Matthew's Moments

Disney's latest movie, "A Wrinkle In Time," premieres this year on March 9, in Disney Digital 3-D, Real D 3D and IMAX 3D. With their latest release, Disney was inevitably going to market and promote their show to get audiences to go and see the movie. The story is deemed a sci-fi fantasy adventure film, and stars Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling,  Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Peña, Storm Reid, Zach Galifianakis and Chris Pine.  Ava DuVernay directs this film, and the story is based on the novel of the same name written by Madeleine L'Engle and published in 1962. The film follows a girl on a journey, with the help of three astral travelers, who is searching for her father who went missing after he discovered a new planet. Marketing over social media is nothing new for the entertainment giant, Disney, but this time around they mixed things up a bit. Along with the usual trailers, interviews and social media channels, Disney incorporated something else in ...

Team picture of The Wolves (top row from left to right: Emily Estep, Meghan Hutchins, Elena Matchen, Maggie Rucki and Jaymi Horn) (bottom row from left to right: Darby Beckwith, Haley Ward, Logan Hill and Lauren Steffanni) Wow. This is about all I can say after seeing this amazing cast perform in Sarah DeLappe's "The Wolves." All I knew about the production going in was it was about a girl's soccer team and the scenes are them interacting during warm ups. What I didn't know was how deep and touching the show would be. This is a piece worth seeing again and again. If you're anything like me you'll laugh at the social commentary at the beginning and then cry during the rest of the performance. This review will contain spoilers, so if you didn't see "The Wolves," and do not wish to know what happened in the play, then here would be a good place to stop reading. You started to gain a feeling for the show as soon as you walked into the S...

In Chapter 2 of James McDonald's Social Media Marketing Workbook, McDonald breaks down all of the ins and outs of Facebook. He starts off by reminding everyone why it's still important to market using Facebook. The reason is because Facebook is still the largest social media platform with over 1 billion users all over the world. This boggles my mind because it's hard for me to imagine so many people all over the world who use this website. It humbles me to know that someone from the state over, country over or a different continent completely can and do see the same posts as me. Back on track after my existential crisis, McDonald starts off with the basics and explains the skills we learn on Facebook are easily transferable to other social media platforms. This made me happy because I would love to just learn something once instead of a bunch of different times. I really liked what McDonald had to say about Facebook being like a huge interactive scrapbook because it...

Leslie Jones decked out in her Team USA apparel and ready to take on the Olympic Games In case you have somehow avoided every source of the news for the past few weeks, the 2018 Winter Olympic Games kicked off in Pyeongchang, South Korea on Feb. 9. This year's games have already produced tons of interesting stories like  Russia being banned from the games due to systematic doping , North Korea sending an  'army of beauties' to penetrate the hearts of enemies , a  17 year old who was born in Cleveland, Ohio winning a gold medal in men's slopestlye  (a favorite of mine since I was born in Cleveland as well) and many others. Leslie Jones, a comedian from "Saturday Night Live," is in the midst of all the action for this year's games. Jones was sent by NBC to Pyeongchang to share her unique take on all the latest news with the rest of the world as an official commentator for the 2018 Winter Games. This is her first time doing this job for the Winter G...

After reading the first page of Chapter 1 of Jason McDonald's "Social Media Marketing Workbook" I was able to release a sigh of relief. McDonald quickly let his audience know that this book is going to be "part theory and part practice." This means it won't be super difficult or unbearably basic, which is exactly what I need. I love being challenged and academically stimulated, but sometimes the topic of social media is overwhelmingly large and complex for me. However, other times I feel like I have it pretty much figured out. I keep switching between the two and it is horribly confusing, but this book seems to be the perfect speed for where I am right now. As for the content of the book, I really enjoyed what McDonald had to say. His analogy comparing social media to a party was genius. It makes perfect sense to think of running a social media account like running a party. The goal is to host a party so good people will want more. This is the same goal ...

An extremely talented group of ladies at Ohio Northern University (ONU) are less than a week away from opening the show, "The Wolves," by Sarah DeLappe. The show premiered off-Broadway at The Playwright's Realm in 2016. It was met with rave reviews and received a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in drama. DeLappe's new play was found last year on a website called, "New Play Exchange," by ONU acting professor, Brian Sage. After contacting DeLappe's agents, Sage was able to put the play in the 2017-2018 season. ONU is one of the first places to put on this piece since the New York City premiere. The show is summarized by the New Play Exchange's website with the following:  " A girls indoor soccer team warms up. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors. A portrait of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for nin...

