Posted: January 15th, 2012 | Author: Erica | Filed under: Advertising, Branding & Retail | Tags: blogging, Canadian Weblog Awards | 2 Comments »
At a recent blogging roundtable—doesn’t that sound like we should be wearing gorgets & brandishing lances?—one of Kenton Larson‘s Cre Comm kids asked:
“Do you ever just want to take down your blog?”
Yes, sweet innocent. Like, every other day.
If you write a lot, you produce some mighty cringe-worthy stuff from time to time. You put opinions out there that people don’t agree with. You get caught with your fact-checking pants down. You typo. You get hysterical. You get googled.
But despite the blogging ups and downs that frankly had me almost in tears last night—my blog is so ugly/my focus is misplaced/if I start another blog, should I retire this one?/how do you even do that?—I’m astonished to find that I’m shortlisted in not one but t̶w̶o̶ [THREE!] categories in the Canadian Weblog Awards!
I somehow write one the 5 least-sucky blogs in Canada about Careers & Business, and it is one of the top 5 least-suckily written!
Thanks, CWAs, for this vote of confidence in a time of great blogular turmoil. I really needed your juried, text-based hug. 
[EDIT: See? SEE?! I got the info wrong in a post about getting the info wrong! I'm also on the shortlist for 'Best Weblog about Science, Technology & the Internet'. Thanks, jurors. I will endeavour to blow your socks off in the next few weeks of judging.]
Posted: January 6th, 2012 | Author: Erica | Filed under: The Mobile Web | Tags: advertising, data, mobile marketing, Probe Research, QR code, survey | 7 Comments »
The lovely folks at Probe Research sent me a survey they’ve prepared for the Canadian Marketing Association on QR code usage in Manitoba. Here’s the results (sample size: 1000 adults).
Awareness of QR codes
More than half of the adult population (53%) has seen a QR code somewhere in the past month. Those who tend to be more familiar with these codes include:
- Urban dwellers (57% Winnipeg residents, versus 47% of those outside Winnipeg)
- Younger Manitobans aged 18-34 years (69%, compared to 58% among those aged 35-54 years and 33% of those aged 55 years and over)
- Those earning higher household incomes (66% of those earning more than $100,000/year)
- University and college graduates (62%)
How many people have actually scanned a code?
Only 14% of those who recalled seeing a QR code say that they have actually scanned a code with their smartphones.
Younger Manitobans (22% of those aged 18-34 years, compared to 6% of those aged 55 years and over) & men (20%, versus 8% of women) were more likely to have scanned these codes at some point.
14% of the 53% who can recognize a code is 7.42% of the general population who’re likely to scan your ad in Manitoba.
This is fairly close to the number of Manitobans on Twitter but less than a 1/3 of the number with smartphones, so I think we’re seeing a certain niche the format works for—youngish, affluent, educated guys.
Posted: January 5th, 2012 | Author: Erica | Filed under: Social Media Marketing, Visual, Art & Design, Winnipeg | Tags: Ace Burpee, Metro Winnipeg, Photoblog, United Way of Winnipeg, Winnipeg Is Beautiful | Comments Off
Big day for prairie skies & industrial smokestacks!
Just did an interview with @ & wasn't as terrified as usual! I hardly threw up at all. The Metro ran a great piece by reporter Shane Gibson about my Winnipeg photoblog, Winnipeg is Beautiful, and Ace Burpee mentioned it on his morning show.
It was the most popular story on the Metro’s site, submissions went up 4600% and we had around 1200 page views since this morning. Thank you, media!
So, Erica, why did you start a Winnipeg photoblog?
I was inspired to start the blog by Instagram’s “popular” page. Because Instagram has a global user base, you get these fascinating little glimpses into daily life around the world.
I thought it would be worthwhile for us to share Winnipeg with each other like that. If you have stereotypes about different neighbourhoods, maybe they’ll be demystified a little by a guided tour from the people who love them.
The more we get to know each other’s spaces, and by extension know each other, the easier it is to think of yourself as part of a collective and to care what happens here.
