Part 1

At a job interview before I became a professor, the hiring manager asked me to do a spot assessment/analysis of their companys web page. Thankfully, I had already done my research into the company and was somewhat prepared, but I had ten minutes to analyze the web page and then discuss what I felt were the strengths and weaknesses of the page. For this assignment, I am going to have you do something similar in order to better prepare you for both this possibility in a job interview and to tie together our work on visual rhetoric, rhetorical situations, AIDA, real world skills, and responding in AIDA format.

Assignment Instructions

Submission You will submit a one-page memo that focuses on an analysis on the current web page and suggestions for any improvements you believe should be made. This should be in proper memo format (since it is interoffice communication), and one page is the maximum allowed length.

Reference Locate a web page in your field of interest (based on your major) and provide the link for the page at the bottom of your memo. You will be analyzing this pages use of visual rhetoric (Are there multiple pictures? Who are the people in them? Are the people reflecting diversity? What colors are the logo? What is the background color? How easy is it to read and navigate? Can you easily locate information? Etc.)

Part 2

For this assignment, I want you to look at the social media feeds for the company whose web page you analyzed in the previous assignment and determine the brand for the company and whether the web page and social media accounts utilize similar tone, language, rhetorical choices, purposes, etc.

Assignment Instructions

Reference Look at the social media presence of the company whose home page you analyzed in the previous assignment. I would check their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and/or LinkedIn. Most companies will have multiple writers who work on these media presences, so it is important to look across at least two or three of them to see if their brand stays the same. However, it is possible that the company is small and only has one social media account (just Facebook, just Twitter, etc.), in which case you will need to dig deeply into their posts to determine their branding.

Submission The submission will be a one-page email to the director of the company after analyzing the social media in comparison/contrast to the web home page and offering suggestions of how to better reflect the brand in social media. You can imagine that you are a consultant who has been hired to perform this service (I have done this for companies before). Your email should be between 150-250 words. Address your email to either the marketing manager, communications officer, owner, or CEO of the company. You will need to do a bit of research to determine who this is.