This Festival of Enterprise event helped small business owners with free advice and guidance across a range topics.
Cyber security – why you shouldn’t pay the ransom
Cybercrime is a growing problem for organisations worldwide, with businesses facing serious threats from hackers and data protection breaches.
BU’s Cyber Security Unit helped businesses to manage cyber risk and data protection. Attendees also heard experts discuss and share information on the emerging threats now hitting smaller businesses, such as ransomware, whereby online extortionists encrypt data on a victim’s computer and then demand a fee for unlocking it.
Business Consultancy pop-up shop
The Business Consultancy pop-up shop offered one-to-one business advice, helping many small businesses progress to the next stage in their development and growth.
The Google Online Marketing Challenge
BU’s Dr Philip Alford and Ben Swatridge of PPC Active led a short workshop on pay-per-click advertising, featuring a mix of presentation and interactive discussion. Along with a comprehensive introduction to Google AdWords and an overview of the benefits to small businesses, we learned about BU’s participation in the Google Online Marketing Challenge and offered opportunities to be involved.
This challenge represents a unique opportunity for university students to develop and run an online advertising campaign for a business or non-profit organisation using Google AdWords. Dr Alford has been entering teams from BU’s Digital Marketing course into the challenge for the last five years, with over 50 businesses participating.