newmediaMike

Two New Canadian Social Media Ventures

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Matthew Ingram today posted a blog entry which is actually significant news for the Canadian Social Media scene. He is taking on a new role at his employer, the Globe and Mail. He is currently a columnist and blogger covering the “new media” scene. He has been promoted to the newly created position of “Communities Editor”. As Matthew himself asks “What does that mean exactly?”. It is a new corporate speak title for what most of would love to do - create a community around a brand.

But Matthew goes on to say and quite rightly that even though you put the infrastructure in place, it doesn’t mean a community will follow. Which is true, if you build it they may not come … UNLESS you give them a reason to keep coming back time and time again. Social media is all about engaging the user in your brand, and the Globe gets that.  I’m looking forward to what they come up with.

The next Social Media venture comes from another Canadian institution - Tim Hortons. They have set up a site at everycup.ca with the tagline - “Every cup tells a story”. the idea is that you submit a story that revolves around Tim Hortons. Very similar to the commercials they ran recently about the father and son at the hockey rink, or the student in Glasgow.

In order to submit a story you have to register of course. I want to commend Tim Horton’s on making their registration process easy and painless.  All the standard questions are there, including country. Here is where Timmie’s did it right in my books. Canada is first on the list! I don’t have to scroll past Cameroon to find my country. Finally their captcha was clear and easy to read. I was on a site yesterday that used coloured text in the captcha and the background had streaks of the same colour as some of the letters so the letters faded into the background making it impossible to raed. It took me 3 attempts to get it right. But I am off on a tangent.

Tim Horton’s captcha was clear and easy to read. Good on yah Timmy!

Submitting your story is easy too. You can write it out or post a video.

I think that Tim Horton’s has a winner on their hands with this one for sure!

If you know of any other Canadian Social Media venture please let me know and I will write it up. For other Canadian Social Media ventures check out Web 2.0 examples in Canada.