A SENIOR figure from the online ticketing giant Eventbrite shared some of the lessons of its blogging activity with a Bournemouth audience.

Mark Walker, head of content for the business in the UK, told how the company’s blog was used to inspire event organisers and support the philosophy in the company’s mission statement.

“We are bringing the world together through live experiences. That’s our mission statement,” he said.

“That’s what our founders, our executive management team, everyone throughout the company lives by and talks to.

“I think we’re ready to embrace anything that helps drive that forward. “

Mr Walker was among the speakers at the latest Once Upon a Time digital marketing event at Boscombe’s Shelley Theatre, organised by Think Create Do and the ID Group.

Eventbrite has processed 5billion US dollars’ worth of ticket sales since inception in 2006. Around two million tickets a week are processed today.

Mr Walker said he had been allowed to experiment when he was first responsible for the blog. More resources were put into it when the results followed.

“We try and keep a minimum of eight fresh pieces of content on the blog,” he said.

“When I went through the interview process I said I wanted us to be a media company – I don’t want us to post product announcements every now and then when we have them.”

He said there had been three keys to successful blogging:

* Planning – “If you’re going to sit at a computer screen and divine inspiration will hit me, it won’t”.

* Passion – “I’m passionate about events, technology digital and I combine those things.

* Progress – using data to show the process was working. He said the operation had initially used “what we call vanity metrics, the number of likes and Facebook followers”, before moving on to “slightly more important metrics” that showed the number of potential users finding the site.

He said the blog was most successful when it spoke to people’s identity as organisers of events.

“When we write articles that connect with people’s experience of doing this as a career, they’re really successful and do really well socially,” he said.

Articles that helped people do a better job of organising their events also went well with a readership that was “starved for information”, he said.

He said his experience of the blog had also revealed the creative way businesses were getting themselves known.

“A huge proportion of people that use Eventbrite are not event organisers. They’re businesses connecting with their customers in new and interesting ways,” he said.

The event also heard from Damien Lee, founder of Bournemouth-based Mr Lee’s Noodles and recently profiled in the Daily Echo; Mark Cribb, founder of Urban Guild, which runs the Urban Beach Hotel, the cafe Urban Reef and the bistro Jenkins & Son at Penn Hill; and Ernest Capbert, co-founder of outdoor clothing brand Finisterre and more recently the customer research agency Who Buys Your Stuff?