#ph402

http://globalcommunicationproject.tumblr.com/post/153530401969/social-media-module-activity-1-ph402

I am from San Francisco and it is a very food/ entertainment centered area.  I agree that the city page presented a feeling of just that.  They have so many places to offer it makes sense that 4 of the top 5 posts would be about weekend activities.  It is also a very politically active area so the voter deadline post is very fitting.  I was not surprised either that San Diego had such a strong veteran/ military tie on the page since the town revolves around our armed forces so much.  I think that is important to put out on social media since the military deserves recognition for all that they do for us.  I agree that San Francisco creates a sense of community on the page, and yes offering volunteering opportunities would only make that feeling stronger!  Helping homeless people would be a great cause since that is such a major current issue the city of SF is facing right now.  I think the city council meetings and sites should definitely be advertised to the public, the people want to at least stay informed even if they cannot attend.  The LGBTQ community is very active in the SF area and I think it would be great if the posts supported the movement.  At the same time, not everyone agrees on the subject and that is freedom of speech, so maybe a controversial topic like this would be left to more specific groups.  An echo friendly aspect is very underrated many places.  The environment has a major impact on our health and wellbeing.  We can’t enjoy all those weekend activities if we’re sick all the time.  San Diego’s military “buzz” is a true reflection of the community.  I think the city has a special advantage to attract all types of people because of the weather but also a unique cultural background with the military aspect.  The SD page was in fact lacking about food and things to do suggestions on the page.  Anyone who has been here knows there are limitless options of things to do and eat, but it really does help people if the information is also easily accessible online.  It is a big area and people may need a little guidance every now and then.  This post did a very good job breaking down the two cities and comparing them, very clear and simple advise that could help both cities being discussed.  

http://globalcommunicationproject.tumblr.com/post/153530409539/social-media-module-activity-1-ph402

I personally do not believe that hashtags will be the solution to San Diego County’s lack of appeal on Facebook.  I think they need to focus more on improving the quality of the information being put out, not the quantity.  San Diego is a very popular area, people will always be searching for it online, so it’s important to give the people interesting results when they are researching the area.  I don’t think the SD page should really be asking more questions to the audience, I don’t really see the point in that.  I do however agree that finding more ways to appeal to the audience is important, but not through questions.  The county website should definitely be made available on the Facebook page, this will increase visits and help people who may be lost or confused about where to find the website.  I don’t think the actual San Francisco page needs to be focusing on commenting back on people’s posts.  Think the city page is responsible for starting a conversation or buzz of interest, and then it is the people’s job to continue it.  People talking to people and answering each other’s questions will create the community feel and provide a unique way to connect with others.  This submission seems to give more credit to SF for a successful page than SD.  I agree that San Francisco does seem to be operating a more successful page as well, but the suggestions put forth in this submission also hold so much potential for improvements in both cities! These are two of America’s favorite cities, the suggestions put forward will just make these cities even more visible/ accessible than they already are!

The County of San Diego is doing a good job at engaging their followers, they are receiving a lot of likes, comments and shares over San Francisco’s page. The County of San Diego posts more often but San Fransisco has more checkins. For the County of San Diego I would recommend, 1. Posting more often 2. Time their posts to target their audience 3. Post more links because fans enjoy them most 4. Start using hashtags to expose brand, and lastly 5. Review the length of posts and publish more photos. For the County of San Fransisco I would recommend similar ideas, 1. Post a lot more often to get more attention 2. Time posts better 3. Post more photos because fans love them 4. Get more likes by posting more engaging material  and lastly, 5. Encourage followers to share, like and comment. Both Counties should open their pages to let users communicate by allowing this the audience feels more engaged and more invested. Both should ask their followers questions to create more discussion on their posts to gain more attention. Both should post more often to keep their followers interested and even if they do not click, share, like or comment they are receiving peripheral cues about the pages. I would also recommend they alternate their posts between, pictures, videos, links, and written posts. I think overall San Diego is doing a bit better because they have more engagement with their followers.

Top 2 posts from San Diego:

Top 2 Posts from San Fransisco 

These had the most shares, likes, and comments

When comparing the two Facebook pages I see various similarities and differences between the two. Both cities have a large “like” average but San Francisco is leading San Diego by about 9,000 like. A similarity between the two is that they are both cities that are categorized as Government Organizations. When dealing with San Francisco engagement rate of users it is a lot lower than San Diego’s. SD has a very low rate of 3.96% in general, but San Francisco has an extremely low rate of .08%. This indicates that people of the city of San Francisco who are “liking” this page are not utilizing its benefits. If I were to suggest something to boost activity on their page it would be to advertise themselves and local businesses more. I would plaster it on every business supporting the page to follow and like the SF Facebook page. I would also offer incentives and post special offers throughout San Francisco is people will want to follow the page. In order for the city of San Diego to gain a larger follower/like base they need to start using hash tags. It indicates that they do not use hash tags at all, with the use of hash tags people can find the page much easier, it is free advertisement. Both Cities face books seem to maintain about the same lengths posts but a pie of advice I would give would be to use as less works and more pictures as possible. I found that within cities top posts, election result and something pertaining to the election was displayed. The information advertised by San Francisco’s page are events, whereas SD’s is more news based.

Analysis Activity #1

​Compare the two county pages.  Report on what they should be doing better, and what they should continue doing.  In your comparison you should give specific examples of what one county is doing better than the other, and what both can do to improve.  5 recommendations per city, minimum.  In your Tumblr post screen shots of the two top performing posts for each county's page.

