2020
has been one trainwreck of a year. In January, we lost one of our global sports
icons, Kobe Bryant, in tragic fashion, and it only got worse with COVID-19 migrating
to the United States and being spread throughout the country. People are dying
from the virus worldwide, with over 100,000 coronavirus related deaths in the
United States, healthcare professionals risking their own lives working
countless hours daily and weekly to take care and provide treatment to those hospitalized
by the virus. Our way of life has changed dramatically. We are going to school
online via zoom, we are social distancing from others by not going out into
public spaces, for us college students we are back at home living with our
parents like its high school all over again, professional sports leagues have shut
down operations, and much more that has changed our daily routines and how we
consistently went about our lives. We are starting to live in a new normal of being
quarantined at home and doing all communication with others digitally, rather
it be zoom, facetime, or through social media. Let’s talk about social media, specifically
social media use since the COVID-19 outbreak changed our daily way of life. Social
media use is up 20% on all social media platforms, specifically Facebook,
twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok since the outbreak, and as some may have preached
that this is a time to disconnect from social media and get back in touch with
our families and using the time to relax and rejuvenate, there is evidence that
shows that social media use has skyrocketed due to the outbreak and that it is
essential we are using social media during this time. There have been several social
media trends and campaigns that have been put into place over the past couple
months that would not be relevant if it were not for unprecedented times, but
research shows that our social media use is important during this time because not
only will we stay connected through social media as we cannot see each other
face to face, but we can make a difference through social media to help those
who are struggling and those who have been directly impacted by this pandemic. For
my project I researched the social media phenomenon of the #AllinChallenge that
is challenging every athlete, team owner, league, celebrity, and artist to go “All
In”. The All In Challenge is a digital fundraising effort providing food to
kids, the elderly and frontline heroes during the COVID-19 Crisis. The
fundraiser is sponsored by various organizations including Fanatics, ESPN,
Fedex, Sports Illustrated, Simpleauctionsite.com, and iheartradio with the goal
of raising money with the help of sports professionals and celebrities for
charities including Meals on Wheels, No Kid Hungry, America’s Food Fund and
others that are supporting families throughout the COVID-19 Crisis. Those the
take the challenge donate their time and talents to raising money for charities
that are supporting people facing food shortages during COVID-19. I have analyzed
50 #AllinChallenge posts from actors, musicians, Tik Tok stars, athletes, and
other celebrities contributing to the challenge, looking for trends to indicate
this is an effective method of meeting the goal of the challenge to reach $100
million. Essentially the fundraiser is an auction. Funds are raised by bidding
on packages offered by celebrities. The prize goes to the highest bidder. Not
too long ago, a fundraiser like this wouldn’t have been possible. Social media
has forged a web of connections around the country and the world. I wanted to
learn if activating a national audience to fight the COVID-19 crisis within the
United States would be effective. I have used the social media concepts of gift
economy, spreadability, and stickiness to create a deeper analysis of the data
I have collected from the fifty #AllInChallenge posts to answer my research
question of “will having celebrities, athletes, and other notable figures
network together for the current social media trend of, #AllInChallenge, be
successful of spreading its message to the rest of social media viewers?” With
the power of social media, the #AllInChallenge has brought people and
celebrities together around a common cause that can do a lot of good for those
in need during a global crisis, however, while the results have been strong, my
research indicates that with a few modifications, the outreach could be
improved.
Literature Review
Social media has been a
prominent component of a lot of people’s lives for over ten years now, and the
addition of different social media platforms over this past decade such as
Instagram, Snapchat, and now Tik Tok has created the opportunity for social
media to evolve over this time. Social media has transformed into a place where
we can find news stories, latest trends, posts from our friends, family, and
celebrities, as well as a place where we can share what we view and what we
post with our individual followings. Through research done by analysts on what
has made social media a place that has been so convenient in sharing
information, as well as being a great place to market, promote, and endorse
different posts, companies, brands, celebrities, news stories, and much more,
there has been theories and principles developed on how social media functions.
Through the many devices that are used to dissect all that takes place on
social media platforms, the three principles that take place in social media
that we have studied throughout the course of Social Media & Society, that
includes gift economy, spreadability, and stickiness, are devices that show how
posts and stories spread across social media platforms, and how they play a
part in social media being a phenomenal tool to use for marketing.
In an article titled, “How
to Thrive in Social Media’s Gift Economy,” published by Harvard Business
Review, author of the article, Mark Bonchek, discusses how gift economies are
used to decipher what does, and what doesn’t, work on social media, and explains
how the gift economy provides insight on “what brands can do to be more
successful” across social media platforms (Bonchek). He also explains how social
media “are fundamentally gift economies” where rather than exchanging
transactions and financial currencies, it is a place where we can exchange “social
currencies” along with “cultivating relationships” (Bonchek). Even though
social media is a great place to promote and market your brand, brands have
difficulties promoting themselves on the various social media platforms because
they do not attain financial gain through their posts, but interactions with
the general public of social media users. Bonchek’s opinion can be backed up by
Megan Tilley in an article she wrote for Copypress titled, “The Gift Economy
and Social Media Marketing,” Tilley discusses that the gift economy can also be
referred to as the “cultural economy” and that the system is set up where the
gift economy trades “services for personal connection” rather than for money
(Tilley). Social media was established to connect people together through the
internet to remain in touch and communicate with each other when we cannot physically
be with each other, and while social media has evolved over the years, and can
be used to promote campaigns, brands, and movements, social media still is a
place to exchange services for personal communication, and that’s where the gift
economy plays a role.
Another key component of
how social media functions is spreadability. Spreadability is used in social
media, specifically marketing that takes place on social media, and represents
how information circulates and is distributed on social media platforms. In an
excerpt in the book, “Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a
Networked Culture,” contributed to by Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green,
it is mentioned how spreadability disperses content widely through social media
platforms (Jenkins, Ford, Green). In an article written by Jackson DeMos for
the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, he gives an overview
of the collaborated piece written by Jenkins, Ford, and Green about the
principle of spreadability, gives his own analysis discussing how spreadability
refers to the potential social media viewers and audiences have to “share
content for their own purposes” and that this may happen with or without the “permission
of rights holders” (DeMos). With social media being a platform where we can
share anything that is posted on to a particular platform, we can inform others
around us of news stories, trends, phenomenons, and a lot more with the people we
are connected with in ways that would not be possible if we were not all networked
together. Basically, by us sharing content on social media, we become a form of
marketers and promoters ourselves, but does that not mean it will relate to businesses
or brands that we usually think of when the terms “marketing” and “promotion”
are thrown in our direction. We can share information and in our own way market
it by how we share it and promote it with those we are networked with.
Stickiness is a social
media principle that is used in a variety of ways on social media platforms,
and something that directly relates to the topic of this paper. Stickiness is
in contrast with spreadability and is directly used with marketing on social
media. The “sticky content” needs to be shareable content that entices its
social media audience to take action on the matter. This can directly relate to
the #AllInChallenge due to that it can be shareable because of the concept of
the trend and can be content that action must be taken by viewers to remain alive
and relevant. For content to be “sticky,” it must resonate with its target
audience. In an article published by Talk Business, written by contributor, Dominic
Lill, Lill discusses that for a social media post or campaign to be sticky and
resonate with its target audience, it has to have creativity, be posted on
multiple social media platforms, advertised, and have “feedback loops and
reviews” (Lill). The “feedback loops and reviews” means have comments set up
for viewers and to take those comments serious because that is there initial
reaction to the post at the spur of the moment. For the content to be sticky,
it needs to be reacted to by its viewers so changes can be made if necessary,
to improve the promotion of the content and to have viewer retention.
