Gilbert Cruz’s Mastery Journal

My initial thoughts from my first timeline post were that we’d be learning about researching target markets, and if targeting too much would be a thing. To my surprise we didn’t touch up on any of these subjects, but what we did touch up on was far more interesting.  We started off defining what marketing campaigns are and who they’re for. Most of my classmates had around the same ideas on what a marketing campaign consisted of so the one who stuck out most to me was George Doman’s thoughts on it. “The advantage of using a marketing campaign is that you plan out perfect messaging and deliverables. The disadvantage is that Artificial Intelligence in marketing may mark the end of A/B, multivariate, and Taguchi tests, (Doman G.)”. This right there was an eye opener for me, he goes on to state that AI will start to become more of a powerhouse in the marketing business. Stemming from the perspective of the smarter AI gets the more it’ll learn human’s purchasing and emotional behaviors when it comes to buying and capitalize on that, my mind was blown away when I read this. This class ended up being more of a mind opener than eye opener for me. It was so great that I got to focus on my marketing campaign plan and revisit all my past classes from this year and tweak them as needed to fit the plans template. Part of the class was focused on how to be an effective presenter and how not to kill your audience with boredom. Elaborating on things I already knew, the storytelling aspect of presenting was new to me. Such as program music, you paint a clear picture for people to follow in their heads and in doing this helping them retain the important information you’re trying to convey, genius! This idea was so cool to me, as one of my favorite pieces of classical works is the Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, a program music form. This is generally a term used for music that’s designed according to some preconceived narrative or made to paint a picture in one’s head. Vivaldi does this in his music, and I shall try to reproduce this in my presentations. The year has gone by so fast, it’s surreal, I’m typing this out on Thursday night the day before our graduation. Thank you to all the professors I had this year, I wish I could give all of you a real hug but since we’re in a Pandemic, here’s a virtual one! I hope everyone stays safe and finds their place within this vast digital market. 

Saludos, 

Gilbert Cruz

Before starting out this course I had a few things I thought we would be touching up on. The first thing that had come to mind a few months back was that we would be learning about Digital Marketing and where the law finds itself within this market. I believe we did touch on this which is a great thing, from terms of service and jurisdiction and copyright laws, we covered a wide base and had some great discussions on whether or not someone would have the right to sue someone from a different state and what the courts would need to deem it a worthwhile lawsuit. Jurisdiction was the main thing I learned about in the first week which had a real impact on me, being I honestly didn’t know much about it and how it worked. The most I had known about it was police officers and their jurisdiction within their city and how it needed other city officers to help in the case of an incident that crosses city lines. It was awesome to learn and read about the different court fillings that would allow and deny jurisdiction. My second thing I thought we would touch up on is ips, copyrights, domain names, trademark issues, and the first amendment. Our month went by super fast and we did cover up on intellectual properties, copyrights, and the first amendment. I wish we had time to cover domain names and trademark issues as I’m dealing with something similar with my podcast Geek Mythos. From what we did learn it was great, things I had known but didn’t really have names for, such as fair use and public domain. I had known what these were but not the real terms from them. I use these on a regular basis at work with my posters and videos. Lastly I had thought we were going to be learning about what laws can affect a marketing campaign. I feel like we sort of did cover this. Printing anything that isn’t true and false can make you liable for them and you can be handed a defamation lawsuit. We learned how this applies to bloggers and journalists, it’s great because if I ever choose to start a blog I’ll be able to keep my hands clean by knowing what laws I’d be protected under such as the CDA or Communications Decency Act, specifically Section 230 from that law. It’s awesome to be able to read and understand how all these things apply to our work. Professor Downey was a great asset to the class and I believe I learned a lot from him. This is our last official class before graduation and I couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come. Stay safe and wash your hands!

