Month: July 2022

Around the world in five domains

Posted on by Comunicació

GeoTLDs promote local identities on the internet thanks to geographical domains. This makes them the perfect way of getting to know cities all around the world without leaving your home. We’re proposing a trip around the world by visiting five city domains. Are you coming along?

Our journey begins with .barcelona, a domain which has been operating for six years now and has more than five thousand registered addresses. Browsing the various types of .barcelona domains offers us a first-hand look at some of the city’s most typical and iconic sectors. For instance, through cultural domains such as the one used by Park Güell; gastronomy, such as the domain used by La Boqueria, or meet.barcelona, as a way of getting to know the city and what’s going on there. In just a few clicks you can tap into the city’s heartbeat. But we already knew about this domain, so let’s pack our bags and move on!

Our next stop is .stockholm, one of the most singular city domains in that it is limited only to websites relating to the City Council in this city. A good example is start.stockholm, where we can find general information about the city and a clutch of .stockholm websites for the various services which the City Council offers its citizens.

Changing continent, we visit the geographica domain with the most registered websites in the world, at over 302,000! This is .tokyo, the domain for the Japanese capital. Here we can find the website marathon.tokyo, for international runners, along with visit-chiyoda.tokyo and visit-minato-city.tokyo to discover neighbourhoods in Tokyo, or japanfreak.tokyo, for those interested in curious aspects of Japanese culture.

From here we hop over to one of Australia’s cities with its own domain, which is .sydney (the other is .melbourne if you’re wondering). This city domain has over seven thousand registered sites, including cycleways.sydney, a website with maps and routes for getting around the city by bike.

Our journey continues with one of the most visited cities in the world, as we stop off at .nyc. The city that never sleeps has over 68,000 registered domains. We can find sites such as greenwichvillage.nyc, with everything that’s going on in the neighbourhood, and newyearseve.nyc, for those wishing to recreate the legendary New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, so often seen in films.

Finally, the last stage of our journey takes us to .capetown. The domain for the South African capital has over four thousand registered domains. These include wanderer.capetown, to discover various routes around the city, iseeyou.capetown, a project seeking to give visibility to different collectives and fight to eradicate the discrimination and inequalities that still exist in a city as complex as Cape Town.

The agency OOMKT opts for the .barcelona domain to promote its services relating to digitalisation subsidies

Posted on by Comunicació

We spoke to Laura Maeso from the marketing agency OOMKT. The company is a member of the Barcelona Digital Chamber and works for the digital transformation of businesses in the industrial and B2B sector in the Bages county and the province of Barcelona, helping companies to generate business through their digital channels.

A few months back the government announced the launch of the Kit Digital subsidies, offered by the EU as part of the Next Generation EU funds. The subsidies are designed to help with the digital transformation process for SMEs and the self-employed in our country, and to speed up this process.

As an agency promoting digitalisation, OOMKT opted for the domain agentkitdigital.barcelona to promote its services as an agency working with these subsidies.

Laura, tells us about the Kit Digital for those who are not familiar with it

The Kit Digital is a subsidy plan promoted by the Spanish government as part of the EU’s Next Generation funding. The main goal is to improve the digital maturity of SMEs and the self-employed in our country. More than 2.5 million companies are expected to benefit from this initiative. Subsides range from 2,000 to 12,000 euros and come in the form of a digital payment, which all companies with up to fifty workers will receive if they request it. The money can be used to implement a list of tech solutions, ranging from the creation of a website or e-commerce page to the implementation of software to optimise the management of all the company’s processes and clients, plus other solutions.

Which companies can benefit from it?

The government has separated companies into three large groups: those with 1 or 2 workers, which can apply for up to €2,000; those with 3 to 9 workers, which can apply for €6,000, and those with more than 10 workers, which can apply for up to €12,000.

Companies obtaining the subsidies must contract the solution they require from any of the 8,700 plus digitalisation agencies operating around the country.

Companies in Barcelona interested in further information can check out this link about the Kit Digital, where they will find detailed information. 

How do you think the Kit Digital will help small businesses?

Without the slightest doubt, these subsidies will provide a big impetus for a large part of the business network in our country when it comes to digitalising their communication and sales channels.

I also think it will help them to improve their internal management processes, a factor which will boost things such as efficiency and production capacity. With society and the world where it is now, after more than two years of the pandemic, I think that companies need to clearly back the digital world in all senses, regardless of the sector we might be looking at. These subsidies are simply a helping hand to try and speed this process up, as there’s nothing that will stop it.

You mentioned that one of the tech solutions covered by the Kit Digital subsidies is the creation of a website or e-commerce platform. What other solutions are there for small businesses? What have they asked for the most so far?

There’s quite a variety of tech solutions on offer. From the creation of a new website to SEO of all content on an existing website, which is what we specialise in.

For instance, companies can also request a strategy for social media to enhance their online reputation, boost their community and increase their sales.

Another solution which our agency believes will be very successful is the installation of management software for internal processes, which will improve the efficiency and control of all business processes relating to production or operational matters.

