facebook-5445671_640

Top Ways To Integrate Social Media Into Your Digital Signage

By Grace Eva

When we think of the online advertising and marketing field, we cannot ignore how much it has grown in terms of technology over the years. A series of technological advancements and changes have helped the marketing industry to upscale its marketing efforts.

Resulting from these tremendous changes and improvements, the digital signage tool came into the picture, and along with it came tremendous advancements and advantages. As the name suggests, digital signage is a digitized version of static signage. It offers the brands various benefits like spreading information, increasing participation, widening brand reach, boosting engagement, and eventually growing sales and conversions.

Brands and smart marketers have begun to use this powerful and effective communication tool in multiple ways. The best idea they came up with is to include social media into digital signage. This is a great strategy since social media can attract more audiences due to its engaging content.

However, if you are unsure of the best ways to show social media signage, you have stumbled across the correct post. In this blog, we are going to tell you about the best practices that can be used by brands and marketers to seamlessly integrate social media into the digital signage tool.

Without any further ado, let’s get started!

Display Live Videos On Digital Signage

Displaying the correct form of content is mandatory to achieve the benefits. Speaking of content and its types, visual content has the power to hold onto the attention of the users for a much longer duration. Here is a fun fact to prove it – Surveys suggest that visuals are ten times more effective to engage the audience than their text counterparts.

Hence, displaying photos and videos, especially live videos. They are becoming a huge trend amongst brands and businesses to target their customers’ lives while giving them information about the newly launched products, tutorials, and live questions.

Amongst all the social media platforms, YouTube has become a leading video platform that enables live streaming to its users.

Displaying live videos on digital signage can enable brands to expand the reach of their live videos and interest their target audience more.

Incorporate A Social Wall On Digital Signage

A social media wall is a customized format of aggregated social media content from various social media networks. Like digital signage, a social media wall is also an extremely interactive tool that works extremely well to keep the audience engaged.

Whether your brand’s created content or User-Generated Content, aggregating the content in an aggregated and customized form is a great strategy to keep the audience hooked. Speaking of the aggregating process, it can be done using a responsive social media aggregation tool.

Make sure you use a tool that offers a variety of features for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the social media wall.

Further incorporating it and placing it strategically on digital signage is a sure shot way to gain your audience’s attention, keep them hooked, and showcase your brand’s social proof.

Include An Appropriate Call-To-Action

Engaging and targeting the right audience is an important aspect for any business that can be done perfectly with the help of a tool like digital signage. However, to convert potential customers into existing brand ambassadors, you need to include a relevant Call-To-Action button along with the message to upscale and widen your audience reach.

Your audience will be compelled to take action immediately when they see an appropriate call to action message like Hurry now!, Limited seats only! Call us today!

Displaying such messages would work to instigate your audience to take any action when they see your message.

Show Social Media Reviews On Digital Signage

Social media is a hub of reviews, and it serves as a platform where users openly discuss and share their opinions about brands and products. Reviews work in extreme favour of brands since it helps them get validation from their customers about their products.

Further displaying your social media reviews from platforms like Facebook, Google, or Yelp on digital signage is a great strategy to gain the trust and confidence of your potential customers. Often customers do not feel comfortable shifting to a new brand and may be apprehensive about trying your products.

Adopting this practice would help you convert your potential customers seamlessly into existing customers.

Closing Note

This brings us to the end of this post, and now you are aware of the best tips that can help you integrate social media into your digital signage.

All these practices work extremely well to build a strong reputation for your business and help form a better brand user relationship.


About Author

Grace Eva is a passionate content writer with expertise in digital signage and digital marketing industry. She also loves to explore new technologies and likes to express herself through her blogs

startup

Top Online Tools You Should Use To Build Your Startup In 2021

The most common challenge that many aspiring entrepreneurs face in the early days of their startup is to ensure low expenses and staff costs.

While there may be several unavoidable costs, such as hosting or server space, some online tools can assist entrepreneurs to reduce their operational costs significantly.

Below is a curated list of the top 20 startup tools which will help in amplifying the efficiency of business operations. They have been divided into 8 categories. Read on to learn more….

Web Design Tools

Impressive design connects more with visitors. Eye-catchy designs, visually appealing graphics will help in giving a better conversion rate for start-ups.

Web design tools can help you host an app, design a graphic or develop a website within minutes. You can either design the front end or the workflows of an e-commerce store with ease, without knowing any coding. Such tools also help you to design a site, a Facebook Ad, or a digital poster, with a graphic user interface, thus making your online presence creative.

