As avid sports and music fan, Daniel Bamber was only too happy to assist one of his favourite singers in Conner Reeves and ex-Man City forward Jason Beckford.
Over the years, we are blessed to have worked with and assisted many clients both here in Australia and back in our owner’s homeland – the UK.
While we do have particularly deep, specialist experience in the fields of financial services, manufacturing and retirement living, we’ve worked in many different industries. However, two notable fields of interest have always played a huge part in our owner’s (Daniel Bamber’s) life – sport and music.
With this in mind, you can only imagine how keen he was to assist one of his neo soul heroes in Conner Reeves. And then there was the opportunity to assist an ex-pro he once watched from the terraces. Daniel takes up to the story…
Conner Reeves
“Anyone who knows me knows of my passion for R&B and soul music – and particularly late 90’s/early 2000’s neo soul. Being British, I have a vested interested in the UK R&B scene – which was never more buoyant than during this time.
One particular artist during this era that I was a huge fan of is Conner Reeves. While he only released one album (the soul masterpiece that is ‘Earthbound’ in 1997), a lasting impression was left on me. So much so, that I still own every CD he released (album and all singles) to this day.
Over the last year or so, my interest piqued in discovering what he was up to nowadays. Why did someone as talented as Conner never release a follow-up album? Needless to say, I was very happy to discover that Headliner Magazine had interviewed Conner in 2019. Alice Gustafson had written this amazing article about Conner’s unusual life journey since being catapulted into fame in 1997/98 and where he was now at in his life. Headliner also posted the video of the interview onto YouTube.
After reading this interview I ended up going down a Conner Reeves wormhole. And there it was. Great news – he’s working on a new album to be released in 2025!
This reminded me of how much I enjoyed his music back in the late 90’s. His music found its way back to the top of my playlists and one evening, when hosting guests for drinks, his signature song ‘My Father’s Son’ began playing through my Bluetooth speakers. To my surprise, one of my British guests recognised the tune and commented how much she loved the song when she used to competitively dance to it. An even bigger shock came when my Angolan friend piped up “Ahhhh, I love this song!”. Who knew Conner’s golden, velvety tones had reached the west-central coast of Africa?
Conner adulation had reached fever pitch in the Bamber household and I had to reach out to let him know. Did he realise how far around the world his music had gone? Within a few days I was delighted to see that Conner responded. He had no idea his music had reached such distant shores and thanked me for sharing my story.
Over the following months, messages were exchanged chatting about aspects of the 97/98 R&B era and to see how things were progressing with the new album. Through these conversation offers of promotional and marketing assistance were made by myself (on behalf of Vim Digital) and gladly accepted by Conner.
Drawing nearer to the release of Conner’s follow-up album to 1997’s ‘Earthbound’, we have assisted with providing content for his YouTube, Facebook and Instagram channels. As the album finally launches, we’ll be publishing promotional articles on established R&B websites.
15-year-old me would never have believed that one day I’d be helping Conner Reeves with the launch of his second album. And 15-year-old me would never have believed that second album would be 28 years away!”
Jason Beckford
“Football has been my number one passion in life since I was a kid. Friends have often laughed at my encyclopaedic knowledge of the game stretching all the way back to the 1980’s.
Growing up in Lancashire, I would often attend matches at Preston North End’s Deepdale, Bolton Wanderers’ Burnden Park or Blackburn Rovers’ Ewood Park. Sometimes with friends and family and often with my Cub Scouts football team. In fact, I remember going on one such match at Ewood Park back in 1991 when a young forward on loan from Manchester City played upfront for Blackburn alongside Irish legend Frank Stapleton.
Fast forward 34 years and an school friend now living in the Cayman Islands gets in touch with me. His young son has just joined a newly-formed football team, Cayman FC, and they urgently require guidance with improving their online visibility. As the team has only just been formed, they need to be front and present for relevant Google searches so that they can attract players to sign for their club. Knowing that I’m an experienced SEO professional, he’s reached out to see if I can help. Naturally it’s a “yes” from me because I like to help good friends, and anything football-related has my immediate interest.
After being given the background and context of the local football scene in the Caymans, he mentions that one of the lead coaches used to play professionally in England back in the day. My friend knows me well and is only too aware that my eyes will have lit up. “Go on then, who is it?” I enquire, to which he replies “A guy called Jason Beckford”. Now while my friend may not recall Mr Beckford’s career, I was instantly taken back to a chilly Saturday afternoon at Ewood Park in March 1991. “Yes, I know Jason Beckford!” I retort. “Of course you do” comes the chuckled response.
Introductory emails were exchanged with Jason Beckford and his fellow coach, Ali Sozeri. Compliments were paid to the two on finding themselves as professional football coaches, living in the Cayman Islands (a dream for many people, myself included). Most importantly, it was now my mission to get this football club as visibile as possible on Google SERP’s in the Cayman Islands.
At this early stage of proceedings, we’ve managed to gatecrash the local Google SERP pages for all of the desired search keyphrases. Pleasingly, they’ve already usurped their two, main rival clubs for some of their man, targeted keyphrases.
The next step is to see if I can impress Jason and Ali enough to get signed as the oldest ever YTS player. We’ve all gotta have a dream!”
