Hootlet: Hootsuite’s Newest Gem

As one of the newest Hootsuite University Certified Professionals, I give the program two thumbs way up! Hootsuite has a free version as well as paid one, and even if your business is small, I believe checking out Hootsuite’s dashboard at the very least could make a real difference in the efficiency of your company’s time spent on social media marketing.

As if this dashboard that helps you organize, schedule, track, and monitor your content across multiple social media platforms wasn’t already the best “right hand man” around, earlier this month Hootsuite released the Hootlet app. No more toggling from window to window or tab to tab when you are searching the web for the best way to share your content with the world. Hootlet takes out all of the hassle and makes sharing content to your followers one step, instead of a few.

For example, let’s just say you want to share my awesome chili recipe with your followers on Twitter and Facebook. All you have to do is click the Hootlet icon in the right hand, upper corner of the screen, and you can send my recipe to all of your followers on multiple platforms at once.

Click here to see how easy it is to share any webpage with Hootlet!

You can also share YouTube videos across multiple platforms by clicking the “Share with Hootlet” icon.

Click here to see how easy it is to share YouTube videos on multiple social media platforms with Hootlet!

Here are a few other features that Hootlet has to offer:

• The option to schedule a post at a later date.
• If you aren’t sure when is the best time to schedule your posts, an auto schedule option is available that chooses the optimal time to post your content.
• When you search the web with keywords on Google, Hootlet shows tweets that are relevant to your search on the right hand side of the screen. highlighting your search’s social media relevance.

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• Hootlet also allows you to pull up tweets from around the location of a business listing or from Google maps. You can then reply to a tweet right from the browser or add this search as a stream to your Hootsuite dashboard for further monitoring.
  

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• Highlighting a section of text and then right clicking on it will give you the option to directly quote the highlighted area with Hootlet. You can then send it out to whichever social networks you choose.

If you want to see what we’ve talked about in action, here’s a short one minute walk through of how Hootlet works.

Sincerely,

Amanda

Social Gaming: A New Venue for Marketing

I have to admit, I’m kind of a nerd. I didn’t grow up on video games, but somewhere in my early 20’s I stumbled upon World of Warcraft and I totally became a big nerd for a while. If you are unfamiliar with W.O.W. it is a MMORPG, or Massively Multiplayer Online Roll-Playing Game. With over 11 million subscribers, you could call it the epitome of social gaming. Inevitably I eventually realized that I needed to find a more productive way to spend my time rather than riding around on an over-sized ostrich in a fantasy world killing things and trying to get better gear for my Blood Elf Paladin. ( If you’re clueless, it’s alright. Just don’t ask.) I’ll just say it was fun while it lasted.

There are many facets to social gaming, which centers around competitors who interact in an online community that has predetermined rules and goals. If you’re starting to wonder what any of this has to do with social media marketing, let me give you an example.

In-Game Static/Display Advertising

Have you ever been playing Call of Duty and upon running in to an advertisement for a Big Mac you had to run out to the 24 hour McDonald’s down the street? The subconscious can be a powerful motivator. A study by Nielsen Entertainment found that brand familiarity rose 64 percent in study participants after exposure to in-game ads. Purchase consideration also increased by 41 percent in this study.

Social games offer a very specific targeted audience for your brand marketing. A “hardcore gamer” (a gamer who has highly advanced skills and must invest extended periods of time into each game-play session) is so immersed within a game, that real world venues and advertisements are necessary to make the game environment believable. Display ads like the one above are a simple way to place your product into a game. You can also use script placements/verbal mentions. These work best in games like Madden NFL who has partnered with Old Spice and Snickers.

On the other hand, casual gamers play games like Words With Friends while riding the bus or waiting at the laundromat.  Casual gamers also enjoy games like Candy Crush and Farmville that are connected to Facebook. These games don’t require a lot of time to play and are easy to learn.

