Tag: CaseStudy

Brewing Business Success with Google Trends

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What I love most about living in today’s world is the speed at which I can find or learn anything I want within seconds. With just a couple of keyboard clicks or a voice command, I’m able to find the artist of that one throwback song that’s stuck in my head or the coolest new restaurant near me. Search engines, like Google, make life easier through its detailed algorithms. By leveraging websites’ SEO (search engine optimization), only the best and most relevant sources are served to users in an organized fashion in SERPs (search engine results pages).

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Ideation Techniques

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It has been debunked that creative genius appears in a singular blast of inspiration. Contrary to the belief of many, true creative genius takes time to foster and that there are actually many patterns that can be followed to produce beautiful and functional solutions. To foster creative genius, individuals spend days, months, or even years trying to perfect their product or craft. During this time, they ideate. Ideation is the process in which you concentrate on creating as many ideas as possible in order to come closer to a feasible solution. Although it is meant to be a quick process, ideation can take up long stretches of time depending on the complexity of the problem you are trying to solve for. Be prepared to stretch your mental capacity, have patience, and it is almost guaranteed that you will be able to come up with some great ideas!

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My Experience With Personas

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As the world revolves around buying and selling, companies have become cutthroat and rather ingenious in their ways to predict how customers will interact with their brand. Through models called “personas,” marketing and design teams can create a cast of characters that make up groups of their customer base. These personas are created through market and user research, giving accurate pictures of what the real customers look like, their needs, and how a person’s business/product/service fits into their day to day lives.

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Empathic Design – Trend or Necessity?

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A typical day for a designer involves being locked in a room or secluded to a cubicle for hours on end hoping that a miracle happens. Sometimes the days go by and everything they create is crap, and by the end of it, patience is thin and no amount of caffeine can guarantee great results. Don’t believe this process actually happens? Well you should, because I’m speaking from experience. Fact is, after all of that toil, designers never get to encounter or appreciate their project like a new or typical user would. This is important because users, specifically very targeted users, have distinct perspectives and needs. As products and services continue to become more granular, we need to understand how the end user will feel and interact with designed experiences.

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Psychology’s Influence on User Behavior

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Streamlined, intuitive, functional, responsive. All of these words have been massively overused to describe websites – but how did they even become the preferred descriptors of “good” web design? As our lives become more entrenched in the digital sphere, the way we interact – and want to interact – with technology changes. In order to let users seamlessly manage their online activity and subliminally guide them through the preferred customer journey, designers implement UX/UI. If you’re familiar with the design space, you’ve probably heard of these two abbreviations before. In case you’re completely new, let’s break it down.

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Design Thinking 101

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In a previous blog post, I introduced several of the most popular project management methodologies that are used by professionals today. Included methodologies featured were: Waterfall, Agile, Kanban, and Design Thinking. These diverse methods help individuals – and teams – prepare and execute projects. An established and organized approach means that time is spent in a more meaningful way, increasing the likelihood of stronger solutions. Today, we are going to dive a little bit deeper into the Design Thinking methodology to dispel some questions and show you how it can be used in quick exercises to get you thinking like a seasoned pro.

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Barnes & Noble – Community Management

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There is nothing so universally delightful as a good story. A good story invokes emotion, keeps us hanging on the edge, and encompasses our thoughts. As a child, I took to reading fairly quickly and threw myself into the world of literature. Reading about fantasy worlds sparked creativity and led me to write my own stories. Going to the library was a family weekend event. As a proud library card owner, I’d check out all of my own books and made sure to return them on time for fear of those dreaded late fees. Each library visit would yield a literal pile of books that I stacked up neatly on my bedside table. As the weekdays went by, I read through the stack and brought back the completed reads on Saturday morning. It was habitual.

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Constructing A Content Calendar

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Before even starting up a social media page, an organization must understand content. In previous blog posts, I’ve talked about how to construct a content strategy and have pulled together a quick guide identifying the differences between content strategy, content marketing, and content creation. In this week’s blog post, I will be walking you through how I created an example content calendar for a local nonprofit organization.

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Second Chance For Animals – A Local Non-Profit Analysis

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A few years ago, when I was completing my undergraduate degree, I wanted to be able to put some of my free time to good use. With only a few classes left, I figured that volunteering would be a great way to keep my time occupied and help my community. Years prior, I learned of the Franklin Township Animal Shelter and knew that they took on volunteers – however they had to be over 18 years of age. At the time I offered to volunteer I was only 16 and was so saddened to hear that I couldn’t help out. Going back, then as a proud 20-year old, I was excited to get involved. Although my time as a volunteer only lasted around half a year, it was a great learning experience. The amount of time and effort that the volunteers put in is astounding and I applaud every one of them for putting the needs of the animals first.

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