Melissa Peay

On March 27th, our Strategic Internet Marketing class was honored to have a fellow JMU business professor speak to us about her experience in the field of Internet Marketing. She has a lot of experience, being a professor in the College of Business, a board member on the JMU CIS/MS Executive Advisory Board and Vice President of Support Services at The Rockingham Group. She’s also previously worked in Human Resources at Pilgrim’s Pride and was President of Shenandoah Valley SHRM. More information about Ms. Van Horn can be seen on her LinkedIn page. The three things that I learned from her presentation was the benefits of marketing with Facebook, what kind of insights marketing with Facebook provides, and some career advice to keep in mind.

Ms. Van Horn began by speaking to us about something that we can definitely relate to – Facebook. She taught us about the benefits Facebook has in the advertising world; how it can influence new sales, build relationships, get feedback, provide education/awareness, and allows two-way communication. Using Facebook can help your company by creating a two-way communication system for customers; allowing the company to receive feedback and comment on that feedback. It also helps build relationships with customers, which can increase customer retention and referrals. Ms. Van Horn showed us The Rockingham Group’s Facebook page and the insights that they developed about the demographics of their customers through their “likes”. The Facebook insights page shows the demographics of the page’s “likes” through male/female, age, country, city, and language – this helps them see where they should focus.

My favorite part about Ms. Van Horn’s presentation was when she gave us career advice based on her experience. First of all, she told us to Google ourselves. She told us to Google ourselves to see what kind of things popped up in the search results. Also, she suggested that we get a person that we are not Facebook friends with to look us up on Facebook to see what others can see, and judge if we needed to change our security settings. The last thing she told us to do is create an impressive LinkedIn profile. We’ve already done the beginning stages of LinkedIn as a homework assignment in class, but Ms. Van Horn told us that we should be constantly updating it with anything and everything we learn. Her example was that if we do a project on Google Analytics, then to get on our profile and add that experience to it “just spend the last 12 weeks using Google Analytics and am now knowledgeable about how to use the program”.

Finally, I would like to give a big JMU THANK YOU to Ms. Van Horn for taking the time to speak to our class! We really appreciate it and will use the information that we learned to better ourselves.

On March 16, 2012 the iPad3 was launched.

According to Mashable, “the new iPad, with twice the resolution of the iPad 2, 264 ppi (pixels per inch) instead of 132, people are going to notice less pixelation, especially in a small typeface. It’s not just an enjoyment issue or an aesthetic issue, but it’s definitely a visual comfort isue, over time.” I think that this feature is going to help Apple with competing tablets such as the Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook. When deciding between a tablet, I’ve personally heard many people mention the strain that the iPad can put on your eyes when reading (compared to the Kindle and Nook). With this upgraded feature in the new iPad, this could help more people lean toward the iPad when choosing a tablet.

Although with many upgraded features, the new iPad has been getting mixed reviews online. There are have been scattered reports that it is prone to overheating after about 30 minutes of use. But of course, all new technology has some glitches for people.

These negative reactions don’t keep the avid Apple users from buying the newest tablet though. According to USA Today, wireless carrier AT&T set a “single-day record” for iPad sales on the day it went on sale. Not only did they set a “single-day record”, but the company sold 3 million of the new iPad tablets over the weekend. To put it in perspective, the first iPad in 2010 sold 300,000 on its first day; to get to 1 million, it took 28 days. Estimates for the iPad2 sales in 2011 were between 400,000 and 1 million in the first weekend. The new iPad3 has sold 3 million in 3 days alone…where will it go from here?

Random fact that I found interesting:

In Los Angeles, Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, who regularly joins the line for new products, was part of the consumer rush — spending the night outside an Apple Store.

Twitter has only been around since 2006, and is continuing to grow dramatically. As I typed that sentence, at least 33 new Twitter accounts were created. Twitter is becoming a very beneficial tool for marketing. As mentioned in digital analyst, Brian Solis’ article titled The State of the Twitterverse 2012, “Twitter has become a fabric of our digital culture.” He talks about how Twitter is the most efficient global information network in existence today, and I agree.

“News no longer breaks, it Tweets” -Brian Solis

I agree with this because I have had a personal experience proving this statement. Toward the end of August this past summer, my family and I were at our river cottage along the Rappahannock river. We had come inside to eat lunch, and suddenly there were loud rumbles and the house shook. Our first thoughts were that since the house is so old, that it might be a pipe bursting or something along those lines. But after thinking about it a little more, with the way the walls seemed to shake as if the house was moving, we weren’t sure what had just happened. My dad got on his smartphone and checked the news websites to see if there was anything mentioned about what had just happened. He couldn’t find anything. At the same time, I got on my Twitter account, and within minutes I knew that we had just experienced an earthquake. I had friends from Maryland to North Carolina tweet that they had just felt their houses shake as well. It turns out, that there was an earthquake, with a magnitude of 5.8, about 60 miles away. Living in Virginia, we’ve never really felt an earthquake before, so we didn’t know what they were like. This experience is proof that “news no longer breaks, it Tweets” because I found out what had happened within minutes via Twitter.

Although Twitter has been around since 2006, I have only been familiar with it since May 2011. When I first made my own Twitter handle, I was incredibly confused by what everything meant and what I was supposed to do…I just made one because of all the talk of how interesting it was. Now, almost 10 months later, I’ve still only been using my Twitter account for personal use. I use my Twitter account to find out what my friends are doing, find interesting quotes, and keep up to date on current news. I was unaware of the many professional opportunities that Twitter offers.

Today I spent over an hour of uninterrupted time exploring Twitter with a more professional mindset. I found many of my fellow classmates and followed their accounts. I also searched marketing companies and many social media companies. My favorite Twitter account that I came across is @Mashable. I’ve heard this name before, but had never looked into it. The “large independent news source covering web culture, social media and technology updates” is a great account to follow to stay up to date on everything involving social media and marketing. I also discovered that the company has many more specific Twitter accounts such as @mashablemobile, @mashabletech, @mashbusiness, and a few others. One tweet that caught my attention from @mashable was an article titled “Social Media Helps Grammys Achieve Huge Ratings Online and Off”. This article intrigued me because of the buzz on Twitter that I observed last night during the Grammys, I was wondering what kind of effect that tweets and trending topics related to the Grammys had on the marketing aspect of the event. According to this article, the Grammys earned 13 million social comments, which breaks the record of the Superbowl just last week. The 2nd highest entertainment events in social TV was the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2011 with 3.1 million. That’s a drastic difference.

I’m excited to see where this semester takes us in regards to learning more about social media, internet marketing, and how to go about managing these professional marketing tools.