About
Hi. I’m Ed Charles, a Melbourne-based freelance journalist. I also help businesses confused by social media with practical plans that win followers and customers. I split my time writing about business and food and drink for a mix of daily newspaper sections, magazines and websites. I also run several blogs.
WRITING
A selection of recent articles is available on the Portfolio section of this site. Here are some of the recent media I have written for:
- SBS Food – SBS’s new food website.
- The Australian – Monthly Entrepreneur liftout
- The Punch – News Ltd’s adventure in group blogging
- Ad News – The weekly Stir Friday opinion column
- Melbourne Cup Carnival Magazine – coffee culture
- Herald Sun – The weekly Extrabite food and drink column and features
- GQ – on Melbourne restaurants and bars
- The Australian – Weekly Wealth liftout
- The Weekend Australian – Travel and Indulgence
- IN THE BLACK – The CPA’s monthly business magazine
- Henry – Henry Buck’s occasional magazine
- HBA Shine Magazine – healthy recipes
RESTAURANT REVIEWING
Currently I am building the Bite Melbourne iPhone review app crowd sourcing reviews from bloggers. I reviewed restaurants for the soon to be launched melbourne Coffee Guide, The Age Good Food Guide 2008 and The Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide 2008. I also reviewed for the Golden Plate Awards in both the Geelong Otway region in 2006 and 2007 and in the Mornington Peninsula in 2006. I also have reviewed restaurants on my food blog Tomato since 2005.
- Tomato – restaurant reviews (warning: may contain offensive food and bad language)
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:
- 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)
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.
My current clients include the Beddison Group, Painting for Beginners, Allan Campion and Chin Chin melbourne. A fuller listing is available here.
You can find out more here about how I can offer practical, down to earth and good value advice.
- Tomato – An insider’s guide to eating and drinking in Melbourne
- Very Cheap Eats – Eating out at under $20
- Food and Wine Daily – A guide to the best food writing on the web (in development)
- Facebook – My profile
- Linkedin – My resume
- del.icio.us – My del.icio.us bookmarks
- Google Reader – Items of note from my feed reader
- Flickr – Mainly food photostream
- Youtube – Video experiments
- Twitter – Micro blogging
- Friendfeed – Everything in one place (in theory)
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.
