Giles Crouch has been passionate about marketing and communications for close to 20 years much of which has been spent working in international markets. Also the co-creator and founder of the Ice Awards, creative advertising awards for Atlantic Canada, Giles has long been pushing for change and innovation within the industry. It's only natural that he has come to spend the past two years entirely immersed in his newest passion, social media.
Giles was happy to chat with me before his state-of-the-nation presentation at Podcamp Halifax!
1) Atlantic Canada's social media scene – how does it measure up with the rest of Canada/North America?
We’re on a par in many ways with the rest of Canada in terms of what social media services and tools we use and how we consume but participation is another matter. We’re seriously lagging with mobile application usage. In terms of Internet usage Ontario and BC lead simply because of density of urban populations, higher incomes and access to broadband in more rural areas coupled with increased populations since the Stats Can survey in 2005. As the Atlantic Provinces increase broadband access in rural communities I think we’ll see a big increase in social media usage as these rural communities find their “voice” and we expect that to be with tools like photo and video sharing, music sharing and blogging. The work the provinces governments are undertaking to build high-speed infrastructure in this regard is very positive and shows insight to the future.
The interesting thing we’ve seen in Atlantic Canada is the way the Power Law curve has come into play. This means that while many people are “consuming” social media (watching, listening) fewer are very “active” in social media in terms of writing and creating. This will change in 2009. We saw a drastic upswing in people voicing opinions and discussing issues from the spring to winter of 2008.
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