Turning News Into Knowledge

This just in, fans of the NHL: the ladies dig Joffrey Lupul.

That’s at least what we’ve discovered after analyzing tweets mentioning the Toronto Maple Leafs sniper during our analysis of the All-Star Weekend in Ottawa.

The Toronto Maple Leafs' Joffrey Lupul. (photo by Getty Images)

Twitter sentiment around Lupul ran extremely high over the weekend: according to our analysis, the 29-year-old forward garnered a brand rating of 41.3. That’s certainly not as high as Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens, Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks or the Senators’ Daniel Alfredsson, but higher than other stars such as Zdeno Chara of the Bruins or Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin (see our player brand report, minus Lupul’s results, here).

The good vibes toward Lupul were flowing for a variety of reasons, from his remarkable comeback story after a long layoff following back surgery to his good-natured response during the All-Star Draft after being lustily booed by the Ottawa faithful. Even his “jersey tug” move at the beginning of the All Star Game itself provoked positive feedback.

But one of the most common comments we discovered, when drilling down into tweets about Lupul, was a little more base in nature.

Essentially, the girls think he’s really hot.

Here are just a few examples of the, shall we say, more congenial tweets surrounding the Leafs’ rejuvenated winger during the All-Star Weekend and beyond:

Published: 2012-01-28 23:37:03 User: rebeccaelliott9Tone: Positive

@MapleLeafs: Here is Joffrey Lupul speaking after the skills competition #NHLAllStar#Leafs http://t.co/MDcvK4cg? he’s soo damn sexy!

Published: 2012-01-29 20:21:43 User: KTBarnes3

Tone:  Positive @shahirj yeah #teamchara!!! Lupul is a babe!

Published: 2012-01-28 21:56:20 User: Krys04Tone:  Positive

Yep def HOT!!! RT @MapleLeafs: Here is Joffrey Lupul speaking after the skills competition #NHLAllStar #Leafs http://t.co/wlrAGfio

Published: 2012-01-29 18:50:37 User: marina_lekocajTone: Positive

saw this one comming #TeamChara lupul you babee <3

Published: 2012-02-07 19:34:40 User: wilmalex4Tone: Positive

#10sexiestmales Carey Price, Karlsson, Jamie McGinn, L. Couture, Adam Gregory, Iginla, Patty Caine, Lupul, Toews, Brian Elliot! hot!

 Published: 2012-02-07 16:09:28 User: chantelvalliereTone  Multiple

#10sexiestmales sidney crosby, kris letang, joffery lupul & all hockey players <3

But it’s not just about the tweets mentioned above – far from it. The study of Joffrey Lupul’s brand during All-Star Weekend is, rather, a great example of how anyone can rejuvenate themselves in the public eye if they do and say the right things.

Check out this tweet from @DaNucklhead, a self-proclaimed “die-hard Canucks fan”:

Published: 2012-02-06 20:37:27 User: DaNucklheadTone:  Positive 

All star draft & weekend made me a fan of Lupul. He relished playing the villian for the Ottawa crowd. Loved it #confessions

This tweet is even more remarkable considering the extent to which many Canucks fans dislike the Leafs.

But to think that just last year, Lupul was considered by some to be a “throw in” in the trade with Anaheim that brought him to Toronto – essentially, a guy perhaps even on his way out of the league thanks to some bad luck and medical complications.  Now, however, he’s a superstar (and rightfully so).

Compare that with the seemingly downward spiral of Alexander Ovechkin, one of the NHL’s money superstars for the past several years, and it becomes apparent just how fragile – but, at the same time, repairable – player brands in professional sports really are.

And of course, having the ladies on your side always helps.

MediaMiser, a leading media monitoring and analysis technology company, has acquired Gatineau-based social media and online reputation monitoring firm InfoGlutton Solutions.

The acquisition will provide MediaMiser with its own built-in, automated toning engine able to gauge the sentiment of news stories, tweets, blog posts and other content in multiple languages.

