Week 17: Wrapping it up.

My use of social media has changed quite a bit over this semester. Our Instagram went up by almost 100 followers. The Facebook page is at 54. I post almost everyday a sale, product, or just a cute pet picture. Even if we have nothing else to post about just posting a pet picture helps a lot with views. 

We have help some contests through Instagram. The contest had great success and will definitely do another in the future. 

The use of hashtags have really helped finding the right demographic for our Instagram and even our store. The hashtags were able to bring in the right audience for what we are posting. Also answering people when they comment on one of the posts.

 

My viewpoint in social media has changed on the business side of things. I thought it was an easy job to do but I learned that it it very time consuming and even overwhelming at times. I didn’t realize what all had to be done to grow a following. It has been fun learning and applying all the things that I learned in class this semester. 

I learned quite a bit and plan to continue learning more about social media for business. This class has definitely helped to develop a better understanding of what needs to be done to grow our customer base.  

Week 16b: Building Out Your Strategy

Daily Checklist 

1. Reply to all - comments, messages, etc.

2. Follow back the accounts that have followed me. 

3. Schedule posts throughout the week.

Weekly Checklist

1. Engage with people

2. Check stats

3. Social Media ads - switch up the ads that you are running.

Monthly Checklist 

1. Plan ahead for next month

2. Set new goals

3. Come up with new content/ads

This is just a short list of what I have been doing the last few months being in charge of the Instagram/Facebook pages. I'm sure that I do more that is listed but this is the basic of what I have been doing. 

Week 16a: Developing Your Marketing Strategy

 I really like working with Instagram and Facebook. The Business Suite app is amazing and makes it easy to post to your social media sites. I tried a few others like TikTok and LinkedIn. TikTok was just awkward but that is probably my fault. I really did not understand LinkedIn, the more I tried the more confused I got. I will continue using hashtags as they have been a huge help in attracting the right audience to the store page and into the store! I also took out some ads on Facebook and Instagram and noticed a difference in our sales for that week. I will also continue using online advertising because it has made a difference in the number of sales that we get. We now have a small budget for social media advertising and probably use social media a few hours a shift, especially with the holidays here, lots of sales. 

I plan on doing exactly what I have been doing for this class and continue with the social media posts and the online advertising. Maybe I'll even start a blog about the pet food industry. 

Week 15b: What we Learn from FaceBook Analytics

 There hasn't been a lot of change in my analytics this month. My post engagement is up 50%, which is great. I could be doing better with the likes and comments, there are only a few likes and no comments. I have had 4 link clicks; it is a slow start, but people are going to the website. There is a lot of information that I don't quite understand yet but the more I post, the more I learn.

Week 15a: What we Learn from Google Analytics

 I think one of the most important features is to follow how many visitors you are getting to your website. This is important for the growth of the company. Looking further into this feature you can find visits by page, date, and hour. Another important feature is who is visiting your website, meaning finding the right target audience. Finding the right audience can make a huge difference in visitors to your website. I also think that the time spent on your website is important. How much time are people spending on your website. Are they just visiting the home page and leaving or are they staying to explore? To me these are the most important for my company. 

Week 14 - Social Media Management Tools

I wanted to try Hootsuite free version, but it required a credit card to set up, so I skipped it. I wanted to try all of them, but I ran into some issues along the way that I couldn't figure out. I tried Zoho. It took a minute for it to get set up. Once it was all set up, I was a little overwhelmed with what to do first. I was able to ad both, Instagram and Facebook. Once I connected those, I could see my brand health and my recent posts. I like that it has a way to invite others team members to collaborate. This a great perk considering, I'm not the only one with access to the store Instagram. I scheduled some posts and went through all the analytics. This is a great all in one tool for social media. 

Week 13b - Developing Online Advertising

 I have been making ads to get more foot traffic into our store. It seems to be working. I do ads for one week and then a week off. I was curious to see the change in foot traffic. During the weeks with ads, we definitely notice a difference in our sales for that week. Then a dip for the weeks that we don’t do ads on Facebook. 

I have tried to do ads on Instagram but it always says that there is an error. 

Week13a - Online Advertising - Analysis of the Marketplace

I find that most ads are annoying but there are a few that catch my eye are always about curly hair or dog things. The ones that draw my attention are always about animals, and a few about hair. The one that I find annoying are the ones that I have no interest, which is most of them. The ads that I do pay attention to always use photos and the link takes you to a website to buy or see what they are selling. 

I kind of miss the traditional advertising from the radio and newspapers. Sometimes I'll listen to the radio just for the ads. Most of the time I'm not interested in what they are selling. I like to use my imagination to visualize the ad. I love billboards of all kinds; they are my favorite form of advertising. I love being in the car and watching the billboards go by and reading them. I believe that all forms of advertising are effective. The more you are out there, the more chance of someone being interested and buying what you are selling. 

Instagram and Facebook are both intrusive with ads. I can say something and within a few hours an ad pops up on one or both of these sites. This is my favorite way to holiday shop now. I simply say what I'm looking for and the ad pops up within a few hours. Most other sites are generic advertising. 

