Week 9 Part A - Blogs, Vlogs, Podcasts and Webinars

www.uh.edu

 Hey readers, welcome once again to my blog! Today I’ll be going over when, why, and how personal touches and emotional appeals can be used to engage interest in a business.

In the case of my faux business Revolution, it would make sense to focus on sharing facts. I’m also aware that the reality of our invaded privacy can drive fear and spike emotions. Using that would make me feel icky inside, like Hannibal Lecter. Instead, Revolution would show care for people’s emotions by presenting issues in the framework of a solution that already exists – in our software. Also, I would prefer to take a serious, but positive tone and establish trust by sharing information.

One of the ways it could work for my business is to offer education about internet anonymity, and the current technologies available to promote it. I think educational interviews with industry professionals might generate interest in the form of traffic. It would also be a good thing to highlight diversity in tech, and request articles from professionals globally.
 

I’ve mentioned Cisco (https://blogs.cisco.com) in a few other posts, and I’ll do it again here because they have clean production quality (of course) and they clearly invest in professionally developed social media. Cisco’s blogs have a consistent personal touch, they feature the face of the author in the header for the post, each of them is smiling. They cover topics that are endemic to their business – networking and security – but they make space to do it in context of current/relevant things like Women’s History Month.
 

Businesses that may not thrive with the education approach would probably be business that are more fun-centric. An e-gaming network will have elements of education, like strategy guides, but most of their blogs will be dynamically appealing to visual aspects of gaming. These businesses would use vlogs to showcase game mechanics. Some of our classmates businesses, the clothing stores particularly, may not want to go so heavy on education; rather, they might want to showcase people in daily activities wearing their clothing line.

Week 8 Part B - Your Instagram Hashtag Use

 

Welcome back, reader! Today I'll be discussing my hashtag use on Instagram! I followed the model of the tech gods, Cisco, by only putting one hashtag - the most relevant one - in each post. When deciding on hashtags, I realized that some are just too ubiquitous - none are going to bring my business up in the results because there are millions of results. All of my hashtags are specific to my business, or the business that my business is trying to take down. (But don't get upset, that's just capitalism. :) )

The post titled, "Data Brokers Are a Threat to Democracy" uses a (modified) image from the linked webpage, and carries a #cyberstalking hashtag. It was posted just before 10am on a Monday. Hopefully I can catch people on their morning break. Cyberstalking is a prolific hashtag, but I chose it because it best describes the data brokers' methodology. It is a specific element of my business to address the ways in which we're being followed, observed, and recorded by invisible and often unknown entities.

My next post was at around noon, and featured an image from Kaspersky's article, "How to Stop Data Brokers from Selling Your Personal Data." By posting at 12pm, I'm hoping to catch people on their lunch breaks. I used the tag #datasecurity because this article talks about ways to help consumers protect themselves from data brokers. The enemy of my enemy is temporarily my friend.

Last, I did an evening post, 5:30pm, which would be about the time people might be leaving work. When I lived in big cities, this would be one time of day when everyone was on the subway, and checking their phones. This post is about a very recent article from The Guardian called, "Where does your info go? US lawsuit gives peek into shadowy world of data brokers." I used the hashtag #thieves because I want to make a very clear impression about the data broker industry. If any one person did what these businesses do, I could have them put in jail. So why does a business get to do it?

I feel that reaching out to folks during their workday (near their breaks/off time) is the best way to reach the most people. Any earlier in the morning would be missed - who has time in the morning before work? Too much later in the evening would also get missed by sleepy eyes.

Overall, I learned that I need to be tactical with my posts. Not just having posts, but setting an intention for each post to give it efficacy. With all of my posts, I'm trying to establish a foundation of knowledge that creates a platform for the campaign my business will have to endure in order to have people go against an threat they don't see. I'm going for well-placed, potent posts that show the need for my business.

This week I commented on the following group members' posts*:

Marissa Berian-Melicharek - Craze the Label
Jordan Hagemann - Salt + Citrus
Sabreena McLeod - Sabreena's Succulents
Yuma Nishio - Japanese Snacks - had the same issue before, it goes to a gentlemen's clothing page with an image of a classic car. I gave it a like and comment anyway!

