#googlegarage

[ginaakers]

‪Hanging out with @google as you do TheBusinessShow Olympia (Vera Moda Coat from @brandattic - always get asked these things!) 😀‬ ‪#google #googlegarage #digital #tech #socialmedia #seo #DigitalMarketing #marketing #business #london #smallbusiness #sme ‬ (at Olympia London)

[jowensywrites]

How digital garage can help you get started with online content marketing

First, did I have any prior knowledge of online content marketing before I completed this course? If I am honest, No! Was the course useful? Very much so, it provided a structured and detailed overview to what online content marketing it is and here is how they did it : 

The content marketing module brings you the user through 6 sections. Each section equipped with an informational video outlining key takeaways and finally a “Check your Knowledge” section with scenarios involving made up characters dilemmas involving their business. To proceed you must answer these scenarios correctly and after completing all 6 section, you then do a final quiz to complete the module.

So what were my key takeaways? 

Getting to know your customers

Seems kind of obvious and more like a situation when you are working in a local shop getting to know what Mary’s grandchildren are studying. The title will deceive you however it is important to realise that you do not just rely on the customers looking for you, you can influence how they will find you.

The section shows you how you target the right audience. It outlines from very early on that you need to segment the audience to find the group most suitable for your service, thus making the time and money spent on your digital marketing strategy as cost effective as possible. Then you go about figuring out who they are and what do they like and dislike, what demographic or age are they and what social channels do they use? I found it very interesting and was unaware of the different platforms of analytics which can be used to find out how your target audience looks for your product and how you can pinpoint their online behaviour. One such free platform was Answer the public, where you can search raw insights from the minds of the customers or by simply using the analytics on social media platforms such as Facebook.

Choosing the right content format for your audience

Again, seems obvious but is so crucial. The content which you put out must engage your audience, otherwise they will not click and therefore the potential for business is gone. The different types of content being explained were very interesting and how they differ in the message they will convey.

In my current role, we use different types of content internally depending on who we are targeting (Model students). For example, when producing collateral for stakeholders, we very often use info graphics as they are interactive ways of displaying the quantifiable results from the team to be presented to stakeholders. In this instance we are educating our stakeholders on the benefit of the funding which they feed into the team.

But when marketing our conference ambassador programme online (75% of all conferences brought into Ireland are brought in using an Irish ambassador), we very often use video testimonials as it gives us a chance to have someone who has been through the process of bringing in an international conference convince someone who may only be thinking about it.

 Most of the team’s sales pitches are done through face to face interaction, presentations or via email following the first encounter. However, we do use our social media platforms to “Inspire” the client. The team are even tracked with generating a certain amount of online leads a year via social media.  By providing them with visual content on social media platforms, the planners and event managers can visualise their event in Ireland and are drawn to your destination.

 The team possibly has a shortfall in the sense that they do not have an online platform to entertain their customer or client. Often a lot of the entertainment is done in person (Sounds a bit risqué). Whether this is bringing a Trad Irish band with us to an overseas show or by sending Irish products to our buyers overseas. We currently do not have an online form of content to entertain the customer apart from our social media channels.

Making sure your content is seen online

One of the key learnings was that the internet is full of content and often the audience is saturated with this content. I will again relate what I learnt in this section to my current role. In an industry where every country and even city is competing against each other to win a piece of business, you are fighting to be seen. To do this, the course outlines you need to understand again how your audience consumes their content. In the meetings industry, websites play a huge part for event planners and decisions can be made based on your website information. Having read the article, I was interested to see where the Meet in Ireland team would show up when typing “conferences Ireland”. 

To my surprise and my dismay, our website which has huge amounts of money pumped into it each year was 9th on the list. First on the search list was the Convention centre Dublin as they had paid for the promotion. This you would think would be great but in fact, as a team, we are tasked with driving business into the regions of Cork, Kerry, Galway and Shannon as they also have conference capacity. Therefore, if you were a client who had brought an event to Dublin and were looking at bringing your conference to Ireland again, you might not be aware of these opportunities.

Overall, I found the module on online content marketing very useful. Digital marketing techniques are crucial more than ever as with the current circumstances globally as we cannot meet with our clients like we would normally do. I was happy to see that our team were touching off a lot of the techniques but even happier that I now have a few suggestions on how we perhaps can be better in this area.

[realmrpatrickj]

Standing behind me was the original place where google was first developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin which youtube ceo 👩‍💼 Susan Wojcicki allowed both the creators of google. To rent her garage while they’re in Stanford university to continue developing their google project, not to mention the inside of the garage is where they did all there google presentations. FYI to visit the first google HQ, you’ve to walk between the bush hedge and the fence next to the house which has a red pole labeled the house number “232”. And as your walking down the road it’ll be on your right side! #googlegarage #SusanWojcicki #larrypage #sergeybrin #originalheadquarters (at Menlo Park, California)