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AdPrice.io

My idea for the senior thesis project is to create AdPrice.io, a social media marketing reference tool for the internet. This will be a website that marketers can use to quickly view the current Pay Per Click (PPC) and Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM) for advertisements across the most popular social platforms.

While researching the topic, I used many relevant keywords on Google to try and find the existence of such a tool already online. However, all I came across were social media marketing blog articles, mostly written by advertisement agencies, which sporadically mentioned potentially outdated price figures. There does not seem to be web tool that has been built for this purpose, where the important PPC and CPM numbers for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, Pintrest, etc. are all easily viewable and updated on a single page. Like I previously mentioned, the closest thing I could find was a cluttered list on an old blog article, written by a social media marketing agency which was trying to sell their services. AdPrice.io would not have ulterior motives, and wouldn’t clutter the webpage, making for a fast and friendly experience.

I have purchased the domain, and am thinking of building the site on a TBD wordpress template. With some templates, it is impossible to tell the site is wordpress. I love working with wordpress, graphic design, and learning about social media marketing (something I do a lot of during my free time), so this project would definitely leverage my skills. Hopefully this project can help me land a dream job of working in content marketing for a startup, and helps me to learn a ton about the subject.

Ideally, I would love the price values to be as updated as possible, but I believe it is impossible to gather real time values. I will do more research, but it does not seem like there are any APIs or bots around that grab the current values, and it would be difficult to create these. Since price values do not change very quickly, I was thinking this site could be more of an educational experience where I update the going rates a few times a week (easily viewable on the top of the page), and then break down the individual nuances and strategies for advertising on each of the platforms on the rest of the page. I could also attach a blog as a separate page, which would help for google rankings. I still need to spend time thinking about the type of content I want on the site, in addition to the actual PPC and CPM’s.

As far as backup plans go, I would make a content strategy and video for my startup Vey.io, but right now I’m confident in AdPrice.io and am currently trying to figure out a logo. Thanks for reading!

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Lessons from Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

Professor Randy Pausch (1960-2008) during his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon (9/18/07)

Over the years, I have often found myself falling down the YouTube rabbit hole, consuming countless hours of TED Talks, motivational speeches and lectures from great minds – household names who have changed the way we interact with the world around us. This week, I was lucky enough to watch an inspirational talk that is easily the best one I have seen yet. On September 18th, 2007, Professor Randy Pausch delivered his Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon University. Facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, Randy taught us the ingredients to achieving our dreams.

Once I finished the over hour-long ride, I wasn’t sure where to begin in summarizing my reaction. The first thing I did was send the video to my brother, because I just wanted more people in my life to experience Randy’s wisdom. The second thing I did was look at the notes I had scribbled while watching – a few short quotes and the titles of various concepts he had bestowed upon me.

“Brick walls let us prove how badly we want things.”

The words Randy spoke during his Last Lecture taught me something that I had not understood an hour before I started watching. It was that I want to lead my life like Randy Pausch. Hearing the wildly different childhood dreams that he had, and how he achieved them all through being himself, and having fun, was eye-opening.

I also came to the realization that this was the perfect time in my life to watch this lecture. I am currently in the final year of the Interactive Multimedia Major, and soon I will be venturing into the “real world”. While this fact is extremely anxiety-inducing, Randy’s words helped me understand that I can reach out and grab the tools needed to build my dreams. All it takes is a willingness to work hard, be loyal, never stop learning or challenging myself, and to have fun.

“It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s about how to lead your life”

I want to use Randy’s teachings to help my Senior Thesis Project, as well as future ventures in my life. His words about Head Fake Learning deeply resonated with me, and will remember this concept when building my website for thesis and on my free time. People learning, without realizing they had an educational experience, is a magical thing.

Perhaps the remarkable clarity of Randy’s lecture came from a perspective he gained while facing his tragic diagnosis. All we have is time, but our time is limited. His legacy is far greater than a single lecture, but I will forever connect his name to this video, and forever be thankful to have experienced it.