info@enso.com.au

Enso is a creative communications agency, providing unique and innovative marketing and advertising solutions for our clients.

As as the Digital Producer at Enso, you will be responsible for the interactive output of the agency, and will work across areas of digital strategy, solution development & deployment and client support. You will be able to manage budgets and deliver innovative solutions efficiently and on time in a high pressure environment. You will also remain on the cutting edge of digital communication, constantly evaluation new technologies and platforms and how they may assist our clients. You will be a team player, working closely with a small team of design, marketing and copywriting professionals.

Your technical brilliance will include advanced skills in:

• HTML, CSS, XML, Javascript
• PHP, MySQL
• CMS applications including Wordpress and similar
• Interactive navigation and usability
• Emerging technologies and platforms (eg mobile applications)
• iOS development experience, or a willingness to learn iOS development

Your business acumen will include

• Understanding of online marketing, communications and advertising
• Ability to work to time and expense budgets
• Project management skills
• Ability to identify efficient approaches to digital solutions
• Creative problem solving and input on communication briefs
• Client interfacing and presentation skills
• Managing suppliers and in-house and freelance staff when necessary

What we offer

In return for your dedicated, results-driven contribution, we offer you a supportive creative work environment in which to hone your problem solving skills and progress your career. Our variety of clients and work will provide you with exposure to a number of different industries, and ensurers that there is always something new and exciting to learn and do. Remuneration is negotiable inline with experience and capabilities. We encourage and reward exceptional outcomes.

Ready for the challenge?

Let us know you have what it takes. Please send an application letter outlining your experience and qualities in relation to the requirements stated above, your resume, references and examples of your work. Please address all correspondence to Michael Mottarelly, Managing Director

info@enso.com.au

We are looking for a flexible creative to join our team as a Graphic & Multimedia Designer. Our diverse range of projects will have you designing for a variety of platforms including print, web, iPad apps and video.

To fit with our team, you must have a great attitude, be hard working and have a self motivated commitment to continual professional and personal development.

The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate the following attributes:

• Excellent conceptual design, finished art and user experience design skills
• Ability to interpret a brief and respond with appropriate creative solutions
• Experience in Motion Graphic Design and Animation
• Experience in HTML authoring, CSS and mobile application design
• Experience / understanding of Digital Video Production & Post
• Excellent communication, presentation and client facing skills
• An understanding of marketing, advertising and brand building
• Ability to effectively manage time and stress, and thrive under pressured deadlines

Remuneration for this position is negotiable inline with experience and proven capabilities.

To apply for this position, please submit the following:

1. An application letter in response to the above listed attributes
2. Your up-to-date CV
3. Examples of your work

We are looking for a smart, self motivated and professional software developer to join our expanding team.

The person we employ will have an active interest in developing for a range of digital environments, with an eye towards good user experience and design. They will also demonstrate an ability to quickly learn new technologies, platforms and frameworks.

We require someone with a thorough understanding of the following:

• PHP
• HTML
• CSS
• WordPress
• Javascript & jQuery
• mySQL
• SVN

It would also be beneficial if you have experience with:

• App development (iOS / Android)
• Photoshop
• Flash
• Basic Unix/Linux admin

Remuneration for this position is negotiable inline with experience and proven capabilities.

To apply for this position, please submit the following:

1. An application letter in response to the above listed attributes
2. Your up-to-date CV
3. Examples of your work (code samples welcome)

It’s been a busy year so we’re all about ready to relax over the Christmas break and recharge the creative batteries for the year ahead.

This year we thought we’d send off the year that was in style. By smashing it of course!

Join in the fun and help us say goodbye to 2010.

Interestingly, we are seeing brands sneaking past the gate keeper in our brains by moving into the role of entertainer. Some brands choose to push digital frontiers using technology to entertain, for example apps or 3D projection mapping, while others are evolving the more traditional methods, producing branded content or hosting events.

It’s those brands pushing boundaries and generally being interesting that become the rock stars of the business world; adored by the masses and envied by the competition.

But what do you do if you don’t have a rock star marketing budget? Fret not. It’s still possible to become a rock brand, complete with cult following even if you’re not Virgin or Coca-Cola. All you need to do is act like a rock star.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled our top tips to kick start your marketing resolutions and help your brand rock on in 2011.

