townsend.bunksite.com

Blog

Still Not on Twitter? Here are 10 Reasons You Should Be.

Still not sure about Twitter, eh? Maybe because it’s because conversation occurs way too rapidly on Twitter for you to keep up, or maybe it’s because you still don’t know the difference between a tweet and a hashtag. Regardless of what your reason is, it is time to rethink your business’s presence on this opportune social platform. Today, Twitter has transformed into a vital component of any integrated social media marketing strategy and you don’t want to miss out.

Here are 10 reasons why your Facebook needs a Twitter account.

1: It’s Free

There is no better bang for your buck than using free social platforms. With over 1.4 billion users, Twitter offers your business a tremendous opportunity to post live updates that can be found by any of its over 1.4 billion registered users. Can you imagine how much it would cost your business to pay for a tool like Twitter? For a business operating on a smaller marketing budget, utilizing a free yet valuable opportunity like Twitter is worth the investment.

2: Go Where the People Are

When it comes to online marketing (or any form of marketing), you need to invest your time in platforms where your marketing messages are being seen and heard. After all, if your marketing messages are not being seen and heard, then what’s the point? According to DMR, there are 100 million active Twitter users on a daily basis with 34% of these users logging into their account multiple times a day. If you’re trying to get the word out about a business update, sale, or promotion, it would be unwise to utilize a platform solely because of the platform’s expansive reach.

3: Build Relationships

Twitter has more active forms of communication than any other social media platform. The platform is meant to be conversational in a way that Facebook isn’t. On Twitter, you follow profiles instead of friends or making connections like on Facebook or LinkedIn, which makes profiles on Twitter more available to the public. This provides your business the opportunity to strengthen relationships with existing customers and reach out to potential customers (We’ll get to potential customers next!). Pro Tip: When building relationships on Twitter, be genuine. Ask your followers questions. Share some humor. Retweet any posts that your followers send to you. Taco Bell and McDonald’s are two excellent examples of leveraging Twitter to build relationships.

4: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Twitter allows users to retweet. If you post shareable and valuable Twitter information, your followers can engage with your post not only by liking and replying to it, but also by retweeting (aka sharing) it on his or her own profile. Retweeting will make the tweet visible on the Twitter feed of other followers. When consumers retweet, it expands the reach of your brand to potential customers. You can think of retweeting as an opportunity for your brand to gain exposure from potential customers via peer consumers. In this line of thinking, it can be seen as an authentic way for users to endorse your business.

5: User Generated Content

There’s no better way to express how great your business is than to let customers do this for you. Just as followers can retweet your tweets, as a business on Twitter you have the opportunity to retweet user generated content pertaining to your brand. User generated content on Twitter promotes your brand in a way that content curation cannot. It’s also a way of showing your consumers that you appreciate the positive content and that you value them. Starbucks does a great job retweeting user generated content.

6: Hash Tagging Helps Your SEO

A hashtag is a simple feature that allows Twitter to organize and categorize posts based on a topic or theme. When you click on a hashtag, you will be taken to every post that also has the same hashtag. Google has also started incorporating hashtags in search results. In other words, hashtagging a search term on Google will not only provide you with organic search results but Google now also provides you with the results from Twitter and Instagram. Learn more hashtag tips here.

7: Online Reputation Management

People will talk about your business whether you’re active on social media or not. Having a Twitter account for your business provides another avenue to put the ball in your court. Through Twitter, you can reply to disgruntled consumers. In addition, Twitter is also a great tool for public relations. In fact, businesses with an aggressive public relations strategy should use Twitter. Because of the nature of the live feeds, Twitter allows your business to be the first to share important news before a consumer, news agency, and the like.

8: Industry Related Conversations

It’s important for your business to stay attuned to industry conversations because businesses must evolve with the changes in its industry and market. Through hash tags, Twitter can connect your business to meaningful industry-related conversations. Twitter chats are a public Twitter conversation that focuses on a specific topic via the use of a common hashtag. Furthermore, not only can you gain insight on industry happenings, but you can also spy on what people have to say about your competition.

