What #FindDancingMan revealed about rallying users online

While brands have been cracking their heads to find the next viral factor for their campaigns, it appears the quickest way is to rally around a great social cause.While granted, not every social movement is about marketing brands, this holds a few golden lessons for marketers.The recent #FindDancingMan campaign should be evidence enough. If you haven't already heard about it (you must be living in a cave), the dancing man, who’s actual name is Sean, was ridiculed by teens online for his dance moves at a party.The post which accompanied the image below read: “Spotted this specimen trying to dance the other week. He stopped when he saw us laughing."The post was picked up by one Cassandra Fairbanks on 6 March who started an online campaign on Twitter with the hashtag #Finddancingman to find the man and throw him a party.https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/573617663655571456Within hours, the social media campaign got users all over the world asking Fairbanks if they could be a part of search and come to the party. Even celebrities such as Pharrell, Moby, Ed Westwick and Ellie Goulding joined Fairbanks in her quest to find the dancing man.Fairbanks also helped initiate a crowdfunding campaign for the party via GoFundMe to raise money and fly the dancing man from London to LA. Within three days the target of US$20K was met and currently the amount collected stands at US$37,779. Over 2000 people to date have contributed to the fund raising initiative. According to the organisers, any proceeds not used for the #dancingman dance party will be donated to an anti-bullying campaign.https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/574071315293859840https://twitter.com/thelittleidiot/status/573944025884983296https://twitter.com/elliegoulding/status/574478246173110272https://twitter.com/EdWestwick/status/573928910238306304 Meanwhile, the dancing man himself joined the Twitter conversation with the Twitter handle @dancingmanfound. He  accumulated over 75,000 friends online in less than three days.https://twitter.com/Dancingmanfound/status/574139543231795200In a nice turn of events, is doing good finally the new viral? Another example of this could be from local shores, where a helpless Vietnamese tourist was shown being scammed online for his iPhone 6 in Sim Lim Square. Local Singaporeans rallied together in a matter of days on a crowdfunding site Indiegogo to raise more than SG$15,500 to help him.Meanwhile one example of a brand on this move is Dove. Aside from its famous Real Beauty Sketches campaign, it actively engaged the public during the Oscars, spreading its positive message on social media through the #SpeakBeautiful campaign. The campaign was a simple one which urged the online public to turn ugly tweets about body images into beautiful ones.Interestingly, it seemed that this time around, no brands participated in the #Finddancingman movement.  LA Memorial Coliseum was one of the only few to offer to host the epic party for the dancing man.https://twitter.com/lacoliseum/status/574356873937190912"This illustrates how we as a society are becoming more inclined to rise to the defense of strangers through social media... Authenticity and a human voice will always win out," said Don Anderson, managing director of We Are Social.But there's one caveat on this. A brand jumping on a social movement could see potential backlash."In a movement such as the dancing man's, which is started at a ground level by the people for the people, it is harder for brands to effectively join the conversation without facing online backlash. Brands taking part in this conversation would differ from celebrities doing so because celebrities have closer interactions with consumers. The situation could swing both ways if a brand jumps in as the consumers might turn to the brand and say their help and support in this instance is not needed," said Preetham Venkky, head of digital strategy & business at KRDS Singapore.Food for thought for your next campaign guys? Try doing a little good.