Better web presence for businesses through Wordpress – an event for businesses and digital professionals

THE EVENT

The inaugural WP-Brighton event will bring together Brighton’s businesses and digital professionals to spark a focus on business objective-orientated web strategy, design and development.

Talk WordPress, meet each other and be inspired.

Great speakers from local businesses and the digital industry will give advice, share tips, tricks and best practice for creating an effective web presence, and talk about their experience of how to profit from that. There will be two strands running through the conference: business and digital.

BUSINESS STRAND

The web is an essential consideration for most businesses, but how can owners, directors and managers use it most productively, on a day-to-day basis, to achieve their business objectives and steer clear of risks and pitfalls? At WP-Brighton, businesses will learn how they can harness social, online and mobile media channels to engage their customers and achieve their objectives. Brighton’s most talented web designers, developers and copywriters will be on hand to provide advice on how to use WordPress (the world’s most popular web publishing platforms) profitably, as well as presenting the latest innovations and developments. Even if you’re not using WordPress, there are many lessons to be learnt that will be relevant to your own web strategy and site. There will be opportunities for local business to talk about what they need and want from the digital industry, either in group or one-to-one sessions.

DIGITAL STRAND

WP-Brighton will help digital professionals to improve their business offering to current and prospective clients, both technically and in terms of the pure business side of the web – both clients’ and your own. Digital professionals will hear from the city’s most successful freelancers and digital agencies about driving non-digital businesses forward using simple but effective WordPress-based tools, techniques and strategies. They will also have the opportunity to meet business owners and managers, and learn about how they view web publishing, as well as their business needs and objectives.

TOGETHER

Bringing digital and business together, WP-Brighton will provide a rare and valuable opportunity for fostering understanding, relationships and knowledge-sharing. Businesses will get a shortcut to the most contemporary thinking in business-focused web best practice. Solutions will be offered to questions such as: What is blogging and why is it important? How can websites drive offline business without demanding too much effort or cost? Digital professionals will come away with new ideas, inspiration and a better understanding of the business perspective and perception of the web: What are the real, day-to-day challenges for a small business owner? What can effective web publishing help them to achieve?

WHERE AND WHEN?

Venue: The Friends Meeting House

Date: 23rd September 2011, 1.30 - 6pm

Cost: Early bird tickets £25, Standard tickets £35

Book online: https://wpbrighton.eventbrite.com/

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

Split into two distinct strands of business people and digital professionals, the WP-Brighton audience will be a diverse, influential and active mix of Brighton and Hove’s residents. We’re currently expecting 50 attendees in each strand, to give a total audience (excluding speakers and organisers) of 100. For the first event, we’re keen to leverage the community that exists in Brighton and Hove, but welcome those from further afield who would like to attend.

SPEAKERS

We’re currently aiming for six quality speakers for each strand in addition to introductory, plenary and workshop sessions. These are the kind of topics we hope to cover.

BUSINESS

• Blogging: principles, examples, inspiration and how to make it work for you
• The business advantages of WordPress and similar web platforms
• How to increase profit and decrease risk through effective and efficient web presence
• A checklist of considerations for web projects - i.e. how to make sure your new website is what you want and need it to be, and how to make the project successful and enjoyable
• Content strategy for SMEs - what is a content strategy, how to develop one for your business, inspiration of good content strategy in action
• Examples of pitfalls to avoid and best practices to adopt

DIGITAL

• How to do better business as a digital professional - project management, building relationships and maximising proft
• Inspiring business objective-focussed websites: real world examples of simple, effective utilisation of web platforms and services
• Child theming for WordPress - why you should be doing it, and how, with examples
• Google Analytics for web publishing - how to get answers from the data
• E-commerce platforms and plugins - pros, cons and examples
• Structuring websites for marketing growth through web publishing

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

WP-Brighton is a great opportunity for sponsorship at all levels with most attendees both Brighton-based and web-minded. Help us to make Brighton a better place to live by helping us to help Brighton’s businesses be more successful online.

WE’RE LOOKING FOR SPONSORSHIP FOR

• Marketing materials
• Printing
• Venue hire
• Refreshments
• Tab behind bar at pub

WHAT WE CAN OFFER IN RETURN

• Exposure to a targeted and highly relevant audience
• Free ticket(s)
• Link (text/logo)
• Literature credit
• Posters/banners at venue
• 3 minute speaker introduction slot
• Mention during introduction and closing plenary
• Gratitude!
• Being seen to help improve Brighton’s web life
• Consideration (but not guarantee) of any proposed speaking slots

To book online for WP-Brighton, visit: https://wpbrighton.eventbrite.com/

For more information, see: http://www.wp-brighton.org.uk/

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk