Saturday, May 11, 2013

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

So as I am sure you are all ridiculously aware, this past Thursday was the LAST DAY OF CLASS!!!


And I am just as happy as the kid above if not more.

I feel like I have been in school for a million years and finally I am going going to graduate. It's been a long time coming and I so excited.


Anyway, just wanted to get that off of my chest.

Back to the group project....

We all met on Thursday and were feeling very confident about our individual parts.

Professor, I think that you will find that this next project will be a step up from the last project. Which I suppose wouldn't be that much since last time we did terrible. Ha Ha Ha. Just kidding.

Well, since the project is basically done at this point we convened for only a short period of time and went on our separate ways. 

Perfect ending for the last day of class!!!

Have a great summer!
Thanks for stopping by!
-Meredith


ALMOST DONE....

So this past Tuesday, my group and I, Group 6 got down and dirty.....


we cranked out a bunch of work and were well on our way to finalizing our project. 

As you saw in posts before this one, we had a great outline to go off of....and armed with that I think that we were very well prepared.

We went over our parts together and combed through them.....


Combed through them so much that if our project were a dog we would be able to take this

and do this!!!


Impressive. 

I know right.

What I am trying to say is that we got a lot done, fine tuned everything and i feel very positive about the product that we will be turning in.

At least, I think it will be significantly better than our project 2.

Thanks for visiting my blog.
-Meredith

.....




Saturday, May 4, 2013

Outline of all outlines

Well, our group wasn't in strong numbers on Thursday. But we came up this this, and I think it is pretty awesome. I worked hard on this, so I figured I might as well post it and get some feedback.


Ok, so here are some of the ideas that we discussed in class today with professor Abel. All of these were approved by him and would help us build a cohesive argument to write about.

So Clay emailed his part to the professor and the professor said that we should only focus on one demographic, because men, women and children is too broad. Clay opened the floor for us to focus on Women. I think that this is a good idea.

-Audience-  So basically, in the Audience section you would discuss the following:
·      Who the audiences are that the NFL targets- men, women & children. Discussing the percentages of the market that the NFL markets to.
·      Then mention that because the NFL already has a successful system for interacting with men through social media, and that we would like to focus on Women, as the NFL should increase their social media relationship with women.
·      Then further delve into the female demographic.
·      The professor offered phrases like “ NFL has already maximized the male market” they want to “focus on building future consumers” and “ what new people can we attract? –“There is a potential new social media plan”

-Publics use of social media
·      Then this section would cover the ways in which women use social media.
·      Discuss both how they use social media to interact with the NFL, and the popular methods in which they use social media outside of the NFL (this will lead to later parts that discuss new strategies to tap into these markets).
·      Ex. Mention how women use Instagram to take “selfies” (pictures of themselves in the mirror) and how women use Pinterest to find crafts and clothes, and Forums to discuss issues with other women and how women use social media to interact with television shows and stores (this will come in to play later)
·      Also discuss how they ALREADY use social media to interact with the NFL.


-Social Media Activities of your organization or brand
·      This section is straight forward. How does the NFL already direct it’s social media activities to women.
·      Ex. Pinterst – clothes and crafts
·      What social media are not being used at all? (this will come in to play later) ex. Instagram

Competitors
·      Focus on women as well.  I will talk about how the NBA uses it’s affiliation with tv networks for shows like Basketball wives. Etc.
·      And mention the other ways that the NBA, NHL, MLB and College Football attract women.
·      This section, and the section above ( Social Media Activities of your organization or brand) should be similar format so we should get in touch with each other.

Then we go into the four subsections in recommending a plan

Objectives-
·      Mention that the NFL is not doing enough to gain a social media presence with women
·      Then explain that the objective is to attract more women consumers and viewership by using the various social media
·      Basically we want to attain a larger segment of the market that equals and surpasses what we have now, and that of competitors
·      Mention providing a social media atmosphere that attract and nurture the female perspective……etc etc
·      Increase general football knowledge among women
·      Increase the female conversation about women.

Strategies-
·      What GENERAL approach will we take?
·      Increase media presence in areas more affiliated with women.
·      Try to utilize social media that has yet to be utilized. (ex. Instagram)
·      “relaunch or launch revamped social media platforms”
Tactics-
·      Tactics include specific ways to implement strategies.
·      We discussed a “Dress to Impress” contest using Instagram. Women can submit selfies through instagram in their cutest football gear. After the Sunday game, a winner for each of the 32 teams is selected. This attracts females to football in an interesting way…..elaborate on that.
·      Build/ use relationships with TV stations to develop a NFL wives tv show where women can indirectly gain interest in the NFL and supplement this by having a facebook , page twitter account and etc. for the show.
·      Start a NFL pinterest page specifically designed with crafting for football games and parties. (knit a football shaped jumper for a baby, best superbowl Sunday dip, diy dresses using NFL t-shirts)
·      The NFL could open up women’s only forums (women like exclusivity) and then the NFL should release control and let women do the conversating. The NFL should only step in occasionally to help direct the conversation to football.
·      Etc.

