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Week 3 Project: Mock Interview

The interviewing process can be a rather nerve wracking experience.

Will i be enough of myself for them to see the professional in me?

Does that even matter?

What if I don’t qualify after all?

Real questions, real fears....but what is also real is taking concertive control over those fears and getting the most out of this interview! I personally haven’t had an interview in a few months and participating in this exercise helped me reconnect with the fears, doubts, and internal high-fives I have given myself during the interview process for a potential employers in the past.

In this weeks blog post, I dust off my interview shoes and straighten my quick-thinking cap as I run through a basic interview process.

Note how researching the position and company, posture, minimizing “Um’s” and making direct eye-contact can help you stand out and connect with your interviewer.

If you have any questions, I am an open book! Email me at [email protected]!

#full sail university #full sail #Getting the job #get the job #get the job done #interview #process #doubts #fears #education #mock interview #high-five #exercise #fear

Week 4 Integrative Learning: Interviewing With Storytelling

First impressions matter and giving a comprehensive, passion-filled story highlighting your most enjoyable and deeply learning experiences can help keep your interview fresh for both you and your interviewer.

The delivery of a concise story hitting Present, Past, and Future experiences denotes that you are guiding your interviewer through your career timeline, showing how you’ve gotten to where you are today and how they fit in to the framework. Staying relevant to the job description is a must as well - do not be afraid to tailor your stories to the job you are interviewing for. Talking about experiences that pertain only to the position is expected, but talking about how your experiences lead you to where you are today shows that you are committed to your roles and can do a multitude of things.

Remember, the more experience you gain, the more stories you have to tell!

#integrative learning #learning #interview #full sail university

Week 4 Reflection: RISE Self-Evaluation

We all need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves. Now that our month in Portfolio VII is coming to an end, it is time that I reflect on what I have done throughout the month, how I have executed, what I could have done differently, and give insight as to the resources that are available to me.

I look forward to implementing everything I have learned throughout this month in my everyday endeavors and future portfolio’s I create in the future… because who just uses one portfolio?

Reflect with me on these key points in the video below:

#Self evaluation #student evaluation #RISE self evaluation #full sail #full sail university #Student #graduation

Week 3 Integrative Learning: Boosting Website Traffic

If you write a blog post, and no one reads it....did you write a blog post?

Since I have started consistently creating content for my website, I have noticed that most of my views come from referral links from search engines and social media with SEO rich content.

In the past, I wouldn’t normally care if people are engaging with my posts, but as the trend of engagement versus views becomes more important, I have come to find that proper back-linking and strategy have become an important factor to gaining audience engagement.

Three strategies that I intend on utilizing from an article titled “How To Distribute Your Content and Boost Website Traffic” are:

Social Media Strategy

Optimal times for Posting

Groups, Tribes, Pods

Social media strategy

I have always integrated every social account I have held with one another, allowing my content to be distributed by one click of a button. This is great for sharing your content across multiple platforms, but doesn’t ensure engagement from the audience. Utilizing my Barfing Butterflies Facebook Page to redistribute the content on my website, I have found that I receive less engagement than I would from my personal page (not shown because...well, people send weird messages).

I plan on continue to back link these posts to my Facebook page, but also to my Instagram account as well, where I feel needs the most work. Facebook is great, but Instagram is where the engagement is at. Businesses, bloggers and vloggers alike are using Instagram to showcase their content and create call-to-actions by putting “ #linkinbio “ in their post description. This tells the viewer that there is more to this content and that they can find it easily within the application by going to the main profile page. By posting related imagery, videos, or just a voiceover of you speaking to the audience creates familiarity and by having the same content as your blog post helps associate your audience to your content from your other social accounts.

Optimal times for posting

With the help of the insights tab on my website (barfingbutterflies.com) as well as Facebook and Instagram, I am able to easily see (per my unique post impressions and engagements) how my content is resonating with my audience. Although Facebook doesn’t have it specified, Instagram and Wordpress allow me to see what day of the week is optimal for posting my content. It even gets it down to the hour, whether AM or PM, and gives me data on content that I have already posted and how it is doing in the cyber world.

As the data reflects on my WordPress site, my most popular day of the week to post any of my content is Tuesdays (21% overall views) at 8:00pm (13% overall views).

