Week 10 Blog Post 2

Blog Post Week 10 Post 2

To help keep my business blogs organized the categories I would utilize would be any “Special Events” my business may participate in such as RAGNAR Relay Race, Special Olympics. I would also have one for “Existing Customers” I am currently doing business with. “Potential Customers” I’m trying to gain their business.

I think that organization is one of the most critical segments in running a business. By creating categories when utilizing social media will help the business owner keep things straight and help keep them focused.

Pages that I commented on this week.
Devil Dog BBQ Catering, Gus's Really Good Fresh Jerky and Moody Bits. Great job guys!!!

Week 10: Blogging for Business

Week 10 Blog Post 1

After reading this week lecture I learned that utilizing human interest topics in your blog post is an effective way to attract readers to your blog post. This is a great way to keep your readers interested in your blog.

 Human interest plays well on the emotions of the reader. A good example of this is if I were blogging about a business or organization that finds homes for displaced animals and I added a story about pets who were displaced during a hurricane and included pictures or videos of these animals in a pound or facility for animals. This could play on the empathy of the reader and could peak their interest to read more of my blog.

Then I show how my organization was either able to reconnect the animals with their owners or find a new forever home for them.

The reader if they are an animal lover would more than likely find this story interesting and would read further into my blog or try to learn more about my organization on how they could adopt a new pet.

Snap Shot of Scheduled Post

Week 9 Post

Week 9 Post

 The search words on twitter that I used to find potential customers that would coincide with my trucking business were distributors, distribution, retail, retailers and load board. These searches produced a few ideas on potential customers. I had to do a lot of playing around with these words. They gave me some ideas but nothing concrete that I could really use. I did use some of my personal experience of being an over the road truck driver to come up with businesses that I knew that would need additional carriers to move their products such as Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Wilson Creek Winery to name a few.

Although some of these companies have their own driver fleet that handle the bulk of their freight movement they do hire 3^rd party companies to handle loads that have been oversold in a particular market or handled dedicated accounts that they can’t utilize their own driver fleet. My thought is to follow these companies on Twitter to try to connect with them and try to solicit some of their business.

The two list I created were FA18 CSIT 155 1873 and NY Giants more or less just trying to understand how to do it and add members. These lists don’t necessarily have anything to do with my business but I do see that by creating list such as these would be very helpful to keep yourself organized on Twitter by keeping your business and your personal account from overlapping.

  

Week 8 Post 2

Week 8 Blog Post 2

After researching four businesses that are similar to my own that utilize visual media and what I found is that all four utilized visuals on social media. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. I reviewed the images and in particular some of the videos that they displayed on their sites and I found that they were very effective in how they explained the services that their organizations provide.

The companies I researched were Schneider National, Werner Enterprises, Swift Transportation and JB Hunt. All four of these companies utilize Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, You Tube and LinkedIn. The number of followers varied for each company. The one with the most followers are Swift Transportation with 98,370, followed by JB Hunt with 76,023. Werner Transportation with 52709 followers and Schneider National with 41, 966.

What I found was the effectiveness in which they used visuals such as photos and videos of their drivers, the equipment they utilize such as trucks and trailers and also the behind the scenes folks such as sales associates, maintenance, managers of the drivers who are coordinating the loads behind the scenes.

As an example, Schneider National transports freight across the border to Canada as well as Mexico. On LinkedIn they have videos displayed on their page explaining the process to move the freight from the U.S. into Mexico. One video is in English and the other is in Spanish. I thought that was a very effective tool to not only reach potential customers but explain their process to both English speaking and Spanish speaking customers.

In reviewing the use of these sites by these businesses it appears that they are very effective. They receive a good share of likes and comments on their pages. You Tube and LinkedIn seem to be the most effective for this type of business they can use the visuals of photos and videos as well as testimonials from their driver associates and existing customers that use their services.

Week 8 Blog Post 1

The Visual Networks

The visual networks are an amazing phenomenon in which individuals can utilize social media and interactively link to other users through sites such as You Tube, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snap Chat. These are ideal tools to help business owners connect with potential customers.

The use of pictures, blogs, videos the business owner can utilize these tools to gain followers by getting them interested in their content. Even if the content does not directly relate to the product or services they are trying to sell.

Getting the individual at least interested in the content; once they click or like the page they are then exposed to what the business owner is trying to sell and can explore the page and then make the determination whether they are interested and venture more into the page or not. I think this is a critical tool for any business.

I think that in my business Williams and Sons Trucking where I am providing services that sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter would be the most effective for me to locate customers. Pinterest is a site where people would refer to get ideas on projects and look for services so I think this would be a great place for me to have a business page established.

Week 7 Post

Businesses I chose to like

The businesses I chose to like for this assignment were: Walmart, Amazon, Target, Sprouts Farmers Market, Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Miller Brewing Company. These businesses fall in line with the type of services that my company has to offer as a national freight carrier.

Although a few of these companies have their own driver fleet in many cases they do utilize outside carriers in conjunction with their fleet in order to get their products from the distribution centers and out to the store shelves. My hope is to tap into some of this business.

I would find utilizing this method of Facebook Business Page to connect with new business. Each of the businesses I have listed all have a large number of followers on Facebook; by liking these pages through my business page would be a great opportunity to tap into their followers and increase visibility to my business.

Week 6: Setting up a Facebook Business Page

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

Post reach means reaching people within their news feeds, on your page and as shared by friends. Post engagement on Facebook is when people perform actions on your page. They may like a post, click on a link or comment on an image.

2.    Why is knowing the difference important?

Knowing the difference is important because they both show you how effective your business page is reaching potential fans/customers. Post reach shows you how your page initially attracted the fan/customer. Post engagement shows how they interacted with your page after the initial post reach with likes, shares or post.

Facebook Insights is a tool used by users with pages on Facebook that help them promote their businesses. Using this tool helps the user to track the effectiveness of their page as far as how many users have interacted with the page; how many likes, shares re-post their viewers have completed.

This helps the page owner to evaluate what is being effective or if their numbers are not where they should be they can edit the page to make it more effective. I personally did not know these tools were available on Facebook but in my opinion, this is an essential tool for anyone promoting a business on Facebook.