CSIT155

How To Read My Posts till week 6:

I have added pages in my blog, for each weekly post I have added a page, so in order to read my posts please click on the week 1 Posts, Week 2 Posts etc. 

Week 6 Post

These are the seven sites I feel will attract my customers and will help my business as well :

https://www.facebook.com/ndtv/likes

People, who like Indian jewelry, may also want to know about India, this is a news channel which provides excellent information about India. Their website is also great.

http://www.stylecraze.com/articles/25-most-beautiful-indian-bridal-looks/

This site is so cool…talks about Indian bridal make up. People should know how an Indian bride looks; at the same time the models are wearing the jewelries which are very similar to my product! So when you wear my jewelries you may want to make up like this…who knows!!

http://www.livescience.com/28634-indian-culture.html

I found this page talks about Indian culture, food, festival etc. Most of my jewelries are having a traditional look and will have some cultural back ground or history, which I will talk about in my future blogs, so this page will work like an introduction of Indian culture to my customers.

https://www.paypal-media.com/connect

In future most of my business transactions will be through PayPal only, so I would like to receive notifications from them, and my customers also can read their page/blogs and feel secured while buying my products.

https://www.facebook.com/MyShaadi.in

I liked this site a lot. Though it says for bridal photography and mostly for India, I have a plan…may be in future I will ask my customers to wear my jewelries and dress up nicely with makeup and send me some photos of them (if they agree) , then I can create a photo gallery of those customers…what do you think??

http://www.indiansaree-online.com/

I love this website; they have beautiful collections of Indian traditional sarees. I thought people who are buying our jewelries may take a look at the Indian traditional clothes also. Not only Indian I have seen people from other countries or from different cultural background also have started liking it.

http://www.latestindianjewellery.com/

This site talk about all the real jewelries from India, they are made up of Gold, Diamond, Silver and precious stones. This site will help my customers to know about all the designs and term of jewelry from India, we can sell the similar type of jewelry at a very low price since these are not real.

Week 5 Posts

The difference between post reach and post engagement.

Reach measures how many people have seen your post. With some paid support (recommended), your post’s reach can increase exponentially.  

Reach is a good indicator of how well you are getting your product or business name out there.  But with today’s over saturation of information, is Reach is not enough. Just because a consumer saw someone’s post in their News Feed, it does not necessarily aid in brand recall, purchase intent. How to establish the relationship with the customers? In case of a new business these numbers are good to measure success because one should first have to build his/her fan base and then capture their attention in order to build a relationship.

Engagement metrics indicate interactions beyond just simply views. Facebook defines engagement as including all clicks, not only comments, likes and shares. It’s important to understand that just because your post has a high Reach, doesn’t mean you will have high engagement. Some posts may have LOW Reach but HIGH Engagement.

It really depends on how compelling the post is and how it resonates with your target audience.

Why is knowing the difference important?

We should remember that the high Reach can sometimes lower Engagement because more people have to interact with your post. 

The more people engage with your posts and create stories, the more likely the post will appear in your consumer’s newsfeed and be viewed by their friends as well. Posts with highly engaged users are more likely to indicate a consumer’s intent to purchase or loyalty.

Engagement on a post means the consumer is “leaning in” and willing to take the time and share their connection with your product or business. More credibility for your product or business can be gained if your posts are liked, shared or commented on by your fans. Thus for most businesses, to measure the success of your posts, you should concentrate on metrics that indicate engagement rather than just reach.

What is Facebook Insights and how can a business use Facebook Insights to better serve their customers

Facebook has just rolled out the new Facebook Page Insights to everyone.  It is a great tool because it offers a ton of new metrics to analyze: Likes, reach, engaged users, visits and more.

To better serve the customer we should follow these:

• Create content with your customer (and not your business) in mind – what’s most important to them and what would they like to share?
• Ask questions or solicit feedback, especially for text-only posts
• Include images that connects to your consumer
• Include some sort of branding on your posts but not in an “advertising” way
• Reward participation/engagement on your posts
• Track the People Who Like Your Page metric to see if your content is relevant to your target audience

So basically we should be loyal to our customers, answer all their questions, update them on a regular basis and make them happy.

