SMOjoe.com

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 been lots of good Smojoe in September 2009. Here’s a long mash up of this month’s best memories and media.

Let’s start with Siera Bearchell and the terrific writing she’s been putting up on the Miss Teen Canada– World blog.  Her work deserves recognition and more readership because of the admirable manner in which she’s taken the reigns and responsibility from Katie Starke.

Gone but not forgotten, Katie has started her own blog Katie Starke OnSugar this month. This portal is starting small but will grow and mature in the network to keep all her fans updated with reports on whatever she chooses to do with her life.

After a well deserved Mediterranean vacation, Michelle Weswaldi is back as Pageant Director of MTC-W and is now prepping the Ontario finals as part of the 2010 Search for Miss Teen Canada– World.   Just this morning, much to my surprise, I received the first ever MTC-W newsletter. I was impressed with the creation made by Campaigner software, which contained nine pictures with interesting captions. Anyone looking for more information about the MTC-W 2010 Ontario finals can find more data on the website, and more conversational stuff on the MTC-W Facebook group.

Smojoe is proud to announce that Sugar Inc and the Miss Teen Canada -World pageant now have a formal relationship. After a four emails and one phone call Sabrina Eldridge and Rob Campbell agreed that OnSugar will give custom template solutions and support to the growing army of MTC-W bloggers.

Sabrina Eldridge and her staff will work with OnSugar designers to customize an exclusive template that only MTC-W contestants can use. The design will have built in analytics, custom headers and sidebar widgets that link them and even show off the latest posts in the network. The template will be exclusive (we hope) so that administrators alone can control and modify functionality and affect display changes across the array from one master site.  What that means is that I’ll be able to make modifications to the template and those changes will manifest in all the blogs in the network at once. So for example I can update the list of sponsors, and change the outgoing links to sponsor websites all across the network with the click of a button.

In return, Miss Teen Canada - World will make each girl’s OnSugar blog part of the official competition and worth 10% of each contestant’s final score.  We will encourage participants to make their blogs their ‘campaign headquarters’ and use the exclusive template to show judges and give readers an inside look at their lives as they prepare to travel to Toronto in the summer of 2010 to compete in the Miss Teen Canada - World pageant.

Smojoe really admires Jeannie Lottie and how well she’s using her Jeanne Lottie Blog to promote her Pink Bedroom Party on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009, at the Berkeley Church at 315 Queen St. East at Parliament Toronto. Tickets cost $55 in advance, and $65 at the door.

Here’s Jeanne Lottie with superstar Cheryl Tiegs. The timeless Ms. Tiegs is the spokesperson for the sponsor Cambria, and proud owner of a Jeanne Lottie black vintage Bead Framed Bag because deep down Jeanne believes that “every blond should have a sparkly little clutch to stash her lip gloss, cards and evening essentials.” Honestly I love the attitude of the writing on her blog now, and the personality that’s starting to appear in this portal. The stories have links to fashion merchandise available in the Jeanne Lottie catalog.

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The myCELLmyTERMS guys have every reason to be excited these days. They’re building something, and people will come, especially after October 21st 2009 at 8pm.

Keep your eye on The Cell Phone Blog this month for insights and updates on the myCELLmyTERMS entreprenuers and their upcoming appearance on the hit CBC series Dragons’ Den. Their story has been filmed and is scheduled to be broadcast to millions of Canadians on Oct 21st at 8pm depending on where you live. This is the kind of media that can really fertilize a start-up business and grow a big customer base. They just have to be ready for the spike…

So folks can now join myCELLmyTERMS on Facebook, and follow myCELLmyTERMS on Twitter and of course read The Cell Phone Blog to get a good inside look at these guys and their business.

In truth they are a fascinating quartet of serial entrepreneurs and their idea is quite unique, which is saying something in the cell phone game where everything is derivative and cliche.  myCELLmyTERMS.com has a genius idea; they let each customer detail their dream cell phone plan (including how much they’re willing to pay each month), and then they shop the offer to all different carriers in Canada so he or she gets the best deal.

For those of you that don’t know, Smojoe met these guys in connection with Lenzr.com and through Stephen Rouse of Maverick PR.  The firm sponsored the Summer in Toronto photo contest which was won by Snickerzmom who chose the iPhone 3gs when she could have had any smart phone in the world.

Here’s Ducourt…

This guy won the Best Ontario Skyline photo contest on Lenzr and has since taken possession of a Pentax Optio P90 camera.

Best Toronto Skyline had 46 photos submitted, including some amazing shots with lightning and ducks and vintage shots of the skyline that have all together gathered up over 2500 votes.

The winner is DuCourt, who describes himself in the third person in his Lenzr.com profile, “Thomas is a long-standing freelance film technician in the Toronto film industry who is attempting to transition into an on-set photographer”.

