Week 3.2A: Study of Business Webites & Social Media

Studies

I have a small food product business. I make delicious healthy artisan snacks fit for busy people, always on the go.  I flavor (naturally) different fruits and vegetables and freeze dry them. I chose to study companies I consider competitors, based on my target market.

Crunchie's

• https://www.crunchiesfood.com/
• Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest & Instagram
• Definite  online presence - last post: today
• Strong graphics and communication 

Simple Kitchen

• http://simplekitchenmeals.com
• Facebook
• minimal  online presence - last post: 2016
• Nice online store, weak customer engagement

Lamb's Snacks

• http://www.lamsnacks.com/
• Facebook
• weak online presence - last post: May 14
• Good website, paid ads appear on google, weak on social media

 Hershey's

• https://www.thehersheycompany.com
• Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube & LinkedIn
• Very strong online presence - last post: September 7th
• Great customer engagement. They've got it nailed down.

Larabar

• https://www.larabar.com/
• Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest & Instagram
• Definite  online presence - last post: today
• Strong graphics and communication

Analysis

The companies that only had Facebook had the weakest online presence, the least consistent posts and weak customer communication. The company with the strongest presence, Hershey's, and customer inclusion was active in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. Hershey's was the only one of my studies to utilize YouTube, so that's interesting. The posts seemed well planned, frequent but also well spaced out. The 2 companies that I feel are my closest competitors (Larabar & Crunchies) both used Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. This seems appropriate as visual appeal is very important for this type of product. This gives me a good indication as to which platforms I should consider for my business.