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

Week 11- Free Social Media Marketing

The best way I like to use Social Media for its masses of users is allowing my current followers to present our company to their friends/followers. By hosting FB or IG watch Giveaways that require the followers to share the photo or tag 2-3 friends in the photo to win the watch. When we do this it allows our company to be broadcasted all over the internet. They say the average FB user has over 130 friends, during our last giveaway we had over 200 shares thats minimum 26,000 people who were encouraged to come over and check out our page for the watch giveaway. 

Other ways to market yourself on Social Media staying up on current issues, making posts referencing events that your followers relate to and would give your branding a good feel (examples of these would be March Madness, Coachella,  use these events to drive posts and create brand feel).

Obviously announcements of any new products are crucial to make it known throughout your Socials. A great way to generate buzz around something that is new is a press release, email marketing and of a course Social media push. 

Make all announcements and any kind of brand promos, events, make them all live on your social for your followers to learn about. Encourage them to make posts about about your company with chances to be featured on your Fan Friday posts you make weekly, to better encourage the engagement of your active followers.

Online Advertising - Classmate comments

Mary Bishop - Blog

Cindy Rojas - Blog

Brittany Martin - Blog

Week11: Online Advertising

Facebook Marketing is done differently for everyone, for our company its focusing on targeting customer our currently follow and attracting their following as well. The reading tells us if someone is to see his/her friend has liked or shared a specific ad your company has posted he will be more likely to click on it. Targeting your current followings friends is a good technique when gathering a new following.

Knowing your current demographic is essential when trying identify characteristics you should be targeting through your advertising. Knowing your customers average age, profession, location, likes and interests are all good areas to know about. Also know what your current following relates to. By pushing out advertisements to these customers who have similar characteristics that you can target in your advertising you may be able to tap into a larger following.

The best advertising for us has to be ads that show our latest events or deals we have going on. As well as showing our products with 

posts that say something referencing another major company that is featuring our product, this helps generate clicks and exposure through other brand/company testimonies. Building trust for my company when the viewers see another company featuring our products. 

-EX. Original Grain All Natural wood watches as featuring on Mens Fashioner"

The Two screen shots bests represent the two genders I wanted to target along with some simple characteristics that we would potentially target with this ad. For the mens search it is designated to men between the age of 25-34 which is our most frequent age of Men conversions. As well as some common interest that they share were targeted as well. The women's targeted advertising is similar, with age specific and characteristics that our current female shopper relates to. When choosing a keyword pay attention to the sub category words that show below that specific word. The Keywords are the main category the sub components are other forms of that. For example for our women's search I put Glamour Magazine. With It's multiple sub category words had the magazine like Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Shape magazine. The subcomponents may be more specific and help define your search.

Email Marketing classmate comments

3 STUDENTS COMMENTED ON

*Brittany Martin- BLOG LINK

*Khalyoni Ghosh- BLOG LINK

*Mary Bishop- BLOG LINK

Week 10- Email Marketing

We currently have an email list of approximately 5,000 captured emails, Which is relatively small for a company of our size. We are currently working on attaining more emails to start marketing through. As we all know this is a great way to get a targeted audience to see your information that is being blasted. 
What we do is send an email initially just welcoming the new customer to our Original Grain Family. Beyond the initial contact we make we try and send out at least 2 emails per month which we would like to bring to 1 email per week soon.



Content that could be featured *Discounts*New Products*Company Updates*Events*Blog Reviews*Customer testimonies*Social Media Promos & Giveaways




These are all great ways to keep your customers informed of all news related to your company and a great way to get them actively engaged in all the promos you are hosting. We like to post customer reviews from time to time and blogger reviews when we get them. Associating your product with testimonies allows the customers that signed up for your news letter and haven't purchased gather a sense of trust in your company and product and encourages them to make the plunge of making a purchase.

A great way to promote new releases, updates, giveaways is through your email marketing efforts. Announcements that you want all your loyal customers to hear is definitely best done by using the email marketing technique. These customer technically signed up for the email list to hear about these type of events/ announcements so use this to your advantage and let the news get to the people who want to hear it through email marketing.