 

Week 10a - Resesrching Email Marketing

​I think that a newsletter would work pretty great. I feel that quarterly would work for this business. Every 3 months we could sent out a newsletter with information about the products that we sell, new products coming in, and sales that we are having.

Some topics we would include is chewing, product informations, mixology, and more. 

Week 12a: Using Business Specific Online Tools

 I tried a few different online business tools. I am really curious about the meet up one. I have to talk it over with my boss, but I want to set up some kind of meetup, whether it be online or in person, and talk about the benefits of the dry food that we sell. The benefits of raw food. Why we don't have corn, wheat, or soy. 

We already use Yelp but none of the reviews are recent. Trying to figure out how to claim this business or find the person who already claimed it. With 85 reviews, we rate 4.5 stars on Yelp.  

I tried TikTok but got nothing from posting on there for the week. 

Week11a - Marketing with TikTok

 It seems that some businesses can use TikTok as an advertising platform. Seems to be a great fit for people that are selling different crafts and homemade items. I'm not too sure on the pet store being a good fit for TikTok, only time will tell. There are sites that you can visit to take classes on how to use TikTok for business. I'm going to try a few different ways to promote on TikTok and see what happens.

I did find that Petco and PetSmart are on TikTok and have quite the following but nothing like their Instagram pages. It seems that they both use the same strategy as Instagram. They post mainly videos of dogs with the hashtags. 

Extra Credit

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Week 9a - Blogs, Vlogs, Podcasts & Webinars

I think that making a personal touch is great for everything. People want to know that someone is behind the blog. not a robot. I have thought about making a blog for the store. It would help people who have all the questions about what is good and bad for your pet's food. It could help with getting more customers each day. This brings to mind the Primal Pet Foods blog. It is a great source for everything Primal. They even have a recipes section that shows what products to use to make a Pup'kin Spice Latte or Dog Nog. 

I checked out some other blogs, one was the PetSmart Blog and it is filled with personal touches. Their whole blog is about the employees and pets that they sell. 

Week 8b - Your Instagram Hashtag Use

 I use #proteinforpetsvista on all my posts. I use #proteinforpets too. I'll use a few others that pertain to the subject that I'm posting about. The most recent was for free pumpkin spice lattes for dogs and cats. I used #pupkinspicelatte and #pumpkinspicelatte 

My first few posts after taking over the Instagram, I used way too many hashtags. I use the #proteinforpetsvista to show the location of our store. 

I tried posting at a few different times. I tried a breakfast, lunch and dinner schedule for posting. I didn't really notice a difference in the times that I was posting. 

I learned that hashtags are important and make a difference in posting. They help bring the right people to your posts. 

Week 8a: How to Expand Your Reach on Instagram by Using Hashtags

Pets Plus

Kahoots Feed & Pet Stores

PetSmart

Dexter's Deli 

Yes, visual media does work for the pet food industry. People like seeing the new products posted online or just information about a product. 

PetSmart only uses a few hashtags per post, and a few don't have any. PetSmart has 790,000 followers. PetSmart uses hashtags right after the caption and most of the time before using the hashtags, they use emojis that have to do with what the post is about.

Pets Plus uses quite a few hashtags per post. Pets Plus has 1,331 followers. They use right after the captions, and they also use the emojis. They do use way more hashtags than PetSmart. PetPlus doesn't post as often. Sometimes its everyday and them they are big gaps like days or months. 

Dexter's Deli is using only a couple and sometimes none per post. Dexter's Deli has 6,137 followers. They have one hashtag that they use the most #ilovedextersdeli. It's on almost every single post. Dexter's Deli seems to post about every other day. Sometimes more if they get an extra pet instore!

Kahoots is using hashtags but more than the others. Kahoot has 5,473 followers. Kahoots also uses the emojis, but they don't do the hashtags right after they caption. They push it down the post, so it is the last thing that you see. Kahoots posts sometimes everyday but mostly every few days. PetSmart seems to post every other day for the most part. 

I feel like the smaller stores like Kahoots and Pets Plus use more in hopes of attracting more customers. PetsSmart and Dexter's Deli are well known pet supply companies, so they don't have to use as many. OR they know that they don't have to use that many. I'm sure PetSmart has their own social media manager 

Week 7b - How Other Businesses Use Instagram

To me it seems like the service-based businesses that I looked at use a lot of videos to show what their businesses are about. The eyebrow threading used both video and pictures but seems to use for photos that videos. The videos would show the process and the photos would show the before and after of the eyebrows. The personal fitness trainers used more photos than videos as well. The videos were short and most times it would be a single exercise rather than the full routine. The photos were of them using the gym equipment.

Amazon uses mostly photos of different products. Most of the videos were of customers using products that they had bought from them. That is great for Amazon because it is free advertising (for the most part). Food trucks are wild. They use both videos and photos. I would say they are pretty even in their usages. The videos are high energy and fun. The photos shoe the amazing food being put out.

