Causes, the Facebook Bra Color Meme, and Effective Social Marketing

[meta]marketer founder and CEO Kate O’Neill is interviewed in the Tennessean this morning about social media and networking for cause marketing and awareness:

When women throughout the country were advertising their bra colors for breast cancer awareness on Facebook last week, posting single-word status updates such as “yellow,” “chartreuse” and “none,” local marketing exec Kate O’Neill had this status update retort:

“Kate O’Neill doesn’t see the point of the bra color meme. But if you want to do something useful for cancer, donate a few bucks or see how you can get involved at the link below. I just did, and it only took a few seconds longer than it would have for me to type “black.”

That link was a donate button for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and it inspired several of her friends to make donations.

“That was encouraging to me,” O’Neill said a few days later. “I didn’t expect anyone to take me at a word and make a donation. I was just trying to make a point. … Maybe it is the marketer in me, but if someone is going to have awareness of something, I want an action associated with it. I want them to know what’s next.”

There’s more at the link. It’s a good article. If you do any cause marketing at all, there are good tips from a variety of sources about using social networks to raise funds and awareness. And of course, even if your marketing is less for a cause and more for a company, many of the concepts still apply.