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.

Additional Online Marketing Tools

Four additional online marketing tools that I think will work for my small business are LinkedIn, Yelp, Google Maps, and Groupon.

My wife is not on LinkedIn, but I definitely need to get her business (and her personally) on. I have an account and have not done a whole lot with it, but I have had a lot of people endorse me for specific skills and I have returned the favor. Although I am not a very active user, I have seen that many people are, and it lends well to business, as it seems to me to be the only social media outlet that is focused on business and employment. Professional services like those my business offers need to be entrusted with reliable, trusted people and you can develop that kind of reputation using a platform like LinkedIn.

Yelp helps to accomplish that same objective. I have come across Yelp often just doing internet searches for places. I have come across businesses offering discounts for positive reviews on Yelp (I’m kind of wary of businesses that practice this). Additionally, I have looked up my business on Yelp and found no activity, good or bad. I recently claimed the business in my wife’s name and added a few photos to the page. I have already made flyers and little desk signs for my wife to post during tax time prompting clients to like her page on Facebook. I plan to add a section with a call to action like, “Did you receive excellent service today? Consider reviewing us on Yelp.” along with a QR code leading to the Yelp page.

Upon searching my business in Google Maps, I discovered that another host (1prosite.com) already owns it. I am in the process of trying to retrieve ownership of the site. I am concerned that someone else has control over the Google+ site behind the page. I haven’t seen anything malicious, but I would obviously want to control the information being distributed on behalf of the company. The good thing is that the company is visible and people can find it. When people search for “immigration” in this area, we are the first listing, but type in “taxes”, and we are nowhere to be found. I would like to be able to control this.

Lastly, Groupon is a great marketing tool that I have used on multiple occasions. Everyone wants to feel like they are getting a deal when making a purchase. The only issue I may have is that our prices are already very reasonable. The client base is primarily low-income Hispanic families and individuals, so we try to keep our prices low. I’m not sure how enticing a deal I could offer that would still be cost effective.

Creating uniformity among these different platforms is key in order to maintain the brand. I am uploading the same pictures to each of them so brand recognition is easy. The LinkedIn and Yelp links can also be added to future publications to correlate with my current marketing strategy. Although I’m not expecting these tools to create overnight success, I’m sure they will have a positive effect on the business.

Marketing for Free on Facebook

So much more than just a social arena for friends and family, Facebook has become a goldmine for marketers. This venue is a place where millions of people already interact. Although Facebook offers directed advertising for a fee, there are plenty of ways to market your business for free on Facebook. One of the best ways to engage your readers is to host contests. I have already posted this one that was mildly effective.

I got a lot of responses and shares, and it reached over 500 people, but only two new likes resulted in that effort. I plan to create another more polished contest using Shortstack or Pagedomo, since the type of contest I created here is actually against Facebook policy.

Here are a couple of the other marketing posts, one that I have already posted, and one that is scheduled.

In an attempt to get readers familiar with my new business blog, I have a post scheduled for December 31st giving readers a couple of pieces of information regarding this upcoming tax filing season. I opted to use the whole URL instead of a call to action hyperlink so that people can see that it's my company blog, possible leading to a subscribing user.

Another way to keep readers engaged is to post humorous topic-related videos on the business. Who hasn't spent a longer-than-expected portion of an afternoon watching funny videos on youtube? The difficulty for me has been finding funny tax or immigration videos- not exactly comedy material. After a lengthy search, I found a parody H&R Block video that I turned into a witty ad for my business.

Additionally, I plan to explore hosting an Event on Facebook. I haven't played around with this enough yet to actually create one, but I will consider a free seminar or webinar.

As with my wife's business, the key to success in online marketing is building relationships and gaining credibility. My hope is that my posts will do just that.

My comments to Online Ads posts

http://nathanherminscharff.blogspot.com/

 

http://kyledonnellyy.blogspot.com/

 http://www.parydise.blogspot.com/

Online Advertising

Using paid online advertising through a social media outlet seems to me like it could be a beneficial practice for my business, especially since you can focus in on your target audience. Until now, word of mouth advertising and flyers were the only marketing happening with this business. The practice of satisfied clients bringing in their friends and family has contributed to slight growth in sales from year to year, but the prospect of bringing new faces into the office (or at least getting the business’s name out there) without much work is one that my wife is actually liking, after initially harboring some hesitation to create a social media presence. I think once she sees an influx of calls or visits, she will see the value.

I like that Facebook makes it easy to determine the type of advertising that Is right for you. Your purpose for the advertising determines the kind of ad Facebook creates for you. You can choose to boost a particular post, increase your page likes, increase website conversions or clicks to your website, encourage app installs or engagement, increase event responses, or create offers for people to redeem in your place of business. Since my company has neither an app nor a website, those types of advertising are right for my business. Because there are multiple services that we offer, we can do two different types ads targeting two very different demographics. Focusing specifically on Facebook, I could see myself using two different types of advertising:

·        offers

·        right column and news feed ads

Offers:

Below is an example of an offer I might advertise on Facebook. It would go out exactly one week before the tax deadline and would offer free extension filing for those all too common procrastinating taxpayers. I would choose an audience of working age Oceanside, Carlsbad, and Vista residents. According to Facebook, this has a potential reach of 36,000 to 95,000 people.

