Week 5 Part B: Learning about Facebook Data Collecting

  Learning about Facebook Data Collecting

I commented on: Protein for Pets, PlayGround* Music Conversation Podcast, lil_K0ala* Live Streaming,  Purple Tsunami Clothing

Post Reach and Post Engagement

The biggest difference between post reach and post engagement on Facebook are that engagement measures interactions with your posts such as comments, like, and shares and reach measures how many people have actually seen your post. Post engagement can and does lead to a greater number of people seeing your post (higher reach) but higher reach doesn't necessarily mean that you will gain a higher engagement. On Facebook there are a number of reach tools and options you can utilize to monitor and increase reach in various ways. 

Engagement can be defined in stricter terms as "every action being taken on one of your posts or replies in your advertising, groups, or pages (askanydifference)."  This means that a company should aim for a higher and better engagement level rather than aiming strictly for "likes." Engagement is more difficult to increase, can possibly lead to more reach but not necessarily, and can be improved through engaging with posts and networking to name a couple. The three types of engagement are: active engagement (number of likes, comments, and shares), passive engagement (number of post clicks, link clicks, video views, and image clicks), and total engagement (active engagement plus passive engagement). 

In stricter terms post/page reach measures how many people see your posts on their feed, it is easier to increase, it leads to higher engagement, and it can be improved by advertisements to everyone and promotions, to name a couple. "Calculating average page reach can be done by dividing the average number of users reached per post by the number of total page likes (rankme)."

Week 4 Part B: Defining YOUR Target Market

  

Defining YOUR Target Market 

Market Strategy and Advertising

AWS will employ a multi-segment and multiple approach strategy targeting one market at first and then targeting a broader market once we have grown to the appropriate level. AWS will have its own health and wellness website which acts as the foundation of the company where we can tell potential and existing clients about our unique products and services and guide them to achieve their best self and definite purpose.

 A website alone is not enough, so we will utilize search engine optimization by creating high quality and compelling content based on searcher intent and necessity. Identify and remove technical indexation obstructions to ensure search visibility. Enhance site aesthetics, how it looks, enhance site usability specifically on mobile devices to encourage content engagement and conversion. And distribute revolutionary, unique, research-backed, expert-supported content that will drive social shares and backlinks that are critical for ranking. All of these factors will also be integrated into the application itself to provide informative content focused on our target audience's needs and wants. 

The marketing strategy will be customer-centered, incorporating the thoughts, feelings, emotions customers may have. Not only this, but understanding and addressing how customers evolve through each phase to improve conversion and retention rates. This will enhance overall customer experience and increase sales. Employing a marketing strategy that assumes the customers point of view and perspective and identifies the most important avenues that would cause customers to behave a certain way or to take a specific action. 

Another important aspect that we will incorporate into our strategy will be improving information gaps between departments, including representatives from every department in meetings and updates while a customer journey map is created. Sharing information about customer experiences can eliminate times where customers get frustrated for example. Bringing all the departments together will ensure that everybody identifies flaws in the system. 

Social Media

Social Media will also be another huge aspect of market strategy. Market research will show on

which platforms to find our target audience and what kind of information they like to consume.

Multichannel Advertising will be another part of our marketing strategy utilized to keep our

customers engaged by controlling as many touch points as possible. Through this we will

consider which social media platforms our ideal customers frequently visit using targeted ads,

using third-party influencers to drive customers to our site and app, using videos and podcasts

wherever applicable, keeping the target market informed with daily news and updates about the

company such as awards and achievements and new updates. One important aspect of this is

the visual and aesthetic part of the company and app, our brand logo will be extremely catchy

and chosen from a large selection based on surveys on which design is most appealing.

Additionally, high quality images, quote images, memes, infographics will be utilized.

Most of all the marketing strategy is customer-centered, incorporating the thoughts, feelings,

emotions customers may have. Not only this, but understanding and addressing how customers

evolve through each phase to improve conversion and retention rates. This will enhance overall

customer experience and increase sales. Employing a marketing strategy that assumes the

customers point of view and perspective and identifies the most important avenues that would

cause customers to behave a certain way or to take a specific action.

Social Media Marketing Campaigns

Multichannel Social Media Advertising will be another part of our marketing strategy utilized to keep our customers engaged by controlling as many touch points as possible. Automation will be utilized where applicable and taken advantage of to make it easier and more profitable, existing software will be utilized to automate some processes such as streamlining operations by integrating them with customer relationship management systems. There are many such automation marketing techniques such as Google Ads, Facebook Marketing, and more.  Through this we will consider which social media platforms our ideal customers frequently visit using targeted ads, using third-party influencers to drive customers to our site and app, using videos and podcasts wherever applicable, keeping the target market informed with daily news and updates about the company such as awards and achievements and new updates. One important aspect of this is the visual and aesthetic part of the company and app, our brand logo will be extremely catchy and chosen from a large selection based on surveys on which design is most appealin

Customers

The target audience for AAWS is individuals who do not have much experience in exercising, creating workout plans, or knowing what to do to become physically healthy. Other target audiences are those who do not have experience or knowledge in how to eat healthy, prepare healthy foods, create a healthy diet or lifestyle. Individuals who are having trouble motivating themselves in any way, especially those who want to be “mentally healthy” and increase their overall mental health and quality of life. Individuals who are struggling in motivation relating to education or schooling and desire an efficient, logical, systematic way to prevent burnout and increase performance. Those who desire to have proficiency in obtaining relationships, such as being able to attract the company of the desired sex, talk confidently to the desired sex, and obtain what they want in their relationship goals. Target audience is

anybody desiring an efficient, practical, logical, systematic approach and coaching in any of their deficiencies in life, anybody who desires happiness and desires to reach their definite purpose.