1. Be Unique

To become a rock star, your brand must find its edge.

Articulate exactly what is it that makes your brand different and interesting. Once you discover that quirk or spark of originality that no one else has, run with it. No matter what industry you’re in or who your audience is, even if you’re the most convincing covers band, you’ll never make it to the big time playing someone else’s songs.

Find your point of difference or unique proposition that sets you apart from your competitors. Embrace it. Own it.

2. Be True To Your Sound

A great rock band has a distinctive sound. Sometimes their sound might evolve and mature over time but their sound remains unique to them.

To determine the sound or voice of your brand, look to your brand personality. Who is your brand and what does it stand for? There shouldn’t be any ambiguity amongst staff throughout your business on this point, but particularly amongst those who directly represent your brand to customers and the wider community.

When developing and refining your brand personality, consider your business in terms of human personality traits. This will help you to develop a consistent voice including language style and tone that can be used by staff and translated into all corporate communications, ultimately making it easy for your customers and prospects to understand and relate to your brand.

3. Be Outrageous

While it’s probably best not to trash hotel rooms or smash instruments (unless it’s relevant, of course), the most popular stars are usually the most controversial.

Being truly outrageous might not be a part of your brand personality. That’s okay. You’ll need to decide on the appropriate level of outrageousness for your brand. For many brands being outrageous could just mean being unexpected or spontaneous. In brand speak this could translate to hosting an impromptu event for your twitter followers, or giving a small gift to your customers just to say thanks for being great.

For the more adventurous brands you could try bold public installations, guerrilla stunts or making audacious comments on staff apparel (a la Nandos). Go on, live a little.

4. Be Socially Aware

There comes a time in the career of almost every rock star, when they will choose to advocate for a charitable organisation or cause. Whether you’re a small business or large organisation, committing to socially responsible business practices very clearly shows that you support your community. Demonstrating that your business cares for more than profit helps to build consumer trust and respect for your brand.

As with many things in life, actions speak louder than words. Donating money is great, but committing to action can be a stronger signal. But whether it’s pledging a percentage of sales, giving your employees paid volunteer days, or committing to recycling or sustainable packaging, every little bit counts.

Everyday Google ranks billions of webpages on the internet and there’s one little known factor that could mean the difference between a good ranking in Google and a great ranking. That factor is Page Load Time.

What Is Page Load Time?

“Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests” – Google

According to Google’s webmaster guidelines, page load time is the time that it takes to load the HTML content of your webpage. That is, the way that the document is constructed so the browser knows how to layout your page.

How Is Page Load Time Judged Exactly

Google says that page load time is a factor in ranking a website in their search results. While it is not as influential in ranking your page as the relevance of your page compared to what was searched for, topicality, and reputation (generally thought of as how many relevant links you have pointing at the page), the speed with which your page loads can make the difference between a good ranking and a great ranking in Google and other search engines.

To rank your website’s speed Google compares your page’s load time with that of other websites on similarly located web servers.

This means that if your site is hosted on a web server physically located in Brisbane, Australia, Google will compare your website’s speed with other load times of websites in Brisbane.

Your web page could be determined as having slow performance if it’s load time exceeds the average load time for your web server’s area + 4 seconds.

Why Is Page Speed Being Used For Ranking?

Google said in their recent blog post that speeding up websites is important. In fact you’ll notice that even after all these years they are still obsessed with speed (seriously, check out the amount of time it takes to return a web search next time you search for something it’s phenomenal how quickly they can process that data).

To take this obsession with speed to a whole new level, Google conducted internal studies on page speed, realising in the end that “speed matters”.

Users will spend measurably less time on a website that is slow compared to one that responds quickly. Those 100 milliseconds really do make a difference.

What Happens If I Don’t Address A Slow Loading Page/Website?

What you can expect if you let page speed problems go unaddressed is increasingly poor rankings in the major search engines.

If you run Google AdWords campaigns to get visitors to your website you can also expect poor keyword scores in your campaigns meaning they could stop running altogether.

