Looking for practicum fun, then let us introduce you to Nugs the Doodle! Nugs mom, Emily Krog, decided to build her semester project with The Digital Engine into a blog revolving around her adorable pup! This lifestyle blog is full of lighthearted fun with make-you-smile posts and pictures. Nugs and Emily live in Nashville and started this superbly designed website to spread kindness and laughter to others. In the following posts, Emily shares many of their fun life adventures together, including: Nugtastic Adventures: Rainy Days and Crumbl Cookies Dog Recipes: Balls, Biscuits and Board Games Nugtastic Adventures: Homecoming Nugtastic Adventures: Pet People Family Shout Out: Tator Tot Nugtastic Adventures: Nug Takes on Spring Break Nugtastic Adventures: Birthday Boy Per course guidelines, students are to connect their website to their social media channels. And so, an Insta-star was born, as Nugs the Doodle received a lot of followers quickly on Instagram.
In curriculum discussions surrounding current trends in marketing education, I am often asked about the impact of artificial intelligence on the future of education. There is no doubt that academics, especially marketing academics, are scrambling to keep up with the exponential growth in technology and innovation in both theory and practice. The question that looms for professors, what value will we provide when all knowledge is just a thought away? Let’s dive deeper. We have been hearing about the impact of AI for a decade now, with tech giants like Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, and Peter Diamandis leading the charge. Many different perspectives exist about this macro-topic, but most coalesce around the idea of promise verses peril. On one hand, popular movies like The Matrix, Terminator, and Transcendence have heavily depicted peril and the potential end of the human race as machines seek to dominate. This films at worst depict
Lauren Hackett, a Belmont University graduate and winner of the Jack C. Massey College’s Top Marketing Student Award, used The Digital Engine to build her own mental health blog titled Your Story is Unfinished for her semester project. In her first blog, she blazes the door open about how it’s okay to talk about mental illness. We loved her quote about therapy: “your friend should never be your therapist, and neither should your mom or dad or grandma. And frankly, they can’t be. The awesome thing about therapists is that they are impartial; their opinions are entirely objective and supposed to be based solely on their understanding of the human brain and psychology. Your mom may be awesome, but there is absolutely no way that she can be impartial.” We really wish we could dive into more Lauren wrote about in this post because she is a brilliant writer with
Coleman Alford worked efficiently and effectively to build creative content to earn his DE Certification this semester. For as long as Coleman can remember, he has loved film, especially in the theater. To him, there is no better feeling than the excitement and emotional response he feels when watching a film in the theater, thriving off “the communal sense of discovery and enjoyment that is characteristic of the theater environment.” To stay in tune with all that is going on in the film industry, Coleman likes to listen to podcasts about Hollywood history and watch YouTube videos about the industry. While studying at Belmont University, he has worked as an employee of a local movie theater and worked in both the production and distribution of film. And just recently, landed an internship at an independent film company located in Los Angeles. For his semester project, the course requires that the
When course participants complete the 15-week higher education course or the continuing ed “go-at-your-own-pace” course, then he or she will be awarded a blockchain-secure Certificate of Achievement. Here at the Digital Engine, we have teamed up with Accredible at credential.net to provide a block-chain secure digital certification and badge that completed participants can print out to frame and/or also proudly display online through LinkedIn. Check out a recent example here. When course participants use our step-by-step instruction set to add the digital certification to LinkedIn, future employers researching their LinkedIn profile will be able to view the credential, which will include the participant’s name, the instructor’s name, and the instructor’s granting university or organization. Additionally, these potential employers will also have access to an “Evidence” section, as demonstrated in the pictures above. In this evidentiary portfolio section, participants who have completed the course can add files, links, and screenshots to
Unbeknownst to Ashley Prigge that her semester project would lead to a digital internship with the International Mission Board, Ashley took on the tall task of reviewing churches to help other students away from home find the best place for themselves in a faith-based community. Stating that there seems to be a church on every corner in Nashville, Ashley wanted to help narrow down the many options and give more practical help in her blog Gather & Grow. Her reason is simple, “God has such a uniquely designed purposed for every person on this earth and we are created to be in community with one another!” She further states, “I understand the stress of finding a faith community here, but I also know how important it is to get rooted in a group of believers who will walk alongside you. This blog is designed to help you learn about the
Delaney Walker’s 4th Birthday came with a surprise her family did not expect. Worried about all the water intake Delaney was taking in, her mom took her to the pediatrician. A simple blood test came back with the result of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). Living with diabetes has been a challenge for Delaney for 16 years but going to college brought on a sense of independence in controlling her disease. This passion inside her to help others with T1D led to her Digital Engine project, The Sweet Life of DG, where she provide Type 1 insight to incoming freshmen in college. Some of the hot topics she covered were: Type One Diabetic in College Symptoms of Type One Diabetes T1D & The Workplace Being Sick. With T1D. On Your Own. Diabetes in Pop Culture A Day in the Life of a T1D Nonprofits that Support T1D: Let’s Find a Cure!
