Once again in 2013, Canada’s top professional hair school, AVEDA Institute challenges young people to step up and prove they were born to style on home video. They did this last year too, and it was very well received; I went to the showdown in Toronto. Making a User Generated Media UGM challenge around hair school is a great way to share the creativity and sell the dream of being a professional stylist and this is a smart social media engagement from many different angles. Here’s Winnipeg’s 2012 Winner, Robyn Thompson with a cheque symbolizing her full ride scholarship awarded last year. The Aveda Institute blogger did a good job just recently summarizing her last year in Catching Up With Winnipeg’s #BornToStyle 2012 Winner, Robyn Thompson. Are you Born to Style? Prove it. 2013 Born to Style Hair School Scholarship Contest is now accepting submissions from Canada’s next top hair… Read more »
Posted in: business storytelling, online business, Photography, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Clients, Social innovation, Social Media, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing
Taged with: Aveda Canada, best hair styles, Devin, hair stylists, Jen McNeely, judge, She Does The City, training, win your tuition
Article marketing has really changed since I first started writing on the web in 2006. Back then we used to submit content to article replication websites which, although they still exist today, I wouldn’t bother using any of them now. They are yesterday’s news. Look here at my old author profiles! http://www.ignitepoint.com/library/profile.cfm?writerid=33502 (used to be IdeaMarketers) http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Rob_Campbell I also used to employ Amazines.com, FreePressReleases.com, HelloArticles, FastPitch… I’m trying to remember more. But all this is just garbage now. I hope you are not using these sites?! Myself, I wouldn’t waste precious original content by publishing it in these mud puddles… nor any site that has the word ‘article’ as prefix or suffix i.e. ArticleSpinner or GoArticles or HelloArticles etc As you can see, I no longer upload content to those sites. They are bastions of ‘useless’ text that nobody reads except robots. No actual humans navigate to an article… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, article marketing, business storytelling, online business, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing
Taged with: ad agencies, Amazines, article marketing, Digital Journal, ezinearticles, Google analytics, Knoji, PR firms, SEO, Triond, Yahoo Contributor
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
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
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
Lenzr is a serial photo contest website that lets business sponsor art. We started the website in August 2009, and have hosted over forty contests in two years. The average price of a photo contest is about five thousand dollars, with prizes and tax included. The companies that sponsor the photo contests get some buzz marketing, and notice some rise in traffic, but more importantly they get a shot-in-the-arm of social relevance that search engines can’t ignore. A photo contest is a catalyst to growing social capital. On February 1st 2011 nine different matches launched on Lenzr, with all manner of interesting and unusual theme challenges. For the first two days there were no photos entered into any of the categories… it was unnerving. But as of March 26th 2011, there were over 300 photos entered in all nine different challenges that compose the latest Lenzr offerings. In the ten… Read more »
Posted in: Analytics Software, Interactive, Lenzr, online business, Photography, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing, Web Resource
Taged with: creating social relevance, evolution of enterprise, Judges, Lenzr, photo contest, Web Marketing, winners
JWT stands for J. Walter Thompson and they bill themselves as the world’s most famous communications agency. It’s probably true, but I had never heard of them before Laurie Dillon Shaulk accepted a position there last fall. She invited me to attend #JWTslam last night, Feb 9th 2011. The swank event was held in the historic St. Paul’s Church venue at Bloor St E. This is the big leagues, home of the Big Ideas. JWT Canada’s Retail Slam – Showcasing the Major 2011 Trends Shaping Retail was set in the heart of social media week in Toronto or #smwTO on Twitter. And so I’ve been out every night because I feel obliged to attend these events despite the fact that I loath the cliché that social media is becoming, (has become) and I resent the dominance of Facebook and Twitter and the inevitability of the garden web becoming the most… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, Friends of Smojoe, Future Technology, Interactive, online business, Social innovation, Social Media, Toronto, Web Marketing
Taged with: Ann Mack, Bee Media, Benjamin De Castro, Crucial Interactive, Davi Bosch, David Peres, F-Commerce, Guy Gal, Horizon Studios, Janice Diner, JWT, Laurie Dillon-Schalk, Mark Campbell, Peter Bozinovski, QR codes, thebizmedia, VMG Cinematics
There was a heavy snowfall outside Duggan’s Brewery and all over downtown Toronto on Jan 6th, 2011. Unfortunately the inclement weather negatively affected attendance at the Greater Toronto Business Network Meet-Up being held inside the brew pub. All the same, a dozen or more knowledge hungry, independent thinkers joined in conversation downstairs in ‘The Cellar’ opposite the steamy Plexiglas walls of the bottling room which accommodates a giant beer vat in this special event facility. Food and drink was served up alongside hot ideas. Hosted by Mark Bauche of RBC Dominion Securities, the group was composed of medium sized business owners and digital marketing executives. Special thanks to Michael E V the manager on shift at Duggans Brewery that night; he is excellent at his job. Inside the pub, starting at seven pm downstairs, I, Rob Campbell CEO of Smojoe delivered a forty minute seminar on how we use social… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, Friends of Smojoe, online business, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Events, Social Media
Taged with: David MacLean, Design Clinic, Duggans Brewery, Guy Matorin, Living in the GTA, Marc Bauche, Meet-Up, Michael Cloke, Randolph Mabaquiao, The Cellar, Volkmar Volzke, Wolf21
Once again City Events steps up and builds a better mousetrap – a networking event that’s also a competition! Deb Lewis consistently designs and presents world class events that are extraordinary. And she’s even better when she teams up with other events industry veterans. Jeffrey Musson is President of three Information Technology (IT) companies, including a wireless product “start up” and an accomplished entrepreneur with 10 years experience in achieving corporate goals through operational excellence and solid financial performance. . Jeff is well known for his ability to effect change through simplifying complex challenges and by motivating staff, along with peers, to meet desired business outcomes. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated success in directing business development with progressive responsibilities, strategic business planning, marketing and contract negotiations with affiliated partners. Jeff received his LL.M. in ADR, at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, in 2007, but he was friends with… Read more »
Posted in: Friends of Smojoe, Future Technology, Mobile software, online business, Personal Blog, Smojoe Events, Social Media, Toronto
Taged with: Adam Ben-Aron, Adil Dhalla, Alex Mackay, City Events, Deb Lewis, Epixome, Gary Puppa, Jeff Musson, My City Lives, Pushlife, Ray Reddy, Social Media, social technology, Vayyoo Connect
Business people with bottom lines are tired of web marketing mantras, brand-building baloney, and self congratulatory praise for a fledgling industry by its most unqualified evangelists. Smojoe’s message to new clients is clean and simple; we use innovative social media marketing to improve search engine rankings for the keywords most commonly associated with your goods or services. Smojoe writes intelligent articles, blogs and discussion forum posts that get added to Facebook and tweeted to other humans who find compelling story hooks that lead to informative text. Its precisely because of its high usability among humans that my content gets promoted by search engine robots. On the internet today, there’s a return to family honour that lets small business compete with big brands. In community blog websites, mom bloggers write better copy than ad firms not due to spelling but because their stories and conversations are real. Are you for real?… Read more »
Posted in: article marketing, online business, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Toronto, Web Marketing
Taged with: being first in search engines, freelance web consultant, honeybee propolis, social media marketing, social relevance producer, web guru in Toronto
