8. Busy week - lots of information

Heeello! This week felt like a busy week. On Monday and Thursday we had on both days two lectures plus group presentations, on Tuesday and Wednesday we worked on the given group task.

Let's start with Mondays lectures. The first one was held by a guest lecturer Terhi Aho who's working for Tulos Oy. Her topic today was content and search engines. The things that I remembered the best was the importance of linking. Your website should be linked in several places so as many persons as possible can fins them. Then also this customer journey, that is good to keep in mind when planning marketing: 1. Awareness 2. Information search 3. Consideration 4. Buy 5. Stay. This is how customer buying process usually carries out.

The second lecture was actually about being a student and what's important (and a little bit of advertising the company ;). It was held by Joanna Purosto, working for MMAliitto (Myynnin ja Markkinoinnin Ammattilaiset). This was quite the same we have heard the whole fall, but from another point of view again. Anyway, her three most important point was:

1. Network - always be active with getting networked, it is a great base when entering business life
2. Be digital - digital is THE thing today, keep up with the development
3. This is just the beginning - studying gives the base, working gives the experience

On Tuesday we started with planning HOW to do our this weeks group work and also the content, and on Wednesday we executed it. The task was, once again, to choose three companies working in the same field of business and then use a website grader tool to compare the companies homepages. We choose the same companies as in the previous task: DigiPeople Studio, Oneminstory and Superclick. All of them work in the field of video marketing. Below you can see the video, this time an animation, so I will not dig any deeper in the comparison.

There's one thing I want to write a little more about, this website grader tool powered by Hubspot! I honestly had never heard about it before, and it's actually a very good tool for anyone interested in improving their website. Go check it out for yourself on https://website.grader.com/. Briefly it gives your website an overall grade and then some points of what should be improved. By watching our animation, you get an idea of what the tool gives you. And you can search with any website you wan't to. Also notice that you don't have to write your email, just the website and then "Get Your Answer".

FTS13 working. Brr cold in class!

On Thursday the lectures continued. This day the first one was held by our mentor Ilkka Kurkela and he told about digital strategy. This was in my opinion more like an inspirational lecture, and he started with emphasizing the importance of the persons that supports you the most. For me the most important persons are my mom and my boyfriend. I know I can always count on them, they inspire me and supports me in any situation.  I couldn't figure out the third person, so I go with my dog. Sure she can't help me verbally, but is sure a great inspiration!

The other important thing is to remember in business to help others and to respect others. This whole digital marketing is a huge thing, so it takes time to learn it all, or actually, you can never learn it all. You just continue developing every day. And I couldn't do it without help and respect.

Ilkka Kurkela.

The second lecture was held by one of the digital coaches Bishnu Rana, he told us about lead nurturing. This was actually a new phrase for me, so I'm going to open it a little bit for you too. Briefly lead nurturing is the process of a good customer relationship throughout the whole buying process. Especially now when a lot of the selling and buying happens online, the product or service provider has to make sure that the buying process is solid and don't leave any gaps in the buying process. Not easy but worth it!

The lead nurturing idea.

(Sorry for bad quality..) Buying journey nowadays.

Then the last thing for this week (gosh I feel like this is by far going to be the longest blog post in my blog, or at least the one with the most information..). This week we got an individual blog task also: to choose five other blogs, read them and give feedback.

1. Digi Business World

- Written by Johanna Laahanen
- Great with pictures to lighten up the posts!
- A really clean and easy read blog.
- What I liked the most, all the positive attitude an nice comments!
- The headlines could be more captivating.
- Short but good content.

2. #Digi

- Written by Nora Peltola
- Clear content in the blog posts.
- I liked the "Päivän positiivinen" picture, more of this!
- Also here the headlines could be more captivating.
- Nice background, beautiful :)
- The posts could be more interesting with more pictures?

3. Digimarketingwindow

- Written by Mari Pekkarinen
- At first a great name for the blog.
- Clever use of Wix, the design looks good :)
- Easy text to read and good content
- Maybe more pictures in some of the posts?
- Once again, the headlines could be more captivating.
- I liked the team picture on the side!

4. Hannah's blog

- Written by Hannah King
- First: Beautiful layout, made me interested at first look
- "About me" site a big plus
- Very inspirational, a great effort.
- Personal way of writing, not only information plus great pictures!
- Good and interesting headlines.
- I can't find anything to be improved :)

5. Digital marketing

- Written by Reetta Koivikko
- A little short posts, but the content is good.
- Pictures is a thumbs up!
- The cultural baggage picture is good, so cute and good points.
- Also here: the headlines :)

After writing these reviews, I wan't to say that I hate to critic other peoples work. I know it is something that I probably have to do some day in my life, but for now I think especially blogs are personal and all great in their own way. For examples many of these points I wrote could concern also my own blog! But all in all I liked all the blogs I read :)

And finally the weekly dog picture!

Having fun, and just a little crazy dog ;)

Have a great next week!

7. Autumn break

Hi! Autumn break.. Lovely, just what was needed! Or actually it was the teachers that had vacation, we just didn't have any lectures ;) But as I told in the previous post, we managed to do all our group work last week (I'm going to link the video of our last work here below, as I promised), so we got to take it chill this week.

In addition to just doing nothing and enjoying freedom, I have worked with some other courses and prepared myself for the first exam, taking place in a couple of weeks (I believe..). We'll see how that works out.. There's still lots of studying left.

But before I completely forget, here is the video about comparing social media platforms. If you wan't to you can read the assignment in the previous plog bost.

So this post turned out really short, but lets blame the minimum work we had this week! I mean in this course. We haven't either gotten any next step of our Digi People Studios project, so I guess we just have to wait for next week! Then the only thing left is this weeks dog-photo ;)

Our previous dog, Stella <3

I'll write again next week!