Week 9- Categorizing your Blog

Yes I think it is pretty important to have a categorized account that can be easily scanned through and clicked upon by your viewers. Having an blog that can be easily read and easy to find the content you may be looking for is a huge part of getting continued traffic. If a Viewer comes to your site to see the sweet shoes you may continually show months or whatever they should be able to come to your site click on the shoes category and there is all the sick shoes you have posted for the last year right on his screen.

Having an organized that keeps track of your last post as well is important not only visually viewers can see how much work you have put into this and how often you post. But when you get new unique visitors it will show them some of the content that is in this subcategory of their interest. Keeps the content you post useful and it can continually be viewed and it makes each post just as valuable as the next one because it will be viewed for a continued time. Im not sure if this will be what you need for continued growth but it will show new visitors some of your previous work which will give you a legitimacy that may keep them coming back.

I think it would be best to have categories but I don't think its a must if you deliver consistent content. if you are continuously posting and feel your viewers have enough content on your present page you may not need to have all your previous posts easily accessible. But if you post on a more rare scale I think it is very important to have subcategories so your audience can look around find old post and new posts that will keep them interested.

Classmates posts I commented on-
*Devon pinto
*Trujillo, Caridad 
*Kalyani ghosh

Week9 - Adding a Personaity

Portraying an active personality within your blog can be very important to the traffic it brings and often creates a passionate following. I follow a few blogs currently that are a bit risky with there marketing strategies but thats exactly why I keep coming back!

 Im not sure if we have all heard of Secret Entourage but they definitely reach outside the box, having active call outs of people being lazy or not doing enough. This translates to their following of up and coming entrepreneurs to get inspired to go chase dreams and make things happen for THEMSELVES. I feel having an active personality is very important to each blog post however content that is posted must maintain relevant to what your blog may be aimed towards. Meaning personality needs to make since for what your content is.

I truly feel its important to always have a personality displayed when Blogging. Your readers/followers are coming back for a certain reason this is because they are a fan of your content. So be that voice they want to hear and attach to. By offering a trending vibe or voice to your blog people will continue to come back for this voice if the content is good. You want to offer a page feel and that brings people back by doing this you should try and find an ongoing and trending personality that is always felt when viewing your page.

The only time I could see Blog posting being better with less personality is when your trying to deliver either serious info or an announcement regarding a specific promo. Sometimes your personality could be overpowering of the content that is given. So when posting regarding specific topics or info you want to get out you may want to tone down the personality and let the content do the talking.

Week 8- Get Visual

Companies to follow on Social Media

Some brands I admire for their Social Media direction is:

PuraVida bracelets& Blenders Eyeware. 

I really like the content provided by both respected brands. Not only do they shows great product detail, along with there photos is a created lifestyle that they continue to have ties to. They both present a Socal Lifestyle brand feel that is well developed through their lifestyle imagery. With my Brand Original Grain we are not exactly going for a of Cali Beach lifestyle but we are going trying to promote our brand with getting our and taking in experiences and allowing yourself to enjoy the "times" you have. We have yet to develop a strong Brand Identity but through Social Medias, the Visual content that can be provided will develop that brand vibe that we have to reach soon.

Pura Vida and Blenders do close marketing and in fact do a lot of imagery of the same places. They provide regular posts on Instagram and Facebook. I looked into their Youtube channels as well and they have a few solid videos explaining their brand concepts and as well feature their products. This is an avenue I want to start promoting and pushing Youtube channel for my brand OG. These videos would be great to establish brand feel and as we read in the previous lesson can help with SEO as well as drive traffic to our website.

Week 8- Visual Networks (Video Included below!)

 The Visual Networks of FB, Youtube, IG, Pintrist  are exactly what my brands needs and uses for our media marketing.  The engagement and brand awareness that can be developed through these platforms is crucial to a start-ups growth as well as sustainment. The amount of traffic these platforms receive cant be found elsewhere and once you have these potential customers as followers is when you have free range to drive the brand home though Visual Marketing.

