Google’s First Fridays: A time of learning from the horses own mouth

BY CHRISTINA GWIRA

Google. You already know that I am a die-hard Google fan and self-proclaimed member of #GoogleGang. What’s not to love about the company? They literally revolutionized the Internet and the way that we go about our daily lives. The first time I entered the Google offices was in January of this year for a vision boarding workshop. At the time, I had had my Google Pixel for all of two months and the stars were still in my eyes. However, actually being in the place, THE GOOGLE – well, the Toronto version anyway – was a great honor. Located at 111 Richmond Street West in Toronto – of course – the Google offices span as least three floors that are decorated in the famed four color combo, with splashes of white and grey to boot. However, this was not the reason that I was at Google Home on Friday, December 6^th, 2019. I was there for an application-only event, exclusively for start-ups called First Fridays.

I was immediately confused. In case you weren’t aware, there is another event for entrepreneurs called 1^st Fridays which has a similar mandate. I heard about Google’s event through a Facebook group and immediately asked if Google had somehow shut down or taken down the original 1^st Fridays event series. They hadn’t, they were both unrelated. With that out of the way, I submitted my application for the event, and waited to see if I had been accepted. I’m typically weary of events branded as being geared towards “start-ups”. They come off as extremely cliquey, vaguely classist, with just enough micro aggression to keep you on your toes. This event was no different, however, after you’ve gone to a few of these events, the whispers, glances and fake “hi’s” roll off your back like water off of a duck. I was pleasantly surprised to see several of our own in attendance, and that brought warmth to my heart.

Now, to the meat and potatoes of the event, the keynotes and lightning chats. I was thoroughly impressed with the content that was delivered. The topic for this event was everything surrounding brand: from demystifying brands to learning how to optimize your Youtube channel for maximum impact. I was able to fill out quite a few pages of notes that I was not only going to use for my clients and personal projects, but to share with my Toronto Caribbean Newspaper family. Some of the key takeaways from the event are as follows:

Demystifying brand

Rosie Gentile of Cossette Media provided a keynote that encouraged us to look at brand as more than our logo and brand colors. She impressed upon us that brand is a promise. It is a promise that we as founders must keep at every interaction our potential clients, customers and competitors have with our company. She encouraged us to discover, “what is the tension”, or more plainly, the problem, that our client is facing, and be the solution to that tension.

Building your Youtube presence

I was super excited to be a part of this talk. I was also extremely happy that the Google representative went over on her time to deliver this presentation, because she provided quite a bit of value. She stressed to us that Youtube is MASSIVE, with over 400 hours of content being uploaded onto the platform every 60 seconds. The four key points that she wanted to bring to the forefront of our various Youtube strategies were as follows: to be consistent; to use Youtube insights; to encourage our viewers to subscribe to our channels and finally to engage with our users, subscribers and audiences.

Paid brand strategy

Last but not least, of course Google would add in a section that had to deal with paid advertising! I’m not a big fan of paid advertising because my business is not at that stage just yet (and we’ve been ok without it thus far!), however, it was interesting to see how the changes that take place on the Youtube app are created to benefit the businesses that DO invest in paid advertising. For example: last week I noticed that I wasn’t able to skip ads on Youtube and there were now two ads, back to back. At the event, I learned that the reason for this was because Youtube had introduced a new six second ad format, which meant that these ads couldn’t be skipped. From a business perspective, this is great! More people get to see my whole ad! From a consumer perspective, you’re now forced to ensure twelve seconds of ads. It’s very interesting to see how changes and decisions that large corporations take to improve their bottom line, have a direct impact on the everyday common consumer.

All in all, I had a great time at the First Friday event. Their next event is slated for February 2020, and I’ll be ensuring that I’ll be in attendance… depending on what the topic is. If you are a start-up founder or entrepreneur, I’d like to encourage you to make it out to these types of events. Yes, it’ll be uncomfortable for the first three, however, the lessons learned and potential connections that can be made can highly elevate your business to the next level.