How many of your female friends have you noticed updating their Facebook statuses with a single word like ‘black’ recently?
The one-word updates are part of a viral campaign to support breast cancer awareness. It’s a really cool idea that leaves you thinking, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’.
Women across the world are encouraged to help increase awareness about breast cancer by posting their bra color as their Facebook status (but no explanation to go along with the color, just the one-word status update).
Viral Cause Marketing
You’ve got to love how ideas spread virally on the web. Sometimes shameless promotion is the best way to go to get views, but not so with cause marketing. Check out the steps taken to boost awareness for breast cancer:
- Step 1. Guerrilla Marketing in the Facebook Underground. Start-up causes like this are cool because they make you spark curiosity and make you feel like part of a secret club. Imagine the number of women — and men, too — who see these one word updates and are motivated to learn what it’s all about. The fact that there isn’t a huge traditional marketing push or lots of press about the campaign seems to make it even more effective in this case!
- Step 2. Build Momentum in a Meaningful Fashion. If I asked you to change your Facebook status to help promote my for-profit business, that’d be a hard sell without some kind of reward or fun contest. But cause marketing on social networks can be really affective because it doesn’t need to be sold, it just needs to gain momentum by educating people about how to participate.
*Side Note: My wife’s mom is a breast cancer survivor. Watching someone go through the process of treatment and recovery is a gut wrenching, painful experience. But it brings you close to your loved ones in the most meaningful way too. I’m so thankful to be part of a family of strong survivors, and my heart is with all of you who have lost a loved one to this horrible disease.
- Step 3: Buy-In. Give your fans ownership of the cause. That’s the beautiful thing about this outreach movement. Women are empowered to share a little bit about themselves using some humor and good spirit in a way that connects them with other women. Very cool. Lots of women started using ‘black’ as their status update, but then the responses got more and more creative (leopard print is the most hilarious response I’ve seen to date). Good work to the founders of this campaign, it’s a terrific example of proactive cause marketing that we can all feel good about.