Seven Steps to the Perfect Measurement Program

"The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself."

 - Winston Churchill 

In her book "Measure What Matters" Katie Paine focuses on all aspects of social media measurement. In the third chapter of the book, Paine provides seven steps to the perfects measurement program and how to prove and use your results.

Steal a Base Steal a Taco

Last year Taco Bell introduced a campaign in conjunction with Major League Baseball during the World Series. The campaign promises to give free Dorito Locos Tacos to all of America if a player in the World Series steals a base at any point during the world series. The campaign took on the name and hashtag, #stealabasestealataco.

A Small Village With Big Aspirations

Ohio Northern University Public Relations and their accredited on-campus firm, True North PR takes on several clients a semester to provide its students with relevant real-life job experience.

This semester, we are working with the businesses and village administration in Edon Ohio.  Edon is a small town up near the border of Ohio and Michigan that has under 1000 residents. Together, over 25 businesses are participating in the campaign along with the village administration.

The team that is working with the village of Edon has come up with a baseline of deliverables for the village businesses and the administration.  Here are a few of those deliverables:

Social Media Marketing Workbook: Understanding the @ Sign or Handle on Twitter

Jason McDonald, in his book, "Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016"  includes a section where he focuses on Twitter and how it is utilized as a professional platform. He goes over the ins and outs of the platforms including the importance of understanding the @ sign or "Handle."

McDonald emphasizes that the @ sign specifies a Twitter account. The @ sign, often referred to as users "handle" does two things when incorporated into a tweet:

    - It becomes clickable. Any user who views the tweet can click on the @handle and see the account that is associated with the handle. 

    - It is present in the news feed and sends an alert to the user that has been mentioned using the @handle. This is called a mention and essentially means that someone has tagged you (your twitter account) in a tweet.

Along with mentions, McDonald makes a point to emphasize the importance of a retweet. Like a mention, a retweet allows a tweet to be linked to a user's account. McDonald would use the example; if Ellen DeGeneres recapped your joke on her TV show. That "retweet" of your joke would urge her followers to explore your profile, increasing your followers.

McDonald says that as Twitter users and professionals, we do not have to be famous to converse with influential people in our line of work. He recommends that professional and personal users of Twitter take advantage of the @ sign or handles to engage with these important people. Just like in the Ellen DeGeneres example, if someone important retweets your tweet, you are more likely to see the benefits of that mention.

To help you gain a better understanding of handles and the @ sign, I have embedded a YouTube video of Jason McDonald talking on the subject. Please take a moment to check it out!

Twitter Fiction

Andrew Fitzgerald is a contributor to the News and Journalism Partnership team at Twitter. His role in the team is to analyze Twitter's role as a digital storytelling modem as well as other social media platforms. He is an avid writer, editor, and tweeter.

In July of 2013, Andrew Fitzgerald gave a talk at Ted about how social media is becoming an ever-expanding realm of possibility. Andrew as well mentioned how we as social media users can discover and invent so many different means of storytelling through various social media platforms. He focused on Twitter and expressed how he sees the platform's potential as a fictional storytelling medium.

I have never noticed storytelling present on Twitter; however, this might be the issue that Andrew Fitzgerald was trying to uncover by giving this Ted talk.

The world of social media is a great channel for expressing stories if they can get any notice. Viewing a story unfolding live over Twitter would be something I would take an interest in. It would be as if you are watching the writer go through the writing process in real time.

This form of live storytelling could even allow the average everyday user to comment and add onto a digital-fiction story. Resulting in an expansive story that has been orchestrated by one writer, but expanded upon by many.

 If we can use the platforms for self-expression and storytelling, the structure of social media could change completely. Fitzgerald said in his Ted talk,

" I actually believe that we are in a wide-open frontier for creative experimentation, if you will, that we've explored and begun to settle this wild land of the Internet and are now just getting ready to start to build structures on it. Those structures are the new formats of storytelling that the Internet will allow us to create."