The customers that we will initially target are those between the ages of 18 and 29, individuals who desire success and to create a better version of themselves. Many individuals in this age bracket are in school and desire a way to motivate themselves, to cultivate self-discipline,

self-confidence, and self-mastery. The income of the individuals I seek need not be too high since pricing will be affordable and offered in either yearly, monthly, or lifetime packages.

Customers will mainly be individuals who have dreams, hopes, and wishes but don’t have a “how.” They will be those who do not have a definite chief aim in life, who don’t have specific goals and clear plans on how to achieve those goals. They are the 99% of individuals who do not have a clear definite purpose nor definite chief aim nor clear goals and traits that allow them to work towards them. They will be the countless people who don’t know where to start and thus consistently put off mental, physical, and spiritual fitness in addition to interpersonal relationships and education. Those who desire to acquire the self-discipline and self-confidence and any other traits and skills that will allow them to reach their dreams.

According to a study held in the United States in November 2019, adults aged 55 years old or above and respondents earning less than 40 thousand U.S. dollars per year were the least likely to be health app users, with just 12 and 15 percent currently using a health app respectively.

Meanwhile, 25 percent of adults aged between 18 and 34 years old said that they used a health app, along with 16 percent who said that they had done so in the past. Overall though, the most likely group to either be currently using an app to monitor their health or to have done so in the past were those on a high income. April was focused on mindfulness and meditation more than active workouts. Calm, an app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation, was the highest-grossing app at $8.5 million. Another popular mindfulness app came in second place—Headspace grossed $5.5 million. MyFitnessPal, used for tracking your diet and exercise, ranked third. In May, meditation remained a primary focus. Calm grossed $7.7 million and kept its top spot as the highest-grossing health and fitness app, while MyFitnessPal ranked second with more than

$6.5 million in gross revenue. Strava, an app with built-in GPS that tracks your workouts, came in third place.

In part due to the statistics, part of our target market will be the ages of 18-45, our genders will be men, women and all parties of the LGBT, we want to support everyone and make our product to be comfortable and safe for our consumers.

Personas 

Amanda is a 25 year old hispanic female college student who lives in southern California, she is taking time off of school because her grades have been suffering and she feels that she is going in the wrong direction in her life and desires a massive change in her  lifestyle since she feels that she has become lazy and considers herself overweight and that she fails in everything that she attempts. She is interested in a program or system that will guide her and give her the tools to create for herself the life that she dreams of having.

Bryan is a 22 year old white male who graduated from high school but has not yet entered college nor begun any program to progress in his life. He has been single for his whole life and is currently working odd jobs with his dad doing construction. Bryan has an honest and shy personality and can learn extraordinarily well but lately he has been feeling down since he is not in education, training, or work and is unfit and is seeing that many of his friends, family, and other individuals are “making it in life,” he desires to become a better person and he knows that he has the ability to do so, but he doesn’t know where to start.

Richard is a 30 year old Hispanic male who has just divorced his wife of four years, he lives in southern California and has a stable job as a Walmart employee. In his early years Richard dreamed of becoming a doctor and had started school at a community college but when it came time to get his bachelors, family, health, and personal problems led him to taking a break from college which eventually led to him dropping out altogether. Richard is a funny, helpful, keen and very careful, hard-working and great friend but his recurring regrets from deferred dreams gradually led him into a deep depression which caused and was made worse by his separation from his wife. Richard recently discovered a motivational book and read it from page to page without a hiccup, since then he has begun buying more self-help books and has developed a profound desire to become his greatest self but he is smothered with different “self-help” coaches and online websites that “promise to make you a happy millionaire” but he knows that many of these websites are insincere and would be a waste of time and money, he is now looking for a sincere, comprehensive, and “one-stop-shop” health and wellness program to turn his life around, create the best version of himself, and find his definite purpose. 

Week 4 Part A: Defining Target Markets

Defining Target Markets 

Armstrong Garden Centers

Armstrong Garden Centers have many locations around California and offer a wide variety of plants, flowers, trees, seeds, fertilizers, and more. Due to their size they provide many different options and many more options than Tree of Life as they have 31 spread around California, a much larger staff of 1000 and a much larger customer base. Due to this they have a greater variety of products and services to serve their customer base as California has forests, deserts, beaches, mountains and many more varieties of landscape which support or necessitate certain types of garden products and services. Their "about" section tells that their associates and employees are passionate about gardening and will do all that they can to help customers to choose plants, give customers tips for success, and much more whether they are an expert gardener wanting something very specific or a brand new house owner who wants a garden but doesn't have the know-how.

