Guest Speaker / Post 6

Mike Warburton is the brand manager of San Diego Zoo Global and was nice enough to take time out of his day to talk to our class. He is very knowledgeable when it comes to marketing and shared some ways that the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park advertise. Mike uses many different avenues to advertise such as social media, google keywords and email blasts to name a few. He also shared how he went about  re-branding the Wild Animal Park as San Diego Safari Park because they wanted to express the overall experience with the animals and the opportunity to feed the animal up close and personal. Mike shared a lot of useful information which can be applied to any person who is looking to take their business to the next level.

Post 4 - Facebook PPC Journey

How I became interested in Internet Marketing was though one of my best friends. He showed me through dedication and perseverance that you can make a ton of money....all from the comfort of your home. See him make more in one month than I do in a year really opened my eyes. He has a Affiliate offer he mails and also got in mailing other peoples offers.  When I told him about this class he offered to pay for me to mess around with Facebook advertising. How could I refuse. Armed with a $50 a day budget and a refinance mortgage offer to advertise I was all ready to make a ton of money. I got my first ad approved by Facebook fairly easy and thought there wasnt much to this. Reality set in pretty quick. After 324,695 impressions I had 221 clicks with a click through rate of .068%. Not bad I thought....but out of the 221 click I only had one lead! That means only one person filled out the offer!!!! Wow! So instead of making money I was actually losing money. From there I set out to split test different ads by changing images and the content of the ads. Mostly with disastrous results. But it is actually kind of fun....mostly because my friend is nice enough to foot the bill. I've tried different approaches....like trying to figure out a image that people would trust and click on. So I designed a ad with Oprah on it......Facebook shot that down quick like. Facebook is kind of funny because they will approve ads and then a day later come back and disapprove a ad you are already running. But if this was easy everyone would be doing it. So now I signed up with a Affiliate network and im looking to run some other offers and see how they convert. I know there is a lot of money to be made with PPC and running affiliate offers, I just have to put in the time.......I will make it work......its just going to take a little longer than I originally thought.

Guest Speakers / Post 3

     Ricardo and Katie Villareal are two very passionate people who spoke to my internet marketing class about their upcoming documentary "Ride With Larry." It was so great to listen to them speak because they told us all of the struggles they encountered and how with some hard work they over came them. As soon as they started speaking you instantly realized how much this project means to them. There is nothing better than to listen to some speak when they are truly passionate about what they do verses someone who is only in it for the money. Ricardo and Katie shared so many tips and gave so much advice that I wish I could have taken it all in. The main topic they shared was about a site called Kickstarter.com. Kickstarter.com is a crowd funding site that supports peoples independent efforts. It helps writers, musicians, independent film makers and a whole lot more. Kickstarter.com  was named one of the top 50 inventions by Time Magazine. The Pros are that it is free and can reach the masses for you. Some of the Cons is that you risk your idea, either you raise all the money you set out to raise or you get nothing.  Ricardo and Katie used Kickstarter.com to raise $50,000 in 60 days which is quit amazing. They are using the money to fund their upcoming documentary "Ride With Larry." They gave us a lot of useful information regarding Kickstarter.com but they also shared how they used some other social media platforms to raise awareness for their cause. They used Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and Vismeo. But their biggest secret was to collaborate, connect, engage influences, and most of all work hard. They were great guest speakers and it was really amazing to see how social media helped them to raise $50,000 in 60 days for their documentary "Ride With Larry." I wish them nothing but continued success.

Assignment 2 - Link Request

Hi Bing,
              My name is Bill Broding and im in your Internet Marketing class. I couldn't make it to last class and I hope its ok for me to send you this link request.  If you are completely bored and have nothing to do, you can click on this Bill's Blog. I noticed your site Bing Bai (Walkie-Talkie) has some very nice content. But truthfully im more interested in why you have "Walkie-Talkie" in your title. I admit, walkie-talkie is a pretty funny word. My Blog Bill's Broding isnt quit as interesting as yours but im working on that. Most of my content is very similar to yours, mostly because we are in the same class. Content aside, I would appreciate it if you would link to my blog. That way I can sleep good at night knowing I will get credit for this assignment.





