Gabe's Blog

 As our fall practiecs have gotten underway, I have found myself under a massive time crunch that my class has joked about for the past two years as "The Fallball Squeeze". It has seemed that practices seem to start right as classes start to get serious, and we quickly have to whip ourselves into shape. The highlight of my week was without a doubt the Alumni Game and the festivities surrounding it. With two days of practice behind us, a new look team stepped out under the lights Friday night to face the alumni. After falling into a quick 3-1 hole, we quickly rebounded, and ended up beating the alumni 12-9. Afterwards I got to see my family and all of my friend who have stepped into the real world. On Saturday, I got food with my family again, and dressed to the nines for our Alumni Banquet, where the outgoing class is recognized for one last time. My first couple years, I had not had the opportunity to meet many of the essential people in past classes, and it was good to have...

 The past week here in Ada has not been too eventful for me, with the exception of fall lacrosse practice getting underway on Tuesday. It was great to get back out there early in the morning with the team and compete together again. The freshmen still have some work to do, but the team seems to be coming together well at the moment.  Outside of this, my other major highlight for the week was touring some houses around town with my roommates for next year. Finding ourselves late to the game, it has been a struggle to find great housing. We've toured everthing from two person apartments to five person home, but we ultimately found a house on Lehr Street that we're signing for shortly after I finish writing this.  As slow as this past week has been, the upcoming weekend will be doubly busy, as my family is coming down from New York for the Alumni Game this Friday night. My sister is also taking her visit to ONU over the weekend, and I couldn't be more excited!

 As the premier name in social media, Facebook is worthy of the attenion given to it over an entire chapter. 2.9 billion monthly users cannot be wrong. With this in mind however, there are countless ways to integrate Facebook into any marketing strategy, regardless of budget. In the earlier sections, the book covers many essential aspects of preparing a Facebook account for proper use on the platform, such as completing the profile and setting up a Facebook Business suite. After this, it touches on building an audience, suggesting doing it by either connecting across platforms or running events like promotions or contests. My favorite section of this chapter was about the actual content strategy development. The most important note was to establish a clear, consistent voice within your posting. This voice should embody the business, being appropriate for the market. There were also more analytical notes about the optimal time to post, as well as the advantageous use of hashtags and...

 As the weeks have rolled by, it has hit me once again how small and isolated Ada truly is. Living and working in Northern Virginia this summer, it seemed I always had something I could go do. Whether it was the art museums, the National Mall, or even exploring the area; I always could find a place to fill my time with. Luckily, there are wonderful people at Northern, and my life has come to take an emphasis on them. This week, I got to spend a big chunk of time with my team lifting and working the concession stand for other games. In doing this, we have are able to fundraise for the program, get to know eachother better, and begin building the essential bond needed for success in sports. I spent a good portion of the time chatting with Andrew Reimer, someone I have been close with, but had yet to get the opportunity to truly catch up with him. My highlight of the week is a somber one, as it was our team stair run in memory of those lost on 9/11. Sunday morning at 7:45 we all met a...

Ever wondered how social media strategy affects the world around you? Or maybe how you can use these strategies to grow your own brand? I'll be covering these topics on my new podcast Gabe's Gab! In my first episode I touch on personal branding, and how to make yourself more noticeable both professionally and socially. Click here to listen!

 Having spent the second half of the summer working on a social media marketing team, I was instantly familiar with many of the concepts in this chapter, but had yet to identify them as commonplace. Among these are the social media posting calendar, performing an audit on social channels, and setting measurable goals. Because of my experience,  I was able to get a better understanding of the how and why behind many of the operations that I perform. One concept that was new to me however, was the idea of target personas. I had understood that companies and products are created with a certain customer in mind, but was surprised to see that this preferred customer could also be many, wildly different customers who use the brands products for varying reasons. I found the tone of voice section to be the most important in this chapter, as it places emphasis on being fitting and consistent, which I believe are two common themes in the social media sphere. By creating consistent and o...

 The past week has been the slowest one since my return to campus, as I'm beginning to find the balance between work and school.  On Monday, we held a small scrimmage, and I worked concessions with the team at the JV football game to help raise funds for our trip to Jamaica next winter. After the long weekend where most guys went home to see their families it was a nice to see a lot of them again. Tuesday we had a team lift, then went as a group to support the volleyball team at their home opener against Ohio Wesleyan. With a group of about 30, we did our best to be loud and support our fellow Polar Bears, ultimately cheering them to a three sets to one victory. We even gained some recognition from OWU, as their stats keeper kept looking at us cheering and laughing. Outside of these two fun nights, I think that I am settling in to my new lifestyle here. As of yesterday I have gotten everything for the room that we will need during the year, and I have a clearly defined work sc...

After taking a couple of days to get settled into my new home in Ada, classes had snuck up on me and suddenly I was waking up at 8am to get the weekly newsletter out. syllabus week had begun. In my first two days, it was mostly familiar faces.  On Tuesday, we began our lifting schedule for the season at Dial-Roberson Stadium. The first few are always a little tougher than usual due to the tempo and focus that comes with it. We always joke with the coaches about music in the weight room, but I've only heard it once here. Thankfully, we were able to hit the ground running in lift group two, bringing good energy to the room by motivating each other, getting our return to campus off to a great start! Later on in the week, some of the guys on the team got together to go out to play pickup lacrosse, which was extremely refreshing for me. Having spent my summer living mostly alone in Virginia, working and lifting to improve, it was so good to have the boys back. Afterwards, some of us wen...

In chapter two, there was much more new material than I had expected, putting social media into personal terms. Through the lens of our own social media channels, we were able to see the virtual interactions we have with friends, family and friends of friends form into an online personality. With my relatively fresh background in marketing, I found it interesting that interpersonal communications are relatively similar to how social media is used to benefit a company. As someone who does the majority of my job searching on Linkedin, I found that section the most compelling. The strategic use of keywords in the summary section to increase drive to my personal page was something I will be adding to my account in the near future. The new Creator Mode was something that was new to me, but as I begin building up my portfolio of work writing five newsletters monthly, it is certainly going to be a valuable space moving forward. As someone who is wildly passive of social media, the etiquette s...