The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge—or as many social media users know it, the #ALSIceBucketChallenge—is everywhere. It might be annoying for some, but it’s working.

Thanks to the hundreds of celebrity videos, and the million-plus less well-known ones, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has helped raise more than $23 million in donations, as the ALS Association stated.

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The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, sparked by patient Pete Frates, caught on with Boston-area athletes and spread rapidly across the past few weeks. It relies on a simple dare: You have 24 hours to videotape yourself being drenched by a bucket of ice water, or donate $100 to ALS research. (In many cases, participants do both.) Then keep the cycle going by daring others to do the same thing.

The #ALSIceBucketChallenge topped that tweet total in about an hour on Monday afternoon. The ALS Association and its chapters collectively raised about $64 million last year. But in the past three weeks, the organization has seen more than a 1100% increase in year-over-year donations — all attributable to the challenge.

According to media reports, people have shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook showing the challenge between June 1 and Aug. 13. Twitter estimates that the Challenge has been discussed in more than 2.2 million tweets. Gaining visibility for any cause is increasingly difficult in today's media-saturated age, which makes the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge all the more remarkable.

It also speaks to the growing clout of social media as way to solicit donations, particularly from younger people. Only 6% of Upworthy posts have reached 100,000 views, and only 0.42% have surpassed 1 million, according to the viral content experts at Upworthy. Virality is hard. But content marketers can look to examples like the ALS challenge to create and promote content that their audience will appreciate.

So, the final lesson for marketers is this: The trick isn't to copy or mimic a great campaign; it's to learn from it and incorporate the lessons into future ideas. The #icebucketchallenge is fun, it's for a good cause, it has perfect timing, it doesn't feel corporate, and it's new.

If you are ready to create your own campaign to increase your visibility, use the new video marketing trend in the market now and work with the professionals to increase your visibility and grow your business. For great deals on video production, contact us now!

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