*Conrad Amburgey - BOOTS - this instagram page was not available (error 404) when I looked

Week 8 Part A - How to Expand Your Reach on Instagram by Using Hashtags

https://www.instagram.com/cisco/?hl=en

    Hey reader, aha, welcome back! As the title might suggest, I’ll be looking into similar business’ Instagram territory and scoping out their use of hashtags. Hopefully, I’ll cull some ideas for Revolution from their examples.
    Seamgen (@seamgen) is a local, small business in San Diego. They have a mix of software development and cloud service, IoT and emerging tech; in scope it is like my fake business, Revolution. I was really excited to find a small, local(ish) business in the same tech space, until I checked the post dates on their Instagram. To Seamgen’s credit, at least they have an Instagram account; which is dissimilar to many other local, small software development and cloud service businesses that I looked at. Their last posts were May 2020. Since that’s the case, I’d say Instagram doesn’t work effectively for them, but I think they had good posts (before the start of the pandemic.) They had a variety of tech and team culture pics, as well as cute dog pics, and some photos they were clearly unafraid to show their inner weird. Their use of hashtags could’ve been improved by adding #sandiego or #SD to be visible in searches, but other hashtags were spot on. Placement and use of these hashtags were the same on each post (mostly their services) but each post varied slightly depending on the occasion. To give them a better chance, I searched for tags that I thought would have fewer results, but the only one that brought back Seamgen was #seamgen. They have 192 followers, and posts were getting 15-30 likes. Very few comments are made outside of the account posting its tags. About 11% of followers liked Seamgen’s posts.
    Tateeda Global (@tateeda) is a local and international small business with offices in San Diego and Ukraine. Again, there’s an Instagram that’s currently linked to their website; and again, it’s unmaintained. Tateeda has a current presence on LinkedIn. It feels like they just gave up with Instagram and didn’t even bother to disconnect it. But again, at least it’s something to investigate. And it turns out to be good for contrast. Tateeda’s last Instagram post was in 2018. They have 86 followers, a total of 8 posts that sometimes use hashtags minimally and other times not at all. Ah, it seems they are all the same hashtag (#tateedateam). A search for which leads to a page that appears to have employees at a winter party (using my context clues.) The hashtags are always used the same way – at the end of a sentence; their text posts are descriptive and inviting, and there are some likes (15-20), but no comments. Videos were the most successful content – one video of a (then) recent mobile app got around 200 views. Perhaps 20% followers liked Tateeda’s posts. In the instances of Seamgen’s and Tateeda’s unmaintained continuance with Instagram, it looks worse to keep links on their website to social media that the business doesn’t use than to have the absence of it. Another side is that it’s a potential vulnerability that might go unnoticed because no one is managing the business’ social media account. They should perform CPR or disable the accounts.
    PhoenixNAP (@phoenixnap) is a small business (65 people!) in Phoenix Arizona that can deploy cloud infrastructure services globally. Maybe Instagram works for them, but I’m getting the impression that Instagram’s not a contender for software and cloud service companies. PhoenixNAP is another small business, but this one makes me hopeful because their last post was 3 weeks ago; they have 157 posts and 1,638 followers. They use a plethora of hashtags, for instance, 20 is a lowball (my eyes got tired counting) number; and some are mixed with German and English. Hashtags are placed several dots down to keep them separated from text content. Unfortunately, when I search their tags I come across similar problems to before – the hashtags are so ubiquitous that the company itself doesn’t appear. Their site looks well-made with buttons right on top of the posts to connect viewers to the company products and corporate partners. They have impressive friends – Intel, VMware, aws, and Microsoft to name some – and they know how to flaunt them. The most successful posts were videos – comparing the 10ish likes on images to the hundreds of views on all the videos. Their posts are varietal. Some posts are technically esoteric, others just technical, a few inspirational and daily work images, and uh, a weird one with a grinning guy throwing peace signs at a freshly filled-in grave. Then there’s the grinning guy standing over him. Their posts get about 1% likes, which might be more realistic because they have more followers.
    Cisco (@cisco) is a large enterprise headquartered in California, with 79,500 employees across all sites. They are actively using Instagram, and it is the most successful, in terms of viewer engagement, of any of the sites I’ve seen. It makes sense to me that Cisco, of all companies, wouldn’t leave an “open port” with Instagram. They use all kinds of hashtags, but very specifically, and the most I saw was just a few on any post. Most posts just have 1 hashtag, and it’s placed at the end of the text content of the post. The hashtags that actually have the word “cisco” in them are the ones that return Cisco when searched. They have 1,543 posts and 444k followers. They post every few days at least – the last one was of employees playing instruments on St. Patrick’s Day, and the one before that was for Pi Day. They get a lot of likes on basic images – averaging around 1%, which I think is outstanding – but as before, they get the most interaction from videos. On one video of a baseball game they got 5% of their followers to view. They get comments, which is pretty cool. But then again, I have to remind myself of perspective; 7 comments seems like a lot, but not out of 444k people. Their posts are a mix of the people and the products that make up this enterprise. With such a large company, the opportunities for diversity are abundant, and Cisco makes good use of snapshotting these events in their employees’ lives. But no rainbows this year, so I investigated. In June 2020 Cisco put up a nice image (above) supporting inclusion, but they got several negative responses. Cisco didn’t try again in 2021. Regardless, Cisco’s Instagram management is the best I’ve seen. They have little challenges, like, “Tell us you’re a CCNA without telling us you’re a CCNA” to drum up engagement. Another very successful post was a 1 to 10 how do you feel today showing very specific tech things, it was hilarious. These challenges got hundreds of comments. Good move, Cisco.
    As I mentioned before, it seems like Instagram isn’t too popular for smaller tech firms. If I had to guess why, perhaps it’s because technologists want repositories where we know we can find information – sometimes, pictures aren’t technically descriptive. Also, the use of Instagram hasn’t rendered outside interaction; it’s mostly employees, or people who have a connection to the business. I really liked Cisco’s challenges. I thought that drew a lot of branding pride because these certs are famously difficult. Getting one can be a point of pride. I also think Seamgen’s use of weird does something special; it lets viewers know that their company is made of individuals who are free enough to express themselves. It’s only one picture, not on top, but in there. If my business were real, I would use these tactics.

