The Social Forge: The Social Forge Episode 6

The Social Forge Episode 6

Apr 4, 2019

Podcast Show Notes

Quote of the Week: Ben Weissenstein who is attributed for saying "Everything started as nothing".

If you are looking for an inspiring or motivational entrepreneurial quote you can find between 100 and 200 quotes on the SocialMediaWright website.

Topics for this week:

In our Business Section: Expense Tracking Apps

In our Website Development Section: E-Commerce Platforms

In our Social Media Marketing Section: Video creation for YouTube, Facebook and other video platforms

Business Section

when evaluating your potential accounting system see if they have an application for the iPhone and Android phone that will enable you to send invoices and record expenses on the go.
as mentioned previously, we use QuickBooks Online and it has an application that allows us to send invoices to customers, record invoice payments, provide estimates and record expenses directly to our general ledger
this enables you to handle transactions no matter where you are
if an app is not available then check out third-party applications with both a desktop and mobile platform.
a number of these applications can be directly integrated with your accounting system so your information will flow from one system to another.
if integration is not possible you can look to a company like Zapier that may be able to provide you with that conduit
one application that you may want to check out is Expensify. They allow you to collect expense information on the go and create a monthly expense report to be submitted to your business. They have a free version and a paid package version that offers integration with different accounting systems. They also have a section to record any travel mileage done in your vehicle for expense purposes.
another app to consider for mileage tracking purposes is MileIQ which is a Microsoft company
the app runs in the background recording your trips so you never forget to record your car travel
you can label certain GPS points it records and it will populate those locations with a name in the future
the app offers 40 free trips per month and if you need more you will have to look at one of their subscription packages.

Website Development Section

we talked about e-commerce platforms continuing our discussion from a few weeks ago on building a website
we indicated that if you already have an existing WordPress website and you now want to integrate an e-commerce platform to your website then you need to check out WooCommerce. WooCommerce is run by the people behind WordPress so you know that it will work with your installation
there are a number of WooCommerce extensions out there that provide payment functionality, marketing, store management and subscription services among other extensions.
if you are just starting to think about building out an e-commerce solution then the WordPress installation mentioned above is one path you could take
another path you should look at is from a company called Shopify.
Shopify is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world and provides a complete integrated solution for your e-commerce platform offering you almost everything you could imagine
they also have credit card swipes for your smartphone and systems for your store or pop-up store
our t-shirt company WeirdMojo is built on the Shopify platform
when looking at an e-commerce provider you should identify those things that are important to you
somethings to consider are:
- helps manage your inventory
- displays your products for sale
- accepts payments
- invoice your customers
- provides shipping and tracking information to your customers
- integrates with social media channels to help promote your products.

Social Media Marketing Section

we talked about the various platforms that you can add video to and you can include video in your advertisements
you can do your first video now, simply by turning on the video record button on your smartphone and capturing video and then upload it to your social media accounts
this may be great to show behind the scenes footage of your office and things that go on during the day or introducing members of your team to your audience
things to consider when shooting video are noise levels in the area you are filming
you may want to find a quieter room if you are depending on the smartphone microphone to pick up your audio
if filming outdoors be aware that outside noise could impact what your smartphone records for audio
if this is a concern consider something like a lavalier microphone.
these microphones are small and can pin to your shirt or jacket and plug into the earphone jack of your smartphone
if you do not have a smartphone ear jack you may need an additional piece of equipment to be able to use your microphone
there are Bluetooth wireless microphones on the market that you could also check out. We have not tried them yet so if you have any experience with them send us an email and let us know your thoughts on them.
we mentioned that many people watch videos without the sound so you may want to caption your videos so they can read your message as the video plays
you can also get captions done in foreign languages to allow your videos to appeal to a wider audience
we mentioned we use Rev.com for this service. They do the caption files for us and then we upload the files to the video hosting platforms we use.
we talked about using a green screen to create video magic
the green screen we use comes in a case and is created by Elgato
we talked about using a teleprompter if you are concerned with forgetting what you want to say on camera
there are a number of teleprompter apps and peripheral equipment that you can purchase to use teleprompter apps on your smartphone with your camera
the app we use is from a company called BigVu in the production of our Social Snippet videos. The app displays our script on the screen of the iPad and the front-facing camera on the iPad films us as we read the script
you can also think about lighting especially if you are using a green screen because you want to avoid shadows on the green screen when you are filming
we talked about software that you can use when editing your videos like Adobe Premiere. The software can be used to replace the green screen with a photo or video of your choice.
we mentioned that we will have a detailed article on SocialMediaWright on Friday about creating videos with some screen footage of us using Adobe Premiere to replace the green screen behind us with a photo of a blackboard that we use in Social Snippets

Conclusion

if you are looking for a place to connect with other entrepreneurs trying to grow their business check out the SocialMediaWright Entrepreneurs Facebook Group

Music for the show: