Category: Blog

1. Social Media Explorer

Social Media Explorer, founded by Jason Falls, is constantly pumping out great posts on social media’s impact on marketing and public relations.

2. The Future Buzz

Adam Singer’s blog, The Future Buzz, takes a clear approach to social media marketing and SEO topics, and isn’t afraid to take a stance against ideas and tactics he thinks are bad for marketers.

3. Duct Tape Marketing

If you’re a small business owner, Duct Tape Marketing is a must-read for strategic and tactical advice about leveraging online marketing and social media to grow your business.

4. Social Media Today

Social Media Today offers a diverse mix of news on social networks’ latest developments and cutting-edge tips to perfect your use of each platform. The blog also hosts live Twitter chats from its Twitter hashtag, #SMTLive, on various social media topics twice a month.

5. Small Business Trends

The Social Media section of Small Business Trends, a large news property for entrepreneurs, is filled with expert social media advice and multimedia content for the small business.

6. Web Ink Now

Author and speaker, David Meerman Scott shares great theories and real-life examples of social media’s impact on marketing, as well as easy-to-understand content that is great for non-marketing executives.

7. Rebekah Radice

Rebekah Radice is an award-winning social media influencer, and her blog is evidence of her expertise in this industry. Her blog packages common social media topics into solution-based content that tells marketers what they need to know. She also hosts a podcast called Brand Authority, further expanding on the challenges she examines on her blog.

8. Mari Smith

Mari Smith has been called the “Queen of Facebook,” and her Facebook-specific blog is a testament to this generous title. Smith uses the latest Facebook trends to create up-to-date insights for the modern social media marketer — with ample video marketing advice to boot.

9. The Social Media Hat

From social media to email marketing, this simple-looking property is an all-in-one resource for content marketers. The Social Media Hat also includes a recommended list of marketing tools, giving you opportunities to apply what you learn from the blog to your marketing operations.

10. Jon Loomer

Jon Loomer is a blogger and podcaster whose website offers both articles and video tutorials on all things Facebook marketing.

11. TopRank Online Marketing Blog

The TopRank blog has a long history of delivering a great blend of search engine and social media marketing information in easily digestible lists and posts.

12. SocialMedia.biz

This comprehensive blog breaks down its social media content into News, Business, How-To, and Marketing topics — providing a reader experience that is sorted according to the unique social media challenges you might face in your career.

13. DreamGrow

DreamGrow is dedicated to social media in the context of content marketing. The blog caters to both content creators and marketing strategists, showing readers how to use social media to grow as businesses and as individuals.

14. MarketingProfs Daily Fix

While MarketingProfs reserves some of its content for paid members, its Daily Fix blog offers great daily marketing content for free.

15. Social Business

Eileen Brown’s blog, a property of ZDNet, is an expansive resource for emerging trends relating to social media’s impact on business.

16. Ask Aaron Lee

Aaron Lee is a social media manager from Malaysia, who uses his experience as an entrepreneur to educate half a million readers worldwide on using social media to grow a business.

17. Altitude Branding

For thoughtful and honest commentary and advice on social media and conducting business on the web, check out Amber Naslund’s blog.

18. Dave Fleet

Dave’s blog provides valuable information regarding how social media has an impact on brands and traditional communications functions like public relations and advertising.

19. Social Media Examiner

With tons of great guest authors and consistent how-to content, Social Media Examiner offers a ton of free advice for marketers across industries.

20. Convince & Convert

Jay Baer provides actionable information about the best ways to use social media to improve reach and convert new customers.

21. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

For an analyst’s perspective on high-level social media concepts and emerging trends like social CRM, take a minute to check out Jeremiah’s blog.

22. Search Engine Land

Long-time search engine marketing resource Search Engine Land provides expert advice on search marketing.

23. ProBlogger

For those who are interested in improving and expanding their blog across all their digital channels, ProBlogger discusses the strategies and tactics needed to become a successful blogger.

24. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management tool whose Insights blog is always tuned to the latest best practices in social media marketing — from what content to post to using chatbots for better customer service.

25. Bad Pitch Blog

The Bad Pitch Blog points out mistakes other marketers have made so that you won’t make them, too. You’ll find some important perspective on media relations — across all digital channels — in these posts.

26. The Moz Blog

Moz is known for offering expert tools and advice on search engine optimization (SEO). What you might not know is that the famous Moz Blog also gives you social media advice from the unique perspective of SEO.

27. Peg Fitzpatrick

Peg Fitzpatrick is the author of the best-selling book, “The Art of Social Media,” and her blog is an equally creative take on social media marketing for today’s content producers.

28. RazorSocial

RazorSocial’s social media blog is one of nine content categories that shows you different ways of thinking about content strategy, as well as how to perfect your use of certain marketing tools.

29. Socially Sorted

This award-winning marketing blog comes from Donna Moritz, an Australian content strategist who writes about using social media to become a better storyteller.

Calgary’s culture is as varied as its population, finding expression across the city through art, food, fashion, dance, film, festivals, cultural celebrations, literary programs, powwows, and more. There are over 120 languages spoken in Calgary. As our city and its culture continue to grow and evolve, we strive to define what makes Calgary special, and how we improve the quality of life for our rapidly growing and diverse population.

