Knowledge is Power

The more you know about what you’re doing, the easier it will be to accomplish. This may seem self-explanatory, but many people don’t realize that you can always find out more information. It only takes a few minutes to look up something on the internet, consult a reference book, or call up someone you know has experience with the issue you’re facing.

Gaining knowledge has other benefits as well. The more you know about a given subject, the better you will be able to focus on your goal and work toward it. You cannot reach your destination if you cannot find the path. Look upon knowledge as the pruning shears of your mental garden, clearing the way for enthusiasm to grow and spread. With the right set of tools, you can accomplish any task easily.

Being committed to achieving your aim is essential to generating a sense of enthusiasm. Whether you want to have gleaming white teeth or flash your pearly whites at crowds of thousands as you accept your Academy Award, you should be completely committed to what you’re trying to accomplish.

One way to cement your personal commitment is to outline a step-by-step plan for reaching your goals. You can do this with any task, no matter how great or small (though you might save time to generate a mental plan for things like washing the dinner dishes, as it might take you more time to write it all down than it would to actually wash them).

On a sheet of paper- or for monumental tasks such as changing careers, at the beginning of a notebook- note your starting point: where you are now. Leave yourself some space, and then jot down where you want to be and how long you plan on taking to get there. Then go back and break down the process of getting from point A to point B in detailed steps. This not only helps you to visualize reaching your goal, it also allows you to cross steps off as you complete them. Your enthusiasm will be sustained as you move further toward your goal.

While you’re writing things down, consider creating a contract with yourself to reach your objective. You can even ask a friend or family member to act as a witness, which will further solidify your intentions to follow through. Your contract can be a simple document stating your promise to yourself, or a detailed map of the things you will do to help yourself reach your aims, with deadline dates for additional motivation and bursts of enthusiasm. Keep your contract posted visibly to remind yourself of your intentions. Every time you see it, you will find yourself eager to achieve your goal and fulfill your contract.

How to Leverage the Marketing Power of Your Facebook Cover Photo

What if I told you that you have a valuable marketing tool at your fingertips that you’re not using? And then, what if I said that it doesn’t have to cost your business anything to use? Would you jump at the chance to leverage the power of this tool?

Of course, you would.

That marketing tool, ladies and gentlemen, is your Facebook cover photo.

You may not think it does a lot for you. It’s just another branding tool after all, right? Slap your logo into place, and you’re good to go.

Wrong.

It’s a chance to drive action, to make a sale or earn a like. Here’s how you can leverage the marketing power of your Facebook cover photo.

Companies like Coca-Cola understand the value of creating intrigue on their page. They do this by getting creative and making their profile page one-of-a-kind. Here, it’s not about the cover photo itself but rather about how all the elements on the page interact with each other.

Here’s another example from Paris where the company preserves their logo in their profile picture but still makes the background look as if it’s part of the cover photo’s design.

According to Inc.com, a professional web design helps people put trust in your brand. Your Facebook page is no exception to that rule.

In many cases, your Facebook page will be the first time people interact with your brand, so it’s important that you make a good first impression.

This tactic of combining your profile and cover photo is one way to do it by creating an attractive, unified theme throughout your profile.

If you’re trying to draw “likes” to your page, your cover photo is the perfect tool to do that. By developing a clear call-to-action like this, you’re going to see more people take action than if you just had a generic picture as your cover image.

You can accomplish this in several ways:

Have a picture of someone on your team pointing to the “Like” button.Have your cover photo mention the perks of liking your page.Use other design techniques that draw the eyes to the “Like” button, such as a maze that ends there or an arrow pointing to it.

Before you jump on this tactic, however, make sure you’re pointing to the action you want people to take most. If you have a primary call-to-action button, such as “Contact Us” or “Shop Now,” you don’t want to be pointing to your “Like” button and competing against the action you really want your visitors to take. However, you can use the same concept of “pointing” to a button, but arrange your cover photo to draw the eyes to your main CTA button rather than your “Like” button.

If you’re not using this tactic, you should be. When you’re ready to launch a new product, include a picture of it as your cover photo. You might add some supportive text, especially if it’s a digital product. That way, you can entice people to learn more and sign up for your offer or purchase your new product.

To make this option more efficient, create an image that is interactive with the page. Your photo might point to your page’s call-to-action button, which you could set up to send viewers to a sign-up page for your latest eCourse, for example.

Ask yourself this:

What is the number one thing you want viewers to do once they hit your Facebook page?

If it’s to visit your website, then why not make that call-to-action clear?

Unfortunately, you can’t make your cover photo directly link up to your website. What you can do is share your web address in your cover photo to get more people to check your site out.

If you didn’t know already, you now can rearrange the tabs straight below your cover photo. To do so, click the “More” tab and then choose “Manage Tabs.” From here, you can also add custom tabs. Now, decide what offer you want to advertise, and arrange it appropriately in your tabs.

Now that you have that done create a cover photo that points to that particular tab. You can call attention to it through text, arrows, or other elements that point to the specific offer.

If you have a new coupon offer, this is an excellent tactic to make that offer known. According to Lab42, promotions and discounts are the number one reason people follow business’s Facebook pages. You’re likely to drive more traffic and “Likes” by promoting your discount prominently in your cover photo and making the coupon offer easy to redeem in your tabs.

If you don’t know what you’re doing with your cover photo, it’s best to hire a designer or to assign the task to your in-house designer. Otherwise, follow these tips to properly format your Facebook cover photo:

Design your photo at 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall. This is the optimal desktop size, and with it, you won’t have to do any readjusting when you upload it.Save your file as sRGB JPG and less than 100 kb for the quickest loading power.Pay attention to where your profile picture lays. You don’t want to cover up important information behind it!

Here’s how your cover photo size breaks down:

With all of these ideas in mind, you can use your Facebook cover photo to make a huge impact on your page. Whether that’s attracting more visitors to your timeline through an attractive, clever design, or it’s getting more people to sign up for your offer with a prominent call-to-action, your cover photo can change the tune of your business’s profile.

Which one of these ideas will you test out first?

View the original article here