Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Most jobs require specific skills to succeed, like knowing how to use social media scheduling tools if you’re going to work as a content creator.
However, most jobs require skills that aren’t always listed on a job application because you’re expected to have them no matter what, like communicating with your coworkers.
These skills, often called employability skills, are critical even if they’re not listed on a job application. Let’s go over what they are, how they apply to day-to-day activities, and how to improve upon them so you can succeed in every position you have.

As foundational skills, employability skills can be transferable to any position you hold, regardless of job type. For example, you need to communicate well regardless of your position level, whether you’re the C-Suite executive or newly-hired marketing intern.
Employability skills aren’t always listed as required skills on job applications because they are expected as a baseline, but employers and interviewers will still look for them during interviews and expect you to use them on the job.
Developing Employability Skills
You can develop employability skills without specific training through experiences at school, work, hobbies, and extracurricular activities. For example, you can develop public speaking skills from presentations given in class and collaboration skills from playing on a sports team in your free time.
Employability Skills Examples
Let’s go over some examples of employability skills.

Communication: In all positions, you’ll need to communicate with your teammates and customers and be able to explain yourself clearly, both verbally and in writing.

Collaboration: Employers want you to collaborate because teamwork is often a means by which a company can meet its goals. Collaboration also means being able to work well with others.

Critical Thinking: This is your ability to analyze and understand the information in your workplace and act on it. This is a critical employability skill because you’ll always need to think logically about problems and situations that arise at work and come to a solution.

Self-management: Employers want you to self-manage and meet deadlines and goals without significant guidance unless necessary. While there’s nothing wrong with asking for help, employers want to train you and have you be able to take on your everyday tasks.

Adaptability: Adaptability is a critical employability skill because things can change quickly at work, and adjusting as necessary can be the difference between continuing business success or falling behind.

Reliability: Employers want to know that they can trust you in all aspects of work, that you’re punctual and complete assignments, show up on time and that you can be consistent in your overall performance without strict guidance.

Organization/Planning: Being organized and able to plan means you can adequately understand how to complete your assignments in a structured and timely manner. You can create schedules and stick to them to meet targets and deadlines.

Leadership: Employers appreciate leadership skills because they want you to take charge when necessary, whether over your job performance or during team activities, or because you’re at a leadership level and manage other people.

Willingness to learn: Being willing to learn is required for all jobs as you’re always expected to learn on the job, be open to learning on the job, and take on new tasks.

Tech Savvy: A baseline ability to use technology in day-to-day job duties, anything from knowing how to send an email, conduct a query online, or use tools like Google Suite. Technological skills move out of essential employability skills when they are things like using different coding languages.

Improve Employability Skills
As mentioned above, employability skills aren’t taught. They come along with different experiences like working on a job and participating in hobbies. Working on improving your skills can typically be done in activities you may already be involved in. For example:

If you want to improve your organization skills, you can organize events in your community.
If you want to become a stronger leader, you can ask to shadow current leaders at your workplace to learn from their style or step up to the plate to lead new workplace activities.
If you want to improve your technical skills, you can start leveraging different tools in your day-to-day life.
If you want to be better at self-management, you can ask for more responsibility at work to help you learn about time management and organization.

When working to improve your employability skills, it may be helpful to plan out your progress in a checklist.
Employability Skills Checklist
An employability skills checklist will help you create an improvement plan to follow. You can select a specific skill you want to work on and outline the steps you’ll take to improve, a desired timeframe for the process, and resources that will help you get to your end goal.

Download This Template Here
Over To You
Developing employability skills isn’t a significant challenge, as we often develop them over time through life experiences. Use our checklist to take stock of the ones you have, and create plans to further develop those you think are lacking.

Email marketing is just like other digital marketing tactics: even though you start each campaign with a clear goal and strategy, you have to constantly make adjustments to remain on course. However, you can’t improve what you can’t measure. That’s why email marketers monitor the key metrics to know what to adjust and how and…
The post What Is a Good Email Marketing Open Rate? appeared first on Benchmark Email.

It is always important to understand different options to solve business challenges. So, let us see how this scenario looks from the perspective of a Salesforce Architect, Consultant, Developer, or an Admin. Businesses today evolve at a rapid pace; and, organizations demand new features and functionalities to meet compliance, regulatory
The post Ever Wonder? – What are Big Objects? What are Its Use Cases? How are they Implemented? – Of course, You Do! appeared first on Automation Champion.

