Week 17: Wrapping It Up

When I first began this class, I wasn’t using any social media outlets for my business. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to start it off and I was nervous. Over the semester I was pushed to create my social media brand and I am very happy that I signed up for this class! I went from no outlets to all the outlets and posting regularly and engaging with my audience. More importantly I was able to over come the fear of just doing it. I have been focused on running other people’s business that I wasn’t able to focus on mine. This class time forced me to set aside time and showed me what to post and why.

There hasn’t been an impact on my business from the use of my social media YET. Unfortunately, most of the people on my social media are friends and family and I have not fully broken out of the bubble. As I continue to break out of my bubble, I am sure I will start seeing results. I also haven’t purchased ads to target a specific audience but since I now know how I am sure I will get good responses as well.

My view point on social media has changed. Reading Likable Social Media has taught me the importance of being genuine of social media and why it is so important. It taught me how to care for your following through thoughtful business practices. The class assignments have showed me how to navigate and understand each platform and to focus on what my business may need.

I now know how to utilize social media so I can better target a certain audience with the use of ads and I can now chose the best time of days to reach my target audience and where to pull information to see if what I am doing is effective.

This semester I was able to see other business that offered things that interested me. The student who makes beef jerky is at the top of my list. I love beef jerky! But also found other companies aside from this class that offer services such as mine that I can partner with and they offer white labeling for book keeping and social media management.    

Week 16: Planning Your Future Strategy

I have enjoyed using Facebook because of the analytics that it gives you. However,  I believe LinkedIn might be the most effective to use since you can clearly see what everyone is there for and target that businesses that fall into my niche. 

I have also liked using LinkedIn because of its professionalism and you know you aren’t bothering your friends with things they don’t need. When I post to Facebook I am marketing my friends and family and most aren’t business owners. 

LinkedIn is very straight forward and to the point. I can connect with people I meet via LinkedIn and they aren’t worried that they are letting me in their private lives, such as Facebook. The tools I have liked to use the most was Google analytics. I love that I can see everything about my audience, so I can see what is working and what is not. 

I believe that 2 to 5 hours per week should be spent on my business. It takes that much time to produce posts and comment on other people’s posts. It’s important to build and engage your following.

My plan for the next month is to post 3 times per week on Instagram, Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn at around 7am and again around 7pm. This seems to be a good time from my analytics. The content I will share will be a recommendation I have of a CPA or some field that helps small business. Then the other content will be about tips on social media and another on how to run your business.  

Week 15: Optimizing Yourself and the Company Part 2.

After I reviewed my Facebook analytics, I have noticed that this week I am up 100% in most areas from the week prior due to the post I did. I have 1 new follower, 2 new page previews and I reached 26 people and I have 3 post engagements. I like seeing these analytics mixed with the Google analytics. The both combined are a big help. 

Week 15: Optimizing Yourself and the Company

When it comes to Google analytics, the features I would like to focus on would be:

1.     How well do you retain users?

I would like to know how well I am retaining my audience, so I can see what content did well from one week to the next.

2.     How do I acquire users?

How I acquire users is important, so I can see what marketing methods are working and which ones are not.

3.     My bounce rate:

My bounce rate will tell me how effective my content is. From there I can change it around to see what works best. I can also check my page speed to make sure that isn’t affecting the rate.

4.     When do my users visit?

I would like to use this information, so I can see what the best time to do a posting. If they mainly check in on social media around 6 pm then that’s the time I want to post the most for the following week.

5.     What pages do they visit?

I would like to see what page on my site interests them the most, so I can make sure I have all imperative information on this page and create links to my other pages to counter my bounce rate.

Week 14: Developing Online Advertising

Below are my ads for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I decided to target an audience of business owners in their late 20s on up. I wanted people who were just starting their business so I chose to younger than what I first decided. I used a "free business consultation" to lure people in. It's easier for me to convert a potential client if I can communicate with them via phone. The best ad for me would be a "boost" promotion. Then I can offer a small free service within that boosted post so I can show them how they can utilize my services.

