Semester Reflection

In the beginning of this course I was excited to get started and learn about the different more modern side of marketing. I felt that social media marketing is very important, especially going into sales, because you want to reach as many people and businesses as you can. I knew it would be a great tool to have on my belt going into the business world and I would have an extra step on my competition.
I expected to learn the ins-and-outs of most social media sites and how to use them from a business point of view compared to just a consumer side. I wasn't sure exactly what we were going to do in this class, but I knew it would help in the long run to take the information I would get from taking this class. I was expecting this class to give me real world experience to go out and use in the work force.
I actually learned everything I was expecting to learn and so much more. My biggest weaknesses about this course were keeping up on Tweets and Facebook posts, because I'm just not into social media like that. Another thing I had trouble with was using Photoshop, I didn't know how to navigate through that program and I was constantly asking questions. I feel that all of the posting was overwhelming, especially because I practically had no time during the week to get them done, so it made things stressful for me.  So I would choose both of those things to strengthen if I could because I also know that both would help me out in my future career.
My favorite experience about this class has to be making and promoting our business we made. I enjoyed writing the blogs every week because it was practically free range on what to write about and made you be creative. You had to think and write from a business point of view and try connecting with your followers. I have enjoyed doing that and I would say that is the most fun thing about this course. I like how it makes you think differently then you usually would about using social media.

A "How to" Post!

Shout out to all my skaters! This post is going to be mainly for our new skaters that are just figuring out the basics and fundamentals of skating. We wanted to give some good knowledge to you guys so that way you can feel some independence while setting up your board. This post is going to be all about how to set up your board and how to figure out your truck comfort level for skating. When it comes to setting up the board, that's the easy part, but believe it or not, depending on what you're skating your truck comfort will change. Most people change it up because it is easier to skate street at a certain level and there is a different one for skating vert as well. So I'm going to give you guys some tips for when you know when to switch things up on your board.

So to start off with the basics of putting your board together here's a list of the things you will need.

Board Items:

 Skateboard deck  

 Trucks

 Wheels

 Bearings

  Hardware (Nuts & Screws)

Tools Needed:

 Skateboard Tool (Easiest way)

Socket Wrench (14mm/12mm/9mm)

Phillips Screw Driver

Once you have everything you need for your board I personally would recommend using the skate tool to put your board together, because it has all of the tools listed in the right sizes in one convenient tool (which we sell at our store). If you don't have a skate tool then use the tools as listed. The best way to start off is getting your trucks ready. First you want to get your bearings in all of your wheels, it is two bearings per wheel, front and back. Once you have that done you want to slide the wheels onto your trucks and slightly hand tighten the nut on all four stems of your trucks so the wheels don't fall off. Once you got that taken care of, come the tedious part of this process. You have to take your hardware from for the trucks and board and place all 8 screws in their respected holes and make sure they line up perfectly with the holes on your trucks. The easiest way to get this process done is called a cross hold. A cross hold is where you take two of the screws and make sure they are diagonally across from each other, put your trucks on, and hand tighten the nuts to the screws. The reason why this is the best way is so the trucks don't move or slide around while you're trying to get the other set of screws on. You should make sure that when you put your trucks on that the bushings are both facing towards the middle of the board. Bushings are the trucks comfort level modifiers. Once you got all the screw on and the nuts hand tighten comes the tool tightening. After everything is all tightened up, you have yourself a completed board. 

Since you have accomplished the board task you then have to move onto your truck comfort level. If you are a vert skater you usually want to have your trucks a bit tighter than usual, tight enough where you can still make comfortable turns, but not too tight where you start to wheel bite on your deck (wheel scrapping the deck). On the other hand if you are a street skater you usually want your trucks to be a bit looser for tighter turns and better maneuverability for skating around town. The way you get to change your truck tightness is by taking your skate tool or 14mm socket wrench and adjust the nut right above your bushings. So that is a step by step tutorial about how to put you board together and how to figure out how you like to ride your trucks. Now that you have this information, go out and try it yourselves! 

Fall Harvest Sale

Shout out to all my skaters! I think it's safe to say that October was a crazy month for us. We ran amazing sales, our Breast Cancer Awareness event was an incredible hit with our current customers and people in our community, the sales for our Halloween Sale was scary good, and last but definitely not least the Knots Landing charity event was so heart warming and brought the community together to help out the kind and needing Gallagher family. This month was a blast, and now it's time to let the dust settle a bit from all of the craziness and slowly rolling out our new sale that's going on now. Seeing as we are now in fall, with surprisingly great weather still, it is only fitting that we call our sale the Fall Harvest Sale. We want you to come in and enjoy this sale, harvest as many skate products as you can before the winter months hit, and enjoy some soul warming apple cider in the mean time.

Fall Harvest Sale

With the Fall Harvest Sale, we're trying something new sale wise. Since we know our customers are loving the store and new products coming out, we want to make sure they want to keep coming back for more. So for the whole month of November we will are having weekly sales, but there is a little twist on it. We are heavily integrating our Sk8 & Save rewards program with this sale. The twist is that each week the sale percentage off goes up by 5%. So this week is 5% off and next week it will be 10% off, so on and so forth. Doesn't sound tricky yet? Well here it is, in order to get to the next percentage off tier you had to of bought something the week before ( no price exclusions) and you also have to have scanned your rewards card at the time of purchase. The rewards card is key because that is what is going to save your purchase information to bump you to the next percentage off tier. We thought this was a great idea to bring more people in our doors, keep our happy skaters coming back for more, and to get everyone stocked up before the winter bore! So We hope everyone is enjoying the sale and if you haven't already come down and lock in your 5% off so you can get 10% off next week!