It’s no secret that we’re a society that favors instant gratification. Although it has its time and place, most of us don’t have the patience to wait for an email response anymore – we want answers right here, right now. 

Because of this, brands are increasingly looking at how they communicate with their customers. Many are turning away from the standard channels, and are instead looking towards the new kid on the block: conversational commerce.

Fast, efficient, and capable of boosting sales in new and exciting ways, conversational commerce is fast finding its footing in the ecommerce world – and it looks like it’s here to stay. 

Below, we’ll dive deeper into what conversational commerce is, the benefits it can bring to your website UX, and how to make sure your website is fully optimized to support it. 

What Is Conversational Commerce?

It’s a good question, and if you had an Alexa or a Google Home sitting next to you, they’d be able to tell you the answer in a heartbeat. 

As it is, we’re happy to fill in. Simply put, conversational commerce is when voice assistants and messaging services intersect with – and often improve – the sales process. 

You may not realize it, but conversational commerce has probably already made its mark on your daily life. Perhaps you’ve had a discussion with a customer service assistant using a customer service live chat, or maybe you’ve replenished your coffee supply through your smart speaker. You might even have used a chatbot to create a personalized outfit for yourself. 

If you can’t live without your voice assistant, don’t worry. You’re not the only one! A third of the United States’ total population uses voice search regularly, and 1.4 billion people currently use chatbots. It was predicted that by the end of 2021, 85% of interactions would be handled by virtual assistants, and with COVID still driving the online retail space, it’s no surprise that experts estimate that by 2025, voice and chat technologies will be bringing in around $290 billion.

Sources: Statista, eMarketer, Smallbizgenius, Juniper Research

For anyone working in the commerce space, the data speaks volumes: if you aren’t using conversational commerce, you should be. Its popularity is on the rise, and users are increasingly looking for ways to bring conversation into their everyday shopping experiences.

How Does Conversational Commerce Affect Website UX?

The increased functionality provided by voice search, live chat, and chatbots all contribute towards a shopping experience that feels more 3D. But what is it specifically about conversational commerce that appeals to users so much?

1. It’s Convenient

Nowadays, anything that makes something faster and easier is going to be a winner. Being able to write your shopping list whilst changing the baby’s nappy or doing chores is multi-tasking at its finest – and conversational commerce helps with that. 

Voice search, particularly, is all around us. On our phones, our smart speakers, and even our watches. This means there’s always going to be something within hearing distance to deal with your customers’ requests. 

Similarly, having a live chat or chat box function on a page means that your users can get answers in seconds, rather than having to actively search for phone numbers or email addresses

Ultimately, conversational commerce takes out the middleman and streamlines the sales process. 

2. It Delivers a More Personalized Experience

When it comes to marketing, personalization isn’t new, but delivering a truly personalized experience when shopping online has always presented somewhat of a challenge. Conversational commerce solves this. 

By its very definition, conversation is a personal thing. Using it in your ecommerce strategy allows you to provide options for customers to access a completely tailored experience at every stage of their buying journey.

Conversational commerce strategies give each user access to more information on products, as well as provide a way to upsell new options and add-ons that they might not have considered before. 

Overall, conversational commerce is a little like adding a bespoke personal shopping experience to your website. And who doesn’t love to feel special now and again?

3. It Provides a Higher Level of Customer Service

Did you know that 81% of millennials experience anxiety when they know they need to make a phone call? This, combined with the fact that 91% of consumers globally prefer real-time assistance, means that old-fashioned methods of customer service are on the way out. 

Luckily, conversational commerce is there to fill the gap. Whether you’re looking for a faster way of providing customer assistance, or you want to deliver a more personalized offering, live chat and chatbots are both excellent ways of leveling up your customer help and support. Voice search also has its part to play here, giving answers to your users’ queries in a matter of seconds. 

The best part about using conversational commerce in customer service is that it offers a more interactive way for customers to speak directly to brands in real-time. It ensures that service is faster and more targeted, with no pesky wait times. 

How to Optimize Your Website for UX

One thing that’s for sure is that conversational commerce isn’t going anywhere, and over the coming years, it’s only going to mature and settle fully into its position within the industry. 

Now you know what it is and you know the benefits, there’s only one question that remains: how can you optimize your website for conversational commerce if you’re not using it already? 

Below, we’ll cover the optimization steps for all three methods of conversational commerce, so your website will be primed for a symbiotic conversational commerce-UX relationship.

Optimizing for Voice Search

Optimizing your website for voice search is pretty similar to optimizing for search engines. That’s because digital assistants use search engine snippets to find their answers. So, the higher you are in the rankings, the better.

Below, you’ll find some tips to make sure your website is ready for voice search:

• Make use of structured data – This helps Google to find where the answer to a question is on your page. You could add an FAQ section to help with this.

