Let's Take A Squashie

Don't Be Chicken

After the No Makeup Selfie and the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, another charity has taken to social media to raise awareness and attempt to make their campaign go viral. The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) have challenged people to tweet a ‘squashie.' It’s like a selfie but with a lot more people.

It’s Farm Animal Week and to raise awareness on the poor living conditions of chickens, the RSPCA are urging people to take a 'squashie'. To take a 'squashie', you have to squish as many people as possible into a selfie. The more people you can get involved the better. The campaign is to raise the issues surrounding chicken welfare, who are being bred in awful conditions. A representative of the RSPCA said that: "this week’s initiative is about raising awareness of the cramped conditions in which millions of farm animals spend their lives." By being squashed into a selfie with many people, who'll get a glimpse of what living in tiny spaces is like.

The thing the campaign is missing is celebrity endorsement; the reason why the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge took off like it did was because celebrities took part in the challenge and shared it with their millions of followers. Shaun the Sheep did tweet a squashie but evidently that was not enough to inspire his followers to do the same. It does have the No Make Up Selfie aspect of being easy, anyone can do it and at anytime.

However among the many squashies that come up when you search #squashie on Twitter, some tweets are endorsing sweets that are also called Squashies. Seemingly, most tweets containing #squashie are about the tweets and not the selfies. The RSPCA really do need to take lessons in creating a viral campaign, but their efforts must be applauded. Hopefully their campaign will have managed to raise awareness even if the only thing people are talking about is how it failed.

Squashies have yet to invade my Facebook news feed in the same way as the No Makeup Selfie and the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, but if you want to get involved tweet a picture of you and your friends with #squashie and to donate text CLUCK to 70111.

Laura Veit

Laura is a recent graduate from University of East Anglia in Film and Television Studies, currently interning as a content writer but hoping to one day live off her writing. Follow her @LauraAtSMF.

Contact us on Twitter, on Facebook, or leave your comments below. To find out about social media training or management why not take a look at our website for more info http://socialmediacambridge.co.uk/.