Why Blog?

Blogging is a very good way for a company to promote its brand in a cost effective manner. It allows the company to frequently communicate with its customers, which allows the company to hear potential customers' feedback and make the change that is needed in order to service its customer better. The following are some of the things that the company can do to improve on its blog.    

1. Be Interactive

One of the most important thing for a blog is to get people interested, so that they will follow   the blog. Posting articles is not enough. A Company should posts things like questions, surveys and polls to encourage people to leave their own comments.

2. Easy to read

It is important to be professional because it represents the company. But at the same time         everyone should be able to read your blog without any difficulty. So the company's message should be simple and to the point.

3. Interesting Content

Tell some interesting stories about team, for example some behind the scene stories and players messages. Having interesting contents will keep readers to come back and read some more

The Official Vancouver Canucks Facebook page

The official Vancouver Canucks Facebook page has a very good media presence. There are multiple things that they did well to continue draw fans to go back to the page and at the same time, attract new viewers to go to their page for more information about the Canucks. Currently, there are over 300,000 people who "like this" page. The following are the list of things that people experienced when visit the page.

• Read the latest stories include in game updates
• Leave comments on the wall
• Up and coming events
• View Videos and Images
• Participate in fan voting
• Contest: Chance to win season tickets
• Links to other organizations

As one can see, the Canucks origination frequently update their stories surrounding the team. For example, whenever the Canucks have a game, there will be an update between periods. It allows fans to get the most updated score. Also, it allow fans to leave comments on the wall about anything about the team which generate many discussion. There are also many interesting contents such as videos and pictures for fans to view. They provide valuable information about the history of the Canucks. The Canucks organization generate enough incentive for fans to keep coming back to their Facebook page

Tracking Ticket Master in Social Media

Ticketmaster is a ticket sales and distributions company that operates in many countries around the world. They sell different types of tickets like sports, music, theatre and much more. The website is very user friendly. People can simply go to the website and pick the event that they want to attend (for example a Vancouver Canucks hockey game), and Ticketmaster will act as an agent and sell the tickets to the clients. Besides selling tickets online, people can also buy tickets by phone, or in one of the Ticketmaster booth.

In my opinion, the best way to measure the brand's visibility is to log onto www.Howsociable.com. All users have to do is to type in the company's name on the search box and it will generate a rating. The rating is based on different media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. If you want to see people's comments about the company, people can just click onto one of the social media where there are lots of comments about the company. It is a great way for a company to review the feedbacks from its customers in order to better improve its service.

The visible score for Ticketmaster is 1730. Even though the score seems to be a good number, it is a score that is related to the number of times that the name has been mentioned on different types of social media. To get a better idea on how people really think about Ticketmaster, it is better to check out the comments from users. So I just randomly gather 10 comments on different social media and do some calculations. If the comment is a negative comment, then it will get a -1 rating. If it is a positive comment, then it will receive a +1 rating. Neutral comments will receive a 0 score. Now let's take a look and see how they do.

Facebook:

1.       Marva Poole: " Awesome!" +1

2.       Yareli Romero:  "Cool! I wanna live in this world XD" +1

3.       Amber Marie Milem: "How bout all of these businesses just give of their own money and stop taking credit for their customer's donation!? No thanks, I'll donate elsewhere!" -1

4.       Monica Schoff:  "YA I got screwed by Ticketmaster they lied to me and about my seats for my grandkids" -1

5.       Kacey Huston:  "They made their point, they care! Thanks for the message!!" +1

6.       Ernest Alférez : ‎""Colours"!!!!!!! Ticketmaster CANADA then spell it COLOUR and FAVOURITE!!!!!!!!!!!!" +1

Twitter:

7.       ticgoodluck: "Glad that everything worked out. Thanks for following up :)" +1

8.       hypermuse_ic: "Thats awesome. A good friend and gig buddy indeed!" +1

9.       conbon: "Hey there! You can just say "I want to speak with a representative" or continue to press 0s. Hope that helps!" +0

10.    jodster112: "That all sounds pretty fabulous" +1

So their final score is a +5.

That's a pretty good score. It shows that the company does a good job towards their target market. However, there is some more room for improvement.

Vancouver Canucks - Social Media Press Release

Fans can experience 40 years of Canucks memories in new interactive exhibit

Vancouver, British Columbia  02/07/2011

Canucks Sports & Entertainment join forces with Rogers Communications Inc. to bring the latest interactive exhibit, "Forever Canucks powered by Rogers" to Rogers Arena. This interactive exhibit will enhance the fan's experience whenever they pay Rogers Arena a visit.  

