In today’s episode of The Render Podcast, we are keeping it short and sweet while also talking about something that has happened to us in real time. We are saddened to share that our Instagram account has been hacked and deleted. While this happened so fast, we are grateful to have you here in our community and thought we would take this time to chat about this from an open mind and a good perspective.
Having your audience on social media is great, we all love social media! However, we do not own our social media platforms (other than your website domain that you purchase), so we wanted to take this opportunity to educate you on what we wish we had done beforehand and what we can do now on to protect ourselves! Join us for some not so fun, but needed information!
If you listened to today’s episode, you have heard by now that our Instagram, that we have worked on for over 11 years, was hacked and deleted. Yes, insert all of the emotions. We felt it, too! It took years to get the following we had, we worked so hard to gain new followers and organically, too. We created new relationships, further flourished connections we made in the industry, and did the best we could to bring you a beautifully curated feed to showcase who we are at Render and what we do. All of this to say, our social media is not owned by us, and we are grateful to have built an outstanding email marketing platform to continue engaging with our community. Since we have been utilizing our email platform for quite some time now, connecting with you was easier than ever so we could update about our Instagram and what was going on!
With all of this happening, we are also excited to start fresh! Having an open mindset with no sour attitude towards this has helped a ton. Does it suck? Yes! However, perspective is everything and knowing that we can choose how to approach this is making this easier to process and move forward in a positive direction.
Email Marketing — Start TODAY
Now, this is the most important! If you do not already have your audience and community on your email list, do it TODAY! We literally would be lost without this! This is your direct way to connect with your subscribers, clients, customers, and other community members because like we said before, we do not own our social media platforms!
There are many perks to email marketing but to name a few:
Keep a direct line of communication with your clients
Be the first to offer promos / deals that you know will get to them (instead of hoping they see it on social media)
Build the personable connection of communication and trustworthiness with your audience
Two Factor Authentication
Okay, now this is a big one! No matter what type of account you have, turn on your two-factor authentication. Do it right now! This is going to prevent any of your accounts, from personal to business, from being hacked. Having a second phone number or email address attached to your personal accounts is so crucial to protecting yourself!
Change Your Passwords
This is something that we regret not doing sooner, but have now learned a huge lesson and will be doing it more often. We have set a reminder in our calendars to change our passwords every quarter so that we can stay on top of protecting ourselves. If you will not remember to do this, set a reminder in your calendar so you can make sure you are on top of it too!
We hope that today’s episode will be a wake up call for not only us, but for you as well in ways you can protect yourself. If you have not implemented any of these strategies into your business already, go ahead and get a ahead start on it. As always, thank you for being here and we will see you next week! Be sure to follow our new Instagram and help us rebuild!
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I thrive on using education to make true connections with all kinds of people. I want to point you towards better leading your teams, and guide you through all areas and stages of your business. I put a heavy emphasis on being present where your feet are, creating a community that is diverse and intentional, and growing in servant leadership through both my personal and professional life.
