How the Romans Built Bridges †History Essay

How the Romans Built Bridges – History Essay Free Online Research Papers How the Romans Built Bridges History Essay Rome was the first nation to create some of the most legendary bridges using stone. Stone is difficult to find, but compared to the more common bridge material, wood, it was better. And it is evident since most of the bridges that Rome made with stone are standing today. Then after realizing that stone is so great, Rome realized the idea of the arch. The concept behind the arch is that the structure of the arch itself is fairly weak. Only able to support a large amount on the â€Å"key† stone (or center most stone), the sides get a very large amount of compression stretching the arch to the side and the stones fall apart. But then the Romans put stones on the sides of the arch and so when the bridge stretched out to the sides, the stones pushed back creating an extremely strong archway. With this new system of bridge making, the Romans were considered the best of the best in bridge making. But after the realization that stone cost far too much, iron was created. Iron was much cheaper than stone and also iron was much stronger. But the realization was not the only development for bridge making. It was only the beginning. After realizing iron was good for making bridges stronger, next was realizing how to create steel from iron. After realizing how much stronger steel is than iron, next was the truss configuration, one of the most popular bridge configurations back then. It allowed for more stability and also, it allowed the bridge to be more resistant to wind. Because of the unique architectural design of truss bridge, wind would pass through the openings in the truss bridge decreasing the force of wind. Another breakthrough was that less brittle metals are better for tensions because they don’t give out as quickly as more brittle metals. The reason behind this is that more brittle metals have cracks and flaws and when they receive a great amount of tension, the cracks and flaws become larger Research Papers on How the Roman's Built Bridges - History EssayThe Effects of Illegal ImmigrationAssess the importance of Nationalism 1815-1850 EuropeTwilight of the UAWComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoThe Spring and Autumn19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraAppeasement Policy Towards the Outbreak of World War 2Genetic EngineeringWhere Wild and West MeetThe Project Managment Office System

Free Essays on World War I Effects

Global Effects of World War I "Everywhere in the world was heard the sound of things breaking." Advanced European societies could not support long wars or so many thought prior to World War I. They were right in a way. The societies could not support a long war unchanged. The First World War left no aspect of European civilization untouched as pre-war governments were transformed to fight total war. The war metamorphed Europe socially, politicaly, economically, and intellectualy. European countries channeled all of their resources into total war which resulted in enormous social change. The result of working together for a common goal seemed to be unifying European societies. Death knocked down all barriers between people. All belligerents had enacted some form of a selective service which levelled classes in many ways. Wartime scarcities made luxury an impossibility and unfavorable. Reflecting this, clothing became uniform and utilitarian. Europeans would never again dress in fancy, elaborate costumes. Uniforms led the way in clothing change. The bright blue-and-red prewar French infantry uniforms had been changed after the first few months of the war, since they made whoever wore them into excellent targets for machine guns. Women's skirts rose above the ankle permanently and women became more of a part of society than ever. They undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men. They were now a part of clerical, secretarial work, and teaching. They were also more widely employed in industrial jobs. By 1918, 37.6 percent of the work force in the Krupp armaments firm in Germany was female. In England the proportion of women works rose strikingly in public transport (for example, from 18,000 to 117,000 bus conductors), banking (9,500 to 63,700), and commerce (505,000 to 934,000). Many restrictions on women disappeared during the war. It became ... Free Essays on World War I Effects Free Essays on World War I Effects Global Effects of World War I "Everywhere in the world was heard the sound of things breaking." Advanced European societies could not support long wars or so many thought prior to World War I. They were right in a way. The societies could not support a long war unchanged. The First World War left no aspect of European civilization untouched as pre-war governments were transformed to fight total war. The war metamorphed Europe socially, politicaly, economically, and intellectualy. European countries channeled all of their resources into total war which resulted in enormous social change. The result of working together for a common goal seemed to be unifying European societies. Death knocked down all barriers between people. All belligerents had enacted some form of a selective service which levelled classes in many ways. Wartime scarcities made luxury an impossibility and unfavorable. Reflecting this, clothing became uniform and utilitarian. Europeans would never again dress in fancy, elaborate costumes. Uniforms led the way in clothing change. The bright blue-and-red prewar French infantry uniforms had been changed after the first few months of the war, since they made whoever wore them into excellent targets for machine guns. Women's skirts rose above the ankle permanently and women became more of a part of society than ever. They undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men. They were now a part of clerical, secretarial work, and teaching. They were also more widely employed in industrial jobs. By 1918, 37.6 percent of the work force in the Krupp armaments firm in Germany was female. In England the proportion of women works rose strikingly in public transport (for example, from 18,000 to 117,000 bus conductors), banking (9,500 to 63,700), and commerce (505,000 to 934,000). Many restrictions on women disappeared during the war. It became ...

Research and Evaluation in Social Work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Research and Evaluation in Social Work - Essay Example Further, being able to inform policy by way of their study would increase the researcher's credibility, and make it more likely for the universities and health centres in which they work to have access to funding, as graduate students would be able to work on research projects, and government and private institutions could contract the researchers for more studies. The researchers appear to have designed an objective study in that; a thorough and up-to-date literature review was presented that identified current gaps in knowledge; a cross-sectional survey allowed for sampling of the diversity of organizations providing services to older people; snowball sampling allowed for access to organisations that may have been otherwise neglected, because of their size or their lack of exposure; a selection criteria provides a set of parameters that characterize the sample for future study comparisons; conclusions were drawn based on the data collected from the survey; and the final thesis was submitted for peer-review to be able to be published in a reputable journal. Overall, it was an empirical study, designed and carried out in a systematic manner, with evidence-based conclusion drawn. The Abstract succinctly and parsimoniously reported the main points of the research, summarizing the goal of the project, identifying the population, noting the research methods used, and mentioning the conclusions and implications. However, the abstract did not state the hypothesis of the study and whether it was supported or not. The rationale of the study was clear in its statement: A wide range of community based services and activities have evolved to combat the 'negative' experiences of social isolation and loneliness in later life. The appropriateness and accessibility of most interventions intended to alleviate social isolation and loneliness among older people, however, have remained unclear (p. 150). Also, the research questions were presented in dot point format, which made most of them clear and to the point. However, one goal, 'Explore the involvement of older people in the planning process,' was ambiguous in that it did not state clearly that the exploration would not make use of older person opinions, only those of the organisations servicing older people. All of the research questions were worthy of being answered, as availability of, and access to, social orientated activities is essential to the mental and physical health of older people. However, given that older people were not included in the sample, as a comparison group, it is questionable whether all of the research questions were comprehensively answered.The literature review was adequate in that it included up-to-date research for the UK, and identified gaps in knowledge. The theories drawn on also raised some interesting points, such as many older people do not perceive themselves to be lonely (c.f., Townsend, 1 957; Tornstam, 1995; Victor et al. 2005), despite continuous evidence that experiences of loneliness increase with age (authors,). The relationship between aging and loneliness has been suggested to be the result of changes in living circumstances, such as the loss of a partner, or moving to a nursing home, and changes to subjective health (c.f., Tijhuis et al. 1999). It appears that more research into social support could be the

Implementing Organizational Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Implementing Organizational Change - Essay Example The third stage is process reengineering. In this stage it is assumed that incremental changes have a minimal impact, important improvements may be attained by disregarding how the process is undertaken during the present and starting on a clean slate. The final stage is the corporate transformation that is more drastic and involves changes that affect the organization in general. It may include acquisitions and mergers. One of my peers posted an article on Tichy’s three types of change. The article stated that any change within an organization was caused by changes in the technical, political and cultural aspects. This article was properly researched however failed to take into account the stages of change within an entity (Lune, 2006). The other article was on Balogun and Hope-Hailey’s Change Model. This model states that there are four types of change within organizations that take four strategies into account. Two classifications are based on the end result and include realignment and transformation. The other two classes are based on nature of change and include big bang and incremental

