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Jennifer Behr Is Hiring An ECommerce Coordinator In Brooklyn, NY

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

The Jennifer Behr studio is based in Brooklyn and committed to producing luxury handmade pieces in New York City. The design and creation of our product is the core of our business and we are looking for someone who can translate the specialness of this product into a thoughtfully curated and conversion-oriented online experience. The ideal candidate has a deep understanding of the luxury e-commerce customer journey.

This position will report directly to the Director of Ecommerce. This is a rare opportunity to be a part of a small but talented team; a disposition to efficient decision making and project execution is necessary.

Compensation will be commensurate with industry experience.

● Site Maintenance and Merchandising

○ Upload, merchandise and maintain a catalog of over 600 SKUs.
○ Edit product descriptions, incorporating the brand story and including inspirational, production and material qualities.
○ Ensure weights, dimensions, and relevant specifications are accurate at all times.
○ Visual merchandise for marketing initiatives and regular refreshes.
○ Ensure accuracy of color and material attributes for effective filtering.
○ Work with Customer Service to identify and assist with experience issues.
○ Monitor search queries and manage synonyms to optimize the user experience.

● Farfetch

○ Upload seasonal product assortment on Farfetch.
○ Work with Account Manager to merchandise Jennifer Behr product across Farfetch’s curated edits and provide creative assets as needed.
○ Work with Fulfillment team to continually improve performance.

● Content

○ Assist with planning and execution of social and email content calendar.
○ Work with Brand Storyteller on day-to-day content creation in Photoshop and InDesign, and posting on social media channels as needed.
○ Assist with updating content across the site including the homepage, navigation images, Press Pages, As Seen On modules, and Tutorial content.
○ Work with wholesale team on photographing each collection, ensuring that all styles have accurate images for product upload.
○ Work with press team on photographing on-model and editorial still life content seasonally.
○ Keep digital asset management system up to date and organized.

● Assist with campaign scheduling and flow optimization on Klaviyo and Attentive.
● Collaborate with Customer Service on VIP initiatives.
● Maintain documentation of the user guide for all processes.
● Assist with weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual selling reports.

Requirements:

● 2+ years of luxury e-commerce experience, Shopify+ preferred
● Fluency with Adobe Photoshop and InDesign for graphic design and typography.
● Social media experience a plus (Instagram and TikTok)
● Knowledge of Klaviyo, Attentive, and Salesforce a plus
● Bachelor’s Degree or higher
● Must be available over Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend

Please submit resume and salary requirements to megan@jenniferbehr.com

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: EMAIL, Uncategorized Tagged With: tiktok

Adobe Summit 2021: Empowering a digital-first economy through personalisation

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

  • Software giant Adobe concluded its annual and the world’s largest digital experience conference last week — Adobe Summit 2021.
  • Adobe introduced innovations across Adobe Experience Cloud, a comprehensive set of applications that help businesses deliver personalized and relevant digital experiences needed to be successful in today’s digital economy.
  • Creating a personalized experience for customers is critical for businesses, but comes with a challenge as most browsers going forward will no longer support cookies.

Software giant Adobe concluded its annual and the world’s largest digital experience conference last week — Adobe Summit 2021. At Summit, Adobe introduced
innovations across Adobe Experience Cloud, a comprehensive set of applications that help businesses deliver personalized and relevant digital experiences needed to be successful in today’s digital economy. Aimed at enabling customers to optimize their customer journey management, these innovations include a range of new enterprise applications such as Adobe Journey Optimizer and Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, a Marketing System of Record through the integration with Workfront, and new Adobe Experience Platform capabilities to deliver real-time personalization at scale.

Creating a personalized experience for customers is critical for businesses, but comes with a challenge as most browsers going forward will no longer support cookies. Keeping this in mind, Adobe also introduced
industry’s first Customer Data Platform (CDP) architected for first party data . This will help marketers manage the entire customer profile and journey seamlessly in one system, without the need for third-party cookies. Additionally,
Adobe and FedEx announced a new multi-year collaborationstarting with the integration of Adobe Commerce with ShopRunner. The partnership will help drive demand, reduce cost and gain customer insights which will unlock a new era of digital experiences built on innovation, speed, and convenience essential in a digital-first economy.



Raj Subramaniam, president and chief operating officer at FedEx said, “The opportunity to partner with Adobe is another step forward in the FedEx journey to create an open, collaborative e-commerce ecosystem that will help brands and merchants deliver seamless experiences for their customers”. “With Adobe’s leadership in customer experiences, the ShopRunner platform and our digital and logistics intelligence, we can increase the competitiveness of brands and merchants and create new possibilities in e-commerce,” he added.

Raj Subramaniam, president and chief operating officer at FedEx


A trillion-dollar opportunity


There’s no doubt that e-commerce marketplaces were the most well-equipped to meet new challenges in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Over the past decade, they’ve focused on supply chains, digital marketing, e-payment processing, and last-mile delivery. Global commerce continues to see record-breaking growth with US$ 876 billion in the first three months of 2021. That’s a YoY growth of 38 per cent, and 2021 could clock up to US$ 4.2 trillion.

“Our resilience, which has been tested through pandemics, geopolitical tensions & natural disasters will turn crisis into opportunity. We have seen industries explode in digital adoption from financial services, education, health, government services and of course retail,” Simon Tate, President APAC, Adobe, said at the event.

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The key to remaining ahead of the competition


In an offline world, a user can directly express their preferences, choices, and requirements to a merchant or service provider. A one-to-one meeting has an edge that the digital world is constantly trying to catch up with – personalisation. However, in today’s digital-first world, it is essential for business to transform digitally and re-imagine the entire customer journey to architect for agility. Businesses are required to find new ways to add value with their products and services while ensuring a seamless, personalized experience throughout the customer journey – all while keeping the data entrusted to them by their customers safe and secure.

Adobe’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of digital experience business and worldwide field operations, Anil Chakravarthy, said, “To survive and thrive, every business has had to rapidly accelerate the transformation to digital. In this environment, customers rightfully expect engaging, personalized digital experiences delivered to them in real-time, in a way that also respects their privacy and delivers value. And brands that are putting a laser focus on customer experience management are coming out in front. Simply put, customer personalization done right drives business growth”.

Adobe’s innovations for a digital-first era


“We have gone from a world with digital to a digital-first world and there is no going back. Today, every business is a digital business. Asia continues to be an epicentre of digital innovation, from creating marketplaces like Tokopedia and Flipkart that are driving the future of commerce, to social media networks like WeChat and TikTok that are now global,” said Shantanu Narayen, Chairman, President and CEO of Adobe.

The Adobe Experience Cloud consists of a content management system that can offer a customised experience to each customer. Data insights can be collected via Adobe Analytics and Adobe Audience Manager. A new addition is Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, which provides intelligent alerts for essential insights, making the acquisition process very transparent and open for improvements. The platform is also cloud-ready, so organisations don’t have to worry about additional third-party resources to host the suite.Adobe Experience Manager can now help brands create, manage and optimize the content via APIs and automation.

