Here are the emojis coming with iOS 10.2, including an astronaut emoji 🎉

 Apple dropped the first beta for iOS 10.2 today. And it comes with the latest update in emoji innovation. You may have noticed that Apple already redesigned most of the core emojis and added new gender and race options with iOS 10. But the company didn’t stop there. With iOS 10.2, Apple is adding full Unicode 9.0 support. Given that hundreds of millions of people use Apple-flavored… Read More

When President Obama leaves office, his @Potus tweets leave with him

 When President Obama turns over the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he’ll also handing over a number of high profile social media accounts. Eight days ahead of the election, the White House is outlining how the transfer of social power will go when the commander-in-chief steps aside early next year. The President’s Twitter account, for one, will be getting a fresh start of… Read More

A Guide to Local Content Marketing for Small Businesses

A significant portion of Google searches relate to a specific location. People search for things like “pizza New York City” or “spa Daytona Beach” millions of times per day. That’s because location is just as important for your website as it is for real estate. Tagging your content with relevant local information can draw in a sea of new visitors and keep your page relevant longer.

The Unique Situation of Being Local

Building an online presence for a local company can be a bit challenging. The strategies are different for content creation. Since being local ties your company to a specific market, you’ll often see a smaller selection of topics and options.

A website’s bounce rate is a measure of how many people viewed only one page without clicking another link. Some companies will naturally have higher bounce rates, like news stations. Others struggle to keep them as low as possible. The more your website demonstrates local personalization combined with beautiful design, the more likely you’ll get your ratings where they need to be.

The Steps to Crafting Unique, Local Content Marketing for Small Businesses

Tailoring your subject matter doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, if you do some research ahead of time, you might find the entire process easier than you anticipated.

1. Identify the local audience. If you stay local, then you’re already narrowing the scope of your content and making it easier to find your audience. However, you should fine-tune it for consistency and relatability. Think about crafting buyer personas. These simple profiles offer imaginary people for whom to write. The result feels like very personalized content for anyone who meets the target audience requirements.

TOOLS: Try Facebook Audience Insights or Neilson Prizm to see specific information about your local demographics.

2. Examine the competition and your existing content. Another great way to find useful content types is to look at successful businesses. You can peruse their articles to see if any particular topics are popular. Likewise, you’ll get a good idea about what should be avoided to keep your audience happy.

Take the time to compare the content you already have. Look for things such as shares, comments and likes, which are easy indicators of the post’s exposure. If you seem to be doing better, great! If not, give your content another look. You also can take advantage of analytics to see which of your topics are performing the best.

TOOLS: For analytics, Buzzsumo and Google Analytics transform page views and interactions into usable information and statistics.

3. Redefine broad tactics to make them local. Just because you’re targeting a smaller audience doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of broad content strategies. In fact, adding a local twist to these proven methods is one of the easiest and most effective ways to create engaging local subject matter.

One simple way to accomplish this is by crafting unique headlines. Some formats are simply more successful than others and have proven themselves over and over. Use numbers or a “how-to” approach followed by a geographical keyword. For example, “7 Fun Things to Do During a Daytona Beach Vacation” or “5 Dates You Should Avoid Las Vegas.”

TOOLS: This style of heading is wildly popular among big-name entertainment sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy. Looking to them for inspiration can be incredibly helpful.

4. Look to the past for inspiration. If you’re really running low on ideas, check out past infographics from the town in question. In many cases, you can find data that’s already been fully researched. All you need to do is make sure it’s up-to-date and expand into the story to craft something interesting.

TOOLS: A Google image search, of course, yields high-volume infographic results.

Once you figure out what works in your local area, it will be easier than ever to add your personal touch and creative spin to the information. Do your research when choosing topics and titles — and you’re bound to see interest from your local patrons.

Local Shop Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "A Guide to Local Content Marketing for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends

Sheriff’s department denies surveilling Standing Rock protesters via Facebook check-ins

 Like wildfire, the latest viral protest spreading across the internet involves Facebook users checking in at Standing Rock, ND en masse to “confuse” and “overwhelm” law enforcement authorities seeking to disrupt ongoing protests against the proposed path of an oil pipeline. The viral Facebook post claims that the local sheriff’s department in Morton County is… Read More

Intellectual property strategies for startups

 Intellectual property protection is an important consideration for most startups. Obtaining intellectual property protection, such as patents, can minimize competition and act as a defensive mechanism against infringement claims from others. Intellectual property also can attract or solidify funding and partnerships. Read More

Why The Candidates Aren’t Talking About Your Business

(This post originally appeared on Inc.)

We’ve been hearing a whole lot during this presidential election cycle about walls, e-mail messages, inappropriate behavior, and corruption. But one subject that has gone largely unaddressed is the issues facing small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

Surprisingly, that might be good news.

A recent study by Carbonite found that SMB owners have some big concerns. Seventy-five percent say that Washington is actually hurting their companies. Thirty-four percent believe it’s likely they’ll be hacked this year, and 81 percent feel that Washington needs to do more about the problem. They also ranked trade policies, student loans, and rising insurance costs as chief concerns.

