Blog Proj
Week 1
The product I chose to follow was essential oils, and specifically I followed Doterra, a very popular essential oil company. I use essential oils for mainly the smell by putting them in a diffuser, sometimes in my water, and in my laundry. A lot of people use them for many thing though like health benefits, cooking, baking, cleaning, and uplifting mood. I got into oils through one of my mom’s friends who sells them. I’m friends with her on Facebook so I’m interested to see if I can be an observer of her posts specifically. I looked at Instagram this week because I had never been on Doterra’s Instagram. This post was from the beginning of last week and it was introducing a new line of one of their existing products. I noticed in the comments that a lot of customers had questions, some popular ones are the ones shown. Before looking at any other posts I realized right away that Doterra, being the corporation it is, didn’t respond to any of the questions I saw. I just thought it was interesting considering how large of a company it is, I would have thought their social media would have been more involved with the consumer and their questions.
The second post I looked at was a more interactive post from later in the week. Doterra was giving ways that you can actually use one of their products. I realized that almost every single comment from the consumers answering their question that was asked in the post, “How do you use lemon essential oils?” was responded to by Doterra. I thought this was interesting because in my opinion the time take to answer all these comments could have been used to answer the questions from that previous post. My only thought as to why they would respond to these and not the actual questions and concerns, like on the previous posts, is it could result in an answer that the consumer doesn’t like. This could end in loss of business from that specific person and maybe others who disagree with or dislike the responses as well. I peeked at other posts from the same week, and it seemed to be the same type of environment, but there were little to no comments or responses at all from the company. Majority of the positive feedback or feedback that would just result in more business was responded to. It will almost be interesting to dive into why some posts have many responses from the company and some have little to none. I’m curious to see any trends occurring.
Week 2
This week I decided to choose a different social media platform to follow and that was Facebook. After scrolling I quickly realized that the Facebook interaction is much less than Instagram. Looking at the post in image one, which was surrounding their sourcing and sustainability, it had had a lot less likes and comments then the rest of the posts from that week. The only thing I have really noticed or thought about was if directly advertising a product (shown in imagine two) rather than talking about the company as a whole or a product indirectly (like image one) makes people more likely to respond to the posts or interact with them at all. I’m going to continue to try and find reasons why the audience might respond to select posts more.
As for the comments themselves on each, Doterra didn’t respond to any on the first photo but they have responded to a handful on the post in the second photo The company responded mostly to people raving about the product because it’s rare, but also familiar to them. A lot of vanilla that is used in baking and for other things is most likely not real. Doterra’s products are sustainably harvested and most importantly, are real and good quality. From the comments that I scrolled through (the most relevant), Doterra had only responded to one question asking if the product was food safe. I think of all questions, this is an important one to answer, but would have thought that answering questions instead of compliments would have been a better business move. Allowing people to view these responses rather than ponder can make up someone’s mind about purchasing a product quickly.
Week 3
As we all probably know sustainability and equality are two huge trending topics throughout media, and just the world in general. Doterra has hopped on the bandwagon but has also been on this trend since the beginning of the company. All of their oils are sustainably sourced from their original regions. However, the public is becoming more infatuated with products that don’t harm the environment or those harvesting it. Civil rights and proper sourcing is a priority of people’s now, rightfully so. In this post they advertise a specific product, Copaiba oil, which, according to Doterra themselves, is used for cardiovascular health, immune health, nervous system health, and respiratory health. The company really tries to outline their products, like this one, are harvester friendly which is important for some people when purchasing products.
The comments on this post, and all the others I have seen this far, haven’t been anything but positive. This post particularly has comments commending them for their effort to pay fair wages to their workers. On both Instagram and Facebook, the interactions range from people telling their stories about essentials oils and how some people have greatly benefitted from them to questions. People discussing how they benefitted from an oil ends with a recommendation to use said oil. As for the questions, a lot of them do have replies, but not from Doterra. From what I know about the company, a lot of the employees use their own Facebooks or Instagrams, and then they answer people’s questions with their personal accounts. I can see how this may be almost a personal touch for interactions between the consumer and company, I see it as confusing. This could be misleading because the person with the question may not know if that’s true or not.
