Getting Started

The internet is all aflutter with pins and pictures lately, and unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard of the latest social media craze: Pinterest. Pinterest is a social sharing site in which users create virtual scrapbooks (or pin boards) of images collected from all across the web.
 

What is Pinterest?

If you’re scratching your head thinking, “What is Pinterest?!”, don’t worry! It’s a very simple, fun, and powerful social media site. Pinterest has already become the third most popular social platform in the United States, and with over 160,000 Aussies visiting each the site each month, it’s quickly making its mark here, too. 

Pinterest is a visual scrapbook of sorts. It’s a mix of bookmarking the best content on the web, compiling ideas through images, and sharing it all with your friends. Pool together ideas on a certain topic to reference back to, or guide visitors back to the website of origin to learn more about the pin. (If your wheels are starting to turn with how you can use Pinterest to get traffic on your own website, keep reading! Pinterest has massive potential for business.)

Is it bothering you that all you hear lately are retailers closing their doors for good? Business failure is high and it seems all we hear about is that these economic conditions are only going to get worse.

I tell you; it bothers me!

As a consumer, this impacts on what I can buy as it limits my choice and availability of Australian goods and services. With all this negativity in the air, I’m sure it saddens all small and large businesses within Australia; with ever-more empty retail spaces popping up, the future is the ‘unknown’ for many retailers. 

If you’ve logged into your Facebook business page anytime in the last few weeks, you will have noticed an alert at the top of the page letting you know that a new format, Timeline, is going to be applied to your page starting March 30. That means ready or not, your business page is about to change!

While Timeline for business pages means big differences for how you’ll need to handle your social strategy, the most immediate changes you need to be aware of are aesthetic.

This may come as a shock to you, but Web123’s Support Team takes quite a few calls each day. In spite of our 99.9% uptime (hey, we think it’s worth bragging about!), we field heaps of requests all day long about websites - ranging from accidental deletes and oopses, to site capabilities or mysterious-seeming error messages.

We’ve helped nearly 500 businesses get online, and along the way we’ve picked up a trick or two. It’s inevitable as you’re getting your business online that you’re bound to hit a bump or two. Whether you're looking for help with your Web123 site or tech support anywhere else, knowing the right steps to get help can make all the difference. 

Interviewed by Sarah McCormack, Marketing Manager of Web123.

Hi, it’s Sarah McCormack here with you today. I’m Web123’s Marketing Manager and I’m lucky enough to be interviewing Jack Delosa.

Jack Delosa has been repeatedly featured as one of Australia’s top entrepreneurs, from having his company listed in the Fast 50 Start-Ups in Australia, being listed as one of the top 10 entrepreneurs under 30 in Australia in the Dynamic Business Young Guns and three times listed in Australian Anthill’s 30Under30 Publication.

Jack Delosa has consulted for brands such as Microsoft, Virgin and CPA on the topics of business growth and performance. Today he is a spokesperson for entrepreneurship in Australia and we are very lucky to have spoken to Jack about his journey and the advice he can provide small businesses and entrepreneurs!

Small business marketing can take on many different forms. One of the best new ways of promoting your business online is through videos, especially on YouTube. Here is a how to guide of YouTube strategy for small business -- the easy way!

Facebook can be a challenge for any of us. As a business owner, the stakes are higher as you invest your efforts into building and marketing your business through the social sphere. We asked Web123's Facebook community to share their Biggest Facebook Challenges with us. As firm believers in helping small biz owners "taking on the big guys", here are the challenges you're facing getting your business going on Facebook -- and our advice on how you can overcome them.

The question stands, how do you create a website? All those tech terms and jargon those I.T. Geeks use is really confusing, and in the end you are still left asking ‘how do you create a website, because you didn’t answer my question!’

Frustrating, I know! 

As a business owner you want your business to excell and you want to grow… in order to grow you need MORE leads, MORE sales, MORE cost effective marketing tools, MORE customers and MORE brand awareness. A website can provide all this to grow your business.

Do you ever wish you had a bigger budget to do bigger and better things with like the big boys you compete with? I tell you now, you don’t need it! The big boys should learn a thing or two from you small businesses!