CSIT 115 S17: Tiffany D

Throughout this semester, I have learned a great amount on what it means to become a social media expert. While I am still discovering so much, there are many things I can take away that will help me in my career. I have begun using social media on a more consistent basis and figuring out ways of growing this avenue for my business. I have learned that in order to become successful with social media you must be consistent in many different areas. It is important to post in a consistent time table. It have also found that it is important to post content that is consistent to your company's message. I have found that when I am doing this, our engagement and interaction has grown. Viewers want to know more about our company, rather than just seeing more useless nonsense. I have seen our impact grow throughout this process. I have seen our business Facebook account go from 900 to over 1,000 which is a great jump in our industry. I have also seen our Instagram following go from zero t...

Looking at Facebook Analytics and Post Insights can reveal many interesting facts about our social media presence. From looking at my last 5 posts on our page I can see that the posts with the most engagement are the ones that share company information, rather than fun holiday posts. This week our followers went up 300% compared to past weeks however, our engagement dropped 44%. This is interesting to see that even though we have more followers, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are engaging with our page. This has shown me that we need to include more content that the user will be interested in, rather than what we are interested in creating. The suggested pages in our insights are not similar to our industry. However, it looks like they are businesses in a close proximity to where our address has stated. These are interesting facts to look at. Throughout looking at these numbers I can see that out of our 1,000 followers, we don’t get very much engagement or interaction. This shows t...

There are many pieces of information that are important to consider when looking at Google Analytics. One piece of information I have found especially useful has been direct website clicks and evaluating the source. Using this tool I can find how many website clicks we have received from our social media sites such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. This is useful information to look up on a monthly basis to consider how effective our social media is to our overall goal, to funnel people to our website for more information. Through Google Analytics we are also able to view our top content. This is useful because it helps us see what we should produce more of and what we should stop sharing. This helps us also see how effective certain postings are so we can tangibly evaluate our progress. When we see what is least effective, we can quit posting this type of content and focusing on these areas. Therefore, we will be able to offer more attention to other topics. Lastly, through t...

Creating Ads on social media can be very useful because they allow you to reach a larger audience when you put the extra funding forward. I have found that our industry is backing away from Twitter which is why I have found that Instagram and Facebook ads are the most effective. Recently, we ran an ad campaign for a career fair we were holding. We received 4,907 views on this post and 8,176 impressions from spending $20 on this ad. We ran the ad for a total of 7 days and made sure to set it for local reach so that we could find people in the area that the career fair would be held. This promotion was great because we were able to reach far more people that we would have, being that we only have about 160 followers on Instagram right now. For Facebook ads, we have found these really useful on the property level, rather than the corporate level. We create different ads per each property and try to funnel people to our property websites so that they can view what our properties have t...

I have found that my business should be using Instagram and Facebook ads to boost business, since our Twitter following is significantly low and there is not a large amount of interaction with that site. There are many different types of Facebook ads to choose from. I have learned that in order for an ad to be effective it must be visually appealing, relevant, have an enticing value proposition, and include a call to action. The different types of Facebook ads to choose from include the right column ad, the desktop news feed, and the mobile news feed ad. There is a wide array of content that can be included in these ads in order to maintain relevance and visual appeal. The different types of Facebook ads our company should be using are the desktop and mobile news feed ads. These provide a wide reach and will allow us to gain the attention of our prospective residents. We should be using boosted ads and invest that money in this product. The best type of ad for us would be the local o...

Irvine Company Apartments: This site does not appear to use any boosted or paid social media ads. I even checked to see if they may have different Facebook pages for their properties however, they only have the corporate page and it looks like they are not doing any type of social media ads on Facebook or Twitter. Fairfield Property Management: This site also does not use any type of social ads and their content looks a bit less visually appealing. While Irvine Company’s posts looked very staged, these posts had a more realistic element to them. However, they could still have room for improvement. This site however, does not use ads for their sales techniques. Grace Hill: This is a vendor we use in our industry for our online training. This site does use ads in order to appeal to more customers. On Facebook they are running ads with a deal that are visually appealing, use a call to action, and create a sense of urgency. Updater: This is another service that we use in our industr...

