Let’s face it. Brand building for small, cash-strapped teams is tough. There’s never enough time, other things take precedence, and basic marketing activities get left for last… which means they don’t get touched. Using this method, you’ll be able to grow monthly impressions with no effort at all.

This is problematic. Brand building is more important than people think. At least marginally important. Your ability to be recognized and discovered by potential clients and industry leaders rests upon the strength of your brand identity. The easiest way to cultivate a brand identity is through social media feeds – the channels your audience is already engaged with. You have to provide valuable content on a regular basis in order to communicate with your audience. But providing content takes time. And you shouldn’t have to hire a social media manager or take valuable time out of managing your business in order to do this.

SWARM, our small digital agency, understands this problem first-hand.  Even activities like queuing up content into a buffer feed took substantial time away from operational activities, resulting in neglected marketing channels as resources had to first focus on building products and running our business. Yet, by not having at least some social media presence  we were missing an opportunity to remind folks we existed, drive brand recognition, and potentially acquire new leads

Our solution? Build a hack.

What makes our team tick is using technology to solve problems, which is why we decided to build a simple hack to boost our brand presence – starting with Twitter.

Background

Before implementing the hack we were seeing about 5.3k impressions of our tweets over a 30 day period with approximately 1.5k real twitter followers, almost no retweets, and very few link clicks.

Goal

Our goal was to build a simple hack that would automate the content produced on our Twitter account in order to drive engagement. We didn’t want poor or meaningless content. It was important that articles we pulled or topics we covered were interesting and relevant to our industry and audience.

Simple Solution To Grow Monthly Impressions

Pull relevant content from Reddit. Use IFTTT to allow Reddit to talk to our Twitter account. And Voila!

Output medium: We used Twitter as the output medium. However, this hack can also work for Facebook.

Connector: IF This Then That (IFTTT) is the connector. IFTTT will link your output account with the input. If you don’t have a login for it, go ahead and sign up for it

Source: We used Reddit as the source. If you don’t have an account you can easily register for free.

The wonderful thing about reddit is that you have relevant communities that are most likely applicable to your target audience. If you work in technology, the https://reddit.com/r/technology community will be a great source for insight and a source of relevant articles, if you focus on Gaming then pulling content from here makes sense, or if you’re talking about Psychology then /r/psychology. In short, it works across a wide breadth of interests.

Ok, now to the step-by-step.

Tools you will need: Twitter Account, Reddit Account, IFTTT account.

1. Log into ifttt.com
2. Go to “My recipes and click on “Create a Recipe”
3. For the ‘this’, choose reddit

4. Then choose your parameters — these can be hot posts, new posts, any posts, or even reddit queries. We chose hot posts because we didn’t want to tweet everything posted in the subreddit, I want only things that the community deems relevant.

5. Choose your target subreddit, i.e. tech

Cool, you should by now have connected your content source. IFTTT will pull relevant articles from Reddit.

Now onto the “that” part.

6. Click on ‘that’ and choose Twitter. (You can also choose Facebook, or FB pages for example).

7. Next, choose how you want the content to be outputted. We chose “Post a tweet.” However if you want to, for example, share content from /r/pics you should choose “Post a tweet with image.”

8. And now for the last and most important step: setting up how that content is going to be displayed. IFTTT’s default tweet text is the Post’s title, reference to where the source subreddit and the reddit url.

The problem with this is is that you’re going to be promoting content on Reddit. This is fine, but requires your audience to take an additional step to get to the core of the content. What you’ll want to do is change the below to look like this.

{{Title}} #hashtags {{ContentHTML}}

And hit create action. What this does is it keeps the Title as displayed on Reddit. You then put in whatever hashtag is relevant to your market. Since we’re talking about tech in this example, we use #tech. Lastly the ContentHTML will link directly to the content / article.

Lastly, pat yourself on the back, you’ve just set up an automated content stream for your Social Media Account. Yay!

So, Does this really work?

