Don’t Call Me!!

You called at dinner time my whole life, but now baby, you won’t be calling me anymore!! As you may or may not be aware, Canadian Radio-Television Broadcasting is creating a National Do Not Call List for Telemarketers. Heck yes!! You won’t be able to avoid ALL calls, but most you will. Who can still call you? There are certain kinds of telemarketing calls and faxes that are exempt from the National DNCL, including those made by or on behalf of: registered charities seeking donations newspapers looking for subscriptions political parties and their candidates, and companies with whom you have an existing commercial relationship; for example, if you have done business with a company in the previous 18 months––such as a carpet-cleaning company––that company can call you. Add your name & number to the list here starting tomorrow!

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How To – Of the Day

How to Handle Fame “I handle fame by not being famous…I’m not famous to me.” Bob Marley Whether you’re a celebrity, a politician, a MySpace star, dating someone famous, a well-known author, and even if you look different in a small town, you might be uncomfortable with being recognized wherever you go.How do you preserve a good reputation while still maintaining your privacy?(Don’t be a Waste-Case!!) Be boring to the public. The best way to maintain the privacy of your private life is to bore people to tears. Unless you’re one of those people who believes that all publicity is good publicity, it’s better to become famous (and stay famous) through the merit of your work, not because of a rollercoaster relationship, an addiction, a surprise pregnancy, or a glamorous wedding. If you’re a naturally flamboyant or free-spirited person, it might be difficult to stifle that, and you need to decide how you’re going to strike a balance between uninhibited expression and privacy, which tend to be mutually exclusive when you’re famous. Go to major events solo. Even if you’re married, the fact that you’re there together is bound to result in personal, sometimes totally inappropriate questions like “When are you having a baby?” or “When are you having another?” or even “How is your sex life?” Also, if you’re always attending events as a couple, all it takes is one event when your schedules conflict and you don’t show up together, and everyone will presume your relationship is on the rocks. If you do ever split up, the last thing you want is people wondering where your date is–talk about salt in the wound! That being said, sometimes being consistently dateless can stir its own breed of gossip, depending on the context–a famous celebrity going solo is understandable; a…

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The Best Is Yet To Come

On Friday I worked from the Hvr office in Yorkville. We’re gearing up for some very exciting things including a new podcast! Nelson and I are co-hosting with a bunch of amazing creators, brands, and business people. We spent part of the afternoon organizing the main office room for our new podcast studio and Nelson ordered all the gear. Also took my new bag from Spruce Vintage out for a spin, fits my computer and work stuff perfectly! ? If you’re not on Hvr yet, what are you waiting for? Hvr turns every webpage into a social space where you can chat with friends without leaving the browser app. Visit this link to download on iOS or Android and skip the waitlist while we’re still invite-only. Here’s an example of one of my posts in Hvr, when you’re on the app, you can comment on any page or post to share with friends. Fun. ? The last few weeks I’ve mostly been at home or the gym. It’s so nice to get dressed up, leave the house and work in an office. Looking forward to spending more time here as we set up the podcast and kick off PR. Idk if I’ve ever been so excited in my whole life. The best is yet to come! Weee!

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Day 241: Pandemic Anxiety

I wasn’t feeling great today. Kept waking up in the night thinking someone was walking through the cottage. Woke up with serious anxiety, went for a run, did a meditation, took a nap. Called mum when after my rest and talked it out. Had a cry, felt a bit better. Mum has a magical way of calming me down, looking at things rationally, and helping me see clearly. A nap always helps too, everything seems more intense when you’re tired. Today, Toronto announced new ‘red zone’ restrictions as cases keep rising in the GTA. Ontario is now seeing over 1,000 cases/day which is kinda scary. As of Saturday, restaurants can no longer have indoor dining, gyms can’t hold fitness classes, no indoor meeting spaces, and bars have 9pm last call. They’re also encouraged people not to hang out with anyone who doesn’t live in their household. It’s crazy we are living through this right now. Being at the cottage feels like we’re escaping and sometimes I start doing something where I forget what’s going on, then I remember. It’s normal to have anxiety, especially now, I’ve found that exercise and meditation have been really helpful. A couple of years ago I was gifted a membership to the Calm app and really got into guided meditation. I found that I really missed using the app and purchased a new membership in the summer. I love the sleep stories by Matthew McConaughey or Harry Stiles. I swear I’ve never heard the end of the story, I always fall asleep! Their website is offering a free week if you’d like to give it a try. If you’re feeling pandemic anxiety, it’s normal, take some deep breaths, go outside for as walk, call a friend, or do something that makes you feel happy. We’ll…