6. Creative thinking - synopsis

Hi! This week has somehow seemed very long. So let's just start from the beginning, as usual.

On Monday morning we had a great guest lecturer, I mean, the CEO of the DigiPeople Studios, Pekka Tuominen. Just to refresh the memories a bit, DigiPeople Studios is our cooperation company in this project going on right now. I will tell more about that later in this post.

Pekka Tuominen told us about video strategy. The important thing is to remember: people love authenticity, like what's happening "on the back stage". A great content will be catching and spreads easily. Now I know my mom reads this blog, and we have talked about this topic earlier. So here I present some points of WHY VIDEO? ;)

• You can show interesting content
• People like the most watching a video (2012), I believe instead of reading
• Optimizes in search engine
• Improves the conversion 
• For example Zappos, 6-30% better sales if video used
• Relatively cheap

Then we have the points of WHY DOESN'T THE VIDEO WORK?

• The video is not visually solid
• The beginning and the end has to be good!
• It has to be named right
• The quality vary too much
• The video is made too safely, it has to be creative!
• Too big budget
• Too long video

Filming a part of our this weeks task! 

When making the video, you should be aware of the mobile platforms. But when finally done with the video, it's important to think about the publishing and follow-up. Tuominen says the video HAS to be on Youtube. From there it can easily be spread. Then the question "Where to publish?". It has to be carefully thought individually for every kind of company. Where do the company meet the clients? Is it the TV, internet, radio, fairs, shops... One great advice is also not to take control of the video, but share it with all clients and other people. This way you can get the video spreading easily and for free!

After the lecture, we got our new group task. This weeks task was to choose a branch, then choose three companies within that branch and then comparing them and their social media platforms. Surprise, surprise we chose the branch of video marketing! The companies were OneMinStory, Superclick and of course DigiPeople Studios. But I will link the video we made in the next post, so hang in there ;)

Working with the synopsis.

Later on the week we worked hard with the group task, but also with the next step of our project. This weeks work was to be creative and come up with the synopsis for two of the suggested companies we thought of last week. Naturally Digi People Studio chose the most potential companies. We worked Tuesday - Thursday almost every day to 5 or 6 pm, and I think that is why this week seemed sooo long. But again we got a lot work done, let's see how this thing is going to work out! ;)

In addition to everything above, on Thursday we went to Laurea Leppävaara to this Network to Get Work happening. The two lectures I attended to were really basics of how to built your carrier and what to pay attention to.. I'm not going to dig any deeper to that because it has nothing to do with this course.

From last weeks Porvoo-trip!

Then I wan't to say, to those people who thinks our work trough videos is easy and requires not that much time of us. I have to say, I have never done this much work on any previous school projects. None of us had done videos before or edited them. So everyone can make it happen, if they just sacrifice enough time for it. :) That's what we've done when learning everything from the bottom line. 

Next week the teachers have their autumn break, so we decided to do all group work done this week, so that also we can take it easy. Naturally we have also other school works to do and an upcoming exam, but anyway.. See ya later!

My cute little bunny :)

5. Excitement - project with DigiPeople Studio Oy!

I'm so excited! That line seems to be the most popular one in our group this past week. And can't blame us! This Monday we got to meet the companies we will be doing a project to (or with). Our group get to work with no less than DigiPeople Studio. They produce different kinds of moving picture commercial to their customers.

At first on Monday morning we heard about all the companies working with different groups. There were many interesting companies and projects, but I believe this project we got suites us the best. We get to be very creative and work with a company that produces videos for living, videos: like our groups passion!

After the presentations we had a meeting with the CEO of DigiPeople Studio, Pekka Tuominen. We got to ask questions and also got the project instructions. We made a short 2 minutes video about the project idea, I will link it here below. But briefly we are supposed to make a shortlist of companies and then write this synopsis or a story line for the chosen company. I think the greatest thing is that the company emphasize that every moving picture commercial should contain a great and touching story. If we're lucky and creative enough, we might even see the story be produced! It is a great motivation when doing this, even though it's just a big MAYBE.

By the way, if you wan't to see the other videos we've made, go to the Youtube channel by Mira Niemi. Every video will be published there.

We worked all Tuesday with the conpanies shortlist and the video. So after working one long day again, we decided to take one day off and do a roadtrip to Porvoo! We went to Brunberg (yam!!) and Peten Koiratarvike. We had lots of fun and I think we really needed this day together doing something more relaxing. I believe chilling is as important as the working itself. No brain can execute at the highest level without a short brake.

At Brunberg shopping candy!

At Rax Pizzabuffet, great lunch!

On Thursday we felt fresh again and full with energy! Maybe..? This time we heard the most inspirational lecture so far, about content strategy. It was held by Jyri Rasinmäki who's working for Vapa media. His main points was 1. Problem solving 2. Importance of thinking 3. Asking the (right) questions. He told us the basics of working within content strategy and encouraged us to be curious and just to find our own way of thinking. And to keep on thinking.

At the end of the lecture he asked us to write down three things that we remembered best after the lecture. Mine was:

1. "Creativity and criticism can't be present at the same time". I think this is just perfect, and this suites our group perfectly. Every one listens to others, and positivism is the key to great thinking.

2. Ask the right questions. It is important to keep asking. It's hard to say what is the right questions, but as it's said, there is no dumb questions.

3. Be curious and think. This goes well hand in hand with asking the questions. These together seems to be the best way in solving problems.

One of the great slides of Jyri Rasinmäki: The Circle of Creation process.

After this interesting one hour, every team introduced their own projects. I must say that I could have done any of these projects, but still I think ours is the best ;) Once again I'm so proud of our team, we did a good job again this week. Now I'm curious about the upcoming week again!

This weeks Martta picture, her sweets from Porvoo.

Until next time!