By now you’ve likely been living under a rock if you didn’t know that we launched a re-imagined eBrandon last week. Hopefully now that we’ve been online for a handful of days folks are starting to know their way around the new setup that’s modernized the site in a way that lets its serve the community across every type of device. I’d like to thank everyone for their patience and cooperation through this transition as we work out the kinks and move forward with this shiny new toy.
After going over the classifieds and events sections in more detail in posts last week, this week I’d like to start by chatting about the new kid on the block in the site menu… Buzz. I’m going to spend a little more time here talking about myself than I’d normally prefer to, but when it comes to this new section I’m taking on a lot of new responsibility and so there’s really no way around it!
What Buzz is
You’ve probably picked up on the fact over the years that I love new and unique stories about Westman and the folks that live in it. Buzz is an extension of that. What you’ll normally see in Buzz postings are a smorgasbord of quick-read general interest pieces relating to Southwestern Manitoba. The idea is to use my connections, reputation and passion ato shine a light on stories in the community that have or could have people talking… be that at the coffee shop, around the water cooler or online.
You might have already noticed that I’m not discriminating when it comes to the source of info in Buzz posts. In addition to featuring a comment from a post in the forums you might read about something someone said in a Tweet, a Facebook or Instagram post, a local media outlet or a direct conversation with myself. They’re going to in most cases be brief (with the notable exception of these introductory posts which are just begging to be listed on Amazon ;)) Your day is short, you want to read something fun and new, perhaps share it with a friend or two and get on with the rest of it. Most days I’ll aim to have one or maybe two new postings, but if there’s nothing interesting to say I’m going to do my best to not post just for the sake of posting.
What Buzz isn’t
Except in exceptional circumstances, what you won’t see are depth hard news pieces. I’m not a journalist and there’s no need for me to try to be one when we have fine professional media outlets in town at the newspapers, radio stations and local Provincial media correspondents doing what they do best. I see eBrandon as a whole as complimentary to the critical role that media plays in the community and there will be times that I’ll be asking our outlets to do deeper dives on stories that I’ve come across.
Reputation is everything
I mentioned above the word reputation and thought it best to spend a few sentences on that. I’d like to think that after 15,000+ discussion forum posts in the public eye most folks know what I’m about. Other than the fact that I’ll probably never win Grammar Dude of the Year you’ve probably learned that being factual is uber important to me. Being someone that a source of information can trust is every bit as much so as is being someone that you as a reader can trust will take your interests seriously.
What a lot of folks might not realize is that if one isn’t careful they can really sacrifice the quality of their information source if they don’t find the right balance between the latter two points. When you have a microphone that reaches a lot of people its inevitable that there will be temptations come your way to use that microphone to promote, be that to generate advertising, help a friend out or the like. Folks that know me understand how seriously I take my relationship with my audience and feel super fortunate to have so many great advertisers that respect the “wall” I keep between the business side of eBrandon and the content side. That doesn’t mean you wont see me make a posting that happens to relate to someone thats also an advertiser, but folks should know I do everything in my power to be objective in that posting.
Help me Help you ;)
My job is to make sure that information that gets folks in Westman talking gets out. I’m best at it when folks are sharing tips on interesting stuff that they’ve run into in our area that they think others would like to know about. Some folks might do that with a forum post that I’ll see and pick up on. Others might prefer to send something privately on anything from something unique that's happened on their street to an event or charitable endeavour they're involved in to a new dish that's recently made the menu of their favourite restaurant. If you have a tip I’d love to hear from you be it by phone, email, private message, Facebook Messenger or heck even good old fashioned handwritten note.
If you tell me something is off the record, its off the record. If you tell me that you don’t want to be named as a source I won’t name you but of course have to make sure I’m doing the ethical thing in passing along info that’s true and responsible to share. If you want credit for a picture or info you’ve shared, its all yours.
Thanks for reading….I’m looking forward to seeing this evolve into a valuable source of fun info that you’ll consider letting be a part of your day!