Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
Good self-confidence is something that no one is naturally born with and is something most of us are consistently working to build. Many people, especially those who identify as women, struggle with confidence early in their careers. This often results in a lack of women who self-promote, especially compared to men.
Our sense of self-confidence begins forming before we’re even aware of it and is taught and learned over time, the same as anything else. From an incredibly young age, we begin to formulate the ideas we have about our capabilities, knowledge, self-worth, and even looks, through the actions of those around us and the society in which we live.
A lack of self-confidence can be the result of several factors, such as the messages received during early childhood about one’s worth, a lack of representation in the media or at your company, previous life experiences or other causes.
However, it is absolutely never too late to begin building up some genuine self-confidence. If you or someone you know is dealing with self-doubt in the workplace, below are eight tips to practice and build your confidence at work.
1. Understand Yourself
Understanding and connecting with yourself is the first step to building confidence both inside and outside of the workplace. Understanding your strengths, expertise, passions, and talents is essential to forming a foundation of self-confidence. Think about your family dynamics, where/how you grew up, your ethnicity, education, relationships, work experience, hobbies, personality, wins, losses, etc., to understand how each of these factors have taught and shaped you into the person you are today. You can rest assured knowing that you are an expert in your life and have unique lived experiences of depth, to which only you can speak. Knowing this can help you understand and trust yourself more deeply when expressing your opinion or ideas.
2. Shift Your Mindset and Behaviors
Now that we’re older, we can better understand where our feelings are coming from, how they got there, and what we can do to change them. As conscious beings, we have the capability to stop negative thoughts and behaviors in their tracks and redirect them to more positive thoughts and actions. A doubtful mindset can often present itself at work when you want to express your opinion, but begin with a qualifier statement such as, “I’m not sure but…” or “This may not make sense but… .” These kinds of statements show a lack of trust in your own expertise, so how can you expect your coworkers to consider your statement if you don’t seem to like it yourself? To allow yourself space for acceptance rather than writing yourself off, try beginning your statement with, “Perhaps an option might be…” or “I’d like to add to that thought… .” Remember, confidence begins internally.
3. Get Outside Your Comfort Zone
The best way to meet a challenge is to face it head on. In many situations, it is a refusal to leave the comfort of one’s space that prevents them from growing as an individual. Think of someone who is used to sitting alone in the corner, quiet and uninvolved. That space may be comfortable for the individual but doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity to build relationships, involve oneself in business decisions, insert one’s opinions and more. Leaving the quiet cozy corner and entering the heart of your organization can be daunting and uncomfortable at first but is bound to help you feel seen and heard if that is what you truly desire.
4. Focus on Your Strengths
Everyone has strengths, and everyone has weaknesses. None are greater than the other, and each of our talents and downfalls helps balance the world and the workforce. Sometimes, comparing ourselves to others has an impact on our self-confidence. When we see other people who are great at what they do, it often makes us wish we were more like them, but it is important to remember that we cannot all be great at everything, and that is perfectly fine. What is important is to know and remember where our individual strengths do lie. Once we pinpoint those factors, we can then nurture and feed those strengths rather than wishing we had someone else’s.
5. Learn from Your Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes are not failures, and it is important to understand this first and foremost. It is easy to get frustrated with ourselves when we slipup and to even call ourselves disparaging or critical names. And it is difficult, yet essential, to catch ourselves in those moments, rethink what we’ve said, and decide then and there whether we will berate ourselves or cut ourselves some slack and remember we’re only human. One wall that often keeps individuals from developing true self-confidence is a harshness on oneself that does not allow grace for mistakes or other mishaps. Mistakes are a learning opportunity, and while making them can often leave us with a less than desirable feeling, it is important for them to occur. We often cannot learn otherwise. Don’t be hard on yourself for making mistakes and be glad that an issue presented itself that you’ve now had the opportunity to learn from so you can better handle the situation next time.
6. Develop or Learn New Skills
If you’re feeling insecure about your capabilities, there is always the option to learn more. Keep yourself sharp and on your toes by continuing to develop your skills and learning new ones. No human will ever know all there is to know, which means we have infinite room to grow, and that’s a great thing! If you’re not feeling fully confident with where your skills are now, or you’d like to strengthen the confidence you already do have, challenging yourself to learn more about your expertise or develop a new skill is a great idea. These days, there is knowledge all around us – it just takes time and effort to collect and put that knowledge to use.
7. Practice Makes Progress
Don’t be afraid to meet yourself where you are. It is perfectly alright to start small by practicing confident behaviors such as eye contact and body language in the mirror or with a friend. This method can also be helpful when practicing confident language skills, such as speaking loudly, clearly and captively. Additionally, don’t be afraid to “fake it ‘til you make it” during your process of self-confidence work. Wearing a positive mindset and acting confidently can actually work wonders. Not only will your teammates feel confident about you when you seem confident about yourself and your capabilities, but you’ll soon realize that you genuinely are a capable person with many skills to offer. After all, you are what you think.
