Facebook Final

The page that I managed over the course of this semester was a community page called Southern Utah Adventures. This page was designed to inform people of the many unique features of the St. George area where people can share their adventures and be informed of the outdoor activities this community offers. This page was a new page therefore I had to formulate ways to generate followers (likes) and present media for individuals to relate with and hopefully have my followers share my posts to potentially reach a larger audience who this would appeal to so that I could collect more insights on the page and adjust posts and content when I felt was necessary. The number of likes that I was striving for coming into this campaign was anywhere from 50-100 likes.

For my Facebook campaign I used the ad manager to try to reach a larger audience. For the demographics that I choose I used a radius of 50 miles within Washington county to attract people to like my page as well as a 50-mile radius in the Moab area because much of what I post is in regards to national parks. I choose these two areas because I felt that these were appropriate to reach the largest number of people who would be interested in this type of page. I had the potential to reach around 90,000 people based on the information that my page provided which I felt was a really good potential number to reach. I set a budget over a week span that had an amount of $5.00 as the max spending amount. As I tracked this over the week I found that different days of the week used different amounts of money to reach an audience which I found interesting. The weekend spent more money than the weekday did, but it stayed within the budget distributing different amounts on different days. I ended up reaching a little over 400 people and accumulated 14 likes. I wasn’t disappointed with the response I got back, but at the same time would have liked to see more interest out of the potential audience. After analyzing the first add I was looking into ways to become more appealing to the potential audience and I adjust accordingly and planned to launch a new ad within the next week trying a different area. After the first ad was completed these are the results that I found and was able to work with to adjust for a new ad.

These screenshots shows the audience I reached, the days in which I generated the most interest, and how many likes I accumulated with this ad. This was very helpful in adjusting my second ad that I was planning on doing. When it came down to my budget I paid 35 cents per (like) which wasn't disappointing but I felt it could have been better.

The second ad I tried to reach a new area I extended my reach to Las Vegas as well as St. George and Moab. I felt these three areas would be the most appealing to this page. The age group I considered was all ages because this page is designed for anyone.

As this ad come to a conclusion this week I found that I generated roughly the same results as the first ad did. I accumulated 13 new likes and the reach was 447 which is almost identical to what the first ad generated. I was slightly disappointed I thought I would generate more interest with this ad because I had more content and I used a new area. Needless to say any click is a vote and I was satisfied with the insights I received. For this ad I paid 30 cents per like which was 5 cents less then the last ad which is good.

My plan throughout the semester was to post at least once a week about potential hikes and areas one could explore if they found interest in it. I did a fairly good job of keeping up on my content I found my posts were roughly a little over a week a part which was in my plan. I felt I could have tried a little harder to post more content regarding different things throughout this community but I did my best to keep on it and I was pleased with what I came up with I felt it was good information that I myself would have been pleased with seeing on my Facebook feed. As it show in this screenshot my post reached a much larger audience then my first posts did. I would imagine this was contributed to the ads that I ran at the time which boosted my reach and my engagement of my posts and content on my page. 

As I began to look through my insights and see the activity that my page received and the likes generated I found out who my biggest audience was in each location as well as the age of the people most interested in my page. Over the course of the semester with all the posts that I did and the two ads that I created I generated 47 likes which fell a couple short of my goal but I wasn't disappointed with the amount it received.

As I looked through this I found that roughly all of my likes came at the times when I was running ads. I didn't receive any new likes in the time frame of which I didn't run an ad which was the most disappointing thing I found while doing this page was that I had to run an ad to generate any new likes. One thing I would adjust would be to find ways to get new interest in the page without running an ad.

As for the posts and the shares I did generate a few shares from followers that weren't paid shares which I found to be helpful but I didn't receive any new likes from the shares by others but it was still satisfying to see people share your content because that means that you are putting things out there that people are interested in reading and sharing so I will continue to post and try to create content that people can relate with and share with there followers which ultimately will help my page.

As for the people that I reached I didn't have a preference on men or woman or really a specific age group. I felt the page is a very generic page that would be appealing to any age group male or female based on the content that I posted it is very gender neutral and non age discriminate. It is used to inform anybody interested in this type of activities so I didn't filter out anyone when promoting ads and posting content. As I looked through the people insights I found that it was fairly even in the male and female followers with a slight edge to males which didn't surprise me but I was pleased to see that this page appealed to both genders fairly evenly. The biggest age group that I reached was people ages 18-24 which wasn't surprising at all I invited many friends to like this page and a majority of them fall under this age group. The second largest was people 25-34 which wasn't surprising either considering this is an outdoor activities page and many people find that appealing within that age group. Overall I liked that I was able to get followers from all the age groups, that makes me feel that this page is appealing to all ages and that anyone would be willing to follow this.