For example, one advertisement has the headline "A Beautiful Garden with Less Water" which could apply to areas that have droughts or areas that do not get much rain, areas that are very hot, or anybody who desires to save money and utilize less water to help the environment and droughts by using less water. For people who don't have the "know how" to build a beautiful garden they have services such as "Landscape Design Home Visits, Garden Consultation services, and an In-Store Personal Shopper Service eGift card." They also have classes to learn about plants and gardening. With these products and services they expand their target market and draw in customers that would otherwise decide not to start a garden or buy plants or other products from their stores. 

Their website is much larger and has much more put into it than Tree of Life due to them being a much larger company with many different chains/locations and their website reflects this as it has something for everybody whether they are new or experienced. They have full range options for landscaping, classes and events, advice, and much more. They state "Whether you're a beginning gardener looking to plant your first vegetable garden, getting your first houseplant for your bedroom or have been gardening for years and are looking for a very specific plant you can't find anywhere else - we're here for you." Armstrong's mission statement is "We strive to take the guesswork out of gardening by providing horticultural expertise, exceptional service, and the best quality plants and products. We are passionate gardeners cultivating a welcoming environment for all to learn and be inspired." Due to their website and style of business they most definitely attract a much larger audience with more variety than TOL Nursery. Anybody ranging from children who want a plant to grow in their room to seasoned veterans who desire large-scale landscaping.

Tree of Life Nursery

Tree of Life Nursery has a single location in San Juan Capistrano and offer plants, trees, and more, they are much more focused on providing products which are native to or thrive well in California. Their website reflects this as it is not as large and polished as the Armstrong website. The firs thing you see on TOL's website is large text that alternates between "wholesale and contract grows, Casa La Paz (retail shop for plants, books, pottery, and all things California," and Tree of Life (TOL) Newsletter. This is followed by three squares with videos giving advice on: Plants of the California Deserts, Designing with California Native Plants" and "Habitat Gardening." The advice on these ranges from covering the evolution of desert habitats and the adaptations of desert plants, how these plants survive, and which of these can be planted throughout the summer to designing a garden landscape that reflects California's native desert landscapes. The third square gives a short description from the GM, Laura Camp, who describes how to attract hummingbirds to ones garden by creating native habitats. 

 The top of the page is more of a blog style and does not immediately show products or services for sale. Tree of Life's main goal or mission is to return California's hills, deserts, and other landscapes to their natural forms by propagating California's native plants. They have over 500 species and varieties available to assist in ecological restoration and landscaping on a wholesale level. On their "about" page they state " California’s unique climate, history and culture provide us with a canvas for a classic painting. Ultimately, with education and persistence, we hope to see a return to a more conservative, genuine landscape." Tree of Life has a tab and many resources providing education towards what destruction has rolled across California's landscape and the many fragile species, landscapes, and ecosystems.

The obvious difference between these two websites is that Tree of Life is poised towards education and conservation of California's natural landscape and flora and as a result, maintaining California's natural fauna as well. The individuals or customers that would ship at TOL would be individuals or companies passionate about conservation and the beautiful form of California's native plants and landscapes. This obviously puts them in a niche where they will receive less customers but as their passion is aimed towards conservation and restoration rather than the more profit driven Armstrong garden centers. TOL presumably attracts individuals such as biologists who have a passion for the preservation and conservation of California's natural flora and landscapes. Their website provides substantial education to hopefully pull on the heart strings of individuals to assist in maintaining and repairing California's natural landscape. 

Both websites have a black background with many parts that are green such as green text, green emblems, and more. The layout is similar with the emblems in the top left corner a search bar in the top right corner and tabs below that. Below the tabs on both websites is a square with alternating images showing different aspects of the businesses. Tree of life is focused more on specific plants, wholesale, and education and has less content than Armstrong that focuses more on hiring, shopping, landscaping, classes, and much more. There can definitely be crossover between the types of customers, it's possible that customers from Armstrong Garden Centers can discover that they enjoy plants that are native to California and come across Tree of Life Nursery as an organization that has much more knowledge and focus on such plants. Anybody from tree of life can cross over to Armstrong if they desire classes on gardening, landscaping services, and a wider variety of plants. Of course there are many more ways customers could crossover but these are just a few. Armstrong has many more features aimed towards selling products or things such as advantage programs one of which is right at the top in the middle. Tree of Life Nursery shows features that give away that they are aimed less towards profit and more towards conservation and maintenance, one of these features is that they place their "OUR MISSION" at the bottom of the main page and includes their mission, values, and goals whereas you have to go to "about us" on Armstrong Garden Centers' page to see their mission statement, which is also much shorter and does not give away nearly as many, if any values or goals aimed towards positive conservation and education aimed at the native environment rather than artificial environments behind white Pickett fences. Both websites are tidy, have great use of fonts and colors, although within a few seconds of viewing their websites the details give away the huge differences in the way and why these companies operate. 

