U.S. eyes long prison term for Wall Street scion's fraud

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday said Andrew Caspersen, the scion of a wealthy Wall Street family, should spend as long as 15-2/3 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to defrauding friends, family and a charity out of more than $38 million.

In papers filed with the federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said Caspersen, 40, who had worked at a unit of investment banker Paul Taubman's PJT Partners Inc, abused the trust of his victims through his "long-running, significant and elaborate" fraud.

Prosecutors said the son of late Wall Street financier Finn M.W. Caspersen ran a Ponzi-like scheme from November 2014 to March 2016 to defraud more than one dozen investors, claiming he would use their funds to make loans to private equity firms.

Instead, prosecutors said Andrew Caspersen used money he raised to trade in his own accounts and pay earlier investors.

Though lawyers for Caspersen have said a "pathological" gambling disorder and mental health issues fueled their client's crimes, prosecutors said the 151- to 188-month prison term recommended under federal guidelines was justified.

The sentencing request came six days after Caspersen's lawyers said the Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate's gambling addiction and efforts to rehabilitate himself were among the "powerful mitigating circumstances" justifying leniency.

Caspersen is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan on Nov. 4 by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, a prominent critic of federal sentencing guidelines.

The judge told Caspersen at his July 6 plea hearing that he would consider the guidelines when imposing punishment, but that they "border on the irrational, and I like a sentence to be rational."

Caspersen has agreed not to appeal any prison term longer than 15-2/3 years. He also agreed to forfeit more than $45 million, though his lawyer has said he cannot afford that sum.

The case is U.S. v. Caspersen, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 16-cr-00414.

Source: www.reuters.com

6 Proven Ways Content Marketing Benefits your Small Business

For small and local businesses, it can be hard to stand out against larger nationwide brands. However, content marketing can help your small business attract attention, and for relevant niches in your industry, too.

Content marketing is a marketing approach that involves creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to your prospective audience in the hopes of driving a consumer action, and it has numerous benefits for small businesses. It can give you the opportunity to not only expand your company, but also to build your reputation and establish a place as a trusted leader in the industry.

1. It generates traffic to your site

Content marketing drives inbound traffic to your site. When potential customers have a problem or a particular need, they’ll search for a solution. Having that solution, whether it be information, a helpful guide or even entertainment, means customers are going to visit your site and possibly turn to it in the future for additional solutions.

Audiences love when content feels tailored to their interests or particular needs. In fact, that’s why custom content is favored by up to 68% of consumers. By creating custom content for your site that tailors to your target audience’s needs and interests, you’ll be building their trust and solving their problems.

2. It builds brand awareness

If you’re consistently publishing fresh and unique content on your website and promoting it on social media, you’re creating more opportunities for your target audience to see your name and content. Plus, if you’re pleasing your audience, they’ll be more likely to spread the word about your small business to their followers and friends, which helps you reach even more people.

But, content marketing can also help build your link popularity. If what you’re producing is quality content, people will link back to you. It can be difficult to rank against bigger companies as a small business, but building link popularity can help your online visibility, so your website and content will rank higher on a search results page.

3. It can increase leads and sales

This partially goes without saying, but the more people you have visiting your site and viewing your content, the more likely they are to convert into leads and eventually customers.

Even for small businesses, customers rely on blogs and website content when they’re making purchasing decisions; people like to know as much as they can before they buy. Plus, creating content relevant to your company’s product or services helps your audience truly understand what they will gain by doing business with you.

It’ll also help you become a trusted leader in your industry, and consumers buy from people and businesses they trust. With content marketing, you’re quite literally showing your audience and customers that you know what you’re talking about, which makes you seem like a safe bet to buy from.

4. It establishes you as a thought leader

The more you establish yourself as well-educated in the industry, the more they’ll look to you as an expert or authority, especially if you provide your audience with high-quality content that genuinely helps them.

Earning the title of thought-leader is always a good thing, because then you’re in a position where people not only listen to what you say, but they turn to you first for the answers they need.

For small businesses, this is especially important. It shows your audience that you’re just as knowledgeable as the bigger brands, but you can also provide customers with the more personal, small business experience.

5. It encourages engagement

If you create interesting content, your audience is more likely to respond to it, which opens the door for you to engage with them directly. This gives you the opportunity to further delight your readers by either continuing to entertain them or answering a specific question they may have.

