Word: Part Deux #katieandjane Words of Wisdom to Inspire!

We use all sorts of ways to keep inspired on-the-go from eBooks and magazines, to Podcasts and our must-read blogs, but one of our favourite ways to get a dose of instant feel-good positivity is by dipping into our Pinterest and Instagram channels. Below is part two of our well-received words of wisdom series, we hope some of our picks resonate with you too!

We love this quote, because this happens to us all the time! We keep our minds open and there’s no such thing as a weird idea – some of these can lead to great ones…

It’s important to keep moving forward and we make sure that we are always learning. We never settle for ‘we don’t know how to do that’ even if it means surrounding ourselves with people who can teach us. A lot of what we now know has been self-taught, it’s the best and most valuable way!

Sometimes if something isn’t working as well as you’d hoped it would, you find yourself questioning whether to put it to one side. But, it’s not about giving up, it’s about improving the way you are doing it. Maybe you need to adapt the audience you are marketing your product at, maybe you need to rethink it’s value and add to it or tweak the idea a little. Don't forget - sometimes people aren't ready for it yet, so don’t give up. Remember, it only takes one follower to start a movement.

This is something I overheard Jane say once while introducing Katie & Jane. We didn’t have the luxury of investors to help us launch our first business, we believed in it so much we just had to make it happen!

If you have a favourite quote, perhaps one you go back to time and time again, leave us a comment below or tweet us with the hashtag #katieandjane and don't forget to join us on Pinterest and Instagram to share the love!

Katie x

The Best Things in Life in March

We cannot believe how quick this year is going already, it feels like only yesterday that we were answering January's 'Best Things in Life' questions and now it's March's turn...

Katie

Best Things in Life?

Wearing Sunnies – the tiniest thing but after a long, wet and miserable winter, I put my sunnies on for the first time this weekend while driving my car and it instantly got me excited for the summer!

Finding a new eating spot - I’m always on the hunt for a new spot to eat or drink and my new favourite is a gorgeous new vintage tea room called Loaf, selling homemade cakes and delicious artisan breads. The bakers tweet their latest treats to tickle your taste buds, so give them a follow here. 

Wearable Tech – We took part in Lady Geek’s wearable tech competition this week and to enter we had to tweet our answer to "If you could design the future's most iconic piece of wearable tech, that would be loved by women, what would it be?" Just dreaming up our ideas as we took Jane’s dog Beau for a quick walk (our work-break!) was so much fun and now I can’t stop thinking about new creations. 

Being in Love Means... Being true, sharing dreams and seeing life as a great adventure together… oh and it also means your relationship shouldn’t need to be played out on Facebook :) 

My Favourite Social Network is... Twitter. As much as I enjoy visual sharing platforms, Twitter is the social network I love most at the moment. Being able to instantly connect with people you admire or want to learn more from is so valuable especially when running your own business. Plus, it’s a great place to get feedback from. When we first started Katie & Jane the hashtag #katieandjane was of course only being used by us – sparingly! Now when we go to that hashtag and see others tweeting about our blog posts or our business it absolutely brightens up my day.

Jane

Best Things in Life?

CamMe - a great new app that allows you to take selfies without holding the phone. Although I do not take many selfies it's great to use if you're with a group of people and everyone wants to get in on the photo. It just won 'Most Innovative App' at the Mobile World Congress - a well-deserved award. Find out more here.

Spring - it's finally sprung (well for one day only but still)! I adore the Spring season - the beautiful blooms, shining sun with the fresh, sometimes chilly air and seeing the baby animals at our local farm!

Applause - I recently discovered the fantastic Australian app-developing duo Stephanie and Sophie who founded Applause a few years ago and have been successful in releasing a suite of apps. They are a real inspiration to me already, I love reading their blog and it's great to have found two business owners with similar visions to Katie and I.

Being in Love Means... Being a better version of yourself when they are around and missing them terribly when they are not (even after 10 years!).

