Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Day 11: Second Day at Work - Meet & Greets Galore!

Today was my second day at work and it was filled with six meet & greets with different people from the digital marketing team in Florida and California. Since my supervisor, Kim, and her supervisor, Cynthia, weren't there, I spent most of the day either preparing for the meet & greets or planning my scavenger hunt around the Magic Kingdom!

My first meet & greet was with Geoff, who is a Digital Marketing Manager. He specializes in QR (Quick Response) codes and getting mobile at the forefront of everyone's minds. He started the meeting by asking me my thoughts on QR codes and I asked if he wanted my honest opinion, he kind of raised his eye brows and welcomed my opinion. I told him that I didn't think that they were very effective because a lot of people still do not know how to use the QR function as with Androids and iPhones, QR capability is not integrated into the camera. I also told him that a lot of companies still are unaware how to use them and how they put QR codes on web pages, which to me seemed ridiculous because they're on the internet now, why do they need to have one on the webpage? However, Geoff made a good point - for a lot of the times people are on their PCs with their mobile phones and they want to take the information to go, which is why the QR codes are helpful. I had never thought about it like that, but I will hopefully be meeting with him in the future to discuss the potentials of QR codes further.

My second meet & greet was with Greg, who is a Social Media Community Manager and he manages & creates content for the Walt Disney World Facebook page, but also manages the Disney Facebook and one other one that I cannot remember right now. He also is going to be taking over the Disney Pinterest page as he has only been there for 5 weeks so far, so they are still transitioning him onto new projects. Greg and I had an awesome discussion on the possibilities for Pinterest and different markets we could hit through Pinterest. We honestly were just having an honest discussion and collaboration - it felt so good to contribute ideas and be heard!

My third meet & greet was over the phone with Andy who is in California and is also a Social Media Community Manager and he manages the Disney Cruise Lines, Aulani, and Adventures by Disney Facebook pages. He noted really interesting differences between each of the target markets and made sure that I understood that those differences are defining factors of engagement. After a little chatting, Andy asked what my background was and it turns out that Andy's grandfather was a professor at UNL and while he is now in California, he is still a huge Husker fan and had season tickets up until recently. It was so awesome to meet someone who understood my Husker affinity :)

My fourth meet & greet was with Alex and he is one of the Digital Marketing Directors who is mostly in charge of the "activation" team. He was really helpful in laying everything out for me in regards to how the departments are organized. One thing he pointed out is that our department is "very flat," which means that while there is a certain level of hierarchy  everyone is valued and everyone's point-of-view is welcomed. It seems like I will be working pretty closely with him in ensuring that the strategy that Kim & I promise our partners is being carried out.

My fifth meet & greet was with Jim in California who is a Digital Marketing Manager and works primarily with analytics/metrics, as well as social media, so I believe that I will be working with him for quite a bit. In my M&G, I asked how he proves the legitimacy of social media to "higher ups" who tend to not quite fully grasp the power of social media quite yet and typically they look for direct ROI (Return of Investment). The hard thing with social media is that you can't exactly draw a straight line between posts (whether content, quantity, etc.) and sales. Making a decision to take a vacation has so much more involved and most likely, a well composed, engaging Facebook post won't make that click for you. Jim was saying how they look for certain metrics of engagement to prove the legitimacy of social media, as well as building brand awareness.

My sixth and final meet & greet was with Eric in California, who is also a Professional Intern in Digital Marketing. He was extended for another 6 months and has worked on everything from content creation for social media to the metrics involved in analyzing whether a certain campaign or a certain type of content is effective or not. He told me that I was more than welcome to ask him any questions, so it is nice to know that I will have someone like that.

Finally, my recruiter called and told me that I am all set to get my ID, so I will be doing that tomorrow at promptly 8am tomorrow, hopefully. With my ID I can finally get into the parks, receive numerous discounts in and around Disney, and I need it to get into work, so it will be nice to not have to sign into the visitor's log each day.

Sorry this blog was mostly text, but I didn't think it'd be very professional to take pictures of each meet and greet I did haha

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