E-Marketing by my Classmates

David Harris: 
I agree with Manuel about the pictures & also the frequency of mailings- but maybe because it is such a specific target audience, (and women associated with the cause) they may be more interested in reading up more often. I think the photos are a great pull to get people to visit your blog in search of photos that they themselves are in. Maybe leaving a flyer at each event with your blog address or getting their e-mails to send a 'thanks for attending- see photos here..." would work as well. I did a race and only visited the website again for the promise of photos!! (so it works!)

One question I have in general for the class is: Are we suppose to recap the lecture and book chapters? It's a great refresher & good for outsiders that choose to read your blog- I'm just curious if that's something I'm suppose to be doing. Anyone know?


Becky Beamer: 
I agree with David C- I like that you've mapped out a campaign geared towards different audiences. Seminars wouldn't work in my company online- we do offer in person training, but it is paid per student so giving 'the milk away for free' wouldn't work in my area- BUT it would be a great way to advertise our training sessions. 

Sharin Kinsey: 
FIRST: I love your title. 
I actually don't think you need to worry about repeating information. My mother receives a daily or weekly email from a clothing-stuff-jewelry-shoes-EVERYTHING company. I think that they sometimes highlight a few images in the first few lines of the email, but if she has time, she looks through it and sometimes buys. 
Personally, they send too often for my taste, but she's their perfect customer. ALSO- I actually do know of their emails bc of her, so when I want to buy a gift for someone, but don't know what I want, I log in with her email and search around (I don't use my own email bc I don't want their daily emails... but I like their site). 
haha- a bit contradictory, I know.. but it's the truth. 
I'm not 100% positive on your exact business, but if it's Tea (which I love) and you're hoping to have a tangible location.... I suggest looking at what companies that are having success with it are doing: Teavana, etc.

To Be Monthly or To be Quarterly, that is the question (Ch 10)

To Be Monthly or To be Quarterly, that is the question - 

I've been torn between monthly & quarterly releases for my company's newsletter. I believe that my company has enough information, new products and news that we could keep a small newsletter releasing monthly. I do appreciate company's that don't bombard me with emails, therefore, I like the idea of a quarterly release. The fact of the matter is size, if I want to send out a long Newsletter, I could do monthly. If I want to send out short, informative, and not too time consuming monthly Newsletters, hopefully maintaining my audiences focus- then that's a win!


Content Ideas for my Customers:

• Product Spotlight
• How to perform certain repair applications
• Industry news pertinent to their business 
• Company News
• Upcoming Events
• New Product Releases or Product Updates
• Product Features Comparison

Week 9- Blogging for Business (Categories for Blog)

Kinds of categories I'd use on my blog to stay organized and reach your target audience ( & how  these categories would help my business grow?)--- AKA- The Assignment!

• Advice for Buying a Welder- I believe this section could grow my company in that, our brand name would be advertising the information, and all videos, etc would link to our YouTube page somehow- yet the information would be basic and unbiased- simple, informative articles on what things to consider when buying a welder. 

• Tech Tips for your Welder- This is an area that if I had enough great material to post, could be a hub for welders to go to looking for new information. Again, as the previous, it would have our brand recommending things, but wouldn't be slamming it in the readers face causing distaste. 

• Maintenance Tips for your Welder- Basically same as above, and above-above... This would include information on how often to maintenance it, clean it, when to replace certain parts etc. 

• Plastic Repair Information- This is a new market for us, but it is a popular topic in our industry because insurance agencies are pushing for repair over replacement of plastic parts- I feel that we could post our videos of plastic repair, interviews etc, that include people using our product in their demonstrations. 

• Delicate Aluminum Repair- Aluminum is a exponentially growing aspect of our industry. It will blow up this next year- and if focused and talented enough- would love to have a blog in place that answers all aluminum questions when people start searching the internet for them. 

• Car Metals- This would be a hub for people to learn about all- the new and emerging - metals in the collision repair, fabrication & restoration industries. 