The data differs on my @barfingbutterflies Instagram profile, where it looks as if any day of the week is great for posting, so long as it is between the hours of 9:00am and 9:00pm. This is a large timeframe to work with, but I believe it is due to the fact that the account is new. As time goes on and the posts get more frequent, I believe I will see a better “goldilocks” zone for my posting days and times through this account.

Scheduling my posts could help these two accounts be more efficient in their call-to-actions, where I can coincide my posting times for a better effect in content distribution. For now, I will be utilizing my WordPress insights for both Instagram and Facebook (seeing as Facebook does not have this information available).

Groups, Tribes, Pods

I belong to numerous groups on Facebook, but the content in which people post is usually out of sync with the meaning behind starting the group initially, i.e. posting your own content and not utilizing the discussion board for its intended purpose. Since starting Barfing Butterflies, I have enlisted a group of creatives, writers, and content producers in a group titled “Good Vibes Engagement Group” - where everyone that is in this group are engagement seekers for their most recent Instagram posts.

By having this group of people as a backbone to my post engagement, we support one another by stating we have a new post to our Instagram accounts in order to increase our algorithms by working together. This is a group for people who want to grow their following because the first hour after a post is live is the most important and will determine if your post will make it to the “explore” page. Everyone in this group has a following of 5K or above, has an engagement percentage of 75% or higher, and has an activity insight of a flourishing small business. By having this support group, we all have the opportunity to have our posts seen by people who wouldn’t normally see it. We have a simple rule: Comments must be 4 words or more, emojis not included.

With these three strategies, I can effectively grow my website traffic through group interaction and engagement, sticking to unique posting times, and having an excellent back-linking system.

#KeepItSocial with me on my blog, YouTube channel or social media!

Blog

YouTube

Instagram

Week 2: LinkedIn to Link Up

In order to fully connect with the millions of professionals on LinkedIn, joining a group is the best way to stay up on current trends, employment opportunities as well as job leads. I have always been hesitant to join a group on LinkedIn because I felt inadequate or too shy to reach out to people I have never met in person before - even though knowing that by connecting with these professionals I would be benefitting myself in narrowing down my job lead search.

After a facelift and stitches, I decided to see what the fuss was all about in the groups. I have decided to join the “Digital Marketing” group, where members of this community discuss all area’s of digital content marketing from SEO to best practices. What stood out to me about this group was the fact that they organize events such as conferences but also social and networking events to get their community to experience fact-to-face interaction. I think that this is a great asset for an online group to have because, for me, chatting in a discussion board can get rather boring and impersonal.

The second group I felt resonated with the Media Communications industry is “Future Trends”, a group of industry professionals who look outside (of the outside) of the box - visionaries and future thinkers. I have a hard time keeping up with everything that is going on online (I mean doesn’t everyone?), but I feel that by joining this group of trend hunters will provide hot topics such as brand/product management, consumer insights, product development, and future strategy.

Stay connected with me on LinkedIn here

#video editor #content management systems #social media specialist #media producer #LinkedIn #media communications #marketing groups #linkedin jobs #get the job #get the job done #social media marketing #contentmarketing #content strategy

Week 2: Writing Your Resume For the Gig

I had better luck this week when revising my resume. After a decent breakfast and some coffee, I decided to tackle the revisions on my resume to help best fit the Social Media and Brand Coordinator position with CreateTribe.

I am happy to say it wasn’t as painstaking as I anticipated. After combing through my resume, I found that by simply changing the wording in my experience section, that I went from a 43% to a whopping 86%!! Thats a huuuge improvement from when I initially did my scan.

SEO is extremely important to getting the job, and most people just let it fall because they do not know of tools (such as JobScan) that can help you amplify your resume. Most recruiters will only search for key words on job sites to narrow their search and simplify their process, but if you do not have a searchable PDF version of your resume uploaded you are subjecting yourself to a vale that hides you from possibly getting the job of your dreams.

I am pretty excited that I scored an 86% but the work does not stop there. I have applied for the job on LinkedIn and now I am going to start on their questionnaire, which made me laugh in the description that states “...all the stuff we wouldn’t be able to get from a resume or a cover letter where you change the company name and add maybe, like, one truly customized sentence you gleaned from visiting our site” - they are witty and I like witty.

I appreciate the fact that CreateTribe values their employees ambitions and goals. This gives me the sense that they are an open communication company that caters to their employees as well as their clients.

