Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Google Community Leaders (CLP) - SMB Team Workshop


The Google Community Leaders Program (CLP) held a workshop on December 22, 2014, with an SMB (Small to Medium Sized Business) called AGI Construction Solutions. However, they in turn invited a few other organizations to the event and the event ended up having representatives from the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation, Southwest Detroit Community Justice Center, and the Detroit chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. 

The SMB team went over Google+, Google Analytics, and GoogleMyBusiness. 

List of Organizations present: 
AGI Construction Solutions 
Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation 
Southwest Detroit Community Justice Center 
Detroit Chapter of U.S. Green Building Council 

Knowledge of Google Products
Not all participants were familiar with GoogleMyBusiness and most needed more information on how to utilize all the resources that they receive when they get a Google listing. Thus the CLP team presentation was very useful to all participants and explored the value of GoogleMyBusiness, Google Analytics and Google+, and the potential benefits to their organizations. 

AGI Construction Solutions signed up with GoogleMyBusiness. Other organizations shared their contact information to schedule individual trainings later on.


Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Google Community Leaders Program

The Google Community Leaders Program originated in New Orleans in the years after Hurricane Katrina, when Google, Inc. recognized the need for digital literacy among the  local businesses. Since then, the program has expanded to various cities across the nation, including Columbus, Ohio and Provo, Utah. This year Google Community Leader's first operates in Detroit & Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Students from Wayne State University, the University of Michigan - Dearborn, Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor will be coached by Google and work for one year to empower small businesses and non-profits in Metro Detroit and Ann Arbor, build community, and bridge the digital literacy gap.

http://googlecommunityleaders.blogspot.com/2014/10/more-about-clp.html

https://plus.google.com/+DetroitclpBlogspotCLP_Plus/posts

What Is The Google Community Leaders Program?

What Is The Google Community Leaders Program?

In a nutshell, the Google Community Leaders Program or CLP is a one year program, sponsored by Google, that connects college students with small businesses and non-profits to promote digital literacy and help organizations get online and be competitive using various tools. More about that in future posts.


http://googlecommunityleaders.blogspot.com/2014/10/what-is-google-community-leaders-program.html

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Certify By Adword & Analytics

Hello Everyone 

It's not a news, I just haven't updated my status for awhile. Here is my certificate for Adwords and Analytics, check it out!


I was taking Google Analytics class at EMU in the summer. This is a wonderful opportunity for me as it will allow me to express my knowledge of digital marketing, Google Adwords and Analytics. Through this summer course, I have done much work with Google Adword and Anaytics. Being able to know what a bounce rate is, exit rate, time on page, etc. is and how it applies to an account and real people really helps. At same time, I kept managing the Adwords account for NPO. Guess what, I finally raise their CTR from 0.5% to almost 20% with 1000 impressions in 30 days. As a Google Adwords beginner, I feel good about this outcome.

Monday, August 11, 2014

North Star Reach Wrap Up Overview

North Star Reach Product and Service

- Free camp for special need children

- Donation (Financial Gift and Item Donation)

- Volunteer (Caring)


Organization Goal

- Maintenance a good relationship with their current/future donors thru website. (page view, time on site)

- Drive some donation thru website.

- To have more people to follow them(sign up news), and more volunteers(contact us)

What we achieve

- Have a Good relationship with our donor thru our website
* avg page visit > 3 pages
* avg time on site > 3 min

What we Not achieve

- 0% conversion rate for donation as a goal

- less than 1% conversion rate for sign up news, volunteer as a goal.

To Improve the Donation Rate: Change the Donation Method



Summary for Recommendation
- Install Google Universal Analytics (Ask Bud)

- Adopt Google+ page (North Star Reach)

- Change / Upgrade the Donation Method

- Make buttons for any action on the website

- Merge and simplify the contact us / volunteer form, or using google forms

Google Wallet Overview

With Google Wallet, your online donation and shopping history is easily accessible from anywhere and at anytime. After initial setup, Google Wallet will allow donors to easily repeat donations in a few clicks. Not many options for personalization exist, but being associated with Google’s trusted brand will help assuage any fears about the online donation process.
The standard service costs 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. If you fit the application requirements, we strongly recommend applying for a Google Grant, which sets you up with AdWords, also completely free. It’ll take a few months to process your grant, but it’s worth it. With Google’s previous service, Google Checkout, the fees were waived for nonprofits with a Google Grant. However, it’s unclear as to whether or not that transferred over to Google Wallet when Google Checkout shut down.

