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Reimagining eCommerce Post Covid-19

Reimagining eCommerce Post Covid-19 | A Middle East Webinar Geared for Growth Strategies

Crises are often a catalyst for innovation, especially for those geared to embrace challenges.

In these times, consumer behavior across the world as well as in the UAE and Saudi Arabia has shifted rapidly to online buying, which gave way for an immediate focus on the digital commerce industry and upheld the importance of implementing technology-driven solutions to ensure sustainability, growth and stability.

Yes, e-commerce is now one of the hottest topics today, one that presents businesses with many questions.

Will the e-commerce boom remain?
How can businesses prepare for the future?
What are the top strategies to ensure growth and provide a relevant and valuable user experience?
What are the effective channels to improve performance?
Is it necessary to restructure existing e-commerce functionalities with new-age solutions for continuous growth and profitability?

To answer these questions and many more, UniCommerce is organizing the Middle East’s largest Webinar on “eCommerce Reimagined: Strategies and Growth Levers Post COVID-19” on Saturday June 27, 2020 starting 11 AM Gulf Standard Time

The webinar is open to all GCC Business and will bring together 10 industry experts from across the MENA region who will be sharing insights and top-level e-commerce strategies to help businesses gear up for conducting businesses amid and post the pandemic

Register here: https://lnkd.in/dy4BdG7

Webinar Agenda

Session 1:

“E-commerce strategies in post Covid-19 era” | 11 AM – 12:15 PM GST

Speakers

Hasan Alhazmi – Co-Founder, Salasa
Raghu Ravinutala – Co-Founder, Yellow Messenger
Anshuk Aggarwal – Co-Founder, Adyogi
Pranshu Kacholia – VP Business, ClickPost
Sean McCarry – Sales Director, Magento Commerce

Session 2:

Driving eCommerce growth | 12:20 PM – 1:30 PM GST

Speakers:

Mohamed Bahaa – Co-Founder, Wimo
Samar Layoun – Co-Founder, AddBloom
Ravi Kant – Head Strategic Partnerships, Noon
Vikas Panchal – Business Head, Tally
Rajiv Ramanan, Director- Startups, Freshworks

Register here: https://lnkd.in/dy4BdG7

June 24, 2020 AddBloom Blog, Digital Strategy, Ecommerce, Webinar Comments Off

Online Learning, Art, Music and Books | Quarantine Time made easier

Quarantine during the pandemic means different things to different people. For some, it is (remote) work as usual, for others, it is remote work + juggling family and e-schooling for children, and for many, it is simply time off, time that could be spent actively learning or exploring.

This is why we put together a series of resources to help you get started. However, no matter what you decide, remember to focus on what makes you feel good.

Universities worldwide like Harvard, Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley or Standford University are offering free open courses or specific webinars during certain dates. IE University in Spain has also prepared a series of webinars, in English and others in Spanish, for the upcoming days as well. For a full list of universities providing online courses, click here. Companies like Google, Microsoft or Linux are also offering online courses on digital marketing, business or coding. For the full list of institutions, click here.

Coursera includes courses from those prestigious universities for free as well, some of which are certified upon completion and that you can take at your own pace. Domestika is a similar platform for courses on illustration, digital editing or crafts. Students can find open courses or purchase others for a reduced price. Other platforms that offer open online courses from different universities are edX, Udacity or Alison. For platforms including resources in Arabic, refer to Doroob, Rwaq, Tadarab, Coursaty and Edraak.

For those who wish to financially invest in more online lectures, Udemy has one of the largest selection of courses. Masterclass, is another platform to consider where students can access courses on photography, fashion and even sports, taught by icons such as Anna Wintour, Gordon Ramsay, Serena Williams and others.

For the avid readers, The Library of Alexandria, the oldest in history, offers all its acquisitions for free. It contains, among others, a large collection of Arabic digital books and photo albums. However, if you prefer to read about different themes, Bookbon is offering free access to thousands of e-books. For those Harry Potter fans, J.K.Rowling has improved the platform Wizarding World by adding Harry Potter at home, where different videos, puzzles and quizzes will be added to make our time at home better.

