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Your company's or organisation's website is your shop window. Just how well is it working for you and how much better could it work for you? This major How-Do conference on Thursday 25 June brings together outstanding digital professionals from across the UK who will provide delegates with an insight into the latest developments in digital marketing, social media integration, web technology and web evaluation and search engine optimisation.
The one day conference at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester is being sponsored by Mediaedge:cia and is being supported by our event partners Amaze, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School and Virtual Surveys.  In association with our headline sponsor  and event partners
The conference runs from 9am to 4.30pm on Thursday 25 June. The conference is being chaired by Shaun Fensom, chairman of Manchester Digital. Refreshments, lunch and post-conference access to speakers' and workshop presentations are included in the ticket price.This conference is aimed at senior marketers from the private and public sectors.
Keynote Presentation
Effective Engagement with Social Media Dominic Tillson – UK Sales Manager - Bebo Dominic’s presentation will focus on the different areas that social media covers and how best brands can engage with a targeted audience. He will focus in particular on branded profiles and the utilisation of applications and mobile marketing in a social media context, as well as the effective usage of advertising funded content. Finally he will provide the conference with examples of tried-and-tested do’s and don’ts when engaging with social media. Dominic joined Bebo near the launch of its commercial operations in March 2007 as UK Sales Manager. In this role Dominic is responsible for working with clients and advertising agencies alike, developing Bebos’ engagement marketing solutions and original commissions, and working with Bebos' Applications and Mobile platforms. During his first years at Bebo he was responsible for evangelising the merits of social networking, and was able to secure large scale 'media first' sponsorships with multinational brands including Unilever, Paramount, Sony Ericsson and EA Games.
 Tillson Dominic has a BEng in Manufacturing Systems, Engineering and Management from Bath University and as part of his course spent a year in Detroit, where he designed car components and learnt to play ice hockey badly. Outside of work he plays all manner of sports. He also likes things that go fast and make loud noises.
Plenary Presentations
Turning Clicks into Cash – Using your website to maximise commercial returns Tony Wood - Head of SEO and Interactive Design at JD Williams (N Brown Group) Tony's presentation will focus on the tactics and techniques that companies can use to enhance the commercial viability of their websites. Tony's role at JD Williams encompasses responsibility for all aspects of Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing, Search Strategy and overall E-Commerce strategy for all of JD Williams' online activity. Prior to working at JD Williams, Tony worked as an online marketing consultant at True to, Digital Solutions Manager at 3T Productions Ltd and Digital Strategy Planning Director at McCann Erickson. N Brown Group has sales in excess of £660m.
Successful multi-channel digital marketing
 Towey
Natasha’s presentation will focus on how best to deliver, analyse and optimise a multi-channel digital marketing program for maximum ROI. Natasha is responsible for all new account media acquisition online. Natasha has established a digital marketing centre of excellence within Bank of America (formerly MBNA based in Chester) providing expertise in Search, SEO, Affiliates & Aggregators, Display and Email as well as introducing new online channels such as Social Media. Prior to working at Bank of America, Natasha developed eight years e-commerce experience within the travel industry as E-Marketing manager at My Travel PLC.
Effective integration of social media into your business development strategy
James Fitzgerald – Director, Social Media Library James’ talk will focus on the importance to organisations of ensuring that they are effectively integrating social media into their overall business development strategy. James will look at the fundamental principles involved, highlight the benefits of comprehensive integration, discuss how best to execute offline and online activity in a co-ordinated fashion and examine whether offline activity should drive online or vice versa. Using Research insight to maximise the website experience Nick Gassman – Manager, User Experience, Design and Insight at BA.com Nick’s presentation will focus on how to effectively utilise the latest research techniques and analytical tools to shape the design, focus and content of your website in order that it best meets the needs of your organisation and your client base. Nick has had several years experience with BA in roles including user experience manager and usability and standards manager in addition to various interactive channel related responsibilities. Nick's presentation will focus on insight methods used for ba.com, and the pros and cons relating to:
* the use of external agencies for usability/concept research
* internal usability sessions
* cardsorting website
* real customers at HQ
* remote online usability
Workshops – Delegates to select two workshops from the following
Workshop One Developing Talent to Maximize Your Digital Platform David Edmundson-Bird - Director of Executive Programmes, Course Leader MSc Digital Marketing Communications - Manchester Metropolitan University Business School A widely recognised expert in Digital Marketing Communications, David’s workshop will focus on an analysis of the ways in which websites and web technologies will develop and the skills that organisations are going to need to instill in their workforce to ensure that they stay ahead of the curve and are able to gain maximum benefit. The workshop will be an open-forum opportunity for delegates to share their thoughts and ideas in a creative environment. David has been at MMU Business School since September 2004 where he is responsible (amongst other things) for the E-consultancy MSc in Digital Marketing and Communications, as well as the McCann-Erickson PG Certificate in Integrated Marketing Communications. Prior to joining MMU he worked in the School of Computing and Management Science at Sheffield Hallam University for 2 years, was manager of the Learning Design team at Acadamee and worked at the Information Systems Institute at the university of Salford. David is a member of the Council at Manchester Digital and has also been a director of a number of limited companies in the new media sector.
Workshop Two
Speed and Protection – statistics and case studies covering two sides of growing your business online
Jonathan Bowers – Communications Director at UKFast
Jonathan’s workshop will focus on two key areas for any organisation with a significant online presence:
Speed - Highlighting the easy steps any business can take to create a lightning fast experience that leads to increased sales from their online infrastructure through their web coding to the communication methods they choose to use. Protection – looking after your vital assets – avoiding the dangers of cybercrime and data loss. SMEs lose thousands every year through one or both of these threats while large businesses can lose millions. Who are the perpetrators, how serious is the situation in the UK, what should we be doing as a bare minimum to protect ourselves. Jonathan has been an integral part of the team that saw UKFast win the UK’s best hosting provider in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and the UK’s best dedicated hosting provider in 2008.
Workshop Three
Learning from Buzz: what you can gain from listening to your customers online Anne Longley – Digital Strategy Director, Mediaedge:cia
Ann is Digital Strategy Director with Mediaedge:cia, the global communications planning agency. She has been working in the digital arena for over 10 years as a consultant, practitioner and mentor with digital agencies including View and Agency.com. Her current focus is on social media and its impact on marketing and communications. Clients have included Cadbury Schweppes, Danone, Glaxo Smith Kline, Courtaulds Textiles, Chanel, Lotus Cars, Orange, Reuters, Rio Tinto, Scottish Power, Swinton Insurance, Toshiba Europe. Her work has also taken her to Africa where she helped set up an award-winning social enterprise with support from Vodafone and to Bristol where she worked with Futurelab, a think-tank and ideas incubator focusing on digital innovation in education. Over the years, Ann written and presented on the subject of digital age dynamics and the networked enterprise. She is an avid user of Twitter and other social media.
Workshop Four
Placing the customer at the heart of website development. New concepts, developments, live testing and back again.
Chris Haydon – Business Development Director - Virtual Surveys Chris' background is as a research project manager in the public sector and in advertising, where he conducted both qualitative research and detailed statistical analysis. For the past 4 years he has been at Virtual Surveys, specialising in website development research. Recently, Chris has consulted on large-scale qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodology projects for website clients such as British Airways, Tesco, Ufi/learndirect, and John Lewis. His focus is on ensuring that Virtual Surveys always suggest the best research approach for clients, to maximise insight and make sure that the voice of each key website stakeholder is heard.
Workshop Five
The Golden Triangle of Search, Social & Site Optimisation - Maximising the relationship between the three most important cornerstones of your online communications strategy Paul Carysforth, Chris Norton & Paul Fabretti - Amaze This interactive workshop will be hosted by 3 senior specialists from Amaze plc, the largest digital agency in the North West and a top 20 UK digital agency according to New Media Age. Paul Carysforth is a Partner at Amaze plc, responsible for the agency’s media and analytics services. With almost 10 years experience in online marketing, Paul has developed successful campaigns for clients including Siemens, ODEON, Sharp, Intel and Unilever during his career. He leads the analytics offering at Amaze, recently securing accreditation from Google Analytics, one of only a handful of companies in the UK to achieve such standing. Chris Norton is a Senior Search Consultant at Amaze plc, responsible for devising and implementing successful search marketing campaigns for a range of Amaze clients across many different sectors. He has over 4 years industry experience with skills in SEO, paid search and affiliate marketing and has lead many successful campaigns for the likes of Siemens, Lexus, Umbro, GSK, Sage and Premierline Insurance. Paul Fabretti is a Senior Social Media specialist at Amaze plc who works strategically with clients to devise strategies and campaigns that successfully incorporate social engagement and social media tools. He is well known within the social media community, publishing an award winning blog www.blendingthemix.com and having run numerous workshops and seminars on social media in recent years. He has been blogging since 2005 and has worked on social media activities with a wide range of institutions such as Flowers Direct, ODEON Cinemas, Shop Direct, SSL International, The OU and Barclaycard.
Conference Programme
09.00 – 09.30 Registration & Coffee
09.30 – 09.35 Welcome – Shaun Fensom, conference chair and chairman of Manchester Digital
09.35 – 09.40 Sponsors Welcome – MediaEdge
09.40 – 10.10 Dominic Tillson, Bebo
10.10 – 10.40 Natasha Towney, Bank of America
10.40 – 11.10 BA.com
11.10 – 11.30 Coffee Break
11.30 – 12.00 James Fitzgerald, Social Media Library
12.00 – 12.30 Tony Wood, JD Williams
12.30 – 1.30 Lunch
1.30 – 2.30 Workshops – A) Amaze B) UKFast C) Virtual Surveys
2.30 – 2.50 Coffee
2.50 – 3.50 Workshops – D) MediaEdge E) Manchester Metropolitan University F) tbc
3.50 – 4.30 Panel Session
4.30 Conference Close
All speakers are confirmed however we reserve the right to make changes to the line up in the event of circumstances beyond our control.
The conference takes place between 9am and 4.30pm on Thursday 25 June 2009 at The Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3WS and tickets are priced at £195 +VAT. Delegate places can be booked by calling Jay, Andrew or Nicky at Don’t Panic Event Management on 01706 828855 or by emailing jay@dontpanicprojects.com Alternatively you can book securely online at www.dontpanicprojects.com Something to add? Then leave a comment below or email us now.
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