Political Economy Essay Example for Free

Political Economy Essay Approaches to study of Politics Falls under Political Science We’re made to do the impossible Summary 1 paragraph will do. Provide the insight -Data -Theory used -approach used use other references to prove your point 3 x 5 Surname all caps first name email address mobile number On approach deals with different meaning of politics Political Science What is Politics its scope ? Banned words Politics is dirt Politics is nothing more than a means of rising in the world Samuel Johnson Systematic organization of hatred Henry Adams Art of governing mankind by deceiving them. BASIS of POLITICS Intellect and Will Man Capable of Thinking Politics as a rational activity Man has the capacity to think and realize his wants, needs and interest which are potentially in conflict with others’ wants, needs, and interests. Man cannot survive on its own. He needs someone else Politics as a social activity 2 or more persons Politics as a social activity 2 or more persons Associate with society Politics is concerned with social dynamics. POLITICS AS THE ART OF GOVt What concerns the state Study of government and exercise of authority Authoritative allocation of social values Framework Definition does not provide David Easton Authoritative binding to all Allocation done by the government Social Values anything held important by society budget allocation, privatization, elections Henry Mayo 3 characteristics that separate the political from non-poitical Politics is focused on the governing function through which are: Limitation on Easton on Mayo’s concept of Politics POLITICS DOES NOT ONLY HAPPEN IN THE GOVERNMENT POLTICS AS PUBLIC AFFAIRS State DIFFERENCE OF GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS PUBLIC PRIVATE State Civil Society Institutions of the State ( apparatus of government, infrastructure, economy, taxes Autonomous bodies (family, kinship groups, private businesses, trade unions Funded at the public’s Expense Set up and funded by individual citizens Responsible for the collective organization of community life Responsible for the satisfaction of own interests rather than the interest of the larger society. Private with this definition EX: RH Bill It should not be affair of the government. Public Sphere vs Private Sphere Restricted to the acitivites of the state itself and the responsibilities that are properly exercised by public bodies Politics should not meddle on personal affairs and institutions POLITICS AS COMPROMISE CONSESUS A daily activity in which differing interests within a given unity of rule are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their role in the welfare and the survival of the community Bernard Crick Everything will just be fine – for no matter big or small the dispute is, at the end of the day we will just arrive in a compromise. Assumption: Conflict is inevitable Resolving conflict through compromise conciliation and negotiation, rather than violence and coercion. Not limited to government POLITICS IS INEVITABLE LINKED TO THE PHENOMENA OF CONFLICT COOPERATION Politics as master science Why Make use other things to make things in order. Existence of rival opinions- conflict People recognize that they have to work with others cooperation Hannah Arendt- Acting in Concert Otto Von Bismarck- Politics is the art of the possible. POWER AS POWER DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES What is power? X has power over Y insofar as Robert Dahl X is able, in one way or another, to get Y to do something That is more to X’s liking And which Y would not otherwise have done. Faces of Power As decision-making – you shape there decisions As agenda setting – You are preventing the person to make a decision As thought control- You are imposing your preference in an indirect or subtle way. Definition of Politics through POWER and allocation of resources FIND THE FOLLOWING QUOTES OF FAMOUS SCIENTISTS Adrian Leftwich- Politics is at the heart of all collective social activity, formal and informal, public and private, in all human groups, institutions and societies. Harold Lasswell Politics is, in essence power: the ability to achieve a desired outcome, through whatever means. Kate Millett â€Å"Politics is a power-structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another. â€Å"POLITICS†- as the constrained use of social power. Robert Goodin Hans- Dieter Klingemann Constrained because there are already laws establish. Politics takes place in all social activities; politics happen at every level of social interaction Politics concern production, distribution and use of resources in the course of social existence. -Ability to achieve a desired outcome, through whatever means . Approaches to the study of Politics Ontology- the nature of being Epistemology -How do you know what we know? Theoretical – concept idea Empirical- Evidence, observation History- both theory and experience Methodology How do we exactly know what we know

Romeo and Juliet s Theme of Youth and Excitement Rather than Sentimental Love :: Papers

Romeo and Juliet 's Theme of Youth and Excitement Rather than Sentimental Love Although scenes of youth and excitement do exist, I totally disagree with the critics. I believe the play consists of sentimental love between Romeo and Juliet and that the scenes of youth and excitement are used only to implement tragedy. I will now back up my opinion with evidence and quotes from the play. To begin with, the first fight occurs between the servants, this serves to inform the audience of the feud and prepares us for the fight scene in Act 3 Scene1. The ball scene plays a major part in the play, it is an exciting scene but its included to enable the characters to meet. It all starts when the Montague's sneak into the Capulet's ball. Romeo and his fellow Montague's are able to get into the ball because it is a 'Masked Ball'. Just these small details tell the audience that their love was meant to be, almost like fate. Romeo is enjoying the party when suddenly he sees a beautiful looking young woman. From here onwards he cannot take his eyes off Juliet just like she cant with Romeo. I don't believe that Romeo had fallen in love with Rosaline but this time he had, with a different girl 'O she doth teach the torches to burn bright' Romeo did not say these things about Rosaline and this then strengthens the point that he had fallen in love with this girl who he doesn't even know the name of. Meanwhile, Juliet was being forced to marry an older man against her own will, but all this would change as she would do anything to be with Romeo. Romeo pulls Juliet behind a pillar and kisses her before even speaking to her. Juliet then finds out that Romeo is a Montague "My only love sprung from my only hate" this quote says it all she loved him dearly but could not be seen with him as they are on opposite sides of two rival families in Verona.

Mountains vs Beach

Taylor Curry Culpepper English 101-007 6 January 2012 Vacationing at the Beach or in the Mountains No doubt, people always look forward to taking a vacation from their typical everyday routine. There are a great number of possibilities to choose from when deciding on where to vacation. The two most common vacationing spots are the beach and the mountains, in which both places offer an unlimited selection of entertaining activities. The mountains have activities that the beach does not offer and vice versa. When trying to determine a vacation spot, many people have trouble deciding between mountainous regions and beach populated areas because of each site’s available activities, climate, and the scenery. One may choose to take a vacation to the beach for various reasons, such as, for the activities, climate and scenery. While on vacation at the beach people can surf, have a picnic, play volleyball, and ride jet skis. The amount of activities is unlimited. A few beaches around the world also offer wonderful cliff diving. In most seaside regions, there are nightclubs and restaurants where people can dance or party throughout the night. Also, the beach can be a very peaceful and relaxing place. The warm climate is one of the main characteristics that the beach offers to vacationers. The seaside areas stay warm year-around. The scenery at the beach is very beautiful. The scenery on costal areas is totally different from any part of the world. Vacationers will see things like sand, palm trees, tropical plants, and wildlife. The beach is described in two words is fun and sun. Taking a vacation to the mountains can be a lot of fun. Many people choose to vacation to the mountains because of the activities, climate, and scenery. The climate is always an important factor for one to enjoy their vacation of choice. If a vacationer dislikes the cold weather, he or she might have a difficult time enjoying the mountains. The cold climate in the mountains is the first barrier to enjoying them, but the climate and the temperature of these zones also determine the types of activities they offer. Snow boarding, mountain climbing, mountain biking, hiking, and skiing are some activities people can enjoy when going to the mountains. When taking a trip to the mountains one will be offered with an unlimited amount of activities. A few of the most popular interests are hiking, cliff diving, having a picnic, and fishing. There are many regions that have mountains where people can go and have a great vacation. Canada is a country located in North America and contains many mountain vacation sites where people can go and have fun. Finally, the scenery is another main reason someone may choose to vacation to the mountains. The scenery surrounding the mountains is like no other. People will see beautiful pants, huge mountains, and interesting wildlife. As you can see taking a vacation to the beach and the mountains can both be extremely fun, but very different. When trying to determine a vacation spot, many people have trouble deciding between mountainous regions and beach populated areas because of each site’s available activities, climate, and the scenery. It doesn’t matter what place a person decides to choose. The fun is guaranteed. Vacationers often choose one of these two options to spend their vacations.