My Favourite Social Network is... A toss-up between both visual platforms Instagram and Pinterest but I'll go for Instagram at the moment. As I said in my Instagram app review back in October last year (we gave it 8/10) it's really addictive but in a good way. I follow lots of inspirational accounts from fitness to food along with positive friends so my Instagram newsfeed is packed with affirmative, motivating and happy images which I love to check a few times a day.

App Love: The Wunder of Wunderlist

One thing Jane and I couldn't live without is a to-do list, we love planning and being organised (geeks)! We were very good at doing this individually, but when it came to starting our own business we realised we needed a place to easily share a joint to-do list that we could add to on-the-go.

We experimented with a few apps, namely Astrid which was closed last year once it was acquired by Yahoo, so we quickly had to find an alternative which has to be our favourite to-do manager of the moment; Wunderlist.

Wunderlist is a shareable to-do app which lets you add multiple lists and to-dos that can be ticked off once completed. You can set items to be recurring each day, week, month or year and seamlessly move your items from list to list, easily adding subtasks to each item and you can pop any notes in too.

One really great feature in the app is the activity log, which notifies me when Jane has added or completed items, which is really handy to use so we can ensure we are not doubling up efforts, or spending too much time emailing each other about who’s doing what in our business. I also like the fact I can upload a file to an item such as a document or image as a reminder.

We both use the Lite version, which works well for us at the moment, but the Pro version has some really great additional features including being able to start a conversation about a to-do, assign certain tasks to another person, share files with a team and enter an unlimited amount of subtasks. It also gives you access to pre-loaded backgrounds so you can customise each list. These features would be particularly good for a larger remote team.

Having used Wunderlist for more than a year now, one of the most frequent ways we use it each day is to record ideas into different shared lists or categories. For example, we can note down in our shared lists ideas for apps, potential blog posts and social media toolkits we want to write. We even have one to-do list which is a very long list of chapters for the book we want to write together one day! We back up Wunderlist every so often so we know that we won’t lose anything forever too.

Wunderlist is a great to-do list app which teams (and individuals) can use to keep organised, manage projects and collect ideas in a simple and reliable way.

Score: 9.5/10

I love...

• The simple layout – it’s so simple to use, exactly what you want from a to-do manager
• Being able to share individual lists - so I can keep my personal lists as well as my business lists in the same app
• Profile picture – it really helps to distinguish between Jane & I in the app!

I'd like...

• For my activity log to pop up quicker – it’s quite slow on the Lite version

Find out more about the app and download it here – happy organising!

Katie x

Instagram Competitions Are Taking Over!

Along with Pinterest (of course!), Instagram is one of my favourite social networks, not only for keeping up-to-date with friends but for interacting with brands too. It's a truly visual platform, initially with stills and now with 3-15 second long videos and it's really interesting to follow brands and influential users to see their innovative ways of marketing through social media.

One marketing method on Instagram is to run a competition - something which brands don't use as frequently as Facebook and Twitter competitions, but I think, for the right brand, an Instagram competition is worth 1,000 Facebook competitions!

How to Create an Interesting Instagram Competition

Although Instagram competitions may not get you tonnes of new followers, your account's interaction rates will rise and you'll drive users to share you with their friends.

There are a number of different types of competitions on Instagram from 'like to win' to increase likes, to photo entry competitions to drive engagement. As usual, we know that planning is key here, as it is with any social media marketing activity. There's a few elements to cover when creating a successful competition...

Set Goals

Would you like more Instagram followers? Increased brand awareness? Gain further interaction on the platform? Or to up your reach? Before you start to develop a competition, think about your goals and how you're going to monitor them to track results.

Entry Method

Depending on your goals you need to consider what users need to do to enter the competition. Perhaps it's submitting a photo, liking one of your photos (lowest effort), sharing your Instagram account to their followers or simply following you.

After you've decided on your entry method, you'll need an entry page where users can see how to enter the competition. A simple and Instagram-friendly way of doing this is to create an image detailing the prize, entry information and any rules and regulations (length, eligibility, limits and how the winner will be selected, etc) then post this on your account. 

Don't forget to include an attention-grabbing title to increase interest and a unique hashtag to up your reach and enable easy monitoring. Read more about using hashtags on all the major social networking in our recent blog post here.

