1 Have you ever heard of Tyler Blevins? Tyler plays Fortnite online using the handle Ninja. He is considered a legend in online gaming and has seen his popularity rise with that of FortNite. He was signed to an exclusive streaming deal with MIXER a Microsoft owned video game streaming platform. Microsoft creating a live streaming platform to go hand in hand with their gaming platform Xbox makes sense. Microsoft shut MIXER down for not meeting business expectations, which also makes sense. So arguably the world’s most famous video game streamer is a free agent and is much sought after. So Blevins has started teasing where he might end up. An early leader is YouTube and the Google owned platform delivered twice the viewer numbers he has ever seen on his previous platform. Consider that he had a city the size of Regina watching him play a video game ALL AT ONCE on his first YouTube live stream.
2 Just a great moment that had to have been shared from the Leary Firefighter Foundation. They just never posted who won the water fight…
3 A few newsletters ago we mentioned how any video can be downloaded from social media. It aligns with the adage don’t post anything on social you don’t want to be seen in the future meet DownloadThisVid… simply retweet with a comment tagging the service and they will send you a download link.
4 There was mild anxiety and panic that TikTok had actually been eliminated by Mike Pompeo as after he mentioned banning TikTok weird outages on the service started happening.
5 In lieu of TikTok meet Byte a video sharing service that looks and acts a lot like TikTok the major difference is they are not using music from recording artists.
6 What companies should have their social media monitored 24/7 and what companies should have it monitored Monday to Friday 9 to 5? It’s a difficult question a journalist was looking for sources for a story about COVID planning in education on a Sunday morning and it was suggested by thirteen letter to try a certain person with Stantec who could help them find the right person. This journalist tagged Stantec and the company responded a day later, it was a generic response at best which even a company managing their social media could have generated. Given their industry though Stantec is not going to finalise a contract on a multi-million dollar contract based on a tweet. Impressive for them if they did, but it is highly unlikely it will happen.
7 Professional sports franchise nicknames have been contentious for decades. As this thirteen thoughts is being developed Washington’s NFL franchise is going through the difficult process of retiring the “Redskins” name. Please keep in mind this nickname is only 72 years old unlike nicknames in baseball that date back to the 1870s. This is going to be some heavy lifting for the Redskins but the name has devalued the franchise in recent times. Some sports media outlets had stopped using the nickname in reference to the team for years already. Social media is rife with negative feedback on the change but the overwhelming sentiment is people are actually excited about the change. Unfortunately for the ownership and marketing people in Washington the trademark and copyright on the new name is not complete so they have announced the end of the old name but not the new one. They also don’t have a clear timeline on a new one. Separating the two events might be the best for the new nickname.
8 This is the second time Washington has gone through this process as their NBA franchise changed their name from the “Bullets” which dated back to their ABA origins to the Wizards. Locally Balfour Collegiate underwent a similar transformation from Redmen to Bears. In the case of the public high school the Redmen name had less to do with Indigenous culture and more to the origins of Regina high schools. Balfour and Scott Collegiate opened within six years of each other and Scott was nicknamed the Blues and Balfour the Reds which evolved to the name which was retired in 2014. This retirement was based on the acknowledgement the name was not intended to be derogatory to Indigenous people but close enough.
9 What sports team nicknames are next? Based on years of Indigenous rights group protesting the Redskins name the key seems to be to pressure the sponsor groups not the team owners. As soon as FedEx announced intentions to review their business relations with the Washington NFL franchise things heated up quickly. Quickly it would appear the Chicago Blackhawks and Atlanta Braves would be next. NCAA Athletics acted on naming controversies in the early part of the 2000s to effectively remove monikers like the Redskins from collegiate athletics.
10 Someone has colour film of one of the first neon billboards in Las Vegas in 1968.
11 When you work in communications your greatest partner and greatest foe is the media. So to hear a local “communications guru” label media as MSM or what has been evolving in to “fake media” was disheartening. The major problem with the fake media label is what they are referencing has standards. Radio, TV or print news have to all pass a standards test, granted some standards are lower than others but what they publish or broadcast is libel for any false information. The same standard is not applied to social media. Sadly more people find information on social media to support theories then they do form other sources.
12 Just how long will the sports bubbles last? Baseball is being the most brazen with allowing their teams to travel. A new signee to the Toronto Travis Shaw spoke before he researched about our stricter quarantine laws for new arrivals. He also was likely not in the same room as the ownership for the team as they work with the Federal and Provincial governments on how the team can play at home this pandemic shortened season. He also had to realize that most Jays fans had no clue who he is as well.
13 In closing if you need coaching on social media to work on content strategies, how to respond to negative clients or even a primer on how to use certain platforms thirteen letter is here to help. Consider this of the top five social media platforms four are properties of Facebook.
thanks for reading!
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