July Hang Recap: My First Time at a YYC Girl Gang Event

Hi everyone! My name is Janelle Saccucci and I’m so excited to join the YYC Girl Gang community as I just moved to Calgary from Vancouver two weeks ago with my fiancé! In Vancouver, I was the marketing director for a large coffee franchise and I launched my own biz helping local entrepreneurs elevate their…

How to Create an Awesome Personalized Experience

Companies no longer compete on the basis of pricing, features, benefits, process, or even level of customer service. Companies today compete on the basis of customer experience. This goes beyond the worn out model of “superior customer service”. Every business should have superior customer service. To create an awesome personalized customer experience, we have to look…

Upcoming Marketing Innovations in the New Year

With ever-changing algorithms and intangible tech forces at play, business owners are coming to us confused at why posting content on a regular basis just isn’t enough anymore. The game has changed, and it will change again. But we work tirelessly to crack the codes of exactly what works, how to reach valuable conversions and…

5 Areas You Can Improve Your SEO Right Now

First, let’s address the question what is SEO? SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is a strategy in which you try to rank your website high in the search engine results pages (or SERPs). There are over 1 billion websites published though, so how do you ensure yours stands out? Let’s take a high-level look at 5 areas you can improve…

Blogs and Google: A True Love Story

Let’s talk about the ultimate love story: blogs and Google. You’ve probably heard many people preach that your business needs to be blogging, and they are right, but we want to tell you the biggest reason why—Google loves it! Fresh, unique content is one of the biggest factors for Google’s SERP (search engine results placement) algorithm,…

The ‘E’ Word

Let’s talk about everybody’s least favourite word: Exposure. If you’re a maker like myself, you might find you’ve come to detest the word exposure, because it seems to be a simile for “give me free stuff.”  After a certain point, being asked for goods and services in exchange for exposure becomes tiring – particularly when…

10 Tips When Starting a Blog

So you want to start a blog, but you don’t know where to start. It’s true that everyone and their dog has a blog, but how do you push your blog out of the clusterfuck of other fashion/fitness/lifestyle blogs? I’m no expert by any means; I’ve been running FranklyRay.com for over two years now, but…

Social Media Safety and Responsibility for Professionals

Social media has thrust our lives and businesses into somewhat uncharted territory, in the sense that there’s not really a line between personal and professional anymore, since everything you do online so accessible. Further to that notion, practicing safety and responsibility online will save you from both personal and PR disasters (and potentially legal trouble…

4 Things That Will Change Your Project/Time Management Game

“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” – Stephen R. Covey Owning your own biz means that it is likely you wear many hats. Some of these hats are #chicAF- think Instagram/meeting Clients, and some not so much- ummm taxes anyone? How do you wear all the hats on your head at once,…

BLOG RULES!

May I explain this double entendre: blog rules (guidelines, do’s and don’ts, conditions) vs. blog rules (rocks, awesome, mind blowing). Running a blog is a terrifying undertaking. You have the opportunity to engage and influence the world with your ideas, ambitions and thoughts, but at the same time, this influence can be detrimental to your…