FINAL BLOG

Over the course of the semester my viewpoint on social media has changed.  When I first started the class, the only experience I had with social media was posting on Facebook with my friends.  I now have a better understanding of the enormity of social media and how businesses are using it.

Before taking this class I had never visited a business Facebook page.  If I wanted information about a business, I only went to their website.  Now I understand that, while the website is a "home base", social media is where to go if I want to find up-to-date information.  For example, a month ago I built a chicken coop with my son.  We wanted to find a feed store that sold chickens to populate our coop.  I found several websites of feed stores that claimed that they sold chickens, but it wasn't until I visited the stores' Facebook pages that I found out what breeds of chickens the stores carried, and whether the chickens were in stock.

I now take Twitter more seriously.  I now know that you can search Twitter to find out what people want.  A few months ago, I searched Twitter in order to find horse riders who were looking for a certain kind of boots that I had for sale.  I found that several people had posted that they were looking for boots.  The ability to immediately find people who were looking for something so specific as a certain type of riding boot was pretty amazing!

After taking this class, I have a much better idea of how to use social media to develop a business.  First, the business should identify their target market.  After the target market is identified, the business should find out how their target market uses social media.  A good clue to knowing how the target market uses social media is to find out how your competitors are using social media.  Identifying how competitors successfully use, and more importantly finding where your competitors are NOT successfully using social media will guide your business strategy.  I found that my target market uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.  A business strategy could be to connect with the target market on these sites in order to establish communication.  Finding some way to add value such as offering information or "how to" can be a way to establish your business as an informed source.  A business blog is a great forum to provide this information.  A business can also add comments on others' blogs to establish their credibility.  If it makes sense for the business, pictures and video can be added to the blog.  At this point, the business is trying to build "likes" and "followers".

After the business has engaged the target market, the business can initiate promotion and advertising.  Facebook/Instagram or Twitter ads are a great way to reach your target market.  These platforms gather a great deal of information from users!  When I made a few ads on Facebook, I was able to target females age 16-45 who are interested in horses and, more specifically, who are interested in dressage, showjumping and eventing.  I was pretty amazed that Facebook could target so specifically. Although, over the course of the semester, I began noticing how specifically Facebook has been targeting me!  The great thing about running the ads is that you obtain analytics that can tell you how many people saw your ad, how many people clicked through to a website, how many people shared/liked etc. the post.  Another method is choosing to "Boost" a post.  This will get your post to your followers and their friends.  The Facebook business page also runs analytics, so the business can see how their followers are interacting with their posts.  This information will allow the business to better use social media to engage their customers.

Taking this class has changed the way that I interact with businesses on-line.  Now when I google a business, I will often go to their Facebook page or Instagram page after I have viewed their website if I am looking for more information.  I found the material in the class very worth while and its given me a better understanding and appreciation for social media.

WeeK 16: Post 2 Future Plans

I sell used horse tack on Ebay for myself and for friends.  I chose to market my Ebay tack sales under a business that I decided to call "The Tack Shed".  The Tack Shed promotes the tack for sale and attempts to drive buyers to my Ebay listings.  The tack I am selling already gets plenty of exposure from being listed on Ebay, which justifies paying Ebay approximately 10% commission on each item that I sell.  Any sales that are generated from social media marketing are just "icing on the cake".  In this case, the time I would spend on social media marketing would probably be minimal.

At some date in the future, I might decide to create my own on-line tack store to carry new and/or used tack.  At that point, marketing would be critical.  If I wasn't counting on Ebay to create traffic to my listings, I would probably be spending at least 75% of my time on social media marketing.  Without a physical location to draw buyers, my only sales would be those that I could generate on-line.

At the moment, I have about 20 items for sale on Ebay.  This items are individual items, I only have one of each item listed.  If I ever decided to create a true on-line tack store, I think I would need to increase my inventory and have multiple sizes/colors of the items I carry.  In the meanwhile, it would be a good idea to "start the conversation" on social media.  While I am still selling on Ebay, I can continue to create a presence on social media.  At this time, I think I should concentrate on creating some interesting and educational content in blog postings to initiate some discussion.  I could continue to post on my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram business pages.  I have access to my Ebay buyers' email addresses at the time of sale, but I think it is frowned upon to use those for marketing outside of Ebay.  I should collect any email addresses outside of Ebay for a future newsletter, but I don't plan on starting a newsletter right away.

Over the next six months I think my plan should be to write at least one blog post per week.  I plan on posting on Instagram 3 times a week.  The Instagram posts will be more casual, mostly pictures around my horses.  I will attempt to get likes and comments from my followers.  I will post on Facebook twice a week, also attempting to get likes and comments.  I think I can manage this much is about 2-3 hours a week.

Week 16: Blogs I Commented On

I commented on strategies by Ashley Enders, Gina Schwendel and Hernan Hernandez.

