Earlier this month I graduated from the University of Utah’s Executive MBA program. My graduate studies started in May 2011 when I took a college algebra class to qualify to enroll in the U’s Executive MBA program.

The program kicked-off mid-August 2011 with five days of class and 10-12 hours of programming each day at the beautiful Snowbird resort. After that, it was a year of meeting either on Friday or Saturday each week and completing various five- or 10-week classes. The next August we went back to Snowbird as second-years (I felt like I was in Harry Potter for a moment) to complete two more classes in five days. Then we were back to our Friday/Saturday schedule through mid-April 2013. In all, the U’s Executive MBA program takes 21 months.

The program culminated with a two-week international trip. Our class visited with business executives and government leaders in Berlin and Istanbul the last two weeks of April. The trip was great (more about that below).

A key component of the U’s top-ranked EMBA program is working in teams. I was fortunate enough to be on a team with seven others. In 2011 at Snowbird we committed to each other that we’d do whatever it took for all of us to get through the program. We learned to draw upon each other’s strengths and operate as an efficient team. And I’m happy to report that all of us graduated.

Each one of us pulled his or her own weight, contributing where individual knowledge, skills and abilities were strongest. Other teams in our class either divided the work equally or all did all the work then collaborated to come up with their best, combined work. Perhaps there were also some approaches that were combinations of those three approaches. For the record, I appreciate the way my team approached the work.

Looking back on the past two years, there are a few program highlights I’d like to share.

The network and relationships I now have with 67 other executives and a couple dozen faculty have already proven to be personally and professionally helpful and rewarding. The experience was invaluable in this respect. And now I’m part of an alumni group that’s strong and vibrant and generally looks out for one another.

The international travel with introductions to impressive international business and government leaders was thought provoking and just a whole lot of fun. The trip included several afternoons and weekend days spent traveling and exploring in Germany and Turkey. It was a blast; a great capstone to the hundreds of hours we spent together as a class.

While maximizing shareholder value is important, it’s also important to define and understand your own ethics and leadership style. Work is truly rewarding only when your personal values align with those of your organization or employer. This may seem obvious, but the realization came to me over the course of many weeks in several different classes. This concept deals with finding the right fit between you and your work. And for me, money is an ancillary part of this good fit.

I still don’t like math. While I did the hard work in accounting, statistics, economics and finance classes (it seems like there were too many finance classes to number them), I’m not completely transformed and on a trajectory to become CFO (although I know of other MBA students that did change careers to focus on finance during and after their experience). Rather, I’m a more well-rounded communication counselor with an enhanced vocabulary and understanding of financial issues and decisions faced by business leaders.

My ability to think strategically and to read has been enhanced. The program introduced me to methods of evaluating situations and reinforced my ability to identify strategies and employ effective tactics. Although I never was able to make it through all of the assigned reading material, I am a whole lot more efficient at consuming content. (And I do admire those who are able to complete 100% of assigned reading. That’s just not me. Sorry, professors.)

Perseverance and hard work really does pay off. Over and over I kept thinking: just make it through this week, or just get through this next assignment. If you take it one day at a time, it’s amazing what you can accomplish in 21 months (24 in my case).

It was September 2012, after a particularly difficult time in graduate school, when I wrote this article about being enough. And I still believe it. Regardless of the challenges and struggles I experience, I am good enough and capable enough to not just survive, but to excel. We all are.

Thank you to the administrators and program staff of the University of Utah Executive MBA program. The service you perform goes above and beyond expectations. Although the experience was difficult — I’d say the most difficult thing I’ve ever done — I can’t imagine going back to school for an MBA in any other program.

My degree came at great personal and family sacrifice. It wasn’t easy. It was expensive — the most expensive thing I’ve ever purchased except a home.

Like my father-in-law said during the program: “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

Because of my experience working toward an MBA degree I believe I’m a better person, a more skilled worker, and even a better husband and father — which is what matters most to me.

Here I am presenting during our last day of class.

And here I am, below, on graduation day.

The post Lessons learned from working on an MBA appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

This list of 46 media monitoring and measurement tools was prepared doing research for my March 20, 2013 presentation, Today’s Best PR Measurement Tools, for Ragan’s 2013 PR Measurement Summit in Washington, D.C.

It encompasses both social media and website measurement and analytics tools. However, it doesn’t take into consideration the many publishing platforms and software-as-a-service offerings that are available, which may also offer some analytics tools.

Many of the tools are free, some aren’t and some are quite expensive – geared toward large multi-location organizations.

There’s something for everyone in this list of social media monitoring tools. And if you’ve got a favorite platform you’d like to add, or some clarification on the information presented, please do post a comment.