Beyond customers, though, it also gives you the opportunity to engage with other industry leaders to discuss topics you’ve also written about. This can broaden your network and help you build stronger connections with other leaders, which allows you to establish yourself as an authority in the industry as well.

6. It costs less than traditional marketing

Content marketing for small businesses can prove to be more cost-effective than more traditional forms of marketing, especially if you can generate the content yourself. Lead generation through inbound content marketing tends to cost only half of what businesses usually spend on outbound marketing. Spreading your content through social media and email, posting it on your website or contributing to larger sites to get your name out there are all either low-cost or free.

Plus, inbound content marketing means the customers are coming to you, so it’s more efficient than traditional outbound forms because the consumers are already aware and interested.

Source: www.entrepreneur.com

Asian stocks eke out gains, dollar nears a nine-month high

Asian stocks eked out gains but lacked clear direction on Monday after Wall Street's sluggish performance late last week, while the dollar hit a near nine-month high as comments from a Federal Reserve official boosted bets of a rate hike by year-end.

Spreadbetters expected Britain's FTSE .FTSE, Germany's DAX .GDAXI and France's CAC .FCHI to open slightly higher.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS inched up 0.2 percent.
South Korea's Kospi .KS11 gained 0.4 percent. Australian stocks lost 0.5 percent, hurt by a decline in energy shares.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 moved in a tight range and was last up 0.2 percent.
"There are few investors who want to chase the market higher until they see more news from overseas, especially those regarding a U.S. rate hike," said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo.
Shanghai .SSEC outperformed, rising over 1 percent as energy and raw material stocks jumped on indications that government measures to slash production capacity had shown signs of some success.

The optimism spread to Hong Kong, but gains in the Hang Sang .HSI were limited by concerns over continued yuan weakness, as well as a possible U.S. rate hike. [.SS]
On Friday in Wall Street, the S&P 500 .SPX and the Dow .DJI were little changed and the Nasdaq .IXIC advanced as a record day for Microsoft (MSFT.O) and earnings from McDonald's (MCD.N) helped offset a fall in energy and healthcare shares. [.N]
"It will be something of a hiatus week, given that next week brings the BoJ, Fed and BoE meetings...however there is a heavily back-loaded run of data in the U.S., Japan and euro zone, and there will be a deluge of U.S. and indeed European and Asian corporate earnings," wrote Marc Ostwald, strategist at ADM Investor Services International.

Global markets are bracing for a slew of data this week including consumer price data from Japan and some euro zone countries, third quarter U.S. GDP and a number of purchasing managers' index (PMI) data from developed economies.
In currencies, the dollar index .DXY was up 0.1 percent at 98.780 after touching 98.846, its highest since Feb. 3.

The U.S. currency received a boost last week as the euro slid after the European Central Bank doused talk it was contemplating tapering its monetary easing.
The dollar was also supported by hawkish comments from Fed officials including New York Fed President William Dudley and higher expectations that Hillary Clinton will win the U.S. presidential election, which have increased bets that the Fed will raise rates in December.
The dollar was steady at 103.905 yen JPY=. The euro slipped 0.2 percent to $1.0869 EUR= after falling on Friday to $1.0859, its lowest since March 10.
The Australian dollar was steady at $0.7614 AUD=D4.

Source: www.reuters.com

11 Ways to Make Money While You Sleep

Do you remember in the past we were warned to be careful about being in debt because interest never stopped charging us, interest never slept, never took a day off, never took a holiday. Well the reverse is true, as well.

Is your money making money while you sleep? Does it sound too good to be true? Since we still live in the age of the interest, it’s not that difficult to earn extra money on the side.

With that in mind, here are 11 ways that you can actually earn money while you sleep.

1. Start a blog.

Perhaps the most popular way to earn a passive income is by launching your own blog. It only takes a couple of minutes to setup and is cheap to start - just purchase your domain name and pay for hosting.

After that, start creating amazing content that people would be interested in reading or sharing. For example, if you’re an accountant that has helped small business owners with their taxes, then that could be your blog. I personally have my invoicing blog to help customers know everything there is to know about invoicing. This draws thousands of signups a month.

Make sure the topics you write about are popular. If you still love your pet rock, I doubt there would be enough people visiting your our site to monetize it. But, you never know.

Once you’ve gained a following, you can start making money from of your blog by:

Earning commissions as an affiliate. This is where you push other people’s products or services on your site. Make sure these products or services are relevant to your blog. For example, that accounting blog could become an affiliate for accounting or invoicing software. Once you find an affiliate partner you’ll be given a unique code so that whenever a visitor clicks that link on your site you’ll earn your commission.

