Achoo...!!

Viral Marketing. Quick, tell me what the first thing that came to your head was when you read that two word phrase. I can tell you that it sounds like a scam to me. When I first heard about viral marketing I got kind of suspicious about what kinds of things I would find when Google searching for it. It is kind of funny because it is actually pretty easy to define. It is exactly what its name says. Marketing that is done through other websites and is linked to you like a virus. You see it is any kind of ad that is on another person’s page and is accessible as a side bar or similar circumstances.



Face book, MySpace, and numerous other community connecting services are targets for such techniques. One benefit to letting viral marketing happen is the fact that advertisers tend to reimburse for using your page to market off of. It’s kind of a cool way to make some extra cash or even get your own name out there. Another big effect of this marketing strategy is the snowball effect. Many emailing people like to forward messages from one to another. These simple ads tend to spread like an epidemic with all of the internet users out there. If you can just get one client to buy a product out of let us say ten people, then your marketing was not wasted. You just made a ten percent customer bump rate in where you just jumped business by ten percent. Your pyramid scheme can only get bigger and all it took was a simple advertisement. The internet has grown how buying and selling can work. Our products can now be sent anywhere in the world. Names and businesses can now have the opportunity to grow exponentially as well as boosting our falling economy.




There are also the bad events that Viral Marketing can cause. Who really wants to press those annoying captions floating somewhere on your computer screen. Sometimes we consider these potentially good ads to being spam. Spam can sometimes have bad viruses in them causing consumers to just stay away from any marketing altogether. I know that pressing some ads can let loose Trojan viruses which can end up crashing your computer system. This is what critics call a thin line that viral marketing has taken. It is not a new concept, but a concept that has evolved into computer language. It just means spreading the news about a product by word of mouth. The thin line can be quite small for the fact that you really never know if a particular ad is going to have good effects on your life or bad ones. I mean, do you want to spend the short time of opening something up or the long time and countless hours fixing the mess. I myself have accidently clicked on these ads. They often reel you in by saying free this and free that.

I guess I feel like saying, ”Don’t take my word for it.”

Rift Fournier

I was thinking, wow I had a wonderful time listening to Mr. Rift Fournier speak. I mean, here is a guy who has been everywhere and has done everything and well now he is speaking to us as a class. I love to listen to my elders because of all the stories and wisdom that they can share with me as well as giving me advice on what might and might not work in life. The key word here is advice. I’m 26 now and I have been not the best at taking others advice. I am kind of stubborn when it comes to that. I have made a few mistakes in my short life time but I find the best ways to learn something is to just take someone else’s word for it if they tell me to find something you love and stick with it. Don’t take your eyes off of something you love to do. I have heard this numerous times in my life, but Rift has just repeated what I needed to hear. My dream job isn’t mass communications. I have picked this field for the fact that I can’t get through math. I love business and selling. I also love the medical world. My degree I am working on right now is in advertising and right now I know that I can use that toward what my dream job will be. Listening to Rift Fournier speak about going through so many different paths in education and finally picking his one love really gave me a heads up. A person should do what they love and not do it just for the money. He also said that I’ll probably change my mind again for what I want to do in the future. I just really enjoyed hearing such wonderful and funny stories. I am taking a class in electronic media next semester with Rift, so I can’t wait to hear more of his wisdom. Rift Fournier is indeed someone who has lived a full life and I hope I can maybe match some of his stories some day!

Untraditional Gate Jumping!!

Gary Vaynerchuck is the man behind wine television. As a man who worked in a liquor store for about seven years, he has become somewhat of a wine enthusiast. I did some research into some of his strategies and they gave me mixed feelings on who this guy was and what he really was into and selling. Gary is such a normal guy that you have to wonder what it actually takes to invest into such a business such as wine tasting. First of all you have to wonder what makes this guy tick.