Previously, InfoGlutton’s technology had conducted online reputation management and social media listening specifically for the restaurant and hospitality industry. It was founded in 2009 and incubated via the Talent First Network’s Lead To Win program.

“This is our first acquisition and an extremely important one,” said MediaMiser CEO Brett Serjeantson. “Integrating InfoGlutton’s market-tested sentiment technology with MediaMiser’s own social media monitoring and analysis tools will help the company provide real-time, as-it-happens feedback to both large enterprises and SMEs.”

Mr. Serjeantson added the acquisition will allow MediaMiser to roll out a standalone social media product separate from its flagship software, MediaMiser Enterprise.

InfoGlutton co-founder and CEO David Nadeau, a PhD in computer sciences from the University of Ottawa, joins MediaMiser as Chief Technology Officer.

“We see this opportunity as a chance to grow from a relatively small firm into a large company almost overnight,” said Mr. Nadeau. “Working within MediaMiser gives us the means to achieve our ambitions.”

If you’re not already into measuring and analyzing your traditional media coverage and social media mentions – or if that task never materializes thanks to other things getting in the way – then you should rethink your approach to media campaigns.

Whatever your reasons for potentially holding off, it’s time to make 2012 the year to overcome your measurement phobia.  After all, if you track and know what kind of impact your PR efforts are making, you can then  make those efforts more efficient and cost-effective through the implementation of appropriate measures.

In my experience, the most common obstacle executives or PR practitioners have is not knowing where to start. And that’s not surprising, given the ever-growing and complex landscape of traditional and social media, questions of copyright and licensing, archiving all your content and, finally, finding the right people to help connect the dots.

But don’t let this deter you. There’s always a first step, and for this post I’d like to focus on that.

The first step to your PR or media analysis program is defining your objectives: why do you need to conduct a media analysis?  What do you hope to accomplish? What actionable results will come out of the analysis?

If your objectives are clear, the rest will follow.

In order to define your objectives, start by asking some basic questions:

1)      What is it that you need to measure?

2)      Why do you need to measure it?

3)      What will you do with the results, and who should see them?

4)      Where are you currently spending your money?

5)      How often you want to measure?

Your answers to each of these questions will lead to more clearly defined objectives. If you’re from a brand-oriented company, for example, then there’s a range of measurements which may interest you:

- Share of voice for your brand vs. competitors’ brands;

- Share of voice among all of your company’s brands;

- What people are saying about the brand and in what tone (positive, neutral or negative);

- Are key messages being conveyed and who is talking about you and your competition;

- Which media channels (broadcast, print, social, etc.) are most effective for you; and

- How is the brand spokesperson perceived by the public.

And so on. You can then use this information to better target those in your space, and create strategies to better communicate key messages to the people that matter to you – this information is vital not only for communications staff, but also for your marketing and even sales departments. It takes the guesswork out of planning and allows you to determine ROI and outcomes. As a result, your approach naturally becomes more scientific and data-driven.

Depending on your organization and its objectives, you‘ll all have different answers to the above questions. The good news is these answers will help you determine your objectives, which will then lead you to the next steps in your measurement program (which I’ll discuss in an upcoming post).

It’s not often OC Transpo makes the national media. But when it does, you can count on it being in very much a spectacular fashion.

That was certainly the case this week, when - as during 2009′s seven-week bus strike in Ottawa - the city’s transportation service made Canada-wide headlines once again. The culprit this time wasn’t picket lines, but rather a now-infamous and seriously ticked-off bus operator.

The incident, posted to YouTube Nov. 3, surfaced in public chatter over the weekend. It quickly went viral (of course), garnering more than 116,000 hits by this morning.

By Monday, both traditional media and Twitter commentators were heaping large slices of scorn onto to the organization. And by scorn, we mean it: after toning a random sampling of #OCTranspo tweets from the past few days, 54 per cent were negative and 38 per cent were neutral. Only eight per cent of tweets were positive or supportive of OC Transpo.

