Sandra Tran's Blog

I was never a Twitter-Fanatic. I am actually pretty slow at adapting internet trends, like Facebook and Twitter. However, on a week-long road trip to Savannah Georgia, I decided I would start using my trsandra account to update friends and family on what was going on on the trip. I quickly learned how fun it was to tweet back and forth to friends and family and share my life as it was happening from 500 miles away. For this assignment, I began following the lives of students in my class, like JTotzz and Kelly. Watching their tweets transpire, I learned that there are a few types of Tweets.

1. Day to Day Complaints – Twitter gives us the option to “nickname” ourselves to whatever we want and gives us a sense on anonymity, especially because we know only our own friends are following our tweets. Therefore, people are more apt to talk about the annoying things that happen to them throughout the day. For example, people tweet about the people in front of them walking too slow, how rude someone is to them on campus, or how long it took for someone to do something.

2. Exciting Announcements – People love to keep their friends & family updated on the positive stuff as it happens on Twitter. It is a way to allow others to share in the excitement with you, even if they aren’t there in that moment.

3. Referencing/Tweeting at companies and famous people – Twitter has provided a portal for people to “connect” with companies and famous people in a way they never have been able to before. You can essentially send a message directly to these individuals through 170 character messages by Tweeting @ them.

The original theme that sandratran.org looked like the one you see here:

I loved this theme! It was so aesthetically pleasing and visually presented my life very well. A user coming to the page immediately knew the things that were important to me without even reading anything. I loved it. However, I realized quickly that it was very difficult to find the rest of my blog posts from this layout. The home page showed this navigation bar and to find more blog posts, you had to click on one of the links and explore “recent posts”. This was not user friendly at all so I resorted to a much simpler theme that you see now.

This experience was very resounding of the conversation we had in class about non-user friendly media on webpages, such as Flash. They make your site look great, but can generate a large bounce rate when users did not know how to use it. There are many sites with really nice splash pages, but even that inhibits a user’s ability to get the content they want immediately. That is what my page was doing and so I had to change the theme quickly.

I will continue exploring ways to add more images and mimic the feel of the other theme in this new theme. I would love to add pictures from JMU and my family and friends to the header on this theme and make it more personal and related to me. I can’t wait to continue exploring more WordPress themes and play around with this one!

After using Google Analytics for a semester, I have found so many ways to monitor my website. I can make adjustments necessary for both Analytics and AdWords. And now I can be an intelligent consumer of my own data.

I had 25 unique visitors, with only a 5.41% bounce rate. Therefore, althought I did not have many visitors, they were all specifically interested in my site and once they got there, they usually stayed. I also learned that they explored a bit. There were 4 pages per visit. Considering I only have about ten blog posts, that was great to see!

I learned that Google AdWords is crucial to driving traffic to the site. Even though I had an aesthetically appealing site with good content, I only had a few visitors. It is so easy to get lost on the internet. Unless you are a well known brand or something that is easily spread by word of mouth and you become web-surfers’ specific destination, you rely on being found by search engines.

I still do not know all there is to know about Google Analytics and Goodle AdWords. I could not successfully run a successful campaign by myself, but I do have the tools to learn more. I understand what is important to Google AdWords and what Analytics measures and how to manipulate my site to increase those rankings. I hope to continue learning more and improving my internet marketing skills in this realm.

Most of the tools we have been using this semester are all active tools that allow us to enhance our site. For example, our All-In-One-SEO pack was used to optimize the page. Webmaster tool is able to tell you as much about your site in order for you to enhance it. It is able to tell you the story of what you look like to others. Use it to look at:

• Impressions, Click Through Rates, Average Position
• Who is linking to your site
• Signals that your site has been hacked or if you are not appearing on Google the way you’d like (with the keywords you intended to have)
• View your sitemap – the map that directs search engine crawlers to where they should be looking, giving them direction on how to optimize your page
• Link to Google Places, which will place your local business on the map for consumers
• Access to Google Merchant Center, which allows you to sell products online
• Googlebot activity on your page in the last 90 days; this will tell you if your page is even of interest to Google crawlers lately. It also tells you time spent downloading a page, kilobytes downloaded per day
• It summarizes your “target pages”
• It is a great portal to access settings, such as geographic target and your preferred domain

Google Webmaster tools seems to be a web guru’s best friend.

