It’s been a busy week all around, hasn’t it? June is here and it’s really feeling like summer now. There’s lots of stories about digital communications that caught my eye over the past week. I’ve picked a few and shared them below. As always, I’d love to hear your comments about these topics and if there are specific topics you’d like covered here too.
Fort McMurray – it takes a village
The most important Fort McMurray story is about the residents who evacuated during the fire because now many of them have started returning home. But, home will never be the same. There’s a tonne of rebuilding to do not to mention wreckage removal and safety concerns. It’s going to take a long time for life to get back to the new normal.
It takes a village… literally.
photo credit: Diane Bégin
Life is full of heartwarming surprises, including these 300 South African firefighters who stepped in (and danced in) to help.
Instagram Is Now Giving Small Businesses a Dashboard Full of Data About Their Posts
Don’t you love Instagram? It’s one of my favourite social media apps. It’s so easy to use – all you need to do is upload or shoot photos or video, add a caption and a hashtag or 10 if you wish, and press “Share”. You have the option of adding filters to your photos and sharing them on several other social platforms as well. A quick scan of your feed provides lots of gorgeous eye candy. Then you can view, like and comment away on photos and videos from others. For businesses, it hasn’t been that easy because very few metrics are provided for you to measure activity. Sure you can see how many people are following, liking and commenting on your posts or using a specific hashtag, but there’s little else shown. That’s about to change. This week, Instagram announced the launch of free tools, including an easy-to-use dashboard aimed at small businesses. Their hope being that once more data becomes available, small businesses will be more likely to advertise on the platform. Do you agree?
Now you can Google yourself to know what Google knows about you
When it comes to reputation management, some of us don’t do as good a job googling themselves online as they should. Starting next Wednesday, Google aims to change that by making vanity searches easier. According to the Toronto Star, “Starting Wednesday, a shortcut to personal account information will appear at the top of Google’s search results whenever users who have logged in enter their own names in the query box.”
Will the real Charles Arment please stand up?
Just. Read. This. Trust me.
Tipping the scale
Some of you know I’ve been on Weight Watchers since April 4. It’s not my first time at the weigh see-saw rodeo and in fact, I received Lifetime member about 14 years ago. Over the past two years, I’d gained a lot of weight. It made me miserable. I wanted to go back, but couldn’t motivate myself. Now I’m going with a friend and her daughter. I’ve lost 12.2 pounds so far, and they’re doing great too. So, what does this have to do with digital and social media? Nothing, I thought you might appreciate this list of dispelled myths from registered dietitian, Leslie Beck as much as I did.
Ada’s Sisters – Episode 38
Something is going on over at BLAB, and we’re not sure it is the smartest move. But a move we totally approve of is Girls Who Code’s series of videos making fun of the totally erroneous idea that women aren’t able to work with technology. Check this one out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAVQpJNybys
Pure awesome, don’t you agree?
We have some thoughts on My.Flow — a bluetooth connected tampon that helps avoid leakage. No, seriously. Many thoughts. And Chewbacca Mom has had more than her 15 minutes in the sun, but we’d like to give her a shout-out for being kind of the best thing on the internet last month. We also threw some light on Rayanne Thorn’s terrifying article about a bartender trying to sexually assault her by putting something in her drink. This kind of behaviour has to stop!
