A twitter campaign is one of the most effective viral marketing tools available; getting a trending topic can be the easiest and quickest way to get a message seen by millions of users. With that in mind, I wanted to run a simple experiment to see what the process of establishing and executing a viral twitter campaign was like. Though the campaign wasn’t nearly as successful as I would have liked, my methodology and results taught me a few interesting things about the makeup of viral-ity on twitter that are good to know moving forward when trying to promote campaigns for social causes.

Here’s what I did:

Step 1- picked a cause or topic to get people to support. As a big basketball fan and someone who interacts with members of the Lakers community on Twitter, I figured the current topic of Lamar Odom’s contract extension (a cause of much chagrin and angst among laker fans) would be an interesting subject. Could I get people to rally around the idea of swaying @TheRealLamarOdom to stay with the Lakers through sheer force of numbers on Twitter?

Step 2- created a content site that would ostensibly serve as the campaign hub. It took me about 15 minutes to create a simple Tumblr with some videos, relevant links to recent articles, and a Twitter widget pulling in posts about Odom. My intent was to promote the hashtag #keeplamar, and pull in those posts as a feed, but till that point I used “Lamar Odom” as the search term. Looking back, this might have been my key mistake— using a site that basically aggregates content as the “hub” of the campaign. Perhaps I would have better been served making my own content, or maybe even sticking to tweets as the primary message medium.

Choosing as I did, I went with bit.ly to shorten my link. It’s an amazing tracking tool, and as feeble as my stats were, this screenshot gives you a good idea of the power it has in tracking links and trends by the minute.

Step 3- sent out a few tweets promoting the hashtag, making sure to interact with popular community members. I only have about 280 followers, which I’m assuming is a grab-bag mix of technology enthusiasts, basketball fans, and people I know in real life (mostly students). As a result, the success of my campaign hinged on connecting with influential twitterers in my field and getting them to rally support among their followers. I utterly failed in this step. My efforts to contact 2 of the more influential community members were as follows-

- One of them is the ‘unofficial’ Lakers twitter account with more than 20,000 followers. A DM to promote the movement was met with a negative reply saying he didn’t want to get involved.

- The other is a Lakers blogger with X followers, interacting with many Lakers fans as well. Similarly, he didn’t want to support the campaign, simply because he thought it was pointless- reports seemed to indicate that a resolution was immediately impending. Of course, even a week later, the situation was still ongoing with tons of speculation, but no substantive action from the public- just content to wait for the results of the ongoing private negotiations. This is an important point discussed later.

Due to the makeup of my follower group, failing to garner support from these individuals meant that my campaign simply didn’t have legs. I got a few feeble retweets from some friends on twitter, but that’s about it- no mention of the hashtag outside of my immediate follower network, let alone a mass movement.

Thoughts/Obstacles

• One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is simple inertia- the lack of action, not due to apathy, but because people simply feel that they won’t make a difference to the outcome. as social media progressively spreads in reach and influence, I think this problem will diminish as more individuals see real examples of their voices being heard. Efforts like Lend me some sugar, that aim to influence corporations’ purchasing decisions by consumer voting, will help in this regard. [While my cause was obviously not that important, making apathy from the general public understandable, I was hoping to at least generate support among Lakers fans, who regard Odom as one of their favorite players.]
• Reaching outside of your immediate network. As I found out, it’s difficult to amplify your voice when you don’t have a huge first degree network. I imagine it’s tough for individuals to do this unless they have a very focused theme to their twitter stream, serving as a voice for an entire community of people passionate about a specific topic. If that’s not feasible, it’s key to engage individuals who fit this profile to promote your cause.
• Making your cause understandable and easy to participate in. In retrospect, I might have been better served focusing my efforts on marketing my message, making it more engaging for people to participate in. It’s important to align your interests with those of the individuals you’re hoping to garner support from; give them a chance to show how funny/smart/caustically witty they are while at the same time voicing support for something they care about.

What’s the Point?

So why does this all even remotely matter? The recent evolution of the web has demonstrated the power of motivated individuals or groups in the face of traditionally omnipotent policymakers, whether governments or corporations. As these tools get more refined and more people realize the power they hold, it’ll be easier to amplify an important message. In light of this, one of the more important facets of this new mode of interaction is that it’s all voluntary; you don’t have to listen to the loudspeakers or participate if you don’t want to- just unfollow someone. You’re only as effective as the level of engagement you show with those around you. I imagine seeing more platforms specifically dedicated to the promotion of large-scale movements that utilize the power of real-time networks. These social media sites hold a lot of promise of “individual empowerment” and the like; it’ll be fun to see how they live up to the hype.