ZC Live 2018

ZC Live is a free social media event hosted by Zoe Cairns from ZC Social Media which took place on Friday 1st June at Strood Academy. The event aims to “accelerate your digital and social media marketing for your business and create more leads by mastering key strategies over a whole day.” mso Account Manger Carly and I went along after seeing the huge amount of promotion on social channels such as Twitter and Linkedin. Seeing as the event was local to us we were keen to attend and broaden our knowledge on ways we can boost our social presence… and that we did.

The day kicked off with a free breakfast thanks to BTA Fitness, the protein pancakes were yummy! The BTA guys gave a talk about how they have effectively used social media to create successful online business by following one simple process, celebrate and share your client’s success! We were enticed by their fun, interactive competition, encouraging attendees to take the best image with their breakfast and posting online to enter with the chance to win a week’s worth of free meal preps by hashtagging a series of slogans. The breakfast was also a great chance to network with other attendees many of whom were also businesses from Kent. There was also a chance to say hello to some familiar faces… and a dinosaur. Check out Carly’s entry below, her very own (slightly off-season) protein pancake snowman! Nice work, eh?

We then headed upstairs to the main hall where a series of talks throughout the day began to take place from a number of speakers:

Ralph Meyer – Linkedin

Matthew Scott – Kent Police and Crime Commissioner

Daniel Knowlton – KPS Digital Marketing

Andrew Gillett – Jarmans Solicitors

Anthony Klokkou – Sleeping Giant Media

Andy Lambert – Content Cal

Jemma Fairclough Haynes – Orchard Employment Law

Emma Liddiard – Global Radio

Amy McManus – AM Marketing

Zoe Cairns – ZC Social Media who announced her company is about to go under a complete rebrand, how exciting!

The talks I found most beneficial personally for my role as a digital marketer within mso were from Amy McManus and Daniel Knowlton.

Those within the industry will be aware of the buzz around ‘video’ and how important it is to adopt into our strategies in order to remain current. Amy from AM Marketing covered this topic in the very funny style of ‘panto’ which was exciting and engaging. Covering what makes a good YouTube channel, how to advertise on YouTube, her top-secret tips, as well as her all-time favourite YouTube Ad, Kmart’s ‘Ship My Pants’. Which takes a simple promotion ‘free shipping to all stores’ and makes it very very funny, if you haven’t already, watch it!

Dan Knowlton from KPS Marketing also spoke about this topic, video (can you see the trend here!) Starting with an example of how NOT to do video marketing followed by a very funny clip portraying how to do video marketing. Stop that scroll was a term he used to represent the goal of video marketing, to stop users scrolling on their devices and to watch your engaging content. After grabbing their attention he explained how important it is to make the user feel some type of emotion when watching your video and not just funny! Check out the examples he used to demonstrate amusement, fear, and affection. In order to stand out from competitors and approach your video marketing strategy correctly, Dan suggested to ‘take your business hat off and put your creative hat on’.

Carly is a big fan of the presenting style of Anthony Klokkou from Sleeping Giant Media. Having seen him speak before, Anthony immediately engages the audience with a quick ‘quiz’, encouraging us to think about search, highlighting just how much search is an integral tool in our digital lives. Anthony’s talk also has the underlying narrative, ‘we don’t go online, we live online’ – and businesses need to be mindful of this. You cannot be the ostrich who hides his head in the sand, you have to be the fox, ever adaptable. Embrace change and make sure that you are maximising your digital reach.

The event was fun, engaging and well worth a day out of the office! I and Carly are looking forward to hopefully attending next year and are eager to approach new strategies which we learned from attending. Well done Zoe!