Week 14: Six Month Plan

Social Media Plan

Industry: Higher Education

• Community Colleges, 4-Year Institutions, Education Technology, Educational Research

Administrative staff: 3 Full-time, 1 Part-time

Counselors: Full-time 10, Part-time 10+

Objective: To gather and disseminate information, policies, and deadlines for MiraCosta College and the Counseling Department as needed. However, the majority of frequent posts will provide tips, motivation, and inspiration in order to better engage followers.

Priorities:

1st Month

• Switch all social media accounts to the department communal email.
• Set goals (e.g. set desired # of followers, expand total reach) 

1-3 Months

• Develop list of phrases and vocabulary consistent with college departments and services. Include phrases and procedure for responding to negative feedback and complaints.
• At least once per month, review Facebook Insights and meet to determine social media effectiveness and where improvements can be made.
• Determine target audience
• Determine effective post days/times

3-6 Months

• Develop and pilot a detailed editorial calendar either through Outlook or Google.

Editorial Calendar:

Facebook: No less than two posts per week (exact days and times to be determined, but always during business hours). Schedule posts whenever possible.

• Friday - Drop-in counseling hours posted from Instagram.
• At least one post to engage. Ideas include calls to action, relevant external content, counselor tips and advice (i.e. top three tips to prepare for finals)
• Promotion of college events and services from other departments.
• As Needed: Deadlines, important dates, need-to-know policies, drop-in changes.

Instagram: 2-4 posts per week

• Friday - Drop-in hours for OC and SEC.
• Fun pics
• Matching outfits, MCC Pride Fridays, Throwback Thursday, College Hour, College events, etc.
• As Needed: Deadlines, important dates, need-to-know policies, drop-in changes.

Twitter: 2-4 tweets per week

• Friday - Drop-in counseling hours from Instagram.
• Check-in posts similar to Instagram and Facebook engagement.
• Utilize college events, department workshops and classes, added courses during enrollment, external content.
• As Needed: Deadlines, important dates, need-to-know policies, drop-in changes.

Week 14: Blog Comments

I reviewed the pages for, and commented on the following blogs. A common theme that I noticed for all of us is the recent spike in "likes" this past week as a result of the assignment. I think this was very valuable since we may see random spikes like this in the future, and it is important to look at these changes critically so that we can discover what we may do correctly or incorrectly.

Audra Najera - San Diego Seamless Drywall Taping

Ekaterina Evlanteva - Luxury Estate California

Lori Barry - Custom Covers

Week 14: Social Media Reviewed

Looking back at all of the social media that we have worked with, there are some definite standouts which I feel gave me the best ROI. Others were fun at times, and yielded some useful information that I may not otherwise have come across. Still, given the investment in time for many of the platforms, I know that I would primarily just use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the immediate future. I've also realized that I will need to delegate the duties of updating our social media, since I have come to find out it can be a commitment to deliver content on a daily basis.

Facebook has been great, especially since I have learned how to better integrate with other platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Learning to utilize the woobox features was key for this integration, and I feel that it has given us a more robust page. This is one area that I would like to facilitate greater collaboration with my colleagues, especially having somebody add posts a few days per week. Instagram has by far been the platform with which we have had the greatest collaboration and creativity with. While I feel confident with the written communication involved, there are others who far surpass me in presenting important information in a very creative manner. Thus far, I have left that up to them. Similar to Instagram, I feel that our department needs to have a daily presence on Twitter. Without that, we become a second thought to our followers and our presence will stagnate.

Another reason to use Twitter and Instagram on a daily basis is that they are extremely entertaining to use and communicate with followers. In fact, one of the highlights of my Twitter use came halfway through the semester when I was able to directly apply what we have learned from class and especially from the text "Likeable Social Media". I had just gotten back to my office from a meeting and noticed a series of Twitter notification that somebody had tagged our account in their comments. From what I gathered, the individual had a negative experience over the phone with one of our staff members, in addition to some concerning behavior on the person's personal account. As quickly as possible I added the person, apologized for the experience that they had, and asked them to follow us so that we could private message eachother. I was able to get the individual to speak with one of our counselors which made the person feel better about the initial interaction. They later returned to Twitter praising us for how quickly we addressed the matter and expressing gratitude for having somebody to hear their concerns.

For the time being, I'll use Facebook on a less frequent basis, but increase Instagram and Twitter to daily interactions or posts. On a side note, I have found a lot of enjoyment out of the blog, however, I don't see using it for our department. If I continue to blog it will be for personal enjoyment, not necessarily with any common topic, or for any particular reason.

Week 13: Insights

Up to this point I feel as though I have been a little apprehensive about exploring Facebook Insights. Part of my apprehension is related to the fact that I know I haven't yet mastered many of the basic tools of social networking, especially when it comes to creating informative engaging posts on a consistent basis. I admit that another part of me hasn't gotten into it because any type of analytics appear, at first glance, as though it would take a major time investment to learn the intricacies enough to make it a useful tool. Here is yet another reason why this class has helped so much, since it would most likely have taken me a lot longer, if at all, to delve into the Insights feature on Facebook. Having said that, I found that a tutorial isn't at all necessary to begin, since just a little clicking around has already provided me quite a bit of "insight".

The first thing that I noticed in the last week is the spike in page likes. I had a total of 10 likes since last Sunday, bringing my total to 77, and the majority came in the middle of the week. I wish I could say this was the result of the reach of one of my posts, but I think credit is owed to this assignment and the requirement to "like" any pages that we haven't previously done. With an extremely busy week, I unfortunately didn't post anything, so I was unable to take away much from the "reach" feature. However, I did revisit some old posts side by side to see which had the best reach and engagement. Looking at which posts which had the most impressions and engagement, I saw a few patterns which would be worthwhile to explore. The first thing that I noticed is that our the post highest on the list had been a simple repost from our Instagram account showing our weekly drop-in schedule. This was also true of our second most popular post. The two of these were posted on different days, but the post times were within 30 minutes of each other. At first, I thought that this may have played a role in the popularity, until I saw a few posts lower on the list which had been posted at similar times. I'm sure I could research deeper into this with the feature that allows me to see the behavior of when my are online. This seems like it would be very worthwhile for those selling products that don't depend on any seasonal changes in popularity or need. With that said, I believe that the major factor is a result of the hills and valleys in regard to demand for our department and services throughout the semester. We may have the same post content on the same day and time of the week, but if we are near an enrollment period or a drop deadline we will certainly see a rise in office and phone traffic. This, I'm sure, will play out in social media as well.