Teaching log example

Education Level of Participants: N/A Type of Education Activity (1 ambulatory, group, meeting): Observation and participation in evaluative process for residents in Family Medicine. Positive Aspects of Session: – Used a consensus approach to decision making and evaluation. – Input of all who have supervised for a more fair and objective evaluation. – Well run, and timely meeting. Difficulties of Session: – Limited context for evaluation (ex. in some instances, individuals had only been observed by anyone around the table 1 time). Despite this, most evaluators agreed regarding resident's clinical attributes and deficiencies. – One sided Reflection and Interpretation of Session: I found myself very surprised by this session. It was unsettling for me to discuss learners in this way even with an understanding that it is necessary to evaluate. Issues regarding personal issues were brought forth in some instances to explain a resident's behavior.It was ed ucational to me in that I learned that the resident's â€Å"supervisor† (or faculty dvisor), is the person who after these meetings is responsible to then deliver the message ot the â€Å"teacher's group† to the resident in the torm ot teedback. I a normally a part of this process, but only on paper. I am given an evaluation form to fill out on individual practice of each of the residents on my team. There is a Likert scale with points related to professionalism, collaboration and respect.This session has really made me think more about the way in which I am filling out the evaluation ools I am asked to fill out on a monthly basis, as I now understand better how they utilized. Being present was a very new and intimidating experience for me, as I was asked for my input at this meeting. Consideration of Future Strategies for Managing Similar Sessions (Analysis): Strategies I might use in similar sessions would include pre-learning. Asking questions of the Resident Educat ion director to be better prepared for what to expect and how I might better participate.

The Chemistry of Love

The Chemistry of Love According to Dr. Helen Fisher, a researcher at Rutgers University, chemistry and love are inextricable. Shes not speaking, though, of the chemistry that makes two people compatible. Instead, shes speaking of the chemicals that are released into our bodies as we experience lust, attraction, and attachment. Chemicals in Each Stage of Love We may think that were using our heads to govern our hearts, but in fact (at least to a degree) were simply responding to the chemicals that help us experience pleasure, excitement, and arousal. Dr. Fisher says there are three stages of love, and each is driven to a degree by a particular set of chemicals.  Ã‚  There is a lot of chemistry involved in feeling attachment, sweaty palms, butterflies in your stomach, etc. Take a look at some of the key biochemical players. Stage 1: Lust If youre feeling eager for a sexual encounter with someone (even if youre not quite sure who youll end up with), chances are youre reacting to the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen. Both of these hormones play an important role in increasing libido in both men and women. Testosterone and estrogen are generated as a result of messages from the hypothalamus of the brain. Testosterone is a very  potent aphrodisiac. Estrogen can make women more libidinous around the time they ovulate (when estrogen levels are at their peak). Stage 2: Attraction Lust is fun, but it may or may not lead to real romance. If you do make it to stage 2 in your relationship, though, chemicals become increasingly important. On the one hand, chemicals associated with attraction can make you feel dreamy. On the other hand, they can make you feel anxious or obsessive. People who are in this early phase of falling in love may even sleep less, or lose their appetite!   Phenylethylamine or PEA: This is a chemical that naturally occurs in the brain and is also found in some foods, such as chocolate. It is a stimulant, much like an amphetamine, that causes the release of norepinephrine and dopamine. This chemical is released when you are falling in love. Its responsible for the head-over-heels, elated part of love.Norepinephrine: When PEA causes this chemical to be released, you feel the effects in the form of sweaty palms and a pounding heart.Dopamine: Dopamine is a neurochemical that appears to be associated with mate selection. An Emory University study found that voles (a type of rodent) chose their mate based on dopamine release. When female voles were injected with dopamine in the presence of a male vole, they could select him from a group of voles later. Stage 3: Attachment Now that youre really committed to someone else, chemicals help you stay connected. Oxytocin: Dopamine triggers the release of oxytocin, which is sometimes called the cuddle hormone. In both genders, oxytocin is released during touching. In women, oxytocin is released during labor and breastfeeding.Serotonin: A chemical that is more prevalent among people with compulsive disorders, serotonin can increase our dependence on another person.Endorphins: Your brain acquires a tolerance to the love stimulants and starts to release endorphins. The honeymoon is over, chemically, around 18 months to 4 years into a relationship. However, this isnt all bad.  Endorphins are associated with feelings  of attachment and comfort. Endorphins are like opiates. They calm anxiety, relieve pain and reduce stress.

