In collaboration with local industry leaders, The Centre for Digital Media at Great Northern Way Campus offered an intensive Professional Training Weekend Workshop on October 24 – 26.  The Professional Training Weekend Workshop introduced experts in advertising, marketing, design, social media and web analytics to local professionals in the business community, instructing them on the fundamentals of online promotion, marketing and advertising.  The workshop included a wide range of participants, such as individuals from Tribal DDB Canada, Blast Radius, mod7, Anthem Properties, Motorola, Dish Jeans, SFU, BCIT School of Business, GNWC Masters of Digital Media and many others.

Amber Bezahler and Marty Yaskowich from Tribal DDB Canada had successfully set the stage on Friday evening with the introductory workshop called The Foundation: Optimizing Customer Experience in Digital Media. Both Bezahler and Yaskowich mapped out the current customer experience, discussed benchmarks for site performance and community activation, walked us through designing optimal user experiences, presented a how-to for improving site traffic through SEO and SEM and tools to designing a comprehensive marketing program that leverages multiple channels.  The evening was loaded with tools to strengthen our online presence, and ways to plan our customer experience and optimize engagement.  The session was action-packed with valuable toolkits and strategies and left many wide-eyed professionals asking for more from both Bezahler and Yaskowich of Tribal DDB Canada.

The next day covered two topics, the first was Analytics – Reaching Top Spot in Search with Alexandre Brabant from eMarketing 101 leading the session and the second was User Experience and Design by Oonie Chase and Michael Smit from Blast Radius.  Web analytics seems to be a hot topic in the online marketing industry and not the easiest topic to decipher, nonetheless Brabant was able to go over the basics of PPC management, including cost-per-click benchmarking, user engagement metrics, conversion tracking, URL tracking for numerous traffic sources, and more on Google Analytics.  Professionals were introduced to the Acquisio Search tool and its use for improving the quality of measurement, management and reporting for any pay-per-click advertising program.  After a networking lunch for both experts and professionals in attendance, Chase and Smit led the third session on User Experience and Design.  The creative synergy of both Chase and Smit was the perfect ingredient for this workshop that introduced us to the power of a good customer experience and how it has yielded impressive results for brands like Google, Apple, and others.  The focus was on creating such an exceptional customer experience that strengthens brand equity.  Chase and Smit inspired attendees with case studies and left many to note that although web analytics may be integral to optimizing the customer experience, it is the design of the experience that leaves customers wanting more from your brand.  And, although designing a good customer experience is a challenge to create, with the right ingredients of creativity it is very possible.

Darren Barefoot of Capulet Communications led the final session on The Social Web.  Barefoot introduced us to the many ever-growing social media platforms such as Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Twitter to name a few.  Barefoot explained how social media work, how they are being used by prosumers (consumers that also act as producers), and how they are changing regularly and why we should stay ahead with what’s currently happening in the social media landscape including user-generated content online.   Using several real-world examples, Barefoot demonstrated how we could apply social media tactics to our marketing activities.  The session ended with a wide variety of questions form the audience that pertained to blogging, online social responsibility, virtual worlds and mobile phones and social media integration.  

The Professional Training Weekend Workshop was intensive and fully engaging.  With a group of experts well versed online, professionals were left with several case studies, strategies, tools, and tactics that many can readily apply to enhance their customer experience, optimize traffic, strengthen their online marketing activities and continue to build their brand.  I was fortunate to have participated in the workshop and I learned so much from the experts and professionals in attendance.  I am just as fortunate to realize that as a student of the Masters of Digital Media program with a background in marketing and advertising I am able to further explore new channels of opportunity in digital media, including hybrid social networks, virtual world marketing, web 3.0, alternate reality gaming and use of artificial intelligence in enhancing the customer experience and brand.

I am looking forward to the many more talented experts in the community ready to join us at the Centre for Digital Media and build on the success of the Professional Training Weekend Workshop that left many professionals with greater insight and eager to plan their future marketing initiatives.

 
Here are some helpful online tools picked up from experts at the workshop:

Useful social media monitoring tools:
TruCast Monitor (US-based) and Radian6 (Canada-based) are social media monitoring tools allowing you to scan user-generated content,  HowSociable? is a user-friendly brand visibility metrics search provider and Brand tags is a collective experiment in brand perception based on what people have tagged your brand as.

Useful business tools:
Meetup a website dedicated to local groups interested in organizing meetings offline.  Blinksale provides users with invoicing tools, perfect for the small-based and/or mobile business.  Basecamp is a handy project management site that also improves collaboration on internal and client projects.  Remember the milk is a helpful task-management tool.

For fun, check-out:
MapMyRide it’s perfect for Vancouverites interested in mapping their jogging rides, finding new routes and logging workouts.  

Samer El-Nashar is a first year student in the MDM program.