I started my business mid way through the semester. Before I wanted to adventure in online retail I wanted to know at least the basic of social media advertising to make sure my business wouldn't just fail because I didn't how to advertise the right way. This class went above and beyond my expectations. I learned a lot more than just the basics, and while exploring many of the social media marketing options during this semester I was able to find one that worked best for me, and thanks to it I've gotten amazing results. I was so surprised to see how my first Facebook ads were converting into sales, and that many people were engaging in the advertised posts.
I definitely didn't understand as much as I do now how important social media for businesses are. I really can't think of any business who doesn't use social media to be successful after learning how impactful it is for businesses. I saw it first hand myself when my business took off to an extent through our first Facebook ad. Being able to also see other's people results from their blogs in this class was also very helpful. Learning from what others do right, and their mistakes makes the learning much faster. Almost in a way self-teaching. The weekly posts also made you keep working on your social media which meant continuous progress through the whole class. From learning a different social media tool that week or just getting better at one already studied. The learning was continuous, and always evolving taking us to the next step without getting lost.
I found myself having the most success with Facebook ads. Chapter 5 & 6 who talked about Facebook, and the different strategies to advertise on it had the most impact to me and my business. I posted some of my success on the class blog hoping to inspire others. Few students privately messaged me asking more information about my business which gave me a lot of confidence continuing with it since I was getting very positive feedback from others. It also helped me push to learn more than just in class, but also to go out and find more information to keep my business growing.
Email marketing is something that I was really really new coming in this class. I believed that email were annoying, and must've not turned into many sales. Oh man did this class prove me wrong. I started using an email marketing business to help email customers frequently and with quality. The same business talked to me and my partner, and also helped in other aspects which makes us really glad to have signed up with them. We've had weekly meetings over the phone with one of their marketing coaches, and with only paying $45 a month it's been very helpful. They also helped us with different designs on top of everything else. Without this class we would've never used such a great tool as this one, and not known of the company that we used as a project for this class.
All in all this class has had a huge impact on my business. I literally started from nothing to making $200-500/ day in some cases. Some days might be less profitable than others, but with the holidays going on right now we've been making good profits to keep going, and expand more forward. This class has been a key component to the success of my business, and it was able to guide it amazingly. Learned a lot of great tools to make my business grow, and now it is up to me to make sure I apply all that I've learned, and keep learning more from experiences and others.
Happy Holidays Everyone.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Week 14A
The first thing that stood out when I clicked on the analytic page was the split that they have between organic actions on the page v paid actions on the page. Since I had run Facebook ads it was interesting to see how different were the two analytic. The paid post reach on my Facebook apge was at 4,444 in this past month. It was a 37% decrease from the past month. It had something to do with our ad since we changed it up, and kept the same money but for longer period of times. Even tho our post reach had decreased so much our post engagement had increased by a lot 46% it could be possibly due to the fact that people were to recognize our brand a bit, and would be coming back to our page, and engage with it.
For the organic views it showed page views and page likes. The first went up 93% in the past week with 29 people viewing the page, and the likes stayed the same with 0% increase at 12 likes. Obviously organic posts are a lot harder to get likes, and views on because they're not being advertised, and put right in front of people's faces to show. All the post reaches ranged from 5-7 evenly without no single one that stood out. Very different from the advertised ads who got 80+ likes within 2 days.
I clicked on the People's page to see what were the demographic of people viewing, and reaching on my page. The different was really huge. 99% were women and only 1% men. It makes sense as our advertising is directed strictly to women as we only sell women products on our online store. Also our class is mostly made up of all women. 45% were of age between 18-24, 41% 25-34, and 13% 35-44. We targeted our Facebook ad of women between 20-45. Most of our views were from younger women as doing research on Google analytic showed that they were the biggest group who bought our product online.
Facebook analytic is a great tool to keep track how your Facebook page is going. It shows what's working, and what is not that needs to be changed. It helps a lot with targeting the perfect potential customer, and it helps a business save money on advertising while having a greater conversion of customer and sales. I believe it is one of the greatest tools available for social media advertising, and key to make a business grow to the next level.