Well, let’s look at May 2015 when we didn’t have this hack running, and then May 2016 after a few months of use.

Impressions: From 5.3k impressions, we moved up to 89.9k, from 1 to 116 retweets.

Follower count: Our follower count increased on average by 40-50 real followers per month.

Website traffic: Started seeing both traffic and leads come in from twitter – this was not the case beforehand.

One Caveat

While we found this hack to be successful, in that it increased impressions, retweets, link clicks,and even traffic to our company website, we also saw that this hack wasn’t a substitute for original content. Our own thought leadership pieces have systematically outperformed anything we’ve reposted, which is to be expected.

So while this may be a good way to keep abreast of your social media strategy pro-bono and on the quick. The most powerful way to increase engagement is still through posting original content.

Our blog posts and weekly newsletters have served as a fantastic way to drive engagement and traffic to our site.

So I’ll leave you with this. Try out this IFTTT hack. It’s simple, easy and most importantly, it works! But if your team has more time or at least wants to devote more time to building brand, then the best hack may not be a hack at all, but hard work.

Business school coursework predominantly focuses on business plan writing, scalability, working capital allocation, with some of the more avant-garde schools (think Tier-1 West Coast institutions) being taught by some of Silicon Valley’s best. Learning the fundamentals of business is an essential starting point, just as gleaning insight from others’ best practices and failures is a useful practice. However, what business school does not do and never will do, is substitute real life experience.

Moving from Teaching to Doing

There’s no denying that reading every book in the football lexicon will make you knowledgeable about the game. Yet, no book can prepare you for the physical demands of the sport. You have to go out there and practice. You have to train hard. Fail first. Win later.

The Same Goes for Entrepreneurs

In the current academic spectrum, schools and professors are too preoccupied with teaching students theory. The focus needs to shift to a more hands on approach. The question is, how?

Underfunded, time-strapped and understaffed are how most entrepreneurs will describe themselves. The last of these is where the academic and “real” entrepreneurial worlds need to bridge.  Here we don’t mean summer MBA internships at startups, we mean active participation throughout the course year for credit.

Managing Expectations for Startup Internships

Students interested in entrepreneurship need that hands on experience, and truth be told, three months is simply not enough time. This bridge also needs to act as a tool to manage expectations of MBA’s and startup jobs.

You’ll find that a majority of top 10 MBA students will have egos. Despite that, the startup process is decisively different than working for even an established SME. While the student may have expectations that he or she will work on strategy formulation, the reality may be that for two weeks the team may spend long hours doing nothing more than making cold calls, or even data entry. Being bootstrapped means that every penny counts and hiring three people at €8/hr to do data entry for three days is sometimes just not an option.

This is something that unfortunately the academic approach lacks, instead of a reality that oftentimes sees longer work hours than investment banking or consulting. The picture is painted that the start upper is an engine of innovation, and that securing financing is something relative to being in California in 1998 and starting a dotcom, whereas the real picture is more attune to a Mad Max style post apocalyptic grind. This makes it fun.

Implementing Change For Business School Worth

Implementing change is never an easy task, especially within institutions that have over time developed bureaucracies. One avenue that does prove effective in stimulating change among learning institutions is reaching out to alumni and current students.

As schools rely on alumni donations for expanding, their voice should hold mettle among the administration. On the other side of the spectrum, business school students need to actively inform administration of their desire to participate in more hands-on initiatives instead of solely focusing on academic learning, whether it be case, or technical, as neither is a satisfactory substitute for “just doing it”.

Read more about our thoughts on personal development here.

What is it, these bargaining tactics?

What is at stake some may ask. Basically everything, we negotiate every day, knowingly or not. Be it about the added sugar in your coffee, whether you can borrow a few bucks from your friends or if someone can lend you a pen. Negotiation and bargaining tactics encompass all of that.

Negotiation can also act as a form of conflict resolution; it can involve striking deals, working things out with one or more parties. Negotiation is an integral part of everyday life. Negotiation occurs in business, non-profit organizations, and government branches. Likewise, within legal proceedings, among nations and in personal situations such as marriage, divorce and parenting.