After I complete the questionnaire and submit my resume and cover letter, I plan on sending CreateTribe’s recruiter, Katie Hajec, an InMail to let her know I have completed all the necessary steps.

Keep your fingers crossed for me folks!

JobScan Results

#jobscan #get the job #employement #full sail university #school work #resume builder #resume help

Week 2 Integrative Learning: Why Your Resume Isn't Working

For this activity, I have never been so frustrated! JobScan is a tool to help you perfect your resume so it is SEO-friendly when employers are looking for key attributes for their optimal candidate. After each revision and scan, I found that my Highlighted skills keep changing or would not be recognized in my resume. I find this concerning because even after each revision, I am still put back at square one when the program introduces yet another key skill that I need to add to my resume.

The position I decided to scan my resume for is a Social Media and Brand Coordinator position with CreateTribe, a influencer marketing company based in Los Angeles, California. The position calls for an individual with excellent written and verbal communication skills, experience in the field or an internship in the same industry, strong social media experience, fashion knowledge, high degree of influencer enthusiasm as well as other valuable skills. You may view the full job description here.

____________________

In order to obtain a higher score, I will need to adjust my wording to fit the missing Highlighted skills as well as working most of the soft skills into the text as well. My word count is 484, so adding information shouldn’t be a problem so long as it all fits on my final draft of my resume and coincides with the jobs I will be applying for.

JobScan Results

Week 2: Quantify Your Accomplishments

Prior to my career in Media Communications, I have been working in certain fields of this industry so I could gain practical knowledge and hopefully get a head start on the job market. In order to get the job, I needed to wow my prospective employer before I met them.

So I made a resume.....

For my first professional resume, the information that I gave was informal, but didn’t explain a personal point of view of the positions held. I also was trying to raise brand awareness of my company “The Asia Jade”, which looking back now was probably not the best combination since I was trying to separate my personal brand and my professional brand into two different entities.

Looking at this resume, I see that my self-declared titles are too contrasting - even though I am skilled in both Brand Strategy and Community Event Organizations, they should be two separate resumes.

So I made another resume a few months later...

Removing the logo and inserting my headshot, I thought that this would be a more acceptable resume for employers. I have found that although it is a common trend for Social Media Marketers or anyone in the Marketing/Media Communications industry to have their photo on their resume, the positions I plan on applying for do not call for a professional headshot; so to have it there is just taking up space. After looking at all my text, it seemed pretty hard to read - I had a hard time summarizing my various positions held and decided to keep my blocks of text until I found time to summarize each position held.

Since I am so close to graduation, and I have expanded my practical skills of the Adobe products like Illustrator and Photoshop, I decided to flex my graphic design skills and make a more simplified, yet informative resume.

My final copy of my resume gives a better visual as to what my experience in working with certain companies that attributed to the growth of my knowledge in Media Communications. I decided to scratch the logo and headshot, adding my initials in handwriting (I used Illustrator to make the initials). I decided to add a recent achievement earned from a start-up company I was working for as well as a visual gauge of my qualified skills (these will change as the position that I apply for call for varying skills). I am a little weary about having a “skill gauge” because I feel that puts a definitive number on my skills, but I am out of ideas as to how to showcase these skills without short-changing myself to employers. Suggestions welcome :)

Towards the bottom of my resume, I decided to take out my references section and add “References upon request”. It is important to have your references, but by listing them on a text-searchable document you are opening their personal information up to data mining and seeding, which can possibly lead to unsolicited/unwanted calls at 10pm... which no one likes. So don’t be that guy/girl.

Finally, I decided to take my social media handles and place them at the bottom (with active links in the PDF version) as well as my blog and portfolio website. I think that having actively linked media in the PDF version of a resume adds another element to your media integration and lets the employer (nonchalantly) know that you are savvy in back-linking media and material.

I still have a long way to go when it comes to structuring, downsizing blocks of text, and the structure of my resume - for the most part, I feel this best represents my skills.

Stay Rad,

#social media coordinator #social media consultant #social media strategies #social media jobs #marketing coordinator #Marketing #social #contentmarketing #marketing strategy #Target Market #resume builder #theasiajade

Week 1: Who Are You Networking With...

I have a pretty extensive network of media professionals in the Las Vegas valley, but I upon graduation I will be moving to Los Angeles in order to explore job opportunities there in media communications / marketing as well as paid internships.