9: Make Your Business Stand Out

If you’re a business on Twitter, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to create a custom hashtag for your business. Using a custom hashtag allows your business to become a trendsetter and extends the reach of your creative branding. It also facilitates a greater engagement with your Twitter followers. Additionally, using a custom hashtag can signal to your Twitter followers that the post containing the custom hashtag is extra special.

10: If You Don’t, Somebody Else Will

Last but not least, if you’re not engaging your audience on Twitter, your competitors will be more than happy to do it for you. Consumers today have plenty of options in purchasing power. Marketing has stepped out of just a one-stop shop and has transformed into maintaining customer relationships before, during, and after a purchase. If your business is currently opting out of a Twitter profile, you are providing your competitors with the opportunity to engage your audience and potentially tap into your current consumer base.

When you finally decide to set up your business’s twitter profile, check out these five businesses that are using Twitter the right way. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow @SearchInfluence on Twitter for valuable tips and tricks for enhancing your business’s online presence! Happy tweeting!

August 16, 2016
Search Influence Reviews: Here Are 4 NOLA Restaurants Where 2 Can Dine for Under $50

With over 1,400 restaurants to choose from, deciding where to dine in New Orleans is no small feat. With tempting options from world-famous chefs like Alon Shaya, John Besh, and Emeril Lagasse, deciding where you can afford to dine in New Orleans can be a challenge as well. There are workarounds—you can stalk Groupon discounts, eat exclusively at happy hours, or skip the entree and only buy appetizers, drinks, and dessert. However, sometimes you just have to know where to go. Here are four great restaurants around the Crescent City where two people can dine for under $50—tax and tip included.

#1: St. Roch Market

Located in the Bywater, St. Roch Market was originally built in 1875 as a neighborhood open-air market. In 2015, it was refurbished after destruction by Katrina and 10 years of abandonment. The new market features an airy, black and white interior, complete with stately columns and stalls for 13 local vendors. This bustling locale combines the convenience and variety of a food court with the atmosphere and quality food of fine dining.

The wide array of dishes and vendors provides an endless combination of foods and prices, but a few favorites are the Dirty Mac ‘n Cheese from Dirty Dishes—creamy smoked gouda mac and cheese with crawfish tails and tasso—and Nola Trio from Fete Au Fete—a combo platter featuring Crawfish poutine, red beans and rice, and shrimp and grits. Together, these dishes come to $25.63, leaving the other half of your budget free for cocktails or craft beers at the Mayhaw Bar.

#2: The Rum House

In a restaurant-packed corner of the Garden District, The Rum House stands out from the competition with its laid-back Caribbean atmosphere. Its colorful, outdoor picnic tables are packed at any hour of the afternoon or evening, and it lives up to its name by offering varieties of rum from over 20 countries.

While it can be tempting to split an enormous plate of Damn Good Nachos ($13.95) and spend the rest of your $50 on adorable margaritas served in mason jars, tacos are the true pride of The Rum House. Order several a la carte ($3.95–$4.25 each) or go for the Taco Trifecta, a combo platter featuring three tacos and a side. One great combination is the Brisket taco, the Lamb Vindaloo taco, and the vegetarian Rasta taco with a side of Coconut Mango Rice—$17.64 with tax and tip.

#3: Parkway Bakery & Tavern

Located in Mid City, overlooking Bayou St. John, Parkway Bakery & Tavern serves some of the best po’boys in the city—just ask President Obama! The restaurant opened in 1911 as Parkway Bakery and started making their signature dish in 1929 to feed factory workers at the American Can Company across the bayou. Now, the walls are decorated with almost 100 years of NOLA paraphernalia, including framed newspapers, local high school banners, and historic political signs.

Parkway offers po’boys in two sizes: small ($3.65–$9.70) and large ($4.95–$13.55). While you can order the traditional lunchmeat options, seafood is the undeniable way to go. Keep it classic with fried shrimp or oysters dipped in remoulade sauce from the sauce bar. If you’re feeling ambitious, go all in for the Surf and Turf—slow cooked roast beef topped with golden fried shrimp and gravy. Either way, two can eat lunch or dinner for well under your $50 budget.

#4: Cochon Butcher

Next door to award-winning Cochon in the CBD is Cochon Butcher, a combination butcher shop, sandwich counter, and wine bar. This niche restaurant offers a less expensive, more casual, and equally delicious opportunity to enjoy Cochon’s culinary creations. Providing all the charm and freshness of the rapidly disappearing neighborhood butcher, it also offers house meats and sausages sold by the pound.

All of Cochon Butcher’s sandwiches sell for $10–$12 before tax, but two delicious suggestions include Cochon Muffaletta—a twist on the classic Louisiana sandwich, featuring house meats—and the Pork Belly sandwich—complete with mint and cucumber on white bread. One sandwich each leaves plenty of your budget to use on local Louisiana beers, like the classic Abita Amber, Parish Brewing Envie Pale Ale, or Great Raft Reasonably Corrupt Black Lager.

Of course, these are just a few of the delicious and affordable restaurants that New Orleans has to offer. For further eating, check out Cowbell in Carrollton, Casa Borrega in Central City, or just wander down your street and see what tasty locations you can find!

Image 1 Credit | Image 2 Credit

August 15, 2016
Two New Hires Join Search Influence

Kayla Fletcher and Mildred Padilla recently joined our team at Search Influence.

Kayla Fletcher

Kayla is our newest Junior Internet Marketing Assistant. Born and raised in New Orleans, she is currently a senior at the University of New Orleans, studying English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Prior to Search Influence, she worked at Barnes and Noble and spent most of her time in the children’s department. Kayla enjoys running, reading novels and comic books, watching movies until she falls asleep, and listening to Prince really loud when she’s home alone. Kayla is also into cars, and she wants to learn how to drift someday.

Mildred Padilla

Mildred is delighted to join the Operations Team as the new Search Influence Product Manager. After graduating from Loyola University New Orleans, she went on to work as a Product Manager at Warner Brothers in the United Kingdom and then at Google Android in Silicon Valley. She is also an avid film fan. Upon her return to New Orleans last year, she worked on over a dozen TV shows and movies filmed locally as a featured background actor. Her last role this summer was as a nurse on the upcoming Wolverine 3 film.

Welcome aboard, Kayla and Mildred.

August 12, 2016
How to Leverage Pokémon Go to Drive New Sales for Your Business

From the first time I booted up Pokémon Blue in my Gameboy Pocket way back in ‘98, I dreamed of being the very best—like no one ever was. Fast-forward to July 7th, 2016, and we all actually live in a Pokémon World. Once Pokémon Go was released, it quickly smashed the previous records of most downloads in a week, fastest app to ten million downloads, and in less than a month after its release, it has topped over twenty million downloads. This is great news for Nintendo. Prior to the release of Pokémon Go, their market share was showing a strong downward trend. The Wii U console was not keeping pace with the powerful technology of the PS4 and Xbox One, they had to liquidate most of their majority share of the Seattle Mariners due to new management, and they had not released a new handheld system (or even talked about a new one) since November 2014.

How Does This Affect Me?

After a little more background, I’ll make this relevant to the business world, I swear. In addition to the 151 unique Pokémon that people are running around trying to catch, there are two very important structures that have been placed in this game — Gyms and Pokestops.

The image above is a Pokémon Gym. Once a player reaches Level 5 in the game, they join the blue Team Mystic, the yellow Team Instinct, or the red Team Valor, represented by the “legendary” birds Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, respectively. These three teams constantly battle their Pokémon for control of these locations and can train with their teammates to help their gym gain more prestige, which allows more teammates to add their Pokémon to it.

This image is a Pokestop. These locations were selected as landmarks to add the travel aspect of the game. By tapping on a Pokestop, a detail screen pops up which has the name of the location; a photo of the location; and in some cases, a brief description of the location. Swiping the image causes it to spin, which makes it drop a few items and gives the player 50 experience points towards leveling up their avatar. Pokestops can only be activated every five minutes so, under normal circumstances, it is beneficial to collect your items and continue moving on towards the next Pokestop. However, even the most seasoned Pokémon Trainer needs a break every now and then. Unfortunately, to be the very best, training can’t stop. Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, thought of this and included an item called a Lure Module in this game.

