Blog

Jeanne Lottie’s Deck Party During Toronto Film Festival

Post by on Sep 16, 2010

On September 15th 2010, in the middle of the Toronto International Film Festival in the heart of the city, Jeanne Lottie had a fashion party out behind her Pink House. It was a warm autumn evening in the downtown core and Jeanne Lottie’s invite only party opened its doors just after six o’clock. People entered through the front door and perused the merchandise on the main floor before making their way out back or upstairs…  According to her plans, we gathered on the two tier wooden deck behind her Pink House at 32 Scollard Street and in the cool shade of a very large tree. There was white wine and finger food including cured meats and cheese nibbles, lobster purses, Japanese spring rolls and all manner of vegetable trays and dips. Jeanne Lottie has a hammock slung back there, and its easy to imagine how, on a hot summer day,… Read more »


SPOTLIGHT for Fife House and Tina Rogers of Tempo Toronto

Post by on Sep 12, 2010

Smojoe is helping promote SPOTLIGHT Unplugged this month, the Up Close and Personal music event fundraiser at the Berkeley Church, 315 Queen St E is to benefit Fife House and support their efforts to provide secure and affordable housing for those living with HIV/AIDS. This is good cause and the event promises to be memorable as it features ‘candid’ acoustic and piano performances by notable Canadian talents. Spotlight Unplugged. Up Close and Personal Thursday September 30th at Berkeley Church, 315 Queen St. East, Toronto The musical line up includes, Hayley Sales, Mark Masri, Kellylee Evans and Micah Barnes. There’s a silent auction and some very small portions of fancy food is also provided. Tickets are $75 each. For more information, or you can get tickets to SPOTLIGHT here. For even more reading on this subject, Tina Rogers has authored an excellent article about the upcoming SPOTLIGHT charity event for Fife… Read more »


Smojoe makes hero driven Social Media Marketing

Post by on Aug 19, 2010

Business people with bottom lines are tired of web marketing mantras, brand-building baloney, and self congratulatory praise for a fledgling industry by its most unqualified evangelists. Smojoe’s message to new clients is clean and simple; we use innovative social media marketing to improve search engine rankings for the keywords most commonly associated with your goods or services. Smojoe writes intelligent articles, blogs and discussion forum posts that get added to Facebook and tweeted to other humans who find compelling story hooks that lead to informative text.  Its precisely because of its high usability among humans that my content gets promoted by search engine robots. On the internet today, there’s a return to family honour that lets small business compete with big brands. In community blog websites, mom bloggers write better copy than ad firms not due to spelling but because their stories and conversations are real. Are you for real?… Read more »


And Conflict Creates Change

Post by on Aug 09, 2010

On July 1st 2010 the Lenzr serial photo contest website was officially one year old. Today it’s stronger and more popular than ever before as each session helps mature the site into a more effective web marketing tool. In the last year there were seventeen successful contests that collected just over five hundred pictures with headlines, tags and comments from about three hundred and seventy registered members. You can see all seventeen challenges in the Lenzr category on Toronto-Forums. Each sixty day contest period attracts about 4000 visits to Lenzr, with just over half of them unique.  The average visit to Lenzr spans seven pages, and lasts over three minutes. Usability of Lenzr is continuously being improved On August 1st 2010 four new photography challenges were launched inside newly fashioned countdown-mechanism-equipped contest pages . Four Lenzr photo contests end Oct1st, 2010 and there’s more good information about all four August… Read more »


Pictures and Discussions from 2010 Search for Miss Teen Canada World

Post by on Jul 22, 2010

Channing Smendziuk is Miss Teen Canada 2010 Miss Teen Canada World Winners press release gives insight into the action-packed week of activities, events and experiences that culminated in a dazzling night, the Grand Finale on July 17th. Congratulations to 17 year old Channing Smendziuk from Brandon, Manitoba. She’s the 2010 Miss Teen Canada-World. The girl is tall and beautiful, and smart and funny; she’s a very good blogger who finished with a score over 8.0 in the blog component of the pageant. Be sure to check the MTC-W facebook group for more news and updates about Channing’s most recent adventures, and her follow her challenges at the Miss Teen World pageant in Houston Texas.  After that climactic event, and in company with all of the agents and producers choreographers photographers and web storytellers that she meets abroad, Channing will be traveling all across Canada as part of the pageant next… Read more »


