#nomakeupselfie - why it worked

While Cancer Research UK has enjoyed a £8m windfall from the social media campaign, it wasn't the charity's idea – but that, and the fact it worked on mobile, helped it to succeed so brilliantly

On the surface, #nomakeupselfie looks like a textbook example of how to make a campaign go viral on social media. It has raised more than £8m for Cancer Research UK. Right now, in meeting rooms everywhere, digital marketing executives and charities will be plotting how to replicate its success. But this apparent teachable moment has a kink: it wasn't Cancer Research UK's idea. They noticed that the campaign gathering momentum, and gave it a boost, but they didn't initiate it. A spokesman described the windfall as "totally unexpected". Is there anything the rest of us can learn about the science of sharability, when viral magic can strike seemingly at random?

Like a lot of memes, #nomakeupselfie has an obscure and convoluted origin: it can be traced to a 5 March tweet by the novelist Laura Lipmann which used a different hashtag and had nothing to do with cancer. Only days later did the internet attach the "no make up" idea to cancer, and you could argue that the connection makes no sense. If the idea is that posing for a photo sans-slap requires the same level of bravery as facing up to cancer... Clearly, the campaign resonated on an emotional level rather than an intellectual one. At its peak, tens of thousands of tweets a day were being posted with the hashtag. Just why did it take off so spectacularly?

Well, the fact it incorporated the buzzword of the year surely didn't hurt. But on a deeper level, it made people feel good about themselves; it was about affirmation, self-confidence and authenticity. This is significant, because emotion triggers sharing. At BuzzFeed, since most of our traffic comes via social media, we think a lot about how ideas travel on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. A couple of years ago we analysed the emotions that drove people to share an article, and found that positive ones dominated. Happiness came top, followed by awe.

However, there was also a self-deprecating, very British element to #nomakeupselfie. In the UK, some of BuzzFeed's most widely shared articles are ones that have an element of gentle mockery. 27 middle class problems, 27 things posh people like – the people who share these posts the most are the ones who are being mocked. It enables people to say, "Oh God, this is so me." British people love to do this. And #nomakeupselfie had a similar feel. Many people appended their photos with self-critical qualifications: "I look terrible." Of course, they could be pretty confident that the comments underneath would chime in with, "Nonsense, you look beautiful."

Crucially, it was easy to join in. It wasn't wacky: you didn't have to dress up, sit in a bath of beans or run a marathon to take part. But the real secret weapon was the call to action. Initially, many selfies included links to justgiving pages. But the campaign only really achieved critical mass when the text donation element came to dominate: no forms to fill in, no credit card details to enter. You didn't have to be at your desk. Whether you were posting a photo, or donating money, all you needed was a phone. And that's the fundamental lesson here for fundraisers: anyone who hopes to achieve virality of any kind needs to think about how their message will work on mobile. The bigger something gets, the more mobile comes into play. Phones turbocharge the spread of ideas.

The most successful viral campaigns are the ones that don't advertise themselves as such. There is nothing more tragic than a publisher or marketer self-consciously trying to go viral. #nomakeupselfie was all about authenticity, removing layers of artifice. People bought into it precisely because it wasn't engineered deliberately by Cancer Research UK. It was a rare example of pure, not manufactured, virality. In that sense, it may prove difficult for others to replicate. But that won't stop them trying.

Luke Lewis, UK editor at BuzzFeed, is speaking at Media Trust's spring conference on Thursday 27 March about Content: Create, Connect, Change.

Look out next week for analysis of the top five charity social media campaigns including top tips and lessons to be learnt.

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