Retweets for mental health


In five-cent increments, the twitterverse buzzed with tweets that will make millions of dollars flow to support mental health. 

From a social-media metrics perspective, the #BellLetsTalk (French version #BellCause) garnered impressive reach, which rivalled #SOTU for President Obama's State of the Union address.

Even by adding the long form (#stateoftheunion), as of this morning there was only a five-million gap between the BellLetsTalk hashtag and the State of the Union hashtags. Impressive.

How did it happen?

Collective thanks to major leaguers, mobile technology, multitudes of do-gooders and an annual marketing campaign for all the activity on January 28, 2014. 

Entertainers like William Shatner, Jann Arden and Ellen Degeneres encouraged their fans to retweet the #BellLetsTalk messages about mental health. Thousands upon thousands of followers responded. Millions in all.




Who else helped the cause? Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. Olympian Clara Hughes. NHL franchises and individual players. Universities. Media outlets. Politicians. Statistics Canada. And the list goes on.

Kudos to Bell Canada for donating millions to such an important cause. After all, mental health affects everyone, either directly or indirectly.

For the cynics who think this only helped Bell's brand, the word cloud below shows that word associations reflected the broader message. 


I also challenge you to read yesterday's tweets, watch the videos, check out the media coverage.  

Better yet, discuss mental health openly, at any time of the year.  

And, if you can't discuss the topic in person, then do so using mobile technology. Based on yesterday's campaign stats, it's clear that only 17% of people participating in the campaign used a desktop computer or laptop browser. So, a whopping 83% used a mobile phone or tablet.  



 Be well. End the stigma that suppresses mental health.   

The Bell Let's Talk program funds improved community access to mental-health programs and encourages everyone to put a stop to the stigma.







Comments

  1. UnknownMonday, February 03, 2014 2:25:00 pm

    Final tally reported on the campaign website: $5,472,585.
    Bravo!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownMonday, February 03, 2014 5:42:00 pm

      Source: BellLetsTalk site (2014-02-03) http://letstalk.bell.ca/en/

      Delete

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