Length: 14:43
Overview: A step-by-step guide to using social media tools to build relationships with customers that offer value to both you and them.
Description: In this, episode 3 of my podcast, I talk about our over-arching social media strategy which we use to keep in constant communication with our customers. Topics include using Twitter as a support intermediary, using Facebook as a feedback loop, building a community with a focus on continual improvement and idea generation and how to turn negative feedback into a motivation tool. I also touch on the upcoming BigCommerce 5.6 and 6 releases at the end of the podcast.
The Ecommerce Blog
Podcast #3: Using social media to build meaningful relationships with customers
How to switch your BigCommerce product reviews system to Disqus
Update: Wordpress likes to mess up double quotes so when you copy the HTML snippet in this post, make sure you delete the double quotes and re-add them using your keyboard.
What is Disqus?
Disqus is a free commenting platform which can be integrated into BigCommerce to make your product reviews truly social. Unlike a typical commenting or review system, Disqus is smart enough to pick up conversations happening about the products you sell from around the web. It brings them together and displays a threaded commenting platform on product pages in your BigCommerce store.
As well as rounding up comments and reviews on your products from around the web, shoppers can post comments by logging into their Facebook or Twitter accounts, meaning they can also share their comments and reviews with their friends automatically – meaning more people who know about your online store.
People with Disqus accounts can use the same profile to comment across multiple sites and as a Disqus administrator you can get excellent statistics regarding number of comments, frequency and more. You can see the entire feature list on the Disqus website.
If Disqus sounds good then keep reading – it’s very easy to integrate thanks to BigCommerce’s Design Mode feature.
How to integrate Disqus into your product reviews
Follow the simple steps below to switch out BigCommerce’s default product reviews/commenting system to Disqus. We’re going to be using Design Mode to make some small HTML changes but don’t worry, it’s easy to do and BigCommerce’s QuickEdit HTML editor has a built-in revert button if you mess things up.
- Login to your store and click the “Store Design” link at the top right of the page
- Click the “Design Mode” tab then click the “Open My Store in Design Mode” button
- You should now see your store with the Design Mode toolbar at the top. Click on the “Toggle” button on the blue Design Mode bar to disable design mode then click on any product in the “Featured Products” or “Top Sellers” section on your home page
- You should now be on one of your product pages – it doesn’t matter which one. Click the “Toggle” button on the blue Design Mode bar to re-enable design mode. The button should change to orange to show it’s enabled
- Scroll down the page where you see the “Product Reviews” section where customer reviews would typically appear. Right click over the top of the “Product Reviews” heading and choose the “Edit Panel” option from the popup menu
- The QuickEdit HTML editor window will open with the ProductReviews.html panel code loaded in the right pane
- Select all of the HTML code in the QuickEdit editor and delete it. Paste the following HTML in its place (but don’t click the “Save” button yet):
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<div id=”ProductReviews”>
<h3 id=”reviews”>%%LNG_ProductReviews%%</h3>
</div> - Now it’s time to sign up for Disqus. On the step where you’re asked which options you want to enable, you can just skip that for now – you can go back and enable logins from Twitter and Facebook as well as nifty features like video comments later. On the final step make sure you choose the “Universal Code” option which should show you a page with two lots of JavaScript code, like so:
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- Copy the HTML from the top box (the “embed code” box) and go back to your BigCommerce QuickEdit window. Paste the code after the <h3>…</h3> tag, like so:
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<div id=”ProductReviews”>
<h3 id=”reviews”>%%LNG_ProductReviews%%</h3>
— Paste the code here —
</div> - We’re now done editing the ProductReviews.html panel so click the “Save” button in the blue toolbar at the top of the QuickEdit window but don’t close the window – we’re now going to edit another file
- On the left side of the QuickEdit window you’ll see a list of files. Scroll down until you find the “product.html” file and click on it to load its contents into the editor
- Just above the </body> tag near the very end of the product.html file, add the JavaScript from the second Disqus text box (the “comment count code” box in the screenshot above) like so:
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— Paste the code here —
</body> - Click the “Save” button in the blue toolbar at the top of the QuickEdit window and close the window – we’re finished editing our HTML (I told you it would be easy!)
