Facebook Campaign Final

At the beginning of the semester I was an administrator for the Social Media division of the Pisco Peruvian Food L.L.C. Beginning January of 2017 we transitioned from a simple food truck to a fully operational restaurant located in the heart of Cedar City at Providence Place. 

My goal was to grow and expand the amount of exposure trough social media which would Ideally translate into increased sales at the establishment.

 During our transitional period in January the page consisted of a peak 847 Likes with roughly 830 of those retained as active followers on the page.

The maximum post engagement had been shy of 300 interactions all reached organically with no capital spent on paid promotion.

 

 As we learned more in the semester of strategies that could help boost our numbers I implemented the following:
1. Make all the managers at the establishment administrators on the page and encourage them to share it with their entire friends list.: More personal views = more likes.
2. Encouraging our visitors to like our Facebook page in exchange for a discount of their appetizer or meal.: Not everyone that came in new we had a Facebook page and they were happy to help!

 3.  Focus on customer retention both in and outside of the restaurant: By being immediate responsive to comments or concerns submitted we retain what we work hard to gain.
4. Posting Often: Often companies will hinder their posts for fear of over encumbrance, however a good balance of posting at least once a week helped establish a habit among customers to come in weekly for our specials.

5. Finally the most effective method for generating views and likes both to the page and to the post came from the tactical use of the "Like, Post, and Share" strategy. In order to motivate people to interact with our posts we would occasionally give away a free meal or 2 contingent on following the instructions on the post.

Overall the growth from the social media campaign remained steady through the semester.

To date the amount of likes and followers has grown over 33%
from the mid 800's to well over 1100.
Peak post interaction boasted a High of over 8,000 organic reaches last month and continually spikes on occasion to over 5,000.




In complete honesty I am pleased with the results of steadily allowing for organic reach with no capital invested on advertisements. I met with my boss several times passing on recommendations to grow our establishment and I believe that statistical numbers do not give justice to the impact the campaign has had.


I believe that there were several factors that I missed opportunities on to "make a splash" and really drive up the likes and shares. For instance: we decided against making an event of the opening of the restaurant;opting instead to stage a soft opening. In the little experience I have seen is that by attracting a large crowd to a big event initially may not necessarily yield profits on the short term, but over the long term the sheer publicity will validate the investment. Convincing my employer to invest a limited amount into promoting ads would have also gained us exposure.

It ultimately comes down to this. the actions I implemented worked, but they could have been better. I will continue on as an administrator for the page and work to consistently improve our results.

Automatic Attitudinal Response

Automatic Attitudinal Response

The post that I would like to refer to with my response is to my 3rd OTM- Smoke and Handcuffs. 

This is easily the best example of my own personal bias. Never have I made secret my nationality. I was born in Mexico and brought to a small town in Utah before my 3rd birthday. Like many seeking a better life my parents immigrated to the US at the age of 19-20. My family did not have the good fortune to be able to cross over with legal visas and our residency situation hasn't changed much through the years. Currently I reside in the US with temporary legality thanks to DACA: an Executive Order implemented during Barack Obama's administration. Without a clear route to citizenship or even permanent residency in place for "Dreamers" in my situation any shift in politics can threaten our ability to live in the only country we know. My automatic has and might always be a constant fear of political power in the right wing conservative's favor. In terms of self preservation and seeing the welfare of my family any news story, election. or any comment made concerning undocumented immigrants/ illegals will spark a defensive response from me. Although politics is a big realm and involves many issues there are none that strike more to my core than my natural born-bias. Due to my fear of the right, and what that power can mean to the stability of my family, my stance is firmly liberal. In conservative Utah, some people's treatment of what's different be it race, nationality, gender, sexuality,  has been intolerant and rejecting. Being lumped with those also ostracized makes it easy to empathize with their cause. Growing up in a place with little diversity as a minority impacted my political stance from a very early age.

However:

Knowing why one is biased at an early age can actually be very helpful in life. Despite containing a strong distaste for the right-wing agenda, I have always been able to recognized my own bias and attempt to leave personal opinion out of, sticking (for the most part) to statistical factors instead. In the case of my OTM post I do not side with Trump's proposals, but rather than engage in a moral debate on treatment of people I state that "Despite my own bias... (here) are the clear statistics and data of the cost to deport illegals." Appeal to emotion is the strongest form of persuasion man can make. Despite this I prefer to reference facts or an appeal to logic instead because I understand that it is hard for someone to make a unbiased decision in politics when all they are provided with is "sob stories". It is hard to overcome a bias tied so strongly to a characteristic with which you have no control. For this reason I do not believe I will ever be able to be truly unbiased in politics, but I can try to formulate an opinion on logic, rather than emotion. Recognizing this, I believe, will only help to develop strong critical thinking skills.

