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IRISH EXPORTERS FORECAST STRONG DEMAND FOR MULTILINGUAL WEBSITE TRANSLATION AND SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
Dublin, Thursday, 24th November 2011: Multilingual website translation and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are forecast to be in strong demand by Irish organisations operating overseas, according to research released today by leading global communications provider, Cipherion Translations. The research, conducted amongst Cipherion’s client base in tourism, hospitality, life sciences, exporting, technology and multinational sectors, reveals that 58 per cent of companies will require website translation services in the next year and 35 per cent will be rolling out international Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaigns.
The research also indicates that French, German, Spanish and Italian will remain the focus for exporters and multinationals, with over 70 per cent of respondents indicating a future requirement for these languages.
According to theUK’s Centre for Retail Research over 85 per cent of European online retailing spend of €202.9 billion will be made by non-English speaking consumers in 2011.Commenting on these figures, Mark Rodgers founder and CEO of Cipherion said: “Despite the current economic turbulence, online spend in these markets is growing by double digits, with French and German consumers already spending approximately €80 billion online, so there is plenty of room for new market entrants.” He added: “In the Press there is some hype about the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries. However in reality the four largest European markets (France, German, Spain and Italy) still represent the greatest opportunity for most Irish exporters.”
Rodgers, who also heads up the Irish Internet Association’s (IIA) International Strategy Working Group believes that many Irish organisations, large and small, are missing out on lucrative, international business opportunities by failing to have their websites and critical marketing collateral available in different languages. “Many Irish business owners have yet to fully grasp the concept that their website is the gateway to a vast global market and provides one of the most powerful tools to help them communicate and sell to this non English-speaking marketplace,” he said.
Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Association agrees. “We see a great appetite for internationalisation amongst our members. Over the summer, we ran a sold out “8 Ways to Sell Internationally” seminar for e-commerce businesses looking to expand to new markets. It’s definitely challenging but the rewards are worth it and we have some great Irish case-studies such as Zatori (who run TheCostumeShop.ie),MicksGarages and Chain Reaction Cycles. More and more requests are coming from our online retailers on how to target the UK and other European markets.”
As organisations grow internationally, an ability to overcome language and communication barriers becomes a critical success factor. More than just basic translation, it is vital to focus on communicating tone and marketing messages. And more than just translating a website, exporters need to focus on how to market these translated websites to international customers using SEO and SEM.
The Cipherion survey revealed 76 per cent of international organisations indicated that translation quality was the single most important criterion when selecting a translation services provider. Mark Rodgers explains: “When communicating to a German or French audience, Irish exporters need to take the same level of care with their translations as they do with their English communication. Too many first-time exporters are left with poor online conversion rates, directly attributable to translation mistakes. If the quality of the German translation is not what the customer expects, they react with a click to another website. The same seven second test to engage the customer applies – so the quality of your translations and messaging need to be perfect.”
Cipherion, a leading Irish translation and global communications company, today celebrated its fifth year in business by announcing a 98.3 per cent customer satisfaction in its annual quality review. Founded in 2006, Cipherion has a wide range of clients across tourism, hospitality, life sciences, exporting, technology and multinational sectors.
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The Irish Times and InterTradeIreland Inovation Awards 2012
The Irish Times and InterTradeIreland invite indigenous and international companies, small, medium or large, and who are operating throughout the island of Ireland, to promote their service, product or operational innovations by entering The Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards, which will be held in March 2012.
Winners in each category will be chosen by an independent panel of judges from a shortlist of 3 finalists. Special recognition will be given to the company with the best North/South collaboration project. In addition, an overall ‘Innovation of the Year’ winner will be drawn from the category winners.
Category Winners will receive:
- A €10,000 communications package in Innovation Magazine
- An iPad with a one year subscription to The Irish Times
The ‘Innovation of the Year’ will win a unique and high profile communications package worth in excess of €150,000 comprising of advertising promotion in the Innovation Magazine and The Irish Times, plus:
• UCD Smurfit School will provide a scholarship for an Executive Education programme commencing in 2012*
• Business legal advice from Byrne Wallace
• A state of the art laptop with a one year subscription to The Irish Times ePaper
(*T&Cs apply – visit www.irishtimes.com/innovation)
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“Serious Games Potential & Opportunities” seminar
“Serious Games Potential & Opportunities” seminar.
Date: Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Time: 10:00-12:15
Venue: Guinness Enterprise Centre, Taylor’s Lane, Dublin 8
To book your place, e-mail events@dbic.ie or phone 6713111.
This event is part of Innovation Dublin 2011.
