Don't be sad, be awesome instead

little pieces of my life. - Anya x

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Social Media buzzzzz

PPC, CTR, SEM, CRO, ASO, HIPPO… Are you lost yet? I was.

I had the privilege of attending new social media training designed by my company to help interested analysts grow in social media world. The day started off with our guest speaker asking the audience to assess their knowledge of social media. I confidently pressed the button “Expert” and was pretty much happy with myself, buuuuut…

I was obviously wrong! — I have learnt so many new things about the world of social media in just one session. This blog post is intended to share the knowledge I got and also save and keep it for my own future use.

Here is the list of things/notes I found most useful and interesting:

1. Social presence is very much measurable and it’s easy – Klout Score. Klout scores range from 1 to 100 (my current one is 59!), with higher scores corresponding to a higher ranking of the breadth and strength of one’s online social influence. Cool thing about it is that you can download Chrome Extension and instantaneously see everybody’s score on Twitter.

2. The pure numbers $$$. This website will show you real-time internet – amount of videos, posts, blogs and pictures published on the Internet right now, while the similar one will give you the financial money numbers that Internet companies are earning. Might be very useful if you want to convince somebody that Social Media is pretty damn important.

3. Right visuals always grab attention. The website Canva.com is an online graphic design platform. It offers free access to a wide assortment of design tools and options, that would allow you, for instance, to create appropriately sized images for Twitter / Facebook, beautiful graphics for Instagram and so on.

4. The timing of your content is almost as important as your content yourself. Tweriod will allow you to track the activity of your audience and see when it is best to publish your posts, while Tweetdeck can help you out in posting at appropriate times if you are unavailable yourself.

~~ There was a lot of info given to us and this post gives just a brief overview. Look out for updates on this blog as well, where I will post high-level summaries of upcoming sessions!

Happy socialising! ✌

[petticoat-swashbuckler]

look at this snape i found

it seems normal but then

what is this

turn to page 394 motherfucker

[libova]

National Apprentice Challenge 2015: how was it?

Heya people.

I would really love to share with you my experience of taking part in this year’s National Apprentice Challenge representing my lovely University of Manchester. Event was hosted by Centre for Applied Learning and Aston University in Birmingham.

NAC is is the largest residential competition for creative and ambitious students in The UK. In teams of four, students with a wide-range of backgrounds go through an all-expenses-paid residential programme filled with exciting practical challenges. 200 applied, 19 were chosen for the finals aaaaandd… I got 3rd with the help of my wonderful team. So, how was it? Let’s see.

Day 1: 

We safely arrived to Birmingham after catching a train from Manchester at early 8-30 in the morning. All the teams were invited to the big hall, where first task was announced - creating a new business idea for the Next Social Network, and pitching it to the judges in 3 minutes, no powerpoint included. 

I won’t be talking about the details of our idea, but the pitch itself and the concept was appreciated by the judges and we were first in Task 1. We also decided to provide them with actual market research, so we went out on the streets and asked random strangers to share their views on our idea! (how cool??)

It was a really nice day as we had a chance to network with 75 other ambitious young people from all over the UK, have a drink all together and, later at night, check out some of Birmingham’s night spots (we went to Pitcher & Piano). 

Organizers of the competition provided a great 4* hotel for us in the city centre, breakfasts included (YUM, who doesn’t like hotel breakfast?!) - thanks for that!

Day 2: 

Hard morning that was for me, huh. We finished last night’s dancing at around 2am and had to rise & shine at 8!………….

Second day’s task was done in cooperation with Grand Thornton Bolivia, a giant of consulting world. We had to prepare a real marketing strategy for 1 year (to be implemented upcoming summer) for the company’s Bolivian offices with 10′000$ budget. I knooow, this budget is a bit of a joke. 

Anyway, in the morning we had a Skype conference call with the manager in order to clarify some point and ask questions. We had to prepare 5 slide powerpoint presentation with our ideas that would achieve two main goals - improve corporate image and increase client pool.

Again, I won’t go over the solutions itself. However, we did 2 things I was proud about. My teammate Ana was spanish, so we actually called Bolivia and asked some major newspapers for the prices of ads in order to provide more accurate cost estimations. (how cool??)

Also, we weren’t presented with the chance to actually present live, even though we wanted it so badly.. sooooo… 

We recorded and inserted audio into the PPT slideshow and the voice of our team was going through the solutions and proposal along with the images. (how cool??) 