Worse, reports on Tuesday indicated a second OC Transpo video was making the rounds, this time showing a driver on a cell phone.

Here’s who led the conversation so far both in the traditional media and on Twitter (all data is as of 11 a.m. eastern time on Tuesday, Nov. 8), gleaned via MediaMiser’s software solution:

 Media trends

After the initial posting of the YouTube video on Nov. 3, #OCTranspo Twitter activity didn’t begin its acceleration until late on Nov. 5 and into Sunday.

The traditional media, while it did cover the story on Sunday, didn’t devote significant space to it until Monday the 7th.

Please note coverage and tweet levels shown in this chart until are only until 11 a.m. on Nov. 8.

Twitter

The top influencers by retweet ratio (the number of retweets each user garners, compared to number of original tweets) were:

1) @StefankeyesCTV (retweet ratio of 14)

2) @Ottguy (retweet ratio of 7.5)

3) @stuntmanstu (retweet ratio of 6.33)

4) @crimegarden (retweet ratio of 5)

5) @Ottawasuncom (retweet ratio of 4.83)

Four of the top five most retweeted users were either journalists, media outlets or former journalists, and six of the top seven (including @CTVNews and @globeandmail, which finished sixth and seventh, respectively).

The top tweeters by number of followers and volume were as follows:

Traditional media (print, online, television, radio)

Danielle Bell of Sun Media had at least 36 stories published on the incident in publications such as the Ottawa Sun, Sudbury Star, Owen Sound Sun Times, Niagara Falls Review and Sarnia Observer.

Ms. Bell and her colleagues at Sun Media dominated print and online coverage, with five of the top six authors from the outlet (Scott Taylor, Jon Willing, Kelly Roche and Errol McGihon).

Mr. McGihon is a photographer with Sun Media and has been attributed a byline for this study, thanks to his standalone photo that ran in a series of Sun-owned papers.

CTV and Sun Media (especially the Ottawa Sun) picked up on the story in a big way over the past couple of days, with Ottawa’s CTV Two (formerly A Channel) and CTV Ottawa leading the broadcast pack.

CBC also ran with the story, with three of the top ten publications including CBC News Network and CBC Ottawa.

Postmedia publications didn’t seem to cover the story with the intensity of other major outlets, although the Ottawa Citizen did crack the top ten.

Talk radio station CFRA finished in 11th, just out of the top ten publications.

Coverage between outlet types was mixed, with news websites and daily newspapers each picking up at least 30 per cent of coverage each.

Television held its own at just under 30 per cent, while radio garnered just a shade under nine per cent of all coverage.

Ever wonder just how much a front page story actually does for your bottom line?

Most likely a great deal, according to a recent MediaMiser report that studies potential correlations between media coverage and sales outcomes.

According to the report – featuring an analysis of Toyota Motor Corp.’s U.S. media coverage from January to May of 2011 – the overall number of Toyota-related articles and media mentions showed a direct correlation with that company’s sales figures.

As media mentions of Toyota climbed, sales figures did the same. And as media mentions dropped – well, you get the idea.

It’s a conclusion MediaMiser president Chris Morrison says many firms would be wise to heed.

“This study clearly shows a connection between media coverage and a company’s sales figures,” says Mr. Morrison. “It’s also an excellent indicator of why all organizations need a coherent media engagement strategy, one that includes measurement and assessments of media coverage at regular intervals.”

The report also explores how media coverage on different topics related to Toyota – topics such as recalls and production capacity – changed over time, as well as the relationship between the tone of media coverage and sales figures.

MediaMiser, a leading traditional and social media monitoring and analysis firm, is based in Ottawa and was founded in 2003.

MediaMiser is preparing to launch a free app – MediaMiser U, a knowledge-packed resource for marketing and public relations professionals – in Apple’s App Store, and we need your help!

The app, which includes resources for communications professionals such as access to MediaMiser’s social and  traditional media reports and a PR glossary, will launch early next week.

