Sift Media - A review of 2011...

As we hurtle towards the end of the year and focus on plans for 2012, it seems natural to reflect on what has happened over the previous 12 months here at Sift Media. It’s certainly been a busy year, where we’ve not only focused on growing and engaging our existing communities, but we’ve also invested in new products, solutions and events – all of which will provide ever more exciting opportunities for our advertisers in the years ahead.

With so much happening in 2011 I’ve tried to pick a specific highlight for each month...

January - eGovernment Awards take place
The UKs biggest public sector technology awards took place this month.  Now rebranded as the ‘UK Public Sector Digital Awards’, this has become the leading event in its sector with hundreds in attendance and previous addresses from Prime Ministers David Cameron and Gordon Brown. Enquire about the 2012 awards now.

February – B2B communities get mobile
Earlier in the year we blogged about the popularity of accessing content on mobile devices. Since then, as the use of iPads and smartphones has sky rocketed, the volume of visitors to our sites via mobile devises is now in the hundreds of thousands per month. With the ability to provide advertising solutions specific to these channels, and the click-through rate acknowledged to be potentially even greater than on the web, there are some pretty exciting opportunities for advertisers in 2012.

March – 100,000 UK Business Forums members
In March our small business title UK Business Forums attracted its 100,000th member. Supported by it’s editorially led site-title BusinessZone.co.uk, we now offer reach to what we believe to be not only the biggest, but the most engaged group of small business owners in the UK. If you’re looking to reach the UKs biggest and most active online community for entrepreneurs in the New Year now’s the time to plan your campaign. Contact us for details.

April – MyCustomer Player launched
In the spring we launched a dedicated channel from MyCustomer.com delivering the best CRM related video content online containing hundreds of videos from the likes of Seth Godin, Paul Greenberg and Brian Solis. The MyCustomer Player, which reaches many thousands of CRM professionals, is the only channel of its kind. Why not share your own customer-centric films with the community?

May - TrainingZone Live takes place
TrainingZone Live 2011 was a huge success with feedback from delegates and event sponsors and speakers overwhelmingly positive. This is a new breed of training event with a hands-on approach to workshop style learning in small, expert-led groups.  Plans for the 2012 edition are well under way so drop us a line now with any sponsorship or delegate enquiries.

June - Gary Flood joins PublicTechnology.net
 In June of this year, we were delighted to invite veteran IT journalist Garry Flood to the Sift Media team as the editor of PublicTechnology.net. Gary has been writing about public sector ICT in one form or another for over a quarter of a century and brings with him a unique level of expertise.  The title has gone from strength to strength throughout 2011 with more activity on the site from members than ever before.

July – Experian QAS case study
Back in the summer we produced a case study highlighting a successful campaign for Experian QAS, who were looking to gain a detailed understanding of the public sector and strengthen awareness of their brand amongst this community. Find out how an audience workshop helped to form the basis of this highly successful campaign - view the case study here.

August – Re-launch of AccountingWEB.co.uk
Following consultation with members, our oldest and perhaps most loyal community was re-launched. With such a large and active community the AccountingWEB.co.uk site had become a little slow, but the new site hosted on the Drupal platform not only improved speed and performance it gave the opportunity to add a wealth of new features. Read the story behind the new site here.

September – Release of our Public Sector buyers guide
As our public sector technology title continued to grow throughout 2011 and demand for advertising solutions increased, we chose to create a guide which would give a background to the industry, the PublicTechnology.net audience and tips for engagement specific to this sector. Access the guide now.

October – The publication of our Customer Feedback Report
Earlier in the summer we approached all those clients that had booked campaigns with Sift Media in the previous 6 months with a satisfaction survey. Not only did we hope to gauge opinion on the service we were offering, we were also looking to identify the key considerations when booking a campaign - both of which would help us to pinpoint further areas for improvement and deliver the best service possible. In October we published a very honest report on our feedback, which not only looked at where we were performing well, but more importantly at where we were underperforming and what processes we were putting in place to make improvements. View the report now.

November - The Pitch Final takes place
Following a series of regional heats throughout the year November saw the Grand Final of The Pitch, held in London. Sponsored by Yell, this event was promoted across multiple Sift Media sites, but especially on small business titles BusinessZone.co.uk and UK Business Forums – reaching hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs in the process. The final of this small business pitching competition was a roaring success and you can read the post event review here. 

December – The biggest and best Business Cloud summit yet
2011's Business Cloud Summit was our biggest success yet, with over 500 delegates attending and some of the most influential thought leaders from the Cloud Computing industry getting involved in a variety of engaging and insightful panel sessions. As well as two distinct streams of content at the event (the business stream and the technology & developer stream) people could watch live online via a dedicated TV channel and also via live event blogging. Catch up on the action and read delegate reviews on the event website here.
Whilst at the Summit we used the opportunity to announce that Sift Media would be launching a brand new title in 2012 – PlatformCloud9.  Read more about how this site is to become the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of Cloud Computing here.

Picking one thing from each month has been tricky (there’s an awful lot more we could have included), but that goes to show just what a busy year it’s been.

We’ve got lots of exciting new projects happening in the New Year and we can’t wait to tell you all about them – look out for our next update in January (Sign up to our email updates here). In the meantime here’s to a prosperous New Year!