I decided to research possible connections on LinkedIn that are affiliates to the targeted industry I am trying to dive into - the only one that I have personally in the Greater Los Angeles Area would be a former colleague and Marketing Director Mike Downey, a media strategist, filmmaker, and audio engineer currently working in the Greater Los Angeles area. I attempted to narrow the search to just alums from Full Sail University, but I did not have so much luck when it came to the specified companies I am looking into in the area I am looking for them in.

After contacting Mike, I have gained a contact by the name of Adrian Swish, owner of a Marketing Consulting Agency in Los Angeles holding clients that are in the music industry and producing their videos. There is one issue, I cannot find any information regarding his consulting agency on LinkedIn, which worries me a little but it may be in it’s start up phase still and he might be working on it.

I am not quite sure what it is that I can offer for Adrian, but I have messaged him and he has asked me to email him some of my work. So there’s a big step!

I am looking forward to speaking with Adrian Swish about what he is looking for and what I will be able to contribute to his company.

Media Company Target List - West Los Angeles, California

#west los angeles #la #los angeles #california #marketing california #marketing jobs #consulting #job leads #referral #colleagues #journey #linkedin

Week 1 Integrative Learning: Creating a Career Plan Video

There are plenty of tools that we tend to overlook throughout our professional careers. Strategies or processes that could have helped us in certain situations or projects or even losing passion for a certain aspect can deter you from a job. By identifying my goals, I can lay out a road map of the possible career paths I could likely take as I explore my professional career path. I would need to start with the entry-level position of the main title I would eventually like to hold. I would need to get out there and demonstrate what I can do. Who better to market myself than, myself?

Self-marketing is a great tool that can be used to not only get your name out on social media, but in the real world as well! I have consistently used self-marketing practices such as creating my own stickers to a flag with my face on it and my social handle for a friend to wear at a festival to gain organic likes, engagement, and followers to my brand.

Since I began to do freelance work in video, digital media, and broadcast journalism I have realized that I do need to work on monetizing my brand residually, which is harder than it looks. Monetizing your passion sort of sucks the fun out of the glory because of the amount of work you need to put into it to make it work, but in the end…you are rewarded with currency that can help you make bigger, better, and more meaningful content. Creating a budget for minor merchandise (stickers, little flags, water bottles) can make a world of a difference in how you execute your self-marketing plans. Making a career out of all of these skills at once could be overwhelming, but by prioritizing them by identifying my goals I can effectively communicate to any audience through social media.

#social media #social media strategy #digital marketing #self marketing #california #online marketing #social #full sail university #growth #monetize #monetization #prioritizing #goalsetting #life goals #boss women #boss lady #love your craft

Week 1: Portfolio Enhancement SMART Goal

During my academic career with Full Sail, I have pivoted my portfolio website numerous times, finally honing in on a concept and structure in 2017, refining that structure in 2018, and now working on my deliverables in 2019. This week, I would like to focus on the content in which I have to showcase in my portfolio such as personal projects as well as the various roles I have help in my industry.

This month I will be attending to:

• Specific – Breathing life into my spacey pages by creating a more visually stimulating and comprehensive portfolio by adding high-quality media that helps guides the viewer throughout my website.

• Measurable – By creating a visual element for each of the projects I have worked on. As the site progresses, I will be uploading a screen shot to my Facebook page and gauge the engagement from those posts to measure my progress.

• Attainable - If I diligently work on my site each I can attain this goal by week 3. I have come up with a three week plan to get my site to where I want it:

Week 1: Curate Videos and Media. Post 1 video screen grab of website to social media to measure website traffic and track site progress.

Week 2: Research WordPress HTML codes to help animate media on site. Post 1 video screen grab of website to social media to measure website traffic and track site progress.

Week 3: Live demo website with network of professionals and get feedback. Post 1 video screen grab of website to social media to measure website traffic and track site progress.

• Relevant – In order to be taken seriously, proof must be shown. This portfolio will be presented to future employers in order to be considered for hiring, so the content must be clean, precise, and demonstrate my skills.

• Timely

Week 1: Search through video archives for projects that are relevant to the industry I am seeking work in.

Week 2: Structure and placement of content.

Week 3: Create interactive links on the portfolio page that back link to specific pages with the use of interactive media.

