Final Wrap Up

I chose to take this class to get better acquainted with social media as a way to advertise my wife's business. Although she is a conscientious and skilled tax preparer and immigration consultant, the economy and her lack of resources for marketing have kept her work flow stagnant over the last few years. This class has taught me beyond the basics of various social media outlets, including what works, what doesn't for this particular business. I have determined which ones are too time consuming and which ones can be integrated across multiple platforms and so much more.

Over the last several months, I have begun integrating a blog, a newsletter, Instagram, and Facebook to create a consistent brand for her business. Since the company does not have a website, my goal was to get the business name and brand out there. Our clients love us, and although it is not a practice of ours to take clients from other businesses, we know that we do good work and others can definitely benefit from our services. The hope is that Facebook, Yelp, Google Maps, etc. will drive clients in the door. Social media has allowed us to reach out to more people in a shorter amount of time and for far less advertising dollars. One drawing that cost nothing more than a $10 Starbucks gift card reached nearly 600 users. Previously, strictly paper advertising was utilized, which has spotty success, and is both time- and cost-ineffective. My hope is that this tax season, clients will see our table signs on my wife's desk and like the business page.

Overall, this class has been an excellent way to explore social media at a deeper level. It has helped me build an understanding of what the various platforms do and how I can utilize them both professionally and personally.

In addition to maintaining the Seaside Family Services page and training my wife, I plan to use the tools I have learned in this class to create and maintain a Facebook page for MiraCosta's High School Diploma Program. I now feel competent and confident that I will represent the college well and meet the needs of the program.

Thank you Tracy and Claudia for a great class experience! And thank you, fellow classmates. It has been great conversing and learning with and from one another. Take care, guys!

More Social Strategy- Part 2

The following blog post will summarize my social media marketing strategy for my business, Seaside Family Services. For each of the social media platforms, I will discuss why I chose them, how I plan to use them and test my strategy, and how much time I will dedicate to marketing with these platforms, over the next six months.

Facebook

Facebook, besides being the most popular of all social media platforms, is the one that seems to be the most manageable, so most of my social media endeavors will be conducted via Facebook, which will integrate the other tools I use. For example, to avoid long Facebook posts, I will post a call to action with a link to my blog, which will have all the details. I will post on Facebook approximately once a week. I can easily gauge the success of my posts with the analytics already integrated into Facebook.

Instagram

Although I haven’t done much with this my Instagram account yet, I have big plans for it once I get a decent sized following there. In addition to simple weekly photos with cool filters giving followers a backstage pass into the business, I also plan to display the company's ethics and values by posting pictures of charity work and community involvement events. We will also celebrate milestones or events like immigration clients obtaining their citizenship. I will also conduct occasional photo contests as a way of getting followers engaged and having the requirement of including a hashtag could create more buzz and lead to more followers. I can easily gauge the success of my posts by the number of likes.

Newsletter

Biannual email newsletters will be a part of my marketing strategy. In order to condense the size of the newsletter, I will be using an interesting headline and a short snippet with a call to action leading readers to my blog, which will hold the full article. The bottom of every email will include a coupon of some sort. Each edition will feature a tax corner and an immigration corner so as to inform clients of one of our main services about the other.

Blog

Since Seaside family Services does not have a website, my blog will contain most of the information I want my followers to know. Some of my Facebook posts and newsletters will contain links that point to appropriate blog post. Additionally, if I mention a term or topic that I have posted about previously, I can create a hyperlink on the text and have it lead to the past post. I will create blog posts multiple times per week. Since other platforms will be referring to this blog, it will need more updating than the others. I have integrated Google Analytics into my blog to keep a clear idea of how I’m doing at keeping people’s interest (No easy feat with dry topics like taxes and immigration). I have to admit, I was initially hesitant about the idea of a blog, but my business’s lack of a website lends well to blogging.

Yelp

Keeping an eye on Yelp reviews is also going to be a key part of my marketing strategy. Keeping this on my radar will give me key insights as to clients’ satisfaction.

Google Maps

Lastly, I need to obtain access to the Google Maps account for my business. The site is mysteriously owned by someone else and there is inaccurate information on the location listing, and I want our clients to be able to find us.

The following is a summary of my marketing plan for the next month: 

December 15 – January 15.

December 15- Facebook

$20 Starbucks gift card giveaway. Share your drink of choice for your chance to win.

December 16- Instagram --> Facebook

New Citizen Client picture

December 17- Blog --> Facebook

Infographic on how much Americans spend on Christmas decorations

December 20- Blog --> Facebook

It's December! Protect your home (and wallet) from the cold.

December 21- Blog --> Facebook

First day of winter- Oceanside, CA weather/climate facts

December 25- Instagram --> Facebook

Merry Christmas from Seaside Family Services

December 26- Facebook

Survey: When do you take down Christmas decorations?

  

December 31- Blog --> Facebook

End of year reminder for 2014 filing season

January 1- Instagram --> Facebook

Happy New Year from Seaside Family Services picture

January 2- Facebook

How are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions?

January 4-Newsletter

New Year's Constant Contact Email Newsletter

January 8- Facebook

Happy Hump Day! If you could have a lifetime supply of any one item, what would it be?

January 10- Facebook

What's the one word that describes the feeling you get when you receive your tax refund?

January 14- Instagram --> Facebook

New Citizen Client picture

January 15- Instagram

Hashtag Photo Contest

Blog Comments to More Social Strategy

Here are my comments to my classmates' blog posts this week.