In its basic form negotiation has two distinct strategies, these being the advocate’s approach and the win-win negotiators approach. From these then we have additional strategies. One strategy is positional (or distributive or competitive) bargaining, while the other is interest-based (or integrative, or cooperative) bargaining.

The advocate’s approach, the win — lose.

A “successful” negotiation in the advocacy approach is when the negotiator is able to obtain all or most of the outcomes their party desires, but without driving the other party to permanently break off negotiations.

The win — win approach.

Suggests that agreement often can be reached if parties look not at their stated positions but rather at their underlying interests and requirements.

 

Part 1: Positional Bargaining

A Deeper Look at the advocate’s approach or positional bargaining. Positional bargaining is a negotiation strategy that involves holding on to a fixed idea, or position of what you want. You’re arguing for it and it alone, regardless of any underlying interests. The classic example of positional bargaining is the haggling that takes place between proprietor and customer over the price of an item.

The customer has a maximum amount he or she will pay and the proprietor will only sell something over a certain minimum amount. Each side starts with an extreme position (in this case monetary value) and proceed to negotiate and make concessions. Eventually a compromise may be reached. For example, a man offers a vendor at the flea market $10 for a rug he has for sale. The vendor asks for $30, so the customer offers $15. The merchant then says he will accept $25, but the customer says the highest he will go is $20. The vendor agrees that $20 is acceptable and the sale is made at $20. So the customer pays $10 more than he originally wanted and the vendor receives $10 less.

Why is Positional Bargaining Important? Positional bargaining tends to be the first strategy people adopt when entering a negotiation. This is often problematic, because as the negotiation advances, the negotiators become more and more committed to their positions, continually restating and defending them.

A strong commitment to defending a position usually leads to a lack of attention to both parties’ underlying interests. Therefore, any agreement that is reached will probably reflect a mechanical splitting of the difference between final positions rather than a solution carefully crafted to meet the legitimate interests of the parties.

What This Means

Therefore, positional bargaining is often considered a less constructive and less efficient strategy for negotiation than integrative negotiation. Positional bargaining is less likely to result in a win-win outcome and may result in bad feelings between the parties. This possibly arises out of the adversarial, “you vs. me” approach or simply a result of one side not being truly satisfied with their end of the outcome. Positional bargaining is inefficient in terms of the number of decisions that must be made. The example above demonstrates the back-and-forth nature of positional bargaining. The more extreme the opening positions are, the longer it will take to reach a compromise.

Can Positional Bargaining Be Good? Despite criticism of positional bargaining, supporters of this negotiation strategy do exist.

It has been argued that consideration of all underlying interests in a negotiation process are unnecessary. In fact it may sometimes be counterproductive. This is because of the distinction and relationship between issues and interests.

Issues are universal; they are shared between each party in a conflict. Interests, on the other hand, are specific to each party. What the buyer of the rug in the market wants is a bargain, what the seller wants is profit. This relationship is quite simple.

The problem arises when the issue at hand stirs up dramatically opposing interests between the parties, a situation in which it would be very difficult to bring them into agreement. In this case, it may sometimes be better to negotiate in terms of positions and go for a compromise.

An Example

Two nations are in a dispute over water rights. However, they also differ on many other issues, including trade, immigration, religion, and politics. Broadening the debate to include these underlying interests will only polarize the sides further. In this case it may be much easier to reach agreement if the two sides focus on the smaller issue of water, and set aside their other concerns. This involves negotiating in terms of positions.

This may help the sides reach a compromise without creating any larger, interest-based conflicts. For issues that involve extremely conflicting underlying interests, it’s best to just focus on positions and aim for compromise.

 

Part 2: Interest based bargaining

The win/win negotiator’s approach or Interest Based Bargaining Integrative bargaining (also called “interest-based bargaining,” “win-win bargaining”) is a negotiation strategy in which parties collaborate to find a “win-win” solution to their dispute. This strategy focuses on developing mutually beneficial agreements based on the interests of the disputants. Interests include the needs, desires, concerns, and fears important to each side. They are the underlying reasons why people become involved in a conflict.

