12 Simple Hacks to "Undo" Those Embarrassing Tech Mistakes

Written by Lindsay Kolowich | @lkolo25

In this fast-paced world, when we're firing off emails, posting status updates, and sending messages a mile a minute, we've all pressed "send" or "delete" sooner than we've intended at one time or another.

From posting a photo of my "amazung view of the muntains" to sending an email prematurely, I know that feeling of regret all too well.

We're all trying to maintain control of our online footprint as best we can. But with so many opportunities to mess up on the web, it's easy to make silly tech mistakes from time to time.

Luckily for us, there are ways to correct some of these embarrassing slip-ups. I consulted my colleagues and scoured the web to find the following tech hacks that are so simple and yet so life-changing, you won't believe you ever lived without them.

1) How to Un-Send an Email on Gmail

Have you ever sent an email and immediately wished you could take it back? If you use Gmail, you totally can. Technically, the un-send feature in Gmail doesn't actually un-send your email -- what it really does is delay the sending of your message for a few seconds, giving you the option to undo the send while the clock is ticking. All you have to do is enable the feature via Gmail Labs. Here's how to do it ...

Step 1: Go to Settings from your Gmail homepage. The General tab should be open by default. If not, open it.
Step 2: Scroll down until you see the Undo Send section. Click the check box next to "Enable Undo Send," and choose your cancellation period. You can make it five seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, or 30 seconds.
Step 3: Don't forget to click Save Changes at the bottom of the screen. (For you non-Gmail folks, I tried looking for solutions in Outlook and other email clients but couldn't find any that actually worked. If you know of any, feel free to share tips with readers in the comments section.)

2) How to Restore Tabs in a Web Browser

If you're like me and keep 10+ tabs open on your internet browser at once, it can be a little devastating when you accidentally close a tab without meaning to -- or, even worse, when you close all of them at once.

That's why I rejoiced when I heard about this hack for Chrome and Firefox, which lets you recover one or of all your previously opened browser tabs without having to dig through your web history. (It doesn't work if you quit the application altogether.) It's simple: On a Mac, hit Command-Shift-T. On a PC, hit Ctrl-Shift-T.

3) How to Recover an Unsaved Word Document

This is the worst. Has Word ever crashed on you? Or maybe your computer died and you lost hours -- or even days -- of work? In some cases, you can recover that lost file the way it was at the moment you lost it. Unfortunately, if you never saved the document in the first place, you're out of luck -- but that means you need to get into the habit of saving documents the moment you start them.

If your version of Microsoft Office has AutoRecovery, you can recover a file that's been autosaved by looking in the AutoRecovery folder the next time you open Word. Here are the instructions for Mac, and then for PC.

For Mac:
 
Open Microsoft Word and go to File, then Open Recent -- and your file will (hopefully!) be listed in the Open Recent list.

Alternatively, you can find it by opening your Finder and looking in /Users/username/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 AutoRecovery. (Note that you have to replace username with your personal username.)

To eliminate the guessing game in the future, you can take the precaution of choosing exactly where you want Word to autosave files. To do this, go to Preferences in the Word menu and click File Locations.

Choose AutoRecover files.

Click "Modify...". Then choose where you want your files to autosave. You can also create a new folder specifically for autosaved files.

Finally -- one more Microsoft Word tip! -- there's a feature on some Office applications that lets you save your files automatically on a regular basis. You can set up exactly how often you want your files saved. Just make sure you don't use AutoRecover in place of actually saving your files. Here's how to customize it:

On the Word menu, click Preferences. Click Save (in the Output and Sharing section).

In the "Save AutoRecover info every..." box, enter how frequently you want Word to autosave your documents. Click OK.

For PC:

Step 1: Open Microsoft Word and go to File, then Open, and click Recent Documents from the dropdown menu.
Step 2: Scroll to the end of all your recent documents, and then click Recover Unsaved Documents. Step 3: If you find the Word Document you're looking for, double-click to open it, and then save it immediately. Alternatively, you can find it by searching your computer.

If you have Windows 8.1 or Windows 8 ... 
 
Step 1: Press the Windows logo key + E to open Windows Explorer.
Step 2: In the Search This PC box, type the document name and press ENTER. (If you're unsure of the document name and don't have a ton of documents to sort though, you can also just type .docx in the Search This PC box and press ENTER and look through all your documents by date.)
Step 3: If you see the Word document you're looking for, double-click the document to open it.

If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 ...
 
Step 1: Click Start , type the document name in the Start Search box, and press ENTER. (If you're unsure of the document name and don't have a ton of documents to sort though, you can also just type in .docx and press ENTER and look through all your documents by date.)
Step 2: If you see the Word document you're looking for, double-click the document to open it.

4) How to Edit a Facebook Post, Status, or Caption
If you write a post, status, or caption on Facebook that you want to change later, you can edit it via an internet browser. (Unfortunately, you can't yet change it via Facebook's mobile app.) Here's how to do it in a browser:

First, hover your mouse over the post you want to edit. A small, grey arrow will show up in the top, right-hand corner of the post.

Click the arrow and choose Edit. Edit away! Click Done Editing when you're finished. Note that edited posts will be labeledEdited, as shown below.