• Use a conversational tone in your content – This means making sure that your tone of voice reflects the way users will phrase their questions.

• Optimize for mobile – All smartphones come with a digital voice assistant, so it makes sense to tick this box as firmly as possible!

• Use long-tail keywords in your copy and titles – When asking questions, users will often use full sentences. Using long-tail keywords will help you to target more niche queries because of this. 

• List your business locally – Lots of users use digital assistants to find local businesses. Make sure your website contains lots of regional indicators so you can be found more easily. 

Adding Live Chat to Your Website

Adding live chat to your website is as simple as clicking a few buttons. No, really. You’ll need to sort out staffing and operation hours yourself, but the actual technicalities behind getting your live chat up and running are pretty straightforward.

The process depends on which type of website you have, but generally, one of the three options below will work for you:

• Use external platforms – There are plenty of third-party platforms that provide this service, such as Olark, Sendinblue, and Livechat. These platforms usually come with an additional monthly cost of around $16/month and above. 

• Use inbuilt website builder apps – Website builders are one of the easiest ways to create a website, and they make it simple to add a live chat function, too. Usually, these services are provided by an external platform, but you can integrate them with your website through an app.

• Use a CMS plugin – If you built your website with a CMS, plugins are your answer. Usually, there are plenty to choose from and they work in the same way as an app integration would.  

Adding An AI Chatbot to Your Website

Similar to live chat boxes, many businesses find chatbots more convenient for the simple fact that they’re run by an AI and don’t require staffing. This means that you can have them running 24/7 if you like. 

When it comes to adding one to your site, the process is very similar to adding live chat:

• Use an inbuilt function provided by your website builder – Most website builders come with inbuilt chatbot functionality, so all you need to do is insert it into your website design. If your builder doesn’t offer this, you could choose to install an app instead.

• Use a CMS plugin – There are always tons of apps in a CMS plugin library, so you should have a ton of choices when choosing a chatbot app. Once you’ve picked one, simply click to integrate it with your website. 

• Hire a UX designer or developer – If you’d rather take a hands-off approach, you could hire a UX designer or developer to do it for you. This is an especially good idea if you want a more complex live chat system, which might not be provided by apps and plugins. 

Summary

As with all things, one era ends and another begins – in this case, the time of conversational commerce is nigh.

Not only does conversational commerce make for a more convenient shopping experience for your customers, but the extra layers of personalization and more interactive customer support options it offers are largely responsible for boosting and driving sales.

The good news is that if you aren’t already using conversational commerce as part of your sales strategy, this is easy to rectify.  Whether you want to use one conversational commerce strategy or all three, you’ll be on your way to success faster than we can say, ‘Alexa, what’s the weather like today?’

The post Conversational Commerce: How It’s Affecting Website UX and 3 Ways To Optimize Your Website For It appeared first on noupe.

The fact that one day in the near future, Smartphone Users will surpass a subscription number of several hundred million. With China, India, and the United States being the top-most countries with the highest smartphone users, the worldwide smartphone subscription has surpassed 6,500 billion. With 3.74 million non-gaming Apps and over 1 million gaming Apps, the iOS App Store has become the second-largest App Store after Google Play Store. Well, who can now question the popularity of iOS App Development?

Apple.Inc has left no business success story coupled with App Development. From Facebook Messenger, Kik, to ASL App, and Chegg eReader, these are a few successful iOS Apps. 

So, if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur looking to turn around your Business with an iOS App, let us familiarise you with iOS app development trends, and also what the future beholds.

The future of iOS App Development

Apple.Inc brings you limitless possibilities to develop and launch your Apps. The Platform offers iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and even watchOS to provide a unique user experience. Now, these cutting-edge technologies together bring unique capabilities to help you develop a seamless and intuitive experience. 

Let’s dig further into the most advanced facets of iOS and how it can help you build Futuristic Apps. 

User Data Protection

iOS App Development is incomplete without a user’s data protection facility. Now, iOS provides this protection by encrypting the files of the app on the disk. This Data Protection feature forbids any unauthorized access to the App files.

There are four levels of Data Protection, namely, 

• No protection
• Complete until first user authentication (Default) 
• Complete unless open
• Complete

If no protection level is specified, iOS Applies the default one automatically. 

Grow your iOS App with CloudKit

From efficient syncing to simple monitoring and management, CloudKit is the easiest way to build and grow your App. iCloud keeps everything updated across different devices and the web. And as and when your user base grows, you get 1 PB (petabyte) of storage for the Public Data of your App. 

CloudKit offers a comprehensive set of features to help you build powerful Cloud Apps including; 

• Automatic syncing 
• Encrypted Data 
• Protected Privacy 
• Automation 

Organize your Apps in containers so that their data doesn’t tangle up with others! 

