Impressions in SEO

This week in our class reading of "Measure What Matters", we have been reiterating the lesson of impressions. What types of impressions there are, how we can track our impressions, what to do with our impression data moving forward. One thing Dr.Agozziono stated in her notes is measuring is a constant thing. You are always looking to improve your measurement strategies and impressions.

The types of impressions can be differ in terms of how the impression was made. If the impression comes from a solely a search and a tag is matched, then it is considered an organic impression. Also if you are getting impressions from traditional media without paying for impressions or viewership, then it is organic as well. 

The counterpart of organic impressions are paid impressions. Paid impressions are simply paid advertising or product placement. It can be noticed deliberately and/or separately from the content that it is in. These impressions are not as rewarding or as concrete as the organic impressions because without the money, it is unknown if your product, (or organization, or service) would have been found. 

The best way to track the impressions for your website or your organizations social page is probably through Google Analytics. Google Analytics is way to transform the social media platform and how our content is truly perceived and not just going off of views or likes. Google Analytics is proven to be a productive tool for most organizations, but last week when a guest speaker came into our class, she she worked for the Hollister Co. and she spoke of her companies own way to track their impressions on all of their social channels. The system showed how each channel had a certain number of organic and paid impressions and what times the impressions were at a peak and at a low. Lindsey taught me some very valuable social media skills and tips going forward into my career. Although I don't have aspirations to be a social media manager or coordinator, I do know that social media is going to be around for awhile and will continue to change the communications landscape. 

Better Men Making Better Lives

This weekend I got to do something real cool. This weekend I got to make 10 young men's lives better. Not only in the facet of them joining a fraternity and broadening their horizon's, but because they had the tenacity to do what others couldn't. If joining a fraternity/sorority was easy, then everyone would do it. I am proud of the way these young me set themselves apart from others in their age group and took the Delta Sig challenge to become a better man.

The new guys all have special qualities about them that I like, but the one quality I like the most is they have become a unit. Their pledge class really rallied together and came close, despite their different backgrounds and interests, they became the best of friends and understand the true meaning of brotherhood. They are not the same at all, and yet they couldn't be closer.

The new initiates of Delta Sigma Phi will not only be better man, but they will be surrounded and influenced by better men and will put them in situations to succeed in life. Joining a fraternity is almost the sole reason I was offered my internship with FOX sports this summer in Los Angeles. Accepting the challenge to become a better man and balancing a varsity sport, a fraternity and school really taught me a lot about myself and what I am capable of and this capability was tapped into by the fraternity aspect of my freshman year of college. Watching these young men go through really made me reflect on my days as a freshman and what I want to tell them to avoid the same mistakes as me. Now I know how my dad feels...

Congrats Fall initiates of 2015 and welcome to the brotherhood.

How To Overcome Your Fear

The video you see above is a video of me showing how to sing the James Taylor song, "Fire and Rain". The decision on what to do for a how to video was not as easy as I though it would be. The first idea was to try and draw the Disney character, Simba. That would take too long and was not a timely subject for my project.

The next idea was to show how to grip a baseball and pitch it differently since I am a pitcher here for the baseball team. But I am not able to get up and throw a baseball due to my knee being in an immobilizer.

Then I thought about doing something like how to make a great peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That seemed too simple and not creative enough.

I was ignoring my confidence in singing because I was too afraid to do it in front of a camera or for anyone to see or hear. The idea was creative, easy enough but still required me to overcome something that wasn't an easy task for me, personally. I knew that I was going to have to swallow my fear and just do it with no regards for how people would react to it.

Social media is a great way for us to share our thoughts, expressions, feelings, and so forth, but it is also a way to express ourselves with no regard for feedback, good or bad. Doing it for the feeling of self-worth and self-esteem. In terms of good social media principles, I would want to have plenty of feedback with good impressions and views and likes. Don't get me wrong here, I want to have a healthy viewership of this video and let people discover my voice if they want or just have them learn how to sing this great song, but this project helped me overcome this fear of singing in front of a camera and that cannot be taught in a textbook.

This video was also on Jon Andrew's birthday, and I couldn't help but think about Jon when I chose to sing this song. Check out the YouTube video above for how to sing "Fire and Rain" and also check out my facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/casey.p.mulcahy

Enjoy and God Bless!

Measure What Matters

As the beginning of our next class reading comes upon us, the book, "Measure What Matters" by Katie Delahaye Paine has a different tone to it than others. It seems a little harder to comprehend and follow, but with the assistance of Dr. Agozzino and her power points, it is very much a refutable resource and has content that made me think this weekend.

In chapter 2 Paine states that there 10 questions that every communication professional needs to answer:

1. What are your objectives?
2. Who is the target audience?
3. What is important to your audience?
4. What motivates them to buy your products?
5. What are your key messages?
6. Who influences your audience?
7. How do you distribute your product or service?
8. What are you going to do with the info from the research?
9. What other departments or areas will be affected?
10. What other measurement programs are underway?

