Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship

The expanding digital industry, as Jonathan Gardner of Vibrant Media puts it, is “destined to affect what we discuss, buy and watch, who we friend, what we Like, and how we share — all year long.” Along with eMarketer’s projection of a 14.4% increase in U.S. online ad spending, there is no question digital will make an impact in the new year. The best practices with optimal results will be the ones that will carry into 2012, even for digital marketing agencies.

1. Take initiative into obtaining keywords using search engine optimization. Look to the future for insight on the next hot key term. Word ownership will do the work for you, setting the path for your brand to gain ownership of its voice around the web. Focus on your consumer when constructing your marketing strategy. What do they want, hope for, aspire to?
2. Focus on your the product’s value. Consumers are becoming more spending-conscious. Focus on what content your audience wants to watch and read. Deliver ads to people who actually want to see them.
3. Content is crucial. The most successful display ads connect content with the context of the page. The best digital marketing in 2012 will have to be dynamic.
4. The revolution in tracking consumer behavior continues. With all the content on the web, it is quality that will produce the results in the end.
5. Can you believe 98% of 18- to 24-year-olds use social media? More reason to develop new ways to make your social media assets deliver as seen by Best Buy and “Twelpforce” and Axe with their social toolbar.

If you’re interested in the rapidly growing world of online marketing, this is the perfect class for you! With Michigan State University’s New Media Driver’s License, you will learn all about the different aspects of online marketing from the experts. Derek Mehraban, CEO of Ingenex Digital Marketing, shows his students the many facets of the digital world in a fun, easy to learn way.

One of the greatest things about this class is that you are learning brand new things, but a lot of it is just expanding your knowledge of media you already use. Not everyone blogs, but it’s a pretty simple thing to do and you will learn the little extras that turn your good blog into a great blog. Most of the students who take this class already have accounts on at least one social media platform. Learn how to use platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube to their full advantage.

Some things you may know little or nothing about are search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM) and Google and Yahoo! search rankings. When you successfully complete this class, you will have an understanding of these things and just how great of an impact they have on a business.

Another great thing about this class is that it is (mostly) online. From experience, I can say this is one of the most enjoyable and most useful classes I have ever taken. I loved the convenience of being able to do my work when it worked best for me.

Sign up now for the Fall 2011 New Media Driver’s License (ADV420) course!

THE NEW MEDIA DRIVERS LICENSE IS PROVIDED BY The Michigan State University Advertising, Public Relations & Retailing Deparment in Partnership with Derek Mehraban.

Search engine giant Google launched their very own social networking service on Tuesday. The Google+ Project attempts to take a bite out of, and possibly rip the head off of menacing social networking superstar Facebook. Parasitic social networking sites are rapidly invading Google’s territory, as Facebook and Twitter absorb the traffic once reserved for Google. Social networks cripple Google’s infrastructure by depriving important information from the systems used to enhance Web search and Google AdWords.

Google+ Project surpasses any other social networking attempt made by the company in the past. Standard social sharing is taken to the next level, converting the typical social networking mass communication model into a more personalized small group, real-life communication experience.Users can create separate communication groups between friends, family, acquaintances, ex-boyfriends, frenemies, roommates, running buddies, co-workers, etc., into “Circles.” Circles is a Google+ Project feature uses a drag and drop method and simplifies standard practices used on other social networks to dividing friends, foes and co-workers into individual sharing networks.

The iPhone and Android mobile applications for Google+ are very similar to the web version of Google+, making sharing and communicating easy and fluid. Users won’t have to use four different applications to share information or chat with friends in different ways. The magnitude of Google’s Web and mobile presence is enough to make smaller start-ups and mobile developers quiver in their boots. Add the element of social sharing into the mix and Google could potentially destroy its social networking competitors.

Fusing together content sharing, group video chat, video and photo sharing and a mobile app is an impressive start for Google’s social networking future. Google+ Project combines Internet social sharing habits into one centralized place where messages can be controlled and disseminated in real-life fashion. Google+ Project is still in its field trial period and more innovations and changes are expected. It will be interesting to see if Google’s search engine marketing skills will match their social media marketing abilities.

