Final Thoughts

     My viewpoint of social media has drastically changed.  I will not use social media for personal experiences; however, I will use social media for my business.  I went from not knowing and hating social media to understanding how to use it and navigate through it for my business.  I am still new to the social media aspect, so I still need to mold the platforms around my business strategy.  This will take some time and effort on my part.

     My experience with this class has improved my overall understanding of social media and business.  I am glad I took this class.  This will indeed help me propel my business into the future.  I enjoyed viewing and reading other classmate’s blogs and facebook pages.  This also gave me ideas of how I wanted to mold my business.

     I do wish this was a traditional classroom course, only because I am new to social media and business.

Week #14 Future Strategy

     I learned a lot about social media this semester.  I would never use it for personal reasons, but now I see it is big for business and is a good opportunity to promote my business without paying an arm and a leg for advertising. 

     For my future strategy, I plan on using facebook as my number one platform.  This will allow me to reach out to a very large amount of people, and I can connect to different social media platforms as I gradually incorporate them into my business plan.  I will continue to use the blog to get the message out and try to direct people to my facebook page and website.  You tube is another platform I will dabble in because I have a video I can post of my business.   Twitter and pinterest will be another avenue I will take further down the road.

     For right now it will be facebook, blogging and youtube.  I will dedicate a day to create a schedule that will span a couple weeks at a time.  I will designate certain days on when the articles will appear on my business page.  I plan on having them post on Fridays.  I believe a lot of people will be more active on facebook during the weekends.  I will (try) to keep my presence on facebook weekly with articles, pictures and promotions.  Blogging will be done every other week.  I do not want to over saturate my blog, but I do want to stay active on it.  I plan on posting a you tube video to see what hits I can generate from that.  I will not be as active on you tube as I will be on facebook or blogging.  Twitter and pinterest will be my next venture as time goes by.  Once I begin using twitter and pinterest, I will (try) to keep a weekly schedule with these platforms.  Other social media platforms are not off the table, and I may plan to use them in the future sometime.

     Once I become familiar with the social media platforms I have choosen, then I will eventually put more time into building them up and venturing further in the world of social media.

Week #14 Blog Comments

I commented on the following classmate's blogs: 

Hyo Yoo Jeon

Cindy Rojas

Stephen Wilson

Craig Stevens

Week #14 Social Media Platforms

Social Media Platforms

     I had the opportunity to dive into the world of social media while taking this class.  I am new to the social media world, and never cared to dabble in it in the first place.  But, I find it very useful to use if you have a business.  I do not care to post my personal life online nor do I care to read anyone else’s either.  I can take full advantage of these social media platforms to propel my business forward.  I believe facebook is the best platform for me.  I am finding it easier to navigate as I continue to negotiate the concept.  There are a lot of users on facebook, and it is easy to link the facebook account to other platforms such as: twitter, you tube, pinterest, instagram, etc.  The goal is to reach as many potential customers as practible, and social media is the best way to do this.  It is by far the most inexpensive and best way to advertise to billions of people.  You get the most bang for your buck.

     I can use facebook on a daily basis.  This also will allow me to link to my other social media platforms and keep them up to date as well.  I can also use my blog to keep my business presence up to date and fresh in the minds of people. 

     I plan on using twitter, you tube, pinterest and possibly other platforms too.  However, these will be less frequent.  I may designate a day to where I update the platforms once or twice a month.  This does not seem that difficult. 

     Like I mentioned before, I am new to the game and would like to keep a presence on social media for my business.

Week #13 Facebook Analytics

     I am unable to view the analytics information at this time.  I have to receive 11 more likes until I am able to view.

     From what others have said in their blogs, the facebook analytics is a very detailed tool that can be great to track virtually anything about the people that view your page.

Week #13

Useful Google Analytic Features

      When you narrow down your target audience, Google Analytics is a great way to understand your target audience by giving you the tools to track potential customer’s habits.  This will allow you to really focus on your target audiences needs and wants.  You must build your website around your customer’s habits. 

      There are several tools in Google Analytics that are very helpful at determining how to keep an eye on your customer’s activities:

1.  Event tracking- This is an important tool because it shows how my customers interact with my website.  This will allow me to form my website around what the customers spend the most time on, etc.
2. Traffic sources- I want to know how people find my site.  This will allow me to see what is and what is not working.  Then I can focus my website around this important information.
3. Adwords-   This is another good tool because it lets me see what my customers are doing when they visit my page.  You have to pay for adwords but it is relatively inexpensive, until you get your website in front of more people.

