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Digital Support FAQ – Future plc

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READING CONTENT ON DIFFERENT APPLE DEVICES

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USING A DESKTOP COMPUTER

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MAGAZINE ISSUE HAS DISSAPEARED FROM THE APP

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Open the magazine app and tap the Help bell at the bottom-right of the screen. iPhone users should then tap the More button on the top-right corner.
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Leave the app and return to the home screen.
Uninstall the app by tapping and holding the app icon until it shakes, then tapping the ‘X’ to delete the app.
Restart your device.
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Reinstall the app by searching for it using the Search function, or downloading from the Purchased section under your Apple ID icon. Note that Magazines Direct subscribers will need to sign-in again after downloading and opening the app.
Open the app, and tap Restore Purchases. The option to Restore iTunes Purchases can also be found in the Help section of the app. (located by tapping the More button on iPhones)
Try downloading your issue as normal.

DOWNLOAD ISSUE STUCK IN QUEUED

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Close the app – to do this, double-tap the Home button and swipe up on the app. Click the app icon to open the app again. If the problem persists, try closing all other open apps to free up system resources. Finally, try deleting and reinstalling the app then re-downloading the affected issue.

COMPLETE YOUR COLLECTION BUTTON

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GIFTING SUBSCRIPTIONS

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BILLING SUPPORT

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ACCESSIBILITY

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For detailed instructions please visit the Amazon Kindle support pages; further information about using VoiceOver with the Kindle app can also be found via the relevant support pages.

How to write a post-acquaintance on Instagram

Post-acquaintance is used not only by bloggers, but also by companies. This section helps to emphasize the brand’s image, acquaint the user with the author’s activities, interest in the story, so that the visitor proceeds to perform a specific action. In this article, we will learn how to write a post about yourself, what tricks to use and what to avoid.

What is post-acquaintance and why is it needed
How to write an introduction post
Tips for a good post
Mistakes when writing an introduction post
How to choose the right hashtags for a post
Good example posts about yourself
Conclusion

What is post-acquaintance and why is it needed

Post-acquaintance is a self-presentation in which you talk about what you plan to do on the social network and what you can give users useful. At the end, be sure to add a call to action: “Subscribe”, “Leave a comment”, “Save the post”.

You can find similar publications from influencers, freelancers, experts and companies. Thus, new members of the community are introduced in accordance with the norms of online etiquette.

Many people think that such posts should be published only at the start, but along with Instagram, your life is changing – and users are interested in following what is happening every time.

Greetings are released when a loyal audience gathers in the profile or new members subscribe – for example, after a raffle or advertising.

Recommended reading! Learn more about Instagram:

How to create templates for Instagram: a creative guide
What are Instagram ads and how to set them up
How to sell on Instagram 90 007
How to create an Instagram chatbot for business
What Instagram statistics consist of and what it affects
Instagram design: how to make your profile attractive to the audience
45 Story Ideas Collection
How to Get Instagram Followers in 2021
How to Use Instagram Guides to Promote Organically
Ideas for posts. 50 ideas for any public and business

Pros of greetings

Let’s analyze the pros of greetings in the profile:

Share details about yourself and new information.
Convince users of your expertise and usefulness.
Increase loyalty, as dating posts are personal information.
Increase subscriber engagement. Once published, you can create a survey and collect user questions.
Emphasize the benefits of your account.

Directions of greeting

There are two main directions:

Brief biography. Freeform writing – you can start with the history of the company or from the moment you decided to start a blog.
Storytelling. Mini-story text with an instructive effect or main idea, as well as a call to action. It is allowed to continue publishing such stories even after the greeting, combining them into a whole series of posts. This will keep the user’s interest for a long time.

How to write an introduction post

In this section, we’ll go through the steps of creating an introduction post.

Determining the purpose of the account

First, determine the purpose of the profile:

A personal blog created to promote you as a brand. In the greeting, it would be appropriate to tell about yourself, about your hobbies and interests, as well as about what experience you will share with subscribers.
Commercial account for companies is designed to attract an audience that will buy a product or order a service. The greeting can tell about the history of the organization, its mission and goals, advantages and production facilities, as well as products.

Preparation

When you have decided on the purpose of the account, you need to prepare before writing a greeting:

Determine the target audience – who you want to attract to your profile, who will be interested in reading your publications and making purchases, where your future subscribers are located, what are their interests and fears.
Study your competitors and how they write greetings. Take a look at their features and take note of the most effective tricks to attract an additional audience.
After receiving this data, you can choose the idea for the post and the plot, as well as understand what emotions you want to evoke in the reader.
Proceed to the preparation of the publication plan – enter the key words, thoughts and abstracts.
Think of a title. For example, it can be a question or thought that will reflect the essence of the publication.
Choose a photo or creative for a future introduction post.

