Easy Google Analytics and Other Ideas That Work for Teaching Social Media in the Classroom

At the recent MMA (Marketing Management Association)  Conference +Todd Kelsey  and I described how to integrate Google Analytics into blogger to teach analytics without programming to undergraduates.  Our slideshare shows these simple steps and also emphasizes the importance of establishing Google Authorship and how to do by entering those sites to which you contribute in a Google+ profile and registering the associated gmail address.  I certainly wish someone had told me about Google Authorship when I was starting out in my professional career (in fact, I wish the option were available).  It is a great way to get established as an expert in a particular area and authorship will last an entire career.

Teaching Analytics through G+ and Blogger from Debra Zahay-Blatz

It was interesting to see the approaches others have taken to teaching social media, especially to this generation of students.

Dr. Paul Kotz from St. Mary's University in Minnesota shared his research in reaching out to Millennial students, those from ages 11-31, born in 1982-2002.  I noticed, as Paul did, that these students like structure and deadlines.  So instead of having a social media plan that is due all at once, I have a different deliverable every week that the students should be working on to effectively deliver the plan at the end of the stated time.

Dr. +Jenna Drenten from John Carroll University shared what she is doing with Pinterest in the classroom.  The students used a private board in Pinterest to share their ideas about a marketing competition in which they participated.  Since it was a national competition,  the groups did not want others to see their results.  I did not realize that Pinterest allowed at least up to three private boards, so that might be a good way to share classroom information in the future.  I have taught Pinterest in class and, like the presenter, found that the men in the class are more reluctant to use the tool.  They perceive the tool as more for women and don’t ‘get’ the interface as readily as the women in the class. 

Professors +Alisa Agozzino  and  Kathie Fleck, Ohio Northern University, talked about their social media marketing minor which includes the history of social media, personal branding, strategies and a campaign management class.  Their program, which was in conjunction with the communications school, so this curriculum looks like a good choice for them.  

In our program,at Aurora University, the social media class is where the students have an introduction to social media analytics.  They develop both a personal social media campaign for themselves and one for a corporation or NGO.  Our Digital Marketing students also Internet marketing where they will  run an AdWords campaign with the option of a corporate social media campaign.  Personal branding is covered in depth in our social media class and IMC, Social Media and Internet all cover strategic concepts and history of the medium.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

How to Have Fun While Learning Marketing Technology

This video describes what we do in Marketing Technology 470 at Northern Illinois University.  It is the advanced course in our sequence, the 'capstone.' Students plan, implement and measure a paid search campaign using Google AdWords and Analytics and also developed a personal social media campaign. This semester we also did a a corporate social media marketing plan for the companies we have been working with all semester.  These firms are Ideosity and AllWorld.  Thanks to +Nicole Gault and +Mike Glassberg for putting this information together.

Congratulations to them both and to all our Spring 2013 Interactive Marketing graduates!

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

Three Simple FREE Things NIU Students Can Teach You About Paid Search

Our tag line says that NIU's College of Business is "Where the Classroom Meets the Business World."

As support of this concept, our students just completed a nine week module on paid search during which they planned, implemented, measured and reported the results of a Google AdWords campaign and also used Google Analytics.  The classroom met the business world as students worked with Ideosity, a consulting firm that targets developing websites, content management systems and online catalogs for manufacturers, and AllWorld Machinery, a supplier and manufacturer of replacement parts for manufacturers worldwide.  Other clients were our own Department of Marketing and Interactive Marketing program.  Thanks to our corporate clients that supported the projects and our program with their donations.  Here are three things that we learned that we hope can help you:

1)  Paid search helps your marketing even if you don't have a lot of money.  These clients were all small entities that had not had a lot of past experience with paid search.  I always recommend a paid search campaign to enhance and inform an organic search campaign, even for small firms.  You learn so much even from running the campaign a few weeks about which keywords are most appropriate and what drives firms to you web site.  You don't have to spend a lot of money to learn a lot (our students were on small budgets).  The students were able to help all their clients pinpoint what their customers were really looking for and where potential customers were located.  Just simple adjustments in geographic targeting were able to turn around campaigns from just a few clicks to hundreds within days.

2) Direct marketing calls to action do pay a large roll in paid search success.  In the first weeks of the campaign we tested our ads and keywords.  By the middle of the campaign, if the refinements we made weren't working (lots of traffic, few clicks), the students actively sought to optimize their ads by employing tested calls to action.  Just inserting the word FREE in one ad's call to action resulted in a 7% CTR. (See above).  Adding SAME DAY SHIPPING instead of Call Us Today improved an ad with 0 clicks to one with a 4.76% CTR.  So dig out those old direct marketing books and look on www.convertasaurus.com/ to help figure out what converts.

3) Paid search can tell you about your brand.  In most of our campaigns, unbranded keywords outperformed branded ones.  What better way to tell that you need to increase your brand awareness and improve your positioning?  The next step in our class project is to create plans to promote these brands on social media and engage current customers and prospects.

So there you have it, three simple ways to use Paid Search to improve your marketing efforts:  Do it to learn, use calls to action that convert and use the results to improve your brand image.

If you still don't feel confident doing this by yourself, keep following this blog for more tips.  More importantly, remember, we have forty graduates getting our Interactive Marketing certificate this May.