Aside from these areas, I'd like to explore more of the "people" feature in Insights. This would be information that I can really begin to hone in on the demographics that we have historically reached most. Since our goal is to provide information to students with a more convenient alternative to coming in or calling, we can begin to tailor our posts and content in a way that better targets our followers. No matter your use and need of Facebook, it's obvious that Insights is a valuable and necessary resource for a business if you are serious about growing and increasing your web presence. 

Week 13: Google Analytics

Google Analytics offers a wide array of features to help optimize promotion of a blog or website provided you know which to focus on and how to use them. Given that a lot of this information can be overwhelming and a bit confusing, I would start off by taking some of the tutorials in the Analytics Education section. After watching two of the videos provided, I quickly realized that some of the features provided, while interesting, wouldn't be as useful for our websites or the needs of my business/department. For example, knowing what type of devices are accessing our site may not be necessary since our institution already has a mobile version of the site. However, if we were creating and app, this could be useful in knowing which if we should create it for iPhone or Android. Additionally, we are not selling a product or service and we have a stationary location, so knowing the geographic location information from analytics would not be useful. This information may be useful for our International Education Office, as it may reveal trends to offer more insight to which populations may require support in the future.

One of the features that would be very useful for our online media would be the demographics information offered in Google Analytics. Knowing trends related to age and gender populations could help us to better target our key markets. If we are trying to build followers in order to spread more information about the college, our department, and our services, knowing the demographic information could help us to better market to specific target groups. For example, if 18-24 year-olds are the main population, we may want to look at which classes are most popular for the age group and promote information related to that.

A few other features worth exploring would be in the benchmarking section, especially the channels grouping, as well as the behavior section. Knowing new vs. returning visitors related to the duration with which they are browsing my page may tell me if I'm succeeding in making the site interesting for returning visitors, or if I need to focus on what type and frequency of new information posted on the site. Fortunately, we have an office at our college that works with analyzing analytics for the college and department pages, however, knowing this information would be extremely helpful if working with them on revamping our webpage. I truly feel that exploring and learning about this information would help to better understand why certain practices are in place, and in what ways can we optimize our web presence not only through social networks, but our websites as well.

Week 12: Project Activity

In my previous post I wrote about the limitations of what online marketing tools can be used for my business. Since we don't sell a product or service, coupon networks wouldn't be useful. I do, however, see the usefulness in experimenting with the different types of social media and online marketing tools to see which produce the biggest benefits, especially if the time/money/energy investment can be kept to a minimum. In doing this assignment, I found that it is still possible to find information and resources that are highly relevant and useful to my job and department. I had been under the false assumption that I had exhausted all possibilities of groups, organizations, and people who could provide a wide array of information pertinent to my work.

The first tool that I decided to explore is Yelp. I found that our main college campus has a Yelp entry, as well as two other departments within the college. My department did not, so I decided to add the listing. As I have noticed with many of these networks, things never work out quite the way they are supposed to. Despite having added my department a few days back, I still cannot view our listing. I attempted to add it again today and still no luck. There is a note that it can take up to 48 hours to be able to view the business, a period which has now lapsed, so I'm hoping it will show up soon. Once it does, I am hopeful that this will be another great way to interact with students and possibly see areas in which we have shortcomings.

I have also set up a Pulse account to be able to pull all the blogs and news related to our field in one area. I'm finding that adding friends and following users on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have been excellent ways to explore all of the information out there, but there is far too much to keep track of especially when they are scattered over various platforms and networks.

Lastly, I created a Google Business and Google+ account. This seems like it will take a little more time to explore, as I have only just created the page and began to add hours, locations, department information, and photos. I was curious to see how much more involved it is, as they are sending a postcard to verify our business. It seems like a great place to explore and add groups and people in circles, as well as reach out to our students and other organizations. Of the three of these, I'm most excited to explore this, and I will be working to combine information that we have across our resources to make sure that we have robust accounts in each area.

As I mentioned before, if exploring these new tools and resources can provide even one new piece of information or insight, it can be well worth it. When exploring groups on Google+, I came across Columbia University's Community College Research Center account, and from there began exploring their website and publications. I now have two books to look into, one which I have placed on hold at a local library, and the other I may buy for my department. Here is an organization who, despite having searched on my various other social media accounts, I am only now discovering. The resources, tools, and information on their site is incredible, and I have had to pull myself away several times to finish this assignment and my other work.

Week 12: Four More...Online Marketing Tools

I'm starting to feel as though a common theme with many of my blog posts are related to not being able to take advantage of the full spectrum of social media. I have come to terms with that and in doing so, realized that it gives me more time to spend perfecting a smaller scope of social media. Having said this, I can imagine four additional online marketing tools being useful for my department to expand and improve. These would be Yelp, Google +, LinkedIn, and having an RSS feed.

Yelp is a site that I have used for years especially when looking up restaurants, breweries, bars, and stores. It has been incredibly helpful and I have even used it to review a few businesses, although usually only after a negative experience. Since I typically use Yelp to determine between a variety of choices, I don't think it would help us in that regard since it is not as if the college has multiple general counseling departments. However, simply having reviews would help us to determine any areas that could use improvement or give us an opportunity to respond to any negative comments. Additionally, Yelp reviews may give students a better idea of the services that we offer as well as insight into our staff. I think that it would be minimal investment and could provide us with valuable information if students were willing to review us. We could also run promotion that if they review us, they can set up an earlier appointment if we are booked two weeks out, which is often the case.

Google+ is something that I am far less familiar with, but it seems like a good way to get information about other similar departments. We may not choose to do much posting on + unless it is just reposts from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, after browsing around the site, I can see how it is a great place to collect information that may be pertinent to what our department does. 

LinkedIn is great since our job is to help students reach their goals. This seems like a place that we can advertise and share a blog if we decide to take one on. Since counselors advise, inform, and inspire I see this as a great way to get more information out there. Unlike Facebook, Twitter ,and Instagram, I think that LinkedIn may not provide so much in the way of deadlines and important school information, but be more of a place for students to learn and explore the content that would be put up.

Having an RSS feed makes a lot of sense to me, simply because we are continually trying to expand, grow, and provide an information service. While it isn't necessarily a social tool, it can be extemely useful in keeping me and my staff informed on current trends, best practices, information, and news. This is highly important in any field if one is looking to improve a product or service. I'm going to explore these a little more for personal use before diving in for professional purposes.

