Week 8 Post 2

Visual media does work for my business and in fact is necessary to be competitive and to draw clientele.  I provide yoga therapy and community building yoga classes and retreats.  If people see pictures or videos of classes that look accessible and fun they are more likely to attend.  I currently use Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and have had requests for videos and podcasts.  At this time I have only provided full length videos to specific individuals rather than sample videos for marketing.  This weekend was my first foray into trying to film a marketing video in collaboration with other business.  The video has not been edited yet but will likely go up soon.

 Find examples of 4 business that are similar to yours.

11.     http://www.thelittleyogastudiosd.com/retreats

This business is using a visual slide show on their website to market their yoga retreat.  The pictures are drawn from the venue’s website.  This business is marketing an overnight yoga retreat and their slide show tells a chronological story of a day at the event.  We see images of the tents you will sleep in in the morning light, the outdoor shower, the tables for dining, the grounds in the daylight and at night.

This yoga studio has a link to FB on their website, once on their FB page they offer a sampling of short videos.  They seem to effectively use visuals on their FB page and have 1699 “likes”.  Their website also links to their Instagram account where they have 490 followers for 193 posts.  Their last post was 3 days ago, they do not have many comments on either platform.  They receive more likes on Instagram than on FB, the posts are mostly the same.  The proportion of likes on FB is very low relative to the number of page followers or page “likes”.  The number of Instagram likes seems average for the number of followers.

22.    Looking at the company Mindful Fitness, they use the visual platform, Pinterest.  They have 248 Pinterest followers and 116 pins.  The images are nice and show what the business may be about, yoga and meditation in the outdoors.  I’m not sure how Pinterest helps the business however.  This business also has a blog with pictures but has not been updated since 2015.  There is a “Like” link to FB which I personally wouldn’t click because I want to see the page before liking it.  I searched for the FB page and found this business has 324 “likes”.  Their last post was today, engagement seems to be very small. There are no comments and the likes are few.  Their event posting however does have 65 people interested.  Looking through their event discussion did provide me with an idea and I found a video appropriate for my event and shared it in my event listing as a result.

33.      https://www.naturalhomeonline.com/blog

This company has a lovely website and blog although their most recent blog post is from December 2016.  They have links to Google Plus, FB and Twitter however all links take the user to the Wix user page to create a page with Wix.  Their links are not serving their business at all.  This is at least the 4^th business I have investigated that has dead ends like this which is why I am writing about it.  The information and visuals on their website and blog are great but the user has to know where to find them and the content is not very fresh.

44.        http://www.eatpraymove.com/#home

The business name is Eat, Pray, Move; a good play on the popular book made into a film, Eat, Pray, Love.  The website is visually stunning with enticing travel, yoga and food photos.  I’m sure these images tempt the travel shopper.  This business has 4,609 people following it on FB. They post multiple times a day but have few to no comments.  There are few likes, 6 is the most I see.  They have 6,526 followers on Instagram with 1,241 posts.  They have high post engagement on Instagram, upwards of 300 likes.  There are still very few comments compared to the number of likes.  The visual platform of Instagram seems to be very effect for them, likely the pictures serve to entice their followers to book travel with them.  I find they use a number of the same hashtags repeatedly with each post and perhaps this consistency has led to great brand awareness with followers.

businesses I'm following through my personal page:

https://www.facebook.com/ClaiborneandChurchillWinery/?fref=st

https://www.facebook.com/pocodolce/?fref=st

https://www.facebook.com/thryveculinaire/?fref=st&qsefr=1

https://www.facebook.com/evrbottle/?fref=st

Week 8 post 1

ALTERNATE Assignment for Part One: If you already have existing accounts for your business, write your post about which media you are using, how many followers you have and how effective it is for your business.  How often do you post? What sort of hashtags do you use? How many other businesses do you follow?

I am currently using Instagram and Twitter in addition to Facebook for both my yoga business and for Zero Waste San Diego.

@LauraMcIntireyoga has been an active Instagram account for approximately 9 months.  I have 85 followers and 72 posts for an average of about 8 posts a month.  I am currently following 51 other Instagram accounts.  I experiment with a variety of hashtags that seem applicable to the yoga events and classes that I am promoting with pictures.  Many of my Instagram posts relate specifically to yoga events and classes although some are lifestyle related.  It does seem that the more hashtags I use the more “likes” a post receives.  I cannot say that Instagram has increased the rate at which clients register for events.  It seems that many of the people following and liking are by and large former students who have moved away from the area and keep in touch by liking posts and/or are businesses located in other countries.

Zero Waste San Diego has 9 posts and 89 followers, far more followers for far fewer posts, the engagement however is low, only 28 “likes”.   ZWSD Twitter follows 57 other businesses.  The ZWSD Twitter feed is by and large auto fed via FB and has an organic following of 1,004 and 1,994 posts.  My yoga business was only recently put on the same auto-feed, previously I was custom posting directly to Twitter.   The Twitter ‘verse’ does not seem to engage followers or move them to action at all, it looks like the Twitter feed is tweeting largely to ‘crickets’.