Top tools:

  • Canva
  • WordPress
  • Shopify
  • Magento
  • Pixiko
  • Woocommerce
  • Astra
  • Cadence

CRM Tools

Ensuring impeccable customer experience will help in winning new clients and in retaining old ones. Nothing can be more helpful to accomplish this than CRM tools. The Customer Relation Management (CRM) tools help you to keep an accurate record of all customer deals, purchases, and conversation history.

Moreover, with the integration of CRM with social media, startups can efficiently find potential customers who are active on social media and also streamline the customer management process.

Top CRM tools:

  • HubSpot
  • Zoho Corporation
  • Salesforce
  • Pipedrive
  • Keep
  • Insightly
  • Agile CRM Inc.
  • SugarCRM

Video Editing Tools

Video marketing is the new-age method to successfully reach a larger audience. Video editing tools can help take recorded videos to the next level.

With their help, you can create eye-catching video clips, add appealing sound effects, trim clips, and improvise the videos as per your choice. Be it speed control, audio mixing, wavefront, visualization, live preview, or adding image filters and transition effects- video editing tools will help you do it all on an uncluttered interface.

Top Tools:

  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • iMovie
  • Filmore
  • DaVinci Resolve
  • Blender
  • Lightworks
  • Shotcut
  • VideoPad
  • Vidmat

AI Blogging Tools

Content writing and blogging is an excellent way to create a solid digital presence. AI blogging tools can suggest trading blog topics around our niche, improve the content tactics, and they use computer algorithms to create automated content for your blog.

AI tools will also help you in creating personalized content that adjusts to the needs of the customer. They also provide data-driven insights and help in creating highly targeted website content with SEO rich content.

Top AI blogging tools:

  • HubSpot Blog Topic Generator
  • Crayon
  • Grammarly
  • Uberflip
  • Market Brew
  • Keywee
  • Automated Insights

Website Optimization Tools

These tools help you to check the domain authority of your website including its SEO, AHREFs, domain, web speeds, site audits, web security, backlinks, etc. The tools help you to optimize your website traffic, page load speed, and correct the SEO and keywords online, to help it rank better in Google and other search engines. Some of them are free tools, but some are paid.

Top Tools:

TimeSheet Management Tools

It can be difficult to ensure the productivity of everyone in the office. To overcome this, timesheet tools provide simple solutions to maximize the productivity of the employees.

Managing timesheets for a startup founder can be extremely painful, given the limited resources and time he or she has to manage customers, improve product and handle customer service.

Automated timesheet management tools help startup employees to record the time spent by them on various tasks, projects, or clients. Staff or freelancers can automatically get paid at the end of a week or month, as their timesheets are approved.

Top Tools

  • Zoho
  • Projects
  • Scoro
  • Beebole
  • Harvest
  • Toggl
  • Avaza
  • Replicon
  • Clicktime

E-Commerce Tools

If your start-up has an active online business, e-commerce tools are must-haves. To create an aesthetic website design, to ensure an accurate digital payment processing system, to seamlessly execute email marketing, and to provide precise analytics, automated e-commerce business management tools are highly beneficial.

Some tools will also test valuable data points and will suggest solutions to maximize the efficiency of your shipping, products, and dynamic pricing. E-commerce tools also help startup founders to access their branded products and affiliates under one platform.

Top Tools:

  • Constant Contact
  • Elfsight
  • Google Pay
  • Sold Live
  • AnnounceKit
  • LitExtension
  • Bold Commerce
  • Tagalys

AI based Chatbot Customer Service

Chatbot tools use AI-powered software that can execute automated conversations with customers and web visitors through a chat interface on a website or a messaging app like Facebook Messenger, Skype, or WhatsApp.

Chatbots help in providing 24×7 customer support, even while you are asleep. They automate interactions with customers and connect a human agent to continue the conversation if they are unable to answer a particular query. Several tools allow you to launch conversational chatbots without any knowledge of coding.

You can engage with customers across multiple communication channels – all with an effective chatbot tool.

Top Chatbot Tools

  • Chatfuel
  • Answerly
  • MobileMonkey
  • Aivo
  • ItsAlive
  • Imperson
  • Pandorabots
  • Bold360
  • Lobster

Conclusion: 

With the help of the above tools, you can start your startup journey, increase your web visitors, and make your products or services reach the right customers. The digital tools will help you chart a sustainable growth for your business and enhance your return on investment of time and money.

ecommerce

Tips To Help Your E-commerce Store Make Its First Sale Quicker

By Christina Antony

When it comes to ecommerce, there are many factors that go into making the sale. The amount of money you spend on marketing, the quality of your product, and the specific niche that you’re in all play a big role in whether or not that first sale will come, soon enough or not.

