As a nation, historically we’ve looked at global trends and decided they can wait a few years before we collectively relent and begrudgingly adopt it. This has happened with most major technologies, pop-culture fads, working techniques, and cultural norms. 

However, over the last few years, we seem to be a little quicker on our feet when it comes to adopting technological innovations. 

Just Google ‘the Blockchain island’ and you’ll get where I’m coming from.

Digital marketing has a similar story. Local marketers held off on adopting digital advertising for as long as possible. We were mostly comfortable with our traditional media and weren’t looking for an industry disrupter. 

The problem with disruptors is that they happen whether or not you want them to. 

That marketing disruptor in Malta? Social media. Maltese residents love social media. That’s forced marketing to evolve and evolve quickly into the digital-first landscape we have today. So here are 8 things you need to know as a business leader or marketer operating in Malta when it comes to digital marketing.

Boosting Posts on Facebook is not enough

Disclaimer: Boosting posts on Facebook isn’t a bad thing. But most people tend to misuse it. Whenever you place ad spend behind a post on Facebook, you’re asked to choose what objective you have, such as engagement, reach, or website traffic. Each of these sound relatively good for any brand to gain, but they provide significantly different results. For example, boosting a post to gain post engagement will place your ad in front of people who tend to comment or like things often, and not necessarily the people you actually want to influence.

Placing ad spend behind social media content should be one of the last things you consider. Start with your brand, your audience, and the goal you want to achieve with the content you’re creating. There’s no one perfect way to spend money on Facebook. Spending money to get likes & comments might make it seem like you’re doing well, but you can likely do better with a more rounded approach.

Google Search is underused

A huge number of consumer journeys start with research. This is especially true for products that are either too expensive or complex for impulse buying to be common. The go-to platform for said research is Google Search. For most websites, in fact, traffic from Google is their most valuable source of traffic for a simple reason. Those who arrive at a website from a search engine have a very specific intent. They know exactly what they’re looking for and will know they’ve found it when they see it. 

Locally, it’s surprising to see just how many valuable search terms are non-competitive. When we say valuable, we mean that those using that search term are likely to be individuals who are looking to purchase something. When we say non-competitive, it means there are not a lot of brands vying for the top results for those search terms. 

If you’re not sure whether to delve into SEO (search engine optimisation), we wrote a quick guide to figure out whether it would be worth it to you or not. And here’s a useful tool you can use to figure out what kind of volume and competitiveness the search terms in your industry have. You might be surprised.

TikTok Ads are coming

If you’re over the age of 30, you’ve likely been trying to ignore TikTok and convince yourself that Instagram is still the trendy platform to be on. 

You might even think the word trendy is still used. 

Well, the reality is that TikTok is here to stay for the time being. Even some unexpected organisations are taking the leap. Whether it’s the right move or not, we’re not entirely sure.

Not too long ago, TikTok launched its ads platform, just like Facebook and Instagram did a few years back. However, it’s yet to reach Malta. For now. That doesn’t mean your brand shouldn’t already be there. If your audience is predominantly below the age of 25, it’s definitely worth taking a strong look at what content production capabilities you have, because one thing’s for sure – standard brand-focused content doesn’t fly on TikTok.

Once ads make their way to Malta, it will become the hottest platform in the local industry.

Don’t think of influencers as just celebrities

At Switch we’ve been working with influencers for years, and if there’s one thing they always are happy about when they work with us it’s this – we don’t use them as celebrities. 

Traditionally, getting a big name associated with your brand is seen as a clever tool to get fans of that celebrity aware of your brand. 

And that’s all well and good. 

But the influencer scene in Malta is a little different, purely because of the very first point I mentioned – there aren’t a lot of us on this island. 

That means that the same handful of big-name influencers have hugely overlapping local audiences and they tend to get overused by brands who want to reach that audience. That’s not the worst of it though – a lot of brands approach influencers with very little in the way of direction. They expect them to come up with the strategy, content, and execution on their own, which is especially egregious when they’re not given that much information to work with.

