Wrapping Things Up and Looking Ahead

Stepping into this class I had a wide knowledge of Social Media marketing through Instagram and Facebook but was able to learn about some different ways to approach my target audience. I also learned about different platforms to try and find engagement through. Over the Semester I started a youtube channel and posted a video I also created my own personal Linked-in account so I can try and better reach buyers/distributors on a personal scale first.

One of the biggest lessons that was being taught was how to find and create engagement. After all, Social Medias primary goal is to to do these. I liked reading our classes ideas and concept of how they wished to promote their business's. Many of the classmates were pretty generic but some were able to have great ideas that I would later look into for my own company. I found the class very beneficial to bounce ideas off of and offer advice when I could as well.

Overall this class was great! I wish I would have been exposed to this type of information when I first started but it was a great refresher course and I really enjoyed it. Hope the best for everyone in their upcoming business adventures, If anyone would like to reach me please feel free to reach me by email at andrew@originalgrain.com 

Have a great summer,

Andrew Beltran

Future Plans for Social Media

My time spent on Social Media a week varies with each week. It really depends on what we have to offer/promote for the week. If it is a typical week with no NEW releases I will spend maybe 1-2 hrs a day setting up a post, replying to any comments left. I also allocate time to do some research on other competing brands. Its important to be original with your posts but if you see another brand getting engagement over a specific topic it may be a good idea to begin trending our your accounts as well.

Social Media will remain a primary focus for our brand for the upcoming months of marketing. I would foresee us actually hiring a social media guru in the next few months. I have a business to run and social media cant be my primary focus anymore. I do like that I now know the ins and outs of where we should be marketing so I can offer my best advice and critics to our new employee but contracts need to be signed and dealers need to brought to the table!

Things I want to work on in the upcoming month for my social media approach is to get my customers ready for summer. This is going to include posts about graduation engravings, new watch releases, shirts/tank releases for the next season. If I want these to be a success we will need to start getting the info out on our platforms soon. The way we like to approach a new release is put out "sneak peaks" maybe a week prior to the official release. This will get our customers hyped about it so when it releases they are already aware of the details and they are ready to purchase.

-Andrew Beltran
www.originalgrain.com

Class comments

Mathew B-  Blog link

Cindy Rojas- Blog link

Ameriskills- Blog link

Sorry I am a little late on the posts I have been in New York on business and just getting back in SD. Thanks again for this class.

-Andrew Beltran
www.originalgrain.com

Social Media Platform

I Grew up with Social Media as a everyday form of communication. For people like me using these social medias as a way to market their business comes pretty easy, so for that I am blessed. Although I grew up with social media it is always changing. From Myspace to Facebook, AIM to Linked-In the platforms have changed but the effectiveness has not. You Just need to be up to date on whats trending and where your audience is best reached.

For me and my business @OriginalGrain the best way to market through our social networks day to day is Facebook and Instagram without a doubt. This is where we have the most following and we are able to continuously reach our audience here. FB and IG is where we push all our promos as well as upcoming events, releases, anything that is OG.(and our audience knows that, so they look there for updates)

Our less frequent social platforms are Twitter and youtube. No particular reason for my ineffective twitter reach but this is definitely something we need to do better at, not enough time in the day!

Our Youtube channel could be a lot better as well and we would like to start publishing more content on there.

Cheers,

Andrew Beltran

FB Analytics

After checking my FB analytics for Original Grain Ive found some interesting features that I wouldn't have known without this feature:

-28 page likes this week totaling over 7,000 likes. I received a .4 increase from last week.

-My post reach was at 5K. This was a pre big fall off from the week prior. This was probably due to the paid reach that I was putting out last week for advertisement. From week to week I may see this number jump around the most especially if we are paying for reach or big advertising is taking place.

-Post engagement has went up almost 50% which is funny considering my reach was at a 95% decrease from the week before. Interesting number still not totally sure how that worked out.

Some other great features I have found while looking on my page analytics is the demographics page. This tell me that 71% of my FB fans are men the remaining 29% women. 25-34 year old men are my highest level of engagement at 27%.

