New Media

Every blogger in the universe should be up in arms against this SOPA legislation coming out of the USA. This is soooooooo bad. Watch the video.

NDP MP Pat Martin is getting some flack today for tweeting inappropriately. A big part of me thinks, “What’s the big deal?”

“This is a f—— disgrace…closure again. And on the Budget! There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot sh–,” Martin tweeted.

He followed up with another comment asking “In these uncertain economic times, don’t you think our parliament should be debating our federal budget? Some due diligence?”

But that wasn’t all. Martin went on to tell off followers who criticized his post, telling one person to “F— off” and directing the Bart Simpson-coined expression “Eat my shorts” at another.

I’ve actually got a fair bit of sympathy for Mr. Martin. I’m a bit of a foul-mouthed guy, myself (particularly if I’ve got a couple of beers in me). I don’t recall if I’ve ever sworn on Twitter before, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that I had.

That said, elected politicians are presumably held to a higher standard of civics than non-elected pundits like me. They’re supposed to set an example about respectful communication, even, or perhaps especially, if pissed off.

Also, contrary to what one might infer from Martin’s overheated rhetoric, the Conservatives were not shutting down debate by some improvised fascist measure. Closure is just part of the parliamentary rules. Majority governments use it all the time to prevent filibustering USA-style. Not exactly “jackboot” stuff.

Yup. That’s my opinion. Anonymous political bloggers are cowards who don’t have the guts to stand by their own words.

This blog post is an open thread. Bring the debate, people. Comments are open.

Mind you, anonymous commenters are cowards, too, IMO.

I must confess, I’ve been a bit of a hermit when it comes to social-media focused events ever since Northern Voice wrapped up. The last Vancouver Blogger Meetup was a while back, so I’m excited to get back into it with a bang. There are already 40 cool bloggers RSVP’d for the next Vancouver Blogger Meetup happening at the Network Hub!

What’s happening at this event? We’ll have pizza and some bevies (non-alcoholic) and it’s just going to be a friendly, fun place to get to know your fellow Vancouver bloggers. Come meet with web pundits, online scribes, photobloggers, vloggers, social media mavens and more. See you there!

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.