5) How to Undo Typing on an iPhone to Recover Deleted Text
Did you accidentally erase something you just typed? To get it back, you need to Undo Typing. All you have to do is shake your phone, and a window will pop up prompting you to Undo Typing. Click Undo, and you'll get that text back.

Be warned, though: The "undo" feature only seems to give back text you've deleted by selecting the text and then pressing delete -- not if you've deleted it letter-by-letter. See it in action: Image Credit: Chris Wade

6) How to Undo Typing on a Computer 
This keyboard shortcut never gets old. Ever delete something you typed out, but really wish you didn't? Undo typing on a Mac by pressing Command + Z, or on a PC by pressing Ctrl + Z. It'll "undo" whatever the last thing you typed (or deleted) was. Alternatively, you can click Edit from the menu at the top of your screen and choose Undo Typing. You can repeat this action several times to keep undoing the last few key stroke sequences you made.

7) How to Redo Typing on a Computer 

Change your mind and want to "redo" the typing you just un-did? In most applications, there's a shortcut for that, too. Redo typing on a Mac by pressing Shift + Command + Z, unless you're in Microsoft Word, in which case press Command + Y. On a PC, press Shift + Ctrl + Z, unless you're in Word, in which case press Ctrl + Y. Alternatively, you can click Edit from the menu at the top of your screen and choose Redo Typing.

8) How to Unsend a Text Message on iPhone, Android, or Blackberry 

Have you ever sent a text message you wish you could take back? There's an app for that! TigerText is a free app that lets you recall your text message at any time -- even after the person has read it. This app can also encrypt your text messages, set them to self-destruct after a chosen period of time (kind of like SnapChat), and can let you know when your texts are read by the recipients. You'll need to download the app, connect it to your email address and phone, and create a password. This solution only works if both you and the recipient have the app installed, but I still thought it was cool enough to share.

9) How to Un-Send an iMessage

Without TigerText, you can't un-send an iMessage on an iPhone once it's been delivered. But if you're quick enough, you can stop it from sending while it's still in the process of sending.

How? By putting your phone in Airplane Mode to stop the text from sending. iMessages send pretty quickly nowadays, so you don't have much time ... meaning you'll probably want to practice if you ever plan on trying this in the future. Here's how to do it:

Step 1: As soon as you realize your mistake, press the Home button.
Step 2: Go into the Settings app. (It may not be in the same place on your iPhone as it is here.)
Step 3: Switch on Airplane Mode by sliding the button to the right so it turns green. If it works, a small airplane will appear in the top, left-hand corner of your iPhone screen.
Step 4: Go back to the text message. If it failed to deliver, then it worked! You can delete it if you want.

(You can usually turn your phone on Airplane Mode by simply swiping up from the bottom of your screen -- but note that you can't do this while you're texting, which is why you need to go into Settings instead.)

10) How to Rewrite Your Instagram Caption
Can't think of a super clever Instagram caption on the spot? Not to worry: You can always edit (rewrite) your caption later. Here's how to do it:

Step 1: Open the picture on your phone and tap the ellipsis.
Step 2: Choose Edit from the menu that appears.
Step 3: Edit the caption to your heart's desire, and to save it, press Done.

Note: To delete your caption entirely, follow the steps outlined in #11. When it comes to deleting the caption, Instagram treats captions like it does comments.

11) How to Delete Instagram Comments
You can delete Instagram comments and delete your own Instagram caption using the same trick. Here's how to do it:
Step 1: Open the picture on your phone and tap the thought bubble icon.
Step 2: Hold down your comment for about two seconds, and swipe to the left. Tap the trash can.

You can also do this with any comment on your photo. You can also do it with any comments you make on other users' photos.

12) How to Undo a Retweet on Twitter
Ever retweeted a post on Twitter, and later decided you want to remove it from your Twitter feed? It only takes one click of a mouse. If you used Twitter's retweet feature, the same retweet button you clicked (the rotating arrows) will undo your retweet.

It won't delete the tweet from the original poster's page, but it'll remove it from your own feed.

If you retweeted with a comment, you can remove the retweet by clicking the "delete" link located beneath the tweet, just as you would delete a regular tweet from your profile.

12 Simple Hacks to "Undo" Those Embarrassing Tech Mistakes

12 Simple Hacks to "Undo" Those Embarrassing Tech Mistakes

12 Simple Hacks to "Undo" Those Embarrassing Tech Mistakes
Written by Lindsay Kolowich | @lkolo25

In this fast-paced world, when we're firing off emails, posting status updates, and sending messages a mile a minute, we've all pressed "send" or "delete" sooner than we've intended at one time or another.

From posting a photo of my "amazung view of the muntains" to sending an email prematurely, I know that feeling of regret all too well.

We're all trying to maintain control of our online footprint as best we can. But with so many opportunities to mess up on the web, it's easy to make silly tech mistakes from time to time.

Luckily for us, there are ways to correct some of these embarrassing slip-ups. I consulted my colleagues and scoured the web to find the following tech hacks that are so simple and yet so life-changing, you won't believe you ever lived without them.

1) How to Un-Send an Email on Gmail
Have you ever sent an email and immediately wished you could take it back? If you use Gmail, you totally can. Technically, the un-send feature in Gmail doesn't actually un-send your email -- what it really does is delay the sending of your message for a few seconds, giving you the option to undo the send while the clock is ticking. All you have to do is enable the feature via Gmail Labs. Here's how to do it ...

