At the end of a long day, or any special event, everyone deserves a special treat, especially when it comes to desert. Since social media has become a norm of society in today’s world, I have never gone by a day where I haven’t seen one of my friends or colleagues share a post of desert that they are having. Jennifer Grossman, owner of Irresistibly Delicious has established a successful at home business where she bakes various custom deserts and cakes and is known throughout the GTA. Many may think how Jennifer managed to grow her business since it is run and managed from home. Well the answer to that is the success of her business comes through her exceptional customer engagement tactics which she uses through social media platforms.

Are people really honest? One company decided to find out and in the process they managed to create one of the best social media campaigns in 2015.[1]  Honest Tea,  has prided themselves to be transparent in all their endeavors, and are now inspiring a nation to do the same. Challenging American’s  to prove they are honest people, and in the process managing to conquering their own brand awareness like never before. The Social Experiment Since 2010, Honest Tea has conducted a social experiment where they set up unmanned racks of Honest Tea offered for $1 each on an honor system. Monitored by hidden cameras and employees who tracked the percentage of people who paid by city. It started with 6 major cities across the U.S. to determine how honest people are when they think no one is watching. And has expanded across the nation ever since proving each year that over 90% of Americans are honest and continue to be. Please take a peak at the Teaser video below for more on the Honest Tea’s Campaign To see which states were the most honest and  other interesting results, quench your curiosity by clicking on the National Honesty Index     So why did they conduct this experiment? Seth Goldman is president and TeaEO of Honest Tea explains: “Beyond the fact that we seek to have honest and direct relationships with our ingredients, suppliers, and consumers, it’s a fun way for people to interact with our brand. We do lots of sampling over the summer, but our Honest pop-up stores offer an opportunity for people to be part of our company rather than just passive drinkers. It turns out that it’s also a nice way to help people think differently about our society and each other.”[2] Each year Honest Tea matched the contributions from these pop-up stores and donates them all to a specific charity in order to help people help themselves and increase sustainability in the world.

Hello and welcome back folks! In my last blog – Shopify’s Custom Built Unicorn Platform Takes Employee Engagement to a Whole New Realm  I looked at how Shopify’s amazing business culture fosters their exemplary employee engagement.  Next, I focus on how Shopify as an organization exudes the same passion when connecting with their customers. “We want every single minute of interaction with a customer to be a minute of true value,” says Richard Hall – Director of Revenue Operations [1] “We strive for happiness — not satisfaction!  The customer service industry is obsessed with “customer satisfaction”. We believe that’s too low a bar. Satisfaction is not a measure of success — it’s just enough to get by. We want our customers to be happy. Happiness is success. Happiness is our goal. “ [2] – Mantra spoken by Shopify’s customer support team Let me be honest, my first exposure to Shopify was actually through my husband.  He recently joined  Shopify’s free two-week trial, for his online store: Essential Oil Labs. Lately, all we seem to do is talk about growing his business. So I decided why not engage with him and get a first hand look at how Shopify really interacts with their customers.  I was marveled at the amount of times they have reached out to him.  He’s plugged into all sorts of forums,  “How-To” videos and not to mention he gets a “gazillion” emails.  What really struck me is the way in which they deliver this material.  It’s timely, entertaining, and pretty darn addictive.