TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #018

Shopify Gets POS Sexy, Mad Men/Sad Men, SNAP!, and more.

April 30, 2019

Hello there -

Are you having a good day? Seriously … reply and let me know. I hope that you’re having a good day. I’m feeling pretty good about everything right now. It’s springtime, my allergies aren’t too bad this year, the Lead the Pack conference last week was a big hit, customers are saying nice things, and a few new Shopify partners came on board. And my dogs Oreo and Dagwood both have their “we love you dad” looks on their faces, so life is pretty good today.

Here are this week’s top stories.

1. Social Proof … Get ‘Em While They’re Hot!

Here in the sprawling TaskHusky compound we keep our minions working on content around the clock – and we turn out some great work. But, every once in a while, someone writes a blog post that we wish we’d written first. Of course, we’d have done a far better job (duh!). But this article on Search Engine Journal talks about the seven kinds of Social Proof that you can deploy to your eCommerce website and they provide examples. So good on them.

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2. This Is Cool ... Forgive the Techie Talk

You are on this email list because … well, we’re just so gosh-darn lovable that you can’t resist keeping up with our content. And we know a few things about all you dedicated TaskHusky fans: you’re obviously attractive, have an entrepreneurial soul, and you’re smarter than the average bear.

Hey … that’s our demo and we’re sticking to it.

But TaskHusky customers and email readers have a broad range of tech experience – from the technological novice through folks who think in code like Neo from “The Matrix.” This article falls somewhere in between. It discusses a bunch of popular eCommerce APIs (code that lets systems and applications talk to each other). It mentions Shopify specifically, but also a few other ones you might not be aware of. If you have questions, shoot us a note.

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3. Going from “Mad Men” to “Sad Men”

Did you ever watch the show “Mad Men?” That Don Draper character … what a jerk, right? Anyway … the show follows the hay-day of advertising in the 1960s. And the center of the advertising universe was Madison Avenue in New York City. Well, those days of chain-smoking, martini-lunch-drinking captive media are in the past. The rise of the internet and social media has completely disrupted and decentralized advertising for a new generation of businesses. This Axios article examines this tectonic shift in marketing power.

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4. Awwwww, SNAP!

OK … as I sit here writing this week’s newsletter with my morning beverage in hand, big Shopify news is breaking. Seems our favorite eCommerce platform – the Shopify megalith – has just announced a new partnership with Snap-of-the-Chat. Looks like the Dark Lord Zuckerberg has inked a deal to let us lowly Shopify merchants market products and services directly into their new Snapchat Discover feature (in addition to Facebook and Insta). Here’s an article on CNBC, but this news is breaking now so more info will follow as we learn about the details.

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5. Speaking of Shopify – The new POS System Is the Shizzle!

Shopify has been a team of busy little Canadian beavers. Just a few days ago they announced a new suite of Point-Of-Sale (POS) hardware for physical stores. We’ve got to say … they’ve done a pretty good job with it.

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Well, if you weren’t having a good day before, I hope that all this great content made things a bit brighter for you. And remember, “Share the email, share the love.”

Happy Selling,

Zachary