June Acquisitions – Co-Browsing Month!

The technology world is filled with co-browsing news this month. One acquisition follows another. This, for sure, means that co-browsing became an important solution for many companies; really, as it simplifies the way companies engage with their customers, providing exceptional customer service with one click. Although the way different companies co-browse may differ, it increases customer satisfaction and first call resolution as well as decreases call handling time and much more.

That’s why I decided to dedicate this month news to co-browsing only, although there have been other acquisitions in June too, like numerous Google acquisitions, as Google + Skybox Imaging, mDialog, Alpental Technologies, Dropcam; Apple + Spotsetter; Yahoo + PhotoDrive; Alibaba + UCWeb and others.

The first co-browsing acquisition was on June 3rd, when LivePerson announced to acquire Germany-based startup Synchronite LLC.

“Our vision at LivePerson is to transform digital commerce by enabling brands to provide rich and innovative customer experiences. We're very excited to integrate Synchronite's exceptional co-browsing technology to LivePerson's platform to enable businesses to seamlessly offer high-touch engagement options to guide valuable customers through their online journey," said Robert LoCascio, CEO and Founder, LivePerson.

The second acquisition followed on June 9th with Pegasystems acquisition of college-student led start-up Firefly, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

"Today's organizations need to better engage their digital customers and deliver more personalized experiences," said Alan Trefler, Founder and CEO of Pegasystems. "Firefly's collaboration technology will empower our customers to provide superior dynamic co-browsing in a unified architecture and, in the future, chat and video capabilities."

And the final and the most important acquisition for me and my company took place on June 20th  - yes, a unique day for all of us at LiveLOOK! 

Oracle announced about its acquisition of LiveLOOK, a leading provider of cloud-based, real-time visual collaboration with state-of-the-art omni-channel enabling technology for co-browsing and screen sharing that improves the quality of customer interactions. 

“Consumers are increasingly conducting transactions across multiple digital channels such as web and mobile. Meeting consumer demands and exceeding their expectations for web and mobile service and support will improve customer satisfaction and enhance revenue,” said David Vap, Group Vice President, Oracle Product Development. “With LiveLOOK, the Oracle Service Cloud will enable customer service and sales agents to deliver exceptional customer experiences.”

If you haven’t tried co-browsing yet, visit us right now!

# Hashtag How-to’s

Today's topic covers some interesting information about the popular symbol used to mark keywords or topics – the hashtag and some ways to use it effectively.

Hashtag Origin

We all do remember that # symbol has been a phone button as well as a pound sign. The hashtag was first brought to Twitter on August 23, 2007 by Chris Messina, who stated: The very ephemerality of hashtags is what makes them easy and compelling to use in a fast-moving communication medium like Twitter.

Hashtag Platforms

Hashtags are being used more and more each day and in the nearest future may appear in all social platforms. Present supported platforms for hashtags are: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest. But the leading platform is still Twitter.

Hashtag Filtering

There are three ways to filter hashtags in Twitter:

• The "Top" option shows the most popular posts. It also includes posts from users you don't follow
• The "All" shows you every tweet that uses the specific hashtag in real time
• The "People you follow" only displays results from the users you are following

Hashtag Creation
Some hashtags became an inseparable part of our routine and their number is increasing with an enormous speed. Everybody can create unique hashtags, concerning company/brand, content of the message.

Hashtag Usage

While using hashtags in the message anyone who searches for that hashtag may find your post. In other words, hashtag becomes a clickable link, so it’s advised using hashtags in every message.

How to be more effective while using hashtags? Ok, tweets with hashtags get twice more engagement. But don’t spam with hashtags overtagging the tweet. It’s recommended to use 1-2 hashtags for every tweet, no more, as the tweet should contain less than 100 characters. In this case people, who want to RT, will have some space for doing so. It’s also proved that short tweets get 17 percent more engagement. And finally DON’T use long hashtags to be reached by many people.

Use hashtags properly and you’ll increase your online success!