SMOjoe.com

I just used my Roberrific Twitter account to update my 114 followers that tomorrow’s Smojoe Social Media Marketing event has been moved to 533 King St West because of high demand for seats. The seating requirements have already exceeded the capacity of The Spoke Club gallery.  Its a nice problem to have, but a problem all the same. With just twenty four hours until the start of the scheduled event, Deb Lewis and her team must now race to get the word out about the venue change, rent chairs, buy beverages, and set up a digital projector and screen at ICON home design (533 King st West) which is on the south west corner of King and Spadina - I pray to God that the internet connection will work flawlessly and so I’m importing Will Webb from Innate Media Group as an insurance policy.

How To Be Famous On The Internet is actually focused more on the business of blogging, and features guest appearances by Raymi the Minx and Petite Fashionista, who are certainly two of the most influential bloggers in Toronto with large international followings. Its so great to have them both together in the same room actually, as they have very different styles and approaches to web journalism.

Date: Weds May 27, 2009

NEW Location due to high demand, ICON Home Design, 533 King Street West SW Corner of King and Spadina) www.iconhomedesign.com
Time: 1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Networking
For tickets go to: https://secure.gettickets.ca/?event=15051
Cost: $45

Raymi The Minx Vs Petite Fashionista

As discussion forum moderator, I hope to glean from these two local bloggers exactly how they’ve used their blogs to create online community and hype. The event highlights the idea that every successful business in the 21st century will blog out of necessity, but the best will profit from the activity in many different ways. I hope to get specific about the fundamentals of online marketing and demonstrate exactly how Smojoe uses blogs and bloggers like Raymi and Christa to build social media marketing campaigns that win Google searches.

This is another great event by Deb Lewis of Toronto City Events and I sure hope I see you there.

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.

Nestle Pure Life TV commercials and web initiatives are greenwashing Canadians into believing that bottled water is a healthy choice, and a manageable environmental solution. They make me sick, and very angry. Have you seen this? The thirty second spot shows kids playing outside in a sprinkler system and then drinking bottled water. The marketing advocates making a healthy choice, and implies through suggestive narration and on screen text that human bodies need large amounts of bottled water, daily.

Their website contains a challenge wherein the fourth component is to ‘Go Green’ and that’s like a cigarette company advocating users ‘Stay Healthy’. Readers please note: there is no green bottled water solution. Eco-costs include manufacturing, trucking, shelving, and marketing. At this point in history, the annual U.S. demand for plastic bottles requires enough oil to keep 100,000 cars on the road for a year, says Janet Larsen of the Earth Policy Institute. The War Against Water Bottles reports that only 35% of Toronto’s water bottles are actually recycled, and that 650 million empty vessels are still being thrown into Ontario landfills every year despite most municipalities having the ability to recycle the bottles. A significant amount end up in nature, where they’ll take over a thousand years to break down.

The irony is that the City of Toronto just spent your tax dollars last summer doing experiential marketing in places like Dundas Square conducting blind taste tests in a widespread effort to prove the quality of our drinking water and the infrastructure behind its distribution. All over Canada our municipal governments are trying to educate city dwellers that tap water is actually the healthiest choice, but their marketing budget is small… Nestle Pure Life has a huge advertising budget; they can well afford to make suggestive tv commercials and reverse all our hard work…  But I wonder if they can sleep at night?

Bottled water is big business
Estimates variously place worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, and the market is expanding at the startling annual rate of 7 percent.

Bottle water is almost pure profit; the biggest expense is marketing
Pepsi’s Aquafina or Coca-Cola’s Dasani bottled water are both sold in twenty ounce sizes and can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks, and at the same price. Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to five cents an ounce! Gasoline is cheaper. And both of these two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than one cent per gallon, and over 40% of all bottled water comes from tap water.

Nestle Pure Life is particularly evil. They’re actively greenwashing Canadians into believing bottled water is manageable. I found this image on their website in the Go Green category - look how many water bottles are in that blue box! Nestle wants you to think that’s acceptable. They deliberately show a mother and daughter together in this image, and the choice to use Asian actors is also part of a larger strategy. Studies show that second and even third generation Canadians are more likely to distrust public water delivery systems, and are therefore more likely to purchase bottled water. Nestle’s marketing focused on Latinos in the southern United States last summer for exactly the same reasons.

Stop the Corporatization of Water
Due to increasing urbanization, population, shifting climates, and industrial pollution, fresh water will soon become humanity’s most precious resource. In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies. Water is being called the “Blue Gold” of the 21st century and corporations are in a race to purchase groundwater and distribution rights.

It’s time to recognize the bottled water industry as a big component in the sinister drive to commodify a basic human right: access to safe and affordable water. Just say no to bottled water; just say no to Nestle.