SafeRides is a program that provides free rides home to JMU students on Fridays and Saturday nights to prevent drunk driving.  It is a student-run non-profit organization whose mission it is to create a safer community by educating on drunk driving and giving students of James Madison University an alternative option for getting home on weekends.

Insurance, heavily regulated industry, mixed with social media creates a very interesting predicament. How does such a traditionally conservative industry mesh with a fast-growing, non-traditional trend?

Debbie van Horn, from Rockingham Group Insurance in Harrisonburg, VA came to speak to us about how this happens for her company.

• Rockingham Group isn’t as big as Geico, Allstate, or Progressive, but watch out. They’re competitive. Rockingham Group uses a formula to measure their social media participation that puts them on-par with the big players: Engagement Rate = (Comments + Likes + Wall Posts) / # Fans. The formula showed that Rockingham fairs better than both Allstate and Progressive.
• Instead of the ability to talk about their product, like other companies can. Insurance companies prefer to talk about family, friends, and relevant topics – not just insurance
• Their clever form of advertising includes ads that say “your mustang is special – it needs special insurance” appealing to people’s softer sides, giving personality to their inanimate objects.
• Rockingham’s move to the new timeline format is still a working progress.
• Feedback on insurance social media can be positive or negative – the key is how you respond to them. Progressive, for example, will ask questions like “where did this happen to you” in order to gauge where they need to IMPROVE!
• Advertising in Harrisonburg is worth it. Their cost is only $10 per thousand impressions in traditional media. Social Media’s even cheaper!
• Their email opening rate is 25%, which is pretty high especially for a small insurance provider.
• Her advice: go Google yourself. Find out what people are saying about you or your company to get a good feel on what should an shouldn’t be on your page!
• Check out Rockingham group on Facebook!

As we see, it can happen. Social media can be for everyone – even the least likely businesses. Thank you so much for coming to speak with us Ms. Van Horn. If you’d like to contact her on this topic, email her at dlvanhorn@rockinghamgroup.com!

IBM & Coca Cola have become household names in America, and all over the world. Their presence as corporate giants, with billions in revenue is well-known. Both companies seem impermeable to any environmental instabilities at all. Until social media came along. Even these two companies have succumb to allowing their employees to blog (fairly) freely and marketers to advertise in non-traditional ways. Take a look quick peek at their corporate social media guidelines!

IBM:

• allowed their employees to CREATE their own policy on a wiki (how very social media-esque).
• All posts regarding IBM must have a disclaimer that all thoughts are not representative of the company.
• All posts must be identified. All IBM employees must own up to their content.
• Although IBM believes social media is a way to exchange ideas, all corporate messages with have official means of communication – i.e. social media
• There are certain “sensitive” topics regarding IBM that should “never be discussed

Coca-Cola:

• Transparency in the posted content – not putting out “fake” links, or posts that are misleading
• Protect the privacy of Coca-Cola’s customers’ personal information
• Respect all copyright and trademark regulations
• “BE a ‘scout’ for compliments and critiques” – even if a blogger is not offically representing the company, they are an ambassador in every sense so they must be open to comments on Coca-Cola and take them with respect and stride.

Although these two giants fall under similar categories in the corporate world, both Fortune 500, Large, global companies, it seems as though Coca-Cola has definitely taken a liking to social media and embraced the idea of USING social media as a form of communication. IBM, ironically a tech-company, seems to have a longer way to go.

“Organize” and “Makeup” are two words that many of us never even think to use together.  There is simply toomuch to organize.  It seems easier to throw it all in a makeup bag and dig things out when they’re needed.  For products that are used daily, this can turn a “pampering experience” into a time consuming and messy disaster.  To save you time and frustration, we came up with 8 fabulous and frugal ideas that will completely transform your morning routine…for the better.

