SMOjoe.com

Pro Bloggers know that some subjects are really hard to write about, and it takes mad skills to subtlety broach sensitive topics, especially in 3rd party social networks, blogs and discussion forums where you can’t completely control the reaction.  Now let Smojoe show you two women who make it look easy…

Enter two creative writers Skye Blue and Elizabeth Rose. These girls write good content on tough topics, like disease, bad sex and heartbreak. Believe it or not, there are lots of women out there who can’t talk about sex, even with their lovers, and they’re ashamed of getting personal and can’t communicate important emotions.

Met Another Frog is a dating blog, a catharsis? an therapy with a feminine perspective that tackles tough questions and comforts readers. Unfortunately at this time the site is almost completely void of pictures, and my first piece of advice was to get images in there, and try make it a visual blog and more FUN.

Smojoe charted their future in his crystal ball. On Thursday Feb 11th, I both diagnosed maladies and prognosticated on the success of a bold new path… for in the fog I could see one schematic for success.  I told them that I hoped they would continue to encourage comments… and grow a readership. Then one day without fear they might implement a vBulletin discussion forum to grow a community within a readership and then start a newsletter. Grow the permission based email newsletter to 1000 subscribers by hosting real life singles events and condo parties, then gradually over time, evolve the content portal into an interactive dating website and then ultimately a sophisticated dating service for executive women.  Elapsed time: three years.

Should Ontario Fund Single Gender Education Schools?

Earlier this month, with the help of school staff and borrowed photographs from St. Andrew’s College I wrote an article on Orato that details the advantages that single gender education over co-education models. The piece chronicles Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty considering the idea of funding some all-boys schools in the future in response to the problem of declining male academics. The very idea has outraged some folks who see it as a giant step backwards in the battle for equality of the sexes. But when I was in grade school in Percy Centennial Public School in Warkworth Ontario, I lived in fear of a black leather strap that was contained in a drawer in the school Principle’s desk. I saw the strap once, and Jamie Jenny showed me his hand after it had been struck with the strap - just once. It was red.

So now there’s an new idea floating around that all-boys schools are friendlier places where boys can be boys without fear of corporal punishment. I started a discussion on my favourite discussion forum to poll the Greater Toronto Area and find out if the public thinks private schools are actually any better, and if so why? Toronto Forums: Are private schools better than public schools? Do you think kids enrolled in all-boys, or all-girls schools think co-education public schools are better? Are single gender education schools better for kids? I wrote that on Blog.ca

Do Over Day is coming up, Feb 26th is the day, once again…

Last year was the first ever Do Over Day and Smojoe helped spread the word. I went on a couple dozen blogs and discussion forums and asked folks to “…picture yourself re-experiencing the fabulous meals you’ve eaten, the exotic lands you’ve visited, the epic raves you cannot recall attending. Conversely, visualize yourself making amends for your life’s imperfect moments – the time you made a pass at your wife’s sister (and got caught), or the night driving home from the pub when you accidentally ran over your neighbour’s pet…” Hahaa that’s good web copy. I didn’t write it, but rather, I found it on the DoOverDay.ca website along with a whole lot more light hearted easy reading.

Three Lenzr Photo Contests Come to an Exciting Conclusion on March 1st 2010

Three very engaging Lenzr photo contests are approaching a predetermined temporal mark that’s the official finish line. I write it that way because most contests continue to get submissions long after the time period expires… not sure exactly why, but it could have something to with drugs and alcohol.  Should be interesting to see who wins in this batch of photo battles. The first two challenges are pretty much locked up now, but the Best Gourmet Food photo contest is still wide open and The Wine Ladies have put up an amazing prize, an eastern Ontario Locaboire wine tour vacation, to help promote their own wine blog. This challenge could be because its a late addition to the series; the contest just launched last week.  Already Mommakoala and Satsuma are both actively promoting their pictures on other social networks, and it makes for a fun morning of watching Google Alerts.

Last week I asked London Ontario Phronk to post on Lenzr photo contests because I absolutely love the way he approaches a paid post, and the total transparency he exudes, and because Lenzr pretty much writes itself.  Stay tuned to see what’s up for March / April; I think you’re gonna love it.

Try as they might, Canadians cannot stop CanPages from delivering their obsolete advertising product to their homes and offices.

There is no mechanism on the CanPages website to allow consumers to opt out of the delivery scheme.

