Who would have thought that dumping a bucket of ice water over your head would ignite an online sensation and a multi-million-dollar fundraising campaign? It’s tempting whenever a viral trend like the “ALS Ice bucket challenge” takes off to attribute its success to blind luck and the whims of social media. Robert Tuchman, a board member for the ALS Greater New York Chapter, published some more constructive takeaways from ALS’s recent success in Entrepreneur. You can read the full article here.
If you’re short on time, here are Tuchman’s top five tips about why the Ice Bucket Challenge was a hit and how you can implement them to benefit your own business.
1. The power of video. Videos have more of a tendency to go viral because watching them is more of an experience than simply looking at a photo. With the combined worldwide popularity of YouTube and Facebook, if something hits the right chord it will take off with lightning speed and reach exponentially more people. The big key is that sharing video only recently became a main stream form of content on Facebook.
2. It was fun. Something that is fun for the participant and funny for the viewers is a great combination. Dumping a bucket of ice water over your head is such a simple, silly thing to do. Who doesn’t want to see people you know in this compromising position and if you yourself have to participate, it’s worth it.
3. Celebrity appeal. Because it was fun, people of all ages and all walks of life took part and that included celebrities. These de facto endorsements would have cost billions of dollars if they had involved a typical, contractual agreement vs. a spur-of-the-moment viral event.
4. Timing. The only time this would have worked was mid-summer when the weather is, in most places, acceptable for a stunt like this. Few people would be willing to throw a bucket of ice water over their head in the middle of winter even for a worthy cause such as ALS.
5. Charity angle. People felt they were a part of something in two ways. They were having a shared experience with others and the charitable element turned it into feel-good cause marketing. Most people would not have done this if not for the charity element.