User Persona Spark Yours to Life With These 9 Tools - CoSchedule Blog

User Persona Spark Yours to Life With These 9 Tools Blog Ah, the user persona. Every marketing expert will tell you that you need one as the foundation for your content marketing strategy. But so many people just slap together some vague demographic data, give it a cute, alliterated name like â€Å"Busy Betsy† or â€Å"Hipster Henry† and call it a persona. Then they wonder why they arent seeing user engagement with their content. If you want to create meaningful content that wins fans and conversions, your user persona needs to be more than a collection of data points. To make your user persona come to life, you need to create a fully fleshed-out character with dreams, fears, challenges, and desires. You need a complex, uniquely human hero for the story youre telling with your brand. But it can’t just be a pure flight of fantasy. Each characteristic and inner motivation of your user persona should have data or real-life examples to back it up. Sound like a tall order? Worry not: this post will give you the online resources you need to make a hyper-specific user persona. I’ll show you how to use persona-building tools so you can create deeply engaging content that will draw in your target audience and make them stick with you. But first   Spark Your User Persona To Life With These 9 Important ToolsWhy Do We Need User Personas? Writing generic content to a general audience just doesn’t cut it anymore. Gone are the days of keyword stuffed, SEO-focused content, clickbait social media posts, and salesy email blasts. The average internet user can see right through these flimsy marketing ploys. If you want to stand out on search engine results, on social media and in your email marketing, you need to have robust, human-centered content that hits people right in the feels. And a User Persona helps you define just who that human is and what kind of content appeals to their needs. But maybe I should back up a few steps. Let’s take a quick look at what a User Persona is. Describing a User (or Buyer or Customer or Reader) Persona can take up an entire blog post unto itself. Thankfully, Sam Kusinitz  of HubSpot has distilled things down into less than 100 words for us: A buyer persona  is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better. So basically, a User Persona is a made-up customer who represents the very real customers you want to appeal to. A User Persona is a made-up customer who represents the very real customers you want to appeal toIn case you’re feeling a bit skeptical about the impact of a fictional character upon your bottom line, here are a few stats  from Cintell's 2016 Benchmark Study to help fire up your faith in the Power of the Persona: 71%  of companies who exceed revenue and lead goals have documented Personas 65%  of companies who exceed lead and revenue goals have updated their Personas within the last 6 months. Persona based content increased customer engagement almost six-fold  when targeting cold leads (10% versus 58%). Using Personas increases email open rate 2-5 times. It is more effective to target cold leads with Persona based content than targeting warm leads without using Persona based content (58% versus 45%) Pretty impressive, right? So just what is it about User Personas that make such a huge difference in customer engagement and conversion rates? It comes down to a potent mixture of storytelling, psychology, and sociology. Recommended Reading: How to Write Like a Journalist to Be a Better Marketing Storyteller Why Do User Personas Work? As marketers, we’ve long known that the fastest route to inspiring empathy and emotional connections in audiences is to tell a story. But recent neurological studies  have confirmed that if you really want to hook someone, tell them a story about a protagonist with a relatable goal and describe their struggle to reach that goal. So here’s what you want your User Persona to be: An individual with internal and external features similar to your audience, A person whose goals mirror your audience A character who has everyday struggles that your audience can immediately relate to. The more specific you are about what makes your User Persona an individual, the deeper an emotional connection your audience will have with your brand. And the easier it will be to convince them to take action. The more specific your personas are, the deeper emotional connection your audience will have with...Be Fearless In Your User Persona Back in 1978, two hippy guys decided to sell ice cream out of an abandoned Vermont gas station. Within five years, their chunky, flavorful ice cream packaged in colorful pint-sized containers caught the attention of grocery stores. The ice cream sold so fast from freezer sections they could barely keep it in stock. Ben Jerry’s was a tremendous hit. How did they become such a big success where other homemade ice cream shops have failed? Because Ben Jerry weren’t afraid to get specific about their user persona. And their user persona wasn’t what people had come to expect from a homemade ice cream brand. Here’s how your typical, old-school marketing team would probably have done it: using traditional market-focused research, they would have focused on the â€Å"homespun Vermont† aspect of Ben Jerry’s and featured a hand-operated ice cream maker in their logo. Instead of focusing on the buyer, they would have extolled the quality of the ingredients and the deliciousness of the flavors. Their flavors would have had Vermont-inspired names like â€Å"Backwoods Berry Blend† or â€Å"Maple Syrup Swirl.† Freelance designer Lyn Severance knew their brand had to reflect the groovy spirit of the hippy era and the fun-loving personalities of Ben Jerry and their friends. But Ben Jerry knew who their customers were, and they weren’t the rustic, antique-loving Vermonters of popular imagination. Note that their original container illustration featured a hand-cranked ice cream maker- but there’s a person  with a distinct personality doing the work: a stout, bearded dude who bears a striking resemblance to The Original Chubby Hubby himself, co-founder Ben Cohen. Also, the style of the illustration brings to mind the underground comics and concert posters of the 1960’s and 1970’s, not the vintage etchings of the 1900’s. There’s something mischievous, verging on subversive about Ben Jerry’s branding. But fun/peace-loving  subversive.  Yellow Submarine  subversive. The folks who flocked to Ben Jerry’s were real people who loved pop culture, leaned to the left politically, had an irreverent sense of humor, and got the munchies when they partook in their recreational mood-altering substance of choice. In other words, Ben Jerry’s target user was,well, Ben Jerry. So Ben Jerry created a product that spoke to THAT Persona. Even at the risk of alienating the people who don’t fit that description. Ben Jerry aren’t afraid to court controversy and voice their stances on political and social issues. A recent blog post prominently features the â€Å"Black Lives Matter† sign in their signature hand-lettered calligraphy. No doubt this wins them even more brand loyalty from their socially-conscious target buyers. (Source) In fact, not being afraid to take a stand is an essential quality of Ben Jerry’s User Persona. The ice cream brand has used content to inspire their audience to help them face down Pillsbury-owned rival Hagen Daas in the form of boycotts and protests. 'We believed that Pillsbury’s actions were illegal,' says Ben, 'but we knew that in a strictly legal fight we’d run out of time and money long before Pillsbury would. Our only option was to rely on our customers and the media to pressure Pillsbury into backing off. So we started printing the slogan â€Å"What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?† on our pint containers, along with an 800 number for the Doughboy Hotline. Everyone who called got a Doughboy Kit, with protest letters addressed to the Federal Trade Commission and the chairman of the Pillsbury board, and a bumper sticker.' By publishing their Doughboy Hotline, they collected the names and addresses of their highly engaged (target) customers- customers who they could send additional marketing content like coupons or recipe booklets to. Ben Jerry created a targeted lead magnet before people were even using the world wide web. And their User Persona doesn’t only impact their marketing strategy- every aspect of Ben Jerry’s from product to operations was created with their user in mind. Because their target buyer (and their executive team) is socially conscious, Ben Jerry’s was one of the first companies to adopt an executive salary cap (although they dropped it when they hired a new CEO in 1994). The secret to Ben Jerry’s success is not in their admittedly delicious ice cream, but in their ability to understand what their target buyer ultimately wants from the world. Recommended Reading: How to Find Your Target Audience and Create the Best Content That Connects The Keys to a Great User Persona So how can you make your target buyer feel like you really, truly â€Å"get† what they’re about? By asking the right questions about who they are and finding real-word answers. Some of those questions are about demographics, like: Age Gender Income Occupation Education level Geography Marital Status Those are external factors about the circumstances of your target user’s life. Things that, unless they make a major life change, they have little control over. When you dig a little deeper, you start getting into psychographic information, like: Lifestyle Hobbies Career goals Political affiliations Religious values Priorities in life Aesthetic taste Obstacles Fears Assumptions As you discover more about your target buyer, you’ll unlock the hidden desires, fears, and challenges your target user faces so your content can help them navigate along their journey toward their biggest goals in life. And the more you help your target user, the more they will trust you, and the more they will want to do business with you. The more you help your target user, the more they will trust and do business with you. After you’ve developed your user persona, here’s what you can expect: You’ll gain a clearer picture into the external and internal life of your target user You’ll have more relevant content ideas You’ll write content faster You’ll know where to find your target user You’ll know which people/publications your user sees as influencers You’ll know where to promote your content so your target reader will find it You’ll dramatically increase your conversion rates So without further ado, here are some resources you can add to your persona-building toolkit today. Here are the resources you need to start building user #personas1. Target Audience Kit has created a handy downloadable package  that includes a worksheet on how to conduct audience surveys and a quick-and-easy template for a user persona. Print them out and use them as guidelines as you hunt down demographic and psychographic information. 