It’s the New Moon in Cancer. Do you know how to manifest during this time? I have manifested a ton of things in my life and I always try to do them during the moon phases. Read on to learn more!

As an intuitive social media strategist, I get this question a lot. There are a lot of ways to answer this question. We like to create content when it flows the best and I post the same day I create it. A lot of social media managers and strategists will disagree with this method because “scheduling is king”.

We've been in the digital world for the last 25 years but the way we are consuming content now is at an insane speed. Take a look at the iPhone. When it first debuted back in 2007 no one thought that it would be in the hands of most Americans. Think about it, before the iPhone, we all were just surfing the net at our home offices, or if you were like me just reading books at the trailer while you were on break during your shift of being an usher at the local amusement park. We were all consuming content at a slower pace because the information wasn't in the palm of all of our hands at the time, Well, unless you had a Blackberry.

Facebook ads can be a BEAST, I actually remember being super overwhelmed when I first started learning. It can get complicated real quick, and it does NOT help at all when FB pretty much ripped off Google Ads method (which is a beast as well). I get clients all the time asking me "well I ran one Facebook ad and never got any results so I will never try it again". NOPE. That is the LAST thing you should be doing. Can you imagine if we thought of EVERYTHING that way? "I hated sushi that ONE time I tried it." "I played one game on my Xbox and I hated it now I have to throw my Xbox away." Like really? Come on now! The issue is not the Xbox, it's the game you played, and the strategy you used to beat the game (or didn't beat the game).

The state of social media right now is still up in the air. With organic reach on most social media channels, (mostly Facebook and Instagram) taking a dive, it's no wonder that a lot of businesses are turning to ads to generate even a little bit of income. It's no secret that Facebook (and all of the social media sites Facebook has bought) is very pay for play these days. However, there is still a way you can reach the people you want without paying a lot in ads. You can of course go live on Facebook, and push stories on your Facebook and Instagram page. You can also break into unchartered grounds like TikTok, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. With all of these strategies, you should also learn the art of the DM.

Video is taking over all internet content! I've stressed this in many of my previous posts before that videos on social media are extremely important for your social media strategy. Videos now account for 80% of all consumer internet traffic. Also, more important (and relevant) mobile video consumption increases by 100% every single year. If your social media strategy doesn't involve videos in some form or another, then you, my friend, are doing yourself and your business a grave injustice. Let's say that you do have a video strategy going already for your social media presence. Here's how you can do better.

If you are one of the many that paid someone on Fiver to get a bunch of bots to your page "to grow a page", then you need to listen up. Engagement on social media is essential for growth, and having an audience that is seeing and listening to what you put out, is also important. While creating content that will play on emotions will get your audience to engage, you will also need to actively interact. I tell my clients and prospects this all the time: social media is a two way street, if you are not engaging with your audience, you are not doing your job.

Imagine that you just opened up your small boutique in the middle of a busy plaza, or your second restaurant after the first one was so successful, or you just got a few life coaching clients. Your business is thriving, so much so that you got a couple of amazing reviews on your Facebook page. You now have an amazing reputation and business is going well, until all of a get a terrible review. It brings your entire rating down on Facebook (or Google and Yelp), and you worry that people are hesitating to come to your business because of one bad review. This is an incredibly common problem for many business owners who market their business online and unfortunately there isn't a clear cut way to handle a negative review. However, there are plenty of ways you can respond.

We are on our phone daily as a society. Whether we are talking to a family member, texting our friends, or taking a picture of that salted caramel donut that you had for National Donut Day yesterday and posting it on Instagram. As a society, we crave the attention and we crave the approval we seek from others. This is why social media is so popular, especially on mobile devices. If you are a business that deals with e-commerce then according to the famous Mary Meeker Social Media Trends List, you would've seen a drastic increase in sales over the years if you were marketing on social media.

Almost everyone can relate to the holidays in the Western part of the world and it's the reason why you should change your profile and cover photos to reflect the holidays. Another way you can get a wider reach is to make fun blogs, create a Facebook contest that is holiday related, and engage with potential customers by doing a cute graphics.

Most people use social media to connect with friends and loved ones, but does it overall bring down our happiness? Studies have shown that our emotions control what we buy and I am guilty of it as well. I definitely have bought things on Facebook that I don't really need, but it's because I am part of the target market (which is why I have 15 pairs of leggings).

According to dictionary.com, a hashtag is "a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) and used to identify messages on a specific topic." Hashtags were made popular by Twitter, as the former 140 character limit, was used to make users messages short and sweet. Today, hashtags are used to not only describe the content of the message posted, but it is also used to convey a feeling for example #boring or #imsodone. In a business sense, hashtags are mostly used to find audiences in social media. Whether it's an audience on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, hashtags are used to gain a following on these channels.

The biggest question I get asked after a prospect gets my proposal is why. "Why do I need social media? Why do I need a manager for all my social sites, I mean 400 bucks a month is a lot for just a few tweets and posts to Facebook. What's the point of social media management, if I can do this on my own?" Well, it's true, you CAN manage your social media on your own, but unless you are an expert on digital marketing, which most small business owners are not, you won't be able to leverage it effectively.

As a small business owner, you are constantly learning how to fill in the blanks. Figuring out how billing, electric, and loans work while providing the best service or product that you can is also a struggle that I can relate to as well. Technology is the same way, we are constantly changing and if you are not in the present moment, you are already five years behind the curve. Keeping up with the likes of Google, Facebook, and Yahoo! has not been an easy task for anyone working in those spaces for the last 15 years. Filling in the blanks of what people want in each of these search engines has been, and continues to be an uphill battle. The same goes for social media, if you are not keeping up with the biggest influencers and how they are running things, you will be as Kansas says "dust in the wind".

Since the beginning of the internet, streaming content has been a vital source of communication and information. With musicians like Linkin Park, who were the first to start streaming their own music (this is how they gained their fan following in the beginning) creating their own content and copyrighting their own material gave them the freedom that most artists do not have these days. YouTube has been a real game changer in streaming content and is now the second most popular search engine on the internet, right behind Google.

It's no secret that social media has really taken off in the last twelve years. I mean looking at Facebook alone, which has grown at an incredible exponential rate over the last 5-10 years, it has changed dramatically and has arguably been the center of many social media trends. The truth of the matter is that social media has become more visual and dynamic. With gifs and videos with captions taking over the ranks of Facebook, texts posts have become a thing of the past.