7 Super Tips for Creating Powerful Infographics

With the rise of the "visual web," content marketing is becoming more image-centric. As we embrace this trend of marketing without words and communicating visually, infographics have become one of the most effective ways to share your message, establish authority and drive traffic and shares across social platforms.
Not merely restricted to Pinterest, infographics are proving to be a powerhouse form of content marketing for businesses across a range of industries, with the most popular infographic topics being technology, business, social media, economics and health
But what makes for a knockout infographic? What elements need to come together in order for it to get shared, and drive quality traffic back to your website?
This infographic from Socially Sorted highlights seven elements, or "superpowers," to consider when planning, creating and sharing infographics that get shared and drive traffic on the visual web.
 

What You Need to Do on LinkedIn, Even if You're Not Looking for a Job (Infographic)

When was the last time you revamped you LinkedIn profile? If you're like most people, probably the last time you applied for a job. However, your LinkedIn can be more than an online résumé—it can be a powerful career tool.
The infographic below, which features advice from self-proclaimed "LinkedIn Queen" Eve Mayer and social-marketing platform UberVU, offers tips on what LinkedIn users need to do to keep their profiles in shape. Check it out for advice on everything from how to choose a professional profile photo to how much time you spend maintaining your LinkedIn account each day.
 

Instagram Success: These Types of Images Drive the Most Engagement (Infographic)

For many, picking the right Instagram filter can be an agonizing task. With so many options, it's tough to discern what's going to look the best and grab the most attention. But now, thanks to extensive data analysis, one company says it has the hard numbers on what makes a photo virally successful -- or not.
Curalate, a Philadelphia-based visual analytics and marketing firm, says it created algorithms to determine how more than 30 factors -- including color, lightness and saturation -- can effect an Instagram post's performance. For its insight, the company says it analyzed more than 8 million images from the mobile photo-sharing platform.
"By making a few small tweaks, brands looking to connect with consumers on visual sites like Instagram can see their engagement skyrocket, resulting in increased customer loyalty and more importantly, sales," Gupta says. "Likes on Instagram, while incredibly valuable, are hard to come by with 65 percent of Instagram images garnering between zero and 10."
Based on Curalate's findings, which are expected to be announced this week, here are some basic tips to help businesses kick their Instagram presence into high-gear. For more, see Curalate's infographic below.

Keep it cool: 

Photos dominated by blues and other cool colors tend to garner more likes while photos with warmer oranges and reds do worse.

Master monochrome: 

The more dominant a single color is on an image, the more likes it could get. Pictures dominated by a single hue receive 40 percent more likes than those that don't.

With color, less is more: 

It can be tempting to ratchet up the vibrancy, flooding your image with color to make it stand out. But in today's overstimulated world, bright and vibrant colors can get lost. The proof is in the data: Curalate says less saturated images receive 18 percent more likes than their mover vibrant counterparts.

How to Handle Negative Online Reviews

Q: How should small businesses respond to negative reviews through social media and on sites like Yelp?

- Dara Khautisen 
Chicago
A: Negative social media reviews, especially those that are potentially malicious, are near the top of the list of nightmare scenarios for small business owners and entrepreneurs. But don’t panic. The last thing you want is to become the next Amy’s Baking Company, the restaurant that became famous for lashing out at customers.
As a business owner putting your heart and soul into pursuing your passion, it’s all too easy to act first in the face of negativity and have regrets later. Hold your tongue.
Before you formulate a strategy for addressing criticism, you need to determine if the comment or review is true. Investigate before taking action. Could this be a competitor spreading a rumour or something that has happened that nobody’s told you about? Once you figure out the basis of the comment, follow the below steps:

The statement is factually incorrect:  

If a statement made is untrue (not just an opinion you disagree with), you have the right to ask for the comment to be removed or retracted. While in theory that seems simple, in reality getting a comment removed can be a tricky.