There’s only one problem – we’re having a tough time deciding on the app’s signature look.

So we’re recruiting you, our readers, to cast your votes.

Simply check out the images below, and let us know which icon you’d prefer as the visage of MediaMiser U’s App Store visage!

You can vote in the poll to the right of this post. Results will be announced early next week.

Thanks for voting!

MediaMiser U icon #1

MediaMiser U Icon #2

At this point, you know the story: the markets are down. Way down.

Concerns among skittish investors about European sovereign debt, the recent U.S. credit rating downgrade and the long-term health of the U.S. economy seem to be everywhere, along with worries about the potential of a “double-dip” recession horsewhipping the past two years of  gains into oblivion.

Real-time social sites such as Twitter can often contribute to – or even help predict – downswings or even upswings in the market, thanks to the knee-jerk  nature of the technology and, some would argue, its users. Indeed, Some studies have showed that Twitter can help researchers predict the outcome of a typical day on Wall Street.

But not everyone seems panicked over today’s financial bloodletting, at least if their tweets mean anything.

Thanks to MediaMiser’s Twitter monitoring and analysis tool, we’ve pulled in the past 24 hours of anxious gallows humour that played out on the social networking site.

Here’s a sample:
@GetPortfoly #WallStreet is on the cover of every newspaper and will be the topic of every party you attend this weekend. Especially the S&P downgrade. (Aug. 7, 2:02 p.m.)

 @Kmili3 I’m not the only one scared of the ugly day tomorrow right? #WallStreet (August 7, 7:55 p.m.)

@TheBunkerKing Bracing for what #tommorow might bring to #Wallstreet. This might get #interesting!#Terrified #Crisis (Aug. 7, 11:59 p.m.)

@cgpoirier waiting for the opening bell on wall street…gonna take bets on how long it takes traders to curl into a small ball and cry.. #wallstreet (Aug. 8, 8:08 a.m.)

@cgpoirier ..huh, that took about 50 seconds… (Aug. 8, 9:28 a.m.)

@jordanmmichael #markets are taking a worse beating then after I dinged my first car (Aug. 8, 10:46 a.m.)

@bjm1031 #wallstreet freaking out – insanely rich worried their Neiman Marcus personal shoppers jobs’ at risk (Aug. 8, 10:53 a.m.)

@mmarksshihWho peed in S&P’s cheerios? #wallstreet #downgrade (Aug. 8, 10:53 a.m.)

@GiuseppeNorris The only person making money on #WallStreet right now is the Dramamine vendor. (Aug. 8, 11:17 a.m.)

@yclphotoWow, there is a lot of red on my stock ticker today #wallstreet (Aug. 8, 11:24 a.m.)

 @KeithKing That giant sucking sound coming from Wall Street is any chance of my ever retiring going down the drain. #wallstreet #creditrating (Aug. 8, 12:01 p.m.)

 @purtheil Tank tops are very fashionable on Wall Street these past days. #finance #wallstreet (Aug. 8, 12:38 p.m.)

@tsmelleyI have stoves, water purification, backcountry survival tools, anything you need to go off grid #stocks #dow #meltdown (Aug. 8, 3:08 p.m.)

 @PhilBridgesWhat a day, when a 400-point drop begins to seem like a “good” thing (vs. a 500-point drop). Whoa. #dropoff #stocks #standardandpoors #sell (Aug. 8, 3:26 p.m.)

@AdamKesslerLTD I think the kids in #Washington need to get with the kids on #Wallstreet and do a mad crazy intense #yoga session. #everyonerelax #namaste (Aug. 8, 3:29 p.m.)

I recently had the opportunity to attend my first Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa event along with colleagues Stephanie Luedee, Peggy Prahl and Jennifer White. This month, Girl Geek Dinners partnered with C’est Bon Cooking for a guided food tour of Ottawa’s Byward Market – lucky me!