Before even making a list of influencers you want to work with, you need to:

• Pinpoint your audience.
• Analyse influencer collaborations in your industry.
• Make a list of both big-name influencers and micro-influencers.
• Write a detailed brief.
• Have a two-way conversation with potential influencers to figure out whether your brands are a match.

Only with all that done can you begin to discuss the actual content.

LinkedIn is not just for recruitment

If you’re a business that relies on B2B sales and word-of-mouth for business development, then LinkedIn is essential. For years, LinkedIn has been regarded as the platform to find a new job on. While it still fulfils that purpose, it has evolved into a space where professionals build their personal brands, and by extension, their company’s brand while widening their network.

While we definitely encourage brands to use it, don’t treat it like Facebook. The content that works on Facebook doesn’t have the same effect on LinkedIn. What works are thoughtful business-related posts that have humans in mind. Spend 5 minutes scrolling though – you’ll notice that the posts that do well are those coming from individuals talking about their experiences, not about companies talking about their products. 

YouTube is the new TV

As a kid, I grew up watching cartoons on a foreign TV station. I was subjected to countless ads for toys that were only available in strange, distant places. 

I probably saw thousands of life insurance and debt consolidation ads from UK companies that were meant for whichever adult was around me. 

This is probably a pretty relatable scenario those of us who grew up before the content on the internet had really caught up with TV.

A lot of time has passed since then. 

Kids who weren’t yet born when Ira Losco first stole our collective heart with “7th Wonder” are now driving around and going to university. That means these adults who are already making major purchase decisions were 5 years old when YouTube began, and have grown up finding most of their personal entertainment online and will likely continue to do so.

Setting up YouTube ads is more flexible than ever, with a variety of different goals and distribution techniques available. Make sure you have a strategy for it.

Your website is your most valuable asset

Going back to what I said at the beginning, targeting the right audience in Malta isn’t easy – we’re just too small. The targeting tools available to marketers on the ad platforms can help, but those have been designed for countries with tens of millions of residents, not a measly half million. That means that those who are interested enough in what you have to offer to visit your website after you communicate with them are extremely valuable. 

To do that, you need a website that’s configured and designed to drive as much traffic to it organically as possible, while also making it possible to retarget individuals who visit on digital ad platforms. If your website isn’t up to scratch, and not well-optimised for this, we guarantee you’re missing out on business.

Get inspiration from…Twitter?

That’s right. Twitter. While the relationship between Maltese residents and Twitter is usually limited to a screenshot of a politician’s statement being shared on Facebook, the platform is extremely useful for marketers. Brands that have been around on Twitter globally for a while have figured out that Twitter is the perfect place to have live conversations with their audience. 

Take a look at the interactions between big brands and individuals, and even between the brands themselves. Most of the time they’re informal, off-the-cuff conversations. The success of these interactions has now led to a lot of brands doing the same thing on other social media platforms as they’ve realised that people tend to respond more to content that isn’t corporate.

If you want to see where social media in Malta (and the world) is going over the next few years, take a look at what’s going on on Twitter. The first local brands that try to emulate the informal tone will be taking a risk, but they also stand the most to gain by being first-movers. 

Not sure about something in particular?

Obviously local digital marketing goes beyond the 8 points mentioned above, and each of them have more nuance than anything we could explain in a single article. So if you’re running a business (be it Malta, or anywhere else) and want to have a chat about something you’re unsure of, just drop us a line – no strings attached.

The post Digital Marketing in Malta: 8 Things You Need to Know appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

This SEO tip uses intelligence coming straight from the horse’s mouth – i.e. the source of the data is coming from Google itself – specifically Google Search Console.

Google Search Console, formerly part of Google WebMasters, is a toolset that offers quite a lot of insight into the way that Google’s search engine algorithms interact with your website – specifically your website’s content and the way that organic search traffic is arriving at your website. 

