Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship

While scanning several years’ worth of blog posts to Edward Vielmetti’s Vacuum, I gained a new respect for blogging and its impact on the information age. Born in 2003, Vacuum chronicles the experiences and thoughts of the author over the last five years, on topics such as productivity, farmers’ markets, wikis, and spiders (see here for a summary of sorts). The dedication of Vielmetti to this blog show that with time and hard work, a blog can yield very rewarding results – for readers as well as for bloggers.

Vacuum is most definitely unique, and offers up an interesting perspective on living, working, and raising a family in Ann Arbor, as well as documenting Vielmetti’s ongoing quest for increased productivity. I appreciate that any advice offered is based from personal experiences, including home recipes, exploring new web apps, and raising his children. This blog is true to life, helps give a sense of Ann Arbor, and also features some niche information that could definitely prove helpful. Vacuum doesn’t strive to be overly reader-oriented; Vielmetti lives his life, writes about it, and readers can glean what they may from his experiences.

My favorite entry thus far? Right here, in which Vielmetti proves to be not only a fascinating source on a variety of topics, but also a compelling writer. As someone who is not an expert in any of Vielmetti’s most mentioned themes, I have a lot to learn from reading his blog. Vacuum’s range continues to amaze me, and I’m looking forward to keeping up with its evolution.

Recently, we were asked to do an experiment involving coining a term and monitoring its search results on Google. The goal is to eventually get the term to show high results on the Google search engine. We were asked to take a snapshot of the before search on our term, in addition to blogging about it and linking it. The rest of the Eco-friendly internship team as well as Derek, CEO of Ingenex Digital Marketing, all came up with Google phrases as well. Katie Hyzy chose “Eco-savvy Marketing Ann Arbor,” Nick Meador chose “Online Publishing Marketing,” Pedro Martin-Panadero chose “Experimental Marketing Michigan,” Jennifer Harrison chose “Digital Eco Fusion,” and Derek chose “Digital Marketing Education.” I am curious as to what the results of this experiment will be and how long it will take to show high results. Here is a snapshot of my before page:

The term I chose was Marketing an Eco-friendly Expansion. This term was meant to convey the meaning that people need to not only be eco-friendly in their own surrounding area, but should be encouraged to instill and expand an eco-friendly way of living to people all over the nation.  I have lived in various areas for a significant period of time and have witnessed firsthand how people are the key ingredient when it comes to preserving the environment.  One of our jobs for the Eco-friendly Internship is to not only utilize digital marketing but work toward a sustainable future.

If you’re anything like me, anytime you find yourself uncertain about anything, you simply open your browser and ‘Google it.’ I do this literally dozens of times a day (I know, I know…) but until fairly recently had little awareness that I could actually have an influence on what results show at the top of the page. Enter the “Google Experiment.” Creating a more easily searchable online presence is one of Ingenex‘s many specialties. So, one of our assignments for this week was to pick several search terms, weave them into the title and body of our personal blog entries, cross-link everyone’s keywords to our blogs, and watch our chosen terms rise on Google’s search rank. We took two screen shots of our Googled our words pre-blog and post-blog to demonstrate the efficiency that cross linking blogs and blog entries can have. As I am interested in the environmental side of digital marketing, my chosen search keywords were Eco-Savvy Marketing Ann Arbor

Eco-Savvy Marketing Ann Arbor Before Picture

Eco-Savvy Marketing Ann Arbor After Picture

As you can see, this experiment proved to be quite successful for my search terms. The rest of the Ingenex team’s blog entries and keywords proved to be similarly successful. Derek wrote on Digital Marketing Education, Pedro chose Experimental Marketing Michigan, Amanda did Marketing an Eco-Friendly Expansion, Nick chose Online Publishing Marketing, and Jennifer worked on Digital Eco Fusion. For more insights regarding keyword and search engine optimization, I suggest you check out their blog posts. Although my personal blog entry was not the first result, it was in the top four. Prior to my blog entry and my fellow interns cross-links, there was no one such thing as ‘eco-savvy marketing in Ann Arbor;’ rather it was a mishmash of vaguely relevant isolated words. Hopefully, after Derek and all interns have posted their weekly eco-friendly blog entry detailing their keywords and linking back to mine, I will see an even higher rank for ‘Eco-Savvy Marketing Ann Arbor’ on Google. This phenomenon, or keyword optimization as the digital pros call it, is extremely important when trying to digitally publicize a product, blog, person or website. Therefore, one’s keyword choice is something that deserves a special degree of thoughtfulness regarding the desired outcomes. As you could imagine, it is important to have several words that are more common and popular. However, if all of your keywords are fairly commonplace, it will be quite difficult for Google to return your desired page with a high rank, as these words are competitive and used frequently on many pages. If in 2-3 words you can carefully describe what it is offered on your site, then you are far more likely to achieve successful results. In the blogosphere, cross-linking to blogs using keywords can achieve similar results to running an online search. As our intern experiment proves, keyword optimization serves as a useful tool to spread the word about your product, blog or website. It can also be an effective tool for the consumer; I can’t tell you how many times I have chosen the higher ranked websites returned from my search. Keyword optimization will prove to be exceptionally useful, especially as we are actively expanding the eco-friendly internship across the midwest and using a variety of different types of media.

