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.

Be Your Authentic Self

They say copying others is the greatest form of flattery.
Stuff that. It’s cheating. It’s #singlewhitefemale. It’s second place. Ask Pepsi.

Finding your authentic self, your voice, your strategy, your position in the market is what you should focus your attention on. A straight up copy-of-others just makes you look lost and directionless. #metoo is not a strategy. The reason Banter starts with consumer insight and strategy is to identify and distill YOUR UNIQUE PROPOSITION, to make you stand out.
Be original, and you’ll stand out for the right reasons.

Valentina xxx

LinkedIn Introduces Lookalike Audiences

LinkedIn now boasts over 600 million users, so it’s no surprise there’s a raft of announcements coming out from the Microsoft-owned social platform. Now, advertisers can create and target lookalike audiences on the platform.

Lookalike audiences (usually best known in Facebook), enable you to target users similar to those who’ve already engaged with your business in some way, such as visiting your website. This is based on the notion the users who look and act like those who’ve engaged your business are more likely than others to take the action you want them to take.

This means you can expand the reach of your LinkedIn ads, driving impressions and clicks from relevant users.

To get started, head to Campaign Manager and create a Matched Audience. If you need to build out your first audience, you can create a list of people from your CRM or those who’ve visited your website.

ICYMI: In January, LinkedIn had also launched interest-based targeting.

Measuring Your Insta Stories Success

Social success and ROI is a difficult metric to define for most businesses.

It’s not because there isn’t any data, it’s mostly because many businesses don’t actually have a social plan that defines purpose, content needs and audience structure.

If you do have this structure in place, then you’re ready to rock ‘n roll with some serious ROI measurement of your actions.

This awesome guide from Social Media Examiner takes you screenshot by screenshot through your Insta Insights tab and how to work out what all the data means. Calculating your ROI should be straightforward with this easy to follow and understand plan.

Google Ads: The Truth, The Myths And The Options

The acronyms are back! How about this month we take a look at PPC and CPC and all that falls into SEM. That’ll be Pay-Per-Click, Cost-Per-Click and Search Engine Marketing.

On the blog, we’ve broken down some of the most common questions we hear when it comes to Google Ads. They aren’t called ‘AdWords’ anymore, because Google are making sure that their ad offering all falls into one place. They’re diversifying their offering regularly. Like Shopping Ads. Like Google Display Network. Ads can both fail and be successful, depending on your objectives, your ad choices and your budget.

Make your budget work harder by making informed decisions on how to spend the $.

Lab Rats: The Coolest Science Community for Teens

Seeing a brand vision come to life for a science community is such a rewarding experience for all of us at Banter. This isn’t marketing for us. This is education. This is supported learning.

Lab Rats is an online community for Australian teens interested in any area of science and technology. The channel is for teens themselves, predominantly aged between 14-18, to inspire them to become engaged with other like-minded kids.

​The go-to for exciting science news, competitions and projects, Lab Rats has both Facebook and Instagram channels where teens can interact.

We manage the moderated, closed group for members so that they can safely connect and chat with other teens who share similar interests, wherever they may live. We were also lucky enough to design the website homepage and create the marketing strategy to find these young people, parents and teachers.

If you are a teacher or parent, you can also sign up for the free newsletter so you can engage the young people in your life with home-based projects and science learning.

Recent chats and upcoming stuff

New Short Courses in Insta and Facebook
If a full day of learning is just a tad too much brain power, we’ve created two new short courses to help you along with your social media.

Instagram Stories: In this express Insta Stories workshop, we’ll share all the opportunities your business has to engage with your audience. You’ll leave armed with all the tools, tips and tricks to make your Stories something to talk about! Bowral is set for Tuesday, 2nd July for $250. Book Now. Sydney dates coming soon!

Facebook Ads: Buying Facebook Ads that work is actually an art in crafting the right targeting using audience insights. Our half day course will show you why boosting ads can be a waste of your $ and why sponsoring ads with purpose can give you the return you’re looking for. Ads Manager and Business Manager aren’t exactly easy to navigate. We’ll show you how to make the most of them and navigate like a pro. Bowral is set for Thursday, 4th July for $420. Book Now. Sydney dates coming soon!

Real Estate Clients: The AREAs are back! Entries close 14 June 2019.
Last year I was honoured to be a judge for realestate.com.au’s AREA awards. These awards celebrate the most innovative, community-minded and highest-achieving individuals and businesses across the residential property market.

There are 9 awards for real estate agents and property managers to enter, across three categories of Innovation, Service & Marketing Excellence and Community.

If you have a team, campaign, or agency that deserves some recognition, jump on board and submit your entry into these prestigious awards. Entries close 14 June 2019.

Glass Reacting Like Human Skin

Imagine.

Designers will use laboratory synthesized melanin – the ‘universal pigment’ found in skin, fur, hair, and eyes – as an architectural resource to build glass windows that deepen or lighten in response to the sun like our own skin. It sounds a lot like transition lenses, except with melanin.

The hope is in time, liquid melanin would be incorporated into larger sheets of glass and used as transparent architectural surfaces as responsive and adaptive to the elements as our own skin.

You can check out the art installation that’s exploring this now, and I can tell you, pop on the kettle, it’s fascinating.

Until next time 😊