For business executives, staying relevant in this time of innovation and rapid technological advancement can be challenging. Thankfully, we can leverage consumer and marketplace data to help our companies optimize products and services.

One of the premier analytical reports on emerging business-related trends, Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends 2018, was just released. While the more than 290 slides in the full report come packed with useful information for driving your company forward, here are 12 important and actionable insights for business executives.

Employ the Secrets of the New England Patriots’ Quarterback To Create Your Own Winning Game Plan

Whether or not you like the NFL’s New England Patriots, they keep winning -- and always find themselves in playoff contention.

So, what’s their secret? Is it better players? Probably not. They always seem to find new or no-name players who seem to outperform on game day, to everyone’s amazement. Is it better coaching or a better playbook? Maybe, but every NFL team has similar offensive and defensive playbooks.

Let’s travel to an alternate universe for a moment – one in which your corporate accounting is being handled by a cashier from 7-11; in which your IT is being entrusted to your neighbor’s grandfather, who once re-wired a lamp; and one in which your sales is being handled by a guy wearing a trench coat at the top of the subway steps.

Renowned author and TED speaker Bryan Kramer recently honored me by asking for my predictions about social and content marketing trends for 2016 to share with his worldwide audience.

For the uninitiated, Kramer is a leading expert on the use of sharing and social influence for marketing – someone who is sought out by Fortune 500 companies and conference organizers to keynote on the subject. Someone who wrote the book on social sharing, as it is practiced today. And now, here he was, asking me to contribute to his future-looking trend list for 2016.

Social media plays such a pervasive role in our culture that it’s only natural that CEOs want to use it to their advantage. But much of the time, the approaches used by their companies are ill-defined, half-hearted, and saddled with selling. Social media advocates often tout metrics that demonstrate audience growth and web traffic, but the real goal is engagement that can lead to sales. How you get there may surprise you.