Google Wallet For Non-Proit


Drive more Donation for your Website? Google Wallet Is Here! Grow Your Gifts: 

We know that donors are weary of a cumbersome payment process requiring them to fill out personal and payment information, often leading them to abandon donating altogether. However, adding streamlined donation channels to your website can be confusing. As we rapidly approach the major season of giving, we want to give you more information about effective tools you can use to accept donations for your non-profit.  

Google Wallet allows you to quickly and easily collect donations on your website. Today, we want to share with you three easy steps your non-profit can take to start accepting donations using Google Wallet:

  1. Sign up for a Google merchant account: With a merchant account, you can track all donations and control all your donation settings from one place. Just make sure you identify yourself as a non-profit by matching your federal EIN with your federal Non-Profit Tax ID number when you set-up your account.
  2. Identify yourself as an IRS certified 501(c)3: To enable the use of embeddable buttons on your website, you’ll need to identify yourself as an IRS certified 501(c)3. You can do this by going to the Settings tab and identify your primary product type as “Non-Profit” (IRS certified 501c3).
  3. Start collecting donations: You’ll need to add the donation button on your website to allow your donors to start giving. Under the Tools tab, you’ll find “Donation buttons.” Copy and paste the source code to your site and begin processing your donations.

It really is as easy as 1-2-3!

Donors simply click the donate button, sign-in and make a contribution. It’s a streamlined process that makes it quick and easy to donate. Google Wallet does all the work to make sure credit card information is safe and secure, so you have time to focus on other things, like using YouTube and other tools to communicate with your donors.  If you’re ready to start collecting through your website or online channel, there is no better time to start than now. Sign up for a merchant account today to get started.


Source from: http://googlefornonprofits.blogspot.com/2012/10/grow-your-gifts-increase-online.html?m=1

Thursday, August 7, 2014

My LinkedIn Page

In the pass couple month, I had kept managing my LinkedIn profile in a good shape. Many people might not believe how LinkedIn works for their career, jobs. I have a friend who just got a phone call yesterday, regarding the digital marketing job. The employer found his application on LinkedIn, and the keyword is "Google Analytics" and "Search Marketing."  How good is it?

Anyway, my rank for profile views improved by 22% in the past 30 days. I might need to have more connection with others, so I will have more chance to sale myself.

You can check my LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sean-tseng/93/474/105
Overall, My career goal before 35 is to become a search marketing professional in U.S. and Asia. 

Here is the summary for my profile:


Passionate about computer information system in IT product sales, digital marketing, project management, web development, e-commerce and smart home (technology house). 
Self-learner and self-employee in property management, computer repair, system maintenance, and web design since 2009. 
I am currently working in Lyons CG as an application engineer, and I also work in Google as an intern. On the other hand, I have one year experience about Google Analytics and Google Adwords.



Thursday, July 31, 2014

North Star Reach Groundbreaking Event.

Today I attend the groundbreaking ceremony of North Star Reach. It's so exciting to many children there. All of them are like angels. It makes me want to help them more. It's also exciting to meet their board of director; Sean Byrne, Anna and Linda. I am so glad I am helping them to manage their Adwords. 
The overall Adwords performance is 143 click with 4234 impressions; which is 3.38% of CTR. The highest adgroup performance is 96 clicks with 730 impressions; which is 13.15% of CTR with 44.75% of bounce rate. All the data is based on 30 days period.
If any of you have better idea to help me improve the Adwords performance, please feel free to make a comment. I would be happy to discuss with you all. Thanks!






