Social Scout

Here’s a question every small business owner loses sleep over: how do people find out you exist? Word of mouth still works. Always will. But today you need more than that. The challenge is that most small business owners are already doing three jobs at once. Marketing is the thing that slides. The thing you mean to get to.

You need a presence — online, in print, somewhere people are actually looking. Figuring out where to start is daunting. What’s worth the investment? How do I know it’ll work? What’s the best media to buy for my business? Two decades into the social media era, getting noticed on platforms can still be a mystery.

Ashlynn Gary has built a business around solving exactly that problem.

Ashlynn Gary, Owner of Ash Creative Collective, a hands-on operation that takes the fear and uncertainty out of getting a business or non-profit organization noticed on social media

Ashlynn grew up in Lake Charles and came to Lafayette for college, graduating from UL in 2020 with a degree in arts and humanities. She’s always been creative — painting, choir, theatre — and she still acts with the local theatre community today.

In 2020 she started a t-shirt company called Leading Color, mostly to scratch an entrepreneurial itch. What she discovered was that she loved the marketing and branding side of it more than the shirts themselves. So she pivoted.

In 2021 Ashlynn founded Ash Creative Collective, a social media management company that handles content planning, content creation, scheduling, and customer engagement — so her clients don’t have to. She also serves as media manager for Leadership Lafayette.

Don’t listen to haters. Print isn’t dead. With apologies to Mark Twain, rumors of its demise have been, well, somewhat exaggerated. In Lafayette, hundreds of businesses still rely on good old fashioned print products to sell their brands.

And they’re not limited to flyers and newspapers. As Jennifer Brewer found out on a visit to Baton Rouge.

Jenn Brewer, Co-Owner of The Scout Guide Lafayette, a franchise of the nationwide Scout Guide editions that celebrate local business in an annual sophisticated coffee table picture book

Jennifer was born in Lafayette, raised in Baton Rouge, and returned to Acadiana about ten years ago after marrying a local. She’s a real estate broker by day. But a few years ago, she and her friend and business partner, Krysten Ledet, spotted something on a visit to Baton Rouge — a beautifully produced print publication called The Scout Guide, displayed in a local shop.

Krysten and Jennifer were immediately drawn to it. When they looked into it and found the Lafayette market was still open, they bought in.

The Scout Guide is a 100% woman-founded franchise now operating in over a hundred cities across the country. It launched in 2010 in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has grown to support more than three thousand small businesses nationwide. Each edition is a premium print guide — and a community in its own right.

Jennifer and Krysten launched the Lafayette Scout Guide in 2023. This year, they printed 20,000.