This is especially relevant when it comes to your money. Everyone goes through financial pain, and it is no joke. I experienced this most recently when one of my stocks, GoPro (Ticker: GPRO), went into the toilet.
Read MoreWhen you are swamped, it can be hard to execute on your investing goals and feel like you’re a badass. Don’t worry – you still are. All you need is a little reset.
Read MoreI know you want to know HOW I get you $1 million dollars, right? These days, Buffet is buying Apple stock in the hopes of getting his millions, but what about yours?
Read MoreSo you want to take your company’s Twitter following to the next level? Well, I recently grew my Twitter base for my company—Charisse Says, a media platform to make investing simple and easy—and I have learned that it takes planning and routine execution to grow your Twitter following. I want to share six simple steps to strategically grow your Twitter base. It worked for me, and it may be able to work for you, too.
Growing a social media following on any platform takes time. If time is not on your side, I strongly recommend hiring someone to help run the social media for your brand. A good budget to start with is $500 per month. Having another set of hands to help tweet, retweet, reply and create content for posts may be of great value.
I also recommend tying payment to a performance metric. For the Charisse Says platform, I hired a freelance marketing manager and gave her the specific goal of growing my number of Twitter followers over a certain number days, such as 90 days. Additionally, I offered a bonus; if she achieved the goal in a shorter time period, such as 30 days, I gave her more money. A bonus usually motivates people to push themselves to do their very best.
The key here is to provide the person you hire with all the tools necessary to be successful. When I hired my marketing manager, I provided her with branding guidelines, access to all of my social media accounts (not just Twitter) and spent time with her so that she not only fully understood my brand, but could speak in the Charisse Says voice. I also let her know that I expected her to work 1 to 2 hours a day on this project, or 10-15 hours per week.
If hiring someone is not in your budget, don't worry. You may have to set aside roughly two hours a day to concentrate on growing your Twitter following. Give yourself a goal and a timeline, and don’t forget to give yourself a bonus too! If you surpass your goal, buy yourself a nice bottle of wine or get a massage as a reward. This will help you stay motivated.
The Charisse Says brand incorporates the personality of its founder—yours truly—as part of the marketing and branding strategy. Take the time to really flesh out the “voice” of your brand and how that translates into social media posts—it may help you grow your Twitter following.
Specifically, it is so important to make sure you choose a Twitter avatar that properly represents your company. Most people choose to use their headshot, while businesses tend to use their logo. Twitter now also has a cover photo similar to Facebook, so you have more real estate to promote your brand in a professional manner. Make the most of these two images. You may want to use them to promote your product(s) and/or brand. Making these changes only takes a few minutes and may make a big difference. I also recommend having the same avatar photo and cover photo—wherever applicable—across all of your social media accounts.
Your Twitter bio is most likely the first thing that people read when they find your profile. Therefore, it's imperative that it represents your brand appropriately. Additionally, when people search Twitter, the results are based on data in the profile bio. I like to think of my Twitter bio as a bundle of keywords that are used to attract people to my profile, and subsequently my business.
Also, you may want to consider using hashtags before the most important keywords in your bio, and include your city or region name to attract local users. Finally, make sure to fill out the website address so that people can go to your website to engage with your content and/or find a product that you've been promoting.
Now that you have a stellar Twitter profile, promote it everywhere! Add your Twitter handle to the bio of guest blog posts that you author. This lets readers know that if they want to connect with you, they should follow you. Having an easily visible Twitter button on your website can be helpful in making this connection.
You can also add your Twitter handle to business cards, brochures, signs and your email signature. Another great way to get more eyes on your Twitter profile is to cross promote your social media accounts. Let your Facebook and Instagram followers know that you have a Twitter account and they should follow you. You may even get their attention by referencing a discussion you are having on Twitter.
If you want to grow your Twitter following, you are probably going to have to commit to tweeting a lot.
To make sure you are tweeting at peak times to reach your target audience, consider using a free time-saving tool like Hootsuite to schedule multiple tweets in advance. For Charisse Says, I schedule three to four tweets for every day of the week using Hootsuite on Sunday nights. I also have my marketing manager manually retweet at least 10 posts from influencers in my field, and reply to at least five posts from influencers daily. Influencers have hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. The goal here is to engage their audience of Twitter followers in conversation about things relevant for them. Once they see that you have common interests, they may be more inclined to follow you.