So just to recap, we’ve pasted the JavaScript from the first textbox on Disqus into our ProductReviews.html panel after the <h3> tag and we’ve pasted the JavaScript from the second textbox on Disqus into our product.html layout file, just before the </body> tag.
To see the Disqus comments in action, just click the “View Store” link in your control panel and go to a product page. Here’s a screenshot of my integration which you can see in my test store here (feel free to leave a comment too!):
If you integrate Disqus then instead of moderating comments through your BigCommerce control panel, you’d instead login to Disqus.com and moderate them there. Don’t forget to log back into Disqus so you can enable all of the extra features you saw in step two when signing up.
Well, that’s all there is to it! Disqus is a fantastic commenting system and if you do integrate it with your store feel free to leave a comment below with a link so other BigCommerce merchants can take a look!
Innovation in the Cloud – 10 Game Changing SaaS Applications
If you think about how you use software today versus how you did just 10 years ago, my bet is you now use a lot more web-based applications.
A piece of software that runs in your web browser and which stores your data (such as emails or photos) on the Internet is commonly referred to as Software As A Service (SaaS) or cloud-based computing – two buzz words which companies like SalesForce.com and Google use as much as they can to communicate the idea that there’s a paradigm shift taking place in the way software is built and used.
The basic idea is that a few years ago most of the software programs you used (such as Microsoft Office, Outlook, Photoshop and MSN/Yahoo/AOL Messenger) were Windows (or Mac) based applications that you had to install and upgrade. They took up space on your hard drive and couldn’t be used when you were on another computer unless you installed them again.
Today, you can get access to pretty much any type of software using just a web browser – and a lot of the times the software won’t even cost you anything. There’s nothing to install and if your computer crashes you can easily restore an automatically saved draft/backup copy in just a few clicks. This is the basic premise of the SaaS/cloud computing model.
When you think about it, the first real mainstream consumer SaaS application was Hotmail, which Microsoft acquired (nope, they didn’t build it) in 1997 for $400 million. It required just a web browser and you could login from any computer in the world with an Internet connection.
In the last 10 or so years, the shift to the cloud has changed the way companies (including us) build software and the way users consume it. While FaceBook or Gmail are probably the most-used consumer SaaS applications, there are quite a few gems that let you accomplish practically anything online, and I want to share some with you in this post.
BigCommerce, our ecommerce software, is of course delivered in the cloud – your orders, customers, products and preferences are all saved as part of our secure database cluster which you can access through your login from any computer with an Internet connection 24/7. You don’t need to install anything on your computer to use the software and upgrades are made available automatically.
As a software company we’re also big believers in cloud computing ourselves – we run Google Apps for staff in our 3 offices (Sydney, Austin and London). We also run our CRM/email marketing/analytics/SEM/HR/calendars/chat in the cloud. For new team members this can sometimes take quite a bit of getting used to – when you come from using clunky desktop software like Outlook and outdated CRM software like Siebel it’s actually a big shift (albeit a productive one) that can take a few weeks.
To speed up the transition from desktop to SaaS, we’re also doing our part via integrations with other SaaS platforms for email marketing, accounting, analytics, affiliate tracking, shipping, payments and more. A great example is our upcoming integration with Outright.com, Mailchimp and Picnik.com in version 6, and we’ll continue to build out at least a handful of integrations with every major release going forward.
Anyway, I digress. Here are 10 innovative software applications which are making the move from desktop to cloud easier and faster for consumers and businesses:
1. Aviary (think Photoshop, but free and online) -If you don’t want to spend $1,000 on Photoshop and barely use more than the basic features like most people then you’ll love Aviary. Very similar to Photoshop in terms of design, it gives you advanced photo and image editing right from your browser – and it’s free.
