Social Media Campaign - Roy's Pizza and Pasta

To be honest, I have really enjoyed this social media campaign project! I like viewing the different analytics of the posts that I have put on the Roy's Pizza and Pasta social media sites. There are a lot of improvements that have been achieved through my efforts on the social media sites, but I have also recognized that there is some room for improvement. This post is going to go over a few different details pertaining to the improvements and needs for Roy's Pizza and Pasta social media sites.

To start, I do want to post a picture of the posts that were on the Facebook page before I started posting my original content. Below is a screenshot of the 5 posts before I took on their social media.

The posts found on Facebook for Roy's only included a weekly automated post describing the lunch special for Roy's. The weekly posts were a hit or miss on whether it gained any reach or engagement. Some of the automatic posts did surprisingly well (like that post with 260 reach and 13 post clicks and reactions) but others didn't do well at all. For the social media campaign, I decided to post something original at least once a week, sometimes more. Below is a screenshot of the current 5 most recent posts on the Roy's Facebook page. 

During this semester, I have tried doing a combination of original writing posts and posts that have pictures with them. The posts that had pictures with them did undeniably better than the posts that only had plain text. The average amount of reach for the automatic weekly posts throughout the semester was 75. The average for original posts with only writing was 137. The average reach for posts with pictures with them came to 392 reach per post. Clearly, pictures are the way to go! I only posted one external link throughout the semester because it was in reference to an article from The Spectrum that specifically reviewed Roy's Pizza and Pasta. That link is shown within the 5 most recent posts and has the most reach and engagement from any of the posts that I have done previously throughout the semester. Posting items with more than just text created the best opportunities for reach, engagement, and page likes. 

It is important to note that all of the reach and engagements for the Roy's Facebook page is all organic, meaning I didn't pay to have an ad posted for them. If I continue to post for Roy's (which I am hoping that I will still be able to) then I will eventually want to pay for an ad to see how much reach and engagement can come through paid advertisements. I had created a mock-ad to see what an ad for Roy's would look like. I came up with something like this:

The Facebook ad that I had come up with links to the website for Roy's Pizza and Pasta. I mainly added the link so that the description of the sourdough crust and housemade sauces would pop up on the actual Facebook ad. Again, I would like to post an ad like this one to gauge how effective it would be at creating reach and engagement. I mainly didn't pay for the ad because I want to review what type of ad the manager for Roy's would like to pursue and gain an estimate to how much money he would want to spend for it. 

Aside from the 5 most recent posts, I also wanted to review how much activity has improved since I started working on the social media for Roy's. Below is a screenshot for the total amount of page likes since I started working on the social media till now. 

Before I started helping out with the social media for Roy's, their total number of likes was 521. Now, they currently have 544. While my weekly posts have helped contribute to increasing the total number of page likes, I definitely see that there is still work that needs to be done. One thing that I would have like to have done during this semester was to continually work with the manager and create promotional deals on the social media sites. I feel like if Roy's had weekly deals or maybe even some giveaways that could be added to the social media posts, then more people would see the page and like it for potential deals. Currently, the posts that I have been doing are simple pictures or text that mainly keep the page active. I would have loved to have done a kind of deal or giveaway to see how much more activity would have been done on the page. If I am able to continue doing the social media for Roy's then I would love to meet with the manager and try something like this to see how well it would do. 

Besides page likes, I also wanted to see how much reach was obtained through my efforts. Below is a screenshot for the amount of reach within the time I have been posting for Roy's. 

The posts for the beginning of January are exclusively the automatic, weekly posts that have been going on for a while. The reach afterwards shows all the various texts and picture posts that I have done to help contribute to the reach for the page. Like I wrote before, having a picture with a post created a lot more reach and engagement, which is seen in this screenshot. 

