Lesson’s Learned – Blogging, Easy as 1, 2, 3 …or is it…

Starting off, I would have to say the biggest lesson learned over all from the Social Media Research and Techniques (SMRT) course is that there must be time allotted for learning the tricks of the trade for each platform I have used to gain its full advantages and potential, be it blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Blog posting for Assignments 1 and 2 regarding Tourism Hamilton was an entire project and learning on its own. From writing out my initial thoughts from the environmental scan, research, ensuring all content was proof read properly (always a tough job, blogging or not), to adding in reference documents and great graphics and videos – all that sounds fine and dandy but it’s the fact that you need to ensure you have done it all properly online within WordPress while making sure all your links actually work!

Content

• Don’t be afraid to post content as it is available - you can always go back and make additions or changes, this may help with your thought process as well
• Broken up content in blog post is ok as long as it flows and still makes sense - this may help to ease the amount of text on one posting  
• Keep on topic - keep content clear and to the point, short as possible because no one wants to read a novel on a blog (or within reason)
• Whether you are blogging for a class, write about something you have a real interest in, this will show through your writing and be more enjoyable for others to read

Research

• Realize research can be on-going - if you find something along the way and want to add it, do so! Just like the content mention above, as you have the research points available, post them
• To a degree, lots of research back up is good, just don’t go to over board to make your readers want to sleep or go stray you off track of topic

Proof Reading

• Can never be over done
• Take a Break – personally I found it best to leave my work for a few hours (or overnight since I tend to do a lot of school work ‘after hours’) and go back to read again before posting ‘live’
• Share with others – get someone else to review your work before posting ‘live’
• Wrap it up – overall I do tend to ramble on with run on sentences, so I must be conscious of this and ensure this does not happen in my blog posts

The picture below makes me smile because it’s true! I know some of us within the SMRT course had a bit of a panic attack when we were first given the task of ‘blogging’ our assignments – that’s just crazy!… Keep calm and blog AKA just jump in and swim, all you can do is try and get better with experience and time.

I have come to realize that blog writing is a true art form and it may take a while (and more postings) to really get the hang of  it and down pat – in the meantime, I have enjoyed the journey with the patience and feedback from my professor and classmates (both PR and Marketing) to assist – thank you everyone, SMRT has been great!

Lindsay

Assignment #3 – A Sampling of Yet to Come…

To my fellow L.A.M. Consulting Group (Annmarie & Miguel) members, here is what I have worked on for our ‘company’ logo. I welcome feedback of what you think and if you’d like to see changes. I believe we could place our logo on the one-pager guide for Jared and as well within blog posting for our proposal.

 

Speaking of blog posting, here is the link for the ‘mother blog‘ site I have drafted as discussed for Assignment #3 final posting. I look forward to working with both of you to finalize this and all of our work tomorrow.

 

Ta-Ta for now!
Lindsay

 

Lesson’s Learned – To Tweet or Not to Tweet!

My final task for my Social Media Research & Techniques (SMRT) Class is to speak on any Lessons Learned throughout the course.
I would have to say my Lesson Learned for Twitter use was not too bad for a first time user, or so I believe!…

Log On With Comfort
For the first month or so, I found it best for me to log onto Twitter directly via my laptop virus my Blackberry. I say this because initially to me using a Blackberry I was not able to see ‘all’ of what Twitter had to offer in its glory. I maybe was not seeing button selections the same way as I would on the ‘big screen’ desktop, or it was just not as quick and easy for me at that point to search and post links of something of interest as easy it would have been via a desktop.
At that point of the early stages (and even now at times) it was my comfort preference for use of a laptop (over mobile).  Of course with most things, when you become more conformable with something, the better you are at it and with ease over time.

Be Alert
Quickly I realized I  needed to make sure all alerts and notifications were set up properly or I was not going to be very involved or connected with my Twitter account. First step after signing up a Twitter account would be to download the Twitter Application for my Blackberry and laptop. Second, make sure all notifications are set to your preference! Done, now get involved!…

Join In
I started Following some things or people I was interested in, @CBCNews, @HamSpec, @JimmyFallon, @TourismHamilton, etc. I found this easier for myself since I do love getting into other people’s business…I mean, the news, pop culture and all that fun community stuff in between!

Come Together
Well since this was my first jump into the Twitter World I really did not have many Followers, so with the help of my SMRT Twitter Pep’s, I was able to gain a few out of the gate! Thank you to all my lovely classmates, Monday and Wednesday evening, to help build the conversation.