Valentine's Day is coming up so soon! As a broke college student with no idea how to spend the most romantic day of the year in Ada, Ohio, I decided to investigate and come up with great ways to spend Valentine's Day with your special someone while saving money and staying around Ohio Northern University (ONU). 1) Take Advantage of Sodexo's Offer In case you didn't know, Sodexo is the provider of ONU's food options. This Valentine's Day they offer the students at ONU a fancy dinner experience. This meal has multiple courses and all of the foods sound seasoned and tasty, unlike a lot of the other food Sodexo has to offer. Every once in a while, Sodexo really pulls through with some good food and this is one of those opportunities. The price is a little steep with the meal costing 20 dining dollars. However, if you are looking for a way to bring excitement to your Valentine's Day without spending actual money then this is a great option. The sign-up sh...

Cover of the book I read for Social Media Principles Well its's time for another post under the "Critical Analysis of Reading Blog." Since we finished Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick's "The Art of Social Media" book and my workbook for the next portion of the class is still in the mail I decided to write this week's "Critical Analysis of Reading Blog" over the book in it's entirety. One thing I really liked was that Kawasaki was very concise and straight to the point all throughout his book. This made the book very easy to read. The entire book was essentially a list of steps, eventually totaling 123, to follow in order to master social media. Another aspect I really liked about Kawasaki's writing style was how he wrote the book as if he was talking to a friend. The conversational manner of the book made it a very fast read. The book started off in a very simple fashion. Kawasaki discussed how to optimize a profile, which inc...

Cast of Fearless ShenANYgans Saturday, Feb.10 at 8 p.m., was the most recent show put on by Fearless ShenANYgans, the Ohio Northern University (ONU) Improvisation Team. This was an event I had to live tweet for my social media principles class. In preparation for the event I had to promote the fact I was going to be live tweeting from the account I was going to be tweeting from. I decided I didn't want to flood my personal Twitter with tweets about a comedy show so I created a second account and called it @ImprovLiveTweet. I used the most recent picture of the team as my header, and used the ONU logo as the profile picture. As a part of this assignment, all of the live tweets had to have "#aggiesm18" at the end. The goal of live tweeting is to make the reader feel as if they were actually at the event. The best way to do this is to use the tweets to set the stage for readers and then tweet relevant and engaging highlights of the event. This was extremely hard to...

The 2018 Super Bowl aired this past weekend, and for many Americans it was a time to watch the two best teams in the country go head to head in order to emerge victorious. On the other hand, for many Americans who do not view athletics as their forte, like me, the Super Bowl is a time to enjoy the halftime show and some quality advertisements. Some companies are famous for particular motifs in their advertisements. Examples of this include the Coca-Cola Polar Bear, Pepsi partnering with a pop artist and Budweiser advertising using their Clydesdale horses. Budweiser mixed it up this year by opting to go a public relations route instead of using their famous horses. The video can be viewed if you follow this link . Their one minute advertisement showed an average man getting a call in the middle of the night to go to the Budweiser factory. He kisses his wife goodbye and heads to work. When he arrives at the factory, they halt production of beer and instead switch their label on ca...

This week I was able to sit down with Bryanah Austin, co-founder and co-director of Audacia Theatre Project here at Ohio Northern University and record a podcast (listen here) about getting a student led theatre company up and running. I am lucky enough to work with Bryanah and be a part of the company's first show, "Jesus Christ Superstar," as the music director. This is a show that takes a closer look at the later years in life (and death) of Jesus Christ as told from the perspective of the infamous Judas Iscariot. The show was originally conceived by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice and was later recorded as a concept album in 1970. The rock opera finally reached the Broadway stage in 1971 and has since become a worldwide phenomenon. The show is also receiving a live musical adaptation on NBC this Easter with John Legend starring as Jesus, Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene and Alice Cooper as King Herrod. This is all the casting that has come out yet, leaving fan...

Often times people who grew up in the age of social media feel confident they know all there is to know about social media. I am not one who claims to know everything about every social media platform, but I tend to think that I have the ones I use regularly (i.e., Instagram, Facebook and Twitter) pretty much figured out. However, during this week's reading I was proven wrong by Guy Kawasaki. He really opened my eyes to five great, new tips for social media. 1) Finding and Using Popular Hashtags When I was in middle school and just starting out on Instagram I had no idea what hashtags were or how to use them. Once I figured out that they helped more people see the pictures you share, I went a little overboard. I would post what I now realize were bad pictures of myself every day with a multitude of hashtags. I grew out of this phase towards the end of high school and stopped using hashtags altogether. Kawasaki reminded me that using a few good hashtags can really help promo...