SMOjoe.com

Sunday Feb 28th, minutes ago Canada won the gold medal in Men’s Ice Hockey and my Twitter feed erupted with mostly one word tweets. Truly amazing - no other event could so singularly dominate that space except perhaps an alien invasion. I follow two hundred souls @Roberrific and fifty more and mostly different folks @Lenzr but it would seem that everyone who matters in my Twitterverse is 100%  Canadian.

Speaking of Lenzr, tonight, the international ice hockey event was just the opening act. Tonight all three photo contests will end at midnight! Who will win  the Locaboire wine tour? The automated scoring system leaves no doubts about the prize winners.  I’m very curious to see who will win the Best Gourmet Food photo contest because that person will share a Locaboire escapade through eastern Ontario with The Wine Ladies (and myself) in the middle of March.

Last week Smojoe had some fun at Fastlane at Dermatologica watching the ladies go crazy over cosmetics and creams, drinking protein shakes and wiped their fingers every ten minutes with all natural hand sanitizers.

There was a real push to get men into the chairs, and all the clinicians had this strange and powerful obsession to put product on boys. As soon as I entered the venue I was ushered (past the bar and) into the white room.  Oh their eyes lit up when they saw me.  My pasty white skin needs help, and they wanted at it… But the white walls and white tile floors scared me. Yes I fear the cruel knife. Lots of stainless steel in here told me this was also an operating room, despite the crowd of laughing people drinking cocktails and nibbling on fruit I wasn’t comfortable and instead held court in the reception area (beside the bar).

Earlier that same day,

Deb Weinstein mentored with Rob Campbell at Personal Brand Camp 2

Deb Weinstein, President of Strategic Objectives is a fascinating person, and someone I should probably study. Here she is lurking behind me at Personal Brand Camp 2 at The Church on Berkeley, Feb 23rd.  We had a few moments before the crush of eager Humber PR students came to gather our knowledge, packaged and sold as Question #16: What are simple but effective social media practises that I can adopt?

My answer was never really defined - there are so many possibilities, and its different for everyone. But Deb brought a flip chart and had ten sheets of wisdom to bequeath. And of course I learned a great deal from her presentation too, and benefited from hearing it three times in rapid succession. My favourite part was when she asked the students to define themselves, because I could never guess exactly what they were going to say… and they were always so different.

Anyway I was so terribly inspired by the whole affair, and the quality of the ‘experts’ and the genius of Michael Cayley and his Memetic Brand that I blogged about Smojoe at Personal Brand Camp 2 and recorded my experience and observations (mostly about Deb W) for posterity right on the Humber PR Ning website.

Elizabeth Verge of Brain Possibilities

Earlier this week I explored the dark areas in my own brain with Elizabeth Verge of Brain Possibilities. She has invested time and money into the practice of mapping the human brain and studying brain activity as recorded by electromagnetic energy which is captured and observed as brain waves with EEG amplifiers and computers. Elizabeth’s computers process the brain wave information and translate the brain waves into an optimized pattern in the form of sound.

Brainwave Optimization with RTB™ encourages some brain waves and discourages others so the brain will begin to function differently - it will create a balanced condition. Basically her patients accept that harmonizing their brain waves can balance them into optimized patterns.

Do you believe this is true? I do.

As far as we know all human brain activity functions through tiny cells called neurons which interact and connect with each other forming neural-networks. These grids are activated based on stimuli. When given new stimuli they might be trained to behave differently, or use different routes to create different networks. Elizabeth claims that her clients have recognized the benefits of her unique treatments after just three sessions, but she likes to schedule 30 sessions to make the benefits permanent.

Brainwave Optimization with RTB™ is a completely non-invasive, individually tailored process of balancing and harmonizing the brain. Elizabeth and her system work to balance brain activity from the lobes of one side of the brain to the other, and from the front of the brain to the back.  Harmony refers to the way energy patterns function together from low to high in the various regions of the brain. The sole objective of brainwave optimization is to establish balance and harmony in the brain.

Do you think I should continue to explore brain wave technology?

Build Social Capital with Smojoe
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Centre for Social Innovation
215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 120

On this evening, I, Rob Campbell the Smojoe will demonstrate exactly how to build ‘Story Funnels to Buckstops’ and together with audience members we’ll work through the little known principles of article replication, blog and discussion forum marketing as I show off the methodology my firm uses to put clients on the first page of search engines, diminish negative press, and increase our clients’ overall findability.

Keri the Canadian Explorer on Canada Blog Friends

Earlier this month I got a chance to meet and share stories with Keri the Canadian Explorer in the back of the Starbucks at Queen and John.  We talked about the dream job of creating web videos for a living and what it takes to succeed in that business. Without question, @KeriCDN is going to try.

It wasn’t long after that meeting I profiled Keri the Canadian Explorer on Canada Blog Friends and was halfway through writing the article when she emailed me to tell me the late breaking news - she has just been contracted by Canoe.ca and Sun Media to travel to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and attend opening ceremonies and all subsequent athletic events as an official member of the press.  Its a dream come true, and in fact this was exactly Keri’s dream.

Connie Behr on HGTV home renovation series House Poor.

While flipping through TV channels on Saturday January 16th, I spotted Connie Behr as a guest star on a new HGTV show called House Poor.  It was quite a surprise because eight years ago I was madly in love with her.  Indeed, she broke my heart.

This elf girl is really smart and funny and quick - the best word to describe her is nimble.  So of course she drove the episode, especially at the end when the reactions came and the couple had to pretend they were seeing the renovations for the first time.  Her facial expressions were magnificent.

The simple fact that the host labeled the couple ‘Connie and Sebastian’, and put her name first, tells me that she drove the show. She’s an actress on the verge of another big career boom, and oh the fella she married is slightly younger blond cameraman whose TV credits include Kenny vs Spenny.  He’s horribly attractive blond hair blue eyed guy, beard and all.  But he’s shy and diminutive, and I hope he’s not too boring for her.

When the show ended I scanned the credits for more stalker details,  but that’s really not possible on Global TV anymore. The names go by too fast and are too small to be comprehensible.  But rest assured, the jilted lover in me is satisfied.  I can reflect back without emotion on my journey knowing she is happily married with at least one child and a house that she paid $440K and after renovations some of which were subsidized by a television company, the downstairs basement apartment will carry half the mortgage making their payments $1200 a month. More like fourteen hundred I imagine as they’ll have to give a break on the basement apartment in Toronto’s condo rich rental marketplace.

The Toronto Blog Girls package a Value Proposition

Here are the five founding members of the Toronto Blog Girls and if you click through the link you’ll end up on a Tumblr page that collects their blog feeds. They all have uniquely different styles and content themes. Where some write a lot of text, others post more images than sentences.

Casie Stewart - Daily blogger, social butterfly and Digital Marketing Girl at Much MTV

Carly-Anne Fairlie - Agent and owner/founder of the Fairlie Agency

Carol Zara - Geeks Lover, Digitally Blonde show, voted Top 3 “Women of Geek Culture” by G4TV

Lisa Charleyboy - Pop culture with an indigenous twist

KeriCDN - Video blogger and Canada’s biggest fan.

Look for these writers at all the hottest parties, wearing the latest fashions, trying new beauty products, reviewing spas, shopping and attending live theatre throughout the city of Toronto this summer.