Bird Bird Bird, Bird is the Word
Well maybe not ‘bird’ per say (pun intended! haha), but there is definitely a lot to be said out there! – Let’s look at my Tweets…
I tend to spread the word, AKA ReTweet, local news or interesting facts and tips related to our SMRT Class of Public Relations or Marketing information in general.
Off the wall – of course I do enjoy spreading some funny thoughts, photos or videos I come across on-line, if not for others then just to make myself smile.
In response to the title for this post – To Tweet or Not to Tweet…answer is, YES, TWEET! I love being on Twitter!

Over all Lessons Learned for using Twitter…

• Sign up,
• Ensure you are comfortable with the method or device you are using (desktop versus mobile – or both!),
• Make sure alerts are set,
• Follow those you are interested in,
• Over time you will gain Followers,
• Join into conversation (ReTweet/reply/comment)

But high and above all of this, be active and have fun with Twitter – if not, then what’s the point!

Google Docs, What’s That About…

After review of many tools, Team LAM (Lindsay, AnnMarie and Miguel) have decided to collaborate online using Google Docs. We all have been honest with ourselves that we will be starting from scratch so this may be a slow beginning but confident we can make it work, and work well!
Google Docs has great potential and use for Team LAM, the ease of uploading Word documents and making edits since each person gets there own edit colour – how fun! Google Docs even allows for on-line chats – saving on time, travel and gas money!

Helping the Team

As requested, I have posted below some useful links to help get us started. I will continue to share further information as we continue down this learning curve. I am set to have a Google Docs workshop with my cousin Tuesday evening so I will be sure to take notes! Great what a plea and Starbucks coffee date can get you.

• Google Docs Tips for Beginners
• 6 Tips to Help You Get the Most Out of Google Docs

As well, as mentioned, I will continue to work on development of the Hamilton survey, for both our internal and external audiences. I will upload via Google Docs once a draft is available.

Safe travels this week AnnMarie and Happy Birthday Miguel!!
Chat soon…

An Evening with the Pirates of Toronto

On Wednesday, February 15^th, I had the pleasure to attend the McMaster Class in Advertising  featuring Terry O’Reilly (Co-Founder), Tom Eymundson (Director) and Chris Tait (Director) of Pirate Group Toronto. The evening opened with a special gift announcement stating that Pirate was donating 75,000 pieces of advertising to McMaster University. The donation consists of concept pitches, video and audio of casting sessions, sheet music and lyrics for jingles and a wide swath of radio and TV commercials from the past 20 years, making this the largest advertising industry archive in Canada – even more exciting news for those affiliated with McMaster University to have firsthand access to these impressive resources (Me, Me, Me)!

Pirate Group Toronto

Pirate is an award winning commercial production company, specializing in music, voice, sound design, writing and casting for radio

and TV commercials. Following the announcement the stars of the evening, Terry, Tom and Chris sat on a panel for an open discussion about some of their major works throughout the years followed by a Q ‘n A. The Maynards Candy TV ad featuring Major Maker, Rollercoaster and the Moosehead Beer commercial featuring Alan Arkin are just to name a few of the real attention-grabbing stories and videos I heard that evening.

Inspiration – One of my favourite quotes from the night was from Terry O’Reilly – “sometimes the silliest idea can be the best”. This being said by such a successful man helps to reinforce more confident in my own thoughts and suggestions and to speak up and voice my own opinion always, even when you think it may not be worth the paper you wrote it on.

Lights, Camera, Action

I had the pleasure of attending the event in person and interacting with other attendees and remote participants via the Twitter wall using the #MacPirate hashtag. I enjoyed taking the role of the ‘inside reporter’, broadcasting things that were happening as the event occurred, as well as asking questions directly to the Pirate Group live via the Twitter wall.

This was my first event to have interacted live via a Twitter wall – overall experience it was very enjoyable! To some it may have been a distraction with the live discussion panel and Twitter wall, but I found it interesting and slightly more engaging then traditional presentations. I enjoyed seeing, or shall I say reading, others perspectives, quick highlighted facts, quotes from the speakers or quick links back to commercials that had been shown, all throw up on that giant Twitter wall. How quickly things are said and forgotten so having the Twitter platform gives users the chance to later search #MacPirate to review the event and what others had thought, a great additional resource.

