Week 6 Part A

I still have not been able to get my Facebook business or even personal page created yet so I was not able to actually like/follow any businesses as of yet.  However, I did research seven brands that are similar to the business I would like to create and/or would share my target market.  

Initially, the first company that came to mind was Claire's since that is where I purchased a majority of my jewelry growing up. However, I do recall almost every item I bought from them breaking after not many uses, so although they share my target audience, my company's goal would be to create higher-quality and more durable products than Claire's offers. The following six brands I hadn't heard of before, but found them through a Google search of children's jewelry/accessories companies.  

The brands I chose are: In Season Jewelry, Tiny Blessings, Alex and Ani, Molly B London, Pip Pop Post, & Super Smalls.  I chose these brands because they all share my target audience and they all emphasis at least one aspect that my company would also strive for including high-quality, durability, and elegant designs.

I spent some time looking through all the brands Facebook pages except for Molly B London, which doesn't have a Facebook page (although their website does have a Facebook icon that leads to an error message saying "content not found").  I looked at their Instagram instead to compare and they have 23k followers and post regularly, but don't have high engagement.  Claire's and Alex + Ani are the two with the most followers at 1.5M for Claire's and 1.8M for Alex & Ani.  Tiny Blessings and In Season Jewelry are mi-side with 32-34k followers. Pip Pop Post and Super Smalls have the least followers at 6k & 2k.

Of course, the higher the follower count the more engagement the posts receive, however, I noticed they all had pretty low engagement in general.  This was true for Alex + Ani and even Claire's, which was a bit shocking.  All the companies post pretty regularly and the majority of posts were videos showcasing their products and/or customer/influencer posts. I thought all the posts were really well-made except for Super Smalls, which has a lot of posts where they photoshop their jewelry onto celebrities and it looked unprofessional.

Week 5 Part B

The main difference between post reach and post engagement is that reach tracks views whereas engagement tracks interactions with your post. The importance of reach is to know how many individual people got to see your post, which gives you an idea of how wide your post is spanning. Post reach is also really important for businesses as they can adjust their target audience to reach their desired audience. Post engagement is one of the most important metrics to know, which lets you have an understanding of how well your post is doing. Reach and Engagement are not intertwined, meaning you can have low reach with high engagement and vice versa so it’s good to be aware of both.

Adjusting and increasing your post reach will help get your post or content in front of the audience you desire. Getting your post to reach the right audience gives you the opportunity to increase your engagement. Post engagement gives you the knowledge of how people are interacting with your post including likes, reactions, comments, sharing the post or even clicking on a link within the post. This is a key metric for most, if not all, businesses or advertisers to understand how high their post engagement is.

Most businesses utilize Facebook advertisements to market their products or services, even my former employer Dr. Moradi who is an amazing plastic surgeon. It was very important for them to reach a very specific audience to better their chances of receiving more clients. They would run their Botox day advertisements and based on the engagement of the ads, we would have an understanding of how busy we would be in the office.

My personal data is very important to myself as I've always been leery of who or what information of mine was out there. Also it's very surprising how many very specific ads I would receive, it's like I would not even have to search just to be in conversation and the topic would come up as an ad. As a business this very powerful information is helping them make more sales and get their content to the people you are most likely to purchase their products.

Week 5 Part A

 I had a very difficult time trying to create a Facebook business page and ultimately was unable to.  I took a break from social media a little over a year ago and haven’t been back on since so I was starting from scratch.  When I tried to make a business page, Facebook directed me to first make a personal page so I did.  

However, as soon as I created my personal page, it was suspended for no clear reason even after I had verified my email with the security code they sent me. There was a button to press to appeal their decision so I did that. It made me make a video of myself moving my head around to prove I’m a real person.  Which I did successfully complete, but then it said they need to review it which can take 48 hours.

This all happened last night and as of tonight I still haven’t heard anything back.  I did, however, manage to get a business logo created through Picsart, which I will include in this post.

On my Facebook business page “About” section I was going to write: 
Where imagination meets elegance - Discover Delilah's Designs! We are a small, women-owned, family (mother & daughter) business creating high-quality hand-made jewelry pieces designed by a child, for children.

Week 4 Part B

My business's target market would be little girls ages 5-13 and their parents.  Girls that are interested in jewelry, beauty, and value high-quality materials. I don't believe marital status, family size, education level, occupation, race, or religion would correlate to our target market making a purchase or not. 

I believe our target market would be interested in our products as a form of personal expression, to increase their self-esteem and confidence, for special occasions such as birthdays, holidays and other events, for themselves and/or to give as gifts.  I would hope that all of our customers would feel beautiful and special when wearing our products and would be happy with the high-quality materials, durability, unique designs, and value for the cost.

