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David Himel is one of North America’s foremost experts on Vintage Leather Jackets. He’ll tell you that he’s the world’s top expert, and this might be true; his blogspot The Art of Vintage Leather Jackets is currently ranked first on Google for that popular keyword, and receives over 500 visits a day . The blog is great; it’s a campy photo journal full of awesome unique information. It’s cute and catchy, but it doesn’t convert.

David Himel is an expert in an age when the search for experts drives the internet.  He writes bi-weekly posts detailing the construction of replica jackets, including the leather source and treatment, and the name and manufacturers’ address and model numbers of period zippers and buttons. Some of his replicas are sold to celebrities, and his blog highlights the jackets worn in movies. Some costume designers have approached him before their movie begins shooting to consult and secure perfect replicas for historical films (Amelia) and all this adds to his street credentials.

How does David Himel make money from his blogspot?

Right now he doesn’t. One piece of the cash machine is missing - David doesn’t have a buckstop.

David’s blog is under monetized. The Golden Age of Ebay is over and he counts himself among the millions of people who can no longer make a living using the auction sales website. But he continues to maintain an eBay store with about 65 items for sale and a leather repair and assembly shop and storage facility in downtown Toronto, with a large inventory of about 1500 coats.

Look at the Google pay-per-click rate / traffic stats for this popular keyword.  Sixty thousand people went online looking for vintage leather jackets last month, and David’s blogspot is probably the first place they picked to visit.  To summarize, David’s fledgling ebusiness has two out of three components necessary for success – he has merchandise and he has handcrafted excellent social capital that’s now yielding lots of traffic.  But he lacks an effective buckstop, which is what Smojoe calls the mechanism by which readers become buyers.  The only way a visitor can become a customer here is to click a relatively small button in the top corner of the blog sidebar and then travel to eBay, which is not effective, and so his coats remain on the shelf.

What would Smojoe recommend?

On Thursday last week David Himel asked Smojoe a simple question, “how can I best turn this popular blogspot into an ecommerce business?’

I pondered the dilemma… He needs an e-store, but the Blogger software he uses doesn’t give much of an option for that, and the widgets that do exist will cost a % of his revenue.  The problem is that his fun and easy-to-use blogspot is owned by Blogger (which is owned by Google) and so he’s spent almost four years fixing up a piece of online property that he doesn’t own. Now it would be a crying shame to walk away and close this portal forever in favour of another site, even if the replacement comes custom built with a proper payment portal. It might be that Dave will never get back on top of the search rankings again with anything but this blogspot… So what’s the solution?

Smojoe advocates a using David’s campy but popular blog to drive a new e-store catalog website with a small network of affiliate bloggers helping out.

Indeed, what Mr. Himel must do is actually very simple. He should build another website that is a slick e-store with a shopping cart and a proper payment gateway. Smojoe recommends the site open up right into a catalog of colourful vintage leather jackets and merchandise in which every item on every page is a separate URL – that way stories can reference and anchor right to individual pieces that are for sale.

David should keep blogging same as before, but truncate material on the old site, and leave links to MORE on the new site. Reduce frequency of posts to one a month on old blog, and post like a bandit on the new site. The new catalog site should have all new original articles, and lots of period photos and keyword rich content. Smojoe recommends David re purpose some of the articles on the old blogspot and bundle together themes into ebooks with long keyword rich excerpts that can be published again on the new site (where content can be downloaded and sold as an ebook).

David should create affiliate marketing badges and place the biggest and best example in the sidebar of his blogspot. The old blogger blog should be edited full of new text links too – stories and photo descriptions should link deep into the new e-store.  Over time the new catalog website will benefit from the links and attention of the blogspot and it too will rise in prominence.

In addition to this primary feed, the new catalog website can attract other affiliates and pay them a percentage of each sale. I know that 69 Vintage on Queen St here in Toronto now has a blog, and popular individuals like Lisa Charleyboy Urban Native Girl Stuff are always looking for cool fashion to represent. Depending on the split, I’m sure other artists and fashion bloggers would also come on board as affiliates. These people would come in handy to help promote David’s future fashion shows and events.

One thing is certain, David Himel and his blogspot have certainly become a very interesting Smojoe case study and pondering his predicament helps answer the question, how do experts convert social capital into cash? Keep your eye on this guy and his The Art of Vintage Leather Jackets blogspot and let’s see if he takes my free advice.

This is a victory cry.

As of October 2009, the keywords ‘miss teen Canada’ will always return www.MissTeenCanadaWorld.com as the first result in organic Google search.

The MTCW blog written by 2009 Miss Teen Canada- World, Siera Bearchell is in 2nd position.

