Breast cancer awareness month is coming to a close this week and the world as you know it has turned pink. Everywhere you looked this past month you could see pink ribbons, which are, of course, the symbol of breast cancer awareness. A lot has been said regarding the power of social media, and when it comes to promoting positive causes, people around the globe rally for the purpose, and social media once again proves its power.
The pink ribbon has been associated with breast cancer for a long time now, but in this age of social media, nonprofit organizations and causes had to find a way to up their game in order to reach maximum exposure. What better way than to utilize the various social media platforms to promote their worthy causes? Different campaigns on social media manage to generate awareness by creating active online discussions regarding the subject, thus ultimately increasing awareness, and even generating donations.
Some of the most popular campaigns include the Estee Lauder’s BCA Campaign. In this year’s promotion the company is approaching the global community in an attempt to create an international multimedia project that is to be shared globally on February 4th, 2016, which is World Cancer Day. People are asked to upload a photo, video or text that shows how the person takes action in the fight against breast cancer. Another popular campaign is the Keep a Breast Campaign, which promotes awareness by distribution of merchandise with “I love boobies” imprint in order to provoke a discussion.
Another way of generating a discussion via social media is the popular use of hashtags. For the fifth year now, BET networks is running a “where do you do it?” campaign. This year’s campaign is a call to action encouraging participants to state where they preform self-breast exams. Using the #WHEREDOYOUDOIT hashtag, the BET GOES PINK campaign attempts to shift the focus from awareness to action.
However, alongside good intentions some campaigns get hit with criticism. #NoBraDay is an excellent example for the notorious PR myth “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” October 13th has been marked as national no bra day in America in the hopes of raising awareness to breast cancer. This campaign triggered plenty of criticism, with some saying that it simply reduces women’s value to their breasts alone.
When it comes to donations, the World Wide Web, and social media as part of it, made the process quite simple. Awareness campaigns are ultimately designed to raise donations. With ongoing online public discussions, organizations can post links that lead to a donation placement, which makes it easy and accessible. October has been Breast Cancer Awareness month since 1985, when the American Cancer Society and the pharmaceutical division of Imperial Chemical Industries founded a partnership in order to promote mammography exams. In 1993 the Breast Cancer Research Foundation was established and the pink ribbon was introduced to the world as its symbol.