The idea behind this tip is to reverse engineer the search queries which are arriving at your website – and then tailor your content to the user intent behind those queries.

(Proviso: for this trick to work, you already need to have some traffic coming from organic search)

How do you decipher user intent?

In Google Search Console under Performance > Search Results you can see what queries are sending traffic to your website. The Queries tab provides a lot of intelligence. By skimming through the queries, you should immediately see some patterns of user search intent emerging. What you see is also an accurate reflection of your best content marketing work.

Here’s an example. We worked on a content marketing piece that compares two pieces of software for one of our clients. Through Google Search Console we can see which search queries led to that particular page, as seen below. (N.B. The red & blue boxes represent the two pieces of software that we were comparing directly in our piece of content.)

It’s clear from this set of data that we’re clearly covering the intent of those searching for a direct comparison between the two. However, our digging shouldn’t stop there. We’ve satisfied the user intent of these individuals, but there may be others that arrived at our page through search queries that may provide us with hints to improve our content.

In the above screenshot, which is taken from the same search queries list as the one before it, we can make a couple of interesting observations. Several individuals have searched for the comparison of the two pieces of software, but for a different use case than the one we covered in our content. There’s also a cohort of individuals looking for a 3-way comparison with another, newer product that’s come on the market.

Using this information, there are several paths we can take to improve traffic, and fulfill user intent in a more complete way. Firstly, we can improve the content of the original piece of content to cover these queries. Or, if appropriate, we can create a companion piece that would link directly to the existing one.

Based on this lesson, here’s a list of things to keep in mind when performing this exercise with your, or your clients’’, sites.

The following are guidelines, rather than rules but they’ve worked for us

1. First and foremost, make sure your content is answering the users’ search intent exactly. If you can expand your content to hit all aspects of that intent, so much the better.

2. Use MORE of the keywords that are being searched for within that content. Whilst expanding the content on the user search intent, drop a few more keywords around the search queries.

3. Add more images and use search phrases as part of the name of the image, and in the image alt and description.

4. If possible – add a YouTube video that is also tuned towards the users’ search intent. If it doesn’t exist – create it yourself!

5. Tune your H1 title to the search query which is generating the most hits in this case.

6. Tune your meta description and meta keywords to the user’s search intent. If there are missing keywords, try to include them.

7. Be prudent – don’t overstuff your content with keywords – just make sure you have killer content for the user’s search intent.

If you do this for both the content that is generating good CTRs and especially for that content which is not generating good CTRs, you should be able to get a very good organic traffic boost.

This won’t happen overnight of course, but working in conjunction with your other SEO efforts, you should see your organic traffic climbing steadily. We’ve seen instances where the organic traffic increased by more than 30% using these techniques.

As always, also work on retaining the increased traffic. Make it easy for your new visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter or at least follow you on social media. 

Hope this helps you out!

The post Growth hacking: Analyse user intent to see search traffic shoot (Updated 2021) appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Together, their combined spending power in the United States alone amounts to £264 billion. As a marketing agency, this is the kind of statistic that makes us happy: it shows where the money’s coming from, and if we know where the money’s coming from, then we can make better stories. Better stories mean more people listen to those stories. If more people listen, we get the opportunity to make more stories.

But there’s a caveat. To tell the stories that make a difference, you need to know what your audience is – and Gen Z and Millennials are not the kind of audience that’s easy to understand. 

Gen Z and Millennials: An Audience Profile

Here’s what we know: 

They’re fiercely dedicated to their causes: 72% of Gen Z will only buy from brands that support societal causes. 83% of millennials do the same. 

They’re sale-and-money conscious. These are people who grew up in the heart of multiple catastrophic events: 9/11, two recessions, unending war, climate change, and a global pandemic. Money has always been a problem, and it’s not a problem that’s going to end soon. 