Making the first sale on your ecommerce website can be intimidating. Making that first sale can mean the difference between success and failure. If you don’t do it, nobody else will.

For many entrepreneurs, their first sale is a high moment. It’s the culmination of months (or even years) of hard work and dedication. And now you can take those steps to make your business grow.

Here are some tips to help you make your first sale:

  • Choose a strong domain name 
  • Create an attention-grabbing design 
  • Offer free shipping on orders over $50 
  • Include discounts for first time customers 
  • Give customers a reason to engage with your brand 
  • Utilize social media sites to promote your product

What Is an Ecommerce Website?

An ecommerce website is simply a website that you create to sell products online. Whether you’re selling apparel, clothing, accessories, beauty, electronics, or home decor, having an online shop will help your business succeed and make more sales.

Ecommerce websites are gaining more and more traction and are seen as the best choice for many businesses looking to sell their goods online. Ecommerce websites have many benefits over traditional shopping options.

If you sell online, your products are delivered to you, not in your hands, and you don’t have to pay for shipping. You can also keep a close eye on your inventory levels and schedule delivery and returns in real time.

eCommerce sites also make it easier to carry out an ecommerce sale.

Factors That Go into Making a Sale

With any business, there are a number of factors that go into making the first sale. You’ll want to look for these common reasons that a sale will take place.

• Having a high product offering. This could be based on price, quality, or some other feature. If your product is priced reasonably and customers are happy with the quality, you’ll more likely see an order.

• Properly explaining your product and how it works. This will help you win more sales. If customers aren’t sure how your product works, then they might choose another one. Use different languages to emphasize that you’ll make their life easier.

• Providing the best customer service possible. When you’re working with customers, you want to offer them the best experience possible.

Domain Name

Deciding on a domain name is a first step towards your ecommerce website’s success. Choosing the right domain name can mean the difference between success and failure. The choices you make can impact your name, your marketing, and your profits.

A good domain name can increase your conversion rate by 10%. That’s a big number.

Your choice of a domain name should be one that your customers will find easy to use.

Choose a domain name that includes your brand name and gives potential customers an idea of what they are about to buy.

Categories

Once you’ve decided on a domain name and price, you’ll want to create a category to sell products under.

When customers look for products, they usually find products that are in the same category as what they are looking for.

Design

Your e-commerce business website should be high quality. Design, graphics, and colors are important for making your website stand out from the competition.

You’ll want your website to look professional, look current, and have a balance of good and bad design elements.

It should be visually appealing, but also easy to navigate and easy to understand. When someone thinks about an ecommerce website, they should be able to quickly identify what your business does. Your first impression on visitors will make or break a sale.

Shipping

When a customer orders a product, they usually have a specific delivery date in mind. Depending on the size of the order and the quantity, shipping can take time. Depending on your shipping, it may take a couple days, a week, or more.

By giving your customers a pre-ordered date, you’re letting them know that the order will be made and will be on its way. It’s important to remember that many first-time customers don’t realize the many steps that it takes to ship a product.

Offering Free Shipping

If you’re not offering free shipping, you’re losing out on a huge percentage of your customers. Consider offering free shipping as a free option.

You can do this by using the credit card processing company that’s offering you a discount. Or, you could offer a discount on the initial order amount.

Discounts For New Customers 

The first step you can take to increase sales is to increase your first-time customer base. This means offering a discount to those new customers. Don’t offer it at the time of purchase. Instead, offer it at checkout.

This is a huge way to capture new customers. If you start giving away free shipping or special savings for the first week, you are going to have customers all over the place.

Social Media 

Marketing is done on a number of social media platforms, and they have various purposes.

Social media channels that promote organic search are a good option. These channels focus on linking directly to products and tutorials.

They are also a great way to interact with customers and promote the products that you sell.

These platforms are also a great way to promote your latest and greatest products, or interact with customers about things that may not be too significant to the average customer.

Keyword Marketing

Keyword search marketing can boost your organic search results for any business that sells products online. It can also increase your search engine rankings for long-tail keywords that are relevant to your product.