I think it goes without saying that any sort of coupon site would not be even remotely feasible for us. For one thing, we don't charge for any services or meetings, so what would we be giving a coupon for? I do personally like the idea of Groupons, and I have used many in the past, but I have gotten mixed reviews from business owners. Many feel like they were being shafted or forced into offering a Groupon. Some friends who own a Strength and Conditioning gym have discussed that Groupon was a great way to get many people into the gym in a relatively short time. However, they also mentioned that you get people who are hopping from one gym just to save money with Groupons. If your product or service is good, oneline coupons may buy you some loyal customers for the long run. With that in mind, one has to determine whether it is worth it for a short burst of revenue.

Week 11: Budgets? We Don't Need No Stinking Budgets!

As discussed in my previous post, I will not have an option to use paid advertising given the nature of my employer. I don't see this as a disadvantage, rather an opportunity to be creative in using free resources to get information to our students in an attempt to better serve them. I am fully aware that instead of a monetary payments, the cost will come in the form of time and energy. From the lecture and readings, there seem to be many important factors which can contribute to success in unpaid marketing through social media. A few that I think will be especially needed for me would be to always make a conscious effort to continually market toward building a large and loyal following, creating appealing calls to action, and learning which demographics you want to target and when.

My first step is to utilize both social media and on-ground interactions and activities to increase our web presence and build a social media community. I can come up with the most creative inspiring posts in the world, but they mean nothing if they aren't reaching anybody. Luckily, we can use school resources and some budget to create advertisements directing students to our social media and even explain the benefits of connecting with us. As we are establishing a larger following we can use insights and other analytics tools to better determine when and what types of posts are most effective. I would then take the step to integrate that with calls to action, and as the lecture states, create a circular movement between our different platforms.

A few examples from this week's assignment can be seen on Facebook and Twitter. On one Facebook post, I asked the community if they have already scheduled an appointment to meet with a counselor and posted a link to a recent video made by our department on how to prepare for a counseling appointment. I then posted a call to action when, after reminding new students of the first day for their enrollment, I urged them to visit our website or call our department for an appointment. Similarly, I posted on Twitter a link to our Facebook page, letting students know that they can get more up-to-date information their, and that they should "like" us. I would like to get more creative with these posts, such as using hash tags for specific ongoing campaigns. I saw another school use a specific hashtag for students to post why they love that school. As I learn more about social media, I'm excited to explore the opportunities with these smaller details.

While these are just some basic ideas and concepts to follow, I know that time and energy are going to be the major factors. My goal is to demonstrate the benefit of social media to the point where it is no longer a pilot for our department, but an added responsibility of our job description. While that will naturally create the time necessary to work on this, we need to "find" time to put in until then. Some practices are going to be more time sensitive, such as listening to conversations and engaging appropriately, while some may be more long term goals, such as researching and learning from similar departments and industries. We are already experiencing benefits of social media and some practices have been adopted as part of our job, and while I'm hopeful of this continuing, I know that we have a lot of work still to do.

Week 11: Online Advertising

I found this to be one of the more difficult assignments that we've had, for a few reasons. The first is that, given the nature of my department, we would never have a budget to use for paid advertising. The truth is, we have more customers than we actually need and one major goal of implementing social media in our department was to disseminate information more efficiently and effectively once a web presence and following were built.

With that in mind, I was fairly limited in the "possible" Facebook ad types that we could use if a budget were ever allotted for social media. Mostly, this would be for promoting our page, raise attendance at an event, increase engagement on our apps, and boosting posts. Frustratingly, every time I attempted to enter a URL for the option to increase engagement on apps as well as raising event attendance, I was prompted with an error. I was then recommended to try instead to "Use Clicks to Website". I ended up making a few of these, as seen below, which directed users to the department page, or pages with information on these events.

If I were selling a product or service, I would consider getting people to claim an offer, reaching people near my business, and increasing conversions on the website. Even with these options on Facebook, LinkeIn, and Twitter, I felt that the information at the end of the lecture would best serve businesses that I may work with whether for-profit or not-for-profit. I think that the beauty of Social Media is that businesses can organically build large followings with time, effort, and creativity. Paid advertising to me is contrived and rarely entices me to be a consumer. I find it annoying on television, on the radio, and it often makes me not want to be on Facebook. I follow companies that offer great information and that naturally make it seem like getting my money is NOT their top priority, even though it usually is.

Below are a few sample ads that I created on Facebook. They are fairly simple and I feel that first building an audience over time through engaging and informative posts and information could accomplish similar results at a much lower cost.

Week 10: Blog Comments

Below are a few of the posts that I particularly enjoyed and commented on. I especially found Cheryl's helpful given her experience with email marketing in the past.

San Diego Seamless Drywall Taping - Audra Najera

Ultragamer - Connor Blackwood

Mary Bentley & Assc - Cheryl Grosso

Solana Beach Library - Pat Tirona

Week 10: Email Newsletters

The overall goal in utilizing a newsletter would be two-fold and very different than a for-profit business. The first would be to better disseminate information in an effort to support student success. We have noticed that students are very often not well-informed on the services, resources, and tools offered by the college, and better marketing of these have proven to increase awareness. For this reason, a once-a-semester newsletter would not properly serve that purpose. I feel that 2-3 newsletters each semester would serve as excellent reminders, particularly around mid-terms, for the offerings to be used by our students. If possible, we would provide a "welcome back" email at the beginning of the semester, "keep your head up" email around mid-terms, and a "you're almost there" email right before finals. Each would contain tips and tools to utilize when students get stressed out.

The other goal would be to more effectively provide information as answers to questions, in an effort to decrease unneeded appointments. In an ideal world we would have plenty of counselors and available appointments to serve our entire student body in convenient and timely manner. Unfortunately, in peak periods we have been known to book up close to one month out, and oftentimes students have made appointments unnecessarily. Many of these students have questions that could have been answered in our catalog or website, but students don't find these two resources easily accessible. I would venture to say that a bimonthly publication schedule would best serve this purpose, with the bulk of the content coming at the beginning and end of the semester when we reach high peak periods.

Below I have listed some content that I feel would be useful in newsletters offered by the Counseling Department:

• Updates on student support resources such as the Math Learning Center, Writing Center, Tutoring Services, library databases, workshops and events for topics such as study habits, transferring, test anxiety, etc.
• Counselor/Staff/Faculty Spotlight where we will have a guest contributor discuss anything from their academic journey, personal and professional history, thoughts on MiraCosta, or tips for being a more productive student.
• Updated list of deadlines
• Timely tips for students with information on how to start the semester off right, getting over the mid semester slump, studying habits, de-stress techniques, etc.

