Chick Tax

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The Complete Guide to Chatbots in 2018

Chatbots are coming in hot! And we’re loving it almost as much as Wall-E loves Eva.

Really, what’s not to like? Chatbots alleviate time-consuming tasks and allow us to better serve our clients.

Sprout Social covers a ridiculous amount of information — from the value of chatbots to leveraging Facebook and Twitter. No need to panic though.

To avoid having your head explode on a Monday morning, we’re gonna cover just one part of this article: the how-to steps and what to consider when getting started.

1. Define Your Goal and Use Case

Get with your teams to figure out what purpose your chatbot should have. Where are the pain points in what you’re trying to accomplish?

For example, if you are seeing low conversions on your website, a chatbot may be the solution.

2. Platforms to Leverage

Platform options include your website, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter Direct Message.

Conversations will differ based on the platform you choose. If you bring demographics into the mix, someone on Facebook may not ask the same question as someone on Twitter.

Essentially, know your audience.

3. Build out your content strategy

What type of content should your customers engage with? Get help from your internal teams (or ppl who interact with customers) to build out the question/answer flow.

It’s a good practice to start with FAQ or even seeing if there’s information you can use on Quora.

4. Your Bot Needs a Voice

Why is this a step? Well, its super duper important that your Bot has a humanizing personality.

Sprout Social recommends setting clear guidelines and a consistent voice that aligns with your brand.

5. The Opening Message

Generally, better opening messages are:

• Compelling: robotic voice is out, personality is in.
• Set Expectations: Be transparent. Tell your audience about the Bot so they understand responses are limited.
• Ask Questions: Keep the convo going by asking questions

Personally, we’re all for creativity here. You want people to happily interact, which (read the next few words in robot voice) will not happen if you speak in a robotic tone.

There’s a TON more from Sprout Social here…

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Google Redefines What is Considered Low Quality Content

Why do we create content? Well…there are like 200 different reasons but the main reason is for organic search traffic, right? Right.

When it comes to creating content that drives more search traffic, you have to know the guidelines that Google uses to determine whether a piece of content is high quality or low quality.

We’re not talking about ranking factors here. We’re talking about Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines. These guidelines are a set of instructions that Google’s Quality Raters follow when manually evaluating the performance of Google’s algorithms.

Surprised to learn that real people at Google manually review the performance of their algorithms? Well, it’s true!

Anywho, today we’re specifically focusing on the the guidelines Googlers use to determine if a page is low quality. The good Goog’ defines low-quality pages as those that miss the mark on what they set out to achieve.

That definition made us ask, “K, so how does Google decide what type of content misses the mark?” Luckily, SEJ has the answers for us right here:

• An inadequate level of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Writing fluff for the sake of word count? Google will call you out and drop your rankings.
• The title of the content is exaggerated or shocking. If Google is able to tell that you’re using clickbaity titles, you’re gonna get dinged.
• Ads or pop-ups distract from the content. We’ve noticed a lot of this lately, it might work to get clicks but Google hates it.
• There is an unsatisfying amount of website information or information about the content creator. Basically, if you’re not making it clear who you are and what you do, Google ain’t gonna like you. There’s no need for anonymity in Google’s eyes.

You can read the full content guidelines from Google here. Or, hit the button below for a summary from SEJ.

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Chick Fries

All the ladies out there, did you know that 42% of the time you are paying more than men on products that are exactly the same?!

It’s true. The women’s version of razors, deodorant, kids toys, and so much more are all marked higher than the men’s version… even though they’re exactly the same.

This frustrating phenomenon is known as the pink tax.

We think it’s absolutely absurd and so do our homies over at Burger King. People have been getting behind this reform for years now, but Burger King just released a new commercial that humorously raises awareness of the issue.

The ad shows just how excruciatingly unfair it is for women to have to pay more than men for the same thing. It’s entertaining and surprisingly effective. It even encourages the viewer to support the Pink Tax Repeal Act by contacting their representative.

We think everything should be equal… especially Chicken Fries. 

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