About Ed Charles

Hi. I’m Ed Charles, and I am a journalist who for the past few years has consulted to some of Mebourne’s top food and drink businesses on social media. I’ve helped launch some of the cities most popular restaurants and learnt many lessons from the venues which didn’t make it.

Prior to that I was a freelance journalist who was taken into the social media space by this blog and Twitter.

I have now returned to writing full time and am based in Johannesburg and am still available for consulting for selected clients.

In 2005 I started this blog, Tomato, one of the best read and most influential in Melbourne. I also tweet as @tomatom and have about 11,100+ 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 arranged a SBS Food sponsored exhibition of food bloggers’ photos.

Currently I’m one of the people behind the Melbourne Fringe Food Festival and am organising various eating and drinking events, from pioneering truffle dinners, gin & tonic and wine tastings.

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: