CSIT155_F18_CDahmann

To start of I just wanted to say that I had a really positive experience taking this class. I learned a lot of cool little tips and tricks that are good to know and that will enhance my capability in using social media effectively. I now think of social media as more of a tool at my disposal rather than just some apps on my phone. When used correctly, social media can propel any business to success. This class has given me the opportunity to dive deeper into social media than I ever have before. Learning more about the different social platforms, their benefits, and which ones work best for certain businesses. I've also learned that when,where, and what you post has a huge impact on the overall success of your page. To go a long with that, having an aesthetically pleasing layout/feed that's clean and concise will most likely boost the amount of people that engage with your page/site. I also like that from this class I've gained the following of a few of my fellow peers ...

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...

Now days streaming is becoming the dominant source of entertainment. Whether it's streaming your favorite music in your car or streaming videos at home, you're bound to be streaming something throughout your day. Lets start with music sites. I personally have been using SoundCloud pretty much since its inception years ago. It's a great platform to discover new music or find music you already love. It's also a great place for new artists to upload music in order to get noticed. In fact, there's there's an entire generation of artist dubbed 'SoundCloud artists', due to the fact that they all started their careers from using SoundCloud to project their music out into the world. SoundClouds simplistic design allows anyone to stream their favorite music anytime, anywhere. Another huge streaming platform that's blown up over the past year or so is Twitch. Twitch is a live stream platform that allows its users to broadcast themselves live to their follo...

Another social media platform I could use that I think would be beneficial for my business would be LinkedIn. Not so much so to gain clients or business but rather to connect with other professionals within the industry. As a photographer I'm always looking for other photographers/ videographers to work with on projects. The way I see it is you can never know to much especially in this day and age where technology is constantly evolving, and the more people you work with the more you're able to exchange knowledge and establish connections. As far as the rest go, I'm not a huge fan of google plus, I've also heard that it'll be shutting down soon anyway due to some major info leak. Yelp is probably another great platform to be associated with but I don't necessarily think that it would be a great fit with my business just because I'm not an establishment. I feel that yelp is more often than not used to look up reviews for businesses that have store fronts or...

Taylor Bantle Leslie Montano Andrea Esquivel

To be quite honest I didn't even know that newsletters were a thing. I mean obviously I've heard of newsletters but I never realized how useful they could actually be. Upon do some research I found a few successful photographers who swear by sending newsletters, and from them I was able to come up with many ideas for a news letter of my own. First there's the obvious which is having a news letter that has special deals for shoots and would be sent out every few months or so. I could also do a bi-weekly inspirational newsletter which contains beautiful images curated by myself. Along with that I could sprinkle in tips and tricks for editing and using Photoshop. I could also do a themed newsletter where I edit a few photos in a similar manner, create presets, and include the presets and the photos in the newsletter. So many ideas its hard to settle on one. But one thing I have learned for sure is that newsletters can be another powerful tool to engage customers.

To be quite honest I've never really took to blogging and always thought of blogging as sort of a digital diary/journal that's open for others to see. I especially have never seen how it could benefit myself and my business as a photographer. But in recent times, especially with the emergence of vlogging, I'm starting to see how it may be of benefit. Although I don't necessarily see myself starting a blog, I do have some ideas stirring around in my mind of how it would be structured. One possibility would be to organize my blog into the different types of photography that I currently involve myself with (Portraits, Surf, lifestyle, etc.). This would allow prospect clients to see the diversity of my work and allow them to make a well informed decision on whether I am the right fit for their photographic needs. The other direction I would go in would be simply to make it a travel blog and organize it by each place I visit and what I shot there. It would probably be more o...

How personal do you want to get? A question I personally ask myself when posting any of my art, and a question I still struggle with even now. Of course if your profile is personal, regardless of the platform, you can post whatever, whenever without caring. But when it comes to business, you'd better watch your step. Each business is different and has different needs, therefore how personable they can get on their social media depends on those needs, and of course their audience. For example I myself am the sole face/personality of my business therefore how personal I can get is completely up to my discretion. Adding some personality to posts I've found can help boost engagement with your audience and establish rapport which will ultimately lead to better business. Also having and creating a personality for yourself will help set you and your business apart especially if your doing business in a saturated market. Obviously if you are representing a company and its social media,...