Near Field Communication (NFC) Tag Reading

Core NFC is an essential aspect of iOS App Development. The app can read the physical environment and real-world object tags to provide users with more information about them. The app can read NFC tags of types 1 through 5 available in the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF). 

Core NFC is available on devices that support Near Field Communication. 

AI-Powered Siri

Siri is an intelligent assistant that users can do things with just their voice. Siri handles user interactions, including voice recognition, language recognition, and other user requests. 

Try commanding the following to Siri to see what this advanced feature can do for a matchless user experience with your iOS App. 

“Send a text to Macey Smith using MyTextApp.”

“Start my daily aerobic workout fromMyWorkout App.”

Add 1 Almond Milk, Wheat bread, and Eggs to my grocery list in MyListApp.” 

Suggested Shortcut APIs paired with Siri bring convenient shortcuts right to the user’s Lock Screen! The conversational feature lets Shortcuts get more things done. Say, if the users say “Order Takeout,” Siri would ask a follow-up question like “Which Order should I takeout,” and then present the order from a Food Ordering App!

Siri will also display visual information for ease of use!

ARKit 5

In recent versions, Apple has made significant progress with Augmented Reality. ARKit 5 allows one to create AR Experiences for specific places and even in the neighborhood. 

The new, improved features of ARKit 5 include Motion Tracking and Face tracking. Face Tracking extends support to the Front-Facing Camera for any iPhone Model with an A12 Bionic chip and later. With the TrueDepth Camera, one can track up to three faces simultaneously, such as in iOS apps like Memoji and Snapchat. 

Location Anchor is available in only selected cities for iPhone Models iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, and later versions. Specific cities or places such as famous landmarks with Location Anchor support allow users to move and see virtual objects from different perspectives. 

iBeacon

iBeacon opens limitless opportunities. It implements Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology standards, enabling exchanging information by receiving signals from beacons within nearby distances. 

iBeacon is beneficial for iOS App Development for industries like Retail, Hospital, Education, Entertainment, Real Estate, and Digital Advertising. This feature can help your business to: 

• Deliver a more personalized experience 
• Gather instant feedback about User’s Experience 
• Gather information about products in their proximity 
• Let’s Businesses acquire customers and retain them 

Core Machine Learning (ML)

iOS App integrated with Core Machine Learning (ML) delivers fast performance. With just a few lines of code, the iOS App Developers can develop an App with intelligent features. Easy to add pre-built machine learning features are facilitated by Core ML-powered APIs. 

A few Machine Learning features include object detection with images and video, analysis of language, and sound classification with just a few code lines! 

Easy IoT iOS App Development

The IoT industry is growing exponentially, making people’s life easier. One can build an IoT App on iOS in just a few easy steps! Suppose you’re building a native, hybrid, or cross-platform app. In that case, the first few steps include working with Xcode and Swift, choosing an Application Enabled Platform, coding the front-end and back-end, using the IoT Framework, and finally launching it on the Apple App Store! 

Well, that’s how iOS App Development happens! 

Wrapping Up:

It’s crucial to keep up with the trend so that you don’t go obsolete! So, while you’re working on your iOS App, try to include the market-trending features into your App Development. Thus, this shift to developing iOS Apps is taking App Development to the next step. Avail the best iOS App Development Services by contacting the right company or developer at the right time. 

So, hire an iOS developer by checking that the chosen App Development Service Provider has relevant experience designing and developing the app! Artistic minds never hurt anyone. Also, look out for developers who hold the caliber of thinking out of the box and developing robust, effective, and customized iOS Mobile Applications. Most importantly, make sure that the developers put forth a cost-effective quote for their user-friendly iPhone App. 

Technical soundness is yet another App success catalyst. Whereas, in the end, quick delivery of high-quality products is reasoned to bring the greatest outturns! 

Employ these futuristic and groundbreaking features and build a next-gen App today! 

The post How will iOS App Development Change in the Near Future?? appeared first on noupe.

Is your organization struggling to maintain a healthy flow in its communication structure? If so, you might want to start by ensuring that you and your team are on the same wavelength when it comes to your company’s goals. Like John Rampton says,

“I’ve made it clear that I have an open-door policy – which means that the employee can tell me anything that is on their mind.”

One way to do that is by creating an employee handbook, clearly stating the company policies, objectives, and regulations that will act as a binder to keep everyone on the right track. Let’s dive deeper into the conversation to understand this better. But first, let’s sift through a few basics.

• Why You Need an Employee Handbook
  • Laying down the right expectations
  • Welcoming new employees
  • Comes in handy while resolving disputes
  • Harboring a positive work atmosphere
• Sections You Need in the Employee Handbook
  • Welcome message
  • Company introduction
  • All things legal
  • Finances, rewards, and recognition
• Final Thoughts

Why You Need an Employee Handbook

The most important function of an employee handbook is to streamline the communication between an employer and employee and to encourage a transparent business model.