2. Grooveshark (think iTunes, but for radio and free) – An amazing streaming music service that’s completely free. You can create and share your own playlists or even enable radio mode which recommends and adds songs to your playlist for you automatically.
3. Google Website Optimizer – The best way to test changes to your website and how they impact your conversion rate, such as different checkout buttons or product photos. Google Website Optimizer is integrated with BigCommerce and can easily increase the conversion rate of an established ecommerce store by at least 10%.
4. Picnik (think Aviary but not as advanced) – Another excellent online photo editor. While not as advanced as Aviary, it’s a lot more popular and has an excellent API, which we’ve used to build photo editing right into the upcoming release of BigCommerce 6.
5. GetSatisfaction – A customer-centric community support platform for businesses. Customers can ask and answer each other’s questions, post ideas and leave testimonials. Used by global brands like Microsoft, Zappos and of course us.
6. SalesForce -The CRM pioneer which is slowly but surely changing how sales team manage their pipelines, opportunities and deals. Often looked at as the business version of Amazon.com in terms of innovation and adoption.
7. CoTweet (think Gmail for Twitter) – Makes Twitter as easy to manage as email. Create multiple logins so your staff can reply to customers on Twitter through one company account. You can also assign follow ups to team members and track previous conversations in a threaded format. We use CoTweet to manage our Twitter account with great success. Oh, and it’s free too.
8. SurveyMonkey – Dead simple surveys with built-in skip logic. We recently used SurveyMonkey to send out a survey asking customers why so many switched to BigCommerce (over 25%). There’s a free plan but it’s only $20 a month for practically unlimited surveys and responses.
9. Box – Pioneering file and document sharing in the cloud. Box makes it easy for both consumers and businesses to upload, share and update all sorts of files. They also have excellent mobile clients for iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones.
10. BigCommerce – And last but not least, our ecommerce platform, BigCommerce. A true cloud-based offering which gives businesses of all sizes everything they need to sell online and attract more customers to their online store. Features like built-in CRM, a suite of marketing tools and easy-to-use content management system turn your website into a platform which can sell, support and attract new customers, as well as evolve with your business needs as they continue to change in response to your own customer’s needs and habits.
What are your favorite SaaS applications? Feel free to share them by posting a comment below!
How to write effective product descriptions for your online store
Introduction
When we’re surfing the ‘net most of us are testament to the fact that attention spans get a little smaller. In contrast to print publications, much less attention is given to each word as we skim through web pages, so it’s important for us to understand that writing for the web can be significantly different than writing for print.
The web has inadvertently made authors out of us all. As we post on forums, send emails, share information, write white papers, guides and various web content – most of us are not authors by profession and so consequently the quality of writing on the web varies greatly.
In this post I’ll share some important points to consider when writing for the web and trying to harness the obvious reach that the web holds over traditional print media.
What is Web Content?
When we strip away all of the graphics, logos, designs and images from a site, we are left with pure web content. Most business websites can be quite similar in the sense that we all advertise our services, products, contact details, etc. However, each company has a variety of specialized information that can be used to create a unique website and it’s important that we recognize and feature the points that make our individual business (and associated content) different from our competitors.
The First Paragraph
As a general rule, if the first paragraph of a publication can attract and keep the readers attention, then they are highly likely to read on. Optimizing your first paragraph to be as articulate and concise as possible will greatly increase the chances that a reader will stay with you for more information. Outline your biggest benefits here and engage the customers to read on and get involved with your products and/or services.
Converse with Your Readers
Being a slave to search engines is inevitable, and it is because of this that we find many sites bombarded with keywords. Don’t allow your quest for rankings to interrupt the effectiveness of your grammar or your ability to be informative.
Your website may have a large amount of information – readers will most definitely not get through all of it – so make sure you outline the most important benefits and present them to users in a conversational style.
Having a friendly conversation will present the information more clearly and will be more engaging, for example:
“If you’re short on time, then you should try one of our widgets. Time is a precious commodity, and we’re here to help you make the most of yours…”
Don’t present your information in large blocks. Cut it down into short bite-sized paragraphs that are easier to digest and use bullet lists when comparing or describing features.