For the digital workplace, Adobe Workfront enables more agile, aligned creative work while eliminating work friction and distractions. With all work details, deadlines, collaboration, and resources available in one place, they’re able to deliver content and campaigns with greater speed and efficiency.

Adobe is powering Digital Experience for Top Healthcare Brands


Today, in the era of the pandemic, access to healthcare is more important than ever. The healthcare industry has recognised the need to adopt digital channels to reach customers with critical information and services in real-time. Adobe is working with leading healthcare brands to transform their customer experience through Adobe Experience Cloud.

At Summit, Adobe announced that it is powering digital experiences for seven of the top 10 healthcare providers, eight of the top 10 healthcare payers and nine of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies – delivering experiences with agility and at scale.

Anil Chakravarthy, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Experience Business and Worldwide Field Operations, Adobe said, “The pandemic has forever altered how healthcare is delivered, including high consumer expectations for timely and personalized care. Leveraging Adobe Experience Cloud, with privacy and security top of mind, healthcare can be delivered in real-time at scale, with the individualized service that consumers expect today.”

Adobe Experience Cloud covers data, insights, customer journeys, e-commerce, content management, marketing workflow, and an ecosystem of partners. For any business, it’s an essential combination that offers best-in-class customer experience solutions for the digital era.

Visuals

  • APAC customer sizzle reel video



To know more, visit here:

  • Adobe Summit 2021
  • Adobe Newsroom

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, Uncategorized, YouTube Tagged With: tiktok, youtube

Digital strategies and synergies continue to rise in importance as businesses physically reopens

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

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By Jo Gilbert

Published:  13 May, 2021

Online services continues to grow in importance, key sources have highlighted this week, as online retail sales continue to strengthen despite physical stories reopening, and as digital strategies and e-booking becomes more important than ever for bars and restaurants re-launching to demob-happy crowds.

The on-trade is finally allowed to open indoors across England, Wales and Scotland on Monday 17 May, ending months of hospitality lockdown, alongside the ramping up of what was previously deemed non-essential retail.

It is interesting therefore, to note the findings of two key sources which predict how digital strategies and sales will continue to grow in importance over the coming weeks. The first, from IMRG and Capgemini’s Online Retail Index, shows that online retail showed positive growth in April, with sales rising +10.2% YOY despite the easing of lockdown.

“This month’s +10% increase on 2020 is particularly impressive when considering last April’s +44% year-on-year growth,” said Lucy Gibbs, managing consultant for Retail Insight at Capgemini. “It has been over a year since the first UK lockdown, therefore growth online on top of this is significant.

A separate report from KAM Media and Zonal shows that the digitalisation of the customer journey is also accelerating for bars and restaurants as sector prepares for indoor reopening.

The report, focused on the post-pandemic customer, shows that customers are now more reliant than ever on digital services such as online bookings and discovering where to eat and drink out.

This has become particularly relevant this year as customers have become reliant on online booking services and also social media in order to find reservations in limited-capacity, socially distanced venues.

Alison Vasey, group product director at Zonal, said: “Having accepted the need for technology over the past 12 months, consumers now have a greater understanding of how it improves their experience and helps remove some of their typical frustrations when eating and drinking out. From an operators’ perspective this can only be positive, as maximising the power of tech helps free up staff to concentrate on those elements that help enhance the overall guest experience.”

According to the research, customers now search digitally when deciding which venue to visit, with most people doing a ‘general internet search’ (38%) followed by the use of Google’s ‘Near Me’ search tool (25%) and then using hospitality review websites/apps such as TripAdvisor (22%.)

This represents a “huge opportunity” for operators to either influence potential customers, or risk losing them during the critical ‘research’ stage.

Social media plays a considerable role too, but with significant generational swings. Gen Z and Millennials in particular are heavily reliant on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for ideas and inspiration on which venues to visit. Operators therefore need to ensure they are targeting the right channels which fit with their strategy and customer base, and avoid a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.

For retailers, online synergies are equally important, IMRG and Capgemini say.

Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director at IMRG, explains that despite a major reopening of the high street in April, many large retailers saw some of their strongest sales ever last month across online and retail platforms.

“One even recorded their biggest day ever overall. While online growth might have dropped away from +70-80% between January and March to +10% in April, this is largely as growth rates are now comparing with pandemic-period rates from 2020, which were so strong that it is hard to build upon that performance,” Mulcahy said.

On the rise of digital ordering in the on-trade (42% of consumers say a venue that offers mobile phone ordering and payment became more important to them over the last 12 months), Blake Gladman, strategy and insights director at KAM Media said: “Whether customers use digital ordering options will depend on the occasion, how much time they have and who they are with – so it’s not a case of one or the other, otherwise we risk alienating them – and in some instances it could be the same customer from one day to the next. The research showed, for example, that those dining with kids were more likely to want the option of ordering digitally. It offers them a quick, hassle free option.”

Findings from KAM Media and Zonal were taken from a nationally representative sample of 1,000 UK adults online in April 2021.

The IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers from a variety of sectors, including grocery, drinks, clothing and garden.

Other articles of interest

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, Uncategorized Tagged With: tiktok

Essential B2C Marketing Implementations – Business 2 Community

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

Essential B2C marketing implementations. Technology and regulatory changes will require preparation. We asked marketing experts how they plan to tackle the next 12 months—here are the 18 topics they zeroed in on.

All the best ways to market your business in the next 12 months

The following list provides insights into many strategies you’ve already heard of, including SEO, customer retention, ecommerce, and video and influencer marketing. It also includes new strategies related to cookie-less advertising and privacy changes, as well as new approaches to help you cater to the new COVID-weary and social change-conscious consumer. No matter the strategy, the idea is the same: to market personally and value your customers, but also efficiently so you can save time, scale up, and keep running your day-to-day.

Optimise for Google’s next update

With Google’s Page Experience Update – May 2021, new metrics called Core Web Vitals—which will measure site load time, interactivity and content stability—will start to impact overall search rankings.

Prepare for the end of third-party cookies

2021 will also be the year marketers prepare for two big changes to come: the end of third-party cookies and new privacy regulations in California.

“We have to get comfortable with privacy-first data collection practices. That means focusing on list-building and developing one-to-one relationships with customers,” said Harry Maugans, CEO of consumer privacy service Privacy Bee. “Make sure that your campaigns help you build your first-party data so you rely less on Other People’s Data.”

The death of third-party cookies will change how digital ads are targeted and tracked, but Dave Toby, director of digital marketing agency Pathfinder Alliance, said there’s still “considerable confusion about how campaigns will be affected.”

Foster first-party relationships

Having direct relationships with customers will be even more important as the online landscape becomes even more cluttered with brands trying to reach digital consumers. But it will also be important because one-to-one relationships mean brands can personalise content for better experiences.

