"Change your profile picture to be a cartoon character this week!"
"What's your bra color?"
"Share one of these seven embarrassing lines in your Facebook status!"
We've all seen these half-assed "awareness" campaigns on social media over the past few years. They claim to create awareness for domestic abuse, breast cancer, and a variety of other causes. For the life of me I've never understood how putting a generic statement into a social media post without any context, links to donate, or calls to action could at all benefit the intended cause. The "awareness" generated lasts as long as a tweet (which is about 3 hours) and what good really came from it? As someone who's suffered from one or two of these causes, I usually find them distasteful. They're fine in the short term, but are they doing more harm than good in the long term?
There of course have been great examples of social media charity campaigns that benefitted from slacktavism. Tyson's Hunger Relief and Stand Up to Cancer are two examples of successful cause campaigns done on social media. It can and has been done right, and hasn't involved much action from those who participate and businesses stay true to their word and donate.
Initially, I had a knee-jerk reaction to this craze. I assumed it was going to be another hollow-social media-status thing. Post a video, don't donate, ALS stays in the news for a week, and then we move onto the next thing. This time, with the added bonus that people will be wasting water! A few days ago when the donations were at just $160,000 (up from $14k from this time a year ago), that seemed low to me. However, once it started to get called out that no one was mentioning ALS or the links, or how/where to donate, these videos started to change and now the donations are up past $1 million. Who knows what will happen after this initial push, but at least people are putting their money where their mouth is. (Full disclosure: ALS is a cause that I have supported the past few years as it has impacted the lives of close friends and family. I also support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for similar reasons).
These kinds of campaigns don't just start on their own, and they definitely don't continue without help. There are elements to this particular challenge that have made it work and have been tweaked along the way to make it more successful. Mashable wrote about the 8 Tips for a Successful Social Media Cause Campaign some time ago, that may still be helpful to anyone thinking about starting a cause campaign for their organization.
If you're interested in donating to ALS you can donate here: http://www.alsa.org/donate/.
And for those of you who are wasting water to dump it on your head, donate to Charity Water: https://www.charitywater.org/donate/.
Can't donate money? There are a number of things you can do to help a number of causes.
"What's your bra color?"
"Share one of these seven embarrassing lines in your Facebook status!"
We've all seen these half-assed "awareness" campaigns on social media over the past few years. They claim to create awareness for domestic abuse, breast cancer, and a variety of other causes. For the life of me I've never understood how putting a generic statement into a social media post without any context, links to donate, or calls to action could at all benefit the intended cause. The "awareness" generated lasts as long as a tweet (which is about 3 hours) and what good really came from it? As someone who's suffered from one or two of these causes, I usually find them distasteful. They're fine in the short term, but are they doing more harm than good in the long term?The Age of Slacktavism
Facebook has created a generation of lazy advocates. My favorite term of the last few years is "slacktavists." People are very engaged with their causes publicly and online, but they fail to act, volunteer, or donate. For example, in 2012 Facebook took up the cause of organ donation. In the first week of being able to sign up 100,000 people joined the cause. Within two weeks the cause subsided and and the signups returned to their usual numbers. Looking on the positive side, at least it had a good spike, but it wasn't sustainable and there wasn't any follow up. Could more have been done there? Yes. People got lazy and lost interest, and it's still an important cause.There of course have been great examples of social media charity campaigns that benefitted from slacktavism. Tyson's Hunger Relief and Stand Up to Cancer are two examples of successful cause campaigns done on social media. It can and has been done right, and hasn't involved much action from those who participate and businesses stay true to their word and donate.
Today's Shiny Cause - The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
All of this brings me to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that's sweeping the nation, and for the first time that I can remember, changing a Facebook status and putting up a video of some inane activity has resulted in actual donations. The added bonus of challenging your friends has helped create a network effect resulting in this campaign going viral and Time Magazine has reported that over $1 million has been donated. If you are challenged and don't do it, the expectation is that you will donate. The only one who knows if you donate or not, is you. If you do take on the challenge and pour ice water on your head, I'm not sure what the expectation is, but I would hope that those people are also donating.Initially, I had a knee-jerk reaction to this craze. I assumed it was going to be another hollow-social media-status thing. Post a video, don't donate, ALS stays in the news for a week, and then we move onto the next thing. This time, with the added bonus that people will be wasting water! A few days ago when the donations were at just $160,000 (up from $14k from this time a year ago), that seemed low to me. However, once it started to get called out that no one was mentioning ALS or the links, or how/where to donate, these videos started to change and now the donations are up past $1 million. Who knows what will happen after this initial push, but at least people are putting their money where their mouth is. (Full disclosure: ALS is a cause that I have supported the past few years as it has impacted the lives of close friends and family. I also support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for similar reasons).
These kinds of campaigns don't just start on their own, and they definitely don't continue without help. There are elements to this particular challenge that have made it work and have been tweaked along the way to make it more successful. Mashable wrote about the 8 Tips for a Successful Social Media Cause Campaign some time ago, that may still be helpful to anyone thinking about starting a cause campaign for their organization.
If you're interested in donating to ALS you can donate here: http://www.alsa.org/donate/.
And for those of you who are wasting water to dump it on your head, donate to Charity Water: https://www.charitywater.org/donate/.
Can't donate money? There are a number of things you can do to help a number of causes.