The best Platforms that are used best with our brand is FB and Instagram(IG) however this may be due to the amount of effort put into these to networks. I would also like to think Pintrist would be great for our company as well as creating an efficient YouTube channel that continues to get updated. We currently have one but videos are posted rarely and posts are not always wrapped around big promotions that we may be posting on FB or IG.

FB- Great for everyday posts (motivation Monday, fan friday, etc.) As well as features and giveaways. This platform is good to have your following posts shares for an exchange of some sort. When they do this it allows their followings to see your company page giving you even more exposure.

IG- Same as FB

Pintrist- Just recently have I started to explore into the world of Pintrist but im already hooked. For the everyday consumer this is a dream I feel like. For example if your in the mood for some new clothes or shoes simple go to Pintrist and search what your looking for; chances are they have what you wanted or have something even better. Pintrist is a great shopping source to find the things you want to buy and by integrating my company amongst the search of wood watches I know we could be exposed to a whole new following.  Excited to start posting a lot more through Pintrist.

Youtube- We currently have a youtube channel that is only used primarily for instructional use or random video clips we have put together. Im interested to start using Youtube to feature some of our other deals and see the outcome that is transpired though this platform

Week 7 - Twitter

 Finding a match-
Using specific words to target other accounts that I could potentially add followers, collab or receive features from was not to hard to identify with my company. At first however I was using keywords that was too describing of my brand such as wood watches, stainless steel, courtz movement, etc. The results that Twitter would pull were either my company or direct competition. So I had to dig deeper.

I then used Keywords that would best describe that of the accounts  I could potentially cross promote with. The Accounts that I would want to collab with would be of High Fashion, Mens Fashion, Watch blog, Watch enthusiasts, accessories, etc. The search then brought up more relevant accounts that would be more willing to participate with my brand with a feature.

When using the twitter search I found it would be best used when I would only use 1-3 Keywords rather than 5-10. This enables the search to be more targeted and less sporadic with the results that do appear. If you search less keywords your able to know more about the results that come about and which word they are specific too, this helped me in my search.


My company has used other platforms such as Vocus to target keywords others may be using in there posts. You can be very detailed with your search. We would target accounts that would say along the lines of "I just broke my watch" we would then target them with a post or send them a link to our website to help them out with there situation. The Twitter search can be very focused and specific if you want, be creative as possible when trying find your future followers.

Facebook Scheduled posts

 Scheduled posts:

For my upcoming posts here are the posts that will be appearing on my social media outlets for this week.



These posts have been scheduled but they are all scheduled based on different features we do for each particular day

Monday- Motivation Monday

Wednesday- Wrist shot wednesday


Thursday- Throwback Thursday                                                                                     

Here at Original Grain we try to have a reoccurring themes that we cross. MondayMotivation, Tuesday we post lifestyle, Wrist shot Wednesday, Throwback Thursday, Fan Friday, Product shots on Saturday and OG Sunday. This allows our following to expect a solid amount of posts and creates a theme behind what we do, sparking a certain level of interest behind the posts. We will also promote other features/promotion we may be holding that week in between these posts, we just use the days as a guide to make sure we are posting enough content.


The scheduled posts I have currently in the chamber that will be released are fun posts for me. They allow us to provide come character behind out brand and calls for some engagement, not as much as Fan friday does but our Motivation Monday is our direct call to our following to have a great week. We try to influence our following with inspiring quotes or lifestyle photos that promote achievement.

Wristshot Wednesday is just a good play for us being a watch company, it allows us to show our product as shown on a wrist. It also allows us to promote some lifestyle and feature a certain level of fashion that may go well with our watches as shown on the photo above.

Thowback Thursday- We use our throwbacks to reflect on how far we have come as a company or encourage our following to reflect on accomplishments they have achieved. This week we take a look back to our first video we ever submitted introducing our company to Kickstarter.com where we successfully raised $390,000 in a 30 day period. This benchmark pushed us to be ranked #84 in best crowdfunded companies of 2013. We try and inspire our following once again with these Throwbacks.

