NateGottronIsLife

     Almost there guys! Almost another semester in the books at ONU. As I reflect on the past semester, I'm very grateful for the experiences. I challenged myself with some difficult classes that really try to prepare me for the future. As the final grades are beginning to come more clear, I am happy with how my grades turned out this semester. It was another great fall semester in terms of soccer as well. It was so fun to be able to play collegiate soccer with my younger brother and watch him develop into a better man on and off the field. This fall season, we were able to make it to another NCAA Sweet 16. Although it wasn't necessarily the finish that we wanted, we are very confident that this coming season will be ours. We are not losing any players from last season and we will have a very deep and experienced roster. I couldn't be more excited about what's to come with ONU Men's Soccer. We also have a lot of talented recruits that have chosen to take their talen

     Only a few weeks left. We are almost there! I know that everyone on campus is not looking forward to their exams in the next few weeks but just know that we are this close to winter break! As I approach dead week, it's important that I am taking in all of the information in class to give myself the best chance of getting a good grade on the exam. Dead week is nice considering we get a lot of time to prepare for our exams. It allows me to take a deep breath and recap everything that I have learned over the course of the semester. Procrastination is something that I deal with and I feel everyone on campus deals with in some form. Although it is normal to procrastinate sometimes, exams are not a time to put off studying in the last minute. I have procrastinated on assignments and exams in the past and I can say from experience that I did not do so hot on those exams. The exam period is grueling for everybody, regardless of how many exams you have that week. I myself have three ex

     As the fall season comes to an end, there is much to takeaway. Even though losing in the Sweet 16 was not how we wanted our season to end, we were able to accomplish many feats that were not in our favor. For example, we able to end the season regionally ranked #3, we won our first OAC tournament title since 2015, and we were able to travel to unknown territory and defeat the #1 team in the nation. Although we started the season nationally ranked #13 and had aspirations of winning a national championship, it was important that remained steadfast and take it one game at a time. This season was a roller coaster, full of highlight and full of lowlights. However, we were able to conquer those weaknesses by trusting each other on the field to do their job. Our coach always said throughout the season, "Know your role." What he meant by that was to master the thing that you offer to the team and trust that the other players have mastered their role to come together and perform

In this blog, I will cover some of the tricks that influencer use in the marketing realm to promote products and promote their image. Influencers have become a very popular and very prevalent throughout recent years. There are many influencers that are heavily involved in social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Although many of these influencers use their image, and likeness to gain followers and attract their audience, this opens up countless opportunities for influencers to get involved in social media marketing. I can say that I follow a lot of social media influencers like David Dobrik, Mr. Beast, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo to name a few. One of the things that all of these influencers have in common is that they are all heavily involved in promoting themselves along with promoting different products that they are using. By posting content online for their millions of followers to see, this will allow these influencers to gain a substantial am

     The Polar Bears have the pedal to the metal at the moment. This past weekend was a real test for the team as they faced off against Lynchburg University and Messiah University. The Polar Bears were able to come out on top in both games with one game going to penalty kicks, and one game ending in regulation. ONU was the underdog of this first round draw. We were not expected to be able to defy the odds and take down two of the best teams. However, the belief in the boys to make it through defied every obstacle. It is normal for a team of our caliber to be intimidated by Lynchburg and Messiah. However, we were able to show them what playing for each other looked like. The boys held strong and their belief grew stronger after every minute played. After the final whistle blew, there was pandemonium around the field. It was such a rewarding feeling knowing that we all believed and kept working to ultimately accomplish our goal of making it to the Sweet 16. Although it was a great feeli

TikTok is growing into one of the biggest social media platforms in this era. In this blog, I will go over some of the characteristics that go into social media marketing with this particular platform. As of right now, TikTok is the #6 most popular social media platform and is continuing to grow. There is over 1 billion active monthly users on TikTok that target users in the 18-24 age range. This statistic certainly checks out because there are tons of college students around the world that use TikTok. I am a frequent user of TikTok and I enjoy looking at content that people post and also on the marketing side, I see tons of advertisements for different products. There are tons of businesses that are adopting TikTok as a main platform to promote their products. Due to the fact that there are tons of active monthly users and tons of teenagers that are curious about trying new things, it makes it easy for businesses to market on this platform. TikTok is also a leading platform for conten

