Tied in one of my other blogs http://ping.fm/Oi4Rn

Blogging Bridge — From Personal to Business

Blogging Background
I have blogged online since 2000 in a personal online journal for friends and college acquaintances to read, but not for marketing purposes. I was quite the advocate of online blogs those early years and convinced over 20 of my real life friends to get one, connect, and share.

I won’t post a link here, for that was the past and this is the present and my future. Secondly, although I may share some personal opinions and stories, this is more of a business-related blog.

Working in a field that blurs the lines between marketing & technology, I am in the position of having to advise clients on interactive or online marketing plans, as well as execute them, for their already existing or new websites. I plan on using this blog to relay thoughts, tips, and insight of what I have learned, and will learn, on a daily basis from the blogoshere, search engine news, latest online marketing techniques, pay-per-click strategies, search engine optimization methods, and other online marketing and advertising trends.

Early Internet Memories
I would say it all started in about 1994 when my 8th grade 50 year-old computer teacher showed us a chat room and a picture of a young female pen-pal he had met online who lived in Canada. He eventually left his wife and went off the deep end, but no matter, he introduced me to what I know as the modern day Internet. When I was 11 or 12, before my computer teacher’s pen-palling escapes, I vaguely remember reading a brochure about what a modem does and having only those words and my imagination for my brother and I to describe and extol the benefits of what a modem does to my parents.

I soon forgot about the Internet until two to three years later, along with our Commadore 64. We did convince our parents to buy a Ron Popeil Food Dehydrator and Dick Butkus-endorsed Quickee Cook that year.

The Mid ’90s
In 1994 my best friend’s family signed up for AOL. My family signed up for AOL account (before it was hated) for the first time in 1995. I remember using AltaVista.com’s Bable Fish to help me translate my papers for Spanish class. Although, among other things it never did the know the difference between embarazada and desconcertado. When aloud to the class my anecdotal essay about how I slipped and fell, somehow I got pregnant, but at least I wasn’t embarrassed. I distinctly remember my Spanish teacher mentioning after I read aloud she was impressed because we hadn’t even learned that tense yet. I think she caught on. I used Dogpile.com, the later half of my high school years. because of its combined search engine results. I used this engine to satisfy the “more than two references” requirement for research papers. At the time, this was supposed to remedy the non-relevant results and having to use multiple engines.

My Internet Marketing History
Today in 2006, I have since graduated college, lived in four cities, and two states, gained life and relevant work experience. In college, I started out studying psychology, and then switched my degree to journalism with a major in advertising. I also took enough relevant classes to receive a minor in marketing and by the time I had switched I already had taken enough classes for a minor in psychology.

Typically there are two types of advertising majors, those fascinated with design, the look and the feel, and those fascinated with what the ad says, the art of language. Then there is me, who was fascinated what drives the motivation for people to respond and the direct and measurable results of the ad. I was in college from 1999 to 2004 studying advertising, in which none of my professors touched on Internet marketing. In the summer of 2003 I took a direct-response class, my second senior year and was introduced via a guest speaker, Robby Wells at the database direct mail firm Epsilon (he is now at IMC2), the power of Internet marketing.

Wells used to sell car parts online circa 1997-1998 when he was about 22. He made $80,000 in a few months because he optimized his meta tags, and started using Goto.com which then became Overture.com. This was only a side note in his talk about direct mail marketing. I was hooked. A year later, I was required to arrange and engage in a professional shadowing. I wanted to know more, so I got to pick Robby’s brain for 18 hours over a semester. I also shadowed an account executive, print designer, a database merge manager, the president, and an account coordinator. I soon discovered I did not have a passion for any of these jobs, but wasn’t sure what else existed in advertising.

My last year in college I sold the classified section, as well as did the layout, and some display advertising for the student newspaper. The sales goals were tough, but it taught me a lot and challenged me. I received the “highest percentage over goal” eight times. After I graduated I had to leave the paper since it was student-ran and I was no longer a student (I later found out I could have worked another semester after graduation).

In Summer of 2004, I was a new graduate, without any real job prospects. Driven by desperation and an entrepreneurial spirit I turned online to find ways to make money, more specifically people who advise others on how to make money online. I bought an 80 page ebook, for which I am still on their email list ( 33 days to Online Profits). Although, I didn’t use it as a “how to” book, I learned a lot from it and still consider some of the techniques. This was the first place I read in more detail about pay-per-click ads and the best practices in writing them.

Several odd jobs later, in March 2005, I started writing pay-per-click ads and press releases as acting as a marketing director (as well as recuiter, AE, and project coordinator) for an animation company in Dallas.

Today
Since March 2006 I have been working as an Internet Marketing specialist for the premiere website design/development/marketing firm in Dallas. I am enjoying myself and learning new things everyday. Currently I write press releases, write and manage pay-per-click campaigns, optimize sites for search engines, create and optimize product feeds for shopping comparison sites, and, stay on top of the latest results-oriented trends, and create interactive marketing plans for clients.