New Semester, New Challenges: The Google Online Marketing Challenge

Hello!

Let me introduce myself:

My name is Katrina, and I am a junior at Chatham University where I am studying to complete my Bachelor of Arts in International Business with a minor in Environmental Policy. I also play for Chatham's NCAA Division III Ice Hockey team, and travel around the northeastern United States to play against other NCAA schools.

This week is the first week of classes for the Spring 2015 semester at Chatham, where I am enrolled in one of the special topics courses at Chatham University: Digital Marketing in a Global Environment, which will be taught by Professor Rachel Chung, Ph.D. In this course Dr. Chung will teach us about advertising platforms, search engines, and analytics platforms. As students, we will also compete in the Google Online Marketing Challenge, which will make use of the skills and principles we are to learn. For our first assignment, we are to create a blog (this is the blog) to write about assigned topics and gather followers. This week, we were given the task of reading over the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) Guidelines, as well as the Pre-Course Preparations for the GOMC.

Digital Marketing techniques make use of all kinds of digital platforms.
Source: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/the-new-realities-of-digital-marketing-2014-06-30

There are a few things to take away from this reading material, the guidelines page we were to read includes the competition process for the GOMC: how to enter, the rules and guidelines, and what the competition entails and includes resources such as the Digital Marketing Course provided by Google (which is further explained below). It is important to know all of the rules and regulations of a competition not only to make sure you follow the rules and know and meet all the deadlines, but also to make sure you are eligible to participate.

The Pre-Course Preparations reading is part of the Google Digital Marketing Course and serves to help us understand what we must do before the competition starts. To compete, each student must have a Google account and know the importance of having an online presence in the marketing world. It is important to have an online presence as a marketer for the sake of connecting with more potential, valuable customers, as well as to use social networks and e-commerce to help a business flourish.

I have already learned new things this week, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. By the end of this course, I'll be an expert (well, not quite an expert; but I'll be much closer!). I wonder, just how many viewers/subscribers could I have by the end of this? How will my teammates and I fare overall in the Google Online Marketing Challenge?