So until next time, keep Googling (thoughtfully, of course.)

I wrote a post with this same title in my personal blog last weekend. The purpose of it was exclusively to prove that following some very easy instructions, we could make it to the top of the Google Search Results within days. So a little collective effort in tagging, categorizing, cross-linking and repeating certain terms in our posts has just been proved very successful. Now, when you google “Experimental Marketing Michigan”, the three words I choosed for my post, there are links to my post in the two first Google Search results and my post and my fellow interns’ posts are in that same first page of the search results.

I am certainly impressed with the results, especially when looking at the screen capture I made last Saturday right after I wrote my post. I look forward to tomorrow’s meeting at Ingenex for discussing the results with Derek and the rest of the interns.

This week we set out to “own” a set of personalized keywords using search engine optimization. The goal was to try to get my blog to appear very high up in a Google search of certain keywords. I used the terms “Online Publishing Marketing” on my Digital Marketing Blog. I chose these terms because of my goal of combining web publishing (both journalism and creative writing) with digital marketing. I took a snapshot of the Google search at the beginning of the experiment, and set up a Google Alert for the three keywords. Then I blogged about it using the terms in the title, as well as the beginning and end of the blog post.

As you can see in the enlarged second image, the search terms “online publishing marketing” now bring up my WordPress blog tags fairly high in a Google search.

The other Eco-Friendly Interns and Ingenex CEO Derek Mehraban will be doing the same, and then cross-linking between our posts. Amanda Marandola posted on “Marketing an Eco-friendly Expansion.” Katie Hyzy posted on “Eco-Savvy Marketing Ann Arbor.” Pedro Martin posted on “Experimental Marketing Michigan.” Jennifer Harrison posted on “Digital Eco Fusion.” Derek Mehraban posted on “Digital Marketing Education.”

When we were asked to follow a local blogger (based in Ann Arbor, Michigan) as part of our Eco-Friendly Internship, it occurred to me that the concept of a blog has changed since they first entered the public view. Blogs began mostly as a method of personal expression, either standalone on sites like Blogger.com or as part of a MySpace profile. That was three years ago. In the time since, something called the “blogosphere” was born. I never really understood what that meant, since it implies that there’s some collected space where all blogs hang out. MP3 blogs got really popular, since people love being able to download a song or two and stay tuned in to what’s “cool.” Political blogs also boomed, not only as a response to mainstream media, but sometimes as a unique source of political news.

Today it seems that the majority of blogs exist as part of a business model. As a journalist and natural skeptic, I’m a little worried about that. It is great for companies and employees to get information out to the public, but it also blurs the lines between personal expression (i.e. – creativity), journalism (i.e. – seeking truth while documenting events), and public relations (i.e. – selling something…at least, most of the time).

One way to keep blogs valuable is to center them around a geographical community. The ArborWiki has an open list of local bloggers. For the Eco-Friendly Internship, I’ll be following Ross Johnson, co-owner of 3.7 Designs, a website design company in Ann Arbor. His Web Design Marketing Blog and Podcast features a unique, attractive appearance and seems to focus largely on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). For those not familiar with web development, CSS is a relatively new branch of coding for fonts, colors, and other front-end elements of a web page. Having just finished developing my own web site with HTML and a basic grasp of CSS, I’m hoping that Ross will have a lot to teach me on the subject.

The Author

For the last seven days I have been following Your Search Advisor’s corporate blog. The blog’s author, Andrew Miller, is the founder of Your Search Advisor, an Ann Arbor based company that offers SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services and is located, as Ingenex Digital Marketing, in the Brickyard. In addition to his entrepreneurial efforts with Your Search Advisor, Andrew is also the co-founder of RichmondWiki, a Wiki site about Richmond, VA, where he went to college at the University of Richmond, graduating with a double degree in Computer Science and Spanish.

The Blog

As an addition to corporate websites, corporate blogs have become a great tool for companies, not only to promote their business, but also to be closer to their customers. Andrew does both things very well, in his corporate blog; he has some very interesting SEO analysis, analyzes digital marketing news and trends, and also has time for some more personal posts. Examples of this are the different topics in his last posts, which are very broad; from the very recent challenges and opportunities of an in-house SEO to the Yahoo Mash failure, passing through the analysis of the current state of the mobile web or the more personal post of how his old laptop “went nuclear”.

I think Your Search Advisor’s blog is a very interesting and enjoyable read. It is not only entertaining and written using very clear language (you don’t have to be a digital marketing guru for understanding its articles), but also very informative about the latest digital marketing trends and SEO news. I will definitely be following this blog in the future, its feed has made it to my Google Reader and I look forward to reading the upcoming post on how to be a successful in-house SEO.

