The big #ALSIceBucketChallenge

TO BEGIN: On August 1st at 12:58 am Pete Frates wrote on Facebook: "So I am nominating myself for the #icebucketchallenge cut I can... ice water and ALS are a bad mix, so I got my friend Rob Van Winkle to help me out (the names of 9 users follow) you have 24 hours to dump a bucket of ice over your heads!!! #StrikeOutALS #Quinnforthewin."

TO THE ISSUE: ALS is an insidious disease that irreversibly damages the motor nervous system of those affected and leads to death. The feeling of paralysis in patients is similar to the feeling of having ice water poured over your head. Hence the challenge from the US ALS Association: you have the choice of either pouring ice water over your head and posting the picture on the web or donating 100 dollars to the ALS Foundation. You can then name three people who can take part within 24 hours.

TO SUCCESS: According to CommunityNZZ in Storify, the challenge has brought the foundation 739,275 new donors and $41.8 million in donations since it began, compared to $2.1 million in the same period in 2013."

THE RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: The idea of the ice bucket has obviously given this fundraising campaign magical powers. You need to know that there are thousands of such fundraising campaigns worldwide every year. We go in search of the magic potion recipe and find ingredients. I would like to explain five of them.

1. CONTENT. This is a topic that affects everyone. ALS is an insidious disease for which there is still no cure. It is an appeal for donations, and the funds go entirely to research. Not every company can come up with a setting like this. But it's about the question of meaning. There is simply far too much advertising junk in the social media feeds. The ideas lack insight. Posts that combine seriousness and humor are successful and tolerable. By seriousness, we mean a benefit that offers the prospect of real added value. In this case, this is the appeal for donations, combined with raising awareness of the disease. The campaign itself provides amusement, in a wonderful way, by pouring ice water over itself - which brings us to the second success factor.

2. ENGAGEMENT. It is a mixture of shock therapy and a snowball system. People pour ice water over themselves and then ask three other people to do the same within 24 hours and make a donation at the same time. And it works. The users get actively involved. Calls to action like this are crucial. After all, the effectiveness of advertising on the social web can only really be reliably proven on the basis of engagement values.

3. VIDEO. The use of videos plays an important role in achieving the viral effect. Firstly, the video in the IceBucketChallenge provides proof that the challenge has been accepted. The video is part of the game. In addition, the mere idea of being filmed seems to inspire the players' creativity. The contributions are a must-see. The participants fly helicopters and bring in excavators with powerful shovels. But there is another reason for the dominance of video. All relevant social media platforms now offer the option of uploading videos directly via app from mobile devices and playing them in the so-called newsfeed stream. This is now possible on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and Vine. Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds here. Of course, sooner or later the videos will also end up on YouTube and from there back in the social media feeds. But the importance of YouTube in the app age is declining - at least as a driver of virality. That's also an interesting observation. In the past, the motto was always: let's make a viral movie on YouTube. Today, YouTube is a playback and embedding channel, but less and less a starting point.

4. AMPLIFIER. Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg was one of the first ice-cold showers to take to the social media stage. Naturally, this launched the story on the social web. The request to Zuckerberg came from a prominent politician - the Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. Zuckerberg's performance on August 14 has since been shared 48,000 times and liked 358,572 times. Zuckerberg called on none other than Bill Gates to take an ice shower, who then actually stood under the ice shower on August 15 and has so far achieved 950,000 likes, 40,000 comments (!) and 262,570 shares with his post. Other celebrities who have taken ice showers include Mickey Rourke at the request of footballer Robbie Kean, Justin Timberlake, TV talk show host Jimmy Fallon and the@ greysABC crew from "Greys Anatomy". Football and field hockey teams proved to be particularly contagious. The use of influencers as distribution amplifiers, i.e. people who have large networks and can mobilize them, is a recipe for success that is still used far too rarely. Such distribution amplifiers can be identified for every brand. Building a high-quality network with ambassadors can take months and a lot of time. Despite the latest monitoring tools, the manual search via networks is the most important thing. Working with lists (Twitter) or groups (LinkedIn, Facebook) is particularly recommended. The best bait for ambassadors is a good story that delivers what it promises. Success comes to those who get the right mix of seriousness and humor.

5 STORIFY: The most renowned premium publishers, brands and organizations are now writing heaps of news and background reports by combining social media content from various users into stories on Storify. On the social web, the voice of the user enjoys the highest level of credibility. This realization has now also reached the editorial offices and communications departments. The amazing thing about Storify is its simplicity. Posts, tweets and videos from all social media and web sources can be compiled into stories using the drag-and-drop method. An account can be opened in five minutes. The stories can be shared and the source code can be used to integrate the story into web platforms such as websites and blogs. Such simple integration and distribution methods give social media content additional wings. The communityNZZ has certainly contributed to the ice bucket hype via Storify with its story "Selfies for cool heads".

Beat Hürlimann

At Storify.com/beathuerlimann you will find the story of the challenge with lots of performances, statistics and other stories about the #ALSIceBucketChallenge.
Let us inspire you - or even better: motivate you to act!