Methodology/Research Question
Original Methodology:
What I decided to do was
to look at fifty of the most recent posts on Instagram that posted about the
#AllinChallenge. I looked whether they used a video or an illustrative ad to make
their announcement that they were going to participate in the trend, whether
they announced the prize they were offering to the winner of their sweepstakes
or to the highest bidder of their auction, depending on if they were setting up
a raffle to win a sweepstakes or giving their prize to their highest bidder on
their auction, whether they posted a link to get to the All In Challenge website
so that the viewer could enter the sweepstakes or post a bid efficiently
without having to go and find the link which may make the viewer uninterested
at that point, as well as seeing if the celebrity or notable figure nominated
others to participate in the challenge which would increase the trend and get
more people to take action in donating money to the fundraiser. I made sure in
the fifty recent posts I would look at that were posts about the #AllinChallenge
were posted by the verified account of the celebrity or recognizable brands.
Research Question: Are these
celebrities/athletes etc. promoting the #AllinChallenge trend in the most
effective ways in their posts?
I picked the first fifty verified
posts, all from Instagram, for my data and analysis of the data. The data
includes:
•
15 Professional Athletes
•
8 Actors/Actresses
•
10 Musicians
•
3 TV Hosts
•
2 Bands
•
2 Companies
•
3 Professional Sports Franchises
•
3 Tik Tok Stars
•
Cast of Friends
•
1 Businessman
•
1 Television Network
•
1 Model
Specifically, these are
the celebrities/athletes/brands/and more that I used:
Athletes
·
Kevin Durant (NBA)
·
Peyton Manning (NFL)
·
Tom Brady (NFL)
·
Jack Nicklaus (Golf)
·
Alex Rodriguez (MLB)
·
Zach Randolph (NBA)
·
David Beckham (Soccer)
·
Mike Conley (NBA)
·
Tony Hawk (Skateboarder)
·
Todd Gurley (NFL)
·
Patrick Mahomes (NFL)
·
Jared Goff (NFL)
·
Bubba Watson (Golf)
·
Coco Gauff (Tennis)
·
Novak Djokovic (Tennis)
Musicians
·
Camila Cabello
·
Shawn Mendes
·
Romeo Santos
·
Meek Mill
·
Mariah Carey
·
Megan Thee Stallion
·
Ariana Grande
·
Madonna
·
Joey Fatone
·
DJ Khaled
Actors
·
Kevin Hart
·
Ryan Reynolds
·
Hugh Jackman
·
Alfonso Ribeiro
·
Leonardo DiCaprio
·
Chris Pratt
·
Chris Evans
·
Cedric The Entertainer
Tik Tok “Stars”
·
Charli D’Amelio
·
Dixie D’Amelio
·
Addison Rae
TV Hosts
·
Jimmy Kimmel
·
Ellen DeGeneres
·
Dr. Oz
Musical Bands
·
Lady Antebellum
·
Pearl Jam
TV Show Cast
·
Cast of Friends (Posted by Actor Matthew Perry
on behalf of the cast of Friends
Models
·
Gisele
Businessman
·
Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft)
Professional Sports
Franchises
·
Philadelphia Flyers (NHL)
·
Vegas Golden Knights (NHL)
·
Denver Nuggets (NBA)
Companies
·
Walmart
·
State Farm
Television Networks
·
YES Network
It may not be completely
necessary of me to list out all 50 people whose posts I analyzed but I want to
be thorough about the Instagram accounts that I used to gather my data.
I will be doing analysis on
the fifty posts in my data set and analyzing whether they used the best
marketing tools possible for marketing posts on social media or if there is
room for improvement.
Elements such as making the post appear personal, giving
the viewer a convenient way to take action, what ways they used to keep the
social media trend moving forward rather than have it come to a halt, and whether
they listed an incentive to make the viewer have any form of interest in the
post and the cause.
Revised Methodology:
I will still be using the
same 50 posts that I took a look at in my original method and will be analyzing
the four elements of how personal was the post, if an incentive was listed, if
there is a link accessible and convenient if a viewer had an interest in taking
action, and if the post nominated others to move the trend forward, as such
with the “Ice Bucket Challenge” from a number of years ago.