I think that this content would be sufficient to start out. I'm sure that reader feedback and more experience writing would offer insight as to which content is most effective and where content should be added. 

Week 9: Pt. 2 Categories

In the few blogs that I currently read, categories are extremely helpful as an easy way to find past blogs or explore unseen content. This would be especially true for my business, especially given that we are providing information and services instead of products.

In the interest of have a clean look and easy navigation I would start off with just a few categories, as described below.

Study Skills and Tips

If we were to incorporate a blog in our department, I believe that this would be the category containing the majority of information. Our office is a little like the library reference desk of the college in that we need to know a little about everything, or have the tools and resources to be able to find information. We are constantly referring students to other departments for the specific services that they require, and our counselors themselves teach classes on college success. We would want students to be able to find a tip they may have read about months ago, but can't remember exact keywords. This category would be a great way to find this.

Deadlines

This information would not be as relevant, as it becomes obsolete fairly quickly. If the deadline to drop a class was on July 1st last year, it most likely wouldn't be the same this year. However, students occasionally ask us for past dates and this category would have everything neatly organized.

Transfer Information

As community colleges continue to transfer students to four-year universities, there is a definite need for this valuable information. As policies and guidelines change, students want to stay apprised of the information, and it would be useful for them to be able to refer back to what might be considered outdated information. The reason for this is that as long as students are continually enrolled and working toward a goal, they are held to the standards of what they started with, rather than the changes. This applies to our college's policies for earning Associate Degrees and certificates.

Student Stories

These posts would be our testimonial page. Students would have an opportunity to tell their journey that of coming to MiraCosta for academic, personal, or professional growth. In a way, this could take the place of guest posts, and they could be used to fill space when time doesn't allow for a post.

Personality in Blogging

I came across some excellent thoughts from Marilyn K., Audra N., Angela T., and Pat T. on when to add personality in a blog. In reading posts from some of our other classmates, I saw that there was some confusion in the distinction between adding personality and making it personal. I may have misunderstood the blog topic, but I feel like a blog must have style and demonstrate the writers voice, which I also call personality. On the other hand, making a business blog personal may achieve some goals, but overall could drive readers away or alienate others. I think it would be best to avoid making a business blog personal and instead, start a personal blog.

Week 9: Blogging Pt. 1

To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I'll use a blog for the business that I've chosen for this class. While I think that a blog could be useful for our department, it would be more appropriate to have the counselors blog as they are trained experts in the field. Given how impacted our department gets, it would be far too difficult to find one or a few counselors to commit to blogging even once a month.

Still, in an ideal world, one could potentially add a lot of personality to a blog in our department. In fact, I think that having a blog with personality would be absolutely necessary given the demographic we are trying to reach and the type of information that we are providing. Seeing students day in day out, I realize that academics are not a high priority for a large portion of the student population. Therefore, adding interesting and pertinent information in a manner that students can relate to is necessary to build and maintain a decent following. I think that having guest bloggers would be very useful and help with maintaining the followers with fresh posts. For instance, a blog from a former student who tells a little about where they are now as well as tips, tools, or resources that has helped them succeed in their goals not just academically, but  personally and professionally as well. We could also have guest bloggers from different departments on campus sharing information about their areas of expertise.

I find myself wondering IF it would ever make sense to not have personality in a blog. I started thinking about other businesses that may not require and what I realized is that the nature of a blog is to demonstrate personality in providing information or perspectives. I wouldn't see a point in using a blog for anything less, since most businesses can send out email blasts with product updates or press releases. Most companies just have that information on the website, while another tool may be needed to direct the consumer/client/user to the website. This, in my opinion, is where an interesting blog would come in to play. It is a further way to brand yourself or your company. I think back to how many bloggers that I used to follow now have thriving businesses with products and services that correlate to what they were first blogging about. They were able to monetize their following despite not having started with an actual business. Speaking for myself, I would not have followed them initially had they not had interesting content and an interesting way of providing content through personality and style.

UPDATE: After reading a class member's post, I wanted to add a clarification to my existing post. While I believe that personality is necessary in creating an interesting blog and build a following, I don't want that to be confused with expressing personal opinions. If blogging for a business, I think that common sense should be used when inserting personal opinions, and if possible references should be used if anything is being sited. For example, a blogger with a nutrition business may post about the negative effects of gluten and siting research or studies would be extremely helpful. On the other hand, if that same blogger began to blog about their opinion of abortion laws in the U.S., and unless they were an expert in government and law, they may alienate some of their followers. Keep in mind, I am talking about non-relevant information. By all means, I want to read about farm subsidies that pertain to nutrition, especially if it is from an expert and is well sited.

As a society we are now provided endless methods of expressing our opinions from something as subtle as "liking" a candidate, or pulling out the soapbox and writing countless posts on through a personal Twitter and Facebook account. Unless it is relevant to the business, I don't need to see personal opinions in the blogs that I read, and I plan to follow the same guidelines if I blog for a business.

Week 8: Twitter

I feel like I may have needed to be in a more creative frame of mind to get better use out of the keyword search. Using the different "Words" advanced search options, I tried a variety of keywords at first. My attempts included, but were not limited to, education, academic counseling, academic advising, school counseling, Oceanside, and inspiration. I found a few users with this approach, but felt like I was just following people in order to complete the assignment. What I found was that without being profit driven, I was mainly looking for users to borrow ideas from and to retweet. The other criteria were finding organizations that seemed to be on the cutting edge of educational technology, innovation, and practices. After more unsatisfying attempts, I proceeded to look up people, businesses, schools, and organizations specifically by name. Similarly to my Facebook adds, I started with local colleges that our students most often transfer to. I then tried an individual, Sir Ken Robinson, who has done extensive work with creative approaches to teaching and increasing creativity in schools. In many ways I used Twitter more like somebody would use Pinterest. I chose users with the intention to identify, share, and try to implement the ideas that I might come across from those I follow.

Once I began adding more of these users, I was able to more than double who I followed by exploring the suggested users that were coming up. The next part of the assignment came in extremely handy, given my now wide array of users that I was following. I created five lists to help organize the different users that I was following. What was nice about I see the benefit in using these lists, for one I can find users much easier without having to search down the list or through my news feed. I can also see how I would find inspiration from some users posts and having users organized by lists allows a much easier way to search for preferred users.