When a Lure Module is set at a Pokestop, Pokémon are attracted to its location and appear without having to walk around constantly. With enough trainers present, it is even rumored that rare Pokémon show up to the Pokestop. Lure Modules are very seldom given to players as they level up but they are also available for 100 Pokecoins, which is equivalent to $0.99. They only last for 30 minutes, so players are constantly purchasing them and placing them at their favorite Pokestops.

Okay, So How Does This Actually Affect Me?

Yes, there is actually a point to all of this, but it requires a little bit of creativity. Businesses that normally serve as gathering places for large groups of people make ideal candidates for utilizing Pokémon Go to bolster their business. First, you need to see if there is a Pokestop near your business. If a player can stay at your business with the Pokestop active, you’re golden. At the base level, it costs a Trainer a dollar per half hour to keep a Lure Module active on a Pokestop. Once the Lure Module is set, other trainers will be attracted just as much as the Pokémon. The Lure Module owner is the particular subject that you want to collaborate with.

Offering the owner of the Lure Module a small discount is one way to attract business. The chance of getting more business increases as long as you continue to have Lure Modules active. If your business is a coffee shop, maybe consider offering a pastry with a coffee if a customer shows you that they set up a Lure Module. If your business is a bar, maybe consider offering the Lure Module owner a $1 discount on a well drink or domestic beer if they decide to set a Lure Module. The potential is limitless. Some larger locations, such as zoos and parks, can have multiple stops. A zoo, for example, could advertise all of their Pokestops and offer a discount for Pokémon Go players.

Pokémon Gyms may seem harder to work around than Pokestops, but once you consider that every player has already pledged feverish allegiance to their team, a Pokémon Gym all of a sudden becomes the best thing that could’ve happened to your business. In this case, there’s really nothing that you actually have to do. People will eventually migrate towards your business to try to maintain control. It would be worth mentioning that your establishment is a Pokémon Gym on your social media profiles to help spread the news. Maintaining team neutrality would be a good idea; no one really goes into a New Orleans Saints bar and proclaims the Atlanta Falcons are the best team in the league.

That’s a Lot to Poke-think About

Though this may seem very straightforward, any sort of campaign, especially those that involve online presence, is oftentimes left up to the pros. Here at Search Influence, we offer a full suite of online presence options, one of them being Social Media Optimization, which would allow you to relax and let us create your PokeAds for you.

Image 1 Credit | Image 2 Credit | Image 3 Credit | GIF 1 Credit

August 9, 2016
Top 5 Search Influence Blogs from July 2016

If you are like many of us at Search Influence, you took a few days off last month to enjoy the summertime. Now that August is here, you may have a few minutes to catch up on your reading. Here are our top five most read blogs from July.

1: Search Influence Reviews: Here Are 5 of the Best Bars We Visit After a Long Day at Work

Our team members enjoy grabbing a nice cold one after a long day at work! Check out our top five list of local bars—each with a wide selection of beers and delicious bar food in venues only New Orleans can provide.

2: What Happened to Facebook’s 20% Text Grid Tool?

Facebook officially rolled out this new update to the 20% text rule in June. Read about it and how it affects Facebook ads in this updated blog.

3: Learn How to Create a Snapchat On-Demand Geofilter to Boost Your Next Event

Snapchat launched the ability for users to create On-Demand Geofilters for birthday parties, weddings, business events, or just for fun! Learn how easy it is to submit the filter along with some key metrics to gauge your filter’s success.

4: 12 Things You May Not Know About Online Marketing

New to online marketing? Here are 12 things that surprised some of our team members when they started working at Search Influence.

5: 10 SEO Blogs You Should Be Following

Every day, we see traditional marketing grow more obsolete. Learn about 10 of the most informative and essential SEO blogs you should be following.