When you're crafting your tweets, don’t forget to use relevant hashtags. They may help connect you with your target audience on the site, and could help increase the number of impressions on your post. Without hashtags, your chances of your tweets being seen by people who aren't your followers may decrease. But with them, they may be seen by hundreds or thousands of new people on Twitter, who might retweet your post and/or follow your account.
Another way that you may be able to get more people to view your posts is by mentioning others in your tweets. They will get a notification from Twitter that you mentioned them in a tweet and probably check out your profile. Hopefully once they read that stellar bio you wrote, they will also follow you.
You can also engage with your audience by saying “Thank you!” Consider thanking every single person who follows you or anyone who retweets or replies to one of your tweets. I also make a habit of replying publicly to anyone who asks me a question. A public reply establishes your company as an authority and shows that people want your opinion and advice. (Pro tip: If you're starting a tweet with someone's handle, type a period in front of the name so more people can see it—otherwise Twitter will only show the tweet to users who follow both you and the person you're tweeting at.)
Another way to find people in your industry to follow on Twitter (and maybe have them follow you back) is to connect Twitter to your LinkedIn contacts. People who you already have a relationship may be happy to reciprocate the follow.
With my company, I also followed people who retweeted the same posts that I did. The idea here is that the people I followed will see that I have similar interests to them and follow me back. And it worked!
If you are worried about imbalance—following way more people than follow you—there’s an easy fix. You (or your Twitter manager) can always unfollow people who never followed you back manually or by using apps like Twitter Karma, Follow Filter, or ManageFlitter.
By following the above steps religiously, my marketing manager and I were able to increase the number of people following Charisse Says tremendously. If you get several new followers in the first couple of days, and then hit a dry spell, don't give up! This is typical and if you stay consistent you may see a payoff in the end.
If it has been three days or more and you have not received a new follower, it may be time to re-evaluate. Read through the above steps again and tweak the strategy to meet your needs. Maybe your target audience is not on Twitter between 1 p.m, and 3 p.m. Or maybe one of the influencers you were engaging with isn’t responding.
A lot of Twitter success comes from the trial and error of working the strategic plan, so don't get discouraged. You can do it!
What a question to start this Monday off, huh? I’m just getting started this week. “Would You Kill For Money?” – This is the question that I was left to ponder after I watched the movie Money Monster this past weekend. If you’re a movie lover like me, I hate it when people spill the beans, so I won’t. However, I believe you’ll come to a similar pondering after watching the trailer. But, I have to address the fundamental premise of the movie – people will go to great lengths to earn some money. The movie provides many other “ah ha” moments, a tutorial on algorithmic trading, and urges you not to believe the stock tips you hear on TV.
Desperation can cause the best of us to go to great measures in order to make a return on an investment. I’ve been there before and let me tell you – you start rationalizing poor decisions and trying to recoup your costs. The economist in me calls this “sunk cost fallacy,” or the tendency to let the costs you already incurred negatively influence your behavior.
What I learned, however, is that if an investment goes bad, one must be willing to walk away and take the loss. I did this last year with my J.C. Penney investment (the stock performed so poorly). I also did this a few years ago when I closed on my business - Smarteys.
What Should You Do When You’re Losing?
No one likes to lose money! Trust me, I hate it. But, it happens to us all. The important thing to do is to have a framework to evaluate your investment.
So, here are a few questions you should ask yourself to determine if you should walk away from an investment that is losing money:
Let me know what you think of these questions as it relates to an investment you’re starting to think through. There’s no shame in sharing – we can help each other find real answers and solutions. Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.
Have a wonderful day, and DON’T kill anyone over money, even when things get bad.
I hope you embraced this Mother’s Day weekend, albeit living as a mother yourself, celebrating a mother in your life, or remembering one that has made an impact on you. I have always thought that my Mom had some kind of magic pill that gave her energy, always made her smile, and provided multi-tasking skills. In my mind, this pink magic pill allowed her to work a long day, take care of my brother and me growing up, and still keep her other relationships – as a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend.