10:00 Intro – Tim Luft, The Serious Games Institute, Coventry University
– Background to The Serious Games Institute
Tim is the Operations Director for the Serious Games Institute
(Coventry University)
– The Potential and Opportunities for Serious Games
– Potential Partnerships and Collaborations with SGI
10.45 Case Study – Front Square, Geoff Beggs
– Creating Serious Games
– The Value Proposition
11.15 V-Rising, Gary Leyden
– Creating Virtual Experiences
– Business in Virtual Worlds
11.45 A Programmer’s Perspective
– James Whelton, Coder dojo
12.00-12.15 Q&A and Wrap-up
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Press Release: Jerry Kennelly announced as Overall Net Visionary 2011 by Irish Internet Association
Friday, 30th of September, 2011: The Irish Internet Association (“IIA”) this evening announced Jerry Kennelly of Tweak.com as the Overall Net Visionary Winner in the Dot ie Net Visionary Awards. Also announced this evening were the winners in 14 individual categories, all of whom were decided by public vote. The Awards, now in their 13th year took place in the prestigious Wintergarden at the National Gallery of Ireland – perfectly befitting a celebration of the creativity and genius of the industry.
Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Association commented: “This has been a great year for the IIA’s Dot ie Net Visionary Awards. Five new award categories allowed us to showcase fantastic new businesses and fresh talent in the industry. All of the winning businesses have proven their commitment to excellence in this fast-paced and dynamic sector. Unlike any other awards, all those shortlisted were voted winners by their peers showing the best spirit of competition, community and collaboration.”
She added:“In choosing The National Gallery we found the perfect backdrop to showcase the kind of creativity and ingenuity that our industry inspires. And of course it was the ideal place to award Jerry Kennelly of Tweak.com the Overall Net Visionary title. I’m sure the artists behind the masterpieces hanging here would be happy that the title has gone to a man who has anchored his career to the marriage of the visual arts and technology."
David Curtin, CEO of IE Domain Registry Limited commented: “The IE Domain Registry is delighted to be the headline sponsor for this year’s Dot ie Net Visionary Awards. Now in its 13th year, the standard of the shortlisted websites for the Awards continues to increase year-on-year. The level of innovation, originality and creativity, not to mention the power and functionality of the underlying website applications, continues to impress. For the winners, it is a wonderful accolade to be recognised by their peers in the Internet community, as being the ‘best of the best’. These websites will provide a quality benchmark for others to rank and improve their own online offerings.”
Maeve Kneafsey, Chair of the Irish Internet Association commented: “A NetVisionary has to have had a record of business success, vision and the belief to see it through. Jerry Kennelly is set to realise his vision for the second time.”
The IIA have been setting the agenda all year – addressing the digital skills issue, opening the OpenData debate and launching our own policies. The IIA have carefully reflected these issues in the new categories which include Best Open Data Initiative and Best Rookie. New also to the line-up is best recognition of all those non-techies who have made their brave steps to a business life online with Breakthrough Brick to Click. With headline sponsor in IE Domain Registry Limited (“IEDR”), new categories, a stunning and original venue and a record number of entries, these awards are annually the ones to watch.
– Ends –
Dot ie Net Visionary Winners 2011
Overall Net Visionary Winner sponsored by IEDR
2011 winner: Jerry Kennelly, Tweak.com
Best Breakthrough Brick to Click, sponsored by PayPal
2011 winner: McCabes Pharmacy
Best Cloud Service, sponsored by TelecityGroup
2011 winner: SortMyBooks Online Accounting Software
Best in Digital Marketing, sponsored by Go Ireland
2011 winner: Bua Marketing
Best Mobile App Developer, sponsored by NOKIA
2011 winner: Furious Tribe
Best Online Trader, sponsored by Realex Payments
2011 winner: Rainbusters
Best Rookie, sponsored by accreate
2011 winner: Coder Dojo/Disruptive Developments Limited
Best Open Data Initiative, MICROSOFT
2011 winner: NDRC, Inventorium
Best Use of Social Media, sponsored by Blacknight
2011 winner SocialMedia.ie
Best Web Design, Sponsored by Elucidate
2011 winner: Arekibo Digital
Best Web Developer, Grant Thornton
2011 winner: Dovetail
eGovernment Award, sponsored by Mason Hayes+Curran
2011 winner: The Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaíon
Innovation Award, sponsored by RSM Farrell Grant Sparks
2011 winner: FEXCO Tax Free Limited
Internet Start-up, sponsored by The Digital Hub
2011 winner: Learnpipe
Social Contribution, sponsored by Matheson Ormsby Prentice
2011 winner: ReachOut.com
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Press Release: Accreate Rocks the Rookies
Wednesday, 31sr of August, 2011: Following the announcement of the Irish Internet Association’s (“IIA”) shortlist for this year’s Dot ie Net Visionary Awards, the IIA is delighted to announce a unique sponsorship deal with Accreate Executive Search (“Accreate”), Irelands leading executive search specialists for business leaders. Accreate were so taken by the high standard in the Best Rookiecategory, Ronan Colleran, Managing Director of Accreate, has come on board to sponsor the Best Rookie category, and has invited all of the Rookies shortlisted to attend theAwards as guests of Accreate.
