The Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm

Wow, what a day.
January 29, 2010 started off as just a normal day in Twitter world. We were excited that our site @abolishcancer, had received a commitment the day before from a junior at Penn State, to sponsor the site. Pat Howley, a junior at PSU majoring in hotel, restaurant, and institutional management, agreed to sponsor our site. Pat has been following our site for a while and is a supporter of our efforts to help use Twitter to raise funds to fight cancer.

Pat is also active with a group called THON. THON is the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. Run by students at Penn State University, it supports a year-long effort to raise funds and awareness in the fight against pediatric cancer. (check them out at THON.org). I’ve connected with many of the organizers and supports of THON over the last month or so and find every opportunity to send a tweet their way in support of their cause.

So, If you are familiar with how our twitter feed at @abolishcancer works, we ask for a daily sponsor and whoever agrees to commit to the sponsorship agrees to pay $1 for every new follower to @abolishcancer to a charity fighting cancer. Pat agreed to sponsor with the understanding that he would donate his funds to THON. I explained to Pat that our previous sponsors had averaged about 50 new followers each day, therefore $50 in donations.

Boy, if we only knew….

The day started off rather normal, several tweets were sent out and we started to see many retweets, especially from THON supporters. By mid-morning things started to pick up and we had over 100 new people on board as new followers. Then it all changed after lunch.
You see we occasionally tweet about getting an influential person to support our efforts. It just so happens that the THON group got that very wish. Khloe Kardashian, American television personality, wrote a blog post about THON. Then around 1PM eastern time she retweeted the following

“For every new follower of @abolishcancer TODAY @PatHowley agrees to donate $1 to @THON to fight cancer http://bit.ly/Zv7wI”

That’s all it took. It had now gone viral. You see Khloe has over 917,000 followers. From that moment on tweets and retweets grew exponentially. Followers grew and were encouraging others to become new followers. By the late afternoon, THON had become a trending topic of Twitter. Now I’m not sure how many new supporters went to the THON twitter feed or the THON website to donate but it was clear that this was an impressive display of PR, communication, marketing all directed towards the awareness of fighting childhood cancer.

So what about Pat and his sponsorship? Well, instead of getting the average number of new followers for a day, around 50, @abolishcancer received quite a few more. 1,734 new followers to be exact. What does that mean for Pat and his agreement to pay THON for new followers? Well, we’ve been in brief discussions about the tab. Pat is committed to making this work but, like most college students, doesn’t have $1,700 in cash lying around. Our next steps will be to find a clever way to get support for Pat and the $1,700 to THON. We encourage any ideas and efforts to make this happen. Pat and I will continue the conversations to come up with a plan and keep everyone in the loop.

Meanwhile, the stage has been set. @abolishcancer has a massive new following and will continue to seek sponsors to support causes such as THON. THON received an increased national awareness and will continue to get supporters, with the potential to get more influential people on its team. And Pat got a new following and the comfort of knowing that he helped support a viral infection of the best kind.

Proof positive that Twitter can be a powerful tool in our efforts to help @abolishcancer. Thanks to everyone for their efforts. Let’s keep it up.

Pat Howley Sponsors @AbolishCancer on Friday, January 29

We are delighted to have Pat Howley (@PatHowley on Twitter)become our next daily sponsor of @Abolishcancer on January 29, 2010. For every new follower of @Abolishcancer on Friday, Pat has agreed to pay $1 to the charity of his choice that fights cancer. Pat, a Junior at Penn State majoring in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management, has agreed to pay all donations to THON. Pat is a member of the Hospitality Committee for THON which entails getting donations for the food and beverages for all Pre-THON and THON events.

THON is the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. It’s a year-long effort that raises funds and awareness for the fight against pediatric cancer. You can find out more about this great organization at http://thon.org . Pat's involvement in the event also includes taking care of all of the meals for the Dancers and Families during THON weekend. The name of his THON committee is HOS Me Baby One More Time and this is who he would like the donations made to THON on behalf of.

We are grateful for Pat's willingness to sponsor our site and for his desire to donate money to an organization that is making a difference in the lives of those touched by cancer.

We start the day with exactly 600 followers. By the end of Friday, we will feel the impact of the power of the people to help @abolishcancer.

Use Twitter to Promote Your Cause to Fight Cancer

This Twitter feed has been up and running since November. We have made some great connections and have close to 600 followers at this point. It is great to see all the people and groups that are formed to help rid the world of this terrible disease.

The one area we have struggled in, however, is getting daily sponsors of the site. For those of you not familiar with our plan, here is how it works.

First, a person or organization agrees to sponsor @abolishcancer for ONE day. During that day we, along with the sponsor, encourage new followers to our site. For that ONE day, for every new follower to @abolishcancer, the sponsor agrees to pay $1 to a CANCER FIGHTING CHARITY of THEIR choice. (could be THON, Alexslemonade, American Cancer Society, etc). So far, most daily sponsors are getting around 50 new followers, and therefore $50 donated to their cause.

We don't handle any money, the sponsor is responsible for following through to make the doanation. Lastly, this is a geat opportunity to get some PR for your group or cause. During the entire day of your sponsorship, we will tweet about you, and your cause. That means 600 more people becoming aware of what you are doing and helping to support you as well.

So, let's get some sponsors and get more followers so we can all see the value of pulling people together for a common cause to @abolishcancer.

Tweet me at @Abolishcancer or email at bonham.darah@gmail.com for more info.