Wrapping things up now

For me being very new to the social media it was a very wonderful experience learning so many new things that come across this semester. Planning to start a business very soon in the future the work performed during the semester and the understanding involved will certainly help me reach my objectives and will help continue my business prosper through usage of technology and social media skills in a much smarter way.
A smarter way that supports using Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube and Google Analytics in such a wonderful way that including social media and usage of online marketing is for me, now, one of the key components of the overall marketing strategy.

More Social Strategy

The internet (and, by extension, mobile) is merely a vehicle to provide greater reach for your advertising, promotional and public relations efforts. Internet marketing must be part of your integrated marketing approach. Internet marketing strategies should be included within your company's overall marketing plan.

The following tools therefore are necessary to build up a complete integrated online marketing strategy.

Building up a complete website and adding some features through which your website should be based on your overall communication, marketing and sales goals. And, it is critical that these objectives are measurable. Equally important is the ability to effectively measure whether objectives are met. Such objectives might include:

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Online customer service

Others tools that are of equal importance include the calculation of Website Statistics, Facebook page through different methods which include many marketing-relevant indicators.

For any strategy to be effective, your target market segments must contain a sufficient number of Internet users. The most effective Internet strategies will fail if the intended target markets are not online. Granted, with seventy-seven percent of Americans online, this is not likely to be an issue for most market segments. However, not all market segments are equally represented. For example, internet usage is closely correlated with income and education—the higher the income and education, the higher the percentage of individuals using the internet.

The time I'd spend on my website will be a major portion because an online business can be run only if the content is updated regularly and has always attractions for the readers or site visitors otherwise the project will fail.

My daily requirements shall be to track the visitors and to post SEO friendly articles so that whoever searches is directed towards my page being updated on a regular basis and also to identify any further markets wherever possible.

Facebook Analytics

The Facebook Analytics of my page Tia's Bakery shows that there has been an increase in the Organic Post Reach from 7th November to 29th November which is probably due to the individuals being engaged from the class and also due to the postings on my business page. The time before there was a higher post reach was in September when a maximum of 82 Organic Users were reached and in November it increased to a maximum of 145 in a single day.
There have also been considerably higher visits in the last few days and Facebook Analytics recorded highest 17 visits on the timeline. The analytics also mention the references from where people visited the Facebook page which include Google, Yahoo and Tia's Bakery website.
The overview tab shows that in total there have been 10 Engagements due to the published posts in the Tia's Page and therefore it feels like the business is going to run at a much higher speed now.

Google Analytics

After reviewing Google Analytics I have to come to a conclusion that for my business the most important feature of Google Analytics is the number of new visitors which will help me identify how much the business could be grown and also how much my advertisement either at Facebook or any other place is making the increase in visitors.
The second feature is the time being spent on the pages of my business. If the average time is very low it means that the outlook might be so bad that no one is ready to see it even and if its some interesting content therein, people will stay longer. It will also help me identify the effectiveness of the content writer of website as to how interesting content (s)he is writing.

Sharing the Facebook Insights - Post Reach and Post Engagement

Reach measures how many people have seen your post. With some paid support (recommended), your post’s reach can increase exponentially. It indicates that how well you are getting your product or business name on their newsfeed. If we have a new business this may be a good metric to measure success because you first have to grow your fan base and capture attention in order to build a relationship.

Engagement metrics indicate interactions beyond just simply views. Facebook defines engagement as including all clicks, not only comments, likes and shares.

It’s important to understand that just because your post has a high Reach, doesn’t mean you will have high engagement and therefore a higher Reach doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to sell the products or not because many a times a higher Reach is not enough for a higher Engagement.

Increasing the Business

In order to increase the business through other social media tools my first choice is LinkedIn. Being a specialized business and related to a niche of customers, I could easily use LinkedIn in order to get linked to the customers who purely want Gluten Free Products. Connecting to them means connecting to the Gluten world and taking their ideas, following them over LinkedIn could also result in finding out their choices and ideas of new products.
Another choice for me would be GroupOn which sells different deals at a very high discount. Being one of the pioneers of deal makings GroupOn can help me out increasing business by finding the specialized customers and also could result in focused marketing through collecting data of the customers.
Google Maps is also one of the key resource which could help my business identify competitors and therefore there strategies, new products and location wise data.
Google Currents would also be of help as Smart Phones Applications through Android are the most latest fashion of advertisement and therefore could help my business reach the desired customers.

Functionality of Newsletters

For the business of Tia's Bakery, a monthly newsletter would be the best choice. The reason for choosing monthly newsletter for my business is that the business introduces many products as per the seasonal changes and also there are many developments currently being made in the Gluten free products and therefore I think it is necessary to update the customers of all the current updates regarding the products and also the health features of these products. 

