Future Camp with Humber PR

January seems like a very, very long time ago ... to think I sat down in my first Humber PR social media class with no real grasp on what social media even was. I had no idea how to even blog or use Twitter for something other than reading what my favourite celebs had to say or tell people what I was doing. Feeling overwhelmed does not even begin to describe it.

Those were the days. Now ... four months later, I am blogging, tweeting and signing up for social media applications all the time. You can follow me on Twitter @Jady06 or read my personal blog to see what I am up to.

But where do we go from here?

What does the future have in store?

Who knows ... the online world is our oyster and it must use it to engage ourselves and promote our personal brands. To those future Humber PR students, you will feel overwhelmed and confused for about two months before you begin to get a handle on what social media really is but trust me, it gets easier!!

Put A Toque On It

One toque really can make a difference.

There are over 65,000 Canadian youth without a roof over their head. Raising the Roof is an organization that wants to but a cap (or a toque) on youth homelessness in Canada. In 2009, Raising the Roof partnered with Virgin Mobile and its Re*Generation initiative to create the Virgin Mobile Re*Generation Toque to warm your head, and do something good! All proceeds were donated to Raising the Roof's Youthworks Program.

Raising the Roof's partnership with Virgin Mobile has created many opportunities. Before Virgin got involved, the campaign was lacking PR and getting people involved, other than getting them to wear the toque. Solution?! Sir Richard Branson, the face of Virgin Mobile. With his influence, he got Glee star, Cory Monteith to sign up as a spokesperson and speak at events around Toronto.

In no time the toques were everywhere! There was a press conference held in Yonge/Dundas Square, Monteith was on MuchMusic's MOD promoting the campaige and it was over the news and American blogging sites.

Raising the Roof's decision to to partner with Virgin Mobile has created many opportunities for the toque campaign and there is much more to come. With the help of Sir Richard Branson and the raising popularity of the Glee star, more people are going to become aware and involved.

Here is the PSA Branson did for the campaign:



Want to find out more information? Take a look at what my friends are saying: Andrea, Anneta, Cindy, Jacque, Maram and Roshni.

Vancouver 2010 - The "Social Media" Olympics

Can social media be the unofficial sport of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics? Everyone from athletes, newscasters, bloggers and fans are furiously typing away. This makes the Olympics the hub of social media, with thousands of tweets being blasted out every hour.

The social media network, Twitter, has released a Verified Tweeting Olympians page where you can see what athletes are tweeting about on one page. They are following 104 athletes including American Johnny Weir to Canadian Joannie Rochette.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee, VANOC, has branched out to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, recognizing the increasing role of social media.

In Alexandra Samuel describes it as “a living social media experiment”:

Social media was around for the Summer Games in Beijing, but this is the first time it will be deployed in a free and democratic regime. There’s good reason to expect that the Olympic experience will be transformed by the social media presence: it’s already changed the Olympic planning process for both the Games organizers and the media that’s now descending on the city.

Even sponsors like Molson are using social media for their Olympic campaigns. Their personalized Team Canada jerseys are part of their “Gear Up For Gold” campaign. Fans can pick up their personalized jersey on the brewer’s Facebook Fan Page, customize the gear, and make it your personal profile on Facebook and Twitter. In the spirit of the Games, and the need to show my Canadian pride, my current Facebook profile picture is my own personalized jersey.

...

UPDATE

Now that the games are over ... and we obviously had an impact on the games (I know many people who had the same profile pic as I did), Hockey Canada sent out a thank you to all their supporters.

I think I just liked that it was personalized ... well electronically but that's ok!

Many people have also reviewed the overall success of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in terms of their social media usage. Take a look at this article for a review of what they did well and what went wrong!

Plastic Makes Perfect

Do you think cosmetic surgery can transform someone into the “perfect” image they have for themselves? At 23 could you see yourself having two rounds of plastic surgery and 10 procedures at once? If you’re Heidi Montag you can. Heidi’s rise to fame comes courteously of MTV’s The Hills. Now she is emerging after two months of hiding, with a new face and body for the world to see.

This is a picture of Montag in 2006 after moving to L.A. and one of her now:



In her interview with Good Morning America, Montag said she believes “beauty is really within.” After being teased as a child, Montag thought the only way she was going to be pretty was to have plastic surgery. Contradictory, don’t you think? Would you take her seriously? The following is a list of the 10 procedures she had:

1. Revision nose job
2. Chin reduction
3. Mini brow lift
4. Botox in forehead and frown area
5. Fat injections in her cheeks, nasolabial folds and lips
6. Ear pinning
7. Liposuction in her waist, hips, inner and outer thighs
8. Buttock augmentation
9. Breast augmentation revision → they are now a size DDD
10. Liposuction in her neck

In 2007, at only 21 years old, Montag went under the knife to get breast and chin implants and a nose job. This was just the beginning of her pursuit of self-improvement. Frank Ryan, Montag’s surgeon, calls her a “hero” after her 10 procedures.




