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It all starts with story funnels…

With so many social media outlets – blogs, tweets, articles, forum posts – the process of connecting with your audience is an overwhelming one. SmoJoe takes these disparate channels, and turns them into a story funnel, putting your prospective customers right where you need them to be.

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Which lead to buckstops…

So, your customers are engaged. Catching some buzz. They’re on your site. Now it’s time for that delicate ballet that oh so gracefully takes a tire-kicker, and gets them to commit. Conversion. A buckstop is the point at which they pay you something. The currency? Information.

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Using keyword sandwiches

In one sense, getting in front of your customer’s eye-balls has never been easier. They’re looking. They’re searching. The trick is just being at the top of the heap when the hit that all mighty “Google Search” button. All it takes is a tasty keyword sandwich, and you’ll be on the menu.

Third Search and Social Rank Symposium is April 16th 2012

Post by on Mar 21, 2012

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On Monday April 16th 2012 there will be a third Search and Social Rank Symposium held at Archeo restaurant in the Distillery District of Toronto.  People like this event because it’s easy to come here and eat and drink and talk and learn a bunch of helpful new sites and new tools they can use in their own homemade marketing solutions. You can get $30 tickets for #SSRS3 here, or check Facebook for even more details. Search and Social Rank Symposium #3 will be both mental and physically nourishing. Attendants will get a tasty HOT meal from a buffet table with lots of selection, alongside a delicious alcoholic beverage of their choice. Most importantly, they get a nice cushy seat at a long wooden table surrounded by peers. Wireless internet access will be available, of course and indeed some folks open their laptops and take perfect notes, and some even… Read more »


Story Funnels To Buckstops at CRFA Trade Show in Toronto

Post by on Mar 05, 2012

Story Funnels to Buckstops for Bar and Restaurant Owners, looks the same as it would for mining companies or fashion magazines or fruit beverage vendors. Every online business in every niche can use this basic model to build relevance and increase traffic and conversion on their websites. Once again I got a chance to explain this diagram above to a room full of curious people. My only reward was the sound of their ballpoint pens scribbling notes on paper as I passionately imparted the wisdom of building incoming links as part of a prolonged SEO campaign, manifesting itself as warm and fuzzy social media stories. I filled the talk with web URLs they can visit and little tips and tricks they can use to improve their search engine rankings while telling their own informative and emotional stories. I crammed three hours of tactics into a forty minute talk in the… Read more »


Story Funnels, A Journey Between Platforms

Post by on Feb 22, 2012

A hundred years ago, the first filmmakers built their own movie cameras and recorded the world’s first motion picture images. These pioneers correctly predicted that their business would change the world. Making the ‘dancing shadows of light’ on the silver screen would soon be regarded as the highest art form, a powerful new communication tool called cinema. Storytellers from around the world experimented with length, dialogue and genres, and eventually a common narrative form appeared, and an entire new industry emerged to repackage man’s archetypal myths on silver nitrate. Human brains need emotional narratives the same way our human bodies need nutritious food. Today we live in another great age of change – web media is a powerful new tool that’s quickly transforming our lives and changing the way we do business, and the way we tell stories. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. All… Read more »


The Second Ever Search and Social Rank Symposium

Post by on Feb 06, 2012

On Jan 23rd 2012 myself and David Shephard from Jib.ca along with Deb Lewis of Toronto City Events and some other principals organized another better Search and Social Rank Symposium at Archeo in the Distillery District of Toronto. $25 ticket bought hot food, cold beer and fresh ideas (and not just sales pitches, although there were a few of those). We invited everyone we knew, and used the occasion to promote our brand of science. I debuted a rather sticky piece of content called Who to Follow on Twitter in The Distillery District which I had just posted on The Distillery District blog. This in my mind exemplifies SEM and SEO because sharing the document spreads my links. I went about a rather backward route to explain this to the audience and ended in kind of murky water with a question about canonical script. People came from miles a around… Read more »


