A Final Blog for CSIT155

  There definitely have been changes within the past several months taking this course for our company's, American Plumbing Heating and Air Conditioning's social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.  Within this semester not only did we incorporate some techniques learned in this course, but also hired a new team, Main Street Hub, to manage these accounts!  With this we were able to increase and accomplish our main goal: improve overall web presence.  We have posted community events, posted more content that is relatable to our target market, interacted with our consumers, and such. 

  We have slowly been increasing our business, though it is not as much as we would like.  I believe this is a gradual improvement that will in time show much better results.  However, increased interaction has happened through our content posts and reviews.  There is still improvements being made on a day to day basis and we hope this will show in our results overtime.  Like I mentioned before in previous blogs, our industry struggles with online interaction.  Looking at our competitions, they too have very little interactions with their consumers, yet strive to continue to maintain their presence and engagement with what they do have today.  We too will strive for better results.  Only time will tell! 

  Social media has changed in my viewpoint, due to being more of an advantage for businesses to market, advertise, and promote rather than just a means of social interactions and such.  There are advantages and disadvantages to this, however, for some other industries social media is a power house!   Restaurants for example can obtain great engagements with their consumers and draw in more business.  Retail is another example of benefiting from marketing, advertising, and promoting their brand with their consumers and potential target markets. 

  In developing a business, this course has opened my mind as to what is needed and how to make it happen.  If I were to open my own businesses, I believe this course has shown and taught me the basic and necessary tools to do so.  Even if I had already owned my own business, I would be able to improve and find where it was that needed these improvements and make these changes.  Although, I think another course may be needed to dig more deeper. 

  Overall, this course has given me more insight as to what platforms, tools, etc. is needed to successfully grow the businesses whether it is in the food, merchandise, or any other industries.  Understanding the concepts of how each platforms operate and results one can retrieve from them is also an important insight gained.  What have you gained from this course?  What are your plans for your future in social media?

Week 16C: Blogger's Comments

I have responded to the following three bloggers:

Clark_Bryce

Conahan_Patrick

Williams_Terence

Week 16B: Planning Your Future Strategy

1.    How much time do you think your business should spend on social media marketing and why?

Social media is not yet a strong avenue for our industry, however we should be on top of our engagements, reaches, presence, and activities alike.  It may surprise us later when it does become more of a focus in our industry.  For now, our continued efforts and time will remain on YouTube, Google, and Yelp.  Time spent on our other social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, will be less than that of YouTube, Google, and Yelp.  For instance, twice a week spent of less focused areas and others would range from every other day to every morning/afternoon.  This is where our consumers are when in need and is seeking out help for plumbing, heating, air conditioning, or backflow services.  And this is where we shall be!

 2.    In your blog, please explain why you chose the tools you did, and how you might use them to use and test a strategy over the next six months.

Over the next 6 months we will use Facebook and Google analysis to see our progress and make any changes if need be.  Engagement and bringing in more calls are some that we will focus on.  Building relationships through our online engagements will increase the latter. 

 3.    Plot out a rough draft plan of the next month of content across the sites you’ve chosen, and how you hope they might grow or sustain your business. Be as detailed as possible, including daily or weekly time requirements to meet the goals. 

Since we have an outside company who will be managing our social media platforms, this leaves us to manage the content going out, being published, and such.  We are currently teaming up to actually make these plans and strategies this week.  So I'm looking forward to seeing and learning more of what we can do to progress even further! 

Week 16A: Planning Your Future Strategy

1.    Which ones integrate best with the type of business you have created?

Out of the many tools used this semester, YouTube, Google, and Yelp have performed best for our industry.  Our consumers look for Plumbing, Heating, Air Conditioning, and Backflow services by reviews and word of mouth.  Google and Yelp are the first places consumers go to find such services.  YouTube helps establish a better way to communicate to consumers of what American Plumbing Heating and Air Conditioning (APHAC) provides with its services and the "behind the scenes" look at what our professionals actually do on sites.  It is another way to communicate issues that many homeowners or other businesses experience from time to time.  We can publish tutorial or informational videos to communicate and resolve such experiences. 

2.    Which have you enjoyed using the most? The enthusiasm or lack thereof for a type of media is often shared along with the posts we write. This class gave you an opportunity to experiment with a variety of them. Now you can focus in on what seems the most effective ones to use.

There really isn't one that I have enjoyed the most.  Though seeing results from efforts in improving our reviews has been most satisfying!  We will continue to pursue our improvements every day!  Sharing tips and information with our consumers has helped as well, along with our continued efforts in being more active in our communities!  Sharing these in posts and media brought about higher activity on our online sites as well! 

