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When driving social media campaigns, a lot of organizations think of their potential followers as having a “what’s in it for me” type of mentality. As it turns out, a “what’s in it for others” mindset sells equally well – if not better.

A student-run advertising agency called Imagewest has taken that latter mentality in their latest agency fan page campaign. Instead of taking the typical route of providing some sort of incentive for their fan base, they took a different direction. For every fan they gained within a certain time frame, the agency donated supplies to a local animal shelter.

Seeing how fans weren’t receiving anything directly themselves, did this decline interest in their fan page? Absolutely not. Knowing their behavior (Liking Imagewest) was going to help benefit someone else in need,  activity  by followers actually went through the roof. In just a week, the small Bowling Green, Kentucky agency was able to receive nearly 600 new fan page followers.

People aren’t always “selfishly” motivated. The feeling that individuals get knowing that their actions go to help something or someone in need is almost more incentive than actually receiving something themselves. The social responsible incentive Imagewest provided their fans serves as a good model for other businesses looking to influence behavior. How could you influence employee motivation or customer loyalty using a similar socially responsible mindset.

Corporate social responsibility is good for the world and good for business. What do you all think?

Check out and “Like” Imagewest here at www.facebook.com/WKUImagewest.