New Media

And you thought Neanderthals were extinct. Wrong! Not only are they alive and well and living in Vancouver; they’re bringing back all kinds of awesomeness to the local arts scene with the Neanderthal Arts Festival

The festival runs July 21-31. Check out the Show Schedule (click Agenda) and have a look at the great lineup of local and national shows.

Bonus: Here’s my best bud Shane letting his more primitive self out to play.

I’m a believer in social media marketing for business, not least because that’s how I often get referrals for my own SEO web copywriting and corporate communications business.

I was recently researching the cost of social media — what it takes to hire a blogger, run a Facebook campaign or get a social media marketer in-house. Gradually, the article evolved into How to Get Social Media to Work for Your Business, published on Techvibes. Here’s a little blurb:

Blogs are a popular (some would say critical) social media tool, offering the ability to boost brand and advertise deals to bring in actual sales. Remember that “funny” gets eyeballs and there’s no profit in “playing it safe”. The point is to get noticed.

Open Road Communications Ltd. are the Vancouver-based maker of social intranet software called ThoughtFarmer. The company derives 100% of its business from inbound leads to its website, with customer deals ranging from $10,000 to $200,000. The objective of their campaign was to boost the number of sales leads. They used a blog, targeted at IT workers and managers. It was funny, at least for IT professionals. And for $7,000 for an outside firm to set it up, it worked.

“Of those visitors, we can see that 474 then proceeded to our website,” McGrath explains. “At our typical conversion rate, those 474 visitors will result in about one sale, at an average sale price of $30,000. Our sales this quarter shatter all previous records and are a 270% increase over the same quarter last year,” suggesting multiple sales from the campaign.

 

It is the day after the riot in downtown Vancouver following the Canucks loss to the Bruins in the Stanley Cup final. The city has come together, cleaned up most of the mess and shown true civic spirit in the aftermath of a very bad night. Some images I took with my iPhone from Granville Street in the heart of Vancouver.

Vancouver may have had the most well-documented riot in the history of the world, thanks to social media. A few choice tweets:

If you’re one of the idiot thugs on the streets of Vancouver lighting police cars on fire, picking fights with strangers, taunting cops or smashing windows of downtown businesses, I hope you get your head smashed in.

More pix from my TV (I have no intention of leaving my apartment to grab my own photos. Thanks, CBC).