What do Social Media Strategy, Barbecue Sauce and LinkedIn Have in Common? It’s our Secret Sauce!

Roaring Pajamas is participating in the LinkedIn #ProFinderContest with this post. Curious about the contest? Want to submit your own small business story? Here’s the 411: https://lnkd.in/SMB-Contest

In January, Roaring Pajamas celebrated seven years as a social media and digital marketing agency. Interestingly enough, our small business story started not with social media strategy, but with barbecue sauce! We detailed our digital marketing start on our blog earlier this year, so here’s the quick version of our story.

I spent over 20 years as an electronics engineer and was eager to shift gears and pursue a personal passion. I mixed my business acumen with my love of gourmet food and, in 2002, created Melanie’s Fine Foods. Over the course of marketing barbecue sauces from Big Acres® Gourmet Sauces, the brand owned by Melanie’s Fine Foods, my team and I gained considerable social media savvy. As the brand grew - in no small part as a result of our social media strategy - others in the industry and community engaged our assistance. Thus, Yunk Consulting, now Roaring Pajamas, was born in 2009. We operated both businesses simultaneously for a couple of years. In 2011, though, I sold Big Acres Gourmet Foods to focus solely on Roaring Pajamas.

My husband, Kent, an SEO expert, joined the team so that Roaring Pajamas could offer digital marketing, social media strategy and search consulting to businesses across many different industries, including not-for-profits and community organizations. We work with clients to research, build and execute on thoughtful, thorough and effective marketing programs that include a comprehensive marketing mix of marketing strategy, SEO, social media engagement and social media advertising. We revel in helping clients increase reach, engage new audiences and grow their businesses via social networks. Our proudest moments come when we see tangible, positive growth in customers’ businesses as a result of our work.

These past (almost) eight years running a small business have taught us a multitude of lessons about managing time, clients, workload and life. The key advice we give to any entrepreneur is this: finding trusted lead sources ranks as imperative for growing and sustaining a business. To that end, LinkedIn always provides an excellent platform for us to connect with others in our industry and in our clients’ industries. We receive many valuable leads through direct contact to our personal profiles and inquiries via our business page. And, LinkedIn ProFinder also serves as another fantastic lead source for our services; we’ve answered many interesting and legitimate proposals that have come our way from ProFinder.

At Roaring Pajamas, we’ve figured out our secret sauce. In addition to a social media strategy and a passion for our business, we know that a trusted resource - like LinkedIn - for lead generation and finding resources is a must-have to grow and sustain any small business. Oh, and scrumptious barbecue sauce always helps, too!