Lisa Haas

This semester has been a great learning experience.  I always knew that social media platforms are used to grow business, to advertise and to engage customers and audiences, but this class gave me a much better understanding of how this is done.  Data analysis is very important because without it you wouldn’t know if what you are doing is accomplishing the goal. You can try different strategies and judge based on the analytics decide what works best.   I started out the semester not knowing anything about using facebook for business.  I enjoyed going through the process of creating a business page, and realizing it isn’t that difficult!  I liked exploring the different functions that facebook offers for scheduling posts. The scheduling feature makes posting on a schedule very convenient by allowing you to create several posts at one time and schedule automatic publish times.   My husband’s baseball card business is best suited for Instagram and Facebook.  The fact that so much

Blogs I commented on: https://csit155-sp19-gutierrezi.blogspot.com/2019/05/week-16-post-1.html?showComment=1558406428113#c4927907788666841695 https://csit155sp19traceyw.blogspot.com/2019/05/week-16-post-1-future-social-media.html?showComment=1558406801892 https://csit155-sp19ecohen.blogspot.com/2019/05/week-16.html?showComment=1558407264044#c4157037791946896995

With so many social media platforms available, it is easy to see how this generation of entrepreneurs can become so successful with seemingly little to no marketing budget.  One doesn't need to spend a lot to get their business name out there and start gaining popularity.  When choosing which social media platforms will work best for your business, it is important to consider the product or service you are selling, the size of your business, and the budget you are working with. The social media platforms that work best for my business are Instagram and Facebook.  Baseball cards are a very visual item.   Collectors consider them works of art.  Utilizing visual platforms is the best way to sell this kind of product.  Youtube is another great platform, because again it is visual.  We could do live box breaks if we were to have a channel, believe it or not, people do watch other people open packs of cards!  Blogging is another good avenue, as pictures can be posted and topics can be

Ads on social media are a great way to catch the attention of your audience and bring awareness to your products or services.  Design is important when creating your ads.  There are many points to consider.  If your company has a color theme, the same theme should be followed for branding purposes.  Bright colors will pull your reader's eye.  Using a call to action and creating a sense of urgency are good sales tactics as it places a fear of losing out if the reader doesn't act immediately. Carousel Ads or Multi Product Ads would probably work best for our business.  We would be able to showcase multiple pics of eye catching cards using a carousel ad.  Every picture is an opportunity to catch the attention of the reader.  The cards themselves are eye catching and interesting.  Flashing a rare or coveted card to a collector is a great attention grabber that would stoke a feeling of desire to own such a card, which would lead to the collector further investigating our sites and

One of the sites mentioned in the assignment, MeetUp,  I had totally forgotten about.  I created an account on that site many years ago when my daughter was a toddler to try to find other young parents to have kid playdates with, go to parks, etc... I visited it again just now to see if there were any groups out there for card collectors, or collectors in general, and unfortunately did not find any! I was surprised!  Maybe I should talk my husband into starting a group!  I could see people joining the meet up to go to events, ball games, get together and break boxes... sounds fun! I don't know that any other sites noted would really benefit us.  Yelp would if we really turned into a store, but the fact that hubby wants to keep his venture small and personal means we won't be going "retail".   I use Yelp all the time when looking for restaurants.  I like that I can see reviews, have a link to their website, see pics of the food, and in many cases view their menu all

There are many different social media outlets that benefits small businesses.  For our business in particular, YouTube would be a great addition to our platforms.  Visuals really help us because it so much of card collecting is about the art.  Being able to see the products is important.  That being said, I think a podcast would be good too.  Often times card collectors are also avid baseball fans that are interested in the sport as a whole, not just the cards produced of the players.  My husband is deep into the analytics of baseball and could talk for hours about stats if he has an audience.  Meet Up is another site I could see as being beneficial for making face to face contact and connections with people that share an interest in baseball, baseball cards, and collecting.