I feel it is an oversight on my part that up to this point I’ve overlooked the marketing potential social gaming has to offer. With games offering small target audiences and ads being relatively inexpensive, there may be a spot for your brand. Gaming isn’t just for teenage boys anymore. The average gamer has 12 years of gaming experience under their belt and is 34 years old. Games within the context of social media platforms opened up a whole new breed of casual gamers that includes more women and older consumers, not just younger males

Yours Truly,

Amanda

Six-Word Memoirs: Not Quite What I Was Planning

Sitting in my lit class last week with a smirk on my face, I was feeling skeptical. The topic was “six-word memoirs,” and I was unsure I was going to be able to write one. Well, one that wasn’t terrible anyway. How in the world are you supposed to tell your life story in six words?

As our professor started reading a few aloud from the book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, I was pretty amazed at the funny, emotional, sarcastic, and thoughtful content the authors were able to pack into six short words.

• What the hell, might as well.
• Most successful accomplishments based on spite.
• Forgot to say I loved her.
• Oklahoma girl meets world. Regrets it.
• Time to start over again, again.
• Foreign, even to my home country.
• Hard beginning. Harder middle. Happy ending.
• Expected prime rib, ended with hamburger.

“Literary legend” states that Ernest Hemingway was once tasked with writing a short story in only six words. Hemingway’s short story read, “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.” This one sentence has the ability to send your mind in many different directions. Makes you think, doesn’t it? SMITH Magazine took Hemingway’s accomplishment and ran with it. Today, over 700,000 people have submitted their own short memoirs on SMITH Magazine’s website, Six Word Memoirs. Some of the memoirs on the site are even accompanied by pictures.

This is what I really love about all creative writing. It has the ability to make us think and spark our imaginations– whether we’re writing or reading it.  I may take away something that is completely different than the person sitting next to me when we both read the six-word memoir, I don’t nibble, I bite hard. What if this memoir was written a bit differently? I don’t nibble, I bite. Hard. Do you interpret the author’s meaning with a different connotation?

My first try at a six-word memoir went something like this: hope and passion, always a necessity. If you know me personally, this may make sense to you. If you don’t, you may take my thoughts in a completely different direction than the one I was going for. I love that!

I will leave you with a charge to reply and post your own six-word memoir in the comment section below. Here is one of the more thought provoking six-word memoirs that I have read so far to get you going.

I will never be quite finished.

Yours Truly,

Amanda

Social Media Monitoring: Learning to Handle the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A study done by The Social Habit revealed that 42% of customers expect a response within 60 minutes when in contact with a brand, product, or company on social media. What’s even more shocking is that 32% of respondents reveled they expect a response within 30 minutes of posting a complaint on social media. Talk about impatient customers! The infographic below breaks down the time expectancy of consumers even further.

Now more than ever, companies large and small need to jump on-board with the many social media monitoring tools (SMM) that are ready and waiting to aid in responding to customers, monitoring feedback, streamlining posts between platforms, and analyzing data. These include dashboards that help monitor content across multiple social media platforms in real-time like Hootsuite, as well as other SMM that monitor social media influence, analytics, and marketing like Klout.

The fact is your customers are screaming, and creating their own dialogue about your business via the internet and social media.  Customer mentions, reviews or criticisms about your products and services, whether good, bad or ugly, need to be responded to personally and professionally, and immediately. –Newtrep Media

The infographic below gives insights on what some businesses are already doing with SMM and some of the best free and paid tools that you should give a whirl.

The gap between social media monitoring for personal and professional use is large. Let’s take a look at a simple and free site that can help demonstrate this difference. Kred is a website that gives an influence score from 0-1000 mainly focusing on interaction with your posts from other users who have also signed up for Kred. The next score measures outreach shown as a ratio, with 12 being the cap. For example, my influence score is 492/1000, and my outreach score is 4/12. When signed in to your Kred account, charts are available showing the location of users that are interacting with your profiles, your most popular mentions and posts, top communities you are involved in, as as well as other useful graphs on social media influence.

Here are the most mentioned words about me in the last month on Kred. I find it interesting that the first word is awesome! 🙂 Imagine If these mentions were about your business. You can track the most popular topics and trends that your fans are using in relation to your business from month to month. This could be very helpful to lead you in the right direction for all of your business’ marketing and advertising campaigns.

