Thanksgiving Dinner

This Thanksgiving my family and I all went to the Lafayette Hotel in Marietta, Ohio. This is the second year we have had Thanksgiving at the Lafayette and maybe the most interesting. The meals are served buffet style and at the end of the buffet is where the meat carvers stand and serve you either turkey or chicken. There was a slight power surge at the carving station which resulted in a small fire. Our table was seated right next to the carving station, where we watched workers quickly unplug the equipment and stomp out the fire. No one was hurt and there was also no need to evacuate so we went on eating our meal. Other than that, it was great dinner, the food was good, and we got to see friends and family. The only issue is that they are going to have to replace the carpet in the ballroom. 

The Lafayette is a very important building where I am from. It is considered to be one of the crown gems of Marietta. Not only is it important to the city but it is also important to my family. We have attended many events at the Lafayette. I have had pageants there, we have Thanksgiving there, and my uncle even got married there. So I am very happy that the Lafayette did not go up in flames this Thanksgiving.

Until next time,

Kaitlyn

Measure What Matters Chapter 13

I would like to discuss the new book we are reading in class, specifically Chapter 13. The book is titled "Measure What Matters" by Katie Paine. Chapter 13 is titled "Measurement For Nonprofits."

The thing that I found to be interesting while reading Chapter 13 was a little section titled "Measuring Behavioral Change." There I learned that member behavior can take many forms: renewals, donations, web traffic, e-mail responses, phone calls, attendance, votes, and so on. Though measuring someone's behavioral change is a big job, you have to keep track of them on a monthly basis. After that, you need to compare the data results to your media activity and ideally to the attitude research. You should then be able to see correlations between activities in the media, communications with your membership, and behavioral outcomes. When looking at what metrics to test out I thought that Return on investment of a website was an important one. This is because if you are not making a return on your investment than for the most part it is failing financially.

I found the information in this chapter to be useful and I hope you do as well. I encourage you guys to check out this book. Especially if you are interested in learning about the marketing side of social media.

Until next time,

Kaitlyn

Thanksgiving Break

It is finally Thanksgiving Break! So far, my week has consisted of sleeping and going to the movies. I have thoroughly enjoyed the sleeping part that is for sure. Today I went to see the new Thor movie in theatres with my cousin who came in from Texas for the holidays. The movie was amazing, I was expecting it to be another full-blown action movie, but I would have also considered it a comedy as well. So many of the scenes were just too funny. I do not want to spoil the movie for anyone, if you are into superhero movies this is a must watch.

Out of all superhero franchises, I would have to say that Marvel is my favorite. This is mostly because of how everything ties in together so perfectly. Their live action tv shows tie into the movies, also how they use the same actors throughout the entire series, minus the hulk who was originally played by Edward Norton in the movie The Incredible Hulk. But overall, I really enjoy Marvel and their movies to me they are really fun to watch. My favorite of the Marvel superheroes is Captain America, and my favorite villain is Loki. But after this movie I have a feeling people might just have a different opinion of him.


Until next time,
Kaitlyn

Twitterstorm

Twitter just confirmed that they are working on a new twitterstorm feature. This feature will enable users to create a series of automatically linked tweets. The tweetstorm features provide a new option to add tweets to your composition process, with the tweets in a set then listed on the screen. You can go back to any tweet within the sequence and edit while composing. Once you’ve completed your tweets and are ready to go, you tap the ‘Tweet All’ button, and your Tweetstorm will be posted in order, with numbers automatically added to each to signify their place in the chain. Though there is a concern with the new 280 character tweets. They are afraid that the posts might be too long with the new higher character amount.

Though I am not big on Twitter I cannot wait to see what this new feature is going to be like. Though I too am concerned about the new 280 character tweet and whether the posts will be too long. Frankly, that would defeat the purpose of Twitter which is to have short and to the point tweets. What do you guys think about this feature? Are you excited about it? Or do you think it is going to be lame?

Until next time,

Kaitlyn

Measure What Matters Chapter 11

I would like to discuss the new book we are reading in class, specifically Chapter 8. The book is titled "Measure What Matters" by Katie Paine. Chapter 11 is titled "Threats To Your Reputation: How To Measure Crises."

While reading through this chapter one section stood out to me. The section is titled "Trust is the Key to Building and Defending Your Reputation." Trust to me is the most important part in relationship, whether it is with co-workers, consumers or viewers. In the book it says that there are three parts to trust competence, integrity and dependability. Out of these three I find that competence is most important, because if you do not have the ability to do something you said you can do then you do not deserve to be trusted in my opinion. I also found that competence and dependability are similar but at the same time completely different. They both have to do with doing what they say they will, but the big difference is in ability versus actually doing it. Competence is the belief that an organization has the ability to do what it says it will do. Dependability is the belief that an organization will do what it says it will do.

I found the information in this chapter to be useful and I hope you do as well. I encourage you guys to check out this book. Especially if you are interested in learning about the marketing side of social media.

