3,000 Mile Bicycle Journey
Riding a bicycle across America is a popular bucket list item. Sounds cool and fun except turning the crank the millions of times necessary to get this picture is a lot more WORK than dreams contemplate (smiling as I wrote that). I loved every challenge, beautiful vista and flying down mountains at better than 50 mph, but I wouldn’t ride Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer again on a bet.
Martin Rides Again At First Real Time Meetup On 2.21.12
Wanted to “ride” again to help raise money and awareness for cancer research but haven’t been on a bicycle in a year (this going to work everyday = HARD LOL). We created the “Martin Rides Again” concept for our Newsjacking Cures Cancer idea. It didn’t seem cool to create a PowerPoint about the real time web. Surely the web’s Real Time Gods would strike me dead for such a sin. I wondered if we could discuss the real time web and its growing power and seduction in real time. It pays to have great smart friends. Wondering if we could feed our Internet Marketing Meetup video out to the web in real time Jake and Devin from Method Savvy said, “sure.” Great smart BRAVE friends.
I’d saved best part of my brainstorming out loud for last. I wanted a 3 ringed circus, then wanted to stream the circus real time to the web, curate 10,000 pieces of #MartinsRide content and do it all in less than 3 weeks. “Sure,” Jake said, “but you know there is no time.” Love people who answer such a tough question like that with a simple, “It’s impossible so let’s get going,”. Let’s see, just about every morning on Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer felt impossible and yet we got going until there was nothing left but beach and water.
Jake and Devin created NewsJacking Cures Cancer site on Tumblr, a NJCuresCaner Twitter feed and we started with my $.01 per #MartinsRide mention with our 10,000 mentions goal. Our idea was MY MONEY and THEIR TWEETS. Every Tweet, Facebook share or blog post including #MartinsRide would earn a penny to help cure cancer.
Much like Martin’s Ride we weren’t alone for long. Atlantic BT’s generous, visionary founder Jon Jordan and our fearless leader Mark Foulkrod and the rest of a great management team voted to add a penny for each mention this morning. Next video producers asked if they could also contribute a penny to help cure cancer. Answer to that question is always YES.
Cool Meetup NewsJacking Real Time Circus
NewsJacking is the art of surfing emergent trends. Learn about the trend from author David Meerman Scott at Content Marketing World last September (highly recommend anything Scott writess). Much like surfers sitting slack on their 
boards until a set of waves rolls in and we must paddle like crazy to catch the wave, surf it and head back out for another ride NewsJacking ties into many immediate Search Engine Optimization trends such as search, social and mobile.
Could We NewsJack To Cure Cancer
Since we were already creating a circus may as well go crazy and add in a favorite cause – curing cancer in our lifetime. We didn’t want to ask for money, but we did want to see the power of the Social Web. I put up $.01 for every #MartinsRide or #ABTmeetup mention. Seemed easy and fun. Our money and other people’s tweets (OPT).
What To Do Now? Deadline for mentions is now Friday 2.24!
- Learn more about our Raleigh Internet Marketing Meetup
- Learn more about NewsJacking To Cure Cancer
- Follow NJCureCancer (NewsJacking Cures Cancer)
- Attend our Internet Marketing Meetup at the Atlantic BT Center on 2.21.12 starting at six.
- Don’t Live in Raleigh? Tune In to our real time stream and find it on our NewsJacking To Cure Cancer secrets, see Martin’s Ride photos never shared before and win cool SWAG.
- Here is a great infographic Jake and Devin borrowed from David Meerman Scott to share NewsJacking’s important premise:
