Member of Parliament for Gosport, Dame Caroline Dinenage, today hosted Google Digital Coaches at an event in the Gosport constituency to learn how to utilise digital tools to improve their businesses outreach.
Hosted at the Fareham Innovation Centre at the Solent Enterprise Zone in Daedalus, the event was well attended with around 50 people signing up. They had the opportunity to chat to Google Digital Coaches who gave workshops and mentoring sessions to help businesses develop a social media strategy, tips on using Google Analytics, and finding new customers online. There was also the opportunity to book one-to-one advice sessions.
The free event was open to anyone, from existing small businesses to people considering starting a business.
After the event, Caroline said:
“It was wonderful to see so many new and growing small businesses take up the opportunity to receive training from Google’s Digital Coaches.
Social media can be a powerful tool for enterprises to promote themselves, find new customers and set themselves apart from competition.
These events are a great opportunity for businesses in the constituency to come together, and gain invaluable digital skills to take their business to the next level.”
Local business owner, Tom Ford from Nice Time Social commented:
“Nice Time Social helps small businesses with social media and to offer them cost effective services to grow their business. Google services have been invaluable, search and workspaces helped me set up my business accounts and emails. The sessions and products really helped too. I used to work in corporate social media marketing but never felt like I fitted in. After being asked to help a friend with their social media I fell in love with the process and the client was over the moon with the results. Shortly after starting as a freelancer I left my corporate to go full time and started from a coffee shop with an iPad, in a year have grown to an agency with more than a dozen clients and our own office.”
Google’s Digital Garage digital skills training programme is visiting 30 locations this year to deliver in-person digital skills training to help small businesses grow and support economic growth across the UK.
Alice Mansergh, Managing Director of Google Customer Solutions, UK & Ireland:
“At Google, we’re passionate about equipping people in every corner of the country with the skills needed to help them make the most of the opportunities created by the UK’s digital economy. The labour market is crying out for talented individuals across a number of experience levels and our aim with our digital skills campaigns is to give more people the opportunity to gain skills that can truly transform their careers and businesses.”
