This is pretty cool: the chart shows the large number of Facebook ties between people in former European colonies and people in the countries that used to dominate them.
“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”
I like it. It’s simple, concise, and accurately encompasses what we do.
Interesting stats here. Not overly surprising - social media has really become the domain of PR/marketing types rather than college recruiters. Still, you’d think that by now the usage would be higher.
Also, although the chances of a recruiter discovering your incriminating photos are, apparently, low, I’d still advise against posting them…
A number of difficult questions raised here. I think the students could have (and probably should have) avoided a number of issues by simply being more imaginative and inventing a fictitious school, rather than using Western. Still, I’m curious to see both how the series will go over with students (at Western especially) and how the university will handle any potential copyright infringements.
I really like Margaret Atwood’s work, and am sorry I missed this. At least the ladies from ihearthamilton were able to enjoy!
Margaret Atwood Hamilton Central Library 55 York Boulevard
It’s not every day you get to be in the presence of a literary icon. As an English major graduate and having a lifelong love of literature in general, I was beyond thrilled to get the opportunity to attend Margaret Atwood’s…
I tend to agree with this post, which argues that retweets by reporters are not, in fact, endorsements of the content retweeted. I see the concern on the part of The Oregonian, but it’s important to allow reporters to continue to use Twitter to its fullest extent.
This is a really great idea for a number of reasons: harnessing relatively common technology, using things already found in a commercial (sounds), giving customers free, extra content (recipes). It also shows that Pillsbury has a strategy behind its social efforts, which is not common enough.
Uh, it seems to me that’s the whole point of the app.
School uses app to keep freshmen out of parties – - Macleans OnCampus
Below is a Q and A I did today with McMaster University’s Nick Bontis. Of interest, I’m sure, to a good number of communicators out there scrambling without their BlackBerrys.
Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, maker of BlackBerry smartphones and the Playbook tablet computer, has faced a number of challenges lately. Cutthroat competition from rival companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Google, less-than-stellar reviews for new products and now technological malfunctions affecting millions of users around the world have resulted in sliding stock prices and speculation as to the future of the company.
Nick Bontis, associate professor in the DeGroote School of Business, says that RIM shouldn’t be counted out just yet, but that the company will have to execute at least three strategic tactics in order to rebuild its reputation. Bontis answers five questions about RIM below.
Other than the obvious tech issues currently facing the company, what is going on at RIM? What is the cause of their recent problems?
When an organization realizes accelerated growth as RIM has over the last decade, it often loses its “nimbleness”. RIM’s innovative capability was stronger when the firm was smaller. Now it sells BlackBerrys in almost every country around the world. It’s difficult to be locally attentive to market demands when you are a global behemoth.
Read the full story
This research points to a somewhat obvious conclusions, but it may help university administrators help students who need it most - although, as the article points out, there could be ethical and privacy concerns around checking out students’ Facebook profiles (though these ones were public).
What this research should also underscore is that potential employers have easy access to information about you, before you even get an interview. You may not have a drinking problem, but if your profile suggests you do you could be ruining your chances are future employment.
I haven’t read the handbook yet, but what does it mean when even the United States Marines have guidelines for using social media? The Marines have to worry about issues that almost no one else in the world has to. This shows that social tools can be used effectively even when there are many possible pitfalls.
This example nicely illustrates the divide between traditional and new media, and what I think their future roles will be: new media allows the public to connect directly with their favourites athletes (or politicians, movie stars, corporate CEOs, etc.), diminishing traditional media’s long-held ability to “break” the news. Traditional media can, however, adapt to the changing landscape by offering opinion, commentary and expert analysis - in this case, analyzing Modano’s career, sharing insider anecdotes and giving the public and unbiased look as his playing statistics.
I would certainly not be going out on a limb to predict much more of this in the sports world, thanks in large part to people like Shaq, who made it cool for athletes to communicate directly with fans via social media.
The National Hockey League issued a social media policy Wednesday night for its players and club personnel.
The policy, the NHL Social Media Policy for League and Club Personnel, governs both players and hockey operations staff and is designed to promote the value of social media as a tool for communication with fans. It also highlights issues surrounding social media, as well as limits the use of social media by players and hockey operations staff on game days.
Read the full story on NHL.com.
It was late last year when I truly realized the difference between the kind of work I do and the work my father does.
