Looking for a new job is rarely easy, but it's something most people can make much easier with a little bit of creativity. While crafting a high quality resume is of supreme importance to your future job prospects, your digital footprint is another aspect that you'll want to work on.

Think of your digital footprint as the collection of all your online activities put together – the sum of your combined online activities. You should expect potential employers to search for your name on Google, and have a pretty good idea of what they will find in the search results.

Account for Employment History Gaps

If your resume shows employment history gaps, you can expect potential employers to look through your social media timeline to see what you were up to during that time.

Did you take a year off to travel the world? Your experiences can actually help demonstrate cultural attentiveness and the ability to communicate if you frame them correctly.

What matters most is being able to explain these periods of time in a way that potential employers can understand in order to learn more about you. However, your resume is not the best document for a long story, and social media only offers time-stamped content – you are not going to go back and edit five years of Facebook posts.

For example, if a salesperson stopped using their selling skills for a year potential employers would question whether or not they still had the skills to win deals. If that salesperson took the time off to work on his game then they would need to demonstrate that to employers before being hired.

Start a Blog

If you start a blog with a URL that matches your name and begin writing in it, you can be pretty sure that it will rank well for people specifically searching your name on Google. You can use this to write about your experiences without having to worry about the necessities of formal documentation – you can write it in your way.

Salespeople like DrivingSales.com’s Jared Hamilton have created their own blogs where they talk about how proper sales and customer service can impact car dealers’ businesses in significant ways. This has led thousands of car dealers to follow Jared and his blog for advice which puts him in an influential role within the car dealer community.

Demonstrate Social Media Consistency

One of the first things that employers will look for are signs of inconsistency on the social media platforms you're connected to. Certainly, your LinkedIn profile is the paragon of professionalism, but anyone who wants to know the real you will check Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to learn more.

Notwithstanding extreme cases, there is little reason to panic and delete years of archived social media history. Most likely, you can target the way social media represents your lifestyle and personality simply by curating what you share moving forward.

Oyster Connect suggests actively using social media – Twitter, in particular – to demonstrate an active interest in the field that you are hunting for a job in. You may find opportunities to build new professional connections simply by leveraging hashtags.

This is similar to the way well-known brands use brand ambassadors to generate interest within specific demographic niches. Professional poker players land jobs as sponsored players or brand ambassadors by winning at the table and/or having a huge digital footprint. Online casino brands pay these players to represent them at tournaments and talk about the brand sponsoring them to large digital audiences. In turn those brands receive tons of new customers.

Take Anne Duke, for instance, who leverages her status as an influencer within the poker community to fight stereotypes and encourage other female poker players. A brand ambassador's solid, active social media presence helps them land new jobs with ease.

By starting one specifically for potential employers to look through, you can create a narrative that focuses on all of the most important aspects of your life in a way that your employers can relate to. If done right, anyone interested enough in hiring you to skim the blog will be hooked after they read the content.

Social influence. It’s a trendy term in advertising circles – but what does it actually mean for driving sales? In short, social influence takes place among non-celebrities who have engaged online followings through blogs, social media, YouTube channels, and more. In most cases, these influencers have built followings due to word of mouth recommendations, likes and shares.

The power of these social influencers is pretty well founded. Research has shown that brand engagement is 16x higher when using an influencer. Think your business could find value in engaging in the social influencer space? Here’s what you need to know to get started.

Become an Influencer

Once your voice in your area of expertise is strong, start looking for ways to use your influence. You can do this through direct contact with brands, often called “brand ambassadorships,” or through social influencer networks like BlogHer or IZEA. You’ll want to make sure all your paid content with brands is properly disclosed through Federal Trade Commission guidelines. It’s also important to let your audience know what is paid content, and what is not, when taking on social influence tasks. This keeps your authenticity front and center.

Collaborate with Others

Have you come across content that your followers would find valuable? Since part of being considered a social influencer is being an expert, your readers will expect you to provide them with the most current information.  When you come across valuable articles or other relevant items related to your niche, make sure you share them with your viewers.  This is another way that you can provide quality content and ensuring your business is a valuable and interesting resource.

Studies have found that 50 percent of all purchase decisions are based on word of mouth recommendations. If you are a business looking for one of the quickest ways to grow your brand and make money, becoming a social influencer and including other reputable experts in your blog is the most effective route. Niche promoters and brand advocates produce the most powerful and lucrative content because their influence drives action. If you are not currently using social influence you could be missing out on arguably the most effective and powerful form of advertising out there – and brands will pay for it.

