CSIT 155: Week5B - Facebook Page Components

Hello there Friends and fellow Bloggers,

There is an enormous difference between post reach and post engagement – so much, in fact, you might get disappointed in the engagement of all the people viewing your material. I know I often wonder why exactly so many people would view a page without ever engaging with it, until I monitored my own online activity. Sure, I see lots of stuff online, more than I could ever imagine, but I don’t feel the need or desire to interact with this information unless it really moves me.

Post Reach is the data referencing how many people were exposed to your post, whether it be organically (through your page directly or through your friends) or in paid advertising (strategically placed adds that cost the page owner a set amount). Regardless of how many people your post reaches, it does not change the quality of the post or the interest level of the audience. This information will be found in post engagement.

Post Engagement is the data directly referencing a user’s activity on your page. Once exposed, a viewer has the option to interact with what they see, or disregard it. If they choose to interact (such as “liking”, “commenting” or “sharing” a post), this data is registered as viewer post engagement and is an excellent way for a page owner to determine what types of audiences are interested in what types of posts you produce.

The importance of knowing this information is to not get disappointed (although you still will) when you see that your post has reached “X” number of people, but only has “Y” number of “likes”. This information will likely never be balanced, but in an ideal social networking world, they will be close.

The things that determine this information are directly related to audiences, locations of posts, times of posts, content and quality. If you post something that no one has interest in, regardless if they notice your post exists, they will choose not to interact. If you see a pattern of this type when you post a certain thing, avoid that thing – make modifications to the way you (the page owner) interacts with the audience for better results.

There are seemingly dozens of ways to monitor this information and make the best use of it without ever leaving the comfort of your home. If you are clever and attentive to the data associated to the posts, you can adjust your content to reach larger audiences and achieve greater responses.  The ultimate goal of facebook engagement is the contest of “most-likes”, “most-shares”, “most-comments”, finally leading to most money earned, by whatever means of the business.

My best advice in these circumstances is: try not to be disappointed; keep your mind open to change; learn and respond to your audiences; and never give up!

Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

Cheers!

JennL.

CSIT 155: Week5A - Facebook Page Components

Hello again friends and fellow bloggers,

For this week, I have created an alternate page for my father’s business, using the images I already had and maintained. Due to the fact I already have all of my email addresses associated to accounts (as well as the email addresses associated to my father’s business) I had to develop a new account, and a new personal profile before creating a page. It certainly is a great learning exercise, but I certainly feel a bit overwhelmed “starting from scratch” again – despite my use of images on hand. I may delete this page later, but I may also keep an open mind to the option of keeping it and using it for other business related stuff, similar to a blog. Only time will tell.

My new facebook profile is: https://www.facebook.com/SharonsCozyPets-News and the new page I have created is: https://www.facebook.com/Sharons-Cozy-Pets-Animal-News-124535511347491/

For the purpose of this discussion, I have added a profile picture, cover page, about information, a web site and an application. I have introduced some pictures to this page, and will “round-things-out” a bit more as time progresses. The page is currently published, and public, although there’s not much 

to look at.

Part 2:

Believe it or not, I resisted facebook for a while. I felt myspace was more than enough, and my communication with friends and family was secure the way it was. Little did I know, my next duty station as an Active Duty Marine would be on the opposite side of the earth, and I would need a tool like facebook to keep me connected in ways no other developing social media could.  After joining, I never looked back. I quickly learned of the beautiful, horrifying magic of this place, and was enthralled by its endless potential. I adored IT, but social media and the way people respond to it was my niche in life. 

When I opened my father’s Business page in 2010, it had few followers. I believe the grand total was something like 17 people, who all just happened to be related to me in one way or the other. I gave little effort in attracting attention, and for years it showed.  I had no idea how to reach audiences in this manner, and knew there was some magic code to do so. I started promoting and advertising like crazy on other social media pages, starting with similar sites and progressing to sale sites and animal related sites. I tried to spread my reach as far as I could, as often as I could, and within a year, had nearly 3,000 followers and a wealth of other social media connections. 

 

When the product is out of season, I post roughly three to five posts every three days. When the product is in season, as it is now, I try to post at least once a day, sometimes twice, if I manage to remember in the morning and evening during the “peak hours”.

I look forward to learning all I can to make this business adventure a success, and perhaps leave my thumbprint on the world though entertainment online.

Thank you for reading my post!

Cheers!

JennL.

CSIT 155: Week4B - Target Market

Hello again Friends and fellow Bloggers,

“Sharon’s Cozy Pet Warmer” an innovative design to ensure the comfort of your outdoor pets, created by The Kelso Stockwood Group Inc. c.2010.

http://www.sharonscozypets.com

Who is my target audience? 

In my father’s business I hope to attract as many pet lovers as possible. My target audience is broad in that respect, as I would like to get the attention of pet lovers, pet owners, pet advocates, pet supply manufactures and so on. Despite our business being small, I would like to make a huge impression on the potential buyers of this product. If I am capable of getting a few sales from “average Americans” looking to warm a pet or two, so be it, but my ultimate goal is to get the attention of a large corporation that would like to purchase the patent to my father’s design, and let him retire (again), happy and successful.

My current audience are those with pets that are often or always outside during the winter months of the year, or those who care for pets they are unable to bring indoors, such as strays.  I would love to increase this audience to shelters and Humane Societies, to protect pets that are kenneled with tarps in the winter before they find their adoptive homes; being these are non-profit organizations, we would require a sponsor (of sorts) to find an interest and true need for our product, and make the purchase, even if it meant a tax write-off for them in the future. 

The demographics of our intended audience varies when we the age of our business. Although now we are only trying to reach low to middle-class Americans who have pets, ultimately we’d love to address all classes of people and not only individuals with pets, but corporations that have an interest in helping pets.

Psycho-Graphically, our audience will feel very strongly about the health, safety and welfare of animals of all sorts. This particular department of empathy and apathy are very strong in the world, so much, in fact, some advocates, activists and animal lovers are willing to risk life and limb for their causes. Our company does everything in its power to enforce animal rights, we “speak” for the voiceless community of animals, we contribute to Humane Societies and Shelters, we have pets of our own and we feel a responsibility to ensuring the safety of all outdoor animals in the cold months. The only wall we reach while addressing these issues is: we are still only a small business and trying to help the world while earning money can be a difficult task.

Our target market is very emotional: they are angry when animals are mistreated, they are sad when they see the results of mistreating, they are brave and want to stand up for rights for those that are unable to stand up for their own, they are often outspoken about how others treat animals and so on. We want our audience to purchase this product for all the emotional aspects they have associated to this product: it will keep outdoor animals safe; it is affordable; it will protect your strays from a freezing death and so on. The product is simply designed to keep pets from freezing to death, there honestly shouldn’t be too much difficulty marketing a product of this nature, yet, with competition and lack of audience reach, there is.

I’m looking forward to all the tips and tricks this class will teach me.

As you may have noticed from my lengthy post, I get excited and fired-up about this particular topic, as I am motivated to learn as much as possible to get this product sold and our name heard.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

JennL.