Troy White

Skittles has over 90 flavors from all over the world. Starburst has 10 million “likes” on Facebook and 545 followers on Twitter. Skittles has 19.5 million “likes” on Facebook and 22,000 followers on Twitter. Skittles had a lower tweet feel percentage at 60% compared to 67% by Starburst. Even though their percentage was 7% lower, Skittles had 169 mentions on Twitter in comparison to 27 mentions of Starburst. When utilizing Samepoint Social Media the brand “Skittles” had 739,000 total mentions while “Starburst” had only 517,000 total mentions. Our group decided to also use “Skittle” and “Starbursts” for those individuals that may improperly mentioned one of the brands. The result for the term Skittle was 233,000 total mentions while the result for the term Starburst was 95,300. In both cases the total mentions for the candy Starburst was significantly lower than the candy Skittles no matter the spelling.

When utilizing the tool Social Mention, it made sense that Skittles had a higher percentage of reach and strength because of the popularity of the candy, but it was rather surprising that Starburst had a 2% higher passion than Skittles. Since passion relates to the likelihood that individuals are talking about a brand, it is surprising that Skittles had a lower percentage. The fact that Starburst had a more favorable sentiment ratio made sense considering the fact that there are not as many individuals mentioning the brand, whereas Skittles has far more mentions providing a greater likelihood that individuals will post something negative about the brand. Though Skittles had a lower sentiment ratio, the brand had 41 retweets and a 20 seconds average per mention, while there were 2 mintues average per mention and only 16 retweets for Starburst.  

The top 3 regional areas of interest for Starburst came from United States, Australia, and Canada. While the top 3 regional areas of interest for Skittles came from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. These different regions on the list actually manufacture different forms of the candy, which is why they are popular in the respective regions. Some of the top searches for each term included the brand name (Skittle & Starburst candy), the brands commercials, and for Skittles included vodka.  The top keywords for Skittles included Skittles, sour, eating, and the word don’t. Not too sure why the word “don’t” appeared. For Starburst the keywords were Starburst, delicious, candy, and yellow. The term “yellow” represents the yellow colored starburst. When utilizing the “How Sociable” tool, Skittles had a far higher visibility score at 917, than Starburst at 515. The improper name, “Skittle” had a visibility score of 362, higher than “Starbursts” at 189. In the end, Skittles is faring better than Starburst. The brand is mentioned far more than Starburst and has substantially more “likes” and followers on two of the most popular forms of social media. Skittles utilizes an interactive website that makes the experience more enjoyable than Starburst. Overall, the project provided great insight into the popularity of the two candy brands and the opinions of consumers

Nike is at the forefront of athletic apparel and has been a personal favorite of mine since I was a child. I decided to focus on Nike’s Facebook page to investigate the company’s social media marketing strategy. Nike is utilizing Facebook to display various products that consumers can buy at the Nike store online. The page also displays advertisements for various athletic events that involve competitors/schools that are sponsored by Nike.  Nike also makes sure to update its status to inform consumers about events that are occurring throughout the country and also provide YouTube videos of different Nike advertisements that might not have been previously viewed. There are also uploaded photos of the Nike MAG New York City Event, where the proceeds went to help The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Not only does Nike use the Facebook page to promote athletic apparel and athletic events but also to show the companies community involvement.

Nike has a campaign entitled The T90 Strike Counter, which launched October 13^th. It allows individuals to upload a video of them scoring a soccer goal and explain to the world why his /her goal was the greatest. Nike is using this social media marketing effort to also promote the company’s T90 Laser VI soccer shoe. Nike also promotes another campaign called The Chosen: Crew Video Contest. Skiers, snowboarders, surfers, skateboarders or BMX riders get a chance to showcase their crew’s talent to the entire world. These crews submit a five minute video to Nike highlighting style, creativity, and originality. The crew must go through three rounds of voting to try and get the most votes on Facebook. The prize for first is a package of Nike products, experience as a real pro with the international team of Nike, and prize money.  

In using Facebook, Nike can use a few metrics to measure the success of its social media marketing strategy. One metric Nike could utilize is the amount of people that like the Nike Facebook page. This is a good way to get the Nike brand exposure to individuals that may not what Nike is. With Facebook, Nike can also view how many people are talking about the brand. Typically, the more people are talking about a brand the more exposure for the company, which in most cases is a positive thing. Nike also can gauge the popularity of charitable events, athletic events, and athletic apparel by seeing what comments individuals leave on the status or image, if individuals “share” it and if it was “liked”.

As I was looking through the Nike’s Facebook page I found that there were no incentives or deals for individuals that “liked” the company. I believe that Nike should in some way reward the followers of the company. Also, Nike should remove the profile picture of LeBron James. I am making this suggestion because Nike should not use an athletic figure such as LeBron because even though he has a large fan base, there are also a lot people that don’t like him. In an attempt to retain and acquire new customers I would take the safe route and use a photo of a training advertisement that Nike uses in magazines.