We started off at Murray’s Market on Dalhousie Street for a quick meet & greet. Owner and operator Paddy Whelan welcomed our group with a variety of artisan cheeses, yummy bread and charcuterie, all sourced from local farms. We learned about the market’s “nose-to-tail” philosophy in support of sustainable farming. A few more minutes of mingling and sampling was all it took to polish off these tasty plates.

Next our tour guide Paola St-Georges, of C’est Bon Cooking, provided us each with a bag of gourmet granola from locally owned Siren Bakery to munch on as we moved on. Our tour continued to the Tea Store where we glimpsed of their collection of over 300 loose-leaf teas.

No food tour would be complete, though, without a stop at La Bottega Nicastro, truly an Ottawa classic. Did you know that the Byward Market location goes through an entire wheel of Parmesan per day? This is something I could only really appreciate once I saw how truly massive a wheel of Parmesan is – at a cool 90 lbs., definitely no slouch in the girth department.

We then made our way past the outdoor farmer stalls in the heart of the market. Although the stalls were closed for the day, our guides provided us with a great summary of the Savour Ottawa program, which identifies local produce. We also got to taste some local fruits, veggies and cheeses.

I was so enjoying myself learning about this city – one I thought I knew inside-out – that I didn’t realize it was after 8:00 p.m. when we arrived at our last stop, The Cupcake Lounge. As if this evening wasn’t delicious enough, we got to finish it off with these little handmade gems, crafted without artificial flavours or colours. It goes without saying that the cupcakes here are as appealing to the eye as they are to eat.

Being born and raised in Ottawa, I wasn’t initially sure how much I’d learn from a food tour in my hometown. But I was happily surprised when I walked away with not only a full belly, but a newfound appreciation for the evolution of Ottawa’s food scene and movement towards shopping and dining locally.

Check out some pics courtesy of Simon Chen.

Twitter users – and, it would seem, large contingents of foreign media - are already all in a tizzy over the upcoming Royal visit to Canada by Will and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. And why not? It’s not every year a celebrity couple touches down in places like Ottawa and the north shore of Prince Edward Island.

So we at MediaMiser thought it would be fun to track what those tweeters are saying, using the hashtags #royalvisit, #willandkate and #royaltour. Check it out!

June 28, 2011′s top Royal Visit tweeters, by volume: @WillandKateCD, @Globaltvnews and @mel_coulson

Top links, by number of tweets:

Ottawa Citizen’s Royal Visit page

Canada.com: Royal visit a chance to show off Canadian culture, cliches and all

Globalnews.ca: Canadian love story rivals royal romance

@PhotoJVideoJ

#Ottawa already a zoo for #royalvisit. NBC already has microwave truck and broadcasting.

@SusanDelacourt

RT @louisataylorCIT: Find your #Ottawa royal-spotting spots in today’s@OttawaCitizen or on our #royalvisit site: http://bit.ly/jfljZz #katemiddleton

@ChrisJai

Has already started to see American media trucks in various Ottawa parking lots for the Royal visit #royalvisit #ottawa #news

@DrumAssign

Foreign media is starting to arrive in #ottawa for the #royalvisit. @jaimiek and Sandra Abma are catching up with them. #ottnews

@AyaMcMillan

Just booked my @VIA_Rail tix for Ottawa a day early – evidently every seat was snagged for the #royalvisit

@OttawaCitizen

We  have a big day here today – live blog on the #lansdowne hearings (day 6) continues, and of course there’s the #royalvisit

@NahayatT

Ottawa today – let the #RoyalTour begin! #WillAndKate

@RichardMadan

#RCMP says Musical Ride Horses in top shape for #RoyalVisit, unlike last year they had bad case of Strangles on Jul 1.