2. Startup Target Customer Profile Worksheet What if you don’t know who your target customer is because you’re just starting out? I’ve created an in-depth worksheet for startup founders to help you ask the right questions in your search for the perfect customer. It covers not only their demographics and psychographics, but also their digital tribes, influencers, popular hashtagsbasically all the information you need to reach your target user when they’re actively looking for stuff that relates to your service. You can download it here. 3. Xtensio User Persona Creator This intuitive web-based template by â€Å"lean design agency† Xtensio helps you create a beautifully designed persona to share with your clients or team members as you create your content marketing strategy. When you sign up for a free account, you’ll also have access to templates for pitch decks, business plans, content strategies, and press releases, among other tools. If you’re a startup founder, this could be a true life (and time) saver. Alright, you now have three blank slates for creating your user persona. But how do you find the data to fill in the blanks? Below you’ll find some essential resources to help you discover information about your target customers based on real-world data. Recommended Reading: This is How to Use Data to Fuel Your Content Marketing Strategy 4. Google Analytics First of all, are the right visitors finding you? What are the interests of the people visiting your site, and what kind of content are they engaging the most with? Is there anything you need to change about the way visitors discover your content? A peek at your Google Analytics will give you these insights and more. One Way Use Google Analytics (of Many): If you don’t have Google Analytics set up on your website, take a few minutes to get your tracking code and install Analytics to your website. Once you’ve created your Analytics account and installed your tracking code to your site, wait about a week for Google to collect data about your visitors. Then log into your account and browse around. You can see your average visitor’s demographics, what content they’re spending the most time looking at, even their interests based on their typical search behavior. Google Analytics helps you see whether or not the users that are coming to you are the users you actually want. For example, I noticed when I went into my Users Interests In-market Segments that the top four interests of visitors to my site were: Employment Travel/Hotel Accommodations Employment/Career Counseling Services Dating Services My site is for Copywriting and Content Strategy Services. So somewhere there’s a disconnect between the content of my site and the people who are finding it. Now the challenge is to figure out why people are coming to me looking for jobs, accommodations, or love. So I take a look at my Landing Page analytics to see which page is attracting the most traffic, and lo and behold, other than my home page, the top two pages are two blog articles: one about the TED Talk formula for sales pitches, and one about finding your target customer. The â€Å"target customer† post starts with a story about my experiences with online dating and how they parallel with a startup founder’s search for the perfect customer. Later in the post, I give an example of a travel bag company that used â€Å"Alternatives to AirBnB† as a way to capture their target leads. So, that explains why people interested in Dating Services and Travel stumble upon my site! It also tells me that I need to build up the content on my site for my target customer so more startup founders and less lonely hearts and wayward travelers find their way to my blog. Even more reason to really hone in on my User Persona and their needs There are a myriad of ways Google Analytics can give you insights about who is coming to your site and what changes you need to make so your content is getting in front of the right people. Do yourself a BIG favor and take some time to evaluate the quality of the traffic you’re already getting so you can determine what you need to tweak to improve it.   has created a quick guide to how to use Google Analytics to understand your audience. Recommended Reading: 5 Big Questions About Your Site That Google Analytics Can Answer 5. Alexa Let’s say that you haven’t launched your site yet  or you’re getting ready to do a major overhaul of your website. You may be feeling a bit in the dark as far as who your ideal customer actually is. The good news is you have plenty to learn about your target audience by getting a glimpse at who’s going to the competition. Alexa provides detailed demographic reports  on visitors to any website, as well as the most popular keywords people use to find them. Here’s the quick-and-dirty way to get the goods on who is looking for your products or services. Google your core offer and see who your top competitors are in the paid and organic results. For example, let’s say you’re a virtual assistant for small business owners. The top paid result is for TasksEveryday.com. Go to Alexa.com and type in the URL and when you scroll down you’ll see related sites (ie other competitors in your niche): And their audience demographics: By using the new Audience Overlap Tool, you can get a big-picture demographic view of who is using virtual assistant services similar to your top competitor: Just click â€Å"Audience Overlap Tool† on the main overview page: Select the competitors you wish to compare: Scroll down to Demographics and take a look at what these sites have in common and what makes them notably different. For example, I noticed that getfriday.com visitors have a much younger average age (18-24) than taskseveryday.com (35-44). When I investigated, I clicked on â€Å"getfriday.com† to open a site overview in Alexa and discovered one of the main sites that led visitors to GetFriday was YouTube: So I clicked the link and discovered that the videos that lead to getfriday.com are all about outsourcing Virtual Assistants from the Phillipines. Is that giving me a clearer picture of who is going to my competitors and why? Well, if I do a little more digging into the demographic information on Alexa, I can discover that the average income of the GetFriday user trends lower than the average income of the TasksEveryday user. So now I have a decision to make: do I want to target my Virtual Assistant service to a budget-strapped startup founder looking to outsource on the cheap or a well-to-do CEO of a small company willing to invest in a top-notch professional? Once I make that decision, I can start deep-diving into the world of my target user to fill in the gaps of their larger story. Recommended Reading: 14 Time-Tested Tactics to Get Tons of Traffic from Social Media 6. BuzzSumo You now know the â€Å"who’s† about your target customers using Google Analytics Alexa. Now it’s time to discover the â€Å"what’s† and the â€Å"why’s.† What are your customer’s goals and Why do your target customers need your help accomplishing their goals? BuzzSumo is hands-down the most popular audience discovery tool for content marketers.  After an initial free trial, you have to pay for it, but if you’re trying to build an audience and relationships with influencers, it’s well worth the $99 a month. Why? Because with one keyword search, not only will you find the most popular articles about a topic in terms of shares and clicks, but also who the most influential people are within a niche AND who their followers are. So to continue with our fictional Virtual Assistant service, let’s say we want to cater to startup founders. So I type â€Å"startups and virtual assistants† into the BuzzSumo search box and see which articles have had the most engagement over the past year: Then I click on â€Å"View Sharers† to see who has been engaging with the post. I see that Stephen Bronner, news director for Entrepreneur has been sharing the article, which tells me he thinks his followers would find value in it. So now I can take a look at his followers. After scrolling through their bios, I spot an ideal candidate for Virtual Assistant services: a PR coach for entrepreneurs and startup founders: Now I can take a look at her Twitter profiles to get insights on her life and the lives of her  followers people who are starting their own companies and need help. Like this follower, who describes herself as a serial entrepreneur: BOOM. Target achieved. This person’s Twitter account is a window into her life. She tweets about where she likes to go to eat, the big projects she’s working on, her hobbies, the religious holidays she celebrates, the brands she likes. You can fill out an entire User Persona template with this information alone! Recommended Reading: This is the Marketing Research Process That Will Take Your Content to the Next Level 7. Customer Surveys Let’s say that you’re an established company looking to shift to a customer-centered content marketing strategy. Your current customers are an invaluable resource for insights. Just ask them about their lives. Pioneering content strategist Colleen Jones  says customer surveys are a great way not only to determine user behavior (what they do), but also the emotions and motivations leading to their decisions (what they’re feeling): â€Å"If you want to assess your success at producing effective content marketing, you need useful, actionable feedback about it. That means you need to know what people think about your content. Surveys are an invaluable way to find out.† Here are some customer survey tools you can try out for free: Survey Monkey- The most popular contender, Survey Monkey has a great reputation for being easy to use and having a step-by-step tutorial to walk you through the survey-building process. However, to export the survey data you collect, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid version. Typeform- Typeform’s survey templates are slick and beautifully designed, which means your participants are less likely to abandon ship mid-survey out of boredom. Google Forms- Simple, straightforward, free, and easy to access via your Google Drive account. Need help coming up with some good questions? Michael Patterson, CEO of marketing research software Hotjar has come up with a great list of customer survey questions  that get into the minds (and hearts) of your customers. Recommended Reading: How to Use Social Media Listening to Create Better Content for Your Audience 8. Quora If you lack a customer base or even a list to send audience surveys out to, Quora can be an invaluable tool to grab information about your target customer’s needs  Ã¢â‚¬Å"in their own words.† Don’t just look at the most-upvoted answers: sometimes the replies to expert answers can provide you with deeper insights into your target user’s world than the more polished expert responses. Quora can be an invaluable tool to grab information about your target customer’s needs9. Twenty20 Confession time: I’ve spent more time than I should looking through Twenty20’s gorgeous curated stock photo collections, in search of The Face of the User Persona for my clients. Why Twenty20 as opposed to the kajillions of other stock photography sites out there? Because Twenty20 sources and curates photography that looks like real people’s lives instead of glossy studio sessions. Here’s what you should look for in a great User Persona profile pic: A headshot of one person- Your user persona represents an individual, not a group. Personality-  Unless you’re creating content for a modeling agency, your user persona is probably not a fashion model. Look for pictures of everyday folks. Match the data demographics-  If your research suggests that the majority of users in your niche are 50-something white-collar professional women, don’t use a headshot of a 20-something tattoo artist. In their natural environment- Try to find a picture that shows your User Persona where she’d be using your product or service. Above all, User Personas should represent and look like the real people you're creating content for. Here are some other examples of great User Personas to help give you a kickstart in creating your own. (Source: Xtensio) Recommended Reading: How to Make the Best Social Media Images the Easy Way (+84 Free Images) Note how in-depth the above persona is in terms of Alyssa’s desire to balance her creativity with her business sense.   This is a great starting point for giving a â€Å"voice† to a brand’s content: that of a passionate artist who wants to be a success without being a â€Å"sell-out.† So based on the information I gathered using the tools above for my fictional Virtual Assistant service, here’s the User Persona I created using the Xtensio template tool: On the other end of the persona spectrum, we have MailChimp’s multiple User Personas. (Source: MailChimp) These visually appealing Personas aren't as specific in their narratives as Xtensio’s, but they still offer psychographic data for inspiring content. Even though these Personas lack a written story, the specificity of the look, dress, and descriptive text communicate volumes about each individual. To achieve this Portrait style persona, all you need is: A graphic design tool like Canva  or Photoshop, A great stock photo, A list of personality traits and motivators. Here’s what I made in Canva using the same Virtual Assistant target user: How to Create Your Own Persona in Canva Here’s a quick example showing how you can create one that is similar: After opening Canva, select â€Å"Create a Design† Select the â€Å"Blog Graphic† template from the Blogging eBooks section Upload your stock photo (or you can choose from Canva’s collection of stock photography and pay a $1 to download it) Drag and drop the stock photo as the background to the layout Free stock photo from Pexels.com Select the Heading text tool and start typing the personality trait keywords.  Choose various fonts, sizes or colors as needed. You can change the angle of the text by selecting the text box, clicking on the Rotate tool (the circular arrow at the bottom of the text box), and rotating the text box around. It's Time to Start Creating Better User Personas Alright: you've now assembled a well-stocked persona toolkit.   