On 12th May, the First Stop Shop hosted #DigiDayWest, the first digital marketing conference to be held in the North West of Ireland, which saw some of Ireland’s leading names in the field of digital marketing descend upon Enniskillen.
Held in the new award winning South West College CREST Centre, businesses came from all over the region to hear from the top digital marketing and social media experts in the country!
Speakers included Samantha Kelly, one of the country’s leading Twitter experts and self-styled Tweeting Goddess. Samantha is also a winner on Ireland’s Dragon’s Den, an author and founder of the national network for SMEs, #IrishBizParty.
Former star of the Irish Apprentice and founder of the Digital Training Institute, Joanne Sweeney Burke and noted online reputation expert, Wayne Denner also took to the stage at the event, along with Michael O’Brien, Big Red Cloud, SEO expert, Brian Power and local digital marketing specialist, Aine Bermingham.
Attendees were treated to essential digital marketing tips and knowledge from the prestigious speakers, including social media and in particular Twitter, improving your search engine rankings, online brand and reputation and digital strategy advice. The event gave attendees an insight into how their organisation can use digital marketing to maximise their businesses sales, growth and reach.
There was a warm reception to the exclusive announcement on the day that the Connected Vouchers Scheme was being extended to the Fermanagh and Omagh area.
The opportunity for attendees to network during the lunch time exhibition, and meet with local suppliers of digital services to discuss their needs was a popular part of the day.
Speaking about DigiDayWest, Yvonne Megahey from First Stop Shop said:
“We are delighted to host such a high profile event in Fermanagh. We know from working with local businesses that digital marketing is an area they have recognised as being essential to their business growth. It has certainly become an integral part of every businesses marketing plan and those who have yet to take advantage of online marketing are missing out on the huge opportunities it can bring.
“We have secured a number of prolific speakers, which makes it a real coup for Fermanagh. Very often, the smaller rural counties can be forgotten about when it comes to the digital world, but we’ve been working hard with other organisations to put Fermanagh on the digital map.
“We recently launched #FermanaghHour, a new Twitter network for Fermanagh businesses to promote themselves, engage with new customers and network online. To date, it has been very successful and we have hosted a series of ‘Tweet meets’ across the county to help local businesses get started on Twitter.
“#DigiDayWest is the next step in helping Fermanagh businesses embrace digital marketing. Local businesses simply must take advantage of opportunities like this.”
Smaller businesses are often nervous about the success of digital marketing, thinking short term and their budgets reflect this. As the economy gets tighter, its inevitable they will have to commit more resource to digital channels in search of new customers.
Most of the people who came to #DigiDayWest experience the same issues and problems in running their small business. #DigiDayWest helped in finding suggestions or solutions for some of the issues.