Find Your Niche

Most likely you and your blog have a niche, or an area that you are well versed on and have a considerable amount of expertise in.  Your niche could be a specific topic such as tips and tricks for online gaming or maybe applying makeup products and techniques, or possibly a more general topic such as parenting.  Whatever that area, make sure you stay immersed in it because readers more likely to stay engaged and take action if they are provided with excellent, up-to-date content.  Make sure you are constantly staying engaged and gaining even more experience in the industry or niche you have chosen – this will ensure you are reputable.

Becoming an influencer is about providing value to your followers. They in turn will reward you with driving traffic and sales to your business.

Have you dabbled in social influence? What tips would you add?

I have been reading sales books as long as I can remember. I have noticed something over the years – many of the accepted principles don’t hold up well in the real world. Holding long meetings and having very detailed conversations with clients was one of the biggest mistakes I saw salespeople make.

Many salespeople seem to believe that their sales conversion rates will be higher if they spend a lot of time with their clients. Lisa Gschwandtner, Editorial Director for Selling Power Magazine shares my view and states that this misconception needs to be put to rest.

“Time spent in meetings could be time spent making sales. So don't waste it. If your meetings aren't productive, your salespeople won't be either. Use these time-honored time-management tricks to keep your meetings focused, succinct and on track,” Gschwandtner states.

Here are some reasons this thinking is flawed:

• If you spend a lot of time in sales meetings or prospecting calls, you will have less time to spend reaching new leads.
• Lead conversion rates aren’t always linked to the amount of time you spend in meetings. Many customers have already made up their minds, so it is important to know when to throw in the towel.
• When you block out a large chunk of time for a prospecting call or sales meeting, it may not be used effectively. You and your client may spend a lot of time on small talk instead of getting to the point.

Your time is valuable, so it is important to use it wisely. Here are some tips to make sure your sales meetings are concise and productive, so you can spend more time generating sales.

Have a Clear Goal and Focusing Agenda

Your time is valuable. Your client’s time is valuable. You don’t want to waste it.

You need to have a clear goal for every meeting or call. The goal may be to close a sale during the meeting itself. It could also be to make the customer aware that your brand is an option or to inform them about several key benefits of several of your products. It could be to touch base with your sales team to see how close they are to meeting their quotas.

It is also a good idea to have a focusing agenda. Come up with a list of three to five questions to bring up by the end. If you are meeting with your sales team, important questions may include:

• When will you meet with your most promising prospect?
• How close are you to closing a sale?
• Do you need any assistance?

Keep the discussion brief and limit it to getting the information you need.

Get Important Information from Existing Data Instead of Your Meetings

Inc. contributor Ian Altman states that many salespeople he speaks with have wasted a lot of time getting information that could be obtained from their CRM data.

“The problem with these questions is that Sue (and you) could answer most of them just from reviewing the CRM and doing a little preparation in advance. You've been taught that people do what gets measured or monitored. But, why does everyone have to be there to know that Tim met with the client last week and that the client will likely push off their decision to the following month?”

You can also use sales data from your outsourced accounting to spot trends. Rather than asking your sales staff to discuss their sales trends over the past year, you can easily find the data yourself. Your accountant should have a special software that can break sales down by region, salesperson and other important factors.

Break Information into Manageable Chunks

People can be overloaded with too much information. It is better to break it down into smaller pieces of information that can be easier to digest.

Short Sales Meetings are the Key to More Sales

People in the sales profession tend to enjoy talking. Unfortunately, that can be their kryptonite, because they often waste time on long meetings that could be better spent finding and reaching out to new leads.

As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to believe that you have to completely reinvent the wheel to make millions. No, sometimes you can reach your goals by simply improving the industry you’re already in through bettering the customer experience. Here are some great tips for how entrepreneurs can be innovative without breaking their fields.

1. Focus on Making Things Easier

Sometimes all you have to do is make the existing way of doing things easier. TheZebra.com did this through making it easy for customers to compare auto insurance policies across multiple companies. This meant customers could spend mere minutes investigating multiple companies.

Kayak did exactly the same thing with travel. They made it easy to find the best price for things like hotels, airline tickets, and rental cars. We can see the same with different types of accommodation, pioneered by Booking. They have swallowed up the hostel, hotel, and rental apartment industry in one, and it’s all because they made a basic function easier for customers.

1. Improve on What’s Already on the Market

Some would say companies like Uber and Lyft revolutionized the personal transport industry. But what they actually did was improve on something that already existed. They took the flaws inherent in public cabs and provided a better solution for customers, including:

• Making them cheaper.
• Presenting a more user-friendly option.
• Taking advantage of the mobile revolution.

The final product is exactly the same, but the way users book and the way users pay have changed. They succeeded through replacing an archaic system.