Best,

Gilbert Cruz

I’ve become a fan of LegalEagle’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Starting off this month I was intrigued at all the cool things you can accomplish through analytics and how intimidating they can be. This month Professor Arlen was able to guide our group through the dark forest that is Analytics. Being able to get Google Analytics certified was a great asset to my resume and will potentially help my cohered find potential jobs. I believe we now have the tools to build our house and make it strong. During week one I felt like what little we had gone over in an earlier class I felt that was just the tip of the iceberg and now having gone through this month I feel like we got to not only see the rest of the iceberg but we learned it’s date of birth, favorite movies and family. I really enjoyed when we dissected Landing pages and what helps them sell. SMART goals is where the real meat is at, with their accompanying KPIs. SMART being specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound, using this as a road map can do great things for individuals and big companies. Having individuals who are keeping track of the KPIs “Key Performance Indicators”, is a life or death situation for any size company. If a company isn’t willing to evolve, expand or change they’ll sink. If you take Walmart for example, twenty years ago Walmart was a power house but then along came Amazon, by having an online business that delivers groceries now Walmart has taken a hit where they added more self service stations with less workers. To wrap things up we dived head first into Digital Analytics and we were pretty much blown away at how we can gather and interpret the information to better help the company’s we’re working for. One more class to go, Full Sail’s virtual career fair is in Nov. and I’m nervous and excited, see you at Graduation! Enjoy this video I poured my heart into, thank you and stay safe!

Best,

Gilbert Cruz

Strategic Internet Public Relations is pretty awesome throughout the whole class. A strong thing I learned was Ethics and how they play a big part with how a company is perceived and seen. Making sure a company is perceived as human rather than a mechanical machine that it really needs to be to run. By having a face and an ethic code people will feel more in touch with the company rather than interacting with it just for their products. Being able to clearly lay out your goals, tactics, and what you’d like to measure was another big thing I learned in this class. Maneuvering through the jungle that is the internet, there’s a lot of information that can be found and gathered. It’s up to the strong willed people to create goals, ensure that everyone’s on the same page and make the right decisions moving forward. Being stiff and firm can only lead to being broken, being flexible and eager for change allows companies and individuals to change with the fast paced ever evolving marketing world. Another big thing that was new to me was how to internally run a PR campaign and the extreme lengths one has to go through to ensure it goes smoothly. In my research there are practical steps that need to go in order for a successful internal PR campaign to run starting off from researching everything that pertains to the campaign and presenting this information to everyone who matters for it to work. From there it’s easy to maintain it, setting up a monitoring system to gauge how it’s being perceived online along with a healthy way of changing and evolving. Going into this class I wasn’t sure what I’d be learning and I couldn’t be more happy with it. All these neat new things I leaned will for sure be applied to my current job, and any possible ones! Two more classes to go, this year has been wild, nevertheless my resolve has never been stronger. Time to keep pushing on! 

Best, 

Gilbert Cruz

Before starting this course I really thought Search Engine Optimization wasn’t as important as I know now. From searching keywords and finding new and interesting ways to showcase them on your website to where Google can find them is a powerful new tool. All this research is great because I actually used my new found knowledge to fight against a revival podcast. Last year my sister Diana, her husband Rick, and I started our very own podcast called Geek Mythos. This podcast was meant to help give us a reason to keep in touch. Up until now we have 8 episodes in season 1 and just launched our season 2.  When publishing content I created for our upcoming season 2 premier I found a fairly new podcast called Geekmythospodcast, this was a shock to us. I noticed they had all the social websites we do but one thing they had that we didn’t was a website. So as the class went on I did my homework using my case study company but also did side research against this podcast. I noticed that on a Google search for Geek Mythos Podcast, we dominated the first page but they were still listing on there but at the bottom. So as soon as I felt confident with SEO, I built us a website and bought the domain www.geekmythos.com and made sure to research keywords that’ll help me push www.geekmythospodcast.com to the second page of Google. Eureka, I worked! I not only pushed them to the second page they went all the way to the bottom of it. I know this sounds petty but having some other individuals try to copy our name while making a podcast that’s similar to ours I felt like someone’s trying to build a reputation upon ours. As I continue my journey towards graduation I will use any new knowledge I absorb to help push them to change their name. Three more classes to go! Here’s to all the hard work everyone’s done so far and is yet to do. Excelsior! 