Sunday, July 27, 2014

Use Google Analytics to Improve Adwords Performance

Today I attend the online event "Use Google Analytics to Improve Adwords Performance." It talks about how to link Google Adwords and Google Analytics, using Adwords data in Analytics, using Analytics Data in Adwords. To link Google Analytics and AdWords, we can set it up under Admin tab in Google Adalytics. 

For more information, please visit How to Link Google Analytics and AdWords

For views, Google Analytics automatically creates one unfiltered view for every property in your account, but you can set up multiple views on a single property. Any data you send to a Google Analytics property automatically appears in all views associated with that property. For example, if you collect data from two websites and send it to one property, then data from both websites appears in all reporting views on that property. This is also true for web and app data. If you collect data from a mobile app and from a website, and both your SDK and your tracking code send data to one property in your Google Analytics account, all data (both web and app hits) appear in all reporting views associated with that property.


On the other hand, we can also add Analytics data in Adwords account. The 4 GA data are Bounce Rate, Page/Visit, Avg. visit duration and % new visit. To add the GA data in Adowrds, we can simply
click Column >> Customize Columns.



Then click Google Analytics >> Pick the data you want, and click Apply.



There is more information in this Video, please check things out.



Monday, July 14, 2014

North Star Reach (Adword & Analytics)

I talk to the Marji today regarding the Adword performance and the note from Google (Click HERE for Google Note). 

The overall CTR is about 1.77%, means the ad of north star reach is showing to people about 7859 times and about 139 people click the ad ( Time frame:one month ). 

The CTR for sitelink is about 4.73%. It means when people search North Star Reach, the sitelink shows to people about 1501 times with 71 clicks. 



Therefore, there are 210 people looking into north star reach website in a month. Comparing to last quarter, we have a big jump on the Adword performance.

In Google Analytics, I created three views and set up four goals last week.

For Summer 14 RAW view, we never set up any filters in it. And for Summer 14 Master, we recommend filters AFTER it has been tested and proven. Finally, we test one or more filters in Summer 14 Test.



The goals of "page view" and "time on site" are for North Star reach ad group. I wanna measure that how long do those parents look about their website and understand what North Star Reach doing, then they should realize the North Star Reach will fit their needs (Special Children Camps). The goal of donation is to measure how many people make a donation and what the conversion rate is. The goal of contactus_News_Volunteer is to measure the conversion rate for how many people fill out the contact us form (the form includes contact us, sign up news and sign up for volunteer). 




FUD of North Star Reach



FUD is generally a strategic attempt to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information. An individual firm, for example, might use FUD to invite unfavorable opinions and speculation about a competitor's product; to increase the general estimation of switching costs among current customers; or to maintain leverage over a current business partner who could potentially become a rival.

I found some FUDs in North Star Reach Website, the volunteer page. North Star Reach made a form that user could contact them, be a volunteer, email newsletter and donation as one single form. 
It would confuse people when they first time see this form. I wanna be a volunteer, but this is a contact us form. Or I want to keep updated with North Star Reach, why would I contact North Star Reach by using contact us form? All of these may cost user to not complete the form. It should separate different forms for users.

Monday, July 7, 2014

North Star Reach

Since I keep maintaining North Star Reach Adword account, here are the things I have done. I created another ad group names Donation. However, this ad group seemed not working at all. I got 3xx impression but 0 clicks. It might be the ad text problem, or it could be something else. I just can't figure it out. On the other hand, I added more sitelinks under north stat ad group. All of them are working well.  

About Google Analytics, I created two personas for it. One is the social worker looking for information about special child camp. Another one is the student looking for volunteer at anywhere because of school requirement. I also set up four measurements, Bounce Rate, New User, Page/Session and Social Network.

Why my measurement is social network? The NPO would like to have more connection with user and keep maintaining the relationship. Social network is the best tool to do so. 

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Power of Persona

Personas are fictional representations of a product’s users based on real information collected directly from talking with and/or observing users (the ideal), or collected from other sources such as analytics, social media, clients, etc.

One of the main reasons for using personas is that when business target everyone it actually target no one. The art of segmentation is about narrowing its focus in on people in the market more likely to become its users/customers so business can better serve them. This applies not only to business product and/or service, but its content as well. 