Finally, we got third place in the National Apprentice Challenge 2015 and we are extremely proud of it! I wish we got first, but not everything always goes how you want it to, right? 

Check out the video: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=424464607722070

Stay tuneddddd x

-A.

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Bits of my Manchester experience: fresher's week

For those who are not following me on twitter or Instagram: I am currently doing my Master of Science degree in Marketing in Manchester Business School. 

Manchester Business School is a part of the University of Manchester, the largest single-site university in the United Kingdom. UoM is ranked 30th in the world by QS University rankings and has 25 Nobel laureates among its past and present students and staff. Choosing to believe Wikipedia, MBS "Marketing" has been ranked 9th in the world as per the Financial Times 2012 ranking.

I know it is not quite the best timing to write about fresher's week now as I am already half-way done with the program, but…Here we go. 

Since the very first day I was incredibly impressed by the way the education system is organized in the UK. Yes, it is expensive. It is very expensive. However, I have a feeling of understanding where those money go to (aka difference from Russian education #1).

When you get the acceptance letter from the Uni, you are presented with a chance to have a phone call with the current student of the chosen program, which I have found very useful, as I could ask very specific questions. 

Then, during the 'on-boarding' process, you receive all kinds of booklets and information regarding anything you could possibly be interested in during your time in UoM. 

You also get a personal UoM luggage tag, which you can use to meet people on your flight that are also going to start studying in the Uni. Worked for me - I met one person on the plane!

First 1.5 weeks are a lot of fun: you get all kinds of events organized by the Uni to make sure you feel comfortable, you get to do some icebreaking with future classmates, meet new friends and settle down in new city.

The University organizes events like speed-meeting & mingle, campus & city tours, supermarket trips, societies fairs, movie nights, pub crawls, concerts, music festivals, and so on. Countless events are divided into categories like Culture, Fun, Info and something else, which I can't seem to remember, but the point is: everyone can find something for themselves. 

For postgrads in the Business School particularly, the Uni organizes a weekend getaway to Brathay Residential, which is the coolest place ever in Lake District. There we had a chance to socialize with our classmates, build healthy working relationships, network and have loads of fun. I will write a separate post about it I think. 

There are A LOT of parties going on - I specifically liked the one when they gave us special t-shirts to write our name, course, status and country on. Coolest idea, right?

They also gave us all free hoodies of Manchester Business School to boost the 'patriotic' feeling :)

Also, the University of Manchester hosts the festival called Pangaea, which is the largest student-led festival in Europe. I am not a fan of this kind of events, but others seemed to enjoy it a lot. This year's theme was rumble in the jungle!

Overall, fresher's week was a lot of fun! I like how they specifically make sure you have time for yourself in the beginning without pile of assignments over your head. This is the time allocated for relaxing, settling in, organizing yourself, meeting new friends and enjoying the beginning of a new life.

I love Manchester and I am sorry I only wrote my first post about it now. More to follow - stay tuned.

-Anya x

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✈️🇬🇧 #destinationmanchester #helloUoM (at Международный аэропорт Домодедово / Domodedovo International Airport (DME))

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Я сдала!!!Я сдала ГОС по китайскому! ура-ура-ура:) 🇨🇳💞 I'm done with Chinese!!! Yaaaaaaa! #毕业#论文 (at РЭУ им. Г. В. Плеханова)

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🎓🎉✏️📚#graduateschool #universityofmanchester #mbs

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me caught by @breakingfad, NYC, November'13

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Happy New Year! / С новым годом! Желаем всем исполнения мечт, любви и успехов! ❄️🎁🎄 (at Anna's Place)

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Мой Китай. 6 месяцев с Хайнанем, Филлипинами, Тайландом, вечеринками, друзьями, китайским, странной едой и людьми. Там все в моей жизни перевернулось. 💃💄❤️ #china#memories#nostalgie#exchange#besttimeever

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Мой 2013. От начала и до конца. Thank you. 💕 #newyear#memories#2013

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Merry Christmas and Happy coming New Year from Moscow! X (at Манежная площадь)

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корпоративчик #inditex#work#photobooth (at The Artist)

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наконец-то пропуск! #lovemywork #inditex #terekhov (at Inditex Russia)

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❄️Damn beautiful winter view from yesterday's #pullandbearmoscow bloggers brunch.❄️ #snow#winterinmoscow#russia (at Сад «Эрмитаж» / Hermitage Garden)

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Russia in one picture: there is a humangus LV suitcase in the middle of Red Square #louisvuitton #redsquare #lvsuitacse (at Сундук LV)