Week 8 Blog Post Part 2

I believe that to help humanize our brand, we need visual social media. Being able to effective use visual social media helps display our status of our club but also helps convey our culture through pictures and video. We want to not only appeal to the parents, who are paying for their children to play but also the players themselves as our tone in Instagram is geared towards them. The businesses I have been researching are not just soccer clubs but are in the soccer environment. They are South Bay Matrix, SD Soccer Shots, Cal South Soccer and Mira Costa College Women’s, they all vary from having a large following to just starting out. After doing some research on these accounts, I have concluded that most of them only have Instagram as their main visual social media account, as I believe this is the most effective place to help humanize their brands. Everyone uses them daily, but they either lack continuity, tone, and sometimes compelling content. I will continue to break down each one of the accounts that I have researched below. 

South Bay Matrix @southbaymatrix

Currently they have a Facebook and an Instagram account, their use of Instagram is basic. They feature their players on their posts but fail to bring original content to their page or videos. Their hashtag game could use some work, as they will only attach 1-2 hashtags to their posts. They currently only have 92 followers with an average like per post at about 15 likes for about a 16% engagement rate. They typically post about once a week and the content is boring, they have announcements through their posts, but they can be unclear or hard to read and the last post was on 3/22/18. Comments on said post are generally around 1 comment per post, depending on the content. After reviewing their posts, I would probably try to use some of their graphics on some of our posts, but realistically we are doing much more than they are on a post by post basis. 

SD Soccer Shots @sd_soccershots

Soccer Shots has a great online presence through both Facebook and Instagram, their content is not only engaging but high quality. They have many action photos of their camps and classes along with some great video. They do use a lot of hashtags, they just need to utilize them effectively with their posts. They currently have 1,418 followers with and average like per post at 30 with a 2% engagement rate. Soccer shots posts are high quality in both terms of picture and video but also in their use of graphics, however they typically post only once a week with their latest post being on 3/19/18. Having high quality content may not translate to many likes but it does work for comments some being from families but mostly from other pages, which makes me think that their followers are not organic. Their use of the graphics on their content is eye appealing, and something that I would like to integrate into our account but overall, they have great stuff just needs better engagement. 

Mira Costa Womens Soccer @mccwsoccer

Now MCC has only their Instagram page as their visual social media platform. Mira costa in general has every platform however we are only researching the Women’s soccer team. They offer many different types of content on their page, from pictures to videos as well as high quality graphic and editing. Their tone for their page can be a bit confusing as they feature posts that are silly, but some that are of a serious tone. Currently MCCWSoccer has 788 followers with an average like of 50-75 likes and an engagement rate of 10%. They post about 2 times a week and feature some great content with some quality editing and with an average of 2-5 likes a post with their latest being 3/19/18. I found that some of the post that they have created can easily transition to our page, as their tone at times sometimes matches ours. Their great editing sets them apart from other accounts, but at times can be somewhat lazy posts. 

Cal South @Calsouthsoccer

Cal South is the largest account that I have researched, they have a 13.4k followers. the content that they display is top quality; having a great balance of pictures and videos. Just a lot of compelling content. Their use of hashtags are effective, the best I have seen. Every post typically has about 701 likes with a 6% engagement rate. Cal South posts at least once a day 7 times a week which is the most active account with the most recent one being 3/26/18. My one criticism with this account is that they post too much, some of the national accounts are effective and only post 2-3 a week. That being said I would like to emulate, the content is great and well executed. 

Week 8 Alternate Assignment Part One

The Oceanside Breakers have been using different social media platforms over the past few years. We have created an Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube channel for our organization. We have found that our most effective platform is our Instagram, we currently have 1500 followers, and we follow 191 users now. We have always used the Facebook platform to help target the parents of players, but we use Instagram to help target the 18 and under crowd. Along with posting photos of our players, we have used this platform to help bridge the gap between players and colleges. Using Instagram with these two methods has been effective to not only increase our social media presence but also increase our community presence.

We are extremely active on Instagram, whether it be by pictures, videos, or stories, we utilize all these tools to help maximize our brand. On an average day we will post at least once through a normal post, but we will have multiple stories loaded on our profile to increase our chances on the discover page. On a normal day we will typically use anywhere from 2-10 hashtags, but we prominently feature the #Breakermade on all our platforms, as this has helped create a culture of family, development, and character. We usually only follow business pages, that are not only in the Oceanside area but are also active on their own social media. This helps us correctly follow leaders in the Instagram platform while being able to keep growing our page organically.

