Every day online we’re told how easy it is to make a difference.

A click here. A like there. Share this link. Et cerera.

Who knew changing the world could be so… easy?

Well... It probably isn’t.

In fact, “clicktivism” can be damaging. Research has shown that “if people are able to declare support for a charity publicly in social media it can actually make them less likely to donate later on.”

For a charity that relies solely on donations, like Cancer Research UK, this is a real worry. After all, likes won’t beat cancer.

We needed to address the passive way people consume the web and instead encourage them to do something RIGHT NOW.

And so we created the "Do Button" – a social button with a difference. Programmed to appear directly next to wherever a Facebook like button is found it can be installed by adding a few lines of code or activating a Wordpress plugin, so anyone with a website or a blog can add it to their site.

Click “Do” and you’re given a randomly generated challenge that you can do immediately to help beat cancer sooner.

The Do button allowed bloggers and websites to “donate” their traffic to Cancer Research UK. An online media relations campaign drove button installations as well as editorial coverage of the campaign.

Celebrities tweeted about it. The nation heard about it.

And most importantly, people completed over 5,000 challenges and did something to help beat cancer sooner.

Slacktivism is a growing issue for the charity sector. The recent academic study, ‘The Nature of Slacktivism’ (The University of Chicago Press, 2013), found that “research shows that if people are able to declare support for a charity publicly in social media it can actually make them less likely to donate to the cause later on.”

Therefore, subverting the Facebook 'like' button to drive immediate action via the Do button was perfectly suited to a not-for-profit brand such as Cancer Research UK - the first time a wordpress plugin or social sharing button had been implemented for a marketing campaign.

With a shoestring budget, the results for the Do Button campaign have been extremely positive. And, since all of the activity occurred online and within the social space, we have been able to measure exact results using data from Google Analytics, Sysomos and other 3rd party monitoring tools.

Outputs

• 34 celebrities engaged to tweet (including Stephen Fry)

• 40+ top tier sites implemented/covering the Do Button

• 10.5 million reached via blogs and online media

• 20million+ impressions via Twitter

Outcomes

• 5,000 challenges undertaken to date (and rising!)

Budget

£20,000