Week 17: Wrapping It Up

My final post of the the semester, and what a semester it has been. As my first semester in the US as an international student, I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and I have especially enjoyed this course. When I first realized the course was going to be based on writing a blog each week, I must admit I wasn't thrilled. I didn't see my writing kills as anything special or exciting, and I definitely didn't believe anyone would be interested in what I had to discuss. HOWEVER, I have really enjoyed writing the blogs each week and the research that came along with them. I believe the course overall allowed me to also utilize my classmates work and research. As we all have different business ideas, I think it was great to view research from a different view point and to understand the explanations as to what might work best for them, and also some tools which may help me that I have never heard of. 

With regards to my viewpoint on social media, I don't believe it has changed with regards to social media networks themselves, I do believe however, that I have discovered added features that I benefit my business. Although, at this stage it might be good to mention that I believe social media has a great impact on businesses and allowing people to start their own business and survive. I have always thought of social media as a 'personal' activity, however, I do believe they are all turning towards helping business grow and succeed, so in that view, it has changed. 

Social media platforms are so prominent in society today, it would be hard to not use at least one or two of them. I do still believe that LinkedIn would be the best platform for me to use as it has my perfect target audience all in once place. However, I have learned that it would not hurt to have Instagram and Facebook which would help me build my brand awareness and potential customer base.  

With regards to developing my business, I definitely have a  better understanding on how to use it successfully. As mentioned I think having regular and interesting posts across all platforms will be a positive for business development. But what I found really interesting this semester was the research I did into Facebook and Google analytics. I think was definitely something I would use when trying to improve and grow my business and it really does go into some great analytics which you may not have thought of before. I might also have an idea of what my ideal target market it, but the analytics may suggest something different which I think is super interesting as a business owner, you get to see who likes the posts, where they are, if they saved anything, if they visited your website, what time the posts should be etc. so this is something I will definitely look into when creating a business. 

When it comes to services and social media, I definitely would use LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook for business. I would also use analytics for Facebook and google, I really appreciated the value of these programs and how much information i could analyze to improve the success of FINTAL Recruitment. 

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this semester and researching the different tools, platforms and discoveries that myself and my class have found and even though I don't think my opinion has changed too much, I have definitely gained some important take always about keeping an open mind and also stay adaptable. The social media market is constantly changing and the best platform for my business today, may not be the best platform in a few years time!

Thanks so much for all you advice and comments this semester!