We started Monday’s event with a “term-pong” ice-breaker, where our participants got to know each other by learning some basic tech and digital media marketing terms.
Web development, where do you start?
Our first speaker, Wajed Afaneh, broke down the web-creation process into a few simple steps. He assured the audience that you do not need to be a tech expert to be able to develop a website for your organization/company/social enterprise. There are several free, easy-to-use, open-source tools that you can use to do so. Some examples are Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress. Wajed focused his presentation on WordPress, the most common tool to build websites. And according to Wajed, out of every five websites, three are developed using WordPress.
– “So do I need to start from scratch?”
– No.
– “So where do I begin?”
Here’s the simple process to creating a website using WordPress, as put down by Wajed:
1- Buy a domain – try namecheap, go daddy, bluehost, and Banina.ps (in Palestine).
2- Buy a web-server – locally you can do so with Hadara and Mada.
3- Connect the domain to a web-server. Any hosting company can help you do this.
4- Login onto the web server and & use one-click install.
5- Buy a theme or a level for your website – buy theme ThemeForest
6- Get to work!
Fun fact: Wajed develops our very own website. So he’s the man behind the very page you’re on right now!
Now that you have your website, it’s time to figure out the marketing of it all!
The basics of SEO, mobile marketing, and email marketing
Hassan presented information on search engine optimization (SEO), mobile marketing, email marketing and digital display ads (DDA), and digital media marketing (DMM).
Hassan also noted that an organization should use a balance of the different tools, as opposed to relying on one tool like social media marketing.
Data is important
How many Palestinians are there?
6.4 (West Bank, Gaza, ’48)
4.8 (West Bank and Gaza)
2.9 (West Bank)
1.9 (Gaza)
46% are on social media channels
Of the above, *2.2 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza use Facebook, the biggest age group being 25-34.
*this number is not accurate since it does not account for the 500K Palestinians who use Israeli sim cards.
Using Facebook insights can help you obtain a lot of information. Hassan even showed us how to find numbers of engaged people of different genders and age groups in a specific area on Facebook.
Hassan encouraged the audience to use tools such as google trends and Facebook insights to identify their specific organizational audience to help better target them with marketing efforts.
Develop a strategy for digital media marketing
The next step is developing a DMM strategy. This includes conducting SWOT analysis, age groups, content management, among other aspects.
Who are Social Media Influencers
Hassan introduced the concept of social media influencers and then presented four local ones.
To be identified as an influencer, three components are taken into consideration: # of followers, content, and engagement. The audience jumped in to discuss what they thought of each of the presented influencers including Arine Rinawi, Lina Qisawi, and Ala’ Abu Diab.
Watch the whole event on Facebook live here.
Shoutout to our volunteers: Nada, Malak, and Maryam, thank you!