As well as giving us a crisis of global proportions, coronavirus has actually gifted us a number of things (plug alert: read more about that here).
An obvious one is a shift towards flexible working patterns.
Remote video meetings have been an incredible tool (yes, I know we’re all a little Zoomed-out), not least because they have become a far more acceptable way to do business – saving money, time and reducing our impact on the environment.
The opportunity this creates for networking appears clear to me:
- Meeting up and making new contacts with people from across the globe all from your laptop or phone.
- Creating networks of people in the same industry, the same job role to share knowledge, experience and learnings.
- No longer being limited by geography.
A number of local networking groups I have joined or visited have moved online but this is perhaps an interim fix until they can meet up again physically and enjoy a more personal experience.
Personally, I am kind of hooked by online, video networking.
As Customer IQ was made for marketers, I planned to find out where marketers met up and did business online. Over the course of October and November, each new marketing contact I made on Linkedin would be given the same ice-breaker question – can you recommend places to network with marketers online?
The remainder of this post is a list of what I have found out and I will keep updating it regularly as I find more opportunities.
Agency support networks
Firstly, check out Agencynomics, a free-to-join online community of independent agency owners and MDs brought together by the authors of the Agencynomics book. Also, for those agency-side – The Agency Collective is a subscription-based offering which delivers peer support, events, training in order to help agencies grow. Pimento – a virtual agency model – aims to bring together bespoke teams to fulfil client briefs. Daniel de la Cruz (ex-Agency Collective) has just launched Polymensa, a learning and development platform for agencies with a £1m+ billing.
Marketing communities
The Marketing Meetup is doing some great work in building a following of marketers by delivering great, free content (check out their upcoming events) via online webinars since the pandemic hit. Really, really worth checking out. One I’ve not tried yet is Marketing Kind, which also hosts online events (paid for), with some notable speakers. The Copy Club – set up for entrepreneurial marketers in London but now online – is another community group, which costs £5.50 per month and offers talks, courses and tools. The Dots – the professional network for people who don’t wear suits to work – appears to be more of a social networking site. RevGenius, with 7,600+ members, has a mission to build the future of sales and marketing. I’ve just signed up so will share more in a future update.
(I would definitely encourage these community groups to create person-to-person networking opportunities as a next step in their evolution).
UPDATE – I got tipped off about www.andrewandpete.com so I’ve signed up for £1 for a month. Already love their energy and positive vibe!
Networking
Lunch Club – heard good things about this but clearly so have many other people! No group in Bristol or Bath and so I am #90081 on the London waiting list! Sounds like a long wait. If you’d like to join and also bump me up the waiting list, please use this link: https://lunchclub.com?invite_code=gideonb
Online groups
Various groups were mentioned, such as:
- Tech London – available as a Slack channel
- UK Digital Marketing Group – 2,828 members on Linkedin
- Small Buinsess Network by Entrepreneurs HQ – 236,889 members on Linkedin
- Here’s an article to a number of other Linkedin groups which may be of interest
So lots going on in the online space and we’re likely to be online-only for a while yet.
UPDATE: Online resources for marketers
Lots around beyond your Marketing Week and Campaign mailers, e.g.
- Just.Marketing – look out for some articles on insight in 2021
- Seth Godin’s daily blog – words of wisdom from the master himself (every day!)
- Marketing examples – a brilliant website created by Harry Dry which gives you access to tons of best practice marketing. He has an enormous mailing list too so worth adding yourself
- The Hyper Island Toolbox is a lovely collection of tools and resources to boost your team creativity and collaboration
Do you have other groups, communities or platforms you could share? Do you have experiences of any of the above? Please add a comment.
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