Conclusion

With all the tools at your disposal, there’s really no excuse for not selling your products online. Getting started is just the beginning and it’s important to take steps in the right direction and learn everything you can before you start to sell your products.


About Author:

Christina Antony is a content writer for eWorldTrade.com, one of the leading B2B Marketplaces from the United States. eWorldTrade helps connect millions of buyers and suppliers around the world with its digital trading platform.

Technology

AI & ML: The Most Discussed Technologies Of 2021 Revealed

Technology is evolving at a rapid rate and a new group of technologies is set to revolutionise the way people live and work.

Interested in the vast world of technology, Walkme.com utilised the latest data from analytics tool Buzzsumo to discover which game-changing technologies have been discussed the most online in 2021 (January  – November 2021).

The Results:

The Most Discussed Technologies of 2021

Rank

Technology

Number of Online Articles Published (Jan – Nov 2021)

1.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

175,837

2.

Machine Learning

103,508

3.

Virtual Reality (VR)

64,509

4.

Augmented Reality (VR)

34,632

5.

Quantum Computing

32,548

6.

Cloud Computing

28,874

7.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

27,435

8.

5G

21,928

9.

Digital Twins

9,486

10.

Edge computing

7,433

Source: Walkme.com

Walkme.com found that artificial intelligence takes the number one spot, with an estimated 175,837 online articles written about the technology from January to November 2021 – the equivalent of 526 online articles per day!

Machine learning is in second place – approximately 103,508 online articles were published about the technology between January to November 2021.

In third place is virtual reality (VR), with an estimated 64,509 online articles written about the immersive technology from January to November 2021.

Augmented reality (34,632), quantum computing (32,548) and cloud computing (28,874) each had over 28,000 online articles centred around them between January to November 2021, respectively ranking fourth, fifth and sixth.

At the other end in tenth position is edge computing. The distributed computing paradigm tech had 7,433 online articles written about it from January to November 2021.

“With the pervasiveness of AI, it’s no wonder it’s one of the most discussed technologies today. Take another widely discussed topic, the Great Resignation, and sure enough, there’s an AI use-case tied to it,” says Rafael Sweary, President and Co-Founder of Walkme.com.

The Research Methodology:

  1. Walkme.com utilised reputable sources ‘ITProPortal’ and ‘Forbes’ to generate a seed list of the technologies which are set to transform the way people live and work in the next few years.
  2. The seed list of reviewed/considered technologies included: artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, virtual reality (VR), quantum computing, cloud computing, robotic process automation (RPA), augmented reality (AR), 5G, digital twins, edge computing, smart contracts, 3D printing, 4D printing, nanotechnology, voice interfaces/chatbots and human augmentation – 16 in total.
  3. Once a comprehensive list of emerging technologies was drawn up, Walkme.com assessed each technology in the Buzzsumo database to identify approximately how many online articles were published about them.
  4. The data range of January to November 2021 was used to represent the year of 2021 because November 2021 was the last available month for the latest data.
  5. Once the data for each analysed technology was collected, a ranking system organised the results from highest to lowest based on the number of online articles written about each technology. The top ten technologies are presented in the final table above.
  6. To account for the different ways in which online articles are published, Walkme.com considered all naming and reference variations, e.g. ‘artificial intelligence’, AI’, ‘5G’, ‘5G network/5G communication’ and more.
  7. Additionally, to increase the reliability of results the names of the reviewed technologies were translated into 13 foreign languages which included: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Turkish, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Dutch, Greek, Czech, Swedish, and Ukrainian – these languages were considered because they are among the most spoken/written languages in the world and the Buzzsumo database had the capabilities to accurately understand the translations for the listed foreign languages.
  8. Whilst there are other foreign languages such as Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Russian and Bengali which are widely spoken/written, they were excluded from the research because the Buzzsumo database did not have the capabilities to accurately assess translations in these respective foreign languages.
  9. Figures for the number of online articles published for each technology are approximates and account for global online articles published between January to November 2021.
  10. Buzzsumo’s database could not fetch data on blockchain technology, so this was excluded from the research.
  11. All data was collected on Monday 13th December 2021 and is correct as of then but is subject to change.
shopping-mall-g9656ac90a_1280-696x464

HOLIDAY MARKETING: 7 Strategies for Small Businesses To Drive Sales

Once again, it’s that time of year! The holidays are approaching, and retailers throughout the country are preparing for this critical time of year.

Through unique offerings and distinctive experiences, organizations have a perfect opportunity to strengthen reputations and attract new and loyal customers during this time.

