wk5 Facebook page components

1. What is the difference between post reach and post engagement. Well post reach is exactly how it sounds, it's the number of people you have been able to reach through your post. Reach post can help you determine how well your product is moving. Post engagement is seeing if your target marke is engaging  post such as liking,commenting, and sharing your post. Having engagement gives you the likelihood of having more visibility by your customer base. Knowing the difference between the two helps you target your audience better and to continue to grow your business. 
2. A business can use Facebook insights to better their businesses by understanding all of the data. Even though Facebook uses different metrics for its insights it is best to become an expert in it to help keep growing your business and staying on top of the trends.

Wk 8 Twitter

The search words I used were weddings,events and decor to find my connections. I did use several key terms to get to the right results. i found the 10 ten planners which I am familiar with all of them; David tutera, Dina manzo, Leila Lewis, Preston Bailey and so on. Creating a list on Twitter helps keeps me organized because I can stay focused on the trends. I believe the best time more customers would see my tweets would be in the mornings and afternoon, but I believe it would be more effective during the afternoon because most people research on thier breaks. 

Week 15 - B Wrapping Things Up & Looking Ahead

How has your use of social media changed over the semester? My use of social media has changed over the semester quite a bit. I have never been the most social media friendly person as I am very private. The course made me come out of my shell and me want to navigate through social media sites a lot more. I had very basic knowledge of Facebook and now I know so much more because of this class. I know how to track my business traction as well as find a strategy that works best for my business. However, I am still not a fan of twitter, mainly because if the site and application are too frustrating use.  I know I will stick with my Facebook account, snapchat and google plus accounts because to me they area more user friendly. I do not think there has been enough of an impact on my business using these social media counts because I need to offer more attention to them to help them reach all of my target markets. I know that the growth of customers and increased interaction is a key component when marketing your business in general, so I will be working on that.

Week 15 Wrapping Things Up & Looking Ahead

Which ones integrate best with the type of business you have created? I believe Instagram, Facebook, google plus and snapchat integrate well with the type of business I created because it’s a sociable kind business that thrives off of word of mouth and gives proof but the social traction it carries.

I personally enjoyed Instagram for my social media marketing site because it is able to tell a story and validate it with a picture. Instagram is the best place for my business to grow because a lot of brides get their ideas from Instagram.

Which work best on a daily use pattern? Instagram and Facebook work best for my daily use pattern because it has a user friendly application to use.

Which can you still use effectively on a much less frequent time schedule? I think google plus I can use less frequently and still have a great effect on my business because it allows you to put up information and pictures and act as your website.

How much time do you think your business should spend on social media marketing and why? I feel that my business should spend 6-8 hours a day marketing because it gives the client the opportunity to see your advertisement with in that window.

I chose the tools I did because they were the easiest for me and they are the most commonly used in my field. I will use them and test a strategy over the next six months.

Wk 14B- Optimizing Yourself and the Company

My FaceBook analytics have been very poor, I have only had a 17% increase in page likes within a weeks’ time. Maybe I am wrong and this is good traction for a new comer to social media advertising.  I feel if I would have had better engagement post I could have had more page views and likes.

Wk14 - Optimizing Yourself and the Company

So I visited the Google analytics for my business page and I believe the Page views, Engagement and Conversations would be the most beneficial to my business to check on a regular because it is the best way to track your data and see how many potential leads you may have in your sales funnel. With pages likes you can see how the flow of your advertising is flowing, with the engagement post you are able to put yourself out there a little more. The conversations you can definitely track the feedback of your business and see what adjustments need to be made.

Wk12 - Analyzing Online Marketing

Out of the 5 businesses that I reviewed for social media advertising, I feel like only 4 of the 5 pages really had a call to action. The 4 pages that lured me in with their advertising because of their photos from their events and the bold colors as well as all of the detailed shots. As an event professional we always look for the details because that is what people remember the most.

