We recently sat down and chatted with Amberly Stitzel, an interactive marketing manager here at LeapFrog. As a result, we now know that, among other things, when she’s not sleeping in she’s watching TV, and she thinks a certain Disney diva’s recent cinema magnum opus was “so cute.”

What is it you do exactly?: I lead our pay-per-click marketing team.

What’s one thing someone needs to know about you to get an idea about who you are?: People should know that I’m very direct. You’ll never have to ask me what I think about something because I’ll probably tell you and what I tell you won’t be a lie. I will speak up when I think it is necessary.

Biggest fear: Honestly, I’m deathly afraid of fire. I could see the smallest fire and lose it. When I was around 13, my mother was cooking Thanksgiving dinner and as she was basting the turkey in the oven, some of it spilled and caught fire. The flames shot up through the vents and caused something that was sitting on top of the oven to catch fire, too. I wasn’t sticking around. I was out the door before anyone else even moved.

Favorite word: My second favorite word is “subsidiary.” My favorite word is a little content questionable (but still a funny word to say), so we’ll go with #2, which I think is just fun to say.

Least favorite word: Vomit

Favorite weekend activity: Sleeping in and catching up on my TV shows.

Ideal job (other than working for LFI): A singer, probably locally. I don’t want to do the whole stardom thing. I’d want to play at bookstores, coffee shops, parties…nothing like the bar scene because that’s not me. (more…)

Chances are, if you’re on LeapFrog’s site, you’ve heard of Social Media Marketing. While there is so much buzz about social media, I know that much of the population either doesn’t understand what social media marketing is or doesn’t understand how it can be applied in a marketing setting.

So, here’s the scoop.

People are going to talk about your brand whether you’re there to listen or not. The advantage of social media is that you can see what is being said about your brand and join the conversation if you please.

Basically, it’s a super-powered form of word-of-mouth marketing which takes place on the Internet. We all know you’re going to trust the opinion of someone you know more than you would a stranger, so it makes sense you’re naturally going to share this information online as well. This is the basis of social media marketing. It’s about forming a community where conversation can take place about your brand. And what better place than in your own backyard? (more…)

You might think the process of sorting through campaign performance data and preparing client reports is a relatively dry job to perform, lacking any sort of big adrenaline rush. Well let me tell you something….you’re right. Data crunching isn’t one of the most glamorous parts of interactive marketing. Without analytics and reporting, however, there’s no way to separate the winning campaigns from the flops.

To make sure the reporting I create satisfies our clients by providing them the insight they need, I keep a few key points in mind to steer my efforts in the right direction.

All data points are not created equal. All data is useful but sometimes the data that are gathered are biased, making the gatherers look good, maybe even better that they actually are. We might receive data from a vendor who may spin the data to their own benefit. We always pull data using our own analytics tools. We’ll match our results up with a vendor’s to make sure any unusual data are identified. When this occurs, some extra investigation is needed to explain the differences. (more…)

I like to stay on top of what’s going on in the world. For instance, I like to watch the morning news every day. This is usually a very good thing. However, I was watching it when Joe Biden made his statement about how, because of the threat of the swine flu, he wouldn’t let his family get on a plane.

Under normal circumstances, this would not make me worry but I was getting on a plane that same day and flying to Fort Worth where they had just shut down the school systems because of the swine flu outbreak.

As a result, I got a little nervous. I even called around Louisville trying (unsuccessfully) to find surgical masks because the ongoing news coverage made me feel like it was something that I really needed. So while not feeling all that great about it, I got on my scheduled flight.

I expected to see everyone else on my plane wearing masks, but instead many people were not even taking extra precautions. And when I asked the people I sat next to if they were freaked out about the swine flu, they were confused. “Swine flu? It’s like the flu, right? No, I’m not that worried.â€? (more…)

With all the resources out there that can help someone put together a DIY website, it might be tempting to consider having your website built by someone other than a professional, like a freelancer or even your really bright 15-year-old cousin. All these available resources do make it easier to create a decent-looking website. The problem is that while taking this route can give you a website, it won’t give you a protected one, and if something goes wrong and there is a security issue, you won’t have avenues for support.

Security is a serious shortcoming inherent in homemade websites. Someone who puts together an e-commerce site without a thorough knowledge of all the security measures needed to properly lock down the site leaves it (and its customer credit card information) very vulnerable. How vulnerable? A client of mine hired a freelancer to do his e-commerce website. In about 10 minutes, I was able to hack into the site and get all the credit card information stored on it. This was really not good because I am by no means a hacker.

Security has become a much deeper issue for all sites. Hackers can steal your URL, recode your website, start sending out viruses using your website, and steal your identity information. They are very crafty and will have no problem getting whatever they want from and doing whatever they want to an unprotected or improperly protected website. (more…)