ChatGenie wants to help MSMEs achieve their full potential: Signing up in the Booster program is for free!

ChatGenie, a mini-app development startup company, introduces MSME Booster Program which aims to provide micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) six months of free online store on Messenger, Instagram, Viber, GCash, and other business tools. 

ChatGenie wants to make e-commerce simple, easy, and convenient for both sellers and their customers. It provides online stores inside Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Viber, GCash, and other Super Apps with no commission fees to businesses and retail brands. Its features include end-to-end solutions from online ordering to online payments via partners like GCash, PayMaya, BPI, PayMongo, and Paynamics among others. Deliveries are fulfilled via partners like Grab Express and Lalamove.

“With the current situation where people stay home to stay safe, businesses have taken their sales strategies online. However, many small businesses don’t have the advantage of having a big team to handle their sales inquiries, inventories and deliveries. The ChatGenie model makes it easy to seal a deal. It saves sellers time and effort because they don’t need to process each order since it is automated,” says Ragde Falcis, Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of ChatGenie.  

Grow and go Pro

ChatGenie wants to help MSMEs achieve their full potential, which is why signing up in the Booster program is for free. It also comes with benefits such as exclusive guides and insights on emerging eCommerce trends and exclusive access to events like webinars and workshops with speakers from Facebook and PayMongo. Participants will also get free online payment processing fees for 2 months courtesy of PayMongo, zero disbursement fees from NextPay, and business-grade fiber for only Php90 for the first 90 days with free cancellation fees from PLDT Enterprise.

The company also offers the chance to get Facebook Ad credits via the Chat Plugin program for subscribers who have high-traffic sites and complimentary marketing support via features on the ChatGenie website and social media platforms.

For Filipino MSMEs who want to try the features of ChatGenie, they are offering a 3-month ChatGenie Pro subscription for free. Subscription benefits include being able to access sales through Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Viber and the GCash Sales Channel, where they can upload up to 1,000 products on their store.

The free 3-month Pro subscription can be extended up to three more months if they are able to achieve 300 orders through the program. This subscription also comes with exclusive freebies and discounts from program partners such as, access to unlimited report downloads, advance orders for QSR and Food Retail, location-based pricing and customer message field on Product Page, and Pro-level Technical Support. Registration is up to November 30, 2021 and is limited to the first 100 MSMEs. 

Mercato, BlueCoffee, and Dinosaurs Island are few of the MSMEs who have already successfully boarded the program. To register on the program, go to https://chatgenie.ph/accelerator/.

 

Canva: New features include a Content Planner, TikTok publishing and Instagram Reels

Global online design platform Canva is leading the charge into emerging social networks, it announces a raft of new social media features including the ability to plan and schedule content directly from Canva as well as new templates and publishing options for TikTok and Instagram Reels.

With much of Canva’s early success and exponential growth stemming from the overwhelming need for a quick and easy way to create eye-catching social media content, the design tool is now used by more than 30 million people from 190 countries creating everything from t-shirts to presentations, videos, posters and more.

As Canva continues to double down on its rapidly growing marketing suite, the company is looking back to its roots, today announcing a raft of new features to further empower content creators and small businesses using social media to connect with their communities. 

Available from today to Canva Pro subscribers and more than 60,000 nonprofit organizations as part of Canva’s Nonprofit program, Canva’s new Content Planner now makes it possible to schedule upcoming social media content directly from the Canva Editor to a range of social networking platforms, solving the need for manually downloading individual Canva designs or paying for standalone social media scheduling tools.

“There has never been a more critical time for sharing messages on social media, particularly amid the ongoing pandemic as small businesses work to keep their customers informed, millions of people look to kickstart their own side-hustle and community groups work to stay connected despite being apart. While these product updates will add even more value to Canva’s growing repertoire of marketing capabilities, we hope they’ll also go a long way in keeping people connected, creative, and together,” said Head of Canva Pro, David Burson.

