Reviewing Performance of Campaigns

If you have created a blog or a Facebook ad, it is important to review the performance of it. Gaining clicks from an ad are important because it means that people are going on to your blog, but clicks are not the whole story. If you have made a Facebook ad campaign, you can go on Facebook to see how everything is going: http://www.facebook.com/ads/manage. This will show your campaign name, number of website clicks, cost per click, number of people it has reached and the amount you have spent to date.
In addition to using Facebook, you can look at Google Analytics to see how many clicks have arrived from various sources. Google Analytics has a lot options for you to choose from but it is better to use these options to look for specific information. Some information that Google Analytics offers is the number of sessions, users, page views, average session duration, and bounce rate. One of the more important ones is Bounce Rate %. Bounce Rate percentage is the number of people who enter your site and leave rather than view pages within the site. This is important because having a high Bounce Rate percentage lets you know that people are not staying on your site or searching through it. The goal is to have an attractive site that people stay on and look through different pages.



Location
Location can be a fun thing to look at in Google Analytics. If you go on Google Analytics, you can find this on the left hand side under Geo. After you click Geo, click Location and it will give you a visual sense of what sessions were from where. This will allow you to see if people are visiting your site from all over the world or in one distinct area of the world.







Mobile

Mobile would be a smart category to look at in Google Analytics. Mobile use has increased throughout the world and it seems nowadays that everyone wants to go "mobile". To see what percentage of traffic is coming from different devices, click Audience and then click Mobile. This information can be valuable to businesses because it shows where the highest percentage of their traffic is coming from. For example, the most traffic may be coming from mobile users, desktop users, or tablet users. If it shows that mobile is the highest percentage, you may want to start looking at designing your website to be more "mobile friendly".





Making Google Analytics Easier to Look At

If you are working a job that requires you to look at web analytics for a website, and you are trying to find certain items it may be very time consuming. To make it less consuming, Google has created "dashboards".  To find dashboards on Google Analytics, click on reporting at the top, and then new dashboard.  They give you a default, but setting a data range will help you get the information that will be most relevant.  An example would be using "last week" as a data range to use for regular weekly reports.  Lastly, the dashboard tool is also great to use because it allows you to manually export a file to share with a colleague or client.

Tips About Interviewing for a Job

When looking for a job, there are many different things that employers are looking for.  Every company or organization is different, however there seems to be some common things that hiring managers look for when interviewing someone.  Richard Boles mentions sixteen tips about interviewing for a job in What Color Is Your Parachute 2016, but I am only going to touch on a few of them in this blog post.

Be Prepared!

When you are able to land an interview with a possible future employer, it is very important to be prepared.  When you go into an interview the employer obviously wants to know about you, but they are also most likely going to want to know what you know about them.  Do some research about the company and find out as much as you can about it.  Ask people you know if they know anything about the company, and go on their website and read what it says in their "About Us".  Employers will be impressed if you know a lot about their company, so take the time to do the research.  It could make the difference between being hired or not.

Questions to expect, then questions you can ask

There are many questions that an interviewer is going to ask you in an interview but there are five basic questions that Boles says you need to pay attention to.  The five basic questions are:

• "Why are you here?"-which means why are you interviewing at this company instead of somewhere else?
• "What can you do for us?"-what skills do you have and how can you use them to help the company?
• "What kind of person are you?"-what type of personality do you have and will you be able to work well with others?
• "What exactly distinguishes you from nineteen or nine hundred other people who are applying from this job?"-what are your best skills or characteristics that make you stand out compared to others?
• "Can I afford you?"-what is the salary you are looking for?

In addition to being asked questions, the interviewer is going to expect you to ask questions also.  Asking questions shows that you are interested in the job.  These questions should be similar to what they are asking only in a different form.  The first two questions should be asked out loud where as the last three should be observed quietly.  As for question four and five, you should be prepared to ask them only when the appropriate time arrives.

