The latest news from the team
I’m recently back from a holiday in Byron Bay (really great thank you; weather superb!). In between playing with the kids in the sand, flailing about on my mini-mal at the Pass, and enjoying the Byron outdoors, I kept an eye on what was happening within Conversant.
We use an internal chat system similar to Yammer where we discuss things, share articles we’ve enjoyed, and update each other on what we’re working on.
After several years in a Renew Newcastle office on King Street in Newcastle known as ‘The Clinic’, the Conversant office in Newcastle has moved across to Bolton Street, in a beautiful old bank building on the corner of Bolton and Hunter Streets.
I never thought I’d utter the words “mag drop ready”! Eight years in the game and I have digital DNA running through my veins.
Twas’ the Thursday before Easter and what better way to spend the last day of a short four day week than to hop around Sydney delivering some well deserved Easter goodness.
Of course every publisher in Sydney had the same idea… One planner announced that it was “Crazier than Christmas!” with all the chocolaty treats that were being delivered.
At Conversant we’re not shy about the fact that we’re one of the smaller publishers in the game of media.
So we were a bit chuffed when during one of our Easter drops – as I handed over our little Haighs packages and quietly said “it’s just something little” – a planner responded with: “that’s what you guys always do and that’s how we remember you…it may be small but it’s always the best quality”.
It made our day!
Online publishing is a great industry to be a part of. We work with interesting writers who create great content for our audiences to engage with. Our audience also share their content and comments with us. And they form a real community around our sites (on The Roar, for instance, we just published our 1 millionth comment). And we also work with agencies and brands to help them reach our readership.
So in the course of any given month, we make millions of ‘people touch-points’.
A little while back we ran a post on our culture site, Lost At E Minor, about grains of sand skillfully magnified to 250 times their original size. We had a sneaking suspicion the colourful photos of strange looking objects (which actually looked nothing at all like sand) would resonate with our readers, but not to the extent that it did. Behold, the power of social sharing: as the Facebook Likes and Tweets of the post grew, a momentum developed that was damn near unstoppable, and the best part was that we didn’t have to do anything to keep it rolling. Like an Octopuses tentacles, the post kept fanning out organically, feeding off of its own momentum. Every time someone Liked a post on Facebook that action was viewed by their friends, many of whom in turn Liked the post themselves. At the same time, people Tweeted and re-Tweeted based primarily on the alluring post title. Other blogs then picked it up as the buzz swirled and soon a simple post about something as ubiquitious as sand resulted …
As many growing businesses may attest, each team member may have one title but we all wear many hats. At Conversant Media we pride ourselves on being well rounded. We embrace the latest micro business trends: using utility apps, Google search shortcuts – you name it.
OK, so the title’s misleading: we’re not really bulletproof. But we are with Bulletproof as our hosts of The Roar. And the experience has been nothing short of amazing.
We are huge fans of XERO, the cloud based accounting software that we use to run our business, payroll and expensing system. So when they suggested shooting a video on us and how we ran our business from three remote locations using XERO, we were all in.
Here’s the video – it’s a small insight into our business and how we work.
The office birthday. How do you mark someone in your team’s birthday in a memorable way and show them they’re an important part of who we are? Cupcakes – certainly helps, especially when they include Choclate Chai ones (Elise?). A card? Pass.