Canva’s regularly updated library of social media templates provides a wide variety of fresh content ideas with everything from sales announcements to TikTok challenges, and for those looking to publish to multiple platforms at once, Canva’s Magic Resize feature takes time-saving and productivity even further. Gone are the days of creating multiple designs with unique dimensions for each platform. With only a few clicks, Canva can automatically resize and schedule your designs optimized for a variety of social platforms.

With 80% of Canva Pro users using the platform in a marketing capacity, Canva Pro also includes access to an additional 170,000 premium templates and tools such as Canva’s Background Remover, Brand Kit, and the ability to export designs with Transparent Backgrounds.

“Canva's new Content Planner will empower anyone to amplify their social media strategy, engage their online communities and save valuable time and money. We’re excited to be rolling out this new set of marketing tools for Filipino small to medium business owners who can now plan, design, and schedule captivating social media content directly from the Canva Editor,” said Yani Hornilla-Donato, Canva Philippines Country Lead.

In addition to the new Content Planner, Canva has also launched a variety of templates to help content creators capitalize on the mass adoption of both TikTok and Instagram Reels. The new templates are available to all users along with the ability to publish from Canva’s video editor directly to TikTok.

“The emergence of these new social networking platforms presents a unique opportunity for content creators to engage with new audiences in ways that weren’t previously possible. We’re thrilled to be rolling out these new templates and publishing options as we double down on our mission of empowering our community to design anything and publish anywhere,” explained Burson.

Canva’s Content Planner and scheduling currently supports Facebook pages and groups as well as Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack, Pinterest, Weibo and Tumblr with more platforms coming soon.

Smart announces FREE Instagram for prepaid, postpaid subs

Another first from the leader in mobile

Millions of subscribers of Smart Communications (Smart) can now enjoy free access to one of the world’s most popular photo-sharing social media networks, Instagram, whenever they subscribe to top prepaid offers or the latest postpaid plans from the undisputed leader in mobile.

With the Free Instagram offer, Smart subscribers will be able to freely browse their Instragram feeds and upload their own photos and videos from their smartphones without additional data charges.

Prepaid subscribers will be able to enjoy free Instagram browsing and posting for up to 30MB per day with any popular prepaid promos that include All Text 20, Unli Call & Text 30, All in 99 and Mega 250, among many others.  

Users who subscribe to any of Smart’s Surf Plus Plans, meanwhile, will instantly be able to enjoy the Free Instagram offer as part of their freebie app bundle for 30 days.

“More than just connecting, Instagram has allowed its users to give their friends and families a peek into people and the things they love the most—from the most vivid details of their daily lives, to the most exciting things that they are currently passionate about,” said Ariel P. Fermin, Executive Vice President and Consumer Business Group Head at Smart.

“It’s more than just ‘sharing’, ‘liking’ or ‘commenting’—Instagram is giving Filipinos the chance to preserve their precious memories in visual form, and Smart is proud to provide access to all of these anytime, everywhere through our innovative mobile services,” Fermin added.

The Free Instagram offer comes on the heels of the company’s efforts to help its subscribers live the ‘Smart Life,’ which gives them access to the best digital services and most meaningful innovations that allow them to live out their passions in life.

The offer is seen to benefit the millions of Instagram users across the country, as well as those who have yet to try the app on their phones. Instagram is currently among the top five most used app by Philippine mobile users, according to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report.

It is the latest in the aggressive bid of PLDT’s wireless units to further grow its mobile data business, which in the first quarter of 2015 rose by 19% year-on-year, culling more than P2.2 billion in revenues during the period.

Smart’s mobile data traffic likewise increased by 188% during the same period, with subscribers exchanging more than 21 terabytes of traffic across the network fueled by pioneering offers such as the free Internet promo, which gave users 30MB of free mobile data everyday.

With the Free Instagram offer, Smart is continuing to enable Filipinos to enjoy entertainment everywhere through their mobile devices, with the help of other game-changing partnerships and services through iflix, FOX, SPINNR, and YouTube, among many others.

For more information on Smart’s Free Instagram offer, visit smart.com.ph/pages/freeinstagram.