For the organic views it showed page views and page likes. The first went up 93% in the past week with 29 people viewing the page, and the likes stayed the same with 0% increase at 12 likes. Obviously organic posts are a lot harder to get likes, and views on because they're not being advertised, and put right in front of people's faces to show. All the post reaches ranged from 5-7 evenly without no single one that stood out. Very different from the advertised ads who got 80+ likes within 2 days.
I clicked on the People's page to see what were the demographic of people viewing, and reaching on my page. The different was really huge. 99% were women and only 1% men. It makes sense as our advertising is directed strictly to women as we only sell women products on our online store. Also our class is mostly made up of all women. 45% were of age between 18-24, 41% 25-34, and 13% 35-44. We targeted our Facebook ad of women between 20-45. Most of our views were from younger women as doing research on Google analytic showed that they were the biggest group who bought our product online.
Facebook analytic is a great tool to keep track how your Facebook page is going. It shows what's working, and what is not that needs to be changed. It helps a lot with targeting the perfect potential customer, and it helps a business save money on advertising while having a greater conversion of customer and sales. I believe it is one of the greatest tools available for social media advertising, and key to make a business grow to the next level.
Week 15A
The type of business that I've created throughout the class was a shopify based online retailer. There was a lot of planning to do, and making sure our products were just right, and the way we went about advertising them would also be outstanding. I believe the social media tool that worked the best for my type of business was Facebook. Facebook wasn't just a page where I posted pictures or talked about my products. It helped a lot to advertise, and was an investment towards my business. Using Facebook ads got my store a lot of exposure, and converted so many more sales that I was hoping for. Part of it was thanks to my editor who helped me create the ad, and also thanks to this class who helped me learn more about Facebook ads, and pushed me to create a more insightful page on Facebook. On a daily use Facebook is also number one to me. I believe ads should always be run if they're working to get more exposure, and convert more potential customers into sales. Also you can talk with your community everyday on Facebook, and post new stuff also everyday.
The social media tool that I enjoyed using the most was the YouTube channel. I really liked being in front of the camera, and the whole process of creating videos. It was also fun because me, and my friend got together and planned it together. It also helped a bit on sales, but most of the visits we get on our website are from Facebook ads which is by the far the best tool to gain customers. The YouTube channel is something me, and my friend wanted to start as a side venture, and has been really enjoyable and stress free from the start. YouTube is a really good example of a social media tool that can be effective even if not used everyday. Videos will be up forever, and people will keep watching them without them getting lost in a news feed like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. YouTube videos also don't have to be uploaded everyday, but having a set schedule like 2 a week is very beneficial. YouTube is good exposure because you and the viewer have a closer relationship they can see you, and hear you talk it creates a stronger connection with your customers than just words or just an ad.
My business should spend a lot of time on social media, and I feel that many business should do the same. Social media is such a strong tool now days to keep new customers coming, and to keep brand exposure to remind current customers who you're. There're so many tools to use social media to improve your business that there shouldn't be any time to slack, and not take advantage of them. Room for improvement on social media is always there, and all business should be on them on a daily base to at least keep in touch with what's going on. I also believe that ads should be run everyday on social media. They can be pre-set so you can just have them running as long as they work.
I chose multiple different tools on my blog. I started with Facebook and Facebook ads, tried Twitter and Pinterest then decided to make a YouTube both for personal fun, and brand exposure. Lastly I tried email marketing this past couple weeks. After trying Constant Contact we decided to go ahead, and sign with them to have custom email be sent out regularly to our customers. The most success we had between all of those platforms have been Facebook, and email marketing so we decided to focus on the two to not spread ourselves too thin too fast. Keeping up with those, and expand to eventually having a big presence on all social media platforms when the time is right.