Integrative refers to the potential for the parties’ interests to be [combined] in ways that create joint value or enlarge the pie. Potential for integration only exists when there are multiple issues involved in the negotiation. This is because the parties must be able to make trade-offs across issues in order for both sides to be satisfied with the outcome.

Why is Integrative Bargaining Important? Integrative bargaining is important because it usually produces more satisfactory outcomes for the parties involved than does positional bargaining. Positional bargaining is based on fixed, opposing viewpoints (positions) and tends to result in compromise or no agreement at all. Oftentimes, compromises do not efficiently satisfy the true interests of the disputants. Instead, compromises simply split the difference between the two positions, giving each side half of what they want. Creative, integrative solutions, on the other hand, can potentially give everyone all of what they want.

There are often many interests behind any one position. If parties focus on identifying those interests, they will increase their ability to develop win-win solutions. The classic example of interest-based bargaining and creating joint value is that of a dispute between two little girls over an orange.

An Example

Both girls take the position that they want the whole orange. Their mother serves as the moderator of the dispute and based on their positions, cuts the orange in half and gives each girl one half. This outcome represents a compromise. However, if the mother had asked each of the girls why she wanted the orange — what her interests were — there could have been a different, win-win outcome. This is because one girl wanted to eat the meat of the orange, but the other just wanted the peel to use in baking some cookies. If their mother had known their interests, they could have both gotten what they wanted, rather than just half.

Integrative solutions are generally more gratifying for all involved in negotiation, as the true needs and concerns of both sides will be met to some degree. It is a collaborative process and therefore the parties actually end up helping each other. This prevents ongoing ill will after the negotiation concludes. Instead, interest-based bargaining facilitates constructive, positive relationships between previous adversaries.

The first step in integrative bargaining is identifying each side’s interests. This will take some work by the negotiating parties, as interests are often less tangible than positions and are often not publicly revealed. A key approach to determining interests is asking “Why?” Why do you want that? Why do you need that? What are your concerns? Fears? Hopes? If you cannot ask these questions directly, get an intermediary to ask them.

What This Means

The bottom line is you need to figure out why people feel the way they do, why they are demanding what they are demanding. Be sure to make it clear that you are asking these questions so you can understand their interests (needs, hopes, fears, or desires) better, not because you are challenging them or trying to figure out how to beat them.

Next you might ask yourself how the other side perceives your demands. What is standing in the way of them agreeing with you? Do they know your underlying interests? Do you know what your own underlying interests are? If you can figure out their interests as well as your own, you will be much more likely to find a solution that benefits both sides.

You must also analyze the potential consequences of an agreement you are advocating, as the other side would see them. This is essentially the process of weighing pros and cons, but you attempt to do it from the perspective of the other side. Carrying out an empathetic analysis will help you understand your adversary’s interests. Then you will be better equipped to negotiate an agreement that will be acceptable to both of you.

Additional Steps

There are a few other points to remember about identifying interests. First, you must realize that each side will probably have multiple interests it is trying to satisfy. Not only will a single person have multiple interests, but if you are negotiating with a group, you must remember that each individual in the group may have differing interests. The most powerful interests are basic human needs — security, economic wellbeing, sense of belonging, recognition, and control over one’s life. If you can take care of the basic needs of both sides, then agreement will be easier. You should make a list of each side’s interests as they become apparent. This way you will be able to remember them and also to evaluate their relative importance.

 

Positional vs. Interest Based Negotiation Styles

Let’s start up by looking at both types of negotiation techniques and the process that each method passes through.

So what about the psychology of negotiation, where does that come into play. From the above we can identify that the mentality of a negotiator is based on the style of negotiation he will utilize to attain his goal.

