Banter white on transparent background

Acknowledgement of Country

Banter Group acknowledges the Gundungurra people as the Traditional Owners of the land on which our agency stands, and extend this 
respect to all First Nations peoples, including 
Elders past, present and emerging.

Jeepers we all needed that break, hey? Happiest of new year’s to you, and may you navigate your Covid safety in the best possible way.

We’re all back to our usual working routines and regimes, supporting businesses to find their marketing & creative paths.

We’ve continued to grow over the last 12 months and with our now 16-strong team, I’m delighted to introduce Lauren McMillian to our Banter family. As Social Media Manager, Lauren’s outstanding experience in managing ROI through sponsored ads, content planning, strategy creation, design and community management, coupled with 10+ years of social experience puts her in the driver’s seat of our social product.  Say hello Lauren!

We’re looking forward to sharing a great year with you, and wish you a great start for your business.

Valentina xxx

Looking for a new challenge in volunteering?

Pop In Southern Highlands assists women and children experiencing domestic violence and abuse, and we’re looking for two volunteers to join the marketing sub-committee. You’ll be fully supported by an inspiring board and staff, as well as us, as Banter are the pro-bono marketing partners for this much-needed service.

We’re looking for a copywriter and a graphic designer who can help us deliver on our marketing strategy, crafting messages about our fundraising events, services and success stories.
This is an incredible opportunity to strengthen connections, use your skills and give back to community, and enrich your life too.

Interested? Email me today, I’d love to chat with you.

Insta Guides: what you need to know

I haven’t given Guides enough attention but you should know about them. They are a 1-year old feature from Insta that curates your posts into a 📚 ‘library’ of similar content. They can be created using pre-published posts, places, or product listings from the creator’s account or public accounts. Each guide includes a cover image, title, introduction, and optional descriptions for entries. Kinda like Story Highlights that are grouped, but they aren’t Stories, they are posts, and they make a little e-book of your content.

Keeping up my Banter Values theme, here is a great Guide example from HubSpot: Doing Good Is Good Business. You’ll get the drift when you click. Guides appear in a dedicated tab on a person’s or brand’s profile and can be shared in Stories or direct messages.

If you’re ready to give it a crack, follow this bouncing ball blog from Sked, it’s easy.

Insta changes the feed (YES!) and longer Stories

Such a cracking way to start the year! Insta is making good on their promise that the news feed is changing back to chronological order. In fact, you can expect to find 3 feed choices open up:

1️⃣Current ‘Home’ feed – how interested you are in content2️⃣ Favourites – never miss your faves
3️⃣ Following – accounts you follow in chronological order

The non-chronological home feed will feature “more and more recommendations over time,” functioning more as a discovery hub than a way to keep up on content from people you already follow. That’s really important – as social DISCOVERY is very high on Insta, so keep a watch out for reports on the adaptation from customers and which feeds they’re picking.
Stories last longer:  we used to think that photos last longer (see what I did there😉), but it turns out it’s Stories’ time in the limelight – with Insta launching 60-second videos in Stories. This means that longer video clips will no longer be split into 15-second segments, and played across various Stories frames. That would be nice!

Image credit: Instagram

Need Commercial Property? Search Commercial

Search Commercial is an online tool providing access to national real estate and property databases. With sophisticated features like heat mapping, analytics tools and high res aerial imagery, the business needed a digital presence to demonstrate the unique functionalities of the data service in the proptech industry, as well as ensuring it remained an accessible brand.

Banter were engaged by Search Commercial based in Victoria, to redevelop their website as a simple and modern solution for property developers. We had a logo and a magnifying glass to play with, and the rest was up to us.

The advanced data feeds and affordable offering from Search Commercial is a game-changer for this fast-paced industry and we’re delighted to have been part of their journey to show them off!

What It Takes To Make An Animated E-Card

We’ve had so many wonderful comments about our end-of-year e-Card Snow Globe and how it was created – so Brent blogged it.

The effort for 3D animation is considerable and you can read how our concept was brought to fruition with Brent at the helm.

It’s fascinating to know about the polys and layers that go into the design before colour, texture, and actions are added.

Less than 5 min reads for you

This section: Short reads, not just about marketing.

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Blackberry finally retired:  You have to admit, they gave it a red-hot go, and hung in there till the very end, but Blackberry, as of this year, packed it in. The company’s support for the operating system was switched off – All the company’s older devices that do not run on Android software will no longer be capable of accessing the internet, making calls or texting. They stopped making devices in 2016, so you have to give a user credit for sticking with them an additional 6 years until now.

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Global Social Stats: Everyone loves the new kid on the Tok, but don’t forget to look at how each social platform delivers in terms of users and behaviours. Growth figures don’t impress me much, as 2,000% growth from zero is expected, but sustaining growth is quite a different story. The Tok overtook the Snap, but the Book is still leading the game, with the Gram closing the gap. Check out these global stats compiled by InsiderIntelligence.

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Google’s Pet Portraits: Who doesn’t love a Google feature? This newbie is for the Arts and Culture app: the ability to search through thousands of paintings to find a look-alike for your pet. “Pet Portraits” feature will let you take a picture of an animal and have a machine-learning algorithm find pieces of art that feature a similar-looking animal. Time-waster alert!

Image credit: Getty Images

Windows to the World

If you freaked out at the randomness of Chat Roulette (I warn you before you click that link), then you might just love the less-risky randomness of WindowSwap – a window to the world, at the click of your mouse. Northern California is so pretty in winter, and the streets of Hackney could be straight out of a gangster film.

Set yourself a challenge, every time you open a new tab on your browser, open a new window to the world for a few seconds.   This one is coming to you from Sanet Y Negrals, Alicante – Spain.

Catch you next time