If I were to Compare the impact of traditional advertising to advertising done on Social Media, I would say the one that is more effective to me would be social media. Social media is the current trend for all entrepreneurs, today if you were to only rely on traditional advertising you wouldn’t get nearly as much exposure as you would on social media.   

https://www.facebook.com/eventsbyambrosia/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf

https://www.facebook.com/FGRweddingsandeventservices/?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/libertyeventcenter/?hc_ref=SEARCH

https://www.facebook.com/alteregoeventplanning/?hc_ref=SEARCH&qsefr=1

https://www.facebook.com/DacceniOccasions/

WK 11 B- Using Other Social Media Tools

Coupon Networks, If I were interested in a coupon network, I think the best coupon deal I could develop would be offering discounted planner services, bundled services and even free consulting. I think LivingSocial and groupon would benefit my product or service and would increase traffic of my business. The benefits to activating coupons would be to get more traction and more word of mouth advertisement. The only downfalls of coupon network use I see would be not getting enough boosted sales from this coupon or maybe even attracting the wrong target market.

Yelp, I have a Yelp account but not for my business. I believe yelp has a decent impact on the businesses that are published on yelp, however there are some negative reviews which are character damaging so that would wreck my nerves if I were to create an account on yelp for my business.

WK11 - Using Other Social Media Tools

Living social, google plus, yelp and groupon would be the best additional online marketing tools I could to market my business. I feel like these sites are great tools to grow my business because it targets all the right demographics I am looking to target. Also with all of these sites the customers are able to share them all on their personal social media sites that would also get me more traction. I could integrate all of these additional tools into my strategy by posting and tagging myself in my blogs and all of my websites.

Email Marketing WK10

Email marketing is important during this technical generation of ours that we are currently in. If I were to create a newsletter for my business I would send one monthly because with weddings/events, because you can talk about all different kind of elements and details go best with that month. These are the best topic opinions I would chose for my monthly newsletters below:

·       Great décor ideas

·       Top 10 vendors

·       Color schemes for the right season

·       Party favors

·       Escort cards

·       Table settings

·       Menus

·       Cocktail hour ideas

·       Late night snacks

·       Getting ready ideas

Week 9: Blogging for Business

In the Event Planning world, it is all about emotional connection which means you are always sharing a piece of yourself with your clients. Adding human interest to a post is necessary to be heard, the best time to add this element is when you’re looking to connect with the reader/follower. Personal touch on your posts can be hard sometimes because you want to be relatable yet not over share and seem weak or odd. You can never go wrong with trying to relate to your target market when you find that common connection it makes them connect on an emotional level and it makes them feel invested. The only way this would not work is if you were a large corporation explaining a factual mission statement.

Week 7 - Get Visual

Visual networks are extremely important for me and my brand because it is a form of word of mouth. By having pictures taken of the events I produced helps give my future client an idea of what I do for them. Snapchat, twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, google, Tumblr and Pinterest are the 8 top most widely used visual platforms. Although all of these platforms reach millions of viewers they all have specialty areas some are not so business friendly such as; snapchat, with snapchat it is fun to use but you can only post pictures and videos up for 10 seconds total and then it disappears forever, not great for branding yourself. With twitter sometime your content can get lost if you tweet too often.

I have an Instagram page for my business that I currently use and it is definitely helpful for my brand and company. I started my account last summer and I have 21 followers and I am currently following 48 people/businesses. I do not post enough; I take hundreds of pictures a month pertaining to my business yet I never have the time to post them. But I have noticed that Instagram now lets you use their program to take pictures with and post at the same time. When I hashtag I always use the location, venue, vendors I used, my company name and anything else related to weddings and events.

Week 6 - Businesses to like through Facebook

There are many businesses that can be useful to like when starting your business up through social media. I have an event planning business that I starting and I have chosen a little over a half a dozen business to like to help me promote my business.

The Knot
Style me Pretty
wedding wire
Shadowridge Golf Club
Brides Magazine
Fox News
Red Photo Booth

all of these businesses that I have liked will help promote my business to all the potential bride and grooms out there looking as well as all wedding or event planners.

