Brands and companies of all sizes have caught on to how Twitter can be used to help reach their goals. I asked a few people through my Twitter account for suggestions of which companies across Canada are using the service. Below are the suggestions so far of companies using Twitter for things such as customer service, increasing readership and building a brand.
Media Companies on Twitter
Vancouver Sun
CBC
Globe and Mail
Giest Magazine
Open Book Toronto
Canoe
Georgia Straight
besthealthmag
HG TV Canada
Dose
Lou Lou Magazine
BlogTO
Agencies on Twitter
Delvinia
Mindblossom
Indusblue
Infiltrators
DDB Canada
Cundari Group
henderson BAS
Radar DDB
Critical Mass
Vendors on Twitter
nonlinear_creations
Random House
Harper Collins Canada
Radian6
Rain City Studios
The Blog Studio
HarlequinBooks
I Love Rewards
Deloitte Canada
Zoompass
Executive Oasis International
Diversity Media Services
FreshBooks
Technology Companies on Twitter
FlipVideoCanada
brightkit
OpenText & (OpenText’s Annual Conference)
DNA13
Nortel
Research In Motion
Overlay.TV
Cybernomics
CX Digital
Finance Companies on Twitter
RBC Innovator Campaign (English)
RBC Innovator Campaign (French)
Retailers on Twitter
Tiger Direct
Lululemon
Home Depot Canada
Holt Renfrew
Commercial Services
Transportation Companies on Twitter
Non-Profit/ Charity Organizations on Twitter
The Canadian Hearing Society
Sick Kids
LOWwaterkeeper
War Child Canada
National Film Board
Conference Board
Arts/ Culture
Hospitality
OpusHotel
Coast Hotels & Resorts
Education
Who is missing from the list?
I know Home Depot (Canada) is on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/homedepotcanada
As is the Conference Board:
http://twitter.com/Conferenceboard
And Random House Canada:
http://twitter.com/RandomHouseCA
I think there are more, they just aren’t very well publicized it seems.
Hi, David … i probably should have responded to your tweet; so to quickly answer your question, we’re missing from your list (Diversity Media Services / http://www.twitter.com/doreenatdms); we’re the multicultural marketing division of Multimedia Nova Corporation, a media company and one of Canada’s largest diversity publisher/printers. It’s encouraging to see that the Vendors you list above are *actually* following people on Twitter — absolutely necessary, in my opinion — while the majority of the list are not. Interesting to note that The Vancouver Sun seems to be the only other media company listed who is actually following anyone, while the G&M and CBC are clearly using Twitter just to ‘push’. Personally, I think that’s a wasted effort and a little pointless; I have my own iGoogle start page with RSS headlines, i don’t need them on my Twitter feed too. I’d much rather have the opportunity to read tweets from their reporters/journalists as well as the ability to truly connect with them. Good for me, good for them, their brand and who knows — they might even get a story idea out of the deal.
Algonquin College in Ottawa — twitter.com/algonquincolleg
Dave,
here are a couple from the list of my followers:
@geistmagazine, @OpenBookToronto, @Arsenalpulp, @tinkugallery, @louloumagazine, @SimonSaysCanada, @blogTO, @BookNet_Canada, @HouseofAnansi, @Praized, @FoodlandOnt, @Cheese_Boutique, @hgtvcanada, @foodtvdotca, @freshbooks, @criticalmass.
And of course, CheapEats Toronto (@ceto) and CheapEats Ottawa (@ceot) are both on twitter, if I’m allowed to mention my own businesses.
@Lex – Thanks!!! And nothing wrong with a bit of self promotion
Media
Best Health (@besthealthmag)
SM/Communications
com.motion (@keithmcarthur)
Thanks Jack, I’ve added Best Health. I left off com.motion as it looks like Keith is using Twitter beyond just company updates.
There are some charities on Twitter:
The Canadian Hearing Society @wwwchsca
Sick Kids @sickkids
There are probably others.
Sweet – new category added “Non-Profit/ Charity”
Soundstreams in the not for profit category: twitter.com/soundstreams
Thanks Sean – Been a while, hope all’s good!
I know. I’m horrible at being active locally. The power and risk of digital technologies is that place becomes lost sometimes. Things are good! Just tweeted your list. Hopefully it gets some visits and updates as I’m praying there are more canadian orgs on twitter…
Hey Dave:
Open Text uses Twitter in a couple of different ways.
