When you think of a blog, what do you think of?

A lot of students new to blogging have a hard time with how blogging is useful in marketing.  I have found that this is mainly because when students think of what a blog is, they think of personal blogs filled with diary-style musings about their personal life or a Tumblr-esque cascade of animated GIFs.

I'd like to make sure you have some good examples of professionals who use blogs to promote their personal brand by creating interesting original content.  

Here are a few blogs about marketing that you should take a look at and learn from.

Logic + Emotion
David Armano, VP at Edelman in NYC, is always posting insightful ideas 

Erika Napoletano
Erika is a copywriter who irreverently writes about marketing, advertising, branding, and business from a unique perspective.

Chris Brogan
Chris is a publisher and business consultant. He helps business owners and marketers get up to speed on what he calls the "personal business revolution".

I'd encourage you to use tools like Google Blog Search to find influential blogs in the topic area(s) surrounding your personal brand.  Set up a blog reading tool like Feedly to check in on them as you would check on news, sports, or Facebook happenings.

Welcome to my new Digital Advertising students!

Welcome to the class blog.  This site serves as a digital repository of resources and content we will be talking about and using in class.  It's also a great way for me to showcase some of the things that you'll be doing with your blog during the course of this semester.

Once you all create your own blogs, they will be listed on the right nav bar under the "Class Blogs" link. 

Feel free to read ahead and explore - see you in class.

Social Media Roundup (Part 2 - Blogs) - Spring 2013

In my last post, I gave you a roundup of our class social media stats and highlighted some standout achievements on Twitter, Klout, and LinkedIn.  Now I'm going to showcase another part of your project: Your blogs.

Most Visited Blogs

These blogs garnered the most pageviews during the course of the semester - they did a great job attracting and engaging their visitors.

1. Kayleigh Green - Engaging Guerrillas - 1,562 pageviews
2. Kenny Ooi - Malaysian Food for the Soul - 1,188 pageviews
3. Rebecca Nims - Beyond the Radio - 1,097 pageviews
4. Jess Martin - People on Music - 995 pageviews
5. Aaron Willis - Panther MMA Marketing - 988 pageviews
    

Matthew's Personal Favorite Blogs

I really enjoyed reading all of your blogs and presentations. Here is my subjective list of a few that I particularly enjoyed:

1. Kayleigh Green - Engaging Guerrillas
   This blog was hands-down awesome.  It was focused, well-written, thoughtful - and most of all, Kayleigh's passion for the topic really comes through.  It doesn't feel like an assignment for class - it reads like it was written by a professional who loves what they do.
   
   
   
    
2. Gabe Halverson - A Week in Music News
   I'll admit it - anyone who blogs about My Bloody Valentine and Nick Cave is going to get my attention.  But Gabe really delivered the goods - he delved into his topic and wrote in-depth informative posts. He has even kept up the blogging - and has written three more posts since the assignment ended!
   
   
    
3. MacKenzie Johnson - Design is Always Greener on the Inside
   MacKenzie collected a lot of interesting examples of green design - lots of great visuals and an in-depth look at the redesign of Navy Pier in Chicago.
   
   
    
4. Rebecca Nims - Beyond the Radio
   The thing that impressed me most about this blog was Rebecca's band interviews - both written up as blog posts and published as YouTube videos. She thereby created original content that is only available on her blog. That's an accomplishment. It's a reminder that offline engagement is just as important as digital engagement!
   
   
    
5. Kenny Ooi - Malaysian Food for the Soul
   This blog made me very hungry. It also made me ask the question: When will Cedar Falls have a Malaysian restaurant?
   
   
    
6. Scotti Schon - Green Child
   Scotti made good use of list articles to create an informative set of resources on topics related to the green movement. Whether you're looking for green Tweeps to follow on Twitter, Environmental Causes to support, or DIY projects to try - this blog has it covered. A good example of a wider focus that can still be coherent.
   
   
7. Justus Thompson - Advertisements
   Justus showed a real interest in understanding how advertising works from a consumer perspective through real campaigns.
   
   
8. Aaron Willis - Panther MMA Marketing 
   I am not a huge sports fan - but got a kick out of Aaron's look at how MMA fighters market themselves through such techniques as trash talking and walkouts. That's some creative thinking on what are excellent examples of experiential marketing.
   
   
9. Nick Throckmorton - Craft Beer CF
   Craft beers are becoming more popular - and Nick does a good job tasting and reviewing a number of them.  Whether you're looking for a beer that "smells like a campfire" or tastes like "Grandpa's Hunting Cabin at Christmas" - Nick has you covered.
   
   
10. Zach Rhodes - Computers vs. Evil
    A fun way to frame the discussion of technology.  Top 5 Computer Protagonists from Fiction is a great list article (though you forgot Astroboy!), and Gaming vs Evil gets props for experimenting with video blogging.
    
    
11. Taylor Sloter - The Design Playlists
    Another great visual blog with inspiring visual interior designs and architecture.  This blog had a lot of comments which showed that interesting content is a great conversation starter.
    
    

There were many more I enjoyed as well - but I'm running out of time and space here! 

Did you have a favorite blog this semester that I didn't mention?  Tell me about it in the comments!

Thanks again for a great semester - you are welcome to tune into #unidigadv any time! Or use your new hashtag: #unidigadvalums

 

Social Media Project Roundup (Part 1) - Spring 2013

Every semester, my Digital Advertising students work very hard on a massive project: To develop a professional brand using social media. I just finished looking through all of the projects and wanted to take a moment to praise their work and note a few special honors.

The Big Picture

From January 20 - April 15, my 48 #unidigadv students accomplished the following:

• Posted a total of 8,477 tweets on Twitter
• Gained a total of 2,758 followers on Twitter
• Earned an average score of 47 on Klout
• Added 3,857 connections on LinkedIn
• Earned 484 endorsements on LinkedIn
• Published 494 blog posts on Blogger
• Earned 23,805 pageviews from visitors to their blogs

That's a lot of work!  I congratulate you on your diligence.
 

TWITTER

Top 5 Most Voracious Tweeters

Tweeting is one of those things that seems very easy at first glance - until you do it every day and start running out of ideas of what to talk about.  Here are the top five #unidigadv Tweeps by Tweet volume:

1. @kmonopoly - 616 Tweets
2. @abby_meyers - 503 Tweets
3. @GreenChild1 - 409 Tweets
4. @kayleighgree - 389 Tweets
5. @PaigeAshleigh99 - 352 Tweets
    

Top 5 Most Added Followers

If you want to wield influence on Twitter, you need followers.  Here are the students who added the most followers during the semester.

1. @CraftBrewCF - added 260 followers
2. @BeyondTheRadio - added 180 followers
3. @GreenChild1 - added 150 followers
4. @HoldTheWheat - added 134 followers
5. @EarthlyPrint - added 118 followers
    

KLOUT

Who has the most Klout?

Klout is not a perfect measure of social media influence (sometimes it seems to have a mind of its own), but for what it's worth, here are our five most influential class members according to Klout:
 

LINKEDIN

Most Connected on LinkedIn
When job hunting, who you know is often as important as who you are.  Here are the top five most connected class members on LinkedIn:

1. Kayleigh Green - 309 Connections
2. Antoine Costello - 245 Connections
3. McKayla Hackfort - 187 Connections
4. Ian Huntley - 183 Connections
5. Rachael Faust - 172 Connections
    

Best Linkedin Profiles

These four did a fantastic job with their LinkedIn profiles - They stuck out as particularly exceptional. 

• Brooke Young
• Kayleigh Green
• Scotti Schon
• Taylor Sloter
   

Did you have any favorite Tweeps or Linkedin connections that deserve special mention?  Tell me about why they're awesome in the comments!

Up next: A post on the best blogs of 2013.  Stay tuned.

Add a Spotify Playlist to your Blog

I've noticed a lot of students are writing about music this semester. One of the challenges with music writing in the past has been trying to give the reader an idea of what the music sounds like without actually playing the music.

Today, however, you have other options - some of you have been embedding YouTube videos in your blog posts. That works - but can also be distracting.

Here is one way to just share songs and playlists with your blog readers using Spotify.

You can share songs on Spotify (like this awesome Thelonius Monk tune):




Or you can share entire Spotify playlists (Like this playlist of highly recommended jazz tunage):



How do you do it? Follow these steps:

1. Download and Install Spotify. Create an account (the basic account is free - supported by ads which may interrupt your music listening).
2. Search for music that you like and create a playlist that you want to share.
3. Right click [PC] or control click [Mac] on the name of your playlist and select "Publish" if it is not already checked.
4. Right click [PC] or control click [Mac] on the name of your playlist and select "Copy Embed Code".
5. Go to Blogger and create a new post. Go into "HTML" mode and paste the embed code.
6. Preview your blog post. Look OK? Great - Click "Publish"!

CAVEAT: Your reader must have Spotify installed to listen to your playlist.

Easy, huh?  This works for almost any website or blog platform, not just Blogger.  So what are you waiting for? Go try it on your own blog! And for those about to rock, I salute you!