Social media is everywhere these days. Some people pay no attention to it while some use one or two of the sites. Others are on all of them and there are plenty to choose from! Even though they may seem like separate entities many of them are owned by one another and connected in some way. Like them or hate them there is no doubt they are not going anywhere and the power they hold for spreading information (true or not) is quite remarkable.

One of the earliest in the game was Facebook and it still continues to be the most popular around the world with about 2.9 billion monthly active users. Even people that have little use for it probably have a page. Others out there include YouTube, (2.3 billion), WhatsApp (2 billion), Facebook Messenger and Instagram, (1.3 billion each) Tiktok, (just under 1 billion) and Snapchat. (around 500 million).  These numbers came from Wikipedia which is another popular site where most of the information is accurate but that's not always the case.

Some of the social media pages have users that make a handsome living off of the platform and some "influencers" have millions of followers. YouTuber Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson) raked in more than 54 million dollars for his efforts in 2021. His videos rack up millions of views and he has millions of followers as well. Some people have millions of followers simply by making short videos of themselves dancing to the latest trends. While very few rake in as much as Mr. Beast there is opportunity to make money if you have thousands watching what you do and post. In the end, though, it is like most other entertainment entities, a select few rake in even a little bit while most are just in it for some fun, a hobby or to share information within their circle. 

It got us wondering -- who or what in Portage is popular on social media? It is a very tough thing to measure as it's not as easy as simply "looking it up." One way you could measure popularity is how many people "follow" a certain page. For this purpose we used the platform Instagram. After asking for input and searching around as much as we could, here is what we came up with. By no means is this a definitive ranking. And we expect after posting this, other pages will be brought to our attention.

Individual In Portage with the most followers

Adrienne Hofer - adriennehofer - 4822 followers.

Adrienne owns the local salon Styled With Meraki (1686 followers) and was surprised to hear she was at the top. In fact she was sure there was probably someone who has more. The young entrepreneur has been active on social media and has even done presentations on it. She told us her page is basically used to showcase some of the work done in the salon along with a few things that happen in her day to day life. One challenge she says she has is to not look like she is "spamming people with information" and posting things she hopes people will feel is relevant.

As we sifted through the many personal pages, we learned that over one thousand followers is common for those who use it a lot. Over two thousand put you in the top echelon, over three thousand was very rare and we could only find a couple over four thousand. This is not to say they don't exist though, remember, these were the ones we could find.

Update: Braeden Pritchard - bpwpg - 10.7k. Although he now lives in Winnipeg the former PCI football star was born and raised in Portage. Now a social media marketer and running a business in the field he also has another page, @officialbagclan which is for below average gamers. This one has 11,300 followers.

Business In Portage with the most followers

3's Company Boutique - 3scompanyboutique - 3546 followers

Once again, we will not be surprised if we end up finding one with more. And of course some of the chain restaurants have millions of followers but we excluded those for the purpose of this exercise. It wasn't a big surprise to find that this business had a substantial amount of followers - it started as an online business. That piece was so successful the team opened a store front in Portage in 2021. Even with a bricks and mortar location, the online portion of their business remains quite popular and orders come in from all over the place.

Update - thanks to our listeners we were pointed in the directions of:

Solomon's Garden Centre - solomons_gardencentre -  4788 followers.

People around here love the gardening plus the unique gifts obviously. Their page promises Shopping & retail, 🌿Greenhouse, gifts, home decor & more!📍 and features picutres and videos of what you will find at the store.

Discoveries of Places/People/Things near Portage

The Recipe Rebel - thereciperebel - 195k. Yes, that is 195,000. This is a recipe site that you can find on most social media platforms and it is obviously very popular. It promises real food, simple ingredients and fewer dishes. The taste testers: 👧🏼👧🏼👧🏼, which would be her kids. Followers of this site come from all around the world. The lady who runs the page is indeed "from the area" and is well known to her friends and family of course, but prefers to stay low key and avoid the spotlight being put on her family.

Beaver Creek Customs - beavercreekcustoms - 52.9k. This is a construction company site from Michael Wiebe in MacGregor. It's quite obvious he has the social media game figured out with almost 53,000 followers. The page is mostly about woodworking, cabinetry and Tool Reviews.

Beaver Creek Farms Ltd - beavercreekfarmsltd – 13.7. The assumption here is that this page and the above page are probably related as the farm is also located near MacGregor. This page promises stuff about farming potatoes, wheat, canola, corn, soybeans. I guess then it's no surprise in this area it is quite popular.

Tremain Minty-Dodd - theeofficialtr3w3y - 12.7k. This page is from a young musician from Newton. With close to 13,000 followers, we were surprised to just find out about him. It is a mixture of pictures and video with ways to connect with his music which is, for the most part, inspirational by nature. Way to go Tremain!

Now that you've read all the way to the bottom, do you know of someone who has thousands of followers? Let me know at ryan.simpson@goldenwest.ca By the way I rarely use Instagram but I think I may start and see if I can get to 5000. With only a few pictures I was surprised to see I had almost 500 followers at ryanwhiskey33. Ok, it was a nickname my dad gave me when I was young. Maybe it's time to post a few more and see if I can turn that 500 into 5000!