Wednesday 27 February 2013

CEO Blog - Shimmy Jimmy Toys



To All Who Use Our Products,

We at Shimmy Jimmy Toys have a responsibility to provide you with the highest-quality and innovative toys possible, and we have strived to fulfill that responsibility everyday over the last decade.

The recent recalls of our Jumpin’ Jack Beans due to chocking hazard materials are a matter of great concern. They are a frustration to me, to the employees of Shimmy Jimmy Toys and those of you, our loyal customers. You can be reassured that we are taking every precaution to ensure the safety of all our customers and that we will make whatever changes are needed to restore the quality of our product.


As reported, Morten Corp., manufacturers of Jumpin’ Jack Beans, has postponed all operations at its factory in Mississauga, ON, until we they are 100% sure that they are operating under the standards we demand of all our toy manufacturers, and which our clientele expects from our organization. Shimmy Jimmy Toys and Morten Corp. have also enlisted top quality inspectors to ensure the superiority of our manufactured toys follow the protocols and regulations across all aspects of our organization.

I would like to take a moment to thank our Health and Safety inspectors for bringing this default in Jumpin’ Jack Beans to our attention, and thus ensuring no serious injuries were caused to any of our customers. For now, please ensure all Jumpin’ Jack Beans are removed from your home and returned to your nearest Shimmy Jimmy Toys for a full refund.

If you have any concerns please contact us through our website or the Customer Care telephone line.

We will work hard to earn back your confidence.



Sincerely,

Simone Gervais



For more information, please visit:


Customer Care contact:

1555-456-7890


Sunday 2 December 2012

The 32 Best New Memes Of 2012 courtesy of Buzzfeed

As the year quickly come to an end, there is nothing I enjoy more then countdown or best/worst lists. Here is one I came across on Buzzfeed. I'll post my favorites below, but you can check out the whole list here http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-best-memes-of-2012

Enjoy!

2012 will forever be known as the year the meme went mega-mainstream. Here's a look at the dumbest, funniest, and best memes of the past year (in no particular order). 

7. Drunk Baby: 


12. The Botched "Ecce Homo" Painting:


19. Angelina Jolie's Leg: 


25.  Evil Cows:


Lettuce introduce the Burger King crisis

The Burger King crisis:

Burger King had a crisis this past July when a photo of an employee standing in a bucket of their lettuce started making the rounds on the internet. First uploaded on the site 4chan.org with the headline "This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King," the image quickly spread via twitter and facebook. Naturally, many customers who enjoyed the food chain were disgusted at the image, causing many to take to social media to express their opinions.  This caused a flood of negative commentary regarding Burger King and their products quality.




Once Burger King corporate became aware of the photo, they immediately issued a statement, which said:

"Burger King Corp. has recently been made aware of a photo that shows a Burger King restaurant employee violating the company's stringent food handling procedures. Food safety is a top priority at all Burger King restaurants and the company maintains a zero-tolerance policy against any violations such as the one in question.
          
The restaurant where this photo was allegedly taken is independently owned and operated by a Burger King franchisee. The franchisee has taken swift action to investigate this matter and terminated the employee involved in this incident. "

Using the photo as a guide to locate and identify the employee within 24hours of their initial statement, Burger King updated their social media outlets to inform their customers they have fired the employee.

What I would have done:

I would to point out that I think Burger King dealt with the problem in a timely manner. According to my research into the crisis, it's clear that they had some form of a crisis strategy plan in place. However, there are a few things I would have suggested that could have helped control the crisis on their social media pages.

1. I would have encouraged the Community Manager to engage the negative comments letting their Facebook and Twitter followers know that they are looking into this photo, not taking the situation lightly, and they appreciate the feedback.

2. Start a social media campaign to highlight all the amazing dedicated Burger King employees who love working for the company. By posting images and stories onto the Burger King facebook or Pinterest pages, it would create new positive images for the business.

3. Have a customer appreciation day where if you retweet or 'like' the Burger King facebook page you are mailed a coupon for a free Whopper. This would encourage customers to continue buying the product while highlighting a new social media campaign rather then a crisis.


