Thank You

Hey Joan,

Thank you for a great class and a great 4 years. It has been an absolute pleasure to get to know you and I appreciate everything you have done for me. I will be praying for you especially that you will continue to have as much impact on others as you have on me! Thanks again!

God bless,

Mark

ESPN Blog

I have started to look the blogs that are on ESPN for baseball games. Typically I have seen about 2000 blog posts for the games that I have looked at. I have also seen 5000+ blogs for certain games.I think it is interesting that every game gets millions of people around the world to type in and share their comments. I started to wonder how the Church could start to get a website going that 2000+ people could start to talk about things concerning the Lord. I feel that the world could change if the body of Christ gets into blogging in a way they do with ESPN. It is just some food for thought.

Texting for Salvation or follow up

Another interesting thing that during Unite they had an alter call. They had the typical cards that people could put their information on and say if they wanted to accept Jesus as their savior, rededicate their life to the Lord, or if they had questions and wanted to follow up with a person. However, what they did do was they allowed people to text into a certain number that allowed people to give the information electronically. This allows the group who put on the event to gather all the information without having to take all the cards. I haven't seen this before but I feel that it is a trend will be continuing to grow.

Social Media at Unite

I was just at Unite and  they had Twitter accounts where people could send the web stream so that people could watch. I think it was a brilliant idea to incorporate this because it allowed people to get out the word that there are a bunch of young people who are getting together to pray for the National Day of Prayer. I would be excited to see how many people ended up watching as a result of this event being posted on Twitter or even in Facebook. I was also thinking about how other events should use this strategy of posting in Twitter and Facebook during the live event so that people who are there can get the word out. I think it was very smart on their behalf.

Paypal Account

I thought it was very interesting that when we were designing our webpage, we could not add any products to be bought without having a Paypal account. This is very smart on the part of the webdesigners because it makes sure that there is a proper system set up that allows the business owners to get paid. When I did research on Paypal, I feel like it is the most reliable paying system that is used on the internet. I think it is also the one that is most trusted by consumers and by having Paypal, it makes your business seem more legitimate. For this reason, we used Paypal on our website.

Using Klout

            Another tool that I would recommend using is a tool called Klout. I do not understand how the calculations are made because it is made with complex algorithms, but it seems to provide some good feedback. Essentially what Klout does is that it measures the amount of traffic on a webpage, Tweets, re-Tweets, Likes, Un-likes, and other information, and calculates then how many people your social media has actually reached.  This can be a very effective tool because one can see how there can be a domino effect in one person seeing the website, and how a re-Tweet can then be seen by hundreds or thousands. With the use of social media, one can spend very little money, and have it be seen by thousands.

Google Analytics

            After doing research on how to measure if social media is profiting a company, I feel like the best way is to use Google Analytics.  This is a tool that allows you to track what page a person is on when they “Like” like your website or business. This allows people who are assigned with Google +1 button to track activity on their website.  This can also be used for Tweets in a way where if a person Tweets a something from your website, it will be tracked in Google Analytics to see where on your website is being affective. Practically, you can set up a social media campaign and track the activity of people who are looking at it. Using Google Analytics you can track where people saw it, how long the spent on it, and updates can be sent directly to you. One can then compare the sales of their business when the campaign was started to before the campaign, and use a cause and effect analysis to determine the most likely reason for an increase in sales.