Sell-advertising. If you’re site has the traffic to become an affiliate, then it may also be good enough for advertisers to purchase ads on your site. You may start off small, like making under $20 per ad. But, you may eventually be able to charge triple digits. Again, you site must be quality.

Find sponsors. This is slightly different than just selling ads on your site. Sponsorships may be a one-off piece of sponsored content or permanent logo embedded in your footer.

2. Sell your own information product.

If you’re knowledgeable in a certain area, then you can start creating products, such as eBooks or videos, and selling them on your blog. It may take a lot of work to create and market your products, but once all the leg work is over, you can just set back and collect the proceeds.

3. Earn royalties.

If you’re a talented musician, actor, or author, then you could earn royalties from your work. In other words people will pay you for using your work or creative assets.

If you aren’t talented enough, but still interested in earning royalties, then check out Royalty Exchange. It’s a marketplace where you can buy and sell royalties.

4. Create a membership community.

If you’ve proven yourself to be a authority figure, then you can create a membership community where you pay a monthly fee to receive additional high-quality content and information that’s not available to non-members.

One of my favorite examples is Timothy Sykes who makes more than $100,000 per month in passive income through his membership community which discusses how people can make money in trading penny stocks. 

5. Install an autoresponder.

Another common online business model is using autoresponders to sell services, products or memberships. This is where people leave their email address on your site and then they’ll receive an automated email containing the link to download products or quality information you have to offer, as well as follow-up with a series of emails.

You’ll a need service like OptinMonster to make this possible. I also recommend you read this Quick Sprout guide to get started with autoresponders.

6. Flip websites.

If you’ve put in the time and effort in building a website and you have gained a lot of traffic, then you may be able to sell it to an interested party by listing on marketplaces like Flippa. I've bought and sold a lot of sites here and made a lot of money.

7. Sell physical products.

Just like with a blogging site, there are several ways to earn a passive income by selling physical products. Probably one of the best known ways is by selling your old junk on eBay. But even if you don’t have anything left to sell you can start drop shopping. This is where you sell products for a company on eBay or Amazon and they’ll take care of the rest - including shipping.

You can also launch your own eCommerce store by using Shopify. They literally give you everything you need to sell products online from a complete online shop to including buy buttons on your social media channels.

8. Invest in stocks or shares.

When you invest in stocks you become a stakeholder. That entitles you to a share of their profits. Investing in stocks has been a popular way to earn a passive income for years, and thanks to the internet, it’s easier than ever to research and invest in stocks on your own.

Keep in mind that the stocks you invest in can change throughout the various stages of life. For example, I look for investments that can benefit my daughter, such as a CA529 plan that will go towards her college tuition.

9. Peer-to-peer lending.

Companies like LendingClub, Propser, and Harmoney have created a new industry where anyone can become a lender. They will then match you with a consumer who either prefers or has trouble securing a loan from a bank. You can earn a higher interest rates on the loans you issued since you’re dealing directly with the borrower.

10. Rent out property.

Thanks to Airbnb, you can rent out your home while on vacation or your vacation home when not in use. You can also rent out your garage, parking space, or unused office space. It’s a nice supplemental income without really doing anything except placing an ad.

11. Hire a middleman.

This is also known as arbitrage and is basically where you have someone else do the work for you. For example, you could start a dog walking service or web design firm, but outsource the actual dog walking or coding to someone else. You’re much better doing anything except being the middleman who is in charge of marketing these services.

Source: www.entrepreneur.com

6 New Social Media Marketing Tools the Experts Use. You Should, Too.

Social media is transforming the way brands market themselves online. Actually, it’s safe to say that social media has already changed things in a big way.

New platforms have emerged that continue to transform the way we communicate. These changes affect both how brands promote their message, and how their fans respond.

With these new platforms comes a handful of new tools to help social media marketers engage with audiences in creative ways, and to keep track of their efforts. To keep pace with the latest social media trends, it’s time to review and update that tool set, recognizing which tools we should keep, which we should discard and which new tools we can add to supercharge our social media efforts.

Here a shortlist of the top social media tools that every marketer should be using in 2016.

1. Buffer

With its clean interface and simple analytics features, Buffer just barely edges out Hootsuite as a favorite social media scheduling tool. You can share content across multiple accounts and networks, all from one central dashboard.