Awesome/ Curiosity-Rising Blog Posts by my Classmates:

• http://6seconds6.blogspot.com/2013/11/blog-categories.html

• http://loricargile.blogspot.com/2013/11/week-9-cont-categories.html

• http://kyledonnellyy.blogspot.com/2013/11/categories.html

• http://so-market-me.blogspot.com/2013/11/whats-your-organizations-topics-stay.html?showComment=1383550906434#c3574611697186075986

Whiny vs. "Wow, that is very helpful"- Personal in your Blog

In regards to how personal you can be on your blog, I think the answer is dependent on what your blog is about & what you want to achieve with it. For example, let’s think of a few types of blogs: 

The “Just Because I’m Awesome” Blog: 

          If you want to create a blog “just because” you think the whole world would die without knowing what you think- then I’d imagine being very personal is a high motivation. I also want to categorize blogs that people create for their family & friends to follow a life event- a wedding blog, a travel blog, a baby growing up blog- into this category. The audience on these personal family & friend blogs is subscribing to the information to keep up-to-date with the writer, but everything is personal…100%. 

The "Fitness/ Fashion/ Make-Up" or "Entrepreneurs/ Business Owners/ Marketing Tips" Blog: 

          Woah, that was a long title, huh? Regardless of the specific topic, these are forums for people of the same niche to get together and “talk shop”. I recently looked up many Halloween Make-Up Blogs to get ideas for my awesomely scary Halloween Makeup (it was creepy nutcracker doll in case you were wondering, and it was awesome). All of these style blogs require a good amount of a personal touch. The audience wants to relate to the blogger because they want advice, motivation or information in that specific realm. 

          There is a thin line to personal touch, because if a blogger starts venting too much, getting very negative or whining- I personally shut down and will never look at their blog again.  Although it’s not a blog-blog, Yelp reminds me of this point. I like to read reviews that give good information such as, “I suggest parking in this area, because the other lot fills up completely at 6pm”, or “I visited this gym, unfortunately 4 of the 10 treadmills were broken”. These tell me actual information not angry emotions, such as, “I went to this salon and the girl was super cranky and rude. Don’t ever go there, you are wasting your time”, or “Their food is disgusting. Nothing is cooked right, and the restaurant is gross.” Those comments give me nothing to go by as a reader, I don’t know the situation that occurred between the writer and the salon attendant, and I also don’t know what the other writer's food pallet is like. 

The “Textbook” Blog: 

          This blog is straight information, almost like a textbook- in that the information is factual to the industry or product its representing. If a blogger is discussing a How-To of installing a Spray Booth, or Car Engine, the information needs to be specific and straight forward. Bits of personal information can jump in, like “In my experience doing this trick first helps a lot”. Other than that, the posts are clean, informative and efficient, because the reader needs that exact information to get the job done. 

MY BLOG for my company (Pro Spot), well... A) It doesn’t exist, B) If it did exist, would likely only succeed if it was a combo of a “Talk Shop” Forum + Factual Expertise. The downside to a blog for my company is that we are a manufacturer. Creating content is difficult for me, because finding information that is classified as available for the public is hard to come by. Releasing too much information can give the competition a breakdown of how to mimic us. Also, we aren’t a B2C company, we work through a 3rd party distributor for sales- which just adds a bit more stickiness. I am trying to find a route for a blog, but my industry is a bunch of repair shop guys, who would rather get out there & tinker with a car then read on their phone about it. They are a “doer” culture, and I can’t imagine many even know what a blog is, unless it linked to photos of Pamela Anderson or stats on cool cars- but that would be steering from who we are and what we do. 

Headhunting on Twitter

Write a blog post describing what search words you used to find your connections. Did you have to play around with more than one key term to start seeing the right results? Who did you end up finding?

• "Welding"- This might be too vague because there are many types of welding, including fixing pipes- which is not our target market.
• "Weld"- This might also be too vague, it didn't bring up much of anything. 
• "MIG"- No results. 
• "Mig Welding"- @wreckitrex leads to weldingtipsandtricks.com, I think this may be my favorite find. 
• "Body Shop"-  This brought up results for the Beauty chain store "The Body Shop".
• "Auto Body Shop"- This brought up lot of fire reports, which I found weird.
• "Auto Repair"- This brought up a lot of posts and accounts that were more focused on maintenance & service, which are the same industry, but not our market.
• "Welding Tips"- I found this page to follow @martinwelding. 