Houman Akhavan, CMO of CarParts.com, said a first-party data strategy yielded “incredible results” in 2020, including “record conversions.”

“A critical part of this first-party data strategy has been using the correct customer data platform technology—one that is scalable to process millions of records of customer insights, including real-time signals that must be acted upon immediately before they go stale,” he said. “Thus far, leveraging our customer data platform has allowed us to generate over a quarter billion personalised one-to-one messages. We’ve seen our click-through rates increase by as much as 400% and our email revenue has doubled.”

Focus on customer retention

And for brands struggling to recover from the events of 2020, focusing on existing customers may be wise.

“In an uncertain economy, most brands—especially niche retailers— should focus on existing customers,” said Jonathan Frey, CMO of electric bike retailer Urban Bikes Direct.

For his part, Jim Pendergast, SVP of commercial financing platform AltLine, expects to see B2C brands emphasise mobile marketing for customer retention.

Start selling on social

Another burgeoning trend with potentially far-reaching implications is social commerce. In 2020, Facebook launched Shops for both Facebook and Instagram, allowing users to shop directly on the platforms.

Bruce Biegel, senior managing partner of management consultancy Winterberry Group, expects to see more focus on social commerce in 2021, along with new marketplaces, to shorten the customer journey from search to conversion.

Product Personalisation

The email weapon isn’t so secret. It’s common knowledge that email marketing is a powerful customer acquisition tool. First of all, the foot-in-the-door technique applies. Second, you have permission to push marketing messaging to an entire list of people.

There are two main ways to use email marketing in the customer acquisition process: following up and increasing retention.

Capturing an email is an easy way to reach out to a potential customer down the road. Say, when you have a discount or a special offer to follow up with. As long as you don’t abuse the list (leading to unsubscribers), you literally have a list of people who are somewhat interested in your product and are open to being contacted again.

Email also is a great way to improve your customer retention. The most valuable customer is the one you don’t lose. Keeping customers is just as important as acquiring new customers. Reach out to let them know about any outstanding notifications, recent updates, etc. Reignite their interest in your product via email. Remind them of what’s going on, of what they’re missing out on, etc.

Personalised product selection solutions, using predictive analytics technologies, identify consumer’s future behaviour ranking every SKU by greatest likelihood of that individual consumer to purchase from all the SKUs listed, in order of greatest propensity. It presents them to that individual at exactly the right moment, thereby maximising that individual’s customer lifetime value CLV potential. (i.e. Likelihood to Purchase, Discount Affinity, Likelihood to Churn etc).

Grow communities

In addition to demonstrating they are trustworthy, brands should foster communities of loyal customers now.

“The notion of community building isn’t novel, but brands need to understand that loyalty is coming back and brands that know what it is their customers want, as well as how to engage them through transparency and humility, is what will become the difference-maker,” said SEO consultant Itamar Blauer.

Olga Petrik, CMO of Gmail CRM firm NetHunt CRM, agreed brands should invest more in loyalty and retention now.

Optimise for voice search

We’ve seen voice search in previous year-end predictions. However, this may be the year it really takes off as consumers used their voice-enabled devices more while they were at home during the pandemic.

Lean into local SEO

Speaking of which, local SEO is another marketing strategy to make a repeat appearance on this list. This time, it’s because brands can update their Google Business Profiles via their Google My Business Accounts to include pandemic-friendly details like online appointments and curbside pickup and delivery, said Sarah Blocksidge, marketing manager at digital marketing agency Sixth City Marketing.

Go casual in social videos

The trend toward social video will undoubtedly continue throughout the decade.

Mark Hayes, head of marketing at video-based advice platform Kintell, noted TikTok has over 500 million users and is available in more than 150 global markets. It has also spurred copycats like Instagram’s Reels, which launched in August 2020. (Twitter’s Fleets, which came out in November 2020, offers similar 24-hour-only video capabilities.)

Go Live

An extension of this video trend is live streams, which will also remain popular.

Reuben Yonatan, CEO of VOIP guide site GetVOIP, noted a sharp uptick in brands going live during the pandemic to interact with consumers in real-time.

Tap into micro-influencers

2020 was a good year for micro-influencers like Nathan Apodaca, the viral cranberry-juice-drinking TikTok star, and Tony Piloseno, another TikTok user with wildly popular paint-mixing videos who was fired by Sherwin Williams—and then hired by Florida Paints. With TikTok showing no signs of slowing down, the power of influencers—big and small—is expected to continue.

Use retailer media networks

Retailers like Amazon were among the few to actually benefit from changes spurred by the pandemic.

In recent history, Amazon has also diversified its advertising portfolio, adding units like Sponsored Video Ads, Sponsored Display Ads and OTT ads.

“With these additions, Amazon has become a fully enclosed ecosystem, supporting the whole marketing funnel from product discovery to purchase,” said Natalia Wulfe, CMO of digital marketing agency Effective Spend. “Advertisers can use OTT and Sponsored Display to build awareness, video ads to educate and engage visitors and traditional sponsored product ads to drive transactions.”

Combined, these developments mean advertisers can enjoy better reach and performance on Amazon than ever before, Wulfe added.

Establish brand partnerships

2020 brought us successful brand collaborations like McDonald’s and Travis Scott, Adidas and Allbirds and Adidas and Lego, which means more brand collaborations are likely on the horizon.

Unexpected partnerships between corporate brands capture media attention, generate social buzz and allow for cross-marketing to customer bases—without celebrity endorsement fees, all of which plays well in an era of hard-to-capture consumer attention and tightened budgets.

But brands that, say, don’t have the resources to hire a Travis Scott can instead team up with brands that offer complementary products or services. That’s what thermal imaging brand ThermoGears did when it was looking to bring new visitors to its website.

Get into augmented reality

Also expect to see more augmented reality (AR) executions. This will allow brands to show consumers what objects will look in their homes, like Ikea’s AR catalogue, or how clothes or accessories look on their bodies, like Warby Parker’s virtual try-on app.

The pandemic encouraged marketers to think uniquely for ways to connect with consumers who always stay inside their homes,” said Stephen Light, CMO of mattress retailer Nolah Mattress. “The solution was AR marketing, which helped the target market get a feel of owning the product even without seeing it personally.

The biggest misconception about AR ads is they’re expensive, but they’re actually more budget-friendly than traditional channels.

Automate what you can

Another tactic to help decrease budget and increase efficiencies is marketing automation. Sharon van Donkelaar, CMO at LinkedIn marketing automation company Expandi, said automation helps free up employees from “many boring and routine business tasks.” This includes Automated Bidding in Google Ads.

Originally published here.

Author: David Swift

David Swift is an experienced CEO with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in personalised product selection software for email marketing. A Martech entrepreneur.… View full profile ›

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, Uncategorized Tagged With: tiktok

Shipping speed, transparency continue to trip up e-commerce brands

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

The retail customer journey has been changed forever. No longer is going to a physical store and browsing the aisles the only method of shopping. More browsing than ever is taking place online, more sales than ever are occurring in digital spaces and more pressure on retailers is driving change – and new challenges – that continue to alter the shopping experience.