It’s a Wrap

The Twitter wall and the #MacPirate hashtag offered a great opportunity for open dialogue with others and immediate feedback, all relating to the event – funny, that was how Pirate did describe the current state of advertising. Unbelievable how over the years things have changed and the adjustments in traditional advertising methods have shifted our thinking, our work and our relationship with the consumer. As I discuss this event and the use of a Twitter wall, I would say the same would be said for traditional presentations and events, things are shifting and continuing to find ways be more engaging for the user, in house or remote. Is it completely perfect, may be not as of yet, but great start for those who are engaged in the process.

Red Light  (Stop)

• Stop and interact … depending on the event, perhaps there is an opportunity to break and give the speakers a chance to review the Twitter wall and answer some of the questions or comments live in front of the audience. I believe in this case with Pirate that it just happened to be an issue of running out of time.

Yellow Light (Start)

• Chance for follow up?… although not available during the live event, I wonder if the guest speakers would be interested to follow up with the #MacPirate followers and their questions and/or comments after the event – of course if time and efforts allowed.

Green Light (Continue)

• Shy yet lots to say … the Twitter wall was great and opened the opportunity for those who may be shy in front of a large crowd to speak up and ask questions and network with others (good example is myself!). This could also elevate the issue that if the crowd is too large at an event for everyone to ask questions/comments that a Twitter wall and hashtag may give that chance for everyone to feel more involved then they may ever have had the chance before.
• Continue to promote and highlight the hashtag being used before, during and after the event – this may continue some great conversation and networking.

Closing Remarks

Although I did not receive answers to my questions from the great (Twitter) wall, I did enjoy the night and got to meet some more classmates in the Social Media Research & Technique class (#SMRTCCE). Thanks again Jared!

Bridge the Gap (Assignment 2)

Tourism Hamilton …(___The Gap___)… Audience = we must bridge the two together, but how?
From my previous findings, I know there is a gap between Tourism Hamilton and their primary audience – the out of town Canadians who are visiting Hamilton to see friends and family.

I believe there are several pillars that could help bridge this gap but I have decided to narrow my thoughts down to two.
1. Sporting Events within Hamilton
2. The Arts and Culture Community of the Hamilton

I believe there is a great opportunity to build off each of these pillars since as mentioned in the 2009 Tourism Hamilton Marketing Plan document the second rated reason for visitors to come to Hamilton is leisure at 24%!

Bring it Back to the Start
How does bridging this gap relate back to the strategic goals of the organization you ask? Well, below I have outlined the four key strategies for the one overall goal, which is to become the world’s leading tourism destination.
1. Work Collaboratively Together
    a. build upon how the government and tourism industry work together to foster and carry on continued growth for the economy
2. Set Standards for Success
  a. tourism Hamilton to become more competitive in the tourism industry
3. Invest and Maximize
  a. leverage on what is ‘closest to home’ to help attract and retain investment of product development and innovative work here in Hamilton
4. Outreach – locals and visitors
  a. seek out investment opportunities and focus energy, make a reason for those to want to stay and spend (in Hamilton) and a reason for visitors to want to return (to Hamilton)

Piecing the Gap Together Piece By Piece
Chance for Opportunity
Sports
• Testimonial from a team representative during the season for updates, video offers for more passion to shine through
• Sporting events create community engagement and pride, media broadcast attention, contribute to economic development and sport development
• 2015 Pan Am Games – large media broadcast opportunity and profile for the city
• Open opportunity with community partners, offer things such as 2 For 1 tickets to the local Bulldogs game or tickets to a Bulldogs game gets you discounted rate to selected restaurants on James Street
• Instil a culture pride and excitement for the sporting teams within Hamilton which may help bring visitors in more since they want to get involved with the excitement
• Profile our sports culture to the local Americans

Art Culture
• Steel town transformed into artists’ community – build upon the great art culture of Hamilton, James Street or Locke Street just to name a few. From the article posted we see there is already an interest just over the boarder and we can slowly change the perception of cold steel town Hamilton
• 2-3 minute video post of the Friday night James Street Art Crawl, video will cover the excitement and feel of the activity

Issues That May Arise – overall
• Bad season for Hamilton sports teams, for example the Tiger-Cats and Bulldogs
• Issues with crossing the American broader
• Gas price increase so visitors are less likely to travel
• Overall economic changes
• Shift in the art culture, some of the local shops move back into the ‘big city’ of Toronto
• Population (age, sex, trends) change (or lack of growth) of those who are using social media, would then change the results of who we are reaching on our platforms – “Canadian internet users are starting to lack time to devote to a new internet tool,” she said in an email, adding that many Canadians might be satisfied with existing tools such as Facebook and might not have the time to learn or use a new one like Twitter. “
Resource: How to run a successful social media marketing campaign