Week #12

Week #12

Coupons

     I think Groupon would be a very good place to use coupons in order to promote my business.  If people are looking for deals in the industry you happen to be in, and your items are somewhat expensive, this would be a good opportunity to have a discount on certain items.  People will take notice and look into the product.  Then I will be able to entice them to visit my website.

Week #12

More Social Tools

What four additional online marketing tools do you believe could be important to the growth of your business?

1.  LinkedIn:  I thought this site was where you would put your resume in to look for a job.  This would be a great opportunity to get my business in front of many other businesses.  It would be a b2b type interaction.  Maybe other businesses could give tips or move me in the right direction.  Also, many people would see my business if they happen to be using the site.  This exposes my business to other people who might not otherwise use other social media sites.

2.  Google +:  Here is another opportunity to really target my audience.  By joining events, circles and hangout spots, I will be able to narrow down and pinpoint the interests of different people and groups.  I could also network through other hangouts and hopefully be able to interest people to visit my site.

3.  Groupon:  This site is growing in popularity.  It would be easy to promote coupons and discounts to my products through the site.  Many people would view these coupons, because it is more convenient to seek deals and find coupons online than the traditional method of newspapers, magazines, etc.

4.  Yelp:  This site is good for finding reviews on businesses.  When I plan on buying a new product or brand, I tend to view the reviews first to see what other experiences people have had with the product.  Good or bad reviews are important to attract new customers.  Good reviews obviously means that the product or service is good, and bad reviews tells me the business is at least honest for allowing dissatisfied customers voice their opinion.  In the end the customer is the one who will make a buying decision.

     These four sites can be integrated with the use of my business to attract customers, gain ideas and just chat with other businesses to see what is going on in the industry.  It seems a bit much to maintain all of the social media platforms, because each one is different but similar to each other.  Most, if not all, can be interlinked between each other to make life more manageable.  The bottom line is to get your business in front of as many people as possible.

Week #11

Week #11

 

Social Media without spending money

 

     I will continue to use facebook as my call to action.  I can also use twitter in conjunction to facebook, but with a lot less text.  The goal is to get people to my page, and get them to like my page.  Hopefully people will start to spread the page around.  The more people I get to view my page the better the chance of them going to my website and actually purchasing products.

 

     Using this method of promotion is ideal for me at the moment.  I do not have a large budget to begin to advertise my business.  Facebook is a great way to do this for free.  The possibility of putting your website in front of millions of people to view is astronomical.  It is up to me to grab their attention.

 

Week #11

 

Blog Posts

I commented on the following classmate's blogs:

Hyo Yoo Jeon
Cindy Rojas
Stephen Wilson

 

Week #11

Online Advertising

     I would use the Facebook ad, Page post engagement and page likes.  I will use these two types of ads as a call to action sort of advertising.  I want people to visit my page so I do not want to discourage people from liking my page.  As stated in the text, you want to pull people to try and drive sales instead of push people to buy your products.   I have a small budget and would like to experiment with these types of ads.  When I see that my ads are doing well, I will add more ads and increase my budget.  I also noticed that Pinterest is a good platform to create ads.  The pins already remind me as an advertisement theme anyway.  I will stick with Facebook for now and see what happens.  Then I will branch out to other social media platforms and try to expand the reach of my business.

 

 

Week# 10

Blog Posts

I commented on the following classmates blog's (Group four):

Shanti Del Maestro
Hyo Yoo Jeon
John Middleton
Cindy Rojas
Stephen Wilson

Week #10

Newsletters

     I would center my newsletter around an informative type of newsletter.  I would put pieces of information in there dealing with my topic of interest and would also include featured products, information on new products, any current sales, links to obtain more information, etc.  I would compile enough information and useful information together to send a newsletter out once a month.  I think this is a good way to get your message across and not bore your readers or alienate your time away from readers. 

     I would arrange my content in the following ways:  Updates or information on what is happening or trending in the industry, Ideas on things I am doing, testimonials of success stories people have had with the products,  links to other information the reader may want to follow up on and finally information on products my company has to offer.  If you can keep the reader’s attention long enough then the chances are the person is willing to find out more information about your product or buy your product.  Putting your call to action in the bottom of the newsletter is better than at the top of the newsletter, because it may turn-off the reader as another sales gimmick. 

     Readers enjoy newsletters for quick and easy summarization of a particular topic.  It should be full of information relating to your topic, easy to understand and not too long.  In order to reel in your readers you have to pluck their heart strings with information that personally relates to them.