Understanding these changes are key to creating successful customer journeys. More importantly, though, is understanding what the modern consumer seeks. A series of recent reports provide some insights into the consumer of 2021 and what they say is important to them, giving retailers and brands a road map to fulfilling consumer needs.

The face of the online consumer

In Jungle Scout’s Q1 2021 Consumer Trends Report, consumers reported that free shipping was the top reason to shop online. That jumped up from the fourth spot in the Q4 report, suggesting shipping cost was less of a factor during the busy holiday season. Lower prices, which was sixth in the Q4 report, jumped up to No. 2 in Q1. Convenience was third in Q1 after topping the survey in Q4.

The report, which surveyed 1,005 U.S. consumers Jan. 26-29, 2021, found that 46% of consumers leave items in their online cart and forget about them, suggesting brands have some work to do to convert these customers.

When it comes to which online retailers are most popular, it’s no surprise that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) topped the list, with 73% of respondents saying they shopped at Amazon.com at least once in the past three months. Amazon was followed by Walmart (NYSE: WMT) at 40%; eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and Target (NYSE: TGT), 18% each; and Kohl’s (NYSE: KSS) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), 10% each.

When it comes to returns, 31% of respondents said they would return a product bought from an online store. That number increased slightly, to 32% for Amazon shoppers, but both numbers remained below the 37% who said they were likely to return an item at a physical store.

Consumers looking for items often start with Amazon, with 74% of them saying that is their first online stop. Search engines were popular as well, with 65% saying that’s where they start researching items. A brand or retailer’s website was cited by 38% followed by social networks Facebook, 31%; YouTube, 29%; Instagram, 21%; and TikTok, 10%. (Note: Respondents could select multiple answers.)

When it comes to getting a product in a timely manner, though, the clear choice is Amazon, with 64% saying they turn to Jeff Bezo’s platform.

Where consumers begin their online shopping journey. (Photo: Jungle Scout)

Nearly three-quarters of consumers – 73% – believe the majority of shopping will happen online in the future and 43% said they would be fine if they never shopped in a physical store again. A full 58% of consumers shop online at least once a week if not more.

When it comes to price and shipping considerations, 68% of all consumers said they are looking online for the item with the lowest price, but 48% said they would pay more for that item if it came with faster shipping. Interestingly, of Amazon shoppers, 55% said they would pay more for faster shipping even though the company already offers free shipping for most items for Prime members.

Shipping trends

A SOTI Bricks to Clicks report found that last-mile delivery remains the most inefficient part of the entire e-commerce supply chain for 59% of U.S. transportation and logistics companies. Yet for the consumer, that piece remains a critical part of the online buying experience.

In a survey of 6,000 consumers conducted by Arlington Research for mobile technology platform SOTI during Q4 2020, 67% of consumers said they wanted real-time visibility into the location of their Christmas gifts from the moment the online order was processed. Delays in delivery exceeding two days turned off 38% of consumers, who said they would look elsewhere for the product in those cases, and 57% said they were frustrated with the returns process for online orders.

Delivery experience management company Convey conducted its own survey on Amazon, building the results into a recent webinar, “Amazon’s Momentum and Retailer’s Moment of Opportunity.” The company’s survey found 6 in 10 consumers were more likely to complete a purchase if the estimated delivery date was visible in the product card prior to checkout.

Related:

Read: AI breaking down silos and improving e-commerce experiences

Read: Millennials powering B2B e-commerce landscape

Read: Taking the measure of returns: 5 questions for FedEx’s Ryan Kelly

“It’s very much an Amazon takeaway experience,” Carson Krieg, co-founder and head of strategic partnerships at Convey, said during the webinar.

Almost half of consumers (47%) said they would like the ability to pick up an online order at a physical store on the same day if the retailer had a store location nearby. That theme came through in the SOTI report as well.

“When they are under pressure, whether online or in-store, customers want a high-quality and tailored experience,” the SOTI report said. “But they also want maximum simplicity and convenience. We can expect these trends to spill over from the holiday experience into the rest of the year.”

The Convey survey was conducted in December 2020 at the height of the holiday shopping season and asked 1,200 consumers 15 questions. The results showed that consumers have mixed feelings about Amazon – even as the e-tail giant continues to drive supply chain innovation and alter consumer demands. While 19.9% had a “very negative” view of Amazon’s impact on retail and another 28.6% held a negative view, 49% of shoppers said they preferred to shop with Amazon because they trusted their package would be delivered on time.

Despite the negative views of Amazon, 28% of respondents reported making at least half their purchases on Amazon.com.

Krieg said this indicates the importance of a strong fulfillment program for all brands, not just Amazon.

A look at where shoppers have shopped online in the past three months. (Photo: Jungle Scout)

“2020 was a test for all retailers including Amazon,” he said during the Convey webinar.  “Amazon had similar capacity constraints and restrictions as brick and mortar did … but what did they do is they hired workers … and they made the tough decision to turn off their FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) program.”

Throughout the Convey survey, the theme of cost and shipping continued to appear. Respondents said they would choose Amazon over a smaller retailer due to cost of items, with 33.7% saying items were more expensive at the other retailers. Additionally, 23.3% said shipping was either more expensive or wasn’t free at the smaller businesses, while 22.1% said shipping was going to take longer.

“Some consumers were willing to wait longer for shipping … if it’s free,” Krieg noted.

Amazon Prime members were also more likely to be wealthier shoppers. According to Convey’s data, of those with household incomes above $75,000 per year, 41% bought half of their goods from Amazon, and the shipping experience was “very important” for 64% of them. Even though 33% of these shoppers shopped exclusively at Amazon for the holidays, 24% said Amazon was having a negative impact on retailers.

Krieg said the lessons learned from the Convey surveys are clear: Brands not selling on Amazon need to step up their delivery games.

Amazon is now fulfilling more than 50% of its package deliveries, Krieg said, and while “a lot of retailers are not going to have the scale to do that,” the benefits Amazon has gained from it are clear – and they are pushing others to match it.

“Two-thirds of the country (68%) is saying that if you screw up the first [delivery], we’re not going to give you another shot,” Krieg said.

What can retailers do?

Krieg advised retailers to offer in-store and curbside pickup where possible and be proactive with communications to customers.

“You can be brand forward and capitalize on the opportunity by sending more alerts around certain shipments,” Krieg said, noting that packages delayed by weather or traffic can be alerts. The more touch points with the customer, the better, he added.

Bringing all communications and data streams – from distribution centers to delivery networks to stores – into a single silo helps this process.

Krieg also said to be vocal about sustainability efforts. He noted that 30% of consumers under the age of 30 believe Amazon is harmful for the environment, and sales of sustainably marketed products grow at 5.6 times the rate of conventional products, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

Show how you are reducing waste by being more efficient through shorter supply chains that reduce emissions or result in less food waste; spotlight how slower – and cheaper – shipping methods can be a sustainable choice, he said.