New York Times: Another Try by Google to Take On Facebook

The Google+ Project

In high school and early years of college my Facebook addiction appeared to distract me from what many others thought I “should” be focusing on. As I got older my Facebook addiction led to a fascination with Twitter and other forms of social media. Suddenly I was studying social media and digital public relations strategies in school. Within three years my degree in public relations went from cool to awesome. I was taking innovative journalism classes tailored to social media strategies and search engine optimization and all things digital. Was this too good to be true? Can I really make a career out of this?

Photo: DirJournal.com

It turns out you can. And there is quite the demand for digital agencies and social media strategist as the digital revolution continues to grow according to The Detroit News article, Aging Nation, Technology Give Rise to Five Hot Jobs. There is real value in social and digital and more and more people are recognizing that. The job market is fierce and there is good news for college students. According to The Detroit News Article. “By 2018 a million new jobs expected to be created.”  I don’t know if fate or luck or destiny brought me to my current internship in the digital marketing field, but the future is looking nice for me and for the digital agency.

The Detroit News: Aging Nation, Technology Give Rise to Five Hot Jobs

iPad’s are awesome and the applications are even better. I read about Deja, a new and highly anticipated iPad application last night that released today. I woke up excited because Deja is said to be similar to one of my favorite and most used apps, Flipboard. Flipboard is an app that beautifully arranges a completely customizable database of a users favorite websites, Twitter, Flickr, magazines and other online publications into a newspaper or magazine like layout. Then allows you to “flip” through different pages and view organized content seamlessly within the app. It is said that Deja does for videos what Fliboard does for photos and text and that is something to be excited about, after all Flipboard was named, “App of the Year,” in 2010.

I downloaded the app this morning and was instantly attracted. Videos are extracted from my Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google and RSS accounts, then compiled into a sleek and user-friendly design. Videos are updated accordingly and the sharing option is easier than ever. Users can share content on Twitter, Facebook or to email. Deja is what an iPad app should look and feel like. The interface displays tiles you can swipe threw zoom in on, and watch. Deja has a feature called ‘fling,’ where you can take whatever video you’re watching via Deja on the iPad, and view it on a TV connected to Apple TV.

You can search and view video’s, easily make playlists, view related videos, save and share in one place. It is beautiful and innovative but also very new. There are a lot of bugs and Deja crashed on me almost every time I used the app. I usually get very frustrated when something doesn’t work but I think Deja has serious potential and I can put up with it for now. A lot of time, effort and $200K of funding went into the Apps development and I really don’t think it’s going to fail. I’m hoping that the iPad 2’s video recording capabilities will help provoke the development of an option to upload videos directly to Deja. I want more customizable options for account preferences and I am also wondering if there are any privacy concerns. Deja has the potential to be a great social media marketing tool and I am interested to see how the iPad application evolves.

It’s back! The second annual Virtual Tradeshow Experience for LIGHTFAIR 2011 is here and in full swing.The digital agency Ingenex redesigned last year’s Virtual Tradeshow website for LIGHTFAIR International 2011.

Commercial and architectural lighting companies congregate once a year to attend the largest lighting industry event in the world. The creation of the Virtual Tradeshow Experience allows curious people and potential customers to jump in on the action from LED manufacturer OSRAM Opto Semiconductors booth at the tradeshow and conference. LED fans can even enter to win an iPad 2!

The Virtual Tradeshow Experience for LIGHTFAIR 2011 engages and connects customers with each other through easy to find links to OSRAM’s YouTube Account and Facebook fan page, creating conversation about the event, OSRAM and their products. Viewing my Facebook news feed provides an example of how effective social media is during an event. I was surprised that an article or post regarding LIGHTFAIR 2011 appeared more than a couple times on the same page.