If the title of her newsletter, “Total Annarchy,” is any indication, Ann Handley thinks differently about newsletter strategy than most.
A best-selling author, speaker, chief content officer, and one of Forbes’ “20 Best Marketing and Social Media Women Bloggers,” Handley’s fresh approach to content has built her career as well as her impressive newsletter list.
Handley’s newsletter is known for its story-based insights, joyful tone, and actionable advice. It dances to the beat of its own drum while providing real value to its readers. Marketers and non-marketers alike rave about it. So how does this magic happen? We sat down with Handley to find out just that.
1. She wrote what she wanted to read
Handley says she started her newsletter as a response to wishing she had something like it herself: a marketing newsletter about writing that she actually wanted to read and wasn’t dry or boring. “The biggest trigger to growth is happiness, joy all around,” says Handley. “No good writing is created at gunpoint.”
 

Ann includes a section called “Shenanigans” in every newsletter that includes (often random) things that she has found interesting or amusing. It doesn’t follow a “best practices” template or anything stuffy, it’s just there because she enjoys it. Source.

 
How does Handley measure this? She tries to make herself laugh every time she writes an issue of her newsletter. Now that is a KPI we can get on board with. “If I hated writing [something],” says Handley, “you’d feel that.”
 
“The biggest trigger to growth is happiness, joy all around. No good writing is created at gunpoint.” – Ann Handley
2. She defined her niche and stuck to it
Defining your niche not only helps you narrow down what to write about but also helps your audience know what to expect, Handley says. “I make sure new subscribers know exactly what they’ll get. Pro-tip for marketing (and Life): Setting expectations neuters rage.”
 

Handley lets her readers know exactly what her newsletter is about right from the start. Handley’s subject lines and graphics illustrate clearly that this newsletter is about writing. Source.

 
3. She built relationships, not just a list
Handley said she initially implemented a pop-up window to garner subscribers, like many newsletters. However, she soon took it down. Why? “I want a reader’s relationship with me to be, ultimately, the trigger that would grow the list,” says Handley. “It was a revelation to me. And it’s important.”
When you build relationships with readers, you build trust and affinity, which leads to long-term success. If readers don’t feel connected, chances are their interest in your newsletter will wane. And a bonus is that you’ll get inspiration and feedback right from the source.
When writing her newsletter, Handley imagines a single subscriber and writes as if to them, specifically. “Put a pillow over the face of anything with a whiff of ‘Dear Valued Customers,’” says Handley. “Use ‘You’ like you picked up a lifetime supply at a BOGO sale.”
 
“I want a reader’s relationship with me to be, ultimately, the trigger that would grow the list.” – Ann Handley
 
Handley also notes that connecting with subscribers is only a single part of building relationships. Building relationships with other influencers has also been an integral part of growing her list. “Call out the good work of others,” says Handley. “Share the love. Don’t expect and ask for reciprocity—that’s not friendship, that’s coercion.”
 

At the end of every newsletter, Handley includes “love letters” to people supporting her work. Source.

 
4. She surprised her readers
Many of Handley’s best-performing emails have been the ones that are unique in some way. Or, as Handley likes to say, “Not business as usual.” Handley accomplishes this by using paradoxes or contrarian ideas that pique the reader’s interest.
 

Is this email newsletter from Starbucks? No, this is an Ann Handley special. Source.

 
For example, her newsletter that garnered the most subscriber referrals was titled “Pumpkin Spice Newsletter: A Case Study in the Power of Copywriting.” Readers may have expected this from Starbucks but not a marketing newsletter. Or her newsletter that was the strongest performer across all metrics: “TikTok with the Best Writing Advice (No Really).” It’s surprising because most people wouldn’t think of TikTok as a source of great writing advice.
5. She kept it current
Keep a pulse on what’s happening in the world and tie your content to it. When your newsletter speaks to the current zeitgeist, readers engage because you’re speaking to what’s already on their minds. For example, Handley’s newsletter with the most opens was “Your Hand Sanitizer for Bad Marketing” because it tapped into a shared experience happening at that time during the Covid-19 pandemic.
 

Handley uses current events to inspire many of her subject lines, drawing her readers in. Source.

