Our Springleap CEO, Eran, was recently interviewed by Tiffany over at Yotpo! Check it out: 

We are happy to interview Eran Eyal, the Co-Founder of Crowdtech, evly.com and Springleap.com. Besides that Eran is an entrepreneur, tech journalist and a recent speaker at Tedx. Moreover he’s a technology Journalist on Cape Talk KFM and Radio 702 Primedia Broadcasting.

In your opinion how important is online content strategy for e-commerce perspective strategy?

Hugely so. more so now than ever – players are realizing that engagement precedes consumption and that there are long lasting benefits to organic SEO of creating engaging content. Engaged consumers hang around for longer on your site and are not just consuming your products, but your culture. People aren’t fans of products. They’re fans of the ideas, the conversation and the delivery. Great products are a GIVEN. The world doesn’t need more bad product.

How do social media and social networks fit in the e-commerce perspective marketing?

That’s a interesting one – Scommerce has yet to find traction – perhaps it’s the mindset of people in spaces like Facebook that they don’t want to buy within the Facebook system, but it’s equally possible no-one has cracked the S-Consumer code yet. I’m pretty confident someone will crack the model wide open. Once this happens – watch out – the propensity to consume via sCommerce will be set and the trend will follow.

I won’t expand too much on this since we have a model to address this issue due this year which we believe will be the soothing balm to this glaring problem. (Secrets! JOY!) Inhouse your social media conversation. Get a great community manager who sets and keeps and even tone for the brand – don’t farm out your conversations. It’s bad business in principle. Any social media work should be holistic to your real-world strategy. The whole idea of social is to take something you do or are doing REGULARLY or as a part of the core brand strategy and create conversation around it wherever the conversation can occur. It doesn’t matter which platform it is – the key is to converse around what you do rather than seek a conversation for conversation or hype’s sake.

You should be outsourcing strategy and adspend -but to avoid tears: Ask the company you’re speaking to the following questions: What previous successes have you had? On what budget? What do you consider a success? Who will be managing my account? What is their experience?

What tips would you give founders/CEOs on how to keep a team motivated?

Don’t separate yourself from your team. If you do you will never understand what truly motivates them. Some CEOs build up a thick management layer to protect themselves. I think that just makes one thick skinned. The best CEOs I know out there, walk into an office and know the majority of the staff (if not all!) personally and have vetted their hire – that buy-in is based on a cultural fit as much as any other criteria.

The closer you are to the team, the sooner you hear rumblings and shaking.

Springleap.com is a perfect example for a successful business that uses the crowd sourcing social media as a platform. What advice would you offer to sites wanting to commerce enable their sites?

There are so many platforms available. First off – don’t go develop what’s already out there. There is no intrinsic value to recreating Magento, Shopify and others. Rather integrate what exists. That way you stay on point with your core business model and they push the tech forward. Springleap was created from the ground up because at the time the products available didn’t have decent APIs or weren’t flexible enough to develop around quickly.

Cool inside info: Springleap are now offering embedable micro-shops to clients who run design contests with us. This means that at Springleap clients can now run a contest to source new designs for products, engage their fans to to consumer uptake testing and get their buy-in, have Springleap produce the products and then have their own custom shop in Springleap to resell the products. Springleap will handle all the distribution, admin, logistics. That means you get a cheque at the end of the month, no hassles and a sterling report. The embedable part? This means that WITH NO DEVELOPMENT necessary – we can embed the shop and entire experience in your site, Facebook, blog or to share with affiliates and partners.

Yotpo’s goal is revolutionizing the way vendors integrate product reviews. How much influence do you think product reviews play in a costumers purchasing decision?

Massive – especially with regards to technology products. Before I buy any product, I hunt down product reviews from several sources.

More to the point – have a look at products like eKomi and Get Satisfaction, where it’s been proven in consumer behavior testing, that allowing community members and experts to rate and review contents and products creates greater uptake.

Reviews create trust – either from an authoritative source or a peer.

We wanted to thank Eran for the interview, we learned a lot!

See more on Yotpo here.