Week 4
This week I looked at Twitter and quickly realized that the following that this social media has is much less than the others I have looked at so far. For example, this post only had 29 favorites, no comments, and 8 retweets, so there wasn’t much interaction. I did realize a trend on Twitter though this month and that is Fall as you can see in the post. People love Fall and Fall festivities so using it as an advertising point is smart. However, they only used one hashtag which could have increased the interactions on the post.
As for the actual content, cooking and baking are some of those festivities that people find comfort in. Personally, I love Clove, Ginger, and Cinnamon, which makes me love Fall for some reason. It’s just warm smells during the time that it starts to get colder. The photo really grabs my attention because of the bright colors and good-looking food. It makes you want to look at every element. Something I find interesting though is that this post is only on Twitter that I saw. I checked both Instagram and Facebook and neither had this post or even photo. I would think that they would post everything on every social media, especially the ones with more interaction.
The next post I chose was one referring to diffuser blends and I chose this one because I love my diffuser so I will be trying them out. This post, as you can see, has a little more interaction then the other. I believe this is because diffusers are the most popular way that people use their essential oils. It makes your house smell good and you receive the benefits that come from each oil.
Smell I think is one of the most interesting senses because it can bring about so many feelings depending on what the scents connotates. Like I said before, Fall is comforting for a lot of people, so these diffuser blends are something that a lot of people can do. Cooking and baking with essentials oils is difficult, so that may be why this post had more interactions.
I’m curious as to why Twitter hasn’t been very successful for Doterra. Some of my thoughts are the lack of hashtags. Hashtags are what make Twitter successful, and their page rarely uses them. Also, the following of Doterra could be of an age range that doesn’t use Twitter as often, or because every post that I saw does require leaving the page from a link to a recipe, or buying a product, etc.
Week 5
I was interested to see if Doterra was on TikTok and sure enough, they were. Their first post is from Feburary 2nd, 2020 so their profile is still new. I haven’t noticed any advertisement or attention being brought to other social media platforms, especially ones that don’t have much of a following. This is unfortunate because I feel like the audience would really like seeing their process in action. I think this has a lot to do with the age demographic on each of the social media platforms. TikTok has a much younger audience and Doterra does have an older audience.
This was probably the best social media page that I found from this company. The videos are extremely high quality, probably filmed with expert cameras. The short videos show a pretty picture of what the company is and how real what they are talking about is, like creating livelihoods for whole communities. It shows the communities that are involved in the production and harvesting of the resources used in the oils.
I am so glad I found their TikTok because it is so interesting, and I wish others knew about it. It has actual videos of the harvesting and processes that take place to make the oils. Something unfortunate is that their TikTok didn’t have much of a following. I personally have always been curious what the process looks like when processing these materials to extract essential oils. I’m a visual learner, so someone typing out a post of how something is done is much harder than me just being able to watch a few times to comprehend what was occurring.
The platform shows not only the oils, but where they come from. There is culture shown through each video that demonstrates the harvesting and processing. For example, in one of the TikToks it says how in India the farming is done by the women and the company assists the women with growing and processing spearmint to sell back to Doterra. It’s really important that people learn about where precious items, such as essential oils, come from so they aren’t taken for granted. Learning about people’s culture is learning also learning where the essential oil comes from.
Week 6
Something I noticed in general amongst all the Doterra social media platforms and the posts I have looked at is how there isn’t a lot of overlap between posts and media. A lot of companies that I follow on both Instagram and Facebook post the same exact thing, at the same exact time, and with the same exact media. There is so much repetition, the audience will lose interest. Two weeks ago, Doterra posted about Copaiba and sourcing it, but they used a different photo and a different caption. I think this really captures people attention again and has them learning more about both the product and the company.
In my experience, if I see the same post twice on two different platforms, I won’t read it again. It’s just like friends that post the same exact thing on two different platforms. I understand that there could be people who don’t have Facebook, but have Instagram, or vice versa. This way, there isn’t even a chance of the same person reading the same post twice. It could result in the loss of followers on a certain platform or lack of interaction on one versus another. This is a smart marketing technique too because if someone doesn’t see a post one place, it is likely they’ll see it somewhere else.
I looked at my personal relationship with Doterra this week and that is through one of my mom’s friends. I am friends with her on Facebook, so I can see almost a different aspect of the company. Doterra is one of those companies where you can personally sell for them and produce profit for yourself as well.
