Week 16; post 1

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 discussed without a cap on the length of your discussion.

The amount of time a business spends on social media depends greatly on the type and size of business, as well as the goals of that business.  For example, if you are just a person running a very small operation out of your home as a hobby, maybe your goal is not to grow, but just to enjoy your little venture and keep it small.  If you are someone that is trying to grow a business, you'd want to spend much more time on social media interacting with customers and trying to gain more followers.  Our business is more of a hobby and we want to keep it that way, for now at least!

Content creation is important to keep your readers/subscribers/followers engaged and coming back for more.  You've got to have interesting things to say or you will lose people.  My husband had a blog many years ago ,"I Heart Halos".  At the height of the blog's popularity, he was posting almost daily.  Being that this was before the technology of the smart phone, it took quit a while to upload and edit photos, formatting took longer, everything took longer than it does now!  He was dedicated though and gathered a good following.  He even had some paid advertisers.  All this to say, seeing what it took for him to get to the point of having advertisers makes me know we will not be doing that again anytime soon.

Instagram is the platform that we use most now.  Content consists of posting pictures with short blurbs about card details.  If there is anything interesting to add about the card, how, why or when it was acquired, for example, that would be posted too.  Posts to our instagram page happen when there is something to post, no schedule here.  Prior to this course, we did not utilize a facebook business page.  This would be a good place to post events that we've attended, videos of box breaks, share interesting articles about players, etc... I think weekly posts to the facebook page would be sufficient and easy enough to keep up with.


Comments

  1. Visual media is the way to go in regards to social media marketing. It is becoming such a prominent theme in social media that now we even have social media platforms dedicated exclusively to visual media (i.e. Instagram). YouTube would be a great platform if one had the time, but it takes a lot of work and there is simply too many videos on YouTube for you to achieve valuable exposure.

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  2. Hi Lisa!
    I agree with you that social media marketing is so useful, even with a smaller budget. I was in the same boat as you prior to this class. I primarily used Instagram because it it such a popular visual platform to promote my business. I didn't use Facebook as much, but just as you have mentioned now knowing what to post on that platform can help make it a beneficial tool. I like the idea of posting events, videos of box breaks, and articles about players!

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  3. I totally agree its really important to choose a platform that best suites the product or service you are selling! Instagram is also my favorite i find it a advertising powerhouse that is what i use the most also! great plan worked out!

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