Week 3 Part B: Developing a Brand

  Developing a Brand 

I aim to create a company that applies and implements practical, captivating, efficient, accessible, and systematic programs to empower individuals with the tools they need to discover and pursue their definite purpose and provoke transformation of their identity into the finest possible version of themselves. Done by equipping individuals with traits such as desire, passion, grit, motivation, persistence, perseverance, faith, self-confidence, and determination that will empower them to develop and perfect the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, interpersonal, educational and any other applicable skills to ensure that they succeed in their goals, find and pursue their definite purpose, and create the identity of the best possible version of themselves.

In other words, providing life, health, and wellness support to help and empower individuals to improve their overall health and happiness and provide them with all the tools they need to take ownership and control of their life and to establish and pursue clear goals.

To impart skills and provide individuals with all the necessary tools to allow them to create and carry out practical plans to transmute their desires into a physical reality. To teach individuals how to: Start and immediately take action, how to stay motivated until they achieve results that form a feedback loop to ensure continuing motivation and action, how to create and follow through with clear-goals, how to turn dreaming, hoping, and wishing into DOING, how and where to find an easy and satisfying place to start, how to find and pursue their definite purpose and ideal identity, and how to acquire traits, skills, tools for a healthy and fulfilling life.

The app that I intend to create is a comprehensive, practical, captivating, and easily accessible app that revolutionizes the life, fitness, health and wellness fields, upgrading and adding upon the best services and apps available creating the holy grail of apps that will tear down even the most difficult obstacles and hindrances keeping individuals from discovering and pursuing the best possible version of themselves and their definite purpose. Through guiding individuals to find and create the best possible versions of themselves they may each leave their mark on the world and fulfill their definite purpose, in turn spreading more motivation, purpose, happiness to others and leaving a lasting impression on the world. This will lead to an avalanche of fulfilled purposes that each make the world a better place, preventing ecosystem destruction, world hunger, extreme poverty, mass pollution, and any other major problem the world is facing. If every individual was able to accomplish their ultimate feats surely solutions would arise to fix any and all of the problems that the world is facing.

Product

Action and Awareness Wellness Systems (AAWS) provides services to any individual who desires a practical, easy, and methodical/systematic/structured/logical/efficient means to obtain health and happiness. Well structured and logical guides provide an efficient means to obtain physical fitness, mental health, and social skills. A systematic approach to improve one’s full potential and obtain happiness is done through personalized guides with unheard of ease and results.

A product that instills passion and intense desire, teaches you to find your purpose, to create a healthy positive mental state, that teaches you the benefits of positive self talk and gratitude, that teaches and instills motivation, self-confidence, self-discipline, self-mastery, grit, creativity, mindfulness, and any other trait that allows them to perfect themselves and achieve their purpose. A product that teaches individuals to place value on mindfulness, self-discipline, grit, habit-building, and self-confidence.

Our product provides effective and efficient services that “teach so others will listen” and become motivated and determined. That teaches others to believe in themselves and cultivate self-love, self-confidence, willpower, courage, mindfulness, patience, and self-discipline. AAWS shows individuals how to root out their purpose, what they truly love to do, what their definite purpose is so that they will generate a burning desire to achieve great things.

AAWS provides services that teach or allow individuals to find out what they are best at, what their core-strengths are, and how to develop those core strengths. AAWS provides services that motivate even the very most stubborn people to take action and cultivate self-growth while having fun. AAWS provides services that allow people to snap out of bad habits.

Market

Demand for life, fitness, health and wellness apps is a largely untapped market that has, due to various factors, grown largely in the past few years and is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. This market has a massive customer base and holds huge demand for products that suit their fitness, health, and wellness needs. More and more individuals are adopting healthier lifestyles and are becoming more mindful of their health and wellness.

Using digital marketing allows for the targeting of an ideal audience and customer base and promotes health and wellness in areas where individuals spend most of their time. The Health and Fitness market is separated into: Diet and nutrition, Exercise and weight loss, medication adherence and activity tracking, and by platform the health and fitness market is segmented into android, iOS, and others. The number of downloads and the usage of health, wellness, and fitness apps increased a massive 46% in 2020 according to an article in the World Economic Forum. There is also a growing awareness in health, wellness, and fitness that is driving the market. According to an article in the World Economic Forum between Quarter 1 and quarter 2 of 2020 the daily active users of fitness apps increased 24%. 

Many studios and gyms are increasing their online presence and many consumers are investing in home workout equipment. Advanced apps are utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning to offer services such as workout routines requiring no equipment, diet charts, diet monitoring, footstep tracking, stress level tracking, heart rate tracking, and many specialized versions of calorie tracking relating to which workout an individual is doing such as waking, running, yoga, high intensity training, biking, etc in addition to offering personalized health coaches and personalized diet tracking. Another major factor, perhaps the largest key factor driving the growth of the fitness, health, and wellness market is the increasing penetration of smartphones. For example, by 2025 smartphone penetration is estimated to reach 77% which is a 20% growth from 2017 according to the Mobile Economy Survey.