• "What does this job involve?"-what is it exactly that you would be doing if you landed this job, would you really like doing it, and can you do it?
• "What are the skills a top employee in this job would have to have?"-this question allows you to see if your top skills match what it takes to work at this company.
• Are these kinds of people I would like to work with or, not?"-you have to think for yourself on this one, are these people the people you would want to be around every day?
• "If we like each other, and we both want to work together, can I persuade them there is something unique about me, that makes me different from nineteen or nine hundred other people who are applying for this job?"-this is a more complicated question that you should think about ahead of time.  Do your best to try to think of a skill or two that makes you stand out most from anyone else.
• "Can I persuade them to hire me at the salary I need or want?"-this requires some research to see what kind of salary that a job like this would offer.

Again, these are only a few tips to help you when going on a job interview.  For the rest of the 16 tips, refer to What Color Is Your Parachute 2016, by Richard Boles.

Getting Traffic for Analytics

To get started in Google Analytics, you must first make a blog or website that you are going to monitor.  Once you have made your blog or website, you need to find a way to generate traffic.  One of the easiest ways to generate traffic to your blog or website is by sharing your link on any social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  To gain connections on any of these social media websites you can use the feature where you share email contact, and the programs can suggest new connections.  This will make it easier to have some connections to work with and it will allow you to move onto the next step which is posting the link of your blog or website and posting an invitation to social media.  If it is a blog you created, you have to be careful when you are posting the link to the social media website you have chosen.  There is a blog link and there are links to individual blogs.  The one you want to post on social media is the "longer" link.  Lastly, a great way to get noticed in social media is visuals.  When you post the links to your social media website make sure you have pictures or graphs in all of your posts.

Making a Facebook Ad is another great way to add more clicks to your blog.

Step 1: Go to https://www.facebook.com/ads/create and click on the "Clicks to Website" option.  There are many different options it offers but the best one for now would be "Clicks to Website".  After you click this option, you can copy the blog link of your own personal blogger.

Step 2:  Once you pick clicks and attach your link, you will be asked to select an audience that you would like to target  There are a few different options such as age range, geographical area, interests and behaviors.  However, it is important to pick certain interests because it help your blogs get more clicks.

Step 3: In addition to selecting a "target market" to gain clicks, it is important to add a picture or two. Images will help attract people to your blog and gain your blog clicks.  You can add a picture by uploading one, or using the free stock images available.  Once you pick the image you are also given the option to crop the image to change how they appear in your ads.  Facebook gets a little complicated when it comes to the images, so you just need to make sure it is the right size that Facebook requires.

Step 4:  The next step is to pick your budget for the ad.  The two different options for the budget are per day, or Lifetime Budget.  You then have to choose how much money you want to spend and how many days you want to spend it for.

Step 5: Now that you have selected your criteria for your ad, you are ready to go!  Just click place order, add your credit card and you can begin tracking "Clicks to Website".

Google Is Your New Resume

In our society today, almost anything one may want to search for can be found by entering it on Google.  One example of this would be typing someone's name in on Google.  This is important for job hunters because many job hunters have multiple social media profiles.  Some very common social media websites that Job Hunters often use are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Many people post and share many things without thinking about who can get access to it.  For college students ready to graduate college, it is important to pay attention to what is posted or shared on Facebook and Twitter.  As of 2014 almost all U.S. employers visit job hunters social networks and some have even rejected a job hunter because of things they have found in their profiles.  In addition to keeping posts and pictures clean and free of drugs and alcohol, job hunters should also pay attention to grammar they use and opinions they post about certain stuff.  Employers will be turned off if they see misspelled words, bad grammar, screwy opinions, and inappropriate content.  Resumes are still important to employers, but keeping social media sites clean, and free of grammar mistakes is something job hunters also need to pay close attention to.

As stated above, employers are always looking at job hunters social media profiles.  The social media site that is most important to employers is LinkedIn.  A smart job hunter will take advantage of this by making their profile page stand out from others' profile pages.  There are a couple ways that a job hunter can make their profile stand out such as describing past job experiences, adding a photo, or listing any training, education, community service, and interests that one may have.  Past job experiences are important because it shows a possible employer what type of work one has done and how it could be helpful to their business.  Adding a photo is very important to employers too, in fact multiple surveys have said not posting a photo is a complete turnoff for most employers.  Lastly, adding training, education, community service, and interests are important because it allows the employer to see what a possible employee has done in addition to his/her work experience.  Employers like learning about possible future employees and want to see that they help in the community, and are well rounded.  There are many more important things that one would need to add to a LinkedIn profile, but the ones listed above should be the first things that job hunters add to their profiles to impress future employers.