A Chrome extension makes it even easier to share on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and even LinkedIn simultaneously. Buffer has some epic social media guides and case studies on its blog, which is a great place to start if you’re new to social media marketing.

2. Social Clout

It’s all well and good to share content and get likes. In fact, it can be quite addicting. But to really understand which posts get the most engagement, we need to look past vanity metrics and focus on the metrics that matter.

Enter Social Clout, a social media analytics tool designed specifically to track engagement and calculate social media ROI. Social Clout shows you which demographics have the best engagement and which platforms convert the best, and at what times.

3. Feedly

Put your content ideation on autopilot, with Feedly. To set it up, just add the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs and writers and Feedly will create a daily “magazine” with all its content, organized by topic.

Moreover, Feedly is a great way to know what niche influencers are talking about, to join the conversation and to stay up to date with the latest industry trends. Staying up to date with the latest current events helps guide your own content strategy and social media posting schedule.

What’s great about the app is that it integrates with scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite, so you can share and schedule posts from directly within the dashboard. Feedly saves hours of time and energy combing through social media posts to find good content.

4. Canva

Canva is a favorite tool for creating stunning images for social media posts. Creating images is so easy even a bean-counting marketer could do it. Using Canva’s multiple templates, fonts and colors, all you need to do is drag image elements around and drop them into place.

Canva is free to use, but don’t let that fool you. Despite its affordability, major sites like Buzzfeed use Canva to create images for their posts (which, last I checked, drive nearly half a billion visits each month).

5. Socedo

Social media campaigns have countless moving pieces, all of which need to work together if the campaigns are to be successful. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or an established social media manager, there’s never enough time in the day to manage it all while still you're looking for customers.

Socedo is a B2B demand generation tool that does most of the grunt work, so you don’t have to. It works by automating lead generation, and finding and acquiring targeted leads through different social media channels. That way, you can focus on increasing ROI (sales and revenue) without getting bogged down in minutiae and repetitive tasks.

Using a combination of keywords and demographic criteria, Socedo finds and engages prospects across major social networks. Whereas most demand-gen platforms focus on email, Socedo is one of the few that handles outbound prospecting via social.

6. Edgar

Ever notice how influencers like Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk and Richard Branson repeatedly share their old content?

While that practice may appear redundant or irksome, the fact is that old posts have high engagement when shared. It’s just plain smart.

First, social media accounts gain and lose followers with time. Re-sharing content is an excellent way to showcase your top stuff to new followers. Second, even the most loyal fans won’t be online all the time. Regular sharing is a way to engage with audiences at different times throughout the day

That said, it’s not always easy to know the best social media schedule for new and old content. Edgar knows, and shares your content at the times when it’s most likely to engage your audience. The tool categorizes all of your content by topic and target demographic, determining which posts get the highest engagement with which followers.

Edgar doesn’t stop there. After posting an update, the tool recycles the post back to the bottom of your queue, so it will post again later once the rest of your content has been shared. The result is an endless supply of social media posts that shares and reshares itself continuously, without you having to lift a finger.

Conclusion

In 2016, social media marketers can choose from thousands of tools to help streamline their social media campaigns. However, it’s important not to get bogged down with decision anxiety, giving in to the feeling that you need to learn everything all at once.

These six social media tools handle the 80/20 of social media marketing, adding sizzle and power for everyone from the bootstrapped freelancer to the full-scale social media agency. Are you ready to try them?

Source: www.entrepreneur.com

Getting and Managing Clients for Your Freelance Writing Business

In Moonlighting on the Internet, internet entrepreneur Shelby Larson presents the most reliable and proven ways you can create an extra paycheck for the short term and establish a continual revenue stream for the long term with your own website. In this edited excerpt, Larson offers her expert advice on which sites might be good for finding freelance writing gigs and how to manage them once you land them.

As a freelance writer, especially a new one, one of the hurdles you have to get past on a fairly regular basis is finding new clients to keep yourself busy and profitable. Although there are a number of mainstream websites that freelancers of all types can frequent to find jobs, such as Elance or Freelancer, here are a handful of sites you can visit to specifically locate freelance writing jobs.

Content Divas

Pros: You get a wide diversity of projects on this site, so you can build a better resume. Writers also get direct access to editors, clients, and a very supportive staff. Writers are paid weekly. There are lots of opportunities for other types of work.