This helps new employees get comfortable with the company structure and aids the existing workforce to be better at communicating their issues and doubts. 

Here are a few other benefits of having an employee handbook.

1. Laying down the right expectations

Your employees need to be well versed on their roles and responsibilities and should also be in a position to accept full accountability for their actions.

An employee handbook manages that by being a valuable resource of information regarding policies, roles, missions, values, and objectives. It proactively ensures that:

• The employer and the employee are on the same page in terms of roles and expectations.
• There’s a smooth flow of communication between hierarchies.
• Employees feel comfortable and confident while voicing their issues.
• Everyone feels valued and equal in the organization.

More often than not, you might come across an uncomfortable situation with your employees, especially if you deal with a remote workforce. An employee handbook comes to your rescue in such situations by becoming your ally in clearing up bad air and making things seamless and positive at the workplace.

2. Welcoming new employees

When a new employee joins the team, their head is full of questions you might not have the right answers to.

But, with the help of an employee handbook, they can easily navigate these doubts and will also be in a much better position to understand the company structure.

Additionally, it also helps in:

• Laying down important company policies
• Talking about expected employee behavior
• Making legal and financial terms transparent
• Helping a new employee understand how to communicate between hierarchies
• Talking about the person of interest in case of a dispute
• Laying down essential company clauses

Apart from maintaining a smooth onboarding process, an employee handbook also clearly demarcates the policies regarding exit procedures that ensure an employee bids goodbye to the organization on a positive note. 

3. Comes in handy while resolving disputes

While working on a team, a difference of opinion is inevitable. In a situation like this, an employee handbook acts as your gospel truth by outlining all the intricacies involved when it comes to legal matters.

It tells you how to proceed, keeping in mind the interests of both parties involved and the first step in the process. 

Here’s what you need to include in this section to ensure that things are handled smoothly.

• Compliances and state laws
• Non-disclosure agreements
• Legalities associated with employee contracts
• Labor laws
• Social media policies
• Policies related to the use of technology

This is also an important document to establish credibility for your company, since it talks about you as an established, law-abiding institution that believes in being fair in all its undertakings.

4. Harboring a positive work atmosphere

For your employees to contribute to the company in the best way possible, they need a clear headspace free of any communication conflicts.

An employee handbook holds relevance here by streamlining the process of communication and touching on deep topics related to grievances, legalities, organizational goals, and objectives.

This reassures your employees, and they can concentrate better on their work. This leads to a workplace that fosters a community of motivated employees who work with twice the determination.

Drafting a company handbook requires in-depth research and a lot of time. It is recommended to create personalized emails for your employees, asking them for their valuable insights, and to use those to direct your handbook content accordingly. You can use a drag-and-drop email builder to save time.

Now that you’re set in the right direction, let’s find out about some essential information you need to add as part of your employee handbook.

Sections You Need in the Employee Handbook

There is no hard and fast rule as to what you need to include in an employee manual, but there are a few things that need a spot right on the front pages.

Let’s help you get those on point.

1. Welcome message

A welcome message is essentially a short and crisp statement from a senior-level leader, welcoming employees, new and old, to explore the handbook further.

This message goes a long way in connecting employees at all levels with their leadership and making their ideas more accessible.

Here’s what you need to do to ensure that this message is absolutely on point.

• Keep the language simple and easy to understand.
• Use first-person language and direct the content to the employees.
• Use a positive tone and make the message sound happy and warm.
• Keep it short and crisp.

This is the first thing employees will read as soon as they have access to the handbook; ensure that it’s error-free and engaging so they feel compelled to read the rest. 

You can also use this space to take your new joiners through their first-day journey, like how Valve does it in their handbook.

2. Company introduction

The next section you need to draft relates to introducing your company more extensively by talking about policies, teams, and so on. This is the section that will come in handy while managing grievances and disputes. 

Also, it is the most referred-to section in the entire book; therefore, it is recommended to take proper guidance while drafting it.

A few things to cover here are:

• Brand image guidelines
• Mission and vision statement
• Team structure, project management principles, and office hours
• Company culture (take hints from Netflix’s culture page)
• Divisions between teams
• Onboarding and exiting procedures
• Documentations
• Privacy statements
• Leave and absence policies

Every organization is different, so this section may vary from company to company. You need to understand what structure suits your company best and then take it from there. 

3. All things legal

Cover all the legalities in this section to maintain the utmost transparency and to safeguard your company’s interest in case there’s a dispute with an employee or even a stakeholder.

Here’s an idea of what you need to cover here:

• Equal opportunity clause
• Disability clause
• Diversity and Inclusion statement
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• State and national policies
• Workplace harassment clause

Talk about each of these points in-depth and cover every angle. Use an expert’s guidance to draft your legal section, as it needs to be error-free or it might backfire. 

Circulate the same over an email using a good email marketing tool so everyone has access to it as a separate document. 

