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Always Keep it Local, If You Can

Recently, I found myself wanting to have a short-run of t-shirts made. So, I went over to Custom Ink and started building a shirt with artwork I had, and was kind of surprised at the price. As with most things, the more you buy the better deal you get. We’ve all been served ads for cool T-shirts that have something specifically targeted at us, like our last name or birth month – then low and behold it’s a $30 t-shirt. Not a polo-esk shirt, a t-shirt. But, we pull the trigger anyway and wait for the shipping thing to happen. After that, you’ll get ads from everyone in the t-shirt world; which is fine- but like most people I already have too many. In fact I pulled out 27 for candidates to be made into a quilt. But, that’s another story.

Back to the beginning. T-shirts. I wanted a dozen made that I designed, and decided to dig around to see who was in my backyard. My backyard these days spans from Lincoln County, NC to Pitt County, NC and up into Southampton County, VA. In this case, I wanted to see who was in Greenville, NC. First, I reached out to MoJo Originals. They were very helpful, but mainly do larger runs of apparel for companies that hire them to do the design work, layout and so fourth. They are an awesome one-stop shop – and I can’t stress enough how kind and informative they are. Find & follow them on Instagram, here. They pointed out that since my logo has a gradient I’d need a DTG printer to produce it. So, I naturally asked if anyone in town had one – and it turns out they do.

Enter – TailGate Classics. I shot them a message on Instagram at something like 10pm, and got a quick response as well. I sent them a couple of images of what I wanted, sizes and so fourth, and they said, “No problem.” They sent me an easy to pay bill that was at least $75-100 lower that Custom Ink, and the money stays in town. I love that. You should love that, too. I can’t emphasize how much it means to businesses, big or small – that their surrounding community support them. There will always be cases that involve or require you to seek outside experts/opinions, but usually you can find what you need in your backyard.

So, here we are. I’ve got my t-shirts ready for pickup and I’m happy that I was able to keep it local.

In efforts to help you find local businesses, here are some helpful links:

Greenville, NC | Chamber of Commerce

Lincolnton, NC | Chamber of Commerce

Southampton County | Chamber of Commerce

Need help? Drop a line to hello@sevenind.com or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin.

Nov 9 2021

Instagram Linking; The Alternative

11/09/2021 / 3 minutes of reading

If you’re here – you know that linking products or other useful information from your Instagram account can be challenging. I see it all the time, and we all experience it regularly. There are a several platforms in existence that will gladly link your content for free, or for a small monthly fee. Now, depending upon your level of need and skill you may not need any of these. After looking at Linktree and a few others, we quickly realized that it was simply a landing page with links from Instagram in order as they were posted. So, we just set up our own page at https://sevenind.com/instagram. Why? It just makes good sense to control all the variables you can. If LinkTree, ContactInBio, Shorby, or any others go down – you’re missing out on business. Additionally, why would you want to send traffic away from your site to begin with? We certainly don’t want to. Building your own link page built for Instagram or any other medium is a must, and is well worth the time.

We think the best way to execute on this is to keep it simple. You’ll have quicker load times and the information will be direct and to the point. You don’t want to create a frenzy of information that will drive people away from your site. That’s why many of the aforementioned services are pretty bare bones. It takes up less room on their servers and gets people back to Instagram, or whatever platform they launch from. Now, we’re not saying hold back on your creativity – we’re saying temper it a little. Playing a little devil’s advocate here; you could take the opportunity to create an experience your audience is not expecting. The internet affords you the opportunity to dream/create whatever you want, and show it to the world. For now, our page is going to be pretty straight forward. We may add post dates to each occurance of new content on the page or a snippet/preview, however. Simplicity, functionality and cleanliness in a busy world is working for us, so far. When the entire USA is not on a data plan and is 5G, then we might make some larger leaps, collectively – and we should.

If you don’t want to build your own page, here are the top 5 to consider:

It does not matter what your profession is, creating a dedicated landing page for all of your Instagram posts is worth it. The analytics alone will tell you a great deal about your traffic which will afford you an avenue to better strategize as we head into 2022. A few examples of how to use this new page:

Doctor’s Office – Link to new appointments, procedures, specials and more.
Law Firms – Link to service areas, appointments, special news in your area of expertise, et. al.
Building Contractors – Link to recent projects, upcoming projects, contact forms, click to call, etc.
Retirement Homes / Assisted Living – Links to amenities, floor plans, availability, recent events, campus updates, and more.
HVAC / Heat & Air – Links to appointments, click to call for service, seasonal specials, reviews, brands carried, installations and more
Retail / Goods – Links to new products, sales, locations, events, hours of operation etc.
Colleges / Universities – Links to campus events, sports, crowd-funding, fund raising, alumni events, etc.

The possibilities reach as far as your imagination and tenacity to seek out new ways to meet your audience where the stand. We’re here to help you create your own landing page or website when you are ready. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin.

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Always Keep it Local, If You Can

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