Shropshire blogger is top Cool Hunter

The name Tom Cleeland might not mean much even in the county of Shropshire. But under his alias, The Cool Commentator, he is, amongst the painfully hip out on the streets of New York, a bit of a cyber-guru.

Tom, you see, is a 'cool hunter'. Someone who hunts for the 'cool' things in life, making observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends, covering art, technology and lifestyle.

And so it is that the the 22-year-old musician, advertising student and self-styled 'creative' from Shifnal has created a character for himself that, through his hugely popular online blogs on must-have fashion and lifestyle accessories, has some 3,000 aspiring hipsters every month hanging on to his every word.

Tom has just won the Cool Hunting Blog Of The Year Award 2010 with thecoolcommentator.com, and his instant influence has triggered an avalanche of hits on YouTube.

Says Tom: "A couple of weeks ago I came across a video of a guy calling himself Merton playing piano and singing improve on Chat Roulette (a website that pairs random strangers for webcam-based conversations).

"I posted this video on The Cool Commentator when it was at only 3,000 plays on YouTube. Twenty-four later the video had had more than 1.5 million views."

He adds: "To see viral looping occur in real time and know that you were part of the process early on is quite phenomenal."

In a world of viral and guerrilla marketing, spotting and being the first to write about the latest iPhone, for instance, can make you a phenomenon in the time it takes to drop a Tweet on Twitter.

Says Tom: "I had been blogging for about two years with minor interest but I decided to change the platform from blogger.com to tumblr.com and concentrate on the content of the blog. I decided early on that I didn't just want the blog to be all about me, or for me and that I wanted to share the content I found.

"I bought a .com domain name, created a logo and some branding and The Cool Commentator was born. I designed a custom website myself — it has been commented on and applauded for it's unique layout and style as it is very different to a normal blog.

He continues: "I quickly made a Twitter account and Facebook fan page and did some minimal online and social media marketing."

The Cool Commentator now has over 3,000 monthly readers, a following on Twitter of nearly 2,000 creative people and a few hundred fans on Facebook. And it's building nicely.

"I have three contributing writers who regularly find and write about cool content and I regularly work with creative and media agencies to help them seed their new projects and campaigns online through The Cool Commentator," says Tom.

Certainly something of a go-getter, is Tom. Even in his early teens he was involved with promotions, marketing and social media in one way or another, starting out with his own bands and helping out with a local alternative music night in Telford.

It led him to study media and advertising at Edge Hill University in Lancashire.

He says: "I have always been very career driven so I have always put a lot of time and effort into ensuring I have a CV packed full of relevant and interesting experiences ready for when I graduate."

Last year he managed to secure a three-month placement at an 'experiential' ad agency in New York City called Cunning Communications.

"The agency specialise in experiential events and stunts and guerrilla marketing - here I worked on the creative team pitching campaigns to clients including Smirnoff and Yahoo!

"I also managed to sell an idea to BMW Sauber F1 Team in Dubai. Whilst I was working and living in New York I decided that I would start to keep an online scrap book of all the cool content I came across on the web."

He even wrote his dissertation on the subject this year.

"I want to continue to grow The Cool Commentator," he continues. "I am currently looking for more contributors to join the team and I am always interested in hearing from young creative talent — artists, designers, musicians, film makers — whom I could feature on the blog and expose to a great number of industry figures and other creative people."

The pipe dream is to successfully turn The Cool Commentator into not only a creative/cool hunting blog but also a creative services agency.

"We would specialise in digital advertising and marketing with an emphasis on social media. We would help brands and companies to understand social media and how they can leverage it to their advantage and grow their business."

• To catch up with Tom's blog visit: thecoolcommentator.com

By Ben Bentley