Public Referral, Viral Campaign, and Celebrity Participation: A Social Network Analysis of the Ice Bucket Challenge on YouTube

Abstract

Public referral is a viral campaign strategy that takes advantage of the existence of networked culture in social media. The 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge is an exemplary instance of a public referral–based campaign, the success of which can be partly attributed to the voluntary engagement of celebrity communities. This study views celebrities as social actors and explores the ways in which celebrities’ public referral networks grew during the Ice Bucket Challenge. Findings suggest that celebrities engaged in the campaign based on restrictive social networking rules. Also, the referral network grew through homophily, wherein sociodemographic similarities played an important role in celebrities’ referral decision making. This article contends that understanding whom people select to pass along the campaign message should be as important as understanding why people share the message.

Keywords:

• Viral campaign
• public referral
• electronic word of mouth
• homophily
• social network analysis
• celebrity sponsorship
• Ice Bucket Challenge
• social media campaign

Note

Notes

1 For previous studies that have applied SIENA model, please check out SIENA’s home page at the University of Oxford (https://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/∼snijders/siena/).