 
6. She gave her copy breathing room
Handley may write longer newsletters than some would recommend, but the reason it holds water is it’s not a rambling, meaningless tangle of copy. “White space is oxygen,” says Handley. “Use it. Let your words breathe. I love long sentences. But newsletters need short sentences. Short paragraphs. Short sections. Don’t make 1,000 words feel like 1,000 words.”
 

Handley highlights the main talking points in her newsletter with easily skimmable bullets and a lot of white space between paragraphs. Source.

 
Short, purposeful sentences, paragraphs, and sections break up the visual density of longer newsletters. White space allows the reader to easily skim the content and identify key thoughts.
7. She took her time
We’ve all been there, staring blankly at an empty page, waiting for genius to strike. The reality is great newsletters take time. When it comes to newsletter writing, don’t expect to get it right on the first pass. Handley says writing her newsletter takes her 8 hours over 4 drafts and 2-3 days, on average. “Slow down. Invest where it matters,” says Handley. “I want to make each paragraph, sentence, word earn its keep.”
 
“I want to make each paragraph, sentence, word earn its keep.”- Ann Handley
 
Handley says many of her ideas come from a journal where she jots down stories she hears. She also recommends plugging your piece into an AI editing tool like Grammarly, making simple changes, and then handing it off to a [human] editor who “gets you.”
 

Handley not only takes her time writing but is transparent with her readers about her process – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Source.

 
8. She promoted value rather than an event
Handley encourages marketers to share the value of what they’re writing rather than just the summary of it, whether that’s a subject line or a social media promotion. Focus on an action you took to achieve a specific goal or an action the reader can take to achieve a goal. Make it clear what they’ll get by engaging with your content.
 

When promoting her newsletter on Twitter, Handley illustrates the value of her newsletter in a relatable way before sharing the link. Source.

 
For example, “Don’t write, ‘The latest issue of my newsletter just dropped’ with a link to it — who cares?” says Handley. “Share the value, not the event. Instead write, ‘How I learned to avoid writing by committee.’”
9. She measured outcomes, not just the size
“Purpose defines goals,” says Handley. “My purpose is to nurture and have fun. That keeps me focused on what matters, which is probably different than what most newsletters look at.” Handley says she doesn’t look at click-through rates like many other newsletter writers but rather a metric she made up for herself: Open-to-Write-Back-Rate (OWBR). That is, for every email sent, how many readers personally respond?
 
“Purpose defines goals. My purpose is to nurture and have fun. That keeps me focused on what matters, which is probably different than what most newsletters look at.” – Ann Handley
 
While the metric for your newsletter may be different than OWBR, the key is to look at the metrics that measure key outcomes rather than the mere size of your list. “Size is a byproduct, not a goal,” Handley says.
Create your own Annarchy
It’s easy to want to copy and paste someone else’s approach to success and feel married to it. However, if there’s one thing to learn from Handley, it’s to make your newsletter your own. What are you passionate about? What do you wish existed in the world? Take each of these suggestions and tailor it to your style and audience. Are you ready to get started building your own unique newsletter? Check out our newsletter builder now.
The post How Ann Handley Grew Her Newsletter, ‘Total Annarchy,’ from 0 – 42,000 Subscribers appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