Note: I’m curating content from the conference and adding to this list, so although 46 tools were included initially, there are more now.

Alexa | Web metrics
Alterian | Insight through social media data, services and analytical tools
Argyle Social | More prospects, better leads and stronger relationships
BackTweets | Find content published on Twitter
BlitzMetrics | Social media dashboards for your brand
BoardTracker | Find content shared on discussion boards (currently offline)
Brandwatch | Social media monitoring tools
Buzz Equity | Measure your online brand equity
CARMA | Boardroom-ready, human generated reports and analysis
CisionPoint | Online media database, social publishing and metrics
Collective Intellect | Captures customer sentiment
Compete | Path-to-Purchase and conversion analysis
Crimson Hexagon | Facebook and Twitter conversation analysis
Curalate | Pinterest and Instagram analytics
CustomScoop | News and social media monitoring
CyberAlert | All media monitoring and measurement
Cymfony | Social media monitoring, analytics and engagement
Facebook app/page Insights | Measures activity on a Facebook page
Facebook domain Insights | Measures Facebook activity on a domain
Fliptop | Social customer intelligence
Google Alerts | Keyword alerts via email
Google Analytics | Web analytics
Google Trends | Web content trends over time
Gorkana | Social media monitoring and engagement
HootSuite | Social media management
Icerocket | Real-time search
Klout | Twitter influence metrics
Marketing Grader | SEO reports
MediaMiser | Real-time media monitoring and analytics
MediaVantage | Real-time media monitoring
Meltwater | Online intelligence platform
Mention | Keyword alerts via web app
NetBase | Social intelligence platform
NM Incite | SocialGuide – social TV measurement and analytics (discontinuing some services)
NUVI | Social analytics platform
Pinpuff | Calculate your pinfluence
PinReach | Pinterest influence and analytics
Pinterest Analytics | Pinterest’s own analytics
Quantcast | Direct audience measurement
Reachli | Market and measure visual web campaigns
Sentiment360 | New media intelligence for business
Shoutlet | Enterprise social marketing platform
Social Marketing Cloud | Listen, analyze and engage with customers online
Social Mention | Real-time search
Sprout Social | Engage, publish and analyze
SWIX | Social marketing optimization and analytics
Synthesio | Global social media monitoring (good for large, global brands)
Sysomos | Business intelligence for social media
Talkwalker | international social media monitoring
Technorati | Blog directory
Topsy | Real-time search
Trackur | Social media monitoring
TweetBeep | Twitter keyword alerts via email
Twitalyzer | Twitter analytics for social business
UberVU | Social media marketing insights
Visible Technologies | Social media monitoring, analytics and engagement
Vocus | Complete online marketing and analytics software
Wikiscanner | Monitors changes to Wikipedia
Woo Rank | SEO reports (contact Pete for a free report)
Wordle | Provides a visual word cloud of content

Resources

Here are a couple PDFs that include a PowerPoint slide listing some of these services in categories of: 1) free, 2) moderately priced, and 3) more expensive.

Also, a sample from Excel that can be used to track social platforms and statistics.

PR Measurement Tool Price Comparison

Tracking in Excel

The post 46 social media monitoring and measurement tools appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

5 steps to a free online monitoring platform

Here are instructions for setting up what I like to call your online listening platform — a way to use Google Reader to continually pull-in the latest news and information for your important keywords and phrases.

Step 1

Before you get started, you want to identify what your important keywords and key phrases are. A free tool to help: Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Type in the top 3-4 terms you think others would use to find your company, product or service, then let the Keyword Tool show you what words and phrases actual online searchers use. Identify the top 30 or so terms for your online presence.

These should be a mix of product and brand names, team players and generic industry terms for who you are and what you do. A good strategy is to aim for a number of mid- to high-volume terms for which there isn’t a ton of competition. Then create online content that includes those terms on websites, blogs, newsrooms and in social media. Repeated use of the terms on various platforms will ensure maximization of your rank in search results.

A good goal is to have half to three-quarters of the first page search results for your most important terms link to content you have published.

Step 2

Create a Gmail account for your company. I recommend one generic account that can manage your AdWords (if you chose to do pay-per-click advertising), Analytics, Drive (cloud document sharing), FeedBurner (RSS delivery), Google Site Search and Reader.

Step 3

In another browser window, go to Google News search. Enter your keywords in the search box (you may want to put it in quotes; Boolean search tools are helpful), click on the search button, then scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the RSS link.

If you’re already logged in to your Gmail account, you should come to a screen that asks if you’d like to subscribe to the feed using Google Reader. You can say yes. Or, you can copy the URL of the feed and then paste it into your Reader account using the subscribe button towards the top left.