Personal Fitness Trainer - Service

Eyebrow Threading - Service

Amazon - Product

Food Trucks - Product

california_rad_patches

dojostacos

inglouriousbagels

Week 4b - Defining YOUR Target Market

    The target market for the pet supplies business are people with pets but its more than that. There are also the health-conscious customer and pampered pet customers. This pet store is a little pricey but that's because we care about what food is being given to your pet. We have the no corn, wheat, or soy in any of our products. Most of our customers are between the ages of 25 to 50. The ages 25 to 44 is all about spoiling their pets and making sure that the food that they are giving them is nutritious and a species appropriate diet. The customers 45 to 60ish is more concerned about the health issues of their pets and often come in looking for a very specific type of food such as low glycemic or low phosphorus. We do have all ages that come but those are the majority of customers and what they are looking for.

Week 7a - Get Visual with Instagram - Let a Picture or Short Video Tell the Story

 

Protein for Pets already had an Instagram. They did not have a personal Facebook page, so I started that one. I also joined WhatsApp. I’m still unsure of how that one works. 

Our Facebook just hit 40 likes/followers. The Instagram has 291 followers. I do think that our social media is making a difference. It is a small difference right now but in the future I can see the social media really paying off. Especially because we are doing in store events and even some virtual ones coming up. 

I have had a few customers say they saw it on our Instagram, which means it’s working! 

I do use hashtags on every post. I use #proteinforpets and #proteinforpetsvista on every post. The others I use depend on the picture. I follow many other local businesses and ones we sell in store. I follow different hashtags, too. #vistaca #proteinforpetsvista #proteinforpets 

Week 6b - Creating and Scheduling Facebook Posts

 

This is a screen shot of the 3 post that I have scheduled so far. 

I chose three products because when looking at the insights I can see that informational posts with product pictures seem to get the most engagement.

Week 6a - Engaging your Customers: Facebook Strategy

 Primal Pet Foods 

Northwest Naturals 

Stella & Chewy’s 

OC Raw 

Preppy Puppy Bakery 

Nulo 

NutriSource 

 

I chose these businesses because they are some of the top sellers in the store. I have also met most of the reps for these companies. These companies post their products, recipes, and happy dogs with their products. Primal Pet Foods, in my opinion, is the best. Their posts are so well thought out and easy to read. I also really like the Nulo page. The photos are amazing. Preppy Puppy is a locally owned dog bakery, and they make the cutest dog cookies. Their Facebook page is mostly about the products and the sales that are happening.   

Week 5b - Learning about Facebook Data Collecting

Post reach on Facebook means the exact number of Facebook users come across a post of yours on the users' page, from your page, a story, or an ad. The app that I downloaded when I started the business page, Meta Business Suite, shows the organic reach for each post and many other analytics. To determine Facebook reach you can use daily, weekly, and 28-day intervals.  

To calculate your average page reach, divide the average number of users reached per post (you can find this number in Facebook Insights) by the number of total page likes. 

“What Does Engagement Mean on Facebook.” RankMe1, 1 Apr. 2020, https://www.rankme1.com/what-does-engagement-mean-on-facebook/. 

Post engagement is the exact number of users that have engaged on your page like post shares, reactions, likes, comments, link clicks, and photo views.  

There Are 3 Types Of Engagements Available : 
Active Engagement = No. Of Likes, Comments & Shares 
Passive Engagement = No. Of Post Clicks, Link Clicks, Video Views, Image Clicks 
Total Engagement = Active Engagement + Passive Engagement 

“What Does Engagement Mean on Facebook.” RankMe1, 1 Apr. 2020, https://www.rankme1.com/what-does-engagement-mean-on-facebook/. 

These are both important because each one tells you how people interact with your page in many ways. Post engagement is important because it lets you know that your ads/posts are relevant to your target audience.  

Kristy Yam

Cassidy Vita

Sarah Mitulski

Week 4a - Defining Target Markets

 Armstrong Garden Centers  

Tree of Life Nursery  

 

I chose the garden shops because I took some horticulture classes last semester and I remember a lot about Armstrong Gardens. 

Armstrong Garden Center started in 1889 by John Armstrong. He started out growing Olive and Eucalyptus trees. In the 1920s, he was famous for roses, he bred over one hundred different varieties of roses. With an eye for the future, he opened a research and development department for his roses. In addition to the rose he was also developing other plants. He is responsible for the Boysenberry and the Snow Queen Nectarine, just to name a few.  

The Tree of Life Nursery began by propagating native California plants with the idea of returning native flora to California and to help with ecological restoration. They are dedicated to bringing native plants back to the land. They are used for both ecological restoration and landscaping.  

The target market for Armstrong Gardens is more for everybody. This is a company that will make your yard look pretty. The market for Tree of Life Nursery is very specific, California native plants and restoration projects. There might be some customer overlap, but given how different they are, I can't see there being too much overlap. I think this is because Tree of Life is about restoring natural, native plants back into California.

Armstrong Gardens might have a few plants that are native to the area that they serve but most of them are not.  

Both websites have a similar setup, and they are easy to navigate. Armstrong Gardens website is geared more towards landscape design. The tagline is Gardening without Guesswork. This company works with all types of plants, some native, most are not. I am not a fan of Armstrong Gardens website. They have a lot that’s going on, but it is easy to navigate. The Tree of Life website is calming. I think it is because of the background. It’s plain but it works for what they are going for.