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Whether you’re spending zero to 100 dollars per month on social media monitoring or over 10,000, you have to start somewhere! Give a free platform a try today, and move your way up! You will literally be able to see your business’ growth with analytical charts and graphs provided by these SMM tools. Good luck!

Best Wishes,

Amanda

Related articles

• How to choose the right social media monitoring platform (prdaily.com)
• 50 Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring, Analytics, and Management (socialmediatoday.com)
• Social Media Monitoring (zedrington.wordpress.com)

Comfort Cooking

When I first tried my hand at cooking when I was around the age of 10 or 11, my favorite thing to do was put in the spices. I liked to crush the dried leaves between my fingers. I liked to stir the pot, sample, and then add more spices (and then more…). I hated measuring anything! I liked the experience of adding different spices until I decided that everything was just right. I grew up in the country, so most of these dishes were pretty simple. Spaghetti sauce is what sticks out in my mind as being my favorite “guinea pig” as a kid. For whatever reason, when I look back at my first experiences with cooking, this is what I remember: spices.

I moved out on my own to Louisville when I was 20. I started to seek out new types of cuisine, watch cooking shows, and experiment in the kitchen. I wont say I’ve become a master chef by any means, but I have learned that cooking relaxes me. I know there are some people who probably think I am absolutely insane for saying this, but sometimes after a long day at work or school, all I want to do is go home and cook. I zone out! Every other worry goes out the window– except for maybe deciding on what I’m going to chop next. Whether I’m actually in the kitchen cooking, or I’m just brainstorming for my next trip to the grocery by looking up recipes on Pinterest when I can’t sleep at 3 A.M, time flies by when I’m thinking about food.

Here are a few surefire tips I’ve learned over the years when it comes to cooking. Some of these may be a refresher course if you already know your way around the kitchen, but I have to make sure everyone has the basics down. 🙂 (I’ve also included a few awesome recipes!)

1. When you’re cooking any type of meat, in any dish, from African Peanut Stew to Emeril’s White Bean Turkey Chili, don’t forget to season your meat with salt and pepper. It makes all the difference in the world!
2. Always go light on the rosemary. It can overpower any dish!
3. If you like heat in your dishes like I do (and I mean heat in scoville units, not temperature), use fresh ingredients like jalapenos or serrano peppers without removing the inner white part of the pepper (a.k.a. capsaicin). This is where all the “heat” is, and your food will have a lot more kick if you use fresh ingredients during the cooking process, rather than just adding hot sauce after the fact.
4. Fresh basil makes everything Italian ten times better!
5. A few dashes of liquid smoke make green beans amazing (or anything else you want to add a hint of smokiness to).
6. Chili is an exercise in throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a pot. I’m sure you all have your own methods for the basic pot of chili. Next time don’t forget to throw in a few squirts of your favorite mustard, ketchup, bbq sauce, a couple pinches of brown sugar, a splash of vinegar, a few clips of cilantro stems (or ground cardamum), and a dash of cinnamon. Most importantly, instead of adding water before you let your chili reduce down, add a dark beer or a large cup of coffee to the mix. Do NOT do this if you don’t have time to let the chili meld together. This requires AT LEAST two hours and I prefer four or more for the best fusion of flavors.

This was dinner tonight. Might not be the prettiest Instagram shot ever, but it’s my favorite way to kick off some fall weather, unwind after a long school day, and warm up my insides!

Thanks,

Amanda

Indiana Caverns: Some Dreams Do Come True

My Dad’s First Book

I grew up in southern Indiana. I’m definitely a country girl at heart (this by no means includes country music), although I’ve become used to what you could call “city life,” since I’ve lived in Louisville for the last ten years.

Besides seeing my family more often, the only thing I miss about living in the country is being surrounded by nature. I miss being able to see the stars at night, fields of grass (not just patches), creeks that are clean enough to swim in, climbing trees, walking in the woods, and caves. When most of you think of nature, caves may be the farthest thing from your mind. There is definitely a reason that I do think of caves.

Since the first time my Dad went into a cave as a Boy Scout when he was 11 years old, his passion in life has been caving. He’s the type of person you’re sort of jealous of because they found a hobby that they were able to turn into a career, and then make all their dreams come true.

