Social media marketing | Liz Hover's Diary of a Web Gal

I guess sometimes you do stuff and have no idea of its impact.

Case in point: the Winnipeg Folk Festival recently took place at Bird’s Hill Park, Manitoba. I’ve attended the festival for the last five years but this year stayed away to look after my pooch Sadie Shih Tzu who got spayed the first day of the festival.

The festival is significant to me because it’s where I first really fell in love with my man.

I’m at home sitting in front of my Mac Saturday night of the festival and John is at the festival.

As per usual I’m on Twitter when I spy a tweet from CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi who happens to be MC-ing the main stage that same night. Jian is asking for Folk Fest. stories to read out on the main stage so, assuming I’m one of many people replying to this request, innocently sent him a message.

I heard nothing for the rest of the evening.

It was only when John came home that night around midnight that I found out my tweet had indeed been read out in front of 10,000 people.

John hadn’t heard it but he certainly heard about it.

He’s the editor of a Winnipeg entertainment newspaper – Uptown Magazine – and was moved to write about the experience.

The tweet was my way of being present at the festival without being there. But I didn’t really think it would be read out. Apparently it was the first tweet that Jian mentioned :)

Another delicious installment of SuperNews – pure genius, as always, from the folks at Current.

Twitter’s blowing up in this sequel to Twouble with Twitters when celebrities take over the twittersphere. Starring Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Perez Hilton, and P. Diddy as themselves.

Created by Josh Faure-Brac for SuperNews! – an animated sketch comedy series airing on Current TV every Friday night at 10/9c.

The irony? This came across my radar via @ChrisDca on Twitter.

If you’ve been reading the news over the last couple of days you probably heard about the Billy Bob Thornton CBC Radio debacle.

And you probably tried desperately to understand the actor’s odd behaviour. How could he be so arrogant? Was he on something?

Thankfully I can reveal exactly what happened.

This video is part of a new web series by Vancouver-based writer/artist Jeremy Fisher.

Ok, well I don’t actually own an iPhone (got a spare one kicking around?) but this kid’s Dad does. Seems the youngster has developed a strong attachment to this popular mobile device.

Is this the future? Has Apple added kid-like-catnip to its iPhones?

Yes, I know; children are usually attracted to shiny flashing things. I know two eight year old boys who delight in playing mind-numbing games on mine and my partner’s cell phones. And who know more about their mother’s Blackberry than she does.

Read more scary stuff over at All Things Digital.

When Facebook changed its layout to be more like Twitter I rolled my eyes.

Twitter is Twitter and Facebook is Facebook, I thought.

Since beginning my love affair with Twitter last year Facebook had slowly become a place I rarely visited.

I’d set up RSS feeds to send my blog content through to Facebook and occasionally updated my status but Facebook seemed so cumbersome compared to Twitter. There was so much noise on Facebook whereas Twitter’s interface was so simple. 140 characters of simple.

I tried hard not to neglect Facebook entirely. I was reading about the continuing growth of Facebook and didn’t want to miss out on anything. I knew it was me and not Facebook. I’d just fallen out of love.

Then Facebook did something really awful.

The infamous redesign happened and my visits to the site became more painful than ever. Facebook and I had both moved on and didn’t understand each other anymore. As a Twitter user I didn’t feel more at home on Facebook. I felt cheated.

Worse, I was confused.

Things had been re-arranged and no-one asked me if it was ok.

Where was everything? Where did my fan pages go? What happened to the variety on my home page? Why am I seeing all these status updates?

Of course, I knew why but I didn’t like it. I moaned and complained. I stopped short of joining any ‘Death to the new Facebook redesign’ groups on Facebook.

Then I listened to my friends and colleagues. And I seemed to be the only one who didn’t like it. No-one else I knew was having this much of a problem. Some of them even liked it.

So I had a word with myself and wondered if I could overcome the way I felt. Sure, the blogosphere was rife with complainers like me who didn’t dig the new look but perhaps it would just take some getting used to.

Thus began Project Facebook; I forced myself to use the site and overcome my insecurities. I got with the program.

New Facebook fan pages had a lot to do with it. Once upon a time I could set up my RSS feed and didn’t need to manually update anything much. But now that same RSS feed on my work fan page leaves updates sitting all alone devoid of eyeballs unless I manually type status updates.

While I was updating my work fan page, I figured I may as well take a gander at my own Facebook stuff and add an update. Oh and comment on Will’s status. And quickly click on ‘like’ under Timo’s status. And what IS Pam up to?

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks like this until I realised I was having a Facebook renaissance.

For those of you not on Twitter: Facebook is nothing like Twitter. Despite the hype.

But as a devoted Twitter user I think I can make room for Facebook. But I’ll never love Facebook the way I once did.