It can only be successful if you are able to provide conclusive supporting evidence which shows, without a doubt, the comment is factually incorrect. If you can't provide proof, the sad truth is you won't get anywhere asking for removal.
If you do have factual evidence and the site doesn't take down the negative statement or review, you should consider correcting the post in the comments section. Lay out the conclusive facts in a professional manner and don't make it personal.

If a comment is factually true, but negative: Make sure you present your side of the story, and be honest. If you can, add a comment to the post explaining your rational in a non-hostile way and how you plan on addressing the situation.

If you sense a protracted back-and-forth could occur, it’s a good idea to try and take the conversation offline. State your willingness to receive any questions or comments through email. Make sure you, or a senior-level staff member, personally addresses the complaint.
One tactic you need to avoid is creating new “personas,” or fake accounts, to support your position in blogs, forums and message boards, as you’ll likely be caught.
Remember prevention is better than a cure. This situation can often be avoided (or at least substantially mitigated) by ensuring you are tuned into social media at all times, not just when there's an emergency. Cultivate your business’s fans to proactively share their experiences and recommendations online. Consumers are smart enough to sniff out and ignore one odd-ball negative review in a sea of positive ones.

How to Develop an Ongoing Rapport With Your YouTube Viewers and Fans

In his book Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Guide to YouTube for Business, marketing and public relations consultant Jason Rich show you how to master the secrets of successful "YouTubers" and put your brand, product or service in front of millions of potential viewers. In this edited excerpt, the author discusses ways you can more closely connect with your YouTube audience.
Once you get people to watch just one of your videos, you'll want to make it easy for them to watch your other videos as well. This can be done within the videos themselves, on your YouTube channel’s page, via email announcements of new videos, and announcements on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
Remember, within every video you produce, it should contain some type of call to action—a request that your viewers immediately do something. This call to action should be accompanied by a reward. For example, say something like, “To save $50 off your first order, click here to visit our website.”
You can add a direct call to action within a video in a handful of ways:

• Add a message inviting people to watch your other videos.
• Embed easy-to-find links to your other videos within each of your videos and on your channel’s page.
• Encourage your viewers to like and rate your videos.
• Make it easy for people to share your videos via online social networking or email by enabling the “Share” function.
• Ask viewers for ideas for future video topics, so they feel like they’re part of the creative process.
• Pose specific questions, and encourage viewers to post their video responses. You can also ask survey questions or solicit feedback. For example, if you’re using a YouTube video to demonstrate a new product, ask people to post their thoughts about the product itself or their own ideas about how they’d use it.
• Ask fans, customers, potential customers or subscribers to send you questions via email, Facebook or Twitter, and answer the most common questions in future videos. When you do this, be sure to credit the questioner. For example, begin with, “Bob Smith from White Plains, New York, asks . . .”
• Encourage people to visit your website, read your blog, visit your Facebook page and follow you or your company on Twitter.

If you’re using YouTube video to communicate with your potential or existing customers, it’s essential that you publish your contact information in conjunction with your videos. However, only do this within your videos and/or on your YouTube channel’s page if you intend to actually respond quickly and, potentially, personally. Otherwise, simply ask your viewers, fans and subscribers to post comments related to your videos through YouTube, and make it clear that you read them all.
When it comes to your overall online presence, think synergy. Promote your YouTube videos and channel via your website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc., and at the same time, provide links and mentions of your other online activities within your videos and on your YouTube channel’s page, as well as within your videos. You’ll probably discover, however, that it’s easier and more efficient to interact with your audience through a Facebook page or Twitter feed.
One thing to avoid when interacting with your YouTube audience is engaging “haters” or “trolls”—people who continuously post negative or hateful comments related to you, your company or your videos. Responding to these people in either a public or private forum often leads to an escalation of their behavior. If you determine someone is simply trying to be a nuisance by posting negative information, delete their comments and do not respond to them.
Obviously, if one of your viewers, customers or potential customers has a legitimate gripe, address that on a one-on-one basis by phone or email. But be aware that there are many “haters” on YouTube who simply make a habit of posting negative and potentially reputation-damaging comments on the service for no good reason whatsoever.
Determine Who in Your Audience Has Influence
Using tools available online, such as a service called Klout or simply by reviewing the number of friends your viewers, fans or subscribers have in conjunction with their own Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, you can see firsthand how much influence each person has over others in cyberspace.
As you’re working to promote your videos and YouTube Channel, analyze your audience, figure out who the influencers are, and try to cater to them through direct contact. At the same time, figure out who is producing videos that are similar in focus or content to yours, as well as YouTube channels that are catering to the same target audience, even if their content is vastly different from what you’re offering.
In addition to reviewing the video content, production quality and approach, pay attention to how they’re being promoted, what keywords are being used and who is their intended audience.
You can find similar videos using a keyword search on YouTube itself, or you can use a service like Pixability to help you find videos that are somehow related to yours, or that have a similar target audience.

