Connected Creative and Free

Hello, today I’m going to be talking about Instagram for business. I know there is a lot of advice about using Instagram for your business that already exists on the internet and I do not want to add to the noise of endless recommendations, have-to’s and “shoulds” to add to your list. I have a little bit of a different approach so today I'm going to talk to you about:  The 2 kinds of Instagram business account Types of post Tools I use to create content An easy Instagram content strategy based on content types You can read the blog here: https://connectedmarketing.com.au/instagram-for-business/ I look forward to connecting with you and I hope you are having a beautiful day xx

One of the best tools you can have in place for an online business is Acuity for booking sessions with clients and taking payments. You can save so much time: instead of sending endless emails or messages back and forth trying to find a mutually agreeable session time. PLUS you can start to deliver services, take payments and operate online using Acuity. What is Acuity? Acuity is an online tool you can use for free or you can use the paid version which enables you to take payments, sync to your calendar and customise the appearance to a greater extent. Here are the basic steps: Create appointment and class types Send the person a url where they will go and choose a time (and pay if needed) Easy huh? But there is a bit of set up to get you there. Don’t fret – it’s not too hard and I’ll show you how in the video above. No website? No worries…. The beauty of Acuity is that you can start setting up sessions and taking payments before you even have a website or as a way to side-step setting up eCommerce on your website. That’s how I started my business. What about costs? There is a free version which is the one I use. However, you can’t take payments on the free version. I use another tool in my swag for payment processing.  PLUS on the paid version you get calendar sync and customising the appearance more. Check out the post and video here: https://connectedmarketing.com.au/acuity-set-up/

Once you’ve set up the Marketing Basics for your business you might be ready for MORE! More clients, more revenue and more marketing. If you have your website, branding and Facebook set up and you want more, I would encourage you to walk through the following steps to grow your business to the next level. If you don’t have your basics set up I suggest you check out the previous podcast where I outlined the basic steps and then you could pop back here and take your pick of excellent 2nd stage moves. If you are ready, then choose one of these at a time, dedicate yourself for 1-3 months and then choose another. If you follow all of these recommendations, you will definitely start to see some business growth over time. 1. Strategy There are way too many ways to grow your business and too many experts trying to sell you their latest product. If you have a strategy and a target you are shooting for with steps to follow, you will have HEAPS more mental clarity on the day to day level. You will have a bubble around you to protect you from shiny objects and random (latest, new, fantastic) marketing trends. So first things first, you need a strategy. Tick? Move on to the next step 🙂 2. IRL marketing If you are inclined, I ALWAYS recommend personal connections. Local networking events are one way to connect with actual humans. But don’t be a gross salesy person. Just go with the intention of meeting some humans. My coach Melanie White has a great podcast about this you can listen to here. Listen to that podcast HERE >> Word of mouth and referral marketing are frequently the best way to reach more clients so it’s a great option if that works for your personailty and nature. 3. Get the Facebook© pixel on your website Whether you are planning to ads yet or not, if you have a website and you have a long term vision for your business, you need the pixel on your site. It’s very easy to get the pixel on your site. If you have a WordPress site and you are a little savvy, you can use the Pixel My Site plug in and put the pixel on yourself. You’ll probably find these instructions from Facebook helpful: And if you’re not into stuff like that, your developer should be able to help you. If you don’t have a developer, I can help you! Basically, the pixel is a small piece of code that lets Facebook© know when someone who has a Facebook© account has been to your website. It stores that data for 180 days and allows you to target your promotional posts to those people. It’s very nifty and a bit creepy. But you don’t have to use it in a creepy way! It’s a great way to stay in touch with people who are interested in your service but need more information to decide whether or not to continue with you. I highly recommend! It takes 10 minutes and is a true business asset now and in the future. 4. Add people to your Facebook© Ad account And if you are ready to run ads…you might need a hand so you’ll need to know how to add other people to your ad account. It’s not too hard and while you’re in there you’ll find all kinds of other nifty info like your daily ads limit and your billing maximum. Make friends with your back end! Lucky for you I made this easy to understand video so you can do that! Read the whole blog HERE