Recently, I have been following the local Ann Arbor blog “Teeter Talk.” The concept behind Teeter Talk revolves around someone with an interesting story or experience being interviewed on a teeter totter. A man who goes by the name of Homeless Dave is the mastermind behind this whole website. He interviews all the guests and keeps the totter going. Those who dare to sit at the other end of the totter not only share their story with eager and willing readers, but give their own perspective as well.  Those who have dared to totter have been people from all aspects of life. Homeless Dave has had interviews with various Ann Arbor locals, Ingenex’s own Derek Mehraban and President Bill Clinton to name a few.  

Homeless Dave will blog about almost anything and anyone. From writing about potatoes, to two of his friends meeting Michelle Obama, you never know what to expect from him, except that his posts are almost always interesting and humorous. However, there is more the Homeless Dave than just tottering with random people. He runs his own bike hauling business, which he says will run in any type of weather, in addition to hand cranking and pedal-power spinning his own laundry while documenting it.  He also informs his readers with step-by-step instructions on how to build a teeter-totter and how to hand wash your laundry. He also just launched a new paper, the Ann Arbor Chronicle. The idea behind this paper was to embody the Ann Arbor community and reflect that essence and energy from the community in a daily news site.

Homeless Dave is as unique as his style of interviewing is. All of his interviews are original, authentic and can relate to all different types of people. Being interviewed by Homeless Dave would be a beneficial experience not only for him, but for each of the people he interviews. He gets to learn more about the person he’s interviewing and what they have to share, while the person being interviewed gets to hear about all of Homeless Dave’s stories and experiences from all the different types of people he has come across.  Homeless Dave’s blog is definitely different than another other blog I have followed or read. His style and form of interviewing is not only one of a kind, but stimulating and interesting to the reader as well. Also, how many people can say they do all their interviews on a teeter totter?

Blogging is not only a great tool for personal expression, it’s also an excellent way to promote your online presence, therefore serving as the ultimate multi-media marketing tool. Ann Arbor local John Roos, uses his blog to promote his coffee roasting/delivery business around the area. His site, RoosRoast, provides the history of his business, beliefs behind what he does, an online store, and of course, his blog. I’ve been following his blog since this past Wednesday and found it to be an interesting resource. For Roos, it serves as somewhat of a stream-of-consciousness regarding his brew sessions around town. As he states on his blog, Roos is big into local- whether that be his own business, or eating locally in Ann Arbor. John Roos knows good coffee and good food and isn’t afraid to let you know that. I think that’s a large part of the appeal of his blog. He puts himself, his business, his artwork and his experience out in the Ann Arbor blogosphere for people to read. Yes that’s right, John Roos not only brews delicious coffee, he is also a self proclaimed “New American Folk Artist.”

I think John Roos was an excellent blogger to follow; his site exemplifies how the creation of your online presence can reflect all aspects of your life. In the digital world, it’s easy to compartmentalize different aspects of your life. However, as Roos shows, it’s just as easy to have a website and blog that can be used to play off of each-other. Being a new blogger myself, I found it quite refreshing and insightful to see a fellow Ann Arborite using the blogosphere for personal and professional uses simultaneously. I look forward to following Roos and his coffee (and artwork) trials and tribulations well into the future.

With gas prices soaring, it’s no wonder that many are seeking ways to cut commuting costs. Luckily for students and recent graduates interested in digital marketing, Ingenex Digital Marketing, located in Ann Arbor, MI, has tailored an internship to fit their specific needs.

The eco-friendly internship provides interns with the means to excel in today’s digital world, with a work schedule that prioritizes telecommuting over office time.

Ingenex Digital Marketing is a full-service interactive marketing company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is run by CEO, Derek Mehraban, a Michigan State advertising graduate. The company provides services in Interactive and web, search engine marketing, social media and much more. Ingenex recently launched an online profile management service called Social Harbor. Visit http://socialharbor.com for information.

Ingenex eco-friendly interns are learning digital marketing while working to expand the internship for 2009. “Our goal is to make the Eco-Friendly Internship accessible to more students and more universities via new technology.” Says Ingenex CEO Derek Mehraban. “We are looking for university partners right now, and we are starting with the Michigan State University Advertising program.”

Meet the Fall 2008 Eco-Friendly Team:

Jennifer Harrison is currently a fourth year advertising student at Michigan State University, with a specialization in Public Relations and an additional major in Mandarin Chinese.

Katie Hyzy recently received a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Denison University in Ohio. Over the summer, she completed a Marketing and P.R. Internship at Chicago-based start up company Green Market Fundraising.

Amanda Marandola is an advertising sophomore at Michigan State University. She is extremely interested in the fields of advertising and marketing, and she would like to specialize in Public Relations.

Pedro Martin is a recent MBA International Business graduate of EMU. With a background in Marketing and Management, he hopes to achieve a position that will allow him to employ his marketing skills in an international business setting.

Nick Meador finished the masters of journalism program at MSU this summer, while participating in an editorial internship at Traverse Magazine. He’s seeking a career combining writing/editing, web design/development, and digital marketing.

The Ingenex eco-friendly digital marketing internship is the first of its kind. The growing demand for digital skills in corporate America is undeniable. Ingenex interns are preparing to be leaders in the digital economy and the eco-friendly future of our country. To learn about the eco-friendly internship visit: www.ecofriendlyinternship.com and www.ingenexdigital.com.