• Step 1: Go to Settings from your Gmail homepage.The General tab should be open by default. If not, open it.
• Step 2: Scroll down until you see the Undo Send section. Click the check box next to "Enable Undo Send," and choose your cancellation period. You can make it five seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, or 30 seconds.
• Step 3: Don't forget to click Save Changes at the bottom of the screen.

(For you non-Gmail folks, I tried looking for solutions in Outlook and other email clients but couldn't find any that actually worked. If you know of any, feel free to share tips with readers in the comments section.)


2) How to Restore Tabs in a Web Browser
If you're like me and keep 10+ tabs open on your internet browser at once, it can be a little devastating when you accidentally close a tab without meaning to -- or, even worse, when you close all of them at once.

That's why I rejoiced when I heard about this hack for Chrome and Firefox, which lets you recover one or of all your previously opened browser tabs without having to dig through your web history. (It doesn't work if you quit the application altogether.)

It's simple: On a Mac, hit Command-Shift-T. On a PC, hit Ctrl-Shift-T.

3) How to Recover an Unsaved Word Document
This is the worst. Has Word ever crashed on you? Or maybe your computer died and you lost hours -- or even days -- of work? In some cases, you can recover that lost file the way it was at the moment you lost it. Unfortunately, if you never saved the document in the first place, you're out of luck -- but that means you need to get into the habit of saving documents the moment you start them.

If your version of Microsoft Office has AutoRecovery, you can recover a file that's been autosaved by looking in the AutoRecovery folder the next time you open Word. Here are the instructions for Mac, and then for PC.

For Mac: Open Microsoft Word and go to File, then Open Recent -- and your file will (hopefully!) be listed in the Open Recent list.

Alternatively, you can find it by opening your Finder and looking in /Users/username/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 AutoRecovery. (Note that you have to replace username with your personal username.)

To eliminate the guessing game in the future, you can take the precaution of choosing exactly where you want Word to autosave files. To do this, go to Preferences in the Word menu and click File Locations.

Choose AutoRecover files.

Click "Modify...". Then choose where you want your files to autosave. You can also create a new folder specifically for autosaved files.

Finally -- one more Microsoft Word tip! -- there's a feature on some Office applications that lets you save your files automatically on a regular basis. You can set up exactly how often you want your files saved. Just make sure you don't use AutoRecover in place of actually saving your files. Here's how to customize it:

On the Word menu, click Preferences. Click Save (in the Output and Sharing section).

In the "Save AutoRecover info every..." box, enter how frequently you want Word to autosave your documents. Click OK.

For PC:

• Step 1: Open Microsoft Word and go to File, then Open, and click Recent Documents from the dropdown menu.
• Step 2: Scroll to the end of all your recent documents, and then click Recover Unsaved Documents.
• Step 3: If you find the Word Document you're looking for, double-click to open it, and then save it immediately.

Alternatively, you can find it by searching your computer.

If you have Windows 8.1 or Windows 8 ...

• Step 1: Press the Windows logo key + E to open Windows Explorer.
• Step 2: In the Search This PC box, type the document name and press ENTER. (If you're unsure of the document name and don't have a ton of documents to sort though, you can also just type .docx in the Search This PC box and press ENTER and look through all your documents by date.)
• Step 3: If you see the Word document you're looking for, double-click the document to open it.

If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 ...

• Step 1: Click Start , type the document name in the Start Search box, and press ENTER. (If you're unsure of the document name and don't have a ton of documents to sort though, you can also just type in .docx and press ENTER and look through all your documents by date.)
• Step 2: If you see the Word document you're looking for, double-click the document to open it.

4) How to Edit a Facebook Post, Status, or Caption 
If you write a post, status, or caption on Facebook that you want to change later, you can edit it via an internet browser. (Unfortunately, you can't yet change it via Facebook's mobile app.) Here's how to do it in a browser:

First, hover your mouse over the post you want to edit. A small, grey arrow will show up in the top, righthand corner of the post.

Click the arrow and choose Edit.

Edit away! Click Done Editing when you're finished. Note that edited posts will be labeledEdited, as shown below.

5) How to Undo Typing on an iPhone to Recover Deleted Text
Did you accidentally erase something you just typed? To get it back, you need to Undo Typing. All you have to do is shake your phone, and a window will pop up prompting you to Undo Typing. Click Undo, and you'll get that text back.

Be warned, though: The "undo" feature only seems to give back text you've deleted by selecting the text and then pressing delete -- not if you've deleted it letter-by-letter. See it in action:

Image Credit: Chris Wade

6) How to Undo Typing on a Computer 
This keyboard shortcut never gets old. Ever delete something you typed out, but really wish you didn't? Undo typing on a Mac by pressing Command + Z, or on a PC by pressing Ctrl + Z. It'll "undo" whatever the last thing you typed (or deleted) was. Alternatively, you can click Edit from the menu at the top of your screen and choose Undo Typing. You can repeat this action several times to keep undoing the last few key stroke sequences you made.

