Megan Rose

Throughout the course of this semester, in my MKTG 470 – Strategic Internet Marketing class, we have been learning the various ways to improve a website’s organic search engine rankings through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  The goal of the experiment was to optimize one page on our website using the keyword “love JMU”.

So first we ran a few pre-tests to see the current status of our site and to easily track results in the process.  Through these results, I learned that my JMU page did not even appear in the first 20 pages of organic search results on Google when “love JMU” was searched for.  So in order to improve upon this, I started off by changing the title and permalink of my JMU page to “Love JMU”.  I also installed a WordPress plug-in entitled “All in One SEO Pack”.  With this plug-in I was able to add a title, description, and keywords that would appear under my site when searched for; I of course included “Love JMU” within each of these fields.  And lastly, I added alternate text to the picture located on my “Love JMU” page.  Since search engines don’t understand images, you can tell them what they are by adding alternate text; my alternate text of course was “Love JMU”.

Through these efforts my page improved dramatically.  It is now on the 7th page of  search results when “Love JMU” is searched for on Google. By running a Crawler FX Report, I was able to see exactly where I did a good job optimizing and those places where i could improve upon.  According to this report, I had strong titles, images, keywords, headings and description.  However I need to work on external links especially.  I need to promote more of these in order to drive more traffic to my site.

Yesterday, in my Strategic Internet Marketing (MKTG 470) class, Ms. Deb Van Horn came to speak to us.  Ms. Van Horn has a BBA in International Business from James Madison University; she also has an MBA from JMU.  For the past 10 years, Ms. Van Horn has worked as the Vice President of Support Services at The Rockingham Group, which is a local Virginia as well as Pennslyvania insurance company.  She has also previously dealt with Human Resources, Facility Management, IT, Marketing, and Operations.  Ms. Van Horn is also a past president of the local Society for Human Resource Management(SHRM) group and a member of the JMU College of Business CIS/BSAN executive advisory board.   

One piece of advice that I took away from Ms. Van Horn’s presentation is to not get too comfortable in one place.  She referred back to the many jobs and positions that she has held in the past and how she has done just that.  She took the point a step further and told us not to get disappointed or upset if things do not go exactly as planned.  As long as you are resilient, flexible, and hard working, employers will love you and you will get where you want to be.

In addition, Ms. Van Horn talked a lot about benefits of social media to us, in particular those of Facebook.  Being a marketing major, social media is a topic that I have to be aware of heading out into the professional market.  Some of the benefits that she referred to included: social media is a way to build relationships with customers, companies can receive instant feedback about their products/service, there is two-way communication, and through social media, the company can educate and develop awareness of their business/industry.  She also referred to many of the tools that Facebook provides to businesses to help their track their results.  One tool was Facebook Insights; this tool tracks “Likes” and “Comments” for the company and also records the customer’s demographics and how they stumbled upon the Rockingham Group Facebook Page (from the website, Google, etc.).

One last piece of advice that Ms. Van Horn left for us concerning our future was to know what is out there.  Once something is posted to the Internet, it cannot be taken back; and we all need to be aware of that.  So “Google” yourself and see what pops up.  If there is anything that you would not want on the front page of the newspaper or for your mom to see, you might want to remove it.  See what information is available about you. Is it good? …perhaps your LinkedIn page. Or is it bad? …perhaps your Facebook page.  And lastly get a LinkedIn account and start building a professional image of yourself as well as building contacts and groups.

Overall, getting to hear Ms. Van Horn speak was a very rewarding experience.  She taught me a lot concerning where to go next with my professional career and how to go about it.  I want to give Ms. Dab Van Horn a big JMU thank you! It was a pleasure.

You can find more information on Ms. Deb Van Horn on her LinkedIn page, her Twitter account, or at the Rockingham Group website or their Twitter account.

Social networking and media has grown substantially over the past few years.  According to Social Media Today, for every six minutes spent online, one of those minutes was on a social media site.  In addition, Facebook alone has seen the average U.S. visitor engagement time increase from 4.6 hours to 6.3 hours per month over the past year.

In return, to address the growing popularity of social media, many companies have developed social media policies.  A social media policy “is a corporate code of conduct that provides guidelines for employees who post content on the Internet either as part of their job or as a private person”(Tech Target).  The goal of these policies is set expectations for appropriate behavior so that the company is not exposed to embarrassment or legal problems.

One social media policy is that of Ford Motor Company. They kept their policy simple and straight-foward.  Their main points include: honesty about who you are, clarity that the opinions expressed are your own, respect and humility in all communication, good judgement in sharing only PUBLIC information, and awareness that what you say is permanent.  This policy is very well written and gets the point across but there are many examples of social media policies out there on the web.