Week 4 Posts

I have decided to work on my Costume Jewelry business (online), where I will bring the jewelries from India. I have already worked on this project during my Web Design and Development and Marketing classes, so it would help me a lot  to proceed with this business idea.

The name of my business is : GlamHind Jewelries

Brief Description of the company : 

The name derived from Hind (India) and glamour. The company will do web marketing for Costume Jewelries from India. This company will apply the niche marketing strategy by targeting only the women of age group 20 -50. All the products will get imported from India. Their Product lines are – earrings, necklaces, anklets and bracelets, which can be sold as sets or as individual items. 

Target Marget

Jewelry is the temptation that no woman can resist in the world. Every woman is crazy about the ornaments. Jewelry can be defined as the ornaments that are worn by men and women to accessorize or for personal adornment. Basically jewelry is used to intensify the beauty; jewelry items basically include bracelets, necklaces, anklets, earrings etc. The jewellery industry in India is huge and has a varied demographic uniqueness. Each state has its own design which GlamHind will capital. GlamHind is trying to sell online and targeting the women of age group between 20 – 40. Most possibly they are the working group as they cannot find the time and energy to go to a store and spend hours in finding the perfect product so they prefer online shopping at their convenience. People who buy everything online like clothing, books, CDs, etc can also be a huge target as they believe in only online purchasing and they trust that source of purchase.

Segmenting GlamHind Market

The company will use the following characteristics to segment its market:

Geographic segmentation – since this company is adopting web marketing, the target market will be the entire world (though initially only in US).

Demographically this company’s segmenting will be done on several variables, such as:

Age group (between 20-40), Gender (Female), Income (Working group as they do not have much time to shop, but it includes low income group also), Ethnicity (Obviously Asian Indian will be a major segment but the business will target the American women as well), Education (Educated and interested about world history as well as technology savvy) .

The type of company is global, as it is web based.

GlamHind’s strategy for selecting target market will be concentrated targeting.  It selects a market niche for targeting its marketing efforts. Since it is only a small segment or a particular group, the company can concentrate on understanding the needs, motives and satisfactions of that segment’s members also to maintain a good marketing mix. It could be more profitable also.

GlamHind will use one to one marketing strategy .This way it will be able to build a profitable relationship with its customers.

Positioning is the place a product occupies in customer’s mind. In this case “Beauty And The East “ tagline may create that place . This company will use the price and quality (low price and quality) as a base for its positioning. As it is a web based company so “emotion” will play a major role, how the ladies feel after they physically touch the ornaments or wear them. By the name GlamHind , the company will be able to attract Asian Indian as well as women from all over the world.

My hope is Based on the evaluation of target marketing and the successful implementation of marketing mix GlamHind can survive in the long run.

Week 3 Posts 

Thursday

I have selected these two sites 

http://www.ford.com/  and  http://www.toyota.com/

Three potential problems for visitors: 

                http://www.ford.com/

 1. It was difficult for me the top most tabs in white, in the back ground of light blue. They could have use a different contrasting color for the first line, the highlight in white looks good.

2. Did not find any social media sign to follow them or their blogs. Just saw a Ford social but not anything like Facebook, Twitter etc.

3. Make a payment is the most important option and it is hard to find, it must be highlighted or found easily.

4. Also I believe their contact number should be displayed on the top of the page somewhere as it is the first thing a customer will look for. The contact us option is very small and at the bottom of the page .  I feel at least one hot line number should be somewhere close to the logo or on the top of the page.

What could be improved on this website and why?

I feel some more color contrasts will make this site more attractive. Displaying the hotline number will be easy for customers. Also a small video by any celebrity about great features of Ford would add some value, and a slide show of its best cars along with features would also increase its marketability, because at first the customers will select a look and feature and then they will go for further details like make, price, availability etc.

                http://www.toyota.com/

1.       Toyota has a really great site and it is difficult to find any problem.Only thing I can say that site is little sophisticated so people who are not that IT savvy can face difficulties while exploring it.

2.       Here also I feel the customer service number or email should get displayed somewhere prominently.

3.       One more thing I saw that once I was in the owners page the page opens in another window and the logo does not take us back to the main home page , because it becomes the logo for owner page, a little confusing to use as mostly  the logo works to take us to the home page. 