August 4, 2016
What Is Canonicalization and How It Helps You Get Found Online

For those who are unfamiliar, canonicalization can be an intimidating, seven-syllable term. Fear not—it’s nowhere near as complex as it sounds, but it is definitely important, particularly in terms of helping your business get found online.

Defining Canonicalization

When it comes to SEO, canonicalization refers to normalizing multiple URLs by redirecting to a single, dominant version. In other words, you need to determine if you want your site to be www.yoursite.com OR yoursite.com. If you choose www.yoursite.com, then yoursite.com should redirect to that URL. If you can pull up both versions, then you have an SEO problem. Why? From a search engine’s perspective, there are two identical sites that exist with the same exact content. Since the search engines cannot decipher which version of the duplicated content should be shown to individuals searching for the subject matter, it penalizes both sites. This will make both versions appear lower in search rankings. This concept is actually essential to the creation of a successfully optimized website.

What Web Developers Can Do to Help

With canonicalization, individual web pages can be loaded from multiple URLs for the purpose of successful SEO best practice. This becomes a problem when pages with the same content have different URLs, as the links that are intended to go to the same page get split up among multiple URLs. Web developers have established methods for redirection so that mismatched URLs can be changed and combined. Two main types of redirection are the 301 and the 302. With the 301, an HTTP status code indicates the permanent move of a hyperlink. The 302 indicates a temporary redirect message.

Good vs. Bad Canonicalization

Canonicalization is known to be among the most important aspects of organic SEO. To put it simply, good canonicalization results in search engines crawling more pages on your site, which gives link authority, so you have a stronger link profile. This also means there are fewer broken links across other sites. Bad canonicalization, on the other hand, produces the same results, just with the opposite effect.

Case in point: when it comes to good canonicalization, one product description or page of content should never have multiple URLs. Every resource—every page, image, video, etc.—must have one Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and never more.

Image 1 Credit | Image 2 Credit

August 1, 2016
Local SEO: How to Clean up Citations for Better SERP Visibility
Google, Bing, and other major search engines are constantly changing and developing their search engine results pages (SERPs). Major components of these pages include organic, paid, and local results. With the ever-increasing use of mobile, these local results are growing in importance in overall SEO strategy.

So how does one account for local SEO, you may ask?

This is where citation cleanup comes into play.

Citations are the presence of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on any website. As search engines crawl websites and find instances of a business’s NAP, they look for consistency in that information, so the more accurate and consistent your citations are across the internet, the better your business will rank in a local search (i.e. in Google and Bing maps as well as in the maps packs on SERPs).

Ensuring this consistency is called citation cleanup. From my experience, there are four major steps to effective citation cleanup:
1. Ensure your address is USPS verified.
2. Update your NAP on your website.
3. Audit and build your citation on the major data feeds and directories.
4. Find your remaining existing citations and make sure they are all consistent.
Let’s break this down and go into a little more detail.

Ensure Your Address Is USPS Verified

This is an important place to start because, as you’ll find later on, many of the directories you end up submitting to or cleaning up have standard formatting that in most cases aligns with USPS’s own standards. So, if your format doesn’t match it will be harder and less likely to achieve consistency.

Update the NAP on Your Website

After the USPS verifies your address, make sure it’s reflected on your website. Include your whole NAP as a structured citation. Your website is the baseline for your NAP; this is what Google and other crawlers will compare other citations to, so it must be correct and formatted here.

**For a little extra oomph, consider marking up your citation on your website with structured data like Schema. This will help crawlers understand it better as your NAP.

Audit and Build Citations on Major Data Feeds and Directories

The reason I put this before doing actual cleanup of existing citations is because citation dissemination is a hierarchical process within a large ecosystem of directories. There are a few feeds that push to other smaller directories where your citation may already exist, so updating these and the major directories first will make cleanup later on a little easier.

There are four major feeds to check first: Infogroup, Acxiom, Localeze, and Factual. These feeds trickle down to other directories and local search engines, including Yahoo! Local, Apple Maps, SuperPages, etc. This is also where that USPS-verified address comes into play, especially. Part of the reason these four directories are so authoritative is because they have such strict guidelines on address verification.