They’re kind. Millennials and Gen Z especially know what it’s like to struggle to make rent, to pinch pennies to pay vet bills, and to face the uncertainty of living from paycheck to paycheck. GoFundMes, Kickstarters, and circulating payments are one of the cornerstones of their existence. 

They’re digital geniuses. The oldest millennial remembers the start of the internet age. The oldest Gen Zer doesn’t remember anything but. 

All those combined, and you have an audience that knows that your communication has a purpose, and that purpose is to sell them things they will not necessarily need. That makes them resistant to most forms of advertising that can’t stand up to fact-checking – and resistant to companies that have already had problems in their past with their message, or their values. 

Marketing to a millennial and Gen Z audience also isn’t something that can be avoided. With most of the purchasing power now firmly in the hands of both demographics, it isn’t a case of ‘well, we’ll talk to someone else’. 

There’s no-one else. It’s millennials and gen Z all the way down. 

Marketing to the Unmarketable

Here’s the thing: marketing to Gen Z and Millennials needs more finesse than regular marketing. It’s the difference between having a conversation with an expert in your field and getting into an argument with someone on Facebook: one is ultimately futile, and the other can open up connections and nuances that weren’t there before. 

We’ll leave you to decide which one of those that is for you. 

For Gen Z and millennial marketing, there’s three important factors to remember. 

1. Social is key

When everything costs money and money is a premium product, you turn to the one thing that’s still free: social media. Gen Z and Millennials spend a combined total of five and a half hours a day on social media, though with the pandemic, that amount has skyrocketed up by about 36%. 

The takeaway: don’t spend time advertising on channels where your message isn’t going to be seen. We’ve been talking for a while about how digital is the way forward, but it’s especially crucial now when the people who you’re marketing to live, breathe, and play on digital. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok: social media has become the medium for the message.  

If that isn’t convincing enough, consider this: 75% of millennials are directly influenced by a brand’s social media when it comes to making purchasing decisions. 

2. Honesty is the best policy

Make sure your values are in line with your company’s promises because Gen Z and Millennials can, and will, find out. 

The backlash is never pretty. 

For millennials and Gen Z, supporting a brand is a moral choice, not just monetary; it’s a crucial aspect of making a decision to buy from that brand. If you have a message that supports an agenda, if your values are clearly communicated, then Gen Z and millennials will find a way to buy from that brand. Being honest about your limitations and flaws help. Social responsibility helps. 

The takeaway: build up your community responsibility measures. Find a way of having conversations online that matter. Support a cause. Stand by the cause you support. Be braver and take risks. Brands that stand by and pretend to be above the conversation going on are no longer the main conversationalists at the table. 

Brands that talk are. 

3. Create, and keep, loyalty.

What we said above, times ten. 

Look: part of the inherent risk that comes with supporting a new brand is that you don’t know if you’re going to enjoy whatever that brand puts out. If it’s a big purchase, it matters more; a small purchase of a few Euro off of Aliexpress doesn’t hold the same gravitas. 

However, Gen Z and Millennials count every purchase as a big purchase, and put thought behind it all. If a brand puts out a product they’d like to try, but it’s above a certain budget, it’s difficult to get them to buy in initially. Why would they? Lots of risk for a potentially low reward does not a happy shopper make.

Consider clothing stores. 

Retail stores took a big dip during the early days of the pandemic when people could no longer try on the clothes they were going to buy. Makeup retailers saw the same side-effect: once you remove the aspect of ‘try before you buy’, making a final decision becomes that much harder. 

Gen Z and Millennials won’t buy your product just because. If it’s on offer, if it’s part of a loyalty scheme, if you offer excellent after sales service: then it becomes easier. The risk is minimal. The cost pays for itself in peace of mind. 