Until next time,
Kaitlyn

Book Project

For a little over a week now, my design class has been working on a book project. The project was to go out and find letters, numbers, or punctuations in either nature or architecture. I chose to do nature because I love being outside and I have also done a similar project to this in high school. For the photography portion of this project, I actually went back home to take the pictures. I did this because back home we have a lot of parks and wildlife trails. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the project.

  

After we were done taking photos we needed to find out what letter could go with the picture. For the flower on the left, I chose to match it with the period to represent the dots on the flower. For the rose, I chose the letter o to represent the water droplets. For the mums, I chose the letter c to represent the petals. Then we had to create a way for them to come together and work cohesively. Here are the photos with their letters.

I titled the book Quiet Zone because the feeling of the book is supposed to be peaceful, calming, and quiet. Though I only showed three there were twelve pictures in total for this book. I hope you guys liked my photos, please let me know in the comments.

Until next time,
Kaitlyn

Facebook Revamp

Facebook is revamping the way their stories tool functions. They are doing this by getting rid of Messenger Day and replacing it with cross-posted Facebook Stories. According to Facebook, there was a lot of confusion on how the tool worked. The new that they are replacing it with will allow you to cross-post, meaning that any story you post on Facebook or Messenger will now be viewable on both apps. They have also announced that you will soon be able to post from Facebook or Messenger to Instagram, but not the other way around.

I will be completely honest when I learned that Facebook was getting rid of messenger day I honestly had no idea what they were talking about. When I finally found out what it was, and it did not intrigue me in the least. Tough now that I know about this I have to say that I am excited to see what Facebook will be coming out with. I also really enjoyed that fact that we can soon share from Facebook or Messenger to Instagram. I think it will be really cool seeing all three apps connected like that. Though I am a bit disappointed that you cannot share from Instagram to Facebook and Messenger.

Until next time,
Kaitlyn

Measure What Matters Chapter 8

I would like to discuss the new book we are reading in class, specifically Chapter 8. The book is titled "Measure What Matters" by Katie Paine. Chapter 8 is titled "How To Measure Influencers And Thought Leadership."

For the most part this chapter talks about how important relationships are with influencers and how you can measure your relationship with them. What I considered to be the most important and informative part of this chapter was the section titled " How to Build a Custom List of the Top 100 Influencers in Your Marketplace." An influencer can be anyone who knows something about your product, your market, or your business. For you to find the correct influencers you need you first need to understand that who and what matters to your target audience is very important. Another important thing to do is to search for blogs that already mention your product or business. After you have found those you can get a better idea of what your target audience likes and then go from there.

Once you have found your 100 blogs and bloggers figure out which of them is most important and then rank them. A good way to rank them is by ranking them in terms of numbers of mentions, for example who ever mentions you the most should be ranked number one. It is important to know who your best influencers are because those are the people who are helping your business the most.

I thought that this chapter was helpful, and I encourage you guys to check out this book. Especially if you are interested in learning about the marketing side of social media.

Until next time,
Kaitlyn

Facebook Polls

Facebook is now also adding a new poll option, with all profiles and Pages now able to add GIFs and images in their polls to generate more interest. This is giving individuals and brand pages a way to attract more attention to their polls in the News Feed. Lately, as a way to tally voting and using pictures, they asked viewers to use reactions as a way to vote. This tactic was especially used during live streaming. But with this new update, it is much easier to vote without having to use reactions. Facebook often advised against using reactions to vote, most likely because there are only so many reactions and some of them can be quite insulting or mean.

With the new updated version of the polls, it is quite easy to start one. When you go to compose a status update, you will see a new poll option, with the ability to attach a relevant image or GIF. You can even set your own time limit of a day, a week, or just leave it running indefinitely. Though if you do set a time limit your viewers will be able to see it, that way they know exactly how much time they have left to vote.

This new feature seems very interesting, I cannot wait to try it out for myself. If you guys test out be sure to comment down below what you would want to take a poll of.

Until next time,
Kaitlyn

My Weekend Home

This past weekend I decided to make the 4-hour drive back home. I was really happy to be having a nice home cooked meal for a change. Saturday morning my grandfather took me and my dog to McDonough Park to take pictures for one of my classes. After we left the park we went to Scotts Landscaping to take a few more photos, and I was really happy with the way one of my photos turned out. Then he took me to Holl's Chocolate, you have not lived until you have eaten Holl's Chocolate. He got me a giant caramel chocolate apple and a box of chocolates. Later on, my mom and grandmother took me shopping for clothes. Sunday was probably the best day of all. My mom ordered my favorite pizza from Pizza Hut and my family came over to have lunch with me before I left to go back to school. The drive home was probably the worst part of my weekend. Not only did I miss my family, but I drove through a huge storm. Honestly, it was nothing I could not handle I have driven through far worse conditions. What really freaked me out was the fact that there was apparently a tornado touchdown while I was driving through the storm. But I never once heard an alert on my radio.

Overall, I had a really great weekend at home. I still miss my family terribly, but I know that they will always be there to support me.

Until next time,
Kaitlyn