“The consumer base will pay more for these goods,” Krieg said.

“Two-thirds of the country is saying that if you screw up the first [delivery], we’re not going to give you another shot.”

– Carson Krieg, co-founder and head of strategic partnerships at Convey

Shash Anand, vice president of product strategy for SOTI, said that technology offers retailers a pathway to both better shipping experiences and increased trust surrounding the entire purchase.

“Almost half of consumers abandoned online purchase because they didn’t trust the site [would secure their data],” Anand said, noting that 57% were more trusting of well-known brands.

SOTI provides technology that helps protect data privacy as well as improves the shipping process, including returns.

“Delivery [and returns] is not only an option but a must,” Anand said. “Sixty-three percent of consumers would like the returns process to be easier if not automated [entirely]. This is an opportunity for retailers to perfect their game.”

Anand said retailers should evaluate technologies and look to use cases that will show how the technology works in real-world applications. This can include mobile devices, RFID, scanners, wearables and drones.

“There are many companies that have gotten this right and they are doing extremely well and thriving in this economy,” he said.

Technology deployment should take into consideration customer privacy and speed of delivery – and shipment tracking is a must-have that customers have come to expect. Anand said retailers need to become technology companies since the customer journey now includes the shopping experience, the payment experience and the delivery experience. Falling down in any one area can drive a customer away forever.

Click for more Modern Shipper articles by Brian Straight.

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Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, Uncategorized Tagged With: tiktok

Micro Business vs. Small Business

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

Definitions vary, but typically a micro business is a type of small business that employs fewer than 10 people. Size and scale are the main differences between a micro business and small business—micro businesses often function as sole proprietorships and earn less than $250,000 annually.

Financing and marketing can be more of an issue for micro businesses vs. small businesses, but they operate with less capital and enjoy a closer relationship with customers than small businesses typically do.

If you’ve started a business, you probably identify as a small business owner, but are you actually a micro business owner? Solopreneurs, freelancers, side hustlers, and business owners in any industry employing fewer than 9 people would qualify as the latter.

If that’s the case for you, it’s important that you understand what a micro business is, the difference between a micro business vs. small business, and the challenges and opportunities unique to this subset of small businesses. That way, you can better understand how to operate your business effectively, and how to navigate those inevitable challenges.

What is a micro business?

Despite their small size, micro businesses have considerable clout in our economy. According to U.S. Small Business Administration Mid-Atlantic Acting Regional Administrator Steve Bulger, “Micro businesses are the foundation of the creation of our nation, and continue to be an important part of our economy and the strength of our communities. Many of our founding fathers and early Americans could be considered micro business owners, and as more Americans become self-employed, micro businesses have grown to be a significant sector of our small business economy.”

A micro business is a type of small business that operates on a very small scale. That scale is typically measured according to the business’s number of employees, total worth, and occasionally how much money was required to start the business. These factors are also used in the SBA’s definition of a small business, but of course the numbers are smaller in this case.

“By definition, micro businesses are a subcategory of small business, with sales and assets valued at less than $250,000 per year and less than five employees, including the owner,” Bulger says.

Those numbers can vary slightly. But according to other studies on micro business, as well as the micro business owners and SMB experts we spoke to, we’ve found that micro businesses generally meet the following standards:

  • Have fewer than 10 employees, including the owner (though some definitions of “micro business” cap the number of employees at six)

  • Less than $250,000 in annual sales

  • Required less than $50,000 to start

More generally, micro businesses require less capital to operate and their business activity is lower than larger small businesses.

Often, micro businesses are run by a single owner with no employees, aka solopreneurs. These tiny operations often begin, and/or remain, as the owner’s side hustle—think housekeepers, consultants, creatives, event planners, professional service providers, freelancers in any field, and people working in the gig economy, like Uber drivers, Etsy store owners, and Airbnb hosts. A micro business “may also carve its own space within an industry by focusing on a specific sector of the market,” says Thomas J. Williams, a tax accountant and founder of Deducting The Right Way. “For example, a member of the food and restaurant industry who sells muffins from a street cart rather than opening a full-fledged bakery” would be defined as a micro business owner.

Some micro businesses are simply early-stage small businesses (or, eventually, large enterprises) that will grow over time, while others will remain micro businesses over the lifespan of the company. That all depends on the business owner’s intention and opportunity for growth.

Despite their smaller scales and requirements, micro businesses are just as viable as small or midsize businesses, and they certainly require the same amount of planning, dedication, and work to operate as larger-scale enterprises. “Together, we contribute just as many jobs as large corporations, and we are often involved in our communities at equivalent levels,” says Nance L. Schick, a small business attorney and micro business owner. “Yet our financing, training, education, workforce, and other needs vary dramatically. Many of us are home-based business owners who generate significant incomes; we are not just hobbyists.”

Micro business vs. small business tax structures

Another potential difference between “micro business” and “small business” is how the business in question is taxed, which in turn is dictated by the type of business entity they’re registered as with their state.

Often, small businesses register as LLCs or corporations, as these entity types provide the business owner with personal liability protection. LLC owners can choose whether they want to be taxed as a corporation or a pass-through entity, but corporations are always taxed as corporations (of course!).

Alternatively, most micro businesses function as sole proprietorships, which don’t actually require registration with the state—if you start a business as its sole owner, then you’re automatically a sole proprietor under the law. Sole proprietorships are taxed according to the owner’s personal tax rate. Filing taxes as a sole prop is simple—you’ll just fill out and include a Schedule C form with your personal income tax return. As a sole proprietor, you can also deduct your business expenses on your personal tax return, so it’s especially important that you keep their business and personal expenses separate throughout the year.

However, micro business owners who start out as sole props always have the option of registering as a separate entity. LLCs are the most common type of business entity for individual owners, as registration is easy and relatively low cost. LLCs also require very few ongoing requirements, you’ll be provided with the personal liability protections that sole proprietorships don’t have, and you can choose to be taxed at a corporate tax rate.

3 major challenges that micro businesses face—and how to solve them

Other than their size, scale, and tax rate, micro businesses can be more loosely defined according to the particular challenges they face. Here, we’ll run through a few of the common challenges that micro business owners encounter, plus our recommended solutions for these snags.

Challenge #1: Securing small business financing

While securing business financing isn’t necessarily easy for businesses of any size, it’s harder for micro businesses to obtain capital loans than even the smallest of definitively “small businesses.” Whether the loan is issued by a traditional bank or an online platform, lenders seek to mitigate risk wherever possible. And as micro businesses operate on such small scales financially, lenders typically view these tiny operations as less stable—and simply less able to handle debt—than larger small businesses are.

Beyond traditional capital loans, like term loans and lines of credit, micro business owners may have trouble securing financing from outside investors, as well. According to Schick, “Our financing needs might be nominal and only occasional, [but] we might be restricted from accepting investments from owner-funders outside our industries.”