Miss Teen Canada- International is now third, forevermore

Today we celebrate the Miss Teen Canada-World website as the first most socially relevant return for the keywords ‘miss teen Canada’ on Google, eclipsing at least four other contenders in that surprisingly competitive search category. Bounced completely from the first page index is Miss Teen Canada Global, Miss All-Canadian, and Miss Teen Galaxy and others; I don’t know all their names, but I do know the number one rival and previously dominant Miss Teen Canada – International now ranks third.

These folks fought a good fight. The MTCI organization’s top ranked position was finally overcome by the sheer volume of media and incoming links from the MTCW ‘blog army’, of the fifty four 2009 Miss Teen Canada-World contestants.  Without a similar strategy, the MTC-International pageant site cannot hope to be first again. Indeed, when I examine their site today I see that their main page is ‘under construction’. Perhaps they’re spending money, building a powerful response?

Miss Teen Canada –World deserves to be first in all SERPS.

Michelle Weswaldi, the pageant’s executive director is quick to remind photographers and staff that her organization deserves to be atop the first page results in this busy niche because, “The Search for Miss Teen Canada-World is the only teen pageant that conducts provincial competitions all across the country to select national finalists and has the rights to send its winner to represent Canada at the Miss Teen World Pageant.” In Jan 2009 Michelle Weswaldi assembled a dream team of marketing experts and skilled media publishers like Ellen Smith of EnCourse Business Development and Deborah Knight of dkpr. These professionals hired Richard Carmichael of Frank Ideas and Execution and Rob Campbell of Smojoe Social Media Marketing.

The Miss Teen Canada World website itself is the biggest part of this success story. This is a slick destination all readers really appreciate, and the administrators like that it comes complete with full CMS integration and extensive database management software to customize newsletters and email bulletins.

Each website’s inherent quest to be first in SERPs is like a mini pageant, where Google is the judge.

For teen beauty pageant websites, the struggle for organic first place listing on Google is really a quest for legitimacy, and as such it’s like a mini beauty pageant. The winner is the organization that most deserves the crown, and the prize is 80% of all organic search traffic. How many visitors is that? All across Canada those keywords yield approx 1000 unique searches a month.*

The MTC-W Contestant Blog army

The Miss Teen Canada- World beauty pageant has come out on top because of an innovative social media network of OnSugar blogs, photos and videos.  Our electronic community now shares the adventure of being in Toronto and competing in pictures and stories. This media has very high usability and is 100% original, created by the competitive energy of fifty young authors.  Essentially, our blog network shares the experience better than our competition’s website could ever hope to accomplish. We have provided a digital venue for photo sharing and experience digesting as measured in our low website’s exremely low bounce rate.

Sabrina Eldridge Advances The Future of the MTCW Blog Army

In 2010, MTCW finalists from all across Canada will be using a custom MissTeenCanadaWorld.OnSugar template made special by Sabrina Eldridge @SabrinaBot, the community manager at OnSugar and author of The Daily Sabs. She loves that we decided to go forward using the On Sugar blog platform and has stepped up support to offer the exclusive template design and widget implimentation.  BONUS the new template has built in Google analytics that will record stats from all across our blog network.

The ever expanding MTCW Blog Army combined together with teen celebrity Siera Bearchell, Miss Teen Canada – World 2009 who blogs right on the website creates a staggering amount of stimulating content that makes mountains of media and hoists the MTCW flag ever-higher over the landscape; the system implemented by Smojoe cements the pageant’s online reputation and builds ‘social capital’ because of the blogs.

Check out the squidoo lens, http://squidoo.com/missteencanada where you can find a complete list of all 2009 bloggers and a full introduction to Siera Bearchell, Miss Teen Canada - World 2009 and here’s links to Siera Bearchell on Twitter and Siera Bearchell on Flickr.

There’s some pride in my opening link to Jeanne Lottie’s personal blog on the back of the Jeanne Lottie catalog website. I’m really proud of how well she’s crafting the content and using the portal to build public interest in her brand.

Her blog is fashioned from the Red Light template and was installed by Brian Kumarasamy of IWD Canada and tricked out by yours truly, Smojoe social and I’m not finished yet.

Smojoe salutes Jeanne Lottie and her Pink Bedroom Party which is fast approaching in October … link to tickets. This is no doubt going to be the social event of the season and Smojoe will be there - here’s a handy place to get tickets to Jeanne Lottie’s Pink Bedroom Party.

Everyone over at Jeanne Lottie is super focused on the success and promotion of this grand event. I hope to see you here. Wear your bedroom-inspired elegant party attire to this Fun, Sexy, Fashion, see-and-be-seen event.