Whether you are online only, bricks and mortar only, service based or product based and whatever mix of those 4, there are some things I recommend ALL businesses set up FIRST. Obviously, every business has distinct needs and every industry has different recommendations that I would make. The recoommendations in this post apply to EVERYONE 🙂 This post if for you if you are very new to it all and you haven’t set up very much or you’re wondering what to focus on FIRST. If you already have a website and Facebook you would probably benefit more from my other post about the next steps after Facebook and website set up which you will find it in the next episode.  Now, if you’re at the very beginning, what do you need? #1 Facebook Business Page Whether you want to be active on Facebook or not, I still recommend that everyone set up a business page for your business. NOT a personal profile, but a PAGE. If you want to really focus on your website for ownership issues, or you just don’t like Facebook, I would still encourage you to have presence on the Face-beast. Facebook pages show up in Google searches easily and a lot of people will search Facebook BEFORE they Google search. If you aren’t really on Facebook because you love Instagram more – I would STILL recommend at least having a presence. You will thank me later 🙂 #2 Create a website A website is a business asset. Everyone “Googles it” these days and if you don’t even have a simple one page site you are missing out on customers. AND if you ONLY have a presence on Facebook you risk putting all of your eggs in one basket. Having said that, I made $10k in my business before I had a website so it’s not the FIRST step but it is a VERY.IMPORTANT.THING.FOR.EVERY.BUSINESS. So get a website! #3 Fonts If you aren’t cashed up enough to see a graphic designer and get your branding created professionally I recommend you choose at least 2-3 fonts that you are going to stick to for now. One heading font One sub-heading font and One paragraph/body font I recomend you check out Canva and find a design in their templates that you like then use the 2-3 fonts on that design. You can always get professional branding later or change your fonts later. Just don’t change then every week or people won’t be able to develop a visual relationship with your business. #4 Colours Just like fonts, it’s important to have some visual consistency in your online presence. From that Canva design you liked, you might be able to choose 1-3 colours to stick with for now. I recommend Black and White and 1-2 other colours. Even just one colour + black + white. Even just black + white. Keep it simple for now. And be consistent. You can get fancy later when you have more clarity about your business and audience. Need a hand to get set up? I help businesses set up all of these marketing assets: websites, Facebook pages, as well as affordable 101 branding with your fonts, logo and colours. Book in a time for a free chat if you are wondering whether I can help YOUR business. book a free chat

Have you heard of SSL? Do you sometimes get warnings that your website or sites that you are visiting are not secure? In this blog I’m going to explain a bit about what SSL is and why it’s important for your website and for browsing on the internet in general. Enjoy! What is SSL? SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and is an additional level of security you can place on your site. It basically encrypts and encodes any data that leaves one user and goes to another user. For example, when you enter your credit card details into a checkout on a website, your information travels through the internet as data. This data gets sent to the business who you are buying from or their payment processing company like PayPal and the like. That is the basis of the internet – data travelling from there to me. Why do I need SSL? If you don’t have an SSL certificate on your website, users may get a warning that your site is not secure. This will stop most people from visiting your site. Sometimes this warning will display very early in the process of your website being built if your developer hasn’t activated your SSL yet. You should get in touch with them and your host to resolve this if it’s displaying once your site is live. It used to be the case that only businesses who were selling products desired an SSL but nowdays all websites will use SSL to maximise trust with their visitors. Why does it matter? If you are the website user, it is important that you don’t enter any personal or payment details into a website that doesn’t have an SSL. It is very helpful to know how to check this if your browser doesn’t give you this information (see the video for how to check). And if you are the website owner, it is essential that your website visitors feel that their data is safe with you or they won’t want to make purchases and they may not even feel safe to visit your site at all! Do want to chat about your website? I help people create Simple, Beautiful websites. I also love to help people feel empowered about their website so they can use it without having to worry about breaking it! If you need a hand or would like to chat about how I can help you, go ahead and click the button below and make a time for a free chat (using my secure scheduling tool 🙂 ) Book a free chat now