It's time to get to work! Have fun creating your User Persona- and if you've made one you're particularly proud of, feel free to share it with us! User Persona Spark Yours to Life With These 9 Tools Blog Ah, the user persona. Every marketing expert will tell you that you need one as the foundation for your content marketing strategy. But so many people just slap together some vague demographic data, give it a cute, alliterated name like â€Å"Busy Betsy† or â€Å"Hipster Henry† and call it a persona. Then they wonder why they arent seeing user engagement with their content. If you want to create meaningful content that wins fans and conversions, your user persona needs to be more than a collection of data points. To make your user persona come to life, you need to create a fully fleshed-out character with dreams, fears, challenges, and desires. You need a complex, uniquely human hero for the story youre telling with your brand. But it can’t just be a pure flight of fantasy. Each characteristic and inner motivation of your user persona should have data or real-life examples to back it up. Sound like a tall order? Worry not: this post will give you the online resources you need to make a hyper-specific user persona. I’ll show you how to use persona-building tools so you can create deeply engaging content that will draw in your target audience and make them stick with you. But first   Spark Your User Persona To Life With These 9 Important ToolsWhy Do We Need User Personas? Writing generic content to a general audience just doesn’t cut it anymore. Gone are the days of keyword stuffed, SEO-focused content, clickbait social media posts, and salesy email blasts. The average internet user can see right through these flimsy marketing ploys. If you want to stand out on search engine results, on social media and in your email marketing, you need to have robust, human-centered content that hits people right in the feels. And a User Persona helps you define just who that human is and what kind of content appeals to their needs. But maybe I should back up a few steps. Let’s take a quick look at what a User Persona is. Describing a User (or Buyer or Customer or Reader) Persona can take up an entire blog post unto itself. Thankfully, Sam Kusinitz  of HubSpot has distilled things down into less than 100 words for us: A buyer persona  is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better. So basically, a User Persona is a made-up customer who represents the very real customers you want to appeal to. A User Persona is a made-up customer who represents the very real customers you want to appeal toIn case you’re feeling a bit skeptical about the impact of a fictional character upon your bottom line, here are a few stats  from Cintell's 2016 Benchmark Study to help fire up your faith in the Power of the Persona: 71%  of companies who exceed revenue and lead goals have documented Personas 65%  of companies who exceed lead and revenue goals have updated their Personas within the last 6 months. Persona based content increased customer engagement almost six-fold  when targeting cold leads (10% versus 58%). Using Personas increases email open rate 2-5 times. It is more effective to target cold leads with Persona based content than targeting warm leads without using Persona based content (58% versus 45%) Pretty impressive, right? So just what is it about User Personas that make such a huge difference in customer engagement and conversion rates? It comes down to a potent mixture of storytelling, psychology, and sociology. Recommended Reading: How to Write Like a Journalist to Be a Better Marketing Storyteller Why Do User Personas Work? As marketers, we’ve long known that the fastest route to inspiring empathy and emotional connections in audiences is to tell a story. But recent neurological studies  have confirmed that if you really want to hook someone, tell them a story about a protagonist with a relatable goal and describe their struggle to reach that goal. So here’s what you want your User Persona to be: An individual with internal and external features similar to your audience, A person whose goals mirror your audience A character who has everyday struggles that your audience can immediately relate to. The more specific you are about what makes your User Persona an individual, the deeper an emotional connection your audience will have with your brand. And the easier it will be to convince them to take action. The more specific your personas are, the deeper emotional connection your audience will have with...Be Fearless In Your User Persona Back in 1978, two hippy guys decided to sell ice cream out of an abandoned Vermont gas station. Within five years, their chunky, flavorful ice cream packaged in colorful pint-sized containers caught the attention of grocery stores. The ice cream sold so fast from freezer sections they could barely keep it in stock. Ben Jerry’s was a tremendous hit. How did they become such a big success where other homemade ice cream shops have failed? Because Ben Jerry weren’t afraid to get specific about their user persona. And their user persona wasn’t what people had come to expect from a homemade ice cream brand. Here’s how your typical, old-school marketing team would probably have done it: using traditional market-focused research, they would have focused on the â€Å"homespun Vermont† aspect of Ben Jerry’s and featured a hand-operated ice cream maker in their logo. Instead of focusing on the buyer, they would have extolled the quality of the ingredients and the deliciousness of the flavors. Their flavors would have had Vermont-inspired names like â€Å"Backwoods Berry Blend† or â€Å"Maple Syrup Swirl.† Freelance designer Lyn Severance knew their brand had to reflect the groovy spirit of the hippy era and the fun-loving personalities of Ben Jerry and their friends. But Ben Jerry knew who their customers were, and they weren’t the rustic, antique-loving Vermonters of popular imagination. Note that their original container illustration featured a hand-cranked ice cream maker- but there’s a person  with a distinct personality doing the work: a stout, bearded dude who bears a striking resemblance to The Original Chubby Hubby himself, co-founder Ben Cohen. Also, the style of the illustration brings to mind the underground comics and concert posters of the 1960’s and 1970’s, not the vintage etchings of the 1900’s. There’s something mischievous, verging on subversive about Ben Jerry’s branding. But fun/peace-loving  subversive.  Yellow Submarine  subversive. The folks who flocked to Ben Jerry’s were real people who loved pop culture, leaned to the left politically, had an irreverent sense of humor, and got the munchies when they partook in their recreational mood-altering substance of choice. In other words, Ben Jerry’s target user was,well, Ben Jerry. So Ben Jerry created a product that spoke to THAT Persona. Even at the risk of alienating the people who don’t fit that description. Ben Jerry aren’t afraid to court controversy and voice their stances on political and social issues. A recent blog post prominently features the â€Å"Black Lives Matter† sign in their signature hand-lettered calligraphy. No doubt this wins them even more brand loyalty from their socially-conscious target buyers. (Source) In fact, not being afraid to take a stand is an essential quality of Ben Jerry’s User Persona. The ice cream brand has used content to inspire their audience to help them face down Pillsbury-owned rival Hagen Daas in the form of boycotts and protests. 'We believed that Pillsbury’s actions were illegal,' says Ben, 'but we knew that in a strictly legal fight we’d run out of time and money long before Pillsbury would. Our only option was to rely on our customers and the media to pressure Pillsbury into backing off. So we started printing the slogan â€Å"What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?† on our pint containers, along with an 800 number for the Doughboy Hotline. Everyone who called got a Doughboy Kit, with protest letters addressed to the Federal Trade Commission and the chairman of the Pillsbury board, and a bumper sticker.' By publishing their Doughboy Hotline, they collected the names and addresses of their highly engaged (target) customers- customers who they could send additional marketing content like coupons or recipe booklets to. Ben Jerry created a targeted lead magnet before people were even using the world wide web. And their User Persona doesn’t only impact their marketing strategy- every aspect of Ben Jerry’s from product to operations was created with their user in mind. Because their target buyer (and their executive team) is socially conscious, Ben Jerry’s was one of the first companies to adopt an executive salary cap (although they dropped it when they hired a new CEO in 1994). The secret to Ben Jerry’s success is not in their admittedly delicious ice cream, but in their ability to understand what their target buyer ultimately wants from the world. Recommended Reading: How to Find Your Target Audience and Create the Best Content That Connects The Keys to a Great User Persona So how can you make your target buyer feel like you really, truly â€Å"get† what they’re about? By asking the right questions about who they are and finding real-word answers. Some of those questions are about demographics, like: Age Gender Income Occupation Education level Geography Marital Status Those are external factors about the circumstances of your target user’s life. Things that, unless they make a major life change, they have little control over. When you dig a little deeper, you start getting into psychographic information, like: Lifestyle Hobbies Career goals Political affiliations Religious values Priorities in life Aesthetic taste Obstacles Fears Assumptions As you discover more about your target buyer, you’ll unlock the hidden desires, fears, and challenges your target user faces so your content can help them navigate along their journey toward their biggest goals in life. And the more you help your target user, the more they will trust you, and the more they will want to do business with you. The more you help your target user, the more they will trust and do business with you. After you’ve developed your user persona, here’s what you can expect: You’ll gain a clearer picture into the external and internal life of your target user You’ll have more relevant content ideas You’ll write content faster You’ll know where to find your target user You’ll know which people/publications your user sees as influencers You’ll know where to promote your content so your target reader will find it You’ll dramatically increase your conversion rates So without further ado, here are some resources you can add to your persona-building toolkit today. Here are the resources you need to start building user #personas1. Target Audience Kit has created a handy downloadable package  that includes a worksheet on how to conduct audience surveys and a quick-and-easy template for a user persona. Print them out and use them as guidelines as you hunt down demographic and psychographic information. 