Soon after my Dad graduated from Vanderbilt University, he and a few of his friends were hired to develop (entailing, digging, blasting, and building trails inside a cave so it can be opened for public tours) Squire Boone Caverns.  This took the team three years of slogging through the mud on weekends and resulted in a great opportunity for my Dad.

A few months after they finished the project in 1973, he became a part owner and general manager of Marengo Cave. This is where I spent most of my childhood. I ran around in the woods, went horseback riding, and followed cave tours until I was old enough to be a tour guide myself. It was an awesome way to grow up. I was a lucky kid, plus having the experience of working in public relations at such a young age was a great asset for my future.

The cave and above ground property were completely redeveloped in the 27 years my family owned it. Unfortunately my Dad’s vision for Marengo began to diverge from his partner’s over the years, and my Mom and Dad made the decision to sell their half in 2001.

Our story doesn’t end here though. This past June my Dad was able to complete his dream of developing a third cave from the ground up. My Dad began surveying in Binkley’s Cave with his buddies back in the late 60’s, and after almost 50 years, a section of this cave is finally open to the public. Development was a rough year of grueling 12 hour days for my Dad and his crew. I was eternally glad to see the project completed. You know there are always a few hiccups with an undertaking this large. Apparently developing a cave at the age of 66 is a little different from when you are in your early 20’s. You think?!

Boat Ride in Indiana Caverns

When Indiana Caverns opened June 15, 2013, it was the 11th largest cave in the United States. Exploration of new passages has been ongoing, and a few weeks ago, Indiana Caverns moved up to the 9th longest cave in the U.S.

We can all learn about true passion and commitment from my Dad. If you want to check out his dream come true, Indiana Caverns is located about 35 minutes from Louisville in Corydon, Indiana.

Best Wishes,

Amanda

Social Consumers: For Better or For Worse

Only a few short years ago, I remember always taking the free phone option when my cell phone contract was up. Why in the world would I need to buy an expensive phone? The free phones work just fine for me. I have a laptop and a PC. How could I possibly need the internet on my phone?

My life definitely changed when I bought the first Motorola Droid. I could now be even lazier. Instead of getting out my laptop to pay my bills, I could just pay them on my phone. I could listen to Pandora whenever I wanted to, watch YouTube, download books, or browse ebay. What was I thinking living in the dark ages without a smartphone?

Regardless of the $30 per month internet charge that I wasn’t used to, it was obvious that there was no going back to the old flip phone after my first smartphone. Life had changed, for better or for worse.

We are all social consumers in some way this day and age. This means we leave a digital footprint everywhere we use the internet. Whether you share photos from your afternoon at the park with your followers on Instagram, or use Twitter to vote for your favorite act on America’s Got Talent, you are leaving a trail of your digital self behind you. Marketers follow this trail so they can lie in wait with the best ads to interest you.

A few weeks ago the director of digital media for the University of Louisville, Jeff Rushton, came to speak to my social media class. I had never really thought much about algorithms coupled with social media. He explained how algorithms for Facebook or Google control what banner ads we’re shown, as well as what posts we see on our news feed. We don’t see all of our friends posts in our news feed anymore, only what Facebook’s algorithm decides is relevant for us.

Rushton told us that the previous weekend his wife was using her laptop in the office at their home, while he was working in another room. Rushton said he wasn’t using any social media sites at the time, but Papa Johns ads started popping up. He called into the other room, asking his wife what she was up to. She was apparently on Papa Johns’ website picking out what kind of pizza to order for family dinner. Rushton explained that Google knows he and his wife are married, connects their home IP address, and instantaneously put two and two together.

Smartphones have taken us to a new level of social consumption and connectivity. Now more than ever, many people are actually addicted to the social networks that we have come to rely on, on a day to day basis.  Companies have round the clock employees who are ready to answer our questions through web chat programs or engagement with hashtags to respond to customer service questions.

This infographic shows how social sharing effects us as consumers.

When you’re in a new city and want to find the best pizza joint, previously you may have asked the desk clerk at your hotel for a recommendation. Now, most of us will check Urbanspoon or Yelp to see what restaurant has the best reviews or the most stars.