Montag was in surgery for about 10 hours. Many believe you should not be under the knife for more than six. But did she really do this because she is addicted to plastic surgery or is she actually addicted to fame, fortune and getting her name in the headlines? In her book, How To Be Famous, Heidi and her husband Spencer Pratt share their secrets on how to be a tabloid fixture.

If it’s headlines she wants, headlines she gets. Everyone is talking about her and how utterly ridiculous this story is. From gossip blogs to talk shows and newscasts, everyone is talking about Montag.



In my opinion, Montag needs to stop seeing a plastic surgeon and start seeing a therapist. I wonder what she will look like at 30. She already looks like a Barbie doll and is now talking about her next round of surgeries.

Do you DIGG it?

There is a social networking world out there that I had never even heard about. People are constantly talking about the popular sites like Facebook and Twitter (yes I am going to use this example again because they are the most common, and my favourites), but I had never heard of the site Digg. Digg? What does that even mean? Are you digging for some sort of information? I had no idea. So, again, my trusty friend Google answered my questions.

Digg is a social news website that allows people to discover and share content through the submission of links, news stories, videos and pictures. People are able to vote and comment on the posted links. The main purpose is to vote on a story. Voting stories up and down is Digg’s main function. You either Digg It or you Bury It. The stories that have been digged the most end up on the front page of the site. The content on Digg is unedited allowing its users to determine the value of each story.

Digg was first launched on December 5, 2004. Kevin Rose founded Digg in 2003 in San Francisco, California. His vision was to change the way news was gathered and let the masses “dig up” the information that interests them.

This is a great tool for finding out the main news headlines of the day without actually turning on the television or sorting through stories on a newspaper’s website. In fact, many news sites are realizing they can benefit from Digg as well. If they can get their story on Digg’s front page, their site will get a flood of traffic from the many people clicking on the link to read the full story.

Take a look at how easy Digg is to use!

For all you Facebook users out there you are able to use your Facebook account to login to Digg. This feature allows you to bypass registering for another social media account (which is great if you don’t want to remember another login and password!). Digg launched the new Facebook Connect in May 2009. You can add your Facebook friends to Digg and even post your Digg activity to your Facebook account. If you post a new article on Digg, your Facebook friends will be able to see the article you posted.

A cool feature of Digg is their Digg TV, which includes Diggnation, The Digg Reel and Digg Dialogg. Diggnation is weekly produced video podcast, hosted by Digg creator, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. Diggnation’s main purpose is to discuss some of Digg’s most popular stories from that week. The first episode aired on July 1, 2005. In January 2008 The Digg Reel, the spin off to Diggnation was created. Andrew Bancroft hosts this video podcast. It focuses on the most popular videos from Digg that week. Digg Dialogg allows you to be the reporter. A very cool feature off Digg, it lets you submit your questions to a preselected famous individual. The Digg community decides the most popular questions for the interview.

At first glance the site is a little overwhelming. There are 16 top stories, a little much for the front page. I would probably start with the top 5 (maybe even 10) headlines so it does not look so cluttered. Digg is actually a great tool for checking out popular online headlines, and then if you want the full story you just clink on the link provided. One big problem is that there is no filter so you end up with un-newsworthy headlines and videos as well.

I am surprised I had not heard of Digg before because it is quite popular. However, I am not sure that I would use it again. If I want to get importanrt headline news I would rather go to a newspaper or news stations site instead.

Want to find out more about Digg? Become a Digg Pro here or by checking our Ginger’s blog!

A Social Media "How To"

Ok … so here it goes … my very first blog post.

I am going to start by saying I did not completely know what the term “social media” meant until I walked into my first class at Humber College last week. Then I realized I do, to a certain extent. I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but that was it. I did not write a blog, let alone know how to embed videos or link a word to another webpage. Lets just say social media is overwhelming! So here is my first blog post. I hope it is helpful to you if you are thinking about creating a blog of your own ...

Have you ever found yourself completely overwhelmed by all of the emerging forms of social media? I know I have. There are so many different applications, programs, processes and even login names and passwords to remember that I feel like I am on social media overload. Luckily, we have come up with a few "How To" tips to help you (and I) out! Hopefully all your burning questions will be answered.

Now-a-days it is much easier to answer the how to questions you may have. When I wanted to learn how to embed a video I went to my trusty friend Google and typed in "how to embed a video" and my problems were solved. After going though the many articles and videos that came up, YouTube came to my rescue. This simple (and short) video showed me how to embed a video to a website and to a blog.

There you go! You will embedding your videos in no time at all. For even more insight on how to embed videos, take a peek at Shelley and Hayley's blogs.