Accreate specialise in business leadership positions and they have recognised in this shortlisted group, high potential talent for future industry leaders and entrepreneurs. Recognition of the significance of this category has been particularly gratifying for the IIA who launched this as a new award category for 2011.
Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Association in expressing her thanks to Accreate believes “It’s important to recognise the emerging talent within the sector. While the Dot ie Net Visionary Awards recognise established industry players, its future is secured by the wealth of talent coming through. The Rookie category was designed to showcase the newcomers to the sector, some of whom are experienced managers but new to the industry and some at the very start of their careers and all showing great promise.”
She added, “We have contacted each of the shortlisted nominees with this exciting news and their response has been a resounding and recurring “This is absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much to Accreate for this!”.
Ronan Colleran, Managing Director of Accreate from Accreate commented: “We are delighted to get the opportunity to help support home-grown entrepreneurs in the fast-moving online space. In recent years, Ireland has produced a high number per capita of entrepreneurs in the online sector and it is important that we continue to nurture early stage talent in this area”.
– Ends –
Social Media Working Group, Guest Blogger
Book Review: Engage or Die by Brian Solis
This is a guest post by Robert Purcell. Robert is a member of the IIA Social Media Working Group which seeks to support businesses in the development of strategies for engaging with social media. As Marketing Manager for Post Consult International Ltd. (PCI), Robert’s main focus is developing the marketing and product strategy for the company’s Security Solutions offered under the corporate brand, Post.Trust. Post.Trust is a national-level Certificate Authority, wholly owned by An Post, providing security solutions that enable organisations to communicate with one another more securely and confidently in a trusted environment. You can find him on LinkedIn or @robgerard on Twitter.
Engage! Revised and Updated: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web
Brian Solis (Author), Ashton Kutcher (Foreword)
A word of warning though – Engage! is not a book you can pick up and read from cover to cover. Sections of the book are quite dense and academic – but then isn’t that what you would expect a Complete Guide to be? The book doesn’t define its target audience but whether you are new to social media or experienced in social media marketing, this book has plenty of substance and will serve as a source of reference in your social media activities. As Solis says, this is an opportunity to “hit ctrl-alt-del and restart with a fresh perspective”.
The book starts by defining social media and introducing the arsenal of social media tools available for creating touchpoints across the Social Web. It explores building a framework to amplify the visibility of your social objects, extending the reach of your online presence to new audiences, and defining the end game, ultimately guiding people to action through participating, listening and engagement.
Solis reminds us that understanding the rules of engagement is critical in this new world of socialised media. It’s about training and putting the necessary policies and guidelines in place to ensure everyone is singing from the same hymn book. The latter part of the book looks at the realignment and restructuring the organisation as part of this socialisation process. Finally, it focuses on the management of this social media activity; how to track, measure and translate that social data into tangible value for the business.
Solis discusses the concept of unmarketing as one of the most effective forms of marketing in this new genre of socialised media and really unmarketing underpins the ‘How’ organisations should use Social Media. Marketing is no longer about broadcasting brand messages – it’s about embodying the characteristics of your brand, being an active participant in the conversation, contributing value to earn relevance, build influence and create brand advocacy and loyalty toward a desired outcome.
At times, reading the book was a bit of a slog and I found myself going back over passages each time I picked it up because there was a lot to absorb. But on the whole, I found it uplifting and insightful, reaffirming my understanding of the real power of Social Media – so stick with it. Solis’s voice comes through the words on the page, inspiring the reader to embrace the social web, to champion new media engagement and become the expert to drive change within the organisation. The book is ‘peppered’ with frameworks, methodologies and tools to assist you in your journey towards building a two-way information bridge between the organisation and the online communities in those networks you choose to participate.
As Solis says, “The future of business is social”. Social Media cannot be confined to one person or department. The entire business must socialise. Organisations must embrace and ride the social wave or risk being engulfed by it.
“The greatest advantages of social media reside in its ability for worthy individuals and companies to shape perception, steer activity, incite action, and adapt to the communities that establish the market. Engage or die.”
Brian Solis is regarded as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. Engage! is available on iTunes, Kindle, online bookstores and a book store near you.
IIA Team
My last day with the IIA *sniff*
My parting gift to my colleagues 🙂
Today is my last working day as Membership, Marketing and Communications Manager with the Irish Internet Association. I’m going to work with one of our member companies Prosperity and looking forward to the change.
I will of course miss my colleagues Joan and Vicki much as I miss my daily interactions with Fergal, Irene and Darren who worked with me also during my time here.
