Welcome to another Forthea Friday! We've been hard at work over the last month, but wanted to take the time to reflect on some of the fun stuff too. First and foremost, Forthea is very proud to announce that we were included in this year's Inc. 5000 list as one of the nation's fastest growing companies! Forthea, coming in at #1883, is one of 120 companies to make the list right here in Houston, one of the most represented metro regions in the country. This is recognition is an indication of the tremendous value of all our employees (many of which you read on this very blog!) and the strong connections we make every day with great businesses in Texas and beyond.
We aim to keep growing alongside our partners and clients for many years to come. In fact, we're growing so quickly that we've outgrown our current office space! Forthea is already planning a move in the next few months where we'll have the space to expand and grow in a creative, fun office. But we'll have plenty more on that when the time comes! As many of you know, we're deep in the heart of digital marketing's conference season. It's a great time of year where many Fortheans travel around the country (okay, mostly to the West Coast) and even abroad (what, Canada is abroad!) to learn from the best the industry has to offer. Well that, and to enjoy a quick respite from the unrelenting Houston summer heat. Last month, two employees travelled to Seattle for MozCon 2015 and you can read about their big takeaways on our blog. Since then, we sent Paid Media Specialist Jennie Lane to Montreal for Acquiso Summit 2015. Here's what she had to say about her experience:
The 2015 Acquisio Summit in Montreal was extremely exciting for me. This is the first year I’ve travelled internationally and the first time I’ve been on a plane in 17 years! The conference was full of great speakers and new ideas. I made sure to attend both sessions with Brad Geddes where I learned new tactics for ad testing and seasonality. I returned to the Forthea office with new paid search strategies for my clients and knowledge to share with my fellow Fortheans! In the evenings, I was able to enjoy Montreal and it’s gorgeous summer weather. During the summers everyone is out and about, biking, running and picnicking.
Not to be left out, we sent a few employees to Google Headquarters a few weeks ago. I asked for a paragraph to distill the experience, and in typical Google fashion, Chad Ostroff wrote a short novel. Here's what he had to say:
Last month Chrysah and I had the opportunity to go out to MTV (Mountainview for all you non-Googlers) for a couple of Google Guru events, one on Mobile and the other on YouTube. The Guru events are events put on by Google for Google Partners. Basically the events are training sessions that are supposed to educate and train a person, persons in our case, to the point of being a subject matter expert on the topic being presented and how it inter-relates with the Google products and services we offer to our clients. The sessions were really great and intimate, each had roughly 50 people in attendance and there was around 25 Google reps facilitating and doing the actual training. The sessions were packed full of valuable information about the services and products we are using now as well as the direction things are going in the future, unfortunately I can’t share everything with you but I can tell you what the major takeaways:
First and foremost, mobile is the future, without question. If the algorithm update a few months ago favoring mobile-friendly websites was enough to make your mobile presence a priority, let me assure you that was only the beginning. Now that the mobile search has surpassed desktop search in the U.S. local search market the game is changing. The next thing I took away from the sessions is there are plenty of ways to help our clients understand why and how mobile is going to affect their business. Mobile is about understanding users, their story, how they're finding your business, and how it transcends devices. Once you know that, you can begin to optimize the user experience across devices and create a holistic digital marketing strategy as a whole. Lastly, and it becomes more clear every time I meet with other industry pros, we work in the most exciting industry, period. The landscape is always changing, presenting us with unique challenges all the time, forcing us to continue learning, and adapting our strategies to get the best results for our clients.
Thanks Chad, and now that we've put our readers to sleep (I kid, I kid), I think we can wrap up today's Forthea Friday, but check back soon, we've got plenty more exciting news coming this fall!