Our generation is completely immersed and there is no going back now. What would we do without being socially connected constantly? Really? What would we do. Our technologically advanced world has broadened our horizons, but don’t forget to talk to the person you’re eating lunch with instead of browsing your Twitter feed or playing Words With Friends on your phone.

Thanks for Reading,

Amanda

Be a Creator, Not Just a Consumer

Every time I meet someone new who is truly passionate about their career it inspires me all over again to keep my head down and get where I need to be to start the journey down my own career path. Our guest speaker today in my social media class was Adam Lefkoe, a WHAS 11 sports anchor, who has made made a few waves as of late. In case you missed his last viral sensation, here’s a link to Leftkoe’s “Rapcast” that has over 400k hits on YouTube.

I’m sure there are a few of you that aren’t totally into rap music and some of these references may have gone over your head. Yes? Well, let me break it down for you. Adam was able to fit in 46 rap references in a segment that was just over five and a half minutes long. For example,  let’s say you’re a big Harry Potter fan. Imagine fitting in 46 references to Harry Potter in a five and half minute speech. Though it is fun to say “Expecto Patronum,” and I’ve seen the movies a million times, this would still be a difficult task.

These are a few of the concepts I came away with after today’s lecture.

• You will never make everyone happy when you are creating content. Someone may love your blog post, speech, or article, but the next guy may have absolutely loathed it. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles. If you receive a negative comment, don’t be afraid to respond to that person and find out why they weren’t a fan of your work. You may be able to change their mind or give them new insight on what it was you were going for in the first place.
• Never stare at success. Just because you received some positive feedback, doesn’t mean you should stop being creative. Enjoy your success, but learn from it and continue to improve because of it.
• Don’t just consume- create. The internet has become a place where we “take other people’s stuff” by linking to their content. Create your own content. This way it can become what other people want to link back to.
• Remember your purpose. Don’t make content with the idea in mind that you want it to go viral. That’s not the point. The point is to be creative and different.
• Lastly, know your own voice. Be yourself. Just because you want to be taken seriously doesn’t mean you have to write like a professional all the time.

Lefkoe spoke to us about life, not just where we need to be after graduation to get our own personal dream job. It’s more than that. He encouraged us to branch out and try something new. Maybe that something is in a new city, state, or country. Meet new people. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Take the time to find out who we are and what our inner voice has to say. Whether we like it or not, for most of us, our careers may become the most defining factor in our lives (or at least pretty far up on the list). We might as well find a way to have a little fun while we’re supporting our families and doing responsible grown up stuff.

Cheers,

Amanda

Modernism in America Post WWI

Although I am in my senior year at the University of Louisville, I somehow had the bright idea to take most of my core communication classes before my general education classes. This probably has something to do with communication being my fourth major. Once I found what I enjoy, I was excited to learn about a field I’m interested in, what can I say? The problem is, it’s been 11 years since I wore my high school cap and gown. Plainly, some of the topics I’m studying this time around have become a bit fuzzy or are completely new to me. Can’t wait for statistics and biology next semester! (Can you sense the dripping sarcasm?)

That being said, I was excited to have a spot left for an introduction to literature class before graduating from U of L next year. I love to read, but I can’t really allow myself to read for fun when I’m in school and working full-time. For me, being forced to read classic American literature by a professor is something I actually like. 🙂

Our class just finished reading Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life by Sherwood Anderson. Anderson published this work in 1919, and it is regarded as one of the first American works of post WWI Modernism. Winesburg, Ohio was birthed from the aftermath of WWI and the subsequent artistic shift to modernism. Anderson went on to influence authors such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. Sadly, Anderson never achieved the same acclaim that his mentees were eventually met with.

Modernism can be defined as a conscious break from traditional forms of artistic expression. Artists and writers were utterly discouraged by the government’s response to the rampant death the world had experienced after WWI.  Experimentation ensued by artists and writers alike with the rejection of Victorian ideals and values. For example, high rhetoric, or language that was unlike normal conversation, was replaced with everyday conversational language. Radical topics like sex and infidelity were now broached in literature, where they hadn’t been previously. Many of the works in this time period were very dark in nature.