8. Have Patience
Changes like these do not happen overnight. It takes time and consistent effort to shift one’s behaviors and mindset from a place that may have been subconscious for years, or even decades, beforehand, specifically if these were years filled with negative reinforcement. Building confident behaviors takes practice and determination. You must also remember that there are various ways to go about the confidence journey, so some trial and error may be needed when you’re getting started. Over time, with patience and consistent effort, these confident behaviors will become second nature. Be patient and kind with yourself, understanding that self-betterment is something that will take time and relearning.
Building your confidence will take time and constant action toward the place you’d truly like to be as an individual. It is vital to have confidence at work, whether you’re speaking your opinion, asking a question or pitching an idea. Remember to have patience with and to affirm yourself! You and your mindset are the only things standing in your way on your journey to greatness. Your confidence starts with you.
Sources
Writing is a central component of a PR professional’s role and day-to-day tasks. We’re masters of communicating effectively through writing. We can adjust our tone and voice for specific authors and audiences and lead the reader to a desired conclusion or call to action. Strong writing skills provide a foundation for all aspects of public relations.
If you want to sharpen your writing skills, you’ll see improvement, in part, by reading more. Outlined below are four ways reading makes PR pros better writers.
No. 1: Reading exposes you to different writing styles. Reading various things such as investigative news articles, essays, novels, short stories, autobiographies and more allows you to focus on the mechanics, structure and stylistic choices that make various pieces work. Approaching varied works with an eye on the authors’ stylistic tendencies will help you find your own style. It will also help you elevate your writing style, drawing from other authors’ styles.
No. 2: Reading improves comprehension of a subject. One PR job requirement is to learn to speak many “languages.” We learn the our client’s terminology whether its about business management software, construction or voice-enabling technology. We immerse ourselves in the jargon and become fluent in common industry acronyms. The same is valid for working with media. PR pros who speak the language of a reporter, understand the deadline process, and know how to craft a compelling pitch are equipped to connect with media for meaningful results.
Reading can play an essential role in establishing and maintaining our industry language speaking skills. Reading industry trade publications or other materials goes a long way in improving our understanding of newer and more complex subjects. Over time, this ability sharpens so much that it is possible to read a variety of topics and comprehend the basic essences of the topics even quicker each time. At the same time, we hone our ability to write in these “languages.”
No. 3: Reading allows you to study grammar in context. Reading allows us to research grammar without having to thumb through a textbook. The best books and articles clearly communicate their messages, and to clearly communicate, you must have a working knowledge of grammar. Take note of how authors tackle grammar questions you are unsure about in your work. Study how they use punctuation and grammar conventions and inject these lessons into your own writing.
No. 4: Reading helps you expand your vocabulary. If your writing suffers from repetition or if you want to describe your thoughts more precisely but don’t know how the chances are that your vocabulary needs some improvement. A great solution is to read materials related to your subject and write down words that look interesting to you. If you want to understand the meaning of some new words better, look them up and write down their definition. Highlight or write down various turns of phrases that you find especially masterful and assimilate them into your own writing.
If you read often, you pick up skills you might not even notice. For example, you’re learning characterization, point of view, dialogue, sentence structure, grammar, idea organization, humor techniques and spelling. All these principles can improve PR writing.
So, what will you read next?
Monitoring social media and listening to conversations about your brand, your competitors’ brands and critical issues facing your industry is important if you’re going to stay up to speed on trends. You may also glean information from these discussions that can be applied to your business to make it stronger.
Given the importance of listening, I’ve decided to revisit some best practices for social media monitoring. You can get started in three easy steps:
Identify the terms and accounts you want to monitor
The first step is to determine the conversations you want to track. This means you need to know the key words, phrases, and hashtags you’re most interested in following. For instance, if you’re working for the Mayo Clinic, you’ll want to track any conversations about the Mayo Clinic, its clinical practices, and its research, as well as other companies and people who frequently discuss the Mayo Clinic.
SparkToro is a great way to develop an initial list because you can quickly identify the people and companies who are most frequently discussing a particular topic and see the hashtags and terms they’re using, as well.
For instance, when I search the Mayo Clinic in SparkToro, I find that the 596 people that talk about the clinic on social media engage most with these accounts: the Mayo Clinic, John Noseworthy, M.D., Sharonne Hayes, M.D., NIH, Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., CDC, NYT Health and others.
Given that these individuals speak often about the Mayo Clinic, monitoring their conversations – along with their competitors’ conversations – could provide insight.
