Wishing everyone a very merry holiday season this year! May you find joy and laughter, enjoy time with friends and family, and embrace the coming new year.

​Cheers!

Particles is taking a little holiday hiatus. We'll see you right back here on January 10th with brand new content!

I let the kids (well, teenagers, to be fair) put up the Christmas decorations this year. Scary? Yes. But they loved it and it turned out they did a really nice job. It’s turned into a welcomed update for our home. Not only that, it’s left empty the top of my sideboard in the dining room.

That can only mean one thing—it’s time to go shopping!

Browsing around got me thinking about exactly what I might want for that space, the vibe I wanted to create, the colors I wanted to use. Want I really wanted was to create a little vignette—a coordinated scene with pieces that fit together just right to tell a little story.
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My dining room is lovely, but’s not the least bit formal. Despite that, I wanted something a little more upscale for this space. The kids are getting older, I’m worried much less about the breaking things, and my tastes have changed since we acquired the bulk of our holiday decor. 

Optimizing for voice searches is a great new strategy

Let’s face it: Gen-Xers are masters at pounding out text, rapidly, on the tiniest of device keyboards. The rest of us stumble through frustrating errors, many of which launch hilarious misfires thanks to autocorrect. But there’s nothing silly about understanding that voice control will continue to permeate the computer use experience for all groups.

The mercurial rise of digital voice assistants on smartphones and—most recently, lovely Alexa from Amazon—is a good indicator that we’re moving into an era that is at least partly keystroke free. And why not? It’s quick, convenient, and increasingly accurate. What merchants are discovering is that it can also be profitable.

Think it’s a longshot? Fasten your seatbelt. OC&C Strategy Consultants recorded a month of sales rates for 2,000 Amazon-posted products, and found that voice-powered devices and products totaled $1.8 billion in domestic retail revenues in the year 2017. They predict that number will increase to $40 billion by 2022.
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Big players such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple have jumped ahead of the game to integrate voice searching on their platforms. The most searched brands are ranked at the top for voice searches. Maintaining a presence on these seller sites, in conjunction with optimized voice search strategies, will put you far ahead of the game. 

It’s easy to get stuck following the same tactics in social media marketing, particularly if one strategy has been lucrative or has grown your business exponentially. Amazingly, though, many social media “gurus” continue with campaigns that aren’t bringing in revenue.
 
While it’s important to keep up-to-date with new strategies and evolving techniques, it’s also important to ditch so-called “best practices” that aren’t delivering. Sometimes, it’s what you don’t do that contributes as much to your success as what you do do.