Once upon a time, back in my high school days, I had a twitter which I could always count on to give me a good laugh. It was the source for all the memes for my friends and I. Now, after all these years, coming back to it hits me right in the feels. Using it from a business stand point should be interesting because when twitter comes to mind, memes and more memes is all I can see. Since I'm already familiarized with twitter from past experiences, it wasn't hard to find what i was looking for. When I started searching I had two things in mind, potential clients, and potential partners to collaborate with. With that being said, that's exactly what I made my two lists, Potential clients and People to Collab with. I could see why people use lists, more than anything its just an organization tool that can be molded to anyone's needs. In my case I could use it to list photographers I look up to and would want to collaborate with in the future, using lists to help me hold myse...

I 100% think visual media is the perfect fit for my business. Since I am a photographer I don't think its too hard to see why. Photography is a visual art that requires a platform that is primarily focused on visuals and that doesn't diminish content with other minutia (like Facebook). This is why I've chosen to base my business primarily on Instagram. I'm sure many other artists like myself would agree that Instagram is probably the main platform helping visual artists get a start in their industry. It's easy to use, and its simple layout is centered around visual content. Although Instagram is far from perfect, it's a very powerful tool if used the right way. On Instagram, I follow many talented photographers who are well known within the community and who also make a living off of photography. Jared Chavez (@jaredvisuals) , Alberto Villa (@rightoushombre), Kevin Jara (@jara.photo), and Jethro Alaba (@jethroalaba) are all exceptional artists/photographers wh...

So I currently already have an Instagram page that I use as a business page for my photography. My handle is TheCarlsRadKid and I currently have 440 followers and my last post was on October 2nd. I've recently been trying to re-position my business and go for a different style and target audience which is why I have been lacking on posting as of lately. Before however, when I was shooting regularly and had plenty of content to post, I was posting once a day around mid-day because that's when I would get the most engagement on my posts. I would use about 20-30 hashtags (that I have pre-typed and saved on my notes app) per post, all related to the kind of photography I was doing. When I was posting consistently I would gain at least 10-15 followers per week and see a lot of organic engagement on all my posts. But in the past couple months that I have not been shooting and have not been posting I seen a steady decline in my followers and engagement. Lately I've been getting my...

I can honestly say that before this assignment, I hadn't logged into my Facebook in years! But that's neither here nor there, we're here to talk about post reach and post engagement. Post reach is exactly as it sounds, how many people actually see your post on Facebook. Not a terribly hard concept to grasp, but then it can be further broken down into 3 main categories organic, viral, and paid reach. Organic reach meaning how many people naturally saw your post on their feed rather than it being advertised on their feed or suggested because its trending. Post engagement is the number of people who actually interact with post whether they like it, comment on it, share it, or click a link. With Facebook insights, engagement is measured with post clicks, likes shares and comments. So why does all this matter? Well let me explain. If a post is reaching a lot of people, but it has poor engagement, it usually means that the content is either poor or its simply not reaching the rig...

I know I may be a little late to the party, but better late than never. Honestly, I had a bit of trouble deciding who/what I wanted my target market to be, or who my dream customer is. Up until recently I've just been doing photo shoots to gain practice and sharpen my skills, not taking into account who I would really want to be a photographer for. After quite a bit of thought and self-analysis, I think I've been able to come up with what I think is my dream market. But first, you must understand a little bit of who I am and what I like to shoot. My main area of focus in photography is portraiture, and since the beginning I knew that was going to be a main focus of mine going forward. I love the ocean, I love surfing/skating, I love vintage stuff and things that give off vintage vibes. And although I have yet to get my hands on a water housing for my camera, I think my style of editing and taking photos reflects who I am and the lifestyle I choose to live. So now I present to y...

Armstrong Garden Centers vs. Myrtle Creek gardens After looking through each businesses website, it seems that both business are alike and can appeal to a similar audiences. However, due to certain differences they both cater to a certain target market. Myrtle Creek seems to be more of destination that would appeal to local families and tourists looking for a fun little day adventure. They offer a cafe that sources its food locally, a bird sanctuary, tours, gift shops, as well as being a nursery that sells plants. Myrtle Creeks target market appears to be local and non local families of all income ranges who enjoy outdoor activities, adventures, and who enjoy visiting community driven recreation centers, and other things of a similar nature. The overall feel and vibe of Myrtle creek seems to be very relaxed and inviting, as to attract people to visit and experience its beauty. Armstrong Garden Centers is a chain gardening and landscape services retailer that has locations spanning ...

Andrea Esquivel Kaylin McMackin Vicki Mowery