If you saw any female (or maybe male) friend on Facebook post a color as a status update yesterday, you saw the very best in online viral marketing. But it was for a good cause!
All across the network, users (mostly women) helped spread a bra color meme by posting their own bra color, but with no explanation as to what they were doing. Mysteriously, like all Internet memes,the idea blasted off, leaving countless Facebook user curious about their friends' strangely terse status updates.
Though one might expect the meme to have spread to Twitter, at 10pm on Thursday night, there was no sign of a #bra trending topic of any kind.
The only explanation that has surfaced so far, based on a movement that supposedly ignited in Detroit, is that the train of status updates was intended to raise awareness around the world for breast cancer. Continually informing women about the importance of getting checked regularly has proven to be a very valuable way to fight cancers, as getting checked early can save lives. If bra color status updates as a social networking meme can help further the cause, then this is probably one of most salutary utilizations of viral marketing ever employed.
There has not yet been any official word yet on whether that's how it all got started, though.
Even if that wasn't the real origin behind the status update storm of colors, the fact that enough news sources are reporting it as a possibility means that it will have a positive effect on that cause.