My Brother’s Bicycle Helmet Video Camera Contraption

Yesterday my Brother Ian used a helmet camera, which a small video camera strapped to a bicycle helmet that’s strapped to his head, to record a rather brisk bike ride through suburban Seattle. This was just a test ride, so he could record a video and post it on Youtube and then send the link to the company that provided the camera. There were some earlier bugs that this ride proves are now fixed. Ian writes that he had to use super-glue to mount the camera to the base, and then shim us the base to my helmet so it wouldn’t move. He notes that It was inputting a lot of annoying noise because the device was moving around as he rode his bike.

Tomorrow, Ian will be riding in the mountains and viewers will see some really interesting scenery on Ian Campbells YouTube Channel. I did embed the video below, but its too slow and bogs down all of Smojoe.

There’s something for everyone on Lenzr.com, as three new photo contests launch for the months of November and December 2009!

Medicinal Plants in Nature celebrates natural medicine and hopes to collect images of potent herbs and flowers growing wild in the great outdoors. The discipline of depicting plants and flowers accurately with respect to their form and colour is called botanical photography, and members are encouraged to pinpoint each plant’s medical applications. A successful botanical photographer is both a scientist and an artist. The discipline requires a detailed knowledge of plants and their habitats as well as a keen eye for making attractive pictures.

Sponsored by Ontario’s premier natural medicine clinic, the member that uploads the highest rated photo WINS six different Neal’s Yard Remedies which are formulated from botanical ingredients. The prize package includes Orange Flower Facial Wash, Rosewater Toner, Orange Flower Facial Oil, Yarrow & Comfrey Moisturizer, White Tea Eye Gel, Geranium & Orange Body Butter for a total retail value of $330.00* all prizes subject to change

Macro Photos of Life contest is specifically destined to amass a large display of small living things. Photographers are asked to use their camera’s macro lenses to capture the tiny facial expressions of animals and bugs.

ShrinkRay is a powerful tool built by an advanced mobile app developer to trans mutate business websites into effective mobile applications and web 2.0 widgets for small to mid sized enterprises. It’s a Device Management System (DMS) and an application toolkit that can be customized to suit any marketing agenda.

The friendly sponsor works with their clients to ensure the application delivers all necessary functionality.  ShrinkRay Mobile is quite possibly the best mobile platform available.

Prize is a free deluxe Locaboire Eastern Ontario Wine Tour Travel Package for two adults. The prize includes two meals and one night accommodation at a beautiful Brighton Ontario B&B. Contest ENDS: Jan 1st 2010

Ontario Tourist Attractions 2 photo contest on Lenzr.com will once again show off our province’s most interesting travel destinations. The contest theme fits with Kanetix.ca, a forward thinking company that specializes in delivering the lowest car insurance quotes, and so the challenge is even more relevant when people submit family road trip pictures. Are these types of vacations becoming a thing of the past? or are they even more relevant now in a recession? Eco tours are also becoming more popular - I think people who pick up liter and trash along the beaches and while hiking in the woods should be commended. If everyone were like them then the world would be a better place and the great outdoors would be even more great.

The winner is the member that uploads the top rated image January 1st 2010 as determined by the quantity of registered votes + popular votes / total number of votes.

Are you paying too much for your mortgage or your insurance policies? Can Kanetix help you to find a cheaper rate? As Canada’s leader in online insurance and mortgage price comparisons, Kanetix.ca can quickly provide you with competing quotes from top rated companies. Pick the company with the best quote and arrange for coverage online. Compare mortgage rates, home/property insurance, motorcycle insurance, life insurance, business insurance, travel insurance, health insurance, and more…

David Himel is one of North America’s foremost experts on Vintage Leather Jackets. He’ll tell you that he’s the world’s top expert, and this might be true; his blogspot The Art of Vintage Leather Jackets is currently ranked first on Google for that popular keyword, and receives over 500 visits a day . The blog is great; it’s a campy photo journal full of awesome unique information. It’s cute and catchy, but it doesn’t convert.

David Himel is an expert in an age when the search for experts drives the internet.  He writes bi-weekly posts detailing the construction of replica jackets, including the leather source and treatment, and the name and manufacturers’ address and model numbers of period zippers and buttons. Some of his replicas are sold to celebrities, and his blog highlights the jackets worn in movies. Some costume designers have approached him before their movie begins shooting to consult and secure perfect replicas for historical films (Amelia) and all this adds to his street credentials.

How does David Himel make money from his blogspot?

Right now he doesn’t. One piece of the cash machine is missing - David doesn’t have a buckstop.

David’s blog is under monetized. The Golden Age of Ebay is over and he counts himself among the millions of people who can no longer make a living using the auction sales website. But he continues to maintain an eBay store with about 65 items for sale and a leather repair and assembly shop and storage facility in downtown Toronto, with a large inventory of about 1500 coats.

Look at the Google pay-per-click rate / traffic stats for this popular keyword.  Sixty thousand people went online looking for vintage leather jackets last month, and David’s blogspot is probably the first place they picked to visit.  To summarize, David’s fledgling ebusiness has two out of three components necessary for success – he has merchandise and he has handcrafted excellent social capital that’s now yielding lots of traffic.  But he lacks an effective buckstop, which is what Smojoe calls the mechanism by which readers become buyers.  The only way a visitor can become a customer here is to click a relatively small button in the top corner of the blog sidebar and then travel to eBay, which is not effective, and so his coats remain on the shelf.

What would Smojoe recommend?

On Thursday last week David Himel asked Smojoe a simple question, “how can I best turn this popular blogspot into an ecommerce business?’

I pondered the dilemma… He needs an e-store, but the Blogger software he uses doesn’t give much of an option for that, and the widgets that do exist will cost a % of his revenue.  The problem is that his fun and easy-to-use blogspot is owned by Blogger (which is owned by Google) and so he’s spent almost four years fixing up a piece of online property that he doesn’t own. Now it would be a crying shame to walk away and close this portal forever in favour of another site, even if the replacement comes custom built with a proper payment portal. It might be that Dave will never get back on top of the search rankings again with anything but this blogspot… So what’s the solution?

Smojoe advocates a using David’s campy but popular blog to drive a new e-store catalog website with a small network of affiliate bloggers helping out.

Indeed, what Mr. Himel must do is actually very simple. He should build another website that is a slick e-store with a shopping cart and a proper payment gateway. Smojoe recommends the site open up right into a catalog of colourful vintage leather jackets and merchandise in which every item on every page is a separate URL – that way stories can reference and anchor right to individual pieces that are for sale.

David should keep blogging same as before, but truncate material on the old site, and leave links to MORE on the new site. Reduce frequency of posts to one a month on old blog, and post like a bandit on the new site. The new catalog site should have all new original articles, and lots of period photos and keyword rich content. Smojoe recommends David re purpose some of the articles on the old blogspot and bundle together themes into ebooks with long keyword rich excerpts that can be published again on the new site (where content can be downloaded and sold as an ebook).

David should create affiliate marketing badges and place the biggest and best example in the sidebar of his blogspot. The old blogger blog should be edited full of new text links too – stories and photo descriptions should link deep into the new e-store.  Over time the new catalog website will benefit from the links and attention of the blogspot and it too will rise in prominence.

In addition to this primary feed, the new catalog website can attract other affiliates and pay them a percentage of each sale. I know that 69 Vintage on Queen St here in Toronto now has a blog, and popular individuals like Lisa Charleyboy Urban Native Girl Stuff are always looking for cool fashion to represent. Depending on the split, I’m sure other artists and fashion bloggers would also come on board as affiliates. These people would come in handy to help promote David’s future fashion shows and events.

