Connector Weekly News
by Igor Walter on February 9th, 2011
The Connector Team has been incredibly busy in recent months and making lots of new connections and ideas we’d love to share with you!
We have lots of up-coming opportunities and are especially keen to talk to aspiring bloggers and event organizers around Ireland.
Connect with us via our Facebook page.
Connector News
- We have moved to new offices! Now you can find us at the Gateway House (133 Capel Street, Dublin), the former home of the famous dance group Riverdance.
- Did you miss Showcase Ireland? Well then you also missed Conor’s social media seminar “Meet Your Customers in the New Market Place”. You can take a look at it here.
- Check out some of the events our bloggers went to in the past couple of days! For example Annie went to have fun at RAM´s Pocket Radio´s concert while Megan attended the launch of Don Mullan´s new book.
Connector Training
- Social media can be useful for any business and they know that in the Digital Marketing Institute. That’s why they brought Conor in to lead workshops called “Social Media Marketing for Business”.
- We also launched a Social Media eBook which is based on a proven Connector 10 C´s Strategy Model and breaks down the utilization of social media into ten clear steps. Check it out!
Connector Consulting
- Conor is now a mentor of the Dublin City Enterprise Board.
- We have also acquired new clients from the field of interior design and personal transportation.
Connector Top 3 Connections
- John McColgan, Neil Leyden & the Gateway Ireland Team
- Eimear Dunne from Quirc & Dunn Design
- Quentin Ahern from Army of ID
Connector Team
- After months of great work our digital marketing executive Dave Dungan has decided to pursue a web development career in Jason Roe’s company. Thank you Dave for your great work in 2010! We’ll miss you!
- On the other hand new people are now partnering with us on projects – Igor Walter (PR), Graeme Hanna (planning), Greg Fry (training) and Shirleen Flynn (events).
Connector Meetup
- The Connector Team is going to meet up at the Dublin SoundCloud Meetup Day.
- Join us also at the Project Arts Centre where we plan on seeing the hilarious play called Connected. The tickets will be only 12 € so come and join us!
- The Facebook Garage event will be taking place at our new offices – the Gateway House – on Wednesday 9th @ 5pm. Check out more info here.
If you have any interesting news or know of any events taking place around Ireland share them with us via our Facebook page!
How to create a Social Media Strategy in 10 steps
by Connector on October 29th, 2010
Connector at the Dublin Web Summit 2010
by Mark Galvin on July 5th, 2010
Hundreds of social media and technology fans were at the ambient and stylish chartered accountants institute last Thursday for the Dublin web summit to hear insights, tips and predictions from top technology enthusiasts and business luminaries. Guests were treated to a 7-hour marathon of insightful speeches from not only Irish but also global presenters.
Hoping to become more savvy on social media and technology, I doubt they were disappointed! Looking at the line up for the speeches, I was undoubtedly impressed. Big hitters such as Michael Birch founder of Bebo, Mike Butcher Editor of TechCrunch Europe, Simon Cook CEO of DFJ Espirit, the worlds largest venture capital group, The charismatic Bill Liao an Australian tech entrepreneur and ex RTE political correspondent Mark Little, to name a few, all played their part in ensuring a high calibre and standard of presentations.
The event ran extremely smoothly and was well organised with a networking session taking place half way through the speeches to allow not only the members of the audience to indulge in a the eloquent food and drinks that were provided as a half time refresher but also to talk amongst themselves and offer their insights on not only the speeches but also how they could help and compliment each others services. All in all, the event was a huge success and a credit to everyone involved. The web summit was a great chance to see first hand how huge and paramount social media and online relations are becoming in Ireland and long may it continue.
Connector Review: Movie Maker, iMovie and Camtasia Studio
by Dave Dungan on May 31st, 2010
Video is taking over the Internet. After Google, You Tube is the second largest search engine in the world ahead of Bing and Yahoo. Last year they hit 6.6 billion streams and currently have over 73% of the online market. With this in mind, anyone who wants to seriously market themselves online needs to be doing video.
You’ve probably heard already how video is great to add to your website, how it can be great for SEO and how users love to share good video with their friends. The reason many people are not doing video is because they think that it is either too expensive to produce or requires technical skills they don’t possess. Luckily there are a number of tools available that make it possible to edit your own video.
Microsoft Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker is the one that most people are familar with. It comes freely available with Windows software or can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft website. It has basic video editing features that allow you to make your own videos without any great technical knowledge.
