I have always been interested in analytics. At my internship, one of my tasks is to manage our Google Analytics page and send weekly PDF files to my boss. Until now, I was unsure of what you could possibly do with all that information. I never had to interpret the information, so it all seemed extremely overwhelming. I now realize that page views, bounce rates and page referals ARE important as to how and where you should strategically place information on your website. It tells you where your audience is clicking on your website and where you need to grab there attention. The social media analytics are helpful to show what your audience engages in. You always want to maximize engagement, so analytics are the most important way to know what your audience wants. I was always unsure if it was a good idea to reuse content but I love how you provided the example of switching the wording around to make another successful tweet.
As Shoji and I were looking through the Great Bowel Movements Twitter and Facebook analytics, we found a consistent theme of tweets involving a question or spark engagement preform the best... image that! One of the most popular posts involve a question asking for tips on dealing with IBD. Since these posts did so well, we decided we could come up with Tip Tuesday. Tip Tuesday would consist of tweets asking people what are the best foods to avoid, best foods to eat, how to manage flareups and even what is there favorite brand of toilet paper! If we dedicate a whole day filled with information available, it will get the audience looking forward to Tip Tuesday and it will create tons of information for people to learn new things about how to deal with IBD. We also came up with another category that we think would be good once a month. It would be called Flashback Friday and could include tweets asking what was there biggest IBD break through or a positive memory getting involved in the IBD community. This opens people up to share their personal stories about the good things that come with such a difficult disease. It also could allow promotion to a certain event coming up. For example, if someone tweets about a fundraiser they enjoyed, the GBM could talk about upcoming fundraisers that they are promoting and how everyone should sign up.
I have never seen a guest speaker introduce himself to every member in an audience. That is until I met Jeff Snell. Jeff was by far one of the most impactful speakers I have had the pleasure of listening to. You could truly tell that with every word he spoke, he wanted to evoke change. Jeff not only wanted to change our minds about social innovation, but to make us understand how we can easily change the world.
Jeff made an excellent point about how philanthropy needs to be improved. Jeff stated that if you leave people more dependent, you are not being philanthropic. This reminded me of one of my favorite quotes “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” Philanthropic organizations need to educated people about how to live a better life. Organizations must give people the knowledge and teach them how to use available resources to better their situation. The organization I think of is Roundabout Water Solutions. They created “play pump” which is a merry-go-round that when children play, water is pumped from underground for people to enjoy. The organization teaches and leaves spare parts available for simple repairs that the communities in South Africa can preform. This is putting a system in place so a village can have a safe supply of water and leaves children having fun. If philanthropic organizations continue just sent over water bottles, it would only satisfy the person for a little while and would not create a solution for their problem. Philanthropic organizations that create change are creating people who will make the world a better place.
Lastly, Jeff discussed is that everyone is an Entrepreneur. At first I was a little skeptical of this statement. From shows like Shark Tank to my own father who started his company from nothing, I have been under the impression that an entrepreneur is someone who creates a business from nothing. Jeff explained that this simply isn’t true. An entrepreneur uses undertakes to increase utility. This does not just simply apply to business but to every situation where you leverage what you have in a given situation to increase success. This new mindset allows anyone to create something out of nothing to better the world. I loved Jeff’s example of the MIAD student who created a new garment for women to wear while getting a mammogram. She was under the impression that her design was just a project. It was not an entrepreneur idea that could potentially save millions of lives. If everyone believed that they could create something to make the world a better place, image all of the potential solutions that would be created for our screaming problems.
We should all strive to make a difference and to make this world a better place.
“What will you create to make the world awesome?” -Kid President
For the Great Bowel Movements email campaign, we decided to create two emails because we were not quite sure at which angle we should go in. For the first email, we decieded to promote the Great Bowel Movement being a finalist in the WEGO health best in show. Although the Great Bowel Movement did not win the WEGO, other finalists in the WEGO health group had a much larger social media following and have been around for many years. So, the Great Bowel Movement was by far the smallest organization in the category and it was a major deal that they were considered in such a competitive category. So we wanted to share with people how honored they were to be a finalist and how they thank everyone for the continued support.
The second email campaign we decided to create a newsletter promoting the Great Bowel Movements “ask me” gear. We wanted to provide individuals the information as to why the “ask me gear” was important and how to can make you a role model in the IBD community.
I have always been the person obsessed over the smallest details. Everything must be color coded, organized and arranged in a certain way that most benefits my needs. Some may call this OCD, I call it the only way I am able to stay organized taking 19 credits and a full time internship. So, when we began discussing the world of SEO’s and the attention to detail it requires I became obsessed.
Shoji and I gathered a ton of useful information from our SEO key word search for The Great Bowel Movement. One of the largest findings that one of the key terms that the GBM utilizes (IBD) has 301000 global searches. A key word that is extremely similar to IBD being IBS has over 2740000 global searches. This is a huge difference and the word IBS is not used on the GBM website or social media sites once. By just changing or including IBS on their website they could receive over two million more searches. Another key finding we found that in the GBM mission statement they say that they are a “social awareness movement” which has 0 global searches. Shoji and I came to the conclusion that if they changed this phrase to “social movement” they would receive over 90,000 more searches globally. Another key term we found is that the GBM was using the term “chronic illness” which only had 60,000 global searches. Shoji and I found that the term “chronic disease” has 673,000 global searches and by changing such a simple term they can truly maximize their searchability.
