WEEK 3 Part 2: 5 Business Websites

5 Business websites and social media they are using:

1. 101 Things To Do San Diego
https://101thingstodosw.com/san-diego/
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest
Last dates social media was used:
Facebook  7pm on 9/11/17 8707 page Likes
Twitter 6pm 9/11/17  16.9K Followers
Instagram 4 pm on 9/11/17  1178 Followers
Pinterest no dated posts on Pinterest. 526 Followers

Brief analysis: I see consistent use on Facebook and Twitter, with Twitter being largest platform. Good images and videos, coupons and things to do.  It seems that Instagram is used but not daily. Pinterest seems outdated on some of the giveaways.

2. San Diego
https://www.sandiego.org/ 
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google+,  Blog, Pinterest, Linkedin
Last dates social media was used:
Facebook Sept. 9 at 8:45am    419,743 page Likes
Twitter  Retweet 9/10   151K Followers
Instagram 7pm on 9/11/17  113K Followers
YouTube 1 week ago on 9/4 7800 Subscribers
Google+  16 weeks ago  9628 Followers
Blog Sept 5 no data
Pinterest No dated posts on Pinterest  2713 Followers
Linkedin  8/28/17  5860 Followers

Brief Analysis: A large following on Facebook and overall. I'm assuming due to good content (weekly things to do posts), great photos. I did notice only once a day posting! Very consistent on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and their blog. Much more sparse in Google+ and Linkedin. Pinterest was very well organized and easy to look at.

3. San Diego Convention Center
https://visitsandiego.com/san-diego 
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google+,  Flickr, Linkedin,
Last date social media was used:
Facebook 5:45 9/11/17  22,409 page likes
Twitter 4:45 pm 9/11/17  15.2K Followers
Instagram  9/5/17   2571 Followers
YouTube 8/28/17  154 subscribers
Google+ 1/7/16  24 Followers
Linkedin  9/5/17    1625 Followers
Flickr 7/22/17  1371 photos

Brief Analysis: Active daily on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Twitter is their largest platform. Very little usage in Google+ and Flickr.


4. San Diego County Tourism
http://sandiegocountytourism.com/
No visible social media channels on website.
I did some investigating and found them under a different name on:
Facebook  9/5 651 page likes

Brief Analysis: How are they even getting anywhere? No social media links on their website, and under another name on Facebook with minimal followers. This is likely why I've never heard of them.

5. Visit California (San Diego section)
http://www.visitcalifornia.com/region/discover-san-diego-county
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube
Last date social media was used:
Facebook 5pm 9/11/17   1,691,106 page Likes
Twitter    5pm 9/11/17   79.7K Followers
Instagram  5pm 9/11/17  295K Followers
Pinterest  No dated posts on Pinterest  8002 Followers
YouTube  2 months ago (July 2017) 23870 Subscribers

Brief Analysis: Facebook is their biggest platform. Active daily on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Somewhat consistent on YouTube.


Of the five businesses I chose I am seeing consistent use of social media with the exception of San Diego County Tourism. Everyone seems to use the average rule of 1 to 4 postings a day max. There were great images being used by all and some video. Not as much video as I'd like to see personally. Of course that excludes YouTube channels.  I was surprised at the high followers for Twitter pages! I really thought it was dying out but it some instances it is doing better than Facebook pages. I'm thinking it's because of the brevity of the posts.

I'm noticing that people gravitated towards posts that offered them something and/or had really great images.  Posts that were just informative seemed not as popular.  If the images were cut off it made me wonder if they knew what they were doing. Fortunately I didn't see too much of that. Another thing I noticed was grammar. Some of the posts/tweets were missing a word, likely accidental, but nonetheless bothersome to me anyhow.

Instagram is really growing too it seems. With many of the businesses having equal followers on Instagram as well. I really appreciated seeing new and updated videos on those with YouTube channels. I don't use YouTube too much but the younger generation seem to be all over it and so having that good content is valuable. Gives their audience something to share.

I was really surprised that San Diego County Tourism had no social media links on their home page! As I had said above, I can't see how they will grow as a business without this basic need for webpages nowadays.  Also I noticed that Visit California had it's social media links all the way at the bottom of their very published webpage. So it took quite a bit of scrolling to find it. I wouldn't recommend it. Too much content on the main page for me.

To me a successful business is one that has a simple and attractive website with social media links clearly at the top. It makes me think they're interesting and likely have things to share with me. Content that will come to me vs. me having to search the site often. Especially in regards to traveling and not knowing a place, it's nice to have a business on social media that will share helpful planning and fun content on things to do etc.  I appreciate the blog link on Visit San Diego. I think that's a neat tool and gives them content to share out to social media when people are looking for something a little more in depth for travel instead of a simple post. Yet they can share the blog articles to their social media in a post. Double win.

I think having multiple social media platforms is not a bad idea if you have the people to run it for you. For example, the Google+ and Linkedin were rarely used and followed with the exception of Visit San Diego had a nice size following however, making me wonder if it's just the content!  But overall I'm not sure I would put the energy into it unless I had time and great consistent content that would reach the demographics for each platform.

Overall a good business will be consistent on all social media platforms they can keep up with, by changing up the content with images and videos, keeping it brief, offering the audience something valuable and something that makes them want to talk about themselves so you learn more about what to share.  This is turn leads to sales as you can share out what you know your audience loves and wants!


This week I commented on:

Karen Derival

Izik Gazette 

Krongton Na-Songkhla

Felipe Pretti