<a href="http://billbroding123.blogspot.com/">Internet Marketing - Grossmont College – BUS 147 / CSIS 147</a>




Good luck on this assignment,


Bill Broding
bill.bro.147@gmail.com
http://billbroding123.blogspot.com/

Guest Speaker / Post 2

Before Angie A. Swartz spoke, I had no idea what LinkedIn was. Angie Swartz is a expert in the field and who better to learn from than her. LinkIn is a very useful social media tool for business professionals. It had over a billion searches last year! That last statement peaked my interest and after that I started to listen to Angie speak a little more closely. She first started off by talking about the "7 steps to creating a stand out profile."  Number one was to use a professional picture and create a great headline. Also she said to use the same picture for all of your online profiles because that is how people start to recognize you. Number two was to add all of your current and past positions as well as education. Angie said it was ok to leave off erotic dancer on your resume and mainly stick to what is relevant. Unless you are running a strip club, then by all means put it on. Also you want to think of keywords that you want people who search for you to find you with when they type that keyword in. Maybe something like "dollar bills with baby powder" if you are running a strip club. Number three was to include your website and blog using your brand titles. This makes a lot of sense considering the user is already online while looking at your profile. Number four is to take the time to create a great summary that allows LinkedIn users to connect with you. Number five is to add keywords and key phrases through out your profile, especially in your specialties. Number six was to complete your contact settings, personal information and groups. And number seven was to grow your recommendations. Angie gave us so much useful information. LinkedIn  is just one part of an overall social media and its replacing the traditional business card. And in this digital world we live in people will just Google your LinkedIn profile and in turn grow your business.

Assignment One - Compare Hosting or Domain Name Services

Im going to start this blog off with the honest truth.....I know next to nothing when it comes to finding a Domain Name Service. But I shall press on in the hopes that I might learn something while doing my research for this blog.


The first domain name service that I came across was the all to familiar GoDaddy.com. This is the one im most familiar with because of the amount of advertising they have done. Its amazing that I tend to remember advertising with scantily clad beautiful women......huh.....go figure. Sex sells and  GoDaddy is all to familiar with that fact. I became familiar with GoDaddy.com as a brand before I had any idea what they were actually promoting. Being impressed with how they spent so much time to build out their brand and the creativity they used, right away I feel most comfortable with giving them my business. I like how GoDaddy is a kind of one stop shop. Every thing you need for you hosting is offered plus much more. I know you have to pay to get the add-ons like Website Analytics or Email Marketing, but I feel as my site grows GoDaddy.com would have all the tools I would need to continue to expand. The only down side to my thought process involving GoDaddy is that fact that you shouldn't have all of your eggs in one basket. Meaning that if something were to happen to GoDaddy, your site with all of the wonderful add-ons would be about as useful as a pet rock.


The second domain name service I saw was Dotster.com. The home page is nice and straight forward. It allows you to type in and search for domains to see if they are available. Its a nice feature and GoDaddy also offered this on their homepage. Dotster.com offers most of the same services that GoDaddy offers only for a little bit less money. The savings wouldnt be drastic but if I needed to really stretch my dollar,Dotster would be a serious option.  Dotster isnt nearly the size of GoDaddy and because of this fact it seems that they might have a little bit better one-on-one customer service. At least that is what I read while reading their mission statement and they couldn't write it if it wasn't true......right?


The third domain name service which I saw was Moniker.com. Immediately I liked their landing page because of the image of the cloud and the overall color scheme. The airy feel of the homepage relaxes me and isn't nearly as busy as the other two domain name services. Again, they allow you to search to see if the domain name you want is available. But what really catches my eye is the calendar of up coming events. Right now they have a auction going on for domain names that are already established. I had my eye on the domain name SlotMachine.com.......unfortunately the opening bid for that domain is $1-5 Million dollars and im a little short on cash right now. But seriously, I really like this feature on the Moniker site because I can look for established domains for a product i'm currently offering and it also gives me ideas on product/sites that I might want to look into for the future. Moniker falls into the middle as far as pricing. The only draw back I see is that they dont offer as many features as GoDaddy and Dotster. But that might not necessarily be a draw back because as I mentioned before you dont want to have all of your eggs in one basket. So with Moniker.com you dont have to worry about your site going the way of the pet rock.

Hello World - Post #1

Hello everyone. My name is Bill and I created this blog as part of a Internet Marketing class at Grossmont College. This classes online site is at practical-internet-marketing.blogspot.com.