The third Search, Analytics and Social Media conference (SAScon) in Manchester promises to be bigger and better than ever. Not only is it offering a great line up of internationally renowned speakers but is also attracting great attendees who will contribute to the networking and debates during what promises to be lively sessions. One of these attendees will be Lisa Dickinson a small business owner in Manchester who wants to learn more about Search and Social Media Marketing for her business.
SAScon Manchester
SASCon takes place on the 17th and 18th May 2012 and it is just one of many reasons why the Manchester Search and Social Media Marketing community is a great asset to the region. The organisers of the conference are also active supporters of the #SSMM course at Salford Business School which is now delivered from the cutting edge MediaCityUK campus of the University of Salford.
The course is delivered in partnership with industry speakers, who share their knowledge of latest practice and offer delegates the chance to show their skills by writing a blog post – the culmination of their learning experience. The blog posts and their presentations have been judged and the coveted prize includes Free Entry to the SASCon conference.
More than just the Queen’s Jubilee year for a Manchester Florist
her flowers were presented to the Queen on her 2012 Jubilee visit to Manchester when she opened MediaCityUK
most importantly,
she had won the best blog post and presentation which entitles her to attend SAScon 2012 conference.
Lisa Dickinson is an inspiration for many Small and Media Sized organisations, who as a Manchester based small business owner is challenging the perceptions of Mary Portas and many others that Social Media and Search Engine Optimisation, rather than helping to bring about the demise of the High Street, can actually be a lifeline for it.
Lisa received the SASCon free entry prize from Richard George – one of a team of great industry speakers who make this Search and Social Media Marketing a unique cutting edge learning experience.
Photo: Lisa Dickinson and Richard George 28th March 2012.
Do you want to learn more about Search and Social Media Marketing?
It will particularly benefit established Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), who already use social media but are looking to increase their return on investment. The particular focus is on the increase of trade with Europe and how Social Media networks can help in developing business opportunities. Additionally, the seminar is also looking to develop a better understanding of student placements and highlight good practices. Participants will be able to identify ways of offering student placements as a means to increase their growth.
How is the workshop structured?
9:15 – 9:30 – arrival and refreshments
9:30 – 11:00 – focus group evaluating past experiences with Social Media networks and student placements and the identification of participants’ training needs
11:00 – 12:30 – How to use Social Media to identify appropriate business contacts
12:30 – 13:15 – Lunch provided
(The practical sessions will be informed by the findings of the focus group)
13:15 – 14:00 – Best practice in the use of Facebook
14:00 – 14:45 – Best practice in the use of Twitter
14:45 – 15:00 – Refreshments
15:00 – 15:45 – Best practice in the use of LinkedIn
This is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious Computer Science, Software Engineering or strongly related field graduate to fast-track their career development as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Associate in organic search engine optimisation; e-services process development; and interactive website development. The project will provide opportunity for the successful candidate to deal with issues of systems design and integration with the goal of implementing an innovative business system. Candidates with interests in areas including Web2.0 development, the mobile delivery of services and information security are strongly encouraged to apply. The successful candidate will undertake a 2-year collaborative project between Freeclaim Solicitors, a leading professional services firm, and University of Salford (Salford Business School). The post will be based in South Manchester, and the post holder will take a leading role in developing the firm’s online business to innovate in the marketplace, increase efficiencies, profitability, increase new clients, develop new systems and deliver an enhanced service.
The successful candidate will receive extensive practical and formal training, gain highly desirable specialist e-business skills, broaden knowledge and expertise within an industrially relevant project, and gain valuable experience from commercial and academic mentors. The KTP Associate will benefit from a Personal Development Budget of £4,000 and will have the opportunity to register free of charge for a postgraduate research qualification.
Purpose and key responsibilities of job
The KTP will enable the partnership to meet the technical challenges and provide the technical capability and strategic focus to deliver a fast, convenient, secure and interactive client service. The project will develop and operationalise e-Law through:
– Detailed review and audit of current service offering
– Development and implementation of a workable E-Law prototype
– Development and implementation of E-Law beta system
– E-Law full system release
– Review and Evaluation
Qualifications, skills and competencies required
Candidates should possess (or be near completion of) an Honours degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a strongly-related discipline at 1st or 2.1 standards. The candidate should be self-motivated with an ability to work independently and to tight deadlines within a dynamic and small team environment. In addition, s/he must have strong programming skills as well as a genuine enthusiasm for applying advanced computing techniques to a real-world problem. Strong knowledge and understanding of programming languages are essential. Team working and flexibility will be a key requirement.