However, changes in how I
approach my analysis of the data I have gathered will be different than it was
originally. I will be applying the social media concepts of gift economy, spreadability,
and stickiness to provide a deeper analysis of the findings I found on Instagram.
The analysis method I originally had was simple and was analysis that could
probably be noticed by someone who has not taken a social media class. I will
be providing a deeper analysis of my data set by explaining how those three
concepts of gift economy, spreadability, and stickiness that I learned over the
semester in social media class to give a deeper understanding behind this
social media trend.
I have also changed my
research question to “will having celebrities, athletes,
and other notable figures network together for the current social media trend
of, #AllinChallenge, be successful of spreading its message to the rest of
social media viewers?”
In this next section, I will
share my social media research findings and then in the next section provide a
deeper analysis in the context of commonly accepted social media principles. I
will connect the data I have collected with the social media principles of the
gift economy, spreadability, and stickiness.
Data Collection and
Analysis
After selecting the most
recent verified 50 Instagram posts with the #AllinChallenge hashtag, I began my
analysis by looking at post content and structure. Since my posts were all of
celebrities, the content detailed what they were offering if they were
participating in an auction. There were experiences like have lunch with
Leonardo DiCaprio on the set of his new movie or a free skateboarding lesson
with Tony Hawk. With Instagram, posts either contain an image or a video, and of
the 50 posts I looked at, 39 celebrities used video to make a personal
statement of what they were offering in the challenge. The other 11 posts were
illustrative ads. These usually included a brief description of the experience,
a photo, the auction end date and the #AllinChallenge hashtag.
The videos felt more
personal and, as a viewer, I felt more connected to the posts that included
videos since these videos were personal pleas from the celebrity to either bid,
donate or take part in the challenge. The ads were more like public service
announcements and didn’t provoke the sense of excitement to participate that
the videos did.
Next, I looked at how prominently
the celebrity offering (the “prize”) was featured. Whether it was in the video
or in the caption, 47 of the 50 #AllinChallenge Instagram posts I looked at
promoted the prize and went into vivid detail to entice the viewer. Three posts
didn’t mention a prize but urged the viewer to donate. Clearly the “prizes”
were deemed valuable since they were the main focus of nearly all of the posts.
I believe the posts with
the descriptions of the prizes were much more effective in getting people to
participate, since the opportunities are all one-of-a-kind experiences offered
by the celebrities who promoted them. The sweepstakes (raffles) and auctions
create energy around donating that may inspire people to donate who otherwise might
not. These “bidders” and sweepstakes entrants are giving to a good cause and if
they’re lucky may win an experience with their favorite sports star or band.
I also looked for links
within each post so people had an efficient way to take action. Of the 50 I
looked at, 32 put the link to the site in the post, 11 put the link in their
bio so people would need to go the celebrity’s main Instagram page first, and
seven did not include a link at all.
Not including a link is a
failure on the part of the poster since interested parties cannot easily take
the next step to learn more or participate in the fundraiser. In fact, not
including a link creates frustration if the viewer was interested enough to act.
While having a direct link is best for the cause, having a way to connect,
whether in the post or on a profile, is expected by the viewer.
Finally, I looked for
evidence that the challenge had the potential to accelerate its growth and meet
its goals. Nominating others is the key to helping the fundraiser trend on
social media, which is what it’s all about if it’s going to meet its goal of
reaching $100M.
Of the 50 posts I looked
at, 27 celebrities nominated 1-3 others to take the challenge. To be honest, I
expected more to celebrities to push the movement. These are the influencers in
our society with huge social media followings. They should use their celebrity
status to bring awareness to this cause to as many people as possible. Nominating
other celebrities to take the challenge keeps the trend going and hopefully
growing, and it’s this networking that determines how successful the fundraiser
will be.