About the interactive exhibit

• Located in section 121 at Rogers Arena
• Fans can relive some of their favorite Canucks memories on 5 interactive touch screens
• Displays some of the great stories by former Canucks players, broadcaster and more...
• Contain 40 years of Vancouver Canucks historical items  

For the full press release please visit http://canucks.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=551863

Contact:

Canucks Sports & Entertainment

800 Griffiths Way

Vancouver, BC

V6B 6G1

604-899-7400

10 of the coolest looking mask

One of the reason why i love hockey so much is because i think their gear is so cool, especially the goalies' gear. No most recognizable equipment is probably a goalie mask. Every since a goalie mask is created, all the goalie try to find ways to add their personal touch into the mask.The following are 10 of the coolest mask of all time in my opinion.

Ryan Miller - Buffalo Sabres

Ryan Miller's mask is just very cool looking. The design is very plain and clean. It is a head of a buffalo but with great color combination and style. He has been using this same design for the last few season now and it is one of my favourite.

Roberto Luongo - Vancouver Canucks

This mask in my opinion is one of the best of all time. The background of the mask has the camouflage look to it with the retro Canucks logo. It has two lumberjack, "Johnny Canucks" on both side with his No.1 at the bottom under his cage. The colour of the mask seems to blend in perfectly with the Canucks jerseys.

Marty Turco - Chicago Blackhawks

Marty Turco's design is one of the most recognizable design of all time. Those two gargoyles has been on his mask's every since he enter the NHL. He said that those gargoyles acted as |the gatekeeper" for him. Even though the mask design looks pretty busy, the detail it has made this mask a standout.

Martin Brodeur- New Jersey Devils

Another classic mask. Martin Brodeur uses the simple design with great colour scheme. The design just mesh well with the jersey. As one can see, a great mask doesn't need to have crazy details. 

Jacques Plante - Montreal Canadian

Jacques Plante was the first goaltender to ever wear a mask, which make this mask the grand daddy of all.

Gerry Cheevers - Boston Bruins

This mask is just classic. The mask started out just a plain white plastic mask, but every time when he got hit in the face by a puck, he drew a stitch on it. In the end when his career is over, his mask is full of stitches. As one can see, it is important for a goalie to wear a mask.

 Mike Richter -  New York Rangers

Sometime simplicity is good. His mask doesn't have a fancy design, but because of the simple clean concept it makes this mask a standout. With the simple Statue of Liberty design with red, blue and white color scheme, it just make this mask very easy to be recognize.

Curtis Joseph - Toronto Maple Leafs

This mask is wear by "Cujo" Curtis Joseph. I don't know if any of you have watched the movie Cujo but it is a scary movie about a crazy dog. This mask is very famous back in the days because of the detailing

Miikka Kiprusoff - Calgary Flames

 

How can I leave out this mask. How can you go wrong with the skull design since everyone loves it, well except me.

Patrick Lalime -  Ottawa Senators

 

Again the Marvin the Martian design has been with Patrick Lalime his whole career. It all started in Ottawa. The design has Marvin act as a goalie which is kind cool for the younger childern. I love it when I was little.

Your place for all the hockey trade rumors...

For any die hard hockey fans, they love to be well informed. Anyone of them would try to have as much insider information possible. For all the latest hockey trade rumors, I read articles by Eklund from Hockeybuzz.com.

Hockeybuzz.com is one of the most informative sites about hockey trade rumor. The website is founded by Eklund who is an American writer that reside in the United States. Though he is an American ( Don't ask why  I would read an American's article about hockey), he does bring up many rumors and speculation from the world of hockey from his reliable sources. Also, the website contains many extra information (e.g. Team's cap space, Players stats and Team Stats)

The website also feature specific team page, where fans can read more articles regarding their favorite team from other reporters. People can also sign up for an account so that they can comment on all the articles on the site.

One of his article is feature of digg

Skids is over...

Well I guess we have nothing to worry about. Scoring 7 goals against a divisional leader is good enough for any Canucks fan. However, there are still something that they can still work on. I don't know if it is just me, but the power play isn't as good as advertise. Their first unit is doing fine but the second unit isn't getting the job done. They don't have a true centre playing on their second unit which will be a problem in the playoff. Their 4 on 3 power play look too easy to kill. They keep shooting from far out... they should close in a little bit more and be less predictable. BTW, there's a rumor going on that the Canucks is going to make a deal with the NY Rangers. From some online sources, it said that the Canucks would send a forward and a defenseman for a good forward from NY. In my opinion, it sounds like a bad deal. The only good forward that the Rangers has is Marian Gaborik and I doubt that NY is willing to trade him away. Anyway more updates in a few days...