Week 6 Part A: Engaging Your Customers - Facebook Strategy

For this assignment I chose these businesses to follow:

1. Architectural Digest, Est. 1920, Self proclaimed International Design Authority. Publication with pictures and short videos and links to articles on the website with a solid 5.1M following. I can potentially share a lot of content from here.

2. Luxe Interiors + Design, another famous magazine can be source for a lot of shared content, It would be crazy to get featured here one day.

3. Natuzzi, A well known Italian furniture brand, globally. Clean presentations of their products can be shared. Includes both short videos and photos.

4. Moooi, Holland based manufacturer of lighting, seating and accessories, great reels and videos.

5. Karim Rashid, award winning industrial designer with designs ranging from furniture and lighting to cutting edge speakers, corporate identity and package design. Great videos and content. Interesting personality. Great source for materials to be shared. 

6. Kelly Wearstler, Designer and lifestyle blogger. I like the vibe that her page has. Maybe we can emulate similar energy on our page. Or maybe have my designs featured on her page, one day!

7. Bond Interiors, not a well crafted page compared to others on my list, but one of the leaders of the industry in the market I'm hoping to break into.

Week 5 B Facebook Data Collection Metrics

   Facebook has two metrics for businesses posting content on the platform that is a clever way of getting feedback on what happens after one hits post, and adjust strategy to gain maximum efficiency.

  The "reach" metric shows the number of people who see your post on their feed and the engagement is people who liked, commented, shared or just clicked to check it out further.

  If I wanted to borrow analogy from my beloved sport of tennis: Everyone talks about how beautiful and natural looking Roger Federer's one handed backhand was. The part they forget to mention is the strong and quick footwork that allowed him to be in position in the first place to then execute the beloved stroke. If you have just started playing the game and have problems getting to the ball, it would be a wrong strategy for your coach to work on your groundstrokes. However If you are agile and quick and get to every ball but your shots end up in the fence or over it, now we can try to fix the strokes.

  Similarly, on the Facebook platform, if your posts don't reach your audience, maybe you should stop posting at 5 AM and pay attention to when they are online and engaging more with your content. Or if you reach plenty of people but fail to spark interest (in the form of engagement) maybe you should rethink your strategy and change your content or format- like switch to reels and videos.

  The positive side of the data collection is that Meta ads and content, will be aligned with your interests and you won't be shown endless discount car insurance or dating site ads. Small businesses won't need extravagant advertising budgets and can reach their potential customers very cost effective. Some negative sides are the normalization of surveillance in the society (How many people do you know who would give up their privacy in exchange for comfort?) also manipulation of public opinion and corrosion of societal trust in institutions.

Week 4 B: Defining Our Target Market

 "TARGET MARKET ANALYSIS FOR FOREIGN CLIENTELE ACQUISITION FOR LR INTERIORS INC."

"THIS TARGET MARKET ANALYSIS REPORT IS BEING PREPARED TO CONSIDER REVISING STRATEGY AND MARKETING IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES."

Market Overview:

 Dubai's interior design market is experiencing robust growth, driven by fast urbanization, a booming real estate sector, and luxury tourism industry. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) interior design market is projected to expand from $3.58 billion in 2025 to $4.97 billion by 2030, with Dubai contributing approximately 50% to this market share. 

Demographic Characteristics:

• Age: 25-55 years
• Gender: male and female
• Income Level: Middle to high-income earners
• Occupation: Professionals, business owners, and expatriates
• Education Level: University graduates

Psychographic Characteristics:

• Lifestyle: Affluent individuals with a taste for luxury 
• Values: Appreciation for quality, exclusivity, and personalized services
• Interests: Art, design, architecture, and modern living

Geographic Characteristics:

• Location: Residents of Dubai, particularly in upscale areas like Downtown Dubai, Palm Jumeirah, and Dubai Marina

Image Source

Week 4 Part A: Defining Target Markets

  Subway.com colors their logo in yellow and green following their corporate identity. It also includes two arrows emphasizing it's speed of delivery and their target market, people who want to get in, get their grub on and be on their way.

