Post by Robert Campbell on Mar 06, 2013 On Saturday Feb 23rd 2013 I was at Podcamp Toronto. The first familiar face that greeted me as I walked in the door at 9:30am was Karim Kanji co-founder of Third Ocean. “Rob Campbell” Karim announced as he shook my hand. “You showed up early, and you wore a suit!” he said, suddenly suspicious of me. Karim was helping organize Podcamp Toronto 2013 because, like a moth to a flame, he must love the excitement of being an inside man at these things. Taking it all in over two days you can sort the facts out later – identifying new and old trends and most exciting, using new information to conceive new possibilities. Yes I felt a little overdressed right at that moment, but you know, as the day went on I came to believe again that you can’t dress up too… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, Friends of Smojoe, Personal Blog, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Clients, Smojoe Events, Web Marketing
Taged with: #PCTO2013, Karim Kanji, Laurie Dillon-Schalk, marketing, Podcamp Toronto, Rob Campbell, search engine optimization, SEO, Smojoe
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
Lenzr is back. Its up and working well to provide the 2012 Toronto Christmas Market with everything it needs to run a custom photo contest and make a page full of pictures for the purpose of marketing their holiday event and website. This is a digital marketing attraction, and Lenzr is working as a catalyst to spread sponsors’ messages. Advanced SEO link building practices make the marketing win win for sponsors. This is why we created this custom photo contest website in the first place. In the next few days I will be working through my content distribution route and leaving story bytes describing this contest attraction. Winner will receive a $250.00 cash prize, 2nd place will receive a $250.00 Distillery Restaurant gift certificate 3rd place will receive a $150.00 Distillery Restaurant gift certificate. Upload original photos now and until December 25th Voting begins December 15th and ends midnight Dec… Read more »
Posted in: business storytelling, Interactive, Lenzr, Photography, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Clients, Toronto, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing
Taged with: Distillery District, Lenzr, photo contest, Toronto Christmas Market, Toronto.com
Ice Cross Downhill is a new sport that has been live-branded by the Red Bull energy drink beverage company as Red Bull Crashed Ice. The sport is simple; its a speedy race downhill on skates between four heavily padded participants, the best time wins. So Crashed Ice is a combination speed skating meets alpine skiing with a hint of ice hockey, and always in an urban environment. The 2013 Red Bull Crashed Ice season starts in Niagara Falls this year, just down the road from the waterfalls. The best view of the whole affair will undoubtedly be from atop the Skylon Tower which is very close to the STARTING line atop Clifton Hill. And inside the Red Bull Fan Zone should be thrilling – I will update you with pictures and text from that event next week. Read more about Crashed Ice on Skylon’s Niagara Falls blog. Below is the… Read more »
Posted in: business storytelling, Interactive, Personal Blog, Smojoe Clients, Video, Web Marketing
Taged with: Clifton Hill, Crashed Ice, fans, Kyle Croxall, Niagara Falls, Red Bull, Scott Croxall, Skylon Tower, Web Marketing
I visited the 2012 Zoomershow on Saturday Oct 27th with an open mind. I’m close pals with some exhibitors and so was emailed some free tickets which I used to get myself and a friend in the door at the Direct Energy Bldg. On that autumn morning most of Toronto stayed home; the weather was awful. Oct 27th was just two days before Hurricane Sandy blasted the city and the preceding wind and rain made driving difficult and waiting in line to pay for parking at Exhibition Place was particularity painful. But once inside the venue, people were surrounded by warmth, luxury and a best-of-the-best vision of their possible futures. There were doctors, lawyers and dentists, cosmetic surgeons, investment bankers, travel agents and pet food manufactures all giving away stuff in their booths. I wrote about visiting the 2012 Zoomershow on Travelblogs and I published a similar account on Socyberty… Read more »
Posted in: article marketing, Canada Blog Friends, Fashion Blog, Friends of Smojoe, Future Technology, Smojoe Clients, Web Marketing
Taged with: ARTA Gallery, Distillery District, Look Good Do Good Feel Good, Megha Sandhu, Miss Teen Canada, Steve Levinson, US election, Web Marketing, Zoomers magazine, Zoomershow
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 »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, Friends of Smojoe, Future Technology, Interactive, Queen West Girl, Smojoe Clients, Smojoe Events, Social Media, Toronto, Web Marketing, workshop
Taged with: Alex Blom, Archeo, Benjamin Allison, Craig Backman, David Shephard, Geoff Whitlock, Joey deVilla, Search and Social Rank, Symposium
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
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
Inside the 2011 Search for Miss Teen Canada World Saturday July 9th was a very special Registration Day for at least seventy five participants in the 2011 Search for Miss Teen Canada – World, as one by one teen girls age 14-18 from all across Canada checked their luggage into the sponsor hotel in downtown Toronto to start their week long adventure. One at a time they met each other in the lobby and corridors the massive historic hotel complex at the base of the city. In the antechamber of one of the enormous ballrooms, they found Michelle Weswaldi and lined up there to present her with their head shots, and CDs filled with pictures, videos and audio that they recorded at home in which they demonstrate their acting, singing and special skills for the upcoming talent show. After a brief question and answer with the Pageant Director they went… Read more »
Posted in: Friends of Smojoe, Interactive, Smojoe Clients, Social innovation, Toronto, User Submitted Content, Video, workshop
Taged with: 2011 Search, ballroom, banquet dinner, blog network, bloggers, doentown Toronto hotel, friends, July 15th Talent Show, Michelle Weswaldi, Miss Teen Canada World, particpants, Registration Day, Video, volunteers
Somebody put me on the list and I got invited to the YYZ LIVING magazine second issue launch party at Ultra Supper Club on Queen St West on Thursday 16 June 2011 evening 8pm. It wasn’t hard to get invited to this event, everyone was there. The evening started at 8pm upstairs on the white paint of the Ultra patio which had just come into shade cast by taller brick buildings west on Queen St. The food was tasty. The free drink was orange juice and champagne w strawberry The two bartenders on the south bar were overworked from the start. It was a nice night that actually got warmer when the sun went down. It was downright steamy later. This highly anticipated party did indeed bring out some interesting people from the world of fashion art and media, and this really was an almost perfect evening for an outdoor… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, Canada Blog Friends, Fashion Blog, Friends of Smojoe, Personal Blog, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Clients, Social innovation, Toronto, Video
Taged with: bartenders, Lisa Charleyboy, Mario Miotti, patio, rooftop, The wine Ladies, Toronto, Ultra Supper Club, YYZ Magazine, “FREE”, “PB $TYL$”
