Author: Franz Malten Buemann

FYI For all of you using this subject line, every single time I see this I feel actual rage. RAGE. It may help your open rates but it cannot possibly be a good longterm revenue strategy because people like me, who would normally ignore you or maybe even look at your offer, are going the extra mile to mark you as spam, unsubscribe, and talk sh*t about your brand to other professionals. Just stop. Be respectful FFS. submitted by /u/Chubby_Pessimist [link] [comments]

In early September, our team scheduled and organized our first in person meetup in Lisbon, Portugal. The initial plan was to gather in person and spend a week together, getting to know each other better and invest time into strengthening our team. However, due to a mix of reasons, from family leave to health, only half of our team was able to attend in person. I am the Engineering Manager for the Core Foundations team at Buffer, and we build and maintain the core elements for accessing, scheduling, and publishing to your social channels for our web application. Love being able to schedule Instagram Reels? We built that! Getting on board with our new TikTok channel? That’s also on us. Happy that your account is secure from imposters? We do that! We are a team of eight, including five engineers (Arek, Dace, Heather, José, Mick), Product Manager (Amanda), and our Designer (Sofia), and we are located across Europe and the USA. Over half of our team joined since we had to pause our annual retreats in 2020, which means that most of us had never met in person. While we firmly believe that we can do our jobs well remotely, we understand that there is still so much to be gained from meeting in person and naturally forming stronger bonds. Amanda (our PM) and I were responsible for organizing and facilitating the meetup. Taking into account travel time, we were left with three days of team time. We dedicated one day to sightseeing and two days to have hybrid team sessions which involved everyone’s attendance. I have significant experience designing and facilitating workshops for teams as an Agile coach, which I leaned upon when planning this one. The main difference is that all of my prior workshops have been either fully in person or fully remote. I’ve also worked with globally distributed teams in an organization that had a co-located company HQ office and smaller satellite offices or remote workers. Here I learned about the experiences that people based outside of HQ had in meetings with those co-located — they typically felt excluded. As someone who cares passionately about inclusivity, I took this feedback seriously and did my best to make all environments that I have influence over as inclusive as possible. In the past, I mandated in person workshops and dismissed hybrid options as being too hard. Since that isn’t an option anymore, I have had to learn! Why hybrid meetups?Hybrid (a combination of remote and co-located) workplaces have become the new norm as companies transform from the necessary remote working conditions of the pandemic. With over 85% of employees stating that it is their preferred way of working and no productivity reduction, it seems unlikely that this will change. This flexibility has led to employees working from anywhere, which leads to timezone differences. Additionally, business travel has remained less than in pre-pandemic times, with companies wanting to continue to capitalize on the environmental and financial benefits realized during the pandemic and rise of remote collaboration tools, and people’s personal travel preferences changing. Meetings and workshops are still valuable forums for timely collaboration, and so now we must consider how we can make them effective when we can’t have everyone present in person — we have to think, how do we do this hybrid?What I’ve learned about hybrid facilitation1. Design the agenda and set up for whoever will find collaboration the most difficult.When you have co-located and remote people participating in a meeting or workshop, it is hardest for anyone who is remote. Even our team, who are used to working remotely, naturally defaulted to focusing and talking to the people who were present in the room. Therefore, it’s critical to be intentional about designing workshops to be inclusive and to communicate the importance of that to everyone participating. Some measures that I took were:Highlight the situation and stress the importance of ensuring that our remote team member would feel included and able to be heard.Create a sense of psychological safety by establishing ground rules at the beginning, including: Have a ‘safe word’ to call out if you feel like discussions are going off-track — ours was pineapple. Anyone can take a break without having to ask for permission. Ask everyone to be fully present (no phones or Slack open) or be upfront with other commitments that would require them to be otherwise.As the facilitator, keep track of how often remote joiners are speaking and regularly ask them directly for input – it is also a good idea to make this intention clear from the beginning so that everyone is aware of the situation and also isn’t caught unaware.Using the first day to do activities that helped us get to know each other’s personalities better, as we couldn’t rely on social dinners etc., to do that.Everyone individually joins the Zoom calls rather than having our co-located group join one.Use online tools — more coming on this later!2. Recording sessions/conversations allowed anyone not attending to still contribute asynchronously.We had five people in person in Lisbon, two in New York, and one in Ireland — that meant catering for three people joining remotely, and we were spread across two different timezones with a five-hour difference.We wanted to be respectful of everyone’s working hours i.e., not force everyone in NY to start at 5 am or everyone in Europe to stay until 10 pm. So we broke up the days into two blocks – 10 am-1 pm CEST and 2 pm-6 pm CEST/9 am-1 pm CEST. This fit well around standard meal times and allowed our US teammates to dial in for a full second session. To enable them to participate in content that we discussed in the first session, we recorded them via Zoom and asked them to participate later by watching it and recording their own response, which we could watch later. Because they were in the same timezone, I asked them to do the activities together, which made it a more collaborative half-asynchronous/half-synchronous session. 3. Lean into your online toolsWe use Zoom as our standard video conferencing tool and Loom for short messages. Using a digital whiteboard makes collaboration and note-taking simple — we use Miro to do all of our digital brainstorming, and I absolutely love it for its templates, ease of use, and the broad range of features. While using physical stickies and whiteboards is a lot easier in the moment for those there in person, this was much easier because a) everyone could contribute easily independently (no having to write things down for remote contributors) and b) there was no need to take photos and later digitize them!Pre-preparing everything in the Miro board (plus a few extra options) made it easier for Amanda and me to collaborate, and I felt more confident about how to facilitate everything on the dayOne of the Miro boards we used to determine discussion topics4. Using our own devices set meetings on even groundEveryone used their own laptops and cameras and joined the Zoom call; even those meeting in person made it feel less ‘me and them’ for anyone joining remotely. The way that we did it was to have one person leave their laptop microphone and speakers on while everyone else muted. Session facilitators shared their screen via Zoom for presentations and discussions, and during activities, everyone worked on the Miro board through their own browsers.Although the people in the room tended to still face each other when speaking, one remote teammate (Mick) also mentioned that it made it easier to understand conversations when the audio was unclear!It is easier for people who are present in person to contribute to verbal conversations – directly asking remote joiners for their opinion ensures they get the opportunity. The mics on our laptops are good at picking up sound but not great — next time, I will bring a conference microphone and speaker! Also, our laptop’s mic/speakers/video weren’t in sync, which wasn’t awful but did make conversations feel disjointed sometimes.Over to youHybrid facilitation is harder than in person, or even fully remote, facilitation, but not impossible! With some intention and clear communication with everyone involved, you can still have effective team workshops and meetings. However, it won’t be the same as a fully in person meetup, and it’s not fair for organizers or the team to claim otherwise. There will still be some elements missing for anyone joining remotely for a meetup like ours — we can’t record every interaction, and conversation that happens and so they miss out on those natural conversations. Also, any learnings that you get from seeing people in person and their body language that Zoom calls just don’t provide. The main thing to remember is that there is still value in including everyone, and with some consideration, it can bring a lot of value to your team.We’d love to hear your experience with hybrid meetups! Send us a tweet or join our community.

