Posts Tagged "Erin Blaskie"

Constructive Playthings Ignites a Social Media Firestorm

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Sep 27, 2011 in Facebook, Social Media | 6 comments

Constructive Playthings, an online toy company, has ignited a social media firestorm this week.  A group on Facebook, Play at Home Mom, noticed that the company had a sale on and as a part of this sale, were offering a light table (regularly $300) on sale for $29.  The Play at Home Mom group sent their fan base over to the website, which resulted in 600 orders of the light table.

Unfortunately, the light tables will never be shipped and these customers will not be receiving their purchased product.  Why?  Constructive Playthings made a mistake when lowering the price to $29 — it was never meant to be that inexpensive.  The company cancelled the orders and posted a statement on their Facebook page:

The Cost of Developing an App (Interview #1)

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Sep 26, 2011 in Internet Marketing, Marketing, Web & Technology | 2 comments

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be featuring interviews with various individuals and companies that have gone through the app development process. The focus of these interviews is specifically on the costs associated with developing and marketing an app.

If you have any follow-up questions, please post them as a comment and I will let our interviewees know that they are here.

The Cost of Developing an App – Interview #1

1. Tell us a little bit about your app.

We developed sportsfangraph.com, an application that collects fan and follower data from Twitter and Facebook on professional, collegiate and international sports teams. The initial purpose of the application was to create a site that attracted Sports Marketers for Coyle Media, a sports marketing firm. Coyle Media was our client on the app and was looking to expand their footprint internationally. The application has been very successful in achieving this.

A Retweet Changed How I Use Twitter

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Sep 22, 2011 in Internet Marketing, Social Media, Twitter | 11 comments

It took me a few weeks to finally write this blog post and I held off on blogging about it because I didn’t want it to contain angst or snark.  I wanted it to have a few really great lessons and a-ha moments based on what I experienced.  Some people may just sweep a story like this under the rug and pretend that it never happened (or never happens ever) but the truth of the matter is, people are going to do things and say things that you may not particularly enjoy and it is up to you to decide how you want to handle it.  I hope this story allows you to see that mistakes will happen regardless of how social media proficient you are.

The Backstory

Let me back up a wee bit to one gorgeous, sunny afternoon a few weeks ago.  I was walking down the road, enjoying the warmth and the nature and all of the goodness that was surrounding me, and decided to pull out my iPhone to check my Twitter feed.  I read through the Tweets, laughing in response to some of the replies from friends when suddenly, I was punched in the gut.  Hard.

A colleague of mine, from the same city I live in, retweeted one of my Tweets and added “puke” to the front of my Tweet.  That was it, just a simple “puke” but the idea that my Tweet was vomit inducing was enough to stop me dead in my tracks.  I replied to the person with a bit of humor and the response I received was even more gut punching than the first one.  This person, that I had never met in person, told me that my over the top social media nonsense was what had induced this vomiting fit.

Selling Services via a Storefront Like @Shopify

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Sep 21, 2011 in Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Product Reviews, Web & Technology | 0 comments

It is not often that you see the words service and storefront come together. Most professionals sell their services on a very personally-driven platform. Client hires or retains your company, you provide service to the client and an on-going relationship is built. However, in a world that is going online more and more each day, one needs to consider the ability to combine the face-to-face feeling of a service with the ability to reach more people, in less time.

Shopify is a service that provides a shop-style service to online business owners. The service combines an e-commerce platform with a payment gateway of the client’s choice to allow the business owner to sell products and services to their customers online. Most people using Shopify are selling a tangible product but we recently tested the store’s ability to house and sell services. We were so pleased with the results that we wanted to share the tool with you and explain why setting up a storefront for your services could be a lucrative aspect of your business.

Our @fordcanada Test Drive of the Ford Fusion Hybrid

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Sep 18, 2011 in Product Reviews | 7 comments

It’s our final day of our Ford Canada test drive of the Ford Fusion Hybrid and I have to say… I am going to miss that car!  We picked up the car on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 after Steve was done work and took the car to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival.  Knowing we could travel in a hybrid for the long trek to and from Toronto gave us peace of mind for the trip and the car did not disappoint.

The Eco-Friendly Factor

The car gets nearly 1,000 kilometres per tank of gas, which means we were able to drive to and from Toronto on a single tank of gas.  Since the car is a hybrid, it combines electric battery power with regular fuel power to give you the best of both worlds.  When driving less than 60 km/hr, the car utilizes the battery power and when driving over 60 km/hr, the car reverts to fuel consumption.