Best, 

Gilbert Cruz

Starting the month of July, I was completely rested with our one week off between semesters. I hadn’t seen any time off since Spring Break, it’s been pretty intense. Going into this class I knew we were going to do a little email marketing and other things but starting off week one we dove head first into development of our Internet Marketing Action Plan or IMAP. The first week we started off with a template that we were allowed to download and add our case study company information with. We started off with a Relationship Development Strategy which was getting information on demographics of our customers, creating profiles, roles and personas and utilizing the ADAS Model. Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Some other things we did were like create a unique value proposition or UVP and create SEM ads that can be tested. Needless to say this wasn’t as easy as I thought nor was my instructor. She did a great job keeping us on our toes with grading and monitoring everything we turn in. Diving into how to establish trust and authority online was a big one too. Being able to see other examples of how to establish these things was key to our overall plan. Mrs. Cornell also helped us engage with our ads not only on a banner or social media aspect but she guided us through email marketing and how to prioritize certain ways to advertise to help us with our ROI. Overall I found this class to be fun and difficult, one can only imagine what Full Sail has in store for us these last few months of the Digital Marketing Masters. Hopefully this whole COVID pandemic calms down that way I can find a good job once I’m done, five more months to go! 

Initially before I started this class I thought we would be learning some high tech new ways to market online or just a new way of doing things. It seems as if my thoughts were misaligned with the content of the class. Learning about Influencers and Brand Ambassadors and how those systems work was entirely new to me. The only thing I knew about influencers and ambassadors are those that I saw on Instagram representing gaming brands or even workout apparel. Studying more into this I can see how such programs help regular businesses with something to sell, rather than the college case study company I’m using for my Marketing Plan. Although my thoughts were this narrow I can now see how an Ambassador program could work with the college. Using Work Study students as ambassadors who create content and showcase their love for the college that’s employed them and educated them. Work study employees would be the easiest and dare I say “cheapest” way of created content and a narrative that tells future students that we think like them and get where they’re coming from. The other alternatives would be to cyber stalk people online to see which already have the ambassador potential by rating their fandom with the college. Either freshly high school graduates, parents or even older students who are eager to start their journey with STC. This is the halfway course of my Master’s degree, a little more than a year ago I thought I wouldn’t be in this situation but here I am. I can’t wait for December, and be able to do so much more career wise. Keep one foot in front of the other and never stop questioning things. Jumping into the darkness without a light sums up how I’ve been treating my professional and educational career. December isn’t the end, but the beginning. See you next month in Advanced Digital Marketing Strategies, stay safe.

Thank you Mr. Cossin for being a great instructor!

Best,

Gilbert Cruz

Starting out with this degree I was a bit hesitant on if this is what I’d like to do for a living. The great thing is that up until now half way through I think I’m in the right place. Being able to create the content needed to help people advertise whether it be websites, videos or even promotional flyers. I can see that all the work I’ve done in life leads up to this. It’s really awesome to finally realize that this is what I want to do for a living. I’ve struggled with finding my niche but now I think I have it. My current job at STC has helped me learn to create the content needed for businesses to thrive and push advertisements or products. Currently I’ve been working on materials for our summer guitar and theory courses and it’s opened my eyes that I can not only do one job well but if I was given enough time I can do what our whole PR department does well. It’s not every day I find myself thinking this way, mostly I’m struggling with myself wondering if it’s possible and how but recently I’ve found that I can push myself to get it done. I believe I’ve grown a lot and that’s thanks to the assignments I’ve gotten from work and during this degree. Adding Digital Design and Usability to the list of things I didn’t know before but now know is great! I can now gut a website and tell people what’s wrong with it and how it can be improved. Before I was only able to dissect them from a design point of view but now I can go in and really see how their headers and key words affect their SEO. Usability is a pretty big problem for the STC website and I hope I can bring some good ideas to the table to help. Here’s to another class down, one more closer to Graduation in the Fall! See ya! 