We are currently working on increasing our presence on our YouTube channel, the lack of having video content has made it difficult to add content to the page. We have planned on not only creating captivating videos of our players, but offering other content like interviews, training guides, and team drills to help increase our popularity.

Instagram: @Oceansidebreakers

https://www.instagram.com/oceansidebreakers/?hl=en

Youtube: Oceanside Breakers

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaxgZlQJ52uBF-XloOs8_pA

Week 7 Blog Post Part 2

The post that I have chosen to go up is both informational as well as emotional. We like to use pictures of players, due to Facebooks audience majority made of soccer moms which are genuinely well received. It is also informational as it demonstrates the state of current events in the club, as well as touching on social engagement with at throwback Thursday post. I generally like to employ emojis in a majority of our posts, I believe that they are very appealing and show a nice change of pace from what you see on other pages. At the end of all our posts we post the #breakermade this has quickly become a mantra for the club.

Week 7 Blog Post 1

I have been managing the Facebook Page of the Oceanside Breakers, we have been a member of the Oceanside community for the last 40 years. Our goal is to help the children and parents of city to grown into fantastic soccer players but even better people. I have chosen 7 pages that I believe will help our club grow, and that are aligned all around the city of Oceanside.

Boy's and Girl's Club of Oceanside
Oceanside Turkey Trot
TAP That
Soccer Loco
Fratelli's
The Beach Soccer Championship
Glowzone NC

All of these businesses are not only based in Oceanside or the general vicinity but are geared to not only children but their parents as well. Fratelli's, Glowzone and TAP That are very much involved in our club as they give our teams opportunity to raise money through different types of fundraisers.

The Beach Soccer Championship is a beach soccer tournament that is run in partnership with the Oceanside Breakers. Not only are do they have a worldwide reach as many teams that play in this tournament are from around the globe.

We are in contact with all these different pages, as they all serve different needs due to their services. The variety of pages not only help us maintain our image as a partner in the community but also helps us use their audience as an extension.

Week 6 Blog Post Part 2

The difference from post reach and engagement is that reach is the unique number viewers of content that we have on your page or posts. Post engagement is a secondary tool that works off the post reach, simply put engagement is when people actively engage in said post through likes, comments or sharing. Knowing the difference is crucial as it can help a business gauge the interest in both their company and products. Whether a company is launching a new product or service being able to differentiate can help a business either gain ground on their products or maybe needing to pivot to a different strategy to help maximize the effectiveness of social media.

For the Oceanside Breakers, we have an average post reach of 500 organic viewers on a normal post, and on special occasions we have been able to reach an organic reach of 6000 people. Our target market is mostly parents from the ages of 24-40, as they make up the biggest part of our clientele. Having this information helps us in creating the type of compelling posts that will most appeal to our customers.

Week 6 Alternate Assignment

I have been managing the Oceanside Breakers Facebook since April 2015, at that time the page had about 1400 likes, I have since brought that to 1939 likes, which was done organically. We tend to post about a 3 to 5 times a week on Facebook. We generally put a lot of informational and kid centric posts as our Facebook is aimed at Mom. We have definitely grown in many ways since I took over and feel we give compelling content on a daily basis.



https://www.facebook.com/OceansideBreakers/



I have identified 3 different soccer clubs that we are competing against.



San Diego Surf



https://www.facebook.com/SDSurfSoccer/



This club is considered the leader in youth soccer not just in California but the country, they have produced many professional players both male and female. They are very active on Facebook, posting daily and they have great content and 5,618  likes. Their cover photo is very compelling and their calls to action are well used.



LA Galaxy



https://www.facebook.com/lagalaxysd



This club is arguably second in the county due to their affiliation with the professional MLS club LA Galaxy. The have 4,793 followers, their content is pretty boring, mostly links and not much else. They are still posting pretty actively about 3 times a week. They really need to incorporate more content on the page like videos and photos. They cover photo is also pretty boring.



Vista Storm



https://www.facebook.com/vistastormsoccerclub/



This is one of our rivals, both competitively but also talent wise, they also face a lot of the same financial challenges like we do.  They are not very active on Facebook, and they only have 524 likes which would make sense given the inactivity they have. The cover photo could be better in my opinion, due to the way it was taken. The page is geared toward reviews and information rather than content driven.



In my opinion, Surf is the best page of the ones I have analyzed. I also believe we provide as compelling content as Surf does. They use all types of different media from articles to videos. I definitely consider us to be on the same level as they are.


Here is the page I created.





M11 Media Consulting

https://www.facebook.com/M11-Media-Consulting