 Growing demand for real-time data and increased emphasis on the maintenance of healthy lifestyles and overall health and wellness is also expected to vastly increase the health, wellness, and fitness app market size. Additionally, the rising incidence of obesity and related diseases are increasing the fitness, health, and wellness market size.

Market Trends

More than ever, Americans are seeking more efficient and practical ways to lead a healthy and fulfilling life. The field of fitness, life, health and wellness apps is very large and growing rapidly with more than 97,000 apps for mobile and tablet devices with 52% of smartphone users getting health-associated information. Additionally, 15% of 18-29 year olds have health apps installed according to HealthWorks Collective. Quarter 1 and 2 of 2020 saw a 24% increase in the daily active users of fitness apps and the download of fitness, health and wellness apps increased 46% in 2020 according to an article in the World Economic Forum. Between 2017 and 2025 smartphone penetration grew 20% and it is estimated to reach 77% by 2025 according to the Mobile Economy Survey. The fitness and wellness app market has the potential to grow 1.68 billion in 2020-2024 according to Technavio and is expected to reach 14.7 billion by 2026 according to Polaris Market Research. Consumers spent $1.1 billion globally on wellness apps in the first 10 months of 2020 after stay at home orders were enacted with North American users representing 53% of consumer spending.

As shown in this diagram consumers will spend almost $1.6 billion on top mobile wellness apps in 2021, which is up more than 15% year-over-year from $1.4 billion in 2019. Health and Fitness App Market was valued at USD 5.7 Billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 25.2 Billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 20.15% from 2021 to 2028 according to Verified Market Research.

Location

Action Wellness Systems will have a physical location for R&D and other things that require a physical location in our home town of Carlsbad since we are building an app, physical location is not important. Otherwise, the app will be first created on iOS and targeted towards iPhone users, then Android users and then we will expand to encompass all platforms. 

Personnel

Our personnel will consist of a variety of developers, web-designers, R&D specialists, trainers, coaches, teachers, Instructors, Advisors, Educators, Lawyers, marketing specialists, inventors, and a mastermind management team. Employee requirements will be strict as we aim to have only the best of trainers, coaches, developers, etc and will vary depending on the area of expertise. Training will vary depending on the area of expertise but will be intensive and comprehensive and upkeep of training will be required of all employees. Work schedules will vary but will not require employees to work an excess amount of hours as to burn them out, demotivate, or decrease productivity.

Executive Team

We have:

 - A biochemistry and liberal arts degree with emphasis in science and mathematics as well as a degree in entrepreneurship(soon) and certifications in professional personal fitness training, nutrition, kinesiology(soon). 

-Extensive experience in kinesiology, fitness, diet, nutrition, meal planning, exercise prescription, and various other areas relating to kinesiology and fitness. In this area we have many years of experience in exercising, muscle building, nutrition, and have many years of training in martial arts and HIIT/Functional Resistance Training.

-Education in a variety of fields such as stress management, yoga, psychology, physiology, chemistry, mathematics, biology, biochemistry. We have professional training in tutoring and supplemental instruction and have taught as a supplemental instructor and tutor for multiple years at America's highest paid community college in biology, chemistry, and mathematics with the ability to instruct and tutor in any field in which we have experience.

-Vast experience in property management and running day-to-day and other forms of operations required of a property manager such as property maintenance, construction, legal forms, laws pertaining to management. 

-Experience in business management having managed multiple locations for a combined many years knowing how to run the day to day operations of a small business including opening, closing, hiring, finance, inventory, payroll, etc.

Logo

This is a rough logo that is nowhere near complete but it is what I have been putting on my very early social media accounts. The face of the company would be my significant other and I. As for a tagline, the mission statement section below includes some rough taglines such as: 

Championing self-mastery and self-realization.

Effective services and products for the development of self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-realization.

Empowering individuals with the tools for self-fulfillment, self-mastery, and self-realization.

Elevating mankind and pursuing purpose.

Championing self-mastery and self-realization for the advancement and preservation of mankind.

For the advancement and preservation of mankind through self-mastery and self-realization.

Providing the seeds for self-mastery and self-realization that bear the fruit for the advancement and preservation of mankind.

Empowering you to take action, create your best self, and fulfill your definite purpose. 

Providing your brain with the most effective signals to empower you to take action, maintain action, create your best self, and fulfill your ultimate purpose.

Mission Statement

I have yet to come up with a definitive mission statement but these are some of my ideas. 

We aim to provide comprehensive, captivating, and efficient programs and services to motivate and empower individuals with all of the resources and tools that they need to discover and pursue their definite purpose and create the identity of the greatest possible version of themselves.

We empower individuals with the self-discipline, self-confidence, and motivation to perfect their overall health and wellness and provide them with all of the resources they need to take control of their life so that they may achieve their definite purpose and create their ideal identity, thereby allowing them to make significant contributions to mankind and the planet, creating a better world for everybody to live in.

AAWS is committed to empowering individuals with the tools for self-fulfillment, self-mastery, and self-realization so that they may achieve their definite purpose and create the greatest version of themselves, thereby allowing them to make powerful contributions for the advancement and preservation of mankind.