     It's time for the post-season. The Polar Bears are headed into the NCAA tournament after defeating Otterbein in the OAC tournament to earn an automatic bid. The team is flowing with confidence heading into the first round as they try to continue to keep their winning streak alive. The Polar Bears are playing some of their best soccer at the moment and the team is flowing with confidence all over the field. The selection show for the tournament took place on Monday where we would finally find who we played against for the first round. The team all gathered in the locker room where the selection show was being streamed. Everybody was energetic and anxious to see our school show up on the bracket. We waited for about 20 minutes before we saw our name and the team we were playing against. We saw our opponent and instantly knew it was going to be a tough match-up. The Hornets of Lynchburg University located in Lynchburg, Virginia are the hosts and our first round match-up. The othe

     It's that time of the year! The OAC tournament is underway. The Polar Bears took the second place spot in the regular season standings, giving them a first round bye in the OAC tournament. Otterbein are the new champions of the OAC regular season and they also earned a first round bye in the tournament. The first round competitions took place yesterday in Alliance, Ohio where Mount Union took on Marietta, and also in University Heights where John Carroll took on Capital. Both games came down to the wire as every team was fighting to stay alive and advance to the semi-final. Both games were very intense as they both went to extra time leaving fans on the edge of their seat to see if their team could find the game winning goal to see them through. John Carroll found that goal in the final 18 seconds of the game to close out their game and advance to play Otterbein in the semi-final in Columbus. On the other side, Mount Union came out on top with a goal in the final 2 minutes of

     Hello everyone! I'm back again to tell you guys all about my experience at the "Flute Favorites" music recital tonight. The recital took place from 8-9pm this evening in the Snyder Recital Hall in Presser Hall on campus. The performance was led by flutist, Dr. Erin Helgeson Torres and pianist, Dr. Stephanie Titus. The recital consisted of many different types of genres including romance, dark and eerie, and upbeat pop. The music they played ranged from many different time periods as well including the mid 1700's all the way up to modern 21st century from different classical musical composers like Bach, Hindemith, and Mouquet. Also, for each piece, Dr. Torres and Dr. Titus used different techniques for us to understand what it was like as a composer back then.       The environment in the recital hall was very welcoming and warm. There were many attendees and we were all amazed at the talent up on the stage. I was very appreciative of how Dr. Torres was able to he

In this blog, I will discuss the different methods that individuals and businesses can market themselves on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media platforms that are being used by millions every month. LinkedIn is mainly used for professionals to connect with other professionals, businesses, and and employers. LinkedIn statistically has over 740 million active monthly users and it ranks as the #18 most popular social media platform. I am an avid user of LinkedIn because I am an upperclassmen in College, I need to start looking for internships, and potential jobs that meet the criteria that I would see myself doing. LinkedIn has been very helpful for me to discover new businesses to connect to and reach out to. There are a lot of social media platforms that have users that post fake information or have fake accounts. However, according to the book, LinkedIn is the most trusted social media platform after a recent study from Business Insider. LinkedIn gives busin

          The Polar Bears are back on the hunt! After a strong performance against Muskingum on senior day, the win put them in second place in the standings as John Carroll and Otterbein both dropped points. These results from other teams were exactly what we needed. This week marks a crucial a week for us as we need to keep the pedal down and focus on 6 points against Baldwin Wallace and Marietta. If we are able to earn 6 points this week, we would put ourselves in the best spot to play in the post-season.            Tonight, we face-off against the Yellow Jackets of Baldwin Wallace. They are a mid-table team that are on the stone bubble to play in the OAC season. They are in need of as many points as possible this week to give themselves the best chance to play for the OAC title. This doesn't take away the fact that the Polar Bears need 3 points as well to put them in first place in the standings and receive a first round bye in the OAC tournament. Baldwin Wallace has lots of ta

The past week has been a roller coaster of emotions. This past Saturday, ONU took on John Carroll in the biggest game of the OAC. The energy was lively heading to the game for both sides considering we beat them on their home turf last year. It's safe to say that the Blue Streaks wanted some revenge after last year. It was a rainy day at Kerscher Stadium for the game and tensions were rising leading up to kick-off. The environment of the game was extremely lively, similar to an NCAA tournament game. We knew we had to have the mentality of win or go home. The beginning whistle sounded and both teams came out flying. John Carroll struck first with a goal in the first 15 minutes of the game. However, that did not stop ONU from trying to find an equalizer in the first half. The Polar Bears were knocking on the door for the entirety of the first half but were not able to find the goal. The second half started and the pressures were rising as John Carroll punched in another goal about ha

In this blog, I will go over the main concepts that go into social media marketing on Pinterest. This social media platform was founded in 2009 by a group of three men named Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp. Pinterest itself is a network of new ideas. New ideas are known as a "pin" which can depict an image, video, or source. The cool thing about Pinterest pins, is that users can save different peoples pins to their own profiles. Pinterest is the #15 most popular social media platform with a total of 445 million active monthly users. The social media platform is mostly used by women as 76.2% of the people that use Pinterest are female.  In the marketing aspect, Pinterest is very useful for brands considering there is a wide range of people that use the platform. Pinterest is the perfect place for brands to gain a lot of traffic everyday. It's easier for brands to develop a target audience on Pinterest because there is a ton of traffic everyday and tons of new

