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 »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, business storytelling, Friends of Smojoe, online business, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Events, Social innovation, Social Media, Toronto, Web Marketing
Taged with: Alex Blom, Brad Gosse, City Events, Deb Lewis, Distillery District, search engine optimization, SEO, social relevance, Symposium, Toronto, Web Marketing, webmaster
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 »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, business storytelling, Smojoe Events, Social Media, Toronto, Web Marketing, workshop
Taged with: Buckstops, CRFA, presentation, Rob Campbell, SEO, Social Media, Story Funnels, tactics, tarde show, tips, Toronto
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 »
Posted in: article marketing, business storytelling, Future Technology, Interactive, Personal Blog, Photography, Social innovation, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing
Taged with: Battleship Potemkin, constructing meaning on the web, Rudolf Arnheim, Soviet Constructivism, storytelling
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 »
Posted in: business storytelling, Canada Blog Friends, Future Technology, Interactive, Lenzr, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Events, Social Media, Toronto, Web Marketing, workshop
Taged with: Accordian Guy, Benjamin Allison, City Events, Click Clip Deals, Craig Backman, David Shephard, Deb Lewis, estore, Geoff Whitlock, Google Algorithm, Jib, Joey deVilla, Lenzr, McLellan Group, Rob Campbell, search engine, Shopify, Toronto
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 »
Posted in: business storytelling, Canada Blog Friends, Interactive, Lenzr, online business, Social Media, Toronto, Web Marketing
Taged with: Carolyn Wilman, Contest Queen, Interactive, inventory management, Lenzr, limiting script, organic ingredients, photo contests, production planning, Social Media
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 »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, article marketing, business storytelling, Canada Blog Friends, Friends of Smojoe, Personal Blog, Smojoe Clients, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing
Taged with: brand story, business storyteller, design, Duo, marketing blog, Nora Camps, strategy
Saturday August 27 will see a great many blog friends and social media marketers gather behind CSI in the parking lot south of Honest Eds at Bloor St and Bathurst in Toronto. Word11 has been conceived as a 24hr blog media event, and hopes to be the first in a long series of annual 24hr events. It emerged from a minor kerfuffle between Cg6 and WordCamp, the details of which remain unclear. Some refunds were issued and are still the subject of excellent blog discussions and tweets. The event was preceded by something called Prefix which took us all by surprise. I ask you… Will WORD11 be the first occurrence of an annual social media festival? or will this be the only one? Whatever the case I’m sure we’ll make memories, and I reckon it will be rather historic day and night and day again. I intend to use this… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, business storytelling, Interactive, Lenzr, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Events, Social innovation, Social Media, Toronto, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing, workshop
Taged with: itinerary, party rentals, portable toilet rentals, property maitenance, Rob Campbell, social media marketing Toronto, speakers, tickets, Word11
MILESTONE This blog now has 100 posts. I just crossed the line. I’m reminded of a conversation at WordCamp09 where a guy said ‘You’re not a blogger until you have 100 posts.’ I started this portal in June 2008 to help sell my intangible goodness. This 100th blog post affords me the perfect opportunity to reflect back on my own progress as a freelance writer, blogger, web content producer and thinker / organizer that specializes in helping others find a marketing path in the age of earned media. I taught myself and learned empirically the Smojoe Code of compound link building and ‘how to make keyword sandwiches’. Readers of every description have watched and read along as Smojoe gave birth to Lenzr and everyone can see what that business is becoming… This blog is one of the best places to glean rare inside looks at traffic stats and issues. Will… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, business storytelling, Friends of Smojoe, Lenzr, Personal Blog, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Clients, Smojoe Events, Social innovation, Web Marketing
Taged with: A Counting Exercise, Bell Globe Media, Deb Lewis, Greenwashing, Jadac, LifeCapture Interactive, Nestle Pure Life, Peter Miskimmin
Here’s a long overdue update on the continued success of Lenzr.com from me, Rob Campbell the Prime Innovator sharing his insights into the hopes and dreams of this start-up which was ranked at #365 in the Techvibes May 2011 Toronto Start-Ups List, and now in the June 2011 Techvibes Canada Start-Ups list Lenzr is ranked #303, up 62 points, (and ahead of BNOTIONS). The websites listed there on TechVibes are ranked by volume of traffic I imagine? and if that’s the case our enterprise should keep skyrocketing up the charts as our model improves and we host more and more interactive challenges. Lenzr is a serial photo contest website that aims to be the World’s number one choice for providing custom photo contest solutions. It’s a delivery system designed to make user generated photo challenges easy to create and implement on sponsor business websites. The storytelling can occur in the… Read more »
Posted in: business storytelling, Lenzr, Toronto, Web Marketing
Taged with: BNOTIONS, business storytelling, IT staff Toronto, Lenzr, Ottawa roofing, start-ups in Toronto, sunrooms, Techvibes, Toronto accountants
As an interactive story engineer, I’m always interested in learning new ways to communicate business messages in digital media; I like to see companies doing exceptional things that ‘hook me’ and make me want to know more, and thereby bring attention to their products and services through story. There are many examples of how the magic of a good story has moved consumers, most famously, Ted Williams, the homeless man-with-a-golden-voice in Atlanta Georgia, the Old Spice guy, and Susan Boyle surprising Simon Cowell and everyone in Britain’s Got Talent. Susan didn’t win the competition, but her first moments on stage were so special that her fame will forever eclipse the names of the winners. She went on to sell millions of recordings and is living proof of the power of story. Business management consulting uses visual storytelling to communicate complex ideas. Each Lenzr Photo Contest is a Ready Made Story… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, business storytelling, Interactive, Lenzr, online business, Photography, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Events, Social innovation, Social Media, Toronto, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing, Web Resource, workshop
Taged with: business storytelling, Click Clip Deals, free coupons, management consulting, printable coupons, social media marketing, Twitter and Facebook, video media