In addition to the
analysis of the individual posts I had chosen to analyze, I also I applied
several social media theories to the #AllinChallenge when determining its
success. I considered the theory of gift
economy and whether it applied in this case.
A gift economy is one in
which transactions aren’t strictly commercial. There is another deeper
connection in the transaction. One side gives without expectation of a specific
reward. They see a need, they seek to fill it with useful content or some other
gift, and recipients who find value in the gift, offer an unsolicited gift in
return. In social media, that can be a “like” or a “share” or a shoutout, for
instance. In the case of the #AllinChallenge, celebrities are gifting unique
experiences with no expectation of financial return for themselves. Recipients
are willing to buy a raffle ticket for a chance at winning the ‘gift’ or are
willing to bid on it. Giving without expectation of financial gain is what most
fundraisers are founded on also, so I believe the gift economy is prevalent in
regards to the #AllinChallenge since all proceeds go to selected charities.
Both sides make a gift and the charities benefit.
I also considered
“stickiness,” a concept that refers to how often viewers visit or how much time
they spend on your page or account. For the most part, this isn’t the goal of
the #AllinChallenge and rightfully so. While the sponsors have a webpage to
show campaign progress, facilitate bidding and share the latest updates, the
main point of the challenge is to get “everyone involved,” thus, the
#AllinChallenge. To do that, they mainly need to focus on spreadability. But
back to stickiness for a moment. There is one area where they could have
applied a few “sticky” principles, such as in selecting a name for their
challenge. One element of stickiness is the how concrete the concept is.
Compared to the ALS Ice Bucket
Challenge that trended on social media a number of years ago, the
#AllinChallenge is not as intuitive when it comes to understanding what it’s
about. You can visualize pretty clearly what an ice bucket challenge is all
about and one video post of it in action will confirm it. Everyone can envision
an ice bucket. The #AllinChallenge is a bit more vague. In fact, when I first heard
about it, I thought they meant the celebrities went “all in.” I wanted to know
what that meant: Did they give all their money to charity? Did they donate all
their future profits or 100% of their estate to a cause? To me, “all in”
sounded like the last hand of a poker game. In fact, “All in” means they want
EVERYONE to participate, not just celebrities, but anyone in a position to
help. In fact, the name risks scaring away up-and-coming celebrities since they
may not be in a position to go “all in.” Given the findings that just roughly
half of participating celebrities called out other celebrities to take the
challenge, made me think the name might not be sticky enough for them to
remember when taking part themselves. It’s also not emphatically clear that the
challenge is in response to COVID-19. However, COVID-19 may be another reason
the celebrity turnout isn’t higher.
I also considered the
concept of spreadability, dispersing content widely through social networks.
This is the goal of the #AllinChallenge.” They strive to reach “everyone,” and
want to motivate everyone to help their cause. Within the first 3 weeks of
existence, the hashtag #Allinchallenge appeared in nearly 70,000 posts across
four social media platforms. This is not exactly viral, but it’s strong,
organic growth and it’s still growing. If 27 out of 50 celebrity participants
challenge one to three other celebrities to take up the challenge and most of
them do, the growth is still not yet exponential but trending upwards. The
middling number of newly challenged presents a problem for spreading the word.
We need 50 people to reach 50+ more people. Instead we have 50 people reaching
27+ people. Still, more than $32M have been raised to help feed people impacted
by COVID-19, which is a strong response and better than doing nothing.
Conclusion
I began this project with
an interest in analyzing a social media phenomenon, especially a recent
phenomenon. I chose the #AllinChallenge
since it is timely in trying to raise funds for people facing food shortages
due to COVID-19. I liked that it involved celebrities and that a lot of sports
teams were getting involved. I assumed that celebrities, since they are on
social media a lot, are influencers and have large followings, would make the
trend an instant success. I expected their posts to be examples of best
practices in social media and for the trend to go viral during the course of
this project. In fact, I discovered that not all celebrities are social media
experts and other factors also come into play.