1. Do Things Better

If you have the stomach for direct competition you can simply provide the same solution with some minor changes. This is what Jeff Bezos of Amazon did when he initially came up with Amazon Auctions. His attempt at beating out eBay didn’t work the first time, but over time he found a solution that worked for him.

That’s where the Amazon Marketplace comes in. It was a combination of a basic online store and the online marketplace that was eBay. It worked and Amazon became a household name.

Bezos always welcomed failure, though, and he didn’t shrug it off, as he says, “Given a ten percent chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time.”

So How Should Entrepreneurs Get Started?

Know Your Industry – Don’t just go where the money is. You need passion and you need a strong knowledge of the business you’re going into.

A Need – You need to find that need. Look at the big names in your chosen field and investigate their negative reviews. If the same complaint appears time and time again that’s a strong sign the industry is crying out for a new solution.

Viability – Even if you find a need it’s often not viable to implement. That could be due to technology not keeping up with customer needs or the solution being too expensive for small-time entrepreneurs.

Last Word – Look for the Small Changes

Not every award-winning idea has to be big or grand. A small alteration to how people do things can be all you need to really hit it big.

How will you start your small business today?

Social media is changing the marketing profession in remarkable ways. According to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the social media analytics market is expected to grow from $1.6 billion last year to over $5 billion in 2020, because many brands recognize its value on driving sales.

However, too many new generation marketers believe social media is making the face-to-face sales profession obsolete. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Bailey Roy, the Senior Project Manager of Ketchum, writes that there are many instances where social media falls short.

“When we rely on social media to replace traditional media in scenarios where budgets are tighter or turnaround is shorter, it seems like an unjustified decision. There are places where social media cannot replace traditional — such as developing strategy for regions without strong online presences, or when self-reported demographic data will not suffice.”

Marketers need to stop debating whether social media is better than the traditional approach to sales. The best marketing campaigns integrate both. Social media marketers need to view salespeople as their allies, rather than obsolete and less tech-savvy versions of themselves.

How can brands merge their social media marketing and traditional sales campaigns? Here are some general guidelines.

Remember that some sales can't be closed online

Social media can be a great medium to attract potential leads. However, in some industries, it can be very difficult to convert online leads into paying customers. This is especially true for me to B2B companies, brands in industries where trust is limited and brands promoting high ticket items.

The sales funnel may begin on social media, but it will require a talented sales team to close the deal. Ryan Kh, a business strategist with Catalyst for Business, states that even many online businesses need a traditional sales team.

“In some industries, customers are nervous about making a deposit, they know there’s a lot of fraud,” says Kh. “I encourage clients like  Bonus Code to have a direct sales team that establishes trust with customers. That is trust that can’t be built with social media alone.”

Social media marketers must listen to frontline sales people

Social media marketers can be great at getting their message out. The problem is they don't always have the right message to begin with.

Social media professionals usually have very limited interaction with customers. They don't know what customers’ real concerns are, so they often create social media campaigns that don't resonate with them. Luke Brynley-Jones wrote about this phenomenon in a post titled “It’s Official: Companies Don’t Understand Why Consumers Use Social Media.”

Brynley-Jones points out that companies generally believe that customers follow them on social media to learn more about products. However, most customers really follow them on social media to make purchases and find discounts.

Social media professionals probably make a lot of other mistakes too, such as making inaccurate assumptions about customers’ reasons for making purchases.

Social media marketers should listen to their counterparts on the sales floor. Sales professionals spend their entire day listening to customers. They know what drives customers to make a purchase. Social media professionals should listen carefully to the sales team, because they can help them create a better campaign.

Sales professionals must be aware of social media promotions

Social media professionals often recommend new promotional ideas to their employers. For example, Jordan's Creamery in Belmont, New Hampshire offers ice cream discounts to customers that follow them on Facebook. Auto repair centers often offer a free oil changes to customers that participate in their social media contests.

These promotions aren't always passed on from the management. They may be blindsided and tell a customer a promotion doesn't exist, even though it's listed on all of the company's social media profiles.

Sales professionals need to monitor the brand's social media profiles themselves, so they can answer any questions customers have about any ongoing promotions they may not have heard about.

Earlier this year, CMO.com released a report titled State of Digital Marketing 2016. This report shed some light on the state of marketing automation. The authors stated that 55% of B2B marketers are using marketing automation, but indicated that many are having trouble utilizing it to its fullest potential.

One of the biggest issues is that too many marketers lose sight of their end goal. They focus too heavily on engagement metrics rather than reaching long-term sales goals.

Here are some things that you need to keep in mind to create a marketing automation strategy that leads to higher sales.

