Week 17: Wrapping it up.

Overall in the last few months in this class, I have learned significantly more about social media, its impact on business, and the ways I can use these platforms and tools for my personal growth online and create a living business model through the internet. My viewpoint has changed slightly, before the class I saw the use of social media as a bit vapid and surface level, understanding small amounts of what work needed to be put in to get clicks, views, and any form of revenue or relevance online. Now I have respect towards anyone who puts in the work and time to grow an audience and platform online for themselves or their business. I've seen successful campaigns done by businesses in the past and witnessed not so successful ones as well and learned alot from both. Finally, I believe I now know which services and tools will help me grow and become successful online.

For starters, my viewpoint on social media has changed over the course of this class. At the beginning of the semester, I believed that it would be somewhat easy. Knowing prominent members of the online community and others that blew up through the use of social media. I thought to myself, "Well, if Jake Paul could do it?" Without really taking into account the amount of work and business knowledge. The ability to track and predict trends and manage time for content creation. I see now, how wrong I was at the beginning.

Over just the past four months I have been able to witness and learn from multiple different online campaigns and businesses throughout the years and even to today. Two recent examples from both sides of the spectrum are Wendy's consistent use and incorporation of meme culture into their ads and Twitter's failed integration of "Fleets" a copy of the Snapchat stories that every other app has incorporated as well. Both examples give a clear lesson on the use of keeping up with trends and understanding when it is appropriate to incorporate them into your business. With Wendy's they consistently use new memes and jokes on their Twitter, Instagram and other platforms. Engaging with the public in funny and interesting ways. As well. Due to how fast meme and online culture moves nowadays, if one idea doesn't work. Just as quickly as that one failed, another goes right up to take it's place. Twitter however, attempted to incorporate an idea that was already copy and pasted onto every other big named app earlier and with greater results. The snapchat stories can now be found on both Instagram and Facebook. As well as, Tiktok to even greater success than Snapchat itself. But Twitter's integration failed due to the platform not really being suited for that sort of idea and the concept more baffling to their users than intriguing them. Leading to the rollback of the project. Both are big ideas and lessons on how to incorporate the internet into your business and how to go about rolling out ideas correctly, that I found indispensable in my business.

As of today, I plan on working with Youtube and Twitch as the main avenues for growth. Focusing on Streaming and uploading edited videos, following the lead of previous creators I personally have followed and admired. As well as posting consistently on Instagram and working on cutting up clips from videos or streams for content on Tiktok. After this class, I managed to create a consistent schedule for myself that I plan on following through on for the rest of the year.

This class has taught me so much about building a brand and participating in on the online marketplace. Now, I feel as if I have a grasp of what to do and where I am headed with my plans online.I thank you all for reading any of these posts and wish you all luck in your own endeavors.

Week 16 Part B: Building Out Your Strategy

My plan for my social media will continue into the next year, I will use the next month as a baseline for an upload schedule on my socials. For the next month following directly after today, the 12th of December 2022, I will upload twice a week some basic photos on my social media like Instagram and Facebook at 5 pm on Tuesdays and Saturdays, while interacting with the public through Twitter regularly on more of a sporadic schedule and all while consistently hosting live streams at least twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays from 7 pm to 9pm @Twitch.com/lil_K0ala. 

• Instagram and Facebook:

On Instagram, it allows you the feature to publish reels, stories, and posts simultaneously on Facebook, which grants a huge degree of access and possible growth as I only need to work on one platform to use both. As well, I will give myself time to take photos, come up with ideas for reels and stories and edit any content I need to on the days I have away from the apps with the current schedule I have of Saturdays and Tuesdays. Leaving enough time after each day to come up with a new idea or plan out another piece of content.

• Twitch:

On Twitch I plan on playing a variety of different games with myself in the corner as a commentator or reacting to different content online such as funny clips, news events, and anything I find interesting that I would love to share with my audience, using the first day on Wednesday to introduce the topic or game and following up on Friday with where we left off previously. That is still beside any edited content once I have a bit of a back catalog that I can start to piece together to stream clips for my Twitch or Youtube, but that comes after the first month. For now, I will focus on streaming games and "just chatting" streams regularly whether just myself or including a guest like my family members or my friends to join me.

Week 15 Part B: What We Learn from Facebook Analytics.

