Welcome to your Digital Classroom

WELCOME TO YOUR DIGITAL TRAINING ACADEMY

We're really looking forward to working with you. When we designed these Digital Training Academies, the aim was to give publishers and marketers an instant boost in their knowledge of what is possible and what can be delivered through online channels. Your half day Academy is a broad based orientation to three digital disciplines selected by the team at The Bookseller.

Here in this Digital Classroom you can post questions to your Academy Manager to ask about the way your Academy will work.
http://www.digitaltrainingacademy.com/web2/2007/06/digital_classroom_questions_ab.html

If you have questions about the topics of community, social networks, blogging and viral marketing, then post them in our general Web 2.0 classroom, here:
http://www.digitaltrainingacademy.com/web2/2007/06/22_november_2007_digital_commu.html

If you’re finding there’s lots of internet jargon in your conversations about online marketing, then try our jargon busting pages at http://www.digitaljargonbuster.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Jargon.

Ahead of the Academy we’re sending you some simple research summaries such as Digital Intelligence or our Digital Insight Reports, and we hope you enjoy them and that they get you thinking more about digital marketing.

Back in 1995 I began teaching digital marketing and media, and our tutors and Academy Managers will help accelerate your knowledge by sharing the best in best practice, and some of the freshest ideas.

Enjoy your academy!

SOME READING BEFORE YOUR ACADEMY

Ahead of your Digital Training Academy we’re keen to get you thinking about the issues and the language of digital marketing. We’ll be helping you get up to speed on the state of the industry, and that’s why we’re sending you a recent edition of our Digital Intelligence news service and also one of our Digital Insight Reports. Look out for them in your email before your Academy. They’ll come from me directly.

If you’re already skilled at digital marketing, then these should simply confirm things you already know. If you’re new to online then it’s a chance to learn the language as well as seeing research about the state of the industry.

The report explores online communities and gives you some sense of the way brands are using the web. It's an entry-level report and is just designed to cover off some of the basics. It should be a simple, fast read, but each report makes points that we’ll be touching on in the Digital Training Academy.

AN EXERCISE BEFORE YOUR ACADEMY

Ahead of your Digital Training Academy why not go online and take part in a community? Pick something from outside of your working life, explore the site and see if it engages you. Whether it’s about your favourite hobby, sport, travel destination, or author, think about the experience as a viewer and what could draw you back.

You also might like to check out the STA Travel case study we’ve put in the classroom. STA is a powerful travel brand among the 16-34s, but facing the challenge of commoditisation of prices, and the competition from the web-only travel stores, they began an ambitious strategy to create blog pages that their customers could use to write travel journals and stories for their friends and family. As a consumer retail outlet they successfully repositioned themselves as a travel companion for their customers, and encouraged their customers to mail news of their travel blogs to all of their friends.

It’s a great example of a brand that’s succeeded in creating an online community and one that’s tapped in to thousands of social networks.