Our team reviewed The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The National Post, Maclean’s Magazine and a number of small Quebecor Media regional newspapers.

1. Canada’s Social Media election Monopoly Game 2011
If you are going to report on Social Media and you claim to use social media we thought
it best to look at those reporting about the social media election in Canada. That is what
we did since the start of the election to see if they, the big media reporting machines in
Canada are even competent in their own use of social media.
Our team reviewed The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The National Post, Maclean’s
Magazine and a number of small Quebecor Media regional newspapers. Straight
comparisons applying the same parameters to all were not going to work, we decided.
That’s because some are still taking baby steps and others are in various stages of
participation in the social media forum. Therefore, our review looked at each on its own
merits.
In summary, Quebecor, Maclean’s and The Star were the flawed but are the obvious
social media race cars of the pack. The Globe is simply struggling to spark the ignition
while The National Post is still looking for its car.
The following are highlights of how successful we thought they are.
The National Post was dead last. Their is the social media equivalent of telling the Ford
Model T to “gitty up” while whisking it lightly with a buggy whip. They are not even in
the game. They have a weird PDF viewer format for their digital version. It offers
readers a kind of PDF readable version of their daily, but once you struggle to get into the
PDF you find it’s a just another version of what’s on their home page. Getting out of this
site was not easy either as I had to give up and close the pages and start over. Users hate
that. There were no social media connections of ANY kind for sharing their publication.

2. The Globe and Mail takes a baffling course by making users join The Globe and create an
account before they are in a position to share Globe content with other users. That’s like
being screened by a Walmart greeter before he’ll let you tell your friends about what’s on
sale. Remember, people take nanoseconds to decide if they are going to move on. On
the technical side, the normal social media buttons, other than a microscopic one for
Twitter, are missing. Again, where is the sharing mechanism that social media marketing
requires to be successful? Maybe they have other social media accounts, but users
remain in the dark as to how they might be accessed.
Easily available analysis shows globeandmail.com has a disproportionately high number
of users who are highly educated, white, childless men making over $60,000 per year and
who browse from work. There’s a growth limiting demographic for a newspaper if I ever
saw one. Meanwhile, their site set up to inhibit rather than encourage new readership.
Another off putting aspect on The Globe site is the Trending Tech Contributors column.
Readers want newsworthy articles, not reverbs of other articles and opinions. They also
want news without a sales pitch by the columnists for her services. Of note is this
columnist’s claim to leading Rogers in their social media success. Followers of The
Social Media Report will know that Rogers gets a failing grade on all things social media.
So where is the credibility?
The Toronto Star’s web site has done a pretty good job of latching onto social media,
with good use of buttons connecting onto their social media sites. However, on the
positive side, they have a blog supported by TypePad technology, a reliable blog
technology. When I went to Twitter I found The Star had a nifty explanation for this
application. Better still, before taking the jump to Twitter, The Star’s setup allows you to
choose the Tweets related to categories available in their print version. Very smart, this.
However, The Star could manage their site views to better advantage. At 3.986 seconds,
their site is very slow to come into focus. Poor loading is poison to users. Some would
liken it to reading a soggy paper because no one put a plastic bag around it for rainy day
delivery. It’s shame that many users won’t have the patience to get to all their hard work
because of the loading time.
To look at Quebecor Media, I focused on the large number of small regional newspapers
accessed through the Canoe.ca portal. In looking at the newspaper web sites accessed
through this site, I was struck by what a good job Quebecor had done in marketing
regional and community newspapers to their niche audiences, i.e., providing local news
and issues for people who want to read about where they live.
I found it interesting that each regional newspaper under the Canoe.ca banner had a
“submit article” section and most had blogs. This is a good move. Hats off to
Quebecor. With this in place, you will see an article posted across to advantage in a
series within the Canoe.ca-listed newspapers. We will be respectful and post a few by
province to show how this works (see analysis at the end of this article).

3. Maclean’s Magazine’s online version has followed many of the rules for social media
marketing and is reaping the benefits. It’s ironic that they are owned by Rogers, a flat out
failure in following social media basics. Their parent company could take many cues
from Maclean’s successful implementation. For example, they have nailed the basics.
The Maclean’s site is correctly verified with top search engines. They use the corporate
version of Wordpress, which is a very good choice.
Who do we like the best? Well, I have to say that Canoe.ca regional newspapers,
exploited to good advantage by Quebecor, have it all going on. So much that needs to be
in place is. This includes article posts, blogs and all the social media links to other types
of social media networks. Their use of portal technology to link their regional news with
their local target audiences is smooth work for sure. They’ve set up a great opportunity
for themselves. One suggestion, though, is they need to promote it better. That’s a part
of good social media practice often missed or ignored.
MacLean’s and The Star are both about parallel in implementing social media marketing
principles. But do they have all the toys in play to get the most out of technology? They
have both missed out by not installing the key button that allows users to share articles
without joining their sites. Trying to get people to join so that mailing lists are harvested
is an old fashioned marketing ploy that no longer works.
As for The Post and The Globe, there is not much further to say, except the new Globe
print version has driven me to read The Star.