Cultural Diversity

We value diversity and believe that the expression of individuality through the arts, culture and recreation are vital to a vibrant lifestyle. We want to increase your participation in the many artistic and cultural events held in our city. 

• Calgary Cultural Plan
• Culture Shift
• Cross Cultural Connections Directory

Festivals and Events

Festivals and Events enhance the quality of life in Calgary and are an essential element in creating complete communities. We recognize that these events are important to you and visitors to our city. They help develop Calgary into an active, creative, and viable city.

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Public Art

Great city, great art is the approach we take to the Public Art Program. Guided by the Public Art Master Plan, our investment in public art is intended to transform the way you see, think and experience our city. Our Public Art Policy guides how we increase the artistic character of our city’s public spaces. You can also learn more about public art in Calgary through our virtual Public Art map.

Arts Centres

North Mount Pleasant Arts Centre offers ceramics and visual arts programs and Wildflower Arts Centre offers visual and performing arts programs. Find a program and learn more.

Opportunities for Artists

We offer a variety of opportunities for local, national and international artists, from emerging to established professionals, as well as numerous ways to stay informed and in touch. Learn more.

The term media, which is the plural of medium, refers to the communication channels through which we disseminate news, music, movies, education, promotional messages and other data. It includes physical and online newspapers and magazines, television, radio, billboards, telephone, the Internet, fax and billboards.

It describes the various ways through which we communicate in society. Because it refers to all means of communication, everything ranging from a telephone call to the evening news on television can be called media.

When talking about reaching a very large number of people we say mass media. Local media refers to, for example, your local newspaper, or local/regional TV/radio channels.

We used to get all our news and entertainment via TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. Today the Internet is gradually taking over. Print newspapers are struggling as hundreds of millions of people each year switch to news sources online.

Different types of media

Media can be broken down into two main categories: broadcast and print. The Internet has also emerged as a major player, as a rapidly-growing number of people globally get their news, movies, etc. online.

Print Media includes all types of publications, including newspapers, journals, magazines, books and reports. It is the oldest type, and despite suffering since the emergence of the Internet, is still used by a major proportion of the population.

Broadcast Media refers to radio and TV, which came onto the scene at the beginning and middle of the 20th century respectively. Most people still get their news from TV and radio broadcasts – however, experts predict that it will not be long before online sources take over.

Over the past twenty years, cable news has grown in importance.

The Internet – specifically websites and blogs – are rapidly emerging as viable and major channels of communication as more and more people seek news, entertainment and educational material online. The term ‘viable,’ in business, means capable of generating profits for many years.

Virtually every part of the Internet has become a medium of communication – most free email services have little boxes that display ads and other messages.

The Internet as we know it today did not really take off until the 1990s. In 1995, just 1% of the world’s population was online, compared to over 49% today. The notion of the Internet started in the 1960s in the USA during the Cold War, when the military and scientists were worried about a missile attack, which could knock out the telephone system.

Stephen Hawking, a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge, once said: “The media need superheroes in science just as in every sphere of life, but there is really a continuous range of abilities with no clear dividing line.” 

What is social media?

Social media is a collective of online communication channels where communities interact, share content and collaborate.

Websites and apps dedicated to social networking, microblogging, forums, social bookmarking, wikis and social curation are examples of some types of social media.

The most famous social networking companies are Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram.

Just twenty-one years ago, very few people across the world knew what the Internet was. Today it has become a part of our lives. It is destined to become the number 1 channel for communicating with the world’s population. (Data Source: internetworldstats.com)

Media ‘is’ or ‘are’?

If media is the plural of medium, then one would think that it should be used grammatically in the plural – the verb that follows it should be in the plural form, shouldn’t it?

However, in most literature it is used as a singular noun, and is interpreted as a collective singular, similar to other collective nouns such as ‘team’ or ‘group’. Therefore, to write the ‘media is’ is perfectly acceptable today. Some people may insist it is wrong, but it is still acceptable – languages are constantly evolving.

According to Collins Dictionary, media is:

“The means of communication that reach large numbers of people, such as television, newspapers, and radio.”

It all started thousands of years ago

Human communication through designed channels – not through speech or gestures – dates back to many tens of thousands of years ago when our ancient ancestors painted on the walls of caves.

The cave paintings at Lascaux in southwestern France, estimated to be over 17,000 years old, are no less viable expressions of media than our current TV shows and magazines.

The Persian Empire – c. 550–330 BC – played a major role in the history of human communication through designed channels. Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great (c. 550 BC) developed the first ever real postal system. It was an effective intelligence-gathering apparatus, called Angariae, a term that later indicated a tax system.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher claimed in the 1830s that the printing press created the modern world by destroying feudalism. Many historians say that the advent of the printing press was the birth of what we know today as media.

The term media in its current application relating to channels of communications was first used by Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), a Canadian professor, philosopher, and public intellectual who said: “The media are not toys; they should not be in the hands of Mother Goose and Peter Pan executives. They can be entrusted only to new artists, because they are art forms.”

By the mid-1960s, the term spread to general use in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.