The takeaway: surprising your audience does no-one any good. Offer a way into your world at a reduce cost – think long-term financial pay off instead of short-term. A buyer who’s happy with your service will keep you front-of-mind for subsequent purchases, and if they already have that experience, it’s easier to keep going back to the devil you know. 

A handful of ideas

Leverage your social media. 

Create a loyalty programme. 

Talk to your audiences.

Easier said than done? Maybe. But it’s not an impossible task for any brand. 

And it always goes back to brand. 

Gen Z and Millennials aren’t going to support a brand they don’t agree with, that’s dated, or that supports something they don’t support. However, before you go and throw the whole company away, think. 

Who do you want to be?

What do you support?

What do you think?

Brands are extensions of the people that work in them, the people that create them, and the decisions they make. 

Brands are also, fundamentally, inherently, and obviously, changeable. While changing a whole company to attract one audience isn’t going to make any sense, neither is holding onto a past no-one wants to relive. 

If you’ve tried all that, and it still isn’t working, you’ve missed something somewhere. 
Maybe it’s time to try something new.

The post Gen Z Marketing, Millennial Marketing, and You appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

• Marketing Account Manager

• Accounting Executive

The post Let's build stories together appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Then the borders became fuzzy

The specialist digital team worked more closely with the creative pool and vice versa until there was no internal distinction any more. All we were left with was the headache of managing two social streams and two sites when we only needed one drinking session for the entire team. Which page do we post the more embarrassing shots to? So we looked at ourselves as we would look at a client and told ourselves what we would tell a client. Sort your shit out and communicate like the single brand that you are. So here we are. We’re Switch. We’re adept at telling stories to an audience, wherever that audience may be.
What this means for our clients and partners is that the incredible pool of talent and specialised digital marketing that was available under the Switch Digital brand is still around and growing as fast as we can possibly manage it. The creative team that has crafted so many stories for so many years within the Switch umbrella is also here, and also growing steadily to add skills, perspectives and personalities. You just have an easier way of getting in touch with us. Isn’t that what you’d have wanted us to recommend to you?

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My year at Switch

As I celebrate my first year at Switch, I’ve decided to look back at what I’ve learnt throughout this incredible year. This may be a bit of a cheesy post, but it will help you get a clearer idea of what Switch is. Most importantly you will find out who is part of this ever-growing family.

Switch is like a family

This was a relatively new concept for me, and it might have taken me a little longer than normal to get used to the idea that at Switch, people are more than just office colleagues. My background before Switch was a very monotonous office life, where you only ever meet your colleagues at work and during the occasional Christmas office party. Very little to no socialisation took place within the office, and you were given little knowledge about who you were working with. At Switch things are different – you are more than just a number within a company. There is a strong sense of community, of helping one another. The numerous team building events, beers in the boardroom, outdoor adventures, and the long chats over lunch have created a fantastic work environment. Thanks to this, there is a strong support system – we are all here for each other, and we don’t ever allow panic to take over. If one is in need of an extra hand for a project, I can assure you that five will be presented to them, and that’s just, plain, straight awesome.

Switch is an enabler

One year into Switch, and I feel like I have learnt more here than I ever have throughout my three years as an undergraduate student at University. Switch has pushed me into researching, learning and practising what interests and passionates me. Every day I am encouraged to do something I love and to always improve in what I do. Thanks to Switch I breathe and live social media, and I am constantly learning more about it. I write interesting content in-house and for our clients. My obsessive-compulsive planning disorder is actually appreciated, as I try to always plan my work, have content ready months ahead and create colour-coded to-do lists and content calendars.

Switch thinks outside the box

Really and truly, Switch is made up of creative humans that share a place together for approximately forty hours a week. Each and every person in the company has a beautiful brain that is capable of imagining and creating breathtaking works. The best brainstorming sessions are the ones where we gather all the team in one room, and throw anything we can think of on the table, to then go through each and every idea and pick the winning one. Everyone has a say, every idea is a good idea, and we work together to think outside the box. It’s fascinating, inspiring and motivating working with such a creative bunch of people.

