Let Me Show You

Well that title sounds entirely morbid, but I swear it’s not! It is just the end of my last semester as a full time student and what a relief that is. This semester has been nothing short of stressful. From class projects to running recruitment for my sorority and of course capstone- there was a lot going on. Weirdly it was not my hardest semester though and I think that is thanks to making sure I was only taking three classes with capstone.  Today I will be delivering my capstone presentation to our client Marathon Petroleum Corporation. The problem statement came with the goal to hire more diverse talented individuals to the MPC team. To do this we had to come up with an integrated marketing communications plan after conducting a bunch of research and surveying real people for their preferences. The project was both given plenty of guidelines and limited guidelines at the same time so as to ensure the teams were being creative and kept an open mind throughout the process.  T...

It’s been awhile since I talked about video projects that I’ve been working on, so let’s recap.  Over the summer I had the awesome opportunity to work as an intern with VideoBranch in Lima. VideoBranch is a team of six talented employees who work to create video and photo marketing materials for a variety of clients. While at VideoBranch, I did a lot of editing, which I greatly enjoyed as that is what started my passion for videography. Most of my experience before the internship was with the Final Cut Pro X editing software, but at VideoBranch I was able to further my knowledge and use of Adobe Premiere. I learned how to build a variety of graphics from scratch with ease and the differences in voice between brands. Some of the projects I worked on were for General Steel, GROB, U.S. Plastic, EZ Concrete, Allen County Children’s Services and many more! It was great to diversify the types of videos I have created toward what I am hoping to do as a career. I also worked at ONU in my ...

  Because I opted to not be an orientation leader this year, I applied to be a mentor for incoming students in the Dicke college of business. The mentorship program specifically looks for sophomore or higher student leaders of the business college. The background required for this includes leadership positions held in campus organizations, in the workplace or the general attitude of a leader in the classroom. Personally, this is something I really enjoy and hope to get even more involved in on campus this year. This week I found out that I was accepted as a mentor and I couldn’t be more excited to get involved!  The Dicke mentorship program is incorporated in the freshman year class- Ethical Leadership, taught by the mentorship program director Dr. McHugh. I had the pleasure of being in her class this past spring (my sophomore year) and luckily was paired with an awesome mentor, leading me to get involved. The mentorship program holds several events in order to get to know the...

As ONU prepares for new student orientation here in the next week or so, things are looking pretty different. To start, this year is ONU’s sesquicentennial anniversary- also known as its 150th birthday. To celebrate and promote the occasion, various colorful banners have emerged on campus. These include ONU colors, fonts and images like we’ve never seen before. Meaning, we want this year’s branding to stand out.  For the past two weeks, I have had the honor to create and edit together the videos being used for orientation. I am super excited for the incoming class to view these videos and get hyped about becoming a part of the polar bear family. The orientation theme this year is ONE ONU. This is to emphasize the close knit polar bear pride felt by all our current students and alumni. With 150 years under our belt, we've developed a university built on collaboration, community, excellence, diversity, faith, integrity and service which we’ve emphasized in the video. This video was ...

Last week’s Principles of What I’m Reading blog touched on the Top 15 Social Media Tips from Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of Social Media” . This week is a different path as the new reading is “Social Media for Strategic Communication” by Karen Freberg- meaning this is the strategy and brand development aspect of social media. So let’s call social media a game of chess- funny because the front cover depicts the social media logos as chess pieces. It is, in fact, a competition all about strategy. A competition between users to gain the most followers and likes, and a competition between platforms for who can gain the most users and daily interaction. Everyone wants to be seen and more importantly- liked. Fortunately for you as a user trying to gain a following, each social media platform has a slightly different demographic, meaning you can find your truest audience and you may dominate on one platform, but not quite as much on another. This is good, it builds loyalty to you across all platf...

As the editor for the ONU Film Club, it is my responsibility to upload our content to YouTube with all necessary aspects added for exposure and search engine optimization. This includes editing the video, writing the description, adding tags, changing any settings and my personal favorite- creating the thumbnail.  If you think of YouTube as a video library, the thumbnail is the equivalent to a book cover. This means that no matter how frequently you hear the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover,” judging the thumbnail is exactly what you will do. It profoundly influences the decision on whether you watch or don’t watch a video. With a year of experience now under my belt, and many tips and tricks thrown at me, here are five tips to optimize your YouTube thumbnails. Take Advantage of Your Resources There are so many different ways to create a YouTube thumbnail, but there are some sites that make it easier, Canva.com is one of these resources. It even includes the right dimension...

  To preface, I am no social media expert, but for anyone starting out, I think these tips could get you somewhere. So without further ado, here are the top 15 social media tips from Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of Social Media” and what number they show up as in the book: Optimize your profile for 5 seconds (2).   As Kawasaki says, social media is all about snap judgments . So make sure your profile shows in 5 seconds that you are “likable, trustworthy, and competent.” Focus your avatar on your face (3)!  This does not mean like a mug shot. Think of a happy candid, and make sure that the image size is large, meaning it isn’t cropped from a larger photo where your face makes up only 2%. The last thing you want is poor image quality (unprofessional)! Also, make sure your profile image is the same across all platforms so that you are actually recognizable. Craft a mantra (5). I think this one is my personal favorite, and I definitely put it in practice (hint: Let Me Show You). ...

Since being in college, I’ve taken on a whole new view of what the experience is, and I’ve concluded that being a college student is character development . The popular social media platform TikTok has thousands of viral posts about being “the main character,” and “romanticizing your life” all with edgy voice-overs and building music. And I think that by the end of college, I could absolutely curate one of those viral posts that show how much I’ve changed and made myself the main character in my world.  I am now a junior at Ohio Northern University, and I can say with total confidence that I have dramatically changed within these past two years. My freshman year, I was still finding my groove, as most other freshmen are doing. I was independent already, but I was finally independent on my own, living in a space mostly my own, and navigating what I wanted to do next, on my own . At first, I had no clue how in the hell to do that. But then, the first semester passed, and I changed m...