Promotion

Have a think about how you're going to promote your competition to new Instagrammers. You could send details in a newsletter, promote the competition on all your other social networks, think about social media advertising and also promote it on your website.

Once your competition is up-and-running make sure you promote it frequently and once it's over, learn from the results and decide whether you'd like to make it a regular, perhaps weekly, thing.

If planned and created correctly, an Instagram competition can be really beneficial for increasing reach and engagement and fantastic at generating a buzz.

Read our Instagram app review here where we talk about the basics of Instagram and give the app a score out of 10!

See you on Instagram at BYKATIEANDJANE

Jane x

Why Hangout on Google+ Hangouts?

Google+ Hangouts is a free video chat service from Google that enables both one-on-one chats and group chats with up to ten people at a time. You may be familiar with the likes of Skype and Apple’s FaceTime which both focus on one-to-one chats, with Skype requiring you to upgrade to premium to use the group video chat element. Google+ Hangouts is a great way to connect with groups of friends, learn online, hold meetings or join in on live broadcasts from your favourite people and brands!

Let's Hangout!

You can 'hangout' in a number of ways; by joining an existing hangout, heading into a 'Hangout on Air' (a live broadcast) or creating your own hangout. If you want to join an existing hangout a member of that hangout needs to invite you to join or you can browse hangouts happening as they are taking place by clicking ‘view all’ on the ‘Start a Video hangout’ button.

There is a difference between joining a hangout with your friends and joining a ’Hangout on Air’. The latter are live broadcasts which you can watch as they happen, it could for instance be a panel discussion with 10 people by a brand or charity, but you will remain hidden, in the audience. We hungout on air with Richard Branson from his beautiful Necker Island - have a look at our earlier blog posts here. 

Once you have made it into a Hangout chat room all people in the room are shown in the bottom row. Google+ seamlessly switches the focus to the person currently chatting so they are highlighted at the top and you can switch to view anyone by clicking their thumbnail at the bottom.

Last year I took part in Comic Relief’s Hangout Comedy Club, I applied for tickets to be in the front row (one of the nine spots available, leaving room for the comedian) but you could also choose to virtually ‘sit’ hidden so that you could watch the laughs from the comfort of your laptop, without getting picked on – I was foolish! See my earlier blog post here to find out how I got on!

If you'd like to start your own Hangout, begin by inviting up to nine friends into a video chat with you. In your chat room you can share documents, images and even watch YouTube videos with your guests. The great thing about Google+ Hangouts is that you can prepare your chat room before inviting others to join, testing the screen sharing options and making sure you can be heard – this is especially handy when you are using it for work purposes.

Seven Simple Reasons to Hangout…

#1 Interviews – Online interviews are the future and with Google+ Hangouts you can not only be virtually interviewed but you can share your CV or portfolio with your potential employer too

#2 Online Classes – Hangouts is a great way to teach or learn online, especially if you are training more than one person at a time, we've used it for our social media training with great success

#3 Meetings – Save your petrol! We know a face-to-face meeting is sometimes necessary but a hangout is a very time & cost-effective way to conduct a quick meeting

#4 Launch your news – If you are launching a new product, or some exciting news for your company, think about how a live broadcast of Google+ Hangout could engage the online community

#5 Monthly newsletter – Reinvent your email marketing by conducting a valuable Google+ Hangout each month with your subscribers instead, you could even select your most loyal supporters onto the ‘front row’ to connect with face-to-face

#6 Working with colleagues – Share presentations, spreadsheets, videos and notes with each other during the day, this is particularly useful if you have a network of freelancers or have employees working from home

#7 Catch up with friends & family – If your loved ones are all over the UK or further afield, get everyone talking together by organising a Hangout connecting you all wherever you are for free

And what of the future for Google+ Hangouts…

Google’s Head of Community Partnerships for Google+, Steve Grove 

Click here to find us on Google+ too (of course!)

Katie x

Ancestry App Review - Bring Out the Historian in You!

I am a little bit of a history geek (probably thanks to my history teacher mother); I love to find out stories behind places I visit and the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are is set to record on my TV!

