Week 9 Personal Blogging

How personal you are on your blog depends on the purpose of your blog. If it's a blog about your business then posts should be more professional with only a little bit of personality. For example, If I was giving my opinion about a product I was selling than that would be the personal part of it. If your blog is more about yourself or a non business topic than adding more personality makes sense. 

On the other hand, it also depends on what your readers and\or customers want.  If they give you feedback that they want a more personal touch on your blog than that's what you should give them.  You may also share too much on your blog and readers may ask you to not be so open. The key is to know your readers and customers and finding the right balance.

Week Eight

I searched the words Bowling Products and Bowlers to find connections of bowlers, bowling alleys, companies, organizations. These were the only words to find my connections.  I found professional bowlers. Jason Belmonte, Parker Bohn III, and Chris Barnes. I also found bowling  business. Bowling vids, Inside Bowling Today, Junior Bowling Today, Tim Burg, Bowling scores, Amf Bowling, Bowling expert, MCC Social Media, Storm Bowling and Bowlingball.com

I made 2 lists: Bowlers and Bowling Organizations. The bowler list is so that my tweets are more personal because they are going to individuals.  My bowling organization list is for communication that is more general since these are companies. Making these lists help me to create specialized tweets for my specific lists. I think more people see my tweets when they are bowling which is usually at night and on the weekends.

Week 7 Comparing to similar businesses

I compared Bowlingball.com and Bowling.com to my business. I picked these 2 businesses  because they sell bowling products and have a similar target audience as my company. They both use Facebook, Twitter, and Google +.  Bowlingball.com uses Social Media better than Bowling.com. They have 144,268 Likes on Facebook compared to only 42,902 Likes for Bowling.com.

On Twitter, Bowlingball.com dominates Bowling.com despite having a similar number of followers. The 2 biggest differences are number of tweets and how many people each business is following. Bowlingball.com has out tweeted Bowling.com 4,883 to 1,786, which means 3 times as much information and interaction is taking place between Bowlingball.com and it's followers. Bowlingball.com is also following more users than Bowling.com 4,322 to 509. Again, Bowlingball.com is reaching more users 8 times more than Bowling.com. People like to be followed on Twitter and so Bowlingball.com is making a real effort to connect with customers.

I believe Visual Media can be effective for my business, but it comes down to effort. From my research of these 2 other companies I found that effort was the biggest difference maker.

Week 7 Visual Platforms

My comparision of the 4 platforms:

Youtube is a place for watching videos that people make for just about any subject. From a business perspective having a Youtube Channel or videos promoting and informing customers about new products is very valuable. Having these videos make it easy for customers to access information about products and the company's they like. For my business I don't think that YouTube is the best platform since my products are better promoted through pictures.

Instagram is great for in the moment promotion of your products. The different photo filters allow for more creative expression. I don't think Instagram is the best platform for my business because I don't need to jazz up photos of bowling ball and bags also I don't have a camera phone so I wouldn't be able to use Instagram to it's full potential.

Tumblr is about blogging about your business. to give customers more in-depth information about your company and products. It is geared towards people who like to read about products instead of watching videos.  I think this platform would work really well for my business once I become a better blogger.

Pinterest is a great way to visually organize different subject matter. By creating different boards you make it easier to navigate products or topics you want to see. You can also easily get ideas from other Pinterest users. I believe this is the best platform for my business because it's easy and effective way to see all my products.

Week 6

It's makes a lot of people see these products.

Week 6 Businesses that I liked

I liked the pages of 6 local bowling alleys and the PBA Tour. The bowling alleys were,

• North County Tavern and Bowl
• AMF Eagle Lanes
• Vista Entertainment Center
• Surf Bowl
• Poway Fun Bowl
• Parkway Bowl

By getting connected to local bowling alleys. I can promote my business through local bowlers and pro shops. I can become the supplier for these bowling alleys and have banners, flyers, posters, etc that way when bowlers want to know where to get the best products my company will be the one they go to.

By getting connected to the PBA Tour, I  can stay up to date on all the tournaments and professional bowlers. Networking with professional bowlers could lead to endorsement deal which would get my company recognition national level.

Week Five

Post Reach is the number of people who have seen your post. Your post counts as reaching someone when it is shown in news feed.

Post Engagement. You will reach more people when you boost posts.

A business can have Facebook insights for customers and have likes.