Week 13- Optimizing / Google Analytics

Google analytics is a perfect way to track many things amongst your page. From customer research to how well your campaigns are performing Google Analytics is there to report all the facts that go unseen amongst your page presence.

The three major categories Google Analytics covers is Knowing your Audience, Tracing the customer, and  See what they are up to. These three categories all have subcategories that goes into depth on more targeted area but broadly speaking this is what Google Analytics does for you.

The benefits I use mostly to track and like to know are:

Traffic Sourcing- I like to know where my traffic is coming from. Is my audience finding my site organically or are they finding my ads scattered amongst the internet, and where? Im looking to find out what my best conversion to funneling traffic to my website is coming from. This will tell me where to keep dumping money into and places where I can back off if the return is not high enough. 

Social Reports- The reason I would like to check on this is I spend a lot of time running our social media campaigns I like to know how well our outreach is through our Social Media. This gives me inspiration to either change it up or keep doing whatI'm doing if the progress is continuous. And I like to know if I'm doing a good job or not !!

Event Tracking- Event tracking is a good way to follow your audience around you page, see what they are clicking on and what they have do. By allowing yourself to know where your customer is going on your webpage you know which pages probably need to be updated more than others as well as how to get them to pages you want your audience to see.

These Google Analytics are all small tricks to know your audience. By looking at what is trending on your site and knowing the response it is getting allows you access the productivity it provides. Follow the reports weekly, I check on sundays just to see what we should do the next week. 

Cheers,
Andrew Beltran

Week 12- Additional Online Marketing Tools

Looking into additional marketing tools that could be employed into our day to day antics would have to be:

Linked In:
I had always looked at LinkedIN as a personal brand builder, helping you connect with other business associates. I was never too informed on the marketing capabilities as well as the reach that you can get from knowing someone who knows someone of importance. Great source for Networking and definitely something I will look to get into. Its still somewhat of a weird concept for me to wrap my head around, But for now I will try to add myself into groups that could have potential personal watch buyers or store buyers.

*If I am able to add into a group that is fashion forward I could use it as somewhat of a group of advisors that I could ask some questions to, such as which picture they might like better or watch styles they may prefer. Using groups as ways to establish some research would be a good use for them as well....

Yelp:
I really love that now a days customers are willing to provide feedback but more importantly new customers are looking into reviews prior to buying. Reviews have now become super important while buying, so to have a Yelp where reviews are posted to could be a great way for customers to see the satisfaction my other previous customers have had. I currently have a customer review platform, Im going to check and see if we can link my current reviews to Yelp because Im sure they are where most go to get reviews from.

Coupon Marketing:
To websites like Group-on and other flash sites Im NOT a fan of. While at time we all may over project inventory levels and have extra on hand I just feel like providing your product to flash sale sights depreciates your brand in a big way. I may be fairly new at running a business but if Im going to cut my margarin and make a deal with Group-on I would rather just hold a sale on my own site and let my current following know about the blow out sale. I get that this could have an alternative effect when customers decide to wait to buy until you go on sale, so you need to be easy on doing this all the time.
*Another way to do these discounts would be to feature your product on membership websites. This allows only people that are signed up to the website, these sale will not be so public so your brand is not so broadcasted amongst the web.

Youtube:
Although not mentioned in the lecture I like how YouTube has begun to have impact on social outreach. Not only can it give the message intended but allowing your company to be visible on YouTube you can create awesome stories and great content that will get customers stoked about your company.

I have been following some other companies on YouTube and I really enjoy the marketing behind there videos. These Vids are usually not just product based but super lifestyle. Sometimes even just highlighting there athlete of the week and showing an awesome video of tricks he does, this doesn't have to make a conversion right away but what it does is give a good light on your company and has the customer walking away from the computer saying"those dudes are dope" and thats exactly what you want them thinking, which will later lead to a sale when your other marketing efforts are put to use.

Cheers,
Andrew Beltran
Originalgrain.com