Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship

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Location-based apps are one of the newest frontiers in Digital Marketing. Google Maps, Foursquare, even Twitter are in on the “check-in” game. On platforms like Foursquare, users can see who is currently checked into a place, leave messages there, and receive incentives for checking in. Twitter and Google allow location broadcasting to approved friends. But where is this technology going? I did some deep digging to find out.

1. Tracking
Tracking on social Web sites is not new. We have all heard cautionary tales about Joe Inappropriate losing his job over an indecent picture his company found on Facebook or Jane Toomuchinformation missing out on a second interview because of too many updates on Twitter about how much she hates her current job. Location based tracking seems to be ahead. ZDnet suggests that insurance companies or assessors may be able to use your check in history to determine risk factors and rates. If you were to check into multiple bars every night for 2 months and you don’t own one, this might be an issue for you. It’s not all bad though, an auto insurer could set up a maintenance check-in program that tracks how often your car’s oil is changed or whether or if you check in to a car seat inspection station.

2. Real-time coupons
Some Web sites, like Foursquare, are already in the infant stages of adopting this technology. As a user checks in, incentives, or coupons, are shown for his or her presence. However, Mobile Commerce Daily has reported that Where, another location-based site has introduced location-based, real-time mobile deal alerts. “[Where's] deal alerts service pushes mobile coupons and discounts to consumers based on preference and location.” For instance, let’s say I have selected to receive alerts from Ingenex Digital Marketing on Where. 2 weeks later, I walk past Ingenex and my text alert goes off. It reads:

Hey there friend! Ingenex Digital is offering a free cup of coffee when you stop in and say “Hello!”

The text service is free but regular text messaging rates apply, but for most of us, that really shouldn’t be an issue anymore. Business owners could have the ability to schedule daily offer changes and control the amount of time the coupon is active.

3. Tourism
Why not make being a tourist a little bit easier. Gowalla seems to be the predominant player in this so far. Users can create “trips” with check in points. The site features sponsored tours by University of Oklahoma and National Geographic. Not many other players have embraced the tourism possibilities and with Gowalla’s page visits down approximately 45% in the past two months, the possibility of dying in the shadows of Foursquare and Google Latitude grows stronger. Roseindia, a leader in Web tutorials, offers a few points for utilizing location-based tourism. Based on your GPS, a platform that provides traffic information, weather updates, local information, city guides and check-in spots could possibly be available in the near future for tourists with smartphones.

The landscape of local-based applications is wide open for innovation. Tracking, real-time coupons, and tourism are all areas that apps are beginning to target. So, what would you like to see come to fruition?  Any ideas?

deanj

This Saturday, June 5, will mark the start of the fifth semester of  Michigan State University’s New Media Driver’s License Course. At 9 AM students will fill the Walsh College Campus in Novi, MI to begin their semester long social media training. As a past student in the course, I can honestly say that enrolling in this course is a decision that you will not regret.

With only one semester gone by since my completion of the course, I have already seen the benefits for myself, not only as an advertising major, but as a college student striving to build my personal brand and network for the life after graduation career search. And while the course did not do this for me, it taught me how.

During the social media training, students will learn to effectively use social media outlets (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) to benefit themselves and their future employer, or business. They will also build writing skills through weekly blogs about all things new media and learn to participate in online communication. That being said, it is also important to learn to monitor and track your digital involvement and the outcomes. No worries, the new media drivers license will cover that too!

If you missed the enrollment for this semester’s social media training, no fear, the Fall section will begin just a few months from now! And do not be discouraged if you are not an Advertising major, this class is beneficial for everyone. Yes, it may help future advertisers to better understand the realm of digital, but as digital evolves it is becoming increasingly important in every industry. Don’t pass up this amazing opportunity to build the opportunities of your future.

Well let me start out by saying HELLO PEOPLE! My name is Matthew Doyle and I being brought aboard as one of the new interns for the summer 2009 class of the Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship. I had the pleasure of having Derek Mehraban as my professor for the inaugural running of Michigan State’s New Media Drivers License course, a class that focused on using social networks, blogs, and other new social media mediums such as Twitter to generate buzz and publicity. Coming from a my two previous positions with cutting edge tech based companies, I  thought I was Mr. Know-it-all in the Web 2.0 realm, boy was I wrong. Derek opened the doors and showed me that there was so much more to learn about the world of digital marketing which is what brings me here today writing for you all.