The Twitter account that I am using for this was created at the end of 2014, however it has been used very sparingly and only for dissemination of information. While this has been extremely useful, I see that this doesn't garner much engagement, and really doesn't make for a very interesting profile. I found some great ideas from exploring other schools posts and I plan to implement them this week. I originally thought to strategize the ones posting the different ideas, in case I wanted to save some if we get a larger following, however there is no sense in saving any aces up my sleeve. This week I will be sending a few tweets with calls to action. With these being students, I feel that the best time to tweet is mid-day to afternoon since students typically sleep in later and are busy with their social lives in the evening. I'm optimistic for responses, but with so few followers I'll be realistic with my expectations.

Week 7: The Search

After an exhausting search of countless possibilities trying to find any community college or university academic counseling department with a visual social media presence, I finally gave up and decided to broaden my search. I ended up going with Boston University's School of Social Work(BUSSW) as well as the main UCLA visual social media. Given that my department is fairly niche compared to any social media representing an entire university, I understood that UCLA would not be the greatest comparison of a similar business. However, I hoped that I would find ideas that I could borrow from or that would possibly provide inspiration. BUSSW on the other hand, while not a counseling department, is more targeted and I assumed that they would have less of a need for visual social media. I hoped that I could get some takeaways from them that would help me to build more robust Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube pages.

UCLA has, not surprisingly, a very impressive up-to-date Instagram account showcasing the school and its students very well. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the campus is beautiful making it easier to promote the campus as well as campus life and events. Currently we are using Instagram as another method of getting important information out to students, but seeing the UCLA account makes me think that we can use Instagram for documenting daily events. This could include information from our counselors, staff, or even something like student transfer admission notifications.

With BUSSW's Instagram and Pinterest account, there were far more ideas that I could draw from in my department's visual social media. Their Instagram account has been used to post information about school events, campus life, graduation, pictures from the School of Social Work magazine, and much more. Their Pinterest account was equally as interesting with boards ranging covering the university, Boston, Social Issues, Self help. DIY, and more. I feel that these sites would be effective to current students, as well as prospective students that may be hoping to get a better idea of what life would be like in this program. I would definitely say that these are far more related than the UCLA visual social media for what we are looking to provide to our followers.

I think that we have chosen the correct visual social media of Instagram and Pinterest. The next step will be to add YouTube, but there are some logistical issues with deleting the older YouTube accounts that we previously used.

Week 7: Effectiveness of Visuals

While I'm certain that my department would benefit from most visual platforms, I feel the need to consider the effectiveness of each when compared to the required amount of time and energy to see a significant return. To be clear, our department is not selling a product or service. Our mission is to support student success by providing a variety of methods to disseminate information. One of the main methods, and currently most effective, is by meeting one-on-one with a counselor either by appointment or drop-in. However, given limitations in space, manpower, and time this is not always possible and very often a full 45 minute appointment is taken up for a matter that could have been answered in five minutes on our website.

With that in mind, visual platforms can play an important role in offering key deadlines and information in an easily accessible manner. A few weeks before this semester began, I started an Instagram account with that goal in mind. No less than once per week we post the daily drop-in schedule, an alternative to calling or coming in to the office. We have also been finding creative ways to provide information such as irregular closures and important deadlines. The front office staff plans to include social media strategy in our future meetings to explore the possible uses for our current platforms.

In addition to Instagram, we are in the process of integrating our slightly unused YouTube account. On of our counselors has created two videos in the past year to offer information about our services and how to prepare for a counseling appointment. In recent talks, we see this as a great way of creating informal videos every month or so in an effort to keep students up to date on school policies and motivated in their studies. 

It is difficult enough finding creative options for Instagram, that I don't feel there is any benefit in implementing a Tumblr account. Many of our staff members have expressed several times an aversion to being in any pictures or videos used for media or marketing.

Pinterest is the last piece to this puzzle, and one that I was initially on the fence about leaning more in the direction of Tumblr. However, after reading the lecture and giving more consideration, I have since changed my view and have decided to create and account and carefully implement. I say carefully because the information we offer using this platform needs to be supervised and checked with caution. I have had experiences in the past of pinning infographics to my personal account without looking at it thoroughly, only to find that it offered incorrect information, bad grammar/spelling, or inappropriate language. Being that this represents our department in a way, we want to hold our pins to the same standards that we hold ourselves to, or at least as closely as possible.

Our department is lucky in the sense that we have a few staff members interested in collaborating in our social media. However, this can also serve as a detriment in an age when information can become outdated very quickly. It is important for us to begin and build slowly with these platforms to not become too overwhelmed. To restate an earlier point, one of our main goals is to provide information in the most effective manner. Given our limited resources in such a busy department this may mean offering only one or two high performing platforms at first, rather than many platforms with out of date information.

Week 6: Scheduling Posts

In scheduling my posts, I wanted to accomplish a few objectives. While the aim is to promote post engagement, I considered some of our most frequent questions in order to post relevant information. For this I scheduled a reminder post a few days before the "W" drop deadline. While this simple content may not elicit comments, I hope to determine if deadline reminders are worthwhile posts by measuring clicks and post likes. Additionally, I will most likely add to the post with a link or picture of the academic calendar.

The second objective was giving a call to action by asking students to schedule an education plan appointment. Having an education plan has shown to dramatically increase student success and retention, and new state legislation requires new students to have an edplan on file to maintain priority enrollment. Notifying and reminding students early may help to better serve students by scheduling appointments during our very available non-peak periods. I scheduled this post immediately following Spring Break, since our office starts to see an increase in appointments when the schedule is released in April.

My third objective further promotes engagement by asking students to reply with one of their favorite study spots. I scheduled this post a few days before finals in an effort to help students alleviate stress by not having to seek out a place to study.

I wanted to leave room for spontaneous posts, so I scattered these posts out over the next few months. This also allows for adding or modifying posts as the scheduled time comes closer.

Week 6: To Like, or Not to Like...Is that a Question?

With my business being a single department in a much larger organization, I was very lucky, in that I had 15 Facebook pages within my organization that I was able to like. However, considering this to be an easy out, without doing much for my page, I began to consider the possibilities and recommendations from the lecture and book readings. I specifically used, and built on the 3 keys found in the "Liking Other Pages" guidelines found in the lecture.

First, I imagined locations that our customers(students) would hang out. Using the Lululemon example, I thought of study spots and came up with a few local places. These included Vinaka Cafe, The Yellow Deli(open 24 hours), and the Carlsbad City Library. I had some trepidation in adding the Yellow Deli given that they are run by what some consider to be a cult, while we are a public institution. Since liking does not mean that we are endorsing any particular group or belief system, but rather liking a convenient and popular place to study, I decided to go for it. 

