If you are looking to attract more customers to your business, there is no question that referrals and word of mouth marketing online and offline is extremely powerful and if you do that through connecting to key influencers of your ideal clients you will increase your reach. I have to declare that I am not [...]
Education is the Silver Bullet (to winning awards at #DMA2013)
The Digital Marketing Institute not only trained most of the winners at the Digital Media Awards in Dublin 2013 but takes away the prestigious Trailblazers Award.
Last Friday night, March 1st, the Samsung Digital Media Awards took place in the Convention Centre in Dublin. It was a fantastic night with the who's who of the digital sector out in their splendour! We were on top form, having been presented with the event’s inaugural Trailblazer Award.
But, hey, it’s not all about us! The majority of the winning teams are either trainers / lecturers with the Digital Marketing Institute or are students.
The Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation recently published a report telling us that there are currently 4,500 unfilled jobs in the IT sector in Ireland (digital is usually lumped in with "IT"). Why is this the case? Why is it that, during one of the worst recessions to hit this country, we still cannot fill these roles when so many skilled people remain unemployed?
While there is no simple answer, one of the major issues that underlies this problem is that the education system is failing us all. The educational goals that schools and colleges are clinging to are woefully out of date.
On Tuesday morning Ian Dodson was invited to the NewsTalks' studio to share his views on education in Ireland. During his talk on the Breakfast Show, Ian highlighted the drawbacks of the points race and lack of practical thinking behind academic programmes. He also shared his opinion on Irish 3rd level institutions, and their incapacity to prepare graduates for jobs market.
On Tuesday, 25th September, Ian Dodson, the Director of the Digital Marketing Institute, and Minister of State for Training and Skills had a debate on the last Word with Matt Cooper on Today FM. Ian has been invited to the show to elaborate on his recent statement about the inadequacy of Irish graduates in a jobs market.
A HEA commissioned report on the education sector may be shelved because the government doesn't like it and the universities are afraid of it. Who's worse? The government for being an ostrich or the universities for being turkeys?
Yesterday's article entitled Who's educating the educators, I disucssed how we might address the growing "digital divide" that is happening between parents/teachers and kids.
As a follow up that (and as a result of a lot of positive feeedback to the article) I would like to share this infographic entitled the Pros and Cons of Social Media in Education.
We can learn a lot from what is going on elsewhere in the world
If you have not already heard about the terrific conference that is taking place this week in Wexford for small and medium enterprises looking for guidance on how to accelerate your business using technology, you will want to check out the Techovate conference website. There is an impressive line up of speakers including Cisco, Eircom, [...]
If you check into Google’s search engine today in some countries today including including Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Denmark, the UK, and of course Ireland you will find the Google Doodle celebrates St Patrick’s Day. The Google Doodle was drawn by Chinese American artist Jennifer Hom who is based in New York. and is inspired [...]
Online advertising spend increased in the first half of 2011 according to a new study by IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Year on year, compared with 2010, online advertising spend is up by 20.5% to €65 million for the 6 month period.
Online advertising is now valued at 13 per cent – with strong growth observed in video and social media.
Online is now the third highest media advertising channel – outstripping spending in radio, outdoor, cinema and magazines, according to the study.
The study also found that improved and increased access to broadband in Ireland has driven growth in this sector. Fixed broadband access increased by eight per cent between the second quarter of 2010 and the same period in 2011, while mobile broadband access grew by 14.8 per cent in the same period.
The largest area in online spending is paid-search advertising at €27.2 million, which has seen a growth of 17 per cent year on year, and now represents 45 per cent of total online spending.
The top three categories to see investment in display ads are telecommunications, FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) and entertainment/media (each with about 12% of spending).
Google are well known as a company who like to carry out smart marketing stunts while letting their employees have a little fun and that is exactly what their latest stunt was all about as nearly 2000 employees in their Dublin European HQ came out to g...
It's probably not a huge coincidence that some of the world's biggest tech companies like Facebook, Apple and Google are all located in the same area of Silicon Valley. Is it pure luck that all these companies come form there or is it something more an...
With a new football season approaching, the usual topics are being discussed. The transfer market and who’s going where for what price, pre-season friendlies, injury concerns and what the squad will be when they start their respective campaigns. But ...
An innovative campaign from a creative agency is making their employees eat sweets while they work all while filmed on a live stream and directed by the public via Twitter. It's a brilliant way of showing off their own creative skills while putting a s...
In an article entitled Creating A Genius Cluster In Ireland Rich Moran points out that at key times in history geniuses seemed to come together in clusters. He outlines his interest at creating and being part of a genius cluster in Ireland.
In resp...
Ina O' Murchu reports on the letter handed into the Irish Government to petition of for the direct airline route from Ireland to Silicon Valley to be reinstated.
With the Queen's visit last week and President Obama's this week the attention of the world has been focused on Ireland.
It is important to remember that Ireland is not only about Leprechauns, shamrocks and guinness.
It is growing one of the most...
Tom Cusack of Enterprise Ireland discusses how Enterprise Ireland plans to have 10% of High Potential Start Ups would originate from overseas and be headquartered in Ireland.
In front of about a 1,000 attendees at the Dublin Web Summit being held at the RDS, Marcus Segall, COO of Gaming Operations at Zynga announced the opening of a Dublin office by his company.
Zynga now joins Google, Microsoft, Facebook and a myriad othe...
Daire Hickey talks about the Dublin Web Summit Series.
Interviewed at DWS6 which took place at the RDS in Dublin on June 10, 2011.
There were about a thousand attendees and the event has guest speakers such as Jennifer O'Connell from Journal.ie, Ma...
SocialMedia.ie is a specialist social media marketing agency with services including consulting, training and creating digital content. We have worked [...]
Given that it is a very special day for us all here in Ireland today we thought that we would have a look around the world online and see who is coming up with the best St Patricks day themed campaigns. Here is how brands and businesses are piggybackin...
If you are a business in Ireland then here is a podcast I highly recommend that you listen to – it’s an interview I did with Hugh Jones a data protection specialist who works with the Irish Computer Society when at their conference this wee...
Did you know that you don’t have to join the blogosphere to benefit from a boost to your online visibility thanks to blogging? In recognition of this being Social Media Week I plan to feature a number of posts here covering social media case stud...
Are you exploring new career opportunities in 2011? I thought it would be of interest to interview a recruiter in the area of digital marketing in Ireland to give us a sense of their perspective on the opportunities available and some tips if you are i...
It was like watching a mugging in broad daylight as the ECB/IMF team managed to convince the government to accept more debt as a way of alleviating the debt problem. While the opposition is correct to slam the raiding of the pension reserve fund, I was sceptical about their plans to use it as a stimulus package. In fact I'm sceptical about stimulus packages in general. Government's essential role is to create a well regulated business environment and then get out of the way and allowing Irish businesses to build the economy.
LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals, plans to go public in 2011 and has selected its financial underwriters.
Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and JPMorgan are among the book runners, sources said. It is believed that the se banks made their pitches to the privately-held company in November 2011.
"An IPO is just one of many tactics that we could consider," a spokesman for LinkedIn said on Wednesday. He declined further comment.
Internet companies such as LinkedIn and Zynga (a maker of online social games), are considering offerings well ahead of a potential IPO of Facebook, two sources said.
"Some of these companies want to go public because they want to beat Facebook and others out," said one of the sources. "If Facebook went public before Linkedin, do you think anyone would pay that much attention to Linkedin?" You might want to surpass the beast."
Zynga couldn't be reached immediately for comment.
Facebook is not expected to file for a public offering until late 2012, Facebook board member Peter Thiel told Reuters in September.
But that could change. Regulators are scrutinizing a $500 million investment and a commitment to raise at least $1 billion more in Facebook this week by Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies, one of the sources said.
The SEC is reviewing whether the number of shareholders in Facebook has exceeded a 499 limit in order to remain private. If the SEC decided Facebook has moved past the threshold,
The IDA’s chief executive, Barry O’Leary, released interim figures for 2101 yesterday. The numbers show that the state agency created 1,352 new jobs (net). The exact cost of creating these new jobs was not revealed, although it is estimated that this is between €80 and €90 million. Now, it does take a rocket scientist to figure out that each job therefore costs at least €60,000 each.
During 2011 the IDA hopes to increase that figure to 10,000.
So, is this good value? Should the report card read “must try harder?”
(NOTE: Scroll down this article to find three additional resources that that will help you achieve greater professional and personal success in 2011.)
Are you starting the year with a renewed energy for achieving your goals?
Here are some suggestions...
Have you been considering how to sell products from your Facebook Page?
I have been sharing some suggested tools to use over at the Biz Growth Media Facebook Page where I cover Facebook marketing tips and one of the platforms that I have talked about ...
If you are unhappy with customer service that you receive do you speak up about it? Or do you vent your opinion on Twitter and Facebook?
And which sector do you think offers the best customer service?
A new Irish Customer Service Survey of some 2000 c...
If you are in job search mode, then the statistics released today from Manpower Inc about the predictions for the job market in 2011 just might give you an indication on which sector and even where in the globe you might want to target that search. (S...
A FREE GIFT FOR YOU: As today is Cyber Monday I am delighted to let you know that I have five premium access passes to the iPhone application for Georgina Campbell’s Ireland Guide – read the bottom of the article for details on how to enter to...
This course is for marketers and business leaders who need to understand what the impact of the fast evolving digital marketing will play on their company and profits. We have developed this course for the modern SME to enable to to develop a clear, concise and focused digital marketing strategy that can help you and your organisation become more efficient and more profitable.
This Diploma in Digital Marketing Course is designed to enable you to create a real and focused digital marketing plan that can help you and your organisation to increase online brand awareness, traffic to your site and intimately sales for your products and services, therefore allowing you to become more profitable.
On November 3rd, Danny McCoy, who is the Director General of IBEC, made a very compelling speech to the IBEC CEO Conference. The underlying theme of his speech was that Ireland is Open for Business.
Ireland is currently in the doldrums - our banking systems are on their knees, our economic future looks dire and the Irish people are traumatised. However, if we look at the bigger picture, we are, in reality doing relatively well (especially compared to (a) how we were doing over the past few year, (b) compared to other nations struggling to cope with the global economic downturn). This is, in a large part, by our exports.
Have a look at this video which summarises the situation (created for IBEC especially for the IBEC CEO Conference mentioned above.
It is entitled Ireland by the numbers - Did you know that Ireland is home to 8 of the top 10 global technology companies and 15 of the top 25 medical devices firms. We produce enough beef each year to feed 30 million Europeans. 1 out of every 5 burgers served in McDonalds in Europe is Irish beef.
IBEC also produced this document and an accompanying PowerPoint that set out the substantial progress that Ireland has achieved in addressing its economic difficulties.
According to IBEC, fiscal adjustment remains on track and the challenge to meet the 3% deficit target by 2014 is challenging, but manageable. Ireland has the potential for growth, with a critical mass in a
UPDATE 4 November 2010: I am delighted to announce the winners of the tickets for the competition – in alphabetical order they are Louise Caldwell, Leah Cullen, Elaine Drennan, Rob of LadyUmbrella and Martina Whyte – remember guys to post ...
Tweet Connector recently launched a sister web site SocialMedia.ie and here we present our brand spanking new services guide including training and community management. Hats off to Alvin Perry & Bernie Grogan for the great design work! Connect...