Those are serious issues. But the real reason behind the drought of headlines announcing new SMB initiatives might be that the sector is doing better than it has been in a while. Recent research and market factors point to a pretty rosy outlook in several key areas.

Sales are growing. While the post-Great Recession presidential elections in 2008 and 2012 saw SMBs struggling, 2015 SMB growth increased nearly a full percentage point year-over-year. According to research from financial software firm Sageworks, businesses with less than $5 million in annual revenue experienced an average of 7.8 percent annual sales growth during that year. Net profit margins, representing how many cents of profit were generated for each dollar of sales, improved to 7.5 percent from 6.4 percent among privately held small businesses, the fourth consecutive annual improvement in this study.

Financial situations are improving. Two-thirds of 600 small business owners said their companies’ financial situation was “good” at the start of this year, and 71 percent of them said they expected their companies to be in “good financial shape” throughout 2016 in a Wells Fargo survey conducted earlier this year.

Optimism is strong. While the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) monthly optimism index has been underwhelming, Wells Fargo reports that small business optimism had improved slightly and overall has remained relatively stable throughout 2016. More recent analysis from online lender CAN Capital found that 64 percent of small business owners are expecting growth in the next 12 months, and Chase Bank released news this month that, despite a volatile U.S. Presidential election and the upcoming holiday season, a majority of small business owners are optimistic about their prospects. PNC bank also just reported similar good news: more than 70 percent of nearly 2,000 business owners and executives surveyed said they were comfortable with the way things were going at the national level, while 77 percent also said they were “optimistic” about their local economy.

Overall business conditions are favorable. Interest rates are still historically low, and companies with good credit and strong balance sheets have access to funds. Inflation has also been low, keeping many costs of doing business manageable. While economic growth isn’t going to break any records, it’s still in positive territory. New technology has increased productivity. Energy prices remain affordable, and although historically higher, certain tax incentives for capital investment and research and development were made permanent at the end of 2015, making planning easier and reducing uncertainty.

Of course, challenges remain. The concerns evidenced by the Carbonite poll are similar to ones articulated by most business owners I know. Like me, they are working very hard to stay profitable and grow their companies. But most of my clients admit that things aren’t so bad, especially when compared to the last two election cycles. So that’s good news. And we all know that good news rarely makes it to the TV networks. The presidential candidates know that too. So maybe the fact that they’re not talking so much about small business right now isn’t such a bad thing at all.

Standing Rock pipeline protest absent from Facebook Trends

 A massive social media protest is exploding on Facebook, not Twitter for a change, yet Facebook’s dehumanized Trending system is failing to pick it up. People around the country are checking in to Facebook at the Standing Rock Native American Reservation in an effort to supposedly hinder local Morton County police from targeting protesters there in person to fight an oil pipeline… Read More

City news: Tesco, UK exports, Stock Spirits and Majestic Wine

OVER 125 institutional funds have filed a £100million-plus claim for damages against Tesco following accounting irregularities.

The Investment Association step up pressure on FTSE bosses' to justify bonuses

FUND managers are stepping up the pressure on Britain’s top companies to justify boardroom pay by telling them to publish how much their chief executives make compared with the average employee.

The Investment Association step up pressure on FTSE bosses' to justify bonuses

FUND managers are stepping up the pressure on Britain’s top companies to justify boardroom pay by telling them to publish how much their chief executives make compared with the average employee.

How the Election is Impacting Halloween Spending (Watch)

People are spending more money on Halloween this year than they ever have before. And you might have Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to thank for that.

Before this year, 2012 held the record for highest amount spent on Halloween. And there was even an uptick in 2008 even though the country was in the middle of a recession. So it stands to reason that people tend to spend a bit more on Halloween during election years.

That could be because of all those Trump and Clinton Masks you’ve likely seen around Halloween stores. But it could also be because people simply need a release from the stress caused by a long election season.

Whatever the reason, trends like this are important for companies to note. If you have a store that sells any Halloween supplies, you should be aware of people’s spending habits so that you can create messaging that’s most likely to get them to buy.

What You Can Learn From This Halloween Business Trend?

Halloween and the election might not seem like they have a lot in common on the surface. But tons of industries experience changes like this based on factors that aren’t directly related. So it’s important that businesses pay attention to trends in various areas to stay ahead in their market.

Image: Newsy

This article, "How the Election is Impacting Halloween Spending (Watch)" was first published on Small Business Trends

How to Spot and Clean up Toxic Corporate Culture

A toxic corporate culture can do significant harm to your business. Here are tips to spot the elements of toxic culture and the ways to fix it.

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3 Surefire Ways to Keep Your Customers Engaged via Content

compelling content can keep the customers engaged and improve your business. Here are 3 surefire ways to create and distribute content with customers.

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Play My Way app aims to turn kids’ love of mobile devices on its head

 Parents despairing of ever being able to separate their offspring from the mobile devices glued to their fingertips might be interested in an app called Play My Way that’s being built by a startup from Lebanon and designed to interrupt other apps with a little worthy educational content. Read More

Flirtey drones deliver socks from the sky at Menlo Ventures’ annual partner meeting

 Around the world, drones have been delivering life-saving drugs and blood to clinics, and contrarily tasty treats like burritos, pizza, and Slurpees to homes or campuses. Civilian drones have also conducted countless surveys of farms, construction sites, and surveillance around venues with a high security risk. Now, in a stunt that begs to be spoofed by Mike Judge for his HBO… Read More

Airstory Gets Your Team Collaborating on Content — From Anywhere

There are many small businesses that specialize in creating content for websites, and when Airstory becomes available by the end of the month, it could make it much easier to do so.

Airstory is a collaborative cloud-based content creation platform for planning, writing, editing and kicking ideas around with your team. It works no matter where they are or what device you are using.

The Airstory software brings all of the research, data points, images, graphs, notes and any other material into an outline or a doc with drag-and-drop functionality. This information can be accessed by anyone with a simple invitation to bring the entire team to collaborate on the current draft.

The software saves research as cards so they can be easily accessed by the team. Once the cards are saved in the Airstory library, they can be searched and amended as needed by adding new information.

As the team continues to research, Airstory lets everyone comment like they are chatting. The in-line commenting doesn’t require any additional functions. Start typing your comments, answer previous concerns and even add an emoji.

While the collaborative process is great, keeping it under control is important. User permission in Airstory lets you designate who can comment, and who has access when you are not working on a document.

When you are ready to write, outline your content by adding headings, subheads, bullets and more, and drag the notes to adjust your story. The importance of quality content can’t be understated, especially with the increasing capability of Google’s algorithm for detecting bad or clickbait content. As these algorithms get smarter, quality will be emphasized and it will place sites that have it on top of search queries.

So this is important for any business that stresses content creation — which is most companies these days! Airstory is scheduled for launch today and you can get an invite by visiting the site and signing up.

Image: Airstory.co

This article, "Airstory Gets Your Team Collaborating on Content — From Anywhere" was first published on Small Business Trends

5 Facts About The Cloud You Probably Didn’t Know

(This post originally appeared on Inc.)

If you’re running a small or mid-sized business (SMB), you’re likely using some sort of cloud-based applications. For many of my clients, the concept of leaving data in someone else’s hands was a little disconcerting at first. But most are coming around. So, now that you’re more fully embracing the cloud, here are five things you probably didn’t know about it!

1. Software as a Service (SaaS) generates more than half of cloud computing revenue.

Research firm IDC estimates that the worldwide market will be nearly $200 billion in a few years, with the U.S. responsible for about two-thirds of that spending. Three primary software markets: applications as a service, system infrastructure software (SIS) as a service (which combine to form SaaS), and application development and deployment (AD&D) or platform as a service (PaaS), were responsible for 83.7 percent of all public cloud revenue in 2015. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) generated the remaining 16.3 percent. Most software companies I know are devoting the lion’s share of their research towards cloud-based applications and away from old school, on-premises, client-server solutions.

 2. SMBs that move to the cloud typically doubled profits and achieved 25 percent revenue growth.

A 2015 study by business software firm Exact and Pb7 Research found that small businesses are reaping big bottom-line benefits, including profit and revenue growth. Small companies are turning to the cloud for increased security, lower IT costs, and enhanced mobile access. Fifty-one percent of U.S. the study’s respondents claimed to use at least some kind of cloud software in their business and nearly 30 percent of U.S. small businesses said they use three or more cloud applications to get work done.

3. New cloud solutions are giving SMBs powerful analytics options.

Harnessing the power of data is important for any business, but can be difficult for SMBs that don’t have access to data scientists. In forecasting 2016 trends, SMB technology research firm SMB Group says that nearly half (48 percent) small businesses that plan to purchase or upgrade their analytics solutions will purchase cloud-based options like IBM’s Watson Analytics or Tableau’s Vizable. These powerful tools distill data into easy to understand, usable formats like charts and graphs. Such tools allow businesses to spot trends and even extend offers based on predictive models.

4. SMBs consider cloud backup more secure than on-site backup.

A 2016 survey by research firm Clutch found that a whopping 90 percent of SMBs using online backup services say they are equally or more secure than on-site backup. Twenty-four percent ranked cloud solutions “much more secure” than on-site backup, and nearly 40 percent cite security as a top benefit of using cloud-based backup.

 5. Private and hybrid clouds are gaining traction.

Private and hybrid clouds are more complex to manage, but could see adoption jump 100 percent in the SMB sector, according to research firm TechAisle. Private and hybrid options offer greater flexibility for growing businesses over public cloud options, which win when it comes to ease of use. Integrating a hybrid cloud strategy into your growing business, may take some professional help, but could enhance your ability to scale and adapt your cloud-based options.

Eurozone economy grows just 0.3% in Q3 showing EU hit WORSE than UK by Brexit

EUROPE's economy squeezed out of growth of just 0.3 per cent in the third quarter of the year, despite mammoth efforts by the European Central Bank to kick-start expansion.