Use Your SMART Goal Thinking
• Be realistic when scheduling content and human resource ability for posting on Social media platforms and the web
• Use what we already have and know – a wealth of information, events and activities of all kinds within Hamilton so let’s show those outside the city what we have to offer
• Each platform has different forms of measurement, set a goal of bi-weekly tracking
  -Twitter, watch for ‘Re-Tweets’ and for your number of ‘Followers’ to increase
  -Facebook, your ‘Like’ counts and website metrics of how many ‘hits’ you receive on your page
  -YouTube, watch for comments per video, the tone of the comments and how many ‘views’ you gain per video
• Continue to communicate (verbal, hardcopy, TV and print) all Tourism Hamilton social media platforms available

Would any of the above mentioned points help increase tourism to Hamilton by 2% annually? – I believe so but I’m only one person.
Let’s show others (non-Hamiltonians) what Hamilton has to offer and make them come back for more!

Resources:
 
Tourism Hamilton

ExperienceHamiltonMag2011_2012

Tourism Hamilton 2011 Marketing Plan

Trip Advisor – Hamilton

Being Social – Secondary Research (Assignment 2)

I was able to complete a bit of primary and secondary research regarding Tourism Hamilton.

The Tourism Hamilton website offered a few reports which gave me background information into their plan, as well as stats for visitors into thecity.  The stats available on visitors gave me a much better understanding who/where/what they were doing (see previous post).

My secondary method of research was to review what I believe are the top three worth while social media platforms for Tourism Hamilton to focus more of their efforts to gain more potenital of growth; Twitter, Facebook and the YouTube channel.

Twitter-Snapshot
Average 2-4 Twittes a day / Followers: 2,280 /Following: 37
Advantage:
-two-way communication with users
-users are able to share (ReTweet) information posted
-users are able to post their own information of events/activities @Tourism Hamilton
-timely updates of content/images available of local entertainment/news
-able to link to additional information and/or back to the Tourism Hamilton website
-cross promotion with other local businesses and/or partners within the city
Disadvantage:
-only 2,280 Followers for a city so large
-only Following 37 people/businesses
-users (local and visitors) have a lack of awareness of the Twitter account

Facebook-Snapshot 
Average 5 posts (content/images) per week / 596 “Likes” (during the last week of research seemed to grow about 1-3 more people every two days.
Advantage:
-two-way communication with users
-users are able to share information posted with their Facebook friends/family
-timely updates of content/images available of local entertainment/news
-link to additional information and /or back to the Tourism Hamilton website
-cross promotion with other local businesses and/or partners within the city
-Facebook-likes,  quick view of local community businesses and users to link directly to those related pages
Disadvantage:
-only 596 “Likes” – again odd for a city population so large

T.Ham.YouTubeChannel-Snapshot 
43 Subscribers
Advantage:
-ability for great video coverage and extending viewing to others in/outside the city
-videos allow for better view, sound and feel of the city (culture, sports & entertainment)
-timely and can be rather effective, 2 minute video can be more effective than a 1 page story
Disadvantage:
-when YouTube-T.Ham.Search-Snapshot search engine there is a lack of the most recent video’s posted from the actual Tourism Hamilton office
-low user “views” and complete lack of user comments on videos
-the video postings go in shifts, where there are some postings and then not again for some time.
-the video on the landing page of the Tourism Hamilton YouTube channel has 22,750 video views (perhaps that could be from how many times I was surfing around the site! haha). After review of the comments  under that particular video there is a general feel of a real love for Hamilton and people want to ensure that is protrayed.
-other videos that are posted, there are low video ‘views’ and no comments at all on these videos.

Wrap it Up and Move On!
Overall each of the above mentioned platforms have great opportunity to expand and grow. My proposal is to continue to build brand awareness and retain customer loyalty of the Tourism Hamilton brand by largely focusing more effort and communication within social media use.
During review, the general tone and attitude of users involved with each of the platforms is positive and welcoming for more involvement – I see great opportunity!
Take what we have and continue to build for $uccess – for growth in tourism, the Hamilton economy and community morale and strength!
At a later date, my proposal would include paid tactics like promoted Twitter trends and sponsored blog posts.

Social Media – What’s the Payoff??
My next post I will look into opportunities and issues and how and what can be done exactly to measure success with using social media.

Reference:
Tourism Hamilton

Twitter – Tourism Hamilton

Facebook – Tourism Hamilton

YouTube Channel – Tourism Hamilton

Let’s Research – The Who! (Assignment 2)

No, not the English rock band, but at least I got your attention!
Continuing from Assignment 1, I will research and analyze Tourism Hamilton. 

 Tissue for Your Issue.
As mentioned in a previous posting, the issue, a.k.a. goal, identified for Tourism  Hamilton is to increase visitors to Hamilton by 2% annually.

What Don’t I know – the Audience?
Well this goal lead to a few questions I had to ask to help guide my research of who is in this Tourism audience of Hamilton…

Who is currently visiting Hamilton?
  Total person visits: 3,294,099 (Canadians are 92% of that total) 

Why are they visiting Hamilton?
   - 61% Visiting friends and family
   – 24% Leisure
  – 7% Business
  – 8% Other

Who else (other visitors) could we perhaps reach out to target and bring into Hamilton?
  I believe we could outreach more to our just over the boarder neighbours in Buffalo, USA. As well as informing those who are in the Hamilton area to inform and interest their out of town friends to come into Hamilton.

How can we get more visitors to come annually into Hamilton?
  Push out communication (including images & videos) from Tourism Hamilton via web and social media platforms of local events and entertainment in an up to the minute approach. Platforms such as Twitter have an ability to ReTweet a message you see from others, example if you or someone you know Tweets a message from @Tourism Hamilton of a local event or activity then you could ReTweet the message to help spread the fun to your Twitter Followers (friends and family)!

 Once visitors are in the Hamilton area, how can we get them to spend more and more often?
   Spending more for a consumer is doing more. We need to inform visitors while they are headed to Hamilton of more great local events and things to do. The Tourism Hamilton website does offer a Things to Do listing but users would need to know that exsits and where to find it. Since there may be low knowledge of the Tourism Hamilton website for some, then let’s give it at them via our social media tools available! Push this information out via online tools and ask people to share. Let’s show our audience what they may be missing out on.

Wrap it Up and Move On!
Overall, I can now see what is clear from my primary research – the Tourism Hamilton audience are the Canadians who are visiting Hamilton to see their friends and family.
Great, now that we have that nailed down…

 
Reference:
Tourism Hamilton

TH_MarketingPlan_09
Twitter

Help Name My Baby

Yes you read that right, help me name my baby, Oh wait no no, not MY baby!
Parents to be, Dave and Lindsey Meske, reached out to those on Facebook for help in choosing a name for their little girl. Not only was it help from family and friends but as well as complete strangers from all over the world.

Who knew years ago that today in 2012 parents would be reaching out to strangers on the world wide web in help to deciding the name of their new bundle of joy. Not sure about you but I think if that time comes for me, I will stick with the classic ‘baby name book’ haha. All joking aside Madelyn was my favourite choice, but really a Facebook vote!??

ABC News online – Madelyn Wins Out in Facebook Poll

 

Faith love McDonald’s French Fries

I came across this really cute audio post of a graphic designer Adam Ladd who took 35-40 brand logos and recorded the reaction of his five year old daughter Faith.
Watch: 5-year-old identifies brand logos, adorably – Ragan PR Daily

Funny how marketers have this ability to plant ‘brand’ seeds of recognition in young children (as young as 5 yrs as we see with Faith), in the hopes that the seeds will grow into lifetime relationships. Clearly there is a connection with good interaction and how well a child knows the brand logo for what it really stands for. Not surprising is that Faith was able to recognize the Disney logo or McDonald’s without any other information, of course her interaction with both logo’s is positive, watching a movie or eating French fries and getting little toys with your meals. Funny enough that McDonald’s and Disney have paired up with new movies and characters as the special toy found within the Happy Meal box – very child’s favourite part! What is a bit surprising is that Faith is able to name the Apple, Nike the BP where it was the interaction of her parents with these brands yet she still was able to know what each brand linked or was related too (the Apple store, Nike shoes and gasoline).

With the help of researchers and psychologists, marketers are able to gain in-depth knowledge of a child’s developmental, emotional and social needs at various ages, what makes them tick. Children are of course the future market segment that marketers will want as they grow into brands and different segments, or if not, the current primary target market. I believe some adult (the ‘big’ kids) thinking (emotional and social needs) tends to be the same as to when we were children. Heck I still get that fuzzy warm happy feeling when I see the McDonald’s logo and sneak the order of a Happy Meal here and there.

So much is goes behind brand recognition but I will not get into that right now within this blog post as I could go on for a while. Overall, I just thought this was a really cute audio piece and may make you think of what brands you instantly connected with when you were young.

Bye for now!