However, to strictly put this as a mentality from the side of the goal seeker is wrong. Mentality changes throughout the negotiations process, and is adversely affected by where the individual sees himself at any given moment.

An Example

For example, an individual will always be more affected with what he will lose over what he will gain in any situation. People are afraid of losses, and these losses affect their psyche much more adversely than winnings. Therefore, it is necessary when negotiating to convince the opposite party that they are getting a better deal than they really are. A person with low self-esteem will trend to push negotiations too far and to allow his own ego to dictate the course of negotiations.

In negotiations with such an individual, there are basically two alternatives (other than giving in and getting a raw deal). Firstly, try and get rid of that individual. The best method is to stand up to him (and his bullying) in such a way that he (and its not always a he) loses face in front of his colleagues. The second way is to convince the individual that he has been given a much better deal than may strictly be the case. He can present this as a major victory. The weakness of such a person is that his colleagues probably do not like him and will not always give him the full support in negotiations that he needs.

Anyways, in any complex negotiation it is a necessity to understand the other party, their personality, and wants and needs. Knowing these attributes one can use psychological knowledge to affect the course of the negotiation. One other thing that can be used in negotiations is neuro-linguistic programming, which allows the person skilled in it to read the body language of the other. Through this, strategy is adjusted based on the reactions of the other party.

This also coincides with the politics of negotiation where each party is looking for.

Post Negotiations Strategies

After the negotiation is completed it is important to sit back and reflect on what occurred during the negotiation phase. Some questions that a negotiator should ask himself are: What did I come into the deal wanting? Did I wind up with it? What was my offer, and target? How close to the walk away was I? Did I bundle things correctly, use what I had intended to as leverage factors? All these questions are necessary to assess the negotiation between the two parties. This is one of the most important steps in the negotiations process: Reflection. It identifies where the negotiation went wrong, or positively, and what was it that made it turn in that direction.

But the above questions only reference the material outcome of the negotiation. It is also important to consider such attributes of the negotiation as psychology. Did I involve my feelings in the process? Is the outcome of the negotiation really what I wanted, or was I simply made to believe so? All these questions are pivotal to understanding the post negations outcome, and should be utilized as strategies for learning.

For more on personal development in the business world, read our thoughts here.

 

The general thought is that if you have a good idea and no one has done it just yet, or not in the way you’ve conceived it, then being first to market means live or die. For any startup founder, the pressure of launching first is real―especially when considering the possibility of your competitor beating you to the market, leaving you scrambling to re-evaluate your value proposition. I get it.

But research seems to suggest that this line of thinking is faulty. In fact, 47 percent of first-movers actually fail, according to research by the American Marketing Association. Look at most successful tech companies and you’ll find that they were not 2nd or even 3rd to market. More often than not, the first company who launches is too early or spends all their money proving the market exists only to find out that the market wasn’t ready.

Remember MySpace and Friendster? In 2002, social networking hit its stride with the launch of Friendster (which later turned into a gaming site, and ultimately is on a permanent hiatus since June 2015). MySpace launched a year later, and won the competition as the more hip alternative, appealing to the more music-inclined demographic. Both were ahead of their time by offering a social networking experience on the web. That was until Facebook launched in 2004 and completely tore up the competition, leaving MySpace and Friendster to a relegated world of early movers.

Facebook’s success can be attributed to several strategic decisions, like the launch of its open API platform back in 2007. More broadly, however, the market was already established and Facebook was able to perfect the product, augment it, and offer valuable add-on services. Subsequently, they made targeted strategic acquisitions of products, like Instagram and What’s App.

First To Market Failures In Other Industries

However, the case for not being the first mover extends beyond social networks. Take for example, search engines. In 1995 the major search engine players, like Archie, Lycos, Infoseek, and WebCrawl, launched their products. Yahoo!, which earlier this week was acquired by Verizon, was at one point valued at $128B USD. It also had in its early days a superior search product. Three years later it’s 1998, Google comes in, and the rest is history (funny side note, Yahoo! had a chance to acquire Google for $5B but passed).