Visual Social Media

Car-O-Liner is a company that also makes welders for the collision industry as well as laser alignment & straightening systems . Their social media accounts listed on their website include: YouTube & Facebook. Their only visual social media platform is YouTube- which links to a YouTube page called Alignment Systems. The YouTube page connected to their website, seems to focus more on their alignment products versus their welders. 

• Effectiveness: I don't believe their YouTube channel is effective due to the fact that it doesn't promote their welders. It may be effective in their other products, but those aren't competition to us. 
• Followers: The YouTube page has 73 subscribers and 284,936 views. 

Miller Welding makes welding equipment as well as our company and welding gear such as jackets, helmets, gloves, etc. The Miller website promotes four types of social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. While, they have quite a few social media platforms, their only visual platform is YouTube. When you follow the link to their YouTube page it leads to a 'Miller Welders' YouTube pages with great informative videos on welding techniques. 

• Effectiveness: I think that the Miller Welding YouTube page is a great place for our customer base to go and get great information and creates brand recognition for Miller Welders. I would like to model our YouTube page after theirs. 
• Followers: The YouTube page has 11,862 subscribers and 8,712,637 views. 

I have linked the Pro Spot YouTube Channel and Pro Spot Instagram to our Facebook page. The Instagram page was difficult to link because I manage a couple pages, so it took a bit more searching to get it done- but I did! For Facebook, I added the YouTube app to connect the two social media platforms. 

The 4 Horsemen of Visual Social Media

FIRST....I am shocked by my research on Tumblr! 
Given my experience of seeing mostly magazine, food, and clothing sites, I was convinced that Tumblr's demographics would be mostly Caucasian/Women/18-34. Well, I was WRONG- Tumblr's highest demographics are MEN/18-24/Asian & Hispanic! 

Now, back to the assignment...
Time to Compare

YouTube seems to be the big-papa of Visual Social Media. With the highest number of users, 490 million and over 2 million views daily, YouTube is undeniable. I have a difficult time imagining what company wouldn't benefit from a YouTube channel.
Pros for Business:

• + Popular: 490 Million Users & 2 million daily views.
• + Demographic estimate: Predominantly male, studies have shown men prefer videos. 
• + International Accessibility: On servers around the world. 
• + Virality: The "holy grail" of internet marketing, going viral, is immensely more possible with the use of YouTube due to Mama Google (owner of YouTube). If your video is gaining popularity, Google will add SEO points to your page, giving you more visibility in search engines. 
• + Interest: People are more likely to stay on your webpage longer if they are watching videos. 
• + B2C Connection: Consumers feel like they "know" the business by seeing videos of the product (i.e., demonstrations, How Its Made, etc), speeches by the owner (i.e., Apple Keynote speeches), and more. 
• Tagging: YouTube uses keywords for you to add to your video for better search capability in their search engines. 

Instagram is a phone app for photographs and recently, now short video clips. NEWS ALERT: Instagram will be adding advertisements, which is a mild disappointment as a casual user, but from a business minded aspect, I'm interested to see how they go about this. I do believe that these advertisements may lower some peoples interest in Instagram, but we will have to wait and see how it fends.
Pros for Business:

• + Popular: 86 Million Users. 120,000 new blogs are created daily, creating 18 billion page views per month. 
• + Demographic estimate: Women- studies have shown women respond and enjoy images most. 
• + B2C Connection: Consumers can "get to know" the company better through "Behind the Scenes" photos, action photos, action video clips, and more. 
• + Interest: If one person sees and likes one of your photos in their photo feed, then they are likely to go to your page and see what else you have posted. 
• + Tagging: Instagram also uses hashtags to connect topics throughout the realms. 

Tumblr is a microblogging platform and social networking website founded by David Karp and owned by Yahoo! Inc. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Like YouTube, Twitter is owned by a top search engine company, Yahoo. Although, Yahoo is the 3rd search engine in traffic, Tumblr's affiliation can help SEO on Yahoo for company's with Tumblr accounts. 
Pros for Business:

• + Popular: 50 Million Users
• + Demographics: As I vented earlier, Tumblr's demographics boggled my mind. Demographic highs are Men/18-24/Asian & Hispanic. This is actual eye opening to me that I may start a Tumblr account for my business, in that our demographic is men, 18-34, and not specific to any race. 
• + B2C Connection: Tumblr is a type of hybrid of YouTube, Instagram, and a Webpage- you can write blog material, post videos and photos. 
• + Typical Users: There are 3 types of blogs that are more successful than others: fashion, large websites and publishing/broadcasting media. 

