Brett Bernstein, co-founder, and CEO at Gatsby (gatsby.ai) delivers an informative overview of the current state of consumer marketing and promotions. From healthy foods vending machines to healthcare, Bernstein's background and knowledge in business are as diverse as it is deep. He has spent his career launching products and businesses that cut to the heart of the consumer/brand experience. And Bernstein's interest in influencer marketing and promotions fueled his desire to launch Gatsby. Bernstein and his team are focused on bringing real solutions to online brands to help businesses engage in social media in a more authentic and interesting way, to assist them with the creation of promotions that are elegant and intriguing, that bring more traffic— and conversions.

Bernstein recounts how he came to the realization that there was a hole in the market, especially regarding e-commerce. For as every brand is social, and nearly every buyer has a social media presence, Bernstein observed that businesses were wasting time and resources by not fully putting their efforts toward the activation of the brand's consumers and customers who are already engaged.

By connecting businesses with real social customers and offering a powerful toolbox to custom-brand outgoing promotions that are subtle, but get results, Gatsby is reinventing the way we do business. Gatsby provides online innovation that can help leverage existing customers and interested parties to open up more opportunity. As Bernstein states, through their innovation and automation, Gatsby-backed promotions yield higher quality results. Bernstein acknowledges that Gatsby gathers information and works with Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but it is Instagram that they find most intriguing, as 80% of their registrations and interested parties are activating via Instagram. The days are gone in which consumers look to traditional advertising to influence their buyer behavior.

As most consumers are now hooked into technology at a higher level, they are observing and monitoring brands in multiple ways through a wide swath of avenues, thus contemporary brands must be authentic, and businesses have to bring their A-game. Consumers want brands that are unique, have a story to tell, and they crave human connection. Thus they prefer brands that people are talking about, that their friends and social media influencers value.

The branding and promotions expert provides an overview of the few easy steps that any business, big or small, can take to get plugged in immediately to the Gatsby platform and begin driving their sales and conversions to a higher level. And he gives a detailed description of the various tools and methods that users can choose to tailor their Gatsby performance and experience to their unique needs.