Weel # 15 Final Blog

Blog Post: Write one final blog post to sum up your class experience for this semester.

The final week! This semester went by like a flash! I'm looking forward to having the summer off and getting myself back into shape. Sitting at this desk for 6 -10 hours a day has taken it's toll!

I feel that I have learned a tremendous amount this semester. This class in particular has opened some doors that will be extremely important for me, not only my business but with every potential business I come in contact with that will allow me to help them.

I was a little frustrated in the beginning of the class because I found it difficult to maneuver all the transitions having Mary's Facebook page under my personal account. If I had it to do over again, I would most definitely open a new email account for Mary in Gmail and run everything under her name.  

To start with, I found the book, "Get Up To Speed With On Line Marketing" to be a very easy read and enjoyable as well. I know I will refer back to it often for review on certain things I'll be needing to do with setting up my business and clients social media.

All the lectures where good, although I would say that at times it was a little difficult to understand exactly what was being asked of us in the instructions under assignments. I had to dig deep and hope for the best at times. I realize this is a new class so it will only get better in that way. : )

Doing the research that was required was good. It allowed us to see what is out there for really bad design as well as good design and I realized how big the need is for people to get up to date on what can and will help them in their businesses.

This class forced me to look much closer at social media and to understand the importance of not only learning about what is current, but also how important it is to continue investing time to investigate the latest trends and techniques. The world is going so fast these day's! I hope I can keep up!

I'm very excited about my new career as a designer/developer and I can't wait to see how it will all unfold. I still have a long way to go (2-3 years?) but at the same time I can't believe how far I've come!

I would like to see another class in addition to this one... One more time through would be very helpful. Maybe a little more time forcing us on the back end of things, Google analytics and designing events and ads. Maybe that is already in the works. Anyway, great job ladies. I feel I learned a lot. Please let us know if another class is coming up.

Week # 14

Considering the variables from recent lectures, decide which tools from the semester you would implement in your online marketing strategy.

How much time do you think your business should spend on social media marketing and why?

In your blog, please explain why you chose the tools you did, and how you might use them to use and test a strategy over the next six months.

Plot out a rough draft plan of the next month of content across the sites you’ve chosen, and how you hope they might grow or sustain your business. Be as detailed as possible, including daily or weekly time requirements to meet the goals.

Well, I have a new client that has contracted me to manage his social media monthly in addition to designing his website and logo. I suppose it's time to get serious.

I will be creating a Facebook page and connecting it to a twitter page, just like we have done in class this semester. The goal is to promote my client on Yelp as soon as we can. First, we need happy clients to approach. We also talked about posting images on Pinterest. I'm going to set him up with Google+ for blogging and quite possibly will be the one writing on the blog. It will depend I suppose, on his budget.

From what I have learned for this class I feel like the blogging is going to be important for his SEO. I will have to become familiar with writing news letters. 

The other platform I plan to set my client up with is Google Maps. When people search for businesses, Google Maps comes up on top so I think it will be important to incorporate a profile there as well.

Plot out a rough draft plan of the next month of content across the sites you’ve chosen

Ok I'm not entirely sure I understand completely so, hopefully I can do this correctly.

Facebook

30 posts planned and placed into the scheduler. I think based on the posts I created for class (7 posts took about an hour and a half to create), I'm estimating 30 posts to take about 5 hours to put together. I have to gather all the content from the client. I will search for images to coincide with the content (maybe it's time to enroll in Photo Bucket or something similar).

I hope to see 30 followers by the first week. I will search out different people and will "like" their page to get my client connected with a network right away. Having 30 followers will allow me to track what is going on though Google analyitics. I plan to be efficient with Google analyitics by the end of summer.

Check posts 9:00 am and 6:00pm 7 days a week. My client actually will need to be the one checking the posts. I plan to prompt him initially, by making sure if questions arise or comments come in, they will receive some type response. Hopefully he will be on it!
 

Twitter

30 posts on twitter to coincide with Facebook. This may have to come from the client. He should probably post on Twitter every time he goes out on a new job. And then, tweet again about how the success of the job was. Something I will have to discuss with him.

Pinterest 

Become more familiar with this platform and hopefully posts some before and after images of my clients work. I'm still a little unsure about this platform but plan to become familiar over the summer.

Yelp
Ask each new customer for a good testimonial. I will suggest that my client offer an incentive. He installs water heaters so I'm not sure what it would be. (Planning for 10 new reviews for the first month)

Google+

2 news letters over 30 days. The client should write this, but if he chooses to pay me to write it, he will need to give me the topic and any pertinent information and then I will research it, write it, and have him approve what I have written before I post it. Thankfully, my husband is a fantastic editor. I wouldn't feel comfortable without his assistance in checking my work! I probably should have had him check my school blogs! Na, that would have been like cheating I think.

Merchant Claim

Claim all the merchant verifications in the organic listings for my new client. When I did this for my day spa, my url came to the top of all the organic listings within 30 days! It was awesome! I added photos and content to some of them, and updated as often as I could. I found that it really help with SEO.