Dad was late for a family dinner, and when he finally arrived, he looked somewhat shaken. After making small talk with relatives, he sat down beside me and quietly, so as not to alarm anyone else, explained how he had narrowly avoided serious injury at the factory that day. He had come close to being struck by a falling steel beam. It wasn’t the first time he had escaped injury at work, but this near-miss had obviously gotten to him in a way the others had not.
Read the full article.
This is an interesting story and shows that the Hamilton Police Services understand some of the major changes in communications that have occurred over the last few years. I wonder what sorts of policies surround the use of social media accounts by police officers? Potential problems abound - for instance, although common sense dictates that one would not tweet an individual police officier for emergency assistance, what would happen if someone did just that and the tweet went unanswered?
Still, I look forward to watching the city’s police incorporate new forms of technology into the great work that they already do.
Interesting idea, though I wonder how long people will consider “social networking” to be something different than just “networking”, with a need for “experts” to do it. We don’t hire expert phone users or email-ers. Perhaps online social networking is different though?
This is a great graphic. Also, I love constantly being reminded of how awesome Evernote and Google Docs are.
This is really great. Biggest surprise? The times at which feedback spikes. See the full post on Facebook.
To enable journalists to better utilize Facebook in their distribution, reporting and storytelling, we conducted a study looking at how people were engaging with Journalist Pages on Facebook. We hope that the findings, which focus on post dynamics, engagement and activity, will provide journalists with some best practices and insights on optimizing their engagement and distribution on Facebook to better reach their audiences.
We’ve also conducted research on how users are engaging with news organizations on Facebook and will be releasing the findings in the coming weeks. We hope that this serves as guide, but also a spark, for conversations about best practices in using Facebook as a journalist.
Great look at how Ford is experimenting with G+. Can’t wait to see what brand presence will look like when Google launches it.
In my opinion, not a good idea…you’ve already proved that you were born in the US - why continue to fight this battle? Why not concentrate on, oh I don’t know, get your country’s finances in order?
An interesting debate. I see both sides: the media need access for accurate photographs, but the president needs to be able to make televised addresses in peace. Thoughts? I think the media probably need to be a little more understanding in taking White House handouts in these circumstances.
The White House said it is ending its long-running practice of having presidents re-enact televised speeches for news photographers following major addresses to the country, a little-known arrangement that fed suggestions of fakery when Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden.
I’m not a teacher, but I find this very interesting. I also find it incredible that some people (teachers no less!) can lack such vast amounts of common sense. Everyone, including those teaching our youth, has to be careful using all forms of social media. Some instruction, however, would be useful, as is pointed out in the quote below:
“What we’re not doing in teacher education programs is talking enough about how to use social media,” says Don Krug, a professor of education at the University of British Columbia.
Read the full story.
My latest, on Talent Egg.ca:
If you’re about to graduate and are looking for work in public relations or communications, I can tell you that the next few years are going to be very exciting.
You’re about to enter the workforce, probably for the first time, and you’re finally going to be able to put some of that classroom knowledge to use.
You’re also going to be faced with some unique challenges which your program probably didn’t, and couldn’t, prepare you for.
The infographic below comes from The Growth of Mobile Marketing and Tagging. While the idea here is to show that the use of mobile devices and smartphones is increasing, I was surprised at a few things: Only a little more than a quarter of the world’s cell phones are smartphones? The number one purpose for using a cell phone is to play games? Only 33% of Facebook users use Facebook mobile? Some surprises here.
Although the headline here is completely misleading (in that the story doesn’t say Facebook has caused more divorces, but simply provided more evidence for divorce lawyers), the stats are interesting. It’s also more proof that people give absolutely no thought to what they’re posting online or who may see it.
Lesson? Think before you post.
A lot of credit is being given to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for the role they are playing in the uprisings spreading across the Middle East. Long oppressed citizens have flocked to such sites in an effort to organize and promote pro-democracy rallies and protests while bringing the world’s attention to their plight.
The tactic has quite clearly worked: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been chased from Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak from Egypt and other autocrats in the region are fighting to hold on to power, in large part because the people in these countries have the power to connect to each other and the world in ways never before possible. This power was underscored when Egyptian Jamal Ibrahim announced that he had named his newborn daughter “Facebook” in a nod to that particular site’s role in his country’s rebellion.
In the rush to jump aboard the social media bandwagon, however, an important fact is often overlooked: be it in business or the pursuit of democracy, social media are truly only powerful when they can be used to illicit real world action. In countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Libya that means staying away from work, marching in the streets and in some cases dying for the cause.
While we in the West certainly recognize the power inherent in these tools, for the most part we have yet to realize that it is people, not the tools themselves, that actually achieve results and affect change.