Promoting Your Business Through Personal Posts

It's a big task getting employees to see that their tweets and Facebook status updates can be marketing tools for their companies. But for the past three years that's the message Jason Seiden, CEO of Chicago branding agency Ajax Workforce Marketing, has been spreading.
Seiden is on a mission to get individuals to leverage social media in a way that's good for business, creating what he calls a "profersonal" (a hybrid of personal and professional) profile. We sat down with him to learn more.
How has social media changed the way employees represent their companies to the outside world?
In the past, an executive would talk formally about company business only after having been media-trained. Today, with social media, every employee is a spokesperson for the company. With that, companies need their employees to be on-message on social media.
Why is this important for each employee?
Individuals have what I call the "Friday-night problem." You go out and someone asks you what you do. You hear yourself answer that question, and you want to cringe as you see that person's eyes glaze over. Social media has made that problem a 24/7 issue. We solve that by providing professionals with storytelling skills that can help them answer that question better and--where it gets good for a company--we help them deliver the message.
How does this work?
Our first step is to help companies translate their brand message to a social-media-ready version. For example, if you worked at Nike, you wouldn't tell your friends to "Just do it," but you're going to have a conversation that gets to those same principles. Through our web app, employees fill out a Mad Libs-like questionnaire that touches on what they do, what their goals are and who they serve in their work, reminding them of why they like working at the company. From there, we help employees create "personal elevator pitches" that combine their professional strengths and their employer's mission. We automatically convert these pitches into optimized LinkedIn profiles and social media identities.
Why is a "profersonal" profile so important?
It doesn't work to separate work and life anymore. We're friends with our co-workers. We go and get our buddy's job once he leaves a company. You can have the same network for all your social media--meeting on LinkedIn to talk business and sharing funny stories on Facebook.
How should entrepreneurs approach social media?
By being genuine. When you talk to your employees, articulate what your company stands for and what you hope customers, clients and stakeholders will get from the company. Then, encourage employees to make that story part of their own.
After all, they're giving you 80 hours a week, so consider this something they can get back.
How useful is LinkedIn for startups?
Encourage your team to look at a client's LinkedIn profile before a meeting, and make it part of the conversation. Be sure everyone's LinkedIn profile is polished and on-message. After all, LinkedIn is a pitch for your company that's open 24/7.