Similarly, the optimisation of client management and invoicing is another key factor for any company’s operations, and the Kit Digital includes the installation of a CRM, none other than a programme designed to digitalise and automate this process.

Another type of technology which is playing an important role is business intelligence, as it helps to improve decision-making and reduces errors through the use of artificial intelligence to analyse data. The Kit Digital also offers companies the possibility of implementing software of this nature. These are the most commonly requested solutions among our clients.

Where a company wishes to create a website, what do you think they should bear in mind when choosing their domain?

It depends what they want to achieve with their site. In our sector, a domain can be chosen by brand, by company name, or by a product or service, if the idea is to use SEO to position the domain and the company’s products and services on Google.

In your case, you opted for a website with a .barcelona domain. Why did you choose .barcelona?We did it for local SEO. We were looking for companies in Barcelona interested in requesting these subsidies, and the domain agentkitdigital.barcelona was available. We found it a very interesting option for achieving our goals, and that’s why we chose it.

Laura Maeso from the marketing agency OOMKT

How to develop your brand on social media

Posted on by Comunicació

Getting your brand out there for people to engage with is a basic step for people to identify with you. Social media not only helps promote your company’s products and services, but also offers a chance to generate a community, disseminate the mission and values of your brand, gauge the needs of your target audience and, ultimately, make your brand more human and familiar.

Work your brand identity well

It is really important for your brand to be coherent across all platforms, making it easier for people to recognise. When somebody looks for you on social media, they need to know that your profile corresponds to your brand.

  • If you have various social media profiles, try to get them to have the same name across all media platforms. 
  • The profile image should be your logo.
  • Add the URL of your website to your social media profiles.
  • Use a similar visual design across all platforms, consistent with your website. 

Identify your audience and your social platform

Don’t jump the gun when it comes to creating a social media profile. First be sure of the profile you are targetting and the characteristics of each platform. Consider who you want to reach (their age, where they live, their interests, how they express themselves etc.) and identify which social media you will find them on. For example, users on TikTok and Instagram will be younger than those on Facebook and Twitter.

Once you know your target audience and which social media you want to be on, consider the type of content you need. For instance, Instagram and Pinterest are highly visual platforms and need good quality image-based content, with photos and videos alike. In contrast, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are perfect for text content, sharing articles, explaining new projects, asking users things and so on.

Plan and be consistent

Now you have identified your audience and the social media platforms you want to be on, it’s time to generate content.

Produce a calendar for social media content. This will help you know what and when to communicate. Identify key days for your brand, capitalise on current events, international days which have some connection with your brand or its values etc.

Create quality content: think about what you want to give to your audience. What do they need? What content generates interest? Create content which offers value, explain real stories and stick to the same tone and style in all your communication. If you’re unsure, you can try one sort of content and when you have a minimum base of followers, conduct surveys or ask them what sort of content they would like to see on your profile.

Generate special content for your followers. Maybe you can clear up queries with a live video for your followers, publish tutorials, reward your followers with a draw or competition of some sort…

Most of all, be patient

Share your social media on all your channels, from the website to visiting cards. This is a good way to get people who see your brand somewhere to track you and perhaps end up engaging with your brand.

Generating a community of followers on social media is not a fast process. It’s best to have some followers who identify with your brand and engage with it than to try to quickly build a base of followers regardless of their profile.

Combatting illegal tourist lets with fairtourism.barcelona

Posted on by Comunicació

The Fair Tourism BCN campaign is back this summer to raise awareness among locals and visitors alike relating to the harm caused by this illegal activity. The website, with its .barcelona domain, enables users to check if a specific building has flats without tourist licences, notify the City Council and help combat the phenomenon, as well as clear up any queries.

The flat search on fairtourism.barcelona makes it easy to check if there are illegal tourist lets in a particular building in the city. Users simply fill in the fields with the address, and if it doesn’t appear in the database it means that any tourist let in the building is unlicensed. The site also allows users to notify the City Council if they believe there is an illegal tourist flat operating in a building. 

The site for the Fair Tourism BCN campaign also includes a questions and answers section to clear up any doubts over what constitutes a tourist let, what conditions legal tourist lets must satisfy or what happens if an unlicensed flat is reported when there are people staying there.

Towards sustainable and respectful tourism

Barcelona has a wide array of tourist accommodation so that all visitors can enjoy the city as if they were just another city resident. Yet for visitors to benefit from their experience while respecting local people in the city, they also need to steer clear of any type of tourism which allows illegal flats to flourish in the city.

Over 2,300 tourist flats have been closed down since the shock plan to tackle illegal tourist accommodation was introduced in July 2016. Besides fines, a team of over a hundred inspectors and spotters continue to work to confirm that flats do not resume their activity, to detect new unlicensed accommodation and pursue organised networks managing more than one flat.

In parallel, work is ongoing with the holiday rental platforms through the joint working group which already included Homeaway, Booking, TripAdvisor, Rentalia, Apartur and Airbnb.