How to Drive Sales with Your Instagram Marketing Strategy

It’s crucial for businesses to have an active social media presence to survive in 2018.

No social media marketing strategy is complete without Instagram. It’s become a top platform for brands, advertisers, and consumers alike.

This platform has 800 million monthly active users. And 500 million Instagram profiles are active on a daily basis.

Here’s something else that may surprise you: 70% of Instagram hashtags are branded.

What does that tell you? If you’re not active on Instagram, your competitors definitely are.

Those of you who already have an account set up are on the right track. But just having an Instagram profile doesn’t necessarily translate to sales.

If you want to drive sales and make real money from Instagram, you need to come up with a viable strategy. This guide will steer you in the right direction.

Increase your following

One of the first steps to having a successful Instagram marketing strategy is growing your follower base.

Without lots of followers, you will struggle to get your posts seen. It’s not going to be easy for you to generate sales without followers.

For those of you who just created your Instagram page, it can be intimidating to start with the number zero. But unless you’re a brand new company, you already have customers.

That’s the best place to start looking for followers. Here are the top reasons why users follow brands on social media:

As you can see from these numbers, more than 73% of users say they follow brands on social media because they are interested in the product or service the brands are offering.

Your existing customers are interested in your brand. Tell them about your profile, and ask them to follow you.

Start by sending out messages to your email subscribers. Just make sure you give them an incentive to follow you.

For example, you may send out emails only a few times per month. Tell your subscribers that if they want to see more frequent discounts and promotions, they will find them on Instagram.

If you use this strategy, be sure to follow through with that promise.

In addition to reaching out to your email subscribers, you can have an Instagram badge on your website. Use your other social media channels to promote your Instagram profile as well.

After you take these steps, another great way to get more followers is by following other people. That said, don’t follow random users.

Find followers that fit within your target audience. That’ll be your best bet when it comes to generating new leads and driving sales.

How do you find people that fit within your target market? It’s a bit tricky, and you’ll need to put in some effort. First, you need to find accounts similar to yours.

I’m not saying you need to steal followers from your competitors, although that can work too.

Instead, you can search for Instagram profiles that post content related to your industry. For example, let’s say your company sells hiking and camping equipment.

Check out this profile. The name of the account is Adventure Enthusiasts:

They have more than 132,000 followers. All of their content is related to outdoor locations across the world.

You could assume that people who follow this account would be interested in camping and hiking.

It’s time-consuming, but this will work. Once you find an account like this, go through its followers, and start following people.

The users will get a notification and check out your page. If they like what they see on your profile, which we’ll discuss shortly, they’ll be likely to follow you back.

Once you add tons of new followers, it’s going to be much easier for you to drive sales with your Instagram strategy.

Focus on the first impression of your page

First impressions matter. This statement holds true in the real world as well as the virtual world.

As a marketer, you need to recognize that. It’s the same reason why writing an irresistible blog post introduction is vital to your content strategy.

When an Instagram user clicks on your profile, what’s the first thing they see?

They see your profile picture, biography, and your most recent posts. Going back to our last point about following users to grow your own follower base, when a user clicks your profile, they shouldn’t have any questions.

What I mean by that is this. Your profile should say who you are and what you do.

Having your logo as your profile picture makes the most sense. It’s much more recognizable than a random picture of a person or one of your products.

Here’s an example from the Dollar Shave Club Instagram page:

What is your first impression of this profile?

To me, it’s clear from the beginning who they are. The profile picture is their logo, and their bio explains what they do in greater detail.

They even include a link to a landing page on their website to encourage users to sign up for the service.

Basically, if your brand’s Instagram page doesn’t grab the attention of users, you won’t have much luck getting followers.

For the most part, it’s best to keep everything short, to the point, and professional. Now, you’ll have a greater opportunity to promote your products and ultimately increase your sales.

Post content on a regular basis

If you’re adding a picture or video to your profile only once a month, it’s not an effective strategy. I wouldn’t even call that an active profile.

You want your brand to always be fresh in the minds of your followers.

At the same time, you don’t want to flood user timelines and be perceived as annoying. You need to find a middle ground here.

I wouldn’t recommend posting much more than once per day. If you have lots of content you want to share each day, it’s better to add it to your Instagram story.

If you don’t know how it works, check out my ultimate guide to using Instagram story to promote your business.

How often should you post on Instagram? Research shows that the top brands on Instagram post 1.5 times each day on average. That comes out to about 10 or 11 posts per week.

The timing of these posts is crucial as well. Top brands typically post content during office hours of a standard workweek.

Why?

Well, roughly 90% of employees admit to using social media as a distraction while they’re at work.

You need to recognize this and plan the timing of your posts accordingly. Posting on a regular basis increases your exposure and the likelihood that as many people as possible will see your content.

Don’t be too “salsey “

So, we’ve just established you need to post daily. But we haven’t talked about the content of those posts.

Obviously, you want to drive sales. However, that doesn’t mean that everything you post should be a product promotion.

That’ll annoy your followers and end up having the opposite effect of what you’re looking for. Mix up your content.