DJ and dancing all night!

Enjoy complimentary drinks, Hors d’oeuvres inspired by David Rocco’s Dolce Vita. Silent and Live auctions, Utb Untouchable Lingerie and Jeanne Lottie handbags fashion show.

August 30th Sunday I had a burger at The Dizzy pub on Roncesvalles and listened to James Heiedebrecht get very excited about starting a website for people with hearing aids. No kidding – he’s already registered JamesListens.com which I think is a superb name. The photograph captures me smiling out loud, thinking about a combination of things including the battle for the pivotal niche hearing aid keywords.

A Cool Canadian Discussion Forum

Smojoe has made some new friends on CoolCanucks.ca and this social contest site has a lot of potential to explode into a massive network of avaricious moms. I can see the vBulletin discussion forum is picking up steam. You know Smojoe likes this template software and this seems even more accommodating – on CoolCanucks.ca member profiles can have exclusive photo albums and even host discussion groups – its like an unpolished Ning meets Tagged meets RedFlagDeals and its actually growing right now by leaps and bounds and it seems more and more people are here every time I visit.

Her first name is Alisa, and I don’t remember her last name, but this attractive young woman is fresh from Australia and has come all this way to hold down a desk in Richard Carmichael’s office which is otherwise known as FRANK Ideas and Execution.

In the photo Alisa is executing one of Richard’s frank ideas, setting up some future meeting like a skilled project manager.

I also had the pleasure of helping Toronto expressive arts therapy Ruth Wilgress set up her blog and use it to properly showcase her photography and fine art paintings warehoused on Flickr.

Smojoe and the Miss Teen Canada beauty pageant have just recently extended their business relationship.  Now social media training is part of the package.

One Weds Aug 19th 2009,  Smojoe met Siera Bearchell the 2009 Miss Teen Canada- World winner, three days before her flight to Houston Texas to compete for the Miss Teen World crown.  The subject of newspaper stories and TV appearances it’s become clear that Siera is going to be a very popular beauty queen, and Smojoe has been retained to help transfer some of that buzz into the blogosphere.

At 12:30 pm we walked and talked in downtown Toronto near the Adelaide St and Jarvis offices of EnCourse Business Development. It was a super hot day and instead of sitting in a sweaty cafe I decided we’d get some pictures in the park and relax in the shade. Well it was a very busy park, and people were staring and that sure makes it hard to relax…

As an official beauty queen, Siera is required to wear her sash the entire time she’s in Toronto, esp when in public on official meetings.  She doesn’t need it though.  I swear if she didn’t have it people would probably still stare at her and know she’s special for some reason.  Indeed it was a little weird because as we sauntered along just about every single person we met on that narrow concrete path was somehow affected by our passing.  Some folks in the distance pointed and called loudly to nearby friends while others ventured closer and snapped cell phone pictures and jeepers it was odd. Is this what its like being a teen celebrity?

- Moments after winning the crown 25th July 09.

Siera was selected by a panel of Judges in front of an enthusiastic live audience in the John Bassett Theatre of the Metro Toronto Convention Center on Saturday July 25th 2009.  She came out ahead of fifty three other contestants that night and its no wonder why; Siera captured the hearts and minds of everyone because of her strong presentation of self.  Her story resonated right along with her abilities and poise and tremendous stage presence and all of this impacted the judges, and the audience.

Smojoe would like to believe that Siera Bearchell’s OnSugar contestant blog was a big part of her victory; its a fact she scored high with me because she used the magic of story. Specifically, Smojoe was moved by the unhappy tale of how Siera Bearchell overcame the trauma of living through a house fire and the resultant devastation and subsequent rebuilding of her life that occurred thereafter. She hooked me and branded me right there in that one blog post.

Siera Bearchell is a golfer and that’s another big part of her life and personal story. Oh I jumped on that element and soon insisted that she write and submit a golf course review for a high end Canadian golf ezine.   If she embraces this popular online sports community, her MTC-W blog will grow more and more popular after every game.

Here’s a girl that’s good with a club, and that’s an intriguing combination. That dichotomy would make interesting reading in so many niche golf zines. I told her that being a good blogger could allow her to play free golf at any course in Canada. Think about it.  What golf course wouldn’t pay her expenses and let her play with other VIP members to get in the center of her online popularity? It would be hot content and premium social capital.

