2011

Posted on Apr 20, 2011 by Laura Elvery

Rekindling the Love: Fry Knows Best

There’s a time for restraint and a time for love; a time for discreet, straightforward copy, and a time for using absolutely the most interesting words to tell your story. British legend Stephen Fry thinks it’s a real shame that more speakers and writers of the English language don’t love language. He believes too many of us feel that “words belong to other people.”

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language from Matthew Rogers on Vimeo.

TOO PEDANTIC FOR WORDS

Sadly, I doubt Stephen Fry would like me. In his tirade against the hounds of the English language, he chides Lynne Truss with her grammar and punctuation book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”.…

Posted on Apr 19, 2011 by Adam Franklin

9 Words To Help a Beggar Out

The words you choose make all the difference.

Picture an old man who is blind and begging for money. His cardboard sign reads “I’m BLIND, please HELP.”

He gets a few coins from passers-by. Then a girl walks past, flips the cardboard sign around and writes a new message on the back. The coins now come flooding in.

The blind beggar asks what she’s done. In her thick Scottish accent, she explains, “I wrote the same…. but different words.”

What did the new cardboard sign say….? “It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it.”…

Posted on Apr 15, 2011 by Sarah McVeigh

Weekly Round-Up | Vol. 87

There’s a marketing theme this week – from big ideas, to stuffing up, to selling social to your boss.

10 Considerations When Creating a Social Media Policy -MackCollier.com

This article really shows that there’s no need to be afraid of social media for marketing when the ground rules are clear. Following this ten step guide in your business means you’re less likely to have a “social media disaster” – though, as David Meerman Scott attests, naysayers are really just badvocates in waiting.

How to Convince a CEO to Enter 21st Century Internet Marketing – Hubspot

We see it all the time – the marketers in a company love the idea, it’s natural to them and the benefits are clear.…

Posted on Apr 13, 2011 by Adam Franklin

How Writing a Book is an Effective Marketing Tool – Andrew Griffiths

“You have to meet Andrew Griffiths!”

That’s what I was told when I had the pleasure of meeting Wendy Ackland, Emmy Kerrigan and John ‘JV’ Vickary at an AMI social media workshop that I facilitated in Cairns.

It turns out Andrew Griffiths is Australia’s best selling business author, from Cairns and quite a character!

Andrew Griffiths is a small business author, professional presenter and advisor. Here is his interview on how writing a book is an effective marketing strategy.

How did you end up writing a book?

For me it was interesting.…

Posted on Apr 12, 2011 by Adam Franklin

Taking your ISO 9001 Quality System online

This is guest blog post by quality management consultant, Alan M Jones from Qudos Management. Alan helps organisations attain their ISO 9001 Quality Approval certification and this article highlights how you can use the web to increase the effectiveness of your quality system.

Over to you Alan.

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There are many ways in which your web site and other online activities can make your quality system more effective and efficient. This article describes some of them.

General – ISO 9001 Quality System online

If you’ve put time, money and resources into a quality system, why not tell people about it?…

Posted on Apr 12, 2011 by Laura Elvery

Working with Words: Tips from Practical SEO Copywriting by Glenn Murray

Kangaroos and Coffee

Glenn Murray does it with kangaroos, but it could be with anything. Try it with ice-cream, or cars. Coffee or air conditioning. If you want visitors to find your website (and find it remarkable), you need to write copy that helps them find you. Relevant, quality content and strategic, keywords act as signals for your readers. And if signals are important for humans, they are doubly important for Google.

Google Knows Murray

When it comes to Google (and quite a few other things), Glenn Murray knows what he’s talking about.…

Posted on Apr 11, 2011 by Sarah McVeigh

Video blogging – tips to get started

Over the years we’ve recorded and shared dozens of video interviews with experts across a whole range of fields. Not only have we learned a whole lot ourselves through the knowledge of others, we’ve also been able to share a whole variety of perspectives with our own audience.

On the strategy side of things we have also generated hundreds of re-tweets, back-links and contacts through sharing these videos.

And while it’s as simple as recording, editing and posting a video, there are some nifty ways that you can leverage your video blogging (or vlogging) to make it more beneficial for your overall web strategy.…

Posted on Apr 8, 2011 by Sarah McVeigh

Weekly Round-Up | Vol. 86

The finest pickings

Here David Meerman Scott shows how Nordstrom’s employee got it right.

We always get a bit excited at Bluewire when we see big companies taking the plunge and embracing social media. But what’s even better is the personal aspect. Who wants to chat with a big ol’ company? What we want is to engage with the people within it. After all – they’re the ones that are going to know their stuff, right?

Seth Godin’s take on the price/value mismatch.

You can always count on Seth Godin for a touch of perspective amongst all the marketing noise.…

Posted on Apr 6, 2011 by Laura Elvery

A Beginning, Middle and End

This is a guest blog post by Laura Elvery, Bluewire’s newest intern-in-residence from QUT’s post graduate Creative Industries course.

Every year we take on several QUT students for internships in copywriting, web design and development. If you’d like to apply, visit our jobs page.

Stay tuned for more posts from Laura as she completes her 10 week internship. Over to you, Laura.

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I adore books, love bookstores and want to support face-to-face shopping, but what do we do when our choices are limited and prices are high?

A visit to the bookshop

This week I bought a book from a shopping centre bookshop chain.…

Yearly Archives: 2011