Pinterest is a content sharing service that allows members to "pin" images, videos and other objects to their virtual "pinboard".
Pros for Business:

• + Popular: 11 Million Users. 1.36 Million users daily.  
• + Turnaround: Second only to Facebook, Pinterest drives more traffic to publishers than Twitter and YouTube combined. This is very positive & hopefully lucrative for companies successfully using the website. 
• + Demographics: Women/ Mothers/ 28% of users have $100,000 annual average income. 
• + B2C Connection: I don't think that Pinterest connects the user to the company as much as YouTube or Tumblr, but it does let the consumer visually see exactly what the company sells. 
• + Virality: Though these images don't go viral onto the internet and major search engines, they do have a way of going "viral" within the Pinterest realm. When one image is pinned to someones board, their followers see it pop up on theirs, and those pins that are extremely popular and pinned a lot, go in the Popular category for all to see. 
• + Interest: Those who pin, spend a lot of time on the site. From my perspective, it's addictive. 

Which would work best my product or service?

Our service is manufacturing welding equipment. My goal in using our social media is to get consumers to "know" us, create brand recognition. When potential consumers even think about welding, I want them to immediately think "Pro Spot".

My company currently has a YouTube channel and Instagram:

YouTube: We are showing promotional videos and demonstration videos of our products.
Instagram: My goal with Instagram is to get people to constantly see our name "Pro Spot" when they see anything involving body shop repair. I post images of our products, weld art, interesting welding gear, and short videos of our manufacturing facility making parts as a "How Its Made".

What this lesson taught me: Aside from great information on each site that I didn't know about, I learned that I may be interested in starting a Tumblr account for my company. Previously I thought that Tumblr was geared more towards a female audience for fashion etc, I've learned that the demographics actually favor my customer base more. I would need to find enough information to make my Tumblr account a place where people go to learn about car body repair or car restoration. My only hesitation is finding material to post.

Coming up this week on Ashley's Page...

For my scheduled posts this week, I decided to use 3 different avenues to attract attention: Video, a link to an interested but industry related website, and a link for a call-to-action. Using my Facebook Insights, I know that my audience is typically on Facebook between the hours of 9a-5p, therefore I made sure all posts were scheduled between those hours.
Post 1: This is a call-to-action post. Our product requires new small parts to be purchased periodically, my post is to encourage our fans to follow the link to our Online Store and purchase parts. I scheduled this for mid-day on Monday, after our customers will have been at work for a while and this may be a needed item in their mind at the time.
Post 2: Advertising our 'Money Maker', I attached a video of the product with a catchy but true title: "The Most Popular Spot Welder in the United States." I also added a call-to-action, for our fans to come visit us at our upcoming trade show where they can see live demonstrations of said welder. This post I selected for Wednesday, late morning. I am debating on posting around 9am or 11am, I will see how insights do for this post and adjust accordingly next week.
Post 3: Here I tried to incorporate something fun into the post, art. There is an artist who uses our welders to create art. With a enticing title of: "Welding isn't just MIG, TIG, and Spot Welds... see what artist Alexandra Cronquist has created with [our products]..." and a link to her website. I am debating on editing in that she will also be at our upcoming trade show performing live art projects. This post will go out at the end of the week, Friday, at 9:45am.

I am eager to see how these posts perform. I also have been attempting additional networking opportunities to get more people in our industry to share our posts, expanding our reach.

Who I LIKE

I would like to start with the fact that I LOVED Week 5's lecture. I learned so much about Facebook that I had no idea existed.

I eagerly took on the challenge of finding companies to strategically LIKE as my business. I LIKED our Distributors (sales team) pages, all CARSTAR location pages (current or future possible business), and media publications in our industry. I believe I liked something around 100 sites.