How to Separate the Good Advice From the Bad

Everywhere you turn, someone's got a pithy piece of advice on how to run your business or live your life. By now you'd think that someone would've done a study to reveal the key tips that anyone needs to remember.
But here's the thing: Just as everyone's lives and businesses are different, so are the succinct power phrases that jump-start their souls.
Take me, for example. While I was growing up, my father dropped this line every time I faced a setback or challenge: "The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." I hated that phrase; all it did was remind me that life was going to be a long, hellish slog no matter what.
It was Jon Albin, a teammate from my college rowing crew, who gave me the cliché that transformed my life: "You can't hit a home run if you don't swing." As a baseball fan, I realized that even the greatest players hit home runs only about 6 percent of the time. That's a failure rate of 94 percent. The realization that failure--and a lot of it--was part of the deal signaled a turning point for me. Since then, I've laughed at failures big and small, kept on swinging and even managed to hit a couple of home runs.
My point is that all business advice sounds good in theory, but much of it just doesn't click with our psyches. Keep on searching until you find the one phrase that unleashes your potential. I can tell you that life will never be the same once you do.
Dud advice: "Don't give up; there's almost always a solution."
Stud advice: "If it sucks then don't bother with it."
--Brian Dunn, founder, Great Divide Brewing Company
Dud advice: "Work harder than the competition."
Stud advice: "Work more efficiently than the competition."
--Josh Wyatt, investment director, Patron Capital
Dud advice: "Well begun is half done."
Stud advice: "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
--Beth Cross, CEO, Ariat International

Buy Time by Buying Expertise

In his book No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, business coach and consultant Dan Kennedy reveals the steps behind making the most of your frantic, time-pressured days so you can turn time into money. In this edited excerpt, the author offers compelling reasons to hire help when you need it so you can do the things you really excel at.

Often, you can do something you're not knowledgeable about or skilled at yourself. But at what cost? There's a time trade-off. That time could have been invested in some highest and best use, yielding far more in profit than the money saved by the do-it-yourself activity you are ill-prepared for.

You can get everything done by whoever is most conveniently available, who offers the cheapest price—but at what cost? Having to micro-manage an untrustworthy provider or oversee getting something attempted three times before it's done right has a time cost and, if your time has value, is a false bargain.

Or you can seek out the best available expert, pay his price or fee, and get the best advice or service, get the task done right the first time, and be free of worry, stress or battles so you can concentrate on the highest and best use of your time.

I have long sought access and support from the best provider I could find in any and every category as a means of buying time by buying expertise and reliability, and I have always been prepared to “overpay” in order to be their client, customer, or patient. I began this practice when it was a financial hardship, and I know it was more difficult then than now, when money is no longer an issue. I also know that the habit of choosing false bargains can forever prohibit you from getting to the level of successful accomplishment where money is no longer an issue!

It may surprise you to know that there are coaches for just about everything. Highly successful people are not at all unwilling to buy coaching—in fact, they are more prone to do so, at significant fees, than the average person. Late in his life, the great golfer Arnold Palmer found his aging body required changes to his golf swing, so he hired a coach to assist him.

It's not at all uncommon for entrepreneurs to have a private coach who acts as sounding board, confidante, advisor, creative muse, quasi-therapist and accountability proctor. The money you spend for this can be a bargain because a small amount of time given to very focused discussion with an exceptionally knowledgeable coach can sharply raise the value of all your other time.

When you're going to hire an advisor, consultant coach, or other expert, it's important to accurately assess their expertise. Here are four questions to consider.

1. Has the expert actually done the thing he is advising you about? Or is he an academic theorist giving book reports? You can’t rule the latter kind of advisor out entirely. Years ago, a client of mind used a college professor with zero practical experience to develop an employee assessment that measured honesty/dishonesty, and it proved extremely accurate and also commercially valuable. But generally speaking, I want my financial advisor to be a successful investor. I don’t want a fat doctor who smokes. You can waste a lot of time on self-appointed, full of B.S. experts eager to spend somebody else’s money.

When I got serious about estate planning, I first studied up, so I could ask intelligent questions. Then I took pains to utilize a knowledgeable intermediary, from a banking relationship, to make recommendations of not one but four potential attorneys and law firms that might suit me. Then I conducted audition interviews with all four—arranged by him, each 30 minutes, back-to-back, one right after the other, at a conference room borrowed in the bank branch five minutes from my house. I looked for the best expert, and I did it with good time efficiency.

2. Is the expert current? There are a lot of “former” and “ex” folks who hang out the expert advisor shingle after exiting the game, and are soon advising from waning memory rather than practical experience.

