Week 2 Part B- Business Research

Cute Cakes

1. https://www.cutecakes.com/
2. Cute cakes is a local bakery located in Escondido, CA. They offer custom cakes and a variety of desserts for any occasion and have also expanded into a cafe, where you can enjoy breakfast and lunch. They are a small business providing services for their local town. 
3. They are visibly using Facebook, Yelp, Pinterest, and Instagram on their website. You can select the icons and it will take you directly to their social media platforms. They do advertise pretty often on their Instagram posting just about every day, with a count of 5,673 followers, And also on their Facebook with a count of 6,290 followers, they share the same posts on Instagram and Facebook, their last post was 11 hours ago. As for Pinterest, they do not post as often, and they have a total of 289 followers. Their Yelp has very good reviews leaving them with 4.5 stars and 475 reviews. On Yelp the owner has replied to everyone's reviews, good and bad. On Facebook and Instagram, I've seen they don't respond to everyone's comments.

Extraordinary Desserts

1. http://extraordinarydesserts.com/
2. Extraordinary Desserts is a Bakery/Cafe with a total of two locations based in San Diego, CA. They are a very popular dessert spot, know for gold foils and fresh florals on all of their desserts. It is a chic environment with fun drinks too like their pink hot cocoa and golden milk.
3. They use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest the icons are located at the top of their profile. On Facebook they have 40,826 followers and their most recent post was 3 hrs ago, Instagram has a total of 22.5k followers also posting the same content as Facebook. Their Twitter has not been used since Dec 12th, 2019 with a count of 1,226 followers. Pinterest has 180 followers and is not as updated as other platforms. They respond to mainly questions on their Instagram and Facebook. They also have a Yelp that is not advertised on their website, Yelp has a total of 4 stars and 7643 reviews, and no feedback from extraordinary desserts.

Milk Bar

1. https://milkbarstore.com/
2. Milk Bar is an international dessert business, with 6 locations located in LA, Boston, Toronto, Washington DC, New York, and Las Vegas. Their menu only has a couple options like cake, pie, cookies, cereal milk ice cream/milkshakes, and cake truffles.
3. Milkbar uses Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Instagram is the one they use most, their last post was 6 hrs ago, with 684k followers, Facebook and Twitter were last used 6 days ago posting similar posts. Facebook has a following of 80,085 and Twitter 59.6k. They occasionally respond to customers on Instagram and Twitter, and "like" comments posted on their images. As for Facebook, not many responses to comments. They have 3 stars on yelp with 243 reviews and a handful of them not so good.

Whalen Packaging 

1. https://wpackaging.net/bakery-packaging/
2. Whalen Packaging is a company that carries supplies and packaging for food companies such as dessert boxes, cake boards, food, and drink containers. They ship Internationally and have a total of 3 facilities located in Texas, California, and Michigan.
3. They use most of the social media platforms and keeps them active daily like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, and Linkedin. They have a total of 4,547 followers on Facebook and their last post was 7 hrs ago, 5,587 followers on Instagram, and the most recent post was 5 hrs ago, 64 subscribers on Youtube also posted 5 hrs ago, 56 followers on Linkedin updates 7 hrs ago, and 490 followers on Pinterest with the same posted content as all other social media streams. They don't interact as much on their post as far as replying to comments, but they do repost a lot of customers using their products on their platforms. 

Cakewalk Supplies

1. https://cakewalksupplies.com/
2. Cakewalk is a local cake/dessert supply store with a total of 7 locations, all located in California. They sell supplies for cake decorating, like food gel coloring, edible images, fondant, edible glitters, foils, sprinkles, cake toppers, and much more. They also offer classes on decorating a variety of desserts such as a cookie decorating class and themed birthday cakes.
3. They advertise their Instagram, Facebook, and Yelp on their website at the bottom left, having a total of 40.1k followers on Instagram, 85,751 on Facebook, with 4 stars on Yelp and 102 reviews. Posting daily with the most recent being 10 hrs ago on Instagram and Facebook. They are not very responsive to comments, and when they are, it is short replies.

    While doing my research on these businesses I discovered that Instagram and Facebook are the 2 most active sources of advertisements, and pulling in clientele. I noticed the companies that were more popular posted often and replied to mostly all the customers, and made it clear that their top priority was customer satisfaction, by reposting customer photos and customers feedback on their stories.

    As for the businesses that do not post as often or engage with their customers have a lower count of consumers. I realized on Yelp when a customer left a bad review they would reply with "give us another chance" instead of offering to rectify the problem with a refund or future discount. Resulting in a handful of customers that said they will not be returning.

    Overall I learned that it is very important to build a healthy relationship with customers and have their satisfaction as a top priority, as well as staying active on all social media platforms and giving all customers feedback. As a small business owner, reading over reviews from my competitors helps me enrich my connections with my customers and implement improvement in certain areas.