Marketing Automation Still Requires Effort to Generate Sales

Marketing automation software allows you to streamline many tasks that would otherwise consume your day. Unfortunately, too many marketers believe that marketing automation is an alternative to actual work.

You won’t generate any sales by taking a purely automated approach to marketing, which would probably mean merely syndicating content from other users on social media. You need to be proactive by creating your own content, coming up with a consistent marketing message and developing an effective marketing funnel.

Use the Right Marketing Automation Tools

There are a lot of marketing automation tools on the market, such as GetResponse. GetResponse offers marketing tools that let you:

• Create emails that look great on any device
• Create easy-to-follow workflows
• Monitor events in real-time
• Track shopping cart abandonment

There are other tools on the market, but GetResponse is one of the best.

Work Backwards from Your Revenue Conversion Goal

Your entire marketing strategy should focus on generating revenue. Unfortunately, even marketers that remember this basic wisdom often have difficulty developing a clear roadmap to reach their goal.

The problem is that they don’t think about how their organization generates money. Will they be making purchases from your company website? Will they be encouraged to schedule an appointment with a company representative that will close the deal in person?

Keep in mind how revenue is generated. All of your marketing automation efforts need to focus on that.

Don’t Overlook Upselling!

According to the State of Digital Marketing 2016 report, 68% of marketers use marketing automation tools for increasing engagement. Only 58% use it to up-sell existing customers.

Up-selling should be one of your primary sales objectives. According to Amazon, 35% of their revenue comes from up-selling techniques. If you aren’t generating a large portion of your revenue by up-selling existing customers, then you should incorporate it into your marketing strategy.

Marketing automation makes it much easier to convert existing customers. Here are some tips:

• Use lead scoring. You can use marketing automation tools to identify customers that know your products the best. These customers will be easiest to convert.
• Create segmented email lists. Almost all marketing automation tools have email marketing platforms that allow you to create segmented email lists. You can segment existing customers based on their lead score, future purchases, interests and other important funnels.
• Emphasize your gratitude. You must appreciate your existing customers. They have been your bread and butter. If you intend to squeeze more revenue out of them, you need to nurture that relationship. Let them know that you are offering new promotions for your valued customers.
• Personalize your message. If you are making a sales pitch to your existing customers, you should try to make it seem as personal as possible. You can use marketing automation technology to include their name in your emails and reference previous interactions they have had with your brand.

Marketing automation makes up-selling easier than ever, but you need to understand the tools inside and out and have a clear strategy in place to convert existing customers.

If you’re an aspiring blogger, you probably look up to a number of successful bloggers. Zac Johnson, Ryan Biddulph and Pete Cashmore are all phenomenally successful.

You probably aspire to create a blog of your own that generates tens of thousands of dollars in revenue a month. You may have even started it already, but gotten frustrated when you couldn’t make any sales.

Don’t get discouraged. You just need to follow the data-driven strategies outlined below.

The Importance of Creating Consistent Content

The success of your blog hinges on your ability to bring in new visitors. Every visitor is a potential customer, so it’s important to attract as much traffic as possible.

You must consistently create impeccable content to generate the traffic you need to run a profitable blog. Here are some reasons it’s important to publish content regularly:

• Blogs that publish content every day generate 400% more leads.
• Blogs that publish content every day generate 500% more traffic.
• Blog traffic increases 53% after you have published 50 posts. You need to regularly publish new content to reach this point.

Consistently creating great content is tough for many bloggers. However, it’s important to rack your brain to generate new content ideas to generate more sales.

Creating the Best Type of Content

Now that you understand the importance of creating regular content, you need to know what type of content to publish. Some content resonates with readers very well and generates a lot of traffic from search engines and social media. Other types of content aren’t nearly as effective.

So what types of content work the best? Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Take advantage of video. Social videos bring in an astounding 1200% more traffic than text and images combined!
• Create content with long-tail keywords. Quick Sprout discovered that 71.28% of its traffic comes from longer search phrases. These keywords also converted 121.92% better than short-tail keywords. 
• Make excellent infographics. Research has found that publishers that use infographics receive 12% more traffic than they did before.
• Always keep your readers in mind! This should be obvious, but you’ll be surprised by how many people fail to follow this advice. You need to understand your readers’ expectations and regularly create excellent content that appeals to them. Too many bloggers often accept “guest posts” on topics that don’t align with their brand mission, which inevitably drives people away.

As you can see, creating quality content that brings in a lot of traffic takes work. Creating videos and other visual content takes a lot more time than making a blog post. Researching keywords that will drive traffic to your site also takes more time.

However, the statistics clearly show that it’s well worth the effort. Focus on regularly creating great content. You’ll receive much more traffic and sales in the long-term.

What are you doing to boost sales for your blog?