One thing is certain, David Himel and his blogspot have certainly become a very interesting Smojoe case study and pondering his predicament helps answer the question, how do experts convert social capital into cash? Keep your eye on this guy and his The Art of Vintage Leather Jackets blogspot and let’s see if he takes my free advice.

Everything Smojoe knows about how to market an event in Toronto will be revealed on Weds Oct 14th, 2009 starting at 6:00pm - 8:30pm inside the Spoke Club 600 King St W, Toronto.  Get tickets in advance here they’re cheaper.
https://secure.gettickets.ca/?event=15422

Deb Lewis has certainly outdone herself with this picture she has created to help promote the upcoming How to Market an Event in Toronto seminar at the Spoke Club. This is why Deb Lewis of City Events is one of the best event marketers in the city. Her Photoshop creation is strangely compelling and the bees represent buzz, but they might also represent the honey that I’ll be dispensing to reward audience participation.

Can Social Media Work for Event Marketers?

Social media is defined as using online networks to connect and share stories and information with friends. But its my opinion that effective social media marketing campaigns need time to generate interest before they can affect strangers outside the storyteller’s own sphere of influence.

Most marketers are disappointed with their results after they attempt to use online tools like Facebook and Twitter to sell tickets and ‘put bums in seats’ at actual live events. Nine times out of ten it just doesn’t work, and if you are starting from scratch then building short term solutions is doomed to failure.

Because online media lasts forever, good stories should be used to engineer audiences in long term scenarios.

Smojoe has lots of experience event marketing weird things like ballet movies for Empire Theatres, plays at Shaw Festival and comedy at Second City.  My moment of epiphany came while marketing the Miss Teen Canada-World pageant event this summer. That’s when I went on a quest to find and index all manner of online services that are built to capture event listings. That’s what I’ll be talking about on Weds. There are so many ways to shout out so many different types of messages, but unless you’re actually having conversations with your audience, it isn’t really true social media. Twitter followers and Facebook friends have real value to event marketers, but only if they are niche targeted and qualified to appreciate the messages.

Online Marketing is different than Social Media Marketing

When people ask to use my tools to help sell paid attendance to events, I generally caution that social media shouldn’t be used like that, and any money spent creating perishable stories will be wasted. Rather, I would digitally market their event using Craigslist and Kijiji.com and Eventful etc more on this Oct 14th * You can build widgets on Eventful.com that can be posted on your friends’ homepages.

How to use Social Media Marketing to Build Ready Audiences?

I would attend and document the artist’s event and make videos, take photos and write stories. Then I’d comb the media for the very best story hook. I’d certainly write about any celebrities that attended, detail the fight that happened outside, the forgery that was discovered, the food… whatever I’d combine the media in wonderful stories split across classic Smojoe story funnels that spiral down to the artist’s gallery and blog. I’d hope these destinations have proper conversion tools necessary to sell paintings or register subscribers so the artist’s work is better known and easier to market next time they host a live event.

For three years, Rob Campbell the prime innovator at Smojoe has been experimenting with conversational marketing using the social web to affect Google search results for strategic keyword targets.

And now I, Rob Campbell am the first Smojoe Centurion, because I can deliver one hundred stories with links.

Smojoe Social Media Manual, version #3 outlines exactly how social marketers should engineering multi platform brand stories, and how they should measure results. It’s available right here for $19.00 CAN and is thirty seven pages of detailed information about how to market websites.

Social Media Marketing is without a doubt the fastest growing new sector of advertising in the world.

Each Smojoe Centurion is a one man marketing army and a respected contributor and member of one hundred different niche communities, and probably has one of the most findable avatars on the web.  Grounded in their own expertise they are comfortable with, and indeed profit from being, internet celebrities.

Having so many different passions means a social marketer can influence different types of people by creating primary, secondary and tertiary media in different niches.

Using articles, blogs and discussion forums these Jedi Warriors are the best idea sneezers in the business, and their participation in any campaign yields valuable social capital for the client website.

Lenzr has been a terrific catalyst for trying new things, and writing final reports every sixty days necessitates regular patrols of the landscape.

The simple lessons that I’ve learned, and the hundred places where I can go talk about my clients with links and photos have made me a Smojoe Centurion.

Story Funnels To Buck Stops

The best online storytellers leave different bits of the same brand adventure in articles, blogs and discussion forums all over the web.  The mechanism of this successful   marketing ideology can be crystallized in one simple observation; they build story funnels to buck stops.

The search for experts drives the internet, but the search for stories rules the social web.  Building story funnels to buck stops means hand crafting a dozen different hooks (things that people might find interesting) before publishing anything, and then using the bits of content to funnel readers toward the client’s website or primary conversion page.

The client website must have ‘conversion tools’ by which readers can be converted into customers. This is a magical place, and the subject of a different blog post. Right now we’re just building the funnels.

How to plant multiple platform brand stories on the social web

There is a method to Smojoe madness, a ritual exists wherein certain elements are planted first to build and compound with other elements.  For example, pictures are posted on Flickr and Photobucket first thing so they can be embedded later in blogs and niche discussion forums.  Little bits of text with links are prepared and assembled opposite links to photos on a HOT SCRIPT document.

Smojoe plants the content top down. After research and preparation, I start writing the most compelling stories as exclusive articles (or photo essays, factoidz, or videos) and then cycle down through four types of less exclusive user submitted content digesting ideas and leaving links back to clients. Second stage is blogging, third stage is discussion forums and it all ends with someone micro blogging and bookmarking the best content that was created at the end of each cycle.

The interesting thing is that readers usually encounter these story cycles from the back end first; they hit a blurb on Twitter, and then come to a discussion forum where they find a link to a blog post with a Flickr photo gallery widget in the sidebar. The Flickr images have descriptive text with links to an article in a popular niche eZine which links to a product page in the client’s e-store, the buck stop.

Story Funnels to Buck Stops is particularly effective when marketers can compel readers to follow their ideas across four different social media platforms to brand their minds forever. However, at the end of the day, the most measurable result is the increase in Google search traffic over the target keywords.  This is because the Smojoe Centurion who started all the conversations was careful to target just one or two keywords in the link text back to the client. The increase in 3rd party links buried in rich media conversations positively affects the Google PageRank algorythme and the target site will appear higher in SERPS for that keyword  after the next update.

There are three photo contests on Lenzr this summer, with three different prizes.

Its now the middle of July and Lenzr.com is off to a great start. All three of contests are up and running and offer great prizes. The whole competition will end midnight 31 August 2009, but for me and everyone watching the spectacle, the real rewards come when Google updates the PageRank value Lenzr.com and then the client websites.

So far in the very first Lenzr contest period, the debut summer competition, the best prize for photographers to win is without question the reward that has been posted in  Summer in Toronto. Here the lucky winner gets their choice of smart phone* and that prize is compelling because people want to know what phone will the winner chose? Which phone would you choose?

Summer in Toronto - This web challenge is the place to show us what the word ’summer’ means to you. Snap and submit good pictures and you could win a smart phone.  Get shots of football players and urban fisherman and flaming cocktails on the patio of a sweaty flamingo bar. Take pictures of kids and dogs at the beach, or damming up a creek, or riding their bikes in the streets. Whatever makes you think of these warm summer months when the weather outside is cold and miserable summer. The reward is compelling.