On The Media #3

On The Media 3 - Smoke and Handcuffs

It may be the fact that we've been recently discussing the validity of news sources or just my personal perception, but a hot topic as of late has pushed (or at least tried to push) the common media consumer to research and evaluate the content that they are being fed by media corporations. In this week's on the media, the replacement host Bob Garfield, slammed Fox News for their relentless promotion of a heavy Right-Wing Agenda. My own personal views of Fox are skewed as growing up in a Very conservative culture where few questioned the bias in the news, I have definitely grown to dislike an contain an inherent distaste for the organization as well. The next point, and one that will probably be the topic of conversation for the entirety of his term is Donald trump.

The next topic on the On The Media talk show was about Sanctuary Cities. Anything dealing with Immigration is a topic that really hits home for me as I am a Recipient of DACA. The protection enacted by Pres. Obama allowing childhood immigrants brought to this country by their parents without documentation a real chance to integrate themselves productively into society without fear of being deported to a country they don't TRULY call home. "Sanctuary Cities", simply refers to the areas through the states that have pushed back on the activities of ICE. Although ICE officials state that the recent activity has nothing to do with the current presidential administration, It is hard to believe that the campaign promises of Trump aren't being executed. Despite my own bias, the only evidence needed to demonstrate what a huge waste of resources this is, is the clear statistics and data of the cost to deport illegals. If interested in learning the figures please read some of the info Here.

The immigration problem facing the nation does not contain a clear cut solution and the happy go lucky "Make America Great Again"  Promises of Donald Trump will NOT fix the underlying issue. The reason these Sanctuary Cities are able to gain such traction is the fact that not everyone buys into the mindless executive orders of the Trump administration. In order to Fix this problem there must be a more economically sound method. I believe the governors of these cities understand that operating this country on fear and shifting blame to others does not work. 

Well Informed Racism 2.0

Racism 2.0 

This particular subject tends to draw a lot of conflict in situations where conflict has no merit. The video with Matt Cook does a fair job keeping close to the reality of the situation that Americans, both black and white face today. 

The facts illustrated in the video are nothing new, though it may be surprising to some just how poorly the treatment of African Americans has actually been in the US. 

As a Latino it is kind of interesting to be able to look at this from a (slightly) exterior perspective. The realty is that no one wants to be called a racist, yet the term gets thrown around  ubiquitously.

The Black Lives Matter movement brings along some very interesting facts. Lets put it like this. Police officers: People from within our own communities, hard dedicated workers who come from different backgrounds are the people whom exist to uphold our justice system. The job description is to protect and serve! Now, Matt claims in the video that 70% of black males DO NOT trust in the justice system, a.k.a: police officers. The rate for whites is only 57% . The distrust is obvious and when there is no trust, there is no order and chaos breaks out.  

The end focus of the video is to bring attention away from the radical sides of Us vs Them in race. Rather Matt Cook explains that the real issue should not be to take pride or shame in matters beyond our control. He argues that the real battle is in poverty. 6 Major corporations in essence control the world. They feed and manipulate us in whichever way is more convenient for them to remain and grow in power. The incarceration analogy he provides is mind-blowing. even after removing all the minority groups we would still be in a deficit. 

Well Informed Religion 3.0

Religion 3.0 

This week's discussion in class over religion was easily the most interactive one we have had thus far the semester. Each person that contributed to the conversation did so freely and openly so there was little hesitation and for the most part everyone seemed truly engaged in listening to what the others had to say. What this signaled to me was that individually we have all been through much in our lives, we have all had the chance to reflect on what we put our faith in and why.

Going into class I was somewhat worried that this discussion would turn into an argument. Faith is something that many people set as the zenith of their existence and build the rest of their lives around it.Our class is small but seemed diverse enough and that we could easily all be in polar opposite views. Professor Young was able to guide the discussion in such a way that made clear that despite our relatively young age we have found our own interpretation of religion and faith. I understand that normally well informed posts are designed to push us to research outside of what we know. However, religion is a topic that Is so broad, I could spend the rest of my life researching, learning and debating and never feel complete. The beauty of faith is in our inability to explain it.