The solution: Seek alternative financing

Micro business owners in need of operational or startup funding will likely need to cast a local net rather than approaching a bank or alternative lender. Often, micro business owners dip into their personal savings, apply for a personal loan for business, turn to family and friends for loans, or seek crowdfunding to collect their required capital. Since micro businesses typically require small amounts of cash to operate, however, these alternative funding methods can be perfectly sufficient for addressing their needs.

Challenge #2: Attracting potential customers

Micro businesses operate on smaller scales than small businesses on every level, including the scope of their customer base—and their ability to reach potential customers in the first place. That might put them at a competitive disadvantage to small businesses that have the funds, network, and resources to access fuller-scaled marketing campaigns. Simon Braier, the customer strategy and insights director at Vistaprint, confirms this challenge:

“In a Vistaprint survey of micro business owners, we discovered that marketing is one of the areas they struggle with the most. Many micro business owners start out to spend more time doing what they love, rather than due to a passion for marketing. They also wear many different hats and work within the constraints of a tight budget (approximately $1,500 annually), which makes this area even more challenging.”

Despite these limitations, Braier says, “We’ve seen that even with limited resources, micro business owners can stand out on a shoestring budget. In fact, their small size and unique qualities can be turned into a strength in their marketing toolkit.”

The solution: Stick to a low-cost, low-lift marketing plan

Thanks to the rise (and effectiveness) of social media marketing and other forms of digital advertising, business owners don’t actually need enterprise-level marketing budgets to get the word out about their businesses. The democratization of online marketing means that most digital marketing tools are easy and intuitive to implement, too, which makes them ideal even for the technophobes among us. Of course, it’s important for micro business owners to put in some face time with their potential customers, too.

We’d recommend that micro business owners implement at least the following marketing strategies, none of which require supersized budgets or bandwidth to achieve:

Micro business owners—like business owners helming enterprises of any size—should create a business website as soon as they launch.

There are lots of website-building platforms to choose from, but Squarespace and Wix are two of the more popular options for their easy-to-use templates, professional designs, and affordable price points. Importantly, too, these platforms enable you to buy your website domain name.

Both Squarespace and Wix’s templates are also built-in with SEO features, which will help you rank higher on search engines—and which, in turn, makes your business more easily visible to potential customers seeking products or services like yours. We’d also recommend taking a look at our guide to SEO strategy for more tips on how best to create your digital content so it reaches the most possible digital consumers.

2. Social media marketing

Next, create dedicated business accounts across all major social media platforms. Regardless of your business or industry, maintaining a presence on both Facebook and Instagram is basically required these days. But depending on where your target market hangs out online, plus your personal bandwidth and preferences, you might also consider creating accounts on Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, and other popular social media sites.

Our comprehensive social media marketing for small business can help you navigate this crucial and highly effective marketing tactic. But the most important tips to keep in mind as you’re building your social media channels are to create high-quality content, post regularly, and respond (kindly!) to as many of your customers’ comments and questions as possible. Highly engaged users tend to be the most successful. If you have room in your budget, you can also consider buying sponsored posts and taking advantage of other paid marketing tactics.

Don’t be discouraged if your digital fanbase starts out small—Braier believes that a micro business owner’s relatively small social media following can actually work in their favor, as it allows for more (virtual) face time with more people.

“A restaurant or shop owner can replicate the higher personalized level of service they provide face-to-face on social media, by monitoring and responding to comments in a customer-centric way. These businesses can also differentiate themselves by showcasing the quality products and services they provide that are hard to come by at larger competitors. For an arts-and-crafts manufacturer, that could consist of videos showing the meticulous process they go through when creating their products.”

As a micro business owner, you’re likely going to find your customers through your personal connections and your local community, so don’t overlook the importance of networking and in-person marketing incentives. That can certainly entail old-school networking tactics, like serving your family and friends and letting word-of-mouth work its magic. Partnering up with local businesses and charities or setting up shop at crafts fairs or farmers markets are great options, too. And don’t forget to have business cards and other physical marketing materials on hand.

“Believe it or not, business cards—as well as palm cards, flyers, and other printed marketing material—are still an excellent marketing method. They distribute easily, are relatively inexpensive, and printing on demand can make your materials as flexible as your online presence,” Bulger says.

But networking can be digitized, as well: Send an email announcing your business to your address book, update your LinkedIn page to include information about your business, and post about your business on your personal social media accounts to redirect your followers to your business’s accounts.

Also, don’t forget to create a Gmail for business account, or an account on the email server of your choice. Having a professional email account looks more professional, and separating your business and personal emails makes more sense organizationally.

Challenge #3: Handling several jobs at once

As we mentioned, micro businesses are loosely defined as businesses with fewer than 10 employees, including the owner. More often than not, micro businesses are actually owned and operated by a single person.

While this pared-down staff may be the business owner’s choice, in some cases micro businesses remain “micro” only because they lack the funds to hire more employees and obtain other resources. “Bootstrap budgets often lead to giving up much-needed resources, such as hiring part-time instead of full-time help or waiting to buy essential equipment,” Williams says.

Of course, fewer (or zero) staff members means fewer (or zero) people to delegate your work to—which can be overwhelming, to say the least.

“Where training and education is concerned, we are often excellent at creating the products or services we sell, but we might need very basic skills in bookkeeping, finance, human resources, marketing, operations management, sales, and taxes. It is not unusual for one person to be the de facto CEO, CFO, CIO, CMO, COO, and more in our businesses,” Schick says.

Jason Thibault, the owner of micro business Massive Kontent, adds that juggling all these roles can take as much of a toll on a solopreneur’s personal life as it does on their business:

“I now wear the hats of a consultant, strategist, content creator, and analyst. Where I previously was part of a team who shared the workload, I now perform all of the required tasks or outsource the remainder to subcontractors. A well-structured small business has the benefit of a sales and marketing team, accounts payable/receivable, general manager, and possibly someone handling IT. Vacations can be scheduled appropriately with temporary replacements. The sole proprietor of a micro business is responsible for keeping the customer pipeline full, timely invoicing, client satisfaction, all while maintaining their health as sick days aren’t an option.”

The solution: Outsource tasks to digital tools    

Micro business owners may not have the option of delegating roles to human employees or subcontractors, but there are a wealth of digital tools that can automate and streamline most tricky, time-consuming tasks. In particular, we’d recommend that micro business owners consider the following types of software:

1. Business accounting software

One of the most common challenges micro business owners face is a lack of available funds (that limitation is literally baked into the definition of a “micro business”).

“Micro businesses have much smaller budgets, overheads, and profit margins than small businesses and may benefit from (or more commonly, lose out to) the tax and deductibles implications of this,” Moss says.

To mitigate this challenge as much as possible, it’s important that micro business owners create a business budget and stick to it fairly militantly. It’s also crucial to track all your sales and expenses, and note any tax-deductible expenses. This is exactly where a good business accounting software comes in handy.