As we walked back to the office I described story funnels and how to use three or four different online platforms to communicate  tiny bits of the same first person adventure.  Siera’s Flickr will soon be full of the images chronicling her quest in Texas and some of these bits should link to the MTCW blog platform, the former home of Katie Stark.  Siera Bearchell’s Twitter and the official Miss Teen Canada- World Twitter (updated more frequently by Michelle Weswaldi) accommodates official news bulletins and links. Siera’s comments on other blogs, her stories in the press, and other photo sharing sites will all hopefully link out and back to her blog. Her own skills using social bookmarking services (Digg, Delicious, Reddit and StumbleUpon) will help reinforce incoming links and highlight her best content as she creates the ultimate Miss Teen Canada- World blog.

Siera Bearchell, you are Canada’s most celebrated teenager, and your star is set to rise even higher in Houston Texas at the Miss Teen World competition. Good luck and don’t forget to write.

On Thursday July 23rd 2009, Rob Campbell, the social media director for The 2009 Search for Miss Teen Canada - World was invited to judge The Preliminaries at the Betty Oliphant Theatre.  At 9pm, fifty four girls got off a charter bus outside with dresses, fancy shoes and all their costumes.

Betty Oliphant Theatre is cute little venue on Jarvis Street. It’s one of only a half dozen non union theaters left in Toronto, and has a friendly and accommodating staff that still love their craft and are keen to show visitors and trespassers like myself exactly what’s possible in a modern venue. Smojoe was treated to a preview of the lights and sounds of the upcoming pageant preliminaries, an hour before they actually happened. And I should NOTE the show went seamlessly. Great work guys.

Anyone familiar with the Miss Teen Canada- World beauty pageant knows the pageant director Michelle Weswaldi is the benevolent ‘boss of all aesthetic things’.  She bought or licensed the World title a few years ago, and has been growing the pageant ever since. Unknown to me before I accepted this contract, a national beauty pageant is a year long activity, with regional pageants all across the country in every province; the MTC-W pageant culminates in a week long event in Toronto Ontario at the end of July.

This year, the final moments of The Search For Miss Teen Canada World will occur on July 25th in the John Bassett Theatre in the Metro Toronto Convention center at 8pm, and I’ll be sure and post a detailed account of that evening in upcoming dispatches.

Michelle Weswaldi runs a tight ship, like someone that’s organized a fashion event once a month for three and a half years.  Earlier in the week I had the pleasure of watching her interact with some of the young contestants. She has the ability to focus on each one individually all at once. She listens just long enough to determine what’s important, and then interrupts with the answer before the girl is finished describing any of the symptoms of her problem. You get the feeling Michelle has heard it all before, and doesn’t play favourites.

What should the judges actually be judging in a teen beauty pageant? I know the answer to this now.  Beyond physicality (tall thin pretty etc) and whatever strikes them as beautiful, judges look for style.

Michelle Weswaldi, seen wearing an orange dress and shuffling pens in the photo above, was carefully to elaborate on exactly what Judges should look for when ranking performances, and she tried to describe the special confidence she seeks. Its personality, and stage presence.

Thinking back on it all now, there was one contestant (I don’t rememebr which one) that walked a little slower than the beat, but still in time if that makes sense, and she gave the entire catwalk a special charm. And there were girls who were obviously very nervous and gave it nothing. During this experience Smojoe gained insights and a new understanding into the origins of personal style.

The show started at 9:15pm and was done by 10. The first girl to emerge from the curtain was Wendy Huang and she rocked it.  A petite girl,  her performance set the bar pretty high, for me anyway.  She has a bounce and a nice bright smile, and she walked to the very extremes of the stage and waited the precious moments that the audience needs to absorb the full ensemble.  I gave her an eight and I was still watching when she disappeared, with a final wave,  backstage. Wendy had style, and it showed in her walk and her charisma as she presented herself on stage.

And there was applause. Every girl had their fair share of applause, but some of the contestants had personal cheering sections! This was quite effective.  Unlike other sporting events, beauty queen contestants are affected by audience reactions, and having five or eight friends sitting in the audience loudly cheering your performance really helps. It clearly made each of these contestants more confident and sub consciously it plays on the judges too - it lets them know that these girls are somebody’s favourites.

This is Brittani Gray, one of the youngest contestants in this year’s pageant. Her blog is good and full of pictures of herself and she writes with the skill and ability of someone much older. Her performance in the preliminaries was strong, especially her evening dress, which was spectacular.  I include this photo here because its the only one of any swimsuit model that wasn’t blurred or red eyed or badly under exposed, but of course its all of those things.

The Judges marked the papers with numbers that represent ‘beauty’, an intangible something that each contestant strives to possess, both inside and outside their bodies.

The Search for Miss Teen Canada–World (MTC-W) comes to a dramatic conclusion on Saturday July 25th in downtown Toronto, but regional finalists are actually competing now, online.