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Video: Increasing Opportunity Through Personal Branding

Last month I had a great time speaking at LinkedIn Local Toronto at The Centre for Social Innovation (CSI). I was the opening keynote where I spoke a little bit about my career and how building my personal brand helped create opportunity. In this video, you’ll hear 3 examples where my personal brand helped me get booked for jobs. Excuse the audio, I was using a handheld mic and this is recorded on my iPhone. I will note that Sean wanted to shoot on a camera with a lav mic but I insisted on using the phone. Next time I will let the pro handle it! Thanks, Bobby & the LinkedIn Local team for having me! Looking for a speaker or host for your upcoming event? Send me an email or contact my speaker agent at The National Speakers Bureau.

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TELUS Friendly Future Foundation: Helping Youth & Communities Across Canada

Across Canada, 1.5 million children go hungry without access to nutritious food every single day, 30K Canadians are homeless (mostly young people), and 40% of low-income families don’t have internet access putting kids at risk for falling behind in school. We can all do something to help and this year Telus launched the Friendly Future Foundation putting $120 million into addressing the social and economic challenges facing Canadian youth.  I am proud to work with Telus and have been a #TeamTelus partner for the last 8 years.   The Foundation will give grants to grassroots charities in communities across Canada who really know their community and how to help. By partnering with smaller charities, they’re able to help out groups that might be missed by huge corporate donors and make a big impact in small communities. I think this is an amazing approach. I work with Brands For Canada, an organization that provides new clothing & basic needs supplies to people across Canada and this method of working with local charities has worked great for them.  The Friendly Future Foundation funding will help kids build up digital literacy skills, get basic healthcare and mental health support to the homeless, and open up other educational opportunities. Here’s an example of doing good in a community not too far from us, Telus donated $20K to the Women’s Shelter in Barrie. The $120 million TELUS has provided for the Friendly Future Foundation is the largest donation made by a publicly traded Canadian company in history and one of the largest ever in North America. Way to go team! Over the past two decades, TELUS, team members and retirees have contributed more than $1 billion of value to Canadians, through $530 million in financial support and 1.21 million days of volunteerism. Last year alone they (we!) volunteered 1 million hours.  I’m continuously impressed by how Telus gives…

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Influencers + Cannabis: What Are The Rules?

Last week I was a speaker at an exciting event hosted by Jones Media at 1 Bloor. We are T-16 days away from legalization and the world of cannabis marketing is something people have a lot of questions about. The worlds of cannabis and business like an online dispensary canada are really, truly beginning to collide. They are rapidly growing in popularity which is why the need for cannabis businesses is increasing! Anybody that is running or looking to run a cannabis business may want to think about hiring somebody like a cannabis consultant for their company to run smoothly and efficiently. Specifically, this talk was about cannabis + influencers and what is allowed within the rules of the new cannabis act. The panel featured Chris Nyberg, a lawyer who specializes in this area, Lorilynn McCorrister from Weed Box, and Jen Newton who does the High Tea podcast and comes from an agency/brand background. We talked about everything from how do you market in a space that’s so highly regulated, how to partner with a licenced producer, how to align with an influencer, and examples of creative marketing we’ve seen. On Going to the USA One of the topics we talked right off the bat was can you still go to the USA if you work in, invest in, or post about cannabis on your social accounts? Sorry to say, you can 100% get a lifetime ban if you do any of those things. Safe bet is to scrub your social accounts and make sure you don’t mention your connection to the wonderful world of flower if you don’t have to. On my last trip I remove Weed VR social accounts & email from my phone and didn’t take any business cards. I have cards Director cards from Occupied VR…

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Building a Great Influencer Program