I discovered the family tree creating app, Ancestry, after it was featured by Apple as a 'Best New' app last year, and, having tried to research my family tree online before, thought I'd give it a go.

The app is linked with ancestry.com's online database but you don't need to create an account on there, instead you can just use the app which I've found a lot easier for basic searches. I have been pleasantly surprised with the amount of information that can be found. I love that you can actually see handwritten documents such as marriage certificates of family members one hundred years ago; it really brings the app to life. These records can be bought as an in-app-purchase if you'd like to save them.

The app is exactly what you'd expect and want from a family tree research app. Once you've added in as many details about yourself and family members as you can, Ancestry searches databases to generate 'hints' to help you find out more. These hints are my favourite feature of the app; they bring up a number of records that could be linked to your tree. You then need to go through these to check against what you've already found to see whether they are a match - it really helps you go back even further without too many headaches!

The colours are pretty dull but then Ancestry's branding is brown and green so they've brought that onto the app. To personalise it a little more there is an option for adding images but, as you go further back in history, it's very hard to find images to go with names so I've not used that function. A nice feature is that you can start more than one family tree within the app so if you'd like to do some research for someone else it's easy to do so.

I have a small family and unfortunately didn't have a lot of information about past family members on my father's side but the Ancestry app helped me go back over 220 years, across England, Scotland and Wales to find my great-great-great-great-grandmother (wait for it)... Jane! We didn't know we had quite so many Jane's in our family but it's nice to have that connection all the way back to 1791.

I would certainly recommend Ancestry as an easy way to research into your past on-the-go.

Score: 9/10

I love...

• The simple layout and seamless menu
• Being able to delve deep into the records to discover more than names and dates - occupation was my favourite to learn!

I'd like to...

• Share my tree with others, for example, my dad would like to join my tree and add relatives to discover more
• Get advice from Ancestry once there are no hints left (I'm at that point now)... it's disappointing to hit a wall!

Find out more about the app and download it here. Enjoy history hunting and I hope you find some interesting family members!

Jane x

Word! Our Favourite #katieandjane Words of Wisdom to Inspire...

Since I can remember, I've loved finding inspirational quotes that help me to stay positive and on the brighter side of life. Before taking the leap and starting our own business, Jane and I would send each other quotes we liked to motivate and inspire each other - words of wisdom that soon found their way onto a Pinterest board so that we could easily collect and share them.

More than a year later our ‘Feel Inspired’ board is pinned to almost every day and now has a thriving collection of quotes that will help us and fellow pinners feel inspired, creative, confident and positive.

Below I have selected a few of our favourites which are available on our Pinterest board to share with friends, family and work colleagues too. We have many more that we love, so there will be a part two to this blog post soon...we hope you like them!

Everybody can choose to do something different with their lives, no matter what you’re expected to do by other people. You have one life, so choose happily!

We learnt early on that you can never truly know whether you are making the right decision for your own business, no matter how much you weigh up the pros and cons! It's something you can’t learn by reading a book when it applies to you as an individual, so, when a new opportunity or adventure presents itself to us, we always ask ourselves ‘why not?’ if there’s nothing too damaging (or we're not going to die!), we are more as likely just to go for it. This quote is great in business and life in general!

Always give something a try and keep learning! Try to be bold and certain when taking opportunities, and remember, we are defined by the opportunities we miss as well as the ones we take.

We usually find we have ideas that we add to our Wunderlist app (review coming soon!) for projects, apps or products, and they stay there until we have the resources and focus to give to them. However there are always a few that niggle at you because you can’t wait to get started, and these are the ones you mustn't give up on!

This runs through the core of all of our Katie & Jane ideas, projects, adventures and work, and it’s harder than it looks! Some of our future projects will have a very complex thought process behind them, but will be delivered to the end user in a simple, but meaningful way, which is the most important thing.

If you have a favourite quote, perhaps one you go back to time and time again, leave us a comment below, tweet us with the hashtag #katieandjane and you'll be able to repin all of the images in this blog post by finding us on Pinterest too.

Katie x