On this individuals Facebook, she advertises the products to her family and friends and that’s obvious. She includes her own family in her posts and live videos which just makes others relate and have interest in the products. I believe Doterra does this on purpose because who wouldn’t be more willing to buy something from someone they already know. This is a good strategy to expand the usage of their products without seeming like they’re “corporate”. It makes it come across very small business-esk, which people are more apt to buy from majority of the time.
Week 7
This week I went back to Doterra’s Twitter page. I noticed something specifically about the interactive posts from Doterra. This one is asking what flavor people would make their lollipops if they made them. This is a very common, if the only, type of interactive post that Doterra makes. They ask what type of essential oil the audience would use in a certain instance, or vice versa, which instance do you use this oil for.
The link in the post brings the audience right to the recipe, which is clear and easy to read. I think this could be a marketing tactic because if they ask what oil you would use, you immediately start wondering about the possibilities. If you ponder and find a flavor or flavor combination that you may not have, you’ll want to buy the oil to achieve the flavor. The interaction of the post is low, but that doesn’t mean that more people viewed the link without interacting.
Another advertising move that Doterra uses is showing all the uses each oil has. Having a product in your home, like the one shown in the post, that cleans, protects against germs, and increases immune support. People really like a “2-in-1” deal, so if a product is a 20-in-1 people would be even more willing to buy it. The post goes into detail of all the ways you can use it, and most of the uses are things everyone does. Mopping floors, cleaning produce, hand cleanser, and more. Finding a product that does all of that and more is exciting to people, especially more environmentally conscious people, or minimalist.
This was also good timing for this post because the flu, and covid, are still making their way around. Using a product that makes you feel and smell clean will give you reassurance and protect you from germs and illnesses. This could increase the interaction on this post or increase the purchase of this product in general.
Week 8
I decided this week to write based on some of my previous blog posts regarding the companies’ responses to consumer comments. The first post I looked at was on Facebook and it was a TED talk like lecture from the Founding Executive Emily Wright. The video was very brief, about 19 seconds, giving an overview of Doterra and some of its positive impacts it has on the world. The content of the post was like ones I’ve seen, and the structural components were the same as the rest of the posts on Facebook (short explanation and a link to an outside source (their website majority of the time) and media). The comments are where I see the variation within their social media posts on all their pages for that matter.
On Facebook with the post, I mentioned above, there was a comment regarding the viewing of the whole presentation that was shown in a snippet. There seemed to be some miscommunication about the platform in which the presentation was taking place. This created some annoyance (or that’s how it seemed) but Doterra was quick to defend themselves. This makes me wonder how Doterra communicates with their consumers other than social media platforms.
The second post I looked at was also from Facebook this week and it too has to do with Doterra’s communication to its consumers. This post was advertising how their product like “Abode” is very useful and nontoxic cleaners. Again, the structure and post itself was very similar to all the others I have looked at. This is something else that I would like to evaluate at some points as well, why are all of the posts so similar or even the same?
However, in the comments, I saw something I haven’t seen until now. A consumer asked about using the products on a specific surface, marble. As you can see, Doterra did in fact respond, but it wasn’t in a way I was expecting. The company responded with the email for their product support team. I thought this was interesting because my first thought would have been to find that information as a member of a company tending to a consumer. I could understand the possibility of misunderstanding a question and wanting to make sure that the question was answered fully. It would have made more sense to me personally to find this answer quickly by emailing the product support, or even reaching out to them in a faster and more efficient way.
Week 9
Something I have noticed throughout this project is how Doterra is extremely detailed in explaining their products. This post is just one of many explaining in detail how it’s harvested, how it’s determined to be of the quality they are looking for, the processing, and so on. Beside from the content, the actual visual is just nice to look at. Their use of imagery really catches the viewers’ attention and if they don’t feel like reading all of the small print, they get the gist from the bolded title and the drawings matching the descriptions.
I personally think such clear imagery and detail would allow for a bigger and more established “fanbase”. My thoughts as to why the posts may not be getting the interactions they deserve (in my opinion) are because they are on the wrong media platforms. Facebook and Instagram have seemed to be the most successful for their posts, but the posts are different. One like this on Instagram I believe would be extremely successful.
The next thing I wanted to look at was also something I found on Twitter, and it has to do with using science to attract another customer base. In this post, the chemical structure of Clary Sage and Lavender are being compared. The chemical structure is similar, so therefore they did compare these two specifically.