Week 13: Part 2

I reviewed ads in industries that are like mine and what draws my attention are their description and how well they can summarize how they can help with in a small ad box. It’s hard to do in my field since what we do can be extensive and its not simply put. I really liked this company that put their bottom line price in their name. 98dollar social media… “how simple” I thought. Guess work is done, and it was catchy, and it was the only business name I could remember out of all the companies I was looking at to white label for my business. Their call to action was a basic “sign up now” but since their ad displayed all the information that I needed, their call to action didn’t need to be anything but simple. They use imagery in their social media, but I am noticing that most companies are using imagery as Pinterest and Instagram make this a requirement to post. The ads that I find to be the least helpful and annoying are the ads where I can’t figure out what they specialize in and I have to click the link to find out more. I won’t click the link as I am annoyed already. Give me your elevator pitch in a simple ad.  I can see this being my business issue as well, so I am glad I was tasked with this so I can see how my business may appear to others. I reviewed other companies that are similar to my business but their social media wasn’t on point besides the one I mentioned above.

Traditional advertising is good when done in the correct manner within a particular audience. For instance, if I am a real estate agent and I want to sell homes in a specific community, let’s say a retirement community, then traditional marketing would be perfect. I could have someone deliver flyers to their doors and I can host neighborhood events and really get to know and build trust in my targeted community. This would have an amazing impact. However, if you consider the field that I am in, which is helping small or start up business owners, then traditional marketing most likely will fully not work the way social media could. With social media I can enter my key words into the ad I am running, a few examples would be “business owners, CEO, marketing executive and small business owners”.

Week 13: Online Advertising - Analysis of the Marketplace

Facebook has the following advertising:

1.       Friends of connections

2.       Driving traffic and leads

3.       Post likes and engagements

4.       App installation ads

I can use photos in my social media advertising that draw people in with a my “Top 10 Business Tips” blog (I don’t have a blog currently but if I was advertising, I would use my blog as a landing page). My business could use “post boosting” on Instagram and Facebook because the algorithm is always changing so this is part of playing the game. I would also use “driving traffic and leads” as it is important for me to drive my customers to my blog, so I can share what I believe to be important business tips; to my target market which is, new business owners. I want to share my knowledge on how to run your small business and they may see that my services can help them run their business flawlessly and with little effort on their part.  I would use these ads once per month due to my type of business and the onboarding process that can be extensive as it can take up to 30 days. I believe spending 500 per month would be beneficial till the company has grown more. Once is has grown then spending 10,000.00 per month would make sense, on average, one client can generate that in one year.

Week 12: Using other Social Media

I think LinkedIn would be a good platform to actively use for my business. 

When I attend networking events I can find the people I am networking with from my phone. Which is great if I don’t have a business card handy. LinkedIn is very business minded so I don’t feel bad when I post about my business as I would on Facebook or Instagram. 

I have heard Google Plus is going to be taken down within the next few months because it didn’t take off the way they wanted it to. I will need to research this more to see what’s happening with it.

I could try using Yelp as I know the search engines love when I business is on Yelp. 

I am not a big fan of Groupon because to change your campaign you need to get them on the phone and I don’t like something I can’t go in and change myself.

Week 11: Blog I Commented On

Olivia Cruz

Kimberly McMahan

Nancy Niepegan

Week 11: Email Marketing

Newsletters are good for businesses who want to keep their customer base well informed. For my business I would prefer a monthly newsletter and I would use the “Top 10” as the base of my new letter. I would use informative marketing with each category in the newsletter. Most of my customer base are new and small businesses, so they need a lot of help and information in starting or launching their existing business.

I would utilize the following categories below:  

• ·         Top Ten Tips for helping you Budget
• ·         Top 10 Business Apps
• ·         Top 10 Tax Tips
• ·         Top 10 Social Media Tips
• ·         Top 10 Customer Service Tips

Chapter 10. Part 2. Categories

The categories that I would use on my business blog would be:

·         Marketing

·         Business Management

·         Money Management

·         Time Management

These categories would help my business grow because my business is based off information and consulting. Having these categories would allow my target audience to select which area they need assistance in. 

