Miles Beckett and his buddies became famous for the YouTube show “Lonelygirl15.” It was set up to look like a teenage girl’s authentic video diary. But even after it was exposed as fiction featuring product placements, the videos continued getting plenty of views.

That was at the dawn of the YouTube age in 2006. Now, as chief executive of North Hollywood-based social media company Eqal Inc., Beckett builds web presences for celebrities such as Paula Deen, Randy Jackson and Lauren Conrad. He co-founded Eqal in 2008 with Greg Goodfried, who serves as president.

The celebrities pay Eqal, which essentially sells advertisements for their websites and helps manage the sites’ content. The company shares ad revenue with the celebrities.

Beckett said it can be difficult to please celebrities, advertisers and the audience at the same time.

“It was hard to simultaneously provide value to the brand and entertain the viewer,” Beckett said. “But we found a model that’s working.”

The model calls for keeping a clear distinction between the celebrities’ blog posts and the nearby ads; some material is labeled “sponsored.” And some websites are completely separate. For example, Deen’s “Real Women of Philadelphia” online cooking contest was developed for Kraft, and it is on a site that’s separate from Deen’s blog.

“The key is to clearly label it,” Beckett said. “It’s a cleaner separation than we did with ‘Lonelygirl,’ and that’s critical. If it feels authentic, that’s the key to all of this.”

Eqal has about 50 employees, up from a dozen a year ago, and hopes to get $3.5 million in funding thanks to its first profitable quarter in 2010.

Eqal might be in a sweet spot, with a specialty that has a lot of potential customers: celebrities who need a Web presence.

“It’s important for celebrities to leverage social media to grow their following,” said Lou Kerner, a social media analyst at downtown L.A.-based Wedbush Securities.