I eventually came to realize that there was no pill. Yup, to my dismay, no magic pill existed. Instead, it was her hard work, sacrifice, and definitely some prayers!
When it comes to our money and investing, it is easy to assume that others have gained their wealth by some magic pill. To no surprise, many people feel that you can take a magic pill for dieting too. (Side note – I read this weekend’s New York Times piece on “Why You Can’t Lose Weight on a Diet,” and mindful eating is suggested.)
Removing those who inherit large sums of wealth, most people who invest make hard choices, short-term sacrifices for long-term gain, and stay disciplined. Let’s not kid ourselves - Having a certain level of income does help too. And, while luck and blessings sometime pay a part in reaping financial success, I want you to know that it takes work too! And, you are capable of hitting your financial goals.
Just look at one of your fellow readers, who hit a BIG goal this week:
Nicki Carr paid off $7,000 in credit card debt over the last twelve months. Nicki told me that she is now going to allocate the money she would have used to pay off her credit card to investing, and specifically in ETFs.
Nicki asked me to share that she makes less than $75k, so if she can do it, you can too in your year of action. If you need a refresher on ETFs, check out my video!
Pay Off Debt or Invest?
I know what you’re thinking – well, Charisse, Nicki may not have other outlays of cash that you have. You’re right – you do not know and nor do I. What I do know is that Nicki made it a top priority to pay off high-interest rate credit card debt (in her case, 22%) before investing. I agree that she made the right financial choice because the stock market has only returned 7% historically, which is a lower return than 22% on a credit card. Check out this article that goes through the math of making a decision between debt and investing.
You too can make great financial decisions!
I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I was in NYC and let me tell you – I had a ball in bringing in the month of May. I’m going to keep it short and sweet today and let you listen to my talk last week on “Investing on a Budget.” As a reminder, Prudential invited me to speak as their featured guest on the Hip Hop Sisters Foundation Wealthy Wednesday call. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I know, the topic may sound contradictory, but I have no doubt that you will get a lot out of this one because I walk though exactly how to make room for investing in your life. If you did dial-in, thank you for your participation – I appreciate your support.
If you have not done so, please listen when you have a moment. If you (or your parents are retiring), I give some good strategies on how to think about investing later on in life during the Q&A period.
One of the biggest reasons why people do not invest is because they do not think they have money to do so. But, I will allay those fears and provide some tips to get you started.
Did You Hear?
For those of you who heard about Goldman Sachs opening a new online bank, you did hear correctly. I think Goldman has a way to go here, but it is very interesting that they have strategically decided to go this route. What does this mean for you? We’ll all have to wait and see if they can offer good products and a competitive advantage over what you’re using today. I will be following this one!
Have a great week and Spring is here, for real this time.
Happy Monday! And, if you’re celebrating Passover, I hope you enjoyed Seder.
I know - you’re receiving this email a little earlier than usual, but I can’t help it!
We’ve all had a few days to digest the heartbreaking news that Prince is gone. While I have never been a Prince groupie, I love dancing to “Kiss” and “I Wanna Be Your Lover.”
More over, I have always appreciated Prince’s individuality, including his love for the heels. It is Prince’s ability to embrace his uniqueness that offers a lesson for us going forward. And, Prince was a conscious investor!
Be Ready to Pull the Trigger
When it comes to investing, you must always develop your own philosophy for what is going to make you money. You have to be an individual, always searching for good themes that will help you reach your goals.
A great time to execute on individual stock investing themes is during earnings season. As I talked about late last year, company earnings do matter. In this past week, two earnings reports really stood out to me:
Steph Curry boosts Under Armour (UA) Earnings. UA’s footwear sales reached $264 million in the quarter, largely in part to Steph’s shoes, which outsold sales of LeBron James’ shoes. The stock jumped roughly 7% on the earnings, and is up 17% this year. BTW, if you haven’t read the backstory on how Steph left Nike for Under Armor, it’s worth the read – drama, power, and more!