Switch is transparent

Switch is constantly working to become the agency of transparency – how? Check out Martina’s Office Bloggers to find out. Yes, there have been bumps along the way. Yes, there will certainly be more. After all, we are humans, we make mistakes, and nothing can ever run as smoothly as we wish. Having said this, Switch is transparent with its employees and clients. It is a very straightforward way of working, where everything is communicated. That’s right, everything. If we think your idea is terrible we won’t sweet talk you out of it, but we will plainly and simply tell you to not go ahead. We are an honest and straight-talking bunch.   

Switch builds relationships

That is certain. If you either work for or with Switch, you are bound to build a long lasting relationship with the company. Clients are treated as close friends – and let’s be honest, everyone goes an extra mile to keep their friends happy. Employees are family, which makes the job that more enjoyable.

Switch loves food

I am not much of a foodie. For this reason, I get judging looks and shocked faces when I refuse a piece of cake or a saucy burger. Here at Switch, food is pretty much a sacred thing that needs to be enjoyed to the fullest. In the past year I have learnt that food is more important than meetings. Therefore no meetings should be booked at lunch time (take note, Matt!). It’s fascinating how pastizzi can bring the whole team together. Just to put you in the picture, we celebrated Bacon Day the other day, and everyone from the office brought something homemade that included bacon. It seemed only fair, that for my year anniversary, I would bake these food lovers a cake. After all, they say the best way to a wo/man’s heart is through food. 😉

There you have it folks, this is what Switch is! If you are curious to know more about us crazy humans, check out some of the work we’ve worked on. Don’t forget to like our Facebook page to keep up to date!

The post What is Switch? appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

How did I do it?

In the first few months, I aimed to sort out all the accounting functions of the agency to bring everything up to scratch. This allowed for better drilling down and give the directors a finger on the pulse of how the agency is running at the click of a button.
If we need to know how profitable an account is, if we need to understand which areas of the agency are doing well or if we want to have forecasts for the rest of the year we can usually simply fish the data out in a matter of minutes.
This is incredibly empowering. Once everything was up and running smoothly I wanted to see how we can use these numbers to improve the way Switch works. Both for the agency itself and for its clients.
One of the biggest challenges we’re facing here is that the way agencies have worked traditionally is incongruent with the way we see ourselves going forward.
In my first few months here I learnt that traditionally agencies would rely heavily on commissions for income. Book an advert here, book an advert there and skim a percentage off that when billing the client. This needed a structure that could take silly amounts of cash-flow in and out to allow for enough revenue at the end of the year to scrape by.
In addition, we had a major issue with this model because it is not collaborative, and was therefore against our company values. It did not encourage us, as an agency, to think in the best interests of our clients.
It promoted spend for the sake of it. If we’re being paid our fees on spend, then our best interests are at odds with the best interests of our clients. Why fight for a discount on an ad if it means we’re earning less on it?

What comes next?

So now, armed with a much clearer picture of all that goes on in the business, the next step is allowing our clients to enjoy the benefits of working in a much fairer practice.
We’re moving away from a commission model. We’re working on a way of doing business that helps us build better relationships with clients. We are doing this by showing them that we’re on their side, not trying to make them spend more to earn more.
We bill our clients for the time we spend working on their projects. Whether it’s negotiating rates on their behalf, coming up with creative ideas, planning strategy for their campaigns or making their lives easier in any other way.

How is it affecting us?

