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Monday, April 24, 2017

Reading Reflection: Chapter 9 & 10

Going along with the previous themes of this book, each of the chapters outline the seven steps to measuring each chapter's specific focus. In these chapters, the primary focus was on communities and employees.

Communities have changed recently with new definitions of social media. A community consists of a group of stakeholders that exerts influence over your organization internally and externally. Employees would be a key stakeholder in an organizations internal community. Social media has allowed for the communities to grow based off of their virtual audiences.

Being able to answer these key questions will keep your all of your audiences in a community more engaged.

Who are your neighbors and why are they important?
How do good and bad relationships influence your organization?
Who and What is most important to measure?

Being able to understand the environments of your internal and external communities will be the best way to resonate with how they are receiving your messages. Listen to what they are hearing, saying and doing to measure those messages to create better environments for internal and external audiences.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

What's a Geofilter?


Geofilters are a way for Snapchat users to let each other know where they are located. Snapchat has different requirements on what can be in a geo filter and what cannot. 

Snapchat's submission guidelines state that "Geofilters cannot include any branding, business marks, business names, business logos, or other promotional content for a business or brand." Geofilters are primary for celebrations in a specific location. Geofilters also may not include photos of people, URLs, drug-related content or content that you don't have copyrights for. 

Every time I go to a new location, I always look to see what kind of filters Snapchat has to show my friends. For as small as Ada is, we are lucky to have three or four geofilters specifically for Ada or Ohio Northern University. 

Geofilters are primarily for celebrations in a specific location or for events. Anyone can create a Snapchat geofilter if they have a computer! Here is a tutorial on how to make your own geofilter for Snapchat. 

What are your favorite geofilters? Would you create one for an event? Comment below. 


Wednesday, April 19, 2017

FYI: Good News


This time of the semester is where schedules get busy, assignments pile up and life gets crazy. While I myself have been stressed and a worry wart, I have had a good couple of days.

My grant is being shared and viewed by my friends and family, I had a job interview for next semester and I recently got my summer position finalized. Time is funny and throws it all at you at once, but so far this week good news has been coming my way.

I will again shamelessly post this link to encourage you to vote for my grant submission. If we win the grant submission, we get $100,00 to directly impact a project to keep Fendig Summer Theatre for Children impacting our community for years to come.

I recently just got accepted to direct along side one of my friends for their summer production in July. We are in the planning stages, but being able to announce this information is such a relief.

Have you had any good news lately? I would love to hear about what is going on with your crazy semester in the comments!

Sunday, April 16, 2017

FYI: Tie-dye Easter Eggs


Every year for Easter my grandma Bonnie helps all her grandchildren dye Easter eggs. Usually we do the typical tablets in vinegar method, but this year she came up with another way to make them look pretty.

Here are the materials you need to tie-dye your Easter eggs.

  • a dozen hard-boiled eggs
  • food coloring
  • paper towels
  • rubber bands
  • spray bottle
  • water
  • vinegar
  • tray
  • rubber gloves

First, hard-boil your eggs and gather the materials. In a small squirt bottle, pour half water and half vinegar all the way up. 

Next, take your hard-boiled eggs and wrap them in tight in two paper towels. At the top of the egg put a rubber band around the excess paper towel. Your egg will have "bunny ears."

Line your tray with some paper towels and lightly spray the vinegar mix to dampen the paper towels. Do the same to your covered eggs. 

Put on your rubber glove. Once the paper towels are damp, use food coloring to tie-dye and create designs on your egg. Soaking the paper towel will create the design on the egg without using multiple rubber bands.

The paper towel will soak through and create the texture. I used red and blues on my egg. Make sure you get in between the crevices of the paper towel or some of the egg will be left white. 

Over the tray lined in paper towels, gently squeeze the paper towel so that it sticks firmly to the egg. Don't squeeze too hard or you will break your egg! 

Let the eggs sit in the tray for an hour. This will give the eggs time to soak in the paper towels to create the texture. Put on another pair of gloves and take the paper towels and rubber bands off the eggs. Set the eggs back in an egg carton to dry. 

These eggs are more for older children or adults to make. This is a messy, but fun project. If you want to impress the Easter Bunny this year, try tie-dying your Easter eggs! 


Saturday, April 15, 2017

Insights & Word of Mouth



Last week I posted about my grant submission I was working on. This week I have seen the insights and analytics first hand with measuring how many individuals we are impacting. 

I run the social media accounts for Fendig Summer Theatre for Children. I have discovered from running the Facebook social media accounts the value of being able to assess social insights as well as the word of mouth. 

The past week our posts have engaged the community pretty well to vote for our grant as well as cultivate talk and engagement about things coming up for the 2017 production season. People have been messaging our page to hear about the staff, the show and other ways they can help out. 

That engagement has only improved our social accounts this week! Hopefully that means plenty of votes are coming our way for our cause. If you are interested in learning more, check out this link. 

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Reading Reflection: Chapter 6 & 7

Chapter 6
This chapter was all about analyzing data. The worst part about a research project is analyzing all the sources. In evaluator's minds analyzing data is the same situation. Evaluators also have previous misconceptions about measurement of social media data.

Measuring and analyzing your data will help refine your search strings and know what your competitors are doing and compare your organization.  Being able to review and track the results can verify the which outlets and audiences matter. 


Knowing which audiences matter can turn feelings and relationships into measurements and metrics that can benefit your organization.

How do you develop those relationships? Sponsors and events are one answer.

Chapter 7 outlines how events and sponsorships help cultivate relationships that can come from data that can be measured. Organizations generally have three goals when launching events.