Summary:

Overall I really liked doing this campaign it is something that I can relate with on a personal level due to the fact that these are things that I like to do when I have free time. I feel Southern Utah and the surrounding areas are some of the most unique in the world when it comes to outdoor activities as well as some of the world famous national parks that are in this area. The ultimate goal is to introduce what's available because I feel not everyone really knows what all there is to do around here. I hear things from peers like there is nothing to do in this town from a lot of people so providing something such as this page to open that door to new things that people can experience and share with friends and family. I felt that I put a good amount of time in tryin to promote this page and get people involved in the content. I do wish that I provided a little more variety of the content, I found it to contain similar types of posts but I also really enjoyed what I did post to the page and found the content very relevant to the subject matter of the Facebook page. One thing that was most successful about the page was that I was able to reach the entire target audience that I was intending to reach from the age groups to the types of people who followed the page. I looked through a few of the peoples pages that followed my page and found they were outdoorsy people such as myself living in this area which is what I was trying to target. One thing that was disappointing about the page was that it didn't receive more attention from the ads that were posted I really thought I would generate more interest with my ads. I will continue to look into ways to make my page more appealing to my audience. Even though the semester is almost over I plan to continue to manage my page and find ways to produce more interest in the content the page offers. If this page continues to be successful I plan to manage it for many years to come this is something that I am very intersested in as far as hobbies and lifestyle is concerned and I think it could be potentially one of the more popular Facebook pages unique to this area.

Recognizing Default Responses

How one reacts to a certain situation and or event is based from many factors, and learned experiences one embraces in life. Attitudinal responses are embedded within us without us really paying much attention to what that consists of, due to it being such a regular part of our thought process. We as human beings see and react to stimuli differently depending on what is being presented to the individual. Everyone’s first response to something is likely much different than the next person’s response. Though similar thinking may be present between two people the initial way one reacts and responds is unique to the individual’s attitudinal response. These attitudinal responses usually consist of a primary certitude, a hidden assumption, or an ethnocentric position mainly based from learned experiences or long term exposure to a certain kind of culture, or thinking that the person carries with them.

When I think about my initial default response, I like to think that I have a pretty unbiased and non-judgmental thinking when it comes to certain topics and individuals. I myself like to do my best to think critically about the situation and potential outcomes without offering to much of a bias. It’s in our human nature however to have a slight bias even when we think we don’t. As I looked through my posts within the on the media assignments I went into it thinking that I argued both sides fairly equally but as I read through I found that that wasn’t necisarilly the case. Many times throughout my writing I tend to choose a side that relates with my initial feelings regarding the matter. I did come to find in my latest post that my mindset initially going in changed after listening to the podcast. I saw the topic and immediately formed in opinion about the matter that I found consistent with my knowledge on the subject. It wasn’t until the podcast had finished did I sit there and realize that my initial thoughts regarding the topic had been changed for the most part. I still related with my initial thought process but the way that I viewed the topic and the situations within that topic had changed and I then formed a different opinion in which I wrote about in my post. I was able to adapt my thinking immediately after listening to what was being said. This thinking formulated some new thoughts that I portrayed that I originally wouldn’t have. Had I not opened my mind a little bit and allow for different opinions to cross the barriers of my initial attitudinal response on the matter I would have been stuck with this thought process which was one sided and lacked critical thinking to begin with.

I had come to find that in my first two on the media assignments I was very one-sided though at the time I was writing on the matter I felt I wasn’t. After reading the dangers of critical thinking I was able to find the primary certitudes that I demonstrated in my writing based on strong cultural context that have been influenced by in my life and I use this in my writing though I don’t necessarily mean to at the time. As for hidden presumptions in my writing I came to find that I wasn’t prejudice or intolerant to other ideas I just didn’t formulate that type of thinking in my writing I mainly wrote on what I knew but didn’t portray intolerant thoughts on the matter just spoke about how I felt. At times though I was slightly ethnocentric in giving the other side of the matter a real fighting chance to have the voice it deserved. Like I said the first two posts lacked a two-sided argument but in the third my thinking was changed and both sides were argued fairly and demonstrated more appropriately. It is safe to say that I need to be more open minded in my writings and portray better critical thinking on subject matters that deserves both sides having an equal voice for a better understanding.

Facebook Ad

Southern Utah Adventures
Facebook Ad Results

For my Facebook campaign which is a page called Southern Utah Adventures I used the ad manager to try to reach a larger audience. For the demographics that I choose I used a radius of 50 miles within Washington county to attract people to like my page as well as a 50-mile radius in the Moab area because much of what I post is in regards to national parks. I choose these two areas because I felt that these were appropriate to reach the largest number of people who would be interested in this type of page. I had the potential to reach around 90,000 people based on the information that my page provided which I felt was a really good potential number to reach. I set a budget over a week span that had an amount of $5.00 as the max spending amount. As I tracked this over the week I found that different days of the week used different amounts of money to reach an audience which I found interesting. The weekend spent more money than the week day did, but it stayed within the budget distributing different amounts on different days. I ended up reaching a little over 400 people and accumulated 14 likes. I wasn’t disappointed with the response I got back, but at the same time would have liked to see more interest out of the potential audience. I now am looking into ways to become more appealing to the potential audience and I will adjust accordingly and launch a new ad here in the next few days.