Pro tip: Consider the software you’re using while employing this technique to avoid hang-ups. For example, if the majority of the team uses iOS, use an email client for Mac for seamless distribution.

4. Finances, rewards, and recognition

Apart from your work culture and workplace infrastructure, this space is one of the main reasons an employee chooses you over another opportunity. 

Be as descriptive as you can be, and make this the most appealing section of the entire book. This is also a good time to talk about any incentive and employee recognition programs you have in place to further motivate your employees to perform better.

It is recommended to break the information in this section into smaller parts so everything is laid out in a clear fashion, leaving no room for confusion.

You can add an extra section to the list wherein you can talk about all the employee benefits you offer, like medical insurance, financial aid, tax rebates, and so on. Just keep in mind that the more information you share in your handbook, the better.

Leverage technology to have a copy of the handbook mailed to your employees, and ask for a necessary acknowledgment receipt so you know that they’ve read and received it and are aware that such a document exists.

Final Thoughts

All the above points will get you going in the right direction of drafting your employee handbook. 

However, your first step is to determine how you want to present it, what kind of language you want, where you want your content to be directed, and most importantly, what information you are comfortable sharing. 

Once you have it figured out, make sure you take the time you need to hire the right person for the job, and you’re all set. Just keep updating the handbook as and when new policies come into play, and always stay on top of things.

The post Essential Tips for Creating Your Employee Handbook appeared first on noupe.

Do you know how many people visited your website last month? 

How many of them came from the ads you ran on Facebook or the latest newsletter? 

Is your social media strategy working to bring traffic to your website? 

No business in the digital world can thrive without tracking web traffic and understanding data and analytics. Tracking the source of your website is important to understand the effectiveness of your marketing efforts while maintaining the branding for your business. 

For example, How many times have you shared a link like this? 

Now, imagine typing it or posting it on your timeline. 

Doesn’t it throw you off? 

Link shorteners not only add to the experience of your brand but also bring valuable insights which you can use for your digital strategy.

But what technical skill level do you have to be at to understand the analytics of web traffic?

The answer is you can understand the data and analytics yourself, irrespective of your technical skill level. The easiest way is to URL shortener and link tracking service.

What are URL Shorteners? 

URL shorteners are one of the necessary tools for your online marketing and traffic tracking.

If you want to shrink long and bulky URLs to short and limited characters, URL shorteners are your go-to tools. These shortened URLs send the user to the same page or website where the original link was meant to direct them. But, in addition to shortening, these tools help you track analytics like clicks, retargeting, UTM parameters, and audience analytics. 

However, the functionality and features of URL shorteners differ according to their feature sets. With numerous options available online, you should be looking at the value-added features each tool is offering rather than just link shortening. 

The more capable a URL shortener is, the more insights it can bring for you, thus helping you strategize accordingly. 

There are 2 types of URL shorteners available online. Some only shorten the links and converts a cluttered link into a short and crisp link. But, the more advanced ones offer link-tracking analytics with each shortened link. This way you can evaluate which kind of content, ad or platform is performing best to bring in the traffic from a specific link. 

From creating short, branded & aesthetic URLs to tracking and retargeting features, the URL shortener tool is an essential tool to understand your audience and the performance of the content. 

But, which tool is best for you out there?

How to choose a URL Shortener? 

The tool selection will be based on your objectives but some overarching goals for all online businesses will be the same. Therefore, we have listed brief evaluation criteria which you can use while selecting the best URL shortener. However, the selection of any tool greatly depends on your goals and needs 

1. URL Branding: 

A URL shortener takes some long, unwieldy links and turns them into a shorter, easy-to-share ones. It allows you to create short links for your digital content or online store which you can also share on the marketing collateral such as banners, posters, business cards, etc. The short links on the print ads will be easy to type and consumers are more likely to type a few characters on their devices when they can’t directly click on the link. It enhances and unifies your online and offline experience, by bringing offline customers to your online platforms too. 

One of the very smart branding techniques that marketers are now implementing is the use of branded links. From your own links to curated content, advanced URL shorteners allow you to add your own domain in shortened links. For example, LinkedIn shows shortened links on its platform as lnkd.in/fghjk. Thi way LinkedIn controls the link branding on its own platform. The New York Times shortens the links of its articles to nyti.ms/sample to share on different platforms.

2. Shareability: 

Social media apps and messaging apps allow only a certain character limit for a post. Only sharing links might take up more characters but won’t add any context for the reader. The best practice is to use URL shorteners for fitting your copy and URL within the same character limit. This can bring in the data about your content and the audience who are clicking on your links through social media platforms.

3. Data & Analytics: 

The URL shortening tool also provides data and analytics for the shortened links. For each shortened link, the dashboard of the tool can share multiple insights and data points. Some of the examples include information about the devices your users used to access the link, the country they were located in, the number of times they clicked on the link, the platform they saw the link on, and much more. These features can vary according to the tool and the plans. Data and analytics are essential for evaluating and strategizing your content. 