Week 7 Part B – How Other Businesses Use Instagram

Hey Readers, today I’m giving a synopsis of some of my classmates’ businesses – real or fictitious. My fakey is called Revolution, in case you want to visit. Okay, here we go! 

BOOTS uses images of clothing pieces to display their store stock. This page has a variety of clothing styles. Several pieces are themed, and there’s enough differentiation among the pieces to appeal to a broader audience.

Craze The Label is also a clothing retailer. The pictures are a mix of product and moments of empowerment via inspirational sayings. These images make fantastic use of lighting and background to bring out the best in the product and to reinforce the feel.

Salt + Citrus creates artisanal soaps. Images of various citrus are prominent. So far so good, I like citrusy soaps, and look forward to seeing more!

Sabreena’s Succulents are a succulent nursery and hand-crafted plant accessory store. There’s a great video that shows the making of one of the products, it’s well-produced and short enough to be fully watchable.

Japanese Snacks is exactly what it sounds like – a snack store. But the link for this went to a “gentlleman clothes” page with a single picture of a car. I went to the Facebook business page but the Instagram wasn’t linked.

All of these pages are different from mine as these businesses are creators who provide a physical product. My business is software and infrastructure as a service, so it has been very interesting to see how each of our classmates have presented their businesses.

Instagram pages I visited:

Conrad Amburgey – BOOTS https://www.instagram.com/b00ts__/

Marissa Berian-Melicharek – Craze the Label https://www.instagram.com/crazethelabel/

Jordan Hagemann – Salt + Citrus https://www.instagram.com/saltandcitrussoapco/

Sabreena McLeod – Sabreena’s Succulents https://www.instagram.com/sabreenassucculents/

Yuma Nishio – Japanese Snacks https://www.instagram.com/gentllemanclothes.240/

Week 6 Part B - Creating and Scheduling FaceBook Posts

    These are the posts I've scheduled for the next three weeks. These posts build a foundation and expose the need for Make 'em Pay software. The first chronologically sets the tone by discussing the extents to which data brokers have gone and the extents to which they will go to leverage our data to influence our very behavior and emotions. The next is a great, easy to read article that lays out and scores each major player's protection of our privacy (the spreadsheet fan in me loved their graphics.) Finally, a short video to reinforce the prior two with practical examples of why we need to regain management over what's intrinsically ours.

This week I commented on the following people's pages:

Marissa Berian-Melicharek - Craze the Label
Jordan Hagemann - Salt + Citrus
Sabreena McLeod - Sabreena's Succulents
Yuma Nishio - Japanese Snacks

Week 6 Part A - Engaging Your Customers - Facebook Strategy

 

    Hello and welcome, readers! Today I’ll be discussing seven web pages that I liked with my business page; and I evaluated their posts according to the following criteria: type, writing efficacy, and use of images. If you’ve read my work before, then you probably know I feel a spreadsheet coming on. The seven businesses that I chose have a strategic connection to either the technology that my business uses, or the type of customer that will use my business.

    The businesses that I liked were customer-centric and had value-propositions embedded in their communications. Also, as Professor Faulk said, people respond to pictures; I’m no different. I also favored pages that artfully used images to set context. One of the best things for me is when a company provides a service that makes me more knowledgeable even if it is knowledge about their product (referring to Glossier Girls in the text.) When companies encourage open communication from among their buyers, and listens, it establishes trust in the business; if everything is done right, then the end result is that customers will solve each other’s issues. (Kerpen, 2019) What I learned is that businesses that have well-coordinated social media have a bigger presence; and that I can get a bigger presence by creating opportunities for my viewers to interact. I don't know if that's a chicken or egg thing or both (it's the egg.) 

    Note: I was able to “like” most of the class members’ pages, except a couple – Pampered Life led to a personal page, and Valeriano Productions had a message that said this content isn’t available right now.