In his Youtube video web 2.0 out of Manhattan New York he goes on and on about how he made himself into a successful business man through hussling. I don’t want you to think that I don’t like this guy because I actually respect him a lot. I see a lot of me in him. When I want something so badly I go after it regardless of the end result. The way Gary worked long hours and then went home after all of that and started working on his own future projects really sounded like my life. Gary explained that if you have an idea to sell than you have work it no matter what it is. Any dream is possible and Gary is life proof of such things. I like how he gets straight to the point when motivational speaking to large audiences. Gary won’t sugar coat what you need to do to get what you want. He makes sure you know that no dream will just fall into your lap. You gotta work for it and it’ll work for you.
The way that Gary has gotten into all of these business acquisitions is definitely not on the normal end of things. He has used untraditional media to reach his target audience. He relied on only free services such as Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Twitter and a blogger that he kept up regularly. These are considered gatejumping tactics.




Brazen Careerist Bloggers are another form of blogging. The real reason they are out there is for coworkers to get to know one another and to give future employers a way to get to know their possible future employee. It is a very personable way to get to know one another. It is really geared toward helping Generation Y people bridge the large gap in between high school, college and any other kind of gap that is trying to be crossed into the large and “scary” professional world. I really think this is an awesome service to include into your resume. It can never hurt to have too much media on your side to get your name out there.

Free media is revolutionary as far as posting anything and everything. The world is so big, but in reality it is shrinking. We are becoming so intertwined with everyone on this planet that marketing has become so very easy. Ideas such as wine video blogging is taking off. The world is our playground and we need to figure out just how to play on it.

Social Whut?

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, blogs, and endless other social media networks are just the norm these days. We use them for all kinds of reasons ranging from networking to just keeping up with your friends of past. We don’t talk on the phone anymore or write letters to each other. Generation Y is changing all previous hardwired thoughts of what a normal person should be involved in. The way yesterday’s people thought is now changing. We are networking in new ways now and we have all the resources to do it at our fingertips.





Social networking is sometimes confused with social media. The difference is that social networking has been around since the dawn of time. You network with different people in order to get things accomplished. The more people you know the bigger your available network can be. This is a great tool in the real world for getting your name out there and also for getting jobs. There is a slight downfall though in the social networking aspect. You have to work really hard to get all your contacts and in the end it might limit you to a smaller audience than what you originally hoped for. The cure for the common social network limitability is a term commonly called social media. You see, social media is very much like social networking but on a much bigger scale. It is a global networking system. Why settle for a small web of contact names when you can branch out into the world and make contacts there also. The point I’m getting at is that you don’t have to work so hard any more to make an almost impossible thing happen. No, you actually can do it all from your computer at home. Companies have set it up so we can literally just sit down in front of our computer and find companies, contacts, advice, and about any other thing you want. You can gather advice from stored media as well as live media with social media as well.

Matt Goddard has explained that all of our new age networking tools has opened up whole new avenues for getting things done. He talked about why it is so important to have these gateways and how it can make our lives so much easier. The most important fact that was mentioned was why reinvent the wheel when it has already been invented for us. Someone in this world has come across the same problems that you and I might be having right at this moment in time. By using social media we can bypass any problems we are having and take another person’s word for it and use their advice to solve a problem. The networking tools we have now a day is so powerful that to not utilize such power would be wasting. Wisdom comes from experience. Why experience a problem when someone else out there has already solved that same problem. Social media has and will continue to bring this crazy world together. It will draw us close and make us work together.

Little Miss Sunshine?

Wow, when I read this article about young pageant girls, the first thing that came to my mind was the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Although they are different in the fact that the news article was saying that these girls were coaxed into this young profession by their parents, Little Miss Sunshine actress Abigail Breslin, showed the world that she wanted to join the pageant life on her own.
The relation I’m trying to make here is that little girls are being pushed into a life of little movie star look a likes. They are being convinced by all the media and all of the outside sources to become more beautiful. Media coverage of all kinds of movie stars and young talent are making girls feel like they need to be prettier and older looking to fit in. The article also tells of how much money parents are shoveling out just to bring security back to these tweens. How much more can we allow from this. Making a little kid unsecure by showing them what they should look like is wrong. We are ruining all hope of letting these little girls grow up on their own pace. Little girls need to be experiencing all that life has for them and their age. There is so much time to “grow up”. These parents are ruining all hope for a normal life with these young people.
There are stages of life explained in Psychology. You just can’t skip all of them and expect normality. I believe strongly that whatever life experiences you have early on, you will definitely mirror what you have been exposed to. If self image is established at such an early age then, the problems of all other young girl problems will be so much worse. Girls have a harder time with insecurity than guys do. Why make it harder on them. Are these parents just trying to give their children something that they never had or wanted? I don’t know. Little Miss Sunshine was my relation to this story for the fact that, here is this perfect little girl who wants nothing more than to win a pageant. She trains for it, attends it, and in the process, loses herself. This early modification of stardom is wrong and should not be done. Parents, stop hurting your kids with this nonsense. It’s messing America up.

