Guest Speaker: Sean Moffit

"Stand out", "be different", "be yourself but better". Those are the things that stood out when Sean Moffit came to my social media class to discuss how to use social media to stand out and get that "perfect" job.

He started out with a power point on SWOT and POST and how it's useful tool for a company or a campaign to use as a means to measure their social media usage; if it working or not, and what they can change to make it better.

He went on to talk about the Web 2.0 revolution (which as this point everyone already figured out, but for those who haven't, check out this video, it'll explain it all...Fatboy Slim makes everything better doesn't it?)

In a nutshell Sean expressed how important it's to be well immersed in social media because it is the new means of communication (like it or not)and you'll be left out if you decide not to be part of it. Knowing how social media works and how to use it is a big asset and can even make the difference between getting that job you always dreamed about.

The Web 2.0 revolution is here and making it clear it is not going anywhere!

Digital Catalog: Ingenious New Idea

During the autumn in 2009 IKEA partnered up with the advertising agency, Formsman and Bodenfor, to promote the opening of the new store in Malmo, Sweden. Together they developed a very engaging social media campaign that would attract an audience beyond Malmo.

Gordan Gustavsson, the Malmo store manager, created a Facebook page and simply uploaded photos of the IKEA showrooms over a two-week period. The first person to tag him or her self on an item in the photo won that particular piece of furniture. A demand for more pictures grew quickly as winners promoted IKEA through their profile pages, newsfeeds, and links.

This was a social media campaign with a lot of strength:

• IKEA is an established company with a large following, allowing an audience to develop easily during this campaign.
  
• There was high interaction between customers and IKEA.

There were weaknesses:

• There is only a particular audience on Facebook, it is a commonly a younger audience who is already likely to shop at a store like IKEA, this campaign was not reaching a new audience.
• Facebook is widely used by many people and companies; this campaign could have easily disappeared in the crowd and not received as much feedback as it did.

Many great opportunities:

• “Ripple Effect”, friends of the active photo taggers were made aware of not only the new Malmo store, but the company as a whole.
• This also allows a trusting online relationship to develop between IKEA and its customers, showing that IKEA is reaching out to the community, providing the promised furniture.

It is still faced with threats:

• This campaign involved an extreme flow of interaction between IKEA and customers. This constant flow may become difficult to manage when keeping track of which customer tagged a particular item first.
• Many competitors also have a Facebook presence but are using different tools (fan pages, groups, etc.). This shows that the IKEA social media campaign was not entirely unique.

Facebook users were the main targets, but not only that it also encouraged non-Facebook users to sign up and get an account just for this campaign.

The campaign’s objective was to promote the opening of IKEA’s new store, as well as engage in two way communication with the buyers and give IKEA more of a “human” face for the public to connect. Facebook allowed the general public to start conversation with the store’s manager.

The strategy was simply to use the already in place functions on Facebook, IKEA was able to create a digital catalog, while promoting its product and store, to have various users connect. IKEA’s main goal was to stand out with an ingenious new campaign.

Using Facebook, it allows an interaction between the consumer and the company, resulting in building a trusting relationship.

Overall: It was a successful campaign that built new relationships with IKEA and its consumer. The usage of social media helped create a new way of advertisement, where IKEA was able to show more of human side to IKEA and communicate with its consumers.

Last night I got to go see the dancers of the Ryerson Dance program in Ryerson Dance 2009, its annual dance show.

I was excited to see Darryl Tracy’s pieces, as I have had the fortune to have him teach my dance class on occasion last year.

The show featured the works of five choreographers: Darryl Tracy, D.A Hoskins, Vicki St. Denys, Valerie Calam, and Matjash Mrozewski

It was amazing to see the talent that Ryerson dance program is busting with.

Shows times are 8pm the 24th- 27th and 2pm and 8pm the 28th
Ticket prices are: $18 general admission and $14 student/senior
In the Ryerson Theatre.

I am recommending all who are interested in dance to go and check out the show. Though be warned it is 3 hours long with two intermissions.

After seeing this show I am looking forward to see their Choreographic Works in March (3-13)

So where are blogs going?

In the past two weeks in my social media class we been talking back and forth on the topic of where is social media, (blogs), going, and how much longer will they be around and will they eventually take over traditional media?
We were assigned the chapter readings of McConnell, B. & Huba, J. (2007). Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message, [Kaplan Publishing.] In the readings it discussed the shifts of publishing, since the days of Guttenberg, and how with the birth of blogs everyone is a publisher (old news now because blogs seem to feel like they been here forever), but the new questions that arises is, will the change keep going, to the point that traditional forms of media will be wiped out by new social media? (blogs, podcast, etc).