AAWS is committed to advancing and propagating the health and wellness, life, and fitness fields by providing exhaustively comprehensive and thoroughly effective services and products for the development of self-discipline, self-realization, and self-mastery.

For the advancement and preservation of mankind and the planet by providing a comprehensive system for the attainment of self-mastery and self-realization.

Advancement and preservation of mankind and the planet through the propagation of self-mastery and self-realization.

Providing the seeds for self-mastery and self-realization that bear the fruit for the advancement and preservation of mankind.

Providing your brain with the most effective signals to empower you to take action, maintain action, create your best self, and fulfill your purpose.

Week 3 Part A - Aesthetics, Design, and Branding

  Blog Week 3 Post 1

Gatesnfences:

The first noticeable and annoying thing I noticed about this website are the colors. The colors that have been chosen, especially for the text, do not go well together at all. They seem almost randomly chosen and do not lend to the website looking professional or easy on the eyes. Starting at the top the green background with white text is hard to read and looks unprofessional. The main text in the body of the page is white with a light grey background, this text is very hard to read and keep track of, it almost seems blurry and seems very unprofessional and terribly chosen. The third problem is the formatting of the page which is unconventional and is not very practical. The images are placed in strange locations, as well as the search bar, the large paragraphs which do not have any headings and the bar on the left that is not nested and the sections are not intuitively placed. The website does not seem to be designed with the user in mind, it seems like they tried to mush everything onto the front page while doing as little work as possible. The first thing that could be improved would be to change up the colors of the texts, make the colors more contrasting and give the colors a theme as they seem random. Secondly the webpage could have text and headings that are more professional rather than large paragraphs without headings and pictures that seem randomly placed. Each paragraph should have a heading that is in a larger and different font, to make them easier to distinguish. 

Roverp6cars:

The first potential problem I see on this page is that it is very condensed with a ton of information right up front, it is almost information overload. There are tons of pictures and tons of different links all with the same picture of a car. Secondly, the colors do not mesh well together and also seem to be picked at random, it is like a rainbow of colors with boxes and links, images, headings, text, and much more all mashed together on the first page. The text is in many different sizes, strange locations, many different colors and more.  Third, the page is very large and there seems to be no hierarchy of things as all the different boxes seem to be placed randomly with no organization whatsoever. It seems to have some design in mind for the end user but not much effort for organization, theme, colors, fonts, etc seems to have been put into the website and it can use a lot of work. First, I feel that it should be redone with a set palette of colors in mind so that it goes together well. Then I think that the concept should be thought out in advance with a blueprint for the website in place, perhaps a blueprint based on a good website design. Also I feel that it should be re-organized and the boxes put into a professional, intuitive, and practical order and design. 

Apple:

The website is extremely well thought out and designed. The design is simple, the color palette is simple and easy on the eyes, and the links for where to go are placed at the top in intuitive sets such as store, mac, ipad, iphone, accessories, support, etc. This website is definitely designed with the user in mind, they know that a user visiting the site will most likely have an idea of where they want to go in mind and the most intuitive links are placed in plain sight at the top without anything extra. At the bottom there are even more links in case the links are the top don't contain what the user is looking for, anything that any visitor could possibly want from apple is placed either at the top or bottom in a simple and well designed manner. My reaction to this website reminds me of Apple products themselves. They have a simple design with everything that most individuals want upfront, in an extremely thoroughly thought out manner. 

Toyota:

Toyotas website has a design that is simple, easy on the eyes, practical, conventional, and user-oriented. The front page has a color palette that is simple and easy on the eyes. The design is well thought out without too much to detract from what the vast majority of users want while using the website. There are only a couple links with a few more nested links under them: Vehicles, shopping tools, local specials. There is a box with a short clip of cars driving, under that are the newest cars with prices, and under that are simple links for: Build and price, search inventory, local specials, and find a dealer. At the bottom are all the links for what anybody could possibly want or need to go to. They have thought out what the average user will come to the website for and design it with the users- eye in mind. Buying cars, dealers, searching for specific vehicles, new innovations and more. My reaction to this website makes me want to explore it rather than a website with a whole bunch of stuff jam packed onto the front page that causes an aversive reaction and is extremely uncomfortable on the eyes. 

Final Thoughts: 

What I learned is that simple, mute colors work the best for websites. Most of the time a website does not need to have a wide variety and rainbow of colors which just makes it aversive and more difficult  to navigate. When designing a website, the designer should think of the top 3-5 things that most users want when coming to the website and then have a few more nested links under those things. A simple and practical design on a website seems much more professional while mismatched colors, randomly placed boxes, information that is all over the place, and a ton of links everywhere is very unprofessional and almost insulting to the customer as it would take much less time to create a homepage that is more simple in design with far fewer colors, links, and more. The designer must think of a website from the point of view of the customer and should not be excessive with their colors, links, information, images, and more, or else it seems unprofessional, is hard to read, hard to navigate, and pushes people away. 

