Getting people excited about donating money for an intangible, online product would be considered the pinnacle of skilful digital marketing for most charities. Becoming national water cooler fodder on top of that is a veritable Holy Grail. This is something that the relentlessly forward thinking team at Comic Relief have achieved through a concept titled ‘Twitrelief’. They gathered together 100 celebrities who agreed to ‘Superfollow’ the highest bidder on eBay and, for a four figure fee, throw them a bit of Twitter love that they can screen print and keep forever.
It seems like the perfect fundraising plan; bidders are happy with their new ‘celeb bezzies’, celebrities feel good about their donations (my cynical side would like to add ‘their great PR opportunity’ too – the cheeky monkey!) and a whole load of wonga gets lumped in the comic relief tin.
“#Twitrelief is trending. Good, I could really use some relief from twits” @Lord_Voldemort7
However, as with anything that dares to flow into the mainstream, there are naysayers, people who appreciate the conceited nature of the scheme on behalf of the bidder and the seller. Many of these pessimists have taken to their Twitter accounts to recognise the inevitability that it will slide into a well intentioned fame contest ‘A celeb is saying if you bid for her on #twitrelief she will follow you for an hour. An hour? WTF? These celebs are so up their own behinds!’. Instead of positioning themselves as charity hating hipsters though, they have turned a complete 360 degrees and have created Tw*trelief. A charitable stand against the hype of celebrity tweeters.
Tw*trelief encourages people to “Do the EXACT OPPOSITE [to twitrelief] and support Tw*tRelief instead! Go UNFOLLOW celebs and give money for every celeb you unfollow; you can even nominate a celeb to be crowned Tw*tRelief King or Queen!”
Suggestions for whom so far include:
- ‘#twatrelief @hollywills yawnyawnyawn’
- ‘#twatrelief Kayne Gone South (Kayne West)’
- ‘Josh Farro – the truth didnt set him free.’
Far from damaging twitrelief, tw*trelief is generating a cutting edge buzz around RND. A free thinker’s movement away from the conformist Twitter equivalent to Xfactor. The polarising effect of both the official scheme and the rebellious lobby group only adds to the puffery surrounding the hashtags and websites. Of course the money from this guerrilla movement directly benefits Comic Relief. It just makes people feel a different way about giving to them. Though it’s a much smaller movement (only £124 has been raised so far) something about it suggests that perhaps if it got any bigger it wouldn’t have the same underground feel.
So the scene kids are involved, the celebrities love their new do-gooder images, the general public are excited about the prospect of having ‘dreamy’ Olly Murs following their musings and all of this lovely publicity is being held on a free medium and generating a lot of cash for charity. Perhaps it is the perfect fundraising plan?
Getting people excited about donating money for an intangible, online product would be considered the pinnacle of skilful digital marketing for most charities. Becoming national water cooler fodder on top of that is a veritable Holy Grail. This is something that the relentlessly forward thinking team at Comic Relief have achieved through a concept titled ‘Twitrelief’. They gathered together 100 celebrities who agreed to ‘Superfollow’ the highest bidder on eBay and, for a four figure fee, throw them a bit of Twitter love that they can screen print and keep forever.
It seems like the perfect fundraising plan; bidders are happy with their new ‘celeb bezzies’, celebrities feel good about their donations (my cynical side would like to add ‘their great PR opportunity’ too – the cheeky monkey!) and a whole load of wonga gets lumped in the comic relief tin.
However, as with anything that dares to flow into the mainstream, there are naysayers, people who appreciate the conceited nature of the scheme on behalf of the bidder and the seller and many of these pessimists have taken to their Twitter accounts to recognise the inevitability that it will slide into a well intentioned fame contest ‘A celeb is saying if you bid for her on #twitrelief she will follow you for an hour. An hour? WTF? These celebs are so up their own behinds!’. Instead of positioning themselves as charity hating hipsters though, they have turned a complete 360 degrees and have created Tw*trelief. A charitable stand against the hype of celebrity tweeters. http://bit.ly/ij1q7Q
Tw*trelief encourages people to “Do the EXACT OPPOSITE [to twitrelief] and support Tw*tRelief instead! Go UNFOLLOW celebs and give money for every celeb you unfollow; you can even nominate a celeb to be crowned Tw*tRelief King or Queen!”