Be funny. Post pictures of your employees. Just don’t stray too far from your brand image.

While it’s okay to post content that’s not promoting a product, you want to stay away from controversial topics. I’m referring to subjects such as religion, politics, and race. Offending your followers is not going to help you drive sales.

Again, just avoid too many promotional posts. Posting too many promotions is the number one annoying action businesses take on social media, according to users:

Furthermore, 46% of users say they’ll unfollow a brand on social media if it posts promotions too frequently.

Whenever you do post a promotion, do it casually. You don’t need to put words in all capitalized letters and include tons of stars and quotation marks around everything.

That’s annoying. Keep it short and to the point.

Go live

Instagram has a live broadcast feature. If you read my top marketing trends of 2018, you’d know I put live video streaming first on this list.

Users love it, and brands are using this information to their advantage.

Live video gives you the opportunity to connect with your audience in real time. While you broadcast, they can comment.

Make sure you respond to these comments, and try your best to acknowledge those users. This will help you increase engagement metrics.

There are endless possibilities with your live streams.

You could demonstrate new products, give a tour of your facility, or even introduce some of your employees. I like the idea of hosting a Q&A segment to give you a more authentic connection with your audience.

Another way to utilize Instagram live story is by working with other brands. Instagram is the top social platform in terms of brand collaborations across the globe:

You could try to get featured on the live broadcast of another profile in an effort to promote your brand.

As a result, this type of strategy can help you expose your brand to a new audience, increase your followers, and ultimately drive more sales.

Add pictures and videos to your story

As I briefly mentioned earlier, your story is a great place to add daily content.

You can post content to your story multiple times per day because it won’t flood the timelines of users who follow you.

But that doesn’t mean you should go overboard and post 20 different pictures and videos to your story every day.

People won’t look at each one, so it’s a waste of your time and resources. The engagement and views will drop with each additional post to your story.

You also need to make sure the timing of the post on your story is relevant because it will disappear 24 hours after it gets uploaded.

I’d recommend using your story to offer discounts, run contests, or tell people what you’re up to that day in the office.

The whole idea here is having your brand on their minds. If they’re thinking about your brand, they are more likely to make a purchase.

Similarly to your live video strategy, you can even use your Instagram story to partner with another brand for a takeover. You can take over their account, and they can post content to yours as well.

Again, this will make it easier for you to expose your brand to a wider audience.

Partner with social influencers

You don’t need to be the only one promoting your brand on Instagram.

You should work with social influencers to share your content and encourage sales as well. That’s because social influencers have high engagement rates and great relationships with their followers.

If you work with micro influencers, their followers will likely view those people as their peers. Based on this research, 90% of consumers say they trust recommendations made by their peers:

Plus, working with micro-influencers is much more cost-effective than paying someone with a celebrity status to promote your brand.

Not sure where you can find social influencers?

Check out these top platforms for managing social influencers to get started.

Add hashtags to your captions

Captions are just as important, if not more important, than the images and videos you post.

You’ve got to learn how to write Instagram captions that drive engagement.

Hashtags are definitely necessary. There are lots of different approaches to this.

For starters, you can use one that already exists so that other people can see it. For example, you could pick a hashtag that’s promoting a national event.

Another idea is to create your own hashtag. This would be much more brand-specific.

You could use a hashtag with just your brand name as well as the name of your campaign.

If you’re like to run contests on Instagram, you can have a unique hashtag for each one.

Encourage UGC

UGC is short for user-generated content. This piggybacks on my last point about using hashtags to promote contests.

Promotions of this nature encourage users to post photos and videos related to your brand to their personal profiles.

As a result, your brand gets exposed to all of the followers who are friends with that particular user. This type of content acts as a recommendation, which we just discussed as an effective promotional method.

Besides running contests, the best way to encourage user-generated content is to feature user photos on your profile.

Check out this post from the Thule Instagram page:

As you can see, this post came from one of their followers.

When other people see this, they’ll be encouraged to share it as well as submit their own photos for the chance to be featured on the page.

Try some sponsored posts

The great thing about promoting your brand on Instagram is that it’s completely free.

It’s not going to cost you anything to create a profile and post content. Lots of the strategies we’ve discussed so far in this guide won’t cost you anything either.

But if that’s just not cutting it for you and you want to be more direct with your strategy, you may want to consider paying for ads.

This is a good idea for newer brands struggling to get new followers.

You’ve got lots of options here:

• photos
• videos
• carousel
• stories

If you want to find more information about setting these up, check out this resource from the Instagram Business website.

The great thing about these ads is you can include links that drive sales. Here’s an example of a photo ad with a “shop now” CTA:

It’s also easy to set up these ads while making sure you reach your target audience and stay within your marketing budget.

Conclusion

Your brand needs to have an active Instagram presence.

Always try to increase your followers. Make sure your profile is set up in a way that gives a great first impression.

Post content on a daily basis, but don’t post too much promotional content. Use live video streaming and your Instagram story to your advantage as well.