I must confess The Search For Miss Teen Canada is my favourite client right now, and that’s because I just love how social media has evolved their business model by adding new value to their sponsorship packages.

As the MTC-W organization, under the guidance of Ellen Smith at EnCourse Business Development Agency, gears up for the July 25th 2009 pageant, Miss Teen Canada World sponsors have never had it so good.  These firms get buzz from community involvement, brand mentor ship, and they enjoy the positive PR boost that comes from supporting such an exciting high profile event. But now what’s really tasty is the OnSugar social media icing on the cake. Let me explain.

This year, and for the first time in history, Miss Teen Canada World will be judged in part on the qualities of her personal blog. Now the prettiest and smartest, most congenial girl must also be a web savvy computer geek capable of recording and managing her experience at the center of a powerful MTC-W social net.  Cool huh? Nerds rejoice, and so do the businesses that are connected to this interactivity.  That’s because if you’re selling anything in the online teen marketplace today you know how important it is to get incoming links, esp deep links that connect to  product information pages. Simply put, the new MTC-W pageant is now a great way to get those links. Lots and lots of keyword focused deep links…

Did I mention… There’s fifty finalists. And as of May 20th 2009 each of them has started an OnSugar blog. Here are some links to the earliest adopters.

http://kylawills.onsugar.com/
http://wendyhuang.onsugar.com
http://karmenguillas.onsugar.com
http://oliviawolter.onsugar.com
http://cassandratracy.onsugar.com/
http://taylorstronski.onsugar.com/
http://genevievejones.onsugar.com
http://annissacheyne.onsugar.com/

Think about it. Each one of these girls is probably a very influential ‘agent of her tribe’. I’ll bet most of them have a thousand friends on Facebook. Now they’re on Twitter, and soon they’ll be holding down accounts on Flickr and StumbleUpon, and on each platform they’ll share thoughts and ideas and blog about the products they find in their gift bags.

In a recent Orato article: How Social Media Saved A Beauty Pageant, I’ve listed these three primary changes. Here’s how social media has vastly improved beauty pageant business model.

1. The pageant now advertises itself. The contestant blog squad grows over time engages many tribes at once and becomes more and more connected in the weeks leading up to the event.
2. Contestant connectivity yields new incentives for sponsors promoting their own ecommerce websites. Multi platform brand conversations occur as teenagers record their experiences on four different fronts - they use their OnSugar blogs, and their Twitter (search #mtcw09), Flickr and Facebook profiles. Companies that sell online can easily donate something to the contestant gift bag to reap potent storytelling and link love.
3. The quality of the experience is improved, and better shared. Blogging, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook provides a new conduit for these young people to ‘be their own kind of beautiful’ as they record the most poignant moments of their journey to share them with followers.

MTC-W is the only Canadian teen pageant recognized by the Miss Teen World competition (which occurs in Houston Texas in August this year), and that’s because it’s the only organization that produces regional events in all ten provinces, and fund raises for Free The Children. But these accreditations alone are not enough to insure financial success. It’s this brand new social media stuff that’s turning heads here, and its fun to show skeptical marketing managers what’s actually possible in a beauty pageant.

Noon Friday March 20th, 2009 Rob Campbell of Smojoe social media enjoyed a working lunch with the Petite Fashionista at her blog workshop at Eglington and Yonge, uptown Toronto.

Petite Fashion Blog Workshop

Speaking to a packed room, Christa Jean highlighted the finer points of blogging and emphasized interactive widgets, video components, and how to obtain helpful analytics to know and better target random readers. She made it personal by talking about her own experiences growing her blog, including her June 22, 2008 charity event where she raffled off dresses from a celebrity designer Hayden Panettiere for her Save The Whales campaign. That one event tripled Petite Fashionista’s traffic and online reputation as it pushed her Google page rank to PR5.

Here’s a shot of me enjoying a cucumber avocado on whole wheat sandwich. I was caught half puckered trying to appear surprised in a not-so-candid photo. It didn’t really work out.

Three bites later I set my sandwich down and snapped a lovely shot of Christa describing the process she uses to shoot, edit and post videos on YouTube.  She’s having lots of fun streaming videos and packing powerful messages into moving images. Check out her video gallery on her Petite Fashionista Ning community website.

Overall I was impressed with Petite Fashionista and her cozy little information exchange. The fun and friendly gathering is another reflection of her charisma and experience. In so many ways Christa is wise beyond her years; she’s an absolute expert at building online communities and growing a dedicated readership.  Some of her web tactics are downright brilliant. She impressed me with her ideas about joining small groups, and how important it is to find and build a core community of genuine friends that read and connect with each others’ blogs everyday.