What Is Transformational Leadership? Think about the best boss you've ever had. What made them great? Were they open to new ideas? Did they lead with humility? Showed empathy when you needed it? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, this person could be considered a transformational leader. Transformational leaders empower and motivate others to achieve extraordinary feats and, in the process, sharpen their own leadership skills. Here, we'll cover the basics of transformational leadership, define the key characteristics of this style, and see how it differs from transactional leadership. To get a better idea of how transformational leadership plays out in the workplace, we need to look at its four primary elements: Idealized influence — this is the degree to which a leader models the behavior they want followers to emulate. In doing so, they gain trust and respect from their followers. Inspirational motivation — this is the degree to which a leader articulates a vision and outlines future goals. By aligning followers under a singular vision, they can drive the group forward. Individualized consideration — this is the degree to which a leader tends to each follower's needs and acts as a mentor or coach. As a result, followers feel empowered to make individual contributions to the team. Intellectual stimulation — this is the degree to which a leader challenges assumptions, takes risks, and solicits ideas and feedback. The goal here is to stimulate creativity in their followers....

How to Measure Social Media Marketing ROI When it comes to building effective social media ad campaigns, the biggest question isn’t “how much should I spend?” It’s “for every dollar I spend, how much do I get back?” In other words, it’s all about return on investment (ROI) — how are ad spending and customer conversion linked? Understanding this connection makes it less important how much you spend, and instead lets you focus on the impact of your social ads. In this piece, we’re taking a look at how to measure social media marketing ROI and offering a look at eight tools to help streamline the process. ROI is a measure of spend versus value: If I spend “X” amount, how much do I get back? The best-case scenario is an ROI greater than one, where companies get back more than they spent on an investment. Consider a manufacturing company buying a new piece of production line equipment that costs $10,000 but brings in $20,000 worth of revenue each year. The result is a positive ROI and a worthwhile investment. While measuring social media ROI isn’t quite as straightforward since companies need to account for the reach and impact of specific ad campaigns, the underlying concept is the same: Over time, the goal is to get back more than you spend. While specific measurement timelines and media metrics will differ, the role of ROI remains the same. How to Measure Social Media Marketing ROI One of...

What Are Local Citations If you’re not sure what local citations are, don’t worry — you’ve probably come across them while looking for a new service-provider, brand, or company. For example, a few weeks ago, my sister came to town and wanted to take me out to dinner. She’s unfamiliar with the area’s local spots, so my sister took to Yelp to find a restaurant we’d both love. After scrolling through Yelp, she found a Black-owned restaurant called 7th + Grove that had rave reviews. Yelp showed 7th + Grove’s address, so we knew it was in a busy part of town and could be packed the night we wanted to visit. Fortunately, the restaurant’s phone number was listed, so my sister called and made a reservation. In this scenario, the restaurant’s listed address and phone number were their local citations — and made our visit easy and organized. Citations can help with local SEO because they allow search engines to verify the legitimacy of your business. If the same name, address, and contact information for your brand are easily accessible throughout the web, search engines can trust that your business exists and is truthful about the service it provides. Benefits of Local Citations Local online searches have proven to be integral to a business’ success. According to BrightLocal’s 2022 Consumer Review survey, 99% of consumers used online searches to find local businesses in the last year. In that same survey, 78% of consumers said they searched...

What is Web 3 & What Could It Mean for the Future of Marketing? As we continue to progress into the digital age, a new era of the internet is emerging: web3. Much of what is (and can be) is up in the air but one question we can try to answer now is what it means for marketers. Let's break down what web3 is, when it will launch and how it could impact marketers in the short- and long-term. To understand what it is, let’s take a trip down memory lane. In the late ‘90s, the world was introduced to the first version of the internet. It wasn’t nearly as complex as it is today, with just basic fonts, gray buttons and blue hyperlinks. Very reminiscent of how a website would load today stripped to HTML. Then, it evolved to Web 2 around 2005, a phase in which consumers could consume content like never before on blogs, and later, social media. However, as the internet evolved, so did the methods businesses leveraged to market to consumers online. This has led to growing privacy concerns among consumers who are struggling to trust their data in the hands of brands. Although the FTC has created some guardrails surrounding data privacy, there’s still a lot that leaves consumers wary. Just look at the evolution of Amazon. What was once an online bookstore has now transformed into a tech conglomerate with its hands in ecommerce, digital streaming, cloud computing, and artificial...

74 Social Commerce Stats Marketers Should Know in 2021 Everyone wants a personalized and custom experience online, so it’s no wonder that social commerce has taken over the online shopping world. Channels like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and WhatsApp already have thousands of businesses marketing on their platforms, and many have adopted shopping and payment functions that allow people to buy a product or service directly on the platforms. While social commerce is relatively new, it falls under the larger umbrella of eCommerce sales, which are expected to reach $4.2 trillion this year. As a result, the revenue potential is high, and it's attracting the attention of marketers across a variety of industries. Whether you're looking for information to boost your social media shop or shape your online strategy, read on to discover social commerce stats that will help you understand the current market and learn best practices for attracting buyers and growing your business. Social Commerce Stats for 2021 General Social Commerce Stats Social Commerce Stats by Demographic Social Commerce Purchasing Stats Social Commerce Stats by Platform Social Commerce Stats for Business General Social Commerce Stats 35.9% of internet users in the US will make at least one social commerce purchase in 2021. (Insider Intelligence, 2021) US social commerce sales will surpass $36 billion in 2021, with more than 35% growth. (Insider Intelligence, 2021) Chinese retail social commerce sales will reach $351.65 billion in 2021. (Insider Intelligence, 2021) ...

