Clickbaiting is an online term for a practice that has long been followed in offline traditional media.

The term has something of a negative connotation because the practice has been abused, but it is a legitimate means of attracting an audience if done correctly and ethically.

Clickbaiting Definition

Clickbaiting is a series of tactics that try to encourage website visitors to click on a link. That link may appear in search results, a social media account, on the website itself or elsewhere. It is a practice of “baiting” people into clicking on a link.

The related “linkbaiting” means a publisher has created…

Local businesses must learn how to promote a business online in order to attract customers, grow sales and stay profitable.

It is easy to imagine that most businesses will find that local online advertising is both necessary and even quite inexpensive to do.

The hard part is knowing where to begin and how to promote a business online in the easiest and least expensive way.

Large businesses can hire an agency to do it for them or even use in-house marketing talent to get it done.

Smaller businesses may not be able to afford to hire an agency or have…

Vision and strategy are important, future-focused and long-term concerns, especially for company executives. But sometimes they take a back seat to present-day pressures on the job, especially for middle managers.

They have important tasks to tackle today, tomorrow or next week. The priorities of next month and next year may have to wait.

Urgent priorities push aside future, non-urgent priorities. For budgets, this year is more important than next year. This month is more important than next month if this month is falling short and there are immediate, concrete steps that managers can take to improve results.

Some managers even…

Effective leaders use both rewards and punishments, carrots and sticks with employees in order to motivate them.

But good leaders nudge and nurture their employees as much as possible with carrots. Bad leaders hammer too much with sticks.

Rewards and punishments both belong in any manager’s toolbox. But how much managers use rewards versus how much they use punishments says quite a bit about their styles and personalities.

Rewards have both short and long term benefits to employees. They give an immediate boost to employee self esteem as well as their job security. …

Political leaders put country first and party second. Political hacks put party first and country second.

Consider the following two statements:

“This is not about policy, this is not about partisanship, this is about our duty as Americans.”

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

The first statement comes from someone who has shifted from hack to leader. That someone is Liz Cheney, who sounds suspiciously like someone running for President in 2024.

The second statement comes from someone who toyed with being a leader — for once in…

The annual budget process leads to worry, stress and job insecurity for many managers, especially when executives have aggressive demands.

Middle managers with a staff of two people have a budget. Regardless of whether they own it or have it inflicted on them, that budget reflects the cost of their salaries and benefits and the value of what they produce.

Middle and senior managers who don’t manage the process or try to influence it in some way run the risk of ending up with a budget they despise and sometimes even fear. It may have unrealistic goals and objectives, a…

Conflicts abound in a management career. Managers inevitably will have conflicts with staff, bosses, peers, customers and other departments or divisions. Resolutions often depend quite a bit on two key principles in negotiations and interpersonal relations.

I have seen countless management conflicts during four decades in management and management consulting. Nearly every one that comes to mind had some degree of fairness and respect that impacted the level of hostility and whether the conflict had a successful conclusion.

Managers who resolve that they will treat the other party with fairness and respect will increase their odds of settling the conflict…

A strategy is a plan. The concept is that simple. But developing a good plan isn’t simple at all.

Even middle managers have or should have strategies because strategies arise from the rivers of information that flow their way. They have budgets, guidance from bosses, feedback from clients and employees, competitor activities, reports, memos, analytics and much more. This heavy flow of information develops the need for a business strategy.

“A business strategy is a set of guiding principles that, when communicated and adopted in the organization, generates a desired pattern of decision making. A strategy is therefore about how…