Week 16 Post 2

My viewpoint of social media has certainly changed. As someone who only used social media for personal reasons, every time I would exit social media I wouldn't feel enriched at all, in fact I felt like I wasted time because I seen things that I don't really care for. However, using social media for business has opened my eyes to the huge opportunities it can present, such as gaining access to incredibly big markets and getting connected with many other like minded people who can potentially help the business in the future.

Yes I feel this class has helped me understand my options better to help me decide which is the best strategy for my business to adopt. Also, it has helped me use the tools on some of the biggest platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

I have also learned, how to successfully develop a business by releasing lots of accessible information for my customers. Such as how they can buy from us and our general business practices and why we should be bought from instead of our competitors.

I have started using some of the tools myself already but not for the business that I started with this semester. When my other classes went online I had to change my project for one of them (KINE 292) where I developed a free live streaming service dedicated to yoga. I used many of the tools from this class to help promote it and in one month of operation I have managed to get around 150 organic likes to the page. I will be using more of these tools I have learned from this class to develop it further.

Thank you for a wonderful semester Professor Faulk. I understand it's been incredibly stressful but I generally enjoyed your class, you're a fantastic tutor and I wouldn't hesitate to take another class in the future. I hope you have an amazing summer.

Week 16 Post 1

For my business I feel Facebook has the most potential for making sales. This is due to most of my customer base using it regularly. Also, it has easy to use tools to help make my posts stand out more and also very good for analysis such as seeing how far a post has reached and what kind of reactions my potential customers are giving me.

The tools I would implement are writing many social media posts and scheduling them as that is very effective for letting your customers know that the business is still running. Also, it gives customers plenty of information about upcoming products or services or new practices that the business has adopted in making it more appealing to the consumer. I didn't enjoy the email marketing side as I feel this can be invasive if it wasn't requested, I would only want to send emails to customers who consented to receiving them without tricking them otherwise.

I think my business should spend a lot of time on social media as people can spend hours at a time just browsing through social media, the more active we are the more likely new customers will stumble upon the business and have an interest in it. Also, by generating a following people can then recommend the business to people who don't use social media nearly as much. Since my business is online, having a strong web presence is in my business' best interest.

For my next month of content. I will be scheduling daily posts for my business with little quotes on most days while providing updates on products being offered throughout the next month. The sites these will be posted on are Facebook and Instagram as these are my most popular platforms and the ones I like to use. I will also release 2 YouTube videos over the month detailing the way we do things at my business as well as 2 podcasts talking about issues around the world on SoundCloud which will all be linked together via Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The key is to ensure all of the social media platforms are all synced together so no matter which platform our customers prefer they can easily see all of the posts that we make.

Week 15 Post 2

This is the analytics for my Facebook page. As expected engagement and views has gone up and down, this is pretty standard as things tend to happen in waves, some days are very good and others not so good. The post reach has astounded me with 603% increase this could be due to algorithms working in my favour. I post lots of videos on my page which is why I get many views, the only thing that hasn't increase is my orders but that's because I am not selling anything yet.

Week 15 Post 1

Google analytics has many useful features for businesses to take advantage of. The first feature I think would benefit my business is the data analytics. This allows me to measure things such as engagement, views and clicks. They can even put it in a graph for it to be easier to analyse. This is essential to see what is working and what isn't working well. This can also invite the business to experiment with marketing where they can try something and if it has a positive reaction on the analytics then we can keep up with it but if it negatively impacts then we can stop using that technique.

Secondly, Google adsense and analytics offers many ways to display ads using widgets so it is very flexible to use multiple methods to advertise your business. For example, you can use video to show off your products, using the data you can analyse which type of ad is working more effectively, should the video method not work than switching up to an image may be much more effective.

Finally, I like the fact different users can access the same analytics. This is especially useful if I gain staff specialised in marketing as they will have access to the analytics without risk of them accessing my personal data or any data I don't want people to see in relation to the business. Also, I can give access to an outside marketing firm that can give me constructive feedback on how to adapt my marketing strategy.