Take a look at Andrew Fitzgerald's Ted talk and get a sense of what he is trying to uncover with digital storytelling.

What do You See in the Mirror

When you stand in front of a mirror, can you honestly say that you have tried your hardest? (photo/JHDT productions)

Two balls, two strikes, the bottom of the ninth inning, your team is down by one with a runner on second, and you are up to bat. The pitcher throws you a nasty curveball on the outside half of the plate, you swing and miss.

Often, life throws a curveball when we are down in the count. Most of the time, we strike out, we fail. 

Failure is a fact of life; it happens to all of us at one point or another. We lose a job; we get cut from a team, we fail the exam that we have been preparing weeks for.

I recently went through a particularly taxing failure. I thought that the aspect of life that I had failed at defined me, for many years of my life, it did define me. I devoted countless hours a week on this aspect of my life and cared more deeply for this part of myself than any other. Just the other day, it was ripped from under my feet.

I had failed.

Some people say that a failure should not define a person; however, the way we react and learn from these failures does. I have often been told that in life if you can look in the mirror and honestly say that you worked the hardest that you could and learned something along the way, there is nothing to be ashamed of after you fail.

I realize now that I worked as hard as I could at my recent failure. I devoted all of my life to it and learned a great deal from it. Sometimes, you can do all of this and still fail, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Often these failures open new doors in our lives that would not have been possible before.

Failure is a necessary fact of life, it may be confusing and painful at first, but in the end, it teaches us to work hard and strive for greatness.

Five Essential Truths College Has Taught Me About Life So Far

Textbooks, lectures, final exams, these, are just a few tools many people think of when describing how college prepares students for their jobs after school. However, college is much more than just course-work, it is a time for developing who we are as people and the ideals we will carry for the rest of our lives. We come in as naive 18-year-olds, and over the years we hopefully discover who we are.

With the middle of the semester coming up, I have been reflecting on the lessons that I have learned so far at ONU.

 I realized that college has provided me the opportunity to set the standards for my own life, leading to outline five essential truths to my life so far.

1. Being excessively-organized is critical to success in school as well as life.

My calendars, planners, note-taking systems and even organizing my apartment have become a part of my daily life management routine. I would not survive without excessively organizing my life; it keeps me on task and goal oriented.

2. Treat every day like it is a day job

A while back, I had read a bulletin board in my apartment hallway, (sometimes they have great information) and read an interesting piece on how to stay productive during the day. The section on the board said to treat every day of classes as a day of work. Meaning that if you go to class in the morning at 9 and then have a 3-hour break, under no circumstance should you go back to your room and watch TV! 

Instead, go to the library or an empty classroom on campus and get some work done, read the news, or a book, anything that could help you work toward a goal that you have set.

When I go back to my room, I know that I neglect the work that I need to get done. Taking that break in the day sets my mind to its lazy setting when it needs to be in productive mode. I make it a priority to have that "work day" feel until have accomplished the day's goals.

3. Being happy with your department/workplace is more important than the status/money you think you need.

My first semester of college was a miserable experience. I was struggling in every aspect of my life; school, personal, emotional and physical.  I was having a hard time fitting in with the professors that I had, the friends that I had made and the student organizations that I chose to participate in.

Thankfully, one professor in the Communications and Media Studies department helped me realize something vital; if you are struggling with an aspect of your life, you should examine the people that you are around first.

In my case, I did not fit into the department. I made the change, and now I love going to class, I love the work that I am doing and love the people that I interact with on a daily basis.

You can not put a price on being in the right place at the right time.

4. There are times for buckling down and having self-control, and there are times for letting loose and falling off the face of the earth.

Often, as college students, we tend to get into a mindset that we need to be productive all the time, 24/7. I know people who get up in the morning, start doing work, go to meetings, go to practice, go to work, come back and do more homework.

Working that hard all the time leaves no room for reflection or mental decompression.