  The rolling banners follow the same color scheme (perhaps to appeal to a broad market) and includes economical prices to grab the attention of cost conscious students, professionals on the go, who may even be behind the wheels, between service calls or projects.

  Their target market includes travelers who have paid hundreds or thousands of dollars in flight tickets, hotel reservations and Uber rides and refuse to fork out $45 on a badly prepared pizza, which will give them indigestion later during the flight!

  HungryBear.com is using the color scheme that is reminiscent of our state flag. You don't have to look far to see the grizzly with an apron around it's neck, munching on a sub (I am told by my Chicagoan cousin that sandwiches refer to sliced bread and subs to the ones looking like submarines, can someone please verify?) To me this color scheme also ties into our great states Mexican heritage of warmth and hospitality. 

  Hungry Bear features mouthwatering pictures of the food they made in-house and you can be sure the food you get is similar to food you see here - unlike those other guys!

  Just by looking at their website, I would say their customer base includes well established members of society: Business owners, Lawyers, Doctors, College Professors... People who value the dining experience and would pay a premium for it and also have partners, friends, companions to share the generous portions with.

Week 3 B: Developing a Brand

  After running on a long tangent, I am now ready to share some of my thoughts in the class assignment. I was writing a long piece-both related and not-to the core class materials which I won't be publishing here, but gave me a lot of food for thought.

 Analyzing my wife's business LR Interiors: She does use a logo, but in my mind she is the real face of her business (I'll elaborate later). The logo is her initials drawn into the corner of a room. This showcases the nature of her work which can range from designing and decorating to drafting and rendering. Plus the word "interiors" which isn't a tagline per se, is also revealing of her services.

 She is using a dark grey background with her initials popping out in bright white. I think the color choice plays well into the kind of work she likes to do, but excludes other clients. Not every client is looking for ultra sleek, minimal, Modern, etc. look. Some people like neoclassic or rustic, or very colorful designs-which she gladly takes on as an interior designer-but are underrepresented.

 Most of her clients are either repeat business, have seen her work somewhere and she is recommended to them, or very seldom someone that contacts her through Instagram, which she keeps as a portfolio of projects she likes to be known for. Ultimately the project owner is the person who is going to trust her with the finances and also for her to come through with good designs that adds value to the project and in her line of work, successfully completed projects speak volumes.

 She uses the fonts provided for stories and reels to spice up her presentations. Maybe she should consider using a uniform look. This would become necessary as she grows and starts to utilize other talent.

Week 3 Part A: Aesthetics, Design, and Branding

 The first site that chose for this assignment is best-electronic-ca.com

 Initially it takes one a few minutes to figure out their services and products. It's using the official ATARI logo but it's on an obscure domain. Wait, is ATARI still around? 

 There's no Hierachy to the information provided. The bold typography makes it feel like it's "Breaking News" constantly. 

 Okay! I get it now. They provide parts for the vintage video game console and for such a niche market, they carry a lot of parts and are the go-to place.

 "Make people scroll! Don't you dare create a second page!". The admin behind this website never got the design lecture memo.

 

The second website is a very curious one: itcorp.com

 There are many consulting businesses in the tech sector with a large firm involved who doesn't want their contractors taking on competing clients. 

 The writer behind this-likely the owner- is probably open to selling this domain:"... calls itself ITcorp" and has great sense of humor: to satisfy the needs of those..."

 There is a lesson here, though. The people who don't actively seek your business have the higher hand in negotiations when you need their services.

 The third website toyota.com is a great example of an organized site with clearly planned out depth of content. They obviously make more models than the ones they feature on the landing page, but everything can be reached by a few clicks. 

 The featured models are carefully placed to reinforce the brand's image of rugged and reliable. Whether deliberate or not, affordability has completely been omitted.