I commented on the following blogs:

Koo, Bonkun

Williams, Floyd

Niepagen, Nancy

Chapter 10: Blogging for Business

Everyone loves human interest because it described personal experiences of people we may or may not know. This lets us know that they are, in fact, human. They are just like US. We live in a day in age where everything is automated and it’s nice to see fresh ideas and opinions from an actual person. The book “Likeable Social Media” was talking about Lady Gaga and how she runs her own social media and that is important because the people who are engaging with her see photos that she took and comments she is making. Due to this, she now has over 30 million followers on Instagram alone.

There are times that it would be ok for a third party to come in. If you have so many followers that you can’t respond to all their questions, it may be good to hire someone who can do so. I am bringing up a third party because these are generally time that a personal touch won’t be able to be given. A personal touch may not be necessary for a “sale post” for instance or announcing a winner of a social media contest. There are also “informational posts” that can be generalized as well and don’t necessarily need a personal touch. Personal touches aren’t needed often if you are responding to the customers that are asking generalized questions.

It’s always good to have a personal touch in my opinion but you can lace it with some generics and it wont hurt.

Post 9: Twitter - Sharing Your Thoughts in 140 Words or Less

I started to follow a company I recently collaborated with for new leads. Their name is Housecall Pro and they have a lot of followers that I can convert into clients so it was a pretty good follow for me.

I also started following Thompsonhvac. I used “heating and air conditioning in San Diego” in the search box to find them. Some of my clients are HVAC so I figured it would be good to have a few HVAC companies to follow.

I then used the word “plumbers in San Diego” and I started following @georgplumbing because they are another potential customer.

I finally started following Tony Robbins (aka, my one-day husband). I am hoping his tweets are just as good as his posts on his other social media platforms, this will allow me to have content, so I can retweet (RT) to my following.

My Lists:

Potential clients:  This will include HVAC and plumbing companies.

Clients: these are people that are my existing clients. I want to keep in contact with them so I can maintain our relationship.

Business Partners: This will include Housecall Pro and CPAs.

Most of my twitter targets (except Tony Robbins) own small businesses so their prime time would be early in the morning 5am to 8am and in the evening 7 to 10pm.  

Lists are life:

I can stay organized on Twitter by putting everyone in their own list. Having all the people that belong in the above lists will help me target one market at a time. On Mondays I can target tweets that have been done “potential clients” list and respond to their tweets and the next day respond to tweets from my “business partner” list so they know I support their business as well.

Week 8: Part 2 Let a Picture Tell a Story

1    Zirtual has 3000 to 10,000 followers on their social media platforms. They are using Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Each platform that has a post also has a photo. Some of their photos are of text and it seems simple and to the point and still draws you in. This isn’t the best use I have seen of photos and platforms. They haven’t posted anything since March of this year, but prior they were posting once per week on average between all of their platforms.  Lack of posting makes me wonder if they have closed. Seeing this lack of posts make me realize how important it can be to stay active on social media. I am not seeing very many likes and zero comments.

2   Belay has 2000 followers on Instagram and Twitter and over 6000 likes on their Facebook page. They are using Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google Plus. Their last post was this week and they stay active on all their platforms, posting at least once per week. They also use visual photos on all their posts and on all their platforms. They even gave a customer review and quoted it on a photo of a lady sitting at a desk. I liked that they did this because it allowed them to share it on Instagram. This is defiantly a tip I am going to use!! I am not seeing very many likes and zero comments.

3    Intelligent Office uses Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. They are using video and pictures in all their postings. None of their visual content was impressive but I did apricate their quality videos on YouTube. They have 3000 followers on LinkedIn. Their Facebook isn’t linked to their page, and they have 5 videos on YouTube from over 3 years ago. Their last post on Twitter was in March. They are not active on social media even though they have had the money to invest in high quality videos. They, like all these other companies I am reviewing for this assignment, are getting 3 likes on average. It’s interesting to see the numbers so low. Again, this is another example that I need to keep in mind, so I can make sure I am posting on a regular basis and I am engaging my viewers by asking questions and getting them to think.

4    Uassist.me uses Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn only. They have 49 followers on Instagram, 890 followers on Twitter and 7000 likes on Facebook. They haven’t posted since 2017 and their followers don’t comment, and their likes are averaged about 3 likes per post. They use visuals on all their platforms but no video content, only photos. I learned that it is important to post content that can get your customers engaged, maybe asking them questions to get them to comment. This social media wasn’t very well managed.