Suggestions for whom so far include:
- #twatrelief @hollywills yawnyawnyawn
- #twatrelief Kayne Gone South (Kayne West)
- Josh Farro – the truth didnt set him free.
Far from damaging twitrelief, tw*trelief is generating a cutting edge buzz around RND. A free thinker’s movement away from the conformist Twitter equivalent to Xfactor. The polarising effect of both the official scheme and the rebellious lobby group only adds to the puffery surrounding the hashtags and websites. Of course the money from this guerrilla movement directly benefits Comic Relief. It just makes people feel a different way about giving to them. Though it’s a much smaller movement (only £124 has been raised so far) something about it suggests that perhaps if it got any bigger it wouldn’t have the same underground feel.
So the scene kids are involved, the celebrities love their new do-gooder images, the general public are excited about the prospect of having ‘dreamy’ Olly Murs following their musings and all of this lovely publicity is being held on a free medium and generating a lot of cash for charity. Perhaps it is the perfect fundraising plan?
Tags: Fundraising, social media, Twitter
‘The polarising effect of both the official scheme and the rebellious lobby group only adds to the puffery surrounding the hashtags and websites.’
And makes the whole thing bloody confusing to boot!
“only £124″?
Ok then.
At least my paltry tenner means something within that sum of money… much more so that being frozen out of any auction to get a “zeleb” (sic) to follow me for a four figure sum of money that I am being made to feel guilty for not having…
Myself and Jay (and others) didn’t shout about tw@trelief to gain notoriety. We did it so that our meager donations would actually make a difference in their own way… y’know… at our level.
I’m not commenting on this to create a row but to offer the reasons why. The # tw@trelief rippled out onto so many more levels and let people have a little rant whilst donating money too.
http://bit.ly/esxJsx
I’m afraid I’m with the ‘A’s – not all celebs are up their own ‘A’s but for such a great cause, I’d like to do something worthwhile – not brush up someone’s ego. The founder of http://bit.ly/twatrelief is genius – follow them, you’ll see! Much more interesting than “look how much weight I lost this month (without surgery) ‘Cough’ honest!” Instead you’ll get to read some interesting stuff and follow interesting people.
It’s your money – it all goes to the same cause – but the feeling of an unfollow on someone who has no intention of even acknowledging you, let alone talk to you – gives a great sense of relief. Choose http://bit.ly/twatrelief today – you know it makes sense
Thanks for the comment, Nickie.
I hoped it came across that I thought tw*trelief was a really entertaining, creative angle on raising money for a good cause – there was absolutely no criticism intended. As you say, any donation, whatever size, makes a positive difference and it’s great that tw*trelief opens up the opportunity to support at any level.
Lucy
The ‘underground guerrillas’? How exciting. Hunting down Twats on Twitter. Genius.
Much like Nickie, my instant reaction was “only £124 has been raised so far”, which I felt a bit insulting. Especially as I’m willing to bet (and of course, the money would go to RND…) there are a lot of people doing nothing to raise money and awareness.
I wasn’t sure whether to be offended by this article, but quickly realised that at the end of the day, it just raises more awareness for RND. I’m chuffed to bits that people saw the reason for why we did twatrelief; people ranted *cough* gave their opinions , celebs were unfollowed and most importantly, money was raised. Which is the point, right?
Hi Jay,
I can only apologise if people took my reference to the size of tw*trelief as an insult. My use of the word ‘only’ preceding £124 was meant to infer that it’s on the path to raising more before RND. Far from being a rant about tw*trelief I thought my use of “A free thinker’s movement” and “cutting edge” more demonstrated my belief that it is a fun underground way to make money.
Personally I’d be much more likely to donate through tw*trelief than bidding on a celebrity follower.
Lucy