Sunday 25 November 2012

Social Media Measurement Tools


I haven’t had much experience with social media measurement tools, however there are four that I’ve really enjoyed exploring in the past year.

Hootsuite:

While doing an internship at Bell Media during the 2012 Olympics, Hootsuite and I quickly became best friends. It allowed me to monitor multiple social networks and social media accounts through Bell Media’s Facebook and Twitter pages. After every shift I could easily create reports combining all the results from every social media account. Hootsuite allows users to track brand sentiment, follower growth, draft and schedule messages to send at a time your audience is most likely to be online.



Pinerly:

After many mentions of the importance of Pinterest in the social media world, I’ve recently joined the revolution. I was curious to see how one might be able to measure the progress of a Pinterest account and came across Pinerly. According to many users, Pinerly.com is the easiest way to market your visual content. Users can schedule pins, receive real time analytics on which pins are most effective, use multiple accounts, and bookmark.



WhatHashtag:

WhatHashtag is something I came across in my research after Zack’s in class presentation. It allows tweeters to find the most used Twitter hashtags for the keywords you are searching. Look up the specific keyword and you will automatically get the most popular hashtags used worldwide to discuss your topic.  According to WhatHashtag “The result retrieves the last 1.000 tweets related to your keyword, and orders hashtags by frequency of use. Using WhatHashtag you will gain visibility when tweeting your opinions, being read beyond your followers in the most effective way.”



MRP

Recently at work we have started using MRP to measure our editorial outreach. MRP is JUST beginning to incorporate social media into their analytics, which in my opinion is making this system a little behind the times. The primary objective of MRP system is to develop a simple, standardized reporting system that can be “widely used with ease to measure any type of editorial coverage (i.e. print, broadcast, online) stemming from proactive media relations campaigns, crisis communications or unplanned media attention.”  The MRP system includes a media report template, rating system and tool for obtaining up-to-date accurate reach numbers. Thus far I can agree that it is a great tool to help collect and analyze the reach of our coverage, however like I previously stated, to become a true competitor with the likes of Sysomos and Radian6 it needs to merge it’s way into the social media world.


Monday 12 November 2012

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Superstorm Sandy, and Social Media: A New York City Perspective

Hey Blogosphere.... Just wanted to share this great article from Forbes.com by Nathaniel Parish Flannery, about the impact social media had on the recent Hurricane Sandy, Mayor Bloomberg, Manahattan Marathon cancellation fiasco.

You can read the article below or follow the link. Enjoy!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanielparishflannery/2012/11/12/mayor-michael-bloomberg-superstorm-sandy-and-social-media-a-new-york-city-perspective/



Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Superstorm Sandy, and Social Media: A New York City Perspective