I love this topic, because it is infinite. There are many faiths I have studied in my life in religion such as the LDS, Catholic, Jehova's Witnesses, Jewish, Muslim, and many others. Yet my overall takeaway is almost always the individual testimony of the members. I can learn much more from my fellow man, than written text.

Although I am not a member, Once or twice a year (excluding missionary farewells and homecomings) I make my way to the LDS Church on Sunday. However I only ever attend on the first Sunday of the month to the Fast and Testimony meeting. I fondly refer to this as "Open Mike Sunday" due to the nature of the meeting, which is centered around any individual given freedom to bear their experience and testimony of the church. Despite any disagreements I have with the church it is impossible of me to deny the faith that someone else has and the passion with which they implement it in their life. Thursday's class felt very much like this environment, and despite being part of the Millennial generation of skeptics, open discussion is always a learning experience,

On the Media #2

What we know about the border

This Week's NPR Deals with speaking about the exact limitations that each and every person faces upon entering the US border, both from the north and the south.

The show focuses on the stories from people that arrive so widespread from folks who have suffered Border patrol abuse, Physical and verbal as well as denial of food, water and medical care by the CBP (customs of border protection) 

One such story comes from a 6 year old  US citizen who was detained at the border, held for over 24 hours with no food and water and was deported under false accusations. The child then returned 3 weeks later and was diagnosed with PTSD. The issue that comes is the lack of transparency that One US citizen spoke with the CBP manager about the issues and maltreatment that they faced at the border. Both in physical and verbal abuse. the manager avoided all the questions and would not admit to a lack of transparency from the agency. They are operating under slim if non-existent authority because there is no system of checks upon the agency. they are monitored from within. These agents have even been reported to search through US Citizen's phones without any cause and even question the religious beliefs of Muslim travelers. This violates the religious protections under the bill of rights. The guest speaker agrees that in theory the CBP operates to protect against potential dangers. However, the impact that they have in a blatant disregard of standard human rights and procedures within the United STATES, It blatantly Ignores any sort of Miranda Rights.  

To me the subject of this show goes hand in hand with the documentaries that we have seen lately and that is the fact that government agency's roam around unchecked and have no real authority to treat american citizens as though they are criminals. With the recent issues that have been popping up in the country such as the Ban- and subsequent repeal of Donald Trump's ban on Muslims. This show brings up the issues that Citizens face by the stigma that comes from targeting a group/religion full of hate. The CBP is continuing to operate unchecked, under those questionable authorities. 

Well Informed: Privacy 2.0

Privacy 2.0

Our professor is right on the money when he says that there is an inner fallacy with the illusion of online privacy. At any point do we ask ourselves exactly what we are giving up in exchange for conveniences on our technologically driven lives? The answer is simply that too many people cannot be bothered to care. To me, online privacy has always been a concern in the back of my mind. I am and have been aware from early on in the rise of technology and the internet that by contributing any information anywhere, I have forfeited my privacy. 

For example, at a very basic level anyone can dig into your personal information through the use of social media. Although sites like Facebook, Instagram, and twitter claim to protect the profile of their users, they also leave them very vulnerable at the same time. During the summer of 16 I lived in OKC and one day my friend an I went to buy a swimsuit (shorts) from Ross. As we walked in I found the cashier to be very pretty and my friend egged me on to get her number. After finding her on Facebook the idea of how scary and vulnerable social media is occurred to me. Purely as an experiment I decided to be that friendly neighborhood creeper and find out any info that would give me an insight as to who this girl was. It took me all of 15 minutes to find her name,age, family, school, address. vehicle license plate number and an approximate idea of what her schedule was. Mind you I didn't have any interest in bringing her harm, but what was there to stop someone with more malice from doing it? Sure there are privacy settings but although this girl's accounts were set this way, it was fairly simple to extract the information I needed by accessing all her social platforms and a quick google search.

 Taking some Inspiration from what we learned in class, I decided to do some research into the realm of protecting online privacy. After sorting through countless posts from many sources I came across the Article in Forbes which deals with very simple procedures one should take in order to minimize their online exposure. I found a few of these Tips to be very interesting, as they do not clearly specify to stop using social media, but they do point to it. Mostly they dealt with stopping the use of mainstream platforms to track history such as browsers and search engines. The point that I aim to make is to reaffirm that of what I have always know. Privacy is a joke. there is no guarantee from anyone or anywhere that any information you input, knowingly or not. Can and MIGHT be used to harm you in the wrong hands.