“SEO, search engine optimization, is the single most important thing to put on your resume.” This statement was extremely scary because until our lecture with Jen, I was completely unaware of what a SEO. My eyes are now open to this new world and has resulted in an obsession with how SEO’s work. It is incredibly to think how Google and other search engines categorize websites based on key search words. I love how much attention to detail is required to be able to take full advantage of optimizing searches or a company. The fact that the order of certain key words makes the difference from a website being number one on Google to not even appearing on the first page is fascinating. SEO’s seen to be a challenge that requires strong attention to detail and persistence. I plan to do some more research on how to master SEO’s because it seems like a job I would enjoy doing.
Currently I am an intern at a telecommunications company and my boss has always said that infographics are the future for getting individuals interested in your content. Here is a sample infographic that I have created for the company :
Using Piktochart for The Great Bowel Movement infographic was a new outlet for me and I enjoyed it 100 times more than Adobe Illustrator. Our main focus for the infographic was to show the goals of The Great Bowel Movement, the facts of Crohn’s and Colitis and encourage individuals to join the cause. After seeing your suggestions, Shoji and I plan on going into more depth about :
The goals of The Great Bowel Movement
The fun programs The Great Bowel Movement created to get individuals comfortable about talking about Crohn’s ad Colitis
After we make the changes, we plan to post the infographic on Pinterest and create more infographics for The Great Bowel Movement to use on Pinterest.
Learned a great life lesson this week: Never stop working even if client communication is slow! Shoji and I have been hesitant about moving forward without our clients involvement. The Great Bowel Movement has been involved in several press events lately resulting in they not having time to communicate. Which i complete understand, sometimes i wonder how Megan does it all. But, now that we have a better direction, it has resulted in us generating some creative ideas for upcoming events. Shoji and I are waiting on the password information but we have came up with several new board ideas for The Great Bowel Movement.
Ask Me Apparel: Pinning TGBM awareness is our main priority. We want to create a social media campaign that involves contests on all social media platform to get individuals featured in their awareness shirts on the interest board. This engages viewers to purchase shirts and share their stories for a chance to be on the pinterest board. Ultimately, it goes perfectly with TGBM mission of spreading awareness and letting Chrohn’s and Colitis be brought up easily in a conversation.
Flush Mob Street Team: An event that TGBM supports and puts together that spreads awareness for Crohns and Colitis is the “Flush Mob Street Team”. We would pin pictures & videos from the events. This will show viewers that TGBM is taking great strides in raising awareness and gathering people with Crohn’s and Colitis together to have fun / celebrate their differences. The event also raises money for Crohn’s and colitis to find a cure which everyone with Crohn’s and Colitis supports.
Charity / Awareness: We will do extensive research on the top charities and awareness groups for Chrohn’s and colitis and IBD. These links will allow people to go to and find more information about how they can help spread awareness and find a cure. This goes along with TGMB mission to spread awareness and helps find a cure for Crohn’s and Colitis. This ultimately gives individuals living individuals an easy outlet to go and make a difference.
What is Crohn’s and Colitis: This board would be strictly infographics describing what Crohns’s and Colitis is and what it is like for people living with it. We could also find videos featuring doctors describing what the disease is and what to do to make life easier. We will find articles featuring the top questions to ask your doctor or what doctors recommend for people living with Crohn’s and Colitis . This can be useful for people who just have been diagnosed with Crohn’s and Colitis and even for family members/ friends trying to understand the disease. We want to make this board an easy way for individuals to learn what the disease is in appealing way.
Inspiration: Everyone needs a little inspiration now and then! Living with Crohn’s and Colitis is not an easy thing to do. By find inspiration blogs, stories, and sayings we can lift people’s spirits living with Crohn’s and Colitis or individuals who know someone with it. Although TGBM if a place for individuals with the disease to have an easy outlet to talk about their problems, it is still a difficult disease to live with. By posting inspirational messages, it can lift their spirits and provide some relief that they are not alone. We also want to find some comical inspiration because that is what TGBM is all about.
Gutsy Gift : Who could hate glow in the dark toilet paper ? Funny gift ideas for people living with Crohn’s and Colitis is going to be our main goal on Pinterest. With each upcoming holiday or occasion, we want to feature a funny gift that will be perfect for someone living with Crohn’s and Colitis. The comical gift ideas go perfectly with TGBM core message of making Crohn’s and Colitis easy to talk about.
I loved Caitlin's example about how she uses all the outlets for social media in different ways. The #instsgranmma / #brewitched campaign were brilliant ways to get engagement. They also are using Pinterest in a creative way to get the Brewers female audience involved was an eye opener at the challenges in social media. Every organization has an audience that might be hard to target, Caitlin showed creative ways to think outside the box and reach everyone... Even knitters! Everyone must feel involved to maximize sale potential. It also shows that innovation is a must for any organization, even MLB, to stand out among your competitors. Having the most engagement makes your brand standout in a positive light and could potential result in sales.