3. Does the expert have satisfied clients? Yes, I know, even Bernie Madoff had satisfied clients. But you at least want to avoid experts without satisfied clients. A good, general, time-saving, disaster-preventing litmus test that entrepreneurs should apply to anybody they're considering relying on for advice is: Are there at least three other successful entrepreneurs who have done more than one deal with them? Are there at least three other successful entrepreneurs who have relied on them over a lengthy period of time or repeatedly?

4. Do you understand what your chosen expert is doing and how he does it? That gets us back to Bernie and how he made off with all that money from all those people who should have known better and were more victims of their own greed and willful blindness than of him. Never blindly delegate to mystics. If you can’t understand how the investment makes money, how the sales strategy works, how the expert’s advice about anything works—run.

Keep Your Promises and Other Must-Read Business Tips

A roundup of the best tips of the week from Entrepreneur.com.
Entrepreneurs are known for making grand statements and inspiring other people with their visions of what is possible. But it's one thing to be a visionary and another to be someone who makes empty promises. "Poor leaders motivate those following them with false promises of promotions, success and a great tomorrow, but rarely deliver on those promises," says marketing and business-development expert Lewis Howes.
If you catch yourself doing this, and especially if it's a habit, you need to reassess your leadership tactics. A manipulative leader will dangle the goals and aspirations of his employees like a carrot to get them to do what he wants. But eventually employees will get fed up and most likely find somewhere else to work. Even if you don't intend to be manipulative, says Howes, "if you commit to something but don't follow through, it can send the wrong message to your employees, who you are pushing to deliver the best results." More: Signs You Might Be a Terrible Leader (Yes, You)
Make your message as simple and efficient as possible.
Getting a potential customer or client to take action isn't easy, but it's easier if you communicate as efficiently as possible. "Don't presume the audience has any interest in what your message is," says Tom Haley, a creative director at Chicago-based Jellyvision Lab, a company that provides personalized multimedia content for its clients. While you may eat, sleep and breathe your business, your customers don't. Give them what they need to make their decision -- nothing less, nothing more. More: 5 Simple Ways to Get Your Customers to Listen to You
Think about the space your employees are in.
One element of keeping employees is providing an environment in which they will enjoy working. Peace, Love & Little Donuts, located in Pittsburgh, sets itself apart from other doughnut shops partly with its unusual flavors, such as maple-and-bacon, and partly by providing such an environment for its staff. The psychedelic décor and 1970s music fit with the shop's "Feed Your Inner Hippie" slogan and provide a fun atmosphere that its workers, many of whom are young college students, won't mind spending a shift in. More: Why Happy Employees Are Your Key to Successful Branding
Debrief yourself every Thursday.
It's all too easy to let your time dribble away in emails, small talk and other distractions rather than being productive. To stay on track, sit down and give yourself a debrief every week, preferably on Thursday. That means assessing how you have spent your time and how you have improved (or slackened) your focus and productivity over the past week. "Doing this kind of debrief on Thursday, instead of Friday gives you a sense of achievement from reviewing that week’s work, which provides extra energy to carry on before the weekend," says Jason Womack, the founder of The Womack Company, an Ojai, Calif.-based productivity-training firm. "This also gives you time to organize anything that needs to be done before you leave the office for the weekend." More: What You Can Do Today to Make Tomorrow More Productive
Make disciplinary conversations objective, not subjective.
When one of your employees is behaving unprofessionally -- perhaps making inappropriate jokes or dressing in a way that isn't suitable for the workplace -- it's obvious that you need to sit the employee down for a serious talk. But it's important not to rely on vague words, like "professionalism," that can be interpreted subjectively. Refer instead to your company guidelines. That will make the substance of the conversation objective rather than subjective, says Susan Strayer LaMotte, founder of exaqueo, a workplace consulting firm. If you don't already have clear company guidelines for workplace attire and behavior, now is the time to create some, so that your employees will know what is expected.