Partner with social influencers to expose your brand to a new audience.

Use captions with hashtags as a promotional tool. Encourage user-generated content.

If you want to take your Instagram marketing strategy to the next level and you’ve got some extra funds, you may want to consider paying for sponsored posts.

All of these strategies will help you elevate your Instagram presence and increase sales as a result.

What type of content is your brand posting on Instagram to generate sales from your followers?

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Questions About Walking Shoes, Bad Hotels, Credit Reports, Self-Discipline, and More!

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Hating my career
2. Driving car “into the ground”
3. Buying citrus fruit in bulk
4. Good men’s walking shoes
5. Credit Karma and identity
6. Earning a 10% return
7. Making good times bad
8. Cheap stuff that’s better
9. Super aggressive investing when young?
10. Avoiding bad hotels
11. Why roll over a 401(k)?
12. Good books on self discipline

A long road trip family vacation. Roof damage caused by a storm that will cause a full roof replacement. A suddenly necessary vehicle replacement. A “destination wedding” that our family needs to attend.

2018 has been expensive so far, but thanks to our careful savings in advance for many of these things, it’s been quite tolerable. By simply choosing not to spend every dime we made, a year like this has been easy to handle without disrupting our financial future.

Our family vacation was a bit expensive, but it could have been far worse – we planned ahead carefully for it. Our roof replacement is covered by insurance and our emergency fund. We’ve been saving for a replacement vehicle for a while. We also had enough lead time for the destination wedding that we could properly save for that as well.

In other words, none of those things have disrupted any of our long term financial planning. Yes, we’ve had to tap some savings, but that money was put aside for the exact purposes we’ve used them for.

In other words, in 2018, we’ve seen our financial responsibility in the past really pay off.

On with the questions.

Q1: Hating my career

I am 41/F. I work as an accountant for [a well known accounting firm]. I loved accounting in college but now I find it utterly soulless. My job involves providing very similar accounting services for a number of clients that rotate over time. I will be doing this type of work for the foreseeable future unless I either go back for an MBA and move into management or slowly move up into more prestigious accounts. I hate the day in and day out work of not just this job but this whole career path, but I have invested so much money in getting here in college loans and it’s the only high paying career option for me.

I have started working hard toward early retirement and am saving about 45% of my income but I don’t see how I actually retire before age 55 or so. That means fifteen years of hell.

Do you have any advice for me?
– Alice

Okay, let’s start by asking yourself what you might do for a living if a 50% pay cut were completely acceptable to you. Are you making $80K? What would you do if $40K were livable?

Right now, you’re saving 45% of your income. That means you’re living on 55% of that income. That means that, if needed, you could switch to a job that pays roughly half of what you make now (taxes would be much lighter after that kind of switch). What kind of work in that income range would make you happy? Nonprofit work? A completely different career entirely?

Spend some time thinking about that question, and when you figure out an answer, decide what it would take to make that career switch happen and put that plan into high gear.

You do not have to remain an accountant, especially if you’re able to save almost half your income.

Q2: Driving car “into the ground”

What do you mean by driving a car “into the ground”? You seem to mean “keep driving it until the repair bills get high” but when do you make that call and move on?
– Jeff

That idea means something a little different for almost everyone. For us, we have a trusted mechanic who does most of our maintenance and all of our repair work on our vehicles, and he keeps an eye on upcoming major repairs and maintenance work. I stress that reliability is incredibly important for us and he’s always done a good job for us.

I keep an eye on the Kelley blue book value of our car and when our mechanic tells us that a major repair is imminent, I ask him how much it will cost and if the cost of that repair will exceed the blue book value of the car, then we start looking for a replacement car pretty quickly. We identify what kind of late model used car we’d want to replace our current vehicle with and start searching.

So, for me, “driving it into the ground” means “driving a car until the cost of imminent repairs exceeds the value of the car itself.” This does eventually happen with most cars, but I often get them well over 200,000 miles before we reach this point.

Q3: Buying fruit in bulk

We live about 1/4 mile from a fruit stand that sells bulk citrus fruit mostly to tourists. They give out lots of coupons to locals so we can get big bags of oranges and other things really cheap. We can get a quarter bushel of oranges for $0.49 a pound which is much cheaper than anywhere else.

The catch is you have to buy the fruits in the big bulk bags and a quarter bushel is the smallest option. We literally can’t eat the oranges fast enough before they get nasty.

How can we take advantage of the cheap fruit?
– Sandy

If I were you, I’d just hang onto coupons and buy them when you actually have a need. For example, a big bag of oranges can be a great thing to have around when you have out-of-town guests, or when you’re visiting people out of town. You can also easily make large quantities of orange juice with a blender and a strainer – just put 1 1/2 cups cold water and 2 pounds of peeled oranges in a blender, puree, and strain.

Another option, if you’re looking for gift ideas, is to make candied orange slices or preserved oranges or orange marmalade. A quarter bushel of oranges can make large quantities of all of those things, which can make nice little gifts at an extended family gift exchange or another similar purpose.