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NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 1: Tunnel workers and ...
When Superstorm Sandy hit, many people turned to social media for news. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
Superstorm Sandy surged. Saltwater suffocated the Brooklyn Battery tunnel. Downtown subway entrances choked with storm water. Entire blocks of the waterfront in Queens burned. After an explosion at a ConEdison facility on 14th Street, Lower Manhattan sat in the dark. Abraham, a tech writer lay in his apartment in Chinatown, following the news about the storm on Twitter. The glare from his screen and a few flashlights provided the only sources of light in the room.  At 8:10 pm on October 28th, the @MikeBloomberg Twitter account announced, “Our primary concerns are storm surge, prolonged wind, and possible power outages.”  Twenty-five minutes later the @MikeBloomberg account tweeted “Our 65 shelters will be open as of 9 AM Sunday. They provide a safe place to sleep, they provide meals, and they have space for pets. #Sandy.” As the hurricane passed over the city, people with internet-access tweeted photos of fallen trees and submerged cars. More than one million people tweeted about the storm. Thousands of people re-tweeted and shared Mayor Bloomberg’s twitter announcements.
Other people spent the storm alone in the darkness.
*****
@MikeBloomberg: Monday October 29, 1:20 pm: Remain in your homes while the storm is in progress. Stay away from windows
@MikeBloomberg: Monday October 29, 1:27 pm: Please check on your neighbors and the elderly. Look out for one anotherhttp://bit.ly/WRCnd3  #Sandy #NYC
@MikeBloomberg: Monday October 28, 6:42 pm: The time for evacuation is over. Conditions are dangerous and will get worse. Please stay where you are #Sandy #NYC http://bit.ly/WRCnd3 
*****
While Bloomberg’s account broadcast #Sandy #NYC messages and Abraham sat in his apartment, scanning Twitter for news, 39 year old Staten Island resident Glenda Moore left her flooded home and tried to drive towards her sister’s house in Brooklyn. The rising water rendered her car immobile. She took her toddler sons to a nearby house to ask for help.
“I don’t know you. I’m not going to help you,” the voice behind the door said. Moore carried her sons though the churning water towards a house with lights on. As she approached, the light turned off. She lost grip of her children. The current pulled the boys away. Glenda searched for her sons, screaming. She passed the night outside in the wind and rain. Police found her sons’ bodies two days later under a pile of storm debris in a nearby marsh.
Statistics: One million people in New York City lost power. 80 homes in Breezy Point burned down. 43 Million gallons of water poured into the Brooklyn Battery tunnel. Property damage totaled $20 billion.
Netflix traffic increased 20 percent during the storm.
*****
On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in the mid afternoon, one young couple strolled through the mist. Gusts of wind ripped leaves off the trees in front of the sturdy brownstone buildings. Yellow caution tape blocked off the entrances to Riverside Park. A muscular thirty-something man with an MP3 player strapped to his arm sprinted up 78th Street, far uphill from the rising water of the Hudson River, which sloshed against the wall next to the bike path, down below the park. Inside the pizzeria on 84th Street, the television flickered, broadcasting an image of the exposed skeleton of a broken crane being battered by the wind.
*****
Half a block away, a twenty-eight year old graduate student looked at photos posted to Facebook that showed flooding in Red Hook Brooklyn and the East Village. His afternoon passed in segments. Netflix movie. Snack break. Only once did a loud gust of wind distract his attention from the screen.  At 2:01 pm @ColumbiaSpec, the Twitter Account for Columbia Universitiy’s undergraduate newspaper, announced “Breaking: @Columbia cancels all Tuesday classes & events.” Hurricane Sandy also forced professors to push back midterms that had been scheduled for October 30th and 31st.
At 7:04 pm, the New York 1 news channel’s Twitter account announced “Facade Ripped Off Four-Story Building In Chelsea, No Injuries Reported.” Photos showed that the entire front of the building had fallen down, leaving apartments and their residents exposed to the storm. At 8:38 pm, the New York 1 account tweeted “Sandy Brings Record Surge, Flooding To Low-Laying Areas Of City.”
Inside the apartment on 84th Street, at 11 p.m., an iPhone, which had been charging at an outlet near the bed, rang. “We are having drinks, come over if you want to,” the caller said. Outside, the wind howled. The laptop rested on top of the bedspread. On the screen, Liam Neeson fought his way through a barren artic landscape, battered by the weather. The heat from the laptop, resting on top of a quilt, warmed the bed. On the screen, as the movie ended, Neeson prepared for one final battle. “Live and die on this day. Live and die on this day,” he said readying himself to fight and probably be killed by a pack of wolves. The movie ended. The part of the bed where the laptop had been was still warm. Outside, the weather worsened. Lights in the apartments on the street turned out as residents went to sleep. Nobody left the building to venture out into the storm.
*****
On Tuesday evening, as the wind died down, students gathered inside a bar on 117th Street near Columbia’s School for International and Public Affairs. “I’d go to Central America or Mexico to do a story, because it’s worth it. I thought about going downtown to Wall Street, to Ground Zero to take photos, but this isn’t my story,” a graduate student in a green rain jacket said.
“It’s just a storm,” another student agreed. Outside, a few minutes later, two students smoked cigarettes. It was the first night people gathered together after waiting out the storm. “I just needed to see people. I needed contact with people,” a girl said, squeezing one of the smoker’s arms.
The students exhaled and reflected on the storm and the school year. “This year I’ve been too busy,” one said. “I’ve gotta get out and have drinks with people during the week, that’s where the value is,” he added.
Inside the bar, a crowd gathered around the bright lights of the pool table. A basketball game ended. The TV on the wall flashed replay footage as sports commentators discussed the game. Several people filed out the door. At a table, one student showed another a photo he’d shared on Instagram and tweeted of one of the gourmet meals he’d cooked during the storm. “How do you get people to follow you on Instagram?” he asked. “Just share photos and follow people,” the other young man said.
“Cheers, cheers,” two smiling students at a nearby table said, their beer glasses clanking together.
“My friend, you’ll have to meet her,” one female graduate student said to classmate she had just met. “She’s covering the drug war in Tijuana, she’s a conflict reporter.”
“I’ve covered the drug war, but always indirectly,” the other student said. “I’ve never gone out with the local photographers to the crime scenes, but that’s something I’d like to do in the future,” he said.
“Somebody got stabbed,” a girl near the back of the bar called out. Five feet away four people crowded around a figure on the ground. A bare foot was visible. Blood smeared the ground.  “There’s a lot of blood!” a woman said with forced calm. A man from the other side of the bar ran over and pushed his way through. The person had a white shirt, soaked in blood. “Wake Up! Wake up,” a kneeling woman shouted, snapping her fingers. “The good, the bad, the happy, the sad,” the voice from the stereo crooned. Bloody footprints stained the floor. “Does anybody know who that dude is?” a man by the bar asked. No. The fallen barefoot person had no friends in the room.  “Did anybody see anything?” the bartender asked.  No. The person had been in the bathroom.