Week 14

Week 13 Post 2

With Facebook ads they give you many options for advertising such as:

• Boosting a post: This is where the user can pay to show their post to a wider community whether it is local or more global.
• Promote a page: This is where the business can promote their page to people anywhere in the world, this will help them generate likes and follows.
• Promote the business locally: This is where Facebook will focus your promotions within the area you operate to ensure that the business hits the correct target audience.
• Get more website visitors: This add specifically works to promote the businesses website so people will hopefully click on it to drive traffic
• Get more leads: This is where Facebook can set up forms to share to people to gather more information about potential clients. This can help tailor the ad campaign to appeal to that target audience.

For my business, I would want to promote my page nationally. Since the business doesn't necessarily have a physical presence I don't have a need for people to visit anywhere. All of their products will be shipped directly to their door. Since this is the case, I can market anywhere in the United States. I would however choose states that have the highest tea consumption and that have population that are more interested in European culture. 

Online advertising will be my primary way to advertise since my customers will be required to have an internet connection to be able to connect with my business. Social media will be my biggest tool and in particular Facebook and Instagram. In terms of how often, it would be one week before the next months box of tea would be shipped; this would give customers plenty of time to review what's in the box and whether it is something that would interest them. The ultimate aim is to get them to sign on for a years subscription as it's much better to have long term customers so we can more accurately determine our profit margin. 

The type of ads we would use are image or video related. When it comes to the image, we would opt for showing the highlight of the flavour in the box, for example, if we are showing a more tropical tea, the imagine will be based on things associated with tropic things such as palm trees, rainforest, etc. We would not want to give too much away so a lot of the things in the box will be censored away but will drop hints. In terms of videos, it would be showing where our tea comes from and talking about our environmental impact and the way we treat our employees.

We will use the boost option often so that we can reach more people within our demographic, particularly when we advertise the monthly box so we would be running ad campaigns one week of every month.

Week 13 Part 1

This business is advertising a lamp with different colours. I like it because it shows minimal text and allows the image of the product to dominate the ad. This is particularly important because showing the product in action is far better than just having text to describe it. Clicking on the image takes the user to the website where they can buy one of their products.

 This product is advertising face masks. I have seen many of these types of ads the last few months due to businesses shifting their manufacture or new businesses popping up due to the on going Covid-19 pandemic. This business is using football (soccer) teams as their USP (unique selling point) advertising the big clubs such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and Manchester United.

Compared to traditional ads they can shift from local or regional methods such as newspapers and radio advertisement to potentially global methods like social media. The amazing thing about social media, particularly Facebook, you can target any demographic. For example, you can set the ad to only hit people in a 4 mile radios in Oceanside or go as far as the entire United States or even the world. The cost of advertising isn't very expensive either compared to traditional methods either. Advertising on Facebook costs hundreds whereas a billboard can set you back thousands or tens of thousands with Facebook having far more reach available. I strongly support the idea of using social media advertising over more traditional methods.

Week 12 Post 2

The two websites I have chosen to sign up for are LinkedIn and SoundCloud

LinkedIn

The reason why I have joined this website is because of different groups that can be joined to share knowledge on the macro economy and also for any tips for businesses to do well. Over the long term, I hope to use this website to recruit professionals in the field of ecommerce and subscription based businesses to help me improve my practices and drive from sales. Finally, there could be some recruitment opportunities for employees at the business from supply chain management to marketing. These employees can possibly take my business to the next level.

SoundCloud

I have chosen this website because I read that this predominantly music producing website can also be very good for podcasts. I want to set up podcasts as part of a green washing marketing campaign where my business will talk about the importance of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and how all business around the world can work together in reducing our impact of the environment and improve workers condition, particularly in third world countries where they work in dangerous conditions while earning peanuts compared with the west. Also my company can talk about what steps we are taking in improving our practices in hope to generate a new customer base.