Communication with Megan this week was extremely difficult because of all of the exciting activities The Great Bowel Movement has been involved with. This week, Our client was showcased in Crohn’s Advocate Magazine and they were a finalist for an award called the award- he WEGO Health Best in Show: Community award! Here is a direct quote from WEGO Health blog
“TGBM is making such a huge difference in every community,
in every individual who gains the strength and confidence
to bring their invisible illness to light. It’s truly amazing,
what Megan and Andrea have done.”
I am thrilled that our client is getting so much press and Shoji and I plan to incorporate this news into all of their social media sites. We plan to do this to show that they are a front runner in Crohn’s and Colitis awareness and that they are an organization that everyone with the disease should associate with.
We have made progress with The Great Bowel Movement on their social media campaigns even with little communication with our client. Shoji and I created lots of ideas for Pinterest that we are going to start implementing this week once we get Megan’s approval. Pinterest will allow our client to showcase their IBD awareness shirts to increase sales. It will also increase awareness about IBD and it will allow for their other social media followers to engage in contests to get their photos showcased on the clients pinterest site. We want to do research and find funny gifts /sayings to go along with The Great Bowel Movements theme of making the disease easy and fun to talk about such as :
Last week in class, we discussed how to effectively monitor our client’s social media sites through Sprout Social. Sprout Social is an extremely easy way to manage all of The Great Bowel Movements social media sites through one portal. Being able to monitor what is being said about our client throughout all of the social media platforms will help us specifically target who knows about our client and where they are located.
Although, The Great Bowel Movement already has an amazing presence on Facebook and Twitter, using sprout will help us identify brand key terms and words that will be helpful see what people are saying about The Great Bowel Movement. We found that: #crohns, #colitis, #ibd, #j-pouch, and #ostomy are the key hash tags to evaluate the “buzz” that The Great Bowel Movement has on Twitter and Facebook.
The Great Bowel Movement already does an excellent job at creating a fun and safe environment for people to share their crohns and colitis stories. Now, the goal is to try and create more brand awareness. We are also going to start The Great Bowel Movement Pinterest account to market their T-shirts.
On a side note, I am a marketing intern at a telecommunications company and suggested using Sprout Social to manage our social media content! My boss was impressed and is looking into using it for the company.
Facebook: Facebook is a great social media site that The Great Bowel Movement is on because it is the most popular and known social media outlet today. Everyone has a Facebook and knows individuals who have a Facebook. So, this is a great way that individuals looking for support groups on Facebook can find The Great Bowel Movement and feel comfortable to share their stories.
Twitter: Twitter is a great and quick outlet to spread awareness about Crohn’s and Colitis. Twitter only allows 160 characteristics so it is a short and simple way of connecting with individuals with questions about Crohns and Colitis and giving them a link to a website to help ease their concerns.
Pinterest: The Great Bowel Movement should make a presence on Pinterest to market their awareness T-shirts. Pinterest is all about visuals, so you could post a challenge on Twitter suggesting followers to submit their photos for a chance to be featured on their Pinterest site. The Great Bowel Movement could also run a funny T-shirt challenge to their followers suggesting to post pictures of their pets in the shirts. The Great Bowel Movement already has some extremely comical pictures on their website, so uploading them to Pinterest will be an easy way to generate more awareness.
Blogs: Blogging is a great way for The Great Bowel Movement to share individuals with Crohns and Colitis stories and create a comfortable environment for followers. It is a great way to share information with readers and be able to share reader’s stories.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a great social media site that The Great Bowel Movement is on that will help in connecting with public relation professionals and media outlets around the country. This will create more publicity about The Great Bowel Movement and help spread awareness of their cause.
Shoji to use public relations degree to help companies define who they are
MILWAUKEE – Shoji Sanders, came to Marquette University as a Pre-Med student looking to follow her lifelong dream of working in pediatrics. With plans to graduate in 2013, her goals have now switched from a driving passion to help children to using her vast knowledge to help companies define who they are.
Starting at Marquette, Sanders knew she would love nothing more than to be able to help children everyday as a career. But, after a college level chemistry class, she quickly realized that the medical field was not in her bright future. Confused, Sanders did what any student would do and spoke with her counselor. The councilor advised Sanders to take a test that involved filling out her interests to see what field of study an individual would fit best in. The results decided that public relations and marketing would be Shoji new dream job.
Itching to gain experience, Sanders was hired as a journalism intern at Northwestern Mutual in Milwaukee where she gained experience in writing feature stories. Shoji discovered that her love of marketing was much greater than her love of writing. Shoji decided to minor in marketing and is determined to land a career in the fashion industry.
“Fashion is everywhere. It takes a large amount of marketing to be able to convince individuals to identify themselves with one brand over another,” says Shoji. “I want to be apart of that process. I want to bring someone to a brand.”
Shoji Sanders is a Milwaukee native and plans on working in Milwaukee after she graduates in December 2013.