The winner will choose a brand new state-of-the-art smart phone, courtesy of the best cell phone deals website in Canada, and be prepared to tell everyone WHY they have selected this model, when they could have any brand or device available on the market.

Emergency in Toronto - Toronto Firemen and Health Care Workers and Police are always trying to save time and to be the most conscious of wasted seconds and lost minutes. They are trying to save lives. This web challenge asks the photographers living in the city to look to the firetrucks and get a shot of them as they pass. Take a minute to record a moment of their lives, and be sure and report where and when you snapped the shot.

The Esquire Verve 2020 men’s watch with stainless steel band and butterfly clasp is a fine reward. This waterproof timepiece is very stylish with four diamonds. The prize is to be awarded by a time management speaker named Steven Prentice who has become rather famous for innovating social media solutions in busy offices. He also lectures on how technology can save time.

Best Toronto Skyline challenge asks photographers to submit wide angle images of the Toronto skyline. Please show us our great city dominating the horizon, and try to get unusual angles from rare perspectives. This contest is sponsored by the photo contest itself, and the winner receives a Pentax Optio P70 compact camera. The web challenge is designed to celebrate our Megacity’s urban sprawl.

On Lenzr.com, the contests change every two months. These prizes are all relatively easy to win, especially if you have good photographs that inspire other people’s appreciation and support.

Paradigm Events in Muskoka is proud to present Muskoka Connects, a series of educational and networking events bringing people and businesses together in the Muskoka region.

Michelle Planche, CMP and president of Paradigm Events Inc has contacted me and tempted me north to share my wisdom with strangers for greater glory, one free drink, a hearty meal and a hotel room.  It promises to be quite an adventure, and I agreed to appear  because I’ll do just about anything to escape the city in the summertime, even for a day.

Leveraging the Marketing Power of the Internet
Determine your Accountability, Marketability and Accessibility Online, and how to use Search Engine Marketing Software.

Smojoe is set to discuss the fundamentals of business storytelling, and how to leave fragments of information on four different platforms to build brand experience through discovery.

Thursday, July 16th
5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Regatta Muskoka Wharf
1110 Bay Street
Gravenhurst, Ontario
Sagamo Room

Tickets are only $35.00

Also presenting will be Vanessa Williams who is a renown marketing specialist at Yahoo Search Marketing, and right after her is my old Canada Blog Friends subject, Bill Anderson of Muskoka Outdoors.

If this looks like something you’d like to attend, and or if you’re planning a trip to Gravenhurst anyway,  you can register online TODAY at www.eventsinmuskoka.com or call telephone number 1 877 760 0360

That we live in the ‘age of earned media’ is not my idea, but something I heard once and have come to understand as the truth.  Today, like never before, business has to earn impressions by being newsworthy and relevant. Sticking to a subject and becoming an expert is how individuals can dominate search engine result pages (SERPs) ahead of corporations, and marketing new products and ideas online now requires originality, and good old fashioned storytelling.

The search for experts drives the internet, and trustworthy data seems to be the most important currency of the web.  When I check my traffic stats I can see that 99% of my readers find me in Google search, because of the things I’ve written and the pictures I’ve taken, and the keywords that I own in SERPs.

Before 2006 the word went out at blog conventions and in SEO workshops that “Search Engine Optimization now revolves around link building”. And that fact has created the new business of ‘link brokerages’  that employ link farmers, sneezers, solicitors and spammers to leave their client’s URL in every nook and cranny of the web, and by whatever means possible.

Today in June 2009, off-shore link farms and weighted indexes are not effective link building solutions because although they still count for a link, the page rank juice has dried up. These places are simply becoming less and less relevant. This is the age of earned media and now you have to deserve the link; Smojoe believes that the best links should be issued from contextually similar web copy that’s filled with niche keywords beside a picture with similar alt text on a page with a very high usability.

Smojoe indexed Canadian Discussion Forums in June 2008

In my list I marked the forums in which it was possible to leave do-follow links right in the post, and the ones that only allowed signature links, and the ones that were stupidly complicated or too heavily moderated. I still have this list, and it’s valuable to me especially when I’m contacted by businesses that need some presence in a core niche. I use the list properly, and leverage my reputation for good ‘on topic’ posts full of relevant info.

While indexing sites, the most popular themes encountered were local events forums, followed by sports, movies and celebrities, coupon mom, and travel. My favourite discussion forum is UrbanToronto.ca and I respect the acidic barrage of witty banter that erupts on Stillepost.ca but God help marketers that try and post links there; they’ll never be able to show the resultant conversation to their clients, and they’ll soon be forced to worry and hope that Stillepost’s extremely web savvy membership doesn’t contact their clients and get them fired.

When Discussion Forums Die

On the other end of the spectrum, while I was indexing Canadian discussion forums in June 2008, I encountered multiple sites that were fighting a daily barrage of Rolex watch ads, Nike Air Jordan ads, perfumes and cosmetics, teeth whitening kits, MP3 downloads and cut-rate cell phone ring tones and cheap long distance plans.

Discussion Forums Filled With Spam

Some webmasters simply give up. Today the internet is filled with free discussion forum templates that someone started for a local hockey team, or a drama club, or a beauty pageant that are now completely overrun by these insidious spammers. The entire index, in every category is filled with user submitted threads promising name brand running shoes, shirts in all sizes for $9.99, DVDs, ring tones and ‘cheap phone cards’ and of course there are no posts with any replies, and only a few have multiple views. These discussion forums have become 100% spam, and somewhat unique portals wherein spammers are spamming other spammers because every genuine user has gone away.

Anonymous Asian Robots

There is a company in the Philippines called Goowall.com that sells fifty links for about $50 US dollars. This firm has a big white room filled with computers and staff. The employees work off spreadsheets posting ads in discussion forums all over the world, making them look like real conversations sparked by a sincere request for help on a particular subject. For example, a freshly planted request for help finding used cars will be visited by another employee hours later with a link to their client, a used car dealership website. The quality is low, and their English is poor, but the links work and are indexed by Google.

How To Create White Hat Social Media Solutions

So if inbound links make your website stand out more prominently in SERPs, how do you acquire them, legally? Matt Cutts, a Google insider, describes how good social media solutions can come in the form of funding some creativity, in a recent interview with Eric Enge.

And again Matt Cutts describes how blogs and specifically how Wordpress can help your business SEO in an article on WebProNews.

Today every business deserves a Wiki chronicling their origins, a Flickr photostream showing company picnics, a Twitter account, profiles on TellOscar.com where they answer consumer queries, and their own YouTube channel and most importantly a Wordpress blog to tie it all together. Instead of buying links, now they have to write articles and publish stories, photos and ideas that are linkworthy, in this new age of earned media.

It’s always a big day when you speak in front of a lot of people, but today was easy. I was backing up Christa Jean the Petite Fashionista, and Raymi the Minx, two of Toronto’s most famous bloggers.

The Smojoe social marketing event How To Be Famous On The Internet was a big success and I got lots of cards, handshakes and smiles.  Thank you Deb Lewis of TorontoCityEvents.ca , it was a smart decision to relocate to ICON home design, and although I fumbled the ball a few times getting the address right, and the chairs didn’t show up until two minutes before the presentation, we carried it home.