For more about SparkToro, please see my colleague’s post, SparkToro – the marketing tool that all strategists need in their toolkit.
Set up Hootsuite or another tool
Next, I suggest using some form of social media dashboard software. This will let you listen to a broad range of conversations on platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, among others Hootsuite has some excellent capabilities for social listening. For more information, check out this blog which covers ten tools that make listening easier.
Share your findings
A final word about monitoring and listening, it only works if you take the time to review and share the data.
The folks at Hootsuite use the phrase created by America’s Homeland Security, “If you see something, say something.” If you see a spike in traffic or some other key event online, it’s often a good idea to share the information with others on your team. To make this easy, you may want to set up an email alias to loop in key teams such as customer service or content marketing, publish a weekly or monthly report, and arrange a quarterly meeting to discuss findings.
Conversations can move quickly, so if someone needs a response right away, you should know how you’ll handle that. Processes involving customer service teams or content marketing may be especially vital if you’re a consumer-facing company.
By practicing active social listening, you will likely gain important insight into your competitor’s actions. For instance, by monitoring discussions, you may learn that one of your top competitors is missing an opportunity to address customers’ true pain points. Identifying this market gap gives you a chance to address and fill it.
There are myriad benefits to social listening. Not only can you gain insight into what is being said, but by listening you’ll also better understand the attitudes and feelings of your customers, clients, or other stakeholders, and you’ll have a better understanding of how to participate in conversations.
As public relations professionals, we are often focused on the external communication strategies for our clients, managing media opportunities, developing press releases and positioning executives as thought leaders. All of this is designed to reach their target audiences with key messages, but a critical cadre that should not be overlooked is an organizations’ own internal audience.
Beyond policy updates and new company initiatives, internal communications are a keen way to keep employees engaged, highlight progress toward business objectives, and celebrate individual wins. Here’s what strong internal communications can do for your business:
Provide a Holistic View of the Organization
A study that reviewed 360 billion emails between co-workers across thousands of organizations found that many companies became more siloed following the work-from-home orders in 2020. Without an understanding of progress toward company goals or the activity executed by other departments, employees may struggle to understand how their work is making an impact.
To ensure all employees across the organization are informed, consider developing and distributing a regular newsletter that features important company updates. The newsletter can include specific updates from one or two different departments, highlight new hires and recap the important work accomplished since the last newsletter. Not only will this keep the organization informed, but it’s also a chance to share best practices and celebrate the team’s successes.
Equip Employees with Examples of Success
An overview of the company’s progress helps keep employees engaged and motivated, however, team and individual successes are also a great opportunity to celebrate employees and share resources that may be useful to other teams.
For example, if a team in one market happens to be facing a similar problem that a team in another market just overcame, the individuals facing the challenge would benefit by understanding how others have successfully navigated the problem. Companies can share specific examples and anecdotes through a range of mediums, including a newsletter, an email or even presentations at department meetings.
With well-crafted and deliberate internal communication, individuals are well equipped with valuable resources while others are celebrated for their ingenuity and success. It’s important to highlight micro-examples to humanize the company and highlight the individuals who are driving its accomplishments.
Provide an Avenue for Feedback
With consistent internal communication channels, organizations can create a dialogue with their employees. By inviting employees to share their thoughts, questions and concerns on specific programs and initiatives, they can better understand how people are feeling and how the organization can adapt to better serve its employees.
Additionally, it’s an opportunity to determine if there are preferred methods of communication or if employees would like to receive different content. This feedback can ensure that the team owning the internal communications is meeting its goals through its strategies.
If done successfully, internal communication strategies will enable organizations to reach a critical audience with valuable and engaging content.
“The more you learn, the more you earn.” – Warren Buffett
In any field or occupation, professional development is critical to career advancement and success – and it is an ongoing endeavor. Times change, norms evolve and landscapes shift. What’s true today can quickly become old news tomorrow.
Many ambitious business and marketing professionals are constantly on the lookout for ways to further enhance their skill set. Sometimes, this is through pursuing a degree, certification or taking an online course. Or it may be attending a conference, reading a self-help book or reviewing a TED Talk.
The good news is there are countless resources available that can help with advancing professional development, and they come in varying degrees. For the busiest of business and marketing professionals, one fairly simple option is turning to podcasts.
The podcast boom over the last 15 years has resulted in a wealth of high-quality auditory content across a range of specialty areas. Need tips on digital marketing, customer experience or maximizing the value of your content? We got you covered. Below are five podcasts that may be valuable resources in helping business and marketing professionals build out their tool belt.
- Social Media Marketing Podcast: Hosted by Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner, the Social Media Marketing Podcast helps its listenership navigate the changing landscape of the marketing industry. Publishing weekly since 2012, this 45-minute podcast features expert interviews with leading marketing professionals and delivers actionable tips on how to improve social media marketing, such as through TikTok storytelling, Instagram content strategy, Facebook ad performance and more.
