Cause marketing won’t cure cancer. Or end hunger. Or stop domestic violence. Or usher in world peace. Or save puppies from the pound.
I know this because cause marketing is blessed and cursed by having what Malcolm Gladwell calls “weak ties.”
[I immediately connected with Gladwell's concept of weak ties when I read The Tipping Point years ago. Like Roger Horchow in the book, I prefer friendly yet casual social connections. It's no surprise I love cause marketing and social media.]
Here’s how Gladwell recently described weak ties in relation to social media in The New Yorker.
The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand ‘friends’ on Facebook, as you never could in real life.
It seems lately the more I talk to nonprofits about cause marketing the more I talk about social media and how the two are inseparable. Unfortunately, many aren’t quite sold that these two belong together.
