CSIT155_S18:MaximC

Originally I took this class to learn how I could market and manage other business' s social media, but now I am also using it to manage my own personal business. I have experimented with my own business so that I know what to expect when I take on clientele. I already had experience with all of the social medias we used throughout this semester, but I never used them from a business standpoint. Thus, I thought it was useful to see how the analytics work and to see how I could use the integrated advertising provided by each social media platform. Overall my viewpoint of social media hasn’t changed because I did some research before taking this class. Growing up with social media, I have seen it change over the years, which is why I took this class. I wanted to learn the business side so that I could utilize it to help other businesses that might be struggling. I know a lot of businesses that are failing to optimize their social media primarily because they don’t know how to use...

Based on the variables from the recent lectures, I would implement the scheduling tool the most. I think that consistency is the key to growth on social media therefore being able to preplan posts is useful in case I forget. I wish there was an option to schedule a post on Instagram, but Facebook will have to do. I would use this strategy to test whether my business does better with more consistency rather than paid advertisement for one post. I think that I should be posting and spending at least every other day on social media in order to maintain a relationship with my followers. I plan on posting every other day or every 3 days to depending on how much content I have. I will show before and after edits of my photography. I will go out every week to shoot new content so that I can release it throughout the following week.

I commented on these Facebook pages: Uvame Films, CM Photography, and Couple On a Budget.

For my business I have the most fun with my Instagram account. It allows me to showcase my photos and get feedback from both other photographers and the general public. I like how through hashtags I can freely share them with numerous people. Then I can log which photos do the best and see how my style develops over time. Furthermore, a lot of models and businesses use Instagram so it is a prime social media for networking and finding new clients. I hadn’t really used Facebook for my businesses before, but I enjoyed playing around with it this semester. It has a lot more analytics and it has more options for customization. However, for the daily use I will continue to stick to Instagram. I can still use Facebook, but on a less frequent time schedule so that I still remain relevant to the people who follow my page.

This week in my Facebook analytics, I received 10 Page Views, 4 new Page Likes, 5 Reach, and 4 new Page Followers. The only part that decreased this last week was my Post Engagements. By looking at my recent posts I can see that my posts are progressively reaching more and more people. Right now the engagement seems a little sporadic and inconsistent, but I think that will vary based on the type of posts I make. The important part is that I am reaching more people and that I have growth in my Page Views, Page Likes, and Page Followers so that there is more potential for engagement.

For my business I would use the keyword search tool the most. On YouTube, they provide the option to input keywords that can help your video place higher when searched by the keywords. I have used Google Analytics to test various keywords and see how many people are currently searching for it. Furthermore, it provides analytics as to how much the keyword is used by other people and businesses. I tend to pick keywords that are searched often, but have low usage by other businesses. I tend to use a variety of both specific and broad keywords so that I can promote my videos organically. However, I have noticed that it is difficult to rank high in YouTube searches and I think that it is due to the large amount of people who post on there every day. Nonetheless, as I continue to post consistently I will gain some engagement which will slowly help grow my channel.

For this class I am doing a mock business page so my Facebook advertisement was just a trial. I picked an advertisement that would boost my engagement so that I can reach new potential clients. I am using this post so that people who see it can see my editing style and what type of photography I do. I chose to market to people between the ages 18 and 30 so that I can target those who might want wedding photos, prom photos, or modeling photos. An ad objective is what you want people to do when they see your ad. For my business, the best ad objective would be for people to click and view my portfolio so that if they like my photos they can book a photoshoot with me.

Personally, I wouldn’t use ads that often for my business. Instead, I would connect with others who are in the same business and try to promote one another that way. Since my business is more freelance, it wouldn’t require much ads. If I had to pick an advertising method, I would choose using Instagram ads. I display my portfolio on my instagram so I think that would be the best way to show what I can offer to new clients. For this reason I would use the the Boost Sales option within Instagram to grow my reach and get my work in front of new people. I have seen this feature appear on my feed, but the one thing I’m not sure about is sometimes I’ll see a sponsored post for people that I already follow. I wouldn’t want to use my money to pay for advertisement that would be displayed on feeds of people who already follow me. I wouldn’t have a big budget and there are alternatives to paid promotion.

All of the businesses that I follow who are similar to mine use social media as a way for advertising. As photographers and videographer they all use Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube as their primary source of advertising. In my opinion, posting advertisements on YouTube videos and in sponsored posts on Instagram is far more effective than a television commercial. Nowadays, barely anyone watches cable network. Instead, they get their information through facebook trailers and twitter updates. When it comes to advertising on social media, it is either a hit or miss because usually I am scrolling through and will only look at the advertisement for only a split second. I think that advertisements are adhered to what people are searching for already because whenever I go on instagram all of the advertisements are of websites that I was just on. The first think I see is the photo on the front of the advertisement so that is the most important part. It has to attract my attention and ful...