People don’t just spend more money at this time of year; they also buy from businesses they don’t usually visit, to buy gifts for their friends and family.

It would be best if you went into the next Christmas season with a clear strategy for increasing sales. Companies that go into the holiday season without planning will be left behind.

Every other well-informed company will be riding the same wave, hence, you should expect tough competition. However, with a bit of imagination and planning in the lead-up to the holidays, there’s no reason you can’t attract a large audience and boost sales even on a tight budget or under business term loans.

High consumer confidence and a strong economy lead to a very successful holiday shopping season.

Every year, the holiday makes retail sales rise. In a nutshell, customers are expecting to spend about a billion dollars this holiday season, and you must be prepared to take your piece.

Smaller firms must use the most gratifying yet cost-effective techniques to move their organization forward. They frequently have more resources and finances to boost marketing efforts.

Creating spectacular holiday marketing strategies might seem incredibly daunting, especially during a pandemic. Stick on the essentials and don’t become overwhelmed.

7 Holiday Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses:

Most individuals associate the festive period with November and December, but the season begins much earlier for small businesses. Whether you are a small business owner or a part of the marketing team, the festive season has already begun.

Here are seven ways of promoting your small business during the holiday season:

  • Collaboration with Local Businesses and Nonprofits

Collaboration with other smaller firms and participation in local activities are always effective ways of raising brand awareness. Broadcast holiday activities or collaborate with another company to participate in social media activities.

Individuals are trying to find new ways to give back, especially during the festive season. It’s a good idea to provide a route for them to give something back and make donations to a cause through your company. This motivates them to spend more money on your products and services.

  • On the radio, you can reach out to more people.

Consider radio when developing your festive advertising campaigns. Radio ads significantly affect 65 percent of radio audiences’ purchasing behavior, and radio reaches nine out of ten adults ages 25 and 54 every week, such as holidays!

That’s a big audience to reach out to in the run-up to the holiday breaks.

Make changes to your social media pages and storefront.
Adapt your social media for the festive season by raising your posting frequency and trying different things with some festive content. To reach more customers, advertise special offers, bargains, and product innovations through all forms of media.

You should keep updating your storefront to spread festive cheer and get customers in the spirit of the season! Designing your storefront may even result in a few new buyers from passers-by.

  • Promotional strategies and benefits are available.

Even if you’re a small business, participate in special days like Cyber Monday, and Small Business Saturday sales to attract more holiday shoppers.

Keep in mind to offer rewards to those who prefer online shopping. To encourage your consumers to buy more, offer discounts such as free shipping.

  • Secure Purchasing Measures Should Be Provided

Customers seek safe ways to buy as we proceed to explore this pandemic. To enable consumers to buy your goods or services conveniently, provide online shopping, curbside pick-up, or drive-through selections.

This provides your consumer a sense of safety while demonstrating your concern and commitment to your society.

  • Make a Gift Guide

When it comes to online shopping, customers prioritize convenience. Making gift guides for your consumers to quickly make purchases for their friends and family is a beautiful way to provide this for them.

Make it simple to discover by promoting them on media platforms and making the guides available on your web page.

  • Emails for the Holidays

Throughout the festive season, send out frequent emails. Send notifications to your consumers about special offers, exclusive products, occasions, and store up-to-dates, and message those gift guides to them for fast and straightforward access.

This is also the best way of keeping them updated on essential shopping safety procedures you will be implementing during the busy holiday season.

Final Thoughts
The holiday season is crucial when a solid marketing strategy can help improve sales significantly. People are ready to spend because they perform last-minute present buying or looking who to deal with for a specific service or product. It allows them to decide which businesses they wish to work within the coming year.

Being at the top of your competitors’ minds and having your product/service readily available provides you with a distinct advantage.

If your traffic spikes over the holidays, it’s only natural to think of marketing with a larger budget and more focused content and channels that will help your bottom line.

Holiday marketing can drive sales for many reasons, such as more demand and intent to buy than usual. More clients are actively searching to buy throughout the Christmas season. Holidays are attentive to delivering a sense of speed that promotes consumers to buy.

A great marketing strategy uses not only one method but many as they can be for holiday marketing enterprises to capitalize on consumers’ positive mood.

Customers are rewarded with cute gifts and discounts due to holiday marketing, while the company is rewarded with improved revenue and reputation.

Brand Note

SMB Compass is a bespoke business financing company focused on providing financing and education to small businesses across the United States.