Who's Posts I commented on:

Tawny Bernard, Nicole Lozano. The others haven't posted.

Week 2 Part B - Business Research

  5 Health and Wellness Mobile Application Businesses

1. Fabulous

2. https://www.thefabulous.co/landing/welcome-3

3. Fabulous is a mobile application business with 73 thousand Twitter followers and 10+ million downloads on google play store. They are an international company based in Paris, France. 

4. The social media that they are visibly using are Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Only their Instagram link is on their website, I had to search for the rest. They post between 4-5 days in a row with a 3-5 day period between each 4-5 day spree on Instagram, with the last post being 5 days ago. They post 2-3 times a month on twitter with the last post being August 24. They rarely post on Facebook with the last post being on April 17. 

On Instagram fabulous utilizes colorful posts with different fonts, stylistic images, and useful information. Each of their posts included in their 4-5 day in a row sprees are related. For example, the last grouping of posts included breakfast option examples, probiotic rich foods that benefit your belly, quick breakfasts, food swaps for a balanced diet, nutritious yet simple lunch recipes, and healthy eating bingo. They get between 800 and 3000 likes on average per post and always include a short comment with their posts. On twitter they include a link to their blog and a short entry related to personal-growth. They get almost no comments, no retweets, and at most a few likes for each of their posts. 

2. Calm

2. https://www.calm.com

3. Calm is one of the largest health and fitness applications on the market, being #10 overall, with over 120 million downloads. They are based in San Francisco.

4. Calm uses Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more although I had to search to find their social media pages as I could not find them easily on their main webpage. Calm posts up to a couple times a day, about 5-6 times a week, their last post was 11 hours ago. On Facebook Calm posts every day with their last post being 15 hours ago. On Twitter they post about 3 times a day, every day. On twitter they have 220k followers, 2.9 million on Instagram, 1.4 million on Facebook.

Calm utilizes calming, soothing, beautiful, and motivating imagery with quotes, useful images with tips and tricks, and videos with soothing imagery and beautiful music. They interact very well using social media since many people follow, like, comment, retweet, share, etc and their posts do not seem rushed or lazy. They seem to use all of their social media platforms equally, not leaving one or the other out like Fabulous does. 

3. Todoist

2. Todoist.com/home

3. Todoist is an online organization and task management platform by Doist inc. Todoist has more than 20 million downloads and is the best online task management app and to-do list. They are located in Palo Alto California. 

4. They are using twitter, Facebook, and Instagram which are all listed on the bottom of their homepage. On Instagram they have 23k followers On twitter they have 66k followers, 34 thousand on Facebook. Last post: Instagram August 11, Twitter 8 hours ago, Facebook august 24. 

On Instagram they usually post updates and "what's new?" and do reply to followers who @ them. On twitter they usually post retweets of users who post productivity related posts, this is a very interactive and humble way of interacting with their follower base and definitely causes the users to feel closer to the company. Facebook is used mostly for updates, issues, new features, etc. 

I learned that even a small company can have a high level of interaction and become close with their followers by putting more effort into their posts and showing users that they are paying attention by sharing posts from users who tagged them. Replying to users who @ you is a great way to become closer to your user base and identify yourself as more human than robot in the eyes of your followers. 

4. Sleep Cycle

2. Sleepcycle.com

3. Sleep cycle is a mobile application that focuses on assisting individuals in seeing their sleep patterns and how those correlate with diet and exercise. They are located in Sweden. 10 million + total downloads. 

4. They are using Facebook and twitter although I had to search for these as they were not on their webpage. They post about once a month on Facebook with the last post being on January 25, 30 thousand followers. They also post about once a month on Twitter although it has been many months since their last post, with 3600 followers, last post being march 18, and April 19 2021 before that. 

Their use of social media is very remedial and basic, posting very little even though they joined twitter on October 2009, it seems that they should have many more followers since they do have over 10 million downloads. Their posts are very few and far between with posts mostly being about sales and deals they are having to rake in more downloads and subscriptions, which I feel is extremely rude, lazy, and insulting compared to other companies with a similar amount of downloads. 

5. MyFitnessPal

2. myfitnesspal.com

3. Myfitness pal is a smartphone app and website that tracks diet and exercise. They are located in San Francisco, CA. They are and have the largest online fitness community in the world with over 75 million users.

4. They are using most social medias with Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter among them. 350 thousand Instagram followers with last post being September 2 and mostly most every day with the occasional couple day break. 1.5 million followers on Facebook with last post on September first.  184k Twitter followers with posts every few months, last post was on Jun 9. 

Their use of Social Media is very smart with well spaced, colorful posts with great images of food, short clips of food being prepared and being logged with the application, showing how to use it. They have a great amount of followers and the comments on their posts are longer than usual. They reply to comments even if they are negative, such as one comment saying that "their app sucks because they charged them even after cancelling" and them replying "hi there! please email support@myfitnesspal.com which is extremely professional.