Our plan for the next six months is to keep going forward, and increase our everyday sales. We plan to expand our Facebook ads to 10/per day, and see if it's going to benefit us more than the 5/per day we have going on right now. We're also really excited to see how the email marketing will do. We've had a small peak to what it can do, but really excited to see how far it can take us. Constant Contact also has coaches who're helping us understanding advertising a lot better. We set a weekly goal to increase our customer visitors at our store at least 2% every week. We're also taking account holidays such as Christmas where we should have a high peak right before, and after should slow down. Within the 6 months we set a big goal to profit $100,000. We've made $200-500 days, and hopefully will be able to reach this big goal. It would be the a really big success for us.
The social media tool that I enjoyed using the most was the YouTube channel. I really liked being in front of the camera, and the whole process of creating videos. It was also fun because me, and my friend got together and planned it together. It also helped a bit on sales, but most of the visits we get on our website are from Facebook ads which is by the far the best tool to gain customers. The YouTube channel is something me, and my friend wanted to start as a side venture, and has been really enjoyable and stress free from the start. YouTube is a really good example of a social media tool that can be effective even if not used everyday. Videos will be up forever, and people will keep watching them without them getting lost in a news feed like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. YouTube videos also don't have to be uploaded everyday, but having a set schedule like 2 a week is very beneficial. YouTube is good exposure because you and the viewer have a closer relationship they can see you, and hear you talk it creates a stronger connection with your customers than just words or just an ad.
My business should spend a lot of time on social media, and I feel that many business should do the same. Social media is such a strong tool now days to keep new customers coming, and to keep brand exposure to remind current customers who you're. There're so many tools to use social media to improve your business that there shouldn't be any time to slack, and not take advantage of them. Room for improvement on social media is always there, and all business should be on them on a daily base to at least keep in touch with what's going on. I also believe that ads should be run everyday on social media. They can be pre-set so you can just have them running as long as they work.
I chose multiple different tools on my blog. I started with Facebook and Facebook ads, tried Twitter and Pinterest then decided to make a YouTube both for personal fun, and brand exposure. Lastly I tried email marketing this past couple weeks. After trying Constant Contact we decided to go ahead, and sign with them to have custom email be sent out regularly to our customers. The most success we had between all of those platforms have been Facebook, and email marketing so we decided to focus on the two to not spread ourselves too thin too fast. Keeping up with those, and expand to eventually having a big presence on all social media platforms when the time is right.
Our plan for the next six months is to keep going forward, and increase our everyday sales. We plan to expand our Facebook ads to 10/per day, and see if it's going to benefit us more than the 5/per day we have going on right now. We're also really excited to see how the email marketing will do. We've had a small peak to what it can do, but really excited to see how far it can take us. Constant Contact also has coaches who're helping us understanding advertising a lot better. We set a weekly goal to increase our customer visitors at our store at least 2% every week. We're also taking account holidays such as Christmas where we should have a high peak right before, and after should slow down. Within the 6 months we set a big goal to profit $100,000. We've made $200-500 days, and hopefully will be able to reach this big goal. It would be the a really big success for us.
Friday, December 9, 2016
Week 12B
Design is always important into any kind of business the better design you have the better you will do. With Facebook banner ads, and any kind of online advertising is no different. Banner ads are great because they don't bother a customer by not being on their Facebook page, but also not as great because they might not be all up on their face unlike some kind of ad who is inside their news feed. Trying different kinds of advertising is most optimal, and sticking to which works more after you tested different ways of advertising. I've done news feed ads on Facebook, and found those being the ones that got the best feedback resulting with the most likes, and with the most website clicks out of any other one. Keep testing with different ideas is always good if trying something new my rule is usually to keep it at $5 per day for 3 days. If it works invest more in it if not cut it, and if it doesn't losing $15 is not a big deal if I sell one extra item for the month I will make that money back. Ads should be run everyday if they're converting in sales. All major businesses advertise everyday because they want new customers, and remind old customers who they're. If an ad is making you money why stop it?
