Week 3B - Communication, Business & Consumer

1. COSTCO

1. Costco
2. https://www.costco.com/
3. Facebook and Pinterest
4. The Pinterest page looks like they have a quite a few boards and hundreds of pins but they only have 41,255 followers which I don't think is very much for a national chain like them. The Facebook page has 2,029,638 followers and their latest post for Valentine's Day has 11 comments, 14 shares and 9.3K views. Given the number of followers, I don't think this is very many.
5. Facebook last post: 12:15 PM today 02/11/2019. I don't have a Pinterest account so I can't see the latest post there.
6. Costco's current use of social media is conservative. It looks like their main platform is Facebook but they mostly post a hot or popular item advertisement to try to gain interest for people to try. They do post about twice a day and it looks like they do have a social media team that responds to important questions. There is a video post about a pork tenderloin recipe that so far has 140 comments, 1,541 shares and 707K shares, which is by far the best shared and viewed post that I've seen that is recent. Maybe they should do more recipes...? Just a thought, Costco!

2. Taco Bell

1. Taco Bell
2. https://www.tacobell.com/
3. Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram
4. Twitter looks like it is used a lot, they post every 1 to 2 days with good content, with 1.9M followers and 791K tweets. Facebook looks similar in content with 9,915,131 followers. The YouTube page only has 73,970 followers and they try to make it young and exciting with some interesting videos. The Instagram account has 1.2M followers and 1096 posts with young, trendy and vibrant content that looks pretty cool.
5. Instagram's latest post was 01/31/2019. YouTube's latest post that isn't a commercial was 02/05/2019. The latest Facebook and Twitter post was today 02/11/2019, the same post.
6. Taco Bell's use of social media is very current, young and trendy. It seems to me that they are trying to stay cool and relevant with the younger high school and college crowd which makes sense. A lot of their content looks like 90's throwback in graphic design which is in right now.

3. Coke

1. Coke
2. https://us.coca-cola.com/
3. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram
4. Their Facebook has 107,480,300 followers and it looks like they post 1-2 times a month without a post this month so far. Twitter has 3.33M followers and 259K tweets, with their latest tweet being 7 hours ago. Their YouTube has 2,986,541 subscribers that features videos in different languages. Their Instagram has 2.6M followers with 123 posts which I thought surprising and I thought they would have a lot more posts in Instagram.
5. Facebook latest post was 01/24/2019, Twitter latest post was 7 hours ago today, YouTube latest post was 15 hours ago today and Instagram latest post was 02/03/2019.
6. Coke's social media is full of spreading positive and inclusive messages that hope to inspire tolerance, love and other positive vibes. I like how they aren't pushing marketing campaigns in your face and instead are creating a brand personality all its own.

4. National Geographic

1. National Geographic
2. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
3. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat
4. Their Facebook has 45,236,487 followers and they post several times a day. Their Twitter has 22.5M followers and 47.8K tweets so far. Their Instagram has 99.8M followers! Wow! They have several posts a day on there.
5. Their latest Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts were within the last 1 hour or so.
6. NatGeo's social media presence is larger than I thought. I enjoy some of their TV content and I love their wildlife conservation and research mission so this makes me happy. Their content is mostly posts of professional photographs and some videos with some social/political stuff thrown in as well.Their Facebook also has a bot that pops up automatically to talk to you and test your knowledge I guess.

5. Shopify

1. Shopify
2. https://www.shopify.com/
3. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Snapchat
4. Their Facebook has 3,362,324 followers and they post about every few days. Their Twitter has 244K followers and 28.8K tweets so far and they tweet sporadically, probably every few days on average. Their YouTube has 130,315 subscribers with a video probably once a week on average right now. Their has 275K followers and 2,632 posts. Their LinkedIn has 82,530 followers. Their  Pinterest has 68,304 followers. Their Google+ page has 28,164 followers and the last post on there was in 2016 but Google is getting rid of it anyway.
5. All of their main platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have sporadic posts that probably average once every week or so but that's just a good guess, with their latest post being on Instagram on 02/09/2019.
6. Shopify's social media presence is interesting. Their strategy is kind of like Entrepreneur Magazine where they post new and upcoming businesses that they like and marketing strategies and interesting tidbits. I'm seeing a lot of complaints on their Facebook about their platform not working constantly and they do reply to most people.

My Review

     Ok, so in summary I'm seeing that the largest platform being utilized right now is Facebook, with Twitter and Instagram juggling the 2nd spot depending on the business. I'm not surprised by this because of the sheer size of Facebook and how long that platform has been around. It is interesting to see the different social media strategies that are being used, from the ultra-conservative and ad-centric approach that is Costco to the trendy and young approach that is Taco Bell.

    So far I think I see more people that are following trendier brands like Coke, Taco Bell and even National Geographic (nor nature nerds) that don't necessarily plug an advertisement every post but offer messages that are important to the brand or organization and they just use their brand as the backdrop to the mission.  For businesses that are more service-related like Costco and Shopify, people may follow them to keep up with what's new but on their platforms I see more people complaining and trying to communicate with them about their services/business.

     I am not surprised to see that Facebook, Twitter or Instagram are the three biggest platforms being used but I am surprised to see some of these businesses use Snapchat, Pinterest, and YouTube. I am a little older so I don't quite understand the Snapchat thing but Pinterest is old and out of style and YouTube is a different platform that these businesses haven't understood. If I wanted to watch an advertisement I guess I would go to YouTube but otherwise I don't see why I would follow any of them.

Blogs I commented on are:

Susan Sullivans, https://csiti55sp19sullivans.blogspot.com/

Sierria Gilardi, https://csit155-f18-sierrag.blogspot.com/

Austin Poynter, https://csit155-sp19apoynter.blogspot.com/

Cheers,

DavidT