With the current podcast boom brought on by the likes of Serial and This American Life, it seems like there is a podcast for everyone and every brand is podcasting. But before you go out there and grab some equipment like the bright-eyed go-getter I know you are, you better take a look deep inside yourself and answer some questions.

The Change Conversations blog has covered how to make Twitter work for you in previous posts, but today I want to look in more detail at how each tweet reflects on your brand identity. The smallest difference in how you approach messaging on social media can change public perceptions in big ways — and Twitter is the first (and fastest) to reflect any change.

A study conducted by Harvard Business Review about inner work life and performance found people are more productive and creative when their work lives are positive. It is probably no surprise to you to hear employees are more motivated when they are happy with the work they produce and when they have a positive view of the organization they work for. But how do you translate values, ideals and beliefs into action to motivate your team and grow your socially responsible organization? How do you take a concrete set of shared values and create a workplace enviroment that will foster motivation day in and day out?

When you are given a document to read or you are emailed a newsletter containing information to keep you up-to-date, what is going to keep you reading and scrolling? Certainly not never-ending text! That’s what images are for. We need to keep our materials visually relevant as well as informative. But how do you know if it is the right type of image to help you tell the story for your mission-driven organization?

Maintaining a successful social media presence can be a daunting task — juggling your profiles on multiple platforms while keeping pace with the ever-changing social media world is intimidating. Fortunately, there’s a ‘golden rule’ of social media strategy that involves a simple formula, but one that is often overlooked: The Rule of Thirds.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported in June of 2015 that Millennials are now the largest generation, outnumbering even the Baby Boomers. Thanks to the Millennial Generation the social media revolution has a large army of foot soldiers.

Vermonters have always taken the disruptive, “beat the band,” approach, or so we believe. The small, motivated, Green Mountain State prides itself on setting the example for legislation transformation and always remaining a step ahead. But how does such a small state have such a large influence on national political and environmental issues? A friend once told me, “it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight; it’s about the size of the fight in the dog.” It takes a passionate group of people with resilient voices to create change and that is something “we Vermonters” have done for many years.

It’s frustrating to be a small business advertiser or nonprofit advocate today, especially if yours is a visually driven world. The return on your promotional tools just keeps getting smaller. Television is weakened by DVRs that let your audience record shows and fast forward through commercials. There has been a 25% drop in newspaper readership for ages 18-24 from 1999 to 2014. In fact, there isn’t a newspaper readership age group that hasn’t dropped at least 20% in that time frame. And the “banner blindness” audiences have developed in response to website banner or pop-up ads has been well documented for years. But Instagram may be your best visual marketing tool ever.

Over the course of my internship at Marketing Partners, I’ve learned about a variety of different topics and acquired some important real-world skills. Working with a mix of clients has exposed me to all sorts of different industries, but here’s one of my biggest takeaways that applies to all of them – social media isn’t a choice for your business anymore – and, as we’ve written about before, using social media for business is very different from personal social media use.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit.

Are you interested in what happens in the next sentence?