Online privacy seems to have developed into an oxymoron. When a user accesses the internet, they have become targets of various software programs that retrieve valuable information from the internet user. Users also can be tracked by files and programs known as “cookies”, “beacons”, and “flash cookies” which are put on the computer when a website is visited. These are the simplest types of cookies and are legal according to the U.S. courts. There are more invasive monitoring files known as “third party” tracking files, which can track what site a user has viewed and what the user is currently viewing. Being able to gather information about searches not only is an invasion of privacy, but also can cause other problems. As discussed in class these entities can sell your search information to other companies such as insurance. If a person happens to have a history of researching an illness insurance companies can see this as a health risk and raise that person’s health premiums. The person conducting the research may not even have the illness and could be looking the topic up for a family member or for scholarly work. Either way that person is going to be stuck paying this higher premium all because his or her search history was recorded, thus abolishing privacy.

These files are also able to determine how old the user is, the sex of the user, and his or her location. The location of a user is very intrusive information and could potentially be a personal security issue. I don’t want someone to know my location not only for safety reasons but also because it is really no one else’s business. As far as knowing my age and gender I don’t mind that information being disclosed because it provides an avenue for marketers to use. I draw the line however when the information being collected is private and could possibly but my well-being in danger. After learning of these various programs and files capability I was at unease about using the Internet. As an avid online user I don’t want to become paranoid about accessing the Internet. The Internet is an invaluable tool that is a necessity in the modern world and holds an abundance of information. Something needs to be done to monitor what information is being viewed.

These types of files in my opinion should be monitored by the government. Consumers should be protected while accessing the internet. There should be an abolishment of all types of tracking files and programs, because it is no company or corporations business what an individual is looking at online. I don’t care if these programs and files help marketers target individuals in order to sell a product; it is an invasion of privacy. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not Google utilizes these programs in order to tailor information for me. I use Google to research information not to become a target of various companies and corporations attempting to get me to purchase a product or service. I completely understand that using information about a user to tailor an advertisement is important to marketers, but they should have no right to acquire it involuntarily.

In the last month there have been 21 visits to my website. There have been 8 unique visitors to this site and 53 page views, with approximately 2.5 pages viewed per visit. My visitors spend on average 3 minutes and 55 seconds on my website with the bounce rate being approximately 42.86%. During this period of a month there has been a 19.05% new visit rate. The visitors of my site are all English speakers from the United States. The visitors are from the cities of DeKalb and Naperville.

My top pages on my website are my default page, my “about me” page, and my “assignment #9” blog post page. Most of the tracking to my site is coming from directly entering my url, this accounts for 17 visits. Three additional visits come from a referral from laurenlabrecque.com and one visit through organic search through Google. I don’t have any top keywords from search engines presented in my Google Analytics. This is surprising to me since I have a visit courtesy of an organic search on Google. I am also surprised that I don’t have nearly as many visits to my website as other students in the class have.

Halloween Fortune Cookie

BOO! Order Halloween decorated giant fortune cookies now!
http://www.fancyfortunecookies.com/Halloween_Fortune_Cookies_s/38.htm

My target demographic is fortune cookie consumers and also Halloween enthusiasts that are looking for party favors or prizes for costume contests. My call to action is order Halloween fortune cookies now. The landing page is the Halloween themed fortune cookies, showing all the different flavors and designs.

Keywords:Cookie / Fortune / Halloween

 Keyword: Fortune

Low competition

Monthly global search: 7,480,000                  

 Monthly local search: 2,240,000

Fortune cookie and Fortune cookies are both keyword ideas that are good suggestions. My reasoning is that the company sells fortune cookies, and these keyword suggestions help to specify the market. Anyone interested in fortune cookies would want to visit the Fancy Fortune Cookie website to view the variety of options that are supplied, including the Halloween themed fortune cookies. These keyword ideas are also good suggestions because they both have medium competition and over 250,000 monthly global searches and over 125,000 monthly local searches.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines by search results. It helps make a website and its content attractive, relevant and visible to search engines and web searches.  

The top words from the keyword density tool were restaurant, market, link, company, marketing, and customer. The results didn’t surprise me because these keywords are very popular throughout my various blog posts on the website.

While navigating the McDonald’s Corporation website, I found it rather easy to find relevant jobs. In fact there is a “Career” tab that when clicked links to a page that has corporate jobs, restaurant jobs, and also internships. It only took one click of the mouse to find all these opportunity at McDonald’s Corporation.  While viewing the aforementioned careers page, there are also links on the left side of the screen that include: business functions, employee benefits, recognition, diversity, contact information, Hamburger University, and search jobs. To view benefits all an individual has to do is click the employee benefits link and a page displaying the various a McDonald’s employee would receive.