In order to successful track the inbound campaign, several different measurements will be assembled from the various components of the campaign design. Within the consumer acquisition module of the campaign, platform insights from the various social media channels and/or social media management tools will be used to determine the successful acquisition of new readers/followers to your social media. Here, Facebook Insights is a primary example of this auditing process (seen below). Marketers should continually expect to be watching various analytics, especially in the launching phases of the campaign. Insights from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. will provide valuable information into the types and styles of messages that are resonating with the consumer audience. Determination about image style, video style, permalink inclusion, technical versus funny, and other important design clues will be gleaned through this process. The regular monitoring of social media channels will help to hone in the message style to
Justice Martin, a Junior at Belmont University, built the most aesthetically pleasing website for her lifestyle brand, Just Justice, in her spring 2022 course The Digital Engine. She has a passion for event planning, graphic design, advertising and anything that allows her to be creative. For her semester project, Justice chose to do a lifestyle blog and brand around nutrition, exercise, and mental health. In her research she focused on and created the following tabs in her blog: Workouts Cooking/Recipes Happy/Mental Health One of her most successful posts is a recipe you cannot miss… Grammy’s Famous Potato Soup. Also, don’t miss her Homemade Churros recipe, either. In The Digital Engine course, students are encouraged to build a brand statement or mission statement. Justice went above and beyond with hers: “Just Justice is a lifestyle brand blog that will provide real, honest, and genuine weekly content on working out more productively,
Suzanna Stapler is a former student of mine. She took my Social Media Marketing course in the Fall of 2017, and graduated from Belmont University in May of 2019. Suzanna was gracious enough to share a little of her success story with us about her company, Squillustrate, and provide a few of her most recent creations. “I didn’t realize I wanted to start a business until after freshman year of college. I’ve been drawing since I was little, but pursuing art for a living never seemed like a realistic goal. Through sophomore year, I tried to start a couple of businesses, without success, BUT- each time, I learned what parts I did enjoy and what parts I didn’t. The summer after my sophomore year, I was working four jobs, reading and drawing all the time, and doing a lot of thinking and praying over what I was supposed to do
In the spring semester of 2022, Aaron Sweet decided to take The Digital Engine course and focus his content leadership on golf and business in order to hone his skills in digital marketing, which is incredibly important to budding entrepreneurs. Aaron is originally from Memphis, Tennessee but graduated from Belmont University with his BSBA. Aaron has experience playing competitive golf at several levels, including high school state tournaments and in college for Belmont. From selling socks in middle school to becoming founder of @TheSweetMove and The Sweet Move Golf Clinic, Aaron has found his life’s ambition in the entrepreneurial space. He is a firm believer in chasing dreams and aspirations, and believes this can only be achieved by vigorous movement and pursuit of those aspirations. This mentality can be evidenced in some of his recent blogs: Persevere or Move On Traits of a Leader Locus of Control: A Perfect Balance
Lauren Allen quickly learned to manage a successful lifestyle blog in the field of fashion and beauty in just one semester of being a student of The Digital Engine. Lauren jumped into her project and became immersed in the process of building her website The LA Style, writing blog content, creating social platforms and starting her email campaigns. After completing the course, Lauren landed an internship at James and Abel Boutique of Nashville, TN as a Social Media Marketing Specialist. A few interesting things about Lauren is: I LOVE the beach, working out, the color pink, coffee shops, going on walks, buying new things, desserts, decorating, and skiing! I have always been passionate about fashion and beauty, literally since I was a little girl. I would tell my mom or grandma what they should or shouldn’t wear… so maybe this is what I’m meant to do? Guess we’ll find out