Before the start of LIGHTFAIR 2011 there were informational videos on the Virtual Tradeshow Experience website educating viewers on LED’s and Solid State Lighting technology from OSRAM. This was important to build a “buzz” about LIGHTFAIR 2011 before the event and provided individuals much like myself, who are illiterate when it comes to LED technology, an easy to understand overview of LED technology while igniting my curiosity about the product.

Ingenex sent a team of three to Philadelphia, PA to LIGHTFAIR International 2011 which takes place May 17th – 19th. The team has been working to upload photos, create and edit video, keeping viewers engaged and updated during the event.

During LIGHTFAIR 2011 interviews from OSRAM employees and other important people in the lighting industry were filmed, edited and uploaded to the website right from OSRAM’s booth on the showroom floor. Web viewers were not forced to wait until after the tradeshow to hear industry leader’s opinions about up and coming lighting technology and about OSRAM.

Photos are also updated daily from OSRAM’s booth at LIGHTFAIR 2011. There are images of various LED displays showcasing new technologies including SSL and Horticultural LED Lighting. There are also photo displays showcasing indoor home LED lighting solutions and other LED lighting applications.

Ingenex creatively and interactively engaged customers to help build brand awareness and establish a lasting presence in the lighting industry and online community. I am curious to see what other photos, interviews and news stories will be posted during LIGHTFAIR 2011 and I can’t wait to see what innovations the Virtual Tradeshow Experience website will have next year.

When I read Joe Jaffe’s blog about possible front runners of the digital marketing age, combining social and digital media to get the job done, I immediately thought of Ingenex Digital Marketing.

After interning at Ingenex for a few weeks now, I can already tell that this company consists of digital marketing pioneers. The planning and strategy that is necessary for each project this company takes on is carefully thought out by more than one person. Having more than one person offer insight to each project gives the team members at Ingenex the opportunity to provide different ideas and angles.

The agency’s strategy for digital marketing includes social media methods that most companies strive for. Ingenex has the ability to not only create a marketing plan, but to also monitor that company’s social media sites and provide the feedback that is necessary for the survival of company’s brand online. Ingenex has mastered the social media sites Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, and Linkedin so team members are able to brand a company appropriately. Ingenex gets to know the company it is working with, and learns what is effective for that brand. Being such a small company, it can give its customers the one-on-one time that is appreciated; the big-shot digital marketing companies cannot offer the flexibility and quick-thinking that Ingenex can when a problem presents itself. Two members of the Ingenex team are Google-certifed, assuring customers that they are receiving the most up-to-date techniques in the digital marketing world. This company is quickly growing, offering Internet marketing services such as web site design, digital public relations, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and Google analytics. Ingenex also offers iPhone and mobile applications providing your company with the opportunity to increase its brand exposure to consumers. These apps increase exposure as well as give consumers the ability to interact directly with a company’s brand via mobile phones.

While Ingenex is a growing digital marketing agency, it continues to show the same customer appreciation and dedication through the years.

As I predicted earlier, QR codes would soon be everywhere, and at the North American International Auto Show they were. The new, high-tech bar codes were being used by several of the worlds largest automakers at the yearly auto show in Detroit. The codes, which can hold a link to a web page, a picture, or preset text, allows customers access to this information on their smart phones. For the most part, companies at the Detroit Auto Show were using these codes, posted on their cars, to provide more information about the car that you were looking at. Some companies took it a step further. One company used them to direct you to a page that contained information about their products and a $250 “Auto Show” discount on their vehicles. Yet another company used them to sign you up to receive information and enter you in a sweepstakes to win a car.

I was impressed with these large companies utilization of a relatively new phenomena. Plus, not only did they use them, they used them perfectly. They used them to improve user experiences at their displays as well as cut back on a lot of the paper associated with information packets. In addition, I would assume they set up some sort of system to track their total scans on these codes, providing usable data from their presence at the event.

Overall it made the whole experience, which is fun to begin with, far more interesting and interactive. That is why I love these things; they could turn a boring trip to the mall, or grocery store into an interesting, fun, insightful experience. Expect to see a lot more of these in the future.

