If you’re a business owner today, two things are probably true for you:
You need to be on social media.
You don’t have the time, bandwidth, or know-how to manage your own social media.
This needs vs. realities scenario is a common dilemma for many business owners. On the one hand, they know they need to have a presence on social media to share their offerings and remain competitive. On the other, they have so much going on in terms of day-to-day operations that they often don’t have the time to carve out a few hours a week for social media strategy and implementation.
Fortunately, that’s where a dedicated social media manager can be a saving grace.
Why You Need a Social ...
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In this milestone anniversary year for America, you may be thinking about your company’s next upcoming milestone as well. Whether it’s 20 years, 50 years or 100, keeping your brand and value proposition alive for a long time is cause for celebration.
But what should that celebration look like? You may be thinking about throwing a party for employees, customers and other stakeholders, but there’s also something to be said for a more tangible keepsake.
When Baltimore’s General Ship Repair Corporation approached its 100th anniversary, the company asked us for help in creating a book that would trace its history, establish its expertise and help celebrate its contribution to Baltimore shipbuilding. The resulting publication looked back on four generations of family ...
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In today’s day and age, the ability to tell the story of your business in a clear, concise manner is critical. People need to know not just what you do, but why they should care. To help with this, a media kit can be an invaluable resource. When done well, a media kit defines what your business is all about and how it impacts others, all in a few eye-catching, easy-to-read pages.
Here’s what to do — and what not to do — to build a strong media kit for your business.
What to do:
1 | Build with a digital-first mindset
For years, media kits have been cut-and-dry PDFs that make their way into printed copies, which then often get forgotten in ...
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If you’ve been online in any way, shape or form recently, chances are high you’ve stumbled across an AI search engine. From ChatGPT to Claude to Perplexity and beyond, AI tools have become seemingly omnipresent — and for good reason. With such a wealth of information, these platforms can serve as valuable tools for business owners and entrepreneurs hoping to improve workflows and save time.
Now that AI has become so integrated into search engines (Google’s AI overviews, anyone?), those good ol’ SEO practices you’re likely familiar with won’t always cut it. So, what’s a business professional to do? Adapt, of course! After all, it is possible to show up in AI search. You just need to get familiar with ...
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Visit Baltimore is the official destination marketing organization (DMO) for Baltimore. Its mission is to positively impact the quality of life of the people who live and work in the city by attracting visitor spending that creates jobs, supports local businesses and attractions, and generates revenue for the city and state. Learn more at Baltimore.org.
TMCC works with Visit Baltimore to publish its twice-annual visitor guide. The guide features articles about Baltimore’s diverse shopping and dining scenes, fun interactive features like quizzes, and in-depth features introducing Baltimore’s diverse entrepreneurs and change-makers.
TMCC provides editorial services, graphic design, advertising sales and printing/shipping support for the publication.
Here is a selection of some pages from the Spring/Summer 2025 guide:
Are you interested in publishing a visitor ...
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A magazine can be an incredibly valuable piece of collateral to help market your organization, industry or service. But it’s also a big investment, so before you commit the funds for a magazine launch, make sure you ask yourself these key questions.
Who Is My Audience?
Before you can even decide on an editorial concept or a name for the magazine, it’s important to put some thought into who it’s all for. Is it to keep current members of your organization or association engaged? Do you want to reach new audiences who haven’t previously heard of you? A little bit of both?
What Are the Demographics of That Audience?
Depending on the age, education, wealth bracket and other demographic variables of your audience, ...
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The beginning of a new year is a prime time for year-end reviews. For many businesses, it’s the time to review annual budgets, expenditures, goals and traffic, and for good reason. There’s nothing like looking back to look forward, since it helps business owners reflect on strengths and weaknesses and figure out where to lean in or pivot for the year ahead.
Where some businesses go wrong, however, is making the start of a new year the only time they do a check-in. When it comes to their digital presence in particular, business owners would do well to make dedicated time for review sessions not once a year, but every single quarter (at a minimum). The digital space is changing ...
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Who doesn’t love getting things for free? But when brands give out freebies, they’re rarely actually free for the brand. So how do you make sure you’re getting a return on investment if you’re not getting paid? We’ve compiled a list of tips for how to do freebies right.
Give Away Something of Actual Value
Chances are that people won’t remember you if you give them a free pen with your company’s name on it. But if you host a raffle for product samples or for a free hour of your services? That’s a different story. Potential customers are more likely to become customers when they’ve received a taste of what they’re missing.
Add Urgency to Your Offer
People respond best to freebies ...
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In case you haven’t heard the buzz online, the Google core update that rolled out in August 2024 has had a major impact on page views and user traffic for more than a few websites. As per Google, the update aims to improve search results so they’re geared toward reader service and are “genuinely useful.”
Sounds vague, right? It all ties back to Google’s focus on E-E-A-T, which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. In other words, page rankings on search aren’t just about SEO, but a whole slew of factors. Now, instead of working on optimizing a page with the likes of keywords and meta text, creators need to also strongly consider things like brand reputation, site longevity ...
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If you want to know why brand voice matters to your company’s success, just remember the chicken sandwich wars.
Back in the distant social media past of 2019, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen launched a chicken sandwich. Chick-fil-A apparently took exception to this, tweeting what the New York Times called “a thinly veiled critique” of the new offering.
Thus, the first salvo of the chicken sandwich wars was fired. Within 15 minutes, Popeyes’ Twitter account returned fire with the now-immortal words “…y’all good?”
The tweet went viral, leading to such massive demand for the new Popeyes sandwich that lines formed around the block at local Popeyes restaurants and the company eventually had to concede it had simply run out of the popular offering.
While creating ...
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