Week 5 part 2

Our target customers are people in the age group of 30 and over, who are interested in pursuing an alternative fitness and healthy lifestyle, looking for a break from a regular fitness gym. They are interested in practicing their muscular strength, endurance, cardiovascular fitness, and spiritual health in an intimate setting away from a crowded clubs or gyms. They are health conscious, mindful, active people who are active in their communities in preserving their natural environments. We are focused on local people in the Oceanside community that are conveniently located near our studio.

Week 5 part 1

http://www.econobum.com – calls to action for this website consisted of “buy now” logo in a bold color enticing customers to click on the products then leading them to a new page showing the products original price with a slashed mark, then showing the actual price showing the considerable saving.

http://www.justcheapdiapers.com – calls to action for this website is in the form of highlighted logo on the left side of the home page with a “monthly saving offer” and a “save” tab, enticing customer for more saving.

The differences in each company’s target markets, one is focused on families who are environmentally conscious and concerned about using natural cloth material for diapers for healthier experience with their babies and supporting their particular lifestyles. The other company is focused on basic disposable products focused on customers who are on low income, or fixed budget.

The obvious differences in the two websites are the type of products they are selling. One is a cloth product, focused on being environmentally friendly and the other is focused on savings based on purchase quantities. The crossover between the two customers is they are looking for baby products. The conclusion I can draw from their audience based on their website design and overall tone and message, one population are environmentally conscious, a healthy lifestyle and are willing to pay a higher price as long as the products are consistent with their lifestyle. The other population is more focused on great savings and convenience of use.

week 4 Blog response

I responded to:
Holley, Alexis
Enders, Ashley
Jourdan, Priscila

week 4 part 2

https://www.amazon.com/
http://www.cnn.com/

Why are they effective? 
They are effective because of their ease of use and are easy to navigate. There’s minimal second guessing where you can find the information.

What specific principles of good design do they include and why?
I like their products alignment and can easily be tracked down. The drop down menus is summarized where you can isolate a particular products or news and filtering is very easy to use.

What makes you come back again?
What makes me come back is their simplicity and ease of use. It’s a user friendly websites.


What could be improved?
For Amazon, the free shipping offer could be extended for all their products. For CNN, more videos with less advertising attached on those videos.

week 4 part 1

http://www.riversideartcenter.org/
Three potential problems for visitors.
No feedback page for customers. No videos available of their products. There is too much information to read in some of their web pages, it was overwhelming.

 http://www.headhunterhairstyling.com/
Three potential problems for visitors.
Webpage is not mobile compatible, the drop down menu headers are coming offline and hard to read. Webpage design too basic, it could have used more colors to make it jump at me. It was difficult to figure out the company’s target audience.

What could be improved on these websites and why would these improvements help?


The feedback page would allow customers to post real time experience on their website. Videos send a more intimate experience of the activities inside the company. Fewer contents allow the customer to get to the information faster without having to sort out the large data field, which can make reading tiresome. Mobile compatibility is important since a larger portion of customers are now using mobile devices for their look up source. A very catchy web page can help attract attention and conveys artistic effort which can go a long way for some customers. A strong focus on the website demographic can help narrow their target market and help drive the right audience to their website.

 http://apple.com
Easy navigation on all their products with detail information readily available. Great interactive web pages with product videos telling a story. Their use of color was catching on all the web pages and products presentation is catching with bold colors.

http://www.toyota.com/
There website is mobile compatible with easy navigation on all their pages. Their Interactive web pages with auto scrolls help present all the available products in an organized way. The drop down menu is very easy to use with clear and concise product description, available without having to flip through all the pages.

How does design, aesthetics and branding impact your reaction to the websites?
Design, aesthetics and branding creates a great impact on me by allowing me to differentiate a product from the competitors. My reaction to a great website is to feel that connection with my artistic side, lifestyle, and passion. It’s important that I feel all of it, it helps creates a story for me that I can believe in and can help me live better in a dream state.

week 3 part 2

Business name: 

Tokallini longevity, Shanti Kitti Yoga, Body Morp San Diego, Black Sheep Yoga,Quality Express t-shirts.
Business website url:
Tokallini longevity–(no available website),https://www.shantikittiyoga.com/, http://www.bodymorphsd.com/,http://www.blacksheepyogastudio.com/, http://www.printerlistings.com/Quality-Express-Tshirts.html 

The social media they are visibly using [links on their website]
Tokallini longevity:https://www.facebook.com/longevity10/ (well used, last post dated Jan. 25, 2017), https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokallini-longevity (not updated, no active posting), http://stores.ebay.com/Tokallini-Longevity-Outlet (active account with available products for online ordering), https://www.groupon.com/biz/folsom-ca/tokallini-longevity (well used, last post dated August. 2016)

