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.