How might this feature grow my business?
Initially, in them seeing my liking their page, hopefully they will return the favor, and LIKE us back. By following these companies, I am able to LIKE their posts, SHARE their posts, and comment on them- therefore, gaining their attention to our business. Also, when I make posts about their companies, I can tag them in the post and they will receive notification of it.
UPDATE: It has now been 3 days since I added the majority of my LIKES. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a large rise in our number of LIKES, but it will take time. My industry, the collision repair industry, still has a large majority of 'old school' guys who don't use social media. Some companies are on social media, but I don't believe they are updating them consistently and often.

I did get one of our first 'shoutout' (I don't know the proper terminology) on Twitter today though, with a photo endorsing one of our products! YIPPIE! #socialmedianerdalert

Wk 5: Facebook's Post Reach v. Post Engagement

Define the difference between Post Reach & Post Engagement:

• Post Reach- The Number of people who saw your post. 

• Post Engagement- The unique number of people who liked, shared, commented on or clicked on your post. 

How can a business use Facebook Insights to better serve their customers:

Facebook Insights can be incredibly useful to a business to determine their perfect customer through analytics of what demographics are interacting with your posts. The tools of Insights can also help you to learn which content you post is successful, and which is not. 

Through Insights, I have learned that my page's followers prefer a Linked post or a Photo/Video post. Unfortunately for business owners, I have learned that my followers also are mostly on Facebook during work hours (9am-6pm). With the knowledge I have learned (and still plan to learn more), I will make more Video posts, which are those that have the most engagement, as well as those asking for interaction. I will make sure these posts are released through the Scheduling button between 9am-5pm all days of the week. 

I am still learning what content I want to use to engage best with our followers. Once, I determine what is best for us, I will then explore the idea of Boosting a post... but only when its a great one!

My Facebook Website: Pro Spot International

https://www.facebook.com/prospotinternational

Target Market Analysis-Step 1

Company: Manufacturer of Welding Equipment for Body Repair Shops

Target Market: 
I feel there are two target customers for our business, an end-user (Technician) and the purchaser of the equipment (Owner). The technician is a 20-35 year old, white or hispanic male working in a body repair shop. He may have a high school diploma but has completed a Trade School for welding. He is interested in cars, new and old, likely tattooed and lives with dirt under his nails. The other target customer is the Owner of multiple body shops. He is 35-60 in age, white male, with a high school diploma, college degree and years of work experience. He is our target customer because he will purchase our product to be in all of his shops because it creates a better ROI for himself, therefore, making him more profits. Although it is the owner that is the final decision maker in the purchase of the product, it is his technicians that use the product and let him know what will work best for them in the shop. If you don't have the technicians on your side, you have nothing. 


Target Market Demographics:
Age: 20-60
Gender: Male
Marital Status: Non-specific
Occupation: Body Shop Owner, Body Shop Technician, Custom Fabricator
Religion: Non-specific
Family Size: 3-6
Income: Owner: $70,000-$200,000; Technician: $40,000-$70,000
Education Level: High School Diploma or College Degree 
Race: Caucasian, Hispanic. 

Pinbook... (Pinterest + Facebook)

PinBook

The two websites that I frequent on a desktop are Pinterest & Facebook. Most other sites that I use have mobile versions or apps, i.e., news sites, fantasy football, etc. Facebook and Pinterest both have apps and mobile versions, but I prefer to use the desktop versions because I can get through more material faster! 

www.facebook.com

www.pinterest.com

Why are they effective? 

Facebook: Though they have changed their interface multiple times, and each time the public reacts unfavorable, eventually, everyone gets used to the idea and stops complaining. Facebook has organized the site into 4 columns: a left aligned dashboard, The Wall aka The Feed of information posted by people you follow, Friend's Birthdays and events, and your Chat Window. If you are bored, you scroll through the feed, if you want to talk to someone, you look in your Chat Window. It is easy to navigate to anything you want to accomplish. 

Pinterest: Pinterest is effective because you can scroll seeing images. Once an image catches your eye, you can "pin" it to a board of your choosing for future review. Each image is a link to (hopefully) a website where you can buy it, or a blog- where you can learn more about it. Pinterest has recently changed their mobile versions to have a 3 prong option when you clock on the image, asking if you want it pinned, shared, or to 'like' it. The desktop version has the 3 same options just as buttons when you scroll over the picture. I prefer the desktop version, I feel I can pin more, FASTER!

