It wouldn’t feel right to blog this week without mentioning the economic holocaust that appears to be threatening the world. The Dow is doomed, Greece is gutted, the States are failing and anyone close to retirement is likely starting to panic. If you didn’t already have your super sorted, you’d be forgiven for feeling downright depressed this week. You might even feel tempted to pack it all in, don a hoodie and join the riots in London. But the rioters don’t in fact stand for anything. There is no silenced, disenfranchised voice emerging from the fray.…
Continue ReadingSocial media naysayers
There is a growing segment of society taking a moral stand against the new world of social media. They choose to boycott all forms of social networking and make life difficult by not having a facebook page or twitter identity. They expect to be actual friends and swap email addresses or, god forbid, phone numbers, in order to stay in touch. If you’re ever face to face with one such renegade they will have you feeling silly reasonably quickly. They’ll say, “when did we all turn into idiots desperate to share every boring detail of our predictable thoughts and lives?” …
Continue ReadingOpening or Closing – is social media shrinking our world view?
For those of you who are studying you will know that Semester 2 is already here (it feels as though we skipped a few months at the beginning of the year). And with this new semester comes our latest intern from QUT’s Creative Industries program, Sharon Barbour.
If like Sharon you’re keen to apply for one of our internship positions, visit our jobs page.
Sharon will be with us for the next 10 weeks so stay tuned for more posts.
Take it away Sharon.
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When you think about the digital age you picture sassy, open minded people cruising the information highway, facebooking (yes it is a verb now), snatching news headlines on the run, while commenting about pertinent world issues on Twitter.…
Continue ReadingFacebook launches ‘Facebook for Business’ – An ‘education centre’ for businesses using Facebook
We’ve blogged before on How to create a Business Page on Facebook but now you can hear it straight from the horses mouth.
Facebook has recently launched the “Facebook for Business” website which is aimed at providing a step-by-step guide to help small businesses use and make the most of the social networking site. If you’re struggling with the basics or even just after some new ideas to improve how your using it at the moment, I suggest you check it out.
Facebook joins Twitter who has had a “Twitter for Business” resource for a little while now.…
Continue Reading3 Things I learned at Think on Your Feet
As you know here at Bluewire Media each team member is devoted to communication that is timely, appropriate and understandable. To help ensure that my communication is understandable I recently participated in a course called Think on Your Feet®.
Think on Your Feet is a two day workshop offered by New Horizons Learning Center. It is designed to train professionals to organize their ideas quickly so that their message is understood, direct and persuasive.
In this blog post I will touch on how Think on Your Feet gave me the tools to be understood, direct and persuasive.…
Continue ReadingHow To Score 493/500 For A Website: Bluewire Media shares some of its winning methodology
A few times a year, Bluewire Media will submit some of our latest websites to the IMA (Interactive Media Awards).
We’ve had much success over the years, with 6 “Best In Class” awards and 5 “Outstanding Achievement” awards. One of our latest entries, however, has scored our best mark yet – The Maura Fay Group’s Corporate Learning website managed to get a final grade of 493/500 or 98.6%.
So, bragging aside, what makes a website score 493/500?
Design: 98/100
The IMA website’s Judging Criteria page has this to say about design.…
Continue ReadingAdd +1 to your pages and help your website stand out – Why Google+ makes the +1 button important
You’ve probably seen these Google +1 buttons around the place. While I knew Google might be onto something, it hadn’t really clicked for me until until now. Today I got an invite and signed up to the new Google + Project. It’s basically Google’s answer to Facebook.
Seeing the below in my profile screen inside Google + has made the little +1 button make a whole lot more sense and seem that much more of an important addition to your website. All your +1’s while not only having an impact on search results*, will show up in the streams and profiles of everyone using Google +.…
Continue ReadingHow to kick off a web strategy (or any) workshop – Introduce your team by Native Genius
Do you ever find differences in your workshops with clients? I mean major differences? Sure you have different people in the room, but your process and questions are the same right?
In the last 2 months, we’ve had 2 web strategy workshops with 2 different clients – one has gone really smoothly, the other not so smoothly.
I won’t name names, but sincere thanks to both clients (they’ll recognise themselves) for their genuine feedback – you can’t improve without it.
I want to pick one aspect of the feedback that really stood out as a difference.…
Continue ReadingHow to reach a targeted audience through leveraging popular #hashtags
Case study
It’s a bit of a Monday night ritual for me – a glass of wine, Twitter and the ABC show Q&A hosted by Tony Jones.
The show is “live and interactive” and that means Twitter is alive with comments and questions, with viewers using the hashtag #qanda while the show is on.
The Queensland Premier’s marketing team has recognised that those monitoring and contributing to the #qanda hashtag are generally likely to be interested in politics and have given them a chance to ask Anna Bligh a question.…
Continue ReadingIs Twitter the Queensland Reds’ Secret Weapon?
Queensland Reds superstar Quade Cooper tweets up to 6 minutes before kick-off and the coach encourages it!
Rugby fans can follow the Reds on Twitter and are even likely to get a personal reply if they tweet their favourite player.
Coach Ewen McKenzie is a self-confessed ‘binge twitterer’ and constantly uses the real-time tool to communicate with players and fans.
And Reds captain James Horwill uses Twitter to fire up his team, rally supporters and drive ticket sales!
It’s no wonder Suncorp Stadium will be a full house on Saturday night.…
Continue ReadingUser Review: My Saasu experience????
My Saasu experience
After my post last week on our experience with the different accounting systems (MYOB vs Netsuite vs Saasu), I wanted to follow up with more detail about working with Saasu (or @Saasu).
I must admit I was a little nervous when I rang, but my Saasu experience was fantastic.
The website looked good, the accounting feature list definitely favoured them, and the reviews I found were pretty positive from users and bookkeepers. So my expectations were high and I was really hoping not to be disappointed…
Thankfully, I wasn’t.…
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