Donating money directly to charities supporting the Ukrainian people is not the only strategy we can each consider to help the population given their current plight. The resilience of the civilian population in Ukraine has impressed the world since the Russian invasion late in February and with thousands of Ukrainians working in tech there are a number of tactics digital marketers can employ to support them. Below we outline 5 tools and more ways on how to support Ukraine as a digital marketer.
Google were quick to innovate to highlight the reality of the situation with their SERP ‘Russian invasion of Ukraine’ feature which provides information from trusted sources on the tragic events in the country. With the conflict front of mind for us all, it’s useful to think through how to support Ukraine and what we can actually do to help.
How to support Ukraine as a digital marketer
Overall as a company In Marketing We Trust considered how to support Ukraine at this time and then defined a specific policy and Ukraine Support Strategy, based on humanitarian support, economic support and activism.
We are encouraging our team and those we collaborate with to take a proactive approach in decision making and sourcing, which can make a genuine difference to the well-being of those suffering due to the invasion.
Taking practical steps to support Ukraine
This includes supporting more digital professionals and IT specialists from Ukraine to work remotely, whether they are still in the country or have been displaced due to the violence being inflicted on their population. We are actively increasing our recruitment processes within the region and looking to use more Ukrainian tech.
We’re also striving to promote Ukrainian tech to our customers and communities of collaborators, amplifying the visibility of industry peers and technology providers in or from Ukraine.
In addition to the direct humanitarian aid which can be given by donating to the relevant charities, digital marketers can go further by deliberately contracting Ukrainian professionals or using more services provided by companies from Ukraine. This economic support can literally provide a lifeline to families in their hour of need.
Conscientious digital marketers can seek out Ukrainian talent in the form of freelance content writers, data scientists, designers, front and back end developers, software engineers and translators, or look to use one of the 4,000+ IT service companies based in Ukraine.
A tech powerhouse
Ukraine has been a tech powerhouse for many years, with a wealth of IT talent produced by this nation of innovators. Before the invasion more than 10 universities in the capital Kyiv and many more in cities like Dnipro, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa and Vinnytsia were educating the next generation of the digital workforce.
With the country producing in excess of 130,000 engineering graduates and 16,000 IT graduates each year, some very well-known technology businesses and brands such as Ahrefs, Gitlab, Grammarly and WhatsApp were either founded or co-founded by Ukrainians. The likes of Amazon, Google and Samsung have established research and development facilities in Ukraine, attracted by the wealth of tech talent in the country.
In Marketing We Trust uses Ahrefs
There are also a number of strong tech solutions from Ukraine which we recommend that digital marketers consider utilising in their daily work. Ahrefs – a powerful SEO tool used by In Marketing We Trust for audits, rank tracking and backlink checks on our clients’ websites – was founded by Ukrainian Dmytro Gerasymenko.
A graduate of the National Technical University of Ukraine in Kyiv, Gerasymenko now runs the business from an HQ in Singapore and has a number of compatriots in his leadership team.
Up your grammar game with Grammarly
Meanwhile, the grammar assistance solution Grammarly, which has a number of features that content teams can take advantage of, was founded by a trio of Ukrainian colleagues Dmytro Lider, Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko. The tool helps with ensuring copy in emails and marketing assets is free from grammatical errors. We used it to write this post!
Crawl your site using JetOctopus
A faster and more affordable SaaS crawler and logs analyser without limits, JetOctupus is used by In Marketing We Trust for clients’ site audits with a range of flexible options for crawling, analysing logs, and even GSC integration.
During these difficult times, any donations made to support Ukraine is doubled in terms of your quota subscription at JetOctopus.
Working on all fields in parallel:
– buying medicines for defenders – demoing platform to new customers – being a mom of a newborn and 2 kids. Test @JetOctopus, subscribe. 15% of all sent to support Ukrainian army! pic.twitter.com/q9OEtIqem9— Julia Nesterets (@JNesterets) March 3, 2022
On top of that, Ukrainian CEO Julia Nesterets is donating 15% from all the transactions till the moment of the big victory of Ukraine.
Big Ukrainian staff numbers at CleverFiles
Many people, unfortunately, know that feeling of losing an important document and the U.S. company CleverFiles is a handy solution for recovering deleted files. CleverFiles has more than 20 staff working full time for the company from Ukraine and is currently helping them to relocate in the safer areas to the West of the country.
Gitlab – founded by Ukrainians in 2014
DevOps enhancement platform Gitlab has Ukrainian founders and was established in the country in 2014, to help development teams reduce costs and boost productivity. It can often produce tangible results for large scale development projects and is worth taking a look at for those with dev responsibility.
As many of the Ukrainians working for these companies will be under significant pressure due to displacement – and the emotional turmoil caused by the invasion – there has never been a more relevant moment to consider contracting digital services and tools from Ukraine.
Remote Ukraine – a great initiative
The website Remoteukraine.org has recently been established to help companies across the globe to hire professionals from the eastern European nation. Many firms from Australia, Canada, Ireland, the US, the UK and Switzerland have used the site to advertise tech jobs ranging from social media strategists, to project managers, web developers, 3D artists and many more.
‘Remote Ukraine’ allows businesses to post jobs, search candidates, receive applications and legally contract freelancers and providers. Functionality even includes making payments to contractors per task, per week or per month.
The platform is completely free to use, with over 3,500 registered candidates already on board, many of them tech specialists. More than 800 jobs have already been posted for remote and in-person, part-time and full-time roles.
Compassionate gestures make a real difference
Investing in people when they are at their most vulnerable can make a huge difference to them.
It is also worth considering the long-term impact of focusing on the Ukrainian tech talent pool at this time. The after-effects of the current turmoil will be felt for decades to come.
Families and lives are being torn apart, with reliable sources of income just a luxury to some victims of the invasion, so meaningful work means more than ever to those who can still perform it despite the immense pressures being put upon them.
Yet thousands of stoic and brave tech workers are still managing to produce brilliant work for their clients in the most difficult circumstances.