Connecting Google Analytics With a Website

Creating a blog is a great way to get started in Google Analytics.  To create a blog on blogger.com, you must first create a Google account.  Creating a Google account is very easy, and it gives you access to many different tools that Google offers.  Once your Google Account is created you can go to blogger.com, sign into your created Google account and get started.  Blogger.com is great because it allows you to keep track of a webpage and understand what information you can obtain from it.  It may not be an actual website where you can purchase something or sign-up for something, however it is still something to help you get a head start on learning Google Analytics.

On Google Analyitcs, there is a lot of data that you can keep an eye on.  In my case, the website I would be using to keep track of would be blogger.com (Eric Rubel's Blog).  Google Analytics allows you to see how many people have been visiting your site, and it allows you to look at their behavior on your site.  A few examples of information that Google Analytics gives you about the visitors to your site are the number of page views, average session duration, bounce rate, and % of new sessions.  This information would be very useful because it can tell you how much visitors are taking a look at your website and how long they are staying on it.  It will help businesses see if they have a good website or if they need to fix their website if their number of visitors are low or if the bounce rate % is high.  Lastly, Google Analytics also allows you to track revenue and goals based on how many people are purchasing or signing up for something.

Job Hunting in the United States

The main goal of attending and graduating college is to make it easier on yourself to find a job.  However, that seems to not be the case for many recent graduates in the United States.  From 1994-2008 job seekers were most likely to land a job within five weeks of applying for them.  However, the recession that hit the United States in 2008 has changed the length of time for job hunters to land a job.  Since 2008, unemployed Americans have been spending more than a year looking for a job.  So as one can see, the amount of time spent looking for a job has increased dramatically.

In addition to the increase of time spent looking for a job, has been finding a job that pays middle class salary.  It seems that if employers are only hiring for worst paying jobs or the best paying jobs that are hard to get.  The middle class type of job seems to be disappearing in the United States.  The first reason that the book appointed to this problem was the increased percentage of women holding a middle class job, especially in healthcare.  The other reason was the level of education that is required to land a middle class job.  41% of middle class jobs required a degree today, whereas only 25% of middle class jobs required a bachelors degree in 1980.  Going to college and getting a degree may not be easy, but in the United States it is a must if you want be able to survive on your own, and obtain a middle or upper class job.

Conclusion- After reading this chapter, I have learned that it will not be easy to land a job after I graduate from Benedictine.  However, I am confident that Benedictine has provided me with great knowledge and experience that will help me find a job sooner rather than later.  I am a marketing major so I have a wide variety of jobs I can apply for.  I also believe that having taken this class will help me with landing a job because employers are looking for people who have online marketing skills.   

Introduction to Google Analytics

Google Analytics seems to be a skill that is very valuable to anyone applying for a business job.  Technology has become a huge part of our society and it is heavily influencing the business world.  As show below, some of the top skills related to analytics that have got people hired are social media marketing, digital marketing, and business intelligence.  Learning Google Analytics will allow someone to have a better chance to get a job in any of those mentioned above.  Although it sounds like analytics would be a be based off of all numbers, it's not.  Google Analytics allows you to measure and optimize the performance of your online marketing campaigns, and allows you to learn how the performance of website fits into business.  In our society today, Google Analytics is definitely something one would want to look into learning because it can be a difference maker in the job market.

2013 top skills that got people hired

As mentioned above, technology has become of a huge part of our society.  Technology has made it easier for people to be in contact with everything going on in our world today.  Some popular social media channels are Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter.  Learning Google Analytics will also help anyone who wants to see how business social media efforts are going on any of the websites mentioned.  You are able to see who is talking about your business or how many follows or likes your pages are getting.  Businesses understand that society is always on social media nowadays, so many businesses are creating twitter accounts or Facebook accounts to market to consumers about their products or special offers they may be offering.

Conclusion
Google Analytics is a great tool for anyone to learn who is interested in some type of online marketing.  Social Media and Technology are a huge part of our society, so online marketing and social marketing are vital to many businesses and organizations.  So if you are having trouble finding a job in the business world, adding Google Analaytics add to your resume may be your answer to landing a job.