Week 15 Wrapping Things Up & Looking Ahead

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye...

Like a few others in this class, I began this semester hoping to gain a better understanding of the business end of social media without having an established business to promote. I was not a frequent social media user, and had only ever thought of it in terms of personal use. I could not understand how it would relate to business, but I wanted to learn. Through this class my viewpoint of social media has dramatically changed. Although I won’t be taking it on as a career, I feel I will be able to both navigate and utilize social media far more effectively.

I think the primary thing I’m taking away from this class is that the line between personal and business use is rather blurred. I think that is a concept that one must be careful of and be respectful of. I read somewhere (unfortunately, I don’t remember where) that selling on Facebook is a little like trying sell to people who are hanging out with friends at a bar. If you are too pushy or obnoxious you run the risk of turning people off, and that’s the last thing you want when you are trying to grow a business. I think the emphasis on building connections and communication is important to remember. The rest will follow once you’ve built the relationships.

Throughout the class I frequently found the amount of information and platforms a little overwhelming (most likely due to my relative noob status). It was interesting to get an overview of all so many platforms, but feel I still have so very much to learn. I think I’ll pick one and keep exploring. The charity that I work for uses Facebook most frequently, so I think I’ll start there. This isn’t my work, but come visit if you’d like… https://www.facebook.com/cancerforcollege

Thanks for a great semester!

All the best,
Jill

Week 14 More Social Strategy (part 2)

What's the Plan Stan?

A social media marketing plan is dependent upon many variables.  In the case of the small home-based craft business that I chose to promote the variables influencing the marketing plan include the fact that it is a very small business (a retired husband and wife), and they have no budget for marketing.  Additionally, they will be the primary marketers once they are trained, but they have limited experience with technology, so that will also limit the types of platforms they will use.

I think this business will most likely need the owners to spend as many as 6 hours a week. I think two hours 3-times a week would be manageable. Some of that time will simply be due to the fact that they will be learning as they go.  I plan to have them use Facebook and Constant Contact as their primary marketing tools. I chose these two platforms for this business because they are the most common and are both relatively simple to use and maintain.  I would have them use these platforms for six months while monitoring the growth of their Facebook presence. I believe that if they are increasing their Likes and their engagement and if they see increased traffic and sales at the fairs and art shows they attend, then we will know that the marketing strategy is working.

The rough draft marketing plan for the next month:

1. Get their website up and running
2. Develop a newsletter introducing their company, which highlights the company background as well as the craft.
3. Maintain Facebook posts 3-4 times a week using scheduled posts which should include posts such as:
• Photos of their new pieces
• A video or explanation of a ceramic technique or style
• Feature/share an article about a professional artist, or from a well known ceramics publication
• News about local events or artists

Although this seems like a minimal plan, I think it is what is manageable for the company owners. This is primarily a fun project for them as they are both retired and don’t have a significant interest in growing the business too large.

Week 14 Blog Comments

The blogs I commented on this week were:

Dorothy Land's blog: WahineBlog

Tricia Tarkington's blog: Social Media

Barbara Turman's blog: Turman Blog

Patricia Vaz's blog: Patricia Vaz

Week 14 More Social Strategy (part 1)

Which Platforms Work for Me?

We have sampled and explored an overwhelming number of social media platforms throughout this course. There are certainly platforms that integrate better with some types of businesses rather than others. I think the media platforms that would work best for both the business owners and the business would be to utilize a website, Facebook, and email marketing. 

I would have to say that the platform I enjoyed most was Facebook. This may be due to familiarity, but overall it seemed to be the best for this company, and this promoter. Unfortunately, the lack of social extroversion and savvy that I began this course with has somewhat challenged me during this class. I think that Facebook is manageable for a daily or nearly daily use pattern and email marketing and newsletters would be very useful on a less frequent basis. Due to the fact that the business I chose to promote, So Glazed and Confused, is ultimately going to be a small scale, hobby business, I think a smaller scale marketing plan is appropriate.

Week 13 Optimizing Yourself and the Company (part 2)

What's New, Pussycat? Whoa, whoa.

I was unable to view my complete insights as our Facebook page only has 19 total Likes, and full insights are only available after at least 30 people have liked a page.  However, the insights summary that I found on our Facebook page indicated:

18  New Likes

 6  Decrease in  "Talking About This"

 7  Increase in "Weekly Total Reach"

Week 13 Optimizing Yourself and the Company (part 1)

Get to Know Your Customers

The features from Google Analytics that I think would be most useful for this small ceramics business to check regularly include viewing how many sessions, page views, and percentage of new visitors. I also think that viewing the demographics would be useful to see if we are reaching our target market or not. I think these features would be most beneficial to such a small start up in order to validate or verify that the work they are doing is on target.

Some other features that I believe would be useful for this business are:

Custom Dimensions:

Add the custom data you care about most: user data like demographics or purchase history, content data like page categories or product information, even behavioral data about those who use certain site tools.

Flow Visualization:

Flow Visualization reports let you see and analyze the path a visitor takes on your site. See where they came from, the pages they moved through, and where they exited your site.

Audience Data & Reporting:

Focus on your audience: the kinds of people they are, where they come from, how they find your content, and how loyal and engaged they are.

Traffic Sources:

How do people find your site? Use Traffic Sources to evaluate the effectiveness of your referrals, direct traffic, organic (unpaid) search keywords, and custom campaigns.

Search Engine Optimization:

The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) reports in Google Analytics help you understand how Google Web Search queries led visitors to your site.

Ecommerce Reporting:

Use Ecommerce reporting to identify your best-selling products and most powerful promotions. You'll see what customers buy and how they do it, whether with complex transactions or one-click purchases. Trace transactions right down to specific keywords, understand shopper behaviors, and adjust your shopping cart to build loyalty and sales.

Wildfire:

Wildfire by Google lets you easily publish social content (such as pages and posts) and measure the engagement, leads, web visits and revenues driven by your social marketing. There are multiple integration points with Google Analytics.

Week 12 Using Other Social Media Tools (part 2)

Coupon Ideas

One idea for a Groupon/coupon that I thought of is offering a limited number of advance purchase opportunities for an individual to join the owners at a craft fair and customize their own piece. Their piece would then be delivered to them once it could be fired.

This would be similar to what people can do at a "Clay and Latte" type storefront, but instead it would be on a hand made piece rather than the mass produced, generic items you can get at the more commercial stores. I think this could be very beneficial because parents could leave their older children at the booth while they continue to shop a the fair or farmers market. This would create a pleasant day for everyone involved. 

As far as a new product or service that would increase business would be for the owners to offer ceramic parties, or small group classes. This would be a good way to both generate business and promote the joy of creating.