iNovia Capital, together with Teralys Capital, wants to send you and a friend to Vancouver's GROW 2011, happening August 18 to 19.
Fortunately, iNovia has made it quite simple to get your chance at free entry.
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BackType announced this morning on their blog that they have been acquired by Twitter.
We’re thrilled to announce that BackType has been acquired by Twitter! We’ll be bringing our team and technology to Twitter’s platform team, where our focus will be developing tools for Twitter’s publisher partners.
Our vision at BackType has always been to help our customers understand the value of engagement on Twitter and other social platforms. We also created BackTweets to help publishers understand the reach of their tweets and content, who they are reaching, and how Tweets covert to web traffic, sales and other KPIs.
While terms of the deal were not disclosed the BackType team will be relocating to the Twitter office.
BackType, which is based in San Francisco, has raised $1.3 million in venture capital since launching out of Y-Combinator in 2008.
Techvibes readers will recognize BackType as we've been covering them since University of Toronto grads Christopher Golda and Mike Montano pledged their summer to startup incubator Y-Combinator and in three months fleshed out the app.
HootSuite, a Vancouver-born social media dashboard, just announced it reached a milestone of two million users.
Famous for its adorable owls and clean-cut designs, the company adequately celebrated this milestone in two predictable (that's a good thing in this context) ways: an owl with a party hat, balloons, and confetti, and a kick-ass infographic.
At 32 months old, HootSuite has been responsible for the sending of 500,000,000 messages across 4,000,000 unique social profiles and has reached more than 3,000,000,000 followers and fans through those messages—which, HootSuite is proud to point out, is more than the population of America, Africa, Europe, and Oceania combined.
There are plenty more interesting stats in the infographic after the jump.
read moreThe iTunes 2011 Festival kicks off at the Roundhouse in London today and will run to the end of the month. For those that can't afford the round trip ticket across the Atlantic, music fans can watch the show through iTunes on their computer or download the iTunes Festival app for iPhone, iPod, or iPod Touch.
With the Festival app, users can read up on festival news and information -- as well as see updated photos from the shows. As for the performances, users can watch them live or download later -- all for free!
This year's featured artists include Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Adele, Linkin Park, Paul Simon and many more. Follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #itunesfestival to take part in concert-related tweets.
If social media is about embracing community then Vancity, a Vancouver credit union, has developed a social media strategy that optimizes its strongest asset: it's employees.
Our approach to social media is that our employees, who interact with our members daily in the real world, should represent us online as well.
Employees of Vancity, who are on Twitter, can engage in communications on behalf of the credit union. While the Vancity Twitter page is still quite new and doesn't quite feature a significant amount of activity yet, the extended reach of the company through its employees promises to create a strong and integrated network.
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Canadian banks have always operated as a model for traditional and established business practice. As the financial scene is becoming more competitive however, even financial organizations are looking to social media to attract new customers. By using services such as Twitter, banks can build their image and improve public relations.
In terms of their twitter presence, just how do Canada's leading names in finance measure up?
CIBC (@CIBCnews): C
Activity: CIBC posts about 0-4 posts daily -- and usually not more than 7 tweets each week. The account only tweets stories about CIBC and does not show any interactions with customers.
Community: With 1789 followers and being listed 96 times, CIBC isn't the worst on this list, but still has a long way to go.
Content: The CIBC page features the institution's colour, logo, and a link to their main website, but there is no mention of a social media team.
Bank of Montreal (@BMO): B+
Activity: BMO is an institution whose only recently become more involved with Twitter. Previously, the account posted tweets only once every few days and rarely responded to their customers. Now, the BMO social media team (2 members: ^SR and ^PG) regularly post about 7-12 posts daily that respond to customer comments and concerns and provide links to interesting and topical materials.
Community: BMO only has about 1157 followers and is only listed 40 times, which shows that they're not be as integrated into the social media community as some of the other banks, but with the recent increase in activity, these numbers should increase.
Content: Their twitter page also has a sidebar that provides phone numbers, links to other social media sites and their website -- and it actually displays well in my browser (unlike some of the others below). It is also customized to feature BMO-themed colours.
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Mashable's second annual Social Media Day is a celebration of the technological advancements that enable everyone to connect with real-time information, communicate from miles apart and have their voices be heard.
It's also a chance to chat with your online friends in an offline context.
Mashable and Meetup are being used to organize SMD celebrations across the world. In Canada, there are meetups in Vancouver and Toronto, while other cities like Waterloo, Ottawa, and Calgary may or may not end up happening (they need more attendees and planners!).
If you can't make one of the SMD celebrations, you can still follow along on Twitter by using the hashtag #SMday.
This article was written by Douglas Idugboe and originally published on Smedio.
In the words of Martina McBride, “This One’s For The Girls.” Don’t look now, but women have taken over social media channels. Females spend more time than males on social media sites. They also contribute more, use mobile social networking more and they buy more stuff online than men do. A new survey released this week by the Pew Internet and American Life Project corroborates numerous other studies that show women dominating social media websites. This is particularly the case with Facebook and Twitter usage. The Pew survey found that more women than men use Facebook and Twitter regularly. They perform Facebook status and profile updates more regularly, comment more, add more photos and click the Like button more than men. If it were not for the constant feminine energy fueling Facebook on a daily basis, the site would be dead.
Participation in Social Network Sites Nearly Doubled and Majority are Women
The comprehensive telephone Pew survey of about 2,000 Americans found that the use of social media by Americans nearly doubled from 2008 to 2010. In 2008, only twenty-six percent of all adults and thirty-four percent of Internet users used social media. Just two-years later, forty-seven percent of all adults use social media and fifty-nine percent of Internet users now regularly frequent at least one site. Not only are more people than ever before using Facebook and other networking sites, they are also older. The average age used to be thirty-three, now it’s thirty-eight. And the social Web is now ruled by estrogen. Women make up over half of all social media users at fifty-six percent, and they hold sway over emailing, instant messaging, blogging and photo sharing, as well.
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It was incredibly heartwarming to witness the amazing recovery of downtown Vancouver after the chaos of the post-Canucks game riot.
Whether orchestrated by professional out-of-town thugs as the VPD suggest or simply the culminating chaos of myriad drunken fools, the riot damaged buildings, cars, people, and the reputation of our fine city.
But what better way to restore both the city and its reputation than with numerous volunteers from all walks of life banding together to say, "THIS is MY Vancouver"—and no rioters can take that away.
The epicentre of this recovery effort is the Citizen Wall, which will surely make history in Vancouver.
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While investigating the "real costs" of social media for companies, I came to understand that social media success boils down to three elements that would apply just as well to a traditional marketing effort. Know your target audience. Set realistic expectations for inputs and outputs. And track everything, so you can chuck what isn’t working and pour your resources into what is working. I think these tips are good for newbies and social media wonks alike.
Know Your Audience
When Ice.com, a Montreal-based online seller of jewelry, launched a Facebook campaign last year called “Love Story” to sell more jewelry around Valentine’s Day, they knew their target audience: women between ages of 35 and 60 living in USA and Canada. And they knew where to find their target market to acquire more leads online: Facebook.
Participants in the campaign were asked to tell their love story on a custom-built Facebook page in return for the chance to win a piece of jewelry.
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