Week-4 B - My Business Target Market

My Target market is all genres, from all women, men, ages, cultures and communities. I think just learning more about what my typical customer is looking for will help promote my business a little better. I will need to have great visionary boards, these visionary boards need to be diverse showing new age trends, classic trends and modern trends. I believe by doing so I would be able to appeal to all genres.

Week - 4 Your Target Market

Between these two eatery establishments you can tell right away that they both have a specified demographic target market. With chili’s it’s a hip vibrant website that appeals to many, the  tab categories are user friendly, while the yellow deli is geared more towards hipsters and people that are history enthusiast. The yellow deli plays more on a mom and pops, down to earth, homey feel and vibe, the website has way too much history info as well location info. Like most its easier to decide what to eat when there are vivacious pictures involved, and unfortunately that is not what the yellow deli offers. The menu looks like it was a high schooler’s doodle from detention. I don’t think there is a possibility for customer crossover from these two different establishments. I would prefer the chili’s website over the yellow deli because of the rewards it offers (which is its call to action) chili’s gives you a reason to come back time and time again with its rewards program. 

Week 3-B

https://www.pinterest.com/

https://www.amazon.com/

There are two sites that I have frequented well over 30-40 times in a month. Amazon has been my savior and my vice all at the same time. This site is extremely effective especially if you have prime! This site is extremely easy to use and has many bonus features that help the consumer want to come back for more. The only thing I could think of that would need to be improved on this site is the prime filtering for the TV shows, it is very frustrating to see a show that is supposed to be free try to charge you since one of the other series fall under the same category. I also use Pintrest and this site again is very user friendly and it has every idea one person could even think of which is why it is quite effective. It keeps me coming back time and time again because the filters are easy to search for specific ideas. There is not much I would change about this site but if I had to it would be the way you are able to message or interact with other users.

Week 3 - Aesthetics, Design & Branding

I chose spot metering as one of the problematic websites for people to visit. Problems for visitors are; at first glance the website does not look legit, the website is very hard to follow due to the coloring and fonts and finally it is difficult to know what the site is used for. I also chose the riverside art center as a difficult site to view for visitors. With this site like the other one the font and color scheme is awful to look at, the size if the font is quite difficult to follow along with, also the website is very generic and off centered.

There are two websites that are very user friendly such as ford; with ford the website is welcoming with vibrant colors and detailed tabs, it is nice the site breaks down the car model, make and pricing, it helps you calculate payments if you are on a budget and finally there is a tab so that you can save cars to your favorites and compare, very user friendly. With the apple website it is very sleek and straight to the point, each tab is separated by device and there is also a comparing tab so that the consumer can decide what device is best suited for them. They also provide a community for the consumers to troubleshoot their own issues before having to go into an apple store.

After viewing all these sites I realized aesthetics are a big deal breaker when using a site and validating the branding of the company. When a company has a website they are utilizing as a branding method it is showing a piece of what the company is about and the integrity they have. When a company uses their website as a branding method they also target a specific demographic and so they make it easier for that group to use and or navigate their sites so they can continue to have them come back and use it again and again to keep their loyalty.  

Week 2-B Communication

1.       The business name

2.       Their website url

3.       The social media they are visibly using [links on their website]

4.       Check the links and see if they look like they are well used or hardly used at all.

5.       Add the date of the last post on each of their their social media 

6.       Write several paragraphs explaining what you discovered from this exploration. Are these businesses using their social media well? Do they use some more than others?

Olive Garden

www.olivegarden.com/

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and youtube

https://www.facebook.com/OliveGarden/     9-19-16

https://twitter.com/olivegarden  9-12-16

https://www.instagram.com/OliveGarden/ 9-30-16

https://www.youtube.com/user/olivegarden#p/p   9-9-16

Mac

http://www.maccosmetics.com/?&cm_mmc=Paid_Search-_-Google-_-Brand_TM-_-mac

https://www.facebook.com/MACcosmetics 9-28-16

https://twitter.com/MACcosmetics 9-30-16

https://www.instagram.com/maccosmetics/ 9-30-16

Ulta

http://www.ulta.com/

https://www.facebook.com/UltaBeauty/ 9-30-16

https://www.instagram.com/ultabeauty/ 9-30-16

https://twitter.com/ultabeauty 9-29-16

Walmart

https://www.walmart.com/

https://www.facebook.com/walmart 9-30-16

https://twitter.com/Walmart 9-30-16

https://www.instagram.com/walmart/ 9-30-16

Costco

http://www.costco.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Costco/ 9-30-16