Use the least amount of words so that readers have less to skim through – you’ll find that the amount of scanning is reduced and readers will actually absorb more information.
Cater for Different Tastes
It’s also important to understand that people come to your website with different levels of knowledge on any one topic or product. You can’t expect everyone visiting your website to know about or understand your offerings in their entirety.
For example, sites that list products by their model numbers and reference codes are narrowing the appeal of their site to only those users that would know these numbers. It’s important to have enough foresight to realize that while you’re fully aware and knowledgeable about your products and services, your website’s visitors may not bw.
For example, instead of providing just model numbers and reference codes, why not include a picture, short description and some user reviews on your product pages?
Don’t Make the Reader do all the Work
Visitors will often venture to your website with one single goal in mind. Given that, if they’re then presented with a website that forces them to figure out the product/service that suits them, but they are not helped because there is no meaningful information, then your website has failed.
This extends to the way your information is presented. If your fact sheets and other information are, for example, simply uploaded in a series of PDFs for the user to download, then thy have to work harder because you didn’t take the time to convert the product information into easily navigated web pages.
Readers Don’t Like:
- Pages that require a lot of scrolling – Text is easier to read if it is clear, concise and scanable. The text needs to be in short paragraphs or bullet lists and needs to get straight to the point.
- Over doing the sales and marketing pitch with no real information but too much “fluff”, claiming “world’s best”, “number one”, “top of the range” – these bear no value if the simple features and benefits of your products are left out.
- Grammar and spelling mistakes – It seems obvious but they’re still very apparent on many websites. If someone sees spelling and grammar mistakes, then it seems obvious that the author was not willing to spend some extra time to run a spell check or read over their own work. If the author places such little value on the time they invest in their work, then readers will place similarly low values on their products/services and will most probably disregard the information.
In Conclusion
Many visitors will take a look at the information on your website, however it’s important to understand that each person reads individually, so effective web content should make the reader feel that it’s focusing on them.
Try and get your point across quickly and avoid bombarding people with information – your published web content should be the result of various levels of refinement considering style, emphasis and conciseness.
The above points give a few important factors to consider when writing for the web, but if you are still lost for content then start at the very basic level of interviewing/researching your customers and finding out what it is that they want or need. From there, you can start investigating the foundations that lead customers to your website and make them want to stay with you.
Connecting With Customers and Clients – Going Beyond the Sale
You’ve got an online store, sure, but what does that tell your customers or clients about YOU, the person? Yes, you “sell” “stuff” during the day, but what do you do when you’re not in the office or warehouse? Do you travel? Do you have hobbies? Do you like teaching others? Whatever you do, you should find a way to connect your hobbies or interests to your customers so they can become a part of your inner circle.
“Why would I want to mix my personal and professional lives?” I hear you ask. Well, people buy from people, not companies. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling $10 widgets or $50,00 enterprise software – you need to make a personal connection somewhere along the line. If you don’t, you and your business or online store will appear “faceless” to prospects, which can result in less sales and less word-of-mouth marketing for your business.
Let me give you an example. We provide ecommerce software, but that’s not all we do. We go above and beyond in both a pre-sales and post-sales context to really help BigCommerce store owners when they get stuck or want to learn more about selling online – anyone with a BigCommerce store (free or paid) can call us and ask for help and we’ll happily help them however we can. We also have this blog as well as our YouTube channel (which has had close to 300,000 views) and Twitter account. We also setup regular get togethers, send our monthly newsletters and use client feedback to shape the future direction of our products.
Can you see how these simple activities can help people feel a better connection with our brand and company? If you’ve started a business purely to make money then you’re out of luck. If you’re not absolutely passionate about helping your customers solve a problem then you’ll be out of business within a few months. You need to go above and beyond having a good website, product, sales team and follow up process if you’re going to get customers talking about you and really connecting with your brand.
