Ryan Anderson dot ca

Hugh MacLeod of gapingvoid has, in my opinion, one of the best marketing blogs on the planet – not just because of his incredible insight into the social media phenomenon or the genius of some of his cartoons, but because the whole blog is a lens observing a few social media experiments. When they fail, he wonders why. When they succeed, he explains.

In the interest of doing, something of the same, I’m going to be using this blog over the next few months to, in addition to writing about online PR, detail my involvement with a fantastic charity event that is going to be happening in Toronto for the month of November.

A few months back, a good friend of mine in the city, Stepan, told me about an idea he wanted to bring to Canada. The idea was an event called “Movember,” where men across the city and across the country raise pledges for prostate and testicular cancer by growing a moustache for the month of November. Hence, Movember.

Movember is slated to be a fundraiser for the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, which houses one of the top cancer research facilities in the country, but it’s much more than just a fundraiser. Guys are proud of their junk, but when it comes to matters of health, we’re much more prone to keep our heads in the sand than to talk about it. Like most cancers, early detection is the key to ensuring that treatment can be done effectively and with the least complications. Movember is about getting guys to talk about their balls.

As soon as Stepan asked me if I would help promote the event, I knew it would be a perfect candidate for social media. This is, after all, about getting people talking.

Things are getting moving. Step one: website. Check. For more information, check out http://www.movember.ca. Step two: blog. Check. It’s not pretty yet, but it’s up at http://movember.wordpress.com. Step, myself and a few other people will be using the Movember blog to talk about the event, about how you can get involved, and about other ways we can shed some light on male cancer.

Thing is, I’m no Hugh. I’m not going to be able to do this alone. For now, if you’re interested in helping, just visiting the site and mentioning what we’re going to be doing on your blog would be a huge help. If you really want to get involved, sign up for the event and join the other Mo Bros in making Movember a huge event and joining the conversation about male cancer.

As things progress, I’ll post a play-by-play of our social media strategy – what’s working and what’s not. Hopefully there will be more of the former than the latter, but this is a bit of an experiment for all of us.