These likes also gave me a post idea to that I plan to employ once we increase our fan base, which would be to ask our fans to post their favorite place to study. This would give us opportunity to engage our fans, as well as find more pages to like and possibly grow our business.

The second guideline was to follow pages that share content that our followers would like or find useful. The first batch that I could think of were our local universities, since a large population of students at the college plan to transfer. I added CSUSM, UCSD, SDSU, USD, CSULB, and UCLA. So far, I have have seen a number of posts that I can link to or share when I am experiencing a "blank moment". One school even posted classic pictures with the hashtag "throwbackthursdays", something that we could easily do as well. As students are considering which colleges to apply to, this would familiarize them with the different local options and serve as a reminder to utilize the services offered by our department. 

Following this, I thought of pages that would offer content appealing not only to our students, but anybody with a thirst for learning, expanding knowledge, and maximizing one's potential. While I found a number of pages which fit this category, I wasn't confident that many were appropriate for our page and I settled on the TED(Technology, Entertainment, and Design) page, as well as Radiolab page, a popular documentary podcast which dissects and presents various topics through research, interviews, and anecdotes. In the span of one day, I have already found numerous posts which I find interesting and relevant to individuals within our higher learning institution.

Lastly, as previously mentioned, I wanted to show support to our colleagues. I remembered that our school had a social media directory and I simply went down the list liking each page. Taking this a bit further, I did a quick scroll down each page to see which pages were most current and if any offered information that our page could share as well. I found a few that met this criteria, and plan to check these frequently in an attempt to offer our fans better content, establish a good social media relationship, and recruit new fans. For example, the library might post about upcoming workshops aimed at supporting student success. Being that supporting student success is my department's mission, our page should engage and further promote such workshops. Adding to this idea, I plan to further engage our fans by asking what types of workshops or resources would best assist their academic studies.

The benefit to actively liking an engaging other pages is a no-brainer. This is a critical tool in building a fan base and fostering relationships as long as the page manager is willing and able to go beyond a simply clicking like.

Week 5: Facebook Insights: Interpreting Post Reach and Engagement

The ability to differentiate between post reach and post engagement is, without a doubt, extremely instrumental in the promotion of our business through Facebook. Post reach reports on the amount of post views that have occurred, while post engagement will report the number of viewers who go beyond views and actively click. One blogger expressed the benefits clearly, stating that knowing post reach could be used to quickly build your fan base or getting more visibility for a post. On the other hand, businesses wishing to build relationships with their customers would be better served by focusing on post engagement. 

Of course, having this data alone would hardly serve a purpose without being able to interpret the numbers and employ a combination of strategies to maximize your efforts. It would be as if a physical store, before internet, wanted to be sure the most people saw their products whether it was by television, radio, mail, or even just choosing a store location with the most foot and car traffic. However, they may not know if a certain method had been the most effective, while another may have been a poor use of money or resources. With that in mind, it would be highly beneficial to know not only how many people had seen your product or service, but how many acted on that. In the past this may have been done through tracking which marketing method resulted in a call, visit to the physical store, mail order, or even if it was recommended to another party. At that time, this may have been done by surveying customers individually, which would have taken a lot of time and still not produce very accurate results. Facebook Insights does both of these by measuring reach and engagement, allowing businesses to access this information without having to rely on a survey or other customer intake.

Week 4 - My Business Target Market, Non-Profit Notwithstanding

Given that I work in a college counseling department whose mission is to promote student development and success, our target market would be college students interested in earning certificates, associate degrees, or transferring to a 4 year university or trade school. Without a doubt, there are other populations that come to the college for various reasons, but they are a small percentage, and typically already have an understanding of why they are there, such as retirees interested in personal development. Additionally, there are the students who are only in college to satisfy somebody else, such as their parents. Oftentimes these students don't have a goal, and aren't interested in the services offered. Therefore, we want to reach the students who have the desire and drive, but may lack knowledge of the resources, tools, or path to achieve their goal.

As I proceed through this week's assignment, I already see that using a non-traditional business for the purposes in our class will prove to be more of a challenge than I had hoped for. As our assignment prompt states, in thinking about how knowing more about our perfect customer might help in the coming weeks, I encounter conflicting ideas. Not being entirely profit driven, but more focused on student success, a perfect customer would not actually be a customer, because they would already possess the tools and knowledge to achieve success. This would be a student who knows perfectly well their educational goal, which path to follow to achieve it, and has no need for support in achieving their goal. However, this is not a reality when describing the majority of our student body, much less anybody in our society. In a way, our perfect customer will be an imperfect customer. We target current and prospective students who may need assistance choosing a career path, or has test taking anxiety, or who is looking for inspiration or motivation and can't find it elsewhere. Our mission is student success, and therefore our target audience will be students who aspire to be successful, but lack the tools, resources, knowledge, or motivation to achieve it.

Week 3: Frequent Sites

www.crossfitsociety.com

This site is for a business owned by a couple of friends of mine. I also use this site frequently as a member of their gym, so I was curious to know if I could review this site with fresh eyes. Most immediately, they have a rotating display with member pictures and random quotes to the work of the coaches. This was probably an attempt at adding some levity to the otherwise serious business of strength and conditioning. With the exception of one or two rotating backgrounds, the colors and contrast are pleasing and don't negatively distract attention. They placed their brand logo in the upper right hand and their business name on the left, and I wonder if there would be a way to distribute that a little more like the lecture states, and as demonstrated on the Apple site. I also noticed that they only display Twitter and Facebook links at the top, despite having other social media accounts. Right away you notice a call to action on the front page to "Book a Free Consultation". Also, the navigation bar is simple and the depth of content is not overly extensive. They could potentially list Success Stories under About Us, but I don't know if it would make much of a difference, if any. I appreciate that they offer a brief explanation of the services they offer, along with a few site links at the bottom for "Partners" and "Friends", which would direct visitors to like-minded sites. They also have widgets at the bottom for their Yelp reviews and Google Maps to show their location.

When navigating around, you'll notice that their content is up to date, especially in the WOD & Blog area. I noticed that the White Board link under The CFS Experience is not functioning properly, and should be fixed for frequent visitors and members. Overall this site is easy to use, provides excellent content for the subject, and is designed well. I've seen similar sites go too far with information on diets and too much detail on the actual workouts and overall concept. In fact, their original site was on the borderline of offering too much of this, but the changes that they made were just what was needed. I personally keep coming back for the WOD & Blog, so for me, content is key.

http://fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

I visit the Tim Ferriss blog, fairly  often, possibly more often than I need to. The reality is that I love this guy's podcast, as well as the content he provides. Unfortunately, his brand of the "Four Hour..." doesn't explain everything he really does, and he even admits to it often sounding like an infomercial. Obviously, it hasn't been a major detractor when one looks at the success of his books, blog, podcast, high profile guests, and consulting done for major companies.

