Author: Guest Author

How To Make Your eCommerce Startup A Social Media Brand

Establishing a loyal customer base for an eCommerce business is extremely profitable. Given the low margins that many stores operate at, repeat customers help improve the ROI of your business. Social media channels like Facebook and Instagram not only help businesses reach out to their niche audience, they are also great platforms to build a brand that can translate into off-channel sales. Here is a simple how-to guide to help you achieve this.

Stand out from the crowd

Investing in creating a brand identity may seem like a frivolous expense in the early days. However, they are great assets to have on social media. Your followers on platforms like Facebook view your posts alongside posts made by other brands and people. In the absence of a strong brand identity, your content may fail to stand out.

Use brand colors that is unique and showcase your logos prominently. This improves engagement among followers. Not only does that help with direct sales, it also plays a role in another critical aspect of social media marketing. Websites like Facebook and Instagram tweak the visibility of a post based on engagement. Your brand identity may thus influence better reach among your social media followers.

Pick the right eCommerce platform

There are a number of different factors you look at while choosing an eCommerce platform. One of the factors must be to pick a tool that integrates well with third party plugins and services. Alternately, you should go with a provider who has a generous database of plugins and add-ons in their app marketplace.

In doing so, you may be in a position to pick a platform that seamlessly integrates with social media – including the ability to manage a Facebook Store or promote your products on your Instagram timeline. This contributes to higher visibility and consequently, better branding.

Deploy the right add-on tools

There are tons of social media tools targeted at startups that can help an eCommerce business with improving their social media visibility. There are tools like Facebook’s “Watch Party” that lets Groups watch videos simultaneously. FBStart is a global program that helps startups build and grow their business while EmbedReviews is a tool that lets you easily embed reviews on your Facebook Page. Invest your time on the right tools that can help you improve social media visibility and build a brand.

Invest in building viral traction

Securing shares and likes on your social media posts may be relatively easy once you have a large following on these channels. However, if you are an eCommerce store that is just starting out, gaining social media visibility may be challenging. In such cases, make use of viral marketing tools like ViralContentBee to earn likes and shares on your social media posts from trusted peers. This way, you build a following on your Pages that can build momentum and brand equity over the long-term.

ECommerce is a challenging industry as it is and building a brand amid cut-throat competition can be painful. However, with the strategies outlined here, you should be in a position to improve visibility and exposure to your business that increases brand equity on social media channels.

6 Reasons Why We Should Use AI in Customer Support

Customer support is the sort of thing that no company can go without. The world of customer support has changed drastically in recent times, mostly because of the fact that artificial intelligence can now be implemented within this context. You might be wondering why AI should be used in customer support in the first place. Here are some reasons why we should start using more AI in our customer support.

Shorter Response Times

Artificial intelligence has the potential to respond to customer queries and concerns pretty much instantly. Hence, customers will no longer have to wait in long queues that never seem to end. A lot of the time customers don’t even need the personalized service of a customer support representative because of the fact that they are perfectly capable of handling the problem on their own as long as they are given a chance to understand the problem in the first place. Since they don’t need to talk to a real human, shorter response times are something that they definitely deserve.

Less Research Required

Human CSRs are good at a lot of things, but they are still going to be bound by the constraints of human error. Often, when a customer is contacting you they are going to be asking for a lot of information all at once. Getting to this information and then relaying it to customers is going to be a rather time consuming and inefficient process. A service desk software provided by Kayako can give customers answers instantly, and an AI tool can make it even more efficient thus making it less likely that you would have to do a great deal of research while you are talking to a customer.

Enables Better Customer Engagement

As has been mentioned just above, human CSRs are good at a lot of things. One thing that they can do which machines simply can’t is talk to people in a way that is natural. The modern customer support industry has found that longer, in depth conversations with customers are necessary. After all, if a customer has chosen to speak to a CSR this is something that they feel very strongly about. Having AI handle all of the more mechanical tasks out there is going to make it easier for the CSRs to have more detailed conversations with the customers that choose to get through to them since they will have a lot more time on their hands.

Develops Insight

You can monitor how customers use the AI in order to better understand their behavior and preferences. The fact of the matter is that customers are often unwilling to say what they really feel when they are talking to a human being. There are a lot of reasons why this is the case. One reason is the fact that they might feel pressured to say a certain thing because of the fact that someone on the other end is expecting an answer. When they are talking to an AI, they will be more likely to let their guard down and give you a more accurate understanding of where they stand and what it is that they want from you.