My professor did an interesting exercise with the class to help us understand why Winesburg, Ohio and other works of the time may have been so bleak. I will warn you that the statistics I am going to present are dismal, but the exercise made an impression on me that would only work if we were charged to compare America’s past and present states.

Before discussing the book, my professor asked us a few questions about two wars that have happened in our time: the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. First we were asked to write down our round-about guesses of the casualties for both sides in these two wars. Then we were asked to write down how many casualties we thought there were in WWI.

When the class polled our answers, it was apparent that most of us, myself included, had guessed the number of casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to be significantly larger than they are in actuality. On the other hand, the actual number of casualties in WWI blew away what we had guessed. Here are a few of the numbers that made an impression on me.

Fatalities

• Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom): 4,486  (U.S.)
• Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom): 2280 (U.S.) (Through 9/23/13)
• WWI: U.S. – 126, 000, Britain – 908,371, Russia – 1,700,000, France – 1,357,800, Italy – 650,000, Germany – 1,773,700

Casualties (deaths, wounded, POW, missing) in WWI

• United States: 323,018
• Britain: 3,190,235
• France: 6,160,800
• Russia: 9,150,000
• Italy: 2,197,000
• Germany: 7,142,558

Over 65 million troops were mobilized in WWI and 57.5% of those mobilized resulted in casualties. Because of the technological and medical advances our world has seen since WWI, it would almost be impossible to rival the devastation this war left behind. I chose to write on this topic because I have seen the trials and heartache that America has faced in the wars of my lifetime, so I can not even imagine what it would have been like to have lived through the aftermath of WWI. By no way do I mean to discredit our soldiers now by this comparison, I just have a much better understanding of why many art-forms and ideals changed in general after WWI.

Thanks for Reading,

Amanda

Information + Graphics = Infographics?

When I saw the word infographic on my strategic communications writing syllabus last semester, I was kind of dumbfounded at first. Info what? I immediately polled my friends and family to see if we were in the same uninformed boat. I soon realized that we all knew what an infographic looked like, we just didn’t know that these pictures, numbers, and words woven together were called infographics.

You can make an infographic out of anything. Let’s start with a simple one. How about famous movie quotes?

Infographics are a great way to share statistics and numerical values.

With a little precision, more complex statistics can also be displayed through various charts and graphs.

There is a method to the madness when visually representing information in an infographic. Just because you put graphics and information together on one page doesn’t mean you’ve created a vehicle that relays its content effectively.

So how do you relay this information to your audience successfully? How many times have you looked at an infographic that seems to have no beginning or end? Your eyes roam around the page looking for something, anything, to catch your attention and show you where to begin. This brings to mind the law of thirds in photography. What can you do to draw the eye of your audience? Visualization starts here.

The Law of Thirds: Example #1

Example #2

Example #3

Using infographics for content marketing has been around for a few years now, but some of us are still catching up . If we start with what draws the eye, we can move on to find the most effective way to organize and structure the infographic that’s right for you.

Lists are a great way to organize information, while giving the reader a path to follow. This was my first attempt at an infographic for my parents’ business, Indiana Caverns.

Using a comparison layout is also an effective way to construct infographics.

Why is it more fun to read about pandas when the words are shaped like an actual panda? This is called a typography infographic.

Flow charts help engage your audience. They allow the viewer to choose their own path and come to their own conclusion. It’s like a choose your own adventure book– just a bit shorter.

These are only a few ideas to get you brainstorming for your next infographic project. The possibilities are literally endless! For more resources on infographic layouts:

• http://www.orphicpixel.com/10-types-of-infographics-to-perfectly-visualize-money-matters/
• http://www.bitrebels.com/design/8-types-of-infographics-use-when/
• http://neomam.com/infographics/the-8-types-of-infographic/

Infographics are a medium, so amazing content makes an amazing infographic. Emotional appeal, concrete visuals, credible data points, and in the end, amazing art work, all go into an excellent infographic. – Dave Snyder

Take Care,

Amanda