Amber+McDonald's+Final+Project


 * This is great!! Great overview, too. Good luck with First Friday. The trick is getting lots of people to know about your live tweets and the event in advance. Could you please place all of your links to this as well as your linkedin profile at the top of this page? I don't want to have to find them in the text. thanks!**


 * Amber McDonald **
 * Katalyst Gallery, Old Town, Lansing **
 * Twitter: @KatalystGallery **
 * Facebook: Katalyst Gallery **
 * Website: www.katalystgallery.wordpress.com **


 * Week 1: Meeting with my business**

The business I will be working with is Katalyst Art Gallery in Old Town, Lansing. Katalyst is a modern gallery that houses artwork, jewelry, home decor, and more from about 50 Michigan Artists. The gallery is apart of a small community in Old Town that has many other small businesses and art galleries that are pretty well-known to local residents. But for people who don't know much about the town, let alone this great local business, great social media outreach would benefit greatly.

After meeting with the owner, Sarah Christiansen**,** I was able to do a full assessment of her store's social media needs. The gallery already has a website, but when she pulled it up to show me, the domain wasn't working. I told her if she couldn't get it to work, I could start designing another (temporary) website using Wordpress or Tumblr. Sarah said she would contact the appropriate people to fix the problem. In the meantime, I will design some temporary website, or develop a layout for her already existing website.

The gallery also has a Facebook page, which Sarah said is not updated that often. It is linked to her personal Facebook page, but I try to get added as an administrator so I can update the page daily. My strategy with the FB page is to post pictures with descriptive captions (including price) of all the new arrivals in the store. Sarah has already posted pictures of the gallery itself, so to keep things new and fun, updates about new items would be great. I can also think of some fun and interactive things to post on the page, like fun facts about the featured artist of the month and pictures of their newest or favorite pieces.

The gallery's Twitter page is operated by a friend of Sarah's. I am in the process of getting the username and password so I can tweet daily for the gallery. Tweets include links to the gallery's website (when operating), link to the gallery's address, updates about new arrivals, twitpics of new arrivals and events like the First Sunday walk where local residents tour stores and restaurants in Old Town. This is every first Sunday of the month. Tweeting about the gallery and the First Sunday walk means tons of publicity and hopefully a larger fan base for the gallery.

Other things I would like to try: Maybe featuring the artist of the month on the Facebook page and linking it with tweets; promoting interaction between customers by doing a "Twitter Poll" and asking questions to find out what customer's favorite piece of artwork is or who is their favorite artist; retweeting artists that are featured in the gallery.




 * Week 2: Update**

I stopped by Katalyst on Wednesday, but the owner was not in. We've e-mailed back and forth and will meet again on Monday afternoon. Until then, she asked me to redesign the gallery's website. I think I will use Wordpress, and if she likes the design well enough, I will discuss possibly buying a domain (or this may be an option before we start re-designing it). We will also add my Facebook profile as an administrator to the gallery's Facebook page so I can make updates without accessing the owner's personal page. I have started with a template at KatalystGallery.wordpress.com. Sarah and I will meet and discuss more so I can get her creative input.


 * Week 3: Website, Twitter, Facebook**

I met with Sarah again this week to really get the ball rolling. I am creating a completely new Twitter account since the previous one is pretty inactive. I am also an administrator on the gallery's Facebook page, and I am uploading pictures of Artist of the Month Summer Schriner's artwork. I am tweeting about upcoming events, new art, and the artist of the month. I want also want to twitpic "random" photos I took while there of Sarah and local artist Mark Haan, as a way to involve customers in the changes coming to the store front. Mark Haan is decorating the awning of the gallery, and I have pictures of them talking designs.

I will be going to First Friday this week at the gallery, which is where the featured artist of the month will be celebrated and people will have a chance to view her work. I will be tweeting to pub for the event, will be making Facebook posts about the event, and I will produce a video of the event with interviews from both Sarah and Summer Schriner.

The new Twitter page is @KatalystGallery. I will be using #KatalystGallery to familiarize other tweeters and keep things consistent. The Facebook page is also Katalyst Gallery. The new website is KatalystGallery.wordpress.com.


