Resume

I absolutely love advertising as it is the ultimate manipulation; a good ad get into your head and motivates you to do something. Communication patterns and information dissemination drive my obsession in media buying and social media. I’m a self proclaimed technology geek who is enamored with the possibilities technology offers.

Ok so technically there is no resume here, it seemed a little redundant as this blog alone proves that I am passionate about and knowledgeable of social, digital and traditional media.

The below is a recap on my training and responsibilities.

I’ve spent the last four years at a boutique agency in San Diego growing from an Assistant Traditional Media Planner to the Director of Digital Media (a department I founded). Working in traditional media I learned the fundamentals of media planning and buying utilizing traditional tools such as Qualitap, Arbitron, Nielson and Strata. I was also in charge of the proprietary Customer Survey System, Cross Sell Analysis and maintaining all research projects.

As a Traditional Media Planner/Buyer I worked on local and regional accounts and was responsible for researching, planning, negotiating, buying, tracking and posting all buys. My traditional media plans typically combined standard radio and TV buys with station promotions, events, display and streaming. I love a good integrated media buy.

When we fell short staffed I volunteered to take on Account Coordinator duties on our largest account and supported the Account Services team as needed. After learning a lot about client service and account management, I was relocated to the Business  Development team because the agency principal recognized that my organizational skills and systematic approach to workflow were needed to streamline the process of new account acquisition.

I continue to maintain my role within Business Development because I get a thrill out of the entire process. Finding business that could benefit from our services, figuring out ways to get us in the door, developing our account strategy and pitching. As part of the Business Development team I have brought on three (3) government contracts, four (4) new accounts and various project work.

Over the last two years I’ve been teaching myself digital media and developing a full breadth of services to offer clients. As the Director of Digital Media I develop all digital strategy for clients, present campaigns at client meetings, maintain department budgets, execute all digital campaigns, optimize, analyze and write monthly reports. My experience covers it all, from website audits and development to social media and emerging technologies to display, SEM and SEO.

As most web folks qualify their expertise by quoting the year they started working online, I’ve provided a timeline of the milestones of my online and computer experience.

  • I was awesome at Oregon Trail back in 1992
  • I fought my siblings for computer time so I could beat Civilization I (1994-95) and II (1995-98)
  • I had my first email address all the way in 1995 @AOL.com
  • My first exploration into social networking was with a profile on Bolt in 1996-97
  • I was in (and quickly out of) chat rooms way before Chris Hansen throughout the late 90s
  • I downloaded music from Napster in 1999-2000 (only legal songs, of course)
  • I was on AIM all the time from 2000-2001
  • My college pictures were all stored on Webshots from 2001-2004
  • I discovered my love of Advertising sometime in 2003
  • I jumped on TheFaebook.com bandwagon in 2004
  • My love for technology and Wired Magazine were born during an ‘Advanced Communication Systems’ class at UCONN in spring 2005
  • I threatened to leave Facebook when they let high schoolers on the site in fall 2005
  • I joined MySpace in late 2005 because no one was on Facebook out west
  • My first blog about working at an ad agency fresh out of college lived shortly in 2006
  • Numerous blogs were passionately started and died quickly from 2006-2008
  • I started working on digital media buys and strategy in June 2007
  • I joined Twitter in early 2008 and jumped headfirst into social media
  • This blog was created July 1st, 2008 and its my longest running blog
  • I started my first website in March 2009
  • ErinIs launched as a consulting business in April 2009 so I could take on additional project work

If  you have any additional questions regarding my professional experience (or would like a proper resume) please email me at erin_norton(at)att.net.