Meet Brice Putnam
Bio
My name is Brice Putnam, and I am a Junior in the Sports Information and Media program. I am taking this class because it is a requirement for my major. However, it is a class that I would most likely take even if it wasn’t required. This is because I am interested in gaining more skills in social media, whether it's marketing or design I would like to get better at it. During the class my approach to projects will be similar to how I work in all other aspects of my life. When I start a project, I always like to finish it to the best of my ability. And when a project is on a topic that interests me, I really enjoy working on it.
About Me
One thing readers should know about me is that I am working toward a career in professional sports production. I actually interned with the Pittsburgh Penguins this fall and gained a lot of experience in the field. One of the main things I learned there is what it takes to work at the highest level of sports. The professionalism that I was able to gain with them is something that I want to bring into 2025. As for this class I am looking forward to learning more about social media and digital marketing.
Check out a study of mine that surrounds the topic of my favorite sport!
Hopes for Class
I hope to learn more about what social media platforms perform the best for certain brands. I also want to learn about how many people it takes to develop a brand and image for a company. Lastly, I would like to find out more about how companies go about marketing for different regions and countries that they may be located or sell in. For example, I am curious about how iPhone marketing differs from advertisements in the United States vs countries in Europe.
Here’s a link to some research i’ve already done in class!
2 Things I Learned About My Work From Google Analytics
Timing matters: For my final assignment I chose to write my article about ad-blocking. Having a set schedule to post that article made sense to me when I first read the assignment because I am familiar with the fact that posting on social media works best at certain times. For example just with personal Instagram posts i’ve found that I get more likes when I post at evening hours such as 7 or 8 P.M. This is because it’s peek scrolling time for most people in my area. This same theory holds true for companies and social media strategists. During our final assignment I tried my best to stick to the posting schedule that was included for us. However not all the times were at peek hours so it makes sense why some of my peers had different results than me despite having the same platform routine. This assignment gave me proof that timing is a real thing when it comes to posting on social media.
Here are my posting times from the previously mentioned ad-blocking article. The image seen below also shows the pattern of Instagram doing the best in terms of engagement and views.
Engagement vs Views: The analytics that I was able to collect through my assignments in this class showed me how important each respective category is . In most of our situations engagement was more valuable that views simply because our content was an article on a website. Having people click around and actually reading your creations was a satisfying thing to see each time I checked Google analytics.
Above is a chart that depicts my total views vs active views (engaged users) on my ad-blocking article. You can see that while I had lot’s of views not all of them were totally engaged. This is when I realized how important keeping a user engaged is when sharing content on social media.
“Control the things you can control, and the rest will fall into place.” -Sean McDermott
This quote is inspiring, so I like to use it when I am thinking about my future career. I remind myself that if I try my absolute best to gain experience and get opportunities now, when it comes time to enter the professional workplace I will be set up for success. This is because I controlled the things that I had to control.