Category: Google My Business

Being a small business is both easier and harder than ever. Yes, the competition is tough, but there have never been more AI tools that can help you in almost every segment of your business. For example, I’d long wanted to sell merchandise with my designs. However, the thought of getting started and thinking about…

If you’re like us, you prefer fun jobs over tedious tasks. (Actually, if you were into tedium, you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place.) That’s why you’re going to love social media automation tools. Social media automation tools allow you to automate boring, time-consuming tasks so you can get back to…

The first time I managed a marketing budget, I was handed a dollar figure and asked to accomplish X, Y, and Z with it. The following year, I was asked to do more with a slightly smaller budget. Sound familiar? While this top-down approach is common, it isn’t the only way to budget. The opposite…

Social media KPIs (or key performance indicators) are data-based measures of your progress toward important business goals. Understanding which KPIs matter and how to track them allows you to build and refine an effective social media strategy that supports organizational success. Bonus: Get a free social media report template to easily track and measure performance against…

As I‘ve moved up in my marketing career, I’ve realized how important it is to be on the same page as the CEO. In this recent episode of Marketing Against the Grain, we explore this topic and offer tips for enhancing your communications with executive leadership. Here are five actionable insights that CMOs and marketing…

Instagram automation: Should you try it? Will it get you in trouble with the algorithms, or will it help grow your audience? The answer is: It depends. There are perfectly legitimate ways to automate Instagram posts. But there are also shady tools that can result in warnings about automated behavior. Here, we’ll show you how…

Graphic design has come a long way since I started in the arts nearly a decade and a half ago. Improvements in tools like Photoshop or my personal favorite, Procreate, from then to now have helped remove creative roadblocks and speed up the design process. Then, user-friendly design tools like Canva have made design more…

I can’t lie — I’ve been feeling a little AI-fatigued lately. But the reason everyone’s still talking about AI is because it’s not going away anytime soon. The reality is it’s changing the way we work as marketers. Our State of AI report shows that more than half of marketers (60%) are using AI tools…