Week 6: Facebook Strategy Info

As easy as it may sound to just go like 5 pages that could potentially provide some sort of return for you and your company is actually pretty hard. Yea you can just select 5 and move on, but getting 5 to actually respond to you and see a return you might want to go ahead and follow 50!!

To receive a follow back or return from some of these big pages should be a dream but one you shoot for. We have had some successful encounters  with some major fashion/lifestyle blogs such as Secret Entourage, Highheel Suicide, Necessary Coolness, this required first a lot of requests on my part as well as a little luck. To even be recognized by these companies or companies many of you may have followed go ahead and take those as a victory. If you can try and get them to push your business to their following, if not just embrace it and try and pick their mind for the knowledge bombs!(then tell me)

I follow a lot of blogs through social medias such as FB and IG. I use them strategically of course. If you ever want to be featured on a blog I do suggest that you are actually following them. Not only because then they may become familiar with you and your company through the photos you like and comment on, but then when you approach them you actually know what they feature and the styles they present.  It also gives you time to access whether or not their following is a place you would want your company to be featured at. Remember some say all press is good press but bad press with bad followings can come back to haunt you! Trust me, be selective where you want to market your company and target where your product/business is going to be scene at.

Given that Im in the watch business, I try and follow a lot of watch blogs on Instagram and other high mens fashion blogs. I do so because this is where my target market aligns. I suggest if you know other companies that may be selling what you have, see who they follow and who features them. As a start up you have to learn from what is currently working and once you get ahold on that expand into what you need it to be to best fit your company profile.

Competitors - WeWood

I also follow pages that are even my competitors. Use them to understand the market you are in, If you see they may get a bunch of interactions from cool giveaways or sharing certain photos, then go ahead and do that. If your target audience is being attacked effectively by an alternate company Im not saying go and follow exactly what they do, but understand the trends that occur and understand the capacity of your audience and what they relate to. Its IMPORTANT!

I use Facebook and other Social Medias everyday to push content and raise awareness for my company. I continue to thrive off what I am doing as well as my competitors or other companies I could possible collaborate with. Understand the targets of which you are marketing to is the first step, then finding where they are at is next. Once you have found a good avenue and platform where they are at try and attack this with a post, product feature or review. Being scene on blogs that people know and trust is big for a start up, Many people don't even know who you are, so when these big blogs sign off on you its instant credit and you are given the go ahead. Try and exploit other peoples following, this will get you plenty of exposure and certification amongst the community.

As always, a pleasure, Cheers!

Andrew Beltran

Week 5: Post Reach vs Post engagement

POST REACH/ POST ENGAGEMENT 

The difference between post reach and post engagement is important to understand for any Facebook Admin. Knowing the difference could mean how well you know you are actually marketing yourself/ business. On your Facebook insights page your will see your Post Reach/ Engagement. Demographics and geographic analytics, along with which posts receive the best response.

This will tell you just how many Facebook users that are seeing your posts. This consists of the amount of viewers that are seeing the posts you put out as well as the posts that pertain your company/FB page. The knowing of how many people sees your posts helps gauge the quality of the content if your not getting much feedback and there is a lot of Post Reach. However by knowing you have a relatively low Post Reach you might need to start boosting your posts to make sure you get a high amount of exposure, your efforts to market deserve and need views to generate any kind of quality engagement.

While you start to see your posts receive a heavy amount of Post Reach you will begin to want to start to look into your  next challenge; your Post Engagement.  For me at this point I know I will receive a couple thousand views per post.  The return we like to see is a 5%-10% engagement per post. So 1,000 people see a specific post it would be nice to see at least 100 viewers, comment, like, share, click on our posts. If you are receiving this level of feedback it will mean your posts are effective and your CTA's may be getting a good response/understood.

We use our Facebook insights to better serve our community by knowing whats getting the best interaction. Whether thats a share photo, or giveaway. We know which posts are that receive the best response from our customers. We will use this to our advantage by pushing a big promo or getting important info through a post that we know is going to create the most exposure.

