Not to sound too cliché, but Spiderman’s Uncle Ben was right: with great power comes great responsibility, and arguably the most powerful tool in the universe today is social media.
Some celebrities choose to use their status for evil (lookin’ at you and your battery-acid Ciroc, P. Diddy), while others choose to lend their voices to more rewarding endeavors. Star Power is the first of an ongoing column focused on celebrities who use their social media skills and popularity to raise money and awareness for charitable causes. These are their stories.
Stephen Amell. Most people will know him from the popular TV show, Arrow. Some others may know him just based on this GIF:
But more recently, what many people know about Amell is that he has a huge “boner for charity” (his words, I swear).
While there probably aren’t many people who are pro-cancer, it’s no secret that funding for programs that help to treat and fight the disease could be improved. Enter Stephen Amell. Enter social media.
Amell has proven to not only be a steady presence at red carpet events, but also a consistent presence on Facebook, frequently posting videos to his many fans both on and off the set of his TV show and responding to fan comments that have accrued the most Likes (or, as he says, ”bubble up”). From a quick shot of him at the gym (shirtless… all the time) to a rambling video after a 3am night shoot, Amell is very much as addicted to social media as his fans are.
So it only made sense that, fresh off his campaign to raise money for JoJo’s Journey ($31,500 in three days), Amell called once again on his many Facebook and Twitter followers to help raise money for another organization close to his heart: F&ck Cancer.
Working with Represent.com, Amell launched a Facebook contest for the design of his very own line of F&ck Cancer shirts. The rules were simple: the design with the most Likes would be the one chosen.
During the first 24 hours of the 21-day campaign, Amell fans raised over $43,000 – far surpassing the modest goal of selling 500 shirts. Fourteen days later, Amell’s Little Campaign That Could was threatening to outsell the biggest Represent campaigns thus far: Will Ferrell and Ian Harding (whoever that is), respectively.
And, on September 29th – 18 days after the campaign started – it did.
In fact, even after Amell’s campaign ended (raising well over a quarter of a million dollars for F&ck Cancer), the demand for a Captain Amell shirt was too damn high. So, in a plot twist that can be very much likened to a season finale of Arrow, the T-shirts went back on sale for an unprecedented second time.
In less than 48 hours, the second relaunch of shirts eclipsed the original 21-day sale. YES. Those shirts sold faster than Vertigo in Starling City. Hey-oooo.
“The Stephen Amell campaign…was the largest Represent campaign we’ve run to date,” says Robbie Zhang-Smitheram, a spokesperson for Represent. “It generated around $947,000 sales in 23 days.”
Blame it on the promise of Skype chats or a T-shirt covered in Stephen Amell sweat if that makes you feel better, but without Amell’s grasp of social media (in particular, Facebook), his campaign could have easily gone the way of Ian Harding (seriously who is that guy?) – a success, of course, but a campaign that could’ve been much more impactful with the right kind of social media strategy.
“It is important to note that Amell has a highly engaged social media following (especially on Facebook),” says Smitheram, “which means he was able to generate lots of support for his campaign. The Represent marketing team was also able to amplify demand for this campaign by promoting it on Facebook via hyper-targeted ads, which ultimately accounted for half of all sales of the campaign.”
Social media – it WORKS! But you do need a solid strategy. And that strategy is this: Be ON social media. Celebrities are brands in their own rights, sure, but what makes Amell so popular is that his passion for the charities and benefits he supports is infectious. A quick perusal of his Facebook page is littered with charitable functions and upcoming events or causes he is working on. Represent’s marketing team built on the solid foundation of loveable everyman that is Amell’s personality and the result was a record-breaking campaign that generated an incredible amount of money for a worthy cause. And there’s more where that came from.
“Overall, this campaign sold more than 45,000 shirts,” says Smitheram, “and Amell has stated in a recent Wall Street Journal interview that he will be running future campaigns on our platform.”
This is great news for charity, terrible news for cancer, and welcome news for my Stephen Amell T-shirt collection, which is currently at only one.
So, celebrities, take note: find something you love and let it kill you. Or…just talk about it a lot to the point that other people cannot help but be aware of it. Speak up. Keep the hype going. Target, target, target (your audience)!
Metter Media LLC is a Boston-based social media management company that implements community-based, localized social engagement strategies for small businesses and corporations alike. Need help with your social media? Email Lauren today.
