Then, came the main act, Fehdah and her live soulful afrobeat band.
Fehdah’s band lead and singer, Emma Garnett, previously sang for the Manden Express band. However, she recently concretised her dream to create her own afro neo-soul band.
First of all, Dance2Connect is an International Urban Dance Festival, which ran over 3 days early February 2018.
All the more so, the festival showcased:
dance theatre
masterclasses
dance battles
social dance
live jams.
Furthermore, the festival was curated by dance artist Matt Szczerek as well as presented by himself and Matthew Williamson.
What is Dance2Connect’s mission?
Secondly, the festival’s mission is to preserve and strengthen urban dance in our communities throughHip-Hop culture and dance theatre’s elements.
Indeed, the festival creates opportunities for the dance community to learn the intricacies of the dance form.
As far as learning it, they can do so through:
workshops
performances
exchanges with high-quality Eu professional dancers.
What were the Dance2Connect’s partners?
Thirdly, the festival organisers partnered with Tallaght Community Arts. Additionally, they received support from Noise Dublin and South Dublin County Council.
As yet, in order to keep up-to-date with their next festival, like theirFacebook fan page.
So, now, let me start sharing with you the dance theatre shows running order:
DANCE2CONNECT LIVE RECORDINGS
So, I filmed some of the dance theatre acts. Keep in mind that these YouTube and Instagram videos are in portrait mode. Consequently, I recommend you to watch them on your mobile phone.
For that, wait few seconds for the Instagram videos to load. Then, click on the images to play the videos. I hope you will still enjoy these snippets.
First of all, thanks so much for all those who came to attend this SEO Masterclass by Filip Silobod from Aro Digital Strategy on Tuesday 21st November 2017. Much appreciated!
I’m sharing with you few pictures of the speaker and the audience taken at the venue.
If you would like to know more about Filip Silobod and the company he is working for, check this Eventbrite page.
SEO STRATEGY TOPICS
Secondly, Filip gave us a comprehensive masterclass on Search Engine Optimisation Strategy (SEO) to ensure that:
Your website is getting a high amount of traffic
It is ranking well on Google
Your website is user-friendly and user experience-optimised
The business is getting a good visibility online
Your website is getting good Click-Through-Rate (CTR) conversions whether through organic or paid search and advertising.
Let me share with you his presentation before delving into a bit more details on some of the topics. You will find Filip’s contact details in it. Please note that the slideshow of his presentation can be downloaded, saved or shared through Social Media.
When you build your website, you need to ensure that it is SEO-friendly and follows a long-term strategy.
DIGITAL SEO STRATEGY STEPS
Indeed, you may get more visits to your website and build a loyal customer base by considering these digital marketing and SEO methods:
Optimise the User Experience on your site: easy access, page loading time, navigation ease, mobile-friendly website… Make sure you regularly check your Google Page Speed Insight as well as see how your website looks on mobile phones
Use Paid advertising and search: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) with good visuals perform best. Paid Advertising will allow you to rank high in the Google Searches with Google Adwords. You can use Paid Social Media when you launch your website, new products or services
Analyse and Compare your site with your competitors
Take into account search trends for branded and non-branded keywords by using Google Keyword Planner and having a varied content with plenty of synonyms
Have clear Call-To-Actions (CTA) in your website’s main and secondary pages to allow higher conversions
Use long-tail keywords (min 4 words): This advice is especially valid if you are a small business with a recent website. It will improve the discovery of your keywords in searches
Create unique content that Google likes
Have few good backlinks(off-page optimisation) throughout your blog posts linking to high authority websites. You may consider as well getting Public Relations (PR) releases
Review your website’s authority scorewith Moz. Your authority score indicates trust in your business
Increase your business local visibility by registering with Google My Business. Ensure you add quality images and request your customers to leave you reviews.
Optimise, track and analyse your traffic with Google Webmaster Tool. You will need to review the queries (keywords) made by consumers to find your website or blog. These include meta title, URL and meta description. This analysis will give you insights as to understand when and why people left your website.
Remember that, although Social Media doesn’t have much value in terms of SEO (‘no-follow links’), it still allows people to interact with your brand. Social Media helps consumers discover your brand online. It also adds extra traffic to your website thanks to re-tweets, sharing of your posts’ links.