Along with those feeds, you also want to update the major local directories. Since many of these are directly on those search engines’ sites, this is absolutely essential to local rankings. These major directories include: Google Maps, Bing Maps, Yelp, YP, Foursquare, etc. You may also consider auditing your social media accounts to make sure your NAP is correct there as well.

Find Remaining Existing Citations and Make Sure They Are All Consistent

Once you’ve built your major citations, you’re ready to do some additional cleanup, if necessary. It’s useful for all businesses to be aware of their citations across the internet, but some businesses may need additional cleanup more than others.

If you’re a business who’s recently changed their name, address, phone number, or website, you should definitely consider more extensive search and cleanup. The same goes for those who are still seeing problems with their local rankings. You may be missing a citation or set of citations that’s affecting your rankings.

There are a number of ways to do this. You can use Google just to search for instances of your citation manually, or you can use a service to do a more in-depth search for your citation and its variations across the internet.

Either way, you’ll find that your citation can be updated on some sites more easily than others. You may need to submit forms to have it updated, contact website administrators, or go through other channels to get it done.

If you’re business is at this point, you may find it more cost-effective to hire an agency or service to do this kind of cleanup.

However, once you’ve successfully cleaned up your citations, you’ll rest easier knowing that your business information is correct across the internet.

Citation cleanup is an important factor in local and overall SEO. By ensuring NAP consistency, you’re gaining valuable traffic from local search engines! To learn more about why NAP consistency is important with your SEO, you can watch this short video.

Image 1 Credit
July 25, 2016
How Can Facebook’s New Profile Layout Affect Your Business?

Facebook recently rolled out a new layout for business pages and the marketing implications could be more than initially meet the eye.

Profile Picture Positioning

We’ve all seen clever interactive cover photos with the overlapping square profile image on the standard desktop site. A drink from the cover photo is poured into a glass in the profile picture. A man in the profile picture passes a ball to a woman in the cover photo. A giant cat in the cover photo peers down on a tiny human in the profile picture. The square profile image also acts as quick and effective brand recognition when seen standalone in a newsfeed as well as when viewed on the mobile version of Facebook. But with the profile picture now located in the sidebar to the left of the cover photo, the playful effect of the overlapping images is null and void.

Example 1:

Example 2:

How Does the Relocation Affect Your Business?

Although businesses won’t be able to get creative with the overlapping interactive profile images, the relocation of the square profile picture actually frees up a lot of valuable visual real estate on the cover photo that was once covered up by the image, company name, and CTA buttons. Even if you didn’t have interactive profile images on your business page, there’s a lot of space—over 20% of the area of the cover photo to be exact—that was considered off limits for content and is now fair game. Even on the new mobile version of business profiles, the cover photo isn’t covered up by the profile picture or text.

Additional Sidebar Elements

Beneath the profile picture, you’ll also see tabs that were once accessible under the cover photo on desktop sites. In the old layout, only a few tabs were visible, with the additional tabs located in the dropdown “More” option. With the new sidebar, however, all of the tabs are now visible. The buttons that were located on the cover photo itself are also positioned right below it, with the main CTA button located on a more eye-catching blue background. This left-aligned navigation also stays in place while the user scrolls down the page.

July 22, 2016
Search Influence Reviews: Here Are 5 of the Best Bars We Visit After a Long Day at Work

Sometimes it takes having a drink in hand to start the weekend off right, but it helps to know the best places first. Luckily, we have a few pretty good ideas on where to go to eat, cut loose, and relax after a long week at work.

Erin Rose

There’s an Irish pub near a corner of Bourbon Street where you can get a decent poboy for cheap, or a surprisingly tempting grilled cheese sandwich instead. Top off one of these treats with a frozen Irish coffee to get you through the night or a Bloody Mary to help you recover in the morning, and you’re ready to have some fun! Erin Rose also has the benefit of getting you into the French Quarter without having to deal with the brunt of ‘enthusiastic’ tourists that perpetually travel down the road.