7) How to Redo Typing on a Computer 
Change your mind and want to "redo" the typing you just un-did? In most applications, there's a shortcut for that, too. Redo typing on a Mac by pressing Shift + Command + Z, unless you're in Microsoft Word, in which case press Command + Y. On a PC, press Shift + Ctrl + Z, unless you're in Word, in which  case press Ctrl + Y. Alternatively, you can click Edit from the menu at the top of your screen and choose Redo Typing.

8) How to Unsend a Text Message on iPhone, Android, or Blackberry 
Have you ever sent a text message you wish you could take back? There's an app for that! TigerText is a free app that lets you recall your text message at any time -- even after the person has read it. This app can also encrypt your text messages, set them to self-destruct after a chosen period of time (kind of like SnapChat), and can let you know when your texts are read by the recipients. You'll need to download the app, connect it to your email address and phone, and create a password. This solution only works if both you and the recipient have the app installed, but I still thought it was cool enough to share.

9) How to Un-Send an iMessage
Without TigerText, you can't un-send an iMessage on an iPhone once it's been delivered. But if you're quick enough, you can stop it from sending while it's still in the process of sending.

How? By putting your phone in Airplane Mode to stop the text from sending. iMessages send pretty quickly nowadays, so you don't have much time ... meaning you'll probably want to practice if you ever plan on trying this in the future. Here's how to do it:

• Step 1: As soon as you realize your mistake, press the Home button.
• Step 2: Go into the Settings app. (It may not be in the same place on your iPhone as it is here.)
• Step 3: Switch on Airplane Mode by sliding the button to the right so it turns green. If it works, a small airplane will appear in the top, left-hand corner of your iPhone screen.
• Step 4: Go back to the text message. If it failed to deliver, then it worked!

You can delete it if you want. (You can usually turn your phone on Airplane Mode by simply swiping up from the bottom of your screen -- but note that you can't do this while you're texting, which is why you need to go into Settings instead.)

10) How to Rewrite Your Instagram Caption
Can't think of a super clever Instagram caption on the spot? Not to worry: You can always edit (rewrite) your caption later. Here's how to do it:

• Step 1: Open the picture on your phone and tap the ellipsis.
• Step 2: Choose Edit from the menu that appears.
• Step 3: Edit the caption to your heart's desire, and to save it, press Done.

Note: To delete your caption entirely, follow the steps outlined in #11. When it comes to deleting the caption, Instagram treats captions like it does comments.

11) How to Delete Instagram Comments 
You can delete Instagram comments and delete your own Instagram caption using the same trick. Here's how to do it:

• Step 1: Open the picture on your phone and tap the thought bubble icon.
• Step 2: Hold down your comment for about two seconds, and swipe to the left. Tap the trash can. You can also do this with any comment on your photo. You can also do it with any comments you make on other users' photos.

12) How to Undo a Retweet on Twitter
Ever retweeted a post on Twitter, and later decided you want to remove it from your Twitter feed? It only takes one click of a mouse. If you used Twitter's retweet feature, the same retweet button you clicked (the rotating arrows) will undo your retweet.

It won't delete the tweet from the original poster's page, but it'll remove it from your own feed.

If you retweeted with a comment, you can remove the retweet by clicking the "delete" link located beneath the tweet, just as you would delete a regular tweet from your profile.

12 Simple Hacks to "Undo" Those Embarrassing Tech Mistakes

7 Things You Must Do To Maximize The Value Of Your LinkedIn Profile

 By William Arruda , CONTRIBUTOR

 You’ve done all the hard work to create a stellar LinkedIn profile. You have a professional headshot, a compelling headline and a complete, authentic summary. When LinkedIn says your profile is “all-star,” it’s time to turn your hard work into a tool that will advance your career. Here are seven actions to take (in four categories) to maximize the value of your perfect profile:

 1. Make it visible. You don’t want to be the world’s best-kept secret, wasting all that effort you spent building the online representation of the real you. I recommend making every element of your profile visible to everyone. Through the Privacy and Settings option, you can choose to share your entire profile or just a few elements with public viewers. Allow anyone to see your public profile. What’s the value of creating your profile if you don’t showcase it?

 2. Keep it current. The more interaction you have with your profile, the more likely it will be seen by others. In fact, according to LinkedIn, you should “update your status at least 20 times per month in order to maximize your reach to approximately 60% of your unique audience.” Stay connected with your contacts by updating your status regularly – letting others know what you are working on and the events you are attending, along with sharing links to the content you find interesting. Direct People to it Sure, people can find your profile through LinkedIn searches – publishing all the right keywords is essential for attracting people you didn’t even know were looking for you. I call it planned serendipity. But you need to go beyond the random and unplanned connections. You need to send people to your profile so they can learn more about you. There are two easy ways to get people to check out your profile:

 3. Use a QR Code. You want people to learn more about you after meeting you at a networking function. Make it easy for them to get to your profile by creating a QR (quick response) code that links directly to your profile. Add your QR code to business cards, your resume, and your pitch letters. You can also create stickers with your QR code and add them to your name badge at networking functions.

 4. Create LinkedIn buttons. Use the LinkedIn buttons to direct people to your profile. Under “Privacy and Settings” you can access your public profile settings (on the right side of the screen). At the bottom of the box, there’s an option to create what LinkedIn calls “your public profile badge.” This lets you choose from a series of button options that you can add to your email signature, Blog, Website, etc. Repurpose it LinkedIn provides a valuable, one-stop-shopping resource for people who want to know more about your expertise. But the act of putting your profile together is also a valuable, one-stopshopping exercise in getting clear about your personal brand message and defining and documenting your career success. Now that you have all that content in one place, leverage that work for other applications. In personal branding, we have a technique we call “being lazy,” which means repurpose and reuse content. This helps ensure consistency and saves time and effort. Here are three ways to maximize the effort you put into build your amazing LinkedIn profile:

 5. Get a copy of it. You can export your profile to Word or PDF document to use in your career marketing activities. Here’s how.

 6. Turn it into a resume. LinkedIn Labs provides an option to turn your LinkedIn profile into your resume. First, you select your resume template, and then you can customize the content that you pull directly from your profile. This helps save time and ensures consistency between your on- and offline career materials.

 7. Create your own website. There are a number of services that will let you import your LinkedIn content into their platform so you can create your own custom website Your LinkedIn profile is one of the most important career marketing tools you have. Its value is amplified when you get more people to see it, and when you repurpose it to support your personal branding efforts.

 This article was written in the Forbes Leadership section by William Arruda who writes about personal branding.
 

7 Things You Must Do To Maximize The Value Of Your LinkedIn Profile

How to Build Your Brand With Instagram: 4 Tried-and-True Tips

Written by Nathan Chan | @nathanhchan 

 

Instagram is a platform that has demonstrated tremendous growth. In fact, the Instagram community grew to over 400 million users this past year.

Despite its impressive reach, many business owners are still overlooking its marketing potential. As a result, they're leaving high levels of engagement, brand awareness, and even profit on the table.

But why?

 In just 12 months, we used Instagram to gain 400,000 followers for Foundr -- which translated to over 70,000 email subscribers. At the end of that period, we were averaging 30,000 call-to-action clicks per month from Instagram, and converting 30% of the users who landed on our website from our Instagram page into email subscribers.

 We've seen it work ... now it's time for you to get in on the action. Here are four ways to use Instagram to build your business and brand.

 4 Surprising Ways You Can Use Instagram to Build Your Business & Brand

 1) Grow your Instagram following with strategic partnerships. One of the biggest frustrations for most marketers delving into Instagram is that they don’t know how to build a following. After all, without a large number of followers, how can it possibly be an effective marketing channel?

 But based on our experience since launching the Foundr Instagram account, growing you’re following is not as complicated as it might seem. There’s one tactic in particular that we used to quickly grow our Instagram following to 10,000 in just a couple of weeks: partnering with other Instagram accounts.

 To start, create a list of popular Instagram accounts that reach your target audience. When you’ve found them, you can then partner with them for what they call “shout-outs,” which can be either paid or unpaid. Here's how the two differ ...

 Unpaid Shout-outs

 Unpaid shout-outs are usually called "share for share." You share one another’s content, and you both encourage your followers to follow the other account. You get access to their audience, and they get access to yours.

 To start with free shout-outs, focus on accounts that have similar reach as yours. The owners of those accounts will be more receptive to a share for share partnership, since both sides will benefit about the same.

 But if you want to broaden your reach to accounts with bigger pools of followers, you may want to try paying for shout-outs. Here is an example of an unpaid shout-out partnership we did with Rich20Something, an Instagram account with a similar reach to Foundr’s:

 We each shared an image from the other account and encouraged our followers to follow them, too.

 Paid Shout-outs

 If you don't have a budget for social media, you may want to skip over this portion, but paid shout-outs can be a great way to gain thousands of followers -- and gain them fast.

 With paid shout-outs, you're aiming for accounts that have much higher numbers and a strong level of engagement (accounts where 2-3% of their followers “like” their content).

 Foundr spent about $100 on shout-outs in the first two weeks of our Instagram account, and it was $100 well spent. This became instrumental in getting us to our first 10,000 followers.

 Make sure to ask for a call-to-action in the shout-out, in which the account owner is actually asking their followers to take action on something. We’ve found the best strategy is to ask for their followers to follow your Instagram account.

 As you begin to gain your first few thousand followers, you can begin to drive those followers to your website, engage with your brand, and subscribe to your email list.

 2) Build your email list by converting your followers into subscribers.

 As you know, email marketing is crucial to a thriving business. Your email list is made up of your customers. These are your fans -- the people who will purchase your products and services.

 Instagram has been an important driver of email subscribers for Foundr, converting around 15,000– 30,000 followers into subscribers each month, depending on our promotions.

 If you’re familiar with Instagram’s limitations, you may be wondering how this is possible. After all, Instagram doesn’t allow links in photo descriptions.

 That’s where a well-crafted bio comes into play.

 Many businesses find it difficult to get followers to click the links in their bios because the tendency is to overload bios with ... well, junk. Break that pattern by writing your bio like you'd write a Tweet: short, useful, and packed with intention.

 Here’s what we’ve chosen as our bio:

 There’s a very simple secret: Within your bio, use a very specific call-to-action with a memorable URL that takes users to a unique page on your website.