Shanti kitti yoga: https://www.shantikittiyoga.com/ (well used, last post dated for Feb. 12, 2017 event), https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shanti-Kitti-Yoga/300769716739932 (well used, last post dated Feb. 9, 2017), https://twitter.com/shantikittiyoga (well used, last post dated for Dec. 10, 2016 event), https://www.groupon.com/biz/oceanside/oceanside-3 (active, last post was dated, 2016 event), https://www.instagram.com/shantikittiyoga/ (well used, last post was dated for Feb. 2017)

Body Morp Center: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Body-Morph-Center/852278558202330 (well used, last post was Jan 2017), https://www.yelp.com/biz/body-morph-center-san-diego (not updated, last post was July 2016), https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/1015071614/ (well used, last post dated Feb. 8, 2017), https://plus.google.com/102553002260987658848 (not updated, no active posting)

Black Sheep Yoga Studio: https://www.facebook.com/BlackSheepYogaStudio/ (well used, last post dated Feb. 9, 2017), https://twitter.com/blacksheepys?lang=en (not updated, last post was Dec. 2015), https://foursquare.com/v/black-sheep-yoga/4fa1d602e4b0b2264fbcfaf6 (not updated, last post was June 2013).

Qualityexpresstshirts:https://www.instagram.com/qualityexpresstshirt/, https://www.facebook.com/QualityExpressTshirts/, https://www.yelp.com/biz/quality-express-t-shirts-and-silkscreening-oceanside (well used, last post dated Jan. 2017), https://local.yahoo.com/info-179092131-quality-express-tshirts-oceanside?csz=Carlsbad%2C+CA&stx=Screen+Printing (not updated, last post dated Oct. 2016)

Write a short analysis of their use of social media. Tokallini longevity- doesn’t have a website but relies heavily on social media presence. This company uses ebay.com and groupon as their main source of ordering point and customer feedback. They have an active presence in Facebook but not active on LinkedIn. Shanti Kitti Yoga- has an active website with updated studio events posting. They are active on Facebook, Instagram, groupon and twitter for their advertising exposures. All social media and their website are current and updated on a regular basis. Body Morp Center- active on Facebook, yelp, Instagram but no current posting on google plus. They have a strong presence in all their social media platforms, shown to use Instagram heavily than most other social media platforms. Black Sheep Yoga Studio- Active on their Facebook and twitter accounts with updated studio events and past events. Shows active advertising in Facebook and twitter, all posting are current and well maintained. Qualityexpresstshirts – Relies heavily on Facebook and Instagram exposure. Both social media platforms are active and current on all posting.

What I have discovered after analyzing the 5 businesses is the amount of time required to manage each social media sites. The importance of the contents, and updating current information all take incredible amount of time. I can see why some small businesses are not able to keep up current posting on all their sites. It is a full time job monitoring, updating, correcting and reviewing all the activities that happens in all the platforms. So despite the low cost of advertising in these platforms, maintaining them requires thoughts and a lot of time in order to catch your target audience on a daily basis.

        

week 3 - Blog response

I responded to the Blogs below:
Jones, Terrell
Alison, Carlo
McCray, Edwina

week 3 part 1

I had my share of difficulties communicating with a business.  Some of my issues were service related, most involving excessive hold time on the phone and their unwillingness to solve current issues on the spot.   My incidents involved being transferred to multiple departments without any answers to my issues.  Others involved products that were in poor condition or did not work as promised and the company were unwilling to fix it or replace it.  In all the situations, customer service had poor communications and just prolonged the problems.

Social media can tremendously help getting a business to pay attention to their customers, based on their online comments as long as their experience is true.  The social media platforms that cater to business reviews are great for consumers; it can provide them a real time window on their experience while the experience is still new.   This also provides greater impact on business to pay attention to what their customers are experiencing and avoid open issues that need to be resolving to linger.

I had a few good experiences communicating with businesses through social media.  Most of my experience involved returned items and broken products, so my interactions were quick and easily handled without much delay.

For any positive feedback I would respond by thanking them for their time and effort with their comments and ask them if there are things we can improve.  For any negative comments, my respond will be immediate and offer the customer several options to correct the discrepancies.

My positive experience has been the company’s quick response in resolving my issue, from return products information to shipping and billing.  It helped build my confidence with this company moving forward, knowing that all future discrepancies will be resolved in a timely matter or a full refund.

week 2 Blog responses

I responded to the following Blogs:

Young, Jessica
Vasquez, Irene
McCray, Edwina

week 2

Facebook and Instagram are social media platforms that are popular for personal use.  Both platforms create an environment that allows interaction of different demographic population.  These interactions can be in the form of leisure activities, life stories, political views and any other topics that people might want to share.  Instagram gives you a platform to post pictures and videos with added comments.

LinkedIn and Meetup are two of the social media platform that I feel works better for business.  With LinkedIn, you have a platform that caters to job connections, job specialty, and other employment connection.  This platform allows you the ability to stay connected with current job recruiters or to stay connected with previews employer, supervisors, and coworkers.  In Meetup, this platform gives you the ability to join communities with people that shares the same interest, hobbies, ideas, and goals.  You can create your own event or you can sign up for someone’s event and attend their meetings and meet people face to face.