Now I’m a “Belieber”….

Becca Jude & Mr. Bieber

I consider myself to be a fairly savvy social media guy. I know how quickly word can get out via these outlets. Just yesterday, there was a rumor circulating the internet that Bill Cosby had died.

As of Monday afternoon, "Bill Cosby died" was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter, and "is Bill Cosby dead" was the No. 2 "hot topic" on Google Trends, which tracks terms entered into the search engine.

Well, I’m happy to report that Mr. Cosby is, in fact, alive and well. Ironically, he countered the rumors using the exact same technology that spread them in the first place…he “tweeted” to all of his followers and fans that he’s alive and kicking.

I’m re-reading Malcolm Gladwell’s, The Tipping Point right now. The book was first published in 2000, prior to the meteoric rise in popularity of FaceBook & Twitter. Reading it now, I cannot help but think that there is no better example of how the entire concept of a “tipping point” works than with FaceBook and Twitter. This became ABUNDANTLY clear to me when I happened to run across the following story about how a college co-ed set out to raise awareness about childhood sexual abuse and wound up making a “Belieber” out of me.

Becca Jude is from New Jersey. She’s an 18 year old college Freshman at Miami University. Being addicted to Twitter (like 90% of the kids her age), she decided to turn that addiction into something positive. She decided to use it to raise money and awareness to combat child abuse. She had no idea how big of an impact she was going to have.

At the time, her goal was to raise $250 for Love Our Children USA (a child abuse awareness non-profit). Her plan was to donate 10 cents for every follower that she gained up to 2,500. That seemed like an awfully lofty goal. The average Twitter user has about 126 followers. Getting just 250 followers would be a huge accomplishment….2,500 is practically unheard of for an individual who isn’t a celebrity of some sort.

Well, here’s where the “tipping point” comes in. She started by tweeting statistics and facts about child abuse, which she would link to LOC’s website. A few days after she started tweeting, Justin Bieber’s mother, Pattie, retweeted Becca’s tweet to help spread the word. Thirty minutes later, Becca had already gained over 250 new followers. The next day, Justin Beiber’s road manager and a member of his crew, Ryan Good, retweeted Becca’s tweets. She was over 300! Then, Justin’s personal bodyguard joined the cause. After less than three months, Becca had reached her goal of 2,500 followers and had raised $250 for LOC. She was ecstatic….but little did she know, the best was yet to come.

The very next day, Justin Bieber himself started following Becca. I just checked Becca’s Twitter followers (#st0pchildabuse). As of today (January 25, 2011), she has 10,111 followers. Among them are Monique Coleman, Marlon Wayans, Ellen DeGeneres, Boyz II Men…and now, me. :-)

I’ve been corresponding with Becca via e-mail. She’s awfully modest about her Tweet-popularity:

“It is crazy to me that people now see me as inspiring. I never set out to be or anything like that. I just wanted to make a difference.I checked out your (DCAC’s) website. I think it is amazing and it seems like you guys do so much to help victims and to try and spread awareness. I would definitely love to help out in any way that I can :)  I am one person, an 18 year old, and I now have close to 10,000 followers on Twitter. People tell me that they had no idea how bad of a problem child abuse is until they followed me on Twitter. It's amazing to me what an impact Twitter and other forms of communication can have.”

Thank you, Becca….and thank you, Justin….and all 10,110 others out there following Becca. Hopefully, one day, we WILL reach the “tipping point” and start “trending” the conversation about child abuse and its tragic impact and consequences.