 Then convert those visitors by ensuring the page they land on is packed with value. We go out of our way to ensure we deliver a ton of value to each visitor who clicks our bio link. The URL in our bio brings users to a page that both enrolls them in a free course and offers them two PDFs packed with actionable content.

 Once you’ve put the systems into place to not only entice your followers to click on the link in your bio, but also to lead them to insanely useful content, start driving followers to your bio by including calls-to-action in your image descriptions. Your photo caption leads to your bio, your bio leads to your link, your link leads to a huge offer of value.

 3) Create compelling content that's worthy of being shared by others.

 An Instagram strategy that includes creating beautiful, easily digestible content that not only resonates with your audience but also drives them to share and interact with your brand is crucial, and can explode your growth. A great Instagram post can be boiled down to a formula, and requires two elements: beautiful imagery and engaging text.

 Beautiful Imagery

 Choose images that tell a story or elicit emotion. This image we shared is not only compelling and interesting, but it also elicits emotion and therefore drives engagement from our followers.

 What this will look like for your business will depend on your industry, but think outside of posting images of your own products and services. Posting about yourself repeatedly on social media is like being that person at a party who talks constantly about themselves. Also, beware of copyright issues. If the image is not your own, request permission to use it or source non-attribution-required photos.

 Engaging Text

 While you don’t have to add text to your Instagram posts, doing so packs a punch that a plain image won’t provide.

 Text can range anywhere from a compelling question to a powerful, motivational quote. We encourage you to experiment with the latter, as a study conducted by Jonah Berger, author of the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, shows that "high arousal" emotion causes us to want to share far more than things that do not elicit such emotion.

 To create a stunning visual using text, you don’t need to hire a designer. In fact, we use an app called WORDSWAG to quickly and easily create images like the one you see below. One of our images was even shared by the rap artist LL Cool J:

 While you'll notice that someone cropped out our logo and added their own attribution in the photo shared above, we always make sure to include our branding as part of all of our posts.

 For example, if we post an image with a popular quote, we'll include our logo at the bottom of the image.

 This small step has not only built brand awareness to our Instagram followers, but it also spreads as our Instagram content is shared on other platforms.

 After you’ve nailed your Instagram content, and you have systems in place that will generate followers and email subscribers, it’s important to ensure that your followers are engaging with you to maximize your reach.

 4) Foster a community of highly engaged followers.

 Engagement comes in many forms, including followers sharing your content, interacting with it some way, tagging their friends, and clicking on your calls-to-action. In this section we'll go over some of our tactics for fostering a community of highly engaged followers on Instagram.

 Post When Your Followers Will Actually See Your Content

 Have you ever posted something to social media that you think will do really well, only to be met with crickets? Nobody liked post, nobody shared it with their friends, and the only comments you landed were from spambots.

 While it's easy to assume you miscalculated the potential of the post, it could just be that you posted the update at the wrong time. After all, networks like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are simply feeds: the newer the content (with some exceptions), the higher up it will be in your followers' feeds.

 To avoid this happening again, develop a pipeline of automated updates to be posted when your followers are actually going to see them. We use Iconosquare to find out when most of our followers are online. The service analyzes your followers’ activities and reports back with the best time to schedule your posts.

 Posting when the largest portion of your followers are online will ensure your content is working overtime for you.

 Ask for Engagement

 A lot of brands will start Instagram accounts and become frustrated when people aren't engaging with their photos.

 It seems so obvious and simple, but sometimes actually asking for your audience to engage makes all the difference. You can either include the action you want your followers to take as part of the image itself, or include it in the description of your post.

 The best tactic? Both ... as long as it's specific and actionable. For example, ask them to "double tap" if they agree with your post, or tell them to tag a friend like we did in this post:

 Instagram is a social platform with tremendous potential for businesses in almost any industry. And if you use Instagram strategically, it can have a significant impact on your reach, brand awareness, and ultimately the revenue of your company.

 Have you tried any of the tips above? Let us know what's working for your business in the comments section below.

How to Build Your Brand With Instagram: 4 Tried-and-True Tips

Top 10 Ways to Ensure New Years Resolution Success

Top 10 Ways to Ensure New Years Resolution Success
By Amy Ahlers

Did you know that fewer than 10% of people who set New Years' Resolutions actually achieve them? How can you ensure YOUR success? Try using the Top 10 Tips below.

1. Write Them Down. It's a fact: writing down your goals gives you a higher chance of success.

2. Commit. Move beyond the land of "good ideas" to the land of true "commitment". Make the decision that you will show up for your goals. Perhaps you can do a ritual or ceremony to symbolize your commitment.

3. Go Public. Let your biggest fans in on your new commitments and goals for the year.

4. Get Accountability. Even better than just letting others in on your "secret" dreams and goals-get some accountability. Meet for lunch once a month with a group that will ask you, "So, how's it going with your goal?" Hire a Coach. Talk to your best friend or partner. Get some support!

5. Make a Plan. Ensure success with a step-by-step plan. I love to work backwards by starting with the end vision of where you want to be and working backwards to where you are today. You'll find an easy action plan to make your goals a reality.

6. Do a Goal Check-In. Before you decide on what you'll take on for the year, make certain you can answer, "YES!" to the following questions: "Am I the primary reason for setting this goal (vs. your mom, boyfriend, wife, boss, society)? Do I feel alive and energized by this goal? Is this goal in line with my life purpose or mission?"