 * Week 4:**

First Friday was great and had a really good turnout; there were at least 20 people in and out of the gallery from 6-9pm. I took pictures and created a Facebook album that will serve as the central location for other First Friday's in the future. I also got a chance to interview the featured artist Summer Schriner on video, as well as Sarah (the owner). I will be putting together a short video this week (no longer than a minute) about First Friday and the artist's work. I will upload it to Facebook and put it on the website.

I got a chance to go over the website with Sarah and she has given me a list of things she would like to change. Some of the major things have to do with the template I chose; the logo is hard to see/read with the design in the top left corner of the page. I will be trying out different templates to see which work best, but I really want to go for a creative and artsy look for the page. Other things that have to be altered are the homepage, which will now feature the items in the gallery. The artist of the month will be moved to a separate page.

My Twitter goal for this week is to get more followers and follow more people familiar with the gallery. I've already posted a follower request on Facebook so people can follow and I will follow back in return. The ultimate goal is to become more interactive with customers, so when more people follow I can set up trivia questions or things for them to respond to.


 * Week 5:**

I finished the video of my interview with Summer Schriner. It is a minute-forty-five and it took 5 hours to edit. I posted it to the Facebook page and tweeted a link to the video on YouTube; here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od0KCcm9bxc&feature=youtu.be

The video looks great: It starts off with an intro (a tittle with the name of the gallery and what it's for) then a shot of the artist's name. Sarah's interview is first, where she kind of introduces Summer as the chosen artist of the month. She mentions what First Friday is. Summer's interview is over b-roll of some of her pictures and she goes into detail about what they are and how she made them. The video then transitions into a slideshow with some of the pictures from the reception and ends with the gallery's name and address as well as the Twitter name. The entire video is put over light jazz music that plays softly in the background. I included "supers" (names) so people know who is speaking during the interview.

I have made progress with the website and it will be completely up and running by the end of this week. I will stop into the gallery again this week to take some personal pictures to tweet what has come into the store and add them to the website.


 * Week 6:**

I stopped inside the gallery to see what new items were in the store and go over the website design. Sarah saw the website and really liked it. The homepage is easy to see and she explained how she wanted her retail products to be on the homepage and they are. I took some photos she has on the Facebook page and added them to the homepage with a caption description and the designer. She will be sending me more pictures of things she wants put up. I tweeted two of the new items she has in the gallery, which are wine holders that are shaped like high heels.

In Twitter news, a tweet went out to engage followers and customers: if anyone came into the gallery, they could get 20% off anything (except cosigned art). This is great customer engagement - who doesn't like a good deal/sale? It also encourages them to check for Twitter updates frequently so they don't miss out on special deals like this.

From here on out, my main goal with the gallery will be to finish the website and show Sarah how to keep it updated. So far the website has a home page that is off to a good start, an about page that gives a little background information about Sarah and the gallery, and an events page that will serve as the location for videos or press releases for events she may have. Sarah also requested that the gallery's logo be on the homepage, so my task is to find a way to add the logo with the template I have.


 * Week 7**

As I hand off my responsibilities back to Sarah, I will include some things that will help her maintain her social media presence. I will still help her build the website because it is about 95% finished; I am waiting on her to send me the rest of the pictures for the retail. Other than that, I can start showing her how to post on the blog. My last step will be publicizing the new website. I haven't mentioned it on Facebook or Twitter because it wasn't finished, but once we add the last few things, it will be ready for frequent use.

I hope that Sarah will try to gain more followers, and I have an idea of how that may be accomplished: she can try tweeting the people she follows, mentioning them in promotional tweets, or striking up conversation. Since she knows some of the people personally, it would be nice to tweet them and ask them about things they may have going on, or plug the things she has going on as well. Things such as "are you stopping by the gallery today?" would be personal, conversational, and more than likely get a reply or a retweet.

The Facebook page from here on out should be updated daily or at least weekly. Sarah told me she didn't post or upload pictures that often, but maybe after seeing what kinds of responses she got from my posts will help her reconsider doing things differently.

I really have learned a lot about social media and using it to its full potential, especially after interviewing two professionals. They helped me look at using social media for advertising differently, and I could see where I may have gone wrong or didn't think out when working for the small business of my choice. One thing I did learn from one of those interviews was that getting a lot of followers and friends for a small business is hard. So I don't look at the issues I had as failures, I see it as a challenge that I could certainly overcome with more practice.