Perfect Search Media Internviews: November 2016

‘Tis the season for a new installment of internviews. You know, interviews with our interns. Get to know our Junior Analysts Courtney Culligan and Joe Langhenry. 

Spoiler alert: If we combined their dream brunch guests, you’d be drinking bottomless mimosas with Ron Swanson, Leslie Knope, Andy Dwyer, Mark Twain, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ernest Hemingway. Where’s our invite?

Courtney Culligan, Junior Analyst

1) Where are you from? Describe one of your favorite places to visit when you're home.

I’m from Saint Paul, Minnesota! My favorite spot back home would have to be Minnehaha Park. It’s a stunning regional park with hidden trails, swimming spots, and the crown jewel, a breathtaking waterfall in the center of it all. People flock from all over the city to hike the trails, photograph the waterfall and take in Minnesota’s beauty. Once you’re worn out from the walking, you can wander to the local seafood restaurant and take in the views (and the crab cakes).

2) What are the most surprising things you've learned about digital marketing so far?

What surprised me the most was first diving into Google AdWords and Google Analytics and trying to grasp the amount of data that flows in and out of both tools each day. I never realized that my thoughtless searches, such as “Where to eat Thai food in Chicago” could eventually lead to a restaurant reconfiguring their keywords to make sure they would pop up in that search. And that that information is readily available in these platforms. It’s unbelievable!

3) How would you explain your internship to your grandparents?

Picture digital marketing as the Yellow Pages. There’s hundreds of places and companies to choose from and the only thing you can do it sift through them all. That’s where digital marketing comes in.

Say you’re looking for a plumber to fix your sink. PPC (pay-per click advertising) would be the ad space shown throughout the directory. If you flipped to the “Plumbers” section, you’d find highlighted and bordered ads of the companies. SEO (search engine optimization) would be pulling the top ranking and most relevant plumbers and organizing them at the top of the page. Got it?

4) Imagine you're a bigwig at Google and you're supposed to come up with the next big update. Dream big. What new feature would you add to Google?

Google College Search. This extension would become the central hub for future college students. They could customize a profile, link it to their high school and let Google help them with one of the most difficult questions someone has to answer – where should I go to college?

Google would utilize Analytics to find schools that are cohesive with their searches and interests and create organized reports of where they should attend and why. All the while being as simple as a Google search.

5) What three people (dead, alive, fictional, you name it) would you want to invite to brunch?

Definitely Ron Swanson, Leslie Knope and Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation. The entire brunch would be Ron complaining that there wasn’t enough bacon with his bacon and eggs platter, Leslie discussing waffles and politics, and Andy playing with his food. It would be quite the unforgettable experience.

Joe Langhenry, Junior Analyst

1) Where are you from? Describe one of your favorite places to visit when you're home.

I am from Naperville, IL, a western suburb of Chicago. My favorite place to visit when I'm home is El Burrito Mexicano. (Still the best burrito I've ever had)

2) What are the most surprising things you've learned about digital marketing so far?

The most surprising thing that I've learned so far is exactly how much effort goes into SEO. When you're online and certain sites pop up on the results page, it seems so effortless. Now I know how much thought and planning goes into every ranking on any search engine results page.

3) How would you explain your internship to your grandparents?

I would say it would be like If was handing out flyers for a dentist. The flyer has all the relevant information on their practice as well as their phone number.

The difference would be that I'm only handing flyers to people who are currently looking for the exact thing I'm promoting. For example, people who currently have a toothache and/or need a new dentist.

4) Imagine you're a bigwig at Google and you're supposed to come up with the next big update. Dream big. What new feature would you add to Google?

I would add a restaurant feature so that you could order food straight through Google without having to go to some poorly designed website. You also would only have to input your payment info once with Google wallet. It could eventually progress to food delivery with their self-driving cars as well.

5) What three people (dead, alive, fictional, you name it) would you want to invite to brunch?

I would invite Mark Twain, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ernest Hemingway. Obviously, all three are great storytellers, so I would be able to sit back listen to them one-up each other with their amazing experiences. Twain would be for humor and Hitchcock for horror. I also picked Hemingway because he is a great writer, but given his reputation, he could probably pour a great drink as well.

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Are you ready to explain a digital marketing internship to your grandparents? Good news. You can apply to our digital marketing & data analysis winter internship now.