Oftentimes, marketers focus heavily on Google when vying for traffic.
It makes sense considering Google is undoubtedly the most popular search engine, with over 80% of the search market share. But that popularity makes it the most challenging search engine on which to rank highly. You might be missing critical opportunities for traffic if you neglect the other search engines.

Here, we’re going to explore the top six search engines worldwide, so you can discuss some other potential traffic sources in your next SEO meeting.
Note: To compile our list, we looked at the worldwide market share of search engines on desktop and mobile from August 2021 to August 2022.

1. Google

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With over 80% of the search market share, Google is undoubtedly the most popular search engine. Additionally, Google captures almost 95% of mobile traffic. The large traffic potential makes Google a viable option when aiming to capture organic or paid search — the downside, of course, is almost everyone is competing for the same traffic.
Also keep in mind Google’s algorithm, like featured snippets, aims to fulfill users’ needs directly on Google, so they don’t need to click any links. These features , and Google’s popularity, might make it hard for you to capture the website traffic you want.
2. Bing

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Bing, Google’s biggest contender, rakes in 15% of U.S. searches and also powers Yahoo, the U.S.’s third biggest search engine. Bing’s search pages look remarkably similar to Google’s, with the same categories and a similar white background, with blue links and green URLs. However, Bing additionally offers “Rewards”, a program that gives you points when you search or shop on the engine, and then allows you to redeem those points for gift cards, nonprofit donations, and more.
3. Yahoo!