Posted: January 4th, 2012 | Author: Erica | Filed under: Social Media Marketing | Tags: Urban Dictionary, wrong-piping | 4 Comments »
My submission for “wrongpiping” was approved! I feel so altruistically helpful. Now the world has a reference point for dealing with distressed social media managers.
I’ve only had the minorest of brushes with wrongpiping, but because I speak for some fairly enormous brands on occasion, I put an iron-clad anti-wrongpiping strategy in place to prevent future white-knuckled moments.
I use the Twitter desktop app for personal accounts & another interface entirely (web, Hootsuite, etc) for brands. This allows me to use both simultaneously with no chance of using the wrong persona.
Where it does get sticky is with web retweet buttons. Sharing web content is a big part of what I do personally and professionally, so there’s no foolproof way to avoid clicking ‘retweet’ and not noticing the wrong little avatar in the corner (except using 2 browsers at the same time, which is insane.) You just gotta pay attention.
Posted: January 2nd, 2012 | Author: Erica | Filed under: Social Media Platforms | Tags: microblogging, tweeting, Twitter | Comments Off
At the end of 2011, I hit 10,000 tweets. 10,000 times I musta decided I had something to say or share with the world.
If it took 10 seconds to write each tweet—and many take longer while I dig around for a special character, edit a photo, or head down the street to report breaking news, for Pete’s sake—then I spent a good 27 hours, 46 minutes & 40 seconds tweeting.
I saw the big 10k coming for a few days and planned to use it for something great, but my phone updates differently than the web & I missed it. My 10,000th tweet was this book cover. Perhaps a 2012 fortune cookie?
To make up for missing the big tweet, I used 10,001 to mark the occasion.
To celebrate my 10,000th tweet, I donated $10 to Care Canada (@) for their work in the Congo. Peace on earth. ☮ Is spending more than a day of my life microblogging worth it?
Sure. Twitter feels critical. Twitter answers questions. Twitter serves news faster than any other channel.
Twitter lets me talk to everyone when I need to get my message to the most people, and to anyone when I want to share a thought with people I can’t reach any other way.
Twitter is media. It’s a global consciousness. It taught me to write short (not because you have to, but because it respects your audience & forces you to clarify your point) and to bastardize English forever with ampersands & emdashes.
It shows me different dimensions of the same friends & what it means to live in public.
Posted: December 30th, 2011 | Author: Erica | Filed under: Social Media Marketing | Tags: critical thinking, Facebook, hoax, scam | 1 Comment »
Facebook scams usually rely on minor greed, like “insert big box store is giving away $1000 gift cards to every slob who can muster the effort to click like” (but no such lavish reward for their actual, in-store customers for some reason. Realistic, right?)
Scams aren’t just annoying proof of your *friend’s lack of critical thinking skills 
; sometimes they’re dangerous likejacking attempts (where you can’t see the thing you’re actually liking/sharing—potentially a virus.) They work because we trust our friends.
Which brings us to this stomach-churning hoax, “Little boy needs 100 shares for a free heart transplant”.
I mean, this scam doesn’t even make sense. How would shares benefit the hospital or donor who would pay for the supposed heart transplant? Do I need to point out they’d only get horrific PR from tying a kid’s life to “Facebook engagement”?
So, I mean, Google is your friend. Check if something’s fake. Was it Confucius, Jesus, or Elvis who said “All that glitters is not gold…?”
* I don’t blame my super kind-hearted friends for sharing this. I’ve retweeted fake amber alerts for missing kids before, because even though you know they’re probably fake, what if they aren’t? We all just wanna help.
Posted: December 22nd, 2011 | Author: Erica | Filed under: Visual, Art & Design, Winnipeg | Tags: Ace Burpee, Japan, Most Fascinating Manitobans list, thanks | Comments Off
Aw, Ace Burpee, you didn’t have to…thanks for including me, Kevin & the Tactica team in the “Most Fascinating Manitobans of 2011″ list for our work with HOT 103 on the Japan disaster. This is better than when we went to the Geminis and saw Strombo!