Twitter ads don't work as well as Facebook ad has I've looked into it. If a business is well established therefore advertising on all platforms is reccomanded. If start up is best to just focus on one mostly Facebook, and once you see constant money coming in than to start expanding into other territory. Spreading yourself too thin too soon is never good. Twitter advertising could be very helpful. They have less ads types available, but an ad if effective can be good as it can be re-tweeted a lot easier with just once click. An ad is more likely to go viral on twitter which will ultimately mean free advertising if other people are sharing it. Twitter has a demographic of mostly used in the US, and younger people so if a business fits this two criteria heavily can be a great tool for a business. Ultimately the best is to do research, and see what your competition is doing it, and doing it better. If all business in an industry are using a certain type of advertising there must be a reason why they're, and finding that reason is crucial to keep a business alive.
Twitter ads don't work as well as Facebook ad has I've looked into it. If a business is well established therefore advertising on all platforms is reccomanded. If start up is best to just focus on one mostly Facebook, and once you see constant money coming in than to start expanding into other territory. Spreading yourself too thin too soon is never good. Twitter advertising could be very helpful. They have less ads types available, but an ad if effective can be good as it can be re-tweeted a lot easier with just once click. An ad is more likely to go viral on twitter which will ultimately mean free advertising if other people are sharing it. Twitter has a demographic of mostly used in the US, and younger people so if a business fits this two criteria heavily can be a great tool for a business. Ultimately the best is to do research, and see what your competition is doing it, and doing it better. If all business in an industry are using a certain type of advertising there must be a reason why they're, and finding that reason is crucial to keep a business alive.
Week 12A
I've looked at many businesses similar as mine; that is online retail stores. We see them everywhere even stores that have real locations might profit more from their online store. We see their ads everywhere, and I'm sure all of us have seen some kind of ad on Facebook, before a YouTube or any other social media even blogs like this one. What helps the most in this ads is how fast they can catch your eye. If the images aren't all that great anyone is just going to scroll past them without even looking twice. In a competitive market that we live in today staying on top of amazing pictures, and great online marketing ideas will be key for any business. A bad quality item with great advertising will do better than a great item with bad advertising. Facebook is king of online advertising. It has been show that it's the best if online advertising so I reccomand anyone knew to focus on Facebook before adventuring in any other forms of advertising.
The problem with traditional advertising it's that is a lot more expensive that online advertising, and a lot more complicated to run. For the most part to run an ad on TV, radio or so on you will already have a brand known by people. Online advertising can be done for very cheap for example you can run Facebook ads as low as 5 per day. For a start up business it's great as it's not a big commitment money wise. Online you will also be able to target your business a lot better. When first starting a business you want to focus on your targeted market as much as you can as they will be the most likely to purchase something from you. With traditional advertising it's a lot harder to focus a certain customer. The only way that traditional advertising can be more helpful is with local business. You can run a newspaper ad with a local newspaper company, and target your city a lot easier than online, but also online you can target people who live in a certain area so still online advertising could end up being more effective. We live in a very globalized, and internet dependent world so businesses need to adapt to this new form of advertising.
The problem with traditional advertising it's that is a lot more expensive that online advertising, and a lot more complicated to run. For the most part to run an ad on TV, radio or so on you will already have a brand known by people. Online advertising can be done for very cheap for example you can run Facebook ads as low as 5 per day. For a start up business it's great as it's not a big commitment money wise. Online you will also be able to target your business a lot better. When first starting a business you want to focus on your targeted market as much as you can as they will be the most likely to purchase something from you. With traditional advertising it's a lot harder to focus a certain customer. The only way that traditional advertising can be more helpful is with local business. You can run a newspaper ad with a local newspaper company, and target your city a lot easier than online, but also online you can target people who live in a certain area so still online advertising could end up being more effective. We live in a very globalized, and internet dependent world so businesses need to adapt to this new form of advertising.
Week 11B
Coupons are always great, especially when we're around holiday times like right now. My business is an online retail store, and people expect coupons or some kind of sale going on at this time. We have a coupon set up that with any purchase you get 20% off your next purchase within 2 weeks. This coupon comes with every receipt, and helps with keeping customers to come back and keep buying.
