SMOjoe.com

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.

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.

Social Media is defined as using internet tools for the purpose of sharing and discussing information and experiences with other humans. SMOjoe believes the blog is the cornerstone of social media. But blogging by itself, the act of writing good original content, is only 33% of the job.

The SMOjoe Social Net below catches traffic and builds backlinks. This array also allows multi platform brand storytelling* as it amplifies our client’s ‘social relevance’.

SMOjoe Social Media Graph

The Social Net will catch, 1) search traffic, 2) niche eZine readers 3) blog readers, 4) discussion forum members, 5) Facebook.com friends, 6) bookmark index browsers –  anyone drawn to your subject that is looking for the expert. But please note this is just a garden in which we grown keywords and pagerank (*see chapter 6).

Social Media is multi platform storytelling, and the key to findability. The ebook is designed to transform freelance writers into professional bloggers, and then into web content producers, and finally into skilled social marketers with an impressive array of ‘power tools’.

Each of the boxes in the schematic above will be a chapter in this manual (complete with detailed explanations, tips and tricks). Readers are advised to work through this manual and apply it to their own online enterprise.

There was time when the lakeshore was covered in trees…

This shows the American fleet in 1814.