4. Customization:

One way to see which ad creative or platform performs best to bring in the traffic is to customize the same link for different platforms or ads. This approach is basically used for A/B testing. The same link customized for different creatives and platforms will give you separate analytics and you can then evaluate which set performed the best. Not just that the bulk customization of links allows you to group multiple links in a single link. 

Best URL Shorteners:

1. Bitly for all-around individual and business use
2. Replug for all-around individual and business use 
3. Rebrandly for branded links 
4. PixelMe for retargeting 
5. BL.INK for enterprise businesses 
6. TinyURL for fast and anonymous short URLs
7. Shorby for Instagram users 
8. Ow.ly for Hootsuite user 

1. Bitly

If you only shorten the links occasionally, then you can use Bitly even without creating an account. 

It is one of the best URL shorteners because of its freemium package. The freemium package allows you to create upto 1000 short links for 30 days. However, if you are including link shortening strategies heavily in your digital marketing strategies, then you need a premium plan which offers you to create 10,000+ branded links along with detailed data ad analytics to see the performance of these links. 

Price:  Free; $29/month (Basic); $199/month (Premium); Custom (Enterprise)

2. Replug

Replug is one of the top-rated link management tools for digital marketers. It is an all-in-one link management tool, from shortening long links to short branded links, adding retargeting pixels, tracking engagement matrices, and much more. 

Replug shortens complex and unattractive long URLs to branded and recognizable short links. This unique feature will not only add credibility to your branding but will also help you track the performance of your links in different campaigns and platforms.

But, what makes Replug better than other tools?

Replug is one of the most appreciated all-in-one link management tools among marketers for its feature set. Some of the most loved features by its users are listed below: 

Features:

Custom Domains for Branded Links:

Branded links will help you add more credibility to your digital communication. It will build trust in your audience, thus leading to a higher number of clicks and traffic. 

Replug allows you to add your domain name to create and shorten the links with your own brand identity. The custom domain integration in Replug is just a matter of a few clicks. With a custom domain, you can replace rpl.co to YourBrandName.co. 

Every link you share on social media, newsletter, or any campaign is an opportunity for a brand to imprint in your audience’s memory. You can also share the shortened link from other websites or any online resources with your audience. 

Branded links can improve your CTR by 39%.

Source: nDash 

You can download their Chrome Extension, making it very convenient to shorten the URL on the go!

Retargeting:

Nurturing your audience and potential customers across the funnel is very crucial as it leads to increased sales. Replug allows you to configure your campaigns for retargeting your audience on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Quora, Twitter and Google. You can add the pixel ID of these platforms in Replug and let Replug handle the conversion of your visitors to buyers. It will only show the content to people who have interacted with your content previously, thus helping you spend your ads budget more efficiently. 

Lead Generation: 

Replug helps you with lead generation in 2 ways: one is by audience retargeting campaigns, and the second is by adding call-to-action buttons with the curated content. Another fun fact about using this tool is that you can share 3rd party links and shorten them with your branded links. You can also add Call-to-actions to your curated content. 

This will help you acquire leads through the opt-in form that appears on top of your content. Call to Action at different touchpoints of the online and digital audience can improve the sales for the business.

Its UTM builder allows you to add code snippets and labels to your links. 

UTM parameters are intelligent parameters where you can record and get insights into the performance of your campaigns, CTAs, and channels. 

Furthermore, You can record your Web Traffic through Google Analytics. Thus, evaluating your efforts across different platforms gives you deep insights into which channel you should invest in more. 

Instagram, Twitter, and several other social media platforms only allow you to add one bio link, but what if your user wants of exploring your brand through LinkedIn and another wants to buy the product. 

But, How will you choose which one to prefer?

The answer is, you don’t have to choose. 

With Replug’s bio-landing pages feature, you can add all your updated links to a bio landing page, with a customizable layout, where you can add all your updated links. 

You can multiple links to your service and brand such as products, videos, other social networks, and websites.

It allows you to add 10 teammates to different brands and assign different roles for optimized team management. 

This is an excellent feature for improved workflow and aligning your team on the performance. Very few link shortening tools have this feature. 

The QR code generator of Replug allows you to generate a Smart QR code with every branded link. This adds to your marketing mix. You can also promote your online source offline by getting those QR codes printed on flyers, cards, or posters. 

Insights and Data: 

You can make informed decisions for your brand with more than 10 data points in Replug. It not only shortens your links but also tracks engagement matrices of the content your share. You can analyze KPIs such as Click performance, Conversion, Unique Clicks, Visitors by country, Visitors by source, and many more. You can use these insights and analytics to make informed decisions for your retargeting campaigns. 