Choose two and identify what they have done right.

 http://www.ford.com/

I liked their sitemap, it helps a customer a lot to find out what they are looking for.

Also like their home page short and not much scrolling to go to the bottom of the page.

I love their simplicity also.

http://www.toyota.com/

It is really a great site, specially I loved the feature of the slideshow in the home page. Also on the top of the page we can enter our location for more specific results. All the Toyota Social icons are easy to find. Their color scheme is awesome. Loved  their photo gallery too.

How do design, aesthetics and branding impact your reaction to the websites?

Both the sites are addressing all the above points, the sites are made for the customers who wants to buy cars. When I said the customer service hot line should get displayed very boldly then I think it should help the branding image of the company to get some more loyal customers when they feel the company is willing to serve more. Also the improvement in navigation and color contrast will make the search easy and interesting. This way the design will improve. Any social media site other than the company’s own social site will also give the customers a comfort to trust them more. This will be more appealing to the audience.

Monday

Add the url of two websites you use or visit frequently.

Discuss: 

1. Why are they effective? 
2. What specific principles of good design do they include and why?
3. What makes you come back again?
4. What could be improved?

http://www.weather.com/

I like to visit the above site almost every day to check the weather.  It gives us a very accurate forecast of weather which helps us to be prepared for the worse condition, specially it helps me a lot to dress up my daughter in the morning , either to give an umbrella with her or not.

Color contrast and different sizes of fonts makes the site very attractive. Breaking news appears in red to draw our attention. The home page is using the concept of Proximity by making small groups, for e.g. Video, Photos, Maps and forecasts, winter storm central etc.  The fonts are readable and the site is easy to navigate.

The information is based on accurate data and that brings me here every time. I can give my own zip code as home and every time I go to this site I can see my city’s weather on the top.

To me it is a perfect site but still I can suggest a slide show of this week’s weather can add more value to it.

http://www.ndtv.com/

I also visit this site everyday as I am from India and my mom and other relatives live there.  It keeps me updated about India.

The site is very simple and easy to navigate. The color scheme is very clean, white back ground with lots of images (as a link) which provide color contrast. Combination of big and small fonts is also eye catching. It has a beautiful menu bar the color of which changes differently while navigating. For sub grouping different sizes have been adopted , for e.g. Watch is having  smaller boxes, Business , Tech and Cricket are bigger again photos at the bottom are smaller, and it gives contrast to this page.

Current news, a live TV and the great design of the site brings me here.

Do not know what needs to be improved.

Week 2 Posts

Have you ever experienced difficulty communicating with a business?

Yes we had a bitter experience with an Asian internet TV company. They were providing all the regional channels that we were looking for. After trying them one month for free we took the connection.

We paid in advance to them and also agreed to the scheme of automatic debit from our debit card every month.

At the beginning we could see all the desired channels and the quality was also good. We were able to chat with their technical team through their website and they used to solve our minor problems.

But suddenly we were not able to view anything and when we went to their website all their contact us  page was not appearing and chat option was also not working. So it was impossible to contact them, and every month our money was getting deducted from our account.

Would social media have made it easier to get noticed or get your problem solved?

It was a helpless situation and then we started searching about the company and their activities through google. We found lots of comments from many users who has suffered and still suffering and we realized that we are also a victim. Those blogs and comments helped us a lot, We also joined the forum, but the company never got back to us. We had to cancel the payment option to get rid of them.

It was a learning session for us, now before opting for any purchase or any other financial activities we do a thorough research online about the company. Not only in their blogs but also check the customers reviews. Thanks to the social media.

