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.