What specific principles of good design do they include and why?

Both Facebook & Pinterest have linear designs, which are visually very easy-to-use for me. 

What makes you come back again?

I enjoy the content of both Facebook & Pinterest. They both are personally catered to myself: Facebook for my friends & family and Pinterest for my interests. 

What could be improved?

Pinterest may benefit if when you choose which board you want it pinned to that it would auto-pin. Currently you select the board you want to pin the item to, then you need to hit a "Pin" button to complete the action. Although, this could be a pain-in-the-tush if you accidentally select the wrong board, then you may have the horrific situation of pinning an Apple Pie recipe on your Health & Fitness board! 

Facebook- I'm still not the biggest fan of the current interface, but I won't be too upset because they will undoubtably change it again, confusing us all when they do. I personally don't like the "People You May Know" area, but you can design your site ALMOST to be what you want it to be. Also, I think the advertisements are annoying, but I get it... it wouldn't be free if they weren't there! 

The End. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly websites

Tec Welding Products

Website: http://techtorch.com

__________________________________________________

Potential Problems for Visitors: 

1. The company logo is centered, not to the left as recommended due to how we read left-to-right. 
2. The website is visually cluttered, a grid pattern may help, or to  create more links to separate pages. 
3. Depth- the site is over-saturated with information. Although, they do have a call to action at the bottom of the page. 

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

GForce Race Cars

Website: http://gforceracecars.com

__________________________________________________________

Potential Problems for Visitors: 

1. Although they have left aligned links, the scroll size of the page is well over 3 scrolls. I suggest that they make that homepage smaller in length and add that information to linked pages. 
2. The text is centered, aligning the text to the left would make it easier for the visitor to read. 
3. Proximity of the images and captions are confusing. It is hard to tell where the information is to each image. Using a grid pattern, or creating more space differentiating the photo & caption from the text. 

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

Ford Motor Company

Website: http://www.ford.com

__________________________________________________

Positive aspects about the website:

1. Aesthetically, it is very clean & organized.
2. The logo is in the top left corner, being the first place the eye looks to start reading. 
3. Conceptually, the website is on point. They want to grow awareness, knowledge and sell their cars- the first image you see is of their 2013 line of cars. 
4. The typography is good and easy to read. 
5. When you follow a link, for example: selecting the image on the homepage of the Ford Fusion. A new page opens where you see a photo of the Ford Fusion, immediately to the left read all pricing and specs on the car, and have a palette of colors for you to design your own version of the car. 
6. Everything from models to features and add-ons are listed in a grid pattern, making everything easy-to-use!

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

Apple
Website: http://www.apple.com
___________________________________________________

Positive aspects about the website:

1. The apple website has been a model for many to follow. With its clean space, simplicity, it makes navigation very simple. 
2. The concept is simple and clean- just like all apple products. The content is set up in a flash pattern alternating between 5 highlights. 
3. The apple icon and logo is in the upper left hand corner, letting people know what webpage they are on right away. 
4. The typography is clear and legible. 
5. What you see is what you get on the homepage. You don't have to scroll very far to find information. All product and support links are listed at the top of the page. Additional links to less used information are listed linearly at the bottom of the page. 
6. When you chose one product link, "Mac" for example, it brings you to a new page with images of all of their Mac computers with all accessories listed further down the page. 

5 Bangin' Businesses Mastering Social Media

I'm kind of a 'get-to-the-point' person, so I will make this post short and sweet!

The 5 businesses that I chose who are visibly using social media are: Southwest, Tesla Motors, _, __ and Neutrogena.

SOUTHWEST- (http://www.southwest.com/) I feel that Southwest is an exemplary company in regards to customer service & satisfactions, therefore, I was eager to look into their social media connections.

