Week 8 Part B: Your Instagram Hashtag Use

 So, I was a little late with posting to my Instagram. In all honesty, I just posted them today. Life happens!!!

I used several hashtags for my posts. The most common were the following:

#GRMATS, #TETS, #VIPER, #A75XX, #ATEP, #GPATS, and #APS

Others I used were: #MI and #FSR

I used these because they are specific to my business and line of work. I just made them up as part of the specific equipment I work on. People who use the equipment will know. In my case, TETS doesn’t stand for “Train Entering Terminal Station” or ”Tetramethylenedisulfotetramine (rodenticide)”. It stands for Third Echelon Test Set.

Because of my tarty posts, I have yet to see the results of my posts and how the hashtags effect them. A good lesson learned. I am curios to see the results. One major thing I learned here, during this exercise, is that your hashtag can have multiple meanings. Beware how you tag your posts. I could lead to something derogatory which you don’t want associated to your post or business.

Week 8 Part A: How to Expand Your Reach on Instagram by Using Hashtags

 I often wondered what the pound symbol (#) was doing at the end of peoples post on Facebook. Then I jumped on Instagram. Admittedly, a few years later than Facebook. I noticed them there as well. Why are people putting the pound symbol in front of words and abbreviations? I later discovered that they are called “Hashtags”. Ok, well, what are they used for? What is the relevance?

I did some research on hashtags and looked at how they are used by individuals as well as businesses. So, apparently, using hashtags is a way to reach new people, customers, clients and the like on social media platforms. Hashtagging links a posts, pics, videos… etc. with that hashtag. So, if you tag all your content with the same hashtag, a person searching that hashtag will see all the content posted with that hashtag.

If all the restaurants which serve tacos took pictures of their tacos and tagged them with #tacotuesday, then a person searching the hashtag #tacotuesday would see everything posted with that tag. Adding other tags such as business name and location could help promote the business and locality. Its all about the right hashtag(s) when using them to find your target audience.

A few things to keep in mind. Hashtags work on public profiles. Tags on private profiles are not seen publicly. When I expanded my Instagram from a private profile to business, it became public.

When posting a hashtag, there are rules. No caps or spaces. Try not to convert a sentence to a hashtag. This can be very difficult for an individual to decipher. #comelikemypageoninstagram is long. Hashtags I might use for my page would include #atep, #gpats, #tets, #vipert, #grmats and so on. These would be considered branded hashtags. They are unique to my business. I have a very niche group of customers. Most people wouldn’t even know what any of those things mean or are related to. My customers and I do, and that’s what matters to me.

The number of hashtags used on a post is a max of 30. I’m not sure how anyone could come up with 30 tags for a post, but I’m sure there is some influencer out there frustrated by that limit. I can only come up with about 10 at a time. Maybe I’m just not hat creative.

In general, hashtags seem like an effective way to promote items, events, people, and products. Not to mention an entire company, regardless of the size. So, go and make your posts. Hashtag the heck out of them. Look at other, similar hashtags to see what’s gaining traction and popularity.

#happyhashtagging

Week 7 Part B: How Businesses Use Instagram

    This week I took a look at a couple of small business pages on Instagram. I looked at Breakwater Brewing (https://www.instagram.com/breakwaterbrew/) and Whitlock Ink (https://www.instagram.com/whitlock.ink/). Both use the social media platform to promote their products and services. They use pictures and videos to highlight menu items and services.

    There are pictures of people enjoying food and beverages at Breakwater. They make it look like a very warm, welcoming, and fun environment. Not to mention, the food is good! The majority of picture are of the food they serve. They do highlight other things such as, TVs for watching sporting events, awards for their craft beers and some community involvement.

    Whitlock Ink is part of Whitlock Surf. The Ink business promotes the textile printing side of the business. They show employees and local patrons modeling their products. I like the videos showing the silk screen process. I’ve often wondered what the process is when creating a multi-colored silk screen. They have videos showing that process.

    Both businesses support the local small business scene in North County through their social media platforms. Its good to see them not only promote themselves, but their competitors as well.

Class Instagram pages I commented on:

https://www.instagram.com/wulv_media/

https://www.instagram.com/beautifulni_healthyni/

https://www.instagram.com/socalsurplusewaste/

Week 6 Part B: Creating and Scheduling FaceBook Posts

 For this weeks scheduled posts, I chose to add two informative posts and one of me working with a customer while troubleshooting equipment I support. The informative post give a little information. My hope is that the customer, if unsure of the answer, will reach out for information. Many times, I find, that the customer doesn’t reach out, because they don’t know who to reach out too. Also, it prompts them to contact me. When they do contact me, they often reveal that they have some minor problems which are easily fixed. Some of them are a little shy about contacting me directly. Most of them are fairly young (18 to 22 years old). Sometimes they just need an alternate way of contacting those who are here to help. No matter how large or small the problem is.