Reduced Costs

Since you are going to be able to handle a wider range of customer queries and concerns with the AI, you are not going to need quite as many employees. This is going to help you save quite a bit of money in the long run. You are also going to save on costs because of the fact that the longer that each interaction with a customer takes, the higher that overall cost ends up becoming. Each second that you cut down on in terms of customer interactions to satisfy their concerns is going to add up and at the end of the year you are going to see that you legitimately saved a massive amount of money.

Helps Prioritize Issues

A major problem that a lot of companies face when it comes to things like customer support is issue prioritization. When a CSR gets a call, all they know is that there is an issue. Being on call with a customer is such a high pressure situation that you often end up being unable to ascertain just how important the issue is. Prioritizing takes a fair amount of time and presence of mind, and the fact of the matter is that CSRs can’t do it because of the fact that they have so much more to deal with. An AI can handle prioritization in a breeze, thus ensuring that the customers that have more pressing concerns end up getting their needs met well before other customers that might not be quite as relevant or important, thereby ensuring that everyone is happy.

The Writer’s Guide To Productivity

One of the hardest careers for productivity is writing. That’s because you need to be creative, pull words seemingly out of thin air and make it all sound amazing.

If you can follow the top productivity tips for writing, no matter whether you are an engineer or a photographer – or a writer, of course – you can master productivity.

Distractions

The biggest problems writers face are distractions. It doesn’t matter whether you work from home or in an office, distractions make writers pull their hair out. These come in two forms. Some are passive distractions, ones that happen to you. For instance:

  • People are chatting in the cubicle next to yours, and you find it hard to put words together.
  • Kids are running around and making demands on your time while you are trying to write.
  • The TV is on in the other room, and the sound conflicts with trying to assemble words in your head.
  • The cat desperately needs your lap, because every other spot in the house is taken.

Then there are active distractions, ones that you initiate (tsk, tsk). For instance.

  • Your stomach speaks, so you go check out what food is lying around in the kitchen.
  • You decide to check your email for the 17th
  • You stop to chat with a colleague, not thinking about how that might also be disturbing someone in the next cubicle.
  • Hey, Twitter!!

The solution is to turn off all distractions. You’ll do best when you put on blinkers, just like a race horse. Well, not just like a race horse. That would look silly. Here’s what to do instead:

First, turn off everything on your computer. Turn off Skype notifications. Turn off Twitter notifications. If it takes buying a separate bargain-basement, stripped down Chromebook just for writing, so be it.

Second, close the door and lock it (don’t try this in a cubicle). Make getting up to check the food on the counter too much trouble to be worth the effort. Make checking the mail too much work to be worth the effort.

Third, put on sound-blocking ear muffs. You won’t be distracted by what you don’t hear.

Fourth, send the cat out on errands.

Get organized

Some writers just start writing.  In fact, most do.  Even I do far too often.  But don’t do what I do far too often. Instead, do what I did for this article. Prepare an outline first.

For bigger projects, create a more detailed outline.

With a detailed outline, it might be clear what research you’ll need for each section. Do the research and plug it into your outline.

If it’s fiction, add character development notes and other items into the outline where you plan to include them.

By the time you are ready to write, all the ideas should be in place. All you have to do is assemble the words.

Peak time of day

I work well first thing in the morning. Well, not quite first thing. I like to start with routine items first. But after a half hour, I’m ready to write! So everybody get out of my way, because I have a world to conquer…until lunch.

The sad thing is that I get drowsy, then hungry, in early to mid afternoon. That is not the time for me to do pro-active or creative work. It’s a great time to do more routine stuff or related activities, such as creating images or proofreading. It’s an even better time to take a nap! I do that once or twice a year.

I find that another peak time is the evening, from about 6:00 to 10:00. My energy level usually drops after 10:00, though.

Learn what your peak times are, and optimize your schedule for the various tasks you have to do.

Writer’s block

This type of problem is unique to creative people. What should I write about? What should I paint? What should I crochet next?

When short on ideas, move on to something else. Wash dishes. Go for a walk. Check to see if the cat is back, yet. Try doodling; that works sometimes.

Let you mind wander freely for a while and see what you think of.

Another trick, is to direct you mind on how it wanders by browsing through related image searches. Or reading related Quora answers.

I get a lot of inspiration from reading comments on related blogs.

You can be more productive

If you are organized and set up the systems you need, you can be more productive. Don’t believe me? Here’s what four other writers have to say. Count how many times the word “organized” comes up.

Author Bio: David Leonhardt’s “day job” is to run The Happy Guy Marketing, which offers ghostwriting of books and screenplays and such, as well as website promotion, such as content marketing and social media marketing. He blogs about self-help topics, including happiness, fitness and nutrition.