Week 4 Post A

 The websites I chose to compare are Green Thumb Nursery and Tree of Life Nursery.  I was excited when I saw Green Thumb as an option because my uncle, Dale Bergquist, was actually the founder.  He opened their first location in Canoga Park in 1946 and I have many fond childhood memories there.  Oddly, I've never visited their website before today.

The first thing I noticed on Green Thumb's website was an offer for coupons by joining their email newsletter list followed by a picture of some employees (some of which are Dale's family members).  Their website is designed really nicely with pretty, eye-catching colors and pictures.  It was easy to navigate and included plenty of information such as links to classes/events, services, their blog, job application, environmental commitment, history and even a picture of each staff member of their different locations, which I thought added a nice personal feel that you don't usually get from larger companies.  Mostly all their services are the same for every location except free landscape design is offered at the Lake Forest location only.  They also have an online shop, which broadens their target market even further.

The biggest first difference I noticed when looking at Tree of Life's website was that it is much less visually pleasing; using the colors brown, dark green and a pale gray-blue.  Since they only have one location and specialize in local native plants, their target audience is much more niche and smaller compared to Green Thumb's. Their site had less information in general including less pages, but was also easy to navigate and included some similar links to Green Thumb's including workshops/events, services, blog, careers, and also included pictures of their employees.  

A link that was found on Green Thumb's site which was not on Tree of Life was the environmental commitment.  And vice versa, a page I found on Tree of Life which was not on Green Thumb was a link to artwork for sale.  They both had the call to action of signing up for their newsletter. 

In conclusion, although they are different sized companies, some of their target base is similar and overlapping, whereas some is different like with Tree of Life specializing in local native California plants.  They both have a similar tone and message that they are specialists in their field and have a passion for plants.

Week 3 Part B: Developing a Brand

I don’t have a brand currently, but a future business idea I have is a jewelry store selling pieces designed and handmade by my 5 year old daughter and I. The company would be called Delilah’s Designs and my daughter would be the face of the brand. The logo would feature a rose since that is Delilah’s middle name.

Our tagline would be "Where imagination meets elegance - Discover Delilah's Designs!"  I believe this tagline tells people what they can expect from our business, which is high-quality & uniquely creative pieces of jewelry.  The majority of children's jewelry is poor-quality and looks childish.  Our products would be durable while also looking beautiful, and would have the added unique touch of being created by a child for children.

Our color scheme would consist of rose gold & silver, ideally in metallic finishes.  Our choice of colors is based on our two favorite colors of jewelry materials.  My favorite jewelry pieces have ways been silver and Delilah is usually drawn to rose gold accessories.

The font we would use is called Sassoon Primary.  We chose this font because it was researched with children to improve legibility.  Since our target audience is children, it was important to choose a font that would be legible and appealing to children.

We would start out as an e-commerce company so we would create and grow our brand recognition through our website and social media pages first before potentially branching out into brick-and-mortar stores.

Wk3 Comments

 The students I commented on are: 

Alex Victoria

Troy Smith

Katie Nava

Blog Week 3 Post A

 I never really thought about how important website design was before since I don’t often encounter bad websites. However, after looking through some of the example websites, it was very easy to tell the bad ones apart from the good ones!

There was one website that stood out as the worst in my opinion, which was https://itcorp.com/
It has no aspect of design at all; no logo or navigation bar, not a single link, its literally just a plain white background with a couple lines of black text and that's all. I was shocked to see how short and simple it was. Although, to give them credit, they did actually answer the question of why their website is so plain and it is because they are not trying to attract any customers and have the website for the sole purpose of owning the domain.  I think they could improve their website by at least including some color to start, but they don't seem to be interested in improving/changing anything.

Another website that stood out as bad, which I happen to be familiar with is https://sandiego.craigslist.org/
Personally, I grew up using Craigslist to buy/sell things, adopt pets, find jobs, find roommates (few good ones, but the majority were pretty terrible), etc.  So I'm used to how it looks and how to navigate it.  Although I don't use it much anymore and when I do, I use the app as opposed to the actual website.  Critiquing it from a design aspect, it is rather plain and can be a bit confusing to navigate as its essentially just a bunch of links. Its a bit overwhelming and definitely not entertaining or aesthetically pleasing.  I'm sure there's more than a few ways they could improve their site, however, I actually enjoy the simplicity of it and wouldn't change anything at least for the nostalgia factor.

Referring back to last week's blog post, the first website I chose as an example of a good site in my opinion is https://nutraleaf.com/
I'm  probably a bit biased since it's a family-friend and my husband helped create the website, but I've always thought the website was aesthetically pleasing, colorful, entertaining, informative, and easy to navigate.  Looking deeper, I also noticed their proximity of text to images is great as well as the hierarchy of text, and their logo is in the optimal position of top left. 

Another website that I personally enjoy to use is https://tartecosmetics.com/
They change their website often since they constantly have new products to feature so it's always fresh, exciting and entertaining. They include a lot of pictures and videos, which make it feel very interactive. After reading this week's lecture, one thing I noticed that they can improve on is their alignment as most sections are aligned in the center as opposed to the left.