List Of 5 businesses and their social media

1. www.ebay.com

We use ebay to buy and sell electronics, cars, fashion apparel, collectibles, sporting goods, digital cameras, baby items, coupons, and everything else. They use the following social media :

http://www.ebay.com/talk

https://www.facebook.com/eBay

https://twitter.com/eBay

https://plus.google.com/+eBay/posts

   

2. http://www.dish.com/?WT.svl=main-nav

Dish Network is an American direct-broadcast satellite service provider. The company provides satellite television, satellite internet, audio programming, and interactive television services to commercial and residential customers in the United States. As of November 2013, the company provided services to just over fourteen million subscribers^[

They are using :

https://www.facebook.com/DISH?WT.svl=social-img-fan-us-on-facebook

https://twitter.com/dish?WT.svl=social-img-follow-us-on-twitter

http://www.youtube.com/user/dish/Hopper

3. The Marriott group

http://travel-brilliantly.marriott.com/?scid=62adf9ad-8aee-488a-a143-567371e6bb00&ppc=ppc

They are using the following social media  to follow them:

http://instagram.com/marriotthotels

http://www.pinterest.com/MarriottHotels/

https://www.youtube.com/MarriottHotels

https://twitter.com/marriott

https://www.facebook.com/Marriott

4. One of my favorite shopping center is

http://www.macys.com/

They are using :

https://www.facebook.com/Macys

https://twitter.com/macys

http://www.pinterest.com/macysofficial/

http://www.youtube.com/user/macys

http://mblog.macys.com/

5. LA fitness is a very popular name

http://www.lafitness.com/Pages/Default.aspx

and they are using :

https://www.facebook.com/LAFitness

https://twitter.com/lafitness

http://www.youtube.com/lafitness

https://foursquare.com/lafitness

https://plus.google.com/+lafitness/posts

http://instagram.com/lafitness

Week 1 Posts

Which social media platforms seem geared towards personal use and which ones seem to work better for business?

In general the name “social media” implies that the sites are geared towards personal use—that they exist for individuals only, rather than for businesses. Technically Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Websites and applications dedicated to forums , micro blogging,social networking,social bookmarking, social curation and wikis are among the different types of social media.

Nowadays the most popular sites are:

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube,Google+, Flickr. There are some more like Instagram, Slideshare, Tumblr etc. I am a big fan of Facebook for my personal use, to chat with my friends, share my status, emotions, create a group and enjoy a private conversation and share photos and videos as well. According to statistics from the Nielsen Group, Internet users within the United States spend more time on Facebook than any other website.

YouTube also mostly used to share videos and movies. I use it to watch Indian (Asian) movies for free, and the quality is really good.

Flickr is a great site to upload photo or albums, it is easy to use. 

So in my opinion the above three sites are mostly being used for personal use but Facebook and Twitter both can be used to promote a business as well. Let’s discuss about the platforms that work better for business.

Facebook is also used to promote a business and it can be done at zero marketing cost, the owner of the company can open a business page in Facebook, can provide the link of its website, add some images and they keep posting about the company on a regular basis. It can use the viral marketing concept by sharing the sites among friends and requesting them to share with their friends and so on so forth.

Twitter is a free micro blogging service that allows registered members to broadcast short posts called tweets. Twitter members can broadcast tweets and follow other users' tweets by using multiple platforms and devices. This way it is very helpful for any business.

LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically for the business community. The goal of the site is to allow registered members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally.

Pinterest is a social curation website for sharing and categorizing images found online. Pinterest requires brief descriptions but the main focus of the site is visual. Clicking on an image will take you to the original source, so, for example, if you click on a picture of a pair of shoes, you might be taken to a site where you can purchase them. An image of blueberry pancakes might take you to the recipe; a picture of a whimsical birdhouse might take you to the instructions. It is also mostly focus towards business use.

Be it personal or business oriented nowadays we cannot live without the social media sites.

Week 1 Post 1 

Hi Friends

I would like to talk about the imaginary business for this class. It is the city bike renting company of San Diego. Please visit the website to get a feel of the business ;

San Diego City Bikes

Please provide your feedback after visiting the site.

Thanks

Kalyani

Introduction

Hi 

I have selected this template because I liked the road in the picture which is leading us somewhere far far away...somehow I can compare our social media class with this picture, as if we are riding the bus CSIT155 and going to the world of social media where sky is the limit! Sounds poetic but I just loved this image.

I was also attracted by the following features of this template :

1. Fixed back ground and the transparent scroll feature on top of it.
2. Even if there are color every where the posts are on white background and readable.
3. The simplicity and the natural color scheme of this template gives a fresh look to this blog. 

So Our Journey Begins Now!!