Week #9

Categories Post

     I would use the same words in my blog as I did in my SEO.  I would try to get as much interaction with people who relate to these categories as I could.  The more interaction with folks the more the blog will spread and gain attention.  I have different categories for different lifestyles so I would have a rather large diversity of people who all have a common goal, and that goal is to become healthy and lead a healthy lifestyle.  This would be good news for my business. 

Commented on the following blogs (group 4):

Shanti Del Maestro

Hyo Yoo Jean

John Middleton

Cindy Rojas

Stephen Wilson                                                      

Week #9

Getting personal on Blogs

     A blog is a place where one can be as personal as they want.  It is up to the reader if they want to leave or continue reading.  A business blog should be more professional.  If you are not selling a life changing product, then you should not get too personal about it.  Only give the reader what you want them to know personally about you, and focus more on your product.

     There are times when you can be personal.  For instance, if a product you are taking gives you noticeable results and you feel better then a testimonial to that product is warranted.  This is more or less a selling pitch for that product.

     It is more likely your readers are interested in the same things you are, so get as personal as your readers are.  Match their enthusiasm to your blog.  I would not get too personal such as giving important information about you on your blog.  Only show emotions and not give personal information out.

Week #8

Businesses that are similar and what social media they are using.

     I chose to see how other Independent Distributing Marketers with Youngevity are using websites and social media for their business.  This will give me an indication on how well it is working for them, and for me to emulate and get my business off the ground using social media.  It appears to be effective because they are getting traffic to there/those sites. 

Sheryl Seeliger http://www.pinterest.com/sherylseeliger/youngevity-90-for-life/ She uses pinterest to promote her business as an independent marketing distributor for Youngevity.

http://www.youngevity-store.com/buy-youngevity-in-canada.html#.Uzo8yJ3n-M8 This independent marketing distributor for Youngevity is using a website in conjunction with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Week # 8 Get Visual

 

 

     Out of the four widely used Social Media platforms for business I would have to use You Tube.  I have used You Tube to watch videos and listen to music before and find it very useful and easy to follow.  For Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram, I have never used them and probably never will.  However, if you want to get a product in front of as many people as you can, then maximizing these four Social Media platforms would be beneficial to my/your business.  I still have to get used to Facebook and Twitter, tackling four more Social Media platforms seems a bit much to try to figure out all at once.  To me, for right now, it all looks the same.  But, because I do not have accounts in Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram that does not mean these platforms would not work for me.

Week # 7  Twitter Lists

 

 

Search words are as follows:  Diet, Health, Exercise and Paleo.

     I found a large group of people in the words that I chose, so I focused on Paleo.  I found a couple of people I heard of before researching this type of diet.  I made two lists ‘business’ and ‘people’.  The people that I follow now are people I have similar interests with or information on people I want to keep up on.  I tend to place more people and businesses into my said named lists.  I will see where this takes me, and in the future I plan on using different search words to broaden my lists.



Week #6  Scheduled Events

     I am trying to ask my audience questions to see if I can get them to interact with the post.  The posts are informative and will hopefully get the audience to think about the importance of good health and proper nutrition.  I also added a link to my website on the third post so folks can access more information.

Week #6 Facebook Strategy

 

 

     I chose these seven businesses because they are similar to what my business is, whether it is selling coffee, selling cosmetics or simply interested in getting healthy.  There is a way to network with these kinds of businesses.  The more you show your presence on facebook, the more visual you will become.  This will help your business grow.

 

Week #5  Facebook Page Insights

Post Reach:  Post reach is the number of people who see your post.

Post Engagement:  Post Engagement is the percentage of people who liked, shared or commented on your page.

The difference:  Post engagement is more beneficial than just someone looking at your page and moving on.  The purpose of the page is to have someone look through, like, share, etc. your information so you receive more attention and hopefully watch your business grow.

How can I use this?  Facebook insights will tell me what my target market is.  Since I have a broad overview, and I can potentially target everyone, It will be interesting to see exactly who I am potentially targeting.  Then I can accommodate in that direction to better streamline my page.

Week #4 Target Market

 

    My business involves health products.  These health products hold no bounds as to cultural, social or individual. These health products can be used at any age, young or old, and can be used whether a person is healthy, wants to become healthy or has a significant health issue they want to address.  My customer could virtually be anyone able to make a purchase of my product, and in turn help any person.  The type of customer I target would be 20 to 70+ year olds with some type of health issue.

