MarketingHub.me&you - Roba Al-Assi on bringing marketeers together.

In an exclusive interview with Beirut/NTSC Roba Al-Assi, Communities manager at Bayt.com, reveals why all marketeers should flock to Marketinghub.me the upcoming main online destination for everyone in the communication industry.

What is the site and why would it be of interest to the marketing community in the region?


A member of MarketingHub.me will gain deeper, and broader knowledge of what they do. They will make stronger connections, and they’ll be able to brand themselves as a professional within their industry. It provides the opportunity to increase knowledge base, to deeply understand the relevant workplace ecosystem in our region, as well as to become familiar with the leaders.  We made MarketingHub.me as accommodating as possible for a community of marketing professionals; visually, feature-wise, and strategically. I mean, an accountant will probably not enjoy the shock of red! :)
However, each of the communities is completely open. If someone in the finance community is interested in branding, he or she is free to join MarketingHub.me to learn more. This person can come and ask questions, he or she can come and say that the marketing industry is doing everything wrong, or maybe even talk about how they want to change fields.
At the core, each community is about interest levels. You could be a student trying to figure out what you want to major in, or you could be the CEO of an organization looking to brand your business amongst the young generation of marketers. You could be a web developer looking to learn more about marketing, and you join MarketingHub.me to read news and articles, find tips, use tools, ask questions, and meet other people. You could be a sales person and join the marketing community because you have a product you could aim at them, like some market analysis tool.

What does Bayt have to do with it, and what do the quizzes tell about one's self?

Bayt Communities will be leveraging the 10+ years worth of experience that Bayt.com has in the region, and Bayt.com users will have the benefit of being able to use their registration details to jumpstart their adventure with Bayt Communities. That’s where the interaction ends. Beyond that, Bayt Communities is a standalone business. Capitalizing on Bayt.com's ten years of experience, we have crafted a Career Analysis that enables users to measure where they are in their careers when compared to their peers. We also have quizzes, often of a more fun nature.

The website contains several articles by people from the industry, how do you pick those articles and who can contribute?

Basically, we have two sections with content on MarketingHub.me:
1. We have "Articles and News", which is three-fold:
a) Exclusive articles for MarketingHub.me
b) Handpicked articles by our editor from around the Web (link curation)
c) News (RSS feeds of our favorite marketing websites).
Anyone can write for us here! And we are happy to feature posts from around the Web, so if you ever have a great post on your own blog worth sharing with our marketeers, please let me know :) We will link to you and reference you of course.
2. We have the ThoughtLeaders Section, with the CEOs of the top marketing agencies in the Arab world. The ThoughtLeader Section is a little complex, as we have a long list of variables that go into choosing who our leaders are. This includes position, how prestigious the organization they work at is, and years of experience.
As for the topics, we like hearing about personal experiences, perspectives on branding, and so on in the region. We want to provide relevant and interesting content that gets our readers both saying, "YAY, that's going to be so relevant to my work" or "HA! That's awesome".

Where does the online community fall in this?

We’re bringing together like-minded individuals. We’re creating key unique content that will really help them in their professional lives. We’re seeding conversations and we’re ensuring that the people in an environment where the conversations will be relevant to their immediate needs.
It’s not about coming and sharing your weekend photos, it’s not about presenting yourself to be hired by someone, it’s not about coming here and connecting to someone who you can sell something to. It’s 100 times more than that. It’s about increasing your personal net worth as a professional in your industry.