Hi. I’m Ed Charles, and I consultant to some of Mebourne’s top food and drink businesses on social media. Prior to that I was a freelance journalist who was taken into the social space by this blog and my Twitter profile.

In 2005 I started this blog, Tomato, which has now become one of the top food blogs in Australia and one of the best read and most influential in Melbourne. I also tweet as @tomatom and have about 8,000 followers at the time of writing.

I also am a ring leader in organising stuff. In 2010 I was the driving force who made the first Australian Food Bloggers’ Conference, cocktail party and dinner happen arranging all the venues and sponsors. I also single handedly arranged a SBS Food sponsored exhibition of food bloggers’ photos.

Currently I’m one of the ring leaders behind the Melbourne Fringe Food Festival and am organising various eating and drinking events, the most recent being an amphora wine dinner one of my clients Virginia Plain.

I’ve extended my presence across many social sites and learnt the various unwritten rules for engaging people online. And now I help guide organisations through the social media minefield and develop practical plans that work in this unruly world where the crowd can be unpredictable.

I help develop practical strategies and plans that can win followers and customers by using various social media platforms.

Check out my Linked In and Twitter profiles.

SPEAKING

I am available to speak on the disjoin between traditional media and social media. Specifically, I speak on how small businesses can harness social media and free blogging tools for marketing. I also speak on how businesses need to integrate social media and blogs into their marketing and PR plans. Recently I have spoken at:

    NOVEMBER 2012

  • Eat Drink Blog 2012 Ethics and working with PRs
  • Everyone’s a critic, State Library of Victoria in association with the Gusto Exhibition

    • AUGUST 2012

  • Everyone’s a critic, Melbourne Writers Festival

    • MARCH 2012

  • The Business of Freelancing, The Walkley’s Foundation freelance conference

    • MAY 2011
    Food Writing, The Emerging Writers Festival

  • Food Service Australia 2011 – Can we talk? Marketing – Finding the right mix
  • Restaurant 09 – Talk Business: Gen Y Dining – Meeting Their Demands
  • Restaurant 09 – Café Live: The Gen Y Café
  • Good Food & Wine Show 2009 Sauvignon Blanc tasting panel forum
  • Victorian Tourism Conference 2009 – Brand building through social media
  • Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2008 – Out of the Frying Pan (How to blog)
  • Restaurant and Catering Victoria – Doing Better Business Series (Media Essentials)
  • Restaurant 08 – Restaurant reviews – no such thing as a bad press?
  • Restaurant 08 – Making you website work for you (search marketing)


    • Photography: Christina Simons

    SOCIAL MEDIA

    I run the popular Melbourne-focused food and wine blog Tomato which attracts some 30,000+ page views each month. I also established the group blog Very Cheap Eats and Food and Wine Daily, which is still in development.

    WEBSITES AND BLOGS

    I can help set up easy to update and cost effective blogs and websites with all those great Web2.0 features including RSS, comments, video, audio and so on. I can help set-up with the key blog platforms such as WordPress, Movable Type, Typepad and Blogger. These all can also be used as content management systems for websites. They make updating a website as easy as pressing save in Microsoft Word.

    I can also advise on marketing through social sites and blogs and provide coaching.

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