Posts commented on in Group 1:

https://www.facebook.com/jrcookphilosophy

https://www.facebook.com/Wulv-Media-114708686957547

https://www.facebook.com/tridentpacific

Week 6 Part A: Engaging Your Customers – FaceBook Strategy

 For this blog post, we were to like seven businesses FaceBook pages which would be good strategic connections. I liked seven pages. Not all of them are businesses. There is a reason for this. Five of the liked pages belong to different entities of the Marines Corps. I work for the Marine Corps as a civilian. The page I set-up to better help my customers. I need to take a business approach to what would be helpful to my customers. Two of the liked pages are actual businesses. The following are the pages I liked with an explanation as to why I selected them.

L3-Harris. This company is one of the primary providers of communications equipment to the military. They also supply a few Electro-optical devices. I support the primary test equipment and applications required to test the equipment supplied by this company. So, if a customer is looking at information about test equipment and needs to know more about the item being tested, they will be one step closer to the company.

Astronics Test Systems. This company has been contracted to provide some of the test equipment that I support. Their name is on the equipment. My customers will see the equipment in photos on my page (when I get time to post more). If we are looking at providing the end user with new equipment, it may come from this company. Again, the customer will be one step closer to information from that company.

Now the rest of these are different entities of the Marine Corps…..

U.S.Marine Corps. This is the page of the Marine Corps. It gives the overall happenings are the fleet as we call it. All my customers are Marines and will likely take interest. Seeing that My page has an interest, I feel, gives me some credibility.

Camp Pendleton. This is where my office is located. I am imbedded with one of the units there. They have a large footprint of test equipment. The Intermediate Maintenance Activity is also located here. I work pretty close with these Marines on a regular basis.

 U.S. Marine Corps Tactical System Support Activity (MCTSSA). Before many of the items Marines use actually get to the Marines, they are tested and vetted here. They are also located on Camp Pendleton. I have worked with the people here in the past. Future projects will have me collaborating with them. MCTSSA is a division of Marine Corps Systems Command.

Marine Corps Systems Command (MCSC). These are the people who decide what is going to be purchased and why. I work with them on design, specs and other technical aspects of the test equipment which is/will be utilized by the Marines.

And last, but not least…..

Marine Corps Logistics Command (MCLC). The test applications come from MCLC. MCSC finds and procures the tester. MCLC develops the test application. Often the cost is too great to produce in house. They find companies and contract them to produce various test applications. We work with the companies to ensure that the applications meet our needs and requirements. This is the branch I fall under.

So, all of these are important in one way or another. There are more, but these are my top 7.

Week 5 Part B: Learning about FaceBook Data Collecting

Lets look at the difference between Reach and Engagement of posts to FaceBook…….

Post Reach: I have a small group or limited number of people I want my FaceBook posts to reach. The greater majority of the world population and people using FaceBook won’t care what content is on my page. Nor would they understand. So, I feel as though I will need to hit the target most every time. My audience is split between two military occupational specialty (MOS) designators. Depending on what is posted, some will likely look at while the others keep scrolling by. I’d like to keep my post reach small yet, all inclusive of the two MOS designators. I definitely don’t want to pay for Facebook “boosting”. So, I will keep my reach organic. Relying on likes, shares and even hashtags. This takes me to the next subject, Engagement.

Post Engagement: My post engagement will rely on those that follow my page sharing, liking and commenting on posts. I realize, for the Facebook algorithm to work in my favor, I need my posts to be engaging. The people who see the posts need to interact in someway to help spread the word. If the same four people always engage, they will most likely be the only people who see content I post in their news feed. This can really limit the people reached. If those four share, comment and/or like, then more people will likely see the posts. People who see those shares, comments and/or likes will also need to engage. After reading up on this, I feel like I will need to spend a great deal of time on FaceBook if I don’t want to pay for “boosting”. Now I know why people get paid to handle social media accounts.

 

Pages Commented on:

https://www.facebook.com/The-Alibi-Brewing-Company-102119868601428

https://www.facebook.com/tridentpacific

https://www.facebook.com/AudienceEngagementSolutions/