Moving Breast-Cancer Awareness Online

The continuing success of the ALS ice-bucket challenge is another reminder of the growing power of digital advocacy. The campaign to date has raised over $113-million dollars to help fight ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis); popularly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. While this type of hyper growth might be difficult for an established campaign like Breast Cancer Awareness, it gives hope that significant growth can be achieved.

The successful organic campaign is also a growing reminder that advocacy marries online and offline efforts. In this particular case, offline participation is shared through online distribution.

A few lessons from that campaign can be applied to Breast Cancer Awareness Month:

1. By 2017, more than two-thirds of our consumption on mobile devices will be video. It’s important as advocates to think mobile first and understand short, compelling videos—like those the ice-bucket challenge created—are often the key to success. It’s better to show your story then tell your story. When it comes to breast cancer this will not only increase awareness but, more important, increase the knowledge and understanding of the challenges and issues.
2. Over 50 percent of the world’s population is under 30 years old. It’s always been important to engage the youth movement when it comes to advocacy, and that holds particularly true today. If younger generations have a better understanding of breast cancer, then it’s a giant step toward eliminating it. Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries when it comes to breast-cancer awareness for millennials. For example, it would be easy to envision a successful campaign in which guys went in for a mammogram as a sign of support for women.
3. Campaigns don’t need to start with the organization or company. The ALS ice-bucket challenge wasn’t started by ALS, but it was the beneficiary. For breast-cancer awareness, don’t feel that the message needs to be controlled by a few; the more organic it can become, the more powerful the results can be.
4. Combine both online and offline: Digital advocacy doesn’t replace face-to-face, but it helps when time and distance are an issue for more people to participate. It’s also key to ask oneself what is the social and mobile play when you are performing offline acts? For example, if you are petitioning outside of a politician’s office, how do you best share this on social and mobile mechanisms? How do you ensure it is still organic while also putting your best face forward with the proper spokesperson?

Digital advocacy about breast cancer will continue to grow in importance. Word of mouth is now on digital steroids. If you or your constituents haven’t embraced this, well, then, maybe you need a bucket of ice water poured on your head.