January 23, Search and Social Rank Symposium 2012

Post by on Jan 15, 2012

On January 23rd at Archeo restaurant in The Distillery District, 55 Mill St, Toronto, there is to be held another Search and Social Rank Symposium. Visit here to GET TICKETS! On this evening Rob Campbell of Lenzr Corp, and David Shephard of Jib.ca will have gathered together some of the brightest thinkers and builders in Toronto’s internet technology community to share their thoughts and ideas on ‘social rank’ and how it affects search results. This is what we mean by ‘search and social rank’, how social media is now skewing search engine results, and vice versa. Guest speakers include Joey DeVilla (the Accordian Guy) from Shopify.com, Geoff Whitlock of Click Clip Deals. Craig Backman the president of McLellan Group , Benjamin Allison, myself and one more speaker, To Be Determined . You can see all their faces and read their biographies and subject lines on the Search and Social Rank… Read more »


Toronto Christmas Market Integrates Lenzr Photo Contest

Post by on Dec 03, 2011

One of the best parts of my job as Managing Director of Lenzr Corp is walking to work in the morning through the Distillery Historic District in Toronto. Located at 55 Mill Street, south east of Front and Parliament, this is one of the oldest parts of the city and was originally the busy lakefront up until the 1870s. I used to work as a grip in the film business, and I’d get called to shoot movies here in the 1990s, which was before it was restored to its present glory.  Today the compound is still filled with cinematic old buildings and beautiful cobblestone streets, but also accommodates a thriving community of artists and theatre workshops, cafes, galleries, stores and specialty markets. The area has been preserved as much as possible to accommodate museum quality historic artifacts and tell the life story of a large Canadian distillery, Gooderham and Worts… Read more »


Casie Stewart’s Boardwalk Empire Canadian Club Whisky Tasting Event at Abode, Nov 3rd 2011

Post by on Nov 04, 2011


Harthfest, AndroidTO Afterparty And Rappers With Raymi

Post by on Oct 27, 2011

The anything-goes, colorful world of HARTH really came to life at 99 Sudbury St in Toronto on Weds 26 October 2011.  Harthfest 2011 was a large colourful event attraction filled with enthusiastic phone app developers fresh from AndroidTO. Raymi the Minx told me about harthfest in a heartfelt mass email. She wrote, Hey idiots this is how you come to harthfest for FREE tomorrow – get your tickets for your flight on harth air, i’ll be checking you in at the door. Forward this to friends of yours you want to bring with. 8PM 99 Sudbury See ya! http://harthfest.com Harthfest was the AndroidTO After Party 2 ROOMS – 2 EXPERIENCES, both of them kinda chilly LIVE PERFORMANCES COLORFUL EXHIBITS were arranged about the room behind a boxing ring, The StickerYou Make-Your-Own-Sticker Photo Booth Roller Derby champions THE ROLLERGETTES in-person The art of Jimmy Chiale The Eightshit social media profile pic… Read more »


How To Get Votes on Lenzr, October Contest Updates

Post by on Oct 23, 2011

There is a new page on the Lenzr Blog entitled, How To Get Votes? that explains the art and science of soliciting votes and earning a Top Ten ranking (to be considered by Judges as winner for prizes and permanent honour with blog links to user profile page). Not content with simply posting my thoughts on the subject, and reflecting on years of experience, I have placed a thread in the Lenzr discussion forum. How To Get Votes? in the Lenzr Forum to ask the membership for their ideas. (The Promote section of the Lenzr Forum is incidentally one place where you can get votes), Referrals and ‘Vote Exchanges” are allowed, and encouraged when they are communicated and acted upon in a manner that perpetuates a germ of the sponsor’s story. Carolyn Wilman, Contest Queen and Lenzr Judge Carolyn Wilman has volunteered to be one of eight current Lenzr Judges!… Read more »


Canadian Harvest Illustrates Business Storytelling

Post by on Oct 04, 2011

It’s October already. September was a blur, but there was one day I did manage to get out to my parent’s farm in time to help harvest honey. We brought in one hundred and forty honey supers in one day. Here I am helping my brothers harvest their honey crop. The harvest is late this year, and beeing out in a ‘yard-of-bees’ on a chilly September morning isn’t much fun – the bees were miserable! But the mist covered scenery is breathtaking. I love this particular beeyard because its centered in an old apple orchard. Its a trip back in time to when local farmers planted fruit trees and made their own home cooked pies and preserves. Now here in a very old field, far from any major highway there are a half dozen hundred year old trees and their children, and their forgotten fruit lies all around the perimeter… Read more »