4 Steps to Creating a Successful Job-Swapping Program

Job swap programs, which allow employees to spend time working in various departments or even in overseas offices have been successful at large companies. Allowing employees to work in various departments or divisions lets them get a big-picture view of the company and how various areas function. But with limited resources and time-strapped employees, can entrepreneurial businesses replicate such programs in their own organizations?
Yes, they can, says Caryn Goldberg, an assistant professor of management at American University. By creating systems that let employees cross-train and gain experience in various departments, smart businesses can end up with employees who are able to fulfill various roles, allowing them to find the best fit for their skills within the company. In addition, as they learn more about overall operations, they are better able to make decisions, solve problems, and conceptualize new ideas because they have a better understanding of how the business runs. She shares four tips to make job swapping a viable option for smaller firms.
1. Explain the goals.
As with most new initiatives, employee buy-in is key. Be clear about the potential up-sides to job rotation or job-swapping. If you're simply rotating a new employee from department to department, the program provides more hands on deck. If you're actually swapping employees, the department gets the benefit of new ideas and fresh insight.
Making contacts in various departments can also help troubleshoot problems and facilitate various processes in the company. For example, the sales team might benefit from having contacts in the finance department to figure out a better way to record and process expense records. In order for this to work, however, each department manager has to be willing to spend meaningful time with the employee to help him or her understand what goes on there.
2. Cross-train new hires first.
Goldberg suggests that smaller scale programs might be better focused on new hires to give them deep company insight right from the start.
"It's less resource-intensive for organizations to have people spend a little bit of time when their entry-level [employees], than it is to take somebody who's already significantly advanced in his or her career and operating at a high level to put them in a function their completely unfamiliar with," she says.
3. Decrease the duration.
While some job rotation programs may take a year or two to complete, moving an employee through various departments a month or two at a time can help accelerate the process and still give employees valuable insight.
4. Incentivize ideas.
Don't just adopt the program and let it trail off. Explain to employees who are swapping jobs or going through job rotation that you expect them to actively look for new ideas and solutions as they enter each phase of the program, Goldberg says. Sometimes, that fresh set of eyes or new way of thinking can bring tremendous value. You may even want to create incentives such as small gifts or perks, for coming up with those ideas.

5 Hiring Practices to Keep You Out of Hot Water With the IRS

If you need more help for your business, should you hire new employees or engage independent contractors? The decision will be based on the nature of the work, your business culture, what you can afford and perhaps, most importantly, government rules.
For the IRS, the question of worker classification -- as an employee or independent contractor -- is high on its audit list. States also scrutinize worker classification when claims are made by workers for unemployment compensation and workers’ compensation. If you decide that independent contractors better suit your needs than employees, make sure your treatment of these workers will be respected by the government.
1. Check both IRS and state rules.
You can’t arbitrarily put the label of independent contractor on a worker and make it stick. It has to be appropriate, based on the degree of control you exercise over the worker. Boiling this down, if you have the right to say when, where and how the work gets done, likely the worker is your employee.
No one factor is determinative. The IRS uses 20 factors that fall into three categories -- behavioral control, financial control and the relationship of the parties -- to determine this. Familiarize yourself with them.
To complicate things, states don’t necessarily agree with IRS classification. A worker may be treated as an independent contractor for federal employment tax purposes but an employee for purposes of state unemployment benefits or workers’ compensation. Check with your state to learn its rules.

