Week 5 - MKTG348 - Online Marketing

     Take a look at my article on online fundraising. Fundraising has revolutionized making it easier to reach out to the right people and for people to donate with online fundraiser. Even though online fundraising is growing, it only pertains to a small portion of the capital charities collect. As the years go the use of online fundraising will grow.

     To promote this page I have posted it on Facebook. This will help me generate views and clicks. With the information and data gathered I can then optimize my article to get more view and clicks. Keywords can be added or edited to help my page get recognition and work my way up the rankings. Checking on the SEO rank of the keyword fundraising shows that my page has yet to be ranked.. Hence, there needs to be more work getting recognition on my page using keywords and promoting it on social media.  

     I will leave the link the article at the bottom. Feel free to read it and leave a comment. 

SEO Tool Bar

http://www.rgbexchange.org/nonprofits/fundraising/introduction-to-fundraising

Week 5 - MKTG347 - Facebook Ad

As there are many ways to advertise, social media websites have evolutionized the way advertising is done.  Facebook, in particular, has shared its contirbution to the innovation of advertising. In this day of time nearly everyone is on Facebook; making it a primary location to advertise. 

 Now Facebook offers mutilple ways to advertise both free and for a fee. Its free to create a page to promote a anything you want persay a business or blog, but in order to boost views from both mutual friends and outsiders, Facebook offers ads to meet the goals set. Goals can be set to get more views on a video or more clicks on visits to a blog post. Most Facebook ads goals are set to promote Facebook pages to get more likes from users. It is a powerful tool, that if established correctly can result in a positive ROI. 

With Facebook ads many options are are available in order to help reach the trgeteda audience. Starting off you create a campaign that then asks what the aim of the ad will be, not to forget though that this can be changed over time.  Make sure to also make the proper accomendations to setting of persay geographics, language or budget obtions. If you intend to five Facebook ad a try, it might be a good idea to give it a test run first. 

Create a page thru Facebook on any interest you may have and run an ad that will help promote the page. To promote and get some traffic using Facebook Ads, we start by going to http://www.facebook.com/ads/.

You can choose to start creating the ad and go through the process, which is pretty straightforward. If any difficulties occur then you can go to Facebook for assistance or Google it.

Towards the end, you choose how long you want your ad campaign to run and how much you want to spend. Finally, make the payment and place the order. And wait for approval from Facebook to start the advertising.

To see if there is any traffic from the ad, you can check this website: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage. Or refer back to the Google Analytics account linked to what is being adversited. If you have any further questions on Facebook ads or would like help getting one started you can reach out to me and I will be more than glad to assist you. 

Week 4 - MKTG348 - Sending the Right Email to the Right Person

It goes without question that job-hunting is no easy task and at times it makes us feel inadequate. You go job after job and nothing seems to work out, but never give up. Virtuous possessions in life are not given to you on a silver platter; it’s a working process that will consist of many bumps and bruises. Even when you feel like everything is against you and out of your control, don’t give up. There is always something that is in our power to make a change and find employment.  

Luckily there is more than one way to go about it.

• Here we look for a job how we all normally do. We get a resume together and send it out to, post it everywhere, look in ads online, and so on. You’re main focus is to find a job.
• Your effort will also be to find a job, but not just any job: a “dream job”. You want to discover who you are as an individual and what you love to do. After this you do research to see which companies or organizations matches you. You don’t wait till there is an open position or even approach them with a resume. Here you want to get connected to the employer through a person who knows both you and the employer.

Here’s something to think about. What do you presume to be the best way to look for a job? I believe many of us would say it would be answering job-post on the Internet or sending out your resume to employers. These two methods are actually some of the worst ways to find a job. So for all those who go about finding a job in those ways is wasting their time and energy. In fact knocking on the door of employer, using yellow pages to find employer of interested field, and the parachute way, statistically, has better results in finding a job. There’s a higher percentage chance of find a job and not just any job, but a “dream job” that is of your true interest.

                            

There you have it, for those that didn’t know what truly will give you results job-hunting. So if things aren’t working out for you reconsider your job-hunting methods. In What Color is Your Parachute: Ch. 6, you can read more about these methods and others. 

Week 4 - MKTG347 - Facebook pages

      Facebook has become one of the top sources for social media marketing and why wouldn’t it be everyone is on it. It’s a great way to get exposure and it’s free. Even though it is free you can pay to get more exposure to people you may not know, outsiders. Ever wonder how Facebook and other social media pages make their money, well it’s through advertising among other things. Facebook’s business model is similar to that of Google’s, they created a websites that allowed people to get free exposure but now make people pay a fee in order to get an extra boost. Facebook is particular charges for boosting posts and getting your name out to people you don’t know.