Ultimately, though, professional should try to tell the most actionable story with their data. Think of it as another layer to the analytics. The most important layer. The people layer.

Analytics and Persona

It is important to note that it is very difficult to translate a persona into a measurable segment based on clickstream data, but it is possible to reach an approximation. Assume that I want to develop a persona called Danny Sullivan which I believe represents the kind of people that visit my site. I would start by trying to answer the questions above about him, and I might as well try to find a person that has the same lifestyle as Danny to help me. Then I would go about trying to find some metrics and dimensions on Google Analytics that help me pinpoint the persona and turn them into an advanced segment.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

E-Marketing: Community Management

I attended the event in WCC, which is E-Marketing: Community Management. Briefly, it introduce about the community management; what falls under a community manager's scope of responsibilities and community management as a job. What's the positive community; building engaging content, fostering positive comments and encouraging an active community. Negative community: dealing with a negative user, building an internal policy, knowing when to take the conversation offline and deleting comments. This event is really fun. However, I didn't go through all the stuff, such as case studies and example exercise. I would definitely come back for this event again.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Adwords Certify

I just passed Google Adword of "Advertising Fundamentals" and "Advanced Display" exam. It took forever! I studied for about two weeks, and both exams took me about 3 hours to complete. My next goal is AdWords Advanced Search and Video Advertising. It shouldn't take too long. Let's get it done before the end of June. Moreover, I am planning to take Google Analytics exam on July. It probably need another month to study the material. I am just wondering, what can you do when you pass those exam? Working in to Google? If so, I wish to work Google in Taiwan, Japan or China. 




Monday, June 16, 2014

Micro to Macro Conversion - North Star Reach

Let's talk about Micro and Macro conversions of North Star Reach.Every website has their goal (converstion). However, conversion (Goal) can be more than one. Here are some examples of micro and macro conversion.

Micro                                                         Macro
Find out who we are(Overview)                   Contact Us for Camp
Check News and Event                                 Contact Us for Volunteer
Subscribing to the Newsletter                       Money or Gift Donation
             

Monday, June 9, 2014

Personas

This is a modest pursuit to create personas for the special need child in an attempt to understand their web visitors to improve their web experience based on my conversations with North Star Reach and browsing through their website.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Their kid is being treated with steroids for leukemia. Doctor suggests this kid to stay in a safe place. However, Mr. & Mrs. Smith want their child to have a good childhood. The doctor refer them North Star Reach Camp, so Mr. & Mrs. Smith tries to Google North Star Reach.

Kerry

She is a single Mom with a kid who has a special need. She is trying to look a safe outdoor activity for her child. She starts to search “safe outdoor activity.” Therefore, she finds North Star Reach because they have camp activity for special kids and safety is their Middle Name. 

Sunday, June 8, 2014

North Star Reach Mission Statement

North Star Reach offers life-changing camp experiences for children with serious health challenges and their families. 

1.     Kids & Families First
Every plan, paper airplane, decision and action is focused around the children and their families – our campers are our Polaris, our guiding North Star. If it is any indication, we take our paper airplanes very seriously.

2.     Playful Professionalism
Our goal of creating spectacularly average experiences for our campers requires the best of both worlds. Our commitment to the highest level of safety and care while laughing so hard your belly hurts takes hard work – work we embrace and are honored to undertake. Besides, oxymorons are fun – just ask any jumbo shrimp, they are generally the life of the party.

3.     Safety Is our Middle Name
Not really, but we considered it. North Safety Reach just did not sound as good as North Star Reach, but we liked the idea enough to incorporate safety into everything we do. In fact, most of our staff and volunteers were primary school safety guards.

4.     Camp Is a Prescription for Fun
The pillars of our camp are: Joy, Fun, Laughter and Song. We wanted to include popsicles, puppies and balloons, but someone said it didn’t sound professional enough.

5.     Reach Higher
There are no boundaries at camp due to a child’s condition or disability. Except the fence around camp, guess that’s kind of a boundary.

