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Original article: Social Media Marketing

#ALSIceBucketChallenge
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge first started as solely an Ice Bucket Challenge connected to no specific charity. Jon Bullas, a golf swing coach nominated Chris Kennedy, a mini-tour golfer from Sarasota, Florida, was nominated to do the challenge on July 15. Due to Kennedy’s connection with a relative who was suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), he chose to make that his charity of choice. Kennedy recorded the challenge and nominated his wife’s cousin, Jeanette Senerchia, whose husband, Anthony, is suffering from ALS. Senerchia posted her challenge on Facebook on July 16, nominating and encouraging others to donate and to support their non-profit and baseball tournament to honor Anthony, while using the hashtags #takingiceforantsenerchiajr and #StrikeOutALS. The challenge began to spread outside of Kennedy’s and Senerchia’s community and reached Pat Quinn, from Yonkers, N.Y., who has also been battling against ALS since March 2013. Quinn’s social network eventually reached Pete Frates in Boston, whom is very involved within the ALS community and was diagnosed with ALS a year before Quinn. On July 31, Frates posted his own video on Facebook along with the hashtags #StrikeOutALS and #Quinnforthewin. It was at that point, where the campaign really took off and the ALS Association (US and even Canada) along with smaller ALS non-profit organizations (such as the one started by Kennedy and Senerchia) began seeing more donations than ever.

Once discovering that there was no movement on the disease of ALS, shortly after being diagnosed with it, Frates saw the opportunity of the Ice Bucket Challenge. He knew it was a perfect way to raise awareness and efforts on fighting this disease. A goal he had been reaching for since being diagnosed.

One of the main factors that helped make the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge so popular, was through the power of sharing it on social media platforms such as, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. At the beginning stages of the challenge, the rules were you had to choose between donating $100 to a charity of choice or record yourself getting a bucket of ice water dumped on your head, all within a time constraint of 24 hours. As the challenge gained more popularity, it seemed people began to do both, making it both fun and philanthropic. There are other reasons why the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge worked, being, the one-to-one factor you received from being nominated by someone you know, to nominating someone you know ; the attachment it has to help a cause ; The urgency in completing the challenge within 24 hours of being nominated is crucial to the viral success- like all things viral, they don’t live long, so the turnaround time needs to be momentarily ; lastly, it was easy and simple- items needed to complete the challenge were household items, posting a video on social media has never been easier, and the concept was easy to grasp.

The movement went viral enough to get many big name celebrities involved in the cause to help spread awareness. Key individuals such as Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah, Conan O’Brien, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steven Spielberg, to former U.S. President, George W. Bush. The involvement of these big name celebrities and personalities undoubtedly helped gain more attraction to the movement.

The results by the end of the summer were phenomenal- the ALS Association alone received more than $100 million dollars in donations. The funds raised will to help find treatments for those diagnosed with ALS, including project initiatives such as: ALS Accelerated Therapeutics (ALS ACT), The New York Genome Center, the Neuro Collaborative, and Project MinE. ALS Society of Canada raised a total of $12.6 million during the Ice Bucket Challenge movement. On Twitter alone, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was mentioned 4,483,726 times in August, spreading more awareness about the cause.

Sean Gardner
Ranked as Forbes’ #1 Social Media Power influencer, Sean Gardner has been the Co-Founder of the Huffington Post Twitter Powerhouse Series since 2010. He has worked for corporations such as Microsoft, Silicon Valley Bank, World Vision, Charity: Water, Save the Children, and Project Medishare. His extensive knowledge on the power of social media marketing has made him into the influencer he is known as today.

Ann Tran
A contributor on The Huffington Post and Entrepreneur, Ann Tran is a well-recognized social media consultant and influencer in the industry. She has helped companies such as Architectural Digest, Marirot, and Verizon to effectively use social and digital media to build their brands business. She was named #1 in Forbes 2013 The Top 20 Women Social Media Influencers. Ann providers her followers with tons of helpful tips in different aspects of digital and online marketing, in areas such as, social media marketing, social networking, engagement, and leadership.

Jessica Northey
One of the most respected influencers in the industry, Jessica Northey uses a mix of new and traditional media under her belt while being a daily columnist for AllAccess.com, contributor to Radio Ink, and a digital correspondent among many other roles. Northey redefines and explores the connection between the music industry and social media like a pioneer. Northey continually expresses great insight in the ways in which the music industry can benefit from social media marketing tools, on her site Finger Candy Media (a digital marketing strategy firm).

Mari Smith
Facebook marketing expert and author, Mari Smith has been a social media leader since 2007. Smith’s background in relationships, marketing and internet technology has been the foundation of her success, making her one of the industry’s most influential social media thought leaders. She wrote The New Relationship Marketing and co-wrote Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day with Chris Treadaway.

Aaron Lee
Social media strategist, social media manager and entrepreneur, Aaron Lee hails from Malaysia and is recognized worldwide for his ability to effectively use social media platforms as a business tool. His work has been highlighted in a number of industry known sites and publications such as The Huffington Post, Social Media Examiner and Mashable, as well as other blogs, websites and local newspapers in Malaysia.