      If you already have a personal Facebook account adding on a Facebook page is quick to add on. A Facebook page can build a closer relationship with your audience and customers. They don’t necessarily have to be used to advertise for a company or organization but also movies or events, basically anything. To create a Facebook page you can click on this link for guidance. https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/set-up-facebook-page

      I personally have made my own Facebook page to get more exposure for my marketing blog. The set-up is similar to that of a personal Facebook page. You get likes on your page so that people can view and be updated on what is posted as well. I didn’t put in money to get my posts boosted, but still receive enough exposure with the friends I invited from my personal Facebook page to my blog Facebook page. The fun thing about Facebook is that there are many tools and options that it offers. You can experiment with it and then do some R&D in order to improve the page. Check out my Facebook page and let me know what you think. I would enjoy some feedback. https://www.facebook.com/Arturos-Marketing-Blog-1663980717151895/

Week 4 - MKTG349 - Measuring and optimizing performance

After initiating the campaign and getting some data of the ad performance. You must analyze and optimize the account, campaigns, or the individual ad groups to make improvement. Look into things such as which clicks lead to visits or which devices are performing ads best. The dimension tab can also be very useful to measure results. It can inform you on the time ads performed best, geographic views and what the landing pages a customer viewed. In order to track these performances you can also be using conversion tracking, Google analytics, and campaign experiment. In older blogs I have discussed these tools and how they function. So if you want more information on them go check my older post.

With AdWords everything must be taken into consideration to effectively process a campaign through. Here are some things to measure

• Measure website traffic
• Measure conversions
• Measure return on investment
• Measure return on ad spend
• Measure brand awareness  

The last thing to do and to continue to do during a campaign is to optimize it in order to improve return on investment which is in your best interest. That’s the main goal for any one investing in AdWords should be to make more than what is invested. Find proper keywords, text, and budget that will improve and increase attracting the right cliental for the products and services provided. Overall, AdWords is essentially a tool to create a strong, successful campaign to advertise any products or service one might offer. Every aspect of the campaign is important but measuring and optimizing performance of the campaign, in my opinion, is the most important because here you carefully analyze what you have done and work to build a more efficient campaign. For further assistance on measuring and optimizing performance you can reach out to me or check out this page out: https://support.google.com/partners/answer/6173427?hl=en&ref_topic=6123873

Week 3 - MKTG347 - Resume linked with Social Media

     Using the social media as your resume can be of more benefit than you think. The framework of the resume will be more appealing to the eye and professional. LinkedIn along with Google can be valuable source to make your resume go digital. All a resume is used for is to get you the interview not the job. So you want to make your resume look worthy, but you don’t want to put everything on it. Leave the employee with the urge to meet you after looking over your resume, so what a better way to do that than through a well-designed LinkedIn profile.

     LinkedIn, along with other social media sources, has made it easier for employees and employers to connect in the professional world. As appose to the old fashion of mailing out your resume and waiting longer periods of time for delivery and reply. It’s also to the benefit of the environment to go onto digital resumes to waste less paper and hence, save trees.

     I highly recommend that if you haven’t already created a LinkedIn account, or another social media source to replace your resume, to do so. It is for your own great benefit, just make sure like any resume to continuously update it with new skills learnt, new jobs, blogs, and so on. The nice thing about most social media source is that they are at our disposal on apps for phones. This make it just that much more helpful since we all have phones that we carry with us at all times. So remember make yourself stand out from the group. I myself am working to develop a more effective profile in LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/arturosolis0923. Go connect with me, I’ll appreciate any feedback. 

Week 3 - MKTG347 - Skillbox: Content

Essentially the internet is all a bunch of zeros and ones that come together through code to create content. Now many of us aren’t computer geeks and can’t comprehend the extensive process of coding to create content. Luckily the internet offers use with free easy to use tools to create the content, lets call this the skillbox. Google is a primary example; they offer multiple free tools to make it easy to work with content. So create a google account, if you don’t already have one, and experiment around.

Just to mention a few tools there is Blogger, a great tool for blogging that is linked with Google. I highly recommend using this one, works great and it’s easy to use.  Weebly is a site that is used to create a free website. It is appealing and there are many things you can do with it. To make videos, YouTube offers accessibility to editing and posting of videos online. All these sources are linked to Google, so the importance of a Google account is crucial. Remember these are only a few of the tools in the skillbox. There are many more out there that are free or can be purchased. Find what you find most appropriate and get working.

In terms of the content itself we approach it in many ways, but in terms of social media marketing focus on curation, creation, and collaboration.

1. Curation: the process of researching content and then reviewing, commenting and/ or sharing. For example, bloggers go out gather data and articles in relation to a topic. Then briefly summaries on the findings and to get awareness post up on social media.
2. Creation:  to create the content you must assure who the audience will be. This will take time for the reason that it should have high-quality. Articles, blogs, or even videos are the best kind of content, but it can vary depending on the company/organization, the targeted audience, or what approach you are trying to take. It is helpful that once content is created, to ask for feedback to keep up with customer needs.   
3. Collaboration: find people to work with. Someone’s weak point can be your strong point, and your weak point can be their strong point. It would be in benefit of both parties to unify and work together to create a stronger content. This can be a good learning experience to learn from each other and learn to work as a team. It like in the business world when two companies collaborate to keep the business running. Don’t be afraid of some help, we all need it at some point.

