a lot in the beauty industry, it's definitely not an industry-specific idea.

2. Social media (Thought Leadership)

LinkedIn's blog is one of the ways a bigger company can monetize their content: by making sure their blogs are written in a high-quality way that appeals to and helps their audience. From a quick look at the blog's homepage, it's easy to see that LinkedIn's target reader is one on the job hunt.

With that in mind, the company can leverage its resources to produce high-quality content that will make an impact on its readers. This approach works for LinkedIn because they've built a solid reputation as the place people should go for hiring and networking.

A LinkedIn member that's found success on the site would see the blog and think, because LinkedIn has worked for them, that the blog will be helpful, as well. 

3. Consumer Technology (Reviews, Affiliates)

Affiliate links work a lot like sponsorships. Generally, if a reader clicks on an affiliate link on a blog, the affiliate earns a profit, and the website itself gets a percentage, as well. On the gaming website PC Gamer, for instance, one of their affiliates is Amazon. 

This is a post about the best personal computers to buy for gaming, updated for 2020. The post brings readers suggestions about which computers are best for PC gaming, and nearly every product has an Amazon link.

Why those links are important is because the website has an affiliate link with Amazon. Every time a user clicks on the Amazon link, the website earns a profit, as well as Amazon, which is one way the website can fund its expansive listicles.

4. Ecommerce (Lead Generation)

Another way blogs can make money is by partnering with influencers, similarly to partnering with another company. Influencers use their industry and following to bring traction to your site, which is monetizeable.

Lauren Conrad's blog is a lifestyle and fashion blog, and primarily reports on trends and product launches:

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This piece highlights another fashion influencer, Jessi Burrone, the model for the photos in this post. LC and Burrone partner together on numerous shoots for the website.

 If seen sporting a brand's fashion, like Burrone is (she's wearing LC clothes in the photos), some followers might see that and say to themselves, "Well, now I need this sweater if Jessi has it."

5. B2B (Content offers)

If your blog is a side project of a bigger product, spotlight that content in different ways. If your blog is one of your largest sources of traffic, it makes sense to use it as a lead nurture tool.. For instance, take a look at Buffer's blog post about Instagram Stories, below:

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At the top of the post, there is an embed for Buffer's podcast about social media trends and topics, which ties in directly to the theme of the post. The idea here is most likely that readers who enjoy the post will also enjoy the podcast, bringing that content more recognition and notoriety. Blogs are a powerful content resource, especially for product promotion.

If you don't have the budget for ads, blogs can be sort of a "built-in ad" for you, and depending on how you host your website, you can track the results of your blog in real time. HubSpot's CMS provides a full-service blogging feature that can help you get up and running, as well as check progress.

Whether your blog is a bedroom project to get your feelings out or the core function of your day job, the opportunities know no bounds as to the type of blog you can have.

Because technology is so embedded into our world, nearly every industry can benefit from a digital presence, so picking the type is completely up to you. The hardest part is beginning to write.

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How to Use & Promote Inclusive Language at Your Organization

Unknowingly, we carry our own implicit biases with us every day, even as we attempt to make casual conversation.

For instance, your coworker might say, "Sorry I missed the meeting — my doctor was incredibly late to our appointment."

Without thinking, maybe you respond, "Oh! I'm sure he had a good reason though, right?" After a pause, perhaps you recognize your mistake — Oh wait … why did I assume the doctor is a man?

Language has the ability to build relationships and forge connections, but it's equally liable for creating barriers and impacting someone's sense of belonging.

And feeling like you're able to bring your authentic self to work is undeniably critical. In fact, a sense of belonging can lead to greater retention rates and even result in higher customer satisfaction.

Additionally, if your employees feel like they belong, they're more likely to be engaged and motivated at work, and you'll spark higher levels of psychological safety.

But, all that aside, it's easier said than done. Creating inclusive content, and even having workplace conversations devoid of exclusive language, means fighting hardened habits and biases you likely don't always recognize you carry.

Here, we'll explore what inclusive language is, and provide examples, to ensure you create a more inclusive workplace environment and more inclusive marketing material in 2020 and beyond.