      How I chose this segmentation is not necessarily the age group.  The age group is an estimate and could be more or less in years.  I chose to target people who suffer or have a pre-existing illness/ disease that they want to address holistically, because the method they are currently using is not getting them results.  Why I chose the segment is because any person can experience different illnesses at any age or at different stages of health.  I wanted to target the people who already have issues with their current health.  Other segmentation variables would work.  Geographic could work, but I am only local.  Targeting the South because of all the fried foods would not work for me.  Demographic works because any person I could extend my service to is a potential customer.  And psychographic segmentation works because any person with these traits could also be a potential customer.

      My target market strategy is going to be the multi-segment targeting strategy.  I chose this strategy because I defined two market segmentations I would like to use.  The first target segment being a certain age-group, and the second target segment is the person having an existing health issue.  I could choose many different market segmentations, but I want to focus on these two first and adjust accordingly.  I will use this strategy to bring in a large scale of customers, because there are many illnesses that plague humans.  Most, if not all of these health issues, point to mineral deficiencies. 

     90 for Life is a nutritional supplement.  The body requires 90 essential nutrients each day for optimal health, hence the name ‘90 for life’.  The body cannot make all these nutrients, this is why they are essential.  The body needs 60 minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 amino acids and 2 fatty acids every single day.  Without these nutrients the body becomes nutrient deficient, and this opens up your body for sickness and disease, and in a lot of cases- cancer.

     The foods we eat today do not contain 1/3 of the required essential nutrients.  Processed foods, sugar, etc. has a huge impact on human health.  All 900 types of illnesses and diseases are ultimately caused by nutrient deficiencies. 

     The body has a tremendous ability to heal itself, but you must give your body the raw materials it needs everyday to do just that.  If you feel you are healthy and are eating healthy, you are still nutrient deficient.  You cannot get these 90 essential nutrients from the foods we eat.  All of the processed foods are greatly void of nutrients.  The soils are void of most of the minerals required.  Our diet is dangerously lacking the essential nutrients we need.  Every day we are running on a quarter of a tank.  Sooner or later, it will catch up to us and we will become sick.  Many people will become very sick.

     90 for Life supplements are easy to take and they taste good.  Kids also like the taste.  If you were to walk into GNC or Vitamin World and try to piece together all of the 90 essential nutrients plus all the probiotics, and anti-oxidants that 90 for Life offers you, you would spend close to $500.00 and up per month.  The worst part about it is you will have to take 50 to 60 pills per day.  Your body only absorbs 10-30% of those supplements anyway.  Your body can absorb 90- 98% of 90 for Life supplements.

     This is the image I want my customers to have when they use my products.  The product is an easy to take, high quality, scientifically engineered and reasonably priced product.  As the word spreads and people see the results, I believe the consumer will choose the product over other competitors.

 

 

Week #3 Two Websites I Use Frequently

 

 http://www.corvettecentral.com/

 

1.  Why are they effective?  The site has an easy to remember name.  The home page is laid out rather well.  I like how you can easily shop your body style of Corvette by clicking on a link, and you will be redirected to all Corvette parts for that particular body style.  I like how you can view recent articles dealing with GM, etc.  I also like how they put new items on the home page letting the viewer know there are new items added. 

 2.  What specific principles of good design do they include and why?  The site is organized with a well balance of text and pictures.  Each product for sale has a picture and a short description of the item.  The navigation of the site is easy to follow and it is consistent throughout the site.  Navigation links taking you to different Corvette body styles is key to locating parts you need.  It would be difficult to find what you are looking for if the site was not arranged in this manner.  Also on the home page there is a site map you can easily scan through to find what you are looking for.  If this site was poorly designed then I would not waste my time looking for parts no matter how cheap they were from the competition.

 3.  What makes you come back again?  The fact that the site is well organized, very eye appealing and easily to navigate through, I will always come back to shop from them.  The products are good quality and fairly reasonable in price.

 4.  What could be improved?  When they include new products towards the bottom of the page, they can use darker borders around the picture and description so it does not look like it was just thrown on against a white back ground.  The top of the homepage is well crafted, and it appears towards the bottom of the page it is hastily made.

 

 http://www.hobbylinc.com/Plastic_Model_Military_Figures

 1.  Why are they effective?  This site is well constructed, and there are thousands of products that interest me.  Anything to do with hobbies is offered from this site.  There are also pictures associated with the product so you can get a better idea of what you are about to purchase.

2.  What specific principles of good design do they include and why?  The site does not take up the whole page, and every piece of individual information has a border around it.  It is easy to view the page.  There is a nice balance between text and pictures.  Links are provided to further customize your search by type and time period.  The navigation of this site is easy to follow as well, and at the bottom of the page there is a site map.