People in the bar jostled for space and craned their necks to look. Did anybody see what happened? No. Six burly police in navy blue uniforms walked violently in from the front door, pushing towards the victim. One shone his light down on the person. “He doesn’t look good,” a policeman said.  “You’ve gotta get these people out of here!” a cop shouted. A calm, blond policeman asked the bartender “Did anybody see a scuffle?”
“No, I saw her fall over,” the bartender said.
Seven police cars with flashing lights waited outside next to an ambulance. The same cop from the bar stood interviewing a group of young women. “Did anybody follow her into the bathroom?” he asked. “No.” a woman said. “He was in there earlier, he looked…he looked drunk,” she aid. “He held his arms up showing the cuts,” the woman explained.
A female cop walked by. Her radio crackled. “Wrists slit,” a voice coming from the transceiver said. “Suicide,” somebody in the crowd said.
At 12:15 am on October 31, the @ColumbiaSpec account tweeted a photo of the crowd in front of the bar. At 12:18 am the @ColumbiaSpec account announced “Witnesses said police took everyone’s IDs to show to victim in order to identify assailant, even tho witnesses said it looked self-inflicted.
Medics wheeled a gurney out towards the ambulance. A slender figure with wavy black hair lay on the white sheet on the cart, apparently alert. A policeman pulled out a roll of white police tape, and set up a rectangular fence around the sidewalk in front of the bar.
“You wanna go to the hospital?” one cop asked. “I’ll go,” another said. “She had her wrists and throat cut,” one policeman, standing next to the white line of police tape said. “She had her stomach cut,” a young woman huddling with a group of friends said. The group of women hugged each other, answering the policeman’s questions.
A skinny white cop walked back towards his car. “That was like out of a horror movie,” he said, astounded. The short, black middle-aged female cop walking next to him laughed. The ambulance pulled away, and the other police cars followed. The crowd remained in front of the bar.
One young man stepped over the plastic tape barrier, unlocked his bicycle and cut across Columbia’s campus, pedaling down Broadway. The red taillight on his bike wasn’t working. He waved his hand as he pulled around stopped cars, trying to make himself visible to the drivers approaching from behind him.  Jittery after seeing the bloody bar scene, he was acutely aware of the risk of being hit by a car.
Two street sweepers chugged by, blasting away the remnants of twigs and leaves from the tarmac. Engineers were already devising plans to pump out the flooded subway tunnels.
White trash trucks slowly approached the piles of tree branches that had been cordoned off by yellow plastic ribbon.
The storm had subsided and life was returning to normal.
The @ColumbiaSpec Twitter account announced “New story: Morningside Heights, Columbia weather storm with minimal damage.”
*****