If you think writing a blog, posting on Twitter, or recording a video for your customers is a waste of time then think again. Beyond educating them, you’re connecting with them in a way that your competitors probably aren’t. You’re building top of mind awareness, which means prospective clients or customers will think of YOU when they’re in the market to buy what you sell, and isn’t that what we as business owners want?
I’d recommend spending one FULL day each week working on your efforts to connect with your customers or clients. Plan and create great, education blog posts. And tweets. And YouTube videos. And webinars. And face-to-face meet ups. Nothing replaces the value of a personal connection, and once you’ve made that connection the value proposition you offer cannot be easily replicated by your competitors.
So, how are you going to connect with your customers or clients beyond a pure profit motive? Leave a comment or post a question below if you’d like advice. We’ve used the simple strategies in this blog post to attract over 40,000 customers in under 6 years, and I know they’ll work for you too. The trick is consistency and value – make sure you add value to your potential customer’s/client’s lives whenever you reach out to them. It’s really that simple. Just ask yourself “Would I share this blog/tweet/video with my friends?”. If the answer is no then don’t post it.
[Video] How to Reduce Your Visitor Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is one of the most important metrics you can track for new visitors to your website. You might have heard the term “bounce rate” in the context of email marketing but that’s not what I’m talking about. When it comes to tracking visitor quality of your online store, the bounce rate is a measure of how many people leave your website and never come back after viewing just one page.
In this video I’ll explain how you can track your visitor bounce rate, how you can see the bounce rate of your competitors and some strategies you can use to reduce your bounce rate if it’s classified as high (which to me is typically 60% or more).
This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
[Video] 5 Tips to Increase Your Online Sales Using Twitter
Depending on what you sell, Twitter can be a good way to reach potential customers and improve relationships with existing ones. If you’re a one man show then it makes sense to spend 5 minutes a day on Twitter finding conversations which are happening about your online brand, jumping in to address any questions if appropriate.
In this video I’ll share with you 5 simple strategies you can use to increase your online sales using Twitter. Now, keep in mind that Twitter is generally better at building good will with potential customers so you might not see an immediate boost in sales, but done regularly over the period of a few months you will see results, especially if you track the links you post on Twitter.
The tips I share in these videos are:
- Share useful content every day
- Participate in conversations about your brand
- Link to your Twitter profile from your contact page
- Reuse and repurpose testimonials found on Twitter
- Post coupons or special deals exclusively on Twitter
This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
[Video] How to Drive Traffic to Your Online Store by Becoming a Guest Blogger
If you’re on a limited marketing budget for your online store then one excellent way to drive targeted traffic to your website is to become a guest blogger on blogs related to what you sell. In this video I’ll teach you how it’s done, and if you can dedicate just a few hours each week to writing a few posts you’ll be amazed at how much free traffic it can bring!
This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
[Video] How to Write and Execute a Profitable Marketing Plan
If you’re just starting out selling online then of course your most valuable asset is your customer list. But if you’re currently at zero customers then how can you grow your list to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of customers? The key is to start with a solid marketing plan.
Depending on your budget there are different marketing strategies you can use to drive people to your online store. If you’re on a limited budget then Google AdWords and a solid email marketing strategy to repeat buyers is a good start. If you’ve got a larger marketing budget you can reach a mass-market audience through radio, TV, direct mail and wide-reaching online advertising campaigns.
In this video I explain what a marketing plan is, how to personify your typical customer, how to find where they spend time both online and off, and how to use both traditional and creative marketing strategies to attract them to your online store. This video is the part of our new YouTube guru channel, BigCommerceDotCom. Check it out and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss future videos.
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About This Blog
The BigCommerce Ecommerce Blog is written by Mitchell Harper, co-founder of BigCommerce ecommerce software and e-commerce expert, having sold both physical and digital goods online to over 50,000 customers since 2001.
This ecommerce blog includes proven tips, tricks and strategies to help you sell more online and use our ecommerce software to launch your very own online store.
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