Measurement/ Evaluation-
·      How will we measure/ demonstrate success?
·      Monitor the various social media sites using netvibes or other media monitoring sites
·      Is there an increased presence on pinterest? Are there more likes on Facebook? More football  tweets by females on twitter? Etc.
·      How we will evaluate the specific results of the above mentioned tactics? Ex. Did a lot of women on instagram send in “selfies”?
·      Did women respond to the various relaunches and revamps?
·      What is NFL wives viewership? Did Footbll game viewership go up as well. As well as social media presence for each of these.
·      How many posts to the forum?

Everything should be related and cohesive.

Find ways to weave in the LOCI & ETCH parts of the lectures from class.

Provide APA sources for your information if necessary.

This is the general discussion we had mixed in with some of me and Anna’s brainstorming. This could serve as a guidline for the paper if we choose to use it. I am also emailing the professor so that if he so chooses he can offer any feedback.

Please respond with any questions, comments and ideas.

Don’t forget, you should have your section written by Tuesday’s class so we can review in a group on Tuesday.

I have posted this in the email and as an attachment so if needed, you can highlight and respond as you so choose.

-Meredith Rolen



THIS PAST TUESDAY

This past Tuesday we got into our groups.


Then the Professor went around and discussed with all the groups about their work and how they did.

Let's just say that he took


And ripped us a new one. 

I think that at one point, towards the beginning he told us that ours was the least effective paper out of the lot.

I wanted to do this.....



I think we all felt the same way so we put out brains together


and we can up with magic!


get your minds out of the gutter!! Not that magic!! ( That's what happens when the class is mostly women!)


Damnit! Not that magic either, but you are closer!


That's what I am talking about. That's the kind of magic we made!

We really got to dive into the nitty gritty about what is happening with our project. We are making good progress and we're well on our way to developing a great outline. We will be trying to do a lot better. For the next time.

Thanks for tuning in. - Meredith



Saturday, April 27, 2013

First Day of Project 3!

The first day of project Three......The beginning of the end!!!!

Side bar for a second...... This means that I am that much closer to graduating after a 7 year bout with college!!! College almost won.....but guess who is coming out on top this round! I am, I made UMSL my........ UH....sorry, forgot this was for school. You all know what I was going to say. 


Ok, Sidebar over!

So, back to the actual class. Today we learned about all the details concerning project three. Afterwards, Anna ,Clayton, Joe, Thomas and I all met up to discuss who would take what sections. 


Since there are five of us we had a couple of different choices on how to divide up the work. Ultimately, we thought it would be best to just give the difficult areas (tactics and competitors) to one person each, as opposed to dividing them in half. I got the competitors section.

For the competitors section I will be using the various dashboard applications.......


...to monitor various other sports outlets. These outlets include.......

College Football


Major League Baseball

The North American Soccer League

The National Basketball Association


and the National Hockey League.

Wish me luck, hope I find some good info. Thanks for reading my blog.
-Meredith Rolen



Last Day of Project 2! Hooray!

On class this past tuesday we made our final plans and touch-ups with regards to Project 2.

Together, our group put all the puzzle pieces together.


We agreed that I would be the compiler and in very timely manners everyone sent in their work to me and I compiled the paper. I wrote the first part, the summary about the NFL, Clayton wrote the methodology section, Anna wrote the results and Joe and Thomas split the conclusion. 

Together, we put in a lot of hard work.


Hopefully, we all get an A+!!!!



Thursday, April 18, 2013

So Who Got the 9.9? And How P***ed Off Are You!? Ha!

In class today we divided the writing parts for project 2.

I am writing the purpose part, Anna is writing the results part, Thomas is covering part 2 of the conclusion, Joseph is covering part 1 of the conclusion and Clay is covering the methodology.

By guessing a number I "won" the opportunity to  compile the work for 3 extra points. Which is good because I did the math and I am right on the cusp of getting one grade higher.


Speaking of grades, the professor basically said it's impossible to get a perfect grade. That is messed up!!!

It reminded me of this.....


AND HOW NONE OF US WILL NEVER GET IT!!!!! HA HA!!!

If I was the 9.9/10 person, I would be mad!!! lol. Fortunately I do far too mediocre work to be affected by this. 

But to the 9.9 person.....my heart goes out to you!

Anyway, back to the group. We all agreed to email everyone else by class on Tuesday, there we will do the final editing and combining of the project.

Also today, in my college level communications course, we went over its vs it's. That was......well, I found this picture so I figured I may as well post it. This helps elaborate on the its vs it's dynamic. Mostly, I just thought it was hilarious!!



- Meredith Rolen