2. Startup Target Customer Profile Worksheet What if you don’t know who your target customer is because you’re just starting out? I’ve created an in-depth worksheet for startup founders to help you ask the right questions in your search for the perfect customer. It covers not only their demographics and psychographics, but also their digital tribes, influencers, popular hashtagsbasically all the information you need to reach your target user when they’re actively looking for stuff that relates to your service. You can download it here. 3. Xtensio User Persona Creator This intuitive web-based template by â€Å"lean design agency† Xtensio helps you create a beautifully designed persona to share with your clients or team members as you create your content marketing strategy. When you sign up for a free account, you’ll also have access to templates for pitch decks, business plans, content strategies, and press releases, among other tools. If you’re a startup founder, this could be a true life (and time) saver. Alright, you now have three blank slates for creating your user persona. But how do you find the data to fill in the blanks? Below you’ll find some essential resources to help you discover information about your target customers based on real-world data. Recommended Reading: This is How to Use Data to Fuel Your Content Marketing Strategy 4. Google Analytics First of all, are the right visitors finding you? What are the interests of the people visiting your site, and what kind of content are they engaging the most with? Is there anything you need to change about the way visitors discover your content? A peek at your Google Analytics will give you these insights and more. One Way Use Google Analytics (of Many): If you don’t have Google Analytics set up on your website, take a few minutes to get your tracking code and install Analytics to your website. Once you’ve created your Analytics account and installed your tracking code to your site, wait about a week for Google to collect data about your visitors. Then log into your account and browse around. You can see your average visitor’s demographics, what content they’re spending the most time looking at, even their interests based on their typical search behavior. Google Analytics helps you see whether or not the users that are coming to you are the users you actually want. For example, I noticed when I went into my Users Interests In-market Segments that the top four interests of visitors to my site were: Employment Travel/Hotel Accommodations Employment/Career Counseling Services Dating Services My site is for Copywriting and Content Strategy Services. So somewhere there’s a disconnect between the content of my site and the people who are finding it. Now the challenge is to figure out why people are coming to me looking for jobs, accommodations, or love. So I take a look at my Landing Page analytics to see which page is attracting the most traffic, and lo and behold, other than my home page, the top two pages are two blog articles: one about the TED Talk formula for sales pitches, and one about finding your target customer. The â€Å"target customer† post starts with a story about my experiences with online dating and how they parallel with a startup founder’s search for the perfect customer. Later in the post, I give an example of a travel bag company that used â€Å"Alternatives to AirBnB† as a way to capture their target leads. So, that explains why people interested in Dating Services and Travel stumble upon my site! It also tells me that I need to build up the content on my site for my target customer so more startup founders and less lonely hearts and wayward travelers find their way to my blog. Even more reason to really hone in on my User Persona and their needs There are a myriad of ways Google Analytics can give you insights about who is coming to your site and what changes you need to make so your content is getting in front of the right people. Do yourself a BIG favor and take some time to evaluate the quality of the traffic you’re already getting so you can determine what you need to tweak to improve it.   has created a quick guide to how to use Google Analytics to understand your audience. Recommended Reading: 5 Big Questions About Your Site That Google Analytics Can Answer 5. Alexa Let’s say that you haven’t launched your site yet  or you’re getting ready to do a major overhaul of your website. You may be feeling a bit in the dark as far as who your ideal customer actually is. The good news is you have plenty to learn about your target audience by getting a glimpse at who’s going to the competition. Alexa provides detailed demographic reports  on visitors to any website, as well as the most popular keywords people use to find them. Here’s the quick-and-dirty way to get the goods on who is looking for your products or services. Google your core offer and see who your top competitors are in the paid and organic results. For example, let’s say you’re a virtual assistant for small business owners. The top paid result is for TasksEveryday.com. Go to Alexa.com and type in the URL and when you scroll down you’ll see related sites (ie other competitors in your niche): And their audience demographics: By using the new Audience Overlap Tool, you can get a big-picture demographic view of who is using virtual assistant services similar to your top competitor: Just click â€Å"Audience Overlap Tool† on the main overview page: Select the competitors you wish to compare: Scroll down to Demographics and take a look at what these sites have in common and what makes them notably different. For example, I noticed that getfriday.com visitors have a much younger average age (18-24) than taskseveryday.com (35-44). When I investigated, I clicked on â€Å"getfriday.com† to open a site overview in Alexa and discovered one of the main sites that led visitors to GetFriday was YouTube: So I clicked the link and discovered that the videos that lead to getfriday.com are all about outsourcing Virtual Assistants from the Phillipines. Is that giving me a clearer picture of who is going to my competitors and why? Well, if I do a little more digging into the demographic information on Alexa, I can discover that the average income of the GetFriday user trends lower than the average income of the TasksEveryday user. So now I have a decision to make: do I want to target my Virtual Assistant service to a budget-strapped startup founder looking to outsource on the cheap or a well-to-do CEO of a small company willing to invest in a top-notch professional? Once I make that decision, I can start deep-diving into the world of my target user to fill in the gaps of their larger story. Recommended Reading: 14 Time-Tested Tactics to Get Tons of Traffic from Social Media 6. BuzzSumo You now know the â€Å"who’s† about your target customers using Google Analytics Alexa. Now it’s time to discover the â€Å"what’s† and the â€Å"why’s.† What are your customer’s goals and Why do your target customers need your help accomplishing their goals? BuzzSumo is hands-down the most popular audience discovery tool for content marketers.  After an initial free trial, you have to pay for it, but if you’re trying to build an audience and relationships with influencers, it’s well worth the $99 a month. Why? Because with one keyword search, not only will you find the most popular articles about a topic in terms of shares and clicks, but also who the most influential people are within a niche AND who their followers are. So to continue with our fictional Virtual Assistant service, let’s say we want to cater to startup founders. So I type â€Å"startups and virtual assistants† into the BuzzSumo search box and see which articles have had the most engagement over the past year: Then I click on â€Å"View Sharers† to see who has been engaging with the post. I see that Stephen Bronner, news director for Entrepreneur has been sharing the article, which tells me he thinks his followers would find value in it. So now I can take a look at his followers. After scrolling through their bios, I spot an ideal candidate for Virtual Assistant services: a PR coach for entrepreneurs and startup founders: Now I can take a look at her Twitter profiles to get insights on her life and the lives of her  followers people who are starting their own companies and need help. Like this follower, who describes herself as a serial entrepreneur: BOOM. Target achieved. This person’s Twitter account is a window into her life. She tweets about where she likes to go to eat, the big projects she’s working on, her hobbies, the religious holidays she celebrates, the brands she likes. You can fill out an entire User Persona template with this information alone! Recommended Reading: This is the Marketing Research Process That Will Take Your Content to the Next Level 7. Customer Surveys Let’s say that you’re an established company looking to shift to a customer-centered content marketing strategy. Your current customers are an invaluable resource for insights. Just ask them about their lives. Pioneering content strategist Colleen Jones  says customer surveys are a great way not only to determine user behavior (what they do), but also the emotions and motivations leading to their decisions (what they’re feeling): â€Å"If you want to assess your success at producing effective content marketing, you need useful, actionable feedback about it. That means you need to know what people think about your content. Surveys are an invaluable way to find out.† Here are some customer survey tools you can try out for free: Survey Monkey- The most popular contender, Survey Monkey has a great reputation for being easy to use and having a step-by-step tutorial to walk you through the survey-building process. However, to export the survey data you collect, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid version. Typeform- Typeform’s survey templates are slick and beautifully designed, which means your participants are less likely to abandon ship mid-survey out of boredom. Google Forms- Simple, straightforward, free, and easy to access via your Google Drive account. Need help coming up with some good questions? Michael Patterson, CEO of marketing research software Hotjar has come up with a great list of customer survey questions  that get into the minds (and hearts) of your customers. Recommended Reading: How to Use Social Media Listening to Create Better Content for Your Audience 8. Quora If you lack a customer base or even a list to send audience surveys out to, Quora can be an invaluable tool to grab information about your target customer’s needs  Ã¢â‚¬Å"in their own words.† Don’t just look at the most-upvoted answers: sometimes the replies to expert answers can provide you with deeper insights into your target user’s world than the more polished expert responses. Quora can be an invaluable tool to grab information about your target customer’s needs9. Twenty20 Confession time: I’ve spent more time than I should looking through Twenty20’s gorgeous curated stock photo collections, in search of The Face of the User Persona for my clients. Why Twenty20 as opposed to the kajillions of other stock photography sites out there? Because Twenty20 sources and curates photography that looks like real people’s lives instead of glossy studio sessions. Here’s what you should look for in a great User Persona profile pic: A headshot of one person- Your user persona represents an individual, not a group. Personality-  Unless you’re creating content for a modeling agency, your user persona is probably not a fashion model. Look for pictures of everyday folks. Match the data demographics-  If your research suggests that the majority of users in your niche are 50-something white-collar professional women, don’t use a headshot of a 20-something tattoo artist. In their natural environment- Try to find a picture that shows your User Persona where she’d be using your product or service. Above all, User Personas should represent and look like the real people you're creating content for. Here are some other examples of great User Personas to help give you a kickstart in creating your own. (Source: Xtensio) Recommended Reading: How to Make the Best Social Media Images the Easy Way (+84 Free Images) Note how in-depth the above persona is in terms of Alyssa’s desire to balance her creativity with her business sense.   This is a great starting point for giving a â€Å"voice† to a brand’s content: that of a passionate artist who wants to be a success without being a â€Å"sell-out.† So based on the information I gathered using the tools above for my fictional Virtual Assistant service, here’s the User Persona I created using the Xtensio template tool: On the other end of the persona spectrum, we have MailChimp’s multiple User Personas. (Source: MailChimp) These visually appealing Personas aren't as specific in their narratives as Xtensio’s, but they still offer psychographic data for inspiring content. Even though these Personas lack a written story, the specificity of the look, dress, and descriptive text communicate volumes about each individual. To achieve this Portrait style persona, all you need is: A graphic design tool like Canva  or Photoshop, A great stock photo, A list of personality traits and motivators. Here’s what I made in Canva using the same Virtual Assistant target user: How to Create Your Own Persona in Canva Here’s a quick example showing how you can create one that is similar: After opening Canva, select â€Å"Create a Design† Select the â€Å"Blog Graphic† template from the Blogging eBooks section Upload your stock photo (or you can choose from Canva’s collection of stock photography and pay a $1 to download it) Drag and drop the stock photo as the background to the layout Free stock photo from Pexels.com Select the Heading text tool and start typing the personality trait keywords.  Choose various fonts, sizes or colors as needed. You can change the angle of the text by selecting the text box, clicking on the Rotate tool (the circular arrow at the bottom of the text box), and rotating the text box around. It's Time to Start Creating Better User Personas Alright: you've now assembled a well-stocked persona toolkit.   It's time to get to work! Have fun creating your User Persona- and if you've made one you're particularly proud of, feel free to share it with us!