What you’ve just done is searched Google News for content that includes your keywords, then added that search result to your Google Reader. Now your RSS feed is updated every time news sites (as identified by Google) are updated with content that includes your keywords.

Pretty slick, right? You’ve just spent a few minutes and you’re done. You don’t ever have to do that search again.

Repeat this process for all your primary keywords and phrases.

Step 4

Next go to another search tool to repeat the process. Additional places I usually go to scour the Web for content are:

Google Blog search
Bing News
Plazoo

Step 5

Here’s where you organize your Reader. You can do this after you perform all the search queries, or while you add RSS feeds for search queries.

Organize your Reader into folders for people, products, brands, services, etc. You can even rename search feeds to better identify them.

A quick look at a folder tells you whether there are unread items and how many, in the same way your email inbox works.

In Summary

You’re all done! You’ve probably spent 15 to 30 minutes setting up your own FREE online listening platform. Now it’s time to reap the rewards.

You didn’t have to pay someone else to do this for you. Congratulations.

Now all you have to do is make it a daily habit to check out your Google Reader for new content.

Use the tool to:

• Identify what others are saying about you, then decide whether or not you want to join the conversation
• Monitor your share of voice and sentiment in your industry
• Come up with new content ideas for your publishing channels
• Find good content you can share with your social networks (this is known as content curation)
• Measure how effective your own publishing is by the percentage of your content that appears in the Reader (on your own and others’ channels)

The post DIY social media monitoring appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

My friends at Ragan Communications and the folks at NASDAQ OMX teamed up to put together a very useful report on how businesses and organizations are using social media.

They surveyed 2,714 communicators, marketers, public relations professionals and others about their social media for business activities.

The report, Structuring A Social Media Team, presents findings in five key areas:

1. Staffing
2. Measurement and monitoring
3. Budgets and salaries
4. Platforms and efforts
5. Who owns social media?

I’ve included the report here for those of you who are interested.

The post Report: Structuring a social media team appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

My family recently introduced me to a very fun toy and candy store called Blickenstaff’s. My wife and kids had been there before. It was my first time.

I actually felt like I was on a movie set. It was such a fun, playful, creative environment.

As we talked with the associate behind the counter, I noticed some fliers inviting me to engage with Blickenstaff’s on five different social media platforms and inviting me to blog about the store.

As the flier spells out, all I have to do is talk about my experience in the store, include a photo and post it on their Facebook page. After that, I can go into the store and claim a pound of free candy. Talk about engaging with customers and building on consumer generated content. It’s perfect!

Sometimes having fun means getting out and going to a toy store. Had we not just spent a small fortune on a new iPhone for my wife, I’m sure we would have been more inclined to pick up a few things while we were there. Maybe when I go back to get my candy (another brilliant move by Blickenstaff’s).

The post Blickenstaff’s is a toy and candy store that understands social media appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

The college experience today is different in many respects from what it was even five or 10 years ago. Some of the changes have to do with recruiting and admissions; others are more focused on programming and expanded course offerings. The post that follows outlines the rise of the executive MBA — not a new program, per se, but a program with new importance to a recovering economy. In this post Julianna Davies, who writes a lot about how students can get a leadership MBA online, walks readers through the vital stats of the modern EMBA model.

Though most people enroll in an MBA program with the idea of becoming an executive, few prospective students are familiar with the Executive MBA or the potential for employers to send employees back to school. Between 2001 and 2010, the number of EMBA courses ranked by the Financial Times grew from 50 to 100. In the 2009 Global Management Education Graduate Survey, graduates rate the executive MBA the highest among MBA programs, with the majority of students polled reporting the executive MBA programs at their respective schools have excellent or outstanding faculty, program structure, fellow students, curriculum, program management and student services. The survey also rated executive MBA graduates as the most satisfied with their education.

The executive MBA is an accredited MBA program designed for working managers and professionals, often with a minimum of seven years of work experience. The class schedule is structured allow students to continue working while they pursue their studies. In EMBA programs, students usually enter as a group, or cohort, and learn together over the course of the program. Since students are usually juggling school, work and any other life responsibilities, EMBA programs usually offer additional support for students, including staff support, meals and other amenities.

EMBA programs usually focus on developing managers by combining practical skills with important theories on business strategy, analysis and leadership in an environment where faculty and students can exchange ideas and challenge one another. Unlike typical MBA students, those pursuing an EMBA degree often already possess a wealth of business experience from various backgrounds. Perhaps the most prominent distinction between a standard MBA and an EMBA is that the expertise EMBA students garner is supposed to prove beneficial for both students and their respective employers.