I make a point to take a step back from my work every once in a while. When that time comes, I forget everything I have to do; it goes on the back burner. Taking time to "fall off the face of the earth" is sometimes healthy. Get lost in a good book, go for a long walk or just sit and think, whatever allows you clear your mind and relax.

5. Let your confidence show and step out of your comfort zone.

Confidence is the most powerful aspect that a person can have. It amplifies our attributes and shows other people that we can handle ourselves. If we spend all of our lives putting up boundaries around the things we think cannot be handled, then our full potential will never be reached.

Go and join that club you once thought you might want to or take that class you never thought you could handle, run for a president of an organization. You never know if you will succeed at something if you never try.

I am in no way the most confident person in the world, nor do I always step out of my comfort zone. However, I try to walk into new situations with the confidence that I will succeed. I will always be the loudest person in the room, not always vocally but confidently.

#ONUHomecoming17 Men's Soccer Game Storify

Social Media Marketing Workbook Introduction

The Social Media Marketing Workbook cover art from the 2016 edition. This is the version of the book that we will be using throughout our time in the course. (Photo/Amazon)

In Social Media Principles we are starting a new book, "Social Media Marketing Workbook" by Jason McDonald. This book is the second of three that we will be reading during the duration of the course.

Bored and Brilliant

Follow @manoushz

Boredom, we have all experienced it, and we are all guilty of suppressing our boredom. With social media and mobile devices, it hardly ever seems possible to become bored, but what if I told you that being bored is healthy.

Manoush Zomorodi, a journalist, turned podcast host has created a new stigma around being bored with her Bored and Brilliant movement. She recently gave a talk at TED about the connection between boredom and creativity.

Manoush said in her TED talk that we are more creative when we are bored. We need our boredom to critically think and to think creatively about topics we have been focusing on during our active time.

Why Ohio Northern Should Improve the Department of Communications and Media Studies

The Freed Center for performing arts at the Ohio Northern University which is home to the Communication and Media Studies department (photo/onu.edu)

The Ohio Northern University has completed several renovations over the past few years. Most recently, they remodeled the McIntosh Center which included new seating in the public areas, polar expresso, dining hall, and the complete remodel and addition of the Wow Wingery. The university just recently announced the building of a state of the art engineering building worth millions of dollars.

With all of these renovations to campus, many departments are stating their case as to why they should have the next large scale renovation. I believe that the Communication and Media Studies department should be the one to receive the next improvement on campus.

The Why and How for Maintaining Strong Family Relationships Through College

Everyone goes through struggles in life at one point or another. When we are experiencing the pressures that school, work, and life have on us, we often rely on the people who are closest to us. For myself, I fall back on my greatest support group, my home, and my family.

My home and my family are two things that I miss while being away at college.

My outlet for all of my pressures in life is my family. If I am having a bad day and need to talk to someone, I call my parents and brother.  They always guide me to the right decisions when I am struggling with school, life or relationships. They always have my back when I have had a rough day of classes or life is getting me down. The ultimate stress reliever when I am away at college is my family.

Having a close relationship with my family is something that I make sure I maintain throughout my time away at college. Here are my key points to consider for keeping close relationships with family when away at school:

    1. I make sure to call family at least twice a week to update them on how classes, life, and relationships are going.

    2. When I am not calling family, I make sure to send texts periodically throughout the day, especially goodnight and that I love them. (this goes a long way)

    3. I try to make time for two visits home a semester, not including scheduled university breaks.

Remembering to accomplish these three easy points has provided me with strong relationships with my family. Although I do not see them as much as I used to, they are always there for me when I need them. They are my greatest support system, and I could not imagine completing college without their guidance.

The Streak (Podcast)

In this edition of Dunay Daily podcast, I review the Cleveland Indians social media and why their recent success has them talked about across all social media platform. Here is the link to the podcast: The Streak 

Using the free podcast producing app, Opinion I was able to record, edit and produce this podcast without using any expensive equipment. This service is ideal for anyone who is interested in getting started with podcasting.

