25 Aug Why the Ice Bucket Challenge Was a Marketing Success

I’m sure your Facebook news feed is full of videos of celebrities and friends participating in the #IceBucketChallenge. In case you’ve been living under a rock this month, The Ice Bucket Challenge is a campaign to raise awareness for Lou Gehrig’s disease, which is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, and there is currently no cure.

The wildly successful campaign was started by a 28-year old man diagnosed with the disease. He challenged his friends to either dunk a bucket of ice cold water on their heads, post the video to social media and donate $10 to ALS research, or donate $100 if they didn’t want to participate.

Anyone looking to incorporate a social media fundraiser in their marketing strategy can benefit from this amazing viral challenge that has taken on a life of its own. How?

Let it be personal. People are more likely to participate if you include a personal story or reason for the cause.  If you create a generic “doing good for the community campaign” people will not feel as drawn to respond.

Assign a hashtag that makes sense and is easy to remember. Hashtags, when used correctly, increase brand awareness and make it easy to track the social media buzz.

Don’t forget your Call to Action! The Ice Bucket Challenge uses two: 1) dump a bucket of ice over your head and pay $10 to the cause, or don’t and pay $100, and 2) Nominate other friends to keep the challenge going. Think about the end goal in your campaign. What do you want people to do? Donate? Sign up for something? Join? Whatever it is, that should be what you center your call-to-action around.

Be results-oriented – offer updates and press releases on the amount donated or other ways that show your campaign’s success. This will fuel people to keep sharing.

Did you take the Ice Bucket Challenge?

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net