Integrations: 

Replug integrates with more than 30 platforms. Thus, allowing you to manage your social media, email marketing, lead generation, retargeting and creating a custom audience for your campaigns. 

Price: 

• $19/month for Basic Package
• $49 / month for their most popular Professional Package
• $79/month for Agency Package 

3. Rebrandly

While Rebrandly is a great URL shortener like all other URL shorteners, it has a unique appeal for its customers. It not only brands your links, but it can also track the performance metrics and integrate with 50 other platforms.

Rebrandly is a great choice for small businesses. Their UTM builder and custom URL slugs in the free version can be a great start for small businesses who are new to link shortening strategies. 

Features: 

Rebrandly includes the features for tracking the popularity of each link, demographics and analytics about the audience, and automatic QR code generation too.

From link management to traffic routing, multiple domain management and training and support, Rebrandly makes sure that its feature sets are easy to understand and use. 

But what if you are an enterprise or work with large teams?

One of the unique features offered by Rebrandly is the team management feature within the tool where your teams can coordinate and see the performance of shortened links.  

Price: 

• $29/month for Starter Package
• $89/month for the Popular 
• $499/month Premium 

4. Pixel Me

PixelMe is an URL shortener that embeds retargeting pixels from Facebook, Adwords, Linkedin and more into shortened links. You can track your brand your links, track & share your own branded short URLs. 

Features: 

PixelMe allows you to build retargeting audiences from any link. You can send people to third-party platforms (e.g. Youtube, Kickstarter, Spotify etc.) from paid ads and then retarget all those people.

With its Amazon attribution feature, you can track your conversions.

Like Replug, it also allows you have a micro landing page for your links. 

You can also add multiple ad platforms, like other tools, for retargeting your audience on different platforms. 

Price: 

• $29/month for Starter Package 
• $69/month for Growth Package 
• $149/month for Scale Package 

5. BL.INK

Bl.NK allows you to customize the shortened links with relevant keywords instead of random characters.

BL.INK is best for enterprise businesses with an established link shortening strategy and the feature set of BL.INK will add more value to its strategy right away.  

Features

The most popular features of BL.INK includes data and analytics. It reports the data points which include the information about clicks for example date, time, device, and geographical location. It also allows you to integrate Google Analytics and Adobe to streamline the process. You can bulk edit your links in BL.INK. However, the only limitation for small users is that you cannot use the tool without signing up. Other than that, it only tracks a limited number of links for its low-tier subscription packages. 

Bl.INK offers five subscription tiers based on the number of links you’d like to create and track. 

Price:

• $48/month for Expert Package
• $99/month for SMB 
• $299/month for Team Package

6. TinyURL

Anyone who wants to shorten the link once in a while without signing up for a tool, TinyURL would be a great choice for them. 

The simplicity of use and quickness of the platform makes it one of the best link shortening tools. 

Features: 

It allows you to add the custom alias right away. However, if you don’t have a custom alias, the shortened link will be like “tinyurl.com/ertyh”.

The simplicity of the tool doesn’t mean it is any less than its competitors. It allows you to track key metrics and analytics for your links after you sign up. 

Even for a one-time project, you can see the detailed analytics of your campaign. However, the downside of the free plan is that it only tracks the analytics of one URL at a time. For more URLs and their analytics, you have to subscribe to the paid plan.

Price: 

• Free 
• $9.99/month for Pro 
• $99/month (Bulk 100K) 

7. Shorby

Shorby is a versatile tool. From link shortening to adding a customized page for all the links to your profile. When you want to add multiple links.

The way Shorby works is that you add all the links you want to share with your audience on Shorby and then it generates a single link for all those links. You can now share that link on your profile. The user can click on that link to find the relevant link to your post from there. 

It is the ideal tool for platforms where you can’t add links in descriptions and the bio only allows you to add one link at a time. You can all the related links in Shorby and then share them in Insta bio. 

You can use ShorbyURLs to navigate your audience to new content, podcast episodes, YouTube uploads, and so on.

Price: 

• $15/month for Rocket plan 
• $29/month for Pro plan 

8. Ow.ly

Ow.ly has been developed by a popular social media management tool called HootSuite. This link shortening tool is integrated into every Hootsit free account. It enables you to distribute your links and their performance directly into the HootSuite platform and allows you to post every single link you post to other social media profiles. 

People who are already using Hootsuite for social media management can make better use of this link shortener than other tools. However, the one limitation to this tool is that there is no information available about its features. Hootsuite has an inbuilt UTM builder, but the link shortening tool cannot be used alone. 

Thus, making other options more robust if you don’t have a Hootsuite account already. 

Price:

Free for Hootsuite Users

Conclusion: 

Do your thorough research before investing in a link shortening tool. The reason is once you have started using one link shortening tool it’ll be difficult to transfer data from one tool to another. Even if you do you’ll do so, you’ll lose a holistic image of how your strategy has evolved over time. However, if you use link shortening tools occasionally then you can use any link shortening tool. 