10 Things You Can Do To Lower Page Load Times

Here is our top 10 list of things you can do today to lower your website’s page load times:

1. Be standards compliant
2. Compress your images in appropriate formats and use CSS sprites for background images if you can
3. Optimize the order things load on your website – here’s a cool tool
4. Minify your javascript
5. Minify your CSS stylesheets
6. Combine javascript files into one file to reduce http requests
7. Enable compression on your web server
8. Avoid using CSS @import
9. Minimize the amount of redirects
10. Put CSS in the document head and Javascript in the footer (where possible)

How Are You Optimizing Your Pages?

As page load times become more and more important in the ranking algorithms of the search engines it’s important to optimise your site properly. How are you getting on with optimising your website? Let us know in the comments.

Vodafone Australia have launched their Power Pinata interactive campaign. It’s effectively a Facebook app in which users can watch Carlos the robot wack a pinata on their behalf. Once Carlos breaks the pinata, a whole stack of prizes will be up for grabs for those committed Vodafone likers.

In the mean time, Vodafone are engaging current and potential customers, building a neat facebook brand community and generating a bit of buzz. I just hope Carlos is hiding some special ninja moves because, at this point, it looks like this might take a while.

Check it out on YouTube or Facebook.

Even though it’s written by Google, there are only minor direct plugs for the Chrome browser. The focus is instead on, touting the benefits of the modern browser for the greater good.

Overall this is a nice introduction for anyone looking to get a handle on the basics of the web. You can read 20 Things I Learned About Browsers & The Web here.

In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.

Andy Warhol

Enter social media and it turns out Andy was right. And then some.

Our customers are far from nobodies. They’re broadcasted continually across the World Wide Web. Some more notorious than others, but virtually all accessible.

We are now able to get closer to our customers than ever before. To build personal relationships through the art of conversation. Businesses large and small are engaging their customers in digital dialogue to build relationships, solicit feedback and provide new levels of customer service.

The nature of relationships is reciprocal, however, and so as we get to know them, customers too have the opportunity to get intimate with our brands. So how do we put our best foot forward in this global conversation to charm our powerful friends?

Here are some tips to help your brand master the art of great social media conversation.

Listen first. Talk later.

A great conversationalist listens carefully before speaking. You wouldn’t jump into a face to face conversation without first listening to what it’s about. So before you unleash a barrage of tweets or status updates, take some time to monitor the conversations that are already taking place.

Take stock of where your brand currently stands online. Find out what people are already saying about your brand and about your competitors and who is doing the talking.

Converse, don’t sell.

The golden rule that businesses must remember is that the social media environment is just that; Social. Users join a social network for entertainment and human interaction. It’s quite unlikely they’ll be happy to hear your blatant sales pitch.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t let your fans or followers know about special offers, new products or store openings from time to time, but refrain from constant or pushy sales messages. Instead, show you care by ensuring your contributions are useful and interesting.

Always be yourself.

The key to building successful relationships is maintaining open and honest dialogue. Social media provides a fantastic opportunity connect with customers and prospects on a personal level. Let them know what your brand stands for.

Internally, ensure that all employees who will speak on behalf of your brand are aware of the appropriate brand personality and tone of voice that should be used. A clear strategy and policies are vital.

Balance quality with quantity.

A well-balanced conversation is a good conversation. Find the happy place between talking too much and awkward silence.

Fewer more valuable contributions speak far louder than constant or pointless babble, so don’t go overboard with the updates, messages or tweets. On the other hand, it’s best to avoid awkward silence. Once you make the commitment to get social, make sure you participate on a regular basis.

Never ignore your fans or followers or delete their comments. Awkwardness always ensues, and it’s unlikely to involve silence. Remember negative noise can spread quickly so diffuse any negativity before it escalates.

Don’t be a bore.

Our final tip needs little explanation. Remember that your brand is entering a social environment, so it’s important to be respectful of this. Strategically charm your community with relevant games, engaging applications and useful information.

By mastering the above, your brand can become a valuable participant in social media conversations. Be strategic and you’ll have personal access to your most loyal customers and brand advocates. Although social media isn’t meant for explicitly pushing sales, it does provide an opportunity to let your brand personality shine. Become a brand of choice, and sales will follow.