But I think I will miss working with members a lot too. I know sometimes it may have seemed to you that I needed a lot of “reminding” to help you but there was also times when my thrice named role was a job for three people! However over the last three and a bit years I got into the habit of referring to myself as simply IIA Membership Manager. Another individual taking on this role that was newly created in 2008 might have found themselves focussing on the marketing or the communications but for me it was always about the members.
So a bit of advice for all members based on how I have seen some of our members really make the most of their IIA Membership:
- Get involved: share content, write a guest blog post, volunteer in our working groups.
- Come to events: the discount for members on two to three paid events will easily cover the cost of your membership.
- Share your views here on the blog, in our LinkedIn DISCUSSION (ahem!) group, on our Facebook page and even now in our Digital Digest.
- Network online: see point 3 above.
- Network offline: come to Meetball or better still present at it (especially those of you who want to tender to be an IIA Training Partner: gives us a chance to get an idea of your unique presentation skills)
- Email us or pick up the phone and ask us to help. Honestly two heads are better than one, especiallywhen one of them who isn’t stuck right in your problem. Consider us a sounding board for your online business.
The more the IIA knows about what you are up to the better we can connect, promote and inform!
So it’s goodbye from me but you can of course find me in numerous places online 🙂
Net Visionary Awards 2011
Nominations are open for Net Visionary 2011: some new categories
The hallowed day has arrived. Actually it arrived on 27th June but I have been busy training my new colleague Vicki in advance of my departure from the IIA so apologies for not noting this sooner on the blog.
Nominations for the 13th Annual Net Visionary Awards are open!
You can go right ahead click on the image above to nominate your favourite online business in 14 different categories.
But before you dash off I thought I would draw your attention to our new categories.
We have done away with a few (sorry!), updated three (mobile app developer, social media & digital marketing) and created 4 entirely new categories:
- Best Open Data Initiative
- Best Breakthrough Brick to Click
- Best Cloud Service
- Best Rookie
We’re particularly excited about these 4 categories (yes, yes, of course, you’re all winners to us) because they reflect changing technologies, society and practices. We devised Best Breakthrough Brick to Click to recognise some of the amazing cases we’ve heard about over the last year and a half or so while running our 8 Ways series for Online Retailers (although nominees don’t have to be just retailers!). Best Rookie was devised to recognise not only graduates who are making a splash in online business but also those who have made a change to their career to get involved in any aspect of online business.
After the success of Open for Business it made perfect sense for us to celebrate Open Data Initiatives and we’re hoping the shortlist will be an inspiration to many other initiatives in the future. Best Cloud Service acknowledges some of the fabulous and innovative cloud projects that have grown up, many of them wholly Irish, in the last few years.
So now you are dismissed to go and nominate to your heart’s content. Nominations close 29 July 2011.
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Commissioner launches guidance on new data protection requirements
Commenting on the new requirements, the Commissioner stated “I am pleased that the Minister has introduced new legal requirements which recognise that the challenges to the maintenance of individual privacy are becoming increasingly complex in today’s electronic age. Individuals must be able to enjoy the benefits of new technology while at the same time remaining in control of their privacy. These new requirements give individuals new rights which my Office will enforce.
I particularly welcome the fact that the Minister has responded to public concern over data breach incidents by introducing strict requirements for service providers in this area with the ability for my Office to bring prosecutions where such requirements are not followed. I am also pleased that individuals can no longer be bothered on their mobile phones by direct marketers unless they have given their prior agreement.”
The main new requirements are:
- Compulsory notification of individuals and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in the case of data breaches
- More stringent requirements for user consent for the placing of “cookies” on electronic devices
- Stricter requirements for the sending of electronic marketing messages and the making of marketing phone calls
Data Breaches
All telecommunications companies and internet service providers are now required to notify the Data Protection Commissioner of every data breach involving a subscriber. They are also required to notify customers in all cases where there is a risk their data may be accessed. Failure to do so can lead to prosecution by the Commissioner with a fine of up to €5,000 per instance. The Commissioner can also for the first time prosecute companies in this area for allowing a data breach with fines on indictment of up to €250,000.
Cookies
Any company or website placing information, usually by way of what is known as a cookie, on user equipment (computer, smartphone etc) must provide appropriate information to the user and collect their consent except in limited circumstances where the cookie is strictly necessary for the provision of the service in question. In practice this means that websites placing cookies on user equipment that are not deleted when the user leaves their website must identify a means of obtaining user consent.
Electronic Marketing & Phonecalls
In a strengthening of the laws in this area, it is now an offence for any company or entity to phone a person on their mobile phone for a marketing purpose without having obtained their prior consent for such contact. The requirements now extend to all forms of marketing carried out by means of a publicly available electronic communications service – including, for example, the soliciting of support for charitable organisations or political parties.