Link shortening strategies can help you design an integrated marketing strategy, combining both digital and conventional marketing strategies. Shortened links are easy to type, therefore you can also use these on your print ads and posters. These will also enable you to tackle the character limit challenge on different platforms. 

But using a URL shortener will help you streamline your strategy by giving you a holistic overview of the performance of your marketing efforts on different platforms along with deep insights into your audience. Therefore, it is necessary that you evaluate your strategies for better traffic and lead generation.

The post 8 Best URL Shorteners appeared first on noupe.

It’s 2022. Whether or not your small business can benefit from social media is no longer a question. All of us understand how much social media benefits businesses, big and small. If you are not using social media in your marketing, you are missing out.

What Social Media Should I Use for My Small Business? 

The only question left for you to ask yourself is what social media platform you should choose for your business. And we are here to help you answer that question. Each of the major social media platforms has a specific way it works and engages. It’s important to choose the right one, especially if you can’t afford to cover them all.

The Big 5 Social Media for Small Business 

The five giants of social media for small businesses are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and TikTok. The way social media for small businesses works is you either manage your social media on your own or hire a digital marketing agency or manager to do it for you. If you opt for the first one, here’s what you should know.

#1 Facebook Is Still Running High

Facebook is still the social media that generates the most revenue for small businesses. It has 1 billion users per day and convenient features like paid ads and marketplace. So, if you are going to choose just one social media for your business, choose this one. Pretty much anything can sell on Facebook from custom jewelry to candles to restaurants and services.

How to Use It

What’s great about Facebook is that it gives you lots of options. You can share updates on your business, new products, and promotions via statuses, photos, or videos. Use it for all of that and take advantage of its great targeting feature for your paid ads. As for how often you should post, you can post 2 times a week or even every other day for more engagement.

#2 Instagram Is Thriving

Instagram has a fast-growing user base and is thriving. It’s a favorite of young people – millennials especially. What rocks on Instagram? Visuals. It’s a highly aesthetic social media. You can post photos, videos, reels (very popular), and stories. It’s especially useful for businesses that sell fashion, cosmetics, jewelry, and stuff like that.

How to Use It

When it comes to Instagram, visuals are of extreme importance, as we said. Visuals are important in general but even more so on Instagram. So, make sure you have a beautiful and unique design that will capture the attention of viewers. Also, tell a story and include light and relatable stuff about your business and team members. Post around 3 times a week.

#3 LinkedIn Is Great for B2B Marketing

LinkedIn is THE place to be for businesses and professionals and the great place to network. It’s the best option for B2B companies. It’s also the place where you can find top professionals to employ and where your employees can be your brand ambassadors and promoters.

How to Use It

As LinkedIn is a professional environment, the people and businesses that follow you there will want to see updates and info about business-related stuff. Keep your posts informative and educational and use this network to bring your business closer to potential customers but also employees. Share some tips and insights about your industry to show off your expertise. 

#4 Twitter Lets You Be In the Moment

With over 500 million tweets published daily, Twitter sure is one fast-paced environment. It’s where those clever, educated, and artsy types hand around and it can get controversial from time to time. Twitter stuff is also most likely to end up in the mainstream media as it’s a platform that often discusses current events and trending topics.

How to Use It

Similar to LinkedIn, Twitter is great for pushing out informational posts and news about your business. But you can also allow yourself some lighthearted and fun posts. Twitter is also a social media platform where posting multiple times a day is encouraged. Keep those tweets short and light and keep them coming!

#5 TikTok Is the Rage Among the Youth

TikTok is the most popular social media network for younger generations. And one with the best organic reach! If your target audience is the youth and you want to sell something to them, here’s where you should go. Create a TikTok profile but also engage in influencer marketing as the younger generations respond well to that.

How to Use It

Short, fast-paced videos rock on TikTok. That’s how you should craft your content. Posting frequently as well as using the popular filters and sounds is also important. You can show anything there. From your production to packing and shipping products to how someone uses them. As for influencers, choose the ones your target audience likes and trusts the most.

Social Media Will Grow Your Business

Social media marketing can really do wonders, especially for a small business. It’s an investment that will pay off in many ways. Your business will be viewed as reliable and professional, you will reach increasingly more people, build a brand, and get more customers. You will see the ROI, you just need to be patient.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For Help

Another thing you’ll need in order to see that precious ROI is hard work. If you don’t have the time or the knowledge to rock your social media marketing, find someone who does. There are many digital marketing agencies out there that offer a hands-free service and bring their content writers, designers, social media managers, and AI tools for a decent fee. Don’t be afraid to ask for help!

The post Most Popular Social Media Channels for Small Businesses and How to Use Them appeared first on noupe.