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Five Things I Learned in Summer School

By Sara 

Summer is a time for heading to the beach, lounging in the sun and eating ice cream. Everyone day dreams all year about their perfect summer getaway. The wind in your hair, sand beneath your feet, hearing ocean waves in the distance. *record scratch* Well ya girl had summer school and all beach cruising sun lounging ice cream eating festivities were postponed. Oh, but not to worry this class was actually pretty cool (Digital Public Relations). Aside from saving money on frozen treats I learned a thing or two about handling client business online. Don’t believe me? Then check out this nifty list I made (apparently its called a listicle...)

1. Set your goals. Not relationship goals but your clients goals. What exactly are they trying to improve or change? It’s the destination or result. Once everyone understands what the goal is, you can then develop a strategy and tactics to help get your client where they want to be.

2. Do your research. Sure I guess cycberstalking your date counts as research but we’re talking about your client. Specifically understanding them, their audiences and the competition. And it turns out there’s fancy software that will beautifully display all kinds of stats for you.

3. Abbreviations other than lol. SEO. FTC. CTA’s. We had plenty of abbreviations in class and don’t worry I had no idea what they meant either tbh. SEO means search engine optimization which is fancy talk for where an organization comes up on a Google search. The more traffic a site has the higher it ranks. And CTA’s? That stands for call to action. Things like “Sign up here”or “Don’t forget to read my blog next week.”

4. Technographics Techno-wha?

Yeah that’s what I thought too but it’s sort of like the digital version of demographics. For example demographics are things like age, gender, occupation or income. Technographics are things like what device is being used to access the internet, computer or tablet? Where are people going for entertainment, Netflix or Hulu? Where is time being spent online, Twitter or Youtube? Whatever the answers are to these questions you need both types of graphics to reach your clients goals.

5. Brand voice. Wendy’s is savage, Sephora’s is sophisticated and Target is family friendly. These are the brands persona or voice. You have to be consistent with them and understand that it may change over time. Now I knew brands had a certain way of presenting themselves but I didn’t know it was a real term or something they strived to have. Thanks summer school!

This class taught me a lot and I feel like I can leave with things that will help me be successful. I would recommend it to my friends and I don’t have anything negative to say about it. But if you’ll excuse me Digital Public Relations summer session 1, I’ve got a cold drink and beach waves calling my name.

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