The next company that I looked at was Intel.  Within the first few sentences of their policy, the company stresses that “participation in social computing on behalf of Intel is not a right but an opportunity, so please treat it seriously and with respect.”  This policy repeats many of the features outlined in the Ford Motor Company policy.  Intel’s main points include: disclose, protect, and use common sense.  In terms of “Disclose”, the company addresses the importance of honesty just as Ford did.  “Protect” simply means what it says, protect Intel.  Do not speak of any confidential information, do not slander the competition, and do not “over share”.  Just as Ford emphasized, once you post something to the Internet, it will always be there.  And the last part speaks for itself, just use common sense when posting on the web.

The last policy that I found is for one of the biggest companies in the world, The Coca-Cola Company.  As stated on their policy, Coca-Cola’s main goal in social media ”is to help empower our associates to participate in this new frontier of marketing and communications, represent our Company, and share the optimistic and positive spirits of our brands.”  This policy basically follows the other two previously mentioned in this post.  The company emphasizes honesty, protection of the blogger and company, respect and, responsibility for what you post.

Overall, it seems as though many of the social media policies for companies have a “cookie-cutter” format.  Other than specific goals and mission statements that the companies wants to accomplish with their policy, the main points of honesty, respect, and responsibility seem to be at the top of list.  Other social media policies can be seen at Social Media Governance.

Maybe it’s just my short term memory, but it seems like every year when March 17th comes around, St. Patrick’s day celebrations around the country are becoming bigger and bigger.  It’s no longer just a day for the Irish to celebrate their heritage but rather a day for everyone to celebrate.  I’m sure many of the people, including myself, really do not know the reason behind the holiday but celebrate it anyways.  But why is this? Can it be connected to marketing?

I was recently reading an article on Mashable entitled “How Booze Goes Social for Saint Patrick’s Day“.   This article explores how Irish alcohol brands such as Bailey’s, Jameson, and Guiness take full advantge of the holiday to boost awareness and sales.  Each company has launched major social media campiagns to make St. Patrick’s Day a global celebration.

Let’s start with Bailey’s Irish Cream.  They have launched an app on their Facebook page for free wallpapers as well as recipes.  Now Jameson went a little futher and created an entire “St. Patty’s Day Guide” that includes recipes, party ideas and banners, and well as some Irish slang.  You can find this guide on their website in additon to a “Virtual Whisky Tasting” video that the company launched this year.  Lastly, there is Guiness.  They are going big and trying to create a Guinness World Record for “Largest St. Patrick’s Day Celebration” through their online campaign.  After signing their campaign, you gain access to factoids which are sharable on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.  They also like Bailey’s have developed an app for Android and iPhone to celebrate!

It’s interesting because not only are these Irish brands taking advantage of this holiday where boozing is prevalent.  American brands such as Coors and Anheuser Busch are also on the St. Patty’s day bandwagon creating green bottles and green campaigns.

St. Patrick’s Day, like the Superbowl, is slowing becoming one of those days of the year where everyone unites together to celebrate life and all that comes with it. And companies are definitely taking advantage of it.

Until next year, soak in the fun.  I hope everyone had a great St. Patty’s Day!

Twitter has become the newest global phenomenon since it was established just over five years ago.  It has evolved from being known as a pure social media site used to connect with friends to something a bit more.  Companies across the globe have taken to Twitter to better reach current customers as well as to further expand their business to potential customers.  Twitter provides a new and intriguing way for consumers to interact with the company, the brand, as well as products by offering new brand pages for companies.  The pages allow companies to customize their Twitter site with videos, images, banners, and special promotions.  Some of the early companies that have taken advantage of this opportunity are Coke, Dell, Disney, and HP, which just recently hosted a live-stream concert on Twitter with its partner Intel.  You can read more about this topic as well as this specific story on Mashable.

The basis of my Twitter account, @MegzR08, in essence is based upon marketing as well.  Not only do I use the site to connect to friends and acquaintances but it has also been beneficial to network with companies around the area for potential jobs when I graduate.  Company officials are always looking on Twitter for great recruits to fill jobs their jobs.  In addition, Twitter gives me the opportunity to learn about companies, jobs areas, and opportunities that I may never have had the chance to.  Twitip offers a great article on how tweeting just might earn yourself a job opportunity.

Besides the marketing aspect of Twitter, the site is also great for learning about breaking news stories as well as trends.  Twitter in many cases breaks news stories at the same time or sometimes before major news providers do.  Just looking in the past few weeks, SOPA was a huge deal on Twitter in addition to the death of singer Whitney Houston.  Twitter in fact broke the news of the singer’s death 27 minutes before the press did.  Now that’s fast news and shows the scope of Twitter.  In addition, sites such as Mashable that deal with business and social media news, offer all the latest trends in areas such as technology, social media, entertainment, and business as well as informs us of global affairs, news stories, and economic conditions.  Many people, including myself, go to Twitter to learn about breaking news and upcoming trends/topics before they go anywhere else.  It is officially the new way to be trendy.

Images courtesy of sheelamohan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

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.