Another thing that I want to touch on is audience. When I met with the manager asking to do this project, he had talked with me about the age groups and types of people that he wanted to see engaging with the social media sites. He figured that older people wouldn't really use social media, so he wanted the posts to cater to individuals around the ages of 18-45. Below is a screenshot comparison between the type of people who like the page and the people the posts reached. 

The people who actually like the Roy's Facebook page do contain mainly 18-45 age individuals. What I thought was interesting was that there is a surprisingly higher amount of women who like the page than men. Even though more women than men like the Facebook page, the reach and engagement of posts was closer to 50-50. Again, the majority of people who engaged in posts were around the designated age group for the different market personas that my manager and I came up with (with the exception of some 45+ people who engaged with the posts.)

The last point that I want to touch on for the social media campaign is the Instagram account for Roy's. When I was given the Instagram information for Roy's, I realized that the account was set up as a personal account rather than a business account. This means that I couldn't access any insight data pertaining to the posts. I ended up changing the account to a business one so that I could gauge the insight data for the Instagram account. Below shows a screenshot for the followers of the Instagram account.

 

Again, the individuals using the social media are within the age group and market personas that my manager wanted me to target. Unlike the Facebook account, the gender difference between the people who like the Instagram account is 50-50. Even though I couldn't get the insight data for the few posts before I took over the account, I briefly saw which post from before I started posting had the most amount of likes. The picture that had the most likes before I started posting my original photos had 18 likes. Since then, my pictures have had a few more likes and engagements. The highest amount of likes for one of my photos on the account is 38. Even though it isn't a dramatic change, more than doubling the highest amount of likes from before I started is a great accomplishment. If I continue managing the social media for Roy's, then I know that the total number of likes will increase from constant social media activity. 

Overall, I think that there has been some great improvements for the social media pages for Roy's Pizza and Pasta. Again, posting photos and links created a lot more engagement and had more effective results than just plain text. My weekly activity also helped create more reach and engagement, which was one of my main goals for the page. I wish that I would have had more involvement with the manager to schedule and create various deals and incentives for individuals liking the page and engaging with the posts. In order for the page to create more involvement, Roy's needs to offer a bit more than just photos for the page. The age groups for the social media audience is already set up for the target markets that the manager wants to reach through social media. Continual engagement and posts that cater to this age group will make the page flourish even more.  I would love to be able to continually work with Roy's to implement more ideas and create better opportunities through social media. This assignment has been a great opportunity for me to learn more about how businesses can utilize social media. 

Sustainability & OTM 3 (Out With The Old...)

The first part of this post will be dedicated to the sustainability project that we did in class. I was part of the group that discusses the homeless problem. I didn't come up with the idea for our group and how to exactly solve the problem, but I did contribute to group discussions. I helped research different facts and statistics about homelessness, as well as researched the Project Homeless Connect (the non-profit that we discussed during our presentation). I also created the powerpoint that our group utilized to help give our presentation.

I thought that the sustainability project was a great project for us in this class. If nothing else, it created great discussions about how technology and social media can be used for creating wonderful opportunities and solving real world problems. We had discussed in class various problems and troubles that come with social media (like privacy) which made this project a great opportunity to look at the possibilities of social media. I was thoroughly enjoyed by all of the great discussions that we had in class. The discussions about the real world problems and solving those problems through social media that makes me really enjoy this class and the other individuals in it.

The next part of this post will be about the On The Media for this week. I completely forgot to do my third and final on the media post, which is why I hadn't published one until now. The most recent On The Media post is titled "Out With The Old..." and proved to be quite interesting. I learned about a lot of different things that I didn't know before. There are three main sections to this On The Media. The first section discusses the Senate and filibusters. The second section discusses taxes and why filing taxes is a difficult process. The last section discusses our current geological era and the future geological discoveries that would be made about our generation.