LinkedIn: There are many groups on this site that could help us get connected to other businesses. One that really stood out to me was Property Management Business Solutions. If we connected with them through this site, they could help us find properties who need property management services and connect us to them. This is such a great way to get your name out in the industry and make those connections. Yelp: My company does have Yelp accounts set up. We have a business Yelp account that helps us control each of our sites, and we have about 65 different accounts; one for each property. We do get Yelp reviews on a pretty consistent basis, depending on the property and the volume of residents. We find that many of these reviews differ based on the property, as well. We will get negative reviews at certain properties that are not in the best area, and we tend to get positive reviews for those properties who have higher standards of living. Upon looking at similar businesses, it is clear...

There is a wide array of online marketing tools that can be used to promote my business. The four that I think would be the most beneficial would be Yelp, LinkedIn, Google +, and Google Maps would be the most beneficial. Yelp is a great tool for our individual properties. This allows users the opportunity to rate our business and discuss the level of customer service we offer. It also allows us the opportunity to share property information such as hours and location. All of our properties are currently on Yelp and we have a few paid subscriptions that allow us boosted advertising and the ability to order photos. On Yelp the order of the photos is automatic unless you have a paid subscription. This does not sound like a huge deal however, if someone is posting photos of cockroaches or dirty apartments, we would want to move those to the end of the line. This subscription is important for a number of our properties because it allows us to have more control over our brand and how we...

Since I am unable to post this as my business, here is what I would say if I were actually posting this to social media. “Sign up for our quarterly email newsletter! Here you will find the latest happenings, features, DIY Tips, and so much more! This is one subscription you won’t want to miss out on!” This will capture the attention of my audience and allow them the opportunity to sign up!

Abdul Sultani Krongtong Na-Songkhla Maria Ortega

After researching the different types of email marketing, I think the best kind of email marketing for my business would be relationship building. Newsletter emails will keep my audience engaged and retain residents. Each of our apartment communities should have an email marketing campaign with their monthly newsletters. I think these should be quarterly newsletters since there are not many changes happening throughout the property but it is a great idea to have a consistent news source. I think it is important that we have engaging content through this newsletters. It would be awesome to have a resident spotlight and we can be sure to engage our residents through this process. Another great idea would be resident birthdays. This is a great way to make our residents feel special and connect our community. Since we have pet friendly communities it would be great to do a pet feature, as well. For the holidays we can even do pet spirit contests. Another great addition would be decor tip...

Our goal is to use our blog as a means of informing residents, featuring residents, and advertising to our residents.  We know that the majority of people reading our blogs are residents because our blog is found on their resident portal, where they pay their rent. When they go to pay their rent our blog is the first thing they see and we are always working to capture their attention. On our blog we will often inform residents of what is happening around their neighborhood and what is new at the apartments. For example, we may post about all the Halloween events happening around town. We may even post about how we have renovated our pool area and it is now open for business. It is important for us to keep our residents in the loop when in comes to information. As discussed on my first blog post, we love to feature our residents. It is important for us to show that we are more than just a big company and that we truly care for our guests and employees. We may feature a resident ...

Adding a human interest piece to a blog can be a great contribution for a number of reasons. It can help boost SEO by using keywords, fill up content, and add a competitive edge. There are certain times when it is more appropriate to add those types of pieces. I think it can be easier to write a personal blog because it is easier to shine personality. However, I have found it more difficult to blog on a corporate level, specifically the property management industry. There are times where I am blogging and working to let the company’s ideals shine through. I am always trying to find ways to connect with those who are reading our blog, and stay true to our company’s “voice”. I think one way we have done this is by featuring our residents on our blog. Others can identify with these individuals because they may know them or feel like they have had a similar experience. We have also featured employees on our blog which has proven a great way to boost morale. When our employees are featured ...

My company did not actually have a Twitter account created so this exercise helped my company become established with this method of Social Media. I am going to begin growing this avenue as I have with our other social media efforts. Through this exercise, I created two separate lists however, made them private since this will now be my business twitter account. I made one for Mira Costa and made another for vendors that we use. In the Mira Costa one I added myself and our class account. In the Vendors list I added Rooof and Updater. I could see how this would help us grow our goal because we are able to sort out which conversations we want to get involved in. We can create lists for potential residents and jump into those conversations. We can even see what vendors are doing and we can become privy to the latest technology. We can also begin to network through the channels laid out in our lists, as well. I believe that the two best times to post would be early in the morning, so tha...

