The Madison Chamber of Commerce introduced a new Education Series to its members this summer. Additional programs are being added this fall.
 
“The mission of our education series is to bring together local experts and chamber members in a professional setting,” said Chamber President John Morris. “It’s another membership perk.
“During the seminars, which are very congenial, the experts share their wisdom, meet potential customers and develop leads,” he added. “Chamber members learn essential business skills concerning trending topics that they can implement at their places of work and share with colleagues.
Andy Simpson, owner of Madison based Stamford Web Design, kicked off the Education Series with three different sessions that took place over three weeks. The programs were held at the Madison Community House.  Participants brought their own laptops and IPads and were led through a highly comprehensive interactive program.
 
“The problem with the ever changing digital online world is that many business owners can get left behind very quickly,” Simpson said.  “I thought it would be a good idea to run a series of seminars to try and help members of the Madison Chamber take control of their online presence and understand what and how they should be doing it.”
 
The first session focused on how a company’s brand appeared online.  “We looked at Google, BING, YELP, Facebook and Apple Maps and what you should be doing to control and manage these listings,” said Simpson.  “We then looked at Google Analytics, which is used to monitor the businesses site traffic, such as users, top pages and referrers. Google Analytics is so vast so we looked at what members should be looking at as business owners.”
 
The last of the three sessions was geared toward WordPress, the world’s most popular content management system. 
 
“WordPress is used for 25 percent of all websites in the world,” said Simpson.  “Again we looked at how easy it can be to edit a website, make page changes and even add and remove pages from a site.  We also looked at the security a business owner should have to make sure their site is protected from potential site hacks.”
 
Chamber’s Executive Director Karen Giambra, said  “With so many options for businesses in today’s competitive market, it’s imperative for small businesses to embrace new tools and technology which will allow them to stand out from their competitors. We plan to offer topics that will pertain to social media, merchandising, economic development and event marketing as the series continues.”
The next education series which is scheduled for September and October, will welcome Marie Semple, principal of The Prospect Finder LLC and author of “Magnify Your Business”    
The seminar will introduce successful strategies for effective prospecting and business development as well as ways to take a LinkedIn profile from good to great in promoting personal and professional brands. 
The second seminar will touch upon the fee and free-based opportunities on Facebook and how to target a business’s ideal audience.
For more information on the Madison Chamber of Commerce, the Education Series and its other programs, visit MadisonNJChamber.org.  The chamber can also be reached by email atMadisonChamber@gmail.com or at 973-377-7830.