Your Facebook insights page will also tell you how much engagement or reach your are receiving during the current week compared to last week. This will help gauge your efforts and the effectiveness of your posts during the current or previous weeks. Another aspect to our Facebook Insights page is the demographic collection that is gathered. The admin for the page will be able to see the demographic of their audiences, Age and gender is included. As well there is a geographic collection that lets you know where you page likes are coming from. That being US based or internationally. Knowing who and where your audience allows you specifically target a certain audience if you find a trend in the analytics.

Week 4: Defining a Target Market

The Business I will be representing for the duration of this class is my current watch company Original Grain. We have been in business for just under one year and have been able to cause a good amount of  disruption in the the wood watch niche and penetrate into the watch market as a whole.

Target Market Through Demographics

With a collection of demographic statistics we have gathered supporting evidence that shows most of our sales come from a specific customer base. We are bale to offer for both Men and Women- with our Guy Girl collections we are able to target both genders when marketing: However we have a higher male conversion. Our highest rate of sales comes from a customer base that ages 24-40.

Our price point of our watches ranges from $175-$195. At this price point it may keep some buyers from wanting to fork over the cash, with this we are able to market to a higher class of buyers. A $200 price point is very realistic for someone to spend on a watch but mostly for customers who have careers. This makes it easy to know we are targeting young professionals and to the other working class. 

The income level of most of our customers is between $50,000-$75,000 annual income. This info also supports our $200 price point emphasis. 

Physchographics 

Our watch line consists of all Natural wood and Stainless steel, With our Natural wood we appeal to all outdoor enthusiasts, as well as any wood crafters. Through retargeting efforts we have found our best conversion rates from customers who are living in bigger cities. This may due to the design features and our watches being appealing as high fashion oriented.

The lifestyle of our brand is created through our Natural wood appeal and the use of the outdoors. We leverage the outdoor feel to try and generate good marketing entailing the promotion of being active and outdoors. Our watches are very fashionable and we present our watches as Original hence the name Original Grain. We have been able to promote that to our customer base and market to our customers to Stay Original.

Soon Original Grain will be using all reclaimed materials being able to market to the eco-friendly community which will generate a bigger following and target market. We have chosen to go with recycled materials because given we are using wood we would like to help in the efforts to not only create beautiful watches out of nature but preserve it as well.

week 3: Frequently Visited Websites

The Chive

The Chive is effective because of its content. They provide picture driven updates separated by different humorous categories. This website is typically for the browsing man that has some free time on his hands. The Chive  has an amazing platform and its website layout is well done. I enjoy coming back to their website again and again for the content that is posted.

I have been made to believe that the layout and design aspects also makes this site appealing other tha n its content.  The aesthetics of this website are great, with imagery that is eye catching and headlines that will draw you in and its easy to look around. The website has a theme and color that they follow throughout the site.  Not only do the images catch your eye but the Headlines are very creative and have you wondering what photos may be on the other side of that link, making it very encouraging to want to click through the content

A question I do pose about the website is on the website at the top they have their "sister websites". For example:same kind of website platform "theBrigade" but its more military focused, or "theBerry" which is just like the Chive but directed towards female viewership. I wonder why they don't promote these websites and direct traffic to check out the links above. Or possible try to explain the other links. The Chive may have a reason for it but I'm not sure why at this time why they don't promote their other platforms as much.



Jack Threads

Jack threads is a great website for discount trend clothing shopping. They provide companies that have original style and of course are discounted to save us a few pennies. This website has all categories of clothing and accessories and provides the customers with updates on new releases, new discounts, and whats to come.

I do like that Jackthreads is easy to use, surfing through different categories is easy to pinpoint on the webpage and is very user friendly. There navigation bar and drop down menu is clearly separated and you can go from one category to another fairly easy.

The website layout I think could actually be a little better but they provide good imagery that makes up for the layout. The main page is separated by box categories but doesn't provide great Hierarchy or typography that is too appealing. This flash sale site has all means to be great to find great deals but the website design could use some separation of categories on the main page. Everything seems a bit jammed together and is hard to to see much separation between the categories at first glance.