Our amazing guest speakers, Christa and Raymi rocked the house - it was awesome to behold how two totally different approaches could both yield such success. Christa talked about how she grew her influence by doing charity work for Save The Whales and related details of how she auctioned off dresses worn by Hayden from Heroes. Then Raymi showed us her approach, and what I like most about Raymi is how she gets specific about her stats. Much to my amazement Raymi put up her numbers on screen and left no doubt in anyone’s mind about just how many people she entertains daily (about 3500).

The more I get to know Raymi The Minx the more I like her. She says exactly what’s on her mind and I think being so amazingly candid on her blog has made her so refreshingly bold in real life.  She swore a few times during her talk, and although I cringed, I saw other folks smiling and so I think it might have actually added to her presentation - she’s real.

Toronto Local Bloggers

Its not everyday that I get to picture nine Toronto Local Bloggers together.

From left to right,  Raymi The Minx, Ted Healy from Dead Robot, Casie Stewart, Sean Ward, Sass Zucket, Meredith from OhMistletoe.com, Stefania from Torontotextstyles, Lisa Charleyboy from UrbanNativeGirlStuff, Andrew Louis from Hyfen.net

Standing behind me, Glen Rostie an internet marketing guru at Your Virtual Butler was there, and Julian Brass of Notable.tv

We all met and talked and maybe gave birth to a very potent local blog squad.

Who are they? That’s what everyone wants to know. And what do they do, exactly?

Raymi the Minx and I have been talking about the way blogging has evolved for the last ten years and where it will go in the next decade.  She has been writing and posting her photos online since 2000, and has seen the trends. In the last nine years she has made quite a few friends, and has a thousand stories. She can tell you about all the brand managers, event marketers,  recruiters and link farms that have contacted her over the years, looking for blog love and trying to imagine new incentives. She can wax poetic about the history of banners and buttons and affiliate marketing - but after nine years of actually doing it, Raymi understands the utilitarian web empowers the user and offers hard rewards.

Zucket has lots of energy. She has championed this idea from the start and wrote about it today. I noticed when my traffic to Canada Blog Friends jumped this morning because of her link.

This is Dom from Queen West Girl which is still a bit of mystery right now… more on that later.

But what do they do exactly?

Just like an art movement, Raymi’s local Toronto blog movement is a chorus of well trafficked voices that can be solicited to showcase important messages, particularly to promote interesting events and tell ‘multiplayer’ local branded stories.

Specifically,

They share widgets that link them together like WebRing used to do, and perhaps display the most recent headlines from individual member blogs. Ritualized visits and comments and they bookmark each other’s blogs on StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Reddit.  They are, everyday, a tweet-up and share pages on Flickr and songs on Last.fm and etc etc; over time the collective will evolve a signature style and be easily recognized on an international stage.

Toronto City Events + Smojoe Social Marketing are holding a special event With Raymi and Petite Fashionista

Raymi the Minx and Christa Jean of Petite Fashionista will share secrets at the Spoke Club on May 27th from 1:30 pm to 5:30 pm on the subject How To Be Famous On The Internet. Tickets are available here for $45 and there’s a mixer afterwards so people can finally meet Raymi and Christa and pose for photos for their blogs no doubt, that’s what I’ll be doing.

WordCamp is an information buffet.

There are times when you can learn as much as you can handle as fast as you can handle it. At WordCamp, everywhere you look there is someone very interesting and very knowledgeable waiting to talk, and their name and business is printed right on their badge. For someone like me, a hermit who stays home and surfs for one gem a week, this is information overload, and that’s probably what this post will look like…
This blog post will celebrate the gems of knowledge that I learned at WordCamp Toronto 2009.

Friday morning I arrived at 8:30am and recruited help getting my laptop setup. When I asked eight strangers which of them was the smartest, one tall man stood up and introduced himself. John Leschinski of Leschinski Design fixed my new PC’s networking issues at WordCamp 2009 in a Toronto second. Now I follow John on Twitter and hope he’ll continue to school me. That’s Lorelle on Wordpress hanging off him.

Twenty minutes later I watched Terry Smith of B5 Media digest Splendicity.com which is unique because it’s built using Wordpress MU (Multi User) with elements from Buddypress and bbpress.

Then I had lunch with Dan Zen who treated the occasion much like a round table discussion and asked everyone to introduce themselves and then explain what they did for a living.

Friday Afternoon at 2pm Smojoe social media anchored a round table discussion in Track3 wherein I outlined some of the basic constructs of my own social media marketing tactics.

Friday at 3pm in Track1, Erin Blaskie

Erin Blaskie and her sister, Trina traveled from Ottawa

At 3pm Erin outlined how she’s using social media tools to make her alter ego Erin Games famous on the internet. I had to smile when I saw that she’s using the Brian Gardiner Lifestyle ‘Revolution’ template (the exact same one that I have asked Darryl at Deezilla to customize for Queen West Girl.)

Erin has mass knowledge about how to make YouTube videos go viral and seems to have her finger on the pulse of the videogame community - she showed off some other powerful media tools that let people watch her gaming. They are hungry for tips and tricks that will give them an edge over their friends. Erin has had a lot of success as a guest blogger on some big video game websites, the names of which didn’t catch…

After her presentation there was some discussion in the audience about the mental shift that’s required to stop being just a documentarian and start becoming the star of your own blog. Its all about finding the confidence to hand your camera to your friend and ask them to photograph you at the event, because you are the focus, and the event is just the backdrop

The next day, Saturday I attempted to learn something about PostRank.com

I’ll admit some of this stuff just goes right over my head

Joey deVilla is a Microsoft evangalist

Joey was one of the superstars at WordCamp. He is very approachable and immensely entertaining. His website Global Nerdy is excellent, and his personal blog, Joey deVilla.com is definitely worth a gander.

Here are some pictures of Joey playing his accordion to much applause at The Drake Hotel. While outside sunning our bodies he related more wisdom from the empire. Joey mentioned a book by Maggie Mason, “Nobody Cares What You Had For Lunch” and he believes every blogger read it… ok well that’s not exactly what he said, but that’s what I took away…

WordCamp Toronto 2009 Opening Night Party at Lou Dawgs

The basement restaurant that hosted the opening night party was fashioned from concrete and decorated with a thin veneer of paint and wood. I thought it was odd that they only served Sleemans brand beer, but that wasn’t the only negative about Lou Dawgs - worst was the acoustics. In this environment there was no place for the sound to go… Any band would have been too loud.  The blues band, Spy vs Spy was over 30 decibels too loud, and consequently most of the attendees left the bar to continue their conversations out on the sidewalk.

Many thanks to David Peralty the writer and thinker and photographer behind Branding David. What a great beer shot! This is Paul Perrier and Andrew Ainsworth and me.

Squidoo Lenses have purpose. They’re a great way to mashup multi-faceted client goods and services (and ideas) together, all in one place. Any products sold on eBay or books and videos on Amazon can be seamlessly integrated into rich text stories and spiced with YouTube videos and Flickr photo slideshows where everything is reinforced with Google or MSN news bots and Delicious bookmarks that actively scrounge up the latest information to add to the mix.

More importantly, these pages can become powerful Google juice batteries for client links. Some veteran SMO people here in Toronto still believe that sharing Squidoo mashups with seven or eight premier web services transmits some of their relevance onto your target website , and the lens itself will easily rise in page rank with just a few simple tactics, which I’ll detail later.

