What Really Matters?

This week we started a new book in class, “Measure What Matters” by Katie Paine. 

The book is what you think it would be about, measurement. We talk about measurement in a lot of my classes, including public relations and business. Measurement is stressed to be so important, but I would be lying if I said I completely understood it. 

Chapter 1 of the book starts out by saying, “you can now measure everything, but you won’t survive without the metrics that matter to your business.” I think this is where I get confused the most; what am I really supposed to be measuring? The book gives an answer I wasn’t expecting, but hear all the time. The key to businesses is the relationships the organization has with its customers; therefore, if you are not measuring the quality of relationships, the business will fail. Once again, the answer is always relationships. 

The Student Planning Committee uses the Facebook analytics to measure the reach of our posts and events. It is a small scale of measurement, but we have been trying to see what the measurements are telling us. We are able to figure out when to post and who typically attends our events. Essentially, we are measuring the relationships SPC has with the students at ONU.

The book also mentions measurement being something people think about doing when the program is over. I have always used measurement this way because it makes the most sense. However, the book says measurement should be set at the beginning of the program to ensure effectiviness and accuracy in results.

So far this book seems engaging and informative. I am only in Chapter 1 and I have already learned a great deal of topics I never knew about. I look forward to blogging more about this book!

Death by Chocolate

This past Friday, the Student Planning Committee (SPC) and the Association of Future Forensic Professionals (AFFP) hosted a murder mystery on campus, which was free to students. 

The theme of the murder mystery was Death by Chocolate and to go along with the theme, there was an entire chocolate bar filled with amazing chocolate treats.

This was the first time SPC has ever had a murder mystery as an event and I think it was a success. Students volunteered to be the actors of the murder mystery and the students in the audience were able to interact with the actors to better solve the mystery. The premise of the mystery was to figure out who killed Lou Bills, a millionaire and founder of Sweet Things candy company. Lou Bills was allegedly killed by a chocolate covered peanut, hence the title, Death by Chocolate.

The student able to figure out the murder, was then entered into a raffle for a large basket full of Tim Burton films and of course lots of chocolate!

It was the perfect night full of mystery and chocolate. What more could you want?

Halloween Social Media Campaigns

The beginning of the holiday season is near starting with Halloween next Friday. It is clear Christmas has turned into a marketable and profitable holiday, which is shown from the Christmas commercials beginning in October. Though, Halloween has its fair share of marketing too. 

Last year, BeeLiked posted an article, “Top 5 Halloween SocialMedia Campaigns,” which showcases brands using Halloween to engage its customers.

Two of my favorite campaigns were from Tide and Topshop.

Tide utilized vine to create a mini-series of horror movie spoofs. Each vine showcased Tide products and used the hashtag #ScaredStainless, which was hilarious and caught the attention of many. 
Watch the compilation of the vine mini-series from YouTube below. 

Topshop is a fashion retail brand and they utilized Twitter for their Halloween campaign. Followers were asked to enter the Topshop "Trick or Treat" contest by tweeting their favorite Halloween style tip or their favorite costume using the hashtag #TrickorTreat.  Each day the best tweets were rewarded with a $150 gift card to Topshop. In addition, Topshop launched “Topshop Tweet Shops” where consumers could tweet something about Topshop and it would count as money towards cosmetic items in the store.

Tide and Topshop do not have any association with being scary or really anything related to Halloween, but both companies harnessed the excitement already in place for Halloween and transitioned it to its products.

It will be interesting to see which companies did the best job this year on their Halloween social media campaigns.

Finding Jobs in Real-Time

I am a senior and on track to graduate in May 2015. With that said, I am on the lookout for jobs and figuring out what I want to do as a career.

I normally look at jobs on websites such as Indeed, Monster and Career Builder. While the sites are professional and reliable, they can be timely and cumbersome.

In the book, “Real-Time Marketing & PR” it discusses how Hollister uses real-time to recruit employees. In this case, Hollister is not the popular teen clothing brand, but instead a Masssachusetts-based recruiter engaging in “Recruiting 2.0.”

Hollister engages potential candidates through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Blogs in the Boston area. Hollister has professional networking communities for different career fields. For example, Hollister has a professional networking community on Facebook called Boston HR and on Twitter @BostonHiring.

Hollister recruiters easily have easy access to candidates by simply tweeting or posting something like “Boston hot PR job” and candidates interested in PR will apply. According to the book, sites like Monster have limitations because there isn’t a sense of urgency like there is on social media.

Hollister gets paid by companies who use their services to find candidates quickly and efficiently. The Recruitng 2.0 stragety aims to engage candates in real-time and place them in positions quickly.

In my job search, I hope I will be able to utilize social media in aiding me to find my dream position!

Babies on Social Media

I am a big fan of the Today Show and sometimes will wander onto their website to see what quirky stories they have written. I stumbled upon an article that was quite humorous and appealing entitled, “Have a social media account for your baby? 40 percent of millennial moms do.”

 The first thing I thought of was these women must be crazy, but then I realized it makes some sort of sense. Moms are notorious for taking a billion pictures of their children because family members, especially those far away, love to see pictures of the children. What better way then sharing pictures instantaneously on social media?

The article said a survey was conducted by Gerber.com and 40 percent of moms aged 18 to 34 have social media accounts for their babies. Currently, the most popular site for moms has been Instagram, since it is just a feed of pictures. One mom claimed she uses her daughters social media account to update family on her progress, since the baby is in the NICU for being very premature.

I have noticed many celebrity children have their own accounts, but their moms run the accounts. For example, the Lily from Modern Family has had her own Twitter account since she was really little and it has a lot of humerus content.

There has been controversy of exposing adolescents to social media, but now even babies are making their way into the social media world! Even though they are not directly interacting with social media, they are still exposing their private life. Though many moms do not seem too concerned with the privacy issues, some say they are more worried about their children hating them for putting embarrassing pictures up for everyone to see!