5    Timeect uses Twitter and LinkedIn. They have 2300 followers and their last post on Twitter was May 17^th and on LinkedIn it was last year. They are using photos as their primary visual and the photos aren’t high quality. They have very few likes and again are averaging 3 likes and zero comments. I am learning what I have from viewing the other companies; to keep up to date with my customers and to make sure I have good visual and written content.

Week 8: Get Visual - Let a Picture Tell a Story

The most widely used social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter and LinkedIn.

My first preference for business platforms is LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn because when I am at Networking event I can locate them if we don’t have business cards and we can connect right away. There is a feature in LinkedIn where you can turn on your location (within the app) and the person who does it as well will pop up in your likedIn and it will ask you if you want to connect with them. This is a Networking party trick and everyone loves it! I created a LinkedIn for this assignment but I couldn't figure out how to link it to my facebook page so I also created an Instagram account. 

My second preference is YouTube. It would’ve been my first choice, but I am not ready to make videos yet. YouTube will be a necessary tool in my business since the world is shifting towards video content. Attention spans are getting shorter and people are more visual than ever.  I can make helpful learning tutorials that help my clients gain knowledge and become success themselves, all while bringing in new clients from my helpful resources. 

Instagram is my third choice. Instagram is for sharing photos and very different than Facebook articles and posts. The hashtags helo me to connect with similar business and people who may need my service. Instagram will be helpful for my business for search engine purposes and since Instagram is has 1 billion users I really can’t say no.

Facebook is my fourth preference. Facebook is used for sharing articles, posts and photos. I believe that Facebook will be a helpful business tool with my business because I will be able to join groups and network with people who can give me referrals. I can also post helpful business tips that my niche should know.

Twitter is my fifth preference. I haven’t dived into it much but the hashtags can help me when I am looking for people within my groups and business niche.

I don’t think I would benefit as much from doing SnapChat. I don’t have enough video content to share currently or business photos. However, I have noticed that a lot of people use it for personal more than business, but social media is social media, and it’s all relative and important.

I am not a big fan of Pinterest in personal or business but again, the future is video and photos and Pinterest has the visual aspect of where the future is headed.  

Week 7: Part 2 Engaging Your Customers - FaceBook Strategy

Here is the activity for the last 3 posts:

Week 7: Engaging Your Customers - FaceBook Strategy

Below are the 7 business I “liked” and the reasons I chose them and how it can help me with my business:

•             Legal Zoom - I chose Legal Zoom so I can capture their following. A lot of my clientele are new business owners and they would also like if I shared some of the information that Legal Zoom had to offer.

•             ADP - I chose ADP because they are one of my business partners and I would like to share their posts because I assume they will have good tips and tricks that I can share with my clients via social media. Information marketing is what I prefer to use.  

•             Social Media Marketing World - I chose this page for their tips and tricks and content share.

•             Tony Robbins – I love Tony Robbins and his business advice. This page would be good for content sharing with my followers and for learning.

•             Construction Business Owner - I chose this page to like because they are my target clientele and would like to engage with their following.

•             Housecall Pro - I close this because Housecall Pro is a software I use to help my clients get organized and it can help them manage their business. I figure by following them I would be kept up to date on what they are doing so I can pass along the knowledge to my clients.

•             Entrepreneur – I chose this page, so I can capture their following and for content share as well.

Over all, each of these business pages would enable me to share their content and pass along the wisdom to my following. As I mentioned before, information marketing is a good tool to use when posting to social media and each of these pages are a wealth of information.

Week 6: Setting up a FaceBook Business Page

1.      Define the difference between post reach and post engagement.

Post reach is how many people have seen your posts in a newsfeed. It’s doesn’t mean they have engaged in anyway shape or form. Just simply “viewed”.

Post engagement calculates when someone has clicked, viewed, clicked like, or commented. Basically any “engagement” what so ever with a post.

2.      Why is knowing the difference important?

It is important to know the difference between post engagement and post reach because you need to know what your conversion rate is with your posts.

