Skyscrapers, Powerpoints and Hispanic Marketing

I've spent the last four months interning for The San Jose Group, a multi-cultural Hispanic marketing and advertising agency. It has been an eye opening experience for so many reasons. For one, it was my first exposure to a marketing and advertising agency. Second, it wasn't just any old advertising agency I was working for...we specialized in creating campaigns and supporting fortune 500 companies in marketing to the ever growing Hispanic population.

Here is a brief synopsis of my experience:

On my first day on the job, I was going through the Junior Executive Training Program and I learned I was coined a Consulting Junior Executive. Well, the title sure sounded fancy didn't it? I EVEN GOT MY OWN NAME TAG ON MY DESK. It was fun to just be working again as it had been about two months since my college graduation. The office is situated at 233 N. Michigan Ave and provided for gorgeous views of the Chicago River and Millenium Park. With skyscrapers all around I wasn't in little ol' Harrisburg, PA anymore or DC for that matter. My first day I sat down at my desk and had absolutely nothing to do. Uh oh it wasn't another one of those internships where you spend most of your time checking your fantasy football scores then doing actual work. I quickly learned my fears were absolved as I soon had more work then I could keep up with. I assisted in the completion of projects which acquired new business and provided strategy consultation for some existing clients.

The growing Hispanic population in America is something to definitely take note of. The new Census being released next year will really open a lot of Americans eyes that the Hispanic population won't be a minority for much longer. Finding ways to market and advertise to them effectively will provide many challenges for companies that are not prepared.

I loved my experience with San Jose Group and it has further my determination to land a position with a marketing and advertising agency.

-JC

Determining Success

Welcome back,

How do we know if Social media is working? I'm sure the question comes up in board rooms across the country nearly daily. Many companies employ social media simply because they feel they need to. They see company xyz is doing it and for fear of feeling obsolete, hire Andrew the 21 year old for his knowledge of social media. Well to make sure Andrew is successful in his tactics or bets used in their transition into social media they must define metrics to determine ROI.

Figuring out whether social media is providing ROI is a tricky matter however. Therefore, it is imperative in determining the metrics early on to provide yourself with a benchmark. Aaron Uhrmacher, author of How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business, provides greater detail about how metrics can be either quantitative or qualitative. After creating the metrics the company can see later down the road the success of Andrew and his social media bets.

Until next,

JC

The value of social media in politics

Whats up everyone?? I hope your enjoying spring and the great weather.

While last year's November poll results were monumental in numerous ways one of the lessons that has gone slightly unnoticed from that historic election is the advantage social media gave Obama's campaign. President Obama was involved in sixteen social media channels including myspace, Facebook, Twitter. One of the great advantages about being involved in social media is that obviously Obama can not call every eligible voter but one thing he can do is connect with them through social media. Social media was used by the President among other things to rally his base, keep his supporters connected and make known his stand on many issues. But perhaps the best way that Obama used social media was by connecting to specific ethnic groups, by joining "MiGente (Latinos), BlackPlanet (African-Americans), Glee ("gay, lesbian and everyone else") and others." To read more about Obama's use of social media read What Businesses can Learn From Obama's Social Media Strategy.

Some people are starting to learn from Obama and his use of social media in politics. Read

With social media, student school board members exercise influence. It is obvious there is a ton to learn from how Obama connected with normally hard to reach bases. This is enviable and in fact businesses could learn a great deal by not just marketing but in fact participating in the many different social media channels.

Until next week,

Jc

Are page views old news?

Hope everyone is having a great weekend, and holiday if you are celebrating easter!

This week I am going to be discussing analyzing traffic towards websites and whether it should be done via page views.

Every week, I can log onto Google Analytics and see a great wealth of iJust Joshin'nformation regarding my viewers. The first analytic I always look at is how many page views I have received. Secondly how many of them are unique views? I can see in what states or even countries readers are viewing my posts and even see how long the average reader is spending on my url. However, is tracking the number of unique views I receive for my blog the best measure?

An article,The Death of the Pageview, shows me that there may be much more important analytics which I should be devoting my attention to instead of simply page views. While this is purely hypothetical as I am not a for-profit blogger. However, if I was beginning a start-up company these are some of the anlaytics as shown in the article linked which I now know I should be paying attention to:

• click tracking
• event tracking
• conversion funnel analysis
• split testing

Please click on the link above to read the article in Read Write Start, for a much more complete analysis of the topics discussed above.

Enjoy the beautiful weather!

JC

How to Find a job

Whats up everyone? Hope everyone is enjoying march madness.

You ready to learn how to find a job?

Well unfortunately I will not be providing that information because I do not possess that knowledge, but if you know how to find one please feel free to comment with your instructions:) Due to the fact that I am by no means an expert I'll be sure to reference

However, I can tell you what I think I know about finding a job and how social networking can positively influence your search. Lee Miller author of the article Social Networking has its perks, gives the great advice that if you want to find a job "get out from behind the computer!" While this is certainly true that it is necessary to get out and network face-face the computer and social networking can provide many benefits in the job search. Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with people and especially as you have friends graduate from college can see where they have moved onto career wise. Perhaps their place of employment interests you and you can forward them your resume or simply facebook chat them to reconnect. Linkedin is also obviously a great tool as you can join groups and see jobs that are posted.

The concept of The Blog Is the New Resume, is a fascinating and interesting trend which needs to be explored. Certainly a blog is a great way to show employers how you write and file many ideas and thoughts you have. However, if the blog is the new resume I feel I should probably start taking some more time in writing these posts! With that said I'm going to start working on next weeks post.

Till next week,

Jc

computers in the classroom

What's going on? I hope everyone had a good weekend.

When I was in first grade, I remember playing on a an old Mac computer. We would all wait to get on the computer because we all happened to be addicted to Oregon Trail. Today's school children are not playing Oregon trail on an old Mac but are instead communicating with students around the world and have a wealth of knowledge at the fingertips. However, along with the available knowledge they also are faced with a wealth of distractions an inappropriate websites. Kristen Alloway of the New Jersey Star Ledger does a great job of detailing the conflict facing educators and handling technology in the classroom in her article, Students Discovering Online Collaboration.

My personal opinion is that technology and web 2.0 gives students an excellent opportunity if used correctly to collaborate online with others around the world. This information sharing that can be done by a student in class communicating with a student in a classroom in another country can be extremely beneficial in exposing school children to another culture and learning about the world around them. When I was a child and a student we had pen pals, now children can get even better experiences through online collaboration.

Therefore, online collaboration presents many wonderful opportunities but the dangers it presents must also be accounted for. Children can access websites that are inappropriate and instead of using the computers for educational purposes many times they will use them for their non-intended purpose.

Until next week!

JC

Virtual Collaboration

Hey everybody, hope everyone had a good spring break! It's good to be posting again.

Group work is something all of my Kogod peers know far too much about. It seems nearly every class we have in Kogod incorporates group work. Group work while at times can be fun and rewarding at many other times seems to be simply put into syllabi by teachers to take up our time.

Most groups I have been apart of incorporate a mix of face-to-face meetings and online collaboration. Many times we'll get together and split up work and than collaborate it via e-mail or google docs.

Virtual collaboration is a novel concept but I believe it should be used as a complement to in-person group work not to replace it. Nothing can substitute face-to-face meetings where group members get to know each other and can share ideas. By doing everything virtually much is lost. I believe much of the best collaboration is done at face-to-face meetings. I have a lot of trouble imagining working in a group where we never meet in person. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I believe at least meeting in person a few times is the best method and by doing everything virtually much would be lost.

Until next week!

JC