If you can’t actually consume enough oranges for your family regularly, I wouldn’t buy the bags regularly. Just because something has a discount doesn’t mean that it’s a frugal choice.

Q4: Good men’s walking shoes

Do you have any recommendations for good men’s walking shoes preferably under $100? I’ve searched online and gone to a few stores looking for walking shoes and all recommendations are super expensive often as much as $200.
– Jerry

If you can find a pair of Brooks Addiction Walker shoes for men under $100, that’s my recommendation. They’re great walking shoes that offer amazing support all over your feet.

In general, the best walking shoes under $100 are made by New Balance. I don’t keep up with all of the models, but I have used walking shoes made by New Balance for many years and they’ve always been wonderful, even for long days walking on pavement. I particularly like the MW411 v2 walking shoe from New Balance.

A key thing to remember: shoes wear out. The bottoms of shoes do eventually lose their spring and they become harder and harder on your feet, especially if you do a lot of walking. If you wear a pair for years and then find that they are starting to hurt your feet, it doesn’t mean those shoes are “junk,” it just means they’re wearing out.

Q5: Credit Karma and identity

In your article in Reader’s Digest in July 2018, you advise to check your credit score for free on Credit Karma so I clicked on the address, and they require Social Security Number to process the information. Is it safe to give it to them? I am very hesitant to provide this info on line.
– Yuri

It’s impossible to get an accurate credit score without sharing your Social Security number (or, in some cases, an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number). Your SSN is the identifier used to gather together all of your credit-related information, which is then used to calculate a score for you.

While Credit Karma does provide a pretty solid credit score estimation number, your credit score is just a single number that’s calculated based on your full credit report. I don’t actually consider knowing your credit score to be all that meaningful or important other than as an indicator of your relative credit health in a single number.

If you’re hesitant to use your SSN for that purpose, then I’d just get a free copy of your full credit report from the federal government, a service they operate at annualcreditreport.com. Go through that report, examine all of the entries, fix everything that’s wrong, and if you have otherwise good credit behavior (you keep your credit card balance low and aren’t late on your bills) your credit score will be good.

Q6: Earning a 10% return

Can you please write an article on how to earn 10% on financial products? Because, I miss something: 1.- Historically, the average return is 4%. 2.- Today, with the QEs from central banks (in the US, Europe, Japan, etc), the “free money” and the negative rates in many countries, financial product have a very low return 3.- Because of (2), the only way to make money with money is to invest in your own business or speculate on asset inflatation (real eastate, stocks, etc) which is super risky. Hope you can give more info.
– Jim

The average annualized total return for the S&P 500 index over the past 90 years is 9.8 percent. That’s where the 10% average annual return number comes from. However, it’s not a good number to rely on because it’s really hard to guess what the American economy will look like going forward. I do like using the 10% number for examples, though, because it’s clear and simple.

Warren Buffett suggests that a much more likely average annual return going forward is 7%. I often use this for realistic examples of planning.

Buffett’s number includes an assumption of low inflation; the S&P 500 number is based on historical inflation, which has been pretty high at times.

There is no magical way to lock in 10% a year in any investment. It doesn’t exist – to get that level of return, you have to take on some significant volatility and risk. There isn’t any legitimate place today where you can put aside $100 and earn a guaranteed $10 return in a year.

Q7: Making good times bad

Been thinking a lot about your long term thinking article. It seems like you mostly just convinced yourself that having a good time is bad.
– Jenny

I don’t think that a good time that doesn’t cost money is a bad thing – I think it’s a really good thing.

The big change for me in terms of long term thinking was realizing that having an expensive good time has a serious drawback. It’s fun in the short term but it costs me significantly in the long term. I’m flat out going to have more money stress (in the medium term) and have to work longer (in the long term). That expensive good time better be a really good time to be worth it.

My solution to that is to budget for it. I have a “free spending” line item for hobbies and entertainment and spontaneity, from which I don’t begrudge any spending. I know I’m still on pace if I stick to that line item.

If I get outside of that, my fun needs to be cheap or else I know I’m spending money that needs to be used for other goals. I have to figure out how to make up that money in some fashion (which can cause stress and other difficulties) and it’ll probably slow down my big goals. Those aren’t things I want in life.

Q8: Cheap stuff that’s better

What store brand or dollar store things have you found that are actually better than the name brand?
– Gina

For starters, there are a lot of simple food items that I’d rather make myself that cost far less than they do in the store but turn out far better than most of what I’ve bought. Sauerkraut is a great example of this – it’s probably my favorite condiment and I vastly prefer my homemade batches made with a couple heads of cabbage and some salt and about 15 minutes of labor.

For most food items, it really comes down to taste. NPR did a great story a few years ago about when doctors and chefs buy store brands instead of name brands and, while there was some consensus, a lot of it came down to personal taste.

For household supplies, I usually buy the store brand version for almost everything until it fails me (I switched to name brand trash bags and only recently gave store brand bags a chance again). I do the same for nonperishable foods, too.

Q9: Super aggressive investing when young?

