Movember, the month formerly known as November, is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year, raising funds and awareness for men’s health in the process. Welt was able to interview Donny Killian, Movember’s US manager, to find out more about the event.

Welt: How did the idea originally come about?

Donny: It started in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia, with a couple of friends talking about ‘80s fashion and how everything cycles back into vogue. They decided then and there that the moustache was the perfect old school fashion that needed a comeback. That November, they got 30 of their friends together to grow a Mo, Aussie slang for moustache, re-naming the month Movember.

The rules were simple: Start the month clean-shaven, and grow a moustache for 30 days. The guys had so much fun, and were shocked by the amount of conversations started by the moustache. They decided to grow the following year, and to do it for a cause. Inspired by the breast cancer and women’s health movement, they chose an under-served disease that affecting 1 in 6 men, prostate cancer.

The following year, 450 Aussies raised $55,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia… And that was the beginning of the men’s health movement.

Welt: Currently in the US, $7,091,183 has been raised. What has not proven to be effective in your social media efforts to help raise this number?

Donny: We are thrilled with the amount raised so far this year (nearly $7.2M) and how far we’ve come from last year. In 2010, we had nearly 65,000 registered Mo Bros and Mo Sistas participating and they raised $7.5M ($81M globally, with 450,000 global participants). We are only 18 days into the month and already have 138,000 US participants and close to $51M globally! We are honored to have this overwhelming support.

Our community is a fun, strong and dedicated force – they understand our messaging, believe in the cause and spread awareness in their own unique way. We support our Mo Bros and Mo Sistas throughout their Movember journey by providing the tools and resources for them to have meaningful conversations, educate others and above all have remarkable experiences throughout the month.

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No budget, no marketing dollars, no existing clientele, a business name, great event ideas, and a drive to succeed…

This was me, six months ago, when I decided to leave my job and embark on a journey of entrepreneurial passion. I had the winning idea, but — with my limited budget — how was I to promote it and spread the word?

Let’s fast forward to the present day. I have two major events on the docket: Run for Your Life Zombie 5K scheduled for October 23, 2011 and Challenge Cincinnati Urban Adventure Race scheduled for March 24, 2012. Using solely social media, I have managed to create buzz and increase traffic to my event websites, to the point at which I now fully expect both events to sell out. Keep in mind that I have yet to spend $1 on advertising! So what new fad or idea did I use? None — I used simple, old fashioned networking skills, and the ability of social network sites to magnify those skills.

Social media has proved effective in promoting events like Run for Your Life Zombie 5K.

Building my initial following wasn’t easy, but I knew that with Facebook and LinkedIn, I had thousands of possible connections. Not only did I personally have all of these connections but, the charitable organizations that were to benefit from my events had many as well. Here is how it went down:

• I synchronized the launch of my websites and event Facebook pages with coordinated requests to my family, friends, and acquaintances and with those of family, friends, and acquaintances of others who were involved with the planning of the event.
• I sent personal individualized requests to over 200 people asking them to “Like” our page and requested that they post it on their wall at least once.
• I spent the first week continually following up with my friends, family, and acquaintances on Facebook chat to confirm my requests and most of all…(drum roll please) to thank them!
• Half of my posts from the first week were not informational posts at all, but rather me thanking those who were supporting us and helping us spread the word early.

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The strategies behind branding efforts and building a real-life relationship are comparable.

Think about it: When you’re starting a relationship you try to prove to the other person that you’re trustworthy and good for them. You don’t do this in one particular way, but you express yourself across multiple platforms – calling, texting, dating, and yes, shockingly enough, you also make things “Facebook official” by becoming one of their social media friends. If you want the relationship to last and you’ve done something wrong, you inevitably have to fix the problem, but more importantly, gain back their trust.

Similarly in branding, marketers not only want to gain awareness, but also want to establish credibility and trust. In order to achieve these things a brand does not just market to their consumer over one platform — it engages in a variety of mediums.

A digital audit can determine metrics to measure against a larger marketing goal.

Keeping this in mind, it would seemingly make sense that, especially when things are not working out, marketing managers would conduct a comprehensive analysis of their efforts, right? Not always, and unfortunately this analysis is especially deficient across the digital platform!

As more and more companies discover the digital marketing universe, it seems less actually utilize the full scope that digital has to offer. This inability to optimize is partially due to the fact that most companies don’t actually know what they’re supposed to be doing or why they’re suppose to be doing it. It seems that many companies either believe that the more users they touch, the more the success, or that having a mere digital presence is enough.

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Doctor Tweet? (Image courtesy of thenextweb.com)

It sounds like common sense. The British Medical Association recently warned doctors against befriending patients on social networking sites because it could potentially violate confidentiality.

Now a conscientious medical professional is unlikely to make a mistake of that caliber, but it does illuminate how difficult it can be to build relationships with your patients and still maintain that all-important clinical distance. Continue reading »

The unfortunate Tweet in question...

Social media is social. People communicate in real-time with equal access for all. Everyone has an opinion and a megaphone to share it with. Sometimes, you can fall on your face in an instant.

Entenmann’s learned this the hard way on July 5^th. When the verdict in the Casey Anthony murder trial in Florida was announced that afternoon, Twitter immediately exploded in a flood of instant reaction tweets, many tagged with #notguilty. Someone at Entenmann’s Social Agency made a huge miscalculation by jumping in with the following tweet: “Who’s #notguilty about eating all the tasty treats they want?!” It did not go unnoticed, and while the Agency quickly apologized, damage was done.

At least they aimed for being a “Tasty treat.” Continue reading »