I learned that design and aesthetics make a huge impact on how consumers will use a website and how long they will spend on it.  If it is too cluttered and difficult to navigate, people will get confused and not want to waste their time trying to find the information they are looking for.  If its the website of a business that is trying to sell products/services, then that would result in loss of sales. Ultimately, a good website is such an important aspect and asset to a company.

Week 2 Part B - Business Research

Below are the five businesses I chose to research:

 NutraLeaf Nutrition

1. https://nutraleaf.com/
2. NutraLeaf Nutrition is a small local (San Marcos) plant-based protein and supplement company with less than 5 employees. 
3. The social media platforms they use are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube & X and the links can be easily found on their website. 
   
   • They are most active on Instagram, posting stories/reels daily usually. As opposed to their other platforms like Facebook & YouTube, which haven't been posted on yet this year. 
     
   • The date of their last post on Facebook was May 15, 2023 and YouTube was 4 years ago.
   • On Facebook they have 8.9k followers, 85 subscribers on YouTube and 25.7k followers on Instagram.
4. I chose NutraLeaf as my first company to research because they were the first company that came to mind when I thought of a true local, small business.  The owner is a close family friend and at one point I was helping manage their customer service including social media communications and my husband helped build their website and was running their Facebook Ads.  Therefore, I already knew a fair amount of how they operate and use their social media, being most active on Instagram.

 Huel

1. https://huel.com/
2. Huel is also a local (San Diego) plant-based protein and supplement company, but they are not small.  They have over 100 employees spanning across multiple offices so I consider them mid-size.
3. The social media links found on their website are YouTube, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, TikTok & Instagram.
   
   • They haven't used X recently, but they do use all the other platforms almost daily.
     
   • Their most recent post on X is from April 2024, Facebook is today, YouTube is yesterday, & TikTok is today as well.
   • Their follower count on YouTube is 17.2k subscribers, Facebook 297k, Linkedin 57,103 followers, X has 21.8k followers, TikTok 81.4k, & Instagram 419k.
4. Huel is active on all of their social media platforms aside from X.  I think that they could benefit from using X more regularly as well since they have a decent amount of followers on there.  

 Vega

1. https://myvega.com/
2. Vega is a large well-known plant-based protein and supplement company.
3. The social media links found on their website are Facebook, X, Pinterest, Instagram, & YouTube.
   
   • They seem to be least active on Pinterest, but they are pretty active on all their other platforms.
     
   • Their last save on Pinterest was a year ago, most recent post on Facebook was yesterday, and YouTube was 2 weeks ago.
   • On Pinterest they have 38.3k followers, Facebook 520k, Instagram 172.4k, & YouTube 12.8k.
4. I wasn't surprised to see that Vega is active across their social media pages since I've seen a lot of influencers post about them before.  They have a pretty successful affiliate marketing program.

 Orgain

1. https://orgain.com/
2. Orgain is a large well-known protein and supplement company that has plant-based product offerings, but is not strictly plant-based.
3. The social media links found on their website are Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, X & YouTube.
   
   • They are active daily on almost all their platforms except on X.
     
   • Their most recent post on X was years ago in 2018, on Facebook a couple hours ago, on Pinterest a couple hours ago, & on YouTube 2 weeks ago.
   • Their follower count on Instagram is 201k, Facebook 204k, YouTube 5.23k & 16.2k on X.
4. Similar to Huel, Orgain is active on all their social media platforms except for X.  It makes sense since their follower count is drastically larger on Instagram and Facebook compared to on X.

 Garden of Life

1. https://www.gardenoflife.com/
2. Garden of Life is a large well-known protein and supplement company that has plant-based product offerings, but is not strictly plant-based.
3. The social media links on their website are Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, & Pinterest. 
   
   • They seem to be most active on Facebook & Instagram.
     
   • Their most recent post on Facebook is a couple days ago, YouTube is a year ago, and Pinterest is 7 months ago.
   • Their follower count on Instagram is 208k, YouTube 7.24k, Facebook 219k, & TikTok 44.7k.
4.  They were the only ones that did not include a link to X on their website, which is smart since all the others included it even though they don't even really use it.  Their most used platforms are Facebook and Instagram, which are where they have their largest followings as well.

    In conclusion, I think Instagram is the most popular platform overall amongst businesses. Some of these businesses sell their products both online and in-store whereas some of them sell only strictly online.  The companies that are e-commerce only do rely on social media even more.

    There was a common pattern of X being the least used platform among all of the businesses.  I'm not sure exactly why that is, but it was true for all the companies.

    I think the aspect of social media that has been the most helpful to sales is affiliate marketing and user generated content.  It is the virtual version of word-of-mouth referrals, which is much more trustworthy and persuasive than traditional advertisements.