What Jerks Can Teach Us On Social Media

When on social media, there are many different types of users. Some people use social media to brighten the days of others or only to share good content. However, there are other who use the platforms to spam and share bad content.

We label these users, Social Media Jerks.

According to Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick, in their book, "The Art of SocialMedia," two main actions are related to being a Social Media Jerk: #1 users who harshly criticize other user's content. #2 users who self-promote in a rude way.

Organizing the Life of a Student Athlete

Being a student athlete in college is one of the greatest privileges that someone can have. For myself, I am able to continue playing the game that I love along with getting a top-notch education. However, keeping everything organized while playing sports and going to school can be challenging. At the Division III level, I think athletes are expected to do more, not only to prepare for their sport, but also to prepare for their school work. Being organized is absolutely essential to being productive.

As a Division III student athlete, I know all too well how demanding it is to balance school work and athletics. My daily schedule is always planned out to the T.

My daily schedule right now looks a little like this:

    - Wake up at 7:30 a.m.

    - Workout from 8:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m.

    - Class from 10:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.

    - Homework from 3:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m.

    - Workout and Baseball Training from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.

This is just an offseason daily schedule right now. During the baseball season I will add practice from 3:00 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. on normal days. Meaning that I will need to push back all of my school work until after. Not to mention all of the extracurricular activities that I am involved in.

Right now we are in fall baseball mode which means that we practice 4 days a week and play all day on Saturday and Sunday. For example this past weekend I was at the baseball field from 9:00 a.m. getting extra work in before practice until 5:00 p.m. when we stopped playing games.

As you can imagine being organized and planning out every second of the day is the only way to make sure I am getting everything I need to get done, done.

One thing I do to make everything work is schedule blocking. Schedule blocking is when you piece out an hour or two of your schedule to focus on only one thing. Whether it be school work or athletic training each block only gets that one task. This helps me keep all of my work organized and keeps me on task while working. Below I have put a screenshot of my personal schedule for reference on how to schedule block.

Life can be stressful as a student athlete, especially when dealing with the high academic demands of a Division III program. If you are a student athlete and need help keeping organized, ask your academic advisor for help. I found it helpful as well to ask your coach for help, they want you to succeed in the classroom as much as they want you to succeed on the field.

Facebook Lends a Hand

Hurricane Harvey has ravished the greater Houston area and surrounding communities in Texas. Relief efforts have already begun with the help of donations. Many organizations are stepping up and donating large sums of money toward the relief efforts. One of the most recent and notable pledges has come from Facebook.

In a recent post, Facebooks CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated:

"Over the past few days, thousands of you have asked for help and offered help on Facebook to people who have been affected by Hurricane Harvey using Safety Check and Community Help. Now we want to give everyone another way to make a difference."

Zuckerberg pledged that Facebook will match the donations up to $1 million on the site. Finishing his post by saying:

“Now, we want to give everyone another way to make a difference. It may take years for the community to fully recover, but together with the CDP, we can help families and businesses get back on their feet.”

#HashtagIt

In their book, "The Art of Social Media," Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick focus a lot of energy on promoting your brand as a company with the help of social media. They also touch on some important skills for promoting an event that your company or organization is putting on.

Guy and Peg tell us that in order to be successful when hosting an event, it is necessary to have an effective hashtag.

The hashtag should be short, simple, and should be directly related to the event that it is describing. A hashtag such as #ONUPartnersConference2017 is far too long and too specific. Instead, something like #ONUPartners is generic so it will be used for a longer time.

That example came straight from last years Ohio Northern University's  Public Relations Student Society of America Partners Conference. As I was in attendance, and a participant in using the hashtag, I can say that using the generic short hashtag was effective.

How to Be Organized When Blogging

Being organized, a concept that some people don’t seem to understand all of the time. I can not count the times I have been looking at blogs or post on lesser known media outlets where the post completely lacks organization. Sometimes down right messy.

In their book "The Art of Social Media," Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick give their readers a small but powerful lesson in Organization.

