digiclan africa – Orifunke Lawal

Events

DigiClan Lagos Meetup | A Story of Learning, Networking & Jollof Rice

By Orifunke Lawal / Date June 12, 2018

Prior to now, I wasn’t very much a fan of meetups. Blame that on the fact that I get really uncomfortable when I’m among many people that I either do not know at all or I’m unfamiliar with. But then, one of the things that I am trying to do is to get out of my shell and do stuff that I naturally do not like doing- like going out of my house to an event where one of the purposes is to network. (Hopefully, one of these days, I’d write a post about why you should be eager to attend meetups if you’re someone like me who doesn’t like to go out that much).

For a few months now, I’ve been a member of the biggest community of digital marketers in Nigeria and Africa. My friend, Deji Faniyan, saw the need for me to be a part and linked me up straight up (and that’s something I am grateful for).

DIGICLAN, as the community is called, is a community of digital marketers and influencers. The overall aim of the community is to network, learn, teach and mutually contribute to our individual and collective growth as well as the overall development of the Digital Marketing Space of Africa.

Last week, I got to know that there would be a DigiClan Lagos meetup the coming Saturday. I was reluctant at first even though I knew I had much to learn from professionals who I knew would be coming around. (I don’t like meeting people that much, remember? Lol)

But one thing caught my fancy; the fact that there was going to be Jollof rice!

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Yes, I know I love food that much and I am not ashamed of the gospel of food. But see, knowing that there would be Almighty Jollof instantly spurred me to prepare for it. I just told myself, “Babe, ain’t no way I’m gonna pass up an opportunity to eat Jollof this Saturday. Ain’t noooo way!”

And so, I got up from my bed, dressed up for the event against my feelings of not liking to meet people and headed out for The Virtual Hub, Ikeja where the meetup was to hold.

The event was one of the many periodic face-to-face meetups and free trainings organized by the Clan to provide answers to questions as well as share vital information on the Digital marketing space. Furthermore, it was inspired by the need for the community to meet, network, share and learn from campaign stories, successes and failures of experts and upcoming Digital media marketing professionals.

Did I love the meetup? Hell yeah, I loved it (I wouldn’t be taking my time to write this if I didn’t love it.) There were people who shared challenges that they had been having with their online campaigns and there were more than enough professionals to help them get their problems solved.

Also, I really did get to network with a couple of people who I was absolutely wowed listening to. We shared ideas and exchanged ideas. I wouldn’t have loved it if I had missed it, really.

After I got home, one of the interesting things I thought about doing was to get other individuals who attended the event to share why they decided to attend and what they learnt from attending. I got a few responses:

“The meet-up, for me, was an opportunity to network (put faces to the WhatsApp names) as well as learn, knowing the calibre of members in the group. I got to reunite with old colleagues (as well as former wedding train mate ?) And I picked one, two and plenty ideas e.g to guide with content marketing strategy.”

-Iniobong Michael Idio, Digital Marketing Executive with core competence in SEO.

“I attended the Meetup with an intention to CONNECT and LEARN. I actually did achieve all of that from the meet-up, got to meet young great minds with amazing talents, people who are open to sharing their own ideas and experiences for others to learn from. I also got to meet some people that I’ve only been hearing about or talking to on phone, so it was really nice to place faces to them and yea, I made new friends too. The experience was truly AWESOME and UNFORGETTABLE”- Nancy Abudu Oriolowo (@oriolowonancy), Digital Marketer.

“I volunteered for the events and I attended because I want to go into social media marketing and management. The meetup met my objective because I was able to get other Digiclan members to learn how social media management works and how to get the best ideas in running campaigns.”

– Abu David Itama, Brand Strategist & Content Developer.

“I was to coordinate the volunteers. Met lots of digital media-inclined personalities from different spheres of Digital Media management and learnt one or two ideas on how to better manage my blog.”

– Daphne Isaac, Entertainment and Celebrity Gossip Blogger, www.fambles.com.

Personal Verdict?

The organizers and volunteers did a great job, I must confess. The brainstorming sessions were enlightening, the networking session was fascinating. And the food…Oh God…the Jollof rice was life! Did I mention there was Puff-puff too?

The venue we used was beautiful too. Virtual Hub is a company that offers you space for events like meet-ups and seminars at affordable prices. More interestingly, they have really cool workspaces for you if you have a team or company and you need somewhere to work. The catch? You could pay daily, weekly or monthly and the charges are understandably moderate, to be honest.

I look forward to more DigiClan meetups like this. The experience I had has made me more open to going out to events more and meeting more people.