Social Media Course

“The future is in photos for social media. More and more people are not reading, so I try to attach a photo to most Tweets”

Tyra Banks

This course helped me understand how powerful social media is in our culture. I honestly can not think of a single job on the planet that doesn’t require social interaction! Every business needs a team to excel in their work which requires social interactions. Social media has taken this essential concept and put it on steroids. Social media for example Facebook mirrors social interactions offline such as sharing pictures, gossiping etc. Specially in this pandemic social media has become our main source or social interactions.

Social media can be hard to define, social media is a process-a way of thinking. In my professional life this course has helped me identify opportunities I would have missed before the course. In the beginning of the course we learned about the building blocks of social media nodes and ties. I felt like this section was extremely important to me and the work I do.  I currently work at an auto body shop as the office manager. As an office manager among a million task one of them is to maintain and build relationships nodes and ties. The shop has many social relationships (nodes) from the keystone delivery driver to insurance agents, the list gos on and on. I felt understanding this section in the course has help me understand and implement marketing opportunities I might have not seen before. Nodes are not only the relationship amount people but companies as well. For example I was running a oil change special, I was handing out flyers to everyone including professional individuals. Well one of the guys gave the flyer to his boss and he called me up and offered his support by giving the company a discount on oil. This is one example of how my social interaction with a node transmitted information to another node, which benefitted the company.

Chapter 6 was extremely help for me as well in my professional life. I found learning about the importance of planning content on social media was helpful. Since I am responsible for social median marketing on Facebook, I felt it was a good idea to make a seasonal marketing. For example, the shop does rust repair. Rust repair is popular during Oct to December. Now not all shops offer rust repair, so my objective was to inform the potential customers we provide this service. I posted a picture of a vehicle the shop was working on that has a nasty hole in it, it was rusted threw. I promoted the shop by putting the shop number in the post and letting the public know our techs could handle any rust repair job. The post was value driven and created 4 leads in one month. I create multiple post like this during winter months.

At this point the shop has not invested into paid media, but when I can get it approved, I already know where is would be most valuable to the shop. At the shop we also sell used vehicles, the market is flooded with people selling used vehicles specially on Facebook. I know if the shop can invest in paid media such as running Facebook campaigns this would generate more leads. I have created campaigns before for my own business but not for the shop yet. In my experience you can reach a wider audience when running a paid campaign verse just posting on the market. For example, If I post on the market a vehicle I may get 60 views verses if I run a campaign I can reach 250 potential customers. This go back to value driven content and strategic use of social media.

Understanding social media metrics and how to apply what I have learned is essential. I can make all these posts and put out their value driven content but understanding how to measure my success has help me make better content. For example, I created a post letting people know the shop now is working with Marine Credit Union to help finance any services needed. This post on Facebook was very successful it reached 453 people, 17 engagements and 5 shares.

Overall I feel the course was great, as you can see I do use what we have learned in my daily life. I am the type of person that needs to learn something and actually use what I learned. I also felt the case studies and videos were helpful. The course gave me the foundation I need to drive deeper into social media. There is so much to learn it can be overwhelming, at least now I have a grasp on it.