What do
Bill Gates,
Oprah and
Matt Lauer have in common?
They all took part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
The Challenge was an epic viral event that raised millions of dollars for ALS, (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease,) and involved 1.2 million posts on Facebook. It happened in a matter of weeks.
Like most successful viral videos, it cost the ALS Association zero dollars. The videos did, however, obey the rules I outlined in a
previous iWebU post:
1.
unexpectedness - this is the lightning in a bottle, something happens in a video that no one would expect.
2. a
tastemaker - a person who is famous or influential talks, tweets or otherwise communicates about the video.
3.
communities of participation - a large group of the tastemaker's followers tweets or posts the video to their friends and followers.
In case you have been living under a rock, this was the genesis of challenge: Pete Frates, a 29-year-old former college baseball player with ALS, came up with the idea,
people make a video of themselves dumping a bucket of ice water on their heads, post it on Facebook, Instagram or other social media sites, and then challenge friends to do the same within 24 hours or donate $100 to ALS. (Many do both.)
Instead of having ice water poured on his head — “ice water and ALS are a bad mix,” he said on his Facebook page — he posted a video of himself bouncing his head to “
Ice Ice Baby,” the 1989 hit by Vanilla Ice. He challenged some friends, and
the stunt spread quickly through Boston circles, then across the web until a parade of boldfaced names joined in.
Genius, genius, genius.
Now it's your turn.
