As a small business owner/entrepreneur I utilize social media to advertise and promote my brand on a daily basis. I use Facebook the most by far. I have a business page where I post pictures of my soap, updates about new soap and restocks, information about my upcoming events, and take orders/communicate with customers. I also use Pinterest a good deal. It is an excellent resource for finding inspiration and information on soapmaking, tutorials, recipes, et cetera. I also use Facebook and TikTok to create reels of my soap and soap making processes. They are a great promotional tool. However, there is definitely a change in Facebook's algorithms. When I first started my business page about two years ago my posts would get hundreds of views (I'm a very small one-person business operation). In the past six months or so I am now lucky to get 50 viewers per post. Even sharing my business posts on my personal page and having friends and family also sharing, my viewership is way lower. Before this drop in viewership occurred I felt that my needs were being sufficiently met overall by Facebook, but I may need to rethink my strategy. I do not have a large advertising budget so having to pay to have people see my social media posts is something I would like to try to avoid. As far as emails go, I receive hundreds of emails every day from what seems to be every website I have ever made a purchase from. I rarely check these emails; I usually just delete them because I know it is all advertisements. More and more I feel that marketing is turning to social media. I get most of my news and see most advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. I even see ads on Snapchat.
Whirlpool is a well-known appliance brand that makes major appliances such as washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and refrigerators. Research conducted by Whirlpool showed that consumers associated