An example of such lack of understanding can be found right here at home. Earlier this year the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) proposed a usage-based billing system for internet users, causing a flurry of backlash. Outrage over the proposal could be found all over the web: thousands of Canadians signed online petitions stating their displeasure with the CRTC’s decision; 60,000 people are currently signed up to the Facebook page of OpenMedia.ca, the principal driver behind the anti-usage-based billing campaign; and more than 2,300 Facebook users said they would “attend” a February 4 rally against the decision in Toronto’s Dundas Square.
Despite these numbers of supposed online “support”, few people attended that rally, held in Canada’s most populous city, and there have been no reports of mass cancellations of internet service or any other types of protests against usage-based billing.
This is in stark contrast to the uprisings. They too were organized with tweets and Facebook events, but went beyond the “point and click” activism often found in Western democracies. The protests may have begun online in Tunisia, but they were eventually brought to the streets of Cairo, Manama and Tripoli. Had these people not gotten off their couches and taken real action, the uprisings we’re now watching on CNN would have amounted to nothing more than Twitter stream chatter.
The lesson can be applied to businesses who use social media as well. It’s one thing to engage customers and stakeholders online and to count the number of likes, views and tweets you generate; it is quite another to turn those likes, views and tweets into purchases, donations or event attendance.
Twitter did not overthrow Ben Ali, YouTube did not destroy the regime of Mubarak, and should he be run out of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi won’t be able to blame Facebook. People accomplished these things, not tweets, and the sooner people come to that realization, the sooner the true power of social media will become evident.
Not only is this a really interesting (if brief) look into the creative writing process for a television show, it’s also really funny.
Just take a look at this - it’s hilarious. And mostly accurate!
Great article from FIveThirtyEight. The only thing I might take issue with is the the usage of article comments as an indicator of pageviews. While in this case there is an obvious trend toward there being more comments on articles with more pageviews, I think it would be incorrect to assume that this is the case for all sites and blogs. Some articles simply elicit more discussion. Some sites do a better job of encouraging discussion. Given that there was only so much information to work with, however, this is a great look at the value of posts on The Huffington Post.
When The Huffington Post announced earlier this week that it was being acquired by AOL for $315 million in cash and stock, one group felt slighted: a set of unpaid bloggers for the site, identifying by the Twitter hashtag#huffpuff, which claims that The Huffington Post has “built a blog-empire on the backs of thousands of citizen journalists.”
Some analyses in the mainstream media have echoed these sentiments. “To grasp The Huffington Post’s business model,” wrote the Los Angeles Times’s Tim Rutten, “picture a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates.”
I have enormous sympathy for anyone writing about public affairs, whether as a hobby or as a career. And I’d encourage people to think very carefully about where they are doing their writing, and what they are getting paid for it.
The fact is, however, that sentiments like Mr. Rutten’s reflect a misunderstanding of The Huffington Post’s business model. Although The Huffington Post does not pay those who volunteer to write blogs for it, this content represents only a small share of its traffic. And, to put it bluntly, many of those blog posts aren’t worth very much.
This looks pretty cool. Can’t wait to check it out. In fact I think I’ll do that right now…
Facebook has begun rolling out a full redesign of Facebook Pages. The changes will make the Pages look and operate more like user profiles.
The new Pages redesign was first seen in December, when Facebookaccidentally launched it and quickly took it down. The update not only removed tabs, but it gave page admins the ability to post and comment on other Facebook Pages through a “Login as Page” feature.
Those prototype features have made the cut for today’s launch. As Facebook’s Rohit Dhawan, the lead product manager for Facebook Pages, explained to me earlier today, the company has wanted to redesign Facebook Pages ever since it launched the profile redesign. “We strongly believe you should have consistent experiences when possible,” Dhawan said.
The big difference everyone will notice will be the new layout. The left-hand menu for editing pages has been removed in favor of a new navigation menu that replaces the old tabbing system. And like the Facebook Profiles redesign, the left-hand “Information” box is also gone. However, page admins can now add info about their brand at the top of the page under the main title.
Phil Taylor’s articles in Sports Illustrated are always great, but this one should strike a chord for those in public relations. It holds some valuable lessons for communicators (as well as anyone who doesn’t want to come across as out of touch with their audience).
If you’re not going to read it, the point is this: Know your audience, and remember that the people who support your brand/company/team expect you to be just as passionate about that brand/company/team as they are.