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Admittedly not the sleekest search engine interface, Yahoo! still manages to capture third place in our list, with just under 3% of the worldwide market share. Yahoo! is powered by Bing, so search results are incredibly similar between the two search engines. However, it’s still an important search engine in its own right, with over 600 million total monthly users.
4. Yandex
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Russian search engine Yandex has roughly 2% of worldwide market share. However, it is the most widely used search engine in its home country, with Google holding the number two spot. If you do business globally and are looking to reach Russian customers, there are a few things to keep in mind.
For example, Yandex has a number of quality indicators or badges it can display alongside search results. One of the most prominent is the site quality index or SQI which indicates how useful your site is to users.
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Like Google, Yandex also takes into consideration whether or not a user’s query has local intent and will display regional dependent results. To account for this, you’ll need to go into Yandex’s webmaster tools and set a site region.
5. DuckDuckGo

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If you’re uneasy about targeted ads or don’t want your search data stored, you might want to try DuckDuckGo, which touts itself as “The search engine that doesn’t track you”. It doesn’t track, collect, or store any information, so you’re safe to search for shoes without feeling bombarded by subsequent Macy’s Shoes ads. It’s worth noting there are still ads on DuckDuckGo — just not personalized ones.
Additionally, DuckDuckGo has a clean interface and only one search page, making it easier to navigate than other search engines. With an average of 94,758,414 daily direct searches as of September 2022, it’s slowly gaining steam in the search market.
6. Baidu
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Baidu is China’s largest search engine, capturing over 63% of China’s search market. The search engine looks similar to Google (besides being in Mandarin), with a white background, blue links, and green URLs. Like Google, Baidu aims to incorporate more rich features in the SERPs.
If you have an interest in appealing to the Asian market, Baidu is a good option to consider. However, the search engine censors certain images and blocks pro-democracy websites, so if you’re comparing search results, you’ll find a more comprehensive results list on Google.
Emerging Search Engine Trends
The top search engines may have another competitor vying for user business in the near future as Ahrefs has announced they are working on a search engine of their own. Currently in beta, Yep, is unique from other platforms as it shares 90% of its ad revenue with content creators. With this model, Yep aims to encourage more people to share their knowledge and high-quality content.
Google is also working to prioritize good content with their 2022 Helpful Content Update. HubSpot’s Head of SEO Content Aja Frost says the update has huge implications for the industry.
“First, Google is sending a strong signal that content written by humans is preferable to content by computers. (Ironic, given virtually all of the SERPs are algorithmized.)”
Frost also points out that this update should encourage SEOs to take a more comprehensive approach to site performance.
“This update is also reinforcing the idea that your domain is one entity, and content on one part of your website will impact the performance of another part of your website,” Frost explains. “With this in mind, SEOs should be looking at their site as a whole—not isolated sets of pages.”
Think Beyond Google
Ultimately, it’s essential to consider alternative traffic opportunities besides Google when creating an SEO strategy. By diversifying your sources, you’re more likely to capture the first page on SERPs, and you’re in a better position to find a truly ideal target audience.
This article was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

A job hunt is a time-consuming process. It usually takes a few weeks, if not months to land a job. If you want to cut the time to hire and explore all your career opportunities, it’s worth following a job search strategy.

Here’s a selection of tried and tested methods along with the tools that will help you put your best foot forward.
Table of Contents
Ten Effective Job Search Strategies
Job Search Strategy Tips
Helpful Tools
Your job search strategy should be about quality, not quantity