On Thursday Jan 28th, 2010 two nice people from CanPages visited the 2nd floor hallway of 176 John St and left behind five pounds of rubbish in eight tiny piles outside everyone’s door.  I told them to stop and to please remove the debris, and I personally tried to give one unit back - the deliveryman said nothing, smiled and took it down that hall. He left it on a stack beside the stairs. That’s when I vowed to do something about it, and to write this resource page demanding action, and accountability and CHANGE.

CanPages is pollution, and because I have a microscopic carbon footprint I really don’t want to be associated with such waste. So I went online to see if it is possible to opt out of the delivery program, and I discovered that it is not possible – there is no form or web page on the website whatsoever to allow Canadians to opt out of the delivery system. But there is however a place to leave a short message, which I did…

In a section called Book Distribution Feedback, there is a form in which humans can leave suggestions…

While researching this topic and checking the level of societal outrage on this issue, I discovered that I’m not alone. There are other people who have also complained with various amounts of success, but nobody has yet succeeded in making this company listen, or change their evil ways. There is still no ‘opt out’ form on the website.

Darren Barefoot spells out some CanPages abuses in his piece, From The Front Door Directly To The Recycling Bin in which he identifies greenwashing in their marketing messages.

And there’s a Facebook group entitled, Stop Forcing Us To Accept Giant Unsolicited Phonebooks which I joined immediately.

In the group’s desc page I read how the CanPages PR people were quick to quench the fire of the original ‘creative complainer’ and group creator, by rushing a delivery man special to pick-up the offending book.  But there are also some details there on how you can write an email or phone CanPages and get them to come pick up your book. PLEASE DO THIS.

Please call CanPages and ask them to come pick up their garbage.

Phone: 604-525-1551
Toll-Free Phone: 866-525-1551
Fax: 604-516-0823
Toll-Free Fax: 877-525-1519
Email (general enquiries): customercare@canpages.ca

Giant yellow books full of alphabetically indexed print advertising are less than useless today, but of course this fact negates the company’s print division business model, which charges money for ads in the tome.  Paul Batchelor, the Yellow Pages Group vice-president of sales for the western region is quoted in a CBC article Residents demand companies end unwanted phone book deliveries saying, “About two-thirds of the population still use the printed product on a regular basis,” which is simply not true.  I know this convienent statistic isn’t true, and I have proof.  Anyone who walks into the lobby of a secure condo building in Toronto will see piles of these yellow books NOT BEING USED. The books are ignored and I suspect that less than 10% are taken upstairs by the residents. These books will sit there for months as every resident passes and does not ‘opt in’ to their old fashion advertising program.  Eventually the books end up in the dumpster behind the building.  You know that’s true.

CanPages PR trolls, before you leave a comment on my blog saying ‘When your basement is flooded and you need to call the plumber…‘ or something like that, just know that I’ve seen and read all your tricks, and I enjoyed the battle between activitist Ed Kohler and your own PR bot KenC.  And Ed Kohler also has a Facebook group, Wasteful Unwanted Phonebook Action Super Society. But I’m not advocating violence or anything… I just want to be able to visit CanPages website and opt out of the phone book delivery scheme.

What is social capital?

I saw Julien Smith on December 1st 2009 inside the Berkley Church in downtown Toronto and he talked about Trust Agents and how to value social networks. He waxed poetic about advice his father had given him concerning perspectives on friends and potential employers. His script was pretty flat actually, and there was no deviation from the template - a couple times he paused for laughs and there werent any and I suspect he was used to laughs in those places and missed them.

In my humble opinion, Julien mislabels social events as Social Capital. These things Smojoe considers to be ’social currency’ which can build capital.  But that’s me being knitpicky … The only thing that kinda bothered me in this presentation was that Julien did not once define social capital in the plainest terms, and so most of the audience is still mesmerized by the abstraction of something that is, in fact, a very real and calculable thing.

This is NOT how Smojoe defines social capital.

In his Third Tuesday in Toronto Meet-up Presentation on Dec 1st 2009 in Toronto, Julien Smith described the idea of building premium social networks and using tools to prep managers before you ask for a promotion, and win jobs before you submit a resume, etc.  His presentation makes sense for bank employees and insurance brokers building careers, but he didn’t say what to me is the most obvious answer to the question ‘what is social capital?’

So what is Social Capital?

From an internet marketing perspective, social capital is a measurable array of incoming links each buried in keyword rich text and from respectable, highly usable sources. This is how Google measures social capital, and this is what puts your URL on page one of search engines.