Week 3: Principles of Good Social Media Design

Websites I chose that portray potential problems

http://tectorch.com/   -  website 1:Potential problems

Hierarchy -Problems I found with this site is immediately I look for something to draw me in. I immediately see the imagery which looks like it could be their office building but regardless it doesn't have anything to do with the product they are selling. There is no Hierarchy to this website and nothing stands out until you scroll down the page.

Alignment- The alignment to this site is out of wack. With all the text on top they do not provide any pattern of which it is laid out.

Typography-The text to this site is very bold and small. Makes it hard to read and very uninviting to want to read through the information provided.

http://www.swagelok.com/  - website 2 : Potential problems

*Hierarchy- I would like to be able to open the page up and instantaneously know what the product being sold it. Give the viewers a company feel and allow them to see your products sold. On this website it is confusing as to what they are selling until you scroll and do small amount of research. You have a few seconds to capture the viewer before they move on. If this site was establish better imagery and Hierarchy could be a good page layout.

*Typography- The text used on the homepage is not clearly visible nor is it inviting to want to read.

*Concept and contrast- Website layout doesn't provide must contrast and items that pop. Everything is very standard. I understand they are not a lifestyle brand that has better imagery but I feel like it should be accounted for when trying to sell via e-commerce.

Websites I picked as a representation of a good website:

http://www.ford.com/  - Website 1: good website

*Immediately as I open this website for 1 visually its great, it provides me with everything I need right away. Shows a cool image of their cars and a nice backdrop. As well they show their brand name in multiple spots on each page, this provides the visitor with a sense of security.

This site also shows a good level of contrast ,Hierarchy, and repetition throughout the website. 

*User friendly- Very user friendly I don't have to look around much when trying to find cars, trucks, etc. Provide a nice drop down feature where it shows the specific trucks you may be looking for. Easy to use and move around throughout the website.

http://www.apple.com/  - website 2: good website

*The depth and content of these pages apple provides is very simple. They don't have long pages you need to scroll through and you just need to select which section you want to learn about through the drop down menu on top.

*Navigating through this website is easy as states above, just follow the drop down menu and select which category you would like to be searching.

*Alignment- I enjoy the alignment to this website. Not every time does it line up perfectly but its set up to be like that. Sometime they will have a bigger image and two small images below that are the same width as the big one on top. Provides a bit of flare to the website.

Week 2: Business Websites and Social Media URL's

Here are 5 Business's that I keep good contact with and I encourage people to follow these businesses to learn a lot about great marketing and audience building. These companies keep it very fresh with their posts and encourage their audience to engage with the content given!



*Secret Entourage- 
website - http://www.secretentourage.com/
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/secretentourage
Twitter- https://twitter.com/SecretEntourage
Tumblr- http://secretentourage.tumblr.com/





*Nixon
Website- http://www.nixon.com/us/en/
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/nixon
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Nixon_Now
Tumblr- http://nixon.tumblr.com/
Instagram- http://instagram.com/nixon_now








*Puravida bracelets
Website- http://puravidabracelets.com/
 Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/puravidabracelets
Twitter- https://twitter.com/puravidabrac
Tumblr- http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/puravida
Instagram- http://instagram.com/puravidabracelets/








*Mica movement
Website- http://www.micamove.com/
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/MicaMovement
Twitter- https://twitter.com/micamove
Tumblr- http://tumblr.micamove.com/
Instagram- http://instagram.com/micamovement








*Original Grain
Website- http://www.originalgrain.com/
Facebook-https://www.facebook.com/originalgrain
Twitter- https://twitter.com/OriginalGrain
Tumblr- http://originalgrain.tumblr.com/
Instagram-http://instagram.com/originalgrain

Week 2: Communicating with Business's through Social Media

Communicating with a Business can be difficult, depending on what you may want to say to them is always substantial as to when and if they reply. You can always send them a personalized email to their support/customer service if it may require any return or possibly a question you may have.  If you are going to reach out to a company through social medias its good to have some fire behind what you are trying to get at in order to get a response.