It will let you know what is working for your audience and what isn’t. You don’t want people just to see your post but you also need engagement.

3.      After defining the terms, describe how a business can use Facebook Insights to better serve their customers.

Facebook Insights allows you to see number of likes, how many people are talking about your page and how may people you are reaching and page views.  It will also see what the best time of day to post the best day of the week and what kind of content that is popular.

All this information is important so you know what to post to keep your followers engaged. It would also not be a good idea to post in at 10:00pm when most people are sleeping. Having the insights activated on your page will help you know the post times to post.

Week 5: Post 2

TARGETS: 

I would like my target market to be the owners of HVAC, plumbing, electrical, landscape and construction companies. 

I would like to target them because they are small business owners who can gain from using my “timeblocks” since most can’t afford to pay their employees all year round. 

They also don’t have much in the way of social media and some don’t even have a website.  

Week 5: Post 1

I first decided to review https://www.armstronggarden.com/

The very first things I noticed was the over whelming amount of flowers that were all over the first page and the second thing I noticed was the older lady on the left-hand side of the page. This gave me an initial impression that they are trying to target an older demographic of people. Older lady = older customers. This makes sense that they would want this because someone who gardens usually has more time. People with more time are usually retired people. I love gardening, but let’s face it, I have zero time to garden. The closet to a garden that I have come is in a window seal that is 8x12 space.

This site isn’t new or fresh looking but looks to be dated, I am wondering if this is done on purpose to appeal to the older generations.

They had an “advice” page which also told me that they may be targeting people who have time to read and research. Again, these may be an older demographic.

They also have “gardening” classes. I am sounding like a broken record, but the older community would have time for these classes. I would also think that stay at home moms would also be able to attend but it doesn’t seem to be a website for a younger demographic.

The second website I reviewed was https://discovermyrtlecreek.com/

Myrtle Creek was very different from Armstrong as it didn’t feel as if they were selling something but rather offering an experience. Their content seemed more geared toward an outdoors demographic. People who have kids can come here since one of their main focuses is the botanical gardens. They have animals on their site which tells me this is a great place for a mother to bring her kids. In the events page there are kid friendly themes, such as, Tinker Bell and The Curious Garden” and several events that picture people in their 30 to 40 with families.

The other demographic would also be the locals who are interested in buying/dining local since there is also a restaurant.

These are two notably different companies as one has more of a store feel and they the other has more of an attraction/event venue. Armstrong is targeting an older crowd and Myrtle is targeting families and the local community.

Armstrong draws in an older crowd with their color theme choice on their site and with the photos of older people. Their message is more of “come here and get everything you need for your projects” and Myrtle Creek is drawing in families with their photos of children and families. Their message seems to be one of, “come here, shop and relax”.

Both sites had their social media links up to date and seem to be fairly active on each of their social media platforms.

Week 4: Blog 2. Aesthetics, Design, and Branding

My two favorite sites: 

www.Lacantina.com

This is a site that I visit frequently for two of my clients.  I must pull information from their site since it’s a manufacture that they use.

I like the number of photos on the La Cantina Website and the clarity of each one. I have been to sites where the photos are low resolution and its similar to a house you are buying with the paint job is bad.

I like their use of all the social links. Each one is active, and they have most of the popular social media links.  

I like the interactive videos, this helps consumers when they need some guidance and from what I have seen, not many of their competitors have it.

I don’t feel overwhelmed even though their site holds of lot of content. I feel like they organized everything perfectly and they are giving you a guided tour throughout the site.

www.apple.com

As I have mentioned, I am not an Apple user, but I do appreciate their site and marketing magnificence that goes into everything they do.

I love the clarity of their photos, the colors that they use and the size of their photos. I haven’t seen many websites like Apple where the images pop out like 3D and I believe that it’s apart of the appeal.

 I like their simple, clean-cut logo that isn’t overwhelming.

I like that their content is always fresh and updated. Seems like they are always changing the first page, which is a brilliant idea.

Their menu bar is very simplistic, which is important for a not so simplistic company, so I also think that is neat.

