I'm Dr Social right now.
Melbourne Area, Australia
- Current
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- director at Tomato Media
- Freelance journalist/editor (Self-employed)
- Past
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- Founder, publisher, editor, Tomato Magazine at Tomato Media
- Freelance journalist (Self-employed)
- Associate publisher at Yaffa Publishing
- Editor at Ad News, Yaffa Publishing
- Senior writer at Business Age, VNU Publishing
- Features editor at PR Week, Haymarket Publishing
- Education
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- University of Liverpool
- Southbank Polytechnic
- Connections
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53
connections
- Industry
- Food & Beverages
- Websites
Ed Charles’s Summary
I am currently developing my offering to practically help small and medium-sized food and drink businesses use social media to connect with customers.
this includes developing plans of action to enter into conversation with bloggers and twitterers,coaching and advice in specking socially enabled websites.
As a former editor, I have recently been invited back to be a weekly online columnist for the ad industry magazine Ad News. I also continue to write regularly on Entrepreneurs for The Australia, for SBS Food and for the News Ltd blog The Punch.
I run the influential food blog Tomato, founded Very Cheap Eats and am a prolific and influential twitterer.
Ed Charles’s Specialties:
Developing practical plans of action and coaching programmes for companies wishing to engage in the social food and wine space and beyond.
I also offer journalism, editing and copywriting services.
I can make introductions to specialist web developers, advertising, PR and marketing agencies.
Ed Charles’s Experience
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director
Tomato Media
(Food & Beverages industry)
2009 — Present (less than a year)
Tomato Media offers practical help in navigating the social media minefield. This includes helping plans that will quickly build followers and attract the attention of potential customers as well as assisting in helping control potentially damaging chatter.
Our service involves:
- Development of content from words to multimedia including anchor posts which attract large numbers of links and traffic.
- Developing plans to gain high quality links from important and relevant sites to drive higher quality traffic to websites than that provided by Google search.
- We can also help specify websites and save companies from making expensive, time wasting mistakes.
- Email newsletter development and integration. -
Freelance journalist/editor
Self-employed
(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Newspapers industry)
September 2005 — Present (4 years 4 months)
My journalism is split between business and food. I regularly write for the Wealth and Entrepreneur sections of The Australian. I have a weekly column on restaurant gossip in the Herald Sun’s extrafood section. I also regularly write for In The Black, which is distributed to over 100,000 CPAs. Other titles include CFO, Mercedes Magazine and Henry Magazine. I have been restaurant reviewing for the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide, the Age Good Food Guide and the Telstra Countrywide Golden Plate Awards.
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Founder, publisher, editor, Tomato Magazine
Tomato Media
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Media Production industry)
October 2003 — October 2005 (2 years 1 month)
Tomato was a magazine I launched because I felt there was a gap in the food magazine marketing that could serve people who found some of the titles too glossy and a bit pretentious. The idea to was to distribute free, like a street magazine, through high quality food venues, cafes, restaurants and bars. We had terrific response to the editorial but were under funded.
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Freelance journalist
Self-employed
(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Media Production industry)
February 2000 — September 2003 (3 years 8 months)
After being made redundant after the dotcom crash I simply started writing as a freelance journalist specialising in business, finance, marketing and management. Titles I wrote for included: The Australian (Media & Marketing), Financial Times (Creative Business), AFR Boss, CFO, In The Black (formerly Australian CPA), Mercedes Magazine, Bang & Olufsen Magazine, HR Monthly, Krisworld (Singapore Airlines).
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Associate publisher
Yaffa Publishing
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Media Production industry)
February 2000 — June 2000 (5 months)
Yaffa created this position to keep me in the company after I moved to Melbourne for family reasons. I was responsible for setting the template for Yaffa’s online strategy and what is now the current Ad News website. I was also to launch two magazines, an online marketing title and a lifestyle title. I was made redundant after the DotCom crash.
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Editor
Ad News, Yaffa Publishing
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Media Production industry)
March 1996 — February 2000 (4 years )
I relaunched and revamped the title, resulting in a 45 per cent increase in paid circulation while the market share of its main competitor B&T fell. This set the template for where the magazine is today. I devised and implemented editorial systems to improve the rigour of its reporting and introduce better writing, subbing and design. I introduced strict sub editing guidelines and a style sheet to, what had previously been, an unstructured operation. I managed a team of seven plus contributors. I also raised the profile of the title writing articles for newspapers and regularly was interviews on radio and TV.
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Senior writer
Business Age, VNU Publishing
(Public Company; Media Production industry)
May 1995 — November 1995 (7 months)
I worked with the art director and designer on the redesign and relaunch of the title. I launched and edited a lifestyle section, in addition to contributing business feature stories to the magazine. I was a member of the team researching, compiling and writing the Rich 500 report. I was short-listed as feature writer of the year by the Press Gazette. I resigned to move to Australia.
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Features editor
PR Week, Haymarket Publishing
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Media Production industry)
February 1994 — May 1995 (1 year 4 months)
PR Week was a route back into journalism after four years in public relations. I was promoted from features editor to associate editor, becoming responsible for all sections outside news. I edited copy and worked closely on production with the subs desk and art director. I worked on multiple projects including a series of events and debates designed to raise the profile of the title. I edited all the magazine’s special reports, including the highly detailed Top 150 PR Agencies and awards editions. My work on conferences for the magazine also led to signing high profile columnists for the organisation as a whole, such as Raymond Snoddy on Marketing.
Ed Charles’s Education
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University of Liverpool
BSc Hons , Mathematical Physics , 1981 — 1983
Spent several months calculating whether or not the universe was expanding or contracting. The answer: maybe.
- Activities and Societies:
- Sports editor, Guild & City Gazette
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Southbank Polytechnic
Postgraduate diploma , Finance
Part time study
Additional Information
Ed Charles’s Websites:
Ed Charles’s Interests:
Economics, environment, popular culture, kite surfing, dog walking, cabinet making. food & drink.
Ed Charles’s Groups:
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Wine2.0 -
Food Blogger Connection
Ed Charles’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- expertise requests
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