Google Missed Earnings. The stock was down 5% on its earnings announcement because it missed Wall Street expectations. The stock is down about the same amount for the year. Google is losing money on its blue sky projects, such as driveless cars and home automation. But, it announced that searches on mobile devices surpassed those on traditional computers – Wow. If you believe that GOOG will get more ad dollars from mobile, are you ready to buy GOOG?
I know – you didn’t think earnings reports could be so exciting, right? These reports give clues to trends as well as what’s hot and not. This week, see if one of your favorite company is reporting earnings.
Does the stock provide a better opportunity than the goods or services you buy? Leave a comment below sharing your thoughts.
Join Me
This Wednesday at 10pm EST / 9pm CST. I will be the keynote speaker for the Hip Hops Sister’s Foundation Wealthy Wednesday call, sponsored by Prudential, on “Investing on a Budget.” Check it out here. I’d love to have you, even after you put the kids to bed!
You don’t owe me any money. Well, at least right now (wink wink).
But, I bet the IRS has said to you at some point - “You Owe Me Money!” If not to you, then definitely I know your family member or friend has had this happen to them.
I owed money, again! I just sent off my payment today and I think my taxes are too high. I’m not alone - A recent Gallup poll pegged the percentage of Americans who think their own federal income tax bills are too high at 57%.
One of the best ways, however, to INVEST and reduce your tax burden is to put money into a 401k or 403b plan. The most common complaint I hear is “Charisse, I can’t afford to put more money into my 401k plan because then I won’t have enough to live from.” Well, this might well be the case for some of you but I know it’s not the case for all.
Leave a comment below letting me know what your approach has been to putting money in your 401k/403b (or NOT).
The Case for the 401k or 403b
What Should You Do?
Evaluate how much money you are currently putting into your 401k. Ask yourself – Do I need an adjustment given a desire to invest more and/or save money in taxes? Share your thoughts with me.
I hope you are in a peaceful state! First, I want to share a success story from a fellow reader, Ken Dolan-Delvecchio. Ken shared this on my blog. I hope it inspires you: Hi Charisse, I really like your notes. They're refreshing and inspirational. I invested about $10,000 over the course of several weeks time when the stock market was slumping. I just kept throwing a couple thousand every week or so into my Vanguard account. I'm happy with what's happening now. And you never know of course. I'm in it for the long-haul. Thanks for your helpful notes.
- Best regards, Ken
Success stories like this are powerful because they are proof that ACTION matters.
After attending a funeral this weekend, I was reminded how important it is to take action NOW in order to prepare for an unexpected future. None of us is promised tomorrow and death is as common as birth. I know it’s hard to talk about, so I want to focus on a major aspects of it that involve investing – annuities and death stocks.
The Annuity Ambiguity
You might hear a lot of commentary around annuities, which may come into place before (or after) someone dies. The goal of annuities is to provide a steady stream of income during retirement, and usually an insurance company makes investments to make sure your annuity achieves its goal. If you are not familiar annuities, then I guarantee that your parent or someone close to retirement age has heard of these. There are four major types of annuities – immediate, deferred income, fixed, and variable.
Your Action - If you have an annuity, leave a comment below and share your experience. If you don’t have an annuity, check in with your loved ones to see if they have an annuity and why they chose a specific type. The important thing is to start the conversation because if you have to take care of a parent, it will be important for you to know this.
If you have a desire to learn more about annuities, please let me know.
Death Stocks
Did you realize that some people make a killing by investing in death stocks? Think caskets, funeral homes, and cemeteries – I know, it sounds morbid but people make loads of money investing in these companies. When I worked at JPMorgan, I use to do research on these stocks because they generally had good cash flows and people are always dying. Remember what I said last week – if you can invest in things that you are familiar with, you will have more confidence.
Your Action – Think about what sectors of the market generate good cash flows. Leave a comment below.
OK I want to leave on an upbeat note - Tell 3 people in your life you love them! You might not get a chance tomorrow.
#WealthyGirl
“Most of us want to be wealthy, but more often than not, don’t have a handle on how to achieve this goal. I will share with you the secrets and strategies on how to do so. ”