Deuce Lutui may be a funny guy, but at last check the Cardinals’ right guard has never hosted an HBO comedy special or opened for Chris Rock at Caesars Palace. It’s hard to understand then how Lutui’s comic stylings could have been so hilarious that he cracked up quarterback Derek Anderson on the sideline duringMonday Night Football, even as the 49ers were drubbing Arizona in Glendale 27—6. The Cards were comical, but not in a ha-ha kind of way.
Anderson made himself look even worse after the Nov. 29 blowout by launching into a profane tirade when a reporter asked about the sideline chucklefest. He seemed genuinely offended that his lightheartedness could possibly indicate that he was regarding an embarrassing loss with less than appropriate gravity. “I take this [expletive] serious!” Anderson said during a postgame rant that quickly went viral. “Real serious. I put my heart and soul into this [expletive] every single week!”
To which many fans no doubt angrily responded, “Then [expletive] act like it!” They wouldn’t have been shouting only at Anderson but at every athlete who seems less emotionally invested than the people who pay to watch him. They would have been yelling, for instance, at center Anderson Varejão and some of his fellow Cavaliers for hugging former teammate LeBron James, then treating him as though he had returned to Cleveland last Thursday to accept the key to the city instead of to face its wrath.
Read the full article: Make War, Not Love
From the movie Finding Forrester (via foggybythebay)
(Maybe more for the creative writer, but it still works.)
Caught this in the Toronto Sun. Pretty succinct and well-put. I would suggest reading the entire article.
There is a sickness in the land. We have ceded too much control over our country to self-serving politicians and cultural narcissists.
We worry too much what people say and write and too little about what people in power actually do.
Let’s review.
Via geekfill:
BMW used an interesting technique to have a lasting image on the audiences in a German movie theater. A giant Profoto Pro-7B was hidden behind the screen, a studio flash unit that pumps out enough light to flash the BMW logo for a moment. While the cinematic ad was playing they illuminated the harmless photo flash into the audiences eyes and with persuasion through the advert asked them to close their eyes. That’s when the audience sees the letters projected onto the backs of their eyelids. “BMW”
Quite the story about Harrisburg University of Science and Technology’s week-long blackout of social networking sites on campus. While there are some concerns about the validity of the so-called experiment, some of the results are pretty interesting.
Apparently, students found that being forced to unplug:
All of which I tend to believe, not on the basis of this particular experiment but on that of common sense. Not having Facebook to check would definitely allow for more concentration and time to do homework - just check the computer screen of any student claiming to be “writing an essay” for proof of how much time is spent on social networking sites.
I’m not entirely sure of the point of this exercise, which took place in September, since I seriously doubt many college campuses are considering full blackouts of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Still, that students admit to being distracted by such things is very interesting.
Some interesting news in my hometown today. Cogeco Cable is partnering with Invidi Technologies and CHCH Television for a trial of “addressable advertising”.
From Marketingmag.ca:
Using Invidi’s Advatar system, Cogeco will be able to deliver “tailored messaging” to individual households within the CHCH footprint. So while, for example, residents of an upscale neighbourhood might see a commercial for a luxury vehicle during a particular commercial break, residents of a working-class neighbourhood watching the same program could see an ad for the latest minivan or compact car.
The system uses public domain demographic information to accurately pinpoint “consumer needs and interests,” said Cogeco in a release. The result, it added, is more relevant TV commercials for audiences.
Pretty neat. I know targeted advertising freaks some people out, but the information used here is all public domain, so if it allows media outlets to continue to create art and broadcast the news, I’m in favour.
But I am curious: If ads were tailored to you, what commercials would you be seeing during breaks in your favourite show?
Hmmm…The Black Eyed Peas’ new album cover sure looks like Blur’s “best of” album cover.
I know pop music can be cyclical, but come on! Are there no new ideas out there?
From Mashable:
Christmas Eve might not be for another 23 days or so, but Google and NORAD already have the online Santa Tracker ready to go.
NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, has been tracking Santa and his sleigh since 1955. Since 2007, Google has partnered with the organization to make sure that Santa and his reindeer can be tracked in real-time using Google Maps.
The noradsanta.org website is now up for all to see with a special countdown timer to Christmas Eve. The website will release new holiday games that kids can play each day leading up to the holiday.
At 2 a.m. ET on December 24, the real-time tracking will commence and you can follow along Santa’s trek as he delivers toys to boys and girls all over the world.
This is one of my favorite holiday traditions and it’s always a great way to kick-off the season.
