Khloe is Sick

 Of all the tribulations of being the owner of two active dogs, them being sick is probably the most difficult. I do not mean this from an actual work perspective as much as I do from an emotional perspective. Seeing them not feeling well absolutely breaks my heart, because I want to help them but I do not know how. This past weekend was one of those instances.

 I woke up Saturday morning at about eight in the morning to find that my bed had been surrounded by a moat of vomit. I then looked up from the puddles to find Khloe looking directly at me as if to say, “my tummy hurts.” While I remain adamant that this is more emotionally tiresome than physically, the vomit still was quite a hassle to clean up. Even with my heavy duty carpet-cleaner, it took a solid hour to make my carpet look as though there wasn’t a bomb that went off on it.

 After a very fun hour of cleaning vomit, I then tended to Khloe’s needs. I made her drink water, tried to get her to eat (albeit unfruitfully) and tried to lighten her spirits with some pets. While she did drink water, it did not help her attitude about the day. Khloe spent the entirety of Saturday laying on the couch with her head in her paws huffing, and seemed to have the mentality that nothing was going to deter her from doing so. All that time Apollo was the equal and opposite. He was bounding with youthful energy, constantly wanting to play and to interact with his grumpy sister. Once I knew Khloe was going to be okay, I gave Apollo the time of day and played with him for a good hour or so. Then my mom got home and was able to sit with Khloe and form a covalent bond on the couch with her.

 At the end of the day Khloe finally got up from her spot on the couch and ate. This was a relief to me and my family who had been worrying that she would not until the next day. Then she briefly took a drink of water and receded into my bedroom to call an end to her bad day. The next morning Khloe was the same Khloe I always knew. She was energetic, hungry and her normal self. Yet that still did not take away from the bad day that was yesterday, as well as the trauma of cleaning up those oceans of vomit.

Facebook: A World of Opportunity

 We all know Facebook for its reputation of being the social media platform for the elderly, but we fail to acknowledge it for what it truly is. Facebook is a marvel of human ingenuity and a beacon for marketers looking for an opportunity to get ideas out there in a quick, affordable and understandable way.

 For starters, Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform in the world. With over 2.91 billion monthly users, Facebook absolutely dwarfs the competition in terms of usage and is versatile in that it is popular on a global basis. Wherever there is a popular concept such as this, marketers should immediately be looking in that direction for their advertising ideas. 2.91 billion monthly users could quickly become millions of people directed towards whatever one is trying to market on that platform.

 

The way to go concerning marketing on Facebook is viewing how posts are doing via their intuitive business suite. Here, one can post and schedule postings, access a commerce manager, view activity on any Meta accounts, view insights into how posts are doing and create ads. With this easy-to-use interface, managing social media marketing becomes a breeze as everything is made accessible through neatly organized metrics displayed upon the screen. Rather than diving through statistics oneself, Meta produces the statistics for the content producer, allowing users to easily manage, organize and promote their content. This is not even mentioning the paid-advertising feature that is on Facebook, which allows users to pay (at a rather cheap price) for their content to be shared with other users as an advertisement. These will show up on feeds more often, allowing more exposure.

 Overall it is evident why Facebook is held with such a high regard in the digital marketing community. With an easy interface to manage marketing alongside a very large and diverse audience, ideas can flow easily and effectively via this platform. Facebook definitely receives high-honors in my book from a business angle!

 

A Riveting Chapter Three

 Marketing on social media platforms is one of the most effective ways of spreading a business’s message today, and this chapter of Essentials of Social Media Marketing explained that remarkably well. I feel much more well informed about not only why social media is a fantastic marketing platform, but how it can become utilized to its maximum potential via targeting markets and optimizing social media platforms in order to coordinate a good social media marketing plan.

 Establishing a target market is crucial to marketing effectively on social media. This concept is all about identifying demographics of people that would be most interested in your good or service. These could include age, gender, behaviors, spending habits, and many other identifiable characteristics online. After this, one can make a company persona of the top traits of their target market and market from there. This is so important because it sets a foundation for the rest of a marketing strategy to set upon. Without identifying the target market, marketing would be unfocused, uncoordinated, and most importantly ineffective.

 Different social media platforms have different strengths and weaknesses. We see this by the demographics that use them. A common example is that younger people tend to lean towards Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, while older people tend to stick to Facebook. We, as marketers, can use this information to optimize the way we market on different platforms. The book did an excellent job of showing which networks are good at marketing for certain industries based upon how they present information on their specific platforms. For example, Pinterest is a great platform for the Health and Beauty industry due to its prominent visual components, but it is lacking in the Finance industry due to its lack of textual focus. Finding what social media platform is the correct one to market for your specific industry is crucial to a good marketing plan.

 Overall, it’s not the social media networks themselves that provide marketing opportunity, but rather the way we use them that provides that opportunity. By making the correct choices and being selective in matching our target demographics with the appropriate social media platform, we as marketers can establish an effective plan to bring our product to the people most likely to engage in it. I have learned a lot about social media marketing this chapter.

These Crazy Dogs!