https://www.pinterest.com/costco/ not sure

Costco needs more social media outlets, after exploring Costco’s social media stance I noticed that they only have two social media programs they use. The Facebook outlet they use often however the pintrest outlet it is hard to tell when is the last time they pinned. They should use Instagram and twitter to promote sales and new products. Walmart is very on top of their social media exposure they use it often and update it weekly if not daily. They seem to use their social media evenly across the board. Ulta and Mac have to keep up with their social media and to stay up on trending new ideas and makeup so they can keep their loyal customers and gain new ones. Finally for Olive Garden being a restaurant they use their social media exposure efficiently and effectively. With all of these companies they seem to use their social media outlet to the best of their abilities and some of the others they really need to step up their game and get more exposure to stay relevant. 

GROUP MEMBERS COMMENTED ON:

Lena Lena 

Katie Nolte

Larry Dixon 

Communication week 2

I have had several encounters experiencing difficulty communicating with the business.

I believe that social media makes it a tad bit easier to get notice as well as get some of your problem solved however it doesn't solve every problem nor does it give you the exposure that you really need

I have had one positive experience with a business while communicating with them through social media i use yelp often it is one of the quickest platforms for me to communicate directly with all local businesses that I encounter.

If it was my own business on social media the positive way I would respond to feedback would be to just make sure that I know the persons my name and appreciate them and thank them for patronizing my establishment and if it was a negative comment I would just make sure I would kill them with kindness collect all the facts and make sure to invite them back to correct the mistake that may have happened. 

What made my experience a negative one at Chucky e. cheese was initially booking the event with a little bit difficult then having to call and change things was hard too but what was worse once we actually arrived at the facility there wasn't a warm greeting, our hostess know my sons name didn't give him the opportunity to dance with Jackie she also almost made us miss his name being called because she had the timing wrong. Once the rest of our party arrived I realize that there was not enough cups for the pictures so I asked for more cups which they gave them to me no problem then at the end of this whole ordeal we are ready to check out the ring at that and I realize that they charged us for all the additional cups that we had got after purchasing the package when speaking with manager she said that's normal and I said is it normal for you not to tell your customers that there is hey I additional price for having the cups brought to the table she said well you signed off on it and I was like no so it was a little bit of a tit-for-tat finally she refunded me for all the cups but I just left a nasty taste in my mouth so where as I will no longer go to Chucky cheese to celebrate anything with my children.

Which social media platforms seem geared towards personal use?

Which social media platforms seem geared towards personal use?

 There are a lot of social media platforms that are geared towards personally use the ones I find to be the most common or Facebook, Instagram ,Twitter ,Snapchat and meet up.  Facebook originally started as a place for college students to connect with others and then family members and friends as well started to use Facebook and finally entrepreneurs starting to use Facebook as an action to promote their product. Now most people tend to use Facebook  for all types of things but mainly to hang out and connect and meet new people such as blind dating it's very interesting. Instagram is used the same way, as well as Twitter and even Snapchat is an elusive dating application where you can find it easy to cheat  on a spouse because the data that you send can be deleted in under 10 seconds. meet up is more like a place where you can find like-minded people but you can also  promote yourself and whatever it is that you provide as a service.

Which ones seem to work better for business?

 I believe that Instagram and Facebook are the most common social media platform used for businesses and entrepreneurs.  These two social media platforms are the best way that these entrepreneurs and business people can touch their target market quickly.   I know that when I'm ready to start my business these platforms will be my first go to's as well as a few others.

Week 1 My Blog Template

For my blogging home I have chosen a very vibrant and colorful template. It fits my personality as well, it's commands attention which is what I love. Every swirl and detail is me as I tell an ornate story in each post. It is my hope that every person reading my blog can feel every word, period and exclamation point!