Have you ever been CC’d on an email and wondered whether the sender expected you to reply, or just wanted to make you aware of the issue being discussed? Maybe you’ve received an email in all caps or with five exclamation points at the end of a sentence and assumed the sender was upset and virtually “yelling” at you. Or wait, were they just really excited?

Well, you’re not alone.

Creating engaging and inspiring content is hard, often times maddening and seemingly impossible. Anyone that has been forced to write a headline, blog or product description knows what I’m talking about. It can be even harder for business owners and entrepreneurs that are usually wearing a variety of hats, marketing often being one of them.

Have no fear, Ann Handley is here! She mind as well be the superwoman of marketing. Writing books, speaking to the masses and tweeting up a storm, Ann is helping people all over the world take their content creation and marketing to new heights.

Risks are a part of all businesses, with starting a business up near the top of the list. The only way to remain ahead of the competition and achieve success is to be aware of the types of risks you face, the types of risks that come out of nowhere and how to take a calculated risk that ultimately benefits your company.

Everybody’s doing it – social media – but is it being used effectively? How do you even tell...?

According to the Pew Research Center, 71 percent of the adult online population is using Facebook and 52 percent of Internet users regularly logged on to at least two social networks in 2014. So if almost everyone is online, using social media, that means your small business should be on social media too, right? Well, LinkedIn and market research firm TNS found that 81 percent of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) use social media.

While a large percentage of the population is on social media and a significant number of SMBs are making social media a part of their marketing budgets, how can these businesses be sure their social media programs are paying off? Do large numbers of Facebook shares or Instagram likes really translate into sales?

The real estate market has seen steady and consecutive growth for the past five months. Though instead of growing the streak to six, June saw a lapse in the number of signed contracts for home buyers. The drop in June, 1.8 percent on the pending home sales index, brings it to 110.3 overall. Still, an improvement over the last 12 months where we saw a jump of 8.2 percent overall.

Pending sales act as a barometer for future purchases because of the lag, generally a month or two, which exists between contract and a completed sale. Does this decline indicate a peak in the steady growth we have over the last year or is this just a small hiccup in even bigger growth to come?