Grande Prairie groups increasingly turning to Twitter
Sep 15, 2009 
Grand Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune | by Darrel Winwood
As its presence continues to grow on the Internet, more and more businesses, non-profit agencies, and government organizations are learning the value of using social media websites to reach out directly to people and it’s a growing trend in Grande Prairie.
Media agencies, including the Daily Herald-Tribune, have been using social media for several years to stream news and headlines to readers in a different format, but this newspaper has been joined in the last several weeks by several other local businesses. It’s interesting to see how individual groups and companies adapt to the technology and use it different ways.
One of the more interesting ways is to use a company’s Twitter or Facebook account (to name the two most popular sites) to run specific online contests. We did this recently at the newspaper, giving away six pairs of tickets to last month’s Drag Wars event. Contest winners had to respond to specific messages we posted on our own Facebook and Twitter accounts to win the tickets and it didn’t take long. Within one hour we had given away the six sets of tickets, proving that in even in a smaller city such as Grande Prairie, the online community can be very active.
But that’s chump change compared to one contest being run by the Servus Credit Union which could benefit Grande Prairie’s youth shelter, Sunrise House. The credit union runs a program called Young & Free which targets young adults and teens, trying to attract their business. Each year it runs a contest to select a youth spokesperson. This year it’s Myles Peterman and he’s issued a challenge to supporters of youth shelters in Grande Prairie, Lloydminster and Athabasca.
Basically, whoever starts following Peterman’s account can ‘tweet’ their support for each community’s shelter and whoever gets to 500 supporters or tweets first that shelter will receive $500 from the credit union.
It’s a fun promotion that attracts attention to the credit union, its youth programs, and it offers a chance for a local charity to win a donation.
I already cast my vote for Sunrise House and if you’re on Twitter why not follow the account named YoungFreeAB and vote for our local youth shelter as well.
But contests aren’t the only way to use Twitter to attract buzz and interest for a cause or company. Social media can be a low-budget way to reach out to people directly. Two other notable groups have started using the medium in the past month in Grande Prairie.
The first is local municipal government – yes you can now get the latest news on our municipality directly on Twitter. The city began streaming news releases and promotional information earlier in the summer and so far has attracted (as of Wednesday) 131 people to its account. It’s a small but growing number and city marketing manager David Olinger said it’s part of the city’s overall communication plan.
“The city has examined a number of ways to reach out to citizens ... we’re really looking for ways to engage residents.”
The value of the service showed up in the summer when a chlorine leak at Bear Creek Pool forced the evacuation of the pool and shut it down for more than a day. One of the first places news of this leak showed up was on Facebook from residents forced out and the city was soon issuing updates on Twitter which spread and were rebroadcast.
“It’s a fascinating study in how news travels,” said Olinger.
I couldn’t agree more as every day I see how stories from this newspaper can travel across the Internet. Olinger also said that demographic studies from Stats Canada have shown that 75% of the city’s population is aged 45 or under, which leads more people being connected online.
The Grande Prairie Storm hockey club started up its own Twitter account in the past few weeks, streaming live updates on game scores, player moves and still to come will be ticket promotions and information on community events that Storm players are involved with, said marketing manager Echo Ross, who was quick to credit team ‘‘music man’’ Randy Kleist as the person behind the Storm’s Twitter account.
“It (idea) first came up a few weeks ago and we need to keep going forward with new technology,” said Ross.
And here’s the shameless plug – if you’re online you can follow this newspaper on Twitter by searching for gpheraldtribune or the Grande Prairie tag #gpab, on Facebook search for Daily Herald-Tribune.
Darrell Winwood is the DHT’s online and special sections editor.