7. Get Real! If you're contemplating putting a goal down that you always put down and never achieve, take a second look. How will this goal end DIFFERENTLY this year? Is this goal something you need to let go of? What purpose is it serving you each year? Is this goal masking as a form of self-punishment? What is the good enough reason to truly commit?

8. Focus With Reminders. Once you've written down your goals, created a plan and made sure they are worthy to pursue, figure out ways to remind yourself. Some clients post their goals in on their bathroom mirror or in their car. Others put reminders in their blackberries, iPhones or cell phones. Figure out what works for you.

9. Believe and Visualize. Do you know the story about the group of basketball players who spent one hour visualizing making baskets, while another group actually practiced? The visualizing players had better seasons! So visualize yourself on New Years Eve with all your goals achieved. What would that look like? How would it feel? Visualize once a day and see the difference it can make in your life.

10. Use anchors. Tie your goal to a habit you already have in place. Perhaps you decide to do your exercise right after brushing your teeth, or practice meditation after checking email. Anchoring your new behavior and goals to an existing habit is a great tool for success. May this year be the year that your goals and dreams manifest with ease and joy!

Top 10 Ways to Ensure New Years Resolution Success

12 Clever Ways to Use More Visuals on Social

12 Clever Ways to Use More Visuals on Social

Media Written by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick

@canva SHARE 979 inShare

If there is one thing you should try to do to increase the impact of your social media, it’s adding visual marketing to your posts. At the simplest level, that means that every post should contain a graphic or video. While that sounds like a lot of work, it can have a huge payoff -- this tactic has helped us double the impact of our posts.

For most marketers just getting started with visual content creation, putting visuals in every single post feels near impossible. That's where this post comes in -- the purpose of this article is to explain the best (and often easiest) tips for adding visuals to your social media posts.

1) Maximize Twitter's Images
Some people still think that tweets are merely 140 characters of text. They are wrong -- Twitter is a powerful visual-marketing platform too. In fact, one of our A/B tests found that tweets with images get 55% more leads.

There are several ways to maximize your Twitter content with visuals. First, you can add an image to your tweets. This alone might double the impact of your tweets.

Second, you can add up to four images to a tweet, so why stop at one. This is a great way to showcase an event or to tell a story that would be difficult with one picture. Here’s an example of a tweet with four images that received some good retweets and favorites.

Third, you can also embed your tweets into blog posts like this and get more tweets and favorites. The above images are interactive within this post because they're embedded tweets.

2) Embrace Pinterest
If you're trying to cultivate an audience on Pinterest or you already have one there, every blog post needs an image that readers can “pin” to Pinterest. The ideal size for Pinterest images is 735 pixels x 1102 pixels for a vertical image or 735 pixels by 735 pixels for a square image. 735 pixels is the maximum width of a Pinterest post and 1102 pixels is the perfect length for an image -- anything longer is truncated with a “read more” link.

from Rebekah Radice, Social Media Strategy
10 Steps to Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy
Social Media Marketing

Also, when you create a Pinterest image, you can embed the pin in the blog post so your readers can repin your perfectly formatted pin.

3) Make Photo Albums
Going beyond a single graphic or up to four on Twitter, you can create albums on Facebook and Google+ that can contain hundreds of photos. These albums are perfect for large events such as conferences and parties. The more pictures you post, the more likely people will see themselves or someone they recognize. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of them commenting and re-sharing the pictures with others.

4) Use Flipagrams
Much as we love albums as a way to get organized, we’ve seen that few people will click through an entire collection. You could break albums into smaller collections, but that probably won’t get much more viewership.

One solution to this problem is Flipagram -- it's a fun app that you can use to create videos from still photos and share on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Instagram. It’s available for iOS, Android, and Windows.

On Flipagram, there’s a host of free thirty-second audio clips to add music to your videos, or you can add music from your own library. Peg used Flipagram to record a trip to a client’s retail location, Rent the Runway in Las Vegas. As an alternative to a photo album, which might not get many views, this slideshow of pictures was created with the images in her phone's camera roll.

5) Shoot Slow-Motion Video
Another way around the challenge of large albums is to shoot a slow-motion video of the crowd as you walk along. This yields the best of both worlds: a short video that requires no additional clicking and a several second view of most people in the crowd.

Here’s the use case. Suppose you want to capture the image of as many people as possible at your product launch or party in order to increase the likelihood that people will reshare your post. So take your smartphone, selection slow-motion video, and walk through the crowd at a brisk pace.

You’ll capture many people in the audience, and many will act like fools for you which makes the video even more entertaining. Upload the video to YouTube, add some music to it, and share away.

6) Embed Native Facebook Video
People have been able to embed YouTube videos into Facebook posts for a long time. Now you can add video to your Facebook posts by upload your video directly. All of this made us wonder: Is it better to embed YouTube video or upload a video directly to Facebook?

Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income recently did an experiment comparing views and engagement of natively embedded Facebook video versus embedded YouTube video. Guess which performed better? Facebook!

Limiting Facebook to a picture and some text is as big a mistake as limiting Twitter to 140 characters. You should think of Facebook as a video platform as well as a graphic one. At least embed YouTube videos, but if you want to take your results to the next level, upload your videos directly to Facebook.