Week 16: Planning Future Strategy

This semester has gone by so quickly!  We started by learning to create blogs.  The blogs are like a conversation that we are having with our readers.  They respond to the blog, and we respond back.  It is a way to have a dialog on-line.  After blogs, we learned how to set up a business Facebook page and Twitter account.  We researched the best social media platforms for our businesses.  We also covered newsletters.

For my business (selling used horse equipment on Ebay), I found that FB, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube would be the best platforms.  I enjoy FB and Instagram the most, so those would probably be the most effective for me.  I am not counting out eventually using Youtube.  I know I would enjoy making short videos.  A blog is another tool that would be very effective, and also a way to establish myself as a source for horse equipment and training information.  The blog entries should probably be made weekly.  The FB and Instagram accounts would probably be best if they were used every day, or at least more frequently.  A newsletter would be used (at the most) on a monthly basis.

Week 15 Facebook Analytics

Yea! The Tack Shed has more than 30 likes now on Facebook.  I was able to access the Facebook analytics in the Insights tab.  This tab allows the user to see the likes obtained, post engagement, reach and page views.  It also gives reach and engagement for each specific post.  Organic posts are compared to Paid advertising posts.  These analytics would give the user a great deal of information about how people are interacting with their posts and also which type of posts do better than others.  That way, the user could tailor future posts.  The user is also able to "Boost" posts that might create a lot of engagement.

Week 15: Tack Shed Analytics

I only have 20 likes.  I have been trying to get friends/family to like me too, but I'm stuck at 20!

Week 15: Google Analytics

In order to better understand Google Analytics, I watched some of the videos at the "Analytics Academy".  I started with the Beginner videos.  From the videos, I learned that Google Analytics would allow a business to monitor how their customers used their website.  As of right now, my business does not have its own website.  I am selling my inventory on Ebay.  However, in the future, if I had my own website, Google analytics could be used to track how users progressed through a purchase.  It would tell me which pages of my site a user browsed.  It would tell me what kind of device the user was using (i.e. desktop, phone), which language their browser was set to, and how they got to my site (google search, ad click, email marketing campaign).  It will also track where the user is located geographically.

All of this information would be important to my business.  If I found that users were getting stuck at a certain place on my website, I could improve the site to create better flow through a transaction.  If I found that users only arrived at my site from email marketing campaigns, I could try to improve the other avenues of arrival, including using better key words.  The results from the Google Analytics would allow me to improve my online interactions with customers.

Week 14: Creating Ads on Social Media

I was surprised how easy it was to create ads on Facebook/Instagram.  I also was surprised at how specialized the demographics could become.  I was able to choose my exact target market: females age 16-45 who are interested in horses, and specifically the equestrian sports of dressage, eventing and showjumping.  I created several ads in FB, all with different objectives.

The objectives of the three ads above are to encourage people to visit my Ebay listings website.  The first ad consists of multiple images that would interest my demographic.  By saying "Check with Us before you buy new", I am informing the viewer that I am selling used tack at prices that are more reasonable than new tack.  At the bottom of the images I claim "reasonable prices" and "fast shipping".  The aim of this ad is just to inform.  The second ad shows a single image that might interest my demographic.  The third ad uses a play on words to inform the viewer that I am selling expensive items at lower prices.

Another objective for ads is to draw my demographic to a blog.  If I can establish my blog as a place to get great training information, a later call to "buy" could be more effective.

A third objective for ads would be to sell.  The following ad uses an image and tells the viewer to "buy now".

Another objective of ads is to generate "likes".  I am offering a discount for "liking" my page.

Week 13 Post 2

The business I chose for the purposes of this class is a business that promotes my horse equipment sales on Ebay.  The inventory I have consists of the items that I am currently helping a friend of mine sell.  Using social media to promote this type of inventory has its challenges.  The major challenge is that I only have "one" of everything.  For example, I am selling three of my friend's saddles.  For each saddle, I only have one model, one color and one size.  So if I was able to reach someone who happened to want that model of saddle, I do not have a selection of colors and sizes.  I only have one.  I also may or may not have the accessories that a saddle buyer would want to go with their saddle.  I guess what I am trying to say is that my inventory is basically like a garage sale (which is why it is perfect for Ebay).  So, I have the choice of advertising each listing separately for the specific item that I have or trying to drive potential buyers to browse my "garage sale" of items.

I would rather use advertisements that are seen in the news feed rather than on the right hand side.  If I chose to advertise each of my listings I would certainly use a photo ad.  I also have the option of including more than one item in the photo.  If I took an attractive photo of a group of items, I might be able to advertise more than one EBay listing per ad.  I could also try the multi-product ad, where I could include several pictures of listings in one ad.

I might be able to use a video ad if I could think of a clever or funny way to showcase my items.  Using local ads would not help me because I am selling on-line.  Event ads are not applicable to my business.

Using the "Boost Sales" option should work for me.  I know that my target market is female between the ages of 17-45.  My target market would also list horses as an explicit interest.  Also, from my target market's interests and behaviors on Facebook, I should be able to choose horses as an intrinsic interest.

I would want to post ads when I have new listings on Ebay.  I would like to keep my budget as low as possible.