Tips for Students with a Passion for Social Media

By: Amy Cabanas, Matteo Fialdini, Kathrin Hanke, Andrew McClure and Jacqueline Williams
1Sarah Dalton works as both a Marketing professor at UMSL, where she graduated with her MBA in digital marketing, as well as in the marketing field. She describes herself as organized and creative, and is an active user across social media platforms, as well as, a blogger on her personal blog www.socialseconds.com.
When Sarah found out about the opening for a social media professor, she took the opportunity to spread her passion about social media to UMSL students. Sarah is excited to be contributing to the UMSL Digital Marketing Conference which will be held on April 21, 2016. We caught up with Sarah to ask her about her career, her love for social media, and her thoughts on St. Louis’ growing digital marketing scene.
Check out the interview below!
1. Do you feel UMSL’s digital marketing MBA program helped in preparation for your current job and teaching?
I don’t think I would be anywhere without my Digital Marketing Certificate. Those classes really took me to another level. When I went to school we didn’t have those classes in undergrad. So, they really rounded out my marketing education and taught me things like blogging, digital marketing, digital strategies, measurement of digital media and of course more social media. Without those subjects I don’t think I would be where I am today.
2. Where do you see St. Louis going in the digital marketing scene, and how does UMSL fit into that?
We are in the Midwest so we might not always be in all the trends like they are on the east and west coast, but I think we are definitely getting much closer. With all the great people around, it’s so easy to collaborate on ideas and with local agencies. I see the digital scene getting stronger and stronger in St. Louis, and UMSL could not be doing any better. You don’t see these kinds of classes at other schools. As UMSL continues to grow these programs and add classes, the UMSL digital marketing students will continue to be a step ahead!
3. You have your own blog, www.socialseconds.com. Do you think having a personal blog is essential for social and digital marketers?
Yes, I think a blog is a great way to spread the word about what you think about social. Even if you don’t necessarily know what to say, you could talk about things you see other people do, provide recaps, or blog about guest speakers. It’s a great place to showcase your writing style and what you care about in social media. If you are too afraid to start a blog or don’t think you have the time to maintain it, you can always publish on LinkedIn Pulse.
Sarah also shared some other interesting thoughts and advice with us marketing students. “Having your own blog really shows companies that you know how to build a WordPress site, that you understand content, and that you have written a few blogs. It’s just a really easy way to showcase yourself,” Sarah said.
Sarah also often references her own marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook – “Gary started from the bottom and built up his social media enterprise into what it is today,” said Sarah.
Lastly, Sarah highly recommends marketing students get involved with the AMA St. Louis-The American Marketing Association, and attend the UMSL Digital Marketing conference on April 21, 2016. “MDMC16 will be a full day event of all things digital marketing. People come in from all over the country to speak to us. It’s a better value than any other conference I can think of,” she said. “And it is FREE for UMSL students (but unfortunately now sold out)!”
Follow Sarah on Twitter: Sdaltonstl

#STL Thought Leader Brianna Smith Talks All Things Digital Media

By: Nicole Atencio, Minji Choi, Je Ewing, Chase Kohler, & Tiara Wilkerson
2On April 21st, the Midwest’s largest digital marketing conference will be held at Union Station in St. Louis. On our journey to discover how marketing has shaped this community we were introduced to Brianna Smith, a thought leader in the digital marketing industry and a local supporter of UMSL. She is the Director of Marketing and Communications for the 2016 Midwest Digital Marketing Conference. Continue reading “#STL Thought Leader Brianna Smith Talks All Things Digital Media”

#MDMC16 Speaker Feature: Edward Domain

By: Jacob Bryant
REPLACEEdDomain-250x270
Edward Domain: veteran, TV personality, activist, CEO, and a speaker at this year’s MDMC! Edward founded what would become Techli in 2011 and came to St. Louis in 2012 after receiving an Arch Grant. Edwards’s company Techli created the TV show, ‘The Domain Tech Report”, which shows weekly on St. Louis Channel 9. His show discusses innovation news and technology that affects our daily lives, in business and at home. Edward not only created the show, but he hosts it as well. He interviews entrepreneurs and innovators from all over and his show has gained a following in St. Louis and across the nation. Interested viewers tune in online every week to see his show!
The story of how Edward got to his current position is almost as interesting as the man himself. An Army veteran, Edward has worked with the FBI, DEA, Border Patrol and participated in “Operation Bright Star.” Edward also graduated from the Army Airborne School as a paratrooper.
Unfortunately, Edward’s story also includes a negative event that had a large impact on his life. In 2013 Edward was involved in an accident while riding in a cab and was very badly injured. The cab he was riding in was uninsured and the accident landed him in a hospital for 6 months. Edward didn’t want to see what happened to him happen to others, so he became a political activist. Edward campaigned to make the St. Louis Metro Taxi Commission to enforce regulations for cabs having insurance and to make the residing Board Chair step down. He was successful in both ventures. Edward’s work resulted in the commission has doubling their insurance liability limits.
Edward is an extremely talented man and speaker, come see him discuss innovation and more at this year’s MDMC!
Twitter_logo_blue
Follow Edward on Twitter at @EdwardDomain.
12729182_858914570895857_5463700645594053336_n

Connected Fitness with Under Armour's Katie Krum

katie-krumm-250x270Katie Krum is currently the Director of Digital Marketing at Under Armour and manages the content and engagement for Under Armour’s Connected Fitness ecosystem. This includes MyFitnessPal, MapMyFitness, and Under Armour Record.
Katie graduated with a B.A. in History from Princeton and a M.S. in Integrated Marketing from NYU. Before she worked for Under Armour, she worked in digital marketing at Nickelodeon and Mariott International. Katie’s background comes from start-ups, which is also where she discovered her passion for digital technologies.
Katie also made Brand Innovators “40 under 40” List. A list consisting of young marketing professionals who “have proven they have the ingenuity, leadership, and strategic foresight necessary to perform at the highest levels possible in the in the constantly evolving media and marketing environment.” – David Teicher, editor and chief content officer at Brand Innovators.
In anticipation of her discussion on Social Media we asked her to answer some questions on the future of digital marketing, see her opinions and insights below!
What’s the future of wearable tech? Will it ever become a marketing platform?
Clothing! Shirts and shoes will provide us with the information (and so much more) that bands, glasses, watches and heart rate monitors provide us today… the marketing platform will be in the data we collect.
What does “content” mean to you?
I used to have a much more narrow view of content — related to premium content: long-form content (tv series), blog articles, visual/story-telling slideshows, etc. But in the broadest of terms: commercials are content, images on a retail site might be considered content, instagram posts are content…its so many things. So broad that we probably need to create more precise terms for the future.
What are your top 3 digital metrics?
Related to engagement, I am trying to turn the organization towards quality time spent, which can be measured by:  time spent reading, scroll depth, engagement, recirculation, shares, and percentage of article completed.
Come hear Katie talk about why she feels this way and all the other insights she has about digital marketing at the MDMC! Register today, April will be here before you know it!

Why You Should Not Pass Over Email Marketing

email marketing

By: Frederick Eccher and Chris Dzurick
email marketingDespite email marketing being passed over as a relic by entrepreneurs chasing the next great technology, email marketing is still highly effective– and cost efficient to boot. Using your content as fuel to give users something of value and tying in some kind of social media integration, email marketing can serve as a type of glue to hold your other strategies together. Continue reading “Why You Should Not Pass Over Email Marketing”

Early Bird Registration Now Open for UMSL Digital 2016 Conference

midwest digital marketing conference
We’re thrilled to announce that registration is now open for this year’s State of Digital Media Marketing Conference, a production of the University of Missouri – St. Louis, College of Business. This coming April 21, 2016 marks our 4th year and we are going to be bigger and better than ever. Here are just a few of the highlights: Continue reading “Early Bird Registration Now Open for UMSL Digital 2016 Conference”