The students reported that they enjoyed the project, liked learning how to create campaigns and analyze them via metrics and recover quickly from their 'mishaps' along the way.  This kind of nimble thinking is just what companies tell me they are looking for in new graduates.

Hire our May grads by placing your job posting on  "Huskies Get Hired" or email me, Dr. Debra Zahay-Blatz, to join our job listserv:  zahay@niu.edu.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

NIU Interactive Students Bridge Theory/Practice Gap

We strive to create opportunities for our students to interact with companies and create real-world experience for our students.  The picture above shows a student actively networking at our Spring 2012 Internet Marketing Conference.  Last semester our Marketing Technology students worked with real-life clients like Ideosity, a web development company specializing in manufacturers with large online product catalogs to manage,  Allworld Machinery Supply, Inc. and the Department of Marketing at NIU to plan, develop and implement Paid Search and Social Media campaigns for these clients   Former Students Kalli Bravos and Tim Yapp are working at Ideosity and Allworld respectively and they wanted to come back and work with the students and learn something themselves.

We always take a strategic view of these issues, so after analyzing the competitive environment, search trends and the company's unique positioning and core strengths, the students last semester made practical suggestions to improve their clients websites.  The clients really appreciated the feedback and made changes almost immediately so they could benefit from the advice. Students then developed AdWords and social media campaigns which they implemented and measured.

Our class was even written up on Yahoo! News for our efforts.  All the clients were so happy that they agreed to come back this semester for more help and insights.  In addition, the students are helping out our own Interactive Marketing Program, which offers a Certificate in the area and teaches students paid and organic search, social media, email marketing, web site usability and testing and other real-world digital marketing skills.

This semester we are taking things a step further.  Each group right now is working on a targeted paid search campaign with a custom landing page linked to Google Analtyics as well as AdWords.  So the students will be able to provide even more analyses of their campaigns.  The students are learning how to work with IT departments to get custom landing pages put together and how to get the code that Google Analytics needs on these web pages.  I am sure they will find these skills valuable in their careers.

The second half of the semester, students will write a comprehensive social media plan for their client as well as a personal campaign for themselves, particularly highlighting how they will use Linkedin to help them in their job search.  I was just listed in the top 1% of all viewed profiles of Linkedin, so I hope this shows I am qualified to teach this material.  Of course, there are two million other people in the same category!

 Stay tuned for more news about our class and let me know if you have any questions or want to know how to hire our well-qualified graduates.  Our Internship and Job Fairs are next week and I have included a link to more information if you want to sign up.  Over 175 employers will be attending the Job Fair alone and our Interactive Students popular (we have an 85% placement rate) so don't delay getting to know these talented folks.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

Students create search/social campaigns for real clients

This semester my students in Marketing 470 are creating search and social media campaigns to help one not-for-profit (the NIU Marketing Department) and two for profit firms, Allworld Machinery Supply (a top machine tool supply firm)  in Harvard, IL and Ideosity, Inc. (a boutique web developer) based in Elgin, IL drive traffic to their site through PPC and social media campaigns.

The students work with the firm as consultants to develop the paid search strategy and then are given a budget and three weeks to implement their campaign (five for social media) for the three clients.   Both Allworld and Ideosity have NIU grads in key marketing positions.  Tim Yapp is one of the key contacts on the project for Allworld and Kalli Bravos is heading up the project for Ideosity.  Each former student is applying what they learned about search, social media, other interactive principles and general marketing knowledge on the job.  Both Rich Dase, one of the Founders and President of Ideosity, Inc. and Dave Koepp, the President of Allworld Machinery, are also intimately involved in the process.

The company presented to the students in September and the students just presented their plans for approval on October 18.  All the plans represented that the students have a deep understanding of Interactive Marketing.  I was impressed by their knowledge of the interplay between web design and search engine optimization.  The students were also able to apply their knowledge of the keyword bidding process in Google Adwords and keep in mind the companies' strategy and overall marketing objectives.  Results will be measured using Google Analytics and other key marketing metrics.

Of course, these hands-on courses are not new to the Department of Marketing or to its students.  In our Interactive Marketing courses we have done similar projects and in every course give the students a real-life learning experience. By helping students to plan, implement and measure the results of search and social media marketing campaigns, NIU gives the students a real-life learning experience that they can take on the job market and show that NIU really is "Where the Classroom Meets the Business World."

Read more about the project in the Ideosity, Inc. press release and more about our program at our web site.

Website analytics

We looked today at website analytics. I showed my google adwords account and google analytics account as well as the insight section of my YouTube account and we looked at the types of information available and the types of insights that might be made from that information. We also looked at some of the recent trends in online advertising. Online ad spending is smaller than last year but growing overall. Sponsorship and mobile marketing are on the upswing and most results can be attributed to search and older media rather than social media and some of the new media....analytics are lagging changes in technology. Traditional ways of looking at web analytics include number os unique visits, pages of visits and traffic source. A landing page is a good way to tie a campaign to a particiular web page to track the results. Some analytics, such as page views and time on the site, can be misleading, as people might just spend time on the site but not really be engaged on the web site. "Bounce rate" with a web site means when the user leaves the site. There are so many metrics and so many possibilities. Some good rules include, always test, look at trends, track key metrics and set goals. We also talked about the difference between data, information and knowledge and how markters want to create databases that can be used to gain customer knowledge for better offers and relationships with customers.