Constant Contact 
I plan to have my client sign up for this program in order to stay in touch with his clients. He can send birthday and holiday emails. The emails in between would be referral incentives. I believe this is an inexpensive way to stay in touch. Some of these emails can be structured around Facebook or twitter posts.

Non Profit
My client and I have discussed setting him up with a non-profit charity to be involved in. He is greatly interested in the "Foster Care System" as am I. Possibly the Polanski Center. Having this outreach will not only benefit the children but will allow us to have more to talk about on social media and Constant Contact sending out invitations for events.

Six Month Plan 
1. Over six months I would continue the same strategy. If my client becomes increasingly busy, he will need to hire someone within his company structure that knows his business, in order to manage all the posts coming in. We discussed that issue and he is in agreement to that strategy. At that point he can either have that person take over the posting or continue to pay me to do it ( I may be over it by then! We'll see. Not sure this is where I want my business to go but thought the extra income right now couldn't hurt!)

2. If the client is in agreement I would like to implement some paid strategies through Facebook. The amount of ad hits would depend on the clients monthly budget of course.  

3. I would like to see 25, 5 star reviews on Yelp by the end of our first 6 months. 

4. By the end of 6 months, I would hope to have built the email base to at least 250 clients and have less than 10 opt outs. It seems reasonable because I managed to do that with my day spa without Facebook and Twitter. It did take a little longer (24 months or so) but again we didn't have social media. I had to do it through trade shows ($1800 a pop) and street fairs ($350 a pop). 

I am so thankful to have had this course. The money I am going to save by using social media is in the 10's of 1000's of dollars! Over a 7 year period in my prior business I spent well over $30,000 on ways to reach people. Wow! I'm excited to see how this all unfolds!

Week # 14

I posted comments to the following classmates:

Pat Tirona - Solana Beach Library

Tiffany Edwards - Coastal Dreams

Taylor Tirona - Counseling Center

Marilyn King - Tia's Bakery

Week # 14

Blog Post: After reading the text book assignment, write a blog post in response to this assignment:  

Review what you have covered in class this semester and the work you have done using the various social media platforms.

- Which ones integrate best with the type of business you have created?

- Which have you enjoyed using the most? The enthusiasm or lack there of for a type of media is often shared along with the posts we write. This class gave you an opportunity to experiment with a variety of them. Now you can focus in on what seems the most effective ones to use. 

- Which work best on a daily use pattern?

- Which can you still use effectively on a much less frequent time schedule?

The material we have covered in class has been quite extensive for Social Media. I feel like I've learned quite a bit. I hope to use this new information to create accounts for clients needing a manager for their online presence.

We learned how to set up a blog template and discussed the best ways of communicating with a business. I don't see how a business can survive without at least a Facebook page. Blogging has been the biggest part of this class. I have to admit, I hated it at first because I'm simply not used to writing on line for in depth discussion. I knew I needed this however because I will have to do this in the near future. It's getting a little easier. In time I'm sure it will be a piece of cake.

Commenting on our classmates blogs was also a little challenging mainly because of time in the school schedule. I realized this semester that you can meet your deadlines when you know each day when they are. If you don't check your schedule, your going to miss something... That will be huge when trying to balance several accounts.

We learned how to define our target market by looking at other peoples websites and we observed the differences between the sites that were provided to us.

We learned about using creating a Facebook page for a business. In doing this again I would do it a little differently. I opened my new business page under my personal email address. In the future I will create an email account (probably gmail) specifically for social media. 

For facebook we learned that it is important to go out and find businesses that would benefit from our business and to "like" those pages. I found that to be interesting. So many businesses are not on social media yet. Hmm potential clients? Possibly. We learned how to put a professional post together and to schedule several future posts. This will be valuable for managing client accounts. 

We learned about Twitter and built a landing for that account that matched our Facebook page. I finally learned how to "tweet". I also learned why a hashtag is used. It appears to "tag" other accounts using the same phrase. By adding the hashtag to your content, you are saying “Hey, I want to chime in on this discussion.” Others interested in that topic will see your content.

Constant contact was the email marketing company we used to learn about. I was already familiar with this company from my previous business. I like this company. I will use them again.

That  social media platforms that I will use after taking this class will consist of Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Constant Contact Google Maps and Instagram or Pintrest. I think that tying these platforms all together will cover a full gamut of social media. I'm a little unsure about Instagram and Pintrest but a lot of people seem to post images so I imagine it keeps you in the loop. Oh yeah an occasional You Tube video may come into play as well. Video testimonials might be a good idea.

Daily use would definitely be Facebook and Twitter. I will probably schedule posts for at least two weeks in advance. And have my clients check the account twice daily to make sure they don't miss any questions or important comments. The blogging will probably be done 1-2 times a month, depending on the content found or provided and the events surrounding the blog. 

Week # 13

Review the FaceBook analytics on the top of your business page in the Admin Panel.  Click on Insights to find more information. Review all the content and write a blog about what has changed this week in your FaceBook analytics.

I had some pretty good changes this week mostly in part because I was under the 30 likes and sent out a message to family and friends to like my page to get me to 30. I actually was able to get to 41 and I think more are still coming in.

