Social media and various streaming services have changed ancient industries, allowing traditional trades and activities to leverage the power of the internet and online communities to grow their audience and revenue streams.

Since his first time at sea, Marty Jacobs loved fishing and the intense feelings of freedom breaking waves in the salty air. At fifteen years old, he started his first business Fish Free, a fishing lifestyle brand based on the feelings of freedom and self-empowerment. Like many first start-ups, Jacobs “scratched his own itch” and created the brand he wanted and felt was missing in the fishing niche.

Using his knowledge of social media, he built an Instagram account for Fish Free and posted mainly product shoots--thinking this was the best way to sell. The response was tepid. Jacobs couldn’t figure out why his following has slumped and consumer interaction with his posts was stagnant. Finally, he decided to get back to scratching his itch and posting pictures and videos of awesome fishing trips and spectacularly decked-out boats.

The response was insane. Within days, Fish Free went from a few hundred followers to over twenty-seven thousand, and post views went from a couple thousand to hundreds of thousands of views from all over the world. Globally, people were connecting to Marty Jacobs’ mission and lifestyle brand focusing on the freedom of fishing. Thousands of people posting pictures of themselves catching fish under Jacobs’ hashtag: #wefishfree.

With his first company and its struggles, Jacobs learned valuable skills of social media marketing, how to optimize websites for engagement, rankings, and sales, and scripting and tactics for sales. Seeing that many older small businesses needed these digital marketing skills to take their brands to the next level, Jacobs decided to help. He founded Columbia Marketing and Management agency to provide small businesses the digital media solutions they desperately needed.

With almost any business, it’s always better to have more rather than fewer pathways to communicate with customers. Traditional marketing and customer management like print-outs and flyers aren’t working as well anymore. Consumers are looking for businesses on social media more and more, especially Millennials and Gen-Z. The overwhelming advantage of allowing consumers to find businesses and answer questions in real-time while being one click away from engaging, even more, can’t be understated.

This is what Marty Jacobs sought to help small businesses with during his time with Columbia Marketing and Management. After aiding hundreds of small businesses to increase their social media presence, grow their audience, and maximize their sales, Jacobs decided to join Astra Media and help them dominate the digital media agency market.

Astra has a network of 500 million followers on Instagram alone, with the ability to source traffic at levels unmatched by any other digital media agency. They can also guarantee article placements in some of the world’s most exclusive and esteemed publications. Offering a concierge-level of VIP service, Astra Media is disrupting the digital media industry and Marty Jacobs is helping them take their unique offering to the next level.