Has it had an impact on our turnover? Yep – we’ll probably be billing much less than we did in previous years. However, we’ll also be in a much healthier position than we were in previous years because we’re building a level of trust and transparency that clients aren’t used to seeing.
It also works in our favour because a client is usually much happier to pay for our fees if we’re bringing their overall marketing spend down. It makes it much easier for us to justify spending money on us if we’re giving much better ROI.
Personally, as the person who’s handling cash-flow and who leads the administration team, this makes my life much easier. I am now dealing with less paperwork and less cash-flow that leaves very little margins at the end of the day.
The workload on the rest of the team hasn’t really changed. We’ll still research the best places to book advertising and we’ll negotiate on behalf of a client – but we’ll pass any discounts we get straight on to them.
The only areas in which we charge a rate that’s based on spend is on online advertising – and there’s complete transparency there too. The amount of paperwork that’s involved in dealing with small regular payments has to be covered somehow, but we make this transparent to our clients.
Going forward we’d like to see this financial transparency across the board in the industry. It would make agencies a better place to work at and give clients a much better impression of our industry in the long term.
Till then I’m going to continue working to create an agency that runs as smoothly as it possibly can. Both for our happiness and for the benefit of our clients.

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In the beginning… There’s the Creation Stage

It all starts off from the Trend Setters. These are the guys who ask what’s going to happen tomorrow. They have a forward-looking mentality and always seem to come up with unthinkable new ideas. Some catch on while others are just dismissed as crazy notions brought about by people who are simply too crazy to comprehend. This is the stage during which the trend wave starts to form.

Trend Followers you’re up… The Shaping Stage is next!

Once an unorthodox idea is out there, there will obviously be some who like it as much as the individuals who came up with it. Enter, the Trend Followers – the people who ask what’s happening today! Those who always try remain up-to-date with what’s going on. These individuals are seen as trendy, daring and are, most of the time, leaders in their social groups in some way or another. This is the bridge between the creation of a concept, and its mass following. Hint hint… This is the audience you should be targeting if your campaign is somewhat crazy and innovative.

Well if the experts say so… Let’s take it to the Consolidation Stage

Simple truth is most people love their comfort zones, and will only start following trends once they know the cool guys are doing so. Just like the Late Adopters, who ask “ What happened yesterday?” These individuals have a reluctance to take risks from the very start in most situations and would rather wait until an idea has gained a bit of momentum until they adopt it, so no one thinks they’re weird. Although this mentality has the least influence over a trend’s creation, it is these people who have the power to consolidate and make it popular. So these guys will determine whether a ripple remains a ripple or becomes a wave.
Well, that’s a trend’s life cycle, in a nutshell, brought to you by a humble observer. So now that we have put things in perspective, let’s ask ourselves, where do we fit in? Do we strive to be a leader in any of our interests and activities? To which audience should we communicate our next great idea?
Catch you on the next wave 😀

The post Trend Watching 101 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Work without working

One thing that happens when you are completely immersed in the online world, is that you never really switch off. You could be scrolling through your personal newsfeed, and come across something you made for a client (and then, obviously, check the stats to see how that post is doing), or an article that sparks an idea for an upcoming project. I have countless of screenshots on my phone and ‘saved’ posts on Facebook that I keep for work purposes. Some may argue that you don’t ever cut off from work and therefore never take a break, but when you feel like your job is more like a hobby you see everything from a different perspective. I’ve often found myself writing blog posts over the weekend, and not because I am a ‘workaholic’, but simply because I enjoy what I do, and sometimes I may get inspired to do something outside office hours.

Work remotely

Oh, the joy of working in pyjamas!
All I really need to get my work done is an internet connection and a laptop – which is great, because it means I can pretty much work from anywhere. On the days where I lack motivation, creativity, or I am simply facing a ‘writer’s block’ I leave my desk and try find inspiration in the boardroom floor, in a coffee shop, or from the comfort of my sofa. I’ve always struggled with sitting down at a desk for too long, as I often felt like I was restricting my creativity. You can now easily find me sitting under a table working on a blog post, or doing analysis from the bedroom floor.

It keeps you going

There are two things that keep me hooked and interested in the job I do, and challenges me to do better: measurable and unpredictable.