Across the 50 posts I analyzed,
it became clear that social media skills are not a given even if one is a
celebrity. Some celebrities made it difficult to get to the challenge site in
order to participate and still others didn’t include a link at all. But even
more surprising was how some current social media theories applied to this
data.
For instance, social
media is often seen as operating as a gift society and there is strong evidence
of that here. In a gift economy, people give gifts of value without an explicit
agreement of reciprocity. People give because they want to and recipients who
feel compelled to respond, do so. This gift economy culture is visible in the
#Allinchallenge as celebrities are donating experiences they will be part of
with no expectation of financial reward for themselves. In fact, many people
will bid on an auction or buy a raffle ticket to win an experience even though
their chance of winning is small. Both sides are giving gifts without the
expectation they will receive something of equal value in return. This is the
nature of the gift economy.
I also analyzed the phenomenon
by considering the principles of stickiness and spreadability. While stickiness
in marketing can refer to a destination such as a blog post that users and
viewers like to spend time on, it can also refer to certain concepts that
“stick with” people that help a post or a destination get amplified. One author
in Adweek stated that having a concrete concept that can be visualized, “sex
vs. love,” for instance, made it easier to stick in people’s minds and get
shared, boosting its chance of trending. I noticed that the name
#Allinchallenge was not an overtly concrete name and in fact was a bit
ambiguous. Does it mean they want donors to give everything or does it mean
they want everyone to be a donor? Of course, it’s the latter, but the hashtag
could be more explicit. It also doesn’t make clear that it’s a fundraiser for
multiple charitable organizations focused on providing food so these charities
can support those affected by COVID-19. This may have caused the fundraiser to
get a slow start, but I think it will overcome this and meet its ambitious
goal.
I also looked for
spreadability, and was slightly surprised here too. I anticipated that since it
was full of celebrities, it would be an overnight success. The phenomenon is
still trending and donations keep flowing in, but this can’t be described as
going viral overnight. The network is there, but the speed at which people are
joining the cause is not accelerating as fast as I would have expected. That
said, it is early days and I believe the trend will continue to gather momentum
as more teams and celebrities join and as some of the higher profile celebrity
experiences are closer to the end of their auctions.
I sought to learn whether
having celebrities and athletes networking together for the social media
fundraiser, the #AllinChallenge, would cause it to trend and meet it’s $100
million goal for charity. While I originally expected it to succeed quickly, I
now realize that bringing the networks of celebrities, athletes and artists
together isn’t a guarantee of overnight success. I believe it will still meet
its goal, but the early days will be a slow climb that eventually accelerates
in success.
When it comes to answering
the research question of “will having celebrities, athletes, and other notable figures
network together for the current social media trend of, #AllinChallenge, be
successful of spreading its message to the rest of social media viewers,” the
answer is yes and no. Some were effective in grabbing the attention of the
target audience, but other posts lack the spreadability and stickiness to
create viewer retention and action.
Literature Review
References
Bonchek, Mark. “How to
Thrive in Social Media's Gift Economy.” Harvard Business Review, 23 July
2014, hbr.org/2012/08/understanding-social-medias-gi.
DeMos, Jackson. “Defining
Spreadability.” USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism,
13 Jan. 2014, annenberg.usc.edu/news/published/defining-spreadability.
Jenkins, Henry, et al. Spreadable
Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. NYU Press, 2013.
Lill, Dominic. “The
Stickiness of Social: Why Every Business Needs Social Media.” Talk Business,
8 Dec. 2018,
www.talk-business.co.uk/2017/04/24/stickiness-social-every-business-needs-social-media/.
Tilley, Megan. “The Gift
Economy and Social Media Marketing - Content Marketing Agency: Content
Marketing Services by CopyPress.” Content Marketing Agency | Content
Marketing Services by CopyPress, 28 Feb. 2020,
www.copypress.com/blog/gift-economy-social-media-marketing/.
