Skip to main content

Tweet it Forward Cause Marketers

There’s a handful of stories out there about the successful use of Twitter in nonprofit fundraising. Social media expert Beth Kanter has been especially watchful of this trend.

The most common technique is to simply spell out the need in a Tweet to the people who follow you on Twitter.

Just last night in my little market organizers of the 'SunTweet for Charity' tried something I haven’t seen elsewhere. They held a Tweetup for charity in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival. A Tweetup is a meetup for Twitterers.

SunTweet for Charity featured panelists on the topic of ‘creating value for your social audience,’ free pizza and soda drinks, a cash bar and face-to-face social interaction. The price of admission was $5, which went to an unnamed charity. Event costs were covered by sponsors.

I love events  for charities. Like very few other tactical media choices events can help move prospects from interest to action. And Tweetups happen because even the most distant Twitterer wants the chance to press the flesh of other Twitters. We’re human after all and we crave physical contact with likeminded people.

SunTweet represents a nice marriage between social media and fundraising with a lot of potential for the right kind of charity and the right group of Twitterers.

But if I were the executive director of  the benefiting charity, I would have wanted three more things from the SunTweet organizers:

  1. I’d want the opportunity to address the group, if only for 60 seconds. There’s a great technique you can use when time is short to ask for donations without asking directly. You explain your cause in 30 seconds, then say, “because my time is so short, I don’t have time to address individual questions. But one of the most common questions I get is: ‘how can I help?’ The easiest way to help is go to our website at [URL] where you can donate time or money. After the panel discussion I’ll be back by the cash bar to talk more with anyone.”
  2. I’d want people to know beforehand that my charity was involved. I’d want a link, too.
  3. I’d want the chance to collect email addresses and/or Twitter names in advance.

Folks, steal this idea!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to

Why Even Absurd Cause-Related Marketing Has its Place

Buy a Bikini, Help Cure Cancer New York City (small-d) fashion designer Shoshonna Lonstein Gruss may have one of the more absurd cause-related marketing campaigns I’ve come across lately. When you buy the bikini or girls one-piece swimsuit at Bergdorf-Goodman in New York shown at the left all sales “proceeds” benefit Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center . Look past the weak ‘ proceeds ’ language, which I always decry, and think for a moment about the incongruities of the sales of swimsuits benefiting the legendary Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Cancer has nothing to do swimming or swimsuits or summering in The Hamptons for that matter. And it’s not clear from her website why Shoshanna, the comely lass who once adorned the arm of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, has chosen the esteemed cancer center to bestow her gifts, although a web search shows that she’s supported its events for years. Lesser critics would say that the ridiculousness of it all is a sign that cause-related marketing is

A Clever Cause Marketing Campaign from Snickers and Feeding America

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor