Here’s a life hack for ecommerce merchants, and a cool development you won’t want to miss.

Instagram.

No, not the standard app you’ve been playing around with for a while, deciding whether it’s of value to you as an online seller. After all, it’s so, so graphical. Maybe too graphical. And personal. Isn’t this what millennials use to share selfies?

Not anymore. With the lion’s share of social media apps hungry to gain attention from businesses, Instagram has been paying apt attention. The ever-popular feature Instagram Stories quietly morphed into a tool for ecommerce in the fall of 2017, allowing businesses to tag product photos through “stickers” on their posts. Those stickers are active links to your site.

And in June of 2018, Instagram took to the video platform with IGTV, an app designed to animate social and business parallels.

It’s gone so well that Instagram is reported to be launching an app tailored for you, the merchant. And experienced users will get the hang of it in no time flat.
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Consider this: More than 25 million businesses have existing Instagram accounts. Of those, 2 million are advertisers. The foundation is set for sales, and they have been happening. If you feel like you’re missing a golden opportunity, you may be right.

The numbers are in, somewhat. A recent survey showed that brands have reported an increase in site traffic of more than 1400 percent and a whopping 20 percent gain in sales. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
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To no one’s surprise, potential hasn’t escaped third-party app developers. Ecommerce site Ecwid rolled out a transition app on its own. It’s pretty interesting. But conventional wisdom says they anticipated Instagram would seize on the opportunity to rebrand their name, and it appears they will.

What can go wrong when you celebrate a design-forward palette? Not much, according to Pantone LLC, an entity devoted to the wonderful world of color. Pantone shades appear as go-to matching guides for artists, interior designers, and just about everyone engaged in a pursuit of imagery.

For 2019, the nod goes to “Living Coral” as Pantone’s Color of the Year designation. And there are good reasons why.

First, it never hurts when old and new engender the same emotion. Coral is a fave; a mainstay from Mid-Century days among cutting edge designers. Its rich melon base with a spicy red ingredient woke up living rooms, apparel, and even some automobiles with warmth and pizzazz.
Living Coral emulates its ancestor, but adds in a pinkish tone that brightens. It offers golden undertones to embellish warm palettes. And it enlivens both infrastructure and accent décor with a personality all its own.
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Coral’s origin is, of course, rooted in cold water ocean reef environments. Its heyday in wearability celebrated fashionable necklaces, bracelets, and rings. The substance comes in a variety of shades, but for consumer purposes, the melon-based hue is most popular.

Increasing your productivity is hard in today’s world of constant distractions. It’s easy to make excuses about lack of productivity, too – it’s too nice outside, a big game is on TV, the President just tweeted something provocative again, etc.
 
Of course, you’ve likely heard that good sleep, eating well, keeping hydrated, staying active, meditating and keeping positive are common methods for ramping up productivity.
 
Still, to truly be effective, you should have a set of actionable ways that you can implement starting today – though it might take diligence to turn them into habits that get results.
 
Put Down the Smartphone 

The smartphone does wonders for communication, growing your network, and increasing business, but it can be a huge distraction. You can text, see social media notices, track emails, and access zillions of apps, most designed to distract, even those for business (here’s looking at you, Slack).
 
Here’s how to limit the temptations:

• Silence the notifications
• Keep your phone out of sight
• Turn the ringer off or to vibrate mode

Erase Email Inefficiency 

Emails are crucial to business and personal communication, no doubt. But inefficient use of email is a productivity killer. Learning to pay attention to the important ones (personally or professionally) and ignore the time-wasters is key to being more productive.
 
Emails can instill you with a reactive inclination if you’re constantly replying or answering, especially if it isn’t important. But being reactionary is an albatross. Consistently being proactive is the best way to raise your productivity.
 
So, here are several ways to reduce email anxiety:

• Turn off notifications
• Periodically schedule times throughout your day to check and respond
• If you do check, deal with an email immediately or set it aside for later
• If you communicate regularly via email, then concise, pointed call-to-action subject lines that say exactly what you to happen are imperative (e.g., “1st Draft of Productivity Book Due 12.18.18”). To make it even better, change the subject line each time a response is sent (e.g., “Check Feedback on 1st Draft and Respond by 12.20.18”).