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A diverse workforce doesn't happen accidentally — you need the right recruiting strategies to bring different types of candidates in the door. Over the years, the movement for increased diversity in the workplace has picked up significant momentum. Having a diverse team offers businesses a variety of perspectives, allowing for increased innovation and problem solving, while also increasing employee engagement and brand reputation. In most cases, building a pipeline of diverse job candidates requires intentional efforts at the recruitment level. To help you achieve this goal, eight members of Rolling Stone Culture Council share their best strategies to promote a broader range of candidates in your applicant pool.

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How can a phygital reality support us as a society, and what does this mean for how we connect, work and play?

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Before you hit that "go live" button, make sure you have a plan in place for a successful social media live stream. Whether it's on Instagram, Facebook or other social media platforms, live video content provides fun and welcome variation to your social media strategy. It allows for more connection between your brand and your customers, and may even introduce a new audience to your company. But there is an art to doing live videos well, and it's important to understand the basics before you start streaming. To help, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members share their best practices for a successful social media live stream — from ensuring added value to advertising in advance — and how to adapt these practices to your own strategies.

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It’s never too late to make changes for the better. In the excitement of getting their first business up and running, new entrepreneurs may rush through the website-building process, aiming for speed to market rather than a well-planned design. In doing so, though, they may end up missing a few key components along the way, making mistakes that could cost them in the long run. Even if your website is already live, however, it’s not too late to make some valuable changes. Below, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members discuss some of the mistakes first-time entrepreneurs make when building their websites and what can be done to fix them.

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Advertising isn’t the only way to get your event noticed. If you’re a new business trying to drum up awareness or an established business just trying to expand your reach, pop-up events are a great way to get your brand in front of more potential customers. Because of their temporary nature, they’re perfect for creating a sense of urgency and mystique that will draw in curious minds. But how can businesses best capitalize on these events? To help answer that question, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council experts weigh in with their best tips on how to run a successful pop-up event and generate buzz for your business.

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With every tough conversation, there is an immense opportunity.

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All it takes is the right idea to build positive connections. At a time when so many of us have been forced apart, industries of all sorts — from gaming to food to music as well as cannabis — have sought out ways to bring people back together and build back the connections we felt were lost.  Below, a group of Rolling Stone Culture Council members explain the ways that they and their companies have worked to bring people together during the past two years of illness, shutdowns and quarantines and how they’re continuing to focus on those relationships now.

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What inspires entrepreneurs each day doesn't have to come from the business sector. As any entrepreneur will tell you, running a business is a tough job. Finding the motivation to bring your all every day is a task in and of itself as you can easily become overwhelmed by the responsibility of constant planning, innovating and ensuring your team is well taken care of. Having something or someone to draw from for inspiration, then, can have a major impact on an entrepreneur’s outlook. But you don’t have to look to the business realm to be inspired. To share what has served as their biggest source of non-business inspiration, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members each discuss what (or who) inspires them as they lead their companies now and into the future.

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A little gratitude can go a long way in business. Happy customers are the fuel necessary to run any successful business.To help them is the main reason why many entrepreneurs continue doing what they’re doing. And when you build a loyal community of customers, you set yourself up with long-term support. One way to build that loyal following is to show your appreciation for your customers on a regular basis. When customers can feel your gratitude, it helps them feel like their voices are being heard and like they aren’t just a number on a profit report. Gratitude can come in many forms, however, so to help you find the method that suits you best, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council list their top strategies below.

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To be a trendsetter, you have to put in the work upfront. With trends always coming and going, it can seem like businesses are always just trying to catch up with the next big thing. But to be a true innovator, you’ll need to get ahead of the trends and maybe even set a few for yourself. In order for your business to be the first to capitalize on upcoming trends in your industry — and earn the respect and consumer attention that follows — consider these strategies recommended by the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council. Implementing even one could give you a major head start with the competition.

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It takes time and dedication to become a successful and effective cannabis professional.

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Running a business shouldn't always be about selling. The holiday season is all about giving, and just because a business is for-profit doesn’t mean it can’t participate in doing a little good for its community. Whether their focus is on local communities or a larger cause, businesses big and small can do their part to show their customers (and their employees) that they care. As business leaders in the culture space, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council understand how important it is for businesses to come together with their communities, especially during such a charitable time. Below, they recommend 10 ways other culture businesses can give back this holiday season and bring a little cheer to others.

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In order to appease their customers, company leaders will need to shift their mindsets. The demand is clear: The next generation of consumers wants more eco-friendly businesses. And yet, not every business is on board, continuing to roll out products made with nonbiodegradable materials destined for landfill or approving unsustainable supply chain practices that hurt more than just the environment. So what’s keeping current businesses from implementing more sustainable, eco-friendly practices and products? To shed some light on the issue, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members each share one factor they believe is holding many company leaders back from developing a more earth-conscious approach to business.

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To build a community of fans, you’ll need to hand them the reins. User-generated content (UGC) by definition is that content which is created by fans of a particular brand or product. And when a brand features content created by the fans for the fans, it can encourage other users to generate content too, eventually leading to an engaged community of loyal customers. To properly ignite this chain of events, however, companies will have to put in some initial legwork. Below, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members share ways in which their businesses build community around user-generated content and how any business can follow suit.

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In order to engage your viewers, you have to first create something worth watching. As more and more people turn to video as their choice format for content consumption, an increasing number of businesses are jumping on the video bandwagon as well. But savvy marketers should know that it isn’t enough to simply create video content in order to gain the attention of your customers — your videos have to be truly worth watching. To share their insights into creating engaging videos, a panel of Rolling Stone Culture Council members each detail their top tip below.

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Cannabis brands should honor the past to avoid the perils of today's commercialization. 

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Encouraging growth and development sets up the employee and the company for future success. In business, creativity sparks creativity, and the more employees are allowed to learn and grow in their positions, the more ideas and innovation they are able to bring to their company as a result. Continued learning, therefore, can be a powerful benefit to the company and employees within it, offering them new and exciting challenges and opportunities for promotion and leadership. To encourage this growth and development, employers can opt for a multitude of strategies. Business leaders themselves, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council each shared the way in which they and their department managers inspire their employees to pursue continued growth and learning throughout their careers.

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Letting others promote your business can often be the most effective form of marketing. Like a customer review or an influencer partnership, an affiliate marketing program relies on the willingness of others to promote your business. Without happy customers and a good reputation, it will be difficult to succeed. However, creating an affiliate program can be a relatively simple effort if approached the right way, and is often a lucrative endeavor for both you and your affiliates once properly established. To help get you started, the members of Rolling Stone Culture Council shared eight essential steps you and your business will need to take in order to run a successful affiliate marketing program and boost your profits.

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For these business leaders, hindsight is 20/20. Starting a business can be an intimidating undertaking, especially when it’s your first one. You’re often feeling imposter syndrome in full force, and no matter how much planning and research you do ahead of time, rarely does any aspect of business go how you’d expect.  Because of this fact, for many entrepreneurs, hindsight is 20/20. Now with established careers and businesses, they can better reflect on what may have gone wrong or what they could have done better when they first started out. Below, a panel of 14 Rolling Stone Culture Council members share the lessons they wish they had known when starting their businesses and how that knowledge may have helped them grow along the way.