For the art aficionados, the MoMa, Musée d’Orsay and other 12 museums can now be visited virtually for free. To access the full list, click here. As in the case of these museums, NASA has also opened its entire library for you to explore for free as well and added a series of resources for kids, adults on topics as wide as History, Technology or Earth Science.

Signing off for now, we hope you enjoy our listing.

April 9, 2020 AddBloom Blog, Digital Content, Social Media Comments Off

Coronavirus X Social Media | Steps to combat the “infodemic”

Coronavirus (Covid-19) is taking the world by storm. Entire Countries are on Lockdown, others on the way and prospects of a global economic meltdown are looming. Amidst this social media played a major role. On the one hand, promoting awareness, prevention and social distancing, on the other, fostering fear, panic, bogus remedies, conspiracy theories

For the World Health Organization, the key to battle this virus starts with battling misinformation, or “infodemic”, coming from everyone’s smartphone.

This blog sheds light on measures taken by social media platforms to help set the record straight and try to minimize the impact of fake news and hoaxes trying to profit.

Facebook decided to implement a ban on ads for all companies trying to make a commercial gain out of the virus, whether related to cures or prevention products that are not linked to scientific facts. By implementing this new policy, Facebook is trying to restrain those ads that create a sense of urgency while working on removing content with false claims or conspiracy theories that might harm people who believe them.

The Deputy Executive Director for Partnerships of UNICEF, Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, stated that misinformation during times of a health crisis can spread paranoia, fear and stigmatization. On top of that, it can result in people being left unprotected or more vulnerable to the virus as well. UNICEF, as well as Facebook, is actively taking steps to inform the public when inaccurate information, involving WHO or other government authorities, is published on social media platforms.

TikTok recently partnered with the WHO in an effort to spread veritable information, together with the best public health practices.

Respectively, Twitter also partnered with WHO and published a plan to protect the public from hoaxes on the platform as well. Their goal is to publish credible, authoritative content.

This “infodemic”, or over-abundance of information, makes it harder for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when needed. There are simple steps users can take themselves to combat mis- and disinformation. Consider the following questions before sharing dubious content:

Is this the original account, article or piece of content?
Who shared this or created it?
When was this created?
What account is sharing this? When was the account created? Do they share things from all over the world at all times during the day and night? Could this be a bot?
Why was this shared?

For reliable information always fact check with:

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/covid-19

March 17, 2020 AddBloom Blog, Digital Content, Fact Check, Fake News, Social Media Comments Off

How To Spot Fake News On Instagram

Is it True? ! Is it Fake ?! That is the Question

7 Ways to Help You Distinguish between REAL NEWS Vs. FAKE NEWS

When social media feeds are flooded with information, and Whatsapp becomes a tricky messenger from personal connections on groups, it becomes very easy to be confused between what news is true and what is fake.

And while fake news is nothing new, yet fabricating images, videos and voice notes is becoming more advanced, blurring the capacity to distinguish authenticity.

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and other social networks are now a hotbed for Fake viral claims used with the objective of purposeful pushing publicity and propaganda to fool readers into thinking a piece of news is real, when it is NOT.

This is why we have put together 7 ways to help distinguish between what is REAL NEWS and what is FAKE NEWS:

Consider the source
Is it safe to say that you are familiar with this news account? Is it legitimate and genuine? Has it been reliable in the past? If not, you may not want to trust it. If it’s a forwarded voice message, ask for the source from the sender, and try to double check the facts on credible news providers and how valid the content is.

Consider the photos
Bogus news stories and posts regularly contain manipulated images, audios or videos that can be edited to mislead you. Sometimes the photo may be authentic, however, taken outside of any relevant connection to the subject at hand. You can search for the photo or image to verify where it came from, or look at trusted news sources to see if the story in hand is being reported elsewhere.

Check the date
Some false Instagram posts/stories aren’t totally fake, but rather distortions of real events. These mendacious claims can take a real news story and twist what it says or even claim that something that happened quite a while in the past is related to current developments.

Is this some sort of joke?
Keep in mind that there is such a concept known as satire/parody. Normally, it’s obviously labeled as such, and sometimes it’s even amusing. But it isn’t the news. However, there’s the more debatable forms of satire, designed to pull one over on the user. These posts are also designed to encourage clicks and generate money for the creator through ad revenue. Yet, they aren’t news.