I scheduled 3 posts to go out over the course of Monday, March 13th and Tuesday, March 14th.  I notice the Activity Log only shows those posts that have already been published and not those that are scheduled for release at a later time.  I have included a screen shot of each of the scheduled posts, a screen shot of the activity log which shows that one of today's scheduled posts has been published and a screen shot of a share to a group.
The first post I scheduled references a study that talks about the anti-inflammatory effects of being in nature and invites readers to register for my upcoming event held outdoors.
The second post offers 3 images of labyrinths for walking mediation, one of the labyrinths pictured is at my venue.  I also provide instruction on how to do a walking labyrinth meditation.
The 3rd post is a collage image from the venue the event will be held at and tags the other 2 professionals I've partnered with for this event.  The 3rd post is a more direct call to action.

Week 7 Businesses I chose to like as my business page

Blog Post: List the businesses you choose to like as your page. Discuss why you chose the businesses you did. How might you use this feature of Facebook to grow your business?

The seven businesses I chose to like as my business page are; Hail Merry, Toesox, Wanderlust, Prana, Garden Goddess Organics, and Coola.
Hail Merry is a paleo snack company, myself and many of my clients struggle with health conditions that require anti-inflammatory diets and many people choose to eat that way as a lifestyle choice.  I love Hail Merry's product and would love to have them be a featured sponsor of my upcoming event; Lavender Fields Yoga, Meditation and Sound Healing Day Retreat.
http://updog-yoga.com/retreat.html
I selected Hail Merry as a 'Featured Like' for that reason.

Toesox, also a 'Featured Like' is a locally based company and one whose product I use.  I love their product and my fondness for it has resulted in many of my clients becoming Toesox wearers and fans.  In particular, my yoga students with MS have embraced wearing Toesox.  Our MS yoga class, while promoted by the Southern California Chapter of the National MS Society does not receive financial support and they do not allow us to use the 501(c)3 for donations.  We struggle to have enough props to meet the needs of the students, and to finance the class in general.  I would love to find sponsors to support this needed and popular class that serves a number of people in the San Diego community with MS.  I think that Toesox could be a wonderful sponsor.

I added Bellies Inc as a 'Featured Like' to make it easier for my pre-natal mama clients to find their product.  It would be great for Bellies Inc to send me a sample to demonstrate what it is and how it is used in class.  I find that many of my first time mamas around 30 weeks start talking about belly strain/pull pains that this wrap system may help some of them with and none of them ever know about the product or wrapping techniques.

I selected Wanderlust as another 'Featured Like' because I have been an ambassador, now called waywarer of the Wanderlust events since they began.  As a waywarer it is my job to promote the Wanderlust 108 and Wanderlust Yoga and Music Festival in Squaw Valley.

Prana is another locally based company; this company makes yoga clothing and mats.  I use their products and feel they are very good quality.  I like Prana's commitment to being a sustainable, earth-friendly company.  I would like to promote my events to their local workforce.

Coola is another locally based company, they are a sunscreen company.  Since we are in San Diego and I teach outdoors and my upcoming event is outdoors I would love to invite them to provide samples and be a sponsor.

Garden Goddess Organics is another sunscreen company.  I have used and like their product and would also like to ask them to consider providing samples and being a sponsor for my upcoming outdoor event.

Cross marketing with all of these businesses would help me to reach more of my target market and to provide more value to my existing clientele.

Blog Post re: Reach vs Engagement

1. Define the difference between post reach and post engagement.

Reach is the number of people who saw your post, my interpretation is that it is the number of feeds in which your post was “posted” or ran.

Post engagement is the number of people who responded with click engagement.  Click engagement is represented in the Insights as an overall percentage or you can look at the number of clicks that resulted in a comment, share or like versus click through that does not result in an action being performed by the audience.

2. Why is knowing the difference important?

Reach does not necessarily mean engagement.  Your post may show up in a feed, hence you have reach but without click-through you do not know if you have engagement.

3. After defining the terms, describe how a business can use Facebook Insights to better serve their customers.

We can use the FB Insights to determine which posts succeed in capturing engagement and strive to reproduce and improve upon the content that garners engagement.

I can see on my page that a certain post, an announcement for a prenatal yoga series had the greatest reach, 314 reached, looking at the combined percentage engagement, the engagement appears fairly low, 5%, however when I look at the details of the engagement compared to other posts that may have a reach of only 9, I can see comparatively the engagement numbers are higher.  In a way that is playing the numbers, the more feeds reached, chances are the higher the overall engagement is likely to be even if the percentage engagement is higher when only 9 people are reach.