Week 3 - MKTG349 - Setting up an AdWords Campaign

     When setting up an AdWords campaign, you will need to choose a type and sub-type. The campaign type establishes where the ads are shown and the format they will be demonstrated in, while the sub-type determines settings and options available. Some type of campaigns include search engine only, display network only, search network with display select. Depending on what your goals are for the campaign, you can modify features that are significant to the campaign.

     An efficient AdWords account will help create campaigns that will help reach your goals more profoundly. Each campaign should be aimed to a single business goal. In the campaign you can control how much is spent on clicks, geographical locations, and other settings. To organize the campaign you add on one or more ad groups. To help boost your ROI you can organize into sets of ads and keywords relating to each other. Separate ad groups will be needed for each theme or product being advertised. Making sure the ad reaches the right audience will implement what success you have with the campaign. You can use significant keywords, location and language settings, and demographics that will be applicable to your targeted audience.

Other great options AdWords lets you play with are budgets and bids. You choose a daily budget that will be spent per day and depending on the results you can play around with the budget and adjust it as needed. Bidding strategies can’t be figured out until you know who you’re targeting, and your goals, then you can decide which strategy is best. For example,

1. Cost-per-click (CPC) bidding: Use if you want to drive customers to your website.
2. Cost-per-impression (CPM) bidding: Use if you want to make sure that customers see your message.
3. Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding: Use if you want to maximize conversions on your website.

     After getting all this organized, you need to create ad groups for each theme or product under the campaign with its individual keywords, ads, and bids that could later on be optimized to improve ROI.  

     Remember to consistently optimize the campaign. As you get results make accommodations and research what will help you get a higher ROI, maybe you might want to try a different approach. Keyword Planner and Display Planner are tools offered by AdWords that can help build campaigns and achieve goals. So if you’re ever in the market looking to advertise give AdWords a try. Here’s a link for some assistance https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704395?hl=en or you can reach out to me. I’d be more than glad to assist you. 

Week 3 - MKTG348 - Optimizing your Website

The internet is a tool that has modernized marketing. Anyone can try to use the internet to market, but a proper strategy is needed with Inbound strategy you can optimize as progress goes along taking you towards a successful path. To get an individual to become a visitor on one’s website, what you need to consider is an approachable and attractive website. This is a crucial to have. Using sear engine optimization, or SEO, will help bring more people for clicks. Search engine optimization is the process of improving your website to attract visitors from search engines.

     We have all been on Google at some point, right? Well every time you search something you get multiple search results. Those results are organized by rankings, so the more clicks you get the higher your ranking and the higher possibilities to be on the first page of the search engine. SEO and Inbound strategy will get you to this spot.

     To start off, brainstorm a list of keywords. Keywords are words that are typed into search engines in order to find what is being searched. They have to be words that the searcher would use. You must try to think what someone would type into a search engine in order to get to your page. Be straight forward, you can also use autocomplete to help you think of things that are popular in search engines. You will need short keywords but as well long-tailed keywords, more specific phrases.  .

• To optimize the website you will need to pick a primary keyword. You will need to add it to.
• The title: if there is a company name include it with a vertical bar
• The URL: for long-tailed keywords use dashes instead of spaces
•  Header and content: attach to imagines throughout the page as well.
• Meta Description

You will need to add on links to get more hits, edit the pages to promote great visiting experience, make it easy to browse around, and finally opt in the website for mobile usage since mostly everyone uses smartphones to access the internet nowadays.

     The more clicks you get the higher your ranking and the more you’ll continue to see results so its is encouraged to also promote the website to social media and set up pages for business on directories such as Yelp. As the time goes on, analyze your progress and continue to optimize the website, changing/adding keywords, and keep getting those clicks. For further information you can check out www.hubspot.com.  

Week 2 - MKTG347 - Hot Skills for Employment

Getting a job is no easy task, especially nowadays. Any job you take has requirements and qualifications that come along with it. So it is a good idea to do some research to find out what they are and what will get you on the right path to get the job you seek. You see there can be hundreds of people applying for a position and you need to stand out. This is when doing research ahead of time will pay off.

As time goes on new skills are acquired from employees in order to accommodate to the development in technology and any other innovations. According to LinkedIn, some of the hottest skills of 2015 that can get you hired in 2016 are cloud and distributed computing, statistical analysis and data mining, and marketing campaign management. So as you can see involves technology and business. Hence, anyone going into the college, in college, or out of college should consider learning such skills like these to ensure you of being able to find future employment. If it comes to be maybe these skills don’t necessarily suit your prefer field of interest, but it can be in your interest to learn the skill for emergency purposes.

Try to stay on top of the evolvement of the workforce, things change as time goes on and being an employer you can be expendable. For example, when the introduction of computers came along employers being exposed to this new technology had to learn this new skill otherwise they would be gone. Anyone that didn’t keep up was left behind and it became harder for them to find employment in areas of preference. Same thing here, you need be up-to-date with the development of the workforce and what employees are looking for. This doesn’t take much time and it is well worth it in the long run.

Check out this link (http://blog.linkedin.com/2016/01/12/the-25-skills-that-can-get-you-hired-in-2016/) for some for the recent hot skills that can get you hired and do some further research of your own.