Although Google is the biggest and most used search engine used worldwide, there are other valid search engines that you may use such as:
Baidoo for the Indian market
Bing for North American market (USA)
Ecosia.org that is based on Bing
Yandex for the Russian market.
Finally, keep in mind what matters the most isn’t so much how much your website/blog is searched for but how many conversions you get. Conversions can be downloads, newsletter sign-ups, purchases, shares… This can be measured with the CTR by using Google Analytics.
First of all, thanks to all attendees for coming to this event advertised on Eventbrite website. Most importantly special thanks to Emma Boylan from‘Outside the Box’ for coming to talk to us at Bank of Ireland Grand Canal Square venue in Dublin (Ireland) about Content Marketing.
Secondly, let me talk to you a bit about Emma’s journey and story before going down to the content marketing piece.
Emma went a trip to Australia, where she did all kind of jobs. Then, she got back to work in Ireland. She left her 9 to 5 job four years ago to fulfill her dream of starting her own business.
She set up her ‘Outside the Box’ company when she saw that most marketing was all the same. She realised that businesses were really struggling to attract the right clients and have a message that made them different. At the beginning, she learnt a lot by doing. However, she started implementing a business plan about 2 years ago. She highly recommended you to have a plan when you get started so that you stay focused and motivated to reach your goals.
Using her passion for creative content and background in psychology, Emma has helped 100’s of businesses get crystal clear on their message to get them noticed and fill their businesses with clients in record time! So, I hope this will help you, too!
Please find below the talk topics and her visual presentation with her contact details. Please note that this slideshow can be downloaded and saved in your SlideShare account as well as shared through Social Media.
Thirdly, I will detail a little more the explanations she gave beyond the slides themselves (transcript) so that you can understand them in the right context.
Step 1: To find the right client with the right message, focus on actually taking actions and avoiding procrastination.
Step 2: when you go about looking for clients, ask yourselves these questions:
In all means, always make sure you are being your unique self. Don’t copy others as clients will notice this and it will appear unauthentic.
Step 3: Once you have done your research, start meeting people like you. Tell your unique story, that should answer the ‘Why’ and the ‘What’ about your business. Keep in mind that your story matters more than offering discounts. Emma suggested not to offer too many discounts to attract customers. Instead, give something people need and that they will buy. Indeed, your company must resonate with their needs and offer solutions to their problems.
Step 4: Create your branding message. For that purpose, keep in mind that people, in general, have the attention span of a goldfish, so you need to be brief in your message to grab their attention. When creating your message, you need to focus on your business benefits in 10 seconds. Yes, you read it correctly, your benefits and not so much your features!
Step 5: Think about the results you want to get. A good way to deliver an outstanding message is to reflect on the top 10 problems and solutions you can offer to a client. Again, it’s all about the client, so your content should revolve around him/her!
Step 5: Write a first marketing plan. This doesn’t need to be lengthy but instead highly focused on your goals. For example, ask yourself: ‘how many clients do you need to make X Euros? How many clients per week do I need to get?’ In other terms, focus on your Return on Investment (ROI). Do not worry if it’s not 100 % perfect, you can always revise it as the time goes on and your business evolves.
Step 6: Be social and engaging. It’s not all about how many followers you have but rather how engaged they are. You need to increase the quality of organic followers by measuring your engagement rate on your social posts.
Step 7: Be clear in your message about what you want your clients to do. In other terms, lead people by the hand by providing a clear call-to-action. Do not ask questions that may bring a ‘no’ answer.
Step 8: Represent your own self in your brand. People buy from people. So, be out there in picture or video. People want to get to know you, see who you are and feel connected to you. For example, a photography frame business taking pictures of themselves with their framed photography will see better results than just publishing the framed photography on its own. Your imagination costs nothing, so don’t be afraid to be different and unique!
Step 9: To be remembered, you must focus on creating habitsand showcasing what people know you for and people will follow. So, be consistent in your posting schedule and allocate regular time to stick to it. If your followers are used to see your video every Tuesday, make sure you post your video each Tuesday.
