Switched On Media

Should you iron your jeans?

Jye Smith — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:00:18 +0000

Is it ok to iron your jeans?

Ok, Hannah and I are having an argument about ironing your jeans. So, we’re crowd sourcing the ‘correct’ answer. Vote, and leave your comment on why or why not.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Twitter Spam

Andy Jamieson — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:47:43 +0000

Twitter Spam

Please don’t tweet like above, it does not achieve anything.

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¿puıɯ ɹnoʎ uo s’ʇɐɥʍ – ʞooqəɔɐℲ – Upside-down?

Phillip Ohren — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:52:45 +0000

You probably already knew that Facebook is available in 43 languages, and is now in the process of being translated into another 60 languages! But did you know you can get ʞooqǝɔɐɟ in upside down English, and even English Pirate? Pretty cool huh!?

If look at the image below you’ll notice everything on my profile that isn’t user generated is upside-down and back to front, surprisingly its not that hard to use! Go to your account settings and play around, but a word of warning, don’t change your Facebook to language you can’t read, you’ll have trouble changing it back.

¿puıɯ ɹnoʎ uo s'ʇɐɥʍ

Its great to see Facebook providing a little bit of fun, but on the serious side of things:

40 percent of Facebook users are not using English – Which is surprisingly large!
25,000 volunteers helped translate Facebook into Turkish last year, and there are now 9 million Turkish-language users signed up for Facebook – Where there’s demand, there’s action!

There are in-fact so many languages available that most computers, and Mac’s, do not have the language set installed! Given how rapidly Facebook languages are evolving I think its safe to say that we’ll see almost 100 languages by the end of this year.

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Gettin’ Retweets

Jye Smith — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:45:31 +0000

How to get more re-tweets on Twitter

Make it interesting: people don’t retweet things for the hell of it
Make it short: if you expect people to add “RT @YOURUSERNAME” then make sure you have got enough room for that, and maybe a short comment like “cool! RT @Username” (so like 100 characters tops)
Help me, help you: like an emotional bank account — your influence over others is driven by the support you give to others. Be nice, and people might be nice back.

And, well that’s about it.

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Google Facts and Figures

Jye Smith — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:27:26 +0000

Everyone loves infographics. So here’s a whole heap just released from Pingdom. Interesting, but not as interesting as the Infographic on Mega Shark (big lols).

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New Business Win: Flight Centre

hannah — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:07:18 +0000

We are excited to announce we have been engaged by Australia’s best known travel agency group, Flight Centre, to execute search engine optimisation strategies across three of their major websites: Flight Centre, Escape Travel and Student Flights.

The team’s strategic thinking and proven expertise helped them to secure the account after a highly competitive pitch – congratulations guys!

Our new client, Nicole Moy, Marketing Manager for Flight Centre Limited, had some nice things to say about us: “We are continually looking to develop and enhance the Flight Centre profile and we are pleased to be working with Switched on Media on this project.”

Check out our announcement on Digital Media.

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Diet Maccas? Surely not.

hannah — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:05:54 +0000

Courtesy of Wooster Collective

McDonald’s has announced a new partnership with Weight Watchers that will promote some of the Maccas menu (including chicken nuggests!) as suitable for dieters.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that three meals marked with the Weight Watchers logo are now on sale in New Zealand and we are told Aussies can expect to see them here later this year. Apparently the deal enables McDonald’s to use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu next to chicken nuggets (1560 kilojoules), Fillet-O-Fish (1390kJ) and sweet chilli chicken wraps (1640kJ). The deal will also see Weight Watchers promoting McDonald’s to their dieters!

It seems the Heart Foundation tick was no longer marketable enough for McDonalds so the fast food giant had to go to even more drastic lengths to overhaul their image and bring new customers into their store. I like to think consumers are savvy enough to see through this latest marketing ploy and hope the Weight Watchers dieters don’t have their good intentions hampered by a big, greasy Fillet-O-Fish burger.

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Harley-Davidson Social Media Integration

Jye Smith — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:37:22 +0000

Live Facebook stream

Very pleased to see the live Facebook connect stream next today’s world record attempt. The live discussion from around the world while watching the stream brings people together makes for a far richer experience.

Facebook or Twitter live streams aren’t an overly difficult addition to a page, and can be a very effective social media tool. Yet another way to improve your on-site social media.

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New iPhone App for surfing

Scot Ennis — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:31:27 +0000

Surfing the web

The term surfing the web has never meant so much with Quicksilver launching an iPhone app that enables live webcast and heats on demand.

It’s pretty cool to watch the worlds best surfers, surfing, live, on the world tour, whilst sitting on the bus on the way to work…The Quiksilver Live Application features live results, photographs, videos and everything else a ‘surf addict’ needs, and is, quite frankly, the best app I’ve ever downloaded. Now, back to work…

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3 Ways to Promote Your Social Media Activity

Jye Smith — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:43:29 +0000

On-site social media optimisation

On-site social media is one of the most overlooked and under resourced parts of the website. We’re all getting better with off-site (Twitter profiles, engagement etc) but that’s really only half the picture.

We’ve all seen those little social media icons. They’re everywhere. But you know what? They’re not always that effective. We can all take note of the guys who put together the Dragon Age: Origins site – nice big tabs, integrated into their site. You may also notice our integration with our content from Twitter and Flickr directly on each and every page on our site.

So, here’s 5 tips on how to promote your social media activity

Integrate social media links into the main navigation on your home site: don’t rely on simply icons in the footer
Display dynamic social media content via widgets and dynamic HTML on your site
Track performance of click-throughs, page views and engagement: then revise and continue

Tracking is incredibly important to make sure what you’re doing is working for your audience — this is a simple way to ensure social media is making an impact on your business outcomes.

SEO Tip: Dynamic content is also a good way to improve site ‘freshness’ and support your SEO strategy

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