Remember that the main thing in a greeting is to attract attention. Don’t forget about creative, hashtags, geotagging, and promotion through ads and stories.

Effective post-acquaintance formulas

Let’s look at several formulas that can be used to write a greeting.

Publication formula	How to use
“About me + personal qualities + education + hobby + question”	Think of a post in the form of a questionnaire. Write down information about yourself, and at the end ask users a question so that they can tell about themselves. This way you can collect information about the engaged audience.
“Intro + Story + Conclusion”	This is a classic storytelling format: an introduction, an outset, a climax and a conclusion – a call to action.
“Who am I/we + what I write about + who I write for”	Introduce yourself to the audience, tell what your posts will be about and to whom they are addressed. This format is suitable for those cases when new subscribers have come to you and you already have a permanent base. For example, after contests or sweepstakes.
“Who am I/we + how useful”	Briefly describe yourself and show in the text how you can be useful to your audience. At the end, add a call to action that tells users how to contact you or get more information.
“Fact + story + investigation”	You can start this post with an interesting fact about you. It could be a skill, a quality, or a characteristic. Next, move on to the story that helped develop or discover your trait. In conclusion, explain to subscribers how it helps you in life.
“Link + Description”	If you have multiple accounts, such as personal and commercial, you can post multiple links with a brief description of each profile.
“Hobby = business”	This post is for those who turned their hobby into work. In the introduction, ask subscribers a question about a hobby, then tell them about your hobby and how it turned into a business.
“I/we are online + I/we are offline”	If you have an account for business promotion and points of sale, tell the audience about the location of the stores and invite them to visit them.
“Before/before”	In the title, write a call that will encourage users to read the post. And in the text, tell us about the achievements in the format “where did you start and where did you come to”. At the end, add a proposal to use your services to achieve the same results as yours.
Mini Story	If you don’t want to write about yourself in detail – formulate the same thing, but briefly. Tell us who you are, what you do and what your competitive advantage is. Be sure to include a call to action at the end.

Important! And to communicate with your followers, add an Instagram chatbot and a multilink that will help the audience get acquainted with your projects and products. With the SendPulse service, you can also sell through a free CRM system.

A simple yet powerful landing page builder

Create a mobile landing page, online store or multi link for Instagram and promote it via messenger chatbots, email and SMS – all on one platform!

Tips for a good post

A few tips on how to write a good greeting:

Call to action. Based on the text, you must determine the user’s action: write a comment – tell about yourself, order a product or service, subscribe to an account or follow a link.
Text structure. The logic of the story should flow smoothly from one thought to another. Try to avoid abrupt and illogical transitions.
Tell the truth. No need to make up stories – you can embellish, but you can’t write outright lies. Sooner or later it will open up – and you can lose the attention and trust of the audience.
Emotions. The post should evoke certain emotions in your audience so that readers can experience them with you and try on the situation for themselves.
Uniqueness. Show in the text chips or a selection of your own recommendations that will help users.
Header. The first thing the user notices is the title. For example, it could be a question.
Literacy and paragraphs. Don’t forget to check the text for errors. Also divide the story into paragraphs and lists, add emoji. Users will be able to fix their eyes on important points and it is easier to perceive the text.

Important! Please note that you can add up to 2200 characters per post, including hashtags. Try not to cut the text halfway through and add its ending in the comments. You can insert a part of the story into a picture and add it to the image carousel.

Mistakes when writing an introduction post

Consider three common mistakes in greetings:

Too many facts that don’t tell your audience anything. For example, what kind of fruit do you like or what is your favorite color. If you are just starting to maintain an account on Instagram, this information will be useless for the target audience.
Slang and terms. Difficult or new words may be incomprehensible to new audiences. Try to communicate with users in their language, as if you were telling a story to a friend who does not understand your work.
Don’t forget the goal. Greeting is not just a publication, but a way to attract the reader to perform a certain action.

How to choose the right hashtags for a post

Be sure to add hashtags and geotags to the post – they will help you find you on the social network. You can use up to 30 tags to be inserted into the post body.

Hashtags can be:

Professional, which describe your activity — #journalist, #blogger, #designer.
By post category — #postacquaintance, #5factobomb.
Sellers – #copywriter services, #repair of apartments.
By location to find a specific target audience — #moscow, #msk.

Important! Dilute high frequency hashtags with medium or low frequency hashtags. So you will have a better chance of finding your target audience.

To find tags, use the search engine on Instagram or specialized services: Instatag.ru, Clarifai, Mafluence, Keyword Tool.io.

Good examples of posts about yourself

Let’s look at some real examples of greetings.

Below is a screenshot of a post introducing the author to new subscribers. The text contains a story about what the girl did and who she works now. After that, there is a description of what the user can learn from the blog, and at the end there is a call for subscribers to tell about themselves.