After reading all these positives, I understand when newbie social marketers get so frustrated with Squidoo, because their lenses GET NO TRAFFIC WHATSOEVER.

Hahaha I’m still laughing. Imagine spending days or a week building a Digital Acropolis showcasing all of your clients good and services, only to find that nobody and I mean nobody visits the attraction. I know from experience that’s usually what happens, here are my Squidoo lenses listed in order of popularity,

The Stone Angel

Zack And Miri Make A Porno

Milk, the movie

Stone Of Destiny

Shakuntala

Death Note II: The Last Name

Dumpdiggers

Blindness movie

Manon

La Fille Mal Gardee

Ontario Harness Racing

Where in the World is Osama Bi…

Hamlet 2

Last Tango in Jadac

The Wrestler

Billie Mintz

Barack To The Future

Battle in Seattle

Blabble

Why does Smojoe build these Squidoo lenses?
Because it’s easy and it looks great and nothing says multi-platform brand storytelling better than a Squidoo lens, because its one of the few places where readers can get all the elements of the story at once.

Squid U: Learning how to properly create a beautiful lens on Squidoo.com is the first step to success, and that can be accomplished with one day of intense trial and error. It’s recommended that you enter Squid U at least once while your password is still fresh in your browser so its cookied, and then the path is paved for your future and inevitable return (Squid U requires a separate login wherein users must remember their name and password). Make the connection. Inside this sub destination you will find a discussion forum, and you will see another dimension of Squidoo as ‘lensmasters’ help newbies and post links to their own material in their signature boxes below each post. You will also find links to awesome lenses; check out this one on digital cameras for under $200. This is a perfect example of a useful lens that makes money.
Also of interest is a sub forum displaying all of the Squidoo lenses that for sale. The prices are laughable at about $10 each – is it worth it? If these pages were like the one on digital cameras it would be (that person is an Amazon affiliate, and I’ll bet that lens sells ten cameras a day for about $100 daily profit).

What does Smojoe do with Squidoo lenses?
I don’t think it makes much sense to promote a Squidoo lens which in itself was built to help promote a client’s goods or service. It’s a little counter productive. In each campaign, I barely have enough time to seed backlinks to my client’s pages let alone conduct link building exercises on my own promotional material. So I’m not going to waste time building fantastic internet works of art unless I can make it pay dividends beyond backlinks…

Seven tactics that Smojoe uses to funnel traffic into Squidoo lenses:

1. Bookmark it! The very first thing Smojoe does upon publishing a lens is proclaim its existence on Twitter, and then Stumble it, Reddit, Digg, Delicious and Kirtsy the world. Make catchy headlines in these bookmarking services and be sure to leave lots of tags.
2. Article Marketing - Smojoe writes articles for clients anyway, and in the author resource box or sometimes right inside the text, I’ll leave a link to a related Squidoo Lens. This would be positioned as ‘more pictures here’, or ‘Lots of Items for Sale on Ebay’, and they would link to the Flickr and eBay components of the target lens respectively.   Depending on the quality and originality and overall appeal of the title, links in articles can be a powerful way to promote any business. These articles become a trail of breadcrumbs back to you client or your Squidoo lens all over the internet, as they are replicated and published on 3rd party niche ezines, hungry for content.
3. Niche Discussion Forums – For Smojoe its counterproductive to promote a Squidoo lens and a client’s brand in the same discussion forum. The only advantage for Smojoe here is that sometimes it’s not possible to leave links to commercial websites outright, and so a circuitous Squidoo detour becomes the only viable option.
4. Squidoo Community – Although it demands a lot of time, there’s something to be said for commenting on other people’s lenses and leaving valuable feedback. Go to competitor lenses and ask questions or offer advice. In many cases you don’t have to leave links to your lenses, the other lensmasters and even Joe Public will be able to find you, and perhaps even more motivated to do so. Get out there and socialize! Visit other lenses. Leave valuable feed back. Squidoo is a social site after all, be social!
5. Squidoo Groups – The Stone Angel movie is my most visited lens because 1) it competes on SERPS, 2) I added it to a group called ‘Canadian Movies’ and another called ‘Canadian Authors”. Add your lens to some relevant groups here on Squidoo and you will see increased traffic, especially if your lens has a catchy title.
6. Craigslist – This free online classifieds is a powerful tool. It can be used very effectively to bring a massive amount of traffic to your target if you are super creative and… a little devious. I intend to publish an entire post on Smojoe’s Craigslist Strategies in the near future wherein I will outlay all my techniques. Suffice to say that Squidoo can be used here to funnel clients down the chain of interest to the client, where it would be impossible to link to the client directly. For example, the previously mentioned Digital Cameras for under $200 URL could be hyperlinked as a resource in a Craiglist posting designed to sell an unrelated piece of used photography equipment.
7. Lensroll. Smojoe just discovered Lensroll last week.  Here’s a place to showcase your lens in category, free. Its also a great place to find other high quality lenses from which to learn advanced tactics. Look here ate the ones that have more than one view – these are usually the best of the best niche lenses.

On Thursday April 30th, Smojoe had lunch on the patio of Jack Astors at Yonge and Bloor with Julian Brass of Notable.TV, and together we enjoyed a terrific social media marketing brain share over fajitas and fresh tomato juice.

Short story, today’s lunch occurred rather spontaneously because I happened across Julian’s ad while trolling Toronto craigslist marketing and PR boards on the weekend; he was on there Friday looking for an intern to help out a busy social media start-up. No I didn’t apply for the job, I wanted to know more about the start-up.

What does he do exactly? Notable.TV is a streaming video site that targets 25 - 39 year old people and shares exclusive ‘insider moments’ from some the most noteworthy and inspirational happenings all over the country. The Features section showcases Notable Happenings that must be seen, while other sections cover Fashion, Music, Events, People, and All Access.

So who is Julian Brass? A sharp dressed twenty five year old guy with a BComm from the University of Guelph, Julian Brass has a background in business, events management, and online audience building. Right after finishing school, he managed consumer acquisition strategies which included online and offline marketing, PR, advertising, affiliate management as well as planning his own events and partnerships for a silicon valley firm called Engage.com That’s where he worked with hip California ad agencies and PR firms to develop affiliate networks, event strategies and membership initiatives. Last fall he escaped back to Toronto with all their secrets.

The performer meets the producer meets the programmer, Julian Brass knows he can actualize his own destiny by building himself a role as host in a web video profiling business.  The bold endeavour combines his web skills with his show business savvy and lots of diverse marketing experience. He;’s a good actor, and over the last five years he’s built an impressive resume of TV host credits, fashion show MC appearances, and some film and tv work. He’s been honing his skills in front of the camera.

Smojoe can help Julian build Notable.TV’s audience and daily traffic with some basic link building packages. Fifty keyword focused incoming links will secure some popular search clauses and raise his website’s overall page rank. I showed Julian how to amplify his own social relevance by bookmarking his video content on StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Reddit. Putting the names of the artists and events he profiles in the titles and tags of his video media should bring a steady flow of search traffic in direct proportion to the star power of the celebrity subject.

Julian and Notable.TV can help Smojoe by showcasing some upcoming client events on his streaming video site.  Julian Brass just became another piece of Smojoe’s VIP social media package, and I gave him a fair price to resell my link packages. It was a good lunch.