Today was a wacky day to say the least. Apollo and Khloe got into some mischief that had my hair falling out in clumps! Today started off like any other day in my existence. I woke up, I took them out to go potty, and then I allowed them to stay outside to play while I got ready for my exciting classes at Ohio Northern University. After getting ready, I took them back inside and said my goodbyes to them as I embarked upon my educational journey. Classes were going well today, I love my Interpersonal Communications class and my rehearsals for University Singers got cancelled so I was having a fantastic day. It was when I arrived home that my world flipped upside down.

 When I walked in the door of my lovely home the dogs immediately rushed past my feet to a nearby tree in the front yard while the door was open. There, atop the tree, sat a fat squirrel that was the bane of my dogs’ existences in that moment. I tried to corral them, but it was already too late. They made a break for the squirrel. I rushed out after them but then they immediately thought that we were playing a game and dashed down the street as fast as they could. Needless to say, I was not amused. I chased after them as fast as my feet could carry, but alas it proved fruitless. The dogs were D1, 6’4” wide receivers for the University of Washington in that moment, while I was still a 5’10” scrawny white boy from Ohio. I was in pursuit for many minutes that seemed like hours, hoping that they would not get hit by any oncoming vehicles. Eventually they ran to Shawnee High School, which is just down the road from me, and they quickly found the school’s track and field which was full of, believe or not, high schoolers. When I saw that they were running for the track my heart nearly stopped. What if they bit someone? What if someone bit them? What if biting occurred in general? Lots of biting was running through my head when one of them stopped to go number two right before they got to the field. Now was my chance! Like a lion stalking prey, I bounded over to who I could now see was Apollo and grabbed onto him by his collar while I had the chance. I had one now, but the problem that came about was how could I get Khloe while still hanging onto Apollo. This problem was solved by the middle-aged man (approximately 39 years old) across the street. He must’ve seen my plight through his window. I had my back turned to his house wrangling Apollo when I heard his heroic voice boom, “I’ll save you, stranger!” He sprinted across his front yard and safely yet swiftly grabbed Khloe by her collar. I thanked this man for his courage in the face of two pitbulls, and took my dogs back to my house.

 When we got home, I finally breathed a sigh of relief, and the dogs were panting like they had run a marathon; because in all reality, it felt like we did. As they were getting a drink of water, I did as well. Then I lied down and contemplated my life choices that lead to this experience, and as the day died I fell softly asleep.

Apollo and Khloe Playing

 Like any other dog Apollo and Khloe like to go outside. I don’t blame them either, there are so many more smells to smell, tastes to taste, and sights to see. Normally every day I come home from ONU I let them outside so they can get some energy out, but this can go in a variety of different ways. They will either put their everything into terrorizing squirrels in the trees in our back yard, put their efforts into playing with me, or have a relaxing time sniffing the yard. Today was the second of these options. My dogs play a little differently than most dogs. While most dogs like to play fetch or play tug-of-war, my dogs prefer contact sports. So, them being boxers, will box with me. Whenever I turn away from them for even a second I will hear sprinting towards me and two paws spearing into my back. That’s when I know it’s on. In response I chased them around the yard today, letting them run after me after a while until they spear me again. In all honesty sometimes the physical nature of playing with them hurts. On more than one occasion I’ve been left with several scars on my arms from their claws, but they don’t mean it harmfully so I don’t take it as such.

 After we run around for a bit, I always end playtime with them with Apollo’s favorite game. So, I went to get my tennis racquet and a tennis ball and go to the back yard. Immediately, Apollo was jumping with excitement. His favorite game consists of me serving the tennis ball into our home’s brick wall and letting him chase after it. As a boxer he has a large prey drive so this is something that he gets a lot out of. We played this game for an especially long time today because Apollo just solemnly refused to get tired. Out of sheer tyranny of will he continued chasing the ball and bringing it back to me. I sincerely think he ran close to half a mile over this half hour, just back and forth chasing tennis balls. He loved every minute of it.

After Apollo’s tennis excursion was over, I took the dogs back inside to get some water. They immediately soaked it up like sponges and laid on the couch to get some rest. I also took this opportunity to rest and laid in my bed and watched The Big Lebowski. On the whole, today was a good day for my dogs. 

Interviewing a Social Media Expert

 For my Social Media Marketing class I was asked to interview a social media expert and make a podcast of that interview. This was a completely new experience to me that brought about a lot of questions initially. What exactly is a social media expert? Who would I ask? How does one go about editing and producing a podcast? Luckily for me, the first two of these questions were easily answered. I quickly figured out what an “expert,” in social media would be someone who makes a living off of it. Someone who actually knows about social media enough to make it their livelihood. I was lucky enough to actually have someone like this in my family. That being my cousin-in-law Emily Brock, an accomplished marketer who currently is working in pharmaceutical marketing at a company in New York. She works remotely so I was able to go to her house in Lima to interview her. Talk about an opportunity to learn!

 I went to Emily’s house at about 8 P.M to get started, and I wasn’t even fully aware of her immense experience in social media marketing specifically until I began the interview. As it turned out, Emily prior to working in pharmaceutical actually was a social media coordinator for most of the fast food industry of Lima, Ohio. Big names like Arby’s, Burger King, and others reached out to her hoping to gain some ground in the quickly evolving social media landscape. Needless to say, these credentials made me excited for what I was about to learn.