Cajun Mike’s Pub & Grill

Cajun Mike’s is that hole-in-the-wall perfect for the end of a Friday, especially when you can trust the bartender to take your order and remember you when you come by again. There’s nothing like good old-fashioned bar food and drinks at a price that you won’t hate yourself for in the morning. Well, you won’t hate yourself as much anyways.

Spitfire

If you tend to haunt New Orleans bars regularly, but the name doesn’t sound familiar, it might be because you knew the place by a different name and under different owners. But whether it was the Whirling Dervish, or the Blue Crystal, nothing can stop Spitfire from being a great place for a good time close to the heart of the French Quarter. Feel free to stop by on Wednesdays for free burlesque dancing!

Moxy

Associated with the Marriott, hotel bars like Moxy have been popping up across the nation to offer people quality food, drink, and a hotel room right above the bar. The hangout itself has board games, inspirational and trivia books, and an array of unique and interesting foods (ever heard of a pizza on pita bread?). Now, that being said, everything from the food and drink to the hotel rooms are on the pricey side, so it’s not really a place to go check out more than once every so often.

Carrollton Station

And, of course, there’s Carrollton Station. This place isn’t really as convenient to get to anymore, but we still make our way to this truly awesome place to eat, drink, and be merry (or Pippin). Some nights, they have live music or an open mic night, though the quiet patio in the back is always open to those just looking to relax.

No matter where you tend to hang out at after the workweek comes to an end, it’s all about how the place appeals to each person that matters most. As always, when enjoying yourself, stay safe and don’t drink and drive.

Instagram Image Credit

July 21, 2016
Search Influence Partners with YouthForce NOLA for Second Summer

For the second summer, Search Influence has partnered with New Orleans-based YouthForce NOLA, a career readiness organization developed by “Educate Now!” that helps match students with local businesses in order to offer real world work experience. According to their website, the organization aims to create “training pathways that prepare students for high-wage, high-demand careers and rigorous post-secondary options.” As part of Search Influence’s commitment to the program, we have welcomed three interns to our team this summer, DaJuan Breaux, Kerriyelle Maxwell-Knight, and Tyriell Poche.

“Search Influence has had a long standing relationship with Educate Now!, one of the founding partners of YouthForce NOLA”, said Search Influence COO and Co-Founder Angie Scott. “Ingrained in the culture of Search Influence is giving back to the New Orleans community.”

What They Do and What They’ve Learned

In June, DaJuan, Kerriyelle, and Tyriell joined the Production Team and immediately started assisting with Social Media Management along with other projects. All three shared some thoughts about working at our tech company and what they have learned thus far about the company culture at Search Influence.

“I love it because my whole life I was involved in tech,” said DaJuan. He cited how much he uses technology and social media in his daily life and that it’s a great opportunity to utilize it professionally. “I also like it because I know I have something to put on my resume.”

When asked what drew her to YouthForce NOLA, Tyriell shared, “I just wanted to get my experience in the job world.” She also expressed how she’s learned more about working with other people and how communication in group work is essential. “It will benefit me in the long run because I want to run my own daycare [one day].”

Kerriyelle echoed that sentiment, “I have learned it’s okay to be open and communicate with other people—if you ask questions, the work that seems hard isn’t so hard [anymore].” She is also enjoying the work environment. “I like how comfortable it is. I see you can be yourself [here].”

A YouthForce NOLA Success Story

Current employee, Jason Plain is evidence of YouthForce NOLA’s success. Jason started working at Search Influence in the summer of 2015 as an intern through the YouthForce NOLA program. His hard work and dedication secured him a position as a part-time employee on the Production Team.

Thus far, the partnership between YouthForce NOLA and Search Influence has proven to be beneficial not just for the interns but for the company as well. It has been a great way to reach out to the New Orleans community and help them get a glimpse into a career in the tech industry.

“Each individual given the opportunity to work with us has been hungry for more education in online marketing,” Angie explained, “and we are excited to give it to them.”

Instagram Photo Credit

July 19, 2016