I hope this is the start of a soon-to-be-popular Smojoe blog series. Actually Sharing Secrets identifies those precious few web thinkers and social media marketers that actually reveal their tactics and give precious glimpses into their marketing practices, and not just positive affirmation or basic explanations of systems that most of us already understand. Too many so called ‘experts’ just regurgitate the page copy that’s found on these sites, without ever trying them or seeing what’s possible.

Let me explain something basic, we all know the question that drives social marketing is ‘how can i get more traffic to my website?’

Answer, ‘increase your website page rank to list higher for more keyword results on search engines’

The next question is ‘How do I do that?’

And that’s where it gets complicated. This is an age of earned media, and when people ask me, ‘where can i find the official manual?’ I shrug and tell them to download mine for $9.70 its as good as anyone elses - better, I get specific.

Today you must earn your media by being socially relevant. And not only do you have to plant your own press, you have to research tips and tricks on how to plant it properly and what solution best fits. There is no textbook for social marketing (but there could be). Although you can follow TechCrunch, Mashable and WebProNews, there is no official source for reliable insights into the Google search algorithm. And that’s because something new happens every day, and something old changes.

Google doesn’t publish details of their algorithm. If there is one company that could issue such Holy writ, it’d be Google. But they don’t say much about their ever changing search engine algorithm because they don’t want to lose a perceived competitive advantage, or engender ‘black hat’ SEO practices.

Google endeavors to preserve the effectiveness of organic search, bless their hearts, and ironically one of the most commonly searched topics is how to do search engine marketing? as people look for someone to lead them in knowledge gathering exercises.

Actually Sharing Secrets identifies those people, one by one, who actually share useful secrets.

Toby Miller: Earlier today I happened across a Ryerson online think tank page, Weekend Pictures.ca which I wouldn’t normally scan. But the link was on Zucket.ca and I was trying the figure out the connection (Zucket was featured here talking about Facebook). That’s when I discovered Toby Miller, author of Global Hollywood. In this video he talks about ‘using social networking tools to sell books’.  And of course I was overcome with curiosity; with a title as direct as that, would he actually reveal any useful tactics?

http://stw.ryerson.ca/others/s7may/literacy.html

And he does! Much to my surprise and delight he does actually speak about how he has hired ‘young social marketers in Montreal’ to create and manipulate MySpace pages and profiles (what we at LifeCapture Interactive used to call banner spam). I know from experience the impressions are massive on this type of marketing, and they can be measured with a simple tracking script, but the actual click through rate is usually quite low. However his book does have the word ‘Hollywood’ in the title…

Here is Toby last fall at an event in Calgary called YouTube, Facebook and Blogs, Do They Matter? Unfortunately I didnt see how it all wrapped up, but I think they panel came out with a ‘yes’.

Toby Miller is actually worth watching, but fast forward a centimeter into video below,

To put this in context, Toby Miller is a social media technologist talking to scholars at a stuffy event at the University of Calgary. Right after he says ‘…In the United States, 49 year olds want to look like 24 year olds’, he postulates that social networking sites harvest data for corporate America to help older people accomplish this primal desire. According to Toby, the principle value for corporations getting involved in social media is surveillance, and not for national security, but for marketing purposes. He goes on to talk about Second Life and other platforms like Last.FM He justifies this position in part by the amount of money paid for these properties versus their actual profitability, among other things.

His second book Global Hollywood 2 got a good review in the UK book world,

Nestle Pure Life TV commercials and web initiatives are greenwashing Canadians into believing that bottled water is a healthy choice, and a manageable environmental solution. They make me sick, and very angry. Have you seen this? The thirty second spot shows kids playing outside in a sprinkler system and then drinking bottled water. The marketing advocates making a healthy choice, and implies through suggestive narration and on screen text that human bodies need large amounts of bottled water, daily.

Their website contains a challenge wherein the fourth component is to ‘Go Green’ and that’s like a cigarette company advocating users ‘Stay Healthy’. Readers please note: there is no green bottled water solution. Eco-costs include manufacturing, trucking, shelving, and marketing. At this point in history, the annual U.S. demand for plastic bottles requires enough oil to keep 100,000 cars on the road for a year, says Janet Larsen of the Earth Policy Institute. The War Against Water Bottles reports that only 35% of Toronto’s water bottles are actually recycled, and that 650 million empty vessels are still being thrown into Ontario landfills every year despite most municipalities having the ability to recycle the bottles. A significant amount end up in nature, where they’ll take over a thousand years to break down.

The irony is that the City of Toronto just spent your tax dollars last summer doing experiential marketing in places like Dundas Square conducting blind taste tests in a widespread effort to prove the quality of our drinking water and the infrastructure behind its distribution. All over Canada our municipal governments are trying to educate city dwellers that tap water is actually the healthiest choice, but their marketing budget is small… Nestle Pure Life has a huge advertising budget; they can well afford to make suggestive tv commercials and reverse all our hard work…  But I wonder if they can sleep at night?

Bottled water is big business
Estimates variously place worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, and the market is expanding at the startling annual rate of 7 percent.

Bottle water is almost pure profit; the biggest expense is marketing
Pepsi’s Aquafina or Coca-Cola’s Dasani bottled water are both sold in twenty ounce sizes and can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks, and at the same price. Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to five cents an ounce! Gasoline is cheaper. And both of these two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than one cent per gallon, and over 40% of all bottled water comes from tap water.

Nestle Pure Life is particularly evil. They’re actively greenwashing Canadians into believing bottled water is manageable. I found this image on their website in the Go Green category - look how many water bottles are in that blue box! Nestle wants you to think that’s acceptable. They deliberately show a mother and daughter together in this image, and the choice to use Asian actors is also part of a larger strategy. Studies show that second and even third generation Canadians are more likely to distrust public water delivery systems, and are therefore more likely to purchase bottled water. Nestle’s marketing focused on Latinos in the southern United States last summer for exactly the same reasons.

Stop the Corporatization of Water
Due to increasing urbanization, population, shifting climates, and industrial pollution, fresh water will soon become humanity’s most precious resource. In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies. Water is being called the “Blue Gold” of the 21st century and corporations are in a race to purchase groundwater and distribution rights.

It’s time to recognize the bottled water industry as a big component in the sinister drive to commodify a basic human right: access to safe and affordable water. Just say no to bottled water; just say no to Nestle.

It’s finally happening, beauty queens get their own blogs now. On a rainy Friday afternoon in April, Smojoe mentored Katie Starke, the 2008 Miss Teen Canada - World on the fine points of building and branding her online identity. Together we huddled over a computer on the third floor of  of 258 Adelaide St east Toronto, in the center of a busy En Course: Business Development Agency office to start something small that will certainly spiral into something big: Miss Teen Canada’s blog.

Miss Teen Canada - World is a blogger?

Its an exciting time for Katie Starke, this teenager is about to share her life with hundreds of readers. She’s nervous and anxious to make her new posts look as beautiful as her portraits. So when I pointed my trusty Sony sure shot digital camera at her she flinched and shied away. “I didn’t know we were taking pictures today” she protested.

“Katie, professional bloggers take pictures everyday as they chronicle their life experience.” I reminded her, and then mercilessly snapped another horribly amateur image.

Its a blog about the reality of living the fantasy.

All this before we got busy and opened Wordpress. I was quiet as Katie studied the blank canvas.  What should we write about? In this case the quintessential first question was further complicated by the subtleties and enormous potential of the situation. How do we introduce Katie Starke and establish the origins of a ‘personal blog’ while honouring the integrity of the Miss Teen Canada-World title, and not come off as pedantic or cliche?  The answer lies in the minutia of a young girl’s exciting life.