 These are to

  1. Launch new products
  2. Drive affinity between customers and the brand.
  3. Reach new markets and customers

Like outlined in previous chapters, the author uses the seven steps to measure sponsorships and events. The main questions that are asked from these steps are again, what are your objectives? What is your measurable criterion? What are your benchmarks? How will a measurement program benefit the event?

This reaffirms the general theme of the book so far. If you can understand your audience, your key messages and communicate them successfully then you will be successful in your measurement to improve your organization.

Friday, April 7, 2017

FYI: Family at ONU


Last night I went to see the opening show of the "Pirates of Penzance" here at ONU. My parents and brother were all in town because my brother had an interview with the theatre arts department.

After a long search, Harrison has decided to go to school here in the fall. He will be double majoring in computer science and international theatre productions! Those two areas are very different, but he can do both in under 8 years here, rather than doing two full degrees at another school he was interested in.

Harrison is the second child. He was adamant that he wasn't going to school where I would be, but here we are! Seeing them this week made my week so much better. Only one more week until Easter break.

Having Harrison here will be nice right before I begin my next adventure. He seems to be warming up to the idea. My cousin, Ian is also here this year. Having him here has proven to be nice also. We all will get to hangout and live the dream at ONU together.

I am really looking forward to having Harrison here with Ian here and I. I am sure he will meet his own "family" here at ONU, but familiar faces are so comforting.

Hope everyone hangs in there until Easter!

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Weebly

Lately I have been looking how to better promote and bring aspects of my college portfolio together. Weebly is an easy tool that is similar to Blogger. There are options to blog, but there are easy tools to drag into the format to make your own website. We have been talking a lot about measurement. Weebly has measurement tools to measure your statistics. 
Right now I am in the process of updating my website for room to upload some portfolio material. I already have my web domain to identify my name. I designed it so the opening page features myself, skills and mission. I have tabs at the top that identify different pages for current projects, experience and a contact page. On my experience page I will add a couple tabs to download some writing samples. 

With the amount of writing that I have done for public relations, social media content for organizations and grant writing another section would show my experience in another field. Writing is important no matter what the profession. 

I would strongly recommend using Weebly to promote yourself! Promote what you are good at, promote what you have done and promote what you are doing. Update it often and make it your own. There are plenty of themes to suit every personality and a Weebly address is free. 

Below are some screenshots of different themes available for Weebly. Get to designing! 


Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Reading Reflection: Chapter 5 How to Measure Marketing

Measuring your market from a public relations and social media perspective makes measurement unique.

There are  three parts to the social media revolution according to the authors.
  1. Timeliness has been redefined.
  2. The role of marketing and communications has been redefined.
    1. Internet allows for consumer decision-making to be based on reputation and online search
  3. Most definitions of success are irrelevant.

Most people would find the part about the social media content analysis to be really boring, but I found it very interesting and helpful.

Here are the most basic steps for a social media content analysis. Within each step there are of course more specifics, but I won’t bore you with the details.

How to Conduct a Social Media Content Analysis
  1. Find the content
  2. Determine the type of conversation taking place
  3. Determine the Visibility of your brand
  4. Determine Who, If Anyone, Was Quoted in the Item
  5. Determine Sentiment and or Presence or Absence of Recommendations.
  6. Determine What if Any Messages Were Communicated
  7. Determine Positioning on Key issues or battles.
  8. Quantifying the Authority of the Writer or Poster

Finding this information and the numbers behind the social media will only bring you closer to your customers. The numbers can be used to improve or enhance things that you are already doing.

Why not use measurement to bring you closer to the people you are trying to serve?

Monday, April 3, 2017

Reading Reflection: Ch. 3 & 4


This week when reading chapter three and four the biggest takeaway I found was a quote at the beginning of chapter four. 


One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.
---Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

The chapters emphasize that measurement is the most accurate way to support your information on how you can improve. Measurement shows statistical proof of how your organization or business is doing.

Knowing your relationships with your target audience is an important way for you to be able to figure out the best way to measure for your audience.The best way to continue measurement is to continue educating yourself and recognize that with each job you measure you will need different tools to do so.

While technologies change faster than the measurement tools will, measurement will be key to having accurate information on how to best improve your return on investment.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

FYI: Grant Writing and Development


This week's topic doesn't seem all that interesting to most people, but lately I have been doing a lot of research and work with grant writing and development.

Fendig Summer Theatre for Children approached me to help them write a grant that was due this past Friday. The grant is called Community Thrives through USA Today. The grant hopes to help people fund a project or idea that impacts their community. Fendig Summer Theatre is an organization that I hold near and dear to my heart so I decided to take on the project for them.

I reached out to the public of Rensselaer via Fendig's Facebook page and requested help in video submissions of how Fendig impacts Rensselaer.  To my surprise I got about ten responses through video and numerous people sharing and talking about our cause.

It engaged the community and helped me add crucial information about why the community needs something like Fendig Summer Theatre to thrive and flourish for years to come.

The post may still be pending but here is the link to my submission on the USA Today's site.

I was so busy all week editing my script, the video and filming shots but the work was so rewarding. Should we win our category Fendig would get $100,000 for our project. If we get second we get $50,000. I am hoping for the best, but I really am proud of my work.

This isn't the first grant that I have applied for. I applied for two local grants on behalf of Fendig Summer Theatre. I was successful in receiving those funds. I also applied for another really big grant that was a video submission. We weren't successful, but out of 200,000 applicants we made it to the top 80 submissions. That was a win in my book as far as experience.

I am considering maybe looking into to some fundraising, development or grant writing opportunities to see if this is something I want to pursue more. Regardless, this was a great experience for me to have.

Wish us luck!