The newsletter should also include pictures and price changes in the new products based on seasonal variations and also any seminars, workshops and contests being held together with the summaries of previous seminars.

Speaking Categorically

The categories required for my business would be related to the sweet products which will mainly include dessert which are for people who are required to eat gluten free products due to their genetic issues or love to eat that food due to its different taste.
The categories I would have are;

1) People required to eat Gluten-free Products (Bakery)
2) People required to eat Gluten-free Products (Non-Bakery)
3) People who love to eat Gluten-free Products (Bakery)
3) People who love to eat Gluten-free Products (Non-Bakery)

I will be splitting up bakery and non-bakery individuals so that I can collect statistics as to what business I can enter into in the near future when trying to expand horizontally as the people who are required to eat gluten free products would also be interested in other products.

Commented on

1) http://areyousocialwiththemedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/now-youre-getting-personal.html#comment-form

2) http://kyledonnellyy.blogspot.com/2013/10/blogging-for-business.html#comment-form

3) http://www.beckybeamer-csit155.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-personal.html#comment-form

Being Personal on Blogs

Trying to be personal on blog posts is a decision based on the profile of your blog. It means that one should only get personal when the experience being shared expressly and impliedly affects the business you are promoting. If there is no link between the business and the personal experience being shared, the blog will not get the most hits. For example to write a more friendly blog on Tia's Bakery, I should be focused on sharing experience based on gluten free items which could be tracked or searched and are google Ad-sense friendly.

The Use of Twitter in Finding new Customers

Twitter which is one of the most popular social network these days can also be used for finding new customers, leads and people who are interested in the products either you produce or are related in some way to that. Twitter also helps in identification of competitors in your particular area and is therefore an important tool to keep into view the products being launched by your competitor and the strategies being followed.
For the Tia's Bakery I tried to follow people who are either related to the company in the gluten free products and produce them to sell to various customers. The use of hashtags of #Gluten resulted in three of the competitors currently being followed. This can now be used to benchmark quality of their products, customer reviews and their website quality. Also a constant eye on the accounts will result in knowing what the customer has launched new and to gain more ideas.
Another search in the current following of these competitors resulted in a result of America's Pharmacist who shall be a speaker in the Gluten Summit on November 11-17 in an online event. This could also be helpful in identifying and meeting many new customers and if offered a chance Tia's bakery could also advertise its products in order to gain more customer acceptance.

Visuals In Business

Rudi's Bakery which is one of the related business mainly uses Facebook as its visual platform through asking the visitor to create and share their Toast Masterpiece on Facebook. This provides an excellent opportunity of creativity to the user and therefore more users are attracted towards the website once the link is shared on the world's fastest growing social media network.
Rudi's have used a lot of animated content instead of text content mainly to attract kids of small age and as the saying goes "A picture is worth a thousand words", now it seems that it really is the story of every branded website. Gluten-free products specialized for a specific group makes Rudi's niche target market and therefore Facebook is the best platform to share the availability of such products.

Visit http://www.rudisbakery.com/ to review the visual effects on the webpage

Another website using visual and social media content related to the food business is Pamela's Products. It uses Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter in order to gain social media access but their links for the social media are far below the page which makes these ineffective as compared to the Rudi's. Although there are many pictures therein which makes a visitor to recommend web page to another person but there is difficulty in finding how that should be done.

Visit http://pamelasproducts.com/ and compare the differences in the visual effects and use of social media platforms.

The Facebook pages that I chose to "Like" as those which have a direct impact on our business sales or are business which are likely to attract consumers who would also be interested in the products which we offer.

Consumers who visit those pages are most likely seeking gluten free foods.  These are our target market and we hope to build brand recognition by aligning our company with more well established gluten free brands.

Our Target Market

The target market for Tia's Bakery is customers seeking gluten free dessert options.  All of our products are created without the use of wheat, barley or rye.


Customers living with celiac disease, gluten allergies or gluten intolerance make up our primary target market having two different segments which are individuals who are suffering from this allergy and corporate suppliers like superstores etc which can help achieve high volume of sales through their marketing strategies also.

But anyone can enjoy our delicious, all-natural, individually sized cakes.  With four flavors currently on market shelves and six more available beginning December 2013, customers seeking great tasting desserts are in for a treat.

The demographic locations where the market is targeted is currently in the region of California State but we are planning to increase the operations in other States nearby also.
Once we find our customers, the products provided are so special that it will easily create customer loyalty which will definitely increase sale volume of Tia's Bakery.