To explore how you might promote inclusive language at your organization, I spoke with some experts at HubSpot who have first-hand knowledge of incorporating inclusive language into their processes, products, and overall team culture.

For instance, Hannah Fleishman, who led the charge on updating HubSpot's Careers website to be more inclusive, told me, "Language has a big impact on our sense of belonging in the workplace. The challenge is, language is nuanced. The changes we should consider making to how we talk and write are often subtle."

Melissa Obleada, Diversity & Inclusion Program Manager at HubSpot, echoes this thought, mentioning, "Many of us don't realize that our language has additional meaning hidden between-the-lines. Certain words can imply a certain age, gender, educational background, social class, and so much more. We see this a lot in the ways many folks write job descriptions."

Consider, for instance, the last time you were in a meeting and a leader said, "Okay, guys, let's get started" — do you think that automatically made female colleagues feel a little less-welcomed than their male peers? Would it have been better if he'd said "ya'll" or "everyone"?

Alternatively, imagine you're hiring a new person on your team and your boss tells you, "We're looking for a good culture fit." You know most people on your team are extraverted -- does that make you unfairly biased during interviews as you seek out a "good culture fit" by looking for candidates that mirror your colleagues' personality type?

Beth Dunn, UX Operations Lead at HubSpot, wrote a Medium piece on the topic of instilling a human voice in product content, and writes, "Try not to present the privileged, tech-savvy, wealthy, able-bodied, white, cisgendered, anglo-centric male experience as 'standard' and everything else as 'other' or 'diverse.' Seek ways to place the 'other' in the center of things instead."

Additionally, Dunn told me, "What's great is that the English language is such a flexible, expressive language, so there are all sorts of ways to say what you need to say without indicating anything that might be exclusive. It just takes a little imagination, empathy, and practice, that's all."

Take job descriptions as an example — you might've heard by now that women only apply for jobs when they feel they've met 100% of the requirements, while men will apply when they feel they've met 60% of them.

Fleishman suggests, "Try to avoid writing job descriptions with unattainable requirements. Using more inclusive language can be like building a new muscle; you need to get in the habit of recognizing nuances and asking yourself if what you're saying, or writing, is accessible for everyone."

Obleada adds that it's not just job descriptions that you should edit for inclusivity — it's all communication, whether through email, Slack, text, Facebook, or in-person: "When it comes to implementing inclusive language, it takes practice to shift your typical ways of speaking and writing."

To monitor whether your communication is exclusive towards certain groups, you'll want to take a look at resources and tools online. For instance, Textio is an augmented writing tool that identifies whether you're using gendered language in your writing, or words with a strong feminine or masculine association. This can be undeniably helpful for both job descriptions and even emails to colleagues.

Additionally, you might consider taking a look at the Conscious Style Guide, a resource on conscious language that breaks down exclusive language into categories, including age and disability.

Finally, to identify your own implicit biases, try taking a Hidden Bias Test, like this one created by Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington, to uncover how you're biases might be inhibiting you from expressing yourself more inclusively.

If this all sounds like a lot of work to you, it's important to note — this isn't just about creating a more inclusive environment at work. It's also critical for your company's bottom-line, particularly if you work for a global company or plan to expand your offerings to other regions in the future.

Melissa Obleada, Diversity & Inclusion Program Manager at HubSpot, explains it like this: "For some, writing and speaking inclusively may feel like a restrictive set of rules, hindering instead of helping us. In reality, it's just the opposite."

"Inclusive language opens up and amplifies your message to more people, making your blog post, job description, or website copy more accessible than before."

Next, let's explore some inclusive language examples in-practice.

1. Avoid company or team acronyms.

Fleishman told me, "Acronyms have become part of most companies' vocabulary, but they can be alienating for new employees, candidates, or global teams."

I personally remember how frustrated I felt when I first joined my team at HubSpot and everyone kept saying "TL;DR" in meetings. I was too embarrassed to ask what it meant. I finally Googled the term, but in the interim, the acronym made me feel separate from the larger group.

While this is a small and innocent example, there might be bigger acronyms you use every day within your team that continue to alienate new members, or employees from other teams. And if your company does choose to use certain acronyms (like, in HubSpot's case, H.E.A.R.T.), make sure you explain what it means during an employees' on-boarding process.