First alot of our employees are on it and stay connected to each others thoughts that way (especially around similar or same initiatives). Many of them are evangelists for it
Second, we have our own company account (@OpenText) which is maintained by marketing(?) and does product and thought leadership announcements as well as some event stuff; and
Third, we established a dedicated account for our major annual customer conference to keep people in the loop on the conference, changing programme info, and as a vehicle to promote in and grow numbers – we ended up nearly selling out in a climate of extremely tough economic times.
We’ve also started to embrace Yammer as well so there is quite a growing following among employees that are connected to Enterprise 2.0 initiatives such as us. Being connected to Twitter helps us alot in terms of understanding design implications for our E2.0/E3.0-enabled ECM Suite of products, so I would probably list a fourth point as helping out with research into the user experience portion of things (helps to eat our own lunch as much as possible).
Hope that helps your research man… talk to u soon.
meant to mention that the Content World account was named @OTContentWorld…
Thanks Drew – adding them to the list!!
Park City Mountain Resort (ski/snowboard resort in Park City, Utah) uses Twitter. We have a company twitter @pcski, as well as a couple of us have our own accounts: @krista_parry (Director of Marketing and Communications), @eric_hoffman (Interactive Marketing Manager).
Thanks for the list.
dave, of course we are using twitter. Company profile is
http://twitter.com/awarenessinc
mine is http://twitter.com/dkrcarter lots of other staff have them too.
Just an update for the @VancouverSun Twitter use. An increasingly of people in our newsroom have Twitter accounts and you can find the latest update on my blog at http://www.vancouversun.com/digitallife.
Look for the Vancouver Sun Twitter profiles post or check here: http://tinyurl.com/74×2gj
Thanks Gillian – I’m tracking companies who are using Twitter or account set up by individuals with company use/ content vs. Mike Smith using Twitter and “occasionally” linking/ talking about his company.
@Dave Forde -
Can’t speak for everyone on our Twitter list Dave but I would say for most they are tweeting as journalists (editors and writers) at our paper. Like me and probably a lot of Twitter users, work is no longer nine-to-five and clearly separated from the rest of life. My Twitter updates cover a wide range from the stories I’m writing for The Vancouver Sun, to other tech news – since I’m a tech writer – to how the skiing was over the weekend. As an example of that blending of the two, avalanches are big news here right now and one weekend when I was watching parents lead their children out of bounds skiing I tweeted on that and our Web editors picked it up and posted it with our coverage of ski resort accidents.
Retail: twitter.com/lululemon
Thanks Lisa
Coast Hotels & Resorts (Vancouver-based hotel chain) are on Twitter now too. @coasthotels
I agree with you that the lines are blurred, but if I don’t set some type of ‘minimum’ than I might as well just add everyone’s Twitter which negate this from being unique content and value to the readers, right?
Right. We have a couple of other company Twitter sites as well as @Vancouver Sun. They are http://www.twitter.com/SunSports and http://www.twitter.com/SunFanAttic. (The last one is for Canucks fans.)
I have quite a few listed on my Vancouverite’s guide to Twitter although since then so many have joined, I haven’t been able to keep up or add them all
Hey there Dave,
I just did a post last Friday that lists all of our folks on Twitter at Radian6, to build on your listing of us above. Amber Naslund, our new Director of Community, spends a lot of time connecting with the community on Twitter as well of course. http://www.radian6.com/blog/103/amber-naslund-is-radian6s-new-director-of-community/
Cheers.
David
Dave,
You can add 1-800-GOT-JUNK? to the list. I don’t know if there are any other junk removal companies using Twitter, so I think we are the only one.
twitter.com/1800gotjunk
Thanks!
Travis – I’m sure you are the only junk removal company on the list, welcome aboard!
Hi Travis, Galt Museum & Archives in Lethbridge, Alberta: twitter.com/GaltMuseum
Cheers,
Anine
NFB is on Twitter!
Kathryn – Who is NFB and do you have a link?
Here are 2 more for your list:
Holt Renfrew @holtrenfrew – luxury, upscale retailer in Toronto
Executive Oasis International
@executiveoasis Toronto based management consulting firm specializing in team building & incentive travel in Canada, Dubai, Oman, Egypt, Jamaica, Singapore, Malaysia,
Another green tech non-profit: http://www.greenscroll.org.
Thanks,
@greenscroll
We’re a technology organization and we’re on Twitter
Saskatchewan Research Council – @SRCnews
Hi Dave,
Communications MECA is on Twitter @mecapr
http://twitter.com/mecapr