Social Media Studiousness

That I am a social media geek should come as no surprise - after all, I spearheaded our company's exploration into that space while at Maples, and I'm an avid (okay, addicted) Twitter and Facebook user.

Well, my superawesome employer has its employees set annual goals for bettering ourselves through education, training, etc. In other words, it's not project-related but rather has everything to do with becoming a more valuable team member by learning and growth. Pretty awesome.

Today I launched into one of my goals, which is to complete a training at either Lynda.com or via our parent company's eLearning library each quarter. Well... it's quite interesting to sit through a four-hour tutorial on how to use something I've been using pretty much every day for a few years.

So far I've only gone through the intro stuff, so... nothing new yet. But if I learn anything awesome, I'll pass it along, I promise.

Meanwhile - survey time! What's your favorite social media outlet? Vote in the poll on the blog!

In other news, lots of fun stuff to recap, from Singin' in the Rain to tulips galore to Seattle. Can you believe it's almost May already?! This year has just flown by!!! It's been pretty packed, too. Our Internet's been wonky at home, hence my being so danged behind on posting (because, really, I'm not hugely a fan of posting from the office... even if that's, ummmm, what I'm doing at the moment). Hopefully I can hop on this weekend for some serious updates.

Okay, back to Twitter Tutorial-Land...

Home Run!

I had my first client meeting today where I'm in a management position on the account. In fact, after introductions and such, I more or less ran the meeting, touting our digital media plan to the client, to amp up their online newsroom.

And...

They went from wanting to postpone the project a month to being really enthusiastic about it. In fact, our main contact there emailed this afternoon and said they can't wait to get started! Man, watching that 180 because of my sales job just made my day. Wow.

What a great feeling!!! Being blessed with the gift of enthusiasm comes in handy sometimes - I can get really, genuinely excited about just about anything out there, but I never thought about how that translates into $ for business! :)

P.S.: Lest I take all the credit, the plan I was pitching was the result of a collaboration with Chelsea, my digital media teammate. Unfortunately, she was out sick today, so I had to lead this one alone.

Blogaholics Anonymous

Hello, my name is Christa, and I am a blogaholic.

Seriously, blogging has gotten soooo addictive lately! Whether I'm blogging about fabulous classic movies or reading friends' awesome blogs (with the amazing Google Reader), I just can't seem to get enough of the blogosphere these days. It's so danged compelling!

In fact, it's been so addictive that my non-online life is suffering at the moment. Between rolling into work at 7 a.m. this week, getting home about 12 hours later, only to fix dinner and hang in my roommate's room to accomodate her puppy I'm dog-sitting, well, I'm in desperate need of getting stuff done, like packing for my awesome Arizona trip and baking the Pioneer Woman's tasty yogurt-marmalade cake. (Do you hear that? That sweet, gentle whispering? It's the kitchen, calling my name...)

So, I'm going to have to take a mini-vacation from blogging. No worries - I'll be back Labor Day, ready to blog with a vengeance!

(And, in the meantime, do check out cinemabychrista.blogspot.com - I just did analyzed Meet John Doe, the first of many films about which I plan to blog. And I hope to get better at it, too.)

Love that Google Analytics!

If you blog, you seriously have to sign up for Google Analytics.

What, you ask, is Google Analytics? It's a fantastic, FREE analytics program that tells you how many people are visiting your blog, how long they stay, where they're coming in from (both on the Web and geographically), etc. I loooove it! It's only updated once daily - but I look forward to checking my analytics every day to see how the blog's doing on viewership.


Since I started tracking my blog one month ago today, I can tell you that I've had 400 page views, 65 percent of which have come from referring sites (Facebook, links from other blogs). Most of the views have come from the U.S., but there have been four views from Canada and one each from Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and Kenya (which is kind of puzzling, honestly). You can even track it by city (well, area) - most are from Irvine and Provo (duh, no surprise there) but there are a ton of cities listed where I can't think of anyone I know living or visiting there!

Honestly, it's such a little ego boost! I feel all warm and fuzzy, a la Sally Field's "You like me - you really like me" Oscar speech, when I see that 30, 40 people have visited the blog on any given day. It's cool, too, to see how my traffic has really increased during the last week, as I've actually started blogging consistently. It's so fun!

Oh, and speaking of blogging... I launched my Christa on Classic Cinema blog during the weekend - cinemabychrista.blogspot.com. I'll post at least a couple times a week on my latest classic cinema finds. It's pretty minimal now, but stay tuned for more. This is one where the analytics will come in handy - I've kept this personal blog out of search engines and such, but the film one I want to publicize. It's my little, grassroots shot of fulfilling my dream of being a film historian. Leonard Maltin and Robert Osborne, watch out!

Hamlet - Facebook style

A friend of mine posted the link to this on Facebook, and I thought it was pretty hilarious. It might be too small to view, but if you click on the pic, it'll open to full size.

What can I say? Facebook just does make everything simpler! If you're not a member yet, you really should join. And add me as a friend, of course! :)

Digging the new gig

Okay, back to the "Christa's life" blog posts.

So, when I returned from my vacation, I began my new job at Maples Communications. Although my title is that of "account executive," my job has evolved into being more of a digital communications specialist and copy editor. Instead of having a product-specific focus like the other AEs, I'm one of two digital media go-to girls tasked with developing and executing Web 2.0 media campaigns (i.e. blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts and vodcasts, etc.)

My digital media partner-in-crime has a master's in digital media from Johns Hopkins, so, uh, she really knows her stuff! Although I was quite intimidated at first, she and I work well together and bring really different strengths to the table, so it's a good thing - and it's fun to be part of a team. That's something I really value about Maples, actually - there's definitely an emphasis on teamwork. I love it!

The switch was definitely the right move. There are things I miss about journalism and the Register, but overall, I dig the gig. And I still write my business column for a bunch of the Register's community papers, so I get to dabble in journalism at least once a week. And that's, uh, plenty! ;)

Plus I'm actually quite a fan of dressing up for work every day, contrary to what some would have thought about my former jeans-and-Rainbows uniform. Of course, it also gives me an excuse to indulge in new clothes... but balance in all things, right?

Here's my cute little cubicle - before...

and after!

While working on a project with the boss today, it hit me just how great of a company Maples is! I appreciate how talent and creativity are so encouraged. They like employees who stick around for the long haul, and as much as I desperately want to move to Seattle, well, I can see myself working at Maples for some time to come. It's great!

And - gotta love this! - I mentioned how I'd always wanted to go to New York but hadn't been yet. The boss said we'd have to change that... :)

Starting the Blog...

Aloha, party people!

Well, I figured, what the heck, I might as well re-enter the blogosphere. I started a blog last summer for my journalism capstone class, but I didn't keep it up too well. Although I don't plan to post too often on here, I figured this might be an opportune way to keep in touch with the friends and family I cherish dearly but see rarely. So, here you go!

It's Monday morning, and I'm the only one in my corner of the newsroom so far. And it's 10:30 a.m. already. Journalism is definitely a different world than most occupations! Our place doesn't get hopping 'til 11:30 a.m. or so. But we have fun. I loooove my job!

And I love my life. Things are going really well. If it weren't for my unrealistic need to know what the future holds and to be amazing instead of average, I'd say life is pretty dang near perfect. There are some amazing people down here who I'm honored to call friends, and I enjoy seeing my family on a daily basis (although I don't really interact with them much, except for the puppy, 'cause I'm always running around at full speed). Life is great!

So, that's it from me for now. I hope life finds you well. Take care, and much love!

Christa Jeanne =)

PS: I'm trying to figure out how to post photos... When I do, check them out!