There are more and more social media platforms being introduced to the world each year. The OAFE has positioned itself on the platforms that we believe will best suit our members and their fire departments. Think social media is more predominant elsewhere? Think again! Canadians watch more YouTube than anyone in the world, out-tweet Americans, and visit Facebook more than U.S. online users, says a new report on online usage.
Twitter was our first choice for social media presence. Many fire departments have adopted twitter as a way to provide up-to-the-minute news on incidents, make announcements, create a live tweet event and spread the word on fire & life safety. With over 1,000 followers, most of which are our esteemed Fire Educators, Fire Departments, agencies, media and fellow associations. Follow us at https://twitter.com/OAFEOntario
The challenge with twitter, is that many of our members use their work/corporate/FD account. Often the opportunity to engage, interact and provide feedback can be limited with those accounts. With that in mind, we have created a Facebook page for our members. Now you can participate and network as an individual. https://www.facebook.com/OntarioAssociationofFireEducators
This year’s stats show that YouTube is bigger than all the other social media platforms. (And every other website, too, except for Google.) Digital Journal reports that the age group in Canada that uses YouTube the most is between 18 and 24; they spend an average of 360 minutes viewing videos every month.
According to a marketing-research company that specializes in measuring digital activity, comScore, 71 percent of Canadian Internet users, or 17.6 million people, visit YouTube every month. Only 55% of American online users hit the video site every month. Canada also beat out every other G7 nation in usage. In November, that translated into two billion videos watched in Canada.
So naturally, the OAFE wants to have a YouTube presence and help promote the great videos that fire departments, agencies and stakeholders are doing. Check out our YouTube channel and subscribe today: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Ag9kYh6d9l4NzHfY05kow?view_as=subscriber