The hashtags on this post were also things like #science and #doterrascience. Using the hashtag science could allow for more interaction because of its broad term. That could catch the attention of someone looking at something else science related, they could realize how interesting the chemical structure of essential oils are, and there would be a new consumer. There are obviously more steps to this process, like trying the product, researching more about it, etc. Compared to the other posts on Twitter that were posted this past week, this Tweet had some of the highest interactions.
Week 10
This week I wanted to explore Doterra’s website. This isn’t exactly their social media, but they include the link to their website in every post, so it is a big part of their advertising and social media presence. Instead of first clicking on the link in a specific post I clicked on the link in the bio of Doterra’s Instagram. It redirected me to almost like another Instagram with all their posts, but you could click on each post, and it would redirect you to the product on Doterra’s website.
This is a smart move in my opinion because it makes it easy to purchase products being the consumer. If someone is attracted to a product within a post, being able to be linked directly to it makes it more likely that the individual will buy the product. Also, when you click on the link you can swipe left at least two times and it gives you another link to Doterra’s main page, and from what I could tell from a quick overview there was news regarding the company.
Something small I noticed about “linkage” through Doterra’s Instagram was the links in the actual posts weren’t active. To view the link, you’d have to type in the address into a web browser. I was trying to figure out if I could open it through the app and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get it. It wouldn’t even let me manually copy and paste it (I believe this is a feature of Instagram) so my only idea was to type it in.
I was surprised to see that when I did type in the link it brought me to the product, but it wasn’t to purchase. The post I chose was the OnGuard mouthwash, and the link gave directions on how to use the mouth wash. I think this link feature could be utilized better to bring people directly to the page to learn more about the product that caught their eye on the social media pages.
Week 11
This week I looked at Instagram again and I noticed something right off the bat. One of the posts looked familiar to me and that’s because it was. The most recent media was posted on Doterras Facebook just a few weeks prior. I was always curious how they were circulating their posts and if they really developed different posts for each platform. My assumption is that they wait a significant amount of time before posting the same thing on multiple platforms.
While the video they use, which is the founding executive of the company, is the same, the content of the post itself isn’t. The post on Instagram was discussing Doterra providing its customers with pure oils. Whereas the post on Facebook was discussing the sustainability and growth of the company. The content of the video itself is neutral explaining Doterra’s goals and history, making it capable of being put with many different captions.
The second post I looked at was a photo of cookies with a diffuser blend overlayed on the cookies. A lot of the comments weren’t even relating to the diffuser blend, they were more interested in the cookies that were used as the background photo. The cookies, however, were just for show. This I think draws people into the what the caption is because it could possibly be the recipe for those delicious cookies on your screen.
From a first glace I thought that it was a cookie recipe prior to reading it. I’m curious if this was done on purpose to boost interactions. I mean who doesn’t like a cookie? It resulted in many people asking for recipe and the company’s response wasn’t the best in my opinion. They either thanked them for the feedback or sent them off into the endless possibilities of “… checking out their blog at doterra.com.”
Week 12
Something that I wanted to look at this week was the highlights on the Instagram page of Doterra. The first thing I noticed was the “product education” highlight because I thought it was one of the most helpful. It went through many of the popular oils like grapefruit, lavender, OnGuard, etc. There were so many ways of using the oils as well as where they came from, and consumers opinions and uses.
The second highlight I saw was “influencer” and this was a few famous individuals that were shown using the products. The first one was someone named Victoria Schneider. She is a blogger with about 34.4k followers on Instagram and she is shown using the Deep Blue products, which are meant to help with sore muscles. My assumption is that she is some sort of fitness influencer.
I think these highlights are interesting because they are essentially Doterra’s website made into their Instagram. The influencer one was the most intriguing for me because this person is obviously well known. I’d be interested to see how much the influencers impact business.
Something I noticed this week that I haven’t noticed before was the use of children and family as a way of marketing. This post shows what looks like a mother and a daughter smelling an essential oil. I feel as if this post could tug at your heart strings a little bit. Family is something that people value and seeing that essential oils could be a bonding experience stands out.
Personally, my mom and I bond over essential oils so I can see how this post makes sense. Doterra, I know specifically is company where individuals will have their own “parties”. They pay the Doterra representative to come and teach, but also sell their products. Usually, people will invite their family members so I think this could be a clever way to advertise.