Although my fellow interns will be meeting weekly at the Ingenex Digital headquarters in Ann Arbor, I will be joining my teammates virtually through a web cam across the Atlantic Ocean in Spain. It will be very interesting to see how the whole 6 hour time change thing plays out over the course of the summer. Regardless of the time change, I am looking forward to making a real impact at Ingenex by showing our clients how digital marketing techniques can grant them a huge return on their investment. In addition to blogging here on the Eco-Friendly blog about current events in the world of digital marketing and social media, I will be keeping my own personal travel blog of my travels throughout the Europe, The Adventures of Mattador.

Ingenex Digital Marketing is looking for 5 or so quality interns for Summer 2009 Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship. This internship is a combination of networking, real life experience, face time in a professional office, and training on digital media. It rocks! And it won’t take too much of your time.

You come to Ann Arbor once a week to work for 2.5 hours. You learn about all forms of digital media. You work for real clients and non-profits. And you do the rest from the comfort of your apartment, library or coffee shop. It’s a low emission, kind internship for people who want to grow in the digital space.

If you have the goods – apply to this post. We will accept applications through April 15. The next class of interns will begin May 18. Please apply to the internship in a variety of ways. Make a comment on this blog post with why you feel your a good candidate. Connect w/ me on Linkedin and ask for an intersnhip. Be creative online and get our attention. It may just pay off for you.

Also, if you’re not looking for an internship consider taking the New Media Drivers License course at Michigan State University. It will rock your world.

I spent the past week producing a promotional video for Social Harbor, the new website developed by Ingenex Digital Marketing. Derek and I went to the Diag on UM’s campus last Wednesday to get some primary video footage. I took the tape home and used iMovie to import and edit the video clips. I found a song that was available without royalty fees on Incompetech.com. Kevin MacLeod writes and records all the music on there — and he only asks for optional donations.

Once I had the film cut to about 1 min. 45 sec., I exported the final product as a Quicktime Movie file in order to upload it to the web. We had chosen YouTube as the service to host and share the video. Of course we could put the video right on the Social Harbor home page using a flash player. But we want to be able to send a link in emails and embed the video on blogs and other websites. We also want people to be able to share the video on social bookmarking sites like Digg.com. YouTube offers all of these. In fact, it’s commendable that YouTube has maintained the “king of the hill” status for so long in the realm of web video streaming. Most Web 2.0 sites that got that big have sold out and gotten ruined (like MySpace, for example).

I did run into some problems with video resolution while uploading to YouTube. They broadcast at 425 pixel width, but iMovie exports at about 320 width by default. It was no easy task to get the ratio correct AND have the video streaming the way it’s supposed to. I had to find a tutorial to help with expert settings and export the video the correct way. Of course, I figured it out right when my brother — who just moved to LA to get into the film industry — told me that Vimeo is better for high resolution videos. They don’t compress your video so much, and you can even host a video in HD quality.

There are some negatives to Vimeo. First, you have a limit of 500 MB per week that you can upload. On YouTube, a single clip can be as large as 1 GB (1000 MB), and there is no limit to your total uploads. Second, you’re not supposed to upload any commercial content. Vimeo is intended for personal creations only — as in home movies and short films. That means I’m not supposed to load the Social Harbor video to Vimeo even if I want to.

The end result: The video is on YouTube, available for viewing by the general public: Social Harbor video.

Last Wednesday the interns and Derek dedicated the day to analyze Google Adwords possibilities. Setting a Google Adwords account is really easy but getting the most out of it may not be so easy. The following recommendations will help you with setting up your account.

The first steps after signing up for your Google Adwords account is setting a monthly budget (of at least $50, anything under that does not really show at all) and determining where your ads are going to appear. If you are starting and your business is mostly local, it will probably be a good idea for you to keep your adwords campaign also local. Another option is to set the maximum cost per click (CPC). If your keywords are very competitive, you may want to set up a high maximum CPC. Otherwise Google can set your bids in order to optimize the results.

Make sure that you get the most of the 95 characters available per ad (25 for the title and 35 for each line). While writing your ad there are some considerations to keep in mind. The first one is how accurate is your ad. If a potential customer clicks in your ad, which reads “professional photographic equipment”, and you are only selling disposable cameras that person not only is not going to buy from you, but is also going to cost you money since he/she is clicking in your ad. It is very important that your ad include the benefits of your product and/or service and some of your keywords. You can find the keywords that relate to your site by using the Google Adwords tool. Once you do this, you can see the relevance and how competitive are these words, and choose according to your site content and budget. The best idea is to combine some competitive keywords with some other more specific to your site. Being specific will attract potential customers to your site. If you are local and you only offer your product/service locally you will most likely improve your results by including your location in your Adwords ad. Also do not forget to push your customer, including phrases like order now or limited supplies will make your ad more successful.