After talking up his business acumen, I will say that I dislike just a few things about his site. First off, he rotates through some dated photos. I understand that he is trying to promote his accomplishments, but I see the picture of him competing in the tango it makes me feel like I've walked into a gaudy foreign discotheque. His menu seems simple enough, but visitors new to Tim Ferriss may wonder what 4HWW, 4HB, and 4HC signify. It would be easy enough to hover and check for themselves, but maybe offer one menu item titled 4 Hour Book Series, which encompasses all three. He also seems to offer more depth of content for one, and not the others, telling me that he may have gotten tired of adding content to his site.

However, this site is not all that bad in the least, otherwise I would not be a repeat visitor. I subscribe to his VIP newsletter, which is a "call to action" at the top of his page, so there I find out each time a new blog or podcast is released. Even so, I end up visiting his site every few days just to navigate through older content for anything that I might find relevant to my life. He also offers a Most Popular section for specific blog posts and podcast episodes, and beneath that a list of popular topics in which you will find all of his related content.

For the most part his site is simple and effective. You can either scroll through all of his content, or use the easy search function at the top of his page. You will notice that aside from sharing capabilities, and a FB "Like" button, he either doesn't have, or doesn't use, social media. I know that he often  comments(read:complains) about trolling, so I wonder if this is a conscious decision on his part. Either way, the ease of use and great content offered on this site keep me coming back for more.

Week 3 - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...Websites

http://spotmetering.com/

My hope with this website is that the target audience has immediate recognition of what this site offers, and why it is set up in such an aesthetically unappealing manner. When I first opened the page something in my brain must have shut down momentarily, because I found myself staring blankly at the page for at least 15 seconds with no recognition of what I was looking at. The title is not very catchy or descriptive, and is white font, on grey font numbers, on horizontally scrolling off white numbers. The reason for the binary sequenced numbers is beyond me, and I hope it is somehow related to the On-Camera Spot/Partial Metering web page title.

Admittedly, I have a very limited knowledge of photography, but I'm fairly certain that even amateur and professionals would be hard pressed to discover in the first minute what the site's purpose is. It is only when I look through the 10 item menu, I notice that there is a place to order what seems to be a book. 

Get Up to Speed... states that the information architecture should be shallow, but this is kiddie pool shallow with too many options. It seems to me that instead of having so many items, they could have included a few menu items in one group, such as The Back Cover, Sample Page, Reviews, and Appendix. Additionally, when you click on a menu item, the navigation bar changes format for different pages. This site also broke the lecture rule of not making the user scroll for information, which is necessary for almost each page, with the home page being one of the longest.

http://www.roverp6cars.com/

I'll begin by saying that I LOVE the cars in the pictures on this site, and when you first enter the page you know exactly that they are selling some specialty car parts. However, my praise for this site abruptly ends there. Far too many colors are used, and if this weren't an assignment, I would have exited after 10 seconds of looking at the cool European cars. The vertical menu seems harmless at first glance, as they list Home, Parts Webstore, About Us...but then you scroll down to find 30+ options to click on. The icing on the cake is found at the bottom of the page (when scrolling down, don't let yourself get distracted from information overload) where you find the enticing advice which directs the reader to "...check back regularly because we are always adding more".

The rules that this site broke are too many to list, but most importantly for me were the extreme depth of content, no ease of use, and no rhyme or reason for the proximity of all the items.

On a side note, the Derbyshire Weekend Run looks like it would be a good opportunity to take in the scenery of the English countryside.

http://apple.com

Before opening this page, I feel that I was predisposed to to enjoy this site more than your average site. Despite not being a mac user, they definitely know what they are doing, creating an information architecture that is intuitive and easy to use. They list their major products and services at the top of the page, with the Apple logo at the left to promote brand recognition. Depth of content is excellent as you navigate the menu items you are not overwhelmed with choices. I also appreciate that the format stays uniform in each of the pages you visit, making navigation that much nicer.

Really, the page that I am least happy with, is the iTunes page. If possible, they might offer a "back to top" link, since you have to do quite a bit of scrolling. Another option, although I don't know how difficult this feature would be, is to have the menu scroll along with you, so you can continue to navigate to other pages from any location on the current page.

Overall, this is one of the best pages I have visited, although not enough to convert me to become an Apple user.

http://www.toyota.com

Toyota has done a good job with contrasting images with the background and choosing easy to read font type, size, and colors. The 3-4 column view found in the "Select Vehicle" and "Shopping Tools" drop-down is easy to use and visually pleasing. I also appreciate that they list the same options found in the drop-down at the bottom of the page, so a wide variety of tech savvy users can access it. This may also help with those not as tech savvy who are using from a mobile device such as tablet or smartphone. I have personally seen users have trouble when using these devices for any sort of drop-down menu options.

The main page scrolls through four vehicles, which I assume are top sellers, or at least what the company would like to draw your attention to, so I give them a top grade on implementing a good marketing hierarchy. The site also has a feature under the displayed vehicles, which allows you to view Cars & Minivans, Trucks, Crossover & SUV's, Hybrids & EV's. From any of these options, there is an "X" in the upper right corner of the display which brings you back to the Featured vehicles.

Not much to criticize this page on, and I would definitely use it if I were in the market for a new car. 

Week 2 - Businesses and their Social Media Presence

Whole Foods Market

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/

Whole Foods looks to be deeply invested in Social Media Marketing. Their website contains links to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, and YouTube. Each link is well used, and very current. Having checked this company on Valentine’s Day, I was extremely impressed at how their use of marketing with social media seemed effortless. They had many posts, videos, and pictures with ideas for Valentine’s Day crafts, gifts, and food. Most of pics on Instagram had thousands of likes, their YouTube page had 28,000 subscribers, and their tweets are constantly retweeted. Overall, this company has an impressive social media presence and remains completely current.

Captain’s Helm

http://www.captainshelm.com/

http://blog.captainshelm.com/

I wanted to choose a local business for an example, and found a resale clothing shop that my wife loves to frequent. On their main page I found their Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, but exploring further on their Facebook account, I found that they also have a very comprehensive blog, which I also included a link to. They have a significant amount of “Likes” on FB, and followers on Instagram, and get a lot of comments and feedback. The most recent posts, comments, and likes were made the day of the search. Overall, they seem to be doing a great job interacting with their community.