    From what I know about the many (MANY) privacy issues and battles that Meta (Formally known as Facebook) has found itself in throughout the last decade, many companies and countries have taken a stand to fight back against how exactly Facebook, Instagram, Oculus, Whatsapp, etc collect and harvest data. One of the biggest and most important to take a stand is the creators of the iPhone and one of the biggest tech giants on the planet Apple. With Datarepotal stating that over 14.8% of users logged on from the IOS app to Facebook in 2021, the current developments can/will dramatically affect Meta's outlook on the website in the near future.

    The recent changes have to do with how tracking your phone's data is done. Now with a single click of a button, you can opt-out of allowing Facebook to track your personal data outside of the app. for Forbes, written by Senior Contributor Kate O'Flaherty states "Apple's new privacy features continue to hit Facebook as increasing numbers of iPhone users opt-out from tracking on their devices... According to a new analysis, the iPhone maker's 'App Tracking Transparency' (ATT) features will cost Facebook $12.8 billion in 2022". This stops advertisements from being able to tailor themselves specifically to information about you they have accrued from Facebook, simply handing it over to them.

    This is a tricky issue depending on where you are in all of this. From Apple and the consumer's perspective, this is a massive win on our right to privacy online, no longer having to worry so much (if you're on an iPhone) that one of the giant corporate conglomerates of the world is tracking your every move online. While looking at this from Facebook's or a business's perspective, you just lost out on a huge portion of revenue that you depended on to maintain your business year after year. 

    

    Now there is the issue of the large and vocal group of Facebook users and others who downright pray for the downfall of the company. Not without good reason but it isn't a secret that over the last 5 years Facebook has been in the news cycle for countless stories of their platform promoting hate, hemorrhaging money, and world-changing political scandals, typically in the same week. Which just makes the platform a risky venture from the outset. As a business, this platform has one of if not arguably the largest amount of users of any website of all time and promises to consistently grow. But, constant growth is a fantasy, and what we've learned from this company and many others is when that line stops going up and plateaus they often panic, as seen with Netflix and especially with Facebook. The pivot to the "Metaverse" isn't coincidental. 

    Facebook has been losing a lot in recent times. From the over $10 billion lost due to Apple's change in policy. To, as reported by Peter Kafka for Vox, "If you thought Mark Zuckerberg's pivot to a yet-to-exist metaverse is a fantasy, you could point to the $10 billion the company said it sunk into the effort [in 2021]." Finally, Tiktok coming breaking onto the scene and comes out swinging, with a quote from Mark Zuckerberg about Tiktok stating "that the video app was 'so big as a competitor already, and also continues to grow at quite a fast rate off of a very large base.'" All in all, Apple's recent decisions have made starting up and managing a business on Facebook more difficult but not impossible, as previously stated it is still one of the largest platforms for social outreach and growth in the world, with a good economy, and great tools to use for your business. Hopefully, the corporation can stay its course and continue to make it possible for small businesses to start up and run on its site in the future. At the moment while I am still weary of the website, I cannot overlook the opportunity to grow and the good I can do for my brand and business on it. So learning the site will do me better than harming me in any way, I am still excited to see where it will take me and what lengths I can reach on here and other platforms like it. 

Citations:

Kemp, Simon, "Facebook Statistics and Trends", Datareportal.com, August 15th, 2022, https://datareportal.com/essential-facebook-stats, Accessed Dec. 7, 2022

O'Flaherty, Kate, "Apple's Privacy Features Will Cost Facebook $12 Billion", Forbes.com, April 23rd, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2022/04/23/apple-just-issued-stunning-12-billion-blow-to-facebook/?sh=1e3857181907, Accessed Dec. 7, 2022

Kafka, Peter, "Apple broke Facebook's ad machine. Who's going to fix it?", Vox.com, February 14th, 2022, https://www.vox.com/recode/22929715/facebook-apple-ads-meta-privacy, Accessed Dec. 7, 2022

Week 16 Part A: Developing My Marketing Strategy

to develop my strategy I have found that Instagram and Facebook work well together, and Youtube, Tiktok, Twitch, and Patreon are going to be the best platforms to integrate into my business. Using Hootsuite or the analytics given from Facebook and Twitch, I will be able to track my progress in creating my brand. Because, it is just me at the moment and I only need to focus on establishing myself as a brand identity, using Instagram, Tiktok and Youtube will be imperative at the start. My biggest hurdle is going to be surpassing the millions of others in the world attempting to do the same thing as myself, I am going to learn from them and work to carve out my own niche on the internet for myself and my audience. Right now, I've enjoyed using Twitch, Tiktok and Youtube to reach an audience, as those are the platforms I have been most familiar with over the course of my life, but I still have a few hang ups with Facebook as I have grown to distrust them due to the constant bad news coming out about the company, but for myself and my business I am attempting to finally learn the platform after all this time. I believe a good consistent schedule for posting online and livestreaming will keep my business healthy and happy. Using Google Drive to keep myself consistent in my work and secure with my files and content, it will as well make it easier to share that content when I finally have enough to hire a professional editor or moderator.