More Social Strategy

Being a small, family business of 2 – 3 employees, Seaside Family Services cannot employ a marketing strategy that requires a ton of time or financial resources. Most likely, I will continue to act as the admin for the business until I can get my wife trained and prepared to take over the social media platforms currently in place. Facebook, besides being the most popular outlet and the one I have enjoyed using the most, is the one that is most manageable, so that platform will constitute most of my social media endeavors. I also plan to integrate a blog and newsletters into my strategy. I have not done much with my business Instagram page, but I plan to incorporate this as well. Perhaps a hashtag photo contest

I plan to post approximately 2 to 3 times per month so as to keep followers involved but not annoyed. I will post seasonal items as well as pertinent information as it arises, such as tax deadlines, new tax laws or immigration updates. Since my company does not have a website, my blog will contain most of the information I want my followers to know. Some of my Facebook posts and newsletters will contain links that point to appropriate blog post. Additionally, if I mention a term or topic that I have posted about previously, I can create a hyperlink on the text and have it lead to the past post. I have to admit, I was initially hesitant about the idea of a blog, but my business’s lack of a website lends well to blogging.

Keeping an eye on Yelp reviews is also going to be a key part of my marketing strategy. Keeping this on my radar will give me key insights as to clients’ satisfaction.  Lastly, I need to obtain access to the Google Maps account for my business. There is inaccurate information on the location listing, and I want our clients to be able to find us.

Twitter, Google+ and Groupon, although they can be great marketing devises, I don’t feel are right for my business. I feel Twitter is more for well-established, big businesses with a following. That is far from what we are. Google+ could possibly work for my business, but quite frankly, there is too much for my wife to do on a day-to-day basis at work to take on and manage a second email account and a second social network. Since I have more experience and expertise with Facebook, I feel my efforts are better spent focused there. Although I know that a Groupon deal can give a business a big boost, I don’t think it’s right for us either. Our prices are already very economical. An attractive Groupon deal would not be cost-effective for us.

The platforms I have used have been effective so far. The true test will come around tax season. At that time, we will see if my efforts have resulted in more people in the door.

Facebook Analytics for Seaside Family Services

After reviewing the Facebook analytics for my business page, I came across some interesting data. Apparently, those that like my page are online only slightly more on weekends, and they are online at all hours of the day, with the most being active at 10:00 p.m. This is truly insightful, because I can now gauge the best time to post. What I thought was one of my best posts only reached 22 people. That could be due to the time it was posted. Additionally, that post was a link. Through the post overview, I was able to see that my lowest reached posts happened to be links. Perhaps I might change my post types to mostly pictures and polls. 

Reviewing the People analytics, I saw that most of my fans are women and the largest age group is 25 – 34 years of age. This would be a good thing to track on a regular basis as my page likes increase. They can give me a lot of insight into the topic and tone of my posts. Although most of our clients are of Hispanic origin, only 3 of them view Facebook in Spanish. This means that I cannot assume my Facebook fan base is a microcosm for all of my business clients. Clearly, it is a distinct subsection of my clientele that actually use Facebook. I also see that the vast majority of my fans live in Oceanside. This is what I assumed, but it is great to get that confirmation and know that I can see if this changes.

Lastly, these analytics have shown me that I need to work a little harder on getting people engaged in my posts. I had a lot of success with one specific post, but the others have not had the success I would like. I got pretty far into creating an ad a few weeks ago when that was part of our assignment. Facebook later sent me an email with a credit for $50 in free Facebook advertising. I plan to use this to boost some of my better posts that did not have the reach I would have like them to. I may also finalize one of the ads I started. I feel like I need to increase my page likes before I send them out, however.

I assume that what was supposed to happen during this week was a jump in our page visits and engagement, but to this point I have not seen much. Maybe others have not had a chance to like pages and post comments, but I wanted to get this all out of the way before Thanksgiving. J I’ll post a reply to this blog if anything changes dramatically. Have a great Thanksgiving teachers and classmates! 

Most Beneficial Google Analytics

After reviewing the Google Analytics for my business blog, I have determined the most beneficial analytics tools for my business page:

The Demographics section under Audience will be especially enlightening. Within this feature, I can get a snapshot of the people who are viewing my page. If I know my audience, I can better formulate my social media posts and advertising. I can see the age and gender demographics as well as interest category. I can find out what my viewers are interested in and adjust accordingly.

Under Geo, I can see the language and locations of my audience. This can definitely provide some illumination as to who is interested in my services. There may be a key demographic in my area that I am failing to tend to. For example, there may be Canadians in the region looking for immigration help, but I am focusing my efforts on the Hispanic population. Although I would maintain my focus on the most obvious population, I might occasionally put out some advertising or posts that deal with Canadian issues.

Audience>Behavior>Engagement will also likely act as a gauge as to the success of my efforts. If page viewers are only staying on my page for 0-10 seconds, I'm clearly not engaging my audience. That would be a clear indication that my content needs some freshening up.

Lastly, the Aquisition section I found to be enlightening. Here, you can see how people arrived at your page. Did people access it from a google search? Did they have the URL? Did they use a link from another page? Which page? The answers to these questions can give you a good idea of where to focus your advertising efforts as well as give insight as to other topics your audience is interested in.

There are lots of other insightful gadgets within the Google Analytics reports, many of which would be useful for other businesses, but I feel these are the ones that would be best utilized in my particular business.

Coupon deal

Below is an example of a coupon deal I included at the bottom of my company newsletter.

Additionally, I will explore the option of a Groupon deal. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am going to have difficulty creating a Groupon deal that will draw attention. Our client base is primarily low-income Hispanic families and individuals, so we try to keep our prices low as is. I’m not sure how enticing a deal I could offer that would still be cost effective. I will have to explore this further.