Check your biases
Confirmation bias drives individuals to take more trust in information that affirm their beliefs and discount information that doesn’t. The next time you’re automatically shocked at a piece of content concerning a person or an event you oppose, pause for a minute to look at it, and before sharing make sure you circle back and check the source.

Consult the experts:
We know you’re busy, and a portion of this debunking requires significant investment and time. Be that as it may, fact-checkers get paid to do this sort of work. Between the several fact-checker sites, it’s likely at least one has already fact-checked the most recent viral case to pop up in your social media news feed or through any communication platform.

Instagram/Facebook fact-check:
Facebook and Instagram earlier have introduced Fact Checks through working with certified third-party fact-checkers. This is done either through individuals reporting content as “it’s inappropriate”, and “false information” or Fact Checkers identifying content and flagging it as such. The normal procedure that Facebook uses to treat flagged posts is making them appear less on user’s news feeds. Pages or accounts continuously noted for sharing false content will be notified and will face restrictions.
And lastly, both Instagram and Facebook introduced “false information” labels to prevent fake news from going viral. The new update informs users when a post contains misinformation. The labels will appear on posts and Instagram’s main feed. Users will still be able to view the original post, but they’ll have to click “See Post” to get there.

Always remember: News readers themselves remain the first line of defense against fake news.

Written by Stephanie Matar
Social Media Manager

November 15, 2019 AddBloom Blog Comments Off

6 Ways to Enhance Your Organic Performance

In our day and time, paid social and digital media marketing are a big part of any digital marketing strategy. The brands we work with have experienced the value of investing in their social media presence to build sustainable communities online and achieve business objectives.

Yet, in a time where paid advertising is almost everything, we still believe in leveraging the forte of organic performance. Here are six tips prepared for you at the AddBloom Kitchen 🙂

1- Optimize your social and digital profiles
There are different points one can take advantage of to optimize their brands’ social profiles and make them easily discoverable by fans and followers.

Know which social and digital media platforms your business should be on and build them to global best practice.
Choose an optimized easy to write username.
Choose a recognizable display and cover photo.
Leverage your bio to be rich in keywords.
Add your store’s location wherever possible.
Make your website and other Call to Action buttons easily accessible.
Study and stay up to date with the latest about the social media platforms you are using to leverage the features they offer as per best practice

2- Diversify your content
While one of the main objectives of numerous businesses is to sell, we advise you against doing just that on social media, Instead, balance your communication to include a fair mix of selling, informative and user generated content that keeps the audience engaged and interested in the brand.

3- Follow a posting schedule
As the saying goes, consistency is key. While it might be impressive to post 10 times in a day, brands should be able to keep up with the set frequency. This might be challenging as posting multiple times a day requires a lot of effort and resources and brands have to ensure that their content reaches the right audience.

4- Engage with your community
One of the easiest ways for people to remember your brand is if it engages with them. So, make it a habit to engage with your community by liking, commenting, and reposting other people’s content. This will help people to humanize the brand and give it a feel that might not have been present before. Most importantly, try as much as possible to personalize your brand’s messages so each person touched by your comments and interaction feel special and valued.

5- Leverage insights
As we have mentioned earlier, brands should follow a posting schedule and frequency. In order to know how many times to post and what to post, brands should leverage the insights available through the different platforms used. Knowing when your audience is online, on what day and at what time, will allow you to enhance your organic reach. Not only that, but studying the results achieved by different posts, will allow you to better know which content your audience is more attracted to.

6- Give it time
The most important thing to do is be patient and give your posts time to reach their peak performance organically. The latter takes anywhere between 3 to 24 hours. You should hence decide on the type and boosting budget based on the results achieved.

May 20, 2019 AddBloom Blog Comments Off

The #10YearChallenge

There is nothing like social media to make people go crazy about something. The latest hashtag to pop up on our feed is the #10YearChallenge. We decide to take on this challenge in our very own way.

Check the pictures below for a throwback that will leave you reminiscing of the good old days.

Operating Systems: