Kaylee Jones
Assistant Managing Editor
“Tech Night,” an event that takes place the third Tuesday of every month, most recently focused on “The Future of Digital Marketing.”
Co-hosted by Cameron University, along with the Center for Emerging Technologies and Entrepreneurial Sciences, the event took place at 6 p.m. on Nov. 19 in CETES Conference room 207.
Kelly Edwards, CEO of Lawton Marketing Group, acted as speaker for the evening.
Flyers previously distributed by CETES staff invited local business owners and students interested in marketing and web development to attend.
Director of CETES, Arun Tilak, explained the purpose of “Tech Night,” “To get techies out and to meet.” He pointed out two attendees chatting across the room; the first was an entrepreneur of 3D printers who worked from home, and the second was a man who specialized in simulation modeling.
“They would never meet under normal circumstances,” Tilak said.
“Digital marketing is normally social media. Lots of people think digital marketing is only social media, but it’s much more than that,” Tilak added before introducing Edwards, who he said was there to cover “all that.”
Edwards spoke while sitting near the head of the conference room.
She began by asking everyone in attendance to introduce themselves.
Edwards then showed a brief video by Erik Qualman over “Socialnomics,” which covered the significance of social media in culture.
“The future of digital marketing is the future of marketing in general,” Edwards said, explaining the importance of the topic.
After briefly addressing problems that can make traditional marketing (TV commercials, magazine ads, etc.) ineffective, such as channel surfing and irrelevance due to timing or viewer market, Edwards provided two reasons for why digital marketing is often the most effective for marketing a business.
The first she called the “magical moment,” which means a person views an ad or is directed to a website at the exact moment they were looking for it.
The second, Edwards said, is that oftentimes, those searching for services do not feel as though a business is intentionally marketing to them when the person finds their website themselves.
However, a person’s discovery of a website, is very much an intentional marketing ploy through the mastery of search engine optimization (SEO) as Edwards explained.
Well-built, well-optimized websites are ones that occupy the top spots of Google searches, a ranking system which is determined by a top-secret algorithm written by Google employee Matt Cutts.
Throughout the evening, Edwards covered the difference between “Black hat SEOs” and “White hat SEOs,” businesses that either cheat their way to the top temporarily for their clients and are later penalized, and businesses that ethically build websites deserving of prime placement.
Edwards also encouraged burgeoning businesses seeking to market themselves online to set goals of what they want to achieve, select media channels through which they can effectively promote themselves and commit fifteen minutes a day to marketing themselves online.
Edwards opened the floor for an lengthy question and answer session after the lecture, which concluded around 8 p.m. as Tilak thanked everyone for attending.
Afterward, students hung around to finish the last of the pizza Sandra Dunn, CETES’ administrative assistant, handed out before the lecture and to socialize with Edwards and other attendees.
“TECH NIGHT” was one of two events held to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week (Nov. 18-24,) the second being an 8 a.m. a live stream address by international entrepreneur, Chris Bradford, a co-founder of Newline Interactive.