Kawasaki's key to organization is simple, he says that all you need to do to clean your post up is to shorten the selection using bullet points. Longer posts are less likely to be read due to a readers tendency to skip over vast quantities of text.

Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick are right. Reading large amounts of text in a post on a blog or online news source can turn off a reader. I much rather read something short and to the point. Bullet points are equally as strong in posts because it is easy to follow and looks clean.

Kawasaki says, "If I want to read a novel, I'll buy an e-book." I think everyone can agree with this statement. If we are going to invest in a long work of literature we rather it not be our daily news or post about how to gain muscle in just two short weeks.

NBC Embraces Snapchat and is Killing it!

Everyone is familiar with the popular app Snapchat. We tend to think of the app as a one-on-one social messaging app.  The app, however, has taken on a whole new dynamic over the past year or so. News and entertainment providers realized the potential for the app to reach their younger viewers with new and exciting content. An article written by Anthony Thurston posted on DigitalTrends.com delves into how NBC has used Snapchat to reach their younger audiences.

NBC clearly has a quality social media team in place to utilize Snapchat in the way they are with "The Voice." People 25 and under want their entertainment fast and exciting, they also want to be able to interact with their favorite TV shows and celebrities on a more personal level. Being able to see the judges on Snapchat along with being able to vote, audition, and view the show is a perfect way to make viewers feel more connected.

The article also comments on NBC's use of Snapchat to allow viewers connection with their more news focused programs. The news production "Stay Tuned,"  is being streamed on Snapchat every day and shows snippets of news from around the world.  NBC and many other news companies have broken the barrier that the younger generation has put up to block television and the news. As a Snapchat user and someone who falls in the under 25 age range, I think using Snapchat to promote the news programs is convenient and effective. I Spend more time on social media than I do watching TV so it only makes sense that I would get my news through those mediums as well. 

I applaud NBC and many other news and entertainment companies for recognizing the power of Snapchat and using it to connect its audiences to their shows and the news. This is a new age of news and media, social networks such as Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and others are going to take over televisions hold on news and entertainment. I think it is wise for everyone to jump on the bandwagon and utilize social media as a news source.  

If you have opinions on social media and the news please feel free to comment below. 

Thank you for ready and go catch up on the news using Snapchat!

ONU: INTRODUCTION

First I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read my blog. This is going to be a long process and I appreciate the time taken to read what I have to say. I hope you will enjoy it and give me some feedback.

My name is Joe Dunay and I will be the man behind the words that you will be reading this blog. I want to tell you a little about myself in this post and let you know what my intentions will be with this section of my blog.

I am a student at the Ohio Northern University located in Ada, Ohio. I am majoring in communications and public relations with a minor in social media. I am involved in a few things here on campus including the varsity baseball team, Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), and the Student Planning Committee (SPC), I will as well be associated with the television station here on campus (ONU3-TV) and the radio station (WONB 94.9 FM).

I have many interests in life with many of them aligning with the activities that I partake in here on ONU's campus. I have always been interested in baseball from a young age. Playing the sport in college has fulfilled a long term goal for me. I as well have been interested in the media and its role in influencing how we view issues and how we go about our everyday lives. Along with the media interest that I have, I enjoy writing, blogging, making my own videos, photography, and reading. I will never pass up a good book. I enjoy spending time with my family and the close friends that I have made throughout life and especially here at ONU. All of these interests in my life keep me well rounded and focused on what I find important in life. I am lucky to have another interest to keep everything else in line, I strive to be organized in every aspect of my life (sometimes compulsively).

One Day I would like to work for a professional baseball organization as the stadium event's coordinator or social media coordinator. I find it very interesting how any kind of sport brings a community together and unites the citizens in a common passion, watching their team win. I want to have the opportunity to give back to communities that take part in the events of their local sports teams.

Now that I have told you a little about who I am, I hope you will appreciate this section of my blog a little more. I will be talking mainly about who I am, how ONU and the activities that I am involved with are progressing throughout the year, as well as how they affect the community of students here at ONU.

Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave comments below!