You can view my portfolio sites progress here ☺

#building websites #boost website traffic #website #full sail university #full sail #student work #student #design

Week 2: LinkedIn to Link Up

Posting a summary of your achievements and experiences isn’t enough, in order to fully connect with the millions of professionals on LinkedIn joining a group is the best way to stay up on current trends, employment opportunities as well as job leads. In the past, I was hesitant to join a group on LinkedIn because I felt inadequate or too shy to reach out to people I have never met in person before - even though knowing connecting with these professionals would be beneficial to narrowing my job lead search.

After a touch up on my LinkedIn profile to reflect my current job title, goals and ambitions, I decided to see what the fuss was all about in the groups. I have decided to join the “Digital Marketing” group, where members of this community discuss all area’s of digital marketing from SEO to best practices in digital marketing. What stood out to me about this group was the fact that they organize events such as conferences, social and networking events to get their community to experience fact-to-face interaction. I think that this is a great asset for an online group to have because, for me, chatting in a discussion board can get rather boring and impersonal.

The second group I felt resonated with the Media Communications industry I am looking to jump into is “Future Trends”, a group of industry professionals who look outside, of the outside, of the box - visionaries and future thinkers. I have a hard time keeping up with everything that is going on online (I mean doesn’t everyone?), but I feel that by joining this group of trend hunters will provide hot topics such as brand/product management, consumer insights, product development, and future strategy.

Stay connected with me on LinkedIn here

#LinkedIn #content strategy #contentmarketing #social media marketing #get the job done #get the job #linkedin jobs #marketing groups #media communications #media producer #social media specialist #content management systems #video editor

Week 4 Reflection RISE Self Evaluation

#Self Evaluation #self worth #School Project #school assignment #full sail university #Full sail #education

Reflection notes

I have been having a hard time with alignment and content to put on my website as of lately. Sometimes I feel I am being too old, other times I feel the text does not translate my brand correctly.

I revisited some notes that my professor as well as some classmates gave me about my portfolio as well as my personal brand. I took in the interest that my goal is to be an entertainer, someone who is a Host [or fEmCee as I like to call it] is constantly in the spot light. I do a variety of tasks in my professional career, and I am slowly starting to hone in on what it is that I like to do, which is being a personality, hosting, and a content strategist.

I still do not see this site as complete though - I would rather have a video as my introduction to my website rather than a photo, but it is finding the time and the right professional setting to set this up and record that is the difficult part. I am working towards my SMART goals for curating my content for my website as well as feeding my inner urge to learn more about Premiere Pro and other Adobe products on Lynda.com. I have also come up with an idea of working with a non-profit organization that brings animals to elementry and middle schools. I chose these grade levels because it is when kids are the most impressionable, also the most ADD. They need something that is a relaxing break, possibly some puppy therapy in the quad during midterms/finals. I have come up with a charity section that I am not able to place on my website just yet due to not having worked with any charities...yet. :)

#school work #Full Sail University #content strategy #hosting #femcee #branding #process #motivation #professional #career #advice

My RISE Self Evaluation

Fictitious Project Revision

For this project, I was to take all the critiques and my explored knowledge of common business websites and apply that to my fictitious business, Reel Deal Tacos. This assignment was harder than I thought, especially working with Adobe Muse....I will not be working with this program until I fully understand it.

For my revision, I had a difficult time working with Adobe Muse. I had the idea of “learning along the way” and it proved to fail me. I could not seem to get rid of the while bars on the sides of the web pages nor could I find a proper image [no matter what size] to display as a background without pixilation. I believe that the lack of knowledge that I have with this program is the ultimate demise of my website. I changed the background as well as the layout of some of the text to be legible for the reader. I did find it hard to find a color that worked with all colors, color matching is very difficult and we should be taking the readers eye sight into consideration; I asked various co-workers if they could read the text with the color I had and most said that it was a difficult and “busy” background to decipher the text. In all, I think that next time I will go with something more simpler due to this experience. I will educate myself a little more on Adobe Muse before I actually publish another site using this program.

RISE Portfolio Feedback

To give feedback is a one thing, to give feedback to better someone’s craft and help them go further is another. I was given Jay Coleman as my RISE Portfolio Review and this assignment was to hit the four points of Peer review: Reflect - Inquire - Suggest - Elevate. It teaches us how to take criticism as well as give honest opinion.

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