These are some very basic guidelines for starting your Adwords campaign. If you want to learn more about Adwords and how to use it in your business you should rely on experienced professionals and contact Ingenex Digital Marketing, I’m sure they will find the most suitable digital marketing solution for your business.

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.

In order to be eco-friendly, a company has to perform its activities in ways that would inflict the minimal possible harm to the environment. So what can Ingenex do in order to be more eco-friendly? Being in Michigan, where it is COLD during winter and hot and humid during the summer, energy conservation is one of the biggest issues. Also trying to reduce the waste produced by the office activity (paper, office supplies) would be a good idea. The following are some tips that will help you and your company be more eco-friendly:

• Wherever there is a cold winter, and Michigan is especially cold, good insulation is essential. A properly insulated room facilitates temperature control, and  will make your heating bill less expensive and definitely more eco-friendly.

• Encourage the use of public transportation and alternative commuting options. In the case of Ann Arbor, it is possible for a company to get a go!pass for its employees for only $5 a month. Ann Arbor is a bike friendly city, and also very pedestrian friendly. You can provide a bike lock for your employees, so they park their bikes. There is plenty of information about commuting opportunities in Ann Arbor at getDowntown.

• Energy conservation is key. Energy efficient bulbs and motion sensor lighting controls are also a good idea and they will let you reduce your energy spending. By subscribing to programs like the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Program you can save big money and also become more eco-friendly.

• Telecommuting is an option that can make your company more eco-friendly by avoiding unnecessary commutes. For some employees it may not be necessary to go to the office for doing their job, so if it is not a need the transportation cost saved can be a great way of reducing the environmental impact of our already crowded roads.

• The 3 R’s. Reduce – Reuse – Recycle is the way to go in the office. Again, you’ll benefit directly by reducing your costs in paper, office supplies, etc, while reducing the amount of waste your work produces and increasing your eco-friendliness. Make sure to check out Recycle Ann Arbor for great tips in how to recycle and in how to collaborate with your community, and don’t forget to bring your recyclables to the drop-off station.

Why Jennifer Harrison from Michigan State University would make a great addition to the Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship at Ingenex Digital Marketing. In her own words:

As a highly motivated, self-driven person, the chance to work with a young, dynamic company like Ingenex is very exciting. I’m pumped up to learn about digital marketing, and I’m not interested in doing a ‘typical’ internship – this one seems to really emphasize learning, and individual work is as important as teamwork and communication. I’ve worked with a variety of teams to pull off great results – from serving customers delicious burritos to orchestrating the first ever Women in Business Students’ Association Leadership Conference. Communication will be vital to success – from reaching out on campus, in the community, to local and national businesses, and to people across the globe, I feel that I have the experience and know-how to keep things open and clear at all times.

The things I’m most interested about getting a first-hand look at are:

How Ingenex creates fully integrated campaigns for clients, and how the best mix for each client.
How digital marketing can be successfully used to increase the strength of a brand or company, in local, national, and international settings. The use of social media marketing to revitalize business / interest in a brand or company.

As a college student, it is clear to me that digital marketing is the future of advertising, marketing, and PR. As people become more ‘connected’, they will expect more high-tech, up-to-date information from businesses, and those that don’t keep up will be left in the dust. Digital is applicable across many fields, from local restaurants to nation-wide political campaigns – check out http://www.journalism.org/node/6370 to see the impact of digital marketing on the 2008 presidential campaign. In addition, digital is extremely strong for the fast-changing, adaptable environment marketers work in now – with digital, nothing is permanent, and messages can be adjusted and tailored according to changes in client or customer.

Sure, I was excited when I landed an internship this past summer with Ingenex. My first real internship, learning about real things, working in a real office, doing things that mattered, not just classwork for a grade. But I could not see the real excitement around the corner.

I quickly absorbed as much information as I could, and boy did it pay off! I eagerly took on a few extra tasks, putting in some office time in addition to the internship. Derek took notice, and after some time was excited to offer me a full-time position here at Ingenex.

I thought I was excited before, but this, THIS is excitement! I’m more than ready to kick things into gear with SocialHarbor.com. Everything I learned during my internship time will be put to good use, actual use, from here on out.

The Eco-Friendly Internship at first take provided me with a plethora of information, extending my education beyond the classroom into real-world applications. The internship has now proven to be a substatial stepping stone towards my new digital career with Ingnex.

Stay Tuned!