 Toyota takes pride in their products & puts equal care into both how they're produced and presented. 

The last website is apple.com

 I consider Apple the innovators of this new business style that we are also learning in this class. There's a famous story about Steve Jobs giving hell to his engineers to be able to change fonts on the original Mac. And to his credit, he got his fonts.

 Helvetica (originally developed in 1957) didn't become widely recognized until apple started using it along with their minimalistic approach.

 They have been setting the standards and leading the pack on how to run websites for a while now.

 

Week 2 Part B: Business research

The Cheese Board Collective

1.  cheeseboardcollective.coop

2. Cheese Board is an employee owned Bakery/Cheese/Pizza shop in Berkeley. They occasionally feature live music. The menu that changes daily is a vegetarian pizza and a salad, it is the only vegetarian joint that I frequent so worry not, all of their pizzas are delicious. They have gotten 4.8 stars from over 3500 people on google. I am also a fan of their business model where every worker is a partner.

3. There are links to their Facebook (11k) and their Instagram (13k) on their website. Their last post was about the lunar new year and was up on January 23rd.

4. I would say they have delegated the social media tasks to one of the worker/partners who used the Instagram/Facebook feature that lets you automatically post identical content on both platforms. Their following seems to be organic and food oriented rather than because of their content and presence on social media. If they partner up with a pro they can both present themselves and their business model better.

Pickle Pop

1. Picklepop.co

2. Pickleball courts hosting open play, clinics, live ball, social events and private parties on the infamous Santa Monica Promenade.

3. The website lists Instagram page with 14.7 K followers. It has a ton of short video content and it is in the theme color of pink. Seems to be in good hands.

4. The two founders appear to be doing much better than when I was there last. I am happy to report that both the social media and the business look very busy.

La Mission

1. la-mission.shop

2.This is the go-to spot to get the staples of Mexican food in Berkeley. The food is very hearty and delicious. 

3. However this restaurant lacks any social media presence. It has thousands of four and five star reviews on Yelp and Google. It even enjoys four stars from seventy seven reviewers on Trip Advisor!

4. This is one business that can skyrocket if they adapt to the new ways of doing business. They can grow to several shops with many employees and eye-popping profits.

Ryan Air

1. ryanair.com

2. Ryan Air is an Irish ultra low-cost airline group with many European destinations. I have flown the airline multiple times for prices as low as 9.99 Euros (less than a movie!) and the checked luggage can easily cost you four/five times the price of seat!

3. Their website has links to their Facebook page (5.2M), Instagram (1.6M), YouTube (146K), and a suspended X account (which is very revealing of their ways!). Upon searching further I found their new X account which has 862K followers. They clearly have a team of social media experts and are utilizing every platform to perfection with posts, videos, shorts, memes, replies...

4. "The company has at times been criticized for [ ... ] & tendency to intentionally generate controversy to gain publicity."(Wikipedia) and I believe controversy is what they do best. Their content and the way they troll their customers and sometimes competitors, goes viral occasionally. However I can't make up my mind that whether their intentional politically not correct stance helps or hurts their business. Mind you train tickets for many of these routes can cost eight times as much and take way longer. In other words they don't have any competition for their segment.

Picklers

1. picklers.ae

2. Picklers is another pickleball business- and there will be many of them in the next couple of years. This time in Dubai, UAE. They provide courts, lessons and themed events.

3. Their website greets you with professionally made videos, and lists their Instagram with 3.3K followers and similar videos. The also tried their hands at TikTok but aren't successful which is shame because I believe that's the platform to reach the younger generation if politics doesn't play a role in this, (who wants to open that can of worms?!) They also have a very busy telegram channel where members set up games.

4. This is another business that I frequent when I am in town. This is also a great spot for the expats to find each other in Dubai while doing a fun physical and social activity. Maybe the owner's son will take over TikTok and this business continues to thrive.