Learning Café

On September 20, a Learning café on International Marketing Tools took place at Lapland University of Applied Sciences. Prior to this learning café, students were divided into groups and each got their own topic on which they would write a paper. During the Learning café, the groups presented their results and ideas on the topics to each other. Branding, Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing and the Moment of Truth and Zero Moment of Truth were among the topics which were discussed.

Our group’s main conclusion was that businesses nowadays can never become successful if they do not engage in social media marketing. We concluded that social media marketing on its own is not even enough. Search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and conversion rate optimizationIt are essential. It is very important to use a cross-channel, and engagement marketing as well. We learned about PPC advertising, retargeting, SEO,  mobile apps and ads, and personalization.

Other groups in turn made mind-maps to assist them in teaching us  a few things about their topics. They taught us more about for example brand monitoring, how to create good content and generate traffic and interaction, reports that track data activity, different companies and content marketing, and an explanation about the zero moment of truth.

In my opinion, this is a very good learning method. All students are engaged in all topics, can share their views and opinions with others, and thus gain a lot of knowledge on a variety of topics in one class. Personally I learn and remember more from a Learning café than I would from 5 separate lectures. A Learning café requires students to participate, which is not always the case during a lecture. This makes it a very effective way of learning.