Week 17: Wrapping it up

    This class has been an enjoyable experience for me. I was able to broaden my knowledge with social media that I had, and also learn about new ones. This class has taught me that depending on the type of business you have, you have to find the right social media outlet that is right for your target market and your brand.Through the social media outlet you are also able to better understand your competitors and try to be one step ahead of them. For my particular business, I was able to start a social foot print in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
    Facebook was not new to me because for my personal life I use it all the time. One of my favorite things to do is "check in" when I am at a cool restaurant or retail store. I started a brand new business page for my business. In my first week of posting for the first time, the post reached about over 1,000 views. It was very inspiring and made me want to continue posting to see how far it reaches people through the Facebook analytics.
    Instagram is a personal favorite in my personal life. I tend to post more on their compared to any other social media sites. When I first started the Instagram page for my business I was skeptical on perusing it because I was not sure what sort of pictures I would put up. Now the ideas of the pictures come randomly and it is fun to add the different hashtags in order for people to find that picture or video in a search. This semester taught me that a picture can say a thousands words and it is easy to post a great picture and getting followers because of it.
    Twitter was a social media platform that before this class I had never even visited in the website. What I found interesting the week we learned about tweeter was how many of our competitors were on their. I saw that it was a way for consumers to get a business attention by adding the "@' with their name on it. The week we learn about tweeter, I found out that there are lists you can make on your profile to make it more organized. Having a Tweeter page is beneficial because I can keep track on what is trending and other similar business's tweets.
    Overall this experience with this class has made me stronger in the field of social media. It made me comfortable with online tools that I would have never thought to use. It taught me how to make an advertisement and how to add google analytics to a website or blog.  It has opened the gates by strengthening my social media skills and adopting to new ideas. Online marketing is key to a successful business.

Week 16:Part B: Response To Blogs

This week I commented on Cole Walker's, Karla Putts, and Taylor Bantle from Group 1. The reason I had to comment from someone in a different group was because everyone else from Group 2 (my group) except the first two names I listed did not complete week 16 blogs. I hope it is okay.

Week 16: Planning Your Future Strategy

Throughout my time in this class, I was able to learn about the effective ways of using social media for a business. In week 7, I learn about engaging with my costumer through Facebook posts. The way I enraged with my customer in that week was very educational because it showed me how to get my customers, or potential customers their interest in a post for example a call to action post. Week 8 was also another week I enjoyed learning because I learn why it was important to have my business on Instagram compared to any other visual media because, since my business is a retail store I don't really have that much to offer when it comes to selling my product. YouTube is useful when you want to show a how to video on your product where Pintrest is useful when you have a lot of pictures that could be grouped together to make it more organized. Week 9, was another successful learning experience for me because I never used for personal nor business use. That week I was able to see what other competitors use Tweeter for and how you are able to address anyone by using the "@" symbol with their twitter handle. Creating a list of words for your twitter page helps to stay organized and create leads to page.
The best social media platforms integrate best with my type of business is Facebook and Instagram. These social media platforms helps me stay informed with my customer's and potential customers. The tools I learned this semester like using the analytics page and the ad page can be useful when marketing my products. The analytics page is useful to see how well a certain post is doing and how many clicks I received either onto my Facebook page, my website and or Instagram. The ad making tools om Facebook is very useful because you are able to schedule when and who gets to see the ad. This is very useful for my business because we rely mostly on road traffic.
My business should spend posting on social media at least once a week. Facebook posts should be scheduled and ready for the important dates like holidays. Engaging with the customers should be at all times. I now have my Facebook business page and Instagram connected to my phone so I am able to respond as quickly as possible. This is important because I want to constantly be engaged with my customers.
For the month of January I am planning on scheduling a Happy New Year post though Facebook and mention if anyone mentions our posts can receive free Honey sticks that New Years Day. The schedule time should be around 5 am to get any of the driver who plan on getting a head start on their drive. For my Instagram I plan to add all the holidays photos taken by my customers that tagged our business and adding them to the Instagram story January 4th. For Facebook, Every Monday for the entire month of January, I plan on posting a "word of the week" for the customers to say to us so they can get discounts at the store. January 7, 14,21,and 28 at 6 am, I will schedule the post and ask customer's to share and like the page in order to be able to use the "word of the week" discount. For Instagram on January 12, I plan on posting about a photo contest picture to get more Instagram Followers. I will ask the followers to post a pic of themselves in one of the locations and tag 5 of their friend into the posts, and if those 8 friends follow our page and we like your photo. I will send them 3 free packs of jerky of their choosing. I am hoping to get more than 60 followers by the end of January. 

Week 15: Part B

Looking at my analytics for my Facebook page for just this week, I am able to see the traffic my page have been receiving. For the week of November 26 - December 2nd, the page has received 5 page views which shows this is up 100% from last week of analytics. The page also received 3 likes for the week which is up 100% compared to the prior weeks. Posts reach was not so great where it is down 82%. The insights for the page are very interesting because it give you insight on how the page was liked either by searching, or if they are organic followers. I really enjoy the fact you can see how many people viewed your page either by age, city, country and devices. This is cool way to see what your target market can be helpful when thinking when and how to advertise.

Week 15: Optimizing Yourself and the Company

Google analytics can be beneficial for any type of business. For my particular business, being a retail business the main feature that I would in the Google analytics is audience overview, demographics overview, and goal conversions. Audience overview will help me understand what type of people are interested in buying my products. By looking at the audience overview by hour, day, week and month. The audience overview shows me the city, and country as well as if they are returning users or new users. These features are beneficial especially if I am putting out a new product and want to see how well it is doing and who is liking it more. The demographics overview feature goes into detail on what age the consumers are, if they are male or female and what are their interests. This feature will help me with my business because it will help me with deciding on where to post my advertisements if I decide to post them on social media.  The feature of goals under conversions will help measure how well my website is fulfilling my targeted objectives like a minimum purchase amount. 

Week 14: Ad

These are the two ads that I have created ads that require a call to action. One to come to the store and one to visit the website and order online. For both ads the target market will be for ages 18-60 in the Los Angeles area. This ad will be effective because of the call to action requests being so easy.People tend to been drawn to limited edition products and for the first ad it is showing our target market we have special products for them to try! As for the website call to action, the Target Market can see that they are able to order the worlds most favorite jerky online!  

Week 13: Online Advertising Part B

  A good design using banner ads on websites can reach potential customers. If the design of the banner is easy to the eyes and has something that catches people's eye then the changes of getting a click off it is very high. In Facebook and Twitter you can develop certain designs to be posted on the different target markets that you are looking for.Your ads can be tailored to your goals, audience and budget. In order to create an Instagram ad you need to have the page be connected to a Facebook business page. Whatever ads you make on Facebook can be transferred to Instagram. Having an ad out consistently is an option to always have opportunities for more sales.
   The different types of ad include: promoting contact us button, get more website visitors, get more leads, boost a post, boost an Instagram, promote your send message button, promote your business locally, and promote your page. For my business I would choose to get more website visitors, and to promote my business locally. Since my website does not get nearly enough visitors as my physical locations, promoting the website can potentially lead to more customer's online. Choosing to make an ad to promote locally can really help with getting more customer's in the store since we are a road side store, we rely on the traffic. 2 weeks at $5 a day seems to be fair to create a basic understanding on how results can vary.