 

Right Column and News feed ads:

The ads below (targeted at adult English or Spanish speakers living within a 10 mile radius of Oceanside) would reach approximately 186,000 people. It would be aimed at the other side of the business- Immigration Consulting. I included a picture featuring both the American and Mexican flags with the hopes of enticing the Hispanic population, our biggest demographic. I added the precise interest of “Immigration” and the number decreased to 2,600. At first, this was disheartening, but after further consideration, I figured that would create a more targeted campaign and would be a very beneficial choice. That means that for the same $10 per day, my ad would be reaching more people aready interested in the service we are providing.

Of all the forms of advertising, I think facebook ads are by far the most effective. The possibilities are endless when your ads are focused in on your target audience. You do not waste time or money on those individuals who are not interested in or do not need your services. Although I did not post any of these particular ads, I definitely will in the future.

Blog comments

I have commented on the following email marketing blogs posts:

http://so-market-me.blogspot.com/

http://beckybeamer-csit155.blogspot.com/

http://loricargile.blogspot.com/

http://kyledonnellyy.blogspot.com/

Email Marketing

After learning the importance and effectiveness of email marketing this week, I began thinking about my experience with email marketing and newsletters. I think you have to be careful in choosing the frequency of newsletters or email marketing in general. If I see irrelevant emails too often, I will typically delete them before reading or unsubscribe, therefore both content and frequency are important to keep in mind. With my wife’s business, I think producing a newsletter twice a year would be more than sufficient, with occasional emails on an as need basis. Additionally, everybody likes a birthday message with a small gift, like a coupon. A welcome email for new subscribers is also nice. These two should definitely be a part of any email marketing campaign (very easy sentiments when using a resource like Constant Contact).

A newsletter before tax time would probably be welcomed by most of our tax clients. Realistically, drafting the content and producing a newsletter would be nearly impossible during tax season. My wife rarely comes home before 8:00 pm during the busiest times of tax season, so most marketing would have to be done in the off-season. Most of the email marketing we would be doing is relationship building. Unfortunately, the business is not set up so that sales can be made online. With our business, the purpose is getting new people in the door and keeping them coming back. People have to see that we are different from everybody else. With our clients, they typically feel like family, so they have to be treated as such. The moment they feel like they are just another client is the moment they consider another tax preparer.  A tax newsletter would probably include things like

·        tax tips,

·        reminders about tax deadlines,

·        fun statistics,

·        money-saving tips to help clients stretch their refund dollar.

With our immigration clients (mostly Hispanic), a Spanish language newsletter might be refreshing. Every issue could feature

·        a newly sworn in citizen with their story

·        commentary on new legislation or talks that are taking place regarding immigration reform

·         a link to the company blog (since we don’t yet have a website) where they can find previous issues of the newsletter

I would have a tax corner on the Immigration newsletter and an immigration corner on the tax newsletter. One of the advantages of having a multi-service business is the prospect of having someone come back to the office for a different service than they originally came. We see a lot of our immigration clients return to have their income taxes prepared with us, and vice versa.

I am seeing more and more how practical an email marketing campaign can be. I am anxious to start playing around with the features of Constant Contact, and possibly implement this into the business.

Categorically Speaking

Categories for my business blog I imagine would probably be pretty simple. I would very likely be blogging on all of the services that we offer, so it would be good to categorize the posts by the subject. I would probably have categories for the three most prominent aspects of the business, as well as the subjects on which I could probably come up with some commentary for a blog post:

• Immigration
• Income Taxes
• DNA testing

I might also have a separate category for success stories where (with the clients' permission, of course) post stories and/or pictures about clients who have either obtained their citizenship or permanent resident status, or have gotten tax issues resolved. These can be feel good stories for readers as well as a marketing tool. Obviously, many of these would overlap with the already established categories, but it is common to have a post fit many of the categorical units.

I might consider separating them into subcategories, like tax tips, tax changes, tax deadlines, maybe immigration reform news and Dream Act under immigration. If I did that, then success stories could also go under these main categories.

Either way, using categories is a good way to organize blog posts and give readers a map to the articles they want to (and you want them to) read.

To date the "getting personal" blogs I have commented on are:

http://www.beckybeamer-csit155.blogspot.com/

and

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

and

http://6seconds6.blogspot.com/2013/11/blogging-with-personal-style.html?showComment=1383602179983#c377077807064009652

Let's Get Personal

This week’s lecture and reading have revealed that going personal with your business blog (like many other concepts in social media) truly depends on the type of business. In the case of my wife’s business, a family operation with clients who are like family, you can get away with getting personal, although since she is dealing with sensitive issues like taxes and immigration, professionalism is also of the utmost importance. Additionally, potential clients do not yet have that personal relationship with the business, so something too personal might come off negatively. As with all posts, tact and careful thought must be utilized. 

When blogging for a professional services business, I believe providing accurate information is a must, while showing personality is equally important, as taxes and immigration are not the most interesting of subjects. A little humor and personal touch can go a long way. Since potential clients will entrust you with their personal and/or financial affairs, they have to be able to have confidence in your abilities and/or knowledge as well as connect with you otherwise they will go elsewhere. Personality has a place in every post, but coming across as professional and knowledgeable is tremendously important as well.