Podcasting is Awesome!! Try It !!

Podcasting is Awesome!! I say that a lot of things are awesome, so I guess that makes me kind of a goof. No, but really, podcasting is so cool and kind of misunderstood, especially by me. You see podcasting is generally a term for an audio/visual recording of a show or some sort of video that is available to subscribers via syndication. What the heck is syndication? I had to look that definition up, but Wikipedia gave it like so. Syndication is an aspect of the delivery that separates a podcast from a file available for download. So it sends the files to the intended receiver, and they watch it. Think of it like TiVo. The person that posts these podcasts is doing so, so others might experience what they have to offer. It’s like the old Field of Dreams example of if you build it they will come. In this case, if you send it out over the internet, someone will want to see it. The whole idea of podcasts blew my mind. You see I thought it was only operatable through Apple because of the name of podcasting. Ipod, Podcasting; they just sound like they are in the same family. In fact, you can download podcasts from numerous programs called podcatchers. These podcatchers act like a catcher at a baseball game, who catches balls that are thrown to them. These podcatchers send all the information on an RSS feed. What is an RSS feed? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a program that is just used to standardize podcasts, blogs, audio, and video so it can be viewed on any program that is being the catcher.

http://www.podcasting-tools.com/

So the process goes something like this. There is a person or persons who think that they will make a movie, or quick little talk, so they will tape what they have and save it. Next, the person will send the video over the web using a standardized method so anyone with a computer and internet can pick up the signal. Next subscribers pick out the video so they can check it out and watch it. In a way Youtube is kind of a podcast except for the fact that you don’t really subscribe to it, but you just pull up random videos. Podcasting gives the users a way to follow certain movie makers, or public speaker who interests them. Imagine if Youtube and Twitter got together. That would make a podcast.

The idea of podcasting is so cool. It can have an endless role for the consumers. It gives people the opportunities to watch videos of certain people whenever they have time. Time is an important asset that we take for granted. Sometimes the only time to see a show or speaker you love is when you are in rush hour, or a subway car. Podcasts offer the user entertainment as well as informational content. The fact that they are for the most part free is also a plus for anyone to follow. My advice is simple, go try podcasting. I am sure there is something out there for you.

Job Hunt...

-- Fox-owned WFLD/WPWR-TV, Chicago, has an academic internship program for college credit with internships in news, promotions/PR, traffic/research, community affairs, human resources and finance/business/programming. Must be registered and junior or senior standing; students must provide resume, completed application form and a letter from their colleges indicating they will receive credit. For information, contact Shynaa Brown, intern coordinator, WFLD/WPWR-TV, 205 N. Michigan Av., Chicago, IL 60601, or call (312) 565-5558. EOE (indef.)~~


This job/internship is located in Chicago Illinois. It is owned by Fox network and seems to be a wonderful internship to get my foot into the door. What really catches my eye when looking at this ad is the fact that it is located in a big city. I really like the way it sounds. Fox is a major company which if not for them, i could work at pretty much any other network with a background such as this. Experience is the best door opener. I really am not picky when it comes to finding a job. My target would be something in the advertising end. This job posting that i'm looking at is for promotions and advertising. The downside to this job is the fact that it is in Chicago. This is a pretty good distance from St. Louis, my current home. The upside to such an internship is experience and an awesome addition to my resume. To be in such a program, all you need is a letter from your university stating that you are a junior or senior in college. This is an awesome job listing. There are alot of different spots it seems. This gives me the feeling that the economy is not as bad as the media makes it out to be, or it could be that i'm a half full kind of person.