I learned that they most likely create all of these posts in one sitting since they are related, which feels to me like they are not putting in much effort. I would like to see a company which focuses on helping individuals become better versions of themselves post more often and with much more effort, and with each post being unique rather than obviously related to the last postings. This effort shows since each of their posts only gets a few comments. I learned that you can have similar blueprints to social media but if you change up the imagery and messages, they can be simple yet still attract a ton of attention from followers. I feel like as long as a company is active on their social media accounts and posts daily, their followers will keep interacting well and keep following them. It goes to show that even if a company has many downloads, if they rarely post on social media and even then, post short and lazy posts that are only about the most recent sale or "free trial of premium", they will have very few followers, will seem non-human, and the size and growth of their company will reflect their laziness on social media. Social media is extremely important for companies, ESPECIALLY for mobile application based companies and if a company with a mobile application remains extremely lazy on social media their growth will stagnate. It shows that a relatively simple company and application can amass a very substantial following if they post the right content at the right intervals. Posting smart content and replying to followers, retweeting followers posts, and engaging on social media in the way that a user would is a great strategy that will earn respect, followers, downloads, and much more. 

Week 2 Part A - Blog Post

     Week 2 Part A: Communication Between Business & Consumer 

     Company 1: Red Bull.

 One of the mottos of Red Bull is an “entertaining way of life” and an identity of energy, motion, adrenaline, movement, and boldness. “Red Bull gives you wings” is their core message and they build their brand around this message as being both stimulating and reviving. They don’t just promote their product, they promote a way of life. On YouTube Red Bull put forward experiences rather than products and have positioned themselves in a way to provide content that mirrors that. The videos they put up are mostly sport oriented and are most always about some adrenaline inducing activity such as sky diving, mountain biking, large stunt jumps, and much more. The content revolves around the sports and events that they sponsor and put audience and branding at the center of their digital strategy. Rather than pushing sales they are focused on giving value to their customers. 

    All of their content is exciting, current, and trendy. Some of the benefits they are gaining by their social media strategy and posting on social media is developing a loyal community, improving brand image, expanding sales and reaching new audiences. One way Red Bull has developed a loyal community is by posting exciting and engaging content which revolves around their sponsors on the world's most popular video-sharing website YouTube. One example is their cliff-diving series which are exciting and adrenaline inducing clips that allow their viewers and followers to create a community and engage with the brand and share content. They have created a strong online community and they are very dedicated to being immersed in conversations with their community in addition to increasing their engagement. On social media they reply to their followers and create conversations. One example of how they do this is when responding to individuals in their community they portray a fun and engaging portrait of themselves and respond in a non-robotic and unconstricted way.

Company 2: Monster Energy

     I believe that the brand identity of Monster Energy is an extreme, dynamic, and fun one that portrays sincerity, excitement, sophistication, and ruggedness where they bring a sort of aggressive and rebellious/edgy personality to life. Overall I think they are a fun, exciting, dynamic, and trendy brand. For example when a consumer drinks Monster they would like them to give the impression that they are socially involved. They are portraying their brand identity very well in their social media posts, for example they use Facebook and fill it with videos and pictures of extreme sports and events sponsored by them which is a major part of their marketing strategy. What Monster gains by posting on social media is developing a loyal community, boosting traffic and search engine rating, maintaining top of mind awareness, and more. On Facebook they regularly post videos and pictures of “extreme” events or activities, many of which they sponsor. By doing this they constantly gain a large amount of likes and comments when compared to competitors in their sector and even other large brands in other industries. 

    Their level of involvement in extreme sports has gained them a huge following of interest since consumers follow them as a means of getting closer to their favorite extreme events or sports and their sporting heroes. One example of what they post is: A picture of a colorful and extreme rally car in midair shooting flames out of its tailpipe, with a huge amount of likes and comments which involves developing and maintaining a loyal community while boosting traffic and search engine rating as well as showing expertise and product quality. They post premium content such as skateboarding, NASCAR, and mountain biking. One of their twitter posts is a sponsored tweet aiming to attract consumers and fans to their “drift” series which is an example of quality content and expands their promotional activities to a larger audience.

Social media makes it much much easier to get noticed and allows for a vastly and exponentially larger amount of views, clicks, comments, interactions, etc. Social media is connected to a vast number of individuals and even if only a couple of people see a social media post, each of those people know hundreds of people, and each of those people know hundreds, and so on and so on. Communication with businesses in the past would be difficult if not impossible, you would have to go far out of your way to give a positive comment or complain and probably have to send a letter or email, depending on how far back. If I was on social media I would have the social media expert in charge of the social media account(s) reply to positive comments in a warm and thankful way, but never monotonous. I would have them respond to negative comments in a respectful and completely non-confrontational, "the customer is always right" way. 

I put comments on both of these brands with an image of one of their products, I have yet to get a reply but hopefully I will soon. I posted an image of a new redbull flavor in my hand (watermelon) while walking, commenting that "I absolutely love the new flavors you are putting out and I cannot wait for the next season of flavors, I have tried almost all of the new flavors" For monster I posted a picture of myself at my computer desk with a "Java Monster coffee + energy" saying "This is one of my go-to drinks when studying, they taste amazing and really get the job done and help me get my work done."