             San Francisco’s post seemed to be targeted more towards food, fun and entertainment. For example, 4 of the 5 top posts talk about things to do that weekend and the motivation key even talks about food. I am glad to see that voting registration deadline was one of the top posts.

            San Diego’s post seem to be targeted more towards veterans and military. This makes sense because San Diego has military bases, a large military population and a large population of veterans. Like San Francisco, San Diego had a trending post about the election.

 San Francisco-

1.     I love the access to information about things to do. It creates a sense of community. I think it would be a good idea to include volunteer opportunities over the weekends!

2.     Like San Diego, SF should target a vulnerable population to help. (i.e. homeless population)

3.     San Francisco should bring awareness to city counsel meetings and sites. This will help residents to feel confident and comfortable to communicate with the city with issues they are facing.

4.     I would like to see SF post resources for the lesbian and gay community.

5.     I appreciate SF ecofriendly vibe. I love the recycle ideas the community presents. I would like for SF to help SD adopt these ideas.

   San Diego-

1.     I love that San Diego has a lot of buzz about the military population. We too are creating a sense of community. I would like to see volunteer opportunities for military families in need.

2.     I love the resources available for vets and the show of appreciation for vets from San Diego. I would like to see more volunteer opportunities for vets.

3.     I think San Diego should have more information about things to do. San Diego has so many activities that having information on their page could bring in more people and more families to the events.

4.     I would like to see more information on San Diego eats. San Diego has a diverse food scene. Bringing restaurants to life would support restaurants that are up and coming.

5.     San Diego should bring awareness to city counsel meetings and sites. This will help residents to feel confident and comfortable to communicate with the city with issues they are facing.

San Diego County generally appears to have more posts per day, a greater amount of likes, comments and shares per post, and a greater amount of linked articles within posts. People in San Diego County also do not use Hashtags, and the fans seem to respond best to links. It also has a higher engagement rate than the San Francisco page. Some recommendations include: opening the page and letting users communicate with the creator/moderator of the page in order to be able to give feedback. Creating more engaging posts would help keep the attention of the audience. More photos should be published; most of the current posts are just links to news articles. The lengths of the post should be reviewed; most posts are extremely short. More questions should be asked to the fans of the page in order to better engage the fans and get them involved with the page.

San Francisco City and County is generally more popular the then San Diego County page with 255,044 likes compared to San Diego’s 17,647 likes. The fans of the San Francisco page appear to respond best to photos. Some recommendations include: opening up the page and letting users communicate with the creator/moderators of the page. There should be more posts per week; the amount of posts on this page is extremely low, so there is not much reason for users to come to this page. The posts should also be more engaging in order to draw and retain more interest in the page.

San Diego County facebook is ranked #52 by likealyzer whereas San Francisco is ranked #49. I’m not sure what that scale is relative to but the two counties seem to be neck and neck. In page performance, San Francisco is seriously outnumbering San Diego in likes and check-ins but seriously outnumbered by San Diego in engagement rate.

San Diego posts more per day than San Francisco posts in a week and has a higher engagement rate but the numbers of likes is in San Francisco's favor. This could be due to population size. It shows, also, that San Francisco responds much more to photos more than anything else whereas San Diego responds the most to links. I think San Diego could benefit from learning from San Francisco and post more photos with hashtags than links; San Diego does not use hashtags.

When comparing the two counties “top 5 posts”, San Francisco’s was posting about events around the county, where San Diego’s top post was about pet adoption in a county newsletter. San Diego would benefit from posting more about events throughout the county to gain engagement. 

San Francisco is responding well to photos, so they should add more photos, with hashtags; they should also try posting more links which gave San Diego success in engagement. And, although San Francisco is a very eventful town, perhaps more posts that engage the hearts of the population, like San Diego’s number one: pet adoption. It seems that although this was not the number one liked in San Francisco, voter registration deadline posts were the most shared, so perhaps more serious events and deadlines such as this would spark more engagement. 

San Diego NEEDS to use hashtags, that is essential in today’s social media; it opens up much more audience that might not otherwise be interested, this is key. San Diego has a higher engagement rate, more PTAT (people talking about this) and more posts per day than San Francisco but are falling behind in likes by over 200,000. Average people respond to photos better than links, keep the links for the audience San Diego already has, and add much, much more photos to engage new audiences, and add, add, add hashtags! In addition to the number of photos to be added, with only 8.3% of posts currently photos, the content must be engaging. So, perhaps the links that seem to work so well, should be accompanied by photos that illustrate what the link will connect to. 

San Diego:

San Francisco:

Just looking at these two pictures/posts from each city, they seem relatively similar, with a strong focus on the community and things happening in the community. When you look at all of the top posts though, it seems that San Francisco’s top posts are more about getting attention and likes like talking about a new movie coming out or one example that is a quote for motivation. San Diego’s top posts seem to be more news based and informing the public about plans and partnerships along with things happening in the community. San Diego does have way more likes on their posts than San Francisco does though so they do seem to be doing something right.

San Diego has some great Facebook posts up but I think something that they can take from San Francisco is making their page more fun. News is great and necessary but mixing in some fun random posts could make the community more involved with the page and maybe they will see the other news posts. Along with community involvement, I think creating hashtags would be a great way to get the word out in a way that social media responds well to. Maybe making interactive polls would be good. Getting their page promoted would also be a great way to get the community to see their posts. Putting a picture with a link to their Facebook page on the side bar of Facebook itself or even on other websites would be great. I also think if they post a little bit more consistently and really make it a priority, they will get more people involved.