Contract type – Fixed Term
Duration of contract (state number of weeks or months) – 24 months
Primarily based at the company premises in Media City Salford, the successful applicant will manage the project supported by the experienced staff from both Fast Web Media Ltd and the University of Salford.
FWM is an award-winning digital marketing agency turning over £2 million per annum. They are involved in the design and development of digital marketing services, specialising in search marketing, search engine optimisation, technical development, social media and mobile.
The UK’s digital advertising market is currently worth over £4bn (25% of the total UK advertising spend) FWM has identified a need for a Dynamic Campaign Management Tool (DCMT) that would allow precise monitoring, tracking and management of campaigns across the full spectrum of digital media properties.
Purpose and key responsibilities of job
The industry faces a number of specific problems – a consequence of its relative immaturity. For example, the ability to quantify the effectiveness of different types of digital advertising.
The KTP will develop an integrated online system with a holistic Dashboard interface enabling a summative view of an entire campaign across multiple channels and the capability to adjust campaigns in real time to respond to live events thus influencing buyer behaviour. E.g. a campaign which uses Google TV channel initiates a lot of twitter activity about a product, the tool will allow a company to monitor and engage in this interaction; thus adverts can be strategically positioned on the particular social media channel such as Twitter (minimising pay-per-click time) for a critical period to capitalise on public interest.
The DCMT will offer specific benefits to campaign management and decision-making. Sophisticated tracking and access to live trends will enable more precise calculation of Return on Investment (ROI). FWM will lead and contribute to the reputation of the digital marketing industry by developing a transparent solution which will offer unparalleled access to information and offer opportunities to interact with campaigns; be able to predict the performance of campaigns.
The project will develop and implement a Dynamic Campaign Management Tool (DCMT) for integrated media and digital marketing campaign management through:
Objective 1 – Development of a Dynamic Campaign Management Tool (DCMT) conceptual model
Objective 2 – Develop and implement a workable beta prototype version
Objective 3 – Develop and implement full release DCMT
Objective 4 – Digital industry commercialisation
Objective 5 – Review and Evaluation
Qualifications, skills and competencies required
The following criteria is essential when applying for this post:
– A good undergraduate degree (minimum 2:1) in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or similar quantitative and analytical discipline
– Experience in Digital tracking and reporting tools such as Google analytics, Social Media etc
– Business knowledge in digital marketing campaign management or accounting or financial modelling
– Excellent IT/IS Skills and competence in continuously updating skills in the dynamic environment of technological change
– An effective communicator both orally and in writing with excellent interpersonal and analytical skills
– Empathetic approach – enjoy meeting people and able to motivate and inspire a range of people from different background
– Ability to undertake multiple tasks, work under own initiative and/or as part of a team, and lead a team.
– The ability to be assertive and to drive the project forward and lead staff at all levels through a programme of change
– Professional attitude
The following criteria although desirable are not essential when applying for this post;
– Experience of a contemporary programming language (preferably object orientated)
– Experience of interactive website development, especially in a small size enterprise
– Some commercial experience
– Experience of third party APIs and data sources
– IT project management
– Web analytics
Contract type: Fixed Term
Duration of contract (state number of weeks or months): 24 months
Manchester Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Social Media Marketing training provides the key knowledge and skills people need to work in the growing SEO and Social Media marketing industry – says Anthony Mcloughlin.
From 26th January 2012, this course will be offered right at the heart of the region’s digital and media economy at the University of Salford’s new state-of-the-art facility at MediaCityUK:
10 Steps to start your SEO and Social Media Marketing career
Anthony McLoughlin from Burnley, graduated from the course in November last year and has already found that it has helped him completely change his career path for the better. As part of his studies he wrote and presented the following blog post on “SEO Career – 10 Steps to Help You Get Yours Up and Running”.