The general advice for retirement savings seems to be that you should be aggressive when you’re younger by investing in stocks mostly and then move into things like bonds and cash when you’re in retirement to stabilize things. If you’re starting when you’re very young (I’m 22) should you be hyper aggressive and if so how should you do it?
– Andrew

If I were your age again, I would open a Roth IRA and invest in three index funds: a total stock market index fund, a small cap index fund, and a total international index fund. That’s a pretty aggressive investment without being incredibly risky – you’re putting all of your eggs in a really big set of aggressive baskets rather than one or two of them.

In other words, I’d recommend doing normal retirement moves, but choose investments that are very aggressive. At age 22, you’re going to be sitting on those investments for 30 or 40 years, which means that the many sharp ups and downs of those investments should balance out over that time scale to give you a very nice return.

You should still use the normal retirement vehicles available to you, however. Put money into your 401(k) to get every dime of matching, then if you have more to contribute, contribute to a Roth IRA.

Q10: Avoiding bad hotels

My wife and I planned a weeklong vacation that involved a few nights in hotels. In order to save money I used hotels.com to find some cheaper places to stay. They sounded nice and had nice pictures but when we arrived they were dumps that were under remodeling and one smelled really bad and another one had what looked like blood all over the sink. I left bad reviews for these hotels but how do you avoid these dumps in the first place?
– Billy

I don’t really trust the star reviews for hotels online. Instead, I go to sites like TripAdvisor and read a bunch of the most recent reviews. If there are real issues with the hotel (and not just some malcontent complaining about everything or ranting about a personal problem), they’ll show up in consistent comments in the most recent reviews, at least in my experience.

I tend to trust the most recent reviews rather than the average star rating because hotel ownership can change hands as can the active management of the hotel. If a hotel decides to refurbish, bad ratings from 1-2 years ago can be irrelevant. Similarly, if a hotel is sold or a corner-cutting manager comes in, a hotel can decline pretty quickly.

This isn’t a perfect system. You can always have a bad experience at a well-reviewed hotel, or a great experience at a poorly reviewed hotel. However, this system has worked pretty well for us in terms of finding solid hotels to stay at on road trips.

Q11: Why roll over a 401(k)?

29/M recently got a new job. During orientation I was signing up for the 401(k) plan and they asked me whether I wanted to roll over my old one. They said I had time to do it so I delayed it. Is this a smart thing to do? Why would someone do this?
– Jerry

There are two big reasons why people do this. First, the 401(k) at their new employer offers better investment options than the 401(k) at their old employer. For example, if all of your options were high-fee mutual funds at your old employer, whereas your new employer has a bunch of low-fee index funds, it might make sense to move your money over.

The other reason is to simplify things. Simply having one account to deal with every time you move or do your taxes or anything else will make things easier to manage.

For me, the second reason is pretty minor. What matters more is the first reason – is your new 401(k) better than your old one? Sit down and do a comparison of similar investments in your old 401(k) and your new one and see which has lower fees and better returns. If it’s in your new 401(k), roll over your money. If it’s not, leave your old 401(k) alone.

Q12: Good books on self discipline

I am looking for books on financial discipline. I understand what I need to do to succeed financially but the discipline to actually do it is lacking. I tend to talk myself out of things I should be doing all the time. And then I find myself spending money or eating food or goofing off instead of taking care of things. Hate this about myself and looking for help.
– Kevin

My favorite recent book on personal discipline is Willpower Doesn’t Work by Benjamin Hardy. It mostly focuses on the idea that most people fail at self-discipline because they don’t bother to adjust their environment to encourage self-discipline. Rather, they surround themselves with people and situations that encourage them to make poor choices.

Another good option is Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney. I think this is actually a good pairing for the first book, because this one focuses a lot on internal elements of willpower and self-discipline, whereas the first book looks heavily at external elements.

Another good read that’s somewhat on the same subject – kind of a mix of a leadership book and a self-discipline book – is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. While this isn’t strictly about self-discipline, it does put self-discipline in a powerful context in terms of how it affects the people around you. If you’re self-disciplined, it has a profound impact on the other people in your life – friends, family, coworkers, and so on – and that effect often becomes reciprocal.

All three of those books are excellent reads.

Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

The post Questions About Walking Shoes, Bad Hotels, Credit Reports, Self-Discipline, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Should You Count on Social Security as Part of Your Retirement Plan?

It’s pretty common for new clients to tell me that they’re not counting on Social Security as part of their retirement plan. And it’s easy to understand why.

For years now we’ve been told that Social Security is unsustainable. There were even recent headlines in major publications warning people that Social Security was running out of money and that it was headed toward insolvency.

But the situation isn’t nearly as grim as most people think.

The truth is that Social Security is still on track to pay out most of its estimated benefits through the end of this century, even if nothing is done to strengthen the system. And ignoring it just makes retirement planning harder than it needs to be.

Here’s the real story on the state of Social Security, and how you can include it in your plans.

The Real Story on Social Security

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees recently released its 2018 Annual Report detailing the current and future state of Social Security. You can click here to read it.