TikTok was the most downloaded app of 2021. It now has more than one billion users.
Did any of us at Buffer predict such a rapid rise when TikTok first landed on our radar?
For fun, I did a quick search of our Slack archives to see if I could find out. The first mention of TikTok was by Ash Read, our former Head of Content, in August of 2018. TikTok had just acquired Musical.ly as an entry point into the U.S. market.
A screenshot of the first mention of TikTok in our marketing Slack channel.The next mention was in November 2018, when another former teammate of mine, Alfred Lua, was working on a blog post about the 21 Top Social Media Sites to Consider for Your Brand. At that point, TikTok was number ten on the list with 500 million monthly active users, just behind Tumblr and just ahead of Twitter.
A screenshot of the next mention of TikTok, a couple of months later.The only response to whether anyone was using TikTok.Fast forward back to today and TikTok is nipping at the heels of incumbent platforms like Facebook and Instagram and has grown in a way that I would never have imagined. It’s also now the most visited domain on the internet, ending Google’s fifteen-year reign.
It doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. With the rise of short-form videos, powerful creator tools, and features that drive virality inside and outside of the platform, TikTok achieved more than forty percent growth last year.
It’s not only content creators and influencers that are sharing TikToks every day. Businesses of all kinds are taking advantage of TikTok’s capacity to deliver a vast amount of organic reach in a short space of time. With the right plan and creative execution, there are opportunities abound to build a massive audience (without the need for a massive budget).
I’ve been learning this first hand from Buffer customers, thanks to a steady stream of feature requests, asking for an integration with TikTok. And, of course, it makes sense. Like every other social platform, you get the best results if you plan your content ahead of time and post consistently.
A few of the feature requests we’ve received for TikTok scheduling.People were so keen for us to integrate with TikTok, they even started sharing product mockups to inspire our designers.
A “mock-up” that was sent to us by a customer.So, we started thinking. What is the fastest and most valuable way that we can help marketers plan and schedule their TikTok videos, today?
Using reminders to help with TikTok planning
Two of our product principles are to keep things simple and to add value incrementally (we don’t wait to add everything at once).
With that in mind, we looked at how we currently support Instagram Stories scheduling. Perhaps we could replicate a similar workflow.
The way it works is:

You upload your video content to Buffer.
Then choose a date and time you’d like to publish the post.
When that time comes, Buffer sends a reminder notification to your phone, with everything ready for you to finish the post in the app.

This “reminder” workflow is already very familiar for social media marketers and in the graph below you can see how it has grown in popularity among our customers. About 19,000 Instagram Story reminders are created and scheduled through Buffer every month.
Instagram Story Reminders have been trending upwardsGiven the success of Instagram Story reminders, creating something similar seemed like a natural first foray into the world of TikTok.
Moving fast with mobile
TikTok is a mobile-first platform, with the vast majority of content coming straight from the creator’s phone. So when it comes to scheduling, we decided to build TikTok Reminders into our mobile apps, to begin with. We considered adding to our web platform too, but in the spirit of building quickly and adding value incrementally, we’re excited to release it on mobile and then add it to web once we have more feedback and advice from our customers.
Andy, one of our iOS engineers, was able to whip up the first prototype in less than two hours.
Julia, one of our customer advocates, was excited to see the prototype!From there, we fleshed out the prototype over the course of about a month, tested the finished product internally, and submitted it to the Apple app store and Google Play store for review.
How TikTok Reminders work
With Buffer’s mobile app you can plan and schedule your TikTok videos in advance, alongside the rest of your social content. It’s pretty simple; upload your video, add a caption, and schedule a posting time. When the time comes, we’ll send you a notification to publish the video on TikTok.
Step 1: Load your TikTok content into Buffer.
Select TikTok under the Reminders section of the navigation panel. From there you can create your TikTok post by adding media and a caption.
TikTok Reminders are now in the navigation drawer of the Buffer mobile appAdd your media and your caption to the post in Buffer.Step 2: Schedule a time to post to TikTok.
Choose the date and time to receive a reminder to post.
Choose a date and time to get a reminder notification.Step 3: Finish the post in TikTok.
When it’s time to post your TikTok, Buffer will send you a push notification that will guide you to the TikTok app to publish your content.
Buffer will prepare the post and prompt you to open TikTok to finish the post.Getting started with TikTok
TikTok can be a little daunting if you’re not familiar with the platform. But don’t worry, you don’t need to be a great dancer or video genius to kickstart your TikTok presence. I’ve compiled some of my favorite TikTok marketing resources below. I hope you find them useful!

TikTok Creative Playbook for Small Businesses [PDF] – TikTok

Small Wins: How small businesses are unlocking the magic of TikTok – TikTok

41 TikTok Video Ideas For Small Businesses – Lightricks

How to Use TikTok Marketing to Make Your Business Go Viral [Youtube Video] – Shopify

A Guide to TikTok for Ecommerce Businesses – ReferralCandy

We’d love your feedback
TikTok is a new area for Buffer and we’d love to understand more about how we can help you save time and grow your TikTok presence. Would you like to schedule reminders through our web dashboard, too? Are we missing anything from our mobile app? What sort of advice and resources would you like to see from us?
Let us know by sending us a tweet @buffer or by dropping us a note (or mockup!) using our feature request form.

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