Do you have a business plan? Something that I highly recommend all of my clients (and pretty much every entrepreneur) do is create a business plan at the beginning of the year. Spending the first week or so in January putting together a comprehensive business plan can pay off dividends for a small business through the new year. A business plan gives you a map, with goals and strategies that may help you confront the biggest challenges facing your business. But here is the problem: plans change. Things change! Life happens! Maybe your business did even better than you expected…
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Do you remember what it was like when you were a kid during the summer? It was like heaven! Three entire months off school with no work whatsoever! I remember waking up to the smell of fresh cut grass and would scramble out of bed to get outside! Unfortunately, endless summers can’t last forever. But here’s the good news! One of the benefits of being an entrepreneur with a business is that you get to make your own schedule. Yes, you absolutely need to work like crazy during the summer to grow your business, but if you want a three…
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Do you have any tricks or tips that help get you through your daily workflow? Back when I first started my small business, my daily workflow was very different than it is now. There were very few applications out there that not only make my business easier to manage but also helped me get so much more done throughout the course of my day. Today, I have tons of programs, automated processes, and other tools that help me be super productive from the first thing in the morning until the very end of the night. If you’ve ever been curious…
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Ok, I’m going to admit it. I… occasionally… binge watch Netflix. I know, I know, I’ve heard all the arguments against it. It ruins the show, it’s a waste of time, etc. But the fact is that it’s fun to binge watch a show with your loved ones (or by yourself with a giant bowl of popcorn). Binge watching has gone from something that only those who buy DVD box sets do to something that just about everyone does. You pick a show on Netflix, sit down on the couch, and enjoy the ride. But Netflix is only one option…
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If you’re new to Jennie Lyon Digital Marketing & Virtual Assistant Services, you might not know this about me: I’m a big believer in recycling. Wait, did I say “believer?” I meant fanatic! For years, I’ve had a sister company called Sweet Greens, all about taking care of the planet. One of my favorite things to do is walk over to the beach with my son and pick up the bottles and other garbage that accumulates down there. And, as you can imagine, when you embrace clean, environmentally-friendly living, it can impact every other aspect of your life. And that…
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Remember the old adage for those with gigantic cable packages? “300 channels, and nothing’s on?” That certainly isn’t a problem anymore. You can find just about all of the entertainment that you want from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. Streaming video has mostly replaced traditional cable, offering people the ability to watch whatever they want, whenever they want. You no longer have to scroll through guides to see what’s on. Instead, you just type (or speak!) what you feel like watching into search, and countless results will pop up! At first glance, this seems like a massive problem for advertisers.…
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About 30 years ago, do you know where one of the best places to market to people was? Their car. The very first thing they did after they got into their car in the morning was turn on the radio. And chances are that it remained on for their entire commute to work, both back and forth. This offered advertisers a captive audience (literally, if the driver was on the highway!) Back then, radio ads were smart and inventive. Frankly, some of the most effective and brilliant marketing campaigns of all time were on the radio. But then around 15…
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If there is one thing that I’ve learned doing digital marketing over the years, it’s that yesterday’s fad is today’s “next big thing.” A perfect example is SnapChat. When SnapChat debuted a few years ago, it was treated with scorn from many marketers. Heck, even the general public looked at it with suspicion. Why on earth would you only want to take super-short, 15-second videos of yourself? And then share them? Who would watch them? Just a few years later and SnapChat-like functionality has been integrated into countless apps and social media networks: Facebook among them. But probably the most…
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If I asked you to name the biggest social media networks, what would immediately come to mind? Facebook, of course. Twitter would probably be up there too. Some people in a younger demographic might say Instagram (A rapidly ascending favorite). One that you might not think of is Pinterest, and that’s a real shame. While most people only think of Pinterest for personal use, its application for business and social media marketing is rarely used to its full potential! How Pinterest Works If you’ve never used Pinterest, you need to know that it works a little differently than most other…
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When you were a kid back in elementary school, did you ever trace? Tracing was like a gateway into drawing. You just put a piece of paper over top of the original and draw a copy. No, it wasn’t your work, but it was a great way to learn the basics. I’ve always found that frameworks act in much the same way for learning a new skill, like creating a social media campaign. When you first start out, you might not have a clue how all of the moving parts work together, but if you have a framework to base…
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