I haven't really had to many changes because I haven't promoted any true activity with the page. My client is not quite fully in business yet so it's a little hard to post without her involvement. 

I've blogged a little about what I learned in going through Facebook analytics.

Facebook provides a tour to help with the explanation of how to work analytics. You can watch a video or scroll through the tour on page at a time.


Analytics shows you how many new likes you had in the week and whether or not they are organic (friends, family etc) or if they are from paid advertising. It also shows the number is unlikes and what you actually net.

When you drag and pull on the graph it shows the entire graph in a different way to be able to view the percentage in a bar graph. This graphs shows uncategorized mobile likes which is showing 50%, personal page likes showing 25% and search likes also at 25%.

I like the that you can tab through analytics (likes, reach, visits, posts and people) to check and see what is going on. I particularly like the Posts tab. It brings up all the posts coming through the site with the amount of views and responses. I think this is a good way to understand what is working and what isn't. It's important to know when changes are necessary. I'll be more interested in this platform when I truly have the time to promote the page. It seems to have a lot to offer to help gauge success or failure with your page.

Notifications allows you to see information that has come in and who is sending it. It breaks it down by the date and shows you the time it came in. 

You can look at all your scheduled posts, published posts and drafts. This makes it much easier to look for older posts or messages coming in from certain posts.

I will most certainly be using this because I actually just landed my first paying gig to build, manage and monitor someone's Facebook page! I'm a little nervous about it but I always like to jump and get my feet wet as soon as possible so...her I go! Both feet!

Week # 13

After reading the lecture and text book assignment, visit the Google analytics for business page and pick out which features you think would be the most beneficial to your business to check regularly and why, then write a blog post with this information. 

Immediately I was confused when I went onto Google analytics. It takes a little time to figure out exactly what's going on. In reviewing the sections I first was drawn to Overview. It shows referrals, social traffic and active pages. In addition it times the views as they come in. You know how many you're getting in what time by minutes and seconds. I like that. It also shows the locations. 

The demographics page is important so that you can understand more about who your users are. This could really help with your marketing campaign.

I also like the benchmarking section. It show the percentages of the channels for reaching your site such as an organic search paid search or social media. This can certainly let you know what area is working better for you.  

There is so much involved in reviewing this site. I see there is a page for goal setting and email scheduling as well as alerts. It's a little overwhelming. I'll have to take the time when school is out and really search through to see what everything means.

I'm definitely going to need to know this if I plan to set up clients with a great marketing plan to be able to track for them.  Once I have Mary's site built I can start putting this information to work for her. It's not really feasible with only having social media set up.
 

Week #12

If you are interested in a coupon network, think about a coupon deal you could develop. What product or service do you think would be one that would increase traffic to your business? What are the benefits? What are the downfalls of coupon network use?

I'm very familiar with 3 coupon companies. Living Social, Amazon Local and Groupon. I personally think they are a disgrace. I seriously feel that they have been taking advantage of business people from the onset. I used them when I re-opened my business San Marcos  in May of 2012 (had it in Carlsbad for 6 years). The reason I used them was because the options for marketing had changed so drastically that I felt stuck. Radio was to expensive, yellow pages didn't work anymore, mailers were expensive and never really worked well (people just toss out the mailers with the rest of the junk mail).

I gave the coupon companies the benefit of the doubt. I tried them all and they did not work for me. My independent contractors (massage therapists and esthetician's) refused to take any of the clients because the pay when so little. I personally had the responsibility for all the consumers that came from the coupons. I ended up working 4 times harder for several months trying to fulfill the appointments that were scheduled (12 hour days) and I made less than a quarter of what my normal price was.

The first round Living social took $8000.00, gave me $4000.00 and it took me 4 months to fulfill the orders! I was supposed to re-book those clients but the problem was, they wanted the same pricing as Living Social gave them. I couldn't pay the over head from the loss income due to my "new pricing".

After 2 rounds (6 months) of running coupons they caused my business to fall into a financial whole that I couldn't climb out of and because of that, I closed my business 14 months after I re-opened it.

I knew of a few businesses that used these companies that felt the payoff was good for them. They were able to "up sell" other things once the consumer came to their place of business. My business was mainly made of of services. Very little inventory. The few that I spoke with said they only used the coupon companies for one to two rounds though because of the loss you incur and work that is involved in servicing the client.

Looking back, I should have signed up with Yelp immediately. I was fearful of Yelp and waited about 10 months before I signed up and started having my clients write reviews for me. When Yelped began to work for me it was too late, I was already to far behind. I closed in July of 2013 and my phone rang for appointments from Yelp for several months after closing the doors. And, instead of paying literally 10's of 1000's to the "coupon vulture" companies, I should have hired a Social Media Manager to get the word out for me. I just didn't know at the time what to do.

I know I've talked about this story in past blogs but I think it's important for people to understand the right way to market their business. Social Media is the way that it is done these days and anyone not promoting their business with these means are missing some important steps.

Constant Contact was a good inexpensive way to email my client list and now that they have expanded to do more for businesses I will definitely use them again once I have gone back into business as a designer. I will also set up Mary up with this company in addition to Google+ for blogging and connecting with new potential clients.