Local Tap House

http://localtaphouse.com/

Local Tap House is one of my favorite local eateries, and I was happy to see that they had updated their site and social media since the last time I checked a few months back. They have links to Instagram, Twitter, and Instagram. Instagram has a decent amount of followers with 500+, but Twitter has less than 100. Before a Valentine’s Day post, the most recent Instagram pic was late January, and Facebook was on the same timeline. Overall, they have a decent web presence, but it looks like their social media activity comes in waves.

Harvard Business School

http://www.hbs.edu/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.hbs.edu/about/social-media/Pages/default.aspx

Although this may not be considered a business in the traditional sense, I chose Harvard Business School for a few reasons. Initially, my interest was due to see how effective social media can be for colleges, being that I work at one. Secondly, I thought that choosing a well-known business school would have relevant information for this class.

When looking at the HBS main page, the first link above, I found the main social media accounts for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, and Sina Weibo(Chinese microblogging site). However, I was so impressed with the second link above that I included for the readers who may not venture too far. What impressed me most is the sheer number, possibly 50+, of accounts that HBS has for many of their different affiliations, from school alumni to their Social Media Enterprise group. While some of these accounts are not as current as others, most seem to have significant followers. Additionally, this could also be a good study of how much is too much when it comes to social media investment. Most of the major accounts are current up to the day.

Tony Robbins

http://www.tonyrobbins.com/

While I admit to having little knowledge of this individual, aside from the infomercials promoting his work as a motivational speaker, he has built himself a powerful and popular brand. I wanted to see how somebody working without the traditional business, continues to market themselves using social media. This guy has followers in the millions on Facebook and Twitter, and close to that with Google+. His main page also has his LinkedIn and YouTube account, the latter of which has over 100K subscribers. He has for Facebook as recent as the day prior to searching, similar to his tweets and retweets, one of which was retweeting somebody’s joke about Tony Robbins.

Week 2: Me, on Effective Communication with Businesses

I can think of a few examples in recent years of when I made an attempt to communicate with a business or consumers, either by email or through a review. In these experiences, my communication directly with a business has almost always been most effective. Every example using social media to communicate with, or review, a business has ultimately yielded no tangible results. However, I have to remind myself of my motive or intention when posting a review online versus sending an email directly. When I email a company, it is usually because of a specific issue that I would like acknowledgement for, or resolution of. The difference when I post a review, is that I am sharing my experience with the consumer, so that they might make a better informed decision if choosing between companies. Therefore, resolution of an issue isn't as important to me as sharing information. That does not mean that I would not have appreciated a response, but typically, given the negative experience that I am sharing, I set my expectations low.

Two experiences specifically come to mind when I posted reviews on Yelp. The first was for a bar and grill in Encinitas, where some friends of mine were meeting to watch a morning world cup game. Without going into too much detail, the service was terrible, and the waitress accused our party of not tipping after not returning our change which equaled a tip of roughly 25%. The other was after two separate experiences at a Solana Beach restaurant in which we were given exceptionally poor service. I left reviews for both establishments, but received no response. I feel it necessary to mention that I've also left several positive reviews for other restaurants, shops, B&B's, and hotels, while rarely, if ever, receiving a response. As mentioned earlier, receiving a response was not my intention, which was instead, to inform potential customers.

In contrast, I have experienced several very positive results when contacting companies, always directly through a website contact page or by email. The most memorable was when my wife and I were stranded in foreign airport for 20 hours, only to be sent back to a hotel with a potential flight the following morning. While at the airport we were given literature by an airport employee informing us of our travelers rights in European airports. Naturally, when we finally got home, we both wrote the airline, and to our surprised heard a response, but with different compensation amounts for each of us, both of which were lower than the amounts stated in traveler's bill of rights. After several emails back and forth we both ended up with airline credit which still was less than that stated, but more than satisfactory for the experience.
Looking back, I'm not sure that social media would have yielded different results in the times that I communicated directly. However, this belief may be a result of the one sided communication when using social media. Maybe it is time to try social media again, given it has been a few years and companies are learning to be more receptive and connected to social media.

Week 1 - Social Media Platforms: Social vs. Business

In performing a basic google search for "social media platforms", 4 of the first 5 results were articles related to using social media for business or marketing. While I may be arriving late to the game, this tells me that the majority of social media can, or is currently being used for business, even if only at a small level. From what I know of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn alone, each site can be used to build a brand, garner support and followers, and disseminate information quickly and effectively. Sites such as Pinterest could be used to build a brand through bookmarking and linking to similar products and business, or like-minded services. The article below really caught my eye, with its title of  "Top 52 Social Media Platforms Every Marketer Should Know". I have never thought much about it, but never imagined 52 different social media platforms, much less 52 important enough to know for the population of marketers.

http://60secondmarketer.com/blog/2010/04/09/top-52-social-media-platforms/

The sites that I am far less familiar with are dating social media sites and networks. Having been in a relationship for the past 9 years, I have no personal experience with these. However, I've seen sites such as Match, OkCupid, and Tinder become popular with many of my friends over the past few years. These sites seem limited to strictly social use, and I really can't imagine being able to utilize them for business outside of paid advertising.

Needless to say, I became more aware of the variety of ways to market a business using each of these sites. Of the 52 platforms in the article, I would not have considered many "social media" prior to this class. Sites like iTunes and Picassa being listed alongside Facebook and Instagram, really shows me that I have let myself become disconnected from much of this new technology. While I know that this class isn't meant to be a tutorial on the business applications for each site, it will teach us to explore the applications, whether intended or unplanned, of current and future platforms.

Week 1

I found this template aesthetically pleasing, and the background of a map is something I identified with immediately. There was a large selection of templates, themes, backgrounds, and pictures to choose from which to choose, and after previewing almost each one, I settled on this. However, that was not the end of my process, I still needed to test each color out, contemplating with each one how that would fit my subject matter, which is hardly relevant at this point in the course.

As I proceeded through this process of selecting a template, I realized that I was going to have to overcome one major obstacle if I am going to be successful not only in this course, but social media in general. That obstacle in particular, to make everything "perfect". Looking back at the very few times that I attempted to post on FB or applied a filter and caption to a photo on Instagram, I would either give up, or spend 15-20 minutes completing it, and still finishing below my expectation.

With this realization, consistent practice through this course, and desire to apply this to my work, I'm hoping that I can get past this obstacle, and hopefully learn from it.

Saludos...to my first blog post!