E-COMMERCE
Shop Pay is now an option on Facebook and Instagram
This just might be great news for your conversion rates if you use Shopify…
The company’s Shop Pay feature (Shopify’s take on fast and secure ways to shop online) is now available to all Shopify merchants on Facebook and Instagram.
With this, users can buy directly from your Instagram or Facebook posts and pay in just a few taps without ever leaving the app!
Shop Pay has been available in 2020 already but this is a big step they took. In 2020, Shopify says there were over 137M orders helped by Shop Pay. What will the number be in 2021? Are Snapchat, TikTok and Pinterest next?
Here’s what went down at Twitter in Q4
Things look promising at Twitter according to their recent numbers.
- Monetizable Daily Active Users: 192M, up 27% YoY.
- Revenue: $1.29B, up 28% YoY.
- Operating income: $252M.
Most of that revenue was from advertising. And, all the year-on-year increase is from advertising.
The company also expects a “modest impact” from Apple’s iOS 14 tracking update, but nothing catastrophic.
The Crew’s thoughts: There was no mention of subscription products, but there was news about a 20% increase in the company’s headcount, so it’s clear Twitter has something brewing.
The numbers, while low compared to something like Facebook, are going in the right direction. As we’ve mentioned so far this year, we see reasons to be optimistic about Twitter’s power as a place to connect through conversation and as a place to grow an audience.
But for advertisers, the app still doesn’t make our top 5 – at least for most industries.
WRITING
The ultimate writing skill
A lot of information has been shared about writing well.
But one stage that is crucial, and often overlooked, is editing. Here, Riviera Lev-Aviv shared 3 main types of editing and how to implement them.
Ideally, you would go through each one of these phases sequentially. But, you can also adjust them to your own situation by merging them or changing their orders. In any case, make sure that the objective of each phase is accomplished.
1) Substantive editing – Here you carve out the big picture out of your text – it’s more of a strategic phase. Some of the questions to address in this stage are:
- Is this the topic most likely to spark engagement with your audience and move them along their buyer’s journey?
- Are there big ideas missing from the scope of the piece or extraneous sections to omit?
- Are there any flaws in the logic?
2) Stylistic editing – This stage is about rearranging sentences and picking delightful words. And here, you must be cynical with your creation and cut every word, sentence, or paragraph that doesn’t contribute to your thesis.
The questions to address are:
- Can I recast an idea to make it more evocative?
- Have I been varying my sentence lengths?
- Is this the most vivid word I can use to describe an idea?
- Have I stated my point as clearly as possible?
- Are there any words or sentences I can remove to make what’s left behind shine brighter?
3) Copy editing (Or the grammar nerds’ party…) – In this process, you ensure that your writing is clear, correct, and error-free.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but a typo can hurt your brand credibility, especially if you’re a heavy content-based business.
The questions to ask are:
- Are there any spelling or grammar errors?
- Have I fact-checked stats, verified spellings of names, ensured numbered lists are correct?
- Is your editorial style consistent? Are you sticking to American or Canadian spelling throughout the entire piece? Are all citations formatted the same way?
- Are all design elements correctly working in tandem with the text?
If you want to polish your writing skills, Riviera Lev-Aviv explains how to go through each phase, and what to ask your co-workers to make sure each one of them goes smoothly.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
INSTAGRAM: You can now animate text in Instagram Stories.
MICROSOFT ADS: Enhanced CPC will replace Manual CPC for Microsoft Ads by the end of April.
INSTAGRAM: If you repost TikToks to Reels, you’re gonna have a bad time! Instagram will limit reach if you have a watermark, if the video is blurry, if it contains a border or if it’s covered by text.
FACEBOOK: Auto-suggestions for admins of Groups for pending posts! If Facebook sees duplicates or posts you are likely to decline based on previous posts you’ve declined, you can handle them with one tap.
BRAIN TEASER
I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
“I’m not a cat”
It’s times like these where we wish we could just have a video play directly in your inbox.
Why?
We have probably found what might be the funniest video you’ll watch this year.
An attendee accidentally activated the kitten filter on a Zoom call during an official virtual hearing. And it was not just any attendee…
The others dealt well with the situation, seeing as nobody burst out laughing.