2. Use plain language in your writing rather than expressions or jargon.

Many of us use cultural expressions every day. For instance, I often say "It's just a ballpark figure" or "it should be a piece of cake" without pausing to consider whether the listener knows or has heard the term before.

Of course, this can be incredibly confusing towards a large majority of the world. If your company has global offices, or works with customers from across the globe, "common" expressions can pose a major deterrent towards clear communication.

For instance, in Dunn's Medium article, she writes "We also avoid using metaphors (visual and written) that are specific to just one culture or class. So for instance, we avoid using phrases like 'knock it out of the park' or 'hit a home run', even though these phrases are pretty common in North America, because they’re just not going to resonate outside of the U.S. Not because people will be offended by a reference to baseball, but because they won’t be as familiar, so the meaning won’t be as clear."

3. Refer to a theoretical person as "they" instead of "he" or "she."

As marketers, we're exceptional storytellers. Sometimes, however, whether you're talking offhandedly with a colleague or delivering a pitch, you might get caught up in using pronouns to unintentionally support stereotypes.

For instance, let's say you're giving a pitch and you say, "We've found through analysis that our readers are typically in a VP position or higher, which is why we believe we should lean into LinkedIn as a strategy in 2020. For instance, let's say our reader needs to deliver a presentation. He might turn to our blog ahead of time, but more likely, he'll turn to LinkedIn first."

Your fictitious VP-level reader doesn't need to be "male" or "female" -- why not call them by the non-gendered pronoun "they", "them", or "their"? Your point can still be made, and you won't alienate people on your team who feel hurt you've made an assumption that leaders are likely male.

4. Ensure your company's designs or images reflect a diverse group of people.

When potential customers take a look at your website, you want them to see people (or figures) that look like them.

Simultaneously, you want potential new hires to see themselves reflected, as well.

Otherwise, you're likely missing out on both potential customers, and future employees for your company.

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In her Medium post, Dunn writes, "Our product illustrators try to ensure that the people we represent in illustrations are diverse in appearance, and that these different types of people are represented doing many different things (for instance, a person of color doing the talking while others listen, a woman in a wheelchair at an executive desk, etc.)."

As you scale as a company, you want to ensure your marketing materials reflect as many groups of people as possible — otherwise, you're unintentionally sending messages to people who don't see themselves in your content that your brand "isn't quite right for them."

5. When speaking to colleagues about family, use gender neutral labels for family members.

Obleada told me, "Inclusive language has a real impact on how 'themselves' folks feel they can be in a given space. As a queer woman, it makes me cringe when folks ask me about a boyfriend. Intentionally using gender neutral titles — parent, spouse, partner, child, etc. — when speaking about your or others' families can make a big difference in how comfortable someone may feel."

Rather than making assumptions, approach conversations with colleagues using gender neutral titles. For instance, it's better to use "parent" or "guardian" when making conversation with a colleague, since "mom" or "dad" excludes family structures such as grandparents as caregivers, same-sex parents, etc.

6. When in doubt, ask individuals about their preference.

It's critical to note — there's no one-size-fits-all "right" and "wrong" when it comes to language. Many people have personal preferences, especially when it comes to identity.

For instance, person-first language (i.e. "people with autism") was introduced because many feel it's dehumanizing to put the disability or gender orientation first, as it seems to define the individual.

However, some prefer identity-first language (i.e. "autistic people"), since they accept autism as an inherent part of their identity — identity-first language can even help evoke a sense of pride among individuals.

(For more information on person-first or identity-first, take a look at this article by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.)

It's critical you avoid applying hard-and-fast rules to all individuals, since these preferences are incredibly personal.

Ultimately, it's important to remember none of us will get it "perfect" 100% of the time, but admitting when you've made mistakes and consistently working to communicate more inclusively are two major steps towards creating a more unified workforce, and creating deeper connections with your customers.

Remember — inclusive language is about widening your message and allowing it to resonate with as many people as possible, so it's critical for your business's bottom-line that you do everything you can to communicate more inclusively every day.

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