Katie recently flew back from a speaking engagement in Victoria at the British Columbia Miss Teen Canada - World Regionals. She found herself on the same flight as Russell Peters, fresh from hosting the 2008 Juno Awards in Vancouver, and after her people talked to his people they met and had a photo together.  Perfect, I thought.  Let’s write about that, and let’s make the headline read: Miss Teen Canada Meets Russell Peters After 2009 Juno Awards In Vancouver. That way we can really pay it off as linkbait.

Katie Starke is a quick study,

Next we attempted to embed a video of Russell Peters at the Vancouver awards show from some official channel on YouTube. I was running out of time because I really wanted to show Katie how to put videos into her posts, and my process wasn’t working. Videos are important for this blog because so many clips will soon be posted on YouTube.com by fans and proud parents and sponsors, and also there’s certain to be plenty of news media surrounding the actual Miss Teen Canada - World pageant event at the Metro Convention Center this summer. So a good strategy for Katie would be to embed pictures and videos of all interesting social gatherings and celebrities on her blog, and then describe these pieces in detail using her own words. This would give readers a rare and privileged insight into very relevant material, as I suspect that footage of the upcoming Miss Teen Canada - World pageant at the end of July will be extremely well trafficked on YouTube and Flickr for years to come… so anyway I tried to embed this video but it wouldn’t work. I tried everything and I was running out of time. Then Katie suggested that perhaps the computer we were working on didn’t have Flash installed, and I looked at her sharply because I knew at that moment she was right, and she’s going to become a terrific blogger.

I can’t say enough good things about The Spoke Club, at 600 King Street West in Toronto (416) 368-8448. The layout is excellent, the prices are affordable and the staff is exceptional. They’re super accommodating. These people really try to help their members get the most out of their memberships.  I’ve been impressed with this organization every single time I visit.

Deb Lewis of Toronto City Events also deserves the strongest accolades in preparing and executing another flawless event. The Smojoe Social Media Workshop at the Spoke Club went off without a hitch on Tuesday March 31st 2009. Over twenty people attended the two hour workshop where I spoke nonstop about basic, and advanced social media marketing from the blog up.

Because I maintain that blogging is only 1/3 of the job, I focused my presentation on blog widgets and community building exercises, and used a power point presentation in combination with a printed and professionally bound 36 page Smojoe social media manual to hammer home some fundamental concepts. The search for experts drives the internet, and keywords unlock the door to SERP traffic - an hour later I was explaining to how to use blog friends, comments, discussion forums and articles to make yourself an expert, and how to write and create rich media for better keyword ranking.

Thanks to everyone who stuck around and joined us after the workshop. The round table discussions over a beer in the lounge of the Spoke Club are the most enjoyable aspects of the event (for me). That’s when I usually learn something, and Tuesday was no exception; thanks to Gary Puppa of Epixome who schooled me in the business of owing and operating a dot com start-up.

Canada Blog Friends is not a blog, it is an index of Canada’s best bloggers and should be used more as reference material than reading material.

I tell everyone that this place is a digital manifest of life in Canada.  Our nation’s most amazing new pioneers are listed here, and whenever possible, I try to profile the real human being behind the content. Each author is an expert in something, and their niche wisdom should be explored alongside their contributions to the Blogosphere.

Because the search for experts drives the internet, Canada Blog Friends reminds us that each reader’s trust is just as important as the information provided.

Trust is earned. After I published early pictures of Raymi, Schmutzie and  Phronk, I had some regular readers email me and tell me that they subscribe to these bloggers now.  My true stories about these writers have engendered readers to follow them. And that’s because people desperately want to trust someone.

Here are all the blogs currently featured on Canada Blog Friends. Do you know a great Canadian blogger that’s not on the list?

Urban Native Girl Stuff
Phronk
Gigababy
Ghost of a Flea
Schmutzie
Crunchy Carpets
Empress of Dirt
Raymi the Minx
Shambled Ramblings
Outdoors in Muskoka
Temporarily Me
Five Blondes
The Conveyor Belt
Social Capital Value Add
Product of Newfoundland
Dead Robot
Black Sheep Reviews
Canadian Heroes
One Old Green Bus
Cariboo Ponderer
Young Chic and Social
ModSuperstar
Dumpdiggers

Have you ever navigated to a bookmarking site with the express desire to browse through the submissions? Probably not. I doubt very many people sit down at their computer to spend time surfing through other people’s bookmarks, although that’s the very scenario Stumble Upon seems to advocate.

Who reads all these bookmarks?

Bookmarking sites came about to help organize and categorize large amounts of very unique information. Highly trained professionals like web surgeons and brain scientists were the first to realize they could use a bookmarking profile / service to save their readings, and at the same time share their discoveries with their students and co-workers. That’s where it started, and it wasn’t long after that the rest of world gave it whirl. Bookmarking services build thought communities around niche subjects, and anybody that’s ever posted a compelling headline in Digg or Reddit knows how it can sometimes yield hundreds of instant readers.

What’s the Big Picture?

While most web users naively believe that bookmarking their blog on Stumble Upon or Delicious will bring more direct traffic to their website, they don’t really know why it works. And because they don’t know why, they don’t know how to do it right - bookmarking builds relevance, first in the title, then subtitles, anchor text and alt text of the subject article or blog. Especially if the content is indexed on more than one service by more than one computer.

Put the keywords you want to capture in the title of your post. Put your secondary targets in the subtitles and the most relevant keywords should be the anchor text of all links back to your content. Bookmark that content and double its significance.

As your website accumulates bookmarks, your domain gains relative importance. Your website’s overall social relevance is measured in its Google page rank number. This variable will rise naturally as you add valuable content, and it will rise faster if you bookmark the media on popular services.

Socialmatic.com

There was a time when I used a nifty little service called Socialmatic.com This is an automated affair that promises to submit your target URL to multiple bookmarking services with the click of a button - it doesn’t work. My studies show that because the categories are all different in every website submission portal,  there is no way for one machine to sort the media properly. It would have to decide what goes where and no machine does that very well.  The result is that your media ends up being stacked in a general catch-all column of most bookmarking sites where its as good as lost - or it simply doesn’t get bookmarked at all. When the service came back to me and asked for more money I noticed the email used very poor English. Immediately I wondered if this was a bookmarking sweatshop where low paid Far East workers spend hours toiling through the obscure electronic requests of first world social marketers? I still think about that as I manually enter information into my top five sites:  Stumble Upon, Digg, Delicious, Reddit and Kirtsy, in that order.

These are the market leaders, in no particular order (their rankings change every month anyway).

Your blog’s ‘quest for relevance’ should use bookmarking sites as legitimating credentials.

A final note,

There’s a strange theory out there called a Tagfarm that I haven’t tried yet. Some thought leaders postulate that if you link your blog post to a series of different bookmarking websites it can build a super charge? So you bookmark the bookmark of the bookmark of the original post. Its an idea…

Furl >links to> Spurl > links to> Blogmarks >links to> Delicious >links to your blog.

or

Blog is bookmarked on Reddit, and that Reddit bookmark is then submitted to Buddymarks, which is then indexed on Kirtsy.com which is Stumbled…  It’s something to try.  Let me know what happens.