SMOjoe.com

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.