Every webmaster knows what I’m talking about - to grow a successful ecommerce website today you have to be findable in search engines. The best way to get found first is to rank high on page one of Google for the most popular keywords that best define your offering. The way to the top is to earn links.

As more and more business goes online, more and more URLs compete for the same keywords. For all business owners my advice is the same; now is the time to win as many search terms as possible, because your media will only get stronger and appreciate in value over time.

An example of a social capital bank

The best example of a social capital bank that I know would be the Miss Teen Canada-World pageant, and how they now rank first for the term ‘Miss Teen Canada’ because they have the most social capital, the highest usability and the most trust… yes trust, because even trust is measurable.

The people who join and help build this social trust also withdraw its benefits when they show friends, potential sponsors, project managers, college registrars and potential new employers their blogs. In just about every case, the girls who participated in the 2009 MTC-W Blog Army used their own names in the OnSugar blog link URL, and now these blogs are the first results that appear when they type their names in Google. This gives them findability, credibility, and trust.  There’s a list of all blogs in the 2009 MTCW Blog Army here http://squidoo.com/missteencanada

On Sunday December 6th the Miss Teen Ontario - World pageant brought together fifty hopeful teenagers from all across the province and filled the St Lawrence centre for the Performing Arts on Front St with 500 or more family members and friends. This part of the MTC-W pageant is really popular now and business is booming because of an improved online presence in search engines, and a very strong MTC-W Facebook community.  With hundreds of incoming links from dozens of rich media offerings, press releases and OnSugar blog posts created by the MTCW Blog Army, no other Canadian pageant production can successfully compete against this massive link building machine.

This pageant raised $30K for Free The Children in 2009 through direct appeals from participants to personal sponsors. Thats an example of how to leverage social networks for cash, but the organization has more goodness to share with society.  Associating with the Miss Teen Canada - World pageant is a dream come true for sponsors.  Now businesses that donate to the production enjoy triple rewards. They harvest the traditional media buzz, and enjoy conversational word of mouth advertising, and they leverage the MTCW social capital bank and its powerful link building mechanisms.  So now corporate sponsors get their logo printed in the programs, and their company name mentioned in press, but more importantly the sponsor businesses also get link love from social media press releases, articles, photo captions, tweets and unique blog post links from an army of bloggers who reference them in connection with assignments and activities relating to the pageant.  The sponsor’s online goods and services are connected to more valuable stuff, and so their URLS appear higher in search engines.  So the MTCW social capital bank rewards sponsor businesses with increased findability, credibility and usability.

Build Social Capital With Smojoe

Rob Campbell will be at the Centre for Social Innovation Wednesday, January 20, 2010. I’ll be showing folks exactly how I execute complicated story funnels that capture readers on multiple platforms and bring them home to a ‘buckstop’.

Build Social Capital with Smojoe Wednesday, January 20, 2010
6:00pm to 9:00pm at the Centre for Social Innovation
215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 120 Toronto
Social Media Workshop: $40.00 CAD per ticket plus service charges and taxes.

Story Funnels to Buckstops

Bring your laptop and blog with Smojoe! Learn by doing as Rob Campbell demonstrates exactly how to build ‘Story Funnels to Buckstops’ and works through the little known principles of article replication, blogvertising and discussion forum marketing.

Story Funnels to Buckstops is the methodology Rob uses to put clients on the first page of Google search, diminish negative press, and generally increase his clients ‘findability’.

Last week, Smojoe built a beautiful Wordpress blog for TellOscar.com.

If you haven’t heard about this place yet, let me explain Canada’s first user driven complaints website. This web destination might be better described as a customer service reports index, and by that I mean a place that lists both good and bad stories; both compliments and complaints can be recorded.

But very few people bother to write nice things or record pleasant observations here.  No, this site runs on complaints and preserves warnings to consumers researching specific goods and services.

How does TellOscar work?

If you owned a business, and suddenly found your beloved establishment written up in TellOscar’s archives, you’d do whatever possible to get the problem resolved. Am I Right?  You’d pay whatever fees necessary to access the forum and respond to the complainer, personally one on one.  I’m certain you’d pay money to make them happy (or at least keep them quiet), and that’s exactly what Tell Oscar wants you to do: That’s the business model.  When this website gets busy, all of Canada’s biggest corporations will pay a monthly access fee to be able to respond one on one with their unhappiest customers.

Why TellOscar works?

As a savvy consumer, I get frustrated with cut rate customer service departments, foreign call centers and automated telephone messages. People who naively write emails to managers, or letters to head office should not be surprised if their correspondence vanishes into a corporate chasm. TellOscar works its wonders because the complaint is so public it embarrasses the subject into action.