- Content Inc with Joe Pulizzi: Content Inc. is a weekly podcast for entrepreneurs and startups with big goals and who want to grow a loyal audience through remarkable content. Hosted by Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and known as the “godfather of content marketing,” each episode features one inspirational idea that listeners can use in their business or life. Pulizzi shares personal anecdotes and lessons learned from others that have shaped his entrepreneurial style. Brevity here is key, as each episode runs 15 minutes or less.
- Experience Leader: At the heart of every business, success ultimately comes down to customer experience. Experience Leader, a podcast hosted by Devin Smith, CX principal with consultancy and Communiqué PR client Active Digital, highlights how experience-driven companies are leading their industries by delivering excellent customer experiences. Each episode tackles a different angle of the CX journey and offers listeners insightful tips on how they can provide next-level customer experiences.
- Marketing School Podcast: Hosted by entrepreneurs Neil Patel and Eric Siu, this daily podcast covers the latest SEO, content marketing, social media, email marketing, conversion optimization and general online marketing tactics that work today. With each episode, Patel and Siu aim to deliver actionable digital marketing lessons they’ve learned through their years of experience. For listeners pressed on time, this podcast may be ideal, as most episodes are approximately 5 minutes in length and easily digestible.
- Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield: In this top-ranked podcast that boasts hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners, online marketing specialist Amy Porterfield breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes that deliver results for business owners. Porterfield covers many areas of online business including digital courses, list building, social media, content, webinars and more. Her podcast features expert interviews, mini execution plans, and behind-the-scenes insights from Porterfield’s biggest launches. Each episode is designed to help listeners take immediate action on the most important strategies for starting and growing their online business.
Every day, marketing strategists are on the hunt for new tools that will identify and analyze what platforms their target audiences are using and what content they want most. With SparkToro, a marketing enablement software company, marketers gain access to audience intelligence data, search engine optimization (SEO) analytics, and marketing research tools, all of which can help make their jobs easier.
What is my target audience? is the age-old question many marketers find themselves asking daily. For formerly frustrated marketing strategists like Rand Fishkin, the founder of SparkToro, navigating their brand’s audience is both time-consuming and challenging. This common marketing issue inspired Fishkin to develop software technology that helps marketers better and more efficiently understand their audience.
Here are just a few ways SparkToro helps marketers improve their strategies and target audience reach:
- Identify target audiences. With SparkToro, marketing strategies can utilize tools and features that provide an overview of their target consumer. For example, users can identify audiences by simply entering keywords customers regularly talk about, mention in their profiles, use as hashtags, etc. Unlike other marketing software, SparkToro has a significant number of details available at users’ fingertips, supporting valuable marketing research while streamlining marketers’ strategy.
- Filter out unverified users. SparkToro has a unique feature known as the “Fake Followers Audit” which identifies the percentages of both verified users and fake accounts/bots. Additionally, the “Trending Tool” refreshes every 15 minutes to keep users updated on the most popular topics, trends, hashtags, etc., discussed online. SparkToro also has a tool known as the “SparkScore,” which determines the level of influence a Twitter account has with specific insights about the SparkScore, including average likes per tweet, average retweets per tweet, number of followers, etc.
- Utilize new research methods. It’s no secret that primary research can be both expensive and time-consuming for companies. With SparkToro, marketers can utilize abundant information that offers insight into their target audience’s behaviors and interests. SparkToro provides users with an overview of big data, including audience statistics, text insights, keywords, phrases, and demographics, among other things. This information allows marketers to better understand and reach their target audience without dedicating too much time and too many resources to surveys and other primary research.
- Build your outreach and secure new opportunities. With SparkToro’s “Audience Intelligence” capabilities, users can identify the sources of influence their target audience engages with most. The function allows marketers to build detailed contact press lists of their audience’s favorite podcasts, YouTubers, social media influencers, etc., by simply entering keywords and subjects relevant to their customers. As a result, marketers can conduct outreach and secure new opportunities easier than ever without the painstaking searches for contact emails and relevant platforms.
SparkToro has several pricing plans available so marketers can pick the best options for their business and marketing goals. Along with a free subscription, premium plans start at $38 a month and increase based on the tools available. The “Standard” plan, SparkToro’s most popular subscription option, is $112 a month and gives users access to 300 searches a month, demographic data, email and social contact data, and other valuable insights key for successful marketing strategies and audience reach.
For marketers today, reaching target audiences can be challenging if they don’t already have pre-existing relationships with potential customers. However, SparkToro puts valuable tools at their fingertips, allowing them to optimize their marketing research and better understand their audience’s interests, behaviors, and needs at the click of a button.