• FORUMS: A "Community" and a "Conversations" link at the bottom of the homepage leads you to a forum where you can talk to people in specific cities, about different activities, vacation themes, 
• I explored further and feel this is an amazing forum that I never knew about. People are writing asking for locals advice, best directions, etc, and others are replying with great input. 
• FACEBOOK: Also linked at the bottom of the homepage, the Facebook page looks to be updated rather often, just about daily, except weekends. 
• Likes: 3,979,020
• Engage followers- they ask questions to their followers like, "Where is your favorite airport to shop on the fly?"
• Gains- a post was made with a photo of the cockpit asking, "Want this to be your office space? We're accepting applications for First Officers! More info:". They received funny questions, in which they responded to comedically, as well as statements of followers informing Southwest that they or their husbands had applied and is hopeful to get the job. 
• TWITTER: Their twitter seems to be successful at 1,545, 226 followers. 
• YOUTUBE: Videos are posted of celebrities singing on the airplanes, behind the scenes fun with  employees etc. It shows a fun loving company. 
• FLICKR: Just a page with a lot of photos of planes. 

TESLA MOTORS- (http://www.teslamotors.com/) A new car company that recently release the first all electric car, currently geared to a wealthy consumer. 

• BLOG- Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO and Product Architect of Tesla Motors write a blog about whatever is on his mind. With an outspoken reputation, he gives his opinion on interesting innovations and topics. 
• TWITTER: 
• 125,386 Followers
• Post car facts and News. 
• FACEBOOK: 268,000 Likes
• GOOGLE+: 1,582,822 +1. 
• Post Videos, Photos and News Updates. Looks a lot like Facebook. 
• VINE: I was surprised to see a Vine site, but they show interesting videos on how to use certain parts of the cars, events, etc. 

NEUTROGENA- (http://www.neutrogena.com/home.do) I chose to research the skincare company, Neutrogena, because Dave Kerpen wrote that it was a company they worked with in his book Likeable Social Media. 

• FACEBOOK: I was surprised to only see two social media sites linked to their homepage, yet they have 1.3 million Likes on Facebook. 
• TWITTER: A fun addition that links to their Twitter link is that it takes you directly to your Twitter page into a 'Post a Tweet' that already says "Check out Neutrogena at http://www.neutrogena.com/" in the message box. Smart, sneaky... but smart!

GO PRO- (http://gopro.com/) I have a few friends that said they really liked Go Pro, a company that makes video cameras for extreme sports, and their social media connections. 

• FACEBOOK: 6.2 Million likes. 
• YOUTUBE: Post videos that people have made with their products. 
• TWITTER: 689,628 Followers. 
• INSTAGRAM: 1,025,443 Followers. I really like this page for them because they can post photos and videos now, which is EXACTLY what the company does. 

PRO SPOT INTERNATIONAL (http//prospot.com) Pro Spot is my company that I work for. I decided to highlight our Social Media that I have created and keep updated. I look forward to your opinions on how I can make it better. Pro Spot manufactures welders for the collision repair industry, body shops & restoration shops. 

• FACEBOOK: 183 Likes, I'd like to expand this number. Our industry is at a generational gap, where the owners are at an age that they aren't very into social media, but also their sons and younger staff are very into it. 
• TWITTER: 50 Followers. Here we post photos, fun facts, and news. 
• INSTAGRAM: Instagram is actually our largest following at 11,188. This high number is due to a connection we have who is a bit of a celebrity fabricator who is working with us, and this connection has given us much of his Instagram network. 
• YOUTUBE: Our YouTube page can be better, but we do have some videos with a very high and often amount of views. The difficult in adding new material, is having the time to get or create it. 
• GOOGLE +: This is a new page that we've added. I'm not very familiar with Google +, so it needs work. I'm not sure how much of our market is using it at this time. 

Week 2: "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?!?" (Businesses with Communication reports)

SONY/Google TV, DELL Computers and LA Fitness

“I’m so lost and confused… help!”

Finding contact information: Sony/Google TV

•  Trouble finding a customer service contact number on the official website.
•  Had to search the entire internet for a customer service number.
• Everything seemed more geared towards getting me to purchase, rather than help me with my product I had previously purchased.
• After 30-40 minutes, I found a contact number- we spent another 30 minutes on the phone attempting tech issues (my GoogleTV wasn’t playing sound on Pandora). After a long call- no luck, still not working!