Ten Effective Job Search Strategies
1. Build an online portfolio or an “About me” page.
While online portfolios are a standard among designers and software developers, they’re great for other professionals, too. For example, if you’re a copywriter, you can add some of your best writing. Or, if you’re a video editor, you can share links to the clips you’ve produced.
If you can’t showcase your work, don’t worry. You can always create an “About me” page instead. Write a short description of who you are, what skills and experience you have, and where you want your career to head. Add your CV, or, better yet, a short recording where you encourage potential employers to reach out.
Tip: Make sure your portfolio is easily searchable. If you’ve designed a number of interfaces, consider categorizing them via industry, device type, etc.
2. Try to predict the interview questions.
Preparation is key if you want to get that dream job you’ve applied for. While reading about the company is a good starting point, go beyond it. Take a look at the role description and try to predict the questions that might come up during the interview. Write them all down, along with the answers. This way it will be easier for you to avoid surprises, at least to some extent.
You can also look at what people say on forums like Reddit or Glassdoor. They share their experience with different companies and even mention the interview questions that they got.
Tip: Make sure your list includes:

generic questions, like “What is your biggest strength?”
role-specific questions, like “What are the three things about our website that need changing?”

3. Share your knowledge on LinkedIn.
Wouldn’t it be great, if instead of looking for a job, the right opportunity “knocked on your door”? This scenario is possible, with enough exposure. Use LinkedIn to share your knowledge and experience. Talk about your successes and failures. If you do it regularly, people will start noticing you. You might even become an industry expert. Eventually, all you’ll have to do is let the LinkedIn community know you’re searching for a new challenge, and opportunities will fly your way.

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Tip: You can try two approaches. Write your own posts and invite others to join the discussion. Comment on other people’s posts. Remember to do it regularly.
4. Define your expectations.
This might seem like a basic job search strategy tip, but it’s a crucial one. Before you start applying for jobs, you need to know what you want. Are you interested in a full-time, part-time, or freelance role? Are you happy to be office-based, or is working remotely your preferred option?
It’s also worth figuring out the type of company you’d like to be part of. Are you keener on a corporation, a start-up, or maybe a non-profit? Is there a specific industry you like?
Answering all these questions will help you narrow down your search and make it more effective.
Tip: After you’ve defined what you’re looking for, spread the word among friends and your professional network. Make it easy for others to check if a job they come across fits your expectations. It’s a good idea to send them a bulleted list that summarizes the key information. Include the job position you’re looking for, years of experience, skills, and the industry you want to work in.
5. Network whenever possible.
This goes beyond the standard “network at conferences and job fairs” advice.
For example, if you work at a large company, mingle with people from other departments. Or, suppose you’re part of a Slack community and see that a content writer is looking for quotes from subject matter experts like you for an upcoming article. Reach out and offer them five minutes of your time. Not only will they remember you. The piece they’re writing might also be read by a future employer.
Yes, this is a long-term job search strategy. You might not get a job offer from these new connections today or even in a year or so. Yet, it’s worth giving a try, as it doesn’t put pressure on anyone.
Another reason to network? A study at over 200 companies found that 27% of all their employees came from referral programs.
Tip: Say ‘yes’ to opportunities, even if they don’t directly lead to a job offer. The goal is to gain more exposure and be remembered – both at your current company and outside of it.
6. Contact companies directly.
Don’t make applying via job boards your only job search strategy. Instead, contact companies directly. Find the hiring manager’s email, and send your CV along with a cover letter, if required. They should be more incentivized to get back to you, as, if you get hired, they’ll be able to skip the recruiter’s hefty fees.
Tip: Visit the company’s career website, find the job ad you’re interested in, and check who’s hiring. If the name is not there, check if the same ad is on LinkedIn. Usually, it includes the name of the hiring manager. Use a tool like hunter.io to get their email, and get in touch.
7. Create a timeline and reward yourself.
The job hunt is a long process. If you find it overwhelming, then split it into smaller tasks, and assign a deadline for each. Your to-do-list could include:

Creating a CV
Listing companies to work for
Writing down job boards to check out
Updating your LinkedIn profile, etc.

Whenever you complete a task, give yourself a little reward, like a bar of chocolate or lunch with friends.
Tip: Get as granular as you like, especially if large tasks overwhelm you. Smaller ones are faster to complete, and ticking them off your list will boost your motivation.
8. Pay attention to job title variations.
Recruiters use a variety of terms to describe the same type of job opening. When you start searching online, use the most common titles related to your target role. For example, if you’re applying for a content writer role, start off with a simple “Content Writer” search. Here are some other terms that might bring up relevant results:
Content Specialist
Copywriter
Content Manager
Content Marketer
Content Marketing Specialist
Write down all the possible job title variations to find more opportunities that fit your profile.
Tip: Use quotation marks in search engines. This will draw up exact matches for the role you’re looking for, making it easier to find fitting offers.