Have you ever been out and about and noticed those little scrambled black and white boxes? Well those are called QR codes and they are the future of… well I don’t know, but the possibilities are endless. QR codes, or quick response codes are essentially bar codes that are able to store much more information. They can store URLs, geographic coordinates or text, and can be read by any smart phone, or tablet, with a QR reader. When you scan one of these codes your mobile device will display the hidden content right there in your hand.

I’m going to let that sink in because it is pretty awesome. These little scrambled boxes are paper links that, when opened, take you to whatever information their creator wants you to see. From an advertising standpoint the possibilities excite me to no end: coupon codes on products, coded sponsorships, codes that direct to your site, even guerrilla codes, posted anywhere, that take people to your content. The possibilities are endless.

In addition, as a consumer, I’m equally excited for this. It’s like a scavenger hunt. I’m hoping for hidden codes that provide discounts to a particular establishment, or less excitingly, codes that provide more product information on something I see in a magazine, or in an ad. This can literally make any paper media an interactive, and digital experience. I bet newspapers are letting out a collective sigh of relief. This might save them. They could use codes to give more information or insight that you could read on your tablets or phones, allowing them to provide something that you can’t get online. You could use them in museums to provide interactive content to guests, on your resume to link to your online profile, or put them on your business card to provide a prospective client with more information without more paper.

I’m sorry if this is becoming a scrambled, or rambling post, but I am literally coming up with new uses for these things as I write, and my excitement about them is causing my thoughts to get ahead of my fingers.

Anyway, check these things out, make a couple, get a scanner on your phone and start looking for ‘em. They’re out there.

I’m sure you’ve heard by now about the app store that Apple has launched for Macs. It allows you to run your favorites iPhone apps right on your desktop. They have managed to take the brilliant “I always have something to entertain me” mentality of the iPhone, and put it where you want it most, on your computer, where most of us spend our days. Now I personally came up with idea months ago while sitting in my room wishing I could play Angry Birds on my Mac, but I guess that’s beside the point. With the new App store for the Mac you can now spend your free time playing Sudoku, or tweeting about this and that, or even planning your week’s outfits using the Dress Assistant App.

Now, apart from the frivolities offered by the numerous apps available, there is also excitement amongst social media enthusiasts everywhere. This new Apple creation offers the next significant advancement of the social media agenda. They now, or soon will, take all your favorite sites and social media pages, and make them stationary on your desktop. Once there they will come alive and turn your computer into a living organism; constantly updating and breathing all of the social media you love. It will become a friend, that tells you everything you want to know when you want to know it. You will not be able to live without it.

This preposition, from a marketing standpoint, offers advertisers an ideal scenario. Consider this:  You are sitting at your computer at work, it has been a long day, and you have settled into the work/surf-the-web part of your day. You have your work computer set up with all of your favorite pages, in app form, scattered across your desktop. Needing a break, you decide to sit back and watch all of these pages deliver to you any and all information you want to know. You relax as you find comfort in the latest funny tweet from Steve Martin , or a reassuring Facebook post from your mother, and you are once again at peace.

Now, as an advertiser, this presents you with an opportunity to create content for these apps and have them delivered to a curious, and captive audience at all times of the day, and at locations, (like at work for example) that you normally couldn’t reach them. Also, the Mac Apps offer another benefit; they offer the customizability, and specificity of iPhone apps without the limitations that the small phone has. I know, for me personally, I hate the ads on my phone for two reasons: first, they always show up at the most inopportune times, and second, they take up half of my screen. It is for these reasons, along with the fact that the screen is too small to do much meaningful web browsing, that I refuse to follow any of the links in the ads. This shouldn’t be nearly as much of a problem with the Mac Apps, just as long as they don’t make me sit through 20 second, full page, ads for a weight loss drug while I’m waiting for Angry Birds to load.

The Mac App store is truly a genius idea that will, like the apps on the iPhone, change the way we interact with the world, and the way the world interacts with us. It’s still in it’s infancy but I know that it will expand rapidly, and I’m excited to see where it goes from here.