My company Original Grain always encourages their fans to reach out. But the context of which they approach is very important. We ask our fans to post pics of their product, with our Call to Action being if you do we will repost on our Fan Friday. This allows our fans to share our product/company to their friends and we then repost some of the photos. This creates a hype each week on who is going to get features on OG Social Medias.  **Below is an example of a shot that was submitted to us by a fan.**

When I first started I would always try and contact companies on a public platform, (faecbook/instagram/twitter) whether they liked it or not didn't matter to me as much as anyone who is looking at their post will see my companies post too. I would contact blogs and product review sites like Necessary coolness or Watchismo.(2 huge blogs that do cool reviews on companies and products) I had reached out to them on their Facebook and 2 of their fans had said" would love to do a Giveaway on your watches Original Gran." Not only did we do the giveaway but it generated a bunch of new likes for my page and we attained a new fan base.

Like I had said previously, When contacting companies through social media bring a good question or something informative. Many companies do not like to address individual matters and of course any kind of discrepancies on a public platform like Facebook. They will most likely forward you to their customer service department who will handle any FAQ.

Week 1: Business vs Personal Social Media

Business and play,Work and social life, its all a juggling act when applied and used for certain purposes. All social media platforms are used for one thing, exposure! Weather its for what you are currently doing or what you business is selling, exposure is all relative. To get the info out to the Cyber Galaxy is the  primary focus and purpose to making new posts to these social media news feeds.

As I have found some platforms work best when leaned towards your business and other platforms are just better for a personal update to friends and family. Starting with the basics- 

Facebook 

For a business its very easy to post and update but hard for all of your followers to see each and every post you make. As you may have already found, you don't see everyones posts. Facebook comes with an algorithm that allows you to stay connected with friends that you have been in contact with and allows you to mainly stay in tune with there updates rather than friends you may have been out of touch with. The best way I have found to counteract this and use Facebook most efficiently and attack its masses of exposure is to use the post boosting features. These boosts are set to certain tiers, for example if you make a $5-$10 marketing fee, your posts will be viewed by up to 10,000 Facebook subscribers. But for instance in cases when I don't make this upgrade I have had posts only be viewed by as little as a couple hundred viewers. This makes it tough for you to get your information out to the colume of which you would like to if you don't push these post busting features.

However Facebook is great for Personal use. It allows you to stay connected with the people you stay in contact with on a more daily basis. The benefits of Facebook right now is the amount of users who have a Facebook account, at this day in age its uncommon to find people without a Facebook, making the decision to want to market on this platform a sellers dream!

Original Grain-- follow here for Original Grain Facebook 

Instagram/Tumblr/Pintrist

Great for your brand. Allows you to portray your brand lifestyle feel through images and detailed text. These avenues is great for personal and business exposure and allows a great avenue to get information to the public.

Original Grain --follow this to Original Grain Instagram

Twitter/ linked in

Although these are great for networking and updates these two platforms are used best used through your personal efforts. To make updates readily available for your followers that don't always have huge impact but gets the information out there, 

All Social media Created equal

For me Ive found all platforms can be used effectively if done properly. From Etsy to Pintrist, Facebook to Twitter these platforms provide one thing...Traffic!

As long as you can be providing good content it will get views. For me I choose to make most my marketing efforts towards Facebook and Instagram for my Business. Not only is this where I have attained a solid following but for our brand at this time this is where our market is best reached through. Some businesses may have better attraction geared towards other platforms, all about playing within your market and finding where you audience is located and be best reached.

Template choice Andrew Beltran

I chose the template as shown for a number of reasons. For one I really like that it provides ample amount of room for good imagery and word play. I have found while previously blogging and weeding through templates that the most effective blogs have these two characteristics to bring in an audience.

Providing a good visual will be the one of the first reasons a reader/customer clicks on your post if they aren't specifically looking for your product/company. I have found by using imagery to draw in an audience with specific niche posts can be very effective in not only reaching a variety of viewers but a specifically targeted audience.

After the reader have welcomed your posts through imagery it is up to the writer to provide entertaining and information verbiage to keep the reader interested as well as coming back. Better to be short and sweet than long and wordy, this isn't a info ad, this is a blog. Used for great visuals and to be informative to the all readers.