It’s been difficult to miss the #nomakeupselfie campaign over the last week.
Thousands of women have been removing their makeup in a bid to raise money for Cancer Research UK.
Some 800,000 text donations have been made to the charity in the space of one day, according to Telegraph Wonder Women. The organisation told the news provider that it also recorded an increase in donations throughout UK shops.
The campaign appeared to begin online on March 18th and encourages women to post photos of themselves online without make-up alongside the #nomakeupselfie hashtag.
The power of the people!
Perhaps the most compelling part of the campaign was created entirely by individuals. Cancer Research UK did not launch the project.
The significant growth of the campaign in such a short period of time highlights the power of social media as a marketing tool.
Brands spend hours assessing target audiences and co-ordinating campaigns on the platforms. Research and planning are vital to successful social campaigns, but #nomakeupselfie is successful because of two factors: The campaign relates to the audience, while tapping into modern trends.
It serves as a lesson to social media specialists. In fact, it’s a lesson they should have learnt last month when the now-legendary “Oscars selfie” became the most retweeted post of all time. With a total of 3,403,639 retweets, Ellen DeGeneres hit the social media jackpot with this one!
Cancer Research takes advantage
Carolan Davidge, director of communications at Cancer Research UK, applauded the #nomakeupselfie campaign.
Ms Davidge said it was “great to see so many people getting involved to raise awareness of cancer”. Since the launch of the campaign, the charity has started retweeting “selfies” from followers. This has helped to boost the charity’s social media profile and allowed them to engage with new followers.
It isn’t just Twitter that has caught on to the #nomakeupselfie trend. The No Make Up Selfie For Cancer AwarenessFacebook page has earned over 200,000 likes, spreading the campaign to a new social channel.
Are you now giving that much-debated “office selfie” a second thought?