Lenzr Evolves Democracy Under Admin Dictatorship

Post by on Jul 01, 2010

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 »


Elite Canadians Collecting PEZ and Battery Powered Lawnmowers

Post by on Jun 09, 2010

Let’s start this journal update with good news… As an online storytelling service, Smojoe likes to hand craft happy endings, and we’re especially fond of documenting Lenzr photo contests, especially when prize winners send in proud photography of themselves with their winnings. Slimmswitch won the Neuton CE6 battery powered lawnmower courtesy of a Toronto area grass cutting service. That’s a happy ending. The sponsor was thrilled too; they used the Lenzr platform to promote their solar powered organic lawn care business and used contest messaging to get their name passed around in social networks. Slimmswitch reports that the high technology lawnmower is flawless. It’s good, fast and really quiet. He’s been tweeting about it @LOCOHIPPO.  So have I, and in keeping with my tradition of packaging top shelf ideas as fragmented stories, I’ve been putting a lot more resources on Fotki, and webshots. You can find more details there and… Read more »


IABC 2010 World Conference and Jane Reeves, Judy Lewis, and Barb Sawyers

Post by on Jun 01, 2010

Thank you Jane Reeves wherever you are…  It’s an honour to know Jane.  Not only did she write a very flattering feature article about  Smojoe at IABC PIC presents on May 12th for the IABC website, but she also truncated the bytes and put more pictures and links on her own blog.  She fragmented her message and put another relevant segment of the story about Smojoe on the Jane Reeves Writes blog. Now add some discussion forum posts and a bookmarking service or two, and she will have assembled a powerful Story Funnel (with this Smojoe blog as the buckstop). Judy Lewis is another IABC member that Smojoe follows Smojoe will be attending attending Judy Lewis’s panel on Tuesday June 8th in the morning, at the IABC 2010 World Conference between June 6th and 9th. The event showcases the best of the best business communicators from around the globe right… Read more »


How Blogging Saved The Beauty Pageant: Why Miss Teen Canada- World Competition Is An Amazing Social Media Case Study

Post by on May 26, 2010

Once again, all participants in the 2010 Search for Miss Teen Canada – World beauty pageant must start and maintain a personal blog. That one single innovation has completely changed the landscape. Now the pageant pretty much advertises itself, teaches valuable skills, and lets the public share the excitment in real time. The model also shares links from contestant blogs with sponsors. Yes indeed, things have changed backstage at the beauty pageant, there’s a new category now; to win this pageant girls not only have to be seven shades of beautiful, but also, the successful finalist will have to be an exceptional blogger as measured in style, technical skill and original prose. So far the 2010 MTCW Blog Army (that link is to the index page) has recruited over 52 contestant blogs from all across Canada, and the writing is fantastic. Each finalist has plugged in live Twitter feeds and… Read more »


What is a freelance social relevance producer?

Post by on May 19, 2010

Just as there are film producers, and theatre producers, please embrace the concept of an online social relevance producer. This position is the head of the social media marketing department. The social relevance producer sits above the community managers and below the VP of Marketing. She works directly with SEO specialists, and storytellers including the mainstream media. This is a new vocation. The online social relevance producer is the company storyteller that sets policy and executes keyword strategy. He or she composes stories as ‘hot scripts’ which are txt docs that are in html or pre-fabricated bits of BB code that contain pictures, and links as well crafted incentives. They’re cut and pasted from the backend of the relevance producer’s own favourite blogs and discussion forums. Community managers spread messages as they adapt the hotscript to fit their own blogs and forums. Following the idea of Story Funnels to Buckstops,… Read more »