This summer I went to Vancouver to meet with the Canadian team of Telus Advocates. I’ve shared my love for Telus over the years but this experience was truly amazing. They flew in content creators from across the country to visit their Vancouver office, tour Telus Garden, create, eat, explore, and build relationships. I’ve worked with heaps of brands but I truly admire the influencer program Telus has built over the years. Ok yes, I am a little bias because I chatted with the team before they created the program and shared my likes, dislikes, and brand experiences. They have set the bar high for what it means to work with a telecom company or a big brand. The experience (as an influencer) is tailored to each person’s style of content and audience. This kind of influencer marketing service is bound to provide a great product for their clients too, as they clearly value quality and retention. In this post, I’m sharing a few of my tips for creating a great influencer program with Telus as my example. Build Relationships The thing about being an influencer is that you’re usually sharing your real life, so when you work with a brand, it means authentically integrating their content into your own experience. You have to get to know each other in order to learn what works and create opportunities that mutually benefit the relationship. It’s cool when you work well together and even cooler when it becomes a friendship. I’ve worked with Telus for about 8 years now and we’re colleagues but also friends. I can text with jokes, links, or that odd time on the weekend when I broke break my phone. (Sorry!) Since we’ve built a good working relationship, we all reach out whenever something cool comes up like…

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100 Pieces of Sponsored Content + New Ad Standards for Influencers

I’ve been trying do a better job of keeping tract of my actual blog related work. Since casiestewart.com is a mostly a diary about my life, it can be hard to determine what is sponsored (work) and what isn’t. I share heaps so maybe you miss the little disclaimer line now & then. I like to keep a good mix of non-sponsored content mixed in with the spon con. Last year I set up casiestewart.biz as my online portfolio website and I UPDATED IT THIS WEEKEND. There’s 100+ examples of sponsored things I’ve done over the past few years. Crazy how they all add up! Found this quote on Forbes over the weekend and it’s what motivated me to stop scrolling social media and put in some quality time building my website. I’m finding/remembering stuff all the time so there’s a bunch more to add. CASIESTEWART.BIZ/WORK  This week I’m on a panel at the NextMedia Conference talking about this stuff with someone from the ASC, Facebook, and an agent who represents influencers. It’s sure to be a good discussion and spark even more around the topic. In a prep call for the panel, Janet from the ASC said: “We have simply introduced a new Interpretation Guideline to require disclosure of any material connection, because we identified a gap in the coverage of the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards regarding bloggers and influencers.” Influencers and sponsored content are a very hot topic right now with new rules in Canada from the ASC based on the USA FTC regulations on testimonials, endorsements, and reviews. If you are interested in the you can find them here. DEFF WORTH READING. I’ve got a few more things to share on this topic, it’s surely not going away. Until then, make sure you take a peek at my work at…

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Win an iPad Air from @155Redpath! #NeighbourGood

I’m a huge fan of doing good and bring joy to the lives of others. So, this blog post is part of sharing greatness! My friends at 88Creative work with 155 Redpath and they are giving away brand new 16GB iPad Air! I’d love for one of you guys to win it. To celebrate the local community and do a little good along the way, they came up with #NeighbourGood. What’s #NeighbourGood? It’s a free coffee handed to you on your way to work, a good deed done on your lunch break, or a kind gesture from a stranger on your commute home. And at 155 Redpath, it’s our way of being a great neighbour to our future residents. A few years ago (actually 2009!) about 10 friends and I organized Pay It it Backward Day where over 400 people purchased a coffee for the person BEHIND them in line. This broke a world record for the most acts of coffee kindness ever (at the time). It was an awesome example of NeighbourGood! It was super fun too. This is my sis (Raptors girl beside me) and some babes  that day. It was so much fun! How to Win the iPad Air from 155 Redpath It’s easy. All you have to do is register on their website and follow us them Twitter for one (1) entry. Don’t forget to enter your Twitter name on the registration page to make sure you’re in. Share your NeighbourGood story with them on Twitter or Instagram tagged #NeighbourGood for an extra entry. See full contest deets on their blog. TOTALLY NOT SPAM —> We’re giving away an iPad and all you have to do is follow us on Twitter and register here – http://t.co/LAjrSXecWd — 155 Redpath (@155Redpath) November 12, 2013 While We’re Talking 155 Redpath… Check out this awesome video. It was shot & edited…

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