“We become what we behold, We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”-Marshall McLuhan. This statement is a true reflection to how we interact with each other today; which, is mostly on these social media applications (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc). Less and less do people of the younger generations call each other; instead they just chat in the Facebook chat, or twitter to one another. Even cell phones are used for texting and those with smart phones surf the web and use Facebook. So the more we create of these new apps the more they’ll be “shaping” the way we communicate and do everyday things.

I feel Blogs are one of those things that go up and down in popularity, but I don’t see Blogs ever stopping or even taking over any other forms of media. Blogs are good for certain things, but not for all. We as a society are going to always have a need for professional journalist and publishers. We need news, even though Blogs provide an array of information, it more based off the opinions of those whom are Blogging and not on true facts. You’ll rarely come a across a Blog that has in-depth research on a topic. So traditional media well not be going anywhere any time soon; however, the way they deliver their information will be changing (online news papers, twitter news, etc). These change that will be coming up are not anything new. People have always being changing, and the ways things are done are also changing. We live in a consist state of change. If you ever really noticed how nothing in life is static, everything is always moving and evolving into something new and different. So for all those traditional forms of media, they’ll still be there, just in a new form. Everything is an extension of something before it.
So where are Blogs going? I think Blogs are become more and more professional and less about “what I did today…” type of feel. People are actually writing more insightful information, and trying their best to execute their most professional writing skills.

Question: where do you think blogs are heading?

So, Where Are The Wild Things?!

Just as many of us are, I am a fan of the book, written by Maurice Sendak , “Where the Wild Things Are”. At one point or another we have all come across this book in, one way or another, and all took it in different ways. For me it was one of the first storybooks that I read on my own, marking a small “milestone” my life. With the recent release of the movie, pretty much every adult and child went to see it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, I watched the trailer about six months before. I knew the soundtrack was going to amazing (being a fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a.k.a Karen O) I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed with that aspect of it. I knew the visuals were going to be great as well; the trailer gave me chills the first time (and that barely ever happens to me).

As the lights went down and the preview started rolling, I was at the edge of my seat to see the opening scene. But of course after 10 minutes of previews I forgot what movie I was seeing in the first place, but of course once they ended I quickly recalled why I was there.

Now this is not to turn people off from seeing this movie, but it’s not like the book! Which makes sense seeing how the book was about 15 pages and 10 sentences long. Another thing, this movie is not really for kids, it deals with mature themes and ideas.

If I were a 10 year old, I wouldn’t find myself sitting through this movie quietly.

I found the first 15 minutes a bit confusing, and very depressing when the teacher started to talk about the sun blowing up. That is actually how I felt about the whole movie. It had this very sad and dark feel to it, as if the sun was going to blow up, and every moment was the last. Until at the end when Max is back home safe that you feel like there is hope in the end. The monsters were pretty impressive, but once again it was confusing to figure out at first what they were talking about or doing. It was clear that they all represented some sort of human characteristics. Carol was clearly representing Max, with his naïve and child like tendencies. He also showed the fear of change and being left alone. Just like Max, Carol felt his family was falling apart and leaving him to be alone. He also didn’t like the idea of new people coming into the family. Just like Max he acted out in a violent and irrational way. But in the end the movie ties it all part to loving each other and learning to understand each other.

Overall I liked the message the movie was trying to send, and yeah it might have been a bit “indie” for some people’s taste but I sure enjoyed it, and would go see it again. I would give it 3 ½ winks out of 5. ; D

The Elks: Video Contest

If you guys would take a second and go onto this website and vote for my friend’s video. They are a local Toronto band that goes by the name of The Elks. It consists of four band members, Joel Sweet. Matt Bagley, Aaron Comaeu and Jake Hoag. They have been playing together for about a year now.

They entered the Royal LePAGE’s “My Great Neighborhood” music video contest about your favourite of. The prize is $25 grand!

If you liked what you saw it would be great if you spread this on to friends who might enjoy this as well.

First Blog

For my first blog I lack creative for a name, but hey I like things simple. I guess it would be a cliché to say that I don’t have a clue what to write about for my first blog, but that will change with the next blogs I am going to post here. So let’s get the formalities out of the way, I am a freshman at Humber College, in the Public Relations program, which should take me three years to finish (fingers crossed). Being a month into the program, I feel that I already have gained a lot of knowledge, but at the same time I see that I have a lot more to learn.


College is quite the leap from high school. Some days I wish I had taken a victory lap with my friends, but other days it feels great being in college. The education is now in my hands, and that only makes me want to study and work harder for good grades. Being able to study what I want instead of being told what I need to “learn” is definitely a reason why I enjoy waking up in the morning and going to class.


The world of PR is very appealing. It gives me the chance to meet all sorts of people, and help them in one way or another. The constant changes in the field of PR are also exciting. With the rise of social media, it’s giving companies a new way to connect to their publics and audiences. Which is a wonderful thing!


So on my “journey” into this exciting and ever changing world of PR, I plan to keep a blog and update with what’s going in the world of PR and just in general with what is going on!



Enjoy!