Measurable

I’ve always hated numbers, and stopped studying maths at a relatively young age, but one of the things I enjoy doing at work are reports. I love going through the statistics, seeing the numbers, analysing the results in order to understand what we may be doing wrong, what we have to keep doing and what is worth trying to do. It’s something that I find fascinating – to everything we do online, we can see results and analyse them.

Unpredictable

Did you ever expect a post to do extremely well, but you disappointedly find out that it was just a flop? It has to me, many times.
There are different factors that can influence the performance of a post, an advert, or article, such as time, medium used and content. But ultimately, there is one factor that is unpredictable: people.
At the end of the day, what we must always remember is that everything we do has one sole goal: communicate to people. We may want them to like a Facebook page, shop from an outlet, use a service, donate to a charity, or simply visit a website – but we have to always remember that who we are targeting are people. Humans who can interpret a message, an ad, an article in different ways. At Switch we strongly believe in the importance of H2H (human to human) communication – who we target aren’t machines, but people who may interpret our message differently from the way we wish them to, because that is the beauty of humans: everyone has different opinions. The fact that we are constantly facing this unpredictability is what makes this job so interesting and challenging.
Here’s a recent example of unpredictability in people – check out how this employees reacted to the ‘BIC for her’ pens to celebrate Women’s Day:

Read more about this story on Mashable.

Constantly learning

The internet doesn’t sleep.
Every day I learn something new, and I love it. Social media is constantly changing, and you need to quickly adapt to those changes in order to remain on top of the game. Facebook decides to change the insights of the Pages? No problem, Teri and I will start trying and testing in order to learn exactly where to find the stats we need for reports and analysis – n.b.: swearing at the monitor and banging the desk may occur in this process.
This is probably my favourite thing about this job – I am constantly learning. Whether it’s by reading an interesting article that Matt shared with the team, or a deep conversation on how to effectively use Instagram, or by simply listening to presentations during the Friday’s Brainstorming sessions (I’ve learnt a little bit more about photography thanks to Ed’s “Making Pictures, Telling Stories” presentation), there is always something to learn. There is no place for monotony in this job and office.

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Her job title says it all: Martina is a busy person. She forms part of the demi-god administration team that keeps the agency running smoothly.
She spends her working hours handling paperwork on her 3 (yes, three) monitors, only popping up for air for sustenance around tea time to unveil her latest baking invention.
So she keeps us in check, and she bakes. As you can imagine, we love her dearly 🙂
Last Friday, it was Tina’s turn to bring something to the boardroom table. Looking for a much-needed break from numbers and figures, she decided it was time to unwind and get to know each other a little better, starting from our early years and leading straight up to the random stories one would tell around a campfire.

Part 1: Oh Baby

Everyone received an envelope with their name on it, which included the pieces to two puzzles: One is a baby photo of an unidentified colleague, the other is a hint to help you figure out who they are. For some, it was obvious (Debbie’s hint was a dancing couple and Roderick’s was a broadsword – no-brainer!)

The others took a little figuring out, but the stories behind each of the photos got the team-bonding going steady. The beer helped too.
Can you guess who’s who? Quite a few of us couldn’t make it that afternoon, so that’ll make things a little harder if you’re expecting a few familiar faces 😉

Part 2: Lucky Dip

Just when we thought things were getting intimate (I mean, three of the photos were bath-time treasures after all) Tina took it to the next level.
1 bowl, full of more folded strips of paper than you could count. Everyone grabs a handful of strips and has a few minutes to read through the questions he or she has picked up. Some were super personal, others has us laughing out loud.
We heard about fears and phobias (note to self: never plan a Switch event at a theme park). The guys shared fond memories of cartoon crushes (remember Fujiko?) We heard about mean taunts from teen years, life in other countries, someone’s history as a child model, first kisses and the superpower that Keith would go for if he had the choice.

There were sweet moments, sad moments and literal LOLs, all within the last hour of the week.
Nice one, Tina – that was definitely a team-bonding session.

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