I like that they don’t use a lot of content and the pages that they do have content on, are most likely at 1^st grade reading level which relaxes the brain when you don’t have to put hard work into buying your item.

Week 4: Blog 1. Aesthetics, Design, and Branding

Below are the 4 sites that I evaluated and let me preface this by saying I could not have done any better than the websites below. 

http://gatesnfences.com/

One of the things that I liked about this site was that it had a lot of links on the left-hand side that provided you with over 20 links to photos of all their product lines. I am happy to know I will be able to view all their products.

Their contact information was right at top, which is very helpful when it’s time to buy.

They had real images of their work and that is important when making such a hefty purchase. Gates are like marriages, FOREVER. Scary, I know.

There is no social media icon links on their site. So there is no way for me to quickly see what people have said without going hard detective on them through the BBB.

I disliked the alignment of their company name on the left hand-side. This site had a major lack in branding. There business name was positioned on the left-hand side, which was good, but I just would like it to be separated from the other content. I feel bad talking about this website because it seems like someone did the coding for the first time.  

I also dislike the floating credit card logo that says, “buy now”. Purchasing a gate for a home is a costly purchase and there is no way I would be able to decide from one visit to a site just because a button popped up. However, if I was on amazon and buying something for $20.00 then the “buy now” feature may influence me, but for this product I feel like it doesn’t do anything but look tacky.

I love the links on the left-hand side because the information it holds is necessary for me to make an informed decision but there are too many and I feel a bit overwhelmed. Sort of like when I go to Costco and see all the overwhelming aisles filled with goods.  

In conclusion, I do not like the aesthetics, design or branding of this page.

https://www.nps.gov/index.htm

I liked this page. Aesthetically, it was easy on the eyes. The layout is easy to navigate so I can locate what I need to find with a page that has the potential to be overwhelming. However, their page is not overwhelming. 

They placed a “find a park” drop down menu and that was the winning ticket for me. Now I feel like they are helping me find what I need.  

I didn’t care for having to scroll down, that always makes me feel overwhelmed with too much information.

The man on the right-hand side was cut off in the photo so I didn’t care for that. I also would place the “Explore the wilderness” to the left or in the middle.

I would have liked to see their social media icons at the top of the page but they were located at the bottom.

I would’ve liked their logo to be bigger for branding purposes, I couldn’t see the writing on the logo. I understand it’s a National Park service, but I would’ve liked it to stand out more.

Aesthetics, design are a 6 out of a 10 and branding is about a 3.

http://jamilin.com/

I can’t even with this page. I tried but my ADHD went on high alert and we are super overwhelmed. There are ads to the right, but some aren’t ads and is the actual website content and it makes me question my intelligence because I can’t figure out what’s what.

Let me act a bit more positive for a second, I like that she had a video on the first page. I do think marketing is going towards video content and so this was nice to see that she is on top of it.

However, her photos are mixed together on the banner and I can’t figure out what’s going on there either. I don’t know if the banner is ads, mixed in with the website owner’s content? I am not sure. It’s overwhelming and saturated with content that is helpful and some I can’t sort out.

There seems to be a lack of branding because I can’t find the business name or the main product/service being sold. I have a few ideas of what’s being sold so I am going to evaluate it further to see.

After looking over her website a bit longer, she appears to offer a multitude of services and a bit of products. Unfortunately, this isn’t good for branding when you have too many services mixed up in the pot.

She doesn’t have all her social media links up. She has one link that says it’s for Facebook, Youtube and Twitter but when you click on it, it will take you to her Facebook page only.

In conclusion, I do not like the aesthetics, too many colors and photos all meshed together.  The design is too busy and there is not much in the way of branding on this page.

https://www.apple.com/

I am not an Apple fan. I know a lot of you will hate me for this, but it’s a fact. However, I find their website and everything they do marketing wise to be beautiful and magical. 

Aesthetically speaking, I would marry their site if I could. It cool and crisp and not easy to navigate. They have followed all the C.R.A.P. and applied it to their site. 

Their use of colors are relaxing and their product photos are like art work. I want to buy everything on the site because of their layout. I can focus on one product at a time and colors of the product pop out and I don’t even know how they got so much clarity in one space.

