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Hi everyone! I took the month of December to regroup, as I’ve done each year for the last 9 years, to see what it was that I needed to clear out for 2018 that wasn’t serving EdmondActive Magazine, online and through our extensive social networks. Here are some of my thoughts from observations, and part of my mission going into this new year.  I hope all of you will get involved.

EA to grow in 2018

I may be running perhaps the smallest actual business in the area financially, despite the response achieved for our advertisers and actual reach and engagement with all of you through EA’s social network.

Because this is how I make a living, I had to take a hard look at why this is, and so that I may continue to offer affordable advertising options to locally owned independent businesses that I and numerous others knows to be effective.

It was exciting and a little scary to have sat down with a long time business mentor who navigated all there is to analyze with regards to the three parts of my business, the print, online and social media networks. While we are thriving at Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and our advertisers see feet through their doors, and as well, here at EdmondActive.com, I feel more emphasis on my print product needs to occur to be able to move EA to the next level of being able to operate as I have envisioned and to thrive. All of EA’s analytic s and numbers state that I should be able to run EA out of an office and including being able to pay contributors. My mentor sat with me and discussed why that wasn’t occurring. And. We found out why very quickly.

I concentrate on bringing results to local businesses here at Edmondactive.com and through its social networks, whether by helping them brand their storefronts, services, product or location or by helping them build their social networks on top of the benefit of providing all of you with an insight of whats happening around Edmond at shops, service providers and local restaurants. Other publications state they HAVE social networks but do not utilize them and will state such large print numbers to use as an excuse as to why they don’t need to utilize social media or a website, despite common knowledge that this is where we all are living a large part of our lives, and any effort is a positive effort to help our neighbors businesses and families thrive so it doesn’t make sense that 3 other Edmond based publications do not utilize this arena to continue to give value to their extremely expensive ad costs.

My competitors will feature something for a willing and paid local business in print once, and after the 2 day window of reaching residents attention, whatever print exposure given to that company is then gone and no longer exists, and residents forget. This disappoints business owners and they give up trying to reach residents.

I can’t tell you how much this disappoints me, and causes me to feel discouraged, because I know how dedicated all of you who follow EA are about supporting our advertisers, and this is extremely hard to convince business owners who have had the previous experience. And in some cases, business owners close their doors in Edmond and just give up. This is not a great scenario for creating local culture and vibrance.

As well, I can’t remember anyone, whether a resident or local business owner saying how much they enjoy reading a 3 column 4 page write up on their smart phone.

And, it’s not only about ONLY supporting local independent businesses but all businesses that you like and make a positive impact on your daily or even monthly living.

Salata located at May & the sw corner of Memorial

My husband Chris and I are moving toward living a more healthy lifestyle, which really we have been trying to do since 2009. We have tried to find a place to get a salad (just basic, nothing gourmet) since we moved to Oklahoma 13 years ago. Knowing Cool Greens is locally owned, we tried it many times, but the lack of options for just the basics saw us not visit as often. Salata at May, just at the sw corner of Memorial, is a franchise chain, but we tried it this week anyway. It’s basic. No preservatives in their fresh dressings made daily, many options for greens, and other additions to your salad, including freshly made shrimp, salmon and other meats for the price of inexpensive fast food made this a new staple over the locally owned Cool Greens. This is capitalism, and about bringing what people are looking for. When the Edmond location opens at Bryant and 2nd Street, it will immediately become a go to for many in Edmond, due to selection, numerous healthy options and moderate pricing.

I love independent businesses who can compete with our incessant desire for big box national chains, and I believe it is possible for locally independent businesses to do so, but only if they are willing to change their thinking, innovate their thinking and make an effort to connect to their customers where they are mobily, and not just follow numbers for print publications that are not actually reaching more than 1,500 or so people despite how many are direct mailed or claimed to have been printed. In December, EdmondActive reached a record 92,000 people through this website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and our print magazine combined.

So this is my mission this year. To continue bringing you what is unique in and around Edmond, to find the happy medium in being able to turn EA into a profitable business model, and continue to work as hard on building EdmondActive as a business as I do for all of our amazing past, current and future advertisers. That way we can all grow, and I can concentrate on innovating how we all see our community!

If you are interested in contributing, supporting or otherwise getting involved with EdmondActive in 2018, I hope you will contact me and lets see what we can accomplish this year! The EA community is like no other! I’m always available to talk with at 405-315-7325.

Be sure to stop by this week to see what’s happening, what’s new and what’s available around Edmond!

Sherri