CSIT155_F18_CDahmann

The social media platform I have enjoyed the most and that I feel is best suited for my business is Instagram. As a photographer, I thoroughly enjoy being able see, and be inspired by other great artists who share the same passion. It's even better that we can all share a common space to do just that and more. Instagram is not perfect, but it does serve its purposes and can be a powerful tool to help grow any business, especially one like mine that revolves primarily around visuals/images. But don't be fooled, creating and running a successful social media profile, especially on Instagram, is no walk in the park. Consistency, time, effort, and quality content are crucial for making it anywhere in the endless online social maze. Prior to this class I was already a frequent Instagram user, using it to casually post samples of my photography for people to see. Now, after taking this course and observing other professional photographers habits on social media, I now find myself t

So this week on my Facebook I was finally able to see some growth despite having a few issues with my page, and Facebook itself. My page likes and views are both up 100% from last week. Post reach is up 500% and post engagement is up 100% which surprises me since its been a little while since I've posted on my Facebook. And although I don't quite have the traffic yet to give me substantial data, I can see how useful these tools could be to track/make sure you're hitting your target audience and keeping them engaged.

After going through google analytics and exploring the different features and tools it offers, I've found a couple features that I think would be most beneficial for my business specifically. Those features would be Audience reports and behavior reports. With audience reports you're able to track all kinds of information about your audience. Demographics, interests, geo(language, country), and active users are just a few of the different options you have at your disposal. What this means for my business is that I can accurately track the traffic of people coming in and of of my website/social media platform, and whether or not I am hitting my target audience. Depending on the data I receive I can adjust accordingly or reinforce measures that I already have in place.  Another really cool feature I would want to use is behavior reports, to better understand how people are using my website. One of the tools available under behavior reports is the flow report. The behavior flow

My objective for these ads is pretty simple, I'm trying to spread awareness of my brand/ photography and gain likes on my page.  This specific ad format on Facebook is designed to do just that. I tried to use visually captivating photos, mainly portraits, to engage my audience and draw them into visiting my page. I tried to come up with short witty captions in order to hook people and grab their attention. The captions also aim to share a little bit about more about my personality and style; simple, to the point, real, and always rad.

To start of  I must say that I was really surprised with how many options a person has when it comes to advertising on Facebook. Anything you could possibly want for your business Facebook can provide. Although I feel people don't use Facebook as much as they used to, It still can be used as an effective tool to distribute content/advertise especially since it is parent to Instagram. Some of the ad options you have on Facebook Include Domain ads, multi-product ads, offer ads, video ads, lead ads, canvas ads, post boosting, sponsored mentions, and dynamic ads. Some are more self explanatory than others, but all serve their purpose. For instance, dynamic product ads provide a way to show single/multi- product ads to people who have visited your website. Depending on customers activity on your site, you can customize ads for them based on their interests. The ads I found most interesting however were the canvas ads. A canvas ad is basically an interactive ad that helps businesses adve

After observing a few photographers/businesses like mine (for a decent amount of time) on social media, I noticed they all have some things in common when it comes to marketing themselves. It seems that most prefer to grow organically with little help from actual paid advertising. They prefer to let their work speak for itself and gradually gain a following over time as their skills progress. Some do sponsor posts on Instagram, buts that usually after a hiatus in order to spike engagement. Personally, I like this method of growth. I think its a better gauge of whether your work is up to par and reaching the intended audience. Almost all of artists whom I admire greatly have come from either me finding them or friends telling me about them, not from advertisement they put out. Using hashtags seems to be pretty effective and costs nothing, but you're still able to target a specific audience. Although growing organically seems fitting for people in my field, that's not always th