Finding ourselves sitting on the floor of an overcrowded train, the few of the HP team who couldn’t fit into the company van reflected on the events of Internet World 2010.
Digital marketing is an exciting business on an ordinary day, but this year’s show at Earl’s Court was truly thrilling; a flamboyant veneer of razzmatazz thinly disguising products and services from some of the world’s most innovative and exciting internet companies. It was a tiring few days – but days that ultimately put us into contact with some of the leading figures in UK SEO, PPC, conversion rate optimisation and social media. These were our kind of people.
While our digital marketing services were attractive, they could do little to compete with the numerous womanly charms of UKFast and iomart. We thought we had considered every marketing technique; endearing cartoons, funny sales people, proven success with international brands. But as the male members of our team sported slightly pre-occupied expressions and wondered off in search of ‘business contacts’, we realised we might have missed a trick.
iomart backed up their unfeasibly attractive sales team with a selection of fantastic smoothies too. And just when it seemed it couldn’t get any better, we discovered there were cocktails to be had, the purveyors of which did not ask for any remuneration whatsoever. We couldn’t believe our luck; it was at this point that we really started to meet some interesting people.
We stumbled upon some true trailblazers in the world of internet marketing. Queensland Tourism gave a fascinating keynote speech regarding social media – something that was a hot topic among the people we met. How to take advantage of Facebook and Twitter, together with exciting new services like conversion rate optimisation (testing websites to make them generate more conversions or enquiries) were subjects that our team were asked about a great deal – simultaneously eyeing up our Champagne.
Whilst trying to get their hands on our bubbly, many people were also keen to tell us how interesting, informative, and dare we say it 
– fun – the Internet World social portal was. This mash-up (created by the HP team) of tweets, photos, videos and blogs proved invaluable in keeping those who couldn’t make it up to date with unfolding events. And for those who embarked on too much Champagne tasting, it will surely help jog a few memories over the next few days. We have a few tricks up our sleeves to make the 2011 Internet World social portal even more popular than this year’s.
We expect to be in contact with lots of the people we met at Internet World, but if we don’t see you very soon, we’ll see you at Earl’s Court next year!
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