Cons: Jobs pay less than you could get freelancing independently, and writers must accept pay via PayPal, although because they use the mass pay option, contractors don’t pay fees on their incoming payments. It can sometimes be a slow ramp up to regular work until you’ve established yourself as a reliable resource.

Write Jobs

Pros: Almost every second job is for some magazine, newspaper, or publication; there’s a minimum pay rate of $10 per 500 words, although average pay is much higher.

Cons: There are many work-from-home jobs, but writers outside the U.S. are disadvantaged by the high number of location-specific gigs.

ProBlogger

Pros: They have a great list of blogging and telecommuting gigs. The rates on offer are usually much higher than what you’d find on other freelancing websites. You avoid dealing with the middleman like on Elance or Freelancer, while enjoying high client response rates.

Cons: The search filter isn’t that great, so you have to scan every job to find what you’re looking for.

FreelanceWriting

Pros: It has a great search filter and pulls lists from multiple sites and job sources.

Cons: This is a really popular site, so the job quest can be fiercely competitive.

All Indie Writers

Pros: The site lists jobs by pay.

Cons: Jobs aren’t posted as consistently as on other sites—there are often two- to three-day lapses in postings.

Writers Department

Pros: This is less of a job board and more of an online hub/community that provides jobs, support, and business resources for freelance writers.

Cons: The site requires an application for access.

Freelance Writing Jobs

Pros: This site saves you time by listing high-quality writing jobs from multiple sites and sending you directly to the application phase.

Cons: The response rate is not as high as it is on some other sites (ProBlogger, for instance).

Managing clients and projects

While how to get clients is a huge question all new freelance writers have, you also need to have a plan for how you’re going to manage the client and the project from the point you close the deal through project completion. Every client is potentially a returning client, and you want to make sure they have a fabulous experience.

Right from the onset of the project, it’s critical that you have a realistic understanding of what your client actually wants. You’ll get clients with various degrees of specificity on what they’re looking for, but they almost always have some idea of what they want, and they’re not always great at letting you know what that is. You’re getting hired to write for them, but it’s a true gift to yourself and your client if you can create an intake process that helps your client paint a picture for you of what they truly want.

Not everyone uses an order form for each project, but I do. I’m a firm believer in order forms. There really isn’t a wrong way to do an order form. The most important thing is that you design them to get the information you need. In my company, we have three different ways to handle order forms:

1. Emailed form. With some projects, we simply email them a form full of questions and require them to fill it out and email it back to us or upload it to one of our project management platforms. This is especially useful if your client is a little older and less tech-savvy, or if your client wants time to think about it.

2. Online form. Google Docs has a free way to create interactive forms. Some of our projects are hosted in this format. We send them a link, they fill it out and hit submit, and the content is compiled and sent to us. This is perfect for clients who are a bit more tech-savvy or who are going to fill out the order form in one sitting.

3. Phone meeting. We get some clients onto our recorded phone bridge and talk them through the form. This is ideal if the topic is especially in-depth or the project is very large. It’s also a great fit for clients you suspect will be intimidated and not put much information on the form or who’ll sit on it for long periods of time instead of sitting down and filling it out for you. If the project justifies the budget, we’ll transcribe this information.

However you decide to do it, getting proper information from the client at the outset will save you the pain of unhappy clients or having to do multiple revisions.

When it comes to successfully juggling clients and projects, there’s nothing that will cause you more pain than not properly managing their expectations. You need to be crystal clear about what they can expect every step of the way.

First, you should clearly define the timeline for your client’s project. While a deadline/project due date is important, a timeline is much more than that. You really should have some sort of intake document that lets them know your process. A good writing project should have regular milestones where you check in with the client so they can approve the direction you’re taking. Trust me, if the client doesn’t like something you’re doing, it’s far less painful to learn that partway into the project instead of at the very end, after you’ve written the whole thing. You should anticipate and appreciate course correction.

Your timeline should clearly identify the different parts of your process along with estimated completion dates. Some of your process may include research, checkpoints, writing, final draft due date, etc. Be sure to pad your timeline. However long you think the project will take you, add on extra time; there’s no crime in finishing early, but I guarantee life will get in the way and slow you down.

Next, consider a revision policy. It’s important to define what revisions will come out of your pocket and what will cost your client extra money. You can do this however you want, but it’s less important what your policy is than it is to make sure you have one and that your client is clear on it.

Finally, you’ll definitely want to request testimonials from your clients. There are few things more powerful than social proof. You should always ask for testimonials, and you shouldn’t feel weird about it. They can always say no, and some will, even though they love your work. Do not underestimate the powerful benefit of a testimonial.

Source: www.entrepreneur.com

Nigeria allows naira to float against US dollar

Nigeria will allow the embattled naira to trade freely in a move to control the currency crisis in Africa's most populous nation.

The new system will come into effect on 20 June and is expected to lead to a significant devaluation of the naira.

Being a major oil exporter, Africa's biggest economy has taken a hit from the fall in commodity prices.

The fixed currency rate had created a vast black market for US dollars and squeezed the country's economy.

Nigeria's central bank had long been expected to to allow the naira to be more flexible and trade at a market-driven rate.

The naira is fixed at 197 to the US dollar, but the black market rate has soared to 370 in recent months.

The currency fix was introduced in February 2015 to stop the naira from falling when lower oil prices sparked trouble for Nigeria's economy.

But a prolonged period of holding a currency at an artificial level often has a disruptive effect as foreign companies become reluctant to import goods when they are paid at distorted levels.

Source: www.bbc.com

7 Social Media Marketing Secrets No Marketer Wants to Admit

Talk to professional online marketers, and they’ll likely tell you about the raw power of social media marketing. Talk to business owners from an older generation, and they’re likely to tell you how social media marketing is a useless fad.

Obviously, the former group has an incentive to tell you how great social media marketing is, and the latter group has a negative bias toward communications technologies. Does the truth lie somewhere in the middle? Kind of. 

With proper planning and successful execution, social media marketing can be effective for practically any business. In fact, in a survey of 357 marketers that I recently conducted, social media marketing had the highest percentage of respondents (96 percent) who claimed they planned to increase or keep their social media marketing budgets the same over the next year. Social media marketing also had the third-highest average ROI rating, out of 10 strategies surveyed.

Still, there are a handful of dark secrets about social media that no marketer -- including myself -- likes to admit.

1. Social media marketing isn’t free.

One of the greatest advantages of social media marketing that marketers like to play up is the fact that it’s free. And, yes, it won’t cost you anything to claim your business’ social media profiles, flesh them out or post on a regular basis -- at least not monetarily. The problem is that, even though you won’t necessarily have to spend money to fund your strategy, you will spend lots of time.

It takes hours of work to build out your profiles, and several hours a week to even maintain the most basically active presence. Add up those hours, and suddenly the amount of time that social media marketing does "cost" will become clear. After all, time is money, right?

2. There’s no predictable pattern of success.

No matter how sure people seem when telling you they hold the “secret” for a business' social media success, know that there’s no verifiable or consistent way to guarantee success for this task. For starters, every business is unique, with a unique target demographic, history and competitive landscape.

There’s no way any single strategy could possibly apply to everyone. Add in the fact that social media is always evolving and other random variables that could interfere with your results, and the predictability of success sinks even more.

3. You need a lot of followers before social media marketing starts to pay off.

The bottom line for social media, like any online marketing strategy, is your total ROI, or return on investment. Over an extended period of time, it will be very good if you execute your social media strategy correctly, but your initial ROI will probably be terrible.

Imagine that it takes you 15 minutes to write a good post, and you submit it to your 15 followers. Now, imagine you create the same post, but for 15,000 followers. Which one do you think will have a higher return for your investment (assuming those followers are all genuinely interested in your brand)? It takes a long time for social media to start paying off.

4. Social platforms restrict your reach.

Social media companies have a vested interest in getting you to pay for their advertising. As a result, they often restrict the amount of reach you’re able to get through organic (unpaid) posts. Even though you have 500 followers, that doesn’t mean that every post you make is going to reach 500 people. Keep this principle in mind when considering the sheer potential of social media -- it’s probably far, far less than you think it is.

5. Data won’t tell you everything.

Another advantage social media has is its access to sheer volumes of data -- you’ll be able to probe deeply into user behavior, patterns of interaction and demographic information. But unfortunately, data can’t tell you everything. It can’t give you qualitative insights about how individuals feel toward your brand, or about specific interactions.

Nor can data help you generate new ideas you haven’t tried before. It can’t even give you actionable insights unless you’re asking the right questions of that data in the first place.

6. Adapting is important but exhausting.

Social media changes often, with new platforms cropping up seemingly constantly and new trends coming and going at an ever-increasing pace. If you want to be successful, you have to try to keep up, but keeping up is exhausting even for the most passionate, dedicated marketer.