While working as a technical clerk at a conservatory roofing company, he began to take an interest in digital marketing. He explained:
“I didn’t mind my job, but I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. I started to read up about Pay Per Click advertising and then progressed into taking an interest in SEO. I found it so interesting that I decided I wanted to develop a career in the SEO industry.”
Commuting from home once a week and participating in online discussions and self study using the online training material from SEMPO, it was not long until Anthony was able to write a blog post about a career in SEO using his newly gained knowledge and skills.
“The Search & Social Media Marketing course has helped me tremendously,” Anthony continued. “Before the course I barely knew anything about SEO and social media marketing, and now I can talk confidently about the subjects and give advice to people.”
And, it was not long until Anthony was offered a job as a Digital Project Co-ordinator at Burnley-based Tone Digital Marketing Agency.
“Learning from industry speakers from the Manchester SEO community was the main highlight of the course,” he said. “They gave me some fantastic advice and inside knowledge that only people in the industry know, and I’m adopting the advice and ‘secrets’ in my new role right now.”
What can we lean about Innovation from Spectrum Plastics, www.n0tice.com, Salford Lads’ Club and the Working Class Movement Library? At the Innovation through Heritage event held at the University of Salford on Friday 11th November, these four organisations shared their experiences. One key lesson learned for me was that:
“Whether your organisation is a business or a ‘not for profit’ organisation, you have to continuously innovate in order to keep your organisation’s mission relevant to your prospects, audiences or visitors and your organisational heritage could be of great help in doing so!”
The event began with lunch and networking, which were sponsored by the www.enterpriseculturalheritage.org project and this was followed by eight Pecha Kucha presentations:
Neil Robinson – Salford Business School, University of Salford – Armistice Day: Somme, sea and sand; From Middle Earth to Salford and back again.
Antonio Benitez – School of Art and Design, University of Salford – The impact of an ageing population in museum audiences.
Stephanie Huede – Charme Graphic Design – Image and Idylle
Anna Catalani – School of Art and Design, University of Salford – The Yorùbá Diaspora and Museum Collections.
Mike Nevell – School of The Built Environment, University of Salford – Community Archaeology: Assessing Significance and Impact.
Carolyn Downs – Salford Business School, University of Salford – Exploiting Cultural Heritage: Mecca vs The Government
Jon Monk – Business Group Salford – Doing Business in Salford
Aleksej Heinze – Salford Business School, University of Salford – Enterprise Cultural Heritage: What is it?
The Pecha Kucha presentations highlighted the diverse ways in which both tangible and intangible heritage elements impact on our society, and offered ways in which we can use heritage to innovate by understanding our past.
The question of “Cultural Heritage – How can it open new opportunities?” was explored by Kath Doran – Managing Director of Spectrum Plastics.
T Haynes Chorley & Co. Ltd., now trading as Spectrum Plastics, is a business that has been around since 1922. Kath talked about the way that the original idea of printing on paper has evolved to laser printing on special plastic to allow them to stay current and yet maintain their heritage of printing. The printing services offered now are available on most substrates including: PVC, metal, glass, acrylics, self-adhesive vinyl, self-cling, wood – some of these materials were not around when the original printing was developed.
Learning through experience and the wealth of knowledge that has been passed down the generations has allowed Spectrum Plastic to maintain its competitive business position in printing. Kath said that one of the most important assets that the company was particularly proud of was its staff and the way that this core value remained. Because of the strong sense of belonging to the business staff take pride in their jobs.
In one example, Kath illustrated the sense of staff loyalty to the business through their suggestion to move to a four-day working week to minimise the impact of the recession. Despite the fact that the business did not have any need to do so, staff saw the reduction in printing orders and offered to reduce the working week to help the business. In another example, Kath referred to the extensive archives of all printing that was done over the years and the creative inspiration this offers to Spectrum Plastics – an exercise she felt was in itself inspired by the enterprise cultural heritage training material.
Innovation through Tools and Technology – Satisfying local needs online
Sarah Hartley talked about the community engagement project, about.n0tice.com, which re-examines the idea of local news and information in the context of a SoLoMo (social-local-mobile) to create a digital community noticeboard. No stranger to information technology, Sarah blogs about journalism, social media, local news and online communities and is a regular writer on The Guardian’s Northerner blog www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner
Sarah discussed the increasing trend for Glocalisation – where individuals share a common interest and think globally but act locally by developing online communities. The idea itself has been around for a while – local noticeboard existed and could be said to belong to the intangible heritage of communities. Now information technology enables this idea to be made more interactive and with the addition of Social Media based principles – where everyone can share and comment on everything – this technology is enabling as well as facilitating dialogue and hence changes in the community.
