Last week at Hastings, many of the posts I made were over sales on video games that we were having. It is Gametime at Hastings this month and we are all about games! I did get to make a few fun posts as usual, it is important to balance the ad related posts and the fun posts that will ultimately stimulate more reaction. More reaction=further reach. In addition to my daily posts, I attended a social media review meeting, which is held weekly with the Advertising Manager, Advertising Executive and Director of Advertising at Hastings. In this meeting we discussed where social media could take the company and sales related figures that is generated from social media.

Early Tuesday morning I went to the Hastings on 45th in Amarillo with my Cannon SLR in tow to take some photos to use for the Hastings Facebook cover photo. I got some really good shots and was able to edit a few of them using photoshop. I checked out some of the cover photos that our competitors have (Barnes and Nobles, Books A Million, etc.) to make sure ours did not resemble theirs and to see some of the ideas they were using. Barnes and Nobles simply had a picture of a women reading as their cover photo, but Hastings has an entirely different brand than Barnes and Nobles. Hastings has more of a fun, quirky vibe that Barnes and Nobles just doesn't have. Hastings caters to the comic book nerds, the video gaming geeks and people who still buy vinyls. I think we have an interesting brand and I want our cover photo to reflect that. This is the image we came up with:

It is currently the cover photo, but I have been instructed to change it bi-weekly, so I hope I can get some even more creative pics to use as the cover photo. Also this week, I created my first ad for Facebook. Facebook has made if fairly simple to create an ad. I came up with the text I wanted, took a screen shot of the image that I was going to use. After I added the basics I was able to pick the audience. I was making an ad for Sun Adventure Amarillo, which is owned by Hastings. I actually made four separate ads, each with the same daily budget, but I changed the audience on two and changed the image on the other two. The ad was then sent on to the Advertising Manager and approved through him. All in all, last week was an eventful week in the world of social media at Hastings.


See you next week!

Social Media Sara

Well, I have finally landed my dream job. I am being paid to be on Facebook and Twitter all day. I am the Social Media Intern at the Hastings Corporate Office and I am loving every minute of it! I have been in this position since March 2012, so I already know most of the ins and outs of the job. My routine begins every morning with checking the Facebook wall and direct messages for any complaints or customer service questions. I have learned that appeasement goes a long way with most complaints but the questions or complaints that need a direct response are forwarded to the customer service center or to whichever department is best suited to answer the question. I also check Twitter for any tweets sent @goHastings and respond similarly.
After I finish addressing questions/complaints, I check my e-mail. Everyday I receive requests for posts from the different departments. The Hastings Facebook page has app. 230,000 likes and Twitter has app. 3,000 followers so the posts I make are potentially seen by 233,000 people, which means spelling and grammatical errors are unacceptable. The four main departments I pull posts for are Books, Movies, Music and Trends. If we are having any 2-day sales either in store or online, I make posts for those as well. There is also another category, which is my favorite, and I will label it "other." This "other" category is my personal favorite. In this category, I have room to be creative. I make posts relative to current events and happenings in the entertainment world. I also take fun poll questions. For example, here is a post that I created last week in light of the release of the Dark Knight Rises.

Which of these actors from previous Batman movies makes the best villain?

	Two- Face (Tommy Lee Jones) 23 votes
	The Riddler (Jim Carrey) 61 votes
	Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) 16 votes
	Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) 71 votes
	Penguin (Danny DeVito) 17 votes
	The Joker (Heath Ledger) 266 votes
	Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) 16 votes   I also create give-aways deals for Twitter and select images that are used for the Facebook cover photo and change it bi-weekly. Hastings has a certain brand image and while making posts I have to make sure that every post stays true to that image. I hope this gives a little insight to what my job entails and how much fun I have doing it.       More to come!