1. Brush up your Brush Collection -Try storing various sized makeup brushes in a bowl-shaped vase with small glass stones at the bottom.  Both items can be found at almost any craft store.  Stand your cosmetic brushes in the vase. You have now created a beautiful & practical display to keep in front of your bathroom vanity!

2. Broken Eye Shadows - Have you ever opened your makeup bag only to discover that your favorite eye shadow has broken due to the tossing around in your cosmetic bag? If so, try putting the broken powder into a clean and dry contact case.  Mix in some Vaseline (which is non-comedogenic and doesn’t clog your pores) and voila! You have liquid eye shadow and you’ve saved your favorite color and expensive makeup!

3. Cosmetic Pencils and Mascara - If you have an old pair of eye glasses, hold onto the eye glass case and recycle your glasses*.  A glasses case is the perfect size to store eye-liner, lip-liner, and mascara.  The glasses case is light and compact enough to keep in your purse or bag.

*Try Lion’s Club, an organization that donates the glasses to those in need; they normally have boxes outside many local grocery stores.

4. DIY Makeup Bag – Instead of purchasing yet another cosmetic bag since your current one is stained with spilled makeup, try re-using a soft pencil case to store makeup on the go.  If you don’t have a soft pencil case, try purchasing one at the craft or discount store.  To avoid future makeup spills, try lining the pencil case with a large clear freezer or sandwich bag.

8. Bringing Only the Basics – Keeping your entire makeup collection in your purse can become a disorganized mess and most of the time, you only need a few basics for touching up. Carry LESS – enough for Lips, Eyes, Skin & Something to Clean. Bring one moisturizing lipstick or one colored lip balm.  It serves as a two in one product (color and moisture).  Carry one eyeliner pencil or mascara (your preference).  Touching up your top lids with eye-liner can brighten your eyes and make you look more awake on a long day.  For your skin, only carry one cover up. Most cover ups will fix any blemishes you are trying to hide.  Don’t forget to carry tiny biodegradable towels to clean any and all accidents.  Carrying these few items are enough to keep you prepared and looking fabulous for your full day ahead!

Finally you now have some ideas on how to organize these little things that don’t fit on shelves or stack in closets.  Try these tips out and start your day feeling even more beautiful, leaving a stress-free morning behind you.

A recent social phenomenon has been the “virtual posting board” called Pinterest. The site is attracting hundreds of thousands of users only a little over a year past its launch. Users are allowed to surf the internet and pin any images with captions that describe their interests, or business, or anything they want to convey. It is almost like a virtual cork board of all of your interests. The hype has been met with both applaud and apprehension. People, the news, and social media sites themselves have been buzzing about this new venue to share thoughts and ideas.

One piece written on socialmediatoday by Jennifer Osbon called Pinterest’s Impact on Social Media is Worth So Much More Than 1,000 Words talks about how the site right now exists as a collection of beautiful images to share with friends and family that describe your interests and thoughts. However, Osbon suggests that this collection of “art” could be better “curated”. PInterest has allowed anyone to be a content curator and this could certainly be used in very purposeful and meaningful ways. For example, she says that if a friend is diagnosed with a disease and you surf all of the internet for reliable resources on their illness that you want to share with family, you can now do that through Pinterest. If a student wanted to do a history project, he/she could compile all of their research into a Pinterest account, for everyone to consume the primary or secondary sources on their own.

Pining for Pinning by Stephanie Gehnam, also described using Pinterest as a business tool. For example, many websites allow you to “Follow” them on Twitter or “Friend” them on Facebook. She suggests that businesses may consider having “pin-it” buttons on their site. This pushes Pinterest into the ranks with other social media outlets that businesses have been able to utilize effectively and it hits a target market of young women that has been historically difficult to target in the past.  Other social media sites that are monetizing their viewers through businesses better watch out!

Welcome to my blog.  I am currently enrolled in Strategic Internet Marketing (MKTG 470) taught by Dr. Theresa B. Clarke at James Madison University.  As one of the course requirements, all students will be completing some of the assignments as blog posts.  This is my first official blog post for Dr. Clarke’s course in the JMU Department of Marketing.