Visit us at www.tiasbakery.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/tiasbakerygf

Week Three Aesthetics, Design & Branding

I visited the most interesting website today, www.richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp and I have say that it was not at all what I thought it would be.  The site is about....chickens.....No, uh.....farming!?  No, that's not right either.  Well, it's about lawn care, flea control, framing, electricity and - look, you'll just have to visit the site yourself.

But there are a couple of things about the site I do not care for.  An example is the really, really long pages.  I mean you can scroll for about 17 hours on the first page and still not hit the bottom; and you get lost in the volumes of text and images.  On the one page there are about 25 different topic headings, almost 40 images and at least 6 videos.   I think that by adding more pages which would allow the visitor to decide what is most interesting to them, would be a better way to go.

I did however very much enjoy the content of this site.  I spent almost 45 mins. reading different article before I realized that, I don't want to know about how to clean a chicken coop.  But they made the reading interesting and captivating.  The owners of the site seem to not give a wit about branding or site aesthetics.  I guess they feel that if the information is of value, who care how it come wrapped.  The look and "feel" of the site gives me the impression of "homemade."

But hey, if you want to know how to use a chicken tractor, well this site is for you.

 

 

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OK, let's discuss the second site I chose to review:  http://www.swagelok.com/

If you ever, ever and I mean EVER, need a valve, tube fitting, tubing or gauges - these are the folks to talk to.  And brother, they mean business.

 

You can tell that Swagelok is a high performing, professional organization the moment the first page loads.  (Can you really tell all of that from a web page?  Naw, but you can sure get that impression with a page done right!)  I really tried to find something about this website that I did not like.  All I cam up with was the company logo, which I detest.  But, I'm not sure that actually counts because I'd hate the logo on a T-shirt as much as I do on the website.  Soooooo...   Let's just move on, shall we?

 

What could be improved on this website and why? Choose two and identify what they have done right. How does design, aesthetics and branding impact your reaction to the websites?

 

The design of the site are impressive.  Flowing, high quality graphics, clear easy to read navigation tools.  The bright colorful, the professionally done photographs coupled with easy to use, interactive buttons left me with the impression of a company that is a leader in their industry. 

 

Heck, they even have a warehouse that would put Indiana Jones to shame.  I mean, just look.

 

 

GO SWAGELOK! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



A Past Experience Dealing With Customer Service of A Large Corporation

When my family and I relocated to Oceanside from Toronto Canada, we had to establish telephone service in our new home.  because our oldest son was still living in Canada at the time, international calling was a must have feature for any service package we'd choose. So we contacted AT&T and processed our order for a service contract.

The service order was placed over the phone and a customer service representative took my order, repeated it back to me to insure that I would receive a service plan right for me.

The problem began with the first bill. There were over $900 in charges for international calls to Toronto, Canada.  With the service plan I ordered, these charges should have been a maximum of $45.00.  So began my customer service nightmare.

It took 8 calls, each lasting an average of 50+ minutes.  On every single call, I was transferred no less than four time. And, on every call, I was disconnected at least once. I was provide misleading and in a few instances, false information by customer service reps.   It was very frustrating.

Do I believe that by utilizing social media I could have achieved a quicker more satisfying customer service experience.  Or at the very least, have made my problems and dissatisfaction known to the company on a deeper level? 
I thank that the answer to that question is a resounding 'Yes."  I could have written a description of the experience on Yelp.  I could have Tweeted about the problems with AT&T and invited others to share their experiences of poor customer service. And even notified others about a blog I could have started with content all about how much AT&T frustrates their customers.  I've even heard of others starting Facebook pages dedicated to voicing an opinion about a company.

I could have spoken with a voice, amplified by the power of social media, powerful enough to make my individual frustration known to a multinational behemoth.

(5) Business Wedsites & The Social Media Which They Use

1. Udi's Foods  (http://udisfood.com/)  Uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & Instagram

2. Rudi's Organic bakery  (http://www.rudisbakery.com/)  Uses Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & Pinterest

3. Fabe's All Natural Bakery  (http://fabesnatural.com/)  Uses facebook & Twitter

4. Earth Café (https://earthcafetogo.com/mainsite/) Uses Facebook & Twitter

5. Pamela's Products (http://pamelasproducts.com/) Uses Facebook, Pinterest & Twitter

Why did I choose this templete? No, really. Why?

I choose this particular template because it is named Awesome.  Also because it has a light background which give me an open, light and calm feeling.  Also because it's called Awesome.

Whenever I'm given the opportunity to choose and one of the choices available is Awesome, what else is there to choose?  Who'd want a template named "Just So-So", or "Plain-Run-Of-The-Mill-You-See-It-Everyday?"  Not me, no way!

So, even if I can't be Awesome at all times, and get tired and cranky when I'm tired and cranky; my template is, in a word - Awesome.

PS.   I thank that you're awesome too.