I was very impressed with this course! Social media, in my opinion, was just another way of socializing online. I never thought about personal branding and advertising. I guess since I have been in the military for over a decade, I have lost touch with things in the real world, especially technology. When it comes to building you own brand or business, you must keep up with the times! I’ve learned that when you are trying to build your own personal brand, you must sit down and come up with a complete plan or scheme of maneuvers on how you would like to be successful. When you reach these goals, you must stick to them and stay consistent. Consistency is key when it comes to making posts or sharing information and giving your audience what they want or desire. You can’t have a my way or the high way attitude. It’s all about customer satisfaction. I would have like to have gone more in-depth about viral marketing and test out a few ways to post some ideas at peak times on certain days to see if a post had the potential of going viral. I think viral marketing is extremely important because you want your brand to always be a trending topic. The most popular social media platforms I would use is Facebook and YouTube. These two monstrous platforms have been around for years and generate the most views. I think that my brand would benefit from these two platforms!

Hello again! Just when you think you have everything figured out with posting things online, you find out this is the real reason why certain people hire people to do all this stuff! All jokes aside, here's a clip of my draft talking about my brand. Its a very rough draft but practice makes perfect. Everything and everyone....well almost everyone, gets better with time!


Podcast Draft1

Hello,

            There are a million and one ways to building your audience of followers and connections on LinkedIn. If you are tired of scrolling on blog sites and typing searches on google and Bing, sit down and pull out a pen and pad. I will take the same steps that a lot of people PAID others to do. You must start by building your profile the right way. If you have a complete profile page that has a good flow to it with key words and shared content, it could lead you to new and bigger connections. You must be consistent at building connections and post updates regularly. Groups are very important as well. This is where you build more connections by joining multiple groups and networking with people in your area of expertise. Here are a few LinkedIn groups that motivate me:

Motivation Nation

Training Development

Effective Fun and Training

Casey Neistat is a great storyteller who shares short films every day. What I like about Casey, is his ability to entertain and educate an audience simultaneously. He started as a man who scrubbed pots for 5 years and I give him my upmost respect! Just like many others in the world today, Casey has stories and life lessons we could all learn from but he has mastered a way to show and influence the world. He has over 7 million followers and many of them picked up a camera because of him...

Networking is the best tool anyone can use online and on social media platforms. I use my blog to network with anyone who needs help or motivation to make it through a hard situation or anyone who needs a good laugh from a story they can relate to. There are many successful blogs out there that you can take tips from to make your blog successful, here are a few I chose:

       1.)   https://www.copyblogger.com/

-Copy Blogger is a great site that provides marketing advice.

       2.)   http://mashable.com/

            -Mashable is another site that makes a lot of money from advertising but is consistent with providing current information on different social media platforms.

       3.)   http://failblog.cheezburger.com/

            -Fail Blog is a funny blog site that has a lot of popular videos and memes of failed attempts. Popularity and humor from other failures shows success because some of them may be famous for their videos going viral.

       4.)   http://failblog.cheezburger.com/

            -Lifehacker is another popular blog site that talks about health, technology and life.

       5.)   https://www.mikegingerich.com/blog/

            -Mike Gingerich has a great blog where he talks about new products and he even shows viewers how to use the products. This is a great way to interact with an audience and I tool I would definitely use!

Being a father is a blessing and a privilege but we all know kids know how to cross the line from time to time! I have two beautiful little girls ages 8 and 6. They are active cheerleaders and run their mouths 100 miles a minute. As a parent, I am sure a lot of parents can relate and say there have been numerous incidents where their child has almost made them “go there!” My story is quite interesting….

            It was a great long relaxing weekend after a heavy week at work and the gym. I am an active duty soldier so its easy to tell that my days start around 5AM and end around 6PM and that does not include college homework and whatever else I may have going on. Best part about this schedule is THE WEEKEND IS YOURS…. well sometimes! My youngest daughter, Zy was smiling at me at the dinner table on a Saturday night and lays the most SAVAGE comment on me that I have ever heard from a 6-year-old, “Daddy, how come you sit on the couch and do nothing?!” I swear it was a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb behind her. The room was quiet, she kept looking at me, smiling with that cute little twinkle in her eye. I lost it, picked my daughter up by her cute little pony tails and…. just playing! Let me get back to what really happened. I blinked hard and began to open my mouth but my wife saved me and asked my daughter, “Did you forget that your daddy’s a soldier!?” She puts her finger to her mouth and tries to remember, while my wife winks at me and caresses my shoulder. In moments like these I just get quiet and keep putting food in my mouth until I get my thoughts together. Unlike talking to an adult, you can’t always fire back at kids like you would with an adult because sometimes they just don’t understand. In my household, I am the provider. Hearing my child question what I do could be considered as a sign of disrespect. Instead of cursing my child out and going crazy I decided to do the same thing a lot of men do with their spouses, “Yep, you’re right, I don’t do ANYTHING!” I finished my plate, put it in the sink, and went and sat on the couch!

            I avoided a negative outcome in this situation with my child by playing dumb and avoiding the question rather than getting sensitive about my position as a man being challenged by a child. Instead of fussing cursing and yelling, I left it alone. My wife added her two cents but really and truly, if it doesn’t involve bubbles, Barbie’s, puppies and Doc Mcstuffins, my youngest daughter doesn’t care at this age! So, how could I even be mad in this situation!? If I would have overreacted, I would have regretted it.

What’s up world, I’m Andre’. I named my Blog “Breaking to a New Light.” I know the title may seem kind of cliché like a soap opera or something but I would like to share some thoughts and experiences that I have had in my life with the world. These will be thoughts and experiences that I may have gone through at some point and time in my life or it may have been a thought in my head that could almost have happened. Bottom line, I am sharing experiences that may have pushed me to my breaking point but I managed to always find a way to avoid a negative outcome. A lot of these experiences may be funny or awkward but there genuine. A lot of people may be able to relate to these stories and experiences and who knows, it might even make their day better. My strategy is to step outside of my shell of not “sharing” anything I do with the world. I plan on interacting more with others on their blog sites and getting more tips and ideas to gain more traffic on my page. I’ve been through a lot in my life and I’m sure a lot of others have as well. You’ll never know how many things you might have in common with other people in the world until you share your story. Let’s see what happens!