@PaulRushforthRE

Anyone else as excited as my family is? RT @OttawaCitizen: Good morning! #royalvisit preview section http://deck.ly/~sPvBo

@DaveCHale

Had a fun interview with Rebecca at #GlobalNews about the #RoyalVisit marketing strategy this afternoon

@GlobalMaritimes

If you’re headed to #PEI and have absolutely no interest in the #royalvisit check out these tips to avoid the #royals http://ow.ly/5spQq

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that when a group of razor-sharp communicators are tossed into a room, communication – and lots of it – generally ensues.

Such was the case at this year’s IABC World Conference in beautiful, beachy San Diego. The busy communicators both in attendance and following along in other locales from their laptops, tablets and other devices set Twitter alight before, during and after the assemblage of June 12 to 15.

Lindsay Polak, Brett Serjeantson and Tara Lalanne of MediaMiser.

Being a social and traditional media monitoring and analytics company, we used our software to track the conference’s voluminous Twitter activity over the past couple of weeks.

Curious as to what we found?

Read on to find out.

Just how many tweets were there?

MediaMiser collected 5,197 IABC World Conference-related tweets from June 1 to June 18. However, more than 50 per cent of all tweets (2,667) were collected June 13 and 14, the two busiest conference days. By June 17, activity had dwindled to around 60 tweets per day.

Who were the most active tweeters?

Other than the official Twitter accounts of IABC (131 tweets) and IABC Phoenix (218 tweets), the top 25 posters on Twitter were individuals – and the top individual Tweeter, it turned out, was from MediaMiser’s hometown of Ottawa. Basia Vanderveen (@BasiaV), an IABC-accredited communications strategist who works in the dentistry industry, led the pack with 180 tweets during MediaMiser’s 18-day analysis.

She was followed by Burbank, Calif.-based Christopher Swan (@mechristopher) with 123 tweets, Oakville, Ont.’s Donna Papacosta (@DonnaPapacosta) with 116, Indianapolis-based Chuck Gose (@chuckgose) with 111 and Salt Lake City’s Erin Hallmark (@erinhallmark) with 102.

Out of the top 25 tweeters who were individuals, eight (nearly 35 per cent) were from Canada.

Who had the most followers?

The only top tweeter measured by both posts and following was the official IABC Twitter account (@IABC), which recorded the third-highest number of tweets and had the 10^th-highest number of followers of all tweeters with 10,565.

London, U.K.-based social media coach and trainer Barbara Gibson (@Barb_G) had the highest number of followers of all tweeters, with 19,779, and Austin, TX-based Aaron Strout (@AaronStrout) was second with 17,053 followers.

Who was mentioned the most?

At nearly 400 mentions and retweets, @IABC was the most mentioned Twitter handle during the study period. Conversely, at more than 200 retweets and mentions, Shel Holtz (@shelholtz) of Holtz Communications + Technology, an IABC fellow and panelist at the conference, was the highest-mentioned individual.

Oy, mate – which tweeter flew the farthest?

If we eastern Canadians thought we had a long flight home, we were sadly mistaken. In fact, Linda Johannesson (@abroadabroadeh) was the most far-flung of IABC 2011’s Twitterati, having slogged all the way from Sydney, Australia.

Honourary mention goes to Daniel Munslow (@munslowd), hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa.

What were the top mentioned hashtags?

You’re likely going to say “I told you so”, but #IABC11 was the most-used hashtag during the conference, garnering more than 5,100 mentions.

All other related tags were dwarfed by the sheer volume of #IABC11’s mentions – but that didn’t stop the #mediamiser hashtag from placing fourth, with 92 mentions during the period.

What were the most Tweeted web links?

The IABC website’s general information page was the most Tweeted link (14 tweets), followed by the IABC website’s news release section (13 tweets).

When did the analysis take place?

MediaMiser analyzed IABC World Conference-related tweets from June 1 to 18. The conference was held June 12 to 15, with June 13 and 14 being the peak conference days (these days also recorded the highest number of tweets – 1,462 and 1,205, respectively).

We had a great time at this year’s conference, and are anxiously looking forward to next year’s production in Chicago! Well done IABC for putting on such a great – and, apparently, much talked about – event.