Week 8: What are comparable companies doing with visual media?

None of the companies I’ve found that are comparable are using visual media platforms. However, I did see a video made by a trade media company in which an engineer was interviewed.  The quality was not very good, but it’s an example of one type of video we could use. 

First Key Consulting does not currently use visual media platforms, as far as I can tell. However, they do use images on their web site.   http://firstkey.com/index.htm

Brewer Engineering Consultants PLC also does not use visual media platforms.  http://www.brewer-engr.com/

Energy Center of Wisconsin doesn’t use a visual media platform either.  http://www.ecw.org/

Here’s a link to the video though.  http://www.csemag.com/single-article/brewery-ensures-its-facility-is-energy-efficient/05ab3e15f9070996c2b99c9ece997005.html

Breweries do a better job of using visual media.  Sierra Nevada has a youtube channel and an instagram feed.  Sierra Nevada and other breweries provide better examples for us when it comes to utilizing visual media with our audiences.  http://www.sierranevada.com/. 

Week 8: Visual Networks

I think that some sort of visual network, used wisely, can be important and “right” for any brand.  Even though the company I’m working on is a service-related company, there’s definitely a story underlying the business, and that story is inspiring and engaging and can be told, at least in part, through images.  It’s not just about engineering – sitting in front of a computer messing around with numbers – although shown in a compelling way that can be an engaging story in itself to the right way.  It’s also about people who love beer, who care about the environment, who love natural places, who love science, who work hard and are conscientious.  There’s a lot for people to connect with when you combine an enjoyable solo or social past-time with some of our higher moral desires to be good people and make a difference.  There’s also the angle of enabling companies to take even greater pride in the products they make while realizing long-term financial benefits that enable their company, their employees, and their investors to thrive. 

So, for Green Brew Engineering, I would start out using Instagram to tell some of those stories, especially since the images from Instagram can be used to populate other social media posts.  And I would get to work on some videos.  Especially given the research that shows men are more attracted to videos, in a male-dominated industry like brewing it seems like a bad idea not to take that to heart.  Also, videos can show the progress from engineering to beer to saving the environment to saving money and creating fun and good times and a beautiful world in a way that individual images can’t.

I would want to have a blog, so it might make sense to start off with Tumblr as my blog site at the same time as everything else.  However, I’d want to weight my blog options before jumping in.  It seems like the blogs have to be short, so that might not be the right tactic for engineering, which could require some longer and more complicated blogs sometimes.  Tumblr might be something I would do later instead of right away.

Pinterest has a smaller audience than the others.  Since we don’t really have products for sale, it doesn’t seem like a great avenue for our company, especially when the photo element can be covered elsewhere.  Pinterest I think has a reputation for being more crafty and maybe more for women.  I don’t think a lot of our audience is going to be hanging out on Pinterest much.

Week 7: Twitter lists, etc.

To find people to follow on Twitter, I searched terms like:  environmental, green, sustainable, eco-friendly, brewery, brewing, beer, brew, San Diego, and engineering in different combinations.  I also found that twitter came up with a lot of great suggestions for me as I followed more people, and I was able to follow them too.  I also searched particular organizations that I thought we should follow, and I searched for news organizations like West Coaster and Beer Advocate and Grist.   I found a lot of great breweries, twitter feeds for beer magazines that Chris reads, brew pubs and craft beer bars, environmental organizations, engineering associations and organizations, and more.

I created a list for San Diego breweries because those would be our most likely initial customers, so it is good to keep track of what they are up to and get a sense of each brewery’s unique character.  I also created an engineering list to keep up to date on trends in engineering, especially related to environmentally sustainable engineering.

The lists seem really awesome for keeping pools of information separate so you can focus on big ideas separately.  I also think it helps to keep more high-priority organizations together so if you can’t look at everything, you are able to skip to whichever group is the most important for what you want to accomplish at a given time.

Week 6 Scheduling Posts

I posted content that I think could be helpful and interesting to my audience as well as content that I thought could be a platform for engagement.  The post about events at Ciro’s lets people know that we are a member of a local beer community and we support community events.  We also are providing a service to members by telling them about cool events they didn't know about or might not have remembered, or needed a bit of extra encouragement to attend.   By supporting Ciro’s we build a rapport that can encourage Ciro’s to support us in return.  Since they serve a lot of craft beers and are on the craft beer tour circuit in PB, maybe that can be helpful in the long run.  The post about a brewery in Canada introduces people to an interesting brewery they may not have heard of and at the same time gives some insights into a few different ways to think about green brewing.  I put a question out there about if anyone had had that beer or could pick it up for us just as an open-ended conversation starter to see if we could engage anyone with that.  Then the question about bottles I put out there because I did a little research on recycled bottles and I've heard that it’s more environmentally-friendly to use bottles than cans because of the way each product is recycled, however, I haven’t found any wholesale bulk recycled bottle distributors.  If anyone in the community has, that would help me out.  Also, I think putting the question out there could engage people who do have answers or even have the same question while at the same time just putting the thought about recycled bottles in peoples’ minds.

Week 6, "Likes"

I chose the companies I did to like on Facebook because they are breweries that are already implementing some green strategies into their processes.  I think it makes sense for our company to show that it knows who is out there doing this kind of stuff already and that we are into beer.  We are a friendly member of the beer community.  I also chose a couple of big local companies that are leaders in green brewing and/or we have friends there.  I do not expect that our list of likes should end anywhere near where it is now.  I think there are a lot more breweries we should add as we move forward and also a lot more people in other roles in the space – beer bloggers and other engineers and green restaurants and anyone who touches the kind of work that we do.  

Week 5 Post Reach vs. Post Engagement

Post reach is the breadth of the audience a post is potentially seen by.  In more traditional media terms, they call this type of reach “impressions.”   The reach is influenced by the number of followers the poster has because each of those followers will get the post in their news feed.  It’s also influenced by the sharing action that happens with the post.  If it’s shared, then the post has the potential to be seen by all the friends of the sharers in addition to the poster.

Post engagement is the discussion and interaction that goes along with a post, including comments and likes and click-throughs.  This is an important element of measurement because the more people engage with the post, the more likely it is to show up higher in Facebook users’ news feeds.  This is true on a global level – like if a post is trending generally it will show up higher in news feeds – and it’s also true on an individual level.  The more an individual engages with an organization’s or a person’s posts, the more that organization or person will show up prominently in their news feed.  As Facebook becomes more ubiquitous and the market becomes crowded with voices, getting to the top of peoples’ news feeds will be the only way to be seen on Facebook.

Insights is a great analytics tool available in Facebook because it allows you to see how people are reacting to your posts.  You can determine what types of posts seem to get the most engagement, what times of day your audience seems to be paying most attention, and more.  Combining this data with demographics information can also help you understand who in your audience is more excited about which types of content.  You can also gauge the potency of any significant communications efforts you undertake.