What about Twitter? Isn’t that already the world’s largest complaints website?

Unlike Twitter, which limits each entry to a 140 characters, TellOscar.com lets writers enter pages of details.  There is no limit, and no expiry date. The system preserves each submissions in the vault forever, until they’re resolved, and even that data is archived for perpetuity.  Also noteworthy is TellOscar’s primary focus on Canadian consumers - they have representatives who deal directly with Canadian manufacturers, merchants and service providers and are positioned as impartial advocates for conflict resolution.

Introducing the TellOscar Blog

TellOscar’s new blog is what every customer service blog should be - its the primary conduit for communicating new information and insight into the particulars of a business, and reflections on an industry in general.  This simple Wordpress blog will digest news media, profile other authors and experts and showcase some of the more vitriolic complaints that have been submitted to the site. There’s lots of very interesting content on this website, and the blog can bring even more attention to the best of the best user submitted complaints.

Check out these remarks filed under bad customer service. These are heartbreaking stories.  I want you to look at this alleged assault at McDonalds. Imagine if you were the general manager, and you became aware of this story by reading about it online, what would you do? It’s interesting to learn how two different managers at that franchise became more and more eager to find resolution. They fired the employee, offered coupons, and finally asked what else they could possibly do to get the issue resolved…

Creative complainers are every corporation’s worst nightmare, and with its spiffy new blog, TellOscar.com has just become an even more powerful place to complain.

Nestle Pure Life TV commercials and web initiatives are greenwashing Canadians into believing that bottled water is a healthy choice, and a manageable environmental solution. They make me sick, and very angry. Have you seen this? The thirty second spot shows kids playing outside in a sprinkler system and then drinking bottled water. The marketing advocates making a healthy choice, and implies through suggestive narration and on screen text that human bodies need large amounts of bottled water, daily.

Their website contains a challenge wherein the fourth component is to ‘Go Green’ and that’s like a cigarette company advocating users ‘Stay Healthy’. Readers please note: there is no green bottled water solution. Eco-costs include manufacturing, trucking, shelving, and marketing. At this point in history, the annual U.S. demand for plastic bottles requires enough oil to keep 100,000 cars on the road for a year, says Janet Larsen of the Earth Policy Institute. The War Against Water Bottles reports that only 35% of Toronto’s water bottles are actually recycled, and that 650 million empty vessels are still being thrown into Ontario landfills every year despite most municipalities having the ability to recycle the bottles. A significant amount end up in nature, where they’ll take over a thousand years to break down.

The irony is that the City of Toronto just spent your tax dollars last summer doing experiential marketing in places like Dundas Square conducting blind taste tests in a widespread effort to prove the quality of our drinking water and the infrastructure behind its distribution. All over Canada our municipal governments are trying to educate city dwellers that tap water is actually the healthiest choice, but their marketing budget is small… Nestle Pure Life has a huge advertising budget; they can well afford to make suggestive tv commercials and reverse all our hard work…  But I wonder if they can sleep at night?

Bottled water is big business
Estimates variously place worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, and the market is expanding at the startling annual rate of 7 percent.

Bottle water is almost pure profit; the biggest expense is marketing
Pepsi’s Aquafina or Coca-Cola’s Dasani bottled water are both sold in twenty ounce sizes and can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks, and at the same price. Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to five cents an ounce! Gasoline is cheaper. And both of these two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than one cent per gallon, and over 40% of all bottled water comes from tap water.

Nestle Pure Life is particularly evil. They’re actively greenwashing Canadians into believing bottled water is manageable. I found this image on their website in the Go Green category - look how many water bottles are in that blue box! Nestle wants you to think that’s acceptable. They deliberately show a mother and daughter together in this image, and the choice to use Asian actors is also part of a larger strategy. Studies show that second and even third generation Canadians are more likely to distrust public water delivery systems, and are therefore more likely to purchase bottled water. Nestle’s marketing focused on Latinos in the southern United States last summer for exactly the same reasons.

Stop the Corporatization of Water
Due to increasing urbanization, population, shifting climates, and industrial pollution, fresh water will soon become humanity’s most precious resource. In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies. Water is being called the “Blue Gold” of the 21st century and corporations are in a race to purchase groundwater and distribution rights.

It’s time to recognize the bottled water industry as a big component in the sinister drive to commodify a basic human right: access to safe and affordable water. Just say no to bottled water; just say no to Nestle.