It allows you to import various clips, sequence them, clip them and apply basic transitions and effects. In addition to this it allows you to record voice narration and produce and share your video on YouTube or your blog. The drag and drop interface is really easy to use and the functionality is perfect for making basic promo videos for events or customer testimonial videos. There are limitations however.
If you want to use more advanced video techniques like screen record, Movie Maker does not offer this. Nor does it offer features such as callouts, zoom and pan or cursor effects. Overall it is a great package for most of your needs and it’s ease of use makes it ideal for beginners.
Apple iMovie
If you are using a MAC then Apple iMovie pretty much gives you the same deal as Microsoft Movie Maker. It is freely available with any new MAC but unlike Movie Maker it is not freely available to download.
It offers pretty much the same functionality and ease of use as it’s Microsoft equivalent and is ideal for anyone looking to do basic promo videos without having to spend a fortune or learn how to operate complicated software.
Camtasia Studio
Camtasia offers all that the others do plus loads of nifty features, plus it is available for PC and MAC. Like Movie Maker and iMovie the interface is intuitive and easy to use although the additional features add a little extra clutter if you’re not planning on using them.
Some of the extra features include Record Screen and Record Powerpoint functionality which are great for doing video tutorials. In addition to this it offers more advanced effects such as Zoom and Pan, Callouts which allow you to write over your video or images, Cursor Effects that allow you to highlight mouse clicks, and more advanced audio editing features.
Camtasia will cost you around $300 to buy so if you’re not planning on using the extra features it’s probably not worth your while. They offer a 30 day free trail that will allow you to test the product before putting your hand in your pocket so it’s definetely worth a look in.
Conclusion
Basically if all you need to do is pop up a few video interviews or make a very basic promo, the first two options are ideal. If you would like to feature video tutorials or use more advanced editing techniques then Camtasia is the way to go. We’ll be posting some live tutorials ourselves really soon to help you get to grips with each of these products so keep in touch!
The Connector 10C’s Model for online marketing strategies
by Dave Dungan on May 26th, 2010
The Connector 10C’s is a strategy model to devise, implement and evaluate any digital and social media marketing plan. Aimed at businesses and organisations of all sizes and industry sectors, it can help executives and entrepreneurs to combine their website, social media and email marketing to attract and retain more customers and to gain the best return on investment possible.
The video below discusses the Connector 10C’s model in more detail.
Connector Clinic Social Media Consultations
by Dave Dungan on May 17th, 2010
As part of the Irish Internet Association’s ‘Digitize the Nation’ campaign, Conor will be giving free consultations on Friday 21st of May between 2 and 6pm. Friday is the designated Social Media Day and conor is the current Chair of the iia Social Media Working Group.
We will be helping our guests to diagnose digital marketing problems and prescribe solutions based on the Connector 10C’s strategy. Regardless of the size of your business we will decide a tailor made action plan to suit your need based on your business and budget. Please email training [at] connector.ie to make your appointment.
Best Irish Digital & Social Media Case Studies
by Conor on March 31st, 2010
As you may be aware, Connector Training is about to kick off tomorrow and we are really excited about sharing our knowledge as well as our connections. As social media is all about sharing we are sharing some free places on the courses and would like you to share something too!
We’d like you to share your favourite Irish digital marketing case studies from recent years – if you can’t think of a great Irish case study, do you have a favourite international campaign?
We’re just looking for a link and the reason why you thought it worked so well. If it is your work, it is best to say that so we can credit your work. To submit, please leave comments below ideally about the problem, solution & results. You can email any materials to training [@] connector.ie
If you’re in a generous mood, we are also looking for submissions for the following -
- Best Social Media Web Sites
– Best Social Media Books
– Best Social Network
– Best Facebook Fan Page
– Best Online Community
– Best Content (Video, Music, Game, App etc.)
– Other cool stuff!
Connector Lunch @ Saba
by Rob Cumiskey on November 12th, 2009
After last week’s lovely lunch at Little Caeser’s, where we connected with some great people, we’re going back to Saba on Clarendon St, Dublin 2 (where we had some lovely dinner here) for a 1PM lunch this Friday.
Unfortunately we won’t be sponsoring lunch this week, but we’d love you to join us. You will of course be meeting with some great folk from both the online and offline world. In the last few weeks we have had a diverse crowd but quite a few are from Dublin’s fast growing digital scene with people in from Dublin Web Summit, Balcony TV, Facebooth and reps from Truvo & Connector.
Hope to see you there 