It’s comforting to settle into a routine, but with social media, you'll never get that opportunity -- at least, you'll never get to stay comfortable for long if you’re doing things right.

7. You’ll end up kicking yourself -- a lot.

There’s a lot of regret in the social media world, especially on a minor level. You’ll end up making typos or mistakes occasionally, but more often you’ll kick yourself for what you didn't do. You might miss a good opportunity for a post, a hashtag or an engagement. You might see a competitor’s post and wish you’d thought of it first. In any case, your strategy won’t be perfect, and you’ll be all too aware of that fact.

Despite these ugly truths and seldom-mentioned secrets about the true nature of social media marketing, it remains one of the most cost-efficient and approachable online marketing strategies you can adopt. No matter what stage of growth your company’s in, who your target market is and what your long-term goals are, social media can help you in your journey -- as long as you recognize its advantages and limitations.

Source: www.entrepreneur.com

Facebook loses first round in suit over storing biometric data

Facebook Inc (FB.O) lost the first round in a court fight against some of its users who sued the social networking company, alleging it "unlawfully" collected and stored users' biometric data derived from their faces in photographs.

The judge presiding over the case in a California federal court on Thursday turned down Facebook's motion seeking dismissal of the suit.

Facebook filed the motion arguing that the users could not file a complaint under Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) as they had agreed in their user agreement that California law would govern their disputes with the company, and that BIPA does not apply to "tag suggestions."

The court found that Illinois law applies and that the plaintiffs have stated a claim under BIPA.

The complainants had alleged that Facebook's face recognition feature that suggests "tags" on photos unlawfully collected and stored biometric data, in violation of the Illinois BIPA.

The case was filed by some Illinois residents under Illinois law, but the parties agreed to transfer the case to the California court, the court order showed.

Facebook was also hit with a lawsuit over its plan to issue new stock last month.

The company said in April it will create a new class of non-voting shares in a move aimed at letting Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg give away his wealth without relinquishing control of the social media juggernaut he founded.

Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

Source: www.reuters.com

Wall St. ends up after jobs report; S&P down for second week

U.S. stocks rebounded from early losses to close higher on Friday as investors viewed the day's jobs data as less disappointing than first thought.

Materials, industrials and discretionary shares were among the day's biggest gainers, with the S&P materials index up 0.8 percent and gold gaining for the day.

In the Labor Department report, nonfarm payrolls increased less than economists expected, and April's job gains were the smallest since September.

But the report also had some upbeat news, with both average hourly earnings and the average work week rising, and analysts said the overall slowdown in hiring may temper expectations for U.S. interest rate hikes.

"I know there was a knee-jerk reaction where the equity market went down, but it didn't take long for cooler heads to prevail and recognize this is still a reasonably good number," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer, North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago.

"The economy is still OK, but there are no pressures (that) maybe a rate increase is on the table earlier."

A Reuters survey following the jobs report showed Wall Street's top banks have all but abandoned any expectation that the Federal Reserve will raise rates in June. Most now see the U.S. central bank's next rate hike coming in September.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 79.92 points, or 0.45 percent, to 17,740.63, the S&P 500 gained 6.51 points, or 0.32 percent, to 2,057.14 and the Nasdaq Composite added 19.06 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,736.16.

Mixed economic data and slowing global growth have weakened investors' appetite for risk this week.

The Dow and S&P 500 posted a second straight week of losses, their first two weeks of declines since February, while the Nasdaq registered a third straight week of losses. For the week, the Dow ended down 0.2 percent, the S&P 500 fell 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq declined 0.8 percent. The S&P 500 is up 0.6 percent for the year so far.

The healthcare sector had among the day's biggest declines, with Endo International slumping 39.2 percent to $16.17 after the drugmaker slashed its 2016 revenue and profit forecasts.

The Nasdaq biotech index dropped 1.3 percent, while the S&P health sector was down 0.6 percent.

Also, shares of Square Inc (SQ.N), the mobile payments company, fell 21.7 percent to $10.22, a day after it reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss.

The stock market could get a boost from consumer names reporting next week. With first-quarter earnings near an end, consumer discretionary components are the only sector showing double-digit earnings growth from a year ago.

About 7.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, compared with the 7.2 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,922 to 1,051; on the Nasdaq, 1,538 issues rose and 1,248 fell.

The S&P 500 posted 16 new 52-week highs and 12 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 32 new highs and 82 new lows.

Source: www.reuters.com