3.  What makes you come back again?  The site contains thousands of products I could potentially use depending on what I want to make at the time.  Most, if not all the manufactures are listed in this site.  It is a one stop shop for anything I need.  Most important of all, the prices, I found, cannot be matched by other sites on the web.

4.  What could be improved?  The only thing I think they could improve on is breaking down the products further by specific time periods, and every manufacture and product that make it for the time periods as well.  This way, you will not spend hours scanning many pages looking for what you need.

Week #3 Principles of Good Social Media Design: Comparing Websites

 

Good/Bad website designs

 

What was done poorly… 

http://tectorch.com Is not a good design layout.  When you first visit the page you are greeted with the history of the company.  It is a lot of information to scroll through before you reach the actual products the website is offering.  Next, you have what welders have to say about the products.  This should go at the bottom of the page after the featured products.  Finally, the page should be laid out more to where you can click the links to get to the history of the company, or any other sub category so everything is not thrown on to one page and the shopper has to decipher the page to get what they want.

 

http://www.richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp  is not a good design layout either.  There is way too much information with barely any breaks in the text.  Each category should be given its own page and a link to.  There is no structure to the page, just the author’s opinion on raising chickens.  It is not pleasing to the eye, and it takes effort to figure out what you are looking at.  Although there is a lot of good information in this website, but to a beginner looking for information on how to raise chickens, this is very difficult to get through.

 

What was done correctly…

 http://www.gforceracecars.com/ is a pleasant, well structured website.  I like how the page does not take up the entire screen.  It does not have a cluttered look to it, and there is not a lot of information jumping out at you.  I like how there are links at the top of the page and to the side where you can be directed to other pages in the website.  I also like how the author sets up the main page of his site like you are reading chronological newsprint articles of drag races and competitions.  The articles are not that long, and they are accompanied with pictures and videos.  This is also a business site as well as an informative site, because there are links you can click on to take you to their store and buy drag racing parts.

http://www.ford.com/ is another pleasant, well structured website.  The main page is setup easy and is only one page.  It has a nice balance of text and the picture.  There is not a lot of information thrown at you on the page.  Everything you would want to find out about the vehicles and Ford in general has their own clickable link to take you to a specific topic.  This is a simple, easy to navigate site.  At first glance of the site, I would probably stick around and explore the site if I was in the market to purchase a Ford, because of the easy usability of the site.

 

Restaurants & the Social Media they use

     I had the pleasure of my last dining experience at the Tilted Kilt in Temecula.  It is a fun little restaurant.  Here is a list of the most frequently visited eating establishments I have been to in the last several months.  It is pretty cool to browse through their websites.

1.  Valley Fort Steakhouse

http://thevalleyfort.com

Uses:  Must be a relatively new site.  It is still under construction, and has no social media links.

2.  Tilted Kilt

http://www.tiltedkilt.com/

Uses:  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

3.  Chili’s Restaurant

http://www.chilis.com/EN/Pages/home.aspx

Uses:  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Play and Pinterest

4.  Denny’s Restaurant

http://www.dennys.com

Uses:  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest

5.  McDonalds Restaurant

http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/home.html#

Uses:  Facebook and Twitter

I cannot recall any bad experiences I had with communicating with a business.  Usually I do not forget when I have a bad experience.  Although I did have a pleasant interaction with a business this past week. 

I went to Fry's Electronics to purchase some more label maker tape for my label maker device, and they no longer carry the brand I have.  So I went online to see if I could order some more tape.  I went to PtouchDirect.com and was able to order some tape at a relatively affordable price.  The price was a little cheaper through PtouchDirect than through Fry's Electronics.  The website had a better and bigger selection, and I was able to get different colored tape.  The website was easy to navigate.  I typed in my model number and was able to query the database to show what I needed without too much hunting around.

If I do not have to contact a representative of a company, especially while conducting business online, than I believe it was a good transaction.  The less I have to do the better, and it was easy to do in the luxury of my own home.

Social Media

I am not too familiar with Social Media.  Websites are about the extent of my knowledge.  I am learning about Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. as new tools to promote your business or yourself over the internet.

The only one of the platforms, mentioned above, that I use is YouTube.  I only use this to watch movies and listen to music.

With the power of Social Media we are able to obtain vast knowledge and gain much exposure for our business.

I chose this template because it is simple, and I am just starting out learning how to create a blog.  When I become more comfortable and more creative, I am sure I will start to make my blog more exciting and appealing.  But for now, this is a good starting point for me.  I do not want to be caught up in the flash and dash too soon.