When searching for baseball card shops or individuals that would be in the same category as we are, I don't find much.  The baseball card shop is a dying venture.  I found one in Santee (All Star Cards) and one in Escondido (All Star Collectibles).  Neither have a strong online presence.  They do not have websites, I didn't find them on social media.  The Santee shop was on Yelp with only 28 reviews (we found this shop 15 years ago when we lived in Lakeside).  The Escondido shop was also only on Yelp with only 4 reviews.  I did come across a shop in Kansas that has the same name as the Santee one.  They do have a website that is very minimal, just a brief blurb about the shop, what they sell, and directions.  They do at least have a newsletter that you can sign up for. Looking toward the larger companies, Dave and Adams Card World, and Blowout Cards are both online retailers that specialize in card collectibles.  They have websites in line of what you would expect from a r

I commented on these week 11 blog posts: https://cristinacsit155-sp19.blogspot.com/2019/04/week-11-newsletters.html?showComment=1557445255466#c2549340381594000254 https://csit155-sp19ecohen.blogspot.com/2019/04/week-11-part-1.html#comment-form https://csit155-sp19francescah.blogspot.com/2019/04/week-11-email-marketing.html?showComment=1557445747506#c602394680239096648 https://csit155-f18-kanjb.blogspot.com/2019/04/week-11-email-marketing-part-1.html?showComment=1557445855278#c3022331802656321473

Newsletters are a great way to keep in touch with your customers.  Its a reminder of your business every time they see your publication.  The frequency that newsletters or publications are sent varies depending on the business.  I receive mailers from stores at least once a week, sometimes twice if there is a long weekend or holiday approaching.  I receive newsletters from colleges I have attended about every quarter.  The society for human resource management sends a newsletter or mailer pretty much monthly. For the type of business we have, I would say monthly would be the right time frame.  We do not currently send out newsletters, however if we did, content would include things like: * Upcoming sporting events * Information on meet and greets that players are doing * New baseball card release dates * Reviews of new to market card sets * Special editions for events such as the draft, playoffs, etc... Content would be plentiful for a newsletter in the arena of sports and spo

Visual platforms are great for our baseball card business.  Collectors look at the cards as works of art.  The colors, the materials used, the era of uniform the player is wearing, the finish of the card.... all aspects that are best captured utilizing visual platforms. We use Facebook and Instagram exclusively because we find it is the best way to capture the art of the cards.  Some collectors/sellers use youtube and stream live on facebook as well to showcase box breaks.  We do not currently do this, but it is a way to engage viewers.  They can be part of the excitement of opening new card packs.  Some people will even collect money from viewers that wish to take a cut of the cards.  The cards end up being split and mailed to the contributers.

Google analytics can provide a wealth of information to those trying to grow their business.  With many data gathering features, it is a great resource to know what is working to bring people to your business and what isn't.  The capability to monitor and analyze so many different aspects can be exhausting, which is why the goal of your advertising is important to consider when thinking about where to spend your energy. Our goal is simply to increase traffic and get our name out there. Yes we sell cards from time to time, but this venture is also about being in a network of collectors.  This goal brings me to the decision of paying most attention to Google ads and Campaign Manager.  These features look at the effectiveness of your advertising.  If our advertising is bringing more people to our site, then the goal is met.  However if there is no significant change in the amount of visitors our pages get, it is worth changing things up to see if a difference can be made!

The ads that would most benefit our business of baseball card collecting and trading would be on facebook.  We have the greatest opportunity of reach here, due to the algorithms used to place products into the feeds of people who KNOW people that like a product or page.   The objective for placing these ads would be to promote the business, get the name out there.  Since we aren't really selling a service, or in some cases not even "selling" anything the goal is to gain word of mouth popularity.  Maybe someone looking for a rare card would contact us by way of just being aware that we exist.   Instagram really serves as a virtual picture album for some of the more interesting cards we have.  My husband feels strongly about keeping that feed "pure".   Given the rational noted above, I chose to go with the following ad types, all on facebook: automatic ad, promote your page, and promote your local business.  The "promote your business" ad allowe