This is the three-minute teaser video that Pat created with a few highlights from his interview with Gary Vaynerchuk. 339 likes and 33 shares say this was a great idea!

7) Embed SlideShare Presentations
 SlideShare isn’t just a place to upload your PowerPoint presentations for the hell of it anymore. Now it’s a powerful visual-marketing tool. You can load PowerPoint presentations into SlideShare, create them directly in SlideShare with a Haiku Deck, or build your slides in Canva and then save it as a PDF to go into SlideShare. Here are tips on how to make good SlideShare presentations.

 The amount of times SlideShare presentations appear in the results of Google searches is impressive. This means that SlideShare presentations can increase your credibility as a subject matter expert. The folks at SlideShare have worked hard to make it easy to deploy and interact with SlideShare presentations via social media -- in most cases, to make this happen, all you have to do is add a link to the SlideShare presentation to your social media updates.

The Art of Picking a Co-founder from Guy Kawasaki

 8) Repurpose Google+ Hangouts on Air (HOA)
 One of the killer features of Google+ is Hangouts on Air (HOA). This enables you to create live video interviews featuring experts and guests. Once your live Hangout is done, Google automatically turns it into a YouTube video that you can then share on all of your other social media accounts.

 Want to try this out for yourself? Here are two resources to help you make awesome HOAs:How to Be A Google+ Hangout Hot Shot and Take Your Google+ Hangout Series to the Next Level.

 9) Add Infographics
Infographics are a visual treat and an excellent way to create lots of information in a brief and entertaining manner. If a picture is worth a thousand words, an infographic is worth 100,000 words. You can use several websites to create your infographics or you can hire a designer to create on for you. Here’s a handy review of five such sites where you can create them yourself. And here are three articles to help you make your infographics into powerful visual-marketing tools: How to Make an Infographic, 7 Superpowers of a Knockout Infographic, and How to Make Infographics Clickable.

10) Embed Hyperlapse Instagram Videos (only for iOS)
Hyperlapse is a way to create time-lapse videos in a simple manner. This means that you record a long process, and your hyperlapse video plays it back in a much shorter time. Once you’re done, you can share them on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

The first step is to download the Hyperlapse app if you don’t already have it. (Sorry, it's only available for iOS.) Then you use the app to shoot a video. The hard part of creating hyperlapse video was holding the camera steady for a long period of time, but the Instagram app makes this easy.

For example, you can capture a sunrise or sunset, and Hyperlapse will stabilize and compile the video to give it a high-level cinematic feel. Below is an example from a recent social media conference where an attendee created a Hyperlapse of creating a graphic to share on Twitter.

11) Automate Facebook Graphics
There are two ways to include a graphic in a Facebook post about a story. One way is to create a graphic, upload it to Facebook, and include the post URL in your caption. The second way is to share a link directly to Facebook, and let it pull in the image for the story. Below is what this looks like:
Photo added manually into Facebook:
Photo pulled in from the post from Facebook:
Since Facebook updated its algorithm, our experience is that the latter method results in far more views on Facebook (and Facebook only).

12) Get With Animated GIFs
Animated GIFs are images that move -- usually in a loop. Used right, they can help you create some valuable, helpful, and eye-catching pieces to add to your content calendar.

Below is a GIF created from a SlideShare using GIF Deck. This was originally a webinar hosted by HubSpot that was turned into a SlideShare, and now a GIF. (Does that blow your mind a little?) You can add the GIF to an email blast, tweet it, pin it, or add it to Google+ to highlight your event. Repurposing your content in as many forms as possible is time-saving and effective.

12 Clever Ways to Use More Visuals on Social

Thoughts on Holiday Signs

Thoughts on Holiday Signs

Here we are, at the start of the most joyous time of the year, especially if you’re a retailer that counts on a big haul from holiday shoppers. You know people are going to be heading out to buy for the special people in their lives—but how can get best get their attention (and more importantly, do a better job of doing that than your competition)?

We have a few suggestions with respect to sign creation:

• Play on people’s emotions. Depending on what you sell, you may be able to tug on shoppers’ heartstrings by reminding them of just how much their grandma, son, boss, etc. will appreciate a particular gift.
• Focus on savings. This should be a no-brainer, but you know everyone is looking for the best holiday deals. Because you know your volume will likely increase, you can afford to offer some fantastic savings — and promote them in signs to get people into your store.
• Add a time element. People will often make purchases when they realize they only have a limited time to take advantage of a special deal. Not many people in your store when you first open? How about offering an “early bird special” that’s only good for the first hour of the shopping day. You can also promote “buy by” dates to give shoppers a deadline to make their purchase decisions.

You might have noticed that these recommendations are really appropriate all year when you’re thinking about sign verbiage. During the holidays, however, it’s even more important to drive people into your store and benefit from their seasonal generosity.

One final thought about “Merry Christmas,” “Seasons Greetings” and “Happy Holidays.” We suggest using what feels right to you. In our politically correct world, many retailers avoid the former, which only speaks to those who celebrate Christmas, but you may feel strongly that it’s appropriate for your store, so go for it.

Thoughts on Holiday Signs