Week 13A - Research Advertising

Since there were not 5 businesses similar to mine that are currently active on social media, I decided to choose 5 other businesses in other related industries to observe their use of social media. In my opinion, the use of advertising by many of the major motorcycle manufacturers seems to be very effective.

Companies like Harley-Davidson are actively advertising the rides and other events that they sponsor as well as trying to entice new riders who are weary of hopping on a motorcycle by offering the Harley-Davidson Riding Academy. They use lots of different imagery including both video and photographs as well as a clear call to action on each post such as "Learn to Ride".

The impact the traditional advertising has seems to be much less effective than social media advertising. With traditional advertising, there is no way to guarantee that you will be reaching your target market, and thus it makes it very difficult to determine a real ROI and make adjustments to continually improve it. Whereas with Social Media Advertising, it is very simple to target different groups by demographics and other parameters and then see which of those is working most effectively and then adjusting the advertising campaign budget accordingly.

Week 12B - Groups & Coupons

After looking around on Google Plus, I was able to locate a lot of different companies to add to my circles in order to get their latest updates and information. LinkedIn had some of the companies executives as well that I was able to add to my list of contacts.

I attempted to sign up and add a coupon code to Groupon, but they rejected my product because it is an online digital product. I am going to do some more research and see what other companies are out there, like Living Social, that I can attempt to advertise coupon codes through.

Week 12A - Other Tools

I believe that by using LinkedIn, Google Plus, Meetup and Groupon, it could be very beneficial to my business after reading the chapter and assignment. I already have a LinkedIn account and I just setup a Meetup account as well. After signing up I joined several of the local north county groups that cater to motorcycles and business networking. I think that by putting a coupon out on the web through Groupon would also be a great experiment. Since I have never done it before, I hope that the process will not be too difficult to figure out.

The best way to easily integrate these other social media outlets into my everyday business routine would be to cross post the blog articles that I write every day. Another way would be to add coupons and other incentives and hopefully even by sponsoring local events and other related activities.

Week 11B - Comments & ScreenShot

The Student Blogs that I commented on this week are as follows:

Ashley Enders
Jordyn Getz
Laura McIntire

Also, below is a Screenshot of my Email Marketing Assignment that I sent through Constant Contact:

Week 11A - Email Marketing

For this assignment, I really tried to put myself in a potential customer's shoes to see what perspective would be most appropriate for a email newsletter that would be intriguing enough for them to stay subscribed to. The only kind of newsletters that I am subscribed to myself are ones for the latest recalls reported to the government and ones for events that I would not otherwise know about. I think that by providing a weekly newsletter updating all of my customers as to the latest recalls that could potentially affect their vehicles and events that they could potentially be interested in would be a good start.

The best way in my opinion would be to focus on recalls that are specific to customer's vehicles and events that are in their locality. However, this would be very difficult and would require many different emails to be written each week. Instead, my idea is to just supply the list of weekly general recalls related to the industry and weekly events nationally that are coming up. This would be the best way to have to write only 1 email, while still providing potentially relevant content to a wide customer base.

Week 10B - Organized Categories

On my sites I currently have my Blog categorized into three subsections: one category for News, one for Events and a final category for Recalls. I am considering adding a section for Stolen vehicles, so that I can have a specific section for people to post articles related to their possessions (i.e. news articles, police reports, etc...) with the hopes of helping them to potentially recover their belongings.

By posting things like recalls, it helps my potential customers to realize that their safety is a top priority for our company, and that we will make sure to keep them updated as quickly as possible in regards to any new information available. These categories help to organize the business because it allows potential customers to quickly locate the exact kind of information that they are looking for and are interested in without having to dig through the site.

The blogs I commented on this week are as follows: Gina Schwendel, Laura McIntire and Hernan Hernandez.

Week 10A - Personable Posts

In my opinion, by adding a personal story or other relate-able information, it makes for a much more simple interaction with users who have had similar experiences in their lifetime. Users who feel they have been in the same situation as the post author may feel more inclined to comment or share the said post with their friends or family. By tugging on the strings of people's emotions, it can create an easier way to get a response from a post that may have otherwise been skipped over instead of being commented on and shared.

It makes most sense to apply a personal touch to posts that are about current events and other news related articles. These kinds of posts can be mundane in nature and are usually posted by other sites and blogs as well, so to make yours stand out from the others, trying to get a response from a reader who has had a similar personal experience seems like a good way to get more interaction with the post. When posting serious articles that contain pertinent information that needs to be addressed, it is probably a better idea to refrain from the personal touches.

Week 9 - Twitter

• Which search words you used to find your connections? Did you have to play around with more than one key term to start seeing the right results? Who did you end up finding? 

 I ended up using search terms like "VIN Check" and "History Report" at first to see what connections popped up. I was able to find a competitor that I was not even aware of that I added to my list. I did have to play around with the search terms to come up with 5 different relevant connections for me to follow per the assignment's instructions. I ended up finding the NHTSA, CPSC, VIN Car History, Inside Motorcycles, and Powersports Business to follow.

• What lists did you create and why? How does creating a list on Twitter help you stay organized or reach a goal? 

I created one list for compiling all of the motorcycle manufacturer pages and another list for compiling all of the recalls reported to reliable government sources. These lists will help me to stay organized because it will help me to quickly locate the most up to date news and safety issues that I can then relay on to my potential customer base.

• What time would more customers see your tweets. When are they most effective? 

It is hard to know when exactly customers would see more of my tweets, but I would assume that it would be during times when people are either bored at work and shopping for a vehicle. I would also think that people who want to sell their vehicles would also be willing to spend a few dollars to give peace of mind to the buyer and show that the vehicle is as advertised. After a few months of posting I will be able to compile the results and see when the posts are most effective.