Week 5- My Business

The business I will be using is our English Language Institute (ELI) at MiraCosta College.  I am the coordinator of this program in my department. 

This program is designed for international students who want to come to MiraCosta to improve their English.  Our students TOEFL score is not high enough for credit level classes so they attend ELI to prepare for credit level classes, or to get a better job in their own country.

There is much competition out there with ESL programs so I want to learn how to maximize our marketing efforts through social media without having a large marketing budget.

Target Market:

International Students

Agents/Educational Consultants

Age range:  18-30

Gender: Male and Female

Martial Status: Single

Income level: 40,000-75,000 (mainly support from parents income)

Educational level:  Post High school with 1-3 years ESL training, not over 500 TOEFL score

Parents should be college graduates

Top 9 Countries: China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Brazil, Russia, 

High Schools, Colleges, Trade Schools

Urban areas, Cities

Websites I use

Etsy- www.etsy.com

Etsy is a website I use very frequency.  This website is efficient because it is very easy to navigate.  The search bar works great and everything is laid out very easy to see.  The design is clean and the alignment is the same on each page which makes it easy to follow.  Brand is follwed throughout. Pictures are big enough to see and help with showing the consumer all that they offer.  Pictures can also be made bigger and more information is given once you click on the item you want to see.  I come back to this site because it is easy to use, they sell great products, and billing is very efficient.  I have no idea what could be improved with this website.

Amazon-  Amazon.com

Another website I use all the time is Amazon.  This website is efficient because they offer so many different products.  The website is easy to search and the reviews are very helpful.  Another thing I like about this site is that they suggest other products that might interest you based on products you have searched or bought.  I do think some pages on Amazon could be less “busy”.  Overall their layout is user friendly but can be a little overwhelming if you have not ever used their site.  Their side bar could use some improvement.  It has way too many categories.  These could be scaled back.  I also had a hard time finding any links to the social media sites.

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly offers exclusive photobook layouts so you can make your book just the way you want.

Week 3- Websites- The good the bad and the ugly

http://tectorch.com -Problems 

1.This website had way too much text on the home page.
2. The text alignment was all over the page.
3. Some of the text was too small.
4. No prices were listed under products.
5. No links to social media.
6. Side bar was confusing and was gone once you scrolled down to the bottom of some pages.

 http://www.swagelok.com –Problems 

1. Text was a bit small
2. On “About” page the links to sites at the top were too small to see what they were
3. Couldn’t find a contact phone number on contact page. There was no email address either, just a form to fill in and submit

 http://apple.com – Great website 

1. Nice landing page (simple)
2. Navigation page at top very simple and clearly states all their products
3. Whole website is very clean and appealing. It was simple yet very dymanic. Colorful with lots of pictures 4. Lots of ways to get support (manuals, videos, tech specs, downloads, communities)
5. Phone numbers to contact very easy to access 6. Brand is carried throughout whole website

 http://www.toyota.com- Great website

1. Great design (simple, not too much words, nice colorful pictures)
2. Easy to navigate
3. Great feature to allow you to build a car (pick color, type, features, models, extras)
4. Clear ways to access support and social media

Week 2 -Social Media on Business Websites

MiraCosta College
http://www.miracosta.edu/
Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr (Bottom of homepage)

Stone Brewing Company http://www.stonebrew.com
Facebook, twitter, instagram, You Tube, Google + (Upper left corner of homepage)

Target
www.target.com
 Mobile, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. (Bottom left of homepage)

SurfRider Foundation
http://www.surfrider.org
Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, RSS, You Tube (Bottom of homepage)

Reef
www.reef.com
Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Pinterest, Instagram, Miss Reef App (Bottom right homepage)

Recently I had a hard time contacting a company called Chicago Skates. I wanted to buy my six year old daughter a pair of roller skates from her birthday. I went on several websites such as Amazon to look for types and read reviews. I finally picked out the perfect skates. I decided to order them through Amazon since when I goggled their company website, I found their website was hard to navigate, I couldn't find the exact skates I wanted and the phone number on their site was no longer working. I also tried to see if they had a Facebook page, and they did not. The trouble I was having was trying to determine the size I needed to order for her. Since children’s shoe sizes are completely complicated and some brands run large I had no idea what to order. I read tons of reviews on Amazon about the sizes and still couldn't figure out how the sizing for roller skates worked. I was unable to contact the maker so I decided to ask in the comment section on Amazon. After two days with no response, I decide to make my best guess as I needed the skates in time for her birthday. Unfortunately, when the skates arrived the following week, they were too big! I was so frustrated! I had to spend extra money to send the skates back with expedited shipping costs to get the new ones in time. If the company would have had a social media website or a working phone number the problem could have been answered very promptly. Below is a picture of my little “Roller Girl”.

Personal Vs Business Social Media

There seems to be a gray area when it comes to social media in the business world and regarding personal use. I use Face book, Intragram and LinkedIn for personal use and I use Facebook for our department’s business page. I have yet to use Twitter or Google+ so I am not sure which they would be best suited for. Blogs I feel would be suited for business and personal due to their nature and the amount of information that can be stored on the page. Blogs could be used for tutorials and lengthy information that you would not want to put on a Facebook page or Twitter. It also depends on the type of business when it comes to choosing social media platforms and which is most appropriate and for what audiences.

Assignment 1

 I chose the "simple" template because I have no idea what I am doing yet.  

These are my kids.  Just messing around with the tool bar now.  :)