We could not let N0tice.com go unnoticed for our event and it was great to see the live blogging functionality from the Innovation through Heritage event which was skilfully done by Sarah Hartley and Nigel Barlow and had another user by the end of the session – Erin Maochu. First impressions – almost as easy as twitter for posting and writing updates, good mobile interface – but you need to be signed in, in order to be able to read notices and updates from others. For the Desktop version, images as nice as they are do tend to take a long time to load, so going to the ‘mobile version’ makes waiting a bit less frustrating…
Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before
Steven Flower and Leslie Holmes talked about how Salford Lads’ Club utilised a chance connection with the 1980’s band The Smiths – to help preserve and continue it’s 100 year legacy of providing services to young people.
Established in 1903 Salford Lads Club has had to re-invent itself from the first time it offered a camp to its members in 1904 to continue to “Brighten Young Lives and Make Good Citizens” (its moto) using Social Media Surgeries, Digital library of fans on Flickr, Heritage Projects including Swedish Drill, Film Shoots and Location, Gigs and Concerts and a Boxing Gym amongst other ways to stay relevant to the community’s needs.
The club set an ambitious aim to realise a £1,000,000 Appeal! Salford Lads have already raised over £730,000 towards this target (July 2011). Visit their website to help Salford Lads Club reach their target.
The fourth and final speaker of the Innovation through Heritage event was Lynette Cawthra, who looked at the question of “Struggling To Get Your Voice Heard?”
Lynette has focused on maintaining quality in an age of quantity since she was appointed a Manager at the Working Class Movement Library in 2006 with a remit to ‘explore, develop, and implement methods of presenting the resources of the Library in new, more exciting and accessible ways’.
At a time of public expectation of ever-present access to digital information and yet also of severe funding cuts, Lynette is faced with the challenge of how to manage these two conflicting themes; one of the ways that technology is going to help in facilitating this is the digital archive offered by the University of Salford.
Online donations are also welcomed by the Working Class Movement Library
How can we help you to develop innovation in your business?
The four speakers demonstrated how intangible heritage, in the case of Spectrum Plastic and n0tice.com as well as tangible heritage such as building of Salford Lads Club and Working Class Movement Library can be used as a source of innovation.
As part of the MNEMOS project, our international team have developed free management training material for anyone who is interested in understanding how he or she could use Heritage – by integrating it into Brand Management, Change Management, Heritage Management and Intellectual Property Rights Management training – please help us to develop this further by completing this survey and join our LinkedIn open Community!
Have you attended the Innovation Through Heritage event and would like to add to this your views? Please leave your comments below!
Ahead of the opening of its new facility at MediaCityUK, the University of Salford, Salford Business School has announced a new partnership focusing on research and innovation with leading digital marketing agency Fast Web Media.
It also reflects every aspect of the University’s own vision of high quality education, a commitment to industry-relevant Research and Innovation and collaboration with leading digital and media businesses.
The partnership will also provide excellent opportunities for Salford students to take up internships and short-term placements and to gain experience working with Fast Web Media experts.
As competition for graduate jobs becomes fiercer, the additional experience these initiatives offer will give Salford students an edge in the market.
Stuart Wells, Director of Management Development Programmes for Salford Business School, said: “Our culture at Salford is tied to being innovative and enterprising, and this partnership places Salford Business School at the forefront of emerging technology development.
“Search and social media marketing is one of the fastest growing areas in the whole digital marketing arena and this is a fantastic opportunity to formalise the already great relationship we have with Fast Web Media. We are looking forward to collaborating even more closely on a variety of Research and development projects at the dawn of a new era for the University at MediaCityUK.”
Fast Web Media is a Manchester and London based digital agency which provides clients with award-winning digital services, specialising in online marketing, search engine optimisation, mobile applications, social media and website development.
Mike Flynn, CEO of Fast Web Media, said “Fast Web Media are delighted with this partnership and look forward to collaborating with the team at the University of Salford.
“We’re confident our track record of award-winning digital marketing work will complement the excellence of Salford Business School and we look forward to innovation and successes in the near future.”
Salford Business School has a significant research expertise in digital media, including industry focused professional courses such as the evening course in search and social media marketing, that is accredited by SEMPO Institute and is delivered in partnership with several Manchester based agencies.
The partnership with Fast Web Media is building on the existing strong industry links that Salford Business School has developed and this will offer the company the opportunity to contribute to curriculum development and shared research activity. Research in search and social media marketing is also a thriving part of the internationally renowned Information Systems, Organisations and Society (ISOS) Research Centre.
The University of Salford will be opening its new facility at MediaCityUK in October, the building itself will become home to more than 1,500 students and staff and will be packed with cutting-edge technology which will fuel teaching and digital and media research.
Fast Web Media are also moving to MediaCityUK, relocating their head office to the same location at the end of this month.
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The SEO & Social Media Training Giveaway is now CLOSED! The winner will be announced on the 1st September 2011 at the SSMM Open Evening.
This is a unique opportunity to join a course that is regularly oversubscribed – it is more than a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Social Media Training course – you will have a chance to learn from experts in the industry from:
Brilliant Media
Latitude Digital Marketing
MEC Manchester
Pleer SEO & Web Design
PushON
Salford Business School
SEMPO Institute
This is your opportunity to win a free place on a Search & Social Media Marketing course worth £2000 – this includes both the Foundation and the Professional course course as well as three online SEMPO courses!
What do you have to do?
Simply write a comment on this blog post with the reasons why it should by YOU who gets the free place on the Search & Social Media Marketing course!
*Terms and Conditions
1. There is no cash alternative available.
2. Prize is only valid for the Search and Social Media Marketing Course at the University of Salford during academic year 2011/12.
3. One entry per person.
4. The prize is not transferable.
5. Competition closes on Thursday 25th August at 12:00 noon.
6. Details of the winner will be announced at the Search and Social Media Marketing Open Day on Thursday 1st September 2011 and published on www.searchmarketing.salford.ac.uk.
7. The competition is not open to University of Salford staff.
8. Entries will be judged by the Search and Social Media Marketing Programme Team.
9. Entrants must be contactable by email within a week of the closing date.
“I was thrilled to win the SAScon ticket based on the presentation I gave for my final SSMM blog post about the Google Panda Update. The SSMM course has proved a very valuable experience. My search skills were honed intensively using SEMPO material along with the Salford lectures and expert speakers, allowing me to apply methodologies immediately at work. Going to SAScon will be the icing on the cake!”
Thanks to SASCon 2011 organisers
The latest Professional course of Search & Social Media Marketing (SSMM) was delighted to be able to offer a prize sponsored by SASCon 2011 organisers some of whom are also the industry guest speakers supporting the #SSMM course:
Richard Gregory, Chief Operating Officer, Latitude Digital Marketing
Ben McKay, SEO Director, MEC Interaction
Simon Wharton, Managing Director, PushON
Peter Young, Head of SEO at Brilliant Media
Here is a brief overview of SAScon and the SSMM course from Peter Young who handed over the prize of the SAScon ticket on the day of the blog post presentations:
Have you booked your place for SAScon?
If you have we will probably see you there – you can meet our course team representatives at a stand at SAScon!
You are invited to attend the free blog post presentations event, which is part of the learning process designed for those who attend the SSMM course. As part of the Search & Social Media Marketing professional course delegates have to write a blog post, which applies their knowledge of SEO and Social Media to the process of writing an optimised web page. These presentations are an integral part of SEO training and Social Media training that we facilitate on the course, since we believe that the best way to learn SEO and Social Media is to practice. The presentation itself is also a mechanism to practice pitching skills, which we can only gain by participating and jointly reflecting on events such as this!
Who is this event for?
This event is aimed at anyone who is interested to meet and speak to those in Search Engine Optimisation/ Search Marketing/ Social Media Marketing and other online marketing related practices and methods. It is ideal for those who are interested to find out about the Search & Social Media Marketing course at the University of Salford Business School, since it will provide you with an opportunity to hear and speak to past delegates and industry speakers who have helped to design and deliver this course.