There’s a lot of information in that report, but there are a few big takeaways that are important to understand.

First, the bad news. Social Security has a $2.9 trillion reserve fund that is projected to run out in 2034. That’s because 2018 is projected to be the first year since 1982 that the Social Security program pays out more than it takes in, and without any changes that trend is expected to continue until the reserve fund is gone.

That’s the part that leads to all the doom and gloom, and on the surface it does appear to be bad. But there’s more to the story.

The part that’s often left out when this topic comes up is the fact that the reserve fund is only one of the sources from which Social Security benefits are paid. The program also earns income in the form of payroll taxes and by taxing benefits, and that will continue even after the reserve fund is depleted.

According to the 2018 report, even if no changes are made to the program, and even if full benefits are paid until the reserve fund runs out in 2034, that income alone should be enough to pay 77% of projected benefits all the way until 2092. And it’s not that benefits will stop in 2092. It’s just that the report is a 75-year projection, so 2092 is the last year they looked at.

On top of that, there are some simple changes that could be made to increase that income and continue paying full estimated benefits. Payroll taxes could immediately be increased by 2.78%, or if we wait until 2034 they could be increased by 3.87%. Either one of those changes should be enough to prevent any reduction in benefits.

The moral of the story is that while the Social Security program is not completely fine, it’s also not completely bankrupt. Even if nothing is done to strengthen the program, the Board of Trustees expects that it will have enough money to pay out at least 77% of currently projected benefits.

How Much Should You Count on Social Security?

While it’s impossible to predict the future, my job as a financial planner is to use the best information we have available today to make reasonable guesses as to how things will play out, and to use those guesses to create a practical financial plan.

Given the information provided by the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, we can say two things with a high degree of confidence.

First, it is not reasonable for most people to expect to receive their full estimated Social Security benefit for the entire duration of retirement. It is certainly possible that Congress will increase taxes, or maybe even push back the age at which you can start collecting benefits, in order to support the payment of full benefits. But as things stand right now, that is not a solid foundation upon which to make plans.

Second, it is also not reasonable to completely ignore Social Security as part of your retirement plan. Given that the income alone should be enough to pay out 77% of estimated benefits, you should feel confident including some benefit as part of your plan.

So, how much of your benefit should you count on? To be honest, there’s no definite answer here and to some extent it depends on personal circumstances. But here are a few things to keep in mind:

• You can click here to log into your Social Security account and see your current estimated benefit.
• You can click here to get a quick estimate without logging in or you can click here for a more detailed estimate.
• Your estimated benefit can change based on your future earnings. Earning more or less in the future can increase or decrease your expected benefit, while retiring early could decrease you benefit as well.
• The further you are from retirement age, the less likely you are to receive your full benefit.
• No matter what age you are now, expecting 77% of your estimated benefit is a reasonable place to start. You could consider adjusting that up if you’re close to retirement age, and you consider adjusting it down if you’re far from retirement age and want to be conservative.

Ignore the Doom and Gloom

Social Security isn’t in anywhere near in as much peril as many would have you believe. Even people who are just entering the workforce can likely expect to receive a sizable benefit to supplement their own savings.

None of which is to say that you shouldn’t also save on your own. Your savings rate is still the most important part of you investment plan.

But factoring in Social Security does reduce the burden and can make a reasonable retirement feel a little more realistic. So don’t ignore it. Plan to receive a realistic percentage of your current estimated benefit and you should be fine.

Matt Becker, CFP® is a fee-only financial planner and the founder of Mom and Dad Money, where he helps new parents take control of their money so they can take care of their families.

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• Why Save for Retirement If You Have Social Security?
• Even the Experts Can’t Beat the Market. Why Would You?

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This Beer-Maker Broke Down What It’s Like to Actually Own a Craft Brewery

I Had to Take 14 Weeks of Unpaid Maternity Leave. Here’s How We Afforded It

Planning to have a baby is ideal, but most bundles of joy catch their parents by surprise.

One day you feel sick, buy a test, and discover you’re pregnant, but the reality doesn’t hit you until weeks later. Then, the panic sets in.

“We’re having a baby?! How are we going to afford this?”

I was used to being the woman with a plan. My partner watched me flail about the house, as I listed all the things we had to pull money out of thin air for — diapers, a breast pump, doctor visits, hospital bills and baby’s college.

Yes, I considered my kid’s college before the bun was even out of the oven.

On top of having a baby due in months, I had to plan for unpaid maternity leave. I looked longingly at my wine rack and calmed down — booze money would become baby money. Home Goods trips would turn to baby trips.

I could do this. With creativity, anything was possible.

And it was. We afforded 14 weeks of unpaid maternity leave on a household income of less than $90,000.

Here’s how to afford maternity leave.

1. Goodbye Wine Fund

What’s your pleasure — local batch brews, or are you a wino?

How much do you spend every month on alcohol? The wine fund was a thrifty throwback to my college days.

You deserve a treat here and there as you struggle to make ends meet, but when there’s a baby on the way, the toast comes (months) after the big push.