I had started this On The Media podcast and was listening to the information being provided, but they kept throwing around the world filibuster. They kept discussing how a filibuster was used by the Senate, but I had no idea what they were talking about. I had to pause the On The Media show for a solid ten minutes while I researched online what a filibuster is. Honestly, I still don't know exactly what a filibuster entails. I read this article from the New York Times that helps explain a little bit of what it is. What I learned though is that a filibuster is a tactic used by the Senate when making decisions. From what I read, it seems like a filibuster is a form of a loop-hole that the Senate can use when trying to get enough votes. Utilizing filibusters seems like an interesting tactic that is beneficial when it works for you and a pain in the butt when it doesn't. The On The Media podcast discussed that a filibuster allows the majority to blame the minority when votes don't happen. It seems like filibusters have been used for many years over a wide variety of government decisions. The reason that filibusters was being discussed on this particular On The Media podcast is because a filibuster was used to include Supreme Court nominations. Another aspect about filibusters that was discussed was the "nuclear option", which apparently is used by the majority to overrule the delaying actions of minorities.

Essentially, filibusters and "nuclear options" seem like a big, giant mess that we call the United States Senate. While these various government tactics can seem destructive, threatening, and/or nonproductive, it seems like this is the way the government is. Those who understand how tactics like this works will love them because they understand it. Someone, like myself, who doesn't understand how these tactics and policies work is, quite frankly, a little scared of them. If there is one thing that I have noticed during the past months dealing with politics is that politics can bring out the worst in people. The sustainability projects that we did in class came to my mind when listening to this part of the On The Media podcast. There has got to be some way to make politics and the government more efficient. I have no idea what that could be, but there has got to be a better way of doing things.

The next section of the On The Media podcast deals with filing taxes. The podcast discusses how filing taxes each year is a complicated system. The podcast seems to address and pretty much talk about their own sustainability project, which would be to provide an easier way of doing taxes. One of the ideas that was discussed on the show would be to create a simple system where the IRS, who already knows pretty much all the information that we tell them during our tax forms, would send out a form or paper that shows how much they think we would need to owe them.

The show then discusses the pros and cons of this type of tax filing system, as well as the unlikely possibility of having it become a real system due to for-profit tax filing organizations. Many tax filing organizations (H&R Block) rely heavily on people using their tax software for making taxes easier to file. If filing taxes became very simple and easy, then companies like this would go out of business. Tax filing companies want people to use their products. They want to be simple enough to stand out among competitors, but don't want a tax filing system from the government that is so easy that would run them out of business. Honestly, having a super simple way of filing taxes would be fantastic. I just got done filing my taxes and having a better way of doing taxes would be very helpful.

The last section of the On The Media podcast discusses our current geological era. I, personally, found this section of the podcast to be quite entertaining and thought provoking. The podcast was discussing how this period of time is creating so many different changes and opportunities that is going to heavily affect the Earth's physical structure. The idea that was discussed a lot during this podcast was "what geological discoveries are going to be uncovered millions of years from now because of our current state of living." Listening to all the different things that were being discussed were quite interesting. Apparently, many of the world's chicken bones find themselves in our landfills since we eat a lot of chicken. These areas of highly concentrated chicken bones will make an interesting discovery someday. It was many ideas, such as the chicken bones, that really made me think about what impact we are having upon the world.

While discussing these future geological discoveries, the podcast talked about how we, as humanity, will one day die away and become extinct. Similar to how the dinosaurs had a large impact upon the world before they themselves became extinct. In referencing the work of one researcher, the podcast discussed 5 different ways that humans are wired to destroy their environment. These different factors are:

1- Humans value their personal interests over other interests.
2 - Humans value the present over the future.
3 - Humans are obsessed by status.
4 - Humans unconsciously copy the behaviors of those around us.
5 - Humans disregard novel environmental threats.

These 5 different ways that humans are wired to destroy the environment really made me think about how applicable these really are. There are many instances (especially numbers 1, 2, and 3) where these different, negative attributes are shown throughout society. While it is kind of strange and fearful to think about what is in store for humans in the future, it still interesting to learn more about what the future has in store for humanity.