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9. Personalize your outreach message (and keep it short).
Sending an email or a message on LinkedIn can be a good way to bypass the standard application process. To get it right, refer to something company- or role-specific in your message. Do so in the first paragraph, or write it in bold text.
Also, keep your message short. LinkedIn shares that the shorter the InMail, the higher the open rates. Write enough to spark interest and link to your website, portfolio, and/or calendar.
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Tip: Check if there’s something you and the hiring manager have in common. For example, if your prospective employer shared a skydiving photo on their Twitter profile and you’re an avid skydiver yourself, refer to it in your message. You will definitely stand out.
10. Think of yourself as your own sales manager.
If you’re struggling to “sell” yourself, think of your job search as a sales campaign. Before you start applying for jobs or spreading the word in your network, ask yourself:

What’s your unique value proposition?
Whom are you selling yourself to (i.e., your hiring manager persona)?
What goals will hiring you help them achieve?

Tip: If you need that “extra layer” of distancing, picture yourself as a Hollywood actor. How would your imaginary agent pitch you? Write down anything that comes to mind. This can help you build your job search strategy around your strengths and keep insecurities under control.

Job Search Strategy Tips
Here’s a list of job search strategy tips that you can start implementing right away.

Reach out between Tuesday and Thursday. Avoid applying on Friday and through the weekend.
The best months to look for a new job are January and February as managers already have new hiring budgets.
Prepare a list of questions you’d like to ask the HR Manager during the interview.
Continuously build your LinkedIn network, and stay in touch with them by commenting on their posts.
Create a 30-second elevator pitch that includes who you are, what you do, and why someone should hire you.
Research online forums, like Quora and Reddit, to get tips on how to land a job at your dream company.
Always follow up after applying for a job and ask for feedback.
Practice patience. Some methods, like networking, will take weeks, if not months to pay off.

Helpful Tools
Here’s a selection of tools and templates that will help you in your job search.
22 Free Job-Seeking Templates from HubSpot
Use this free, downloadable job search kit to kick start your new career. It comes with everything you need for a smooth transition:

Five resignation letter templates
Five cover letter templates
12 customizable, reader-friendly resume templates for marketing, sales, and customer service professionals.

Download Now
Jobscan
To make your CV pitch perfect, run it via Jobscan, an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) checker. It will assess how your hard skills, soft skills, and industry buzzwords compare with what you’ve included in your resume. It will also check your formatting and the tone of voice you use. Based on the feedback, you’ll be able to optimize your CV to boost your chances of getting hired.
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Hunter.io
After finding a company you’d like to work for, you can use Hunter.io to get the hiring manager’s email. All the emails are verified, so you don’t have to worry your message will bounce. It’s free to use for up to 25 searches a month.

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Your job search strategy should be about quality, not quantity
It can be tempting to send your CV to as many companies as possible to boost your chances of getting hired. Still, such an approach could result in quite the opposite.
Before you start your search, define your career objectives. Once you’re clear on what kind of job you’re looking for, focus on the offers that tick most of these boxes. Also, tailor your approach to each company that you’re talking to. This will tell them that you’ve given the job opening some thought.
Follow these job search strategy tips to optimize your job search efforts, and find the perfect work opportunity.

From a subtle start to exploding into our daily lives, the eCommerce industry is rapidly growing and revolutionizing the way we shop online.  The eCommerce industry is less expensive to enter, has fewer startup costs, and has better margins than traditional retail. Currently, eCommerce makes up 20.4% of all retail sales worldwide, and this figure…
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Last Updated on October 18, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta Big Idea or Enduring Question: How to use record-triggered flow to automate common chatter group management works to improve productivity?  Objectives: Chatter Group is one of the great ways to boost collaboration in your organization. A Chatter group represents a group
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Last Updated on October 31, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta Big Idea or Enduring Question: How to use record-triggered flow to automate common chatter group management works to improve productivity?  Objectives: Chatter Group is one of the great ways to boost collaboration in your organization. A Chatter group represents a group
The post Recipes for Automating Chatter Group Management appeared first on Automation Champion.