Inbound marketing is the process of establishing a website “hub” that attracts visitors naturally to a company’s content through search engines, blogging, and social media. This approach attracts an audience of content consumers to the service through functional content on a blog or social media channel that is relevant to the questions and timing that a consumer may have on the subject content. As individuals or companies produce viable content over a period of time, their content leadership on the topic will convert inquiring readers into website visitors. Not only will these visitors begin to return on a regular basis, looking for new strategies, ideas, and forms, but they will become an internal referral source to their friends, family, and acquaintances through social media. Highly functioning websites will utilize a call-to-action through various landing pages that discuss the company’s expertise and provided services to new and returning visitors. Through the
Austin Sorensen completed The Digital Engine course in the Spring of 2022. In the course, he created the website The Twelve II, a lifestyle blog about spreading the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with other college students and young adults. On his website, he included: “The Scrolls” tab which includes all of Austin’s blog publications on faith “Join the Club” tab which allows followers to receive email publications “Prayer Request Form” tab for users of his site to submit prayers requests Austin has a big heart for spreading the Word of God in a busy world where it is easy to forget to pause, read the Bible, reflect, learn and pray. Within weeks, Austin was providing great insight, knowledge, connection, and support in the life of followers of Christ from all over. Austin had a lot to say about the ease of understanding and practicality of the
The thought of building a website around a topic of interest may have been intriguing you for years during these uncertain times. Many of our readers are considering building a website, but don’t know where to start. Well, first, it is important that you actually know what a website is composed of and the difference between Domain Registration and Web Hosting. When you purchase a website domain, like CNN.com, you are actually leasing an internet address or an “IP Address.” IP addresses are a long series of numbers that access a specific place on the Internet, but instead of people typing in IP Addresses (e.g. 192.162.1.122), people who want to visit your website will type in the name associated with this address (e.g. ESPN.com) rather than the IP Address numbers. What you may not realize is that you do not actually own a domain. Domain URLs (like ESPN.com) are all
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one marketer’s product as distinct from that of other marketers[i]. For example, let’s consider your options when you go to a convenience store to purchase a bottle of water. When you view the options above as part of your consideration set of choices, you mostly like have one or two options that immediately stand out to you as your most preferred choices. This preferred set is considered your evoked set of options. Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario. Let’s assume that your evoked set is Fiji and Evian because you often drink these two on a regular basis. However, let’s say that you have tried Perrier and Voss before but did not like the taste and/or bottle shape of these two options. These choices would be in your inept set because you would NOT pick these two
Burton Wills completed The Digital Engine course in the Fall of 2022 creating her website The Puppurr. Her lifestyle blog was full of fun content amount her dog Maggie, cat Phoebe, and her dog sisters Schnapse and Hans. Some fun fact about Burton: 🐾 She is obsessed with the Friends tv show and named her cat after the iconic Phoebe Buffay. 🐾 Coffee is her love language, and Maggie also benefits since she loves car rides and gets a Pup Cup every time they go to Starbucks. 🐾 If you ever need a dog groomer in the Nashville area, look no further! Schnapse and Hans, mostly only Hans, lets her practice her skills on them routinely. Simply put, Burton loves anything and everything to do with pets and animals. Burton was one of the highest-ranking websites in the class because her content was incredibly engaging, and she stayed consistent with her editorial
Digital Marketing and Social Media has changed the marketing environment in ways that traditional marketers could have never imagined just a short time ago. It has rapidly provided a mechanism to communicate on a one-to-one level, allowing marketers to tailor specific messages and content towards a fine-tuned segment of customers, whether they are business-to consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), or even business-to-government (B2G) customers. Multiple philosophies on best practices in this digital landscape have provided various methodologies for targeting these customers. During this time of change, these practices have led to the refinement of digital services, including behavioral advertising, search engine optimization, pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing, and organic inbound marketing, among specialized others. In fact, most digital agencies today are quite niche, providing only a couple of services to a couple of distinct target segments. Hence, when one considers the writing of any digital curriculum and courseware,