You Don't Have to Be a Great Writer to Write a Great Blog When I started HubSpot, I was a trained engineer with little writing experience. In the early days of the company, I could not create software. Instead, I spent a lot of time writing articles for our Marketing Blog. As an inexperienced writer, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it performed. Today, the blog has over 500,000 subscribers and over 10M new visitors each month. The success of the blog convinced me that I suppressed brilliant writing skills for the last 20 years! My excitement led me to send a Thank You note to my eighth-grade teacher, Tom Brown, who helped me learn to write. Emboldened with my newfound writing confidence, I wrote the Inbound Marketing Book with my co-founder Dharmesh Shah. When we submitted the final draft to a professional editor, I was confident she would send it back with minimal edits and high praise. Wrong. The document she returned had more red lines than anything I had ever seen in my life. After many weeks of language crafting, we got it close to perfect. Upon its release in 2014, it was ranked #200 out of the 8 million books currently available on Amazon — a list led by notable writers such as Dan Brown and Stephen King. I learned that you do not have to be a great writer to have a great book. The same goes for blogs. Non-writers can develop new skills and...

The Leader's Guide to Effective Change Management We're reminded daily about how change is coming, and to succeed in business, we must remain agile. That all makes sense in theory, but in practical application, to change how you operate or serve customers is no small feat. At IMPACT, we've gone through quite a bit of change, going from a small core team to a good-sized agency. After struggling to implement a change to our client onboarding process, we decided to take a step back and re-evaluate our approach to change management. Below, I'll share with you the key change management models and tools we reviewed, and how you can avoid becoming another statistic. Why is change management important? A 2019 Gartner study revealed that most chief human resources officers are unhappy with the speed of change implementation in their organizations. Why is that? Well, 80% of companies manage change from the top-down, according to the study. With this approach, leadership makes the calls, creates the plan, and sends instructions for company-wide rollout. While it may seem like the quickest way to implement change, it's not the best solution in the long term. Many times, leadership blames employees for unsuccessful changes. However, the data suggests that most employees possess the skills and willingness to undergo organizational changes. The issue lies in deciding who is part of the strategizing, decision-making, and implementation part of change management. Today, companies are much more complex and for changes to be effective, they require...

Social Commerce: What It Is & How to Use It in 2021 Recently, I set an iPhone time limit on my social media use to "45 minutes". I figured 45 minutes would be more than enough. Almost an hour? In between working at HubSpot, catching up with friends, and attending exercise classes, I had no doubt 45 minutes would be plenty of social media consumption. Unfortunately, I learned pretty quickly that I actually spend 45 minutes on social media before I even get to work in the morning. I know I'm not alone. In fact, the average daily social media use of internet users worldwide amounts to 145 minutes per day. With all that social media consumption, it makes sense that more businesses are turning to social media to market to their audiences. But marketing is just one aspect of the buyer's journey -- what about sales? Can that be done within social media platforms, as well? It's actually now entirely possible for businesses to sell products and services natively within social media sites. Here, we're going to explore that very concept -- known as social commerce -- and take a look at some impressive examples of social commerce, so you can consider trying it for your own company. Additionally, we'll list some of the most popular social commerce platforms available today, so you can decide which one could give you the highest ROI. Since many businesses are marketing on these social media sites already, it makes...

5 SEO Success Stories to Inspire Your 2021 Strategy Search engine optimization (SEO) may seem like a straightforward concept. You pick keywords related to your business, create content with those keywords, and you’re set to watch your site grow — a simple three-step process, right? Nope. While those are fundamental elements of SEO, it can actually be quite challenging to create a strategy that helps you drive traffic and enough of it to meet your overall business goals. It can be difficult to get your feet off the ground. Thankfully, there are various tools specifically designed to help you with SEO, build domain authority, and achieve high ROI. In this post, we’ll hear inspiring stories from HubSpot clients that have used our SEO tools to achieve business success. 5 SEO Success Stories To Inspire Your 2021 Strategy 1. Ironpaper Ironpaper is a digital marketing agency that helps their B2B clients grow. They worked with one of their clients, Goddard, to achieve significant success using HubSpot’s SEO tools. Jonathan Franchell, CEO and Founder of Ironpaper, says, “While Goddard fills a real need for their customers by designing medical devices, historically they’ve struggled to find quality leads that could use their services. Instead, their website attracted a lot of spam and unqualified contacts.” Ironpaper began making critical SEO updates with HubSpot tools on Goddard’s site, focusing on internal linking, content strategy with business-relevant keywords, and technical SEO issues like broken links and meta tags. Over an eight-month campaign, Ironpaper helped Goddard...

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