Finally, if you would like to deepen your knowledge on how to stand out for success and market yourself to get more clients and make more money, Emma is providing a 6-month online programme. Check her Facebook video teaserfor more information and contact her by email if you are interested in emmaboylanpr@gmail.com.
This year, we got a little unlucky for the Bluefire Street Festival because it was ☔ the whole day. So, fair play to festival organisers, volunteers, festival-goers and street performers who put up with the rain!👏On the main stage, there were a little luckier as they were sheltered from the rain.
However, this didn’t prevent us from attending it and it was enjoyable despite the bad weather conditions.
I have taken pictures of the programme from this year’s festival as well as street art murals, circus performers on stilts, a stage music performance (Ronix), a youth talk from the Girl Crew and the welcome tent. Take a look at this slideshow to view the pictures. If you’d like to find out more information about the performers at BlueFire Street Festival, take a look at their website.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
I have also filmed this new school hip-hop street dance performer that replaced Sam Gabriel. If you’d like to follow Des Ebelle on Facebook as well, check his page here.
Finally, I spent most of my time watching the Venezuelan singer Ronix featuring Allegro andante band on the main stage playing Latin fusion sounds like merengue, bachata… Their infectious latino rhythms kept us on our feet!
If you have taken more pictures or videos, share their links with us in the comment box below!
If you would like to watch the festival for the 2015 year edition, check my other blog post. That year the organisers got luckier with the weather, so more people attended the event. I was also able to take more pictures and film more performances. So, enjoy!
Olufela Olufemi Anikulapo Kuti (born 16 June 1962) is popularly known as Femi Kuti. He is a Nigerian musician born in London and raised in Lagos. He is the eldest son of afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.
Femi’s musical career started when he began playing in his father’s band, Egypt 80.
In 1986, Femi started his own band, Positive Force. He began establishing himself as an artist independent of his father’s massive legacy. 🎷🎺🎸🎹🎤
Since then, he has continued playing the music style his father was famous for, i.e afrobeat. Afrobeat can be defined as ‘a complex fusion of:
Femi also follows his father’s legacy with his strong commitments to social and political causes. You can notice this in his songs’ lyrics on his website:
I attended an event advertised on Facebook and organised by Bluefire Dublin called ‘Igniting Change: Funding & Financial Sustainability‘ on Thursday 29th June 2017.
The event was aimed at voluntary and community organisation, social-enterprises, individual artists or community-based project managers, and small-medium NGO’s.
Before launching Social Innovation Fund, he founded his own not-for-profit, Reimagine Cork to tackle issues around homelessness in Cork.Understanding the needs for Not-for-Profits, he felt he could help entrepreneurs best and joined Social Innovation Fund.
The company’s mission is to provide both funding and non-financial support to social entrepreneurs. It has also partnered with the government and every given Euro by SIFI is matched by the government.
Eoghan’s first advice was to think about ‘why’ you want to start up a company and why his company would fund you. He also strongly recommends:
having a clear plan in place,
having a good value proposition,
showing confidence
having good management skills.
When filling forms to apply for funding, keep it simple and answer the asked questions.
2. Hazel Hill, Marketing Executive and Programme Leader at The Community Foundation for Ireland:
Her organisation offers both open grants and private grants. The latter ones are given on a project basis with an end date. The organisation offers funds for mergers (shared between teams) to highlight the importance of collaboration and partnership between organisations.
You will be asked about what will happen at the end of the project to gauge how sustainable your business model is.
Her first advice was to not manipulate your core mission value (reason for existing) to get funding. Instead, only apply to relevant grants that fit your organisation. She also advised to:
have a clear mission statement,
document your research by backing up your project with analytical reports,
listen to your community/audiences’ needs,
take any constructive feedback on board
understand the impact your company will have.
3. Naomi AND MERISSA from Connecting theDots, a start-up focusing on the community engagement in Dublin:
Their company started off when there were many unoccupied vacancies in Dublin during the crisis by putting on events with artists, engineers, researchers. Over the time, they worked on a process for events’ organisation, i.e on improving the engagement with attendees, corporate donors.
Naomi’s advice was to volunteer for different organisations and network that way before you start up. She has been helping a lot at ‘Happenings’ organisation.
