A couple of weeks ago, 451 Marketing held a blood drive for @RedCross & @BostonRedCross.  Right before my appointment, I sent out a simple tweet:

I was very impressed with the response that I got – but back to that in a minute.  As many already know, this is not the first time the Red Cross has made a splash in the social media realm. They previously had the ingenious idea to buy a sponsored tweet for giving blood on the word ‘Tigerblood’ – as well as turning a social media disaster into a case study on how to react in a crisis.

Both of those make for countless articles and case studies, and deservedly so. What I experienced from the Red Cross was not a calculated campaign though, but instead a simple tweet.

This was a simple act, something they surely do every day; send a tweet to someone who mentions giving blood. But instead of simply thanking me, they asked their community to do it. When I first aw this I thought it was awfully nice, but didn’t think much else. I soon went into the Red Cross truck to give blood outside my office without another thought of Twitter, but when I returned my phone had tons of Twitter notifications!

Within a few hours I had received nearly 40 tweets from complete strangers. None were spam, and most were thanking me for donating my blood. The first few I read made me happy I had given blood, but as I continued to read I became proud I had given blood.

 

While the Red Cross may be a non-profit company, they are still a business, and need repeat customers. To encourage people to give blood again, they played off basic human emotion – the want to feel appreciated. They knew that their followers would thank me for what I was doing, and give me a feeling if pride and appreciation for what I did, and it worked. I immediately decided that I would give blood as soon as I could again thanks to a simple tweet.