How I managed to embrace the shift to digital marketing

IMG_9090By: Sarah Dalton, UMSL Digital Mindshare Editor-in-Chief and UMSL MBA Student
As a 2009 graduate with a degree in Business Administration, a concentration in Marketing and a minor in Communications, I really thought I was ready to take on the marketing world. Or, maybe I had just drank too much of the liberal arts kool-aid (#GoBulldogs).
The first few years of my career were great. I started as a Marketing Analyst, learning the ins-and-outs of the client experience, calculating MANY a cost-per-sale analyses and making recommendations as to which campaigns needed to be accelerated and which needed to be trashed.
As I progressed into marketing generalist roles, all things digital quickly became part of my daily responsibilities. I was creating banners, landing pages and social assets on the fly. Even though YouTube and blogs proved to be fantastic resources for learning more about my new responsibilities, I felt like I had a GAPING hole in my skill set and education in regards to all things digital marketing. Yes, I could brief a designer on how to create an appealing banner, write a clever social post or develop drip email campaigns… but what did this all mean? How did this all work together, and what the heck were we really spending our resources on?
I realized that even graduating in 2009 (wow – less than 7 years ago) was still TOO EARLY to have any formal education on digital strategy. I knew all about consumer behavior, retail marketing and integrated campaigns, but there wasn’t a single digital course or project to speak to from my undergraduate transcript. And not at the fault of my alma mater – this digital takeover just happened so fast.
AAEAAQAAAAAAAASeAAAAJDQ4MTgzOWU0LTc1N2UtNDE2MC05Y2M5LTU2MWFhMzNjZDgxMw
After a lot of research and networking with the best minds in St. Louis digital, I discovered that Digital Marketing Certificates from universities are starting to be “a thing.” They usually landed in the Professional Studies or Schools of Continuing Education in my research experience. In true Sarah fashion, I jumped right in and decided since I was starting a Digital Certificate, I might as well just complete a full-on MBA in the process since many of the classes could be credit toward an MBA anyway.
This education has completely changed both my skill set and overall confidence in digital tactics. There are still things I don’t know that come up, but I now feel like I have the right base level understanding to attack these issues head-on. Here’s a sample of the coursework I recently completed to acquire my certificate:
-Digital Media Marketing Strategy & Measurement
-Clinical Study in Digital and Social Media Marketing (this was like a mini-internship to help non-profits with their digital strategies)
-Social Media Strategies
-Mobile Marketing
-Blogs to Buzz
-Digital Media Buying
Going back to school or fitting in classes on the weekends is definitely not the answer for everyone. It’s about timing. Here are additional non-school resources I have used to round out this new knowledge:
1. Digital Marketing Conferences | Here’s a sample of ones I attend in St. Louis and one I attended in New York this year. Google what’s happening in your city.
Social Recruiting Summit
Digital Marketing Conference
2. HubSpot.com Blogs | One of my best and most visited friends. Search for anything social or digital, and you’ll find very tactical descriptions and tips.
3. Lynda.com | Did you Lynda.com is now a LinkedIn company? Great (and cost effective) resource to pick up more “formalized” training.
4. Hootsuite University | I cannot say enough about how much Hootsuite makes the lives of social media managers easier. As an added bonus, they now offer an entire suite of classes that teach you not only how to best use their platform, but also how to effectively build, target and deploy social campaigns.
5. Networking | Meet with the best digital talent that will reply to your emails. Is there a local Social Media or Digital Marketing Club? I know St. Louis has several. Admit you’re clueless and talk to the experts about how they “figured it all out” in the city you are in. And, these are awesome connections for later when you “get it.”
Digital and social are not only here, they are speeding away. It’s part of our jobs as effective marketers to keep up.
How do you stay ahead?

4 Online Tools for Digital Marketers

By: Kathryn Todd

In a world where digital marketing is so prominent, it’s hard to decide which tools will produce the best results for your product & customer. Digital presence is now necessary for companies, and it is a huge part of the overall brand experience. It’s easy to let digital and social take over your schedule, so here are some helpful tools to streamline some of your digital marketing efforts.
Managing Multiple Social Communities
With the presence of so many social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Vine, and more, it is hard to manage all of the 512px-owly-grad-hsuposts and presences. The CMO Council states that 46% of global users go to social media to help make purchase decisions, and 71% of customers purchase from brands they are following on social media. These statistics show the huge impact social media makes on a brand and its success. Websites such as Hootsuite help manage different social media websites. This website allows users to schedule and post to up to 35 different social media platforms.
Inbound Marketing Automation
The CMO Council also states that content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing at 62% less of a cost. Hubspot was founded in 2006 and aims to help businesses to “attract, engage, and delight customers by delivering inbound experiences that are relevant, helpful, and personalized.” This company has over 15,000 customers in over 90 companies to whom it provides blogging, social, SEO, analytics, CRM, and more.HubSpotLogo_Dark_Web_Flat
Online Creative Services
Ever wonder how brands create beautiful images for social, email or print deliverables? With companies like Canva emerging in the online graphic design space, even the novice designer can create simple and ultra-professional branding for your firm in a matter of minutes. Canva is free, with premium elements available for purchase. Start creating your visual content by using Canva’s templates or highly customize starting from a blank page. Digital options include blog graphics, cover photos, social media images and much more. Print templates include presentations, flyers, posters and invitations.
Scoring Marketing Tools
Does your inbox feel overpowered by great companies reaching out, but you don’t know where to start or who you really need? G2, a business software review platform, allows users to learn more about marketing products, compare them side by side and access full reports. Products are assigned a G2 score, a market presence score, and a satisfaction score. Viewers can see how many ratings each product has – ranging from 10 to over 800.
From start-ups to legacy companies, there are many different tools available to develop and evolve your digital brand. What are your favorite tools?