We’re delighted to provide here the 2nd annual Atlantic Conversations II Report on Social Media Use in Atlantic Canada. The information here is downloadable (below) in PDF format and is the data we’ve made publicly available for general consumption under Creative Commons license. A more detailed, 30 page version is available at $450.
Social Media use in Atlantic Canada continued to climb in 2009. The biggest service to see growth was Twitter, while the average age of a Facebook user climbed to 53 this year. In terms of being active in Social Media channels, New Brunswick lead the way. We did see some leaps for Newfoundland & Labrador as well as PEI.
You can download the PDF report here. If you’d like the pay version, please contact us directly.
Blog, Reputation, Thunking•
on August 12th, 2009•
When books first started to be produced in significant quantities in the early 1600’s, academics changed significantly. Because all of a sudden, books were available to thinkers in other countries. They could compare ideas and concepts. That had never happened before.
As I looked at the topics being discussed from my last post, it made me realize that Social Media tools have enabled this yet again. What struck me as even more amazing is that perhaps for the first time in history, we’re co-developing the way we engage in this medium on a huge, collaborative scale never before available to humanity.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are writing their approach to Social Media activities like blogging, how to use Twitter or leverage a Social Network for marketing or selling. Many more are reading those articles. The power of being able to “comment” on what someone has written has identified thought leaders like Chris Brogan or Jeremiah Owyang and Beth Harte. Because they make sense to the majority.
Part of what I find amazing about Social Media is that we’re all learning together and creating how this medium can be used for business, writing, sharing ideas…anything knowledge based. The tools were created, as a general public, we’re deciding how to use them. On a scale never before available to us.
We’ve always had gate keepers that have controlled mass-communications; editors, pr consultants, reporters, lawyers, doctors…not anymore. We can choose to work with those gate keepers or not.
Best Practices•
on November 21st, 2008•
Analysis Paralysis – when you’ve got so much data that you stop making effective business decisions. It happens to the best of us. Perhaps more so now. Marketers and communicators engaging in Social Media are debating heatedly over what metrics are right, what exactly to measure and what to report and how…and so on. With digital media, analysis becomes a easier than ever before – and both marketers and PR professionals are in part to blame, since they hyped this ability to collect such data. Add in that more CEO’s are spending their time bogged down in financial management than building the business, we have a situation ripe for analysis paralysis. There are so many measurement tools for Social Media that it is easy to become overwhelmed – and make the wrong decision, so no decision is made.
Marketers and PR pro’s will dump mass amounts of data into clients laps saying “look, it worked”, and this data then ends up in front of the CFO to justify the budget spends, which in turn has the CFO and CEO discussing budget spends – with too much data to make a truly effective decision. The issue then becomes over-analysis, getting to the minutiae that may not support a good decision by both marketers/communicators and finance.
Metrics are important, analysis should be done, it can help shape better financial and marketing/PR decisions. A CFO will spend money if it is justified, but it’s all about the “right” amount of analysis. So when running campaign or event analysis, concentrate just on the factual data that matters. Set the end metric first, then a few milestones to measure on the way to that goal. Good marketing is a managed investment, and managed properly the return is “growth” however that is organizationally defined. We often advocate heads of marketing and finance working together to align the strategic goals, while the “implementers” or tactical folks in marketing/communications and finance iron out the details.
Today, many financial managers have much a broader understanding of business. Working together you can set expectations on what amounts of data you really need to measure successes and failure and avoid analysis paralysis.