Consumerism in china Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Consumerism in china - Essay Example It is estimated that in 2015, China will bring to the global arena a total of one hundred and fifty million consumers most of which will be spending close to forty thousand dollars in annual incomes. These staggering figures indicate that China will take centre stage to the world's biggest spender. (Davis, 2000) Experts assert that one of the major reasons behind this spending boom is that the Chinese posses characteristics similar to their American counterparts; they have a huge appetite for material things. Consequently, most of them are willing to embrace whichever products or commodities are presented to them. Consumerism is also determined by a country's overall population. Because of China's huge geographical size and their corresponding population sizes, China has a large internal market for purchasing items from the international arena and also from within their country. (Zhao, 1997) It should be noted that most people have assumed that the Chinese are too conservative with their money (this is true when compared to the US since China has a forty percent saving rate) but this may not necessarily have caused low expenditure in the nineteen nineties. At that time, most people were not interested in purchasing things because there was minimal competition in their product and service industries and this presented them with very few options to choose from. The latter issues have however changed over the past few years. This is largely manifested by the surge in the real estate or housing sector. Electronics goods available to the low end consumer can be found quite easily. The country's entertainment and sports arenas have grown by leaps and bounds and rising cities are found all over. These sectors all provide room for the Chinese buyer who is eager to spend his or her money. Problems brought by consumerism in China Most economists assert that China's rising consumerism will have an effect in almost all parts of the world. The United States will be particularly affected by this issue owing to the fact that different parts of the Stock market have to take these issues into account. For instance, treasury bonds sales are affected by China which currently accounts for a huge chunk of US debt (approximated at one hundred and eighty dollars) besides this, the US economy has to take into account some of the costs of goods and the interests rates that companies in the country have to tackle because of the goings on in China's market. (Edmund, 2006) Many experts assert that the growing consumerism within China is not a common trait in all parts of the country. Certain provinces such as Ningxia are subsistence based as most of them may not have the money or the ability to buy some of the luxury items that other provinces can afford. In fact, this pattern has been repeated in so many other areas in China. The urban areas are largely populated by many high income workers and this group is what makes up the consumer market. However, rural areas (which account for a large portion of China) are not in a similar position. Experts claim that the rising consumerism in China could lead to greater disparities between the rural poor and the urban rich. This may impede the overall development of the country. (Li, 2008) Many environmentalists also

Week 9 Discussion 2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Week 9 Discussion 2 - Assignment Example It is also significant in demonstrating the cash generating ability of the company which balance sheet the balance sheet fails to show. It reveals the cash needed to maintain plant efficiency and level of operations. It provides information regarding the liquidity of the firm stock issuance, dividend payment, plant asset disposal, machinery purchase, and net change in inventory, accounts receivable and payable. The balance sheet conceals most of this information (Comiskey & Mulford, 2005). Cash flow statements reports cash movements in operating, investing and financing activities thus helping investors and creditors to generate future cash flows through estimations on amounts, unpredictability of future cash flows and timing. It also provides a basis of setting debts, paying employees and honoring dividends. The net income determines whether the company is making a profit or a loss making it easier for creditors, employees and stockholders to judge the profitability of the company (Marius & Oberholster, 2007). Any financial statement reader easily understands the change of assets and liabilities within the trading period. Cash flows help the stockholders to obtain information regarding the dividend due. For instance, in 2010 Google piled more than $26 billion amounting to about 20% of the value of the company. It was prompted to release much of cash to shareholders (Marius & Oberholster,