What did Google do right that the others did wrong? The code behind Google had already existed prior to its launch, but Google decided to hold off a bit, unlike its competitors. Why? Well in 1995, equipment was too expensive and and connection speeds were too slow for anyone to really use the net outside of institutions. Google strategically decided to wait until Larry and David felt the market was ready. In 1998 the internet was just starting to reach critical mass, the 56k modem came standard with home PC’s and overall connectivity was cheap at about $19.95 per month. The timing was right; Google capitalized on it.

There are countless examples of 1st movers failing. In 1996, GM launched the EV1, it was the first mass produced electric vehicle and it failed. Today Tesla founded in 2003 just a few short years later has a market cap of about $34B, GM’s $47.5B. The list goes on.

What This Means

The point I’m trying to make is that first-mover advantage is overrated. Yes, at times one can reap the benefit of first-move advantage by gaining monopoly-like status on a market. But that success may be short-lived (again, think Yahoo!). More often than not, sustainable success boils down to market timing and sound strategy.

So the question entrepreneurs should really be asking themselves are:  Is this the right time? Are we ready to launch? is the market ready? Are consumers ready for what our product has to offer them?

 

And to close, I will quote a friend, David Masó who recently told me during a chat “The good entrepreneur is he that resists and pursues their dreams in a smart way.”

Read more of our thoughts here.

In 2002, Joan Magretta publish a very interesting article in the Harvard Business Review titled “Why Business Models Matter”. This was right after the internet bubble burst and your everyday investor was keen to stay away from anything and everything that could in any such way be associated with the dot.com boom. The term “business model” was one of these. The sheer sight of a “business model” ran shivers down people’s spines.

However, Joan made a very good observation. Specifically, “good business model begins with the insight into human motivations and ends in a rich stream of profits”. While dot com companies were here to stay, one could not disagree with the fact that human motivation will lead to some form of behavior. In this—one that leads to purchases. Which is in the end a business model.

Telling a Good Story

Creating a business model is like telling a story. Take the example of J.C. Fargo, the president of AmEx who in 1982 during a European vacation identified the need for the travelers cheque.

The story associated with the business model was easy peasy for customers to grasp. For a small fee, the traveler could conveniently protect themselves from theft as it was widely accepted. On the other side of the table, AmEx was a trusted name, so businesses happily accepted the cheques. As more businesses accepted the cheques, and more individuals used them, more businesses would subscribe.

As for AmEx, well, we don’t have to go into details, but surely the equivalents of an interest free loan from customers and the nearly risk free nature of the business (customers always paid in cash), made this one of AmEx better business ideas.

But what’s all this have to do with business models? It’s simple really, a business model represents a better way of conducting something, improving on the current alternatives, it may offer value to a group of customers, or it may revolutionize processes until someone else revolutionizes those processes. In the end it tells a story about how something can be done better than it is now.

Doing the Math: Business Model Tests

Does it add up? Are your profits more than your losses? What is your burn rate? How long until you’re out of the red? Will my customers buy my product or service? Changing something and making it better is one thing, there have been millions of Euros, Dollars, Pounds, Yen or whatever currency you’d like to use, thrown at project that were simply put unsellable. These projects had great technologies behind them, they were innovators in their fields, they were new and something truly special, but they flopped.

Why? Because no one bought them, many were simply too expensive, i.e. various online grocers who’d bet that consumers would pay more for the same jar of jam if it could be delivered to their home, or in the 1980’s when Sears decided it would give its customers the option to purchase financial products. Why anyone would purchase an investment to add into their portfolio while shopping around for a car tire is beyond me, but hey, the exec’s thought it’d work. It didn’t.

The moral of all this is basically, 1. Tell a good story, see if there’s a need and reason to develop a product or service you’re thinking about developing, who will your customers be, and will everyone involved benefit, and 2. will it be profitable based on a series of critical what-if assumptions focused on your business and product.

And if after all that, you’ve still got a green light. Well… then it’s time to think about scalability and strategy.