          In this blog, we will be going over the marketing capabilities of Snapchat. Snapchat is very prevalent in the teenage demographic and is continuing to grow. Snapchat is one of the leading social media platforms today with over 750 million active monthly users. The app consists of using your mobile camera to send pictures and videos to friends. Snapchat has some very cool features including stories, editing options, filters, and a snap map. Similar to Instagram stories, Snapchat stories only last for 24 hours and snaps can only last up to 10 seconds before they disappear once opened. There is a quote from the book that says, "In fact, a Snapchat survey of 19,000 people reported that Snapchat is the #1 platform where people enjoy sharing what life is actually like or even random/funny moments." Snapchat gives users the opportunities to express themselves in spontaneous ways to connect with others.            Marketing with Snapchat is also very efficient. Active month

          The Polar Bears have been making it happen the past couple of weeks. Starting off the OAC with Mount Union, Otterbein, and Capital and walking away with seven of the nine points available. It is safe to say that the boys have started to click with each other and come away with some hard fought results. Today, ONU Men's Soccer traveled to Tiffin to face off against Heidelberg who doesn't have a great track record against OAC. However, we knew that this team wasn't going to just roll over and let us win. We knew that scoring a few goals early was going to get the job done to comfortably get the three points. As the first whistle blew, the Polar Bears scored within the first five minutes of the game with a goal by Freshman winger Colin Gottron. Once we opened the scoring, the nerves were relaxed and we were able to play some great soccer. Moving the ball around, taking shots from many different angles, and scoring in all different fashions, the boys were doing it all

         It's OAC time! The wait is finally over. The conference started off with #9 Mount Union. The game had tons of anticipation before the kick-off. The Polar Bears knew they were going to be tested against Mount as they headed into conference play 9-0. Although this record after the non-conference is fairly impressive, the conference games are the main fixtures that matter when competing for a conference championship and a bid to the NCAA tournament. The boys remained calm and composed and knew that even though they are undefeated, there is still opportunity to steal points from the leaders. The first whistle blew and the boys came out with a lot of energy, eager to punch in the first goal. Unfortunately, that didn't come to fruition as the Polar Bears conceded a penalty kick halfway through the first half. The score was 1-0 in favor of Mount Union heading into the break. The halftime team talk really fired the boys up to want to win this game. It didn't take long afte

         In this blog, we will uncover some of the ways to efficiently market using X. It is common knowledge that X is formally known as Twitter. Similar to Instagram, it is a social media platform that users can post images and videos that other people can see. Twitter was originally founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey with the goal of creating a messaging system similar to texting. Within a few years, the platform grew exponentially. However, Elon Musk was intrigued by the platform and wanted to own the platform himself. He did so in October 2022 and purchased Twitter for $44 billion. The change from Twitter to X was a very dramatic change and it caused a lot of confusion among users of Twitter. This caused X to completely change their brand to ensure that they kept their users.                     X is a marketing powerhouse and businesses understand that there are tons of monthly active users. There is a quote from the book that states, "In addition, 69% of X survey respondents ha

          Instagram has revolutionized the social media marketing industry. It was founded in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. With over 2 billion active monthly users, Systrom and Krieger struck gold by starting this platform. According to the book, the US has the second highest platform usage behind India. Instagram targets an audience around the 18-24 year old demographic. With that being said, Instagram targets kids in high school and college. Considering Instagram targets a young demographic, there are many businesses that can take advantage of advertisement opportunities. I can say as a frequent user of Instagram that I have seen my fair share of advertisements from a wide variety of businesses. More businesses have adapted to using Instagram Business which can take their profiles to a new level. With Instagram Business, they can see the analytics behind the content they are posting and use that to their advantage. When I use Instagram, I like to look at the data behind th

      The non-conference is finally over. After a lot of tough competition throughout the month of September, the boys after a long time can take a breath. The Polar Bears finished the non-conference with a record of 4-4-1 which is not up to ONU standards. The boys are not satisfied with how the first part of the season went. However, every team is now preparing for conference play meaning it's a clean slate for everyone. Although non-conference is an important part of the season because it gives us an opportunity to play tough opponents and get good results to build our ranking, the conference schedule is the ultimate test to play for a conference championship and get into the NCAA tournament. We are the reigning regular season champions of the OAC and if we want to defend our title and get a bid for the NCAA tournament, the boys need to have a flawless conference schedule.         The boys have an extremely difficult test this Saturday at home against the #9 ranked Mount Union. T