Social Media’s potential influence: 

• I actually USED TWITTER to contact Sony. I posted the issue I had, tagged their official site, and never received a response.
•  I don’t think that social media could make a huge difference in this specific business issue because I needed hands on or phone-on-ear technical support. I don’t think social media could give me that.
• Only possible option could be YouTube video, but that would require the company to think of every possible scenario ever… that’s hard.

“I hear da phone it go green green green, I pink it up and I say yellow.”

Cultural Differences- Dell Computers & Harbor Freight

•  Outsource customer service. 
• Have extreme difficulty understanding the accent of the representative.   
• When I asked to speak to a manager, I still had the same issue.
• End up angry and likely spent 2X the amount of time due to constant repeating to understand.

Social Media’s potential influence:  

•  Again this comes down to technical support which requires someone live to help. 
•  Possible Social Media option could be technical support videos on YouTube, as previously mentioned.

“I know you’ve called and stopped by 100 times, but I’m still busy!”

Personnel Issues: LA Fitness

•  LA Fitness works on a commission basis. When you are having problems with your membership or interested in cancelling (especially a training membership), the sales person won’t return your calls because their commission will be affected.      
• When you call the customer service number, which is rather hidden on the website, your call transfers to a manager of a club somewhere else- not headquarters. 
• It is nearly impossible to speak to someone who can actually hold the sales people responsible.

Social Media’s potential influence:

• Researching LA Fitness on Yelp, I found many negative reviews. 
• The only potential purpose of having social media for LA Fitness, is that the negative customer reviews may actually get to upper management and get them to consider improvements in customer service.

A FREE meal for being nice! 

One day I wrote a review for Fresh Brother’s restaurant on Yelp. I just mentioned what I enjoy to order there, efficiency and parking availability. At some point later, I received a message on my Yelp account from a Fresh Brother’s representative, thanking me for my review and requesting my address to receive a free meal on them! Three days later, I had a thank you letter & a gift card for a free meal.

Twitter+ Delta= Free Voucher

Let me clarify, this isn’t my story, but I’ll retell it for a friend. One day when traveling on Delta, a friend’s flight was delayed continually due to mechanical issues. Frustrated and being a teenager, my friend made a post on Twitter explaining the issue to his friends and tagged Delta in it. Within an hour, Delta wrote to him apologizing for the issue and offered him a free mileage voucher. I think that shows great customer service, and a great example of the use of Social Media to aid customer service. 

Personal vs. Business Social Media Sites

I feel that there are multiple social media sites out that cater more or less to specific industries.

Facebook, Youtube & LinkedIn are my preferred social media sites to use for business promotion. The reason that I like Facebook is that you are able to make your post as long as you'd like, and if you attach a photo or a video, there is a thumbnail of the image immediately posted with your post. Ideally, this visual will help draw in others to benefit from the content that you post. With LinkedIn, you are able to explain your company, as well as post descriptions of all of your products with videos attached if you choose. YouTube is an incredible platform to connect socially, because in today's culture, people tend to immediately go on-line to search for images or videos of something they are interested in buying. YouTube is a great platform for my company, in that we are able to post videos free of cost and have them available to the online market individuals.

I believe the best personal social media sites are Instagram, Vine, Twitter, and Pinterest. I find that I am interested in posting more personal items on Instagram or Facebook because I feel less responsibly in that it is only personal. Twitter is a great social platform, but I find the 140 character description difficult to handle. Pinterest, is great for images and connecting them to your original website.  Great markets for Pinterest, are ones that keep inventory organized and that post images and links to websites. Unfortunately, those measures wont' cause great success in our market. I do believe that possibly sites that may not be beneficial to some could be the best resource for others.

Happy Sunday!
I just got my bearings in creating my first blog ever- this is a bittersweet moment. It's wonderful because I have officially started my training as a Social Media Trainee. It is unfortunate, because I was unaware that it was due a couple days ago... my apologies.
I look forward to learning more and more to make this an entertaining and informative blog to read. I chose the template that I did, because I personally prefer a clean view on the interfaces I read.
Hope everyone's football Sunday, Sunday Funday, or day of relaxation (hopefully) are going well. I am off to my last meeting of a long conference in Las Vegas.
-SocialMediaTrainee aka. Ashley