The more I analyzed these questions, the more I realized that it was true in the real-world. I understand that the author would't publish these ideas if they're weren't applicable in the real-world, but I found them very relatable to my experience this summer in Los Angeles working as an intern for FOX Sports. Question 6 is the question in particular that got me thinking, because what really motivates or influences us as an audience to a company like FOX Sports? In my opinion, what influences us to watch FOX is the whatever ESPN is not showing. FOX has had trouble trying to keep up with ESPN, but in it's efforts this year, it has made some significant triumphs over the bigger brother that is ESP. FOX hosted the women's World Cup for the summer and also just hosted the World Series. Those 2 monumental events are not being televised on ESPN, so that influences us to watch FOX sports more frequently. These questions are a great way to break down your job as a communicator or just to prepare for the future in the business world. 

New Twitter Feature Gives Fire to Sports

Twitter, as everyone knows, is a place to find newsworthy content and real-time stories going on around the world. But, as every good company does, they have found a way to enhance themselves and critique their flaws to make their product or service even better. The news on Twitter, in my opinion, has always been hard to pinpoint. Either you found it on your timeline or you had to search for it yourself and make a decision on what you wanted to find.


Now, thanks to the innovation by the folks at Twitter, there is a much easier and efficient way to find your news and what is going on in the world. The feature, "moments" has been created to be much more user-friendly to Twitter users."What we're trying to do is get the content directly in-front of you without you having to make decisions," said Madhu Muthukumar, the project manager over seeing the new feature. When you enter the tab for "moments", it categorizes options so you know what you want to look at. The categories are: Today, Sports, News, Fun, Entertainment. When you get to whatever tab you want to look at, it is previewed with a video. I believe involving this media really catches the audience's attention and is a great hook for SEO. 


When I think about how this new feature of Twitter will change sports, I think of how we watch sports. I personally, watch sports live and on television because I am an avid sports fan and like watching the full game. In today's culture however, the way people watch sports is "highlight syndrome" or people only watching the highlights on ESPN or something. In "moments", the highlight's are given and in high quality, which is another overlooked detail. Also, when the highlight is seen, if the user finds an attraction to that post, they can favorite it, retweet it, or comment to it. In the video above, this feature gave wildfire to the MLB postseason and created a whole new animal in terms of fan engagement. The trending ability of Twitter really came into play this post season and how people followed Major League Baseball. 

Wake Up the Echoes

The Fighting Irish have done it again. They played a game down to the wire and found a way to pull out the win. In a tough road game in Philadelphia playing the undefeated, no. 23 ranked Temple Owls, Notre Dame was clinging on to the rest of their season and hopes for a birth in the college football playoff. With 2:14 left to play in the fourth quarter and trailing Temple 20-17, Fighting Irish quarterback Deshone Kizer rifled a pass to the back corner of the end zone ESPN, Kizer has a QBR (quarterback rating) 152.1, which is above the average QBR in Division 1 FBS of 97.4. Kizer demonstrated extreme poise in this tough road game and is another checkmark on the list for the Irish. Having a quarterback that can deliver in the clutch on the road is something every team in the country want. Notre Dame knows they have that, and they need to do everything in their power to utilize his talents and skills. Temple was undefeated and had the biggest game in program history at home, so that can justify the close score for me. As for the playoff selection committee, I am not so sure. There is still plenty of football to go with about 5 weeks left in the season, but as time passes, Notre Dame lives to see another day and fight for a spot. This win was not only huge for Notre Dame, but also coach Brian Kelly who was 10-10 vs top AP 25 (elias sports bureau) teams before coming into the game on Saturday night. That win putting him over that .500 hump helped take a big weight off his back and maybe a bit of job security as well. The Irish's defense also played a large role in the victory as safety #6, KeiVarae Russel intercepted a Temple pass in their hopes of making a game winning drive. The interception sealed the deal for Notre Dame and put the cherry on top for a full team victory. Notre Dame travels to Heinz Field on Saturday to take on the Panthers of Pitt. If Notre Dame wins on the road next weekend, that will be the first time a backup quarterback has won back to back road games for Notre Dame since 1983. Just saying.
and into the hands of his receiver, Will Fuller. The kid had done it again! When the pressure was on, Kizer delivered a big time play. Kizer has gone 5-1 in his 6 career starts this season and has proved that he has what it takes to win whether it be coming from behind or holding a lead, but especially coming from behind. According to

KIND Bars

Around campus these last two weeks, I have heard time and time again about the new "KIND" bars. Last week I made a post talking about if the goal and mission of KIND was realistic or if it was just a poorly set up idea to make money and sell granola bars. I truly believe that it has a good mission behind it and that it has the potential to make a real difference in the ONU community. After making
the post, I was keeping an eye out to actually see KIND bars people acting on their goals. Sure enough, a day later I was perusing through my Instagram timeline and found a post by Megan Cottongim. Megan is a PR major here on campus and is on the team for KIND bars. In the video, there is a woman standing in front of the entire football team and she is leading them through what appears to be a stretching exercise. All of the big, tough, sweaty football players were following the actions of a thin, petite woman and the funny part was the football players were feeling a workout from the stretching and bending. The caption of the video was:

Teaching Ohio Northern University's football team some #KINDbears exercises to be KIND to their bodies. Thank you, KIND snacks for putting together a national campaign for my team and I to help build awareness among students that KIND snacks are the perfect snack for both health and taste. Want to join our team's mission to bring healthy living into ONU's campus community? Post a selfie or a brief description on Twitter and Instagram about how you live a healthy life, both in exercise and in appetite. Also include the brand's social handle (@KINDSnacks) and hashtag (#KINDbears) Thank you! (@smileitsmegannn/Instagram).