We're working with a mailing list company on a new design for our newsletter which will include a coupon. They will have the newsletter ready around 12/15, and probably post a picture on this website so to show how a custom made newsletter looks.
Shopify is the website which we run our store. They offer apps to make running store a lot easier which give you pre-made items such as coupons to use. We've used a couple of coupon apps, and that's how we created our first coupons on our website and mailing list. Shopify also let's you run sales directly on your website which makes it easier when wanting to have everything 20% off for the holidays or something of that nature.
We also had different sales/coupons go up on our store for Black Friday and now for Christmas. We set up a 1 month giveaway that if 150 people signed up to our mailing list one lucky winner got a $100 gift card to our store. That was something that popped up when a customer clicked on our store, and it generated us with a lot of emails, and great trafficking to our site. It also helped the customer get their friends or family to sign-up for more chances to win that gift card. We did get a winner, and handed them the gift card just last week.
Google+ is a good tool to learn more about your business, and learn from people who're ahead of you and build on what you have. The best groups who I've found are small eCommerce entrepreneurs like myself, and my partner. We share with other what has worked for us and what has not. We see what worked for others, and might try it our self. It's great to get to know people in the same business of yours, and use them as mentors to make your business better. Connection are good in any area of your life and Google+ helps making this kind of connection on a globalized world. Finding mentors can be just as effective online as face to face.
Check out our website if interested:
https://yellowcircle.myshopify.com/
We're working with a mailing list company on a new design for our newsletter which will include a coupon. They will have the newsletter ready around 12/15, and probably post a picture on this website so to show how a custom made newsletter looks.
Shopify is the website which we run our store. They offer apps to make running store a lot easier which give you pre-made items such as coupons to use. We've used a couple of coupon apps, and that's how we created our first coupons on our website and mailing list. Shopify also let's you run sales directly on your website which makes it easier when wanting to have everything 20% off for the holidays or something of that nature.
We also had different sales/coupons go up on our store for Black Friday and now for Christmas. We set up a 1 month giveaway that if 150 people signed up to our mailing list one lucky winner got a $100 gift card to our store. That was something that popped up when a customer clicked on our store, and it generated us with a lot of emails, and great trafficking to our site. It also helped the customer get their friends or family to sign-up for more chances to win that gift card. We did get a winner, and handed them the gift card just last week.
Google+ is a good tool to learn more about your business, and learn from people who're ahead of you and build on what you have. The best groups who I've found are small eCommerce entrepreneurs like myself, and my partner. We share with other what has worked for us and what has not. We see what worked for others, and might try it our self. It's great to get to know people in the same business of yours, and use them as mentors to make your business better. Connection are good in any area of your life and Google+ helps making this kind of connection on a globalized world. Finding mentors can be just as effective online as face to face.
Check out our website if interested:
https://yellowcircle.myshopify.com/
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Week 14A
One of the best features that I can gain from Google Analytic is their eCommerce tracking. Thankfully the website I'm using has a Google Analytic app with Google itself. All the information that my website gathers go straight to Google Analytic, and with the Facebook ads are able to give me really detailed information on all products that are doing good on my website, and also is able to tell me with precision which demographic is my business is doing best.
This feature is really helpful as it saves me a lot of money by being able to advertise to a specific group of people, and being able to convert ads to sales a lot more efficiently than with just trial and error.On top of giving me information on my customers it also shows me which products are doing best for the money I;m spending advertising them. It helps me cut out bad products, and replace them with some that might make my business a lot more profit.
Another feature that I found very helpful on Google Analytic is their goals feature. You can set certain goals on it, and specify it to something like products sales or URL clicks. This feature is very helpful because it let's be take my business one step at a time, and it feels very satisfying when reaching a goal, and helps me and my partner keep going and working at this. Mental game is half the battle, and keeping goals really is a good boost of motivation when reached, and can help out all business equally.
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