I funneled that money into the baby fund. Every contribution adds up until it creates an avalanche of baby affordability.

Many spend $20-$100 a week on wine and going out. My number was in the $20 weekly ballpark for wine. That's another $900 in 9 months, at $20 a week. Think of all the diapers!

2. The $5 Bill Rule

We implemented the “$5 Bill Rule,” saving every $1 and $5 that came through the house and deposited at the end of the month.

As the second half of the year came up, it included $10 bills. We used a budget calculator to track how much money came in and out monthly so we didn’t skip over extra cash!

We placed a big jar on the kitchen island and emptied our wallets any time we used cash and got change. My parents even threw a few bills in when they came over.

By month eight, that made for a big bonus in the bank.

3. $300 Earned: Referral to Bank Bonus

One day, I noticed the referral bonus ad for $150 at my bank and thought of a friend, who recently moved to the area. She successfully signed up for an account. My partner took up the challenge and referred a friend for another $150.

There’s an instant $300 in savings for a good deed. Isn’t that what friends are for?

4. Automated Savings

Automate savings with Stash: Beyond the $5 to sign-up, I set aside 20 percent of my take-home pay with every paycheck as soon as I found out I was pregnant. Setting aside anything and regularly, no matter how small, matters.

5. Sell Old Clothes

I spent time curating a beautiful professional and casual wardrobe since college that sat unused during pregnancy.

Time to make room for maternity clothes and impending weight gain!

I sold clothes on PoshMark and ThredUp online. On ThredUp, my investment pieces that cost over $300 initially earned me back 80% of sticker price. But for items under $20, I’d recommend trying local consignment shops. It takes time for some pieces to sell.

When you’re on a time crunch, you’re better off going local and doing “buy two, get one” specials. I posted on the Facebook Marketplace and checked with local consignment shops.

6. Going Minimalist for Baby

Minimalism is a lifestyle choice, and having a baby made it necessary to give up our attachments to “stuff.”

My weaknesses included wine, clothes and books, and included giving up “collectors” items around our home — sports cards and other memorabilia can cash in high.

If you have patience, sell items by piece on eBay, but the big ticket items are memorabilia and some furniture items. My aunt's bulky highboy fetched an extra $200 in our pocket. Breakables and expensive antique furniture don't mix with kids.

Embracing the minimalist lifestyle now means more time to focus on the baby. An old dresser top can become a changing table with imagination.

7. Get Your Side Hustle On

What's your side hustle? What about household repairs, consulting, freelancing, computer repair, lawn mowing or upcycling?

I tutored English when possible, charging $15-$20 an hour to assist with essay writing and ESL. With two clients a month at $20 an hour for 8 hours a month, there's an extra $320.

My partner and I upcycled items we had around the house, including possessions of older family members. People will pay you to pick up their bulky items. One dresser my husband turned into a bookcase sold for $250.

8. Save on Groceries With Meal Planning and Ibotta

We made freezer meals in bulk for the last trimester and after birth.

We used Ibotta to meal plan, with more openness to brands and happily found it synced with our loyalty cards, such as Weis and Giant. Upload the receipt and get cash back in 24 hours.

Every store has its pattern of when favorite brands go on sale. Watch for it. Take advantage.

Check your local newspaper for deals on eating out. Purchase a coupon for half off an entree, for example, or a deal on multiple meals. Don’t miss out on date nights while you can still get out easily just the two of you.

For the first few months, we hustled and I still panicked, but the numbers started adding up significantly, encouraging us to push harder — no pun intended.

You have to let go of what doesn’t matter for what does! Living on a reduced income is hard but worth it.

Each situation is unique for every family, but creativity and planning allow you to save enough for unpaid maternity ahead of time. We did it on under $90K, and so can you!

Sarah Landrum is a mom, writer and the founder of Punched Clocks, a site created to help you find happiness and balance in your life and career. Follow Sarah on social media @SarahLandrum and subscribe to her newsletter for more advice.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Just Starting Out? This Site Could Help You Attract Colleges and Employers

LinkedIn’s vast network can be daunting, even for the seasoned professional.

It can be especially overwhelming for a high school or college student debating whether to pad that skeletal-looking work history with “quiz bowl captain.” (Hint: No. Here’s a better way to set up a LinkedIn profile.)

Mariana Moawad, who graduated recently from the Academy for Arts, Science, & Technology in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, says that despite advice from well-meaning adults, she hasn’t created a profile on the networking site.

“I’ve been encouraged to make a LinkedIn profile,” Moawad says. “I haven’t yet because I find it very intimidating and I don’t have enough to put on it.”

But without a LinkedIn profile, a student’s online presence could be reduced to social media posts. And how well do those photos from your best friend’s birthday bash reflect on your aspirations to become a marine biologist?

Although 68% of college admission officers say it’s “fair game” for them to check out applicants’ social media profiles to help decide who gets in, respondents to Kaplan Test Prep’s 2018 survey of admissions officers, also say it’s becoming less of an option as students move to social media apps like SnapChat that do not archive posts.

