Week four: Who is my target market.

Who is my target market?  This is a very important question for any business or service.  The answer to this question will set the frame work of what you do and how you do it.  Without knowing the answer to this question a business can waste significant time and resources with no real chance of obtaining the goals the want.

When I started to try to define my target market I was a little confused and torn in different directions.  On one hand I thought of all the people that struggle with simple technology tasks, like syncing their phones and computers.  On the other hand I thought about the people who are always looking for the next big technology tool.  The range of people seemed very vast and I knew that I needed to narrow the parameters to find a manageable target market.

I was able to find some very helpful data on who actually looks at technology blogs.  This data will give me the more defined scope I need to begin my en devour.

So this is who I am looking  for.  Males predominately read tech websites or blogs.  There are varying measurements on this, but the majority of statistical information puts the number between 60% and 70%.  Of these men roughly 50% to 60% are between the ages of 35 and 64.  The income varies from 30K to 100K+ for the vast majority.  The readers are overwhelmingly white approximately 85%.  Also a large majority of them are from the USA between 63% and 68%.

Week Three: Two websites that I use.

The first site that I use frequently is www.thenewboston.com. This site has evolved over time but still consists mostly of a compilation of instructional YouTube videos. The main strength of the site is the content.  It has information about the topics I am interested in learning and presents them in a thorough but light hearted way so it is easy to learn.  The website uses a modern and color coordinated structure that is pleasing to the eye.  It also has a easily visible and well laid out side menu and top menu.  It also has a large in page player for the videos so that you can watch the videos and remain on the site.  I believe that it could be improved with a a more visible and easy to use search function. There is a lot of content on the site and it would be nice to be able to search quickly to get to a specific topic.

Ted.com: Ideas Worth Spreading

The second site that I visit often is www.ted.com/.  Again this is a favorite of mine first because of the content but also the the style which it is delivered.  This site uses a clean and professional home page that clearly expresses the sites purpose.  The home page is well structured and has a highly visible and easily understood menu system.  The site also has a handy search bar right at the top so that you can filter to the content you are looking for.  The quality of the videos is very high and pleasurable to watch and that always brings me back for more.  Honestly I do not see much to improve about this site.  Maybe they could increase the number of videos because there are never enough to watch.

Week Three: Aesthetics, Design and Branding.

For this assignment I reviewed a few sites to express how I perceived the the presentation of the sites.
Some good, some bad. I tried to give my opinion of how they could be improved or what I liked about what they were already doing.

Site #1

Tectorch.com:  TEC Welding Products, Inc.

As I viewed the website in Chrome, the first thing that hit me is that the website has a very dated format with very little graphical structure.  As I looked at the site in more detail, I could see that some of the layout and element were not properly coded so there were missing graphics and broken structure.  The site is overwhelming at first glance with sprawled text and stacked highlighted links.  With these problems it left me with an unprofessional first impression of the company.  This site could greatly benefit from a nice multiple page layout and menu bar with drop down menus. Cleaning up the home page would also improve the sites appearance so that it is clear and crisp and expresses the company’s strengths.  With a nice structure easily navigated through a stylish tool bar and drop menus, this site would represent the company in professional manner.  

Site #2

Exmouth View Hotel

This site also struck me as dated and unprofessional.  The structure, if there is any, is a random spattering of pictures, links, and cheesy graphics. It makes it difficult for a viewer to follow and find what they are looking for.  I did not think that the pictures were of advertising quality.  With the site being poorly put together it would make me suspicious of the quality of the hotel.  They could add some written highlights of why people would visit this area that would be helpful as well.  It looks to me like someone is playing around learning how web coding works.  I would suggest that the site be redone with drop down menus to organize it better.  I would also suggest a slide show style feature with textual description and professional photos.

Site #3

--   Apple.com

This is a clean site nicely laid out and easily navigated.  The home page is a good example of less-is-more with only artistic graphics and a slogan to set the tone.  The use of the multi-page layout and top menu bar navigation makes the site very easy to navigate to what you want and allows appropriate space to highlight the products on each page.  This type of a site expresses professionalism and confidence.  

Site#4

      Ford.com                

In my opinion this is another site that is well laid out and organized.  It has an easy to follow top menu with a multi-page structure.  The graphics are simple but elegant and professional.  The home page is not over whelming but still expresses the company’s strength.  The page design requires minimal scrolling and would be usable across larger and smaller devices.

Business use of social media.

Here are five business's that I found using social media. What they are using? How often they use it?

1. Inland Auto

• URL http://inlandauto.com/
• Facebook: Last Post 2/13/15
• Yelp: Last review 3/14
• Surecritic:  Last Post 2/5/15, 
• Google+: 1/26/15

    2.  Wilson Creek Winery

• URL http://www.wilsoncreekwinery.com/
• Facebook , 17K likes
• Twitter: Last post 2/15/15
• Linkedin: 317 followers

    3. Target

• URL: http://www.target.com/
• Facebook: 2 to 4 posts per day
• Twitter: Post every 2 to 3 hrs
• Pintrest: Don't Know
• Instagram: Don't Know
• Youtube 2/15/15
• Google+: Don't Know 

      Links to social media from Targets website do not work.

    4.  Marshall Kirkpatrick

• URL: http://marshallk.com/
• Twitter: 57.5K followers

    5. ZDNet

• ZDNet.com
• Facebook: Posts every 2 hours
• Twitter: Post every hour
• Youtube: They have been active fro 1 year, posted 222 videos, last post 2/14/15.

Week Two - Have you ever experienced difficulty communicating with a business? Would social media have made it easier to get noticed or get your problem solved?

Is social media improving customer service?  My experience with business and customer service has mostly been a one sided communication similar to commercials of the past. Business's seem to use social media more as a marketing tool. Most business's simple post there information to get it out there and if they do have a comment section they never respond.  All the great tools in the world can not improve a company if they do not use them.

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On the other hand I do know that some the newer style tech forums and you tube channels that I follow and use do respond to the people who are watching.  I have had problems with understanding a process from a video or getting something to work right and by posting my question in the comments they have answered me and solve the problem.  I know that they also use viewer feed back to determine some of the content they produce.  This makes there business dynamic and responsive directly to there customers.

I don't know that I think bigger business's will ever be able to capitalize on the benefit of personal communication through social media because of the volume and scope of there customer bases.  Smaller businesses will be able respond faster and on a personal level I believe.  Bigger business's will move slower and tend toward the concerns of the masses through big data.

WEEK ONE: SOCIAL MEDIA! BUSINESS or PERSONAL?

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Online citizenship and social media platforms are made up of personal profiles, professional profiles and company profiles.  Often these different representations of people and entities are co-mingled on the same media space.  Business's want to promote products and services or connect with customers. Individuals might be shopping or just trying to share and communicate with their friends and family.

For a business it becomes important to know how to behave on which platforms. Being too pushy or sales oriented in the wrong place can earn you some bad public relations in a hurry. Certain types of social media, like Linkedin or Yelp, are geared mainly for professional and business use.  The other social medias, like Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, have become a real mix of personal and business users.  I think the question has changed from if a user belongs on these platforms to how they belong on these platforms.

One thing is for sure: when a large market of potential customers is created by these social media channels, business will find a way in.

Week One! What template to use?

Since I am brand new to blogging I chose the simply layout with a color scheme that is not to busy and wont distract too much.  Also it looks like the template can be changed later so as the blog begins to have content on it I will have a better idea of what template I think works best.