Week 15 Part A: What we Learn from Google Analytics.

 

Looking through the Google Analytics webpage, I found some really helpful tools to use while creating my live stream. Similar to how Twitch tracks most of the users and views, a helpful feature is that Google Analytics allows you to connect multiple pages and accounts to track to give you an easy view of everything at once. A few of the most helpful trackers that I know I will be viewing from time to time are the engagement tab of course, just to see how many people have viewed and/or clicked on my sites or accounts, the monetization tab to see the average income any of my platforms have been able to grow and the demographics tab to see who my audience is and how I can either branch out or target them more directly.

Week 14: Social Media Management Tools.

 Research:

    Many of the different management tools are great in what they offer, the only issue being the price and the capability of how many users or profiles they allow per service. Luckily, I am only workiing with myself so I don't have to worry about getting multiple accounts or paying extra. The first site I looked into was Hootsuite. While it has the best analysis for your analytics and a good price range compared to the others, it does get weighed down by microtransactions to compensate for the free to low price. However that free price tag is a good bargain if you don't mind spending a bit more to access additional features.

    The second tool I looked at was Buffer. It as well has a free sign up and a great price if you're on a budget. The only real downsides are that it doesn't integrate super well with platforms beyond the basic ones (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc), as well the fact that there are only 3 profiles allowed on a free plan. Narrowing down its helpfulness quite a bit.

    The third tool I looked at was SocialPiolet this one unfortunately did not have a free plan, but even the cheapest option at $21 a month had more than enough to offer to be worth the payments. 10 Social Media Accounts for one user and with a two-week trial. For a paid tool it has a pretty good amount of features available for the price tag and getting even better with more accounts and users at higher prices. 

    Personally, I would use Buffer for my personal accounts as it seems like the best option on a budget. While, one day moving up to something like SocialPiolet would be great when working with a team or business.

Week 13 Part A: Online Advertising - Analysis of the Marketplace

 1. Look for examples of advertising or sponsored posts on FaceBook, Instagram, and other social media. What draws your attention? What is their call to action? Do they use imagery and is it effective? Which ads are annoying? If you click on their link what did it go to?

2. Compare the impact of traditional advertising (in newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio, TV, etc.) to advertising done on Social Media. Which seems more practical to you?

3. Some online advertising seems more similar to traditional advertising, not dialing into the individual consumer's tastes and search patterns. Where do you see this? Some become almost too dialed into what you have researched in the past. Does this feel intrusive at times? Or helpful? 

1. What typically draws my attention to ads on social media are the colors and the use of intellectual properties I am familiar with. Their calls to action are typically that they are on sale or they will sell out soon so you should go to the webpage and buy it now. They often use imagery of anime or superhero characters to draw my attention, and it works most of the time. The ads that are annoying are ones that have nothing to do with me or tailor to my personality, just generic brands with boring imagery and wording. Clicking on the link on Instagram usually opens up a tab on their webpage directly to a list of products.

2. Comparing traditional marketing and social media marketing is often like comparing apples to oranges. Due to how different they are, while Tv, magazines, and billboards will allow a big group of people to see you often in a large metropolitan area there is still a small number of people that will follow up on the message. Leaving your target audience often in the dark or missing out on your product or service. Online, however, you can exclusively tailor your ads and messages to people that you directly wish to target using tags and the options given by most websites. Even better, typically at a lower price than a huge billboard or Tv commercial.

3. While yes, tailoring your ads to the specific user is extremely helpful and can have a good turnout on whatever it is you providing. It can very well, get lost in the noise if it is too generic or equivalent to a quick tabloid on a magazine. On Instagram and Tiktok it is still very likely you will run across a majority of ads that don't have anything to do with you and are just attempting to sell a product you aren't interested in, but it is as well a double-edged sword. As we've seen the consequences from Facebook and Amazon of what it is like to be too in-tuned with their audience. Tracking personal data and generating ads and messages to specifically target an individual can very quickly go off the rails and have dire consequences in real-time. Often leading to the user feeling almost spied on by the companies for things that they are being told they will like.