I think that visual media helps in my industry but it does not completely propel our business forward. Since we are a property management company, we don’t have an engaging product to photograph. We could photograph our properties, residents, or employees however, it can become a challenge to not make it completely look like an advertisement. I think cohesiveness is an important aspect to any visually centered platform. Irvine Company Property Management has cohesive branding however, their aesthetic is not as cohesive. Their posts on Instagram don’t seem to have much engagement, despite their follow count which is high for our industry. However, it looks like residents are sending in photos to be featured which could be considered engagement. They are posting every day, about once a day and their latest post was 7 hours ago. Their company has 2,186 followers on Instagram however, their photos receive and average of 20-50 likes per post. It also doesn’t look like they receive many co...

I am currently using an existing site for the company I work for. Right now we are using Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. We have a Youtube account that we use internally for training purposes however, we do not use this for advertising. We do load our property videos through Youtube and feed them to our website. On Facebook we have 65 different accounts, one for each property and we have a corporate Facebook account. A bulk of our Facebook accounts are ran by an outsourced company and we internally control about 25 of them. My biggest project is working on our corporate branding through our corporate Facebook page. We now have 997 likes but I am constantly working to have higher levels of engagement. It seems that when I post videos I seem to get the most likes and shares. We recently started an Instagram account in the beginning of August. We have 112 followers and this is the only site where we are actively using hashtags to attract our audience. I have created a personalized has...

Here are the screenshots for my scheduled posts. Being in charge of our corporate Facebook page, I am scheduling posts quite often. I will be creating more for the month of October and I am excited to get those on our calendar. As of right now I have a post set for tomorrow letting people know about “World Smile Day”. This content will engage followers by providing a fun, light-hearted element. Next, I have a Pinterest post planned. This will link people to our company’s other Social Media site and allow them to follow us there, as well. This content is a fun post but it also relates to what our company is about. The post is about decorating which will engage users because it is fun and it will also help them in decorating their apartment (which is the service we provide). Lastly, I have a fun post wishing everyone a Happy Halloween. I spaced out my posts with one at the beginning of the month, middle, and end. I intend to add more but for the time being, this will allow viewers to ...

Featured Likes are interesting because it allows you to strategically choose which companies you associate with. These can be beneficial for companies if their followers choose to share their company on their page because it allows them the opportunity for greater exposure. Here are the companies that I chose to follow: Lincoln Property Management: I followed this company because they are a fellow competitor in the property management industry. I know that this is a big company and I would love to see how they address social media. Irvine Company Apartment Communities: I followed this company because they are also a competitor in the property management industry. I know that this is a company that is heavy into their social media campaigns and I would like to see what works to help them grow their platforms. Pinnacle Property Management: I followed this one because they are another competitor in the property management industry and I would like to learn more about them. Real ...

Although I am in charge of our Social Media campaigns, I have always been hesitant to explore the insights Facebook has to offer. This is something I am aiming to change and improve in the upcoming months. From what I understand, reach is the amount of individuals who have seen your posts. However, engagement is the amount of individuals who have interacted with your post. This would include clicks, comments, likes, etc. It is important to know the difference so we can discover which posts capture individuals attention enough for them to interact with it. Then we can focus on replicating posts such as these. Insights are important to view because it demonstrates important analytics such as page views, actions, likes, reach, engagement, and more. From what I see on our Wasatch Property Management page, it does not have a great amount of engagement. This is something I want to figure out how to improve. I think that the key to doing this could be more interesting posts, along with post...

This week I am completing the alternative assignment since I am working with an already existing Facebook Business page. While I did not create the Wasatch Property Management Facebook page, which I will be using for most of our examples, I have created other business account pages. Wasatch is the corporate office however, our company owns 65 other properties and I have practiced by creating Facebook business pages for our properties. When I took over the social media department our corporate Facebook page had 2 separate accounts. 1 for marketing and 1 for HR purposes. As soon as I took control I knew that it would be a good idea to merge the two accounts in order to decrease confusion. After merging the accounts we started with about 800 “likes”. We are currently pushing 1,000 with 996 likes. We are currently posting about 4-5 times a month but we do not have a large amount of activity on this page. Competing Facebook Accounts: Alliance Property Management This account has 105 li...