So what does that mean for students? A lack of relevant, helpful information about them, according to Shea Tighe, national director of engagement for STEMPremier, an online profile program that’s free to students.

“They’re not building a presence,” says Tighe. He notes that when he asks students about what they think of LinkedIn, the typical response is, “It’s something my dad uses.”

STEMPremier is designed for students to showcase and organize their accomplishments in the same way LinkedIn helps professionals present their work accomplishments, according to Tighe. He says STEMPremier’s searchable profile can connect students with colleges, employers and scholarship opportunities.

During her junior year in high school, Moawad says, a teacher assigned her class to create profiles. Students were allowed to choose between LinkedIn and STEMPremier.

Moawad says she’s glad she chose STEMPremier, since creating a profile led to two internship offers — one from Boeing and the other from South Carolina’s Coalition for Mathematics & Science — before she even graduated from high school.

Starting With the College Application Resume

Resume building starts well before most students apply for their first job.

Many college and scholarship applications require a resume, which can be problematic for someone who’s never created one before.

Moawad counts herself among those who struggled. She laments that she didn’t learn about STEMPremier’s ability to export profiles as print-friendly resumes until after she’d submitted her applications.

“A lot of us in high school applying to colleges were constantly making resumes for college applications,” Moawad says. “It was very hard for students to know exactly what to put on and how much to put on, and like how specific they should be about it.

“But with that same information, STEMPremier would automatically generate it for you.”

After creating a profile, students can add their GPA, test scores, career interests, extracurricular activities, community service, transcripts, badges, languages spoken and portfolios. They can even upload a video, which Moawad says helped generate interest in her.

“I had a project where I made a video about quantum computing, so I just casually linked it,” Moawad says. “That was something impressive, apparently.”

The program is designed to help students organize information in a format that allows them to share the profiles with colleges, scholarship programs and potential employers, who pay a fee to search the database of 365,000 students by skills and interests, Tighe says.

That search function made a critical difference to Alex Koziol, who originally planned to apply to several large universities before a direct message popped up in his STEMPremier profile.

The message came from Webb Institute, a small college in Glen Cove, New York, where all students graduate with a dual bachelor’s degree in naval architecture and marine engineering.

“Webb Institute sent me something that said, ‘We saw that you’re interested in robotics and swimming and some other things — like they actually saw my profile — and we recommend you apply,’” says Koziol, who did not know the college existed before the message. “It would have been hard to find out if they hadn’t reached out to me.”

That message proved to be a valuable one; Webb Institute accepts about 30 students each year, and they all receive full-tuition scholarships.

Koziol says he’s updated only grades in certain classes on his profile since starting college last fall, but he’d recommend the site to high school students weary of the college search.

“It’s kind like of a reversal because normally you look for colleges,” Koziol says. “On STEMPremier, it seems like the colleges look for you.”

Resumes Without a Job History

From high school through college, students struggle to write profiles for LinkedIn because of its emphasis on work experience and professional connections, says Alexander Lowry, executive director of the master of science in financial analysis program at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.

“LinkedIn is brilliant if you are mid-career,” Lowry says. “It’s built for someone to say what they’ve done, what their qualifications are.”

Lowry, who wasn’t familiar with STEMPremier until The Penny Hoarder asked about it, says that by creating sections to highlight academic achievements and school activities, STEMPremier allows students to attract potential employers in a way that LinkedIn doesn’t.

So, would he recommend it at his college?

“I’ve already forwarded this to the head of our admissions and the head of our career services so they can jump on this right now,” he says.

Not Just for STEM

Tighe admits the name would seem to indicate that the site is exclusively for the math-and- science set. However, he says, STEM-related competencies — from mastery of specific programs to analytical skills — are applicable to virtually every industry.

STEMPremier is designed to reach students who might otherwise go unnoticed, either because of their major or because of their distance from hubs for high-tech jobs, he says.

“For the students in the middle of nowhere, it puts them on the radar,” says Tighe. He stresses that early engagement with a company can benefit students by letting them learn how they can apply their talents to a career they might not have considered. “They’re judged based on skills.”

Moawad says she agrees that although there may be more opportunities for STEM-specific careers, she would recommend the site to any student.

Linked to the Future

Boasting more than 500 million members, LinkedIn is unlikely to go away anytime soon, especially since STEMPremier has just 200 colleges and companies currently participating.

And although STEMPremier could be useful as an additional career tool for students, it’s not a replacement for the vast network that LinkedIn offers, says career counselor and coach Lynn Berger.

“There’s no reason not to familiarize yourself with LinkedIn, but if it feels intimidating, I would do this [STEMPremier] and then over time, do LinkedIn,” Berger says. “They can start here, but when you have some experience or some internships, you can do both.

“With LinkedIn, you’re just going to have more access to different kinds of people.”

Even Moawad admits that she’ll probably join LinkedIn — someday.

“Maybe in the future, LinkedIn would be more beneficial for me,” she says. “But for now, for what I’m trying to do, I think STEMPremier was a better option.”

Tiffany Wendeln Connors is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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