Week 7 - Visual Networking

Until I started this class, I didn't feel that social media was relevant to my business, and definitely not visual social media.  I have since completely changed my mind on this.  As I see the purpose of these very different platforms, set them up and begin interacting with people, so many ideas keep arising on how I can make each of these platforms work for my business.

Being a bakery lends itself to almost every social media platform out there.  When dealing with food, pictures are what drive people to purchase or desire these treats.

I think the four most widely used visual platforms are:

• YouTube
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Blogs

YouTube is something that my family constantly uses, whether searching for window cleaning tips to how to change a tire.  These videos can be as long as you would like and you can imbed them in your website.  So many people prefer to click on a video than to read an article.

Instagram is similar to Facebook in that you are posting to your followers, however, it's more of an "in the moment" type of posting.  You can upload take a photo or a short 14 second video and put it out there.  

Pinterest is a visual platform that relies upon photographs to grab the attention of the public.  The more attractive and interesting your photo, the more chance you have of someone "pinning" it and sharing with others, who may in turn pin and share.  It's similar to Facebook's sharing, but on a much larger scale.  What is great about this platform is that your pins can have a life way past the time that you post them.  Someone may come across your picture of the best brownie on earth years from now, and repin it, as opposed to a post that you have on Facebook that has long since become inaccessible.

Blogging is another visual networking platform that relies upon photos and videos to hold the interest of the reader.  The more attractive the post, the more chance you have of retaining the reader to finish the entire article and possible sign up for notifications of future posts.

For my bakery, I feel that Pinterest would be the most beneficial for us to use.  We can post our own recipes, repost other's recipes and also have other boards that we think our followers would be interested in.  Based on our target market that was identified in the 2nd week of class, I would think that our customers would be interested in anything to do with Southern California, gluten free foods, health, allergies and possibly DIY beauty products.  I'm also thinking of making a YouTube video that plays at double the normal speed, showing production of a cake, from mixing the ingredients, to frosting, packaging, delivering and then actually purchasing.