I attended the inaugural Social Media Breakfast Ottawa (SMB Ottawa) event on Tuesday and was it ever a great time. Over 60 attendees came to Ramius headquarters to hear Adrian Salamunovic, co-founder of DNA11, talk about his experiences and lessons learned in using social media to build his company’s brand.

DNA11 is an Ottawa-based company that creates art based on your DNA. The art they create includes fingerprint portraits, kiss portraits and even portraits of your actual DNA.

Adrian attributes the success of DNA11 — the company’s art has appeared in Absolut Vodka promotions and on an episode of CSI! — to directly embracing the social media phenomenon. It is the bloggers and journalists using the web to share interesting news and stories with readers who helped launch DNA11’s explosive growth.

Social media golden rules…

During his talk, Adrian shared a few golden rules about using social media to build brand awareness.  A lot of these rules mean taking a common sense approach to any social media strategy and mirror PR best practices:

1. Have an interesting product or story. Be creative.
2. Know your target. Stay focused.
3. Understand which blogs influence your target (demographic).
4. A little bribery never hurts. (i.e. providing product samples to people with a genuine interest in reviewing your product, not to people just looking for a freebie)
5. Be authentic.
6. If possible, let an evangelist (company spokesperson or brand champion) do the pitching.
7. Be persistent (not annoying).
8. Build real relationships.
9. If you get into the ‘big’ blogs, the little ones will follow.
10. Measure and monitor.

Rinse and repeat, and there you have it. A social media strategy that’s helped build DNA11 into a global brand, and could potentially help you do the same.

More about SMB Ottawa 1

Check out these resources for more event recaps:

http://www.socialmediabreakfast.com/2008/06/12/recap-social-media-breakfast-ottawa-1/

• - Mark Blevis’ podcast and blog post
• - Andrew Alexander’s photos
• - VideoBot’s (by EventBots) VideoBytes

Save the date…

The next SMB Ottawa event is scheduled for Tuesday, July 15th!

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

I may be dating myself with this one, but I couldn’t help but post it as it sent a deep and painful pang to my stomach, which caused be to gasp at a very loud volume. What could be causing me such anguish you ask? The makeover they’ve given Strawberry Shortcake - revealed just yesterday.

Yes. I get it - Strawberry Shortcake came out in the 80’s and its now 2008, but I really don’t see what was wrong with the old image.

What made the makeover worse were all the mean things the creator said about the 80’s version of Strawberry Shortcake.

Apparently the 80’s image was:

• Too candy-obsessed
• Too ditsy
• Too fond of wearing bloomers.

In my opinion, Ms. Shortcake was not ditsy. Furthermore, what is wrong with wearing bloomers?

Nonetheless, this is what they are saying about the 2008 version of Strawberry Shortcake:

• She prefers fresh fruit versus gumdrops
• Appears to wear just a dab of lipstick
• Spends her time chatting on a cell phone instead of brushing her calico cat, Custard.

What the hell kind of substance is that!

On a more serious note, the Shortcake transformation makes the double standard clear. When male action figures go through transformations to make the character current, the changes are minimal and more so have to do with changes to colour or texture - but it is never about the action heroes personality, likes and dislikes. Why then do toy makers equate making a girl/female child character more current, to having her make adult or womanlike lifestyle changes?

Beverly Crandon | women 2.0 | Toronto Co-founder