Post for new subscribers in the format “who am I + what is useful.”

Post for new subscribers

And here is a screenshot of the greeting, in which the author indicated links and hashtags to useful posts and other accounts.

Publication in the “link + description” format.

Screenshot of the greeting with 10 facts about the author. This publication is suitable for further acquaintance with subscribers, which reveals the blogger’s expertise.

Greeting to show expertise

Post from a company that introduces subscribers to experts. In this case, there are a number of publications that talk about each employee and their benefits.

Greetings for companies

Another option to introduce subscribers to the company is to tell the story of its formation – for example, in several parts, as in the screenshot below.

History of the company to get acquainted with the brand

Format of the post in the form of “before/before”. The author tells how she came to the activity from which she enjoys.

Greeting in two formats “before/before”

Post in the format “who am I + what is useful”. The author introduces himself to subscribers at the beginning, and then shows his usefulness. At the end, a call to action was added – “write to Direct.”

Greeting in the format “who am I + what is useful for”

Conclusion

In this article, we looked at the post-acquaintance and learned how to write it correctly and what mistakes to avoid.

A greeting is a great way to grab the attention of subscribers and new audiences. You can tell new facts about yourself, share successes and increase the credibility of your profile.

A win-win option for publishing about yourself:

85% of the text is information about the author of the account.
10% withdrawal.
5% is a call to action.

Also, according to the scheme described above, you can make a similar post in other social networks.

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3 reasons why subscription services fail

From 2012 to 2019, the subscription service economy grew by more than 300%, and 75% of direct-to-consumer companies said they would offer subscription services by next year.

However, with so many companies adopting this business model, competition is fierce and some of the big players are having trouble retaining their customers. According to Gartner, “Only 20% of gamers will succeed in increasing retention.”

What causes subscriber gains and losses? What causes an otherwise promising subscription business to lose customers? And how can companies build loyalty to keep them?

First, let’s define what a subscription business is.

More than regular income

Subscription does not only mean regular payments. Rentals, leasing, and memberships generate recurring income, but none of these models count as a subscription. So what’s the difference? A subscription is when a customer pays for a future delivery of a product or service that involves a certain degree of variability.

If you are asked to name an example of such a business, one of the first associations is a subscription to a magazine. Subscribers pay an annual fee, not knowing what articles they will read in the next issue.

Many companies call their business a subscription, but this is not quite true. Similarly, credit, rent, and monthly payments give customers access to a predictable commodity—a car, a house, or a tuxedo—so they are not subscriptions either.

Essentially, the economic value of a successful subscription business depends on the strength of the habits they create. Over the past decade, writer Nir Eyal has studied the fundamental characteristics of habit-forming products to determine how companies engage consumers. He identified four steps that successful companies build into the customer experience and called it the “hook model”:

trigger (which encourages customers to use the product),
action (habitual behaviour),
variable reward (which satisfies the need of users for the service),
investments (which make the product more valuable in use).

A closer look at the hook model reveals the most common mistakes companies make when launching a subscription.

1. Too many steps

How often have you decided that you didn’t want to start streaming because it would take too long to find a good movie? Sometimes the search takes even longer than the browsing.

For example, Netflix now has an endless selection of options, which is nothing like DVDs sent through the mail. By the way, initially it was this service that brought the company success. It was only necessary to open the red cover, take out the disc and insert it into the player. No choice, no thinking – just watch what you have already chosen. Netflix beat its rival Blockbuster on ease of use.

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When your product is harder to satisfy than others, your subscription business is in trouble. You risk losing customers at the action stage.

Netflix is now more on the defensive. With so many entertainment options offering instant relief from boredom (think YouTube, TikTok, Instagram*), Netflix can’t go back to the days when subscribers watch whatever comes in the mail. They got an endless choice, having lost their simplicity.

Netflix is aware of this issue and is trying to make it easier to choose a movie or TV show. The streaming service is experimenting with a “Play Something” feature that allows you to quickly watch something. However, this is not quite what is required.

People don’t want to watch “something”. They turn to Netflix expecting to find something good. Viewers even begin to look for their own solutions. For example, they add critic ratings to the site through Chrome extensions to make it easier to choose.

Netflix is worth taking note of. If a subscription service is harder to use than other solutions, it will fail.

2.

Not enough novelty

The peculiarity of people is that we do not know how to feel satisfaction for a long time.

It’s like a special program is preinstalled in our brain that makes us tired of the old and look for the new. This is called “hedonic adaptation”. It is for this reason that lottery winners and paralyzed people tend to end up returning to the same level of happiness they experienced before the life-changing events.