     In this blog, I will share some thoughts on the reading of Chapter 4, "Marketing with Facebook". It is common knowledge at this point that the founder of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg. He was a graduate from Harvard, and he founded Facebook in his dorm room at the University. It took a little while for Facebook to finally become one of the dominant social media platforms that we know today. According to a statistic in the book, "Facebook is the only social media platform to reach more than half (57%) of all internet users". This is a staggering statistic knowing there are other powerhouse social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. As of January 2023, Facebook has the highest number of monthly users on their platform. Facebook tends to target the middle age demographic with predominantly male audience. To this day, a lot of companies have Facebook accounts to reach their target audiences through advertisements. For a company to have so

     Over the past weekend, the Polar Bears took a trip to Chicago to play two games against two solid nationally ranked opponents. The weekend started with North Central, which was a tough game for the boys, dropping a tough loss 3-1. After the game, the team was struggling to come together to figure out the issue that was going on for the past few games. The boys had to have a short-term memory because there was another game to be played the very next day against a similar opponent in North Park. North Park had a lot of anticipation before the kick-off considering we knocked them out of the NCAA tournament last year. We knew it was going to be a physical game with lots of ups and downs for both sides. The game was level at 1-1 for most of the game until in the last four minutes of the game Junior center back Nolan Schirmer was able to put the Polar Bears ahead 2-1 with a goal from a cross. The final whistle blew, and all the boys erupted with relief. This was the bounce back we truly

     In chapter 13 from the book "Essentials of Social Media Marketing," it talks about social media marketing campaigns. "A campaign refers to a set of planned and coordinated activities geared toward achieving a goal." Setting goals within an organization is extremely important because it will motivate employees to be more effective and productive. Marketers have adopted using integrated marketing campaign which involves using marketing tools that revolve around the goals of the organization. According to the book, some examples of integrated marketing communications include advertising, SEO, social media marketing, and web marketing. When using social media as your main form of marketing, it is important for them to reach a broader target market. Using social media makes it easier to determine your target market and promotes a wide range of consumers. Another idea that social media marketers use is the AIDA model which stands for attention, interest, desire, and

This past weekend for the Polar Bears was not the way we wanted it to go. Friday Sept. 8th, the boys faced off against a strong Calvin side. It was a hard-fought game and unfortunately Calvin came out with the win with a goal in the second half from a set piece. Despite the tough loss, the team didn't have any time to dwell because we had to set our focus quickly on Colorado College the next day. The Tigers were coming into this game having just defeated the Wilmington Quakers 3-1. It was another hard-fought matchup that was anyone's game. The Tigers were the first to punch in a goal in the first half to take the lead. However, the Polar Bears didn't give up and they were able to equalize quickly after. Although the final score was 1-1, the game was detrimental to the Polar Bears national ranking, as we dropped out of the top 25.  The squad has little time to reflect on the previous games because it is time to pack our bags for Chicago. The boys have another back-to-back we

      Today, Nate Hecker and I got the privilege to speak with my Dad today about the ins and outs of business and social media. He works for Duro-Last Roofing as a manufacturers representative which ultimately means he is self-employed and he works as an independent representative. His job revolves around selling products to different roofing contractors and roofing distributors around Ohio. My Dad received his civil engineering degree from The Ohio State University in 1996. He shortly after got the opportunity to work for them as a representative for the western Ohio area. He has now been selling roofing products and contracts for over 27 years. He says, "My favorite part of the business is that everyday seems to be unique." He believes that getting to meet new people and figuring out new roofing problems is what makes the job so enjoyable. Bryan works with multiple different manufacturers so it keeps him on his feet and allows for more variety in his work.        My Dad ha

    This past weekend for ONU Men's Soccer showed two promising performances to take them to 2-0 on the season with a win against Kenyon and Oberlin. The atmosphere at both games were electric and you could feel the passion between the teams as they compete for a victory.      The Kenyon game felt like a movie. Home season opener and under the lights on Kerscher was all of the motivation the boys needed to go out on the pitch and compete. As the first whistle blew, the fans erupted as it signified the start of a new campaign and a fresh start. The flow of the game was very intense as bodies were flying around the pitch trying to cause turnovers and get in good opportunities to score. Kenyon was the first team to punch in a goal early in the first half to put us on our heels and give us a wake-up-call. After the first goal, the game was more intense and the Polar Bears were eager to equalize. Not too long after the first goal, Gage Foster was able to catch the Kenyon defense sleepin