Kortney's Blog

As my career at ONU wraps up, there are many things I have learned and many things I regret not doing. One of my favorite photos I took on campus (November 2017). Amongst the things I have learned, I have learned to always go for any open opportunity you have to better yourself and your career. Whenever a door opens for you that could  be beneficial to you, take the chance. This has proven to be very helpful in these past few years when job and internship searching. Another thing I have learned is to do something diverse from your major. For example, I took this social media course. I have a Marketing minor, but I did not have to choose this course for one of my electives. I chose to in order to develop my online and social media skills from a professional side of things. I know that there is a pretty great chance I will not be needing to use these skills in my job after ONU, but I will still be working at the boutique "at home" and doing all their social media. One

Over the weekend, I had my bridal shower. I have been stressing for weeks trying to plan this and deal with school. However, the day finally arrived and it went wonderfully. I was overwhelmed with the entire experience and it was truly a great, yet tiring, day. On Friday, I went to the venue and set up and decorated with my mom, grandma, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and maid of honor. Saturday morning we all met very early to get food going and ready for the brunch. We played several games including a contest for the best toilet paper dress, Jeopardy, Family Feud, and Put a Ring on it. There were more people that attended than I had expected and my fiancé and I were incredibly blessed with the generosity of our friends and family. This makes me even more excited for the wedding and our future together.

This past August I went to St. Augustine, Florida, with my fiancé and his family. We accidentally booked a condo there instead of Myrtle Beach and it ended up being the best mistake we could do! We went to many historical monuments there. We visited a fort from the 1500s and found out that the pilgrims actually were not the first people to come to the US. Spaniards were actually the first ones to colonize the United States. After I did a quick Google search about things to do in the area, I found a place called Ginnie Springs that was only two hours from our condo. I convinced my fiancé and his family to drive us there one day. Ginnie Springs is a series of natural, crystal clear springs that are extremely picturesque. Of course, I forgot to bring my underwater camera so I got no photos of inside the springs. Each spring has different caves and are around 54 degrees. I was the first one in the water and it was certainly a shock to be in water that cold. I quickly got used to it (or n

In Chapter 10, we read about measurement and evaluation when it comes to social media. This chapter was actually relatable to my current job at Boutique 415 and Polished. As mentioned in the chapter, many people think that social media is easy and free for businesses. In order to get anything from it, these things are actually false. A lot of hard work and planning goes into running a successful social media account for your business. Because of this, having a social media budget is crucial for any business. Here is a guideline of things to think about when budgeting for social media: Tools (smartphones, software, computers, etc.) People (social media specialists) Consulting Fees (if work is needed from an outside source or firm) Research Education (books, webinars, certifications, etc.) Promotion and Sponsored Content With my job, I can relate to a few of these. The first one would be tools. My boss brings her laptop to work everyday in order for me to create content a

As many know, my major is Risk Management and Insurance. For awhile now, I have heard rumors that ONU was going to get rid of RMI as a major. Unfortunately, these rumors were true and I received the email that it will no longer be offered for incoming students. This made me very grateful that I am graduating just in time before it is no longer offered, but it also made me sad that incoming students will not have the opportunities or see what all the Risk Management and Insurance industries have to offer. As a freshman, I was introduced to the RMI major. It was something that sparked some interest and I thought it was worth looking up. Because of that, I have dedicated my entire career to RMI. When researching it, I found that there is a 100% job placement rate for anyone seeking work in those industries. There are more people retiring from the industries than coming into them. This makes jobs very secure. Another part that is interesting to me is that the insurance industry is alw

I am just wrapping up a much needed break from school and opportunity to see family. Having Easter late this year was definitely a blessing with all the chaos and stress from school and life going on. On Friday, my parents and I took a drive up to the Toledo Zoo to watch the animals get their Easter eggs. This is a tradition my dad and I have done for years, but my mom finally got to tag along this year. My favorite part was probably the gorillas getting their eggs. They tend to hoard them and hide them. This trip was especially important to me as my dad is about to get open heart surgery next week. That whole part is scary but it was great getting to spend time with him before he has to be healing. My mom and I a second before we both fell off the buffalo. On Saturday, my family and I celebrated Easter and April/May birthdays at my aunt's house. We had lots of fun and it was great getting the family together. On Easter, I had two church services and three Easter's to

A little known fact about me is that I have had a piece of my artwork get put into an art gallery in Lima, Ohio. In my art class during my senior year of high school my teacher told me to create a drawing that is unique and gave me no other guidelines. With that information, I sat and thought about what I wanted to do. I decided I wanted to draw a photo from New York City. I found a photo online and used it as my reference the entire time. I also decided I wanted to not just draw a photo of the city, but I wanted to make it a drawing or photo no one has seen before. I decided to keep with cool colors for the background, and warm yellows for the taxis. I went online and found this photo for reference (I do not know who took the photo): From that photo, I spent 13 weeks drawing each individual detail that I could. I worked on shading, shapes, and dimension. This, by far, was the most challenging part of the process. After I had it all drawn out and measured out, I spent 2 weeks

I am currently enrolled in ONU's first ever memetic communications course. This course has to do with memes and where they originated from and how there are many uses for them. When I first enrolled in this course, I had the mentality that I already knew most of the material and that this course would be an "easy A." I quickly found out I was very wrong. There are many different aspects about memes, or memetic artifacts, that are confusing if you do not already study memes. For example, terms like lingua franca, vernacular creativity, and cultural capital are thrown around frequently. If you have no idea what these terms mean, then this course can get confusing. However, this course did open my eyes to a whole meme "industry." In this industry, there are people who are creating memes with many contextual layers that are geared towards what audiences want to see. In industry or market terms, meme creators are the suppliers for the audience who are the dema