Depending on your needs, software from trusted digital accounting platforms like QuickBooks, FreshBooks, and Xero can help you track your sales and expenses, perform bookkeeping tasks, and calculate and file business taxes. Some platforms can automate additional tasks as well, like inventory management, time tracking, invoicing customers, and handling payroll. Alternatively, you might choose to use dedicated payroll software and/or invoice software, depending on your particular needs.

2. Appointment scheduling software

Service-based business owners should definitely look into appointment scheduling software. Outsourcing your booking management to a digital platform will help you save valuable time, of course, but booking online also makes the process much easier for your customers, which can make them more inclined to book with you again. Most appointment scheduling platforms are equipped with extra features, too, like payment processor integrations, storing customer information and booking history, and sending your clients automatic appointment reminders. Plus, all booking software enables integrations with your business website and social media accounts to provide your customers with a seamless booking experience.

3. Project management software

If you’re handling several projects or accounts at once (which we hope is the case!), then you might want to look into a project management tool. Platforms like Asana, Trello, and other productivity-boosting tools help you and your team (if you have one) visually organize your tasks and to-do lists to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

And to truly streamline your processes, consider a comprehensive toolkit like Bonsai Freelance. This all-in-one freelancer platform is equipped to handle most administrative tasks, including creating and sending proposals and contracts, time and expense tracking, creating and delivering invoices, and receiving payments via credit card, ACH payment, PayPal, or bitcoin.

Why it’s important to define micro business vs. small business  

While micro business owners technically are small business owners, differentiating between micro business vs. small business is important to keep in mind as you launch and operate your small enterprise. Identifying as a micro business owner will help you better understand your particular challenges and requirements which will likely differ from a larger small business owner’s, which means your solutions will differ, too.

And remember that your size certainly doesn’t affect your business’s quality, clout, and opportunity to grow—it simply operates on a different scale than a small business. “In short, lumping all businesses up to 250 or 500 employees into one category is a lot like lumping everyone 65 and older into one. We end up overlooking a lot of unique needs—and opportunities,” Schick says.

This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, Uncategorized Tagged With: Pinterest, tiktok

How to embrace the connected customer: digital interaction & service innovation| Webinar

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

A pair of experts shared their decades of experience in creating customer service excellence.

Image courtesy of iStock.

Retailers know they need to embrace digital innovation to succeed nowadays. Suggestions on how to do it were the focus of a recent Retail Customer Experience webinar, “The Connected Customer: Digital Interaction and Service Innovation.”

Amrit Dhangal,

A pair of experts — Amrit Dhangal, co-founder and COO at Acquire, a conversational customer engagement platform, and Derrick Boatwright, director of commercial innovation at HLC, a wholesale distributor to bicycle shops — shared their decades of experience in creating customer service excellence.

“Companies hoping to succeed must meet these expectations by creating engaging and rewarding customer experiences,” webinar moderator Elliot Maras, editor of Kiosk Marketplace, said in introducing the two panelists.

A listener poll at the start of the webinar found that most attendees like to communicate with companies via live chat and email. Both Dhangal and Boatwright said these poll findings matched their own companies’ experiences.

Dhangal further noted that there were 63% more digital engagements last year among businesses as the pandemic drove customers to use more digital channels when connecting with brands.

Derrick Boatwright

“Effectively, cross communication became very digital,” Dhangal said.

A customer can start a live chat on a website, then use SMS, after which point an email exchange takes place, he said. This holds true for nearly all types of businesses.

More shopping is also being done on social media channels such as TikTok (through its Shopify partnership), Facebook click to buy and Instagram, he said.

HCL encourages online and in-store buying

HCL was encouraging its customers to blend online and in-store commerce, which proved to be very helpful when the pandemic struck.

“People prefer to spend their dollars locally if you make it easy for them to do so and when you give them that option,” Boatwright said. “If you didn’t have the ability to live chat with your customers or if you didn’t have the ability to transact online, then you really were left without any options, especially when shutdowns were in place and your physical store had to close down.”

HCL, which has partnered with Acquire for four years, offered customers a doorstep delivery and a back order solution. This allowed customers to back order products, get in the queue and know when the products would arrive.

“They (back order programs) were never more reliable than when a supply chain shuts down,” Boatwright said. “We were able to equip a mom-and-pop retailer with some of the best e-commerce platforms in the world.” Retailers were able to provide two-day delivery.

“You get to spend your dollars locally, but you get the experience of an Amazon,” he said. “It set our customers up to be successful.”

Helping customers navigate the journey

HCL was also able to offer customers video, screen sharing and co-browsing to help retail customers navigate through challenges.

“It allows us to do a better job of realizing the needs that our customers have,” Boatwright said. “In many cases, they can’t even articulate those things. The retailer must find out what challenges their customers are facing. Then and only then can you go into solutions mode.”

A good first step for crafting a digital customer strategy is to understand your internal resources, Dhangal said.

The first actual project in this journey is live chat.

“That is first and foremost step one,” he said.

Boatwright said the first step is to understand how your customer wants to communicate with you. If the target customer is older, Tik Tok might not be the best channel.

Who’s on the team?

As for who should be involved in creating the programs, a variety of company roles can be involved, such as e-commerce, finance and customer service, Dhangal said. The job role that companies use most often is digital strategy innovation.

He advised not to wait for the perfect version of a digital interaction offering before launching one. He also recommended not trying to do too much at once. As you add more channels, consistent execution becomes more difficult.

Boatwright agreed.

“Maybe start with one channel and get live chat figured out before you try to add something else,” he said.

At the same time, Boatwright suggested not setting your bar too low.

“Compare yourself with the best of the best,” he said.

“Understand that retail has changed, and in many cases, the person walking into your store knows more about your products that they are coming to purchase than you do,” Boatwright said. “If you’re no longer the expert, how does that change the way you speak to and interact with your customers?

“Maybe that’s an area you could make some changes and have a positive impact,” he said.

To view this video, click here.

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, Uncategorized Tagged With: tiktok

What’s the Deal With Liquid Chlorophyll?

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

You may have seen it on your TikTok For You page: liquid chlorophyll, a drinkable emerald green concoction that looks like it’s sourced from a spring found in the Land of Oz. Actually, you’ve almost definitely seen it. As of this writing, #chlorophyll has over 250 million views. The hashtag is full of videos by teens and twentysomethings chugging it on camera, the particularly dedicated even sharing daily updates.

Groceries and health stores are struggling to keep up: online delivery service Instacart reported that on April 13, liquid chlorophyll orders were up a staggering 741 percent. Meanwhile, wellness brand Sakara Life saw their liquid chlorophyll sales double overnight on April 8.

So what, exactly, is the deal with liquid chlorophyll—and why is everyone obsessed with it?

If you need a 9th grade biology refresher: chlorophyll is a pigment found in plants that is used to make energy (aka photosynthesis). It also gives them their leafy green color. For the past few years, putting a few liquified drops (technically called chlorophyllin) or powder into your drinking water has become popular in the alternative wellness world.