Best, 

Gilbert Cruz

I believe Obama said it best in his commencement speech to the graduating class of 2020, “don’t be afraid, do what you think is right, and build a community” these three are such great advice.

Starting this class I went in with an open mind and ready to soak up any information I could. It’s a great tool to be able to analyze the way your consumers purchase and use that to shape your future products or practices. In our first week discussion we were able to analyze a classmate’s chosen business and research what the typical market would be for that business and how a typical decision is made for one of those customers. I was very enlightened by my classmate’s company Me Time Day Spa which was chosen by Destiny Frye. This Spa has great things going for it but by expanding their client market they’d be able to increase their revenue and pull in some more customers. For example by offering a promotional price on spa packages for Boyfriends or Sons purchasing things for their girlfriends or mothers they’d be able to tap into a market that’s not just for mothers day or valentines day but for birthdays and other gift giving holidays. In week 2 we were told to dive into our own case study companies and mine being South Texas College, I got to analyze it from a different perspective than I had been doing.  This was cool because it forced me to rethink why I chose to attend South Texas College and analyze it. “Psychographic information might be your buyer’s habits, hobbies, spending habits and values, (Meredith, A.)”. Some of the reasons a person would pursue a degree at South Texas College is because of mostly financial and an expansion of career options they would provide. Then I had to dive into the demographics of the community college. From here I determined that a community college’s demographics aren’t very narrow. Students with the age of 17 to 70 could be the possible window for a higher education at a community college. Starting with the youngest are newly graduated high school students looking to gain an associates degree or one of many certificates STC offers. From there students that are older in careers are either seeking an upper hand that a degree could  offer them at their current jobs or enhanced professional development that’ll make them better at their jobs and open up more opportunities such as managerial one’s at their current job. The older students usually just seek an education for fun, to kill time or learn a new hobby. Consumer or Customer behaviors are always changing and evolving, I knew this already but this class solidified my thoughts on the matter. Keeping up to date on how your customers behave is a matter of sink or swim for  a business, this is something that shouldn’t be overlooked. Overall great class and I thank my professor Dr. Butler for bestowing upon me the knowledge I now know. Onto the next class and inching closer to the finish line. See y’all next month. 

Best, 

Gilbert Cruz

References

Meredith, A. (n.d.). How to Use Psychographics in Your Marketing: A Beginner’s Guide. Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/marketing-psychographics

At the beginning of March, going into Digital Storytelling and Branding I had a general idea of what we’d be working on. My initial thought on what the class would be about was pretty accurate. Given as how I currently have a business that caters to people’s digital needs. One project I started during my tenure in this class is to help my brother in law create promotional and branding material for a Mexican pizza chain. For this, we used the “Three Little Questions”, 1. Who are you? 2. What do you do? And 3. Why does it matter?. These questions helped guide me on getting the appropriate information I needed to successfully brand my brother in laws business. Making sure my own personal brand is spot on to help others and to help them achieve their goals. “Branding is about knowing what you stand for and how you communicate the values and character of your product or service, (Cosper, A,)”. Learning brand differentiation and how brands can stand out in a crowded economy. We learned how to compare different companies by practicing on analyzing Walmart vs. Target. Branding is a very important factor when it comes to a companies success. “Most entrepreneurs go to market not with a brand, but with an idea-an idea that can be so soulful and personal that it can be challenging to present and explain to others, (Cosper, A.)”. One thing I also learned was how to categorize companies by using Archetypes, this is something I had no prior knowledge of. Learning the different personalities from companies and being able to name them in a unique way was pretty cool to learn. The last thing I felt was great and new is I got to create a Brand Story video for the class. I took advantage of my videography skills and my associates in music to create a video that was 100% done by me. From the cinematography to the music composition I enjoyed taking my time and working on this. I can’t wait to see what I’ll be learning in the next few months. 3 classes down just a few more to go! 

Best, 

Gilbert     

References

Cosper, A. (2015, March 24). It’s Not You, It’s Your Story: Why Branding Matters. Retrieved March 28, 2020, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243371