2. Use a written agreement.
One of the factors used by the IRS for determining worker classification is the intention of the parties. You can spell this out by using a written agreement with an independent contractor. The agreement can state that the worker understands he or she is not an employee and is personally responsible for taxes, insurance and other expenses. The fact that there may be reimbursement to the worker for certain expenses, such as travel, won’t nix the relationship spelled out in the agreement.
But understand that while this agreement is certainly helpful, it is not binding on the IRS or other government agencies. The government does not have to follow the classification created by the agreement because it is not a party to the agreement.
3. Issue Form 1099-MISC.
If you pay $600 or more to an independent contractor during the year (not necessarily all at one time), you should send IRS Form 1099-MISC to report the annual payments. When doing this, one copy goes to the worker and another to the IRS. Doing this is another indication that you view the worker as an independent contractor. It is also essential for obtaining penalty relief, which I detail below, if it is ultimately determined that the worker is really an employee.
4. Know your industry practices.
If there is a long-standing practice in your industry in treating certain workers as independent contractors, you probably can follow suit. The practice exists if at least 25 percent of your industry follows it.
If you follow long-standing industry practices (and issued a 1099 where required), even if the IRS successfully reclassifies your worker as an employee, you can minimize employment tax penalties by using Sec. 350 relief. This relief is not a section in the Tax Code; it’s the section in a 1978 law that created it.
5. Be consistent.
You should treat workers who are performing the same work in the same way. You can’t treat some as employees and others as independent contractors. And you can’t change treatment from year to year. Stay consistent.
Again, consistency will help you in securing Sec. 530 relief if you need it.
If you still have questions, talk with a tax advisor or employment law expert. Don’t wait until the government challenges you. Get your worker classification right from the start so you can secure independent contractor status for workers if that’s your aim

5 Ways to Keep Customers Knocking on Your Door For More

How does one go from investment banking to starting a wildly successful online jewelry store? Just ask Amy Jain and Daniella Yacobovsky, founders of BaubleBar, who did just that. After meeting nine years ago in a banking class at Harvard Business School, they ditched the prospect of becoming financial analysts to open BaubleBar.

The two were shoe shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue together when they realized they never shopped for jewelry because they could never find jewelry they liked that was reasonably priced. They decided to take it upon themselves to fix this problem.

1. Get personal, even -- no, especially -- online. 
Interacting with your customers or clients on a personal level is very important if you want to build loyalty. BaubleBar takes a great online experience one step further by offering their customers in-person services. Though we live in a digital society, there is no better way to build loyalty than face-to-face interaction. This will make your customers feel special.

At BaubleBar, SWAT (Service With Accessorizing Talent) Stylists help customers pick out pieces that are right for them. Whether, you are looking for a piece to match a certain outfit, be worn on a special occasion or just can’t decide between two necklaces, someone at BaubleBar can help you.

2. Make your customer experience consistent throughout your brand.
Cohesion is a necessary component to creating a company that people fall in love with. BaubleBar has a major challenge because it is hard to translate an online store into a brick-and-mortar shopping experience.

Opening a physical store when you have an online presence will only be successful if you duplicate the look, feel and mood of the virtual counterpart. Your customers already know what to expect, so don’t change it up too much. Jain and Yacobovsky have done this through their first brick-and-mortar location, The Bar, in New York City. Regardless of how they decide to expand, they know everything has to have the BaubleBar signature touch.

3. Partner with influential people who have their own following. 
It doesn’t take an MBA from Harvard to understand why it's important to involve bloggers and style influencers with large followings. To do this, BaubleBar started the Guest Bartender series. Each month they introduce a new style personality who curates a special collection based on their personal aesthetic.

The personalities that BaubleBar teams up with have loyal followers of their own who trust their opinions. By giving customers a new collection each month, the brand gives them something new and exciting to look out for.

4. Reward your best customers.
Ultimately, as an entrepreneur, if you say customer service is your number one priority, you have to put your money where your mouth is and do something generous for your customers. Jain and Yacobovsky have done just that with their customer loyalty program, The Vault, which allows customers to earn points when shopping or inviting friends to join. 

5. Build customers into your branding. 
BaubleBar posts pictures of their fans wearing their jewelry on the homepage of the website. Actively encourage your customers to participate in your brand, then showcase their participation. This gets people talking and helps build a community.

Every aspect of BaubleBar’s branding is well thought out. The result is a business changing the way consumers shop for jewelry. When you are thinking about your overall brand, you should never be scared to go down new avenues. Just make sure they are consistent with what you have already created