 And learn I did. I asked Emily a series of questions regarding her experiences with issues in social media, and for every single one it was as if she had a script that she was reading from. It was all so detailed for it being on the spot, it was truly remarkable to see her talk about these things for minutes at a time without stopping for a second thought. She told me the details of how Meta makes marketing with social much easier, such as how bots work to produce immediate responses to customers on social media. Another question I asked her was over the threat of negative feedback via social media and she had a great deal to comment on surrounding that. She told me that a good marketer never shuts off their comments and responses to social media posts because shutting down criticism is just as bad as it being there to see. To see a company’s social media shut off comments takes away a lot of credibility due to the fact that rather than rectifying issues with customers in the comments they choose to simply put them out of view. I agreed from a consumer perspective completely, as I have seen this kind of behavior on social media before and I also found it very shady.

I wish that I had more time than 5 minutes to let her continue talking about her experiences in social media, because her knowledge of the field was truly remarkable.  The show notes were as follows: Introduce Emily and allow her to explain her credibility to the audience, ask Emily two or three questions concerning issues in social media, asking her the positives of social media marketing, and also a constant reminder to put my feedback in from the consumer perspective. It is no wonder why she is considered an expert in her field. That concluded the interview and I drove home, left in awe of all I had just learned.

Blogs, Vlogs, Frogs (Just Kidding No Frogs)

 This week in my social media marketing class we discussed blogs, vlogs, webinars and how to use these social media devices to market. For starters, I had no knowledge of the world of blogging, vlogging or anything of the sort. Sure, I’ve watched my share of YouTube vlogs in my time, but to say I knew anything of how to make them effective content would be a major stretch.

 Luckily, this chapter was more than informative. For starters this chapter is very helpful to me because of the fact that I have to blog regularly in class. The blogging section of chapter 12 had a very helpful section about how to make your blog more successful. One tip that I never thought about was that just like other forms of writing that may be more academic, blogs have a format that is followed to increase their chances of success. Eye catching titles followed by interesting, summarizing introduction lead to a much better reception by an audience. Not only this, but littering the body paragraphs of the blog with explosive key words that are searched regularly online is another fantastic way of gaining a following. I personally never got into blogging much at all, however I had always had a concrete image in my head that they were something casual to the point of format being out of the question. I always pictured successful blogs and vlogs as something casual that somehow accidentally gained a major following and eventual success. Now I can see how wrong I was, and truly how much effort goes into producing these kinds of posts.

 With that being said, does this make me enjoy blogs? Being honest, not really. I already have a problem picking up my textbooks when I’m outside of class, so naturally enjoying some extra reading in my private time is not something I’m very excited about. I’m just not a huge fan of 1

^st person narratives that are not of the fictional variety. I find them rather boring, it’s like reliving my own life as a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book and I just took a different direction. However while my interest in blogs may not have spiked, my respect for them did. There are many more intricacies than what I had initially given these posts credit. I thought of them as something simple, but it is evident that they are complex in their own right. This chapter has overall reshaped my opinion of the blogging universe online

Living to Eat, Not Eating to Live

I love Apollo. I really do, he’s my best friend and I’d do anything for him. However, I have to admit that he has an unhealthy relationship with food. Ever since he was small enough to fit into the palm of my hand, Apollo has shown that he lives to eat rather than eats to live. Be it the food in his bowl, treats or food that the people in the house eat, if there is food nearby that is Apollo’s only focus. He has even gone so far as to identify what certain foods’ English words are so that he can perhaps get a bite. Pizza has been his resounding favorite over the years, and as a result pizza has been the victim of many food-nappings in our house.

Take last night for example, my parents brought home two pizzas from Beer Barrel to eat and like any other family they set the pizza on the counter. Rookie mistake. As soon as they turned their back to the pizza Apollo snuck carefully into the kitchen, examined the counter for his target swiftly knocked the pizza off of the counter to eat it. I honestly believe that in the 5 years of having him this exact scenario has happened enough times to reach double digits. His sister Khloe, however, has never had this problem. She is patient in her pursuit of food. Whenever we have dinner, while Apollo is trying to get his face as close to our plates as possible Khloe sits patiently beside the table. She only looks up at us as if to say “please,” but never would venture upon taking any food for herself without the explicit permission of the people at the table. It is crazy to me just how different my dogs’
temperaments are when it comes to food.

 And this behavior carries on much further than just food. Anything that is interesting to Apollo’s eye will be eventually meet his mouth. This has included anything from toys, to leaves, to the most unfortunate of them all: pills. There was one day a long time ago when I came home from school to find that Apollo had eaten most of a bottle of ibuprofen. Needless to say I was freaking out, and immediately I made him drink peroxide in hopes to make him vomit out the toxic pills. To my delight, nearly none of the pills had disintegrated in his stomach and he actually did not have symptoms after the fact. But, this story goes to prove my point that absolutely nothing is off limits. I love Apollo, I really do, but sometimes I just wish he would eat to live, rather than live to eat.