Full Service Social Media Marketing

As you may know, we are a remote team - spread out from the East to West coast. Holla! And lucky for us, in this day in age, there are a plethora of tools we can use to keep us connected on the daily. So "no one is an island". But even with all our gadgets and gizmos and regular check-ins and chatter, we like to log a little face time (no, not just FaceTime) a few times a year.

To kick 2017 off right, we all spent a few days in Vancouver, BC last weekend, hashing out our strategic plan for the coming year. There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears (aka coffee, wine and big ideas) but we all left with a renewed energy and mile-long to-do lists, ready to hit the ground running. (After a good, solid, 12-hour sleep.)

Here are a few of our top team takeaways and new discoveries:

1. Michelle is a skyscraper. "I was so surprised when she walked in the door a full 7 inches taller than me. Skype calls really don't give you any sense of height. I had no idea!" - Casey

2. The power of a whiteboard. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Technology is everything. But when you really need to brainstorm, the power of a pen and open space that everyone can see is priceless." - Tessa

3. The power of Post-It's. "We are updating our website (spoiler!) and were able to map it out so easily using Post-It's. For the cost of $4, we could easily visualize and change our visions as we worked through the content and requirements." - Michelle

4. How much you can do with just 500sq feet. "You know you're a start-up when your tiny, over-priced apartment becomes the team accommodation, the board room and the happy hour locale. I swear, cramped as it was, I have never loved my apartment more, than with the open suitcases, busy white-boards, empty coffee cups and Post-It's all over the walls. It's kind of special." - Tessa

5. How to toggle between Instagram accounts. "It's amazing to me that I've been using Instagram this long and didn't know this. I've literally logged out and in each time. Ahhhh! My life has since changed dramatically." - Casey

(With all the new features out there that even we can sometimes miss, we thought it might be a good idea to put those together for you! Stay tuned for fresh content coming at you soon with all the new life-changing stuff you need to know about on your favourite social networks.)

6. That there's always more to learn when it comes to analytics. "We all shared something that we wanted to learn this year. A new skill. Or an area we wanted to dig deeper into. And everyone unanimously mentioned analytics. Even with my background in statistics and Tessa's years of experience with social, I guess it's just an area where everyone feels like they've got more to learn." - Michelle

7. Casey's favourite red wine varietal is a Cabernet Franc. "Wine is seemingly always on the agenda when you're working with me. For a bit of a team builder, our team hit up Salt Tasting Room to sip a little and Casey took this opportunity to sample every varietal and find her fave." - Tessa

8. The new iPhone 7 doesn't have a headphone jack. "Never have I felt more like an 80 year old! Clearly my iPhone 6 is a little out of date. I had no idea the new iPhones were all wireless. What a crazy ploy for money, Apple. Brilliant." - Tessa

9. What our team capacity looks like. "It was great to be able to break down our growth targets together and understand what our team is capable of currently, and how much we want to grow and in what ways. Limitless growth is actually not what we're after. We have a sweet spot when it comes to how many clients we want to work with." - Casey

10. How much time really goes into planning. "This was my first strategic planning session and it was so eye-opening to see just how much work and time it takes to flush all of this out. Coming up with the ideas is one (big) part of it, but then mapping them out so that they make sense, attaching targets, dates, assigning responsibilities and of course, talking revenue have to come together too. All part of life in a start-up! Or any business, for that matter." - Michelle

So with that, we're all heading back to work to start executing on all of our big plans. Stay tuned here on our blog for more exciting announcements in the next few months!

P.S. We also picked up our snazzy new business cards. Like?

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