I meet Thomas Care downtown and we talked about his life. Tom is a dolly grip in the Toronto film industry.  His job pays well because there’s a special skill to accomplishing complicated camera moves and the relationship between the camera operator and the dolly grip is quite unique.  However Thomas tells me that he yearns to be an on set photographer and hopes his new website (which I will link to here when it’s done) will help him get more recognition. For this reason he’s out building profiles on websites like Lenzr.com and elsewhere in social media hoping that such participatory investments will help him influence producers and production managers and enable help him to better find employment in this exciting vocation.

Ontario Tourist Attractions photo contest launched on Lenzr on September 1st 2009 and is  a huge success with over forty images uploaded into competition and almost 1400 votes in September. The contest has captured some fantastic images. A half dozen local bloggers have written about the photo contest and the best posts are Alexandra Highcrest, Snapping for Swag and… more to follow.

Ontario Tourist Attractions is a photo contest on Lenzr.com thats open to anyone who’s ever been a tourist in Ontario Canada and still has the pictures to prove it.  But of course you have to be Canadian to win the prize and sorry that excludes Quebec and anyone younger than 13yrs old.

This web challenge is sponsored by Kanetix.ca insurance & mortgage rate quotes and has become a search for images that glimpse Ontario’s most interesting travel destinations. So far this month forty pictures or assorted beaches and bars, towers and temples, museums and music festivals have appeared on the site.

Ontario Tourist Attractions photo contest ends at 12:01 am on the morning of November 1st 2009. On Lenzr the membership rates the submissions and the highest rated image wins the Prize, a $200 gift certificate for first place, followed by $100 for second.

There are even more big things happening at Smojoe in October.  I call this picture Lemon and Honey. It was taken in the Foggy Dew the day I first rapped with Jax.  I know there’s goin to be some level of developmental cooperation between myself and the girl with the Smojoe honey. Stay tuned for more details on her and the sweet citrus she brings to the table.

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.

It’s finally happening, beauty queens get their own blogs now. On a rainy Friday afternoon in April, Smojoe mentored Katie Starke, the 2008 Miss Teen Canada - World on the fine points of building and branding her online identity. Together we huddled over a computer on the third floor of  of 258 Adelaide St east Toronto, in the center of a busy En Course: Business Development Agency office to start something small that will certainly spiral into something big: Miss Teen Canada’s blog.

Miss Teen Canada - World is a blogger?

Its an exciting time for Katie Starke, this teenager is about to share her life with hundreds of readers. She’s nervous and anxious to make her new posts look as beautiful as her portraits. So when I pointed my trusty Sony sure shot digital camera at her she flinched and shied away. “I didn’t know we were taking pictures today” she protested.

“Katie, professional bloggers take pictures everyday as they chronicle their life experience.” I reminded her, and then mercilessly snapped another horribly amateur image.

Its a blog about the reality of living the fantasy.

All this before we got busy and opened Wordpress. I was quiet as Katie studied the blank canvas.  What should we write about? In this case the quintessential first question was further complicated by the subtleties and enormous potential of the situation. How do we introduce Katie Starke and establish the origins of a ‘personal blog’ while honouring the integrity of the Miss Teen Canada-World title, and not come off as pedantic or cliche?  The answer lies in the minutia of a young girl’s exciting life.

Katie recently flew back from a speaking engagement in Victoria at the British Columbia Miss Teen Canada - World Regionals. She found herself on the same flight as Russell Peters, fresh from hosting the 2008 Juno Awards in Vancouver, and after her people talked to his people they met and had a photo together.  Perfect, I thought.  Let’s write about that, and let’s make the headline read: Miss Teen Canada Meets Russell Peters After 2009 Juno Awards In Vancouver. That way we can really pay it off as linkbait.

Katie Starke is a quick study,

Next we attempted to embed a video of Russell Peters at the Vancouver awards show from some official channel on YouTube. I was running out of time because I really wanted to show Katie how to put videos into her posts, and my process wasn’t working. Videos are important for this blog because so many clips will soon be posted on YouTube.com by fans and proud parents and sponsors, and also there’s certain to be plenty of news media surrounding the actual Miss Teen Canada - World pageant event at the Metro Convention Center this summer. So a good strategy for Katie would be to embed pictures and videos of all interesting social gatherings and celebrities on her blog, and then describe these pieces in detail using her own words. This would give readers a rare and privileged insight into very relevant material, as I suspect that footage of the upcoming Miss Teen Canada - World pageant at the end of July will be extremely well trafficked on YouTube and Flickr for years to come… so anyway I tried to embed this video but it wouldn’t work. I tried everything and I was running out of time. Then Katie suggested that perhaps the computer we were working on didn’t have Flash installed, and I looked at her sharply because I knew at that moment she was right, and she’s going to become a terrific blogger.