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
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
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
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 $TYL$”
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
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
I’ve been real busy laying down the bricks and mortar part of Smojoe’s unique social media marketing business – I’ve set up shop inside another, larger and more established web marketing company located in building 58 of the historic distillery complex south of Eastern Ave and Parliament. Last month I bought two new computers for a new office space inside Jib.ca. I hired two new staff members, and have launched eight photo contests on Lenzr.com in less than sixty days. Smojoe recently merged minds with Jib.ca to offer a much wider spectrum of web marketing services. Now we have the capacity for more advanced strategy and execution. The planning is the fun part for me. I love dreaming up the story funnels that are relevance volcanoes from which the multimedia lava rock of photos, videos and hot script will spew forth as memes that compel social interaction. This is the… Read more »
Posted in: Friends of Smojoe, Lenzr, Personal Blog, Social innovation, Social Media, Web Marketing
Taged with: Age of Earned Media, business to business, buzz marketing, David Shephard, Deb Lewis, Innate Media Group, Jib, Lenzr, Will Webb
Lenzr is a social media marketing masterpiece that’s tragically flawed, and that’s what makes it so interesting. The serial photo contest website is basic and clunky, and the rules and voting mechanisms are easily bent by human avarice, but at the end of each session, it works. With very few exceptions, every business that sponsors an imaginative photo contest on Lenzr enjoys an inexpensive boost in their business URL’s search engine findability. The last session received over 4000 visitors, over half of them unique. The average visitor reviews seven pages and spends four minutes on the website. On July 1st 2010 the May June Lenzr photo contests came to an extraordinarily dramatic conclusion, resulting in scandal. In the Portable Luxury photo contest, the winning picture was removed by admin (because of ‘voting irregularities’) a mere 15 minutes before the contest was scheduled to end. Debbie Watson felt like she had… Read more »
Posted in: article marketing, corporate social responsibility, Interactive, Lenzr, Search Engine Marketing, Social innovation, Toronto, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing
Taged with: aerial photography, Bill Watson, Debbie watson, Lenzr, Mommakoala, photo contest, portable toilet rentals, Rockton Worlds Fair, Ve3bnw