Our tendency to quickly return to the initial level of satisfaction makes us vulnerable to one of the supernatural stimuli that we find hardest to resist: surprise. Variable rewards make gambling fun, TV fun, sports exciting, and social media so compelling that we get used to it.

We are constantly curious and looking for something new, something better. Therefore, we stop paying for subscriptions that will not constantly offer something new.

Text photo: Iryna Imago / Shutterstock

Let’s take a look at the popular trend of boxed services. Today, in this format, you can buy anything – from underwear to bones for a dog or slimes. Some of these services, such as the classic Book of the Month Club, have been around for centuries. But many appear and disappear faster than wondering why a subscription to dice in a box is needed.

Decreased variability is a key reason for customers to opt out of subscription services. A few months later, boxed services go out of their way to maintain an element of surprise with every delivery of socks or protein bars. When the ratio of interesting to ordinary is too low, customers lose interest and find alternatives (usually cheaper ones).

Fortunately, there is a way to increase the variance factor and maintain interest in the subscription service: get users to improve the service as they use it. And here we move on to the investment phase.

3. No cumulative value

Software as a service can be a very profitable subscription business. Gross margins for SaaS products are incredibly high. Providers of habit-forming programs receive high cost estimates.

Because their products are often free to try, SaaS has a competitive advantage over software that requires a high initial cost. Attracting new users is relatively easier if there is less friction involved.

However, customer retention is a different story. Ask anyone in SaaS to name the most important metric, the one that keeps them awake at night, and they’ll tell you it’s user churn. If you fail to retain customers, they will stop using the service and stop paying.

Many subscription services neglect the critical fourth step of the Hook Model, the investment phase. At this stage, the user adds something to the product that makes it better to use, forcing himself to return to it again and again. This principle can be called stored value.

It can take many forms, depending on the type of service. Giving data, publishing content, attracting subscribers, making connections, and building reputation are just a few examples of how subscribers can add value to a product over time. Many companies use the “hook model” to ensure that their subscription service improves with use.

Read on:

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Let’s take Clockwise as an example. Large organizations such as Airtable, Asana and Atlassian use the SaaS calendaring tool, and these are just the first names in the list of the company’s 15,000 corporate accounts. Earlier this year, Clockwise raised $45 million and said its tool “unlocked two million hours of concentrated work.”

When used individually, the program determines the best time to recommend future activities and time slots. Francis Larkin, vice president of marketing for Clockwise, says that the tool adapts to the user’s energy level and finds time for focused work on its own.

He adds, “We have a setting to help with Zoom fatigue where we automatically give you a break after two or three hours of meetings. ”

But a service is especially useful when the whole team uses it. “We absolutely believe that we benefit the most when used across the organization, because time is a shared resource,” comments Larkin.

The more users invest in the service by inviting their colleagues and booking time on their schedule, the more visibility and flexibility each user has. Clockwise can save you a lot of time by synchronizing schedules in ways that weren’t possible before. This is a classic network effect that accumulates value over time. Because of this, users get used to the product and can no longer do without it.

Better than boxes

Subscription services are also penetrating into categories where business has often failed.

Think about your morning cup of coffee. If you’ve signed up for a coffee bean delivery service, you’ll likely enjoy it for a while, but as the novelty wears off, you’ll probably drop it—as many have done with countless failed coffee-in-the-box subscription services.

Subscription services benefit from more than unit price or quality. The subscription becomes almost meaningless once the user realizes that these beans are more expensive than those that can be bought at the grocery store, or they are no better than those sold at a nearby coffee shop.

But if a coffee subscription service could offer something unique beyond price, it could retain users. For customers, the value saved can justify the higher price and keep them coming back.

Photo in text: paffy / Shutterstock

For example, Bottomless Coffee service. When subscribing, customers receive a small, ultra-precise, Wi-Fi-enabled scale. The customer stores the coffee on a scale so that the company can “study its consumption and re-order at the right time.”

In this way, the service ensures that customers never run out of fresh beans. Instead of having to remember to buy, receive an order that is too large or too small, or wait for delivery on a fixed schedule, users get exactly what they need, when they need it, as long as they keep paying for a subscription.

Just-in-time coffee ensures that it never gets stale. In addition, by collecting consumption data, Bottomless can tailor future deliveries to customer tastes, thereby maintaining its value.

For example, if a company sees that a certain coffee roast is being consumed quickly, it may conclude that the customer likes it better and ship the same variety with the next batch, providing the customer with something new and ensuring that the choice does not go too far beyond the customer’s taste preferences.

The company is now planning to expand its product range to include household items that will be distributed to customers according to their needs. By forcing customers to retain the value of the service as they use it, Bottomless has the potential to become a leader in its field by offering something that non-subscription services cannot provide: personalization at scale.

Making the most of the “hook model”, subscription services can avoid common churn mistakes and create a service that users will love for a lifetime.