In the past, employers have often been generous and supportive of employees working towards executive MBAs, with some employers even helping pay student tuition. Though with the recession and economic collapse of 2008, financial support from companies has largely waned. An Executive MBA Council study found that while 37% of of companies offered full reimbursement for EMBA programs 2005, that number dropped to only 32% in 2009. However, while many large companies have scaled back their EMBA efforts, small businesses have actually begun to increase their support for EMBA programs among employees. At Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, 12% of 2010 EMBA students came from small-business employers, up from 7% in 2009. It can also help small businesses to compete against larger, dominant companies. Blein Consulting, a small firm in Monterrey Mexico, for instance, pays half of the tuition for its consultants to attend EMBA programs. Firm partner Olando Solis Camacho says the knowledge and training helps consultants to rethink their strategy. “We’re trying to be (smarter) in the way we compete,” says Camacho.

From the standpoint of an employer, allowing a worker to work towards an EMBA while continuing to work can serve as valuable investment. Assisting EMBA students in their academic pursuits can build loyalty among workers who are also garnering important skills is strategic decision-making and increased productivity. As a benefit to both employers and employees, EMBA graduates can often be counted on to to take on larger responsibilities at their companies in the future. While the demographics of businesses utilizing the EMBA programs may continue to evolve, the enthusiasm espoused by both employees and several companies regarding the program suggests EMBA programs will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

The post The Rise of the Executive MBA Program appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

In many ways elections serve as benchmarks for communicators: what to do and how to do it successfully.

As we finally (yes, finally!) approach election day, the campaigns are doing all they can to reach voters with persuasive messages.

The Pew Research Center published a study earlier this month noting that 88% of registered voters own a mobile phone and 27% of them have used their phone to keep up with election news. Also, 48% of registered voters own a smartphone with 45% of them reporting using their phone to read political posts from members of their social networks.

In other words, smartphone owners are using their mobile devices as a tool for political participation on social networking sites and as a way to fact check campaign statements in real time.

Have you considered how your content is consumed and shared on mobile devices?

It’s important for us to consider the number and type of screens on which audience members will see and interact with content.

If the election is any indication (and it is my friends, it is ), in the future you’ll see concerted efforts to maximize reach and deliver additional tools for communicating and engaging with key audience members on mobile devices.

The post Mobile devices as a tool for political participation appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

Attention students: mind your manners online

Whenever I’m asked to speak at university events I end up having fascinating discussions with today’s college students. Most of them realize that prospective employers are checking out their online personas before extending a job offer. But I wonder if high school students realize that today, even getting into college can be helped or hindered by what they put online?

I found this article and study by The Wall Street Journal fascinating. In it, you learn that 27% of university admissions offices have Googled the names of applicants. I’m surprised the number isn’t more like 50 or 75%.

The fact is that today, for almost everything we want or hope to do in our lives, what is online about us will have an impact.

The big takeaway

Pay attention to your personal persona online.

Follow the advice of your elders who tell you, “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.”

And realize that this applies to every kind of content – text, photos and videos.

Youngsters grow-up with daily search indexing of their lives. What they, and their parents, do and say online is forever preserved and instantly accessed through online search engines. That’s the new reality.

The post College admissions offices use social media to vet applicants appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

Friends, I usually don’t ask much of my blog subscribers – a comment here or there is all. But I could really use your help this week.

I’ve got an assignment for my MBA marketing class to conduct an online survey. We’re graded on the survey’s composition and the number of responses.

Would you be willing to take the survey and share the link with your social networks? I’d greatly appreciate it.

The survey closes on Saturday.

Here’s the complete URL: http://eccles.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6r15J2FKBAskXhr

The post Please take this survey this week appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.

This week I presented a 90-minute tour of today’s top social media and online marketing tools at Alexander’s.

It covered topics including how to monitor what’s being said about you online, optimizing platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ for business, and using WordPress to power a microsite focused on news, video or blog content.

Reviews of the free professional development workshop were very positive, leading to the scheduling of an encore presentation, this time in Salt Lake City at the FranklinCovey Hyrum Smith Auditorium, on December 5. Event details and registration are online at Eventbrite.com.

Here are some photos of me leading the social media tool discussion. If you’re in the Salt Lake City area on Dec. 5, I’d love to see you that morning at FranklinCovey.

Feedback

And here’s some anonymous feedback collected after the event:

Great! Pete gave a phenomenal presentation. Lots of good information in a pleasing manner.

Very interesting and knowledgeable. He was engaging and professional.

Pete understands the social media environment so well, and he was very accommodating of questions when they were raised. I very much enjoyed his presentation.

The post Today’s digital marketing toolkit master class appeared first on Pete Codella | Digital Public Relations.