Goop wrote about chlorophyll’s benefits for gut health back in 2017. Two years later, Kourtney Kardashian sung its praises on Poosh: “Drinking alkaline water or spiking my filtered water with minerals or liquid chlorophyll makes me feel like I’m multitasking by staying hydrated while also getting important nutrients my body needs and can’t always get from food.” Meanwhile, Press Juicery has been featuring chlorophyll water in its cleanses since at least 2015. (“Perfect to boost hydration,” they write.)

However, as wonderful as good gut microbiomes are, they don’t explain why chlorophyll went viral on Tiktok. Especially since over 25 percent of TikTok users are teens, who, well, aren’t really thinking about gut health at this point in their young lives. Instead they’re focused on an entirely different organ: their skin.

“Honestly shocked,” user @marycjskinner captioned her Tiktok chronicling chlorophyll’s day-by-day effect on her rosacea, set to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Deja Vu.” It has two million likes. Another, @ellietaylor929, showed improvement in her skin from one week of drinking chlorophyll. Posted March 29, it’s racked up 3 million views—and is arguably the video that ignited the trend. Hundreds more teen TikTokers have shown off its effects on their acne, pimples, or otherwise inflamed faces.

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, YouTube Tagged With: tiktok, youtube

Tech giants have all become creator companies

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

Amid the creator economy boom, most platforms have begun to launch features to help creators make money, including tipping features, grants and creator funds or revenue share programs.

Why it matters: Like other social media trends, most companies are copying each other in an effort to court creators from different platforms.

Between the lines: Creators look different on each platform.

  • Substack creators are writers, while Twitch creators make video. LinkedIn shares subscription revenue with online course instructors, while YouTube shares ad revenue with everyone from beauty professionals to workout instructors.

Go deeper: Social media companies all starting to look the same

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, YouTube Tagged With: Facebook, tiktok, youtube

YouTube Launches New $100 Million Fund for Shorts Creators, Adds New Creative Tools for Shorts Clips

May 14, 2021 by Staff Reporter

After announcing the expansion of its TikTok-like ‘Shorts’ option to all US users last week, YouTube has today announced the next phase in its expanding focus on short-form content, with a new ‘Shorts Fund’ that will see YouTube pay out $100 million to top Shorts creators to provide additional support, and motivation, for their efforts. 

As explained by YouTube:

“Since Shorts is a new way to watch and create on YouTube, we’ve been taking a fresh look at what it means to monetize and reward creators for their content. We’re introducing the YouTube Shorts Fund, a $100M fund distributed over the course of 2021-2022. Anyone is eligible to participate in the fund simply by creating unique Shorts that delight the YouTube community.”

That could be a big boost for Shorts content, while also providing additional motivation for YouTube stars to post to Shorts, instead of testing the waters on TikTok instead.

In variance to YouTube’s regular monetization process, via its Partner Program, YouTube will offer this new Shorts funding to the Shorts clips that see “the most engagement and views” each month – so long as users “create original content for Shorts and adhere to our Community Guidelines”.

Which is more akin to Snapchat’s ‘Spotlight’ funding initiative, which sees it paying out $1 million per day to the best Spotlight clips.

That’s already seen Snapchat pay out over $90 million through the Spotlight initiative in just under 6 months, but with over 125 million Snapchatters now using Spotlight, it may well be worth that initial expense. It could be harder to justify those costs over the longer term, but the idea would be that this initial funding will get Snap through to the next stage, when it can monetize Spotlight effectively, then it can use the funding from ads to build a more sustainable short video ecosystem.

Which is also how YouTube is approaching Shorts:

“The Shorts Fund is the first step in our journey to build a monetization model for Shorts on YouTube. This is a top priority for us, and will take us some time to get it right. […] We’ll expand our Shorts player across more surfaces on YouTube to help people find new creators, artists and Shorts to enjoy. We will also begin to test and iterate on ads to better understand their performance.”

So while direct payments for top Shorts content is a big initial outlay, eventually, YouTube will look to build an ads infrastructure on top of the current model, in order to feed into that monetization stream. So these initial payments, like Snapchat, are just to build interest – and likely, to put a stop on users migrating over to TikTok, while they establish more solid frameworks around the program.

Which is a real concern, with the latest download charts showing that TikTok is still the most popular app at present, and is well on track to reach a billion users this year. 

TikTok download numbers

Which is why every app is working to quell TikTok’s growth wherever they can, using their reach and resonance to build alternative tools that offer their own TikTok-like experiences, which will, ideally, keep their users posting to their apps, and maintain that connection, as TikTok works to establish its own monetization tools.

Which is where YouTube can really win out. While TikTok has the attention of the short-video cohort, YouTube makes creators a lot more money, and can offer far greater revenue potential for those looking to maximize their efforts. 

If TikTok can’t offer the same, TikTok’s top stars will eventually realize that they can make millions on YouTube instead – and if YouTube can also placate them with Shorts, which is also now monetizable to a degree, that could be a key step in YouTube eventually gathering up more TikTok stars, which may eventually pose some real problems for the short-form video originator.

Already, we’ve seen TikTok’s biggest star, Charli D’Amelio enter a new content agreement with Snap. It won’t take long for others to note the bigger opportunities on alternative apps as well.

Will that eventually become a real problem for TikTok?

It’s impossible to say at this stage, but it does put a lot more pressure on TikTok to ramp up its own monetization efforts. Which, as noted, it is working on – but as YouTube continues to expand Shorts, which is up to 6.5 billion daily views already, and add more monetization options like this, the need for TikTok to provide real, significant income for its top stars will only become more pressing. 

In addition to the new Shorts Fund, YouTube has also announced some new features that are coming to Shorts as it continues to expand the option.

First off, YouTube is adding a new option that will enable users to remix audio from other YouTube clips:

“Earlier this year, we previewed a new feature that will allow you to remix audio from videos across YouTube – which includes billions of videos – and we’re excited to share this experience is starting to roll out to everyone that has access to our Shorts creation tools soon. This means you can give your own creative spin on the content you love to watch on YouTube and help find it a new audience.”

Remixing has become a key component of the TikTok experience, so it makes sense for YouTube to add similar, in an effort to maximize Shorts take-up.

In addition to this, YouTube’s also adding auto-captions for Shorts, longer Shorts clips (up to 60 seconds in length), the capacity to add clips from your Camera Roll​, and new, basic filters, like color correction, within the Shorts camera.

It may not seem like a major competitor for TikTok as yet, but YouTube is the clear online video leader, with huge audience reach capacity, and much more established monetization tools.

If YouTube can convince a few of the bigger TikTok stars to come across, and post to Shorts exclusively instead, that could turn the tide quickly – and direct payments, through this new program, could, at the least, prompt more of YouTube’s own stars to stay home, as opposed to branching out to TikTok instead. 

Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: SOCIAL MEDIA, YouTube Tagged With: tiktok, youtube

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