The website is very compelling and would create interest for employment. Everything is in order and neatly arranged on the website. The links all correspond to a relevant page and are easily accessible. There is some white space on the page for McDonald’s, but it is not overwhelming. I like the layout and spacing of the page, because the information provided is not cluttered but there isn’t also an abundance of empty space. The information presented on the McDonald’s page allows individuals to quickly navigate throughout the website. I particularly like the links towards the bottom of the page that include: our food, our history, our environment, our business, and our people. These links help to provide information to those that are inquiring into or studying the corporation. The website is easy to use because information that is pertinent is either highlighted by a link or only a couple clicks away. The corporate news feed at the bottom of the page is also a nice touch, because it allows those individuals that have a vested interest in the corporation, the opportunity to know what is happening. The page shows both the social media that the corporation utilizes, which are provided at the top of the page, but just below the corporate news the stock market information is also shown. Lastly, the streaming banner towards the top of the page providing various types of information helps to make the website more interactive and appealing.

I would suggest to McDonald’s Corporation to make some of the lettering used for various links more visible to those that may have sight complications. I would also recommend that McDonald’s expands the information to utilize some more of the space on the edges of the paper. The page isn’t cluttered, but it seems like the information currently presented on the page could be moved to both the left and right to eliminate some of the white space. Overall, I think McDonald’s did a good job creating the page.

In order to find a relevant job description I had to first click on the “find a job with us” link, and then have to choose a country in which the individual once to work, then after choosing a country, you must choose between two tabs “Kraft Food Professional Positions” and “Hourly Positions in Manufacturing, Distribution and Sales”. After clicking one of these tabs, a pop up window opens when you can choose from various positions. In all it took approximately 4-5 clicks to get any information regarding relevant jobs.

The Kraft website is not as easy to navigate throughout the website. The information is not straightforward which requires an individual to deepen his/her search of the site to find what it is that they need. In contrast, the McDonald’s site can easily be navigated and tells the visitor exactly what they should expect to see by clicking on the link or tab. Like McDonald’s, Kraft also displays stock market information. However, Kraft has entirely too much white space on the page. I don’t particularly like the tabs at the top of the Kraft page. The tabs are outline with various colors and there is no apparent color scheme, which to me makes the page look less professional. I would recommending a color scheme and sticking with it. It was too difficult and time consuming to browse the Kraft website to find certain information. The page isn’t persuasive and doesn’t create excitement to make me want to work for Kraft.

The design of the ad copy helps quickly to convey what the shelter is mainly looking for. Of course the shelter is looking for persons to adopt pets, but it is primarily looking for individuals to donate money in order to provide for the animals. I inserted a little puppy to help appeal to the individuals sensitive/animal loving side. The logo of the shelter was also implemented to immediately let persons know exactly what shelter they would be helping. The purpose of A/B testing is to see how individuals react to multiple ads that have an one different element. It helps advertisers see which ads individuals were more responsive to and what the elements were. I would create two groups of people that had shown interest in animals to see the advertisement. One group would see one ad, the other group would see the alternative ad. The landing page I chose for both ads was the DeKalb County Animal Shelter “How you can help” page.  The ad copy, is about making a donation and on the”How you can help” page, it states how you can donate time, money, or materials to the shelter. A metric I could use to test the effectiveness of my ads first could be click-through rate will allow me to see how many individuals have click the ad for the shelter. This metric however doesn’t indicate whether or not a person has donated to the shelter. Another metric I could use is seeing exactly how much money has been donated based on the ads I created.  This metric better indicates the effectiveness of the ad copy.

Check out this lol cat I created in class.

iT Supplies was found by Greg Lahart in 1998. The company was started out of Lahart’s garage and quickly expanded. The company holds minimal inventory and focuses on consumable products basing this idea on how the company was started. The name iT represents Ink and Toner. iT is a small business that sells products that deal with ink and toner.  

Ryan Eugene, a Northern Illinois graduate and iT supplies webmaster, spoke to my Internet Marketing class on Sept. 21^st. Ryan spoke of the expansion of iT Supplies from strictly using catalogs to now being involved in E-commerce. The catalogs started as a primary sales channel where phone calls would be placed to the company. Later, the company used their website as a fulfillment tool. As technology, primarily inkjet expanded, business added thousands of products to the catalog. As the catalog expanded, importance of a functional website increased. Around this time, E-commerce became more prevalent in households. In order to grow, iT Supplies understood that a web presence was required to compete against other companies.

In 2010, iT Supplies created a blog to answer questions, engage users and increase Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine. Ryan stated that the company’s customers, who are usually artistic, liked the overall appearance of the blog which had a black background and grey design. This idea was verified after a survey of 5,000 artistic individuals found that the prefer/like black and other neutral colors Ryan mentioned social media and how it might be a waste of time to use such things as Facebook and Twitter, if these aren’t having people coming to the company’s website. Ryan explained how the company’s website is now an online catalog and order processing center. Users can now secure transactions and receive items as early as 6 hours after placing and order via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). EDI is the transfer of data between different companies using networks. The websites allows for more information and interactivity than a catalog—Product information, videos, tutorials, etc.