3.    Which work best on a daily use pattern?

I think having a strategy and organized schedule worked best for us.  We can see this difference in our results overtime!

4.    Which can you still use effectively on a much less frequent time schedule?

Facebook was thought to be used more frequently, however in our industry Google, Yelp, and YouTube is where we should focus our efforts and time.  Today, we will continue to use social media like Facebook and Twitter, though not as frequently as first intended.  We will post content on Facebook and Twitter two to three times a week rather than three to four times. 

Week 15C: Blogs I Commented On

I responded to the following three bloggers for week 15 assignment:

Mejia_Abraham

Schwendel_Gina

Valdez_Marcela

Week 15B: Optimising Yourself & Data Analysis

This week on APHAC Facebook Analytics:

May 5-11, 2017

Actions on Page
Unavailable

Page Views
Total 10 with an increase of  25%

Page Likes
Total 3 with an increase of 200%

Reach
Total 160 with a decrease of 29%

Post Engagements
Total 121 with an increase of 15%

Within the last 28 days, our analysis shows:

April 14-May 11, 2017

Actions on Page
Total 5 with an increase of 100%

Page Views
Total 36 with an increase of 30%

Page Likes
Total 4 with an increase of 100%

Reach
Total 371 with a decrease of 48%

Post Engagements
Total 437 with an increase of 360%

Week 15A: Optimising Yourself & Data Analysis

As far as the features that our Marketing team uses most to help make decisions for American Plumbing Heating and Air Conditioning (APHAC) are as follows:

1. Bounce Rate - We need to know how many people leave the site without engaging with the content and how the rate is impacted (goes up or down) based on changes we make. This helps us know how well the changes affect engagement.
2. Page Views - Since APHAC offers a wide range of services we are able to determine which services are the most popular based on how many visits each service page gets.
3. Time on page - After we determine which pages are most popular based on the type of service, next we see how much time visitors spend on each page to determine which pages are most effective at keeping interest and which are losing interest.
4. Exit Rate - We determine how effective each page is at converting visitors to prospects by viewing the exit rate to see if people leave the page they are visiting to go to another page or if they just exit the site. We use this data to make improvements in the value proposition of the pages.
5. Conversion rate - Finally we use conversion tracking for KEY pages like Contact and Specials to determine the actual rate of people that convert by downloading a coupon or contacting us, versus just visiting the page.

These are the top 5 metrics we use to continually optimize the website for APHAC.

Week 14B: Blogger's Comments

I have responded to the following three bloggers:

Phillips_Michael
McIntire_Laura

Kaufman_Shawn

Week 14: Create Ads on Social Media

Our Summer Facebook ad is illustrated below:

Our customers will be in need of a tune-up this summer.  Every year you should have two tune-ups completed, each before the season.  One before winter on your furnace and another before summer on your AC.  This inspection checks on how your system is performing and what may go wrong during the season.  Sometimes we can prevent occurrences before it happens when a tune-up is performed.  However, this is not always so.  Though tune-ups are advised because it could cost you more in the long run to repair or even replace a unit if this is not done in a timely manner. 

We offer more affordable pricing because we care about our customers needs.  They are like family to us!  We try to meet their needs in offering great deals such as this special tune-up.  Prices do fluctuate, yet are still competitive to other companies in our service areas! 

Our objective is to offer this special on more than one platform.  We usually offer the specials on our main website, so offering it on Facebook as well could help bring in more traffic, engagements, reaches, and drive conversions.  I believe the conversion rate would be best for our company.  The industry has online presence yet lacks engagement.  We will aim for higher conversion rates to drive more business this season. 

Week 13C: Blogs I Commented On

I responded to the following three bloggers for week 13 assignment:

Carlo_Alison

Clark_Bryce

Enders_Ashley

Week 13B: Researching Advertising

  American Plumbing Heating and Air Conditioning can optimize our reach by using Google ads, Facebook ads, and the like.  We recently created a profile on the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce website and the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce.  There we were able to offer coupons.  This can be regarded as a ad placed as members.  When you search us on Google our name pops up with specials.  We should utilize Facebook ads more than we actually do.  I believe I've placed an ad a couple times last year and nothing happened.  There were no results that we were hoping for.  We haven't since.  

  What makes a good ad for our industry?  This question pops in mind when we first placed the ad.  We need to offer a service our consumers cannot turn down and our reputation will support their decision to do so!  The type of service special all depends on the season, weather, and rate of traffic.  In the winter, we would run an ad for furnace or plumbing.  Thinking ahead always helps not only for the consumers, but also for the company.  For example, we would focus on furnace tune ups in the fall just when our consumers are thinking if their furnace will work this winter!  This summer we would focus on AC tune ups.  So, we could run a Facebook ad for a special on an AC tune up.