Content marketing is everywhere even if we do not always realize it. When looking at a company's blog, the regular viewer may just see a blog post. However, someone who is familiar with content planning can see a calculated way each post is created and posted that best fits the audiences needs. Content marketing is promoting content to large audiences. In order to do this successfully, there are a few things that content curators have to keep in mind: 1. Make a Connection Making a connection with the audience is possibly the most important thing content curators must remember. If there is no connection with the audience, then there will be little to no engagement or traction to your posts (blogs, Facebook statuses, etc). 2. Start a Dialogue ...and stick with it! Content curators cannot change how they write or what they write about too much if at all. Having a dialogue can even create a sense of reliability. If a viewer notices something is different in the way that a po

I have a passion for traveling and adventures. I try to do both of them when I can. I have compiled a list of places I want to travel to before I am 50: 1. Switzerland I don't have a specific place in Switzerland that I want to go. My great-grandfather came from Switzerland as a young child. I would like to see what it looks like where he was born and raised. 2. Nebraska This one seems random, but it's one of the most important places I want to travel. My grandmother was adopted from Nebraska. She passed away before I was born and I am named after her. We know very little about her biological family other than she had lots of siblings. She was adopted a year before Nebraska adoption records were made public and her adoption papers were burnt in a fire. I would love to know more about her and her biological family. 3. Venice, Italy I would love to go to Venice. The photos are beautiful and I'd like to explore its history. 4. South Africa I would love to experi

One of the most important things for any working person to have is a healthy work-life balance. Not many people think about the importance of a work-life balance for college students. Most of the students I know also have a job on top of their courses. Most of these students are mentally and physically exhausted because they do not get a break from work or school. These busy schedules leave little time for any "life." For example, let's say a student works 25 hours per week. They are enrolled in six classes. Each class is an hour long. This means the student is unavailable for at least  31 hours per week. On top of just going to class and work, they also have assignments and coursework. Let's say each course requires at least  two hours of preparation before each  class. This means that there's another 30 hours (if there is three classes per day) of work being put in just to be able to keep up and succeed in the courses. In total, that's 61 hours of work

As one of the assignments for my Social Media Principals course, we were assigned to make an infographic regarding one of the speakers from the Social Media Workshop that we attended March 22. I chose to make my infographic based off the information we received from Mary Jo DiSalvo. DiSalvo discussed the Dublin Irish Festival with us. The Dublin Irish Festival takes place in Dublin, Ohio, and honors the Irish culture. The event started in 1988 and has gone from only being in a park to now being a 40 acre event. Below is the infographic I have created regarding the presentation: Starting at the top of the infographic, I made a chart to breakdown the gross revenue from the 2018 festival. Overall, there was $1,823,000 in gross revenue. The breakdown of this is $908,000 from beverage purchases, $627,000 from admissions, and $288,000 from sponsorships. The next chart is a breakdown of the social media activity during the event. DiSalvo shared that more than 55,000 people turned to T

As graduation approaches, I have been catching myself thinking about what's to come after graduation. Here is a list of thoughts I have on almost a daily basis now that I'm a senior. 1. Who is letting me be an adult? 2. I don't want to grow up. Let's be honest. All I want to do is color in a coloring book and drink a margarita anymore. 3. Time needs to slow down. 4. I can't believe I'm almost done with schooling. I think this multiple times a day. College seemed so far away in middle school. 5. Senioritis is so real. 6. I can't wait to be done. I go between not wanting to be done with college and being beyond done with college daily . 7. These loans are going to kill me. 8. Is it even worth it? I still think this even with only 6 weeks left. 9. I can't believe I made it.' College has been the hardest yet most rewarding decision of my life.

As the end of the semester nears, it seems that nearly every student becomes more stressed by the day. I have compiled a list of ways to help reduce stress in these last 6 week of the semester. 1. Plan time to study. The earlier you begin studying and setting time aside to focus on one topic, the less stressed you'll be when finals week comes. Focusing on one topic at a time will give your brain a break from focusing on a million other things. 2. Make time for breaks. Make time fro you to have a break. Schedule it if you have to. Having a break is a necessity for anyone, let alone a stressed college student. 3. Take things in small parts. A lot of people, including myself, get very stressed very quickly when given a task and looking at the entire task at once. Break studying, assignments, or projects into smaller parts and just take it one part at a time. 4. Sleep. It's rare that anyone has a normal sleep schedule while in college. During these final few weeks,

In Chapter 8, we discussed audience segmentation. This topic got me thinking about my job. At the boutique, the clothing and items we have tends to target middle aged women. Because of this, we tend to use social media in such a way that middle aged women are targeted with the posts depending on the platform. For example, the majority of our posts are on Facebook. This is where most of the customers that come into the boutique see our sales before shopping. A majority of our customers are already clients of the salon and many mention how they are always on Facebook. We decided that using Facebook to advertise could potentially increase sales for the boutique. Observing what goes on in the shop and salon has helped me target the audience and segment how our social media is used. Another example of market segmentation is what we post on Instagram. When I started my job, I was given the responsibility to revamp the Instagram for both the salon and the boutique. When given this resp