6.     Camp Rules
At camp, we only have four rules, one for each of your fingers. Safety. Respect. Love. Challenge By Choice. Safety is our number one priority. We respect people and the environment around us. Love is a commitment to one another. Camp is a place where you get to choose how to participate, not if you participate. Oh yeah, and have some serious fun. Guess that’s really five rules. This way your thumb won’t feel left out.

7.     Welcome to the Family
Our camp will be open and welcoming to all who enter without hesitation. Camp is a family and a community of caring people committed to making a difference for one another. Unless you’re a skunk. Skunks – with that little white stripe, you are cute and all, but we’d rather you stay home.

8.     Together Everyone Achieves More
We will work together as a team, learn as a team and grow as a team. We will support each other at all times and think of the team before ourselves. We will function in an efficient, ethical and professional manner using our diverse experience, knowledge and skills. In fact, we love teamwork so much we once tried to organize a pinball team. Turns out, pinball is more of a one person thing.

9.     Once in a Lifetime Happens Every Day
We will celebrate* successes of all shapes and sizes and give thanks. *Not all celebrations will include confetti, cake or dancing, but we’ll try.

10.  We Don’t Like Skunks but We Love R.A.T.S.
Rats are probably the last thing you would want at camp. R.A.T.S stands for responsibility, accountability, trust and stewardship. We will hold ourselves to the highest standard to be responsible with our financial, human and community resources through innovation, thoughtfulness and sticky notes. We have a ton of recycled sticky notes.

11.  Freedom
We allow for freedom and empowerment and choice. For example, you could choose to print this list out and make it into a paper airplane. We’d be cool with that – since you’d be putting kids first!

Intern in LyonsCG

This is the second week in LyonsCG.  I feel much better now, but I still have a lot of things to learn. Anyway, I am interesting in Demandware. Their platform is not an open source. Everyone who want to learn the Demandware they must refer by other company (Reseller). 


What is Demandware? Demandware is a public eCommerce merchant based out of Boston, MA. Founded in 2004 by Stephan Schambach and Wayne Whitcomb, Demandware develops eCommerce software technology for online retailers across the world. Demandware has branch offices in France and Germany. They are known for their on-demand commerce platform for eCommerce merchants. Their products include merchandising and catalog management tools that allow merchants to configure their own sites without requiring additional development efforts. Included with their products are online instructor classes, on site classes, hands on training, and a 24/7 knowledge support base. 

In this week, I start to take care of some issues from the customer. I feel those things are very basic stuff. However, there is one thing that takes me about an hour to solve it, Redirect the URL. It's not hard. I just have to understand the Demandware platform, then I should be able to finish it quickly. I am really excited for the next week challenge, I will keep posting.    

North Star Reach Summary

This week, I keep managing the Adword performance for North Star Reach. The main ad group "North Star Reach" has about 20 clicks and 277 impression. The overall CTR is 7.22%, which is very good. I did a lot of research and used keyword detail and keyword planner to find the best keyword for them.

For other ad Group, such as Camp Volunteers, Camp Awareness, they all have about 1% CTR. It's still possible to improve the performance, I just need more time to determine the best keyword. I also have two event adgroups "Swim to Moon" and "Gold Outing" which is not performing well. However, their keyword worked great last year. I don't understand what's going on. Any other Suggestion?

Few days ago, Marji had a meeting with Google professional. I am going to talk to Marji soon in the future regarding the suggestion from Google. I will post an update about next week.

Metro Detroit Chinese Language and Culture



Metro Detroit Chinese Language and Culture group is excited to gather all of those interested in not only learning and practicing the Chinese language but also who wish to share in the rich Chinese culture, foods and traditions. This event might not be digital market related, but it's good to go there and meet other professional.Their group spans all of the metro Detroit areas including but not limited to Plymouth, Canton, Westland, Farmington, Bloomfield, Livonia, Ann Arbor and more.


If anyone who is interesting about Chinese, please feel free to join this event.




The event starts on Sat Jun 14 3:00 PM at Eastern Michigan University Library (955 W Circle Dr, Ypsilanti, MI (map))