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What is social capital?

I saw Julien Smith on December 1st 2009 inside the Berkley Church in downtown Toronto and he talked about Trust Agents and how to value social networks. He waxed poetic about advice his father had given him concerning perspectives on friends and potential employers. His script was pretty flat actually, and there was no deviation from the template - a couple times he paused for laughs and there werent any and I suspect he was used to laughs in those places and missed them.

In my humble opinion, Julien mislabels social events as Social Capital. These things Smojoe considers to be ’social currency’ which can build capital.  But that’s me being knitpicky … The only thing that kinda bothered me in this presentation was that Julien did not once define social capital in the plainest terms, and so most of the audience is still mesmerized by the abstraction of something that is, in fact, a very real and calculable thing.

This is NOT how Smojoe defines social capital.

In his Third Tuesday in Toronto Meet-up Presentation on Dec 1st 2009 in Toronto, Julien Smith described the idea of building premium social networks and using tools to prep managers before you ask for a promotion, and win jobs before you submit a resume, etc.  His presentation makes sense for bank employees and insurance brokers building careers, but he didn’t say what to me is the most obvious answer to the question ‘what is social capital?’

So what is Social Capital?

From an internet marketing perspective, social capital is a measurable array of incoming links each buried in keyword rich text and from respectable, highly usable sources. This is how Google measures social capital, and this is what puts your URL on page one of search engines.

Every webmaster knows what I’m talking about - to grow a successful ecommerce website today you have to be findable in search engines. The best way to get found first is to rank high on page one of Google for the most popular keywords that best define your offering. The way to the top is to earn links.

As more and more business goes online, more and more URLs compete for the same keywords. For all business owners my advice is the same; now is the time to win as many search terms as possible, because your media will only get stronger and appreciate in value over time.

An example of a social capital bank

The best example of a social capital bank that I know would be the Miss Teen Canada-World pageant, and how they now rank first for the term ‘Miss Teen Canada’ because they have the most social capital, the highest usability and the most trust… yes trust, because even trust is measurable.

The people who join and help build this social trust also withdraw its benefits when they show friends, potential sponsors, project managers, college registrars and potential new employers their blogs. In just about every case, the girls who participated in the 2009 MTC-W Blog Army used their own names in the OnSugar blog link URL, and now these blogs are the first results that appear when they type their names in Google. This gives them findability, credibility, and trust.  There’s a list of all blogs in the 2009 MTCW Blog Army here http://squidoo.com/missteencanada

On Sunday December 6th the Miss Teen Ontario - World pageant brought together fifty hopeful teenagers from all across the province and filled the St Lawrence centre for the Performing Arts on Front St with 500 or more family members and friends. This part of the MTC-W pageant is really popular now and business is booming because of an improved online presence in search engines, and a very strong MTC-W Facebook community.  With hundreds of incoming links from dozens of rich media offerings, press releases and OnSugar blog posts created by the MTCW Blog Army, no other Canadian pageant production can successfully compete against this massive link building machine.

This pageant raised $30K for Free The Children in 2009 through direct appeals from participants to personal sponsors. Thats an example of how to leverage social networks for cash, but the organization has more goodness to share with society.  Associating with the Miss Teen Canada - World pageant is a dream come true for sponsors.  Now businesses that donate to the production enjoy triple rewards. They harvest the traditional media buzz, and enjoy conversational word of mouth advertising, and they leverage the MTCW social capital bank and its powerful link building mechanisms.  So now corporate sponsors get their logo printed in the programs, and their company name mentioned in press, but more importantly the sponsor businesses also get link love from social media press releases, articles, photo captions, tweets and unique blog post links from an army of bloggers who reference them in connection with assignments and activities relating to the pageant.  The sponsor’s online goods and services are connected to more valuable stuff, and so their URLS appear higher in search engines.  So the MTCW social capital bank rewards sponsor businesses with increased findability, credibility and usability.

Build Social Capital With Smojoe

Rob Campbell will be at the Centre for Social Innovation Wednesday, January 20, 2010. I’ll be showing folks exactly how I execute complicated story funnels that capture readers on multiple platforms and bring them home to a ‘buckstop’.

Build Social Capital with Smojoe Wednesday, January 20, 2010
6:00pm to 9:00pm at the Centre for Social Innovation
215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 120 Toronto
Social Media Workshop: $40.00 CAD per ticket plus service charges and taxes.

Story Funnels to Buckstops

Bring your laptop and blog with Smojoe! Learn by doing as Rob Campbell demonstrates exactly how to build ‘Story Funnels to Buckstops’ and works through the little known principles of article replication, blogvertising and discussion forum marketing.

Story Funnels to Buckstops is the methodology Rob uses to put clients on the first page of Google search, diminish negative press, and generally increase his clients ‘findability’.

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.

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.

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.