It is also important to speed up processes with a technology enabler. They are currently working on a software service (SAAS) application (transferring processes online for co-working events), in order to gain time and increase income streams and viability.
4. Ian AND his wife Monica from Center for Creative Practices, a company helping creative artists to come up with a more sustainable model:
His first advice was to start with a small plan before building a full-scale model and revisit this plan when necessary.
Instead of going through a lengthy business plan, they worked on a one-page business model. It detailed their business model and value proposition:
the company’s purpose,
what problem it is trying to resolve and,
the solution offered.
His first business model focused on having a cash projection, i.e ticket prices’ sales and getting people to utilise the space to generate further money. He feels it is best not to be over-reliant on grants for the day-to-day running of the business.
5. participants needing help on setting up their organisations, PLEASE get in touch with the following bodies:
During the 2017 Saint Patrick’s weekend, we had the pleasure to be entertained by a 7 piece oldskool hip-hop cover band playing live in Dublin. The band joined the dots from The Sugar Hill to Dr Dre to Eminem.
For the old school hip-hop music nostalgic who couldn’t attend, you’ll be able to catch up with these oh so lovely oldskool tunes in videos!🎶✌
If you’d like to follow them, give them a like on Facebook! 👍
If you are in Ireland for 2018 St Patrick’s weekend, you are lucky! The band will be performing again this Saturday at The Sugar Club, Dublin! You can book your tickets here or on their website mentioned below.
PAST LIVE CONCERT RECORDINGS
Want to know more how they sound? Then watch these videos below. They were recorded live on Periscope on @emelinej1 (Twitter live streaming service) and Facebook live.
But I have edited them a bit and uploaded them to YouTube just for you!😎😉
Liked this blog? Hit the ‘join/subscribe’ button!🙏👉It’s free!👌
For those who do not live in Ireland, you may not know that abortion is still not allowed. Women are discouraged to abort regardless of circumstances. They must travel to the UK or other EU countries if they want to abort.
FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN FOR ABORTION RIGHTS
The gigs took place on Friday 10th March 2017 at Sin é pub, Dublin. They were organised by Bitches Brew & F-Festival celebrating women in the arts.
The purposes of this night were:
to fundraise for the Repeal movement
and bring awareness of the Irish law in terms of women’s abortion rights.🔥👍
SO, WHAT IS THE EIGHT AMENDMENT?
To get a better understanding of what this law entails, check these leaflets: 👇
If you are living in Ireland or are Irish living abroad, sign up for this petition requesting the law to be reviewed: 👊
The event gathered four bands, mostly girls’ bands playing various music styles such as pop, blues, roots folk, rock, hard rock.
I arrived a little late for the event and also left early, so I only recorded two bands. But I will share with you some videos of the other two bands I missed. Bear in mind that the venue is very narrow in width, so I wasn’t always able to film from the best angle. Apologies for this!
I have indicated under the YouTube videos the respective bands’ Facebook fan pages, if you’d like to follow them.
Which one you like most and why?
I will start to share with you a snippet I shared on my Instagram account:
I attended the ‘Home Sweet Home’ Benefit concerts on Friday 20th January 2017 at Sin é pub, Dublin 1 (Ireland) to raise funds for homeless people in Ireland.
Apart from contributing to a wonderful cause, I enjoyed discovering new bands and singer-songwriters!🤓
BENEFIT CONCERTS’ ORGANISATION
The event is organised for 2 nights: Friday 20th and Saturday 21st January 2017 and has a different line-up constituting 4 bands and/or singers-songwriters for each night. So, if you haven’t been to the first session, it’s still time to catch up the second one!✌😉
You will find the Eventbrite online ticket link directly in the event’s description or you may pay at the door!
Now, here is the moment you’ve all been waiting for,🎊 the live videos I took at the event!👏💝🎉
Apologises for the format, I should have filmed in landscape mode! Also, I haven’t filmed the last folk band ‘The Eskies’ as I ran out of battery. I’m sorry for this inconvenience.
You will find the Facebook fan page link for each band/singer in the description under each YouTube video. To view the description, click on the YouTube title to open the video in a new tab.
Enjoy! Tell us what’s your favourite act amongst them and why! If you have filmed them, too, feel free to share the link in the ‘comment’ box!
