I’m a content writer here at Effective Web Solutions, about to start my junior year at the University of Oregon, and am on track to graduate in the summer of 2015 with a BA degree in journalism and a minor in media studies. Originally, I was told that I shouldn’t major in journalism because it was supposedly a dying profession. Eventually, I decided to do it anyway with the hopes that I can focus on communication, a staple skill in almost any profession. But then I started taking these classes and learning about media and how it is changing our culture, and more importantly to me, how it is changing communication for the better.
So what have I learned from my communication and media studies so far? Combined with my experience here at EWS, I’ve learned that media not only has power over all when it comes to business, but it is also easily accessible for anyone to use it to their advantage. Your job as a business owner is to understand how it all works in order to use it successfully.
Content is King!
A couple years ago, I thought blogging was basically a personal diary posted on the Internet for everyone to see. But my views about it quickly changed when I started college, and even more when I started working for Effective Web Solutions and learned about SEO. Blogging is hardly a personal diary; it has turned into a goldmine of money-making possibilities for businesses, both small and corporate. If you know what you’re doing, the average Joe could make a decent dime on a good blog. This was all made possible with the invention of search engines and social media platforms. Search engine optimization makes it possible for you to be somewhat in control of how your blog posts or website shows up when someone uses a search engine to look up a certain keyword. These words or phrases are appropriately named because they are your golden set of keys into the world of the Internet. Original and creative content is another factor that goes into your rankings. If the viewers like your blog posts, they will share it on their social media pages and/or leave comments. High traffic leads to good rankings. This is why blogs, and overall strategically written webpage content, are crucial aspects of success in online marketing. As they say in the internet marketing world, content is king!
Marketing and Media
Remember back in the day when people would pay big bucks to have their ad featured on a page of the newspaper? It wasn’t that long ago, and people still do it! But sadly, newspapers are dying. It’s easy and most of the time free to get that same exact information on the Internet. It’s strange to imagine a world in which communication only consisted of ink and paper or spoken word, when today’s culture consists of thousands of different ways to communicate with the public. Some people say that media is killing the creativity of our generation, and that may in fact be true for some consumers, but those people don’t have any idea how much creativity and strategy goes on behind the scenes. Take television commercials for example. Let’s say hypothetically you’re an in-the-closet Jersey Shore fan. Have you ever noticed that when you watch those shows, an unusual amount of commercials advertising beer and liquor will come on? That’s no coincidence. Try flipping to The Wheel of Fortune for a few minutes, and you may notice a plethora of denture and life insurance commercials.
Just like TV, the Internet has also allowed us to get creative and strategic. Search engines, social media platforms, and interactive online radio sites have provided us with the ability to personalize and manipulate the system to give business owners an advantage with their marketing in so many ways. This is fantastic news for you as a business owner because it means your options are virtually limitless. So use this precious medium to your advantage! It could be the difference between failure and success with your business.
If you’re a business owner in the Vancouver, Seattle, or Tacoma, Washington area interested in more information about SEO and how to use Internet marketing to help your business grow and prosper, contact your Vancouver, Seattle, Tacoma SEO specialists at Effective Web Solutions. We are experienced in this area of marketing and are incredibly knowledgeable about how this field is evolving each and every day. Give us a call!