I would have liked the pages to be shorter, because as I have mentioned previously, I get bored quickly, so I am not good at scrolling down any further. Some of the pages hold a lot of content but Apple is a monster, so I am sure that this is necessary.

Their branding is amazing, they don’t even need to put their business name “Apple” on the first page because their icon has branded itself in such a way when you see the apple icon you know it’s APPLE.

I would have liked to see the social media icon links on the first page, but I assume they said “we are Apple, we don’t even need social media” and they wouldn’t be wrong.

Aesthetics, design and branding are an A. They have poured the big money into the business and it shows.

Blog Post 3 Part 2.

1      Loewen Window and Doors

                                 i.            https://www.loewen.com/

                               ii.            Platforms: Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram

                             iii.            Last Post: Facebook: 16 hours ago Linkedin: 16 hours ago Instagram: 16 hours ago

                             iv.            I do like their content on their social media and the use of their photos and hashtags. I would’ve liked to see more social media links; such as, Pintrest.

2.       Western Window Systems

                                 i.            https://westernwindowsystems.com/

                               ii.            Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram

                             iii.            Last Post: Facebook: 3 hours ago Twitter: 3 days ago Pintrest: 3 hours YouTube: 4 weeks ago LinkedIn: 3 hours ago Instagram: 1 day ago

                             iv.            They have a good social media presence however, I am not impressed with their content and photos. The photos are low quality and they don’t have much in the way of hashtags.  

3.       Weathershield

                                 i.            https://www.weathershield.com/

                               ii.            Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, Instagram

                             iii.            Last Post: Facebook: Yesterday Twitter: Yesterday Pintrest: Yesterday Instagram:  Yesterday

                             iv.            I liked that they have a social media presence, content and the photos are aesthetically pleasing.

4.       Arcadia

                                 i.            https://www.arcadiainc.com/products/windows

                               ii.            Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn

                             iii.            Last Post: Facebook: 2015 Instagram: 0 posts Twitter: 0 posts LinkedIn: 0 posts

                             iv.            They do not have a social media presence. They have created the accounts but they have not posted in many years, if at all. When looking at their social media, I wondered if they were still in business.

5.       La Cantina Windows and Door

                                 i.            http://www.lacantinadoors.com/

                               ii.            Platforms: Insta, facebook, Youtube, Pintrest, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Twitter on a constant bases

                             iii.            Last post: Insta, Pintrest and Facebook was 6 hours prior, Youtube: 6 months ago, LinkedIn: 1 week ago Twitter: 7 hours, Google Plus:  7 hours ago

                             iv.            Their social media is amazing, they are up to date with all forms of social media platforms. They have amazing photographs and their information is relative. I am really impressed.

After analyzing all 5 of the business I have gathered a few observations that have helped me to further understand why social media and the way we manage it, is important.

I realized that content is very important when it comes to your social media platforms. The links and the hashtags and what you are saying is very important as well. On some of these websites I noticed that they didn’t articulate as well as their competitor. The photo and what it’s explaining, and the clarity of the photo is also imperative. One of the sites has low resolution photo and that stood out as a negative in my brain when I compared it to the high-resolution photos of their competitor.  When you have bad content, it reminds me of having a bad store front. You must make sure your store is clean, organized and looks pretty.

Presence is important because if you haven’t posted on your social media in while, it makes me questions whether you are a legitimate company and if you are still in business. It’s sad that business is this way, but social media plays such a huge part in business now a days. It’s a monster we can’t avoid if we want to be a successful business owner.  

The amount of social media platforms that a business has on their site is important. When I saw that La Cantina has almost every relative platform, it made me think that they really have their s*** together (or they just have a good marketing team) but either way, they are placing money into their business and this gave me a sense that they care. This also made me think that they have money and if they have money then this sends a message that they are success and must have good products. I am not saying that these are all facts, I am just giving my “at a quick glance” observation. It’s like looking a guy and at a quick glance, he may look unattractive but once you get to know him he may become more attractive. Quick glance isn’t everything, but it does count as your initial thought till proven otherwise.

I commented on the following posts

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Bantle, Taylor

Dahmann Christian

Koo, Bonkun